Thursday night
West 37th Street
We approached the building with our NVGs mounted on our heads.
Kick-Ass and Jackal wore the additional thermal detection systems and were looking out for anybody who might be watching for our approach. We had to get in unseen and we hoped that our own research of the area and the basement systems would give us an edge over the kidnappers.
We had passed on all of our new information to the CPD, but they had decided not to believe the information – no surprise there! Voight did, however, and his team was on the way to support us. They would secure the area around the building. We carried no explosive devices, except for some detcord; anything heavier than that might have brought the whole building down on top of both us and the kids that we were supposed to be rescuing.
Our NVGs would help to show us the way with a map showing on our head-up-display. Communication were expected to be difficult underground, but Battle Guy had boosted the radio signals from Safehouse K and we were using a frequency that was not being jammed. It would be the depth underground and the construction of the building that would cause problems more than the jamming might.
...+...
There had been one stroke of luck, though.
I had received a phone call. How Marty had been able to route it to my cell, with all the jamming, I had no idea!
"Good evening, Miss Macready," the very British voice had said. "I am Lieutenant Craig Lawrence, Royal Navy."
"Hello," I said.
"We have a mutual, err, well not exactly friend, but arsehole!"
"You mean, Mitchell!" I growled.
"That's the bastard!" Lawrence responded.
I suddenly began to like the Naval Officer.
"You have a lot of respect in the Intelligence Community, Miss Macready, hence this phone call. Now, we are very aware of what is going on in your great City, right now."
"How...?"
"It's what we do at GCHQ..."
"Oh..., sorry..."
"We have had chatter from signal intercepts concerning an unknown event. However, what is going down in Chicago fits with that signals traffic. We are only telling you this for two reasons. One, we all hate Mitchell and loved what you did to him a few months back and two; we have our own interest in the man whom we believe is behind the events currently underway in Chicago. We want the man dead and we know that you can accomplish that."
"You want me to kill for you, again?"
"No. Nothing like that. No blackmail. However, just imagine, HM Government would owe Hit Girl a favour!"
Put like that… How could a Hit Girl resist!
"Okay..."
"He's a terrorist who will sell anything for money – even his own family... Therefore, he has no scruples about selling somebody else's family. There is a kill order out on him, unofficially of course; we don't actually kill people anymore!"
"No...!" I commented dryly, vividly remembering our trip to the UK earlier that year.
"This man is intending to put those kids onto a ship, in Chicago. We have no idea which one, unfortunately. That ship will take them through The Great Lakes – ring a bell? You had a little fun on your cruise during the summer...," I grimaced as I remembered the summer cruise! "Once through the Great Lakes they will be passed to another vessel that will take them onwards to Africa and then from there, to the Far East. Many die on the trip..."
"You need me to get the names of the ships?"
"I believe you are familiar with extracting information from people..."
That actually gave me a thought.
"How big is the file you have on me?"
"Officially we don't keep files on vigilantes, but it's over eight-inches thick and a damn good read!"
I felt myself blushing at that comment.
"You going to tell me his name?"
"Gerry Thompson. He operates with teams of eight."
...+...
We closed the building from two directions.
Kick-Ass was with Petra and Erika. I had Jackal and Chloe.
"Contact!" Kick-Ass growled. "Third window from left, second floor."
I looked and could just make out a dim form in my NVGs.
Kick-Ass with his thermal capability would see much more.
"Petra, get up there!" Kick-Ass ordered and I moved towards the building, staying in cover.
There was a hole in the wall, about six feet up and I jumped upwards, pulling myself inside the building. Thankfully, none of the bricks gave way. I ran quietly across the concrete floor, avoiding anything that might make a noise.
Once on the second floor, I ran towards the man. He was holding a set of binoculars and had a radio on a chair beside him. In his hand was a pistol and the pistol had a six-inch suppressor on the muzzle. The man tried to turn just seconds before I drove my armoured fist into his kidney, doubling him over. My armoured knee drove upwards, into his face, smashing his nose. I twisted his neck, snapping it and allowed the body to fall to the floor.
"One down hard!" I called.
I picked up the radio from the chair and called in the displayed frequency settings to Battle Guy.
Sub-level four
The radio on the desk started to squeal.
The other radios began doing the same.
"What the fuck?" Gerry Thompson exploded.
"They're being jammed, Boss."
"I fucking know that!"
"Who?"
"They must be close, or else they're using a military grade jammer," Thompson moaned. "Check all the entrances and start patrolling the first and second sub-levels."
Thompson was worried.
The basement
The door was pulled open.
