“I’ll do it,” I volunteered instantly. I was itching for something to do and facing down the people that were agreeing with Stone and every horrible thing she did, was right up my alley.
“Me too,” a weedy looking guy said, putting his hand up. A few others stepped up to the challenge too. Joseph had his group soon enough.
“May luck be with you,” he finished.
I parted ways with Rocky before assembling with my team. It wasn’t the highly trained group I was accustomed to from my time with the troopers and the President’s Personal Guard, but they were determined. Sometimes anger worked better than training anyway.
“You’ll all leave immediately,” Joseph said after explaining the mission in greater detail to us. It didn’t sound too difficult, we only needed a strand of hair from each of the targets and then we could leave.
Hopefully they wouldn’t have guards with them. It would only take one to recognize me and our whole game would be up. They would have the targets out of the café so fast their heads would spin.
And then I would be shot.
Being recognized was not an option.
We travelled over to the business district where the houses of parliament stood in all their massively expensive grandeur. An industry had popped up around the building, supporting them with food and other items they could easily obtain during their times outside the sitting sessions.
Café Merloin was said to be our targets’ food establishment of choice so that was where we needed to be. Our team of five were each assigned a target and shown their picture. Mine was Adrianna Palmerston, a ranking official with a penchant for red lipstick and ultra-high heels.
We filed into the café separately, making sure nobody could tie us all together. If I was recognized, I didn’t want to be putting the other four at any risk. The mission could continue if any one of us were caught.
My body was buzzing with the familiar adrenalin rush I always got when I went on missions with the troopers. We were trained to keep it in check, use the emotion to our ability so we could better serve the president. I allowed the buzz to hum in my ribcage, but it would not affect my decisions.
I sat in the corner at a table made for two, pressing the buttons in the middle of the table for my order of a black coffee. It would buzz when I could collect it from the main counter and that would hopefully be when I made my move.
The targets were easy to spot, sitting around a table toward the right side of the café. There were eight of them in total, I recognized the five we were watching but not the other three. They weren’t my concern today.
Adrianna was seated in the middle of the table, flanked by two men on either side. Her hair was long and brown, secured in place either with hair spray or fear of being out of place – I couldn’t tell which. There wasn’t one strand loose, making my task that much harder.
I thought of Wren’s dark hair, so soft it was like silk. Adrianna would be unfathomably rich, she could probably afford any hair products she wanted, and yet she still wasn’t nearly as beautiful as Wren.
My eyes scanned around the room, easily finding the other members of my team. They were twitchy, nervous. They stood out which was the exact opposite of what we needed to do. I never looked at them for more than a second before my gaze darted away.
The targets’ table was about twelve steps away from mine. I didn’t have to go past them to reach the counter and collect my order. Going anywhere near their table would take me out of my way, ensuring my behavior would stick out as odd.
I needed to find a way to pass by them without it being obvious. I needed to come up with an excuse to be over there. Otherwise I would never be able to get the DNA sample we needed.
Sitting back in my chair, I crossed my arms and pretended to be resting. All I needed to do was blend in with the background, make my presence there so unremarkable that nobody remembered me or looked twice my way.
I needed to be a piece of furniture.
Or a ghost.
Unfortunately, I felt like I was neither. I was out of practice, too much had happened in the last few weeks to keep my mind focused. My limbs were twitchy and my eyes darted everywhere they shouldn’t.
If I didn’t get my act together I was going to fail the mission.
Focus, Thompson, just focus.
None of the others from the Resistance had made a move yet. It took a moment for me to realize that they were waiting for me. I was supposed to be good at this shit. Of course they were hesitating so they could take my cue.
My eyes scanned the rest of the room, searching for anything that could get me to pass the targets’ table. They were all sitting around, talking and laughing between themselves. Of course they didn’t have a worry in the world, they were only the ones responsible for the condition of our city and its people.
Why would they worry?
Oh, right, because Aria was hell on earth for most citizens.
I forgot about the sarcasm when my eyes found what I was looking for. A rack of newspapers were neatly stacked against the wall, free for any of the patrons to read while they ate.
Including me.
Just as I was standing up, the buzzer on my table hummed, telling me my order was ready to be picked up. It was enough to startle me, making my movements hesitant and staccato. It was enough to make a few people notice me.
Plastering a casual smile across my face, I tried to ignore them and stalked to the counter to grab my coffee. It was a triple espresso, probably not what I should be drinking when my nerves were so frayed before I’d even drunk anything.
I took the order back to my table, fiddling with the sugar container and stirring my coffee like it was the most important task on the planet. It was mundane enough for people to forget about me again.
In my head I counted to one hundred, taking deep and steady breaths until my body was under control again. If I could somehow stop my heart thumping so hard in my chest, I might have been able to think more clearly.
The newspapers.
They were my key.
