Incursion

Chapter 27: Return

It was 1720 in the afternoon by the time I got to the Copperfield neighbourhood. The sky had turned to near evening in terms of darkness, shrouding much of the surroundings in a cloak of blackness despite the streetlamps still staying lit every couple dozen metres by the sidewalks. There was a light flurry falling from the sky, but otherwise the air was still as I opened my door and stuck my legs outside.

“Knight.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Christina Valentine, whose face bore the grimmest of expressions I had seen in her face so far. Ever since I mentioned that the rec centre had been attacked, she had kept quiet, but knowing what I did of her, the next thing she’d say was—

“I’m coming with you.”

I shook my head immediately. “No. You stay here.”

“I have to see it.”

“No, you don’t. You’re going to stay put and wait for me or the team to come back.”

“Yes, I do.” Her voice hardened abruptly, and I forced myself to look at her eyes. In the glow of the overhead lights on the ceiling of the LUV, I saw that same stubbornness in her eyes that seemed to come out whenever the safety of innocents were concerned. At first I assumed it was merely some innate, strong sense of justice she had, but now I knew all there was to that part of her.

I stared at her for no longer than two seconds before I cast my eyes downward, opting to keep them on her lips instead. I didn’t want to see sky blue again.

I didn’t want to sit and argue about things with her, either. As much as I wanted to conclude my personal business, I wasn’t sure how to yet. Right now, there were other more urgent matters to look into.

“Fine,” I said, stepping outside fully. “Can you walk?”

Christina appeared puzzled at the question, but only for a fleeting moment. She nodded almost promptly.

“I can manage.”

I reached into the back seat for my P416 assault rifle, checked the magazine to make sure it was full, then flipped the safety. When I looked up again, Christina was already standing on my side of the vehicle with an expectant look on her face.

I took out a pair of infrared goggles from my backpack and mounted it to my watch cap.

She kept staring at me without saying a word, as if she were waiting for me to say something. I pulled the goggles down over my eyes.

“I’m not going to give you a weapon,” I told her. “If I’m going to get shot, it won’t be in the back.”

She grimaced.

“I won’t shoot you in the back, Knight.”

She said this in a slightly offended tone, but I ignored that. After what I’d learned about her over the last forty-eight hours, I couldn’t trust that she wouldn’t turn on me at the next convenient opportunity.

I shut the doors on my side of the vehicle and brought my rifle to bear. “Stay close. Let’s go.”

We began walking toward Copper Pond, approaching the northern portion of the circular road that surrounded it. Before we crossed the street, I initiated a call to Genel.

“Knight to Archer. Come in.”

“Archer,” she said in acknowledgment, “I copy.”

“Approaching from the north of the pond. Where are you?”

“South of the pond. We’re taking cover by the back of some houses close to the edge of the water. Here, let me blink my torch in your direction. Tell me if you see it.”

I trained my eyes across the pond, where an unmistakeable pinprick of light began blinking intermittently by the last house to the southwest, close to where the bike path encircling the pond turned onto Copperpond Circle to the south.

“I see it. Coming to you.”

I glanced behind me at Christina to make sure she was keeping up, then led the way toward where the light was. I took the bike path in a counter clockwise direction, making it to the house in less than five minutes.

When we got there, we found Genel and Josh by the wooden fence surrounding the last house, as well as King, Jacobs, and Reid. When we reached them, Genel immediately blew past me and threw herself at Christina.

“Oh my god,” she mumbled as she locked the other woman in an embrace. “Chrissy. It’s good to have you back.”

“Umm, hi,” Christina replied, clearly awkward. “Sorry, just don’t squeeze too hard. I still have—”

“Damn, you’re right. Sorry. I forgot about your—”

“Can it,” I told the two of them before turning to Chief Warrant Officer King. “Fill me in. What happened?”

King’s shoulders rose and fell dejectedly as she gave me a momentary little smile. “Nice to see you again, Grim Reaper. Right. Yeah. My team and I left the site before 1400 today to recon possible routes for the Army reinforcements coming in a couple of days. We’ve got a couple of routes that should give them relatively direct shots at the downtown core – that’s the good news. The bad news… well, as Archer probably told you already, the hideout’s been attacked. When we returned, the rec centre was completely dark. There were bodies outside. We’ve kept out distance for now as we just got back from recon and radioed you guys instead just in case.”

I nodded. “Okay. We need to investigate the site and find out what happened and how it did.”

King crossed her arms over her chest. “Not sure about that. It could be a trap to lure us in.”

“We’ll survey the area before moving in. We need to assess the situation regardless. King, Shadow Team will handle this. Can you stay here and hold off in case things get bad?”

“Yeah, sure, but don’t you think we should all go?”

“If this is a trap, there’s no sense in all of us walking right into it. The reinforcements that are coming in a couple of days are going to need operatives who are more familiar with the city to coordinate their approach and attacks. If it’s not Shadow Team, it’ll be you Juliets. If the 41 CBGs are gone, we can’t afford to lose everyone.”

I glanced at Genel who, to my exasperation, still had her arms around Christina like a mother who was refusing to let go of a child. I couldn’t fathom how she was still treating the other woman like that after everything I showed her. I’d probably have to talk to her about this, but not now.

“Archer,” I told her, “give King the coordinates to Haven.”

Genel raised her eyebrows, finally untangling herself from Christina. “You sure?”

“I’m sure. We can’t afford to look for anywhere else to base them now.”

“Okay, if you say so.”

I waited for Genel to pass along the coordinates to Shadow Team’s base of operations, then turned to Josh.

“Goliath, you’re with me and Angel. We’re going to the rec centre.”

Josh nodded, shouldering his LMG. “Copy that, boss. Hey, uh… Angel?”

Christina glanced at him. “Yeah?”

“Don’t you have a gun? You can have my—”

“No,” I interjected sharply, “Don’t give her a weapon.”

He looked baffled at this. “Eh? Why not? Isn’t she coming with us?”

