Chapter 8: Crate

So much for being careful. Whatever happened to the man who was just lecturing me on not being reckless?!

This isn’t supposed to happen, not like this. What the fuck?! Is the world trying to balance itself? If Marina doesn’t go, then someone has to?

I have so many questions, but I can’t afford to dwell on them for too long, or I’ll lose sight of Elliot. He’s already halfway to the back entrance of the warehouse.. I grab my guns and quickly exit the car, trying to follow him to the best of my abilities. I’m no Marina, but I mimic his path, keeping to the dark as I pray to whomever is listening that the guards didn’t catch wind of us.

He moves with skill and grace, barely making any sound as he stealthily walks to the warehouse, his small frame and dark clothes blending in with the shadows. I, on the other hand, choose to discard my huge pink hoodie behind a dumpster, fearing that it will call unwanted attention upon me or impede my movements.

I watch him move while weighing my options: I could call for backup now, and possibly still prevent Elliot from doing something incredibly stupid. Or I could try to get him back to the car myself and pretend that nothing happened. If there’s a chance I can just get him to come back without a fuss, he might still get that promotion.

I finally catch up to Elliot, currently hiding behind a short concrete wall that surrounds the perimeter of the warehouse. About three meters away is an open gate, through which the truck entered.

“What the fuck, Elliot?!” I try to keep my voice low, lest we tip off the guards to our location.

He just places his finger on his mouth and gestures towards the entrance. He pulls his phone from outside his pocket and points to the camera. He wants to take a photo? The wild spirit of Marina apparently just possessed him.

Shaking my head in refusal, I gesture back to the car. He responds silently, his own head shaking no as he turns to move again. Midway to the gate, he stops as I grab his wrist forcefully. I can’t let him do this to himself.

He turns to face me, and I shake my head once more, a silent plea in my eyes. Don’t do this. His expression looks sour. I can imagine what he’s thinking; out of all people, it’s Marina stopping him. The irony. Perhaps he even expected her to understand him best out of everyone. 

He jerks his arm free from my grasp, a defiant expression on his face. He turns away from me and steadily makes his way to the gate.

Shit, shit, shit! 

I panic in place; he seems to be set on this crazy plan of his. He slinks through the open gate and into the shadows once more. There’s no going back from this, I guess. I think of what to do, but there’s not much time. If I don’t go now, I’ll lose sight of him. I can’t leave him alone.

I follow his path through the gate and see him take cover behind a car that's parked next to the loading bay. Strangely, there are no guards on sight. They must have moved it inside. I approach Elliot slowly and hide next to him.

"What now? No crates here. We can still go back.” I tentatively whisper.

“I’m going in.” He whispers back, his gaze locked on to the entrance to the loading bay.

“Elliot, we can’t take on all those guards by ourselves, and you know it.” I put my hand on his shoulder, hoping to calm him down.

“Not planning on it. I just need to know what’s in there.” He shakes my hand off and hurriedly moves again. He briefly stops and looks back, addressing me. “If you’re not going to help, don’t get in my way.” He continues towards the building.

A worried sigh escapes my lips, my hands trembling uncontrollably. Are we really doing this? Is there still a chance I can prevent his disappearance? Going into that warehouse feels like getting locked into the regular route once again; it feels deeply wrong. But he’s not stopping, and we can’t do this without backup. Calling the others might increase our chances of getting out of this unharmed.

I tap my earpiece twice to contact Myers. “Myers, we’re going in,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. We can discuss specifics later, but right now I don’t want to throw Elliot under the bus by saying he was the one to make the choice.

“Hayes? What the fuck do you mean by that?” He sounds extremely pissed. He did tell us HQ rejected that idea already. Doing this means going directly against Grayson’s orders.

“It’s now or never, Myers. We will try to do this stealthily, but we might need backup. Be on the lookout for any trouble. You might catch our heat signals sneaking through the building.”

“Johnson, get King on the line,” he says to someone on his end. I can faintly hear Johnson’s voice reply from somewhere next to Myers, “We can’t reach him, sir. He removed his earpiece.” That’s going to be hard to justify.

