“What the hell’d you do to me?” Visser shrieked, still retching up mouthfuls of blood. His skin was becoming redder by the moment.
“Fuck you,” Luke responded. “You don’t get to ask any goddamn questions.”
“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he continued. “You give us the information that we want,” he held up a vial of clear liquid. “And I’ll give you the antidote.”
“Antidote… to what?” Visser asked.
“What do you think?” Luke responded. “You have about ten minutes before your skin starts bubbling up like a fucking pizza in an oven. It’s gonna look nasty. Say goodbye to that handsome face.”
Visser let out a pained chuckle. “Nice bluff. I don’t… feel shit. I’ll survive whatever the hell this is.”
I had to commend his dedication to the lie. His face was going beet-red, and his eyes looked about ready to pop out from his skull.
Luke sighed. “We can wait then. Let’s see if your tune changes in the next few minutes.”
I couldn’t tell you what the hell Luke had blasted him with, but I’m sure as hell glad none of it splashed onto me. The amount of pain that Visser was experiencing seemed to multiply with every second that passed. After only a minute, he began screaming his lungs out, as if his head were being crushed under 10,000 tons.
“You don’t feel anything, huh?” Luke said coldly.
“What the hell was in that bullet?” I asked him.
He just shook his head at me. “I’ll tell you later.”
He walked over towards Visser and knelt down beside him. “I’ll bet you’re going through hell right now, aren’t ya? Well brace yourself. Cause this ain’t even the peak of it.”
“N…New York.” Visser muttered out.
Luke grinned. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“If I fail… to deliver the footage… the next attack’s gonna be in New York.”
“Alright,” Luke responded. “So how do we stop it?”
Visser let out an excruciating groan. He was starting to turn crimson.
“The… sewers…” he continued. “They’ll come out of the sewers.”
“Which area?”
“…lower… Manhattan…”
“When?”
“Tw… two… days from now. Around noon.”
Luke nodded, before standing back up. “New York, huh? Couldn’t have picked a more generic place.”
“That’s… everything I know…” Visser said, gritting his teeth through every word. “Give me… the fucking antidote!”
“One more question,” Luke said. “Is Kane gonna be there himself?”
Visser responded with a strenuous-looking nod. “I… think so. THE FUCKING ANTIDOTE, C’MON!”
“This?” Luke said, holding up the vial. Instead of handing it over, he opened it up himself, before pouring it down his throat. Visser’s expression dropped.
“This is vodka,” Luke continued. “There is no antidote.”
Luke walked off, leaving Visser to scream in agony by himself. I’d be lying if said that the whole sequence wasn’t a bit jarring for me. I just had to stand there for a moment, watching him. It was like a train wreck. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. But as big of a piece of shit as Visser was… I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him just a bit.
“Two days…” Luke muttered to himself. “That’s not a lot of time. Hell, we don’t even know if he’s telling the truth.”
“So that’s where we’re going? Manhattan?” I asked.
Luke nodded, although his face seemed to be stuck in a permanent grimace. “We gained intel at the price of two valuable assets.”
“Two of them?” I asked. “Colt I understand. What was the other?”
“The bullet I shot at Visser,” Luke responded. “That was supposed to be for Kane. It’s the only thing that’s capable of taking him down.”
I nearly choked on my own saliva when he said it.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” the words came out of my mouth almost instinctively. “Why the hell would you waste it on him then?”
“Relax,” Luke responded. “We had two. There’s one bullet left. We just need to have perfect aim. No big deal”
“What the hell was in that bullet?”
He went silent at my question, before letting out a brief chuckle. "You know what... I don't actually know."
Before he give me a further explanation, the rest of our team made their way into the clearing, all looking pretty roughed-up. Armin came through first, his eyes widening upon seeing Colt’s body.
“Goddamn it…” he muttered.
His eyes then moved over to Visser still convulsing on the ground. His dismay turned into anger as he stared at Luke.
“Don’t tell me you used it,” Armin said, his eyes fixed on Luke in a death stare. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“He was filming the entire attack,” Luke responded, his voice remaining calm. “Could you imagine what would’ve happened if that footage made it to anybody significant?”
Armin shook his head, visibly pissed off. “Doesn’t change the fact that you just took the biggest risk of all time. Did you get anything out of him at least?”
Luke nodded. “Next attack’s gonna be in New York in two days. They’re coming out of the sewers. Apparently Kane’s gonna be there as well.”
Armin took a moment to calm himself down. “Well… let’s see if your decision pays off. Or if you just fucked us permanently.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Luke said, starting to walk off. “Quit being so dramatic. Let’s get to the plane.”
“Hang on!” Armin called after him. “What about your arm? Can you even move that thing?”
Without turning back, Luke used his good arm to flash the “Ok” symbol at him. Armin shook his head and mumbled something before following after him. I began walking as well, but felt Visser grab my ankle after only a few steps.
“You… don’t… understand…” I heard him mutter. I didn’t even look down. I just shook his hand off of my leg and continued walking. Over the years, I’ve learned that some things are better ignored.
After trekking retracing our steps through the grueling woods, we found the plane waiting for us. The pilot scanned our group, but didn’t say anything about Colt’s absence. Although… I could certainly tell that he noticed it.
Luke outlined our next steps on the flight back to New York. As expected, it was a bit haphazard. But we didn’t have the luxury of planning ahead.
Since lower Manhattan was a relatively large place, we had a lot of ground to cover. Luke estimated that we’d be able to gather about ninety guys who were on our side in the short amount of time that we had. However, that also meant telegraphing our plan to Kane’s entire faction. That meant there was no going back. This was going to be our final stand.
Taking out Kane was also going to be difficult, since we only had one bullet.
“Can’t we just make some more of them?” I asked. “Why do we have to rely on one?”
“No can do,” Luke responded. “The only person capable of making these bullets… is Kane himself.”
Shit. I wasn’t expecting that.
“One of our moles actually managed to steal five of them from Kane’s private lab,” Luke continued “But then… things got messy. He was killed and we only managed to recover two. To be honest, I’m surprised Visser didn’t know about it. Or else he would’ve realized I was bluffing about the antidote. I guess Kane keeps some things pretty close to his chest.”
“And now we only have one.” Armin added, glaring at Luke.
“But does Kane know that we have it?” I asked.
Luke nodded. “That fact certainly doesn’t help. He’ll be expecting us to use it.”
With everything considered, it sounded like we were going to need a miracle to pull this off.
Luke went on to list our two priorities, in order of importance:
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Do not let any of the fake aliens out of the sewers and into the city.
-
Eliminate Kane.
They were simple in concept, presumably tougher to execute. One aspect of the plan bothered me more than anything else.
“We were barely strong enough to take down a single creature by ourselves,” I said. “How the hell are we gonna deal with an entire horde without Colt?”
Luke and Armin briefly glanced at one another. They almost seemed worried as they did so, as if an uncomfortable thought had just crossed both of their minds simultaneously.
“We do have somebody stronger than Colt on our side. Probably even stronger than Visser,” Luke said. “A secret weapon, if you will.”
I squinted at him. “So why the hell wasn’t he here?”
“Because he’s fucking insane,” Armin responded. “He’s not a secret weapon, he’s a last resort.”
“I’ll call Valerie,” Luke said, standing up. “Have her wrangle him into New York.”
“You do that,” Armin said, before looking over at me. “Brace yourself. Once we get to New York, it’s gonna be a shitshow.”
---
Credits
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