Difference between revisions of "Atlantis Rising: Chapter 2"

Revision as of 21:09, 17 May 2009

The second chapter of the series.

Previous Chapter: Phoenix Rising: Chapter 1

Homepage: Atlantis

Yes, I realize that chapter 2 is still as of yet outdated and un-refurnished. It's currently under construction and may take a while to finish.

"Your name, please?"

I ran my eyes over the young receptionist. The dark-wood interior of the Embassy was a far cry from the combat zone I had just stepped out of.

"Kenderson. Matt." I said, stepping forward.

"Campbell, James." Jamie said after me. Scar and Holly gave their names.

"Now how bout some answers, lady?" I asked. "What's all this about? Why are the French suddenly taking up American citizens?"

The blond receptionist's artificial smile wavered momentarily. "I'm just here to take the list, sir. Please proceed down the stairs ahead and you will come to a lobby where all the other evacuees are currently waiting."

She wasn't paid to answer the questions. I shrugged and motioned for my crew to follow.

The two sneaks vaulted over the high wall, one after the other, carefully timing their approach so that the guards wouldn't see. Contrary to the popular belief, spies did not wear a classic skin-tight jet black uniform. Even in the dead of night, nothing is truly black, bit instead a dark shade of gray. And in real life, spies like these wore baggy suits that tried to break up the outline of a humanoid figure with irregular spacing of different sized pockets. Nothing was symmetrical about these two French SpecOps.

The two assassins clutched their silenced SMGs tightly. If anything went wrong, there was pretty much nothing their backup could do.

The two darted quickly across the lawn, both decked out in olive-drab camouflage fatigues and lightly armored.

A passing guard caught a glimpse of movement out of his eye, but by the time he turned to look the two SpecOps saboteurs had hit the deck, looking like just another part of the shrubbery. The guard returned to his rounds as one of the saboteurs took out a small plasma cutter and started the melting through the brick and reinforced steel while the other covered the first.

This was too easy.

The mass of Americans inside the Embassy was anything but quiet. Single men and women stood holding briefcases, dressed in expensive suits, yelling for lawyers. Families stood in corners, peering oddly at anyone that came too close. A group of drunk teenagers stood in the middle, singing random snatches of song.

And above all the din was a man standing on a desk in the middle of the lobby, dressed in a tailored black suit, with two similarly dressed Secret Service men flanking him. He held a loudspeaker and was attempting to get the crowd under control.

I strode up to him, my crew in tow. I looked him over, then tapped his knee to get his attention.

The man bent over and hopped to the ground, nimbly for such a tight-fitting suit.

"May I help you?" He asked warily.

"Kenderson, Matt. Private First Class, US Army." I said, saluting. "Mind if I ask, sir, what the hell is going on here?"

"Good, good, someone who knows what he's doing." The Suit said. "Major Charles Morrison."

I saluted again, tightly.

"Tensions have been high for some time, leading up to December 12th. Well, today, they snapped. Charles de Fontaine was assassinated. And France thinks America is to blame."

I blinked. "The French president? Evidence?"

"De Fontaine was in America at the time. He was visiting at the White House. Went in, never came out.

I whistled. "That's some pretty heavy evidence."

"The VP ordered a nation-wide collection of all Americans in France. Naturally, we couldn't let that happen. We've sent marine squads out into Paris to track down any Americans still in the city. I'm surprised you didn't meet up with any."

"That's just our luck, then." Jamie put in over my shoulder. "We had to jump off a twenty story hotel into a fricken' pool."

"Orders?" I asked.

"Report to Sgt. Carter in the armory. I have a feeling he'll be wanting you to suit up for some action."

Carter was stereotypically gnawing on an unlit cigar. "Alright, boys!" He yelled as we entered, tossing us matte-black padded undersuits. "Get changed. No gawking. Move it!"

The four of us glanced at each other, then turned and started stripping down to our boxers and underwear, pulling on the dark combat suits. Carter waited impatiently, then lead us into the actual armory. Suits of matte-black impact plating armor lined one wall, and on the other were stocked dozens of highly-lethal-looking rifles and weaponry. The room was lit with a classic fluorescent-and-bare-white candor.

Each of us donned a suit of impact-plates. Carter tossed all of us helmets with a built-in HUD and wireless communications linkup.

Jamie strode forward and grabbed two G36c assault rifles, tossed one to me, and started distributing ammo. "Let's move, ladies!" Carter yelled, holding the door open as we and three other fully suited marines marched out, Carter giving us the specs of the armor we were wearing. A prototype. I hated prototypes.

Five minutes later we were in the back of an armored Humvee. Carter was driving. I was on the M60 MG. Jamie was riding shotgun, and the girls were in the back with the three other marines, who as of yet had proved silent and unresponsive.

"What're we out here for?" I yelled above the wind as we hurtled at about 80 miles an hour down the deserted road.

