by Tom Jones
The fox made a sharp right turn, but the vehicle fishtailed and collided with a large glowing object that was unknown to the fox; However, the object stopped glowing after the fox collided with it. Luckily, the vehicle was not affected too severely from the impact, so the fox stepped on the gas again to accelerate away from the scene of the crash. Arcades then began to drive through an open door that was large enough for his vehicle. As he entered the small tunnel, the fox now could hear the alarm that had just been sounded. The fox knew that he now had no time to lose before Omega would lock down the entire facility. As Arcades was driving, he now understood what the Omega operators were previously discussing. The path that the fox was traveling down was relatively level, but every time he moved the steering wheel, the vehicle seemed to almost bounce. Arcades hoped that this issue would not hinder him from completing his mission, so he continued driving.
As the fox entered a new area, he heard the complex rumble. The fox was not sure what was happening. Arcades looked in the rear view mirror, and he could see that there were two other L-ATVs now in pursuit. The fox could see that there was a human that was mounting the turret on the top of the roof of the vehicle. The operative began to fire on Arcades’ vehicle, but the armor managed to stop the rounds that were being fired for now. The fox hoped that he would be able to figure out something before they would be able to disable his vehicle. The fox saw that the other L-ATV was now tailgating him, so he decided to brake check the pursuing vehicle.
The fox slammed on the brakes, and he braced himself for the impact of the rear vehicle. The rear vehicle slammed into his rear bumper, and he could see that the operator on the roof turret was thrown off balance while he was still shooting. The human began shooting the ceiling before trying to return the turret’s aim to Arcades’ vehicle. Before the human was able to complete this task, another L-ATV slammed right into the middle vehicle and caused the gunner to be thrown off balance yet again. The turret was now firing on the floor. The fox stepped hard on the gas again, and he watched the mirror as he began gaining some ground on the pursuing vehicles. The fox quickly made a right turn before the other vehicles were able to catch up to him again.
The next area that the fox entered seemed to be another cell block, but it was substantially larger than the previous ones that he had seen. However, now there were anthros that were out of their cells, and they began running towards Arcades’ moving vehicle. The fox swerved to avoid running the anthros over. He did not understand how the humans were still able to order the anthros to attack a moving vehicle, but he figured that they must have been brainwashed pretty well. As the fox slammed on the brakes to prevent him from running over another anthro wearing a gas mask, he felt the complex shake once again. Within seconds of this happening, Arcades could hear distant gunfire and a couple of explosions. The fox did not know what was going on, but he knew that whatever was happening was not of his doing.
Three tan Mi-18s began hovering above the secret complex. Several rappelling ropes deployed from the helicopters, and men wearing green uniforms with tan equipment began to slide down the ropes. “Move, move, move!” The men continued sliding down the ropes and landing on the roof of the main complex. Several Omega operatives began climbing to the rooftop in order to attack the intruders. The CDI members that were already on the roof had their AKMs and M4A1s ready to attack any opposition. One CDI member announced, “All non CDI humans considered hostile. Hold your fire for anthros.” As the operatives were still waiting on the roof, a few Omega operatives finally reached the roof. The Omega personnel were the first to open fire, as the CDI members had not seen them yet. One CDI soldier took a round to the rear of the plate carrier, and the Omega operative’s position was immediately given away by the sound of the XMP-1 firing. “Contact four o'clock!” another CDI member yelled as four men spread apart and began returning fire. The Omega operative was struck by several AKM rounds, and he collapsed to the floor.
“This is Super Hind callsign Rattlesnake, standing by for tasking. Over.” An Mi-35 with a heavily upgraded weapons system flew over the complex. A few of the CDI members on the roof began watching the helicopter as it passed over their heads. They noticed the distinct tan paint scheme as well as the large, black ‘CDI’ letting on the aircraft’s body. As the Mi-18s began clearing out from the drop zone, the men began to move to the roof’s entrances. The other Omega Foundation operative backed off after he realized that he was outnumbered. He would not have a chance at winning against the platoon that had been deployed to the rooftop, and he surely would not stand a chance going up against a Super Hind. The CDI members stacked up at each entrance they could find, but they were not ready to go in. One of the CDI members’ kit was outfitted with comms equipment. He eyed a couple of buildings that were also connected to the complex. The operator switched frequencies and held his PTT device, “Rattlesnake, this is Hotel 4-3. Do you have eyes on any other hostile personnel approaching our location? Over.”
