Madison

She felt bad for the guard.

Tranquilizing one of them was one thing. They felt a prick, then they would be out cold for twelve solid hours. It was fairly painless.

“Did you really have to break his nose?” she asked Mila as together they dragged him inside the building, out of sight of any questioning eyes.

“If I’d had more time to react? Probably not,” Mila said without remorse. “But I needed to stop him from radioing anyone, so just acted. Kind of like you did by shooting him.”

Madison flushed. As soon as she’d seen the recognition in the guard’s eyes about what the outline of the shape under her outfit was, she’d known they were busted if they didn’t do something quickly. So she’d gone for her gun while Mila had gone for the guard. She’d stepped into him, driving her elbow into his stomach, and then rocketing her fist backward and up into his jaw. Then she’d whirled and delivered a flying fist right to his nose.

A split second later Madison had put a dart into his stomach, dropping the luckless guard. She hadn’t even realized what she was doing until it was done, but Mila had been impressed.

“Now where?” she asked as they dropped the body unceremoniously and headed back outside.

“Let’s try that building,” Mila suggested, pointing at a particularly imposing structure, built with plenty of glass windows, a little farther up the hill toward the top of the horseshoe.

“Looks sinister enough for me,” she agreed, leading the way.

The two of them jogged closer.

“There’s guards,” she hissed, slowing her pace.

“Keep up,” Mila whispered back. “Play along, let me do the talking.”

“What?” she looked over at her comrade, startled. Mila wanted to approach them?

There was no further time to explain the plan though. The guards had seen them and were already approaching. Madison hoped that they would mistake the terror on her face as being from the attack the boys had initiated on the facility. There were signs around them of it now, including the smoking ruin of a building farther up the hill. What the hell had they done to level an entire building, she wondered. Apparently Kean hadn’t been kidding when he had told her that his brothers were experts at making a mess of things.

“You, stop!” the lead guard said, leveling his gun at them as he approached, eyes darting all over the place.

Madison couldn’t blame him. He was in the middle of a warzone it seemed. There were unconscious bodies strewn everywhere, and even as more of his friends raced by to try and take out the Koche brothers, he had been ordered to remain where he was. Which meant that whatever was in that building was worth protecting.

Like perhaps a prisoner from the only organization known to be resisting the Institute, she hoped.

“They’re in the dorms!” Mila shouted at the guard.

Madison immediately caught on to the plan. Unfortunately, Mila wasn’t that great of an actor. Her voice lacked the proper quaver to it.

“Please!” she whimpered, stepping past her friend and running up to the secondary guard, the one who hadn’t spoken. “Please, they’re going crazy. They’re shooting some of the women, and threatening the others.”

“Threatening?” the lead guard asked, immediately turning to look at Madison instead as she threw herself at the guard, trying to act as wretched and helpless as she could.

“With…with…” she looked up, her eyes wide and filled with horror. “They want us to do things.”

“Please,” Mila added, sounding a little more afraid this time.

“You can’t let us go back in there,” Madison begged, clutching at her chosen guard. “We need to be elsewhere. Can we stay with you?”

The guards looked at each other. “You know you’re not allowed in here, miss,” the one in charge said.

“We’re under ATTACK!” Madison screamed, losing her cool. “That’s not supposed to happen either!” She pushed her way past the guard, stumbling toward the entrance.

“Hey!” the guards followed her, stopping her at the door.

Not in time for Madison to pull on it though.

It was locked. Shit. She was going to have to get them to open it for them. Her eyes swiveled around, and she saw a keypad. Damn, she thought, not even a key reader. They were really going to need the guards to do it.

“I promise,” she pleaded, looking up at the silent guard. “We’ll stay right there. Just let us in. Don’t make us go back!”

The guard hesitated, looking over at his superior, who sighed.

“Okay, fine. But just you two. And you sit right there on the floor, where I can keep an eye on you, okay?”

She nodded.

The leader nodded to her guard, who punched a code into the reader too fast for her eyes to follow. With a click the door unlocked. Madison pulled on it and it opened.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice returning to normal as she calmly pulled her tranq gun from under her outfit and shot her guard.

The one in charge let out a strangled cry, before he too crumpled to the ground.

“Damn, you’re good,” was all Mila said as she moved past Madison and guided them inside.

Madison smiled, glad to have been of help.

“Now where?” she asked, trying to focus back on the mission.

“Good question. Down, probably?” It was a half-question, half-statement.

Madison shrugged. “Could work. My only suggestion would be to go up, so really, fifty-fifty. But prisons always seem to be down, in whatever book you read or movie you see. The bad guys always have the jail cells down below, where it’s dark.”

Mila glanced over her shoulder as she headed for a sign that indicated stairs, off to the left of the circular room they had found themselves in. “You read way too many cheesy action books.”

“Just remember that when we find your agent in some dark, dank cell way underground.”

Mila snorted. “We’re probably going to find him up above. Then I’ll—”

She cut off as a figure appeared out of the door they were going for. The trio came to a halt, staring at each other. The first thing Madison noticed was that the man wasn’t dressed like a security guard. He had a pair of light-wash jeans paired with a white dress shirt tucked in at the waist.

“Ummm, you aren’t supposed to be here,” the man said.

