Rising Thunder

General Yoshima walked briskly through the hall with his men surrounding him, keeping an ever-watchful eye for any attacks that might come. He kept them all moving though knowing that if the machines went into this building they had other plans than an ambush. This wasn’t sitting right with him. "Did you finish getting the report from the Qintech team?"

"Yes, sir," the officer said, holding his gaze at the screen of the handheld computer device. On the screen was the team's report from the incident in Qintech as well as what they had learned about Adam. He had originally only read the summary long enough to know that the General needed to be informed. "I'm opening it right now."

"Where does it say that Adam is?" Yoshima looked around trying to find signs of the machine's activities, but unfortunately the halls were empty.

The officer scanned through the report quickly looking for the key passage that would outline their intelligence gathered from the computers in Qintech. It only took him a moment to find it. "It says that it is on the fourth sub floor in the second research lab of this building."

"It's here?" Yoshima started to think to himself. The attack and actions started to make sense now. It even made sense why Satoru Kuromura Malakh's pawn was found here. He had probably told him to come here and get to Adam while the men were distracted with the fighting. 'So that's why they came here. Yes, very clever, Malakh.'

Now that they had a location the group moved quickly to the nearest path down, the elevators. However, when the officer looked into the elevator he discovered that this wasn’t going to work for them. "Sir, the elevators don't go down. We're going to have to find another way."

Yoshima narrowed his face, annoyed that this delay would cause them to give even more of a lead to the machines and Malakh. "Everyone spread out and look for signs of entry from the other squads that came through." He had to reach them quickly and stop them from acquiring Adam.

In the dimly lit dust-filled hallways of the underground research facility Lt. Colonel Takamoto and his team walked through, seeking out the room of their search. He had to leave quickly from the Qintech building, taking a military helicopter to the site of the summit when they learned the location. They had been able to sneak in through the back of the building while the fighting was distracting everyone else. He met up with the advanced team that had already begun finding a way in. "Which room is it?"

"I don't know," said one of the machines looking around at all of the doors, "This section is so old all of the numbers are worn away." There was too much dust and age to easily find what they were looking for anymore. It almost seemed like the identifications had been removed rather than worn from time's passage.

They had enough to quickly search the floor that it would only be a matter of time before they had Adam in their grasp. "Start looking for it, it's got to be here somewhere." He turned to the device at his wrist looking at a map of the floor trying to make a determination. However, this piece of information that they had found came unlabeled, as though there was enough to get them in the right direction, but not enough to tell them exactly where to find it.

"Looking for this room?" a voice from the shadows said out of the distance of all his men.

Takamoto cleared away the things that were reducing his vision, seeing an annoyingly familiar figure. "Malakh…" He was supposed to have been captured by the military, but it seemed that they remained as useless for them as ever. All of his men stopped what they were doing, forming up around him.

"Takamoto, it's been a while." Yuu smirked at them, appearing like he was holding all of the cards in the game.

"Lt. Colonel Takamoto?!" Satoru joined Yuu along with Asami in the hall. He stepped back in surprise as Asami narrowly stared back at him. "What's he doing here?" The man might have been in charge of the last project of Qintech giving him some access to Adam, but how could he know the real location. Satoru didn’t like the feeling that he was getting.

"Satoru Kuromura, I see," Takamoto said, realizing the purpose of his presence with Yuu. Even though he hated it this was starting to make sense.

"Oh I thought you knew, he is one of them," Yuu said looking back at Satoru clearing things up for him in his usual casual manner as though it was public knowledge. "He's been hiding himself in the military even longer than I've been running Qintech." While he was talking to Satoru, Yuu's hand was working quietly behind his back on the panel that led to the door and chambers beyond.

"What?!" Satoru nearly slammed his back into the wall, coming to the painful realization. “You mean that he is…I've been meeting with a machine for all this time…” Each time that he saw this man it was actually a machine. They had been making his team make that machine destroying weapon, but for what purpose. It didn’t make any sense to him.

Yuu watched the movements of the machines with Takamoto knowing that they were only waiting for him to make his move. Once he gave them access to Adam they would make a move. He continued to play it out with Satoru while he got the panel working. "He's not the only one Satoru. There are hundreds more like him."

"What? That can't be true." Satoru started to retreat into his mind trying to accept that Asami wasn’t the only one out there. There were even more out there all working with the machines in their plans. 'How many are there? How many people do I know aren't who I thought?'

"Another reality that you're going to have to face." Yuu sighed to himself, a little disappointed at the dramatic reaction that Satoru was having with this piece of information. "I said that there were machines in the military. You don't think that they would just stop there."

