Black and Silver Chapter 28

November 2nd, 2023. 02:50am - Los Angeles

Gwen briefly stops at an empty alleyway. The long day is finally wearing her down, but there's something else that she's stopping for. She's experiencing trembling and a sudden sweat. Her movement reveals this to be something she's familiar with, as she crouches down and reaches for a black syringe pack in her inner breast pocket.

After lifting her sleeve, she injects herself with something, which seems to stop the trembling and pain she was experiencing. As whatever she injected starts to take effect, Gwen lets out a relieved sigh. She stays crouched for a little longer.

Just before getting up, she gets a phone call. She's slightly hesitant to answer for some reason, but does so anyway.

"Yeah, I'm here."

The pain is still clear in her voice, and the caller on the other end questions this.

"Everything alright?"

"I'm alright, I just-"

"Had another seizure?"

"I handled it."

"How many shots have you taken today exactly?"

"Enough to get by."

"You know you're not supposed to take more than two per day. That shit's gonna kill you."

Gwen is not a person who enjoys being told what to do, and even though she knows the man on the phone has her best interests in mind, she ends up snapping back anyway.

"Look, I can handle myself. I know what I'm doing. Besides, it's either the serum that kills me, or this day. I just need to get through this damn day, okay? Can you live with that, Chad?"

"Just be careful. Anything new?"

Gwen finishes placing the syringe back in the pack, which she puts inside her pocket. She only has one injection's worth left of the stuff, and she's worried about the rest of the day, but decides not to mention it.

"Nothing new to report. But about Adam."

"What is it?"

"AJ doesn't want to bring him in, but I disagree with him. He's the one, Chad. The one we've been waiting for. Adam is the key."

"I'm not comfortable going behind AJ's back. He's like a father to us. He has his reasons."

"I know, he wants to protect Adam. I get that. But I've seen him, I've seen Adam: he's the kind of man who would want to know what's going on. He would want to know the truth. I told him I'd explain everything once we get the memory card."

A worried tone appears in Chad's voice on the other end.

"Were you bluffing?"

"I'm not sure yet. But I trust him. And they fear him. But don't worry, you and I never had this conversation. I'll handle AJ. Just take-"

Gwen is about to say something else, but stops upon seeing something.

"What is it?"

A black car has stopped near the alleyway and a group of agent types, wearing all black, step out of the car and start making their way towards Gwen.

"Shit."

*"Alexa, what is it?"

"They found me. I gotta run."

"MIBs? Jesus Christ! Alexa? Alexa!"

Without a second thought, Gwen gets up on her feet and starts running as fast as she can. She doesn't even bother shooting.

The men wearing black see her and begin to chase after her, firing bullets.

Gwen jumps to a ladder and starts climbing to the top of a building. She is seemingly afraid, which is rare for her. Barely being managing to escape the bullet fire, she makes a break for it and speeds to the edge of the roof and jumps.

She makes an almost superhuman leap from roof to roof, rolls and turns on her back, and fires her gun at the men chasing her on the opposite roof, but after only a few bullets, she's empty.

She then gets up and keeps running, as the men make an equally inhuman jump between the buildings.

---

The ATC chopper carrying Adam and Kevin is tracking the stolen chopper, which proves easy, showing that the man who stole the memory card is far from a professional. He seems more like a small-time criminal. To Adam and Kevin, it begs the question of who hired him and why, it reeks of desperation to put someone like him up to it.

Adam wonders about this out loud.

"Those guys were after the card, how did they know where we were?"

Kevin, on the other hand, is not weirded out by this, at all. If anything, he was expecting it.

"Either someone in ATC, or someone in the government, tipped them off."

"I haven't seen rifle handling that bad in years. Their guns were set up for CQB, but the sights were placed too far to the rear, which caused the heads to go be pushed all the way to the rear of the stocks. Had they been shooting anything other than a .22, the recoil would have knocked their heads over. Those guys were amateurs."

"Someone was desperate."

"Guess so."

The pilot notes that the signal is getting stronger and they're closing in on the stolen chopper.

"We're getting closer."

They find the stolen chopper, and Adam and Kevin jump to the ground. It's a warehouse area with a number of large buildings that look to be empty at this hour.

They examine the chopper first, but nothing's inside.

Adam takes the lead.

"He landed the chopper here, so I'm guessing he can't be far. We'll just have to go through all these buildings."

Inside one of the warehouses, the man trying his best to work on the data on the memory card with a computer he grabbed from the ATC chopper, but there's no way for him to make sense of it.

"Jesus, what is this bullshit? There's nothing on here. But it has to be worth something, right?"

---

The men chasing Gwen seem to have lost her for the moment. They know she can't be far, so they're on their guard as they inspect the corners of the city block.

Suddenly, Gwen jumps out of a corner with a lengthy steel pipe, which she uses to attack the four men. The element of surprise allows her to knock the guns out of their hands. She's outmatched in combat, though, as the men seem to be extremely highly trained, almost to an impossible degree.

She tries her best to hold her own, using the pipe as a weapon, but every move she makes gets blocked, and the numbers game by the four men gets too strong. And Gwen is no slouch; she's more than capable of fighting back. But these guys are incredibly strong, one might say to a supernatural degree.

As a last-ditch effort, Gwen uses the pipe as a pole on the ground for leverage and lands a jump kick on one of the men's head, and upon landing quickly grabs his gun, but before she has the opportunity to do anything, she's knocked out by a kick to the head.

"So, this is really her."

"Silver Fox."

"We'll find a place to interrogate her. She'll break. She's strong - but outdated."

"Merely a prototype."

Gwen only plays possum, slowly secures the gun on the ground with her hand and then quickly aims it at one of them.

"Break this, asshole."

The bullet takes his head off, but before Gwen manages to fire another bullet, the gun is kicked out of her hand. She rolls backwards and uses her arms to launch her to a standing position and continues to run away.

The chasers are relentless.

While running there's another call from Chad.

"I'm chased down by MIBs, Chad!"

"Holy shit! Wait a sec, I'll trace your location."

Chad sits in front of what is a set of multiple computers in an elaborate room tech room with all sorts of equipment most people have only seen in movies.

He traces Gwen's call to give her satellite coverage.

"The subway station! Behind the building to your left, you're almost there, go!"

---

Back at the warehouse area, Adam and Kevin have gone through multiple buildings already and are sneaking into one more.

The light from the laptop makes it easy to see the man responsible for stealing the memory card.

Adam and Kevin step out of the shadows and attempt to apprehend him.

"Hand over the memory card, now! No one needs to get hurt, all we want is the card."

The man puts his hands on the back of his head, but as Adam and Kevin move in on his direction, Kevin begins to feel dizzy. His vision starts to blur and he stumbles down to the ground. The effects of the blast at the gas plant finally take their toll on him.

Adam turns his head for just a second.

"Kev?"

This then allows for the man to aim him with his gun.

"Drop the gun, or you're both dead."