Mountain Hideaway

[Nail Strafer]

I silently stalked through the high grass, clutching my green sniper rifle against my chest. Up ahead was the mountain stronghold I needed to infiltrate. It wasn't much to look at though...just a concrete block with some windows on and some chainlink fencing circling around it...with big warnings like NO TRESPASSING. And a couple of braindead grunts wandering about. Luckily though I noticed a part of a fence had a hole in it. Rather convenient. Oh well.

I picked my way through, still continuing to stick to the bushes and the trees. I didn't want to make my presence known yet. But if I wanted to proceed farther, I'd have to start killing the guards. Let's see...which one to take out first. I suppose I'll pick off the ones that the other guards can't see, and slowly work my way up as they lose pairs of eyes. Let's take out that bozo doing maintenance on that pickup truck over there.

Turn...zoom in...focus on his noggin.

Pop.

The silencer on the rifle muffled the shot. No alerts. None of the other guards even seemed to blink. The only change my shot had made to the mountain compound is that now the grunt was slumped over the engine. But since his garage was around back nobody would notice him until I'd taken the others out.

Next...that guy walking around the perimeter...searching through the bushes. After I kill him he'll just fall over and his body would be out of sight in the foliage.

Pop.

Down. Now we'll go after that guy on the roof. He's standing far back from the edge of the concrete block, and he's high up, so he'll just fall over and nobody will see his corpse unless they walk up there.

Pop.

And that takes care of him. Well...that's all the guards I can see from here. I guess I'll make my way inside. But just to be safe, I use a row of fuel barrels for cover. With how this place is so isolated, they must have to keep a lot of these around for their cars.

They left the front door open, so I just step right in. Not much to see though. A guard is sleeping on a bunk bed, so I pull out my silenced pistol.

Pop.

Add another to the body count. I spy a table nearby...with a few old-looking computers that display green text on a black background. I don't really care what they say. The object I was sent to retrieve is sitting on the table next to them. It's a small metal box that supposedly contains syringes of some kind, filled with a liquid that's supposedly really important. But I don't care too much what it is. Now that I've got it, I can get out of here.

I walk outside...and I see that two humvees with machine guns have just pulled up outside. Well, that didn't surprise me too much. This operation had been going way too smoothly. And of course they spot me immediately. So, the dudes in the humvees turn their mounted machine guns on me and open fire. I take off running for the garage where I saw that pickup truck earlier.

A few shots from the machine gun actually catch me...but the vest stops some. Unfortunately a few get past it. It only slows me down a little though. Within a few more seconds I'm at the truck...tossing the dead guard aside, slamming the hood closed, and hopping in. I grin. He left the keys in the ignition. Time for some epic driving.

I slam the truck into gear and zoom off. The humvees aren't expecting this, and I neatly slot through them. Now I'm bounding down a treacherous dirt mountain road...with a rock face on one side and a cliff on the other. But I'm as cool as a cucumber.

Apparently though the humvees weren't the only backup. Some guy in a red ATV has just pulled up ahead of me in the road, and now he's taking potshots from his seat. I don't even bother to duck down as I smash right into him, sending both rider and vehicle flying off the cliff face into the valley below.

I'm just grinning ear to ear now, having a blast. So I take the next turn at full speed. A mistake. The truck slides in the mud, right towards the edge. I frantically steer to hang on...but I've been too arrogant. The truck slips over the edge and now I'm rolling down the hill, banging into everything in sight. I'm still okay and hanging on, but not for much longer. The trees suddenly come to an end...but now I'm just flying through open air. A river is rushing up below to greet me. I sigh and close my eyes. Two seconds later, I've splashed into the river and the screen goes black.

"DAMNIT!"

I pound my fist onto the couch, clutching an Xbox 360 controller. I really need to work on my driving.

[Nail Strafer]

"Naaaaiiiilllll..." Canma called from the kitchen. "Could you head down to the post office and go check the mail for me?"