"How many?" he said softly while Asami tried to comfort him. She had wanted to tell him, but knew that it would change the way he thought about the world. He would forever be looking around questioning whether he was looking at a human or machine. It would be constant paranoia.

The door to the room opened and Yuu didn’t waste time getting inside. He saw that Asami was having trouble with Satoru still coping with the reality of the world. "Satoru get in here. Now's not the time to be having an epiphany." Yuu grabbed Satoru as all of the machines jumped into action towards the door while Takamoto stared at him. The door closed in time before the machines reached it, shorting out a moment later preventing them from accessing it.

Yuu left Satoru to lean against the door while he went off to another part of the room. Asami stared at him holding his hand trying to comfort him. Satoru ran his hands through his hair trying to understand the scope that everything was working on. This was well beyond just simply being a war. They were unknowingly infiltrating the entire world with machines that could be doing countless acts against humans. No one even suspects them to be capable of this. "I can't believe it…"

"Asami, I need you to focus and help me," Yuu said from a console that he was accessing. All of the lights in the room were slowly flickering on revealing tables and instruments throughout the room. It was mostly filled with computers bringing the entire room awake with an even hum.

She looked back at Satoru not wanting to leave him alone to deal with this problem. He needed someone to be there with him while he worked it out. "But Satoru…"

"This is more important right now!" Yuu shouted with urgency knowing that the door wasn’t going to be enough to hold back Takamoto. If he didn’t have help with what he was doing there wouldn’t be enough time.

Takamoto stared from the end of the hall at the poor attempts by the machines to pull the door open or try to get the panel to work. This wasn’t the time for a slow method. "Take the door down now! Adam is in there!" He pulled out explosives that were strapped to their vest and put it in their hands. They began to work quickly as Takamoto stepped back looking through the glass at Yuu.

"Takamoto!" Yoshima said from the opposite end of the hall finding the machines had already found Adam before them. He was followed up by his men filling the hallway snapping their rifles into position waiting for orders. "So you're here. Figures that it would be you."

Takamoto motioned to his men lining up in the hallway aiming their rifles back at the enemy. "Yoshima…" The two sides stared down at each other, one not certain what was happening and the other following orders without question.

"So Seraphim's true colors are finally revealed," Yoshima said, already having expected this betrayal to happen. They both wanted Adam and it was no secret to either group. Both had agreed to find Adam under the concept of mutual cooperation, but it was a race as any other to beat each to the goal.

"Don't pretend as though you are surprised."

"No, I'm not." Yoshima threw his arm out signaling his men to attack. "Open fire!"

Bullets hailed through the hall hitting the police shields that kept them half protected. The metal wouldn’t protect them for long as the bullets were piercing rounds. "Return fire." Takamoto turned to the few machines that were distracted by the conversation, stopping their work on the door. "Get that door open now!"

"Force your way in, Adam must be behind that door!" Both sides had the same equipment and protection, but he couldn’t afford to allow a stalemate to occur, as it would lean to the machines favor. He pushed his men forward in a marching wall that fired off bursts from the back.

A couple stray bullets hit the wall that Satoru was leaning against echoing a heavy ping through his body. He turned himself around looking out the window of the room seeing through the dust kicked up by the disturbance of visitors. "Yuu they're fighting outside," Satoru said, pulling away from the glass as a stray bullet dented the window, remaining stubborn to crack.

"Glad to see you're back, Satoru," Yuu quickly looked back at Satoru on the ground, taken back by the sudden bullet. He looked up at the window and then returned to the panel. "The glass is bulletproof and the door will take them long enough."

"Long enough?" Satoru feared the answer. He stood up walking over to the console that Yuu was standing at with Asami nearby. All he could tell was that they were going through an activation program. It looked like they were just getting all of the computers up and running. They hadn’t gotten to Adam yet. "What is it that you're planning?"

"You'll see soon enough." Yuu didn’t look at Satoru focusing on the work at hand requiring all of the power of the computers.

"No, you have to tell me now!" Satoru shouted, grabbing Yuu by the shirt and pulling him back from the panel that he was staring at. "I'm tired of you leaving me in the dark until it is in your convenience. Tell me now or I will stop you right here!" Satoru pulled out a gun that he had been concealing on himself since the tent. Yuu had left the gun behind, but Satoru picked it up while he was distracted looking around, figuring that it might come in use. He didn’t regret it now.

"Satoru!" shouted Asami from the side, noticing the gun that he had pointed straight in Yuu's face. She moved around him to Satoru's side, barely holding herself back having a similar feeling as him towards Yuu.

"Resourceful aren't you?" He was a little surprised to see that Satoru would be so bold and forward thinking to plan out to have a gun on hand. The sight made him proud almost as he smirked back. "You realize that killing me now won't answer any of your questions."

