Well Intentioned Misdirection / 2 /

That was how Blink said things would go. Console Ghost would pay for anything that Jonathan broke that did not belong to Those On High. To Jonathan that meant to target the Security Force and Golden Lion insignias but Blink had meant it as a warning to not cause too much collateral damage. Fortunately for Console Ghost, the car was the only planned piece of collateral damage.

The sleek body of the car held no bearing on the security measures held within. Jonathan had no trouble opening up the dash and re-assigning circuit values so that it would respond to his controls. The owner should be ashamed of themselves. Leaving such a fine hover car here with such cripplingly bad security. They were too trusting to leave such a beautiful vehicle barely guarded on the top floor of a parking garage. Jonathan stepped away from the hover car and pulled a small tablet from his pocket. With it he began to plot a course for the hover car.

Blink had programmed the tablet for him. All he had to do was draw the course on a digital map; Console Ghost's programming would do the rest. By the time that Jonathan reached the bottom floor of the parking garage and stepped out into the courtyard, the hover car was already drawing attention. The plotted course was sporadic. It was chaotic. Considering how close it was to the Lift, it was the kind of flying that would gain the attention of the Security Force. Jonathan watched the hover car, thirty feet overhead spinning in half circles before stopping and reversing direction like it was being manipulated by a gigantic, invisible child.

The courtyard had cleared. People were watching from nearby windows. Two Security Force drones were already skirting the perimeter to provide video so that a strategy could be devised by someone too far away. They would know that the hover car was empty. They would've already tried to hack into it remotely.

They probably already notified the unfortunate owner of their car's actions to try and figure out a way to stop it. Jonathan hid at the corner of a building and smiled as the Security Force drones got closer to the hover car. There was only one way this would end. Only one place that hover car would stop. He was standing ten paces away from it hidden behind a solid concrete corner.

There was a squad walking out of the Lift's front gate, Jonathan smiled as he noticed them. It was time to start the fireworks. With a quick jab at a pre-programmed command on the tablet, the hover car shot up twenty more feet into the air before it went dark and started to fall. The hatch opened and the fuel cell discharged all of its juice into the air.

A spark that the hover car thought was an attempt at re-ignition sent the car hurtling from the edge of a fireball to collide against the concrete that Jonathan sat safely behind. Jonathan was covered in a fine layer of gray dust from the explosion and the collision, but he was otherwise unphased as the hover car lay broken on the ground ten paces away. Security Force was already on site, the squad that Jonathan had noticed was just one of three now. The odds were not in his favor but Jonathan had the element of surprise on his side.

Two of the squads moved in to survey the wreckage. The two drones overhead were damaged by the explosion but they still limped down through the sky to provide assistance. Still hidden behind the corner, Jonathan waited until the Security Force had the hover car thoroughly surrounded before he pressed one final button on the tablet. The pulse that radiated from the car was not a true EMP, instead it was a Haywire Bomb. Technology would still work but unreliably. It was enough to drop the two damaged drones from the sky. Jonathan slipped the tablet into a pocket and turned the corner. He made his presence known by catching one of the falling drones and hurling it across the courtyard to where the third squad was waiting as support.

From then it was chaos, it was difficult to track exactly what was going on, but Jonathan moved with purpose and fought aggressively. The armor plating deflected bullets from two different service pistols before he was too close to avoid friendly fire. The Security Force squads fell back on their training and drew batons. Unfortunately for them, Jonathan knew their training better than some of them might. By the time he had broken a few bones and rattled a few brains, Jonathan was beginning to notice the thinning of the herd.

It was not due to his efforts; the members of the Security Force were pulling back. Only those blinded by rage, ego or inexperience were still engaging him. As Jonathan dropped the last of them to the ground, he found himself standing alone in the center of the courtyard as the mechanical whirring of a Security Force drop-ship made its way closer.

Four rotors, six jets; the Security Force drop-ships were terrifying to watch as they blasted through Clifton with the grace of a dancer. Known for carrying any combination of men, heavy equipment, and weaponry; the drop-ship usually spelled the end for whatever resistance called for its presence. Jonathan had been on three drop-ships in his time, each one ended badly for his targets. In everything that he had anticipated, a drop-ship was not on the list. As it came to touch down on the opposite end of the courtyard from the Lift, Jonathan realized that he was now boxed in between the drop-ship and the almost three Security Force squads.

The calculations of men and machine that would come from the drop-ship became irrelevant as the bay opened up and a single man in a clean suit came walking down into the courtyard. Rook had his hands raised, a sign of trust that meant nothing in a world where Agents could materialize guns from nanites on their wrists or under their skin.

The crisp black suit that he wore looked freshly made, too clean to exist. Jonathan drew the stun gun that Blink had given him. It was an odd coupling. Jonathan was dirty, covered in concrete dust and sweat. Rook was clean, the image of Those On High. Jonathan carried a weapon openly but knew that he could not win this fight whereas Rook had his hands raised in surrender even though he could order Jonathan's death with a nod or inflict it with a thought.