If I didn’t make a move, nobody else would. They needed a leader and I had to stand up to the challenge. We couldn’t go back to base and admit we’d failed the mission. It might be the only chance we ever received.
It was time for action.
I pursed my lips, looking around as if searching for something. My gaze fell on the newspapers and I acted pleased with the find. Standing, I casually weaved through the tables until I was on the other side of the room and choosing a newspaper to read. I took the one from the top and nodded to myself, seemingly satisfied with the choice.
Now for the tricky part.
The most direct route back to my table wasn’t past the targets so I held the newspaper up and pretended to read it as I moved along. After running into one chair, I finally looked up and acted a little bemused I was so far from my own table.
Changing my course, the targets were now in my pathway. I started fiddling with the paper again as I walked, accidently dropping it just beside Adrianna’s seat. I crouched down and brushed past her hair on the way up.
One little tug and a strand was free.
“I’m so sorry,” I muttered as I stood, holding up the newspaper as if it was to blame. “Slippery little thing.”
Nobody looked my way.
Adrianna didn’t even blink.
I folded the strand of hair into the newspaper and returned to my table. As I sipped on my coffee, I extracted the hair again and placed it in a plastic bag behind the screen made out of newspaper. A subtle nod to the others told them I had been successful and they should get moving.
Salinger, one of the other members, made a move next. He took his teacup and walked to the counter, managing to spill it on the floor right beside his target.
Some of the water from his cup splashed on the man, making him stand up and berate him for being so clumsy. “Look what you’ve done to my suit,” he bellowed. Salinger looked like he was about to piss himself.
His target stomped off to the bathroom, Salinger followed behind muttering pleas of apology and offers of assistance. They disappeared behind the lavatory door.
The others around the table continued on with their conversations and a worker from the café hurried to clean up the spilled tea from the floor. The next member saw their opening and took it.
I think her name was Miranda or Mindy, something starting with M, anyway. She stood and approached with her nerves splashed across her freckled face. She looked like she would either go through with it or bolt for the door.
Hopefully nobody saw the small nod of reassurance I sent her way.
Miranda walked with her body as stiff as a soldier wearing armor as she neared the table. Her target was Felicia DePeriere, the woman’s long hair should have made it easier for her to obtain a sample.
My breath stuck in my throat as my eyes kept flicking their way. I could practically read everything going through Miranda’s head. She wasn’t cut out for this mission, that was blatantly obvious. But it wasn’t like Joseph had a lot to choose from. Eagerness was the only ability in abundance.
The girl suddenly crouched down to the floor and I lost sight of her. She remained there for a few seconds while my heart crept into my mouth. I doubted whether I was still cut out for these kinds of missions.
Her head popped up again as she turned and left the café. If anyone noticed her, they didn’t make a point of it. I couldn’t handle being there a moment longer. As Salinger emerged from the bathroom, I took my cue and left.
Just as someone yelled, “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” It was the kind of haughty voice that could only belong to a parliamentarian.
My feet picked up the pace, determined to put some distance between me and whoever had been caught. Better to have as many DNA samples as we could rather than none. Joseph had told us to make our way back individually, not stopping for anything. Still, I felt like a deserter leaving someone behind.
Miranda and Salinger both passed me, nothing slowing them down. That left Anne and Frankie still in the café and at risk of being caught.
My pace slowed.
I couldn’t leave them behind.
No matter what Joseph said, I couldn’t desert one of our own. Every person was important to the cause and abandoning them seemed like a jerk move.
I crossed the road and positioned myself between stores, managing to secure a view directly into the café. Frankie was standing in the middle of the room, his wrist being gripped by the Honorable William Audin.
He looked angry.
It wasn’t a good sign.
Chapter 5: Wren
It was impossible for my foot to walk any further. It was about to give up after having walked for a full day straight and getting nowhere.
The road wasn’t real, it was just an illusion set up to send me insane. No matter how far I walked, how many steps my feet beat out on the ground, the scenery never changed. I was on a giant hamster wheel with no way out.
My feet decided to call a coup.
They stopped and collapsed until my butt hit the floor of the forest.
There had been no other vehicle on the road since I saw the one at the gate. I was beginning to wonder if I had imagined the whole thing. At this stage, anything was possible.
Maybe I was an illusion too.
Just a ghost doomed to walk the road until my feet were just stumps that hung below my knees.
One thing was certain, if I was going to hitch a ride through the gates of Aria and return to the city, the vehicle was going to have to come to me.
Walking was no longer an option.
Finding a vehicle was deemed impossible.
There had to be a better way of getting inside the city. My brain hurt while I tried to think about it. A million ideas presented themselves before being dismissed again. None of them would work, not unless I suddenly had the ability to fly.
I didn’t.
No matter how I flapped my arms.