A flashlight shone in and waved across us, one at a time. Somebody was counting to make sure that we were all there.
"Hey!" I called out.
There was no reply as the door was shoved closed, and I could hear a pair of bolts rasping closed.
Sub-level one
"This place is some scary shit!"
"Why?"
"Kind of reminds me of either that episode of Stargate Universe where they get stuck underground, or possibly Aliens."
"Fuck off, Jackal!" Hit Girl growled.
The basement was dark and very creepy. We were using active infrared to allow ourselves to see. The active infrared was invisible to the human eye, but was bright when viewed via our NVGs. There was crap everywhere, which could be hiding the enemy. Jackal had the thermal sensor, so could check for body heat before we moved into an area.
I had to agree, though, the place reminded me of some programs on TV and that got my imagination working. I was not scared of the dark, but I did not exactly like it much. Oh, well, what was the point of being 'Shadow', if you didn't like shadows!
I was desperate for a rest after all the crap that we had endured in Gotham. My fifteen-year-old body had not taken kindly to all the abuse that I had been throwing at it. I was lucky, apart from being covered in quite a lot of bruises, I was not hurt; nowhere near as much as Curtis. I worried about him every day and every night. He was healing well, according to Mom, so there was nothing to worry about, but he was still my cousin and I loved him dearly – I just hoped that he never found out!
I was sorely tempted to tell Mindy that I wanted to take a week off, but I had no intention of letting Mindy, or anybody else, down. Maybe I would speak with Dave and see what we could do about getting some rest, without Mindy laughing at me.
I snapped out of my thoughts as I heard a noise. It sounded like a piece of fallen masonry being kicked across a concrete floor. I had very good hearing! I indicated to the others and turned towards the noise.
We could not use automatic firearms, nor could we use un-suppressed weapons as the sound could cause the masonry to collapse. I pulled out my FN that was already fitted with a suppressor. I aimed it into the darkness before me and used my active infrared to scan the area ahead of me. I saw a light ahead of me, it was aimed low on the ground. It was a flashlight and somebody was moving in my direction. I raised my left hand, fist clenched, halting Hit Girl and Jackal behind me.
We all moved backwards against the sides of the passageway. As long as the flashlight stayed on the ground then there was a good chance that the 'somebody' would walk past. The flashlight was screwing up the active infrared and the NVGs. It turned out to be only one man and as he began walk past me, I grabbed his neck and threw him against the wall of the passageway, which knocked him out cold. I looked over at Hit Girl, who nodded. I pulled out my short-bladed knife and slit the man's throat, allowing the blood to spread across the concrete.
For good measure, Hit Girl kicked the corpse in the head as she went past. I knew exactly how she felt about criminals who hurt kids and I agreed, as would all of Fusion and most normal human beings for that matter.
Sub-level two
I was leading, which was a surprise.
Among the many things that I was learning about Fusion was that despite the fact that Kick-Ass and Hit Girl were obviously in charge and some seemed more senior than others, everybody was treated the same; there was no real ranking system and different operations were led by different people. I was the newbie in Fusion; yeah, I could fight better than most of the others, but I was always treated with respect and at that moment, I had Mist and Kick-Ass following my orders!
I supposed that was what made Fusion function so well. The training was top-notch and I knew that one day I might be under the command of Wildcat who was seven years my junior, but I did not care; that was one young girl that I did respect and I seriously wanted to spar with her but had not had the chance. I was just grateful to be part of something great and something so exciting. Mindy had promised me that I was a full part of Fusion and that that made me equal to everybody else. She also said that my experience automatically made me a senior member of Fusion and that everybody would listen to me, even her and Dave.
Another surprise had been D-JAK. I had offered my skills and Mindy had instantly made me a senior instructor and given me a black Gi. It gave me an income, which was very useful as I had cut deeply into Mom and Dad's money, and it was also a way to better my skills. I loved sparring with Mindy and I knew that she was often holding back on me, but no matter how hard I pushed, Mindy would always play dumb. Privately, Dave had told me that Mindy never sparred to her limit; and that if she did then she might actually kill people.
I was also surprised to find Chloe and Josh welcoming me in. I had expected that they might be put out by my joining Fusion, but no – mind you, I had heard murmurings concerning some bedtime related activities from when they were all in Gotham; I needed to find out a bit more about that – it sounded juicy!
I was dragged out of my thoughts by a light, somewhere up ahead. I raised my left hand with the fist clenched, signalling Mist and Kick-Ass to halt. The light seemed to originate from another room, over to the right about twenty feet or so away.
