(Please read: Before reading this novel, I would like to give you a heads up that I am an amateur writer, so if you see any mistakes, feel free to correct me, but what I can guarantee is that every chapter I post, I will take my time to make sure it is the best I can write, so you don't have to worry about me posting 1k words per day to play with the algorithm. Thank you for your time!)
Gary crouched, his face tired, awaiting the result on the other side of the thick glass window. Kait was the end-all and be-all of that result, reading through the request letter he had spent a long time writing. Her right hand fidgeted between the reject and approve stamping press.
Time slowed down as she lifted a stamp, Gary wasn't sure which one he picked, up, but his eyes were wide open staring at the press chopping on a paper. But as the stamp was lifted back up, time went back to normal as he saw the paper inked with a red [REJECTED]. She slid the letter back to Gary.
“No chance of opening the door?” he asked.
Her disapproving look was enough of a reply as she slid a wrench through a small opening on the bottom side of the window.
“While you're at it, you should probably work on the toilets.”
Feeling defeated, he picked up the wrench and dragged himself away from the counter. But across him, protected by two guards was a goliath of a door, standing 3 times his height, and even with him being over 6’2, it was unlikely that anybody would be able to break through that thing.
The longer he paid attention, he started noticing some things with the door, it was shaped like a cogwheel, and the other parts around it were too. Thanks to the design, there was space between the door and the other smaller parts around it.
He stared back into the window, and he could see that Kait had a clear vision of the door. And so he walked back to her, “Please, think about it…”
She rolled her eyes, before closing the binds on him.
Gary smiled, “One pair of eyes gone, two to go.”
“Hey, Bobby…” He approached one of the two guards that were guarding the door.
He then turned towards the other guard.
“Hurr. Nane. Daze.”
“It's Hernandez…” Hernandez replied, annoyed giving Bobby a bit of a chuckle.
“Look, Gary, if you trying to get us to open the door, or just trying to annoy the hell out of him, I suggest you go back…” Bobby replied, trying to stop himself from smiling.
“I didnt mean to offend you, but uh, I was just here to ask if it is normal to see spiders crawl out of the toilet.”
They looked at each other, “No?”
“Well good, because there is one the size of this.” Gary used his hands to show how big the spider was, and he made it seem like it was as big as a King Crab.
“I dont think that's a spider... We might need to check it out” Hernandez turned to Bobby who froze up seeing the size of the spider.
“Bobby?”
“Huh? Oh yeah, for sure.” He replied before the both of them walked towards the cafeteria.
Taking advantage of the situation, he didn't waste any time and quickly slid towards the door with the wrench, he observed the lower part of the door, before feeling it, detecting a slightly loose part, “Bingo”, he tried enlarging that part bit by bit with only his wrench, looking back every few seconds to make sure that nobody had caught him.
Minutes passed, and he was able to gain a big enough space for his hands to go in, so he used the wrench to keep the part from crushing his fingers and slid his hand into it. He just had to find one segment and push it for everything to continue, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find it.
“Ah... damn it… they fixed it.” This design was different from the other secure vault designs which he had worked on.
“No spiders…” Hernandez walked back from the cafeteria with Bobby following. As they saw Gary down trying to pry open the door, they knew they had been had.
“Damnit, stop!” They ran towards him.
“I'm sorry! Let me just take this out.” He tried removing the wrench.
Bobby then whipped out a baton, “Let it go!”
“I’m sorry… Sorry.” He stood up with his hands raised.
The guard was tempted to hit Gary with the baton, but paused, kwith his knowledge of why Gary did what he did, he could muster the strength to hit him, “ Just get inside, will you?”
Apologizing once more, he followed their order and walked back to the cafeteria, the auto door opened revealing a sweet old lady behind it.
Pearl, hailed by the people of that vault as the grandma of the vault, raised a plate filled with freshly baked raisin cookies, “ Want some?” She asked a tinge of her Irish accent leaked.
“No thanks,” Gary tipped a smile back as he continued into the cafeteria.
