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So, as much as Eggsy would've liked it – he really, really would've liked it – there wasn't time to bum a princess after all. Which was the most bullshit thing Eggsy had ever heard in his life, but Merlin was really fucking adamant about that.
"No, Eggsy," he said in that severe you don't talk back to me, lad, voice, "there really isn't time because the World Has Gone To Fucking Shit. So get your act together and free the fucking prisoners."
"You're just no fun at all, Merlin," Eggsy muttered as the passwords for all of the cells started scrolling down the side of his glasses HUD. Sighing, he opened the door to Princess Tilde's cell. "Sorry, luv," he said apologetically to the princess, as instead of going inside he just held the door open. "As much as I'd love to, turns out there just ain't no time for this."
"What happened?" she asked, the glow of good times ahead vanishing, her face turning serious and severe. It makes her look even more stunning which is frankly just unfair.
"Valentine told you about those SIM cards and the wave thing, yeah? And about those implants that he put in the necks of all his rich mates and shit?" Eggsy asked, as she grabbed an over coat and tugged it on.
"He wanted to put one in my head – so yes, I am well aware," Tilde answered, scowling.
Eggsy grimaced. How fucking lucky that Valentine had been big on voluntary subscription, then. "Well, the implants were activated and turns out there was… a lot of important people with those things in their heads. And the SIM cards, well, he turned them on too. It was probably bad."
"Fucking catastrophic," Merlin agreed in his ear.
"Fuck," the princess said and pushed past him and into the corridor. Her eyes widened a bit as she saw the lengthy corridor, locked doors on both sides. "How many people did he bring here?"
"Five hundred and thirteen," Merlin answered, which Eggsy repeated to her. Politicians, world leaders, royalties, celebrities with wide influence, lots of rich fucks from that hallowed one percent and a shit ton of important scientists. The cream of the crop, apparently.
"Merlin," Eggsy said, touching his glasses. "Any chance you could make a base wide announcement or something – because trying to explain all of this shit to everyone individually will take fucking forever."
"Right, I'm on it," Merlin answered.
"But wouldn't Valentine's people hear it?" Tilde asked, looking at the dead bodies littering the corridor and wincing a bit.
"Luv, there ain't nobody alive here but us," Eggsy said. "Valentine chipped all of his people. They're now all headless, along with all of his mates."
"Shit," she muttered, sounding horrified and impressed all at once.
"Eggsy, I'm patching you into the intercom," Merlin said suddenly and didn't even give him time to try and actually digest that, never mind trying to figure out what to say, because Merlin was a bastard. "You're on in three, two, one – go."
Eggsy, eyes wide, cleared his throat. Well, fuck it. "Attention all prisoners, this is your rescuer speaking," he said in the best posh voice he could manage, and could hear Merlin groaning in his ear. His voice echoed through the corridors and Tilde started with surprise, which Eggsy grinned at but otherwise ignored. "I am pleased to say that Richmont Valentine is very much dead, as is his femme fatale sidekick and everyone who's been working for him. In case you are not aware of his evil plans, let me educate you on the matter of the violence inducing SIM cards and brain exploding implants that were both key to his plan and to his demise –"
It was easy enough to slip into the character and lay down the facts of the whole mess. Merlin, cursing all the while, fed the details into his glasses HUD, so Eggsy could give easily his attentive audience the tiny important details like the duration of the SIM card signal and the scientific titbit about their function, before going over the details of the head implants and their effects. Then, with a slightly less jubilant voice, he read out the rough estimates of the damages done – the number of people who'd had the implants and then the estimated death toll done by the SIM cards. It was already up in the millions, and going up fast.
"Now that everyone has been informed, please sit tight. I will now proceed to release you all from your cells," Eggsy wound down his announcement. "If any of you have piloting licences, please be sure to mention that the moment you're released – there are five hundred and thirteen prisoners all told, and though there are plenty of planes in this base to get everyone out, we only have, as of now, one trained pilot and no plane big enough to transport everyone. If you have injuries or special needs that should be immediately taken care of, please mention those also. Please remain calm – I will be with you shortly."
