ethicalGamer - An old story I wrote

This is a story I wrote somewhere in my high school years. Although not A+ material, it did get me a passing grade. Tell me what I can improve on, so that I can work on it in future stories, if any.

Note: Any actual names used in this story is purely coincidental.

Hostage situation

The day was cloudy, the snow fell hard and unrelenting, and much of the downtown metropolis was covered in snow. A hostage situation was happening in a five-star hotel, and the terrorists, a team of dishonorably discharged Marines, were the culprits, and their demands were close to unreasonable. Many police cars barricaded the streets and illuminated the seemingly dark road with red and blue lights. The police chief, an aging, Hispanic female, was communicating with the terrorists via walkie-talkies about changing the demands so they would be a lot easier to follow without anyone getting hurt due to misinterpretation. The chief sets her walkie-talkie on...

"This is Police Chief Jennifer Hernandez. Although we find your demands unreasonable, we will see what we can do, provided you release the women who are showing any physical signs of pregnancy." She patiently waits a minute for a response, and gets one that same amount of time later. In a deep, masculine voice: "This is Locust. We are discussing your proposal at this moment, but we cannot give you a response until we have made our decision. Over." The news has gotten the chief's new baboon heart thumping in her chest. She didn't dare say another word to the terrorists, and had decided to have two SWAT teams enter the rear and side entrances of the hotel building, hoping they will be stealthy enough not to alert any of the Marines. Those men knew how breaching a door works, and knew exactly where to shoot should the door they're behind is breached. The SWAT are fully expected, and will die, despite the rigorous training they have undergone.

In the hotel room with several windows facing the main street, the masked terrorists, dressed in urban camoflage, armed with the latest of military infantry technologies and weaponry, had three families of four on the ground, laying down in the presidential suite. The men were using sign language to communicate so no voices could be recognized by any hostages. One of the men nodded, and proceeded to pick up a young blond female by her short hair and noticed a bulge in her shirt, and after a short inspection, she was indeed pregnant. Two other older women were picked up and inspected, and they checked out to be pregnant. The terrorists were indeed going to let the women walk free, but they had to leave the men behind. Two of the women rushed back to their husbands and hugged them, while the men were telling them to go on outside, where it's reasonably safe. After several moments of I love you's and sad memories, the women walked out of the hotel room. The blond woman, the last to leave the room, closed the door and took a look at the room number, the number she will hate the rest of her life: 1437.

Chief Hernandez is getting cold and sick from the numbing cold, but she knows she has to stay until the situation got better. Looking around to make sure no one sees her, Hernandez grabs her cellular phone from her dashboard and makes a very important call to her niece, who happens to be an assassin for hire with some immunity from the law, as long as her killings are purely professional and leaves a special mark for the police to easily find and identify. In the assassin's case, it is a calling card in the mouth of her victims. "Come on Melody, pick up...." she whispers. Nearly 30 seconds pass before the the receiving end is picked up. "Melody's Molecular Mishaps, Melody speaking" she says cheerfully. The chief looks around for anyone watching her, and begins her whispering. "Where are you? I need you now." "Well Jen, I'm in the hotel you're looking at right now. I'm just getting dressed and ready to kill my target a couple of rooms down the hall. Ooh, can you see me form down there?"

Melody, the palest, skinniest redhead woman anyone has ever laid eyes on, was looking at Chief Hernandez through binoculars. "Yes, but can you wave an arm to confirm what I'm seeing is you?" asked Hernandez. Melody waves her right arm for a few seconds, enough time to be spotted. "Yes, I can see you. since you're in that hotel, you're basically our only hope in freeing the hostages." Melody is wondering how she is going to find the exact room the terrorists and hostages are with no information to work with. She responds: "I don't have a room number to go by, and neither do the SWAT teams you sent into the building. This is a big hotel building, and I'm pretty sure they will make a ton of noise opening just about every door. Until I get something to work with, I'm sticking to my original target." *beep* Melody throws her phone on the bed, zips up her red tightsuit and heads to her target's room. Two doors later, she stops and puts her ear to the door. She hears swords clashing, and assumes the man behind the door is watching a movie. The door requires a key card, but there's always an alternative way to do this, Melody thought. She rummages through her short, red hair and finds a paper clip. She bends the clip into an L-shape and inserts the clip into the card slot. The red light on the card lock turns green and the door unlocks. Slowly, she peeks in the crack of the door and spots a balding man on ta white leather couch, laughing at cartoons. Melody slithers in without a sound and crouch walks to the kitchen, using the white cabinets in front of her as cover.

