Dan and Li reached the last hallway before the waypoint on their HUDs pointed them to the exit of the building. The walk through the poorly lit hallways eventually gave way to the red hues of the outdoors, which weren’t any more pleasing to the eye.
By the time the pair stepped through the doors and outside, something flashed by Dan’s peripheral vision. In a flash, something cold and heavy wrapped around his neck. His vision filled with static and artifacting as error and warning messages popped up in front of him.
“We need to keep a limiter on your powers,” a female voice said behind him. Dan slowly turned around and saw the cold and expressionless face of Kate.
“Yeah, of course you do,” he said bitterly. He glanced at his one and only ally in this entire mess and saw the same black collar around the stealth specialist’s neck.
“If try to escape or do anything that deviates from our mission, you will get shocked,” Kate instructed. In the next second, the collar sent a brief jolt that shocked the hell out of Dan, causing him to stumble and almost keel over. “Like that.”
Dan clenched his teeth, not just at the sudden pain but his anger towards that traitor.
“That must have felt good, didn’t it?” he said, looking at Kate. “Since Colleen probably treats you like trash, you need to make yourself feel better by dishing out the same treatment to someone like me. Oh you fallen so hard, Kate.”
The blond narrowed her gaze at him but didn’t say a word. Dan looked around and saw many new faces given the same basic weapons. Though, none of them wore any armor approaching the quality that he, Li and the Kodak agents wore. These must have been the other inmates who must have been promised freedom if they did this job.
I bet none of these poor guys will make it back alive, he thought.
The rest of the merry band consisted of Kate, Adam, the two Bloodknights Ada and Natalia, along with numerous additional Kodak agents.
“Listen up everyone,” Kate said. “We got word of a cult master sighting in this city. He’s responsible for the heavy cultist activity and we need to cut the head off the snake. In addition to finding and eliminating this threat, we kill any and all Church agents and their cultists along the way. We need to purge these fanatics out of this city.”
Dan almost felt bad for her. He looked around to gauge the reactions to their mission and wasn’t impressed. The inmates, or conscripts in this case, gave her either indifference or anger at being used as cannon fodder for Kodak. As for the two female Bloodknights, Ada kept a blank expression that didn’t say much while Natalia gave Kate a sneer.
The rest of the Kodak agents wore their dark helmets that completely covered their expressions. Dan was expecting obnoxious excitement to commit slaughter to the enemy. But no one piped up. He guessed that Kate was still deemed as an outsider and was treated as such.
Dan glanced upward at a screen on the side of a distant building. With his enhanced vision, he saw the brief news broadcast on the screen. A brief slideshow of cars on fire and bodies littered along city streets showed the collapse of this city’s infrastructure before the mission even began.
He couldn’t help but make a bitter remark about the situation. Dan flashed Kate the biggest shit-eating grin he could muster. “You guys must be so proud of yourselves. Can’t even protect your populace from outside threats. And on top of that, you’re being lazy and cutting corners by getting conscripts like us to be your cannon fodder. Real amazing work by Kodak.” Dan turned to look at all the conscripts with rifles and armor that looked like worse quality than any law enforcement he had ever seen. “It must be frustrating for you all to see how incompetent your protectors are, isn’t it?”
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
One of the Kodak agent finally had enough of Dan’s shit talking and raised his nail gun at him. The dual bayonets were mere centimeters away from his face. “Shut the fuck up you damn brat. That’s enough drivel from you.”
“Take that shit out of my face.” Dan’s anger at his current predicament boiled over. He slapped the nailgun with enough force to knock the gun out of the agent’s hand.
Kate, Adam and every pther Kodak agent in the vicinity raised their guns at him. In turn, Li took aim with both his ZK-77 and Ravager pistol in each hand. The stealth specialist pointed his rifle at Adam while his Ravager pistol was aimed at one of the Kodak agents on the opposite side. Curiously, Ada was the only Kodak agent who didn’t raise arms.
All the conscripts looked around and exchanged nervous glances with each other at the tense stand off.
“If any of you pull the trigger on my teammate,” Li said in a low voice, “You’ll share the same fate as him. Count on it.”
A sudden jolt of electricity shocked both Dan and Li and both were forced into their knees. Of course, their collars would forcibly make sure they didn’t pull any nonsense like they just did now.
The shocking effects stopped after a few seconds and the pain was over. Dan still felt the after effects of the electrifying shock and his limbs spazzed and twitched from the relentless assault from the collar.
“That’s enough,” Kate ordered. She crouched down and stared into Dan’s eyes. “Anymore bullshit like that and I’ll double the intensity next time.”
Dan narrowed his gaze at the blond traitor and stood back up without saying a word. Even though everyone here except Li was his enemy, he was forced to play ball. He looked around and some of the Kodak agents lowered their weapons while a few such as Adam still had their barrels ready to unload lead in his direction.
His ears picked up rapid flapping off in the distance and the sounds gradually grew louder until he saw a pair of attack helicopters approach their location. The rotors of both slashed the air obnoxiously as they came closer into view. In the wide open and empty streets, he assumed both choppers were landing to give them a ride to a specific section of the city.
One chopped lowered itself for a landing in front of the group while the second flew a little further over their heads and landed on the opposite side. A sudden smack to the back of the head caused Dan to stagger forward.
“Get moving,” Kate said coldly, pointing her CMA rifle at him. The two stared each other down for a moment before Dan reluctantly complied. He exchanged glances with Li before waling toward the nearest chopper.
Dan climbed onto the side doors and found himself a seat inside while Kate, Ada and a few more conscripts entered. He frowned as he saw Li being hounded to leave with the second team over to the other chopper.
The chopper’s rotors picked up speed and cut the air around them until the aircraft lifted itself off the road and into the air. As the chopper moved above the city streets, Dan didn’t say a word as he stared out the side window. Looking down at the city, this was a far cry from the pristine and bustling streets back in Cerulean city. The people going about their daily business, the heavy traffic on the streets, even a bright sun in the sky was nowhere to be seen. The streets below were empty except for the occasional band of people in hooded robes with rifles scurrying along the sidewalks and dipping in and out of alleyways. Corpses of people and Kodak agents laid sprawled and scattered on the streets along with cars, trucks and even tanks either on fire or flipped over.
Looking at the state of this city, Dan couldn't resist to taunt Kate further. He turned to the blond sitting in the seat beside him. “You must be so proud of yourself Kate,” he said bitterly. “How does it feel knowing that you let the people down and let this city fall to ruin? You still stand by your decision to betray us?”
“Quiet down,” she said. There was no anger or even annoyance in her tone. She sounded exhausted. “I’m not in the mood.”
The rest of the ride was uneventful with no one muttering another word. The chopper finally slowed down and hovered in one spot briefly before descending. Dan gripped his rifle tightly as the chopper lowered itself down onto the streets. He was ready just in case they were attacked.
As he looked around, he didn’t see the second chopper anywhere.
“Where did the rest of our team go?” he asked.
“We’re splitting apart to cover more ground,” Kate replied coldly. “We’re hopping off here.”
Dan held back his frustration. Not only was he stuck with these assholes, but he was separated from his only ally in this entire mess. Ada was the first to hop off the side of the chopper followed by a handful of conscripts. Kate waved her rifle at Dan, gesturing him to hop off before her.
He exhaled before he hopped down and landed onto the pavement.