Michael

Michael Cynosa watched from the shadows on an alleyway as another squad of Kodak agent were led astray, away from their usual patrol pattern from the hotel. This particular squad was nothing noteworthy. Just another bunch of gung-ho kids with delusions of becoming the best. Loud, no trigger discipline, and a squad leader who didn’t command enough respect to herd farm animals.

Out of pity, Michael let them go, while seven other more competent and dangerous patrols had been permanently dealt with, further reducing Kodak’s numbers. Michael used his enhanced physique and jumped up many meters into the air to reach the wet rooftop of a building. He took the modified designated marksman rifle off his back and looked down the scope of his rifle at his two o’clock position.

Spotting a Kodak agent in a ghillie suit, Michael squeezed the trigger once and sent a tungsten round straight through the throat of the agent. The enemy agent dropped his sniper and unceremoniously fell off the rooftop.

He was cut off from Dan and the others. And according to his team roster in his HUD, Tim Corsair was killed. The storm wasn’t quite enough to mask the familiar sounds of explosive detonation off in the distance. Tim was forced to fall back on the contingency plan in case he had been found by either Lola or Colleen Odyssey.

Tim had remote detonated explosives at his positions and blew himself and all his equipment into oblivion. Kodak would have no chance of capturing and interrogating Tim for info about his involvement here nor gain any of the Alpha Corp’s advanced hacking tech and algorithms that they didn’t have.

Tim had served his duty as an Alpha agent and prevented his enemy from gaining anything valuable from him. But Michael has also lost an agent under his command and an asset to the mission.

Dan, Li and Angie were on their own and until Michael could deal with what was jamming their communications, he would have no clue about how the mission was going on their end. Until he destroyed the signal jammers in place, he would have to put his trust into Dan and the others to survive and see the situation through.

Michael lept across the road to another rooftop, crossing over sixty meters in a single bound. By now, the Odyssey twins must have caught on to his intentions and most definitely his presence here. They would pull no punches in dealing with him and the tier ones under his command.

Even with all of his power and experience, he could not guarantee Dan’s safety as long as Colleen and Lola were inside the hotel. He couldn’t imagine the terror Dan and the other’s would face if they crossed paths with those twins. Even a few tier twos would be more than a match for those three.

He recalled the overwhelming fight Lola Odyssey had given him and his team. She was the last one remaining on her strike team and it was her against Michael and two other tier threes accompanying him in escorting the defending the shipment of the Arctic serum. Lola had somehow found herself a viper fang sword and easily eviscorated Michael’s remaining two comrades and it came down to a brutal battle of attrition between him and a berserk-powered Lola.

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Eventually, Lola stalled Michael long enough to receive backup and got settled with another drawn out fight while Lola and another Kodak agent accessed the shipping crate of the Arctic batch and ran away with it. In the end, Michael had failed in his objective to defend the transport of the shipment.

And if he didn’t do something quick, the container would forever be lost.

Michael rushed the first giant antennae he saw, correctly assuming it was one of Kodak’s jammers. He hopped onto the roof the housed this jammer and shredded through the fence with his gloved hands. With no time to waste, he grabbed one of the metal bars that made up the antennae and used his monstrous strength to rip apart and eventually topple over the entire structure. The antennae fell over and briefly stopped as it laid horizontally along the roof of the building before its supports snapped entirely and it collapsed onto the street.

Stepping toward the edge Michael saw the antennae had landed on and crushed the same Kodak patrol he had spared earlier.

Right now, Michael had no way of fully drawing the attention of most if not all of the Kodak forces in the area to him while taking the heat off of Dan. He knew he needed that container intact and mission failure was not an option.

Plus, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he allowed potential like Dan, Li and Angie to get killed.

After the collapse of the jammer, Michael tried to reach Dan and the others again through the private channels and still wasn’t getting through to them.

Michael’s trump card for this heist in case it went sideways popped up in his mind. He had no choice. If it was a matter of getting the Odyssey twins away from Dan, then he needed to call upon someone to get the job done and ensure he and his team pull out of here with the container.

Swiping through his contacts list in his HUD, Michael found his forbidden contact and opened a private channel. If the Alpha Corp knew he had ties to this party, he would be hunted down and executed by the entirety of the shard.

Michael swore his heart skipped a beat when the call connected.

“Hey it’s me. You know things are bad if I have to call you directly,” Michael said.

“Indeed Cynosa,” the voice said. “You are in need of our services, I presume?”

Michael stared at the ground, clenching his fists at having to resort conspiring with an enemy shard.

“Yes. Is one of your cults nearby? Sending in the coordinates. You’ll be raiding Kodak territory, specifically a hotel. You will find plenty of worthy high-ranking agents to put your acolytes and practitioners to the test.”

“They are,” the voice said. “They will converge at your coordinates within the hour, maybe less. Have you considered joining the Church? I promise you will ascend to even greater heights than merely being the top agent at the Alpha Corporation. You can easily graduate from being a man to a god if you embrace the gifts.”

Michael knew his stance on the matter. But it wouldn’t stop his contact from putting the sales pitch at his feet.

“I’ll pass. I need a big distraction to keep Kodak occupied,” he said.

“Consider it done,” the voice said. “So glad we could get along, Alpha agent.”

The line abruptly cut and Michael ran to the edge and lept to another rooftop. “Hang in there Dan,” he whispered.