Transform Me (A "Shatter Me" Trilogy Fanfiction)

FORTY-SEVEN: CARPE DIEM

47: Carpe Diem

The following day, a few more people arrive at the abandoned airport.

Everyone is busy helping out in any way he or she can, especially with replicating our suits. It's been twenty-four hours since we've arrived in Belfast, and I'm impressed at the speed of mass production. Warner and I are doing the best we can to speed up the process while transformed in Jun's body, but Dougal did say they were expecting close to a thousand allies. As of now, we've been able to make close to two hundred fifty suits just like our prototypes, but it's still not enough. At this rate, we'll need around three to four more days to make enough suits for everyone, and that's time I wasn't keen on wasting. It's taking everything there is in me to not charge into Daingean on a solo mission.

Despite any anxiety I may have with our rescue plan, I have to keep thinking positive thoughts. I have to believe we will succeed.

In forty-eight hours, we will be infiltrating Daingean—whether or not we have all the suits we need. The first part of the plan is easy enough. As discussed, the five of us—Warner, Juliette, Kenji, Caitlan, and myself—are going to sneak inside to hack the mainframe and shut the system down. Doing this will buy us twenty minutes to find our friends and rescue them. The rest is up to our allies to help us.

By nightfall, I'm exhausted. We're all gathered in the mess hall again for supper, but I'd rather just go off into our quarters and sleep. However, I didn't want to come off as disrespectful or rude, so I try to finish off my ration of food. Kenji is sitting to my right again and Caitlan is sitting to my left. We eat in companionable silence, mostly because none of us have the energy to put up with small talk.

Just then, we hear a banging sound and turn to see its source. We see Dougal, standing on one of the chairs, with a pot in one hand.

"Okay, so listen up." He looks oddly excited. "Tomorrow night is going to be busy and somber because it will be the night before we successfully rescue our friends and take down The Reestablishment for good."

The crowd cheers.

"But tonight, we celebrate our victory." He hold up a glass tankard of amber fluid. "Tonight, we drink to our success!"

The crowd whoops and hollers even louder.

"Drinks for everyone!" Dougal cries out merrily as servers emerge balancing a tray of drinks on each hand.

They begin distributing the drinks around and everyone is immediately in better spirits. All of a sudden, a burly-looking man with an eye patch steps forward with a fiddle and begins playing a lively tune. Another rather small woman joins him with her accordion, while two more men join in—one with a recorder, and another with some sort of rounded string instrument. Some people who are familiar with the tune start singing along at the top of their lungs. Others, to my surprise, get up and start dancing. Nothing like this ever happened at Souseiki Dousa.

Dougal appears at our table with a tray of drinks and starts passing them around.

"Here's a pint of Irish for the little lass, straight from the tap." Dougal grins as he slides my drink over. "It's my own special brew. Recipe's been in the family for generations. Best in the entire sector."

I take mine to be to be polite and stare at it curiously. It looked harmless enough but smelled of yeast and something vaguely nutty. I've had my fair share of liquor over the years, but I only ever drank on occasions. Still, I was always carefully not to get drunk. Once I start feeling tipsy, I usually stop drinking altogether.

"And for the pregnant lass, some tea would do you good." Dougal hands Caitlan a glass tanker of light yellowish fluid.

Caitlan laughs and raises her glass in toast. "Sláinte!"