Being able to see the entirety of the room gave a feeling of understanding to what had happened the last decade, broken tools and benches filled spaces along the walls as the creeping rust ate away at the ramp and reached with its orange fingers into the brightened room. I turned past the walls and looked towards the object that nearly took my head off its shoulders and it was the crowbar I had brought with me down the darkened halls of the maintenance bay, it was now buried up to its hook in the steel plate sizzling and popping from the heat erupting from the vent it had buried its point into. I wrapped my reinforced gauntlet around the hook of the burning tool and began to wrench it slowly from the steel that had begun to envelop it. A final ripping motion freed it from the wall, the point of the tool white hot and slightly bent from the eruption of heat, the thermal energy flowing off of it in invisible waves giving a rippling effect to the surrounding matter around the tool. I approached the hatch, burning tool in hand, and began to look over the large metal door that stood in my way. The locking wheel had been sheared off by a hacksaw and the bars seemed to have become rusted into the very wall surrounding it. I looked around the aging room for objects that could loosen the bars from the wall, a large thermite torch and a grease gun lay hidden under a fallen bench, I retrieved the tools and checked to see if they were operable, but a loud humming noise emitting from the torch answered my question. I took the grease gun and laid down hefty layers of the magnesium grease onto the bars and the wall it had rusted into, as I finished and the gun gave out, I tossed it away into one of the junk piles causing a metallic echo to float in the air. The echo was shortly canceled out by the eruption of light and heat emanating from the business end of the thermite torch, now under normal circumstances the torch itself would not be able to safely cut through the bars without damaging the rest of the door but with the addition of the decomposing magnesium grease, the heat had targets to focus on allowing more precise slicing of the rusted steel alloy. The sparks ripped through the steel, and the screaming of the metal filled the small room with noise as the climate control within my helmet struggled against the rising heat. As the bars glowed white hot and melted away from the wall, the torch screaming its white flame, the door began to shudder as the sheared lock mechanism took the direct weight of the now severed hatch. As I dimmed the torch and threw it to the side, a small thermite flame still spilling from the nozzle, I retrieved my still white-hot crowbar from the broken floor and aimed the point at the center of the lock slamming it into the very tumblers keeping it closed and then bent the bar so it became a make-shift lever. As the metal cooled and fused, I wrapped my hands around the hook of the crowbar and forced my weight down onto it feeling the tumblers give way as the screeching of full metal contact broke the silence, as the tumblers came to a full stop I stepped back and planted my boot into the hatch forcing it off its rusted resting place and into the bleached walls of the central complex. The rust floated into circulated air, slowly being pulled into the vents above the broken hatch. The air ran silent, the subtle sound of my heartbeat filled my ears, and the creaking of the ducts shifting to the changing atmosphere filled the white-lit halls of the command center. The darkened floors ran towards the horizon of the corridor, disappearing through the curve of the scarred and bleached walls and into the beating heart of the wretched beast. I replaced the suppressors onto my pistols; the sound of the threads meeting soothed my overactive nerves, and the shifting weight of my plates drew on my shoulders giving me a staggering disposition as I made my way down the hall. The stillness that floated through the air made me uneasy; the feeling of eyes burning into my skull slowly ate away at my confidence. No footsteps, no cameras, no alarms, the dead space filled my head as the thumping of my heart took over the stillness, quickening as the seconds drifted by, my fingers twitched and stretched over the triggers anticipating the conflict that may lay around the next bend. I did not speak a word as I traveled further into the beast, even Angel said nothing as if she could feel the tension building inside my mind. Locked door after locked door began to line the walls, no sounds of entry or exit echoed, no sounds of tumbling locks or creaking door wells. The hallway began to widen after what seemed like hours of walking, the rhythmic shifting of my gear becoming the only noise apparent under the blinding lights, a large door laid ahead latched and locked as it mocked my progress. The door was at least ten feet tall, made of carbide steel, and covered in numbers and letters that were foreign to me. Firearm marks and bullet dents covered the face of the door, showing the age and strength of the barricade. I knew what I searched for lay behind the door, the beginning of the end as the dream of a free life came ever closer to my fingertips. All that stood between me and my vengeance was this damn door, and a hundred or so black-robed mercenaries all armed with high-grade weaponry and armor. Too bad for them, I always loved a challenge. The door was hard shut, locked and welded from the inside, and extremely thick with blast-proof plating. I examined the door for a chink, a single weak point that I could exploit, but none became apparent during my inspection, I did the calculations in my head and I would either need a large battering ram or an extremely powerful explosive to break through the reinforced steel. Problem was that the armory had been emptied and that any other explosives were behind the door where they were least useful, as I stepped away from the door frustrated and out of ideas a voice came across the comms.

