by Tyler Hanson
Abdelhak Benhamouda [COMPLETE]
Diana Frances Mountbatten-Windsor [COMPLETE]
Joachim Ruhuna [COMPLETE]
Juan José Gerardi [PENDING]
Mahele Lieko Bokungu [COMPLETE]
Norbert Zongo [PENDING]
Quentin Lefebvre [PENDING]
The lights in the bunker turned red, and Quentin pulled away, spinning from the monitor station. He counted the faces in the room before looking toward the ground.
“WHERE’S MADDIE?” he hissed.
B, V, and D all shrugged.
“What’s the light for?” B asked.
Quentin ignored her and ran to the door separating the bunker from the garage. He looked through the crack in it, trying to find his companion, but he couldn’t see her in the hallway. Closing the door completely, Quentin sprinted back to the monitors. He flipped a switch, and the feeds cut to different perspectives of his house, both on the inside and on the outside. Everyone moved closer to watch.
Surrounding the home were at least a dozen men wearing black body armor and sporting sub-machine guns. Split into two groups, one worked its way through the front door and the other through the patio, their gentleness indicating an attempt at stealth. Neither group had bypassed Quentin’s locks—yet.
Maddie, though, was nowhere on any of the cameras. Quentin flicked the monitor switch, and the computer displays returned.
“Absolute bare minimum time needed to create the Bogeyman jump is . . .” he asked, addressing D and V.
“At least five more minutes,” said V.
“Get started. I’ll plug in the coordinates when I get back.”
“Get back from where?” B asked.
“Don’t worry, B,” Quentin said. “You’re coming with me.”
He grabbed D’s attention and pointed at one of the speakers on his computer array. “This one can still hear audio upstairs. When I tell you to, press this switch.” He pointed at a red switch mounted to the underside of the desk.
“Where are we going?” B pressed.
Quentin tossed his pistol to her. “We’re getting Maddie.”
Proxy’s Report
01.15: “Defense”
Paris, France
September 8, 1997-A
The armed men opened the doors to Quentin’s home, leaking inside like a heavy fog. The team from the patio fanned into the living room and kitchen area, while the team from the front door split their focus between the theatre and the garage. The garage team poked their heads into the space, noted no other entrances or exits, and joined the team in the theatre.
Inside the darkened room, Princess Diana’s pictures slid across a fabric screen, illuminating the space. The six men divided into the aisles of seats, searching for anyone hiding. The last one to enter closed the door behind him.
And as it shut, B rose up from behind the closest seat and grabbed the soldier’s mouth, stabbing him repeatedly in the stomach with a black knife. He flailed in panic and pain, but soon went limp. She disappeared beneath the seats with the corpse.
Holy hell, Quentin thought, peering at her through the spaces between seats in the top row of the theatre. She’s good.
Across the room, the five men fanned out. When the man furthest from the theatre screen swiveled to return to the others, Quentin pounced on him from the shadows, driving a kitchen knife into his throat. The man’s death was swift, but not silent; he released a gurgle as he passed, drawing the attention of the other four intruders. They turned in the direction of the noise.
“Seven . . . sound off. Seven?”
No reply.
“Light it up.”
The four attackers took turns unloading bullets into the theatre seats, sending foam padding and hot metal passing right over Quentin’s head. He squeezed himself into the floor, trying to avoid the onslaught.
Small-arms fire sounded further away, and the attack on Quentin ceased. He poked his head over the shredded seats to see B now engaged in a shootout with the four gunmen, using Quentin’s gun to defend herself. One of the bullets found a home in an intruder’s face, and they tumbled to the theatre floor.
Quentin remained low to the ground, waiting for his opportunity. It came soon, as the three armored men hunkered behind the seats to reload. The instant they released their magazines, Quentin leapt from the seats and into the middle of the group. He buried his kitchen knife into one of the attacker’s eyes, then vaulted past the remaining two to put some seats between them. As he moved, he saw they were already reloading.
