Three guesses which episode this chapter parallels... Enjoy!
Finn lifted his head, surveying the tight space in which he sat. He was sitting on a side bench inside of a large military plane. Its engines roared outside in the cold night air.
"The situation is tenuous." Said a man in a brown suit sitting across from him. "The terrorists have holed up in the Tendime bank building in south Manhattan, deep in New Florence."
Finn nodded, having not spoken since getting on the plane. A black leopard pelt sat next to him on the bench. He was wearing it over his head when he was contacted for the mission. Helping Marcelini dodge Scorcher by posing as a decoy.
The man continued as he adjusted his spectacles. "They have hostages, and their ringleader claims to have dynamite rigged on the lower foundation."
"How many?"
"Hostiles, or hostages?"
"Why don't you tell me both."
He nodded. "Mmm, right. There's at least ten hostiles, confirmed armed and dangerous. Twenty hostages in the building confirmed, though there may be more unaccounted. The terrorist ringleader goes by the alias 'Princess Cookie'."
"What's his nationality?"
"A native-born American. With no criminal record that precedes this."
Finn couldn't hold in a hard exhale. "What's his beef?"
"We don't know, he's kinda crazy. Our negotiator is lost at the wheel."
"What about the other hostiles?"
"No intel. Sightings confirm they're European, but beyond that nothing. The Banana Corps have formed a perimeter around the building, but they can't storm the place out of fear of the dynamite. If it detonates, it might bring the entire building down." The Banana Corps was a civilian law enforcement agency modeled after England's Scotland Yard. They've gained a lot of popularity over the last several decades, and have spread across the country. If they didn't exist, the perimeter would have had to be handled by the military rolling into the city.
Finn was studying blueprints of the building. "It's pretty easy to guess which parts are rigged up, if the intent is to make the whole thing come down." He looked up. "Where are you guys sticking Jake?"
"Your brother is being prepped to go into the front door undercover as a delivery man. His mission is to divert the enemy, while you go in topside, confirm the presence of explosives, and disarm them if there are."
Finn nodded. He was equipped for the mission, with a black parachute and ops suit that would camouflage him against the night sky. He had his pistol, as well as a pressure gun that shot tranquilizer darts. He had training in bomb diffusal, and the tools for it.
The man crossed his arms. "This is a highly hazardous mission, and we pulled you in on very short notice. Are you up for it?"
Finn stood up as he picked up a soft, black cap. He combed his lush, golden hair back as he placed the cap over the top, sides, and back of his head, pulling the goggles over his eyes. "Just let me know when we're over the target."
The serious looking man lifted an eyebrow impersonally. "You and your brother have a certain... reputation. I look forward to seeing how you perform."
They remained in eye contact for agonizingly long seconds. Then Finn broke into a grin as he walked toward the shut ramp in the rear of the plane's fuselage. "If, when this is over, the hostages have returned safely, and the perpetrators of this are taken in, I'll walk away happy."
A few more seconds of silence. "Good luck, Finn Werecanine." He pulled a switch, and the ramp opened, letting in the howling noise of the engines, as well as chilling night air.
When the red light next to the ramp switched to green, Finn walked to the edge of the open ramp, and let himself tip off the edge, falling onto the city below.
He fell freely through the chilling air, observing the vast metropolis of New Florence beneath him. The cityscape was lit against the night. He had to find his target.
As he fell, Finn spotted a building surrounded by purple spotlights that beamed straight into the sky. That was his mark. He let the orientation of his fall pass the area above the mark, then opened his parachute. It caught air, and his fall became slowed. The parachute let down a pair of handles with which he could control his fall.
Finn made a loose turnaround back toward the building. The buildings in south Manhattan were very tall, having gotten close, it was easy to tell which was his target without the purple lights. With this, he pressed a button on a transponder. This caused the purple spotlights to be switched off by the men on the ground who received his signal. It wouldn't do to have the lights give him away in his approach.
His roundabout turn brought him to a perfect trajectory to be over the building when he was low enough to land on its roof. He landed on a concrete terrace in the uppermost floor, which was an intricate web of outdoor catwalks and walkways with metal railings.
Finn landed on his feet, then took off the parachute backpack. He looked ahead, to where the floor went indoors, and to the left and right. He saw a silhouette against the lit city, standing near the corner in one direction. They weren't aware of his presence.