The next idea struck me like a bolt of lightning had shot down through the clouds and hit me on my head. It cracked open my skull and extracted the thought that was little more than a wisp of a thing.
I needed a vehicle.
I could not walk any further to the place where the vehicles came from.
So I needed the vehicle to come to me.
The thought was simple when I really stopped to let it develop. The road I was on seemed to be the only one that led to the gate. That meant all vehicles going into Aria had to pass by this very spot at some stage.
All I needed to do was make sure a vehicle stopped so it gave me the opportunity to hitch a ride with an unsuspecting driver. There were ways to make vehicles stop, like damaging them.
Or at least injure them temporarily.
I needed to set a trap, do something to the road that would cause the vehicle to break down. I could dig a pothole, or scatter sharp objects over the tar to puncture the tires. Which would have all been good ideas if I actually had a shovel or sharp objects.
Maybe I could find the tools I needed?
Hope filled my chest, swirling around until it energized my feet to walk that little bit further. I searched the forest surrounding me, looking for anything I could use against a vehicle.
The thickets.
They were sharp and tough, hard enough to pierce the skin and maybe puncture a tire? It was worth a shot. I picked at the thickets, breaking a sweat as I broke off branches and placed them in a pile. After prying off enough to scatter across the road, I also found some sharp rocks. The rocks might not be able to puncture a tire but they could damage something else underneath the vehicle.
I took my stash and placed them across the smooth surface of the road. They were unavoidable, but they did stick out across the black asphalt. Hopefully anyone who passed through would think a strong wind took them from the forest and laid them out across the road.
Surely suspecting a Defective Clone had scattered them would be the last thing they thought of.
Although… we did tend to get the blame for everything bad that happened around Aria. I pushed the thought away as I took cover between the trees of the forest again.
Now, it was only a matter of waiting.
At least I could rest while I did.
The silence of the lonely stretch was broken by the primal growl of a wild animal. It was emanating from the forest behind me, belonging to any number of creatures I could only begin to imagine.
My guess would be a bear.
Or a leopard.
Or many monsters.
Any number of creatures could be hidden in the dark depths of the ancient forest and watching me, sizing me up for their dinner. This place didn’t exist in any books authorized by President Stone, my imagination had to fill in all the blanks.
And it was filling it with something furry with big teeth and claws.
It was difficult not letting my mind run away on a tangent and make the creature even bigger, with more teeth, and talons so sharp they made daggers look like toys.
It growled again.
I shifted to the edge of the forest and tried to remain calm while I crossed the road. The last thing I needed was the animal thinking I was playing with it so therefore it must chase after me.
That would not be good.
Ducking into the forest on the other side, my eyes immediately scanned the area. I couldn’t hear the animal on this side but I was certain they were there regardless. If not the one from the other side, then many others just like it.
If not worse.
The distant hum of an engine stole my attention away as every part of me froze in place in case I missed it. The noise was definitely the low grumble of an engine and it was getting louder.
A vehicle was coming.
I crouched by the side of the road, still hidden by the trees of the forest as I waited. My breath caught in my throat, not daring to exhale in case I was caught. Every part of me geared up to do what
I had been waiting all day to do.
The stretch of road was long, giving me time to prepare myself as it came into view. It was another truck, similar to the one that had gained access at the gate but with slight variances. The color was ivory, a dirty cream box that was growing bigger by the second.
My feet were ready but my heart was shattering its protest in my chest. I wasn’t built for this kind of suspenseful action. I was supposed to grow and be healthy until someone took my life when my organs were needed.
But I hadn’t let them do that.
So I supposed this was sufficient punishment.
The truck was about to pass over my trap. It would skid across the rocks and thickets, hopefully being damaged in the process so it had no other choice except to stop.
Then I would make my move.
My pulse beat out the seconds one by one.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
The truck groaned and protested as the driver swerved to avoid the debris littering the road. He tried, but failed. The vehicle fishtailed and croaked.
But he didn’t stop.
Wheels continued to turn, the engine still roared with power, and the driver didn’t even have to wonder what just happened. He disappeared into the distance and left me alone with all my hopes crushed.
My opportunity to get into Aria had roared by without a second thought. So much for my plan. My options now were either to continue walking down the road and find a truck before it left or to make my trap better.
I could always walk further tomorrow.
Today I would work on my trap.
Taking the few steps to the road, I inspected my handiwork. The thickets had been broken, merely spread around without having any impact on the tires. In the war of rubber versus branches, the rubber had won.
Round one, anyway.
The rocks were scattered around the road, disrupted from their places. If the thickets were useless, then it was all going to rest on the rocks in my second attempt.
I hurried deeper into the forest and gathered as many rocks as I could. Each one was so heavy I had to carry it alone. I laid them across the road in a random pattern, trying to make it still seem natural and not made by a person on purpose.
One Spark of Hope Page 4