Thirty-two Kilometres North of Alert, Canada
Tuesday, July 11th
Tango Hotel One
22:55 GMT-5 (03:55 GMT July 12th)
Mindy was more than a little worried when the girls became overdue.
"Admit it, you care about Abigail."
"Bite me, 'Lectra!" Mindy growled back over the radio to where the youngster was patrolling a few yards from the vehicle.
"She has a point."
"Yes, Jamie, she does," Mindy grinned as she turned to look into the backseat. "Yes, I care about your girlfriend."
"She..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Electra laughed before she noticed movement a short distance away. "Dumb and Dumber are back."
Mindy grinned with relief as she saw the two youngsters clamber over the nearest hummock of snow and join up with Electra.
A few minutes later, Stephanie heaved open the front left door of the Toyota Hilux truck. She climbed aboard, slamming the door shut even as Electra and Abigail did the same as they clambered in beside Jamie. Instantly, Stephanie pulled off her mittens and gloves before the girl held her bare hands against the dashboard vents, absorbing the warmth.
"Bit nippy out there?" the nervy eleven-year-old, Electra Haig chuckled as she pulled off her goggles and headgear, stowing her assault rifle in a slot attached to the righthand rear door.
"Just a little," Stephanie commented as she looked up at her mother in the driver's seat to her right. "There's a small facility, about three hundred yards past that hummock."
"Maybe eighteen people," Abigail added.
"It's about to become deserted," Mindy mused darkly as she stomped on the clutch and engaged first gear.
Stephanie grinned as she triggered the binoculars to upload the captured images to the Fusion cloud.
Four kilometres to the west...
Tango Hotel Six
(Geek Central)
23:18 GMT-5 (04:18 GMT July 12th)
Cassie had coined the vehicle's unofficial name a day or so earlier.
Abby loved it! Indeed, all three uber-geeks were glued to their computer screens. Marty had the front right seat while Eric and Abby sat in the rear. One unintended bonus was that all the computer equipment added to the heat inside the vehicle as despite all the modifications the heaters were fairly standard.
"Receiving images!" Abby announced and Cassie watched as image after image flashed onto the seventeen-inch screen of Abby's Alienware laptop.
Cassie's mind processed what she saw, identifying access points, bottlenecks and anything which might be a hinderance to that night's assault.
'Night!' she thought to herself. 'What a fucking joke! It was broad fucking daylight!'
The only time it got dark was when a deadly stormfront passed over.
..._...
Not that the prevalent daylight would be allowed to hinder the mission.
Despite the illumination, normal day/night schedules were followed by all facilities purely for the sake of human sanity. Indeed, the wee hours were still the wee hours and the human body clock hated being up and about at that time. Human nature was still human nature – even in the Arctic! It would have to be a lightning strike to decimate the defenders and capture any intelligence data which might identify the exact location for the Axis command centre before said data could be destroyed by said defenders. It was their only lead to the exact whereabouts of their primary target. Killing off some Axis goons was simply a bonus as everybody wanted some form of payback.
The facility was located in the lee of a giant ice ridge which acted as a windbreak but it also shielded the facility from sound in that direction. However, those who had setup the security for the facility had considered that and placed guards on said giant ice ridge to listen out for anything heading in their general direction. The photos taken by Stephanie and the long-suffering Abigail had identified the men on guard duty, and the exact locations of the guard posts had been narrowed done by Cassie's 'Geek Central'.
Therefore, at two minutes after midnight, four men died.
One kilometre to the north...
Wednesday, July 12th
Tango Hotel Seven
Leon, Intrepid & Songbird
00:02 GMT-5 (05:02 GMT July 12th)
The .338-calibre Lapua Magnum unerringly cut through the air on its ballistic flight path before it plunged deep into its unsuspecting target.
"Target!" Songbird announced as the fourth man's brains were splattered across the pristine polar ice and he fell a dozen yards from his closest headless colleague.
