Chapter 4: Gabriel and Raphiel are angels for once?
"Got everything you need Raph?," Gabriel whispered. Raphiel slung her sniper rifle on her shoulder and picked up a duffel bag of equipment.
"Ready. Let's go Gab-chan!," she hushed determinedly, and the two of them walked calmly across their outpost, careful not to get spotted by the guards who were less than alert. They pretended as if it was just another night-time recon op, and did their best to look bored and tired, as they put their stuff in the back seat of a light vehicle. Raphiel got in the front seat, closing the door quietly at the same time as Gabriel, and the two of them drove off without anyone knowing. Everyone except the outpost guard of course, who Gabriel had cashed in her 'IOU' for him to look the other way.
"I'm so nervous Gab-chan...!," Raphiel said with a shaky voice.
"Want some prop?," Gabriel replied nonchalantly, holding up a sheet of tablets. "Wouldn't want you missing a shot now."
"Hmm...I think you're a bad influence on me Gab-chan," Raphiel laughed.
The desolated buildings of Osaka became gradually taller and more dilapidated the closer the duo rode towards the enemy outpost. They were silhouetted against the dimly lit night sky, and Gabriel made sure to be on the lookout for any sources of light which might come from the buildings.
"Hmm...looking good so far...," Gabriel thought as she looked around. The truck had all lights shut off, so the only way they could navigate was with by using their night vision goggles. "Okay. Park it in the alleyway over there."
"Gab-chan, Gab-chan, comms check - how copy over~?," Gabriel heard on her headset with noise protection and built in radio.
"Copy loud and clear Raphiel," she replied, hearing Raphiel giggle as she threw Gabriel her duffel bag. "Let's try and uhh...not die. Over."
"Wilcoooo~."
The two threw heavy wool blankets over themselves and began walking towards the satellite building. It was where the invading forces had fought so hard to control in order to be able to send encrypted information over a large portion of Osaka. Hence, why they had civilian and military hostages; so that the building wouldn't be annihilated by aerial missiles.
"See where I'm painting...?," Gabriel whispered over comms, aiming her IR laser at a point in the distance.
"I see it," Raphiel replied, looking at it with her rifle scope.
"Must be the turrets which kept our guys pinned down in that pothole over there. What a pain. Let's keep to the right of it."
The two ran building to building, trying not to be detected by the enemy drone's thermal detection by shielding themselves with the blankets and by staying under roofs where possible. As they entered a convenience store near the radio tower, they saw at least two armed guards patrolling the area, alongside security drones.
"What should we do Gab-chan?," Raphiel asked over the radio. "I-I hope you have a plan...?"
"Yup," she replied sneaking around the back of the store. "You stay here. I've played my fair share of stealth games-"
She immediately popped back behind the wall as she was about to walk across the debris-filled street.
"...you didn't see me you didn't see me you didn't see me...!," Gabriel screamed to herself as she was stuck behind the wall, hoping that the guard didn't see her. Luckily, the guard might have been a bit sleep deprived, as he continued walking around the area.
"Whew...that was close."
"Gab...that was just the first level...," Gabriel heard in her ear. "Are...you sure about this...?"
...
"...meh. Worth it. Right?"
Raphiel shivered in fear. That was not the response she wanted to hear. She was hoping to hear something cool or sexy like: "Don't worry. I've done this before." or "For the children." But she guessed her blonde loli friend needed some time to develop her character arc.
Gabriel, with a heavy duffel bag slung on back, crouched down and ran as quietly as she could towards the building. She was up against the right side of the building, which was fortified with sand bags and tough futuristic plastic sheets, so she had no way in. She continued moving along the sides of it, hiding sneakily from guards and drones, and spotted a protrusion from the building; what looked to be an external HVAC unit.
"Oh God...," Gabriel complained to herself. "Please please no."
She looked at the unit which was dinged up from years of use, and noticed that the vents and the fans were loose. The loose parts were placed at the top, and the duct bent at a gradual ninety degrees into what Gabriel assumed to be the air vents. She could notice it, only because the fan was moving faster than the blades of a helicopter.
"...well...I sure can fit in there," Gabriel thought, observing her short and slim profile. "But...what if I get stuck in the vent?"
Gabriel paced around back and forth, looking around the building wall for any other way in. Nope. All the windows had glass and steel bars, and the collapsed walls were blocked off with cars, tables and other heavy junk. This was the only way in.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK, FUCK...!," she whispered angrily as she climbed onto the HVAC unit. "Raphiel? Do you read? Over."
"Romeo Gab-chan. What is it?"
"I uh...need you to create a diversion. Something loud."
"E-Eh?! Umm...okay then. Standby..."
Gabriel waited with her hands firmly gripped around the vent, waiting to rip it off.
BANG!
"That...was a loud-ass diversion," Gabriel thought, ripping the vent away quickly, the noise covered by the sniper-rifle gunshot. She jammed her knife into the spinning fan, stuck her fingers under it and pulled hard, causing the fan to break.
