Chpt. 7) Abortion
As I finished placing the last C4 charges in specific spots around the gymnasium, I noticed Haru watching me from far below. “Getting a good view from down there?!” I called out to her.
“Not really,” Haru confessed.
I laughed and stretched while hanging upside down from my legs. Then something unexpected happened. Alarms began to blare as flashing lights came down from the ceiling. I cursed and relaxed my legs, letting myself fall, doing a flip as I fell. My feet hit the ground, and I collapsed into a roll, moving several feet away before standing and walking towards the gym’s locker rooms.
Slamming open the doors, I see the principal’s mouth around the fire alarm latch, her eyes full of defiance that matched the vice principal’s. I sighed, “You really shouldn’t have done that.” I pulled my plasma pistol from my pants and fired two shots into their heads, killing them instantly.
Haru soon appeared behind me and pulled on my sleeve, making me face her, “What do we do now?!”
I pulled out the command pad and looked into Haru’s beautiful silver eyes, “I’m going to complete the mission. You will return to the ship and prepare it for take off.”
“How!?” Haru asked. I ignored the question momentarily as I tapped commands into my command pad.
HK-9 UNITS AVAILABLE: 6
SELECT UNITS: 1-6
UNITS 1-5 SELECTED
SET TASK: ACQUIRE TEN CHILDREN WITHIN OA. MOVE OUT IN TWO MINUTES.
UNIT 6 SELECTED
SET TASK: BRING FRIENDLY TO SHIP. FRIENDLIES MARKED WITH IR FLARE. MOVE OUT IMMEDIATELY.
C4 EXPLOSIVES AVAILABLE: 12
SELECT DETONATORS: 1-12
ALL DETONATORS SELECTED
DETONATION IN 10 MINUTES
DI-HYDROGEN SULFIDE CANISTERS AVAILABLE: 8
SELECT DETONATORS: 1-8
ALL DETONATORS SELECTED
DETONATION IN 24 HOURS
Once I finished setting all the parameters, I answered Haru, “In five minutes, an HK-9 droid will come to pick you up. Leave now and keep the mask in your pocket. Blend in with the crowd until you’re outside. Go now!”
Haru wasted no time taking off her mask and quickly ascending the steps, leaving the gym. Once she left, I sighed again and rubbed my temples, with only the echoing alarm in the gym to occupy my thoughts. How could I be so naive!? I left them alive, and now my mission is in danger of failing! I knew I should’ve killed them immediately instead of knocking them out to have fun with them later! Stupid, stupid, dumbass mistake!
Once I finished cursing myself out, I went over to the now-empty briefcases and set the explosive timers within them to go off with the C4 and erase all remaining evidence of Haru and myself. Once that was set, I walked up the stairs to the door and looked into the hall to see nobody. I pulled out my command pad and checked the remaining time. I had six minutes left. This meant I had to stay hidden for five minutes before leaving.
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” I cursed under my breath. Then, the alarms suddenly stopped blaring, and the lights stopped flashing. I looked around, wondering what had happened and if the students were returning to the school.
Then, a woman’s voice came over the speakers, “ATTENTION TRESPASSER! YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO EVACUATE THE PREMISES AND SURRENDER PEACFULY!”
I cursed again and walked out into the hallway and to the main hall, where I could see out the front doors. There was a line of police cars outside the front gate with over a dozen standard police officers and two dozen S.W.A.T. with riot gear at the front. I quickened my perception momentarily and examined the situation.
The S.W.A.T teams had twelve personnel with class two energy riot shields that glowed a dark blue and standard issue MK-40 Belinov AR assault rifles. The other twelve S.W.A.T. members were all equipped with MK-40 Belinov AR assault rifles and standard-issue tasers. The rest of the police officers were armed with MK-45 plasma pistols and standard-issue tasers. I let my perception of time resume and noticed the policewoman in the group’s center with a police communicator in her hand.