All four men had died before any of them had even realised that something was wrong; such was the power of the sniper. Leon carefully switched out her magazine for a full one and the veteran prepared to provide covering fire as required to her colleagues who were, even then, approaching the ice ridge at speed aboard the two Vikings.
Songbird continued to seek out targets with her thermal scope while a short distance away, Intrepid kept watch for anyone approaching their position.
Victor Two One
Astute, Kick-Ass, Hit Girl, Psyche, Rage, Fury, Ajax, Shadow, Foxtail, Trojan, Wildcat & Piranha
Under the command of Astute, the armoured vehicle raced across the icepack at thirty miles per hour.
Beside him in the front body, Kick-Ass was navigating for him while behind them both in the rear seats were Hit Girl and Shadow. The remainder occupied the eight inwards facing combat seating in the enclosed rear body. While it was warm inside the vehicle, it was anything but comfortable as they moved fast across the icepack. They were not alone.
Twenty yards to their left the second Viking roared in towards their target.
Victor Two Two
Surgeon, La Coccinelle, La Terreaur & Splinter
Surgeon was enjoying herself as she pushed the massive vehicle at speed across the icepack.
She loved to drive tracked vehicles and she had not done so in many years and not since her time in the military so she had jumped at the chance when Mindy had offered her the Viking. As the rear body was little more than a covered trailer, the only crew were the four of them in the front body of the tracked vehicle. Surgeon slowed as they approached the ice ridge and then La Coccinelle signalled for Splinter to get into position. The youth rapidly released his harness and he moved to open the top hatch, pushing it back onto its clips and releasing the cold Arctic air into the vehicle even as he hauled up a Maximi machine gun which clipped into the shielded gun mount fitted atop the front body. Four two-hundred round belts were passed up in their canvas pouches, the first of which he swiftly loaded into the 7.62-millimetre weapon. To his right he could see Trojan doing the same on the other Viking. Together, the two potent weapons could put down a hail of deadly bullets which would mercilessly cut down their enemy like wheat before a combine harvester.
However, the next person to die did not die by a round from either one of those weapons.
..._...
Surgeon grimaced as they came around the southern side of the ice ridge with the other Viking to her right.
It was unavoidable, really. He was unavoidable, really. The man just appeared in front of the racing Viking and even as the man raised a radio to his mouth, there was a thud. Nobody heard the man scream as he was knocked to the ground and then pulverised by the left front track and Splinter observed that the otherwise pristine ice had suddenly gained some colour.
"Roadkill!" the youth exclaimed.
"That'll leave a stain," Surgeon chuckled. "Does he need medical attention?"
"I think he needs a bucket and a mop," Splinter responded.
"Cool!" La Terreaur announced.
Surgeon put the dead man out of her mind – he was simply a casualty of battle, nothing more.
Victor Two One
Astute, Kick-Ass, Hit Girl, Psyche, Rage, Fury, Ajax, Shadow, Foxtail, Trojan, Wildcat & Piranha
Astute made directly for the closest structure which just happened to be the main power generators and vehicle garages.
The armoured front of the Viking impacted the snow-covered chain link fence, smashing it down and then the vehicle come under fire from a startled man in arctic warfare camouflage fatigues. The man had been too close to his own diesel generators to have heard the roaring of Victor Two Two's diesel. A short burst from Splinter's Maximi ensured that the man would never hear anything again - ever.
Deftly, the tracked vehicle swung into a position from where it could cover those who would assault the building while keeping his vehicle out of sight of the main buildings which were a little over a kilometre distant. The rear hatch of the rear body flew open as did the side hatches of the front body. Insulated bodies jumped out onto hard-packed snow and ice and they swiftly moved towards their assigned targets. Psyche, Rage, and Fury made for the vehicle garage where they found a locked door with a keypad located beside it. Due to their need for stealth, Rage simply banged on the aluminium door. Surprisingly, the door opened and a head appeared.
