Don't Blink

[Breaker]

Continued from An error in judgement (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=15070).

The abandoned factory district smelled like tension. Everything lay still as the peace before a storm, the air almost vibrant in its stoicism.

Crumbling brick and mortar littered the cracked cobblestone streets and dusty broken glass reflected the overcast grey sky. Althanas barely seemed to breathe that day; the slightest breeze just tangible as it meandered from building to building, stirring the scent of musky failure. Long years had passed since the once-prosperous quarter had seen active life; it had become a playground for daring boys and a meeting place for thieves. Recent weeks had seen a decline in the already sparse visitors, though. Tales of strange goings on and disembodied voices kept all but the bravest away. Not a soul could be seen as far as the dishevelled road ran, and yet the atmosphere strained like a stretched bowstring, a broadpoint ready to spill blood.

Cyndine Cirward stood on a pavilion atop one of the derelict factories. Unlike the building it was mounted on, with its collapsing walls and infested corners, the pavilion looked brand new, fashioned from clean oaken planks. Cirward ran a hand along the well-sanded railing, her lacquered fingernails scratching at the wood grain. The pavilion would have stood out like a raven amongst starlings if it were visible to outsiders. The invisibility shield Cirward had woven around it tickled the back of her head, a reminder to keep feeding power into it, but it hardly demonstrated a fraction of her abilities. At any rate, she wanted to keep the magnitude of her talents a secret from present company, if for no other reason than that she enjoyed watching the dear man sweat.

Doctor Jared Addison stood as far away from Cirward as he could without falling of the pavilion. He perched awkwardly on the well supported railing, a birdlike man with his shining bald head and bulbous spectacles. Addison never seemed comfortable, and couldn’t go five minutes without starting up some circular conversation. For a brilliant scientific mind, he was really a bit of a doorknob.

“Err, so Miss Cirward, I’m sure our agent will return with the primary target any time now. She must have decided to bed down somewhere for the ni--” he chirped to a halt as the large woman in the sparkling black dress inflated her lungs. In truth, he had been blathering nonsensically, just waiting to be interrupted. His shoulders gave a twitch and he wiped a bead of sweat from his bald pate.

“How many times must I ask you to call me Cyndine?” She continued before he could answer the rhetorical question, “but don’t be naive my dear boy. I suspect young Joshua Cronen has overcome that blonde agent of yours by now. He’s probably interrogating her as we speak.” The morning sun crept over the horizon, lighting up the sequins on Cyndine’s black dress. She shook the curled tresses of her chestnut hair and let out a tinkling a laugh, the fragile sound seeming odd coming from her large frame. Addison nearly fell off the pavilion, she nearly had to extend her telekinetic hands to catch the jumpy fellow.

“What?” he gasped once he got his breathing back in order, “Allyson is one of our top agents! Cyndine, if she can’t bring him in--” he let the suggestion hang in the early morning air, or maybe he just couldn’t think of an appropriate way to finish the sentence. Cyndine laughed again.

“Really, Jared darling,” she simpered, casting glowing eyes towards him and savoring his flinch. “You truthfully do not realize how clever this boy is. Never fear, Allyson will still bring him here, only she probably won’t be alive to receive any compliments for her work. Even with the element of surprise, she doesn’t stand a chance. You really should stop underestimating Joshua Cronen.” She actually sounded as if she admired Cronen, but then, she was discussing a matter of life and death as though commenting on a recent theatrical production.

The familiar white handkerchief came out, and Addison mopped his scalp with it, removing his glasses briefly only to perch them atop his nose once more.

He said, “But, for Christ’s sake, if he knows where we are he’ll take off!” He sputtered a little but managed to get the sentence out. Cyndine shook her head, hair bouncing like loose brown springs.

“You forget how well I know your primary target, darling. No, dearest Joshua will play right into our hands, just as soon as he extracts our whereabouts from your unfortunate agent.” Cirward seemed to consider something, then commented, “It will be easier on her if she tells him right up front. He knows a thing or two about pain, that boy.”

The light morning breeze carried Addison’s mumbled obscenities away as his sweat spattered the invisible pavilion.

[Breaker]

Pain... the whole forest smelled like pain.

The hole the arrow had made when it punctured Josh’s chest felt full of molten lava. He crouched on a mossy rock, hard hazel eyes always vigilant, gazing like judge and jury at the guilty woman in front of him. Her breath came in ragged gasps that the forest seemed to swallow, and blood made trails from the pinpricks on her collarbone down her sweat stained shirt. Blonde hair matted and hanging slack, Allyson was no longer the confident woman who had come so close to killing him. Granted, she hadn't broken yet, but he had gone easy on her. The hole in his chest made him feel lethargic, like maybe he should just give it all up and go home. Forget Intelligence America existed, and let that problem work itself out, for better or worse.

Allyson knelt with her back to a tree, hands bound together behind it. Her legs must have ached from sitting folded in that position. He moved closer, until their faces almost touched, and reached around her, severing the ties on her wrists. She collapsed on her face, choking back sobs as blood flowed through the deadened limbs. Josh stood, then on an afterthought bent and wiped the blade of his dagger clean on her shirt. He had been patient, but he needed to jack the interrogation up a notch. No matter what seemed logical, he wouldn’t stop until he extracted the information he needed to find Jared Addison and Cyndine Cirward.

For the moment, Allyson suffered in their stead.

Josh said, “Well I’m getting bored,” and his voice droned like the wings of a bee with a poisonous sting. “Tell you what, if you’re having a good time, stick around and we’ll continue. Otherwise, get out of here.” He waited a few seconds while Allyson struggled to stand, the trees laughing at her as a gentle wind tickled their leaves. Groaning, she managed to push herself onto all fours.

He kicked her square in the short ribs.

Not particularly hard, but she sprawled on her back, gasping fishlike as what little air her lungs had gathered disappeared. One callused hand wrapped around her throat and lifted her clean off the ground, then slammed her into the trunk she had so recently been liberated from. She choked around his invasive fingers, fighting to stay conscious. He put himself right in her line of vision, right up in her face, and squeezed just a little.

He said, “We haven’t even begun to explore what I could do to you. I mean, you’ve only read a teaser of an epic novel here. Really. Whatever they told you about me at IA, I’m a lot worse.”

He moved so fast her eyes crossed, trying to figure out where he had gone.

He was in front of her, then suddenly behind her, threading an arm through her shoulder and twisting the joint painfully. Allyson cried out, a ragged tearing of lungs she hadn’t thought possessed the power. The pressure in her shoulder grew and grew, unbearable, like a vice that just kept ratcheting tighter, one notch at a time. Stars danced before her eyes, but the pain didn’t stop there. His fingertips struck her solar plexus suddenly, then again, and again. Abdominals that she had once thought strong yielded softly, and she couldn’t even double over to protect herself. She had no air, and each time he hit her she had less still.

It took Allyson a moment to realize she was lying on the forest floor, pine needles and leaves crunching beneath her haggard face.

Josh hunkered down next to her, let her gather just enough breath that she could have gasped submission, if she intended to. But she was tough, shockingly so, arbitrarily so. However long she could last, he would last longer, and she would just die in the end anyways. Such a useless waste of time, such a silly game they played, and yet her stubbornness made it necessary. Josh considered the possibility that she was waiting for the cavalry to arrive, perhaps a horde of Kevlar-suited soldiers with automatic weapons. He cocked an ear to the breeze, listened and inhaled. No sound but the lark heralding a bright morning as the sun dyed the sky red. The strongest smell was the two horses, concealed in a nearby clearing, harnessed to the carriage Allyson had tried to kidnap him in. Josh cracked his neck.

