The One That Got Away
The stage was set; the lights were on, the big speech about to be given. Generals, war contractors, all eyes were looking forward, ready to see the unveiling of a new project Phoenix had been working on for the past few years. A long hail of claps echoed through the room as in entered an energetic vulpine whose face screamed 'I want to be here'.
As he crossed the stage on his way to the podium, he pumped his fist up in the air, leaping and yelling, "YEAH! YEAH! Come oooon!"
The crowd cheered even louder at the sight of the Executive Director of Weapons Systems bouncing around the stage. Such an attitude had almost become expected from the charismatic people in power; instead of being an intimidating figure, many of them resorted to being more like excited salesmen, evidently, such actions usually worked quite well.
"Yeah! Yeah! WOOOOH! Get up!" The cycle continued as the words welcomed no change in the onlooker's patience but instead influenced them to all stand as they cheered on the representative of Phoenix's greatness. The vulpine pointed to random people in the crowd as if he knew them.
As the vulpine reached the podium, he breathed heavily before loudly exclaiming. "Who said sit down?!" The crowd gave a responsive laugh. The vulpine too laughed before shaking his head and returning to the podium. His face reeked of determination and pride.
"I got four words for ya." He said, pointing to the mix of Cornerians in front of him and pausing dramatically. "I… love… this COMPANY YEEAAUUSSS!" The crowd didn't hesitate to vocally praise him once more. They were all excited to see what Phoenix had up there corporate sleeves.
The cheering died down, and the room fell at the mercy of silence.
"Friends, military men, money holders," The Director had gone over this speech at least a hundred times in the mirror. "Phoenix is proud to introduce the future… today! But none of this could've happened, if it were not for who? Who?" He searched the crowd for an answer, but none came.
"Well I'll tell you. Developers developers developers developers…" With each repetition, he brought his paws together. The crowd followed by doing the same, whilst repeating his words. "Developers developers developers developers developers…" The crowd of Cornerians started to clap in a rhythm in tune with his words. "yeah…"
~X~X~X~X~X~
"Can you tell me why we're here again?" Walter asked as he adjusted his rarely used armored uniform. "I mean there are some pretty cool and dangerous looking missiles in the garden, but they're just models right?"
"Nobody's going to steal a two ton rocket when nobody's looking." Detective Tyler said as he once again eyed the neatly laid out sampler platter only ten meters away from him. "We're here to make sure Dr. Holcomb stays safe."
The tired lupine was of course speaking of Dr. Holcomb, who had worked with Phoenix for years developing top of the line stealth technology. The real problem with stealth technology was not to make it invisible to the eye, but invisible to an array of sensors as well. Such a ship brought fears of shadow governments observing each and every move to local Cornerian conspiracy theorists, but flying around completely invisible in space was immensely expensive and would no doubt get regulated to death if it were ever put into any practical use.
"Dr. Holcomb, isn't that the guy who studies anomalous mind functions?" Walter said alluring to the many academic studies performed on those with 'supernatural' tendencies, i.e. Cernians.
"No, that's Dr. Morrison; Dr. Holcomb works on advances technology integration into space faring vessels."
"No wait, that's Dr. Leake…"
"Dr. Leake was the guy who worked with that Andross fellow right before going crazy from intrusive mind experiments. He was the genius who helped develop some of the A.I. security drones for the military."
"Man, glad I majored in military history…" Walter noted right before he watched an armed guard make his rounds once more. "Some people to college to major in button pressing these days." He joked, though not straying far from the eerily close truth.
"With the way the new Dreadnoughts are wired, you could manage the ship with only five able bodied individuals."
"You're kidding…" Walter shook his head in disbelief. Five? Could it be possible? Automation had been a key part in recent history, but it still sounded too unlikely. Far off were the days where Cornerians would be packed 30 to a division, but the idea that self repair systems would negate the need for manned interaction almost completely baffled him.