"You forgotten the fucking code again, Alan?"
"Not exactly," Rage growled as he shot the man in the head with his suppressed Glock 26.
The three vigilantes were through the door before the man's corpse had fallen to the ice.
..._...
A dozen yards away, Hit Girl came around the side of the power generator building only to find herself face to face with a giant bastard.
"Why do I always get these massive cunts!" she growled even as the man, his features masked by goggles and a hood advanced on her. "Oh well, the bigger they are the harder they fucking fall!"
Hit Girl hated fighting in the snow – she wore clothing which restricted her movements and heavy boots which prevented her from kicking her way out of trouble as per the norm. Instead, she was forced to duck and dive in an attempt to strike with a blade – mere punches were not good enough as the impact energy was mostly absorbed by the thick clothing everyone wore. Unfortunately, the giant cunt seemed to have read the same 'How To Fight In The Arctic' manual as she had which meant that no meaningful blows were exchanged as the giant cunt dodged most of the increasingly-enraged Hit Girl's attacks.
"I don't have time for fucking about!" she growled to her opponent.
"Got a date, hot stuff?" came the response in an American accent.
"In your fucking dreams!" Hit Girl retorted as she reached up over her left shoulder and she drew her twin Katana blades. "Now taste my steel, cunt!"
The man instantly stepped back, acutely wary of the dangerous weapons now on display.
..._...
Not too far away, Kick-Ass, Shadow, and Foxtail were racing through the generator complex.
Their mission was to take the control room and from there, they hoped to be able to hack into the enemy computer system with assistance from their uber geeks who were, at that moment, several kilometres away, safe on the icepack. Foxtail had the lead and she was moving fast, a suppressed MP5SD sub-machinegun to her right shoulder, her eyes searching out for movement as they followed the barrel of the weapon.
The building was large as it housed four gigantic diesel generators, a monstrous steam plant, and a smaller backup steam plant. The entire building was raised up above the ice on giant stilt-like legs to insulate the building and equipment from the frozen icepack as well as insulating the icepack from the superheated steam which was then piped about eight hundred metres to the main building through heavily-insulated pipes. The eight-hundred-metre gap was purely for safety reasons more than for practicality. While the idea of cutting off the power and the heat to the main building and the majority of the scientists on their icepack mission was appealing to some, it was self-defeating at that moment, but an event reserved for a later time.
While the vast majority of the younger members were liberally spreading pre-prepared packages of C4 explosive around the facility, Fusion's favourite kitty-cat was outside with her 'escort' seeking out any further guards.
..._...
The twelve-year-old vigilante moved through the snow, ignoring the biting cold.
Her short stature did not help with the softer snow which often reached her crotch making movement difficult at best so she tried to keep to the well-beaten pathways which at least hid her footprints to some extent. The two-story powerhouse was to her right while a cluster of thickly-insulated sixteen-inch steampipes and four-inch powerlines ran four-feet in the air along steel pylons driven into the ice and which vanished off in the direction of the main facility. Cautiously, Wildcat moved closer to the clustered powerlines and steampipes, annoyed that she was forced to wear the dratted hood which meant her hearing was limited and was therefore unable to easily pick up the subtle sound of boots crunching down on ice and snow. However, her 'kitty-sense' allowed her to sense her environment with uncanny accuracy. Indeed, she became acutely aware that she was being stalked.
For about the thousandth time, Wildcat cursed the ceaseless daylight as she sought out potential places to hide or to use as temporary cover. She could not see where Trojan was – he was keeping his distance, covering her back – and that unnerved her no end. Then she heard it – something came down onto fresh snow, crunching. It was a lot of snow – more than the average boot could cover. No, her mind confirmed, it could not be what she thought . . . then she froze as she heard breathing, actually, it was more like panting, just to her right and she turned, bringing up her crossbow in time to see a mass of white and then her blood turned as cold as the frozen ice as she heard a guttural growl.