"Two teams got pinned down in a restaurant not far from here. Command estimates about 40 civilians. We're gonna crash the party." Carter yelled back, flooring the accelerator as we drifted out of a 90 degree turn.

I held on grimly to the MG, while in the passenger seat Jamie whooped. The girls got tossed around a bit in the back, but then we were riding smoothly again.

"ETA 30 seconds!" Carter called a minute later. I made sure a belt was locked in the gun and chambered a round, setting the crosshairs where I imagined an enemy jeep to be. Carter relayed a live vid feed to our helmets from a tactical UAV drone. In the rapidly sinking sunlight I observed a blockade around a multi-story restaurant and hotel complex, and flashes of gunfire going in between. A grenade sailed through the chaos, landing beneath a French troop transport truck and shredding all the nearby materials.

I zoomed out from the image and spotted our Humvee, about a block away and rapidly approaching.

I canceled out of the UAV image as Carter relayed firing zones and suppressive positions we were supposed to cover.

Then we hit the intersection next to the restaurant and swung into another 90 degree turn, Carter accelerating off the curve.

Just as quickly he slammed the brakes and threw the Humvee into another 90 degree turn, stopping us mere yards away from the French soldiers. I opened fire with the MG before they even knew what happened, spewing 7.62mm NATO hollow-point anti-personnel rounds at the remaining French troops while Jamie kicked the door open and hopped out, still going about 20 miles an hour. He hit the ground rolling and was quickly followed by the three marines in the back, who were followed by Scar and Holly. Carter got out a second later and opened fire one handed while he primed a grenade in the other, adding to the murderous suppressive angle I was laying down.

The French forces were now divided between multiple targets, and we strafed them mercilessly. Carter hurled his grenade. Frenchies fell from all directions, and the MG grew hot in my gloved hands. I shredded any target that popped up, and Holly lobbed another grenade. Jamie and Scar sprinted for the building while Carter and two of the marines flanked left.

Holly dove for cover as the Frenchies returned fire with some kind of grenade launcher, and the third marine was consumed in a roiling cloud of fire. I winced, ducking behind the metal shield of the MG as the gun clacked to let me know it was out of ammo. I flipped the top open, grabbed a fresh belt, and fed it into the receiver.

While I was reloading, the Frenchies took advantage of the lull in the fire to regroup, and another grenade hurtled right for Holly.

Duck! I thought quickly, and Holly heeded. She threw herself against the ground so hard I felt the breath knocked out of her, and the 40mm Napalm-filled hollow grenade whistled right past her left ear. It exploded with a slightly muffled thud a couple yards behind, igniting a hot-dog stand.

I chambered the first round and opened fire again, and the exposed soldiers fell from multiple hits. Jamie crashed through the barricaded front door of the restaurant, Scar right behind him with medical gear in hand. Carter had been steadily advancing from cover to cover, now the 30-something-year-old seasoned veteran vaulted a car that the Frenchies were using as cover and opened fire from behind while I layed down covering fire. The other two marines took peaking shots from overturned vehicles and mounds of rubble in the street.

And then their was silence. No return fire. No screaming. Only the background crackling as the napalm consumed the vendor stand and the muted cracks of gunfire from somewhere else in the city. The Frenchies were all dead or had surrendered.

Sergeant Carter had just earned my permanent respect from having vaulted over the car. I stayed on the MG and tracked the medical helicopter that hovered down to the pavement, ready to evac the civilians. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the two marines cuffing the soldiers that had surrendered, and Carter plucking the tags off the burned marine. Poor guy. He would be the first of many to die in this war.

The French saboteur gave a small grunt of impatience as the plasma knife cut the last brick out of the wall. It was nearly nightfall. A warm, dusky golden glow had settled over the landscape, accentuated by the clear, Wintery electric-blue sky. The leafless trees swayed in time with a gentle wind, and the sounds of machine gun fire and explosions seemed oddly far off. It was almost peaceful.

Then the saboteur kicked in the neatly melted hole in the red bricks, and the two gained entrance to the US Embassy. And they didn't come with plans of world peace.

On the way back, Jamie insisted on manning the MG. Carter drove again, and one of the two marines rode shotgun. Me, Holly, Scar, and the last marine were in the back, and Scar was patching up a small groove in my cheek where a bullet had apparently grazed me. I hadn't even noticed, I was so wired on adrenaline.

Scar was good with the medic stuff. Jamie was the pyromaniacal sniper who loved explosives and large weapons. Holly was my rifleman/grenadier/all-around down-to-earth girl. And I was the techno-computer-battlefield engineering dude. We would make the perfect team, given a little more training and experience. I was still jittery from being shot at, and coming down off the adrenaline high. God, I loved adrenaline.

"Good work, soldiers. You did well. Mission accomplished." Carter said eventually. He sounded reluctant.

"Thankya' kindly, Sarge!" I said, putting on a heavy Southern accent. His lips twitched. I'm not sure if it was possible for Carter to grin, but that was about his version of it, more or less.

