Chapter 4: Subterfuge
Scarlet reached for her right hip, pulling out a compact handgun with an odd-shaped, long barrel. She handed it to Fox and explained, "I think we're going to need to do this as quietly as possible. This gun is about as quiet as it gets, but it still packs a punch."
Fox nodded and holstered the weapon. "Got it. What are we supposed to do?"
The vixen looked down the trail leading to their location, as if she expected the SUV from the complex to come barreling up to them at any second. "Hide behind anything that'll keep them from seeing you. Set your phone to vibrate, and I'll message you when it's time to shoot. They'll probably start going through the car, and that's going to be our best shot at catching them off guard. Do you have anything in your bag that identifies you?"
Fox shook his head.
"Good. Me neither. Get out of sight, and wait for my cue."
"Got it," Fox replied, his pulse rising as adrenaline began flowing.
The forest area, due to its rocky, arid surroundings, offered little in terms of underbrush. This made finding cover more difficult, but on the plus side, Fox felt that it would give him and Scarlet the freedom to move quietly if either of them suddenly needed to avoid detection.
The two split up, with Scarlet disappearing down a slope into the woods on the right front side of the parked SUV and Fox heading in the other direction. Ears on end and anticipating the arrival of the base's SUV, he sprinted into the forest. On this side of the trail, the terrain followed a gentle slope downwards for forty meters until it reached a ten meter drop that ran parallel with the offroad trail all the way back to the access point where he and Scarlet had initially entered.
The flat terrain and the nature of the surrounding conifers made finding cover difficult, but Fox spotted a small outcropping of rocks just large enough to crouch behind. The orange-colored stones stood thirty meters from the rented SUV, and even though they barely obscured Fox, he knew hiding behind the outcropping was his best option. Crouching behind the rocks, he noticed a slight gap in between two of them, just wide enough to aim a gun through.
For the moment, he peered through the gap with his eyes only, just in time to see the gray SUV from the facility roll into the clearing. The vehicle stopped behind the rented yellow SUV, and three soldiers jumped out with weapons drawn, dressed in nondescript desert camouflage fatigues. Fox took note of the three—a tall, dark red fox, a red panda, and a short frilled lizard. They exited the vehicle as a group and stayed together. The fox, who had been driving the SUV, took the lead and examined the rental car. With his cover as solid as it could have possibly been, Fox took the opportunity to activate his scope's listening device.
"No plates anywhere—whoever brought this up here didn't accidentally wander onto this trail."
"What do you think is going on here?" the frilled lizard wondered aloud.
"Someone probably gave them a lead on the facility. Not liking this at all," the fox replied.
The red panda looked around the area for a brief moment, then posed the question, "So, what do we do, boss?"
The dark red fox looked upwards and swept his vision around the surrounding area. "Whoever brought this car up here is can't have gone far. The big boss's 'dragon' made that pretty obvious. Convenient night to have a mind-reader on hand, huh?"
"I'll never get used to it," the red panda muttered. "But you didn't answer the question."
"Ah, yeah. I'm open to suggestions, but I think we should take this vehicle out of commission then tell Systems to increase security around the entry points and send out a drone patrol. This place is out in the sticks. Our 'guests' won't be going very far. We'll find them eventually."
The frilled lizard spoke, with Fox noticing a palpable amount of glee in his voice. "Can I blow it up?"
"That's overkill," the fox replied. "We can take care of this a lot more easily by just pulling the battery and taking it with us. They won't be moving without that."
"But that's boring," the lizard whined.
"Boring works," the fox replied, turning to the red panda. "Sparks—get to it. We'll keep an eye on the surroundings."
"On it, boss."
Fox watched through the hole in the rocks as the red panda speed walked back to the military SUV and opened the rear hatch. He emerged a moment later with a small wrench in hand. While he walked up to the front of the rental SUV and unlatched the hood, the red fox and the frilled lizard readied their weapons and stood by, one on each side of the yellow vehicle.
As the red panda grabbed the hood prop and locked it in place, Fox felt his communicator vibrate. He tapped the device twice, prompting it to display the received text in holographic form above his digital wristband.
"I've got a bead on the lizard. Take your pick of one of the other guys, and we'll synchronize shots. When they're down, we'll both go for the third guy. But for the love of everything good, don't hit the car. I do not want to have to explain that to the rental agency."
