A THOUSAND BIRDS
Chapter
One
Birds
Only Come Out At Night
The hour was well passed midnight in the city of Metropolis, the street lamps and building lights giving the streets a dim illuminated effervescence. Not many were out at this time of night, those who were working the grave-shift at numerous businesses and the considered lowlife trowelers that slunk through the street shadows looking for a quick buck to be made. It was at this time of night, on the far side of the Metropolis in the considered "slums", that one would not want to find themselves at all. In a back alley, around the corner from a rundown warehouse, a man dressed in a long dark overcoat crept along the shadow line, right hand stuffed into the front of his coat while his dark eyes slid to and fro in a suspicious manner. Like many of his reputation and physical mannerisms, this man was of a shady character and was on his way to a rendezvous with a few others of like-minded personality. His sneaking through the shadows ended as he slipped into the final cover of the dank and musty smelling back alley. A few rapping knocks on a rusted metal door, a quick look around to check his surroundings, and the door creaked open a few inches.
"You followed?" A gruff voice asked from behind the door, eyes peering out slightly.
"Of course." He replied sharply, almost hissing the response. "Now open the damn door and let me in!"
Grunting an irritated reply, the man behind it pulled the door the rest of the way open, making room for the guy on the other side to walk in through. Stepping inside, the door closing quickly as he did, the man straightened himself a bit and gave the other guy a rather nasty look. "Oh shove off already, you cranky old bastard!" The doorman snarled while settling down in the chair beside the door after making sure the lock was secure. "They be waiting for ya anyways."
Sneering at the doorman, he adjusted the collar of his jacket and shuffled off to meet with his other "business partners" who were further inside the warehouse. As he followed the dark hall, he soon entered into the belly of the warehouse where wooden crates, metal containers, and others manners of cargo shipment were stacked and arranged inside the warehouse in almost a sort of maze like setting. Just behind a few of stacks of crates, the man found who he was looking for. Standing, sitting, and or leaning against the crates all around, were other men dressed in dark clothing and looking on the beefy side of a body build. Stubble coated their chins and sideburns, while their hair was hidden beneath beanies. The man swallowed hard for a moment as he took in the perspective of knowing that these guys meant serious business and that if he had the inkling to say something smart, not to. One of these rough looking guys approached the man, his face set with a few scars here and there, one in particular cutting down his right brow in a deep gash that had long since been healed.
"Took you long enough. You're late Bub." The man stated while standing before the man he called by what sounded like a nickname more than anything else. He held his hands crossed before him in a business like manner and eyed him. "Well?"
"Oh, yes, right." Bub stuttered while pulling his hand out of his coat, bringing with it a large manila envelope that was crinkled at the corners and worn from being held on to for the passed four hours. With a shaking hand, he held it out to the taller more aggressive looking man before him.
Taking the shaking package from Bub, the man opened it up rather abruptly, eyed the contents and then looked over to one of his guys at the left. Nodding, he tossed the package over to him and returned his attention back to the still shaking Bub whose gaze had followed the tossed package. "We'll get to work." He stated with a slight nodding of his head to the side and began to turn away, signaling his men to follow him.
"That's it?" Bub asked while scratching the back of his head. "What do I tell my boss? Was there a message I was supposed to take back or anything?" He asked, making sure he wasn't going to get himself skinned for not returning without anything he should have brought along.
Looking back over his shoulder, the held a rather nonchalant look on his face as if nothing came to mind. "Nope, none that I can think of." He replied while following after his guys to start their work.
Running his hands through his thin greasy hair, Bub sighed in relief, feeling his body ease out of its nervous tension. Turning around to leave he stopped for a moment, as if thinking about something, but instead shook his head and headed back the way he had come. While Bub took his leave, the dark clothed men had already made their way towards the back of the warehouse, purposely making a direct path towards one particular new looking wooden crate, its planks still its blonde gold color of natural wood and freshly applied seals and stamps. Several of the guys stood at either end, picking up the crowbars that were sitting in wait behind the crate itself. As they began to pry the lid of the crate from the main body. While they worked on the crate, the others stood on guard duty, sweeping through the maze all about them, checking for any unwanted guests that had slipped in at any point in time.
One of them, a guy with longer blonde hair that was tied back in a low ponytail, moved through one stretch of stacked crates and metal containers armed with a semi-automatic fully loaded and ready to be used when necessary. He was already feeling a bit on edge, especially knowing what he and his pals were up to that night, and every little noise aside from the sounds of the splintering crate made him jump and look about in every which direction. For a moment he walked backwards, staring up into the rafters overhead. His attention was taken elsewhere as he heard a sudden rustle stir from behind him. Turning about quickly, he at first pointed his semi-automatic towards the half opened doors to the metal container standing a good seven feet higher than himself. The dark opening was rather intimidating to say the least, but that same rustle occurred, drawing him closer by means of curiosity. At first, the thought to fire into the container had sprung to mind, but if it turned out to be just a small rodent or even just a small draft blowing through.
Creeping closer, he started to feel a bit braver as he swallowed hard and straightened his stature. At the mouth of the open door, he lowered his gun and reached out with his free hand to further pull the door open and peer inside. It was dark inside, and his eyes were having trouble adjusting the extreme lack of any light source. Squinting, he tried to force his vision into focus, but his eyes flared open as the front of his jacket was suddenly grabbed and used to forcefully yank him into the open container. His startled cries echoed throughout the warehouse along with sound of his semi-automatic firing off a few rounds.
