The Reformation

by Garggie Talukdar

  “Celine,” he interrupted. “You are 100% Scorchen free. Z checked.”

  “But even Z can make mistakes.”

  “And I checked. Medics checked. You don’t have Scorchen. Not many people have survived the illness, Celine. Maybe this is just a post-Scorchen, normal thing to happen, that we just don’t know about because it’s so rare that people survive.”

  “Yeah. Maybe,” Celine felt her fist clench, and she realized that she had just spoiled King Jax’s handkerchief. “I’m sorry. I completely ruined it.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jax assured her, lightly chuckling. “Handkerchiefs were made for ruining. And don’t worry about finding a way to dispose them without arising suspicion; I’ll make arrangements if you want to keep your whole condition under wraps.”

  “Thank you.” Jax smiled wryly at her, and maybe it was because now she had time to think things over, but she realized something was wrong. “You’re being awfully optimistic. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s true you’re 100% free of Scorchen, but your heart has suffered more than anything, Celine. Living everyday life isn’t going to be easy.” The memory of struggling to climb the stairs surfaced. “And while it’s true that surviving Scorchen has increased your immunity to the disease; if it or anything close to how devastating Scorchen is, breached your system, you would have no chance. Your immunity is almost non-existent.”

  “Oh.” The one syllable hardly seemed to suffice, but it did. Oh. My immune system isn’t working, my heart can barely function, and my lungs occasionally randomly heave up blood.

  Oh, was an understatement.

  “But I’m alive,” Celine amended, and Jax’s dimpled smile made an appearance.

  “Yes, Celine. You are alive, which is a miracle that outweighs all the unpropitious events that have followed your recovery. Now,” he stared, pushing himself, pulling himself off of the bed, and Celine immediately stood up, though she heavily leant on the bed post to support her weight. “I think that I’ve broken enough decorum in the past 5 minutes, so I should probably take my leave.”

  “Of course. As I said before, quite un-kingly, Your Royal Highness.”

  “My old etiquette teacher, Kumu Kanoa, would have probably boxed my ears by now. Heavens, my ears already hurt just thinking about it.”

  “Touching a hair on the future king?” Celine asked incredulously.

  “She didn’t care much for titles. Probably one of the best teachers ever to have tutored me.”

  Celine smiled as much as she could, but then she noticed the bloomed splotch of crimson on Jax’s white shirt. With sinking dread in her stomach, at not only the prospect of being discovered, but also seeing her expectorated blood on the king’s shirt, her smile fell. “Your shirt-”

  “-is just a shirt,” Jax finished for her, laughing. “Don’t worry, no one will know if you don’t want anyone to know. But Celine, you should-”

  “Tell my team. I know your M.O.”

  “What?”

  “Modus operandi,” Celine explained, and Jax looked even more puzzled. “I picked that up from Z, so don’t blame me. Basically, it means how you do things. And I respect that, but my choice is made, and I hope you can respect that.”

  “I can, and I will,” Jax shot her a quick smile, moving towards the door, faltering as his hand rested on the handle, looking back at her. “Good day, Miss Hollingsworth.”

  She nodded back. “Good day, Your Majesty.”

  The bloody handkerchief was still clutched tightly in her hand.

  …

  The next week was easier to manage. While that didn’t mean that the sudden coughing fits and inability to climb stairs went away, it did mean that Celine had grown better at hiding it. She wasn’t sure if that was an achievement or not, yet.

  Coping was hard, but it became less important when a possible war loomed over their heads, or when information that could possibly give them leverage was within their grasp but just too far. That’s what was happening.

  They needed to understand their enemy, Jan was right about that much, because fighting a shadow of the Immortales true identity was impossible. Well, near impossible. (Because surviving Scorchen taught Celine that nothing was impossible.)

  But before they could even question who the Immortales were, they had to find out more about the Immortality Project, and more importantly, why it ended. Celine got why immortality was being quested after; dying was terrifying, and evading it for forever would be ideal. In a world where people usually died before 50, forever was beyond some’s wildest dreams. Yet there they were, the Immortale beings, residing not too far on Elix—god forbid wherever that might be.

