It Takes One to Raise One
Please review. It keeps me going and your input does indeed help to shape the story. It's tough to find the time to write but I'm trying to keep the momentum going. You've been amazingly patient. Thank you. Thanks to a reader who messaged me and kicked my butt to keep going… again. In the words of Ryan Day – Let's play this fucker!
I was on top of a room a couple of stories taller than the building Dave was trapped in. Imperial Tower. Or Imperial Center. Sorry, I've got a really bad fucking headache right now and so I can't 100% remember which. The Motherfucker was the Star Wars nut, not me.
Sorry if I just offended true Star Wars nuts – You guys are awesome. Chris…. Not so much.
I reached into the heavy fucking bag that I'd carried up all of those steps and pulled out a line thrower. If you don't know what that is, think about those crossbows with grappling hooks you see in movies but instead the hook being propelled by a bow, there was an explosive charge that propels the hook. I took careful aim (since I really didn't want to go back down the stairs, get the spare, and then carry it back up the fucking stairs…) and pulled the trigger. The hook sailed out across the darkening sky and then banged off the concrete side of the building. Then it slowly fell in a graceful arc which ended with it smashing into the windows of the building that I was in. The amount of shattering glass was impressive. But by some strange quirk of fate, fifteen bad guys didn't come boiling out of Chris's building see what all the racket was about. Swearing under my breath, I trudged back down to get the spare while heartburn attempted to ravage the inside of my chest. Overall it wasn't a lot of fun.
Fifteen minutes later, a second hook and rope sailed through the sky. This time it landed on the roof and the hook opened properly. My nervous stomach gave a twinge of relief. I pulled the rope slowly toward me until the hook caught nice and solid. Then I tied the rope off, hooked up the zip line handle, and launched myself off the building to go and rescue. I was so focused on what I was doing that I didn't even look down to admire the view.
Fuck it. I lied. I looked. It's still amazing to me that I get to do this shit in my life and it seemed like a waste to not enjoy it. Especially since my mindset right now was to try to ignore all of the things that were probably going to go wrong and try to enjoy the last 10 minutes or so of my life before some fuckface blew me away. So, I admired the sodding view even though Dave (and I) might be about to die. Sue me.
Actually, don't. I don't have a lawyer.
Trying to stay with the funny and not focus on the suck. Because I'm not going to make it out of this place alive if I lose it.
Once I was across, it was only the work of a few seconds to pull myself the rest of the way up onto the roof. Then I yanked up the equipment bag that had zipped along with me. Out of it I pulled out four flash bang grenades that I'd rigged with some string and a remote control servo motor. I hung each of them off the building above one of the ground entrances. The idea was that I'd send a signal to the motors which would then pull out the pin and let the grenade fall. Hopefully it would hit the ground before it went off and convince the assholes inside that I was trying to get in one of the front doors. I was really counting on it as a distraction. But if it went off like halfway down, it would be confusing as fuck. I'd gotten some math geek in a chat room to figure out how fast they would drop and tried to make sure I had the string the correct length since the cocksucker just wouldn't stop flirting with me the whole time we were talking, I wasn't 100% sure how much he'd checked his figures. It made me want to stomp his nuts but that was pretty damn difficult through a Wi-Fi connection. I did make a note to track him down if I ever get the chance and flatten his balls.
Anyway, this falling grenade thing wasn't the most elegant plan I'd ever come up with but it was the best I could do with what I had to work with. I didn't have Claymore's with a detonator like Arnold Schwarzenegger would have had. I didn't have C4 or anything else really effective. I had flash bangs and some motors that I'd torn out of some of Bethany's toys. I supposed that the worst that could happen would be that the transmitter signal wouldn't even reach them through the concrete of the building and all I'd really done was hang up some really demented Christmas decorations. Oh well. It was worth a try.
That done, it was time for my final prep. I checked both my pistols, making sure that each one was secure and wouldn't fall out if I got into a fight. Or thrown into a wall. That sort of shit. Then I unpacked the rest of the gear and attached it to my belt and harness. More flash bang grenades. A few smoke grenades. Three throwing knives and one fighting knife, a Sykes-Fairbairn that I'd intended to just keep as a collector's item but was too good not to use. I loved my sword staff too much to have shipped it so that was all I had. Well, that and a silenced H&K MP-5. A small sub machinegun to the non-gun nuts out there. Not exactly, but close enough. The SAS and Navy SEALS liked them so I figured that I should be good.
