Black Dawn

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Feedback wanted: I'm experimenting with chapter lengths. I'm fine either way, since I mostly write a few chapters ahead anyway, but I'd like for people to chime in and let me know whether they enjoy longer or shorter chapters. There's a lot to read everyday on Steemit, so I personally enjoy shorter content that doesn't take too much time, but let me know.

Chapter 4

Adam and Kevin manage to run away from the guards, and make their way through the door. The facility is clearly a military base, and a maze. Long corridors, tons of doors and stairs. Kevin seems to know his way around the base, and leads the way.

"This way, we're not out of the woods yet."

"At some point you're gonna have to tell me what's going on."

"Let's find a place to hide first."

The two men run through the corridors, until they spot a guard patrol, but stop before their spotted and hide behind a corner. This clearly screws up the way Kevin had planned.

"Damn it! There's no way for us to make it through them without attracting the rest. We're gonna have to think of something else. Maria's being held in the prison cell, building 2. We're gonna have to get through this building, enter the second courtyard and then bust our way to the second building to the north."

"You know about Maria? And how do you know your way around this place? I love you, Kev, but I need some answers."

"This way."

Kevin avoids the question and once again leads the way to another route, until they run into an individual guard with his back turned. Kevin wastes no time snapping his neck from behind. Even though Adam has done it himself in the past numerous times, and was just involved in a gun fight that got his adrenaline running, it still serves as a gruesome reminder of what he's in the middle of again.

"You sure haven't lost a beat."

"Well, you taught me that."

"I think I did."

They finally find a safe place, and are reasonably sure they're not followed, and it's time for a chat. Kevin removes his ski mask, and reveals what the years have done to him. Kevin used to be something of a pretty boy, but the past years have seemingly caused a scar or two. He also sports a buzzed hairstyle, which is new. Adam quickly realizes that time forgets no one. Adam is in desperate need of some answers, but first.

"Kev."

Adam grabs Kevin to a tight brohug and the two men embrace. No words are needed. Adam and Kev have gone to hell and back together. Multiple times. Even though this reunion with his best friend is the last thing Adam was expecting a few hours ago, he is happy that it happened. Nothing else makes sense, but he's in this with his best friend.

"Now. I need some answers. What the hell is going on here?"

"First, if I know you, you didn't come here to die without a pack of Lucky Strikes, did you?"

Adam lets out the first genuine smile in months. It's that dark humour that made the men friends in the first place. There's something very special and unexplainable about facing death with a smile on your face. It can even make death nervous enough to run away. At least that's what Adam always told himself on the battlefield. This isn't because he's confident. Quite the contrary, wisecracks keep the fear away. The very real fear that comes with life or death battle situations. Adam's good, but he's human. And humans get afraid. But Adam learned long ago that laughter can fool you to fear less. Adam offers Kevin a cigarette, lights it and lights one up himself.

"After I left the military, I've worked for an organization called Chameleon. A private CTO (counterterrorism organization). We've been tracking this group down for six months since we first received intel about them. I infiltrated a subgroup and worked undercover to find out about this place and worked my way through here. We had a plan to bring them down, and when I got here, I learned about them bringing you in. I never thought you were dead for a second. The guys running this place call themselves the Founding Fathers."

"Bruce filled me in, but who are they?"

*"They're former special forces soldiers who went rogue against the government, not unlike you, really. They're the result of the Supersoldier Experiment.

"So, the government went along with it, after all?"

"Yeah, it's the experiment you opted out of. What they wanted you to be the poster boy of. But they went along with it. Experimented with soldiers like test animals. Enhancements, augmentations.. sick stuff. It was abandoned, but suddenly revived, and received funding from an outside source. Unknown."

"Jesus Christ."

"The soldiers we faced, they're a part of a PMC (Private Military Company) that's working with the Founding Fathers. Anti-government extremists. This is an old, secret underground military base, and bomb shelter for VIPs. The public doesn't know about this, and not even everyone in the government does. An old Pentagon project. It was abandoned when the Post War started."

Adam's faced with a dilemma: he has no interest in serving the best interest of the government, and he's not sure who the bad guy here truly is. But then again, when someone points a gun at you, it's easy to spot the enemy.

"I'm not too concerned with the criminals in the White House, honestly, I'm here to get Maria out. She was used to lure me in. Why?"

Kevin doesn't reply immediately, but instead takes in the cigarette, and slowly blows the smoke out before continuing.

"Their leader wants you dead."

"You know who it is, don't you?"

"Yeah. The Founding Fathers are Derek's organization."

The mention of that name leaves Adam shocked. Kevin expected nothing less.

"Derek?! This is my brother's doing?!"

---

The sudden appearance of Kevin Reese, as well as Adam's escape, has not escaped the attention of Adam's twin brother, Derek, who is less than happy at this recent setback in his plans. He is scolding members of the PMC he has hired to work on his operation.

"You incompetent fools! That man is not just any man, that is Kevin Reese. The one man who should not be interfering with this. Those two together can take out a small army, and they have, believe me. I've worked too long and too hard for this revolution to let Kevin Reese infiltrate my ranks and ruin everything! Someone needs to be held responsible."

The three men in the room with him are scared for their lives, as they know what those words mean. Derek is not a man of mercy. Even though they know it would in vain anyway, all three attempt to get words of apology out, but before that happens, Derek draws his weapon and shoots one of three mean in the head, point blank.

"May that serve as a lesson to the rest of you. Tell your men that I want Kevin Reese dead."

