The Awakened World

Part 9: For the Fallen

The ride back to the bunker was quiet and uneventful. Upon reaching the garage, it was painfully obvious that only the awakened had survived the massacre. The trio headed to the meeting room for debriefing. Every resistance member Brian saw had a shocked expression. The defeat had been quick and utterly complete. He could hear fragments of conversations, and from those he could piece together that they had escaped just in time: apparently the militia had thrown an absurd number of footmen, APCs and even helicopters at the insurgents. The body count was staggering, and most of it consisted of innocent bystanders. "This operation was a real shitshow," Mercury snorted. "The main goal was to raise motivation, but I think it's pretty clear that we've achieved the exact opposite of that. I really want to know how the hell we're going to fix this." They soon reached the room and entered. They sat down, as it was likely that it would take Jupiter a while to make sense of the situation. Brian quickly scanned the room. Whereas it had been nearly full of people during the briefing, only the three of them were now present. Sure, he had gotten over seeing people dying, but an annihilation at this scale was completely new to him. Remembering the enthusiastic faces of his comrades made Brian sick, so he quickly stopped reminiscing. Instead he checked how his fellow awakened were taking the situation. Mercury had hunched over and covered his face with his hands, and Brian could hear faint cursing. Meanwhile, Minerva was blankly staring at the wall, with a completely unreadable expression. As Brian had come to understand though, this could mean anything.

A few minutes later Jupiter entered. His demeanour was as just as calm as it had been during the briefing. It seemed as if though the operation had succeeded. The illusion broke as he began to speak. "According to our most recent reports, every resistance member sent on the mission, save for you three, is either dead or presumed dead. Though you were successful in assassinating the Benevolent, the positive impact has been completely offset. In fact, it is likely that when the government start to broadcast the results, morale will sink lower than it has been for quite some time." Jupiter lit his cigarette, and judging by the empty state of the carton, this was not his first of the day. "Unfortunate as it is, the most reasonable action now is to keep our heads down and attempt to recruit as many people as possible." Jupiter took another breath from his cigarette and lowered his voice. "On another note, we suspect that there might be a mole hidden amongst us." All three of the awakened perked up. Did this mean that they had been set up? "At the moment, we don't really have much in the way of leads, but Pluto is on the case." Brian couldn't help but feel a chill up his spine. He had had very few interactions with Pluto, and for a reason. No one in the bunker was comfortable with the giant man. Mercury had told him that Pluto had been the leader of a motorcycle gang, and his appearance matched the part. Apparently, he was part of resistance only because he would be much too dangerous if left alone. In addition, his sadistic tendencies made him a great interrogator, though unfortunately very few actually survived his techniques.

"Well, that's it for the debriefing. But, before you go, I'd like to share some information we discovered while you were away on the mission." Jupiter turned on the projector, and a picture of a rather unremarkable looking Asian man shaking hands with a professional looking woman showed up. Of course, the middle-aged man was anything but unremarkable, for he was more or less the father of the modern world order, a man who lead the awakened against the countries of old, known only as the "Supreme leader". "Now, you probably won't know the woman, but...", Jupiter said, but was cut off by Minerva. "As a matter of fact, I do. If I'm not mistaken, she's Laura Simmons, the head of the physics department at the local university." Jupiter looked mildly surprised for a moment, but soon he seemed to recall something. "Ah, indeed. I had almost forgotten that you worked there, too. You're of course correct." Brian sneaked a glance at Minerva. Her mask-like expression broke for a second, and Brian could've sworn that he saw a twinge of sadness in her eyes. "As you're well aware, most kinds of research have been put on ice, for the fear that a new discovery might disturb the status quo. Still, new research is being conducted on the powers of the awakened, and especially on the source of the noosphere that enables power usage. Our sources inside the university tell us that Laura here and her team may have found the origin of the awakening somewhere in southern Iraq." The room fell into silence. What could this possibly mean? Could the key to defeating the Supreme leader's regime lie in the middle east? Jupiter stamped out his cigarette and continued: "If we're lucky, this information, the origin of our powers, could potentially win us the war. Obviously, the opposite is also possible. For now, we'll keep monitoring the situation. You're dismissed."

