CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Ethan's POV
"You can't kill me," said the Colonel, daring me to pull the trigger. His malicious eyes constantly held both our gazes as he smoothly took out a cigar and lit it, crisply snapping his lighter shut before it disappeared into his army coat. "You know, I'm pretty impressed,"
With my helmet on my right hand, I coolly aimed a pistol at him with my left. Emily stood by my right, wielding her rifle; it was pretty clear she had no plans on lowering them without firing a bullet. Both of us had on the shades, little did he know we were already hacking into the system this way. The plan was to buy just enough time to take in every detail and information that could help us crack into Robyn’s nanobot system.
Then we could cure her.
He took a long drag and blew out the smoke, calmly sipping his wine as he leaned back on his chair. "I'm guessing you're both here for your own reasons,"
Neither Emily nor I moved.
"I wouldn't be surprised if you were here because of your girlfriend," he lazily turned away and diverted his attention to Emily, "and because your ex boyfriend ratted out on me, you're here to avenge your late husband,"
He chuckled a bit, as if there was an inside humor to laugh at. He shook his head and took another sip, "this is how I get my sweet revenge, target the loved ones, it always leaves a mark."
Emily and I briefly exchanged glances a silent agreement came between us both. We've already planned out how we were going to do this, at this point we couldn't afford to put all this effort to waste.
"Where is it?" Emily asked firmly.
The Colonel leaned his chin on the back of his hand that held his cigar, "where's what?"
The redhead narrowed her eyes, "you know what I'm talking about,"
At first he rested his forehead on his hand, I wondered if he was slowly fainting. Later on his shoulders began shaking, at that point I hope he was having a seizure. It wasn't too long before he threw his head back as he began laughing his heart out, as he calmed down, he wiped a few tears off the corner of his eyes and took a deep steady breath, "Good lord, you don't have any idea what you're looking for don't you?"
"Where is the cure?" Emily completely ignored his travesty.
"To think I was worried you actually knew," he began shaking his head. He poured himself another glass to drink setting the wine bottle nearby his desktop; it was either he wasn't taking us seriously or he was trying to put up a show to hide how scared he was.
I pretty much betting on the latter bit. Just to boost some ego, you know?
"Well, there is no cure for that," he proudly stated, "Instead, what she has is something similar to the Rubrix,"
He raised a small touch-screen device no different than an iTouch. "This my friend, is what I call the..." He paused and thoughtfully hummed to himself, "Robin.. Yes, it only seems right since she's the first successful experiment to be controlled fully."
"Hand it over," I demanded almost instantly.
"You think I'm that stupid?" He was grinning maliciously, "For an Elite soldier we made out of you, let me ask you Gould, how well did you actually think this plan through?"
I clenched and unclenched my jaw.
"Did you know that with just a swipe of my finger, I can reactivate Robyn and wreck havoc in ARC?" He narrowed his eyes and putted his cigar on his desk. "I allowed her to fall into a trance so you idiots can whisk her away into the heart of your facility, and now that she's in there..." He swiped his finger and the screen came to life, it revealed a red screen and a jagged undulating line that faintly reminded me of an ECG monitor reading.
"Lies, because of the electricity each nanobots carry, we sedated her with a few electrical currents," Emily debated.
"Oh is that so?" Said Marduk thoughtfully scratching his chin, "I guess I would have to add in an extra oomph to get her going then,"
"Don't!" Emily hollered even if Marduk hadn't moved a muscle yet, "Ever heard of the wear and tear, genius?"
He feigned hurt, "I'm so offended, sweetheart, like I even care,"
He set the device flat on his desk and leaned back, crossing his ankles on his desk and clasping his hands behind his head.
"Even if you did get this device, its pretty indestructible, you're only given one chance to guess the code right, if not, she's doomed to forever obey to my voice commands," he smiled at me with such dark humor, I just wanted to inject bullet after bullet into every inch of his face. "If you have the heart to spare a poor girl's life, I suggest the two of to drop every single weapon you have on you,"
I stared him down, thoughts racing for a back up plan just in case things would go bad towards the end.
"Drop it. Now," he stopped smiling yet haven’t moved a muscle.
Emily was the first to unstrap her vest, her guns clattered on the floor as she raised both hands to her head. Marduk looked at me next and raised a brow, waiting for me to do the same, I dropped the one I was holding and unstrapped my vest as well allowing a disturbing cacophony of guns echo in the morbidly hushed office.
"Come on, cough it up," he coaxed some more.
