Humanity, that is what I have followed all my life, until I decided that I was no more of a human then the rest of them. I needed to create a persona that would allow me to rise above the boringness of being a simple human. This is not my whole story, hell no. This is simply one story. One of my close calls, and a choice I had to make, to save the lives of others.

Because you don't know me, you need to know firsthand that I am not what I seem to be. My name is not important right now, simply call me "JC Denton." I do what I do, because nobody else will. Before I get to the story at hand, you must need to know some background on me. First of all, I may sound experienced, but I am much younger then I may seem. To protect myself I will not give my age or where this took place. Second, and most important, I am not human (anymore). I wanted to be able to improve my abilities to that of a robot, so I trained myself to be able to have a perfect shot at 200 yards, move silently throughout areas, and be able to hack any system I could get my hands on and get the information I needed from it. The army, the FBI, and the CIA don't even have the right stuff to take me on. My most powerful feature was a side affect of most of my training, a keen sense enhancement. I could make split second decisions, as well as extremely high motor skills.

This happened to me from what I do. I worked for an anti terrorism branch of the government called UNATCO. At the expense of being human they re-fitted me with cybernetic nano-augmentations which enhanced my human abilities for me to move around silently, have a perfect shot, resist damage from bullets, and so on. Rest assured that I am quite human from close up, but under these sunglasses, lays the mind of a genius, the only real hope humanity has.

That's enough background on me, now to the actual event. School. You wish you were never there, yet it's going to be with you for the rest of your life. Without it, you'll never get a good job, never have good pay, and never have a sense of direction. My story takes place there. I am not a teacher, merely a person who likes to hide in plain sight. It was a day like any other, or it seemed to everybody.

I received a tip from one of my sources in The Company that something was going to happen in that particular school on that particular day.

That was when we saw them for the first time, they were armed with ak-47s but they were no soldiers. They started rounding the kids up and putting them into larger classrooms at gunpoint. I did the smart thing that only two other students did; I hid in the bathroom and locked the door. The other two students with me looked frightened. They knew the men would come and try to check the bathrooms for students, and if they found any, they would be taken as well. We, I needed to do something. I wanted to get the others out and face the soldiers myself, but there was no way, they probably had control over everything already. I told them that I was going to look outside for men; their best bet was to hide in a stall and pray that all the men were already gone. The kids looked at me funny, like they never saw me before and thought I was weird. I couldn't say I blamed them but I couldn't smile at them. I walked out and stepped into an alcove where the security cameras couldn't reach. I immediately set my watch to change my clothes from my usual undercover fleece outfit and jeans to my black fatigues. I put on my change of clothes that included black pants and my buttoned up blue shirt. I took my black trench coat out from under my clothes. I use it hold items that I can't carry, and I put the coat on. I pulled my sunglasses out from my coat pocket and put them on. Looks may be deceiving, but what I really needed was something to fight with. Space in my trench coat would never be able to hold very heavy weapons so all I had to settle for was two pistols that I could conceal under my coat. These would never be able to pierce heavy armor, but since I had two of them, I could fire much quicker.

I started sneaking down the hall, I didn't want my presence to be known, not yet. My augmented stealth legs allowed me to travel around without a sound. But I needed to get some information on the terrorists. If any of the soldiers were dumb enough to show up, I would just shoot him and take his weapon. It was at that time that I knew what I had to do. I was going to take this school back myself. But this wasn't a game; my life was on the risk, and quite possibly the lives of every student, staff, and administration in that entire school as well. And if this school went.there would be nothing I could do to save them.

I was on the second floor of the school. I could tell all the security cameras from a distance but I had no way of knowing if by shooting them, I would alert them to my presence or they would think nothing of it. But I couldn't be seen. If I were seen, then my cover would be blown. I had no idea where the hostages were being held, or what the terrorists wanted. But this school was set up like a fortress. I doubt if the police even knew that they had taken over the school. But I couldn't risk pulling the fire alarm. I was going to have to try something else.

