E L I
Personal Quarters, New Anchorage CC
[[ Around 0200 Hours (2:00 AM) ]]
Get up, Elizabeth. And she did.
Eli’s eyes were open upon at the first echo, after which there were two reactions she had a split moment to decide upon. On reflex alone the hand beneath her pillow closed tight around the handle of the blade she kept there, which influenced her choice only somewhat.
Threat or inconvenience.I can’t tell yet. Figure it out. I’m trying. Elizabeth– The sounds of distant violence continued only a moment more, and the decision was made. In routine long-practiced, long burned into her mind from morning after morning of trial, she moved. A quick, fluid motion altogether, her free hand slid beneath the pillow and briefly braced itself against the rough leather sheathe, just long enough to assure the blade was pulled free when she rolled. There were advantages, she knew, to sleeping above the covers. Being on the bottom bunk was an advantage, she was sprawled like a hunter on the hard ground without so much as a
thud to tell it, but for the moment it didn’t matter.
Her eyes scanned the room, and she saw that she wasn’t alone in her alarm. Stein was awake and mobile, Agatha, albeit slower, was as well, there was Ryn’s voice in the distance, and she heard Joshua too. Nothing hostile, at least not immediately.
People are missing. They left weeks ago. Eli cursed herself as she rose, thoughts addled by her first waking moments. The empty bunks weren’t a concern, the people present were. Her first concerns went to Graham and the NC’s; aside from themselves, those seemed like the most likely targets, unless there was an attack on the settlement itself.
A chill like rigid lightning ripped up her spine, a sudden tremor rocking her shoulders.
Mother. They’d have hit it first if it was their real target. She’s in danger. Focus. The armory was the best shot. She’d spent countless hours of the past weeks plugged into that damn simulation preparing for this exact scenario. Well, it wasn’t the mess hall, but it was close enough, and it was time to see how much of what she’d learned holding simulated firearms translated over to actual combat, and not just a meager test.
Wordless, Eli moved to follow Stein, and couldn’t help the shaky thoughts that came to her. Her squad CO was calm, which was good, but even then it was hard to place faith in her.
It’s her.No it isn’t. A passing thought, another reflex, and one she put no stock in. If Stein had wanted them dead, she’d have done it in their sleep. If anything, the people up and present were, if not trustworthy, the least likely to put a knife in her back. Even some that weren’t present she could at least write off as allied. Percy was fine, Ana was fine, Graham was a non-variable, which left few options outside of the staff and administration. With a silent dread she found herself hoping the traitor wasn’t someone she knew. Lofgren, Kat, there were many options, none of them good.
There might not be a traitor. There’s always a traitor.Again she stopped, but this time it wasn’t out of distrust or caution. She whirled around on her heel and headed the other way down the barracks, towards Vera’s bunk. In all honesty, despite technically sharing a room, the stark division had been somewhat jarring for her in the first days. In personal quarters, even back home, the girl had been in arm’s reach through the night, which she viewed as a comfort both ways. If anything wanted to get to Vera, it had to get through her first, now it was a bit more complicated. Besides, she wasn’t sure how she felt about her sleeping above Tahlia.
The thought alone made her draw the woman’s immediate loyalty into question, but she quickly repressed it. She clambered up the end of the bunk and dragged Vera’s sheets away even before she all the way up. Any deep urge to wake the girl slowly, run a hand through her hair and whisper good-mornings, was overcome by the raw instinct to protect her. Even still, she kept her voice to a low whisper, soothing as she could manage on the back of silence being a necessity.
“Vee, get up we–”Eli froze. Vera was gone.
V E R A
New Anchorage CC Halls
[[ Around 0200 Hours (2:00 AM) ]]
“Ow. Ow. Ow.” Vera dabbed the paper towel against her neck, and eventually pulled it away unbloodied. Only a few stray spots, but it had been enough of a nuisance to deal with in bed. Craning her head around brought more dull, groaning pain with it, like her bones were trying to push past each other, but it was something she’d gotten used to in the weeks since her surgery. Indeed, the raw flesh around her neural plug had ceased to bleed.
What she
hadn’t yet gotten accustomed to was sleeping on her stomach. Lizzy had since they were young, and Vera never knew how she could deal with it. She’d heard once that sleeping that way caused bad dreams, something she now knew was likely false, but back then it seemed to make sense. Regardless, now sleeping on her back simply wasn’t an option. Too much pain, and even if there wasn’t, the plugs had her head on an arch that was more than a bit uncomfortable. So she tried her side, her stomach, and found the latter had her rolling onto her back far less often. Strange, and it kept her up late some nights, but it made incidents like this far less common.
