by Dante Doom
“You’re coming, too, you idiot!” O’Hara said as she leaped up to the hole.
“If you think I’m gonna give up on the opportunity to go weapons free on a bunch of commies, you’re crazier than I am!” Neil replied as he flipped over the pods, shoving them together into a small fortress.
“Come on!” O’Hara said as she climbed up through the hole. “We don’t have time to waste!”
Neil looked up at them and flashed a grin. “O’Hara, there’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you. Your gun’s nicer than mine; can I have it?”
“You’re an utter psycho!” O’Hara shouted back. “I am not giving you my gun! But you can borrow it!” She dropped her pistol down the hole and drew a revolver from her boot.
“Oh yeah!” Neil shouted. “Get the hell out of here, guys, and if I don’t see you again, it was a real honor threatening each and every one of you.”
The door to Sang’s house shattered and Van could hear gunfire and the maniacal laughter of Neil. They didn’t stick around to see how it played out, however, as O’Hara quickly pushed them to run to the edge of the building.
“Down there!” Sang said, pointing to an unguarded stairwell. It was on the east side of the apartments, where a large undeveloped piece of land lay below. There were all sorts of trees and shrubbery waiting for them. Fortunately, the roof sloped downward, making it easy to get to the eastern stairwell.
The four carefully climbed down from the roof and slowly made their way downward. Van could feel his heart still hammering away. The gunshots in the distance had died down and now there was nothing but an eerie silence.
“The moment you see anyone with a gun,” O’Hara said, “you blast them.”
“Got it,” Sang said as she held her shotgun up. The gun was trembling terribly, though, and each step that Sang took was getting slower.
“Are you okay?” Van whispered.
“Truthfully?” Sang replied. “I’ve never felt better in my entire life.”
Van chuckled at that. “Just hang in there.”
“I think the haptic system actually did some internal damage,” Sang said. “I’m really banged up.”
“Tell me about it. I don’t feel like I broke anything, but I’m really sore,” Van replied.
“Well, unless you both want to give each other backrubs and do yoga, I suggest you shut the hell up!” O’Hara said as she held up a hand. They had reached the bottom of the stairwell. It wouldn’t be too hard to reach the thickets from where they were.
“One guy to the left,” Sang said, pointing to a man wearing a skull bandanna over his face. He was armed with a rifle and wore a bulletproof jacket. He was quietly walking around, keeping the exit secure. It was clear that the eastern area was poorly guarded—probably due to the fact that it would have been impossible for them to reach it through Sang’s apartment entrance.
“Not a word,” O’Hara said as she slowly walked toward the guard. He had his back turned and was whistling as he walked. She got behind him and placed her gun to the back of his head. He stiffened immediately and dropped his weapon. He got on his knees and laid on the ground. Van could hear him sobbing a little.
“Go!” O’Hara said. “Get into the woods and find somewhere safe to hide.”
“What about you?” Van asked.
“You’re nuts if you think I’m gonna let Neil have all the fun!” O’Hara replied as she delivered a swift kick to the side of the man’s head, making a sickening crunch noise. She knelt down and picked the unconscious man’s gun up.
“Godspeed,” Sang said.The three players then turned and made their way into the thickets of brush. The area was incredibly undeveloped, making it impossible for anyone to see their location. They wandered through the overgrowth until they reached the edge of the undeveloped land.
“So, what’s the plan now?” Van asked. “That hit squad probably isn’t the only firepower that Draco has.”
“I think we should find somewhere to lay low and wait for the CIA to find us,” Sang said. “But I’m worried I need serious medical attention.”
“Well, let’s try to find a cab or something,” Van said. As he emerged from the thicket, he noticed that there was a road directly in front of him. A large windowless van pulled up to them.
“Ah crap!” Van shouted, but before he could do anything, he heard, “FBI! Put your hands up now!”
“Oh, thank God,” Kenwar sighed as he noticed the flashing lights of police vehicles pulling up.
