Chapter 10: Setups and payoffs.
5/23/2036
This morning, a group of armed terrorists
attacked the UISC western bank with the intention to kill innocent civilians.
The group, seen to include 1 UISC citizens and 3 foreigners, one of which was
known murderer Felix DeBlanc, who had escaped IO custody a month ago. The
terrorists caused a gas leak in the bank’s main vault, resulting in an
explosion that killed 10 and injured 30 bystanders. IO law enforcement gave
chase until they successfully disabled the vehicle and arrested the attackers,
who had been working with multiple anti-government groups, and using stolen
weapons from GodsEyes. When asked about how terrorists obtained some of his
company’s equipment, GodsEyes CEO Robert Peele had this to say:
“It’s simple reasoning. GodsEyes weapons are
the most advanced in Law enforcement. Better than Themis, even better that IO.
I’m mortified by these people using my technology to commit acts of terror, but
it does make logical sense. It also shows how well armed insurgents can be, and
the level of skill it took to steal weapons from us would have been immense, so
they must be very skilled individuals. We will be conducting a series of
corruption checks in our own ranks, but no-one, and I MEAN no one working at
GodsEyes would do this kind of thing.”
This report was sponsored by GodsEyes. Keeping the
bay area safe for 5 years.
Three days.
Three days of surgeries,
agony, and paranoia.
I once heard the belly was
the most painful place to get shot. Especially when it’s from a .50 calibre
bullet that literally shredded my small intestine and shattered my lower spine.
What I didn’t hear was that you don’t pass out. I was laying on my back,
screaming in pain for about an hour. It was… probably the worst feeling I’ve
ever had. I didn’t see what happened with Sarah and Felix, all I knew was that
Felix sprinted off after shooting me, Sarah tried to run after him, but she
came back a minute later, called an Ambulance and tried to stop the bleeding. I
wanted to shout at her. She could’ve caught Felix and interrogated him for what
he knew on the RAT program. Sure, I would’ve been dead, but I wouldn’t have
died for nothing. But she cared about me too much.
Typical.
I didn’t remember much of
the first day, because the only thing that happened was MEMEC doctors trying to
make sure shrapnel didn’t pierce my stomach and flood my body with digestive acid,
along with the intestine and spine business. So, I spent most of the day being
operated on or in a hospital bed, waiting for the drugs to wear off.
The second day, I didn’t
move a muscle. My belly was in so much pain, even though the stem cell
injections had done all they could. It was a miracle I was alive, but I still
wanted to just lay down, close my eyes and perish. But that wasn’t the only
thing. It was safe to assume IO knew
that I knew too much about RAT. That’s why they sent Felix after me. But then
again, why didn’t he just shoot me in the head? He couldn’t have tried to
resist the Implant because it would’ve given him a shot of aspirin to the brain,
which didn’t explain how-
…
This was my fault.
I put myself and Sarah in
danger. Felix wouldn’t have tried to kill me if IO knew I’d given the evidence
to Themis, and not took it home and memorised it. They knew I’d kept it all to
myself. I wanted to keep Themis out of all this, but I’d just made myself an
easy target.
Now I’m paralysed from the
hip down. And Felix could walk in and finish the job at any second. It was only
me and Sarah who knew about IO’s RAT program, which meant… when they finished
me off… they’d…
No. I won’t let that
happen.
Then I remembered I was
paralysed.
The best I could do was
tell a nurse to put the hospital in lockdown if a bald man in a white shirt
came in. She asked why, so I told her he was the one who shot me. She told me
that the hospital had very few lockdown procedures, because of how many
patients in critical condition they had. But she assured me that she’d do all
she could.
I felt… powerless.
…
It was an hour until
midnight when he came into my room.
My bedside lamp had been
turned on, which woke me up. My heartrate shot through the roof, and the Electrocardiogram sounded like it was a bomb about to
go off. I thought to myself “This is it. This is what I’ve caused.” But then I
looked at the guy.
He wore a red bomber jacket
like he’d just come back from the battle of Britain. He had a head of thick
brown hair, a poorly shaven beard, and a tired look on his face, like he’d
spent all day running. He was also soaking wet and stank of seawater. In his jean
pockets were what looked like a crumpled-up bag of peanuts, as well as a badly
concealed 1911 pistol. “Yeah, this guy has just come back from the battle of
Britain.” I thought.
This was the guy who was
working with Felix while he was undercover. Better yet, this was the guy Sarah
recognised.
“You’re… Rhys, aren’t you?”
I asked.
“Yeah. Wait…” His hand
hovered over his pocket. “… How do you know me?”
“BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP!!!”
Yelled the Electrocardiogram.
“I… uh… was looking into
Felix’s involvement with you and your team! But he got to me.”
“Who’s Felix?” He asked.
“Bald 20-something year
old? White T-shirt? Likes shooting people in the stomach? You don’t know him?!”
“… Scalp…” He said to
himself.
“Yeah… that’s another way
of saying Bald.” I replied.
He rested his hands in his coat
pockets and sat down in my wheelchair. “Well, it seems like you know a lot
Captain Shinkawa.”
“Just Akira is fine… wait,
how do YOU know my name! And why are you here!” I shouted way louder than I
should’ve.
“The rest of the hospital
is crowded with people coming from the explosion. And it says it on the end of
your bed.”
“… Oh.”
…
“…And they said you stole
GodsEyes weapons.” I told him.
Rhys chuckled. “Nah man, we
might as well have been fighting with sticks and stones.”
