Top Squad
Infiltration of the Compound
Sven thought his eyes would be stuck in a permanent squint if he stayed like this any longer. He rubbed them and blinked a couple times before peering back into the binoculars' lens. All he could see was snow, and trees, and snow, and grey concrete, and more snow. He'd never realized how much he hated snow until he'd spent three days huddled on the same tree branch, freezing his fingers off as he waited for an opening, studying patterns in the security operations.
Why'd she have to make this so hard? Of course he'd been expecting something hard, strenuous even, but this, this was just mocking him. She'd picked a place in Marci, out of all the countries in the world.
She knew he wouldn't dare come back here, doing so would be like asking to be apprehended by either the Hunters, or the Bureau, or Cromwell. Picking a place like this...
'She's taunting me.' he thought. A guard passed by, doing his rounds, and stopped to look for anybody hiding in the forest, before moving along.
She was probably sitting in her mansion right now, smirking at the idea that she'd gotten him pinned down. No way to breach the compound, no way to get his Contract.
Sven breathed in as much cold air as he could, holding it in his lungs for a couple seconds before letting it all escape.
He'd make his move tonight.
Night fell and the moon came out to make all the snow around Sven glisten. Cold white light shone through every nook and cranny it could find it's way into, eventually reaching him. He sat on top of the branch, screwing a silencer to his gun, then stuffing it in his coat pocket. He checked he had all the necessary: grenades, smoke bombs, a retractable staff, a pair of katanas, a code cracker, enough rope to tie down a cruiseliner, and knives plastered to every accessible area of his body.
He crawled his way down the tree, landing softly on the snow. It would muffle the sound of his steps- he hoped. Snow could be very finicky when it came to helping him out. Either it muffled every step he took, or squeaked under his feet with such a loud noise, Sven could've believed it wanted very thug around to know where he was. Thankfully, this snow was powdery and light, so as to not make a sound, even though his feet would probably be frozen and wet by the time he made it to the compound.
Sven crept into the small shelter he had built by the base of the tree and took out a shotgun, a set of grappling hooks and two small pitons, all of which he strapped to his back. Then he started trudging through the snowy forest towards the grey compound some 800 meters away.
Getting the pitons to break through the concrete was harder than he thought it would've been. He only had another five minutes before a guard came around the corner, and he had to be on the other side of the concrete walls that surrounded the compound by then. Finally, the sharp metal managed to crack the wall enough to create a foothold. Sven kept creeping up the rope he'd grappled to the top of the wall, slowly making his way up by breaking the concrete enough to have nooks where he could put the tips of his fingers and boots. Somewhere around the corner, he heard music playing.
'Thanks for the head's up.' he thought, throwing himself onto the top of the wall, which was some three feet wide, and pulling his rope up just as a guard, portable radio in hand, came walking around the corner.
"Baby it's cold outside, is right." Sven heard the man grumble. "Ain't nothing but snow and trees out here."
Sven started breathing again, taking a few seconds to compose himself. He had to be level-headed for what he was planning to do next; there was no room for mistake. Either he'd accomplish what had only been done 12 times before in the whole of history, or he'd give up his life trying.
'Either which way is good with me. Rather die than be captured.' he thought. He laid flat down on the top of the wall, looking into the courtyard below him. The drop down to the ground was over thirty feet, but there was a lookout tower about twenty feet away. One last look to make sure he was out of the guard's sight, and he tiptoed his way across the thick concrete wall to the lookout's window.
Now the only thing stopping him from a clean entry into the compound was a sheet of glass that wouldn't break without causing a loud shattering noise, which would probably wake up the guard inside the lookout tower;that would be a problem. Sven flicked the glass. It couldn't be much more than a few millimeters thick. Sven threw his arms around his head and neck to protect them and hoped the shards wouldn't cut him too badly as he took a few steps back then flung himself full-force through the window and into the lookout tower. He hopped back on his feet in sync with the guard.