"You forget who I am?" Satoru returned the smirk knowing how it was to feel like you were in control of everything. This was what Yuu felt like all of the time he imagined. "I can easily access your memories and get my answers without you needing to speak. And seeing as we are in here it won't be too difficult to find the right equipment."

Yuu stared back around the barrel of the gun, narrowing his eyes, seeing that he was serious about this. The lost man had finally disappeared completely, at least for now. "I see you finally using that backbone of yours."

"Stop mocking me and looking like you're in control!" Satoru forced the barrel to press against Yuu's forehead, pushing him back a little. He kept a firm hand knowing that this may be the only time that they could stop Yuu from attempting his plan.

"Satoru!" Asami stepped in, putting her hand on his arm trying to get through to him. She wanted to do the same to Yuu, but the fighting outside wasn’t over yet. They wouldn’t be able to do anything about them and it seemed that Yuu had plans for them as well. "Stop, we need him!"

"I'm not mocking you, but I am in control," Yuu said quickly, moving his hand over the console and pushing a button. It made the entire room begin to shake knocking dust through the air. The whole floor was moving as though they were in an earthquake.

"What did you just do?"

Yuu turned away from Satoru seeing that he was no longer ready to kill him. He returned to working on the panel getting the computers online. "The curtain rises. It is time for the actors to meet the audience."

Asami turned around looking at the room widening her eyes in surprise to see the walls outside beyond the room cracking. "Satoru look. The entire room is moving." The fighting pushed into the immediate hall against the room forced back by Yoshima's men. Behind them the hall that they had been was dividing, leaving them behind as it lowered away. The sudden change in environment was enough to bring a ceasefire to the fighting, as no one seemed to know what was happening anymore.

"Where?" Satoru said, letting his arms rest at his side, confused at what Yuu was planning now. He looked back at the panel trying to see if there was an identification of what Yuu had done. "Can we stop it?"

Asami looked from her console that she had been using to help turn on the computers to investigate Yuu's actions. She had enough access to see what the mechanism was supposed to do. "No, he locked it. We're going up."

"How far up? There is a building above us and the summit assembly."

"We're exactly below the assembly!" Yuu said tired of listening to their guessing and speculation.

"You're going to kill them all!" Satoru lifted his arm back up pointing the gun back on Yuu. He had to have him stop before he killed them all. "I can't believe you would do that after everything that's happened. You're going to kill them!" The disconnected and uncaring expression on Yuu's face was enough for Satoru. He had had it with him thinking that nothing would happen. Satoru pulled the trigger on the gun putting a bullet through his other arm that wasn’t already shot.

Yuu stepped back surprised that Satoru had the guts to actually pull the trigger. He had aimed well enough to disable his arm from functioning correctly. However, he still had one arm that was working even if it wasn’t perfect. "I have my final act to play, you can't kill me just yet." Yuu grabbed the gun from Satoru's hand quickly and twisted it until Satoru couldn’t take the strain releasing it. He wrapped his arm around Satoru, quickly placing his arm up against his throat.

"Argh!" Satoru coughed roughly being taken by surprise and nearly crushed by Yuu's strength. He didn’t care about his throat as much as Yuu getting away with mass murder. "Yuu…you bastard!"

"Satoru!" Asami had disappeared from the console that she was working at, taking a hold of Yuu before he could do anything more to Satoru. "Let him go now!" She struggled against his hold realizing that he must be a model that was made more of metal than bio components like her. Even in the weakened state that he was in from the shot their strength remained nearly even.

"Ah, Asami, so you come to his aid."

"You might not fear him, but you know that I can kill you. Let him go now!" Yuu looked at her from the grip that she had on him, staring at her with a smirk before releasing Satoru. He collapsed to the ground as Asami rushed to catch him. "Are you alright!"

Using Asami as support, Satoru stood up glaring at Yuu. He rubbed his throat slowly feeling how close he had been to dying, but hardly even caring about it. Answers were more important right now. "What is it that you're planning, Yuu? Tell me now!"

"Not yet, we need the audience," Yuu said with a smirk on his face again the same that made his stomach churn in disgust.

"What audience?"

"What's going on?" Yoshima said looking around, finding that the facility that they had been in was now gone and they were passing through new walls of a shaft. The entire passage had been a chamber that seemed only to keep going.

The poorly lit shaft of the ascent dramatically changed with bright lights shining on everyone. Soldiers looked around at each other confused, finding that they were no longer where they thought. "How did we get here?"

All around them the assembly was visible with the ground split open to allow them entry. The whole room had been lifted into the room with just enough room before rising to the semi-circle stadium seating that held all of the representatives for the summit. Satoru stared out in awe that they had arrived without doing any damage to the room. "The summit!"