Myers grunts from the other side of the line, “Fuck,” I hear him bang his fist on something, and he sighs. A second later, he continues, “I don’t approve of this, Hayes, but if you’re already in, there’s no other way around it. I’ll coordinate so all teams move in if something happens, but if you can stay hidden without tipping them off, do so. Stay on the line for updates.”

Just as it seems like he’s about to cut his mic, he adds a final comment, “And reel King back, for fucks sake!” I sigh, “Roger that.” I tap the earpiece twice again to turn off my mic.

I almost lose sight of Elliot as I see him turn a corner, gun in hand; he’s already inside the warehouse. Fuck. Here we go, I guess.

I will my legs to move and enter the building as well, doing my best to keep up with him. The halls are dark, and yet, he moves like a cat; he’s unnaturally good at this, never stopping long enough for me to catch up. Just like in the game, though, there are no guards on sight right now.

In the game, Marina chases a suspiciously big crate into an office on the second floor without issue, but right as she’s about to open it, several guards surprise her. She concentrates on staying alive, losing sight of her partner, who followed her inside. Myers brings backup, but by the end of the whole thing, Elliot’s gone, only a pool of his blood left behind.

Not tonight, though. Not tonight. I repeat to myself like a mantra.

We keep advancing, with Elliot always a few meters ahead, and I following his every action. Everything is smooth sailing until we exit a corridor and finally make it to the center of the warehouse. A big space welcomes us, with dozens of metal containers scattered around the area. A big man with big metal arms is driving a forklift around the area, organizing the boxes.

In the back, two other men, also with arm augmentations, are lifting a huge box up an old set of metal stairs. That’s likely the crate Marina goes after. I look at Elliot, waiting for his next move. This part of the warehouse is well-lit; the shadows won’t help him much anymore.

He seems to take a second to assess the situation and moves again, avoiding detection by using towers of boxes as cover, never breaking a sweat. I’m struck with admiration once again, but I brush it off quickly and force myself to concentrate on staying hidden.

Elliot finally stays put behind two containers sitting next to the stairs, long enough for me to catch up. I hunker next to him, but he doesn’t acknowledge my presence, instead looking up as the two men who carried the big crate upstairs are coming down.

Ahh, he wants it too. This world really works in mysterious ways, huh?

As soon as the two men are out of sight, Elliot moves again, this time going up. How is he not making a single sound? I follow him closely, being extra mindful of the surface I’m stepping on.

We make it to the second floor safely, the lights on this level turned off. This is the area we could see from the car, the top of the building with the wide windows. This is where most of the guards were stationed, but thankfully, there is only one place our objective could be: the office.

The office is right next to the top of the stairs, and we enter it quickly and surreptitiously. When the door closes, I slowly slump right next to it, my nerves frayed, the stress catching up to me. My legs aren’t responding, I have never done anything as dangerous as this in my life. On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Elliot puts a hand on my shoulder.

“It’s ok, Marina. You can relax. We’ll be safe here, for now.” His voice a low whisper. He's close enough that I can see his chest heaving, drops of sweat dripping down his neck. Despite the danger, he seems to be dealing with this a lot better than I am.

My head slumps between my shoulders as I take a moment to calm down, the weight of Elliot’s palm on my shoulder grounding me. I do my best to breathe, and after a few seconds, I look at him.

“I thought you didn’t do ground missions,” I say quietly, surprised at his mastery in stealth.

“I guess I work well under pressure,” He lets out the tiniest chuckle. Perhaps he is as impressed with his performance as I am. “Want to take a look inside?” He says, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the metal box behind him. 

“Yeah, just-” I say, as I lock the door we came in from. Just a small safety measure that hopefully buys us some time in case the guards come back. “Let’s not take too long.” I say, carefully standing up.

I can see why both Marina and Elliot took an interest in this crate; it’s bigger than the other ones, a seemingly complicated electronic lock on one of its sides. “Hope you brought your lock-picking kit,” I say, kind of jokingly. He pulls out a strange device from his hoodie pocket and begins to mess with the lock. Oh god, he does have a lock-picking kit, that’s kind of hilarious.

The crate is open.