Investigate the Base

You find yourself walking down a long corridor. It runs long and straight, with the pale green walls interrupted by massive metallic rods every few minutes. As you pass by the fourth one in the vicinity, you decide to investigate it a little more closely. You peer at the silvery metal, and see that it extends parallel to the ground, deep inside the earth. This far below ground level, it could be any manner of thing. Right now, your best guess is that it’s a pipe carrying something.

Switching to X-Ray vision, you realise that its made of the same metallic material all the way through. There’s no way it could be transporting anything, unless it’s electrical current. If that’s the case, there should be some form of insulation around it. So what’s the point of the rod?

You decide to follow it the other way, since it seems to lead deep into the heart of the base as well. From the angles of the various rods, it looks like they could converge at the centre of the circular base. You walk alongside the rod, ignoring the various grunts and scientists scurrying around.

It’s always struck you as odd, why organizations like HYDRA would bother with so many low-level bruisers. They don’t stand a chance against the heroes, and are probably a significant drain on the budget. It makes some sort of sense in more urban environments, where they can act more like a mafia of sorts, but in a secret base in the middle of nowhere? They’re completely useless. Unless, of course, they’re there as threat and internal power projection. That strikes you as a plausible idea. Good governance requires hard power.

Regardless, you nod at yet another grunt, who eyes you suspiciously, his hand hovering by his holstered pistol. He walks by you without incident, and you continue following the rod, eventually reaching a sizeable room. Through the glass walls, you see that dominating the room is a massive piston attached to the rod, the entirety of which appears connected to a power station. From your angle, you can see multiple rooms of the sort, each housing one of the rods and a piston.

Curious. Even with your new intelligence, there doesn’t appear to be much of a point in the rods, but knowing HYDRA, there’s some sort of sinister plan here to be uncovered. Several theories pop into your mind, but none seems quite right. The concept of a mobile underground base wouldn’t quite work with the rest of the base’s design, and the idea of using the rods as a weapon would require trapping the enemy in very specific locations, at which point you’ve won anyways.

Stopping some random scientist in a lab coat, you ask about the purpose of the rods. She stares at you for a couple of seconds, and then continues on her way. What is this disrespect? You’re about to pin her up against the wall and demand an answer, when you remember that you’re a guest here in the HYDRA base. They could screw you over in a second should you misstep, and besides, you probably won’t ever receive a cure for your condition in that case. Letting yourself cool down for several seconds, you realise there’s not much more you can accomplish here today.

Since you’ve probably fulfilled enough of your investigatory role to satisfy Rachel Summers, or Marvel Girl, or Phoenix, or whatever she goes by these days, you decide to leave. With a snap of your fingers, you reappear outside of your jet.

What do you do next?