Heart of Stone (Ghost of a chance) by MathewHats01

"So, what's the plan?" Rachel said. She looked astonishing in the pearl white dress.

"You go in. Show them how strong you are and nobody will bother to even look at you." Jack said.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

All of them were sitting on the table waiting for Rachel to make the first move and she stood up rather effortlessly. She took long strides until she reached the stage and took a deep breath, and then she grabbed the microphone.

"LOVE ME LIKE YOU DO, AH HA, LOVE ME LIKE YOU DO!......"

And the crowd went wild, literally wild, they were inconsolable, and they were enraged to the point where they wanted to throw food at Rachel. I and Jack grabbed her and showed her out of the exquisite yet minute restaurant. By the moment we were out and the chilly cold air hit my nose, we were cackling.

"Rachel you might be an extremely trained agent but you can't sing to save your life," I replied.

"Keya, you don't have to be so mean-"

"Oh, she's not being mean, the whole crowd in there wanted to smother you to death before you finished that song. Statistics say 100 out of 100."

"There were not even a 100 people in that restaurant, it was so petit-" Rachel sheepishly tugged at Jack's shoulder.

The empty street was lit by lampposts and a few pedestrians while a homeless man sat on the corner of the street. The city was quieter this time of the year. I was getting used to the cold, and having friends, the idea of putting my total trust into somebody petrified me, but it also couldn't be any other than Rachel and Jack, and they had come to save me from the prison. I won't ever forget that.

"Tomorrow at 9 a.m. meet at the Sahara Square," Rachel said, dragging me back to reality.

"Aye aye, boss!" I pulled up my right hand to salute her.

"STOP IT!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tomorrow 9 a.m.

It was a standard white van, inconspicuous, a standard setup in the back of the van. A computer interference setup for me, and a load of weapons for the others. I was trained for a couple of months on the job, to use a weapon not just to kill but to save others also. The way you put your finger on the side of the gun, not at the tip of the trigger where if you get agitated you suddenly pull the trigger and 'not' end someone's life. A lot of simple changes for me, Jack not so much; he barely made it out; he was rather skilled at getting information out, not himself out of a situation. Whereas Rachel, was the domain of both of our complex personas mixed and neither altogether; she didn't know anything of the tech verse and she couldn't solve a puzzle with half the pieces but Jack could. But she was much better in the physical combat arena. We were a team, everyone putting their part and effort.

We had completed almost 15 missions, since the moment I joined the Heart as the Joker, new passports and new identities, and a novelty way to live life.

"Good news & Really bad news." Jack just came into the van dragging me out of my abundant thought process.

"Give it to me," I said to Jack.

"Good news, I got lemon tea for you, and cookies for Rachel."

"Really bad news?"

"Well, the mission is that a journalist got some kind of top-secret information, but the heart can't tell what it is. It just knows that the journalist has put it up for sale on the black market and when she released a fraction of it, it was a story worth topping governments. Information on retired spies. Just that much. But it's legit. It checks out. It has information from all around the globe."

"The retired agents won't even see it coming."

"Because they have been out of the grid for so long, they won't know the hits sent on them, they'll be defenseless, and they won't ever see it coming."

"What's her name?"

"Kinsley Wellington. That's an alias but the heart managed to find her location, she's in Borad 2-hour drive from here."

"What's the really bad news then?" I ask.

"Well, it looks too simple, old agents have their identities extremely hidden and that information is almost on no other database than the Heart's. It shouldn't have been out at all, no less than to a journalist. And her address, it sounds like she wants to get caught." Rachel said.

"But how would she have gotten the information from the heart, wait a minute, the time it was online for 30 seconds when Parker and I put It up. That's the only possible explanation." I replied, grabbing the base of my skull as if I was always paying for my last mistake; but I was ready to prove that I was better.

"Well never mind how she got it, we just have to steal it back, Let's have your first official mission out of this van," Rachel said.

"BUT there's no chance she's even there. It's the only possible location we could find. It's a ghost of a chance." Jack said.

Before this when we went on a mission, we went out to do our respective jobs but since then we were officially cleared to show our skill set. This was going to be fun.

"Better than none!"

