The Icebox - 20. The Second Mission

Zafiro

 

I see Zee watching me from the corner of my eye.

 

It has been a quiet few days.

 

I take it Anjak has told everyone what happened. Now they are too scared to speak to me. Not even Gus has shown up and he’s usually the sweetheart.

 

“We were right.”

 

My jaw clenches and I grip onto the straps across my chest.

 

We’re headed for our next mission.

 

I don’t even want to go this time. I don’t want to be here with these people!

 

Eh, I suppose I technically won’t be.

 

Things are different this time.

 

Henson said I am going to be in the lady’s group now.

 

He’s clearly insane. She absolutely hates me!

 

I don’t even remember where I’ve seen her before!

 

“Does it matter?”

“It’s not like she cares about you either.”

 

Massaging the sides of my head, I close my eyes and try to ignore them.

 

Apparently I am going to be helping break down security or something? I don’t entirely remember.

 

Was I killing someone?

I know they mentioned two targets.

 

Right, two people are running this factory.

 

We’re turning off their lock down security and trying to catch the ones in charge before they can fly off.

 

Moon Squad is gonna be breaking in to distract a bit and also keep the launch bay pinned down.

 

I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do in all this honestly.

 

Why am I needed in this group?

 

I get my old habits from before would help but, aren’t I supposed to be with my team?

 

They never said anything about hopping with other U.U.P.P. squadrons.

 

Did I miss something when Henson first explained this whole getup to me?

 

I don’t know anymore. Things are feeling like they are blending in together now.

 

I barely even remember the days between that awful tea and now!

 

All I know is that it has been quiet.

 

When the voices aren’t speaking, it’s like I’m in some soundproofed room and the only thing I can hear is a steady static humming in the background.

 

Visions have gotten a bit crazier.

 

I don’t see Piggy as much, but I have seen what I think is Soul?

 

Every so often I see a glint of metal walking by me and when I check to see who it is, I see a normal person who is definitely not made of metal.

 

Seeing dead friends really brings the mood down.

 

I miss them a lot.

 

“...there is a way to see them…”

 

Sighing to myself, I glance towards the old group.

 

They are chatting amongst themselves. They seem pretty excited to be going out again.

 

Did they ask to separate me from the group? They don’t seem to care that I’m not joining them this time.

 

This fucking sucks!

 

“Why do you always ignore us?”

“We gave you an easy answer and you glossed over it!”

 

I roll my eyes. “Yes, because talking about killing myself is such a fun time!”

 

One of the officers looks at me with concern.

 

At least I think so? They have a helmet on.

 

I smile and knock against the side of my head. “The voices like to tease a lot now!”

 

That’s when that blonde lady stands in front of me.

 

Looking up at her, I shield my eyes from the lights framing her face.

 

“You listen and you listen closely. You are going to do everything I say. If you hesitate for more than a second, I’m pulling your ass out of there.”

 

I snort at her words and wave her off. “Gee, and here I thought I was going on a little trip to the mall!”

 

She shakes her head and puts on a smile. “You’re lucky you’re Henson’s favorite. If it weren’t for him, your life up here would be hell. That I can swear to you.”

 

“You must hate that so much, huh,” I smirk. “You a little sad, daddy-o doesn’t care about you right now?”

 

Blondie stares down at me in silence.

 

“Then take it up with him,” I practically spit up at her.

 

I don’t need to deal with her weird ass drama!

 

I vaguely remember her face the night they caught me but apparently I’m supposed to care about her? I don’t even know her name!

 

Sure I almost killed her in that training session but again…how the hell is that my fault?

 

She moves as if she wants to say something back or even to hit me, but in the end she doesn’t.

 

Her balled up fist goes back to her side and she moves on.

 

As she leaves, I can’t help but feel a little bad.

 

Did I do something to her without realizing it in those years I’ve forgotten?

 

“She’s the one who lashed out first!”