We sped through the back entrance to the Embassy, where the garage was. Another M1 Abrams Tank was idling in the parking lot, and a Bradley Assault Transport Vehicle was parked in a corner, next to a couple more Humvees. An unsmiling and serious green-on-olive clad soldier waved us through to the poorly lit parking garage.

A couple minutes later, Carter was leading back down to the Embassy. I stumbled when we entered the main room; nearly everyone was gone, and a slowly moving line lead back the way we had come, to the parking garage where I saw a helicopter landing. We met up with

11:46 Hours, Military Clock, June 18, 2010, Daytona Beach, Florida, USA

Scarlett Miller was bored.

Bored and annoyed. The water was way too cold for June. Even the sun seemed more chilled than usual. June here was supposed to be sweltering. But she had come down anyways. After all, there wasn't much else to do in Daytona, besides a lot of mini-golf courses. She popped the lid on a coke, the can hissing with escaping gas. She glanced over to her right at where Matt Kenderson was sitting, reading a book and drinking a Pepsi.

They had come down together with Holly Dayne and Jack Stephens, four 14-year old adolescent friends on a vacation. Holly was walking a ways down the beach, and Jack was messing around with his laptop on the other side of Matt.

She raised the can to her lips to take a sip right as the two strangers appeared.

In hindsight, the two Suits were good. They were invisible, despite their conspicuous clothing, until they appeared at Matt's shoulder. Scar instantly smelled bad news. No one wore suits to a beach, except for, like, weddings and other stuff like that. Scar wrinkled her nose. This wasn't gonna end well.

Of course Matt didn't realize until half a second later than it happened, being a guy, but the younger Suit started fidgeting with his coat, his fingers brushing the inside of jacket, where a curious bulge protruded from the... oh no.

Scar was already half out of her seat when the older Suit growled, "Come with us. Now."

Matt shook his head, then it suddenly dawned on him that these two schmucks weren't here to give him cookies and milk. He vaulted out of his seat, his Pepsi flying. The Suits tensed and drew handguns from their jackets. They fired at Matt, but their opening shots were wide. Matt's older half brother was now sprinting for the shore, and Scar decided that it was time to act as well when two Suits emerged behind her and let loose two darts of their own. She jumped from the chair like a spring, at the same time catapulting her seat at the two Suits and buying her maybe three seconds to prepare.

Holly came sprinting in from the North, but she was still a ways away and wouldn't arrive for two minutes. By then it would be too late.

Scar ran towards the Suit closest to her, which was also the one with his handgun caught in his jacket. Amateur.

He struggled to bring the weapon around even as his partner fired three more shots, but then Scar was next to him. She was an accomplished Karate student and had a talent for making up techniques on the fly. The government guy had no chance.

Scar spun around, executing a picture-perfect 360 kick, only to find that her lethal blow was caught in the Suit's hand. He had abandoned his gun for now, and was instead about to beat the crap out of her. Probably not her greatest idea.

She back-tracked fast, jumping and kicking with the other foot. It caught the man in his double chin, and he let go out of instinct. She landed on all fours and scrambled away, throwing sand behind her as the second Suit tried to follow.

The Suits came after her, and she realized there really was no way she could win this. If she got in close, they'd go hand-to-hand, and eventually with two on one, they'd win. If she backed off, they'd just draw their handguns and turn her into Swiss Scarlett Cheese.

It might have just been that she was weird, but she opted to have a slight chance, and she dove back into the fray. The Suit who had gotten his gun stuck in his jacket had finally freed it, but by the time he brought it around, Scar was next to him again, and this time she gave no mercy. She lashed out in a straight-regular kick that hit the man between his legs. He gave a funny, ungraceful hop as the foot connected, but Scar felt protective plastic instead of flesh, and the man wrapped her in his enormous bear-arms and started choking her.

Then Jack was next to her and chopped the Suit in the kidney. Holly was struggling with her two Suits as well, but she was cleverly baiting them closer and closer... then she made a break for the road and the hotels, in plain sight of dozens of witnesses and cameras. One of the men dove for her, but they only succeeded in clawing off her jacket.

Scar's Suit let go as Jack took out his knees, but all that accomplished was the second, blond suit charging forward and smacking Jack across the head. Jack fell, and Scar realized she might have to take after Holly and escape into the city. But that would mean leaving Matt behind, which was something she wouldn't do. Not willingly, at least. But she knew what Matt would say, that she was being stupid and that she had a chance to get out and save them both.

So which should she choose? The smart way, or the right way?

Then Matt mentally probed her consciousness. They knew each-other's by heart, and in the car-ride down from Georgia they had practiced their telepathy the whole way. She could feel his anger, anxiety for her and the rest of the crew... but also fear. Matt's mind was tangled and she didn't have the time to sort it all out.

