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Resurrect The Sun: Chapter 22

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"There's gotta be an ulterior motive here," Ashley muttered into my ear as we followed Danny down the corridor and towards the meeting room, "Why would he change his mind just like that?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," I replied in an undertone. We were at the back of the group; Alice walked in front of us, hunched up and looking distinctly sulky even from behind; Suki dragged a half-asleep Chris along, whispering a torrent in his ear. Her voice was spiky with nerves or maybe excitement. Sammi had gone to retrieve Jinxx; she'd reasoned that even if she was pissed at him, it would be unfair to leave him out of this.

"What do you think he's gonna say?"

"I don't know. But I think we should be ready to ignore it."

Ashley snorted. Alice glanced over her shoulder at the two of us, eyebrows knitted together, but looked away again just as quickly.

Danny's sudden change of tune had made me suspicious. In the short time I'd been here I'd figured that he was a pretty cynical and lazy person, only willingly helping others out when he owed them or it was for his own personal gain. I couldn't think of anything Danny owed me or any of the others, so something else must have triggered this change of mind. But what?

It was then that we reached the meeting room. Everyone else filed in before us; I was about to close the door behind me when Sammi appeared around the corner, looking distinctly flustered, wisps of hair that had escaped from her ponytail floating about her head or sticking to her skin.

Behind her trailed not only Jinxx, but Kier, Laurence and Austin. They were all in their pyjamas and in varying states of sleepiness, but none of them looked like they were here against their will.

"Sorry," was Sammi's apologetic mutter in my ear as she passed, "Jinxx told them what was happening. I tried to stop them, but they insisted on coming."

I sighed, but it was more acceptance than annoyance. People were going to find out sooner or later. Better they found out now and want to help rather than find out after it's too late.

I closed the door once everyone was in the room. They'd gathered around the table, and even though there were only five chairs one of them had been saved for me. Seating myself, I scanned the group. It was so weird seeing everyone in their pyjamas, hair messy and faces bare, eyes puffy with sleep. I had to resist the childish urge to giggle at the strange scene before me.

I looked to Danny, but he was already watching me; after a moment, I realised that everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to speak. The weight of their expectation felt odd and uncomfortable, "Um. Well, I guess what we need is a plan. Any ideas?"

"Hold up a second." Usually Austin was placid and well-mannered, but his annoyed tone was the closest I'd ever seen him to angry. "Andy's been kidnapped, and you all knew but decided not to tell the rest of us? How long ago did it happen?"

"Earlier today. We didn't want to make anyone panic. That's what F.E.A.R. would want."

Kier stepped forwards, glaring at me, "So you just decided to pretend like everything was okay? Andy could be dead right now."

His words stabbed at me like a needle. I found myself flaring up suddenly, "Hey, I'm not on trial here. It wasn't my decision to keep it all a secret." Very obviously, I turned my stare to Danny.

Danny sighed. "Thanks for that. Look, we didn't want to make any rash conclusions, okay? Andy made a split second decision and look what happened to him. We don't want to make this worse than necessary," Kier went to interrupt, but Danny held up a finger, "Look, morons, I doubt they've killed Andy. They're probably going to question him, and this could last for a few days at the very least; they kept Ella for years. Obviously we want to minimise the damage caused to him but it's better not to just rush in, right?"

No one retorted. It was hard to argue with his logic.

"I don't think any of us were planning on being up at this hour, but a couple of fuckers – I won't name names – decided they were going to just march on into the city with no plan and no idea what they were doing to try and bust Andy out of prison. We'd collectively decided not to do anything for now earlier this afternoon, but they'd decided to disregard that. Clearly, there's no stopping you guys if you want to go and get Andy, but like I said previously, we need a bloody plan if we're going to do this."

Ashley was standing next to Alice's chair. "Okay, I'm not disagreeing with what you just said, Danny, but I'm confused. This afternoon, you were completely against rescuing Andy. You point-blank refused to let it happen. And now you're the one leading this operation." He tilted his head to the side. "What changed?"

"Yeah," Jake spoke up from where he sat opposite me. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

We all turned to watch Danny. He seemed to be searching for the right words. "Look, guys. I'm going to be frank here."

