The view of the Paris skyline was amazing.

Even in the dull glow of winter, lights

shown all throughout the city. The sun was barely peeking over the horizon now, but it
didn’t matter. The lights of the city illuminated the streets just enough, enabling for easy
travel even in the dead of night. These weren’t exactly the conditions I was used to
performing in, but it hardly mattered. My team is never seen, at least not by those who
have the ability to talk afterwards. We get in, we get out. No witnesses. Ever.
We had staked out the place for days, trying to figure the precise time to strike.
There was constant, flawless security surrounding the building, never a guard missing
from his post. There was not an inch of the building that wasn’t visible by at least one of
the guards. We had managed to tap into the security cameras, and the inside was just the
same, guards everywhere. Each guard would be equipped with thermal-vision goggles,
assault rifle, and sidearm. These were the shoot-on-sight kind of guards, too. Not the,
you’re-going-to-have-to-come-with-me kind. Each guard wore a bulletproof vest.
Somewhere inside the coat that covered it was a “hot spot.” This certain spot in the vest
was actually not hot at all. It emitted no readings on thermal vision, like there was a hole
right through them. 'Course our guys had no idea how they managed to get a spot that
emitted no temperature whatsoever. If they saw that the spot was missing, the person was
dead in a matter of seconds. Anyone other than the guards was killed. If anyone ever
broke in, there were no survivors, no exceptions, and no excuses. There security was
airtight. I’d seen better.
If it would’ve been up to me, there would’ve be a few bullets in each of their
heads and we would’ve been in and out as fast as possible. But that’s not how things
work around here. I don’t make the plan. I just follow it. And the plan tonight was simple
enough: I would go in silent, no firearm, alone, no backup, no help, incapacitate the
guards without directly harming them, and make off with the objective. Easy. Oh, and not
get killed, of course. Insertion would be the hardest part. How do you get into a building
that has no invisible spots? Luckily, I’m good at these things.
Of course, there’s always a weak spot to any buildings defenses. A spot that no
one has accounted for even though, in my mind, they are the most obvious places to
cover. I guess that’s just the way I think now. Anyway, like most other buildings in the
world, this particular building had an aquarium built into the floor of the main lobby with
a thin layer of glass that you could walk right over. You know, just a typical lobby. The
fish swam in and out of the aquarium through a pipe coming directly from the lake
outside. What kept them in was the perfect living conditions and large amounts of food. It
would be quite a sight for the guests if a carnivorous fish wandered in, though, huh? I
really hoped one hadn’t already. Underwater fish wrestling could compromise the
mission.
Anyway, the fun began pretty much at sunset when I dove into freezing-cold
water out of a helicopter flying over the lake. I had no air supply and we had no idea how
long the pipes were. I might have to hold my breath for a while. I swam above the water
until I was about 50 ft offshore, and then I dove. I swam as fast as I could toward the
shore. I needed to come up for air, but I knew I couldn’t. If I did, there would be a bullet-
hole straight through my head very quickly. So I kept swimming. Finally, I hit the wall
and groped around for the pipe. After a few precious seconds of searching, I found it. I
swam in through a hatch I had to open in the grate (Used to keep large fish from getting
in). I used the walls of the tube to propel through it faster. I was running out of breath. A
few more seconds and I’d be done for. I ran out of breath. I swam up, desperately, hoping
for some air pocket. I felt the top of my head get slightly warmer and I broke the surface,
gasping for breath. Well, not exactly “Broke the surface” so much as “barely had enough
room to get my mouth out of the water.” The stagnant water provided for about a two-
inch air pocket at the top of the pipe. Earlier, the pipe had been completely submerged.
That meant I was increasing elevation, and getting closer to the ground floor level. I was
getting tired though. It’s never good to start a mission fatigued.
