Manipulator (40 page)

“It's a long story," Eli replied, not wanting to get into it. "I’ll explain it all later. Seriously though, are you okay?”

“Nowhere near,” Owen replied quickly without even having to think about the answer. With a hand from Eli, he got up to his feet. All eyes were on him now, including Ethan's. The man was just about semi-conscious on a nearby sofa, but regardless of this, he was still seemingly capable of eyeing Archer up intently.

Owen stumbled slowly, making his way across the room in a zombie like state, heading over to where Ethan lay. Every step he took vibrated through his body, sending pain to every corner of his mind.

“Owen, what are you doing?” Nick asked seriously, only for Owen to ignore him and continue moving forwards. “Owen?” he asked again, louder and more urgently this time, yet still not meriting any sort of a response.

Then, moving faster than he had moved all day, Owen dived forwards at Ethan, closing the last few meters instantly as he reached out and grabbed the man around the collar. Violently, he pulled Ethan from where he lay and threw him down onto the floor. Owen wasted no time and was on top of Ethan in a matter of seconds, throwing forcefully angry punches into the man's chest and face. It was as if he was possessed, but Owen just couldn’t control himself.
He killed Annie!

He just couldn't stop. Not even when blood began to pour out from both Ethan’s nose and mouth. Ethan was reaching out trying weakly to stop Owen, but the post-exit effects of PRoGRaM were too overwhelming for him to put up any sort of defence. He desperately reached up and tried to push away at Owen's chest as the man continued his relentless attack. But it was just no use.

Behind him, Owen could faintly hear Eli shouting loudly at him, trying to get him to stop, but his words were falling on deaf ears. He managed to get a few more solid punches in before he felt two pairs of arms wrap around him from behind, pulling him
 
away from Ethan.

Nick and Eli had both intervened. Together, they pulled Owen away from Ethan and held him back, trying to stop him from delivering any more devastating blows to the man. Ethan was clearly damaged enough already. Eventually, he stopped struggling against Nick and Eli hesitantly they let go of him. It didn't stop them from feeling poised on edge and ready to jump back in again to hold Owen back at any second.

“What the fuck is going on?!” he screamed out at Ethan, who was lying fearfully still on the floor with a beaten face. Owen was starting to go out of his mind with anger and confusion, but whilst no longer being held back he took advantage of the situation and managed to deliver one quick, final blow. He lashed out with his heel, stamping at the side of Ethan's head with the underside of his foot, instantly rendering the man unconscious.

Silence filled the room.

Owen turned and walked slowly away, finding a nearby chair and slumping himself down into it. He sat still as he placed his elbows on his knees and gripped at his hair with his blood covered hands. Breathing heavily and feeling out of breath, Owen just stared down at the floor and let the shame of what he had just done wash over him. Before long, he raised his head and looked at both Eli and Nick, finally ready to talk.

"Is it true?" Owen asked. "About Kate?"

Together, the two of them slowly nodded in unison.

"There's more," Nick said, slightly afraid to break the bad news to Owen after seeing what he had done to Ethan. Eli sensed his trepidation and chipped in.

"Someone bugged your apartment," he said as he held out the micro-cameras in his hand. Owen reached out and picked one up, bringing it relatively close to his eyes so that he could inspect it. He glanced up at Eli, wondering silently if there was a silver lining in this cloud.
Maybe we could trace them?

"Untraceable," Eli said with a shake of his head, nipping off Owen's question before he asked it. There was no reaction from the man.

Owen simply didn't know how he should be feeling anymore. His world was slowly crumbling down around him, and everything that he thought he knew was being tested.
Am I really the fourth person?
 
What else can happen tonight? What about what Ethan said? What about Veridian…

"You both heard what Ethan said?" Owen asked urgently. "About Veridian?"

"Yeah." Nick said. "Maybe he was lying?"

But of course, Ethan wasn't lying.

What was about to happen next proved it.

Chapter Eighty Three

Date: December 13th 2035

Location: Owen’s Apartment, New York

“Everyone, grab everything important. We're leaving now," Owen said, taking charge of the situation as everybody else came around to their senses in seeing that maybe, just maybe, Veridian agents were on their way here right now.

Everybody looked hesitant and unwilling to follow Owen's command. Nobody moved, forcing Owen to make the first step. He made a beeline towards his personal laptop which was sat on the lonely dining table across the room.
If I start, then perhaps everyone else will follow.
He reasoned, but he only made it a few steps before Eli called out after him.

"No! Wait! Don't touch that!" The man shouted, causing Owen to turn around with a confused look covering his face. "Let me handle that." Eli said as he jogged ahead of Owen towards the laptop. "I have a decryption program running on your computer. I'm trying to figure out who sent you the scrambled video in the first place."

Eli reached the laptop, and began to punch in a sequence of numbers and letters in on the keyboard that looked completely jumbled to Owen, but he didn't say anything. "This way, the decryption still continue to run when we shut the laptop down," Eli explained, but Owen wasn't paying full attention. He was too interested in some sort of commotion going on in the corridor outside.

Heavy boots were coming down the corridor, getting louder with every step. Someone was coming their way. Eli had completely forgot to mention to Owen that there was no longer a front door on his apartment. They were exposed, and in the end, that was how the enemy managed to enter the room so quickly and efficiently without any sort of warning to its occupants whatsoever.

Nick was the first one to spot them, since Owen and Eli were too distracted with the laptop and the decryption software that was running on it. If it hadn't been for Nick, the two of them would have never survived.