"Can I still be Chris?" CC put in, perhaps trying to make light of the situation; it fell flat.

Danny ignored the joke, "I'm not against rescuing Andy. But none of us know what F.E.A.R. are up to right now, or what they have planned. More than anything, I'm scared shitless of the unknown. And I don't want to go rushing into a situation I have no grasp of. I don't want any of you to, either. We had enough deaths years ago; we don't need that sort of massacre again." Some glanced warily to me at this point.

"She knows, guys. I told her earlier." Chris was deadly serious now.

Meanwhile, Ashley and I exchanged surprised looks. I'd been so sure Danny was only involved with this for selfish reasons, but he actually seemed genuine about wanting to help. Maybe he wasn't as scared as Chris had labelled him to be.

Looking more than a little annoyed at all the interruptions, Danny carried on like nothing had happened, "I want to consider this situation from every angle. I want to know what I'm up against. To walk in blind is practically begging for it to all go spectacularly wrong. The reason I was so adamantly against it earlier is because I was so sure nothing could be done." He sighed. “I still think that, but if I can't stop you I might as well help you as much as I can so you don't end up getting yourselves fucking killed. For one thing, I've been going to the city for as long as I can remember and I'm fairly certain I've explored more of it that the rest of you – how else do you think I get stuff like weed and cigarettes? Besides, I've got the advantage in that I know more about technology than any of you as well. If we come across anything like that, I'm bound to know how to get past it."

It was at this point Ashley decided to take control of the situation, "Well, I'm so glad that you've retained your modesty and don't have an inflated sense of your own self-importance or anything, Danny, but we really need to get down to business and make a plan."

Jake nodded briskly, getting up, "I'll get the map."

I dragged my chair closer to the table, painfully aware that it came up to my chest, whereas it was at waist level for all the others who were seated. I was the youngest there, and I looked it; not for the first time, I wished I was older. But even though compared to them I was a child, I certainly didn't feel like it. And for the most part, no-one treated me like it either, which I was grateful for. I'd been patronized enough to last a lifetime.

"So." I decided that maybe the best thing to do here was to analyse the facts and what we wanted to accomplish here. "We need to look at what our goal is, what is stopping us from achieving that goal and what we can do to overcome these obstacles."

It seemed a fairly obvious point to make, but for the most part people just nodded in agreement. Danny rolled his eyes, as if to say, well, duh, but I ignored him.

Ashley counted off on his fingers, "Ultimately, we need to get Andy out of the city. Alive. We also need to do it in a way that stops F.E.A.R. from tracking us back to our camp, and we need to do it in a way that sends a positive message to the citizens of the city about us. Any ideas?"

His mentioning of the city's inhabitants sparked an idea within me, "I want to get my family out."

"What?" Everyone had turned to regard me now.

"I can't leave them any longer. Things are only going to get worse and who knows what F.E.A.R. have planned? I have to keep them safe." I knew I couldn't live with myself if anything happened to them, especially seeing as I was the one who left them alone in the city. But I didn't voice this.

From the faces of my friends, I realized with a sinking feeling that my idea was not going to be met with the reaction I'd hoped for.

"Mal . . ." Jinxx spoke up for the first time, "We're sticking our necks out as much as possible here. I don't know if we'll be able to stretch ourselves any more."

Weirdly, it was Danny who came to my defense, "Well, we'll see what we can do. It wouldn't be that hard if we planned it."

"Why not?" Sammi put in, nodding in agreement. "If Andy hadn't let himself get kidnapped then we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. If we're risking our very lives for him, we may as well do as much good as we can while we're there."

There were some murmurs of assent. Jake sat back down, and rolled the map out on the table; it almost covered the whole surface, and books had to be placed on the corners to stop it from curling in on itself. Everyone moved in closer to the table. I blinked several times; my tiredness was creeping at the edges of my consciousness and I needed to be awake for this.

"Okay, so we need to get Andy, get Mal's family, get F.E.A.R. off our backs and not scare anyone too much." Suki blew out her breath in a big gust as she put her elbows on the table. "The only thing I can think of is to create a diversion for the minions; that could buy us some time. We need something big, something that will cause havoc, but not confuse people into being terrified of us."

