The Undergrad

by Mela NoLeuca

CHAPTER TWELVE

  Robyn's POV

  "For fuck's sake Ares, exactly how right were you in the head when Ethan got here?" I asked, gripping my Black Robin--the gun that Ethan gave me--tightly as the two of us crouched behind a turned table. I can’t believe this! We were cornered to one vulnerable side of the warehouse at this moment, minutes from dying thanks to this intellectual dweeb on my right and right now, he didn’t seem to notice what was happening around him. “Hello Ares, if I must remind you, we’re being attacked?”

  Barely looking up, he was typing things in my iPad with the Rubrix activated that set Ethan’s biological status to a maximum, it was strapped to his back inside his white coat, "I guess I was a little too right that gives me credit for giving you the time of your life!" he winked at me.

  I groaned quickly quieting down when Ethan dove right in front of me, crouching low as he reloaded his gun. He was still in his jogging outfit, soot streaked his arms and face with traces of blood splattered on to him, his tattered shirt only showed proof that he should have been shot several times but the skin it revealed showed no wounds whatsoever. There were some fresh wounds on his arm though; bullets emerged slowly as if his skin was spitting it out.

   

  I watched in awe as I witnessed the gradual closure of the wound until it vanished. This was how he must have remained unscathed. It must be work of the Neurovascular Invasive something (N.I.E.S.) running through his blood. "What's the plan Ares?"

  "First make sure my team gets out safe and then we blow this place up," the scientist mumbled almost too robotically as he worked his magic on the iPad Ethan gave me. Ares was like a bouncy little kid going to Disneyland that moment he had his hands on it, immediately telling me it was special. I never saw the difference, but apparently the geek did. And right now, he was appreciating every bit of his brother's creation, my awesome toy.

  Ethan sighed heavily, slightly peeking through the edge of desk before ducking low as bullets missed him by just a hair’s breadth, "Ares, I can't guarantee that your precious team will all be saved--"

  "You will make sure of it," the scientist insisted. For the briefest moment Ethan and I glanced, sharing a silent conversation at the impossibility of the plan. It was hard to save a horde of people I admit, and along the way the chances of all of them surviving were limited. Surely one of them was bound to get shot by some stray bullet.

  "Listen to me, I know how ERA run their operations,” Ethan began rationalizing with his brother, like a way a parent would a child when it was throwing a tantrum, “no Wipe Out has lasted for more than ten minutes and by calculating approximately the time they got here, we barely have enough to..."

  Ares held up the iPad as it gave a satellite image of the warehouse’s blueprint with red lights pulsing in a certain beat, "are these the bombs that wipes this warehouse clean off the map, bro?" with a finger, Ares swiped across all the dots as if connecting them in a certain pattern; it turned green, "problem solved, now we have control over the time, anything else?"

  I couldn't help but smile at Ares' gifted brain. Ethan was also laughing to himself as he shook his head.

  "To make things more specific, Robyn go gather all my people and make sure they get out safe, Ethan just hold them off for me will you? I know that's what you do best," Ares winked at both of us.

  "What will you be doing in the meantime?" I asked, loading my gun with trembling hands as I fumbled for the pellets to shoot into its barrel. A few scattered on the floor, I groaned and began sweeping them all into my gun. I can’t believe I’ll be part in the shootout! I mean sure I’ve had my fair share in the arcade, but whenever Ethan and I had an actual encounter, I was always the one being protected! I was always the one who was instructed to stay put and keep quiet. That was what I always did best!

  "I'll tell you when I get the results I need," he was swiping, zooming in and out of the iPad like a whiz kid doing the 'Bumblebee' on the piano that I nearly forgot what I had to do.

  "Robyn, what the hell are you waiting for?" Ethan's voice echoed throughout the main floor of the warehouse, I heard grunts and then the blast of guns.

  I can't run out from my hiding like this! What if I got shot? What if I was going to die here and now?