No soldiers, no cavalry, she was just plain wasting time.

He combed her tangled hair roughly with long, calloused fingers.

“You have nice hair,” he told her, extending a strand before letting it fall like threshed wheat. “Really great hair, actually, when it’s cleaner than this. That was one of the first things I noticed about you.” He remained silent for a moment, listening to the dying cry of roosting birds. Then he tore a patch of her fantastic hair out by the roots, and her scream sent a flock flapping into the crimson sky.

“Bald chicks are kind of exotic, actually,” he informed her.

[Breaker]

Blood and sweat flowed through the dirt, mingling in a murky mix.

The forest waved goodbye as Allyson’s life left her body. Josh managed to find a part of her shirt that was still relatively clean and wiped the blade of his bayonet on it. It had taken time and considerable effort, but she told him all he needed to know. He could hear the horses nearby, stomping impatiently. They wanted to hit the road, and so did Josh.

Driving the carriage wasn’t all that hard. Once he got it back on the dirt road, it took a simple snap from the buggy whip to set the horses trotting towards the rising sun, hooves like muffled applause on the dusty country lane, an ovation for his efforts. Allyson had given him not only a description of the building Intelligence America made their headquarters, but detailed directions on how to find the abandoned district. Josh sat back as the wind whistled in his ears, a whispered foretelling of the slaughter to come.

The twin black horses towed the carriage back to Radasanth, and there his route differed from the directions Allyson gave him. As the wooden wheels clattered over smooth cobblestones, Josh spotted the inn he had spent the past few weeks at. It may have shocked some of the locals to see the stoic soldier pulling up in a horse-drawn carriage, but he wasted no time with conversation.

Into the building, then out again, carrying a backpack that hung slack, almost empty. The bag went on the driver’s seat next to him, and he set the horses in motion with another flick from the whip.

The cacophony of morning business echoed all around him, hawkers selling services and goods, women chatting from window to window as they folded their laundry, and travelers arguing over which horse had trod on whose foot. He tuned it out, dividing his focus between steering the carriage and his plans for the day.

Logic seemed to dictate an immediate frontal assault. He could approach the building and attack before they even realized it was not Allyson or her driver who held the reigns. He tried to picture the run-down factory as Allyson described it, broken windows, crumbling masonry and all. According to the deceased blonde, the entire main floor of IA’s headquarters was a facade, a mask of innocence. The real base lay beneath the wreckage, where the innovative corporation’s engineers had expanded the basement. Three entire levels it went below the surface, she had told him, and he wondered if this could be true. People certainly lied under the knife as often as they told the truth, but Joshua had a knack for knowing one from the other.

As the outside world rolled by, intricate ideas blossomed in Breaker’s mind. He intended to level Intelligence America, to kill every thieving bastard in their sub terrain hideaway. It wouldn’t be easy, certainly, with the weapons they had, and three floors of panicking soldiers and scientists wasn’t the most ideal target, but he would find a way. He would know for certain when he saw the place, but for the moment he turned the idea over and over, playing dozens of mental scenarios out, each one ending with a bullet hole between the eyes of both Cyndine Cirward and Jared Addison.

[Breaker]

The crowd thinned as the carriage reached the outskirts of Radasanth, but the yells of children playing still rent the air. Pigeons cooed in the eaves as warehouses replaced rundown dwellings. A shadow flitted behind Josh’s eyes, and he snapped the reigns to push the horses a little faster.

Much of the soldier’s first encounter with Intelligence America hid behind a void in his memory. He recalled a horrific warehouse in the central slums of Radasanth, and the torturous interrogation that had taken place there, his veins pumped full of sodium pentothal and his mind invaded by that witch of a woman. At a guess, he thought the questioning had lasted days, but it could have been months. They grew careless, however, and he had escaped into the rain drenched night. Josh glanced upwards at the clear sky. A little fall of rain might have helped him, but he certainly didn’t need it. Through the swimming, blurred memories two faces with names to match remained perfectly clear, and he knew without a doubt he would kill Dr. Addison and the sorceress Cirward. In his mind, they were marked, their bells having tolled for the last time.

His stomach growled, but he ignored it. He could survive on the dust the open road fed him, and he flicked the reigns again as if to prove it. The horses accelerated grudgingly, nearing a canter as they passed beneath a large archway that marked the city limits of Radasanth proper. It was almost like passing through a portal, on one side the squared away warehouses, and on the other increasingly broken down factories.

It was a swirling green portal that had brought Josh to Althanas, initially. The company he worked for then, the company that had later become Intelligence America, had generated it using massive amounts of energy and science too complex for him to understand. The portal had been like a storm, a tempest that tossed Josh into the depths of the forest Concordia. It had taken him so long to adjust to the idea of never seeing Earth again, and then one day the newly formed corporation stabilized the portal and sent their shock troops through to scout the land. To see what could be taken for their profit. They hadn’t counted on Joshua Cronen though; they had thought him dead, until they noticed his name in a flyer for the Dajas Pagoda. Of course, they had suppressed their happiness at his survival behind a greedy desire to pump him for all he was worth. Josh felt a shudder run down his spine, and cracked his neck angrily. He had told them nothing, or next to nothing. He was sure of that, because if they had gotten what they wanted they would have left him alone.

The wooden carriage wheels spun like dusty vortexes, bouncing the coach up and down. The primitive shocks jarred the wound in his chest, but he ignored it. It was nothing compared to what he had felt the night before, when the wound was fresh and he lay bleeding inside the carriage, uncertain of whether he would survive.

But I did survive, and I know where you are. I hope you’re ready for me, you’ll need to be prepared beyond your wildest dreams.

The horses’ hooves shattered aged stone and wood alike, juggernauts thundering through the derelict district.

[Breaker]

The long block surrounding the invisible pavilion bustled with activity for a solid twenty minutes, armoured soldiers toting automatic weapons running to and fro under the barked commands of their captain. And then they were gone, every boot print swept into inconspicuous ambivalence.

Cyndine asked, “Are we prepared?” and her fingernails tapped the railing like mallets over a xylophone.
“Yes, we are,” Addison replied, and for once he seemed confident in himself. Without any encouragement on her part, he ran through a list of the decrepit factory’s well-concealed defences.

“Tripwires,” he started, holding up his thumb like a child learning to count. “Fifty yards out, stretched across approaching roads in every direction. Any pressure over ten pounds will release the pins on nerve gas canisters concealed in adjacent walls.” Cyndine nodded her approval. They had explained nerve gas to her in the simplest terms; an airborne substance that would bring down even a man as mighty as Josh Cronen.

Addison continued, his index finger joining his thumb in the counting game.

“Flashbang mines,” he noted, “buried in back alleys and hidden under the dust in buildings. If anything heavier than a rat steps on them, they let out a blinding flash of light and a sound like thunder.” Again Cyndine nodded. She liked the concept of flashbang mines better. It was something she could identify with, similar to a solar flare spell. “Snipers,” Addison’s middle finger extended, and his eyes glowed. Perhaps he harboured a secret passion for long guns. “Two facing every direction on the rooftop of... well, of this building.” Cyndine smiled pleasantly at the obvious statement, looking not unlike a basilisk. She swept her eyes over the eight men who lay prone on the roof, the barrels of their rifles propped and ready to fire. She gestured for Addison to continue, since he seemed to be enjoying himself so much.

“Assault squads,” he ticked off the final line of defence with his ring finger, then abandoned the counting to wipe his bald head with that silly rag. “Four teams of six men, fully armoured, standing by at the front, rear, and both side entrances.” A coiled length of wire fell to Addison’s shoulder and he grasped it irritably, jamming it back into his ear. “We’re all live on short-wave radios of course,” he added, “As soon as there’s any word of a disturbance, the closest assault team will move out.”

