128 Mission Accomplished (1/2)
Arima and Tieria rested together among the ruins of the damaged hangar for a few minutes. The robot exploded a third time and the duo stood up just after.
Arima looked at Tieria ”You should leave. Even if the airstrike can destroy the surface, the data contained here and some of the materials can still be recovered. I'll place the G-Mines to destroy the rest” He said.
Tieria shook her head ”I'm okay, I'll follow you. Can I just ask for a single moment?” She demanded and went to Tiria's body.
She crouched beside it and grabbed a red colored grenade that was lying there. She calmly put on Tiria's body before clenching her hands together in front of her chest.
Arima solemnly watched and closed his eyes in respect. After ten seconds, Tieria stepped back and raised her gun. She breathed in and stabilized her aim. She then fired and hit the grenade which exploded in flames, immolating Tiria.
”Let's go” Tieria uttered just after and turned around with tears in the corner of her eyes. Arima felt quite hurt as she saw her like that. Tiria was his best friend and the member of the squad who accepted him the fastest and always put him at ease. And Tieria was the one that would always be kind and familiar with him. He also started to feel extremely considerate toward her since the moment he started doing missions with her.
It was without saying that Arima felt a huge pain in his heart when one of them died and the other cried just in front of him. It was that day that Arima decided to work even more to protect the ones close to him.
Although Arima was incredibly mature for his age, he was still sixteen. And his vision of human life was still rather undeveloped. He knew that when he killed, it was a for a reason and he could tolerate that. But when he saw people at his side dying, his mind was suddenly shaken, and he felt that sadness for the first time.
He nodded to Tieria while thinking all of that and ran with her toward a spiral corridor that went even more underground. When they reached the end of it, they stumbled upon a thick door of metal.
Fortunately for them, it was open, and they were able to enter quite easily. What was on the other side were oval objects placed in different rows everywhere.
”So that's the FEBs…” Tieria muttered as she looked at the big objects. Those things were indeed the Fission Eion Bombs. That technology was researched by every big power on the planet, but they always failed to create stable bombs. They could explode, but the explosion itself was truly uncontrollable. It could be as weak as a grenade or even stronger than a nuclear bomb. But there were also cases where the bomb would explode during the manufacturing process.
That's why most of the powers couldn't research that weapon wholeheartedly. Princ.i.p.ally because technicians wouldn't accept to work on something that could kill them. And that's the reason why the data contained in this facility was so precious since they had made that much FEBs without blowing themselves.
”Don't touch it though. We can't predict if those prototypes will explode on us” Arima said and grabbed the case full of G-Mines ”Let's be quick. Things are calm for now, but I don't want to be suddenly a.s.saulted here” He then began to run all over the place to pose the mines.
Tieria watched a bit amused as she checked the entrance while waiting for him. During his little 'marathon', Arima froze when he heard a voice coming from the speakers installed in the entire facility ”The quarantine measure has been put into action. The entire building will now be locked. The procedure will take sixty seconds” It finished, and silence returned.
Arima and Tieria looked at each other and cursed at the same time. Arima posed the last mine and detached the handle of the case and brought it with him as he rushed to the exit of this room filled with nukes.
They went up through the spiral corridor and an alarm started ringing as the steel door they just pa.s.sed was now closing automatically. They also heard the shutters close.
Arima didn't have the choice and carried Tieria as he ran toward the hoist load at maximum speed. Tieria felt pretty awkward as she was simply being carried. But she got over it and now she was blus.h.i.+ng; for a completely different reason altogether.
When Arima reached the hoist, he smiled wryly as he saw the whole thing destroyed, but his squad pa.s.sed by here earlier and they placed an electric zip line to go up. Arima and Tieria took it and went to the first floor after a moment. Obviously, every shutter and doors were locked when they arrived.
”Well, s.h.i.+t…” Arima let go of Tieria and went to the big door he had destroyed earlier with his rifle, but although it couldn't close because of that, it had now a steel shutter blocking the pa.s.sage in its stead.
”Tch” Arima clicked his tongue as he drew his pistol and fired behind him at a guy who was about to shoot him.
Tieria looked wide-eyed at the survivor. That guy was stupid; that's what she thought ”What do we do?” She then asked Arima.
Arima mused a little and contacted Jin through his radio. The signal was weak, but it still managed to pa.s.s through ”Hey, where the h.e.l.l are you?” Jin's voice immediately resounded. Arima was about to respond but Jin continued ”The airstrike will happen in two minutes! We can't stop it now! Get out! I can't release the locks, the system closed itself. Find another exit!”
Arima was speechless, he didn't say anything as he slapped his face ”…I forgot about the airstrike” He muttered and Tieria chuckled and then covered her mouth.
Arima looked at her with dead eyes and grabbed more Eion knives ”Stay back” He said and threw the knives at the shutter; the three knives exploded and formed a huge hole on the shutter. After the dust dispersed, Arima went through with Tieria and ended in the long corridor one more time.
He decided to go check the main entrance of this building and could only sigh as he saw that he was a giant steel door. Impossible to break with his a.r.s.enal.
”…Arima, isn't it strange that some of the people working here seem to have disappeared. Even when we were going back here, we didn't meet anyone except that stupid guy” Tieria suddenly remarked and Arima exclaimed in understanding.