Mike looked at his watch. “Well people, it has been a long job, but we got it done. Now we’ve got a vacation ahead of us, and the longer we sit here, the less of it we have out there,” he said standing to walk towards his room.
“Hey man, I can’t believe you’re going to leave me here with these two,” Steve said, gesturing to Jasmine and Chelsea, looking helpless. “They’re going to start talking all ‘techie smart’ and all I’m going to be able to do is stare.”
“All you gotta do is just start talking about sports cars, and Jasmine will go home with you on vacation,” Mike advised.
“Hey, I’m not that easy,” she defended, as Mike winked at her and turned from the table.
The door from the hallway slid open, and the room fell silent as three armored men strode in with weapons at the ready. Jasmine watched them enter the room like creatures coming through a portal from another dimension, their black armor, and headgear giving them a non-human appearance.
Time froze. Nothing was registering, nothing clicked as to what they were doing until she saw Mike lying on the ground. Lost in her trance she had missed the first soldier firing three rounds into Mike’s chest and the screams of others that followed.
Steve’s yelling snapped her out of it. “GET DOWN!” was all he could say before the second soldier shot him in the face; he fell over backward onto the floor.
Chelsea found the courage to grab and throw her chair at the soldier that had killed Steve, sending him reeling back a step. With the soldier temporarily stunned, she grabbed Jasmine and ran for the opposite doorway. Being pulled through the break room, Jasmine glanced about the area, finding her comrades diving for cover. She could hear Steve’s radio crackling, “Code one! Breach! It’s Keeast!” over and over.
She saw the exit door across the room and shouted “There!” to Chelsea. They were both athletic, and Jasmine sprinted across the floor believing they would make it until what felt like four red-hot arrows crashed into her back, smashing her face-first into the floor. She could not breathe, and consciousness began to slip away. Her final sight was that of Chelsea being viciously spun around, blood spurting from where bullets had struck her, throwing her body hard to the ground.
The members of the Order followed their instructions to the letter: Kill Everyone. Merciless and systematic, they carefully shot everyone whether they were moving or not. The second team of soldiers quickly entered, and the two teams split the living quarters in half to cover every square inch. Inspecting one room, a group of soldiers found some workers hiding in a closet, like children hiding from their parents. They died in the style of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.
An essential element of the Order’s ability to succeed in this mission was Hitoshi’s ability to manipulate the access control system. By locking and unlocking specific doors, he enabled the Order’s teams to move easily through the facility, prevented people from escaping, and obstructed security teams as they tried to respond and take up defensive positions.
At the rear walked the most dangerous of the demons. Walking slowly and confidently, as if they were window shopping, Keeast and Draggo admired the cruel work of their men. Keeast allowed himself a moment to smile at how well the mission was going.
Over the years, he had created the work schedule for the facility, hired poor security, and gave Hitoshi access to any software he needed to control their mainframe. These factors gave the mission a seemingly insurmountable advantage; having that drone Tucker and his wild dog Pierce in the mix only added excitement. His thought process was interrupted when he heard a gasp come from a nearby room.
In a desperate attempt to hide, one wounded female technician was crawling across the floor trying to get beneath the bed, hoping they would overlook her there. But before she could reach her shelter she heard heavy boots behind her. Please let it be one of our guards, she thought, but as she turned to see one of the armored assassins standing in the doorway, his gun raised at her. She let out a small cry of terror.
After what seemed like an eternity, she heard someone issue orders to the soldier who lowered his weapon and moved on. Maybe they’ll need me alive, or they want a prisoner? She hoped with everything in her.
However, the room again became dark as the doorway was taken up by two other soldiers. For the first soldier, the term “human” didn’t seem to apply; he was as large as a bear and twice as scary; the other was a smaller man, who seemed more terrifying, in a creepy way. She knew then that death was certain.
Keeast looked at the trapped woman, crossed his arms and smiled. Understanding the signal, Draggo moved towards her, his hand slowly reaching for his Dessert Eagle on his hip. The gun was halfway out the holster when Keeast raised a hand gesturing him to stop, pointing instead to his hip. Draggo allowed the gun to fall back into its holster and instead eased out his survival knife. Draggo’s eyes slowly traced the perfection of his blackened blade and then his eyes left the blade and looked at the technician as he began walking towards her. Keeast leaned against the door frame, the worker’s pleas for her life acting as music to his ears.
Now Available
RISE of the PHOENIX: Act III
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Scare-Kratia Productions:
Other Works by Dameon Gibbs
Rise of the Phoenix: Act I
The Hole: Books I-V
The World Around Them
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Rise of the Pheonix: Act 2 Page 14