I really wish she wasn’t, I wanted to say, but looked to Genel furtively instead. She caught my eye and frowned, shaking her head almost imperceptibly.

“Yeah, but don’t give her one. Just watch her. Understand?”

“Err, sure. You gonna explain later or what?”

I held back a sigh. “Maybe. Let’s focus on the here and now. Archer, I want you on overwatch. Get on a vantage point that covers all of the rec centre and the surrounding area. Keep an eye out for everything out of place.”

“You got it,” the team sharpshooter said.

“Also, if this does wind up being a trap and we get caught in it, I want you to fall back and continue working with King and her team.”

Predictably, Genel’s first reaction was to gape at me. “What?”

“We need to figure out what happened at the rec centre and if anything or anyone can be recovered. But if we spring a trap and the three of us fall for it, the CSOR team will need you to give them access to Haven now that the rec centre’s compromised. We can’t have all of us getting wiped out, Archer. Do you understand?”

“And you still don’t want her being armed, why?” Josh jerked his thumb toward Christina. I ignored this question, keeping my attention on Genel, who was looking all manner of conflicted.

Genel glanced toward King and her team, then back toward me. “It won’t come to that.”

“Probably not. But I need you to keep things in perspective, copy?”

“Fine.” She didn’t sound happy, but she’d never be happy with plenty of my decisions.

I turned back to Angela King, Caleb Jacobs, and Ethan Reid. “You all wait here. Hopefully, we can discuss counterattack plans later. Worst case scenario, Archer will meet you and take you to our BOO.”

Reid gave a nod. “Give us a shout and we’ll be there, Reaper.”

“I appreciate that, Reid, but we can’t put all our eggs in the same basket anymore. Angela, you understand, don’t you?”

The leader of Juliet 4 took a step forward and shrugged her shoulders. “Just get back here no matter what. It’d be bad if you died; I have something to ask you sooner or later. Got it?”

“What do you want to ask?”

She smiled slightly and poked the tip of her tongue out the corner of her mouth for a split second before retracting it back inside. “Not telling. Maybe later, in private. You wanna know, you stay alive, Grim Reaper.”

I am surrounded by childish women.

Stifling a comment about her supposed age, I looked at the other two Shadows and Christina.

“Okay, let’s move.”

The four of us left the CSOR operatives and traversed Copperstone Boulevard, bound south toward the Copperfield | Mahogany Association Centre. I took the lead while Christina stayed behind me, then Genel and Josh.

Before we reached the T-intersection of Copperstone Boulevard and Copperstone Road, we took a right onto a back alley behind a row of houses just across the street from the rec centre.

At the eighth residential building, Genel stopped and gestured toward the house. “Here. I’ll post up on the top floor and provide overwatch. I’ll have a good view of the surrounding area from here.”

“Roger that. Let me know if you see anything,” I replied.

Genel nodded, vaulted the low chain link fence, and disappeared through the back door of the two-story home.

I gestured toward the other two following me. “Come on, we need to get to the last house and scope out the area first ourselves.”

Josh, Christina, and I continued down the back alley until we reached the last house in the row. I led my group to the darkness of the narrow gap between the twelfth and thirteenth houses and crouched down on the snow. Josh and Christina did the same.

I lifted the night vision goggles from my face and brought out my binoculars. I brought the lenses up to my eyes and trained the device to the southwest, across Copperstone Road.

Through the infrared function of the binoculars, I was able to see west of the rec centre from our concealed position. Just under one hundred metres ahead was the building we were looking for. At first, nothing looked out of the ordinary, but quickly enough I saw that could not be the case. Even while keeping a low profile, the rec centre usually had one or two lights on in the ground floor, the illumination visible from one or a few adjacent windows. The guards in the lobby needed some light, after all. But now the whole building appeared abandoned.

Even more telling of the grimness of the situation was a heap of bodies clumped together on the front lawn, not ten steps outside the building’s front door, which was wide open. Even from this distance, I was certain none of those soldiers lying on the snow would ever get up again.

My earpiece crackled and Genel’s voice came through. “I’m in position. Got eyes on the… the rec centre and the surrounding area.”

Her voice sounded morose, as if she didn’t even want to talk at all.

I matched her tone and lowered my voice, trying to be tactful. I was sure she could see the scene much better than I could right now. I would have preferred not to ask, but right now I needed to know.

“What do you see?”

“Whole building’s gone dark.” She paused. “I see… my colleagues laid out on the front lawn.”

“Is the area clear, Archer?”

“I’m not seeing any movement, Knight.”

“Copy. Genel?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

She didn’t answer. All I heard from her was a sharp intake of breath.

I scanned the area myself with my binoculars one more time just to be sure, then put the device away and glanced back at Christina and Josh.

“How’s it look?” Josh asked in a tight whisper.

“No movement. It seems clear, but stick close to me, both of you. We’re crossing the street and checking out the building. Stay alert. Got it?”

“Got it,” Josh replied.

“Yes,” Christina said.

I turned back toward the street and brought my goggles back over my eyes, dousing the world in green again. I rose from my crouch and motioned for the two with me to follow.

I walked down the driveway leading out front of the last house in the row, then got on the street. The only sounds I could hear were the crunch of three pairs of boots on the snow and the occasional quiet rattle and clank of my weapon and Josh’s. Normally I didn’t mind the quiet, but with what I knew so far about what transpired, there was a certain gloominess and oppressiveness hanging thickly in the air like an invisible poison. Add to that how, as I was trained how to use silence and the dark as weapons, I knew that we could be being watched right now.

Did I make a mistake? Should I have come here alone? Genel would no doubt give me hell for even suggesting such a thing, and Christina would push harder for me to take her with me. Josh wouldn’t have let me go do this alone, either. Not if a sizable portion of our numbers had just been culled for some unconfirmed reason.

Genel said she saw nothing moving out here. She had the best view of the whole area out of all of us. I had to trust her on that.

