Erica surveyed the scene, her team laboriously excavating the earth, as she mentally sifted through the mission checklist.

  "Routes, tunnel, utility room, HQ main floor halls, comms room." She mumbled while digging through her pack. The explosive loads she carried had already been wired up. Her task was simple: plant the explosives, link them, then find a cozy spot before setting the world on fire.

  In her arsenal was also a pair of adaptable bolt cutters, ready to morph into makeshift batons for any necessary old-school sabotage.

  "Ma'am. We're through," one of the Vector officers announced. Erica put her pack on and neatly fastened it tightly to herself.

  "Time to dive in," she stated, approaching the freshly excavated hole. It only led downward about forty feet. Her team quickly rigged her with a harness and cable. "When I detach, go ahead and send down the comm line."

  Erica peered down into the dim hole. The light in the tunnel was easy enough to make out. She took a breath and nodded to the team holding her line.

  Foot by foot, they lowered Erica into the tunnel. When she reached the bottom, she scanned both directions with her gun. No one.

  "These guys really should fix their security," she thought while detaching herself from the cable.

  Once free, she began to jog down the tunnel away from the facility. After stopping some distance away, she pulled off her pack and took out a block of C4. She taped it to the conduit and retraced her steps with the detonation wire. When she reached the hole that she had entered from, another spool of wire was dangling at eye level. She snatched it and began to jog towards the utility room.

  Halfway to her target, Erica placed a second explosive on the conduit. She silently moved toward the utility room once it was linked to her detonation wire.

  Pausing momentarily, she lent an ear to the silence, ensuring solitude was her only company. Assured of isolation, Erica placed another charge on the facility's power reservoir, completing her daisy-chained trio. Satisfied with her work, Erica extracted her radio and connected it to the compact communication line.

  The corners of her mouth curled up as she gazed down the conduit tunnel. Whoever was at the receiving end of this power was about to be very unhappy. She keyed her transmitter to life.

  "Everything is set. Let Edy know he can start his little circus.” All she had to do now was wait for the show to begin.

  ***Maks***

  The latest field report saw a twelve percent drop in output. A crushing frustration swelled within Warden Maks, but the only available target was a helpless roll of toilet paper. Nearly finished taking care of business, a tremor and loud explosion shook the earth.

  "What the HELL was that!?" he yelled. Maks stood up quickly, trying to pull his pants up, when Overseer Toma burst into the room.

  "Warden, we're being attacked at the-Oh my..." She froze for a second, embarrassed.

  "Out with it, woman!" He thundered while fumbling with his zipper. Suddenly, another series of tremors rocked the ground below them, causing the lights to shut off.

  "Someone's attacking the perimeter, and they cut off the power!" She stumbled. Maks wanted to strangle her.

  “Of course, the power’s out, you inept nitwit!" Maks shoved his way around her. His priority now is the communications room. Any would-be liberators would find only the tombstones of the miners carved from the very rocks they chip.

  A minute later, he rounded the hall towards the communications room. His men were sprinting to their stations. Maks paused for a moment as he entered the room. One of the guards that ran past had an unusually full figure. Had he seen her before?

  "Wait. No!" He whipped his head back to the comm room in time to see a backpack resting on the primary radio array. He dove out of the room, narrowly escaping the blast that followed shortly. "Find the saboteur! Stop her!" He continued to bark out orders at soldiers as they ran by. When Toma showed up, he grabbed her by the shoulders. "Do something useful for once in your life!" he screeched.

  ***Emery***

  Another tremor shook the whole mine. Like a restless tiger, Watchguard Emery paced before the STM bin. Whenever he felt something or heard a sound, he would wheel around and point his shotgun at wherever it came from.

  Tremors usually meant that a tunnel was about to collapse. It was rare, but it did happen. The problem was that he felt several quakes go off in a row. That couldn't mean anything good. He glanced down the branching tunnels. Anyone who ventured down would have to pass through his station.

  The prisoners within view shifted with palpable unease. Emery couldn't blame them. At least he knew the signal to get out if the Warden decided to blow the mine.

  Suddenly, a disturbance echoed from one of the tunnels, breaking his train of thought.

