Chapter 25 #2
Joel mumbled something incoherently and kept messing around with various items in the room until two men in scrubs came out. Neither had anything in their hands, but there was a good possibility that one or both had a sedative. Joel didn’t want to nap during an op, so he’d have to be careful.
“Hey, now,” Joel said, holding up his hands. “Too many people at the party. I didn’t mean anything. I’ll calm down.”
Mercer came up by his side and nodded toward one of the guys. It looked like Joel was taking on the other.
“Don’t get pricked because I’m not dragging your heavy ass out of here,” Joel murmured.
Mercer was about six feet four with at least two hundred twenty pounds on him, and it was almost all muscle. Joel was a big guy, but he didn’t particularly want to deal with that.
“Fuck you,” Mercer grumbled.
“Only on Tuesdays,” Joel shot back and grinned.
And then, they attacked.
The orderlies had expected to detain some random guy off the street—not two trained, hulking mercenaries.
Joel was able to throw a punch and swipe his guy’s legs out from under him, forcing his knees to buckle.
He attempted to right himself, but Joel struck him in the stomach.
The guy ended up on the ground, groaning.
However, Joel knew not to discount the guy.
He could see his opponent reaching into a pocket.
Nah, we’re not going to do night night time today, Joel thought, kneeling slightly and knocking the guy’s head onto the floor.
The man did not move after that.
Joel turned to see Mercer hovering over his opponent, who was also on the ground, unmoving.
Good. One less problem.
Turning to the guy at the front desk, Joel said, “If you run straight out that door, out of the parking lot, and off the property without warning anyone, this won’t happen to you.”
The guy nodded frantically and took off. He didn’t know there were Gray Tower agents there to grab him at the edge of the property. In fact, as soon as he and Mercer had access to the inside areas, they would call in backup. They also had their anti-super suit devices. Just in case.
Joel turned back to Mercer to see him wave a keycard.
“We have access,” he said to Joel and the rest of the team listening on the comm.
“We’re closing in,” Ryan Hale’s voice cut in. “We have five Conglomerate men outside of the building who will be down momentarily.”
Joel nodded to Mercer, and they set off to a door they were previously unable to access. They also pulled out sidearms from holsters tucked in the back of their jeans. Scanning the keycard, the lock beeped and turned green. The hallway was eerily silent when they came through.
“This is the normal wing of the facility,” Mercer said. “We’ll clear it, but most likely, anything suspicious will be on the secured side.”
They could barely take a few steps before they heard gunfire that sounded like it was coming from inside the facility.
“Is that you?” Ryan asked on the comm.
“Fuck no!” Mercer said.
“Then who is it?”
“Let’s go find out,” Joel said, grinning as he ran toward the chaos. He could hear Mercer cursing repeatedly behind him.
? ? ?
“We have ten patients in the regular inpatient wing. All are in their rooms. Two people are in the regular inpatient. Three people are in the main part of the building. Two of them are most likely Gray Tower. Ten people are in the secured wing. One appears to be a patient, plus two men in X-suits,” Sally rattled off as Nate quietly made his way along the hallway.
“How many are Conglomerate soldiers versus actual workers?” he asked.
“I give it a 95.378% chance of there being four civilians in the combined secure wings.”
“That’s…precise.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Best course of action?”
“I have mapped out the best route, including the order in which we should eliminate the targets. Leave the X-suits to me.”
“Are you going to overdose them again?” Nate asked.
“The decision will be made once conflict has engaged.”
“And what about the civilians? The workers shouldn’t be killed.”
“Even the people who tortured you?” Sally questioned.
Nate sighed heavily and said, “Yeah, even them. Let Gray Tower take them in. If Sims is here, he’s going to die, though.”
“Noted.”
With that, Sally displayed Nate’s path, and he began through the facility.
They burst into the secured wing, and it didn’t take him long to find the first person: a Conglomerate soldier on patrol.
Since Nate already saw exactly where the person was positioned, he was able to turn the corner and fire without the guy even realizing something was wrong.
This, however, notified the rest of the people in the facility.
Another Conglomerate guard came through a doorway, and Nate took him out as well.
An orderly came running but paused mid-stride when he saw Nate in his suit. The guy screamed and began to run the other way, but Nate was quick and was able to catch up to him and swing the butt of his rifle to the guy’s head. He collapsed and didn’t get up.