I continued on. I would dive under, swim as far as I could, and then come up for
air. Each time I repeated the process, the air pocket would be a little bigger. Even with an
increasingly bigger air pocket, there was still plenty of room for fish. At it's shallowest, it
was a good ten or fifteen feet deep. Anyway, it kept getting bigger, until, finally, I
emerged into a large room. An underground room. The pipe was now uncovered and the
water from it was carving a small waterway between two ledges. I climbed up onto one
of the ledges and waited for my eyes to adjust fully to the darkness. After I could see well
enough, I searched around the room. I found two doors. There was an unlabeled, locked
door with a set of elevator doors directly beside it. The regular door said ‘Maintenance
Room’ on it. I opened the door into the maintenance room. No guards. See what I mean?
No guards in the maintenance room? Really? Some people simply don’t know anything
about protecting their valuables. I looked around. There were buttons. Lots and lots of
buttons and switches and levers. There were controls for almost everything in the
building. The lights, the ventilation systems, the water pumps, everything. I got an idea.
Of course, I'd need permission first.
"HQ?" I asked into my com-link. "Do you copy?"
"Affirmative."
"Good. I got some sorta' control room here, controls for almost everything in the
building, and I think I've got a way in."
"Continue."
"I've got the water pumps here, and if I can figure out how to pull water from the
lake into the system, I could crack the aquarium and bust my way out through it."
"..."
I waited.
"You've got the go-ahead. Report back on your status later. HQ out."
The transmission went dead. "Yeah, nice talking to you, too." Communication
with the HQ during missions was always like that, "What do you want...Yeah, sure...Hey
call back in a while if you're not dead." Well, it was the safest way to do things.
Transmissions could be detected, and, if they could be detected, they could be tracked.
Plus, we don't like to talk much during missions. Especially not a mission this sensitive.
Now the search began. There were so many different controls, it was hard to find
the right one. Luckily, it was labeled. I found a locked, metal cabinet on the wall labeled
‘WATER PUMPS’. Water wasn't usually pulled in through the tubes, but, occasionally,
for cleaning, they would empty the aquarium and then refill it. The cabinet was locked,
but it wasn't hard to pick. I don't understand why people still use key locks. Much too
risky and low-tech for my tastes. Anyway, there were plenty more controls inside the
cabinet, including one lever with three settings: Empty, Neutral, and Fill. "Well, here
goes nothin'." I pulled the lever to the ‘Fill’ position and watched a monitor on the wall as
the aquarium slowly filled. The glass started to bend. Suddenly, a hairline fracture
appeared in the glass. That was all I needed.
I took note of a few monitors and controls, left the water pump control box open
just in case, and, with that, I left the maintenance room and continued along the stream.
Eventually, I came to the end. Apparently I had gone up almost to the first-floor level
because the water went through a pipe that went straight down. I looked down the tube. It
was too dark to see the bottom. "Here we go again." I sucked in enough air to bust a
hundred balloons, and dove. I swam down as fast as I could. Not too far down the tube I
bashed my head. Apparently the pipe made a ‘U’ up into the bottom of the aquarium.
That would have been nice to know. Oh well. So I swam up now. I felt the edges of the
tube as I went. Eventually, the edges disappeared and I knew I was in the aquarium. Also,
the schools of fish aided in that deduction. I swam through them, punching at them and
trying to work my way to the top. I was running out of breath. I reached the top of the
aquarium and found the crack. I sent a punch flying at the glass. Unfortunately, I hadn't
accounted for the fact that I was punching underwater, through resistance. Ever try it? It's
not easy to land a powerful one. Anyway, my fist bounced off the glass harmlessly,
making a loud thud. Above the glass I heard footsteps, increasing in speed. I had to
retreat. I pressed my lips to the crack and sucked. I was able to get just a tiny bit of air
from the fracture. I began to swim down just as bullets came whizzing through the glass
and into the water. I fled into the various fish.
Bullets continued to fly in as dozens of fish began to float to the surface. Luckily,
the fish were confusing the guards. Fish showed up on thermal, too. I had to get out of
there, but there was no way I was gonna’ make it back through the tube. I had an idea. I
swam up almost above the fish and began to swim back and forth as fast as I could.
Bullets pierced most of the glass. I swam desperately to the side of the aquarium. I
bounded off the wall and up into the glass with all my force. The bullet-holes all through
the glass had weakened it substantially, and I smashed through. Breaking the surface, I
gasped for breath, and dove back down as I saw several guards falling down into the
aquarium with the broken glass. I hoped and prayed their guns didn't work underwater.
