Paradigm Shift

Chapter 2

It was fair to say that he'd been on his fair share of operations since donning the CP uniform and submitting to the command of the Combine: raids, riot control – those really didn't last very long, and there hadn't been any riots now for years – and manhunts. This one felt different to Ethan, though. Partly because it was at night and partly because the commanding officer of the unit was coming along for the ride, too. He almost couldn't remember the last time he'd fought alongside him. Granted, most of his work was simple house raids and guard duty which didn't need any of the commanders there. Even so, it didn't feel right and it was more than enough to make him nervous. Not to mention the fact that he'd been one of the people who had 'recommended' Ethan. He still hadn't worked out what to think of it, hadn't had the chance to tell anyone. He knew the implications of becoming a soldier. Nova Prospekt was one of those…implications.

The APC jolted lightly as it passed over a bump and turned a corner, the soft hum of its engine being the only thing penetrating the disciplined silence within the confines of its metal walls. The silence was an alien feeling to him. Usually his unit were firing quips and banter at each other. Tonight was different. Ethan turned his head slightly, glancing down the length of the troop carrier with a strong hand gripping a bar above his head to stabilise himself. His other hand rested warily on top of a loaded SMG, subconsciously caressing the uneven surface of the cold metal with his thumb. His eyes locked onto the expressionless visages of a number of his fellow CPs, although no one else would have known other than him. The masks they each wore hid any semblance of a human residing beneath it, adding to the intimidation factor. And people were definitely intimidated by Civil Protection, to put it lightly.

There were ten people in total sitting in the APC, plus the commander standing up by the front where the door would open, gazing down the middle with the stoic look of a statue. Matt was sat next to him, back straight and staring forward. There was no messing around with him. He'd been around the block when it came to military. British Royal Engineers, Royal Marines and now Civil Protection. The man knew how to conduct himself, and had been the immovable object standing up against the unstoppable force in Ethan's life.

They'd been told during briefing that even ten armed CP officers was probably overkill for this, since they'd be taking the rebels by surprise at night, but their aim wasn't to go into a fair fight. It was to go into a fight which gave the enemy no chance of winning. They had also been told that mobilising anything more than Civil Protection would draw too much attention and give the rebels too much of a heads up. Ethan took a deep breath and closed his eyes, but was quickly snapped back into focus when a radio crackled with the sound of a robotic female voice.

"Unit Delta-9 you are one minute from target location. Maintain radio-silence upon arrival according to mission parameters."

Without so much as a single movement, the commander responded with machine-like efficiency.

"Copy, Dispatch. We are combat-ready. Radio silence now engaged." The tall, uniformed man answered, his voice altered via the mask's in-built vocalizer. Each CP officer had the same vocalizer, so everyone sounded almost exactly the same with the mask on. He took an SMG from one of the holders next to the door, and there was silence for a couple of moments before he addressed us. "Hand signals only before shots have been fired. Do not use radio until after we have engaged targets." There was a silent acceptance. "The main objective is to retrieve the data. Collateral damage is not an issue."

'Collateral damage is not an issue.'

Ethan replayed the phrase inside his head again.

'Collateral damage is not an issue.'

It continued to echo for a couple of seconds more before fading out, his doubts being extinguished into non-existence by an unknown force. Ethan didn't blink.

'Retrieve the data.'

Movement suddenly stopped with the APC shuddering to a halt. The unit flooded out of the open hatch and Ethan swiftly followed suit, both hands gripped firmly around the SMG, ready to raise and fire at a moment's notice. He briefly scanned his surroundings for threats. Nothing. The light of the full moon had bathed everything in a soft glow, large abandoned warehouses looming over him like mountains as his squad made its way through the claustrophobic pathways in between the eerily empty metal buildings. A minute later and they emerged from one of the small alleyways, coming out onto a wooden jetty raised on stilts. Light shimmered off the surface of some shallow water just a couple of metres away and over on the opposite side of land to them lay the re-purposed train tracks to Nova Prospekt. They were in the old canals. It was a shadow of its former self, much like everything else in City 17. Rusted boats and old cargo containers were just some of the myriad of objects left in the remnants of the canal that he could make out through the moonlit darkness. The Combine had drained much of the world's water, leaving places like this in a state of disrepair and disregard, but they made for a perfect rebel hideout, apparently.