The pilot of Rattlesnake took a brief look out of the helicopter before dropping some throttle and applying the right rudder. The aircraft yawed to the right, and the pilot gripped the stick and pulled it aft in order to keep the helicopter balanced in the air. The pilot spoke to the armament operator, “See if you can spot any hostiles on the ground.” The gunner looked through his targeting device, and he scanned the ground before looking at a few nearby buildings. The gunner then spotted a roof that was slowly splitting open. The gunner reported this, “Eyes on a roof that is currently opening up. Yaw left thirty degrees to make visual contact.” The pilot applied the left rudder, and the helicopter began its process of turning to face the building. The pilot could not give the order to deploy weapons, as he could not confirm that whatever inside of the building was hostile. All the crew could do was wait.
“Site Director, we’re under attack. We need to go, now!” The camouflaged man ran inside to come and get the laptop man that was currently stowing away his computer in a backpack. The laptop man threw the backpack over his shoulders, “I could hear that. What’s going on? Who’s attacking?” The camouflaged man delivered the news, “CDI is here.” The laptop man began walking out of the room that he was in, “What the? How the fuck did they make our location?” The camouflaged man began escorting the Site Director while holding an XMP-1, “We don’t know. We’ll figure that out later. We just need to get going.” When the two men reached the hallway, several Omega ISG members ran by with XMP-1s in their hands. They began replacing their less lethal bean bag rounds with actual lethal airburst rounds while they were running to confront the attacking CDI members.
Arcades exited the vehicle that he had managed to get wedged inside the middle of a doorway. The fox did this in order to prevent himself from being followed at least from one direction. Arcades was surprised to see that most of the Omega personnel were no longer following him. Either that, or the path that he blocked was the only way to reach him from that direction. The fox dismissed this possibility as he noticed that there were several keycard protected doors on his left and right. Arcades looked back again, but he did not see any humans or anthros that were still coming after him. The fox began moving forwards; he was still able to hear gunfire and explosions coming from above his current location, but he was still not sure what the Omega Foundation personnel were shooting at. Arcades looked upwards, and he could see some catwalks that were connected to some upper levels. He could even see a few ISG members scurry about the catwalks, but he was surprised that they were not even looking for him anymore. The fox was in disbelief, and he was beginning to wonder if a third party had showed up to level the playing field.
“Charges set. Breaching on three!” The CDI member announced as he finished placing an explosive charge on the keycard door. The other men stepped back from the blast radius, and they took a knee as they scanned the roof for approaching hostile threats. They were not sure when the ISG would show up. The operative with the detonator began counting up, “Okay! One, two, thr
ee!” When the man said the final number, he pressed the detonation button, and the doorway exploded. When the other men heard this, they stood up, and they moved inside of the doorway. The CDI members immediately noticed the narrow hallways, “This place is way too narrow, and there is nothing to take cover behind. Watch yourselves.” The unit was moving through the hallway, but they soon arrived at another keycard protected door. The man in the group with the communications device began changing channels again. The operative held his PTT button again, “This is Hotel 4-3. Requesting a sitrep on access points to the complex. Over.” Another member soon replied, “Copy, Hotel 4-3. This is Hotel 2-1. We have encountered a second keycard protected door. Over.” This was followed by another communication, “This is Hotel 1-4. We have encountered a keycard door within the interior of the complex. We aren’t able to advance further without inflicting major structural damage on the facility. Over.” Hotel 4-3 replied to the other CDI personnel, “Roger. We might have Rattlesnake help us out on this one. Over.”
