Truck, unable to stop the momentum he’s already built up, has only one choice. He keeps charging forward until he disappears into the smoke cloud the explosion has caused.
He expects to run into a group of soldiers but instead loses his footing and finds himself falling downwards into a smoke-filled abyss.
The explosion’s shockwave had pounded his eardrums to almost deafness, and his eyes are stinging from the dust and smoke. He can’t tell what’s happening but he knows he’s falling through the air and for longer than it should’ve taken for him to hit the floor.
He hits the ground with a soft thud, and despite his state of confusion he can tell he hasn’t hit solid ground, but rather something softer. He counts his blessings, whatever it is that he’s fallen on has broken his fall.
He lays there a moment, eyes stinging from the smoke, squinting to try and get a sense of direction. He’s on his back and dazedly fumbles around to get a grip on something solid, something familiar that can tell him where he is, something to get his bearings in this smoke haze.
His hand brushes up against something unfamiliar, it is soft and flexible. Rubbing it between his fingers he can feel it’s some form of clothing. He traces his hands down its length until it comes to a stop.
His heart skips a beat when he realises at the end of the cloth is a human hand, he’s touching a human hand.
He reaches out for other objects within range and finds another hand, a foot and other human parts around him. Shuddering and squirming around on the floor, he slowly realises what’s happened, what he’s landed on.
The explosion must have destroyed the entire floor outside of the apartment. This then must have caused the soldiers waiting outside the apartment to fall through the destroyed floor and land another floor below. Some intact, others not, but all unconscious.
This in turn had created the perfect landing cushion for the oncoming Truck to fall on when he charged through the smoke cloud, falling through the hole created by the explosion. This all seemed incredibly fortunate for Truck and he sensed something was afoot here, it all seemed to work out too well for him.
Who had laid the explosives? Truck knows this isn’t the work of the soldiers, they wouldn’t have suicided themselves like this. Who was trying to save him?
The smoke still prevents him from discerning anything, so he rolls onto his chest and crawls his way off the pile of bodies which broke his fall. With no sense of direction, Truck’s unsure of which way to go, but not wanting to waste any time he quickly picks what he thinks is right and begins crawling in that direction.
After making a few meters he’s able to discern the features of the floorboards he’s crawling along, strangely he thinks he can see the back of a pair of boots just ahead of him. He stops just short of them, rubs his eyes and looks again. They’re familiar, too familiar, because they resemble a pair of military boots, but are definitely not standard issue.
But they aren’t moving, so he quickly assumes the boots belong to one of the soldiers and he crawls on the ground until within reach of them.
He grasps out instinctively to touch the boots and expects them to belong to a dead body but surprises himself when they are not. He squeezes them to make sure and gets instant confirmation when the boots shake and turn in his direction, someone is wearing them and is very much alive.
He looks up through the smoke and tries to make out who they belong to, but still can’t distinguish anything.
And then a hand appears from above, extended through the smoke, open palm in a gesture of good faith. Truck is wary at first, but then realises that no army soldier would’ve worn combat boots like this, so he takes the hand with his own, trusting it to be an ally, hoping it to be the person responsible for the explosion that saved him.
Once their grip is locked, he’s heaved up with a strength that surprises even him. His new ally holds him up solidly, still only clutching Truck’s hand. Truck’s legs go a little wobbly underneath and before he knows it, his hand is thrown over the person’s shoulder, he’s picked up and is carried away.
It’s a most unusual situation for Truck to be in, he’s never the hapless one. But thanks to the blast he is now, and he clings to his rescuer like a child to its mother as they make their way down the hallway.
The blast has worsened his injuries, splinters of wood, glass and concrete protrude from a dozen places on his body. Blood now seeps through the bandages that cover his chest wounds, he can feel the warm moisture underneath his clothing, the pain of the two gunshot wounds now draw at his strength.
They move to a door at the end of the hallway and the man fumbles his jacket pocket, removing a set of keys, and uses them to open an apartment door. Trucks eyes are still stinging from the dust and smoke, but the air is clearer in the apartment and his sight starts to return. He rolls himself off the man’s shoulder, not wanting to be treated like a baby any longer and quickly tries to blink his vision clear.
Truck shoots a look at the stranger and notices him wearing a balaclava and sunglasses to cover his face, most likely due to protect himself from the explosion and the dust. Which to Truck means the guy must have been responsible for the blast.
Who is this guy?
He notices the apartment they’ve entered has no furniture, no decorations or photos hanging from the wall. It’s as if it’d been a new rental, awaiting a new tenant. Strangely though, he can detect the strong smell of perfume in the room.
Trucks rescuer makes his way through the hallway and into one of the apartment’s bedrooms hastily, beckoning for Truck to follow. He does so diligently and sees the reason for them being in the apartment.
