Where is everyone...?

     We left the cafeteria; thankfully the woman who had served us earlier was no longer working, and there was no-one else there. Leaving through the door, we headed towards the stairs leading back up, leaving the Director and the two guards slumped on the floor. As we reached the top, it wasn't hard to spot the others; everyone else had left, either to rest or to work, and they were the only group of people in lab coats in the entire courtyard. As we walked towards them, I realised that we had actually seen them before. UOPETA must have acquired their disguises pretty quickly after we had ours. They saw us, and walked the remainder of the way towards us.

"Did you manage to retrieve the last Eye?"

"Shush! Keep your voice down! We don't know who's listening in! We do, and we have the other three spread among us. Our armour is stored in the bags left in the debriefing room, thanks to SERVERE."

"Come on, we're against the clock! We've got to get back through the tunnel to the bridge before the sedative wears off! We can only hope that the bridge is lowered when we get there."

"Don't worry, I can have that covered as well. I can get them to keep it lowered for long enough with a good enough excuse."

"Thanks again SERVERE. Let's get out of here!"

We headed towards the entrance, where the guard from before had thankfully left, leaving a new guard on duty. He hadn't seen us before, and didn't seem to notice anything odd about nine scientists leaving the HQ followed by an Elite. Despite SERVERE saying he could come up with an excuse to get us out, it wasn't necessary. The guard simply wanted us to sign out with a valid name and signature. He didn't even want to scan our lab ID badges! Obviously we all made up our own names and signatures, which we tried to write quickly to make it look more convincing. It would have been hard to explain why we were having trouble with our names, especially when we were dressed as scientists. Leaving through the door, the guard was quick to secure it behind us again, and we headed off to the right away from the boat. When we were far enough away, SERVERE stopped us to update us on the plan of action from now on.

"Right, you'll need to pass back through the tunnel checkpoint, gate B. You won't achieve that wearing those lab coats. I'll head back to retrieve your bags, and I'll add the guards' uniforms inside."

"Erm, there's a problem... The guards at gate B were only aware of UOPETA, THEROS and Syeonyx being guards. If they're the same guards on duty, they'll recognise us as the 'captured' members of the Lone 7..."

"True... Well I'll need to go ahead of you to get the bridge lowered. You will have to follow me so that you can quickly take out the guards at the gate. Best to do it from a distance with the rifles otherwise the CCTV may catch you. Even with the head-start we potentially have, we can't afford to let anything slip!"

SERVERE began to head back to the HQ, but began to slowly fade, presumably as he activated the stealth function within his armour. We remained where we were, trying to stay out of sight until HoN Co. returned. We ran ourselves through the plan to make sure that we were all aware of our roles. It wasn't long before SERVERE returned however; from the looks of things, he had procured the guard armour from the boat, as he appeared from the right rather than the left.

"Here. Change quickly and I'll set off to lower the bridge. The security should be a little lighter with it being night, but that'll change at daybreak. The activity hear explodes at about six in the morning. It's best if we're not here at that point. Hopefully we'll be across the bridge by then as well."

"If we can get across the bridge before the sun fully rises, our job will be infinitely easier."

SERVERE headed off down into the tunnel to lower the bridge for us, whilst we changed back into the guard armour. No longer having a need to keep the lab coats, we disposed of them in the dense foliage, not that it mattered. By the time they find them, we'll be long gone. We managed to reach the corner of the tunnel within five minutes, and using one of the rifles, we were able to spy on gate B from a long distance.

"Erm... I don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but... There's only one guard at the gate..."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. Take a look yourself..."

"Do you think you can take him out from here?"

"Easily... But I'd rather get closer. I want to make sure there's only one guard there, and where the others are..."

"Maybe they've been posted to the outpost just outside the tunnel entrance."

"That's possible, but surely the sedative has worn off from the original guards there... They could have been taken to one side, relieved of duty, or something... Given a break. It's not every day you're knocked unconscious with a dart..."

We crept closer to the gate, trying to keep our activity around the CCTV cameras as normal as possible. Once we were closer, UOPETA took another look through the scope, and verified that there was only one guard on duty there. With a moment of concentration, he fired once, before lowering his rifle.

"We're clear. Let's hope getting through the outpost is as easy as this."

We passed through the gate, removing the dart as we passed the unconscious guard, finding the checkpoint empty besides. We began to head up the stairs, noticing that it was still dark outside. The lights from the tunnel however were enough to illuminate us as we exited into the outpost. However, we found the outpost to be as deserted as the gate. There were no guards posted there at all, and we couldn't come up with any reason as to why this would be the case.

"You heard what SERVERE said: we have a head start and we can't afford to lose any of it. Come on, we've got a bridge to cross under..."

We headed South towards the bank so we could reach the bridge from underneath. It was going to be another long day...

Syeonyx signing off