She stuck the charge to the middle of the window, looking inside to make sure the area was clear. It was someone’s office. She spotted the holoframed family photo on the desk, and little animals made from folded paper. For a moment, her heart sunk at the mundaneness of working in an office; grateful she would never have to live that life, while simultaneously scared to death of a strange twist of fate that might plunge her back into normality.
She pulled her focus back to the charge.
Ready, Oz?
Affirmative.
She pulled the pin, and then fell back into the pod. Oz closed the door and whipped the pod out of the blast zone.
A couple of seconds later, there was a bang. Two seconds after that, alarms started sounding.
Okay, Oz. Take us in, and feed us directions to the target room.
The pods deposited the team at the window one by one, and then disappeared out of sight.
Molly was the first into the room. The blast had blown the desk away, and left a mess of broken up furniture and a small fire smoldering away about ten feet into the room. She hopped out of the way, and took care of the fire with an extinguisher from the corner next to a supplies cupboard. By the time she was done, the rest of the team was in the room, and Sean was checking the corridor for security guards.
He called quietly into the room, “We have incoming.”
Jack swung around to look through the doorway down the other side, hearing footsteps from the opposite direction.
She pulled out a Brock-canister and looked briefly at Sean. “Smoke ‘em, then wait? Or smoke ‘em then run?”
Sean grinned. “You know, you’re my kinda girl,” he told her affectionately. Then he turned to the others who were assembling by the door. “Joel, we good to deploy the smoke, then hold our breaths to get through?”
Joel checked the distances on his holo map to the end of the corridor. “Affirmative,” he told Sean.
Sean and Jack looked at each other, pressed the clips on the canisters, and then tossed the devices down their respective sides of the corridor, into the approaching flurry of building security.
White clouds erupted, and Jack pulled back a little, pressing herself against the wall on her side of the room.
She looked at Joel. “Shit, those things pack a punch as well as a knockout!” She swiped at her face as if hoping to wipe off any traces of the mist that she might have been exposed to. Joel was over like a shot, his hands on both her shoulders, checking to make sure she was okay. Satisfied, he pulled Sean back from the door a little, too. “Careful. Best wait a few moments,” he cautioned.
Sean stepped back from the doorway and nodded. Crash, who had been the last one into the office, was standing well back, but even he could see traces of the mist coming up to the doorway.
The team waited for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, Joel looked up from his holo where he had been timing the canisters. “Okay. Let’s move,” he told them. “But careful; the gas isn’t inert for another ten seconds.”
Sean and Jack advanced first, almost side-by-side, sweeping and scanning as they went. Molly followed them, walking backwards, checking the way they had come, and scanning the corridor the other way.
Lastly, Joel and Crash followed; carefully stepping over the bodies of the sleeping security guards, who would have one heck of a story to tell their kids when they got home later that day.
The team moved deftly through the corridor. On Oz’s instructions, they turned into a stairwell and headed down. They moved quickly, as if they were one organism. At the bottom of the stairwell, Jack, Sean, and Joel went out first, guns set to stun.
The advantage of breaching at a different point was that security was moving toward the blast, while the rest of the staff had started moving out of the building.
Joel reassessed the situation. He turned to the others and signaled to Sean to lower his weapon, which he did immediately, understanding what Joel was about to suggest. Sean put his weapon away, and Jack looked confused for a moment.
Then Joel put his weapon away.
Jack and the others followed suit.
Joel stepped out into the busy corridor, and, walking against the current of people leaving, he strode as if he were there on official business to sort the problem out. No one batted an eyelid at the strike team making their way through the corridors.
Joel led them down the final corridor and into the office suite where they needed to be. There, he found a secretary picking up her purse as if making to leave. Joel signaled for her to get gone; bewildered, she looked at the entourage behind him. Eyes wide, she whimpered unintelligibly, then grabbed her key card, coat, and purse, and left as quickly as she could.
Joel stopped outside what looked like a boardroom, with big heavy wooden doors.
He thumbed at it, looking at Molly. Just then, an Ogg appeared from around the corner. “Hey!” he called. “You’re not meant to be here.”
The team looked at him. Molly frowned. There was something about him that seemed… familiar. “Who are you?” she asked.
The Ogg looked back at her. “Who are you?” he retorted.
Just then, a second Ogg appeared from around the corner. This one was running. Or, rather, waddling. “Erik, Erik, they’re all going!” he exclaimed in mild panic.
Molly suddenly recognised the pair from the hotel where they had originally extracted Garet, from her own kidnapping, and then again from the Dewitt incident. Without further hesitation, she pulled her gun on Erik and took a step forward.
“I guess this is what you get by setting your weapons to stun. The shit just keeps coming back… Probably time you took a break,” she told him, tilting her head for him to leave.
Erik scowled, his pride galvanizing his stance and his face.
She raised the weapon to the middle of his forehead. He took half a step backward. Then another step. The other Ogg looked horrified and panicked. Molly could see him out of the corner of her eye. He clasped his hands out in front of him, then danced a little on the spot. “Eriiiiiiik. Errrriiiiik!” he shrieked quietly, as if trying to convince Erik to surrender.
