'Three,' Jacqui quickly tried to imagine how she would execute this. Just lean and shoot, lean and shoot. Nothing to it.
'Two,' She thought that not acknowledging the dread would keep it away, but it crept up on her before she knew it - the fear balling in her stomach like a stone, along with the chest-tightening anxiety of getting caught. And then she heard Takeda's shaky breath. He was scared, too. He shook her confidence as much as his own.
'One,' Damn it, she was losing faith in this mission fast. She couldn't do this, could she? Could she really help them break into General Blade's office? Her heart lurched up into her throat, and she knew if she didn't do this quickly, she'd never do it.
'Go! Go! Go!' Jacqui closed her eyes, allowing herself one last cleansing breath while Cassie kicked open the door. Suddenly, to surprise herself, she leaned around the doorframe. In her haste she nearly forgot to turn away from the camera, and with a gasp she shielded her face with her hand at the last second. 'Crap, crap crap! We're dead, we're dead-' She aimed and blindly shot as many rounds as possible in the camera's general direction before turning her face away.
BAMBAMBAM! BAM! BAM! BAMBAMBAMBAM!
A cold, shuddering chill stabbed into her neck and spread furiously down her spine like a poison. She held her cover fire, not even bothering to try and look composed. She just messed up, and messed up bad, and she knew it. Her eyes, wide with worry, locked with Takeda's over her shoulder, and the absolute alarm that she knew was coloring her brown eyes blanched all color in his face. His eyebrows furrowed, he gave her a longing look of pity before she saw the resolution return. His lips pursed; the coy, determined glint returned to his eyes to her relief.
Takeda surged forward. In the midst of the crossfire, he somersaulted into the hallway. Keeping his face turned away as well, he rose out of the roll and flicked his arm out to the side in one smooth motion. Despite herself Jacqui watched. His orange kunai sailed towards the camera, and upon impact exploded in a violent shower of fluorescent orange plasma and camera pieces.
They stayed there frozen, Takeda with his arm extended out and Jacqui staring wide-eyed at the wall. Too afraid to move while the gunfire's echo faded down the halls of the barracks. Not breathing. Not blinking. Frozen, except for her heart pounding out of her chest, pulsing in her stomach, her throat, her brain. Seconds stretched into minutes into hours. The weight of what they just did, of the consequences if they were caught, bore down on them even harder along with the deafening, thick silence.
Jacqui was too scared to even try and reach Takeda mentally. She already felt claustrophobic, she felt like the room was closing in, and that the soldiers were already arming themselves and running after them. She felt paranoid, like they already knew their location and her face and her name and her rank all because she looked at the stupid camera-
"No alarms?" Jin asked, the first to break the silence. Voice clipped and tight from tension.
"Shh!" Jacqui hissed, already listening for sounds of pursuers. "Stay there . . . " she warned, holding her palm out to the doorframe where Cassie and Jin were crowding.
"I guess we're good . . . Whoo! Alright!" Cassie yelled triumphantly, pumping her fist in the air. "Maybe you guys can help us, then-"
BWWWRRRRRRRRT! BWWWRRRRRRRRT! BWWWRRRRRRRRT!
"Oh, shit!" Cassie corrected herself. The alarm blasted overhead through the central systems like an explosion, filling every possible inch of every hallway. It resonated through, the high, trailing pitch at the end ringing loudly, vibrating uncomfortably in Jacqui's ears on each blare.
"Oh, my God," she breathed, "We're screwed! We're so screwed! I'm starting to regret this!" she yelled out. An announcement of their fear, of the obvious, of what she assumed to be the consensus.
"Guys, RUN!" Jin yelled.
The cry galvanized Takeda into action with a start. He looked around as if remembering where he was and how he got there, then ran back to Jin.
"What-?"
He reached over Jin and slipped two arrows from his quiver, inspecting the tips. Satisfied with whatever he saw, he turned away. "Let's go!" he yelled, grabbing Jacqui's arm and hauling her along, down the hallway. As they turned the corner and faced another camera Takeda threw down an arrow and a blue smoke screen exploded around them for cover. "Take out more cameras! Make as much noise as possible!" he yelled at her over the alarm.
BAM! BAMBAMBAMBAM! BAM! BAM! BAMBAM! BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!
Had Sonya not fallen asleep at her desk, she probably would have reacted to the gunfire a little less violently. That's what she told herself, anyway.
Instead, the gunshots went off, exploding in her ears like they were right next to her. She flinched awake, cringing with the volume of each round, expecting any one to tear through her at any second. Her heart skipped beats in panic, adrenaline instantly started coursing through her. A startled shock stabbed into her neck and spread to all of her limbs, deadening them in instantaneous, gut-reacting terror. She shut her eyes tight, turning her chair away from the door and tucking her knees up to her chest for protection. Covering her head.
