My feet thudded against the floor. I heard people from behind, scrambling after me. But I did not stop or turn to fight - I had to maintain their suspicion that I was some sort of soldier. Whiteford probably wouldn’t like it if one of her ‘prized hackers’ was caught sneaking around in an underground network that only a few were supposed to know about. Then again, I wasn’t sure how prized we were anymore. Mel’s life was cast away like it was nothing, even though Whiteford fought so hard to get Les back.


    After all, he was the true important one.


    I skidded around a corner, and nearly ran into a door. “Fuck,” I muttered. My hand flew to the handle - which was, of course, locked. “Fuck!” I repeated, louder. A growing sense of urgency twisted my stomach, slowly rising into cold panic.


    The truth settled in my head that I would have to either face them or force open the door, one of which would be a lot more efficient.


    My mind was made up quickly. I whirled around. All I could do to hide myself was to pull one of my arms in front of my head; the other pointing forward, finger resting on the trigger.


    There was movement as a burly body came around the corner.


    BANG! BANG!


    I fired two quick shots without hesitation. The man grunted, and swayed for a second as if gravity had paused for a bit of added drama. I saw the two bullets lodged in his chest, surrounding a bloody mess.


    There was a scream, and I lunged forward. The burly man hit the floor just as my eyes locked onto the next target and I open fired.


    The woman screamed again as the bullets collided with her skin, before her scream was cut off abruptly. Her body flopped onto the ground like a ragdoll.


    The bullets had penetrated her body in several places. Runs of dripping blood stained the fabric of her loose-fitting clothes. My mind had not yet comprehended anything, nor had I any sort of conscious that I had left in me told me that what I did was wrong.


    Because it wasn’t.


    At the thought, my hands moved to my head, gripping it as if I had a migraine. That was the second time I had had a thought so dark and intense in real life. Before, I had thought that it was something only my dream-self could experience. By now, I was fully aware that some part of me, deep down, thought these things.


    But I couldn’t think of it as ‘some part of me.’ Truly, it was just me. And I couldn’t feel dirty or wrong because I wasn’t letting myself.


    “What the fuck is wrong with me?” I asked in a whisper, to no one in particular.


    I was standing over two bullet-pierced bodies, with the gun that committed the deed firmly grasped in my hand. I was sure that someone had heard, and even surer that I had run out of bullets to shoot with. And yet, even though I should have been feeling something… I just couldn’t. Any hint of remorse was squashed by whatever gaping emptiness filled me.


    I looked down at the bodies, my eyes examining the result of what I had done for the first time. The woman was on her back, eyes staring off into space. Her grey shirt was stained with a dark redness, but her jeans were unscarred. She had short, black hair down to her shoulders. It was perfectly styled and gelled, with a strange sort of unnatural shine to it. Her face was round, her eyes blue and her lips thick. A simple gun was in her hand. Perhaps it wasn’t as good as mine, but it could contain bullets that might match.


    I leaned over, and found seven bullets, which seemed to be a little strangely sized compared to the ones I usually used. I jammed them into my own gun, and they thankfully fit. I was lucky to have the model I had, which was meant to be compact but carry as much bullets as possible. It was not a handgun that one would come by legally.


    Approaching the other man, I leaned down next to him too. He had a muscular frame and no hair, with tattoos covering nearly every part. His face was square, and his head was bald, except for the ink. I sighed at the sight, and muttered aloud to myself. “Goddammit, when are people going to realize that being fully tatted up doesn’t make you badass or sexy?”


    I quickly took his bullets as well, loading them up. Together, I got 14 shots. If I was lucky, that meant I could kill 14 people who might stand in my way getting out of here. Or perhaps only 7, if that was what it took to make sure no one knew who was truly behind the killings.


    I heard people shouting outside, clamoring. About five different voices mingled together, but I couldn’t be sure.


    It was then that I did something incredibly stupid. My mind, damn the broken thing, decided that the best thing to do in that moment was to yell. I tried to distort it, make it gruff, but I was sure at that moment that I would be caught.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    I heard murmuring from outside, followed by pounding footsteps.


    I sighed. “Fuuuuck me,” I grumbled, holding my gun straight.


    The next few moments were a blur as people whirled around the corner. I pulled the trigger six times, and my ears filled with the sounds of my own shots and the screaming of those in front of me.


    Five people laid on the floor when it was over. I stood frozen, waiting for the possibility of another person.


    There was a flicker of movement as someone whirled around the corner. I flung myself to the side before they were even in position.


    There were two shots, one by me and the other by the person in front of me. There was a clink as hsi bullet hit the wall behind me, and a groan when my bullet hit him.


    I grimaced at the shot’s aim. “Right in the dick,” I muttered, standing up and wincing.


    No longer wanting to wait around for more people to come along, I ran. I kept my sleeve in front of my mouth, as if obscuring half of my face could somehow hide my identity. I took a leap over the bodies, not letting myself see their faces for the fear that it may trigger the remorse that seemed to have been suppressed so far.


