The Only Hope for Me Is You

I followed Gerard into the building, my anger reflecting his as I kept stride. Ray followed closely behind, adjusting his gloves as he walked. After entering the building, Gerard quickly turned around to shoot out the security camera above the door before putting his mask on his face.

“Ray, I want you to go disable every fucking camera you can find,” he said, looking at Ray as he spoke. Ray nodded. “If you have to, find the control center for them all, and disable them from there. It’s probably easier that way, but heavily guarded, so be careful.”

“Got it,” Ray said, nodding before turning to walk the other direction.

“And try to find Korse if you can,” Gerard added, making Ray turn back around. “I’ve got some unfinished business with him…”he added, trailing off. Ray nodded again, and turned back around to walk down the opposing hallway, his gun in his hand as he walked. Gerard turned to me, and moved my bands out of my face with his gloved hand.

“You ready, sweetheart?” he asked me, his voice calm now. I nodded, putting my bandana over my face and taking my gun out of its holster.

“Ready as ever, babe,” I replied, winking. “Let’s go kick some ass and take some names.” I saw him slightly smirk before he grabbed his walkie from his pocket.

“Frank, are you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Sup?”

“How’s Mikey doing?”

“He’s…well, he’s breathing, let’s just say that.”

“Fuck…well are you able to come swing by here with the car to pick us up after this is all over?”

“You bet, Dr. D and Show Pony are here too, so it’ll be fine if I leave for a bit.”

“Okay good, because we are taking this place down from the inside, and if we have no way of escape, we’re fucked.”

“Gotcha, I’ll be there in an hour.”

“See you then.” Gerard put the walkie back in his pocket, and walked over to me, a smile on his face as he took my hand, and started running down the hallway, pulling me with him.

“Where do you think they’d be keeping her?” I asked him as we ran, our footsteps echoing in the empty hallway.

“At this point, I have no idea, but we have no time to sit and figure it out,” he replied. “We just gotta keep guessing until we get it right….we have an hour.”

“Should we split up—“

“Cy, we already made Ray go by himself, I’d never make you go—SHIT!” he cried, making is slam to a halt, skidding on the floor as we tried to stop. What we saw in front of us was beyond bad; there was a massive hoard of Dracs in front of us, probably about two hundred in number. He forcefully pulled me backwards so we were both back around the corner of the hallway, breathing heavily as we stood against the wall.

“Gerard…what do we do…?” I panted, checking my gun’s level to see if I had full ammo. He shook his head, biting his lip as he did so.

“Fucking hell…I have no idea. Two versus two hundred…this is like something outta Empire Strikes Back…” I laughed.

“Gee, you never cease to crack me up…we’re about to die and you’re making Star Wars references.”

“Trying to lighten the mood, babe,” he replied, grinning. “Whelp, let’s get this over with…” he started to walk forward again, but I grabbed him by the shoulder, making him stop in his tracks and turn around to face me again.

“Gerard…” I started. “I-If we die today…I just want to say—“

“Cy, we aren’t going to die,” he said, wrapping his arms around me, his chin on top of my head. “I promise.”

“I trust you,” I responded, smiling. He lifted my chin with his thumb to kiss me, but his radio went off, interrupting the moment.

“Gerard, man, where are you?” Frank’s voice came from the walkie. Gerard pulled his head back, confused, and unwrapped his arms from being around me, taking out the walkie.

“Frank, what—“

“I couldn’t wait…I was actually on the way here when you radioed before…I’m in the lobby now.”

“Frank, you fucking crazy person,” Gerard replied, smiling. “We’re around the hospital wing, about to face like a bajillion Dracs.”

“Oh, wait for me, I’ll be there in a minute!” Frank said excitedly, his footsteps audible in the walkie.

“Hurry man, I think they know we’re here….” Gerard said, peeking around the corner. “Just…hurry.”

“Got it,” Frank replied, then the walkie clicked off.

“Well, now it’s three against an army,” I said. “better odds.”

“Aren’t you the optimist?” Gerard replied, reaching over, pulling my bandana off of my mouth and snuck in that kiss that Frank had interrupted not too long ago. I giggled, and kissed him back, throwing my arms up behind his neck and pulled him closer to me so my forehead was pressed against his.

