Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first chapter of what will hopefully become a fairly long take on the "what happened next?" scenario. Obviously nothing you recognise here from Alpha Force is mine.
Constructive criticism is encouraged; please spend a moment to review! Bear in mind, though, that I have no idea about hacking or, surprisingly, much experience of being shot at by gun-toting maniacs. Anyway, on to...
Chapter One
"Paulo, you're meant to be shooting them!"
"I know, hombre! I am trying-"
Paulo ducked down as their attackers started firing back at them, narrowly missing his exposed head.
"Madre de dios!"
The five members of Alpha Force were pinned down behind a low wall, next to the brick building which housed their next objective. Paulo was peering cautiously back over the wall at the attacking troops, who had stationed themselves behind a privet hedge a two hundred yards across the park. Hex was fiddling frantically with the electronic lock on the steel door next to them.
"Hurry up! I could do that faster than you." Amber prodded Hex. "In case you haven't noticed, we're being shot at by six maniacs with machine guns."
"Much as I realise that you are, in fact, perfect, Amber, I highly doubt that you could do this any faster than me." Hex said sarcastically, frowning as he poked a screwdriver into the inner workings of the lock.
"I hate to say this, you lot, but I think they're coming around the other side."
Alex, who had been listening in on the enemy radio communications, turned around, holding a pair of earphones to his ear.
"And they're bringing in… a helicopter?"
Alpha Force ducked as machine gun fire rattled down around them, blinding them with a searchlight; luckily the helicopter couldn't come in low because of the trees.
"I've done it!" cried Hex as the attacking reinforcements piled around the corner, firing frantically as Alpha Force dived through the now open steel door and into the building.
"Alex! The door!" cried Hex, and Alex, the last through, slammed the door closed, sliding across the metal bar which secured it into its frame.
"Where now?" Alex asked Amber, peering along the windowless corridor.
"Erm…" she consulted a schematic. "We need to go along this corridor, around a corner and into a warehouse space. Then we go up a staircase onto a gantry, around the side of the warehouse and through a locked door. Okay?"
"Right… come on then!" whooped Li. The rest of Alpha Force ran after her, looking back at the frantic hammerings coming from the door, which was now starting to buckle as their attackers tried to force it. Reaching the warehouse, Alpha Force sprinted across the bare concrete floor and up the gantry stairs. Once at the top, they ran keeping low, until finally they dived into an office which overlooked the main loading area.
"Right." Hex took out his palmtop and settled in an office chair, plugging a USB cable into the back of a desktop PC, which was set upon a cluttered desk. "Alex, lock the door, and see if you can barricade it. Li, go and keep a look out for when they get into the warehouse. Amber, you try and find us a way out of here."
"Who put you in charge?" Amber demanded, hands on hips.
"The fact that I'm the only one who can hack this man's computer in less than two minutes. Now, find us an exit."
Paulo, not having been given a task, took it upon himself to search the room, paying special attention to the low walls. "Amber, where is the fuse box?"
"What?"
"The fuse box. Where is it? I have a plan."
"It's not a Plan, is it?" called Li from her post beside the window which looked down into the warehouse."
"No, just a plan." said Paulo with feeling.
"It's in that cupboard over there."
Paulo crossed the room and opened the cupboard door, fiddling with a box at the back.
Hex's fingers flew across the keyboard of his palmtop as he remotely accessed the files on the pc in front of him.
High-level encryptions, firewalls and password-protected documents fell before him, as he ploughed his way through the computer to the man's hard drive. Here, he brought up one of his favourite search programs, setting it for its fastest sweep and instructing it to download any useful data to a secure directory on his palmtop. A box popped up in the bottom corner of Hex's desktop; 2:37, and counting down.
"Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds until the download is complete, guys. Li, any sign of them?"
"Not yet," Li, peering through the floor-to-ceiling window, replied. "Hang on, though, is that- GET DOWN!"
The five dived to the ground, Hex shielding his palmtop with his body. Something smashed through the window, before detonating in the room, sending blast waves through the room and tossing paper and office equipment up into the air.
Hex was the first up, checking that the fragile USB cord still connected his palmtop to the pc. Li recovered far enough to crawl to the window and risk peering around the frame.
"Some sort of rocket-launcher," she coughed as the dust from the explosion hit her lungs. "They're setting up a machine gun and-" she pulled her head sharply around the frame as shots came whizzing into the room, "shooting at us with rifles." Hex checked the screen of his palmtop.
"1:46 to go. Amber do we have an easy exit?"
"Not as such… We're going through the ventilation shafts onto the roof, from where down the fire escape and back across the park to the van."
"You mean through that ventilation shaft?" He motioned to a six-inch wide airbrick in the wall.
"Ahhhh. Yes. Erm…" she turned back to the diagram.
Machine gun fire rattled the office wall, prompting Alpha Force to take cover. Amber and Hex huddled behind the heavy wooden desk, Li a filing cabinet and Paulo the cupboard containing the fuse box. Alex, over by the door, crouched behind the wooden partition.
"Right. I'm fed up of this," said Paulo. "Everyone, cover your eyes."
"Why?"
"Night vision. You're going to need it when I turn out the lights."
Alex crawled over, realising when this was going. "You have to be kidding."
"Let me explain. Your eyes are going to adjust to the dark whilst they are covered. I will then remove all of the fuses for this building, which will plunge us into darkness. In the confusion, we run down the stairs, past the gunmen and out the way we came in." He sat back, triumphant.
"This was your plan?"
"Yep."
"Good God," sighed Hex, rolling his eyes before returning to his palmtop. "Twenty-five seconds."
Alpha Force covered their eyes as Paulo located the appropriate fuses for the lights in the complex.
Seconds passed.
"Any minute now…"
Hex's palmtop beeped.
"Now!" shouted Alex as Paulo ripped out the fuses and they were plunged into darkness. Straining to make out the details of the office, Alpha Force nevertheless plunged onwards, through the dark, flailing shapes of the gunmen and down the corridor, not stopping until they reached the bright light of the park.
Pausing, Amber spotted their destination up ahead, shouting to the others, she sped off to wards the white van, opening the doors and helping the others in. Alpha Force slumped in the back as the van sped away.
"Well that was fun!" exclaimed Li.
Well, what do you think? Any good? As I say, please do review, your comments are valuable to me. Hopefully the next chapter will be up soon.