The Vault in Edison
The Compound V Synthesis Lab in Edison, New Jersey, was a Brutalist monument to corporate paranoia, a massive, windowless concrete shell designed to withstand everything short of a direct nuclear strike. Under Vought, it had been a secure but somewhat relaxed environment, managed by corporate security who were more concerned with internal theft than external assault. Now, it was a garrison. General Rourke had deployed his new assets with clinical efficiency, transforming the site into OSM Installation Gamma-7. The external security footprint was intimidating: the perimeter was patrolled by three C-list strongmen whose powers made them excellent, if easily bored, watchdogs, and the interior was guarded by hardened tactical military teams equipped with new anti-Supe countermeasures high-frequency sonic emitters, localized kinetic dampeners, and infrared sensors honed to detect subtle shifts in air density.
Deep beneath the facility, seventy feet down where the clean room met the bedrock, lay the prize: the V-Stabilization Matrix. It was a towering, complex apparatus, shimmering with cooling conduits and humming with low-level plasma energy. This machine was the core of Vought's advanced science, holding the secret to reliable, stable Compound V creation, directly addressing the fatal 80% failure rate exposed by Thomas. Securing it meant controlling the future of the enhanced population a future Rourke intended to militarize, and one Anya intended to liberate.
Anya Petrova watched the installation from a mile away through a high-magnification thermal scope, nested in a thicket of pines overlooking the tranquil yet strategically vital Delaware and Raritan Canal. Her team consisted of six others the "Forgotten Supes," as they bitterly called themselves, ranging in age from twenty-two to forty-five. There was Caleb, a former Vought data analyst with minor technopathy (the ability to briefly interfere with digital signals and generate focused electromagnetic pulses); Jenna, a kinetic camouflage expert who could slightly bend light and sound waves around herself for short, flickering bursts of invisibility and silence; and Marco, whose low-level molecular agitation allowed him to subtly weaken metal stress points, causing micro-fractures in high-tension areas. Their powers were subtle, precise, and virtually undetectable to sensors designed for large-scale, explosive threats.
"The strongmen are predictable, they follow the old Vought rotation, trading shifts like they're waiting tables," Anya murmured into her comm. "But the OSM patrols are randomized, operating on non-repeating algorithms, and they have the Dampener Packs." These packs, slung on the backs of the soldiers, emitted a low-level kinetic field that felt like standing in water to most Supes, making movement sluggish and powers unstable. "This is not about brute force. It's about precision, timing, and a very focused, fifty-pound lift. We move in five."
Infiltration and Friction
The infiltration was slow, surgical, and silent, a testament to the team's discipline. Marco went first, focusing his low-level agitation ability to fatigue the specific carbon steel alloy of a rear service door's electronic locking mechanism. He didn't melt it; he subtly increased its internal temperature and stress until Caleb could signal the computer with a perfectly timed, low-power electronic spike. The lock didn't explode or jam it simply sighed open, the servo motor giving out with a soft, mechanical whine. Inside, the new security was immediately apparent. The hallways were sterile, the lighting harsh, and the air thick with the buzzing tension of active sensors. Jenna, moving ahead in flickering, distorted invisibility, scouted the interior patrols, relying on thermal signatures and the echoing crunch of the OSM soldiers' boots.
Their small-scale powers, useless for open warfare, were absolutely perfect for this type of industrial espionage. Caleb worked constantly on the local network, not to seize data, but to flood the OSM's surveillance feed with historical loops and high-resolution noise, creating windows of four to six seconds for the team to move between camera lines and sensor grids. He was fighting a technological ghost war against Rourke's centralized, superior code.
They ran into serious trouble on Sub-Level Three, where the tunnels converged near the core cooling systems. A four-man OSM squad, moving with alarming discipline and carrying two heavy weapons, was sweeping their vector. One of the soldiers carried a heavy-duty Acoustic Scrambler a targeted weapon designed to generate focused sonic chaos, causing immediate, debilitating vertigo and temporary paralysis in Supes.
"Contact. Scrambler on approach, two-zero meters," Jenna's panicked whisper cut through the comms. "They're moving fast, disciplined."
Anya, clutching the heavy, stolen OSM tablet, took command immediately. "Jenna, distraction. Caleb, hold the loop for five seconds longer than you think you can. Marco, target the steam lines, not the pipes, the four pressure-release valves above the junction. Focus on the brass threads."
