Rainfall

Rainfall

The executive of Tech Vault; John Hansson looked town on the street, waiting for his employees to park their cars and enter the building. He clapped his big belly and took a sip from his coffee. He smiled to himself, in just a few minutes he’s have someone to yell at, good way of getting rid of the stress the misses gave him when he was home. Oh, she wants a new bag this, and some new shoes that. BAH. John spotted a car pulling in to the parking lot, and he recognized the young woman exiting it as being Sarah Smith. She wore her yellow raincoat as usual, hanging loosely over her petite frame. Her brown hair was flowing in the wind, and she walked with small quick steps towards the entrance. John smiled to himself and stroked his big moustache, time to get to work.

John walked over towards the elevator and looked at the numbers above it, indicating that someone was coming up now. The doors went *ding* and silly elevator music streamed out from the open doors, and before anyone had even walked out, John started his daily routine. “HURRY UP DAMNIT!” He yelled into the face of a slightly baffled Sarah, walking out of the elevator. “Sure thing boss” She replied with a smile and a nod, she had gotten used to it apparently. Sarah walked over to her booth, John looking after her, greatly annoyed. A few more people came in before he saw the one he disliked the most, that Danish guy. “WHY ARE YOU LATE?!” he yelled in his face.

He was staring into the blank screens, seeing his nametag reflected. Johnson, Wayne it said. Wayne took a deep draught from his now cold cup of coffee. It had been a long night, and he was eager for his shift to come in so he could go home and sleep. Wayne looked at the small screens, showing all the small cubicles where people were starting to sit down and get to work. On one of the cameras, the boss was yelling at some poor guy again, everything was just like it usually was. This one guy with long hair was booting his computer, another bald one was just sitting down and this girl was hanging her yellow raincoat over her chair, preparing to get to work.

Tom Jerrie looked around baffled. One moment he had been there, one moment he had vanished and the place smelled horribly of smoke now. Where the hell had he gone? And he hadn’t even signed up, so he could get credit for inviting someone, damnit. Wayne was still looking baffled at the screen, his coffee laying spilled over half his desk. What the hell had happened?! One moment, this guy bust up in flames with no one noticing and then later he just popped back in. And that was not all. This one girl had suddenly put a large number of CD’s into her bag and had then just run out of the room. He could see her entering her car and driving away a moment later, and from what he could see from the low-res cameras, she was pretty upset or something.

Wayne checked his computer which monitored all activity of the company computers. There, Sarah Smith’s station. Wayne scanned the long, detailed list, seeing nothing but ordinary stuff, coding and whatnot, but then she had been interrupted with the arrival of an email. Since they all ran a company email, Wayne had full access to every employee’s emails. He logged into Sarah Smith’s inbox, and was at first surprised to see it completely empty, but one. The label on it showed that it had been received just 10 minutes before. Wayne opened it and read the few words “It’s ready, burn it down and get here now!” Baffled at first, Wayne then noticed the file size; 355 MB’s for only those few words? Wayne searched around the mail, but there were no attached files or nothing, and before he could even start investigating it, his whole system froze. Greatly annoyed, Wayne rebooted his computer, and when he finally got into the mail 5 minutes later, it was gone. With this, Wayne gave up and besides, the next shift just came in, so he could go home and sleep now.

Delta Squad moved into position. The squad leader, K. Shepherd, took place behind the demolitions expert, K.C; who was rigging a small charge on the door. They were at a dock building which they had monitored for several weeks, having leads on a possible terrorist organization, and with the surveillance they had of the surrounding area, they had shadowed a car circling around the city before stopping here. They had planted hidden mics in there so they were able to listen to anything that was said inside. Shepherd patched the feed through to his headset and listened carefully.

“Let’s see what you got there.” A man with a deep said, sounding like he hadn’t had anything to drink for days. Shepherd knew this to be the voice of Wilhelm Striker, a man they had kept a close watch on for a long time, but the next voice, that of a young woman, he didn’t recognize.

“Don’t worry Wilhelm” she said “I got it all and got out before anyone could stop me.”

“Great. We can’t let them get hold of this, it’s too important!”

“So, where do we go now?”

“Anywhere but here, I’ve got a boat out back, follow me.”

