9/8/2015 1 Comment Ceres: Opener Secure Government Facility
Undisclosed Location 0300 Hours The air in the room reeked of stringent sterilization, its fluorescent lights humming just enough to notice. A somber setting, the anxiety in the room was nearly tangible, each of its inhabitants dank with fear. “How long?” “Approximately 8 hours, Mr. President.” The dark bags under his shrewd blue eyes were the only indication that the country’s commander in chief had been pulled out of bed and thrust into such a dismal situation in the dreary morning hours. “What do we know?” Bleak faces converged around the cold, grey table, their whispers flying back and forth in hushed currents. “Mr. Carson?” questioned the president quietly, turning to his aid. The brown haired youth shrugged apologetically, gesturing his employer’s attentions back towards the scientists in the room. “Gentlemen, please. I’ll ask one more time…what do we know?” An older man with peppered hair and wise green eyes stood up from the table, turning towards President Saunders. “Sir, with all due respect, the answer to that is…not much. Our intel hasn’t given us any leads to indicate that we are in any type of dang-” The subconscious shift of weight from a middle-aged woman across the table caught the president’s attention. “Ms. Kane. Do you have information that is prevalent for this situation? If so, now would be the time,” he snapped, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. Everyone fell silent, their eyes focused towards the red head who was nervously chewing on the corner of her dark painted lips. The low hum of the dim fluorescent bulbs had quickly become the loudest sound in the sealed, grey room. “Ms. Kane, according to Mr. Carson, here, we have approximately 8 hours. Waiting doesn’t really seem like an option to me. If you have information, bring it forward now!” he barked, slamming his fist down onto the steel table with such surprising force that more than a few people jumped in their seats. “This is no joke! This is no drill! People could be in danger!” Beneath the pressure of his dark glower, she quickly shot to her feet, messing absentmindedly with a small stack of papers in her hands. “Sir, let me just say that had we known before what we know now, clearly we would have taken the threats of this level more-” “I’m not here for apologies nor am I here for your excuses, Ms. Kane. Get to the point, and quickly.” “Yes, well. When our team reached the specified location on Ceres, they discovered a pyramid structure nearly 3 miles high. It was clear, upon closer observation, that it was not of a natural origin,” she stammered, pausing briefly as accusations were hissed in hushed tones from the concerned minds around the table. She knew that there was no denying that what her department had done had been a mistake. The time had come to own up to it. “Once inside, they discovered an artifact, foreign in nature. It was recently brought back for further study,” she finished, her eyes cast downwards. “So you mean to tell me that, the report that I was handed…the report that noted ‘no abnormal encounters’…was falsified?” the president demanded, in disappointment. The anger slowly radiating from his taunt form was quickly filling the room, threatening to drown them all in a blazing rage. Ms. Kane nodded. “Coded messages started coming in through the radios of the Roswell ships. Our decoders had an easy enough time with it, but they didn’t think twice about not taking them seriously. They were so outlandish that they assumed it had to be a prank…a hack of some kind,” she gushed, pushing back the primal urge to flee. “So let me rephrase my first question…what can we expect?” Brining his fingertips to his head, he slowly rubbed his temples, as if it were some magic button that would instantly unload all of the weight from atop his hunched shoulders. A part of him still didn’t want to believe that any this was really happening. Any second now he would wake up from this nightmarish scenario, warm in his bed with the rich aroma of coffee hanging heavy in the air. Instead, he was here. An ominous stillness hung among them like smog, no one daring to make a sound, all eyes on Ms. Kane. Every millisecond that passed felt like a lifetime in the stifling room. No one dared to even breathe. Her red hair looking devilish under the humming lights, she cast a dread filled glance over every face seated around the table. How could she even begin to explain? They would think she was crazy…until it was too late. Who was she kidding…she knew, deep down, that it was already too late. “It will start within the minds of our children…”
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“Find Safety...Safety......Get To Safety!”