Go, I've got something planned, but I need you off the beach. Tell Holly and Jack that we'll meet up at the racetrack once we lose our tails, He spoke in her mind.

Alright, but if you're not there in an hour I'm coming back for you, no matter how many creeps are in the way. Holly and Jack will, too. Scar replied.

With a final anguished glance, Scar spun, kicked the Suit in the diaphragm, and grabbed Jack's shirt collar, yanking him off the beach. He had been right in the middle of a roundhouse punch, and he looked disappointed that he hadn't gotten the chance to deliver it to the creep Suit. Scar agreed.

Jack gave a whine when he saw his laptop sitting in the sand, but it was too late for that now. Scar dragged him to the ramp that led up to their condo. The two Suits fired again and again, chasing after her and Jack, but every round hit either the wooden rail or the concrete behind them.

Scar ducked nevertheless, but then she and Jack made it to the top of the ramp. Startled beach-goers rushed around in utter confusion, and Scar pushed a path to the condo. Jack followed not far behind, but neither did the Suits.

Scar reached the entrance to the parking lot just as three black cars rolled in at each side. Suits piled out, and not far behind them was the inexorable wail of police and SWAT sirens. Jack looked at her, said, "Lose the tails, meet up at the bookstore?"

"Sounds like a plan." Scar answered lightly, all the time staring at the Suits aiming real handguns at them. Scar and Jack split up and ran for cover just as bullets tore up the asphalt at their feet, Jack diving towards the condo, Scar back towards another condo on the opposite side that was under construction. Jack dodged around a car that chased him down and rolled under the parking garage door just as it closed. The black Mercedes didn't stop, but smashed right through the thin aluminum sheet and tilted over too far; the driver misjudged the angle of impact. The car hung in the air for a half-second, then flipped end over end. Jack sprinted for the door to the lobby. It was locked, but with as much adrenaline as he had right now, the simple metal padlock stood no chance.

Jack smashed it with his heel, it clanged and twisted. He grabbed it, yanked, and the metal came right off. The rest of the parking garage was filled with discordant horn-blaring vacationers, all of which attempted to scatter as three Suits climbed out of the damaged car and opened fire. One of them had somehow gotten a rifle out of the burning car, and the deafening three-round burst that followed only hurried Jack on his way. He slammed the door shut behind him and ran for the stairs. In the elevator, they could lock him between floors and flush him out with a single explosive or other gun. So he hustled up the stairs, taking them two at a time. His lungs burned, his legs were on fire, and his head throbbed in rhythm with his pounding heart.

He reached the fifth floor, and saw that the Police had arrived, along with a heavily armed and armored division of SWAT. Good. If he was arrested by the SWAT or Police, they wouldn't be able to do a thing. Once he was in their custody, they'd have to follow the laws and let him loose, because he hadn't knowingly committed a crime. At least, not anything that would draw out as a government offense, and certainly nothing traceable. So what if he'd downloaded a few songs onto his iPhone?

Jack waved, calling out to the Police. In answer, a sniper round dug a chunk out of the wall by his head. They thought he was the badguy!

Just as that realization took him, two Suits burst out onto the balcony where he was standing. Rather than fight them and give the sniper another chance to splatter his brains against the ground, Jack turned and fled around the corner and jumped onto one of the condo balconies. Fortunately vacant.

The two Suits followed, and Jack fled into the condo itself. He hid just around the entrance from the sliding glass door, and took out the first Suit that ran past. One shot to the knee, another to the kidney, and the Suit was on the ground. Jack kicked his face; payback for his laptop. It had all his cool designs on it. He was working on a kind of armor that used hydrostatic impact gel to absorb shock from a bullet-proof ceramic shell. He'd also been working on a kind of thruster pack for his armor, which would give the user a jet-assisted jump 10 feet in the air. It also worked in water.

And now these losers had it.

Jack kicked the next Suit to come in, but this guy was ready, and he caught Jack's leg. Jack wasn't deterred, instead he jumped and clocked the Suit with the other toe. That would teach him not to underestimate a teenager again.

The first Suit had gotten on his feet again, he dove at Jack. Jack sidestepped, but the man had been expecting it. A huge, meaty arm shot out and grabbed Jack's neck, crushing the life from him. Not good. He couldn't win this fight. Jack kicked the man in the face, once, twice, but he refused to let go. Jack twisted the huge hand so it faced him palm-up, and he took a moment to find the nerve-point in the wrist. Jack yelled and smashed his hand against the man's artery. The hand relaxed, and before the other hand could come in, Jack fell to the ground and rolled under it. He kicked the Suit in the small of his back, and fled after the other Suit came back to do some damage.

Jack sprinted through the door to a well-lit, open hallway, the smell of sea air heavy in his face. The Suits followed, one yelling at his wrist for backup. Hidden microphone. Two Suits burst from the elevator doors. Oops. So much for Jack's plan.

The stairs and elevator were blocked, the way he had come was also not an option, so Jack took the only one left.

