Chapter 3-4
A few minutes of waiting, and the PRT vans came screaming into the parking lot. Looks like they were in a hurry. I smiled, imagining the big wigs stomping their hats in frustration at not noticing us sooner.
Yes, I'm childish. Screw you, I'm fifteen.
Anyway, play time was over. These guys knew we were here and wouldn't be caught unaware as easily as the B-cops were. That said, they still didn't know I was here. As far as they knew, there were only three of us. Better make sure they caught on as late as possible.
The rumbling of the vans stopped mere feet away from the entrances. Now that I thought about it, PRT vans were loud. So loud, I could probably hear them coming even if I hadn't triggered. Good thing Massani hadn't come in one of those yesterday, or the whole planet would have known I was a cape by now. Crushing the errant thought, I focused on the matter at hand. Why would they park so close by the doors? We could have put bombs there, or… Suddenly, I could hear the tell-tale whine of Kid Win's hoverboard along with snaps from his laser pistols.
"Fuck! Incoming, right above us!" A voice screamed over my 'borrowed' radio. The sound of gunfire followed, along with some other sounds I didn't recognize. Hmm, at least Kid Win's modifications to the radios are working.
"All units, ignore the hostile and get inside. We don't have the weapons to take him down safely. Just secure the area and get to the objective. We'll get him when he's inside." I must admit, I thought the signal would be encrypted, or something like that. If Kid Win could hack it so easily, any competent tinker probably could. A rather glaring security risk, in my opinion. I'd have to talk with Miss Militia about that later. With two tinkers on base, that should be easy to fix, right?
Another thing that crossed my mind was how strange it is for the PRT not to have a weapon capable of dealing with flyers. I mean, there were a lot of flying parahumans around. It makes sense to develop something to deal with them. Maybe a guided containment foam missile or an anti-aircraft gun that fires rubber pellets. Then again, the officer said that they didn't have the weapons to take Kid Win down safely. I suppose shooting him down with a non-lethal weapon was pointless if the fall would end up killing him anyway. Still, it seemed like a bit of an oversight.
Heavy footfalls were sprawling through the lobby and into the building itself. Wait, wasn't I supposed to be doing something? Oh, right, kicking their ass. Focus, Taylor!
"Command, I think the corridors suddenly became a lot longer." Heh, Vista's power at work. She did mention that her powers had limitations, though, especially when she tried to use it around living things. That said, even if she couldn't stretch the corridors out forever, Vista could still slow the troopers down. It'd have to do.
"This is Squad 3, seconding that. Be advised, confirmed Shaker presence. Probably Vista." A series of affirmatives followed. Me, I was already running. My job was to stealthily pick the troopers off one by one. Time to earn my keep.
A squad of five was headed directly towards me. I dashed around a corner, opened an empty room with my skeleton key, and locked myself in. Suddenly, I found myself having flashbacks to Winslow High, hiding from the bullies. But then again, this wasn't high school, was it? At Winslow, I couldn't fight back without getting in trouble. Here?
The squad rushed past the door, not even bothering to look at it. Big mistake. I let the first four guys pass before unlocking the door and slamming it into number 5's face. His expression was priceless. The look on his face when he realized shouting wouldn't help him? Even more so. The guy caught on quickly and readied his containment foam sprayer. Oh, that was bad. I didn't know if my powers could deal with the stuff, but I'd rather not take the risk. Even if it didn't hurt me, there's always a chance his buddies would turn around and see me. Nope, he needed to go down fast.
When you're in trouble, use your head, Gallant had said, so I ran towards the guy and head-butted him in the face. The guy was pushed back enough for me to punch him in the chest and knock the wind out of him. Before he could recover, I dragged him into the spare room and locked the two of us inside.
"Hold it." One of the troopers said. "We're a man short. Where's Jerry?" Crap, they'd caught on fast. Worse, my target, Jerry I suppose, was still conscious.
