.o Escapees o.
UNKNOWN POV
The wind blew cold against my face. The moonless night was silent around me as I leaned over the hundred foot cliff to peer down at the building hidden in the gorge. I say building, but it was more like a fortress. High stone walls surrounded by an electric, barbed wire fence. State of the art cameras, no blind spots. Watch towers on every corner. Even without the rocky landscape shield it would have been an impossible target for anyone else.
But, that didn't stop me from taking out my rappelling cable and attaching it to my belt. I made sure my base hook was secure and waited for the guards to change, like they did every four hours. In the two seconds it took for the new guard to take his post, I had jumped and was flying through the air toward the ground, the cold, night air whipping around my hair.
When I was about twenty feet from the ground I spun around and detached the cable, letting myself fall the remaining distance to the ground. I flipped midair and landed on he balls of my feet. I looked up at the guard tower and grinned; I had timed my jump perfectly, as always.
I removed my pack from my back and put it behind a bush; I wouldn't need it for a while.
I crept along the black, overgrown path against the cliff, stepping over trip wires and dodging pressure sensitive areas. I made my way to the north side of the building. When I was directly between the north and west towers, I took a little remote out of my pocket. I waited for the cameras to switch and I pressed the first button.
I watched as the lights instantly went bright, the sirens sounded and the guards rushed to where a trip wire had just been activated on the opposite side of the building. But, I didn't move. The alarm may have sounded, but that just meant the guards on this side were on high alert.
I waited twenty seconds, then pressed the second button on my little remote. Instantly there was an explosion on the east side of the building. Now when the guards on this side focus was drawn away I ran the perimeter of the fence until I came to the small hidden box. I took another small device that could have passed for the latest phone model out of my belt and plugged a cord into the box. Then I got to work on overriding the fence's sensor and opening it. It took me about twenty-three seconds- my personal best- to get past the fence.
Once I was in, I ran to the thirty foot stone wall and began to climb. I had about twenty seconds until the guards turned, and that is all it took for me to scale the wall and land on lightly on the other side. Then I took my remote and pressed the third button, causing two more explosions to go off fifty yards from the first one.
Now I just danced and flipped out of the camera's sweeping views until I came to the door, which I ironically knew the code for.
Once I was inside, I ran until I came to the control room. I didn't encounter any guards in the aisles; they were all worrying about the perimeter. Once I got to the control room though, I was met with three big, armed men. They saw me and their eyes went wide. Too bad they didn't get to warn anyone I was inside, not out, before they were slumped against the walls knocked out.
I went to the computers that controlled the security and hooked up the same device I had used on the fence. While it was working I scanned all of the cell cameras. Once I finally found what I was looking for, I took off down the maze of hallways and corridors. I didn't encounter any more guards until I was three yards away from my destination. I stopped running and looked around the corner to where three more men were standing in front of a door. I took out my little blowgun and within five seconds all the men were out, my darts in their necks.
I rolled my eyes and walked up to the door. I pushed in the number code and used one of the unconscious guy's hands to open the door. It slid aside revealing a small black haired girl, with wide, child like, clear blue eyes sitting on the cot that was connected to the wall. She was dressed in a simple gray night gown and seemed to be singing quietly to herself, while rocking back and forth with her small arms wrapped around her knees.
"Hey, you," I said quietly.
The girl looked up at me as if she had just noticed I was there. She stared at me for about ten seconds, then finally whispered, "You're here."
"Yeah, come on let's go," I replied, holding out my hand like I would to a five year old.
She looked at me for another minute, then got up, walked to me and said, "They took her that way," pointing down the right hall.
I smiled, "I know. Let's go get her."
We crept down three more hallways, now being more careful; the guards were probably starting to get suspicious of my diversions. I was honestly surprised I wasn't having more trouble than this. But, I guess when you work at one of the top three most secure prisons in the country, and no one has even tried to escape or get in in over a two decades, you get a little carefree- highly trained operative or not.
That or I was better than I thought.
We finally came to another door like the last one, only this one had five guards instead of two. It didn't matter, they were all out within seconds.
I opened the door to reveal another girl. She had dirty blonde hair and was wearing gray pants and a gray shirt. She was laying on the little cot, facing away from us, her hands behind her head like she didn't have a care in the world. She didn't turn to see who had opened the door or show any acknowledgement that she even knew the door had opened.
"You're late," she said, not turning around.
"I beg to differ," I replied. I took four knives out of my belt and sent two flying across the room. They flew passed the girl's face and landed in the wall right next to her head.
She hadn't even flinched.
"Let's go," I said.
The girl sighed, reached up and yanked the knives out of the wall in one swift motion. She swung her legs over the side of the cot and stood up, finally facing us. She was a little taller than me, and had a strong look about her, despite having been locked up for months- unlike the dark haired girl who was so thin and frail looking it seemed that a gust of wind would knock her over.
The blonde fingered the knives carefully, then finally looked up at us.
"It's been so long," she said quietly.
"I know. Let's go; more guards are going to be here soon," I replied, my voice monotone.
Hatred flashed for a second in her dark grey eyes, then it was gone. She looked down at the knives in her hand and grinned wickedly, "I'm ready to get out of here."