"That would be an excellent idea, if anything like that existed," Alice countered. She'd stopped sulking now and started to look more interested. "Anything extreme would cause people to panic, and what with that stupid church attack they're scared enough as it is." She scowled.

"Hey," I said, "why don't we use someone as bait? We could pretend a group of us was on a raid; that would send minions racing all over the city to hunt us down, but there'd be another group of us sneaking in elsewhere." It sounded brilliant to my ears.

Kier raised an eyebrow. "And it's likely they'd get caught and die, too. Can you think of anyone who'd be willing to risk that much?"

"Well, for one, me."

Surprisingly, sound broke out across the room. Voices were overlapping each other, and most of them sounded scornful or disagreeing. I glanced about, confused; people had started arguing with each other or were all trying to talk to me at once. My brain was so tired I couldn't really process what they were saying. It was like I was underwater.

Very calmly, CC got up from his chair amidst the chaos, walked over to me and pulled me up by my arm. He began to steer me towards the door.

"Hey! What are you doing?" I tried to free myself from his grip; though he wasn't hurting me, his hand didn't budge.

"You don't know what you're talking about, Mal. You're overtired, and you're not making sense–-"

"Yes I am!" We were out in the corridor by now. I dropped my voice to a hiss. "Unless any of you can come up with something better, it seems to me like it's the only plan we've got that could work."

Chris seemed almost angry. "Maybe, maybe not, but the last thing we need is you playing the freaking martyr. The meeting's only just started and I think we can come up with a better plan than that." I opened my mouth to counter him, but he cut me off, "At the end of the day, Mal, we've all played this game for way longer than you have. We know what we're doing, and – no offence – you're only sixteen."

Andy's words echoed in my mind. You're just a kid, running around and making a mess. I found frustrated tears stinging at my eyes; they were probably more out of tiredness than anything else, which made me even angrier because Chris was being proven right.

"Look," his voice was gentler now, "here's what's going to happen now, okay? You're going to go and get some sleep. We are going to continue our discussion, and see if we can formulate a plan. Then, in the morning, we'll hold another meeting and fill you in on what you've missed. Does that sound good?"

I rubbed at my bleary eyes. I mumbled, "But – my family . . ."

"Don't worry; I'll argue your cause. We'll figure something out." Gently, but firmly, he pushed me out further into the corridor. "Go to bed, Mal. The world won't end while you're asleep. Although, judging by what Alice says about your snoring . . ."

"I don't snore." But the last time I fell asleep, Andy got kidnapped. Still, I couldn't help but smile in surrender. "Fine, I'll go. But don't expect me to have changed my mind by morning. I still think it's the best chance we've got."

Chris shook his head, and began to move back into the meeting room. "Just get some rest."

The metal door grated on the rock as he pushed it back into place. Then I was alone in the silent corridor. No one had re-lit the torch, and it was darker than ever. I stifled a yawn, and reluctantly began to make my way back to my room.

As I walked, I tried to put a positive spin on the situation. Well, things can't really get any worse, can they? Like Chris said, the others know what they're doing. They'll figure something out, and if not, we can discuss it in the morning.

But it wasn't working. I still felt a horrible, nagging sense of frustration, of impotence. All the time we waste here, Andy's getting hurt even more. Who knows what they've done to him by now? And my family. I've been away for so long, even if I do come back I can't guarantee their safety. What if F.E.A.R.'s already hurt them? I've been having nightmares about that nearly every night; what if there's some truth to it?

I'd reached my room by now. I kicked off my boots, removed my jacket and jeans, and collapsed onto my mattress. There was a small fissure in the ceiling above me, and a sliver of moonlight found its way through. I lay on my back, staring up at it. If I slept, my nightmares would surely torment me. But if I didn't, I'd drive myself insane with overthinking.

What I needed was a distraction. After a while of twisting and tossing in my sheets, I found myself counting in my head. Every time I got distracted or lost count, I'd start from one again. I hadn't even reached one hundred when I drifted off. Surprisingly, there were no horrible images or voices laying in wait for me. The only thing I remembered dreaming about was a pair of distinctly familiar blue eyes, vivid as the hottest flame. They blinked at me and watched me sleep.



