The Reformation

by Garggie Talukdar

  January felt his body go rigid, his feet planted in place. He knew this would give it all away, but Ion said it with such certainty.

  “January?” Jan ignored Fey’s questioning tone. Jan steadied his mind, focusing in on Ion’s words. My fellow rebels. Lies. Cursing himself, he spun around on Ion, gun cocked and ready to shoot a bullet through his head.

  “Jan!” Z yelled.

  Ion gave a terse grin, though the cruelness was still there, underneath the entire front that Jan was so suspicious about yet couldn’t break through. “Don’t, Z. Your friend here, January Kurata-Tormont, he’s pretty smart. You all are filthy loyalists,” Ion spat, his voice dropping maliciously as he stared Jan down.

  “Where’s the control room?” Jan was careful to keep his voice icy and even.

  “What happened to them, huh, January? Your precious parents. I’m guessing Scorchen. Terrible killer that is. I see potential in you, such a shame that you chose the king. You’re fighting on the wrong side January, and I think you know that. What do you have to say to that? What would your parents say to that?”

  His finger pushed a bit tighter on the trigger. “Where’s the control room?”

  “You’re too late. The rein-”

  Jan pulled the trigger. Ion’s body crumpled to the ground.

  “January! What on earth was that?” Jan ignored the seething-Fey, which led to louder demands. “Why didn’t you make up some shit story? Now reinforcements are coming and we don’t even know where we’re going. All thanks to-”

  “Shut up!” Jan’s voice bellowed, the echoes still fading away seconds afterwards. His breath was uneven, his face haggard. His voice was now barely a whisper, “Shut up.”

  There was silence for a minute, Ion on the floor, a growing pool of crimson surrounding him.

  “There were stairs two doors down.” Z finally said. “We can start there.” And for the first time that entire day, Fey and January followed Z numbly, not a single word said against him.

  …

  Jan knew that Z and Fey were sending him questioning glances. He knew that they just witnessed him breaking, and while that thought would have scared him only days ago, now it didn’t feel that bad. It was that part that scared him.

  Trusting people was not Jan’s specialty. He knew just what it got you. A stab in the back. And in the most unfavourable situations, sometimes right in the front too. And that was from experience, which was something that Jan really didn’t like to say.

  They were on the third flight of stairs up when Fey finally spoke up. “How are you?” Her voice was brittle, breaking, confused and numb, but it was the words that struck Jan as odd. How was he?

  “Horrible. You?” he asked back, not expecting an answer.

  “What was that, back there?”

  “I think this is the motto for today, but just trust me.”

  She fell quiet, but after a brief silence, she spoke up again, her words slow and tentative. “I don’t question you shooting him,” she admitted, eyebrows furrowed as if she just realized that herself. “I’m wondering why it didn’t happen before.”

  He was surprised, but he fought through the shock, instead running up the stairs faster. “Which floor again Z?”

  “Just one more. It’s crazy how big this place in when you get through the decoy.”

  “That’s what we’re calling it?” Fey asked with a smile Jan knew to be forced.

  “What do you want to call it, Downcley?” For a second there was something in her face, but Jan brushed it off. Feelings didn’t matter.

  “Can you guys keep from strangling each other for just a minute? I need to go in, and your loud conversation is going to attract unneeded attraction,” Z piped in, looking serious.

  “You’re just gonna go in there? No plan?” January questioned, disbelieving.

  “Listen, Jan. You wanted us to trust you. We did. Now it’s my time to shine, and if you haven’t noticed, I don’t exactly run on plans.”

  He stayed silent and Z carefully opened the door, tapping his ear to remind them to comm in. And then, his curly hair was out of sight.

  “You didn’t answer my question before,” Jan tried ignoring Fey, but it seemed like she didn’t particularly enjoy the silence. “Alright, don’t answer.”

  “Thanks,” Jan drawled, and Fey scowled.

  “You’re obstinate.”

  “Thanks,” he repeated himself.

  “And probably the most confusing and annoying person I know.”

  “Thanks.” Fey growled in frustration. “Nice shirt,” he commented with minimal attachment, noticing that she was picking at the red material.