"OWEN!" Nick screamed from across the room as he witnessed three men enter the apartment with millitary-esque precision. They looked like some sort of combination between the US Military and a police force SWAT unit. All three men wore dark helmets that covered the top of their heads, yet they kept their faces fully visible for maximum perception. Their completely black outfits covered them from head to toe, from the combat boots on their feet to the bulletproof vests around their torso's. In their hands they held small, silenced and lethal sub-machine guns.

This isn't some sort of black-ops team.
Nick quickly thought before he made a move for cover.
This is a genuinely sanctioned assault. Someone out there really does want us all killed.

Both Eli and Owen turned their heads sharply as they heard the panic in Nick's voice. Together, their jaw's collectively dropped as they witnessed the three black-clad men move in for the kill.

Eli made the first move, thinking quickly on his feet. He grabbed Owen by the collar and forcefully pushed the man to the floor behind the nearest kitchen counter, thanking his stars that the two of them had at least some sort of defendable position nearby. Yet before he hit the ground, Owen managed to look over and see that Nick too had managed to turn and hide behind a nearby corner, putting a small slither of cover between himself and their attackers.

Owen hit the ground hard, followed just a microsecond later by Eli.

And that was when the gunfire began to rain down.

There was a relentless assault of bullets as all three Veridian agents concentrated fire on where Owen and Eli had taken cover. Behind them, glass windows shattered and wooden cabinet doors fell off their hinges as the bullets tore apart everything that they touched.

The three men who had stormed the apartment were unforgiving in their attack. Owen felt like a sitting duck being trapped here without his weapon which he had stupidly left on the other side of the room. Eli had a pistol, but the shit-storm of bullets constantly tearing everything apart in their direction without pause prevented him from firing back.

But right there and then, he didn't need to, because Nick was the one who fired the first few bullets in retaliation. For some unknown reason to him, the three Veridian agents who had entered Owen's apartment had seemingly concentrated all of their fire on where Owen and Eli had hidden behind the kitchen counter. Not one of them had even thought about aiming for Nick.

Maybe they don't see me as a threat?
He wondered.
If they really do have access to the FBI's database, then maybe the three of them know that I don't usually carry a weapon. Maybe that's why they're targeting Owen first? Or maybe… Maybe they only came here to kill Owen? Either way, it's a good job Eli gave me this gun, isn't it?

Popping out from behind his cover, Nick pulled the trigger of the pistol five times in quick succession, hitting one of the Veridian agents square in the side of the head and clipping a second man in the chest. But just one bullet wasn't going to stop him.

Nick was more of a threat to them than Owen was now, and as soon as the two still-standing agents noticed where this new gunfire was coming from, that was where they concentrated their weapons. Nick ducked back into cover just in time to avoid getting penetrated by a storm of bullets. The wall which he hid behind splintered out as the bullets slammed continuously into it.
 

On the other side of the room, Eli noticed that short lull in gunfire as the two men turned to switch targets.
It's time!
He said energetically to himself, pumping himself up for what he was about to do.
Shoot now whilst they're distracted!

The two Veridian agents made the fatal mistake of both turning their weapons to concentrate on Nick, instead of allocating one gunman to each target.
This mistake will be their downfall.
Eli thought to himself as he popped up bravely from behind the kitchen counter and unloaded the entire clip of his handgun in the direction of the attackers.

Not every bullet struck Eli's intended targets, but there were enough well-placed shots in there for him to save the day. Both Veridian agents hit the ground, but that didn't stop Eli from continuing to pump bullets out of his weapon. In an adrenaline fuelled rage, he fired and fired until he heard the
click click click
of the empty trigger beneath his finger.

The gun was spent, but that was okay, because he had completed exactly what he set out to do. There was no-one left standing. Eli breathed heavily in shock as he came back around to his senses, realising what he had just done. He put the gun down on the kitchen side as his hands began to shake from the shock of what had just happened.
I think I'm going to be sick.

And just as soon as the assault had begun, it was over.

Cautiously, Owen moved out from behind the kitchen counter and stepped lightly into the main living room space of his apartment. The room that now lay before him was ruined beyond repair, with bullet holes lining every wall and ceiling space.

A cold breeze ran through the large room from the shattered kitchen window behind him, causing some of the hairs on his arms to stand on end. As Owen crossed the living room, he grabbed his gun from the table, wary that there could be more men yet to attack them. He saw that minor blood splatter from the earlier firefight covered almost every surface. He crept forwards, carefully eyeing up the three agent's lifeless bodies as he passed them. Owen watched the blood slowly seep out from underneath them and onto the floor.

Turning a corner anxiously, Archer moved towards the still-smashed-open front door to his apartment. He peeked slowly out into the main corridor beyond, mainly checking to see that the coast was clear. No more agents were to be found.

"I think we're clear," Owen called out with a sigh of relief as he walked back into the main living room space, shocked once again by just how beaten up the place looked. Nick had come out of hiding, but his face was a picture of terror. He was clearly horrified by the experience in which he had just been through. He'd never been caught in the middle of a firefight before. This experience had shocked him to his core.

"We're leaving," Owen said sternly, repeating his earlier statement to the group. There was no messing around this time. More importantly, there was no hesitancy this time. The three of them silently picked a task and stuck to it, grabbing everything that they were going to need. Nick began dismantling the PRoGRaM device, thankful that a stray bullet had hit it during the earlier assault, whilst Eli worked on gathering up all the electronics that they were going to need. "Anyone got any ideas on where we should go?" Owen called out from the kitchen as he began to throw an emergency bag of food and water together.

"Can't go to mine," Eli spoke out as he finally got around to closing down Owen's laptop. "It’s not safe. Kate knew where I lived, and if she's working with Ethan and his boss at Veridian, she could lead them right to us."