"You little –" Merlin muttered. "Fuck it. Eggsy, can you handle this? I'm going to go swing by to pick up Lancelot – should take no more than twenty minutes."
"Yeah, I got this," Eggsy said, picking up the semi-automatic rifle from a nearby dead guard. He turned to Tilde. "Mind giving me a hand with the doors, luv?"
"Yes, of course," She said, looking a little wild around the eyes. She glanced at the nearest door. "You have the codes for them?"
"Yeah. Just tell me the door number and I can give it to you."
The first prisoners they rescued were, horrifyingly enough, about as royal as Tilde. Right next to her cell was apparently the Danish crown prince, the Count of Monpezat – and the cell across from her was the Prince of Wales, whom Tilde released from the cell. While the three of them exclaimed over each other with varying levels of shock and relief and political politeness, Eggsy rescued the young Duchess of Brabant and he was quickly getting his mild blown by the sheer amount of blue blood around.
"You are the one who… did this?" one of the many royalties – many, many royalties, Eggsy soon lost track of them all – asked, when Eggsy let the young man out of his cell. "You ended this, yes?"
"Yes, I suppose I did, your… highness," Eggsy said rather desperately, hoping he got it right. This particular royalty was from somewhere in South East Asia judging by the accent, and considering how quick Eggsy had lost track of the European royalties, he had no hope of keeping up with the rest.
"What is your name?" the prince asked, watching him warily. "Who do you work for?"
"Er," Eggsy said, no idea how to handle this.
"You're an independent interested party, and not part of any government or governmental institution," Merlin said to his ear, which Eggsy gratefully repeated out loud. And then, "And your name is Chester King, remember?"
Eggsy choked.
"Are you alright?" the prince asked with cautious concern.
"Yes, sorry," Eggsy said and offered his hand. "Chester King," he said, and his eyes were probably wide as he shook the hand of the royal prince of… some nation. Shit. "I'm sorry, your royal highness – I still have work to do," he said then and flat out fled to release another person from yet another cell.
"Merlin what the fuck?" he hissed under his breath as he punched in the key to the next cell.
"Eggsy, just go with it," Merlin answered. "If they check it we already have the background made for you – it should hold water for now and later on it won't matter."
"Fine, fuck," Eggsy said and opened the door for yet another royalty. "Your highness," he said to the young man inside. "If you would join the rest of our growing list of rescues outside, please," he said, and then moved onto the next one.
His supposed name passed hands fast among the increasing list of royalties, and by the time the whole corridor was cleared, everyone knew him as Mr. King which was weird as fuck but whatever. He could go with it. A surprising number of the royal princes in attendance had at least some measure of military training and a couple of them confessed to pilot training, which would help a bit with the ferrying of everyone out of the base.
"We must arrange our… rescue carefully," one of the many, many royalties present said. "Especially concerning the state of the world outside. Mr. King, are there any details you can give us about the state of things outside?"
"Yes, sir, give me a moment," Eggsy said, moving back and touching his glasses. "Merlin, any chance we can give these people access to the internet?"
"Checking," Merlin answered, and then quickly directed him to a nearby control room which was flush with Vpads and Vphones. "They have different model SIM cards," Merlin assured him when Eggsy fingered one of his last remaining lighters nervously. "And as it is, the signal is deactivated – only Valentine's hand on that desk can activate it. They're safe."
"Right," Eggsy nodded and picked up a fucking stack of state of the art tablets. "I'll just hand these out, yeah? How about mobiles? Safe to let these people contact their people and shit?"
"Better not to hold anything back – situation's fucked up enough without us trying to restrict freedoms," Merlin answered. "Just grab everything. The faster we blow this thing open properly, the quicker it will be handled."
"Right," Eggsy said. "How far out are you and Lancelot?"
"We'll be there in six minutes, Eggsy," Roxy answered. "Looks like you're making friends."
"Yeah. I'm fucking stoked about it too," Eggsy snorted and then ferried the tablet computers and various mobiles out to the previously imprisoned heirs and relatives of various royalties, assuring them all quickly that yes, they were safe, no the signal wasn't active anymore and as it is, these pads seemed to have safe SIM cards, so it was perfectly alright.
