Episode III – The Hidden

Before the drive to the anti-biotic lab, Eli shared his second vision with the other men. Graham acted with concern but shook off the visions as nothing more than nightmares, Richard nodded drunkenly, but Salomone looked deeply concerned, a man who lives the lives of many knows all their demons. When the team arrived at the lab – a white paint peeling brick building with second story windows, glass doors in front, and a chain fence encircling– the visions were the least of their problems. A bright blonde, blue-eyed man with sharp trimmed beard stumbled blindly and confusedly from the building naked.

Eli looked up suddenly, “It’s him!”


In a dank alleyway plagued by Chicago’s cold winds two men awoke. They heard the pacing of soft footfalls and a scampering of a rat amongst the garbage. The two men had not spoken in years and had planned never to again. One was accustomed to the street, wearing dirt stained black t-shirt and jeans, his face had a mischievous twinkle through its dirty composition, this man was Hamilton Reinoso; a soldier by birth, a thief by circumstance.

The man next to him would be shocked to find himself awake on the street. His face was strong and sharp, with a cleft chin and a well-kept collection of stubble. Dark clean cut hair sat on his head and his eyes moved shiftily about the room taking in the surroundings speedily. This man was Guy Reinoso, and he had sworn never to speak to his brother again.

Hammy sat up casually and smiled slyly at his brother, “Hello, Guy. Been a long time.”

Guy positioned himself sitting quickly, still appraising the events around him. He said, with a disconcerted nod, “Hammy.” The younger brother seemed to take this comment well, as his smile widened. Watching Hammy, Guy saw his brother rise in a slow motion. In only a couple seconds Guy had all possible explanations brewing calmly in his mind as the world slid slowly about him.

“Youmissmetoomuchhammy?” Guy’s words came out fast and singular. Hammy took a big smile now with a bit of conceit welling in his cheeks.

“Whoa, whoa, normal people speed,” Hammy chuckled checking his belt for one of the knives he kept on him.

“You miss me enough to bring me out here?” Guy’s eye shifted quickly like a strobe light pulse. He was starving, he was every morning. He could not imagine that he slept in his clothes, but there he was fully clothed in a gray heather sweater and dark khakis. He felt in his pocket for a squished and melted protein bar. Groaning, he would have preferred a customary dish of steak and eggs, but he bit lazily into the bar. Greasy chocolate unsuccessfully sweetened the chalk taste of protein, his stomach braced for the coming nutrients and felt full of sand long before the bar arrived.

Hammy watched as his brother’s hands flew over the protein-bar like a mad pianist in double-time and he stuffed it into his mouth even faster. He himself was absentmindedly padding himself down for all his knives, two on his belt, one in each boot, one in each sleeve, one in a special sheath behind his neck, and the last in at the small of his back.

Caught in the amusement of his brothers actions, Hammy took a moment to speak, “What, me? No, no, I didn’t.” A figure paced angrily in the mouth of the alley. Smiling again hammy spoke, “Ah, but I may have an idea as to who did.”

Guy jerked his head to the entrance and stood quickly, he felt an immense weight at his back. Reaching behind him, Guy realized that his two sniper rifles from the war were strapped across his back, a PSG-1 and the even heavier Barret .50 BMG. This, he decided, was impossible; it would be torture to sleep with the guns at all and he always kept them in a safe.

The figure at the entrance may have been much more concerning, however, as what had appeared silhouetted as a small thin child was indeed hardly human at all. The figure muttered to itself, “My train… I’ve been betrayed, dammit!”

Hammy rose, stretched, and addressed the being, “Chance.”

Turning about to face the brothers the being in the mouth of the alley was evinced to be a black, white-mittened cat walking on two legs, no taller than three feet, wearing clothes that a face card in an average playing deck might wear, colorful and elaborate. “Ah Hammy, you’re up! And who’s this, you know him?” he said gesturing with an animated paw to Guy. “I think I decided to move him, and he ended up here with you. Great for irony! However, however, I’m not sure this isn’t another trick of Fate. Is it ironic I brought him here? Tell me!”

“Well, he is my brother, and it’s quite possible he hates me.”

“Ah! A wonderful twist of Fate, and of totally random origins,” suddenly Chance looked sad his feline face showing human emotion. “Well, I wonder if I can even say ‘twist of fate.’ If that means that Fate gets its way, then surely not. However, if it means that Chance twisted Fate, then its spot on!”

Hammy spoke through a laugh, he knew this creature, the Avatar of Chance, they had been allies since he was dishonorably discharged from the Special Forces, “What would you have of me, Chance?”