No such luck. Bullets continued to fly as the guards swam down after me. Another idea. I
dove down into the fish, the guards in pursuit. I looped back around, swam up above the
fish, and watched the chaos ensue. With hundreds of fish swarming around you and a
potential murderer in there with you, you shoot before you identify your target. I watched
as the dead bodies of guards slowly floated up to the surface. My plan was going
swimmingly. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me: One guard would be left alive. I
decided that I must escape from the lobby before that one guard got wise. I broke the
surface and looked around. No guards had entered the room. None had come to the
rescue. They had their posts. If they abandoned them, that part of the building was left
exposed. It did put them on high alert, however.
I climbed out of the destroyed aquarium and got to my feet. I stripped off my
wetsuit and stored it in my pack; no evidence left behind. I looked down into the tank to
see the one guard I had predicted swimming to the surface. "He must not be able to see
me though." Wrong again. He had seen me, but he couldn't shoot. A bullet had gone
straight through his arm, rendering him incapable of shooting or even swimming fast. He
struggled through the water, a thin trail of blood coming from his sleeve. A dark form
appeared below him and crept eerily up towards him. A giant mouth with rows and rows
of teeth became visible and neared him. The guard was just about to get a breath of fresh
air, when the mouth clamped down over him and retreated to the depths. I guess there
was enough space for sharks in those tubes. I stepped back from the aquarium and looked
around. I had done a great deal of remodeling. "That's enough for this room." I said as I
picked the goggles off a floating guard, "Thanks bud." I approached another door.
"HQ?" I asked again.
"I read you." Was the response that I got through my headset.
"I made it into the lobby. It was pretty tricky. I had to-"
"Any casualties?"
"Uh, lemme' just turn on the video feed and you can take a look for yourself..." I
reached up and activated the camera mounted to the side of my head. I turned towards the
aquarium.
"Good God Burkman, you weren't supposed to directly harm any of the security
force!"
"And I didn't, they did this to each other. I had a little help from some aquatic
friends as well."
"Interesting. We'll get the details when you get back. HQ ou-"
"Wait, I need some help here."
"...Go on."
"I need you to tell me what I can look forward to on the other side of this door."
I heard the sound of keys clicking on a keyboard. "Looks like there's someone
directly on the other side. He's not looking at the door, but I doubt you could open it
quietly. He'd probably whip around and blow your head off."
"Encouraging words."
The voice chuckled. "That’s what I'm best known for. Anyway, I might have a
plan for you if you can get back to that maintenance room."
"That might be a problem. See, there's this shark swimmin' around down there,
and-"
"Understood. You need an alternative route."
"Yeah."
"I'm looking at the schematics...There should be some elevator doors in your
vicinity. Bottom floor. You should come out in the same general area as the maintenance
room."
"Thanks bud. What would I do without you?"
"Die." The voice said with no ounce of humor. "HQ out."
And on that happy note, I proceeded onward to the elevator doors on the other
side of the room.
The doors were labeled ‘NO PUBLIC ACCESS’. Wondering if that pertained to
me or not, in the current circumstance, I pressed the button to call for an elevator. Of
course they didn't keep it on overnight. I looked around for stair access. Nope. I figured
Johnson would've told me if there was any. Although, you'd think he would've told me
that the elevators weren't on too, but he likes to let me find these things out on my own.
"How am I gonna do this?" I pondered my current situation. "I know! I'll just go to the
maintenance room and turn on the..." My voice trailed off as I realized the stupidity of
that solution. "Ugh, I gotta do this the hard way."
 I looked around the room. I didn't have too much to work with. Some broken
glass and some dead bodies. That was about it. I took off my pack and ruffled through the
contents of it while pondering this dilemma. Wetsuit, rope, gloves, giant “air bag”, multi-
grain energy bar, and a comb. Oh, and, of course, my little surprise. “Got it.” I looked
around the room for anything nice and solid. I found a large flowerpot in the corner of the
room. I dragged the flowerpot over in front of the elevator doors. I grabbed the edges of
the pot, spun around with it once, and hurled the pot into the elevator doors. The pot put a
large dent in the doors. I did it again, producing an even bigger dent. Finally, I picked up
the pot over my head and hurled it at the doors. This time the pot went through, landing
inside the elevator, conveniently parked at my floor, and smashing on the floor. I stepped
into the elevator. I looked up and punched out one of the overhead panels. I jumped up
and pulled my self through the hole onto the top of the elevator. I stood and looked up.
