Operation Perish Song

A major bioattack on the Tokyo Olympics is imminent, threatening to spread a deadly virus all around the world and put humanity on the brink of extinction.

   “And here come the athletes now, representing the 206 nations of the world. Just look at them waving their flags! They’ve made their country proud in the past few weeks. Some of them have broken records, others have exceeded expectations, and all of them have experienced something they won’t soon forget. Teamwork, competition, sportsmanship, determination, they’ve demonstrated them all. Let us welcome our marvelous athletes to the world’s stage!”

The New National Stadium in Tokyo erupted into nonstop cheers as the athletes walked onto the field, waving their flags. It had been an exciting three weeks of nonstop competition, and now the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics was finally coming to an end. The athletes looked up at the crowds of people that cheered them on through everything, and the crowds kept calling out to them, never fading in their support. In the midst of the cheering, no one noticed the events happening underneath the stadium. No one saw the shadowy groups of people that had entered the stadium earlier. No one saw the suspicious storage containers being transferred to the space underneath the stadium. No one could have guessed that not just their lives, but the entire world’s was in grave danger.

            “Nielson, what do you see?”

            “Two tangos. Three o’clock. One beside the gate and one sitting on the hood of the van out front. Both with rifles, AK-74s. I have the one on the van.”

            “Copy. Tangos are out of my line of sight. I’m moving to a better position. Fire on my call.”

            “Copy that, Chief.”

            “Kuru, you got the kit ready?”

            “Roger.”

            “Right, I see the target. Nielson, ready?”

            “Always.”

Two cracks sounded in the night, muffled by the outside traffic and the cheering of the crowds inside the stadium. The two guards tumbled backwards, and crumpled to the ground. Sticking to the shadows, three figures moved silently forward, reaching the entrance to the basement and the maintenance rooms underneath the stadium. Two of them dragged the bodies to a nearby dumpster while the other crouched down by the gate, fiddling with an electronic lock. When the two returned, the gate was wide open. In the darkness of the night, the three figures slipped into the entrance, closed the door behind them, and entered the basement of the Tokyo New National Stadium.

            Damien Sanders checked back on his team as they walked into the dimly lit hallway.

Lars Nielsen, a hunky Norwegian man was tending to the explosives he kept in a bag slung across his shoulder that he liked to call “The Boom Box”. He was once a part of the Forsvarets Spesialkommando, a special operations force unit under the Norwegian army, but was kicked out and almost court-martialed when he was found building a bomb in secret in his dorm that was capable of taking out a heavily-armored tank despite only being the size of a ping-pong ball. Astralis, the organization Sanders was in was happy to take him off the hands of the Norwegians and put his pyrotechnical skills to good use.

He unhooked a M67 grenade from his tactical belt, held down the striker lever, breathed in, and pulled out the pin. A few moments later, he breathed out and pushed it back in. Sanders sighed. It was Nielsen’s way of calming down, though he didn’t see how the action of almost blowing yourself up could calm a man.

Hashiri Kurumi was leaning against the rough, grey concrete wall. Her face was slightly lit up by the tablet she held in her hand. Three words flashed onto the screen, “Operation Perish Song.” The name of the current mission. Grinning a little, she swiped her finger across the screen a final time, then stashed the tablet back into her side pocket.

 A prominent computer engineer turned ethical hacker, she was arrested by the Japanese police when a computer technician in the Japanese Public Security Intelligence Agency noticed someone accessing their files without permission, and within days of tracking, led the police to the computer in her office. She let herself be taken in without a fight. Some were suspicious of the case, and claimed that she had been framed for the crime, since a professional hacker would not have let anyone see that they were inside the system, nor would they have made it so easy to track them back to the source. They were right to be worried, but not for the right reasons.

While awaiting trial, Kurumi not only broke out of her holding cell, but also adjusted her arrest warrant to a date before the search warrant for her apartment was passed, making it invalid, and allowing her to get away scot-free. She did this by using the allowed private visit from her lawyer. While they were talking she asked the lawyer to look up something on his laptop, and when his head was turned, she quietly pocketed the lawyer’s cellphone, and put her water cup where the phone was to mask her theft.

