14. Rescue
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Four gunshots thunder at the parking lot; hitting me right in the chest as I immediately stumble into the ground, groaning in pain. The next thing I know is that the van has sped away, merging into traffic as they fled. Laying flat on the ground, I flip myself into my back as I try to ease the pain from the shots.
Damn that fucking hurt...
As I lay on the ground, groaning; someone cries out my name. "BLAZE!" Kneeling at my side, Kayla looks at me with tears in her eyes.
Huh, I never expect that someone like Kayla would cry for me.
"Wh-What should I do!? Y-You've been shot!?" Kayla shouts. Her hands, shaking from the fear and adrenaline as she holds onto my shirt
As much as I like to lay down here and nurse the pain, I have to go save them. AI, how am I doing?
That's good to hear. Numb the pain.
A few seconds later, the pain from my chest has receded. With the pain now gone, I raise my numb body before sitting upright.
"H-Hey!? Why are you getting up!? Y-You've been shot multiple times!" Kayla shouts in surprise, her blue eyes that are wet with tears stare at me in disbelief.
As I undo the buttons on my uniform, Kayla suddenly yells at me. "W-Why are you taking off your uniform!?"
When I remove the last button, I reveal my bulletproof vest over my undershirt.
"H-Huh? W-What are you wearing?" Kayla asks as she looks at my black vest with four bullets sticking out.
"A bulletproof vest. This thing saved my life multiple times."
Kayla suddenly turns silent. The sounds of sirens get louder as it approaches our location.
"Kayla? Are you alright?" I say as I place a hand on her shoulder.
"You idiot! Don't scare me like that!" She yells, banging on my numb chest with her fist.
"Hey! Calm down!" I say as I grab her wrists. "I just got shot you know!"
"S-Sorry! It's just… scary."
I let out a sigh of relief. Letting go of Kayla's wrist, I pat her head that is covered with silky smooth white-blond hair. "It's alright. It's my job to keep you safe."
Two minutes later, multiple police cars arrive.
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Handcuffed to the chairs back to back, Ivy and Jay assess their situation. They are held inside a room that has no window, full of boxes and neglected equipment that has accumulated dust, and only a single LED lamp that's lighting up the room.
"Are you alright?" Ivy asks.
"Yeah, I'm alright. The taser still stings, but it's manageable." Jay replies.
Ivy sighs. "That's good to hear."
Suddenly, the old automatic door slides open, showing an all too familiar face.
"Brendan!? You're the one who kidnapped us!? Let us go you fucker!" Jay yells as she rattles the handcuff.
"Hey, there chocolate. I see you're still feisty as ever," Brendan says with a grin.
"Piss off fuckface! I hope it doesn't cost much to fix your ugly ass nose!" Jay retorts.
"You bitch!" Grabbing the pistol behind his pants, he pulls it out and places the barrel on Jay's forehead. "Do you want a fucking hole on your head!? That fucker cost me 2 thousand credits to fix my nose!"
"W-Wait!" Ivy shouts. "C-Can you please tell us why you're doing this!? Also what happened to Blaze and Kay!?"
"Ha– Hahaha!" Brendan laughs maniacally before shouting, "For revenge! It was so worth it to see him desperately trying to save you both before I shot him to death!" He says while laughing continuously.
"W-Wait… w-what did you say?" Jay's voice shakes as she asks.
"I killed him! I shot him so many times in the chest that he's not going to survive that! The surprise on his face when I pointed the gun was brilliant! Just Brilliant!"
"Y-You must be fucking joking! Y-You must have m-missed your shots! R-Right!" Jay desperately shouts.
Ivy, who was staring downwards, spoke. "H-He's not lying… I-I saw Blaze got shot… he went down… I'm sorry…" Tears start flowing down Ivy's eyes.
"Seriously? You're crying because of a mutt!? Don't make me laugh!" Brendan grins as he tries to hold a chuckle.
"You monster! Coward! I'm going fucking kill you!" Jay angrily shouts as she forcefully pulls the handcuff, making it dig into her wrist.
"You're just wasting energy bitch. How about I teach you a lesson." With a sinister smile, Brendan takes out a knife from his pocket. With a press of a switch, the blade pops out of the handle.
"What are you gonna do fucker!? Stab me!?"
"No, I'm going to start playing with you."
With the knife in his hand, Brendan walks over to Jay and starts tracing the flat side of the blade on Jay's tan skin and parts of her clothes. With sweat forming on her skin, Jay resists the urge to twitch with the knife gliding on her neck down to her arm. After a few seconds of caressing the knife on Jay's body, Brendan places the edge of the blade on the button of her uniform and starts cutting them one by one.