The three of us eventually reached the rec centre’s parking lot. There were large tracks in the snow that didn’t match the tire treads of one of the Haven or Canadian Army LUVs, and not the patterns of the one commandeered US Army transport truck the 41 CBGs still had, either. The tracks themselves looked relatively new. There was a fierce blizzard last night that should have buried the marks if they were made prior to that.

Christina, Josh, and I finally reached the front of the Copperfield | Mahogany Association Centre, where the bodies of the 41 CBGs were splayed out on the snow, the white powder of snow and the red of their blood forming a macabre juxtaposition. Even in the limited colours afforded by my night vision, the blood on the snow was unpleasant enough to look at, if only to remind me that we’d always been outnumbered.

I crouched down in the middle of the rough line the bodies formed on the cold ground. I lifted my goggles off my eyes again and snapped on my torch to illuminate the victims. Closest to me, his eyes still open, was Master Corporal Timothy Lane, the acting CO of the group ever since Sergeant Damon Burke was killed in action during the last rescue operation at Peter Lougheed Centre.

I reached down and closed his eyes just as someone fell to their knees to my left. I glanced in that direction and saw Christina staring at the bodies of the 41 CBGs who were riddled seemingly indiscriminately with bullet wounds.

Her eyes were wide open, shock and disbelief plain to see in them. Her lips kept moving to form words I couldn’t hear at first. It wasn’t until I leaned slightly toward her that I was able to make out one sentence that she kept repeating over and over in a mutter like a mantra:

“It’s my fault. It’s my fault. It’s my fault.”

Before I could attempt to snap her out of her delirium, she snapped her head up at the darkened rec centre. A second later, she was back on her feet.

“Sarah,” she said hoarsely, caught between a whimper and a call. Her legs propelled her unsteadily toward the building in a couple of strides. “Olivia!”

I rose to my own feet as well and snatched her by the wrist before she could get far. “Wait, don’t—”

She was a slim woman without a lot of weight to her, but at that moment she grew rapidly more animated. Without taking her eyes off the building, she tried to break free of me with the ferocity and desperation of a wild animal. In no time at all, I had to drop my rifle just to wrap my arms around her and restrain her.

“Sarah! Olivia!” she screamed now, still clawing at my arms and writhing relentlessly in my grip. “I’m here! Can you hear me? SARAH!”

It was all I could do to hold her back without crushing her and aggravating any injuries she might have had.

“Damn it, listen to me,” I said to her over her screaming, “We don’t know if it’s safe and you’re—”

“Boss, what is—” Josh blurted, clearly lost and anxiously staring at the distraught girl in my arms.

“OLIVIA! SARAH!”

I glanced at Josh, who had approached the two of us with a look of concern clouding his face. “Josh, go check out the building. Be careful, we don’t know what’s in there.”

He hesitated, eyeing Christina.

“Josh!” I barked at him, gesturing toward the rec centre while struggling to restrain Christina.

“R-right,” he muttered, nodding almost distractedly. He turned and headed for the front door.

“Let me go!” Christina pleaded, almost beside herself with distress. “Let me go, I have to see, let me go!”

“Will you just… hold… still—!” I panted, attempting to drag her away from the bodies.

My earpiece crackled again. “Knight, what’s wrong with Angel?”

“She’s trying… to charge into the building without her head on straight…”

“Don’t let her—” Genel’s voice cut off abruptly. There was a second of pause from her before her tone changed.

“Sniper, your one o’clock!”

A shot rang out somewhere from the houses several dozen metres to the west. I grabbed Christina roughly and forced the two of us to the ground even as I knew that the chances of us dodging a bullet from this range was practically nonexistent.

I felt nothing mere moments after the shot rang out. No pain or heat searing my body. There was only the impact of me hitting the snow covered ground and the meager weight of another person on top of me.

At the same time, I heard Josh curse loudly from the porch of the rec centre.

Without thinking twice, I rolled over so that I was the one on top of Christina, whose frantic attempts to escape me thankfully ceased as soon as I dragged her to the ground. I got up off her and ignoring her confused remarks, I hauled her to her feet and yanked her by the arm to the rec centre’s northeast wall for cover.

Keeping one hand locked around her wrist, I tapped my earpiece quickly. “Goliath? Goliath, you hear me? Are you okay?”

“I think so,” Josh replied instantly, sounding mildly shaken and out of breath. “Or not. I don’t know. I think I got scraped on the neck.”

“Get inside! Stay away from the windows! Archer—”

I only just realized that more shots were erupting from somewhere to the east. Genel’s SRS rifle discharged once more, then her voice reached me.

“I’ve got eyes on the sniper,” she reported. “Fifty, sixty metres to the west of your position!”

“Can you paint the target?”

“Roger. Using my IR laser. I’ll keep him buttoned up, but watch your head when you peek out.”

I slid the goggles back down over my eyes, then waited until Genel’s sniper rifle rang out briskly to indicate that she was providing rapid suppressing fire before I carefully leaned out from the edge of cover in search of the enemy sniper’s position.

I found Genel’s infrared beam easily enough, the beam extending through the air and the dot dancing across the top window of a three-story home to the west of the nearby intersection of Copperstone Cove and Copperstone Street. From my position, I couldn’t see anyone on the other side of the shattered window, but if Genel was still firing, then I had no reason to doubt there was a hostile in that house.

“Confirmed, got the target building,” I said, pulling my pistol out of my thigh holster. “Goliath, you good?”

“I’m bleeding, Knight. Not sure how bad it is. I don’t feel weird or funny or anything, but—”

“Stay put, Goliath. I’m sending Angel to check you over.”

I glanced at Christina now, who ironically looked somewhat more composed despite still being tense because of the situation. I braved looking at her eyes.

“I need you to check and make sure Josh is okay. Do you understand?”

To her credit, she managed to nod away. “Yes.”

“Head inside via the back door. The door is glass, so just break through if it’s not open. Don’t leave the building unless I say so. Stay with Josh, and keep away from the windows. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Okay, now go. Hurry, and stay low.”