"There's still a lot of people out there waiting to be released," Eggsy said to them, as they shared the tablets around and hurriedly started updating themselves on twitter and whatnot about the hell the world had momentarily been turned into. "So I'll just leave you all to it."
"I'll come with you," Tilde offered quickly, handing her tablet to the Prince of Wales.
"Is there any way we can contact you?" the prince asked.
"I'm hooked into the intercom," Eggsy said – which he wasn't, but Merlin was. "Just give a shout, and I'll get back to you."
He and Princess Tilde then headed off to the next corridor, to release yet more prisoners. As they did, Merlin and Roxy soon landed and then Roxy joined the rescue effort, passing by the many royals and the huge number of celebrities that had now joined them.
"I told them I work for you," Roxy said through the glasses. "Seemed to calm them down. I'll start on the southern corridor."
"I'll take north," Eggsy answered, and got back to work.
Between him and Tilde and Roxy, they had all of the prisoners released in about an hour or so, after which the corridors and then eventually the base's hangar was full of very confused, very relieved and, as the news spread in between them, very horrified people.
And the fucking princes and princesses were spreading out the word that Eggsy – Chester fucking King – had been instrumental in stopping it.
"How did you know about this?" someone at some point asked, Eggsy had at that point lost track of fucking everybody. It was some scientist probably. "No one knew until Valentine approached us and then we either agreed or were imprisoned. How did you find out?"
"Not even our intelligence agencies knew anything!"
"My intelligence agency is simply better informed, then," Eggsy said and smothered the urge to shrug. Gentlemen, he was well aware, did not rub their superiority in other people's faces.
"How do we know you were not part of the villains who did this?" someone accused him.
"Because if I was, you'd all still be in cells, and these lovely gentlemen," Eggsy motioned at the dead bodies that had been pushed into undignified heaps and out of the way, "Would still be waving their guns around."
"How can we know for sure?! How can we trust you?"
"You can't," Eggsy said simply.
"Please," Roxy hurried to soften it. "We have done whatever we've been able to do to try and stop it. Mr. King got here as fast as he was able to, and you can't deny that he did put an end to it. So please, let's try and concentrate on getting everyone out there."
"Yes, there is plenty of trouble out there for all of us, without borrowing some more here," Tilde agreed, casting Eggsy a glance. She took a breath and then lifted her head. "My family is dead, or missing, according to what news has been posted online. And I am not the only one in this position. And I need to get home, now."
"So," Eggsy said. "I trust most of you have been in contact with whomever you need to contact? If not there are plenty of phones around here for you to use to make contact with your various governments and institutions and… managers," he added, glancing at a nearby rap artist. "Or whomever you need to contact. Let's get that out of the way now, and then start talking flight plans."
"Should we not investigate this base?" asked the South East Asian prince whose name Eggsy might've heard at some point but could not remember. "We should get to the bottom of this event fully!"
Eggsy hesitated and tapped his glasses to let Merlin know that his input would be welcome right about now.
"Right," Merlin grumbled. "Shit. Alright, tell them that you'll be investigating the base yourself as well as dismantling Valentine's tech – and afterwards, you'll share the reports… online," he almost grunted. "Whatever's safe to share anyway. This is a fucking public spectacle already so let's just go all the way with it."
Eggsy did as asked, which gained him a lot of suspicious looks. "And we can trust you with this?" someone asked. "We don't even know what agency you belong to! Or what government!"
"He's British, they're both British!" someone added and several people threw suspicious looks at the Prince of Wales.
"Don't look at me," the prince said, though he looked at Eggsy thoughtfully. "You're not MI6, are you?"
"I'm afraid not," Eggsy said, smiling, though it was starting to be a bit strained now. He almost asked Merlin if he could just amnesia dart all of these people and get on with it, but he rather doubted there were enough darts in his watch for everybody.
Then he got a brilliant idea.
"Now, I apologise but I really need to be dealing with other matters concerning this base – my colleague here will be more than happy to answer all your questions in the meantime," he said, clapping Roxy's shoulder, and then fleeing the scene.
"You're a fucking coward, Mr. King," Roxy hissed through the glasses communications.
