Quickly they peeked through the spaces between plants to make note of who might have seen their thirty or so metre dash across the indoor park.
By bad luck there were several; the area was rarely empty of people.
Lin rose to her feet, commanded with gestures that other two do as well, and ran through the foliage swiftly, attempting to remain unseen. As soon as she stopped, they dropped onto the floor of thick grass one more time.
“I told you these coats made it difficult to run,” Lon tried to whisper a joke, but it went unregistered by the group’s still impaired hearing. Falling on deaf ears, as such.
“Good going,” Lin silently articulated to Eve along with a thumbs up.
Eve propped herself up against the trunk of a tree, and let beads of sweat run from her brow to her jaw. She responded to Lin with an unsettled facial expression.
They turned their attention to the lift from where they had entered, hoping it would remain inactive. From here, Lon and Lin saw for the first time an inkling of the scale of this nature replication area, from their point of hiding, it’s one visible outer edge skirted with a stack of ten lengthy, glass-walled corridors, through which certain activity could be seen, including that of security staff on several of the higher floors. For now, it seemed, they were safe.
Eve, in an instant of anamnesis, whipped her head round to look more closely at Lon’s bloody face, “Are you alright?!”
He considered why she only asked him, “Um… yeah, I can hear a little better now”.
“I mean your face, is it your blood?!”
“What?” alarmed, he gently pressed the skin on the side of his face to test for pain. After sensing no physical disorders he said, “Fucking hell, I must’ve got a faceful when that grenade went off!” and he fervently wiped away as much as he could with his coat sleeve. “Is that why you two are bloody as well?”
Lin examined her crimson-spattered garment, “I’m not injured,” and, hesitantly, regarded Eve’s whole before asking “are you?”
“No, just my ears”.
“None of the blood is yours?”
“No, I think we were all fortunate enough not to get hit”.
“Right… we need tidy ourselves up,” she quickly removed her lab coat and reversed it before redressing,” these coats are quite thick and the material is absorbent, I doubt the blood can leak through,” she tied her hair back.
Lon and Eve copied, and to their fortune the coats were still untarnished on the inside.
“What’s your plan?” Lon asked Lin.
She reverted her visual attention to the block of corridors at the park’s perimeter, “We need to find a place with far more people so we can blend in better…” something caught her attention.
Nearly all the visible security personnel in the half-glass passageways slowed down or stopped in their tracks and turned to look through the panes into the naturesque region, before sprinting to their closest lifts.
“Shit, they know we’re in here”.
Eve gasped.
“How?” asked a panic stricken Lon.
“Virtual breadcrumbs”.
They recommenced running.
Shots fired somewhere relatively remote.
Once again the three sought botanic refuge.
“Did they see us?” asked Lon.
“It sounded far though,” noted Eve.
They took a moment to review, to visually analyse the changing situation.
Not far from the lift from where they had entered the indoor parkland were a small group of guards regarding on the ground raw, white-clothed corpses.
“Oh my God, they really do want to keep their secrets secret!” Lon alarmedly whispered.
Eve wildly shivered.
“I didn’t expect them to be so severe!” said Lin, “Talk about collateral damage! I told you hostages wouldn’t work!”
Lon’s insides turned to stone. “Remember earlier when I said we were going to die today?”
Lin, the most composed of the group, assessed potential escape routes, which were now mostly blocked by security personnel laying waste to anyone in a white coat. “Eve, what’s on the other side of this wood?”
“I think more corridors,” she hyperventilated.
“We should try to get there without having to fight our way out. Come, let’s go”.
Speedily and stealthily they tried once more to make distance.
More shots sounded, then a series of explosions which dislodged vegetation and kicked up dirt and stones among the trees, two or three quite close to the group’s position.
Another time they hit the deck.
“Can’t they give us a break?!” squeaked Eve.
“It looks like they’re expecting us to go that way,” said Lon.
Lin let out a frustrated groan. “Then let’s do the opposite, let’s go back from where we came”.
“What?” Eve yelped.
“They’re not expecting us to be so crazy, so let’s just be so crazy”.
“Bloody hell, how did we get into this situation?” asked Lon.
Seeing as the security gunmen were doing a sweep of the woodland area, chances were a grenade would not be thrown where another had already exploded, so Lin, Eve and Lon took that as an advantage and sought the closest patch of repositioned foliage.
By a dense cluster of trees they lay in wait. Soil particles could still be smelt in the air around the small crater left by a recent grenade.
With a temperate pace the security personnel canvassed the wooded region for signs of dispatched intruders. The particular individual who had launched the grenade that affected the group’s area was getting close.
Eve held her breath so as not to give evidence of her existence. She stood with her back against a tree, in view of Lin and Lon, who were farther from the oncoming gunman.
Holding his weapon high, he stepped carefully into the tree cluster and passed Eve’s location without awareness.
She caught Lin’s eye and signalled he was close to the tree behind which she was veiled.