When the lawyer went for a bathroom break, Kurumi quickly went to action, dialing a number that allowed her to connect to the laptop that she had hidden away at home, and at the same time, installed a virtual console that let her access the computer. In a few quick keystrokes, she connected to the mainframe of the police station that she was in through a backdoor she had set up when she hacked into several nearby police stations a few weeks prior to her getting arrested. Another few taps on the screen allowed her to set up a timer, at the end of which, a surge of power would be sent throughout the electrical power systems in the station, tripping all the breakers, and knocking out the electricity. After that was set up, she uninstalled the software, deleted any leftover evidence, quickly wiped the phone down with her clothes, and set it back onto the table.

Not thirty seconds later, her lawyer practically charged back to her cell, looking flustered. He sat down quickly, looked at Kurumi for a second, and picked up his phone. He might be forgetful, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew what his client was capable of. Kurumi looked, somewhat amusedly as the lawyer swiped through the applications on his phone anxiously for a few minutes. Finally, he lifted his head. “Ms. Kurumi. You didn’t do anything stupid did you? Nothing that could complicate the upcoming trial? My phone, you didn’t use it did you?”

            Kurumi tilted her head curiously and raised a finger to her chin. “Phone? What phone? I was just reading the details of my upcoming trial. It’s very important to be well-informed and prepared, you know. You are a lawyer after all.”

            The lawyer looked at her suspiciously for a few seconds more, then sighed. “Just know that there’s nothing you can do that can get you out of this situation. I’m your only hope right now. With the little evidence they have, and the details of your past, we have a good chance of winning it. Don’t do anything that could jeopardize your odds.”

            Kurumi giggled a bit. “There’s always a way, Mr. Johnson. Always. If, by chance, it doesn’t exist yet, then you’ll just have to make it yourself, don’t you?”

            Half an hour later, all the lights in the police station suddenly flashed brightly, then went out. In the lounge, there was a mass of groans and some profanities as the wide-screen TV on the wall went black just as the striker of the Chelsea Football Club took a shot with the goalkeeper of Manchester United diving for it in the final minutes of the game with the scores tied.

In the cafeteria, a large police officer carrying a huge plate of nachos slammed her face into the glass automatic sliding door when it suddenly stopped in its tracks while opening for her. She toppled backwards, and the thump that sounded when her hefty body met the floor reverberated through the dark room. Nacho cheese slowly dripped down from the glass door and onto the wool carpet below. Across the room, in front of the washrooms, the janitor stood motionless, watching the whole event unfold. With a cry of frustration and a strong wish to quit his job and become an alcoholic, the janitor threw his mop across the room.

The chief of the police station stood up from his desk, picked up the phone, heard nothing, remembered that the power was out, slammed it back down, and went out into the hallway. Barging out of the door, he crashed into two police officers. Cursing and righting himself, he turned to the two dazed officers.

            “You, get over to the maintenance room and reset the breakers. And you, go to the holding cells. Those doors are electronically locked, and they’ll open without power. Check on the inmates, make sure no one’s out and about.”

            The one that was called to go to the holding cells grumbled and jogged off. Making his way down the dark corridor, he took out his phone and turned on the built-in flashlight. Walking quickly towards the holding cells, he wondered what he would do if the inmates did get out of their cells? All he had with him was a taser gun, and he had never fired it before. Then he remembered that there was only one person in the holding cell at the moment, and it being someone in for a computer crime. Not only that, it was a frail-looking young girl. Feeling at ease, he stepped up to the door leading to the cells, opened it, and walked in.

            The unmistakable crack of a metal chair slamming into a human skull rang out throughout the dark room, followed by a soft grunt, and then the sound of a body dropping to the concrete floor. Hashiri Kurumi gently placed the metal chair back down and looked at the man on the ground. Not too tall, not too large around the midsection either. She smiled. Everything was going according to plan.

Twenty minutes later, the power came back on. The chief, not seeing the officer he sent to the holding cells return, sent two more police officers to check on him. They found, to their surprise, the man lying unconscious on the floor, in only his underwear.

A junior officer faintly recalled a female officer she hadn’t seen before walking quickly down the hallway and to the main entrance. A warrant was immediately sent out for her capture. That is, it would have been if she didn’t have a completely clean criminal record. Someone had managed to get in and wiped the records. It didn’t help that Kurumi herself proved to be impossible to track down again. In the end, the police just gave up. It was later found that she only did this stunt to complete a dare a friend had given her, and along the way, obtained some credentials for the police databases. A few weeks later, she was contacted by Astralis.