Rook might have caught Jonathan off guard with his presence, but in truth it was more welcomed to see his old partner than it was to face off against fifty or so men that could have come piling out of the drop-ship. The fact that he came alone spoke to the men that Rook must answer to, not only did they send a drop-ship for Jonathan but they sent Rook alone in it. All it said to Jonathan was one word: Power. Rook's employer could move the earth beneath Jonathan's feet.

Unfortunately for Rook, Console Ghost had equipped Jonathan with a measure of escape. It would not be perfect or pretty, but as Jonathan pulled the power core from his jacket and hefted it in his left hand, he felt the temperature of the air drop as everyone watching took a breath.

Back when Jonathan had been in the Security Force, the locker room talk would be full of tales on how everything slowed down as a situation spun out of control. According to the tellers, there was a detached sense of self that came over them. They knew what was going on, they knew what to do, and everything slowed down so that they could focus. It had always sounded like performance enhancers to Jonathan.

He kept his head down, he kept moving, and the world was like a river rushing around him when things went sideways. Now he wondered if it had just been his recklessness that made him feel that way. Now that he was standing still, Security Force behind him, Rook ahead, and a unstable power core in hand, everything seemed to slow down. Everything screamed that this was a bad idea. Power cores were highly explosive under the wrong conditions, they had the ability to arc their power to nearby cores. If those cores were not shielded, it would create a chain reaction that could tear a quarter of Raven Rock apart.

As time slowed down, Jonathan ran through the conditions around him. A lot of them were turning up bad in his mind. If there was a single power core on that drop-ship that was improperly shielded, if someone standing too close to a window had a pacemaker… Time slammed back to full speed like a magazine being loaded into a gun, Jonathan racked the metaphorical slide with a smile.

His partner might not be able to read his mind, but Jonathan knew that Rook was aware of what was about to happen. As soon as the nanite pistol formed in Rook's hand, he fired it twice and shouted as loud as possible, "Everyone get down!"

Hopefully those watching at the windows got away from the windows. Otherwise Console Ghost would be paying some serious medical bills. Jonathan did not wait to see if the coast was clear though. No one watched as Jonathan burst into a spring for the edge of the courtyard. He hurled the power core into the air. Even Rook's eyes left Jonathan and went to the potential bomb. As Jonathan moved, so did Rook; his eyes still glued to the power core. Jonathan was relieved and dismayed when he noticed his old partner was not going for him, instead he was going to catch the power core.

A frown crept onto Jonathan face as he stopped short of the edge of the courtyard and turned on his heel. Without thought, he raised the stun gun. He pulled the trigger, the charged prongs of the stun gun blast forth through the air as they tracked over the courtyard in parallel lines. They struck the power core just before it hit the ground at Rook's feet, the electrical burst tossed Rook onto his back.

It was better than the fireball that would have killed him. Rook must have ordered something into the comms from his back, because the shocked Security Force members were rustling each other from cover and looking in his direction. Rook must have authorized lethal force because a few were holstering their pistols and drawing rifles down on him. Jonathan did not stay to find out about their aim.

Jonathan led them on a merry chase through Raven Rock. The radio chatter would let Console Ghost know what was going all. It was all up to them now, he could run but he would never truly escape on his own. He had been on the other side enough times to know how relentless his pursuers would be. After all, he had almost blown them up. He had threatened everything, there was no way they would let him walk away.

As he ran, Jonathan began to wonder. Would Console Ghost see his disarming of the power core as a way to avoid casualties and not a sign to cast him aside as untrustworthy? He did not have long to consider the possibilities.

A homeless looking boy stepped out in front of Jonathan and pointed down an alley to Jonathan's right. Following the homeless boy's direction, Jonathan kept running. At the end of the alley, Jonathan felt trapped for just a moment. Then he noticed the manhole at his feet. He left the Security Force behind and dropped from Raven Rock into the pipes that separated it from Bleak Barrow.

His feet hit the metal grate at the bottom of the shaft, metal rang out all around him. Once the noise stopped, Jonathan looked up to find Blink and Switch waiting for him. Blink smiled, "Congratulations, you passed."

As they walked down the metal grate, surrounded by pipes and wires of all kinds, Jonathan cleared his throat. "So… were you guys even watching?"

"Yeah." Switch answered, "The whole time. You did a real great thing today."

"Really…" Jonathan nodded, his eyes stuck on a Concession bag that Blink was carrying, "So you just picked up some groceries on the way?"

Blink tried to suppress a chuckle. Switch glared at her. There was something familial between them, brother and sister Jonathan supposed. Switch slowed them to a stop and turned back to Jonathan, "Look, Legend says you did good. I have no idea what you did but while you were doing that we were getting supplies to fix up the med bay. We have sick people that need help. You proved yourself, we got what we needed."

Jonathan nodded, "I was the misdirection."

Blink slapped him on the arm in a somewhat reassuring way. She gave him an honest smile and said, "A well intentioned misdirection, but yeah. We used you as a pawn, just like everyone else."