Fixed just below the bedroom window are two identical metal bars, one bolted to the floor and the other bolted onto the wall. Ropes have been piled and affixed to both and a set of harnesses sit ready on the floor.
Despite his condition, Truck knows what’s going on straight away, he looks through the windows curtain to confirm it and isn’t surprised when he sees a cable spooling across the gap to the next building over. Truck wastes no time in argument, he hurriedly begins donning a harness sitting ready on the floor beside the bars.
The other man does the same, himself first and then moves over to help Truck with his. Once Truck is locked in the man draws the curtains aside to reveal their method of escape, a zip line to the building opposite.
Truck turns to look at the stranger again and sways unsteadily on his feet, falling to one knee, still dizzy from the blast. He’s feeling every ounce of the gunshot wounds now and they pull him downwards to the ground, the life draining from him rapidly.
The balaclava clad man comes to his aide immediately and prevents him from falling.
“Get out of here mate, I’m done for.” Truck spurts out louder than he should have, trying in vain to push the man away. But his strength is leaving him.
The man does something strange in response, he removes his gloves and places his uncovered hands over Truck’s face. Truck tries to shake the man off but the man holds his face firmly, albeit in a manner that’s not hurtful.
They only remain momentarily, then the hands are removed and Truck is immediately pulled to his feet. His eyes focus back on the man, who only stands pointing at the zip line.
With a renewed strength, Truck doesn’t think twice. He swiftly stands, makes his way to the window ledge and locks himself into the zip line. Before he goes over the ledge though, he turns and looks at the man, asking him straight out, “Who are you?”
The man looks at Truck, removes the visors covering his eyes and replies, “Truck smart man.” He winks knowingly at him, “now Truck, go.”
Truck frowns as he looks at the man, he isn’t quite sure if he’s being mocked or not. He searches the man’s eyes for any sort of recognition but before he can think the man pushes the shades back up and covers his eyes.
With time not on
their side, Truck turns, steadies himself and lets the line take up the slack before he slides down the wire, gathering momentum as he leaves the safety of the apartment.
It must’ve been when he was about halfway along that it suddenly occurs to Truck who the stranger is.
He couldn’t help but smile to himself as he thought about the mystery man’s eyes. Of course, he had been right when he winked and said Truck was a smart man, because Truck never forgot the colour of a person’s eyes. This was a fact the mystery man had somehow known and now had just reminded Truck by winking at him.
As Truck nears the far end of the zip line he turns to look back in the direction he’s come. He locks eyes with the stranger at the other end and finds himself smiling involuntarily.
He’s seen those eyes before.
“Smith? Where the hell have you been champ?”
- -
Catlin
Catlin had been marching along the mezzanine above the operations room, outside of Samuel’s office. She paced back and forth contemplating her next move, one hand firmly gripped her forehead whilst the other waved about her gesturing. To the staff below she looked quite the picture of craziness, though they’d experienced worse before.
She was wrestling with the decision of whether to disturb Samuel in his office again. The first time she’d interrupted him it hadn’t gone down well, he was rather adamant of their planned meeting time. To compound this she still shuddered at the thought of the other man in the room with him, whoever he was, and the way he’d snarled at her inside her head.
He said, ‘You take care of it.’ she thought to herself, Well I bloody well can’t if I need your flipping key.
Her decision resolved in her mind, she went and knocked on his door, waited and knocked again, both times without a response.
She called out, softly at first, apologising for the intrusion and stating her intentions but again only silence ensued.
Frustrated with the lack of reply she decided to pick the lock again. She wasted no time in flicking the bolt and opening the door to Samuel’s office, but what she didn’t expect when the door opened was for the room to be empty.
Nobody inside.
She went in and double checked, even looking around the desk and couch, but found no sign of him or his mystery guest. Confused, she sauntered out of the office and searched the entire mezzanine section, but without result.
Finding no trace of him upstairs she decided to do a sweep of the entire underground facility, searching every nook and cranny that she knew of. Still with no sign of him, she returned upstairs and double checked his office. No Samuel, no mystery guest.
Confused, she closed the door and sat herself down at his desk, huffing as she did so.
She pondered where he might be, but the truth was, she had no idea. Samuel almost never left his office, she couldn’t even recall seeing him outside of it aside from the day they met. The room had only one door, and she never recalled seeing two men leave it.
Then again, she never recalled seeing the other man enter the room. The setup was very open at the Destiny installation, so sneaking someone in would seem almost impossible. That is, unless you evacuate the entire installation, create a panic and use it as a distraction, she thought to herself.
Curiously she jumped up and began searching the room for a trap-door or a secret passageway that might allude to their whereabouts, but found nothing.
Gone, disappeared!
Instinct told her something wasn’t right as she put all the pieces of the puzzle together in her head. It couldn’t have been a coincidence the thread was no longer active and that Ma’am had apparently been the cause of it. And now Samuel had disappeared too with his mystery guest, without so much as a word.
