A Trap Gone Wrong. Our Advantage
I do not know how carnival employees or "carneys" are supposed to live. Still, the carnival director did not know what kind of freak show he had running through his business.
We made it into the grounds quickly enough. We surrounded the big diesel-powered American mobile home. I wouldn't say I liked many things about this situation.
The biggest was that the only doorway was wide enough to fit one person at a time, meaning that the first one was a sitting duck. The locked door was no obstacle to Lukas, who picked the lock latch in seconds while Russell kept us covered from across the street.
Sarah provided close perimeter defence against accidental discovery, but the moment Lukas went through the door, the jig was up. The floor vibrated unevenly as a giant of muscle and bone latched onto Lukas like a parasite and twisted his wrist. His gun flew across the vehicle's interior, and two beefy punches ensured he followed suit.
I'd just put my foot on the bottom step when something hit me like a train and ploughed me into the dirt. The submachine gun in my hands sprayed bullets into the darkness. I looked up into the snarling face and raised my arms as its fists descended.
Blocking the sledgehammer-like fists jarred my teeth as he tried for a third blow. My open palm smacked him full in the face. The sound of breaking bone lost as somewhere somebody started shooting, followed seconds later by someone shooting back, "Half-life. Strike needle. Pattern thimble. Sequence."
The Cabal's secret language was something I had learned quickly but had taken me months to master fully. Like all languages, it has its patterns, keywords, and laws of phrasing and sentence structure, but there is no actual "code" to master. Words have different meanings depending on the context and situation.
"Half-life" meant that there was a threat in play. "Strike" implies the nature of the attack. In this case, a needle means sudden, brutal, unexpected attacks - like an ambush. "Pattern" refers to the counterstroke. A thimble protects your finger when sewing against the needle, meaning she had neutered the threat. "Sequence," asks, "What now, boss?"
Stumbling back, my blue-jeaned and a white collared T-shirt opponent reared up and staggered back as I barked a counter order, "Neutralize. Sanctioned freedom." It is war. There is no such thing as mercy. Either you kill or get killed.
A seven-foot distance separated me from my opponent. We cautiously circled as blood trickled out his nose, staining his shirt with violent blotches of colour in the moon's half-light. In traditional fighting stances, fists raised, feet spread shoulder-width apart, we circled cautiously as his blue eyes met mine with a mocking twinkle.
Time was a factor, so I opted to end things quickly and lashed out with both fists. There was no shortage of speed for all his size, nimbly ducking my crosses to slam a lightning-fast left-right-left combination into my ribs. Behind us, something came apart with a crash, accompanied by the afterthought of breaking glass.
I retreated. The three-punch combo cracked at least one or two of my ribs as I changed stances to present my uninjured left side while my less-than-human side set to work mending the broken bones. I wanted to end the brawl in about two minutes.
The brute was as determined as I to end the fight and charged with a full head of steam. Standing my ground, I drove my fist straight into the left eye, followed by a right hook to the opposing eye. Bones in the human skull cannot stop supernatural punches. His face had deformed around both eyes, and he slowed to a stop, half crouched. His arms went suddenly slack, and he toppled without a sound, dead.
I stormed into the vehicle to find Lukas kneeling over our target, bound, gagged, with eyes radiating terror as he unsuccessfully whimpered through the gag.
Sarah was busy tying up a brute laid out cold, surrounded by broken glass with a dented tray lying across the back of his head, "Sanctum!"
"Sanctum arising!" Kirsten replied. The minivan parked on the outskirts of the grounds roared to life, barreling through a concession stand in her haste to get the vehicle to us. Kirsten was miles away, but she could drive the minivan remotely through the amalgamation of stolen software, hardware, and wireless technology.
"Cabal aware! Storm approaches. Advice pattern fortress." reported Russell, "Heaven's guards!" There was no sound or flash, and I could barely make out his suppressed shots over the unfurling chaos around us.
Nevertheless, the screams were clue enough that he had missed the head on at least one of his targets but hit it anyway. Perhaps he did it deliberately as the advancing band of heretics sought cover instead of continuing their advance.
