|SLATE| RETRIBUTION

by Emery Hale

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked as he closed everything down and clicked on the internet.

  ‘National panic is just that, panic. It doesn’t last for long.’

  ‘I’m sure it does,’ I said, as if it was obvious. If my mum saw this whole thing on the TV, she’d be running around the house like a loony, packing a bag.

  News headlines popped up one after the other.

  AIRPORTS CLOSING THEIR GATES

  PRIME MINISTER UNACCOUNTED FOR

  BUCKINGHAM PALACE REMAINS SILENT

  TERRORISTS WALK AMONG US

  ARE WE SAFE? WHO CAN WE TRUST?

  ‘This isn’t something they decided months ago, this has been years in the planning.’ Kayson’s voice shook as he stood up, but it wasn’t fear, it was anger. ‘The agents we fought in Brora, at the theatre, even Estonia – they weren’t just Trojan agents, they were us.’

  The Reign Academy wasn’t training agents to fight against Trojan, they were conditioning assassins to join their ranks.

  I imagined Kayson wanted Harkness dead, his head on a spike, but what does it take from you, killing someone? It must crumple and twist a part of your soul. I knew they were trained but there was a difference between a target and a human being.

  ‘We’re gonna fight back,’ I said confidently. Every ounce of flight response had left my body; we were going to stop this.

  Suddenly Kayson took off from his seat, legging it from the room and down the corridor, his leather boots smacking loudly against the floor.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I called after him.

  ‘Armoury, we’re bringing the war to them.’

  CHAPTER 32

  Mettle

  The courage to carry on in the face of adversity.

  Naomi Jade

  1 May 2016, 21:00

  Scotland, The Reign Academy, Omega Dorm House

  Sleep crumbled in my eyes as I pulled the tangled sheets from my legs, the warm linen for once bringing me no comfort. As soon as we’d reached the armoury on the second floor, Kayson had grabbed multiple bags and started firing in everything from guns to hand grenades.

  We’d decided it was best to set up a base so we headed back to Grace’s room at the dorm house. We’d pushed her desk to the middle of the room, and laid out all of the weaponry: to see it sitting there made my blood run cold. The way Kayson had meticulously placed everything down on the table was quiet, but his body screamed of hate. The way his nostrils flared, his stiff upper lip and precision as he loaded a gun. With every slam and click I knew he didn’t need a weapon: he was one.

  Kayson slept in Jessica’s room while I’d stayed in Quinn’s. I even sprayed some of her perfume that was tucked away in a drawer. It brought me a little petal of happiness, and I thought that’s all we can hope for in the end because sometimes, a little is enough.

  I pushed straggles of hair from my face as I sat up in bed, and as I did the cool metal of the gun Kayson had given me slipped into my hand. He’d given it to me in case we were somehow found out during the night, even though I didn’t know how to use the damn thing.

  I got changed, slipping back into my clothes from the day before, tucking the gun into the waistband of my jeans (although I did still have a fear of blowing my ass off). Kayson had mentioned something about putting the safety lock on, which I sincerely hope he did before he handed it over.

  The thought that the Academy was training soldiers for Trojan and making them chemically compliant still brought bile to my throat, it was barbaric. I’d never really seen the seniors – not even the team mentioned them. Did they know they were fighting for terrorists? Did they ever question who they worked for?

  When I looked out of the window students were walking about as normal, like they didn’t know the first thing about this place. I even saw a group of girls laughing hysterically, holding onto the person next to them so they didn’t fall over. I feared I’d never able to go back to that, carefree and naive. None of us would be able to; we weren’t those kids anymore.

  A knocked sounded at the door as Kayson walked in, his eyes red with tiredness and hair greasy, but he’d put on a fresh shirt.

  ‘Thought you should be kept in the loop with what’s going on out there,’ he started, shoving his hands into his pockets. ‘Nicola ran, she’s underground.’

  ‘Ran?’ I asked, crossing my arms.

  ‘The Academy will go after her, she’s a new target for Harkness. He can use people like her, but if he can’t find her then at least she’ll be safe.’