Without further instruction, Christina rounded the corner toward the southeast wall of the rec centre and vanished from sight. I rose to my feet and pressed my back against the northeast wall.

“Reloading,” Genel called out over comms.

“Roger that. I’m going to push toward the house and engage the sniper directly. I need you to keep him suppressed and distracted.”

“Got you, Knight. Be advised, I have visual only on the eastern face of the house. If he’s smart, he’ll be able to evade me by exiting via a door on the opposite side. I don’t know if he’s hunkering down or disengaged – I can’t see anything in the window anymore.”

“Copy. Just keep your eyes open. Ready?”

“I’m topped up. Go, I’ve got you covered.”

I took a deep breath, then went around to the rear of the rec centre, passing the opened back door and checking around the southwest corner before making a break west and circumventing a trio of attached homes to come out across the street from the western wall of the target building, opposite the side Genel was covering.

Genel hadn’t fired once since I started flanking the sniper, so either the enemy was being rightfully cautious about not presenting her with a target, or he’d vacated the house the instant his position was compromised.

Before I crossed Copperstone Cove, I got on the radio to Josh again. “Goliath, how’s it going there? Is Angel with you?”

“Argh, shit— Affirmative, she’s here,” he said, clearly in pain. However, he didn’t sound faint or weak, so I took comfort in that. “She says that round took some meat off the back of my neck, but hit nothing fatal.”

“Copy. Hold your position.”

I jogged across the street, proceeded up the driveway of the enemy’s last known position, and bashed the front door with my shoulder a few times until the lock audibly gave way, at which point I kicked the door in.

I stepped inside, my pistol raised while I surveyed the living room I had come into.

“Archer, be advised, I’m internal. Check your fire.”

“Roger that. Last known is on the third floor, loft window on the east side. I haven’t seen anything there or the other windows in the last minute. Watch your back.”

“Roger.”

I double checked that my Walther Creed had a full magazine before pushing deeper and higher into the house, passing the living room and heading up the stairs, slowing down to avoid telegraphing my exact position to the enemy in case he was still in the floors above.

I reached the second floor and quickly swept the three bedrooms there just to be sure, all of which were empty. I then climbed the steps up to the third floor loft, stopping near the slightly opened door at the top to listen for any signs of a presence inside the room. After a few seconds, I heard nothing. The house was completely silent.

I reached out cautiously to push the door open slowly. When the door was sufficiently pushed open for me to walk through, I took another deep breath, then stepped inside quickly, abandoning subtlety in favour of speedy reaction.

As I was in mid-turn to the right to check behind the door, it came swinging back at me. Fortunately, I was half expecting this, so I was able to sidestep further into he room and avoid being struck by it.

I managed to raise my pistol as the attacker lunged at me. Stuck with the two choices of either pulling back or chancing a shot, I chose the latter. I pulled the trigger once and my Walther bucked in my hand. The round ripped through the target’s side, just at the waist, but he neither slowed nor recoiled from the certain pain or shock. He kept coming as if the wound in his side did not register with him, and my momentary surprise was enough to cost me.

He grabbed the barrel of my handgun before I could fire again, then forcibly yanked it out of my hand and tossed it aside in the blink of an eye. He thrust his hand into my solar plexus and struck me with his open palm. I tried to retreat at the last moment, but the impact was still enough to send me flying backwards. My back hit the opposite wall, knocking more wind out of me. I managed to get on my hands and knees, but was left heaving for breath.

I forced myself to look up at the man who’d managed to disarm me. Through the night vision, I could see that he had short, cropped hair cut to meet with military regulations, pale skin, and a rather Slavic look to him. He wore an expression of perfect neutrality, such that he looked emotionless. He was wearing a now familiar set of olive fatigues, the sleeves of the shirt pulled up neatly to his elbows to reveal toned forearms. The insides of his wrist turned slightly outward, allowing me to catch a glimpse of a scar running along the length of his forearms.

I slowly rose to a crouch, trying to get my breathing back under control. A warm, wet sensation seemed to spread somewhere at my abdomen, and I quickly concluded that the strike had managed to reopen my stomach wound. The pain was minimal, just enough for me to be certain I was starting to bleed again, thanks to the pain medication I took before leaving the safehouse.

The enemy operative’s face was vaguely familiar until it dawned on me that this was the same Northstar mercenary that overwhelmed me at Peter Lougheed. He wasn’t Hornet, a.k.a. Theo Rhodes, which made me feel a twinge of disappointment in my gut. Still…

Bleeding from the stomach. I assumed that my blood was pushing through the layer of bandages over the wound now.

I wasn’t going to last long like this. On the other hand, the other man was dripping blood from the bullet I punched in his side, as well. Even if he felt no pain – which was admittedly commendable already – he would most certainly bleed out if he didn’t tend to that wound within the next hour.

His face remained unperturbed as he brought a hand up to his abdomen, right around the area below where his kidney would be. He lifted his gloved palm up to examine his blood dispassionately for a few seconds, then looked straight at me. His eyes seemed to lock directly on to mine even in the darkness.

“Knight, are you there? Did you find him? Knight!”

Genel began squawking in my ear worriedly.

The man before me cocked his head sideways very slightly as I forced my earpiece to mute all channels.

I managed to get fully to my feet. The man appeared to appraise me without a single change to his expression, then drew out a survival knife from a sheath attached to his belt, holding it in a saber grip in his left hand.

Before I could do anything else, the mercenary suddenly rushed me, closing the gap with speed I was barely able to process and swinging his blade at me in a sideways arc.

There was no time to think. I managed to duck under his arc and roll away from him, unsheathing my own tactical knife and gripping it firmly in my right hand in an icepick grip.

He came at me again, this time slicing downward from head height. Again, I barely dodged to the side.

I had enough time to rise to my feet as the mercenary lunged at me again, aiming to drive the tip of his blade between my ribs. I managed to evade the attack, again just barely, as his weapon went crunching through the drywall behind me.

