Echoes

Prologue

Malcolm stood on a beach with Rosaline in his arms, rocking gently back and forth. His arms were around her waist and she was fiddling with his hands while they watched as the sun set the ocean on fire.
"Just promise you'll come back to me," she softly whispered. Malcolm nodded and kissed the back of her head.
"Where else would I go?" He spoke softly, turning her to him and nuzzling her cheek. She stayed quiet for a moment,
"Just don't come back in a body bag," she whispered holding out her fist, her pinkie sticking out. Malcolm swallowed and hesitated, then nodded and wrapped his pinkie around hers.
"I'll try."
A wall of ice water brought Echo back to the present, to reality, a much much harsher reality. He coughed and spat, tugging at his restraints. He shook his head and groaned, the motion of shaking his head while hanging upside down causing a stabbing pain in his head.
"I won't ask you again, who sent you Echo?" A man asked, adjusting the output of a stun stick. "Our last session depleted your nanoweave's power stores, which means you no longer benefit from the protection of the weave's pain dampeners." The man smiled evilly as he jabbed the stun stick into Echo's side. Echo gritted his teeth and grunted away the pain, struggling against the chain that was suspending him from the ceiling. The man stopped and frowned, "your pain tolerance is very high." He grinned as he increased the power output again, this time he stabbed it harder into Echo's side. Echo howled as the man pressed the stun stick deeper into him, writhing uncontrollably because of the constant charge of electricity being pumped into him. The man turned the stun stick up another notch and echo tried to focus on the nanoweave's slowly raising power indicator hidden at the edge of his peripheral vision. 7%, 8%, 9%, the man stopped and Echo was left panting heavily, he horsely whispered for the man to come closer. "Hmm? Feel a bit more talkative now?" The man kneeled with his ear beside Echo.
"Go to hell." Echo said biting the man's ear and giving a solid tug. The man recoiled and screamed loudly, holding one hand to his where his ear was moments before.
"You stupid fuck!" The man howled as echo spat out the ear. The man maxed the stun sticks out out and stabbed it into Echo's side. Echo roared from the pain and squeezed his eyes shut. 24, 29, 34, 40, 48, 60, the indicator could barely keep up now. Echo closed his eyes and clenched thinking boom. A moment later the man had fallen away, hit by the sudden discharge of energy. The man fell and landed in the puddle left from the ice bucket, still holding the stun sticks trigger. Echo clenched his fist and flicker his wrist, thinking shing, and a hard light blade engaged from the weaves wrist. As it activated it cut through the chain and echo landed hard on his back. He grunted and rolled. Mental note, thank the techs for the HUD contacts and the weave's new capacitors. Suggest inertia dampeners next. Echo struggled to his knees, he stood shakily and it took a few moments before he could steady himself. He stumbled to the table where the man had left his gear and started grabbing things. His eyepiece, his knife, his bag, and finally, his MPST. A prototype weapon, the multi purpose slug thrower, could used as just about anything. If the user had the parts it was an effective sniper rifle, or a shotgun, or an assault rifle. Echo mostly used it as a pistol, since it could fire any form of ammunition available, it was extremely useful for a freelance infiltration specialist such as himself to carry. Saved him the expense of bullets and the allowed him
more space. The gun of the future it had been called by its inventor, who had used it to pay echo for a job.
"Hey Rosaline, miss me sweetheart?" He asked patting the weapon. It was empty and would only get in the way in a fight. He glanced at the convulsing body of the man who had tortured him and tapped the ear part of his eyepiece. "This is echo three seven, infiltration complete, secondary target eliminated, moving on to the primary target now. Request exfiltration details as available,"
"Copy echo, valkyrie six two has also completed infiltration your to RV on your way to the evac point, Valkyrie is your exfiltration plan. Command out." Command's operator was as always monotone female, and cold as ice.
Echo drew his knife and tapped his tacpad, switching his eyepiece's HUD to the thermal view. He cracked the door open a little, three guards, one was coming towards the door, and two more patrolling. Echo closed the door and took a deep breath, then kicked the open. Time seemed to slow as it does in combat, seconds to moments, moments to minutes, minutes to hours. The closest guard turned to face echo, he was met by a knife through the throat. The other two guards took aim as Echo spun the dead guard around to use as a human shield, drawing the corpses pistol as he did so. He took aim and fired twice, the sound drew the attention of three more guards who were rounding the corner, these ones were holding SMGs, echo dropped the human shield and dove for cover, firing blindly three times, he hit one of the new arrivals in the shoulder and chest while the third shot went wide. Echo scrambled and fired another shot, this one took the second of the guards in the throat. Echo took aim and tried to fire again but it clicked empty. Damn revolver, over compensating much? Echo dove and rolled out of cover, as the guard took aim he threw his knife and charged after it, the knife took the guard in the chest and spun the guard around. The guard was almost turned back around when echo caught up with the knife. Echo punched the knife once and elbowed him in the gut, then followed up with a second knee to the groin. He finished the guard with an uppercut. The guards gun went up and echo caught it on its way, crouching and flipping the SMG to a semi auto. Four guards rounded the corner, four shots later they were a pile of dead or dying men on the floor. Echo grabbed his knife and the guards sidearm, then sprinted towards the stairs. Three floors and 14 guards later he was outside a door, where a woman with short brown and red hair was waiting with a silenced pistol in hand. They nodded to each other and she readied a stun grenade. Echo held up three fingers, then he pushed the door open and ducked down. The woman threw in the stun grenade which went off a moment alter, and the duo stormed the room.
It was empty, except for one man, one very frightened, half bald man. "Dr.mel?" Echo asked and the man nodded and stood. The woman stepped forward and indicated for him to turn around with her gun. Dr.mel did this and she strapped some straps and a bag to him. She then shot out the window and pushed him towards it.
"Count to five and pull the cord." She said cheerily, pushing dr.mel hard. He screamed and about six seconds later a chute unfurled. "Well, looks like we're gonna have to share." She smiled at echo, coming up and clipping the other bag to him. She pressed up close to him, wrapping her arms tight around his waist. "Ready?" She asked as the door was blown off its hinges, a full squad of guards storming the room. Echo and Valkyrie both fired at the guards as they dove out the window.
"Gods I hate your exfil plans!" Echo called above over the roaring wind, Val just giggled girlishly as the chute unfurled.