  Did Harkness want everyone to join his ranks? Join or die.

  ‘So, we really are on our own then,’ I said, but this time it wasn’t a question.

  No one from the outside could help. James was dead, Nicola was on the run and Dr McKay could only do so much.

  Suddenly the front door opened and my hand instantly went to the gun – what was I doing? I couldn’t fire this thing! No one else was meant to be here, all of the team were stuck at the Academy. A look of steel solidified over Kayson’s face as he grabbed his own gun and edged down the corridor towards the stairs.

  We trickled out of the room, guns at our side as we made our way to the top of the stairs. There was a sound of multiple footsteps on the wooden floor and then the door slammed shut. Had Harkness sent a team to sweep the place?

  Kayson slowly bent down, taking off his shoes before silently descending the stairs, what class did he learn that in? My hands clenched the gun as I held my breath, the weapon rattling. Kayson tiptoed down the first set of stairs pointing his gun straight ahead at the door, without even thinking I ran down the stairs after him doing the same – but at the sight ahead, I nearly dropped the thing.

  ‘Woah fire thong!’ Lily yelled throwing her hands up in the air.

  ‘You gave her a gun? Is the safety on at least?’ Grace asked, hands pressed to her hips.

  ‘You’re back!’ Quinn exclaimed.

  ‘Fuck me,’ Kayson muttered. ‘It worked?’

  ‘Well of course it did.’ Grace threw her hands up like it was obvious. ‘Now, can you stop pointing a gun at me.’

  Kayson apologised, tucking it back into his jeans, but I just let mine fall to the carpet as I threw myself down the stairs, flinging my arms around Quinn, her small hands curling around my waist as she hid her face in the crook of her neck.

  I was so glad to have them back, I didn’t know what I’d do without them.

  Then I pulled away, grabbing Lily’s hand and yanking her into a hug. She awkwardly patted me on the back before I turned to Grace.

  ‘I’m really not –’ but I didn’t give her another moment to think before I threw my arms around her ‘– a hugger.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I said squeezing her tight, and after a couple seconds I smiled, because Grace returned the hug.

  They were back, the team was back, now we just had to rescue its leader.

  * * *

  We led the three girls up the stairs – they still seemed a little woozy but didn’t complain, and Kayson and I made sure we were available should anyone decided to pass out. No one had come back around from these drugs before, so we had no idea if they’d be totally fine or keel over at any moment. Dr McKay’s little experiment actually worked wonders, hopefully it didn’t run out.

  When we reached Grace’s room she wasn’t pleased that we’d moved everything around, but we came to a mutual understanding, once Kayson explained why all of this was necessary. Lily went straight for the weapons table, picking up a couple to inspect, while we all filtered in the room. And that was when the other shoe dropped, and Kayson told them why they were training in the first place: for Trojan.

  The reaction was sheer silence: not what I expected.

  Lily placed the gun back on the table, Grace politely sat down on the chair and Quinn hovered towards the door, her eyes flitting to Willow’s old room across the hall.

  ‘All this time, we’ve been the enemy? The Trojan agents were us?’ Lily asked.

&
nbsp; ‘The bomber in the theatre,’ Grace said. ‘I knew I recognised him from somewhere, the one on the lighting rig. He must have been a senior, we barely ever see them so it’s possible.’

  ‘No,’ Quinn shook her head ‘The Academy can’t be their only source of agents, there’s too many.’

  Lily bit her lip.

  ‘I say we get Harkness, Duke and the rest of these fuck-ups in a room then blow them straight to hell.’ With a slam she loaded ammo into a sniper rifle.

  ‘We can’t do that,’ I said. ‘We need to know what they’re planning.’

  ‘I might have a way to find out,’ Quinn said softly.

  What? How the hell did she know already? I thought her brain would have been scrambled from the drugs. Quinn left the room and crossed the hall, then after a bit of banging and clattering, returned with a black tablet in hand.

  ‘This was Willow’s, the idea came to me before we had the second round of drugs. She’d always said she was onto something but would never tell me what.’ Quinn tapped the device a couple times before the screen illuminated. ‘I didn’t have the resources to put the pieces together before.’