"Stop-" the man shouted, then grunted as Sven's foot connected with his stomach, throwing him backwards onto his chair. Sven attacked with a flurry of fast-thrown punches, knocking the man unconscious before he had the chance to press the panic button on his desk.
Sven turned on the desktop computer to look through the eyes of the surveillance cameras posted throughout the compound.
'Damn it- the security here is tighter than I thought.'
He took another deep breath. 'Keep your cool. You've dealt with stuff like this before. Just find a way around the security and the cameras. Airvents are full of motion detectors so there's no option there. Maybe, just maybe, I can hack into the mainframe and deactivate some of the cameras...'
Sven wrenched the guard's ID card away from him and used the name and number to log into the compound's server. The man was a low-level guard with not much authority to do anything other than log in, log out and report anything to the central security post. Still, with access to the server, Sven could crack almost any firewall they had set up. He plugged a small USB key he'd hidden in his boot into the computer tower, and opened ' Plague.exe'.
He'd paid top dollar for the virus that would grant him access past almost any firewall without leaving a trace. It might not have worked for any government-operated bases or others of the same level, but he knew she wouldn't of bothered setting up any fancy firewalls or virtual defenses: he was a crappy hacker, and she probably thought that he couldn't afford a fancy program like Plague, or that he was just dead broke. Which he was, after having paid for Plague, but he was about to see if it was all worth it.
The program finished uploading, and went to work on the compound's mainframe. Lines of green programming flashed by on a black background till a window finally opened, displaying a few lines of text and a list Sven took a minute to read.
>HACK COMPLETE. 56 DIFFRENT SECURITY OPTIONS FOUND. PROGRAM ABLE TO DISABLE 45. CLICK ON FOLLOWING OPTIONS TO DISABLE.
>CAMERAS SECTOR A
>CAMERAS SECTOR B
>CAMERAS SECTOR D
>CAMERAS SECTOR E
>MOTION SENSORS SECTORS A-B-D-E
>MOTION SENSORS AIRVENTS SECTORS A-B-D-E
>LOCK DOORS SECTOR A
>LOCK DOORS SECTOR B
>LOCK DOORS SECTOR D
>LOCK DOORS SECTOR E
>OPTIONS 10 OF 45.
>CLICK TO SEE OPTIONS 11-20 OF 45
Sven disabled all the motion sensors and cameras he could, then clicked through the next few options. It was useless stuff like changing the temperature of the compound, or shutting off all the searchlights outside the walls. Though he did lock the doors to the arsenal room and the guard breakroom and bunk rooms, as well as shut off all power to a special room dedicated to tasers and electrical charge weapons, Sven didn't find much use to any of the other features Plague offered.
'That's where it is. Sector C.' He frowned as he came to his conclusion. Nothing there could be touched. The lights, the motion sensors, the cameras, the heat detectors and the teargas release activated by pressure-sensitive sensors in the floor; the program couldn't change any of it. She must've known he'd eventually come for it- and if not him, someone else. Maybe to blackmail her, maybe to blackmail him. Maybe to blackmail him into blackmailing her, or any other messed up reasons someone could have for wanting his Contract. Any way he put it, Sven could only make one thing clear: he knew Sector C was where she'd been keeping it.
He took a blueprint of the compound that had been nailed to the wall and ran silently down the stairs. He was halfway down when the thought occurred to him that maybe she would've hidden the Contract elsewhere. Putting all the security in one place to create a diversion was exactly her style; then, as soon as something came up, the bad guys would rush to the most obvious place, and the object of their desire would be moved to safety as they struggled with whatever she'd left behind to kill them.
Sven heard a couple distressed cries coming from outside the stairwell, where everything was going to shit. Someone must've noticed the cameras going haywire and called a Code Red or whatever it was they called the chaos that was going on throughout the compound.
' Chaos...' he thought, a plan forming in his mind. He rushed back up the stairs and put his idea to work.