I awoke with a start, the ethereal voice still clear in my ears. Shooting bolt upright, I immediately regretted my decision. My whole body felt on fire, its heat raging through my limbs, searing all in its path. It took all my strength to keep me from screaming out, but some deep-seeded feeling warned me not to do so. I collapsed back onto the ground and scrunching my eyes closed tight, I thought back, trying to remember anything about how I may have gotten here, and how I came to feel so beaten. Nothing; everything was just blank. My heart started to race. How could I not remember anything? Where am I? Nothing. “Come on, you can do this,” I whispered hoarsely to myself. Even my throat was aching and swollen. I focused. Where do I live? Nothing. For crying out loud, what’s my name?! Nothing. My head throbbed painfully with how hard I was concentrating, or maybe it was from the fresh gash I could feel running across my left temple. Yeah, could be that. Unable to remember what happened or how I came to be here, I turned my attention to the present. Glancing down, it was clear that whatever clothes I had been wearing, were now nothing more than shredded strips of stained up fabric. Cautiously, I slowly looked around and was a little more at ease when I saw that, other than the shadows and the trees, I was the only one here. As I worked myself up off the ground nice and easy, I shivered at the feel of the thick, warm substance rolling down various parts of my body. An irony, metallic smell hung heavy in the air. My imagination ran wild. Bile rising up my throat in quick response, I couldn’t puke fast enough. It was too dark for me to make out how bad my injuries were but if I had to judge by the sharp burning and throbbing from head to toe, the amount of blood I was lying in, and my breath dragging in a rasp with every draw, I’d say they were pretty extensive. Why the hell couldn’t I remember anything? It wasn’t until then that the chaotic din became prominently more noticeable in the background. Gunshots rang out suddenly over the sound of clashing metal and spirited yelling. Attempting to pinpoint where the noise was coming from, my eyes darted all around me. Catching a brief snatch of movement out of the corner of my eye, I spun my head around fast enough to notice a flickering glow lighting up a little ways past a tree-line that was no more than 30 yards away. The little hairs on the back of my neck prickled up on end in a warning, a silent plea for me to flee this place, as a high-pitched shriek pierced the air, chilling me to my very core. For a moment, I was rooted to the spot in a nasty combination of pain and fear. You need to move...Now. The thought jumped into my head and stuck. If I could get to the tree-line but remain under cover, maybe I could see what was happening. Another fear-filled shriek echoed off of the trees, stirring the bats into the orange glow that masked the night sky. I remembered the ethereal voice that woke me urging me to find safety. Had I just imagined it, or had someone been here and fled in fear as I woke? The voice hadn’t sounded...human, really. Either way, it was time to move. The lights played a dance upon her skin, a sort of neon magic. No matter where you looked around the awe-struck room, your gaze would fall on some man, drink in hand, drunkenly soaking in the beauty seductively dancing before them.
The music pulsed heady and sexy around them while the bright blue and white lights flashed across their tabletops as they did across her milky skin. The burgundy silks that she clung to kept her dreamy, and transfixing, hovering high above them, far from reach of all the hands that were so eager. Her thoughts carried her far from the boundaries of this club, into the stars themselves as she lost herself to the dance she dared to love so much. As she felt the music coarse through her veins, her pulse raced and she reveled in the powerful and intimately captivating magic she possesed. She not only knew what the faces of the audience looked like right now, she loved it, and the trip-of-a-lifetime feeling that would flood over her every time. She let it consume her, controlling bother her thoughts and her actions. Gripping the silk streamers tighter around her hands, she twisted the burgundy drapes around her slim waist and down each of her long, smooth legs and danced across the air as no one else could. Her muscles stretched and ached in that old familiar way that just seemed to heighten her already soaring excitement. The music continued with its relentless attack on the senses, building higher and higher, like you weren't just listening to it but living it. The lights took on a circular pattern, racing in, out, and around from the center of the room where their raven-haired goddess rolled herself up in those tantalizing burgundy silks again and again until every breath in the room was held. Every seat in the room was silent and still, waiting with eyes full of longing as she hung high above them. Before their eyes, all at once, all lights shut off, save a single light blue spotlight on her delicate form. As the music dropped, so did she. Her body unraveled with dangerous speed down the length of the streamers, plummeting towards the cold, hard floor. Not a single back in the room felt the comfort of their chair. Just when it looked like she was running out of time and out of streamer, she gripped the silk with all of her might and swung herself back into an upright position, her legs in graceful splits, mere feet above the floor. Throwing her head back and letting her long, dark hair flow freely down her back, she slipped deeper into the power of the last wavering note filling the silence of the room. The air was so thick and wet, it felt as if you were fighting drowning every time you drew a breath. The trees all around us easily towered over 200 feet into the air, every one of them dripping with vines. The array of battering ferns and masses of other indigenous plant life kept movements isolated and the pace at little more than a crawl. Every new step and every side-glance at the clock brought with it another choke-able excuse for air.
