Posted by Night Manager on October 16, 2008 at 9:22am
This is just about where things started to go wrong. I had a plan... I SWEAR I had a plan. But instead of this being a short story it's reading more like a pilot for a TV show and I don't know how to end it as just a short story! Hell, I'm WAAAAY off what I started to write which is why the title makes no sense“It’s a façade! Pull it out!” Wade ordered. He and Wilson stood back as two of the Rangers stepped forward. Another of the white and blue armored men moved into flanking positions behind them, cocking and raising his rifle. A fourth was holding what looked like an older model cellular phone; large with a long antenna and wide digital face screen.“Signal’s strong.” He reported. “Can’t break the encrypt but it’s reading clear. Someone’s online.”With a crack the huge crate broke away from the others it stood against. A flash of white streaked by too fast for the Rangers moving the crate to react to.“Hold your fire!” Wilson yelled too late as the rifle report filled the air. The Rangers were well trained and disciplined; the rifle stopped firing as the order was given. Never the less the result was there was a woman lying face down on the hard warehouse floor her white lab coat covered in blood.“Damn it!” Wilson cursed.“What?” Wade looked apathetic. “It’s what we came here for right?”“We are looking for the God damned tech!” Wilson snapped. “Only she…”His mouth snapped shut as a pained gasp came from the woman on the ground. Immediately one of the Rangers moved up to her. He kicked away the small black device lying next to her and leaned down and lifted the lab coat.“She caught two in the thigh”, he reported. “Wounds not bad; she’ll survive.”“What’s this?” Wade asked as he picked up the handheld she had dropped. “Micro terminal. Looks like the source of your signal.”Wilson snatched the monitor from him and turned it on. The Eagle logo flashed at him before the desktop came up. He drew his finger across the screen but nothing happened.“Security feature.” Wade said looking over his shoulder. “They come with keys… cards, finger covers, chipped pens… it won’t work without it.”Wilson quickly stepped by the Ranger, knelt down and grabbed the woman roughly by her long black hair. He turned her face around until her pain filled eyes met his.“Remember me little whore?” he said in a whisper. “You got something for me?”“Sir there’s a door here!” one of the Rangers reported. In the hiding space behind the crate against the wall of the warehouse there was indeed a door.Wade walked over and looked it up and down. “Now how did that not show up on the Satellite imager?” he looked back to the woman on the ground. “It’s a security door too. Probably rigged with… WATCH IT!”The knife flashed and a bright red line of blood streaked across the room. Wilson screamed and fell back, trying to get away from the black hunting knife. Lucky for him the injury to the woman’s leg kept her from being able to chase after him. Otherwise she might have gutted him with her second lunge. As it was he rolled backward without being cut again, clutching his face while Wade and two of the Rangers pinned the woman.“CHRIST!” Wade grabbed the woman’s wrist as she tried unsuccessfully to drive it through the breast plate of one of the Rangers. It took hardly any effort to get the knife from her then and she cried out in anguish as he pried it from her hand.Knife in hand Wade turned to see Wilson standing still holding his face his hands now soaked with blood but not so much that it looked life threatening.“Fucking bitch!” Wilson was shaking with rage. “I should have popped you when I…” but Wilson stopped himself. One of the Rangers was pulling at the man’s hands trying to get a look at the wound.“Sliced all the way through the cheek…” he reported.After a quick glance back down at the woman Wade turned his attention to Wilson. “Damn. She cut you a nice new smirk.”“We need to get you to a Medi-unit.” The Ranger was saying but Wilson ignored him and pushed past Wade on his way back to the woman still pinned to the ground.“Whoa!” Wade warned him. “We still need the tech remember.” But he was stifling a laugh as he said it.“Stand her up.” Wilson ordered and the two men who were pinning her pulled the woman to her feet. She gasped in pain and leaned heavily on her right side trying to give her wounded left leg respite.