The elevator went up several levels, but our sources had informed us that the elevator did
not, in fact, go up the whole way unless an employee supplied their thumbprint on the
scanner beside the regular floor level buttons. Oh, and it scanned to see if there was an
irregular pulse, or no pulse at all, so I couldn’t just put a dead guys finger on it
I opened up my pack, removed the pair of gloves, and put them on my hands.
“Just like the rope in gym class” I said, looking up the elevator shaft. I grab the wire
holding the elevator up and climbed it. I climbed one floor up. Two floors. Three. When I
was level with the fourth floor doors, I swung over to a small edge on the side of the
elevator shaft. I removed my special surprise from my pack and attached it to the wire. I
adjusted it to the right settings and then hit the start button. Then I grabbed the wire and
began sliding back down. When my feet were “safely” back on the elevator, I looked at
my gloves. They were severely shredded up from the slide back down. “That would’ve
sucked without gloves.” Once again, I removed my pack, but this time I removed the
airbag. I inflated the huge airbag and left it on top of the elevator as I slipped down
through the tiny crack between the wall and the elevator. I hung onto the bottom edge of
the elevator now. I was hanging over what looked like a bottomless pit in the dark, but
was really only one floor up. I still didn’t really feel like taking a leap of faith though. I
swung from the edge of the elevator and sailed through the air until I hit the other wall,
where I landed on a ledge a few feet down from where I had previously been standing. I
removed the rope from my pack and attached it to one of the pipes going up through the
wall. Then I proceeded to rappel down the elevator shaft until I hit the bottom.
I looked around in the darkness and found a door that would allow me to exit the
pit. Locked, of course, but I managed to bust it open with a hard kick. That door just so
happened to be the unlabeled, locked door I had seen when I first entered the building. I
walked down the ledge to the spot where I had climbed up onto the ledge, and, just like
that, I was back at the maintenance room. “Peace a’ cake.”
I opened the door and entered the room. Everything was just as I had left it. The
water pump control box was still opened, and the monitor above the controls showed the
torn up lobby I had so recently exited.
“HQ?”
“I read you.”
“Alright, I made it back to the maintenance room. Now, about that plan of
yours…”
“Right. Are there any controls for the-”
 “…HQ”
The line had gone dead. There were several reasons why the transmission might
go down like that, none of them good. No, that was not a good sign at all. I mean, it’s not
like the guys back at HQ had been like “Dude, you know what’ll really freak him out?”
Although, that would be pretty funny…
Anyway, I was now trapped inside a heavily guarded, shark infested building with
no support from HQ. I couldn’t let that slow me down though. My special surprise
certainly wouldn’t wait for the cherry picker to get our little farmhouse and fix the
telephone lines. Things were gonna’ get messy.
How was I gonna’ do this? I observed the monitor. It might be possible to change
the camera view to one in the next room, where the guard was standing. It was my best
shot at figuring out a way through. I accessed the computer mainframe. A screen popped
up with the words ‘<INPUT CODE>’ on it. “Hmm…” I typed in ‘<CHANGE
CAMERA>’. Several choices appeared on the screen. One read ‘CAMERA 3J578K’. I
clicked on that one, and the view of the tattered lobby disappeared and was replaced by a
view of the elevator shaft. I clicked through all of the choices, until, finally, a view of the
long hallway that I would be entering next appeared on the monitor. Guards at both ends
of the hallway were visible, both with a clear shot in the other’s direction. I observed the
end of the hallway I would have to enter from. It was pretty bare, nothing on the walls,
but one thing stood out to me. If I was seeing things correctly, the door opened inward,
into the hallway. That could prove an invaluable detail. I got an idea. It was a long shot,
but it might actually work if I executed it perfectly. I checked back to the video of the
lobby. A table was sitting in the corner of the room, covered with a tablecloth. Perfect.