"That's all we have," Emily explained.
He shook his head looking at the computer, "according to my security cameras, the two of you still got something up your sleeves,"
Emily and I knowingly glanced at each other before I decided to comply as well. I dropped all guns I had on me and so did she.
"That's right, now kick it over here," he crooned. "Should I also mention, how horrible she was in bed? She was screaming hella crazy I just had to gag her to shut her up"
That's it. Armed or not, I'm going to rip his head off his shoulders with my bare hands.
"Ethan no!" Emily tried to stop me but it was too late, I was already grabbing a gun from the floor and pulling the trigger as I raced towards him. For such an old man, he dodged my bullets well, parried my blows and managed to kick me far back; I merely skidded to a halt as Emily dove for the device sitting peacefully at his desk.
He grabbed a shotgun from under his desk and aimed for the redhead, but instead she tucked her knees to her chin and rolled away in a fraction of a second.
Taking the vast space of his office as an advantage, I hid behind a couch. He chuckled for a moment, before he began a steady line of profanities.
"What have you assholes done?"
"If you're talking about how no one is responding to your call," responded Emily, "Oopsie,"
"You bitch!"
"Ethan now!"
I stepped out from the couch zeroed in for his hand, pulled the trigger and he let go of the shotgun. But in a split second he drew out a small handgun with his left and aimed for me, I ducked down in a blur and rolled away, grabbing another pistol as I went.
At the far end of the office, I saw Emily taking cover behind one bookshelf. I whistled to grab her attention before sliding the gun right across the floor.
"Not so fast," said Marduk, instantly the gun stopped half-way through its top speed, the other one I was holding simultaneously dove to the floor pinning my hand along with it flat on the surface. "I got this placed rigged with magnets, so your guns are pretty useless at this point,"
"Any luck?" I mouthed at Emily's direction.
"Almost," she mouthed back. "You okay?"
I merely shrugged and began prying myself free of this gun. If he said that he got the whole place magnetizing guns to the floor, would that leave him unarmed?
"Put your weapons down and surrender or I swear this girl's a goner," he commanded.
Emily seemed to be thinking the same thing as she stepped out from her hiding with her hands raised, the urgency in her eyes told me that our guess was wrong.
"That's right," he said,"Mrs. Michael Craw, the newly wed more like the newly widowed. Michael was just like Ethan once, but he was so so very very weak," he shook his head vigorously as if a bee was buzzing around him.
I heard footsteps and peeked slight above the couch and observed Marduk was stepping away
from his desk, leaving the device vulnerable. I grunted as pouring in all my strength to free myself from this pistol that glued my hand to the ground. Much to my horror, the more nanobots I concentrated to help free my hand, the harder it was to all also manipulate the flow of my bots.
The magnet was also attracting them!
Holy shit, nothing was going as planned.
"Did you know how much he knew about my files? It was only about time he died for good, I always doubted his loyalty," Marduk blabbered on, "he was too smart for his own good you know? He was actually smarter than you,"
I looked around the office, surely there has got to be another way around this place. And then I glanced up, right above Marduk was an impressive chandelier. It was a long shot, but if I somehow managed to let it loose, it can smash this bastard as flat as a pancake. Now, how was I going to aim for that?
Emily was as good as a sitting duck out in the pond and any moment Marduk can pull the trigger, at the same time the device we needed was just sitting at the corner of his desk, apparently, she didn’t get it. Yet here my own gun ironically enough managed to pin my hand down as I learned about my weakness today.
First off, I was weak against electricity.
Secondly, magnet, when strong enough, can actually affect me like any metal.
Wait a second.
Increasing my vision I focused on the chandelier, on its shiny surface, it reflected the view it was watching from below it. In a matter of seconds, my senses tuned out again but before I could manage to decide at the last minute--
Bang!
My blood grew cold.
"Emily!"
"Oh shut up, I only did her a favor," he grumbled, "now where are you so I can finish you off."
Shit no! Desperately I leaned far away from the handgun, trying to pull myself free. I felt like a rabbit whose ankle got caught in a snare. The couch I was hiding behind was pulled away from me, granting me a clean view of Emily, curled up in a fetal position as a red pool of blood grew bigger around her. She actually risked her life as a diversion to give me just enough time to finish this douche off... but I just failed her.
"I never actually thought it would work," I saw his eyes shine bright with amusement, "you look so pathetic, killing you would be worth everything I ever worked hard for,"
I spat evenly at his face, "all you ever did was steal from ARC," I said darky.
