"Up ahead!" Four smiled with relief, "look!"
Nine was sweating from head to toe. Not only because it was physically toiling to hoist John along at a run, but because Four was radiating heat.
Nine didn't know if that was a way for his body to recover or if it was a bad side effect from the legacy draining, but Four was burning up. So, Nine was eager to hear some good news if it meant that they get out of this damn place and to a doctor, then that sounded like a good plan.
Nine looked up.
And was disappointed.
"What?" It was a door at the end of the hall with a label called "utility room", "That doesn't help us!"
"Yes, it does, Nine! Not only is it a safe place for us to catch our breath for a minute, but there could be the base blueprints in there. We can find the computer room and destroy the evidence."
He had a point. Nine lumbered along at a faster pace, Four trying to help as much as he could. They quickly entered and slammed the door shut. John pulled his arm away and tumbled to a nearby chair. A panting Nine pressed his back against the door, just in case.
"That voice," Nine breathed heavily.
"I know," John nodded grimly, "Dr. Lane."
"He's coming after us, Four, we can't stay for long. He had a whole army of Mogs with him."
"I know, Nine," Four closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he looked around. It was a dingy little room with a desk in the corner and an old desktop computer. John hobbled over to it, wincing. He sat before it, slowly clicking the keys to bring it to life. Nine made sure he was still by the door, keeping an ear out for incoming Mogs.
"Here," Four nodded, "I think the blueprints to the base are here."
"Well hurry up and get them, cause we've got to go."
John clicked a few more files and pulled up a floorplan of the base.
"You got it?" Nine asked.
He squinted, eyes narrowed in concentration as he observed the map, "Yes! I've got it. We're not far!" his eyes were bright, "we can destroy it and finally get out of here."
"You see an exit route on there?"
Four looked back with a nod, "There's a vent in the computer room that leads to the overall ventilation system. We can crawl through there to the East exit and escape from there."
"Got it," Nine nodded, "you ready?"
"Yeah," Four stood up firmly, "let's go."
0o0o0o0o
Sarah and Agent Paulson were in the Computer Room. It was filled with monitors, harddrives, electronic files, disks, and more. The electronics cast a pale blue glow over them, making Sarah feel even more eerie. Paulson was clacking away at the master computer.
Her eyes widened, "Wow...there's everything on here."
"What do you mean?" Sarah asked, still hearing the distant alarms of the base outside their concealed door.
"Arrival files, future plans, weapon blueprints - everything," Paulson was having trouble grasping it all, "and a lot the FBI is being kept in the dark about."
"Well, what did you think?" Sarah scoffed, "That the Mogs were going to be open about their plans? They'll tear Earth apart like they did Lorien and a hundred others."
Paulson didn't respond. Sarah turned away. She opened her mouth to speak but a cruel voice shouting from the hallway stopped her.
Agent Paulson and Sarah froze, their eyes shooting to the doorway as they heard the source of the voice just outside the computer room.
"Don't move," Paulson whispered. Sarah was wise to follow.
The voice was none other than Dr. Lane. There was a commotion outside, like a dozen soldiers were marching down the hall. And that they were. A troop of fully armed Mogs were hunting down the rogue Nine and Four, Dr. Lane's order urging them on.
"Find the assets! Bring them to me alive! I need them alive, they will pay for what they've done!"
"Nine and Four," Sarah whispered to herself.
"They're closer than we thought."
"We gotta go!" Sarah bolted for the door, but Paulson held her back.
"Are you crazy!?" the agent scolded, "you hear that outside? They outnumber us twenty to two! We'll be killed!"
"But Four and Nine-"
"-are still alive. We can take them all out in here by completely destroying their server."
Sarah's eyes narrowed suspiciously," This isn't about that….you want the data for yourself."
"What?" the agent scoffed.
"You said so yourself that there's data there that even the FBI don't have. This isn't about Nine and Four, you're planning on extracting the Mog files for information on the Garde. Six was right, we never should've trusted you!"
"No!" Agent Paulson defended herself, "Sarah, I'm risking my job and life being here! It's because the FBI want to make ammends-"
Sarah's eyes were ablaze, "I don't buy it!"
"Sarah, please, listen to me-"
Just then, the door burst open.
The arguing Sarah and Paulson had given their location away from their shouting. Three Mogs trailing behind from the patrol that passed stormed in. They held their guns before them, pointed straight at the two humans.