I was caught in an awkward, half-crouching, half-lying down position due to my reckless dodge, but the merc was also momentarily preoccupied with trying to pry the blade out of the wall. I took this opportunity to rise to my feet once more and finally launch a swipe at the opponent.

He saw me coming, successfully managing to dislodge the knife he mistakenly drove into the wall. He blocked my arm with his own, keeping the edge of my blade from slicing at his face. He pushed back with force, making me stumble clumsily backwards while he went after me again.

I regained my balance a bit too late, stabbing downwards, my blade burying itself into his back at the same time that he threw all his weight into tackling me to the floor. The grip of my knife slipped out of my grasp during the tumble to the floor.

When he was right on top of me, he drew back his fist and swung it at my face. I couldn’t dodge this one in time, so I took the full force of the punch, which connected with my cheekbone. Before I could process the blinding pain shooting across my head, a second punch slugged me on the jaw and cost me the precious second I needed to counterattack.

Just as I refocused my gaze up at the attacker’s face, I saw his knife flash as he stabbed it down toward me with both hands grasping the handle. If I had been dazed by his second punch even half a second longer, I wouldn’t have managed to grab his wrists and stop the tip of his knife from piercing the hollow at the base of my neck.

It was practically a standstill for a few seconds before his comparatively greater strength began to wear away at mine. His knife slowly began lowering toward my neck as I failed to keep his weapon at bay. He didn’t look bulky like Josh, yet his strength was almost disproportionate for someone his build.

The tip of the knife eventually scraped below my Adam’s apple. I tried to muster whatever strength I still had in reserve, but my attacker showed no signs of weakening.

He suddenly lifted his supporting right hand and drew back an open palm. My eyes widened in fear – he was going to smack the handle down and plunge the knife into my neck.

Now out of options, I tried my best to move my head sideways to bring my neck out of the way just as he followed through with smashing the handle down with his supporting hand. I felt a momentary flash of heat as I barely recognized the knife slashing the side of my neck. Not bothering to take the time to wonder if the cut was fatal, I spread my legs from underneath my attacker and locked them around his waist. I put all my weight and force into my hips and attempted a reversal.

My gambit fortunately took him by surprise, enough that he retracted his knife a little as we rolled sideways on the floor. At the same time, I launched a fist straight at his jaw, managing to snap his head back and giving me more breathing room.

I used this opportunity to grab his shoulder with one hand, draw myself closer to him, and reach around him to yank my knife out from his back.

He grunted as my blade left his flesh. I then stabbed the knife into the wound my bullet made in his abdomen. Because of our awkward positioning on the floor, I couldn’t bury the blade as deeply as I would have liked, but I did manage to twist the blade a couple of times, exacerbating his bleeding from a trickle to a considerable flow before he planted a boot against my stomach and kicked me off him.

As I gasped for air on the floor, sweat pouring down my face, I realized too late that my knife had left my hand again.

I was able to see the Northstar operative dislodging my weapon from his wound before the door behind him crashed open, revealing a woman hefting a sniper rifle.

“Ian!” Genel shouted, raising her SRS rifle to take aim at my opponent, but even wounded and bleeding profusely, the mercenary was still too quick to react.

He took my knife by the blade and hurled it straight at Genel. Since she was in the middle of getting to a shooting stance, my knife struck and buried itself into Genel’s left shoulder, barely missing the edge of her body armour.

Genel cried out, her body tipping sideways, but she managed to stay on her feet and continue aiming, albeit at a delayed pace. She managed to let loose one .338 round, but by then the mercenary was almost to the one large window on the floor, one facing west over the driveway and front door I had used to enter the property.

Genel’s round missed its mark, whizzing past the enemy as he retreated. Before Genel could chamber another round in her bolt action rifle, the enemy charged straight out the glass window that had been weakened by the missed shot. There was an ugly crashing and shattering sound as the Northstar operative plummeted out the window and out of sight.

“Damn,” I cursed, trying to get to my feet. The process was slow, and by the time I staggered over to the window to peer down at the driveway, the enemy was nowhere to be found.

Genel rushed to my side, her breaths heavy and laboured. “Ian, are you okay? Hey!”

I glanced at her, momentarily surprised by how closely she seemed to be looking at my face. Her eyes pierced mine with that signature anxious stare of hers as she grabbed hold of my arm.

My head felt light all of a sudden, like I was becoming weightless. I tried to focus on the knife buried almost halfway down the blade inn Genel’s shoulder, but my vision had started swimming and it became impossible to do that.

“I’m… okay,” I managed to say right as my legs buckled. “You’re… hurt, we should—”

What we should have done, I never got to say, because at that moment my vision faded to black and I felt myself falling. I heard Genel cry out my name before my cheek smashed against the floor. The impact knocked me out completely.





“Here, hold this against the wound, Josh,” I said, pressing the strip of cloth I cut from my shirt to the back of Josh’s neck. He was bleeding quite a bit, but as best as I could tell, the round merely sheared some flesh off his nape. It was a small miracle that the bullet missed his spine at all.

“Okay, got it,” he replied, taking over with stemming his bleeding. “Thanks, Chrissy.”

I stood up. “If you feel anything… if you feel numb, or faint, you yell. Okay? I need to check something.”

“Where are you going? Ian told us to stay here.”

“I’m not going outside. I just need to check the basement levels.”

“Wait.”

I stopped mid-turn to see Josh drawing his sidearm, a Smith & Wesson M&P 40, from his thigh holster. He held it out to me with a compact torch he took from his utility belt.

“Just in case,” he said as I took the gun and light from him.

I checked the chamber and magazine out of habit, then nodded. “Thanks. I’ll be right back.”

“Sure. Stay away from the windows.”

I left Josh sitting against the wall in the lobby and headed for the stairwell, snapping the torch on. I descended the silent stairs to level B1, where I knew the 41 CBGs stayed.

