Mission 'Don't get killed'

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

It's not very rare for shootings to happen and we all learn how to handle a gun, but usually they're not this close to home. The chattering around us immediately stops and Andy quickly empties a bag of sand over the campfire, causing all the light to fade away. Rachel and I slowly get up. There's another gunshot but then there's silence and soon enough, whispers arise among us.

'Everybody quiet!' Matt's voice calls out in a loud whisper. Silence returns and everybody seems to be holding their breaths. I guess the night guard got unusually close tonight and I hope the gunshots we heard came from our side and not theirs. It doesn't happen very often that the night patrol gets so close to our headquarters. Usually, some of our inside men can make sure they're the ones who get to patrol this area and otherwise, we can take them by surprise and manipulate their mindscapes, causing them to remember nothing special about this area of the city.

Before I can think up any more potential scenarios, one of our guys, Aaron, a thirty-year-old manipulator, runs into the courtyard and leans forward, placing his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

'What happened?' Andy demands.

'We couldn't manipulate them quickly enough, so we had to shoot.' Aaron pants. 'One of them is dead, the other one has an ugly wound in his shoulder.'

'So there were two then?' Andy asks and Aaron nods in answer. 'Where's Sandra?' Andy means a scouter, who was apparently send out to patrol the area with Aaron.

'She's still with that guy. They weren't night guard, so we figured we let him live and let you decide what to do with him.'

'No night guard?' Matt cuts in. 'But they were shooting at you?'

'One of them pulled out a gun and the other one threw a knife at Sandra.' Aaron tells him. 'I didn't recognise any of them.'

'That's got to be Arlana.' Matt mutters. 'He wants his guy back.'

'Then there have to be more of hismguys around here.' Andy says. 'If that guy is worth saving, he wouldn't let two others run into a trap.'

'Okay, people, playtime is over. Head inside and grab a gun.' Matt announces. 'If it gets to a fight, we have to be ready.' Everyone heads inside and guns are being hand out. Someone presses a small handgun into my hands and I quickly check whether it's loaded. I have shot before, but only in training, these kind of situations are rare. There's shouting somewhere right outside the building and another shot rings through the night. Everyone is supposed to hide somewhere and defend themselves when necessary while the scouters and destroyers go outside to do the real dirty work: finding the enemy targets and messing up their mindscapes.

Just when I have installed myself under the kitchen table, a voice sounds right next to me, causing me to bump my head into the table: 'You get the hell from under that table and find a more decent spot. Let the others do the shooting. You know damn well that you are the last one that should get captured.' Matt's voice says and he sounds extremely annoyed. I want to ignore his orders, but I know that he is right so I crawl from under the table and go to the infirmary instead, maybe I can find Rachel there.

She is, and she's not alone. Scott is sitting on the table, like nothing is wrong, and Morgan, who is a healer, is there too, sitting on one of the beds with her three-year-old daughter Kelsey. Matt was furious when he found out Morgan was having a baby, it's not very convenient to have the biggest noise makers in the universe around when you're trying to hide from the government but he let Morgan, Andy and the baby stay after he forced her to make the not so ethical promise of using sleep medication on the baby in dangerous situations. Morgan rocks Kelsey on her lap and strokes her hair, as if she's trying to calm her down. Kelsey on the other hand, looks like she couldn't care less.

Outside we can hear shouting and Scott tries to peek through a crack in the wooden boards that cover the window room, but Rachel pulls him back. 'Don't.' She whispers and for once in his life, Scott listens.

After what feels like hours of sitting in silence in the room, guns in our hands, hearts racing and ears strained to pick up any sound that might mean direct danger for us, there is a knock on our door and Josh's voice tells us we can come out. I leave the infirmary just like Morgan who mutters something about finding Andy, her partner, before rushing away and for some reason, Scott follows me through the building while I walk downstairs to put my gun away.

'Are you okay?' I ask Scott. For the first time, his face is not painted with a wicked grin and there's no look of mischief in his eyes.

'Do you think they're going to attack us again?' He asks me.

'I don't know.' I answer. 'I don't think they will anytime soon.' Or at least, I hope so.

'I'm going to see if I can find Andrew and Morgan.' Scott says and he abruptly gets up and leaves.

I'm just heading back upstairs when I run into Matt, who has a grim expression on his face.

'Ah, there you are.' He says.

'Is everything okay now?' I immediately ask.

'Well, they're gone. For now. I'll call in a meeting in a couple of minutes, in order to inform everyone. We lost Aaron, shot by one of their scouters, the bastards. And Sandra and Paul got invaded by destroyers. According to Ellen they are really messed up. She says she can cure them though, but it will take a long time.' I swallow hard. It's not the first time someone died but it still hits me every time. It's also not the first time members of the community were invaded by destroyers, who can erase memories and mess with the order of the mindscape, causing the victim to get confused and kind of go crazy. It's hard to cure the victims of destroyers, but healers do the best they can. I just hope that the destroyers only kept it at messing up and didn't erase anything, which is beyond repair.

'Did he send them?' I ask Matt even though I know this kind of business is not really mine to know off. Matt doesn't seem bothered by the question though.

'It must be. This guy must be very important to him or he just wants to mess with us. I bet the survivors are already reporting to him as we speak.'

'How about the guy I broke into earlier?' I ask. 'Was he already erased?' If we find enemy spies and gotten all the information we needed, their memories of their time here are erased, so he or she can't tell on us.

'Yes, luckily I had Riley do that right after you were done with him. He won't remember a thing.'

'We need to do something, though.' I argue. 'Sara and Zac are there. We can't just leave them like this.' I know I've crossed a line by saying this, by suggesting he abandons his people but I don't really care right now.

Matt's does care though, he sounds very annoyed when he speaks again. 'We're not leaving them. I'm working on a plan, Zoë. Don't you question my loyalties.' With these words he sweeps past me, probably either on his way to check on our patients or to grab a drink from the kitchen.

Half an hour later, everyone has been informed about the attack. Matt hasn't said a word about Kendrick Arlana's plan to bring us down but I know he wants to protect us. The less we know, the safer we are.

'We will say our goodbyes to Aaron first thing in the morning.' Matt announces. 'We were lucky today. Thanks to you we are still alive. Now, go to bed and try and get some sleep, it's been a rough night.' He steps down from the chair he was standing on and makes his way towards me.

'You're coming with me.' He says. 'I have a plan and you're going to play a big role in it.'