2036 Chapter 10: Setups and Payoffs.

 

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.