The same goes for real-life strategies – only doubly so. In chess you move the pieces and you have all the time in the world to do it. In real life, the pieces move themselves and time is a matter of life and death. You can’t rely on everyone getting the timing right, if you make things too complicated.
In the end, we went with five groups of between six and eight members. Small enough to be mobile and adaptable; large enough to do the maximum amount of damage in the minimum amount of time.
And each group had one specific job to perform.
Adam led the actual rescue party. The fact that he could move freely in the upper levels was a huge advantage, but it was countered a little by the fact that he couldn’t read thoughts. To cover this, we put Reggie in his group. That way, we could coordinate the group outside with Jordan, Eliita and Mykal inside.
Theirs was the most critical job. They had to make their way up through the entire building without being stopped, then effect the escape and get them down to the basement without being seen.
Each of the other groups had a key role to play and we assigned one Esper to each group, with Armin remaining in the central location, using his amazing reach to coordinate the timing.
At midnight, we were ready.
Each group entered from a different passage and lay in wait, until they received word that the rescue group was in position.
Then the fun began.
SHARONNE
Sharonne stands near the potted garden at the centre of the terrace, watches the flickering candle and holds the torch at the ready, waiting for the sign.
Twenty floors below her, the plan is already in motion, and Adam’s group must be nearing the top of the stairs, by now.
The night is still – almost too still.
So out of character with the events taking place below.
It should be raining, she thinks. Storming, with thunder and lightning. Something more – dramatic.
But instead, the moon sails in a sea of light cloud and the city below lies quiet under the curfew.
Finally, the door to the stairwell opens and one of the young rebels waves to her. Then he is gone and she must begin.
Her hand is shaking as she lights the torch from the candle flame. It sputters once and threatens to extinguish itself, but then the oil catches and it flares in the darkness. She moves across to the first of the vents and touches the flame to the oil-soaked plant jamming the channel. It catches immediately, erupting with an oily orange-blue flame and sending up a plume of thick, vile-smelling smoke. She slams the rain cover down onto the vent, trapping the flames and smoke inside, and forcing them back down the air vent.
Repeating the process twice more, she moves to the fence at the edge of the terrace and hurls the torch out, watching it spiral towards the street below.
The falling flame is a signal for the group of rebels waiting below to begin their job.
The Art of Misdirection, Erin calls it.
From the alleys and empty market stalls across from the main gate, they begin shouting and screaming, firing stones and burning missiles from home-made catapults at the Guards on the gate, who stand uncertainly, watching the shadowy shapes, screaming from the cover of the buildings, taunting them; daring them to emerge from the safety of the Citadel walls to chase them through the streets.
Looking down, Sharonne sees the soldiers from the garrison assembling in formation outside the gates, but by the time they march off in pursuit of their attackers, the young rebels have melted away into the side streets and alleys of Berra, like smoke on the wind.
She smiles.
The first act is underway and she has played her small role.
She moves towards the staircase, heading back to her suite, to await the fallout.
ALEK
The soldiers form into ranks beyond the gates. Their eyes are on the streets outside the Citadel, searching for threats; alert and watchful.
But no one is looking inwards at the courtyard. Why would they? What possible threat could come from inside the impenetrable walls of their fortress?
Alek signals his group with a movement of his arm and they spread out, around the perimeter of the huge courtyard, armed with paint cans and brushes.
Dressed in black, they stick to the shadows, invisible to the stray gaze, as they go about their work with a practised, silent efficiency.
Well before the soldiers have returned from their fruitless search for rebels and well before anyone discovers their work, they will have scurried back to their doorway and disappeared into the basement levels, as if they were no more substantial than ghosts.
Alek smiles, keeping track of the mind-tones of a dozen Guards, who should be watching the yard, but whose attention lies, at that moment, beyond the walls.
Guards whose loyalty and training will be put to the question in the aftermath.
ADAM
Sharonne has done well.
The acrid, foul-smelling smoke has begun pouring from air vents in the passage outside the door of the prisoners’ suite. The Guards, who all seem unusually drowsy, notice the smoke, and mumble among themselves. Before they can raise the alarm, however, there is a loud knocking on the inside of the door, accompanied by screams and cries for help.
Opening the door, they are greeted by a plume of smoke, as Jordan, Mykal and Eliita stumble out, coughing and retching.
Adam is so caught up in admiring their performance that he has to catch himself and assume his own role.
Walking towards them, he fixes his gaze on the leader of the Guards.
‘What are you still doing here, man? These are important guests. You should have moved them to safety, by now. Do you think the Master will be pleased by your – dereliction?’
The Guard looks confused and scared. In the current climate, any negative attention could prove fatal.
‘We were just moving them, sir. Er – where do you think—’
‘Where do I think? Get them downstairs, man. Quickly. And hope I don’t decide to report you.’
They do not make it to the stairs.