"Intruders!" the center one yelled.
"The computer mainframe has been breached!" one shouted, "I repeat, the computer mainframe-"
CRACK!
The Mog dropped to the floor. Behind him materialized Number Nine.
Sarah's eyes widened in shock.
The two remaining aliens turned around and were met with hard punches from the strong Loric teen. They dropped in seconds.
"Nine!" Sarah blurted out, "How did you-"
"No time," he panted, "Inside!"
Sarah and Agent Paulson backed away from the door as Nine looked back up and down the hallway, making sure it was clear. When he was sure they were safe for now, he ran inside.
Sarah looked around, "Wait, where's-"
A body slipped through the door just as Nine closed it. Number Four stumbled to the ground, his chest heaving with heavy breaths. Nine was also breathing hard. From all the running and fighting the two had to do, they were beat. Nine slid to the floor next to John, pressing his back against the door.
"John!" what should have been relief in seeing him turned to concern at their condition. She kneeled by him, grasping his face in her hands.
"Sarah," he smiled weakly, eyes slightly glazed, "you're okay…"
"But you're not," her tone was filled with worry.
An equally shocked Paulson kneeled by the two Loric teens. They were grimy, covered in sweat, blood, ash, burn marks, and bruises.
"What happened?" the agent asked warily.
"No time," Nine shook his head, "explain later. We got a psycho doctor on our tail."
"Is that the voice we heard?" she asked.
Four nodded, "And he's got about two dozen fully armed Mogs with him."
"What do we do?" Sarah asked.
John looked straight at the computer, "We've got to destroy everything in here. They extracted crucial data during experimentation, they have copies of my DNA."
Experimentation. That word made Sarah flinch.
"Okay," Paulson nodded, much to their surprise. They would've thought she would protest and insist on salvaging it. There was crucial information on there, as Four said, data that could seriously assist the FBI if need be, "do what you have to do."
John nodded. He staggered to his feet and rushed to the computer, Sarah right by him. Agent Paulson and Nine guarded the door, getting ready to bust out.
"Do you have a plan?" the FBI agent asked, "that Doctor you talked about seems pretty hellbent to find you both."
Nine shuddered at the thought then nodded, "We have a plan. After we destroy everything here, we found a path through the ventilation system to the outside."
"The others should be waiting."
"Others?"
"Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Sam. They're in one of our choppers about a half a mile away."
Nine nodded, relieved, "Let's make it out of here first."
Four was typing away at lightning speed on the computer. The desktop was connected with a hundred wires, each to some crucial Mogadorian data base that provided information to a majority of their operation.
"John, you said something about your DNA," Sarah gulped, "If the Mogs have that, then the whole Garde is compromised."
"I know," Four nodded grimly, "I've almost got it."
Sarah watched as he opened encrypted files, looking for the most recent ones. He saw one under the user of DR. NATHANIAL LANE. Four clicked it and looked under the EXPERIMENTATION folder.
A live feed began to play. Sarah's eyes widened as she saw video footage of Four and Nine strapped to tables like animals in some laboratory. An unfamiliar machines was hooked up to Four and he arched his back in pain. John quickly closed the tab. Sarah felt a choking feeling in her throat.
"Did you get it, Four?" Nine asked, urgency to his voiced. They were all itching to get out of there.
"Yeah," John nodded, "here we go."
He clicked a few more then reached a red file folder. In bold letters it read: CLASSIFIED.
Below it read
EXPERIMENT #1 RESULTS: ASSEST DNA - ORIGIN: LORIC - "NUMBER FOUR"
Below it was a series of code, John's genetic code.
Sarah observed it with wonder, but John was steely-faced. He erased the files completely, making sure every last bit of Dr. Lane's experimentation and information on the Garde was permanently terminated.
"We're good to go," Four nodded successfully, "they're gone."
"Now let's light this puppy up," Nine said, "Four?"
He stood. Sarah watched him to make sure he didn't fall. He seemed steady for now. Nine poked his head out the door. He looked from side to side, making sure there were no Mogs.
"Clear. Let's move!"
Nine exited first, followed by Paulson then Sarah. Sarah turned when she felt Four wasn't following.
"John?" she called.
"I'm right behind you," he smiled at her.
She nodded, brows furrowed, but stepped outside by Nine and Agent Paulson. She looked around, feeling vulnerable in the open. Though, having Nine beside her made her feel better. She was happy they were safe, they were gonna make it out.