  So why did Robn Syncter stop the project? Some of his test subjects were successful, as proved by the tyrannical race that the Strategists were plotting against, but why not make the entire world immortal? Why stop with only a handful of the population? —because that led to a huge gap of immortality and mortality, and something inside of Celine told her that Robn Syncter knew that.

  They lived for eternity, while the rest of humanity died, left to fend off the inevitable of mortality. Death.

  Had Celine become indifferent to the word? Did it mean anything? She finally understood what Fey’s words really meant, on the first day that Celine met her. It’s fear, and the absence of fear that creates most things.

  This was how Fey lived her everyday life, knocking on death’s door, waiting on its doormat. But while Fey was doomed, was born to wait in the shadow of death, trailing at her heels, Celine had escaped it. Celine Hollingsworth had cheated death, and beyond that, was there really much more to fear?

  Nothing. There would be nothing to fear. But as Celine pushed open the meeting room’s doors and cast a too-tight smile as she scanned the room before their next meeting, she realized that there were so many worse fears in life than a fear of losing your own. There was the fear of losing—of disappointing—others.

  And as her stuttering heartbeat pounded in her chest, each thump saying alive, alive, alive, all Celine could hear was whatwasshethen, whatwasshethen, what was she then?

  Vulnerable.

  Twenty-Four

  “SO why?” Fey asked, leaning back into her chair, biting her pencil. They were all gathered in the meeting room, once more rehashing the entire complexity of the codes encrypting the Immortale files. Why, was the project stopped before it could truly begin? Why, were there Immortale files in a rebel stronghold?

  “Well that’s the question, isn’t it? Problem is, we’re wiped.” Celine didn’t bother explaining, though Fey had a lingering suspicion of what she meant. Instead, Celine looked a bit expectantly at Z, the tech expert. While it was obvious that Celine was the leader, it was also apparent that she was dependent on her team.

  Fey liked that. She liked feeling needed, feeling significant. Fey almost smiled, realizing how far Celine had come. How far they all had come. When she became a part of the Strategists, it seemed impossible that Celine Hollingsworth, the opinionated, strong-willed girl was ever going to do anything for approval of the team. It seemed like she learned, and Fey suspected that a certain bout of Scorchen might be a contributing factor.

  “Well,” Z started, gnawing at his lip as he opened up a file on the big screen. “It’s not obvious, but someone has been through these. It looks accidental, but when you find what’s missing, and in what order they were took in, you can see that it’s been planned. It’s methodic, which means it’s likely not a random intruder messing with us. Whoever’s doing this must know something.” Fey looked down the table, momentarily freezing when she saw Jax’s unusually hard eyes. Strange.

  She shook her head, focusing on Z again.

  “We should launch a mission,” January concluded. Fey didn’t even have to turn to look Jan in the eye, because she knew that if she did, she would probably end up glaring. “Right?” Okay, maybe he was making some improvements as well. He wasn’t as cocky as before? Yeah right.

  “We should,” Ce
line confirmed not looking at the rest of the team, instead shooting Jax a questioning glance out of the tops of her eyes.

  He nodded, and Celine opened her mouth somewhat happily to say something, but Jax added, “But not you.”

  “What?” Celine asked, but Jax went on, ignoring her outburst.

  “Fey, Jan; I trust you can go on a mission without killing each other?” Jax asked, referring to the mission that they both went on only a week or two prior. It was the only mission they had went on since the operation that had left Celine bed-ridden with Scorchen, and it was a mission that Jan and Fey had went on together, believing that maybe things would go alright.

  Least to say, there was a reason why it was the only mission they had gone on. “It’s not my fault if he’s an arrogant, egoistic-”

  Jax cut her off. “Fey.”

  “Sorry. Yeah, we can. May I suggest a third, calming, force?” the Manaroan girl suggested, sighing.

  “That’s up to Z. The king going around and burning buildings and killing rebels would be quite scandalous.”

  “Well. How about it, Z?” January asked, looking about as hopeful as a cupboard with blond hair. “She’s going to drive me crazy.” Fey glared at him, but he made no move to amend his statement. “And she’s downright annoying.”

