Manipulator (32 page)

Slowly, he reached for the mask and cap and removed them.

Standing in front of him, was Eli Roth.

Chapter Sixty Six

Date: December 13th 2035

Location: PRoGRaM (CORRUPTION DETECTED)

"Owen?" Ethan said quietly from the floor. He was afraid to move. He was afraid of what might possibly come for them next. He was afraid, whether he wanted to admit it nor not. Everything around the two of them had gone quiet. The world above them… silent. Trapped together in the eerily quiet New York City Underground.

"Yeah?" Owen responded as he got up to his feet.

"You oka-"

Ethan didn't get to finish his sentence, as he was rudely interrupted by the sound of automatic gunfire echoing out from somewhere on the waiting platform on which he and Owen were situated. Sparks flew in every direction as bullets pinged off all nearby surfaces, forcing the two of them to dive for cover.

They both ducked right, together dropping down and hiding behind a long concrete slab that acted as a seating arrangement for the entire length of the waiting platform. Automatic weapon fire continued to ring out, with seemingly endless bullets continuously ricocheting off the top of the long concrete slab.

"Your gun!" Ethan shouted to Owen, raising both of his hands up and placing them over his ears to protect himself from the deafening sounds in this confined space. "Owen! Your gun!"

Owen reached down to his waistband, pulled out his pistol and loaded a round into the chamber. Not that he was going to get a chance to fire back just yet. The gunfire that was coming his way was relentless.

"PRoGRaM is generating avatars to kill us!" Ethan shouted at Owen over the sound of the gunfire, trying to explain the situation. The bullets pounding into the surfaces around them just wouldn't let-up. Owen couldn't even see which direction the gunfire was coming from, let alone be able to return a few shots.

Archer turned his head to look back at Ethan… but the man had gone.

He was crawling away, hugging the floor and staying as close to the huge length of the concrete as possible, moving slowly towards the other end.
But what can he possibly do?
Owen thought quickly.
He has no weapon! And he can't run anywhere, otherwise the avatars that are shooting will surely kill him…
But still, Ethan crawled and crawled, never stopping as the distance between himself and Owen grew.

Then, up ahead, Ethan found exactly what he was looking for. He stopped crawling forwards and sat upright, still keeping himself in cover behind the concrete seating. He turned his head and looked back at Owen, and for just a second, both of their eyes met.

It seemed that Ethan was trying to give Archer some sort of signal.
He's got a plan after all.
Owen realised.
Is he sure that he knows what he's doing? He doesn't even have a weapon!

Ethan spun himself around and edged forward feet first, moving slowly up to the very end of the edge of the long, concrete seating area before coming to a stop, and judging exactly what he needed to do.

Contrary to what Owen thought, Ethan knew exactly what he was doing. It was just a matter of waiting for the perfect opportunity. All he needed was a short lull in the gunfire back at where Owen was situated.

Any second now Ethan. Any second…

For a split second, the gunfire ceased. Ethan kicked out, knocking a huge metal bin over and forcing it to smash loudly onto the ground. A huge banging noise rang out across the waiting platform.

The enemy avatar's concentration on Owen broke, forcing them to look over to the loud crashing noise nearby. Their attention was shattered, and that was all Owen needed.

He didn't hesitate.

He didn't waste a second.

He popped up, spotted the three enemy combatants on the opposite side of the train platform and took all of them down with just a few bullets. Their bodies digitised into oblivion, blurring out in a bright blue haze. Silence once again filled the waiting platform.

Suddenly, in the distance, Owen heard the loud, yet muffled sound of a train horn. His mind was still on edge and he reflexively jumped slightly. Something was coming their way.

Across the platform, Ethan stood up, moving carefully and anxiously. He was afraid that there could still possibly be a few more enemy avatars around.
 

"Thank you," Owen said to Ethan, breaking the uncomfortable silence and genuinely meaning the words that came out of his mouth. The two of them could have been killed in that firefight, but Ethan's quick thinking had saved them both. Ethan said nothing in return, but instead just gave Owen a slight nod.

He moved with a sense of urgency across the platform towards the location that the enemy shooters had been. Reaching down to the floor, Ethan picked up a fully automatic assault rifle that had been dropped down to the ground. Owen visibly tensed and gripped his pistol tighter as he watched Ethan pick the weapon up.
Is this the moment that he's been waiting for?

Ethan spotted the tension in Owen immediately, and slowed his actions down, as if to show that he was not trying to become a threat. There was a strap attached to the weapon, so he wrapped it over him and gently threw the rifle over his shoulder.
 

"We're going to need these," Ethan said as if trying to justify himself. He reached back down to the ground non-threateningly and grabbed a second rifle to offer Owen. Ethan's hand was wrapped around the centre of the fully automatic weapon, with its barrel pointing up into the air. "In case of trouble," he clarified. "And there
will
be more trouble."

Owen tentatively put his pistol back into his waistband and reached out to grab the rifle from Ethan.
The man's right.
He conceded.
We're going to need these. Who knows what we're walking into next…

The immediately recognisably noise of a train filled the platform as Owen saw a bright light coming their way from down the tunnel.

"We both know that the only way out of here is that train… right?" Ethan said, looking over at Owen.

"Fine," Owen answered without making eye contact as he was too busy checking over the assault rifle that Ethan had just passed him. He looked up from the weapon and over to where Ethan was standing before he continued to speak. "But you're answering my questions when we're safe onboard that train."

"Fool," Ethan replied. "We're never going to be safe."

The train slowed down drastically as it passed the waiting platform. All of its doors were open, but strangely, it didn't stop. At least not completely. It was going slow, just the right speed for both Owen and Ethan to jump aboard.

