StarGaze

Dead Man Talking

“Get the f**k out, now!” Gabriel said, almost throwing Tony out of the driving seat.

Olivia was still trying to make sense of her surroundings, and the other ones were still out. Tony didn’t even have the energy to resist Gabriel and came straight out of the gate. Gabriel stood him up and turned his attention towards Olivia, who was looking around wildly.

But Tony couldn’t stand it. His legs trembled and he was flat on his stomach in the next second. Thomas, who was lying lifelessly in a corner, noticed a huge blood clot on Tony’s forehead. It was almost the size of a tennis ball and was situated just above the right eyebrow. His right eye was swollen shut, and he couldn’t seem to find the energy to open the other one.

Thomas also wasn’t in the state to help him. His face had become pale from the excessive blood loss, and his eyes already seemed like that of a zombie’s. But he was still somehow holding on. The fire inside him refused to burn out, and while his life slipped away slowly from his hands like sand, all he could think about was Noor and her children. He had promised them haven, and now it was becoming more and more probable that their corpse will be lying alongside his own in not much time.

But Olivia came as a guardian angel to his rescue. Fortunately, Olivia had suffered minimal injuries and was up and running in no time. She first tended Tony, as he wasn’t moving. She noticed the blood clot as soon as she turned him over. After a gasp, she looked at Thomas and locked her sights on the blood slowly oozing out of his puncture wounds.

Wasting no time at all, she took out the medicinal nanites she was provided with when she came on the mission. She looked at Tony and Thomas simultaneously to decide which one of them needed help more urgently. At last, her love for Tony won and she injected the micro-robots directly into his forehead.

Tony suddenly woke up and screamed in agony as the nanites forced his skull cells to regenerate at an inhuman pace. The change was evident after just a few seconds. As Tony rolled over the floor in extreme pain, his head recovered to its original state. And after some time, he puked out the nanites.

Olivia collected the robots. She didn’t have time to clean them before injecting them into Thomas as Thomas had already gone into shock. His body was burning with fever and he was shaking at an alarming rate. Olivia just collected the nanites in a tube and made Thomas swallow them. Yes, I know what you are thinking. It was definitely gross, but it was better to live with the fact that you swallowed someone else’s puke rather than not being alive at all.

The nanites were doing their job, and Olivia had already programmed them to work at twice their normal speed. This reduces the robots’ life period, but speed was crucial in this case.

Thomas’ condition was bad, and it was clearly due to the fact that he was facing extreme amounts of pain (if the nanites work at twice the normal speed, the pain is also double) and was still not budging. His eyes were open, and the eyeballs were moving rapidly. He was conscious, but I guess the pain was so sharp that it sent him into a trance-like state, where he knew and felt exactly what was going on, but he was too overwhelmed to respond to it.

And after five minutes, Olivia noticed fluid coming out of his mouth. It was the nanites, they had done their job, but it was too late. Olivia chose her love over the obvious priority, and it cost them a valuable team member. Without him, they were dead, and I can bet on that.

Thomas had pulled off the craziest stunts in his day and seen through the most difficult missions in the history of The White Feather. And now here he was, lying dead inside a bombed and almost broken building. He lived his life like a hero but died like a f*****g nobody. The agency didn’t even know that he had gone rogue, and the agents couldn’t afford to tell them, or they would risk suspension. And this mission was just too important to be screwed just because they wanted Thomas to have recognition.

So they did the worst thing you can do to a legend. They just left his body there, knowing that it would most probably be crucified in the middle of the city. After all, killing American secret agents was no joke here. It was seen as an act of great valor and helped the warriors quickly gain a reputation and become feared among their colleagues.

Gabriel carried Noor and Zara on his shoulders and ran inside the building. He was followed by Tony, who had a knife in each hand. Behind him was Olivia, carrying the kids. I will be completely honest with you now; they were literally cursing Thomas out loud. He HAD to pull that act of kindness and tag along these f*****g losers who were of no use.

They somehow reached the roof. But the lack of experience and the absence of a mentor like the long-dead Thomas showed their consequences. Instead of taking any precautions, Olivia just barged through the metal gate. And as soon as the gate opened, an arrow flew right past her head. She gasped for breath and fell to the ground, knowing that the arrow must be shot from the building on the other side of the road.

Her nightmares came true as she gently put down the kids she was carrying. The fact that she had missed was that the arrow didn’t fly past her. It missed her head but landed inside one of the kids’ backs. There was bright red and warmblood coming out from his chest, where the tip of the arrow had reached out. She looked with horror as a stream of blood came out of his mouth and nose.

“Stay down, don’t get up until I say so. We have a sharpshooter hungry for our heads!” Tony said and crawled out of the door. Gabriel knew he couldn’t make it out, crawling with two fully grown unconscious women. So he decided that it was best if he stayed inside and guarded a flank against behind.

Tony placed his back against a wall and decided to spawn a high-precision assault rifle. But Olivia caught his hand with an iron grip.

“No! We cannot use guns here. Use your brain, think like Thomas. What would he have done in a situation like this?” Olivia said.

“Well…..he would have told us that if we use the rifles, the militants will be compelled to do the same. And keeping in mind the number superiority, I don’t think we stand a single chance of survival.” Tony said like he was talking to himself.

“Yes. So how do we take them out…?” Olivia asked as she knew Tony was getting close to the answer she wanted to hear.

“It is rather simple. We WILL make use of blades, but we will have an advantage. These people fight with primitive bows and arrows, knives, and swords. But we will have top-notch future technology.

Right, so for the current situation, we will spawn ultra-light bows. To use with them and maximize damage output, we will make use of explosive arrows and shockers to scare them away.” Tony said and took a hold of his watch again.

“God, I wish Emma was here with us. This is exactly the type of situation snipers are hard trained for.” Olivia said with a look of distress.

In less than five minutes, both of them were equipped with purple bows with laser sights. They handled the quiver (the equipment which holds the arrows) with care as it contained highly explosive arrows in it. If they were to do just one thing the wrong way, they would either die of an explosion or an immense electric shock.

A shower of arrows came down from the sky after the enemies spotted the laser sights. They feared that the agents were using guns, and hence fired in panic.

“It’s showtime!” Tony yelled and stood up, taking an aim at the first target he found.

"Bruh, hold up. I don't give a f**k about Tony. But you died there, right?" Raghav asked.

"Ah yes, about that..." Thomas said and a mysterious smile appeared on his face.