Then she saw something massive – maybe a foot across – come towards her face, her eyes drawn to and focussing on the five black claws.
..._...
Trojan had seen Wildcat pausing to sense her surroundings.
That pause allowed him time to also check out their surroundings and something did not sit right with the twelve-year-old boy. Then, as he took a whiff of the surrounding air, he smelt something off amongst the smell of diesel fuel and industrial lubricants. It was fish – rotting fish. The boy shuddered as a picture came forth into his furtively imaginative mind. Then came the sound of crunching snow, a growl, and then Wildcat's scream and Trojan froze at the sight of something rising up from beyond the maze of steampipes and powerlines. The big white head rose up past six feet, seven feet, eight feet, nine feet – almost ten feet of polar bear towered above Wildcat as its gigantic right paw took the diminutive vigilante off her feet and sent her flying a good dozen or so feet cross the snow and ice. Fighting armed men and women was one thing but worrying about being ripped apart by a starving polar bear was not exactly cricket – to borrow a phrase from one of his English counterparts.
As Trojan launched himself from his perch on a rack affixed to the side of the powerhouse, he was blindsided by what, to Trojan's relief, turned out to be a mere man.
..._...
Wildcat suddenly found herself scrambling for her very life.
The girl had no desire to become a polar bear's midnight snack. The thought of being eaten scared the living daylights out of the youngster even as she regained her feet, looking around for Trojan but only seeing a ginormous mass of white fur which seemed to go on and on until she found herself looking up into the dark eyes of death itself. The bear roared and Wildcat cringed deep beneath her winter clothing, the thickness of which had prevented major injury as she was batted across the ice like she was a mere basketball. Her mind raced as she struggled to figure out a defensive strategy which did not end in her becoming a chew toy. She knew that the bear could outrun her, so running was out, and fighting the massive creature hand-to-hand was not happening, period!
Wildcat then realised that she still held her crossbow and she brought it up and around even as the polar bear lunged at her. She triggered off the bolt as the bear's torso came into view at just a few yards of range. The bolt flew straight and true but the bear's lunge meant that the bolt missed centre mass and took away the possibility of a strike at something essential on the inside of the bear, instead striking the polar bear in the left shoulder. The polar bear's enraged roar of pain scared Wildcat as at such close range the roar was almost deafening. Never before had she fought an animal and never a creature so enormous and powerful. Her mind had nothing which could be used to fight a raging animal with sharp teeth, sharp claws, and an attitude like Hit Girl after a bad night's sleep. Worse, the animal was wounded which simply made it even the more angrier. The only weapon she carried which could inflict mortal injuries on the animal was the crossbow but she needed time to reload the powerful weapon. She carried fragmentation grenades but that would alert the enemy to their presence and Hit Girl would not thank Wildcat for blowing their stealth.
No, she would have to come up with an alternative plan of action.
..._...
The voice came out of nowhere.
"Hey! Who the fuck...?"
The woman never got to finish her sentence as Foxtail put a nine-millimetre bullet into her forehead. Foxtail ran past the falling corpse as she cleared her section of the powerhouse, searching out anymore of the enemy. Her eyes did, however, take in the weapon which the woman had been holding – a SIG MPX. That meant that the security force was serious about keeping the facility secure and the weapon also meant that it was much more desirable to kill first and ask questions later – Foxtail called that method 'Hit Girl Diplomacy' . . . at least in private!
Kick-Ass was not too far away and he was in the very same frame of mind as he escorted Shadow who was laden with hi-tech electronic equipment which would be used to tap into the facility's computer network. It appeared that they were heading in the right direction as they came upon more security guards . . . and then a mesh partition which protected what was beyond.
