He had been trying to track the progress of, now, a dozen different groups of people that he had seen emerge, but at some point the thermal detection started to malfunction. At first, he rebooted the program, but the large blotches of rather hot activity remained. He checked the screens, the connections, everything he could think of.
Machine error was all that occurred to him. When he finally checked the camera feeds near those locations, his body slammed into a real panic. Fires. Lots of them. Those people are running rampant and setting fires, a tiny, fearful voice spoke in his mind. He checked the monitors again. Now there were hundreds of heat signatures spilling into the streets and he couldn’t even tell which ones were the perpetrators and which ones were panicking Citizens or investigating Inquisitors.
“What the hell is going on there?!” a tiny voice screamed through the receiver. Bernard jumped at the loud volume, and remembered that he was on the line with Inquisitor Levine.
Hand shaking, he gingerly picked up the phone and spoke in a trembling voice. “Ah, sir?”
“What?”
“They, ah… They appear to be, ah… setting fires, sir…”
No response came, and Bernard jumped again as a loud, percussive noise clattered through the earpiece. Trembling violently, he waited, still holding the phone, in what almost appeared as a calm manner. Finally, with no further responses, he was satisfied that the Inquisitor had likely hurled the telephone and ran from the room, so he hung up.
Bernard tapped a few keys and zoomed the images out, looking over a map of upper-Haven that was showing more and more large blobs of infrared activity.
It’s not my fault, he repeated in his head over and over.
******
Laughing maniacally, Sergei swept his assault rifle at an upward angle, shattering several windows and raining shards of glass down upon the street below. The brittle ceramic material split as rounds traced into the walls, causing spider-web cracks to spread from the impact of the fire.
“Piotr! Take that one over there!” He jerked his head at another building, and one of his other soldiers complied on behalf of the invisible man.
Reaching into his pocket, Sergei pulled out a tear gas canister, procured from the Citizen forces who attacked in down below. “Take it back!” he yelled, hurling the weapon through the window. It could have been his imagination, but he thought he heard terrified screams from within.
Surveying the scene, several of his men and women, in various states of calm, frenzy, and joy, completed similar vandalism. Molotov cocktails were dispersed liberally from the moment they began.
Thick, black smoke stung and brought tears to his eyes. He fired another spray of bullets into the building opposite. They were office buildings, and he was fairly confident that they were empty. Not that he would have wept for any collateral damage.
They were positioned several blocks south of their entrance point. When his watch signaled the top of the hour, eleven o’clock, he and everyone else spreading out through Haven were instructed to raise hell.
“Let’s move! Get going!” He shouted through the percussive, intermittent gunfire roaring around him. “Come Piotr, this way.” He yelled to his silent comrade.
He waved his arm in a chopping gesture, directing his people to start moving down the street. They slung their weapons and took off. He followed behind, bringing up the rear and occasionally firing his weapon.
Every three blocks they stopped for two minutes to set fires and scare the hell out of anyone they say. These people took off screaming in the opposite direction. Sergei smiled each time this happened, but restrained himself from executing them.
One Inquisition patrol vehicle pulled up, but before the person could even exit, every person in Sergei’s small group directed a hail of gunfire towards him. The vehicle, not intended for that kind of punishment, was shredded and its occupant slaughtered within. Sergei pumped his fist in the air and gave a wild cheer, which was immediately answered with a roar from his soldiers, who then resumed their path of vandalism.
******
Unbeknownst to Sergei, Isaac was directed to the residential districts. Rick felt that he would express a more gentle touch with the Citizen population. They wanted riot, not a body count.
“Not that it really matters,” Rick had told him, “They’d execute us without hesitation for less of a violation than this.”
Existence, Isaac thought to himself, agreeing, seems enough reason for our destruction. In his hand he held a smooth, round stone. Aiming upward he hurled it. The rock shattered through a window of an apartment building. A moment later, he smiled as he saw a light come on in that room.