"He's supposed to be behind you." A woman replied. "This better not be another one of his pranks."
Jerry tried to punch me, but I couldn't move out the way fast enough. He hit me square in the jaw. The bastard. Not that it hurt much, but still…
"The briefing didn't mention a Stranger running about…"
Jerry threw another punch, but I was ready for it this time. I caught his hand, pulled on his arm, and elbowed him in the face. If he wasn't wearing a helmet, he'd probably have a broken nose.
"Briefings can be wrong. Get used to it. DeShawn, you're on point. We'll backtrack from where we came and see if we can find Jerry, or whoever took him."
I pulled my taser from its holder and pushed the device into Jerry's neck. He dropped like a rock. That ought to do it. Now, how to keep him there after he wakes up… Hmm, his containment foam sprayer…
"Great. I've seen this movie. Black dude dies first, right?"
A few pulls of the trigger, and Jerry was covered up to his neck in containment foam, safe and sound. I could have covered his head too, since apparently you can even breath through the stuff, but I didn't want to risk it. It wasn't necessary either. The foam was thick enough to make shouting impossible. He wouldn't be able to inhale enough air to scream.
"Alright, fine, I'll go on point." A third man said. "You owe me a beer for this, you big pussy."
The squad went back the way they came, passing by my door again. They seriously need to start paying more attention to the little things. I quietly opened the door again, jumped the last guy, DeShawn I think, and tased him right away. No need for another fight. Huh, that was much easier. Next time, tase then drag, not the other way around. I'll keep that in mind. Grabbing DeShawn before he bumped into his squadmates, I tossed him in the room with his buddy and foamed the poor bastard. Satisfied, I holstered the containment foam launcher on my back and prepared to move on.
Wait, what did I just do? I holstered the weapon on my back and it stuck… Are there magnetic clamps running around my body? Not just that, the motion had been so natural, it's like I've done it a hundred times. I made a mental note to worry about that later. There were more pressing concerns now.
The other three were close together and they were going to figure out sooner or later what happened to their friends. There were only so many things that could make your squadmates vanish and the troopers seemed to have guessed that there was a fourth Ward in play already. It was annoying, actually. I'd hoped to keep them in the dark for a little while longer. Anyway, it's time to start moving. The troopers aren't going to knock themselves out, after all. Figuring that my old hiding spot was probably compromised by now, I slid around a corner and waited for the troopers' next move.
"Corporal, DeShawn's gone too." The third trooper said, a hint of worry in her voice.
"What? How?" The leader narrowed her eyes. "That door…" The troopers marched towards my hiding spot. Guess my instincts were right. Two of them flanked the door while the leader kicked it in and stormed through. With all of them distracted, I moved. "Aw, hell. Command, this is five-leader. Two of my men have just been picked off without the rest of us noticing. I think there is a Stranger on the loose."
"Five-leader, please confirm. Did you say there was a Stranger in the AO? Do you have a visual? Can you tell us what he looks like?" I grabbed the two distracted troopers by their helmets and banged their heads together. It didn't knock them out like I'd hoped. At least the two were dazed. I took the bigger one by the helmet and pushed my knee into his chest, knocking the wind out of him and pulling the helm of his head.
"Negative, but my men are unconscious and foamed. The evidence speaks for itself." The smaller trooper pulled out a baton and scored a solid hit on the back of my head, only to trigger my shield in response. I responded by hurling the nearest object (which turned out to be big guy's helmet) at her. She dodged and raised her baton again, but I wouldn't let her get another hit. My shield was strong but it wasn't impervious. Besides, getting hit still hurts.
"Acknowledged, five-leader. All units, Master-Stranger protocols are now in effect." I used my superior strength to wrestle the baton out of the smaller trooper's hands. She screamed soundlessly, but I was pretty sure I hadn't broken anything. With my newly-acquired baton, I smacked big trooper in the face, knocking him unconscious, before elbowing little trooper in the nose. It didn't knock her out, but she was dazed enough for me to foam her without trouble. Four down, one to go.