In lieu of an actual response, Fox tapped a holographic check mark next to the message, letting Scarlet know that he had read it. Seconds later, a countdown began, starting at 10.
Fox steeled himself and armed his borrowed pistol. The subtle sound of gas priming itself tickled his ears for a second. Peering through the gap in the rocks in front of him, he looked back and forth between the two soldiers in his field of vision. The red panda leaned over the side of the opened engine compartment with his back to Fox, while the dark furred fox stood in front of the driver's side door. Fox clenched his teeth. Regardless of which target he chose, he needed his shot to be perfect in order to avoid hitting and damaging the rental car.
"The guy taking out the battery is an easier target, but the fox guy looks like one of the higher-ups. We need to take them all out, so it would better to take care of the high value target first. But I've got to make sure I don't hit the car…with a gun I've never shot before. Unless…"
He cringed slightly as a plan formed in his mind. He glanced out of his peripheral vision at the countdown timer on his wrist as it ticked down from 4 to 3. Refocusing through the handgun's tiny pop-up sight, he aimed at the fox's boots and mentally counted down.
2…1…
The instant his mental counter hit zero, he pulled the trigger. A rapid beam of red light leapt from his handgun's barrel with a muffled squelch vaguely similar to the sound of a techno bass drum, tearing through the fox's right boot. The officer roared in pain and fell forwards, unable to support his weight for any longer. Not wasting any time, Fox readjusted his aim and moved his scope's central dot to the fox's head. A second trigger tap finished him off, sending a spray of blood onto the side of the SUV.
Immediately after the first shot, the red panda panicked, dropping his wrench and crouching in front of the SUV. He oriented himself facing Fox's position, but unable to see where the shots had come from, he avoided poking out from behind the vehicle. He reached for the handheld radio on his hip and ripped it off his belt, but as soon as it left his waist, it clattered to the ground as Scarlet grabbed him and put him in a chokehold. He flailed about and blindly hoped that his reptilian counterpart would come to his rescue, but in the heat of the moment, he failed to realize that he had already been dealt with. Unable to move, he blacked out seconds later.
Releasing her grip on him and unceremoniously dumping him forward onto the dirt trail, Scarlet stood up and looked into the woods as Fox emerged from his cover and sprinted back into the clearing. As he neared the SUV, his expression soured. Scarlet noticed, and at the same time, also noticed the SUV leaning slightly to the left. Rounding the front left of the vehicle, she glanced at the front tire—or rather, what had been a tire before Fox's beam round obliterated it after traveling through the fox soldier's skull.
Scarlet glared at Fox while he cringed and scratched the back of his head. "Sorry about that."
The vixen's expression softened into her trademark sly smirk. "It's fine. That's what the spare is for. Happens all the time with these rental off-roaders. It's even better since I'm not the one paying for it."
"What do you mean by…? Oh, come on!"
Scarlet subdued a laugh, then approached Fox. "We'll work that out later. We've got more important things to deal with right now."
"Understatement of the century there," Fox replied.
The red vixen continued, "The staff at the facility is going to realize that three of their guys are missing before too long. If I'm honest, the plan is as shot as this tire. We have two options from here and I'm all in on one of them, but I don't think I can pull it off without your help."
Fox crossed his arms. "What are you thinking?"
"Let me check something first," said Scarlet, jogging towards the military SUV and opening the back. Seconds later, she located a set of military fatigues and pulled them out for Fox to see. "If anyone's ever getting into that facility, it's going to be us tonight. After they find out about what just happened, they're going to jack up security to the max. Here's what I'm thinking: you get changed into this uniform, I'll take the red panda guy's clothes, we take the ID cards from two of these guys, we drive their car back to the facility, we use their ID to get in, and we'll see what's going on in there."
She glanced at the dead fox next to the rental car. "We really scored with that guy—I think he's one of the higher-ups, so his clearance might be enough to get us into all the rooms inside that place."
Fox took a quick glance at the carnage and looked away just as quickly. "Yeah. It's, uh, a good thing that extra uniform was in the back of their car, because this one's never getting used again.
Scarlet returned a dark grin. "No kidding. That's not safe for work."
The irony of that sort of violence being part and parcel of his work gave Fox a brief pause for thought. A second later, Scarlet broke the silence. "I'll get the car battery reconnected. You change the tire."