“B, Cover!” he yelled, diving to the floor.
She rose from the entrance of the theatre and squeezed off several rounds toward the two remaining attackers, preventing them from pursuing Quentin. Stuffing and gun smoke filled the air.
B stopped, quickly reloading.
“Last magazine,” she called, and hurled the pistol toward Quentin.
He snatched the gun from the air, fumbling with it for a moment before securing his grip. The two other men tried to stand again, but he was a half-second faster. As their heads entered his line of sight, he pulled the trigger twice, sending a bullet into the skull of each of the attackers. They fell to the floor.
Footsteps sounded outside, and B poked her head outside the theatre. “Six more!”
Grrrrr . . .
Quentin froze at the noise. It sounded like it was coming from the kitchen area. He scrambled to the door connecting the theatre room to the hallway and the living room.
“Q, wait! Q! Fuck it, mate . . .” B pursued him.
Quentin rounded the corner to the living room and saw six men approaching, all scurrying like cockroaches from various parts of the house. He dove to the floor and blindly fired the gun, forcing them to take cover. One of the men fired a spray of bullets from around the doorframe of Quentin’s bedroom, likely hoping to get a lucky hit, but the shots were far above Quentin’s flattened body.
Maddie suddenly pounced from the kitchen, biting into the leg of the closest intruder and latching onto him. The man raised his gun in her direction, about to fire.
“NO!”
Quentin raised the pistol from his prone position and began squeezing the trigger toward them, panic overtaking logic. He scrambled to his feet and ran toward Maddie and her opponent while he continued to expend his ammunition. Most of Quentin’s shots went wild, but one struck the man’s forearm and shifted his aim. The machine gun’s bullets buried into the wood next to the Dutch Shepherd.
Two of the intruders were rushing toward Quentin from the living room to his right, but he barely registered them. He knew he only had a second—if that—to save his dog. He shouldered through the men, and B appeared at his side, engaging in hand-to-hand combat.
Quentin aimed his gun at Maddie’s opponent and pulled the trigger, but only a hollow click of an empty chamber rewarded his efforts. Crying out, he threw the empty weapon at the man’s head. The man stumbled, and Maddie released him.
Quentin swept Maddie into his arms and heard a commotion behind him. He turned to see one of B’s combatants kicked onto the living room floor, while the other had a black knife buried into his neck. The three standing intruders fired their weapons from their cover, and she hefted the knifed combatant’s armored body against her own, absorbing their bullets.
Quentin and Maddie crawled backwards into the kitchen, putting the counters between the attackers and themselves. Quentin’s heart pounded in his chest, almost drowning out the endless chattering of machine-gun fire. He poked around the corner. B had advanced, closer to the kitchen entrance, still carrying her mangled and bloody makeshift shield. When she was close enough, she dropped the body and rolled into the kitchen.
“Where’s your gun?” she asked.
“Empty,” he wheezed.
“Fuck!”
“Just get behind the counter, B.”
As the words left his mouth, the remaining intruders opened fire into the kitc
hen. The kitchen counters survived the bullets, but the foodstuffs and containers on top of them exploded around Quentin, Maddie, and B. The three hunkered down, and B made eye contact with Quentin.
“Don’t move,” he whispered.
Quentin looked away from her and up at the ceiling, yelling three short words.
“FLIP THE SWITCH!”
The gunfire continued for another five seconds before it died down. Quentin could hear a series of mechanical clicking noises behind the walls and inside the ceiling. Something shifted, thumping beneath their feet. Then, everything was quiet again.
“What was that, Two?” Quentin heard one of the soldiers say.
“Doesn’t matter,” replied another. “Let’s finish this and move out.”
Quentin saw a black-clad leg cross the threshold between the living room and the kitchen, and his eyes shifted to the small infrared sensor now activated in the same space. The moment the man’s leg interrupted the sensor, a panel of the wall in front of him slid open, revealing a four-by-four grid of silver barrels. Before the man could react, the sixteen barrels fired in tandem, shredding his body and sending the remains flying backward, out of Quentin’s line of sight.
