by Jiny Lee
It was one of the proof that people outside the building didn't care anything about us. They treated us like mice in a cage. Or worse. Those rich bitches outside the building didn't give a thing about us. They just take advantage of us, take everything they can from us, and throw us with a little boxes of supplies, which as I said, always went straight to the hands of those on the top floors. Perhaps, all those wars, conflicts, and enslavement inside the building doesn't mean anything to them. Cartel, the guards or the rebel, they didn't care anything about all these as far as they get what they want from us.
Anyway, I mean, we were doing all right as a team. We were the third squad in the third platoon. We were also called the K squad, based on the alpha naming system. Danny liked to twist it like the Kill Squad. He thought it was pretty decent but our missions were far from killing anyone. In fact, all of us thought it was lame and cringey.
But then, things got changed and a little bit more complicated one day. It was my tenth mission on the squad. It was a rescue mission. We had several intelligent offices in the building and one of them was compromised. Everyone was killed in action and one agent got captured by the guards. They were trying to find out about where the rebels were hiding. The report said that he was taken inside a cell in 15th floor and possibly being interrogated. If he opened his mouth, the whole existence of the rebel would be put in danger.
At first, the rescue mission was planned to be carried out by Daug himself and his special force. But when Danny heard the name of the guard capturing the intel, he volunteered for the mission. It was Hannibal. Daug agreed on one condition that one member of his special force unit would be in charge of our squad.
The mission was to be operated during the day when most of the people were asleep. The night before the mission, we gathered around in our quater to discuss the details.
The one who was sent to us for the mission was called Rony. He was a heavy arms specialist, sergeant first class. Hopefully, there had to be no situation where he had to put out his heavy machine gun, but Daug thought that if things got complicated, we would need some fire power.
Our mission was simple, as always. First, locate the exact location of the hostage. Second, disarm the guards and secure the hostage. And finally, evacuate as soon as possible with minimum conflict possible.
Purple was doubtful about the mission. He said, it would be much better to kill the captured agent. It was reasonable and rational but Fox said there's no way we would abandon our own man. And if we did, who would volunteer to be an intel?
Alex and Wonder said nothing. They were just sitting quietly and praying with their hands held together. I was with Danny and Rony. They settled down all the mission details but they were having a disagreement on one thing, whether to kill Hannibal or not. Rony said it's best to do the job quietly as possible. Danny knew what he was saying. He could reason it in his head, but, it was Hannibal. Hannibal who killed our family and took Diane.
I was with Danny. I would do anything to kill Hannibal and take my revenge. Rony said we should think about the people down here and we couldn't take any risk. Killing one or two guards wouldn't make a big trouble but killing a chief guard was a different matter. Danny agreed at last. We were following the military system and he was a sir to us anyway.
...
When the sun was almost coming out, we got out from the basement and entered the building through a ventilator leading to a lady's room. It was the safest entrance. The reported cell was on the 15th floor, so we moved up to the thirteenth floor first. There, we met some old neighbors of mine. They quietly showed their condolences to me and provided us with some hideouts.
We split up our group into three. Alex and Wonder were the fastest and the quietest so they were moving in first and neutralizing the sentries. Fox and Purple took a farther route to the back of the cell and prepared for any enemy reinforcement. Me and Danny, with Rony, we followed behind Alex and Wonder with a little distance and after they succeeded in clearing the path, we were to break into the cell and rescue the guy.
The mission went well. Alex and Wonder easily neutralized the sentries guarding the entrance. We waited for the signal from Fox and Purple, after that. All we had to do left was to breach the door and get a visual of the agent and rescue him when Fox and Purple got ready on their position. The only problem was that, we weren't sure about whether Hannibal was in the cell or went back up to his office on the thirtieth floor. It was ten in the morning so the possibility of him not in the cell was much higher. The door was locked. Rony counted three and kicked open the door.
We did as we planned. We quickly spotted five guards inside the cell and killed them without making any big noise. They were not prepared.
Our intelligence agent was tied on a chair. His condition was terrible. His face was so swelled with bruises and he could barely open his eyes. When we removed the blood stained cloth out of his mouth, all of his incisors were missing. I could see that they pulled them out with the pliers on the tray next to him. He kept passing out and seemed difficult to even breathe.
Rony carried him up on his shoulder. He kept saying, 'I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything.' Rony said, 'No, you didn't. You are one tough bastard.'
The mission seemed to be a success. We just had to get out of there safe. Nothing seemed to be going wrong, until we heard a gun fire. Alex reported on the radio that he was almost shot on his head. He fired back. We hurried back into the cell and tried to understand what the hell was going on.
Alex and Wonder followed inside the cell too. I asked Alex what happened. He said there was one good news and one bad news. The good news was, there was only one man shooting at us. And the bad news was, he was Hannibal himself.
At first, Rony tried to talk to him. He shouted, 'Listen, I know who you are, Hannibal. But you're just one, and we're a squad. Listen, I don't want any more trouble around here. Let us go and we won't have to see any more dead body for today.'