Closer… closer… closer…
Within a second of registering a nod from Eve, Lin rapidly removed herself from hiding, and, while he was in a state of utter surprise, with the edge of her gun she crushed the man’s throat, easily silencing his attempted retaliation.
“How do you kill so easily?” whispered Lon.
“Fate would have it that way,” Lin replied.
Lon was sceptical of her unusual answer.
She removed the remaining two grenades from the man’s belt, passed one to Lon, and grabbed the gun he had dropped, “Let’s get going,” she pointed to a lift on the side of the park from which they entered, though it was quite far from their position.
Silently they ran, yet the volume of explosions was still notable behind them as the security personnel continued on their campaign of death. Soon they came to the perimeter of the wooded area.
“Stop,” commanded Lin, holding out her hand. “There are people watching”.
Up in the corridors, observing the nature area, were numerous other Science Centre workers, looking rather distressed. Had personal recording equipment been admitted into the building, surely they would have all been filming the rampage of the security personnel.
“They might report us,” said Lin.
“How do we get to the lift without them seeing?” asked Eve.
“Dammit, I was hoping to keep hold of this for much longer,” she lobbed her grenade as far to her left, yet in the direction of the stack of glass corridors, as she could.
“Wai-” Lon attempted to protest.
The explosion forced part of the bottom to shatter and collapse in the lowest corridor, impelling many of the bystanders to flee, and deflecting the attention of those who remained.
The intermittent explosions and gunshots from the wooded area ceased.
“Leg it,” instructed Lin, and the group made haste for their destination across the way.
&nb
sp; Eve desperately hammered the button to call the lift.
“You could’ve warned us you were about to do that!” said Lon. “We could’ve formed a better plan”.
“There was no time,” Lin firmly responded.
“No time? We’re wasting time now by waiting for this lift! They’ll be out of the woods soon!”
“We’re quite far up,” said Eve, “the lift is coming from the ground floor; it could take more than a minute”.
“Dammit, you’re right,” admitted Lin, “are there any exits that aren’t lifts?”
“There’s a stairwell”.
“Where?”
Eve gulped, “where you threw the grenade”.
“Are you kidding me?! Is that the only exit that isn’t a lift?”
“As far as I know, yes”.
Voices could be heard from the wooded area. Security were getting close.
“If we go for the stairs, it would be a waste of a diversion; they’ll surely see us before we get there,” said Lon.
“All we can do is wait,” Eve panted.
They readied their guns in anticipation and spread themselves apart. There was nowhere to hide other than from where they had just run.
The first security guard emerged from the trees and began to run towards the spread of displaced glass.
“Don’t shoot until they see us,” Lin ordered.
The moment was tense. It was tempting to eliminate the enemy before he could attempt the same, yet the distance alone was a deterrent. The next one vaulted over a sizeable rock by the border of the woods, and followed rapidly behind the first guard in the same direction.
Eve glanced over her right shoulder to check the blue digits above the lift’s entrance. It was somewhere close to the two-hundredth floor. She made a rapid calculation, “We’ve still got over twenty seconds to wait”.
The third security guard emerged, accompanied closely by the fourth, who spotted the group straight away and immediately started firing rounds.
Accuracy at this distance was a problem on both sides, but Lon, Eve and Lin dispersed and fired reciprocally.
Nobody from either side made a hit, but bullet holes began to appear in ground and walls around each party. If one were to get hit at this point, it would be a fluke.
“The lift’s almost here!” yelled Eve.
Among the sounds of rounds being expelled, one, to Lon’s surprise, appeared to whistle past his head in a direction other than expected. Overwhelmed by the action of the engagement, neither Lon, Eve nor Lin had managed to do a headcount on the enemy, and recognition of the difference in numbers between the security personnel seen in the glass corridors and those currently in interlocking combat had been unrealised until the point when that one round came inches away from obliterating Lon’s head.
“Jesus Christ! There are more of them among the trees!” he called out to his companions. He fired wildly in an arc-like motion from one group of enemies to the other.
Within a few seconds the door of the lift slipped open.
“It’s here, get in!” Eve screamed. She almost leapt inside, and the other two managed the same while remaining unscathed from the attack. “Keep going!” she commanded.
It was instantly obvious that on this floor the lifts doubled as exists straight into the adjacent corridor.
Eve remained inside momentarily to instruct the lift to go to the “Ground floor, now!” and just managed to slip through the closing door on the other side, following Lon and Lin.
The three stood panting heavily in the corridor out of view; the walls here were opaque.
“What now?” puffed Lon.
Eve attempted to gather her breath for a prompt, timesaving response, “They should follow the lift to the lobby”.
“Brilliant idea, you’re a lot sharper than I thought,” praised Lin, “but they’ll click on eventually, especially if we keep using our EMP chips”.
“But we’ll be seen by the security system if we don’t,” Lon pointed out, “what happens then?”