~*~



A shout in my ear yanked me out of unconsciousness. “Good morning, starshine! The world says 'Hellooooo'!”

I rolled over, groaning. Judging by the light in the room, it was morning now. Suki stood over me, grinning like a maniac.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Alice grumbled as she sat up, scratching her head.

Momentarily, I was disoriented. But then yesterday's events came flooding back to me, and I bolted into an upright position, wide awake all of a sudden. “So, what happened in the meeting after? What did I miss? Did you guys come up with a plan?”

It was Sammi's turn to groan now, “Oh, come on, Mal, it's literally been less than a minute since you woke up. Let's go and get some breakfast – give yourself, and us, a break.”

I was already on my feet, searching for something to wear that wasn't covered in earthy dust from the caves. “Seriously, guys, it's just going to bug me if I don't find out. We need to call another meeting, like, right now.” The effect of my words was somewhat lessened by Sammi throwing a pillow at my face.

Alice was getting up, stretching her arms until her joints popped, “I don't know about you guys, but I ain't doing shit until I've had something to eat.”

“Amen to that,” Suki agreed. But the nice, contented feeling a night of decent sleep had brought had been abruptly shattered; I was back to worrying again.

Apparently, the others had picked up on my nerves. Alice tried to reason with me. “Look, Mal, do you think we'd be so laid back if we hadn't thought of a plan? Relax. I'm sure you can wait an hour before we tell you what it is, and besides, we wouldn't even be putting it into action today anyway.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because, we need to get ourselves all organized and rested up before we can do anything; we need to be at our best if we want to pull this off. Plus,” they all exchanged looks, “we need to break the news to the rest of them.”

My stomach seemed to sink, “Can't we just go and be back before they notice?”

Sammi shook her head. “And what if it all goes wrong, hypothetically? They won't know what happened to any of us. Besides, it’s not fair to keep them in the dark when we're the ones preaching about trust and respect and equality.”

“Also,” Suki piped up, “we need more people for this plan to work.”

I was intrigued, “What--?”

“Nope! No more questions!” Alice's pillow came flying at my face, but I batted it away. “I hereby forbid you from asking any more questions until we've had breakfast!”

Breakfast turned out to be the longest hour of my life. I was too antsy to relax, and I only picked at my meal of oats and slightly stale bread. It was the most difficult thing in the world to suppress my natural curiosity, especially when the others said stuff like, “Man, I've got a good feeling about today!”, or, “My brain is pretty much fried from yesterday, I had like one hour of sleep.” It felt like they kept alluding to the meeting to tease me; I didn't find it funny but it seemed to amuse them.

Everyone was eating in a more confined space today, as the tables had been pushed together to make room for the crops we'd tried to plant. I'd almost forgotten about them, but they seemed to be working well enough so I wasn't bothered about it. All around me people were chatting and joking and laughing obliviously; I felt oddly disconnected even though I was sat amongst my friends. But they seemed contented enough, so I reasoned that things had probably gone pretty well last night. That didn't stop me from obsessing over what I'd missed, though.

I was seriously considering running from the room so I could go find something to do to vent my frustration when the others started to get up. Breakfast didn't end for another ten minutes yet; I frowned at Suki, who'd sat next to me. She leaned over and whispered, “We're going to tell them about what's happened to Andy.” Her expression reflected the grimness I felt.

“Oh, this is going to be fun.” But nevertheless, I got up and followed them to the raised platform at the end of the room.

We were getting up onto the stage when the room started to quieten. I could see some people exchanging confused looks. I stood on the far end of the line – it was me, Suki, CC, Alice, Sammi, Jinxx, Danny, Jake, Ashley, Kier, Laurence and Austin stood up here – and there were enough of us that people were taking notice.

“Okay, can you all just listen up for a sec?” Ashley called out. The chatter slowly died away.

A voice that sounded like it could be Ronnie called out across the room. “Where's Andy?”

There was a collective murmur of agreement from the crowd. I cringed silently to myself. This was going to be awkward, painfully so.

“Well.” Ashley started to sound uneasy. “This is what we want to talk about.”

Silence invaded the room. The crowd stared up at us, waiting.

Ash glanced either side of him, silently calling for help.