Hannibal said, 'Oh yeah? You dirty rats are a squad and you think I'm gonna get scared? Then, as an answer, how about this?'
Then I heard him pulling a pin out of something. And I thought to myself. Oh shit.
9
It all happened so fast. If the grenade blew inside the cell, we were all sure to be dead in a second.
I was, in a word, panicked. I was so panicked that I couldn't think of anything. My legs were shaking. I wanted to scream but I couldn't since I felt like there was no air left inside my chest. It wasn't just me. Alex and Wonder looked terrified, too. It was as if time stopped. Everything seemed to be in a slow motion. I saw the grenade flying toward us. Rony tried to throw it back to where it flew from but when he reached to grab it, he got shot on his left hand. I heard Alex knock over a table and shout, 'get back!' I saw Wonder throwing her body over the table to get cover. And I saw myself standing there with my legs that were going to fall in any minute, doing nothing but watching. The grenade got inside the cell. Then I saw Danny throw himself and cover the grenade with his own body. Then I heard the explode. I don't really want to remember what happened afterwards.
...
Later, I heard that Hannibal ran away when he saw Fox and Purple coming. I tried to get after him. Fox stopped me. She told me that the enemy reinforcement was coming and we had to get away. My memory of that moment is pretty messed up and I only have some fragments of images afterward. I do remember us running away. I do remember the gun fire that was trying to hunt us down. But I still can't remember how we managed to get back to the basement. I didn't even know that I had several grenade fragments inside my body.
I woke up the next day, and I took part in the funeral. I saw Kimmy but couldn't dare to go talk to her. The funeral went on simple. Too simple and too quiet. Daug gave a speech himself, saying how sad and sorry it was to lose one of the best men that we had. He mentioned Danny saved the rest of us, and he was a hero. He didn't mention how he died. Blown up by a grenade. Danny was promoted to an honorary sergeant.
To be honest, I was more angry than sad. I was angry about myself. I was angry about the whole building. And I thought to myself, 'Now, I got more reason to kill Hannibal myself.'
...
After the funeral, we gathered in our quarter. Daug and Michael were there, too. Michael was a sergeant, leader of the third platoon. He told us that we needed a new squad leader. The choice was between Fox and Purple since they were the oldest, and eventually, Purple became the new squad leader and got promoted to a corporal. Daug said he needed us all to be at the meeting the next day. He looked somewhat serious. I asked him what was going on. Then he said, 'Things are a bit more complicated than we thought. Hannibal escaped and they say that he's injured. They also say that they're going to throw an announcement no later than today, and .... things can get real messy.'
I didn't understand what he meant by the word 'messy.' I looked at Purple. Purple looked at me, too. And he asked Daug directly. 'What are you talking about? Are you talking about...'
Then Daug interrupted him, saying 'I'm talking about a war.'
Actually, It would be a lie if I say that we didn't expect that. We had a combat. We killed quite many of the guards. And now we knew that the enemy officer got injured. On top of that, the enemy officer was the infamous Hannibal himself. We didn't want things to be this bad but there wasn't any option for us anyway. We had to save the agent. What if we didn't? There wasn't going to be a war but there would've been a major block down and a massacre.
We had to hide the existence of the basement from them. The guards believed that the rebels were spreaded out all over the building sporadically. Well, it was true that we had many of that sporadic groups inside the building, but they surely didn't know that we had a huge base at the basement.
As Daug said, a loud announcement started to fill out every corner of the building. It was from the announcing facility on one of the top floors. And the voice was very, very familiar.
We called him the Reaper. He was the one above us all, literally. He lived on the top floor. Do you remember who also live on the top floor? The sisters. Every valuable and meaningful resources which were made inside the building or came into the building from the outside all belonged to him. He was truly the Reaper.
Everyone in the building feared him. Some said that he'd lived for more than a hundred years. Some said even centuries. But not many people knew what he really looked like. Only the minimum number of people had the opportunity to see him in person. If the rebels were to take over the system, he was the one that should be taken over at last.
The announcement was like this.
People. Today, I heard about a happening in my building. Pagans, the so called 'rebels' killed the guards, the guards who protect you, who secure your living environment, and who keep you from becoming an outlaw. I've lived here long enough. I've seen what happens to a system without the presence of appropriate laws. People kill each other upon resources. People point their guns and knives to each other upon anything. Without the system, without the code, every closed environment is doomed to collapse.
People. I know some of you may question. Questions concerning the current system. I know you may doubt about what I do to control the building. But believe me. This place is no utopia. This place, as all of you already know, is a ward. And I'm your warden. You are my prisoners and you should abide by the rules. My rules.
So for those who still don't understand what my rules are, I'll tell you one more time and make it clear.
And then he paused there for a while. For a few seconds. It was as if someone pressed the mute button on the whole building. As if everyone even forgot the fact that they had to exhale in order to breathe. And just about time when they finally breathed out, he continued.