When I entered the multi-purpose hall that served as the reservists’ command centre, barracks, and infirmary, it was predictably empty. About half of the bunks that used to stand toward the back of the room were knocked over, the pillows and blankets lying discarded on the floor. The comms station – where the Canadian Army soldiers had most of their laptops and other tech equipment, was now a shadow of its former self. Sparks flew from the destroyed consoles, now dead with smashed screens. The wall that once held the medical, food, and ammunition supplies Shadow Team donated to the reservists was bare. Only some meager scraps of food, the odd roll of gauze and bandages, and empty ammunition boxes strewn along the wall were left as reminders of the stock that used to reside there.

I panned the light around to confirm that there were no other soldiers here who might need my help. Finding none, I left the hall and descended the last couple of flights to get to the bottom level multi-purpose hall where the civilians were staying. Before I pushed open the door, I hesitated.

The images of the bodies mangled underneath the rubble struck me with harsh clarity, nearly causing me to retch from the memory of all the screaming and weeping, the stench of death in the air.

Is that what I’ll see again when I go through this door?

I have to know.

Finding courage from somewhere within me, I pushed the door open with Josh’s handgun raised, aiming the torch into the dark room.

Equal parts dismay and relief flooded me when I found the hall as empty as the one right above it. There were countless sheets lying on nearly inch of the floor from where the civilians we rescued had been sitting and sleeping. There were also wrappings and tins from food both finished and unfinished among the bedding and clothes scattered around. I went around the hall, inspecting every other sheet for signs like blood or a corpse hiding beneath some bedding, but there were none of those.

I found the same peach coloured sheet that Sarah and Olivia shared with me only a few nights ago right after Shadow Team and the reservists attacked the South Health Campus. The sheet was reasonably clean, with no bloodstains or other signs that the ones making use of it were harmed. It wasn’t until I examined Sarah’s and Olivia’s spot that I allowed myself to come to the conclusion that the civilians weren’t killed, but rather captured.

I can still save Sarah and Olivia. And everyone else.

I rose to my feet just as I heard Josh’s voice calling for me from somewhere above me.

“Chrissy! Chrissy, come up here! We have to go!”

Sensing the urgency in his hails, I left the bottom level multi-purpose hall and returned to the stairwell, where I shone my light up to find Josh peering down at me over the railing two floors up.

“Josh, what is it?” I called up to him.

He was still holding the cloth over his nape. “Genel needs us to get to her position. Ian’s down!”

Ian’s down. The relief I felt just moments prior evaporated as if it had never been there. Without another word, I bounded up the stairs as fast as I could, my heart hammering frantically against my ribs.

Josh met me up top, and together we left the rec centre through the front door. He led me across the street and into the house closest to the left of the intersection, passing a shattered patio door. We climbed the stairs to the third floor, entering the one room on the floor with its door wide open.

Genel was on the floor, kneeling over a supine Knight. She appeared to be trying to get his armour and upper clothes off. When she saw me and Josh walk in, she looked halfway to hysterics.

“Hurry! Help me get this off him!” she pleaded to us.

Josh and I descended next to her.

“Is it his—” Josh began just as the torch in my hand accidentally shone on the part of the floor next to Knight’s abdomen. The gray carpet was starting to stain with a dark red colour.

“Shit,” I swore, putting down Josh’s pistol on the floor and thrusting the torch into Josh’s free hand.

“What—” he blurted, sounding confused.

“Keep that light on him,” I ordered him in a calm voice that contrasted the panic rising in my gut like bile. “Do it! I need to see how bad.”

Josh thankfully did not need telling twice, obeying my order to illuminate Knight properly.

Genel kept fumbling at the straps holding Knight’s vest to its owner’s torso, her shaking fingers failing to make much progress toward removing the armour.

“Genel—” I reached for her, but whether she was conscious of doing so or not, she slapped my hand away and continued to tug uselessly at Knight.

“He’s bleeding,” she babbled, sounding as though she’d lost her mind entirely to panic. “We gotta get this— We gotta stop the bleeding! We gotta—”

Knowing that if she kept at this Knight was going to be in serious trouble, I grabbed her chin and squeezed the bottom of her face between my thumb and other fingers.

This was fortunately enough to get her to stop flailing about and exacerbating Knight’s bleeding. I leaned my face in a bit, boring my eyes into hers.

“I need you to calm down. I’ll get this vest off and do what I can. What I want you to do is call King and her team. Get them over here now.”

“But—” Genel protested, clearly still overcome with panic, her eyes flicking from mine to the Shadow leader.

“Call them and tell them to get here fast!” I barked at her, no longer bothering to speak kindly. “We need to get Knight back to Haven ASAP, or he will die, do you understand me?”

“I… I don’t…”

“Do you understand, Genel? Nod if you understand me!”

Genel nodded several times like a chastised child, and that was when I let her face go.

“Maybe I should—” Josh said, beginning to put away the cloth he had been pressing to his nape.

“You will not,” I snapped at him, shooting a sharp look at him. “Keep that cloth where it is. Give me your knife. Hurry, I need to get this vest off him.”

Josh complied, handing me his combat knife and seeming to stand back when I ordered him to. I began cutting at the straps holding Knight’s vest in place, beginning with the ones on either side of his waist, then hacking away at the shoulders, ignoring the blood continuing to spread underneath the team leader and Genel practically shouting at someone I couldn’t see – perhaps the CSOR operatives.

I eventually managed to pop the front of Knight’s vest off his torso. I lifted his sweater and was met with more red than I had seen in years.

He was bleeding from not one, but two places: the right breast, and the abdomen. Both looked severe. The two wounds appeared to have been bandaged before – I recognized the wound on his stomach as one I had treated before – but blood was seeping through all prior wrappings.

I ripped my parka off and pressed the whole thing over his torso, applying as much pressure as I could on both wounds.

Sometime later, Genel rejoined us on the floor. “I told King we needed her over here. She and her team are on the way now.”

“Good job. Now put your hands over here, Genel. Keep pressure there, understand? Tight pressure.”

