Fire Haired Girls and Starlit Skies

Chapter 2: a side note

Rain thunders like an army on the tin roof. Water cascades over the rust, slipping down the smooth facade of the warehouse, pooling onto the uneven concrete. You can smell the fresh, spring air, sweet and metallic in your mouth. Taste the looming cracks of lightning, feel the slippery drops roll down your cheeks, your freckle-pointed arms. The storm is almost enough to distract from the window you silently crack open. Almost enough to soothe your fractured heartbeat, the suffocating tightness in your chest.

It's dark inside as you creep toward the barracks. It's colder than you would have thought. Umpteen simulators could not have prepared you for this, but they did prepare you to walk as if at any moment the floor might turn to searing fire, the walls cave in in a rock-tumbling, earth-beating production. They prepared you to fear the unknown, to be prepared for whatever might come next, jump out from the metallic shadows, cry piercingly, shatteringly from the beams. To savour the damp due, the slickness of your bare feet against the tile. Behind this window, there could be horrors, there would certainly be fear, a penetrating worm, beast, of uncertainty.

You reach the bunk beds, rows upon rows, steely and unwelcoming. Chilling as you run a hand over the bars, hoist yourself up the latter of the third to your left, let your black duffel bag tumble onto the thin mattress with a dull "thump". A wave of adrenaline of unanticipated excitement at the daring ness of it all shoots up your hands. Up your neck, zapping your heart. You have trained for this. You are ready.

Stay on track, don't get ahead of yourself. You tell yourself, rifling through the stack of creamy documents lined on the shelf behind glass. You tuck the wrought iron keys back into your tight coat. You peel on your synthesized gloves with your razor sharp teeth, programmed with "Nova"'s fingerprints. And the fools believe there's only one of "her". You smirk. They don't suspect a thing of the high tech revolution brewing right under their noses. Of the slick, butter sweet, lemon sizzling sour, badass teens looking to toss up a spice of chaos. You smile despite yourself, rifling trhough the folder, gaining confidence, tucking it into the built in compartment in your duffel, not bothering to lock the glass case. They'll check as soon as they return anyway to find it missing- they would blame it on your- or, "Nova"'s carelessness, drive themselves mad when with even such obvious clues they cannot crack the case. But it's morels than a case, it;s a whole network, and that secret they have not even managed to crack.

You slip down the ladder, hide in the shadows behind the desk. Tap the red button on your earpiece.

"Klein. Got it. Step 1 accomp. In-and-out." Huskily, you whisper your message into the microphone chip. A crackling is heard on the other side before an answer, breathing heavily.

"Smoke. Spotted. Step 2 accomp. In—" the sound cuts out. You tap your earpiece, a ringing, a sputtered crackle