His sister, hearing the loud footsteps only her brother could make, approached him, “Any luck?”
Gary shook his head, disappointment etched on his face.
Sighing, she replied, “Gary, I get you’re worried, but your family is fine. When everything is over, I'll have Ashton get us to their vault.”
Turning towards Ashton, his brother-in-law, he could see that he was more than willing to help.
“Ellie, it's fine, I overreacted.”
Ellie smiled as she saw her brother light up, even though it was just a bit.
“Uncle Gary, my friend here wants to know if you have met... ‘him’.” Sally, his niece asked, awaiting her response with her new vault friend.
“No, but I’ve seen him.” Gary continued talking about his time in the army, in which he had the honour of seeing the Archagent, in action.
The stories were great, but he could see in the kid's eyes, that they were a bit disappointed, so he turned the conversation by pointing to the boy’s action figure of a luchador superhero that he had in his hand, “But I have helped him with fire support.”
As soon as he saw the light inthe kids' eyes again, he tried to bring back the memories of his time in service.
The good time was interrupted by a fall, the manager of the vault, Felix accidentally tripped onto one of the vault staff, causing the both of them to stumble and fall.
“Apologies.” Felix tried getting
Helping his boss up, he replied, “It happens boss.”
As Felix stood up, he immediately locked eyes with Gary.
Gary knew the look that he was in trouble. “Kids, we will continue another time, kay?” He said before walking towards the manager.
Felix had dirt and oil drenched in his clothing trying to fix the engine room with the other staff, but that was weird, what was weird was that he didn't look happy. And since he was normally the happiest in the room, trying to actively brighten everybody’s day up, Gary knew that he must have messed up pretty badly, “Gary, you've gotta tell me what is going on. I'm gone for a day, and I get a radio call, that you are trying to pry open the door.”
‘Look I-”
Realizing that his clothes were not the nicest smelling now, he stopped the conversation, “No, we'll talk later, meet me in my office.”
#
Knock knock knock…
Hearing the knock, Felix pressed the button opening the door, while making a beep sound, “Come in.”
Gary walked in, not wasting time to apologize, “Look I know I messed up.”
Felix stopped him before raising the letter that Gary wrote, “I've read your letter, your family is in another vault. You worried for them?”
Gary nodded.
“But to try to open the vault-like that? You know you could have caused us serious trouble doing that.”
“Yeah…”
Felix sighed as he dropped the letter on the table “I know how you feel.”
But as soon Felix said that Gary couldn't help but interrupt, “Sir, with all due respect. You're the manager here, you dont know how it is to have your wife and children in another vault.”
Felix was agitated by the reply but controlled himself, “You dont know that, I have a family, and just like you they are in the very vault your family is in. And Hernandez, his family is hiding in an old bunker somehwere, compared to him you're lucky.”
Gary swallowed his saliva, he couldn't even remember a time in which Hernandez had complained.
Before he could offer an apology, the whole place turned red from the emergency lights, causing both the man to quickly run out of the room, because it meant one thing, that the door was being opened.
#
The entrance room of the vault had been filled with people who wanted to see if it was true that the door was being opened.
As they arrived his eyes brightened, although he felt a bit shameful for throwing tantrums when he didn't need to.
“Your lucky day.” Felix commented.
Hearing this, he felt bad again, “Hey I’m-” But before he could apologize, Felix walked towards the two guards.
As Hernandez saw Felix walking towards him, He pointed towards the wrench which Gabriel had stuck into the door of the vault, “We have been having some trouble taking that out.”
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“It won't be a problem, just make sure nobody is near it afterwards.”
That wasn't the only problem, Kait, still munching on the biscuit that Pearl had given her and the guards, called out, “Felix! You might want to see this!”
Felix didn't waste any time and quickly ran into the inspecting room, seeing that she looked pretty concerned about what she saw on the computer.
Kait pointed at one of the recent records,
‘
But scrolling up, all the worry that Felix had melted away, “Don’t worry they have an access card”
But as he thought about it, he guessed the reason why they might have used Brute Force instead of the key, “Its probably thewrench…” He whispered to himself.
