Hurricane // Danger Days (Book 2)

11.

The next day, things started to go downhill.

It was 0900 hours when Cola rushed into the living quarters and woke Alien and Storm up. Storm awoke abruptly, then glared at Cola for waking him up. "Dude, what the hell?" he whisper-yelled.

Alien stood next to Cola. "Apparently, he has 'important news'," she whispered, rolling her eyes.

Storm sat up reluctantly, and Alien dragged him off of the cot. Then the three of them went upstairs, two still needing sleep and the other desperate for them to hurry.

When they all got to Alien's office, Storm sat down as soon as he could. Alien sat on her desk like she usually would. "So what is this 'important news'?" she asked Cola.

He frantically grabbed his tablet from Alien's desk and pulled up a BLI news channel. The feed was live, and it showed fire and wreckage. The headline read: "Better Living Industries medication manufacturing plant destroyed by Killjoys, hundreds killed".

"This horrendous act was committed at 2:00 AM this morning," the reporter was saying. "Sources say that a bomb detonated from the center of the building, which set off a chain reaction of landmines which destroyed the rest of it. Fortunately, a surveillance camera caught the Killjoy perpetrators in the act. Here is the footage."

The feed then switched to a grainy video of six people running down a hallway, then stopping. One of the figures had bright pink hair and a greenish-looking jacket. Storm instantly recognized her as Grenade Shock, the leader of the extremists. She spotted the camera, grinned maliciously at it, then took out her gun and shot it, cutting off the video.

"Please, for the safety of our city, if anyone sees these criminals, report it to your nearest BLI officer." The reporter smiled. "Thank you, and have a Better day."

Cola turned off his tablet, and set it back on the desk with a somber look in his eyes.

Both of the other Killjoys' jaws were on the floor.

"What the actual hell?" Alien exclaimed. She was wide awake now.

"Unbelievable," Storm commented. "Hundreds dead? Those people were all innocent!"

"Not to them," Cola sighed.

"We need to do something about this," Alien said. "And I think I have an idea."

"We're listening," Cola prompted, eyes wide.

"Someone on our side should go undercover into their base and report back to us," Alien told them.

Cola nodded. "That's a good idea," he agreed, "but who should we send in?"

Storm thought for a moment. He still felt like shit for saying that stuff to Revolution and Alien, and for making the general lose her best friend again. He'd betrayed her trust, and he owed her. "I'll do it," he decided. "Send me in."

Alien raised her eyebrows, then smiled. "Well, it looks like we have our person!"

"No, wait," Cola held his hands up. "Are you sure about this, Storm?"

"One hundred percent," Storm said confidently.

"But they've already seen you with me, and they know I'm with the General," Cola protested, "They know what you look like, you'd get found out!"

"Unless he changes his appearance," Alien contradicted. "They never saw his face. He'd be fine."

Cola threw up his hands. "Okay, fine. But it has to be drastic. They cannot recognize you, under any circumstances. New clothes, new hair color, new name, everything," he told Storm.