Cyndine made no effort to mask her amusement. So much effort to recapture one man. It had been so easy the first time, but now they had made a paranoid wreck out of a once happy Joshua Cronen. The thought of his name darkened her good mood. He had beaten her. She had been inside his head, and he had thrown her out like kitchen waste. Next time, and there would be a next time as soon as the dozens of soldiers did their job, she would not be so careless. She would not be so gentle, but delve into his subconscious with fingers clad in clawed gauntlets. She would lay waste to his magnificent mind if necessary, but in the end she would discover the secret to his power.

The sun had almost reached its zenith when Cyndine spotted a plume of dust in the distance, headed toward them like a miniature tornado. Her smile showed long crocodile teeth as she lifted her thick fingers to eye level and imagined crushing the carriage she could not yet see.

[Breaker]

Josh lay flat on his back behind the factory, listening to Addison drone on and on. The way he had his sore shoulder jammed against the wall didn’t make the Doctor’s monologue go any faster.

Yeah yeah, he thought, Tripwires; check. Nerve gas; check. Flashbang mines... he looked at the heavy iron disc held gently in one hand. Check. Snipers; working on it. Assault squads; good thing to know about. Thanks, Jared.

Intelligence America was good; he’d have to give them that. Heck, they were great. But so unimaginative. They were thorough, and professional, and considering the groves of mines, they weren’t afraid to spend a buck. But they had seen him walk up walls in the past, and they hadn’t thought to put mines on the walls or ceilings of the abandoned buildings. Silly mistake, but then, a wooden horse crumpled Troy.

The hardest part about getting to the factory with the invisibility shield on top of it had been finding solid chunks of wall to walk safely on.

The tripwires stretched across the roads and back alleys would have been effective if he had approached at a mad dash in a one-man cavalry charge, but he thought far ahead of that. The only way to kill such a powerful beast was to cripple it from the inside out. And the would-be fortress of IA employees was a vast, complex, intelligent powerful beast. But Breaker was fast, and quiet, and clever, and knew over thirty ways to kill a man with his bare hands. He figured that might be important later. At the moment, he listened.

“Shall we go inside, darling?” The wide, lilting voice of Cyndine Cirdward spilled from the rooftop, and Josh’s eyes flicked skyward, as if he could see her through the brick and mortar. “I think we should be elsewhere when the bullets start to fly.” The energy, the magical pulse that Josh could feel emanating from her, shut off. She had stopped casting the spell, and Josh heard Jared Addison’s stuttering footsteps before the man’s stumbling voice chipped in.

“Of course, Miss ah... Cyndine. Of course, they’re using prevaldia-tipped tranquilizer darts, not bullets. We managed to get a very good price from the dwarves in Kachuk...” the creepy little man’s voice faded and then a trapdoor thudded shut. The little ferret actually mispronounced ‘prevaldia’, Josh couldn’t see how. What a bastard. Despite his less-than-friendly feelings for Addison, Josh took note of the fact that Intelligence America had contacts in Kachuk. Their dirty hands reach farther than I’d thought...

His motivation to destroy the stronghold redoubled, Josh rose silently. His shoulder gave him a pang as he shifted to look at the sun. With eight trained shooters on the rooftop, it would be suicide to go in without some kind of distraction. He used the flashbang mine to shield his eyes from the intense golden rays. Almost high noon. Breaker leaned against the wall to wait, shoving the mine sideways into his overstuffed backpack.

His distraction arrived shortly.

[Breaker]

Two young boys sat in the middle of the dusty road, focused intently upon their shadows. It was almost high noon, and only a sliver of umbrage remained, an inflection of the top of each boy's head. Their corn colored hair and near symmetrical faces marked them as brothers, the senior's single year advantage barely visible in a two inch height difference. That couple of inches was important to him, however. It identified him as the more mature of the two, the more trustworthy. That was why the tall man in the tan clothing had given him the matches.

The older boy left off studying his shadow and looked at the book of strikers clutched in one dirty hand. Less than an hour earlier, he and his brother had met a strange man while playing ghosts in the abandoned factory district, a game that innvolved hiding and hooting at each other. At first the boys had been frightened; they were not allowed to play in the dangerous district, full of collapsing walls and pitfall floorboards. At their young age, any adult tended to represent an authority figure. But the broad shouldered stranger had charmed them, his presence as reassuring as his deep voice. To the lads, he appeared as a hero from legends, with his scruffy chin and the scar beneath his eye. The man had offered them a noble quest to help him defeat evil forces within Radasanth. The details had been glossed over in his exciting story, but he had made it clear that he needed their help. After explaining the task in painstaking detail, the man had melted into the shadows like a ghost, leaving the brothers with a gold crown each and book of matches between them.

As the larger boy mused over the matchbook, the smaller nudged his shoulder with a tiny fist. The two often communicated nonverbally, and the nudge seemed to carry a private message. The older brother looked up and noted that their shadows had completely disappeared, meaning the sun had reached the apex of its climb. He nodded, and his sibling nodded back, dirty yellow hair falling into his eyes.

It’s time.

They walked with soldierly stillness to the carriage the stranger had left behind. The horses harnessed to the rickety coach pawed the ground, eager to move. They would get their wish soon enough.

The first match broke, and a bullying breath of wind blew the second out. Without a word the smaller boy moved to his brother’s side, forming a windscreen with his slim body. The larger boy grinned as his third match sparked to life and stayed lit, an orange flame licking up the tiny wooden shaft. Without burning his fingers, the boy passed the flame beneath the corner of a rag which protruded under the carriage’s closed door. A racing blue flame sprang to life, and both boys leapt backwards in shock, fingers in their mouths, matchbook forgotten on the ground.

They watched as the flames greedily rose up the walls of the carriage, the smell of hundred-proof alcohol growing stronger as the fire drank in the accelerant. It didn’t take the horses long to realize they were attached to a blazing box on wheels. They took off at a mad gallop, hooves pounding up a plume of dust that mingled with the acrid smoke. As the coach dashed out of sight, the boys realized that all the offshoots of the long road were mysteriously barricaded by chunks of cobblestone and heavy timbers. It seemed the horses had a date with whatever lay at the end of that road, one which they hastened to make. Images of the scar faced man battling ghosts and dragons on the back of a horse bred from fire filled their imaginations as they skipped off to play once more, but not before the smaller boy had retrieved the book of matches and given it to his brother, who pocketed the souvenir wordlessly.

[Breaker]

Michel Albert lay flat on his stomach, observing the approaching cloud of smoke and dust through his rifle’s long scope. He tracked the flaming vehicle’s path easily; the carriage itself wasn’t always visible between the crumbling buildings, but his steady hand followed the plume easily enough.

Albert, pronounced “All-Bear”, had been a mercenary by trade ever since his dishonourable discharge from the military, but earned a living stacking boxes twelve hours a day in a noxious warehouse. He fossilized in that factory until a high-profile contract made its way to his mailbox, what appeared to be a top-secret government funded mission. The people running the operation clearly knew what they were doing, for they had made Albert the commander of his unit. He was an experienced sniper, matched well with seven other similarly decorated ex-soldiers. Peering at the rapidly approaching carriage from the comfortable end of a high-powered tranquilizer rifle, Albert felt invincible.

His radio crackled to life, and that wormy scientist’s voice filled the earpiece.

“Requesting a check in from all units,” Addison said over a mouthful of static. Albert winced. The bespectacled buffon was holding the microphone too close to his mouth.

“Eagle eye Alpha?” the Doctor’s voice asked, and Albert responded for himself and his partner, the man sprawled on his right.