He pulled his tranq pistol and shot the silhouette, watching it drop on the spot. The person was at least twelve meters away, but he was an expert marksman. The tranquilizer pistol was quiet, he didn't need to worry about noise.
The next second, his face had the muzzle of a gun up to it. A man had come out from the indoors right ahead of him. Finn stood up slowly from his crouch as the man kept the muzzle to his face.
"Who are you? What are you doing here!" The man shouted in Russian.
Finn only needed a second, he kept his wits about him. He lifted his goggles up, revealing his eyes and looking at him with an expective, and slightly angry gaze. "I should ask that of you!" Finn rebutted in fluent Russian. "Why are you not at your post!"
Realizing that Finn might be someone he wasn't told about, the man quickly lowered his gun. "I'm sorry, I hadn't seen you before, so I assumed," he looked down at the parachute on the floor. "What's this?"
"I found it here." Finn said. "We have an intruder." He pointed over to the spot where he shot the silhouette. "You search over there, and I'll take the west side."
Happy that the misunderstanding ended on a civil note, he walked past, toward the direction Finn pointed.
Finn raised his tranquilizer gun and shot him in the back the second it was turned. Not wasting time, he headed toward the indoor opening as the man collapsed on the floor.
"Status report," spoke a tiny audio wig in his ear.
Finn put pressure on the area on top of his ear hole with an index finger. "I'm on the roof. Two bogeys down, over." He was already walking along the doorless, indoor corridors, heading to where the blueprints said the entrance to the service stairway was.
"Jake has entered the building undercover. You have ten minutes to confirm and disarm the explosives."
"Roger that." Ten minutes was plenty of time. He found the service stairway, and went through the door, inside a plain, continuous shaft with a stairwell that went all the way to the ground floor.
Finn walked down the stairs naturally, acting as though he belonged there. The terrorists didn't have any kind of uniform, and they concealed their faces. With his own face hidden by his hat and goggles, blending among them was easy. They would have no way of telling he wasn't one of them at first sight.
As he trotted down the steps, another bogey came into view. While he was registering Finn trotting naturally down the steps, Finn quickly shot him with a tranq dart and he went down. He passed by naturally, without changing his rapid pace as the man collapsed on the steps.
After a whole minute of going down the steps, he stopped at a door on the fourth floor. Assuming the intent was to collapse the building, the dynamite would be set in maintenance hatchways in order to be close to the framework, and according to the blueprints, the hatchways were only on the ground floor, and every fourth floor up. Blowing the supports up in the eighth floor wouldn't destroy the building, so it left two plausible floors.
Finn advanced along the corridors and reached a maintenance hatch on the fourth floor without any run-ins. He figured there were no explosives, as if there were, somebody would probably be guarding them. A look inside the inspection hatch confirmed this. He pressed his earwig to to talk. "No sign of bombs on the fourth floor. What's the word from Jake? Over." Jake was on the ground floor. If there were explosives, they would be there, and he might notice them.
"He hasn't reported."
This made him worried, but he had to focus on the mission. Lives were at stake. He had to head to the ground floor himself, and neutralize the presence of explosives. Once that was seen to, the Banana Corps could storm the building.
Finn was aware that if he was dispatched, or the main body of the enemy were alerted to his presence, it would bury any chance of disarming the explosives if there were any. The Banana Corps would have to storm the building anyway, and if there was dynamite, a lot of people would get hurt or killed.
The pressure of this came to him, and then brushed off, sliding into irrelevancy. There was no point in feeling. He was in mission mode, there was no time for anything irrelevant, like feelings.
He stuck his head into the inspection hatch, and found that the area around the concrete column went all the way up and down within the housing. With this, he squeezed his slender frame inside feet first, and slid down with his knees and hands on the frame column, and his back and feet on the surrounding cover.
He let himself slide down, his full-body ops suit protected him from scraping as he made good time reaching the ground floor.
His knees bumped something, and he stopped. He looked down, and saw a floor, only about a meter down from where he was.
He straightened himself, and dropped the rest of the way. As he landed, his knees bent to absorb the fall, and slammed abruptly into the frame. Stopped unexpectedly at his feet and knees together, his leg bones were subjected to extreme stress. A ringing sensation accompanied the pain.