He scowled almost immediately, "you look just like your father. You know I always hated that guy," he took out a stick of cigar from his breast pocket and gestured me a few "want one?"
I glared right at him.
"Suit yourself," he shrugged, tucking it away as he lit his, "let me tell you a little story your father somewhat knew about. It was about high school when we first met, he was the intellectual dweeb and I was the popular jock the ladies were after. We were actually good buddies at one point because he saved me from a chemical reaction explosion back in the science lab."
"I owed him my life. So in return I beat the crap out of the guys who would bully him, we were pretty cool back then. I was living the life you know. When we graduated however, I haven't seen him since, I joined the military and then proposed to my long time girlfriend, but she dumped me," he shook his head.
"Years later I was climbing ranks, you know, and finally when I was about your age, I saw your father again in this organization I was assigned to. My job there was to protect the facility and help run some tests by choosing my best men for the upcoming war. It was pretty strange with how things turned."
"This time, your dad was living the life. He was my boss, he owned ARC, and he was hella rich...” the fire in his voice, slowly wavered as he continued talking with less vigor, “he was married to my ex girlfriend—and it doesn’t stop there, she was also pregnant with you."
He shook his head, "your mother was so beautiful. It was pretty funny, because she shared her name with that Greek myth about the chick who's face launched a thousand ships? And look now at how much trouble that woman--"
His face contorted from a manic grin to a pained one and shock grew evident throughout his composure. He blinked a few times then furrowed his brows as if taking in what just happened, he took one deep shaky breath and then collapsed to the floor right next to me.
A broken shard of glass stuck out from the back of his neck as he continued to struggle breathing. The more he exhaled the more blood oozed out. I blinked and looked around; my eyes led me to where Emily was supposedly lying on. Instead of seeing her there curled into a ball, there was a pool of blood that trailed across the white carpet as if her body had been dragged all the way to the office desk.
Finally I saw Emily struggling to breathe herself, she leaned over the wooden desk. Blood continued to dribble past the edge of the table and on to the white carpet, her hand was rummaging over the surface and under the table while the other grabbed on to the desk, supporting her weight. I heard a click and she stopped searching.
In an instant, my whole body felt light and the gun on top of my hand loosened a bit. I gingerly lifted my hand and hobbled my way to Emily, it was then I realized how much effort I threw in fighting against the weight of the magnet trying to pin me to the ground.
"Emily," I grounded out, pathetically making my way to her. "You did it,"
She merely smiled at me, I held her just in time and supported her slowly to the ground.
"We'll get out of here together," I promised, the moment I got a better view of her face, a cold chill washed over me. Her pale skin was mottled and she was cold to the touch, her eyes was searchingly blindingly despite the fact that they were both wide open, her lips moved quickly, but I barely heard the words she was uttering. Moving my ears carefully to her lips, I listened to her shaky breaths. "It's the password... her name" her trembling voice, faded to a gentle whisper, "...tell Ares I love..."
Silence.
She didn't even struggle for another breath. She didn't even get to finish her last words. I kept my eyes wide open just so I could see her. Why was my vision blurring?
Fat blobs of patches made way for my vision as they fell wet on her face. More hot liquid streamed down my face when my senses finally kicked in. I gingerly set her down on the floor and clasped my hands together, positioning them right over her heart: I began pumping relentlessly.
"Come on Emily," I whispered, "come on dammit! Don't leave me alone, too,"
From the way warmth gushed out from where I was pumping, I came to realize he must have zeroed in for her heart. I looked around and took the sight of so much blood spilled into the white carpet. I stopped trying. Just like what I did with Craw. Whatever else I did to help her was useless now. There was nothing left for me to do but begin accepting reality…
Shit.
How do I break this to Ares?
Fuck.
Why is it always me?
I buried my face on her stomach and rocked my body to and fro, grieving silently like a vulnerable child lost in the middle of this cruel world. There was a fleeting moment I reconsidered her as a mother, all she ever did was look out for me. Now that she was gone, there was no one else who could replace her, and what hurt me most was I never got the chance to express my gratitude.
To actually appreciate for everything she did for me. She lived a life watching me despise her, and now I regretted every moment I could have used to thank her.
I hated the feeling of realization as it settled in the back of my head.
Emily Green was gone.
I pressed the palms against my ears, hoping to douse out the reality, but it was no use.
Emily was gone.
Even if I kept on denying it, there will always be another voice haunting me with the very fact that I wasn’t prepared to accept yet. But I had no other choice.
Emily was indeed gone.