“Cheque," he said in a distinct French accent. Addison continued down the list.
“Eagle eye Bravo?”
“Check,” mumbled the senior sniper at the rear of the building.
“Eagle eye Charlie?”
“Check,” rasped the chainsmoker on the factory’s west end.
“Eagle eye Delta?”
“Check,” came the high tenor voice of the senior sniper at the east end.

“Good, all rooftop teams accounted for,” Addison commented, then audibly wiped his face with his handkerchief and shuffled some papers. The maudite little man couldn’t memorize this?

“Assault squad Alpha?” Addison asked.

The four grounded assault leaders checked in, and when the Doctor finally finished tying up the channel, Albert made note of the carriage’s approach.

“Je suggeste,” he began, before switching to English, “Assault squad Alpha advance avec caution.”

They complied with ruthless efficiency, and he watched in his peripheral vision as six men in tan urban camouflage filed out of the building a story below. They moved in a staggered line from wall to wall, electric tazers and CO2 pistols clutched like automatic weapons. Through his scope, Albert could see sweat steaming off the horses’ hides. His automatique rangefinder read one hundred metres, the numbers dropping away like the final seconds of a great football game. He was anxious to see why a single invader required such exhaustive fortifications, and his scope would give him a better showing then a front-row seat when the horses hit the tripwire.

[Breaker]

Josh listened to the radio conversation as he leaned casually against the wall. The Frenchman was certainly a competent soldier; they all were. Unfortunately they had signed with the losing side. Josh heard the shuffling, scuffling footsteps of an assault unit moving in formation, out the front door of the factory and towards the approaching chariot of fire.

Breaker counted on the fact that the Frenchman would focus the majority of the firepower on the diversion. It would be a wise, prudent choice to gather the five best snipers on the front wall, facing the charging carriage, leaving one man to watch the side and back flanks. Josh imagined that he could hear the gears grinding in the Frenchman’s head, and then he heard the order. Light footsteps wafted down on the gentle breeze as three of the snipers left their assigned posts to focus on what appeared to be a frontal assault.

Josh went up the wall like a spider, fingers finding holds as surely as metal claws, enchanted boots gaining magical purchase and pushing him upwards. He paused just below roof level, pressing his aching chest into the rock, not breathing. He could see the remaining guard’s rifle barrel poking just over the edge of the roof, and hear the man’s calm heartbeat. Clinging with only three limbs, Josh freed his right hand and trailed his fingertips across the coarse brick. It made a skittering sound, like a tiny rodent or insect racing for cover. The sniper shifted, hearing the noise, and then relaxed. Josh did it again, then a third time, using his nails to turn the make-believe creature louder and more obnoxious. With a grating of Kevlar on coarse stone, the guard shifted forwards and peered over the precipice to see what little bug was irritating him.

He died before he could understand what he saw. Breaker’s calloused fingertips gripped his throat, found the soft spots behind the cartilage and applied pressure. A child’s hand would have sufficed to suppress the man’s vocal chords in that position, but Breaker tore his windpipe out before it could even perform a death rattle. Fingers like curved claws ripped the soft flesh, and blood spattered the ground below in a crimson shower. The Kevlar-clad sniper went limp like a marionette with severed strings, his heavy body pinning his rifle in place. Josh shook his hand once to shed the sticky red droplets, then grasped the top of the wall and vaulted upwards. He left a bloody handprint behind as he landed silently on the rooftop.

The wind washed over him as he scanned the scene. He could see the hastily assembled wooden pavilion now, empty in the centre of the earth-colored roof. The tableau played out exactly as he predicted; five snipers lying prone in a neat line on the north wall of the building and one each to the east and west, all facing away from him, eyes pressed to their scopes.

He took a moment to breathe the fresh air and exalt in the golden sun. Now that the killing had started, he felt almost cheerful, carefree. Vengeance took shape in his mind as the plume of dust and smoke that represented the carriage drew nearer. He took his backpack off, setting it down carefully so as not to disturb the bulky contents, and crept into the shadow of the pavilion. Standing directly beneath the wooden structure, he inhaled the cool shaded air.

Let the chaos begin.

Fifty yards away, the carriage struck its first flashbang mine.

[Breaker]

Michel Albert tracked the carriage’s rapid movement, the numbers on his range finder scrolling down like a camcorder on high speed rewind.

60 metres... 55, 50—merde!

The horses’ eyes rolled like upended turtles, rabid slather foaming from their mouths as they tried desperately to escape the burning vehicle attached to them. They galloped so swiftly that all eight hoofed feet cleared the tripwire. The rambling shambling wooden wheels did not, however.

Albert heard a muffled pop, then a venomous hiss. A dense cloud of grey vapour spewed from both sides of the street, engulfing the coach. The horses missed inhaling much of the gas, but the noise spooked them even more than the fire. They bolted in opposite directions. The harness, already weakened by the heat, snapped easily. The two panicking animals pranced away down seperate side alleys, miraculously avoiding the bunches of flashbang mines. As the second horse’s tail whipped out of sight around a corner, Albert glanced back at the careening carriage.

Nom du Dieu!

Without its beastly steeds, the coach took an unnaturally sharp turn into a dead end alley and crashed. There was a moment of silence in which Albert realized that the heavy discharge of nerve gas had actually extinguished the fire. Then the carriage tilted precariously on two wheels and tipped over on top of a flashbang mine.

Bang! Bang! Bangbangbangbangbang!

Mines went off in a vicious chain reaction, light like a white starburst blossoming outwards amidst the thunderous reports. The assault squad, only twenty yards away, dropped their weapons and fell to the ground with hands covering their ears or eyes. The other snipers that lined the wall with Albert groaned, voicing their pain in various ways, for they had all been foolish enough to watch the supernova explosions through their scopes. As the blinding lights faded the Frenchman lined up his viewfinder once more, scanning the area around the downed assault squad. Clouds of vapours exhausted from the flashbang mines shimmered in the air, and masonry crumbled further in a few places, but he spotted no human movement. No sign of the primary target.

Disappointed and confused, Albert tracked back to the burned out hulk of the carriage. From what he observed, it seemed as though the coach had only carried a few bundles of sticks, mostly ash now. With growing frustration the Frenchman trawled his rifle back and forth, searching fruitlessly.

Mile tonnerres! Où était-lui? Where was he?

If the carriage was just a diversion, it stood to reason that an actual attack would follow, straight through the hole the coach had ploughed in their defenses.

Unless...

With a growing sense of dread, Albert lifted himself to one knee and looked over his shoulder. He stood up, staggering as he cried to his allies.

"Debut et défends! About face and fight!"

That was all he got out before darkness absorbed his mind.

[Breaker]

Josh stood like a shadow as the blinding, deafening explosions rocked the factory district. He ignored the ringing pain in his ears and blinked the sun-spots from his eyes. Heard shouts of pain and surprise from the assault squad far below, and the receding whinnies of the horses, finally running free. He was glad they escaped without harm; he liked animals, but wasn’t afraid to use them instrumentally in his plans. The breeze rubbed his lips with an acrid sooty taste, the result of so many flashbang mines detonating close together.

The man on the eastern wall of the building moved.

Josh had been waiting, watching the two lonely snipers from the corner of each eye. They played the perfect soldiers for awhile, not abandoning their posts just because of a little noise, but the man to Josh’s right finally got curious and glanced over his shoulder.

Breaker crossed the rooftop in less than a second. He covered the twenty yards between himself and the rising sniper with eye blurring speed, so fast he had to squint against the wind. His khaki clothes already warm in the afternoon sun got warmer from the air motion.