That’s not going to do much, he thought. Need something bigger. There were flashing lights a distance down the street, so jerking his head in that direction, his small group moved with him. As they neared, he held up a hand. It looked like a bar or a night club on the corner of the building. He nudged a small, impish woman soldier of his, very light on her feet, and passed a molotov into her hand.
“Through the window,” he whispered. She nodded, and sprinted down the street, lighting the grenade as she went.
With the sound of shattering glass and a slight whump! of fire, his soldier came running back. A moment later the sounds screaming could be heard just before dozens of people in various elegant and casual clothing spilled out with thick, dark smoke behind them.
With a hand motion Isaac directed his small team to duck into the alleyway. He peered around the side and saw the group of people standing in the street in awe of the blaze, simply watching various others limping out or dragging someone else, but there was only passive horror.
“This won’t do,” Isaac muttered. He turned to his people, “Let’s get ‘em moving.”
Yelling at the top of his lungs, and thinking he must have been doing Sergei proud, Isaac sprinted out of the alleyway towards the frightened Citizens. Their mild shock morphed into genuine terror as bullets whined over their heads. Any feeling of safety they had from being away from the dangerous fire vanished, and they began screaming and running in all directions. They shoved and pushed each other out of the way and scattered with crazed men chasing just behind.
“More of those!” Isaac shouted from the middle of the intersection, pointing down the street in various directions. “More gathering places! Fill up the streets!”
His soldiers separated, groups going in other directions to scare up more civilians. In the distance, he could see the soft, orange glow of blazing fires and dark smoke wafting into the sky. He smiled. Things must be going pretty well for the others, he thought.
He felt a brief moment of alarm as he saw headlights coming towards him. He held up his hands and waved the small two-person vehicle down. It was jet black with the symbol of an eye on the side door. The tinted window slid down, and the driver barked at him. “What happened here?!”
“Nothing, nothing,” Isaac leaned over the window and smiled, reaching behind to the large revolver tucked into the waistband behind. “Just a little accident at the bar.”
The driver looked at him, confusion lighting his face, “Who are-?” Sensing danger the passenger grasped at his overcoat for his weapon.
Isaac didn’t hesitate. Sliding the gun free, he fired at point blank, sending a .45 long caliber round through the passenger’s cheek, splattering the interior with blood, bone and brain matter as the round punched an explosive exit wound out of the side of the his head.
The driver clapped one hand over his ear deafened by the roar of the huge weapon. He reached towards his hip, yelling, but Isaac turned the weapon and fired into the man’s chest. The man made a horrific sucking noise as the bullet punched entirely through his body, taking with it bits of bone and internal organs. He looked up at Isaac with horror in his eyes and wetness spreading across his chest, then slumped.
Isaac stood up and threw open the cylinder, sending the spent smoking brass clattering to the ground. Calmly, he dug into his pocket and
produced two more rounds, sliding them into the chambers and snapping the cylinder back into place. He looked at the gleaming pistol and nodded in satisfaction. No wonder Miguel liked this weapon, he thought. Elegant and deadly.
He glanced at his watch. It wouldn’t be long before the Inquisition response would be heavier and less careless. Oh well, he thought, Rick should at least be getting inside by now.
******
A slight wave of apprehension flared through Rick as, about ten minutes past when the raiding was supposed to start, a dozens of armed men wearing Inquisitor black had spilled out of the front entrance of the Institute. Have we already drummed up that much activity? He wondered.
His companion threw him a worried glance, but Rick gave a nonchalant shrug as if to say, ‘oh well.’ The other man frowned at this, then watched as the group ran towards the square, then out of sight.
A couple of minutes later, making sure that they were a good distance away, they moved. Rick stood up, stretched, put his hands into his pockets and strolled again towards the barracks. As soon as he was close he took a sharp left, away from the Institute. If his information from Elijah was correct, there was a staircase cut into the ground. Or, he mused, was it the ground that sprang up around the staircase?