I sighed. Oh well...now seemed to be a good time to quit anyway, considering I'd been having trouble with this game for a while now. That death was a good excuse to go do something else.

So, I stepped out the front door of our new cabin. Canma had used her passwords for F4's bank accounts to withdraw a lot of cash, and right now we were living off of that money. To ensure F4 or anyone else had a hard time finding Canma, we got this luxurious cabin in a deserted (but positively gorgeous) section of the Mystic Ruins. Our cabin had a spectacular view of a lush jungle valley below us.

That made it a pain in the ass to get any shopping done though...so we always made sure to buy in bulk whenever we went to a village down in that valley, and stuff most of that in a fridge. This was also where our local post office was. So, anyway, I hopped into our new four-door Wrangler and started down a mountain trail towards the village. It wasn't that far in terms of miles, but these dusty jungle trails were pretty rough, so you had to go slow. Forget trying to get through them in a rainstorm.

So anyway...when I finally got there, I pulled up our jeep near a ramshackle-looking building with an eagle brand on it...symbolizing the postal service. Inside I went, opening up our box. One letter in particular caught my eye. I tore it open and read the message inside.

[Jav]

The letter:


"Hello Nail, you have been summoned. Time is short so lets cut to the chase. In your bank account we have deposited 120,000 rings you will recieve the other 1.2 million when your mission is completed. You are to travel to Never lake to campground 8...be there no later than 7pm the day of your reading this. You will find there the human known as Jav...I believe you have met before if we are not mistaken. You must track him down as he will obviously be ahead of you judging by his driving abilities. You're mission is to protect him at all costs..nothing is to happen to him under any circumstances...we cannot stress that point enough. He is mission critical and a lot of lives are depending on you keeping him alive so to be blunt YOU CANNOT FAIL!

If you need proof check your account but do so quickly as he doesnt know you are coming and as formentioned time is very short."

[Nail Strafer]

My eyes widened. How did the person who wrote this letter know about me running into Jav? I'd only known the guy for all of about two hours or so. I called up my wife on the cell phone. Canma was still pretty leery of technology, but I was starting to wean her onto it. She'd been really impressed with how easy it was to make withdrawals out of F4's bank accounts when you did it online.

"Hello?" she said.

"Canma, it's Nail. Honey, could you go and check our balance in our new account?"

"Uh...sure...just give me a few minutes." I patiently waited, giving her extra time since she was so new to the Internet and whatnot. Finally, she picked the phone back up about fifteen minutes later. "Whoa...someone's added 120k rings to our account."

So...that wasn't a lie after all. "It's a...new client. He's depositing some now, and I'll get the rest after I finish the job."

"Job? What's the mission?"

"I have to go help Jav with something. You know...the human who helped us escape Capitol City?"

A pause. "Right..." She sounded rather tense.

I sighed. "You really have to get over that, Canma. Come on...you said that you were leaving F4 behind."

"I know...but old habits die hard, as they say. I mean...I did that unconsciously there. Didn't realize I was doing it till you mentioned it."

"I would keep working on it. I mean, he did save our lives. I would be dead right now if it weren't for him."

"Yeah, I know. So anyway, what's this have to do with him?"

"My mission is to meet him at Never Lake, and protect him. Why, I do not know. Apparently he's about to do something dangerous and needs my help."

"Are you sure you want to do this? It could be a trap. How on earth did they know you'd met with this Jav person? You were only with him for about two hours or so..."

"Yes, I know. Anyway, I'll be careful. You know I can take care of myself."

"All the same, be careful. I don't want to start our new life with you ending up dead. You've been gone out of our children's lives long enough."

"I couldn't agree more. Anyway, I'll wrap this up as fast as I can, and then I'll treat us to something really nice when I get back."

"Be safe, honey."

I smiled. "I will. Bye."

And I hung up. I really enjoyed having a wife and kids to come home to. Sure, I shared the same building with my brother-in-law and my dad and my sisters, but it wasn't the same as this. Anyway, I quickly rushed home to make preparations.