Prologue
Cordon Island is just a mile off the coast of its neighbor, Carnage Island. Since no one dares go near Carnage Island—they avoid it like the plague—Cordon Island remains safe. The island is just a little smaller than Carnage but holds almost more responsibility than it. Cordon is one of the most secure Capital forts and is used for housing the experimental and deadliest of weapons that the Capital has to offer. If the fact of Cordon being neighbors with Carnage wasn’t enough to keep trespassers away, having enough weapon power to destroy half the world would surely be.
On this particular night, a special shipment was to come in. This shipment contained a secret weapon designed by a secret lab off the coast of Columbia. Whether the Columbian government knew of it was a mystery. Perhaps they did but turned a blind eye for a cut of the profits. The shipment was set to arrive at 8:30 in the evening. It was only half an hour away.
The leader of the island sector, General Edward Dawson, made sure to have extra security tonight. He didn’t want anything to turn out wrong on his end. This was a deal that would make him very rich and powerful. He was going to analyze the weapons and duplicate the product for himself so that he could maybe soon overthrow the president himself. All of his men knew of his plot and promised to keep silent for a large payment when it happened. General Dawson was as cunning as he was deadly. He could easily break the President in half but chose rather to gain the trust of his leader.
Once the shipment arrived at the island, Dawson’s men went to retrieve the cargo. It was just as the General ordered: fifteen cases of the highly confidential weapon. He takes a crowbar and pries one of the cases open, revealing a massive set of guns. They are each dark grey in color and despite their size, each is as light as any assault rifle. General Dawson lifts the weapon in his hand and smiles as he points it in the air.
“Looks good, boys,” the General commends, “What is it that I owe ya?”
“Fifteen cases, three million,” one of the men answers in a heavy accent. “That is good price considering risk of transportation.”
“Lieutenant Carter,” General Dawson nods to the Columbian. “Pay the guys.”
Lieutenant Carter, a tall and muscular man with a scar on his left eye, steps forward with a briefcase and lays it down on one of the crates. Opening it up, the Columbian man takes out a few bundles of the paper money and shuffles through it.
“That’s two million there,” the lieutenant starts to say. “The rest will be wired to a designated account as an insurance that this meeting never went down.”
The Columbian raises an eyebrow in frustration at first, but then smiles as he has his men stand down.
“Very well,” the Columbian answers at last. “We will leave you and send for the rest in one week.”
“Now we have an agreement,” Dawson laughs as he reaches out to shake the Columbian’s hand. Instead of the Columbian reaching out his hand, he steps closer and looks the general directly in the eyes.
“It would be very unfortunate if we must take it from your corpse, General Dawson,” the Columbian says sternly to the general. “Let’s keep our relationship a pleasant one, shall we.”
The general smiles and chuckles. “We both have big weapons of our own, so yes, I would agree.”
“Very good,” the Columbian signals to his men, “you have one week to produce something of the rest of the payment.”
Without another word, the Columbian crew loads onto the hovercraft and heads out. The general turns to leave, but before he does, he turns to his lieutenant.
“Is everything set, lieutenant?” General Dawson asks.
“Yes sir,” the lieutenant answers back, “Their ship will experience ‘engine trouble’ in approximately two hours.”
“Good,” the general comments. “Make sure you only report fourteen crates delivered. We have other purposes for the other.”
“Yes sir,” Lieutenant Carter answers back.
General Dawson walks to his office and sits down at his desk. He takes time to neatly organize his plan. The president knows of the “fourteen” crates being delivered and knows his men are being used for extra protection, but not that his men were actually put on the outside as snipers. The men have no clue what has gone on, they just know that a shipment has been made. Tomorrow, they will be gone and with them they’ll take fourteen crates. By then, Dawson’s men would have learned everything they need from the weapons. They could then deweaponize them and hand them over to President Santian. Dawson chuckles under his breath before reaching for the phone to call Santian to confirm the delivery. Right before he even touches the phone, it rings. Santian must have wanted to make the call personally.
“Dawson,” General Dawson picks up the phone.
“What could the Capital army possibly need from an outside source?”
Dawson sits up straight as he scratches his head in confusion. This isn’t the president, it’s a girl’s voice coming over the speaker. A very young girl.
“Is this a joke?” Dawson sternly asks.
