The Line tower was seven stories tall and the residence of all the important bureaucrats and officials working in Kraunberg. However, calling it a residence was being too generous. It was more of a second workplace to everyone who lived there.

Clerks from the embassy or the officers from the Seat of Authority kept visiting the place with files in hands, papers to sign, decisions to be made off the bureaucratic setting. Hardly anyone living there was a normal civilian coming back to his family after a long day at work. Hardly anyone living there kept their families in the tower. It wasn't a home to anyone. It was just a place to rest before going back to work.

So Line was no stranger to being a busy hive of activity. But that evening, the tower was quite empty.

Griess and Neiman were the steel heads guarding the front entrance of the place during the seven o'clock shift. They had their rifles on their shoulders and their hands hung at their sides.

"It's really boring today, Neiman."

"It is."

"I mean, I've been coming to stand here at this gate for the past month at the same time. Even though it's just standing around with a gun, it has never been this...quiet." Griess looked at the huge empty parking lot he was facing. Just a single sedan stood at a spot. That made the lot look emptier somehow.

"Gotta agree with you on that one."

"Why is it so quiet today?"

"Just rumors, but I heard the Seat is up to something big."

"Like what?"

"I don't know exactly. It's just something really important that is keeping everyone busy. Something related to the war, I hear. That's the reason why this place looks so empty today." Griess swept his hand over the empty parking lot.

Neiman was frowning at the lone car. "That's his car, isn't it?"

Griess nodded. "Yes, it is."

"He is a weirdo."

"He is."

"How many times have you ever seen him leave the building?"

"In the past month? Just five times. I've been keeping count."

"Seems like the least busy guy living at Line."

"Or maybe the most important one. Who knows?" Griess shrugged. "Maybe he has all the people coming to visit him."

"Still a weirdo."

"Agreed."

After a brief pause, Griess said, "How long do you think the war is gonna go on for?"

Before Neiman could answer, bright light exploded into their visions, making them wince and squint. And then the machine gun went off.

The two steel heads only had enough time to dive away from the main entrance, their visions still hazy. The machine gun was still unloading its ammo into the big entrance door, stripping it bare of all its glinting glass.

Griess had to blink several times as he crouched behind a trash can a few feet away.

"What the hell is that thing?!" Neiman shouted over the sound of gunshots.

"Damned if I knew!"

The blinding floodlight still blocked the visibility of the vehicle but after straining long enough to see, they made out the silhouette of a truck and the auto machine gun turret on its roof and the face of the floodlight under its muzzle. But that was about it.

The barrage of gunfire went on for another five minutes. Then the floodlight blinked off. Griess and Neiman got a better glimpse of the truck then.

Black as the night itself, wreathed by the arms of smoke and devoid of all glow and luster. It stood like a beast ready to charge, its engine roaring with a suppressed mechanical rage.

The shutter at the back of the truck rolled up and a man and a girl in kevlar armors hopped out. They carried full-auto assault rifles.

The girl had boyish short hair and an unsettlingly cold look on her face. What stood out on her dark kevlar body armor was something round and white that was suspended from her neck. It looked like a tiny skull.

The man's expression on the other hand was quite smug and he looked like he was walking on a beach rather raiding a high profile government residence in the capital of Ardvenia!

The man spotted the two steel heads peering over the top of the trash can and then he did something preposterous. He waved.

#

"Hi!" Erik called out to the two steel heads watching them. "What are you guys doing back there?"

Cathy groaned. "I can't believe we are really doing this."

"Come on." He nudged the girl playfully. "We are gonna go national tonight. We gotta build an image!"

"Just make it quick so we can go get Atron." Cathy rolled her eyes.

Erik ignored her and called out to the steel heads again. "Listen up, you two! We are from the rebel group Last Hand. You should call for backup. We are gonna burn this place down."

#

Griess and Neiman gawked at the intruders.

"He said he is gonna burn down the place, Griess," Neiman said.

"I heard him, Neiman."

"He is a weirdo."

"Agreed."

They watched the man and the girl walk into the Line tower.

#

Shards of glass crunched under their feet as they stepped into the building. The lobby had a small couch and reception desk but there was no receptionist. They'd probably run off.

Erik and Cathy quietly made their way into the elevator.

"Watcher said Atron lives on the fifth floor."

Cathy nodded and hit the fifth floor button. Slow elevator music jingled on as they ascended. She looked at her reflection in the smooth stainless steel wall and ran a hand through her short hair. "Why did you do it?" she asked.

"Do what?"

"The no helmets approach."

Erik frowned. "I'm trying not to stay in a façade anymore." He touched his kevlar breastplate. It was plain, unadorned. Marllowe's name wasn't stamped on this armor. "What I'm about to do, I want to do it as Erik Koehlwin."