He’d told me the whole
thing. What a dumb plan. I won’t tell you how I’d have done the heist better,
that would sound hypocritical of me. Let’s just say I would’ve done it with
better ballistics, less police chases and even more digitally. But its was
pretty crazy how Rhys got involved in this whole scheme.
“So… are you the only one
left?” I asked.
“Nah, my friend’s getting
her injuries treated downstairs. Sca- Felix was bashing her head against a wall
when I got to her. The doctors, they… they think she might be permanently
blind.”
“Damn man. I’m sorry.” I
said. Felix had done some messed up stuff after IO got into his head.
“Thanks. Also… One of our
guys was in the bank vault when it blew.”
“But you blew it up, didn’t
you?” I asked.
“What? No!” He exclaimed.
“We were trying to destroy the money in the main vault, but there was a gas
leak. Marcus, he… he tried to burn the money.”
“Oof.” I replied. “You’ve
been through a lot in one day.”
“Yeah… but I’m not done
yet.” Said Rhys.
“But you and your friend
are safe!”
“Yeah, but Unger and Lilian
are still back at mother base. IO are probably sending Felix to them as we
speak. If I don’t get there in time, well… you know what’ll happen.”
“You were chased through
the whole city and now you want to go back in?!” I exclaimed. “That’s suicide. You’ll
have to deal with every police corp in San Fran looking for you, as well as
Felix. The Uncle Toriyama boys probably won’t be two happy you “blew up” their
bank, either!”
“You have a point.” Said
Rhys. He then started looking off into the distance.
“What are you lookin’ at?”
I spoke.
He said nothing.
“Rhys.” I asked.
Nothing.
…
“I’ve just had… a brilliant
idea.” He said, finally.
“Wow, really!” I shouted
(too loudly, again.)
“What if I pull a Henry
Brown?” He asked.
“… I have no idea who that
is, man.” I replied.
“Well, he was a slave who
escaped to freedom by mailing himself in a wooden box from Virginia to
abolitionists in Philadelphia. I’m thinking we do that, but instead of mailing myself,
I hide in a vehicle while you drive.” Said Rhys. He smiled like he thought his
plan might work.
“That’s not gonna work.” I
replied.
“Yeah, but consider! What
if we steal an ambulance?”
“Why? That wouldn’t-.”
He seemed to take that personally
because he went on a tangent.
“There’s a ton of
ambulances going back and forth from the explosion site. Another one coming
from the hospital isn’t gonna look to suspicious. There’s also the added bonus
of people moving for ambulances when their sirens are on. If we get stopped on
the way to Mother base, just say I’m in critical condition. If they don’t
believe you, we can just take them out. When we get to the centre, we may have
to get through Felix, IO, GodsEyes or Uncle Toriyama boys. What we’ll do it
cause some noise outside by turning on the ambulances sirens, then we ditch it.
We sneak in, grab Lilian and Unger, escape from the centre through the bay all
the way to Oakland, then lay low for a while. After a week or so, we head for
the UISC border. I don’t know how we’ll get there, but we’ll find a way.”
“Look Rhys, this whole plan
is very elaborate, but it’s got one massive flaw.”
“Yeah! What’s that!” He
said in a half-shout.
“Felix paralysed me from
the waist down. I can’t drive the ambulance because my feet don’t work.”
“… Oh.” He replied. That
information must’ve been sobering. He just sat there, wide eyed, thinking there
was no way for him to get to ‘Mother base’ If he drove on his own, he’d get
recognised and sent to re-education. If he somehow managed to drive all the
way, he’d be lucky if no one showed up to capture or kill Lilian and Unger. He
just sat there, looking into the floor. Hopeless.
Then I remembered.
“That’s weird.” She said “He… he was a friend of mine.”
“Hey Rhys.” I asked. “Do
you know anybody named Sarah Hargreaves?”
His ears pricked up. His
eyes widened. His jaw dropped. A smile of pure elation stretched across his
face. He was DEFINETLY Sarah’s friend.
“A-Are you winding me up!”
he half shouted, “Sarah’s here?”
“Umm, yeah. Do you two know
each other?”
“Yeah!” he threw his arms
up in the air “We go way back! We… we, uhm… it’s a long story.”
“Well, will she help?” I
asked.
“Cap, that’s not even a
question.” He replied. “What floor is she on?”
“Ground floor lobby. I
don’t get how you missed her coming in.”
“Neither do I.” He pulled
his gun out from his pocket and removed the magazine. “6 left.” he whispered to
himself. After reloading his gun, he began rummaging through the bedside
drawers.
“Hey man, d’ya see a
scalpel anywhere.” He asked.
“Why do you need a scalpel?
You’ve already got a gun.” I protested.
“Its not for me…” Rhys
responded. “It’s for you.”
He finally found a scalpel
on the emergency medical tray under my bed. He opened the hospital room door
and jammed the scalpel into the lock as hard as he could. At first, I didn’t know
what he was doing, but then I realised that he was locking the door from the
inside. If Felix wanted in, he’d have to break the door, which would alert the
medical staff. But if I needed to let nurses or doctors in, I could just wheel
over and open it.
Smart.
Before leaving he looked at
me.
“If I, uh… If I don’t come
back… I want you tell Carmine. She’d deserve to know.”
“You scared?” I asked.
“No, no I’m just… preparing
for the worst.” His hands clenched in an attempt to stop them from shaking, his
breathing seemed a bit more audible and he looked… jumpier. He was scared.
“Tell her yourself, Rhys.”
I said.
He exhaled… and left.
