The Four Chimes

Chapter 15 - LERA

Shit. I looked at my watch. 7:40. I sped up my pace, clutching onto the gray guard's jacket Tanta had given me yesterday. You're the weak link, Lera. Don't be the weak link. Don't be the--

"Hey. Lera!" shouted Paile.

"Leeeeera!" yelled Tanta.

I turned around, catching my breath. "Oh, hey."

"Sorry we're late," said Tanta.

I chuckled. "Don't sweat it. If we're all late, none of us are."

"Nice way of putting it," said Paile.

It was strange how the dark and smoky streets of this neighborhood turned garishly bright in the morning. But stepping through the black painted facade of Rhoes Derassitu returned me into the world of shadows and smoke that was starting to become familiar to me.

"So, let's just do a quick overview," said Tanta, yawning. "We enter with the guards as they go through the back gates for their morning shift. Then..." Tanta rubbed her eyes. "We sneak behind the maintenance shed. Once the guards are all in place, you disguise us. There will hopefully be no more than six of them. Then it's just a matter of getting through the emergency exit. Once we open the door, there's going to be an emergency alarm bell. We just have to run down the stairwell and hide at the bottom. Then we're in the basement."

Paile stretched. "Once we're down, it should have all taken six minutes at most. Perfectly timed with the gap. Then we go in. The guards will have left through the stairwell we were in due to the emergency alarm, but it won't take them long for them to realize there's no emergency and return back to their normal schedule. Then we find any proof we can, and get the hell out. We only have, what, half an hour?"

"Yep," said Tanta. "Thirty-two minutes, to be exact. After that, we have no clue what the schedule is. We'll be out within the hour."

"It seems so easy when you put it like that," I said. But I knew it wasn't. Already, the gray guard's uniform sat too wide on my shoulders. I felt my heartbeat quickening. This was really happening.

"Listen," said Tanta. "Whatever happens, we don't look back. And as the Academy said--"

"Always act." I smiled. "Let's do this."

We joined the sea of gray flooding into the back gates. There were at least a few hundred guards, if not more. Paile gestured with his head towards our right, and we split off from the crowd, walking onto a perfectly trimmed green lawn that surrounded the palace. We walked for a few minutes, and I saw the other soldiers stand in formation directly outside the palace walls.

I turned to Paile and Tanta. "How far is this damn shed?"

"A few hundred more feet," said Paile, squinting at a faint gray shape in the distance.

As we drew closer to the shed, I noticed how run-down it was. Unlike the polished palace facade only a few dozen feet away, the shed was made of rusting metal covered by gray paint that had severely chipped and peeled. We walked behind the shed.

"I think we're good," said Tanta. "Let's just sit tight for a bit."

I took a moment to breathe, leaning against the back of the shed. Then I heard footsteps from around the corner.

"Hey. Paile! Tanta! What are you guys doing here?" said a freckled red-haired man who seemed a bit too small for his uniform. Rhian Alois.

"Nothing," said Tanta, chuckling. "Just... making sure..."

Paile stepped forward. "We're doing this thing where..."

"We're fixing the shed," I butted in.