Erik looked annoyed. “Shut uuuup, Henry!” he tried to whisper, as if Molly and her team standing around looking at them casually couldn’t hear them.
Henry quieted down, and looked on in horror.
Erik started to raise his hands in compliance, but then Henry remembered he was carrying a weapon.
“Ooo.. OOOOoooo!” he exclaimed excitedly, reaching back to pull the weapon from the back of his belt.
Molly didn’t take her eyes off her target, but she could see what was happening. Joel casually pulled out his own weapon and stepped towards Henry, powering up the weapon and pointing it at his temple in one sweeping, relaxed movement.
Henry froze, and his eyes ticked left, trying to see the gun barrel at the side of his head. Slowly, he continued to pull out the gun; which Joel took out of his hand, and passed backwards to Jack, who switched it off and tucked it into her own belt.
“We’ll be going in, now,” she told the two Oggs. She lowered her weapon and stepped past Erik, confident that the others would put him down the instant he tried anything.
She reached for the door, turned the knob, and pushed it open, cautiously holding her weapon out in front of her. Once the door was open, she stepped forward with both hands on her weapon, sweeping the room for bogeys.
The room was practically empty of people. No Syndicate meeting. No cauldron of evil-doers, plotting the destruction of the world. Just a big boardroom table with a lone person sitting at the far end.
A lone person, who goes by the name of Garet Beaufort.
“Let them come!” he called through to Henrik.
Molly couldn’t resist. She glanced back at Erik, and smirked as a child would when the parent sides with one sibling over another. She did it just to irritate him.
It worked.
Erik flounced off, p
ushing roughly past Henry, who nearly lost his balance and fell into Joel, who just stood back out of the way and let him stumble.
Jack followed Molly into the room, and the two boys fell in behind, like a full, beefy protection squad.
Molly waved her weapon at the empty room. “So where’s my party?” she asked, annoyance flashing in her eyes.
Garet waved at the chairs, inviting them to sit down. None of them moved. “They decided they didn’t want to be here,” he said, trying to keep the anxiety out of his tone.
“You told them we were coming?” she asked, keeping her voice low and steady.
Garet tried not to show he was intimidated. “Not exactly. There was a last minute change of plans,” he told her.
Molly started walking the length of the boardroom toward him. “You had us storm a fucking government building for nothing?” Now she was pissed.
Garet held up his hands defensively. “I swear. It wasn’t my fault. They already knew. And I had no way of telling you. Besides if I had, they would know it was me that grassed them up…”
Molly was almost on top of him, panic rising in him the closer she got. She pushed past a chair that hadn’t been tucked in properly, and it crashed against the desk, causing the whole table to resound with a thump.
Garet pushed back in his chair a little in fright, and Molly kept striding toward him. “You twatface-”
Everything went black.
* * *
The next thing Garet was aware of was waking up, slumped back in his chair, blood congealing around his nose and upper lip, and seeing the team sitting and loitering strategically around him. Molly sat calmly on the other end of the boardroom table, glaring.
“Finally,” she said, when he came to. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” she began without waiting to make sure he was compos mentis enough to understand her. “You’re going to tell us everything we need to know to undo this clusterfuck. Then we’re going to have a little chat about how things are going to work going forward. Joel here has placed a tracker under your skin, next to your radial artery.”
Garet frowned, and looked down at his body, his eyes scanning all around in their sockets.
Molly rolled her eyes. “That’s in your arm, you dickhead.”
He looked back up at her, annoyed. Then he looked down at his right forearm, realizing that it was aching like a motherfucker, and saw there was a little blood, halfway down.
Molly continued. “Basically, if you try and extract it, you’ll probably end up bleeding out. We’re going to want to have another chat with you once we’ve verified that what you’re about to tell us is accurate and helpful. What happens to you at such time depends on how much you manage to redeem yourself in the interim.”
Crash had moved toward the window, and now opened it up, using his holo to communicate with Oz about the forcefield and the pods.
Sean then talked quietly with Garet, taking down the details they needed to track down the other Syndicate members.
120 seconds later, the strike team was stepping out of the window and back into their pods.
Garet stayed planted in his chair, fussing with his arm. “Wow - I liked it better when I was your client,” he smirked, reminding Molly of the time when she was trying to protect him, and he ended up with his face planted unceremoniously in her crotch.
Joel turned back as he swung himself up to the window. He glared at him.
Garet quickly raised his hands, palms facing Joel. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry!”
Joel gave him a quick warning look before stepping out onto the window ledge and into the pod, closely followed by Molly and Sean.
Alone again in the room, Garet mused to himself. “Funny how events have a way of turning around like this, eh?”
Within a few minutes, the team had disappeared off into space again. The security team of the Senate House was aware they had been breached, but was none-the-wiser about what had actually happened.