Suddenly she felt threatened as she realised what it could mean for her. Had she been abandoned by the hierarchy on a sinking ship? Or possibly, a sunk ship where she was the person at its helm, left to face the fallout from the government? Was this why she was chosen, to be the fall guy?
Maybe it had come crashing down with all the deaths that’d occurred around the world, or worse, maybe they had something to do with it. Which would then leave Cat as the person to go after, Samuel had even taken the trouble to introduce her to the government heads, telling them that she was in charge. Shit, what if he did that on purpose? What the hell have I walked into?
She pondered her next move and thought about asking a few members of staff for information, but then quickly dismissed it. No, asking them would only serve to arouse suspicion and she didn’t want anyone questioning her authority at this point, nor did she want to start a panic.
People were already detesting her tenure at the facility, she didn’t want to remove Samuel from the equation at the risk of losing control herself.
Then she thought of the key which Marion said Samuel had, that was really all she’d wanted Samuel for anyway, to get his key. Shaking her head, she rummaged around in his office, pulling apart drawers and looking in boxes to try and find a key, again coming up with zilch.
No key. No Samuel.
Frustrated, she moved determinedly back downstairs to Station Eight. “Come with me please,” she asked, leading Marion back into the thread room.
“We need to break open the security door, hack into it or something … whatever, it doesn’t matter. We just need to force that thing open now!” She pointed at the housing protecting the thread.
Marion calmly looked up at her. “Something wrong dear?”
Catlin tried to sound like she was in control. “Yes, just having a little difficulty locating the key.”
“Hmmm, and did you ask Samuel?”
“I don’t need his permission.”
“No, you don’t,” she replied calmly. “But you need his key.”
“Well …” she contemplated the truth. “He is indisposed at this time, so I need alternatives.”
Marion thought about it for a moment and quickly left the room, grabbed Ursula, whispered something in her ear and brought her back to the room.
“And so?” Catlin asked.
“It could take a while Ms.”
“How long?”
Ursula shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know.”
“Ok, so what’s the quicker option?”
“We could blow it up.” Marion said, laughing.
Cat nodded confidently, “If that’s how it opens, then that’s how it opens.”
“Whoa, wait a sec there!”
“Will that damage it?”
Both the ladies looked at each other, then back at Cat, shrugging their shoulders.
“Oh whatever, we don’t have a choice, let’s do it. People lives are at stake here.”
Within minutes a member of the Ops team, Mr Okko, had joined them in the thread room and begun setting a plastic explosive charge onto the glass panelled covering at Catlin’s behest.
Okko, clearly more brazen and less fearful than the other members of Destiny asked Catlin, “why are you blowing this up?’
“We have lost the key.”
“Well, best you clear out into the main room, this is going to make quite a pop.” He smiled, amused with himself.
The three ladies filed out of the room, Catlin made a quick announcement to the installation about an impending explosion that nobody need concern themselves with, followed by a sharp sounding crack that reverberated in everyone’s ears.
Okko went in, had a quick look around and then came back to where Cat was standing. “All done Ms, anything else you would like to blow up?”
She ignored his attitude and moved past him into the room. It was still smoky and she couldn’t make out much, so began flapping her hands in the air in a vain attempt to clear the smoke.
Once the smoke dissipated she stood in the doorway and took in the small room that was mean
t to house the thread. It was small, probably only a meter and a half squared and built in to the far side of the wall was a cement and glass housing, this was the housing for the thread.
Now though, it sat empty. The once brilliant light illuminating the housing had gone and all that remained was the device. They had broken in successfully, but broken into an empty house … there was nothing inside anymore.
Marion stuck her head in the door, “Oh my!” she pushed past Catlin as she saw for herself.
“What?”
“It’s gone.”
“What?”
“The thread.”
“What?”
“It’s gone, I mean, it’s literally gone.”
“What?”
“The blue light, it’s gone.”
“Ursula said that it was normal. That sometimes that happened when you turned it off or something.”
“Oh no, we can never turn off the thread. We can only turn off the machines attached to it.”
“So, what does that mean?”
“I have no idea kiddo, but this is some scary stuff. I mean, I’ve never in thirty years …”
“What?”
“... seen this before.”
In Catlin’s mind this could mean only one thing, someone had gotten in and the only person with access according to Marion was Samuel. This only served to strengthen the concerns she had from earlier. What was Samuel playing at?
So confusing! She thought to herself. Why would Samuel want to …?
She was interrupted. “Ms, we have a situation!” an operator called out from the floor.
Thankful for the distraction, she returned to the main floor. “What’s the problem?”
“Ms, we have Thomas, upstairs, asking for you.”
“Thomas, ooh I don’t have time for that idiot right now, what does he want?”
“He says if you don’t answer they will have to resort to force.”
“What?” she asked. “Force their way into what? He doesn’t even know about this place?”
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