“We’re injured and under attack!” Sang called out as she dropped her shotgun. “Terrorists have colluded to kill the three of us.”
Several agents emerged from the van, weapons drawn. They quickly grabbed the three, cuffed them, and shoved them into the vehicle. Van had never been happier to be forcibly stuffed into a vehicle in his life.
Sang sat across from Frederick Yuri. The man’s expression had not changed from the moment the FBI operatives had brought her into the interrogation room and sat her down. He was scowling intensely. She sat in weary silence for as long as he would last. Fortunately, she had received appropriate medical attention; while she had sustained a serious wound to her back, there was no internal bleeding or sign of hemorrhaging. She had been extremely dehydrated due to lack of drinking in the game, though—apparently, the DRZ required a player to drink in order for the haptic pods to provide nutrition. After a few bottles of a sports drink, though, she was feeling far more alive.
“Sang…” Yuri said. “I don’t know where to begin. You know, when you blew it a few months ago, I really tried to keep your career alive. I stood up for you. I fought for you. I brought you into this project because I didn’t want to see an amazing young woman lose everything she’d fought so hard to earn, just due to a mistake. I trusted you. And… and then you do this? You steal government property, hijack a van at gunpoint, and go AWOL. What did you think was going to happen? Did you think you’d find something important enough to prevent me from making sure you’d spend the rest of your life in prison?”
“As a matter of fact,” Sang said. “Those were my exact thoughts.” She gently placed a USB drive on the table. She had snagged it off of Van and made sure to hide it so that she could get it to Frederick. He was probably the only one who would take it seriously.
“What is that?” Frederick asked, his tone lightening up. She could see a spark of curiosity on his face.
“It’s our ticket to the big leagues,” Sang said. “We managed to access a serious Draco facility in the game system. We got our hands on some real data. I’m talking highly classified information. Even if it’s not enough to prove our alien theory, it’s enough to make any serious government official freak the hell out. It’s even got missile codes.”
“How…” Frederick trailed off and gently picked up the drive. “You’re serious? You actually found something?”
“Pull it up right now. I haven’t had a chance to see it, but Neil told me it’s a goldmine.”
Frederick stood and opened the door to the interrogation cell. “Get me a laptop, now!” he yelled at an aid.
A few minutes later, the aid shuffled in with the laptop. Frederick sat down and plugged the stick in, facing the computer so that they both could see it. Information quickly appeared before them.
“My God…” Yuri mumbled as he read through the first document. “It’s a list of all of the nuclear missile sites. I recognize those coordinates.” He pointed to a few maps that were displayed. “And these are… policies. Launch code policies. I’ll be damned.”
Sang read along with them; they both remained glued to the screen for what seemed to be hours then, and they barely scratched the surface.
“Alright, Agent Sang,” Frederick said as he slid the computer back. “It would appear that you have gained some very valuable information. Valuable enough, perhaps, to justify your actions. It will take some cleaning, but I can probably convince my superiors that this was warranted.”
Sang grinned at
that. “Am I free to go then? Can you let Van and Kenwar out, too?”
Frederick sighed. “I’m afraid it’s not that easy. The senator has still been making threats, ever since he discovered that your team went rogue.”
“How the hell did he find out?” Sang asked.
Frederick shrugged. “There’s a leak, and we can’t seem to figure out how to plug it.”
Sang sighed and looked back at the computer. “Wait a minute… Neil mentioned something about people’s names being mentioned.”
“Like who?”
“I’m not sure, but he said there are a lot of names in there.”
Frederick pulled the computer back and began to scroll. “This is easily a week’s worth of round the clock study,” he said.
“Yeah, but there’s a logic to it,” Sang said. “Look,” she pointed at one of the sub-sections. It was labelled Assets. “They don’t look at individuals as people.”
“Draco?”
“Yeah,” Sang said as she leaned over and began to scroll through the computer. “They tend to focus on the idea of the organization being some kind of collective. So, they wouldn’t call people ‘people’ at all—they’d call them…”
“Assets,” Frederick said. “Look!” A large list of names came up on the system. There were names, positions, and assignments.
