Thirty and twelve degrees right. One hundred left. Six degrees above eye level. Now!
Two quick pops with his gun and one flick of his wrist later, two assailants lay dead by his hand. He ducked and spun just as a spray of bullets splattered the walls behind him. He felt another sharp pain in his thigh, a grazing shot that just missed his knee. By the time he had gotten his bearings, Matthew was hovering over him, while Austin, having shot two of the survivors point blank, was about to execute another.
Then Austin dropped, shot down by the Epsilons at the far door. Both Matthew and Enzo engaged, hitting their marks. However, the two heavily armored Epsilons shrugged off the shots. Another gunshot felled Matthew. Enzo didn’t spare him another glance as he charged forward. The Epsilon got one more shot off point blank at his face. Enzo saw the bright flash of the chamber as he ducked to the right, the bullet nearly touching his cheek. He charged across the room and was on top of the man in half a second. He avoided a slash of the bayonet and shot an upward spear-hand into the soft tissue of the man’s chin, killing him in one blow.
Enzo threw the limp body toward the other Epsilon and grappled with the man’s pistol. Then he broke the second Epsilon’s wrist with a sharp twist, took the pistol from him, and jammed the attached bayonet into the base of the man’s neck. Enzo casually tossed the body aside and went to check on his brothers. They were both still alive, though Austin was injured badly. He had suffered a gunshot wound to the stomach that had gotten under his armor. Matthew, fortunately, took one to the chest where his armor had withstood the impact.
This entire church must be a trap. Get out. Now!
“I’m not leaving my brothers.”
“Help me with Austin,” he said, dragging Matthew to his feet.
“Brother, go,” Matthew grimaced. “Your safety is paramount. We gladly serve…”
“Quiet and help me.”
The two of them, dragging Austin with them, fled the room through the door they had come through. Austin’s face was pale, and he was leaking a river of blood. If he died now, there was a chance his Holy One might not find another vessel in time. The three of them made it halfway down the hallway when an explosion rocked the church, blowing them forward as a rush of hot air lifted them off the ground.
Everything went black under a rolling cloud of dust. When Enzo came to, fire raged all around, the old church with its many priceless relics burning and melting in front of his eyes. Ignoring the sharp pain in his leg, Enzo pulled himself to his feet and picked up his two brothers.
Austin was unconscious, having taken the brunt of the explosion, the left side of his once-beautiful face now marred by burns. Matthew came to a second later, in only slightly better shape. Together, the two of them picked Austin back up and carried him down the stairs. They were met halfway by Enzo’s perimeter security, who helped get them outside to safety.
A few minutes later, as the doctors checked on the three Adonises, a veritable army of fire trucks and ambulances swooped in. They were soon accompanied by fifty Genjix operatives, who canvased the area.
Enzo pushed the doctor fussing with his shoulder aside and struggled to stand as Akelatis, the Adonis who was responsible for securing the church, approached and fell to a knee. “How did Vinnick get those men in there?” he thundered. “How did we not detect them?”
Akelatis looked ashamed. “I’m sorry, Father. I have failed. They must have planted those men into the walls for over five days.”
And the extraction teams that were in wait?
Enzo repeated Zoras’s question.
Akelatis shook his head. “They never moved in. They pulled back as soon as the explosion happened.”
Enzo swore. It was ruse all along. The worst part was, Vinnick had made the entire meeting seem like it was Enzo’s idea, and he had fallen for it.
See to your men.
“What about our casualties?” he asked.
“Fourteen dead. Nineteen injured. Six missing as of this moment, Father.”
Enzo balled his fists together. So much for this being a Genjix unification. The stubborn bastard was intent on fighting to the very end. Very well, if that’s the way he wanted to play it, Enzo would treat him as he did everything else that stood in his way.
“Call the Assembly,” he said. “We’re going to war.”
6 Roen
Timestamp: 2571
It took me a while to realize that my head was empty. Tao was strangely silent. At first, I thought he was – I don’t know – sleeping or something. Maybe he was just letting me rest. I tried to speak to him; asked how he was doing. He didn’t answer.
After a day of silence, I thought he might have been injured as well. I did get busted up pretty good after all. At no point did I ever think that my best friend was no longer with me. That would have to mean that I was dead, right?
Roen brought up the evening dishes and found Jill and Rin relaxing over a glass of wine. The scientist was the only one currently allowed in the farmhouse. Sachin had vouched early on for her, and the scores of documentation she had already handed over were one of the first things the Keeper had verified. Her defection was the real deal, and now an army of Prophus scientists were poring over each and every file.
Roen grimaced at the mound of dishes piled up in the sink. He and Jill had an agreement; if one of them cooked, the other cleaned. One of the stark realities of being a secret agent that people never realized from movies and books was that there was no cleaning service on secret bases. It was great that they lived hidden on the edge of a forest, but acquiring monthly supplies for the operation without attracting attention required a feat of logistics that Nathanael Greene, who incidentally had been a Prophus, would approve of.
The worst part was, even though the rest of the refugees were still technically his prisoners, Roen was currently acting as the prisoners’ butler, bringing them food and sundries upon request. While all had agreed to turn to the Prophus cause, they hadn’t earned his trust yet. The information they had provided him could prove valuable, but their intel had to be checked and cross-referenced before he really believed they had changed sides. If verified, Roen and Jill would have scored a trove of sensitive intelligence. Until then, he couldn’t be sure the prisoners weren’t double-crossing the Prophus, so they had to stay in their cells. There was no way he’d let them near his family, so for now, he was relegated to butler duty.
Jill finished her glass of wine and shook it at him. Roen obliged and brought over the eight-dollar container of chardonnay they had stacked by the crate in storage. “Madam,” he purred in an exaggerated fashion. “Your box.” He motioned to Rin who raised her glass as well.
“Thank you, Alfred,” she answered, craning her neck up to kiss him. “Now, my grapes.”
“We’re fresh out, but I believe we have a box of raisins.” He put the box down and headed out of the kitchen.
“Hey, what about the dishes?”
“Cameron’s training right now. I’ll do it after he goes to bed. I want to talk to Tao for a bit.”
“Likely excuse, mister.”
As he left the kitchen, he heard Jill tell Rin, “God, I love that man.” It made him feel good. The two of them had gone through a rough patch years back when things had really turned south for the Prophus. Roen had left Jill and newborn Cameron to follow the rumors of the secret Quasiform project, and though his suspicions were proven correct and the scale of the secret Genjix project was even larger and more terrible than anyone could have expected, Roen knew he had been wrong listening to Tao and abandoning his family.