One thing which was learned the hard way many years ago was to never let systems be in complete control of everything the ships did. There was a tale that back in the days of great exploration, that an A.I. controlling a then highly advanced ship killed off the crew for the sake of the mission. Such stories had probably deteriorated from historical fact into shallow legend, but the meaning behind them stayed the same.
"I hate being on ships where there are more than twenty onboard. Because then you're not a soldier, you're a number. Your existence is condensed into what you are, not who you are, and your every action is either determined or hopefully permitted by your faceless superiors." The detective said, remembering one of his earliest deployment recollections.
The lupine had always enjoyed working alone or at least in small groups. The jobs he often been given back in the army were ones that required such solitude that almost any other soldiers would fall on their knees begging to return home after just one day of wallowing in their own pitiful misery. Tyler didn't mind being alone for extended periods of time, but of course he worried for his own safety as the result of extended separations. He disliked having to engage with a variety of people he didn't know, and he trusted almost nobody in the entire Lylat except for Walter.
Tyler also lacked any close friends other than Walter, even his near relatives had little emotional connection to him, but the wolf didn't desire any nor did he mind it.
On the other hand, the panther had always been drawn towards duties which forced him to regularly converse and plan with others. It was this attitude which allowed him to meet Detective O'Donnell in the first place, along with another special person in his life he met inside the communications bay.
"I couldn't stand being so alone for so long… especially in the distant reaches of space. Unlike you, I feel uncomfortable when no one's around. I don't know whether to feel sorry for you or to feel jealous." Walter's statement almost invaded Tyler's threshold of personal space, but the lupine, tired and indifferent, didn't mind and instead went along with it.
"By the way uh… does your wife ever mind you staying out so long?" Tyler almost clawed himself after making the horrifying mistake of asking a personal question.
Walter smiled. "No, not at all. She thinks the more I hang around 'that weird schizoid buddy of yours', the more obligated I feel to be… intimate with her." He said, imitating his mate with girlish gestures and tones.
Tyler's face froze with indifference and embarrassment cobbled into one odd mixture. "I'm going to… stop talking now…"
The panther yawned as activity outside of the main convention hall had become all but nonexistent. The two detectives could hear the Phoenix executive giving a loud and verbose speech in the other room, but nothing seemed unusual.
Suddenly, the wolf's communicator flashed at the call of his Agency bound comrade. "Detective Tyler, we're good here, anything on your end?"
"Sorry Rotte, it's as boring as a lecture on atmospheric pressure."
"Good, let's hope it stays that way." The agent replied over the small device. "Agent Rotte, out."
Tyler sighed as he let his wrist hang limp. For what would seem to be hours, the two detectives would stand in wait, not knowing whether to hope for action or to hope for absolutely nothing. There came an answer very soon however, and they no longer had to wonder if anything would go wrong.
The answer came not in the form of words or sound, but in the form of a striking visual change… or the lack of one. The lights of the entire convention center flickered off, and everything became dark. Panic was the first instinctual reaction to the nearby crowd. Was it an attack? Was it a blackout? Shallow speculation was all the convention goers could comprehend; but looking deeper, the savvy detectives knew something else was amiss.
~X~X~X~X~X~
In the silence and darkness of a secluded hallway, heavy footsteps made their way quickly and quietly, their shadowy figures contrasting to the walls behind them. As a guard tried to make sense of the sudden loss of light, his sense of sight was disabled permanently as one of the shadowed figures plunged an esoterically shaped weapon into their unsuspecting victim.
Four soldiers moved in tight formation down the cold underground corridor under the main weapons convention floor system. With vigilant attention, they silently took down every confused soul in sight, except for one…
When they came to another room numbered perfectly for their arrival, they positioned themselves in front of the door, their sensors able to distinguish this one as the holder of their target.
"What now?" One of the young recruits asked, adjusting his low light vision receptors as his tail shook violently as a sign of nervousness.