As he stared at the moving door, he could see Gary standing right in front of it, “Gary, move out of the way!” He ran out of the room, screaming.
Gary turned towards Felix, confused about why he was being shouted at, and before he realized what was happening, the door propelled the wrench at a high speed, shooting the item towards his head, knocking him out, and leaving a dent in his head.
Bobby held his head, frozen in fear as he thought he saw someone dead in front of him “Is he…?”
The manager bent down and inspected the head, and seeing how deep the dent was, he shook his head, “Sigh, he is d-” He paused, as he saw that dent being healed in real time and his heartbeat was still fine. “Fine?”
“What?”
“I think he might be a…” Before Felix could get those words out of his mouth, the vault door rolled open causing the whole area to be filled with misty gas covering whoever opened the door.
“Please provide RadGuard access authorization.” He requested just as the protocol ordered him to.
The person behind the gas, replied, “Here.” With a gun pointed run at Felix’s crown.
The guards pulled out their guns towards the unknown individual Felix saw his life flash in front of him.
Sure, here is an improved version: --- As the mist cleared, a tall man wearing a high-ranking RadGuard coat emerged. “Relax, it’s just a joke,” he said in a fake American accent, reminiscent of the villains in Die Hard. He then placed his gun back in its holster.
“Yeah? Well, you suck at joking.” Felix replied before turning to his guards, gesturing towards them to lower their weapons.
“Too bad.” The man replied before pulling the gun out and shooting Felix’s head off.
“Felix!” Bobby screamed before raising his weapon and starting to blast the man with bullets.
But nothing happened; it was almost like the man was bulletproof. He then ripped off his jacket, revealing a black leather uniform. It resembled the kind of edgy teenagers with strange political ideologies might wear, but this one looked like the real deal.
Hernandez joined in shooting at the obvious German, but no matter how many bullets they fired, they only managed to push him back slightly. The most damage they could see was a few tears in his leather jacket and a small dent on his forehead, which was already healing.
As the bullets that were hitting him, the German raised his gun pulling the trigger at Hernandez.
“Ahh!” Hernandez felt pain in his right arm, quickly losing strength to hold the gun,
“Bring everybody back!” Bobby shouted.
Holding his injured arm, Hernandez, led most of the people back into the cafeteria, “Get back!” He shouted as he made sure everybody got into the cafeteria.
Pearl, who was walking as fast as she could tripped, and fell.
Ellie who was holding her daughter's hand, heard Pearl’s cries and turned around, before handing her daughter to her husband and running towards the poor old lady to help her.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Every shot that Bobby fired was one hope that he could slow down the German. “Lock it!” He screamed before pulling out a radio out of his pocket and pressing the emergency distress signal button.
“Get in!” Hernandez screamed for Bobby to get in.
As Bobby exhausted all of the bullets for his rifle, he quickly switched to his pistol, “I cant hold him back! Lock it!”
Hearing this, he hesitantly used his card to lock the cafeteria door, before destroying the security system.
Sally, looking out the small glass through the window could see that her mother was still outside, before tapping on her father’s legs, “Mommy’s still outside,” she pointed.
Ashton’s eyes widened, “My wife is outside!” He punched the door, but it wouldn't budge.
Hernandez then sat down covering his face with his only functioning arm wishing that he didn't lock the door. “I shouldn’t have…” He whispered.
Click… Click…
His last gun, his last bullet, nothing was able to harm him, Bobby stared at the ground before dropping his weapon.
Seeing that there was no more weapon in the vicinity, the German, Wilhelm, turned towards the door, “Einsteigen!” He shouted, before many more with the same outfit as him walked into the vault.
Edelstein, another black-coated man who donned a round glass, following the stereotypical style of villains of his land rushed towards Wilhelm as he saw Felix’s body lying on the floor.
“I gave you clear orders not to kill the manager!” Edelstein screamed before lecturing him on not to kill anyone that they don’t need dead and pointed to both Felix and Gary.
