Invincible Earth! : Volume 1
Chapter 13: Inside the Pentagon Labyrinths

After the timer ended, each of the team members felt their visions going blank.

It was as if someone had flashed a bright light in their eyes. They squinted, trying to regain their sight.

What greeted them as their vision cleared was a narrow corridor with moldy walls. The ceiling barely reached Lance’s head, who happened to be the tallest in the party.

A smell of dampness pervaded their nostrils as they regained their bearings.

They were all standing in single file in the corridor. What was strange was that although the corridor looked old, there was no dust on it.

Opposite them was a path that snaked forward into the darkness. Dim halogen bulbs on the ceiling did little to dispel the darkness.

Before they could even speak a word, they heard footsteps approaching from the end of the corridor.

Lance was at the last of the group, and all of them turned to him to ask what to do.

He first motioned with a finger on his lips, telling them to stay silent.

Then, he pointed at Yu Ying before pointing towards the approaching footsteps. He made a sign with his hand, twirling it pointing towards his head.

“You want me to make him mental?“, mouthed Yu Ying, cocking her head innocently. This was generally her character. Regardless of the situation, she would always say the first thing that came to her mind.

Lance had forgotten that that was the universal signal for someone going bonkers. He hastily mouthed, “Hypnotize!“.

As if the bulb above Yu Ying’s head had just gone on, a flash of understanding came on her face.

She nodded before silently walking towards the footsteps.

An armed guard came into view in the last sphere of light that was surrounding them. The bulbs above them were switched on whereas the rest were off.

The guard who had come from the total darkness pointed his gun at them, shouting:

“Hands where I can see them!”

Yu Ying, who was in the front, went through a bizarre transformation at this moment.

She slowly raised her arms, one caressing the other, while biting her own lips and narrowing her eyes.

“How do you want me, soldier?“, she asked in a sultry voice as she stretched her body with hands pointing up somehow accentuating her still developing bosom and dainty hips.

Except Yu Yan, who rolled her eyes, the rest of them were struck speechless seeing her actions.

Going back to normal, Yu Ying turned around and giggled seeing the three boys’ eyes fixed on her.

This made them snap out. Entsy seemed to be the least affected. Although he had stared, his expression hadn’t changed much. Darius though, had a look of ecstasy on his face as if seeing the most appealing image in the world.

Lance was affected the worst, at least from the others’ perspective. His mouth was half opened and his eyes were as wide open as they could be. If given a bit of time, a string of saliva would have definitely come out of his mouth.

In reality though, all of them had been affected equally, only their reactions had been different. After going back to normal, Yu Ying pointed at the guard behind her saying:

“Hes all yours. Remember, 30 minutes is best if you want me to hypnotize more people.”

This is one dangerous woman, thought Lance, following Yu Ying with his eyes as she went to the last of the line still giggling to herself.

…

Lance took over at this point.

He started by first asking the soldier how they had been discovered. It turned out that they were actually in a secret network of tunnels situated almost a kilometer under the pentagon.

This was the bottom most level, which housed the deepest and darkest secrets of the United States. Each and every country had a location like this which was so secure that even a fly couldn’t get in.

The reason for them being found out was that each and every inch of the labyrinths was covered in motion detectors. If even a fly or mouse were moving through, the exact location could be detected.

Lance first ordered the soldier to reply to the command center that it was just a dead fly. He only did so after confirming that this was a regular occurrence, to not raise any doubts in his commanding officer.

After that, he asked the soldier for a location that was devoid of detectors where they could plan their next step. There was only one such place: the janitor room. Once an authorized entry was made, there would be no detection. Authorized entry though required a DNA and retina test which took place simultaneously.

Lance thought for a bit and told the soldier to lead them to the janitor room. Meanwhile, he started asking for possible locations where the dossier could be.

Thankfully, there was no need to sift through possibilities. There was only one place where all such dossiers were stored: the vault.

The vault was a foot thick alloy-made box that could not be penetrated by almost any method known to man.

There was only one entrance and one exit. The entrance was guarded 24/7 by 50 guards in consecutive checkpoints.

There was multiple equipment to prevent anyone unauthorized from entering. Apart from the regular DNA tests, any request to access the vault had to be authorized by the joint chiefs of staff.

As Lance started making a plan to hypnotize the chiefs, the soldier said that a legend level figure was always on duty in the white house, protecting key personnel.