Rick dropped down and frantically waved for his partner, only a few feet behind, to do the same. A guard stood at the doorway at the bottom of the staircase, and Rick had just caught a glimpse of the top of his head before he slid out of sight. He didn’t think the man had noticed him, but he drew his pistol anyway, attaching the silencer produced from another pocket.
A few seconds passed with no activity, and Rick breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Crawling on the ground, he moved forward through the grass, circling around to position himself just over the lip with the bottom of the staircase and the guard several feet below.
Rick was glad it was dark outside. He felt exposed enough during the night crawling through the grass in a suit. In daylight, he would have been a great deal more edgy and uncomfortable. Perhaps, he thought, it’s because I haven’t seen daylight in years.
Without waiting to see if any hostiles noticed him, Rick gripped the edge of the lip and pulled himself over, flipping down and bringing his feet down directly on top of the man below. His kick connected with the back of the man’s head, who stumbled and rebounded off the wall next to him. The man barely had time to give a startled cry or even turn around before Rick pushed the barrel into his back and fired. With a muffled hiss from the silenced weapon, the man’s body convulsed once before he sank to his knees and collapsed. There was a slight ting as the brass casing tumbled on the ground.
A second later, as Jonathon came down the stairs, Rick was already dragging the body into the open doors. A short hallway, looking like an underground utility tunnel. Probably some kind of maintenance passage built when the traveling bridges first went up, he thought.
Leaving the body behind and closing the doors, the two men cautiously passed down the hallway, which cut towards the left. Just ahead of them was a well-lit opening. His sense of direction told him that he had to be close to being just under the main lobby area of the Institute, along with a few hundred feet above the main lobby area of the Escape.
Edging closer to the opening, he could see a wall on his right with a closed set of double doors. Across from him, he could see another long hallway. He heard indistinct male voices speaking, two of them. He judged them to be a good distance away.
He made a snap decision. Rather than risk being spotted to get a better look, he decided to use the element of surprise to get a quick attack in. He pantomimed kneeling to Jonathon, pointing at him and patting himself on the shoulder. The other soldier looked confused for a moment, but then realization dawned in his eyes, and he nodded.
In a fluid motion, he took a long step, down to one knee, into the room. He brought both hands up with his pistol and took aim. In the room, he spotted two men at opposite corners, sitting at rounded desks in each corner. Rick’s companion stepped in behind him and aimed over his shoulder.
Rick shouted, “Left!” as he aimed at the left man and pulled his trigger several times, sending tiny hisses from the silenced weapon. At the range, it wasn’t the most accurate, but he noted several wounds blossoming on the man, who twitched and jerked as the bullets ripped into his body.
The man at the right desk was unscathed, and it was at this point that he realized his cohort had taken his shout to mean to attack the left. The man was pulling up a weapon and Rick turned his aim in what felt like slow motion and fired.
The two shots Rick managed to squeeze off, without careful aiming, missed. They whizzed on either side of the man’s head and buried into the wall behind him. The guard at the desk, now brandishing a submachine gun, pulled the trigger. He, too, failed to aim carefully, but his spread and rate of fire was significantly higher.
Rick launched himself towards the ground, feeling the sharp hiss of rounds whistling by his body. Behind him, as he collided with the hard tile flooring, he heard the sounds of the bullets pounding into solid walls. He barely had time to hope that his companion had ducked behind the corner when he heard the sound of splintering wood as a bullet chipped into the doorframe, followed by a yell of pain from his comrade.
Lying prone on the ground, unable to take the time to assess his companion’s injury, Rick rolled further towards the middle of the room as the spray of submachine gun fire continued to cut the air above and slice divots into the tile flooring next to him. He passed out of direct line of sight of his assailant, and, lying on his stomach, snapped his pistol up and, with the same hiss of the silencer, sent several rounds into the desk, about where he thought the man’s body would be.