“They let us in,” Madison said, pointing back at the door behind her. “The building is under attack. We were in danger.”

The person, who she was quickly coming to suspect was some sort of technician or other employee of the Institute, looked unhappy. “Oh. Okay. Well, you should stay right here,” he said, trying to sound firm.

“Oh, we will,” Madison said. “But my friend here, she’s not having a good go of it. I was going to take her into the stairs. The darkness there, it’ll help her calm down. She needs tighter spaces.”

Putting action to words, she grabbed Mila’s arm and began to escort her toward the door. The technician was still standing in the doorway itself, but Maddy knew if she could just get a little closer, then he wouldn’t be an issue.

“I don’t know, you should really—urk!”

His voice cut off as Mila’s tranquilizer gun came up, the barrel of it pressed firmly against his chin.

“Into the stairs, now,” Madison ordered as the two women once again abandoned their terrorized female roles.

“Okay, okay,” he said. They stayed close to him as they moved into the stairwell, until his back was pressed up against the wall.

Now that they were up close, Maddy could see just how slight of frame he really was.

He’s no threat to us.

But maybe he could be of use.

“The prison cells,” she asked. “Where are they?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mila and Madison laughed at the same time.

“Seriously? You’re already dropping into robotic ‘I don’t know’ mode, without even pretending to be surprised that there might be prison cells here? That’s a dead giveaway in itself,” Mila said, shaking her head. “Just tell us where it is, and we’ll make this as painless as possible.”

The tech shook his head.

“Fine,” Mila snarled, her voice taking on a sternness to it that Madison had never heard before. “We’re going to do it the hard way.”

She slammed her boot down on his foot. Madison winced. He was wearing very soft shoes, without much in the way of fabric or protection on them. Mila on the other hand had steel-toed combat boots on.

The Institute lackey yelped in pain, tears welling in his eyes as he hopped up and down in place on his good foot.

“Feeling talkative yet?” Mila growled. “Where are the prison cells?”

Madison wanted to stop it, but she didn’t. They were running out of time.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the tech repeated, his voice sounding like he was ready to cry.

“We don’t have time for this,” Madison said, and stepped forward, driving her knee right into the man’s groin.

I’m sorry for that. Just tell us where Raven is.

“Shall we keep going?” she asked as the unlucky man crumpled to the ground.

He wheezed in pain, his hands cradling his testicles. But even as he did, she could see him shaking his head.

“Just tell us where they are,” she pressed.

“Three floors down. Take the first left all the way to the end,” he gasped, crying profusely at the pain.

“Thank you,” Mila said and promptly shot him in the ass with a tranq. Then she looked over at Madison curiously.

“We don’t have time. The boys are already probably being pushed back. I’m not proud of the tactic, but I know it works.”

Mila opened her mouth, but Maddy raised a single finger first. “Do not ask.”

The shorter woman shrugged, closed her mouth, and then headed down the stairs, gun pointed ahead of her as she went. They descended the three floors without incident, and then took the first left, as directed.

“Why is there nobody around?” Mila asked warily. “There should be more people. Even if it’s just more generic lackeys like buddy up there.”

Madison shrugged. “They’re under attack. Maybe they have areas to report to. Besides, those stairs didn’t look well-used. My guess is there’s an elevator system built into the building. Most people probably use that.”

“No guards around the prisoners though?” Mila asked as the hallway opened up into a large square room.

“I guess not,” she said as they emerged into the room. It was dimly lit, with only a few bulbs high in the ceiling providing the light.

“Hello?”

Madison went still. She knew that voice. Knew it very well, even if it had been several days since she’d last heard it.

“Raven?” she called, trying to pinpoint which cell.

“Maddy?” came the incredulous reply. “Is that you?”

Jogging forward, she and Mila approached the cell. A tall lanky man with black hair down to his shoulders approached the bars.

“Holy shit, it is you,” he said, disbelief written all over his craggy face.

“Hi Raven,” she said gently. “We’re here to rescue you.”

He looked a little gaunt, but there was no disguising the way his face lit up at those words. “Amazing. Get me out of here and let’s go!”

“Right.” Madison looked around the comparatively empty-seeming room. “Umm, how do we do that?”

Mila looked at her.

“Oh come on. We get all this way, and none of us know how to open his cell?” Madison complained. She turned back to Raven. “Do you have any idea?”

“What about this?” Mila asked, using her cell phone’s light to illuminate a dual-buttoned panel set into the wall next to the cell. It was unlit and made of dark gray metal, so it wasn’t visible in the dim light.

“Try it,” she said.

Mila pushed a button. Nothing happened. “Well, damn.”

“Maybe try pushing the other button?” Madison suggested.

Chagrined, Mila reached up and hit the other button.

The cell door slid open smoothly.

“Hey, whaddya know, it was the other button,” Mila said sarcastically. “Who the heck ever makes it the other button? It’s always the first one a person presses!”

Maddy snorted, even as she enveloped Raven in a hug.

“Come on, we need to move,” she said.

The trio of them ran for the exit at the best pace Raven could maintain. They made it down the hallway, up the stairs, and to the door. Madison led the way, pushing it open as they emerged outside to the continued raucous honking of alarms and shouts from the guards.

Now things are about to get interesting.