The two men are shocked by their fallen comrade, but know better than to defy Derek at this point. They simply nod their heads and leave.

An irate Derek is then approached by two beautiful young women, both carrying high tech sniper rifles. The women, Liza and Mona, are called Heart and Spade. They are identical twins, known by their distinguishable heavy white make up, with the only way of differentiating them being that Liza has a tattoo of Heart on her cheek, while Mona sports a Spade. With their half black, half red hairs tied up in pigtails, and the skin tight sexy outfits they both sport, they can fool one to thinking they are something less than merciless killers. That assumption is a deadly one, since when it comes to snipers, Heart and Spade are at the top of their craft. This is also why Derek recruited them to Founding Fathers.

The girls speak to Derek in a flirtatious manner.

"Oh, Derek. If you want someone taken.. care of. You should never send boys to do a girls' job."

Despite his frustations, Derek does have a rather warm attitude towards the girls, who are among his most trusted recruits. Derek has also always been good with the ladies. He is arguably more charming than his more serious, straightforward brother. Some say it's due to psychopathy, Derek simply considers it charisma.

Mona and Liza were born and raised to be killers. Recruited at an early age as child soldiers. A childhood spent on the battlefield has molded the girls into twisted murderers who find it a fun hobby to play with people, and kill them. Anyone would find it tragic, but Derek sees nothing wrong with taking full advantage of their undisputed skill in the art of murder. The three also share a weird almost romantic relationship, even though none of the three have the capabilities for genuine love.

"Now, my favorite girls wouldn't have something devious in mind, would they?"

"Oh, just some fun. We saw you get really sad, and we really don't want our Derek to be sad, so we came up with a plan to make you happy."

---

Adam is processing the revelation of his brother being the person behind the incident. Adam wants to be more shocked than he is, but in a really twisted sense, it unfortunately kind of makes sense. Adam and Derek were always far from loving brothers. Despite being twins, bitter jealousy and competition soured their relationship already at a very early age. They competed at everything, but most of all, in combat. Ever since they were physically able to, they exchanged holds and strikes, and trained in various combat sports - with the ultimate test being the other brother.

Derek was always the more competitive of the two, and always took a loss harder. This fueled Derek to get better at everything Adam was good at; everything Adam did, Derek could do just a little bit better. Slowly, but surely Derek started getting the upperhand in combat practice. But what Derek excelled at in fighting skills, he lacked in Adam's genuine heroism, and this earned Adam more respect than his twin - and it never sat well with Derek, who held on to this hatred into his adult years. Judging by what's happened today, that anger hasn't ceased.

Still, the situation is anything but clear to Adam.

"So, you're telling me Derek orchestrated this whole thing to get to me?"

"No, I don't think that's it. I know for a fact that they're in possession of an EMP bomb, and a class G nerve agent. They're planning to use both on Washington, pulling the state offline, and launching the nerve gas, so that no one has a chance to react. We're talking thousands dead in less than an hour. It'd be impossible to contain, and in a few hours, it'd be a widespread epidemic that grows exponentially. And that's been the plan all along. Why, I don't know. I guess he has other reasons for wanting you here. Again, I don't know."

This is a lot for Adam to take in, but tries to piece together the puzzle.

"They wouldn't be doing something like this for shits and giggles, there's something big going on here. They never made any ransom demands. My brother's a lot of things, but he wouldn't kill innocent people for fun."

"That's all I know. Heenan's being held here, too."

Both men share the same contempt for Lloyd Heenan. Again that name, it makes Adam's skin crawl. To Adam, he is truly the worst of the worst. No ideology, no backbone, nothing. Just a loyalty for sale forthe highest bidder. The worst kind of worthless bureaucrat.

"Heenan. I heard the guards talking about him. You know damn well I'm not saving his worthless ass."

"I don't care for him, either, but I know he's been tortured for information, so he knows something. I don't know where he's being held, but we need to find him if we want to get to the bottom of this."

"But we're gonna get to Maria first."

"Right. We should get going. She's my friend, too."

Kevin, Adam, Maria and Kevin's late wife were a close group. Kevin and Adam were like brothers, and Maria and Jessica were like sisters. This reminds Adam of Jessica's passing four years ago. He was underground at the time, but the terrorist strike was publicized.

"I'm sorry about Jess."

"Yeah.. Let's make sure it doesn't happen to Maria. Let's go."

Adam and Kevin manage to sneak through the first building, making their way to the second building. In between the buildings is a wide and long corridor, surrounded by walls with narrow alcoves that go inside the walls that can just about fit an adult male inside them. The corridor is empty with no guards posted, and everything seems a bit too easy.

The thought of it being too easy also enters Adam's mind just about when they're halfway through the corridor, and as soon as it does, he notices a red laser pointing at Kevin. Immediately, he pushes Kevin to the left, and quickly rolls to the right.

"Look out, it's a damn sniper!"

But it's not just a sniper, there are two sniper shots, one from the north end, and one from the south end of the corridor, both just barely missing.

Kevin and Adam take cover at opposite sides of the corridor, inside the blind spots of the walls' alcoves.

Adam considers taking a chance with his rifle, but realizes that he'd be a sitting duck.

"We fucking walked right into it! We're trapped!"

In perfect position, Heart and Spade are at balconies with their sniper rifles at opposite sides of the corridor, with perfect vision throughout the corridor. As soon as they even attempt at showing themselves, they're dead.

Both twins say pretty much the same thing to themselves.

"Those were just warning shots. We like it when it lasts longer. Now, be good boys and come out to play with us."