Wood splintering, the rounds tore into the solid material. He kept firing until the slide on his weapon slammed open; he was out of ammunition. As this occurred, Rick felt considerable dismay to see his opponent rising over the desk, uninjured by penetrating rounds, bringing his weapon to bear.
Just as the man was drawing a bead on him, dark red holes appeared on his chest, and a small amount of blood spattered on Rick’s face. He gave a cry of pain, twisted around, clenching his fist and squeezing the trigger as he did, sending an arc of collateral fire that scattered throughout the room. Bullets shattered a light fixture and rebounded off the walls and ceiling. Rick tucked his head behind his arms, feeling the light shower dust and fragments raining on his back.
When no misplaced or haphazard round struck him, Rick slowly uncovered his head and rolled over. His companion had still one arm extended, brandishing his pistol. The other arm clenched at his midsection. Rick clamored to his feet, a flare of concern noting dripping blood from Jonathon’s stomach.
Rick leaned sideways over the desk, checking the body. He relaxed when he saw the glassy stare of the dead man clutching his submachine gun, “How bad?” he called, moving towards Jonathon.
The injured man held up his right hand, the one holding the weapon, waving him off. “It’s nothing, just my hand.” As Rick neared, he was relieved to see it actually was the hand bleeding, not his midsection. “Damn thing skipped right off the door jamb,” Jonathon continued, pointing with his gun. Looking past, Rick saw a small divot cut into the door and splinters of wood jutting out.
Rick breathed a sigh of relief. “First aid?”
Jonathon nodded, wiping his forehead with the arm connected to his bloody hand. Rick winced, seeing the mash of ragged flesh on the outside of his hand between the pinky and wrist. “Small kit in the briefcase.”
Rick pointed, “Wrap that up, I’ll take a look over here.”
He kicked open the double doors leading into the next room, and, after a quick sweep, he declared it empty. Scattered radio equipment lay on a table, but it appeared as though no one had been inside in a while. Probably, Rick mused, since the attack.
Satisfied that the area was at least moderately secured, Rick strolled over to the desk once more, running his fingers alon
g the deep impacts that his weapon had made. He glanced along the back, shaking his head as he noticed no exit marks. His rounds hadn’t penetrated the thick wood.
“Damn,” he called out, “thought it would be thinner than that.”
Jonathon, wrapping his hand in a roll of gauze, gave a laugh and shook his head, “You’re lucky I was here to save your ass.”
Peering down into the impact marks, imagining he could see the flattened slugs imbedded in the desk, he called without looking over, “I’m lucky you had the common sense to duck behind cover.”
Jonathon finished wrapping his hand and stood up, sliding his weapon back into his pocket and snapping the briefcase shut. He appraised the wounded hand, “Not quite enough sense...” he muttered.
“Get over here,” Rick ordered, ending the conversation, “let’s figure out how to get this rig moving.”
Jonathon walked over to the opposite desk and slid over the top. Rick was already seated at the chair looking through the desk drawers for some kind of switch or release that would control the elevator.
“Boss,” Jonathon called out, pointing at something on the wall. Rick looked, viewing a slit set in a small panel. There was another on his side as well; this one had two buttons, one up and one down. “Card readers?” he asked.
Rick nodded, “Search them.” He gestured to the bodies.
Crouching down, he rifled through the dead man’s pockets. After a few moments, he produced a small, blank, white plastic card with a magnetic strip. He stood up, seeing Jonathon holding a similar object.
“At the same time?” Jonathon inquired, holding his card up.
“I would assume so,” Rick responded. He checked his watch. “They should be ready by now.”
At Rick’s signal, both men slid the cards into their slots, noting with satisfaction the small green lights that appeared on the panel as well as one at the top of the elevator. Rick pressed the up arrow button. He smiled as he heard the soft sliding whir of the elevator cable passing through the pulley inside the shaft.
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