_ _ _3rd Person Pov_ _ _
It began like any other afternoon, the streets of Chicago were bustling, people moving from place to place, some walked while others got on public transport or simply drove in their own personal transportation. Everyone was doing something, there were those who were simply heading or returning from work, others did a variety of other things, even some that were simply relaxing while enjoying the scenery.
It was a completely normal day and no one had any reason to actually believe that this fact would end up changing anytime soon, and why would they? Unfortunately however, the worst events usually come at the worst possible moment, which is when you least expect them.
Suddenly and without warning it began, explosions rang through the city, one after another as far off buildings erupted into flames as large plumes of smoke rose up high into the sky for all to see. It wasn't in just one area either, no, it was happening all over Chicago, something that made it impossible to miss.
When it all finally stopped things were quiet for quite a long couple of seconds, it had just been a normal busy day an instant ago and now the whole of Chicago was eerily quiet. Even the various birds and other small creatures that called this place home had stilled, it was like the whole city was just frozen in time.
In that moment, just as everyone began to realize what had just occurred something happened, something that was quickly noticed by most. On every TV, every phone, every monitor and every possible screen in the city, a single image was displayed for all to see. A black X3 emoji on a green checker pattern background with a twenty seven hour timer displayed underneath of said emoji, a timer that was slowly starting to tick down second by second. It wasn't hard for anyone to figure out what exactly would happen when said timer reached zero.
So, what happened next? Well, that was pretty obvious, chaos erupted, people panicked and the smart ones quickly started fleeing the city. Not even half an hour later though authorities and city officials called for a temporary evacuation of populated areas within the city, after all no one had any idea where the next wave of explosions would take place.
_ _ _Claire Wyden Pov_ _ _
"This is ridiculous..." I growled as I paced back and forth while biting my thumb in irritation.
My dimwitted brother who was standing close by spoke up nervously. "Why don't you just take a deep breath and cal-?" He tried to say but I cut him off.
"Shut up Brett!"
Glancing out a nearby window to the city below I could only curse internally, the city was in chaos and that, of course, was very bad for business. The main issue was the evacuation order, if I was going to get back the pathogen canisters that we had lost then I couldn't afford for this kind of sudden distraction. Thankfully I was able to stop authorities from kicking me out of my own building, mostly because of the fact that I had already confirmed that there were no explosives that had been hidden inside this structure.
"It doesn't matter..." I sighed after a moment of thought.
"What?"
Rolling my eyes in annoyance I repeated myself. "I said that it doesn't matter!" I snapped before turning around to look at him. "We will be going forward with the plan, we need to recontain all the assets as soon as possible."
"Are you sure they're still intact?" Brett caused me to nod.
"They were designed to survive re-entry, so yes, I'm sure."
"A-alright..."
Turning away I crossed my arms. (This better all go as planned or everything we've worked for will be for nothing.) I huffed internally as my eyes passed over the smoke clouds rising in the distance outside. (Still...this doesn't make sense...)
Some people believed that this was some sort of terrorist attack, however that didn't really make sense at all when you thought about it, mostly because of several factors that most hadn't taken into account. For one, whoever had done this seemingly weren't actually trying to kill anyone, actually it was almost like they were purposely trying to avoid casualties.
They hadn't targeted populated buildings, notable landmarks, or even just places known to be large gathering areas, no, in fact they had done something incredibly bizarre. They had blown up abandoned buildings, completely empty shops and skyscrapers, places with no people in them whatsoever, it's like they wanted the city to be evacuated. The question is, why? Why go through so much effort just to get people out of the city?
(This all happened just after our research station was destroyed...that can't just be a coincidence, can it?) I mused only for a certain nuisance to pull me from my thoughts.
"Claire?"
Sighing in annoyance I turn to him with a glare. "What are you still doing here? Go tell the retrieval team to get ready."
"R-right, I'll get to that." Brett stuttered as she turned to leave.
"Idiot..."
_ _ _Carmen Pov_ _ _
"So...how's it going over there?"
"Exactly as you plan my queen." Rosanna responded as she stood next to me. "Most heavily populated areas and public gathering places are being evacuated as we speak."
"Good, I see that it is all going as I hoped it would." I hummed while looking at the various monitors displaying security footage from across the city
"And the explosions?" I ask, looking at the synthetic who was in charge of keeping track of all the vital information about the current situation in Chicago. "Were there any casualties?"
"No ma'am, from what we can tell not a single person was killed and only a few were injured." I nodded at that as I turned back to the screens in front of me.
Why did I blow up a bunch of seemingly random buildings that had no one in them? Simple, my mission was to destroy Chicago not massacre the people living there, and honestly, I rather not have that much blood on my hands thank you very much.
So yeah, I did this in hopes of getting everyone to evacuate before Claire decided to send out the high frequency signal, the one that would end up attracting all the mutants not under my control to the city. I mean, sure, I could have just done nothing but...well, I'd like to think I'm not a complete monster even after all I've done up until this point.
Anyway, right now things are going exactly as I had hoped, better than I had hoped actually. Not that I expected everything to go too far off course from what I had predicted would happen, after all there's only so many paths a population can choose to take when their city has been bombed by some unknown assailant who was going to apparently do it again relatively soon. Of course, I had no plans to actually set off any more explosives, the timer was just there to scare them more and increase the urgency of their evacuation.
"Have we found the other canister by the way?" In the movie there were only three canisters taken from the station but surprisingly four had been missing instead.
"It appears to have landed somewhere up north, in the Amazon Rainforest my queen." Rosanna answered with her usual creepy devotion.
(That's gonna be a bitch to find...) I groaned in annoyance.
After a second of silent contemplation I shook my head. "Leave it for now, after all it's not our priority at the moment."
"Understood."
With that all done I turned and started walking away while opening up a link. <
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(Guess it's time.) I thought to myself.
(Let's go visit a certain doggo shall we.)