“Holy crap!” Sang said as she pointed to one of the names. “It’s Senator Franklin!”
Frederick pulled up the profile and read over it. The assignments were simplistic. “Disrupt CIA investigation at all costs,” he read aloud.
“I knew it!” Sang said. “He’s the leak! No wonder he was in such a rush to end the program.”
“Yeah,” Frederick said. “Looks like your friend Kenwar’s on the list, too.”
Sang paused. Kenwar had risked everything to help them, and while he’d constantly tried to play both sides, it was clear that, in the end, he’d chosen the right side. Unless that had been the whole plan... “Bring it up,” she said as she took a deep breath.
“Kenwar is a rogue asset,” Yuri read. “Allow him to draw the investigation team back into the game, and then kill him.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Sang said. “We’ve already dealt with that.”
“There’s one more name on here that I recognize,” Yuri said. He paused and took a sharp breath. “It’s… Van.”
“That’s not funny,” Sang said. “Don’t mess with me like that.” Yuri pointed to the screen and shook his head.
“I’m not kidding around.”
Sang felt her heart stop as she glanced at the screen. Indeed, there was Van’s name. What did this mean? Yuri brought it up.
Sang read it aloud as a sickness rose up in her stomach. “Van is a potential asset. Shows strong leadership skills and intense love of the game. Coerced into joining the investigation team. Trusts the investigation team leader blindly. He has a very high chance of conversion, if we can offer him the right thing. Suggested course of action: allow him to survive as a contingency plan. Continue monitoring performance.”
“Well… I don’t wager to say that’s a good thing,” Frederick said, “but at least he’s not active.”
Sang said nothing. What was it about Van that made them believe he could be flipped to their side? She shivered. Her mind darted back to the fight against Lemuel. He clearly could have slaughtered Van at any time, but instead had chosen to toy with him. He probably would have spared Van, even if pushed to the brink. They’d gotten lucky in killing that creature.
“Well, the good news is that, with evidence of Senator Franklin being in collusion with a foreign terrorist syndicate, this gives me some serious leverage,” Frederick said. He stood and stuck his head out the door. “Someone grab me Agent Neil.”
“Neil?” Sang asked. “He’s alive?”
“Yeah, they found him and O’Hara drunk on cheap scotch in an apartment full of bodies,” Frederick replied. “I don’t have the constitution to tell you what the place looked like.”
“Oh, that was my apartment,” Sang said. “Dang it, and my scotch! I was saving it for a special occasion. And it wasn’t cheap! It was middle shelf.”
“Yeah, what?” Neil asked as he walked into the interrogation room. He was wearing sunglasses and holding an icepack against his head.
“Neil, it has come to my attention that we have a problem child,” Frederick said as he stood up.
“Neil, I’m so glad you’re alive!” Sang replied.
“Oh, hey, Sang. Glad to see you made it. Did that Van guy get shot? Cause I had money on him getting shot.”
“No, he wasn’t shot; he’s alive and incarcerated. Like Kenwar.”
Neil chuckled. “Good times, good times. So, what do you want, sir?”
“I need you and O’Hara to go pick up a package.”
“What kind of package?” Neil asked with a groan. “God, this hangover is killing me.”
“What’s your opinion on politicians?”
Neil grinned. “Say no more. Want me to bring the car battery, too?”
Frederick shook his head. “Not yet. We just want to talk to him.”
“Alright, that sounds like a plan,” Neil said. He looked at Sang. “Hey, I just want to let you know now that you should just find a new place to live. I really wouldn’t advise you going back to your old place. Ever.”
“Gee, thanks, Neil,” Sang said. “How’s O’Hara?”
“She’s fine. Somehow, she never gets hungover.”
“I meant is she okay?”
“Why wouldn’t she be?” Neil asked. He seemed utterly confused by Sang’s question.
“You know, because of all the… guys with guns? And the hitmen?”
