by Andre Pisco
"Yes, the first one is a red one. The next one's the white one, second on the left." She answered me.
We were ready. As a group of superheroes, and even anti-heroes, who were about to venture out even knowing the likely consequences, we made our way through the concrete path, climbed the two small slopes leading to the door and stopped before we opened it.
"Keep your weapons close." I warned them before I opened the door and peered, "Nobody. We can move on."
A lengthy corridor with several doors on both sides, illuminated by five lamps, and with a dustbin at the main door entrance, right in front of ours. It was a double blue door with an iron bar in a corner and a paper in the middle stating "Pull, not Push." We stepped into the corridor, turned right towards the desired door, and sneaked into it. We knew there were no guards in that hallway. Not since he was rebuilt. The plant Poe had given us had all that information.
It was an old corridor with a flashing light, almost blown out, the walls covered with advertisements from years ago and smelled as if someone had died there a long time ago, but the smell had prevailed. That hallway led to an old bathroom. It was only used by a few former employees who had become accustomed to it or by young people in emergencies at times when the rest of the toilets had someone. No one had cleaned it in months. There were rolls of toilet paper unrolled over the floor that reeked of piss. Two of the cubicles had the door ajar and the third one was open and had hand-shaped shit marks on the wall.
"Now what?" Maggie asked.
"Well, according to the plants, there must be some kind of passage over here." Vic said as she banged the tiles until she finally hit a hollow one, "Okay, here. We have to break this wall."
Lipa saved one of the metal bars, stretched the other and began tearing down the wall.
"That way we'll take too long. I've got an idea. Elisa freeze the whole wall, even the filaments in between the tiles."
Elisa stepped forward and put her hand on the wall. Within seconds, threads of crystalline blue sprang out of her hand pores and scattered across the wall until it crystallized and was frozen. I didn't even have to tell Lipa to come forward. She handed me her metal bar and took hers out of her pocket. Together we started digging the wall until fissures burst in the ice and the whole wall collapsed. Pieces of frozen rock fell apart on the damp ground and, ahead of us, the tunnel they had tried to hide during the renovations. We crossed over to the other side. It was a pantry; brooms and buckets were leaning against the wall in the opposite corners and there was also a crate of lost belongings. The light was off, but Maggie had raised a flame small enough to enlighten the place but not to draw any attention to us before we got out of there.
"Left now, right?" I asked Vic.
"Yeah, first door. But be careful, there must be two guards out there."
"I'll take care of that. Stay here." I told them.
I raided the lost belongings box and pulled a jacket out of it. I wore it, straightened it and peeked into the hallway. A guard on each side as expected. I stepped out of there as if I belonged to that place. I even whistled and sang like I didn't care if they saw me.
"Excuse me. Who are you?" One of the guards asked me. They both started moving towards me.
I was patting the inside of my pants pocket with two fingers, "I'm one of the scientists. Don't you recognize me?' I answered him.
"I've never seen you around here before." One of them answered. They had the same dark green uniforms as their colleagues in the lobby, "ID, please."
"Oh, you're asking me today that I forgot about it. You really don't remember me? Not even you?" I said and looked at the other one.
He seemed a little confused. He was a cross-eyed man in his 30s with dandruff on his eyebrows, "I've never seen you around here..." he said and looked at the other man who had to be his superior.
"I'm not going to ask you again. Identification. Now." The older one said.
Both of them had already gotten close to me and had me surrounded. That was exactly what I intended. I couldn't beat them from afar, but up close it didn't seem that hard to me. We had trained handicapped hand-to-hand combat hundreds of times over the 3 years at the academy. I could see their movements in slow-motion; how they put one foot before the other while walking, their hands swinging close to their bodies, the youngest of them blinking an eye, and the guns shape under their sweatshirts. As soon as one of them stretched out his hand to reach over my shoulder, I dodged it, twisted his arm and kicked him in the face. In less than five seconds one of them was already down, whining about the pain, while the younger one looked at both, not knowing what to do. I don't think he was ever placed in that position before. He didn't even defend himself when I hit him with a right hook in the stomach. He wriggled, still on his feet, but a well-directed punch to his chin was enough to knock him round to the ground. The older one was still stirring his fingers and I noticed that his hand was getting closer to the inside of his trouser pocket. I kicked him in the face, and he got unconscious as well.
