Zone Specter:
After I’ve decided to keep using Party’s old gun, I get ready to firing if necessary now that we’ve entered the facility’s radar. Since we’re traveling in the Trans, they’re bound to pick up on us sooner than they would if we were in a stolen car. So we’ve all gotten ready, and I was getting ready to start shooting out the window if I needed to, but then Ray looks back at me from the rearview mirror.
“Alright, either you or Party needs to take the wheel, ‘cause you’re the only two that can drive and shoot well while driving,” he says pulling out his gun and tossing it back to Frank.
“I’ll do it,” Party says moving forward and leaning over the head of the driver’s seat.
Ray sets the car on cruise, and scoots over to the middle, then moves his way between the seats into between me and Frank. Once Ray was out of the way, Party climbs into the driver’s seat, and Frank scoots over into his seat to make room for Ray. Once we’re all settled, Mikey checks on his tracker for any oncoming attacks.
“Nothing yet,” he says flatly looking over the screen.
“Keep us posted then,” Party mutters, scanning the horizon for the first signs of the facility.
“Well if you’re gonna be learning how to do the business,” Frank says as he wipes his gun off and makes sure it’s in good condition. “You might as well now the first few things when entering facility grounds.”
“Keep your eyes peeled and your gun ready, and if you have someone with a working tracker, make sure they’re watching it for oncoming attacks,” I say blankly, like I’m reciting it right out of a book.
“Right,” Frank says putting down his gun to look at me. “If your car is a stolen Drac car, make yourself convincing, they’ll let you right in,” he goes on, taking on a mock lecture face.
“And if your car’s a highly decorated Trans Am, gun down any attack and keep going right through the impound fence,” I cut in with smart aleck tone, but not really putting myself into it.
“I suppose, I’ve never done it personally,” Frank says, mimicking my tone, but actually pulling it off since he’s not guarding himself. Then he pauses for a moment, scrunching up his face in thought and asks, “Considering that, how do we get in without them taking the car?”
“The cars are kept in a hidden garage, there isn’t an impound,” Mikey says placidly, not taking his eyes off his tracker screen.
“What hidden garage?” Party says, looking as confused as the rest of us.
“There’s garage door in the back of the facility, it leads into a garage below the facility which leads right up into the heart of the facility, and that’s where the main cell is,” Mikey says as he taps the screen a couple times. “Take a look,” he says holding the screen up for us to see the layout.
He’s right, in the blueprint, at the back of the building there’s a door, Mikey taps it so that it moves inside to an underground garage-like room. He drags his finger across the screen so it moves in on a door on the other side of the room, he taps that and it turns the screen into a sideways layout, showing that the door is an elevator. He touches the floor above the underground garage and it shows us a layout of the floor. There’s the elevator, then there’s a large hallway it opens out into, there’s small rooms lined along the elevator side of the hall, but then across from them is one large room—the main cell.
“Hang on, let me see how many are in there,” Mikey says pulling the tracker back onto his lap. We hear him press a few buttons then hit the screen to get it to download faster.
Then he holds the screen back up for us to see the same floor, but now there’re a bunch of reddish-yellow dots all over the place. I count twenty in the small rooms and maybe fifty in the larger cell.
“I tapped into their systems, it says these are all cells except for these two on the end,” Mikey says pointing at the two rooms on the far right, those only have five people in them total. “This ones a watch room,” Mikey goes, pointing to the farthest room, “And this one I think is the confiscated weapons room.”
“So, we fight our way to that level, take out the watchmen, free the prisoners, give ‘em there guns and lead them back down to the garage?” I say raising my eyebrows.
“Sounds like a plan,” Ray says looking over the floor.
“But we need to find a different way to get them all out, that elevator’s not gonna cut it,” Party says darkly.
I frown at his negativity, then look back to Mikey, who’s looking at me with concern, “Is there a flight of stairs that lead back to the garage?” I mutter quietly.
Mikey just glares over at Party, then back to me with the same concerned tone these guys have been giving me since we left the warehouse, “I’ll see if I can find one.” He turns away then and checks the systems again for the any other possible route we could take to get the Killjoys out.