Fox groaned, exhaling a large burst of air.
"Hey, I'm not the one who blew it up. You break it, you buy it," Scarlet replied with a shrug.
After a ten minute service session, Fox finished mounting the spare tire on the rental SUV and threw the wheel with the shredded tire into the back of the vehicle. Brushing off his hands, he leaned against the side of the car as Scarlet approached him, wearing the desert camo uniform she took from the red panda before she finished him off. Her expression tended to oscillate between amicable and upbeat to deathly serious, and in this case, it took the properties of the latter. "Alright, it's go time. I don't think it's a good idea to leave this car here now, and I noticed a spot on the trail map that might be a better place for it. I'll get in the rental—you follow me with the other car."
"Got it," Fox replied. He feigned confidence, but enough uncertainty came through for Scarlet to notice it. "Are you sure about this plan, Scarlet?"
The vixen returned the subtlest of grins. "Not at all. But I don't care. It has to be done, and I'm determined to make it work."
Fox sighed and frowned. "Damn, that's a real vote of confidence there. Real question—does this not scare you? Do you just look at the idea of walking right into this secret facility and snooping around knowing you're outnumbered and that you'll probably end up dead if it doesn't work and then brush it off like it's no big deal? Because I sure as hell want whatever you've got if that's how it is for you."
Scarlet's expression softened, most noticeably with her eyes. "Feel my pulse."
Following her instruction, Fox placed his fingers on Scarlet's neck. Belying her apparent ease, her heart rate exceeded his noticeably, to the point where he wondered if she was suppressing a panic attack.
"Oh."
"I told you that I feel fear just like everyone else. I've just learned not to listen to it," she spoke, almost in a whisper.
Fox looked into her deep blue eyes for several long seconds before she broke eye contact and told him, "Follow me in the other car until I find a good spot to hide the rental. I'll get in after that, and then we'll drive up to the base."
- § -
Fox followed close behind the rental 4x4 as Scarlet guided it down the winding, descending forest road towards the group of buildings ahead. She maintained a slow rate of speed, and through the back window, Fox noticed her repeatedly leaning over to look at something next to her—most likely the trail map. After covering a quarter mile, she suddenly slowed the SUV to a near-halt and turned off the road, disappearing over a steep hill adjacent to the pavement. Fox stopped his vehicle and waited for what felt like five minutes for Scarlet to return, even though the reality was that less than one minute had passed before the red vixen climbed up the hill and approached the military SUV.
Grabbing the passenger side door handle and prying it open, Scarlet swung herself into the seat next to Fox and shut the door. "There's a cave down there, over that hill. I backed in far enough that I don't think anyone's going to be finding the rental."
Fox nodded and nudged the throttle pedal. After following the road for a minute and a half, the tree canopy thinned out and the Asgard facility came into view. Fox took a deep breath, knowing that at this point, cameras would likely be trained on them every step of the way going forward. "I'm sure you know this, but we need to act like we belong and know what we're doing," he said to Scarlet.
She nodded, a solemn, taut frown on her lips.
Fox slowed the SUV, creeping onto the concrete pad where he remembered seeing it leave from. He reversed it into place next to an identical vehicle, then turned the engine off. He looked Scarlet in the eyes. "You'd better pray this works."
"I was never the praying type," she replied. "But you're more than welcome to do that, if you think any gods out there are into violence for hire."
Fox frowned. "It's a figure of speech."
"I know," said Scarlet, trying to force a minuscule smile. "Just trying to add some levity, you know?"
"Whatever," Fox replied, rolling his eyes and opening his car door.
Scarlet climbed out of the vehicle after him, and the two marched towards the two roll-up doors that marked the front of the facility. A smaller, solid metal door stood to the left of the overhead doors, and a security scanner hung from the side of the building next to the small door. Producing the ID card taken from the unfortunate vulpine officer, Fox held it in front of the scanner. A tense half second later, a quick beep emanated from the device, and the door audibly unlocked.
Fox steeled himself for what was to come. Everything he had seen suggested that the building was not heavily staffed, yet the true extent of the facility's crew was hidden to both him and Scarlet. As simple as entering the building had been so far, he feared opening the door only to find five armed soldiers staring at him and immediately recognizing him as an interloper.
