Industrious: Engineering Marvels - Chapter 17

The technical term for the 'entrance' we were using was a 'latrine chute.'

Sadly for my memoirs, I wouldn't be able to pen some kind of epic Shawshank-esque tale of crawling through filth to reach a noble end goal. Only, instead of freedom it would be murder. But, that wasn't to be. The castle had been built, obviously, a few hundred years prior, if not close to a thousand. High and late medieval castle architecture were never my strong suit, so I was just ballparking the figure. The point was, though, that given some of the exposed pipes on the outside of the structure, the castle had been retrofitted with modern plumbing.

So a now-ancient bathroom with a stone or wood toilet seat precariously dangling off the side of a tower which, itself, was perched over the inner moat to more easily dispose of the waste...

Well, no one wanted to use that when there was any other alternative.

Especially in early February.

Heated toilet seats obviously don't exist at this point in history, but there's a difference between trudging down a flight of stairs or two to take a shit and actively torturing yourself with the experience.

“So, how are we going to do this?” Jim Morita asked as he trailed closely behind myself and Dougan as we clambered down the outer wall and pulled the rope free behind us.

A guard rotation was going to be swinging by in ten minutes and we didn't want to leave a giant clue they'd been infiltrated.

“Pretty much like we discussed?” I asked quietly with a shrug. “I get the rope secured, climb up first, then you two follow after me and we sneak around finding out what this base is before blowing it up.”

“Maybe blow up the nasty critters first this time,” Dougan grunted, his tone only half-joking.

“I swear to God, Dumdum, if I have to fight some unholy abomination because you just jinxed us,” I sighed, shaking my head. “Eh, who am I kidding? That was probably the plan all along. Fucking Nazis. Fucking Hydra.”

“Amen to that,” Morita chuckled darkly as we cut across the wide expanse of a dark grassy field towards a part of the moat that had partially collapsed and filled in with dirt. From the looks of it, a bomber had just barely missed the main structure, likely explaining why the outer walls were nearly collapsed as well. “But I meant, how are you planning to get the rope up there?”

“Oh, that. Bow and arrow,” I replied casually with a wave as I took quick and careful steps across the moat, keeping my eyes peeled for the guard rotation coming up. Thankfully it seemed as though they were right on time instead of early or late.

“Bow and arrow? Straight-fucking-up?” Morita asked, bending his neck to squint up at the latrine chute we were approaching. “You better be able to make that shot, ninja-boy or else we're fucked.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I stated, pacing about underneath my target as I looked for the perfect angle. Finding it, I pulled a blue-tipped grapple arrow from my quiver before dumping it and my pack off to the side. Adjusting my sword and stringing my bow, the two soldiers had their heads on pivots as I got ready to take my shot...

Then laid down, rolled onto my upper back as I put the toes of my boots on the body of the bow while holding the strung arrow with one hand and balancing myself on the ground with the other.

“What the-” Dumdum began.

My feet pointed straight up, I aimed, breathed out, and fired in one smooth movement. The release was clean, the grapple arrow trailing a thin line of cord Howard had given me as it shot straight upwards and through the latrine chute before impacting with a solid thunk into what was either a cover or the bathroom's stone ceiling. The latter of which probably wouldn't have been a firm enough hold to climb on were it not for my bow being made by a Stark and my own skills and abilities being a bit monstrous.

“Done,” I grinned, flipping up and catching myself on my feet as I grabbed my bow out of the air and compacted it down again. I smiled at the guys as they stared at the dangling cord. “Well, you guys coming or not?”

Dougan shook his head, his voice somewhat admiring. “You're a freak of nature, Snake Eyes.”

“I'll take that as a compliment,” I grinned back underneath my balaclava.

…

The climb up was a bit more involved than one would expect. First off, regardless of my strength, skill, or the excellence of my equipment, I simply couldn't attach a full rope to an arrow. I threw off the aerodynamics something fierce if I did. So, the thin cord Howard had given me sufficed. For me, at least. So I had to use my pair of armored gloves to wrap the cord around my hands and pull myself up after a quick test. Then, once I'd crawled through the bottom of an ancient shitbox, my pack tied to my feet because of the size of the opening, I had to lower an actual rope down for the other two.

We barely made it, all told.

“C'mon you bastards, don't look up,” Dumdum whispered, peeking down into the darkness where a pair of Hydra soldiers were walking around the perimeter of the castle. He looked back to me. “You two almost got it?”

Even then, there were complications. Because of course there were.

 “Almost,” Jim replied, leveraging himself out of the latrine chute again, his hands full of explosives. “But dammit, Dougan, you pack as much as a woman, seriously.”

The other man made a noise between a sniff and a snort. “Hey, don't blame me just 'cause you two are string bean shits. Someone has to carry the heavy stuff.”