 

I suppose that’s true. I was simply joking around and suddenly she wanted to threaten me?

 

Weird ass officers on this rock.

 

“We’re on a ship.”

 

Right…

 

“Where the fuck are we going,” I narrow my eyes.

 

Henson stands at the door that opens for the ship.

 

“Attention squadrons,” He shouts with a mask held up in his hand. “We will be passing everyone a mask. The air here is poisonous. Unless you are inside that building, do not risk taking it off!”

 

We’re each passed a mask that covers up from our necks to our noses.

 

It reminds me of those veils that cover the bottom half of your face, only these have glowing lines along the sides that lead to skinny tubes of blue fluid.

 

Putting it on, I panic slightly when the material tightens up against my skin.

 

A few others have the same reaction.

 

Fancy!

 

Where the hell are we that we need something like this?

 

“Let’s kill ‘em!”

 

Rolling my eyes, I unbuckle from my seat and move to stand with Blondie’s group of henchmen.

 

She eyes me but then turns to face all of us.

 

“Smooth and silent,” She nods to us. “Everyone is to stick together. If you get caught, you have permission to neutralize any witnesses until their security is disabled.”

 

Well damn.

 

“That means knock them out,” She then says, looking directly at me.

 

I snort and have to hold back a laugh.

 

I was told I’m the one who has to look for the targets up top...I think?

 

Supposedly they are going to be at the top of the building. Is that where I kill them?

 

All I’ll say is I hope she has fun with the paperwork with all these bitches who get in my way.

 

It’s as if she hears me. She stares me down along with everyone else.

 

Rolling my eyes, I groan. “Fine! I’ll play nice!”

 

“As if!”

“They aren’t the boss of us!”

“She actually is.”

 

We are moved into another part of the ship. It’s a lot smaller and we have to hold into handles hanging from the ceiling.

 

I’m pushed to the one closest to the door.

 

They are dropping me off on the roof.

 

Blondie gets into a chair and suddenly we detach from the ship!

 

Gripping tighter on the handle, my eyes widen at a window on the door.

 

Thousands of stars zip through the air. They move like sprinkles of cheese are raining down. A moon drifts by, it glows blue as if there is a blueberry in the raining cheese.

 

I blink and suddenly it’s gone.

 

We are flying over a planet and we are flying down fast. It looks similar to earth, though there are weird patches of purple in the water.

 

There is a lot more around some cloud.

 

Narrowing my eyes, I see us descending down towards it.

 

“We’re going to the dragon’s lair!”

 

I hum in acknowledgement.

 

They did mention we were breaking into a factory. This cloud must be the toxic fumes from it.

 

How the hell did they manage to find this place?

 

People are really walking around with plans happening on other planets? That’s crazy to me.

 

So much goes on, on earth, I wouldn’t even be able to think of managing stuff on multiple planets.

 

Eventually we reach the cloud.

 

The ship shakes and rumbles around as we soar through. There are bolts of electricity bouncing between the puffs of poison.

 

Suddenly it clears and we find ourselves over a giant tower. It is planted in the middle of a factory.

 

I frown as I see carts full of glowing green gems moving around the factory line.

 

It goes from one window to the next.

 

One line of carts exits the factory.

 

There are strange green stones. These ones are carefully placed individually into little boxes.

 

Strange.

 

Not sure what they are doing with those.

 

It definitely isn’t something I recognize.

 

Here I thought Cody was a mastermind but apparently this Burn bitch has got it going on!

 

Wait, are they here?

 

“Maybe.”

 

Eh, probably not.

 

Blondie’s voice comes through my earpiece.

 

“Get ready to jump,” She says. “I’ll give the go ahead when you’re free to go in.”

Pursing my lips, I nod to her words.

 

Stretching my neck, I make sure my equipment is accounted for.

 

All good!

 

The door opens up slowly. Immediately I am assaulted by warm winds to the face.

