Battle Scars

Chapter 57: It's Over

Chapter fifty seven: It's Over
As we got closer to the building, we could see where Lachlan and Hannah were holding down the fort. The walls of the front room were peppered with bullet holes, and there were soldiers attempting to enter at the door. We shot our way through to them. Just as we entered the room to join them, the Soviet soldiers caught up with us. It was easy to see, at that point, why Lachlan and Hannah were a team. They worked well together. Lachlan mowed down our pursuers whilst Hannah reloaded, and as soon as Lachlan was out of bullets Hannah replaced him leaving him to reload, and check any other entry points to the room. As the last pursuer fell, the two of them turned to look at us.
"Who's helping us with the bottom floors?" Asked Lachlan.
"Vikk and Preston," said Jerome. "Mitch, Abby, and I are going upstairs. Good luck you guys."
"Good luck as well," said Hannah. "Be careful. The soldiers outside are stupid, they leave themselves open to attack. The ones in here have a few more brain cells to go around." We nodded seriously, before heading upstairs.
It was, as Hannah said, difficult going. Both Jerome and Mitch were shot again, Mitch for the second time that day. I was as yet unharmed physically, so I did my best to cover the two of them where they needed it. There was three floors to the building. We needed to get through to the top one, leaving the lower levels for the rest of the team to deal with, so we could destroy the president. When we finally made it to the top floor, it was like a large square box, with a circular room in the middle that evidently contained the president, plus however many body guards he deemed necessary. There was one window, which we instantly shot to pieces. The glass shattered, and fell to the floor, leaving the room open to attack. However all the people in the room were soldiers, and the president was nowhere in sight. The three of us ducked back out of sight, and looked at each other. We needed a plan, and quickly.
"These soldiers have incredible aim," said Jerome. "It's uncanny. I got hit again, on my side." He winced.
"And the president's not in there," I said. "I couldn't see him at all in that group, could you?"
"No," said Mitch, worriedly.
"He's wearing a disguise," Jerome suddenly realised. "He is in there, we just don't know which one."
"Shoot them all, and see how they react," suggested Mitch. He peered back around the corner, and shot one of the enemy, before pulling back to reload. "We can sneak up to the wall," he said. "There's a window on the other side, one of us can go around and shoot it out. That will take them by surprise."
"I'll go," I said. Mitch and Jerome nodded. The two of them began shooting again, and whilst the soldiers were distracted, I crept along the floor to the back of the room. The window was a strange grey coloured glass, and I could dimly see the people through it. However, it was clear that they couldn't see out, because they paid no attention to me. There was about ten people left in the room, and we still hadn't discovered the president. I looked at the body language of each of the people, and watched as one more became so peppered with bullets that he dropped to the floor. The doing of Mitch and Jerome on the other side of the room. But which one was the president?
It was then that I noticed there was one soldier who was standing close to a part of the wall that contained a control panel. He was pressing all kinds of different buttons. I had no idea what he was controlling from there, but I didn't think either Mitch or Jerome could see him from where they stood. I took a guess that this was the person we were after. I readied my gun, shot the window to pieces, and fired repeatedly. In so doing, I destroyed whatever control panel the man had been working at. The man dropped to the ground, and suddenly, all of the other soldiers froze in place. The gunfire ceased, and an eerie silence prevailed. It occurred to me that no sound came from downstairs either. What had happened to The Soviet's soldiers?
I carefully made my way back around to Mitch and Jerome. They were standing in silence, staring at the soldiers, dumbfounded.
"What happened to them?" I asked, confused. Mitch raised his gun, and shot one of them. The body didn't even flinch.
"They're all robots!" I exclaimed. "That's what that man, presumably the president, was doing! He was controlling them!" I explained to the two of them what I'd seen, and how I'd destroyed the control panel. We looked at each other in relief.
"It's over," breathed Mitch. He pulled both of us in for a hug, and we held each other tightly. Everything we'd worked for for so long had finally happened. We'd won the rebellion.