A couple of minutes with a lock pick had the roof access door open. I spent a long moment looking down into the darkened opening. Great. More fucking stairs. Was this an assault or a workout? Well, at least I was going down.
I went down three floors and ran into zero guards. Standard Chris stupidity; he hadn't even considered the fact that someone might come in from above. That carelessness actually offended me for a few minutes until I remembered that I needed him to be doing an absolutely fucktastic job at this or I was basically dead. Sometimes it's easy to lose perspective.
From counting the windows to where I'd seen the light for Dave, he should be one more floor down. I went trudged down a few more stairs and then took a moment to breath. Then I peered through the little window in the door to make sure there wasn't anyone waiting on the other side. It was clear. I tried the handle. It didn't budge. I'd kind of expected this so out came my trusty lock pick set again but this time, my pick broke off in the lock with a mocking snap. I growled under my breath, trying not the scream. Then through the window, I saw a guard wandering down the corridor. OK. New plan time. I would set off one of my string grenades and all the guards would go running. And this asshole would be nice and open the solid fucking fire door keeping me saving Dave. I positioned myself so that I could catch the door when it opened and flipped the first transmitter switch. Nothing happened. Fuck. But, I'd built these pretty fast so, one by one, I pressed the other three switches. Still nothing. Not a one of the fucking things had worked. Now what? I could try to blow the lock apart with the MP-5 but it would be really noisy and might take too long. My mind started racing through other plans, coming up with new ideas and then discarding them just as quick.
Seriously, you try coming up with an assault plan on a building you know nothing about in just a couple of hours! A good plan, I mean, not some half assed thing like I'd come up with. One that won't just get you killed. For example, Daddy and I had been studying D'Amico's building for months before I attacked it. We had blueprints. We had the elevators hacked so we could stop them on any floor we wanted. I begged and begged Daddy to build a scale model with little tiny people that you could push a button to blow them up but not even Daddy was crazy enough to give into that. On a side note, I actually built one after he died when I was depressed and really needed to stay busy. My mind kept racing in circles and my heartburn was racing at about the same speed. In fact, I got so wrapped up in planning that I almost missed it when the luck gods granted me their help.
The stairway door suddenly creaked open a little bit. I stared at it and then slowly raised my gun to cover anyone who might come through. But it wasn't a person who came through at first. It was a hand. With a cigarette. Holy fucking shit on a stick! My ass had just been saved by some cocksucker's oral fixation. Shit, maybe smoking really was useful! I waited another moment trying to breath as quietly as possible. Then paydirt. A head came through to take a pull off of that miracle cigarette. And just like that, I had a plan that didn't completely suck. I kicked hard at the door and heard a satisfying crunch as it impacted into his head. When it bounced back my way, I grabbed the door and shoved it behind me while I finished the guy off with a kick to his already injured head. No way was I taking a chance of the thing closing on me. Then I popped through the door, tracking my eyes and gun to both sides. Once I was sure it was clear, I glanced back at Mr. Smoker. He had a gun on his belt so he wasn't just some innocent. And while I was pretty sure he wasn't going to wake up, well… fuck it. I was Hit-Girl, not Wonder Woman. I swung my gun back and capped him in the head twice. Thanks for the assist with the door, but you picked the wrong team, asshole. And it was time for mama to get to work.
The place was like a fucking maze. Basically a really tall cubical farm. I dodged from wall to wall, desk to desk, staying as quiet as I could. I took out three more wandering guards, each of them with a single shot. That was really good because I didn't have all that much ammo. Then I heard a shout behind me and alarms started going off all over the place. I smiled as I dove for cover right before a shotgun blast decorated the wall with shrapnel. Time for plan B. Then I reached down to my belt and flipped the last switch I had there.
This one was actually connected to a real detonator, not some jury rigged piece of shit toy. I'd set my only real remote charge on the power lines outside before I'd started climbing all those fucking stairs. I heard a loud 'crump' and then all the lights went out. There were a few emergency lights but it was close enough. I flipped down my night vision goggles and went back to hunting. I managed to get one more before a stray bullet from one of them firing at shadows hit something in the AC system. Smoke or fog or some shit filled the hallways almost instantly. I shoved my goggles out of the way. It was better to rely on my actual eyes in all this crap.