I managed to make my way up to the third floor without being detected. I knew that there was a phone with an outside line in the teacher's lounge. I thought ahead and previously hacked the school's mainframe and drew up prints of the entire building. The only place I knew of that could hold the entire school's population and where they could be contained was the auditorium. But I also knew where I could get a bird's eye view and signal my intentions without being seen. But first I had to contact the police. I made it into the teacher's lounge. Not a guard in sight, so I had to assume there probably wasn't very many of them. I picked the phone up and dialed nine for an outside line. Success, I could hear the dial tone. I immediately dialed 911.

"911, emergency," the person on the phone said.

"I cannot give you my name, I'm sorry," I replied into the phone, "but this is not a joke, you need to take me seriously."

"Go ahead," she replied.

"I am at the (sorry, I can't tell you the school), we have a Die Hard, I repeat, we have a Die Hard situation."

"Excuse me sir?"

"An unknown number of terrorists have taken over this school, this is not a joke. I am the only person who I know who was not taken. I am armed. Do not send the Police until you get a signal from me. I do not want to give you my real name, I will give you the code phrase, `This is JC Denton, send the Police' do you understand?"

"If this is a joke you will be subject to FCC violation and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

"You think this is a joke, do you want me to prove you otherwise?" I thought for a second on what to do to prove to her that I was for real, that's when I decided. "You have my word that I will turn myself in after this ordeal is over. If I see any cops beforehand and the situation is compromised, I will not. Do you understand?"

"Yes, we will be waiting."

"Good." I hung up the phone knowing full well that she thought I was a loon, but I had to have backup if I needed it, but if they saw any cops, they might start shooting hostages, I couldn't have that.

I walked out of the teacher's lounge, and almost had a heart attack as I saw the back of a guard pass me. I headed for the back of a wall while I thought about what I could do. Should I kill him, or should I shoot him in a non-fatal area, yet still painful, hoping he wasn't wearing a bulletproof vest and try to interrogate him? It took me about a second, and I fired two shots into him, one into his arm, the one carrying his weapon, which he dropped, and one into his leg. He fell to the ground. I shot one more time into his chest. He was wearing a vest like I suspected, but I knew that would still hurt him. I walked up to him and kicked his gun away from him, my pistol to his head.

"One move and your dead," I said to him.

"Who the fuck are you?" He asked trying to make it look like he was superior to me.

"I'm the janitor." I said to him.

"Bull, we have all the students in the auditorium, you are not a student, who the fuck are you?"

"Thank you for telling me where all the hostages are my friend. Now tell me right now, how many terrorists are there here?" He spit on me.

"Big mistake my friend." I shot him in the forehead, blowing is brains away. The man's head fell back, or what was left of it. I couldn't tell what nationality he was, and his accent was very americanized. I couldn't tell what terrorist group he was from. I checked his body, weapon clips; I of course took his weapon and put my dual pistols in my pattern buffer watch. His weapon was better. I checked for identification, I found none. Whoever these people were, they were pros. I grabbed his radio and walked back downstairs avoiding the security cameras.

"Okay buddy, what it's your move now, what is your master plan. There are probably guys in the halls; there are probably guys in the office; and there are probably guys in the security room. What do you do?" I asked myself.

"Kill everything that moves," I replied. My plan was first gather intelligence as to capacity, then implement. I couldn't risk killing any terrorist from the balcony of the auditorium, because if there are men left in the building, they might start killing terrorists. What could I do?

