Justin tried his best to be calm and collected whenever a situation called for it. Panicking only led to failure, but damn it was hard for him to catch his breath over this assignment. He had no clue what they were going to do once they got to the base or even how to find her. Was she alright? Was she dead? How long had she been discovered for? Thousands of questions raced all around his head while he boarded the VTOL that carried his friends and Blizzard to the coast of Africa.
The ride there was awkwardly quiet. No one really knew what to say or how to introduce themselves. It would've remained that way too if Gale hadn't opened his mouth.
"So why do they call you 'Cards'?" Gale asked the man sitting in front of him.
He didn't respond, or even look in Gale's general direction, choosing to look out the window of the VTOL instead.
"Well I can see why they don't call you talkative," Gale said.
"Gale. Please," Cade responded to him.
"What? I'm just trying to get to know them a bit better, seeing as how we're about to put our lives in each others' hands," Gale turned his attention back to Cards, asking, "Come on, are you good at playing cards or something?"
"Sure, let's go with that," the man replied.
Gale didn't respond, seemingly satisfied with his response
"You know I hate to be that guy, but isn't 'Gale' a woman's name?" Joker asked
"At least I know why you're called Joker. And traditionally it is but my parents said fuck it and named me that," Gale replied.
Justin began to tune them out and his anxieties started to move to the forefront of his mind. Sam told them they had to find Dr. Zhabiv, but what were they supposed to do after that? Politely ask him where she is and he'll just willingly give them the answer? No. It definitely wouldn't go down like that. The doctor could have so much loyalty to the UTF that he'd rather die before telling them where she is.
That made him all the more determined to find her. One way or another, he believed that they were going to bring her back. Cade and the rest weren't about to let their friend die at the hands of an enemy nation. At least, that's what Justin wanted to believe.
The VTOL finally came to a stop on an island off the coast of Africa. The Island was named Cape Verde, but when Justin got out, the name made no sense to him. All around him was dead grass and trees without leaves hanging from them. The sand and gravel pathway led to the building that had to be the research base, but it was all run down. It didn't even look like it had any power. There weren't even any air defenses when they flew in, so did they already abandon the site entirely?
"Okay, listen up, from the intel we got her transponder went dark about 12 hours ago. From the looks of things this place is run down, but watch yourselves out here. This very well could be a trap. Stay shard," Cade announced to them.
"My team will go in on the opposite end of the base, you guys enter here. We'll meet in the middle if we don't find anything. Got it" Dex explained.
With a unanimous nod, Blizzard began their way to enter the eastern side of the base while the rest of them entered from the west. Immediately they noticed that this place wasn't just abandoned, it looked like it was attacked. There were bodies on the ground, some were UTF but others looked strange, like burnt wolves except their faces just had these large mouths with rows of sharp teeth.
"Uh, that doesn't look like any kind of dog I've ever seen," Gale commented.
Cade ignored him, stating, "Whatever these are, it's definitely not human."
"Do you think this is something that they got from their research?" Artemis asked.
"Look we just need to find the doctor and get him to talk," Justin said, moving forward to sweep the rest of the corridor.
"Okay, Frost and Cole, search these rooms. Gale, Artemis, you go down to the far end of the hall and search there. Justin and I will each take a staircase and move down to the lower floor because I'm assuming that whatever this machine is, it has to be big," Cade ordered. Justin wasted no time moving down the staircase to an underground level. As he walked through the dark hallway he heard the sound of something scratching metal in front of him. He raised MP5 to shine the light on who or what was scratching something.
When he looked to his right, he saw one of those creatures clawing away at a door that was almost destroyed. The light on his gun got its attention and it turned to him. It looked like it was about to pounce before Justin fired nearly the whole magazine into the creature. It dropped to the ground with a solid thud, and laid on the ground motionless.
"Everyone, I think I found something. Meet me on the first underground level near the," he paused to look for any form of indication as to where he was. He saw on the wall a name plate with the words, "R&D Division".
It wasn't long before both his teammates and Blizzard met him at the R&D Lab. He explained what he saw and that he killed one of these creatures.
"Yeah, we ran into a few of them on our end," Dex responded to his story.
"Dex, can you hold this position? My team is going to go in and check the lab," Cade asked.
"You got it," Dex responded.
Cade and Justin removed the door and were shocked to find a window looking into a room that had the power turned on. They saw a team of scientists working on something with a man who must've been Dr. Zhabiv, who walked and ordered them around, along with two armed guards.
"Artemis, take out the left one. I got the right," Cade told her, raising his M249. His weapon wasn't the usual 100 round box mag that they usually came with, but rather a 60 round magazine that connected to the left side of the gun, along with a holosight on the top and a grenade launcher attachment on the bottom courtesy of a Ghost team member, Stanford.
She raised her suppressed M110 rifle at the left guard and fired at the same time as Cade did, with all of the scientists looking around confused. Justin smashed the window with the stock of his gun and hopped in, with Cade and the rest behind him. Cade lowered his gun but the rest of them kept their guns raised, ensuring that no one tried to harm them.
"I take it you're Dr. Zhabiv?" Cade asked him.
The man only nodded. He was a shorter man who looked to be around 60 years old. He glared at Cade from behind his glasses, but he continued on.
"I want to know where our friend is. She was here recently, and I know you know who we're talking about. Xavier Washington. Where is she?"
"Ah yes, your spy. I'll never give that information to the likes of you," Zhabiv told him, spitting on the ground.
"I won't ask again, Doctor. Where is she?" Cade demanded.
"Enjoying her time in Hell," the doctor told them.
At that, Justin got angrier with the doctor by the second, but he kept his cool so Cade could investigate.
"It was fun watching them break her. You should have heard her screams ," Zhabiv taunted
Finally losing his temper, Justin charged him and knocked him to the ground. He drew his knife out and would've stabbed him if Frost and Cade didn't pull him off.
"Not now dammit! How are we supposed to find her if he's dead?" Cade yelled at him.
"He knows exactly where she is and asking isn't going anywhere. We need to force it out of him," Justin argued back.
"I know. I know. Watch. Gale?" Cade asked.
"Yeah?"
"Could you persuade the good doctor here to help us find our friend?"
"Of course," Gale said with a smirk.
YOU ARE READING
A Tale from the Dark Dimension
General FictionWhen a call into his job interrupts Cade Myers' peaceful sleep, he finds that one of his friends is missing due to a mission that went wrong. Upon finding her last known location, however, his world gets turned upside down as things he thought were...