Then the luck gods smiled on me again. I almost laughed out loud as red 'laser beams' started streaking down the hallways. These guys all had those fancy laser sights that project a little red dot on the target. Which I'll admit are actually pretty useful except that in all the fog, it was just a line tracing back and telling me where to shoot. Now I actually started to laugh. A bunch of assholes in white were trying to kill me with red beams shooting through the air. And they weren't coming anywhere near me!
This was like fucking Star Wars!
I gave a happy scream that would have impressed Han Solo. Then I trusted all of the instincts and training that years of long work, Daddy's training, and Dave's help had built into me. I went back to being the girl in D'Amico tower with nothing to lose. I let go. I shoved off from the floor and attacked.
I can't remember the next few minutes very clearly. There was a lot of screaming from the people I shot. That I remember. When the MP-5 was empty I used it to bludgeon the next guy I found to death. He made a LOT of noise. I put a throwing knife in another guy and then I pulled out one of my Beretta's as I sailed around the corner of what I figured would be the last corridor. I was right. I'd found the conference room. I put two bullets into the lock and then kicked open the door.
My headlong attack died right there. Chris was at the far end of a long table propped up in some sort of wheelchair and holding a gun to Dave's head. The only reason he could manage this was because Dave had beaten to shit and wasn't moving. Dave's eyes were closed and his head was lolled back without any strength to it. I saw his chest moving so I knew he wasn't dead. That was the only reason I'd stopped. I met Chris's eyes and they were completely filled with fear. That meant he would probably hesitate and give me a few moments to act. I tried to figure out whether I could take Chris out before he could kill Dave. After what seemed like minutes but was probably only moment, I decided that I could. My eyes swept across the room one more time to make sure that I hadn't missed anything before I took my shot.
I had missed something. Actually, I'd missed three somethings. One was a tall thin woman with dark hair lying crumpled on the floor. I couldn't see her face but my gut said it was Miranda. The other two 'somethings' were a thug in a red coat and a girl he was holding that wouldn't stop moving. I stared but I couldn't figure out who it was. Actually, that's bullshit. I knew exactly who it was. I just couldn't accept it. Then time stopped. I looked over at Miranda's body and stupidly wondered how she could even be here. She was hiding. Taking care of Bethany. Keeping her safe…. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! Where in the fuck was Bethany? I looked back at the last guard and his struggling burden. A burden that had obviously been screaming out a torrent of curse words the entire time I'd been here but only just registered with my hearing now. I didn't think time could go any slower than stopped but it could.
"Fuck you fucking cock sucking fucker!" the bundle I now knew was Bethany screamed. "Fuck you fucking let me fucking go! I'll fucking kill you, you fucker!" Unable to comprehend much more, I remembered trying to teach her not to use the same swear word more than once in the same sentence. The guy finally managed to grab her left arm and twisted it behind her back. He yanked it up and she yelled in pain.
"Drop the gun." He said, staring clearly into my eyes. "Or I pull the arm off." I'm ashamed of the fact that even under that threat, I didn't immediately comply. Maybe I was in shock. I try to tell myself that now when I stare into the darkness but I usually decide I'm lying. I couldn't move at that moment. That seems more likely. As I stood there with the gun still pointed directly at Chris's head, the sadistic fucker smiled. Then his eyes tightened and he yanked her arm farther up. I heard a bone snap. Bethany screamed. My world went black. A moment later, I heard a thump as my pistol bounced off the carpet. My mind hadn't let go but my heart had.
I think the guy told me to sit down because shortly after that I was sitting in a chair. Bethany wasn't making any more noise now. She seemed to have passed out from the pain. Her voice was replaced with Chris's was screaming at me, going over all the ways he was going to kill me, rape me, and torture me. All the terrible shit he'd do to Dave, Bethany, and any other person who happened to fucking walk by. I quickly realized though that he wasn't the one in control. That was the fucker in red. He tossed Bethany to the floor where she moaned feebly and then pulled a large pistol out of his belt. After a moment of us all staring at one another, he swung the gun sideways and knocked Chris out cold.
He growled in horrid Russian accent. "You have no idea how much shit I've put up with to meet you. Well, more to kill you than meet you, but, I've got to admit it's an honor to be in the company of such a famous killing machine. If somebody had to kill Olga, I'm glad it was you."
"Olga?" I managed.
"You knew her as Mother Russia."
