600 years — #3
I was already awake before my 3 AM alarm rang. Why the hell am I nervous?
Oh yeah! I am the captain of a team in a mission where I have 3 minutes experience of doing door-guard duty. Nice! And I high-fived myself. Got refreshed and dressed.
Wore my beige hat and the long coat. Took the duffel bag that came last night. Now I put on my earpiece and waited outside the hotel gate. There was no black SUV. Tapped my earpiece twice to activate it and spoke, ‘Lady at the Comms? It’s Captain G! Where’s the pickup?’
Lady over Comms — “Captain! My codename is Lipton. May I remind you again. Have you read the briefing promptly?”
‘Yes I have.’
“Alright, thanks for the confirmation, Captain G! You are in the position #3 for today. Hope you know the seating arrangements. The car is 4 minutes away. And it’s only the ladies today. Couple of different members but they are experts of this mission. Good luck!”
In exactly 4 minutes, the SUV arrived and looks like I was in the front passenger seat.
Lady over comms — “Alright Captain! The driver appears to have an unapproved handgun. Would you get that from her and check? If it doesn’t have the name — Chamomile engraved on it, keep it in the glove box.
Driver’s name was Masha. Masha gave me that unapproved gun and somehow I could still see the engraving. I did not know why this stupid system showed it as unapproved.
Comms — “Well, Captain. Sorry for intrusion to your inner voiceover. We do not get the list of weapons and not everyone is prompt in entering their guns to the system after they receive it.”
‘First of all! I am very curious. How does a small earpiece read what’s on my mind?’
Masha and others in the car said in a chorus — “It’s Top-secret”
Masha continued — “Atleast that’s what they told us.”
Comms — “Captain G! Hope you got the answer you weren’t looking for. Congratulations on the mission.”
And we drove off. We reached the Mumbai Marine drive again and stopped our car on the other end of the road. Yesterday’s location — The Raymonds was on the South side.
As we stopped, near the beach side. I looked towards the buildings. It was an Ice cream shop — Naturals.
I said, “Alright folks! Mission’s on. You know your positions. Masha! Get the door duty done right. Use your gun if required.’
It was like clockwork.
Jane hacked into the systems and Root was responsible for performing the surgery. Ofcourse, the surgery of meddling the circuit of the Mini-computer present inside the Old EB Box. Root mentioned about the failsafe that will set off a silent alarm and also bring the power back on.
We were done in surprisingly under 2 minutes and as we all headed out, I cleared out place and checked for potential evidences around the scene. With 10 seconds to spare, we rushed out. Closing the door behind me, I waited until the power comes back on.
Jane — “Captain we have a problem! The silent alarm has been tripped.”
‘Jane!? We were careful about everything. Could you tell how did this happen?’
Root — “They must have a failsafe for the failsafe. We’re screwed! Let’s go! Masha, I’ll drive.”
Masha — “No! This is not the time, Root!”
I said, ‘Folks come on!’
And Root decided to drive and she was cruising through the empty road of the Marine drive. Comms beeped.
Comms — “Team! Abandon gurney. Drones have been deployed. They are almost near you.”
Jane was also doing something on her tablet and was talking to Masha about what was happening. As I turned around to say, Jane was telling me information before I could open my mouth.
Four Drones have been deployed and they are BlankMagic — mark 7 which means they can not only shoot but can take down a vehicle.
‘Hey Rani! What do I do now?’
Lady over comms — “Shoot the drones. It is impossible to hack the drones beca…. Wait! Captain G? I found something else. Before that, did you just call me Rani?”
‘You think I can’t recorgnize a person by their voice? And what did you find?’
Jane — “Captain! It is possible to hack. But I am able to intrude only one. I can control but unable to shut down.”
Root — “Control? Use it to shoot down the other drones and crash it.”
Jane exclaimed but it was impossible for those drones to crash because they are designed in such a way. Jane shot two drones using the one she hacked into and somehow could not shake it down. It was continuously shooting at us.
Masha yelled — “How many rounds of bullets does it even have?”
It shot one of our tires and Root lost control of the car. As we were slowing down, Masha and I were hanging out the window to shoot the drone. It was early in the morning and the drone was barely visible. It shot Masha in the head and neck, then she hung through the window. Jane pulled her in. Jane was still trying to take control of the drone but the connection was pulled off when she took down two other drone. The drone shot towards us and I came inside.
It shot the front tires and Root totally lost control and ran over the small wall that’s between the sidewalk and the rocks near the beach. The car ran over and rolled twice. It toppled. While Root, Jane and I crawled out and also pulled Masha out of the car, I carried her on my shoulder. The drone was nowhere.
We wanted to escape but Jane was badly hurt. She was limping but still walking with us. We tried to flee and again the drone came circling around us from nowhere. It pointed a laser at Jane, and we stopped. It flew towards us and something scanned her face. It pointed the laser again and tried to shoot her. I immediately took down the drone using my shotgun.
We turned around and ran for a few seconds and another big SUV swopped in front of us. And 4 people including the driver walked out with guns and another guy in a suit and a hat walked by.
Guy in the suit — “Hold on guys! We need them alive. Wait a minute!”
I said in a top voice — ‘HEY!’ and pointed my handgun towards him.
He smiled and laughed contagiously to say, “So, Captain G! Looks like you are one person down. Not a good captain I suppose. People should really follow their roles seriously. Root! Masha’s death was because of you. Masha was an amazing driver especially in such situations.”
With the darkness and limited street lights, his face was barely visible. There was a moment of silence and he continued, “Oh, let me enlighten myself.”
He walked towards the street light and removed his hat.
‘Captain?’ and I slowly lowered my handgun.
Jane — “Wait! You recruited us for this mission.”
Comms crackled in my ear — “Sorry Captain! Rani here. I am surrounded too and at gunpoint now. It’s been an honor!” and I heard a gun shot.
Old Captain said as I stared at him in horror — “Yeesh! That should be your Tech person. She knew too much.”
~to be continued
