BEGINNING OF STORY

PREVIOUS (PART 19)

Jumping so that you land on a staircase is quite problematic. A stairway, of course, is made from numerous flat surfaces, but land on it stretched out and you hit nothing but edges. Luckily, when I leapt into the basement, another terrorist was heading up. I plowed into him and he cushioned my fall to his own detriment. He also caused his friends to hesitate in firing at me, something I used to my advantage as I rolled off the stairway to my feet.

I fired rapidly as I charged forward, not having time to worry about leaving people alive for Tommy's sake. I few shots rang off in my direction, but these terrorists were of the "pull the trigger rapidly and pray" school and weren't even close to hitting me. Four were soon dead and burned enough to smell like pork, and I spotted a fifth frantically removing a disk from a computer. Something familiar was on screen and then quickly disappeared. The alien terrorist then tried to spin around and shoot me, but I was on him and smashed him in the face. He fell to the ground and his gun skid along the floor away from him.

One was left running to a panel on the back of the room. He had flipped it open, but I shot him in the leg dropping him to the ground. I then had a second to see a wire coming out of the panel and then spidering out to numerous explosive charges. The wounded man reached up for the panel, but this time I shot the wire. The flicking of the switch by the terrorist achieved nothing.

I walked over to him and recognized the face. "Hey, Mohammed," I said cheerily just for the fun of it before I knocked him unconscious.

"Leave any alive?" Thompson asked from behind me, now at the bottom of the stairway. She just wasn't quick enough to enjoy that action.

"Alive, yes; conscious, no. We have Mohammed right here. That guy over there." I pointed to the one by the computer I had punched out. "And possibly the two by the stairs." I motioned to the one I knocked over lying on top of the one Zippy stunned. If they were alive, they probably had some bad concussions. "By the way, you’re welcome for me keeping you from being blown up. Now where's the cavalry?"

Thompson was looking at a computer that had been left on. "Outside waiting for the SWAT team." She stared carefully at the computer. "I think there's a strike about to take place at Roppola Plaza!" She got up and walked on to the stairway. "I need to get those cowards waiting outside in here; do you have everything secure down here, Rico?"

I laughed. "They weren't much of challenge for me when they were standing, Blondie."

"Don't call me that," she said as she headed up the stairway, her little Zippy robot flying along.

I put my guns away and quickly got to the terrorist I punched out by the computer. I got the disk from him; if it was what I thought, it could be a good ace up my sleeve for later on.

The alien terrorist was awake and looking at me. I smiled. "Let's keep this between you and me." I held up my empty hands and kicked his gun towards him.

The idiot grabbed it.

He had just got his finger through the trigger guard when I had drawn and put a hole through his head.

Tommy was back down the stairway in an instant, staring down at the dead alien clutching a gun. "What happened?"

"I thought he was unconscious!" I blurted out in a pitch perfect imitation of nervousness. It could only have been better acting if I could cause my heart to race. "Sorry... sorry..."

The two cops we had met earlier were now heading down the stairs with their guns drawn. They looked at the scene with shock. "You and the hero did this, Tommy-gun?" the female asked.

All me. She hadn't even fired a shot. "Just help me secure things down here," Thompson commanded, "We have another terrorist attack to prevent."

I could hear more sirens outside. The place would soon be quite crowded, and I put away my gun. This time, I was going to hold on to them, and the onus was on Detective Thompson to explain the armed involvement of a "civilian." Whether she could do that and keep her job or not, I was coming out of this a hero again.

All in all, it was a nice little shoot out, but bigger things were still to come before this job was over.

NEXT

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