Chapter 1
Season 3, episode 3
As we were thrown in with Jenny, Sarah and Lester I knew there was going to be trouble.
"What has gotten into Cutter?" Lester asked.
"There are two of them." Connor said
"Two Cutters, sounds like some kind of nightmare." Lester said sarcastically.
"So what happened?" I asked.
"Well Cutter came in acting stranger than normal, then Helen took over the ARC." Jenny said.
"So have we got a plan?" Abby asked.
"Yes. Connor," Sarah said sitting in a chair at a laptop, "We need to play this across the central speaker system."
"We can't do that from in here." He said downhearted.
Sarah covered her face with her hands. Just then the door burst open and one of Helens men fell through it. Becker walked in rubbing his fist.
"Want any help?" He said.
"Becker, how many of you are there?" I asked.
"Just me, the others are either dead or at home."
"Shit." I said hitting the wall.
"Becker," Connor said, "We need to get this to the speaker room to play it over the speakers."
"Come with me," he said, "Robert, stay here with Jenny, Sarah, Abby and Lester." He said to me.
"Got it." I said picking up the guards' pistol pulling the slide back.
Becker and Connor ran off down the corridor. The door closed behind them. I leaned up against the wall spinning the pistol around my finger.
"Will you stop that, I really don't want that to go off." Lester shouted.
"Sorry, just trying to pass the time." I said putting the pistol into the waist band of my trousers.
Just then the door opened and another guard came in. He saw his clone on the floor knocked out. He turned to me and threw a punch. I had no time to react. The punch landed on the side of my head knocking me to the floor. My vision went blurry and I thought I was going to pass out. I saw Lester punch the other guard, he picked Lester up and threw him into a locker as though he was a doll. Lester fell to the floor. Abby kicked him in the stomach but the guard was too good for Abby and after a minute she was knocked back into another locker. The guard walked over to Sarah and Jenny and picked them up by the throat. He was choking them. I pushed myself up off the floor. I pulled the pistol out of my trousers and pulled the slide back taking the safety off. I raised the gun up and looked down the sights at the guard.
"Hey!" I shouted getting the guards attention.
He looked over at me and saw the pistol in my hands. I pulled the trigger and put a bullet in his flank. He dropped Jenny and Sarah and tried to pull out his own pistol. I emptied the magazine into the guards' chest. He dropped to the floor with blood leaking from his wounds in his chest.
"Thank you." Jenny spluttered gasping for air.
"No problem." I said rubbing my head and taking the two magazines of the dead guard.
I swapped the empty mag for a full one. I walked over to Abby and picked her up off the floor and supported her for a bit.
"You okay?" I asked her.
"I'm fine, thanks Robert." She said standing up straight.
Just then the speakers buzzed into life.
"Stop, do nothing, obey my voice. Stop, do nothing, obey my voice." The audio file played throughout the whole ARC.
"They did it." Sarah exclaimed.
"Yes all well and good but how do we get out of here?" Lester said standing up.
As he stood up an explosion ripped through the ARC. The stuff on the shelves fell off. After the explosion Becker and Connor opened the door.
"Nice work, now let's leave. Connor, get the girls and Lester outside. Me and Becker will look for Cutter" I said to him giving him the other Pistol with one shot in, "You so much as see Helen, no second thoughts. Shoot to kill, there's one shot in there so aim for the head."
"Got it," he said taking the others in the opposite direction.
"We need to find Cutter now." Becker said.
"Ya think, come on." I said running off holding the pistol down.
We explored the centre of the wreckage knowing that's where the bomb would have gone off. We looked in the room with the dimension model in. underneath a couple of the steel pipes was Cutter.
"He's in here." I shouted taking some of the pipes off him.
"What happened?" Cutter said waking up.
"Explosion, we need to get out of here now." Becker said.
"Ok." Cutter said getting up.
Becker and I supported him and helping him out of the ARC. We got outside and saw the main ARC building with fire licking out of the windows.
"Where's Helen?" he asked.
"She didn't come out. She must still be inside." Connor said.
"I'm going into get her." He said grabbing a torch.
"No," Jenny said, "She wouldn't lift a finger to save you."
"I know." He said.
"I'm not letting you do it Nick," I said, "If you go in there you're signing your own death warrant. I'll go in."
"No she's my wife." He said walking over to the entrance.
"No," I said running after him. "You're not doing it Nick. This team needs you. You're more important than me."
"No, you and Becker need to keep this lot safe."
"You're not going in and that's final." I said punching him in the face.
I took the torch and ran in before he could get up and stop me. I covered my mouth to stop breathing in smoke. I turned the torch on and shone it around. As I walked deeper into the ARC I found Helen lying on the floor buried under concrete from the ceiling. I saw the artefact on the floor in front of her. I picked it up and stuffed it in a pipe beside me. I pulled the concrete off of her legs.
"Nick, is that you?" she asked.
"No, it's not Nick."
"Well someone still came to get me."
"He wanted to come and get you but I didn't let him."
"Ok," she said getting up, "Where's the artefact?"
"It'll be wherever you dropped it when you fell." I said walking back.
"Well what does it do?" she asked.
"I don't know. Only Cutter knows what it does."
"Well in that case. I guess one less person on the research team won't do too much damage."
"What the hell do you mean," I said turning around seeing her pulling a gun out of her waistband, "Oh."
"I'm sorry, but nobody understands the importance of that artefact as much as I do. I've seen the result of the work here. The work that Cutter and you do here results in the creation of the future predators."
"You know what? No wonder Cutter didn't want your help; you just want to do what's best for you. If Cutter knew what happened in the future he would stop it from happening. He wouldn't sanction the order to start experimenting for that."
She gave me a look that would kill. She pulled the trigger twice and the gun fired. One round hit me in the arm and knocked me back and the second shot hit me in the chest knocking me to the ground. I played dead as she walked past. She left the building through the other exit. I got up and rested my shot arm across my chest. I gritted my teeth at the pain. I bent down and took the artefact out of the pipe and put it under my arm. I walked out of the ARC.
I walked out into the crowd and everybody saw my arm. They rushed forward and took the artefact. I leaned up against the front of a car. They all stared at my chest as there was another bullet hole in my chest. I pulled my shirt open and showed them my bullet proof vest.
"What happened?" Abby asked.
"She shot me." I said.
"I knew she couldn't be trusted." Sarah said.
"You're lucky it wasn't you Nick. Now do you understand why I didn't let you go in there for her." I said to Cutter.
"Well, where is she?" he asked.
"She left after she shot me. So that means that she is still out there."
"Dam it!" Cutter shouted.
"Right, well we need to get this looked at and the ARC back up and running. The minister is willing to pay to repair the ARC but he says it's coming out of your pay." Lester said putting his phone back in his pocket.
"Always the funny one," Connor said sarcastically.
"You think I'm joking." Lester said as the medical team came over to inspect my arm and bandage the wound.
"Wait, you mean we're getting paid even less than what we are." Connor asked as if it wasn't clear.