"What are we waiting for?" Agent Paulson asked.
Suddenly, an orange light glittered from the computer room. Four came jogging out a second later. The orange light was a fire, one that was growing quickly. It burned at the electric wires, machinery, internet files, and computers. In seconds, the whole computer room was ablaze.
Nine nodded once, satisfied with their work.
"Let's go!" Four insisted, "Dr. Lane and his troop of Mogs are definitely gonna notice this."
"He's right, we need as much distance between us and them as possible. The pathway is here!"
Nine, Agent Paulson, Four, and Sarah, the most unlikely group, sprinted once more through the Mog base as the Computer Room with all the Loric information burned behind them.
The ventilation system the two had studied in the blueprints turned out to be a success. Four remembered the way better than Nine and led them through the base. They cut corners carefully, two by two, making sure all were accounted for.
"Okay, here it is," Four knealt by a steel grate in the wall, "let's hurry. Nine?"
Using his accentuated strength, Nine ripped the grate from its slot. Paulson admired his sheer, natural power. The others thought nothing of it.
Four entered first, their guide, ready to lead them to the outside. Sarah followed then Paulson then Nine. Nine was still wary of the FBI agent and preferred to keep her in his sights for the final leg of their ordeal.
John climbed through the vent and shimmied his way inside. The quarters were tight, but they had no better option. He moved forward for the rest to have enough room to enter. When he heard Nine refitting the metal frame to the slot, he continued on. They crawled through, slowly but surely, with Nine cursing the whole way.
Left. Sharp right. Right. Left.
He kept imagining the blueprints in his brain. That was the only thing keeping his tired mind from shutting down. He craved nothing more than sleep at the moment, a soft bed and complete oblivious. Yet, he wasn't there yet. He needed to continue on for all of their sakes.
It took a few minutes for their plan to be revealed. The alarms suddenly shut off inside the base. Those alarms had been ringing for a while now, ever since Four and Nine had been reported as escaped assets. The Mogs immediately cutting them off was not a good sign. It meant they realized something was up, and John hoped to himself that they wouldn't be discovered.
That left a deafening silence between them all. None of them dared utter a word fearing the Mogs might hear it without the comfort of the alarms. Already, the vibrating metal as they crawled through the vents sounded like a cacophony.
"Keep going!" Nine whispered.
Reluctantly, Four kept moving. He put one hand in front of the other, making his way through the dank ventilation system. It was grimy and gross inside, the circuit having been around for decades.
SHLINK!
A long blade sliced through the metal below them. The blade cut a gash through Sarah's arm. She pulled back, covering a hand over her mouth as she tried to stay silent. They all froze, John's heart thudding in his chest. The cut on Sarah's wrist looked superficial, not too deep, but blood started to drip from the wound. She ignored it.
The blade slowly pulled out of the metal, leaving a small hole.
Nine frantically motioned for them to keep moving, but Four knew the moment they did they'd be discovered. They had to wait it out, hoping the Mogs wouldn't hear.
"We've found the assets!"
"Go, go, go!" Agent Paulson yelled. The four of them clambered through the vents, the commotion below them getting louder and louder. The Mogs were on their tails, weaponizing and preparing to bring down the whole thing.
"Four!" Nine shouted, "Are we almost out!?"
"Just a little more!"
"We don't have time!" Sarah said, panicked, "We've got to do something!"
John felt his fists begin to heat up as adrenaline pumped through him. A part of his body protested in pain, yearning for him not to activate his legacies once again, but he pushed through.
"I've got them!" John shouted, "you guys keep moving!"
"What? No!" Sarah argued.
"Which way?" Agent Paulson asked with wide eyes.
"Two lefts, go down the tunnel, quick right and you'll find another grate. That'll lead you out."
"We're not leaving you alone!" Sarah shooked her head.
"He's not alone," Nine said firmly, "we've got this. You go and get that chopper ready, we'll be out soon."
There was no time for goodbyes. Sarah was ushered forward by Agent Paulson. She just gave John a longing look as he looked at her yearningly. He wanted nothing more than to have her in his arms, but this was the safest option for them all.
The shouting of the Mogs below grew louder still. Dr. Lane's voice started to become clear, he was ready for them.
"One last time," Nine shook his head, "let's get 'em."
Leave me a fav/follow/review!