The camouflaged man spoke on the radio, “How far have they made it inside? Over.” A different voice sounded over the radio, “Security Chief, this is Beta 4-4. They detonated multiple breaching charges on the roof access points. They are currently in the maze. Over.” The camouflaged man acknowledged the ISG member, “Solid copy. That’ll buy us enough time to evacuate the Site Director. Out.” The laptop man looked at the camouflaged man, “How many are there? Do we know that?” The camouflaged man shook his head, “We don’t know that. All we know is that the attackers are CDI.” The Site Director remembered something important, “Hey, didn’t they deploy via helicopter? What happened to our automated defense system?” The Security Chief answered the question, “A vehicle crashed into the AI control system. The automated defense system is offline.” The laptop man was slightly angry when he heard this, “What? Who the fuck ran into it? And when did this happen?” The camouflaged man answered, “An intruder already got deep within our facility. I’ve gotten reports by the Internal Security Group that it’s an anthro, and he managed to hijack one of our armored vehicles. The ISG has not confirmed if they had stopped him yet.” The two men did not know that they were talking about Arcades.
The camouflaged man informed the laptop man about what was about to happen, “We’re taking you to one of our helicopters for evacuation. We hope that we can slip past CDI before they notice us. We’ll evac, and we’ll hopefully have enough fuel to reach Facility Eighteen.” The laptop man spoke again, “Alright. I guess Hofmeier’s leaks had more of an impact than we thought.” The two men still thought that Arcades was a dead fox. The camouflaged man continued to open a few keycard doors, and he was leading the laptop man to one of the MH-60Xs for exfil. As the two humans continued, they began to hear more gunfire coming from the surface. This only made the two humans run a bit faster, for they did not want to be killed by CDI.
“Here they come! We’ve got company, so watch out!” One of the CDI members announced. A few Omega ISG members were now on the roof as well. They had reached the roof through another alternate pathway. The humans began exchanging gunfire back and forth. Since cover on the roof was minimal, CDI began retreating inside of the building as far as they were able to. One of the operators spoke to Rattlesnake, “Rattlesnake, this is Hotel 4-3. We are engaged with hostile personnel on the rooftops. Requesting support. Over.” Rattlesnake heard the message and replied, “Copy, Hotel 4-3. This is Rattlesnake. We will do what we can with hostile personnel on the roof. Over.” The gunner viewed the roof with the targeting system, and he saw several Omega ISG members that were wearing UCP and wielding bullpup rifles. The gunner mistakenly took the ISG members for members of the now defunct NSS. The gunner spoke, “Looks like we have multiple NSS members in combat with our team. Requesting permission to engage.”
The pilot of Rattlesnake tried to make visual confirmation, but it was difficult for the human to see the other humans on the roof due to the fact that he was not using a device to help him see objects that were far away. However, he decided to take the gunner’s word for this. The pilot spoke, “Affirmative. Fire when ready.” The gunner was the next to speak over the radio, “Hotel Team, standby for danger close. Cleared hot.” The remaining CDI members quickly made it inside of the building. They knew what was about to happen. The ISG members were oblivious to the helicopter that was hovering over their position as they assumed it was the sound of the MH-60X escaping with the Site Director onboard. The gunner spoke once more over the radio before firing his guns, “Danger close. Guns, guns, guns.” The gunner held the trigger down, and he waited for the rounds to reach their targets. The gunner continued looking at the screen as he watched the ISG members collapse from being shot.
“Targets down,” the gunner spoke after dispatching the hostile personnel. The pilot then asked, “Who were those guys on the roof?” The gunner replied, “They look just like the NSS. I think they are the NSS.” The pilot was not ready to believe this, “The NSS? How would they be in America? They’ve only been seen in Germany and Syria.” The gunner responded, “I dunno. Maybe they’re bigger than we thought they were.” Several more ISG members reached the rooftops, and they noticed their dead colleagues. One of the Omega members yelled, “Watch out! Hostiles might be nearby.” The men separated, and they spaced themselves out in order to make themselves harder to hit as a group. The gunner was still looking through his targeting scope, and he noticed the new group of hostiles. The gunner informed the pilot of this, “New group of NSS on the rooftops. Engaging.” The gunner opened fire again, and he watched as the ISG members began to scurry around as they tried to figure out where they were being shot from.