"F-Fucker! S-Stop it!" Jay yells, still resisting the urge to move to avoid being accidentally cut by the knife.
"W-What are you doing to her!? S-Stop it! Please!" Ivy begs.
Ignoring Ivy's plea, Brendan catches the last button on Jay's uniform, cutting the last thread as the button falls and rattles on the floor; revealing Jay's toned abdomen and a white bra covering her breast.
"For such a bitch, you have a great body," Brendan comments.
"Go burn in hell!"
With her uniform out of the way, Brendan hooks his knife on the front strap of Jay's bra.
"N-No! Don't cut it!"
Gradually exerting force, the blade slowly starts cutting the fiber on Jay's bra until— the door of the room suddenly slides open.
"S-Sir!" A man at the doorway calls.
"Goddammit! What!? I told you to not fucking disturb me!" Brendan angry yells as he removes the blade from the strap, almost cutting it off. Jay sighs in relief.
"S-Sorry sir! But the police found us!"
"What!? How the fuck did they found us!?" Brendan storms out of the room.
Suddenly, the lights went out.
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When the Chief arrived at the scene, I immediately told him the situation as a crowd of people started to gather. After that, I asked him to let me use his onboard police console on his cruiser. Accessing my account on the police database, I open Aurora city's camera system. As I navigate the system's interface, I open all the cameras in the general vicinity.
AI, search for the van.
In a few seconds, the TBCI located the van on the camera. As the van speeds through traffic, it heads towards an underground tunnel. When it enters, I switch to the camera in the tunnel to see the van driving through it. After a few minutes of driving in the tunnel, the van is nearing the exit. When I switched to a camera that's looking at the tunnel's exit, the van didn't appear.
"Where did that bugger go?" Chief Eileth comments as he watches the console.
"Are there any paths in the tunnel other than this?" I ask.
"No. I drove there multiple times and I haven't seen any path for a car other than the two ends of the tunnel. You can check the schematics and you'll see no other way for cars to pass." True to his word, I don't see any paths on the schematic for cars to enter other than a few for personnel doorways.
There's only one reason they can just vanish without a trace. AI, access military satellites overhead the city.
I never thought I would use this other than military operations.
Now with access to the satellite, I switch to thermals and scan the exit of the tunnel. After scanning, I notice a heat signature moving on the road without showing on the city's camera system.
"Found them," I say as I set the thermals on the satellite to track the van in tandem with the city camera.
"They're invisible? How did they manage to do that?" Chief Eileth asks as he watches the thermals and the city camera following the supposed van driving on the road.
"Optical camouflage."
"Optical camouflage? Aren't those only used by the military?"
"They are. It's illegal to use this kind of equipment outside of military use. There must be some kind of dealer selling military equipment."
"Well, that's damn concerning. If the wrong people get their hands on this stuff, it's going to be a headache solving crimes."
Now that I managed to track them down, I sent the live feed from the satellite and camera to my HUD.
"I'll be going now. I have to go rescue them," I say as I finish using the console and head to my car.
"You're going by yourself, again?" Chief Eileth says, scratching his shaggy mane.
I gave a thumbs-up as I walked to my car. "Can you watch over Kayla for me?"
Chief Eileth sighs. "Fine, I'll keep her safe. I'll be sending you back up when we're ready.
"Thanks."
Opening the trunk of my car, I took off my vest that was shot and placed it in the trunk. Reaching the bottom of the trunk, I pull out a panel revealing a multitude of equipment from ammo, a bullpup assault rifle, military vest, and other items; a tiny armory at the back of my trunk. Taking a new vest out of the trunk, I wear it over my undershirt and put on my bullet-ridden uniform over it. With that done, I close the panel and shut the trunk.
As I was about to get into my car, Kayla suddenly called out to me. "Wait!" When Kayla runs up to me, she passes me a little zulaith toy plushie that somehow evokes a sense of odd familiarity. "Here!"
A zulaith plushie? Why would she have this?
When I examine the plushie, the red fur color on it has slightly faded as time has weathered the dye.
"What's this?" I ask.
"It's something I got from a friend when I came here; a lucky charm," Kayla says.
I chuckle at the thought that Kayla gave me a "lucky charm" when I'm about to head into a den of criminals armed with guns.
"What's so funny!?" Kayla angrily yells when she saw me chuckling.
"Nothing. It was cute of you to give this as my lucky charm."
"Idiot! Now go save Ivy and your club mate or whatever!"