Next stop…the great unknown.

Chapter Sixty Seven

Date: December 11th 2035 (Two Days Earlier)

Location: New York City Streets

To Eli, it was clear from the start that somebody working closely to Owen was a double agent.
How else could the events of today be explained? How else would somebody know to follow our van on this exact day at this exact time? None of this is coincidence. One of Owen's group is a snitch. That would also explain how somebody knew where Marcus Ortega was at the point he was killed...
Not that he was there to see it, but it was obvious that an unknown party was blatantly following them back at that point in their mission as well.

Lets face it.
Eli thought as he walked towards his home after their mission inside the PRoGRaM Prison System.
It's either Nick or Kate. It's not Owen, because that makes no sense whatsoever. I need to start testing the waters here. I need to try and figure out just which one of them it is. Nick or Kate…

Immediately, he had the sense that somebody was following him. It wasn't like there were many people around either, so his finely tuned sense of perception picked up the signs fairly easily.
 

Carefully, he managed a quick and subtle glance over his shoulder.

It was Kate. She was following him! There she was, walking along, admittedly a fair distance behind him, seemingly without a care in the world. She had her phone pressed up against her ear and wasn't looking in his direction at all, or even keeping an eye on him, but it was massively suspicious that she was going the same way that he was, especially when Eli knew for a fact that she lived in the opposite direction to the way that she was now heading.

Maybe she's collaborating with Ethan?
The paranoid side of Eli's brain thought. It was the first thing that sprang to his mind. Feeling dangerous, he immediately felt like he should put his theory to the test. With another quick glance over his shoulder, he saw Kate again, still following him.
Maybe I'm reading the signs wrong? Maybe she's not following me. Maybe she's genuinely going in the same direction as me. There's only one way to find out though, right?

It was time to act. It was time to find out exactly who's side she was on.

To his right, Eli noticed that there was a long, poorly lit alleyway.
If she's really tailing me, then I'll know for sure if she follows me into that.
Secretly, Eli was really hoping that she would follow. There was always something about Kate that didn't quite add up to him. But whatever that was, he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Eli turned quickly to his right and walked into the alleyway. He slowed his pace down considerably so that if Kate really was following him, she wouldn't be able to hide it here. Reaching into the back left pocket of his jeans, Eli pulled out his mobile phone and held it down low in his right hand, angling it so that he could use its reflective screen as a makeshift mirror.

Thirty seconds passed as he walked at a glacial pace down the dark alleyway. The entire time, his eyes were locked onto the reflection on his phone's screen so that he could keep an eye on events behind him inconspicuously, without giving away the fact that he knew he was being followed.
 

And then it happened.

Kate turned and walked down the alleyway behind him, purposely following him!
What the hell is she doing? Why is she following me? What is she planning?
Now that it was really happening, Eli didn't know what to do. Every sign that pointed to Kate being a double agent was right, but then he realised that he had no idea what to do next.

She closed the gap quickly. As she walked, she reached into some sort of concealed pocket on the inside of her jacket, whist looking around to make sure there was nobody else in their vicinity. He watched as Kate quickly pulled out a small silenced pistol. Without hesitation, she aimed it forwards and pulled the trigger.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Three silent shots fired out behind him, slamming right into his back. No matter how much he had prepared himself mentally, the moment that they hit, the pain that Eli felt was incredible… even with the bulletproof vest that he wore underneath his shirt.

Eli flailed out as the bullets smashed into him. He stumbled forwards, falling into a huge pile of garbage bags that were piled up against the battered brick wall to his right. Within seconds, he had passed out from the pain.

It was the horrifying smell of garbage that brought him back around, only minutes later.

You lucky bastard, Eli.
He thought to himself as he slowly came back around to his senses.
What if she had shot you in the head? What if she had checked your body? All she needed to do was walk up to you and put one more bullet in your brain and you wouldn't be here now. Was it worth it?

Yes. Yes it was.
He countered his own thought.
Now I know just who I can trust.

Kate had made it personal, and Eli was never going to forget that.

Slowly, he sat himself up in the pile of garbage bags, his back throbbing immensely from the three bullets that were currently woven into his bulletproof vest.
That's gonna take some time to heal.
He thought as he used to wall next to him to steady himself whilst he got up to his feet.

Carefully, he unbuttoned his shirt and unclipped the bulletproof vest that he wore underneath. It was pretty much useless now, so Eli discarded it in the pile of garbage bags that he had just clambered out of. He winced in agony as the vest brushed again the bruises on his back where the three bullets had hit him. They hadn't penetrated his vest, and luckily there was no blood which was always a good sign.

What the hell was Eli supposed to do now?
Think it through logically. What's your next step? Okay, so first things first, you need somewhere to lay low. Although, that's not a problem. You have a lot of contacts out there that owe you, so it's time to call in some favours.

Secondly, you're going to need to get your hands on a weapon. How else do you plan on dealing with Kate?
But he had to stop his thoughts right there and then. What the hell was he even thinking? Revenge?
Of course it's about revenge. Nobody turns business personal like this and gets away with it.

Was Kate really the person that he was after? She was the one that fired the shots, but she sure as hell wasn't the one giving out the orders. As the famous saying went...
don't shoot the messenger.

Kate isn't the one in control. She's not the one you're after, although she's going to get what's coming to her sooner or later. Kate's got a boss, so you're going to need to find out who that is. Going in guns blazing isn't going to work. If anything, it's likely to spook whoever's in control, and then you'll lose them forever. You need to play this one smart. It's all to do with Owen. If he can figure out…