Ren emerged into another concrete chamber once he got past the open doorway. The walls were barren and lifeless concrete, continuing left to a white-painted wall with a closed door. A flimsy-looking desk and a toppled chair sat right next to the door, with a small flat screen dangling off the side by its cable. Above the doorway, there was a small dome with a flashing red light inside it.
As he slowly walked closer, the door began opening with a loud screech and a groan that shook the wall around it. Suddenly, he could hear voices from the other side, but not ones that were close to the door itself.
"Dammit, man. Can you close the door properly next time? That noise was really loud!" a gruff voice screamed from the other side, followed immediately by another equally gruff voice that carried a clear northern English accent.
"It's not my damn fault that the whole frame is off-kilter. It's not gonna latch, so deal with the noise."
"If it's going to keep making that noise, open it all the way so it doesn't! For the love of Christ!"
"You're not my bloody boss, alright? Open it yourself."
Something smashed on the other side of the door, and the yelling became indistinct grunts that carried the insults in them perfectly without actually spelling them out. Footsteps rushed to the door, and it was flung open with a quick yank. Ren found himself staring directly at a man in a suit, who looked back at him and blinked. Time seemed to slow as he watched the man's face begin twisting into a shout and his arm begin reaching for something at his belt.
The man went for his gun. Ren saw the shape of a holster emerging from beneath the hem of the man's suit jacket as he launched into action. In a single bound, he closed the distance.
A few steps away from the man, Ren's feet left the ground and he pushed himself forwards as he took flight. With extended hands, he smashed directly into the gunman, taking a firm grip on him as he swooped into the room behind him and lifted him into the concrete ceiling. A puff of dust fell down as the man smashed into it, and more scraped off as Ren swung around and used the man's weight to his benefit in launching him at the second gunman.
With a clatter, the British man dropped his gun on the floor from the force of his fellow. With a smirk, Ren landed on top of the unconscious first guard and saw some kind of a tattoo peeking out from under the Briton's dress shirt as he struggled to try and get Ren off him. Instead of allowing him to do that, Ren brought his fist down repeatedly, punching the man unconscious.
With that done, Ren smiled and stood up, continuing further into the structure.
The room with the guards was some kind of a security checkpoint. There was a large, disabled metal detector towards the back of the room and an X-ray machine for bags and such. Nearby on a table was a pile of security cards, and a box of lanyards was placed below the table. Dead monitors were spread out across all the tables in the small security booth, with nothing else of much importance visible.
Ren hopped over the small metal barrier next to the metal detector on his way to the doorway at the far left corner of the room. The door was open, and light spilled in from the other side. Attempting to peer through the doorway, he approached from the side and made sure not to get directly in a line of sight from anyone on the other end. He sneaked over to the wall by the doorway and then crouched, looking into the next room.
It was a corridor painted in a bright, clinical white. The lights were dim and kept shifting slightly, as if running on reserve power, and four doorways were placed in perfect symmetry along the length of the corridor. Metal signs were attached to the walls next to the door, and even in the low light and fair distance, he could read the text on them.
Three of them were offices for people with names that meant nothing to him, with no titles mentioned. The one to the far left, the last door before the corridor took a sharp left turn and continued somewhere, indicating that it was some kind of a quarantine section.
Ren continued down the corridor carefully, checking the doors with quick nudges as he went. All of the offices were silent, with closed doors that didn't seem to have any way to open them. The doors had keycard slots with flickering red lights, but no handle.
A noise from the end of the corridor brought his attention in that direction. Ren shifted past the quarantine door, noting that it was also equipped with the same kind of keycard slot and no other obvious way to open it. With a peek around the corner, he confirmed that the corridor led down in a gradual slope, heading in the general direction of the crater from what he could tell. The lights there were completely off, with small spotlights shifting along the walls. As he watched, two figures emerged from a door at the far end of the corridor. They flicked their flashlights on, then one of them touched their chest and mumbled into a radio. The crackle of the radio was loud as it echoed down the corridor towards Ren. The words were mumbled, but he could still hear what was said.