  “Celine insisted for fashion. It came in use, I suppose. Black armour doesn’t pass off as civilian wear, I’m guessing,” she muttered.

  “With that reminder, mind telling me why you made me your fiancé?” Fey stayed silent, and Jan realized how this was her form of revenge. “Well played, Downcley.”

  “Thanks.” Realizing how she was imitating him, Jan had to take a second to compose himself.

  “Are you always this irritating?”

  “Only to asses.”

  Jan glared at her sweet smile. “You are so goi-”

  “Hush.”

  “No-”

  “Shhh.” Jan opened his mouth again, but she quickly brought her finger up to his mouth, gesturing to the comm in her ear with her free hand. Oh.

  “Z? Is it safe?” Jan reached up to his own comm, turning the audio on as Z was prattling on about the conditions of the stronghold.

  “The bridge I used is crumbling. You both won’t make it; it’ll collapse halfway through one of your tries.”

  “Any more bad news?” January bit out, frustrated.

  “Yep.” Jan stifled a groan. He was asking for that. “I just got a quick sneak peek of our precious reinforcements.”

  From beside him, Jan heard Fey bite back a few choice words, and it took Jan’s restraint for him not to curse either.

  “What way are they coming Z?” Jan asked, each word measured with careful precision.

  “Um…”

  “Spit it out.”

  “Up the stairs?”

  Fey looked pissed. January knew what Z meant, but he was fighting it, because if they were coming up the stairs that they were on, this would end much faster than Jan would prefer.

  “Z…” Jan’s voice was low and with warning, and he could just see Z scratching the base of his head.

  “Up the stairs.”

  “That we’re on?” Fey asked, as if addressing a young child. There was a crash from below, and Fey’s and Jan’s eyes met at the same time.

  “Well, that’s our answer,” Fey said, eyes wide in annoyance, though Jan would have to be a fool to not notice the fear in her dark irises.

  “Get a Cerberus,” Z’s voice instructed him.

  “Okay,” he said, grabbing Z’s carefully crafted bomb from the depths of Fey’s bag gingerly. “Now what?”

  “You see that wall to your left?”

  “Yep,” he breathed.

  “Set it against there, on level 3.”

  January nearly dropped the Cerberus in surprise. “Z! You told us to never do this. It’s stupid!”

  Jan could hear the older man speak through gritted teeth. “Never said my plan wasn’t stupid. Just set it up, cover yourselves, and hope for the best.”

  “If the best happens-”

  “You’ll know what to do,” Z finished for him. “You’ll have only one way to go.”

  Fey snatched the bomb from Jan’s hand, and positioned it. Then she quickly pressed the green button three times, so the bomb could expand to its three rings. Jan was only recently acquainted with Z’s toys of total destruction, and he barely understood how they worked beyond how to deploy them. This bomb, the Cerberus, was one of Z’s newest creations. The bomb had three levels, each one more lethal than its successor. And even though January didn’t know the mechanics of the machine, he knew that level
3 was a horrible idea.

  Each clinical beep that sounded, feeling awfully like a death sentence to Jan, but he didn’t do anything else but pull out his machine pistol and keep his eye trained on the stairs, waiting for the reinforcements to come in. Fey spoke back into her comm. “What if the best doesn’t happen?”

  Jan saw the light blinking. 10… 9… 8… 7…

  On the other side, Z swallowed. 6… 5… “You die.” 3… 2…

  1.

  And then, January and Fey had no other choice, but to press into the wall behind them, shielding themselves, praying that the best didn’t not happen.

  Twenty-Nine

  REBEL STRONGHOLD, OUTSKIRTS OF LONDON, NNR | JUNE 20, 326 T.E. | 15:09

  “WHY is it so dark?” January got up slowly, ignoring the screaming pain in, well, his entire body. He managed a small ‘what’. Fey looked at him. Well, that’s what he thought, though it looked like she was staring straight past him.

  “Can you see?” January asked tentatively, fearing her answer.