"We take the doctor, and nothing else." Said a hardened veteran standing at the front of the formation, his paws grazing over the edge of his gun's purple ridged coolant disperser. "We got about four minutes before a QRF (quick reaction force) starts to sweep this area , if we want to get out in one piece, we need to stay a few steps ahead of them."
The soldiers all knew what they were there for, but only one knew what they would leave with. The mission was vague but direct, their objectives risky but solid. The hardened veteran felt no sympathy for whoever would end up with the shortest straw, he'd been in the same position before, and almost had been left to die once; he had been the direct result of someone else being chosen for the horrible fate.
One of the other soldiers, an anxious avian with feathers as dark as space, couldn't help but complain as the team positioned for the door breach. "Finally," He whispered, relieved to almost see the end to what seemed to be hardest mission he'd ever gone through. "Can't wait to get this damn collar off." He grabbed the metal ring around his neck. "1 surely knows how to conduct the mission in the worst way possible. I know it's supposed to 'motivate' me, but I don't see why I need it."
"Shut up 6…" Their leader muttered, not wanting to bring any more emotional trauma to himself than was needed. "For that comment you'll be our trail keeper on the way out."
The black avian cursed in an unrecognizable tongue. Not wanting to delay their job any further, the team moved in position for a breach. There was no room for error; if even the slightest mistake was made in the placement of the breaching device, the whole team would pay with their lives.
In charge of placing the advanced device was the nervous recruit, edging the jutting protrusion under the door, he prepared to pop off the hinges with a couple precision turns of the device. If it went wrong, the door would automatically seal itself due to the current emergency lockdown status each door was set to during times like these. The team held their breath; this was the moment of truth.
It only took a couple seconds for the real operation to finish. The heavy metal door intuitively snapped like it was made of paper. The device worked perfectly, and the team stormed in the darkened room with night vision on full.
Inside the waiting room, the team searched for their target. Fortunately for them, the job was made much easier due to the fact that there were only a few disoriented Cornerians trying to find their way around.
"You Dr. Holcomb?" The leader of the commando group asked a chameleon who was turning blue in fear. The chameleon instinctively turned his head to signal no, and the leader of the infiltration team wasted no time in kicking his soon unconscious face to the floor.
"Boss, I found 'him." Said one of the recruits, backing away to make sure he did not stand in the way of his superior.
"How can you tell?"
"He… has glasses…" The nervous recruit confirmed.
The team leader, who was a tall feline, with strength to match his gritty voice, neared the doctor. He remembered that muzzle from the short briefing he had received before the mission. His life, as well as everyone else's, depended on capturing him. "Well well Dr., looks like all that time practicing your speeches has gone to waste."
The doctor stood disillusioned and confused, unable to see who was speaking to him in the fearful absence of light.
"W-Who are you?"
"If I told you, you'd be even more confused." The team leader commented. "Now you can walk out of here with a gun to your back or slumped over in a pitiful display of pain." Keeping his word, the feline lifted a gun to the confused Dr.'s back.
"Where are we going?" The doctor asked, feeling as if his heart were about to burst from his chest as he was violently lifted by a powerful force.
"It's not too far... our ride's in the basement." The team leader said as they slowly exited the room checking the corners to make sure everything was clear. "Any more words and we'll have to silence you."
The frightful doctor had no other option than to submit in silence as his captors led the way.
"Good…" The feline infiltrator turned to face his avian comrade. "6… your job's to draw them off when they come looking. If they go after you, they'll never look for us. If you can lose them, meet at Fifth Junction. If you can't…" He ominously pointed to the large metal ring around the black avian's neck; signaling the dooming result of failure. If he were to be captured by the enemy, or even fail to return with his fellow soldiers, it would be all over for him.
As the group leader started to leave, he turned once more to face the brave bird. "Good luck…"
~X~X~X~X~X~
"I know, I know. Where's Dr. Holcomb?" Detective Tyler asked over his radio as rounded another corner, the flashlight on his gun shining brightly.
