Chapter 351: Targeted
The chosen’s position in the eyes of the comment people had never been fully cemented. While the the government was being fed lies which it, in turn, fed to the people, the people never totally believed everything they were told. As such, when it came to the ’rounding up’ of infected in a nationwide effort, the results weren’t and methods needed to be hidden as much as possible. For the average citizens, they had been force fed news clips, videos and reports about the ’evil’ that is the infected but online, people could find the real story. As a whole, trying to control a people through news and information containment is a lot harder these days.
Therefore, every operation they ran, whether it was capture or search and destroy, they had to be carried out silently. Having all of their dirty laundry aired online wasn’t something that the higher ups would accept. If things got too messy, they wouldn’t hesitate to cut ties with everyone involved and pull funding at the same time. While they weren’t technically the army, there were several government powers helping them to operate and they were also the reason it was going to be until morning for the standard troops to arrive.
Perhaps others didn’t recognize Laz, but Tommy, Jessie and Anne did. As soon as the video of him appeared online, they knew he was hiding here. While the changes in his physical appearance could fool others, they had known him before those changes and recognized him right away. As such, Tommy had volunteered to come down here and handle things, but only after Jesse had told him too.
"I don’t care. Continue on with the mission. Send in the special ops team and keep an eye on that building with the drones. No matter who is inside there, if they die, we can blame it all on him..." Tommy said, with a look of anger and madness in his eyes.
"What if they send out another video?" Agent Wallace asked.
"And how the hell did they send that out when you’re suppose to be blocking the signal?" Tommy glared back. Although he knew agent Wallace was a capable man, he always felt like he was being looked down upon by him.
Add that to the fact that after the fiasco in New Orleans, he had even lost his favorite pet and was forbidden from doing anything like that again after certain ’videos’ appeared online, Tommy’s attitude and mood were both outstandingly bad.
The main reason for that was thanks to a certain blonde haired, busty beauty who started targeting him after blaming him for Laz’s disappearance a year ago. After all, Tommy was not a background character. He, like many others who seemed to have something to prove, liked being in the spot light whenever he could be. It made him feel important. But in the end, that being in the spotlight made it super easy for Kennedy to track him down and his ego made it even easier to manipulate him. Doing so now was even easier for her than when they ’dated,’ of course besides her, only Laz knew that that was a thing way back when. Even Malene didn’t know anything about that.
"We are blocking all cell phone and radio signals to and from the compound, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to power through the block. This is only an urban jammer since we weren’t given a lot of time," Wallace replied with a sigh. He was getting tired of many things, including Tommy’s lack of patience.
"Useless. ALL OF YOU. We have less than six hours before their support arrives and I want that piece of shit in chains and on his knees way before that. Is that understood?" Tommy said, looking at the troops and various federal agents gathered around him.
"Understood," they said, restraining all of the other things they also wanted to say. Agent Wallace could only shake his head. He still didn’t understand exactly what kind of strings had to be pulled for this punk to somehow be in charge of this mission.
Either way, they had to take that one infected alive and if it came down to it, it would be Tommy’s fight to win. After all, they had seen him battle a god and no amount of human troops would be able to stop that monster now as far as he was concerned.
Knowing which building Laz was in allowed them to focus their attention on it, with more drones being sent that way. The few armored vehicles they had were also dispatched to help in the process. While Tommy might have been a bit radical, he wasn’t stupid. Even he knew that the normal troops would be no match for Laz. As such, they were only ordered to engage with explosives in an effort to hurt him and make him easier to capture, but they were not to engage him directly.
...
As they huddled into the building everyone soon noticed that the attack against them hadn’t stopped. Instead, it seemed to be increasing. Spreading out his sense, Laz noticed that more drones had been sent their way, ignoring the rest of the battered club. For some reason, Laz was getting a bad feeling about the way things were playing out.
"Why does it feel like we are being ass raped more than before you made that video?" Mike asked as the ground shook again."
"I don’t know. If anything, they should have understood that we are regular people. There are even minors with us who just so happen to be one of the hottest bands in the country. So why the hell would they keep shooting at us?" Manager May asked, clearly as confused as the others.
"Can I see the video for a second?" Laz asked Lyssa.
After handing him the phone, Laz watched the video he wasn’t paying attention to before before stopping at a certain part.
"Fuck..." Laz said, realizing his face had been in one of the shots.
"What?" Everyone looked at him and asked, including the four sisters.
"I think... they are here for me?" Laz said, a little embarrassed.
"Why would they be there for you?" Mila asked, the same question mirrored on the other’s faces, except for Mike who had recognized him.
