The Eleven

by Adrian Popa

  He charges at me, throwing two punches , I dodge to the side twice, he follows up with a kick to my sides. I jump avoiding it, and then throw a few punches of my own. He blocks the one to his face but takes the ones going towards his torso. He knees me, and I back off. I give no room to breathe and charge immediately, throwing another punch towards his face. He moves his head back to dodge. I move into a more refined stance, with my fists up while I lightly jump back and forth. I throw a barrage of punches towards his torso, he takes them all before throwing a kick. I block with both my hands pushing his leg back and then I draw my fist towards his torso, but I make a quick detour and quickly make it rise towards his chin. A clean uppercut, he stumbles back. He doesn't seem amused. I quickly charge in, realizing I gave him too much time to recover. But before I could throw in another punch, he has me facing head first into a gun's barrel.

  "Today's not a good day is it."

  Chapter 30

  I quickly move my head to the side while a bullet flew past me, with my left hand I push his gun away and launch a punch to his face. He takes it and staggers back again. This may actually work. He draws his gun and begins firing. I dodge his shots and close the distance and grab his gun. We struggle with it like two kids trying to take a toy and finally the gun flies and lands on the roof floor out of both of our reaches. I re take stance jumping slightly back and forth with my fists up. I move in for another punch, but we're quickly interrupted. I dodge quickly by jumping back while a bullet ricochets from where I was.

  Kayneth pulls out another pistol and points at me while laughing. I draw out my gun as well. He has a sniper, something that I forgot to account for. I should have known. Probably one of his clones. He puts on an ear piece with a microphone leading to his mouth and begins whispering. I aim carefully and shoot at his head while I have the chance. My bullet gets hit halfway by the snipers bullet and is deflected. Whoever it is, they're good. If it is a clone, then they're truly a force to be reckoned with. I continue shooting, and each bullet is deflected. This isn't good, but the sniper isn't shooting at me either. Is he giving an order to only protect him? Kayneth takes his ear piece and puts it back into his coat and says to me.

  "Looks like the fun is about to end, my friend"

  "That little sniper of yours sure is something"

  "Oh, do you like him? I coded him myself, the catalyst for the clones isn't that amazing, but after applying some adjustments, they have become quite something"

  "With that, I can see how you'll be a fierce dictator"

  "Once again, their abilities will only help in aiding the revolution. It is all for the good and di-"

  "Yeah yeah I've heard enough"

  I shoot a bullet at him, but it's deflected once again. The sniper seems to be on a building to the east. But he seems too far to get with just my pistol. Setting up my sniper will take too long. Where the heck is Rat? Surely at least M.N, H.S or J.K are sending them our location, what could be taking them this long? With that sniper, I really can't get near him, and I can't find the time to take him out either. I can stall all I want but I'll need to find a way to either trick his sniper, or take him out. Kayneth begins firing his gun at me. I dodge swiftly while firing back. The bullets flying towards him are deflected, and the ones off mark are left for Kayneth to dodge. One of us will run out of ammo eventually, I stocked up, so I'll be fine for now. But the sniper could be stacked as well. I shouldn't assume the best when I'm in such a situation. Kayneth drops his magazine and goes to grab another one I take out my other gun and begin rapidly firing at him. His sniper is good, not only the clone but the gun. All of my precise shots manage to get deflected, I switch magazines quickly as well. That sniper rifle must have been modified for this situation. By now Lily is already in a safe position but she isn't waking up at all. I didn't think she was a heavy sleeper, I mean come on we're having a gun fight here. Whatever he used, it sure put her out like a light.

  We continued the wild gun fight, there was no progress. My bullets got deflected, and I continued running and dodging his bullets while keeping away from Lily. The sniper was still passively defending Kayneth. And Rat and the others still haven't got here. Suddenly a grin grew on Kayneth's face and he said.

  "It's about time we finally end this, Adam"

  "I agree"

  "Sadly for you, I'll be seeing the revolution take place"

  Suddenly Kayneth takes out a remote from his coat. I shoot at it but my bullet is deflected. I holster my guns and quickly run to Lily with my grappler ready. I yell at him.

  "You're crazy, you're going to blow us all up!?"

  "I'm not sure about you, but I'll be fine"

  He pressed the button and just as I was expecting an explosion, I got something much worse. Suddenly a wave of helicopters came from all sides. One door was open from each one and a gun man stood aiming at me. The helicopters roared through the sky, there was at least ten of them. There was no escape now. I could take out a few of them, but if they're hostile, I'll be taken out as well. Kayneth laughs and says.

  "Looks like this is the end of the road, how sad"

  "Bringing in so many, I feel special"

  "Any last words?"

  Was this really it? Am I really going to go down like this? I can't let it end this way, there must be another way. I can grab Lily and make a run for it if I'm lucky. It'll be a stretch but I think I'll at least be able to save her. Suddenly a bullet is shot and hits one of the helicopter's pilots. Another helicopter comes flying into the scene, it's plated with armor and I see Rat in it. Looks like the guys made it, just in time. They draw Kayneth's helicopters attention while lowering itself towards the roof. Kayneth's helicopters began falling one by one causing huge explosions in the area. Rat yells.