He bailed over the side.

Five floors up, and Jack fell all of them. The bricks below looked solid. A SWAT helicopter hovered above the building, and six heavily armed SWAT troopers fast-roped on rappel lines. Police cars blockaded the parking lot, which was enclosed on three sides by the hotel itself. More police swarmed the condo complex and started evacuating the people within. Jack realized none of this as he hurtled to the Earth at a million miles an hour, finally landing on the ground below.

The impact nearly killed him.

All air was knocked from his body. His legs were pulverized, and his bones felt like molten iron in his skin. He rolled, but it did nothing to help him. The police swarmed his body and had him in cuffs before he could even moan from the pain.

Things got blurry and fuzzed out for maybe two minutes, but when he woke, more than half the police were gone and the SWAT chopper was nowhere to be seen. He was leaning against the hood of a police cruiser, and two burly officers argued next to him with a collection of maybe four Suits. Jack couldn't tell. Things were still too fuzzy, and his heart raced. His face burned with humiliation. What had he done that was so wrong, these men had felt the need to kill him?

Things fuzzed out again for thirty seconds or so, and when he again awoke the Suits were standing not two feet from the senior police officer. Spittle flew from his heated cheeks and his grayish ginger hair was standing on end like a rooster's. Jack slid to the ground, but no one seemed to notice. The men were screaming at the top of their lungs, but Jack still couldn't hear what they were saying, and the muted yells felt too distant. He hoped his ears weren't permanently damaged. But Jack got an idea from his lack of attention.

His legs still felt like the were on fire. He probably had broken his ankle at the very least. Despite that, he had to get away. Jack felt hot, thick tears at his face as he thought about what might have happened to Scar, Holly, and Matt. That, along with his physical pain, almost destroyed him.

He still had to go on.

Jack sucked in a breath and got ready to ignore a whole lot of pain, cause he was gonna have to hump it all the way to the bookstore, and then to the racetrack. But first he had to escape custody.

As the men argued their inaudible battle, Jack simply collapsed onto the asphalt, subtly inching himself farther and farther under the cruiser. After a minute or two of carefully, painfully slithering, Jack rolled onto his feet and darted forward.

The pain instantly lanced him his left leg, and one of the Suits noticed his escape. He called out to the others, who instantly pushed the police out of the way and gave chase. Yep. Probably dead.

Jack payed them no attention. Not when it was needed elsewhere, namely not tripping on anything. It could mean death if he did.

Yeah, it was gonna be a long stroll.

Scar waited anxiously at the bookstore. She had wanted to stay and help Jack, but three Suits had tailed her, and when she got out into the open a sniper had nearly taken off her head. It just wasn't fair! How come they got rifles and handguns and snipers and helicopters and SWAT backup? What'd she get? Nothing! Only what she could scrounge off the bodies of anyone she'd happened to subdue.

Scar checked that the lone sidearm she'd pulled off one of the guys was still there, tucked into the waistband of her athletic shorts and covered by her swimsuit.

Where was Jack? After she'd lost her tails in the construction block, police had still been waddling around the building Jack had fled to. She hadn't heard anything since they'd split. Her mind was going a million miles an hour, and cold sweat ran down her back. It had nothing to do with temperature.

She cast out with her mind, extending her consciousness into the surrounding parking lot. A rat nibbling on a piece of... something, in a corner, a bird high above, and a couple people in the store behind her. That was it. No Jack, nor Matt, nor even Holly. Just her. She resigned herself to wait. What else was there to do?

After what felt like ages, Jack appeared between two buildings. But her first clue had been the sirens, which had begun screaming five minutes earlier, growing steadily until Jack darted out from behind an alley and sprinted awkwardly for her. He was running at maybe 10 miles an hour, and no cars could follow him through the alley, but the Suits had brought backup. Two slick Mercedes rolled to a stop in front of the alley, followed by a stretch limo.

Scar had the gun in her hand instantly. The gun was molded to fit the average adult's hand, which was nowhere near her size. But it was straightforward enough; point at the target and pull the trigger. Point and shoot.

Suits piled out of the cars. Only, hullo, these weren't the regular Suits. These guys wore sharp black Tuxedos, as if that would be any help in a firefight. They drew weapons, but they weren't the normal handguns. They were shiny silver .50 cal magnums. Who were these Yahoos?

Jack saw the change of equipment and immediately decided he didn't need to find out if what those new magnums shot hurt.

Jack ducked into a doorway, tucking his head into his shoulder and ramming against the wooden frame. The door creaked and gave, and Jack slammed it behind him. One Tux followed, trailed by three Regulars. The rest went to surround the rest of the building. Scar ran forward and pulled the trigger half a dozen times. All she heard were irritating clicks. What was wrong? Was the gun jammed?

No matter, she had to help Jack. She ran and made a rather stupid decision; she attacked the lead Tux.