It was Frost, she got concerned after I had gone silent for a few hours and hadn’t sent any information back about my progress. A smirk crawled across my face as a light bulb began to appear above my head, ‘Elizabeth, where are you docked?’ I started to trace my path back towards one of the smaller locked doors marked ‘HUB’, her response made me giddy with excitement as she was docked just below the upper transit hub. I told her to go vertical and ram through the tubes and make her way towards the hub entrance because I had a plan. I cut the comms and found the door I was looking for it was not welded but it was locked, Angel’s voice picked up saying that she could hack it open, but before she could even start, I put my fist into the lock mechanism and turned my arm like a makeshift key and opened the door manually. I walked inside to see Frost take the craft completely vertical and bust through the tubes in an explosion of blue Flexi-glass shrapnel, my excitement was cut short though because of all places this room was the one to have cameras, everywhere. Knowing quite well that we were on very short time now I pointed towards the door and before I could say a word the ship screamed off and slammed into the wall sending bits and pieces everywhere and making a tank-sized hole in the pristine white walls. I walked through the rubble and back down the now scorched hallway to see Frost step out of the ship still limping with her bandaged leg. I ran up to her and explained to her my plan, she laughed for a second and then realized that I was very serious, she nodded in agreement and began unloading the charges from the ship into the open corridor. As she pulled the last satchel out, a red light appeared from the wall and began to flash that ominous light, telling us that whoever was on the other side knew what was coming their way. I worked quickly, taking plates off of the doors in the hall and welding them to the ship as Frost attached an insane number of explosives to the midline of the large barricade making a makeshift shaped charge. I picked her up and strapped her into the back of the ship so she could at least operate the basic weapons, as I mounted up in the front turning on the ignition allowing the jets to come roaring to life and scorch the ground with their eager flames. I carefully aimed the nose at the midline and raised the throttle making the small craft slowly lurch forward, as Frost armed the charges, I pinned the throttle and ripped the plates off of the floor behind us and making the ship scream towards the door at breakneck speeds. The next few moments flew by in slow motion, the plates crunched and fused against the door bending the frame, the explosives erupted in flames chewing at the welds, and the mass of the ship made the door warp, as the thrust from the jets forced the very door wells to break from their foundation causing the behemoth to barricade to fly forward at hundreds of miles an hour splattering any poor bastards who decided to stand in front of it. As the seconds screamed by, the ship wound up becoming fused to the door and crashed into the far wall of the large room, no sooner had we stopped moving did the eruption of plasma fire from the turrets on the rear of the ship begin lighting up targets all over the room expecting a small attack but wound up with big guns pointed at their backs. I shook myself loose and kicked the hatch off, the flying cover making contact with a soldier and flattening him into red pulp against a pillar. As my feet hit the ground the hand cannons raised, primed and ready to deliver death to anyone who stood alive in a half-mile radius. The muzzles flashed as fast as I could pull the trigger, the rounds screaming through the smoke-filled air meeting their mark on the enemies along the floor trying to turn and fire back at the two assassins in their midst. The air turns silent, the only sound being the casings clinking upon the blood-soaked tile floor. As the siren begins to pick up slashing through the air with its shrill scream, my pace quickened as the echo of the shots from the turret followed me through the doorway behind the scorched and blood-stained wall. I dropped the empty magazines and replaced the rounds, rearming the cannons and continuing forward into the center of the beast. I came across a string of rooms; rooms made for rest but have been redone to be small rallying points for the pathetic defense force that is keeping me from pushing forward. I kick the first door open following through with weapons raised, releasing rounds that slam into the dumbfounded soldiers as the blood releases from their heads and splatters their comrades and the walls around them. I drop my shoulder and slam the next door open, following suit as before, arms crossed and fingers on triggers letting the round fly from my hands as the casing flies into the blood-strewn air. This continues as I rush through the next three rooms, leaving nothing but casings and blood pools where I once stood, as the distance between me and my vendetta shortened as every gore-filled second passed. I came to the last door, marked with white letters reading ‘General’s Quarters’, I knew the man behind this madness was behind this wall of steel, I holstered my weapons and dug my hands into the door’s midline and started to wrench it open. Fueled by adrenaline the door began to screech as my effort forced the pins to give way and the door reluctantly slide open, revealing the innards of the office in front of me. As I wrenched the door into the door well, the screeching lingering within the air, a man in dulling armor stood at the desk watching me pull the door apart. I gave it a final push, slamming the pins in on themselves and stepping through the threshold into the pristine office, the door pulled itself together and slammed shut as I shook off the strain from the door and stared down at the man at the desk.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

