Driving through the fog along the river Jenna wishes she had
any other call today than the Rustlers Den. As she gets closer the sound of
thunder gets louder, the winds stronger and she sees lightning flash. Rounding
the hill she can see the dark clouds over the building, it's a funnel cloud,
but instead of sucking things up and throwing them up and out, everything is
being sucked in, like a drain the wind and debris swirls through a hole in the
roof. Wow this is intense! I'm supposed
to get in, get the machine set off and get everyone out safe? Can it even be
done?
"Dispatch this is Cpt. Mathews.....Who is available for
back-up?......Shit, Sierra and Francisco
don't have the field experience, they've done desk work since I started....."Have
them on stand-by. If I'm not out in an hour things went bad and they will have
to move in. Well Jenna you have no
choice, your back up doesn't have the intel you do, if you don't stop this no
one else can!
Taking a deep breath she leaps from the truck and clips a
tether line to the wench. With the controls in her pocket she grabs additional
tethers, then heads in.
It's chaos inside, people are wedged into whatever space
they can squeeze into. As she passes each one she secures them with tether lines.
The lower level is a swirling tornado. Debris, crates,
broken glass was that a person that just
flew past? At the base of the wind cloud is a large machine. Four buttons to turn it off, and one on the
far right to set the self-destruct. Underneath Jenna sees a scientist, she has
used her lab coat to tie herself to the base.
Ok, one extra person to get out
this could get tricky. I have to shut the machine down set the self destruct
and make it back up the stairs before that ton of flying debris comes crashing
down.
"Thank the Great Sim you came! Do you know how to shut
this thing down?" Jenna nods and
yells back, "Once I do, this whole cloud of stuff will come crashing down,
I don't think we can make it to the stairs."
Shaking her head the girl points to a small closet to the
right, just steps away. "Teleport pad in there, we can be out in
seconds"
Jenna grabs her arm, secures them together and punches in
the sequence to shut down the machine, as she hits the last button the girl
hits the self destruct. Jenna raises an eyebrow and looks at the girl. Stubborn
defiance shows on her face and they both dart for the teleporter as the winds
begin to die down.
Outside the girls says "I was tricked into helping. By
the time I realized what they planned to do I had no choice. The Alto threatened
to take my little brother, he and my grandmother are the only family I have
left. Shane said if I could hold out until you got here I could be free of them
all. As soon as he got my family to safety I gave him the blueprints and
sabotaged the machine." The inside
contact
"Where is The Alto? Was he overseeing the test?"
Jenna asks.
"He, at least the current one, was sucked into the
machine. The highest ranking member will move up, that is unless they fight for
it. The Alto is more an identity than a person anymore."
"So it's not over, just a chapter ends," Jenna
says with disappointment.
