Jennie POV
"Okay, thanks," I said before hanging up the call.
We're back inside our headquarters, preparing everything we need.
The scenes of Rosie from the video earlier, wearing a larger size version of the white pair of clothing she had when she was a child, keep on replaying in my mind.
I sighed loudly as I load our guns.
"Jen, breathe in. Breathe out," Lisa reminded me but her eyes are also full of worry about the situation.
"Yeah," I nodded and decided to help her as she's struggling with inserting a handgun at the back of her weapon belt.
"Lex just called and said that he's going to go there earlier," I informed Lisa as Jisoo entered, holding her portable hacking device and a large black bag possibly containing other gadgets. "Be careful when you heard the word 'Alpha'. He said that it's the security team handling those weapons."
"Here are the vests," Jisoo grunted as she put the things on the table. "These are regular bulletproof vests but let's still wear these. There's still probability that it will lessen the effect of the shards but let's hope we won't have to be put into that situation."
"Are we all ready?" she added, putting the small explosion devices inside one of the pockets of her cargo pants. "We still have an hour left."
"Guess so," I replied, fixing my combat footwear. "Teddy informed me that another two teams, will be on standby around the area, just in case."
"Ohh, okay," Jisoo replied, turning to Lisa. "Where's mom and dad?"
"They're on the way to the VNtech," Lisa replied as she's almost done fitting her tactical gloves. "To already find a good spot in connecting to the cctvs."
"Right," Jisoo nodded, going to the door. "Let's go? Better to be early and wait around the area than late."
..........
Arriving forty minutes earlier than the planned time, we're inside the van currently parked within just a kilometer radius away from the VNtech building.
The streets around the building are all dark and only illuminated by just few yellow dim lights every corner.
And more than half of the portion of the VNtech building itself are well lit.
"Lex's plan might be really good. That's quite a great entrance over there," Jisoo pointed at her screen as she found time to hack on the cctv located at the tall barricade wall full of barbed wires on the top. "The entry to the maintenance got little to no lighting at all and almost none of the staff are roaming around."
"What floor was Chaeyoung again?" Lisa asked as she slightly slid the window of the van down, levelling her night vision binoculars to her eyes. "Fifteen? Sixteen?"
"Fourteen."
"Ohh, right," Lisa nodded as she adjusted the angle of the binocular. "Can't see anything with this thing."
"Press the small button under it," Jisoo reminded. "Chaeng and I upgraded it."
"Woah I forgot how amazing this is. Haven't touched this after the first time you upgraded it during trainee days," Lisa commented in awe as she scans the building.
The two upgraded the regular night vision binoculars into a long-distance thermal scanning one.
"How to set this again into just a short-distance? Might as well use this when we're inside," Lisa asked as she flips through it.
"There's a gear in the middle," Jisoo pointed. "Scroll it to negative setting."
"We have contact lens version of that but it's still a prototype so that binoculars would be a bit handful but yeah..." she added to Lisa. "You're right. That would be a lot of help later."
A faint static sound of our earpieces suddenly appeared and then gone right after a second.
"Hello? Can someone hear me?" Wendy, who is inside another van parked somewhere together with her group, said through our comms. "Just testing."
"Yeah," a lot replied including the Velvets themselves.
"Crystal clear," a voice said.
"Oh? That's mom," Lisa recognized the voice. "Mom, where are you located at?"
"At the West side, there's this parking area just across the street," Lily informed. "Oh I think Lex is waiting now at your planned entrance."
Just as she said it, another voice came in.
"I'm here. You can now go," Lex said making us to step out of the van immediately.
Cctvs around the barricade and the outside parts of the building are now controlled by Lily.
We're now almost at one of the gates located at the back side of the building when someone halted us.
"Stop. Wait," Lily warned us, making us hide at one of the large medical vans parked alongside the barricade wall. "Three employees are going out. Probably their shift had ended. Just wait a little."
Just in time, we heard the gate opened, and chatting voices can be heard.
I peaked a little and the three employees are now walking away.
"Go," Lily said.
We finally entered the gate one by one and the distance between the gate and the maintenance entrance is just a few meters away.
We finally saw Lex by the entrance, waving his arm, signaling us to move.
Moving inside quietly, we can now see the details of the structure inside even if the maintenance area is quite dark.
"Are we now going straight to level fourteen?" Lisa said as she stretches her neck, looking at the ceiling above while using the binoculars. "Uhh I think something's up?"
"What?" Jisoo took the binoculars and did the same thing.
"Looks like there's a ruckus happening," she said as she passes me the binoculars for me to take a look too. "Guess we need to hurry up."
Looking up as I aligned the binoculars to my eyes, I can see the outline of the structures of the building.
A lot of orange to reddish colored people scattered to every floor through this thermal scanner.
I tried zooming in at the possible fourteenth floor by counting each level of the building.
From a worm's-eye view or bottom view, all of them are scurrying.
"Yeah, I think we shou-"
*bang*
"That's not good..." Joy uttered.
"Shit! Let's go," I told them and was about to go when Lex pulled us towards a small section with monitor screens.
"There are cctv monitors here, we must assess first," he said as Jisoo leaned down on the set of monitors.
"Rewind it just a few minutes ago," I quickly said, trying to keep out the negative thoughts trying to invade my head.
The grayscale footage plays backwards and then I suddenly caught a glimpse of a blonde hair lying down on the surgical table.
"There," I said as I also leaned closer while Jisoo plays the footage starting from the scene I pointed.
We watch Rosie being unconscious, or so we thought as we noticed that her right hand is moving slowly under her back.
"What is she doing..." Lisa whispered. "Don't tell me..."
Rosie then opened her eyes as she brought out a gun that looks like she got it from one of the regular security's handgun weapon.
She sat up while pointing the gun to the laboratory staff in front of her.
I realized that she doesn't have that much of strength to stand as she leaned to her right arm and pushes herself up against the table for support.
All of the people inside were just raising their arms but one tried to tackle her to the ground.
Mr. Park was also inside the room but fled outside the time he saw his daughter with a gun in her hands.
He must have thought that his daughter will target him.
After Rosie got tackled first by one staff to the floor, the other people inside the room got the courage to do the same.
Rosie is trying to thrash her body around as she's forced to face the floor while they held and crossed her arms behind her back, still gripping the gun so hard as she grits her teeth hard too.
I know she can fight those with just a little swift of movement but noticing how she weakly stands earlier, she does not have any energy to at least push one person off of her.
Just a few seconds after, a gunshot was fired.
All of the laboratory staff stayed still.
All of them are waiting for any movement.
Please...
Not Rosie...
After what it felt like an eternity, a staff suddenly collapsed to the ground.
Two people immediately tend to the injured one while the rest, almost seven to ten people, are still holding Rosie against the floor.
One person stood up and quickly go to one of their counters.
He goes back to where Rosie is and crouched down while holding what looks like an oxygen mask but most possibly with another type of gas instead of oxygen.
Placing it on Rosie's nose and mouth area, she stopped moving.
"What the..." Lisa groaned as she frustratingly fists her hair. "They put her to sleep again."
"Let's go now, please," I quietly said as I started moving away from the monitors and roamed my eyes around the area trying to recall the blueprint Lex had given us.
"Come on, let's split now as planned," Seulgi agreed as she also started walking away, together with the Velvets, towards the opposite direction to take care of the exit and possible distractions.
Wendy and Lily also informed us that they're ready while Jisoo opened her portable hacking device just in case.
"Be safe," Lex said to all of us as he also walked towards the same direction with us.
__________
note: I do not own any picture used in this chapter, hence credits are to the owner.