SWAT team Alpha (the ones who went through the side entrance) were scouring the second floor and quietly evacuating the people from their rooms, hoping no one would do anything that would attract too much attention. The men have to stay quiet and be on the lookout for any surprises. Squad leader James (a short man with black ski and gas masks on) turns on his walkie-talkie and speaks: "This is Alpha Team. We are discreetly evacuating the civilians on the second floor. They will be massing in the lobby, so I request that no one gets in or out of here until our job is done. Over."
"Chief Hernandez here. I have a visual on the people in the lobby. The message is spread, so no one in the building will be shot. Over."
"All right men. We will not be doing any more evacuations. We don't know what's going on or what room to go to, so we're be in the dark for now." The team continues to walk down the dim hall until they reach elevator doors. A man in the back hears humming through the elevator and asks everyone to stop and listen to the elevator make its descent. The humming stops a few seconds later, the doors open up, and guns are immediately drawn. One bloody, pregnant, blond-haired woman stood in front of the door, holding a knife, while watching the other two women twitch on the ground in agony. The bloodied woman on her left is gurgling on her blood and will die in a moment, and the other one is dead and twitching. "Are you here for the hostages" she asked softly. The woman's lips, swollen and red from the beating she received, had managed to crack a smile. "Before you kill me, I want to tell you something. *sigh* The room you want is number 1437. The room is the presidential suite, at the top floor before the roof. There are ten guys, each of them is positioned in an area favorable to them. Lastly, I'm pregnant." Her brown eyes squint evilly, then she clutches the knife tightly and charges at the men, barely able to get in a few steps before being blown back and riddled with bullets. All of the men are surprised at what the woman has done, and James (Alpha Team leader) is checking the body he had helped kill for any identification. He finds a passport in her black suede purse. "The coroner will identify the other two. This one's ours. Her name is Tori Cho, a Vietnamese immigrant. She is, or was, a legal U.S. citizen. Let's assume that insanity has taken over her completely. Move out."

Locust, a bald, dark skinned African-American male, is looking out the window from a closed balcony door. He's watching the police officers put out blueprints of the hotel building on a police car, and other officers of high rank look at them on the hood of a squad car. He shuts the curtains and turns on his walkie-talkie: This is Locust. We have discussed what you have said earlier, and we have released the pregnant women. Expect them on the outside any minute." He hears a sigh of relief from the other end. "But just so you know Hernandez, I've been watching your comrades look at blueprints. Those happen to be of this building, am I correct?"
"Yes. I won't lie to you."
"You're making a big mistake. Anyone you send to us doesn't stand a chance, and the hostages will be dead after we've dispatched of everyone who comes in here. Over and out." He talks to the men nearest him: "Charles, Green, tell the rest of the guys they're free to talk. No point in sign language at this time." They responded with a "Yes sir" and moved to the other rooms to spread the message.

Hernandez, now out of her squad car and next to the owner of the hotel and blueprints, which is an old, heavily liver spotted man with many patches in his white hair. Beside them is Lieutenant Cletus Kane, a recently promoted man in his late 30's. Unhealthily tanned and long hair and muscles to match, he's known around the city as an an Adonis, but he's not favored in the police station due to lack of real brains. The trio looks at the blueprints, with the owner of the hotel guiding Bravo Team through the more complicated kitchen area. A male rookie cop runs over to the trio with a message "Chief! Turn your radio to Alpha Team's frequency. We just got word from them!"
"No time, give me your radio." she asks. The man hands his radio over to her and he goes off to do his own thing. "This is the chief. What news do you have for me? Over."
"We just encountered mild resistance and eliminated it. It was a pregnant Vietnamese woman, armed with a knife and we had no time to subdue her. Over." Hernandez is now shaking from multiple feelings at once, but she manages to keep calm and asks: "Any others? I must know."
"Yes. Two women, one to be in her late teens, the other looks to be in her late 20s. Both confirmed pregnant. But wait. We just got a numbered room to look for; it's 1437. There is ten men in the room, and they're in the presidential suite. We need to know if the information that was given to me is valid. Over." The hotel owner, overhearing the brief conversation, tells her that what the Alpha Squad leader said was indeed correct. He tells Hernandez about the staircases and has her relay the information to the squad. Then he relays the information he was given from Alpha Squad to Bravo, and asks both the lieutenant and the chief to see the possibility of the squads meeting up.