It sounded like several people were playing with firecrackers; we took advantage of what little cover there was, though barely adequate. Bullets smashed through the thin walls, knocking at least one of us off our feet. Unfortunately, our target was also caught and fell, with two bullets in his chest.
"Broken Arrow," Lukas said quietly.
Glass rained down, and I was tired of being friendly, "Magician: Action seven!" Sarah rolled towards the closest window with the appropriate field of fire on our assailants as I considered our next course of action. "By half-life eradi…the hell with this code crap! Weapons free, shoot to kill. Sniper: Clear a path!"
Carlos Hathcock, the legendary scout sniper of the United States Marine Core, had 97 confirmed kills, including the legendary "through the scope and eye" shot. Russell surpassed that record some time ago. I had seen him drill five bullets through a thirty-millimetre circle at 700 meters. He once told me he killed an average of one person weekly as a Legionnaire. I am not sure if that was comforting or terrifying.
"Heaven answers the summons." To my hearing, it was like a cough stifled into a handkerchief, followed by a second, then a third, fourth and fifth. With the wind blowing the right way, I could make out the metal-on-metal clang as he worked the bolt between shots until he informed us we had a clear path.
Outside, the minivan's doors swung open, and gunfire bounced off the armour plate and the puncture-resistant tires. Ten dead heretics, at least. Russell, unfortunately, informed us we had even more incoming. When asked how many, he replied, "All of them."
"Well," Lukas growled as he snapped home a fresh clip, "at least we know that this carnival is just a front!"
"The director of this carnival," Sarah gestured towards the bullet-mangled corpse, "didn't have a clue what was going on." Made sense. They had killed him, trying to kill us, and had not even spared a moment to think about his life. Moral of the story: You play with the Dark and get destroyed. "Sequence?"
Admittedly, this was not in any of the planning. The carnival was going to open in only a few days; everything was still in a state of half-assembled disarray. We were about halfway into the grounds from our current position. The closest available cover was the attraction we had planned to investigate: The Hall of Mirrors.
The cultists had gotten smart: A group was to eliminate the threat when they realized a sniper was picking them off. They were already crossing the street towards the Institute of Management Development.
While traditional snipers operated in pairs, Russell operated alone with a technological array to do what a partner and spotter would have done. "Proximity alert!" flashed on a corner of Russel's scope.
The flashing red letters jerked him out of his shooter's trance, "Heaven cautions, thimble breach. To shadows before storm anew." He slung his rifle and grabbed his pack to evacuate the roof for a pre-prepared and already staked-out fallback position on the top of the neighbouring building.
He swung across the gap via zipline, rolling as he landed and disengaged the line, letting it drop four floors to the ground.
In the stairwell, the sensor built into the mine detected movement and broadcast a short pulse demanding the appropriate countersign. Three seconds lapsed, and without the countersign, then the mines activated.
It sent a one-word message to Russell and detonated. Instead of metal, hundreds of plastic needles were hurled by the detonation at near-supersonic velocities to pierce clothing, flesh, bone, tile, and concrete with equal ease.
Metal would have killed or injured them, but the Legion never leaves any evidence of its activities – not more than necessary, at any rate.
The projectiles pulped the heretics charging up the stairs until they resembled pincushions before the combined heat flash-baked them. The result was a destroyed stairwell, burnt black, with ash and blobs of metal and plastic everywhere, accompanied by the lingering scents of charred flesh, metal, and insulation.
I acknowledged and cursed that piece of news. No sniper cover until Russell could get to his fallback position. Until then, Lukas, Sarah, and I were in a hell of a fight. At least the police would not be getting involved directly.
Kirsten would have tied up both mobile and landlines and put out the appropriate broadcasts and notices regarding "firework and special effects testing for the carnival grand opening."
When you think you are going to die in a gunfight, knife fight, or just a fistfight, you stop thinking or planning beyond staying alive for the next few seconds. If that works, prepare for the next few seconds until you have survived or are dead.
We had a lot of open ground to cover, but we had one advantage that the enemy would never expect: Sarah.