I had what I needed for now, so I turned on the elevator access and departed from
the maintenance room once again. I walked along the edge of the little waterway, eyeing
the water, but keeping my distance from it just in case Jaws happened to be a good
jumper. When I made it to the elevator doors, I called for the elevator and waited
patiently for it to arrive. I got into the elevator and pressed the ‘L’ button on the wall. As
the elevator began to ascend, I looked up to make sure the airbag was still tied down
tight. It was still in a secure position, and I hoped my surprise was, too. The elevator
doors opened, and I proceeded to the corner of the room. Without stopping, I grabbed the
tablecloth and pulled it out from under the various things on the table, just like my
science teacher had taught me back in grade school. Everything on the table stayed
exactly as it had been before, as the tablecloth slipped out from under it. I approached the
door and went over the plan in my head again. I wasn’t really sure if this was against the
guidelines set for this mission, but with no support of any kind, I was willing to bend the
rules a bit.
I swung the door open as fast and as hard as I could. The door smacked into the
back of the guard’s head. Immediately the guard at the other end of the hallway readied
his gun and peered through the scope. While the guard at my end was still stunned, I
flung the tablecloth over his body and jumped back out the door. I heard a bullet whiz
through the air and the muffled moan of the guard at my end. The adrenaline was
pumpin’ now! I reached out and pulled the guard back into the lobby. I removed the
bloodstained tablecloth from his body and picked him up. Taking a deep breath, I walked
straight down the hallway holding the guards body in front of me. I reached the end of the
hallway and confronted the guard.
 “Got him, eh?” He said.
I nodded my guard-puppet’s head.
He laughed a deep laugh, “Good. I love this job!”
I pointed my guard’s hand at the door behind the other guard.
“What?” He said as he turned around
I dropped my guard’s body on the floor and bashed the other one’s head against
the door. He was out cold.
Suddenly, I had a really good idea; an idea that seemed so obvious, but hadn’t
occurred to me for some reason. I slipped off the guard’s coat to put on. I still had my
new thermal vision goggles on, and I was fairly disappointed when I saw the hot spot
vanish from the coat before my eyes. Apparently, contact without outside air caused the
spot to disappear and register a real heat on thermal. I’d have to mention that to the
brainiacs back at HQ. For now, though, it was just another small inconvenience in my
plan. I tossed the jacket aside and wondered what I should do next. My plan had only
really extended this far. I supposed I could carry the other guard around, but how long
could I keep that up for? Sooner or later, I would slip up somehow.
Now I had to deal with what was on the other side of this door. There was no time
to make the long trip back to the maintenance room. I had to improvise. A thought
occurred to me. “I wonder if my mini helmet-cam could fit under the door.” Being as it
was my only option at this point, I detached the camera from my helmet. As luck would
have it, the camera slipped right under the crack of the door. I patched my own video
feed into my helmet and looked at what was awaiting me. A stairwell. I turned the camera
side-to-side and viewed a vacant stairwell. Easy enough to navigate it; there was no one
in it. So, with a new way of doing my own reconnaissance for the mission, I opened the
door and proceeded into the stairwell.
I was really hoping these stairs went right up to the top floor. I was extremely
relieved when the stairs continued going up past the second floor. This mission was
tricky enough as it was, skipping an entire floor would greatly increase my chances of
success on this mission, and survival, for that matter. The stairs ended at the third floor,
however. I removed my helmet-cam again and poked it under the door.
What I saw was the toe-end of a boot. As the door swung open, and almost right
into my face, I pinned myself up against the wall. The door swung in front of me and
stopped barely an inch from my nose. I was behind the open door for only a few seconds
as the guard came into the stairwell. The door swung back into a closed position as the
guard turned around, staring me in the face for a split second.
