“So Jew-boy, why’d you enroll at lovely Nowhere Island University?” With one question, Richard had just raised so many questions. Was he the fourth UNIX infiltrator? Did that mean UNIX had known Nazis would attack Nowhere Island and had neglected to warn the other three agents stationed there? More pressingly, did this mean May and I could live?
Well, there was only one way to find out. “Would you believe,” I said jokingly, “that I thought I was applying to NY
U?” As I finished, I noticed that Richard made a twirling motion with his shotgun. As he did so, Kyle’s crew raised their guns and stopped leaning on the walls.
One of the Nazis in front of Kyle and Richard rolled his eyes. “He obviously isn’t joining. All he’s doing is telling…”
“What a coincidence,” Richard interrupted, adjusting his aim so he was now aiming at the Nazi who had just spoken. “Me too.” As he did so, Kyle and his crew also adjusted their aim as well. They fired almost simultaneously.
Behind me, I heard some voices in German making concerned queries. Then there were sharp bursts of AK fire. “Clear!” I heard a female voice with a Mexican accent say. I turned around to see a person of ambiguous gender lift up a ski mask with one hand to reveal a feminine Hispanic face.
“Camilla,” Kyle said, somewhat exasperated, “put the mask back on. We haven’t blown our cover yet.” Suddenly a radio crackled, a voice in German angrily enquiring something. Kyle holstered his Browning and got off May. “Please be quiet for a moment. Also, if you could police your brass? That’d be great.”
He then raised the radio to his ear. “Yes?” He asked. “Ah, Colonel Graff! Yeah we actually managed to capture two of them.” He paused as the Colonel on the other end asked a question. “Yeah,” Kyle said, “there were actually three of them… Sorry, but Sergeant Heinz went in first. We only got the second one because he ran out of ammo killing them… The other one’s a Triple A med student. She was unarmed and we figured she’d be of more use alive.” The officer muttered a bit more. Suddenly, Kyle’s eyes grew wide.
“You breached the advanced engineering labs?” he said, his eyes wide with panic, but his voice happy. “Great! We’ll see you there.”
After making sure the radio was completely off, he turned to the rest of us. “We need to move,” he said. “Now.
Killer, I’m going to put handcuffs on you and May, but they’re fake, ok?”
“What the hell just happened?” May asked, coughing a bit. “Whose team are you even on?”
“That’s easy,” I said, “their own. But I guess they are working for the university in this case, right?”
“Yeah,” Richard said condescendingly, as he tossed me a pair of handcuffs. “Now be a good boy and put on the bracelets.”
Kyle, noticing the way I was staring murderously at Richard, quickly said, “Please. It’ll make life a lot easier for us. And Richard? Don’t be a dick.” I inspected the handcuffs and saw that there was a button on them that allowed them to be instantly opened.
— Итак, не могли бы вы проинформировать меня о том, что происходит? Я спросил.
— Позже, — сказал Кайл. — Просто притворись пленником, ладно? Я вздохнул. У меня не было выбора. По какой-то причине Кайл решил оставить мне жизнь. Я могу предположить, что у него был план для меня, но если я не буду сотрудничать сейчас,
ему придется убить меня. Ведь полковник ожидал его прибытия с двумя пленными.
— Конечно, — сказал я, надевая наручники. Мне действительно было любопытно посмотреть, как все это происходит. Я смотрел, как все собирают свои медные детали и мою Берретту. После того, как они закончили, Кайл подал нам знак, чтобы мы быстро уходили.
Мы быстро отошли, Ричард и Кайл были на месте, двое, которых я не узнал, шли за мной, а Камила замыкала шествие. Мы двигались по улицам, избегая постоянно растущего числа нацистских патрулей, но называя себя, когда не могли их избежать. Когда мы двинулись, я услышал звуки выстрелов. Если мне пришлось догадываться, то в основном сообщения исходили из аэропорта и штаб-квартиры безопасности кампуса.
Наконец мы добрались до передовой инженерии. Напротив здания в здание только начинала входить группа гитлеровцев. Четверо нацистов и темноволосый мужчина в деловом костюме стояли снаружи и смотрели, как они входят. На одном из них вместо каски была офицерская фуражка. Я предположил, что это означает, что это полковник Графф. Четверо начали приближаться к нам. Темноволосый студент достал радио и стал внимательно слушать.