  "Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!" A loud voice echoed. Emery pointed his gun down the tunnel in anticipation. Moments later, the same voice rang from a different tunnel.

  "Make way for the hammer!"

  "What in the hell?" Emery stammered. He swung his gun around when the same voice thundered out of a third tunnel.

  "It’s time for an ass-whooping!"

  Emery could feel his gun shaking. Loud footsteps echoed from every direction. The voices were getting close. Guards began to rush out of the tunnels. They pushed and shoved, trying to get to the elevators. Emery was frozen where he stood. He glanced back to the tunnels in time to see a giant of a man hunched down as he barreled his way forward. Then, copies of the same man began to pour out from every tunnel, flooding Emery's nest with loud warcries.

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  "Teleclones!" he wailed before being buried in the flood of blonde attackers.

  ***Edy***

  "Ugh, this is so boring. Why do they get to have all the fun?" Edy muttered while pacing restlessly. He would glance at the distance encampment through his binoculars every few steps. "I’m going down there."

  "We were told to stay here," one of the Vector soldiers spoke up, but Edy had reached his tolerance limit waiting around like a loser.

  "Fine," he said. "You wait here. I'm going in." He snatched up his rifle and got on one of the nearby ATVs.

  "Sir, they'll mow you down the moment you breach the woodline," the soldier protested.

  "Then you had better blow the everloving snot out of their defenses, shouldn't you?" he retorted, his voice laced with sarcasm. "Now, you can either come along or cover me."

  The soldier was dumbstruck. Edy had to be at least ten years younger than him. "You know, I like the cut of your jib, kid." The soldier nodded. "Ready all remaining ordinances. I want enough covering fire to make an approach, and someone had better blow a hole in that damn wall before we reach it. Let's show those assholes exactly what Vector means."

  "Hoo-ah!" the rest of the soldiers yelled. The small firing position began to bluster as men loaded artillery guns and mortars with rounds. ATVs began to roar to life.

  "Damn straight," Edy smirked, a feeling of reckless confidence surging inside him. "I'll lead us in the right direction."

  "And we'll supply the magnitude." The officer said, loading a rocket launcher.

  "God, that sounds corny," Edy thought to himself. He still couldn't stop the smile from taking over his face.

  Minutes later, Edy's ATV was screaming downhill with his small group of fellow psychopaths. They were about to break the woodline when the others splintered off, forming a wide arc. Eddy slowed down so the arc could form a line.

  "Either I'm about to pull off the single most badass thing in my life, or this will be an epically dumb death," he said aloud. As the ATVs broke the woodline. The soldiers riding the backs of each fired off rocket-propelled grenades at the nearby guard towers. As they did, another large blast rang out from the hillside, blowing down a small section of the wall in front of them. More bombardment quickly followed.

  Amid the torrents of destruction, Edy found his hands clenching tightly around the grips of his vehicle while it tore across the field. He heard gunfire but couldn't tell how close it was to him. All he could focus on was the opening that had formed before him.

  "Come on," Edy muttered through clenched teeth, his words absorbed by the tense air around him. A spray of bullets cut above his head, but the shooters were too late. Edy breached the wall.

  Swerving through the rubble, his four-wheeler screeched between the dilapidated buildings towards the prisoners' living quarters. Once safely concealed, he hopped off the ATV and drew his gun.

  Staying close to the shady outline of a building wall, he began to patrol the area, his vigilance abruptly halted by the appearance of a pair of guards around the corner.

  He raised his weapon and tried to fire, but nothing happened. He felt a pair of hands grab him from the side. Moments later, he was yanked into the building as bullets pelted the walls. Edy fell in a crumpled heap.

  "You forgot to turn off the safety," a feminine voice growled.

  "Ah, damn," Edy said with an odd sense of deja vu. He felt his gun yanked from his hands. He glanced up in time to see a woman in the ragged drapes of a prisoner dispatch their attackers with two clean shots.

  "What are you waiting for? Get up, idiot!" she yelled. Edy sprung to his feet.

  "Who the heck is this chick?" he wondered, a touch of awe creeping into his thoughts. She was too absorbed in surveying their precarious surroundings to notice his slack-jawed expression.