The sniper reacted well, his experience showing. From a half standing position he raised his rifle, hands barely shaking at all, and pulled the trigger. Josh struck like a swaying snake, shuffling sideways as his foot snapped up and kicked the butt of the rifle upwards. The prevaldia-tipped dart embedded itself in the stone shingled roof, and this time the sniper didn’t handle himself so well, staring dumbfounded at his empty hands. Josh spun through the momentum of his kick, turning and driving the point of his elbow into the enemy’s temple. The lifeless sniper crumpled on his face, cracked skull oozing black blood.

Josh caught the pinwheeling rifle and set it ceremoniously upon the deceased.

The rush of the deadly dance infected his mind, but his body stayed vigilant, eyes scanning the windswept rooftop, ears guarding his back. He could hear the assault squad on the ground, not far away but still in disarray. The initial chain of flashbang explosions had covered his pounding footsteps before, but in the sudden silence he moved quickly and silently. Twenty yards, then thirty, creeping like a wraith towards the lone sniper on the west wall. The man lay comfortably, peering studiously through his scope, breathing easy. No reason to make a scene. Josh crouched and pulled the man’s own combat knife from a sheath in his heavy leather boot. Casual as a farmer planting seeds, he stabbed the sniper at the base of his neck, severing the man’s spinal cord and ending his life instantaneously.

“Debut et defends!”

Josh spun and saw the Frenchman levelling a rifle at him, closely followed by the other four soldiers.

It was a bad spot; caught on an open rooftop by a firing squad of five expert marksmen.

His pulse barely quickened, for his body knew what to do before his mind could even think about it. Like a well programmed machine.

Dust swirled against the wind, and his shadow blurred. Breaker was there, and then he was gone.

[Breaker]

If his clothes had warmed before, they burned as the burst of adrenaline propelled him forwards. One moment Josh stood at the west end of the roof, and an instant later he reappeared two yards from the Frenchman. He heard the thin sheen of sweat that covered him sizzle in the friction-induced heat.

Take down the leader.

It was a systematic procedure that had kept him alive through years of violent conflict. He came out of the burst and kept running straight at the Frenchman.

Five veteran mercenaries froze like a family of toads facing a snow plow.

Josh stopped an inch short of Albert, absorbing his heavy momentum with legs that screamed in response. He went through the pain like a measly brick wall and whipped his upper half forwards, channeling the power of the rush to ram his forehead into the Frenchman's temple. Albert collapsed like a house of cards on a windy day, his underlings galvanized into action as his unconscious form settled.

Breaker saw two bayonets come at him from opposite sides; long knives clipped to rifle barrels forming effective short spears. He threw himself into a barrel roll, spinning in place for one rapid rotation. Lightning quick hands seized both guns by the barrel, disarming the owners with the first half of the turn. As he landed Josh swung his arms, seemingly in natural order with the torque of the jump.

Two men died in tandem as heavy rifle stocks struck their skulls. The tenor's forehead crumpled like an egg shell and crushed the grey matter beneath. The smoker's stained teeth and clotted blood shrapnelled skyward as his jaw tore off. Gore spatter painted the cracked roof as Josh dropped the newly bent rifles.

The remaining two guns spat darts simultaneously, one aimed for his stomach, the other stabbing for his throat. Breaker had never abandoned the turning motion, and like a dancer who knew the steps by heart he pivoted and crouched. A long arm flicked up and caught the higher dart as he heard the whine of the lower one nuzzling past his ear.

No such thing as too close.

Captured dart clutched delicately in one massive palm, Josh followed the crouch through and performed a front roll. Tucked up tight as a ball then sprang up like a jack-in-the-box. He icepicked the sniper's eye, prevaldia tipped dart piercing plexiglass goggles before penetrating the pupil. It was the mumbler, he realized, but the only sound the man made was one last mournful exhale.

Behind him, the last of the rooftop guards keeled over. Numb hands clutched at the long dart embedded in his sternum, disbelief disintegrating as the heavy tranquilizer took effect.

[Breaker]

Josh carried the mumbler's corpse to the ground and rolled away. He lay on his back and listened, hypersensitive ears reaching down to the dusty road below. The assault squad returned, talking in louder voices than normal. Perfect. Whatever noise he had made, the squad's shellshocked ears missed. He was surprised they couldn't hear the thunder in his chest, for the havoc he wrecked on the snipers had left him with a pounding pulse. The Alpha squad filed back into the building. No one realized the turn of events on top of the factory, for good snipers should be neither seen nor heard.

Fortunately, corpses didn't draw much attention to themselves.

Lying upon splintered shingles, a wave of pain yanked Josh from his high. The wound in his chest felt wide open, and a small patch of blood spread across his shirt. Gasping for breath, he chuckled mentally.

I need to start wearing black again. Blood stains khaki.

All around him, five radios crackled to life.

"Requesting a check in from all units," Addison said, his voice distorted but wormy as ever. The Doctor had a talent for ruining a good time.

Merde, Josh thought.

[Breaker]

Time stood still, the only sounds the shower of silt blown across the roof of the building and Joshua’s laboured, wheezing lungs. In the demi silence his mind whirled and his body worked to control his breathing.

The radios emitted a wave of static again, followed by Jared Addison’s reedy voice.

“Eagle eye Alpha?” he asked, a bored repetition that hung in the hot air. Josh rolled until he lay beside the mumbler’s body, leaning over the corpse like a paramedic checking for signs of life. He pushed the talk button on the radio.

“Cheque,” Josh said in his best French accent. He spoke a little of the language, and did a passable imitation. Sweat dripped from his chin to congeal with the powdered stone that painted the rooftop.

“Eagle eye Bravo?” Addison continued his litany. Josh muffled his mouth with one hand then depressed the talk button again.

“Check,” he mumbled.
“Eagle eye Charlie?”
“Check,” Josh said, making his voice high and lighter than normal.

Radio silence.

“Shit,” Josh swore aloud as he realized his mistake. He had mixed up the sequence of the last two voices, checking the Delta team in early. Resisting the urge to panic and flee, he waited.

“Quit fucking around, please.” Addison admonished. The weevil of a man had a significantly different manner with his underlings than with Cyndine Cirward. Josh sighed in relief, his respiration finally calming, the easy breathing like an icepack numbing the pain in his chest.

“Eagle eye Charlie?” The ferrety fellow repeated.
“Check,” Josh rasped, actually choking on a little blood that had crept into his windpipe. He released the talk button long enough to clear his throat.

“Eagle eye Delta?”
“Check,” said the floating tenor voice.

Josh sat up and tore his bloodstained shirt into strips as the grounded assault teams sounded off. He used the cheap fabric to sponge up the fluid that seeped from his chest and back. The pain was gone again, shoved roughly to a back corner of his mind where it could amuse itself. The adrenaline dump had breached his fortified will, but only for a moment. Once the bleeding stopped, he trudged back to the pavilion and retrieved his backpack. He considered the bulging bag and its contents then looked at the defeated guards. As the sun shone on his tanned shoulders, he figured out the next element of his plan.

[Breaker]

Twenty minutes later Josh resumed his position atop the building, straps of his knapsack resting lightly on bare shoulders. The pack sagged once more, almost empty, its previous cargo now orchestrated to the lone soldier’s advantage. With a soft exhale he grasped the iron handle of the large, heavy trapdoor and heaved upwards. The hinges turned in well oiled silence, and Josh descended the steel staircase beneath, lowering the door quietly into place behind him.