The leader turned around and saw me standing over two of her squadmates. "That was you, wasn't it?" I nodded, unsure of how I'd sound. Picking off an entire squad of trained PRT officers one-by-one was impressive, but gloating about it felt wrong. Still, I wasn't sure if I could stop myself from acting like an ass if I didn't stay quiet. "Dammit, I should have stayed in bed this morning." She said with a pained look on her face. I grabbed my taser and knocked her out. It was probably the least painful method of disabling someone I had. Before I left, I searched their uniforms and found some foam cartridges I could use. Well, that was one squad, on to the next.
"Guys, I don't know what you all're up to, but there's an army of goons right outside the office." Vista suddenly said, sounding worried. "Could use a little back-up, like, right now."
"Command, this is squad two and three, we're closing in on the objective." My stolen radio blared at the same time.
Fuck. I'd been so occupied with that stupid squad of troopers that I forgot the other fifty running throughout the building. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
It'd take a few more minutes to get to Vista, but she probably didn't have that long. I needed more time. What to do… A distraction? Maybe. Attacking random troopers would get me a lot of attention, but it probably wouldn't help Vista. Getting into the office would be more important than stopping me so they wouldn't bother diverting resources. Unless… Nah, that couldn't possibly work.
"Command, we're in position. Squad three is requesting permission to breach."
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I had to try. I touched my earpiece and told the others: "Guys, get your radios out and play along with me."
Ignoring the confused responses, I pushed the 'talk' button on my radio and said, in the most adult-sounding voice I could manage: "Command, I don't know what you're thinking, but squad three's still stuck in one of Vista's corridors. We haven't even made it up the stairwell yet."
A beat followed. "Squad three, please repeat that."
Gallant answered before I could. "Command, this is three-leader, I can confirm we are still on the ground floor. Whoever's up there, it isn't us." Or at least, it sounded like Gallant to me. His voice sounded a little different. Not enough for me to be fooled, but a normal?
"Fuck. Squad two, you know what to do." Command replied, sounding awfully nervous.
It took my brain a few seconds to realize what just happened.
"Acknowledged, employing foam as per Master/Stranger protocols. If we're wrong: sorry guys."
No fucking way. I did not just talk a squad of soldiers into disabling their own people. There's no way that should have worked. Okay, there's an unknown stranger running about and everyone is really scared and wound up about it, but seriously, how paranoid are these people?
"That wasn't Corporal Jenkins, you idiots!" A trooper barked over the radio. "Squad three is lead by a woman!" Huh, apparently someone caught on. Bound to happen, of course, but still, it would have been nice to keep up our little charade. We could have used it later.
"What. Oh, goddammit, they're on our comms, aren't they?" Whoever Command was, he would get chewed out so hard for this when the exercise is over. Poor guy.
"Kid Win's a tinker, Command." Gallant said, this time in his normal voice. "Did you really think we weren't going to abuse that?"
Command let out a stream of curses. "All units, communications have been compromised. Do not follow any suggestions coming from someone inside the AO."
Another round of affirmatives followed, but I wasn't really listening. Sure, we'd manage to disable another squad, but that wouldn't buy Vista much time. She could probably handle a single squad on her own, but it would only be a matter of time before more showed up.
"Vista, I'm coming for you. Sit tight."
"No problem, Banshee." Vista replied. "The idiots foamed each other. I've got some breathing room now."
"Good to hear. If you don't need me anymore, I can go somewhere else…"
"No, come over. The program's almost done. We can break out together. It'll be fun!"
Fun. Was it wrong to consider this fun? Is hunting people and knocking them out without their friends noticing fun? Is playing into other's paranoia fun? Well, I couldn't deny that the day had been…satisfying, thus far, and I was kind of looking forward to…
Fuck it, it was fun.