I headed for the balcony, which is a room right above the auditorium where all the audio equipment is kept, I also had to figure on there being men up there, so I got my duel pistols out of my coat pockets and stuffed the M-16 in there, in case I was captured and unarmed, I would have a weapon concealed. The balcony is located through a door in one of the science labs, I got my pistols ready and looked through the door. I saw a man inside there armed, I figured there could be others. I had no choice. I grabbed my pistol and aimed for his head. I pulled the trigger and fired. The man fell. I ran to the side of the door incase another man came out. One did, I shot him in the chest two times, he was wearing a vest, I just kept shooting till I saw I was drawing blood on him. He finally fell. I stuffed his clips into my trench coat. My pistols were rigged for silence, so if there were men on the inside of the door in the balcony, they would not hear that two of their comrades were just killed. I knocked on the door and headed to the side of the door, one of the men opened it, I shot him in the neck, then the head, he fell and his body kept the door open. I didn't hear a screaming from the balcony, but I had to assume that there could be another man contacting more men up there. I didn't have any explosives on me and I knew that if I did, I couldn't risk using them for fear that they could be used to reveal my position. But still no man came out. For what seemed like hours but actually was seconds I crept into the balcony. The balcony was small, and there was no one else up there. I was relieved. I dragged all the men into the balcony and since this was a science room, there was a faucet and paper towels and I was able to clean up most of the blood. I checked the men. I found a radio on one of them, M-16 clips on all of them, and the man on the balcony was armed with a pistol with armor piercing rounds. I decided I would probably need that, and they looked like they would fit in my pistols so I unloaded my clips and fed the rounds into my pistols. I unloaded a round into the man who had body armor on; it didn't make a sound and went right through his armor. I knew that would come in handy.

I holstered my pistols into my trench coat, and took a look over the balcony. I was down the entire time and I didn't see what was going on. My suspicions were correct. The entire student population WAS down in the auditorium, as well as the teachers and faculty. There were about five or six terrorists. I knew I needed someone else to help me. I needed.someone else to stay up there so when I cleared that area. I grabbed a radio and headed for the bathroom that they were hiding in. I grabbed my pistols out of my holster, and opened the door slightly. What I saw horrified me. There was a terrorist in there, with a gun to their heads. I reacted without thinking and unloaded three armor-piercing rounds into his head. He just dropped to the ground.

"Who the hell are you?" One of the students asked.

"My name's not important. Just call me JC Denton," I replied.

"JC Denton?" He asked, "Naah man, you're just trying to play hero.

"Trying to play hero you say? Not even a hero can do this," I said as I put a round into the wall and then hollowed it out precisely by firing a second round into the exact same spot. "Any questions, now I need your help. Do you guys know how to get to the balcony from here?"

"Sure I know, I have my science class in that room."

"Good," I checked the terrorist's body for a weapon and took his M-16 and gave it to the student. Then I held onto the second radio. I saw what frequency that the terrorists were on so I changed mine and theirs to something I knew would be static. "Do not fire this weapon under any circumstances unless you hear from me in this radio. I hope you play a lot of games kid. The second you hear from me to start firing aim for any terrorist you see from that balcony and fire without remorse. DO NOT fire on any student or teacher, or endanger their lives, if you get captured, you do whatever you can to stay alive. Tell them about me only if they threaten to kill you, if they do call me, I will be there and turn myself in, I will not let you down, but you cannot let me down. Do you get me?"

"I'm with you," one of them said.

"I'm there too," the second one said.

"Good, get up there, try to stay away from those cameras. Shoot them out if you have to because if they spot you, you're dead." I told them. With that they walked out, and we split up.

"Tell me when you get in position, and not a moment before," I told them over the radio.

"We got you," one of them replied. I got into position ready to storm the office. I put my pistols back into my trenchcoat as well as my pistol clips in case I needed them. I took out all the M-16 clips I had and stuffed them in my pockets. Then I pumped myself up and got in position on the first floor. I went over in my mind what I had to do, I had to storm the first floor guns blazing, first firing at the security office, then storming the main office, I had to check every single room in the office before pronouncing it secure, then I was going to have to give my friends in the balcony the `go-code' to start firing on the terrorists as I provided ground cover incase any of them tried to shoot a hostage. I had to take into consideration right then and there that there may be some civilian casualties, but I had to accept them because I was one person against the world.well I did have a little help.