“It’s hard to kiss you with your mask on,” I laughed. He chuckled as well, continuing to kiss me tenderly, his hands on my waist, pulling my hips into his. It was just about to get more intense until Frank appeared out of fucking nowhere again, knocking on the wall of the hallway.

“Oh…I can come back…” he said, grinning. Gerard pulled his lips from mine, his hands still on my waist, and shook his head, biting his lower lip.

“You are the biggest fucking cockblock I have ever known, man,” Gerard said. Frank just shrugged, and walked over to us, still grinning.

“You said there was two hundred or something like that right?” he said, looking around the corner.

“Yeah, there’s no way we can kill them all,” Gerard said, letting go of me and joining Frank, looking around the corner as well.

“Well, thank god I’m here,” Frank replied, taking a small, round metallic device out of his vest pocket.

“Frank, what is that?” I asked, walking over and taking it out of his hands to examine it. It was black, with yellow stripes, with a bee logo on the top of it, the same one that was on Frank’s vest.

“Specialty bomb,” Frank explained, taking out a cigarette and lighting it, talking with it in his mouth. “I’ve been working on that ever since we disabled that bomb they put on the shack.”

“I thought we used all the parts from that though,” Gerard said, examining the bomb as well.

“Nope, I hoarded all the good parts of that and made this beauty,” Frank said proudly, blowing a stream of smoke from his mouth. “This thing…I doubled the firepower in it so it can take down this entire place in like ten seconds.”

“Shit, really?” Gerard asked, surprised.

“According to my calculations, yes,” Frank said. “I suck at math and am probably way off from the actual number, but it’s still a huge number, no doubt.”

“Gerard are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked him, seeing how his eyes were narrowed, lost in thought.

“If you’re thinking that we can use this to blow the shit out of the Dracs.”

“I knew it,” I said, grinning. “Frank?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“Go blow shit up.”

“Fuck yes!” He exclaimed. “Be back in a few,” he added, winking, cigarette still in his mouth. “Hang tight, you two.”

“Be careful, okay?” Gerard said. Frank nodded, and began running, around the corner, and down the hall towards the Dracs.

“He’s a crazy motherfucker, isn’t he?” I said, chuckling. Gerard just nodded.

“HEY YOU MOTHERFUCKERS! I GOT SOMETHING FOR YA!” We heard Frank yell. Immediately, we walked around the corner to see Frank standing in front of the Dracs, holding up the bomb in one hand, his cigarette in the other. “SAY YOUR PRAYERS, FUCKHEADS!” he added, lighting the bomb with his cigarette and threw it over the crowd of Dracs, with such perfect aim that it got stuck between two of the metal bars on the ceiling, unable to be reached and disarmed. Frank turned around quickly, smirking as he ran towards us.

“HIT THE DECK!” he yelled as he ran past us. I felt Gerard tug my arm as he started running with Frank. We ran about twenty meters down the hallway and dove into one of the hospital rooms, the door sliding shut behind us. Immediately, Frank scrambled to his feet to look out the window of the door, exclaiming in delight as a giant wave of fire rushed past the window with a roar.

“DID YOU SEE THAT!” he cried, turning around to face us, his face brimming with pleasure. Gerard slowly got up to his feet and brushed off his pants, frowning.

“I thought you said it’d bring the whole place down,” he said.

“Hey, I said I sucked at math, remember?” Frank said, shrugging. “Main point is those Dracs are wiped out, and we can go get Lauren.

“Oh my fuck, thank god the place didn’t get blown up!” I cried, standing up quickly. “We would’ve killed her! And Ray!”

“Oh, well I didn’t think that one through…” Gerard replied, sounding relieved. “Oh my god.”

“Whatever, let’s just go save Lauren and kill that Exploder son of a bitch,” Frank said, pressing the door to open it again. I nodded, looking up at Gerard and smiling, taking his hand in mine as we followed Frank through the door and down the hall, now charred black from the flames.

“Shit, Frank, what’d you put in that think?” I said, looking at the burning wreckage.

“My little secret,” he chuckled, winking. “The main point is the Dracs are gone, and we still have all our ammo.”

“But where’s Lauren?” Gerard asked aloud.

“She’s gotta be around here some—“ I started, but stopped when I looked across the room, and saw a Drac was still alive, struggling to drag himself across the floor to a nearby laser gun. I dropped Gerard’s hand from mind and briskly walked over to the Drac, kicking the white gun from out in front of him and straddled his back, taking out my gun, and poining it at the back of his head.

