027

"Show them what you are able to do, not as the daughter of Harm, but as your own person!"

Jack's words flashed into her mind and her instincts took over. In the blink of an eye, thee weapon of the security guard was laying on the ground, a second later the man himself followed. She did it! She never needed to use such strategies in tournaments. There no one fought with guns, and it was also not necessary to make the opponent unconscious. Her teacher always told her, that such techniques should only be used in life threatening situations, because if used wrong her opponent could die. Remembering this, she panicked and checked the pulse of the motionless man lying on the ground.

He was still alive. Melody felt as if a huge weight was taken of her. Still, she needed to be quick. She pulled the man into the storeroom and with some rope that was stored in the room, she bound his hands and feet together, as well as his mouth so he couldn't cry out for help. She felt dirty doing such a thing, but it was necessary.

This time she first put her ear close to the door, trying to make out if someone was in front of it. Just as she thought there was no one in the hallway and she was good to go, she heard a voice that scared her to death. But then she realized it was coming from the man, more specifically his radio.

She quickly grabbed it and listened in on the situation. They were speaking in some sort of code Melody couldn't understand, but after a minute of trying to understand what was going on, she finally understood. They were giving away their position! She now only needed to find out what each number meant!

She spend five minutes on it, then she understood. The numbers were referring to the hallways they were in, the floor and the building. Melody let out a scream of job into her hands so it was muffled. She hit the Jackpot! She only needed to figure out where she was herself and then she would glide through the guards without them ever noticing her. She had already made a map of the buildings in her head, so now she just needed to place the guards to their current positions. For Melody things like imagining a 3D map of multiple buildings and placing moving objects in it were not a problem. In fact things like that were her strongest weapon, if you could call it one.

After a short while the guy she knocked out was addressed and asked to confirm his position. Now everything needed to be quick. Melody would need to get her current position out of this, however with the guard not answering, this would mean that she only had a little bit of time before they would grasp what the situation was.

- Delta 3 are you still on 16c 46 3? Please confirm your position delta 3.

YES! That was all Melody needed, now she knew what to do. She grabbed the radio and headed out the hallway, being confident about not getting caught. The whole building was a labyrinth and even though Melody had a "map" of it in her head, it wasn't a complete map. It was like a puzzle that was thirty per cent completed, and she needed to get the full picture with just that. Sometimes she needed to take leaps of fate, but her biggest advantage was the position of the guards. Every time one of them was approaching Melody's position, she hid in one of the many rooms and each time she did, Melody was fascinated. They were all different, in size, colour of the walls and in their interior decoration.

There were multiple meeting rooms and offices, however they were all empty and abandoned. She knew that they were because Harm ordered everyone working away except for the guards, otherwise he would have been found out a long time ago.

Yet those weren't the only rooms. There was a room filled with paintings, one that had a huge aquarium in it, while another one seemed to have just storage in it that was going on for longer than what Melody was able to see. Some of the rooms where research facilities and some seemed to be server rooms. Each time she entered one of those she got excited, however in the end it always turned out to not be the main server.

Melody had lost a sense of time when she finally entered the floor on which the main server was supposed to be. She changed the building and floor so many times that she had no idea on how to get back, however she couldn't worry about that. Right now there was the problem of how to get through this many guards. The other problem was, that a while back the message about an intruder got out, so they knew about her being around. She hid in yet another room and tried to contact Jack.

- Jack! I need help, there are too many guards... What should I do?

- How many exactly?

Jack's answer came immediately, it seemed as if he was waiting for her to call him this whole time. Which was really sweet, but Melody couldn't get distracted so she dismissed all of those thoughts for the moment.

- I could spot over ten guards, I don't know the exact number though...

- That's okay. Give me some time to think about it...

- I'll wait.

A minute had passed when Jack finally said something again.

- Okay, so here is what you are going to do. I will buy you time. The guards should leave, however there will probably still be a few left. You will need to handle them on your own.

- On my own? But I don't know if-

- Melody. You got this, because I put my faith in you. And I don't trust some person with no talent. You will do it. Good luck Melody.

- You too!

But Jack didn't hear her. He was getting ready himself for what was about to happen.

From her hiding place Melody could hear the footsteps of the security guards leaving their position. She didn't know how Jack managed to do this, however she had a very bad feeling about this whole plan of his. She opened the door a crack to spy on the remaining guards. It was just as Jack predicted, two guards were left behind, protecting the huge iron door.

- Okay Melody, you can do it. Believe in your abilities...

She got out of her hiding spot and ran toward the guards. If she was able to close the gap between herself and them, she would be able to knock them both out. The guards were quick to pull out their guns and began shooting.

BANG

- ARGHHH

Melody screamed out in agony. Her left arm was hit by the bullet, nevertheless she continued running and reached the two men before a second shot was fired. She quickly put herself behind the first guard and kicked into his fibula with all her might. To support him falling, she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back, leaving him to fall at an angle that just looking at was painful. He screamed out with tears in his eyes, however he suddenly stopped.

BANG

His partner shot at him trying to hit Melody, who was able to dodge the bullet that went straight to the first guards head. If she had moved just a second later, the guard wouldn't have been the only one lying dead on the ground. Her new opponent clicked his tongue and pointed the gun at Melody, ready to finish her off, not given a second thought to his partner he had just murdered.

Jack warned her that the highest security personnel showed no mercy and was ready for suicide in extreme cases. Still to actually see it happen made Melody realize just how much of a monster her father was in the first place... How could it be they were related? Would she also become a monster just like him one day, losing her humanity?

All these thoughts flashed through her head in the fraction of a second. She would need to act now, no hesitation could be tolerated. She pushed her hands forward, one farther than the other, in the middle of them the gun pointed at her. She pushed them together as fast as she could and thus snapped the gun out of the grasps of the murderer before her.

While he was still shocked by what happened, Melody used all her strength to hit both his ears. He dropped on the floor not moving a muscle. He should be passed out for about an hour, this should be enough. Melody looked at the big iron door, still pumped full of adrenaline. She was lucky it was this way, because of this she felt no pain in her arm even though she constantly lost blood.

She ripped her dress apart and used the piece of clothing to patch up her arm as best as she could. She decided to work as quickly as she could, for as long her arm would still hold up. She had no idea when the pain would begin to kick in again, however once it did she needed to have all the information they would need for their plan to work.

- Now I am under even more time pressure, great...

She grid her teeth together and grabbed the key from the dead guard, opened the door and stood before the huge room, made especially for Harm Incorporated main server. She did it. Now she needed to brute force her way through all the security measures, however she had prepared for that together with Elisabeth. The hardest part was done.

- Let's get to it, shall we?