Ignition

Chapter 2 - Preparations

Thomas barged into the office. "Adam doesn't want us to rescue Lars, but I'm going anyway. Are you joining me? I can't do it alone." I looked at him. "Marcos joined you." He looked very serious: "This isn't the time for jokes, we have to do something. He would rescue you too, you'll really let him down if you don't come for him." He left the room. He was right, but I understood Adam. We couldn't just barge into the prison, that would mean death. Thomas really left me with something to think about.

Joshua came in. "Hey, I saw Thomas coming out. He didn't seem very happy." He sat down and waited for an answer. I was still a bit confused about the conversation with Thomas. "He asked me to join him, he wants to rescue Lars." I said. "I'm not sure about it." Joshua didn't say a word, he kept looking at me. It was quiet for a while. Then I stared at the ground and said: "Are you joining him?" He didn't respond. "Are you okay?" I asked. "I don't really know him, I won't risk my life for him." He said, looking down again, "But if you go, I'll go." I looked at him, "What do you mean?" He looked at me and laughed, "No, I didn't mean it like that! It's just that we have enough manpower if you join us."

When he left I didn't feel any better. There was just more pressure on my shoulders, it was like I had to decide if we were going. I stood up and started working on the truck again, I wanted to get it out of my mind. I was almost finished repairing the truck when Adam came in. "Hey Steph, can I talk to you?" I followed him into the next room, his office. "What do you think?" he said. "Should we risk everything and rescue Lars, or let him be punished?" I couldn't answer the question, it was pretty similair to Thomas's one. "I think we should rescue him, but I don't want to die trying." We sat down and continued our discussion. "Maybe we should surprise them." he said. "What do you mean?" I asked. Adam thought for a while, "If we hit Spectre at one front, we can surprise them by rescuing Lars. If we let Marcos blow up a car or two in front of the Spectre-HQ, we can rescue Lars. The attention won't be at the prison, but at the accident." I liked this idea. "We should do that." I said. Adam stood up and told me to take care of that. "I'll take care of the explosives and cars, you'll persuade the rest of the crew."

So that's what I did. I went to Thomas first. He deserved to know it first. "Hey Thomas, I just spoke to Adam. He changed his mind on rescuing Lars." Thomas looked happy, yet surprised. I told him of Adam's plan, and he agreed on doing it. "That's brilliant, they'll never expect that." he said. "By the way, Joshua didn't know for sure if he wanted to join us. Maybe you should go talk to him. We could really use his help. He is an incredible soldier!"

I went to the other members of Nemesis first, I saw them before I saw Joshua. I told them about the plan, but not all of them were enthousiastic. About half of them declined to join. Then I saw Joshua walking to his car. I ran to him, before he drove off. "Hey Josh, I talked to Adam and Thomas. We agreed to rescue Lars together, Adam came up with an idea." I told him about the plan and he smiled. "If you're going too, I'll join you.", he got in his car and drove off. I was still standing there when Thomas walked by. "He's got a thing for you." he said.

That following evening at the council meeting, we discussed Adam's plan. At the end everybody agreed on participating, we were now on full power and there was only a small chance of failure.

I wanted to see Joshua, I wanted to ask him if he liked me. But I didn't find an appropriate moment.

Maybe later.

In times of war, I don't want to connect to people yet.

There's always a chance of losing them.