 

The faint smell of wet, old trash bags then brushes against my nose.

 

Wrinkling my nose in disgust, I shake my head and jump out.

 

As gross as the winds smell, they feel great through my hair.

 

I fall down for a moment, longer than I need to. The rush of flying through the air makes my heart leap with excitement!

 

Quickly, I aim my hand for the roof.

 

Pressing the button on my pointer finger, a grapple hook shoots out and quickly latches onto the building.

 

I swing and end up running along the side of the tower. I then extend the metal claws in my gloves and grab onto the wall to stabilize myself.

 

Looking up towards the sky, all I see are those nasty clouds.

 

I then notice what looks like a screen flying through the air.

 

It’s Blondie’s ship. Turns out it can go invisible!

 

Well that’s handy.

 

I would love to get my hands on the tech they used for that!

 

As I bring myself up, I freeze when I realize I finally had a moment where I felt like my normal self!

 

I wanted to steal something again!

 

Holy shit I could cry! It’s been so long!

 

“Meh. This’ll pass.”

“Who knows though!”

 

Peeking over the top of the roof, I see it is nice and empty.

 

It has a small ship parked here.

 

That will mean there must be a camera around here.

 

Using my grapple hook, I swing to each side of the tower, careful to look for a camera watching over the roof.

 

Eventually I find one attached to a door leading inside.

 

I figure the easiest thing to do while I wait is lounge on top of the entrance.

 

Climbing on top, I lay back on it and stare up at the clouds.

 

Seeing random parts glow from the jolts of electricity is rather pretty.

 

They start making patterns and shapes as if I’m looking through a kaleidoscope.

 

I reach out with a finger to trace along some of the shapes.

 

They even seem to react to my finger! They move around my hand like bubbles in water!

 

So cool!

 

As they swirl around, I swear it looks as if some of the clouds are forming little cute faces.

 

They smile and almost look like they are laughing as I brush them around gently.

 

I laugh as they flip around when I push them a little harder.

 

“I said get in there!”

 

Blondie’s voice screeches into my ear, making my wince.

 

As I blink, the faces and shapes disappear.

 

Frowning, I groan in annoyance and lazily roll of the entrance.