  Fey shook her head, “Don’t tell me that it isn’t just pitch black in here.” Jan let out a string of curses under his breath, and Fey let out her own in a language that didn’t quite seem to be English to Jan. “I’m guessing that means that I’ve gone blind.”

  “Temporarily,” Jan said, reassuring himself as much as Fey. The current fragile state of their mission would only crack further if Fey was impaired permanently.

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  “It would help if you shut that smart-ass mouth of yours,” he snapped back. Fey’s off stare hardened into a glare, though she let him speak. “Z made this a modified batch. Even on three, we sheltered ourselves well enough. You haven’t permanently lost vision. Just wait 5 minutes, alright?” he calmly said, running contingency plans through his mind as he grabbed a coil of rope from his pack, working furiously.

  “Well we can’t exactly wait 5 minutes. In case the rebels didn’t know that we were here before, they will now.” Jan rolled his eyes and finished his triple knot on his belt that corresponded with the one on the heavy rail that he tied the other end to.

  “The bomb blew the wall up, so now we have a way to get out,” Jan explained as calmly as he could, though there was a growing lump in his throat. He now knew what Z was talking about; the only way they had to go was straight down. “I’m tying us to a rail here, so we have something to hold us up. We’re jumping into emptiness, so we’ll be on the level right below us. You trust me?”

  “No. But do I have a choice?” Jan grabbed her hand, giving a quick survey of his work to make sure that if they managed to get down, the whiplash wouldn’t kill them

  “No,” Jan admitted. “Here, hold this,” he said, handing her some of the rope. He quickly wrapped an arm around her waist for extra fortification just in case she slipped, gritting his teeth and steeling his nerves for the drop, hoping that he wouldn’t drop Fey if things were to come to the point that he was the only thing keeping her up.

  There was a round of fire and shouts coming up the stairs. January started his countdown, muttering a quick prayer. “3, 2-”

  “Stop,” Fey said, making Jan stop in his tracks.

  “You can’t get cold feet, Downcley,”

  Fey rolled her eyes. “No. It’s not that. You just need to go on my count.”

  “How do you know? You’re blind for heaven’s sake!”

  “Trust me.” The steely determination in her tone, made Jan set his jaw and—for the second time today—subside to her pleas.

  Nodding to herself, Fey began counting down, her voice clear and confident. “5, 4, 3,” A bullet nearly hit his torso, but he told Fey he would trust her. “2, 1!”

  Even if Jan hadn’t jumped, he would have fallen from the sharp pain in his left calf. He gritted his teeth at the pain of being shot, instead concentrated on scrambling for something to break their fall. And then suddenly, they stopped with a jolt that racked Jan’s body, their breaths heavy and unsteady. They weren’t as safe as Jan would have preferred, but better than being splattered on the floor that was concerning close to them.

  “I think I just took a bullet, Downcley,” Jan informed her, his words short and clipped. “Doesn’t hurt as much as I anticipated.”

  “The pain will come soon after the adrenaline has worn off,” she stated blithely.

  He was just about to shot back a witty retort when the rope trembled, and a sharp noise rose above all the other shots and shouts. And with heavy terror filling his chest, Jan realized that the rope was breaking under their weight. Fey probably realized it too, even without her sight, because she swore loudly.

  “With a day like this, the adrenaline will never stop,” January bitterly quipped.

  “How far from the ground?”

  “Because of my current angle,” he started, referring to how he was holding up his own weight as well as Fey’s, “I can’t tell.”

  “Grapple?”

  “Right.” He tightened his grip around Fey’s waist so the newly blind girl wouldn’t fall, and he reached into her pack pulling out the grappling hook. With a quick prayer that Z didn’t skive off his duties of construction, he spotted a ledge and shot it. With a metallic clink it wrapped around, and secured itself, and knowing that Z’s grappling cord was much stronger than the currently breaking rope, he took one of Fey’s many knives, and hacked away the unravelling rope. And with another jolt, this one less violent, they both dropped closer to the ground, the cord holding them firmly in place. I’ll have to thank Z later.

  “How close are they?” Fey breathlessly asked.

