Genosha: The End of the Beginning: Unsafe House

[x-gambit.livejournal.com]

Wade and Doug are ambushed, and one doesn't make it out alive.



"Good," Wade said, standing up again. He slid the guns back into his
shoulder holsters and paced around the room once more. From door to
window to window to window, the mercenary checked the locks again,
peered through the blinds without shifting them or the curtains. The
streets had cleared out and Wade narrowed his eyes. Why had the
streets emptied? Was it pure paranoia or an actual issue that only a
few people seemed to be loitering at very specific spots? Was that man
giving a signal or just scratching his jaw? Was that a woman on the
roof two buildings down or someone more nefarious? "Let me know what
the generators go down."

Doug thought about asking Wade to lay off the pacing, but then he
thought better of it. Everyone dealt with stress in their own ways.
Wade's was checking and doublechecking and triplechecking their
surroundings. Doug's was refreshing things on his laptop and running
checks on comm signal strength and everything electronic. There was
very little talk for a while, then a flurry of activity. "Generators
going down now," he murmured, partly to notify Wade, but also to
signal the other teams to make sure they knew to hit their targets.
"Teams on the move..." And then he was interrupted by a mash of
startled exclamations all on top of each other. "The hell?" he asked,
about to sharply call for comm discipline and a status report.

The comms weren't the only thing suddenly buzzing, as Doug's laptop
ground to a halt, the drives crashing noisily and the fan giving off a
high-pitched whine. Before the noises of rapidly dying technology had
faded, it was joined by three sounds. First, the crash of glass
breaking as the window blew out, and then the thud and low hiss of a
gas grenade coming through the now open window and bouncing across the
floor.

"Motherfucker," Wade growled, going for the grenade because it
hadn't exploded yet which meant he was pretty safe just chucking it
back out the window. He rolled to stay beneath the line of possible
sight through the now broken window because getting shot right now
would suck, picked up the smoking grenade, and threw it back outside.
That wouldn't do much good, but it was something. Pulling a spare gun
from its holster at his thigh, he slid it across the floor to Doug and
yelled, "Take your earpiece out, check your feet." The gun, safety on,
thunked against Doug's boot even as Wade started coughing because his
lungs, much like everyone else's, kind of hated tear gas. His eyes
were watering now, too - he fucking hated grenades.

Doug was already ripping his earpiece out as it shrieked in his ear.
EMP. He cursed the loss of the hardware. Not that they couldn't
replace it, but it took -time- to get it all just the way he liked it.
And that, combined with the confused voices on the comm, in the
immortal words of Admiral Ackbar, was a trap.

He managed to cover the lower part of his face with his arm, shield
himself just enough from the worst of the gas. Wade's quick reaction
helped as well. The blown out window would disperse the gas, but
their attackers would hit well before that happened. He crouched to
retrieve Wade's gun. He had his own at the small of his back, but he
appreciated the thought. He backed towards a corner, still in the
crouch to minimize his profile and cover as much of the room as he
could.

They hadn't more than a few seconds before heavy steps came outside,
and the door came down. The officers hoisting the steel battering ram
backed off with military precision, and a squad of Magistrates in body
armor and helmets came through the door. In pairs, they moved to
either side of the door, and then blocked it and aimed raised weapons
at both men. "Drop your weapons!"

Wade took in the situation as his eyes watered - Doug was backed up in
a corner across the room and Magistrates were blocking the door. There
was one exit left that might work for him, but because of where his
friend was situated in the room, they were basically cut off from one
another. A flip switched in the mercenary's mind and he did the only
logical thing he could. He pulled both his guns and aimed, firing
precisely though he was fairly certain it wouldn't do much good given
the body armor - still, neck shots were painful. As he headed for the
window, he hoped Doug would be able to get in a couple shots, at
least, but beyond that, he couldn't worry about his friend.

Having a vaguely feasible way out was better than no way at all and
he'd be no use to anyone if he got caught.

