by Roadbloc
Jimmy smiled and drew a cross-hair with the pen on the lens of his spyglass, before getting the oddly named weapon into position and looking down his improvised scope.
“Make contact with A,” said Jimmy, sweeping his cross-hair over many moving protesting signs and people, “Fourth floor, windows ten and eleven from their right apparently.”
“Yeah, if that pair of morons actually made it to the right location-” he said, following Jimmy's co-ordinates through his binoculars, “-oh- nope, I take it back. They've made it. Establishing contact.”
Jonathan let go of the binoculars with one hand and formed an O out of his pointing finger and his thumb, leaving the remaining fingers held upright.
“...” said Jimmy, looking at Jonathan and waiting to confirm contact.
“Bleeding morons are too busy yammering on,” cursed Jonathan, “-oh- nope. Contact made,” he returned both hands to the binoculars and scanned the windows on the building opposite.
“Out of all the places to have a speech,” moaned Jimmy, “And it has to be the place where there are the most windows.”
“Bleeding narrow street n'all isn't it?” said Jonathan, “One to go.”
“God damn, the sun will have set by the time he's out, then we will be in trouble.”
A minute quickly passed, the chanting, jeering, noisy crowd all shouting their prose. The sun was close to being fully set, already, half of the vast orange sphere casting its final rays of light onto the balcony and the angry public.
The noise intensified as a man in a suit appeared onto the balcony, only to attach a battered looking microphone to the wooden podium on the balcony and go back in. Almost instantly two flags dropped, covering the windows leading inside from the balcony. They were both the same, the land's flag, displaying the bold sparrow of independence symbolising the honour and freedom of the land they lived in and the green background representing the mature earth they stood upon, with a promise of safety and happiness on the land.
“Despite the datedness of the message, I will always love that flag,” muttered Jonathan.
“Why's that?” asked Jimmy. Both of them, still focused on their lenses as they talked.
“It's just so damn cool. The meaning of it isn't relevant anymore as I'm sure you'll agree, however, the design is just badass.”
“Ha, yeah. I'm catching what you're chucking. Our ground has not the faintest bit of maturity left in it, it's just concrete. Natural resources are a thing of the past I reckon.”
“Oh, I dunno,” said Jonathan suggestively, “I heard some guy up north claims to have found a well-stocked mine on his land.”
“His land? No-one has land in this day and age, no matter what they think,” said Jimmy bitterly, “His lordship expected out there any moment from now can take any bit he likes. Let's just see how long it takes before this apparent 'well stocked mine' is claimed by him and milked dry and used on something un-resourceful.”
“Good point. And his lordship as you put it appears to be late,” said Jonathan, glancing at the open hand watch on the window sill, “Two past six.”
“He's bound to come though,” said Jimmy, removing his eye from the scope “Microphones and flags. He'll just be recharging his new extension or whatever he does in his spare time.”
Jonathan observed the angry crowd through his eye extenders. Jimmy began drumming his fingers on the window sill.
“Anything from A? We could have a visual in this building.”
“No, nothing,” replied Jonathan, “Hey, look at that sign.”
“Which one?” asked Jimmy, peering back into his scope.
“Eleven. Black. Some young group of youths, the holder female wearing a red scarf.”
Jimmy found the protest sign Jonathan was talking about. It was black as he had stated, and simply contained the line:
Copland has won.
“See it?”
“Yeah.”
“What a dumb sign. What the bleeding hell is that meant to mean?”
“Well it's an old legend isn't it-”
Jimmy was cut off by an increase in volume from the raging protesters. He had arrived.
“Good grief,” exclaimed Jimmy, before resuming his aim upon windows of buildings, “They weren’t lying when they said his new extension made him look like a robot.”
“What is that?” asked Jonathan, quickly glancing at the man before the podium, “It looks like some fangled gas mask.”
Jimmy managed to squeeze in the words “God knows” before the speech started.