I hate being the sulky kid with the bad dad, it makes everyone around me want to make me the happy kid they caught small glimpses of before. I don’t mind the kindness, but, I just want it to be real, not just their pity for me that I have nothing left to care for. All the sad looks, all the concerned tones, giving me what I want to please me—hoping I’ll be happy (more like feeling spoiled), and treating me like I’m a ticking time bomb, about to go off from all the things they know I’m keeping pent up. Will I?
But I snap back to reality when Mikey cuts in on my train of thought, “There’s a stairwell in the watch room that leads back to the garage, we can use that,” he says brightly, hoping I’m happy with the find.
“Great, now we just have to pull through with the plan,” Party says in the same bright tone as Mikey, but he’s mocking him.
“Shut up man,” Mikey hisses, hitting Party’s arm.
“No doubts you guys will do well,” I mumble, examining my gun in boredom, “It’s me ya’ll gotta worry about screwing up the mission,” I give a small laugh, and I know it probably makes the guys feel a little less tense about me.
Mikey directs Party around most of the radar satellites, when we’re about ten miles from the facility, he has us go down a dirt road I didn’t even see, saying it leads to the back entrance of the facility.
“Just keep following this ‘til you see a left turn, should lead us right to the garage,” Mikey says as he goes back to watching the screen for attacks. “And still no sign of Dracs,” he sighs, he’s been getting really edgy since we entered radar, not once has there been a sign of the facility sending an attack on our Trans, which sticks out like a sore thumb in here.
“Take it easy Kobra, think of it as if we’re still driving stolen cars,” Frank say, half laughing and half reassuring, it’s what he does, calms you down with his easy joking manner, guess that’s why he went with Fun Ghoul.
“That helps,” Mikey says in a very non-enthusiastic tone, “Here’s the turn,” he says pointing to a road coming up on the left.
“Tip when driving into a facility,” Frank says as we slow down to make the turn. “Drive like you’re obeying laws, whether you’re driving a stolen car or one like this,” Frank opens up his arms and looks around, indicating he’s talking about the car. “You’ll seem convincing, like you’re one of them or them undercover, they let you in without a second glance,” he says pointing at me for emphasis.
I nod, trying to look like I’m listening, but also trying to hide my annoyance that they’re treating this like some school lesson. Then again this is all helpful, knowing how to enter undetected and prepared, how to develop a plan, and knowing escape routes, and knowing that in between all that is some shooting and compromising.
“Do they ever use what they find in the cars?” I ask, trying to seem light with my words.
“Na,” Ray says waving his hand dismissively, “If they did they wouldn’t know how to use any of it.”
“And everything thing’s made to be reverse-engineering-proof in case they ever got any ideas for once,” Mikey laughs.
Everyone laughs with him at his joke, I don’t really laugh but more so grin with amusement. Then Party says something that reminds us why we’re really here.
“There’s the facility,” he says, all seriousness again.
I crane my neck to try and get a look of the facility, but I don’t see anything. Mikey catches my attempts through the mirror and laughs at me.
“It’s right over there, just a black dot on the horizon right now though,” he says pointing off to the right.
“Get your arm outta my face Mikey,” Party grumbles, pushing Mikey’s arm away.
“I’m just trying to show Specter the facility,” Mikey says, temper flaring up again.
I can see where this is going, but then I come up with a way to avoid them fighting, “I see, it now.”
I’m not lying, I do see it now, and Mikey was right, it is just a small black dot sitting on the horizon, but it’ll grow as we get closer. I watch it for a while, then curl back up in my seat with the sudden onslaught of nerves that blossom in my stomach. I must look sick or something because Ray gives me this weird look and asks.
“You alright?” he sounds concerned, so I answer.
“Nerves, it’ll pass soon,” I mumble, trying to keep a normal breathing rate.
Ray just raises his eyebrows at me, but his words get cut off by Party’s harsh tone, “They better.”
I give him an icy look that I know he can see in the mirror, but he acts like he doesn’t. As the minutes tick by, the facility becomes larger, and its details begin to clarify themselves to the eye. It’s just like most of them are: big, dull, grim, and very much like a factory prison. Soon we’re right at the door, and still no one’s come out after us, and I’m starting to think that Mikey has a the right to start worrying a bit.
