The Scarman Enigma

[|Scarecrow|]

Starwood Hotel, Penthouse Village, Floor 77

Robert Merlow looked down into the ruined penthouse apartment below. The shattered remnants of the once luxurious set of rooms were still gently smoking, recoiling from the heat of the explosion that had torn them down. The floor to the lower level of the apartment was almost completely gone. Only a slight ledge on the far side of what had once been the kitchen remained in place. A small fire had broken out amongst the surviving cabinets and was slowly making its way through the woodwork. The staircase down from the mezzanine had partially collapsed, the lower half of it crumbling and falling into the seventy-fifth floor. The loose shape of its remnants was still visible, strewn amongst the other wreckage.
Mines, Merlow thought to himself as he surveyed the damage, the Black Flag had drilled mines into the plascrete at key points.
Brutal, and very effective. Other areas of the building had also been mined, but not in as discreet a fashion as this. This was possibly the work of the earliest hijackers to take control of the building, Merlow pondered. Those who’d had the time to properly lay out a trap and effectively conceal it from anyone who might walk into it. In this case, the anyone had been Scarman and Serov, even though they were all on high alert. Merlow shook his head. They should have known better. Merlow had seen the trigger points of the explosion occur nanoseconds before the floor below had been engulfed in flame. Six little puffs of dust, punching up from the apartment floor.
Not fast enough for a reaction. He narrowed his eyes as he watched Scarecrow pull his close friend Thomas Serov from the dust and debris. Miraculously, the pair of them seemed to be unscathed.

“We’re okay,” Serov called, still wiping detritus from his dusty face.
“Douglas and Kieslowski were with you,” Merlow replied, “Can you see them?”
“Shit,” Thomas turned away, scanning the rubble around him, “Marcus, you hear that?”
But Scarecrow didn’t respond. He had started to slowly walk away from Serov, his attention fixed on something else down on the seventy-fifth floor.
“Victoria!” He suddenly yelled, breaking into a run, instantly disappearing from view.
“Marcus, wait!” Serov called after him, taking a couple of steps away from the ruins. He too disappeared, and Merlow heard him curse again before the sound of footsteps suggested the two of them had fled the scene.

Merlow began to mentally calculate the possible routes down from the mezzanine. His eyes rapidly scanned the remains of the walls, looking for small ledges and handholds. The damage was severe, and most of the pitted surfaces down through what was now two stories of open wall were sheer and offered no fixed points for climbing.
“We following them down there?” Standing next to him, Admiral Wilder sounded a little incredulous.
Merlow did not return his gaze, “Take the rest of the unit down through the stairwell- Sweep it all, clean and clear.”
“Merlow-” Wilder made to continue, but Robert cut him off.
“That’s an order Admiral,” He turned to the younger man. Jayce Wilder had come to the Freedom Fighters accidentally, from another parallel dimension. He was an asset to their severely depleted unit, but sometimes, Merlow thought the man forgot where he was. And who he was with.
“The building still isn’t clear,” Merlow continued, “This is our mess, and we need to clean it up. I’ll follow Tom and Marcus. You take the rest of the penthouses.”
Merlow could see that Jayce was unimpressed. He clearly didn’t want to be sidelined from the main action. Still, the work had to be done, and Merlow was running out of assets on the ground.
“Yes sir,” Wilder nodded, giving the Fleet Admiral a brief salute. He then turned and began issuing instructions to the remaining 1st Fleet Marines.

Merlow returned his attention to the artificial cavern before him. The roughened walls where the tiles had dropped away were flat slabs, with nothing but remnant plaster to uneven the surface. However, with some momentum and the right angle of approach, Merlow was confident he could make a descent. He took a couple of steps backward, and then vaulted over the edge of the mezzanine, his trench coat fluttering behind him as he swooped over the banister. As Wilder and the others retreated out of the apartment, Jayce turned and watched Merlow disappear over the ledge. He then checked the ammo-count in his SCAR before turning his attention back to the central corridor. Robert only dropped about a metre before he met the remains of the stairwell. He twisted himself in midair, aligning himself with the staircase, and pressed forward as soon as his heavy combat boots hit the plascrete. Two, three, four steps, and he was flying again, over the ruined lip of the staircase, at an angle to the length of the open apartment floor below. He pitched his legs forward, aiming for the wall. His boots connected with an intact portion of plaster, cracking the delicate material on impact. Merlow bent his knees to absorb the energy of his landing. He then flung himself back out into the centre of the open space, this time arcing gracefully through the air. He completed a full two-hundred-and-seventy degrees before he met the far side wall, coiling his body once again to absorb the energy. The final drop to the ground was relatively straightforward. He flipped over the remains of the apartment debris and landed on the tiled flooring of the landing platform terminal level, bowing low as he compressed his body for the final absorption. His display of acrobatics had lasted less than six seconds.

Merlow quickly turned his attention to the pile of rubble. Slowly but surely, he found and produced the bodies of Captains Douglas and Kieslowski. Douglas was completely unconscious, suffering from a grim-looking head injury. Kieslowski, however, was groggy but awake.
Merlow dusted him down and tapped him on the cheeks a couple of times, “Captain Kieslowski, can you hear me?”
“Ugh-” Kieslowski blinked in confusion, “F-fleet Admiral?”
“You’re alright soldier,” Merlow spoke as he looked up and around, making a tactical assessment of the situation. “Take a minute.”
“I- my-” Kieslowski pushed his head into his hands, massaging his temples, “My head feels like shit-”
“You took a big hit Captain,” Merlow returned his attention to the wounded soldier, “But I need you to get it together. Douglas is down, needs a med-evac. Do you have your weapon?”
Kieslowski reached down into the dirt and produced the butt-end of his SCAR. It was coated in dust, but it seemed intact.
“Hold this position Captain,” Merlow continued. “Keep Douglas safe until we can get her out of here.”
“Yes, Fleet Admiral,” Kieslowski had now come around a little. Despite the daze, he too had started to make a tactical assessment of his surroundings. “Will hold this position.”
“Good man,” Merlow stood up and patted himself down. He then turned his attention to the terminal around him. He quickly spotted Scarman and Serov, under fire from a group of pirates toward the central hub. He then spotted the skirmish beyond. Tyrant Scarman was unmistakable, as were Victoria Wade and Kurt Manning. Merlow looked just in time to see the Tyrant sink his knife into Manning’s throat.

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| S C A R E C R O W |

"See you space cowboy..."