"He should be in level b1, if not, than he would be on the main floor." Agent Rotte replied with a cautious grasp of recent facts.
"The doctor should've been kept under tighter security! And what the hell happened to the power?"
"The engineers are checking that as we speak. It wasn't a power failure, someone sabotaged it from the inside. Detective, if there's an armed force down there, you have my authorization to take them down. Many of us can't reach the levels due to the lockdown… don't bother waiting for backup."
"Thanks sir, that's how I like it." Tyler put down the communicator.
At that moment, Tyler's primal instincts kicked in. He was no longer bound to simple rules of 'justice' imposed on him by others; this was him, in control of who lived and who died. There was no doubt in his mind that he would soon face opposition, the only questions were who, and how much.
The detective rounded another corner, where he found a lone figure standing in silence, as if waiting for him. "Hey, HEY!" Tyler yelled, ready to make the distinction between friend and foe. As his light shined on the dark figure, the darkness did not change, but only became a different darkness.
A raven, as dark as the sky in the deepest reaches of the Cornerian wilderness and as still as the calmest streams of Zoness stood ready for his fate to meet him. He did not fear the detective, nor did he jerk at the sight of his formidable weapon. It did not move him; the realization did not change his calm composure, he was at peace with what he would soon undertake.
"Get down on the ground or I will shoot!" Tyler yelled, still retaining the possibility this strange figure did not have to face the effect of his weapon. "GET DOWN!"
The avian did not move.
"GET! DOWN!"
Still unmoved, the dark avian slowly looked up to face his assailant. There was no fear, but only confidence in him.
"Damn it!"
The detective didn't hesitate like he had so many times before. He shot his weapon, and the flash of superheated plasma streaked across the hallway towards the static avian. But he still did not move.
In not an instant's time, the bolt from Tyler's gun dissipated after nearing the avian by only a couple feet. The sudden stop was initiated by the visibility of a glowing red defensive orb surrounding the smiling bird.
Tyler had only heard about such things in theory, that is, the newly developed and wildly underused barrier technologies. From what Tyler knew, these 'barriers' were actually devices which worked by neutralizing the effect of the bolt by 'capturing' it with an equally focused impulse on the negative scale based on the perimeter of the soldier's arm length reach. It was an amazing concept really; some were based on absorption, others on deflection, the latter being less common due to its low reliability.
"You fight like a coward, afraid of what you face and only approaching it at a distance dependant on your own need for continued safety." The raven said in a flowing and poetic manner.
The detective was not defused in any manner; instead, it only prompted him to move the matter his way. "Look who's talking… How about you power that device down and we can talk this over?" Tyler tempted with the weak sense of regressed diplomacy.
The undaunted raven tugged on his collar. "That would be pretty fun; I'm sure your 'friends' would have much to say, but I'm afraid I have places to be." The raven charged at the detective with a frenzied speed. Tyler barely had time to knock off two shots before the avian reached him; of course the shots had no effect on the mysterious infiltrator.
Instead of swiping Tyler with the large and now exposed weapon, the raven instead leaped right over the detective, becoming upside down as he passed over him. The movement was so fast that the lupine barely noticed his gun missing from one second to another.
"Wha?" Tyler said at the realization of his disarming. The strange infiltrator was not fighting with him but toying with him! As the detective turned around to see what the dark avian was up too, he saw him putting good use to that knife like instrument.
The raven briefly cackled as he picked apart the weapon with his knife, tossing the now useless parts aside. He had just destroyed the detective's gun!
"Oh, it's on now…"
Detective Tyler charged the avian, but the black feathered intruder merely caught him running and turned him horizontal from the chest down. It was so smooth, so graceful how the raven fought hand to hand.
Never willing to be bested, the detective rose again to his feet, but now, the avian had decided it would be best to flee.