    I turned and dashed forward. Two guards ran from another tunnel. WIthout hesitation, I raised my gun and shot.


    The first one seemed to not have seen me by the time I had pulled the trigger, and dropped down easily. The second hit the floor and tried to set up his large army-style gun in a good position. I shot at him before he even got a chance to position his weapon. From the distance I was at, it was hard to see the gruesomeness of the kill, but my mind did paint quite the lovely picture.


    Panic began to set in as I ran once more, unsure as to whether someone might live to see my face but too scared to use up extra bullets. “Fucking shit,” I grumbled as I approached the tunnel, clutching my gun with a deadly tight grip.


    I stumbled my way into the tunnel, grasping the walls to feel out the text. I was barely able to get an idea of what each carving said. “No, no, no,” I murmured as I checked, “no, no, shit.”


    My breathing accelerated as a cold, persistent worrying settled into my chest. Twice I felt an ‘X’, causing a glowing bit of hope to flare in my stomach before being snuffed out when I felt the letters after. The third time, my fingers felt an ‘A’ after the ‘X.’ I continued feeling, grasping for the letters.


    I heard frantic footsteps crunching over the rocks. My fingers moved faster, until I finally made out the full word ‘Xarnon.’ I flew inside the passage, scrambling my way up the stairs. I flung open the portrait door and collapsed onto the carpet with a thud.


    “Faaaauuuuuuck,” I groaned.


    “Cade?” I heard Seph’s voice ask. At the sound, I fell into grim acceptance that I would be caught. “Shit, Cade,” he said, now standing above me.


    I looked up, becoming aware of the loaded gun in my hand. “Oh,” I said weakly, tossing the weapon away.


    Seph leaned down, grabbing my hands. “Blood?” he asked, holding my red-covered palms for me to see.


    “There is a perfectly good explanation for this,” I said, looking away.


    “Hm?” he asked. “The only possible explanation I can see is you running around killing CIA folks.”


    “Well, when you put it like that…” I grumbled.


    Seph’s eyes widened. “Holy fuck. No, no…” he stood up and began pacing. “You didn’t.”


    “I did,” I said simply.


    He whirled on me. “Why?” he hissed.


    “They attacked me first!” I said. “They should’ve just minded their own damn business.”


    “Did anyone see your face?” Seph asked harshly.


    “No, I don’t think so.”


    Seph’s body seemed to relax. “Thank God.”


    There was a pause, before Seph offered his hand. I took it, and was immediately whisked up and into his arms. Before I could even react, his lips were on mine. I gratefully kissed him back.


    Seph was the first to step back. “We’ll have to see about this tomorrow.”


    I nodded. “Sleep sounds great.”


    I let go of Seph, suddenly feeling even more cold than before. I slipped into my room, collapsing upon the bed. I stared up at the ceiling, unsure of what to do next. There were thousands of ways I could be caught: someone could have seen my face, my fingerprints could have been found, or plenty of other things.


    I forced my eyes to close, pulling the sheets atop my body. After a few minutes, I groaned at the sudden heat and removed the sheets. I changed my position once more, only to feel cold creep into my bones after another few minutes of trying to get rest.


    I sat up, wiping my brow. For some reason, sleep evaded me. I tried to seat out any bit of tiredness that I could feel in my body, but just got buzzing energy. I lay back down on my bed, just sitting and staring upward, hoping for a bit of drowsiness to summon itself.


    My thoughts began to wander in the absence of all other stimulation. I thought back to how easily Whiteford had discarded one of us, and how security measures had lessened a lot after we started training the cadets. I also thought back to all of the jobs Whiteford had promised we would do, although the only thing we had accomplished was submitting a few bits of information while attacks were happening.


    No one had even talked about the information-gathering on Russia’s cyber attack in ages.


    Which did remind me…


    I stood up once more, walking over to my desk. I opened my laptop and booted it up. I grabbed the file of every cyber interaction, scanning all of the information we had spent days pouring over yet finding nothing. We had figured out how to filter for an international exchange of malicious files, but not how to add anything else.


    Maybe we couldn’t specify the country, but perhaps specify the distance? I wondered, trying to rekindle the extinguished flame of this investigation.


    I got to our filter code, which was just a line that barely worked among the jumble of other commands that none of us could read. If we tried to add too many filters, something would always break. But, perhaps just a simple one could make it through whatever wall was stopping us from applying too many complicated requirements.


    I entered the necessary line of code, and saved the program. I re-activated the ‘filtered_data.exe’ file we had made when we first discovered how to perform search queries. I crossed my fingers as the program booted up, praying that it would succeed.


    The filter activated, and a list popped up. There were 370,000 results. I sighed. It was a bit better, but still definitely not perfect.


    With that small bit of progress done, I closed my computer, flopped down upon my bed, and prepared for a sleepless night.