The security guards were definitely well trained, Kick-Ass noted as he engaged in hand-to-hand combat with two large men – but then he himself had been trained by the very best. He knew what was at stake should they fail in their mission and that meant he put everything he had into fighting the enemy. His fists struck with tremendous force, smashing into faces which was all that was not covered by thick arctic clothing. Admittedly, his own gloved and mittened hands did not exactly help but the force behind each punch was still devastating as first one and then another defender found to his cost. Kick-Ass was not holding back as the first of his attackers fell to the rubber-coated steel floor of the building. Kick-Ass kicked the man in the head with his heavy boots which put the man out like a light and probably gave him brain damage to boot. The next man, however, did suffer significant brain damage as the knife in said attacker's hand was intercepted and parried from his hand by Kick-Ass who then flipped the knife around and plunged the sharp blade deep into the man's face.
By the time Kick-Ass turned his attentions to the steel mesh gate which led into the datacentre beyond, Shadow had already begun to rig an explosive charge onto the lock and hinge mechanisms.
"Fire in the hole!" Shadow called out as she turned her back on her freshly-placed explosives.
Her left hand held a small black plastic box. Her mitten had been folded back to reveal gloved fingers and she deftly flicked up a safety switch before she depressed a red button. Four dull cracks were heard as the explosive charges detonated. Kick-Ass grasped the mesh gate and he yanked it from the frame and deposited it to one side.
"Very neat, Shadow," he commented.
"Thank you," the veteran vigilante grinned as she waved Kick-Ass forward.
"After you, my lady."
Shadow laughed as she moved through the doorway, her weapon raised and searching for danger.
..._...
They had expected to find a couple of servers but it appeared that they may have stumbled upon a complete datacentre.
Whether the servers and data storage devices which made up the datacentre actually contained the information which they were seeking was something else entirely. To identify what was available, Shadow connected up a small laptop to a network switch and she then ran a thin fibre-optic cable to the nearest exterior door and she connected the cable up to a compact high-bandwidth transmitter which would allow the uber geeks to hack into the datacentre from their place of safety well beyond the assault zone. Shadow would cover the transmitter to ensure that nobody interfered with the device until they were ready to depart.
That left Kick-Ass and Foxtail to scatter explosive devices around the powerhouse to join those of Psyche, Rage, and Fury who had just appeared having finished populating their allocated part of the powerhouse with similar explosive devices.
..._...
Meanwhile, not too far away...
Hit Girl, brought the blade of her sword around in a practiced strike.
Her mind's eye visualised her aim point and she waited patiently(-ish) as the blade edged ever closer to the man's skull. But then her attention faltered somewhat as she heard the sounds of boots pounding on compacted snow just a few yards away and her head came around slightly causing her aim to slip just enough for the keen blade to slice through the cunt's woollen hat and sever the strap for his mask. Then the blade lopped off a goodly section of his skin and upper skull. Blood spurted out across the white ice even as the not-quite-dead cunt fell to the same ice, a dazed expression on his face as his hands reached up to his head and exposed brains. Almost immediately, Hit Girl froze and a deathly chill raced up her backbone as an unearthly growl filled her left ear and for a moment, she was unable to move a muscle. Her overactive imagination, filled as it was with comic book imagery and fantasy, conjured up an unwanted image of a giant polar bear with blood dripping from its pearly-white fangs which even then had to be just inches from her jugular.
"I am not becoming polar bear chow!" she breathed as she rammed her left elbow backwards and she brought her sword blade around.
Her elbow strike which could have easily debilitated a mere man was like a gnat attacking the Rock of Gibraltar to the adult polar bear which roared loudly enough that Hit Girl felt her ears ringing and her head swooning from the deep bass roar so close beside her head. Then out of pure inbred instinct, the veteran assassin pushed down on the hilt of her katana which drove the beyond-lethal long o-kissaski point into the exposed underside of the angry Ursus Maritimus. Hit Girl rolled to her left in an attempt to avoid being crushed by the beast and she lost grip of her sword which was firmly embedded in the polar bear's ribcage.
