“I guess,” I said, contemplating that logic. “It’s just kind of hard to think about anything else when you’re destined to become the Anti-Christ.”
“How about this?” Jane quickly swung her hips into my midsection and tossed me straight over her body. I hit the mat hard. It wasn’t as soft as it looked.
I took a deep breath while lying on my back. “Well, that was unexpected.”
Jane grabbed onto my hand and pulled me to my feet. “I guess we’ll have to tackle blocking and dodging first. You don’t nearly have the muscle mass to put up a proper defense but we’ll work with what you’ve got.”
“I just hope it’s enough to keep me from getting killed,” I said, shaking my head and raising my fists to block.
Jane took a fighting stance, as well. “I won’t let that happen.”
She began throwing punches, none of which I had any chance of stopping and I was on the ground after a minute of being hammered. “Ow.”
Jane nodded. “Good work.”
“Good work?” I asked, getting back up. “All I did was stand there and get hit.”
“That’s what’s good,” Jane said, smiling. “It shows you’re not completely hopeless. If you’d immediately crumpled, then there would be no point in training you.”
“Right,” I said, frowning. “This is going to suck.”
“All roads to things worth fighting for do.”
I had to agree with her on that. “Well, I’ll do anything to make sure I’m useful.”
Jane frowned. “I have to ask, Robbie, what do you hope to gain from all this?”
I assumed another fighting stance. “What do you mean? I would have thought having people trying to kill me would be more than enough justification to want to learn how to fight.”
I didn’t bring up my father. The subject was still too painful and I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to deal with it. My father’s abuse and hatred of everything I did warped my feelings so I couldn’t properly mourn him. I couldn’t hate him, either, because he was a man who’d raised me and was a failure rather than an evil man.
“You’re not telling me everything,” Jane said. “We have to be honest with each other, as hard as that can be sometimes.”
I paused, taking a deep breath. “I don’t know how you manage to read me so well. It’s like we’re related or something.”
Jane blinked once. “Is it your father?”
“No,” I said, taking a brief moment to think about my motivations. “It’ll sound strange to you.”
“Try me,” Jane said, taking a step back. “I want to know.”
“I can’t help but think about those boys that looked like me,” I said, having printed stuff about their murders in my room. I’d learned all about them: where they went to school, their families, their friends, and the investigation into their deaths. It had been a way to distract myself after my father died. Ironically, it had given me another thing to worry about.
“You blame yourself for their deaths,” Jane said. It wasn’t a question.
“How could I not?” I asked, thinking about all those kids who had been living perfectly normal lives until a bunch of time-traveling spec ops decided they were collateral damage.
“Blame the assassins,” Jane said, frowning. “Blame the Scorpion because you aren’t him. Not now. Not ever.”
I took comfort in her words before she started throwing me around left and right. It was her attempt to teach me how to turn my enemies’ strength against them, but it wasn’t working out so well. Still, I kept getting back on my feet despite how much she was showing I wasn’t anywhere near her league.
“Do you really think so?” I asked, getting back to our discussion.
“I know so,” Jane said, blinking. “I knew the Scorpion. He was a man without any form of love or compassion in his heart. It was hard for me to believe you were him at first. He was someone you could worship but not someone you could love. Your problem is you love too much and too many people.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Just talking about Christine and Anna,” Jane said.
I took a moment to get a drink of water from the bottles Jane had brought. I was pretty banged up but not in any way injured. Jane had done a good job of making sure any bruises would be elsewhere on my body than my face or hands. It would normally be horrifying but my life was at stake and being a bit beaten up was better than having no combat experience whatsoever.
“Are you actually making a joke about my love life?” I asked, hardly able to believe it.
“We had romances in the army,” Jane said, picking up a towel and wiping the sweat off her face. “Not many of them but enough that it was still something I’m familiar with.”
“Well, you’re wrong,” I said, finishing my drink. “I’m not interested in Christine. I’m with Anna.”
Jane looked like she was about to make a comment but made an awkward expression instead. I think she was literally biting her tongue inside her mouth. Even though she didn’t say anything, I still found myself shaking my head, almost as if I was refuting her unspoken claim without even knowing what it was.
Still, Jane’s look of disappointment said enough. “I think we’ve beaten you up enough for one day.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’ve picked up a few tricks, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to throw around super soldiers from the future anytime soon.”
“No, but you might be able to surprise them,” Jane said. “That can mean the difference between life and death in a battle.”
“Do you think so?” I asked.
“No,” Jane said.
“Of course,” I said, chuckling. “Why should I think anything else?”
“One of the few times the Scorpion visited the training camps, he told me something I’ve always remembered: the best warrior on Earth has more to fear from a complete amateur than a similarly skilled warrior.”
“I’ve heard that myself,” I said, blinking. “But it still doesn’t fill me with a lot of confidence.”