"Roger that."
I got in the car, reversed out of my parking spot, and merged into traffic; tracking the invisible van's position with the thermal satellite feed.
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As I park my car between an alleyway, I grab a binocular from the glovebox and recon the area. When I found a suitable spot, I scanned the warehouse that the van entered. With the sea breeze hitting my fur, I sat atop a hill that's near the coast, scanning the abandoned docks where the warehouse is located. Like most unreclaimed parts of the city, the post-war damage is a constant reminder of the past. When the sun has set at the horizon and night has covered the sky, I begin my move.
Using my enhanced night vision, I head to the warehouse in relative darkness. With only a single LED lamp above the door illuminating the outside, I sneak around the back where the light couldn't reach. When I reach the back of the warehouse, I spot a hydrogen generator running. With an idea popping into my mind, I spoke to my AI subconsciously.
Hack into the control system of the generator.
With that finish, I walk over to the backdoor of the warehouse. As suspected, the console on the door is locked. With a quick hack by the TBCI, the door slides open. Sneaking into the building, I spot three humans and one zulaith playing handheld consoles while chatting.
"Dang that dude's an asshole." One of the human's comments.
The second human quickly hushes him. "Shhh, don't let him hear you. He might be an a-hole but he's still paying us big credits."
"Don't worry, he's not going to hear you with him playing with the girls downstairs," The third comment.
"B-But what about the police? W-Wouldn't they track the van? H-He did kill someone," The feline zulaith asks, slightly scared.
"Stop being a scaredy-cat! They won't catch us!" The first says.
"The van you drove has an optical camo installed. The camera can't track us if they can't see us," The third replies.
"Still…" Before the zulaith could reply, a police drone hovered in front of the warehouse's window, its speakers booming commands in an electronic voice.
The four kidnappers quickly stood up from their chairs as the drone shone a spotlight through the window.
"Fuck! How the hell did they find us so quickly!" The second comments as he heads into the van.
"Tell the boss that we need to get the fuck out now! Hey, furball! Get the van started!" The third guy orders as he grabs something from a locker.
The second guy complies and runs down the stairs while the zulaith gets into the driver seat to start the van. Using the confusion, I sneak past them and head to the stairs, following the guy who ran down. As I went down the stairs, I heard the guy running here talking to someone. When I reached a corner at the bottom of the stairs, I shut down the electricity.
Shut the generator.
With my command, the light immediately goes out. Under the cover of darkness, I grab an injector pen from my pocket, remove the safety cap, and quietly walk towards the blind and panicking kidnappers. When I reach one of them, I cover his mouth from behind before plunging the injector on his neck; unloading a quick-acting anesthetic into his vein. Without even grunting, the guy immediately goes limp before I place him on the ground without making a sound.
With him knocked out, I looked at the companion he tried to warn.
"Shit!" He curses as he tries to grab his phone from his pocket.
Switch the generator back on.
As quickly as the light went out, a flash of artificial light illuminates the surrounding; blinding him for a split second.
"I wonder where you've been," I say as I point my gun at him.
When his eyes adjust to the light, a look of surprise is etched on Brendan's face. "Wh-What!? Ho-How are you still fucking alive!?"
"Thanks to you I got holes on my uniform, but luckily I don't have any on my body. Surrender and get on the ground!"
"Tsk!" With a click of his tongue, he immediately moves his hand towards his back. Before Brendan could pull his gun out, I quickly pulled the trigger.
BANG!
"Arrgghhh!" He shouts in pain as the bullet impacts his shoulder; ripping muscles and smashing bones as blood starts streaming out of his wound. The gun he tried to grab clatters on the floor as his arm went limp. Collapsing on his knee, Brendan places his hand over the wound, panting and groaning in pain. "Fuck!" I cautiously walk towards him and grab the gun from the floor. After securing the gun, I kneel beside him and grab a bottle of EFAS or Emergency First Aid Sealant from my pocket; spraying the content on his gunshot wound.
A few seconds later, a foam-like substance formed on his wound and stopped the bleeding. After making sure the foam has completely stopped the bleeding, I grab zip ties from my pocket and bound his wrist and ankles. With Brendan out of the way, I head into the room beside me. With my gun drawn, I quickly head into the room to find Ivy and Jay bound on chairs.
"B-Blaze?" With teary eyes, Ivy looked at me with relief when she saw me. "Y-Your alive! I-I'm so glad you're safe!"
"T-This isn't a dream, right? Y-Your still alive?" Jay asks in a ragged breath.
"Yeah, I'm still alive. I'm here to rescue you two."