Shepherd knew this was the moment to go in; he looked at his wrist watch and mumbled “Starting action at 3. 34 PM” Then he signaled K.C. to blow the charge. A loud thump filled the empty docks and the lock was blown out on the door, allowing them to enter. Shepherd entered third, quickly scanning the large empty room. All he could see was old ruined boats scattered around the building. “Clear” his team said which was not scattered out throughout half the area. Then he spotted daylight from a doorway leading out to the water. He signaled the team to follow him and advanced towards the doorway, rifle raised. He got his back against the wall beside the doorway and peeked out. A small bridge went out from the doorway and at the end of it was a speedboat with two people sitting in it, a small, pale man in dirty clothes and a girl with a bright yellow raincoat. Shepherd popped out from behind cover, raised his rifle and yelled “FREEZE!”

But the people in the boat didn’t freeze; instead, the boat rumbled to life and started speeding out into the open water. Shepherd prepared to open fire, but was hit in the shoulder by a shot from the boat. His team came out from the doorway and opened fire on them but they were too far away now to hit. “DAMNIT!” Shepherd groaned and pounded the boards with his fist, an action he immediately regret as pain shot up his arm.

Helicopter pilot Dave Carlson looked at the water below, tired. They had been chasing this boat for over an hour now, and the initial adrenaline was about to be taken over by weariness. The boat had been speeding around the bay for so long because all the exits had been blocked by armed boats. “Come on! Get this shot right!” he yelled into my headset to the sniper sitting in the back, aiming at the boat. He pulled around so the side of the helicopter faced the direction of the boat and tried to keep it as steady as he could 20 meters above the water. A few agonizing seconds passed as he saw the boat, and his hopes of getting hope early speeding away, but then a lout crack broke through the noise of the rotors. “I’ve got a hit.” The sniper reported, “Seems like I’ve hit the gas tank.” Dave smiled to himself, relieved. They’d have to find land soon then which meant that the ground forces would take over, and he could go home.

They followed the boat for a little while more as it continued to slow down, and finally stop at some dock somewhere. He saw them exit, go into the roads and carjack some poor fellow, and then speed away. “Target is now in a red vehicle, red vehicle.” He reported to the central and then flew after the car.

Shepherd and his squad had been following the car for a long time now, finally surrounding it right on the golden gate bridge where it had crashed. It had gotten dark now, and rain was pouring. The mix of police and SWAT cars had made a half-circle around the crashed car, so they either had to go through them or jump of the bridge. Shepherd smiled to himself, they had already won. He looked towards the scared girl in the yellow raincoat that had gotten out of the car and was leaning against the edge of the bridge. The driver, the man had been either killed our knocked out when they crashed, since two policemen was dragging his limp body from the wreck.

“Forward team.” He said into his headset and his entire team raised their rifles at the girl, creating many small, red dots on her yellow raincoat. They advanced at her and formed a tight half circle around her. Now Shepherd could see the small bag she was clutching, that was probably the thing they had tried to get away with. He held up his fist, lowered his rifle and walked slowly towards the girl. “What’s your name ma’am?” he said to the scared girl. At first she looked confused at him, but then she replied “Sarah Smith” “Listen, Sarah.” Shepherd said “No one have to get hurt anymore, just hand over whatever’s in the bag and you will be alright.” He held forth an empty hand to show his good will. The girl got both hands into the bag, but he allowed it although it was against regulations. But he got a nasty surprise. He heard a small *plink* and from the bag came a grenade in one hand, and the pin around the index finger of the other hand. “I can’t let you have it.” She said

Sarah was in a tight spot now, she was standing with a live grenade in her hand, and the only thing keeping it from exploding was her cold, wet fingers, squeezing the safety handle. This thing was too important to loose, and it was better to take it with her than to hand over. She knew that they wouldn’t shoot her now as she’d drop the grenade and destroy the bag. She backed up and got up on the fence between the road and the long drop. “I can’t” she said again and then let herself fall backwards, into oblivion.

Shepherd ran to the edge and looked down into the dark. For a few seconds, there was nothing but then a bright flash pierced the night and a small thump was heard. “FUCK!” Shepherd yelled and threw his helmed to the ground; this was going to cost him his rank! But still he couldn’t help but wonder. What was in that bag that they were prepared to give their life for?