Just before we entered, I hacked the cameras of the street and made the footage disappear while Jack locked down on which laptop the information could be in the apartment. There was a lot of furniture in there but he could see the connected networks and figure out a safe way in which I could wirelessly download the data but not from the street. While Rachel was creating her diversion, to get Kinsley out of the apartment.

The quiet empty street was lit with just the perfect amount of golden dust while the scented flavours illuminated the place. The location of her abode was near a hustling bustling crowd, some shopping over dresses, others arguing over the increasing prices of tomatoes.

We were all geared up, now it was the time to go.

"Let's give her the bam!"

"Click." The teeniest amount of noise was made from Jack's phone but it caused the most amount of havoc, The entire block's power went out and we went in.

"Second floor 204." The apartment complex was like any other, not like a notorious monster lived behind the oak wood. With the sleight of her hand, Rachel opened the door and ever so seamlessly we went through it, and my work began. My eyes were so buried in my screen that I didn't see what they saw.

What I saw was an entire network full of connections but not of one PC, thousands of them it was too much incorrigible, abundant data, too much to overload and corrupt my system, my senses heightened, and with every shiver of energy in my body I started a backup reboot process trying to not let their system in, but it was all happening too fast for me, I was too overwhelmed

While I saw this my partners saw the overloaded computers in the house but they could also smell the fresh gasoline spilled right throughout the room, Jack stepped in, and right where a flowerpot was there was just a miniature paper-sized camera and a screen attached to it, showing what everyone else could see. Our faces!

"Duck!" Rachel yelled but it was too late, I could see what she saw our destruction. The door was connected to a pipe. As soon as we opened it a chain reaction started which started a fire and then there was a bam! The fire soared towards us like a cloud burning everything through it, destroying everything, depleting everything on the way. Just before you die, you don't see all the parts of your life, it's not like a movie, you just want to get away from it and in that one millisecond you realize there is no getting away from it either you let it burn you away or you can hope for that one miracle that everyone does even though it solves nothing, you just hope for that one chance to say goodbye. But all I had was my team.

I couldn't say goodbye not yet. I grabbed Jack and Rachel by their arms and jerked them out of the house. It didn't help much but instead of dying, we all soared back, and the last bit I remember is that my head crashed into a pile of glass from the elevator shards flew everywhere. Soon my eyes were dragged into drowsiness. Everything went black!

After the bang, the only thing you can hear is deafening silence, one that copes through your eardrums and seeps through your brain, one that hurts more than anything. But the pain is good. That means you are still alive. That means you can still help.

"Keya, Keya!" Rachel's simple words spread a flood of relief through me. Thank God she was okay!

I opened my eyes and the next thing I found was the most devastating of them all. We were all tied to different chairs. Strung so hard that it made marks on my wrists and ankles. Blood was sheering out of the right side of my skull and dripping onto my black T-shirt. On my right, Rachel was sitting there with shards of glass that ripped through her arms and legs like paper. She was still bleeding. Her ochre dress had turned into a crimson waterfall. I turned to my right but to my surprise, Jack wasn't there. He was the closest to the explosion; did he? No, he couldn't! I had to stay positive and not show all of my cards. We were alive because she wanted something from us. Something important! It didn't matter what. It just meant we were alive. Maybe just a little bit longer. But that was all we would need.

"Oh, look, Chica is awake." Said a rather eloquent woman, she looked like she was in her late 20s but like she had grown a lot in those years. Those eyes had a sense of betrayal, a passion burning so hard you could see the fire in her eyes, I know because I had the same thing. I sent out to destroy Karche but in the process I was ready to burn the world down looking into her eyes I prepared for the same.

"Chica don't worry your partner is in surgery he had a lot of burns but you know, the one who saves lives can also take them. She had a pretty white dress subtly embroidered with flowers and her tiny hands were carrying a sharp blade.

"What do you want?" Rachel said and with the tip of her finger, her employees grabbed a roll of duct tape and pressed it around Rachel's mouth. Oh god, she wanted nothing to do with the others, she needed me!

"Let them go, and I'll do whatever you want!" I said with the utmost courage I could gather but being tied to a chair that's readily slowing your heartbeat, which isn't the most ideal way.

"Chica you are so naïve I can't let them go. I know everything about you and you have seen my face. Ah, you do as I say or this one gets it." She said pointing the knife to Rachel. "And the other one, it's not hard to clean an operating table you know, and don't even think about escaping because I have your photos and I bet people will enjoy torturing and killing you right? One who toppled the Clubs, Diamonds, and the Spades. I'm quite impressed Joker."