“Okay. Okay, I will.”

I let her take over applying pressure to Knight’s chest wound while I handled Knight’s abdominal wound.

The next few minutes seemed to last for hours. At some point, I looked up at Genel to see her eyes glistening with moisture as she kept her eyes on the unconscious Knight.

I wanted to reassure her he would be all right, but I kept quiet, instead keeping my focus on trying to sustain Knight while waiting for backup to arrive.





Just over twenty minutes after that, Shadow Team and the CSOR operatives managed to return to Haven. Together, we brought Knight to the medical suite, where Chief Warrant Officer King, Sergeant Reid, and I worked to stabilize him for nearly an hour. If I was working alone, I privately admitted that I wouldn’t be able to ensure successful treatment, but with Sergeant Reid’s medic training to supplement mine, we managed to clean the wounds, stitch and redress them, and hook an IV line up to Knight’s arm to replenish the blood he had lost.

All of that was half an hour ago now. Reid suggested I get something to eat to keep my strength up from the physical and mental toll it took to treat Knight, so I allowed myself a brief meal of canned tuna and bread from the mess hall with the CSOR operatives. After that, I headed back to the med suite with a mug of coffee.

When I got back, I found Genel still sitting in the chair she had pulled up beside Knight’s bed. Knight himself was still unconscious, his bandaged chest rising and falling slowly.

Genel looked up at me beadily as I approached her. “Oh… Hi, Chrissy.”

“How’s your shoulder?” I asked her.

She glanced down at her left shoulder, placing a hand over it. Once Knight was stable, I removed the knife from Genel’s shoulder and bandaged her up.

“It’s fine,” she answered, smiling wanly at me. “Just a scratch, all things considered. I’m more worried about Josh than myself. Is he okay?”

“I cleaned his wound and treated him, too. He’s going to be fine.”

“Good. Good, that’s… that’s good to hear.”

She seemed to fall silent for a second before appearing to recall something.

“Sorry, I almost forgot.”

“Huh?”

“Thank you. For saving Ian.”

Her eyes gleamed when she said that.

“It’s nothing,” I said, glancing at Knight’s peaceful face. “He saved me first. Twice, now that I think about it.”

“Did he, now?”

“Yeah. First back at the Stampede, and then earlier today.”

“Mmm.”

She and I were silent for a while. I hesitated, cleared my throat, and placed the mug of hot coffee on the table beside Knight’s bed.

“If you’re not going to eat, at least drink something.”

“Oh.” She glanced at the mug, then back at me. “Thanks. Yeah, I think I’ll stay here with him a while longer.”

She turned her gaze back to Knight. I followed her stare, watching Knight’s sleeping expression. His lips were parted very slightly and his whole face was relaxed. It was free from that look of stoic coolness I had come to expect on him.

“After all this time, it’s still hard.”

I looked to Genel, whose eyes remained on the sleeping man.

“What’s still hard?” I asked, uncertain of what she was talking about.

“Just… this. Watching him beside his bed.” She shook her head almost regretfully. “No matter how many times he winds up in a hospital bed, it’s as difficult as the first and last time. I’ll never get used to it. I don’t want to get used to it.”

“Was he… sickly?”

Genel chuckled, though not out of amusement but rather wistfulness. “No. He’s healthy as a horse. Physically, anyway.”

I kept quiet for several seconds, looking from Genel to Knight and back. After some hesitation, I asked her, “Do you… I mean, are you two really close?”

Genel’s sad smile grew slightly.

“Oh, right. I never really told you much about that. Yes, Ian and I are close. Or at least, that’s what I like to think.”

“What do you mean?”

“He wasn’t always like this. He used to be… different, before that bombing some years back.”

This made me want to take a step back.

“Genel… you knew?”

“Hmm? What’s that?”

It was almost overwhelming to bring it up, but I managed to. There was no point hiding it anymore.

“That I was… behind that explosion here in the city in 2017?”

Her tone remained soft, devoid of contempt. It was like she was merely stating a fact.

Neither of us spoke for another few moments, then she finally did.

“Ian and I have been friends since tenth grade, you know?”

“That’s… a long time. That would be—” I did a quick mental calculation, using what I knew of Genel’s C.O.S. personnel records. “—nine, ten years now?”

“Yup. Ten years. Almost eleven. We were at the same high school.”

That explained why the two of them seemed to have some obscure bond that neither of them really talked about. How the two of them seemed to act like either a couple or siblings sometimes.

“I see,” I remarked, “Now I know why you’re always so concerned about him. Why you asked me to take care of him way back when I just joined.”

Genel nodded. “Right. I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen how reckless and bullheaded this idiot can be.”

Despite her comment about Knight, she sounded more fond than critical of him. Her eyes narrowed slightly and her gaze seemed to mellow as it stayed on the sleeping Shadow leader.

“Yeah, I have,” I replied.

“Right?” Genel chuckled again, this time now out of genuine fondness of the subject of our conversation. “You know… he can be a handful. He pushes himself too hard. Doesn’t know when to stop, or admit when he should. He’ll kill himself one day if no one looked out for him.”

The tenderness in her voice further led me to notion that perhaps there was something more between Genel and Knight that I hadn’t seen yet. Ten years was a long time, after all.

“I keep telling myself I can do it alone,” Genel continued. “Take care of him, I mean.”

She shook her head again, her smile fading.

“But he’s just so hell-bent on getting into these tough spots. I don’t know if I can,” she went on.

“You really care about him.”

“Someone needs to. I’m afraid of what’ll happen if everyone abandons him. Ever since that bombing, he hasn’t been the same.”

Genel looked up at me.

“He hasn’t… told you about what was so important about that evening, has he?”

I nodded solemnly. “He told me he was there. When we… I blew up that restaurant.”

“Took him a while to recover from that. I had to nurse him back to health for weeks.”

Again, there wasn’t a single trace of resentment or contempt in her voice.

“He also told me that he… lost someone in that explosion,” I said in a mumble.