The guy before the podium raised his hands for silence. He looked perfectly normal, except for his face, which appeared to be fused on by some bizarre gas mask of some sort, which had a mouth piece that pumped in and out as he breathed. Probably a device to aid his breathing. Below his neck, his shoulder blades were covered by some sort of metal covering, which was covered by nuts, assumedly attached to bolts. The rest of his body looked fine, a rather tall man with a suit, and rather oddly, a white tie which appeared to reflect the orangey light of the setting sun. The orange suited him, although, it was clear that he wanted to wear a white tie for that day.
The protesters settled, waiting for him to begin.
“Citizens of the land, hear my word,” he started, a slight bit of feedback pushing him away from the microphone for a moment, “There has been a hell of a lot of hullabaloo recently, about the disaster in Deimos. It has certainly recently been the favourite topic of the press and no doubt, you guys, the citizens, the heart of our large community, have opinions on it yourself that you'd clearly like to voice.
“But to start off, I'd like to say that we are not perfect. We are not perfect. We try our best with what we have, which in this day and age as you all know, can be very little. But we are not perfect and we cannot guarantee everything we do will go smoothly. Second of all, Deimos wasn't perfect either. We all know that now, but Deimos and its sister facility, Phobos were never guaranteed to be perfect.
“To continue, let me voice our opinions, and my opinion as leader of this great land. The press, and quite a lot of you attacked us for not 'being prepared' for Deimos, and not 'doing enough' when it happened. And then further attacked us for not responding to the press's inane questions when the disaster was well in the public limelight. Conspiracy’s, complaints, so called ‘Requiem’ and rumours have been flying around these past two months, so much so, that public confidence of us has been lost and you have evidently, taken to the streets for answers. And this has all since been dubbed 'Deimosgate.'
“This hurt us. This, blatant attack from the press hurt us deep. I admit, because we are being totally transparent here, that we did not expect the disaster at Deimos. We did not expect it. I don't think anyone expected it. But to say that we did nothing in response is a total joke. A lie. Just because we didn't head out there and personally help a few people out of the rubble, like a showoffy organisation would do, like the press did; it doesn't mean we did nothing in response. We don't credit knee-jerk reactions. And all the press offered was a full on knee-jerk of insane theories and showoffy coverage showing 'how much they've done, shouldn't the leaders be doing this?' Don't get me wrong, you all have a right to question what we do, and I am going to tell you exactly what we've done in response to this disaster.
“Instead of responding like the press did with useless knee-jerk, we decided that taking a step back in this scenario was the best thing to do. Sometimes to see a full work of art, you need to step back, and this was certainly the case. The reason we didn't just dive in was because we were very sceptical about what had just happened. To solve things in the long run, we needed to step back and investigate, and that is exactly what we did. I wish we could have done this within the first six hours, but then the press wouldn't have had so much to write about.
“And what were our discoveries? I'm sure you're as curious as we were. Well, the first thing we discovered was, this is not actually as massive a problem as it has been made out to
be. Thanks to a certain bandwagon created by hype from the press and certain members of the public, it has been made out to be a total catastrophe, affected every mother's child who calls themselves residents of our lands. But when you take a look at the reality of things, it turns out that less than one percent of people were affected by the Deimos disaster. Less than one percent. And when I say affected, I am talking about death. When not even a percent of this land's population have been affected by the apparent issues caused by the Deimos disaster, I don't think it deserved the amass of controversy that it received. You'd have thought with outrage on such scale, sixty percent of people were affected. You'd have thought, with the criticism we've been receiving, the mass riots and further destruction caused by angry protesters, that this is a nation on the brink of extinction, that no-one is safe, that we were just going to stand by and watch this. Let me tell you this, Deimos was the first of its kind and it will remain that way. Don't assume that things have not been learnt from this experience.”
Jonathan and Jimmy noticed the crowd getting uneasy. They themselves were quite shocked to hear that he didn't appear phased that less than one percent of people have died. Less than one percent was still a hell of a lot. Not even mentioning the amount of injuries and losses of propriety that had occurred.