Finn looked straight ahead, at the frame piece. He opened the maintenance hatch behind him, and what he saw from the inflow of light made him want to poo himself.
The concrete column was drilled through in at least a dozen spots, and filled by fitted packets of plastic explosives. The packets had coiling cords that came out of the holes, and all converged on a central charge with a large detonation mechanism. The detonator had a small antenna, and no wires except those going to the auxiliary charges. It was set up to be detonated remotely. The bomb as a whole smelled like fresh baked cookies.
Finn pressed his earwig to talk. "...Presence of explosives confirmed. I'm... really scared." Someone, somewhere, probably in this building was holding a detonator. And if they chose, at that moment, to use that detonator, he'd be a dead man.
"Well? Disarm it then!"
Finn looked at the detonation mechanism, and found the screws. He promptly unscrewed them, and took the cover off the innards. The innards looked like a spaghetti bowl that was a portal to the spaghetti dimension. With enough wiring to knit an adult-sized onesey. He pressed talk on his earwig again. "I need you to forward me to Beemo."
"Beemo? Is that some kind of code name?"
His apprehension reached a boiling point. This was getting very stressful. "Okay, just forward me to P.S.S. HQ. They can get me Beemo."
"It's just dynamite, right? You can handle that!"
"It's not dynamite!" He was breathing harder. "I need Beemo so just get me to the people who can get me Beemo!"
"Okay, relax. I'm forwarding you now..." A new voice came on. "This is P.S.S. Command, whaddya need, over?"
"Is Beemo in?"
"Beemo's always in."
Thank Gob. "Put me on his line, then, over."
"Who is this?"
"Finn Werecanine."
Without another word, the line switched. "Finn? Issat you?"
The voice was childlike, slightly effeminate, and with a slight plastic echo. Finn had never met B.M.O. in person, so he had no idea whether it was a filter. "It's me Beemo. Do you have a minute?"
"Yeah Finn! I got several whole minutes!"
"Awesome." He took out a hand held camera with a wire bundle going into his belt. He positioned it, "here, have a look at this." He took the picture. The flash rendered everything a bit more visible for a split second.
Finn heard a fax machine in the background, and someone taking the paper out. "Red and yellow." Said B.M.O.
"Wha-" he pressed talk. "You mind looking at it for more than half a second?"
"I designed that detonator, Finn!"
He paused... "You did?"
"Yes, aren't you in the training room?"
Finn got past the confusion. "No, Beemo. This is real. So I need you to be absolutely certain. This could just look like a detonator you designed, and if this isn't done right, I'll be dead, you understand?"
There was a pause.
"Beemo? Time is kind of a factor here."
"It's red and yellow. I know this setup really well, and I'm certain."
"You're certain? Really, really certain?"
"Finn, I swear on your soul."
That was the lowest, most unjustified blow he'd taken in a long time. But this was a mission, he would just have to trust the support. With cutters ready in his hand, he took the red and yellow wires, and snipped them both at the same time.
The detonator rig wasn't a computer, it had no lights or screens. And so there was no way to tell if it was disarmed. It could explode in his face. He would yet still have to trust it was disarmed.
Finn Werecanine shifted to turn around, and then climbed out of the inspection hatch. It was inside a walk-in closet. He climbed out of the hatch and slowly shut it behind him.
He crossed the walk-in, and reached the door. It opened inward, which he was glad for, as he could slide it open a lot more discreetly.
He checked the corners in the corridor outside the walk-in. The corridor was deserted. The man on the plane said there were at least ten hostiles counting the ringleader. He'd dispatched three, the rest might all be with the hostages. There were four main columns in the building, presupposing four bombs. Guarding them all would mean pulling at least four guys away from the main group, leaving only three to guard the hostages. Which they weren't doing, as the bomb he disarmed had nobody guarding it. They were probably counting on guarding entry points into the building, with the guys on the roof. The one coming up the steps was moving to reinforce them.
Finn exited the walk-in, going right, away from the center of the building, where the lobby, hostages, and the bulk of the enemy were.
He reached a three-way going left and right in ninety degree turns. He put his back up to the wall, and turned his head over to check the hall.
Somebody was looking straight at him.
He immediately withdrew his head, and heard hard footsteps coming his way.