Jenna instantly dropped her camouflage, pulling an old Vought security flashlight from her belt and flinging it down the hallway toward a darkened utility closet as a phantom light source. When the highly trained soldiers hesitated, their attention drawn to the false movement and the sudden blip on their thermal scanners, Marco acted. He focused his power, not on the thick metal pipes but on the thin brass threads of four pressure-release valves fifty feet above the team. A moment later, the valves failed simultaneously with a sound like tearing sheet metal, coating the hallway ceiling in a sudden, blinding, chemically-laced cloud of industrial steam. The soldiers flinched, instinctively raising their arms to shield their faces, their vision and sensor arrays momentarily obscured. The Scrambler operator fumbled his grip, dropping his weapon just as the Harvesters sprinted past, their low profile keeping them beneath the dense vapor line. The entire sequence, from contact to bypass, took exactly seven seconds.
The Stabilization Matrix and the Quantum Core
They reached the vault containing the V-Stabilization Matrix. The door was a thirty-ton composite of titanium and concrete, secured by a complex retinal scanner and a redundant magnetic locking array. They had no way to break it open conventionally it would take days and enough explosives to level the facility.
"We need the schematic," Anya whispered, her urgency palpable. "Caleb, is there a bypass on that tablet?"
Caleb, sweat beading on his forehead, was frantically working, his minor technopathy burning energy as he tried to brute-force a key from the lab's main server that was briefly bridged to his tablet. "Rourke's protocol is better than Vought's. It's generating a new sequence every ninety seconds. I need ten seconds, clean, to inject a false positive into the retinal array and bypass the magnetic relay."
"Ten seconds of clean access," Anya nodded, recognizing the risk. She stood before the massive door, placing both hands on the cold metal. This was her moment of truth, the maximum extent of her barely-there gift. Her power was weak, but she didn't need to lift the entire thirty-ton door. She only needed to lift the tiny, fragile, crystal circuit board inside the lock housing just enough to dislodge its connection to the main power bus, forcing the entire magnetic array to cycle and pause for a reset.
With agonizing focus, Anya extended her telekinetic focus, feeling the microscopic vibrations of the metallic components inside the wall. It felt like trying to pick up a wet bar of soap with one finger while wearing thick gloves. She pushed, barely registering the painful strain on her eyes. The lock array lights flickered once, twice, and then went dark, followed by a heavy, grinding sound the magnetic array had failed due to the momentary circuit interruption, but the inertia of the door kept it sealed.
"Now, Caleb! The window is open!" she hissed, holding the faint, invisible lift.
Caleb slammed his finger down on the tablet, completing the encryption injection. The retinal scanner glowed green, the false positive accepted. With a deafening hiss of depressurizing hydraulics, the thirty-ton door began to slide slowly, gratingly open.
Inside, the Matrix hummed a massive, six-foot-tall centerpiece of scientific arrogance and destructive potential. It was too heavy and too big to steal, but Anya hadn't planned to take the whole thing. She knew the Matrix was driven by a single, removable, high-purity Quantum Logic Core a self-contained processing unit, a box about the size of a briefcase, glowing faintly with stored power. She used her minimal telekinesis again, carefully extracting the Core from its cradle without triggering the cascade alarms, sliding it into a custom-built, kinetic-dampened satchel.
Escalation and the Race to the Surface
"Core secured! We're mobile!" Anya shouted, her relief quickly turning to panic.
But before the vault door could fully close, the alarms blared not the local, but the deafening, site-wideRed Alert alarm, flashing through the vault in violent crimson light. General Rourke's centralized security system had detected the prolonged, foreign technopathic traffic on the network and initiated a full lockdown.
"Caleb, what happened? The loop failed?"
"No, the loop held, but the OSM's Centaur AI flagged the consistent signal type! The bridge was too long! Rourke's security is advanced! We have less than four minutes until full military mobilization. And look at this " Caleb pointed to the tablet. "They've scrambled the exit tunnels with bio-seals. We have to go through the main surface vent." The vent was a wide, vertical shaft that led directly to the roof, a climb of nearly a hundred feet through open, unsecured space.
Anya stared at the display, then back at the small, heavy Quantum Logic Core in her hands. She had the key to their future, but their escape route was now a high-risk gauntlet through the OSM's strongest defenses. Thomas had taught them that sometimes, the only way forward was to walk straight toward the inevitable consequences. She took a deep breath, replacing fear with calculated zeal.
"Marco, get ready to agitate the vent cover plating we need it thin enough to punch through. Jenna, get ready to extend your camouflage we need total surface cover for thirty seconds. We're going over the wall." The gambit had worked, but the harvest had just begun, and the field was now crawling with Rourke's forces, eager for a confrontation. The silence of their infiltration was replaced by the terrifying, deafening roar of military helicopters approaching from the east, spotlights sweeping the dark treeline. The clock was ticking down to zero.