C.N. - chapter 90

G!

I woke up, and everything was silent. I was still strapped to the gurney. A steel trolley beside where I lay had a pile of bloody gauze and bandages on it. My chest was freshly bandaged and still had a numb sensation. A single fluorescent light tube was on at the far end of the large room. Terry and Terry were nowhere in sight.
I tried to get up, and found that I couldn't. The straps around my wrists and ankles pretty much restricted all movement of my limbs. I could only raise my head to look around me.
Without hearing footsteps first, I saw the door at the far end of the room open, and someone stepped in. This person was wearing flannel shorts, and looked like he had never shaved his legs before. Maybe he was one of Mr. Dragon's henchmen who had been on vacation in a tropical place and just returned.
The person approached me, and from the posture of his walk and his physique, it occurred to me that it was unlikely that he was Mr. Dragon's henchman after all. This person looked like a late-teenager, around my age, in fact.
'Hello Charlie.' The person said.
'Hello, are you one of Mr. Dragon's henchman who had been on vacation and just returned to base? Because if you are I think there's an invasion going on right now.' Although this was now a dubious assumption, I still wanted to test it out.
'I know about the invasion in progress, but I'm not one of Mr. Dragon's henchmen.'
'How did you know my name?' I asked him.
'Why wasn't that your first question?' The person pointed out.
'I don't know, it just came out that way.'
'Well I know, because I wrote it that way.' The person smiled.
'What do you mean?'
'I'm the author of this story, your author, to be exact. I created you on a word processor.'
'Wow, really?'
'That's right, I'm here now because there's a lot of exciting things happening in the story right now. This is the grande finale of your story, so I don't want you to miss out on all the action that is taking place which you aren't there to witness.'
'So what's happening right now that I'm not there to witness?' I asked.
'Allow me to take over the narration for a moment, you'll see it all.'
'Ok,' I said, 'how will you do that?'
'It's extremely simple, I just replace your narrative voice with mine. You can simply sit back and enjoy the grand finale of your story, without having to narrate any of it.'
'Wow, I didn't know I was narrating the story this whole time.' I exclaimed. Indeed, I had no idea the thoughts in my head were being recorded for other people to read, if that's even how this is supposed to work.
'By the way, how's your bullet wound? It wasn't too painful was it?' My author asked.
'Oh no, just a flesh wound.'
'I knew it, you took it extremely well. Even I couldn't handle it like you did if I got shot in the shoulder by Harvey Keitel. Now, where are we...