It was Alice who came to his rescue, “There's been a . . . an incident. Involving F.E.A.R.”

The crowd burst into noise. Some voices were panicked, some were angry, some were intrigued and some were just plain confused.

“If you could all just calm down, that would be great . . .” Alice trailed off hopelessly.

Ashley roared, “Shut up!”

Slowly, the crowd quietened again.

“Thank you,” Alice continued. “Here's what happened; yesterday, Andy got angry over something and he went out into the desert to try and clear his mind. None of us knew at the time where he'd gone, but he'd left without telling anyone and without taking a weapon with him.

“I'm not sure exactly what happened, but Danny followed him and he witnessed Andy being kidnapped by some minions. He was going to come back and get help, but they apparently disappeared without a trace.”

The room erupted into noise before she'd even finished her sentence, louder this time.

Questions and accusations were being hurled at us like knives.

“What the fuck? How could you let this happen?”

“How did F.E.A.R. know where to look? That's what I wanna know.”

“How come Danny didn't try to stop them from taking Andy?”

Alice melted back into the line, defeated. I exchanged a glance with Suki. They were asking the same things we'd wanted to know yesterday; all we were doing here was going around in circles, and their anger wasn't helping.

Danny stepped forwards, “Everyone shut the fuck up, or so help me I will personally gut you all in your sleep!”

There was silence. We all stared at him. He looked blankly back at us. “What?”

CC took over now, moving forwards so he was centre stage. “Look, guys, we didn't tell you all until now because we were scared you'd react exactly like this. If you'd all stay calm and hear us out, that would be great. F.E.A.R. want us to panic; they want us to argue and not get anything done, but if we all stay civil it will be that much easier to work together to overcome this.”

No one looked convinced. Vic stood up where he sat, “If you'd told us sooner maybe we could've done something already, but all you've done is prolonged the inevitable and kept us in the dark for what reason exactly?”

“Look,” Danny snarled, “we're telling you about it now, alright? Shut your mouth, sit the fuck down and listen.”

More protests were starting to break out; Danny's anger had done nothing but fuel the others' objections. Chris had to shout to be heard, “I think what Danny's trying to say is that the past is the past, but we're telling you now and we'd really appreciate a patient audience so we can put our plan into action as quickly as possible.”

This had gotten people's attention, and there was quiet once more.

CC continued. “We're going to rescue Andy. A group of us will be going, maybe twenty or so. After breakfast, we're holding a meeting to discuss the plan of action, which will begin as soon as possible. If you want to come on this rescue mission, then come along to the meeting; but bear in mind that it will involve going back to the city and we really need our best fighters with us. You could die or get hurt, so if you don't think you can deal with this then don't bother showing up. But all help will be appreciated hugely. Any questions?”

No one spoke up.

“And on that note,” put in Ashley, “breakfast is over. Schedules run as normal, so get back to work. The meeting starts in ten minutes, but we'll let the rest of you know what's going on later today.”

At this, everyone took their cue to leave. The room was flooded with the scrape of chairs being pushed back, of bowls and plates and excited chatter as the crowd slowly disappeared. We filed off the stage and edged our way past the crops, following the rest of the rebels out into the corridor.

“Well,” said Ashley, blowing out a sigh of relief, “apart from the threatened murder on Danny's part, I think that went about as well as we could’ve hoped for.”

Danny scowled. “Don't be too relieved, we've still got this bloody meeting to trawl through. The worst is yet to come.” He pulled his cigarettes from his pocket, only to realize the carton was empty. He groaned.

“Wow, way to put a positive spin on things, dude,” Suki teased. “We can always rely on Danny for his wonderfully sunny outlook.”

“Yeah, well, the next few hours aren't looking too sunny, sweetheart, so I'd buck up if I were you.”

Ashley looked as though he was trying his best not to laugh. “Aaaand he's back, everyone. Our yearly quota of happiness from Danny has been fulfilled, he can go back to being grumpy now.”

“Oh, thank God,” Sammi put in, mock-relieved, “We were starting to get worried, Danny, what with all your talk about supporting this cause as much as you could. It was almost like you were becoming . . . helpful.” She shuddered.

