BREATH . OF . LIFE . ~ { ReGenisis Chronicles Book I }

Chapter Three [Part 4/5]: Reality Is The Worst Form of Nightmare

                               -Griffin King-

Moving down a long grey corridor, a hand gun held in line with my nose ahead of me.  Jake was behind me, his own gun pulled as he scanned the side hall we'd just passed in case anyone was lurking in the shadows there.

The building was dark, low voices echoed down the hall from an open door. I couldn't make out the words, my ears were ordinary and limited. But I knew the voices belonged to our target. Someone had gotten hold of the ReGenisis serum, the implications of that were unending. They had to be ended and the serum and any notes on it retrieved.

The whole of our Unit had been deployed on this mission. Unit Zero Captain Takeichi, her second, Swan, and the glue of our team, Norton, had been sent deeper into the heart of the Ides Of March Industries 'Laboratory.' Despite the name, it was set up more like a prison. Without the silencer on my gun, we'd have been detected from the off as we took out guards and dragged them into storage closets or hid them under desks in dark, empty offices. Even then, there was still chance of being detected. A silencer only dampens so much sound.

Still the girls had a harder challenge. Retrieve all samples, documents and mentions pertaining to the ReGenisis serum. Recover or destroy any evidence of its existence and pray to whatever force was at work in the Universe that none of the genetic soup had been used on anyone. Only unlike us, running around dimly lit corridors, they had to be present in the main labs where blue light illuminates a larger space filled with glass top tables lit up from beneath. There were large metal framed shelving units there, too, as far as we'd gathered from research. But they weren't anything to hide behind. There were viewing rooms there, high up where anyone hidden away inside them could peer out on the activity of the Scientists below at any hour.

There were many reasons the girls had been selected for the most dangerous part of the mission. They rarely argued, duty always came first, they could generally act through anything, they were quieter and better at slipping from place to place un-noticed (as if they were already super human) and lastly, they could handle themselves with a finesse and calmness the rest of the team lacked. Especially when it came to tactfully navigating a way out of a situation. They were the dream team.

They'd always been good at retrieval, too. Jake and I were simply the head hunters. Ever since we got our commission we'd been there to dispose of the unwanted, the criminal and the dangerous, those the world were not ready to know about or those who had something the government weren't ready for them to see. Jake wasn't much of a killer, he stuck to his gun but hated pulling that trigger. He'd always preferred to ask questions first, shoot later. His compassion was often his downfall and the reason he wasn't already second in command, Swan, unlike Jake Aylesbury, was ruthless. Like myself. I found it easier to make the hard decisions, cut myself off from feeling. Most of the people we got rid of had done something deserving of it. Swan saw it the same way. That made us tense friends and flirtatious enemies.

 The last of our unit, Tucker and Skinner, were outside, keeping an eye out for any activity we couldn't see from within the walls of the complex. Tucker was a tall gold skinned man, and where he always brought big ammo, he was the worst at keeping quiet and moving fast. Skinner was our sniper, in his glory days he was the best at recon, long range assassination and look out. Needless to say the quiet old man and the loud mouthed gun fanatic didn't see eye to eye. But they tolerated each other enough to accomplish assignments other pairings would struggle with.

Jake and I rounded the corner, standing just a few foot from the open office door. The voices ran quiet. I held my breath as if it would help us stay undetected.