Before they can round the corner of the passage, six of the League’s strongest fighters quickly overpower them, knock them out, strip their hooded cloaks from them, and rip the bands from around their necks.
In the morning, when they are put to the question, they will be unable to identify a single attacker.
Slipping on the cloaks, the rebels prepare to escort the ‘prisoners’ down the stairwell, with Reggie sweeping the stairs ahead for problems.
But before they go, there is one more task.
‘Ready?’ asks the strongest of the young men, and Adam nods.
The rebel hits him a glancing blow across the forehead, with a fist-sized piece of rock. It is not a dangerous strike, but it is enough to graze the skin and draw blood, so that the wound will look far more serious than it really is.
In the morning, everyone in the Citadel will need an alibi.
BRAN
‘Don’t spill any,’ Bran whispers, as the team carries the heavy buckets of highly flammable oil in through the passage entrance. ‘We don’t want them to be able to trace any drips back to here.’
Safely through, he watches them spread out; each one to a different storeroom, which Armin has already opened.
Once inside, they set about scattering the neatly piled boxes of bands and dousing them with the oil, soaking the synth-board and splashing oil onto the floors and walls. Each room is now a bomb, awaiting only the lighting of the fuse. He checks each job, to make sure that none of the boxes will escape, then he has an idea.
– Armin!
– What is it?
– The Guards in the dormitory – are they all asleep?
– Yeah. Snoring like bears. That stuff of Lisa’s really works.
– Do you want to
help me?
– With what?
The dormitory is at the other end of the basement, well away from the centre of activity, and Armin has been monitoring it constantly. When they arrive, the door is closed, but unlocked.
They push it open and slip inside, as silent and alert as mice, finding themselves in the ante-room. Bran prays silently that the incident at the gates does not encourage someone to trigger an alarm and raise the sleeping Guards.
In the planning, they designed the disturbance to be unusual enough to draw the attention of the duty garrison, without seeming threatening enough to rouse the whole Citadel, but you could never be sure that some over-zealous Officer didn’t panic and decide to commit more troops to the defences.
– Here!
Bran looks along the wall of the ante-room, and there, hanging with true military precision on regularly spaced hooks, they find what they have come for.
– I told you they wouldn’t sleep with them. Not inside the Citadel.
Each two-pronged hook holds one Guard’s hooded black cloak and his copper band.
– Come on, quick!
But before they can begin, Armin freezes.
– Stop. Don’t move a muscle.
One of the Guards has stirred. He gets up out of his bed and crosses to a table in the corner, pours a cup of water from one of the jugs standing on it and downs it in one gulp. He is barely awake and as he makes his way back to the bed and flops down, face-first onto the mattress, he is already asleep.
They wait another thirty seconds or so, barely breathing, but the man does not stir again.
Then they begin their task. Moving down the line of hooks, they gather up more than fifty of the Psi-blocking bands, looping them carefully over their arms, as the number grows.
When they have them all, they sneak out, as silently as they came, closing the door behind them, as they go.
Returning to the others, Bran despatches the bands into one of the storerooms with the rest of the cache.
Then he waits.
Timing is the essence of the whole plan.
LEANA
The walls are a work of art.
Leana pauses in her activity, to watch the others, as they splash the slogans across the ancient Plascrete.
Different slogans from the ones which they use on the Outside, these are carefully designed for maximum effect.
Water the seeds of suspicion.
Erin’s instructions, from the final meeting – and that is the role of her squad.
She dips her brush into the paint, and continues.
ARMIN
Everything is going according to plan.
Back at his post, Armin monitors the different groups and passes their progress on to Erin, who stands near the entrance to one of the tunnels, receiving updates of her own.
– Are they nearly down? she asks, and he can sense the anticipation in her. And the fear, that even at this last moment, something could go wrong.
– Nearly here. Just a couple more minutes. And Erin—
– Yes, Min?
– He’s going to be fine.
She ruffles his hair, and almost smiles.
– I know, Min. I know.
The arrival of Adam’s group – and the emancipees – is the signal for the final phase. Setting the fires and completing the escape.
She begins to check the area for clues. The big-picture plan hinges on their leaving nothing behind to suggest that this was anything but an inside job.
Nothing. The teams have been meticulous. She feels a sense of – more than mere satisfaction. Perhaps pride isn’t too strong a word.
Stow it until we make it outside, she chides herself. It isn’t over till –
– They’re here! Min’s sending overpowers the thought and she turns to see the rescue team coming back. They are stripping off their borrowed cloaks, and tossing them into the open storerooms.
Leana drops her brush and runs to the group, singling out Mykal and throwing her arms around him. He lifts her off the ground and spins her around.
Eliita is smiling and talking animatedly with one of the rescue team – And Jordan?
He stands looking across the space that separates them, with the look that she remembers so well from their childhood.