"You may leave. These two are done."
The girls left the pantry and Kendra, with Vic's help, locked the men there. They took out the comms they both had in their pockets and gave them to Elisa so she could freeze and tear them apart. Maggie melted the lock so no one could help them. Our exit was a different one.
"So far, so perfect," Maggie said.
"I don't believe it," Vic said, "is that what I think it is?" she added, staring at the glass walls.
If on one side the wall was light blue and standard, on the other side the wall was made of thick, transparent glass. There were dozens of human beast skeletons rows, two scientists assembling one of them and three armed guards protecting them. Instead of guns, each had a Hunter's gun; one with a gray and blue ice glove, one with a brown and black earth glove, and the other with two small crossed swords fastened to the rear part of his trench coat.
"If they release that into the world, we're doomed." Maggie said and a flaming ball swelled in her hand, widening in size until it covered her face and the squints bounced to the ground, "we have to end this now. While they least expect it."
"Take it easy. Leave them be." I said, "Let's not get carried away. If we're going to blow this place up, we don't need to go in there and do the killing. Let's stay calm."
"Get down, quick! Before they see us." Elisa said.
We were so distracted by the apocalyptic sight, imagining what it would be like if a hundred human beasts were to leave with the mission of ruling the world, that we didn't even think that if we could see them, there was a good chance that they could see us too, and we couldn't risk being caught.
We crossed halfway down the hall on our knees until Lipa grabbed my pants sleeve.
"I know this voice. Oh, fuck. It's the albino. What the hell is he doing here?" She said, "Don't move."
"The albino? You're serious, right? Are you sure?" I asked her. His presence there didn't anticipate good things in our favor.
"Of course. I wouldn't forget his voice. We have to hurry. If he sees us, we won't have time to get out of here."
"Is he that good?" Elisa asked her.
"Yeah. Not many people are better than him in hand-to-hand combat." Lipa said, "Let's get going."
We were a third of the way there when the albino answered a call. At first, he just mumbled a long "HM..." until it was finally his turn to talk. His voice was like an age-old haunting, a memory that I had buried in a vault at the bottom of my memory but that someone had opened it and let it loose.
"I'll be there tomorrow. Prepare everything to my liking. Yeah. Yeah. The chubby one they captured in the assault on the base? No, he's with me. I've been holding him captive in a warehouse in Gendrana. Yeah. No. One week before I start my attack. We are now taking care of the final details. I won't admit failures, Shimmer. A new era is about to begin. Don't let me down." He said.
Vic had her phone recording everything while we strived to breathe without anyone hearing us. Kendra almost
sneezed but Elisa held her nose before it happened. Only the pounding of our throbbing hearts seemed to override the Albino's voice. He was still on his cell phone. Scientists were still dropping metal pieces on the table and picking up others, attaching them to the human beast's body shape. There were different leg formats, arms, heads, and even different skin tones. They were so realistic that one of them could walk among us and we wouldn't even have the faintest idea. It was the scariest thing, for me, to know that I could have confided plans or something personal to a beast who smiled and hugged me while holding a false smile and at the same time shared everything with the Reapers behind me. My knees and arms were already aching from dragging them across that vinyl floor.
"We've enough. Let's move on. Hurry, hurry, hurry. The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can try to save Gordon."
"I have a bad feeling about this." Maggie said, "I don't like this."
"Are you afraid that your father is here too?" I asked her. We whispered our words so no one would hear us.
