Mirage

Chapter Fifteen

Panther Strix stepped from his vehicle and gazed at the carnage after flicking on his flashlight. It had been a quieter shift. He always hated when he was pulled from the field to help bolster Peace Corps presence on the streets. Still, he understood why it was necessary. It normally gave him time to get caught up on paperwork. He'd just finished his last report yesterday and he silently deflated as he realized he was about to be swamped with work. 

He'd been hoping for some time off so he could see Ryder again. At the thought of the cute guy he knew he was crushing on, a rush of anxiety swept through him. It had been a month since they'd been on their date and he hadn't had the time to make a second one, not with the way things had been at HQ after the suspected terror attack. For all he knew Ryder may have moved on and found someone else. Or maybe he was still stuck with whoever the abusive scum bag was that had put his hands on him. 

"Strix!" Panther's pulse jumped and it was only due to his undercover training he kept a straight face as his partner Evan called his name. Evan Halows was barely his senior. They'd join the Peace Corps at roughly the same time and been through thick and thin together. Evan's gray eyes were piercing and sharp, his white hair cut close to his scalp. 

"It looks like a shootout between The Jackels and from our best guess, The Crows. Problem is there's no Crow bodies." Evan said, motioning towards the middle of the street. 

Panther had barely begun to process the convenience store that had been shot to hell. Broken glass littered the street, and a vending machine played its cheery tune in the silence from inside the store. From what he glimpsed of the interior it had been trashed. Leaking food and liquids were spread across the floor and the shelves and walls were littered with bullet holes. 

To their left a shaken employee was being checked over by EMT's, the emergency medical transport sheltered among the Peace Corp's vehicles. Including Panther's vehicle there were four others. The sleek, black vehicles emitted a soft glowing green light that illuminated the darkness as they hummed quietly in the open street. 

  "How long do we have before the media gets wind of this?" Panther asked as he scanned the street. One of the pumps at the store was leaking charger fluid and a team of firefighters were cleaning up the mess. To their right lay broken, crumpled bodies. Eight of them, all covered in their own blood and piss.

"Media outreach is doing what they can but the Chief thinks we only have an hour." Evan said, looping his fingers in his beltloops as he surveyed the carnage. Neither of them spoke the truth that was staring them in the face. Neither of them wanted to deal with it just yet. Things were getting ugly in inner city and it looked like a gang war was erupting around them. They hadn't had something like this in years and nobody on the Corps wanted that kind of violence happening in the streets. 

Panther approached the bodies, surveying them for a moment. His lips tightened slightly into a thin line as he kept his composure. His scanner ID'd the bodies with a faint chirp. It had taken five minutes for the first responder to reach the scene and Panther had been the second to arrive. By then Peace Corps drones had confirmed no-one but the employee was around, or alive. 

"Hey, Evan. We had at least two people returning fire." Panther said after noting the rounds used on the bodies and the location of the shots. Basic math had allowed him to calculate the trajectory of the bullets that had killed the eight Jackel members that lay sprawled out across the street. 

Evan glanced up from several feet away where he was crouched inspecting one of the bodies and he nodded quietly, his gray eyes going distant. 

"Entry wounds from my victim don't match yours. This one's clean. Someone has military training." Evan pointed out, indicating the victim he was crouch in front of. Panther frowned slightly. Twenty five percent of the population served in the military, and it was a requirement for anyone who wanted to be in the Peace Corps to have at least a decade of military service under their belt.

The military paid well and helped any veterans land stable jobs when they left. If the veteran was unfit for full time work, they were taken care of by the government just like everyone else was. Working wasn't strictly necessary given the fact the government met everyone's basic needs so one could survive without a job, but many people wanted more. They wanted even more lavish houses or income to support their hobbies. 

It was deeply concerning to see someone with military training involved in a criminal lifestyle when they had no real need for it. Evan and Panther shared a worried glance as they emerged on the same conclusion. They were probably looking at the handiwork of a seriously mentally unstable individual. 

Panther and Evan moved from the bodies towards the convenience store. It was then that Evan noted the sack of spilled groceries. The contents had spilled out across the sidewalk in front of the store. He ran a bioscan on the bag and the contents then swore softly. There was nothing. Whoever had been handling the contents or the bag had worn gloves. 

Panther had already moved ahead, into the store. He carefully stepped around broken glass, noting where the second person had taken cover behind the vending machine. He frowned softly, trying to track where the two people had disappeared too. His gaze rose from the floor to scan the interior again to see if he'd missed anything. 

It was the sparking exit sign that caught his attention first. Then he saw the half-opened door. He sucked in a small breath as the concern started to grow. Military trained. The thought rattled around his head like an alarm bell as he scanned the floor again, looking for any traces of the person's passage from the vending machine to the exit in the back. 

There was nothing. It was like a ghost had walked through the carnage. 

He carefully stepped around the spilled liquids and foods as he made his way to the door. His stomach clenched uncomfortably as he moved. They'd been in special forces if they'd been able to move like this without leaving a trace of their presence while in the middle of a gunfight. The odds of Panther knowing whoever the criminal was were slowly rising by the second and he didn't like it. He prayed it wasn't one of his old buddies from his days in Spec Ops.

He cautiously peeked around the doorframe, his hand on his weapon. His orangish-red eyes darkened to a redder hue as he caught sight of the bodies. He stepped out into the alleyway and surveyed the scene. 

It was a bloodbath. Blood covered the walls and the ground, pooling out from four cooling bodies that lay scattered across the pavement. They'd moved fast, and they were good. He was piecing together the target's movements using the positions of the bodies and the injuries they'd received. 

They'd moved quickly, with utter confidence. leaving their back exposed to the doorway they'd come from. Whoever the target, when they'd come down this alleyway, they'd been certain their buddy out front hadn't let anyone slip past them into the store. These two had worked together before, many, many times. They were using old military tactics to flank and pincer their rivals. 

Panther's com unit buzzed faintly with static as other officers reported more bodies. He was doing a tally as he surveyed the scene for clues, trying to estimate how many people had died here in the past five to ten minutes. He was so absorbed he'd been tuning out his com's unit, letting the chatter between officers on the ground and HQ seep into the background.

 An explosion a block over set his teeth rattling in his skull and a scream cut the air.