“Everyone listen up. Harold wants us to hit the next place immediately. He needs a distraction while he tries to keep a senator alive. I’ve got what might be a worse idea: we are going to hit six sites at once. Scrump and Sleek have the gateways placed at all our known sites. We each take one and start doing as much damage as possible. Once you either finish or retreat, return to the void house and confirm no one else has gone through your gateway, and pick another to help the person still there if you are able. Any objections?” Cal said the newly returned fighters.
“Frank wants to smash!” The tree man bellowed to the room.
“I’ll take that as a no. Alright, everyone go see Gus in the gateway hall. He will give you your assignment. I will drop in first and see if I can’t draw any resources to my location, hopefully increasing the chaos when you five attack yours,” Cal explained his plan. He had a feeling Harold wouldn’t fully approve, but he was also reasonably sure he’d be okay with it, especially if it worked. Results were what mattered the most here.
Cal was the first one through, and he had chosen what he thought would be the most difficult place to hit as well. Not only should this draw resources from Harold’s problems, but it should finally make the point clear to whichever of the Agency loop aware people thought this was a good idea.
He walked right through the front doors of the building, past the secretary who started screaming that children were not allowed past that point, and into the first occupied office he found. “Hi, I’m Cal Marshall. You may not know that name, but I promise someone in your chain of bosses does, so if you could let them know I’m here and want to have a conversation, that would be great,” he said these words with a dangerous calm in his voice.
“I’m sorry, who are you? You need to get out of my office right now. I’m calling security,” The man replied, not at all doing what Cal had asked.
“Sure, just make sure you give them my name. It’s important,” Cal pointed his finger at the window behind the man’s head and shot off a blast of energy into it. The glass shattered, shards raining down the exterior of the building.
The worker who had already picked up the phone looked at Cal with sudden terror but continued to dial whoever he had started to call. “Yes, there’s a kid in my office, says his name is Cal Marshall. He just somehow shot out the glass in my window with his finger. He’s demanding to the people in charge,” there was a brief pause before he continued his frantic speech. “I don’t know, please can you just get over here!” he dropped the phone onto the desk as he said this.
“Why so scared? It’s not like you work for an evil organization that has been kidnapping, imprisoning, and enslaving innocent people, have you?” Cal dropped his smile and let his anger show through his expression.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“I’m sorry I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just work on the data, matching information to addresses, nothing else,” The man responded.
Cal spotted the name on his desk: Craig Ross. “You have to understand, Craig, that’s exactly why I’m here. This building is the one that handles the information of who needs to be captured. That information is then passed over to the ones that do the real hunting and tracking. Why did you think this building had so many subfloors? What did you think was going on down there?” Cal asked, hearing footsteps approaching in the distance.
“Ah, Cal, we haven’t met before, at least face to face,” The new man standing in the doorway flanked by guards said.
“Actually, we have. There’s a reason I decided on this place. During one of the early loops, when it was just me, for the most part, you captured pretty much all of my family. I’m reasonably sure your name is Clark, or at least that’s what you call yourself. Harold told me what he knew about you, which also leads me to believe you had me killed in yet another loop before that. So that three loops you’ve been directly involved with fucking with my life. So now I’m here to talk to you,” Cal explained. He stood up and straightened his pants as he did so, trying to make it look like he felt totally and completely unthreatened by Clark and his goons.
“That would make sense, I am generally involved in a lot. Just how many loops have you been through before we became aware of the event?” Clark asked, clearly trying to pry out information Cal had zero intention of giving up.
“Not enough to have been entirely prepared for what was coming, clearly, but now it’s time to change that. Walk with me, Clark. I’d like to talk to you outside in the sun, unless of course, you’re worried about what might be waiting,” Cal said.
“I’m always worried, but sure, we can take one last walk this loop, the needed people are listening to make sure the knowledge of what happens here lives on to the next loop,” Clark responded.
“Perfect, I was hoping they were,” Cal walked past Clark down the hall he had come in out into the sunshine. Clark and the men were following behind him. Cal was somewhat surprised his on-the-spot plan was working. They were sure that Clark himself wasn’t the one in the loop, but they didn’t have enough info on exactly who was, so carefully, Cal retraced his steps over the stone where he had dropped something on his way inside.
The moment Clark stepped over it, the stone rose up, encompassing him entirely, other than a few small breathing holes near the top. The capsule Cal had dropped was crushed in the action just as he planned, releasing the gas to knock the man unconscious just in case of any pesky suicide plans. He then turned around and shot several arcs of lightning through the men behind Clark, opened the gateway behind the stone coffin, pushed Clark through it, and followed after it.
“Special delivery, I’ve captured a big one, don’t let him wake up. Get Andrew down here to keep him out until I’m back,” Cal said before jumping back to Earth.