An Enigmatic Past (Part 2. the beginning: A week before the interview)
Inside the G.U.N. research laboratory on Prison Island, Rane and two other members, one is an echidna, the other is a hawk, and all of them await their orders for a surprise attack. Rane holds a suppressed 9mm pistol, while the other two carry sub-machine guns. No guards are present, only the scientists in the room are. The computers are being shutdown, but as the shutdown is taking place, Rane and the others jump out from underneath the darkness.
"Stop what you're doing and get on the ground! Also hand over any form of security clearance and or any other form of personal I.D.!" Rane yells as he holds his fully loaded pistol to the back of one of the scientists' heads.
"Sir I can't access the computer databases without one of them." Says the hawk.
"You!" Rane shouts directly at the scientist his gun is held to, "Give me the codes."
"I would rather die, then give…" the scientist is stopped as a bullet is put through his head.
"Anyone else want to screw around?" Rane asks as he points his gun to one of the other two scientists.
Neither responds Rane nods his head to the echidna as he puts his pistol in his holster. Quickly his sub-machine gun goes off eliminating the other two scientists. As soon as the men drop, the sirens go off.
"Damn it, not enough time. Here take this, it should have a virus that will copy any information off of their computer mainframe while subsequently deleting all of it." Rane says as he tosses a flash drive to the hawk.
The flash drive is then entered. On the screen comes a dialog box stating INIATE PANDORA'S BOX? The user quickly left clicks and the virus is unleashed copying all of the information while deleting afterwards.
Once the information is copied, the hawk tosses the flash drive back, but unfortunately a guard unit of 6 men busts through and unleashes their fully automatic rifles on the lab. The hawk is killed in a matter of seconds, while Rane ducks under the tables and draws his 9mm back out. He then leaps up and puts two bullets straight through two of the guards chest killing them. The echidna unleashes his sub-machine gun on the rest of the group forcing them to drop to the floor. Once they're on the floor, Rane unleashes the rest of his clip killing the group of guards.
"I didn't come prepared for this, only brought two clips." Rane says as he picks up his former partner's sub-machine gun and puts his pistol away.
"We need to go, this is probably going to be one hell of an escape, so we shouldn't take too much time. All we need to do is get to the rendezvous point and the helicopter should be waiting." The echidna tells his partner.
"Where exactly is that?"
"I think they placed it at the top of this building and considering were on the 31st of the 38 floors that elevators goes to, we should be able to make it out of here in 15 minutes. Though, guard activity is going to be high considering the alarms and the fact that we just killed 9 men. I would actually expect one of their walkers to be there when we reach the top. That's ok though, I brought a high explosive grenade for this situation."
"Well, from what I read off the map before we came, that elevator is only 50 feet away. I don't think they're going to keep fighting on this floor, but I would expect the elevators to be shutdown. If so we'll need to climb the cable in the shaft all the way to the top."
As soon as Rane ends his sentence, they ran down the hallway. On their left was the elevator. Noticing that the doors were shut, the echidna placed a small plastic explosive, blowing the doors open. Appearing to be right, the two teammates grab onto the cable and began their climb.
About 20 minutes later they reach the top finding that elevator has been stopped above them. Rane reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a micro-welding tool. He then cuts a hole in the bottom just big enough for them to fit through.
They quickly shoot open the doors and find themselves on the rooftop. The area is covered with guards, approximately 20. All of them flash their lights and their guns on the two intruders.
"Drop your weapons, we have you surrounded. Come out unarmed and we won't shoot, otherwise your lives will be forfeit."
Rane jukes to the right to provide him cover; the echidna doe's the same on the opposite side. Both load their guns again and throw themselves out in the open firing off a few shots into the inexperienced grouped guards. 6 of them go down and the others scatter for what little cover there is. All of a sudden the sound of a walker could be heard its jump jets helping it to descent.
"Throw that grenade, if it has missiles we're dead. The smoke created by its destruction will give us a screen, we can then finish off the rest of them." Rane states while gripping his gun ever tighter.
The echidna pulls the pin, but as he reaches over to toss it he is hit by a sniper shot. Rane jumps into action, grabbing the grenade off the floor of his dead partner and throwing at the walker. He then hits the ground as the concussion from the blast throws him down. Getting up slowly he grabs his ex-partner's gun and puts it in his left hand. Holding both sub-machine guns, Rane runs outs and begins spraying as many of the guards as he could with sub-machine gun fire, almost killing the whole lot of them.
He then runs up a flight of stairs and races to the rendezvous point, though slowly from still being startled by the grenade concussion and being tired from his gung-ho attack against the guards. He sees the chopper, its blades are spinning, and someone comes off and helps him on board.
"Did you get the files?" the helicopter crewmember asks.
"Yeah, they're on this flash drive. We should get going, the others are dead and there's no use in wasting time." Rane expresses in a resolute tone.
Once everyone on board is seated and the doors are closed, the helicopter takes off. The lift of the helicopter takes away everyone's' sense of gravity as it hovers to it's destination. The location is a hidden base in the capital city.
After an hour-long ride, the helicopter begins its descent to the ground; a hangar at the top of a skyscraper opens up to seclude the location of the helicopter. It only takes 15 minutes to land it and shut it down. Rane leaves the sub-machine guns on board and only takes his pistol with him.
Now outside, Rane heads to an exit door and enters a hallway filled with offices. The hedgehog turns left and walks for about fifteen feet before turning into a door. At the desk is a man in a military styled uniform, he is currently typing on a computer.
"Specialist Rane, reporting for after mission report." The hedgehog says taking a seat in front of the desk.
"So did you retrieve the data?" the man asks.
"Yes sir, though the others are K.I.A."
"All that matters is the information has been retrieved. Those two were expendable, they knew it when they were ordered the assignment."
"Understood sir, anything else?"
"No, we'll analyze this and hand you the report tomorrow. Hopefully this information was worth the mission. I need the codes to get aboard the Ark; you need the codes so that you can use the technological advanced research facilities aboard. Just remember don't get carried away with your next mission. The pilot told me that at least twenty men at the top of the building you were just at were all killed. I don't need any more publicity."
"Yes sir, I'll keep that in mind."
The commander waved Rane off and the hedgehog was released back out into the hallway. Out there he went to the elevator only 10 feet away and went down to the basement where the barracks were located. Rane exited the elevator and went to his room, number 212. Once in, he turned off the lights and went to sleep.
The next morning Rane found the report on his desk. Making an overview of it, there was no newfound information in there. Just the same stuff available. No codes or information on what research was being done, besides the already known weapons and ultimate life form. He threw the report back on his desk and went through his files on his laptop, though the room was small. It still gave him just enough for one overhead light, a small desk, and his bed.
Looking through his files, he found a folder. It was labeled, ongoing research. It mostly contained known and discovered information on the disease he was researching. A lot of it was just theories, though the topics still gave small clues of a cure. Most of it had to do with finding a way to make new cells to kill off the ones contaminated. These new cells would provide better stability in Rane's already unstable bloodline. Once done looking over the unchanged files, Rane went to his folder containing his previous mission overviews. Although he'd only been in for 6 months now, he'd accumulated over 50 missions. Most dealing with intelligence gathering, though there was one assassination, it was a presidential candidate also a political enemy of the Organization; it went quite smoothly with no errors. Though none of the missions had ever gone as awry like the last one, most of them didn't deal with inexperienced group members or as undersized of a team. Most of the time Rane was out in the field with at least 5 other members, who were also specialist.
Overlooking the last of the overviews, Rane decided to go back to sleep, knowing he was probably on stand-by for another 2 weeks. He just fell right back into his bed and slept in a little more.