The Lynx was rudely woken up from her afternoon nap in the reading room by an explosion that shook the whole floor and ejected a stream of concrete dust from a crack in the ceiling straight onto her face.
'That blasted vulture better not be playing with his explosives again.' She thought to herself. Then there came the gunfire.
'Must be the Dragon and the Wolf,' she said again to no one in particular, 'those two imbeciles are reenacting the finale of The Matrix again. This is shameful, when will boys grow up?'
The Vulture ran into the reading room, with not one, but two belts of explosives strapped to his waist and an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. His turban was covered in soot.
'How many times do I have to tell you,' the Lynx said with great annoyance, 'if you want to play with your explosives, don't do it on the recreation floor-'
'We're being attacked!' The Vulture cut her off, 'Every man for himself!' He ran off via the entrance on the opposite end of the room to the one he came through.
The Lynx rolled her eyes and yawned. The rattle of machinegun fire and footsteps got closer. She made her way to the floor mirror and combed her gray hair. Shouts and screams of pain were now audible in the approaching noise. It sounded like two groups of people are fighting intensely in the hallway. The Lynx thought to herself how much she was beginning to look like the Queen of England. Maybe it's time to retire, she added. The footsteps were just around the corner. Dense gray smoke was blowing into the reading room. The Lynx pressed the side of the mirror, it swing back to reveal the entrance to a hidden passageway. She slipped through the entrance. The mirror swung back to place just as the fight in the hallway spilled into the deserted reading room.
Meanwhile, Mr. North, grandfather of Theo North, was finishing off a squadron of poorly-trained henchmen who had the misfortune to run into him as he made his way towards the Dragon's Den, where he had been held captive just several hours ago. Mr. North, freshly pissed off that he wasn't able to thoroughly crush the Dragon at their rematch on the submarine (which he exploded before reentering the underground complex), was not going to let that villain get away this time.
Moreover, he had to find his granddaughter. Though he knew perfectly well that she could handle the situation on her own, he wanted to be there to see her kick ass, and also kick some ass in her presence to prove to her that he wasn't getting old like he had assumed she was beginning to think. Mr. North had radioed the League of Justice as soon as the submarine was abandoned and the fight moved underground. Their aircrafts should arrive in no time. The terrorists did not stand a chance.
Then Mr. North heard the loud cursing coming from close by, followed by a blast from a high powered rifle and then more swearing. He stopped by a door that read 'Auditorium - center balcony' and confirmed that the swearing was coming from the other side.
The constant stream of cursing was sporadically interrupted by hails of gunfire. Mr. North slowed opened the door and peeked through. Standing at the edge of the balcony with his back to Mr. North was the Panther in a bloodstained white suit, firing a machinegun and cursing wildly at the main floor below. At the Panther's feet were piled several bags of white powder.
The Panther was screaming, 'You think you can take me? You need a fucking army, if you gonna take me! You hear? Come on! I take you all to fucking hell! Who you think you fucking with? I'm-'
At this, a hail of bullets from below struck him in the chest, but the Panther did not fall, he regained his balance as more bullets struck him all across the front of his exposed body. His cursing did not stop.
'You fuck with me, you fucking with the best! I'm still standing. Come on! I take your fucking bullet!' The firing below had stopped. Everyone was dumbstruck by this terrorist, still alive and standing after having been shot numerous times. Mr. North silent approached the Panther from behind, while raising his rifle in slow-motion.
'You think you kill me with bullets? I take your fucking bullets! Go ahead!' With astounding cocaine-induced strength, the Panther raised his machinegun for a act of defiance in the face of certain death. 'SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE F-' At that, Mr. North fired one round right into the Panther's back. The Panther's battle cry was abruptly cut short, and he pitched forward over the railings. A thud was heard below, following by cheers.
Mr. North approached the railing and looked out below. Laura's henchmen in the League of Shadows were coming out from behind their cover spots to attend to the wounded.
'Hey look, it's Mr. North!' Someone said.
'Hello there Mr. North,' someone else said, 'if you hadn't shot him down, we'd have been here for another five minutes.'
'Drug kingpins can sure absorb those bullets.'
'So thanks for that!'
'No need to thank me,' Mr. North called down, 'now let's go finish those damn terrorists once and for all!' Everyone cheered, and the fight continued.
Meanwhile, the Serpent was running along a pitch black hidden passageway with a flashlight to guide him. He had to make it to the escape pods at the lowest level of the complex before everyone else. If he could strand all the other terrorists on the island, the League of Shadows wouldn't think to pursue him until he long gone.
He turned a corner, and his head collided with a hard object which smelled faintly of perfume. There was a crack, and his glasses broken in two down the bridge. His vision - even in the darkness - suddenly became blurry. The hard object happened to be the head of the Lynx.
'Ouch!' They both clutched their heads and yelled.