«Мистер. Рокфорд, — сказал человек, которого я принял за полковника Граффа, подходя к нам, — вы опоздали.
«Извините, сэр, — сказал Кайл, — у нас только что произошла небольшая неприятность».
— Да, — сказал человек в деловом костюме, оборачиваясь. Я заметил, что у него очень шикарный британский акцент и несколько самодовольное поведение. Кроме того, его большие круглые очки были несколько тонкими, словно они предназначались больше для эффекта, чем для коррекции зрения. Его отношение также было чрезвычайно самодовольным. «Некоторые из наших разведчиков только что нашли отряд Хайнца. Я думаю, их выводы вас весьма заинтересуют».
В этот момент здание сотрясла серия взрывов. Несколько людей полковника Граффа обернулись на звук. Этого времени хватило Кайлу, Ричарду и другим моим «похитителям». Двое людей Граффа были зарезаны огнем М-4, а еще один отступил от выстрела дробовика Ричарда. Тем временем Кайл вытащил М-1 «Гаранд», который перекинул за спину, и направил его на полковника Граффа.
«Полковник Графф, мистер Смит, — любезно сказал Кайл, — с вами хотел бы поговорить президент Энтони Ньютон-Хауэлл».
Нажимая кнопки на своих фальшивых наручниках, я заметил бледное выражение лица Смита. Я также понял, что он, должно быть, был тем парнем Тейлором Смитом, которого Мэй ненавидела. Мне следовало обратить внимание на Граффа. Он вытащил что-то похожее на «Браунинг» с магазином перед пистолетной рукояткой, но прежде чем он успел прицелиться, Кайл дважды выстрелил.
«Черт побери
это!» Кайл почти закричал. Он повернулся к Смиту. «Ты, — сказал он, — на земле!» Смит, все еще бледный как полотно, издал смущенный звук.
“If he doesn’t get down,” Richard asked, “can I shoot him in the balls?”
“You traitors…” Smith said, getting down on his knees. “Do you understand what you’ve done?” I noticed that he was getting louder as he talked. I also noticed that Kyle was stalking towards him. “This is for the benefit of the world! Not only are we restoring the proper order, but…”
Kyle cut him off by smashing the side of Smith’s head with his rifle butt. As he bent down to apply zip ties to Smith’s wrists, he said, “My Grandfather spent his whole life fighting people like you, but I didn’t need him to learn that people like you are shit. Don’t even bother talking to me.”
“You have no idea what’s coming, do you?” Smith asked, laughing.
“Brad!” Kyle said, still not returning to his calm self.
“Yeah, Cap?” the guy behind me asked. He seemed like he was a football player before enrolling. Made sense, since Kyle was a former football player who had brought a few of his friends over with him. Also explained why Brad called him Cap.
“Take charge of this piece of shit,” Kyle spat out. He then turned to me and May. “You two, get some weapons.”
I pulled out my Sig. Kyle’s eyes widened. Apparently, he hadn’t realized I had it on me. May, meanwhile, looked somewhat uncomfortable. Understandable for a pacifist. Luckily for her, we heard a bunch of voices in German coming from down the street.
“We need to move.” Camilla said. “Now.”
“Ok,” Kyle said, “everyone inside.” We followed Richard and Kyle into the building. To the left of the hallway, there was a security booth. Kyle ran to the door and typed some numbers on the keypad. The door opened. “Everyone,” Kyle said, “get in!”
We didn’t waste any time. We still weren’t fast enough. I was the third-to-last person in. Brad was behind me, pushing Smith in front of him. He was almost in the room when there was a burst of gunfire. He collapsed.
Before Smith could run away, I pulled him in and pistol-whipped him for good measure. He fell into the room face-first. Meanwhile, gunfire began slamming into the desk and bullet-resistant glass. Ignoring it, I reached out to grab the rifle Brad had dropped. As I did so, I caught sight of a group of four Nazis coming in through the door. A bullet whizzed by my head just as I grabbed the rifle. I quickly got back into cover.
Meanwhile, Kyle was talking on a phone he had pulled off the desk. “This is Dagger,” he said, his voice barely masking the nervousness he felt. “We need Bravo Passage to open up, and we need it now.”