She ran up from behind, her feet making no noise on the pavement. When she was three feet away, she jumped and used the energy to fuel a flying kick aimed at the base of the Tux's spine.

Uh, but the Tux wasn't their anymore. He had dodged out of the way. The sheer speed of his movements told Scar that she was stuck with an enemy that was way out of her league.

Scar was still clutching the handgun, and her thoughts echoed back to something Matt had said when they were eating lunch, debating weapons with Jack. They'd been talking about something like single or double action shots? And that some handguns had a function where it couldn't be shot until a hammer or something was manually cocked?

Scar's thumb instinctively found the cocking hammer on the Glock modern handgun and pulled it back. The gun gave a metallic, satisfying click as a bullet was fed into the chamber.

The Tux appeared behind her; Scar felt more than saw him. She twisted around and fell back, pulling the trigger as fast as her hand would react. It didn't help, because the handgun was an automatic that held fifteen rounds. One, two, three, four shots jumped out of the gun as she fell, dodging a lethal foot. Two of those rounds hit the Tux. Both in the gut.

The Tux grunted and wheezed, bending over, but gave no other signs of the shot hitting anything. Four Regulars flanked him, and Scar knew she was in trouble.

The Tux darted forward, his pale face blank, and struck Scar in the side of the head. She wheeled around, certain that she was about to die.

Holly wasn't having a great day. It hard started out nice, strolling along the beach and hanging out with her friends. Then the idiot Suits turned up and ruined everything.

Holly dashed in between tables, knocking over heavily-laden waiters and flipping tables, anything to stall the three Suits that trailed her. They'd called for backup, and so Holly took the next right down a side-alley and forced all the pursuing cars to stop and go back around. More Suits trailed her now; at least six.

Holly's lungs burned from constant exercise, and she was drenched in sweat. It was the middle of June. Her head throbbed in unison with her pounding feet, and her flip-flops just weren't cutting it for the kind of running she was doing, so her bare feet ached and stung. On top of all that, she had no idea where she was going or what to do. These guys seemed to be in league with the Police and everything, so she'd be dead anyway she went in that direction. She couldn't run forever. She had to lose these guys, fast.

Without warning, Holly swung a left and disappeared down another alley clothed in darkness. The Suits followed her, but without NVG's they couldn't do much to see her. On the other hand, Holly thought around the pain of stubbing her toe against a dumpster, I can't see much either.

The dim outline of a fire escape ladder came as a welcome relief. She jumped onto the first rung and reached hand-over hand to the next platform.

Two Suits halted at the bottom of the stairs and clicked off shots from their handguns. Not even the wimpy dart-guns, these were real sidearms. They could hurt. They could kill.

Shots rang and struck the metal railing. Dementedly, Holly found herself imagining that she was Neo in the Matrix. The parabolic chase was too coincidental to ignore. Holly reached the top of the top of the building and fled along the top of the roof. Before the Suits reached the top as well, Holly jumped over the side, three stories down. And on top of everything else, she was mildly afraid of heights.

The fall was over as quickly as it had begun, and Holly was thrown into a dumpster full of trash bags. It smelled great.

She buried herself beneath a couple bags, trying not to gag from the smell, and waited while the Suits thundered around, extremely pissed that they had lost her.

A curse echoed around on the building above her. One of the Suits yelled at another guy, screaming that it was all his fault, and if they'd sent in a helicopter like he'd said, they'd live to tell their boss. One of them spit into the dumpster and followed the wad of saliva with a shot from his sidearm, completely accidentally almost hitting Holly, who struggled not to jump in surprise.

Holly lay in the trash bin until the men left, and she waited three minutes to make sure they were really gone before the smell of the trash got the better of her. She vaulted out of the bin.

Five minutes later, she was back on the main road, running towards the sound of sirens. Interestingly, they didn't go off towards the race-track, like she'd thought, but in the general direction of a Borders bookstore that Matt had dragged them all to at least a dozen times before. Sure enough, Holly saw three slick black cars roving off in the direction of the sirens. Only these weren't the Mercedes E500 type, like before. These were stretch limos with heavily tinted windows. The tires looked suspiciously thick for that type of vehicle, but besides that, there were no tell-tale signs of any re-vamped equipment on the car.

Holly chased after it, dumping some poor biker off his wheels. With the borrowed bike, she quickly made her way after the limo, keeping pace, gaining a little ground at every intersection. The limo lacked sirens to part the flow of traffic, but the motorbike could weave in and out between cars. Eventually in one intersection, Holly revved the engine, feeling the throaty hum of the engine, and shot through the crowded space into oncoming traffic, nearly wiping out against an unforgiving hood of a car. The bike was way too large for her, and the constant purring vibration from the motor relaxed her grip slightly despite her best efforts.

By now the limo had to have known that the bike was tailing them. Sure enough, a few moments later, the limo slowed, the sun roof popped open, and a well-dressed man with a gun stood up. He squeezed off a few shots, but with the traffic all around and the limo dancing back and forth, the weaving bike was a hard target to hit.

