by Natalie Reid
Aaron’s face tilted to the floor. He didn’t look up at her as he cleared his throat and nodded. “You should call your dad.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Ritter said, waving his arm. “We don’t have time for this, remember?”
Denneck shot him a harsh glare. “We’re making time.”
Ritter regarded him for a moment, as if deliberating on whether or not he should challenge him, before he ran a hand through his hair and reluctantly rested his back against the wall.
Soon Jessie found all eyes fixed on her, staring out in expectancy.
“You think I could have a little privacy?” she whispered, the pinch of emotion cracking her words.
Tom came up behind her and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Of course,” he said softly. Then, turning to the others, he motioned with his head to the other rooms, silently telling them to go.
When Jessie was alone in the room with nothing but Harper’s computer in front of her, she opened the video-chat mode and dialed in Aaron’s number.
She hardly had time to prepare herself as her call was answered, and she could see her father in a darkened room. His eyes were tired and red, and he seemed to be holding his head in a strange position.
“Jessie,” he said, nodding as if the name by itself was a statement.
“Lieutenant,” she replied, trying not to let the fear leak through her voice.
Carver closed his eyes at her greeting. In his face she saw the same hurt that plagued Ritter every time his daughter flinched in his presence.
“I can only imagine what you must think of me,” he said, shaking his head stiffly. “I know I haven’t been a father to you.”
Though it was dark in the room, she could still tell that he had lost his normal stoic reserve.
“I don’t have much time, so I’ll try and make it quick.” His eyes turned to the ceiling above him, like he had his answers written up there to guide him. “I never thought I would have a kid. I knew I wouldn’t make a good father. I didn’t know what to say to Sarah when she told me. It all happened so fast. All I knew was that my whole world had changed, and I wasn’t ready.”
Jessie bit down on her lip and stared intently at the corner of the screen, away from his face.
Carver brought his hand to his mouth and let out a shaky breath. “That night, when you showed up on the air base for the first time,” he started to say.
She shook her head. She couldn’t believe he was finally saying this now, after all this time. She would have preferred it if he was curt and indifferent again, reprimanding her for wasting her time calling him. But here he was, bringing up the night they first met, and she couldn’t take it.
“And they took you to that holding room,” he continued, saying the words slowly. “And you stared back at me like you knew.”
Jessie pressed her mouth in a tight line and realized with a shock that she was close to tears. She looked out at her dad, all those miles away, and saw the water in his own eyes. She bit down even harder. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to show him how much he meant to her when he had done something so cruel. Not now; not even though he was in that room, holding out for death.
He didn’t deserve her tears because only daughters cried for their fathers. And he hadn’t asked for a daughter. He asked for a soldier. He drilled her and pushed her harder than anyone and never gave her a word of comfort, never any sign that he harbored the gentle love of a father for her. So all she should give him was the silent loyalty of a soldier. She shouldn’t have to hold back the long-kept tears of a little girl hoping to see her dad.
“I was so scared,” he admitted in a quiet whisper. “I didn’t know what to do. I got out of that room as fast as I could because…” He looked up to the ceiling again, and she realized that he was trying to compose himself before he continued.
“I have cried only two times in my life,” he said, taking the words slowly like a child learning to walk for the first time. “Once was when my brother died. And the other…” He gripped a fist in front of his mouth and gulped down the tears in his throat before saying, “…was that night.”
Jessie set her jaw in a rigid clench, determined not to feel anything. But as she looked at him with an unwavering stare, she had to wipe away at a drop of moisture flowing down her cheek. She wiped at it quickly, resolved to stay strong as she stared into the computer screen, but she knew what her eyes must look like. She knew she wasn’t winning the battle for stoicism like she had done on countless other occasions.
Finally, opening her mouth and hoping it didn’t quiver too badly, she said, “I spent my whole life wondering who you were.” His eyes filled with the pain of regret, and she forced herself to continue. “And this whole time you never said a w-word.” The last part of her sentence didn’t want to come out as she could feel the lump of tears growing in her throat and the sting of water at her eyes.
“I never thought you would forgive me.”
“Well I would have, dad!” she suddenly exclaimed. Her voice cracked and squeaked like a child. “If you had told me who you were, I would have forgiven you anything just so that I could have had my dad with me!” She clasped her hands over her nose and pressed her fingers under her eyes.
“It was never supposed to be like this,” he whispered out in sad resignation. “I was supposed to go with your mother into hiding. We were going to live together… the three of us.”
Jessie stilled, realizing what he was telling her, realizing that she would finally get an explanation of what had happened between her parents.
“There was a man that was helping us,” he started. “No names, no questions, no second thoughts, those were the rules. But the night we were supposed to meet him, there was a Bandit attack close to the borders of the city. So I made the split second decision to go back and fight. When it was all over, I had no idea where your mother was and no way of contacting the man that had helped us.”
He took a shaky breath.