“Ah, yes. You’re in danger. Fate is raising knights. My train was stopped, and Fate will be after you next. Oh, and I’ve been betrayed!” He looked like a stricken animal. “Dream, my closest of allies, my brother and my son. He’s gone to Fate, I’ve walked his realm and I’ve seen him forming the army. You and … you and your brother included!” Suddenly a thought hit him and he stared into the distance with a furrowed and focused brow, “Of course, Dream has been dead for years.”

Hammy looked back at Guy with an expression of one whose child had done something naively adorable. Taking a deep breath Guy turned back to Chance, “So what follows?”

“Oh, I’m sending you away. Someplace random, away from Fate’s meddling.” He took out a map of America from a fold in his jerkin and unrolled it by casting it out across the floor. As the map unrolled it produced a shower of dice that went scattering across the alley’s ground. Watching as the dice bounced about he snatched quickly the squeaking rat which he shoved into his mouth. The clattering of dice subsided and Chance ran his paws above the dice in a divining matter.

“Where then?” asked Hammy.

A claw stuck a hole into the map, “Here.”


Men appeared in the windows of the second story at the anti-biotic lab. They shouldered AK-47s and began firing rounds after the escapee. Salomone seeing this, spat out the window and shouted a loud, “Hang on!” He floored the van and sent it careening through the fence pulling sharply around to intercept the line of fire between the gunmen and the escapee.

“What the hell!” Richard exclaimed sour from the force the van put on him combined with waking from a drunken sleep.

“Why save him?” Graham asked severely, ducking as bullets pinged against the armored van.

“Call it intuition,” Salomone responded, checking that his Taurus was loaded and unbuckling his seatbelt.

Eli spoke struggling to take command of a disband, “Salomone, stay in the van, this is evacuation, we’ll need you to escape.” Offended by such a young man’s command, he hesitated before following orders. It did make sense.

The men poured out of the door opposite the gunmen, Graham brandishing his revolver, Richard holding his shotgun casually with one hand by the barrel, Eli tightening the baldric of his sword, drawing it as he had room.

“You using that relic, kid?” Richard spoke between the impending rings of bullets.

Eli smiled absently, “No, just for looks.”

The naked man ran further, into a place no longer protected by the armored van. However he was then turned around, he looked forward and no longer saw the long road that would take him from the lab, but rather the entrance to the lab again. He turned and ran back to what he thought was the road.

Eli stood with his left hand outstretched to the naked escapee. “What’d you do?” Graham asked flattening himself to the van.

“Basic illusion.”

Richard smiled at this and removed sadly the robe he had been wearing over his fatigues he tossed it over a very confused escapee as he approached. “You’re fighting now, kid.”

“Luke,” the man replied, slipping into the robe in the shelter of the van.

“Oh, guess we’re best buds now,” Richard said shouldering his shotgun, he made a small salute and fell back through the van and ran straight for the building passing easily through the doors.

Eli concentrated briefly and the room one man fired from burst into flame. Flames curled around the man and he cried out as he fired desperate rounds at Eli. A shot hit his shoulder. Eli fell to the ground, but before anyone could reach him, he dissolved into a swarm of flies.

Spinning out from the shelter of the car, Graham made a move for the door. This time the second gunman was waiting, and he shouldered his rifle briefly to aim. A gunshot.
Graham flinched but saw he was unarmed, rushing against the doors of the building. The air around his readied revolver began to turn on itself, as though seen by an inverted lens. He wondered why the man had not hit as well as why he had been so rash.

A man stood with a Desert Eagle drawn, a shorter man beside, and a yellow cab speeding away behind him. The sentry turned to the pistoleer and fired a straight burst from his AK. Watching in disbelief, Graham seemed to see that the man had been able to move out of the bullets path at breakneck speeds even after the bullet was fired. He soon turned, however, when his gun felt heavy enough. With an axe-like motion he brought the gun down on the sliding glass door shattering a way through.

As his partner batted at flames that would not extinguish, the window gunner took his aim now at the younger man who had arrived and seemingly was unarmed. However, a quick flick of the wrist changed this, and a knife appeared in the now smugly smiling man’s hand. A second fling of his arm sent the knife carelessly wafting into the air making lazy circles as it spun with little force. So trivial a gesture it seemed that the man who had called himself Luke stifled a cry when the knife drove itself with a bullet’s force into the leg of the gunner. The man fell down in agony, out of the window’s vantage.

