ALICE

Chapter 40: MASKED

 Chapter 40: MASKED

 After thorughly enjoying Gnat's dinner, she retired to her lean-to, sore knuckles and a sprained wrist, but other then that, feeling fine. As she rifted off into a shallow, yet thankfully dreamless sleep, she remembered the look of fear and terror in Gnat's eyes as she brought down the first few punches. She was apparently very scary, because he looked like the devil himself was coming for him. 

 (Break)

 Alice awoke early the next morning, just as the sun was coming up to warm the cold rocks from the chilly winter night before. It was very cold still, however, and she walked outside, only to find herself shivering involuntarily. She ran back into grab her coat, and as a second thought, grabbed her pistol off of the crate. She put it into the jacket, slipped the heavy coat on, and walked out. 

 She walked towards a small fire that was in a clearing of tents. Beside it was a brown dog, lying on his belly. It's name was Cobb, and he couldn't learn how to kill things like the other dogs in the base. He just lazed around the base, lying around the base and eating scraps. Cobb jumped up and ran to her.

 "Hey boy." Alice said. "Let's go sit by the fire."

 She sat down on the ground in front of the fire. The dog with his head in her lap. She scratched him behind the ears, and looked into the fire. 

 She thought of things, but every thought was backed with crackling from the fire, watching logs burn. She thought deep, ideas skipping over eachother like stones on water. 

 Alice thought back to yesterday, how she was calm, absorbed in what she was doing as she looked at the statuettes on the map. She was calm, calm and interested and absorbed. 

 It was great until she was interupted, and like yesterday, she was snapped out of her concentration. 

 The interuption did nothing to her physically, except raise the hairs on the back of her neck and make her blood curl. What she had heard, was a scream, so scared and leaking with fear that Alice almost screamed too. She had never heard anything like it.

 Alice stood up, knocking the sleeping dog off of her lap, and drew her Glock. The scream had come from the messhall, and it sounded like a younger person. She stayed in a locked position, her arms almost straightened, both hands wrapped around the handgun, peering down the iron sights. She walked towards the source of the noise. 

 Alice tightened her grip and put her finger on the trigger as she saw a man, dressed in black with a dark balaclava on, jog in front of her, about twenty metres away. His back was turned, and Alice planned to put a bullet in it. She got her finger away from the trigger as fast as possible when he turned around though, for he had a kid of no more then nine in his arms, holding him with a knife to his throat. 

 Alice kept the gun trained on the man's head.

 "Drop. The. Knife."

 He said nothing, just started sidling away, towards the front gate.

 "Drop the kid. No one needs to get hurt."

 Still no response.

 "Cobb," Alice said quietly. "Sic 'em."

 Cobb began to bound towards the man, not quite sure what was going on but sensing danger. He ran towards the man, and was only half-way there when the man dragged the knife across the childs throat. Blood spilled out, and the man had drawn a silenced Beretta before any of it hit the ground. He shot Cobb in the brains, and he skidded a few feet across the ground, tumbling and rolling with whimpers before his heaving chest went still. 

 Alice, knowing that there was nothing left here to kill besides him and herself, fired two quick shots at the man. One hit his leg, but he stayed up. Instead of going for the door now, he "legged" it around the corner.

 Alice gave chase, sprinting after him. She saw just a long path of rocks, with a wall of canvas and lean-to material on one side, and the base wall on the other. The only place he could be, unless he had gone for broke and gone over the wall, or cut through a tent, was in the playground. Alice sprinted over, against the wall on the corner. She crouched down, and peeked over. There was a dead man on the ground, gun in hand. This guy had shot him quickly and quietly apparently. Alice whipped around the corner, and sprinted to the nearest cover. A wooden block. She kept her head down, but put the gun overtop and squeezed a few bullets off. 

 The man did the same, and the block around her splintered a bit. She was in a stalemate with no extra magazines. She needed help.

 It came in the form of Angel and some guns.

 Alice fired off the last two rounds from her pistol, and got behind cover. She silently thought about how completly screwed she was as she heard the guy reload his gun.

 She looked behind her, to see Angel. He was holding two MP5's in his hands, a pistol on a houlster at his hip, and extra mags bulging out of his pockets. He slid over to the peice of cover, and clicked a mag into one. He handed it to her.

 "Sorry I'm late, I ran by the armoury."

 "Clearly." Alice said as she snapped the bolt back on the submachine gun. 

 Angel peered over the edge of the block, and looked at the trail of blood leading to the cover the man was behind.

 "Jesus, what'd you do to him?"

 "My job." Alice said dismissivley before opening fire on the guy. 

 She put the gun by her side, and pulled her pistol out. She vaulted the block, and jumped outright overtop of a fence. She jumped up to the wall and hit her foot into it. After rebounding off the wall, she smashed into him on his side of the cover. He managed to slip out from underneath her, and began to run away. Alice leveled her pistol at his head, put her finger on the trigger, and then lowered it to his leg, which had a bullet hole in it already. She squeezed the trigger, and he hit the ground with a small spatter of blood. 

 Kendo ran into the playground, brandishing a shotgun, looking the old-fashioned British soldier, ready to shoot an elephant (Or in this case, an enemy spy) in his pajamas. He was more then a little late.

 Alice was straddled over the man, with her gun pressed to the back of his head.

 "What the hell happened?!" Kendo boomed.

 "LSF attack. I'm interrogating."