“You’d think someone would be watching the door,” Frank mumbles as we approach the garage door.
“Especially if it’s wide open,” Ray mutters, starting to get uneasy like everyone else—everyone that is, except Party, who’s remaining as unreadable as he’s always been.
“I don’t like this,” Mikey whispers over to Party like we’re being watched—probably not too far from the truth. “We should turn back, or at least not bring Specter in on this one,” he says looking back at me.
“No,” I say firmly. “It’s bad enough he does this to me,” pointing at Party, “I’m going in there no matter how dangerous this seems.”
“Good,” Party cuts in, “‘Cause we’re not going back now.”
He pulls in through the door, and parks the car into a space close to the exit. When we all get out, we see that the garage goes on forever in both direction, filled with a lot of cars for both BLI and Killjoys. I suddenly realize then that the Killjoy cars have been parked off to one side of the garage, and the BLI have their cars parked like ready soldiers on the other. Mikey’s still in the car, he’s got the door open and has his legs out while he looks over the tracker.
“Looks like everyone’s on the top floors, except for the five that are in the watch room,” he whispers, tapping the screen a couple of times, viewing systems to be sure.
“Alright then,” Party says, taking on the leadership roll. “Jet, I want you to watch the car, I don’t want it getting taken while we’re up there,” he says looking over to Ray, who nods in reply. “Kobra, you and I are gonna go for the watchmen, Ghoul and Specter will go free the Killjoys in the cells, once you’ve got ‘em all out, one of you come back to lead the others to their weapons and the exit,” all the while he’s explaining, he’s careful not to look right at me, which only makes me more mad that he’s ignoring me still. “Let’s go,” he mutters, taking the lead, heading us towards the other side of the room to the elevator.
Ray ducks behind the car to stay back, and Mikey comes over to join us at the elevator door. He presses the button to bring the elevator down to us, then we all get out of the way so that if anyone’s in there when it opens, they’ll get a little surprise. We wait an agonizing minute before there’s a little ringing note that alerts us that the elevator is here, that’s when I tense, realizing what I’m doing.
The doors take forever to open all the way, but before they do, Party and Frank are already standing in front of them with their guns ready to start firing. Mikey and I come up behind them just before the doors finally reveal the inside of the compartment…
“Alright, this is too easy—and not in the good way,” Frank mutters when we see that the elevator is completely empty.
“Sure you guys don’t wanna take the stairs?” I say lowering my gun some, “We could just bust right in on them, be a lot easier than risking running into them ready to fire at us like this,” I didn’t really think about that when planning it out on the ride here.
“The elevator’s already here,” Party mutters, looking pretty annoyed with me.
“I think the kid’s got a point Party,” Frank says, laying a hand on his shoulder to get him to calm down.
Party glares over at Frank, then back to me, finally he nods and turns to Mikey in a not so pleased tone, “Where’s the stairway?”
“That way,” Mikey says, pointing down the aisle leading down the rows of bright Killjoy cars.
“Alright,” Party says looking in the direction Mikey points. He moves for the elevator and reaches in, “We’ll send this back up, see if gets them out of there so we can ambush ‘em.”
The door closes as we head down the aisle for the stairwell, and I catch Ray giving us a confused look as Party opens up the door to the stairs. So as the others start filing up the stairs, I turn back to give Ray a thumbs up, and give him a small smile to let him know we’ll be fine. He looks a little shocked, like he wasn’t expecting someone to even look back at him, but he gives me a thumbs up too before I disappear up the steps.
I tip-toe up the stairs, catching up to the others quickly seeing as they’re going at a snail’s pace up these steps. I make sure I have my safety off, then look back up to see that we’ve come to the door that’ll lead us into the watch room where the Dracs are waiting. I strain my ears to listen for the slight sounds of movement coming from the room, but all I hear is the quick breathing of the others—and the thumping of my heart as the moment to prove myself comes closer.
Part 59: http://www.mychemicalromance.com/blog/zone-specter/danger-days-part-59