  “Hey!”

  “Z?” Jax asked, looking slightly hopeful.

  “No.” He didn’t even look up.

  “Come on Z.” Jan was pleading.

  “Nope.” He stood up and collected his things.

  “Z,” Fey, this time, started.

  “No. Listen, would you like to run home base?” Fey and Jan looked down, looking berated by Z. “Exactly. So don’t ask me to go on a stealth mission.” Fey opened her mouth, then quickly shut it, after getting a quick shake of the head by Celine. Let it go.

  “Jax?” Z asked, to which the former nodded. With the permission to leave, Z left, laptop in one hand, and assorted files in the other. The room was silent for some time, everyone unmoving. The air was bitter with disappointment, Fey could taste it.

  “We can’t go alone,” Jan simply said, turning to Jax.

  “I know,” Jax had his head in his hands, looking a bit thoughtful.

  “So then what do we do?” Fey asked, slightly frustrated by the king and his tendency to never say anything directly.

  “Your mission is tomorrow. Get ready early in the morning. I can’t go, that’s too noticeable; you both know that. Celine can’t go either, and she can run home base.”

  Fey felt the unspoken ‘why’ on her tongue, but she knew the answer. Celine had just recovered from Scorchen, by no means an easy task. “So, Z?”

  “He’ll go with you. You have a day to convince him. Beg, plead, persuade, threaten, whatever. Just by tomorrow, you three are going. Actually, don’t threaten,” Jax hastily added.

  “Why can’t we go alone?” Fey really hated the idea, but the determination in Z’s eyes worried her.

  “Seriously? It would be sad if two more Strategists left the party,” Jax wryly said.

  “What do you mean?” Grasping at straws.

  Celine shot her a look.

  “Okay, yeah,” Fey conceded. “We need to get Z.”

  Jax stood up lazily, the rest of them quickly on their feet. He looked momentarily shocked before sagging with a sigh. “Oh god. You don’t need to do that. I may be the king, but I’m 18. I’d prefer it if you let go of the formalities.”

  “Hey, one more way to annoy you,” Fey said, and Jax glared at her.

  “I give up. Honestly.”

  “Well, it’s a long day ahead of us. Jax, Hollingsworth, Downcley.” With a quick nod, Jan was off. There was some sort of undertone to Downcley, Fey noticed, but that wasn’t unusual. But something was different, in the tight way that he glanced at all of them, the pained expression on his face.

  “There’s something off with him,” Celine stated. Honestly, Fey couldn’t agree more. A chill ran down her spine when January was concerned. And not a good one.

  …

  “We can’t go on a mission, just the two of us! We’ll murder each other.” Even Fey’s long strides couldn’t keep up with Z’s determined and rather fast pace.

  “C’mon Z, we need you! You know Celine can’t go. Jax is too busy with his joyous political work. You need to sub in with Celine.” As much as Fey hated to admit it, she agreed with Jan, and although she would never say it out loud, she was glad that Jan was as smooth of a talker as he was. Because Z, surprisingly agreed.

  “I’m not a stealth agent, nor am I a spy. But for some odd, perplexing reason, I’m going with you. You guys owe me though. With practically your life.”

  Jan cracked his knuckles. “Consider it done. Downcley, can you get Celine? I’ll get Jax, and then we can go over whatever is left before we go.” His voice was painfully tight, trying hard to remain civil with Fey.

  “Sure. But do you mind getting Cel? I need to tell–ask–Jax about something.” Jan opened his mouth as if he were to say something, but then closed it. Fey prayed that he would get over suspicion to let her go. His jaw slackened, and Fey thanked her stars.

  “Why not? You better not assassinate His Majesty though. I would hate for that to happen on my watch.” The corner of his mouth quirked upwards, and Fey realized this was Jan’s first attempt at joking. Was this the same Jan as two weeks ago? As yesterday? As five seconds ago? It was a sight, so bizarre, that it made Fey push back a smile.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, January,” she said, stepping past his figure to Z. “You mind finding all the strongholds within a 100-200 km radius?”