"We are in position," they told me over the radio.

"Good," my heart raced as I loaded my weapon for full rock and roll, I got my adrenaline pumping as I got ready to start shooting. This is it buddy, this is your time, no turning back now, don't fuck up now. I told myself to shut up and pay attention. These next few moments in my life could be my last, I took a deep breath and readied my M-16, then I busted down the door leading to the first floor, with the rapid fire trigger pushed down.

I hit the security guard area first, just as I had planned, the bullets shattered the glass like ice. There was only one terrorist in that room, and the bullets tore up his body. I took a quick breath and reload my empty clip. My next objective was the office, a terrorist came to investigate what was happening, and he met the same fate as the makeshift security guy. Objective accomplished.

I headed into the office guns blazing, if it moved, I shot it. There were no civilians in the office, and only 2 terrorists in the reception area; I knew they would probably be in the conference room. I shot first and asked questions later as I kicked the door down and started firing without notice. I caught the five men off guard in this room, the one hostage they were probably going to use as ransom ducked under the table saving her life. I recognized her immediately it was the vice principal.

"Who are you?" she asked inquisitively.

"I'm a friend, what do you know?" I replied.

"Okay.friend.everyone's being held in the auditorium. I saw about 10 or so terrorists, they were all armed with machine guns. There are a total of about 15 of them in this building, not counting those five."

"You might want to scratch off eight others."

"You didn't?"

"I had no choice, it comes with the job."

"And what sort of job is that?"

Quoting Solid Snake, I replied to her without a flinch (well, she couldn't see through my sunglasses) "If we make it through this I'll tell you, the front doors are clear as well as the security area, get the hell out of here. I already got the police ready to come in as soon as I get the terrorists cleared out. I'm betting that the eight others are in the auditorium." Talking into the radio I said, "How many terrorists to you read up there?"

Over the radio, I could hear, "We copy, vision is bad up here, we make out five of them, but that is all, we can't see the whole thing from here."

"Target the terrorist with the cleanest shot you can possibly get, after I give you the `go-code' take him out, and any other terrorist you see that could pose a danger to anyone. Do you copy?"

"Copy."

"I'm moving into position now, get ready for my signal," and with that I headed for the door to the auditorium. I saw terrorist number six guarding it. "Well that's one of them that was unaccounted for, so where are you Mr. Seven?" I needed a silent kill for this one, if I alerted them, I would end up in a bloodbath. I took my pistols out of my pattern buffer watch, and with three bullets from both pistols he fell to the floor. "Prepare for go-code," I said into the radio. I put both my pistols back into my coat and picked back up my M-16 and loaded it with all the ammo I could find. Five terrorists, six at the most, I could handle that. I readied my weapon, and counted down the seconds from my heartbeats.

"Go!" I screamed into the radio, after that I kicked the door down and shot at the first thing wearing fatigues I saw, fortunately it was in my line of fire. The guys upstairs took one down from above, probably the easiest shot they had. Everyone in the auditorium got down, and I could see all the terrorists as it happened in slow motion. I shot at another one and he fell. I could feel everything going in slow motion as I tried to take cover, but while the terrorists were concentrating on me, my guys upstairs were taking them out with precision. Another fell, and the men started unloading rounds into the balcony, but the balcony was made of solid concrete, and automatic weapons fire had no chance to eat through that. I shot at another terrorist while he was concentrating on the balcony. The last one took cover.

"Drop your weapon!" I screamed while behind a row of students. "Come out with your hands up and you will not be fired upon, I have an extremely well trained sniper up in the balcony, there is no chance for you to walk out of this alive except unless you give yourself up."

"Okay, okay. I'll do it," he replied as he threw his weapon over to the side and came over with his hands up.

"Where is the last one of you?" I screamed at him.

