Hopefully one of them would blow themselves up tinkering with one of the weapons. The thought made the side of his mouth twitch in a faint smile.
Another partition noted that he had leveled recently. It had been so long ago that he had hidden the indicator from his normal display. He had reached level 249. When he hit 250, he should have everything he needed to confront his employer and move to the next stage. He pursed his lips as the ecstasy soothed away the remaining pain. When the glow faded, he was back to his familiar numb feeling. He almost missed the pain.
A separate part of his mind evaluated his and Gus’ tactics in the last battle, replaying it over and over in his mind. He could only see the barest hints of what the upstart had done, but this much Mengele knew. He had found a way to connect foundation energies to active abilities. Mengele had not been able to do that. Yet.
Not only that, but he had drained the entire well of free foundation energy in a huge radius around the epicenter of the blast. He turned his attention inward on his own meridians, still raw from the experience, and found a pleasant surprise. While the energy he had struggled to gather and refine was all gone, the channels pulsing like an aching tooth, orange light caught his attention. A large section of the second disk had been chipped or eroded away, revealing the next node.
Maybe it was all worth it.
Examining his other nodes, he saw a narrow wedge of yellow on the next meridian and the rest of them showed visible cracks, all the way to the top. Excellent!
There was so much to do. Revenge to plan. Designs for his new suit to mentally construct and test so he would be ready when he got to his new lab. And pondering. So much pondering to do. Each partition of his mind worked on its task, and the hours slipped by unnoticed as he worked.
One thing became clear as the time went on, Mengele felt something he hadn’t in quite a while. A challenge. A new adversary to dismantle in every aspect, the same way he had with his body. He turned and looked at the small case of samples. Twenty-five pristine tissue biopsies in nutrient baths, each stimulated to keep them alive.
So many plans.
“I’m in!” Yuki shouted. “With eighteen minutes to spare, too! Having that other data from the hospital really helped. I already had big sections already cracked, and he used the same security here. No AI though. That was nice.”
“Were you able to change security to keep Mengele out?”
“Already done. Oh, and I interrupted some huge file transfer he was in the middle of. No doubt he got some of it, but a fair amount should be corrupted from the distortion of interrupting the feed. Unfortunately, it ruined the data on our end. But do you really want to know what he was up to?”
“Actually, I do.” Gus’ face turned serious. “Anything you can find as far as research goes, store it remotely and delete everything when we leave. I don’t want anyone dabbling in whatever hellish experiments he has been doing down here for who knows how long. But maybe there’s a clue in there about what he did to my mother. There has to be.”
“I didn’t think about that. I’ll copy it, but don’t expect me to go through it. That guy is sick.”
“I won’t, just get me everything. Thanks, Yuki. Hacking in was a good call.”
“Just doing my job.”
“Can we talk later? I need to wrap up some more things here, but I have a proposition for you.” At her expression, he backpedaled. “Nothing like that, but I need your help with something.” BoJack stepped up, tapped Gus’ shoulder and gestured to the side of the room before moving there and waiting. “Like I said, we’ll talk later.”
Yuki flashed a big peace sign and winked.
As Gus came close, BoJack whispered, “So, have you made any decisions on what to do with them?”
“No, but are you sure we should keep this hidden from the others?
“Yes. Trust me, yes. Supers kill other supers for something like this. Especially the higher tier they are. Keep it to yourself. For now.”
“Still feels wrong, but I’ll trust you—for now.” Gus turned to the rest of the Crew. “How is everyone doing? Ready to head back?”
“All of us are registered into the system and I’ve armed it against anyone else. Mengele will get a rude awakening if he decides to come back,” Yuki reported.
“Bah, that little rat will manage to squeak out somehow. His kind always does. I’m done here, I’ll go call the elevator.” Darik turned and headed down the long corridor, which had reset to its warm glow.
“Wait up, Darik, I’ll join you,” Gus said and trotted over to his side.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Getcha Back
It was done. Mengele had escaped, but BoJack was safe, and he’d make that trade any day.
He thought he would feel more excitement at finally being free, but it hadn’t caught up with him yet. None of it felt real. Except the lack of constant pain. He almost felt numb to be absent from the constant pain and stress. In the stillness, he noticed a flashing icon on the side of his display indicating pending notifications. No doubt there were a lot of messages there to peruse, but he couldn’t deal with them now. A strong hand slapped him on his back as he walked in step with Darik.
“Very impressive, lad. Very impressive.”
“Mengele got away, though.”
“You made the right call. Some of the others might disagree, but in the end, family is all you have.” They walked in silence and called the lift from the surface. He thought about the situation while waiting for the lift to descend.
They had come for him. Somehow, they had found him in the middle of nowhere with no