"Well... He’s kind of a wanted criminal," Mike answered, seeing that Laz didn’t want to say it. For some reason, Laz felt like it was hard to admit this. Mike on the other hand, being closest to Laz over the past year, was not only the first one to think of this, but also had no problems speaking of it. He felt like it was kind of bad ass... in a way.
"You?" Rain, Tia and Mila asked. Lyssa felt like it made sense somehow while Manager May seemed to only recognize him now.
"Wait, New Orleans? And that backwater fight in Virginia?" Manager May said, coming to a revelation. As soon as she said this, not just her but Stevo, Jason and Warren also seemed to realize it.
"Yeah. I’m surprised they link those two together to be honest..." Laz replied, trailing off.
"There aren’t many who can match up to you in this aspect," War said with a grin. The girls had been in discussion ever since they arrived and had finally decided that they would follow Laz for a while until he was safe before setting back out for their own business.
"Thanks, I guess?" Laz responded as another blast caused the barely supported south wall to tumble down, revealing the whole of the pool area that they had already retreated from.
"So what are we going to do now?" Lyssa asked, more than a little concerned.
Laz didn’t say anything, but seemed to have made up his mind about something while everyone was looking at him.
"Something heroic," War responded.
"Something crazy," Famine added.
"Something big," Pestilence remarked.
"Something epically stupid!" Death finished.
They all understood that look in Laz’s eyes. They had seen it before when they left him in New Orleans.
"Sigh... you don’t need to make it sound that serious, do you?" Laz asked as he smile, confirming what the girls were saying.
"Then what exactly are you going to do bro?" Mike asked while everyone else just nodded their heads like chickens, indicating their need for an answer as well.
"Bait... I’m going to be bait..."
"Told you!" The four sisters all said as the same time.
"You can’t..." Lyssa started.
"That’s suicide," her bandmates added.
"That’s fucking badass!" Mike, Stevo, Jason and Warren commented.
Everyone had their own idea’s about how foolish this whole thing was, but even the sister’s didn’t say anything. If Laz was right, then once he made a run for it, everything out there would start following him. That would give everyone else a chance to escape, at least the infected would have to run of nothing else. As for the non-infected, they would be fine then until the army or national guard came by shortly. After everything had happened, they would probably all be tested at that time, but that was ok for most of them too. In fact, if so many of them tested negative, it would make the narrative that much easier for most people to believe. That being that the infected had fought the demon beast wave and saved the normal humans when even the government was useless.
"Look. if I’m right, then they will focus on me when I leave. As for the rest of you, well, some of you can stay here while the rest of you take off. While a few people missing isn’t a big deal, if a bunch go missing, there will be way too many questions to figure out. So, those infected need to take off while everyone else stays behind and just ’clearly’ explains what happened.
"But... except for you and your lady friends... the rest of us...." Mila was going to say before she stopped and turned to look at her friend. Lyssa, while not having clearly stated it, was obviously an infected as well.
"I never meant to hide it..." Lyssa said, looking quite embarrassed.
"Do you think any of us care about that?" Tia said as her friends looked at her and took her hands.
"W will have enough time for that some other time. For now, I’m guessing you’re sticking with us once this goes down?" Death, the eldest and usually most responsible of the sisters, asked both Lyssa and Laz.
"If you don’t mind. Get yourselves into town and find a place to stay. I’ll find you within twenty four hours and if not, then get out of there. As for you...." Laz said, turning to Lyssa.
"It’s up to you what you want to do. Whether you stick with your bandmates or decide to go somewhere else, only you can make that call. Just know that infected checks are going to get harder and harder from here on out. So hiding in plain sight might soon become impossible..." Laz advised her.
"Then where would I go?" Lyssa asked, unsure of her place for the first time in a long time.
"You can come with us. Worse comes to worst, we have some friends who would be more than happy to help house and employ you," Death recommended while Famine leaned in close.
"They are all his girlfriends there too. They run the place. So don’t worry about feeling left out or anything," Famine added with a smirk, causing Laz who was mentally planning to not hear.
"How many girlfriends does he have?" Lyssa asked, a bit shy.
"Well now... even we aren’t sure," Pestilence answered after thinking for a moment.
"You doing this bro?" Mike asked, as he and Laz’s other buddies surrounded him.
"If it keeps all you bastards safe? Yeah... why not I guess," Laz joked back before giving all his brothers a quick, hard hug. Even Warren wasn’t left out, despite being the least involved with Laz. As for Laz, since they decided to follow him, they were his brother’s.
"I’ll see you all soon!" Laz said, then grabbed each of the four sisters and kissed them hard, one right after another in front of everyone before flipping his hood over his head and taking off into the night.
The hunting game was on.