“Oh, feh,” Neil laughed. “That wasn’t nearly as bad as that gasoline you called scotch. I mean, seriously, girl, I know you’re short, but you should be able to reach past the bottom shelf.”
And with that, he left, chuckling at his own joke.
“What the hell is wrong with that guy?” Sang asked.
Frederick shrugged. “In my line of work, you always want to keep a few psychos around; you just don’t want to keep them in close proximity to you. Hence, why those two are always doing the field work.”
Sang slumped her head on the desk. “After all this, I think I need some of that cheap-ass scotch.”
Van opened his eyes as the door to his cell slid open. This had been the first time in almost three days that he’d had more than a couple hours’ worth of sleep at a time, and it felt incredible.
“Wake up, sunshine,” Sang said. “It’s time to give your statement.”
Van glanced at Sang and gave a sigh of relief. He had been stuffed in the cell for the last two days and no one had given him so much as the time of day. His requests for a phone call, a lawyer, or even a decent meal had been ignored. He’d worried endlessly about Sang, but the moment he saw her, he felt all of his worries vanish.
“I’m so glad to see you’re okay!” Van said as he stood up and rushed to hug her. She hugged him back tightly.
“Ditto,” she said. “I didn’t think we were ever going to get out of that nightmare. I mean, first the game, and then that slaughterhouse.”
“What’s the situation? Are we going to prison forever? We gonna be shot in the back of the head in the desert? Are we on the news as world heroes?”
“None of the above,” Sang said. “Frederick’s back on our side. Neil and O’Hara are alive and working to help plug a leak. You’ve just got to give your statement before the FBI and CIA directors, and then we can get out of here.”
“What about Kenwar?” Van asked.
Sang glanced at the floor. “They wanted to keep him for interrogation. Said he would be a good asset because of everything he knew. But, uh, I might have left a key for him in his meatloaf.”
“You let him go?” Van asked.
“He could have betrayed us, but he didn’t. As far as I’m concerned, we owe him. Come on,” Sang said as she
waved at Van. “We’ve got a lot to discuss with the government.”
The holding cells were fairly empty. There wasn’t even a guard at the door. And Van wasn’t quite sure where they were, but he knew it was probably some undisclosed warehouse in the middle of nowhere. They walked together, side by side, in silence.
“Van,” Sang said. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah,” Van quietly replied. “I know.”
“What happened back there… the whole thing. That was a jungle, and I did some terrible things. I’m not proud of them, Van. I don’t know how you could ever look at me as a good person after you saw what I did.”
“Do you regret your choices?” Van asked. The question elicited a sharp breath from Sang.
“I don’t think I do. It’s a war, Van. And I know you don’t want to face the painful fact that people will die in this war, but you’ve got to. I want to do everything I can to minimize the damage to others; I want to try everything possible to avoid needless deaths. But at the same time, I’m a realist. People will die because of what we have been doing.”
“But… Sang, you aren’t allowed to choose who is sacrificed for the greater good!” Van snapped. “You can’t look at a loss and say that it’s acceptable. Everyone should have their own choice!”
“But they don’t, Van,” Sang replied. She was growing a little heated, but Van knew this was a necessary intersection. “No one gets to choose how they go out.”
“It’s not about choosing how you die, it’s about choosing whether you want to die in the name of some cause.”
“I… I just don’t know,” Sang said. “I don’t know if I made the wrong choice. But now we’re standing here, alive and with more information to defeat Draco because of the decisions that I’ve made. I can’t say that this is ideal, but at least… at least good is coming out of it.”
“So where does that leave us then?” Van asked. “Because… because I don’t know if I can follow you in this anymore. I don’t know if I can follow someone who is willing to sacrifice other people. I know that I made the biggest mistake of my life when I left you behind, Sang. That’s something that I will always carry with me, and it’s something that will define how I make my choices from here on out. Even though it worked out in the end, I never want to do that to anyone again. So how can I follow someone who’s going against what I believe?”