"Okay… let's pretend for a moment I don't know who… or what The Master is." Adam said, confused why she was so terrified.
"The Master was-" Mira began before the two of them heard the sound of the door unlock from above, indicating someone was going down. There was only one way in and out of this space, which meant they had to hide.
Mira's head swiveled around back and forth before she practically shoved Adam into a nearby medical partitioning wall and closed the curtain behind them. As if to add to the impetuous nature of her actions she pushed them both up against the concrete wall and covered Adam's mouth.
Adam was more than capable of doing all of this on his own, she was acting awfully assertive at the moment, not that he especially minded. But she seemed to be caught up in the moment, her training taking over, and taking Adam, the inexperienced one, into safety as quickly and efficiently as she could. Her act of covering his mouth meant to be a signal to not talk. Again, not that Adam would have.
After they were both up against the wall, away from the very slightly transparent blue partitioning wall she slowly pulled her hand away from Adam's mouth and turned her head to better listen to the people coming down the stairs.
"I'm telling you, Cardinal, I do not know where my keycard went." One voice said, sounding a mix of annoyed and apologetic.
"I know, but it is equally possible you just left it down here on one of the tables." Another, older voice said, loudly.
"I don't think so, but we can look." The first voice said again as they were very clearly down the stairs now.
"Where did you last work?"
"At that station over there, I grabbed one of the subjects from the cell right here and strapped them to the table, granted them a dose of elixir and then threw them back in the recovery cell." There was a pause. "Though of course it's clear now it was another failure. Once more not worthy of the Master's love."
"None of these heathens are, only the chosen few will be blessed to survive. Fewer still will achieve the status of the Scion."
"I agree but to think that even with the elixir we have already used not a single success has been-"
"Stop. It is not your place to question the vision of the Scion. He is the supreme arbiter of our beliefs, we must simply follow the path he lays out for us and trust in his vision."
"It was not my intention to question his goals."
"Of course not, you are young, it is the duty of the young to ask questions. And it is the duty of the elders to teach. But I do not see the keycard here. Did you do anything else down here by any chance?"
"The only other thing I did was add the notes to the log, but I doubt I took my key out there."
"Still we mustn't leave any stone unturned, don't you agree?"
After the last word was said the world seemed to move slowly as the cloth curtain that separated Adam and Mira from the two speaking was thrown aside. The old man was turned, looking at a younger man, both in the robes with inverted colors. Within a half second, as soon as the light began to pour in from the other side of the now open curtain, Mira grabbed a scalpel from the nearby rolling tray table and then threw it right at the throat of the old man. In the same motion she dove at him. The man did not have time for more than a gurgle from his throat before Mira was on top of him.
The other man, the younger one, turned to run, his mouth opening to scream for help. He got as far as a yelp before Adam was on top of him, holding him firmly from behind with his hand over his mouth. Adam did not let the moment linger as naught but a moment later Adam swiftly snapped the man's neck in one sudden move.
It was the first time Adam had ever snapped someone's neck. He never had a reason to, after all. The sound and feel was thoroughly unpleasant, but his thoughts did not linger on it for long as he let the body drop and then looked over to Mira who was vigorously stabbing the cardinal over and over with the scalpel. The old man was clearly long dead.
"Mira." Adam said as he gently put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. Mira stopped abruptly, exhaled loudly, and then seemed to re-steel herself.
"Come on, let's drag these bodies behind the wall, it should buy us sometime before people find them." She said with a darkened expression on her face.
Adam nodded and then helped to move the bodies into the partitioned section where he, just now, noticed a clipboard with a list of dates, times, and dosage amounts written down. Adam could only sigh at the bad luck. Especially since there were other partitioned areas, they just picked a bad one.
"What about that?" Adam said as he pointed to the large vat of FEV as soon as they were done slightly hiding the bodies and were readying themselves to leave. Mira turned to look at the FEV and then shook her head.
"Unfortunately we will have to leave it."
"Leave it?" Adam asked, slightly desperate. "But it's the cause of all of this isn't it?" Adam gestured to the various mutants in the cages. "And we are going to just leave it alone?"
"Im not happy about it either!" Mira said, shouting a tiny bit before regaining her cool again. "There are ways to neutralize FEV but I don't have any chemicals on me, in addition I could blow it up but it's the same problem, and that's loud. I could dump it all, assuming I could move that, but then the entire floor would get covered in FEV and I don't want to risk exposing these people down here more than they already have been." Adam grimaced and looked down. Mira was the one who put her hand on his shoulder now.
"Come on, we can still stop this if we come back properly next time. This was always just a scouting mission. You can't help mutants anyway, they are already going to die. The best thing we can do is help those who haven't been captured by them yet." Adam took a slow deep breath and then nodded at her.
"I think we've done enough scouting, don't you?" Adam said with a heartbroken smile. Mira nodded.
"I agree. Now, let's get the hell out of here."