            As Sanders watched his two teammates getting prepared for the mission ahead of them, he silently thought about how boring his backstory seemed compared to those two. He was in the Navy, a prominent SEAL team member.  One day, Astralis started to scout people from the navy, and he accepted their offer. After leading several flawless missions in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, he was offered a spot on the elite team as team leader.

            “All right gang, listen up. Here’s what we know. The eco-terrorism group, Terra is cooperating with Scylla Tech, that biotechnology company. We’ve intercepted some messages between the two, which mentioned the placement and deployment of a weapon in the Olympic stadium. Recent evidence from the raid of a Terra base told us that the weapon in question is a virus that Scylla Tech developed, a completely new and unknown strand of the Zika virus.”

            “How are they going to release the virus? And what happens if they succeed in infecting the stadium?” Nielson asked.

            “That wasn’t mentioned in the messages we intercepted, but we assume that it will be spread via the air circulation system the stadium has. That’s where we’re headed to right now. Also, most people here in the stadium have scheduled flights back to their countries in the following few days. It won’t just be the people in the stadium that will be infected, it will be the whole world. It’s not an overstatement to say that the world is counting on us.”

            “And how are we planning to destroy the virus?” Kurumi inquired. “We can’t just break the containers or something, can we?”

            “Well, the best case scenario is that we manage to shut off the air circulation system, eliminate all hostiles in the area, and recover the virus without destroying them. If the hostiles find out we’re there, we destroy the containers and the air circulation system together. If worse comes to worst, we blow everything up.”

            Nielson’s eyes lit up hearing that.

“I like that option. Can’t we just do that option?”

            Sanders sighed. “No. Not yet. This is supposed to be a quiet operation. We can’t have the public finding out about this. They’d freak out. We’ve already met immense amount of political and social problems while trying to evacuate the stadium. Also, you don’t want to set off an explosion underneath the stadium when there are still people on the field. The closing ceremony is just starting you know.”

            Nielson grumbled and muttered something under his breath about never getting to blow things up and what was he getting paid to do anyways.

            Kurumi slipped out her tablet and scrolled to a blueprint.

“I managed to get the blueprints of the stadium on the way here. The main control room and the room that houses the air circulation system isn’t too far from here.”

            She handed the tablet to Sanders and he took a look at it.

            “It doesn’t look that far away. Just down the hallway, take a left, and there they both are.”

            “Right, but look at this too.” She leaned over, touched something on the tablet and it switched to a camera view. It showed numerous armed personnel walking around the hallways and in the rooms. “Those are elite mercenaries, not just some Terra hooligans with guns. We have to be careful. And see that there? That’s an MMG in the corridor, an M1919 Browning machine gun. We’ll have to find some way to destroy it or flank it, or it will mow us down.”

            Sanders nodded, checked the map one last time, and gave the tablet back to Kurumi.

            “All right. We’re going in. Kuru, get the snake camera out.”

            The team quietly moved together down the hallway, sticking to the wall. Reaching the door at the end, Nielson and Kurumi took their position on either side of the door, while Sanders stuck the snake cam underneath the door gap and checked inside the room. It was a lounge-like room, with four people inside. Two were leaning against the back wall, smoking and chatting, one was sitting on a sofa, watching the closing ceremony on the television on the left wall, and the last one was cleaning his Galil rifle on a table on the right. All of them wore the signature Terra uniform of blue and green. The one cleaning his rifle even had a tattoo of the Earth covering his entire head.

Through a wireless connection, the snake cam relayed the information to all three members of Delta team through their digital visors. Sweeping the room once more and tagging all of the hostiles, he pulled the cam out from under the door.

“Goddamn Terra scumbags… If you want to save the world, buy a solar panel or some crap,” muttered Sanders as he double-checked the bullets in his magazine.

            “You need a flashbang, chief?” asked Nielson, already pulling it out of his belt.

            “Not now. They aren’t on the alert yet. The element of surprise is on our side. We get in fast and take them out. We don’t need to announce our presence just yet. Kuru, you have the one on the sofa; Nielson, the one cleaning the rifle is yours. Check your ammo. Suppressors on. On my mark.”