"This is a terrible idea. What was she thinking? Does she have a death wish for both of us? I can't turn around now, though—we're on camera, and that's going to arouse suspicion if I turn around and walk away right after disarming the door lock."
Scarlet coughed quietly, as if to say, "Get moving, you idiot."
Fox clenched the doorknob with a steely grip and quietly opened the door. Stepping across the threshold, he took a quick stock of his surroundings. The immediate space behind the overhead doors to his right was occupied by a flat, open concrete floor culminating in a loading dock positioned at the height needed to load two heavy trucks. To account for the increased height of the loading dock, the floor under Fox's boots ramped upwards for twenty meters. Their immediate surroundings struck Fox as resembling a sort of atrium—a large, open space functioning as the building's central point.
He and Scarlet climbed the ramp, eyes and ears on end for any threats and scanning the area for any obvious cameras. Fox looked around the area for any signs of life, and to his immense relief, saw only a single border collie soldier sweeping the floor some thirty meters ahead of him and Scarlet. The soldier noticed them, but paid them no mind and went back to his menial task. Looking more closely, Fox noticed a set of earbuds clipped onto his floppy ears.
The layout ahead presented itself as a four-way crossroads, with a medium-width hallway running through its center behind the loading dock. Far ahead was yet another overhead door—this one twice as wide as the other two. The walls inside the facility stood nearly fifteen feet high, and the smell of fresh white paint still hung in the air.
Fox paid close attention to the more distant overhead door, noticing a smaller door to its left.
"I bet there's something important behind that door. Unfortunately, I don't think we can walk right past that guy and just open it without him reacting in some way. I need to find a good spot where I can discuss this with Scarlet without arousing suspicions."
Giving the vixen a quick glance over his shoulder, Fox whispered, "Follow me—just do it."
Reaching the top of the ramp, Fox stepped into the central point in the four-way crossing and took a quick look to his left, in time to see a soldier open one of the many doors farther down the hallway and begin walking in his direction. Having no interest in having any close interactions with him, Fox walked in the opposite direction down the hallway. Once he and Scarlet exited the central atrium, the ceiling dropped significantly. Numerous doors stood out on both sides of the hallway, most of them marked by painted white numbers or the occupational yellow hazard marker.
The hallway ended a hundred feet ahead of them, and Fox noticed two arrowed signs on the wall that marked its conclusion. The sign on the right read "Assembly Area" and the one of the left indicated a restroom. One of those two destinations seemed likely to be devoid of cameras.
Maintaining the internal mantra of "act like of you belong, and you will," Fox turned left at the wall and found that the adjacent hallway ended with a single door with a bathroom icon printed on a sign to its left. There only seemed to be one of them, suggesting that the base's management could have cared less about sacrificing interior room to accommodate multiple genders.
Fox glanced over his shoulder at Scarlet, partially to gauge her reaction and also to see if he could spot any cameras in the hallway behind him. He saw none, but Scarlet furrowed her brow slightly and frowned.
"I really hope there's no one in there," she muttered.
"If there is, get in one of the stalls and wait for them to leave," replied Fox, approaching the door and pulling it open. The two stepped into the bathroom, which, given its purpose in a male-dominated facility, let off an unpleasant—if not truly rank—scent which an overabundance of artificial air freshener tried and failed to mask. The bathroom itself was spacious, with one set of stalls both to the left and to the right. Off to the sides of the mirrors and sinks in the center of the room, two short hallways led to what looked like a series of showers.
To both Fox and Scarlet's dismay, they noticed one pair of boots with camouflage trousers draped overtop of them beneath one of the stall dividers on the right side of the bathroom. Fox frowned and glanced at Scarlet. However, instead of responding verbally, she walked toward the showers, entering the short hallway to the left and turning immediately to the right. This put the two directly behind the mirrors and the sinks, invisible to anyone nearby.
Fox opened his mouth to speak, but before he had a chance to offer suggestions for what to do next, Scarlet reached into the nearest shower stall and turned the water on. Fox wondered for a moment what she had in mind, but realized just as quickly that the sound of the running water hitting the tile floor would mask their words.
Stepping back out of the shower, Scarlet crossed her arms and looked at Fox. "You're probably thinking what I'm thinking—we need to get behind that second overhead door."