  She handed the tablet to Grace who scrolled for a while but by the look on her face, she hadn’t found anything.

  ‘All I have is some place called Newhaven Harbour along with a fruit and veg delivery slip for the Academy.’ she said, looking up.

  ‘What really?’ Quinn took another look at the tablet. ‘If I encrypted it then there must be something.’

  ‘Your brain was scrambled love, who knows what you thought you were doing.’ Grace looked like she was about to dismiss the whole thing when she paused, peering a little closer at the screen. ‘Wait . . . ’ She stood up, showing the tablet to the rest of us. ‘I don’t know about anyone else but I’ve never heard of a fruit called Svenreud.’

  ‘Must be a typo.’

  Grace shook her head.

  ‘I would have thought that too but there’s nothing even remotely similar to this.’ She spun the tablet to portrait and started going through the same file again.

  Lily laughed.

  ‘A harbour and a delivery slip, not exactly damning evidence.’

  When I took a closer look nothing seemed out of the ordinary – there was a reference number, the Academy’s address and then the list of food. What was Grace getting at? Quinn popped her head over Grace’s shoulder, eyes scanning the screen like a laser. If she’d encrypted it months ago then it must have meant something – it had to.

  ‘The reference number,’ Grace said, zooming in on it.

  Kayson snatched the tablet before tossing it back down.

  ‘All I see are the letters X, I and V.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s called roman numerals, try to keep up,’ Grace snapped, taking the tablet back. ‘There must be a code somewhere.’

  Grace crouched down pulling one of the drawers in the table open, taking out a paper and pen, then in one swift motion swept all the weaponry to the floor. Kayson and Lily cried out in protest she but didn’t pay them any mind as she scribbled down the translated numbers.

  13, 1, 25, 19, 5, 3, 15, 14, 4.

  ‘So now you’ve wrecked my guns and we have a bunch of random numbers. Great, thanks Grace, really glad to have you back,’ Kayson said spitefully collecting the weapons from the floor.

  But Quinn perked up like a cat. ‘No . . . ’ she trailed off. ‘It can’t be that simple.’

  ‘Guys, start talking.’ Lily said. Apart from the two enlightened ones, we were clueless.

  Instead of talking, Grace started to scribble and I soon caught on that each number was a letter of the English alphabet. ‘A’ being number one. She played about with the numbers before spinning the paper around.

  MAY SECOND

  ‘May second, what like the date?’ I asked.

  Grace smirked. ‘Whatever Harkness is planning goes down at Newhaven Harbour on the second of May, which is tomorrow.’

  They had to be joking, that was it?

  Suddenly Quinn grabbed the tablet and typed away frantically – seriously, the smart people in the room needed to explain this to us common folk.

  ‘Quinn?’ Lily asked. ‘I know the drugs took away our memories and shit, but it didn’t take away your voice.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Quinn fumbled as she turned the tablet to the rest of us. ‘Newhaven Harbour is near here and there is a boat leaving there called the Verendus.’

  ‘That’s not the same name as the weird fruit,’ Kayson said, like he was talking to a child.

  ‘Yeah, it is.’ As soon as she spoke I knew Quinn was about to hand Kayson’s pride right back to him on a silver platter. ‘It’s an anagram.’

  The only man in the room looked down at the table, fiddling with a magazine clip. ‘Well yeah, that’s obvious now, I didn’t even get a good look at the thing.’

  ‘Let’s just say, Kayson, there’s a reason you’re the Runner,’ Quinn muttered under her breath.

  ‘Oi!’ Lily called, ‘I’m a Runner too.’

  ‘Yeah but sweetheart,’ Grace cut in, ‘your cock isn’t shoved up your ass.’

  I didn’t know where to look or stand – now the team was back I felt out of place. When it was Kayson things were easier, but Grace and Quinn had everything figured out in ten minutes. Did Willow ever feel like this? The Carrier was supposed to get info and then get out – strictly speaking she didn’t have to be a part of this process.