“Where’s Lauren?” I demanded.

“Heh…heh..heheheHAHAHA!” The Drac cackled. I cocked my gun, making him immediately become silent.

“I’ll ask ONE more time…where the FUCK are you keeping Lauren?”

“She’s…She’s…with Exploder…” he choked out.

“No shit!” I replied, pressing my gun harder into the back of his head. “Where are they?”

“In a hospital room…hidden…no one can get in without the password…”

“Well you better fucking give me this location and password.”

“Three stars to the right…it’s three stars to the right…and the hint to the password is…who watches the….uuuuuuuuuuuugggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

“FUCK!” I cried, slamming the Drac’s head to the ground. “Some fucking help that was!” I kicked a fallen piece of the rafters across the floor, hearing the metal screech against the linoleum floor. “GOD DAMN IT!”

“Cy, calm down…” I heard Gerard say.

“NO! I CAN NOT CALM DOWN!” I cried. “THAT WAS OUR ONE HOPE TO FIND HER, AND I GOT JACK SHIT!”

“Wait, Cy, before you go on a rampage, I remember seeing some doors marked with strange symbols in a hallway I passed by…”

“No shit, really?” Gerard said, slapping him on the back. “No time to waste…Frank, lead the way. Cy, come on!” I nodded, running to catch up with them, following Frank back down the hallway until he skidded to a stop.

“RAY!” he yelled, giving Ray a tight hug before letting go.

“Hey, I saw that bomb go off on the cameras,” he said, slapping Frank on the back. “Nice work, bro!”

“Aw, thanks, man!” Frank replied, grinning still.

“Ray thank god, we didn’t hear from you, we thought you were—“ Gerard started.

“Yeah, sorry about that, a Drac shot my walkie out of my hand before I could tell you I turned off all the cameras.”

“Thank god you’re okay though, Ray,” I said, running over to hug him.

“Same to you guys,” he replied. “Do you have any ideas where Lauren may be? I looked everywhere…”

“A Drac said something about three starts to the right for a location, and gave us part of the password before he died,” I explained. “Frank knows the location, we just gotta figure out the password.”

“Well, lead the way, Frank,” Ray said. Frank nodded, and the three of us ran behind him, through all labyrinth of hallways until we came across a hallway with doors marked with stars and other random shapes.

“So the Drac said three stars to the right…” Gerard said, slowly walking down the hallway, observing the doors as he passed them. “They alternate between shapes but there is a pattern…”

“So would it be the third star in the pattern?” Ray asked.

“You’d think so, but that’s too simple,” Gerard responded from halfway down the hall.

“It’s Dracs we’re talking about, remember?” Frank pitched in. “Not the brightest things in the world.”

“True, true…” Gerard said, counting the stars on the doors as he walked down the hall. “You see, now this is the third door with a star on it, but it doesn’t even look like a door.”

“What?” I said, briskly walking over to him. He was right, it didn’t look like a door at all. It looked like a giant hologram, a white panel with nothing but the BL/ind logo on it. To the right, there were four buttons, each with a different picture on them.

“What was that password hint again?” Gerard asked me.

“He said it was ‘who watches the-‘ then he died…” I said.

“Why does that sound so familiar?” Gerard asked aloud, looking at the four buttons on the panel.

“Frank! Ray!” I called out, still staring at the panel on the wall. “Get over here!”

“What?” Frank asked me as he came up right next to me.

“Who watches the blank was the clue,” I told him. “Does that sound familiar to you? At all?”

“To be honest, it sounds like it’s from a comic, but I can’t remember which one,” Frank said. “And that button right there has to do with it too.” He pointed at the yellow button, which was a smiley face with blood dripping from it.

“Shit, you’re right…” Gerard said, looking at it.

“Would Mikey know?” Ray suggested. “He is the comic book genius after all, along with Gerard.”

“Hold on, lemme ask him,” Frank said, taking out his walkie. “Dr. D, hey, it’s Frank…how’s Mikey doing?”

“He’s up and walking around now, which is good,” Dr. D replied. Gerard let out a loud sigh of relief, and so did I. Mikey was okay…that’s one less thing to worry about.

“That’s good…can we talk to him? We have a question for him that’s a matter of life and death.”

“Yeah, here,” Dr D said, followed by a crunching and crackling sound, followed by Mikey’s soft and gentle voice.