Satisfied, she tossed the paper in the trash, and slowly brought her head back around, catching her face in the mirror. For the most part, she was unchanged. Lizzy told her the hunch was a natural response and would wane away soon, and she caught that certain movements and tics made her face twitch in minute pain, something else she’d been told would wane. Her eyes were more sunken, but that was from the odd sleep habits, and it had been tough showering for a while after the surgery, so her hair was a bit more unkempt than usual. Not that she often saw it like this, undone from the ushanka in the barracks. But the smile was there, even in the ticks, she’d grimace like she’d been told a bad joke, but still thought it was funny.
Stein’s words played in her head again, so often now it usually felt like the girl was there.
“This is nothing if you want it.””This is nothing if you want it.” She whispered to her reflection, but the small, tiled room echoed it anyway.
She started to laugh, felt the giggle bubbling up from her middle and working its way up. She covered her mouth out of decency, it was late, she didn’t want to wake anyone, and made her way out of the bathroom, down the hall. At first she was headed straight back for the barracks, but a passing entrance caught her attention, and her eyes, slowly adjusting to the dark, could make out the long shapes of tables that filled the mess hall.
It was almost involuntary the way her feet redirected her, an aspect of wanderlust so common she hardly noticed it anymore. Residual pains had kept her up at night, but it hadn’t leant to any explorations, and so the big, sprawling rooms were things she knew only by how the daylight painted them. Looking around, everything was foreign, she couldn’t even place her regular seat for a good handful of moments. The dark never really got to her, even when she was younger. Not to say she particularly
liked it, but growing up she rarely had anything to be afraid of when the lights went out. She could sit there at one of the tables, rest her head on her hands and relax without any fear of the odd supernatural, unexplained chill that plagued scores of children and adults alike. Would it have been so bad to fall asleep there? It was arguably more comfortable, even if she was sure she’d wake up sore, or more sore than usual. Already the pleasant numbing provided by the stim injections was beginning to fade, and she knew by then the throbbing would only get worse until her next dose in the morning. Suddenly the prospect of trudging back to the barracks, climbing into her bunk, and trying to fight with her position for a few hours of sleep. It was almost enough to get her eyes shut.
Almost.
The sudden crack made her jump to her feet, would have teased a yelp from her had she not already been making an effort to stay quiet. At first she thought a door had slammed shut, but the sounds continued, and the realization that came to her was slow, but with every piece put together she found herself getting lighter, her stomach twisting tighter, the aching in her neck started burning and all at once she remembered how familiar the feeling was.
”Oh my god.”The panic began to settle before she could leash it in, and she found herself momentarily frozen there. Lizzy had told her about this, long ago and not so long ago. It wasn’t quite preparation, nothing could have already prepared her for this, but she had points, a list almost, to go on.
Don’t stop moving. Don’t make noise. Don’t approach anyone that isn’t me. If someone sees you, run. If you see someone, run. If you get hit, run. You do not try to save anyone. You do not try to help anyone. You stay alive.The sounds of gunfire tore through the hall on the back of horrible screams. It jolted her, sent a harsh breath through her teeth and into her lungs, as close a chance as any she’d have to give into fear and scream, scream for help, scream for Lizzy, scream for anything.
Her lips sealed shut, she ducked low. Back home she used to play like this, crouched and nimble, scouring shelves and mounting piles of boxes, precarious cliffs of thick books that only tolerated her weight so long as she didn’t trouble them long. She’d climbed the jagged, jutting and lopsided building too many times to count, all beneath the unaware eyes of her mother and Lizzy. She’d once heard Celina refer to her as a rascal, a scurrying child, and found herself now thankful for it.
The pilots, she wanted to bet, would be safe. Lizzy would be among them, so would Stein, they’d survive. Who
did come to mind were Ana and Percy. Separate from the rest, alone, but she didn’t harbor the same doubts about Percy that most of the others seemed to. Something told her that if anyone tried to lay a finger on Ana, they wouldn’t be getting it back.
To her left, more gunfire, more screaming, her hastily gathered composure began to slip. Percy and Ana were too far away, every sharp echo pounding that further into her mind. She could risk going back into the hall to the barracks, but it was also towards the gunshots, and there wasn’t much in the way of things to hide behind and under out in the open. She could stay put, but hiding was a much more risky choice than running. Lizzy hadn’t told her to hide, she’d told her to run.
To her right there seemed to only be echoes of shots from the left. She racked her mind to remember what laid that way; halls, elevators, and offices. The doctors were that way, people she knew she could trust despite Lizzy’s warnings. She figured if they’d tested her and opened her up with knives and and tools and things, they probably didn’t have any sinister plans. Besides, Lofgren was among that crowd, someone she not only trusted, but liked, and in a fit of worry couldn’t help but wonder if she was okay. Would she even be in her office so late? Where did the administration sleep? Maybe she was back in New Anchorage and safe, if it was even safe there. Briefly she worried for her home, the library and Ms. Jackspar, but for now there was nothing she could do for it.
So, her options weighed as closely as she could manage, Vera went right.
’Lizzy’s gonna kill me.'
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