Heart of Titanium

Chapter 19: The Mole

October 8th, 2044

Bryce grips his rifle closely. His eyes are closed, but focused. Cherise stands to his right as she too, is holding her SMG, her stance is poised; strong, and still.

"Alright, you two ready?" Aaron asks, doing a final click of a key on his computer.

Bryce then opens his eyes and looks to his right and down, as Cherise looks up to her left as their gazes meet. They both nod as Bryce hits the bolt catch on his rifle, and Cherise charges her weapon, chambering a round.

The arena then goes dark once more, as the new simulation appears. "This is a new scenario I custom made for you two, this one is called...Charlie." Aaron says.

Bryce and Cherise both chuckle once as they dash from the starting point, to the first door.

The arena's scenery is different from most of the others. No forest, abandoned building, or any of the sort. They started out in a parking lot, entering what seems to be a normal grocery store of all things.

As Bryce and Cherise rush through the first door, they both stand back-to-back, aiming their weapons up. Bryce then grows a confused look on his face, as he touches the left side of his visor. "Aaron? Something must be wrong, this area looks like a normal grocery store..."

"And there's no one in sight, either. Did the simulation mess up again?" Cherise added.

No answer is heard from him as the lights then shut down in the grocery store, and a loud sound is heard of the power shutting down. "Bryce...I've got a bad feeling about this..." Cherise said, her hair raising on her back.

"Me too...something's off. Switch to NV." He replied.

Both switch to a night-vision mode, and turn on their IR lasers equipped on their weapons. "I've got an update on the objective on my visor, its a search and destroy mission." Bryce says.

"I've got it too, says its near the back of the building, but why is Aaron radio-silent? Are we completely cut off?" Cherise asks.

"Not sure, only he can deactivate the sim, only way we can is by either one, killing ourselves, or two, complete the objective. I'd rather not disobey a rule of firearm safety by pointing my own gun at me, even if its just blanks." Bryce replied.

Cherise sighs, "Agreed, let's do this. Together?" She said, holding up her paw.

"Together." Bryce said, holding his hand up and doing a hand-hug with her.

The pair then edge carefully around the building, watching each other's backs. The scenery is quiet, too quiet, even. Once they make it around a quarter of the way there, they then hear light, but fast footsteps in the distance.

Cherise's ears perk up as she turns to the sound of the steps. She nudges and points to the direction, making a fast-moving stepping motion with her paw. Bryce nods and keeps his gun up as he clears every corner they pass.

Bryce then comes across a huge walkway area in the store, he stands back for just a moment, but then peeks his head out in the direction of the footsteps, switching to thermal.

Nothing is seen in his vision, he then signs to Cherise, reading: "No sight of anything where you heard the steps."

He turns around and sees Cherise nod as her ears then perk up again as she whips around in a 180, as then both Cherise and Bryce saw a dark figure, run extremely fast past the shelves. "W-what the hell was-" Cherise was cut off by another set of fast moving steps and a few cans falling off of a shelf to the left.