Melody takes a peek from the cabinet, noticing that her target is indeed guarded and not paying attention. She pulls the silver .357 Magnum from her holster and takes aim at the hulking bodyguard in a hockey mask and black suit. A cell phone rings, and it's in front of Melody. The bodyguard sharply turns his head to look at the phone and spots Melody put her head down. "Intruder! Get down!" The bodyguard opposite Melody's target forces the man down the other guard draws his pistol and fires in her general area. Melody pulls out a stun grenade, pulls the pin and throws it in the enemy's area. An explosion goes off, and she quickly runs out of cover to engage her target. Firing a single shot, the guy who spotted her is dead. The second man is shooting at her from behind the couch. He dives for cover behind a mini-bar and removes the combat shotgun from his back side. He inserts seven shells, gets up , and begins to fire at Melody, who has by now already eliminated another bodyguard. She sees the shotgun and ducks down to the couch. A big bang goes off, and a hole is made in the couch from the shotgun blast. Another blast goes off, and a hole is made in the couch, closer to Melody's head. She puts the barrel of her gun in the hole and fires away at the mini-bar, destroying two of its legs and making it fall over. Most of the full bottles of wine break on impact of the ground, and the few that didn't break were thrown by the bodyguard. Melody has one bullet in her gun chamber, so she takes aim at the guard's knee and fires, making him fall in agony. She gets up and hops over the couch to discover that the man she was supposed to kill has escaped. I hate reloading, she says to herself as the the man she shot is slowly crawling to a nearby pistol that is slightly out of reach. Melody puts in four bullets, closes the chamber and takes aim at the crawling man's elbow, waiting for him to lay a finger on the gun he's reaching for. A moment later, he touches it, and immediately has his elbow shot. Two more shots destroys the other elbow and other good knee, rendering him immobile. "Kill me!" the body repeatedly pleads, but the assassin tunes him out as she reloads her gun fully. She leaves the hotel room and closes the door behind her, ignoring the screams. Frustrated, Melody returns to her hotel room to hear her phone ringing. She answers it only to hear a desperate chief Hernandez: "Oh my god, it took you forever to pick up! Where were you?!" "I just finished with my typical business, though my target escaped." Melody replies.
"Well, I have a task for you. Free those hostages I told you about earlier. They're in the presidential suite, room 1437. I have two SWAT Teams heading there--
"Wait a sec. Why'd you have them go after the terrorists? That's what they're expecting... *sigh* I'm on my own on this one again, and you owe me big time when I get out of this."

Alpha Squad, moving up the dim staircase slowly, had recently had the green light to go to room 1437 and eliminate all threats in it. Bravo Squad is closing in on the presidential suite and silently stacks up at the mahagony double doors. The demolitions expert places a breaching charge near the doorknob and a satchel charge on one of the hinges, and moves to his original position, and they wait patiently for Alpha Squad to arrive. In a matter of minutes, Alpha Squad arrives at the double doors and stacks up on the opposite side of Bravo. Two teams of six, on opposite sides, wait for the best possible moment to destroy the charges; several agonizing moments pass by, and the Bravo Squad leader signals the charges to be blown. The demolitions expert detonates the charges, and the doors are blown off their hinges. Two by two, the SWAT officers rush in the room, killing the first two terrorists on sight. Bravo and Alpha split up and go opposite each other to scour the presidential suite. Bravo heads to the bathroom door, but were interrupted by a screaming child and a gunshot. They turn to Alpha to help out since they found out the hostages were in the bedroom. The bathroom door opens when Bravo's backs are turned, and Locust, armed with an M107 .50 cal sniper rifle, takes aim and fires at the SWAT, ripping apart several people at a time with single shots. He kills half of each team before he is shot to death. Bravo rushes to the bathroom to clear out anyone in there; another terrorist waits in the cabinets below the bathroom sink, with his hand on a detonator. He hears footsteps coming his way into the bathroom, waiting until he hears the word "Clear!" to make his move. A minute goes by and he hears his signal. He presses the glowing red button and feels a big vibration as the C4 charges he left disguised around the bathroom blow up, destroying it completely as well as the rest of Bravo Squad, but at the cost of his own life. Six terrorists remaining, and waiting in the large bedroom for Alpha Squad to burst in the room. Impatiently, they shoot the walls and the door exiting the bedroom, taking Alpha Squad completely by surprise. With no way of getting in the room without dying, they retreat and run to the halls outside of the suite, but the terrorist responsible for demolitions was outside, and he wasn't near the commotion at the time. He plants a satchel charge and goes prone. He sees the shadows come his way, he detonates the charge, and Alpha Squad unknowingly runs into the explosion, killing all of them instantly.

Much of the building rumbles from the explosions, and onlookers and police officers alike were terrified of the aftermath. All the glass on the top floor was shattered, and everyone can see what's going on now. A terrorist throws a disemboweled SWAT officer from the balcony to tell all who watched who won the battle. An angry police officer opens fire on the terrorist, missing every shot she made, and several others joined in. Chief Hernandez is trying to yell at everyone to stop shooting, but she couldn't be heard because of the gunfire. The terrorist walks in the room and out of sight, then everyone stops shooting. Many people are enduring multiple emotions at once, and barely any can keep themselves from crying, the chief included. She had lost contact with Melody and fears she is the only hope of freeing whatever surviving hostages there are left. No one can do anything but wait and see what else happens. "Where are the snipers?" she asked Lieutenant Kane. "They're on vacation; I think they're in Mexico" he calmly replies. The overwhelming stress from that reply made Hernandez faint.