The stairs seemed hastily erected, for they shivered with every step he took. Surefooted, he padded down to the dirty floor. It was stone tile, slovenly in places with unidentifiable mess, but from the smell he deduced that a small creature or twelve had lived in the building until Intelligence America evicted them. The dustbin room’s high ceiling made the walls taller than they were long, and the entire space swam in drab darkness. Doors on every wall undoubtedly led to hallways and ultimately, the rooms the assault squads waited in. The military men with their riot-control weaponry didn’t worry Josh. What concerned him was the second trapdoor he found nearby.

It nestled seamlessly into the stone floor, a solid sheet of galvanized steel. There was no handle, and the crack between the door and the tile proved too small to wedge his fingernails into, much less a pry bar of some kind. It was ingenious in its simplicity, and Josh could see no way to open it short of stomping through or dismantling the hinges.

That wouldn’t be very subtle though, he mused. Never afraid to resort to trial and error, the martial artist crouched and knocked. The metallic din of his knuckles on steel echoed faintly in the small room.

In the underground corridor below, a tall broad-shouldered guard heard the noise. He was glad for a distraction; the heavy Kevlar uniform he wore did not breathe well in the stifling sub terrain complex. Perspiration rolled down his arms to pool in his collarbone as he climbed the short ladder to the trap door. One long finger pushed a button that released the hydraulic lock and he shoved the door open an inch.

A hand with inexplicable energy tore the heavy door open while another seized the guard’s Kevlar collar and hauled him upwards like a kitten lifted by the scruff of its neck. In the gloom of the musty room above the guard went for his hip holster, but never managed to pull the gun free. A sick popping of bone and cartilage filled the dustbin as his neck broke, head reversed upon his shoulders.

Breaker went to work upon the body immediately, his efforts lit by a luminescent glow that rose through the trapdoor.

Minutes later Josh lowered himself into the basement, dressed in a Kevlar uniform that fit a little tight across the chest, complete with sidearm, radio, and a fibreglass helmet. He had left the half-naked corpse on the roof with the others, and now carried his almost-empty backpack in one hand. His black metal boots rang a soft report as they landed on the steel floor. A single glance around the corridor induced a feeling of hopelessness.

“Fuck me. This better be a prototype,” he muttered.

[Breaker]

Allyson had described the place, and yet it still left him dumbfounded.

Three steel walls, a steel floor and a low steel ceiling boxed him in. In the fourth direction the dust-colored metal stretched in a long, glowing hallway. Conservative fluorescent lights buzzed from indented wall fixtures.

Fluorescent lights.

He wandered down the corridor, away from the ladder, and passed an electrical outlet.

Ridiculous.

Giving the socket a slight berth, he moved noisily down the hallway, metal boots ringing mercilessly on the metal floor. He figured if anyone poked their head out one of the five doors down the hall, his best bet would be to act normal, like he belonged.

Got the damn suit for it, he thought, scratching at the binding Kevlar that covered his rocklike muscles. The stuff was useless to him; his hide had proved bullet proof in the past. He wore it as a mask though, and stepped casually through the first door.

He blinked. The place was empty, but equally as stunning as the initial hallway. More of that nonreflective industrial steel made up the dimensions, but the furniture added comfort to the atmosphere. A pool table and a mechanical pinball machine decorated the nearest side of the room, a wide table and chairs beyond them, and a bunch of sofas by the far wall. The sofas swam in overstuffed synthetic cushions, and mostly everything else was made from the same medium-grade steel, except the pool table which was a genuine artifact. Josh felt a strange urge to walk over to it and run a hand along the soft green surface. Instead he turned and continued down the hallway.

This whole place looks like it came from a bunch of crates, he mused. The floor met the walls met the ceiling like a puzzle that fit together too well. The vault looked like something that could be mass produced with ease, shipped out in pieces and assembled in a day by a trained crew. Again, Josh found himself hoping that this one was the prototype, the first and hopefully only of its kind. It was all too easy to imagine more underground lairs hidden beneath the crusty surface of Althanas.

The next door, stoic on its steel pin hinges, was a men’s washroom. At a glance down the hall Josh could see the sign on the door of the women’s, the familiar anonymous female form reflecting a glare at the sharp angle. Thinking about Cyndine Cirward, he walked pushed into the men’s washroom.

It was an ordinary facility; sinks at the front, urinals and stalls in the middle, and a shower room separated by a short hallway. Josh went to a bank of steel sinks and gazed at himself in the well buffed glass mirror.

Josh rarely saw a proper reflection of himself. Mirrors were not common on Althanas, especially in the seedy inns he patronized. Normally if he wanted to look at himself, like to shave, he used the azure blade of his prevaldia bayonet. Unused to seeing himself life size and tanned rather than blue, he paused.

He looked the part of an IA soldier well enough, his superhuman body concealed by the bulky Kevlar. One very obvious difference made him stand out like a god among mortals, though.

Shit, I need to shave.

[Breaker]

None of the soldiers he had killed wore more than a day or two of growth on their chins. Josh’s week long beard would give him away as an outsider instantly.

He imagined himself one of IA’s soldiers, stepping out of the shower after a hard day of guard duty. He imagined the relief of not wearing the heavy Kevlar, even though it still clung like a cross on his back. Instinctively, he reached out with his right hand, and opened a wall cabinet that was built right into the wall. A thin steel plate slid back to reveal a large communal medicine cabinet. Josh grabbed a can of shaving cream and squeezed foam onto his fingertips.

That was a magical sensor, not an electronic one.

As Josh painted shaving cream onto his chin, he gazed into his own hazel eyes, reflecting on what had made the cabinet open. The room was enchanted. When he focused, he could sense a few other spells woven into the matter of the room. Their functions eluded him, but they all seemed similarly menial to the first.

I wonder if Cirward did this. Christ, it’s a good idea. The soldiers will get used to dealing with magic fast living in this place.

“Damn it,” he muttered. He was shaving with the keen edge of his prevaldia bayonet, and it had nicked his skin. He pushed hard on the miniscule cut with his thumb to stifle the trickle of blood, and kept shaving with his free hand. No time to waste; for all he knew Addison could walk in at any moment.

He reached for a towel and the wall presented him with one promptly. He blinked. He had actually been expecting it to do that, he could sense the enchantment so clearly. It was unsettling.

At least this way I won’t walk blindly into any traps.

Bayonet back in its sheath, he scrutinized his chin. It didn’t look quite right; the shave was too fresh. He rinsed the discarded hair down the drain with a simple mechanical turn of the tap and ran a callused thumb over his reddened cheeks. They needed a little dust to give the appearance of a one o’clock shadow, or whatever time it was right then. His eyes swept the immaculate room, and some veiled part of his mind sensed the cleaning enchantments. No dust in the corners, but the greaves on the bottom of the breaker boots still held some. He worked a fingernail full of the hard packed dust in his palm with a little water until he had a grainy paste to tint his shining cheeks. Urban camouflage applied, he looked at himself in that bulletproof suit, masking his bulletproof body.

The devil dwells in details, he reminded himself, and adjusted his helmet strap so it covered his scar.

[Breaker]

Back in the clandestine hallway, Josh bypassed the women’s washroom with barely a glance. A search of the room might have been more prudent, but he felt restless, eager to reach the end of the hall. So far, Allyson’s description of the floor plan seemed perfect. He approached the fourth door, boots ringing lightly on the machine-manufactured floor, and opened it.

The horizontal handle turned and the latch clicked. Josh peered in an saw what he expected; a kitchen. Industrial steel still presided, making up banks of counters and cupboards around the room. An island with two sinks with swanlike spouts and a large cutting board dotted the centre of the spic and span chamber, a large black handled refrigerator gleaming just beyond. Josh saw his distorted reflection in the polished door, and his stomach and the wound in his shoulder cried out to him simultaneously. He closed the door a little harder than necessary and trudged down the hall. There would be a time to eat and rest later, when he left behind nothing but a smoking, charred pit where the underground lodging once hid.

