Chapter 2

Corren realized what was happening on the other side of the door and ducked to the side to avoid being seen, but the damage was done. He heard nothing, “That’s odd,” he thought to himself, “This room isn’t sound-proofed.”

*Click*

“That’s the lock, so it did see me. Best idea? Run!” Corren began to sprint down the corridor. He had almost reached the end when the door had fully opened. He looked back as to see who it was that might soon end his life and to try to see his colleagues who he had assumed were all dead. He had assumed correctly, however he did not manage to confirm his fears. A midsized muscular looking man stood in the doorway, looking straight at Corren as he turned the corner still in full sprint.

“Loki! Go after him, but don’t kill him. Odin wants him alive, says he could be useful.” Loki turned towards the man giving him orders.

“Don’t worry Thor. I’ll look after the little guy.” Loki began his pursuit of Corren.

“Self-defense! That’s what I need, something to defend myself. There are some prototype weapons in storage, could use one of those. Okay. What’s next? Oh! Got to get the data back from Aims. What else? Erase all traces of the program. Wait why do they want it anyway? No never mind that, not important at this point in time. Damn, there is a copy still in the chair. Think Corren, think! Remote accessing! I was pissed Rowen put it in but it’s going to be helpful now. Good I’m here.” Corren, now standing outside the storage swiped his hand across the scanner. The door opened and he leapt inside, swiping his hand across the scanner inside the room before he was even fully inside. The door started to close as soon as his body had crossed the threshold. Corren attempted to catch his breath quickly before giving up and beginning to scan the storage room for a suitable weapon to use against his assailant. “Deto!” Corren exclaimed picking up the Pulse Gun prototype and the fully developed Shock Gloves. While both were never intended to be handled at the same time it would have to work.

Deto: An exclamation of success. Its origin lies in the Japanese word for congratulations written as omedeto in Romanji.

The Pulse Gun was a master’s project that attempted to create a hand held directed EMP that would allow you to target specific electronic devices while leaving others unharmed. It was not successful in elementary testing as it simply disabled all electronic devices in the path of the pulse, even penetrating basic shielding and was thereafter discontinued.

The concept of Shock Gloves is similar to that of the 21^st century stun gun. Instead of only two points of contact the shock gloves provide several points and adjust the output to the life form or object they are touching as not to cause any permanent or lethal damage.

Corren’s chain of thought was suddenly interrupted by the sound of the door opening. He quickly positioned himself facing the door with a clear line of fire. Loki stood triumphantly in the doorway. Corren fired the Pulse Gun; the room smelt as the air after a lighting storm. “Well that didn’t work too well now did it?” mused Loki with a smug grin on his face.

“Did he realize all his electronic devices just failed? Or is he just completely oblivious?” Corren asked himself. He probably should have realized that while facing an opponent such as Loki, one should concentrate on his movement or it would be over before one realizes it. As soon as the pulse had passed through Loki, he had begun to move quickly towards his target and before Corren could figure out what Loki was doing, he was already in Loki’s headlock.

Loki figured if Odin wanted the target alive, unconscious would have to do, as he wasn’t about to leave his target conscious. No, definitely not. Conscious targets only cause trouble. They kick, they scream and sometimes they even bite. Loki particularly didn’t like the biting, that was one experience he need not have again.

While Loki was in this state of deep thought, he did not realize that Corren had positioned his left arm so that his hand was touching the back of Loki’s head. Loki noticed the touch as soon as it occurred but did not think much of it as the most it could achieve was removing his bandana, and although he did not like this idea, it did not bother him to the extent of wanting to do something about it.

This was Loki’s mistake. In Loki’s defense, he had never been up against a weapon of this type before this moment. Corren activated the left glove. Current surged from the glove through Loki’s head, his body suddenly collapsing as a result of losing consciousness. As Loki’s body began to slump Corren freeing himself from the headlock slipped out from under it and let Loki’s almost lifeless body drop to the floor. “I wonder why these things never went into production. They work like well enough,” pondered Corren before snapping back to the reality where he had almost just been killed.