“I looked for your mom for weeks. Every time I got off duty, I went door to door searching houses, basements. All the while the Bandit attacks grew worse and worse. So I told myself that you two would be better off with me in the air, that I could protect you better up in the skies.” He drew in a sharp breath. “I made myself believe it because that’s what I had wanted. I wasn’t ready to be a dad; I just wanted to be a pilot.” He made sure to look her in the eyes as he said, “What I didn’t realize was that I didn’t have a choice. I was a dad whether I liked it or not. And you could have been ten thousand miles away, but I still felt you…” He sniffed in sharply, “…and I loved you every day.”
Jessie looked away from the screen, trying to hide her tears. Suddenly the sound of shouting drew her back.
“What is that?” she asked hurriedly.
“Someone’s coming. I have to destroy the tablet so they can’t trace it to you.”
She shook her head and grabbed onto the screen. “You have to tell me where you are. We’ll find a way to get you out of there.”
“Jessie, no,” he said softly, shaking his head. “You only have so much time. You need to save your mother.”
“And what? Just abandon you?”
“I don’t want you to save me!” he exclaimed, a little harshly. Then his face softened. “Let me at least do this one thing for you. I know I couldn’t give you a father, but at least let me help get your mother back.”
He was about to cut the line when she called out, “Wait, dad!” She took in a sharp breath and touched a hand to the screen as if she were holding his hand. “I love you, okay.”
Her father gave her one last fleeting look before reaching his hand up and ending their connection.
The screen went dark. Jessie took in a deep breath, gasping for air like she had been underwater for a long time. Tom came running into the room when he heard her, and gave her a gentle look, silently asking if she was alright. Slowly she got to her feet. She felt shaky and weak from what she had just experien
ced. Her eyes looked about the room as if in a daze. Shapes started to bleed into each other and swim about the room.
Nothing solidified in her mind until Ritter came out from the hallway, saying, “I need to talk to you.”
His rough, decisive voice helped to ground Jessie back in reality. She gave him a firm nod as she followed him into the back room. When the door closed, he dove right in to what he had to say.
“While you were talking to your dad, the rest of the group came to the merry decision that we should wait one more day to pull this thing off. Apparently, from what Aaron says, Carver isn’t being pressed that hard for information. It seems they have no idea of our plans.”
“What do you think?” she asked, looking up at him and feeling her head clear a little.
He paused a second before admitting, “There is something that’s making me change my mind.”
She was surprised at his words and would have raised her eyebrows in mockery if she hadn’t been in such a daze.
“Aaron coming here has given me an idea that might benefit from waiting a day,” he explained.
“Yeah?” She wiped a finger under her eye. “What is it?”
“It’s a plan to keep us alive once we get into The Fulcrum. But I’m gonna need your help and a little bit of your trust.”
She gave him a sharp look. “I’m running a little short on trust, Ritter.”
“Well you’ll be running a little short on parents if you don’t help me.”
She studied his face closely, trying to see any deceit that might be hiding inside. The trouble was that the truth and the tale, and the good and the bad had become so mixed up inside this man it was impossible to extract one from the other.
Finally she nodded, saying, “Alright. Tell me what to do.”
* * *
It was early in the morning on the twenty-fourth when Aaron got off the phone. He had been in the back-room, and slowly trudged into the living-room to find the others. Ritter, who had been out in the hallway, caught his gaze.
“He’ll do it,” Aaron said.
“You told him everything?”
He nodded, running a tired hand through his tussled blonde hair.
“And he knows when to do it? You told him light’s out,” Ritter prodded further.
“I told him everything you said to,” he snapped.
Ritter raised his eyebrows at his cold response, but stepped aside to let him pass down the hall.
When Aaron entered the living-room, his eyes scanned his surroundings as if in a stupor. Finally his gaze rested on two figures sitting next to each other on the floor with their backs leaning against the wall. In the light of the fire, he could see that Jessie looked tired. However, the young scientist next to her seemed perfectly content. He had his arm wrapped around her, and he leaned his head to whisper something softly in her ear. When he pulled away, his hand reached up and brushed the side of her cheek, and she gave him a weak smile.
Quickly turning away from the couple, Aaron left the room and rushed for the back door. Having used this training facility before, he knew his way around fairly well. Upon reaching the outside, however, he did not expect to see a large government ship docked right inside one of the smaller cabins.
Crunching through the snow, he walked over to it and stared up at the wings of the Aero government insignia. His breath came out in slow, painful puffs of air that crystalized around his head and fell back to his eyes. He gripped his hands into fists, but when he heard the sound of footsteps coming up beside him in the snow, he tried to quell his anger and relax.
“It’s cold out here,” Tom’s voice remarked from behind him.
Aaron glanced back at him for a moment, but then returned his gaze to the ship, deciding it was more worthwhile to look at.
Tom’s footsteps continued forward, sinking into the snow in heavy falls until he stood next to him.
“Listen,” Tom began, also choosing to look at the ship. “I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be,” he stated simply. “She’s yours. You don’t have a reason in the world to be sorry.”
Tom shifted a little in the snow and stuck his hands in his pockets. “I know you’ve known her a lot longer than I have.”