After the debriefing, the trio decided to have a drink for those who fell. As the bunker had been originally high-class bomb shelter, it featured its own bar, though there was no one to serve the drinks. Brian and his compatriots raised their glasses, had a quiet moment and the quickly downed them. Brian grimaced as the strong alcohol passed down his throat. "Well, then let's have some more. I suddenly have an intense need to wipe the horrors of today from my memory" Mercury said, as he started to pour more of the drink into their glasses. "Actually, I think I'll skip drinking any more. I get a hangover really easily, and that is the last thing I want to experience now," Brian said apologetically. Mercury looked disappointed, but to the surprise of both of them, Minerva joined the conversation. "I feel that it could be healthy for you to share drinks with us. Hell, even I want to get drunk now. As for the hangover, well, as it happens I happened to learn a little trick from a friend of mine. If you apply your power correctly, you can even de-toxify yourself." Brian was surprised, but he felt that saying 'no' now would be very impolite, so he let Mercury fill his glass. Soon, all three of them were starting to feel the effect of alcohol. "You know, this isn't the first time there's been a wipe, but god damn, never has it been so complete," Mercury said and filled his cup again. "I thought I was already so dead inside that this wouldn't have an effect me, but evidently that isn't the case." "Think of it this way," Minerva said as she reached for the bottle, "The fact that you feel for the ones who died just means you're still human. Really, in a perverse way, I'm happy that I feel so sad." Brain could see the liquid in his glass swirl as he raised it for another sip. "I might not be one to say this as I'm new to this stuff, but I don't think you can ever get used to comrades dying, nor should you." Mercury and Minerva both nodded.

An hour had passed, and both Brian and Minerva were very drunk. A while ago Mercury, who had had most to drink out of them all, had slurred something about going to bed and had then promptly passed out before even reaching the door. Brian, too, was barely keeping awake. Minerva was in the same state. Suddenly, she started to weep. This was shocking to Brian, who had barely seen any emotion on her face up till now. As he wasn't in the most lucid of states, however, he joined him and they both cried for a while. "I've lost so many friends during these five years," she started. Brian was having a hard time keeping his eyes open but tried his hardest to listen. "I was part of the team that originally started to research powers at the university," she sobbed and paused to wipe away her tears. "The one who taught me the de-toxifying trick was, too. But then the war started. We protested it and threatened to destroy our work. But then they sent...her. The Crimson Witch. She killed my friend in cold blood." At this point the tears were once again flowing on her face. "Back then I didn't really know how to fight, so I fled. I soon joined the resistance. But I couldn't escape the witch. Every now and again she would intercept our mission and kill our operatives. I've lost so many friends to her..." Brian tried to say something encouraging but noticed that Minerva had already passed out on the table. Brian's eyes started to close. He remembered what it was like during the war. His family, him and his father, had been evicted and reassigned to a much smaller house. Life had been hard, as he had had to be careful not to piss off any awakened, so that he could continue his education. Because of his reassignment he had lost all his friends, and his father became his only friend in the world. When he died because of overwork, he made Brian swear that he would try his best to go as far as this cruel world would allow. And that's what he did. He studied and got into a university. But all of that was now gone. Finally, he, too, passed out.

A few hours later Susan Abbot was staring at an innocent looking shack. If intelligence was to be believed, however, it served as an entrance to the bunker the resistance used as a base. She took a deep breath. The air was clean and crisp here outside the city. It was silent if you didn't count the singing of the birds. "Too bad that is about to change," she thought as she looked at the people behind her. This was a high priority operation, so aside from her there were four other awakened with her. Three of them were veterans who had run countless operations. The one outlier concerned her, however. She called herself "The Poison Rose", a name which Susan thought was utterly ridiculous, and had caused her to question the Rose's inclusion. However, as it turned out, Elizabeth Brown, or the Poison Rose, was a second generation awakened. This meant that even without proper training she was a force to be reckoned with. "So, we're going in and slaughtering anyone inside, right?" asked the aforementioned awakened. "No. We're going in and killing anyone, BUT the second generation awakened inside. You should know this by now," Susan responded, annoyed. The three other attackers exchanged looks. It was apparent that no one liked the newbie. She had gained something of a god-complex during her awakening, and it was getting on everyone's nerves. Susan put on her mask and shifted into her trance. She was grateful of the surprising order to not kill Brian. This meant that even in her trance-state she wouldn't kill him. "Move out," the witch said, and the five attackers started to run toward the shack.