“Kyle…” his other pre-NIU friend said, “the glass is starting to crack…”
“Thank you Jared,” Kyle said, putting his hand to the receiver, then went back to the phone. “Skywalker, you there? We need to get up the passage right now.
I’ve got three persons of interest I need to get to safety. Please open the passageway!”
A section of bullet-resistant glass shattered, raining shards down on me, Smith and May. There’s a reason I never call anything bullet-proof. Not wanting to see how long the desk and wall would last, I leaned out and began to return fire. I managed to put a two-round burst in one of them before they focused on me.
Richard, for his part, moved over to where the window had been blown out and began to fire from behind this new position. “Nice going, Jew-boy,” he said, ducking to return fire.
“My name,
” I said, leaning out to fire a few more bursts, “is Nathan.”
The remaining two Nazis dropped dead. “Fucking use it.”
“Really?” Camilla asked exasperatedly from the far end of the booth. “You can stop pretending to be an asshole, Richard.” To punctuate her statement, a rocket hit the bullet-resistant glass between her and the closest person to her. When the smoke and flames cleared, they revealed a shocked expression on her face.
“They’re coming from stairwell two!” Jared yelled and began returning fire.
“Good news,” Kyle said. “They’re sending down the elevator. We just have to hold out a little longer, ok?”
I looked out from behind the door to see a bunch of Nazis coming in through the main entrance. Luckily for me, there was no cover for them. I was suddenly distracted by the roar of a machinegun and the sound of bullets hitting the desk and the windows. Jared fell back, clutching his ear and screaming in pain.
“We’ve got a machinegun!” Camilla yelled. “Stairwell two! We need to leave!”
Before I turned back to deal with the steadily increasing amount of people coming in through the main entrance, I saw May crawl over to Jared, probably getting cut up on a lot of broken glass. Eventually, I heard Jared begin to return fire. When another glass window shattered, Kyle also began shooting.
That was good, because the M-4 clone I had taken from Brad was out of ammo. I quickly leaned out and began dragging him back in. When he was back, I noticed that he was carrying a bullet-riddled backpack. I also noticed that a bullet had entered the back of his head. When he was in, I opened the backpack. I quickly saw that it was ammo and grenades. A few of the mags near the near the rear were damaged by gunfire, but a lot of it was intact… including two quadrastacked mags.
“Anyone need a refill?” I asked.
“I’m good,” Jared said. “For now.”
“Same here,” Kyle said.
“I’ve only got two mags left,” Camilla said. “And that’s counting the one in my gun.” There was a click. “Wait,” Camilla amended, “make that one.”
I reached into the backpack and pulled out two AK mags. “Here ya go,” I said, sliding them down the floor to her. “Also, grenades for everyone.” I began rolling the explosives down to people. Once everyone who was fighting had three grenades, I grabbed one of the quadrastacked magazines. Tossing the empty one away, I began fitting the sixty-round behemoth into my gun.
Once I had done that and had begun to put the backpack on me, I heard Jared yell, “Catch, you shit-faces!” A few seconds later, I heard screams. I looked up. Stairwell two was in flames. A Nazi with an SMG came running out, desperately trying to pat the fire out. I sent a silent thanks to God that the grenades in Brandon’s backpack hadn’t exploded right next to my face.
Suddenly, a large steel panel behind us began to roll open. “Elevator’s here!” Kyle yelled. “Move it or lose it!”
“Get in,” I yelled, cocking Brad’s M-4. “I’ll cover you!”
“Richard,” Kyle said, “You’re almost out. Get Smith in the elevator!” I looked behind me. There was Smith, lying face up. Richard began to move over to drag him into the elevator.
Ignoring the thought that something was wrong about Smith, I leaned out of cover to begin sustained fire on the people entering the building. I had kind of lost track of things when Kyle called out, “Killer! Get in, we’re leaving!”
I turned to see that everyone else was in the elevator, and the steel panel that had been hiding it was slowly sliding closed. I got up, firing as I went. Once I was inside, the M-4 clicked. I got out of the way so Camilla could take my place suppressing the incoming Nazis.
When the steel door finally closed, I dropped the M-4 and asked, “So. Anyone care to tell me what the actual fuck
is going on?”