Arcades inserted his keycard into another door, and when the door opened, the fox found himself in an aircraft hangar. In the center, there was an MH-60X that was already powered up and ready to fly. The fox looked upwards, and he could see that the roof of the hangar was wide open, and this reminded him of the first time when he escaped the facility. The fox continued to hear gunfire, so he was now almost certain that a third party was engaged with the Omega Foundation’s ISG forces. The fox then looked to his right as he saw two men descend down a small flight of stairs. He saw the men enter another keycard door, but something about the two men looked familiar to the fox. However, since the men were far enough away from the fox, Arcades did not immediately recognize them as being the two men that he had caught on video. The fox still did not know that those two men were the most important men in the entirety of Facility Five. The man with the laptop was the facility’s Site Director, while the camouflaged man was the facility’s Chief of Security.
Arcades turned his attention back to the MH-60X, and he could see a couple of armed personnel standing next to the helicopters holding XMP-1s. Before they were able to spot Arcades, the fox took cover behind a supply crate that was inside of the hangar. Arcades was wondering who the two men were waiting for. He also did not know where the helicopter was supposed to be going to. Arcades just hoped that he would make it out of this facility for the second time. While the fox was waiting behind the supply crate, he was beginning to wonder who would have the strength and manpower to directly attack Omega. The only organization that came to mind was CDI, but the fox did not understand why CDI would end up listening to him. After all, they were the ones that rejected what the fox had to say. Arcades could not think of a reason why they would even bother showing up to attack Omega directly.
“Are you done yet?” One of the CDI members asked as another operative was currently working on trying to manually open one of the keycard doors. The CDI member was able to pry off the keycard lock cover, and he was currently working on trying to trip the circuit in order to trigger the door to open. The man said, “Be patient. I’m working on it still.” The other men were standing guard at the door that they had breached, and they were waiting to see if any more Omega members were showing up. After a few more moments, the man that was tampering with the door spoke, “Alrigh
t. Let’s see if this works.” The man clicked a hidden switch that was behind some wires, and the door beeped and opened. The other CDI member said, “Wow, I guess that ended up working. Let’s get inside.”
The CDI members entered the next area, but the man who had been tampering with the door jammed it in order to prevent it from closing back up. As the men entered, they noticed that there was an anthro laying on the ground. One of the CDI members did not know what he was looking at, so he aimed his AKM at the anthro. Another CDI member spoke up, “Hey, hold your fire! That’s an anthro. Look. He has a tail.” The other CDI member lowered his AKM as he now recognized that he was looking at an anthro. However, the humans were beginning to feel that something was abnormal about the anthro they were looking at, “Is he dead? Who shot him?” When the CDI members arrived at the anthro, one of them prepared to roll the brown canoid over. However, another operative spoke up, “Hold it. Don’t touch him. Could be rigged with explosives.”
“They have a fucking attack helicopter?” The laptop man asked. The camouflaged man replied, “That’s what it sounds like. We better hurry up and get into our helicopter if we want to make it out alive. We heard that it’s armed with a heavy turret as well. It already managed to take down a squad that went on the roof to fight CDI.” The laptop man shook his head as the two continued making their way downstairs in order to be on the same level as the hangar. They had already taken a shortcut through a catwalk. The laptop man then asked, “How likely is it that CDI is going to come in contact with our anthros that we have?” The camouflaged man replied, “If they make it past our maze, then it’s all over. That’s the whole point of the maze. It’s supposed to get intruders and escapees lost. They still have to make it past all of the keycard doors that we have up there; that is, unless they managed to take one of the keycards off of a dead ISG member.” The two humans descended their last flight of stairs, and the camouflaged man spoke, “Alright. This is it. The hangar is just beyond this door. The Security Chief took out his Level 5 keycard, and he inserted it into the slot. The door opened, and the two humans entered the hangar.