  “Right above us. Comm in Z, we need a way out of this place.”

  “On it. Where are we, by the way?”

  “Halfway between the 2nd and 1st floor, suspended in the atrium that puts us out in the open. How’s that vision holding up for you?”

  “I can see colours. Don’t you dare say that’s progress.”

  “It’s progress.”

  Fey groaned, reaching towards the comm in her ear. “I hate you.”

  “Of course, you don’t, fiancée dear.”

  There was a faint buzz, and Jan knew that Z was comming in. “What the hell did you guys do?”

  “Set the Cerberus on-” Fey started, and Jan felt his patience finally run out.

  “Just tell us how to get ourselves out of this mess. I’m shot and Fey’s temporarily blind. We’re hanging on a barely secured grappling hook in open air where anyone can see us. And did I mention that everyone in this building is looking for us?” Jan felt the hot frustration build up within him, leaving his body through fast, scathing, sarcastic remarks.

  Z sounded completely unabashed. “Okay, drop down. The gap between you guys and the ground isn’t enough for any significant damage.”

  “Sounds promising,” Fey muttered under her breath, sighing heavily, “Then what?”

  “Run. You see that hallway? Enter that doorway on your first right. That will lead you to stairs, and I’ll meet you there.”

  The buzzing sound ended, and Jan knew that Z’s help was done.

  “Vision report?”

  “As good as it’s gonna get.”

  “Sounds promising,” Jan said off-hand, echoing Fey’s earlier words.

  “Don’t quote me.” She suddenly raised her gun and shot, and Jan heard a groan, followed by what he hoped was a human body slumped on the ground. “I can shoot, can’t I?”

  Jan let out a nod, though she wouldn’t see that clearly. “I’m mistaken. Now would you please let me drop ourselves?”

  …

  They got to the staircase without incident. Fey’s vision remained partially-compromised, though she was still a decent shot. The pain from January’s gun wound hadn’t kicked in yet, so he decided he would make use of it and fight with all of his power should they come to a situation where they would need to fight.

  It was when they were just starting to stumble up the stairs, one with a leg injury, the oth
er visually impaired, that the trouble decided to arrive. Well, barrel straight into them.

  At least 13 fully armed soldiers were up the spiral staircase, closer than Jan would have liked, their voices carrying over to where the two Strategists were. January actually had to yank Fey back from walking into open view, pulling her with him behind the small wall before the stairs began. Despite Jan not telling her anything, she was staying unnaturally quiet, so she probably caught something of what was happening. Or maybe she was regaining her vision. Hopefully.

  They were close, so very close, and he knew that it would take one harsh noise, one misstep, and the reinforcements would notice them. “Z,” Jan nervously breathed into his comm. “We found the reinforcements.”

  “Shit,” was the sharp reply. “How many?”

  “Too many,” Jan shot back.

  “Considering both of your injuries, that could be one person.”

  “13, give or-”

  “Lific. Did you hear something?” A hoarse, rather high voice called out. The leader. Jan inwardly cursed.

  “Z, is there any other way of getting up?” Jan frantically asked, his voice as hushed as possible.

  “None that I can see.”

  “Secure the perimeters,” a voice from above said, “Don’t want our pesky loyalists to get away, do we?” Jan felt his breaths become shallower, and he had no idea how Fey beside him, was keeping her own breaths so level.

  “Okay, let me change that; tell me a way to get up right now.”

  “On it,” Jan was just about to let out a sharp breath when Fey jabbed his side with her elbow.

  “What?” he asked, annoyed at the sudden interruption. And then he realized just how loud he had said it.

  Fey winced, and she jerked her head towards where the reinforcements were above them. Moving, she mouthed, idiot.

  “You,” the voice rang out from above them, and January bit his tongue hard enough to draw the familiar warm iron-taste of blood. “Grab Minl; someone is definitely here.”

  Jan cursed internally, and then harshly whispered into his comm, “Okay, let me change the plan again. Are we close to the control room?”

  “Very. You just have to go up these stairs, and then if you go down the hallway on your right, you’ll find the passage a few doors down.”