A R L O

Jaxon locked the door behind us with a click.

I blinked a few times. We were concealed in a dark corner of a building massive enough to fit at least three of Adiago Hundsen's lairs inside of it. As I looked up, I saw that the ceiling was so high above us that there could have easily been a second story if they'd wanted one.

The place mostly hidden from where we were standing, but from what I could see, it was filled with machinery. Workers bustled about, working by conveyor belts putting together weapons of every kind. A great amount of them also stood at perfectly arranged rows of tables as they assembled weapons by hand. The sounds of whirring machinery, tinkering and metal on metal were deafening, especially for me.

It was a much larger operation than I'd been expecting. If Imperium was truly getting all these weapons, then they must have had an arsenal big enough to take out an entire country by now.

Judging by the looks on the others' faces, they felt the same way. Jake, always the human equivalent of a block of ice, turned to Jaxon, unfazed. "There should be an alarm button in the back. Sound the alarm and get ready for everyone to flee this place."

He turned to Delphinium and me. "Once the alarm is sounded and everyone is out, we need to bar the doors. We can't have anyone coming in."

"Got it." Jaxon disappeared and I heard his sneaking footsteps retreating.

After a very still moment, I turned to look at the other two. "What are we doing here once everyone's out?" Delphinium eyed Jake with an eyebrow raised, also wanting to know the answer. "Please tell me that we're going to blow this place off the face of the earth."

"Agreed," Delphinium said, giving the massive operation behind me a pointed glance. Her dislike of this place was very clear.

"You're in luck," Jake responded as he leaned against the wall with crossed arms. "That's exactly what we're doing."

I smiled and rubbed my hands together in anticipation. I'd been excited when Jake had forced me along on this excursion, but this was going to be even better than I was expecting.

Just then, the alarm sounded, a blaring, screeching noise. Between that and the shouting of the workers, my eardrums felt like they might rupture.

Almost immediately, the workers abandoned their stations and ran. The doors were full of people as they struggled to escape the building. It made me wonder what exactly the alarm was for, if they were acting so terrified because of it. What in this place was so dangerous that everyone inside needed to be ready to evacuate at any time?

"Bar the doors," Jake commanded, pushing off the wall. "Quickly."

We went our separate ways, splitting up to cover more surface area. I made a beeline for the main door. Taking an iron rod, I shoved it through the door handles.

When that had been taken care of, I dashed to another side door. There was no time to waste.

But, as it often was, something was wrong.

Halfway there, I became aware of a weight in my chest. My head felt like it was filling with water. Somewhere near the door, I stopped going forward and looked down. My feet, planted on the ground, seemed to be miles away. No, now they were closer than ever. Snakes writhed in my stomach.

The last thing I saw before the darkness was the metal scaffolding on the ceiling high above me.

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I forgot where I was for a moment after opening my eyes. It was dark and cold. This wasn't the compound.

Then, I recalled everything: the weapons facility, the job. Passing out on the floor. What had made me lose consciousness so quickly? How long was I out?

Putting my hands on the cold concrete, I pushed myself up and dusted my clothes off. I'd deal with this problem later; this mission presented itself as a bigger issue for now.

So I barred the door and moved on to find the others. As I rounded a massive conveyor belt, I saw several bins full of ammunition that they'd made. As I ran my hands over the metal casings, I noted there had to be enough bullets here to shoot every single person in the country at least once.

Keeping that thought fresh in my brain, I kept walking deeper into the place. I didn't know what I was looking for, maybe my teammates, maybe some weapons of mass destruction.

Then, I ran into something that made me freeze in my tracks. "Guys?" I shouted, hoping that they'd be able to hear me. "You're going to want to take a look at this."

For a moment, no one joined me in the clearing that I was standing in. I kept my eyes on the sight before me, the thing that had caused me to slightly panic.

Then, Jaxon materialized next to me, Delphinium right behind him. "What in God's name is that?"

"I don't know," I admitted, "But it doesn't look good."

The enormous machine in front of us was still being worked on, as the paneling was only half-screwed on. But it was evident enough to me what it was. It seemed that I'd found the weapon of mass destruction that I'd been seeking.

I rounded it, not getting too close. It almost looked like some sort of cannon, though much more updated and high-tech. A series of rings lined the hole in the middle of the barrel, like the inside of a jet engine. The weapon was mounted on the ground, meaning that it would have a powerful kickback. Now, it was pointed slightly downward, but it appeared to be able to be pivoted any way the shooter wanted it to go.

"This could take out mass amounts of people," Jaxon remarked, circling the machine to join me in the front.

As I was looking at him, something behind his shoulder caught my eye and when I realized what it was, I pointed and said, "Oh shit."

Delphinium moved until she could see behind it. When she did, she uttered a pained sound in her throat.

For there, stored behind the one massive cannon, were countless more, fully finished and ready to be shipped off to Imperium.

"This place needs to be blown to hell."