"Yes, I hope not. It was the last thing we needed right now. Besides, my dad can fight, too. He's great at fighting with nunchakus with poisoned tips."
"How do you know that?" Kendra asked me. We were still crawling along the floor. We were already near the gate that was going to give us access to the whole laboratory's technology infrastructure.
"I saw old videos of him. When he was younger in fighting tournaments. My father always believed that in order to have a good mind it was also necessary to value the body." She said.
Elisa opened the two-grey doors and, one by one, we all went inside. It was dark except for the blue and red wires that glowed and the computer screen where there were programs running that I had never seen before. A mishmash of letters, numbers, and punctuation that arose on the screens and were replaced by others at a dizzying speed. Victoria pulled the explosive out of the bag and handed it to Lipa. She scheduled it to explode in 20 minutes and hid it between two high-caliber towers.
"Let's get out of here." She said, "Hopefully we'll blow up the albino and it's one less problem we have to deal with."
I wanted to smile, to celebrate like them, but something within me was telling me that it was too early for that. That weird feeling that something's about to happen. A creep on my back as if someone was whispering behind my ear and humming for me to brace myself. I made sure I had my gun in my holster and signaled that we should get out of there. As it was in Poe's layout, there was an emergency exit in that room. A long corridor that carried us within a few seconds to another part of the laboratory, one that was supposed to be empty and that was supposed to have direct access to the warehouse where we had left our van. I looked both ways again before we walked into the new hallway. It was like the other one, but both walls were identical and half the size. There was only one red door on the right side and there was a "flammable" sign on it.
"That must be where they weld the pieces," Maggie said.
"A few more minutes and it's all going to blow up. Then you'll have your bullets and I'll have my information and the pleasure of slowing down the albino." Lipa said and there was that glow she had behind her eyes when she thought or spoke of other people suffering. It was something that made her stand out from her sister. Even if they both had icy hearts, Kendra's still had a tiny flame inside her.
We were so close to getting the mission done. Vic kept repeating that we were two hallways and three doors away from the basement. Vic and Maggie were leading us, I was in the middle with Kendra and behind us were Lipa and Elisa. Vic's palm pulled the door forward, but she failed to move to the other side. She let the door shove her back and bump into us.
"Damn it. Vic, what are you doing?" Elisa asked her.
"They... People... On the other side. We have to run!" She said, her voice trembling, her eyes bulging like she'd seen the devil.
Chapter XXII
"What do you mean by that? People? Vic, wake up!" Elisa told her, swinging her around by the arms but without getting a reaction from her. Vic was pale, the color faded, and her lips were disjointed, but nothing was coming out but a slight swallow of the cake scent that we had all eaten before.
We all had our eyes on the door. The atmosphere got heavy. A few strands of my hair adhered to my forehead, and my armpits dampened. A force pulled my feet against the ground and my toes trembled as I touched the trigger's cold metal. Someone kicked the doors so hard that both doors opened like an angel spreading his wings. The sound spread all over the corridor and drowned out the sound of our steps as we retreated.
On the other side of the door was the albino whose legs were in a perpendicular angle with the two swords boy beside him.
"Run!" I screamed.
But as soon as we turned around, we ran into the other two soldiers. Their arms were extended next to their bodies and they seemed to be waiting for the albino's orders. He laughed as he walked towards us, being followed by the other boy, who had already removed the two weapons from his back and dragged them across the ground. They scraped on it and ripped it, causing the metallic sound to travel, and echo in our heads.
"What do we do now?" Maggie asked, "Do we fight?"
"We don't have much choice. Get ready." I said, and I removed my gun from my holster. I had the normal bullet's barrel forward and I wouldn't hesitate to shoot. I never thought that the time would come, just a few months after I became a Hunter, that I would ever have to put into my head that killing someone was the only way out. Vic took the bow from her back, placed three arrows on it and pointed them at the albino. Maggie already had a fireball in her hand and Elisa had pieces of stalagmite hovering over her glove. I pointed the gun at the swordsman, Lipa lengthened the two metal bars and Kendra unfurled the whip, prepared to fight, just like all of us. The albino didn't have a gun. Time was running out, and we could not see a future in which we would get out of there safely and unharmed.