  "Hurry up, bring Lily over here and let's go!"

  I take Lily and begin running towards the helicopter. I looked back at Kayneth, he wasn't stopping us, or giving any orders. Why, what is he thinking? This isn't good, this doesn't feel right. I make it to the helicopters door and gave Rat to Lily. But just as I was about to get on myself, a wave of bullets came in between the door and me. The helicopter rose up to avoid getting hit. There was still quite a few of Kayneth's helicopters still in the area. I heard Rat say in the commotion.

  "Shit!"

  Kayneth remained standing there, with a slight grin on his face, just observing us. I couldn't hear a word Kayneth was saying over the sound of the helicopters, but from the distance I saw him pointing down. And suddenly the floor of the roof collapsed, smoke erupted and the view of all the helicopters was disrupted. We landed on the floor below, I was fine, but Kayneth was somewhere in this mist. I readied my guns and searched the area with my eyes. I had to remain calm. The helicopters above were making it much harder to concentrate, but he had to be around here, somewhere. I concentrated, but it was all too late. A bullet came right at me, it was at the last second, I didn't manage to dodge it completely. It had hit my shoulder. I shot at the direction it came. Another bullet came from behind me, I dodged only slightly, my other shoulder was hit. Then, bullets came from all sides, and I was down. From the smoke, Kayneth came, he had a mask on, and a pistol in his hand. He aimed it at me and slowly took off his mask. He had a grin on his face that seemed like it reached to the edge of his face. It was his victory. He had a distorted and insane look in his eyes. Before I knew it, I had saw it in slow motion, whether I liked it or not. He was laughing, and it rang in the building. The smoke was growing intense. His finger pushed on the trigger, the gun gave a little recoil as his hands and gun had risen. The bullet came out of the barrel of the gun, it was a gold bullet, shaped like a torpedo. My entire body was numb, I couldn't move it whether I wanted it to or not. I looked down for a second only to see a pool of blood beneath me, and then, it all faded to black.

  That's where the file ends. I looked over to my partner. He had just finished reading it as well and was taking it in. He turned to me, he was a young recruit who just got in. This case ma
y be a little jarring for him, but It'll help toughen him up. He said in his young curious tone.

  "Damn, so this actually happened?"

  "Yeah, believe it or not"

  He looked to the floor, still in awe. I made some coffee and gave him a cup. I took a sip and told him.

  "We better file it"

  "Yeah, the big guys will definitely want to know about this"

  "I've had some crazy cases, but this blows the park"

  "Yeah, say how long have you been working here anyway?"

  I took another sip of my coffee and told him.

  "Ten years"

  He nods, annoyingly, I don't like feeling old. I put down my cup and clean the room. I put the documents in an envelope and made a quick call. The Ten City Union will definitely want to know about this. To think something like this was happening during my lifetime, good thing I lived in city five when this all happened. My partner looked at me and said with a questioning tone.

  "Hey, what do we write when we say when this happened?"

  "It happened about 40 years ago"

  "How can you tell? No where here does it mention the date"

  "The Canex building, I know of it, its origin and history"

  "Oh, that was where that Adam Henning lived in"

  "Yeah, it was destroyed, near the end of these documents, I happen to know the actual year of its destruction from a past case"

  "Oh, I see"

  I checked the time, there were a few more minutes left. My partner asked me another question.

  "Say, what do you think happened to them?"

  "Well, they're all gone probably, I mean, look at us now"

  "Yeah that's true but, what about this Kayneth guy?"

  "If I have to say, I guess...an uprising"

  "Maybe we'll get another case involving what happened?"

  "Maybe"

  "This is getting me excited!"

  "Hah! That's the spirit"

  Suddenly a confused look grew on my partner's face, he asked another question.

  "Wait, if he died along with the Canex building, how does these exist?"

  "Who knows, maybe it'll give you a clue when you think about who sent these to us"

  "What do you mean?"

  I frustratingly shoved him the package we had received from the beginning of this case. There was a label on the box we had received. There was only one sentence on that label, but it was all that was needed once you read the contents. There was no return address. No actual name, or phone number. But under all of that formal information, there was but that one sentence, that gave it all away.

  "From: a Rat"

  My partner finally realized it but then he grew confused yet again, and asked another question.

  "Wait, doesn't that make this Rat guy, like super old!?"

  "Well, who knows, maybe he's 90, maybe he's 60"

  "The timing is just really off"

  "Yeah, maybe we'll get a case about Rat"

  "Heh, that'll be interesting"

  "Sure would, he intrigues me, I'd like to meet him one day"

  "Oh that still doesn't answer my other question, how was the last part of these documents made?"

  "It sounds a bit, odd, but probably from the best recreation of what was thought to have happened"

  "So you're saying that it's unknown?"

  "Yeah, having Rat send us these documents make sense, to some extent"

  "Oh, I get it, because of the perspective changes"

  "Yeah, well there's that as well"

  "Oh, the guys should be here soon, what should we name these?"

  "Isn't it obvious?"

  "Hmm?"

  "Eleven Names".

  -The End-