He emptied the clip at Holly, with each shot getting closer and closer to the mark. He cleanly reloaded, and Holly pounded the handlebars in frustration. She was about to die!

The Suit raised the gun again, and Holly did the only thing she could; popped a back wheelie and raised the front of the bike off the ground, using its protective bulk as cover.

The Suit hesitated, momentarily taken aback, then clicked off shots as fast as the trigger would depress.

Holly's bike shuddered as three rounds found the gas tank.

Most people would think that if a gas tank was shot, it exploded, like in movies. Nope. It took something extra to set the tank alight. Like a spark or something hot.

The result that it did have was that Holly swerved and almost lost balance, her heart racing. She turned and stopped for a moment. Everything depended on the thin hunk of metal between her legs that was jetting forward at 60 miles an hour. Losing her balance would not be a good thing. Also, the gas tank started spilling fuel, creating a huge puddle of flammable liquid under the bike.

Holly took off again, twisting the throttle back as far as it would go.

The Suit reloaded and fired again and again. Holly felt a bullet's slip-stream pass right over her cheek. This was unreal. Was she going to die here, right now, on a stolen motorbike, chasing after a government agent?

A shot found the puddle of gas, and the bullet sparked off the pavement beneath. Traces of flint and other rocks in the gravel created a tiny spark as the bullet hit, and the spark quickly took up life in the puddle of gas.

Flames roared behind Holly, quickly following the trail made by the leaking bike. A glistening inferno swept over crowded markets and office complexes, scattering tourists and sending people running in all directions. A score of alarms and blaring sirens lit up the late-afternoon air. This, Holly thought, is not gonna be a picnic.

Matt's battered body washed up on shore. It was now high noon.

It felt like an age and a half to Matt, but half an hour later, he was groggily on his knees. Not able to do much else, he sat up and retched his guts out. He crawled a ways away, then collapsed again, his muscles trembling.

A steady ache started in his head and built throughout his body, escalating in intensity with every passing second, until Matt felt as though his blood had turned to molten led and his skull was being picked apart with a dull screwdriver. A soundless scream parted his lips, but no air would come. His diaphragm was barely contracting, leaving him short of breath, which only added to his pain.

There was always a price for this. Always a price he paid. Whatever it was, usually water, the pain always came afterward.

Matt didn't know how long he was sitting there, but eventually more sirens split the air. He groaned with the little breath in his body. Couldn't these guys ever give him a break?

He started to drag himself up, trying to remember how to fight, how to swing a punch, to land a kick, but he was just too tired. Scrunching up into a squatting position felt like working a full day as a manual laborer. Why couldn't he do this? Every human was supposed to stand.

As he crouched, a raw wave of agony washed over his brain, shutting down most of his fine motor skills and leaving him trembling in the sand.

He must have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing he knew, Jamie was standing over him, with three paramedics at his back and more police behind them. Regular police. Not Suits. Suits... the word brought back flashes of pain and memory. What had happened with the Suits? There was something about a fight in the sand, frantic scrabbling into the water... but why was he like this?

Jamie helped him to stand even as a new wave of pain assaulted his mind and body. His vision was tinged with red - or was that just the blood oozing from the gash across his forehead?

The paramedics rushed forward with urgent expressions, and Matt decided it probably was blood, and that he was about to collapse. So he went ahead and did that, but he never hit the ground. He just kept falling into a black void.

When he woke later, the pain had receded somewhat, so that he felt as if he could sit up. Which of course meant he was laying down. Without opening his eyes, Matt bolted upright and instantly regretted it. His body screamed out in protest.

Matt ordered his eyes to open. They didn't respond. Was he going blind? That would not be good. How would he help the others-

That thought sparked another memory. Holly. Scar. Jack. His friends. And where was Jamie?

Matt commanded his eyes to open and this time they responded. His eyelids fluttered, cracked, and then flew open as light rushed in to his world of darkness.

He was alone. Completely alone, in a dark hospital room. And extremely thirsty. He couldn't remember having ever been so thirsty. There had always been something to drink in his life. A Pepsi from the fridge, milk in the plastic gallon-jugs, heck, even tap water. But now there only a glass of water sitting on a nightstand three feet away. It might as well have been three miles.

Water. More memories crowded his brain - rushing water, salt stinging his eyes, and an endless, mind-numbing rage that had filled him - that all seemed to point to a dark, flooded memory of tidal fury and water surging all around him.

Where was he? He had to get to the water...

A hand appeared, took hold of the ice-cold glass, and handed it to Matt. His fingers made clearings in the frosted cup. Matt downed the whole thing, one gulp. He coughed back up half of it as it went down the wrong tube, and Matt reached up to discover that he had a pipe reaching down his throat. The plastic tubing seemed to be connected to some machine - of course it would be. He was in a hospital, for crying out loud.