“I dont remember killing him.” Wilhelm looked confused as he saw Gary’s body lying on the floor.
“See? One day you will kill one of us, and you won’t even realize it.”
Pearl got upm despite her crackling knees, with tears in her eyes, “You killed him!”
Wilhelm walked towards her, “What did you say?”
“You didn't have a reason to kill him! You monster!”
Wilhelmm look visibly hut from that comment before looking down at the ground, “I am not a monster…” He whispered.
Splat!
He punched through Pearl, who looked down, seeing her organs flowing out of her stomach.
She tried to talk, but no words came out of her mouth before she died.
Ellie, who was just beside her, closed her mouth as she witnessed this.
Edelstein shook his head, trying not to look at the mess his fellow Kamerad had created, “I gave you clear orders…”
Wilhelms's expression immediately turned happy, as he ignored Edelstein.
Visibly frustrated, Edelstein wanted to focus back on his job, “You, open the door.” He ordered Bobby.
Bobby covered his face as he tried to avoid looking at the blood that had been splattered throughout the area, “I- I can't.”
“Perhaps you dont understand, I have men that can open the door, no problem. But you can help us to speed things up, I can guarentee yours and everyone's safety”
“No, you dont understand. When they locked the door. Not me, not the manager can open the door” He lied. Just seeing the unpredictable nature of Wilhelm, he could see that if he showed them the other way, despite Edeltstein's promises, people would die.
Edelstein then turns towards his technician, ‘Is it true?” Before being met with a nod. “Then we will do it on our own.”
But before the technicians went to work, Wilhelm pointed at the window in which Kait was behind, “I see another door inside that room, perhaps another entrance?”
Hearing this, Bobby screamed once more, “Kait! Lock it!”
Kait had been frozen from the shock of seeing Felix die in front of her eyes, but as she heard Bobby scream, she snapped out of it before locking the door to her room and pulling the metal binds down to protect the glass window.
Edelstein smiled before turning towards Wilehlm, “you can break that, rightt?”
“Ja.” He replied before turning towards Bobby and raising his hands.
It was fast, Bobby could hear the air cracking right in front of him as the German’s fist got closer to his face, before the fist was pushed away from a silver object coming from the side of the door.
Snapping out of it, he saw the wrench dropping on the floor, before turning to where the wrench came from. “Gary?”
Wilhelm opened and closed his hands painfully, as the wrench had broken a few of his fingers.
Gary still massaging his head, looked around confused, but as he saw the body of Felix with a hole in his head, and Grandma Pearl’s body with her organ splattered around, he looked at the tallest guy in the room Wilhelm, “Did you do this?”
Bobby, realising that Gary’s head had fully healed, it could only mean one thing, that there was hope, “He killed both of them!”
No questions were asked, and the men quickly shot at Gary. However, he was able to block all of them with his hands in a Wonder Woman-esque fashion.
“A supersoldier!” one of the German men exclaimed, still firing their gun before Gary punched him on his head, knocking him out. And with his jaws broken, it was definite that the man wasn't gonna get up.
A few more men got into a fierce battle with him, but all were knocked out, in a matter of seconds.
“Ahhh” One of the Germans had utilised all of his ammunition in the battle, only having his rifle in his hands, causing him to run towards Gary, hitting him on the head.
But this attack did no damage at all, only bending at the same shape as Gary’s head.
“Try harder next time.” Gary slapped the German chest off the floor, making him look like he was flying before crashing on the floor, coughing up blood.
But before he knew it, nearly all the Germans except four were left standing, the rest were given the Batman treatment, left on 1% health, and probably a fat bill at the hospital.
Bang!
He had been shot right on his shoulders, and as he turned he could see the short round glass German, Edelstein, “You’re gonna pay for this…” but he stopped in his tracks, realizing that the German superhuman, was nowhere in his field of vision.
Crack!
He heard his nose break before he was pushed onto the ground, his vision turned blurry, and it became painful to breathe.
“It’s been a long time since I felt this…” He stood up, before getting a hard kick in his face pushing him further back.
