Counter Attack

I have found myself staring at the horizon again, but I can't quite help myself, the view is just so beautiful from up here after all: lush, tall trees spring from the ground masking it with their verdant leaves, the sunset paints the sky in a beautiful array of warm colors, the gentle breeze calming my sense as I stand in front of the helicopter's door, ready to jump in action as we're approaching the bunker where, unbeknownst to me, my most important mission will take place.

"Can you hear me De?" And suddenly I snap back to reality, with Miss Chrome having me realize how close we are to our objective. "Listen, Reimi and the others are inside and the Fair Hands are scouting every square inch to find them. You know what that means, right?"

"Of course, that's what I do every time after all.." I start picking up all the necessary equipment, from grenades to ammunition for my standard issue sidearm and even a few charges of explosives that could come in handy for any closed doors that may block my way. "Drop down, make a scene and run out." I say annoyed as ever, but before Miss Chrome could reply to my snarky comment I take off my earphone and toss it somewhere in the helicopter.

My mind wanders again one last time before jumping down, it's a memory from back when me and my father managed to escape unscathed from that restaurant four years ago, I distinctly remember the bitterness of the following days as we traveled to the headquarters of a - at the time - unknown organization, where my father would enlist the both of us without ever really caring about my opinion or what I wanted, while simultaneously dodging my every question on the prior events. A few days passed by and we were formally hired as 'Operative Agents', as if I knew what that meant, yet again I could not ask my father, for that was the last time I saw him. With time they told me that he had been immediately moved to another 'Operative Unit' and that I could not contact him, but they would occasionally send letters regarding his status and well-being, so I would at least know he was still alive.

I can hear their siren alarm from down below as I'm free falling to the outer edge of their bunker, the black clad people rushing out to my position while heavy artillery drives out their hiding spots aiming for the helicopter, but now it's not what I should care for. I manage to open a small parachute just in time to ease my fall on to the ground, jumping back to my feet and rushing to one of the back doors of the facility. I may have just a couple of minutes before the main forces would reach me.

Once there I easily took care of the five people standing guard at the entrance, wasting no more then a single magazine. There was no need to be stealthy, after all that was my job: I would just cause a distraction, point as much attention on me and leave, but his time something was different. Behind the entrance I had tricked the guards into opening, was a long, white corridor with blue strips running along, reminiscent more of a medical building rather than a terrorist organization's high security bunker. Curiosity got the better of me and I disobeyed the orders, running inside and blowing up the electrical box on the other side, which caused the doors to slam shut as the power went out.

"There's no going back now." I whispered as a way to convince myself to keep going, and so I did. At the other end of this emergency exit I entered the main hallway, eerily empty if not for the trail of dead bodies along the same boring walls as before. Looking to my right I saw the main entrance of this place, which had also been closed off due to the power shortage from earlier, on the other side I could hear the ninjas trying to break open their own defenses. "how ironic," I thought to myself, "being locked outside your own doors." I then started walking in the other direction.

Soon after I finally reached the end of the corridor, tho it would be more appropriate to call it a tunnel as there were no doors, no nothing, for its entire length. It led to a grand open space, a certified cave in all of it's glory: empty, circular in shape with natural stone walls and a lake separating the cave in half by stretching from one side to the other, wide enough to make it impossible to just jump over it. It was the last line of defense for what laid on the other side, a lonely room with no door to hide the machinery that resembled a sort of Tesla Coil, surrounded by a bunch of high tech computers. On my side of the lake instead, my colleagues were scratching their heads on how to get to across.

"Need help?" I asked introducing myself to the scene as they all turned to look at me.

"De? What the bloody fuck are ye' doin' here?!" Salvador sounded as shocked as he was loud. Rocking his short stature and unkempt appearance, if it weren't for the ridiculous amount of heavy-duty armament he would carry at all times either strapped to him or stacked in one of his tens of pockets, he would look more like a homeless man down on his luck rather than a secret agent fighting an organization of evil ninjas.

"You know you were supposed to draw enemies *away* from us, right mate?" Krieg stood out among the three of them, as he was the tallest of us all, wearing his usual cargo pants complete with no top, his unmistakable white-and-orange homemade gas mask and a red bandanna to top off the outfit that earned him the nickname of 'Crazyman Rambo' back at the headquarters.

"Things got out of hand real quick," I lied, trying to divert the attention off of me, "But I cut the power and closed them out, so where's the problem?" I looked at them confused. "What about you, why are you still here? Is the water acid or something?" As I glance at Reimi I could notice how she was staring back at me with an inquisitive look on her face: she caught on to me as if I wasn't even trying to hide the fact that I disobeyed Chrome's orders and she made sure I was aware of that, but she just adverted her gaze as if nothing were of it.