'Fancy seeing you here, Serpent, sneaking away like a rat!' The Lynx remarked.
'As if you're not!' The Serpent retorted. He grabbed onto her arm. 'You broke my glasses too, now I can't see shit!'
'Well too bad for you, let go of me!'
'No! I'm not letting go until you compensate for the damage!'
'What? In case your idiocy caused you to not notice something very obvious, we are being invaded!'
'Exactly! You have to get us out of here and to a lens store, or we'll both get captured.'
'What makes you think I'm going to take you?'
The Serpent smiled slyly, 'Once you reach main land, you'll need certain documents from scratch to stay in hiding,' he said, 'only certain individuals know how to create these documents, and only one of them knows how to do it from scratch...do you catch my drift?'
The Lynx sighed. 'Fine, you little weasel, it's a deal, but don't get any clever ideas, this alliance is only temporary.'
'How can I expect anything more?' The Serpent replied, 'By the way, I wouldn't mind starting a art collection of my own. How about in exchange for crafting you a new identity, I get half your-'
The Lynx lifted the much shorter Serpent up by his neck, 'Don't even think about it.'
'Deal.' The Serpent squealed as he tried to loosen his neck from her iron grip. The Lynx dropped him, and with his grip on her arm and she leading the way, they made their was towards the escape pods.
Meanwhile, Laura, John and Eric were running to the scene where Graham was injured. A fire had erupted in the power generator, which was spreading quickly throughout the underground complex. Smoke filled the hallways.
The League of Shadows had cornered the Wolf and some remaining henchmen under his command at the laboratory of the complex. The Wolf and his henchmen were cornered at the dead end of the laboratory, behind a barricade made of steel trolleys. The League of Shadows fighters were shielded behind a similar barricade just beyond the main entrance, which was steadily moving forward towards the Wolf's barricade. It was here that Laura, Eric and John found Michael, Terry, Terry and Graham, who was bleeding profusely from a chest wound.
'You know, this is quite unfair,' Graham said between gasps as Terry and Terry tried to wrap their shirtsleeves around his chest to stop the bleeding, 'Charlie gets shot in the chest and you two patched him up in a jiffy, well why don't I get the same treatment, eh?'
'Save your breath old chap,' Terry said, 'the trouble is Charlie's bullet didn't puncture a major artery, yours did. God dammit blood, why won't you clot?'
'Everybody duck.' Michael shouted.
A hail of machinegun fire peppered across the bullet-ridden walls behind them. The League of Shadows returned fire.
'You know what would really come in handy right now?' Eric shouted to Michael.
'What?' Michael replied.
'A bazooka.'
'We have a bazooka.' Michael said, he dragged it out of the stockpiles behind their firing line.
'Then why don't we use it?'
'We don't have any rockets. Some brilliant chap left them on Flyasaurus No. 5, and Flyasaurus 5 blew up while we were busting open the air vents so we could blow hydrogen sulfide into their ventilation ducts.'
'I don't smell any rotten eggs.' Terry remarked.
'That's because some other brilliant chap mistook the water vapor canisters for hydrogen sulfide.'
'What about the grenades?' Eric shouted.
'We used them all.' Michael said.
'Wait, do we still have smoke grenades?' Laura asked.
'Two left.' Michael checked the stockpile.
'And that's an all-purpose rocket launcher, correct?'
'Of course,' Michael held it up for her, 'I designed it myself.'
'Load the smoke grenades.' Laura said.
Michael's eyes brightened up, 'Of course! He said, and stuffed the two smoke grenades into the bazooka.
'Everybody run!' Laura yelled, loud enough for the terrorists to hear.
Michael fired, ditched the bazooka, and ran, as did Laura and the others. On the other side of the room, every terrorist except the Wolf leaped over their barricade in panic and out into the open. As soon as they did that, Laura and her henchmen turned around and opened fire on the exposed terrorists. They were gunned down shortly.
'Ah, evil henchmen always fall for that trick.' Michael said as the smoke grenades released their fumes. They charged past the fallen henchmen and trained their guns on the dense cloud of smoke.
When the smoke cleared, the Wolf's body was not found among the slain.
'Well boys, it looks like Clark's hidden tunnels in this place got a bit more extensive since our divorce. Start searching.' This commenced.
Laura walked back to the entrance, where Terry, Terry and Eric were treating Graham's injury.
'How is he doing?' She asked.
'Not good.' Eric replied.
'How not good?'
'He has no pulse.'
Meanwhile, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, perhaps the most determined terrorist still left standing at this point in the fight, when the rest of his brethren had been all struck down or making their hasty escape, was a man on a mission. Using the numerous hidden passageways built into the island's underground facility (which most of the other terrorists, in their panic, had completely forgotten about), he sneakily dodged the soldiers of the League of Shadows and their newly arrived reinforcements, the League of Justice led by Mr. Parker and Mr. Wayne, which had swarmed the terrorists' stronghold like floodwater. He had only one single destination in mind, and one confrontation to settle. The bodies falling around him and the bullets flying over his head had hardly any effect on the psyche of this determined, fanatical man. He headed straight for the Dragon's Den, the idiotically named lair of his contemptuous boss which was where he took his afternoon tea. He knew he would find the Dragon there, the Devil's voice was guiding him, and he would have his vengeance...'