In the fractions of a second I had to think, I thought over my current
situation. My thought process went a little something like this:
A large man wearing a bulletproof vest and wielding a machine gun is inches
away from me and about to pull the trigger. Now, I’m not allowed to harm him, but if I
don’t, I will die. No question about it, I will die. The mission won’t get completed, and…
yeah, I’ll be dead. So screw HQ. They’re the ones who lost connection to me and
jeopardized the mission in the first place. I’ma’ freakin’ destroy this guy.
As the guard brought his gun up to face me, everything seemed to go in slow
motion. A minute went by before he could even start to pick it up. Slowly, I ducked and
began to roll. I heard the bullets fly over my head, and I swear I watched them travel
through the air at about an inch per ten seconds. I rolled past his legs to a position behind
him. I bounded, in slow motion, towards the railing of the stairwell. After somewhere
around an hour, when my foot finally touched the railing, I pounced off of the railing
back towards the wall. With the same rhythmic motion, I bounded off the wall. Back in
front of the guard, I began to extend my foot in front of me. I felt my foot slowly begin to
push into his chest. He was slowly lifted off of his feet and back over the railing of the
stairwell.
As my feet hit the floor, time gradually changed back to it’s normal pace. I
walked over to the railing and saw the guard sprawled at the bottom of the staircase.
“Well that’s certainly not supposed to bend that way.” I observed calmly. This mission
had just gotten a lot trickier. As if the guards weren’t on high alert already, I had just
kicked one of them down a two-story staircase. Not that that really compared to the
massacre downstairs in the lobby, but still. I had this feeling that I had just severely
compromised the mission. Not to mention that the entire next room of guards had
obviously heard the gunshots right outside the door. I had no idea how I was gonna’ pull
this one off.
There were a few ways I could go about doing this, none of them ideal. I could
put a few bullets through their heads, but I didn’t want to push this whole ‘Screw HQ’
thing. I could also shoot them in their legs or arms and render them incapable of fighting
back, but that was still pushing it. Or, I could bust down the door and run as fast as I
could. Not exactly my top choice, either. I looked back down at the guard and
contemplated my current predicament. I decided to loot the body and see if I could use
anything from it. I began to descend the stairs.
To my surprise, the guard still had a weak pulse, which meant the fellas’ back at
HQ might not whip me after all. Good news, but I would still be in pretty hot water.
Anyway, I looked over the guard’s body closely. He had some extra rounds on
him, his broken thermal vision goggles, a few different types of grenades, and an injector
used to get people back on their feet after becoming unconscious or hurt. I took the
injector and examined the writing on it. Some text on the side of it explained that the
injector would take approximately one minute to fully bring the person back. I put the
injector into my pocket and looked at the various grenades. Flash-bangs, frags, and
smokes. I took them all, including the frags, you know, just in case.
I realized I might be able to use the injector to my advantage, but not on myself.
This guy was pretty torn up, but I remembered the guard back in the hallway that I had
knocked out. I turned and sprinted back in his direction.
When I reached the door to the hallway, I flung it open and knelt on the ground. I
laid the unconscious guard’s gun back in his hand and pulled out the injector. I checked
the time on my helmet screen and injected the guard. I turned back the way I had come
and ran as fast as I could back to the stairs.
I ascended the stairs once again. As I reached the top, I pulled out a flash-bang
and a smoke grenade. I reached the door. I pulled the pins, waited a second, and then I
kicked open the door and flung them into the middle of the room. By my count, in the
split-second I had, there were four or five guards in the room. The door I needed to go
through next was straight across the room. I whipped the door back shut, ducked against
the wall beside the door, and covered my ears. As soon as I heard the flash-bang go off, I
turned on my thermal vision goggles and kicked the door back open. The thermal vision
revealed, through the smoke, the figures of all the guards clutching their ears or covering
their eyes. I sprinted to each individual one and proceeded to bash all of their heads off
the wall. One down. Then two. Then three. Four.
After the last guard lay incapacitated on the floor, I trucked it to the doors that I
had to go through. The elevator doors. This was a different elevator than the first, though.
It only went between the third and fourth floors. There were two elevators right beside
each other. I called both down at once. I ran over to a table in my current room and
grabbed two chairs from it. As the elevator doors opened, I placed the chairs in the
middles of the doorframes, to keep them from closing. I then entered both elevators and
hit the ‘4’ button. The doors used to exit the elevator were on the opposite side as those
used to enter it. I grabbed another chair and leaned it on the exit doors of the left elevator.