How in holy hell did she know that? That information was top-secret, not even everyone at heart knew that. Most of them didn't even know I was working for them. I was the invisible hand behind the scene.

"How do you know that?"

"I know a lot of things, Chica! Like Karche; Rachel here promised to help take down everything but it hasn't happened yet. Right? Or is it ever going to happen? Because of the drug experiment that Karche conducted; he did it for money and the experiment was for the heart."

My mind went black at that monstrosity of information, I looked at Rachel and hoped she'd say no or deny any of it and tell me that she knew nothing of it but her eyes never met mine she just showed no emotion. Before this, I always thought there was a fine line between good guys and bad guys but now I don't think so anymore. The morally grey area had been so vast, that after everything the good guys and the bad guys looked the same, whose side was I even on anymore?

"What do you think the first thing they tried was a success, the heart wasn't their first operation, but it took them a long time to collect all this advanced technology, this very data that the heart thrives upon. So, they worked in different ways so that if everything else failed this would be their backup plan. They tried nanotechnology, nuclear bombs, and finally genetic mutation. Something that helped control people's minds. Like your parents."

"What do you want?" This time my voice was shaky, my hands were sweating profusely, and I didn't have the urge to communicate but I had to. I had to save my team's life, Rachel did it to me once and I had to repay her. It wasn't about what I felt anymore, it was just a simple business transaction. Cold and ruthless.

"Feisty, huh Chica I like it!" She spoke.

"I want you to decode all of Hearts' files about past employees. Anything before the last decade."

"How do I do it? I don't have the heart."

"You do. The card of Joker comes with it!"

"What!"

"You see, they could not risk what happened the last time and lose the Heart again forever they had to make a copy for safekeeping. But if they put it into any hole in any world someone would find a way to dig it out so they put it in the one place no one expects it to be in a card in their most untrustworthy employee who has no idea, quite ingenious don't you think?"

"I have the heart?" Sometimes, when you have learned so much about your life in a very short time, you start to ignore the facts, push the feelings deep down as if they could never resurface, and then suddenly you make yourself feel that maybe the why is more important than the what. However, before the explosion at least I hoped for a miracle, but now no miracle could save me. No team, no help. I had to save myself and everyone else.

"You need to open my hands for that." She nodded in agreement putting the tip of her knife to Rachel's neck, and that's when I figured out my plan. I had to show her that I didn't care about others and that saving myself was my motive. Then while she was distracted I could get them both out. As soon as she cut the ties, a sense of relief felt through me, and little by little it felt as if my body was being put together. At that moment a stretcher came out and Jack was lying in it. His face had barely any scratches but I feared he had 1st and 2nd-degree burns. He was like a mummy wrapped in time. Not unconscious, not dead yet. Good, I had hope. Just a bit.

No, I could show no emotion, I couldn't ask how he was. But to my surprise Rachel did. They must have removed the tape on her face.

Then the lady replied, "Just out of surgery, he'll live." Finally something right happened during this massacre.

"To the computer." One of her hooligans said pointing the gun at my back. Then, I did probably the smartest thing at the time, "Are you looking for someone in particular?" I questioned her.

"Juan Carlos." She said, and that was the ace in my cards. For the next hour I slowly searched the heart, decrypting it layer by layer by layer while watching Rachel slowly wheezing after losing all of that blood, Jack didn't even turn an inch. An army of men were looming over my shoulder but I guessed they knew nothing of the Tech world but the boss did.

"I did it." As soon as I said it the lady came back to me. Like her heart in her hand.

"How can I believe you?"

"Isn't that the agent that killed a missionary and killed your family in the crossfire? Elena." Saying her name gave me a power like no other. She and I both knew it. It was true.

"First free Rachel, and put down your guns." I showed her a pen drive which was full of the only information on the world now on Juan Carlos. Now I had the power to crush it, I always carried a secret pen drive in my locket. For emergencies. Never had to use it until now. But better late than never. As soon as they cut ties on Rachel's rope, they were in trouble. We both knocked down the guy nearest to us, and Jack got up.

The adrenaline in my veins shot up, we had a chance,

"Let's give them the bam!"