“Looks like a mass of MJ12 units are assembling at an old apartment complex called Evergreen Terraces.”
Andy pressed the gas pedal harder. His GPS told him the way.
Bionic sorted and said, “Alright, once we get there, how d’you propose we get this guy out in our, err, custody?”
“We take him,” Johnson answered cooly. He checked the magazine in his Berreta.
“Okay,” Frink began, “so long as we finish this by 8:00 AM. I wanna get to the convention early as possible. A favorite actor of mine is making an appearance.” Frink was starting his laptop in the backseat to guide the agents through the strike.
“This isn’t that Paul fella, is it?” Bionic said while he put on his shades. “And can ya take off that stupid costume?”
Andy suddenly spoke from the front seat. “Okay, we’re about a block away. Hey Professor, you can tell us how to get in from here, right?”
Frink nodded and tapped something into his laptop. ‘Looks like you guys will be taking the sewers. I don’t know which floor the target’s on, but I think you can just follow the strike troops.”
“Very well. Move out,” Mark ordered. The team, minus Professor Frink, exited the car.
***
“The exit is up this way,” Garcia explained. The group of five was cautiously making their way up the stairs. “We’ve got our man Hans safeguarding our way out. He’s Thomson’s bro, by the way.”
Red looked around the unlit, dingy stairway. The building was crumbling around them. Red looked into a fading hallway on level four (he believed) and saw a brick fall to the floor, knocking up ages of dust.
“The hell?” Red suddenly exclaimed. He saw the same brick fall to the floor again.
Without looking back, Alice responded. “What is it?”
“I just saw that brick fall . . . or I thought I did . . .y’know, twice. Like deja vu,”Red answered. He shook his head and went back to walking down the stairs.
Alice had stopped and was now facing Red. “You sure?” Red shrugged. Alice gestured to Poca and Garcia.
“What is it?” Red asked.
Thomson explained. “Deja vu is sometimes – well, in our case, always – MJ telepaths screwin’ with us. They like to put up illusory walls that seem perfectly real to you an’ me.” As he reloaded his uzi, he added, “Which is exactly what we think they’re doing now.”
Alice took out her cell and dialed Trophy. She spoke something in French while Red observed Garcia loading his shotguns. He heard the muffled sound of helicopters overhead. “Like something out of a movie,” he commented. A sharp snap suddenly sounded off downstairs. It was followed by the sound of tactical combat boots.
Alice hung up and ordered the five of them to move up the staircase. As she hustled, she spoke.
“We have to make it to the exit. This place is crawling with MJ. Garcia, Poca: our goal is to get Red and the data out, no matter what. Got it?”
Rapidfire gunshots rung out about four levels up.
“Shit!” Thomson shouted. “Hans . . . ” The group hurried upstairs.
***
Doty led the assault on the building from the front. After kicking down the front door, he led the strike troopers to the staircase.
He could hear the enemy above him. Brought him back to his old wartime days in the Middle East. But Doty didn’t have time to reminisce. Troops had stormed the top three floors, and had soon informed Doty of resistance. Tough resistance.
Doty signaled for troopers to search the floors as he climbed the rotting stairs. Then the MCC buzzed in and told him the targets were headed to the eighth floor. Doty climbed even more quickly.
The Illuminati agents and the hacker were trapped. Troopers were coming from all around, and escape would be impossible without some form of magical escape.
“Sir,” Doty heard a soldier’s voice in his helmet, “We’ve located a portal. Floor eight.” Gunfire after that, and the transmission cut out.
Damn, Doty thought. I coulda just blown the floor to bits with a grenade. Blam, problem solved. Unfortunately, there were men up there, and Doty didn’t particularly like blowing up a cadre of his own team.
Looks like he’d have to do things the old-fashioned way.
***
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” yelled Poca, falling back behind a corner for cover.
Garcia was dead, shot at least a dozen times. Thomson was bleeding, badly. At least Alice still had Red, and Hans was miraculously holding the portal. They were on the eighth level, and were close to safety. They just had to make it to Hans.
“Poca!” Thomson screamed out from the opposite corner, and the Jamaican looked down at her chest.
A red dot.
Poca looked up, raised her uzi, and saw the trooper down the hall. He already had a knife sticking out of his neck, expertly thrown by Alice.
Thomson rolled across the hall, bullets barely missing him. A tear gas canister flew past him, and he leapt toward Alice and Red.
Red was cowering, holding the floppy for dear life. “Come on!” Alice shouted, pushing Red away from the advancing strike team. The four remaining rebels turned down another hallway, and landed squarely in front of another group of soldiers.
“God, how many of these bastards are – ” Thomson was cut off by a series of bullets impacting his body, piercing his armor.
Poca yelled “No!” and charged the dark troopers, who dived for cover. Her uzi was blazing, and there was a vengeful fire in her eyes.
That fire was quickly extinguished when a shotgun blast hit her face.
It was not, however, a striker that fired the shot. Another shotgun blast hit a soldier, causing the strikers to dodge and dive again. The confused troopers looked around, eliciting curse words as armor-piercing bullets whizzed by and hit them. One by one, they fell.
Alice tried to move Red out of the fire, but more troops were pursuing them from behind.
Suddenly, two men in combat uniforms not quite like the strikers appeared in front of Alice, guns raised. She thought she heard one of them ask, “Which one’s the hacker?”
Alice raised her gun at the two men. They looked at each other, simultaneously said “Not her,” and both fired at Alice. Their weapons removed the better part of her face.
Red fell to the ground, he wasn’t hit critically, but he was terrified. This was more action than he’d ever seen in his life. In his fear, he almost dropped the floppy. Almost.
In moments, Red felt hands on his back, pulling him up. “W-who are you?” he timidly asked.
“Let’s get him out of here,” came the response, and Red was dragged down the hall by the men to a small room. Once the doors closed behind them, he passed out.
***
Doty looked over the corpses of the Illuminati agents and the wounded strike troopers.
“Who are they?” he asked no one in particular.
“Double agents that are supposed to be in our employ.”
Doty looked away from the carnage, virtually unaffected by it. “Then why did they take the target?”
“We don’t know, sir.”
“Why are these men dead?”
“We don’t know, sir.”
“How the hell did they get up here before I did?”
The soldier behind Doty looked to the ground and spoke carefully. “They apparently took the elevator, sir.”
“There was a fraggin’ elevator?” Doty yelled. “Didn’t we cut the power?”
“Apparently not, sir.”
Doty sighed and walked down the hall, past the corpses. “Find them,” he said before departing, barely restraining himself from shooting the soldiers behind him for stupidity. The MJ would not be happy about this.
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