Chapter 4

Occulte groaned as they approached the main gates in the small electric car. A contingent of security guards from the base were milling around, all of them glaring daggers at the two of them. Evidently their escape had not gone unnoticed.

"Do you mind letting us through?" One of the guards had stepped in front of the car, blocking the gate.

"Step out of the car." The guard looked at him as if he was a particularly juicy piece of meat.

Occulte stepped out of the car, Diamond following close behind him. The guard that had blocked their way grabbed Occulte's shoulder, shoving him towards the opening entrance. Unfortunately for the guard, Occulte did not like being shoved around. The guard had a half-second to realize his mistake as he saw the nine millimeter exit the folds of the boy's trenchcoat. Two blasts cut through the air, the guard falling. Both of his feet now had rounds buried in them.

The other four guards didn't tolerate this very well. One of them rammed his shock stick into Occulte's backside, sending him sprawling to the ground. The other three came in with their sticks swinging hard into him, utilizing the weapons like nightsticks. He attempted to roll over, to try and fight back, but all it got him was a blow to the gut that caused his breath to explode from him.

Occulte got a temporary reprieve from the abuse as Diamond came in with a side kick to one of the guards. While it may have bought him a few seconds, it did no real good. The guard responded out of wild anger, swinging his shock stick across her face. She dropped to the ground like a bag of cement, her nose obviously broken.

The guard's life had effectively ended then. Occulte rolled away from the guards, grabbing his dropped pistol as he went. When he came up, he let off a single Teflon coated round into the man's skull. He had no time to fire a second as the two uninjured guards came in at the same time, one of their metal sticks colliding with his spine, and one with the back of his head. Lights exploded before Occulte's eyes, the pain forcing him into blissful unconsciousness.

Occulte awoke very slowly. At first, the only sensation he could experience was pain. It was like his brain was doing a self-diagnostic; as consciousness began to return to him he felt only the sharp, drilling ache in the back of his head. Most likely a concussion. He then noticed the shooting pain every time he took a heavily labored breath. Probably a few cracked ribs, and maybe a collapsed lung. The rest of his body was incredibly stiff, and entirely unwilling to move correctly. This was probably best explained by the fact that Occulte could feel he was laying on hard concrete. Judging by the dryness in his mouth, and the stabbing hunger pangs in his gut, he had probably been out for a day or so. He was most definitely not in the best condition of his life.

As Occulte attempted to open his eyes, he found the other reason for his stiffness. He was in one of the sub-basement cells. It was probably about forty degrees, and even colder on the floor he was on. The only light came from a harsh red bulb that burned the eyes to look anywhere near it. The cell he was in was most definitely inescapable- it was made entirely of reinforced concrete, with no windows and only one nearly impossible to open door. It took about eight men tugging at the spokes on the other side of the massive would-be wall to force the thing open. Even if Occulte had been at full strength, he would have stood virtually no chance of opening the door within any reasonable amount of time... and as it was, he wasn't even close to half of his normal strength.

Occulte now knew that his only chance rested with his jailors. If they opened the door for anything- to feed him or to retrieve him- he would have to take his opportunity then. Perhaps he could take a guard hostage and negotiate his way out of the compound. No matter how he did it, he realized that in his condition he would have to have the element of surprise. Keeping that in mind, he jammed his body into the small corner at the beginning of the massive door. He would have to leap out and grab whoever came in first. He desperately hoped that his body would not fail him.

After two hours of standing crunched up in the small corner, Occulte finally sat down, relieving his shaking legs. It was another six hours of the absence of any change before he moved to the center of the room and began meditating. Obviously he was not going to have any energy to do anything if all of his muscles seized up on him because of lack of rest.

Occulte was pretty good about keeping the time in his head, letting him count out twelve hours before he finally fell asleep out of the wave of exhaustion that had swept over him.