As her head came around, her green eyes went wide as she stared into the gaping maw of the mouth which was just eight inches away, the hot breath momentarily fogging up the anti-fog lenses of her goggles.
..._...
For almost an eternity, a semi-dazed Wildcat stared at the appalling scene which was Hit Girl on the ground with the monstrous polar bear just inches away.
For a moment it appeared to be the end of Hit Girl – and the operation. Wildcat had somehow managed to lead the animal straight into Hit Girl – an act the young girl knew that she would pay for at some stage in the future. In her defence, she had been scrambling for her very life and she had been more attentive to the mobile set of teeth coming up behind her than where she was actually headed and she had inadvertently crossed into Hit Girl's zone – a big no-no. Wildcat knew that Hit Girl would haunt her for the rest of her life should she cause said veteran's untimely death. To be honest, Wildcat was more scared of Hit Girl than she was of the massive polar bear and in some ways Hit Girl and the Polar Bear were very similar – especially when they were pissed off and fighting like they were seemingly unstoppable juggernauts! Indeed Wildcat had been so busy using her own claws to defend herself that she had had little time available for her hands to reload her crossbow with a fresh bolt. Thankfully, now that the carnivore's attentions was elsewhere her hands feverishly reloaded said crossbow and she aimed the weapon.
But then, seemingly out of nowhere, there came a familiar yell and something flew through the air. That something was clad in blue and white camouflage arctic combat fatigues and sported a Fairburn-Sykes fighting knife in each mitten. Wildcat was stunned as Trojan landed astride the polar bear's back and he plunged both blades deep into the thick hide, the seven-inch blade cutting through the four-inches of fat before it cut deep into the flesh below and caused the bear to rear up onto its hind legs, taking its fangs well away from Hit Girl. Trojan gripped tightly onto the hilts of his fighting knives to prevent himself from being thrown down to the icepack a good eight feet below. The polar bear was obviously very unhappy about being ridden and Trojan was all but bucked off the seriously pissed off animal. But then the animal went silent before it dropped bodily to the ground and Trojan yanked out his blades as he fell to the ice and rolled well away from the huge animal for fear of being crushed to death. As almost five-hundred kilogrammes of bear hit the ice, the ground shuddered beneath them.
Hit Girl scrambled to her feet and she peered down at the fallen animal, her eyes focussing on the crossbow bolt embedded firmly in the jaw of the bear, piercing the brain from underneath.
..._...
Hit Girl peered over at where Wildcat was trying to look invisible but failing miserably.
"This furball yours, Kitty-Kat?" Hit Girl asked somewhat dangerously.
"He kind of found me and then...," Wildcat began.
"I'm glad you're safe, Wildcat," Hit Girl responded. "We'll talk about your socialising with polar wildlife later."
Wildcat knew that that 'talk' would ultimately be very painful!
"Well done, Trojan!" Hit Girl added. "Weren't you supposed to have been backup for Kitty-Kat?"
"I got side-tracked by a dick I met on the way," Trojan explained.
"Shit happens!" Hit Girl chuckled as she bent down to retrieve and then clean her blade.
Wildcat stared down at the dead animal for a few moments before she followed Trojan as he followed Hit Girl from the scene.
Some distance away...
03:18 GMT-5 (08:18 GMT July 12th)
The man stirred in his bed, his mind telling him to wake up.
Finally, his eyes opened and he twisted himself into a sitting position from where he could reach the offending device which had awoken him. The phone did not seem to want to back down so the man grabbed the handset and he brought it up to his mouth and ear, cradling it between his left shoulder and cheek.
"This had better be so fucking good...!" he growled into the handset as he glared at the illuminated red numerals of the clock which sat on a table beside his bed.
"Sir, we think somebody has infiltrated the outer perimeter and may be approaching Site B."
"You 'think' and 'may be' . . . what the fuck!?"
"We've lost communications with some of the outlying patrols," the unhappy subordinate at the opposite end of the call explained.