The gunner on fire continued screaming and stopping, dropping, and rolling to no avail. He was like a man in Hell begging for a touch of water. Oblivious entirely of the shotgun that rose from the floor like Excalibur from the lake, the man rolled about on the floor. A blast, and the shot disfigured an area consisting of the man’s face, shoulder, and much of the wall behind him. Rolling finally to a stop, the man could now feel nothing. The shotgun rose further from the floor preceding Richard who, once on solid ground, took a brisk walk into the next room. He noted that neither the room nor the man was ever on fire.

The men below took deep panicked breaths in, staring into the window that the flames had been doused by shot. The sharp scrapes of adrenaline fueled heart rates filled the air for a long moment before Graham gestured with his revolver and spoke, “Oy, you all, in here!” Luke obeyed, and after a moments hesitation so did the two new arrivals.

“Guy,” spoke the man with the Desert Eagle, as he flew in a speeding walk past Graham.

“Hamilton Reinoso, pleased to meet you,” spoke the next shaking the unwilling Graham’s hand.

Chaos invaded each pillar of the operation, eating away at the granite and festering insane sea life to sprout coral and anemones in the crevices of failure. Three men joined without question, without reason, and everything forged a fated end. The balance was a cosmic struggle that the heroes, even the most cosmically attuned could not yet see.

“Good, you wait in here,” Graham nodded as Hammy passed, “and I’ll look for a gunner on the roof.” Before Hammy could ask how he planned to go about this, Graham’s feet lifted above his head and he fell towards the sky. At a gymnasts arc he turned lightly back over and landed softly on his feet, on the top of the roof. Taking a quick scan, Graham noted only that the air duct had recently undergone repairs or such doings as it has been hastily screwed back together. A slow dreamy descent through the air and Graham landed back on the ground. A shotgun blast rang out followed by a second more disturbing sound, one of gas rushing out of a pressurized container.

Turning attention to the second story window where the shot was heard, the men saw a billowing sickly off-white cloud rapidly expanding from the building. Richard, up in the room, now knew why the man with a knife in his leg had reached for the canister on his shoulder. He realized with raced clarity that both men’s jumpsuits had canisters on the right shoulder with drawstrings attached to them. His next moment was spent holding his breath and sinking through the floor. Emerging in a locker room, all brightened by dull steel and white walls, Richard took a demanding lunge through the one door and stepped into a lobby.

Guy, Hammy, Luke, and Graham, turned with alarmed quickness when the door to their left flew open, Richard charging out of it. Soldier’s reflexes had Cory slinging his shotgun into a readied position as he barked, “Who in hell?”

Guy already had his Desert Eagle out, aimed and steadied while Hammy had his hands taught with a knife-grabbing anticipation. Suddenly, the leveled gun of Richard was facing an inanimate area of the floor. The next moment a thick collection of flies congregated and Eli was evidenced to be in their midst, pushing the shotgun’s barrel away.

“Shoot, and you’ll know exactly who in hell. They’re of us,” Eli spoke gravely his usual squinting smile a piece of knife-edge severity in this moment. Like this Eli remained until his flesh melted into the swarm of flies and dissipated within the wind.

Falling back a few stumbling steps Luke breathed heavily catching his breath. Graham laughed at this as he took in the room; a crescent desk for the receptionist, a sign above reading “1F – Factory, Employee Lockers. 2F – R&D, Management,” an old computer at the desk a small couch against the wall with a table sporting magazines, a door to the right wall, a door to the left wall that Richard had entered from, and then two doors against the back wall to the right and left of the desk.

Hammy took a smooth stride to the receptionist’s desk. Wishing for a weapon that would not be limited to eight shots nor the throwing range of a knife, he closed his eyes and plunged his hand into a random drawer.

Graham spoke once the rush of the initial storming subsided, “You mind if I call that throw back there luck, Hamilton.”

“Hammy,” Guy spoke to Graham quietly, and with his rare streak of joke.

“Hammy,” Graham corrected.

Smiling at his brother’s assertion of his nickname, Hammy still searched blindly in the desk. “Yeah, call it luck,” he pulled his hand up with now holding a pistol with a long barrel for a customized silencer and a locking slide, “Just not once in a lifetime.” Ejecting the clip, Hammy examined the rounds. “Tranquilizer rounds,” he spoke, “Just what I was in the market for. I just wish it had been in chrome instead of black.”