This situation felt kind of surreal; our current predicament was far from funny and yet they all seemed to be in fairly light spirits, bar Danny. It was the most jovial I'd ever seen our group, which was odd considering the circumstances.

“Oh, fuck off, the bloody lot of you,” was Danny's responding growl before he picked up his pace and strode off down the corridor, all the while patting his pockets like there might be some cigarettes somewhere in there he'd forgotten about. He hadn't even turned the corner before giggles began to escape us.

When we got to the meeting room, however, their laughter began to die. Even though according to my estimation, there was about seven minutes left before the meeting started, there was a sizeable crowd waiting outside already. Also, Danny was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn't really concerning; he'd probably disappeared in search of something to smoke.

I scanned the group; there were maybe fifteen of them. I recognized most faces, knew even less names and there were some who I didn't think I'd ever even seen before. It was pretty touching to see; these people who may not have been particularly close with Andy, but were still willing to sacrifice their lives to rescue him. But I didn't smile – I probably couldn't have, anyway. The time for sentiment was not now.

Stepping back, I let everyone else into the room before me. Among those I knew were Ronnie, Alan, Mike and Ben. They nodded at me as they passed, filing into the room. I was about to step in and close the door behind us when Danny reappeared at the other end of the corridor. He was carrying a large cardboard box under his arm, and looked distinctly more upbeat than he was when he stormed off.

When he got closer to me, the first thing I said was, “Where the hell did you go?”

He gave the box under his arm a little shake; it was full of solid objects but I couldn't see what they were. “All will become clear, my friend.”

Friend? It was then I noticed the cigarette clutched in his free hand; he seemed to wield it, almost triumphantly. No wonder he was in such high spirits all of a sudden. I shook my head; how he seemed to have and endless supply of smokes I didn't know, and didn't want to find out. He breezed into the room, the acrid tang of tobacco sticking in my throat as he passed.

No one spoke until I'd closed the door and moved to stand at the edge of the table. All the seats were taken, so I hovered at near Chris' chair.

“Okay, so, before we start, is there anything anyone would like to say?” CC enquired; he seemed to be the one who'd taken charge all of a sudden.

“Just that I really appreciate how quickly you guys have moved into action. We understand that this is a difficult situation and it would've been way too easy for you to sit back and do nothing with the reasoning that it was too big of a risk,” said Ronnie passionately.

Ben agreed, “Amen to that, man. Nothing's too big of a risk for one of our own.”

I nudged Danny's side with my elbow. When he turned to scowl at me, I mouthed see?

“Well, to be honest, at first there was a lot of conflict over whether or not we should do anything, but the majority won out,” CC replied. “And in turn, we appreciate all of your willingness to help us out. It's nice to see how –”

“Okay, are we done with all the hugging and kissing?” Danny interrupted. “We really need to get started.” He ignored the glares sent his way and flicked some ash from the end of his cigarette into the hair of the person seated in front of him, which happened to be Laurence, who remained blissfully unaware.

“Right.” Ashley said. “Well, seeing as it's mostly your plan, Danny, care to do the honours?”

Danny took another drag of his cigarette before speaking again. “It'd be my pleasure. You see, this plan is so elegant and cunning it could have only been the brainchild of, well, me.”

Suki grumbled under her breath, “Yes, go on, take all the freaking credit, we don't mind.”

He continued smugly. “This stealthy plot has three parts to it; it's what I like to call a trident.”

There was a pause, like he was waiting for some sort of response.

“Huh?” Chris frowned.

“A trident. A cunning three-pronged design. You know. Trident.”

Seeing the blank stares he was faced with, he threw up his hands, “Oh, bloody hell, never mind. Anyway. There will be three groups, each faced with a different task. Group one is the largest group, 'cause they're going to split up into smaller sub-groups. These little groups of maybe three people will be spread out across the city; their job is to provide the diversion which will allow the other groups to work without being noticed amongst the chaos. Everyone with me so far?”

Slowly, people nodded. Mike asked, “What does this diversion involve?”