Wade could get out. If one of them got out, they could round up
reinforcements. Seeing Wade move, Doug moved to cover the other man.
He burst out of his corner, gun coming up and firing smoothly. He put
bullets into the faceplates of each of the magistrates' helmets, not
in the hope that they might punch through, but to obscure their vision
and distract them for a vital few moments. And then he dropped the
pistol and whipped the extendable baton he favored for hand-to-hand
out, and was into the crush of bodies before they could recover enough
to see Wade's intent.

Wade stopped firing, holstered one gun as the Magistrates turned their
attention to the man wielding the baton in their midst, swiped several
extra clips from one of the tables as he passed, and made it to the
window. He went out shoulder first, glass shattering, and counted on
his healing factor as he headed for pavement.

When he hit, he hit hard, his left side taking the brunt of the
impact. He heard ribs crack. He felt the last of the air in his lungs
rush past his lips. Fingers tightening convulsively on the mags he'd
grabbed and the gun he still held in his hand, Wade could do nothing
but feel the blood from the knock on his head seep through his hair
and analyze his body's reactions. He knew what this was. Shock. He was
going into shock. His heart stopped, his chest tightened, and he knew
he was going to black out.

This, at least, was familiar. Give the soldiers upstairs a minute at
most to take Doug down. Give his healing factor forty-five seconds to
reboot. He should be able to make it... to some... kind of... cover.
Sure.

Doug gave out a variety of contusions, broken bones, and other painful
injuries to the magistrates, but the end was inevitable. A single man
can fight off a horde for only so long. No matter how good the
fighter, as the saying goes, 'quantity has a quality all its own'. An
elbow clipped Doug in the head, knocking him off balance momentarily,
which was all that was needed to club him to the floor, roughly
pushing him face-first into the industrial carpeting. He was
disarmed, and manacles clamped tightly around his wrists. He just
hoped he'd bought Wade enough time.

Hauled to his feet, Doug had little choice but to let the Magistrates
lead him roughly out of the safehouse and into a armored van. Two
Magistrates climbed in after him, pushing him onto a bench, then
securing the manacles in front of Doug and linking them to a ring on
the bench.

"The other one?" The van idled for another minute, and then driver
had opened a small panel between the front of the van and the back to
talk to the other men. "Orders said it was two in the safehouse."

"Dead. I checked pulse and respiration. Must've broken his neck on
impact. ME's picking up the body now."

Wade's eyes snapped open but he kept himself from gasping for breath
purely by force of will alone. Somebody was messing with his feet and
there was a weird zipping noise and all he could really think of in
that moment was that this was inconvenient and wrong and he'd have to
put a stop to whatever the hell was going on. He sat up, causing the
man at his feet to shriek like a little girl, finally let himself
breathe, coughed, and then lunged for the man before he could call for
backup. Stupid comm links.

Comm links - shit. He'd lost his comm link. Not that it mattered. The
events of the last fifteen minutes or so came back to him in a rush as
he snapped the man's neck with a vicious twist of his hands. Breaking
necks was simultaneously harder and easier than people usually thought
it was. In this instance, it was harder because he hurt like hell. His
entire side ached and there were sharp pains every time he moved. His
shirt was bloody and ripped open - apparently they'd hoped he wasn't
dead but he had been. About as dead as he ever got, anyway. A little
fall from the fourth floor of a building wasn't likely to actually do
him in.

Standing up, Wade wobbled for a moment, but time was of the essence
and he needed to get as far away from the safe house as possible
before they sent more people looking for the ME. Normally, he would've
felt bad for killing the guy, but he'd just lost one of his best
friends, their mission was blown to pieces, and God only knew how
compromised everything was. So he couldn't exactly find it
within himself to care too much about offing one medical dude who was
working for the wrong team.

Wade put one foot in front of the other, concentrating on ducking into
alleys as soon as they presented themselves. He grabbed clothing from
lines strung between buildings and kept his head down, limping through
the city in an single-minded attempt to escape so he could figure out
what the fuck he was supposed to do next.