'Why did you stop there?' I asked my author after he trailed off on that sentence and didn't pick up again.
'Well, that part of the story belongs to Theo. According to the traditional laws of storytelling, the main character of any story should be afforded the opportunity to confront his or her arch nemesis at the climax of his or her story. This enables the character to complete his or her story arc, figuratively speaking. Theo's story arc can only be completed by her confrontation with the Dragon.'
'Do I have a story arc too?'
'You do, your arc in this story is your journey towards making new friends. You now have several new friends you didn't have a week ago, so your arc is complete.'
'Wow, but will I have a new story after this one is over?'
My author paused for a moment to think, then he said, 'As much as I dislike giving indecisive answers, I'm going to have to swallow my pride and quote the old saying: we'll see about that, we'll see. Any final questions before I leave?'
I thought for a moment, then I said, 'Something tells me that you know what I'm going to ask you.'
'Ask anyways, it's not everyday that I get to talk to a character of mine.'
'What's a fob?' I said.
My author smiled as if recalling a long-forgotten memory, 'A fob is someone who looks at the world through rose-colored glasses.' He said.
'I don't wear glasses,' I said to myself.
'Then you're not a fob, good bye Charlie, may we meet again when the situation calls for it.' I blinked, and my author disappeared.

T.N - Chapter 89

“Whoa!” shouted someone as they turned the corner.

“Laura it’s us!” said another as they halted beside their companion.

“John? Eric?” Laura asked, looking between the two of them. “How-“

“No time to talk,” John said. He had a couple of slashes, one tracing his across his cheek and his lips, the others scattered along his arms and stomach.

“Graham’s hurt. Bad,” Eric added. He looked in better shape, but his knuckles were bloody, and there was dried blood under his fingernails. 

Laura’s face clouded, and her eyes flicked between us and them.

“How many of you are together?”

“It’s just us two, Graham, and a couple of the other guys,” Eric said. “Terry and Terry still haven’t reached us, and none of our communications are working in this building.”

Her posture slumped as she brushed a strand of hair away from her face. Her hands tightened into a fist and released, kneading her fingernails into the base of her palms.

Wolfgang reached out with his free hand and placed it on Laura’s shoulder. “Go with them, Mom. We’ll be fine.” He paused. “You won’t lose me, I promise.”

Laura hesitated, then smiled and patted Wolfgang’s hand. “Stay with the group, ok?”

“Ok.”

She straightened up, and motioned towards the Shark. “We’re taking him with us, we’ll find somewhere to deposit him for now.”

John and Eric rushed over. John took my place and I backed away, feeling the tension in my shoulders release a bit. They started leading him away, and Laura took a few steps to follow them.

She stopped suddenly, and walked quickly back. She unhooked the holster from around her waist and held it out to me.

I looked up at her, and she jerked her chin towards the gun. I slowly reached out and took it from her, feeling the heavy metal settle in my hand. She gently placed the holster and belt into my hands as well.

“You’ll need this.”

“But why me?” I asked.

“Because you’ll know when to use it, and when not to.” She reached out and puts her hand on my head, ruffling my hair a little bit. She turned to catch up with the others.

“Which way should we be going?” Wolfgang called out after her.

She looked behind her. “Take a left, then head straight until you get to a set of stairs. You want to get to the second floor, and then it should be easy to find the third floor stairs from there. Got it?”

Wolfgang gave her a thumbs up and an encouraging smile. Laura returned the gesture briefly before running after John and Eric.

We stood there and watched as she disappeared into the dimness. I took a deep breath and wrapped the belt around my waist, securing it tightly before putting the gun in there. The weight felt strange on my hip, and I tried adjusting it to sit better, but to no avail.

“All of us are going to need weapons now, huh,” Dennis said.

“That would probably be a good idea,” Wolfgang replied.

“Let’s go grab those guns from the people back there!” Heathcliff proclaimed.

“Another good idea,” Wolfgang said.

We headed back over to where the corpses were. The guys set themselves upon carefully rummaging through the bodies. They all looked a little pale doing so, but they were thorough and respectful.

They came back out with several semiautomatics, along with ammunition and packs to hold everything in.

Dennis held two blades in his hand, the same ones that were in the Scorpion’s hands when she died. The metal had been wiped clean, and the shined menacingly in the dim light. After giving him a questioning look, he shrugged and said, “Just in case.”

We took a minute to reload the guns, all of us fumbling a little bit with it. Soon enough, we were prepared to go.

Following Laura’s instructions, we made our way to the stairs and clambered up. The stairway echoed with our footsteps, no matter how much we tried to stay quiet. We quickly made our way

The second floor opened up before us, and it seemed much more straightforward than the first floor. We looked down the hallway straight in front of us

“The main rooms must be up there,” Dennis said.