“Yo.”

“Mikey! How’s it going, buddy?”

“It’s…going…did you find Lauren yet?”

“Well, that’s the thing, we did, but we need the password to get in. The hint is ‘Who watches the blank.”

“Watchmen.”

“What?”

“Who watches the Watchmen. It’s from the Watchmen comics for ages ago.”

“OH! I’M FUCKING STUPID!” Gerard cried out. “So simple, god damn it.”

“Mikey, thank god you’re okay,” I said into the walkie. “I was so worried about you, bro.”

“Cy, I’m fine, just save Lauren and bring her back to me, okay?”

“I promise, Mikey.”

“Thank you. Be careful guys, okay?”

“You got it, buddy.” Frank said, and clicked off the walkie. “Watchmen, huh?” he added, looking at Gerard.

“Only the comic that got me into comics…I’m retarded.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I replied, walking over to the panel and pressing the Watchmen logo button. Immediately, a screen popped up out of nowhere, reading ENTER PASSWORD.

“Gerard, would you like to do the honors?” I asked, and he nodded, typing in the password. After a few suspenseful seconds, the BL/ind logo vanished, replaced by a hidden door, which slowly slid open, revealing Exploder, leaning over Lauren, who was bound and tied to a chair, hooked up to an electrical torture machine, completely unconscious.

“Exploder!” Gerard yelled out, taking his gun from his holster. “Long time, no see.” Exploder slowly stood up and turned to face us, smirking.

“You four never give up, do you? he sneered, taking the rubber gloves off of his hands, tossing them aside. “How’s Mikey?”

“Fine, no thanks to you,” I replied angrily.

“You come to save Lauren?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“What do you think, you fucking asshole?” Frank replied, also taking his gun out, Ray and I following suit.

“You’ve got four against one, Exploder,” Gerard said. “Just give up. Cy, go get Lauren out of that thing.” I nodded, running over to the chair and turning the machine off, unstrapped Lauren from it, and tried waking her up.

“Lauren…Lauren, babe, wake up…please…” I said, lightly slapping her forehead. I kept doing this as I watched Gerard and Exploder silently confront each other, staring each other down without speaking. I kept patting Lauren on the cheek until the silence was broken, a light moan coming from Lauren’s mouth.

“Lauren!” I cried, wrapping my arms around her. “Lauren, thank god!”

“Wha—what’s going on?” she said, confused, her eyes barely open.

“It’s all over now, hun, let’ get you out of this chair…can you stand?” I slowly lifted her up out of the chair and onto her feet, supporting her weight with her arm wrapped around my shoulders.

“Give it up, Exploder, you aren’t even armed,” Gerard said finally. “You lost.”

“I lost?” Exploder replied. “I lost? Ha! Korse got away alive. He’s just going to start all over again, my friend. You are the one who lost here.”

“Korse doesn’t matter, we can keep fighting him until we die,” Gerard said. “The main thing is that we have you, here, unarmed, and basically defeated. So give up, kid.”

“Ha! You say unarmed, I say I can do this!” Exploder replied, and quickly brought his arm up, knocking Gerard’s gun out of his hands, and punched Gerard right in the stomach, catching him off guard.

“The fuck!” Frank yelled, holstering his gun again and leaping over Gerard to tackle Exploder as he tried to escape, pinning him to the ground. “Nice try, you little fuck.”

“Fuck you,” Exploder replied, spitting in Frank’s face.

“Oh hell no!” Frank growled, picking up Exploder’s bandana, causing his head to come up as well, and slammed it back down to the ground with a loud thud. “Gerard, can I PLEASE kill this motherfucker? I’ve had it with him.”

“N-no…” I heard Lauren whisper.

“Lauren?”

“Frank…don’t…” She said, trying to take a step forward, but stumbled.

“Lauren, are you okay?” Ray asked, walking over to help me get her back to her feet.

“Let me be the one to kill him…” Lauren said quietly. “I brought him into this, I should be the one to take him out.” Frank lifted himself off of Exploder, got to his feet and dragged Exploder to his, holding him by the arms to prevent him from running away again. Gerard slowly got to his feet, picked up his gun and put it in Lauren’s hands, looking right into her eyes.

“He’s all yours.” He said. We all watched while Lauren stumbled over to Exploder, ready to execute.