“Only if it’s funny,” the girl responds. This gets Dawson to laugh.
“What could you possibly hope or want to gain from this nonsense?” Dawson laughs at the girl.
“Let’s cut to the chase then,” the girl answers nonchalantly over the line, “you can tell me everything you know about your Rebirth, and I will leave you be…for the moment.”
“A nice girl like you shouldn’t play games as such as calling very important men,” Dawson leans back in his chair and laughs.
“You think this is a game, Dawson?” the girl responds, “or should I call you Spade?”
Dawson seems more confused now. “Who are you, and who do you work for?”
“Doesn’t matter,” the girl responds, “but I will ask you this one thing.”
“And what is that?”
“How do you expect to defend yourself with all of your men dead and all of your weapons destroyed?”
Dawson is now annoyed. “This is not your typical walk in the park. Cordon Island is just a five-minute delivery away from Carnage Island. I just have to make one call, and I can have the island surrounded with carnagions. My men are highly trained and would take very little mercy or pity on anyone—male or female—who enters onto the island. If snipers don’t kill you, then you have to worry about climbing the fifty-foot walls around without being seen by any of my guards. There’s no way under it or around it. I even have an advanced security system with thermals, sonar, and motion detectors that would kill you just for taking a breath. Bottom line, this is the most secure place on the planet. No one gets in, or out, without access being granted. And now you want to tell me that if I don’t give you some information, you will come in, kill all of my men, destroy my weapons—this island, let’s say—and kill me? You are just an ignorant little girl with nothing thought through.”
“I’ve been planning this for three years,” the girl says, “You really think that I care what you think?”
“That does it,” General Dawson yells into the receiver, “I am going to hang up on you, because obviously, this is an ill-thought-out joke with no purpose. I’ve already told you, this island has no entry ways and is far superior to any other fortress. Give me one reason why I should be afraid of you.”
“How’d I get this number?”
The phone goes dead after she says her words. That’s all it takes for Dawson’s face to loosen up. He is now afraid. This island is secured right down to needing a special line in order to call to it. How did this girl get the number? This could be a prank, but then again, the president isn’t the one to leave a secure line unattended.
“Lieutenant Carter, come in Lieutenant Carter,” General Dawson calls over his radio. “Lieutenant Carter, do you read?”
“Loud and clear, sir,” the lieutenant answers.
“Have all the men sweep the area, I believe there is an intruder inside the base,” Dawson commands.
“But sir,” the lieutenant answers back, “if there were an intruder, he or she would have been spotted or killed by now.”
“Just do as I say,” the General calls back, “and keep an active eye. No half awareness, I want full alert.”
“Yes sir,” the lieutenant answers and commands every man to be on high alert.
The general begins to dial over to Carnage Island but discovers that the line is silent. There’s not even a tone. He starts to pace his office nervously as he waits for updates, and then locks his office.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Carter and his men search every shadow for an intruder. They scan every frequency, heat signature and track, but nothing turns up.
“Lieutenant Smith, what’s your status?” Lieutenant Carter calls over his radio, but there’s no response. “Lieutenant Smith, do you copy?”
“Sorry, Lieutenant Smith is a bit incapacitated at the moment,” a girl’s voice comes over the radio.
“Who is this?” Lieutenant Carter asks sternly.
“I can either be a silent and peaceful visitor or your worst nightmare,” the girl answers, “Take your pick.”
“Little girl, you don’t know what you’re messing with,” Lieutenant Carter answers back harshly. “We are the elites of the force. Lieutenant Smith was just a maggot compared to us. So, you take your pick and quit hiding in the shadows. We would really hate for you to be the test subject of our new weapons.”
“I honestly hoped you would have gone the peaceful route,” the girl sighs, “but I guess men and their pride.”
Just then, a man collapses over with a mysterious arrow in his chest. The others just look in confusion as the arrow blinks, and then clicks.
“Bomb!” One of the men shouts a warning to the others and they scatter away. Instead of an explosion, the arrow lets out a burst of light and shoots confetti. There’s a faint laughter as the men look over at a girl’s figure leaning on the wall near them.
“Now that was funny,” the girl laughs as she steps out from the wall. She is in nearly all black and has a mask that covers her whole face. “I’ve never seen so many men cower away so quickly.”