  "What now?" Edy asked stupidly.

  Her half-moon eyes, steely as cold iron, snapped back to Edy. "What now? What else? We fight!" She grabbed Edy's shirt. "Now get to the other side of the door and tell me whether or not the coast is clear." She shoved him away. Edy recovered quickly and leaped across the doorway. Carefully, he peered down the dusty lane.

  "Clear," he said. The woman nodded and raised her weapon as she rounded the corner outside. Edy followed closely behind. Every step she took was well measured yet fast. Something told Edy she had been in situations like this before. He barely had time to notice a whispering lock of shock-white hair waving in a river of raven.

  "What's your name?" Edy whispered, their steps syncing as they neared the building corner bordering the main road. She turned back to glare.

  "Are you serious right now?" she hissed. "As if we're not seconds away from death… Wait, what's that noise?"

  Edy listened carefully. It sounded like a stampede. "It's coming from that way." Edy pointed down the road towards the mine. Moments later, the street was packed wall-to-wall in a sea of ridiculous, grinning faces and fur coats.

  "Edy! Joining the party?" one of the Valentine teleclones stopped. "Who's your girlfriend?"

  "She's not… ugh, where's Nik?" Edy rolled his eyes. He could feel his cheeks burning.

  "Nik is here?" the woman asked in surprise.

  "Back of the mine." Valentine pointed over his shoulder. "He's evacuating prisoners through our new tunnels. You should probably head there."

  "Got it." Edy had enough action for one day.

  "Not a chance," the woman said defiantly. "There's someone I need to find."

  "Okay, have fun, don't die." Valentine gave a small salute before rejoining his teleclone brethren. Edy felt himself groan inside.

  "Just who do you need to find?" he asked. The ardent expression in her beryl eyes made Edy take a half step back.

  "The Warden, obviously," she retorted.

  A mischievous grin slowly spread across Edy's face. "Then, follow me. I know a thing or two about the HQ building."

  Edy rushed ahead, wading through the thick current of giants. Momentarily taken aback, the woman quickly found her stride and trailed him. A minute later, Edy was at one of the entrances to the HQ building. He peeked inside.

  "Clear," he whispered. "But seriously, before we go in, I should probably know your name so we can communicate and stuff." The woman considered him for a moment. She must have thought Edy made tactical sense.

  "Akira Kita, but call me Kit," she answered.

  "Nice, my name's E-"

  "I know your name already, idiot," she hissed. "That huge blonde guy already said it."

  "Then why don't you call me by my name?" he asked.

  "Because you've been responding so well to idiot," she retorted with a cool smile.

  Before Edy could respond, Kit rushed into the building. She surveyed the hall with the barrel of her rifle, then began checking room after room. Edy could barely keep up with her frenzied search. Valentine's teleclones were already running amok throughout the chaotic facility.

  "We would have known by now if they caught him," Edy reasoned. "Valentine wouldn't exactly keep it a secret."

  "Then he must be trying to escape," Kit said, stopping. "Where would he go?"

  Just then, the answer popped into Edy's head. "The conduit tunnel. Follow me." This time it was his turn to rush past Kit. He navigated the halls until he located the door to the utility room. "In here. It goes down to a tunnel that leads away from the camp."

  With a nod, Kit peered into the room, her gaze cautious and alert. "Clear," she whispered, stealthily easing herself inside. The two stealthily descended the metal stairs.

  Edy's gaze fell on the now devastated power reservoir. Erica's devastation was thorough. A twinge of regret passed through him. Such a shame. They could have siphoned the power it held.

  "Damnitt." They heard a muffled echo from the tunnel. Kit raised her weapon as the two slowly approached. When Edy could see around the corner, he barely discerned the form of a man in a long coat trying to move boulders from where one of Erica's explosives had caused a cave-in.

  "How the hell did they know?" He muttered to himself. "It must have been from the attack from the wall." The man was trying to find a reason why the tunnel had collapsed. Edy felt himself grinning. It sucked going on a mind-state recon, but this prick's confusion made the whole thing worth it.

  When they were close enough, Kit halted. She lifted her weapon, her aim steady. The man must have sensed something because he whirled around in time to see the flash of Kit's barrel.