He quickly regained consciousness with his teeth pressed on each other before as he screamed running towards the German, whose eyes widened from the sudden reaction, his hands, up, and his legs retreating.
“You murderer!” He screamed as he delivered a punch toward the German hands, giving him an opening to take advantage of by punching Wilhelms jaw.
The German’s legs turned to butter inadvertently taking a few steps back allowing for Gary to take his back.
He held him by the waist, and using all the strength he had in his legs, arms and back, pulled the German behind, executing a near-perfect German suplex, crushing his neck on the floor.
Gary quickly approached the German’s back, still on the floor, and used both his hands to lock them around his head, choking Wilhelm. Despite the constant release of air, he somehow was able to regain his focus, and his dizziness faded away.
He raised his legs, before pushing them into the air, successfully kicking himself up, and at the same time throwing Gary onto the ceiling, as the American fell, struggled to get up, and his mind was not coordinated properly with his body.
But as he struggled to put his focus on standing, he could see three Wilhelms running towards him.
Gary tried to move away from the impending attack but the German boot met his face crushing his nose, again, the force caused his whole body to spin mid-air before his already butchered face crushed the ground.
This time, Gary wasn't getting up, as he had been completely knocked out.
Wilhelm stared at him, as he took a few deep breathe
Edelstein, seeing that the issue had been resolved, gestured towards his men, “ Break the door.” He looked around making sure there was no other problem, but his eyes were caught on the radio that was in Bobby’s hand, he then turned to the guard standing beside him, “How long has he had that?”
“I dont know, sir”
Not paying much attention to it, he ordered. “Break it.”
The guard snatched the radio, throwing it onto the floor, but as he broke it under his boots, a flurry of bullets entered the vault from the outside, killing about three of the soldiers inside.
Many of them took cover behind the steel foundations, while Wilhelm stood in front of the bullets unfazed, his nose healing as the bullets shot at him.
Edelstein squinted and could see only one man outside, “It's only one man! Fire!!!” He screamed.
As they saw it was just the work of one man, they started firing their shots, and one even charged towards the unknown man, only to have an empty rifle thrown towards his head, caving it in. The man continued to walk into the vault calmly, but as the light touched his face, Edelstein's confident eyes changed and raised his radio, “Ubermench… Requesting backup, worst case scenario.”
The radio replied after a ten-second delay, “We can't offer assistance, you are ordered to retreat.”
“I thought so.”Edelstein turned towards Wilhelm, who was even more in fear.
“Retreat.” He whispered.
Every one of them threw a smoke grenade towards the man, trying to buy them time to escape, but the smoke released by the grenade was quickly sucked up by the equipment that he was holding in his hand.
“You have two choices, run and I’ll kill you, surrender, you’ll live.”
They raised their hands, but as Wilhelm raised him, “Not you.” The man dashed towards it, his shoulder crashing into the German superhuman.
The German dropped onto his back, and he held onto his chest, it was as if his ribs had broken into his lungs.
The man stepped closer, looking at the German's bloody hand and saw that it was the one that killed the old lady. Bending down, he looked the struggling superhuman in the eye, “I won't kill you now, but I won't spare you from any pain.” He then lightly punched his jaw, knocking him out.
He stood up, before turning towards Bobby. “Gabriel Jones…” He didn't have any words to say as he saw the man who was in literally every war recruitment poster in the US.
“It's fine, is everybody okay?”
Bobby shook his head, trying to bring back his focus “No, two deaths, everybody else is stuck there, but, there would have been more deaths if he weren't here.” He pointed towards Gary who had been knocked down on the floor still recovering from his injuries.
Gabriel Jones walked towards Gary, whose eyes were slowly been blinking but as he saw Gabriel, his eyes turned bright. “Sir!”
Helping him up, he asked, “Program?”
“54th Superathlete Program…” He replied before he added, with his voice lowered, “Failed.”
“I think they made a mistake, you did a great thing here.” He patted his shoulder before walking away raising his watch towards his face, “It's archagent here… reporting.”