"What are you talking about there are fifteen more of us?"

"No there isn't, they're all dead, except for you and someone else."

"You killed them?"

"It was them or me, and I prefer me."

"NOOOOOOOO!" he screamed as he charged at me, I shot him in the legs blowing off both of his shins, non fatal but this guy will never walk again.

"AHHHHHHHH!" I heard a scream coming from the balcony. It was my guys up there; the last guy must've taken them. DAMN! I KNEW SOMEONE WAS GOING TO GET HURT! Nobody in the auditorium seemed to be injured, shaken maybe but not injured. That's when I heard it over the radio.

"I found your pathetic excuse for backup, if you do not come to the second floor science room unarmed in ten minutes and reveal yourself I will kill both of your friends. That is all." With that the line went dead. I knew what I had to do. If the vice principal was right, there were no other terrorists in the building, but she also could've been wrong, and there may be others that she didn't see. I couldn't take that chance." I took the body armor off the terrorist whose shins I blew off, he was unconscious from the shots, and fed it under my black fatigues. The students were still in shock over what transpired, but they were alive. I checked the back for the faculty, they were tied up and gagged, and so I was able to free them. I told the students to hang tight and that help was on the way, but I had some unfinished business to attend to.

I loaded my dual pistols with as much ammo as I could possibly fit in them, I knew that it would be all I would get. The new rounds could not pierce armor, so I would have to be on my own or go for a headshot. I still had my M-16 ready, but I knew that it would be totally useless to me because he told me to go there unarmed. I loaded the pistols back into the pattern buffer and headed up to the second floor science room.

As I walked in I saw the last terrorist with a gun to the back of one of the students' head. "Toss your M-16 over here," he commanded. I did so, but I still had my pistols. "If you have any other weapons I will kill this one right now. All I want is a way out of here. And she will provide me with that ticket. Here, I have no use for him," and he tossed me the other student as he made his way to the door facing me. "Now tell me right now, who are you? Failure to do so will result in her brains everywhere."

"Have you no compassion, no remorse?" I asked him.

"What do you call what you have, haven't you killed all of my comrades? I came here because I wanted to incite fear that we could do whatever we wanted and get away with it. But then you show up and go mad dog killer on all my men. I might as well kill you right now," as he aimed for my chest and fired.

The bullet hit my armor and knocked the wind out of me. The bullet did not pierce the vest, but it sure hurt like hell, and I was knocked to the ground. I decided the best thing to do would be to play dead.

"Now I'm going to expose you, you little prick," he started as he reached for my sunglasses. At that split second decision I went into my coat pocket with my left hand I reached for one of my pistols as I suddenly got up and fired one-shot point blank range into his chest. The impact could be heard as I hit his vest with the bullet, not piercing his vest, so in a split second decision I kicked him in his nuts with all the force I could possibly manage. He fell in pure pain and for a moment I felt pity for him. I knocked him unconscious using the back of my gun. He'd be better off to me alive then dead anyway.

But first thing's first. I made it to a phone with an outside line and dialed 911.

"911 emergency," I heard over the phone.

"This is JC Denton at the school, the Die Hard situation has been cleared, send in the Police, I'm ready to come in. I'll be the homicidal looking person with the dark sunglasses and black fatigues and trench coat."

"HOLY CRAP! A.a.yes sir, we'll send someone over there right away."

"There's one more thing, we have a live one here, and there's another one with his shins blown off in the auditorium. I don't know if they'll talk that's not up to me to decide. The other one's in the second floor science room. I don't know if any students or teachers were injured but they seem okay to me. I believe that this was simply something for them to scare you about. You were lucky that I was able to stop this in time or it could've gotten much worse."