            Sanders aimed his M4A1 SOPMOD at the place he knew the two hostiles were, took a breath, and kicked the door open. The smokers barely had time to turn their heads towards the door before Sanders pulled the trigger twice and put a bullet through both of them. Dull thumps on either side of him confirm that his teammates had done their jobs as well. Kuru quickly went to each of the bodies, crouched down, and checked for any signs of life. It probably wasn’t necessary though. Each of the corpses had a chunk of their heads blown off, with the exception of the guard with the Earth tattoo. A clean hole was drilled straight through Shanghai in the front, and Buenos Aires in the back. Nielson walked over to the television, wiping off the splash of blood on it.

            “Heya, Chief. I think the country representatives are just about finishing up.”

Sanders looked up at the screen. Sure enough, the representatives seemed to be making their final laps around the track.

“Crap. We have to move. They’re going to release the virus soon. We need to get to it before the ceremony ends. Kuru, how far are we from the maintenance room?”

Kuru pulled out her tablet again. “It’s just down the corridor, but we’re going to get mowed down by that machine gun if we go in without a plan.”

Sanders thought it over in his head. No matter what they do, the MMG was definitely going to get shots off before they took it out. Added to that, the time constraint, he knew that they had to go in hard and fast.

“Nielson, get the flashbang out. We’re busting in. Kurumi, I need the jammer up. Stick it on that wall.  We don’t want them sending the viruses out early or requesting for backup, “ Sanders said as he took out the snake cam once again.

As he moved towards the door and maneuvered the camera underneath the steel door, Kurumi took out a small device from her bag, peeled off the sticky tape behind the jammer, and stuck it onto the wall. She looked at Sanders and nodded. He peered through the camera. As expected, there was that M1919 Browning glaring down the corridor right at them, with two more guards with FAMAS rifles besides the gun ready to provide support. With that confirmed, he pulled back the camera. Nielson took up position next to the door, pulled out the pin from the M84 stun grenade, and prepared to throw it in. Sanders got ready next to him and gave Kurumi the thumbs up. She hit the button on the jammer.

Instantly, the ceremony on the television on the wall disappeared, replaced by a mass of static. There were yells of surprise from the other side of the door and Sanders heard the sound of weapons being loaded and set up.

“Nielson, pop it in!” Sanders called as he readied his rifle.

“Eat this, jackasses!” Nielson yelled as he cracked the door open a slit and tossed the flashbang deep into the corridor. He slammed the door shut again, and shouts of panic and the sound of bodies hitting the floor rang out through the door. A bright flash shone from underneath the door, and a deafening sound followed it.

Sanders kicked the door open, and they burst through the door. Immediately, they had to dive down onto the ground behind cover on either side to avoid the barrage of machine gun fire erupting towards their position. Cursing, Sanders pushed up into a crouch, lifted up his rifle, peeked up over the edge, and started firing back at the gunner. The storm of bullets from the Browning kept on coming, and he realized that his own bullets were pinging uselessly off a protective shield in front of the machine gun.

“Nielson! Get a frag out!” Sanders yelled as he switched targets and started firing at the support gunners on either sides of the machine gun. The one on the left took a direct hit to the neck between his face mask and Kevlar vest, clenched at it, and stumbled onto the ground.

Nielson pulled out a fragmentation grenade, pulled out the pin, and lobbed it over at the hostiles. In the heat of the exchange, the gunners didn’t see the grenade rolling towards them. Sanders kept firing until the rifle clicked, signifying that the magazine was empty. He crouched back down behind cover, still with bullets zipping right above his head and slamming into the short, concrete wall he was behind. Dropping the empty magazine into his pocket, he quickly pushed another one into the rifle, pulled back the bolt, and let a bullet feed into the chamber. Before he could peer back out of the cover, a resounding roar rang out through the room, and a huge cloud of smoke and debris rose around the hostiles’ position. The shield guarding the machine gun was thrown forward and crashed into the pillar Kurumi was behind.

The gunfire stopped, and the team waited for the smoke to clear before advancing forwards. The medium machine gun was toppled to one side, barrel still glowing red hot, but otherwise looked fine. The guards, however, were not in such good shape.