"Ha! You're scared! Come back here and-"
'DRRHDDRRH—DRRZHH'
The detective held the communicator up to his muzzle as he ran down the dark corridors. "Agent, I've found the intruder and I'm…"
Static clouded the agent's interruption "Detective…. coming… can't get to…"
"Agent?"
"Trying t… jam our sig… in-…"
"Agent!" Tyler yelled before loosening his fixation with the communicator.
The signal was definitely being disabled by a precision frequency disruptor, crippling all forms of communication inside the convention.
"Damn it!" The detective cursed before running after the dark infiltrator.
It did not take much time for Tyler to find where the bird had ran off too, he could almost smell his path as a predator smells the trail of his prey. Even in the darkness of the basement corridors, Tyler's eyes were able to adjust very well, as if he were now set in a primal hunt of the night. He was alone, away from his pack; but he didn't need them, this enemy was surrounded by him.
Left, right, and left again, the whole floor never changed. There were no signs of life and only a couple signs of death; all Tyler was focused on was getting to his prey.
What gave it away was the sound of a heavy door moving after being lifted via emergency latch. With such heavy force closing down, it could only mean someone was trying to escape, and fast.
Tyler ran to the source of the loud noise; his prey had made the dire mistake of giving away its position through sound and movement. After he ran for an exhaustingly long time, he approached the thin metal door which lay surprisingly not too far from where the wolf already stood. Immediately, the lupine charged for the steel gate.
He pulled the emergency latch with all his might, but there was a limit to how fast the door would rise. Every second he spent here was another he would lose when trying to find his victim; there was no time to rest, only time to chase. With a loud groan, the lupine pushed the vertical door up right before passing under it. The door closed behind him with a loud thud equal to what drew him to there in the first place.
The door opened to a large underground area, oddly enough lit with a soft red emergency light. As Tyler made his way through the empty expanse, he searched for every sign of movement. He even kept an eye on his shadow to make sure it did not run away.
This place was even colder and emptier than the last, and the darkness almost seemed to be at home. It also looked much different than the convention flooring, as the walls changed from a solid steel gray to a chalky brown color. As Tyler moved on, he was frozen still when the ground began to shake and vibrate.
The minimal vibrations were accompanied by a high pressure force coming to a quick stop. Tyler realized this was the sound of a monorail being halted by strong magnetic brakes. He had approached the train station, where untold amounts of citizens piled on every day to avoid the chaotic traffic on the streets above. The walls here were old and worn, every dozen years or so, the trains were renovated, but the maintenance areas always stayed the same.
Knowing the infiltrator had nowhere to go; Tyler faced the only means of exiting the maintenance room. A manual door at the end of the long maintenance walkway, still half opened, almost inviting the detective.
As the lupine sprinted towards the door, he wondered where the raven would be escaping to. He must've known where this place was beforehand if he had planned his escape, but something which struck the detective was that both he and the avian seemed to be alone. was no longer on the detective's priority list, instead, he'd been replaced with this elusive stranger.
Tyler barreled through the door, which was a sign it was left unlocked, meaning that someone had tampered with it earlier. The detective almost fell to the ground once he saw what immense change from the cold and empty maintenance room to the loud, open expanse of moving feet. Now he was in a crowd of Cornerians, all headed to who knows where.
Tyler remembered there was supposed to be a race going on at the track today, and this was the time for everyone to leave and go back home. The stood tall trying to look over the heads of the crowd to maybe search for his escapee, but he was nowhere to be found; the trail had been lost in an endless stream of even more trails.
Tyler ran instinctively to the nearest place where he could get information. Hopefully his government employed kin would be able to help him find his target. He neared the information booth, which had been recently filled with distressed citizens arguing about their metro card's payment validity. Perhaps those station workers needed some excitement in their lives.
"Hey, HEY!" Tyler yelled, waving his arms at the people inside the hexagonal booth as he shifted through the ocean of bodies.
