Chapter 6

Pov

Calla

I’m sitting on the corner of my cell. I am reading a book that was given to me when they brought me lunch after the guy in a suit asked me all sorts questions. I asked him after our talk that can I get something to read so they brought me a book called The Egyptian. It is a big book and kind of interesting but not really my style.

The guy whom I had my lengthy chat was a psychologist. He asked me about my life and how I felt about different things. He presented me with hypothetical situations and asked what I would do. He showed papers with spilled ink, and asked what comes to my mind first when looking at them. Well, they clearly were poorly shaped bats, flowers and blood splatters. And then, surprise surprise, he asked how I felt about the test.

Every time I answered he scribbled something to his notes. At first I thought he was as bored as me, but then it came to me that he was evaluating me. That’s what they do, they evaluate, from what I know.

Psychologists are specialists in psychology: the sum or characteristics of the mental states and processes of a person or class of persons, or of the mental states and processes involved in a field of activity.

He was trying to figure out what makes me tick I guess.

*BOOM*

My thoughts are interrupted by an explosion next to my cell. The corner of my cell is blown apart with a small part of the wall that divides my cell to the one next to it. A shard of concrete ricochets to my forehead and causes a laceration between my hairline and left eye. Had I been on the bed, I would probably be dead.

The cell is full of smoke and debris, as I cough while pressing the wound.

What is happening, have my captors decided to kill me? Are we under attack? What should I do?

No good, I’m starting to panic. Calm down Sev… Calla. Assess the situation.

First the surroundings. There is a hole in the corner of the cell, by the bed. The door is closed, there is alarms going off and emergency lights have activated. No immediate threats can be seen.

Second, me myself. I breathed some smoke and dust but nothing too serious. I concentrate my focus to my body, what I can feel and more importantly is there something I can’t feel, as that would indicate a more serious injury. People don’t usually feel fatal wounds or lost limbs if they happen suddenly and unexpected.

My body seems to be okay, no fatal injuries found. I have a bleeding wound on my forehead. It isn’t serious but the bleeding hinders my left eye vision. Human field of vision is roughly 210 decrees, but because of the wound, mine is more like 170 now, and my depth perception is reduced as the blood bleeds to my eye.

Vision is important, and now my combat capabilities has dropped too low. I have to stop the bleeding but with what? Cloth? No, there is a faster way.

I take a piece of concrete that is hot from the explosion. I wrap it in the blanket of my bed, but I can still feel the heat through it. I press the piece to the wound, burning it shut. I want to scream from the pain, but I’m trained better than that. I hold it there for three seconds and throw it on the bed. I wipe the blood from my eye and conclude that the bleeding has stopped.

I hope it will not scar, I do not need anoth… Not important now.

Thirdly, what is going on in the corridor?

I edge closer to the hole in my cell and try to see if there is somebody out there but cannot see anything. I take a stub of rebar from the floor, which was reinforcing the concrete wall. It too is hot, so I rip my sleeve, and make a makeshift handle for myself.

Armed with do it yourself knife for stabbing, I head for the hole and slip through it, in to the corridor.

Damn, there were people I didn’t notice as they were so close to the wall. There are three of them, and they are standing in front of the cell next to mine, the one which was their intended target. Two of the men are wearing military uniform, and I recognize the sergeant with three stripes, who brought me breakfast this morning. The man next to him seems to be of higher rank, a master sergeant I think. I was taught to recognize ranks of different militaries in my sniper training.

The third man is wearing the same orange clothes as I, so I can assume that he is the one from the cell they blasted open. He has wounds over his body and is dusty all over, but judging by the size of the explosion, he must have taken cover somewhere when it took place. Under the bed perhaps? So they must have told him to take cover.

But all that begs the question, why didn’t they just open the cell with a key? They surely have one, as the sergeant is the one who brought me breakfast today.

They notice me as I come out of my cell. They glance at my weapon and then me.

“We are not your enemy.” The master sergeant says.

I do not reply, and just walk closer to them, ready to run or fight at a moment’s notice. The two soldiers are armed with pistols and the inmate is unarmed.

“Start releasing the other prisoners.” The sergeant commands and hands the keys to the master sergeant.

Why did a sergeant just issue an order to a master sergeant? It doesn’t make sense. He hands the key to him and he takes it. The fact that the master sergeant doesn’t mind the order, and takes the key from his hand without a change of expression causes a realization for me.