“Ewww…” Kurumi muttered as she tried to avoid stepping on the heap of blood and bits of flesh on the ground. The two guards beside the machine gun had both been thrown back against the wall, with hundreds of pieces of shrapnel piercing their bodies. The machine gunner, who had been wearing heavier body armor, didn’t have any holes in his body, but the blood that stained his mouth confirmed internal bleeding from the concussion blast. Sanders moved quickly past the bodies.

“Come on, we need to get a move on. There’s no way anyone else here didn’t here that explosion. We need to get to the maintenance room and shut off that air circulator before they release the virus. It should be right down the hall. Let’s go.”

Nielson and Kurumi nodded, and quickly followed Sanders to the end of the corridor. Looking at the door numbers, Kurumi searched for the one that held the controls for the stadium.

“313, 314, 315, 316. Right here.” Kurumi said as she pointed her rifle at a blue door with a sign on it that read “Master Control Room.”

“All right. The snake cam isn’t going to connect to our visors anymore because of the jammer. We’re just going to have to bust in. Get ready.”

Once again, Nielson and Kurumi took up positions on both sides of the door.

“All right. Three, two, one!”

Sanders kicked the door open, and they aimed into the room, expecting there to be heavy resistance, but finding no one.

“That’s strange,” muttered Nielson. “You’d expect them to have this place locked down tight.”

“That’s not important right now. Kuru, hack into the system and shut down ventilation system. After that, we go retrieve the virus, and we’ll get back home in time for chow.”

“I’m on it.” Kurumi said as she slung her rifle over her shoulder and sat down in front of the computer. Sanders and Nielson watched as her fingers danced across the keyboard much faster than they could follow.

Nielson whistled softly. “Damn, I wish I had that kind of speed in bed. That would be great, aye Chief?” He said, punching Sanders lightly on the back.

He sighed. “Shut the hell up Nielson. We’re trying to save the world here. I don’t have time for your horrible jokes. Anyways, even with that speed, you wouldn’t have anyone, or even anything to use it on.”

Nielson winced jokingly. “Ooh, that’s harsh, Chief. Real harsh. Especially from someone who has to pay for his pleasures, and usually gets rejected anyways. Maybe you could ask Kuru to program you a virtual girlfriend or something.”

Sanders tried to keep a straight face, but in spite of himself, he started to chuckle.

Suddenly, Kurumi turned around in her chair. “Hey, you guys. I don’t know what kind of messed up male bonding you’re having over there, but leave me out of it. Also, just wanted you to know that I’m ready to shut this thing off.”

Sanders nodded. It was good to have at least one responsible person on his team. He knew he certainly wasn’t. “Shut it down, Kuru.”

She turned back around and pressed a key on the keyboard. The sound in the basement audibly became quieter as the hum of the air circulator slowly faded away, until finally stopping. Sanders breathed in. That was the most important part of the mission done, and now they just had to recover the viruses. He was about to tell the other two to make for the ventilation room when he looked back at Kurumi. She was sitting back in the chair in a state of shock, eyes wide and motionless. Sanders immediately knew something was wrong.

“Kuru, what happened? Is everything all right?”

Kurumi turned around slowly, with her tablet on her lap. “I just got an alert from the bugs I placed in the terrorist’s communication frequency. They just got the command to release the viruses. It was at the same time I shut down the air ventilation system.”

“Well, isn’t that a good thing? You stopped it at the nick of--“

“Yeah. The virus didn’t make it through into the crowds of people, but it was already let out of its canisters. It has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is backfilling into the basement. Where we are.”

Nielson slammed his fist together. “Goddammit, why does everything have to be so complicated!”

Kurumi looked at Sanders worriedly and asked, “What now, Chief?”

Sanders took the specialized gas mask they had been given on the way to the stadium, in case they had to be exposed to the virus in some way. Their suits were already isolated from the outside by carbon nanotubes. “Well, it’s not going to be possible to recover the viruses in their containers now. We have to make our way to the ventilation room, sweep the room for any remaining viruses that haven’t been released, get out, and weld the door closed. The cleanup crew can take care of that mess. Put your gas masks on, make sure that it doesn’t get cracked, and that a bullet never comes close to it. It’s the only thing that’s going to keep you from getting infected. “

Nielson and Kurumi strapped on their masks without a word. After that, they left the control room and made their way to the ventilation room, which was just a few doors down.