“They’ll have no reason to suspect us if we discard our weapons and split up”.
“What?!” Eve was agitated even more so than she had been prior to this suggestion, “Why do we need to split up?”
“Because they’ll be looking for two Chinese faces and a white one together”.
“But I’m not Chinese!”
“They don’t know that! I doubt they’re thinking about political correctness right at this moment!”
“What about our weapons?” asked Lon, “We can’t chuck them because they’ll have our fingerprints all over”.
Lin’s expression was one of shock. “You’re not wearing fingerprint masks?!”
“No, nothing like that was even mentioned to us!”
She put her face in her hand and thought hard. “Fucking hell, talk about a botched job. You’ll have to keep hold of them and try not to look suspicious”.
“What about you?” Eve asked.
“The government don’t have my fingerprints on record, so I’m getting rid of my guns as soon as possible”.
“Why don’t they?” Both Eve and Lon were perplexed as, to their knowledge, the government held such information on everybody from the country.
She deactivated the EMP device on her palm screen. “It’s not necessary to talk about such things now, we need to split up and get the fuck out of here”. She began to walk away. “Leave the way you came in. Look for a car with the colours of the old republic. I’ll see you outside in twenty minutes. If not, I’ll assume you’re dead”. She discarded both guns she was in possession of, let down her hair, and vanished around the first corner she encountered.
Neither Lon nor Eve could believe what was happening, they both held expressions of wide-eyed astonishment and remained mute for the next few moments, until Lon broke the silence, “I was under the impression she was here to save us”.
Facing the hard-to-swallow reality, Eve and Lon deactivated their EMP devices and retroverted their guns into their original shapes.
Taking another nearby lift straight to the ground floor was a ridiculous idea. “Lead the way,” said Lon.
The section of the building in which they were currently resembled the minus-twentieth floor in regard to the calmness. Perhaps security had already cleared the area, or the fighting in the nature replication area had frightened everyone and caused them to flee.
Several passageways and a fast-paced two minute walk later, they found a commonly underused stairwell, where they descended five stories. Activity on the two hundred and ninetieth floor seemed as normal.
“Why isn’t there some sort of security lockdown?” inquired Lon.
“I’d imagine they don’t want to disrupt productivity. Time is money, you know?”
At a standard pace to cast off any suspicion, they made their way to another lift quite far from the shaft that was used as a decoy several minutes prior.
“Ground floor”.
Towards the lobby the lift began.
“Don’t you think the security in the lobby will be a little… tight after all this?” said Lon.
“Lon, I can’t even speculate… It’s like they do the opposite of everything we expect. We’ll just have to hold thumbs”.
“You’re right,” Lon made certain that his face was clear of sweat and other notable imperfections, and tried to rearrange his lab coat to feel more comfortable. “Are you sure no blood has seeped through?” he checked himself over in preparation for the home stretch.
“Not that I can see. Do I look okay?”
“You look fine too. Just try not to look so stressed”.
“Easier said than done”.
They both steadied their breathing with large inhalations.
“Almost there,” Eve nodded at the floor count, and they silently enumerated along with the display.
Their speed decreased, and the tension in the air inspissated.
The swiftness of the countdown on the display graduall
y lessened and stopped… on the fifth floor.
Lon shot a worried “What the hell?” sort of look at Eve, to which she responded with the same.
The doors opened to reveal three security guards holding their guns at head height. Before either of the twosome could muster a reaction, the guard in the middle said in threateningly cold, deep voice “Hand over the briefcases, slowly”.
Lon and Eve complied, giving the guard on each side the disguised guns.
“Put your hands behind your heads and get out of the lift”.
Again they complied.
“What’s going on?” Lon forced a breath of cluelessness into his articulation.
“You have no reason to know,” menaced the same guard, “now move”.
The couple each experienced a gun muzzle in the back and were forcibly moved down the corridor. Along the way were many more security personnel stationed by every lift and some laboratory entrances.
Lon attempted discrete eye contact with Eve, and wanted to mouth “I think we’re okay”, but could not manage to.
“Why did you take our briefcases?” he asked, expecting no decent response.
“Shut up,” said a new voice.
Soon they were pushed through a door into a medium-sized, generic-looking research lab. Sunlight poured in through the large windows at the far side of the uniformly white room. Nobody was present prior to their arrival.
“Stand over by the windows,” again came the new voice.
They did as they were told. From here Lon quickly noticed two things; that Eve had done as Lin had instructed and taken them close to their initial entrance point into the building, and - something he never thought he would need to be aware of - the base of the building had a noticeably more gradual incline than the rest of its height. He quietly tapped the worktop with a knuckle. Solid, not wood.
He turned around and found that the menacing guard did not accompany them the whole way, and the remaining two had placed the briefcases on a workbench close to the centre of the room, and one of the guards was attempting to open one.
“Which section do you work in?” asked the other guard.
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