They abide a different hierarchical order than the J.A.T.F.

As I’m only three meters away from them and the master sergeant is starting to turn towards me, going for the cells behind mine, I ponder:

They infiltrated the J.A.T.F. headquarters, they released one prisoner with a big ass explosion, needlessly big. After which they intent to use the key to release the other prisoners. If they wanted to release just one man they would’ve used the key and done it silently, but now they are going to release all of them or as many as they can before the J.A.T.F. personnel responds to the blast. That would cause chaos, is that their aim?

No, if they wanted chaos they wouldn’t have used the explosion. They would have released as many as they can before getting noticed. This is a distraction, it must be. I’m going to act. I’ll try to thwart their plans. The J.A.T.F. is safer bet than some random people that reminds me of the ones that gave me targets. The J.A.T.F. has treated me well for now, and I even gained a name from one of their officers.

As the master sergeant is next to me, looking down the corridor, I stab the rebar straight through his throat, penetrating his carotid artery. I cannot be sure if he’s wearing some kind of thin body armor, and the rebar isn’t exactly sharp so damaging the artery that delivers blood to his brain is the surest way to kill him.

When the rebar exits from the other side of his neck he freezes, clearly not understanding what just happened. He will lose consciousness in about twenty seconds when I pull the rebar out, maybe ten if I got both of the arteries. I side step to his front, as the other two is starting to realize what happened. I snatch his sidearm from the holster on his thigh and pull the rebar out, splashing his blood as I do so. I don’t wait for him to fall down, so that the sergeant doesn’t have time to take his weapon out.

I step in the view of the other two, still hiding half my body behind the master sergeant. I aim the pistol. First I incapacitate the sergeant, as he was the one to give orders. I shoot his right shoulder so that his dominant hand is damaged and immediately after I shoot his right kneecap. The person who invented kneecapping was a genius. What better way there is to ensure that a person will not walk straight ever again.

The sergeant falls down, holding his left arm to his shoulder, as I push the soon to be dead master sergeant to the side with my left hand which is holding the rebar. I drop the rebar to the ground and use my both hands to aim the gun.

“Please wai... *Bam*” The inmate tried to say something but I painted the wall behind him with his brain, before he could finish. If he was important to their organization, they wouldn’t have used his release as a distraction.

I take couple of fast steps towards the sergeant who is now trying to fumble his pistol with his left hand from his right side thigh holster.

*Bam*

I shoot his left shoulder as well.

“AAAH!” He screams. Perhaps some may think I’m over doing it a little but I’m not about to go and disarm a trained, adult male, even if he is injured, when I have a safer option available.

As he shrivels on the floor, I take his pistol from his holster, I take the clip from it by reflex as I throw the pistol to the floor away from us. I already have a pistol in my hand, and dual wielding is just stupid, but you always run out of ammo at some point. I look behind me and see that the master sergeant has already passed out on the floor. He will bleed out under sixty seconds.

*Bam* “AAAAAH!!!”

I shoot the sergeants left kneecap now. No reason really, just felt like doing it. Four limbs out of four sounds better than three out of four.

“Why…” He manages to say before he passes out from the pain. I just look at him, wondering when the first respond team of the J.A.T.F. arrives.

Just as I think that, I hear the sounds of footsteps coming behind the corner.

A team of five men are tactically advancing the corridor

Damn, this must look bad. I’m standing in the smoke and debris filled corridor with a pistol in my hands. My orange jumpsuit is bloodied all over from when I pulled the rebar out. I have to learn to be cleaner about all this. There are two soldiers and one inmate unmoving on the floor. The soldiers being the guards of the holding cells. One soldier is lying in a puddle of his blood, the inmate has a hole on his head, and the wall next to him is covered with blood and chunks of his brain. The other soldier is bleeding from his legs and shoulders, his weapon thrown down the corridor near to the advancing men

“Drop your weapon!” They command me. As I’m about to drop the gun a rock falls from the damaged roof behind me, startling me. I reflexively raise the pistol while turning around, facing away from the men. That’s when I feel something akin to electricity running through my body. I fall down, convulsing. The feeling stops, and as I’m barely holding to my consciousness, lying face down on the floor, I look over my shoulder to the men who apparently just tasered me… fuckers.

“Distraction.” Is the only word I manage to get out before everything goes dark.