"Have you sent anybody out to investigate?" the man responded somewhat testily.
"Yes, sir – we sent a snowcat with four men forty minutes ago..."
"And...?"
"We've lost contact with the snowcat – they reported seeing another snowcat-like vehicle and then nothing."
"Has Site B been compromised?"
"Not that we can tell, sir. We called the chief scientist and he said the main building was totally intact and that he could see nothing going on outside."
"Not so bad, then," Raymond Ransom considered. "I'm heading for my office. Get the guard force up and have them deploy to defensive locations . . . stealthily."
"Yes, sir!"
Ransom was in command of the Eidolon Arctic Facility and an incursion by enemy forces was not unexpected, however, they had hoped to have received prior notice so that the roving security patrols could have been beefed up. Patrolling in the snow and the cold was tiring and having the entire guard force constantly on patrol was counterproductive but it was time to ensure that they had defence-in-depth to prolong the facility's existence for as long as possible, or at least until Operation Capital was completed.
The man dressed quickly and then left the bedroom which was in a state of semi-darkness thanks to the black-out curtains over the windows. As he walked down a carpeted corridor with pictures hanging on the plastic-covered walls to add a semi-homely appearance to his private quarters, he stopped outside a partially open door and peered inside, the light from the corridor extending in far enough for him to see his 'reason-to-be', his twelve-year-old son. The boy was fast asleep and would not awaken for a number of hours which was good news as the boy had an awful lot of energy which needed to be burnt off during the day before he would consider going to bed and eventually to sleep. His wife was no longer on the scene and he was bringing the boy up on his own. Indeed, the death of his wife, some three years earlier had been the reason behind him seeking revenge on the world in general and why he was taking part in such a heinous scheme.
After leaving his relatively comfortable quarters, he passed out into a corridor with a steel floor and cheaper decoration on the plastic-covered walls. The lighting was recessed fluorescent strip lighting and was hard on the eyes in general let alone when you had just been rudely awoken at an early hour. Not much of the facility saw natural light due to the small windows (intended to assist with retaining heat in the facility) and the general layout of the site. Generally, the majority of the scientists and operational staff operated a fairly normal nine to five workday while others operated shifts – eight hours on and then twenty hours off as it was possible to have people working outside for twenty-four hours a day – except for during bad weather which was more limited during the summer months.
Two more corridors and Ransom pushed open a steel door which led into his outer office where his personal assistant would normally be sitting but she was still in bed. Figuring that it was going to be a long morning, he flicked on the coffee machine and passed through another steel door into his own office where he sat down behind a steel desk which sat beside a pair of small oval-shaped vertical windows which in turn overlooked the endless white ice-pack. Ransom pressed a few buttons set into a plastic box atop the steel desk and several large wall-mounted screens came to life depicting various maps and CCTV images. A few taps of a keyboard sitting to his right and the CCTV images zoomed into a smaller group which showed images of Site B. He pressed a few more keys and a single large image filled one of the screens and anger crossed his face.
It was not the dead polar bear which upset him, it was the mere fact that someone had dared to invade his facility. He tapped some more keys and the video moved backwards a short period before he stopped and zoomed into where the screen was filled by the torso of a woman wearing purple and white clothing, a scarf hiding her features. As he zoomed out, he stopped as a vicious katana sword came into view, the end of the blade red with blood.
There came a knock on the door and a man's head appeared.
"Come in, Jimmy."
"Here, boss," Jimmy Williamson said as he placed a large mug of coffee down in front of Ransom. "Found something?" he asked as he nodded at the woman on the screen.
"It looks like Fusion has finally made it to the Arctic," Ransom commented.
"Hit Girl. We going to setup a surprise for them, boss?"
"Well, they won't be crossing the Arctic Circle again, at least not alive."
Williamson, Ransom's second in command, grinned.
Back to the assault force...
05:28 GMT-5 (10:28 GMT July 12th)
The two tracked vehicles raced across the snow at speed.