"Jaxon has explosives," Jake said from behind us, making everyone jump. I wasn't sure how long he'd been there.

"I have more than enough to reduce this facility to ashes, I'm just going to need you-" He stopped talking when he saw something on the nearest workbench. As he picked it up and held it up in the light, I saw that it was a series of blueprints for the machine.

As Jaxon was reading the papers, Jake inspected the weapon. "It's called a Scorpion," he noticed, gesturing to where the name was written in shiny metal on the side.

"Most of these notes are in Romanian," Jaxon said, lowering the paper to reveal his serious face. "But from what I can understand, I was right in saying that these weapons are lethal."

"I can translate once we get back to the compound," Delphinium offered.

Jaxon nodded, satisfied with this new information, and stashed the blueprints in his backpack. "So as I was saying, I'm going to need you three to help me put these explosives on any hard surface in this whole godforsaken place." He held out one of the circular devices. "Stick this on anything you want and then press this button to activate it."

After handing us each a handful of the bombs, he said, "Be careful with these. And be sure to put them on each support beam." He gestured to the several posts that helped hold up the roof.

I accepted the bombs with a grin. Usually, they never let me handle the explosives.

So I spent the next few minutes sticking the bombs on anything that I could see: the walls, machinery, and weaponry. My vision was a sea of red dots, signaling that the bombs were activated.

It was all going well until there were multiple banging noises coming from the other sides of the doors. The workers outside had realized that there was no threat and that there was something very wrong, it seemed. They seemed very insistent to get in, most likely because Imperium was threatening their families and livelihood in order for this operation to run perfectly smoothly.

We all met in the center of the place again, the pounding on the doors now thunderous. "I know a way out. Follow me," Jake commanded, seeming a bit too unbothered by the army of people trying to break in at this very moment.

The four of us went to the back of the warehouse, where the weapons got more and more dangerous and unusual. The farther back we got, the quieter it became. Jake stopped in front of a side door that he'd specifically not boarded up and gestured to it. I confidently went through it and waited for a moment to make sure that I wasn't in danger of being assaulted before moving to let the others out.

We quickly made our way across the abandoned back parking lot before turning around to survey the facility in the distance. Jaxon whipped out a device with a red button identical to the ones on the activated bombs.

"Get ready for the fireworks." Jaxon's fingers hovered over the button. "Three, two, one." He slammed his hand down.

For a moment, nothing happened. With a furrowed brow, I remembered that Jaxon had made those bombs himself. "Are you sure they even work?" I chuckled, glancing at Jaxon who was staring intently forward.

Then, the entire building erupted into an enormous mushroom cloud that shot straight into the darkening heavens. My hat was blown off my head when the warm winds hit us. Even though my hands were over my ears, they still rang.

For a few minutes, the dust and smoke made it impossible to see the damage done. But once the night breeze cleared the air a bit, it was clear: the entire place was reduced to ash. The power of the bombs had even left a sunken ring where the building had used to be.

"And you doubted me?" Jaxon gave me a lopsided grin, happy to have proved me wrong.

"Not anymore, not after this." I gestured to the destruction before us, amazed with the magnitude of it.

But Delphinium stepped forward, not as triumphant. "Who is that?" She pointed the tip of her knife towards a man stumbling across the parking lot.

After watching him for a second, she bounced forward, determined to get information from him. "I love this part," I said to no one in particular as I followed behind. "The interrogating and inevitable torture."

The man noticed us approaching and stopped ambling toward whatever his goal was. He said something to us in Romanian and Delphinium returned it with another phrase in the foreign language, brandishing her dangers threateningly.

After a few moments of going back and forth with the man, Delphinium turned to us and said, "He's one of their engineers. He says that he helped to design and build most of their most destructive and deadly weaponry here."

"Ask him about the Scorpions," Jake urged. "Get him to tell you as much as he can."

But the man apparently understood the basics of what Jake was asking. "The Scorpions are most prized weapons," he said in broken and heavily accented English. "They can kill many men."

"They were all destroyed in the explosion," Delphinium pointed out, a sharp undertone in her voice. "They're gone. You've lost."

The old man shook his head. "No. Not all gone." He only elaborated when the assassin held a blade to his wrinkled throat. "We create many weapons, some even worse than Scorpions. This is only one of many factories. Other places create many weapons also." Delphinium turned to look at us in shock at this new realization.

"The other facilities, where are they?" Jaxon demanded to know.

The engineer shook his head. "No. I will not tell."

Delphinium pressed her knife in so hard that the man's head was forced back. "Tell us now or suffer the consequences."

"No. You cannot destroy all factories. You can kill me, but I am not only one who can create weapons."

"Fine," Delphinium said, knowing that he wasn't going to give up any information. "You can get your wish then." One swipe of her knife and the man was dead on the warm asphalt, fires from the explosion still raging behind him in the distance.

"Well, boys," Delphinium said, wiping the blood off of her dagger, "It seems that we have a lot more work to do than we thought."