"Look! It's another one of those crazy people." Said one of the workers inside the glass chamber.
"Hey! Listen to me! Get security!" The detective said, showing his badge.
Immediately, the attention of the station manager was captured. The exited the chamber to see what was the matter.
"What is it er… Detecive …O'Dinol?" The aged beagle asked, squinting at the badge through his glasses.
"I need to find a black avian; he's running away as we spe-" Just as Tyler said this, he made eye contact with a certain someone entering the train as inconspicuously as possible. "Damn it!"
The detective broke off from the manager, and ran as fast is his legs could carry him to the lower level where the monorail was. Not wanting to brave the crowded escalator, he braced his legs as he fell down the overhanging ledge and onto the lower level rolling before continuing his way onward.
His heart almost stopped when he noticed the trains doors were beginning to close. Even if he tried, they packed in there like sardines, and there was no possibility they could make any more room.
The train started to move, but not before the detective reached the door and started banging on it as hard as he could without breaking it. "Stop the train! Stop the train!"
He knew none of it was in control; the acceleration of the long stretched vehicle was greater than his, and it only took a few seconds for its velocity to become impossible for him to match.
"No, NO!" Tyler yelled as he saw the only means of finding his escapee escaping through the nearby tunnel. There was nothing he could do now, he had already escaped. Stopping the train would be impossible, since it was now in complete control of someone else.
Tyler fell to his knees. Once again, his prey had slipped right through his hands.
~X~X~X~X~X~
Far away from the convention station, a black raven stepped off the platform of Fifth Junction. He peered over the edge before slowing his descent during his way down. He hit the ground about twenty feet below; he stood completely stable as he stood up.
"Just in time…" He noted when watching his team's escape vehicle backing into his vicinity.
The loading door opened, and there were four soldiers standing inside, as well as a shaken Dr. Holcomb.
"6… we were about to think you weren't coming." The team leader said as he realized this was the most painful part of the mission. "Fortunately, you'll be drinking with us tonight." The strong feline turned to another one of the recruits. "3, would you mind helping 6 onto our vehicle?"
"uh… of course sir…" The relieved recruit helped pick his comrade up onto the ship. The raven hi-fived his other friends once he found a secure place to be seated in the small craft.
"Now 3, get off."
"Sir?"
"Get off… our ship."
Confused, the recruit leaped off the loading platform and onto the concrete ground below. "What's going on? What are you…"
The leader took out his hand cannon with a sorrowful gaze. He knew what he had to do next was not by any means easy. "There are only four seats, I'm sorry."
"Wha…" The look of the recruit's face turned from confusion to horror once he understood what this meant. "No! Please! Don't!"
The leader tried to take his eyes off the poor mercenary. But the image stuck to his mind too greatly. He would have to end the poor recruit's life quickly and painlessly. The magnum blaster was now in the leader's hands.
"No please!" The recruit begged as he covered his eyes. "Just take this collar off and let me be! I promise I'll never tell anyone or do anything! I did what I was supposed to, just let me live!"
The blaster shook in the leader's hand. He had killed many times before, but doing it in cold blood was far different. His orders were to return, but with only five. His mission was a success, but the terms had not yet been met. It was now that he had to leave the weakest of the group behind in order to strengthen the others.
The sight of the begging mercenary crippled the leader, who couldn't help but feel sympathy for him. He almost pulled the trigger, but the mere thought of him once being in the same position shook the gun from his hand. The leading feline opened a box and threw a key towards the weak recruit. "Mr. Doles has no room for failures." A tear could be seen falling down his eye before the loading door closed up. "When the time comes for a revolution, be ready to stand."
Shocked and relieved, the nervous recruit used the key to remove the collar before throwing it as far as he could down a low structural level in the Cornerian city. He was free.
And he ran.
~X~X~X~X~X~
Author's Notes: So? What do you think?
REVIEWING IS MANDATORY!