The commander led them further down the canals, now on the path running alongside it at water level until eventually arriving at a rather innocuous metal door fixed into the side of a stone wall below one of the warehouses on the level above them. There was nothing around to suggest any kind of occupation by anyone, Ethan noted, but this was where the location they'd been tipped off about, and the data inside here would give the location of the rebel headquarters. If it wasn't a trap. His heart was racing. Were they really that silent that nobody had spotted them? It felt odd to him that there would be no one on lookout if this place knew where the rebel HQ was. It just wasn't adding up.

The young CP officer did his best to clear his mind as he stacked against the wall with the rest of his unit, five on each side of the door. He was positioned at the end of one of the stacks, covering any attacks from the rear, so the brunt of any retaliation from the rebels would be absorbed by the first few people moving in. There were a few beeps to mark the breaching explosives being set on the edges of the door, and a silent tap on the shoulder from the officer in front of him to indicate imminent entry.

"Radio silence lifted, initiating breach." The voice was cold, calm and calculated, a stark contrast to the chaos of the next few seconds. Debris showered out from the sharp, high-pitched bang of the explosive going off, and they were suddenly thrust into the midst of the unknown. Gunshots rang out from the other side of the door. Controlled bursts. They had targets. Ethan ducked in through the lingering cloud of smoke and was immediately barraged with new information on his surroundings. Incomprehensible shouts and screams penetrated the air like arrows before being drowned out by the deafening cracks of SMGs echoing around the room. He noticed one person from a distance about to round a corner out of sight, but he was quick to react, downing the figure with a burst of bullets.

'Collateral damage is not an issue.'

His gaze shifted elsewhere, and he advanced with the rest of his unit through a workshop of sorts, now devoid of any life other than them. Tools and mechanical parts lay strewn about the place, bullet holes peppering walls, tables and the floor wherever they hadn't connected with their true targets. A door on the far side of the room was ajar, seeming to lead into another similar workshop. Where was the resistance? The rebels were falling like flies. Ethan hadn't seen anyone other than his unit who were armed. He was expecting to catch them by surprise, but he was also expecting retaliation.

"Secure the area. Find a computer access point and exterminate any obstructions. We need that data."

He and the rest of the unit silently obliged. The majority moved up to the door on the far side of the room, boots clanging against the metal floor, whereas Ethan and the remaining few secured the few corridors branching off either side of the room. Looking down each of them, Ethan could see that they led to nowhere in particular and just had a few smaller rooms on each side of the corridor. Someone else. He was quick to note the small smears of blood on the floor and wall just by his feet, but no body to accompany it. The area was dimly lit, so he couldn't see any shimmering, but dragging the tip of his boot through a section of it concluded that it was definitely a recent addition. A strange combination of relief and fear flowed through him, and he honestly wasn't entirely sure what to feel. He'd shot this person, after all. There was still a chance of them being alive, but if they were still alive then there was no reason not to believe that they hadn't called for help somehow. One thing he could be sure of was that the cleaners weren't going to be happy.

Raising his weapon once more, he followed the trail, treading lightly, though the occasional radio chatter from his squad was a dead giveaway of his position. Not that it mattered now, though. The trail led him to last room, and a bloodied door handle was all the evidence he needed to assure himself that someone had survived. He listened for a moment but heard nothing. Nothing apart from the two other officers kicking doors in and checking rooms on their corridors. With this in mind, Ethan rounded the corner into the room, and what he saw shocked him.

Nothing.

There was nobody there.

Ethan lowered his weapon, still tense about the situation but, realising that he wasn't in any imminent danger, he relaxed his posture. On a second glance, there were a number of details that he hadn't originally noticed. It seemed to be a medical room, illustrated mainly by the med-kits on the wall, one of which had been removed from its stand and opened on the bed. A collection of different materials. He stepped over and was about to look through it when there was a quiet knocking, like something had hit against a metal surface. Gently gripping the SMG in his right hand, he switched his radio and the transmitter off, now enveloped in silence, and walked towards what he thought to be the source of the noise: the closet.

Taking the handle into his hand, Ethan paused for a couple of seconds. Then, without warning, he yanked the door open and something large and heavy tumbled out, knocking him off his feet, his SMG sliding away from him across the floor.

"D-Don't shoot! Please! I-I'll do anything just-just do-"

Confused would be an understatement, but regardless, Ethan rushed back onto his feet and closed a hand around the man's mouth, bringing his index finger up to his mask's mouthpiece. The stranger seemed to understand, and remained silent, though enable to reel back the terror in his eyes which were essentially doing the pleading for him now. He seemed to be of Hispanic heritage, with short black hair and a surprisingly neat moustache. Ethan recognized that the man was unarmed, but the crimson-stained bandage around his torso indicated that he wasn't really in fighting state anyway.

