The trap

The unicorn squad, the radio squad, and the alpha squad had positioned themselves around the truck.

The radio squad was locating the source of the interferences. They estimated that the most substantial interference came from about two kilometers from here.

The unicorn squad was reviewing the map of the police station before heading in and one man of the alpha team.

Finally, the rest of the alpha team was examining the wrecked cars.

They concluded that someone had poured oil on them. Someone had deliberately burned the cars.

Sergent Aster ordered his men to knock on the doors of the nearby buildings to ask the inhabitants what happened, but every door remained locked.

He resolved to send a team into the black hole after Paul confirmed it was only a black hole-type anomaly. Of course, space may be warped in there, and there would be no light, but overall, there shouldn't be any danger.

He tasked two men to go with Altin's group, and the rest of them would stay behind to protect the truck and the radio team. Paul was also staying there due to lacking mobility.

Thanks to Henry's talent and the rest of the squad, comms were temporarily possible in the area, so everyone could reach each other, even from inside the black hole, as they tested immediately.

Presently, Altin, Julien, Eléonore, and the two troopers of the alpha squad stood in front of the black hole.

"Brings back memories?" Julien asked.

"Yeah," Atlin replied. "Bad memories." He added.

Altin remembered the vivid terror he had felt when he became trapped in total darkness along with Paul, at a time when he was yet to know anything.

Now, however, they are prepared against black hole anomalies.

The team of 5 linked each other through a rope as it was now the standard procedure.

They walked into the dark hole and tested the radio.

There was substantially more white noise from inside, but fortunately, they could still reach the radio team and Paul in the truck.

"Kid... your name's Altin, right? Care to make some light?" The trooper at the front asked.

"No problem. And your name is...?" Altin asked.

"Rico. Corporal."

"And I'm Private Marlo, if you remember." The other trooper said.

"Okay." Altin, Eléonore, Julien and Paul acquiesced.

Altin channeled the string energy omnipresent in the darkness to his head, then to his hand; thus, he created an energy gap around him to allow light to propagate again. Without power, the darkness couldn't swallow light anymore.

Then, he transformed the string energy into light so that the team could see around them up to a 5 meters radius. It wasn't too bright, and it was hard to see the colors of the objects around them, but distinguishing shapes was easy.

Unlike before, processing the string energy into light was easy and required almost no effort, so Altin could do that and still do something else, but the darkness was still dense.

With renewed clarity of their surrounding, Altin reckoned they were in the lobby of the police station. It was empty.

"ANYONE HERE? ANYONE?" Corporal Rico shouted.

Silence.

It seemed there was no one left in the police station.

Rico reported this finding through his portable radio on speakers: "Alpha squad. Corporal Rico speaking. Apparently nobody is in the building. I report, nobody in the building."

The response came immediately after. "Copy. Sergent Aster speaking. Continue to investigate. Be careful. Over."

Altin didn't like this one bit.

The team of five went past the corner and entered an open-space room.

It was filled with rows of desks where officers would usually process any requests, claims, or fines.

They paused to look at the desks --

Everything was a mess. Some screens were broken, and the floor was filled with disbanded paperwork.

"Whatever happened here, it seemed they left in a hurry," Julien commented.

"Um." Altin voiced. "Something's puzzling me... eh... Eléonore?"

"The density, right?" Eléonore asked.

"Yes... it's irregular, artificial. As if somebody fed power to the black hole energy at irregular intervals." Altin explained.

It chilled Corporal Rico. "Wait a moment," He said, "you're telling somebody created this black hole? Here? On purpose?"

"Maybe...?" Eléonore and Altin replied together.

The white noise from the radio of Rico became even more intimidating.

The team of five crossed the room and reached the staircase leading upstairs.

It was at that time that the radio came alive again. "Sergent Aster speaking. They are people gathering around us, some even blocking the roads. I... I think some carry weapons. They're staying a reasonable distance away from us for now. How are you doing up there? Copy."

"Copy. We found signs that the place was ransacked. Still nobody." Rico replied.

Sergent Aster urged through the radio: "Ok, have a look at the armory and come back. It should be upstairs. Hurry!"

This situation didn't feel good one bit.

Altin, Eléonore, and Julien had heard everything.