“It's less weight and more size,” I grumbled, keeping a firm grip on Morita's legs even as Dougan, over by the small stone window held the rope attached to his pack tightly. “Remind me to show you how to cram it in properly.”

Now Dougan snorted fully, “Like that'll happen. Just get the shit out of the pack and we can finally pull it through. I don't wanna' fuck this entire mission cause we drop a half-full sack of bombs on some nazi assholes and don't even end up blowing them up.”

Morita, from where he was lodged in the chute again, chuckled even as I huffed a quiet laugh. The Japanese-American pulled himself out of the medieval toilet again and laid another set of explosives on the ground of the rather cramped castle outhouse. “Okay, I felt it shift. Should be good, try it now.”

Dumdum grunted, giving the rope another firm pull and, to our collective relief, the soldier's pack came through the chute properly. Releasing Morita's legs, I heaved myself to my feet and brushed myself off, going for my own pack. Mercifully, I'd left the non-essentials back at our makeshift FOB out in the woods, which had allowed it to come through fairly easily.

“I'll take a peek down the hall, you guys get that shit stowed and we'll move out,” I stated.

“Roger that,” Morita replied curtly, sweeping what was probably half-millennia old crap off his clothing and hair before putting his helmet back on.

Dougan just grunted.

Nodding to myself, I flipped out a trio of throwing daggers and held them loosely between the fingers of my right hand even as my left pushed open the old hardwood door to the latrine.

The hallway was, thankfully, deserted. We'd been fairly quiet as we worked our way through the process of getting the pack through the narrow opening, but this was confirmation that we'd been quiet enough. Forcing my eyes to adjust to the light levels, I scanned the stone hallway. Most of it was nondescript, one door on my left and one on my right hinting at potential conflict. Letting my eyes trail up, I took note of a set of thick cables running along the corner where the ceiling and inner wall of the hallway met, one lonely electric lantern hanging from it and glowing dimly to light the entire corridor.

I took a quick series of steps to the right, then the left, and noted no incoming traffic before approaching the first of the wooden doors and pressing my ear to it.

After ten seconds of nothing, I took a deep breath and pulled the latch. Either Hydra hadn't gotten around to modernizing things in this part of the structure or whoever was in charge liked the look of the medieval décor. Probably a combination.

The latch had at least been oiled, since it slid open quietly and smoothly, allowing me to push into the dark room. Leaving the door cracked behind me, I adjusted my eyes again and scanned the surroundings. It looked to be a richly appointed office, complete with a commanding view from the windows. In fact, looking to my right, I saw the other door, probably an older architectural convention designed to induce more airflow.

There was a large rug covering the otherwise naked stone floor, tapestries of certain red, white, and black symbols hanging on the walls next to some kind of medieval heraldry banners and pictures of a man with a funny mustache. Two overstuffed sofas were arranged to form an equilateral triangle with the dark wooden desk kept in a neat state of cleanliness. Along both walls were arranged twin banks of wooden filing cabinets.

I took a deep breath through my teeth, the hissing sound loud in the empty room.

It was times like these that my situation really hit me.

 Oh sure, you heard horror stories every now and then of some mass shooter being revealed as a Third Reich fanboy, usually posthumously, or a psychotic billionaire who decided they wanted to collect relics from the worst regime in human history, but they were horror stories. Those scenes happened in dark corners of the world, hidden away behind locked doors and kept out of sight due to shame and stigma.

“As they should,” I whispered to myself, taking quick steps towards the desk and scanning the papers still laid out. My German still wasn't conversational, but it was coming along quickly, and I'd picked up a few books to ensure my reading skills kept apace with my verbal ones.

It was different, here and now.

There were still people proudly waving the banner of the American Fascist Party, largely ignorant of the nightmarish details of the regimes they were supporting. Even if they had all the pieces, they wouldn't face facts until it was shoved in their faces, some not even then.

Stepping into a room like this, bedecked with all the regalia of the time?

It really drove things home.

I took a deep breath and grabbed the papers on the desk before making my way back to the door I'd come from. Abruptly, I stopped a half-second before throwing the door open and making my way back to the other guys. I turned my head carefully and confirmed what I thought I'd heard.

Footsteps.

That was the bad news. The good news, though, was that it was only a single pair. Also, they were light, rather than heavy which indicated a lack of boots. Which made sense. This wasn't a patrol. This was someone who didn't patrol going somewhere important. Somewhere important being where I was.

My hand reaching for the door, I completed the gesture and very slowly closed the door instead of opening it, allowing the latch to catch quietly before stepping off to the side. The door opened inward, so I wanted to be hidden from view when whoever it was stepped into-

Bam!