“I'm glad you asked, Mike. It entails causing as much chaos as possible, but in a way that doesn't hurt any of the cities citizens. We want to confuse them, yes, and a little panic wouldn't go amiss, but we don't want to scare them or pit them against us. So you'd be running around, making a lot of noise, vandalizing things but not hurting people or breaking into their houses – just making enough of a disturbance that you're sending minions crazy all over the city trying to find you.”

“Hypothetically, what if they manage to capture us?” Alan put in, leaning over the shoulder of Mike in order to be heard and seen.

“You're all spread out across the city, so the chances of them catching all of you are slim. Besides, I'm trusting you to do your jobs well enough that they don't capture you.” Danny stared back at him.

Alan sighed. “No pressure, then.”

“Assigned to this group will be . . .” Danny scanned the room. “Jinxx, Sammi, Alice, Kier, Ben, Alan, Mike, and you five randomers whose names I can't remember.” He pointed at each person in turn. “Figure out the sub-groups among yourselves. Anyway,” he paused to clear his throat. “Moving on to section two. Group two has only two people, and we've already agreed that the ones to do this task will be Jake and Suki. Their job is to go into the city dressed like citizens, sneak to wherever Mallory's house is and rescue her family. Then, they'll--”

“Hold up,” I burst out, trying to stay as calm as I could. “How come I'm not rescuing my own family? It'd make more sense for them to see a familiar face.”

“Clashing of interests,” Jinxx put in. “Besides, group two hopefully will not be involved in any conflict, and we need your swordfighting skills elsewhere.”

“But--”

Suki tried to reassure me. “Don't worry, Mal, I'll make sure they're okay.”

After stubbing out his cigarette on the table, Danny breezed on like no one had interrupted him, “Then, they'll hold up there and await further instruction from group three. Which brings me on to the final, brilliant part of this mission. Group three will be the rest of us; that is, myself, Ashley, CC, Mallory, Laurence and Ronnie. We will be in the church we previously attacked. Using these . . .” from the cardboard box he'd been carrying, he produced five minions' communication devices. “. . . not only will each group be able to communicate with each other, but I will be able to tune into the same wavelength the minions communicate on, and pretending to be one of them, I'll instruct a group of six to make their way to the church because of a rebel sighting.”

“Okay, this could go horribly wrong,” I pointed out. “What's even the point of this? And what if they send more than six and we're overwhelmed?”

“If you'd let me finish . . .”

I sighed and folded my arms in surrender.

“. . . we're relying on the fact that minions aren't clever or insightful; they're like robots, and they follow orders with no questions. So they will send six. If, for some reason, they send more, I'm pretty confident we'll be able to take them out. When these six minions arrive at the church, we'll be waiting inside, hiding in the shadows. And with these bad boys I found in storage . . .” he began to rummage through the box again, and produced three dark green objects, each about the size of an apple.

I instantly recognized them, “Grenades? Where the hell do you guys even get this stuff?”

“Not just any old grenades. I bought these off some sort of black market that used to be in the city. The guy told me that these are filled with some kinda gas that will render someone unconscious. So, we'll hide in the shadows and throw these onto the floor where the minions are. They'll be knocked out, and we'll put their outfits on so we look like minions. Then, we'll go back to the F.E.A.R. building and tell the other minions that there weren't any rebels in the church, but there's been reported sightings of several groups around the city – that'll be you guys in group one – and they'll leave to hunt you guys down. While group one are having fun running around and trying not to get killed, we'll sneak into the prisons, get Andy, smuggle him out and then all groups will meet back at the Jeep and we'll drive off into the sunset.”

He gave a flourish with his hand to signal that he'd finished. “So there you have it. It's not flawless, it has the potential to go awfully wrong but it's the best plan we've got and we don't have time to do anything more intricate. So. Questions?”

“Yeah,” said Alan. “How come Austin isn't going, but he's still here?”

“He's the only one we've got who's trained medically. If something happens to him, we're fucked, essentially.”

A girl with blond hair in a ponytail raised her hand. “When you've gotten Andy out and smuggled him back to the Jeep somehow, how are the rest of the groups going to get out of the city unnoticed?”

“Well, if group one light enough fires around the city – not in houses or anything, but in bins and whatnot – the smoke will set off an alarm that will send all of the citizens out of their houses. According to Jake, there's an alarm that signals a fire, so all of the city's inhabitants will leave their houses and make their way to the square. That's true, isn't it, Mal?”

