Page 86 of All Saints Day
The morning of the breach is here before we know it.
At 3:00AM—our operation begins in silence; the five of us in our bulletproof vests and all-black kit, moving swiftly on light feet through the darkness of the dense wood toward our destination.
Since there are no roads aside from the limited access ways to the R&D facility within two miles of the actual campus, we are forced to leave our getaway cars and continue on foot—completing the last leg of our approach under the cover of darkness.
Once we are on the way out, we will put out the signal for Martin to literally scramble the jets, and call the cavalry in to deal with the wretched hive of scum as we either escape on our own or—if we get extremely lucky—are helped to safety. Providing old ‘Party Marty’ is able to get Louise granted amnesty.
We decide to approach the facility from the south, by scaling a sheer rock face located not far from an abandoned quarry and an old system of gold mines.
From the floor plans of the R&D facility Caz procured, we mapped every entrance and exit—utilities, venting, and maintenance access ports, etc.
At the edge of the quarry cliff, there is a simple bulkhead hatch with minor physical security barriers that is accessible through maintenance corridors that lead from the cistern and sewerage systems all the way to the incinerator and on-site waste disposal.
Much like the last time the Saints and I had entered a Windmill facility, we would be doing so without the benefit of security credentials. So, once we enter the main building from the sub-basement maintenance levels, we will have to rely on explosions and gunfire to make our path.
Considering our collective skill set, I’m not too worried about our crew’s ability to carve a path through whatever goons the Windmill has to throw at us. My real fears center on what they could do with their augmented strain of the virus, and what harm will come to my fated mates.
The plan is to make our way to the central research suites, where system records indicate Frank is being held. Once we get to him, our goal is simply to get him out, and to stay on the run until we hear from Martin that our names have been cleared.
The first part of the mission, while grueling—goes off relatively smoothly; all of us emerging from the shadowy treeline, the pale stone cliffs still doing their best to reflect what little moonlight peers through the heavy cloud cover.
If the moon had been full and bright, we would be climbing on a near-glowing face of rock; like a glaring bunch of creeping spiders in our black gear against the silvery moonlit stone. Thankfully, we are able to scuttle, dusky and gray, against the similarly dingy darkness.
Like an army of ants, we pry our way into the access tunnels deep beneath the ground; Sébastien lays a Hansel and Gretel trail of bombs in our wake as we make our way to the garbage chute and incinerator.
Thus far it has been quiet; doors with easy to spoof janitorial card swipes, but we anticipated the need to push deeper into the facility—with brute force as necessary.
Quentin, the most experienced of us in the field, takes point, with Louise and I backing him up. Caz and Seb bring up the rear with our trail of explosives.
It is early enough that we are able to pass quietly through a large open foyer that appears totally uninhabited at this hour, but as soon as we pass from the foyer into the access hall to the research department, we run into our first obstacles.
I hadn’t yet had a chance to witness Louise approximating anything like her full capacity since joining up with the Saints.
I am taken off guard by her slick brutality, the way she moves in close—first with her knife, and only when necessary her gun—dropping as many Windmill soldiers as she can with as little commotion as possible.
I find myself holding my breath as she and Quentin bob and weave down the hallway, spilling blood on the clinical-whitetiled floors—splatters of red showering across thick glass doors and hallway partitions—as we make our way closer to Frank.
As the corridor splits into two branches—one toward the research offices and the other toward the development labs—Caz and Seb split off to make for the labs, bent on wreaking as much destructive havoc on the crèche of the virus as possible.
I follow closely as Q and Louise continue to lay waste to all in our path, picking off any Windmill thugs that get close enough to cause either of them trouble while their hands are already full.
My stomach turns as we clamber over the fallen bodies—one after another—until we make our way to the end of the access hall, a pair of thick metal doors with a scanner pad beside it.
I’m so caught up with how we’re going to address the scanner pad without the proper work-around, when suddenly Louise is screaming at me, she shoves me to the ground and fires at a man in a white coat who peers from a cracked office door in the hallway we just walked through.
The man lets out a howl as the bullet catches him through the shoulder, dropping him to the ground. I didn’t even see him until just now—if Louise hadn’t stepped in, I’d be toast.
Louise closes the distance between herself and the man in the lab coat—gun pointed at his face.
“Can you open that door?” she barks, her powerful sigma aura oppressive in her heightened state.
“I won’t open it for some dirty sigma bitch,” he snarls, doing his best to assert his gamma aura against hers.
“I didn’t ask you if youwouldopen it, but if youcouldopen it.”
“I’ll never open it for you.” He squares his chest and lifts his chin from his place at the bottom of the doorframe.
“Guess I have my answer then.” Louise gives him a curt smile, and then blows him away—looking to me for assistance, she begins to drag him by the wrist to the scanner pad.