She wasn't sure how long she sat there. Or how long the gunfire went on. She forgot to count the rounds while she was still half-asleep. Each pang rattled her eardrums and her brain, scrambling her thoughts a bit each time. Waiting, waiting for one to hit her. It felt like forever. It felt like there was an hour between each shot, like each bullet was carefully deciding where it was going to go into her while she sat unprotected. And yet, none ever did hit her. Suddenly, like a warm, energizing, infuriating kick, training and rational thought forcibly shoved the paralysis form her limbs. She nimbly slid from her chair and dove under her desk for cover, pulling her gun from the holster to check the clip. Full.
Bullets weren't hitting the wall, and weren't hitting anywhere in the room around her. They weren't shooting at her, she realized. But by the time she made the realization there was one final explosion, stronger than the gunshots.
Then there was silence.
In the wake of the cacophony, of the riot she just woke up to, the silence was even more deafening. She didn't move, didn't breathe for fear of alerting whoever was out there. Her heart pumped furiously in her chest. Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead and neck. Her senses were on high alert - but there was nothing for them to pick up. It was like the noises startled even the person making them. Like they didn't want to move either in the wake of their feat.
She had to call this in, immediately. She had to warn everyone, get everyone on high alert. But the comm device was still on her desk. She couldn't move yet. She sat there for a few more minutes, straining for them to break, for the shooters to make the first move. To try and ambush her, or shoot at her, or something. Her legs itched to move, her hands shook despite how hard she was squeezing the gun.
Suddenly, her comm device lit up on her desk above her. "General Blade! A camera outside your office was just shot out by two intruders!" Sonya took that as her cue to clamor out from under her desk. She snatched it up.
"Sound the alarm!"
"Yes, Ma'am!" Immediately, it started blaring above her and above the barracks.
Sonya threw the device down and grabbed the PA microphone, slamming her finger on the button. "This is General Blade! We've got two shooters in the officers' barracks! All units on high alert!" she yelled into it. Her own voice projected well above the alarm despite its volume, and she heard the tension in her tone. Silently cursing herself for losing her composure, she realized that she didn't give any actual orders. "All Fugitive Task Forces and MPs scatter and search the barracks! Use whatever force necessary to apprehend them!"
The camera man's voice barked from her desk. "I've got them on another camera! They just ran past your office, General!"
"Dammit!" She jumped up, hoping to catch them before they ran away. As she cocked her pistol and threw open the door, all she saw was the heel of a black Standard Issue SF boot turn the corner.
"I've got them in my sights! Wearing SF gear. I'm going after them. Keep relaying positions!"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Do we have identities?"
"Negative. They're throwing smoke screens."
Great. It was probably a ninja. Another Earthrealm faction war in the making. Brief images of the first between the Shaolin, Lin Kuei, SF, Shirai Ryu, and all the Dragon classifications entered her mind. Sabotages left and right, soldiers dead on all sides.
No way would that happen again on her watch. She'd find them.
She'd kill them if she had to.
"That was really smart of them to run towards mom's office," Cassie said, only loud enough to be heard over the screeching of the alarm. "I really only have to protect one side of the hallway. Cuz since they ran that way, nobody'd be running towards General Blade's office from that way."
"Hm," Jin grunted, focused on keeping watch for them in the little window in the door. "All we need is General Blade to chase them. You're sure she will? Our ten-minute confusion window is running out." As calm as he thought he was, the chances of their excursion almost working was both exciting him, and making him nervous. He kept grabbing Cassie's wrist and checking the countdown on her watch before she yelled at him and told him to make himself busy if he was getting antsy.
"Tch! Acting like I don't know my own mother. She'll chase them. Haven't you ever seen her go after Kano?. Once someone gets her their location she'll turn into a fuckin' bloodhound. Just wait."
"Good thing we picked a hide out close to her office, too. Okay, now shut up. I need to listen for her-"
Her door banged open around the corner, slamming back against the wall. "I've got them in my sights!" She was shouting. No way Jin wouldn't hear her. "Wearing SF gear. I'm going after them. Keep relaying positions!" Her footsteps pounded down the hallway, and as soon as Jin couldn't hear them anymore over the blaring of the alarm, he nodded to Cassie.
"You ready?"
"Yup!" she said, cocking her pistol with the cold fluidity of practice.
Oh thank the gods. He was ready to go. He checked the pouch on his belt for all his tools - the virus code Takeda gave him, a blacklight for fingerprints on the pad, a place-holder keycard, and his usual pins and picks for traditional locks. "Alright . . . " He grabbed the handle, praying Cassie couldn't see his hand shaking, and it was like another jolt to his heart. "If we're caught, it's been nice working with you, grunt."
"You too, loser."