Luke stood shivering in his robe, shiftily eyeing the circus that had built itself around him. The robe felt heavy and began wearing strains on his neck, he plunged his hand into the deep pocket of the robe built for an oversized man and drew out an aged bottle of whiskey.

“That’s mine,” said Richard snatching up the bottle, “It came with the robe.” Directly from the bottle Richard took a swig and his face smiled up to his eye patch. “Mm, fine stuff.” Luke looked in disbelief over the man, he felt the weight of another bottle in his opposite pocket but decided to leave it be.

Luke despairingly threw his shoulders to outstretch begging hands and asked, “What’re we doing here?” Richard stopped in the middle of a swig, Guy stiffened quickly, Hammy halted in his examination of the gun, and Graham cocked an eyebrow.

“These men are holding a friend hostage, we’ve come to get him out,” Graham spoke at length. Richard looked at him in minor appreciation then resumed his drink. “I want to know why these two are here,” Graham spoke jerking a finger in the Reinoso brothers’ direction without turning to them.

At this point Guy looked stunned, but for a moment too brief to be noticed, Hammy smiled as if offended but unwilling to show so. The younger opened his mouth, “We—”

Shouts and footfalls were heard above. Rushing at an excuse to avoid such, Hammy clamped his hands over his new weapon and opened a door to the side of the reception desk. The rest of the men followed, even the shaken and confused Luke clad only in a robe he had received from a single-eyed drunk.

Entering the room, the men saw that the ceiling there rose to the second floor. Large machinery for producing anti-biotic filled the room with mixers, conveyer belts, sorters, vats, and a large tank of something that claimed to be flammable. The machinery was not on, but seemed like it had been more recently than the factory had been “abandoned.” Cat walks formed a maze above the works, and it seemed that there were rooms in a ring around all the equipment on the second floor. Elevator doors stood next to them and while the others still took in the environment Guy entered them and sent himself to the second floor. Hammy, planning on entering the elevator only hit the door and then took himself storming up a nearby flight of stairs.

Graham, Richard, Luke and possibly an invisible Eli stood stayed on the ground and readied their weapons as a soldier in a tan jumpsuit caught sight of them, stepping from behind a piece of equipment. “Company on the factory floor,” he spoke into a radio he had on his shoulder opposite the canister. Graham with a switch of gravity fell sideways to the wall, out of the guard’s range. The man still was not ready with his rifle when something like a spear sculpted out of ice ran through this forehead. Turning quickly the men watched as Luke threw two more of these spears into the man’s torso. A gasp of disbelief and even Luke looked stunned he pushed his bleach blond hair back, hair that made Graham’s look brown. Gazing down at his hands Luke marveled at the white layer of frost that had formed and was now fading away. Metallic sounds of leveling guns brought all attentions to four other guards similarly dressed scattered about the factory equipment.

Above, the elevator opened for Guy to a guard with a needle sticking into his forearm. Turning, Guy saw that Hammy stood with his gun leveled waiting for the tranquilizer to set in. A burst from the gunman’s rifle and his brother dropped onto the ground bleeding out all over the floor as his target fell of the drugs in the tranquilizer round. Guy made a motion to his brother before watching the world around him suddenly be shuffled like a deck with alternate realities of differing outcomes. A reality surfaced and there Hammy stood the bullets harmlessly burying themselves into the wall around him. No blood lay on the ground. As Hammy passed his brother confidently, Guy noticed that a Marquesean tattoo design shone bright blue through the back fabric of Hammy’s shirt. The next moment it faded.

In a walk faster than most men’s runs Guy passed Hammy and holstering his Desert Eagle that he recently realized he had also awoken with, removed the PSG-1 from his back. Laying down upon a spot in the catwalk he adjusted his scope and set his bipod. Hammy held his gun readily and proceeded to check the other rooms; one held a stairwell at the top he heard arguing voices but thought of more pressing issues, Graham had already checked the roof in any case. One room held a conference table and nothing else of interest. Another was a lab with empty cages that claimed to hold baboons, many cages still had mice within them and chemistry equipment lined a wall, in this room a man dead of shotgun wound lay crumpled with a knife lodged into his leg. Retrieving his knife, Hammy walked into the last room finding a gas exposure chamber that looked higher tech than the rest of the lab, the room was filled with microscopes and test tubes, and with a quick scan of the papers on clipboards in the room, Hammy decided that the latest project must have been a new Haz-Mat suit. He ignored the man dead in the window’s lighted square upon the floor.