I moved forward slowly, watching my feet amidst the fallen rubble. I turned and made the hand signal for a door, pointing to my right. I could hear movement very close and as a result, I did not want to speak. I waved for Mist and Kick-Ass to come up to me and they stopped, with Mist resting her left hand on my left shoulder.
I pulled a flexible fibre-optic cable from my belt and gently eased it past the doorway. The other end was connected to a camera that transmitted to a receiver on our NVG head-up-displays. We could all see the same image. As the image stabilised, we could see four men, all grouped around a table. One of the men matched the image of Gerry Thompson that we had all seen earlier, before commencing the attack.
I felt Mist squeeze my shoulder and I looked back, receiving a nod from Kick-Ass.
It was time to engage.
The basement
The door was pulled open.
A flashlight shone in and waved across us, one at a time. Somebody was counting, again.
"Hey!" I called out, just as before.
Just as before, there was no reply, but then I heard a grunt. The flashlight fell to the floor and rolled towards me. I grabbed it and shone it at the door. I almost dropped the flashlight in I shock as I saw what I had illuminated.
A man stood in the doorway. He held a pistol in his right hand, which he dropped. The flashlight must have been in his left hand. Now, though, the left hand was wrestling with a purple arm that had wrapped itself around the man's neck. The right hand joined the left in trying to wrestle the arm off his neck. I heard screams from the kids around me as they saw what was going on at the doorway.
There was a loud crack, which my mind told me was the man's neck, some more screams from the kids and the man fell to the ground.
"Good evening!" The purple, armour clad form that owned the purple arm growled. "My name is Hit Girl!"
I did drop the flashlight!
We were saved; we could get the hell out of the dark, filthy place! There was sudden movement as others moved into the room. By the light of the flashlight, I saw a set of blue-clad legs and then some of a reddish-brown.
"I am Shadow. My pal Jackal is just going to check you all out. Are you Miss Evans?" The blue-legged vigilante asked.
"Y – Yes, I am."
"Is everybody here, are any missing?"
"Two girls and a boy were taken a while ago, otherwise we are all here."
"Hi, I'm the driver, call me Roy!"
"Let's move!" Hit Girl announced and we were all passed, one by one, from one vigilante to another and out of the door.
"Are we getting out of here?" A voice asked. I recognised it as being that of one of the girls, Heather.
"It's not gonna be a walk in the park, but, yeah!" Shadow replied.
All of the vigilantes spoke with artificial voices, which sounded freaky, especially in the near total darkness.
Sub-level two
We all suddenly froze, just as we were about to enter the room.
I could hear screaming, crying and shouting coming into the room from another direction; that was an unexpected complication. The screaming and crying was obviously from kids while the shouting was some fucker who deserved to die.
"Move it, bitch!"
"P – Please..."
That was the voice of a young girl on the verge of panic. My temper was building and I felt Mist's hand grip my shoulder reassuringly. I fed the fibre-optic back out and around the doorway.
"Nice!" Thompson said, examining his merchandise.
The two girls had been stripped down to their underwear and were being examined by Thompson. I was incensed by what I was witnessing.
"Should get some good money for you two, and if the others are just as good then we're onto something. As for the snivelling brat..."
I had had enough and pulled back the fibre-optic. I was trembling with rage and I heard a whisper from Kick-Ass.
"Petra, you cover the two girls. Mist, take the boy. I'll take the bastards."
Sub-level two
I was shaking worse than I had ever done in my life.
I kept talking to myself, repeating the same sentence to keep focussed on anything but what was happening to me.
"My name is Lauren Edwards and I am thirteen-years-old; I am going to get through this."
I had never known such abject fear, it was cold standing there, in just my underwear and every limb shook, both with the cold and with the fear. I had no idea what was going to happen to us. I had no idea where I was, I just knew that Lauren Edwards was probably going to die along with her friends, Katie Gray and Philip Jacobs.
My skin crawled as I watched the men run their beady eyes across my half-naked body. I was no longer crying as I had run out of tears. Katie was still sobbing and Philip was hurting from having been kicked in the stomach by one of the men. My feet hurt from being forced to walk bare-foot across the rubble strewn floor.
I was standing next to Katie and we were both near to another doorway, opposite to that which we had entered by. Philip was on the floor, where he had been thrown, several feet away. The man who seemed to be in charge, seemed to be talking.
"Should get some good money for you two, and if the others are just as good then we're onto something. As for the snivelling brat..."
..._...
Suddenly there was movement at the doorway, a few feet away.
Into the bright lighting of the basement room came three armoured individuals one of whom was enormous and instantly recognisable by his green and yellow armour.
Kick-Ass!