By the way, I do not own Alias and anything associated with it except Season 1 box set and a few Jen Garner pinups on my wall. This chapter starts out a little slow but it will get better, trust me. Thanx for the reviews. Hope you like it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Are you okay?" Vaughn kissed Sydney.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She rubbed her bruised arm, "So, what's the plan?"
"I don't have one."
You don't have one?"
"No, am I supposed to?"
"Yeah, how else are we supposed to get out of here?"
He shrugged.
"So why are we going to the top floor?"
"I didn't press it."
"Well, I didn't."
"Let's look around a little bit. We may find something. Then, we'll create a plan."
There was an awkward silence.
Vaughn broke the silence. "Those bullets aren't K-Directorate ammo."
He was staring at a bullet lodged in the wall.
"You're right! Wait, that means she's working for someone else."
"Exactly." He handed her a gun. "You might need this."
"Really, I hadn't noticed." She shoved it into her leg holster.
At that moment, the door to the elevator slid open to reveal a very high tech laboratory.
Vaughn gave a low whistle. "Wow. That's some high tech stuff. Obviously not cheap."
Sydney started hacking into the computers. "It's encrypted. Tell-tale sign that it's illegal."
She scanned the papers scattered on the desk. One caught her eye.
"Prototype 13101 to be transferred tomorrow at Pier 202. High security necessary. Next instructions to be sent out on Monday. Signed: Snake."
"What's prototype 13101?" Vaughn asked, rummaging through the cabinets.
"Who's Snake?"
She turned her attention to the computer. "I've got the files decrypted. Now, let's see about Project 13101."
She typed something in. "Here we go. "Project 13101 is a genetically engineered human who has been altered in every aspect to improve abilities in one day that would take normal people a year. It will only take orders from its maker, a man named Snake."
Vaughn pulled a case out of the cabinet and opened it.
"They're building a super villain?"
"Hmmm… Wonders what his powers will be. Throwing grenades and thermo-nuclear warheads, maybe." He held up the case, which was full of grenades.
"What else is in there?" Syd asked him.
"What isn't?" he rummaged further back in the cabinet, clipping various weapons to his belt. "Now this interesting."
He pulled a large chrome briefcase tied with rope, nylon, and wires out of the cabinet and lugged it over to the table.
"A bomb?" Sydney inquired.
""No. The wires aren't connected to the case, they're just being used to tie it up."
"See if you can open it. I'll finish downloading the files."
He nodded and grabbed the largest knife he could find. He hacked away at the binds for a few minutes until they broke off and he opened it.
Sydney had just finished downloading the files and came over to the desk. "What is it?"
"It's a vial."
"Yes I can see that, but what's in the vial."
"Who knows? Let's get it back to HQ. It must be of some importance."
Vaughn looked over the building layout. "There's a service staircase on the west side."
"Let's go."
She opened the door and started through, but stopped in her tracks.
"Syd. What's wrong?"
"I think you need to see this!"
He rushed into the next room. It was a small, bland room, only furnished with two metal tables, and several wall monitors. They displayed information on the two bodies that lay on the tables. Vaughn and Sydney couldn't understand the techno-jargon.
"Project 13101?" Vaughn wondered aloud.
"Most likely."
"Well, there's no way we can get them out of here. We'll have to do it tonight at the pier."
"I agree."
"You do? Seriously?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You never agree with me."
"Yes I do."
"No yo-"
"Yes I do!" she cut him off mid sentence.
"Fine, whatever. Let's get outta' here"
"Good idea."
They started for the door, but were interrupted by the sudden barrage of gunfire. Vaughn tackled Sydney to the floor behind the tables, shielding her from the gunfire. Several monitors exploded in a shower of bright sparks, raining down on Vaughn's back.
"Kill them!"
Sydney suddenly realized who it was. Sark! Anna was working with Sark!
Vaughn rolled off of her, snatching a gun from his belt. He opened fire on a lone gunman standing in the doorway. The man's bullet ridden body collapsed to the ground, dead.
Sydney pulled a knife from her pocket, lunging at another gunman's legs. She tackled him, holding the knife to his throat. Syd knew it was wrong, but she slit his throat. None of Sark's men deserved to be alive.
Meanwhile, Vaughn was crouched in the doorway, skillfully picking off gunman one by one as they stormed the room. He counted three dead men.
"Sydney get out of here!" he yelled as he chucked a grenade at five men who had come in from another entrance. It exploding with maximum damage, ripping through the room and tearing everything apart. He had to dodge the heat wave that came as a result of the blast.