They increased the pace together and quickly climbed the stairs.

A wrenched odor came to their nose.

It grew stronger as they climbed the stairs.

Upon reaching the next floor, they walked into a hall and went straight for the armory.

The smell grew even stronger.

Altin felt Eléonore's and Julien's hands firmly holding his.

Corporal Rico opened the armory door with a light push... it was unlocked but shouldn't have been.

Immediately, the disgusting smell grew many folds.

It was a putrid odor.

The armory was empty of weapons, but it was full...

Of decomposing bodies.

Altin, Julien, and Eléonore struggled not to vomit.

Realization dawned on them. The police station had been attacked.

Then who was in charge?

"Let's go back to the truck A.S.A.P.!!!" Corporal Rico ordered.

He brought the radio to his mouth and spoke: "Alpha squad. The armory is empty. The staff has been killed. We're leaving the station. Copy."

A short silence ensued before the radio returned. "Copy. More people have come. We're fully surrounded now. We've tried to report to HQ, but the jamming goes farther than our range. We can't."

A loud noise rang.

"SHIT! THEY'RE FIRING AT US!! THEY'RE FIRING AT US!!" Sergeant Aster screamed through the radio.

Corporal Rico froze.

For a moment, he was unsure of what to do.

He did not have to think for long.

Then the following message came in from the radio. "THEY'RE TOO MANY. WE'RE RUSHING COVER IN THE POLICE STATION. RICO, STAND GUARD AT THE ENTRANCE. TAKE POS---"

Suddenly, the white noise returned.

Comms were down again.

Adrenaline pulsed through everyone's veins. They had heard distinct gunfire through the radio before it stopped.

To Altin, Julien and Eléonore, one thing mattered most: Paul was in danger.

Everyone rushed to the staircase and climbed down quickly, crossing the wrecked open space again. Then, turning to the corner, they saw a faint light coming their way.

"ALTIN! It's Paul! I'm lighting up the path!"

Altin sighed in relief.

Seconds later, the squads met in the lobby.

There were Sergent Aster and just one other of his squad and three people of the radio squad, including Henry and Emma. There was also Paul, relieved to see his friends.

Without any word, Sergent Aster and his remaining man, Private Bambi, took cover behind the counter while Rico and Private Marlo untied their rope and stood against a wall.

Paul, Altin, Eléonore, Julien, Henry, and the two others of the radio squad ran past the lobby corner away from the entrance.

Altin and Paul combined their powers to provide light covering most of the lobby.

Corporal Rico used this newfound clarity to do a headcount. Four people were missing.

"Where are the others?" He asked.

"Hit. They stayed behind." Sergent Aster replied somberly.

Deep in the darkness, there was no sound except them. No gunfire could be heard, but everyone knew it was just the effect of the black hole: exterior sound could not cross the limits of the hole.

Altin turned to look at Henry. "Your friend is...?" He asked.

Henry struggled to reply. "Hit... in the chest," he finally managed to say. He was crying.

Altin swallowed.

He was not the innocent and fearful teen he used to be. Like the rest of the unicorn squad, he has matured tremendously since the coming of the string force more than a year and a half ago.

Death loomed on all of them: they were trapped in a dark place, surrounded by unknown armed assailants, unable to call for exterior help. Was it what happened to the officers killed here?

He took in a deep breath to calm himself. Then, looking at Eléonore, Julien, and Paul, who were trembling all over, he said: "It's ok. They're blind when they cross the darkness. We aren't."

BANG!

All heads turned towards the counter of the lobby. Shots had just been fired.

Sergent Aster and his men were shooting at the shadows looming at the entrance.

The shadows fired back, but they quickly retreated under the focused firepower of the alpha squad.

The total darkness past the limits of Paul and Altin's powers was a double-edged knife: the attackers couldn't fire at the alpha squad accurately, but the alpha also couldn't fire back accurately past the darkness threshold.

For a moment, silence returned.

"Think they won't dare to come again?" Julien asked in a grave voice.

Paul shook his head. "You should have seen them outside. They were already 50 when we retreated, all armed. They all started to fire at once, without any warning... Altin, Julien, Eléonore... they want us dead."

"What can we do... ?" Eléonore asked, primarily to herself.