"How was that Gab-chan?," an excited Raphiel asked, waiting for praise.
"Yes yes, you did a phenomenal job," Gabriel replied banally, literally hearing her teammate's smile. "Now go hide before they catch you."
Gabriel gently let the duffel bag fall down the bend. She had to remove some gear protruding off her tactical MOLLE vest in order to slim her waist down. She buried the heavy wool blanket into a crevice and dove gently headfirst into the duct arching her back around the bend to fit and started crawling with the duffel bag in front of her.
It seemed like the duct went on forever, she couldn't see the end even with the light from her lighter. She kept on crawling, getting more terrified by the minute, until she heard something under her. It sounded like...whirring, like the noise a fan set on high would make.
Gabriel got her knife out, and started to cut through the thin metal tubular duct with some amount of effort, and she suddenly felt the metal under her begin to bend down.
"Oh no oh no..!," she cried before the thin aluminium gave out, and she found herself in a large server room, dimly lit by status indicators on each server.
"I-Internet?!," she thought dramatically as she slung the bag over her back. "Looks like there's hope after all."
"Gab-Chan?," Raphiel asked, her voice a lower quality than before. "How's everything looking?"
"Okay so far. I'm in a server room, but I have no idea where the hostages are at."
"Hmm...try the twenty third floor. I can see some blood on the windows. I hope that's...no..."
"Yeah. Twenty third floor acknowledged," Gabriel whispered, ignoring the blood bit, and she slowly opened the door to the hallways. She looked left and right, and quickly yet quietly hopped out, closing the door behind her.
She was about to call for the elevator at the end of the hallway when:
"Gab-chan," Raphiel said.
"Yeah?," Gabriel replied back.
"Are you about to take the elevator...?"
Gabriel gasped and muttered something before opening the emergency exit door and trotting up the stairs with an attitude. She realized that there's always cameras in elevators, and she could've easily gotten caught.
"...thanks...Raphie..," Gabriel growled, swallowing her pride.
It took about ten minutes for the less-than-athletic girl to reach the twenty third floor, which Raphiel claimed was abandoned due to it being a construction site. Trusting Raphiel with what she sees through the scope, Gabriel opened the heavy steel door and was immediately hit with the smell of blood, faeces, and urine.
"God...What the fuck is that...?!," she wretched, stumbling into the construction site despite her nose telling her not to. She pressed record on her helmet cam. There were pillars and pallets of concrete powder which she walked around, as well as tools scattered on the ground which she tried to avoid stepping on. She turned the corner of one wall, and saw a horrific sight.
Around twenty blood covered people were stuffed into a row of portable metal cages, bolted into the ground and lining the wall to the window. Gabriel noticed some deceased bodies were in the process of decaying inside the cell with other people still inside, as well as buckets overflowing with human waste. She froze in place, scanning the site for traps or cameras before walking over to one of the cells.
She began picking the locks one by one with a rake pick, and dragged all the bodies out onto the floor.
"Jesus Christ almighty...," Gabriel panted over the radio. "Starved, diseased and infections from bullet wounds and cuts."
"...do your best Gabriel," Raphiel cheered, sounding oddly serious.
Over the course of two hours, she treated each patient slowly and meticulously, analysing their conditions and prioritizing patients based off the severity of their states. She was running out of stimulants to administer due to the fact that almost everyone was on the verge of starvation, although some could stand albeit very weakly.
"How the hell am I meant to get them out of here?!," Gabriel complained as she knelt down and thought.
"Raphiel," Gabriel pleaded as she gently lifted two bone-thin pre-schoolers in her arms. "I would really appreciate some encouraging words right about now."
"The sun's almost rising...," Gabriel panted, hauling two people over her back. "Let's get them into the truck. We're almost there."
Raphiel nodded as she carried the remaining two people and began jogging back to the alleyway where they had parked the truck. It was a difficult endeavour, especially due to the threat of detection by the drone that's constantly flying overhead. However, they had managed to carve a path through collapsed buildings, so that they had overhead cover and couldn't be spotted by thermals.
It took them six hours, from when they left their outpost at one am, by the time they had loaded all twenty-three hostages in the truck, to rescue the hostages. Gabriel had her handgun ready to fire, nervous that they would have Ares company chasing them. But Raphiel drove away just fine, away from the range of the drone, and everyone let out a long sigh of relief.
"Well...," Gabriel exhaled. "That...went better than expected." She changed the frequency on her radio.
"Springs Base, this is Private Tenma White do you copy? Over."
There was about a three second delay between responses.
"Private White we copy over."
"Please be advised, I'm coming to base with twenty three freed hostages, over."
"...I'm sorry repeat that for me? Over."
"Twenty three hostages rescued from the north east Ares controlled radio tower will be arriving shortly to your outpost, over."
"Umm...alright then. We'll be waiting. Over and out."
"Over and out."