"Hey, I'm not even a Kingsman Agent, Lancelot," Eggsy said, grinning. "So really, I shouldn't even be handling shit like that. You on other hand are just perfect for the job."
Merlin snorted. "While his justification is somewhat lacking… he's right, Lancelot. Your NLP scores are higher than his are," he said. "You are better suited to handle a crowd. Eggsy, head back to the ballroom. Let's destroy that bloody table."
"Gladly," Eggsy said and began jogging down the corridor. "What about those satellites? And the SIM cards?"
"I've already started spreading word about the SIM cards - #freesimofdeath is trending on twitter right now, along with some other similar hashtags. I've also hacked a couple news feeds just in case. So the word is getting out," Merlin said. "And as for the satellites, I'm trying to hack a couple of news satellites to try and put them on collision course. Should have at least a couple of them out in the next hour or so."
"Damn, Merlin, you work fast," Eggsy said. "What's the word on the implants, though?"
"Bad and getting worse," Merlin said darkly. "They've only started reporting the deaths now, but… shit, Eggsy. A lot more people had those things than we knew. A lot more. Your friend Princess Tilde, for one – most of her family was implanted."
"You're shitting me. How?"
"At a guess… well, Valentine had a valuable hostage, didn't he?" Merlin said. "The Swedish royal family isn't the only one that was somehow persuaded to get implants. It's harder finding people who weren't implanted, actually. We don't have the full death toll yet but it's really fucking high."
"Shit," Eggsy muttered and slowed down to a walk as he arrived at the ballroom. He walked past Gazelle and Valentine and then pushed a nearby table closer to Valentine's little control centre, and climbed over broken glass to the table. It was still flashing – still primed and ready. "Okay, how do I do this?" Eggsy asked. "Is there anything on this thing we might need?"
"It's locked with biometrics, I can't get into it," Merlin answered. "It's no use to us and I've already gotten everything I can from Valentine's servers.
"So just blow it up. So I just leave a lighter here, yeah?"
"A lighter won't do enough damage. Do you have a cigar case?"
Eggsy checked his pockets. He'd picked up most of the things in the weapons cabinet – whether or not he knew what they were for. A golden cigar case was, indeed, one of the things he'd taken. "I got it," he said and opened the case. Inside there were pretty normal, albeit expensive looking cigars which he could've easily mistaken for normal ones – if it wasn't for the Kingsman label.
"It's an explosive, equivalent to half a pound of C4," Merlin said as Eggsy turned one of the cigars in his hand. "There's wire under the label and the case works as a detonator – the keypad is in the bottom."
"You guys have the best toys," Eggsy said with an awed voice, and then quickly got to work rigging up the touch screen table with explosives.
"We do indeed," Merlin agreed distractedly. "Lancelot, how's it coming along?"
"Well, we have some destinations selected out," Roxy answered. "And there's enough people here with pilot's licences for appropriate models to get everyone out. Though most everyone here wants to go their own way, most here agree that the political entities should stick together for now – that there will probably need to be some sort of public appearance. They can't agree where, though."
"Whichever country they land in will get the credit for the rescue, probably," Merlin muttered.
"Go with Sweden," Eggsy said, running the wire from the table down to the dance floor and then hooking the detonator in via holes by the hinges before setting the countdown. "Tilde seems like a smart one."
"Wanting to bang you doesn't make someone smart," Merlin snorted.
"She told Valentine to fuck off," Eggsy pointed out.
"Everyone here told Valentine to fuck off," Roxy said. "But you might have a point. Of all the nations proposed so far, it seems the most neutral option," she said and then, just before cutting off communications. "Ladies, gentlemen, Mr. King suggests…"
"How did I end up in charge of this mess?" Eggsy asked as he jogged away from the ballroom and then behind a wall to wait for the explosion.
"Fucked up luck on all our parts," Merlin said. "Eggsy, I've been trying to contact with the rest of Kingsman, trying to find if anyone made it through. And though I've managed to make contact with some of the tech department, it doesn't look good. The agents…"
"Don't tell me," Eggsy sighed.
"Looks like it's just the three of us for now."
Eggsy leaned his head against the wall and sighed as the explosion rocked the base, taking out Valentine's control desk and most of the ballroom with it.