“Look,” Aaron snapped, finally turning to face him. “I don’t really know you, so I don’t quite feel like mulling over the secrets of my heart with you.” His harsh expression then tempered, and his eyes glazed to a spot behind Tom. Shrugging, he said, “I thought she was a Bandit. Now it turns out she’s not. That’s all I can really cope with right now.”
The young pilot trudged back through the snow to the cabin, leaving the shivering scientist staring after him.
Chapter 16
Conversations in Elevators
In all the years of the military air-base’s existence, it had never before experienced such a stand-still. Since Task Force had taken over the hangars, trapping the soldiers to the middle of the base and preventing them from sending out their normal patrols, the threat of a Bandit attack loomed largely in everyone’s head. Both military and Task Force knew that their stand-off couldn’t last forever. Neither was likely to back down, meaning that everyone knew to gear up for a fight. With more and more Task Force arriving at the base, it was sure to happen soon.
Military pilot and third squadron leader Trid Fifty-Thirty-nine, knew this fact full well. Standing inside the mess-hall at dinner-time, he looked out and could see the agents in the hallway corridors and along the wall, watching the soldiers as they ate. In one of the corners of the room, he could see his brother Dale. There was an agent standing next to him, speaking quickly in hushed tones. Dale did not face the man as he spoke; his eyes roamed around the mess hall and stopped when he saw Trid staring at him.
Trid motioned to a hallway with a flick of his head, and Dale narrowed his eyes at him before giving a subtle nod. Casually Trid walked across the sea of soldiers eating dinner and down through the hallway. Dale waited until he had disappeared from sight before muttering something to the man next to him and walking along the perimeter of the room to the hall his brother had just disappeared through.
There were no Task Force agents down this hall, and a few soldiers looked at him suspiciously as he went, but Dale ignored them and kept on walking as if he had every right to be there. With each step he took, he put a little more weight on his left leg, walking with a barely noticeable limp. Though it had only been several weeks since he was shot in the leg, the treatment he had received at BLES was so accelerated that he hardly felt the twinge of pain in his leg anymore.
Halfway down the hall, he heard his brother whispering out his name. Up ahead, a door had opened a crack, and Dale sauntered over to it, quickly slipping inside.
“You know this is messed up, right?” Trid exclaimed once the door closed. He was leaning on a desk behind him, and his hands were curled over the edges of the wood.
Dale didn’t respond as he calmly took in the contents of the room. They appeared to be in the private office of a Lieutenant.
“I know we’re on different sides,” Trid continued, “but you have to see that this isn’t right. We can’t defend anyone like this!”
“So just give us the men that attacked us and we’ll be on our way,” his older brother said coldly, sniffing the air.
Trid gave him an incredulous look. “If that’s what you have to say to me, then why did you even come here? I thought you had enough sense to realize that this isn’t going to end well for either of our sides.”
“No,” Dale said, pointing his finger. “That I can see.”
“So you agree,” Trid said, pulling away from the desk. “We have to do something.”
“All we have to do,” he said, motioning between the two of them, “is keep our heads down and make sure our names aren’t mentioned when the higher-ups are looking for a scape-goat to throw under the bus.”
“Wow,” his younger brother responded in astonishment. “How inspiring! I can see you really
love your job. Tell me, what else would you have me do; sell out my best friend to get a better seat at lunch?”
“I’m being sensible!” he defended. “I promised mom I would look out for you, and I’m trying to keep that promise, even though you are a rack-up that doesn’t know when to take things seriously.”
“At least I can be proud of what I do!” he said, taking a challenging step towards his brother.
“Yeah?” Dale asked, stepping closer as well. “You’re proud to belong to the army of future Bandits? Tell me; are you planning on getting racked first, or just giving in to save yourself the trouble? Hey, maybe you could shoot me in the other leg to make a matching pair with your friend’s!”
Trid gritted his teeth and looked like he was about to punch him, when instead he lifted a hand to his mouth and stuffed something inside. Dale looked to him in confusion, but didn’t have time to yell out before seeing a stream of gas emitting from a device hidden in his other hand.
Once Dale fell to the floor, unconscious, Trid turned off the gas and took the breathing device from his mouth. Bending down over his brother, he checked to make sure he still had a pulse, before getting to work switching their clothes.
A minute later, Trid stood in his brother’s Task Force uniform, and Dale lay on the floor in his pilot suit. He looked down at his brother, seeing the way he parted his hair, and then ran a hand through his own, trying to mimic the style.
Taking a deep breath, he touched a hand to his ear and announced, “I’m undercover now. Dale’s out cold.”
“Hey Trid,” Jessie’s voice came out through the ear-piece.
“Chance,” he said, a smile widening on his face. “It’s good to hear your voice. Oh! And for the record, I always knew you weren’t a Bandit.”
“Yeah, I know buddy. Thanks for helping us.”
“You kidding?” he said, touching a hand to his ear again and looking towards the door of the office. “I wouldn’t miss this fight for the world!”