“Two!” cried one of the remaining four intruders.
“Finish the mission, Five,” commanded another.
Footsteps approached, this time coming from the guest bedroom and running parallel to the other side of the kitchen counter. Quentin took B’s hand and held his breath.
THUNK.
“AH! FUCK! OH GOD OH GOD OH—“
CRUNCH.
Quentin closed his eyes as he heard something wet splatter across the living room.
That would be the hydraulic press in the floor, he thought. Three left.
Laced with panic, a voice said, “I’m radioing for backup. Outside.”
Footsteps moved away from Quentin and B, and Quentin heard someone jiggle the handle of the patio door.
What did I put in the door, again?
A bright blue light flickered, and a buzzing noise filled the air, almost loud enough to cover the screaming. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, and something thumped to the floor.
Oh, right. Conductive handle. Two left. “Good luck surviving the night,” Quentin called from behind the counter. “Tell me the names of the people who sent you and I’ll let you out alive.”
“Fuck you,” one of the remaining men yelled from the direction of Quentin’s bedroom. He heard something moving toward them.
Quentin turned his head. “I wouldn’t walk through the—“
He was interrupted by a metallic sluicing sound, followed by a strained gurgle.
Quentin sighed, another heavy object thumping to the floor. “Spikes in the door frame. Basically just a glorified bear trap. Now, how would you like to die?”
“Stop! Stop and I’ll surrender!” the final man called out. Something metal, likely the man’s gun, clattered to the floor.
Quentin took a breath, looking over at B. She pointed at the glass door of the oven in front of them. The final man was visible in its reflection, knees on the floor and hands on his head. She nodded, and Quentin looked at the ceiling.
“KILL THE SWITCH!” he ordered, before returning his attention to the intruder. “Tell me who controls your team. Both agency and individual names.”
“We don’t—you don’t understand, we weren’t—“
The final man seized up, his body arcing as if electrified. He trembled, his fingers splayed. After a few seconds, he fell silent, slowly rising back to his feet.
B turned to Quentin. “This is what—“
With one impossible leap, the man crossed the distance between the living room and where they hid, his boots landing on the kitchen countertop. He peered over the counter at Quentin and B and reached for a holster on his hip.
Quentin rolled Maddie and himself to the right, while B rolled to the left. Bullets from the attacker’s sidearm bit into the tile floor where they had hidden, shredding the surface. Maddie ran into the guest bedroom through the study, avoiding the gunfire. Quentin and B rose to their feet on opposite sides of the kitchen space.
Quentin wielded a skillet; B, a steak knife. The man chose to aim at Quentin, who ran at him, hunkering his face and right forearm behind the cast-iron utensil. The gunfire glanced away from the pan, though the force of it pounded against Quentin’s bones and the echoes of lead striking metal left a ringing noise in his ears.
He collided with the man, shifting his grip to strike at the gun. The man’s aim fell away, but he didn’t release his grasp of the weapon. Quentin used the flat end of the skillet to sweep the attacker’s feet, and the man fell backward, losing his balance on the countertop. B was there waiting for him, and as he fell back, the steak knife buried into his spine. He collapsed on top of her in the kitchen floor.
“B!” Quentin yelled, running to her side.
Before anyone could move, the house rumbled, carrying a similar vibration to what Quentin had experienced twice before in the Bogeyman. This time, it was different. It seemed deeper; less controlled.
“Hey, I’m fine.” B said, rolling the body away from her. “Less so now, though, knowing that these men were probably just like me.”
“The people in control of this are monsters, B. Let’s get to safety and focus our efforts on bringing them down.”
B nodded, her eyes stern.
“Come, Maddie,” Quentin said.
Maddie returned to his side, and the three hurried into the living room, to the hallway. From the hallway, they sidled into the garage and opened a door-sized panel in the wall, revealing the wooden staircase to Quentin’s bunker. Inside, D and V were hard at work, trying to maintain control of a smoking Bogeyman chamber.