“Unpredictability is an advantage,” Jane explained, as if I was one of her fellow soldiers. “It would take years to get your body up to the standards of the Hope Assassins, but they don’t know I’m training you. If you can keep your advantages secret and focus on staying alive, you might make it through.”
I thought about that. “Surviving is important but sneaking into the Butterfly building will require more than just knowing how to stay alive.”
“Let me worry about that,” Jane said, crossing her arms. “I was infiltrating militarized compounds before I could walk.”
I knew that had to have been a joke, but Jane’s deadpan expression didn’t give that away, which made it easier to disagree with her. “And I’ve seen enough heist movies to know that nothing gets done with a team of just two people.”
Jane’s frown was as solid as a piece of stone. “I don’t think I like where that statement is going.”
“We’re going to need help.”
“What kind of help?” Jane asked quickly, as if she were anticipating my comment.
“The kind H.O.P.E. can provide.”
Jane stared at me blankly. I couldn’t read her expression or the thoughts behind them. She then abruptly picked up her bags and started to leave. “Fine.”
That was not the response I was expecting. “I don’t understand,” I said, still standing in place. “I thought you would be against me working with Anna and her crew.”
Jane was almost to the stairs when she stopped and spoke with her eyes glued to the floor. “I am, but when I agreed to this plan it meant that I was all-in. There’s no halfway attempts. And you’re right. We wouldn’t be able to accomplish the mission on our own.”
I was still too stunned to accept her blind agreement. “All this time you’ve been resisting something like this. What’s different?”
Jane looked up and changed the subject. “What do you bel
ieve in, Robbie?”
“Excuse me?” I asked, confused.
“What do you believe in? It’s a simple question.”
I took a deep breath in and shrugged my shoulders, not really sure how to answer. “I guess I believe things would be better if we stopped the megacorporations from degenerating the world into a Mad Max-esque hellhole that has me as megaHitler. How do we do that, though? I have no idea. Is it right to muck around the timeline? To kill me? To save me? I just don’t know, and truthfully, I’m kind of playing this whole thing by ear.” It was a confession I was reluctant to give because I was trying not to be as weak as I’d always felt under my father’s influence.
Jane seemed surprised by my statement, then burst out laughing.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” I said, pausing. “I’m trying to open up here.”
Jane smiled. She actually had a really pretty one when she decided to show it off. “Robbie, I’m a soldier. I’ve been a soldier since I was old enough to say the word. I’ve never had to make independent choices in life because I was raised to follow orders and assume my superiors knew best.”
“That’s not true,” I said, starting to defend her. “You chose not to kill me.”
“It was perhaps the first true decision I’ve ever made on my own,” Jane said, with some shame.
“I see,” I said, staring down. “So you don’t know what you believe in?”
“I do,” Jane said. “I believe in you.”
“Me?”
“It was something I could never say about the Scorpion. I trusted him, sure. Practically worshipped him. But I never believed in him. Not the way I believe in you. Because despite everything you’ve been through and the destiny you’re fighting to prevent, you still think this world is worth saving. That’s what our time together has taught me. That wherever we’re headed, either as a team or a planet, I will stand by your side, either protecting you or guiding you along the way.”
I smiled without even realizing it. That was by far the nicest thing the white-haired assassin had ever said to me.
Jane then grumbled in response to my expression. “Don’t let it go to your head, Robbie. It only means I have one hell of a job to do.”
She started heading upstairs and I called out to her. “We going to do this again tomorrow?”
“Of course,” Jane replied over her shoulder. “I won’t go easy on you, though.”
She vanished through the doorway and I still couldn’t fathom what she had said. Jane believed in me. I wasn’t sure I believed her as Jane wasn’t above mind games herself. Still, it felt good to know I had someone that tough in my corner. I would need her if I was going to end this once and for all. I wanted to break into Butterfly, find their files, expose them, and end this war before it began.
I had to believe it was possible. That a teenager who had no military experience, a soldier from the future, and a bunch of political activists could bring down the most powerful corporation on the planet. A corporation which not only owned most of the government by bribery but also had its own private army that was better equipped than the United States.
It was possible, right?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jane and I spent the rest of the day planning how we were going to sneak around a building with the best security force in the world. We didn’t exactly have to break in. Our class would already be inside funneled along a guided tour, but in some respects that made things harder. We would constantly be under Monarch’s watchful eye. Marked and accounted for.
Luckily, we were able to concoct a scheme that would allow us to sneak off undetected. Now all we had to do was bring the H.O.P.E. members into the fold that we would need in order to pull it off and hope they were up for committing corporate espionage against the most powerful company in the world. Not that it was a huge deal or anything. Just a federal crime that carried a sentence of life in prison.
After confirming with Reverend Tully that it was all right to use the church’s basement, the next step was gathering the troops. For a second I contemplated just texting Anna and letting her round up everybody. That was usually how H.O.P.E. gatherings worked, but this was different. I needed to control the situation, so I sent out a group text to everyone all at once.
