"We Octarians dwell in a world deep underground... ...connected by a network..."
—Sunken Scrolls 1:2 (1.2)
Monday, 10:00 p.m.
The Reef
Streetlights, neon signs, and windows glowed in the distance, but the corner of 17th and 214th was completely dark. There were no lights from any direction for at least three blocks. Cole stood under the awning of a closed Mel's Shells and Bells, shielding himself from the light rain. All around him were cranes, rubble, and scaffolding. His boots were caked with mud, and wherever the ground lacked pavement there was soupy black dirt.
The Reef was normally a popular shopping district. Recently discovered safety code violations, however, had forced several building complexes to temporarily close and renovate. Since the affected stores had moved all of their goods out, nobody hired nighttime security to watch over the construction site. The Octarians, of course, were more interested in energy than merchandise. Because the Reef didn't exactly need power right now, several Zapfish remained completely unguarded inside the shops, forgotten. The Octoling cell must have thought this a perfect opportunity to steal them.
Cole clutched the back handle of his gun. His other hand repeatedly flicked the switch between semi and fully automatic. Marie confirmed getting into position almost half an hour ago, and Cole was waiting for her signal. His mind wandered back home to thoughts of his brothers, but he pulled it back to the present. Then his mind began to worry about botching tonight's mission. What if both he and Marie missed, and their targets got away? Nat was still out there, too. Was she okay?
Cole took a deep breath and took his finger off the switch. His attention needed to be right here, right now. Nothing else mattered. Wait for the signal. Shoot anyone still standing.
"Spotted," came Marie through his earpiece.
Finally. He turned toward 214th Avenue, gun at the ready. If the thieves didn't run straight into Marie's fire, then they'd run into him. And he had a pretty scary weapon.
"Three total. Tagging the one in the back," said Marie.
Cole felt his vision sharpen, and his mind collected itself. Make this fast, he said in his head. He heard sloshing footsteps coming his way, close enough to make out against the pattering rain. He approached the street corner slowly.
"One down."
A shout. Someone muttered something.
"Two down."
The footsteps got louder and faster—too close for comfort. Cole turned the corner and opened fire. Just five feet away from him, an Octoling fell to her knees and collapsed, having taken several rounds to the chest. A pair of goggles covered her eyes, but her face visibly contorted with pain.
Cole grinned with delight. He used to believe that fully automatic fire was a wild and uncontrollable thing, but in reality, it was impossibly smooth. Yesterday was the first time he had ever fired a fully automatic gun, and it was still just as satisfying today. The feeling of sheer power was unparalleled. No wonder this stuff was illegal.
Behind the Octoling he had shot, another figure lay slumped on the ground. Cole supposed that she was Marie's first target, knocked out from the serum. But something didn't add up.
Where was the third Octoling?
"She's running down 16th, follow her!" Marie radioed in.
Cole looked down at the dying Octoling in front of him. A tranquilizer dart stuck out of her shoulder.
Oops.
He stepped around her body and broke into a run.
"She went into the bike park, Agent 4!"
"Yeah, I'm going after her," Cole responded. He turned another corner and went into a large gymnasium with a big sign labeled "Humpback Pump Track - Indoor Bike Park." He caught but a glimpse of the fleeing Octoling as she limped into the darkness. Cole had apparently hit her with a stray bullet during his initial barrage, because she left a trail of magenta on the floor that wound deeper into the gymnasium.
He followed her in. It was still too dark to see much of anything, and Cole silently cursed himself for not bringing a flashlight. No matter, he thought. His prey had no places to hide. The gentle slopes and hills of a wide-open pump track could not conceal a whole Octoling for long.
She must have thought the same thing, because two flashes of light from the other side of the track greeted him. The first shot glanced off the concrete by Cole's feet, and the second missed completely, whizzing above his head. Handgun rounds, from the sounds of it. He crouched down in reaction, firing off two short bursts toward where he saw the muzzle flash and made his way around.
She had made no other moves by the time Cole reached her. He found her lying down, face up, bleeding from both legs. The Octoling gave no signs that she was aware of his presence, but Cole could hear her ragged breath.
"She's down but still alive," Cole whispered. "What do I do?"
"Stick her with Low Tide and carry her out," Marie replied through his earpiece.
He reached for his belt and pulled out a tranquilizer dart just as he saw the Octoling grab something from her own pocket. She weakly pulled the metal pin off of a small, round object and said something that he didn't understand. Then, she dropped the object at his feet.
Cole had seen enough movies to know where this was going. He ran all the way outside when he finally heard a deafening bang, and he leaped to the rain-soaked ground. But no shockwave of force swept over him, and no pillars of fire consumed the building. No shrapnel hit him in the back. In fact, after he got up and wiped the mud off of his face, Cole found Humpback Pump Track looking exactly the same as before, at least from the outside.
The thought of going back in to retrieve the Octoling, however, chilled him.
"Agent 4? What happened?"
Did he have to go pick up whatever was left of her? How were they supposed to leave no traces behind now?
"Agent 4, come in. Are you okay down there?"
Cole clicked his earpiece off and then on again. "Yeah," he answered.
"I only see you. Where is she?"
"The Octoling blew herself up."
"What?"
"What do I do?"
"Get back to 214th Avenue and load the two bodies into the truck. I'll meet you two on 212th."
"W-what about the one in the bike park?"
"Don't. We don't have the time. We need to get out of here."
Cole jogged through the wet alleyway back to the street, but he couldn't take his mind off that Octoling. She reminded him of Cece, with her puffy red hair. He couldn't ever imagine preferring suicide to getting caught, but then again, he wasn't Octarian. He struggled to rationalize her split-second decision making, the extreme measures she had taken to prevent capture.
Nat was also one for extremes. While she would never blow herself up, she often saw things in terms of black and white. One time, she managed to set a new personal record during a meet but came in third. It might as well have been a last-place finish, based on how hard she was on herself.
Just then, Sheldon's truck pulled up, and the little horseshoe crab hopped out of the cab. Cole silently helped him lift the Octolings into the back. With that done, Cole took the passenger seat and Sheldon drove down two blocks to pick up Marie. She climbed into the cargo area with the Octolings, and they were off.
"Good work, Agent 4," she said through his earpiece. "The Zapfish are safe, and nobody saw us. Don't worry about the third one, we'll just go with the flow from here."
But he did worry. The Octoling's conviction was so strong that she chose to die for her cause instead of facing capture. What did she think the opposition would do to her? That both frightened and disgusted Cole.
Somebody would find her body in the next few hours and see what happened. And then the whole city would know. Cole felt like he had failed, despite Marie's proclamation of success. He said nothing on their way out of Inkopolis, and thankfully, neither did anyone else.
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