“Is he blind or something?” muttered Jimmy.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jonathan spotted something. A flash of red.
“Bleeding hell, a laser!” hissed Jonathan, turning quickly and focusing on the perpetrator in the crowd as the glass eyed leader continued to convince the masses, “Twelve, three, eighteen, six, twenty-one, Caucasian male, long dark hair, pinstriped shirt.”
“Got him,” said Jimmy as he followed Jonathan's co-ordinates as Jonathan attempted to signal 'A' in the opposite block.
“He's just put a laser pen in his left shirt pocket, and God damn it why won't they bleeding look so I can communicate!? Set of useless pricks!” cursed Jonathan.
“Where was he shining it? At the mark?”
“No, at us bizarrely.”
“Could he be marking us?”
“Maybe. Either that or he was hoping to blind us while the mark was killed.”
Jimmy sighed, “He could just be some nut-job fooling us around. Did he point it right at us?”
“No, he sort of swept it along the building.”
“Hmmm.” hmmmed Jimmy, keeping his cross-hair on his temple and running a hand through his hair.
“Keep a close eye on him. A are refusing to look at me.”
“What are the losers doing?”
“Well, the spotter has gone, probably to satisfy his nicotine addiction like he does on every job,” sighed Jonathan, “And the shooter is covering the front crowd area it appears.”
“Goddammit!” hissed Jimmy, “Hasn't anyone told him he can't go for a smoke whilst on a job. Especially when Mr Robot over there is making a speech after upsetting everyone in the land?!”
“Loads of times,” said Jonathan, “Not that he takes any notice. He couldn't care less about anything but himself. At least he goes away to have a smoke now instead just giving away the position like he used to.”
“How on earth is he still in the job?”
“No idea.”
They stopped talking and resumed listening to the leader, whilst keeping a watchful eye upon the laser guy.
“...that some people could not even begin to comprehend. We have worked hard for this to be a success and we make it our effort to try and please everyone. However, disasters occur, lessons are learnt and people move on. Again, I point at the press for somehow creating an unnecessary whirlwind of hype which has caused nothing but destruction. Take a look at yourselves for a moment please, and see where you are right now. You're all on the streets and for this, we have the reports to thank! If the Deimos disaster was just given normal coverage without the self-indulgent nonsense, none of this would have occurred, I promise you.
“However, we want to make sure everyone on this land is happy. I want to make sure everyone on this land is happy; as leader, I feel it is my duty. If you're not happy, we are not happy. So I'm sure you'll be keen to hear what we are going to do on the matter. I repeat yet again, a hell of a lot has been learnt. The lives lost have not been in vain. Unfortunately, as always, no progress is achieved without sacrifice. If there is no pain, there is no gain. And if there is no gain, there will be no grain at the end of the day. Many great things of this land unfortunately have blood on their hands, as the days of beta and alpha development demonstrate success and failure throughout. The many wars this land has suffered demonstrates this brilliantly. Let us consider, that if it was not for the lessons learnt in the various wars we have fought, that the idea of the facilities such as Deimos and Phobos would have never been conceived. I am in no way saying that what happened at Deimos was in anyway acceptable, because it was not. If there was any way to prevent what happened at Deimos that night, it would certainly not have been overlooked in our investigations. As you know, nothing could have predicted Deimos. I am simply saying that instead of doing the thing animals do, and turn to feelings such as hate and revenge, such feelings that the press has encouraged throughout, (the proof of that stands before me,) we should mourn the unfortunate and see this as an opportunity to fix the errors we made. It should be seen as progress rather than disaster, for in the long run, this will certainly be progress.
“So what are we going to do in response to this disaster? Well, because it is our duty to keep everyone on this land happy, we are going to do two things. The first, is free healthcare for the next week.”
The crowd murmured, some clapped, however the majority shifted and talked uncomfortably as though this was not welcome news.