Slowly removing his hand from the civilian's mouth, Ethan unmasked himself. Kneeling, he set it over to the side and then ran a hand through his hair. It wasn't hard to notice the look the stranger gave him once he had taken his mask off, and it just confused him even more. After checking that no one was going to be interrupting them, he turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

"What were you expecting to see?" The young officer's voice was low, and he spoke quieter than usual. Whether that was out of fear of being heard by his unit or just downright bewilderment he didn't know.

There wasn't an answer.

"You can talk to me." His tone was more casual now, despite him being on edge a little.

"Oh, I uh...I-I dunno…just some, well, some sort of, uh…" The guy was speaking quickly, stuttering and stumbling over his words. It wasn't surprising, given the situation. Must have been a nervous wreck. He shifted backwards, leaning against a nearby wall before composing himself. "Look, it's just that…you were trying to kill us all! I didn't think that you'd be...y'know, fully human under there."

"Sorry to disappoint you." Ethan joked with a dead-pan tone and a slight smile on his face. Silence crept back into the room. "My name's Ethan."

"I-I'm Damian. Damian Griggs. Most people I know, they just call me Griggs." He grimaced and held his side, glancing down at his wound.

"You patched yourself up well, Griggs." Ethan nodded down at the bandage around his torso. He figured that Griggs must have known what he was doing given the situation he was thrown into.

"Th-Thanks! I was studying for a med degree before the Combine waltzed in. Still hurts like hell, though. I wasn't even meant to be here…" He trailed off quietly, shaking his head. "So, you're not gonna shoot me?"

"You're unarmed. And I already shot you once. Sorry."

"Hah! You really need to spend more time down at the range!" Ethan cocked his head slightly and raised an eyebrow in response. "I-I mean…you did really well to hit me from that range!"

"I'm not the best shot, I'll admit." Ethan chuckled, shrugging lightly, but after a few seconds his voice had become more serious and he locked eyes with Griggs. "But look, we don't have much time-" He cut himself off, throwing a look over his shoulder "- and I don't enjoy what I'm doing or what I've done, but we all have to make tough decisions to survive in this world." He breathed in deeply, as if building up the courage to go through with his next action. Silence hung over them. Finally, he unholstered his pistol and flipped it around to grip it by the barrel.

"W-What are you-"

"Take this and make sure you get out of here." Ethan interrupted Griggs by offering the weapon out to him, pistol grip first. Griggs didn't react. A bewildered expression had taken over.

"This, uh...this ain't a trick?" Giggs asked warily.

"If I wanted you dead then you'd be dead. You don't deserve that fate." Ethan replied bluntly.

"I…yeah, yeah…sorry. It's just that, usually you guys are kicking our assess or shipping us off to Nova Prospekt for so much as looking the wrong way, not giving out free guns. We're damn scared of you."

Ethan looked away and swallowed. That one hit home. He didn't want to imagine how many of Griggs' mates he had either directly or indirectly killed. Or worse.

"A lot of CPs abuse their power, Griggs, but some are just stuck in a shitty situation and have no choice. Some of them are good people." Ethan reached over and physically took Griggs' hand, placing the pistol grip in his palm. "I'm not one of them, but I like to think I haven't lost myself completely yet." He reluctantly let go of the weapon and handed Griggs an extra pistol magazine which he gladly accepted. "Stay in here until we're gone. Shoot anyone you need to shoot to get to safety."

"Okay, yeah, I'll do that. I'll be able to walk after I get some painkillers out of one of those med-kits. But how am I meant to know who you are if I see a few CPs and need to kill 'em? I don't wanna kill you."

"Then it's my own fault. I gave you that pistol after all. Just do what you have to. If you hesitate before making a decision then you're already dead." Ethan shot Griggs a soft smile and shrugged his shoulders, snatching his mask up from the floor next to him. "I know that if my own bloody arse is on the line, then I won't hesitate shooting you. I wish things were different."

"One day, maybe they will be. You're a good guy, Ethan."

Grimacing slightly, Ethan's gaze slumped to the floor.

"No. No I'm not." He muttered almost inaudibly.

Without uttering another word, the young officer replaced the mask over his face, hearing it click into place, and stepped outside with his SMG in hand again, closing the door. He didn't look back.