Part 5

From the lab, Snake Eyes ran down the hall to the elevators. But suddenly he stopped, and thought. With Scalpel predisposed and there was no one to alert the Crimson twins of his escape, he had the element of surprise. He couldn't let that pass, and devised a plan to rescue Scarlet. And it would take all his cunning and skill to do it.

No doubt the twins still had a rudimentary shift of guards roaming the Extensive Enterprise building on alert; Tomax and Xomat were never ones to let down their guard, and especially with a member of G.I.Joe on the premises, so he had to travel somewhere incognito and inconspicuous.

He looked at an elevator, but the elevator itself wasn't what he was thinking of, it was the shaft it resided in. Like before, he could climb up the cable and make his way to the top floor of the building and no one would know he was there, unless someone used an elevator. But as they were all temporarily shut down, he wouldn't have a problem.

He inserted his fingers into the gap between the doors and pulled them back to reveal the empty shaft. He looked down and saw that the car was below the thirteen level. He took the strap attached to the rifle he took from one of the dead guardsmen in Scalpel's lab and slipped it over his head and around his shoulder. Then he leapt and grabbed the thick middle cable that held the elevator car and started to climb upwards.

Just then, bad luck struck.

He heard a power surge regenerate life to the elevator shaft, and suddenly the car below him started to move upwards. He hung onto the cable tightly and allowed its momentum to propel him upwards. But he was moving at a dangerous speed and suddenly he saw the gear box that held the elevator cable approaching him very quickly. He jumped down onto the car and kicked at the trapdoor. He managed to brake the lock on the third kick and slipped inside before the car reached the top.

No one was in the elevator.

He breathed a sigh of relief and got to his feet, but his feelings of phew! was premature, and when the doors opened, two Crimson Guard Immortal stood on the other side. They were just as shocked to see him as he was to see them. But the shock wore off very quickly as both of them stormed into the elevator to attack him.

They pinned him up against the back wall. In his depleted condition he didn't have enough strength to take them both on, but in a moment of adrenaline rush he managed to push one of them off him. The guardsman hit the elevator control panel and the doors closed.

The other guardsman pulled out a pistol and Snake Eyes grabbed the man's wrist and struggled for control of the weapon.

The first guardsman returned and punched Snake Eyes in the stomach to weak him further, but Snake Eyes refused to let go of the second guardsman's wrist or he'd be shot, and did something completely beneath a warrior of his standing. But he was desperate. He sucker kneed the man in the crotch. Then when the man bent over in reaction to the pain, he kneed him in the mask and knocked the man out cold. The guardsman dropped unconscious to the floor at his feet.

He was then free to focus all his attention on the second guardsman.

Snake Eyes pushed the man back as the elevator carried them down to what the control panel indicated, and ironically enough it was the thirteenth floor. The first guardsman must have hit that button. He stomped on the man's foot and relieved the guardsman of his pistol, then he used it on him. The guardsman dropped to the floor on top of the other, dead.

Snake Eyes felt his chest and saw his hand covered in blood. His wounds were still open and he started to feel a little weak and exhausted. He was losing a lot of blood. But he pushed his feelings of exhaustion aside and carried on with what he was doing before the two guardsmen attacked him. But instead of going up the elevator shaft, he'd use the elevator this time and pressed the floor button closest to his position. It happened to be the fourteenth floor. The elevator doors opened, and he tossed the guardsmen out. Then he took the elevator back up.

Now he had a pistol and a rifle to use in his rescue attempt.

--

Several minutes had passed since Snake Eyes had left Scalpel's lab, when one of Scalpel's lab technicians walked into the room with a tray of test tubes. And as soon as he entered he stared in horror at the litter of dead Crimson guardsmen on the floor. Next to them was Scalpel. But he was alive. He put down the tray on the nearest counter and quickly went over to him, he knelt down. "Sir, what happened?" he said.

The technician went to pull a scalpel out, but Scalpel screamed at him, shouting, "No! STOP! Don't touch it!" The technician froze. "They must be taken out in a specific order or they'll leave me paralyzed."

He told the technician how to remove them properly.

After the scalpels were removed, Scalpel got to his feet and rubbed his arms and legs where the scalpels had been plunged into his body. They were stinging from the pain, but his pride stung even more.

"What happened here?" the technician asked. He looked around and for the first time noticed that there were scalpels sticking out of the chest of each of the dead Crimson guardsmen. There was no blood however.

"A mistake," Scalpel explained. "I underestimated him."

Scalpel pulled off his shirt and made sure there was no permanent damage to the muscle tissue where the scalpels had penetrated. He was wearing a black T-shirt underneath. He checked his arms first and then his thighs. "Good, he failed to hit the arteries," he said.

He cleaned the wounds with an antiseptic to prevent infection and then wrapped white bandage tape around his arms and thighs to close off the wounds. Then he picked up one of the dead guardsmen's rifles and cocked the manifold. "I never fail," he said.

"Who did you underestimate, sir?" the technician asked. He really wanted to know. But he didn't get an answer. Scalpel made his way out of the lab without any acknowledgement to his lesser. "Wait sir!" he said, running after him. "What should I do? Should I inform Tomax and Xomat of this incident?"

Scalpel looked back at him, and said, "No, this is my problem. I'll handle it. Just have this place cleaned up before I return."

He left to follow Snake Eyes, and he knew exactly where he was going.

To be continued...