The blonde, the black haired girl, and I ran down the halls. Any guards we ran into didn't stay conscious- or in the blonde's path alive- long enough to warn anyone that we were there.
When finally came back to the control room, I turned to the wide-eyed, petite, black-haired girl, "I know you've only been out a short time, but do you think you could get us enough time to get out of here?" I asked, pointing to the device I had set up earlier.
The girl looked at where I was pointing; she cocked her head to the side and furrowed her brow. Finally, her eyes lit up and she nodded slowly.
She sat in the chair and began pushing multiple buttons- both on the keyboard and on my device- faster than I could have ever done. Within two minutes she stood up and unplugged the device. "We have seven minutes as soon as you push the button," she said quietly, her voice distant.
I grinned, "That's all we need."
We ran the rest of the way to the door, where the guards had finally realized that the threat was already inside. There were too many to fight easily, so I took the device and pressed the blinking button. "Stay close," I said. The girls nodded behind me. The lights, locks, and alarms all simultaneously shut off, leaving us in the silent darkness.
We were out the door within a minute, running across the pitch black field to the wall. In a matter of seconds, we were on the other side running to the powerless fence. Once we were out of the fence in only took us a minute to get to the cliff.
By the time the gunshots began to ring out, we had already reached where I had hidden my pack and were attaching our rappelling cables to our harnesses. We flew up the cliff; when we reached the top we dropped the harnesses and ran three miles to where I had left the car I had borrowed to get there.
The men at the asylum would never see us again.
When we were over a hundred miles away, once we had returned the car to where I had gotten it from, the dirty blonde haired girl turned to me and crossed her arms, "Alright, we're out," she said, "About time too..."
"Hey! I got you out as fast as possible! You think it was easy planning all that?" I snapped.
The black haired girl covered her ears with her hands and scrunched her eyes shut.
I sighed then walked to her and began stroking her matted hair. She flinched but opened her eyes once she realized what I was doing.
"Exactly what have you been doing all this time?" the blonde demanded.
"I've been busy," I said.
Just then we walked past a newsstand. "Oh, busy I see..." the blonde said quietly at first then, "The President's daughter?! Are you crazy?!"
I narrowed my eyes at her, "You know better than anyone I didn't attack the President's daughter," I hissed.
The black haired girl shut her ears and eyes again and began shaking her head frantically. I wrapped my arms around her and rubbed her back.
"Look, we don't have time to be arguing," I told the blonde, "We have things to attend to."
"Like what?"
"We have an interrogation to intercept."
Zach POV
Joe led me down a stone hallway. The fluorescent lighting casting strange shadows on the walls. We finally came to the room where I would interrogate the man responsible for the attack on the President's daughter.
"We need to know who he is, who he was acting for, and why he only will speak to you," Joe said.
I nodded.
"We will have cameras and you have your comms. If anything funny happens, we will be there in a second."
"Alright," I said. I opened the door to revile a simple chair facing a glass wall. There was a camera in the corner of the room. On the other side of the glass, there was another chair. Sitting in the chair hooked up to a truth detecting machine, was an average looking man with black hair, brown eyes and a look of boredom on his face.
When I entered the room he smiled a haunting, satisfied smile.
I sat in the chair and looked the man directly in the eyes. "I heard you wanted to speak to me," I said.
He grinned even more. I made sure to keep my face unreadable.
"I believe I said I would speak to you and you only," he said pointedly, looking straight at the camera behind me.
I studied him for a minute. "Deactivate the cameras," I said into my comms.
"Zach-"
"Don't you trust me, Joe?"
A second later, the little red light went out on the camera. The man smiled again. "Well, what do you want to know, Zachary?" he asked.
"Who are you?"
"Richard Steven Runner," he answered, "Last surviving member of the Circle. I was a minor though, lower than your mother. But I don't care about them or their goals anymore."
"Why did you attack the President's daughter?"
He shrugged, "I was asked to."
"By whom?"
"I don't know. They sent me a text; the number was blocked."
"Why did you do it then?"
"I figured I'd end up here. I'm tired of this way of life; I don't know how to do anything else."
"You wanted to be caught?"
"Yes."
"Why would you only speak to me?"
"Part of the orders. I was given a message for you."
"What is it?"
"It is 'You know who did it.'"
I know who did it. What the heck did that mean? I didn't know who did this, but I had been watching the man and the machine the entire time; he was telling the truth. I nodded.
Just then I heard Joe in my comms, "Zach, get out of there. We found someth-" The comms went dead in my ear.
I stood up, but not before I saw the machine go out. The lights went out a second later. I heard the sound of a door being kicked open, I got down and was ready for any attack, but it wasn't my door that was kicked open. Then a gunshot went off. The lights came on a moment later, but the man was already dead.
Joe came bursting into the room a second later. He grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the room.
"What happened?" I asked when we were out of the building.
"I don't know. The entire system was overridden. I've never seen anything like it. Whoever did it completely disappeared though," he said.
Later, when everyone had calmed down, I was debriefed. I told them everything verbatim.
"Do you know who did this Zach?" Joe asked.
"No, I have no idea."
Joe nodded grimly, "Well whoever is behind this has reason to believe you do. Right now we need to keep the President's daughter safe."
"Has she woken up?"
He looked at me in the eyes, "No."