Below, a guard dropped dead with a dramatic explosion of skull and a celebration of brain matter confetti. This brought attention to the sniper who had positioned himself on the cat walk. However, so quick was the readjustment of the rifle that none could react before the guard closest to Richard’s knee blew out. Before the sniper could take a more lethal shot, Richard rushed to the falling man, plunged his arm and shotgun through his head and fired his shotgun at another guard whose shoulder was torn to ribbons. The last unscathed guard fired desperately at Guy, but the bullets were too frantic. Luke rushed over to this man, whipping out his robe’s belt and snapping it against the man’s body, when contact was made the jumpsuit burst into flames. As this man reached for the canister on his shoulder through deep burning screams a PSG-1 round was put through his chest. The guards were all down when suddenly a sound like a mortar launching was heard and the men saw that the man Richard shot had activated his suicide canister and the room was an explosion of white gas.

In the confusion Graham had floated back into the lobby to double check the rooms for the Don’s relation. Throwing open each locker in the locker room he suddenly came to a shocking stop when he met a badly bruised Italian man with ties and a gag. Shaking his head at Richard’s passing of the same place, Graham unbound the man as sniper rounds rang out. “Its back to the Don’s with you,” Graham spoke as he escorted the man still gagged.

Salomone waited anxiously in the van, drumming the steering wheel violently. He allowed a half smile as their target was let into the car but still worried at the safety of the others. “The rest?”

“They’ll be coming,” Graham spoke in fatigued voice. Dashing through the broken door and into the lobby, Graham took up the PA on the receptionist’s desk and announced, “We got him, boys,” in a false military overtone. He moved into the doorway waiting for the others and he saw the menacing cloud.

With the swiftness of a man unaware of the world, Luke dove into the cloud. As he did the gasses separated and dissipated where he stood. His fists clenched and his brow furrowed in the center of the gas, he seemed to clear it all away by his own thoughts.

Guy above, however, saw how he did it. The area around him was now dewy and the room temperature had dropped significantly. He had condensed the gasses. Packing up his rifle the danger gone Guy suddenly felt something lodge itself in his calf. Crying out Guy crumpled to the floor. With another reaction unknown even to himself, Luke launched up onto the balcony by a mysterious force. Taking hold of Guy, Luke cast an arm to the roof and a cone of flame sparked into existence burning an orange hole to the roof. He then, too felt the attack, and saw that his arm had was bleeding from a bullet wound. No longer could his arm move, then his shoulder, the infection spread through his body. Mustering his strength Luke created an immensely low pressure area above the two on the roof and they were sucked out of the room with thunder’s force.

The men below searched the second story for a sniper, and none could be found. Richard cried out, “Where is he!?” Suddenly three shots rang out and Graham fell turning to the van for help, Salomone gripped the steering wheel tightly and remained without blinking.

Richard had seen there origin, someone was firing from inside the air-duct, and seemingly not blindly. Phasing the tips of his fingers and toes into the nearby wall, Richard scaled the wall and entered the air duct, all dark except for the streams of light from the occasional grate and from several bullet holes which he moved towards, and lazily fired with his Benelli. A body fell, clamoring against the air duct. The next moment a muzzle flash and a bullet pushed itself through his shoulder.

Hammy had rushed down the stairs to aid the others; he saw the bullet holes in the air duct and flung a knife towards it. The knife pierced the metal miraculously and blood ran out of the hole after several second. Rushing now to Graham Hammy heard the shot that burrowed into his bicep. He felt paralysis creep forward, but then it stopped. The bullet never hit his arm, it had missed. This was the reality that surfaced. Smiling covertly, still feigning paralysis, Hammy tightened his grip on the pistol he had switched briefly to his left hand to throw one of his knives. He heard a small explosion and one of the supports of the air duct blew open by some planted charge. The air duct section swung down and one end crashed against the floor, Hammy heard the sniper sliding down, he readied his shot. A woman in her thirties with slight wrinkles at her eyes and rich brown hair emerged, her mouth was covered in blood and her pinky on her left hand had been bitten off and still bled profusely. She threw off a pair of thermal goggles and saw then that Hammy was not paralyzed. The two fired at the same time. Her rifles bullet drove finally into his thigh, she was struck in the crook of her arm with a tranquilizer dart.

The woman spoke bitterly and desperately into a tiny radio she had on her shoulder, “Asp, activating Ghost beacon.” She went under the effects of the tranquilizer. Hammy’s paralysis crept over him else he would have jumped at the sound he heard next. Something else was sliding down the air duct.

It was Eli, blood pouring out of a shotgun wound in the chest.