“Yeah,” I replied, “When the alarm goes off, we all have to go to the square to await further instruction from The Monarch. It causes a fair amount of chaos.”

“Which we're counting on.” Danny looked rather pleased. “There will be so much havoc, what with the fires, and all the citizens being out on the streets, and the minions chasing us around, that group two will be able to sneak off unnoticed, and group one have a very good chance of escaping before the minions even realize they're not chasing anyone any more.”

“That's . . . actually really good.” I admitted.

Danny grinned, “I know. It was my idea.”

“Actually, it was mine.” Jake put in. Funnily enough, Danny skimmed over this.

“That's besides the point. The point is that we've actually come up with a plan that has reasonable chance of working. I don't know about you guys, but I'm feeling pretty hopeful. What do you say?”

The others who'd been in the meeting yesterday looked around the room to assess the reactions of the rest of us.

Kier shrugged and flicked a strand of red hair from his eyes, “It's worth a shot.”

There was a general murmur of agreement.

“When are we putting this into action, then?” Someone else inquired.

CC answered, steepling his hands, “Well, we think tomorrow night's reasonable. That way, we have plenty of time to prepare and organize ourselves before we leave. We need to establish order while we're gone, just in case . . .” he trailed off, but we all knew what he was talking about. In case we don't make it back.

Seeing CC's suddenly troubled expression, Ashley took over. “We'll have another meeting before we leave just to brief each group about what they're doing and to go over the plan once more with the map. Sound good?”

Without waiting for an answer, those seated began to get up. The meeting was over, just like that. I didn't know what I'd been expecting, but the plan had definitely been better than I'd anticipated. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but it was the best shot we had. As I began to move towards the door, I knew I should feel maybe relieved, or excited; but I couldn't dislodge the feeling of dread at having to go back to the city, and the anxiety that I wouldn't see my family until this was all over, if we managed to pull it off. If. A lot of Danny's theories were dependent on chance, and if it went wrong I may never see my family again. It was all weighted on that one word. If.

But what unnerved me the most was the fear knotting in my chest. I couldn't let myself get scared; this wasn't the time to back out. But I'd thought I was willing to die for this cause, and suddenly I felt the crushing reality of all of this and I loathed myself for being scared by it.

Doubt began to creep in at the edge of my mind. A sudden selfish thought popped into my head: Maybe I'd be willing to die for Andy, but would he do the same for me if our roles were reversed?

I hurriedly banished that thought, pretending like it had never appeared in my mind. It's not about where I stand with Andy, but helping him no matter the circumstances. That's the mature, selfless thing to do.

I didn't answer the question for myself, though. Mainly because I was terrified of what the answer might be.

Someone's elbow bumped mine as they moved past me; it jolted me out of my reverie and I realized I'd been standing there like an idiot, the last one in the room except for Suki and CC, who hadn't seemed to notice I was still there.

“. . . I know it sounds stupid, and I know I shouldn't be thinking like this, but I can't stop myself obsessing about the worst case scenario; there's a million ways this could go wrong,” Suki was saying quietly; they'd pulled their chairs right up to each other and were holding hands. CC's thumb brushed over the back of her hand soothingly.

I felt a wistful twinge in my chest. It must be nice to have that sort of comfort, to be able to confide in someone like that. I'd rather face the whole of F.E.A.R.'s army by myself than tell any of my friends how scared I found myself.

“I won't let anything happen to you.” CC told her, his voice surer than anything I'd heard all day.

Realizing I was standing there like I creep, I began to silently move out of the room.

“You just have to hope that it all goes right. Hope that we all get out of this unscathed,” he continued.

She laughed sadly, “Right. Hope. Like that's ever worked for any of us before.”

I was out in the corridor by this point; they hadn't noticed me leaving, thankfully. Just as I was walking off, I heard CC say, “I know, sweetheart. But at the end of the day, it's all we've got to hold on to.”
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LightningInTheDark's avatar
Dude, you seriously need to update this soon. I've re-read this story a few of times because it's one of only a couple that I've found that are really enjoyable/gripping and brilliantly written.
hope your exams went well btw :)