The evac arrived after Dec had fished the van’s keys out of the crew’s pockets and made sure they fit the one in the parking lot. It was theirs all right. One of the evac crew volunteered to drive it to a disposal facility not far from Sheep’s house. That made room for one more person on the big evac quad and freed up the tow line to take Dec’s quad somewhere else. The storm was letting up now, and petering out with just some distant thunder and cloud to cloud lightning. Res was beginning to come around and was not too thrilled with having a tampon shoved up her nose. “I guess it’s practical but a little embarrassing,” she quipped. “Aw, plenty of boxers have dealt with it. Better than bleeding and hey, I even left the string on for ya so you don’t have to touch it to remove it.”, Dec replied wryly. Res poked at her cheek, which was starting to warm up, and pressed the bag of half melted dumplings to her face. Sheep had changed into some fresh clothes for the journey and loaded the crew’s duffle bag with some belongings. Nobody was sure how long he’d have to be away from home, so he took a little bit of everything with him. Clean socks, underwear, a toothbrush, deodorant, and a little bottle of soy sauce, just in case. “You guys go ahead and board the quad. I’m gonna check in with Mr. Clean real quick.”, Dec said, as he motioned towards the door.
He unmasked the other two men and took pictures of their faces with his comms, for identification. The cleaning crew was already busy, looking for anything unusual and cleaning up blood splatter wherever it had landed. Dec noticed a flat, dime-sized disc on the floor near the couch, and picked it up to get a better look. It was a 9mm pistol round, with a polymer jacket; self-defense ammo. It had obviously been fired from a gun and hit something hard and flat, deforming on impact, then falling to the ground. “Damn, Res, remind me to never piss you off”, Dec thought, as he realized what must have happened.
“Mr. Clean, there’s gunshot residue in this area. Be sure and get that too,” he said to the cleaning crew. Dec called his team lead again, tapping the comms to send him the photos of the ‘snatch and grab’ guys for identification, and letting him know that one of the Splicer analysts got a shot off on them before Dec was on scene. “Didn’t do much good, all of the guys were armored up, level 3. Probably just upset whoever got hit, which… well, we’ll debrief soon.”, Dec said. His lead instructed him to evac to location 242 immediately and bring his captive with him. Jackson was still taped to the kitchen chair and still unconscious, so Dec cut him out of the chair, fastened his wrists with the nylon handcuffs, and threw him over his shoulder. Back to the elevator then outside to the quad, where Res and Sheep were waiting, looking like they were half-dead from this ordeal. Sheep protested bringing Jackson aboard. “Dec, do you really have to bring that guy? Why not just ‘have an accident’ and leave him with the disposal team?”, Sheep whined. Dec stopped dead in his tracks, and stared Sheep directly in the face. “What kind of monster do you think I am?”, Dec growled. “This poor bastard probably knows everything we want to know, and he’s lucky to be alive.”, Dec said. Res scoffed, “Well, I wouldn’t miss the guy.”
The quad pilot lifted off after confirming the destination, 242. He found Dec’s toasted quad nearby and maneuvered the tow line onto the vehicle. With Dec’s damaged quad in tow, the pilot hit a button for autonomous flight which told Dec’s quad to power up and maintain altitude. The pilot’s tow quad would do all the maneuvering but it limited their speed.
They were headed towards 242 at a steady pace. It was a safehouse, about 30 miles out, close to the harbor. Everyone sat quietly during the trip, until they heard a “hmmpf mmmpf” from Jackson, who was just waking up and probably in some pain from his shoulder. Nobody even bothered to look in his direction except for Dec, who glanced at him just to make sure he was still immobilized and strapped in. It was a short flight to the harbor, and the pilot tapped a few buttons to bring Dec’s quad to rest so they could land and disembark. “On your feet, now.” Dec commanded Jackson, after unstrapping him from his seat. Jackson complied, and Res kicked him in the shin as she started to exit the quad. “Oops, sorry.”, she said, walking out toward the harbor house. The pilot stayed seated and hit a switch to close the gullwing doors on the tow quad after everyone was out and Dec slapped the roof twice. Dec made a motion with his arms, like turning a huge wrench, and pointed at his quad. The pilot nodded, and both quads ascended together, as he left the site and towed Dec’s quad to the service hangar.
Sheep, Res, Dec, and Jackson all formed an informal single-file line and headed into the safehouse. The door was already unlocked, and it was solid steel, opening inward with a shove. Sheep noticed the thickness and weight of the door, and Dec glanced over his shoulder and said, “you won’t open this door for anybody, for sure. It’s the kind that keeps the bad guys out.”. They wandered into the drab and dusty living room and all picked out a place to sit. Res just wanted to sleep for about a day. “Don’t get too comfortable,” Dec announced, “because when my team lead gets here, we’re moving.”.
Wow, I liked the bit about the Quad being towed and being able to power up and down. That was cool. And of course I liked that Jackson was alive and got kicked in the shin, lol