“Who is this guy anyway? Why was he trying to kill me? What is that emblem on his chest?” The realization that he was getting distracted by unimportant things hit him like a Teslabahn. “What was the next part of the plan? Programming Center! I have to get the data before getting out of here.”

Making his way to the Programming Center involved many moments pinned to walls as the doors to a multiple of rooms kept opening and closing. Each time one would open Corren would jump at the nearest wall and seemingly tried to meld with it. This earned him many strange and concerned looks from the students and professors that emerged from the doors. Most of the female students would giggle amongst themselves when he did this, looking back only to turn away again to giggle some more. This would normally have annoyed Corren as he didn’t like not being in on the joke, but today he was far more concerned with staying alive.

Reaching the Programming Center he entered as he had the storage room, with the exception that shortly after entering the Center he broke into another sprint for the booth at the back of the class. Not even noticing what could possibly be the dirtiest look ever given on the Atlantis University Campus.

Corren burst through the doors of the booth and continued to where Aims was sat. Aims had, as soon as the bursting occurred jumped in his seat and then swiveled towards the origin of the noise. He was extraordinarily surprised to find that it was Corren who had almost knocked the doors off their connection to the wall. He stood up just as Corren reached him.

“Aims! I need that data on the disc I gave you, now! Then I need you to...”

“Hold on a nano-second, and catch your breath,” Aims interrupted.

Corren took a deep breath and continued, “...to delete any traces of what I gave you from the University System. Not a shred of it can survive. Do you understand?”

“I understand, but could you explain why?”

“No time, and the less you know the better. Probably,” Corren added, not sure if this was true but it was what he had always seen said in movies when they were short on time and it seemed to work there.

Aims sat back down turned to his solid stream and began entering commands. On a slightly less eventful day Corren would have been impressed with the speed at which Aims handled the task he had been given, but this was not an ordinary day, and for Corren even Aims’ fastest was not fast enough. “Here, that’s everything you gave me including some corrections I made. There were a few...”

“No time,” interrupted Corren. “Thank you, for everything,” he concluded before turning to dash back towards the exit.

“Loki! Respond!” shouted Thor. He reached into one of the many pockets in his jacket and took out a small box, only a few millimeters thick. He placed the box on the table in front of him, removed his right glove and placed his finger, squarely in the center of the top plate of the box. The area under his finger briefly glowed before removing his finger. The top plate commenced to glow and the light began to rise, shapes of light emerged out of the glow.

Four red dots appeared in roughly the same area. Thor looked at this with displeasure, “Tyr, Loki is not appearing on the map.”

Tyr looked up from behind the chair, “The stream is accurate, either he is in a shielded area or his comms have been disabled. The latter is more probable, very few rooms in this section have shielding.”

“Bragi, go find Loki and bring him back here. Freya, you help Tyr with the chair.”

Bragi made his way to the door, placing his hand in front of the scanner it opened. Stepping through the door his shoulders almost touched the frame. As the door closed Freya turned to Thor and asked, “Why did you send him? He is the most conspicuous out of all of us. I could have gone.”

“I doubt Loki would come back unharmed if I sent you. Also, Loki will most likely need to be carried, Bragi will have no problems complying with either.”

“Bragi, it seems the last sign of Loki came from within some sort of storage facility,” relayed Thor “It is located down the corridor and on the right of your location.”

“Understood,” confirmed Bragi and changed course towards the storage room.

Placing his hand in front of the scanner the door slid open for Bragi. Upon entering the room he immediately saw Loki’s unconscious body lying in a heap on the floor. “It seems our comrade has been incapacitated. The target is not here. I assume he has fled,” announces Bragi.

“The target is not a problem; he is most likely headed to his residence. We will stop by later and retrieve him when we are done here. Tyr, monitor any activity coming from his home, don’t let him contact anyone.” Hearing no response Bragi figures that Tyr agreed and just didn’t use his comm. There really was no point in using it when he and Thor were in the same room. Bragi leant over and grabbed the back of Loki’s jacket tightly lifted him up and threw him over his shoulder as though he were handling a large sack of potatoes. Slowly, Bragi moved to the door.