Sydney ripped the gun Vaughn had given her from her leg holster and fired a few shots at one of Sark's men. It hit his arm and he fell to the ground in pain.
She could hear Sark's shouts getting closer.
Bullets nicked the bulletproof glass near her head, forcing her onto the ground. She crawled, army style, across the room, trying to reach the stairs.
Vaughn quietly stepped into the next room, trying not to attract any attention. To his surprise, a rough hand clamped over his mouth.
"Move and I'll blow your head off."
Vaughn felt a gun on his head.
"Now put your hands behind your head, slowly."
As Vaughn pulled his hands behind his head, he thrust them upwards, grabbing the gun and twisting it from the man's grasp. The man yelped in pain and Vaughn flipped him over his shoulder.
Sydney clambered down the steps, looking over her shoulders for Vaughn. As she reached the landing, there was still no sign of him.
"Come on, Vaughn." She started down to the next floor.
Shouts came from below.
She looked for another way out. There was none…
Two men ran into the room, guns pointed at Vaughn. "Get down on the ground!"
Vaughn crouched and slipped a grenade from his belt. He tossed it over the men's heads and it exploded, sending them flying. Vaughn launched himself through the air, landing next to one of the gunman.
"Nice meeting you."
He sent a kick into the man's skull.
Sydney glanced over the railing. She saw two men coming up the stairs, guns in hand. Taking a deep breath, she leapt down to the next level.
"Hello."
She kicked one of the men in the stomach, punching the other in the face. Her elbow hit one of the men's faces, and her foot went into the other's groin. He cried out in pain as she flipped over his back, using him as a shield from bullets. The man fell to the ground, dead, and Syd blocked the other's punch.
But she was caught off guard by a swift kick to leg. She fell forwards, grabbing onto the man's shirt and knocked him backward, unsheathing a knife from her belt. At that moment, she felt instant pain in the back of her head and she released her grip on knife.
"Goodbye." The man said in a heavy Russian accent and lifted the knife for the kill.
Sydney shut her eyes and prayed for a miracle. Her miracle came. She heard a loud thump and then a smack, plop, and clatter. Opening her eyes, she saw Vaughn standing over her.
"My guardian angel." She whispered softly into his ear.
He said nothing and pulled her down the stairs.
"We don't have much time," he finally said to her as they reached the next floor. "We got too careless."
As they took two more steps, they heard shouting again. It was coming from above and below.
"This way," Syd raced for the doorway to the sixth floor, kicking it open and letting Vaughn through.
On the sixth floor, there was mass chaos. People had heard the explosions, and the gunfire, and the shouts and were panicked.
A lady in an evening gown ran by shouting, "THE ALIENS ARE TAKING OVER!"
Another man, presumably a businessman, asked this, "Who's we all fighting this war with?"
Wasting no time, Vaughn and Sydney pushed their way through the crowd, hoping to find a way out. All they found was trouble. '
As they entered the small room at the end of the hallway, two terrified people standing over a ticking bomb.
0:5:23:05…
A little over five minutes
"Get everyone off the floor. Actually get them out of the casino!" Sydney told them and they rushed out of the room all too willingly.
"Do you know how to dismantle a bomb?" Vaughn asked her, examining it.
"No, you?
He shook his head.
Sydney suddenly had an epiphany. "I'll try to call Marshall."
She took a transceiver from her back pocket. "Marshall, Marshall. Do you copy? This is Alpha. I repeat, this is Alpha. Marshall, are you there?"
There was no reply.
"They must have jammed our frequency." Vaughn told her.
"Then there's no way to disarm this thing."
"So what are we going to do?"
"I have an idea, but you're not going to like it."
0:2:35:12…
Two minutes…
"Shoot."
"We're going to have to jump."
"You're right, I don't like it. But it doesn't look like we have much choice."
She took her watch off and pressed a button on the side of it. A laser slowly started to cut through the glass.
0:1:20:12…
Beads of perspiration dripped down her face. She was almost done.
0:0:57:43…
A glass pane fell out of the building, landing on the sidewalk a few seconds later, shattering into a billion pieces.
"Ready?"
"Yeah."
Hand in hand, Sydney and Vaughn jumped out of the sixth floor window of the Springs Casino in Las Vegas, just as the bomb exploding, tearing chunks of the wall off the casino.
The ground came at them faster than Sherman went through Atlanta. They landed, hard, and tumbled onto the ground, tearing up their skin. Luckily, neither was seriously injured.
They stole a car from a local and drove it to the airport, where they flew back to Los Angeles.