TYRANT: The Rise by L. Douglas Hogan Page A

at her captors’ basement. She swept the environment, once through, with her eyes, checking for weapons or any useful tools. She knew it would be a longshot, but Jess believed erring on the side of safety, and security was critical to survival. She saw nothing useful, worthy of carrying into an unknown hostile environment.
    Now armed with a .45 S&W Governor and a Leatherman multi-tool, Jess quietly crept up the staircase, paying attention to creaking boards. Once she reached the top of the stairs, she unholstered her new revolver, checked the cylinder for ammo, and grabbed the door handle, listening for sounds from the room outside the door. Jess carefully turned the door handle and pulled the door open, just a couple inches, and listened some more. She was no longer hearing voices as she did before, and that made her fearful that her struggle with Scott may have been heard. She didn’t want to spend too much time waiting at the basement door. Her training taught her that hesitation can sometimes have deadly outcomes.
    Jess was awkwardly pulling the basement door towards her, as she had to lower herself down the staircase a bit to make room for the door to pull open. She did this with one hand on the door and her pistol in the other hand, pointed towards the opened doorway. With the door now open, Jess tiptoed up the stairs, peeking around the corner, first left, then right. To her surprise, there was an M4 standing against the wall next to the door.
    Keeping her gun pointed out the door, she used her left hand to reach out and grab the rifle. Successfully doing so armed her with a military rifle. She had seen M4s before, but this one was stockier than the others she had seen. It had an additional barrel under the primary barrel that she assumed was a grenade launcher. She was careful to locate the rifle’s trigger and not to confuse it for the trigger of the grenade launcher. She was untrained in its use and wise enough to avoid using weapons she didn’t understand.
    Jess removed the magazine of the rifle and took note that the magazine was full. She pulled the charging handle to the rear about an inch and took notice that the rifle had one round chambered. Pushing the forward assist to properly secure the round back in the chamber, Jess took the rifle off “safe” and put it on “fire.” She noticed there was a “full auto” option, but she was fine, knowing she didn’t have enough ammo to spray in full-auto mode. Her training taught her that single fire is the most accurate.
    Jess placed the pistol back into its holster then stepped out of the basement into what appeared to be an apartment. She boldly began clearing each room. That’s when the faint sound of men screaming and yells from the south window of the apartment were heard.
    Jess carefully moved toward a window and tried to look out. The blinds were shut and Jess was hesitant to make them move. Nevertheless, she used her fingers to gently grab one end of one horizontal piece of the blinds and move it up and out of the way. Seeing motion below her, she saw several armed men running and walking down a southbound alleyway to a street running east to west. The crowds were piling up at the sidewalk where the alley ended and the east/westbound road met. The men had their backs to her, so she thought it good to check the north side of the apartment. She could see no more movement and used this information to embolden her to find an exit on the north side of the apartment.
    Jess was becoming frustrated the longer she searched. Eventually she found a door that led outside to a fire escape. She took the fire escape to the outside ground level and took cover in the alleyway, being careful not to alert the men to her south, who still had their backs to her. From cover to cover she moved northward, away from the action, with her M4 at the ready.
    Jess knew she was in a very precarious situation. She spared no caution as she carefully moved through what she could now