Lieutenant Carter is the first to bring up his gun. “You’ve got a lot of nerves, young lady. We can have carnagions surround the fortress in less than five minutes.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t you need these to make the call?” The girl tosses a handful of frayed wires on the ground. “Those are every hard wire connection Cordon has to the outside. As for the wireless, there’s a jammer that will block anything that’s not within ten feet of the island.”
“So, then you’re trapped here with us,” Lieutenant Carter smirks evilly.
“No,” the girl says as she twirls a small baton about a foot in length and chuckles. “You’re trapped here with me.”
“Well at the moment,” the lieutenant says, “it’s one girl versus twelve of my best men. Take care of her, boys. I will take care of the general.”
The lieutenant walks off, leaving his twelve men, and walks through a door. As soon as the locks click, the men look at the girl and bring up their guns. They smirk as they look at the girl, who now seems like a sitting duck.
“Any last words, princess?” One of the men mocks as he laughs.
The girl looks at the men and holds her baton tighter now. “Pray you don’t miss.”
A couple of men fire at the girl, but she dodges the weapon fire: a thick, orange laser. She flips around dodging the lasers before rubbing her baton in her hand, transforming it into a shield. With one more flip, she places the shield in front of her, deflecting a laser back at a man, which nearly disintegrates him as it knocks him back. She throws her shield, and it ricochets between a few men, knocking them out cold. The last remaining try to blast as she fires an arrow onto one of their chests. The soldier laughs at first, but then the arrow emits an electrified charge that then shoots rays at the other remaining. The shield returns to the girl’s hand as she walks away laughing.
“I’ve fought better,” she scoffs as she walks off.
In the general’s office, the lieutenant tries paging the men, but with failed response. The general, now desperate and scared, reaches for his weapons cache. He grabs an LMG and places it on his desk. Loading it up, he positions it towards the metal door. He then sits and waits for the girl to show. His heart pounds inside of his chest and his hands are shaky as he waits, but it’s not too long after that he sees and hears the light metal door begin to be unlocked. Once the door flies open, he begins to unleash fire into the open area.
The general keeps firing into the open doorway until all of his ammunition is depleted. It only takes about a minute until he has to stop. He walks over to the doorway and peers through but sees nothing.
“Maybe she ran off,” General Dawson smirks as he looks at the bullet riddled floors and walls.
“I bet she did,” Lieutenant Carter smiles. “You probably hit her with a bullet and scared the mess out of her. Probably somewhere bleeding to death.”
The lieutenant grunts in pain as he looks down at his abdomen. Placing a hand on his stomach, he pulls his hand back to see it red. He crumbles forward as a pool of red begins to form. As he’s gathering a few breaths, a figure begins to appear out of nowhere. It’s the girl.
“You,” the lieutenant mutters out in pain.
The general pulls out a pistol from his hip and begins firing, but his bullets are deflected by the girl’s shield. She swoops forward and cuts off Dawson’s hand with a hidden blade and throws him down to the ground. The girl finally sits on top of the general and holds her blade to his throat.
“You know,” the girl says as she laughs, “for an elite team working with the president, you’re pretty weak.”
“Why don’t you just kill me?” General Dawson struggles in pain. “You’ll never get what you want either way.”
The girl laughs as she removes her mask, revealing her face. “I already did.”
General Dawson looks at the girl’s face in horror as he recognizes her. She’s a little older than the last time he saw her, but it’s definitely her. No mistaking her brown skin and dark brown eyes, this was the one they nicknamed the “Shadow” in the Capital
“You,” Dawson gasps weakly, “it can’t be.”
“No one else,” the girl smirks as she replaces her mask. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some files to grab. Take care of that hand.”
The girl disappears again as the general begins to black out. Before he does, he hears a beeping. It’s a light beeping, but he can still hear it. He crawls over to his desk and sees the source of the beeping. It’s a timer with a minute left on it. No need imagining what the timer is for, he just sits against the wall and awaits the inevitable.
The timer hits zero and fire erupts from all over the fortress, engulfing and destroying everything in their paths. Even soldiers who hadn’t even known what was going on suddenly feel the heat tear through their bodies. Within a minute, the whole fortress is nothing but a bright flash in the night. The girl, who now sits on a small aircraft a hundred yards out, laughs as she watches it burn to the ground.
“So much for a mighty fortress,” she remarks, and then she flies off into the night.