"Let's go!" He threw open the door and instantly forgot to scope and check his surroundings. Two steps into the hallway he realized it, but it was too late to go back. "Shit," he muttered, making a beeline for the door. He used the blacklight first, and the keypad lit up with General Blade's thumbprint.
Cassie took the strategic approach, peering out both sides of the door to make sure the hallway was clear. Then she snuck her way over to Jin, standing guard over his back.
Ok, so he knew the number possibilities - 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9. How many of each were there? He quickly mashed the 1 down until it stopped at 12 slots. He was hoping to get it without the virus, but there was no way he would be able to try and guess it with over 300,000 possible combinations. He sighed, jamming the card into the door slot. "How's our time looking?"
"We've got three minutes."
"Damn it!"
"Not enough time? We can still abort-"
"It's fine." If the keypad was designed the way Takeda suspected, the door used to be a regularly locked door. So the handle, when turned, would pull the latch in and allow the door to open. With the keypad electronically connected to the door handle, it wouldn't let the handle turn unless someone enters the right code. If he held the latch down, the handle would still be locked by the keypad unless he enters the virus code. The virus code would temporarily disable the keypad, and render it a manually locked door. Which he had to pick in 10 seconds or less before the back-up systems rebooted and destroyed the virus. He decided to pick the manual lock first before the virus. That way, all he had to do was scrape the pick on the tension rod until all the pins set. He had a lesser chance of error if he moved slower.
He slid the card around until he found the latch and pushed it in, cramming of his larger tension rods in to hold it there. He could feel the paranoia overtaking him. The tensions rising. Raising his hackles and the hair on his arms and neck. He felt each second tick by, knowing it was a second closer to them getting caught. Well, technically they could be caught at any time. But this window of opportunity was their best chance of not getting caught. He felt like they were already coming. He was already too late. It was futile, and if they stayed there any longer, they would fail. And who knew what would happen if they got caught?
He kept trying to slip another smaller tension rod into the manual lock, but his shaking hands couldn't guide it gently into the keyhole. Precious seconds, wasted. Trial after trial after trial. It took him upwards of six times - he lost count after six. His senses sharpened, hyperaware of every noise, every breath, every distant shout. He felt like people were creeping up on him, were breathing down his neck-
"Cass, could you back off? You're supposed to be watching my back."
"Oh, right. Sorry. One minute, twenty seconds."
"Shit, shit, shit!" After a few more tries he finally managed to shove the rod into the keyhole and started working on the picks.
"30 seconds, Jin!"
"I'm trying!" Damn it! Why was he shaking so badly?
"Jin, let's go! This is taking too long! How do we know the camera man hasn't turned his sights to us?"
"Shut up, Cage."
"Time's up. Come on!"
"No! I can do this . . . " His tongue protruded from his mouth, the testament to how devoted he was to his task.
"Do you still have eyes on the suspects?"
"Yes, General."
"I lost them. Relay their positions to the MP's and FTF's instead. Reroute the live video feed to my comm device so I can watch."
"Yes, Ma'am."
As soon as it was available on her comm she watched the video, mildly annoyed by how fast the camera angles switched, and that it was always on their backs. One of them was definitely a woman, the other unmistakably male. She spoke again to the camera man, "Put me a few hallways ahead. I gotta see these punks' faces."
"Yes, Ma'am."
The picture changed again to a quiet hallway, and she glued her eyes to the spot where they would emerge around the corner. As soon as they did she tapped the screen and paused it. "There. Zoom in on them!"
It was blurry, but she instantly recognized both of them. Her heart sank, and her panic collapsed in on itself like a poorly baked cake, replaced by indignation. All this for those two?
"You gotta be kidding me," she breathed. "Send out a mass order: I want non-lethal force used to apprehend the two suspects. I repeat: non-lethal force. Do you understand me? If they refuse to comply, taser them, tranquilize them, do whatever you have to do, just make it non-lethal!"
"Yes, ma'am." Seconds later, his voice echoed over the alarm, repeating Sonya's message. While he spoke her order verbatim, she scrolled through the other cameras' feeds. "If Takeda and Jacqui are there, where're . . . "
She found who she was looking for. Breaking into her office! She connected all the pieces in her head - they wanted Kenshi and Jax's stupid mission folder! Takeda and Jacqui were the distraction.
"Son of a bitch!"
Non-lethal force.
As horrible as those words were, compared to the bullet-dodging Takeda and Jacqui had been doing, they were like an oasis in the desert.
The two of them were supposed to ditch the fatigues and make it look like they were responding to the crisis. They were supposed to protect themselves as the distractions. But everywhere they turned there was someone else chasing them, adding to the pack on their tails. Sonya set the entire barracks after them. For a stupid camera.
Jacqui said she regretted it earlier. Takeda was loathing it.
