Subjects

After making sure the two downed guards wouldn't be going anywhere, I cautiously advance, while making sure to stop at every corner and only after not hearing any noises take a peek to make sure the coast is clear.

Turning the first corner, I find nothing other than an empty hallway with a bunch of used needles on the ground gathered in a pile. With the general feel of this place, it was probably used as a camping ground for some addicts before Kingpin came and threw them all out.

There are some doors on both sides of the corridor, but most have been boarded closed. An odor very similar to what the zombies in the dungeon smelled like is emitting from somewhere, so someone is probably rotting away in one of them.

At the end of the hallway, I find stairs leading down into a possible basement. I can't see exactly what is down there since there is a sharp turn right after the stairs come to an end but seeing as there is nowhere else to go from here, I might as well continue forward.

Halfway down the stairs, I start hearing sounds of fighting, but they end just as quickly as they started as a man groans and two bodies hit the floor. When I reach the end, I take cover behind the wall but, out of curiosity, take a quick glance around the corner.

As I expected, two more guards are lying on the ground next to Black Cat's feet. More importantly, though, damn, that is one hard to breach door.

Her path is blocked by a kind of door you would see in spy movies. The thing looks to be made out of steel, and next to it on a wall is a keypad to enter a code that presumably would open it.

I wonder how she is going to get past it. Maybe she will have to turn back, in which case I should get ready to run away, or maybe she already knows the code? In the end, she does something I didn't expect, she knocks.

Well more like bangs on it with her fist, but still, that's a stupid idea that would never wor… it worked.

Not even a second after she started banging on it, someone on the other side opened the door.

"What's happening? Why are you making such a ruckus he… hey, who the hell are you?" The one who opened the door looks confused when instead of seeing his coworkers, a woman in a leather suit greets her with a fist to the face.

You totally deserved that. What is even the point of a high-security door when you are just going to let anyone who comes knocking in?

As Black Cat moves on, now at a sprinting pace, I continue hot on her tail.

The other side of the door is like a whole new world compared to the moldy, depressing place I was just at. Rather than some dusty old basement, it is a well-maintained base that has either recently been constructed or at least expanded upon. I highly doubt some random building would have a basement several times the size of the above-ground property.

While the base is indeed significant in size, it appears to be very sparsely populated since other than two guards who got knocked out by Black Cat, I haven't seen anyone.

Sprinting through the halls, I saw many side rooms with windows I could peer into, but not a single soul could be seen. I guess even a crime lord's minions work 9 to 5 and have gone home for the night.

Well, it's not entirely true that I didn't see a single soul in them. Many of these side rooms looked like they were laboratories with scientific equipment all around. There were, however, some more sinister looking rooms with machinery and chambers that looked like they were made to keep people in place and, most disturbingly, a room that held nearly a dozen people in cages.

Maybe I should let some of my police contacts like Yuri or George know about this tomorrow…

I made sure to keep a safe distance between myself and Black Cat, but it did occur to me that she seemed to know exactly where she was going, I guess she had done some prep work as this entire area felt almost like a labyrinth to me.

That keeping a distance between us thing comes back to bite me in the ass real quick, though as Black Cat eventually reaches her destination, a room which, unlike the others, has no windows connected to the hallways. I watch as she lockpicks open the door before going in and letting the door close behind her.

Shit, how do I get in now, I cant just open the door and walk…

I waltz around outside the door, in the surrounding areas, to find anything that could help me in until I finally find it when looking up at the ceiling, an air vent. Those work in moves and video games all the time, right?

Jumping up to the ceiling, I am easily able to open the vent door and climb in. My first thought is that those bastards lied to me, there is so much less room in here than any video game would have you believe. Still, I'm pretty lean, so I can move around in here but just barely.

It's a good thing the duct entrance was just next to the room I needed to go to since this place is even more challenging to navigate than the corridors below.

I quietly crawl my way to above the room to look down through an air vent identical to the one I just used to get in here. There is not much in the room save for a couple of couches, a desk with a computer on it, and a chair which Black Cat currently occupies as she is doing something on that computer.

She is opening and closing different documents one after another, seemingly looking for something specific. After several tries, she opens one, and just as she is about to close it like the others instead reaches inside her cleavage to take out a USB drive. Don't you have any pockets on that costume to keep that in?

Ignoring that, I guess this is the document that she was after, so… let's take a look, shall we?

Unfortunately, from my current position, I am unable to actually read what is written there, but the air vent is right above the computer, giving me a good opportunity to get a better angle if I just go outside.

Rather than opening the air vent, which would make noise no matter how quiet I try to be, I just put my finger against it and force it inside my inventory. Next, I connect my web to the ceiling and slowly start descending while upside down, careful not to descend too much so my reflection wouldn't become visible on the monitor for Black Cat to see.

Thanks to the swift reader perk, I am able to look through the entire document in the short time that it takes Black Cat to plug in the USB and transfer the file over to it.

To say I'm appalled is an understatement since I now know exactly why those people were being kept in cages. It looks like Kingpin has chosen to work with Oscorp or, more specifically, its CEO Norman Osborn who needs some live test subjects delivered to him in a manner that doesn't go public for several scientific experiments that even Kingpin isn't told about.

For a large sum of cash, Kingpin was, of course, happy to provide these test subjects via abducting homeless people that probably won't even get a missing person report.

This base we are currently in was not only being used to store these people but also as a secret research site to conduct experiments at by some of the higher-up Oscorp scientists and employees. Moving these people out of here is inconvenient and unnecessary after all.

Finished with reading; I'm about to bring myself back up and get back into the vent before Black Cat notices me, but I am interrupted by the door of the office opening and a man with his gun drawn running in.

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Note: I keep writing Catwoman instead of Black Cat, damn it.