Darwin had never signed up for any of this. Well, he had signed up for the job, but he thought it would've been calm, an easy thing where he sat in the break room all day playing cards with his buddies while time went by and nothing happened. Of course, now something was happening, and as big a Terrestrial Squader as Darwin was, he was just about to wet himself.
"Who would want to storm this place!? There's nothing here!" he yelled to Mickey, his round partner.
"I took this job for the easy cash- I didn't expect some lunatic to actually attack us!" Mickey replied with his high-pitched, whiny voice. His breaths sounded more like wheezes than actual breathing, which freaked Darwin out.
"You're not having an asthma attack are you!?" he asked Mickey.
"No! Maybe, I dunno!? This is freaky Darwin, this is really freaky! What're we gonna do?"
"You're the smart one here, you figure it out! All I know is how to beat people up, remember?" Darwin looked at his massive feet, mumbling half to himself, half to Mickey.
"Oh come on, get over it would you? It was just a little teasing."
"Yeah well, it really hurt. I'm plenty smart..." Mickey put his hand on Darwin's shoulder. "Don't say it again, Mickey."
"I'm glad you two are so happy with each other, but I've been up here for the past five minutes and I'm really starting to doubt if either of you are smart." said a voice from above the partners. Darwin and Mickey craned their necks to stare at the chiseled boy whose shoulders were jutting out of the air vent above them.
"Who the hell are you?!" yelled Mickey. He stumbled backwards into a pile of boxes and fell over. Darwin looked at the boy and regretted watching 'It Came From the Air Vents' the previous night.
"I'm the intruder. I've been dangling here for quite a while, I'm surprised you didn't notice. Or- I'm not anymore. Apparently, everyone here is either a lazy no-good or scared of their own shadows." said the boy. There was a click that resonated from inside the air vent and a second later, the boy had Darwin at gunpoint. "I've never talked this much to a target before. I guess it's just the stress."
He shot twice and Darwin's body fell to the ground. Mickey only had the chance to look at the bloody holes right above his friend's eyes before he was shot as well.
'The getaway will be too complicated if they're all alive.' Sven thought, shrinking back into the air vent.
The shotgun rubbed against the top of the metal tube as he crawled down it. After three left turns, up a small ladder and down a chute, Sven found himself in a janitor's closet. He pressed his ear to the crack of the door and listened. Everything he heard was either screaming, or frantic, or trying to get an idea of what was going on or authority over the staff around them.
"Keep calm! Everybody make sure your guns are loaded and ready! We don't know who it is we're after so be careful!" said a voice from outside that was louder than the rest.
Sven almost smiled, this was too easy. He put on the cap and the jacket he'd stole from the lookout guard and took another deep breath.
"Is- someone out there?" he said loud enough for the people outside to hear him. In response, he guessed over fifteen guns were being aimed at his hiding place.
"Who is that?" said the strong voice.
"I'm a new recruit. I was hired last week?" said Sven, risking to crack the door open.
"How do we know you're not the intruder?" said the voice."There's an intruder?! All I heard was someone screaming to hide." The voice groaned.
"Who said that?" it said. Someone must've raised their hand because there was a loud 'thwack' and the sound of someone moaning in pain. Sven thanked god one of the compound guards had yelled out something so stupid.
"Come out from there." the voice told Sven.
He opened the door and stared back at the eighteen pairs of eyes fixed on him. From what he could see, ten of the people had guns, so they were normal recruits, and the other eight were wielding various weapons. Sven thought he saw metal tipped-fans and a heavy mace and chain.
In the middle of the group stood a tall woman with short brown hair and a scar on her left cheek. Beside her, one of the gunmen was gingerly prodding his own red cheek. He must've been slapped by the woman, who appeared to be the voice who had spoken.
"What's your name?" said the woman.
"Tom Higgins." lied Sven. Higgins was the name of the lookout guard.
"Well Higgins, you seem pretty well equipped already." said the woman. Sven looked at all the weaponry he was carrying and shrugged. "Welcome to the Outer Security Squad of Sector C."
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