The Fall of the Society

Chapter 20: Project SGEPS

     The door slid open as Sid ducked behind the computer units and out of sight. Three heavily armed guards entered the room, weapons drawn. "Data archives is clear," the man in the middle reported on his communication device.

     Sid's hopes that they would not proceed further into the room was dashed as a voice came over the radio. "I have your location on my screen, properly secure the room or you will have shit duty for a month Mcleon. You all know better," the female voice finished.

     "She really is a pain, you know," a female voice on the left said, exasperated.

     Mcleon shrugged his shoulders, "Let's get this waste of time over with." Using hand signals, he sent the female to the left, down an aisle of filing cabinets. The guard on his right moved on command down a row of filing cabinets by the island of workstations. Mcleon moved straight ahead, all three scanning as they went. Sid could not see a way out without killing all three.

     Drawing his blades, he waited for the guard that went to the right to be practically right on top of him, slashing his blade in an upward ark, catching him in his right armpit and slicing up through his throat and the left side of his jaw. Blood splattered the wall as Sid spun the man so that his back was facing his comrades as they opened fire, hitting his now human shield. Their aim was true and soon the man's armor would no longer hold. Letting go of the guard, Sid rolled to his right, coming to his feet as Mcleon reached for his radio. In one swift movement, his blade soared across the room and planted itself into Mcleon's throat, blood spraying from his mouth as he tried to continue breathing before falling forward, driving the knife even deeper. Sid ducked back behind the filing cabinets as the remaining guard began to panic, firing random shots into different places of the room. Moving to her right slightly faster than Sid had expected, she appeared at the end of the aisle he was moving along to get to her, just out of his reach.

     She had been ready and began firing almost immediately. Spinning and lunging forward, multiple of the rounds flew past him harmlessly, but there was a spray of blood as multiple met their marks as he drove his blade deep into the top of her left shoulder. She almost immediately lost control of her arm and dropped her weapon.

     Their eyes met, hers pail green, his light blue. "I got you," she gasped as she struggled to keep herself upright. "I got you."

     A slight frown crossed Sid's calm face as he shook his head slightly. "Not quite," he whispered.

     Looking downward with great effort she could see that the wounds were no longer bleeding, "How?" she breathed. "There are no registered heroes with regeneration."

     "I keep telling people, I am not a hero," he replied as he pulled his blade out and let her fall to the floor. "I do commend you for hitting me though, but I am rather upset that you put holes in my suit. Luckily for you I kept you from damaging any of my precious cargo or I would have had to give you special treatment."

     "Why are you doing this?" she asked laboriously.

     He knelt beside her. "The wicked must be punished, and sometimes the blade is wielded by someone just as wicked and those that are not necessarily deserving the retribution are caught in the crossfire. I wish yours could have been painless, but death is never easy." Removing her helmet, he positioned her more comfortably. "I wish I could save you, but you know too much now, and it would threaten everything I have worked toward." He continued kneeling beside her with his hand on her right shoulder as her eyes went dark and she stared blankly at the ceiling.

     Wiping the blood from his blade on her pants, he stood and strode across the room. He rolled Mcleon over and extracted his blade from the throat of the guard. Cleaning this blade took much longer than the first, but it was soon spotless, and he replaced it in its sheath beside its partner. The monitor to the computer on the end had been damaged in the conflict but the lights were still illuminated on the tower. He would have to wait to find out what Project Pheonix was, but at least the data was not lost, he thought to himself as he withdrew his devices and replaced them into his pockets.

     Making his way back to the computer closest to the door, he hit enter to implement his purge protocol. Looking around the room he hoped that all the data had been transferred already and that he was not destroying anything that might benefit his search. At least the data would be gone so that the Society would no longer be able to use it, and that was a comforting thought. The door slid open in front of him and he could immediately hear foot fall coming from ahead of him.

     Sound reverberated off the walls in such a way that he knew there was a turn somewhere just up ahead, and silently began running down the hallway. He did not want to be caught in the middle of a hall with no cover and the room he just left was soon to destroy everything inside of it. Arriving at the convergence of tunnels before his adversaries, he ducked into the shadow created by the poor lighting and waited. Soon four armored guards came quickly into view but were slow to realize the presence of another. Sid smoothly slid his way into the center of the guards before they could do anything except turn to face him. In one solid motion, Sid extracted his blades and spun in a circle as blood sprayed the walls all around him. He had passed his knives beneath the facemask and cleanly sliced through each of the guard's necks. The men all fell backwards, and pools of blood began to take form underneath of them. He silently wished the casualty number was lower, but they were all people that work for the Society after all, meaning they had all attached themselves to this sinking ship of their own free will.

     Sid was surprised at the amount of guards this location had reserved within. Most of the black sites he had found had very few guards, but this one seemed to have an entire detachment, which he had not counted on. It was a minor obstacle that would easily be dealt with, but it would entail a lot more bloodshed than originally planned. It also meant that he would not be able to access as many of the laboratories and retrieve as much data, but he was sure most of the data he truly wanted he already had, and the file of Project Pheonix came into his thoughts. His desire to view what was in that file would make skipping random rooms much easier.

      Now that he was not looking to enter as many labs, he was noticing more and more slick and nearly hidden doors along his path as he worked to avoid the sound of footfall from nearing guards. Before long, he had made his way to the end of one tunnel that led to a dark stairwell that winded downward. Listening closely, he waited to see if there was any sound coming from below. Finally happy that he did not expect any kind of ambush down below, he descended the stairs. A slight mildew smell began to fill his nostrils as the air became damper. After several rotations, he came out on a landing that consisted of grated floors. The smell of mildew became stronger and he could hear droplets of water falling from his platform to standing water below. Faint light flickered from uncared for bulbs hanging along the wall, covered in dust and grime. The faint hum of electric in the lines was the only sound beyond the droplets of water.

     His feet made light crunching sounds as he stepped on the dirty metal grates, which echoed lightly in the darkness. A smile crossed his face, he was not used to hearing his own feet making noise on the ground, but at least no one would be able to sneak up on him in here. After a short while of walking, a thought crossed his mind, was this the maintenance shaft he was hoping to find, leading to a secret exit. Or was this a tunnel leading to a hidden lab that was not allowed to be viewed by those not in the knowing.

     His thoughts were soon silenced as he came face to face with a heavily fortified door. There was no attempt to hide this entrance, but there was definitely some work put into keeping people out, or something else in. Examining the door, he found there was no handle or traditional lock. Instead right in the center, where multiple heavy steel beams crossed there was a metal orb looking device that was wrapped nearly seamlessly around the intersection. Placing his hands on the door, he could feel it was cool behind it. Running his hands to the edges he followed the seam until it led him back to the center with the steel cross beams. He then ran his hands around the smooth orb and noticed that there were slight indentations in multiple spots around the sphere. Someone without his keen attention to detail would have easily missed it, especially since he had almost done so, he thought to himself. Examining a little more closely he found that there were ten indents spaced with eight on the back, four to each side, and two on the front, one to each side. Placing his fingers on each of the indents, the sphere made a light hissing sound and slowly a crack appeared around it and it slipped from its place holding the bars.