Chapter 5
One hour earlier
“The way I see it, we’ve got two choices,” Garet explained, pacing up and down in the tiny room. “We either stay united, or we scatter.”
Mac shuffled his weight from one foot to the other, his shiny shoes out of place against the filthy floor in the dark musty back room. “We’re safer alone,” he disagreed. “We can disappear more easily.”
His tone was decisive.
Jessica pulled her shawl closer around her for comfort. She looked over to Andus for his ruling. He looked up at the group. “I have a safe house. I can take anyone who wants to come.” He waved his hand to Mac. “However, if you want to try and make your own way, feel free.”
Jessica looked at him intensely. “I’m with you,” she confirmed without hesitation.
The group looked at Garet. Garet rocked back half an inch on his heels. He paused a moment, then spoke. “I’m going to head back to the Senate House and carry on as normal. If I don’t, they’ll know I tipped you off.
Jessica frowned at him as if he had lost the plot. “If you do, they’ll still know!” she protested.
He shook his head. “Uh uh; they won’t know for certain. It’ll cast doubt. I’ll carry on as if everything is normal. Just don’t tell me your plans, because I’ll have to tell them. They have ways…” his voice trailed off.
Jessica had the distinct impression that Garet was genuinely afraid of what these people were capable of. Her voice was still incredulous when she spoke. “We’ve already told you!” She looked to Andus for back up.
Andus nodded calmly.
Garet turned to go. “Okay. I’ll let you get on with this. I’m going back. Good luck…”
And with that, he left.
Once he was out of earshot, the remaining Syndicate members started talking, arguing, and trying to decide what to do next.
Molly Bates was coming for them now.
Their fancy security would only hold her off for so long. They knew that. They now knew what the team was capable of, having underestimated them on numerous occasions.
Before, it was simply an annoyance. A setback.
Now it was downright terrifying.
Newld Residence, Spire
Jessica arrived home with two extra security teams, who whisked her efficiently into her super secure apartment.
One team of the four stayed inside the apartment with her. Another team of 16 surrounded the building and main entry points: car park, elevators, her private entrance, the rooftop, and balcony. The other staked out various points. Nothing short of a helicopter hit squad was getting in here.
So why don’t I feel safe? she wondered.
She put the kettle on and leaned against the kitchen counter, watching the alpha team sweep through the rest of her apartment. She was pissed that she had to change her plans. It would have been simple for Garet to run, too. Or at least to leave before she had disclosed her intentions to stay with Andus.
Now, staying with Andus would have left them both vulnerable.
Now, she had to remain on her own.
Which bites.
She took her shoes off and poured herself a chamomile tea, hoping to calm her nerves.
Then she sat down in the living room to wait.
Undisclosed bar, Somewhere in Spire
Andus stepped elegantly out of his limo in a well-lit parking garage, his two most trusted Estarian bodyguards by his side. Looking around the surroundings for any hint of a threat, they followed him to a door that put them into the service area of a hotel.
Andus made his way through the narrow corridor, and out into the main foyer where there were plenty of people. Wending his way through the foyer and out of the main doors, he headed left, and then disappeared into a small door in the next alley.
Stepping into the darkness, he paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light. The second Estarian bodyguard quietly closed the door behind them, blocking out any remaining sunlight. They
found themselves in a passage, covered with a threadbare carpet, thick with dust and dirt. Andus took a deep breath, and seemed to relax a little as he started making his way down the passage to another door.
The passageway opened out into a mini lobby area with a grimy little counter where an attendant sat, absorbed in his holo. When he heard their footsteps, he looked up – and then jumped out of his seat when he saw who was approaching.
“Mr. Andus, sir,” he exclaimed, surprised. His holo screens were still projecting from his wrist, forgotten.
Andus ambled up to the counter. “I see we’re always ready for business,” he commented dryly, looking down at the attendant’s wrist holo.
The attendant sheepishly closed it down and turned around to reach for a key. Grabbing the correct one off the hook, he scurried around the counter to join Andus on the other side. “This way, please, sir,” he said, leading the way off to the right of the desk, where he pressed a button to an elevator and keyed in a code.
The elevator doors slid open, and the group stepped in, followed by the much shorter Estarian attendant. He swiped his key and then hit a combination of buttons. The elevator doors slid closed, and the car dropped down several floors worth of altitude.
Eventually it came to a halt.
The two Estarian bodyguards looked slightly anxious. Whether it was the tight space and the feeling of claustrophobia, or the depth they had gone to, one couldn’t tell. Andus, however, seemed quite content as he followed the attendant out of the elevator and down a stone-floored passageway.
Passing several doors, the attendant finally stopped outside the one door that seemed more high tech than the others. He stood aside and motioned to Andus that he was free to enter. The door had a single access panel, and was field-protected, too.
Andus stepped up to the panel and leaned in with his eyes. The retinal scanner activated, read his eyes, and approved his access. The field dropped and the door slid open. Andus thanked the attendant and stepped inside, followed by his heavies.
The Ascension Myth Box Set Page 74