Then I grabbed the bodies of two guards, removed their coats, and put them in a sitting
position on the floors of the elevators. I snapped a leg off of the table and laid it on top of
the right elevator guard’s leg, so it was in a slanted position under his hand. I took a frag
grenade from my pack and forced the guard to clutch it in his hand, over top of the board.
I removed some excess rope from my pack and tied it to the chairs keeping the doors
from closing. As my last act of preparation, I used a utility knife I found on one of the
guard’s bodies to pry off the left elevator’s ‘Call Elevator’ panel. I then entered the left
elevator, picked up my chair-doorstop, and threw it across the room. The other chair, tied
to it, went flying across the room with mine, and the doors closed simultaneously. Then I
prepared myself for the guards that would be awaiting me.
When the elevator doors opened onto the fourth floor, the chair fell forward over
the doorframe of the left elevator, and a barrage of bullets began to fly into both
elevators. What the shooters didn’t realize was that they were shooting at their allies, just
with their hot spots removed…and a chair. What they also didn’t notice was that a hole
had been torn open in the top of the left elevator. I waited patiently on top of the elevator
for my plan to continue. The doors of the right elevator shut, and it began to descend
back down to the floor below.
The bullets ceased to fly through the air now, and I heard footsteps nearing the
elevator I was on top of.
“Is that…Frank?” A voice inquired as it peered inside the elevator at the body of
the guard below. “It is! We killed him! What was he doing without his jacket on? And
why do you suppose he was sitting on the floor? Something here ain’t right.”
As he asked these unanswerable questions to his friends behind him, one of them
shouted “George, man, someone’s comin’ up on the other elevator!”
“Ready your weapons, men! This could be the one who put Frank in the elevator!
I’ll hit him with a frag.”
George ran back to his friends’ position and pulled the grenade from his belt. As
the bell of the elevator rang and the doors began to open, there was a moment of
complete, almost scary silence. The calm before the storm, I guess you could call it. As
the door began to open, a perfectly timed throw by George sent the frag flying right
between the barely open doors. It smacked the previously unconscious guard from the
hallway in the face and fell to the floor. The guards from inside the room began to blast
him at the same time, just for good measure. The hallway guard fell to the floor as well,
just as the frag detonated. The explosion created a chain reaction. You see, the grenade I
had put in the unconscious, right elevator guard’s hand had fallen out of his hand when
he was killed, rolled down the board, and rolled partially into the room George and
friends were currently standing in. The first grenade blew up, triggering the next grenade,
which happened to be just far enough into the room to send George and his allies flying
across the room and into the wall. They were out of the game.
The carnage you could create with some unconscious bodies, a chair, a frag
grenade, and some good planning. It was truly inspiring. I dropped down from the top of
the elevator, and, I must say, I was pretty impressed with myself. That was one heck of
an intricate plan, and, while some of it was just pure luck that it worked out how it did, I
had masterminded it all. Not Johnson, me! Suck it.
Now that that was taken care of, I proceeded to the next set of doors. The final
doors. Behind these doors was the objective, whatever that happened to be. The guys
back at HQ had told me I would “know it when I saw it”. A little vague, and cliché for
my tastes, but it was their way. It was the safest way for the information not to get into
the wrong hands.
These barred doors wouldn’t be easy to get open, but I had two frags left, so it
wouldn’t be a problem. I pulled off my helmet-cam and attempted to stick it under the
door. The crack wasn’t large enough. “Well, this should be interesting.” I would have to
just kinda’ wing it. Just my style.
I flipped a table onto its side and pulled it back towards the elevators. I crouched
behind the table. This was it, do or die (literally) time. I pulled out a frag and a flash-
bang. I pulled the pin and chucked the frag over the table towards the door. I waited
about two seconds, and then I chucked the flash-bang over, right as the frag blew the door
open. The flash-bang landed in the middle of the next room, and I clutched my ears and
closed my eyes once again. When I heard the flash-bang go off, I jumped the table and
ran for the next room.