"Sir, we've confirmed that the paper records from Project Dawn are gone. It's been precise, no rummaging around for them. Whoever took them knew exactly where to find them," the man said.
"Secure the breached room. If anyone tries coming in that way, stall them until we're clear," the radio crackled in response.
The two men exchanged quick looks, then moved down a corridor leading to the right, directly opposite the door they'd come out of. Ren could hear their footsteps echo in the empty hallway and then disappear, and he approached. The door to the room the men had come out of opened into a large laboratory of some sort, with plenty of binders and papers everywhere and lab equipment liberally spread around.
Turning to the right, Ren saw a corridor with one doorway on its left side. At the far end was a T-intersection showered in a red pulsing glow coming from the right. As he walked down the corridor, he could hear the chatter of the two men again, locating them behind the closed door on the left. Ren continued past.
Ren's face was bathed in the blinking red light as he came around the corner and looked down the corridor. It was empty, ending with four thick doorframes jutting out at the far end. He was unable to see if the doors were closed or not, but he could see for certain that none of the doors had been blown into the hall. The other way out of the T-intersection of corridors led to a barrier of heavy rubble that had piled up on top of a ruined staircase. He were unable to see the bottom of the staircase through the small spaces, and it sounded like there was nobody down there. At least, nobody is well enough to be calling out.
Ren continued down the corridor, seeing the flashing red light on the ceiling emerge from behind a concrete beam. The doorframes blocking his sight shifted and revealed the doors hiding behind them. The far doors remained undamaged and standing firm in their places, but the two closest ones were open, one of them forced by large hydraulic clamps.
As he snuck closer to the doors, he suddenly came face to face with a mammoth of a man coming out of the doorway to his left. He looked surprised as he found Ren standing in the corridor. He flashed a smile and quirked his head.
"A hero? Now how did you get here…" he muttered before standing up straight in a pose and announcing, "Stand down, hero."
As if that were some kind of a signal, two men emerged from each of the open doors. They pulled out their pistols and immediately brandished them in Ren's direction, taking partial cover by the doorframes. The pulsing light above bathed all of them in red light, making the entire scene a step above surreal.
"Please," the man uttered, his face stretching into a narrow smile.
Ren rushed in, confident and decisive. The guards with guns were no issue. He swept them aside fairly easily while dodging the huge hands of the large man leading them. He could hear the whoosh in the air as arms that were more like tree trunks came rushing at him and missed, again and again. All around him was chaos and shouting as the guards tried to communicate and avoid shooting one another. Finally, after a good fight, the last of the guards fell, and Ren turned to his last opponent.
The large man stood in front of him like a wall. Ren launched pellets at him, some spewing out smoke, some gas, some acting like flashbangs. The large man covered his face but still stood firm before Ren technological assault.
Ren went back to the biggest weapon in his arsenal. With some concentration, he began feeling the air around him and manipulating its ambient energies. It began as slight wisps of air passing along his skin, then grew into short bursts that were like gentle gusts of wind. The burly man before he watched with amusement as the wind began picking up around him, then was directed at the large man in strong kinetic bursts.
The first two blasts of this force knocked him back a few steps, the third one he was braced for, the fourth he merely flinched at. With a tired grunt, Ren let up after a moment when it became clear the man was not affected by the blasts as much as he'd expected, and the only thing he was doing was tiring himself out.
Ren launched himself into hand-to-hand combat. His punches and kicks were blocked or allowed through to not much effect. The mammoth of a man continued staring at him down while defending himself, yet he didn't strike back. He simply waited.
Finally he struck, his tree trunk of an arm crashing into Ren's side and launching him back against the wall. His massive hand grasped Ren's forehead, tugged him forwards, then launched him back again against the concrete. He did it again, and again. Ren heard the crunching in the back of his head as he impacted one time after another. As the hand released him and he slumped down along the wall, everything began growing dark and numb.