David Golemon - Ripper

The JSOC and the DELTA team they planned operations for were about to assault the underground complex that housed the most secret organization in the history of the United States — the Event Group.

The three men had almost made it down to level twelve by the stairwell when Niles said he had to return to the office level up on seven. Charlie shook his head no and Pete just sat down and tried to catch his breath.

“If we go back the captain will shoot us instead of any intruders,” Charlie said as he helped Pete to his feet in the semidark stairwell. “We had one job to do and we can’t even do that.”

“Look, I’m not leaving while I have people still inside the complex. Now you two can either come with me or continue on to the evacuation point, but I would prefer you come along. Pete, Europa could be helpful in what’s happening. How many men are left here with the expertise to get her up to spec enough to help out Captain Everett?”

Pete shook his head negatively. He finally took a couple of deep breaths and looked back up the stairs. The distant sounds of gunfire had ceased for the moment.

“I haven’t heard any shots in a minute or so. Maybe it’s all over,” Pete managed to say.

“Maybe, but why isn’t Europa telling us anything? You of all people should know her programming. We’re literally in the dark here,” Niles said as he turned and started back up.

Charlie Ellenshaw looked at Pete and then nodded his head upward. “Well, the office on seven is ten levels above the danger on seventeen. Niles has a point; I really don’t relish the thought of running out on the rest of them.”

Pete took the first few steps back up the stairs. “Neither did I, but someone could have mentioned that just a bit earlier — like when we were on level seven.”

The three men went back up the stairs where they thought it would be safe.

They were wrong.

The silence coming from the clean room was overwhelming. Everett didn’t want to get men killed by rushing the outer office, knowing the killers of his men were one room beyond that. Where were Will and Sanchez? They needed the assault packages before they could chance a move into the room. Carl scowled and motioned for his men to stay down. He had to keep this Smith talking to know he wasn’t making a move out of the clean room.

“Smith?”

There was nothing other than the moans of someone wounded inside the room. Then they heard a grunt, followed by another. Everett closed his eyes because he knew he had to risk exposing himself to gunfire from inside. Making a quick decision, he rose to his knees and raised his head to the shattered window above. With a quick glance he saw that the observation area was clear. He lowered his head and grimaced. Then he chanced another look. As he rose he quickly saw that the clean room was filled with a fog that was just starting to roll free. He thought he saw several shadows moving about. There were more screams of pain and then, not believing his ears, he heard the laughter of not only one but several men from inside the clouded and fogged clean room. Everett quickly ducked back down, not believing what he had just seen. It was the same fog that had engulfed Guzman and his men at the hacienda.

“We can’t wait for the assault packages,” he called out to the twenty men lining the wall. “When I give the word, we give those bastards everything we have.”

The ten men on the right and the ten on the left gave him the thumbs up. Everett quickly noted the twenty weapons his men had. Most were from the smallest of the three armories located in the Security Department, not the heavier-caliber weapons in the main armory down on level forty. The ones his men were armed with were light M-14 carbines, the small version of the M-16. He counted four shotguns in the mix, and they weren’t the solid-shot rounds he would have preferred, but double-ought buckshot. He knew that would have to do.

“One — two — three — now!” Everett shouted.

The men as one rose ten on the left and ten on the right with Carl taking up the middle ground with his nine millimeter. The opening salvo was so fierce that each man couldn’t believe anything could live through it. The weapons’ rounds ricocheted off the robotic arm and smashed through any remaining glass inside the clean room. As Everett emptied his Beretta into the fogged-up room, he heard the discharge of the four shotguns. As the rounds and pellets were blasted into the clean room, Carl could see the streaking rounds create eddies and rolling fog as they sliced through the mist.

“Cease fire,” Everett called out, but as he did he saw one of his sergeants, a marine, start to inch toward the door. “No, hold back!”

The sergeant started to take a step backward when a large hand pierced the fog that now covered the entire observation room. One minute the man was there, the next he was gone. Then they heard the scream and most chilling of all, more laughter. One laugh was joined by many more. The screaming stopped abruptly, but the laughing continued. As Everett took in his men he could see the unsettling effect the situation was having. They were looking to him for the strength he usually possessed.

“Open fire!” he called again.

This time the barrage was intense, and for the first time they heard other screams of pain as they were finally striking something other than glass, steel, or plastic. The men were firing and dropping empty magazines at a furious rate until Everett called a cease-fire yet again.

“Smith!” Everett yelled as he waved three men away from the fog that was starting to roll out of the observation room and beginning to touch the carpeted floor in the hallway.

“Yes?” came the deep, unnatural voice.

That was enough for Carl. He had heard the same change come over Guzman in Mexico.

“You ten men, get to the stairwell and down to the main armory on twenty,” he said to the men on his right. “You ten, come with me. We can’t fight this with what we have.”

For the first time ever Captain Everett saw hesitation in his men.

“Move!” he ordered as he quickly turned right and started for the far stairwell as the first team made a dash for the closest elevator and the stairwell doors next to it.

As they moved, something crashed through the plastic-and-concrete-reinforced wall. It was huge, and as the last man passed, he was taken in the arms of a man with torn, black-colored clothing. The security man was pulled inside and his screaming was heard in the ears of the men that were making a run for the stairwells.

Everett managed a look back to see three more of the transformed Men in Black as they burst through the fog with a childish-like glee of laughter and animalistic roars. As Everett forced his nine remaining men in through the stairwell opening, he saw a much larger man step out of the fog and into the hallway. His eyes locked with the altered orbital structure of the man he had met in Mexico. As Everett watched, the man’s four men spread out and went in opposite directions, two coming at him and his team, the other two heading in the opposite direction.

Carl could see that their firing hadn’t been in vain as blood was coursing down the bodies of the men who had grown so much that they had broken free of their body armor and most of their clothing. Everett quickly aimed his nine millimeter at the head of the beast he thought was Smith and fired five quick shots in succession at the man’s head. The creature Smith had become smiled even as he saw Everett aim his weapon and ducked quickly back into the fog bank now moving like a rolling wave into the hallway. He remembered the description of the formula and how it may boost the IQ of the user, or guinea pig, if it was ingested. With that thought, he didn’t wait to see if he had hit anything. He turned and entered the stairwell and started the retreat back into the depths of the Event Group Complex.