As the footsteps became closer, he remained calm, listening closely, objectively, to the footsteps. Then he stuck his pressure pistol around the corner, and blindfired.
He heard the assailant fall on the floor, his assault gun clattering a bit. And the halls became quiet again.
Finn rounded the corner, passing the now incapacitated enemy as he advanced along the hall. His tranquilizer darts were extremely potent, with an almost instantaneous effect. He preferred not to kill unless it was really necessary, and was glad to have a gun that shot the darts semi-automatic.
"Progress report."
Finn pressed his earwig. "One bomb disarmed, three to go. Four bogeys neutralized, I remain undetected, over."
"Four minutes remaining before we start the raid, understood?"
He had nothing to say to that, he reached the next walk-in with an inspection hatch.
"Answer me, Finn, are you there?"
He pressed talk as he opened the hatch with his other hand. "I thought you were still talking, you're supposed to end messages with 'over.' Over."
His tone became harder, "I've already begun to draft my report of your performance-"
"And please keep the topic on things relevant to the mission at hand. Over." He got the last screw out of the covering. The innards were almost identical to the last one.
"My report is going to say that the agent was rude and uncooperative-"
Having already snipped the red and yellow wires, he stuck his tweezers into his ear and took out the tiny bud talking to his drum. He placed it in a front pocket of his ops suit.
Finn exited the walk-in, and continued his circle around the outer floor.
Heading to the front half of the building, he passed by a hallway that led straight into the lobby. Ducking the corner showed that nobody was looking his general direction, and so he silently passed by the lobby's line of sight under cover of darkness from the building not having power.
"You better split, buddy. It's about to get all cray-cray in here." Said a voice in the lobby.
Finn stopped around the corner of the next hall, and listened.
"Look, if you give yourself up, I'll put in a word for you or something. You'll be under our protection." The voice was Jake's. "It's your best shot. They're not gonna be too nice to someone who threatened to set off a bomb in New Florence."
"They're not real bombs." Said the other voice. "They're all full of cookie dough."
That helped explain why they smelled like cookies. He'd once smelled a real plastic explosive that smelled like almond, so he wasn't too keen on a different kind smelling like cookies. Finn had to report this, they could go ahead with the seizure of the building. He dug around in his pocket for the tiny ear bud.
Entire minutes passed.
He finally got a grip on it with his fingers and put it back in his ear. "Control," he whispered with his finger on top of the skin just outside of his ear hole. "The bombs are all fake. You can begin your assault."
"Finn? Jake is already escorting their ringleader outside to a negotiated escape car."
What! He thought to himself, turning his head to the lobby. There were still armed hostiles there. As well as hostages who were bound, and lined up on their knees along the walls. But no sign of his brother or Cookie. It had been minutes between eavesdropping on them and getting his earwig back in. It occurred to him that a lot could happen in a few minutes.
He drew his tranquilizer pistol, and took out its dart clip, replacing it with a fresh one. Each clip had ten darts, and its pressure came from a C02 canister that lasted at least twenty clips.
Ten darts would be more than enough to neutralize all the hostiles in the lobby, he thought as he rounded the corner, hugging the left wall to allow only half the room ingress to his position.
Somebody entered the right side of his vision. It was a Banana Corps man with an assault rifle. He turned and saw an entire squad enter the lobby through the same corridor as he. They passed him by, as unlike he, they were moving in fast and hard.
The entire lobby erupted with gunfire. More squads of banana guards coming in through other entry points.
It was over in seconds. As Finn rushed into the lobby, he saw all the hostiles had been gunned down. Shot with real bullets and killed.
Finn remained standing in the lobby, registering what was happening as the banana guards took control of the building. All the remaining hostiles were dead, the bombs were fake, and the situation resolved.
He walked in a straight beeline to the guard who looked to be in charge as he removed his hat and pulled his goggles over his forehead. Without speaking, he tapped the shoulder of the one in charge.
He turned to look at him.
Finn spoke before he could ask what he wanted. "There's one incapacitated in the south corridors, one in the stairwell, and two on the roof. They're still alive, you can arrest them." He moved away, not wanting to hear his reply.
As Finn walked away, he spotted something that caught his attention. There was a downward stairwell in the middle of the lobby floor going up to the rear wall. The floor looked to have slid open to uncover it. The existence of this stairwell surprised him.