“Anyone with a Deimos related injury will be able to check in to a hospital and find their treatment subsidised by us, no catch, no charge. The second thing we are doing, is offering to buy and shares from Deimos shareholders at one rupee a share.”
Again, mixed response from the crowd. Someone shouted something. It sounded abusive.
“Bleeding hell, this may just all begin to kick off,” whispered Jonathan.
“As from tomorrow, all Deimos shareholders will have the option of selling their Deimos shares to us, and we shall buy each share for one rupee. We will be setting up a stall in the Convert buildings tomorrow where shareholders can home and sell their shares to us.
“Now, there is one last thing.”
The crowd murmured again. The whole 'one last thing' was something he said often in his speeches, and it was often something that sounded promising.
“As I said several times, and you'll be sick of me saying this now; we have learned an awful lot from this experience. An awful lot. And I have also just mentioned that you can also sell your shares to us tomorrow and Convert, however, we are hoping that will not be the case for the majority of you, after what I'm about to announce.
“Using what we have learnt from this experience, we are going to set up two new areas. And these are going to be codenamed 'Swift' and 'Voltaire'. Consider them to be the far superior children of Deimos. They are both going to be set up where Deimos was and once built, Phobos will be closed down, and yet again, shares will be optionally up for sale. Alternatively, what we are hoping is that you invest in Swift and Voltaire. Of course, this is only an announcement, details on how this is going to work will be drawn up in the near future, but we are confident that Swift and Voltaire will triumph where Deimos fell.
“However, I leave with you a warning. Do not take the press's word to heart. Do not take them seriously in times of seriousness. Do not be fooled by their so-called efforts to sort things out, as they are worthless. We have nothing to apologise for-”
BANG!
The gunshot cracked through the air, almost instantly a smashing of windows was heard to the left of the leader. The left green flag fell down to the floor. The audience ducked, and uttered a low 'ooohh'-ing sound. Jonathan cursed
, searching for the perpetrator, scanning the rapidly panicking crowd. The leader, had ducked as well, looked around whilst still in his ducked position and then pretty much leaped through the smashed window and out of sight.
“Oh God, you see anything?” said Jonathan franticly, still searching the windows and crowd for anything suspicious.
“Um... yeah actually,” muttered Jimmy, raising his eye from his makeshift scope, “Look st-”
That's as far as he got. A bullet cracked through the window, ripping through his neck and propelling him backwards. Blood splattered throughout the room, some landing on Jonathan.
“Oh man-” he spoke out as it happened. He glanced down at Jimmy's body, the head was almost detached from the body. Without even thinking, he leaped onto the floor, knowing he may be next to be shot.
The second gunshot had been heard by the crowd and Jonathan could hear them all screaming and moving in panic. He crawled along the floor to the window were Jimmy was. He peered up to the level of the sniper rifle and peered through the scope, being careful not to invoke any sudden movement. The scope was focused on A's sniper. His sight appeared to be locked onto something nearby to Jonathan, maybe he had caught the perpetrator in his line of sight, although Jonathan doubted there was only one of them. Then a thought struck him.
He was still holding his binoculars, his left hand's fingers gripped round one the sides tightly as though his life depended on it. Making sure his movement was out of range from outside the window, Jonathan threw his binoculars at the left hand window where he had been seeking.
A third bullet smashed its way through the left window. Jonathan saw. It was A's sniper who had tried to assassinate the leader. And now he was trying to clean up.
“Bleeding hell!” cried Jonathan, and scampered from the room. A's sniper saw him, and immediately left his position. The chase was on.
Jonathan pelted down the stairs of the empty multi-story building, hoping to reach the suspect before he got away. He was already short of breath, but it wasn't worth his skin to fail. Failures were not tolerated. This man had to be caught or killed. Preferably caught, however, Jonathan was keen to use his the K893 pocket gun they had given him for this job, and not so keen for the suspect to use his.