The Rose of Flames: Rising Tides

Chapter 2

August 6th, 2047

3 A.M.

Rialto, Italy

Heavy footsteps sounded quietly down the streets of the Italian city as three soldiers patrolled them. Silver armor glinted in the moonlight as they walked, the tallest of the three in the lead. Behind the leader were two others of various heights. The shortest stood closer to the leader, while the middle of the three in terms of height just hung back.

The leader, a woman, was ranting angrily. "To think we let that brat of a foreigner just waltz in and show us up like that! Our bosses won't be pleased if they find out!"

The shortest of the trio sighed. "You drag me on your patrols. I'm a pilot, woman. Let me fly," he said with exasperation. "I'm not a real soldier, and this armor is really bloody annoying."

The woman glanced at him from beneath her helmet. "Ray, you know no one else ever wants to check these streets at night," she told him, rolling her eyes as her friend, Ray, glanced at some sort of smartwatch on his wrist, "and you're the only other person besides Wash, here, who'll do it with me."

Ray sighed. "Be realistic here, Jea," he rolled his shoulder a few times to stretch it out a bit. "You and Wash hardly need me around on your patrols when you could very easily scare the living daylights out of pretty much anyone."

Behind Ray, Wash, short for Washington, spoke up. "But that lady in Lorenzo's shop wasn't scared of any of us," he pointed out, to the surprise of his companions; he usually didn't say much during these patrols, "and most people are terrified when they see us."

"He's right, Ray," Jea nodded with a sharp glance at Ray. "No normal person would even dare oppose us, let alone embarrass us like that. She should've been scared out of her mind, but she was as calm as if she was the one to be scared of!"

Ray sighed and looked up at the slowly-brightening sky, his hidden eyes gleaming with annoyance. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Or maybe she's just used to stuff like that. We can't make any assumptions that she's a threat to us until she proves it," he pointed out. "If we were to tell the bosses, they would just laugh or be super angry that we'd brought up a seemingly worthless concern."

Jea sighed as the patrol headed back toward their base. "I guess, but you never know. We should keep an eye out, at the very least."

Wash nodded his approval, and Ray did the same. The trio silently headed back, oblivious to the figure that was watching them from the rooftops.

-=#(+)#=-

The would-be thief stood up, chucking the bag and cup into an open trash bin nearby. She'd heard their entire conversation, thanks to the cameras that were hidden around the city. She reached up and touched a cool metal object: her glasses, purple and thin-rimmed. Smiling, she let the camera view fade from the lenses and silently followed the patrolling trio, intending to confirm her suspicions by grabbing a file on the leader of the soldiers she was tailing, Jea.

She silently ran along the angled rooftops, making sure to stay on the side that allowed her to easily duck out of sight in case the patrolling soldiers looked over at her. Her feet gingerly hit the sloped surface she was traversing as she followed the patrol toward what could only be assumed was their base. The moonlight struck her slender form, which could almost be described as malnourished if one didn't know any better. Seeing the base grow nearer and nearer, the thief slowed down, keeping an eye out for cameras, which she avoided with surprising ease. Jea, Ray, and Wash went into their base while, unbeknownst to them, the very foreigner they'd just been discussing was proving Jea right about her being a threat to her precious terrorist group.

Tapping her glasses once more, she watched as a detailed layout of the base came into view. She scanned it quickly, her hidden eyes darting over the blueprints of the building in front of her. After a few moments, she found the room she was looking for: File Storage.

Chuckling, the formerly would-be thief made her way to the window closest to her quarry, still avoiding the cameras with ease as she also made sure to stay out of the way of any guards. She glanced into the hallway with her glasses, now checking cameras in the vicinity. She saw a pair of guards at the door to the room containing what she assumed was info on the entirety of the terrorist group. She smiled and tapped both of her wrists and ankles. She felt her shoes stick to the wall she was hanging onto, and the palms of her hands did the same. Grinning at her creativity for sneaking into places like a spider-themed superhero, she silently opened the window and checked once more. The guards were the only ones that could see her, and she could easily handle that. Touching her glasses, she brought up an eye-tracking keyboard in her lenses, quickly typing up a string of commands. The lights cut out in front of her, and she heard the guards' gasps of surprise and the clattering of rifles being grabbed and aimed. Quickly disabling the cameras, as well, she slid in through the now-open window and climbed to the roof of the hallway, staying silent as her feet and hands moved furtively along it.

Once she arrived just above the guards, another grin spread across her face, and she twisted, swinging her feet down in a powerful kick that smashed into the guard's face that was on the left. There wasn't a sound made but a thump as that guard hit the floor, unconscious. His partner, utterly confused, looked around nervously, but soon joined the other guard as the thief landed another powerful kick to his head. There was yet another gentle thump as the second guard landed on top of the first. Disconnecting her hands from the roof of the hallway, the intruder landed noiselessly beside the unconscious guards. Opening a door that led to a closet just big enough for the two of them, she grabbed them beneath the shoulders and shoved them inside after nicking a keycard off of one of them. Shutting and locking the cupboard's door, the thief turned and swiped the keycard over the scanner. Nodding once the entryway swung open, the thief slid into the room.

The room had tons of shelves lining the walls, all crammed together so close that she couldn't get into them, but she saw that they were suspended and could be moved around. There was a terminal in the center of the room with the same symbol that she'd seen on Jea, Ray, and Wash's armor. Lucky for her, she saw that there appeared to be locked drawers that seemed to contain digital copies of the files before her. The floor was metal, and the walls were black. The lights off, she tapped her glasses and enabled their night vision mode, which she'd built into her optics.

The thief silently walked to the terminal and tapped its screen, blue light illuminating her concealed face. She saw a list of names, what appeared to be plans, and something that looked like experiments being laid out in front of her. She scrolled through it before systematically having the terminal create digital copies of every file. Smiling, she picked up the USBs that were being deposited in a little tray on the terminal near her legs as they arrived and pocketed them. The first one that she took had all of the experiments on it. The next contained the plans and what she figured were threats. Finally, on three different USBs, were the files of every terrorist - or agent, the thief supposed - in the organization she'd just infiltrated. Once done, she quickly wiped the history of what had been done on the terminal before turning and exiting the room, taking the way she had come in as her way to escape the base.

Once outside, she followed the same route she'd taken while following Jea, Ray, and Wash, back to the roof, a massive smile on her face. She'd just done something that was usually done by a team of people by herself. She hummed a pleasant tune as she walked, a hand in the pocket containing the USBs. Very pleased with herself, she kept walking along, heading for a specific apartment building: the one she was going to stay in.

Spotting a familiar rooftop, the thief smiled and broke into a run, arriving quickly. She tapped her wrist and activated the same contraption she'd used while in the base to make her way down the wall and to a specific window, which she popped open and swung into.

The apartment was fairly simple, with a double bed on one end of the room and a desk opposite. A laptop sat on the desk with a headset beside it. The floor was a nice hard oak, and the walls were painted a gentle blue. A bathroom was near the desk. Walking over to her laptop, the thief pulled the USBs out and set them in a drawer. Sighing, she stood up and went over to the bed. She flopped onto it, passing out almost instantly. Her suspicions had been correct.

My enemies now have a name. And that name...

Is Thorn.