“Come on, we don’t have much time to waste,” I urged them to run.

“Now just hold on a fucking moment there,” said a gruff voice from behind us. We slowly turned to see a roughly shaven man. His jacket was flung haphazardly open, and the rest of his suit was in similar disarray.

I recognized the man. The Cougar, a warlord with a trigger happy finger.

He was waving his signature gun around. Under the dim light, it was beautiful, coppery pink with inlaid ivory in elegant carvings. It glinted as he waved it, aiming casually towards each of us alone.

“The boss said he wasn’t going to be disturbed, especially not by kids trying to play soldier.” He grinned. “You obviously have no fucking clue on how to use those. How long did it take you to even load those motherfuckers anyways?”

We stood in silence, hands gripping around our weapons even tighter.

The grin disappeared. “Drop the guns and we can talk.” He trained the gun on Heathcliff. “Otherwise….” he made the sound of a gun going off, mimicking the gun going off.

There was some clatter as the guys dropped the guns onto the floor. I slowly placed my arm in front of the holster on my hip, hiding it carefully.

“Now kick them away,” the Cougar said, and the guys complied.

“Really?” the Cougar laughed, kicking at the blades that had rolled from Dennis to his feet. “You brought a knife to a gun fight?”

Dennis glanced over at me, and I tightened my grip on the gun, pulling it out from the holster.

The Cougar followed Dennis’s line of sight to my hand.

“Come on, girly, drop the weapon.”

I knew I should have done that.

“Are you fucking deaf?”

Would have had more chance of survival for everyone that way.

“Theo, come on,” urged Dennis. “We’re out of our league here.”

But I also knew that it would be game over as soon as we were powerless. No chance of finding the Dragon, no chance of finding Grandfather.

“Drop the motherfucking gun!” he growled. The Cougar stalked his way towards me, a fevered glint in his eye.

I could feel the panic rising in my chest, adrenaline blurring the edge of my vision to whiteness. My heartbeat reverberated through my fingertips, and I couldn’t hear anything else that the Cougar was saying above it.

Instead of dropping the gun, I pointed it towards him.

I didn’t realize that I had pulled the trigger until the kickback happened. The jolt ran through my arm, jerking the gun towards my shoulder. Heat emanated from the barrel, and the sharp smell of gunpowder brought the picture back into focus from the adrenaline rush.

The Cougar was on the ground, blood starting to pool beneath him. The bullet had pierced through his jugular, and presumably to his spine. There was a surprised look on his face, eyes wide in shock.

I was going to be sick. My shaking hands dropped the gun, which had become as heavy as lead. I placed my hands on my face and rubbed, trying to make sense of what happened.

I felt a pair of arms wrap around me and pull me in for a hug. Hands started rubbing my head gently, soothingly pressing circular motions against my skin.

“It’s ok,” Wolfgang murmured.

“I shot someone,” I said, more to myself than anyone, testing out the truth on my lips. “I killed someone.”

“You saved us. You knew when to use it.”

Laura’s words echoed in my head. She had trusted me with the gun because I would know when to use it. And here was Wolfgang, repeating it.

I took a deep shuddering breath and gently pushed Wolfgang away. He let go, and gave me a nervous smile. I forced myself to smile back.

I stepped towards the stairs.

“We’re here at the Dragon’s lair,” Wolfgang remarked.

“No turning back now,” Dennis added.

“Not when we’ve come this far,” Heathcliff concluded.

I looked at all three of them, and nodded.

And we turned to head up to our finale.

T.N - Chapter 88

Rather than going into the thicket, Laura lead us forward to the building, where there was a ramp leading down to a large industrial metal door. Security cameras lined the walls, shifting and whirring to keep the lenses trained on us.

“We’re going through the front door?” Dennis asked, glancing up at the cameras.

“If we’re assuming Clark has gone into the main boardrooms or the main control room, this is the easiest way in,” Laura replied.

There was a keypad embedded beside the door, and Laura bent down slightly to scan it briefly. She quickly typed in 6 digits, and a light flashed green. With slow clicks, the door started to lift open.

“Not very high security, huh,” Wolfgang remarked.

“Well, it’s not often that they have unwanted visitors here,” Laura said, as she stepped away from the opening door. She grins. “Also helps that Clark hasn’t changed his password since the days we were married.”