Genel’s eyebrows rose. “He did?”

“Yes. A friend of his.”

Genel was quiet for a few seconds before she replied, “He talked about her, did he? It’s not easy for him to bring up Miyaku.”

“You knew her, too?”

“Of course. She was my friend, same as she was Ian’s.”

“Oh.”

I’ve wronged them both. Knight and Genel.

“She’s the reason why he’s doing this,” Genel said, “Why he’s here, with the C.O.S. He… rarely comes out with it honestly to me, but really, there’s no other reason for him to be here. When Miyaku died, it was… It hit me hard. Not just because she was my best friend too, but also because I had to watch what losing her did to him.”

She pointed at Knight.

I bowed my head, clenching my hands into fists. Part of me wanted to leave and stop listening. It was too much. To know that I had impacted people’s lives irreparably was one thing, but to hear it said out loud to me directly – by an affected party, no less – was another.

But I stayed. I promised not to run anymore. Hearing this was only the easiest part of whatever my repentance would be.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, still looking down at the floor. “I’m so sorry.”

Genel said nothing to that at first. She kept still, then eventually she took a breath.

“I’m going tot ask you one question, Chrissy. And whatever you say, I’ll believe you.”

“Huh..?” I lifted my head now and found Genel staring right at me with a deadpan expression. Her hands clenched tightly on her lap as she silently demanded my attention.

I waited for her to speak. She held my gaze to hers for another moment before asking:

“Are you going to hurt him again?”

The question she asked wasn’t what I was expecting. Truth be told, I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

“No,” I answered her after a pause, hoping she wouldn’t take my lack of immediacy as insincerity. “I swear on my life. I won’t do that to him ever again. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to the two of you if I have t—”

“Stop.”

I obeyed, stopping in midsentence as Genel told me to. I continued to stare at her as her expression remained serious a bit longer. After that, she closed her eyes and sighed as if to resign herself to something.

“Then that’s all I needed to know.”

“What..?”

“If you swear, I’ll believe you.”

“Why would…” My voice threatened to crack now. “Why are you so quick to trust me? After all I’ve done to you, to him… Why?”

Genel opened her eyes. “Because I saw how badly you wanted to keep him alive. That’s all.”

“But that’s not nearly enough for you to—!”

“It is for me. I don’t… hate you, Chrissy.”

“Maybe you should,” I persisted, then looked back at Knight. “Maybe you should hate me. He certainly does. I deserve it. I deserve worse for what I’ve done.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“What?”

Genel glanced at her unconscious friend, sighing again. “When Ian found out about you, he told me he was going to hunt you down and kill you. I don’t… condone it, but I do understand how he feels. He actually went AWOL the last two days – he wanted you dead badly. He told me he’d make you pay for Miyaku. But… you’re still here, aren’t you?”

That last bit was true. I’d been wondering why I was still alive this past day.

“He tried,” I said, not knowing why I was bothering to explain more. “He was nearly there. He had a gun to my head and was so close to getting what he wants. But he hasn’t tried since. I just don’t understand why.”

Genel didn’t comment on that. She merely kept looking at Knight. She reached over to pick up the mug I’d brought for her, took a sip, and put the mug back down.

“Why don’t you get some rest?” she asked me, her tone lightening almost easily. “I’m not sure exactly how bad your experience was with your captors, but you honestly look like hell. And—”

Her eyes fell to my exposed forearms, which were swathed in the cuts Rhodes had made. Genel couldn’t have known, but I wasn’t about to tell her those were just a fraction of the cuts I had across my body now. My suffering could never compare to hers, or Knight’s.

“I’m fine,” I said, rolling the sleeves of my blouse down to my wrists. “I just got roughed up while I was captured. Don’t worry about me.”

“Even so, get some rest. King and her team should have some intel regarding the Army reinforcements we’re getting. We’ll discuss that tomorrow. Not a lot of time left, if the company of Canadian Army we’re getting keeps its E.T.A.”

“Well, yeah, but… I’m not part of this team anymore.”

“Why not?” Genel looked genuinely confused.

I gestured toward Knight. “He said so.”

Genel glanced at him and seemed to ponder a moment, then turned back to me. “I see. Regardless, you head back to your quarters and get some sleep. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

“Umm, okay,” I mumbled uncertainly, taking a couple awkward steps toward the door. What else was there to talk about, now that I was off the team?

Sarah and Olivia. All those civilians who were recaptured today.

If not me, then Genel and the others would surely do something to get them back. I had to trust in them now to do it in my stead.

“What about you?” I asked, halting my retreat temporarily. “Aren’t you getting some rest, too?”

She shook her head, smiling a little again. “Maybe in a little while. I’ll see if I can catch him awake before I fall asleep. There are things I want to say to him.”

“Okay,” I said, then without thinking, blurted, “Are you two—”

Genel perked up a bit, curious, “Yes?”

For whatever foolish reason, I was about to ask her what her true relationship with Knight was, but I stopped myself before going through with it. That was none of my business. If I ever had any right to learn that, I’d rightfully lost it once my past was brought to light.

“No, never mind. Goodnight.”

I turned around and headed out the door. As I made my way to the elevators, I dwelled upon how lucky Knight was to have someone like Genel. Someone who cared that much about him.

I bit my lip gently. I had no one like that in my life. Not anymore. The last person who cared that much about me was gone. I sent him off myself.

No, it was better this way. No one should have to feel invested in someone like me.

Still, I thought as I pressed the ‘down’ elevator button and waited for a car to arrive. Even if it was only for a little while, I was glad I met Shadow Team.

The memory of the four of us celebrating New Year’s Day together over breakfast at the mess hall flashed in my mind. Josh’s hearty laughter booming over the booth. Genel’s wide smile at being able to eat with everyone. Knight in his colourful plaid shirt, being a bit awkward around the festivities. It was probably the first time in a long time when I actually felt really happy.

It was probably the only vivid memory I’d ever had in a while that I didn’t regret having.