The Knightly Estate Chp. 7

The dull roar of the Panther has everyone inside reminded that they sit in an impenetrable metal box, on the outside? Well people are a bit angry that something like this is slowing down the highway. I pop my head back outside of the tank, Zephyr leans back as we go at our top speed.

“Hey, what’s going on out there?” asked Spencer.

“Nothing really,” I call back, “just the angry honking of 40 or so middle class Seattle citizens on their way back from lunch break.”

“Heh, you almost sound like Owl, saying stuff like that,” he called back.

I lean forward, and Kazu’s head comes into view.

“How much longer?” I call to him.

“Not long, next exit, signal for me will you?” H yelled back.

I stick my hand out in the traditional cyclists right indicator and the tank lurches to the right crossing the three lanes of traffic.

A short and uneventful 5 minutes later we arrive in front of a generic building complex.

I pull my hatch down and ready myself in the gun.

“High explosive loaded,” said Spencer.

“Alright, waiting on you Zephyr,” I called up.

He pulls out a megaphone and starts speaking into it.

“Unknown organization, you have someone very important to us, if you bring her out unharmed and alone we will not, I repeat will NOT, destroy the place.”

He looks down, “fire warning shot,”

I nod and look into the gun scope, aiming up 5 degrees, right at the far building’s radio antennae.

“Fire,” says Zephyr, as calm as his name would imply.

I squeeze the trigger, the shoulder plate kicks and an explosive bang rips through the quiet outdoors. Half a second later a secondary explosion louder than the one inside the tank reverberates through the dense forest surrounding us. The casing clanks at the bottom of the tank floor, and a split second later, Spencer cries out, “gun loaded!”

“Now we wait,” says Zephyr leaning back.

“Owl-kyun~” says Kazu, “do we have any food????”

“Sure, it’s in compartment 4, get some for everyone,” says Zephyr.

I look down at the rest of the crew, Spencer is looking at some pictures.

“Who’s that?” I ask, pointing to one.

“It’s my wife, she’s in California, she said to go and take the job and residency at the Estate, hoping that we’d get enough money to move to New York,” he said, “I dunno why, a couple seconds after you fired that shot I realized that there's a chance that we might not make it out of this.”

I rest my hand on his shoulder, “I’ll make sure you get back to her, alright?”

“Why are you here?” He asked.

“To be honest with you, I don't know, I’m a nobody, I got a degree in programming and was a programmer before this, why I was invited instead of the thousands of other programmers? I couldn't say.” I sighed, “either way, we have to save Emi, I rather like it at the estate.”

“Here you go Matt-kun~” says Kazu, handing me what looked to be an MRE.

“What about Zephyr?” I ask, “what's his story?”

“Well until he moved here he was a starving writer,” he only had enough money to buy cheap ramen, and was actually slowly dying because of it,” said Spencer, “he was the 5th to arrive, shortly after Kazu”

I look up at the man seated in the thin metal seat.

He looks up, and his eyes widen in terror.

“HATCHES DOWN NOW!” He cries, “RPG!”

I get back into my seat and train my hands on the gun traverse cranks.

“Matt, trav-” he has no time to finish as the tank is rocked by an unfamiliar blast.

Screaming breaks out in the tank, I look down under the turret ring, Austin is screaming.

“Go!” yells Zephyr, “get us the fuck out of here!”

Kazu springs into action, jamming the tank into reverse.

“Matt, traverse right!” screams Zephyr, and it as it this moment I realize that our situation is real, even Zephyr lost his calm and collected façade.

I pull the handle right, and the turret moves.

I spot the lone figure in top of the building, it's simple in regards to what I have to do. I squeeze the trigger, and a mere second later, the man is erased from this world with extreme prejudice.

20 minutes later we’re home, everyone pops their hatches, but only 4 of us climb out.

Kazu had confirmed that he wouldn't be able to walk again as soon as we were out of danger, Austin had no legs.

Stray was on sight when we arrived, we pulled him out of the tank, still screaming.

Stray worked on him for half an hour when finally the screaming died down. He did something that we couldn't see, turned around and shook his head.

Spencer who is sitting next to me, is trembling, Kazu, just saying no, over and over again. And Zephyr, He just stands there looking at the body, of our former friend.