All activity around the crate ceased, the others looking up and at each other with alerted looks on their faces. The leader of the group pulled his own personal handgun from its holster on the back of his hip and pulled the slid back as he looked off where the sounds of one of his men shouting and shooting had come from. "That sounded like Mic." he murmured while looking back to the others. "You two keep going, and get that thing pried off. The rest of you, fan out, find Mic. You run into anyone, take them out."
The others nodded and cocked their weapons before they fanned out through the warehouse, disappearing from sight. Their movements were quiet as they crept along in the dimly lit warehouse, moving around the stacks of crates surrounding them. Their gaze looked into the left and then into the right slowly, their movements pausing as they came to a corner and peered around it cautiously. However, even though they glanced up towards the rafters every once in a while, their eyes could not pierce the shadows in the quick glances they stole, and thus they missed their intruder a numerous amount of times even though they hung right above them. Clear blue eyes stared down through almond shaped cuts of a domino mask that followed outside line of the eye alcove. The eyes followed the movements of the men walking around below, piecing together a strategy before moving on towards the center, slinking along the old rafters on padded soles.
As the men started to converge on the center of the warehouse where they had stood waiting for hours until Bub's arrival, they lowered their weapons with confused looks on their faces. None of them had found Mic nor what caused him to suddenly vanish after causing a racket. One of them scratched the back of his while rolling his eyes. "The idiot probably was spooked by a mouse and shot at it. And now he's hiding out of shame." He smirked while setting his weapon against his shoulder. "Come on, let's get back to the others." He ordered while turning to head back towards the others working on the crate and its contents.
However, as he and the others began to move, something fell from above, dropping down amidst them. The first to realize what was going on and that this object that had fallen was an unidentified person, were immediately dealt with by several well placed punches to the human circulatory and nervous systems. These punches took them down instantly, and thus as the others began to move in or turn around to face off with whatever or whoever was attacking them at that moment. The sound of snapping bone, pained cries, heavy grunts from begin struck, and the clattering of dropped weapons, mixed all together before four large muscled bodies dropped to the ground and all went quiet. The only one left standing was the one who had dropped from the rafters above and was now walking out around the dropped bodies that were groaning and hardly moving on the ground.
At the back of the warehouse, the top to the crate had been pried off finally and tossed aside. Inside the crate sat a large hulking piece of machinery that looked as though it were just apart of something else that was possibly much bigger. The leader looked back over his shoulder towards the other parts of the warehouse where he had sent his men out to investigate, only to find that none of them were on their way back and that there was now a rather eerie silence within the massive building. His brow furrowed heavily before looking back to the guys he had working about the crate and the piece of machine inside of it. "Looks like we might have a problem, so hurry and wrap this up now." He ordered while preparing to go take care of whatever problem had arisen, himself.
As they moved to remove the part from its original means of travel storage, all three men soon found themselves cringing out of reaction to a sharp pain that was penetrating through their sense of hearing at that moment. Their hands gripped at their ears as a loud screeching sound that could only be described as a thousand birds screams sounding off at once in a high pitched melody, ripped at their ear drums and was now about to leave them deaf. The metal of their guns vibrated harshly and then shattered at their weakest points as the intensity of the sound frequency rose higher and also sent them down on their knees. It took only a few seconds, and all the men in the warehouse were down. As soon as the last man hit the ground, the sound ceased and only the faint sound of soft foot falls could be heard as they approached.
"Huh, that was easier than I thought it would be." A voice stated aloud to themselves as they came to stand before the crate still holding the piece of machinery within on a bed of straw. Those clear blue eyes stared down at it and narrowed in a sense of anger before that same high pitched sound started up again, but seemed to be more focused and concentrated in its point of direction versus a wide scape that had taken down the armed men. The hulking piece of metal that looked like it weighed a good two hundred pounds, started to shake and almost ripple beneath its surface in response to the high frequency aimed upon it. It took a few minutes, but cracks began to appear along its surface, and then the whole thing split into several large pieces while tiny splinters of metal also sheered off causing any type of repair to it almost impossible as it looked as though it were a high sophisticate part.
The sound ceased once again, and the narrowed look in those blue eyes vanished as it was replaced by one that seemed almost proud of the work that had been done. However, as they prepared to turn away, they suddenly narrowed again but not of an emotional reaction, but as if focusing upon something hidden within the crate alongside the machine part. A black leather gloved hand highlighted with a single square piece of yellow gold tinted metal on the top of the hand, reached down and picked up between the encased fingers, a small grey square with a set of serial numbers engraved upon its surface. Turning it over in a sort of examination, there was found the distinctive logo for LEXCORP stamped upon it. "Why am I not surprised." Again, the voice spoke aloud to itself before the ears caught sound of running foot steps numbering a large group. Not wanting to stick around to see who it was, the blue eyes and voice vanished from the warehouse just as the main door was broken in.
The doorman was detained immediately by a few officers from the Metropolis PD while others swarmed further in and found the incapacitated men still sprawled out on the ground with an array of injuries dealt to them. Finding the shattered crate and its contents, one of the officers radioed it in to dispatch, while a few others swore they could hear the rev of a motorcycle engine somewhere outside the warehouse followed by the peal out of tires. The lead officer on the job looked up at the ceiling of the warehouse, and luckily enough for him as this was a warehouse sporting old structural designs, spotted a motorcycle race across the thick but dirty windows set within the roof.