War Story

Go time

Chapter six

Fully dressed in the grey jump suits, the standard saw mill uniform, with our weapons and harnesses hidden in the bulky lumps, we left in pairs and small groups for different trains so there wouldn't be any arising suspicions.

"Dee, Ryder. You guys will leave first at 7:35, from house 563." Evan says.

"Emmett, Sophia and Hunter. You guys I'll go 10 minutes after them. Same stop."

"Jordan, you and me will go at 7:50, house 602."

"Aaron, Mason." Evan nods to us. "You guys will leave last, and take the 7:55 train from..." He scans his paper. "From house 521."

"Everyone ready?" He asks, placing the paper in his pocket, which he zippered carefully. If that fell and someone found it we'd be in trouble. Not only that, it's got the password to the computer, and a couple of the main doors. As Evan went over the plan one last time I started to tune out. My brain was in over drive, at first I didn't understand why out of all the places we could go for information on the government was a saw mill, but as he explained about how to get past locks and guard it made me think. Why would a saw mill have so much security? There must be something hidden in that building, even we're missing. If our government was going often but not every day, you'd think he'd just bring his own body guards on the days he was going. Why have people there all the time?

"Hey Dee, Ryder." Jordan called. "It's 7:28, you guys should get going."

"Sure." Ryder says standing up from his place on the sofa, walking over to the door.

"Let's go." Dee smiles, as if going out there and risking your life was a fun, everyday thing.

I zone back out, my mind wandering to every corner of my thoughts, as the other groups leave one at a time until it's just me and Mason.

"Mason, can I ask you a question?" I ask nervously.

"Sure, what do you want to know?" He grins, his dark hair falling in his eyes. His kind face makes me feel a little calmer.

"How old are you?" I question.

"Twenty two years." He answers a little taken aback the odd question.

"When did you start doing this stuff?" I mumble my stupid question.

"Ahh." He smiles knowing why I'm asking. I seam so much younger than most of the other people here. "I was fourteen." He says. I frown, fourteen is way to young, I feel too young how did he deal with it. But I don't have to ask, seeing my confusion he continues. "My whole family was killed in an attack from the government, I don't even know how, but I lived.

I was moved to my uncles house. He was and still is, in the resistance, although now he does more planning than field work. People were always coming and going so he didn't really have a choice, I would have figured it out soon enough anyway."

"I'm sorry about your family." I whisper in astonishment. I figured it was just my family with such bad luck, but now I fell bad for even thinking that.

"They were a pretty light hearted bunch. They wouldn't have wanted me to waste time grieving, when I could be revenging them ." He finishes with a laugh, and I smile. I'm glad he's not forgetting about them, but still keeping his head on straight.

"Why do you ask?" He wonders politely. His eyebrows bunched into with with concern.

"I don't know if I'm ready. You know to fight the bad guys." I sigh.

"You'll never be as ready as you'd like to be when your standing in front of an army of people that want you dead." He laughs.

"Was that suppose to make me feel better?"

"No, not really, I'm more of an honest person." He says goofily grinning at me, and I laugh.

"We should get going." I glance at the new heavy doody watch strapped to my left wrist, which Hunter had given me after breakfast as a late birthday gift. The small black numbers read 7:53.

"It's go time." Mason smirks opening the front door and letting me past so he can lock it behind me.

The only thoughts running through my head is 'live for nothing or die for something.' Again and again, I can't help be wonder why mum chose for those to be the last words I heard before leaving home. Although I think the message was clear. 'Go work your ass off and don't plan on coming home if the deeds not done.' In the loving mother kinda way.

Mason and I walked bristly across two streets and down another arriving at the stop just as the train pulled up, squeaking loudly. We were the last to get on and the only free seats were scattered around. Mason ended choosing a seat next to a wrinkled old lady and a tired looking mother with her children, near the front of the train. Me on the other hand sat in the back, between a little red head boy and a man with a brief case. The man had dark sun glasses and gave me a bad felling. His knuckles were white holding onto the case and I sensed that there was something he didn't want people knowing about in it. Mason gave me quick glance, trying not to draw attention, and I nodded to the case. He gave an odd look at the case and turned back before the man noticed.

The trains ride was long, loud and gruelling. Every stop and corner the train would whine loudly and rattle so hard you would fall off your seat if you didn't hold on tight enough. The train sped throughout the city, stopping here and there to let passengers on and off. The city was filled with tall grey brick and shinny silver medal, which the glittering reflection of the other skyscrapers towering at least 30 stories up. As far as I knew most of these buildings were filled with offices for the rich to work in.

The train continued along the thin medal rails gaining speed. We started back out of the other end of the city. We passed rows and rows of streets just like mine, lined with little grey cubes. Finally we got to outside of the ring of houses that surrounded the city, now passing by factories and warehouses. At last the train slowed to a stop a few meters from the large black fence of the saw mill. Mason and I were the only people to get off at this stop, so as soon as the train stop we climbed off, not needing to wait for a long line to file off, like in the centre of the city. As soon my foot left the stepped off it started up, taking off down the tracks quickly picking up speed again and we commenced our journey inside to meet the others.

"Evan said the password for the gate was 2580, classy, a straight line down." Mason mutters, as we walk up to gate, and he punches in the code. After a moments pause the gate slide open. The crane and tower can be seen for miles away, but I've never been this close. The crane is a shinny silver and massive. It's standing right next to it is a building called the tower. The bottom half of the structure is a machine with a long conveyer belt that carry the wood through a sires of blade which cut the wood into a standard sized of 4x4 wood poles. The other half is offices for controlling the crane or for figuring out where the wood is going to be shipped.

I followed Mason's gaze around the court yard where the large crane and tower stood over us. The ground was covered in square concrete tiles, probably twice as long and as wide as one of my feet, little bits of grass could be seen growing up from between the tiles. Other than that the whole yard was empty, except a few large stacks of wood, piled high. Around the edges, pushed up against the fence.

"Do you have any idea where we were going to meet everyone else?" I whisper realizing we never planed a spot to meet. The deadly fault.

"Over there." Mason motion to the bottom of the tower next to the elevator door. I could see a small group of figures hiding in the shadows. Mason start walking briskly and I follow, careful not to look out of place.

As we near the shadowy group I start to make out faces. Ryder, Emmett and Dee were leaning against the wall next to the elevator to the offices. I could tell it was Hunter, Evan, Jordan and Sofia standing with there backs to us.