I quickly took stock of my equipment, two MK-252 plasma pistols with twelve shots between the two, and I pulled out the pistols to read the ammo counter. My left pistol had eight shots, and my right had four. I cursed and stuffed the pistols in my pants as I kicked off my high-heeled shoes. Then, I checked the time I had left before tossing the command pad aside. Five minutes. Five minutes to have a pig roast.
I strolled down the hall and out the school’s front doors, my hands raised and eyes scanning for anything I missed. The school’s students and faculty were pushed back one block about one hundred feet from the gates, with an additional six officers keeping them back.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“FREEZE! KEEP YOUR HANDS UP WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!!” one of the S.W.A.T. officers yelled as I stepped out the school’s front door.
My hands were already up, so I ignored the man and looked at the female officer, with the communicator taking in more details. She had short, dirty blond hair and caramel-tanned skin like Haru, and aviator glasses obscured her eyes. “YOU! Lady pig! What’s your name?!” I asked loud enough for everyone to hear.
The officers around me appeared more agitated after I said that, and the female officer looked almost as affected but didn’t let it get to her. She brought the communicator to her lips and said, “My name is Sergeant Hernanda Diez. What’s yours?” her voice came from both the school speakers and a megaphone on her hovering police car.
I shrugged, “I go by many names. So many, in fact, we’d be standing here all day if I listed them all. But there is one name you would know me by,” I said as I stepped forward, making the S.W.A.T. teams flinch, “One name known throughout the galaxy.” I took another step forward, “One that even this planet knows.”
I took another step, causing the S.W.A.T. officer to yell, “DON’T MOVE ANOTHER STEP!”
“I!” I took another step, yelling for all to hear.
“I SAID DON’T MOVE!”
“AM!” I took another step.
“IF YOU TAKE ONE MORE STEP WE WILL FIRE!”
“The Reaper,” I lowered my voice to a menacing whisper, just loud enough for the sergeant to hear me, and took one last step simultaneously. The school courtyard went deathly silent as everyone took in my words, and information appeared in the S.W.A.T. teams’ helmet visors. While everyone checked the information, I used my optics to access my command pad and check the time remaining.
HK-9 DROIDS ARE ON SITE AND AWAITING OPERATION TARGETS
C4 DETONATION IN 3 MINUTES
DI-HYDROGEN SULFIDE DETONATION IN 23 HR 53 MIN
I quickly looked past the nervous and panicking officers toward the students and faculty a block away. I mentally marked the area for the droids before returning my attention to the officers ten feet before me. “So, what are you going to do now?” I asked teasingly.
I saw a few of the officers tremble a little at my words, and I had to stifle a chuckle as the sergeant spoke over her communicator again, her voice surprisingly calm, “Reaper, you are hereby under arrest and will be brought into custody where you will await trial for your crimes.”
With that, four S.W.A.T. officers without riot shields slowly approached me with their guns raised. The two in front lowered their guns, and the two in back kept theirs trained on me. The first two officers pulled out suppression cuffs as they approached, each reaching for one of my hands. Just before they touched me, a scream erupted from the gathered crowd, and the officers flinched and turned toward the sound.
A manic smile spread across my lips under my mask as that split-second distraction gave me an opening. I whipped out my right pistol and fired one shot into the face of the S.W.A.T. officer to my right and kicked the other one’s knee, causing it to snap and buckle. The officer yelled in pain as I ignored him and charged forward, using the next two officers as stepping stones to jump over the wall of S.W.A.T. officers. As I jumped, I flipped and fired three more shots at the officers, the shots hitting their marks and hitting the officers’ heads.
As I landed, I pulled my other pistol and fired at the nearest S.W.A.T. officer. The plasma bolt struck his back harmlessly, only making him stumble forward. I took advantage of that as I pocketed my pistols in one fluid motion, lunging for the officer’s rifle and shield. As I grabbed the rifle and pulled the trigger, the plasma shot ricocheted off the inside of the riot shield and hit the officer’s foot, causing him to scream and release his grip on the shield. At this point, the rest of the officers got their whits together and backed away from me. Backing away far too slowly.