I’M CALLING A MEETING
MIDNIGHT
TELL NO ONE
VERY IMPORTANT
I was hoping my vagueness would annoy them while also piquing their curiosity. None of them responded, which I hoped they wouldn’t. Instead, they all showed up right on time.
Reverend Tully led the way followed by Clarissa Reynolds, this time without her daughter. Fred Otto and Carlyle Hernandez followed behind them. Anna was the last to enter the room, but the first to speak upon spotting Jane seated against the back wall. “What’s she doing here?”
“I invited her,” I said, while standing off to the side of the room’s many empty chairs.
My blunt response only seemed to annoy her further. “And why would you do that?”
“Hold on a second,” said the reverend, entering the center of the room with his hands up for attention. “Everyone, just calm down. Robbie, would you mind telling the rest of us who this young girl is?”
I crossed my arms and gestured to the girl seated alone at the back of the room. “This is my cousin Jane.”
Carlyle eyed Jane and nodded his head. “Cool hair.”
Did he really just hit on her? I half expected Jane to jump out of her chair and lunge at him but was surprised when she just smiled back instead. “Thanks.”
What followed was a weird, awkward silence that abruptly ended when Anna quickly sought to mark Jane as a target. “She’s the reason he hasn’t been coming to our meetings.”
“That’s not true,” I protested with a lie so obvious Anna and Jane both gave me death stares that forced me to concede. “Okay. It’s partially true, but can you just hear what I have to say?”
Anna took a firm stance, crossing her arms while stiffening her back. “She’s not a member of H.O.P.E.”
Jane scoffed comfortably in her seat. “Who said I want to join your stupid little club anyway?”
“It’s not a club!” Anna snapped back at her.
Eager to change the subject, Fred began looking around the nearly empty room. “Where is everyone else? I thought we were having a meeting.”
“It’s not a H.O.P.E. meeting,” I corrected, shaking my head. “Not officially. This is something … different.”
The old army vet looked at me with a suspicious eye. “What do you mean?”
“Just have a seat. I’ll explain everything.” When no one moved, I humbled my voice and asked again. “Please.”
Although reluctant, everyone except Reverend Tully spread out into the empty chairs scattered around the room. Once they all had a seat, I began my pitch. “I’ve been thinking about what was said at the last H.O.P.E. meeting. We need to do something. Be proactive. Hit Butterfly where it hurts, and there’s nothing they value more than their public image.”
“I already told Anna,” Clarissa chimed in. “I’m not into violence. Protesting is one thing, but I don’t want to be a part of any eco-terrorist nonsense.”
I shook my head to dispel her concern. “I’m not asking you to. But I have a plan. It’s risky and I don’t want anybody to know about it except the people in this room. It’ll require all of you. Jane, too. That’s why she’s here.”
And with that, Anna wasted no time attacking Jane’s loyalty. “I thought you support Butterfly?”
Jane didn’t bother to move or sit up from her leisurely slouch. “I don’t support anything. But Robbie is family. If he asks for my help then he’s going to get it.”
“So what is this plan?” asked Fred, unsurprisingly eager to hear more.
I took a deep breath and hardened my face to appear tough. “We’re going to expose Butterfly for the corrupt scum they are.”
It probably wasn’t the most inspiring mission stateme
nt considering Fred let out a belly laugh as he adjusted himself in his seat. “Good luck, kid. Everybody knows Butterfly is crooked. The people who support them don’t care.”
I wasn’t about to let up and further pleaded my case. “Because it’s all speculation and rumor. Things their supporters could justify or come up with excuses for. But if we can prove to them just how evil Butterfly is, if we can put it right in front of their faces so they can’t ignore it, then they’ll have no choice. It’ll be either denounce Butterfly or accept that they themselves are evil as well.”
“You really think that’ll work?” asked Clarissa, interested yet hesitant.
I paused before answering, which allowed Reverend Tully, standing on the opposite side of the room, to back me up. “Robbie is right. People are divided when it comes to Butterfly. But I have to believe that underneath all the rage, humanity is still filled with goodness. If we can show them just how bad one side really is, things will turn in our favor.”
Fred flashed me an entertained smirk. It was a small gesture yet the most promising sign of support I’d seen since the meeting began. “All right, hotshot. You got a plan. Now how do you execute it?”
I left my position by the wall to pace around the room. “Dirt this bad won’t be public. Monarch does a good enough job at cover-ups that we’ll never find anything damning on our own. But the paradox of powerful people is that they’re both arrogant and paranoid at the same time. Colin Reilly and the rest of the Butterfly executives think they’re untouchable, but that wouldn’t stop them from backstabbing from within. If there’s anything worthwhile for us to take then they’ll have a record of it.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” said Carlyle from his isolated corner of the room. “But information that sensitive wouldn’t be kept on an open network. Butterfly’s firewall is impressive to begin with, but if that data exists, which I’m not saying it does, it’ll definitely be kept on an internal server, to which the only access would be on a Butterfly campus.”
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