  Z saluted her, giving her a classic Z smirk. “Need you ask?”

  Fey muttered a quick ‘thanks’ as she jogged towards the king’s chambers. Fey raised her hand to knock on the door, but the young king had just opened it, so Fey’s fist loomed in the now empty air. Realizing how awkward the entire situation was, Fey let her hand drop to her side, sheepishly bowing her head. “Your Majesty.”

  Jax raised his dark eyebrows at the title. “Agent Downcley. Whatever brings you to my humble abode?” he asked, with the same amount of formality as Fey had earlier addressed him.

  “Well, considering I live here…” she trailed off, not before mentally slapping herself. Considering I live here? It was extremely weird, having a casual conversation with the king of NNR.

  He chuckled, thank god for that. “You know what I mean. What’s up?”

  “When Celine and Z were talking about the wiped files-” she paused, not knowing how to phrase her statement. “I think you’re keeping something from us.”

  His blue irises, once again, hardened, now a deep, stony blue. “You’re quite the observer, aren’t you? I didn’t think now was the time,” he explained. He faltered as well, his eyes flashing with deliberation. “We have a spy in our base.”

  “A spy?” The words felt thick in her throat, “You’re sure of this?”

  “Quite so. Listen, I trust you won’t tell anyone until you believe the time has come, correct? And please keep an open mind. And eye.”

  “Of course. Wait, so by telling me this, you’ve eliminated me off your list?”

  “No one is above suspicion, not even me. You, should know that Fey. I just thought that you most expected the news, therefore you would take it the best.”

  Fey was taken aback by his answer. “Was that an accusation?”

  “Maybe. Depends on whether you’re guilty or not. I’ll be in the meeting room in a minute.”

  “I didn’t tell you about the meeting,”

  “You aren’t the only one with deduction skills, Downcley.” And with that, and a quick quirk of his lips, he walked off, leaving Fey thinking about the mission, the spy, and an unsettling suspicion about January.

  …

  “27 strongholds?” To say that Fey was frustrated, was an understatement.

  “27 known strongholds,” Celine corrected, still not looking up from her laptop. “Ther
e could be thousands more. But which one do we pay a visit to?”

  “I hate multiple choice questions,” January murmured, glumly staring at the lit up big screen. Whenever Fey looked at Jan, a new, uneasy feeling passed over her. He could be the one who was silently killing them. It could be anyone in this room. That was the scary part.

  “You and me both, Jan,” Z said, peering over Celine’s shoulder to see what she was doing.

  “27 strongholds surround us in a 100 km radius, and we’ve gone to only 6 of them?” Fey persisted, ignoring Jan and Z’s side conversation.

  “Why must we always ask rhetorical questions?” Jax dramatically asked, playing with darts. Again, Fey ignored him, as did Celine.

  “Technically in a 200 km radius, but yes. They really aren’t strongholds though; just small groups, probably a population of 10. There are about 7 major strongholds, with possibly populations of 100. Including the one we went to,” Celine projected her computer image on the big screen. Everyone, including Fey, looked up to see a bright map in front of them. In the dead center, a bright green dot blinked. Them. Surrounding the green dots were several others, coloured blood red. 27 she counted, 7 pulsing dots stood out from the rest. Bigger and brighter, she knew that those 7 were way more dangerous. But the number of dots, of strongholds, was so great, that Fey didn’t want to know how they were going to choose one.

  “What do we know about them?” Fey asked, not looking away from the screen.

  “Nothing, I presume,” January piped up, and Fey looked up to see Z nodding, sighing as he ran his fingers through tangled coils of his dark hair.

  Before anyone could stop him, Jax whipped a dart at a single point, his swiftness silencing the room.

  “That is where we last went. This,” he threw another dart, this time at a much smaller and further away dot. “Is where we we’ll infiltrate next.”

  “That’s a small stronghold,” Jan stated. “Chances are smaller of finding the information,” he protested.

  “That may be true. But what is more noticeable; 100 or 10, dead?”

  Celine stood up, eyes darker than ever in rage. “You’re talking about killing your own citizens.”