  ‘Look!’ Quinn exclaimed suddenly, pointing to the slip. ‘There’s twenty-two fruits and forty-five vegetables.’

  ‘Quinn, speak English!’ Lily shouted right back.

  ‘Twenty two, forty-five. It’s a time – quarter to eleven at night. That’s when the boat is going to be there.’

  Grace laughed proudly.

  ‘We have a date, time and location. Honestly, Kayson, what would you do without us?’

  That was when Kayson said something I’d never expected. ‘You should thank Naomi.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I put the plan together to get you guys back but Naomi was the one who figured out the link in the black stamp files. She put the whole thing together.’

  Three heads snapped my way and I immediately wanted to curl back, all the attention flustering me a little. I assured myself that it was my place to put things together, and that I’d done the right thing despite everything Jessica had said.

  I was met with three very different faces. Grace’s was masked in utter shock, Lily’s was the cheeky smirk I missed so dearly, while Quinn’s toothy grin was practically bouncing off the floor.

  ‘It was, uh . . .’ I trailed off, unable to think of the words. ‘Maybe you just needed an outside perspective. You guys live here and see the same things and people every day. Just needed a fresh set of eyes is all.’

  Quinn sucked in a breath before walking over to me. She reached up, scraping something from my forehead.

  ‘Wig glue,’ she chuckled. ‘Listen, don’t ever put yourself down. You figured this out.’

  ‘You and Grace just figured out a code – you had a tablet hidden away that we wouldn’t have found for ages.’

  Quinn took my hand.

  ‘That why we’re a team. Kayson planned to set us free, you figured out the true purpose of the Academy, Grace and I figured out the code.’

  ‘And what did I do?’ Lily piped up.

  ‘You’re the view.’

  ‘Oh Quinn, I love it when you talk sexy.’

  Quinn blushed, tucking hair behind her ear and biting her lip, and I had one thought: God she’s adorable.

  The moment didn’t last long. I took a look around the room: there were five people here and one missing. Jessica.

  ‘Jessica was taken to the isolation cells.’ I thought over my next words carefully before I spoke. ‘Are we breaking her out?’

  Quinn looked at me like I’d just asked the most ludicrous question. ‘Of course we’re going to.’

  The rest of the group didn
’t reply, they just exchanged looks with one another. Quinn picked up on it pretty quickly. ‘We have to break her out.’

  Again, silence.

  I shared their concerns. Jessica could be a double agent.

  The note from Willow wasn’t damning, but it didn’t look good either. Her mother enrolled her trained daughter into this school for a reason I didn’t want to even think about. If Charlotte knew the true reason for the Academy then she had to know about Trojan’s involvement. As I scanned over everyone, I knew the same thought had crossed their minds: Jessica could be working for Trojan. Even though it was a possibility, it was like my mind didn’t want to consider it. Would Trojan make her go through all of this? Build a story, create a life, make friends and even fall in love, were they that heartless?

  Grace’s hand shot up, her eyes flickering to the floor for a few of seconds before regaining their ice-like composure. ‘We’ve all considered the possibility that Jessica could be a Trojan operative.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ Quinn exclaimed.

  ‘Quinn, admit it, Jessica’s life doesn’t make sense. But then again, do any of ours, officially?’ Grace said.

  ‘What about the connection with Russia that you and I found?’ asked Lily, biting her lip nervously.

  ‘It doesn’t look great,’ Grace admitted. ‘I found a note in my room, in Willow’s handwriting, telling us not to trust her because of her mother.’

  ‘Charlotte has shares in this place,’ I told them. ‘Jessica said she wrote the rules or something like that.’

  ‘Jess hates her mum, always has.’ Kayson spoke up. ‘She’s never said one nice thing about the woman.’

  ‘There’s a chance she could be a double agent,’ Lily said quietly.

  ‘There’s a chance she’s just like us,’ Grace retorted, but it wasn’t in that know-it-all voice of hers, it was soft and hopeful. ‘We’ve talked, the pair of us, and honestly I don’t think she’s the enemy.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’ Kayson asked.

  ‘You won’t believe me, but Christopher.’