"Nailed it," Fox replied. "But I don't see how that's happening. I get the feeling that even the guy cleaning the floors isn't going to let us in without hassling us about it. Got any ideas? After all, it was your idea to barge in here with no plan other than 'get inside.'"
Hints of anger flared from Scarlet's blue eyes. "Don't question my methods. Have you got a better idea?"
Fox looked at the floor for a second before returning his eyes to Scarlet. "No. But I don't think you do, either."
"Hey, I've got a few. They're just not very good. Sometimes the solution doesn't have to be a good one, though." When Fox gave her no response apart from a suspect eyebrow lift, she continued, "We really could just walk up to the door next to the big roll-up one, you scan your ID, and we walk right past the guy sweeping the floor without stopping to answer any questions. It really could work. We haven't been hassled yet since we walked in."
"That's because we haven't gotten close enough to anyone to notice that we aren't part of the normal crew," Fox countered. "This seems like a tight-knit bunch. Two randoms showing up out of nowhere is going to be a lot more suspicious than it would if this was an operation with a bigger staff."
"You're right," Scarlet conceded. "But Plan B is for one of us to get into the security booth and beat up the guy watching the cameras."
Fox returned a thoroughly unconvinced expression that betrayed his increasing fear that both of them either needed to leave the building as soon as possible or go for broke in an attempt at uncovering what lay behind the second overhead door. "That doesn't sound like a great plan. If we go right up to the door and someone gives us trouble for it, what are we supposed to do, though? We're not going to be able to pretend we're something that we're not."
"I say we don't think about that and just go for it," Scarlet replied, reaching into the shower stall to turn off the water. Fox saw this for what it was—an obvious attempt at ending the conversation. However, as the flow from the shower head came to a stop turned into a repetitive drip, a loud voice came over the building's intercom system with all the subtlety and nuance that an industrial short-range communications system could have offered. That is to say, none.
"Attention all staff—please report to the assembly area immediately. Repeat, all staff—report to the assembly area immediately."
Both Fox and Scarlet's eyes widened. "They know something's up," Fox whispered. "Got any new ideas?"
"Actually, yes," Scarlet replied. "Don't move a muscle. We'll wait for them to make their way to the assembly area, then we'll get out of here and go back to that door."
Fox looked at her with disapproval. "The cameras are going to see us, you know."
"Yeah, I know. It's not like there's a better option. What? You're going to go to the assembly area and be identified as a trespasser? The time for subtlety is over, Fox. We have to go for it. Get through that door, find out what they're hiding here, document it, get out, and get paid."
Fox sighed, then collected himself and took a deep breath. "Alright then, let's do this."
"Let's give them a few minutes to get settled in the assembly area. Then we'll make a break for it," said Scarlet.
Fox nodded. The two stood with their backs to the wall for three agonizing minutes until the faint clap of boots reached their ears from outside the bathroom door. The footfalls ebbed and flowed for another minute, after which point all became silent.
The two looked at each other. This time, Scarlet took the lead and stepped back into the main bathroom area, where the previously occupied stall now stood empty. Not knowing what to expect on the other side, she pried open the door and glanced down the hallway. Far in the distance, she saw an opened door, and a number of soldiers milling about the room inside it.
Still operating under the assumption that he needed to look like he belonged, Fox tailed Scarlet out of the room while maintaining the closest thing to a professional gait that he could under the circumstances. The vixen walked towards the distant assembly area, then abruptly turned right at the corridor that led back into the main atrium. Knowing that at this point, all bets were off, she picked up the pace, nearly breaking into a sprint and forcing Fox to push in order to keep up.
No other individuals occupied the industrial hallway, and when the two broke out into the main atrium, no one greeted them. Knowing full well that at least one camera was trained on them, Fox followed Scarlet up to the metal door to the left of the large overhead door. He felt a chill run down his spine as he held his stolen ID card up to the reader to the left of the door. The reader lagged, forcing him to wait for a terrifying two seconds before its red display turned green and emitted a quick chirp, accompanied by the more noticeable noise of the door unlocking.
Scarlet grabbed the door handle the instant it unlocked and pushed it open. Taking a quick look behind him and still seeing no one, Fox followed her through the door.
As it closed behind him with a hollow 'ka-chunk', Fox stood beside Scarlet. The vixen stared transfixed at what lay before them, her expression a mixture of surprise and anger.
"Whoa. I didn't even know Asgard had this kind of technology."