 

~~~

 

Alexa Hunter

 

After the brat jumps, I circle us around to make sure he doesn’t immediately die and make this mission ten times harder.

 

Once I see him latch onto the tower, I bring us a bit lower and carefully latch the underside of my ship against the tower.

 

From what my scouts have scanned, we should be right below the floor with security.

 

Glancing up towards the top of the tower, I see that idiot swinging around.

 

Rubbing the sides of my head, I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

 

If this goes sour, this is all on Henson. I swear to god he better hope his little idea works out!

 

“Deep breaths.”

 

The Interviewer’s voice rings in my head.

 

Yeah I need to stay calm. I will not let this bastard get to me!

 

Clearing my throat, I step off my chair and walk back to my group.

 

“Let’s get this show started,” I say, still feeling annoyed.

 

Someone nudges my side. “We got this, boss.”

 

Nodding along, I press the button that opens a small door in the middle of the floor.

 

“Yeah we do,” I say.

 

Two of my men pull out their torches and carve a hole for us to slip through.

 

They pull the piece of the wall into the ship and I crouch down to jump through.

 

Gravity from the ship makes the change awkward, but I land on my feet.

 

The others follow through when I give them the go ahead.

 

It’s clear for now.

 

One of my men stays behind in case something happens.

 

Pulling up my gun, I move down the hallway towards the stairway in the middle.

 

There are about two people in uniform standing near a printer. They somehow still haven’t even seen us come in.

 

Not bothering to aim for them, I walk past and keep my eyes on the stairs, waiting for someone to possibly come down.

 

I hear my boys knocking them out behind me.

 

Reaching the stairs, I see it is still clear.

 

Going up, I find myself faced with a set of doors. One is cracked open to reveal the inside to me.

 

I smile when I see our sources were good.

 

Inside are rows of tables with computers and a wall full of screens watchings over the facility.

 

I frown when I notice there is a small group staring at the camera feed.

 

My eyes widen when I suddenly see gunfire on two of the screens.

 

It’s that little brat!

 

“Fuck,” I say to myself and quickly get inside.

 

So much for keeping things quiet.

 

I run through, vaulting over the tables and opening fire on these shitheads!

 

Blue bolts fly from behind me, taking out the group fairly quickly.

 

I let my men take care of them, making sure none of them died from these stun guns.

 

They should be fine.

 

We were far enough where none of the shots would’ve been lethal.

 

Pulling up to one of the computers near the wall, I stick the hacking device onto it.

 

A blue bar begins to slowly build up.

 

“We’re clear for now,” An officer calls.

 

Nodding to him, I slap another device into the computer next to me.

 

This one wasn’t exactly part of the plan.

 

Call it my plan b.

 

It already seems like it was a good idea based on what the fuck I’m seeing on these cameras.

 

My head throbs in anger as I watch this kid dancing around like this is some game.

 

I watch him fire his pistols perfectly. Each shot hits something. He never misses and that only makes me more angry.

 

The thing that gets to me is that I know he’s not even being as dangerous as he can be.

 

I’ll never forget that night he killed my friends. That rain of bullets was as natural as his eyes.

 

Perhaps the worst is that we trained him.

 

He flips in the air, dodging bullets, before he swings his metal pole into someone’s leg.

 

My gut twists watching the leg bend in a way it shouldn’t.

 

God dammit! I told him to be careful!

 

A beep goes off as the security system gets shut down.

 

I motion for the rest to get moving and they instantly spring into action.

 

I radio to Henson that he’s clear to attack now.

 

“Heard,” He calls back.

 

Suddenly the tower shakes as bombs go off down below. I think they are bombs? It might’ve been that freak with the glowing feet. Actually it was probably that one with the weird glowing lanterns or whatever.

 

As my guys leave the room, another beep goes off as all the data stored in the computers here is conveniently placed onto my fancy hard drive.

 

Pocketing it, I turn to lock the doors but then I see my men moving in on the cameras.

 

They stun down everyone who crosses their path.

 

Everything looks to be going smoothly on their end.

 

I blink in surprise when one of the cameras turns red.

 

I watch Zafiro sprinting down a hallway with his pistols blasting.

 

When he runs, it’s almost like someone has sped up a video.

 

He runs so fast, the camera can barely catch him between frames.

 

Narrowing my eyes, I realize his bullets are glowing when they shoot from his guns.

 

“Zafiro,” I yell into my mic! “Put that stun setting back on, right fucking now!”

 

He ignores me.

 

Plastered on his face is a scary smile that is having too much joy in what he is doing right now.

 

“Don’t make me ask you again, you little brat,” I growl and pull out my phone.

 

I quickly pull up the button controlling his collar.

 

My heart practically stops as I see him leap onto one of the targets. He pins the man down by standing on him with his foot on his chest.

 

His gun aims for the man’s head and I slam my finger over the button.

 

Blood splatters across the floor.

 

Zafiro twitches and claws at the collar on his neck before he falls backwards onto the floor.

 

Two of my men pin him onto the ground with his hand behind his back.

 

Sighing, I curse under my breath and stare at the bodies littered around the floor with blood pools around them.

 

Why would he do this? Why would he go out of his way to kill these people?

 

“We’ve got the other target, boss,” An officer says.

 

I breathe a sigh of relief and fall back into a chair.

 

At least we got one.

 

It doesn’t change the fact that we unleashed a disaster.

 

That’s going to be a lot of paperwork.

 

I sure as hell won’t be doing it. This is all on Henson!

 

Glaring at a passed out Zafiro, I move to meet with my team.

 

I told them this was going to happen!

 

I hate being right.