Sergent Aster heard Eléonore's plea, though. Still hidden behind the counter, he said: "We stay here. The darkness is a good cover. We will be due for reports in two hours. If we don't report, the headquarters will search for us."

"Makes sense..." Julien commented.

"Kids, one of you take my handgun. " Sergent Aster said.

"But Sergent, they're..." Corporal Rico seemed to oppose the idea.

The sergeant explained. "Just in case. They ought to be able to defend themselves."

However, neither Altin, Julien, Paul, Eléonore, or anyone of the radio squad bulged.

"I insist. Somebody take it and cover our back. Just in case. One of you at least."

Altin hesitated. He had only fired a gun a few times during training at Interoutes, but he had never wanted actually to use one.

But the sergeant was right. Someone was needed to cover the back, and they couldn't be defenseless if something happened.

"Sergeant! Throw it to me! I'll take it!" Altin shouted.

The sergeant exited the cover briefly and threw the gun and two magazines at Altin.

Altin put the magazines in his jacket and held the gun. The metal was cold to the touch—deadly cold.

He forgot to maintain the channeling of the string energy for a moment, but he quickly readjusted his mindset when everything dimmed.

After another moment of thought, he turned the safety off. The gun would fire whenever he pushed the trigger.

A long moment passed while they waited in the darkness in complete silence.

Everybody was too tensed to talk.

It was then...

The darkness in the lobby seemed to retract... It was as if the large sphere encompassing the police station was shrinking.

Paul was the first one to be alerted. "Guys!" he exclaimed, "something happening. The string energy here... it's disappearing. The anomaly is shrinking!"

"I feel it too!" Eléonore and Altin both confirmed.

Having overheard the conversation, Sergent Aster was in a rush to ask: "Can you do anything to prevent it? Can you power up the anomaly somehow?"

Altin replied immediately:" We can't! Not from here! We need to add up external energy! Here... the energy is being sapped! We can't prevent its erosion... Something is drawing its power away!"

"Well," Henry said. He had calmed down after crying over the likely death of his friend in the radio squad, but his eyes were devoid of hope. "So that's it? We die like this?"

Nobody replied.

Immediately, the shooting resumed with renewed intensity.

The anomaly had shrunk: the attackers were taken advantage of that to press on. They appeared closer and closer to the position of the alpha squad.

"There's something we can do..." Julien slowly started to say. "Paul and Altin, do you remember how black holes anomalies are so special? You can get in quickly, and inside, you'll find what you expect, but when you try to exit it, you realize there's nothing but infinite darkness."

"That's right, but I never really understood that," Paul said.

The shooting still continued.

"I'll explain," Julien said. "Take a look at my phone."

Julien then opened a drawing app on his phone, and he drew a house in the middle of the drawing. He said: "That's the police station." He then drew a disk encompassing the house and made it black. "That's the black hole where we are. From outside, it looks like this.. "

He showed the full drawing:

https://i.ibb.co/fCyGxJD/c35-1.png

He continued: "So from the looks of it, you'd think that you can exit from anywhere along the perimeter of the disk. But that's not it. In truth, there are only a few places, usually barely a meter square in surface, from where you can exit the black hole. Let's call such exits the "anomaly" exits. From the inside, it's more like that. He showed a second drawing: "

https://i.ibb.co/k3rgSsY/c35-2.png

"From inside the black hole, the exits along the perimeter, from where you would expect to be able to exit, becomes scattered dots, which may be past the apparent border of the black hole. I drew stars on my drawing to mark the anomaly exits. Take a look again.

https://i.ibb.co/k3rgSsY/c35-2.png

"When you exit from one such exit, it seemed you exit in real space at the intersection between the perimeter of the black hole and the radial line from the center of the sphere to the scattered exit. So, for instance, if you exit from the exit on the top right corner of my drawing, you'll be exiting there..."

Julien then drew a line and added a mark.

https://i.ibb.co/472PDnt/c35-3.png

"So my suggestion is that we run past the border of the dark hole and wait there, and maybe in a few hours, exit."

The drawing made a lot of sense to Altin, but a question remained: "But Julien... what if the black hole disappears while we are 'out of its border'? What will become of the exits?"

The question made Julien frown. He replied worryingly: "That... I don't know."