"Keep…Moving." Ace corwin was slowly dragging his body forward, Clinging to whatever wall he could. If he lost even the tiniest bit of focus, his body would weigh him down and he would tumble to the floor.
Clenching his chest area with his right hand, he breathed heavily. A bullet wound went through his left lung. As one can imagine, it was hard to get up a flight of stairs when you can barely breathe, and were losing the ability by the second.
He was moving up a flight of stairs to his apartment building. Somehow managing to
Take out his keys and unlock his apartment room door, almost immediately tumbling over.
In his room there was a couch, a table and his tv that he forgot to turn off. It was blaring an add for a new toy. Ace crawled onto the couch, taking in as much air as possible.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a pistol.
"No way it ends like this. I won't let it."
His mind travels back to the reason he was like this in the first place. A few years back, he worked for manta corp. They specialized in creating futuristic devices that would allow them to reach other life forms.
But a breakthrough happened. His sister discovered a way to reach another world,
But not in deep space. She created a device that allowed her to create a portal to another world, but it only lasted for a few seconds.
She proved its worth to the higher ups and they continued funding her experiments. But as she began keeping the portal open for longer, things changed. Eventually she needed armed security for the things she saw leaving the portals.
Not only that, but in certain areas, things would just appear without leaving the portal. One time, an ancient statue spawned in her lab and crushed a few of her fellow scientists.
Random videos started showing of monster appearances in isolated areas, and alot of hysteria had gave her a conclusion: she didn't create a dimension between worlds, rather these worlds had been slowly fusing and she had accelerated that process by billions of years.
She asked them to shut down the project and they clearly refused. The last time he heard from her, she was going to her house to upload the truth to the internet, one could only guess what happened to her. The only thing he remembered was seeing the news about a week ago.
A helicopter broadcasting her house completely leveled. Firefighters attempting to search for her in the debree only to find nothing. But as someone who knew his sister and the company she worked for, it didn't take much guesswork.
They had killed her to keep her silent, blown up her house with her inside it. From that moment on,
Ace couldn't even think straight. He went on a killing spree, hunting down as many as he could, gathering crumbs of information to replicate what his sister had, and not coming close.
But the evidence he did have, was good enough to have people questioning mantacorp and their intentions.
Thinking back on it all, he had to talk to himself.
"Ace, you are bullheaded dumbass who is going to get himself killed." He sighed before sitting himself up. Who was he kidding? He could have been slower and more methodical, and yet he'd have done it the same way 100 times over.
A man in a trenchcoat steps out of an armored van.
Many men are in blackened military gear as they too leave their vehicles and await his orders on this rainy night.
"Im going in alone. Maybe if its just me he'll be less likely to make one less fuck up."
As he opened the door, he saw blood leaking up the stairway, showing the exact location of his apartment "truly my lucky day."
Ace heard one pair of feet and knew exactly who it was. And it was why he was most certainly going to die here. Eventually they got to his room.
Aces couch was right next to the doorway, the man simply walked in without drawing any weapons. He turned to his left to see ace holding up his gun, his hands shaking from blood loss.
The man raised his eyebrows. "You sure you wanna disturb all these innocent people when you're this close to death? Have some decency."
The man went to the table Ace often used as a footstool and sat on it. "Look. Im not gonna hurt you no matter what. You're gone already. But i will admit, 20 elite troops and you managed to almost make it unscathed." He said almost pressing his index finger and thumb together.
"And why should i not just kill you right now?"
Ace was getting tired of this arrogant prick, but deep down they both knew.
"If you were even remotely capable, you'd have done it already." A smile crept onto his face. "But what a actually wanted to talk about was simple.
We could save you here, any other hospital probably couldn't even get you onto the operating
Table."
Ace didn't even react, as he had an idea of what they wanted in return. He had his evidence of mantacorps wrongdoings as well as a few trusted friends to deliver the message for him should he perish. They probably want the locations of these people.
The man leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped loosely together. Rainwater dripped from his trenchcoat onto Ace's cheap laminate floor. "You're smarter than this," he said, voice low, almost conversational. "You know what we want isn't just names. It's *her* work. The notes, the schematics—anything you smuggled out before torching that lab in Jersey."
Ace's finger twitched against the trigger. The weight of the gun felt like it was doubling every second. "Funny," he rasped, "how you're talking like I'd give a single fuck about living long enough to see next week." Blood bubbled at the corner of his lips. His vision pulsed at the edges, dark and insistent.
*BOOM*
*BOOM*