I tightened my grip on the rifle and shield as I wrenched them from the officer’s hands and fired two quick shots into his mouth as he screamed before charging the nearest officers. I darted around their shields and fired a quick volley of plasma shots into them. The nearest officer got several shots in his body armor, causing him to release his shield in shock. I quickly dropped the rifle and caught the shield as the first shots from the cops were fired. I blocked the torrent of plasma with the shields and darted away toward the gates with one shield in front of me and the other behind me.
I saw the sergeant cursing as she pulled out a shotgun and began firing plasma bolts in quick succession at me. The shots bounced harmlessly off the shield in front of me but quickly began to change from a dark blue to red. Just before the shield broke, I jumped over the line of police cars at the sergeant, and as I flew over the cars, I tossed the shields away and grabbed the shotgun in the sergeant’s hands as I tackled her. We rolled across the ground a few feet, and I kicked her off me as I stood with the shotgun. I quickly fired two shots at the nearest officers, killing them, before the gun overheated, and I tossed it aside as I dove into the sergeant’s car as another volley of plasma came my way.
One shot struck my right side, and I bit back a curse as I closed the car door and hit the accelerator. The car rose slightly and took off at incredible speeds, running over a few pedestrians as I flew off. I clutched at my side and felt the blood oozing from my new hole. Gritting my teeth, I checked the status of the HK-9 droids.
HK-9 DROIDS MISSION COMPLETE
RETURNING TO SHIP
C4 DETONATION IN 1 MINUTE
I accessed my comms and called my ship, “Haru, are you there?”
“Yes, I just took off. What’s happening?” Haru answered immediately.
“The police showed up,” I said through gritted teeth as I put more pressure on my wound, “the HK-9 droids got what we needed. Swing around to pick them up and then come for me.”
“Got it. Are you okay? Did you get hurt?” Haru asked.
“I’m fine,” I said unconvincingly as I noticed two cop cars pursuing me, “Just pick up the droids and then me.” As I cut off the communication, the police communicator buzzed and stuttered.
I cleared my throat and pressed a button on the radio, answering the call. The sergeant’s angry voice came over the communicator, “Reaper! Pull over now!”
I sped off into flying traffic as I flipped on the flashing lights and sirens before answering, “I don’t think I will.” I grabbed the steering wheel and rammed into a civilian car, causing it to spin out of control and fall out of the air, forcing the cop cars pursuing me to dart out of the way.
“If you surrender now, you might be able to get out of jail by the time you’re eighty. If you keep resisting, you’ll be put into cryo sleep forever,” the sergeant threatened.
I laughed into the communicator, “First of all, that’s considering if I make it to trial. And B, if you’ve read my rap sheet, you should know I’ve escaped a cryo containment facility and that the facility is listed as missing. That’s because it doesn’t exist anymore. So, your threats mean nothing to me.”
An explosion went off behind me, and I looked in the rearview to see half the school collapsing in on itself in the distance. I winced as I turned to get a better look and pressed my side harder to try and stop the bleeding. “What did you plan to do at the school?!” The sergeant exclaimed over the communicator.
I chuckled and rammed into two more cars in front of me before I brought the communicator to my lips, “Oh, nothing much. Just needed a few students of my own. Any that didn’t meet my requirements would be left there for you to find … in the rubble.”
Tossing the communicator aside, I turned to see my ship coming towards me from a distance. I broke out of the flying traffic and toward my ship, increasing my speed. The cops followed me closely, and the sergeant spoke over the communicator again, “You’re a monster.”
I opened the car door, stood looking back toward the pursuing police, and waved before jumping from my stolen vehicle and landing on the ramp to my ship as it opened. The ship turned sharply and gained altitude, quickly outpacing the cop cars and breaking the atmosphere before jumping to hyperspace.
Slumping against the nearest wall, I cursed an impressive string of curses. A moment later, Haru came running down the corridor with a med kit in hand and a worried expression on her face. “What the fuck happened?!” Haru exclaimed as she lowered me down to the floor.
I chuckled weakly and said, “I was taught a lesson.”
***