We ducked under the opening gap, and we were hit with a blast of cold air. The sweat on my skin from the blaring sun cooled instantly, leaving a lasting chill. Along with the concrete, it felt like we had walked straight into a refrigerator.

We all subconsciously started rubbing our arms, hoping to keep warm. Heathcliff shivered, and Laura pulled him and Wolfgang under her arms.

“Come on, kids, the faster we move the less we’ll feel the cold.”

The lights in the tunnels flickered as we made our way down, speed walking around corners and down dim paths. The hallways were big enough to hold military vehicles, with a towering ceiling and walls wide enough to hold our group standing side-by-side. There were moisture streaks down the sides where leaks dripped from the pipes, pooling in the corners.

“You would think that a secret base like this would be more well-maintained,” Dennis said. “I was kind of expecting plush carpets and all that jazz. Or something like the sinister black metal of the submarine. This is just….”

“Depressing?” I finished for him, and he nodded.

“More fitting of a post-apocalyptic movie than an action one,” he replied.

“Things can’t always be like the movies.”

“Unfortunately.”

There were a series of clicks coming from down the hallway. Through the dim lighting, we could see a group of black-clad men turning the corner, most of them reloading their guns.

“Are they on our side?” asked Heathcliff.

Laura narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think so,” she whispered back.

The henchmen seemed to have the same idea, as they yelled out, “Hey, you, stop right there!” They started charging towards us.

“Does anyone have one of those perfume grenades?” I whispered?

There was a flutter of people patting down clothes and packs.

“Got one!” Dennis exclaimed. He pulled the pin out and threw it towards the oncoming crowd.

There were yelps of surprise as the purple cloud exploded around them that quickly turned into coughing. I couldn’t see any of them, except for a few arms and legs that would jut out of the cloud before disappearing back in again.

“Good timing,” Laura said. “Now let’s go get them.”

Laura ran right into the cloud, disappearing in the purple. The rest of us stood there.

“I don’t know how she does it,” Dennis said. “She walks right into it like it’s nothing.”

I looked up at him, and he had blanched at the prospect of walking into the perfume.

“How about you just stay out here and just make sure the cloud doesn’t dissipate?” I suggested.

He looked relieved. “I knew I could count on my little sis for great ideas.” He quickly ruffled my hair before concentrating on the now pulsating cloud of perfume.

I took a deep breath, and rushed into the cloud.

I couldn’t see anything clearly, but there were soft breaks in the gas from people’s movements, rippling the cloud. Feet in boots I didn’t recognize started making its way towards me, and I kicked blindly towards it. There was a crack as my foot made contact with the guy’s leg. As he flinched, I hooked my foot around the back of his knee and pulled.

There was a bang right by my ear as his gun went off, missing me entirely. I could hear a clang as the bullet hit metal, and a steady hissing noise followed it. He cursed, and I used that sound to make an educated guess as to where his face was.

I punched once and missed, grazing his jawline and ear. Before he could retaliate, I threw out my left fist too, and I could feel a square connection borderline where his forehead met his eye ridge.

Fire made its way up my scalp as another man beside me grabbed my hair and pulled downwards. I fell forward on my hands and let my feet kick upwards and forward. Grabbing the man’s neck between my ankles, I twisted, causing him to lose balance and fall as well. I scrambled up and kicked the guy in the ribcage.

Somebody behind me hooked his arm around my arms and throat, holding me solidly in place. Panic bubbled up as I felt my air slowly getting cut off, but I felt a rush of warmth to my right.

A billow of steam rushed out of the pipes, probably from the stray bullet earlier. I turned myself so that the guy’s face was directly in the steam. There was a howl, and his grip around my neck loosened enough that I could twist my way out. Following the momentum of my turn, I lifted one foot and kicked him in the windpipe. The man collapsed as the rest of the fight died down.

There was one last crack and groan before the hallway fell silent.

“You guys ok in there?” Dennis asked.

“I think we’re good,” Laura said.

The perfume cloud slowly settled down, and I could finally see the walls and floor. There were eight men lying on the floor, bruised and unconscious, but alive.

Laura surveyed the casualties and nodded. “Good job, guys.” She knelt down to the man closest to her and swiftly undid his holster with a pistol in it. She looped it through her belt and rested her hand on the handle to make sure it was at a comfortable reaching position.

“What should we do with these guys?” Wolfgang asked.