His armor seemed familiar as if I had seen it before, but now covered in scars and chipping paint I could not make out whose armor it was. The man sat there at the desk, I could feel his stare from behind the visor burrowing his eyes into my mind, trying to pick apart my life and my plan to end his. He pushed himself off the desk, his boots making a dull thump against the insulated floor, stepping forward the man seemed to have a distinct limp with his right leg. His arms swayed, trying to keep his balance the servos in his suit whirring to counterbalance his failing posture. His hands began to move as he raised them from his legs and towards the holster on his chest, reflexively I raised one of the cannons and placed the bead on his chest tightening my finger ever slightly as his hand continued to move towards the holster. I pulled back the hammer, the distinct click echoing through the tensioned air, the man’s hand stopped its movements and instead reached for the latch on his helmet. I kept the bead on him, the man’s heavy breathing lingering in my ears as he slowly undid the latches, and their metallic clicks making me clench my teeth tighter as my anxiety ate away at my focus. The hiss of the seal breaking negated the raspy sandpaper-like noise coming from the man’s lungs, the weight of the helmet shifted as his arms extended taking the mask with them. My hands faltered, but only for a moment as the final pieces aligned and my surprise turned to a blood-curdling rage as the face of the frontman was not that of a man but a cybernetic traitor. The lower half of the traitor’s face was replaced by a large breathing apparatus, each breath grinding against the atmosphere as it ripped the oxygen from its resting place. Wires trailed up both sides of his face, giving the false look of age and death, large scars cut through his hairline and down his face past his eyes which glowed a dull artificial blue hue. In between his labored breaths, the man was able to emit a phrase through an inhuman voice box, “Hello Drake, nice to see you again, how are your parents? Oh, that’s right … oh well they were just holding back your potential anyway.” My hands tightened around the grips of my pistols, my muscles bulging through the Kevlar under-weave and shifting the plates attached to the material. I holstered my weapons, replacing the latches and cracking my joints, loosening my body for the coming fight; I looked up at the traitor and spoke in a tone that would make a Green Beret’s blood run cold, ‘You do not deserve to die quickly, after what you have done you still wish for me to call you family? Do not mistake me, I will kill you and you will feel every goddamn second as my father, your brother did that fateful day. My vengeance will be complete with your death.’ The man straightened up, fear running down his spine as the sweat beaded on his forehead. He tried to step back, my father’s brother, my father’s murderer, tried to run from the grim figure that has come for his life. My arm lashed out and grabbed the bastard by his armored collar, shaking the man of his confidence and bringing the realization to his mind. I thrust my other hand around his throat and torqued my fingers into the apparatus and began to twist the machine from his face. The monotone voice erupted from the robotic larynx; the screams almost sounded human as the synthetic tendons snapped and the carbonic wires were torn off of his spine and into the open air, soaked in the crimson erupting from the traitor’s throat. His eyes began to roll back into his head, not being able to scream left him with no outlet for the pain, and I shook him back awake making sure that he would be with me every second until I squeezed every ounce of humanity out of him. His breathing became labored and gurgled as the blood seeped down into his lungs, sprays erupting from his windpipe as he tried to clear his chest, I shoved my hand into the hemorrhaging space and lifted him off his feet, the crimson spray rebounding off of my hand and into the air showering the floor with pain. I swung the man in a pendulum slamming his limp body into the desk, splintering the plastics and wood, causing the metal to shriek, his broken body laid motionless in the wreckage, the blood leaking from his throat stained the wood and showed me that he is still alive. I reached down to my holster and unhooked one of the pistols from its resting place, the barrel shined brightly in the flickering fluorescent lights, I pulled the hammer back as the all-familiar click sounded through the still air. I replaced my bloodied hand into the collar of the broken man’s armor and brought his bruised face in front of mine, the gurgles subsided as his eyes slowly closed, I shook him once more so he can see me pull the trigger, and I pressed the muzzle to his temple the barrel leaving a circular mark in his scarred skin, and as my finger tightened ever slowly around the curve of the trigger the sound of a pistol slide being pulled made me hesitate. I kept the muzzle against the man’s head as I turned to see the woman, I had saved holding a pistol pointed at my head, I look back at the dead man in my hands his gurgles turning to drown laughter as his hand moved upward and closed on itself giving me the last gesture he could muster, a broken middle finger. I didn’t care what he did, I was tired of asking questions, I was tired of running, I knew Frost wanted me dead that’s the only reason she would be pointing a gun at me, she tried to say something but it became muffled by my thoughts the words mushing together, something that if I don’t drop the man she will kill me, too bad for her he’s already dead… and so am I. As I squeezed the trigger, a shot rang through the air I don’t know whose pistol it came from but all I know was that my father was avenged, the Agency destroyed, and I found myself after years of blood and pain finally at peace as the darkness crept in again, but this time I welcomed it.

[GRIM, disconnected…]

[Year: 2452; Time: 17:42:27]

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