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath through my nose as the footsteps stopped abruptly. It hadn't been much, but the sound of wood striking wood was clear and unmistakable. Even softer, I could hear a distinctly American voice cursing. I dropped the papers I'd been holding and prepped myself.

Please be stupid, please be stupid, please be stup-Yes!

The footsteps resumed and I mentally traced the location as my now-free hand went back to the latch, depressing it smoothly and quietly.

The footsteps continued.

I opened the door a fraction of an inch.

Yep. Someone important. The back of a dress uniform, full longcoat, everything clean and crisp bearing all the straight-laced finery of a senior officer. He was standing a few feet away from the latrine's door, approaching slowly while muttering under his breath. His hand reached out, the other one going to his waist, but not drawing just yet...

I pulled the door open wider and slipped out, thankful again that someone had demanded the ancient iron hinges be oiled after all this time, because the action was smooth as silk.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four steps and-

He grabbed the handle on the bathroom door just as I reached out and wrapped my left arm around his throat, choking him. My right hand, throwing knives still fanned between my fingers, struck the heel of my palm against his forehead in a move which sent a silent wave of force into his skull. It wasn't a lethal attack, with everything going on I didn't want to chance blowing the guy's head up accidentally, but I'd gotten to the point where I could at least stun someone by rattling their brain reliably.

Catching the weight of the unconscious man, I pulled him back rapidly, his hand still on the bathroom door pulling it open.

Dougan and Morita's eyes widened as they saw me dragging the body backwards. To their credit, the two men had realized their precarious position and each had a knife and gun out, ready to take down whoever was going to open the door. I jerked my head towards the plush office and hissed at them. “C'mon!”

Both men shook off the surprise, gave the hallway a quick check, then followed me at the quietest sprint they could, Morita only stopping to shut the door behind them.

In a few short moments, we were all safely within the office, the unconscious Hydra officer laying on the floor. Dougan and Morita took a slow look around the room, an obvious sneer on both their faces. Morita gestured to the man on the floor. “Real snazzy place he's got here. How about we plant a bomb or two right on top of that pretty desk of his.”

“After we go through it for anything important,” I reminded them, going back to pick up the papers I'd dropped. “I found a few shipping manifests on top of it, actually. It looks like they're moving a lot of troops in and out rapidly and receiving a lot of rations. Way more than what you'd expect for a base this size.”

Dougan, one of the other men in the unit who knew some German, looked over the sheets with a frown. “Yeah, that's... hmm... wonder what the bastards are doing here.”

We were all caught off-guard by the sound of laughter.

Our eyes turned to the man on the floor, now slowly sitting up.

“I thought you put him out?” Dougan asked, raising his pistol, but grimacing as he realized that firing it would attract attention.

“I did,” I answered, frowning as my hand went to my sword.

“Ah,” the officer chuckled, opening his mouth wide to show off large incisors glistening in the dim light even as his body began to float off the floor, righting itself to a standing position. “Such arrogant Americans, believing they can do whatever they wish after crawling up a toilet like rats-”

I shifted my stance and drew my sword in a single motion, the godlike speed of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu enhanced by a tiny erg of chakra. Once I'd completed the first swing, my sword lashed out again and again, regardless of the flare of soul-deep pain. Even if it had become less noticeable, exertion like this brought it to the forefront of my mind. Nothing like how severe it had been in my first days, but still ever-present as the wound healed. Thankfully, I had enough for this as I completed the last strike and slid my blade through his heart.

As the head rolled across the richly-appointed room, I caught incomprehension in the other man's eyes, even as his jaw worked to keep speaking.

Slowly, the body began to turn to dust.

 It was only then that I allowed myself to return to a regular breathing pattern as I executed a 'blood shake' to clean the dust off my blade.

“What the fuck was that?” Dougan asked, slowly turning to me. “Did that nazi piece of shit just float off the ground.”

Morita's jaw worked uselessly, a more comical version of the thing I'd just killed.

“Goddamn,” I took a breath to punctuate the curse. “Nazi-Fucking-Vampires.”

~~~

Well, got slowed down a little bit by setting up my new laptop, which arrived a day early. That is, coincidentally, something that you all helped pay for. My old one has been slowly giving me increasing problems over the past few months and I found a good deal on a a new machine that's a definite upgrade from my old one. I still need to move my personal files over, but I'm happy to report it's running smooth so far.

So, Thank You! The new laptop will definitely help in keeping me on-schedule and productive instead of using my time to fight glitches and IT problems. Which means less stress for me and more words for you!

But enough about me! Here's a new chapter of the Marvel side of Industrious, something that I know people look forward to. Ray and Co. find themselves in a bit more trouble than they thought they were going to be in, that's for sure.

However will our intrepid heroes get out of this new mess?!

Eh, if the last time was any indication, it's probably going to involve explosions.