Outside the fifth and final door of the sheet metal hallway, Josh stopped to perform an odd ritual. The sidearm in his stolen holster was a Berretta M9, a standard military semiautomatic. He slipped it from the holster and tucked it in the back of his waistband, out of sight but close to hand. From his backpack he pulled a larger, longer handgun. It was a Colt Anaconda, a six shot .44 Magnum beast forged from stainless steel. With fingers nimble as autumn leaves he flicked the heavy cylinder open and dumped two of the six cartridges into his pocket. They were standard hollow points, and the only two live rounds he had. Leaving the remaining four empties in the gun, he holstered it and dropped his empty backpack against the wall. Ran a finger along his chin to make sure the helmet strap was still hiding his scar, and pushed the final door open.

The brass plaque on the door flashed a golden glare as it passed through the fluorescent glow.

Quartermaster, the plaque read.

The office could not have been more different from the rest of the floor. While the same stoic metal made up rows and rows of shelves, various mechanical gadgets covered them, most in some sad state of disrepair. In a quick scan of the premises Josh noted a microwave without a door, a couple CPU boards with wires that trailed like hanging vines, and a toaster with antennae. He grinned, mostly to remove the pained grimace from his face, but also at the sense of humanity the room possessed.

The Quartermaster himself stood facing Josh, leaning on his service counter and reading a magazine about motorcycles. The pages slapped like the wet gills of a landed fish when he tossed it carelessly onto the counter.

In the instant the man first looked up, Josh imagined him hitting some unseen panic button. He pictured a red warning light flashing throughout the sub terrain lair, he could almost hear some maniacal buzzer and mechanical voice ordering a lockdown. The Quartermaster ran dirty fingernails through his sweat-heavy hair.

“Whatta’ ya need?” he asked.

[Breaker]

Dressed in army green fatigues, the Quartermaster remained leaning on the counter, peering at Josh through vaguely uninterested eyes. Josh took an instant liking to the man; he wasn’t a snobby, anal-retentive jackass like so many petty officers were. From the grease stains on his hands and forehead, he looked more like a mechanic than anything else. Black might have been the natural color of his slick close cropped hair, but the amount of natural and artificial oil that dwelled there made it impossible to be sure. Josh was so relieved that the man hadn’t sounded the alarm he nearly forgot to stay in character. A painful jolt from his bound chest reminded him, and he settled into the “at ease” standing position.

“I need a quick job on my sidearm, if you can swing it,” Josh said, and slapped the Colt Anaconda onto the counter. “I took a spill the other day and bent the damn hammer.” He gave the Quartermaster a chummy look. You know how it is, his hazel eyes seemed to say. “I left four empties in it; you can just toss them or whatever.” He thumbed his nose as if to discard an itch, forcing himself to use his aching right arm to keep up the charade of being right handed.

“Jeez, nice piece,” the Quartermaster commented. His heavy, greasy hands lifted the revolver like a precious diamond and held it up for appraisal. He demonstrated vast experience with firearms by emptying the cylinder one-handed, gazing down the barrel, and working the action. He scratched his head as he finished giving the gun a quick once-over, leaving a fresh stain on his scalp. “Hammer’s bent all right,” he muttered absently, “Got some mud lodged inside too, but I can take care of that easy enough.” He hefted the weapon and curled it a few times like a misshapen dumbbell. “I didn’t think anyone used six shooters anymore. Mostly M9s around here huh?” He remarked.

Josh shrugged disarmingly, another action which made him want to wince.

“Yeah, I noticed,” he said, and rolled his eyes. The Quartermaster chuckled, and Josh went on, “I brought that from home.” The mechanic laughed out loud, and Josh, on a roll, injected a touch of pride into his tone. “They wanted me to carry the M9, you know, for quick reloads and more ammo. But I told ‘em I don’t need either ‘cuz I don’t miss. Besides, I hate cleaning up after myself.” He mimed shooting a semiautomatic with one hand, portraying the ejected cartridge casings comically with the other. The Quartermaster bowed his head and howled as though it were the most hilarious thing he had ever heard. Josh took that moment to adjust the Kevlar vest, which was cutting into his hastily wrapped wound. Eventually, the mechanic calmed down and blinked tears from his eyes.

“Heh, you’re a funny guy. Anyway, I haven’t got any pressing business right now, so I can fix this up in back. Won’t be but a minute, or fifteen.”

With a cheery, greasy wave, the mechanic shuffled behind one of the overstocked shelves, still chuckling. Josh heard a door open and close, and then he was alone once more.

He breathed heavily for a few seconds, fighting for control over the searing pain that blazed through him like a poker fresh from the coals. Practically of its own accord, his hand invaded his pocket and ran the two .44 magnum hollow points between callused fingers. It would all be over soon enough.

[Breaker]

Jared Addison hated the central control chamber.

He should have loved the rows and stacks of computer consoles and monitors. He could read the binary that scrolled across some as easily as he could decipher the video images that played on others. He had designed the computers themselves, not to mention the layout of the rectangular room. Although the dimensions were crafted from the same factory folded steel as the rest of the vault, the banks of technological hardware formed an oval. Within that little nest of keyboards and datascreens, he could scoot about on his wheeled office chair, accessing any of the mainframes instantly. The Doctor sighed. Perhaps it was because he designed it that he loathed the place. Or perhaps it was because he had to share the room with Cyndine Cirward.

The grandiose woman reclined in a padded leather chair by the door, her unsettling eyes never leaving the ferrety man in peace. Her long fingernails struck a discordant rhythm on one of the steel desks, punctuated every so often by a loud knock from her knuckles. Addison flinched and looked towards the door each time, expecting to see a soldier requesting permission to enter. Then he would realize it had just been Cirward, she would give him one of those alligator smiles, and the whole vicious circle began again. Addison mopped his forehead with the handkerchief, feeling the heat from the many overclocked computers.

His patience wore thin faster than two cent sandpaper, and he reached for the radio. For some reason, getting a check-in from the soldiers two and three stories above consoled him.

“Leave those poor darlings alone,” Cyndine drawled before Jared had even touched the black wire mesh microphone. “They can do their jobs perfectly well without you peering over their shoulders. If anything happens, they will tell us.” Her lilting tone made the command sound like a friendly suggestion, but Addison’s hand jerked back like he had touched a boiling kettle. He tried to lounge in his chair, but found his shoulders far too tense.

“Relax, my dear.” Cirward simpered, “He will arrive soon enough.”

---+------+---

Beneath the swirling dust and strong sunlight, Michel Albert stirred.

Dried blood decorated the side of his head where his scalp had split, a grainy, glittering red patch in his close cropped brown hair. A groan escaped his lips, significant to him because it proved he was alive. The Frenchman felt as though a pile driver had caught him square on the temple. From the paralyzing ache in his skull, the blow should have scrambled his brains. But it had not, he realized as he managed to wiggle his fingers and toes. Forehead pressed against the sun-baked roof, he opened his eyes a fraction. Like a clumsy hermit crab his hand quested up to his collar and pressed the ‘talk’ button on his radio. As soon as he felt capable of standing he would check to see if any of his men had survived. He could not actually remember what happened on the rooftop, but only one man could have been capable of destroying his entire team. Painfully, Albert cleared his throat. He had to warn the others.