It was not in the building's blueprints.
It was surrounded by banana guards, who were guarding it off. And so he headed out the front door of the building. He came out, and saw the escape car, which Jake had taken the terrorist ringleader into, heading down the street from being right in front of the building. In about a minute, the car would brake in place and lock down its doors, and those inside would be as good as captured.
He decided to follow the trap car, and make sure at least that would go smoothly. "Make sure they don't end up killing this one at least." He said to himself, his mood sour. He ran along the street after it as it sped away.
Then the car veered right on the next intersection.
That was strange, Finn thought. If Jake was driving in the guise of somebody helping the ringleader, he ought to follow protocol and keep heading straight. He followed them around the corner, sprinting along the cobblestone street of New Florence.
The car stopped dead further along the road. He heard the Banana Guard cars coming up from behind him.
Then the driver's door of the car opened. This surprised Finn, as Jake was supposed to remain in the car until it was apprehended. Jake stepped out of the car, and he was carrying someone in his arms.
A young girl, with bold orange hair. She was unconscious, wearing a plain, grey tunic and trousers, with a belt that was basically a thin rope. The outfit wouldn't be out of place in a monastery or abbey.
Jake looked his way for only a passing glance before fleeing the other direction with the girl in his arms.
Finn gave chase, he was far away, and it was likely the Banana guard would catch up to Jake first in their cars. This was a scary prospect if Jake ended up attacking them.
Then another car came in from an off street, stopping just ahead of Jake. It was clean white, unmarked with 100% tinted windows. The back door flipped open, and Jake quickly got inside with the unconscious girl as the car took off.
Finn drew his pistol; the one that used real bullets. He continued to run after the unmarked car. It didn't matter if Jake was his brother, or that he might have a reason for whatever he was doing. His mission was still on.
The Guard cars passed Finn by, on the cobblestone streets of New Florence.
Finn stopped, and aimed his gun. He took seconds, agonizingly long seconds as the white car shrank in the distance.
He took the shot.
The car's back wheel flattened instantly, then it quickly ground off its metal base. The car lost control, then it corrected itself. It reached a bridge heading off of Manhattan, A man whom Finn recognized as Scorcher was atop the car, having gotten up through the sunroof. As the car passed onto the bridge, he whipped a ball of fire onto the road.
And a giant wall of fire erupted, gating off the bridge.
The Guard cars slammed on their brakes, some of them sidewinding. Even a small child would know that driving a car over that strong of fire might ignite the gas tank, and cause the car to explode into flame.
The wall of flame blocking off the bridge kept on burning. It must have been some kind of napalm mixture. Finn stared after, not seeing, but still watching his target escape.
"Finn, give me a sit-rep." The voice from his earwig was a different person; a man from the P.S.S. whom Finn knew.
He pressed down to talk. "I shot one of their tires, you might still be able to cut them off if you hurry."
"They'll try. Now, did you see your brother take anything out of the Tendime building?"
"Yeah, a girl with vibrant, glowing orange hair."
"I see..." There was a pause.
"Was she the terrorist ringleader?"
"No, Princess Cookie was killed in the raid."
"Then who is she?" He had to know who his brother would disobey the agency to extract.
"This might sound strange, Finn, but I'm not allowed to answer that question."
"I see," he had a lot of questions, but knew better than to press the matter. "What are my orders?"
"Return to headquarters for debriefing. The Guard will pursue the suspects. The P.S.S. is done tonight."
"Roger that." Finn let off pressing his earwig. He felt bombarded with questions, intensified by his agitation by what the Guard did in the Tendime building. It was well before the time limit given to him to disarm the bombs, and they made their move immediately after he reported the bombs were fake, meaning they must have followed him in.
It annoyed the poo out of him, the only hostiles whose lives were spared were those he tranquilized. He was authorized to kill them, but he had it in his power to complete his mission without killing them. At least it wasn't the P.S.S., the agency he worked for that was going on shooting sprees. He would kill a hundred would-be murderers if it were the only way to save a single innocent life from becoming their victim. But it was his nature to value human life in every way possible. He wished nobody had to die.
"Dammit... just dammit." he muttered as he turned around, and walked the lit nighttime streets of New Florence.