  "Don't tell me after going through so much hell with Ethan, you still don't have the balls to get in the suspense?" Ares asked me patronizingly without even sparing an effort to look at me.

  "Fuck you Ares and your stupidity!" I flipped him the finger and dashed out to the nearest hiding spot I could find before mentally slapping myself, "Ares?"

  "What?" he hollered from behind the clumps of tables.

  "Where are your people?" I asked, pressing my back against the metal pillar. He didn't answer for a while. Why wasn’t he? What could he possibly be doing? I couldn’t take it, I took a hesitant peek and then a stray bullet whipped past, I recoiled, giving me a jolt for a heart attack. That was a close call.

  "Ares?" I hollered again until he finally answered: "Hiding,"

  I was banging my head against this steel column. Basically Ares was useless to talk to right now. What else was he doing anyway in that iPad anyway? Having an intellectual game of slinging birds to ruin a pig's fortress?

  "Robyn, you better hurry, back up keeps filing in this place!" Ethan yelled as I heard screeching tires and car doors slamming from a distance to prove his point.

  "Right!" I replied, "you hold them off then I'll lead them through the back!"

  “You don’t say,” he replied sarcastically before I heard a gun cocking before bullets fired away. If only it were that easy to do. Apparently, I still had to scan the whole place to play hide and seek with Ares' children. I don't understand why none of his guards stood a chance at all?

  Either those men didn't have the NIES or the opposing organization managed to up their game. I ran frantically from corner to corner, spotting a few people garbed in white, trembling as they hid. I collected them one by one and some by pairs and guided them through the back, I never knew where they went from there but that was what Ares told me to do: just lead them through the back. Right?

  I instructed them to enter three black vans parked next to a tree, and stay quiet until I came back. I did a headcount and noticed one was missing.

  “You got everyone?” Ares asked, running for his life towards me with a gun in hand. He was occasionally shooting random shots behind him that earned him a few kills from his assailant's as one of them fell from above. I didn't have time to understand how that happened.

  “There’s one left, I told your people to get into three vans,” I said in a hurry, quickly sprinting in the opposite direction. 

  The last one nearly shot me, Gibbs. He was a skinny redheaded teen that was struggling with puberty. He was short and the only thing big about him was his Afro hair and thick-rimmed glasses. In his hands was a rifle that was a tad too heavy for his twiggy arms. He shot one bullet I nearly caught if it were not by dumb luck. 

  “Easy there, kiddo, I’m here to rescue you,” I whispered to him as I ushered him to come over to me. Quickly, hugging the gun, he scurried over to me. The moment I got him we were running like crazy towards the exit. Gunfire went off a little over our heads; a shriek escaped my lips before several began raining down on us.

  “They’re getting away!” I heard one man say.

  Hell yeah we were! The exit was a mere few feet away, and by the door way I saw a van with its back to us, its door slid open as Ares anxiously reached his hand out. Yes, just a few more and we were almost there! Gibbs was having a hard time catching up as his voice was practically cracking from the long alto he was screaming out. If only we weren’t running for our lives I would have been laughing on the floor rolling by now. 

  Ares managed to grab Gibbs’ hand before I actually found myself rolling on the floor. And I wasn’t laughing. Pain shot up my right thigh and I couldn’t understand why. The van suddenly drove off with a defiant Ares yelling at the driver to stop, but
to no avail. 

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They were picking up speed like the other vans that convoyed. They were leaving me! I tried to stand up but my left leg only throbbed in pain that I stumbled to the ground, tears were brimming my eyes as my heart sank in fear at the thought of my impending doom. Yes, I was going to die soon! I just knew it.

  “We’ll come back Robyn!” was all I heard before the screech of tires drowned it out. All I heard now were the trees rustling to the wind, and all I felt, other than my aching leg, was the scorching sun beating down on my skin. My breath hitched at the sound of boots marching towards me. I tried pathetically crawling through the dirt path, if I could just reach to the nearest tree I could hide for a while until they left.

