Anomolies 2: Leeched

Chapter 5

After a brief pause of doubt, I dissmissed the thought of Joesph being a traitor, we followed Jon down roads through small towns, which led into Chicago, the windy city. The bright lights of Chicago's popular side seemed to distract even Ben, who suggested we go to a Cubs until Katherine told him to re-focus. Suddenly, we stopped at a broken down office building, and both Jon and Steve got out and walked up to the door.Slowly all of us got out of the van and made our way over to the office doors. "Now, guys just stand back for a second, they need to see me before they clear you for entry." We did as he told us to do and then he knocked on the door. After four knocks on the metal door, a small opening slid open, revealing two eyes peering out at us.

"Passcode?" The man asked, it seemed a little juvenile to ask for a passcode when you have a grade-A military for defense, but who am I to argue, they had the army.

"456123789054321" Jon said, and the man shut the opening and the metal door creaked open. He walked inside, and waved us in.

The inside was very bland, gray walls, tiled floors, about the size of the average resteraunt's dining room. There were a few tables, and some cubicles where people would be working, but no one was in sight. The silence was broken by Joseph, "the password, did you just make up a bunch of numbers?"

Jon rolled his eyes, annoyed, "no, Craig's aptitude allows him to study facial features, detect masks, even facial reconstruction, so the password just gives him time to identify that the person at the door is truly who they say they are."

"Oh," was all Joseph could say in return. After that question we all headed over to the third cubicle from the door and Jon sat down in the chair, and turned on the computer. The screen lit up, and a password entry bar popped up. Quickly, Jon typed in the code, and a loud scraping noise came from the back. I turned my head to see that a hidden door was sliding open scraping against the wall. I walked over to the door, but was quickly jumped in front of by Jon and Steve who were walking over to a tunnel behind the door. The tunnel was cold, damp, and dark.

"Men, welcome to the tunnels." Jon said with a smile. I couldn't help but let my gaze shift towards Joseph. I know I'd heard that voice coming from his ear, and I was waiting to see what he'd do, but he gave no pause when we started down the tunnel. Noises, voices actually started coming from the end of the tunnel, and as we neared them we started distinguishing them as non-understandible tech-chatter, combat training grunting, and of course, the blood curdling screaming from the interrogation rooms. "Stick close you all, if you stray too far away from me, you'll likely be shot. And we don't want that here, trust me." Jon said with a sickening smile forming on his lips. We walk past cells of prisoners who look like skeletons. Their bones clearly visible, and looked very brittle. Their eyes look sad, and hopeless. I quickly remember that I might be shot if I fall behind and pick up my pace, leaving the prisoners behind.

"Our little space is right up ahead," Jon said, leading us into a concrete walled room, about the size of a small bedroom.

"Wait, are you kidding me? This room is barely enough room for one of us, you expect us to fit all of us in here?!" Katherine said.

"No, I expect you to fit you and Jim in here and to hold tight until Joseph, Keith, Steve, Ben and I to get back and then we'll go from there." Jon remarked back.

"Hey Jon, come one. Katherine is part of the team, she's our entire first-aid kit, not to mention my girlfriend. And I won't stand for you disrespecting her prescense on this team. Either she's joining this meeting, or I'm leaving." I said, becoming almost infuriated at the disrespect Katherine was getting from Jon.

"All right, all right calm down. Just bring her, geez." Jon says, and I turn to Katherine giving her a hand, and she takes it, holding Jim in one arm, and my hand in hers, we then walk down the hallway to the debreifing room. As we walk towards it, I hear the click of a gun from behind me, and then I feel it against my spine. "Keep walking, don't give me away, or I'll kill you too, your aptitudes won't work right now, so just do what I say." Joseph says quietly from behind me. I keep walking, I close my eyes and try to jump, but nothing, he was telling the truth, no jumping, no anticipating, no mind reading. Then I get an idea, I whisper over to Katherine who is walking a bit ahead of me and is apparently unaware of my life-or-death situation. "Tell Jim to protect me." I don't feel any different, but I trust that Jim pulled through, and I stop moving. Instantly a gunshot fires out from behind me, and I fall to the floor. But, I'm not dead, not even in pain, Jim's magnetism made the bullet's trajectory go awry and miss somehow. Steve quickly turns around whipping out his gun to face Joseph, who seemed to know he would lose this fight against Steve, because he lowered his gun and raised his hands in surrender. Only to be shot in the stomach by Jon. Joseph's body fell to the ground hard, he was bleeding out slowly, he was screaming in pain, had he been being interrogated, he probably would've given up all his secrets. But he wasn't being interrogated, just brutally murdered by Jon. We all looked at him shocked, then he looked at Steve. "Sorry Steve, my old pal, I had to do it, your buddy there he, works for me as a double agent, he joined you to get closer to you, and he failed, so he had to be terminated, and now, sadly, so do you." He raised his hand, and men appeared everywhere throughout the tunnel-cavern, then he quickly thrust his hand downard and all the men fired directly at us.