---+------+---

Josh stood like a statue, only his left hand moving. It swirled the two bullets around in his wide palm like a pair of meditation marbles, channeling his focus. He imagined the roaring muzzle flash of the Colt Anaconda, saw in slow motion the heavy hollow point leaving the barrel. He envisioned first Jared Addison then Cyndine Cirward, identical expressions of surprise and horror painted on their faces, identical gaping holes in their foreheads. The blood pouring down their necks and shoulders seemed to flow in time with the fiery wound in his chest. It beat like a second heart, giving him a skewed, irregular pulse.

“Here buddy, good as new—say, what you got there?”

Hand clamming around the bullets instinctively, Josh looked up. He had become so immersed in his fantasy of the future that he didn’t hear the shop door open and shut, didn’t catch the shuffling footsteps, didn’t notice the Quartermaster until he spoke.

“Nothing. I mean,” he took a quick breath, shooting himself an inner command that rang with the report of cannon fire. Don’t fuck this up. “My last two shells,” he corrected himself, friendly grin firmly in place as he opened his palm and showed the mechanic. The bullets clicked together as he returned them to his pocket. The Quartermaster didn’t seem to notice anything odd, and passed Josh his weapon almost formally, like the proud proprietor of a gun shop rather than a measly grease monkey.

“I better re-supply you then huh?” The remarkable weapon smith chortled as he turned away, rummaging in a large stack of cardboard boxes. “Don’t matter how good a shot you are, two bullets won’t get you far.”

Two is all I need, Breaker though grimly, the bloody faces dancing in his mind’s eye. He said, “Yeah, thanks,” and forcibly unclenched his fists. The rifling of corrugated cardboard stopped and the Quartermaster returned to the counter, handed Josh a small wooden box.

“I knew I had some .44 mags somewhere,” the grease monkey said, thumbing his nose and leaving behind a near-perfect print. “I gave you all I've got on hand, twelve standard steel hollow points, and six prevaldia AP.” The confident mechanic faltered for a moment, for Josh’s eyes suddenly went from soft hazel to frozen flint.

“They made prevaldia armor piercing bullets?”
“Yeah; apparently that’s the only thing that can take down that Breaker guy…”

In the awkward silence that followed, the radio on Josh’s vest crackled to life. In the noiseless chamber the familiar French accent sounded like a shout, although it was really a strangled whisper.

“Alarme! All Eagle Eye units down. The primary target est dans le batiment. Je suggeste immediate evacuation.”

Josh tried to meet the Quartermaster’s eyes but found the other man staring at his cleanly shaven chin. It was then he realized that his helmet strap had shifted; the Y-shaped scar shone in the fluorescent light.

Exposed.

The mechanic’s eyes grew wide as he opened his mouth to scream.

To be continued...

Requested Spoils: Josh's Colt Anaconda is now repaired and fully functional. Also, twelve steel .44 Magnum hollow point and six .44 Magnum prevaldia armor piercing rounds.

[Raelyse]

Story

Continuity – 6 – I thought this was a pretty poor part of the thread, to be honest. I’m sure that you know that judges aren’t required to read “prequels” of threads. At the beginning of the thread, it was hard to get into your story because there were a few loose ends that I’m sure that you covered in your previous quests but only briefly touched on in this one. I felt that you needed to let the reader know about the back story in greater detail so that we could truly be immersed into this interesting story. However, I do like that you ended the thread on some form of climax and this will lead well into the next part of the story.

Setting – 7 – I thought this was good, but not great. I liked the way that you used the environment and Josh’s abilities to your advantage. You seem to have a good measure of what he can and can’t do in different settings, which is good for the writing because it all flows really well. However, I feel that at times your descriptions of certain settings were a bit over the top flowery and could have benefited from a more simplistic approach. This was definitely too much of a good thing. At times, I had to read over a few times to try and truly visualize the area.

Pacing – 4.5 – I thought that you wrote this very strangely, skipping over various seemingly important parts. I felt that the story could have benefited from you writing about Allyson’s torture. It just seemed to me as if you were taking the easy way out, because it is a challenging thing to write about. It also seemed a bit strange that she would unload all of the secrets that Josh needed to infiltrate in such detail under duress. I also thought that greater detail could have been put into the time period in between the carriage ride and the assault on the snipers. It seemed as if he was at one place in one post and in the next one, he was where he needed to be without much writing effort on your part. The conflict with Albert wasn’t particularly well written either, because you wrote him knocked out in one post then came back later with Josh knocking him out. It was very confusing.

Something that I thought could have been skipped was the boys and the burning carriage diversion, which also wasn’t your best writing. It seemed forced and I am convinced that you could have done it as a passing thought on Josh’s mind as he sneaked in. Introducing bland characters for one post isn’t the best thing to do for good pacing.

Character

Dialogue – 8.5 – This was good. All your characters talk well with speech that represents their personalities well. Even the antagonists had captivating lines, which brought them to life. I especially liked the sequence where Josh tried to act his way out of the debacle with the check in with the various units. I didn’t give you a higher score because I felt that the characters’ lines were a bit cliché and resembled one-liners in TV shows just before the commercial break. Sometimes they work, but I didn’t feel as though they did a terribly good job for you here.

Action – 7 – You write battles well but it seems that Josh’s increasing power is proving a bane, at least in my opinion. Battles aren’t as exciting when you can plow through apparently formidable fools with three lines of action. This isn’t to say that you didn’t write these action sequences well, it was just that the action was limited by the sheer power that Josh has. You spent a while talking up the various defenses that the IA were putting up, but then Josh just goes through them as if they aren’t there. I was looking forward to a few posts of sleuthing and then a few good action sequences, but you didn’t give me anything except a string of one-sided battles. Try to come up with more exciting sequences next time. We like a fearless, peerless hero, but sometimes we like an underdog too. It’s just too boring when you know how easy Josh has it.

Persona – 7 – You did well here. Character actions and dialogue really Josh to life. However, this didn’t extend to your NPCs. Albert, a relatively minor antagonist, had a very distinct personality, but I would have liked to see a bit more of his emotions. The two main antagonists, Addison and Cyndine, were not too fleshed out in my opinion. I always like to say that writers always seem to scratch the surface with NPCs in their threads, and I feel that particularly suits the way you wrote the two big enemies. Allyson, in particular, was very bland and seemed as to be more than a map with directions than an actual person. If you want to bring them in, write them in more, tell me more about them. However, I thought that you write Josh’s character very well in this thread, which is why you scored well.

Writing Style

Technique – 8 – Many good literary devices here, but I felt that they were plentiful early on but seemed to thin out as the thread went on. You have a great creative mind for literary devices as you proved with good, original descriptions. I just felt that you could have spread them out more evenly, less in the beginning and more in the end.

Mechanics – 8 – Relatively perfect, with one or two spelling errors. It was however, unacceptable that you used “reigns” to drive your horses. You did it on a few occasions, which pretty much proved to me that you didn’t read through it in great enough detail to warrant a higher score.

Clarity – 8 – There were only a few occasions where the flow of your thread was slowed. Like I said in previous catergories, your writing was hurt by what can be described as “over the top flowery” writing when a simple approach would have been better. It’s a double edged sword because you don’t want to go too simple because that cheapens your writing. I’m sure that you will find a good balance in the future with more practice.

Wild Card – 6 – All in all, I felt as though this thread is a poor representation of your ability. The standard of the writing wasn’t as captivating as you can be and it really seems that you took the path of least resistance when it came to a number of writing decisions. You can do better and you will.

Total Score - 71

If you want your gun fully operational along with those bullets, I’m afraid that I have to make significant deductions to your EXP and GP. A quick perusal of your previous quest with accumulated spoils didn’t reveal any substantial deductions to your rewards, so I will make them here.

016573’s Colt Anaconda is now fully operable and he gains the bullets as detailed.

016573 does not gain any EXP or GP.