He has goaded the monster in its lair and lived to tell the tale.
– Hi, he sends. Miss me?
– Nah. Just thought I’d take in a few of the sights, before we headed home. You realise I’m going to have to recommend they dock your pay, don’t you?
– How come?
– You’ve been AWOL for over a month. Surely, you don’t expect the expedition to pay for your holidays too?
– We’ll discuss it when we get home. Shouldn’t we be – you know – getting out of here?
She shakes her head, advances towards him and stands barely a centimetre from his face.
‘Time enough,’ she whispers. Then she kisses him.
Armin watches them and smiles.
– Okay, Bran. I think it’s time.
Bran nods and signals his team.
Lighting their torches from a small oil lamp, they toss them in and the storerooms erupt in flames. As the boxes catch fire and the oil on the walls and floors flares up, the heat inside the confined rooms becomes so intense that they have to step away.
While inside, an irreplaceable thousand-year-old technology melts out of existence.
– How many of the bands do you think they still have left?
Armin’s question draws his attention from the flames.
Bran smiles.
– Not nearly enough.
ERIN’S STORY
Jordan and I were the last ones out.
We checked the other tunnel entrances, to make sure they showed no giveaway signs, then we pulled the final cupboard closed behind us, and walked away to join the others.
It felt right for us to be the ones to close the door on this part of the adventure.
There was an air of – not excitement, so much – satisfaction, I guess. The adrenalin was beginning to burn out of our systems and though we talked and laughed, as we made our way along the dark tunnel, by the time we reached the end and dispersed to our various houses and hide-outs, a quiet reaction had set in, and the goodbyes were more muted than you might have expected.
Gaia was waiting for us at the end of the tunnel. When the others had left, she stepped out of the bushes, carrying a basket, which she placed on the ground at her feet, as she reached out and hugged Leana.
‘I brung ’er, like y’asked,’ she whispered. ‘Lisa sez are ya sure?’
‘I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.’
As the girl bent down and lifted up the basket again, I saw a baby’s hand reaching up above the rim to clutch at the air.
‘Will I ever see you again?’ Gaia sounded heartbroken, as if she were losing a sister.
Taking the basket in one hand, Leana hugged her with the other.
‘“Ever” is a long time, Gaia,’ she said. ‘Keep up the struggle and anything is possible.’
Gaia smiled then and stepped back.
She made a fist, and held it up in the air above her head.
‘The Rebellion!’ she cried.
Then she turned and ran.
Mykal approached Leana and looked into the basket.
– Leana?
– Her name is Den, Mykal. After the First-Mother. We’re taking her back with us.
It was not a matter for negotiation and Mykal knew it.
And judging by his body language, I don’t think he would have tried, anyway.
‘Hello, Den,’ he said in wordspeech.
– She can understand you, Myk. She’s one of us.
Mykal looked into t
he little girl’s eyes in silence, for a long time.
– Yes, she is, he replied at last. She is.
They shared the weight of the basket, as we made our way back to the hide-out that the League had arranged for us.
From the window, we could see the main gate of the Citadel and all through that long night, the activity inside the courtyard didn’t subside for a moment.
Now, all that remained was to make the long trip back to the Village and try to figure out how to signal Terese.
In the end, Adam solved the first part of that problem for us.
46
Going Home
The Citadel
February 10, 3384ad
ADAM
All the swagger has drained out of Bainbridge Hartman.
He sits by the cold fireplace, staring at the empty grate, lost in fears of betrayal and assassination.
‘Who do I trust, Adam? I purged every name they gave me and still they can do this. They could murder me in my sleep and I wouldn’t see it coming.’
‘I’m sure that most of the Guard are still loyal, Bainbridge. This is the work of a few—’
‘But which ones? A few might be enough. You saw the slogans on the walls. In the basement and in the main courtyard, for God’s sake!
‘“End the tyrant’s rule!”, “Join the Brotherhood of the Black Hood.” “Power is not a birthright – it belongs to those who seize it.” “Might is the only Right!”
‘How did they do it? What else can they do? This isn’t some bunch of powerless rebels, Adam. They are highly trained, ruthless soldiers. They are the ones I rely on to protect me!’
‘You can’t afford to show fear, Bainbridge. They can smell it and even the loyal Guards will lose respect for you. Tell me – who do you really trust?’
‘Apart from you?’
‘Apart from me.’
‘I trusted Mink and look where that got me.’
Adam turns away in case the triumph he is feeling leaks through onto his face.
Under control again, he sits in the seat opposite Hartman.
‘All I can think of is to try to disrupt any plan they might have. Scrap the duty rosters and draw the names at random every morning. Make it as hard as possible for them to put people in positions that could endanger you. If they don’t know where they’ll be, or who they’ll be teamed with, they’ll find it much harder to plan anything like they did last night. It’ll make things less efficient, at first, but it’s a necessary compromise.
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