"Good to see you here. It saves me a round trip." The albino said, "Lipa, it's been a long time since I've seen you. All I have to do is finish you off, and no one's going to oppose me when I subdue the entire black market. Good things happen to those who do good."
"With who do good? Do you really believe that? We don't do good. Don't fool yourself." Lipa answered him.
The moment was a dance waiting for the music. All that was needed was a step forward, a finger slipping in the wrong time and shooting an arrow or a bullet, and all hell would break loose in that place. There weren't any walls or glass that could hold us there. It was hard enough to deal with the death of several scientists, let alone the possibility of even blowing us up. I already had other people's blood on my hand, and I didn't want mine, much less theirs.
"Depends on the perspective. The world is rotten. It needs to be reformed. All corruption, pain, everything needs to be eradicated. Criminals killing good people in wet alleys that smell like shit. I'm going to end it all." He answered her.
"And how many good people will die to reach your perfect world?"
"As many as necessary. I see it as a sacrifice. Somebody's got to do it." He said, "Fortunately, Damien showed me the way. A world where no one is judged. A world where whoever causes evil is automatically eliminated."
"What if someone makes a mistake? What if somebody else does the wrong thing for somebody else? To protect her?" Kendra asked.
"For each other's sake, they must suffer. Damien taught me that."
"How could you let him manipulate you like that?" Lipa asked him.
"The clock is ticking," Maggie whispered.
"Manipulate? Not at all. He supported my entire growth without ever asking me for anything in return. He knew I'd understand. That I would see the evil in the world." He said, "Well, this minute's conversation was good, but it's time to end it. There's no way a couple of kids like you can defeat all four of us."
"Four? I don't think you've come prepared to fight," Lipa replied. As he tilted his head and giggled like a madman, she whispered to us, "Get ready.
This is going to get complicated."
"I don't need guns to fight," he said and put himself in combat position; with his legs bent and fists at chest level, "gloves and shoes made of acix." He said and signaled us to approach.
We had been in several fights but never against humans. It was something totally different. They could fight back in seconds, mold themselves to our attacks, but above all, they could be unpredictable.
Before another word was said, Maggie's fireball flew across all of us, at high speed, towards the albino. None of the other three men moved. All it took was a powerful punch, from the albino, in the center of the blaze for it to disperse into hundreds of sparkles. A warm breeze flowed down the hall and past my lips.
"I'm a little disappointed. A set of old acquaintances for an ending so... Unsatisfactory." The albino said. The acix protection that enveloped his hand had acquired a bright orange color with red contours.
"Old acquaintances?" I asked him.
"Sure. Lenetius' daughter. I haven't seen you since you were a kid." He said after placing both arms close to his body, "and you... Elisa and the boy, you really thought I wouldn't remember you from the bar, did you? That I don't know you took my letter? Or that you, Elisa, had been following me for weeks? I'm sorry you weren't there to watch the havoc that it was." He said it and laughed in a strangled way. He was loving that moment. Enjoying our anger, fear, despair, all mixed up in jumbled movements; from the frowning of our eyebrows to the writhing of our lips, to our rosy cheeks. It was a blending of emotions that were hard to control. Even I, who was proud to keep them under control, now found it difficult not to react to his provocations. I wanted to make him suffer even though I knew it was a path with no return.
"If you knew I was following you, why didn't you ever act?" Elisa asked him.
"Two minutes have passed," Vic whispered.
"I told you. I wanted you to burn with them too. Didn't they tell you that a lot of them were carbonized? Hunters and criminals were mistaken for equals. At the very end of life, we are all mortals." He said, "Finish them off. Try to spare Lipa."