“Thirty seconds,” the driver called over his shoulder.
Oliver was one of the last out of the vehicle when the driver finally braked to a hard halt precisely thirty seconds later. He clambered out of the van into a street absolutely packed with people. Oliver could hear police shouting orders as they tried to herd everyone away from the rail station. Evacuating the number of people already in the surrounding area as well as those who were being evacuated from Victoria Station proper to get them clear of a possible Splice bomb seemed an almost impossible task.
Oliver stuck with Unit Four, half listening to the chatter on the comms as everyone confirmed their positions. When Liam’s voice came through, it snagged Oliver’s entire attention like few other things could.
“Royal Legion are in position,” Liam said.
“Union Jacks are on standby,” a crisp, female voice replied.
Liam’s team had been dropped off prior to Oliver’s arrival, but the Union Jacks had gone in by ground vehicles. The UMG agents sent to provide support had their orders to block off all available exits to ensure the Reborn IRA couldn’t flee. Except they still didn’t have any solid identification of the enemy, and people were still streaming out of the exits, making it almost impossible to keep track of who was in the crowd.
“Any update on facial recognition of targets in the crowd?” a woman asked over comms.
“Base to ground teams. AIs are still scanning,” someone else said. “CCTV shows Murphy on the move. Seems he’s picked up a couple of partners. Royal Legion, we’re sending you their location.”
“Copy that. Get us IDs of the newcomers,” Liam said.
“Working on it, sir.”
The agent leading Unit Four hand-signaled an order Oliver couldn’t read. Half the group of agents peeled off to hold the line at the main entrance into Victoria Station. Oliver followed the other half into the station.
Oliver nearly tripped over someone who had been trampled in the initial rush to escape but didn’t have time to stop and help the man. Getting through the crowd was difficult. People were panicking and shoving at each other. The only reason the crowd wasn’t completely stampeding now was because the Union Jacks had an empath in their ranks.
Oliver and the others had just cleared the short corridor of shops that preceded the train platforms when the flooring underneath his feet and the walls around them started to rattle and shake in a way that definitely wasn’t natural.
“What the hell is that?” one of the agents he was with asked over Unit Four’s channel.
Samaira’s voice came over the comms, sounding annoyed. “UMG agents, be advised the Reborn IRA definitely have a metahuman in their ranks. Possibly two.”
“All right, let’s get these people out of here before it’s too late,” Unit Four’s leader said.
“What about the Reborn IRA?” Oliver asked.
“If they have Splice bombs, we need to get everyone and ourselves out. That’s our priority.”
Oliver tried not to think about the fact that they were all within danger of being caught in a blast of chemicals that would most likely kill them. Quarantine efforts would be enacted with extreme force if it happened. It was the only way to ensure contamination did not spread beyond the blast radius. Such attacks resulted in a mess of bodies and liquefied organs, but he tried not to think about that.
Unit Four scattered, and Oliver meant to help them get commuters clear, but a small group of people running in the wrong direction out of the corner of his eye had him snapping his head around. Most of the people around them were rushing to leave—then there was the man who moved with the sureness of someone who knew precisely where they were going because they had someplace to be.
“I got eyes on Murphy,” Oliver said as he shoved forward through the crowd.
“Are you in the field, Raven?” Liam asked, a touch of surprise in his voice.
“What do you think?”
“Hold position until we get there.”
“We can’t let him leave.”
Oliver dodged through the crowd, elbowing his way through bodies as he struggled to keep Murphy in sight. The crowd started to thin a little, but the lack of people didn’t help when a metahuman capable of controlling metal on the macro level joined the fight. Oliver looked up as some debris clattered onto the floor around him, knocking against his helmet. The arched ceiling of the rail station, with its steel beams and plas-glass panes, was breaking apart.
He scanned the area, having lost Murphy in the split second he looked away. “Fuck.”
“All agents take cover!” Liam snarled over comms.
Oliver instinctively ducked his head as he ran not for cover but toward the only exit he figured Murphy could take—a train.
The screeching shriek of ripping metal echoed through the air of Victoria Station as a metahuman allied with the Reborn IRA pulled down the roof. Heavy steel beams and thick shards of plas-glass fell toward the station platform. Oliver stumbled midstride, heart in his throat as he realized death was coming from above.