"Yes it is, thanks for asking." Salvador replied. "And there's also sharks." He added.

"Sharks swimming in acid?" I asked unamused.

"Yes, and they have short, stubby elephant-like legs!" Krieg sounded like he was spilling his usual nonsense, but looking back at the others' serious expressions it may have very well been true, after all if the Fair Hands managed to create sharks able to swim in acid, what says they didn't also give them legs?

"Well can't Reimi just carry you over?" I turned to her hopeful for a positive answer.

Reimi was just around my age, between us being the youngest in our department and thus sticking out like a sore thumb, it was pretty easy for us to connect. Unlike me, I could understand right away why she was there: her acting skills were simply phenomenal, to her playing a character was like second nature, and that also meant you couldn't lie to her, she would never fail to find out if a person was lying in a matter of instants. Her second talent tho, I found out only later on when we started working in the same Operative Unit.
"You know I can't." She replied annoyed, crossing her arms. "We're all too heavy."

"Have you tried just tossing the grenades?" I tried again.

"Miss Chrome wants the data, not just to blow up this place." Reimi had the answer ready as if she knew what I was about to ask.

"Of course she does..." I sigh. "Alright, then hold these in the water for me, will you?" I say as I start undressing, tossing my vest, pants and shirt in the water.

"Watcha doing mate?? Wanna take a swim? Miss Chrome ain't gonna forgive ya', ya'know? Don't go runnin' sayin' I haven't warned ya!" Salvador commented as Krieg was on his back laughing to his heart's content at the thought of me swimming in that lake half-naked.

Luckily for me Reimi caught on to my plan pretty quickly and as soon as the items touched the surface of the water they looked as if suspended in place.
I took a few steps back and a deep breath, clutching a USB in my left hand before sprinting to the edge of the lake, leaping in the air and stepping on the vest floating on the water surface. It felt like stepping on a stone pillar thanks to Reimi's unique powers, taking the next leap and landing on another piece of clothing, and another one until I safely landed on the other side of the lake, turning to the others before doing bowing in a very theatrical fashion.

"Don't get too cocky now, kiddo!" Krieg yelled from the other side.

I finally made my way in the big room that was our objective, I would just have to stick the USB in one of the many ports and it would do all the work for me, yet something struck me as I was staring at the monitors, pretending I knew what any of that meant while waiting for the program to do its job. There was one thing I was able to identify.

"Eg85."

And once I noticed it the first time, it was everywhere. Files and directories were all related to 'Eg85', The Tesla Coil had it inscribed on it everywhere. The casings, consoles, monitors, all the electrical equipment, passwords, links, parcels. Everything was somehow linked to Eg85, but the worst part was in knowing who Eg85 was.

"Is it done yet?" Reimi called from the other side of the river.

"Just about finished, I'll be done in a moment!" I shouted back, hiding my real thoughts. "That was Ema's old username, just what is he doing? He couldn't possibly be involved with the Fair Hands, now that would just be absurd..." I kept repeating myself, but all I was thinking about was the day my closest friend from back when I was a kid suddenly vanished the same day my uncle was kidnapped in front of my eyes.
Deep down I knew this wasn't just a coincidence, but I was called back to reality once the Flash Drive finished its job, which caused the Tesla Coil to abruptly stop. "It's done." I turned around the corner, accidentally making eye contact with Reimi from the other side of the lake. "Now how do we get out?" Although neither of us said a thing, she immediately caught on to me, she knew I had found something in there that I wasn't willing to tell them, but I couldn't read her just as well: I had no idea what intentions she had now, but she kept going as if nothing had happened.

"Toss it, don't wanna risk it falling in the acid." She called, so I just tossed it up in the air, from where it started slowly and unnaturally floating towards Reimi's palm as she was guiding its movements through telekinesis.

Once we were finished we all left through the barely wide enough tunnel that Salvador had diligently excavated to get them in the bunker. On the outside the panic had long subdued, all the ninjas had apparently left through a series of hidden tunnels to another hideout as soon as they realized they were too late to stop us, so we simply reached the extraction point unscathed.

Six days later we reached our headquarters in Venice, Italy, where Miss Chrome was impatiently tapping her foot on the ground waiting for us in her usual dark green and black suit complete with a fedora, leaning against one of the glass walls of the building and with four briefcases at her feet, chock full with our pay for the job well done.
As soon as she took notice of us she raised her gaze to meet mine and rushed to give us a hug, which was her usual way of telling us she was happy we made it back safely. It appears Reimi hasn't said a word on what she picked up about me, but that wasn't the time nor the place to ask her about it, so I just pretended nothing of it.

At last, as per our usual we celebrated another successful mission by eating ice cream at a local 'Gelateria' near the city center.