Gideon

Chapter 18

* Long Chapter

Callum and the team waited for Gideon on Nelson Mandela Drive, a couple of blocks from the target. The team was anxious. They wanted this gauntlet to end quickly and without bloodshed. The night was quiet and cold. Only the house had lights. 

"Terces," Gideon whispered into his helmet's microphone. "Terces report; what do you see?"

Terces and his Androids had surrounded the street on all sides. "There is activity inside the target. The occupants carry atomizers. There are four people upstairs at each window. Downstairs there are six with weapons guarding each window and entry point. There are three children in a room upstairs. Two people are in the kitchen, cooking it seems. Another in the toilet."

"What are our chances of getting to the kids without causing a scene?" Gideon asked.

"I've run several rescue alternatives and all come up with negative values I'm afraid."

Gideon turned to Callum beside him. "We need a distraction. Any ideas?"

"We can simulate a siren. A loud siren. That should get some of them out of the house but not all of them."

A voice called out. "Gideon!"

Gideon's worst nightmare had just materialized, and it wasn't Suiderland.

Suiderland's muscle man. A hulking, chemically infused Android with repair scars all over his body stood out amongst all the other Androids.

"Krakat!" Krakat bore an evil grin across his face.

Gideon punched his communicator. "Suiderland, touch those children and you're a dead man."

"We're here to put a stop to this madness and that's exactly what we intend doing," Suiderland said.

"Give us a chance to get those children out," Gideon said.

"Let me tell you something about those so called kids, Ingram. They're frequency runners. They are the ones causing all the havoc. They have to die."

Krakat, upon hearing this, turned and signaled to his men to surround the warehouse. Four men stepped forward and Krakat issued orders to infiltrate the target and take out as many people as possible, including the children.

The Androids stormed the grounds and suddenly the night was filled with laser power and conventional bullet weapons.

"Suiderland, no!" Gideon exclaimed. He raised his laser and aimed it at Suiderland's troops across the road, then fired.

The Xenocon troops never saw it coming.

The blast of air pounded them, killing eight instantly. The moment they fell, eight more materialized. Suiderland was replenishing his force as they fell.

Gideon called out to Terces to attack the troops on the other side of the road, but Suiderland's men had already started firing upon them. Several fell, but most managed to storm across the road and begin hand to hand combat.

***

 Inside the warehouse, four men attacked the occupants relentlessly. In a separate room on the ground floor, two women hastily shoved the children into a basement below the floor.

"Be quick. Follow the tunnels. There are four tunnels it doesn't matter which one you take, just run!"

By the time the Androids broke down the door, they found an empty room. But the women had left the trapdoor open. 

***

On the street, Gideon and Callum stood back-to-back firing at the Xenocon Androids as they approached to attack, unaware that Terces' Androids had been overwhelmed.