“The targets on the regular inpatient wing had been eliminated,” Sally told him. “It appears Gray Tower has taken care of them.”
“How long until they reach us?” Nate asked.
“Not long. You need to hurry. One civilian target, seven Conglomerate targets, and four X-suits remaining.”
“I’m moving as quickly as I can,” he grumbled. “And don’t forget about the patients. If they’re here, we need to free them.”
“Agreed.”
Four Conglomerate soldiers later, and he was in the infamous hallway where his prison cell had been located. It gave Nate pause to be where it all started, but he couldn’t focus on the past. The present was trying to kick his ass.
His eyes darted to the door that used to be his cell. No one was in there, but the patient, the civilian target, a Conglomerate target, and the X-suits were in one room down the hallway. According to Sally’s schematics, it was huge for a patient room. Whatever was in there was important.
“We’re going in there next?” he asked.
“Yes,” Sally replied. “There is a patient there. It appears this person is not in optimal shape, possibly dying. Proceed with caution.”
“What about the super soldiers?”
“I already started the process. Just go inside.”
Nate walked in, and to his horror, he found both super soldiers, their helmets off, with red blotches streaked across their faces. One was gasping for air. The other simply fell over, eyes twitching and blinking rapidly. The other dropped a few seconds afterward. They were dead moments later.
“What did you do?” Nate asked, horrified.
“I redirected the outside environmental temperature controls for the suits’ cloaking to the inside of the suit and then turned up the heat to about one hundred and sixty degrees. What you are seeing is an extremely quick death by hyperthermia.”
“That’s…diabolical.”
“I know,” Sally said. “The Conglomerate hurt you, so I will hurt them more.”
Oh, God, Nate thought. She’s turning into a psycho. I have a psycho AI on the loose.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t think about that because he had two other Conglomerate people in the room. When he turned to them, he felt like his heart nearly stopped. He hadn’t been paying close attention because neither had weapons listed on his read-out, but now that he saw them.
Fuck.
He didn’t recognize one, but the other he knew immediately. He had been waiting for this moment for a long time.
Sims.
“What are you doing?” the other Conglomerate guy said. “Do something! What happened to them? Fix it!”
Shit. They didn’t know he wasn’t one of the other two suits. Nate was going to play this up.
“Sure. I’ll fix the problem,” Nate said in his mechanical voice right before he shot the guy in the heart.
The man gasped, falling back, clutching at his chest. He fell to the floor, the light in his eyes fading. When Nate looked at Sims, the man was completely white.
“It’s just me and you, fucker,” Nate growled.
“Please! I’m just doing my job,” Sims pleaded, beads of sweat pouring down his face. “The Conglomerate got me hooked on this project. I couldn’t get out. Please don’t kill me.”
“What project?” Nate demanded.
“Pr—Project Gaslight.”
Ah, damn it, Nate thought. Sims needed to be interrogated.
He had information. It might not be much, but it was enough to connect more puzzle pieces.
As much as he wanted to kill the guy, he had to keep him alive.
Unfortunately, there were Gray Tower agents in the building with him.
Attempting to smuggle Sims out was out of the question and taking him as a hostage could cause confrontation.
He couldn’t even reveal himself because Sims would run his mouth.
“Fuck,” Nate grumbled, his mic now off so Sims couldn’t hear him.
“You’re not going to kill him?” Sally asked.
“No.”
“You’re going to leave him for Gray Tower?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry, Nathan.”
“Not as sorry as I am.”
Nate glanced at the equipment around the room. He wasn’t sure what they were, but there were beds beside them. All of them were empty—except for one. This was the person barely hanging on.
“If you incapacitate Sims, Gray Tower will be able to take him and get this person help,” Sally noted.
“I guess that’s our best shot,” Nate said. He turned to Sims and said, “Stay.”
Aiming, Nate shot the man in the shin. Sims howled and dropped down, tears pooling in his eyes. A smile spread across Nate’s face as he left the room.
Baby.
“Incoming Gray Tower operatives,” Sally alerted him.
“How do I avoid them?” Nate questioned.
“With the way they are around the building, there is no way. I suggest going past the two men in the building, as that would be the least amount of people you would pass.”
“Fantastic,” Nate said sarcastically, following where Sally had drawn out on the building map.