Every slip, every hiccup that didn't go according to plan was another open door for screw-ups. And the slightest was their downfall. Like right now.
He and Jacqui got lucky when they ditched Sonya. Now, it'd take another miracle for them to get out of this mess. Six fully armed MPs surrounding them. All out of options. He was exhausted and scared. They were trapped. His legs felt like jelly from all the running and he couldn't catch his breath. But his pride, and the fact that all four of them committed to this, wouldn't allow him to surrender. Not yet. He couldn't face what he knew Sonya would do to him when they took him and Jacqui in. He had to give Cass and Jin time to do what they had to.
When the soldiers poured from the other side of the refugees' camp and cut them off near the center, he immediately put his fists up. He was ready to go down swinging. He slid his whips from his sleeves and flicked them threateningly, once in front then crossing them and scraping them on the ground. The soldiers stopped a safe distance away and raised their guns, three lasers dotting his and Jacqui's chest each.
Oh god, they wouldn't really shoot them, would they? He purposefully and consciously flared his eyes, translating every challenge into his gaze. He hoped it overshadowed the fear. "Better put those guns away," he warned, swallowing thickly. "Non-lethal force, remember?"
They didn't even notice her. Both too wrapped up in the door to her office. Good. She was gonna scare them.
"Okay. Now for the virus code," Jin said, touching the keypad to bring it back to life. Wow, thought Sonya. They actually came really close to pulling this off! He was about to punch the code in off the paper Takeda gave him when General Blade decided to make herself known. "Atten-hut!" she yelled.
Just as she wanted, Cassie gasped and spun around, actually dropping her gun she was so scared. Her eyes widened, and the look of pure dread she shot General Blade made her feel oddly empowered. An excuse already poured from her mouth. "Mom-"
"Detail!" Sonya snarled, folding her hands behind her back to look more authoritative. Cassie immediately snapped to. She locked her thumbs and folded her hands right-over-left, placing them in the small of her back. She planted her left leg at shoulder width, head down at an angle. But Jin took his good time turning around and facing General Blade. When he looked at Sonya it was one of controlled, calculated arrogance to hide his fear. He looked down his nose at her, frowning as if he had the right to be disappointed.
She decided to give him 30 seconds to fix his attitude and save himself before she tore him a new one. "You too, cupcake," she said, purposefully endearing.
He opened his mouth to argue, but Cassie broke formation to shake her head at him. He sneered, lifting his eyebrow arrogantly, before loosely mimicking Cassie's position.
"Trespassing, insubordination, disrespecting a superior officer, treason, and mutiny for classified mission information? You just couldn't let it go, could you?" She left it open-ended on purpose, to see whether Cassie would take it as rhetorical or attempt to explain herself. For once, Cassie held her tongue. "You want a promotion, but you're reckless. Impatient, short-tempered, stubborn, arrogant, and defiant. Don't even get me started on you, Jin."
"Whatever, General. Like I haven't heard it before-"
"You better shut your mouth. Cage, you and Specialist Briggs are facing dishonorable discharge, at the minimum. And god, between the two of you at least SOMEONE should've watched the rear!"
Jin rolled his eyes like a child. "Gimme a break. We just wanna know where Kenshi and Jax are. That's it."
"That's classified. Restricted. Confidential. Private. Secret. I know the first word didn't work for you, so take four more."
"Why?"
"Because. I. say. so. High level missions require high level security clearances, which you don't have. You better not question it, Jin."
"What are you gonna do? I'm not military."
"Are you challenging me?"
"Well I'm certainly not clinging to every word you're saying. Jacqui and Takeda want to know! They're worried about their fathers, for Raiden's sake! I want to know! They met up with Lao and Liu Kang. You can't even tell us WHERE? They haven't called in. Don't you think that's a little suspicious?"
"I don't need YOU to tell me how to do my JOB, Kung Jin!"
"Then maybe you should do it right, Ma'am!"
She was too shocked and insulted to think of a verbal come back right away. She regressed instantly to her default, drawing her fist back on impulse, ready to discipline a disrespectful soldier. Jin didn't even flinch, which both mildly impressed her and infuriated her. Luckily, her comm device sputtered to life and saved Kung Jin's. "General, we've captured the two suspects. Chujin Takeda Takahashi and Specialist Jacqueline Briggs. We had to taser him."
"Excellent work. I want them fully restrained, in individual holding cells. Do whatever you have to do to block Takeda's powers."
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Send a fully-armed MP team to my location now to subdue the other two suspects."
"Yes, ma'am."
"If you think I'm going quietly, you're wrong," Jin warned, narrowing his eyes at her.
Oh, yeah, so Jin was gonna take down 6 or 7 MPs? General Blade leveled her own eyes back at him and simply lifted her eyebrow, pursing her lips. "Okay, Jin."