“Priming a jump this big is a heavy strain on the machine,” V called out, pointing to the message on the monitor behind him.
PLEASE ENTER COORDINATES.
“The sooner we complete it,” he added, “The more likely we succeed without being harmed.”
Quentin walked past him. “I got it.”
He typed new lines of code into the computer, but he didn’t get far before a sudden movement caught his eye—B leaned against a wall, seizing as if electrified. By the time he turned around, the seizure was dying down. He made eye contact with her, but her blue windows were devoid of emotion or thought.
She was now their enemy.
B reached behind her back and produced a sub-machine gun she must have stolen from the living room.
“GET DOWN!” Quentin screamed at the scientists. Too late.
A burst of bullets flew from the barrel of her gun, opening holes along V’s chest and stomach. He shook as the gunfire rattled him, blood spurting from the wounds, before collapsing to the bunker floor. One of the stray bullets collided with some sort of fuse near the base of the Bogeyman, releasing a shower of sparks.
Quentin fell back to avoid being struck as well, his hand slamming against the keyboard. The text behind him flashed red.
PLEASE ENTER COORDINATES.
More bullets flew over Quentin’s head toward the Bogeyman, behind which D hid. They bounced off the metal walls of the chamber, finding new homes in the surrounding concrete. One ricochet shattered one of Quentin’s monitors. The chamber’s hum reached a high, violent pitch, burrowing into Quentin’s ears. The primary monitor emitted a separate beep, barely audible over the hum.
PLEASE ENTER COORDINATES.
D ran for the door to the garage as Quentin leapt at B, tackling her by the waist and arresting her aim. The remaining bullets in the weapon’s magazine peppered the bunker’s ceiling. Without missing a beat, B tossed the gun aside and withdrew her black combat knife.
The Bogeyman’s pitch wavered from low to high, and everything tilted. D tumbled back into the bunker, while Quentin and B rolled away from each other. B rose, knife in hand, and approached Quentin, but she was attacked by Mad
die, who collided with her legs. Maddie’s teeth bit into her side, but B brought an elbow down onto the Dutch Shepherd’s forehead. With a pitiful yelp, Quentin’s companion released her, sliding back across the floor.
Quentin’s eyes filled with involuntary tears, and he charged at B, unarmed. She met his advance with a strike to his left shoulder, dislocating it with a sharp jolt and a crisp snap. She followed through with the knife, and it dug between his ribcage, sticking firmly into tissue. Quentin cried out in pain, and she kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling to the concrete floor. The chirping monitor reached a steady tone, the words now upside-down.
PLEASE ENTER COORDINATES.
Through blurred vision, Quentin saw D approach B from behind with a metal rod—probably a tool left over from the Bogeyman repairs. He raised the makeshift weapon and struck her in the back of the head. She was thrown forward, staggered, but she recovered before he could complete his second strike. As the bar whistled through the air, she caught his arm.
The Bogeyman wailed again, and the surfaces shifted, sending both parties collapsing to the ground. A box of medical supplies slid into Quentin’s line of sight, stopping within reach. It gave him an idea, and he pulled himself up, reaching into the container.
B and D struggled on the ground while Maddie barked at them from a safe distance. Gravity shifted, lifting them into the air as if the bunker was falling from the sky. B used the disruption to lift D to his feet, pinning him against the wall. She grasped the metal rod and shoved it into his chest with the force of a railroad spike. He choked, blood leaking from an open mouth. His eyes drifted shut.
PLEASE ENTER COORDINATES.
B stood away from D’s body, allowing it to fall. Over the noise of the Bogeyman, a second tone whined. Quentin saw her look over her shoulder at him, but he pounced before she could react. He pressed a flat object against her lower back, wrapping an arm around her to push a second flat object over her chest.
“Stay strong, B,” Quentin whispered in her ear.