Inside Man | ONC2023

1. The Warehouse

(Author's Note: So the Open Novella Contest is off and running for its sixth year! The creative juices are flowing, the writer's block has been annihilated (at least for the first chapter!) and fellow writers and readers gird their loins to read, vote and comment. This chapter is dedicated to all the supportive ONC participants for 2023!)

Paul Finn stepped over the man he had just killed and ducked down behind the broken wall.

Stunner beams sliced across the space where his head had been a second ago. Forming a zigzag pattern through the dusty air, they provided the only visible light in the darkened building. Paul paused for a moment to take stock, his heart thudding in his chest. Sweat trickled inside his facemask.

He slowed his breathing and listened intently for any sound which might confirm his opponents' location. A rustle of material or a boot scuffing the floor. Or a heavy breath.

In these circumstances, his ears were a more useful guide than his eyes. Even the top of the range Space Patrol-endorsed infrared goggles, which he was wearing now, couldn't penetrate a plascrete wall.

On the other hand, he could use the angle of the stunner beams to deduce their owner's approximate location. He consoled himself wryly with the thought that they would have to leave the safety of their cover if they wanted to take another shot at him. All these thoughts passed through his head in a fraction of a second.

The firing had ceased. From his calculations, there were two active shooters remaining. The other two were dead.

Silence.

Paul waited patiently. A minute passed, then another. Five minutes. Ten.

"Do you think we got him?" The husky voice came from Paul's right.

Damned amateurs, thought Paul, with grim resignation. They should have obeyed his initial demand to surrender when he confronted them in the building. Instead, they had fired, their stunners set to 'kill' and after that, all bets were off.

"I don't know. Maybe. I can't hear anything moving." The second voice came from Paul's left, higher up, as if the man were on a balcony or a platform. "You go and have a look. I'll cover you."

"Why don't you go and have a look and I'll provide the cover?" retorted the first man.

"You're nearer!" came the tetchy reply. "I'm pretty sure I got him with that last shot. He hasn't moved for ages. He must be dead. You can shoot him in the head again to make sure if you're worried."

Any faint thoughts Paul had of changing his stunner back to 'stun' vanished instantly. Amateurs or not, it was quite clear they wanted him dead at all costs.

He waited until he heard the sound of feet moving toward him. Only the merest whisper of rubber soles against the plascrete, but it was enough. Paul raised his head above the wall and fired in rapid succession; two shots, first the man approaching and then his companion, who he spotted above a parapet on the next storey. Two bodies hit the floor, almost in unison.

Paul hurried over to the nearest man. Dressed in plain dark trousers and shirt with no insignia, he was quite dead, wide eyes staring. Paul left him lying there to check on the status of the second shooter. He wanted to make sure they were both out of action before searching the bodies.

The second man had slumped to the floor out of sight behind the parapet. Paul approached cautiously, holding his weapon in one hand and picking up a piece of loose metal pipe in the other. He didn't want to be caught by the same trick he had used himself. A set of stairs in the corner took him up to the landing, silent as a ghost. So far all was good, he had heard nothing since his second shot. He tossed the pipe onto the landing with a loud clang.

There was no reaction so he figured he was safe. He climbed the last couple of stairs.

From the first glance, it was obvious the man was dead. Nobody lay with their neck at that angle, at least, nobody living.

He was dressed in the same style as the first man, generic dark clothes with nothing visible to identify him. There was nothing in his pockets either, so perhaps they weren't as amateurish as Paul had thought. The only object he had been carrying was the stunner.

Paul took a small scanner from the pack he wore around his waist and recorded an image of the dead man's face and his fingerprints. A hair plucked from his head would provide DNA. Sometimes the old methods were the best, thought Paul, as he placed the evidence in a small plasfoam envelope. He placed the dead man's stunner in another envelope. Sure, it was interfering with the crime scene but he didn't want to leave live weapons lying around for anyone to find.

He repeated these procedures with the other three assailants he'd killed that night, then left the warehouse.

As soon as he was outside, he removed the face mask and wiped his face. The night air of Syden was hot and humid, but it felt fresh after the stuffiness of the mask.

He picked his way carefully through the rubble in the street, keeping an eye out for anyone hiding in the shadows, but it seemed this part of town was deserted.

He would alert the local police as soon as he was clear, to collect the bodies, but he had no plans to be there when they arrived.