In the distance I could hear the sirens and I knew that it was time. But I also wanted to get out of it. I gave them my word, and I wasn't going to go back on that. The police came under heavy support at that time, and I walked out with the last guy in tow. The police being the responsible doughnut eaters they are immediately aimed all their weapons at me and ordered me to drop my weapons without letting me say a word. I let them take me into custody, but they skipped the part about the booking because when they didn't read me my rights they told me I wasn't under arrest. They put me in a room where people are interrogated, I could see with my sunglasses that there were three people behind the mirror window glass, two of which were the students who helped me out.

"I know this is a bit of a hassle, but can someone get me a cup of coffee?" I asked.

"Yo, Charlie," The interrogator that walked in started, "can someone give this guy a cup of coffee?" Within a minute, I got my coffee and I started drinking it. I couldn't taste it but it was warm, and that was what I needed right now. "Okay buddy, who are you? You took out twenty terrorists all armed with machine guns, then you called us after you had already taken them all out. You probably saved the lives of every student and faculty member in that school, even though you did shoot the main floor up a lot,"

"It was necessary, I had no way of knowing who was beyond that door, and I sure as hell wasn't going to take any chances," I interrupted.

"Right, the point is we want to know one thing, WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!"

"My identity is not important to you, what is a name anyway? Merely something you can call a person. You don't need to call me anything except a hero."

"Look dude, there is serious property damage to the school, 18 men are dead, one has no more shins, and another one is in undergoing serious gonad reconstructive surgery thanks to you," I couldn't help but smile. "You could be looking at serious federal charges if you don't take those damn sunglasses off," he tried to swipe them off my face but I moved back, avoiding the swipe.

"I just saved the lives of over 500 people, for the price of 18, two shins, and one testicle, there's no way you could get a conviction."

"Maybe not, but you'd have to reveal yourself." I got up from the chair and started pacing. The man didn't realize I had my pistols still in my coat and I could kill him in a second if I wanted to. But then I'd be a wanted murder, and I couldn't have that. They were made of a metal that could not be detected by metal detectors and my trench coat pockets concealed them from a frisking.

Sipping my coffee I said, "Look, I turned myself in because I needed to prove to you guys that I was for real. I think you've had enough of a look for now, so I'm leaving. Trust me, you can't stop me." That was when I looked into the window right at the two students and smiled. "Thanks guys, you helped save my ass, I couldn't have done this without you." Then I said to the interrogator, "I better not find out those kids were detained and questioned. Got it?"

"Uh, yea. Okay Charlie, let `em go." As he said that I could see the two kids leaving the room.

"Okay, I do not know we are going to meet again. Vigilante work is not what I do."

"Then what is it you do?"

"I'm the only person who knows that answer, and that's where it stays, understand?"

"Sure but my boss isn't going to be very happy when he sees my report that a school was taken over by a bunch of angry terrorists only to be killed later on by a guy in black fatigues carrying an M-16. What would you say to that?"

"I'd say you'd better lay off the coffee. Did the media get word of this?"

"The school is a media swamp right now, but right now the students are trying to get their story straight on who actually saved them. Some are saying you were working for the terrorists."

"I can assure you that was not the case."

"Some were saying you were some disgruntled postal worker,"

"Ha, that's pretty funny. That would be good with the media for me; I doubt you guys will ever see me again. Go ahead and say that to them."

"Smart idea, but just tell me one thing, why did you do it?"

"I bet you wouldn't be happy if you saw a school being taken over by a bunch of crazy terrorists. Not after all the Tom Clancy I've been reading." He stood there and thought that over for a while during which time I walked out. "Oh and one more thing," I pointed at the security camera on the wall, "don't bother checking the logs for that, all you're going to get is static," I said as I remembered that I had previously tapped into the police security camera network and disconnected that one in particular. It helps to think ahead. After that I walked out, they couldn't keep me there any longer.

To this day I continue to do my work. I am by no means a vigilante; that is too childish a term for me to be. I merely consider myself a mercenary. A person that moves to the places where he can get the most out of, a rouge if you will. Will this be my last job? I am defiantly not. I will return.