You know, the guys back at HQ were right. I recognized my old friend Erik Shale
handcuffed to a chair, and I knew what the objective was right away. I had to get him out
of there. I sprinted up to him and saw the two disoriented guards on both the left and right
walls. I grabbed hold of his handcuffs. No time to pick them. I tried to break the chair to
get him loose. It was no use; he was stuck there good and tight. “Sorry about this, bud.”
With that, I lifted the chair above my head and threw it back down. The chair splintered
on the ground, and the handcuffs dangled from his wrists. As I was deciding what the
best way to get him out of there would be, one of the guards seemed to regain his senses
and he raised his gun toward me. Realizing there was no time for this, I grabbed Erik by
the waist, hoisted him up over my shoulder, and started to run. My only escape was the
elevator doors on the other side of this room. These doors belonged to the elevator shaft I
had first been in, the one that went down to the maintenance room. The guard began to
shoot when I was about twenty feet from the doors. Bullets whizzed past my head as I
neared the doors. I began to bend my knees for a jump just as the timer on my special
surprise hit zero.
The doors were blasted open as the bomb exploded. I flew through the air and into
the elevator shaft. I saw the elevator falling, too, a few stories below me. I rolled in mid-
air, holding Erik tight. Erik was now over top of me. I kept my hold on him and braced
for impact.
I heard the elevator smash into the floor below me, and I knew I wasn’t far
behind. Luckily, I wouldn’t be landing on a solid concrete floor. The landing on top of
the giant airbag knocked the wind out of me, but kept me from getting too seriously
injured. A little sore and a little stiff, I ripped the airbag from it’s mooring to the top of
the elevator, popped it, and shoved it in my bag as I laid Erik down on top of the elevator.
But there was no time to lose, I jumped down through the hole in the top of the elevator,
and I pulled Erik down back onto my shoulder.
I ducked and staggered out through the crushed door. With Erik on my shoulder, I
stumbled, a little disoriented from the fall, down the walkway. I pushed open the
maintenance room door and laid Erik down on the floor. I knelt, breathing hard. No time
to waste, though, I reminded myself again. I had to keep going. I walked back over to the
water controls again. Before doing anything, I checked the lobby camera. I saw the shark
swimming in the lobby’s aquarium, snacking on some remains. I found the controls for
the containment hatches, and I flipped the switch. This closed an airtight hatch between
the main pipes and the aquarium. It also closed one between the pipes and the outside
lake. Then I proceeded to use the water controls to drain the pipes of water through
several grills located throughout them.
I picked up Erik and exited the maintenance room. There was one more thing to
take care of before I left, though. I pulled my final frag grenade from my pack, pulled the
pin, and tossed it into the maintenance room. I slammed the door shut and continued to
sprint down the walkway. Behind me, the door to the maintenance room was blown off
its hinges and flung across the room into the waterway.
I lowered Erik down into the empty waterway and then lowered myself down in,
as well. I picked him back up and began to run down the pipes. It was a long run down
the pitch-black tunnel, but I finally reached the hatch. I took a deep breath before I
opened it, just in case HQ wasn’t able to get my transportation here due to the power
outage or whatever the heck was keeping them from contacting me.
I ripped open the hatch and was decently relieved when I wasn’t crumpled by tons
of water. I stepped into the nice, dry, well-lit submarine and was greeted by our
submarine captain.
“Glad to have you aboard, Burkman.” He said as I set down Erik and collapsed
onto the floor. “Are you alright, sir?”
“Osbourne, I just jumped down a freaking five-story elevator shaft. So, no, not
really.”
“Oh, come on, you’ve done much worse than that before.” He replied. An all-too-
true statement.
“Yeah, except this time I had to do it while carrying this sack of rocks.” I gestured
towards Erik.
“I see. Well, lets get you some rest while we get you back to the HQ.”
“Speaking of the HQ, what the heck is going on back there? My connection just
died while I was in the building.”
“Really? I don’t have a clue. Tell you what, you can ask them yourself when we
get back. Now get some rest! You look like crap.”
“Thanks.”