Unlikely the outside, the interior of the building was kept brightly lit and Terry had to squint his eyes for a moment against the light. The hallway was normal looking and largely featureless. It could have passed for a normal research facility and on the top three floors, perhaps it was. He hadnÆt risked speaking directly to any of the employees, but the buildings taxes indicated regular payments to a number of employees who did indeed live in the general area. In all likelihood, most of them didnÆt even know what was going on beneath their feet.
Terry silently stalked forward, two fingers extended. The circuitry in them would warn him of the approach of anyone who was around after hours.
But he didnÆt hear anything. Besides the security guards, no one seemed to be hereùbut Terry didnÆt believe that for a second. If no one was here, why would there still be cars out-front? Especially the same cars that had been here ever other time heÆd scouted out the place. Sometimes things could run late, but seven different times over the course of three months, each on different days of the week? Especially since the license plates of the cars were each registered as belonging to one of the facilities leading scientists?
It was too much to be a coincidence. They were definitely here intentionally, working on something.
Terry walked straight past each of the numbered rooms, barely glancing into them. He was pretty sure the floors above ground were clear and the annual health and safety checks hadnÆt reported anything strange or unusual. He was almost certain everything important was happening in the three unregistered basements. The stairway to the basement was locked, but it was, too him, outdated, and it was easy enough to get open.
As he expected, at least one person had been down there before him, tonight. There was a light on in the basement, a coat thrown over a chair, and several random seeming objects left on a table. There was not, however, anything that looked like a door.
Frowning beneath his mask, Terry moved over to what looked like a stacked set of filing cabinets and activated his ultraviolet filter. There were finger prints on pretty much every handle and a few minutes with his automatic lock pick, confirmed that there were actual files within the cabinets.
Frown deepening, he stepped back. The true blue prints had detailed a place for any elevator behind these cabinets and he was sure the cabinets werenÆt a fake cover. He thought about moving them, but shook his headùwhile he could do that fairly easily with his suit, it seemed like an awful lot of trouble to make a bunch of scientists go through every night. Instead, he looked around, mentally noting how many finger prints were on each object and then moved to an uncovered section of wall that seemed covered in finger and hand prints and pressed his own against it. It sank in an inch before clicking open to reveal a keypad.
Shaking his head a little, he attached his decipherer to it and waited several seconds to it to beep, even as the row of filing cabinets slid open, revealing the elevator.
This was where his Intel began to run dry. He knew a lot about the upper floors from reports, but almost nothing specific about any of the hidden floors. Even so, heÆd just have to make due.
The elevator quickly came up to get him, even without him pressing any buttons, and the trip down to the first hidden floor was equally fast. He stuck close to the doors, masking the sound of their opening with his proximity. Sliding quickly out of the elevator, he activated his camouflage and ran down the short hallway into the large room that probably took up the entire level.
For a minute, he just hung back and watched them work. The scientists of the Prometheus Institute worked efficiently at the machines that filled most of the roomùmonitors, microscopes, analyzers, and computers. They spoke to each other amiably with the familiarity of long time associates. He recognized each of their faces, from when heÆd looked them up using their license plates and had gone through their records.
A part of him wondered how they felt about them doing while another wondered what would have happened if he hadnÆt been so suspicious.
In truth, he hadnÆt even been looking at the Prometheus Institute itself, at first. When heÆd gotten a chance, heÆd subtly looked into several organizations that had been, at the very least, suspicious and dubiously morale in his own reality. Lex Corp had been one, of course, as had RaÆs Al Ghul business fronts. HeÆd checked out the Mobs in Gotham, as they existed in this time, had tried to check on the state of Gorilla Grodd with limited success, and had considered checking of Darkseid, but had deemed that too risky at the moment, since any Boom TubeÆs there would draw exactly the wrong type of attention.
And, of course, there had been Cadmus. Before his time or not, both Bruce and Clark had gone on at great length about Cadmus and the trouble it had caused. HeÆd relaxed a tiny bit when heÆd found out it was a private organization rather than a government owned oneùand then heÆd gotten a dozen times more suspicious when heÆd learned it had been founded by Lex Luthor. He wanted to check out CadmusÆ base of operations, but he had no idea what heÆd be getting into if he did and was having a great deal of trouble finding out. Accessing the true blueprints had taken a lot of time and effort and all it had revealed was that there were about fifty floors of unknown factors beneath their public faþade.
Not wanting to simply rush head first intoàwho knows what, honestly, heÆd checked out the organizations background, the construction company, sponsors, and associated organizations, which had lead him to a number of different companies that were more than they seemed as well as make him wish heÆd gotten a few more lessons from Mr. Sage.
The Prometheus Organization had jumped to the top of the list simply due to its name. Just as the mythological Cadmus had created men from dragonÆs teeth, Cadmus had been famous for artificially creating life in his reality. The titan Prometheus had, in some myths, fashioned man out of clay. HeÆd examined it thoroughly; wary it might be doing the same as Cadmus.
But heÆd thought about it all wrong. While Prometheus may have been known for sculpting men from clayàhe was famous for stealing fire from the gods.