It was imperative to get well away from the facility which they had just attacked before they were counterattacked; and not least for the ample amount of small gifts left behind. While the vast majority of the assault force dozed, strapped securely in their seats, the gunners remained on duty in their turrets, scanning the horizon for trouble. The trip back to camp took two hours as they executed several course changes to put off anybody who was following them.
Before they had departed the facility, the Geeks had downloaded quite a large amount of information from the server farm and Mindy hoped that what they needed was in amongst those billions of digital ones and zeros. But her Geeks had never failed her and their skills were second to none. That allowed Mindy some piece of mind so she could rest – just a little – as she was so exhausted. The vibration of the Viking gently rocked Mindy into a fretful sleep during which she dreamed. The dreams were not good and they involved a lot of her worries coming to life. Indeed, Dave could see his wife's expressions as she slept and those expressions showed that she was not enjoying the dreams her damaged mind was conjuring up.
Some two hours later, Dave gently nudged Mindy who came awake somewhat reluctantly and with a dangerous growl.
..._...
Mindy had spent the next hour pacing backwards and forwards.
"You keep that up, honey, and you'll wear down the ice right through to the ocean."
Mindy chuckled as she smiled up at her husband. Once, he had been the raw recruit knowing very little about the world of the vigilante – just a pussy with a vagina – but now the man had risen to a point where he had leadership skills which even surpassed her own. While part of her hated to admit that somebody was possibly better than her, she felt proud to be married to that man who was. Then her thoughts moved to the trio of girls who lay in the snow just a dozen feet away and were giggling and whispering between themselves.
"You think they're going to kiss," Abigail asked.
"Not without risking frostbite," Stephanie responded.
"Time to go!" Electra said as she saw Mindy moving towards them, her body language telling the trio that they were in a lot of danger, despite Mindy's true expression being hidden behind a scarf.
Mindy just shook her head as the three girls scampered off through the thick snow before diving behind a tent. Mindy was pleased that some could still find time to clown around as that release was desperately needed considering the seriousness of their situation which was getting everyone down.
"Mindy!"
The voice cut across the snow and Mindy stopped dead and turned. It was Marty trying to run through the snow in her direction. Finally, the uber-geek stopped and he took a deep breath.
"We got it," Marty said. "We have the location for the command centre!"
For the first time in days, Mindy felt hope.
About that same time...
Wednesday, July 12th
London, England
11:28 GMT+1 (10:28 GMT July 12th)
For Blake it was starting to get real old, real fast.
Finding himself called upon to supervise the surgery of a friend or a child that he knew was grating on his psyche. He had been stunned to hear that three more needed extensive surgery. However, for the boy, Hunter, it was almost the end of the line and he was not expected to survive his injuries, however, Hunter had been placed into a medically-induced comatose state to give his body a chance, even though his head was badly broken and his brain bruised beyond much hope of recovery. Hunter had been the very last to be recovered by the fire brigade from the Jaguar's wreckage and the time delay had tragically exacerbated the boy's injuries and he would not leave intensive care anytime soon.
As for the two remaining occupants of the vehicle, Lynn was in a private room two floors below the more seriously injured Amber and Laurel. She had only been conscious for the past five days, having spent the first week in a coma. Despite four broken ribs and a severe concussion, Lynn was determined to get back into action, although at first, she had suffered extensive memory loss and it had taken a number of days to reacquaint herself with her family and the unhappy fact that her daughter, Charlene, was no longer alive.
That just left Lauren. The young teen had survived the crash with little more than a broken nose and a minor concussion, both of which had been caused by the multiple airbag detonations which had saved her life as the luxury armoured saloon had somersaulted through the air before it had crashed down onto its roof. It had been the added armour which had ultimately saved lives as the vehicle had withstood the massive forces which had tried to crush and twist the frame.
Blake knew that it was not the end of the death and destruction, but he hoped and prayed that no more would be injured.