Thunder #27

Late Friday night Thunder responded to a report of a gunfight at a local nightclub and casino, only to stumple headlong into an ambush. He faced a large group of thugs armed mostly with Uzis. However, two of the largest thugs (6'6", 300 muscular lbs.) were armed with K.A.K.s (Kinetic Amplification Knuckles), while two others were armed with elephant guns. While Thunder was momentarily stunned by both a perfectly placed K.A.K. blow, and then by an elephant-gun round to the face, he nevertheless quickly recovered his senses and made short work of the hired thugs.

The following day Nathan took Sue to a company Hallowe'en party. He went as Superman and she as Wonder Woman. During the party it came to pass that Security Chief Farhill, apparently a little drunk, stumbled over to Nathan and Sue as they stood at the bar. He knocked off Nathan's "Clark Kent" hairpiece and remarked that "Lex Luthor" was more like it with a chuckle. He then started coming on to Sue, to the point of brazenly eyeballing her admittedly ample cleavage and dragging her toward the dance floor while groping her, when Nathan at last interrupted; stepping between the two and warning Farhill to back off or he would inform Stone of his behavior. Farhill challenged Nathan to be a man and do something about himself, but walked away in disgust when the synthoid refused.

Sue was somewhat disappointed with Nathan as well, and said that she wanted to leave soon after.

After seeing Sue home in a taxi, Nathan returned to the hotel the Hallowe'en party was being held at in order to get his car. In the parking lot he overheard Farhill speaking on the phone with someone, discussing GenTech security protocol. Nathan immediately confronted him on the matter. Farhill retorted, saying that he was talking to another GenTech guard, but then began to push and poke at Nathan again. This time however, Nathan rose, with due restraint, to the challenge. And while Farhill did surprise him with some aikido and judo-throws, not to mention a steel pipe laid across the bridge of Nathan's nose and then several times upside his head, he at last left the drunken Farhill bloodifaced and sprawled across the hood of a car.

Nathan managed to get ahold of Sue the following day, inviting her out for lunch, a walk, and generally smoothing things over with her. He also got in contact with Dr.Stone about Farhill's phone conversation. The Doc said he would be speaking to the Security Chief about the matter following the inspection on Monday.

Making his way to GenTech early Monday morning, Nathan joined the rest of the crew in the main entrance lobby. There he was introduced to Henry Peterson, who would be handling the inspection of the storage and disposal areas. He was a slight, bookish man of serious, if not snobbish, demeanour. The inspection lasted many tedious hours. As they tied things up and gathered again with the others in the main lobby, somekind of quake or explosion was felt to rock the facility from somewhere deep within. Rushing to the security station Farhill quickly called out that they had a Code Orange Bio-Containment Breach on sublevel 4. Stone quickly joined Farhill at the booth where he began to hastily peck away at a keyboard, soon to exclaim that counter-measures had somehow failed ... perhaps as a result of the recent attack by the Puritan.

Racing down the hall with Farhill and Nathan for the environmental suits contained in the Biohazard Room, Stone explained that they were going to have to seal the breaches manually via a system of valves on sublevel 4. If they failed to do it, or failed to do it soon enough, they would likely have a Code Red breach on their hands, which could result in a major catastrophe for the surrounding community.

So, donning the protective suits, the trio next raced for the secure elevator that led to the sublevels. However, as a result of the explosion the elevator wouldn't go down past sublevel 1, thus forcing them to race through the complex for the maintainance shaft. They found a light, yellowish mist hanging in the air, and as they raced through the facility, they soon came across a scene of 2 lab techs literally tearing apart two others, while a third pounded ferociously on an office door.

As they approached, the aggressors turned to face them, revealing nearly demonic faces, with large mouths lined with wicked fangs, and their hands contorted into deadly claws. The demonic-maniacs immedaitely screeched with rage and fury as they lept to attack the new comers. Nathan's environmental suit was immediately shredded as two of the fiends attacked him, and he quickly learned their strength was fairly impressive. Thus deciding that he'd best not take any chances, he didn't hold back in his attacks and quickly dispatched both of his assailents. He then went to Farhill's aid and dispatched the final demon-maniac.

Within the office, they found a large group of tech.s. Farhill told Stone to get the people back up to the surface and that he and Nathan would handle the shut-down. So, after Stone quickly explained where they had to go and what they had to do, the lot of them were off in their respective directions.

Fighting their way past a couple of more demonic-maniacs, and stumbling upon a number of more fleeing lab tech.s, the two at last arrived on sublevel 4 and found the room they were looking for. They now had 8 valves to shut off and one minute to do it in. However, when but two valves remained to be closed, Nathan was suddenly attacked by Farhill. Apparently, his suit had been punctured in one of the fights with the demon-maniacs and he had fallen victim to whatever had transformed the others. Knowing he was short on time, Nathan held nothing back, but when Farhill proved to be considerably resilient and time kpet ticking, he at last resorted to a thunderpunch ... knocking Farhill through numerous walls and rooms to be buried beneath rubble and debirs.

Then, with but 15 seconds remaining Nathan managed to close off the last of the valves, thus averting certain disaster.