Leave it to a business man to get a big head and fuck shit up. Now it was the teams mission to clean up the mess. Fucking tigers, poisonous snakes, and deadly spiders the size of your face hiding in wait around any foliage draped turn. As if a 17 mile hump through the South Asian rainforest on a particularly blistering day wasn't bad enough, it was all to eliminate some greedy bastard on information that was vague to say the least. Dropped off at the coast just south of Visakhapatnam, India at 0100 hours, our orders were to head Northwest through this God-forsaken, hot and sticky rainforest to a particular set of coordinates that would reveal a small, private security compound allegedly housing the target along with 10-15 private security personnel. At 2100 hours, the guards would rotate and we would strike, eliminating all within the compound. A small craft would be waiting at a river evac zone approximately two miles East of our position at 2300 to take us back to the coast where we would meet up with the Marine Expeditionary Unit floating a ways off-shore. It was nearly 1800 hours and we had to be getting close. We were all a little butt-hurt and a lot soaked after the recent rain shower but it was just a matter of time now. No matter their moods, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if there was a job to do, they would get it done and watch each others backs all the while. Our bond is the type that family and friends pine for, it was far deeper than blood. Signaling for the men to stop, I pulled the map from my rain-guard pocket and check our position. A tingle started at my brow, the sensation continuing downward until it was rolling along the bridge of my nose. Before they could fall to the map, I wiped away the beads of colored sweat that were gathered on my painted face. Fucking humidity. Fucking rainforest. Fucking Asia. Connors moved up to my side. "How we lookin', Capt.?" he asked, his voice barely over an audible whisper. "Well the good news is the target only has 10-15 private security personnel which means they aren't really expecting a hit to happen so much as just following a safety protocol. On the other side of things, we've got to be within 500 meters of the damn place but I have a feeling we won't see it until we're right on fucking top of it," I responded, placing the map back into my pocket. My men were staggered a little ways behind my position but it was time to make our move forward. Reaching for the radio, I alerted the men. "Push forward. Two hours from rotation. Move out." I cast a glance at Connors, one of the best Marines I've served with, and one of my closest friends. "You're on me," I whispered. His answering nod was all I needed. We moved up. Silent as the night and as deadly a weapon as they come, two things I was proud as hell for my men and I to be as the perimeter of the compound came into view. The "compound" really didn't look like much of a compound at all. Most likely, they depended more or less on the isolation of the location and the environmental dangers you would have to brave to reach it. It looked much more like a fotified barn than anything. Connors and I had already hit the dirt at the base of a large tree surrounded with enough plant life to keep the two of us concealed without a worry. The clicks started coming in over the radio, my men were in position. From here, it was all a waiting game until the compound's guard rotation. According to our intel, there were four guards stationed around the perimeter fence, two by the compound entrance and, supposedly, six inside the compound. Two of the six inside remain at the target's side at all times in a larger room towards the back of the building, leaving the other four towards the front of the building in a small, office-style room to the right of the main hallway. The plan was to simultaneously take out the four perimeter fence guards as soon as they were set. This would allow us a 15 second window to take out the two stationed on either side of the entrance and to enter the compound before the inner guards would notice anything suspicious on the security footage being relayed to their front room. Once we breached the compound, Peters and Trullio were responsible for eliminating the four guards in the front room while Connors, Stavenaugh and myself pushed immediately to the rear of the building to take care of our target and his two little body guards. Eagle would maintain his position in a tree out front in case we had any unexpected guests to manage. 2100 hours approached quicker than anticipated, not that I was complaining. We were all eager to get back for a hot shower and a hot meal. The entrance to the compound creaked open and the guards began making their way out for rotation and those outside turned to head in. Sitting as still as a corps to hit a mark wasn't as glorious as a civilian may think. The moisture seemed to just soak you to the bone and your joints don't exactly feel limber with the excessive lack of movement. At least now, the time to strike was here. My voice no louder than a passing breeze, I got on the radio. "Ready." As one, we silently raised our suppressed rifles and took aim. The guards were in position and in our cross-hairs. "Fire." |
E. Marie (lovereapersangel)
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