I shoot up, my eyes darting around the room for a threat, nothing. "Hey your awake, bout time. If you kept me waiting any longer I was gonna slap you awake." Ries laughs. I rub my eyes, the sun blinding me.
"What time is it?" I ask with a yawn. "about 11 in the morning." He says as he reaches for a mug and hands it to me. "Coffee, I brewed it about 3 hours ago so it's not hot." I take the mug and sip it, "why are you in here, don't you have more important things to do?"
He looks at his phone and answers with a bored tone in his voice, "I'm waiting."
"Waiting for what?" I ask back, confused. A few seconds later I hear, "Fuck!" from behind the RV, it came from Sovetsky.
"That." He answers chuckle as he kicks his feet off the table and rushes out the door, I slide on my shoes and follow.
I come out to the back and see sovetsky holding a rag on his hand, covered in blood. "Jesus Christ what the fuck happened," I ask.
"slammed my hand on one of my fucking tools, it went straight through my goddamn hand." He says, give or take a few swears. "While you're here, why don't you check out the Ak? Progress is looking real good so far." He adds
I turn to the table where the gun is, and it's beautiful. "Got her fully cycling, Soon enough she'll be ready for battle," Sovetsky says, between the grunts of the pain of Ries doing his best on fixing his hand.
We stand around and talk about minor things until Ren rushes into the circle holding a piece of paper. "Hey, guys!" He excitedly says. We give him a quizzed look and wait for him to continue.
"We got a lot of files from Isadore, so I've been checking through them all night. I think I just found something." He somehow seemed even more excited than before. We expect him to continue, or to pull something out of his pocket, but he just turned around and gestured for us to follow.
Ries finishes bandaging Sovetsky's hand and we walk to Ren. He's standing in front of a table, on it are dozens of papers all pinned to a board or to the table itself. "It took all night, but I finally read all of them and found what we were looking for."
"You found the central database?" I say eagerly. He shakes his head. "No. But I found the place that has the coordinates to the central database!" He nearly shouts, his eye twitching.
"How long have you been awake?" Ries asks, his usual dismissiveness of Ren, now replaced by actual concern.
"Way too long, way too fucking long." He chuckles, pointing towards several cups, all once filled with copious amounts of coffee.
"Where is this place then, and what is it?" Sovetsky asks.
"it's a biological testing and research facility. Or that's all that I could dig up on the place, for all I know it could be an undercover domino's." Ren says tiredly. "Its location is pretty hidden, but I think I cracked it. It's south of Rochester, and north of Waterloo. I guess uncle sam doesn't want the people knowing about their secret laboratory." he adds
"How are we going to get inside, They're gonna expect a stealth attack, they're probably upping their guard as we speak," Ries asks.
"Well it's a bunker, and it is situated between two cities, since it's hidden it means they went out of their way to make it so. There is something down there they don't want anyone to know about. I'm willing to bet that the people guarding it are some of the only ones in the military who know about it." Ren says as he smiles smugly. " That means the reinforcements will be limited."
"You didn't answer the question, you said it was a bunker. That makes it harder than we thought to get in. We'd need something strong to break into a military bunker." I say, unsure about the plan.
"Oh, I have that covered." He says while flashing a wicked grin. He reaches under the table, grabbing a satchel. He heaves it up and puts it on the table. The flap is open revealing its content. C4, and lots of it.
"Holy shit! are you even qualified to handle that?" Sovetsky says as he distances himself from the table.
"Of course not. I don't think anyone is qualified enough to be carrying a backpack full of explosives, but I think I'm the most qualified out of the four of us." Ren says cockily.
"You should bring Sovetsky with you, I feel like his knowledge might be useful on this," I say and Sovetsky and Ren nod in agreement.
We take the time to plan further, making it more solid. Eventually, we pack up camp and head out on the road. As we drive I stare out the window, the clouds are dark and dreary. The dark colors let my eyes rest. My mind goes blank, the thrum of the engine begins lulling me to sleep
As I stare into the dark, cold outside near asleep. Something catches my eye, my reflection. I look at it but doesn't look normal, it's disheveled and broken. The soul in my eyes was gone, replaced with a firey, murderous rage. For a moment I stare into the eyes of reflection, and it stares right back. A destructive bloodlust emanates from him.
I look away from my reflection out of fear and in my peripheral, I swear I could see it smiling a sick and twisted smile. In the back of my mind, I can It hear say something. "Coward."
I reach into my shirt pocket and grab my flask, twist the top off and take a few gulps of it. "I know," I whisper under my breath.
YOU ARE READING
The Runners
ActionHow do you go on after your world is flipped upside down and inverted? most of us would have a hard time recovering ourselves after such an ordeal. it just so happens these four men are not like most of us, and are mostly used to it.