Opening the door, they stepped into a large, dimly-lit room, with tubing and motionless fans all around. Moving quickly, they turned a corner, and made their way to the back of the room. Out of nowhere, a volley of bullets came in their direction.

“What the hell?” Sanders gasped as he dove to the ground behind a large fan. Slowly lifting his head above cover, he saw three people, holding FN P90 submachine guns, in full biohazard suit, firing widely at their position. A bullet pinged off the fan that Sanders was behind, just inches in front of his face. He quickly crouched back down and checked his gas mask. No cracks. He breathed a sigh of relief.

 The spray of bullets continued. Not wanting to risk having his gas mask compromised, he pulled out his USP pistol, reached his arm over, and started firing back in their position. He turned his head to check on his teammates, and saw them doing the same. The firing stopped for a second, and Sanders heard the sound of a new clip being loaded into the submachine gun. Instantly, he stood up, took aim, and fired five quick shots in succession.

One punched through a metal vent, three pieced the biohazard suit of the guards and entered their bodies. The last one found its way through the dark face mask of the middle guard, throwing shards of plastic and drops blood into the air as he toppled backwards. The sound of weapons clattering to the ground signified that it was safe to proceed. The trio stood up, and quickly walked to the end of the room. There they found two large storage chests with biohazard warnings on them. Sanders opened one of the boxes, and confirmed that it was the virus canisters inside. He nodded at Kurumi.

“All right, we found them. Tag it and let’s go.”

Kurumi took a small tracker out of her bag, turned it on, and dropped it into one of the chests. The cleanup crew will have a much easier time finding it later. Nielson turned to Sanders.

“You sure you don’t want me to blow it all up instead? It would be so much easier to get rid of it that way.”

Sanders kept walking towards the door. “I’ll find something for you to blow up later. Let’s just get out of here for now.”

Just as they were about to exit the room, they heard the sound of radio crackling. He turned around, and saw that a walkie-talkie had dropped out of one of the guard’s pockets. He walked over to it, picked it up, and put it close to his ear.

“Confirmed shutting down of ventilation system. Plan A has been compromised. Proceed with backup virus release device.”

Sanders cursed loudly and slammed the radio onto the ground. It shattered and pieces flew across the floor. Kurumi turned around.

“What’s wrong, Chief? What happened?”

“They have another way of releasing the virus. The air ventilation wasn’t their only plan.”

            “How? How are they going to release it?”

            “I don’t know, but we have to stop it. The closing ceremony is just about at its end. They’re going to put out the Olympic flame in a minute or two. We have to stop them before that.”

            They quickly ran out of the room, all of them racking their brain as to how else the terrorists could release the viruses into the crowds. They were about to turn a corner when Nielson suddenly stopped.

            “It’s the fireworks. It has to be.”

            Sanders turned around. “What did you say? What about fireworks?”

            Nielson turned to Kurumi. “Kuru, where do they store the fireworks before they are set off? Where’s the fireworks platform?”

            Kurumi took out her tablet. “Down the hall and second door on the left.”

            “Can we stop the fireworks from going off through the control room?”

            “No, it’s a separate control panel located in the same room the fireworks are stored in.”

            “Right then. We need to go. Those fireworks can’t be allowed to be set off.”

            Sanders shook his head. “Are you telling me that they’re going to release the viruses along with the fireworks?”

            “Yeah, and it’s absolute genius. Everyone would be drawn to the bright lights flashing in the sky, and never know that they were being infected at the same time.”

            Sanders started running, and the other two followed him. Getting to the fireworks room, he kicked the door open. Two guards turned around, surprised. They didn’t even have a chance to say a word before Nielson and Kurumi put them down.

            Sanders ran over to the controls. He gestured at Kurumi.

            “Can you shut this thing off?”

            “I’ll see what I can do.”

            Nielson turned towards a live television screen on the wall and got a panicked look on his face. “D****t, the last performers are walking off the field now, the crowd is going to start counting down soon.”

            Sanders took a look at the mass of fireworks in front of him. Thousands of wires crisscrossed between the spaces between them. There was no way they could cut the right wires in time.

            Kurumi slammed her fist against the table. “They’ve locked it all down, it’s impossible to stop the countdown. We have to find another way.”

