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Gone Quiet Chapter 2

My life vehicle came down on the rooftop. Gripping the cable it winched me into the cabin, and I moved to the holding area. There, the man I had shot sat writing in pain. He wasnt' bleeding anymore. They'd stopped that.

"Has anyone hit him with painkillers?"

The Medic standing over him held up a syringe. "Was just about to. We only just got the bleeding stopped. Those MAP rounds really take the mickey out of a body." He moved in to shove the syringe into the mans neck.

I held out my hand and he stopped. "No. Don't. He can get this when I get my info."

Gex and Jason walked into the room. Jason pressed a small button the side of his HUD, and removed it, tossing it on the ground. He walked over to the man, and bent down. "What's your name?"

The man looked up at Jason, "Go to hell, pig." He said, in a thick, Rissan accent, and he spat blood and spittle into Jason's face. This wasn't the wisest of ideas.

"You son of a bitch." Jason grabbed a billy-stick off his utility belt, extended it and smacked the man over the face, splitting his lip.

"You can still go to hell."

Jason's eyebrown arched. "Really? How about we do this intead." He took the stick, and brought it crashing down onto the man's shattered ankle. He screamed in pain.

"Leftenant!" The medic yelled. "I must insist that you..." Gex walked up behind him, and guided him away from the scene.

"I know it's not pretty mate, but it has to be done. We need to know what he does, and...well, you're just seeing what we would have done later."

It was my turn. Flexing my wrist, a small, white tube connected to a handle slid into my palm. I pressed a button and an electric current began to course up and down the shaft. I leaned in to the man, and pressed it against his neck. He screamed, and struggled, but I held the shock-stick there till the skin began to smoke and split.

"Now tell me what I want to know. Who are you, and who do you work for."

He smiled now. "My name is of little concequence, because I am about to die. As to who I work for? I work for..the Shadow. He who stalks you. You are never alone, pig. You are never...." He began to convulse. The medic came running back around the corner and opened a scanner, shoving the needle into the mans wrist.

But, before he could do anything more, the man stopped moving, and his mouth sagged. Blood, puss and bile rising from his throat and pouring onto the floor. The medic stood up and baked away, he was visibly shaken. "What the...what the hell is that?"

I sighed as Jason refixed his HUD to his face. "It's called Andro-oxide Poisoning. Do an autopsy. You'll find a single nanite. It will be dead. Extract it, study it. You'll know then. All you need to know for now is that most agents have it in the USSRE. If they are captured, the Nanite activates. 20 minutes later, that happens."

Gex looked over. "So, what do you think?"

I rolled my eyes. "Not much, at the moment. He was a government agent though. The USSRE wouldn't go through back channels for THIS kind of assassination. At least we have a target now, but..damned if it couldn't get any bigger. It stretches from the Japanese/Russian Boarder, up and over India and around into Iran. This is not a good start to my week."

The ship rocked, and I fell, slipping in a puddle of fluid from the dead Russian.

Alex cracked a smile. "What a brillant way to start your week is right." He laughed. I scowled and stood, wiping the...juice from my trousers.

"What the hell was that?"

The pilot's voice came back over the comsystem. "Anti-Air round. It appears that the Russians are going back to conventional warfare. Thing is, whatever blast they're hitting us with? It's not showing up on radar, and we cant' get it on sonic senors. It's quiet."

There was another blast and the cabin lights flickered. "Kinetic shields are down. One more hit and we won't be landing. We'll be sliding in sideways. "

The holocom on my wrist flashed, I pressed it, and a full size version of the UN Commander stepped out of the air using the dropships holoimagers. "LaPierre, do you read?"

"Yessir. Loud and clear."

"Good, you and your team are to report back to base A-sap. We need you moving out, pronto."

"Sir? We've got a dead body here, he..."

THe commander cut me off. "He likely didn't give you anything. And anything he would have, we already knew. We were waiting for this to happen. We just didn't think it'd be so soon. I can't say anything else, Captain. You know that. No one else on that vessel has CWC (Code Word Clearance), so we'd best cut this short."

I nodded to the shorter man. A lot of people took Commander Kelles for granted. But he was a tough, burly, Scottsman. He brooked no argument, and took no shit from anyone. And, I was fiercely loyal to him. He had saved my ass more times than I could count. "On our way commander." The link died. "You heard the Commander, pilot, get us to the Pentagon."

The Pentagon. A few hundred years ago, it was the site of the American DoD, and it still was, to an extent. But, it was used mostly by the UN. The DoD had moved into a new system that had been built below the White House, so I was told. I didn't like that. Nothing like having all your eggs in one basket. Either way, we'd upgraded the Pentagon, add a couple new wings, and a C&C Bunker five stories below the ground, where my team met.

......and every other counter-intel squad. But it was called Lambda Wing, so we took particular pride in it, given that was our squad designation. And so, we landed on the platform at the Pentagon, and the elevator opened, lowering the ship down to the 3rd level were the medic, the body and the pilot got off. It then continued down the 5th level, where we disembarked, and the ship was then shunted sideways to the hanger.

Kelles met us at the gate. I looked at him, and removed my sunglasses HUD. "So, what the hell is going on?"

Kelles shook his head. "Russia has decided they want a bigger piece of the pie. We have no idea how it happened, but they've taken Finland, Sweden Norway and Germany, then they moved backwards and took out Poland, Belarus and the Ukraine, anexing Latvia and Bestonia on the way."

"Bloody Hell," Jason said. "They just grew by...25% at least."

Kelles nodded. "28.6% to be exact. They're poised to invade the Arab nations next. And that poses a major issue, due to part of our system being located there."