She's opening her suitcase full of guns, removes and loads an MP5 and puts a silencer on its tip, then quickly puts a red dot sight on top. Melody then straps three full clips of ammo along with several kinds of grenades, and begins to rush to room 1437. She always found herself to be the classy type, so she takes the elevator route to the top. Anyone with ears would hear the elevator coming, so she breaks part of the roofing off and hops on top of ot, then placing part of it back to conceal herself, and tosses a smoke grenade through the crack. In seconds, the cramped area is gray with choking smoke, and the elevator comes to a stop; the doors open, and gunfire blasts into the cramped space. Melody gets a hold of a fragmentation grenade and pulls the pin, cooking it for a couple of seconds before releasing it down. It explodes, and it destroys the man shooting at the smoking elevator. Melody slips into the elevator and rolls into the partially wrecked top floor. She can feel a cold breeze coming in form the outside, but doesn't care. She chambers a bullet in her MP5 and heads for the presidential suite. Melody can still smell the smoke from the explosions that happened less than five minutes ago, and can see where a satchel charge was blown at. She knew that the open door was being watched, and she had to come up with a plan to lure someone out; a simple thought came to mind. She would lie on her back and scream to the top of her lungs until someone came out and she would then shoot. She waits for someone to say something before she gets on her back. A short time later, she hears a voice, and the plan is executed. A man, armed with a combat shotgun, rushes out to investigate the sound, but was immediately shot by Melody on sight. The killing has alarmed someone watching form inside the room, and Melody immediately gets herself and removes a flash-bang grenade from her belt and tosses it into the open double doors. After the bang goes off, she rushes in the room and shoots two terrorists, killing them both quickly. One of them screamed before he died, and the bedroom door opened up and out came two more terrorists, both rushing out of the door firing at Melody. She dives into the prone position and rolls around on the floor, pulling out her .357 Magnum and firing at the men. A single bullet grazes her cheek, but the unfortunate men were shot in the genitalia and were screaming in such pain Melody has never heard of before. She crawls back up and quickly executes the downed men, then picking up her MP5 and continuing into the open door. One of the last remaining terrorists appears in the doorway with an AT4 rocket launcher, firing it at Melody on sight. She jumps and kicks the rocket so hard, it deflected back at the man launching it and it it blew up, disintegrating him and the door he was blocking.

When the smoke cleared Melody entered the room. There they were, the remaining hostages, consisted of two men, two young boys and girls, and an elderly woman sitting in a corner next to the big screen TV by an open window. The room was dimly lit, and everyone was scared when they saw Melody enter. Much of the ash and gunpowder residue she encountered on the floor blackened every part of exposed skin, which was the hands, face, and her red hair. She stared at them all with a grim expression on her face, then decides to cheer up and laugh a bit, brightening the mood of everyone a bit. Exhausted, Melody sits on the king-sized bed, picks up the remote and turns on the television, with the news station on, taping live coverage of the situation at hand. "Hey guys, do you mind if the kids watched some cartoons? They look like they could use a bit of a laugh. And by the expressions on your faces, you adults can do well with one too." She turns from the news station to a cartoon channel, which was showing a classic TV show. Melody turns her head to the former hostages to notice they are all awe-struck from her cheery mood. "Are you guys gonna just sit there, or are you gonna laugh with me, or even get out of this place?" The whole family gets up and makes a run for it while she sticks around and laughs at her once-favorite cartoon.

The main lobby doors open and everyone remaining in the hotel, fled the building going their separate ways. The last people to exit were the hostages, who were walking out of the main lobby, surrounded by medical personnel, police offiicers, and reporters who are curious as to what happened from their perspective. Coroners went into the hotel to locate and identify the dead people that were still lying in the building. Melody waited several minutes before she came out of the building, her own way, which was jumping off the balcony and falling twenty stories before landing on top of a squad car and destroying the roof completely. She crawls out of the wreckage and wipes the coffee from her face, while everyone focuses on her walking to Chief Hernandez as if nothing was wrong. "Lieutenant Kane! Is she gonna be all right?" she asked. He was stunned by the way she recovered from her fall with no scrapes or cuts, and having the audacity to even ask such of thing. Out of fear, he replies: "Yes. She only fainted."
"I'm just wondering, what were the demands of those terrorists?"
"$100 million and plane tickets to Peru."
"Tell the chief she owes me big time for my task. I'll tell her my demands when she wakes up." Melody grabs a handful of snow off a nearby squad car and cleans her hands, face, and hair, and walks off into the foggy afternoon.

End

Search

Recent