            Nielson walked back and forth quickly, talking to himself. “Will the viruses be destroyed in the heat? It burns at more than a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. That’s more than enough to destroy any biological matter. But they can just release it before the firework reaches its apex and explodes. So the viruses can get released, and at a higher altitude no less.”

            Sanders thought for a second.

            “Nielson, how hot did you say it takes to kill off viruses?

            “Well, you can’t technically kill viruses, but a heat of over 250 degrees Fahrenheit will definitely deactivate any virus.”

            “And how hot do thermite burn at?”

            “More than four thousand degrees.”

            “Rig the fireworks with thermite, and ignite and detonate them with C4. Now. We’ll make sure the viruses get destroyed with the fireworks.”

            “But won’t the stadium--“

            “I don’t give a damn about what happens to the stadium. The lives of millions of people are at risk here. Rig those explosives, and we start running.”

            Nielson nodded slowly, and got to work.

            Kurumi tapped on her tablet quickly. “According to my calculations, if Nielson uses all the C4 he has right now, the explosion will destroy all the fireworks that’s present here, and the blast radius won’t reach any of the audience. We do have to run like crazy to get out of the blast radius though.”

            Nielson tossed a remote-like device over to Sanders.

            “That’s a detonator, it’ll reach the C4, but we have to get that jammer off first.”

            Kurumi tapped a button on her tablet and grinned. “Already done, Nielson.”

            Sanders looked up at the television screen. It looked like they were about ready to start counting down.

            “Hey, Nielson, you finished?”

            Nielson stood up and wiped his brow. “Yeah, just about, Chief.”

            Sanders turned to Kurumi. “Pack up your toys, we’re leaving.”

            The trio turned around, and started running quickly back towards where they entered.

            As they passed the ventilation room, they suddenly heard a low booming coming from above them. The countdown had started.

“Ten! Nine! Eight!” They kept running, right past the control room.

“Seven! Six! Five!” Passing the MMG, they ran down the corridor and crashed into the lounge.

“Four! Three! Two!” As fast as they could, they shot towards the exit, just meters away.

“One!” Sanders jumped forwards to the door, and hit the detonator at the same time.

            “And the fireworks are just about to go off now, marking the end of the spectacular 2020 Tokyo Olympics. You can hear the crowd cheering and counting down even from the booth I’m in right now, watching it all unfold. Here are the final seconds, count with me now, three, two, one! Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for tuning in, but wait. What’s this? The fireworks seem to have malfunctioned! It must have ignited while still inside their launchers! A fireball just shot out from underneath the field, caving in the track into the basement below! The field is destroyed! What a disaster! Although, it doesn’t seem to be making much difference at the moment, the crowd is loving it! I’ve never heard such a cheer before!”

            Sanders sat against the wall of the stadium, listening to the cheers of the crowd. Nielson, standing and fixing himself up, laughed. “They must have enjoyed that one, didn’t they?”

Kurumi took out her tablet one more time, and connected to the live broadcast. “It doesn’t look like anyone was hurt in the explosion, nor do they suspect any kind of sabotage. We’ll see in a week if we really saved the world or not. It takes several days for someone infected with the virus to show any symptoms.”

Sanders smiled and slowly started walking towards their designated extraction point. “We’ll worry about that later. Come on, there’ll be medals waiting for us back at HQ.” Nielson laughed again. “That’s a load of bull. They won’t even give us vacation time or even a can of beer. It’ll just be a pat on the back and a free plane ticket to the next mission.” Kurumi smiled too. “I wouldn’t mind a nice pat on the back. After all, I did just sa--“

She barely had enough time to finish her words before Sanders gave her a hearty slap on the back, and walked forwards, away from the stadium. Nielson and Kurumi followed behind, feeling a sense of pride in a job well done, and a bit of anticipation, just waiting for the next mission.

“Well, it looks like everyone is ok in the stadium. The crowd seems to love that explosion earlier. I take back what I said. This is a fabulous way to end this wonderful event. It only seems right that it should go out in a bang. Well folks, it looks like this is the end of our live broadcast. We hope you all enjoyed yourself, whether you’re at home, work, or with friends. Thank you very much for tuning in, and we’ll see you in Beijing in two years, in the 2022 Winter Olympics!”