“Okay… okay Ms. Corrigan…” Wilson was speaking through clenched teeth. “You have no idea how bad it’s going to get for you now.”But the dark haired woman just glared back at him through pain filled eyes and said nothing. Lightning fast his hand whipped out and smashed her in the face. Her long black hair flew wildly as her head snapped back from the blow. She sagged a bit in the Ranger’s arms and her hair covered her face. Wilson reached and savagely grabbed her by the throat and forced her head back up.There was blood all over her pale face. A lot dripped down from her nose and around her mouth but most of it was smeared across her right cheek; blood from Wilson’s own hand.“Back to business?” Wade reminded him. Wilson nodded with the same shaky, barely controlled rage. Still holding the woman by her throat he pulled her face close to his.“Where is the fucking Engine, Corrigan?”Her breathing was as haggard as his was. Bloody spittle slid down her chin, mixing with the blood flowing from her nose. But her eyes were defiant; she remained silent.“Still got nothing on this thing.” One Ranger waved the small Computer unit with frustration.“She just used it. We need her key card.” Wade stepped forward and reached into the woman’s lab jacket pockets. Then he frisked her thoroughly until;“Here it is.” He held up the stylus then handed it to the Ranger with her device. “So what exactly was the deal?”Wilson spit a little blood himself. “Simple. She sold us the specs for the Engine. Now we’re here to collect.”“You…” the woman uttered her voice cracking. “… you killed him.”Wade smiled, looking sidelong at Wilson who was trying not to look back at him. “The way I heard…” he began, still keeping an eye on Wilson for his reaction. “… you’re the one did your boss in. I saw the body. Decapitation’s an ugly way to do someone you once called friend.”The woman looked from one man to the other. A defiant smile slid across her lips. “You weren’t supposed to do it. You weren’t supposed…”Another back hand ripped across her face. Blood gushed from her nose, seeped from both corners of her mouth. Wilson drew his hand back for another strike.“Alright, alright!” Wade grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him away. His face was a mean smirk. “Don’t forget we’re here for the tech. Don’t want to mess that up… twice apparently.”“Don’t think you’re so smart Wade.” Wilson turned his glare to his partner. “She cut the son of a bitches head off.”Wade’s eyes narrowed and he looked from Wilson to the woman and then back again. The smirk slid further up his cheek. “Maybe… but was he alive when she did it?”The snort was halting and sounded a little wet. Wade turned back to the woman. Her head was down and her long black hair covered her face. She shook with the second snort.“The Jones won’t like that too bit of news.” She said slowly leaning her head up and flashing a smirk of her own.Wilson’s eyes flared with anger but Wade stepped in between them again. “Now why would you cut off a dead man’s head?”“You… you won’t find the Engine.” She said desperately.“Got it!” The Ranger who was working on her portable device handed it and the stylus over to Wade. He looked at the screen and tapped it a couple of times with the stylus.“Yea… good encrypt…” Wade said concentrating on the screen. “But it’s LAST month’s encrypt…” and after another tap of the stylus the screen color changed.“What the hell are you monitoring?” he said tapping the screen a few more times.“SIR!” one of the Rangers had raised and cocked his rifle. He was peering into the remains of the fake crate. The security door that they had been ignoring after the knife attack was wide open.“Who the hell opened that door?” Wilson hissed.“Look behind you.” The whisper came from the woman whose head had fallen back down. Wilson snorted himself, unwilling to take the bait. Then he noticed Wade looking past him, just over his shoulder. The smirk was gone. The Rangers turned together and Wilson whirled around and his jaw dropped.It stood six and a half feet tall. First Wilson thought he was looking at some kind of chrome skeleton covered with dark plates of the same metal as the woman’s blade. The dim warehouse lights gleamed softly off the dark metal coverings which flexed and rotated minutely seeming to almost to float lightly about the chrome skeleton. The thing stood on three pronged feet and flexed four digits at the ends of its two long arms. The dark plates covered its joints, torso and also its head. There smaller shifting plates formed a mask of where they shifted, twitched and fluttered like an insect’s wings. Those smaller plates danced around a trio of cylindrical lens cases that moved in unison sweeping over the group of Rangers.“Oh shit.”
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