This put an end to those plans. Also, it was surprising that information about cultivators was present here.

When asked about this, the soldier didn’t understand the term “cultivators”. Instead, Lance had to ask about power levels before replaceing out that that the path to power they were following was well known, at least in the top level of the military, and that although there were different terms used, the overall barriers for the power levels were the same. Legends were legends no matter where they were, so luckily this term matched.

To conspiracy buffs like the initiates, this was eye-opening. Even though much information could be learned from the internet, it seemed that there was much more that was hidden very effectively.

A brute force method seemed to be the only way possible. Sneaking in was out of the question.

As they reached the janitors room, Lance realized that in their hand was a soldier, not a janitor.

Wondering what to do, he asked Yu Ying:“Will he follow orders even if he isn’t close to you? And can you hypnotize someone else right now?”

“Dummy, you’re forgetting my sister. Instead of tiring me, she can do it. And, any human would follow all orders until you tell him not to, even if he weren’t near me. If our INs needed our presence, they would be much weaker”, answered Yu Ying with a look of pride on her face.

Lance had forgotten about Yu Yan. Yu Yan silently glared at Lance, seeing that he had actually dared to forget her.

Sheepishly scratching his head, Lance ordered the soldier to first order the janitor here for some plausible reason before going on his usual rounds. Of course, he was ordered to forget everything that had happened.

The former was suggested by Yu Ying, who said that instead of having to think of plausible scenarios, he could just order the soldier to use one. Such retainment of thinking faculty in hypnosis seemed very impressive.

“Yu Yan, I want you to .... er .... do your magic on the janitor as soon as he comes. Remember, don’t give him a chance to warn.”

Hearing this, all the boys turned towards Yu Yan, waiting for a similar show. Even Entsy, who usually acted aloof, constantly glanced Yu Yan’s way.

Yu Yan blushed as she felt all the scorching gazes on her.

“Damn Ying. Each and every time, she uses her IN first and everyone expects me to do the same.“, thought Yu Yin as she glowered at the mischievously smiling Yu Ying.

…

Yu Yan opted to act when the time came instead of throwing a tantrum now. Spoiled since birth, she had always done what she wanted, but the experiences in IE were slowly changing her unlike her sister who still said whatever she wanted regardless of the situation.

Just as the soldier started to leave, one last question popped into Lance’s mind:

“What is the situation which triggers opening the vault doors instead of sealing them in the case of an attack?”

The soldier had already told them that in the case of an attack, the doors would be immediately sealed. Also, the doors were powered by a mechanism which allowed them to close in 0.2 seconds.

If the closing time were longer, Entsy could have simply pooled their barriers and accelerated into the vault. With this time though, Entsy said that it was impossible to both dodge the guards and get in. A distraction was also out of the question as even the slightest hint of an attack sealed the doors. Hell, even the small alarm of the motion detector caused by them which had been reported as a fly had resulted in the vault being sealed.

According to the soldier, what were stored inside were the secrets of the human race. There had been multiple attacks by extraterrestrial species that warranted such security.

Lance and the rest first decided to digest all information and make a game plan before marveling at these hitherto undiscovered truths. If they didn’t, they might end up wasting all of their time trying to replace more and more secrets.

“Overwhelming alien attack from above. In case an attack on the chain of command occurs, a direct high-speed lift transports key personnel to the vault where they will be secured. This is the case when there is no attack from below. The vault will be opened when the transfer of personnel is taking place.”

“Jackpot!“, thought Lance. He proceeded to question the soldier only to replace that this was the only information given about this scenario.

After pausing the soldier to grill him further for any other way, this scenario seemed to be the most plausible one.

Their 30 minutes were almost over and they still needed to get the janitor, so Lance ordered the soldier to continue with his instructions.

Nodding, the soldier turned around and said into his earpiece:“Rat hole detected opposite 12-A janitor room. Requesting Janitor assignment.” After saying so, he reached for the butt of his assault rifle, ramming the front into a stone wall to make a small hole. The hole was exactly the size of a small rat.

Although flies and rats triggering the motion detectors were common in the labyrinths, they rarely sat in one place for an extended period of time. That was why the soldier had said before that it had actually been a dead fly. Janitors would regularly sweep the floors discarding all such tagged objects.

“Affirmative. Sending janitor.“, came the reply as the team sighed in relief.