Captain Jensen… well Robert Jensen for the time being, walked through the empty warehouse. The last of his equipment as well as the Warhulks had been moved just that morning. It was an eerie feeling to be in the large echoing structures. His production was being moved to their plant in Atlanta Georgia. This wasn’t a better solution, but since Lord Nemesis seemed to have better connections in the south it stood to reason to move there. He himself believed it had something to do with the problems in Paragon City that motivated his decision. That made more sense to him. He shook his head, June in the south was going to be miserable. He grew up in the mountains of Pennsylvania, he would miss the snow.
This area of the foundry would be converted to manufacturing parts for their Canadian counter part. Winning a bid from Great Britain for what they called a Bren, light machine gun, they subcontracted the making of the carriages and barrel braces to this facility. They would have to hire at least sixty more employees plus the fifty needed to replace the soldiers that moved with the labs. This would become just another legitimate business in the Southern Unite Manufacturing Company. With contacts to both the United States’ and now Great Britain’s weapons needs, Lord Nemesis had the information he needed to build his army better than either country.
Robert looked around one last time and threw the main breaker by the doorway and closed the door behind him. He tested the lock to make sure the latch had caught and moved on back to the main office. He would need to leave his keys there for the next person to be called foreman, his term of duty at this facility was now at a close. He entered the main assembly area and unlocked the door to the office and hung his keys up. He turned off the light and pulled the doorway closed behind him. This shop was always lit with a few over head bulbs for security reasons, but they had never had a need for security itself. The chain link fence with barbed wire tops not to mention being in the middle of nowhere seemed to keep the curious off the property. Robert walked down a long hallway, lined with crates, and turned into the reception area. It was really nothing more than corrugated tin walls defining an eight by ten area with one desk and four chairs that the front doors opened into. He felt himself being grabbed by a figure lost in the shadows and thrown into the wall. The ridges in the tin flattened from the impact and he slid down the wall. Just as he shook himself back into awareness another set of hands grabbed him and slammed him once again into the wall. Robert heard a large cracking sound and prayed it was the wall stud behind the tin and not his back.
“Where are the weapons?” Came a voice from the darkness. At first Robert thought the lights had gone out, but quickly realized that the darkness was more like a black fog and within that fog moved two darker figures. One was a large man the other was shorter, and wore some kind of hat. He found it hard to focus on the shapes as the darkness swirled and moved around them.
He was slapped across the face. Not a slap intended to injure him, but to bring his attention back to the dark figure holding him against the wall, his feet not touching the floor.
“I said... Where are the weapons?”
“Th…th… there in the warehouse. B…b…back th…th… th… over there.” He waived his arm in the direction he had just come from. He landed on his feet but the hands still held him upright.
“Lead the way, is there anyone else here right now?” The deep voice demanded.
“No… just me.” Jensen suddenly realized he just told these men they were alone. He may have held the rank of Captain but truth be told, he was just a scientist that needed to outrank the men he was commanding. He had no military training, but even without it he knew he had just made what could be a fatal mistake.
“Please d..d…don’t hu..ur..urt me.”
“Show us.” Came the dark command and pushed him back down the hallway they had just come from. Robert did his best to regain his composure and didn’t trust himself to speak. He led the men in silence, the creepy black fog licking at his heels kept him motivated to keep moving. They entered the main assembly room and turned to the left and walked toward row after row of wooden shipping crates.
“Here, these are the completed guns. Every thing else is just pieces.” He was thrilled that he hadn’t stammered this time.
The large figure let him go and moved past him out of the shadows. It was then in the dim light that Robert realized that this large man was The Statesman. So it stood to reason that the other man in the dark fog was the Dark Watcher. A new sense of dread filled his body. The Statesman walked over the crate and without hesitation pulled the top off using only his hands. He quickly moved the packing straw around to reveal six rifles held in place by the crate.
“Where are these going?” He demanded looking up from the box. Robert squinted in the dim lighting to read the numbers painted on the side of the box.
“W…w…well, the numbers on the side of the box indic..c…ate it is going to Fort Mead. That is crate number seventeen of thirty.”
The Statesman made an aggravated sound and kicked over the crate as if it was made of cardboard. The rifles clattered out of their packing onto the concrete floor. “My source said those weapons were made here… where are they?”
Robert didn’t even think about it, didn’t give any outward sign of anything more than the obvious. “You’re looking at them. We have several contracts to produce guns for the military. We aren’t doing anything wrong here.” The Statesman whirled with amazing speed and grabbed Jensen again by this coat and slammed him into a stack of crates. This time he saw dots in front of his eyes and blackness threatened to block them out.
“If you have nothing to hide, then why are these buildings so far from any town? Where are those special weapons?”
“Because no one wants a weapons plant in their back yard? I don’t understand what weapons you’re looking for.”
“You know what weapons I am talking about… where are they at?” The last part of the question was emphasized with another thump against the crates. This time Jensen had no choice as the blackness filled his vision. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and slumped into dead weight in The Statesman’s hands. He had no last thought as his body crumpled into a pile on the floor.
Robert woke to himself being put into the back of an ambulance. It took his mind a moment to recognize that he couldn’t move. He must have been strapped down to the stretcher. A bandage covered part of his one eye and he tried desperately to remember just how he had gotten this way. The stretcher was secured in the back of the ambulance and he could hear some talking out side. A new figure jumped in the ambulance, the doors closed and Robert could feel the vehicle moving. He tried to focus on the man looking down at him. He tried to say something but his speech came out a garbled mess.
“Easy sir. We’ll get you to the hospital first. Your family in Paragon has been notified and will meet us there. Just get some rest.”
When next he awoke again he could make out the sterile green tiled walls of the hospital room. His movement was still limited but not like before. His eyes roamed the room to see a man looking out of the window, his back to him. He made to speak but only a croak came out. The man turned to look at him for a long moment before smiling. He walked to the door and called for a nurse. Several minutes went by before the nurse left and Robert was propped up sipping on water.
“You took quite a beating there Jensen, do you feel up to telling me about it?
Captain looked into his General’s eyes and shook his head. He tried to speak but his voice came out in a croak, they gave him some water and he started again with the facts from the beginning of the day all the way to blacking out. General Eisenberg laughed at the Statesman’s frustration of his insistence as to where the guns were and the Captain’s insistence that he was looking at them.
“You did good Captain. From the damage we figured it had to be him.”
“The damage sir?”
“Sadly the man must have a temper to match his strength. Eve
r crate was smashed, the smelters were cracked off their mounts, lathe machines where thrown around like wooden blocks. Then he went on to do the same to machine shop two. The only buildings intact were the empty ones. You did good Jensen. Relax and get well. You’ll be in Atlanta in no time.” Lukas patted the man on his shoulder and left the room. This was not good, but wasn’t totally unexpected. He was just grateful that the trucks had already crossed into Virginia at that moment and that the Warhulks where actually safe and undisturbed through out the city, hidden in plane sight.