Cathy's expression was still a bit severe. She looked down at Milo's skull hanging by her chain. "Just don't get carried away, Erik. Remember what you told me before we breached the prison?" She leaned close to him. "Use your anger as a weapon. Use it to strike the enemy."

Erik frowned down at the gun in his hand.

"We wouldn't have gotten this far, if it wasn't for you. Don't let your guard down at this pivotal moment."

Erik nodded.

The elevator door opened. While Cathy was stepping out Erik called out to her. She looked at him.

"When we end this war, remind me to tell you something I haven't told you yet."

#

Yann Atron's apartment was the third one on the left side of the corridor. Erik shot the latch and kicked the door open. "You go in get the scientist. I'll work on sparking the flame." He pulled out two bottles of kerosene and got down to business.

Cathy nodded and walked inside. She kept her rifle trained ahead of her. The living room looked lifeless for some reason. A television, a couch, a coffee table, a telephone. The kitchen just had a refrigerator and a microwave. There were pictures or photo frames on the walls. No personal effects.

Artron was in the room that should've been a bedroom but looked more like a makeshift study, lit by just a single lamp and the glow of the moon outside the window. Papers lay scattered all over the floor. A figure was hunched over a desk by the opposite wall, staring at a computer screen, fingers fiercely typing away on the keyboard.

Cathy raised her rifle. "Stop whatever it is you are doing."

The typing never stopped. Cathy rolled her eyes and fired the gun. The computer screen blew up in sparks of electricity. The figure jumped back and remained still in the chair for a moment.

"Get up."

The figure didn't move.

"I said get up!"

The man in the chair scoffed. "All the files that you're here for are already deleted."

"Nice. I'm not here for the files. I'm here to get you."

There was a brief pause. Then the man moved.

In his head, he might've been the most agile person in that room with the swiftest movements and quick reaction time. But to Cathy, he was just sloppy.

She gave him a second to bask in the delusional perfection of whatever escape he had in mind. Then she took her aim and pulled the trigger.

The bullet zapped him in the shin while he was making a run for the window. The man tumbled face first onto the floor lined with papers. Blood spurted out of the gunshot wound in his leg as he screamed in agony.

"I told you to get up on your own." Cathy shrugged. "Well, you did get up but you were headed in the wrong direction."

She cocked her head to look in the direction the man was running in. There was nothing but a floor-to-ceiling window. "Were you planning on committing suicide?" She shrugged again. "Eh, you have plenty of time to explain that and a dozen other things."

She stepped up to him and grabbed his good leg in a death grip and flipped him over. The moonlight shone in his terrified face. Yep, he was Atron alright.

With his leg still in her grip, she started to drag him out of the room. Atron shrieked in a lot more agony as his back scraped the floor and he bled all the way.

Cathy pulled him out of the apartment. Erik had already doused the carpet with kerosene and set it aflame. The window at the end of the hallway was busted open, smoke flew up and out into the dark night. The smoke alarms were going off.

Cathy dragged the scientist into the elevator. She hit the button to the ground floor.

#

It had only been seven minutes since the truck had arrived outside the Line tower. The backup for the steel heads hadn't yet arrived. Cathy hauled Atron's whimpering body into the back of the truck and climbed in herself. Without missing a beat, she grabbed a pelican case next to a box of ammunition on the floor of the truck.

She pulled out a syringe from the pelican case. She stuck the needle into Atron's neck and dosed him with the sedative in its well.

Atron fell asleep.

While Cathy was patching up the man's wounded leg, Lisa called out from the driver's side. "How long is Erik gonna take?"

As if the question had summoned him, Erik appeared at the front entrance and then made his way to the truck. He got into the passenger seat.

"All done?" Lisa said.

"Yep."

They heard blaring of distant sirens. Lisa didn't waste much time in the parking lot. She backed the truck away from Line.

Cathy leaned back against the partition between the cabin and the trailer. She frowned down at Atron's unconscious form on the floor. "Erik?" she called out. "I get a weird feeling about this."

"What do you mean?"

"Things went too smoothly. I feel like something bad is gonna happen next."

"It probably will," Lisa called out. "This was indeed the easiest part."

"Still the crucial part," Erik said. "We have Seat of Authority's Trump card in our deck now. We just have to wait for Luce and his operatives to do their part now."

The easy part, Cathy thought with hesitation as the noise of sirens grew more distant. She caught the last glimpse of the Line tower burning against the starry sky. A smoldering ember in the blackness. And at its top, the flag fluttered with the words blazing in white and red that said: The Last Hand. 

(to be continued...)