“Just leave them be,” Laura said. “There’ll be a cleanup crew coming by, they’ll take care of them.”

Dennis walked over to us, and she made a quick assessment of him before turning back to the rest of us.

“Alright, looks like we can get a move on.”

As we walked down, the hallway started shifting in looks. The walls and ceilings started to close in a bit more, turning the space tighter. A few more doors started to pop up, evenly spaced by a few meters or so. All of the rooms were unlabeled, other than small metal plaques that read series of letters and numbers. N24R. Q56K. P07T. So on and so on.

There was a scuffling sound in one of the rooms to our right, and we all froze. Laura motioned with her hands to follow her. She crept towards the door, and with a resounding kick, busted it open. We quickly filed into the room.

It was a large boardroom of sorts, similar to the one in the submarine. The lighting in here was bright, illuminating a long table with a lone man sitting at the far end. His slicked back hair gleamed faintly in the light, and I recognized the grin on his face.

Laura lifted her gun, but the man lifted his hands slowly in a surrendering position.

“No need to fuss,” he said, “I know when I’m overpowered.”

Laura assessed him quietly, then lowered the gun slightly. “Wolfgang, Theo, go confine him, would you?” She reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a thing of cord. She tossed it at me, and I caught it before

As I walked down the table, the man followed me with his stare, studying me. I didn’t meet his gaze, but the feeling of his eyes was just as chilling as the room. Wolfgang was already kneeling there, holding the man’s wrists together behind his back.

I started unwinding the cord, and I could feel the man’s gaze shift to my hands. I looked back at him briefly, and he immediately made eye contact with him. The pit of my stomach flipped a little bit as the blue of his eyes seeped down my spine.

The bundle fumbled out of my hand, and I leaned down to pick it up.

“You don’t need to be so timid of me,” the man grinned. “I may be called the Shark, but I’m not biting any time soon.”

I ignored him, instead I went over to where Wolfgang was and started wrapping the cord around the Shark’s wrist. After several rounds, I tied it into as many knots as I could. The Shark flexed his hands, testing the restraints.

“Rudimentary, but effective,” he sighed.

I grabbed one of his arms as Wolfgang held onto the other, and we hauled him up off the chair. He walked between us with no resistance. In fact, it seemed like he was tugging us forward a little bit, as if he was eager to leave.

Tightening my grip on his arm, we brought him towards Laura, who nodded once.

“You aren’t using your silver-tongue to get out of this one,” Laura said as she put her gun back in her holster.

“Oh, I wouldn’t imagine it be happening here,” the Shark replied. He smiled, and the group fell into an uneasy silence.

We marched out of there, Laura taking the lead and the rest of us sandwiching the Shark in. He seemed peaceful enough, and fairly reasonable. Yet something about him unsettled me, and my skin was crawling just touching him. Looking over at Wolfgang, it seemed like I wasn’t alone in the thought.

It was oddly silent for a few minutes as we wove our way through the building. There were no sounds of fighting. It felt like we were moving away from the action as we got closer to the centre.

There was an abrupt waft of blood coming from around the corner. Laura’s eyebrow lifted, and she slowed her pace down. We stopped in our tracks as we came across the site.

Several corpses lay on the floor, thrown like ragdolls down the hallway. It was difficult to distinguish which ones were the terrorist’s and which ones belonged to our forces, as they were dressed the same. Some of their injuries disfigured their faces, many with deep knife cuts and gouges.

The only corpse that looked very different was of a young woman dressed in black formal clothes. Two sharp, pin-like blades lay in her hand, shining under the drying coat of blood. She lay on her back, one glassy eye staring up at the ceiling. Heathcliff had inched forward to take a better look, and instantly cringed. When the rest of us approached her, we saw that one eye had been shot out, along with the entire right side of her face. Her face was set in a stiff smile, rigor mortis warping it.

The Shark clicked his tongue. “A pity,” he said. “Scorpion was such a good business partner too.”

I was taken aback. Here was someone close to my age who was part of the terrorist group, and she had been killed brutally. I felt a twinge somewhere in my chest.

We walked past the bloody scene, and continued our way down the hallway.

Suddenly, there was the sound of feet pounding against the pavement around the corner. Laura immediately grabbed her gun from the holster, and Dennis reached for the few remaining perfume bombs on his belt.

The steps got closer, and closer, and closer…