From now on, any act of direct or indirect supporting to the rebels is considered against the system and will be punished at sight. From now on, any act of deliberate hiding of whereabout of the pagans is considered against the system and will be punished at sight. I authorize every guards in the building to judge on their own and no one will question their judgement because their judgement is my judgement.
And finally, from the 13th floor, where the incident today happened, all the floors below are considered supportive to the rebels. End of announcement.
That literally meant that he'd kill everyone below 13th floor. Daug called for an immediate meeting. We had to make a choice. We could be hiding, and we could choose not to do anything and wait for everything to pass, but how could we? We couldn't abandon everyone.
Then it started. Daug didn't hesitate to initiate the big operation. He told every platoon of his company to take control of the first floor. All four platoon, 15 squads except ours, punched open a hole on the first floor and rushed out to take over the first floor.
The good news was that since they didn't know exactly where our base was, they seemed to have concentrated their forces on the 13th floor. We easily rebuilt a new headquarter on the first floor. Our squad joined afterwards. We built posts at every staircases leading to the second floor. There were about ten staircases leading to the second floor. Daug's plan was to slowly go upstairs, one by one.
We successfully took over the first floor but the real problem was after that. The situation became a stalemate. We couldn't make our way up above the second floor since the guards were beginning to build defence lines. And the guards also couldn't just focus all their forces down to us. They needed a certain minimum number of guards to remain on each floor. People on the relatively higher floors were living quite decently compared to us, but the cartel had to have a minimum number of guards reside on each floor because of the possible uprising. So it was a stalemate that none of the both parties could dangerously make a first move.
Around that time, I visited Kimmy. After all, it was just her and me. We were the only ones left to call family. She tried to stay busy. She tried to keep strong. But at the same time, she looked so fragile and insecure. I planned to comfort her but we ended up holding each other and crying, saying how much we missed everyone. I thanked Fox for being supportive to Kimmy. If it wasn't for her, Kimmy would've easily broken down.
We renovated the basement a little bit. The biggest change was that we built a stairway between the basement and the first floor. But we had to hurry up. The guards were killing people under the 13th floor for ridiculous reasons. We took refugees every day. They risked their lives to come down to the first floor. Some of them wished to fight with us. but most of them were just women and children. They said that the guards were killing every young men on sight since they were possibly supportive to us. That was nonsense.
After a few meetings, we came up with two possible plans. The first was to lead our way up to the higher floors one by one. All the stairways were blocked so we decided to drill holes in a multiple locations and rush up at the same time, simultaneously. That way, we thought we could infiltrate more safely and quickly.
The second plan was to focus our force on the first floor and defend it as long as we could. But that was pointless and in a sense, much more dangerous. They outnumbered us and we were sure to be out of supplies soon. After much thought, Daug decided on the first plan; quietly drill multiple holes and infiltrate at once.
After it was decided, we didn't have any reason to delay. We decided to make 4 holes near the corners of the building. One squad was to go up through each hole. The other squads were to wait at each staircase and go up once it was cleared.
All the squads got ready on their designated positions. Our squad was ordered to wait at one of the staircases on the east side of the building. I could feel my heart beating like it was drumming inside my chest. Could we make it? We didn't know anything about what was going on upstairs. It was so quiet. We couldn't hear anything from upstairs. Fox told me to focus. I was focusing. It was just that I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure whether the situation would go as we planned.
After a short while, I heard a signal from the drilling team near us
that they succeeded in going up on the second floor and they were waiting in a room. I heard them saying on the radio.
'We're on the second floor now, we're moving out to the hall. We're not so far from the stairs. Come upstairs on my signal... We're now opening the door... I see a dead body. It looks like they were killed, unarmed and defenseless... We're waiting at a corner. We'll turn the corner in three, two, one... Holy goddess....'
He continued after a short gasp.
'You're clear to come up. There's no hostile personnel. There's only a... there's only bodies on the ground everywhere. It looks like they're not only from this floor. I hear the signals from the other squads, too. There's no one on the second floor, and probably no one on a few floors above, either. Everyone come up. The mission is over. I repeat, the mission is over.'
10
I couldn't believe my eyes. I felt like throwing up. Everyone was dead. There were dead bodies everywhere, possibly from all the floors from there to 13th. The guards had killed everyone and abandoned the bodies. If there was a hell, that was the hell.
We checked every coner on the second floor because there might have been a survivor. And there were some survivors but they looked horrible. They told us that the guards didn't kill them on purpose. They didn't kill them because they wanted to let them suffer and die there slowly.
When I was searching down the hallway, I heard a noise from a room. A little moaning. I hurried into the room and saw an old lady. She was tied up on a chair and her face was all covered in blood. I went up close to her and cleaned up her face and, for the goddess's sake, it was the lady I met at the first floor on my first mission. She was dying. It was clear that they treated her even worse after they saw the tattoo.