  “Running away, love?” a woman’s sensuous voice caused panic to stir in my heart before I wailed in pain when what seemed like her boot stepped down on my thigh. Tears sprang out of my eyes as I thrashed in a feeble attempt to get her off me, I looked back and should have thought right when I was bleeding now from my leg; I was shot. 

  My eyes trailed up at the black leather boots, to the cargo baggy pants hanging low on wide hips that complemented a slim waist and overly generous chests inadequately concealed by a multi-pocketed vest. A beautiful, yet deadly face was scowling right down at me that I could swear her eyes were glowing green through her steel framed glasses, like any moment lasers would shoot right through her sockets and burn me to the ground. 

  A wicked smile propped up her bright red lipstick, which by the way brought out the red quite well from her bouncy to-die-for hair. “You must Ethan’s one and only, am I right?” she sneered. 

  I spat at her, deciding not to give her the satisfaction she wanted. She tutted at me, wagging a slender finger mockingly at me, “now, now, mind your manners, love. I’m sure Ethan would just be as disappointed if he saw his girlfriend being all rude,”

  “Oh dear, what a shame,” I drawled out, feigning concern, “did I offend you?” I spat at her again with every intention of pissing her off.

  Her smile fell as her anger clearly burned in her eyes. Sweat began breaking off my skin as I felt that swirl of trepidation sinking into my mind. She brought both my wrists to the small of my back and pinned it with one foot before grabbing my hair. I yelped as she painfully tilted back my head to its limits. My neck was screaming in pain and for a split second I thought she was going to snap it off clean from my shoulders. I tightly shut my eyes and waited for worst.

  It never came; instead, she knelt down on her other leg next to my right ear and then felt something cold press against my neck. She brought her lips to my ear and threateningly whispered, “I said, mind your manners, love, your traitor of a boyfriend won’t be around to save your sorry little ass, so I might suggest that you listen to the one in charge here.”

  “What you mean he won’t be around?” I couldn’t help but ask. I couldn’t bring myself to imagine the worse for him. I began looking around as my eyes would let me and saw a group of familiar men surround us. He couldn’t die so easily, I mean I saw his fucking skin puke out those bullets!

  “Show her,” she commanded. From the corner of my eye I saw two men dragging a limp Ethan by the hair before they threw him to the ground next to me. He didn’t react, nor move. He was staring back at me with eyes wide open before I muffled a sob like scream.

  “You killed him?” I asked in a struggled voice. My voice nearly cracked as I stopped myself from weeping before her. Hatred spilled from within my body but kept still, trying to set my mind on overdrive as I thought of ways trying to escape this hold. It only died away just as it surfaced to my thoughts when the realization hit me: I was too scared to move.

  “No, you stupid bitch, can’t you see he’s still breathing?” she chuckled slightly, craning my neck so I could see the steady rise and fall of his chest. “He’s not moving because we tasered him off, ingenious I know but I figured that it only would seem like the logical thing to do when you have millions and millions of robots doing their thing in your body right? Guess, what? I was right, I basically short circuited millions of them, automatically paralyzing him,”

  “Besides, we can’t kill him,” She rolled her eyes and continued, “The boss still needs him alive, you should be thankful for that. And unfortunately, he wanted you alive too, so sadly enough, I can’t kill you either,”

  She pressed the knife harder against my neck I could feel it stinging; she must have given me a superficial cut, “none of you deserve to live after letting my husband die like that. And you know what sickens me more? Watching you two cooperate with the enemy.”

  “What are you talking about?” My voice failed me as I ended up sounding like a pathetic, scared little girl that I actually was right now.

  “You must be Robyn,” she flashed me a dangerously sweet smile, easily ignoring my question, “Ethan must have mentioned about me, if not, then you should remember this name: Emily Green, the bitch who will fucking kill you when The boss no longer needs you.”