And the reason he felt this way was because the wave had taken everything out of him. It had almost killed him. That much energy and massive water fueled by one fourteen-year-old boy. He should be dead - by all rights, he should have been dead - but he wasn't. He had stared the old Reaper in the face. Either the black-clad figure had decided he didn't want another little boy, or he had let him live to be tormented further.

Whatever the case, Matt knew it was bad news. A voice sounded somewhere off to his right, obviously trying to apologize for the accident with the water. Matt could care less. He sank back down into his dark world of sleep.

Holly bailed off the bike, going maybe 50 miles an hour, and let it run...

... straight into the Limo.

The gas tank lit, blew, and chain-reacted against the limo's tank, blowing them both into the air. The limo was incredibly tough; it took both the explosions and bounced back down onto its reinforced tires. Its armored chassis had withstood both blasts! The Suits that had gotten out of the now-empty car just a moment ago all whirled around. All of them, even the Tuxes, looked a little pissed.

Holly skidded against the ground. If she had only been wearing leather clothing like a biker, or better yet Jack's advanced armor prototype, she might have been okay. As it was, her thin two-piece swimsuit didn't offer much protection from the asphalt. Her back, legs, and arms were scraped raw and hurt like crap. She rolled over and over dizzyingly. When she came to a halt, the Tuxes were screaming into their hands over a hidden radio to send in backup. But on the plus side, she was right next to the bookstore. Scar was on the ground with a sidearm laying next to her hand.

Holly didn't think; everything was happening too fast for that. She snatched the gun up and instinctively pointed it at the nearest Suit, who flinched as he struggled to reload his gun and dropped the clip. She pulled the trigger and gave a startled jump as a burst of three rounds flashed out, strangely loud against the heavy air. She hadn't expected it to be an automatic handgun.

The Suit in front of her collapsed around the bullets that hit him in the chest, the rounds stitching upward from his gut to his sternum in pace with the rising barrel. One bullet hit his diaphragm, and despite the Suit's obviously bullet-proof suit, the shot still knocked his breath away and sent him tumbling to the ground.

"How'd that feel!" Holly yelled at the prone form. Jack burst out of a second-story window and landed awkwardly, followed closely by three Suits. The Tux appeared calmly in the smashed window and took out his Desert Eagle.

Not on my watch, Holly thought, aimed, and pulled the trigger, this time stabilizing the gun against the aggressive kick. She emptied the rest of the clip at the Tux, and eight bullets flew through the air at their target. Two found the Tux, hit him in his perfectly manicured hand. Which, unfortunately for him, was not armored.

For the first time, the Tux's perfect emotional armor cracked, pain and annoyance flashing across his pale face. He growled, a low, warning tone. The Suits looked at him, fear plainly showing on their faces. Holly took an involuntary step back, and Jack took the moment as a diversion and slipped behind one of the Suits.

Jack swung a double-handed blow to the base of the Suit's back, and the Suit collapsed forward. Jack bent and scooped up the Suit's Glock Automatic and two extra magazines, tossing one to Holly, who caught it instinctively. Jack yelled and fired full-auto at the nearest Suit. Although none of the bullets penetrated the armor, each impact hurt like crud and produced bruises the size of quarters. The fifteen-round clip ran dry, and Jack loaded in his spare clip, just like the airsoft guns at Matt's place. Holly fed the magazine into the receiver, cocked the hammer, and dragged both Scar and Jack behind a car. For all of Jack's bravado, one sidearm could not take out a full division of heavily armed, heavily armored, extremely pissed government elites. Bullets sang and pinged against asphalt, the car, anywhere in the general vicinity of the three 14 year-old kids and their cover.

So now the situation was; Holly and Jack both had a sidearm, each with one clip. Five Regulars and three Tuxes still in the picture, one Tux with a shot-up hand. A wall of bullets was beating the crap out of the car they were hiding behind. In short: no way to win. They were dead. The only one missing here was Matt.

Matt was riding in a SWAT armored van traveling at 80 miles an hour to the source of distress. Residents in the area had reported a vicious firefight between several poorly-armed teenagers and a heavily armed and armored paramilitary group in suspicious-looking suits. The mayor had told the police that the Feds were denying any existence of this group within their knowledge, and had authorized any force necessary to take out the rampant government group.

The three teenagers were obviously Holly, Scar, and Jack. And Matt was bringing in the cavalry.

Things were put down fairly quickly as SWAT soldiers jumped down and aimed rifles, shotguns, and Kinetic Energy Weapons (KEWs) at the group of eight government agents. Scar, Holly, and Jack ran over to Matt as he jumped down from the van, the world a little hazy before his eyes.

Ambulances quickly arrived and loaded the four. Before they even reached the hospital, the crew was out, dead asleep, sunk into a world of dreams...

...and nightmares.

Phoenix Rising: Chapter 3