Tillie grinned. “Well, when I see Kara Plummer out on the battlefield, I’ll be sure to ask her for a moment of her time—before she finishes pulverizing me, okay?”
“Now you’re just being a bitch.” Roz complained.
“Hey…you asked.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
A Secret Shared
Felix looked up from his stack of files when he heard a knock at his office door.
“That must be them.“ He said to one of his people in attendance. “Come in.” He added with gentle authority in his voice—before passing out another clip board full of paperwork to one Teena Clarkson and Tayna Beck. Shay Greenling and her mother were there as well—along with Tabitha Gorges and a few other people whom had the lucky fortune to cross paths with their resident High Witch in training.
The door rattled for a moment before Shay laughed. “Oops. I think I locked the door when I came in. Hold on a second.” She said, jumping out of her seat and running for the door and then unlocking it.
The door opened right then and Rachel, Tillie, Charlie, and Roz entered the room.
“Oh!” The woman said with a bit of surprise in her voice—taking in the sight of the assembled group of people clustered in the man’s main office. Then she spotted Shay’s mom.
“Hey! Orah! How’s it going?”
The other woman rose from her seat and went over to embrace her former mentor and teacher from years back.
“It’s been too long, old friend. How are things with you?”
“Crazy.” The woman admitted right then. “Sorry we didn’t get here sooner than we would have liked, but we had an interesting discussion back at Charlie’s place.”
“Really? Where is that boy of mine? I haven’t seen him in like forever. Not since the last time he and Shay played together with Roz when they were kids.”
Charlie raised a hand at that point. “Here I am Orah.” He volunteered out in the open—before the woman caught sight of him and rushed to hug him.
“You’ve grown up so much, Charlie. I’m so proud of you.” She gushed. “And being on your own after Frederick died? I’m so sorry that happened. I can never say that enough.”
Charlie nodded humbly. “I know. He hasn’t been gone that long. It just seems like ages these days.” He murmured.
“Well, you still have us. Shay, Roz, even your new girlfriend over there—from what I hear.”
“Yeah, sorry. It’s still new to me. I’m not used to it.”
“Oh, honey. You can never be used to anything that would bring you joy. But you can embrace it and make it your own—even if you have to pace yourself.”
Charlie tried to glance in Shay’s general direction, but he found that both his head and neck were a prisoner of her mom’s overpowering embrace.
“Do you…think she’ll forgive me?”
Orah paused in that moment and said: “I don’t think she’ll hold it against you. You two were pretty young when you finally left our household six years ago. But she still thinks of you often.” Then she broke the embrace. “Now Tillie…? She has a lot to live up to. A lot of people are depending on her—as you very well know.”
“Oh, I know. I know.” The older boy quickly agreed. “I know what she’s up against and why. I know that now.”
Orah gave him an odd look. “Even if you do, the principle still remains. We need to help your new girlfriend win the day—when the time comes. None of us can afford to remain neutral in this conflict much longer.”
Charlie chuckled to himself. “I never took you for the fighting type, Orah. You were always so reserved and laid back. You never once—”
Orah put a restraining finger on his mouth.
“That was years ago, honey. Even before Shay was even born. True, I was more of pacifist, but those times are gone. I now have to stand and fight for all kind’s sake as well your own—even though you are still human to some degree.”
Charlie blinked at that one. “H-how did you know?”
“It was Shay. Then Roz. Their comments about your special magical aura during certain times of the year gave it away. Though I’m surprised you don’t remember—being so young and all.”
The older boy shook his head in a slight panic. “It’s all a jumbled mess! My memories! You remember me telling you about my birth parents. The only picture I have of them which I keep in a locked box in my room…?”
“I remember. Your mother was human. And your father—didn’t you say he looked like a sorcerer?”
Charlie nodded. “I think he did. I wasn’t sure. The picture wasn’t all that clear.”
“Did you ever mention this to your foster dad?” Orah ventured carefully.
The older boy shook his head. “I didn’t want to burden him with the knowledge. But I have had a long sinking suspicion that he already knew the truth about me.”
Orah glanced over at the other side of the table where Tillie was talking with her daughter and Rachel was spending some time catching Felix up to speed on a few things of grave importance.
“At some point, Charlie. You’re going to have to tell Tillie the truth about your origins.” She said. “And yourself in particular.”
“I…don’t think I’m ready for that responsibility. Not just yet anyways.”
“So you want to keep her in the dark? Keep the truth hidden from her? I don’t think she would approve of that.”
“It’s not like I have much of a choice, Orah. I have my reasons for keeping my past hidden—in secret. I don’t want her to blame me for what’s happened to her and the battle with Greta Freeman. Why my birth parents were the ones responsible for…”
“—being in possession of the Dragon’s Tear before Greta?” Orah correctly guessed. “And how it was stolen from them in the dead of night?”
Charlie nodded miserably. “Yes. That. That’s why the Dragon’s Tear never reacted to me badly while she was in my presence because it already knew who its original master was. I didn’t want to tell Tillie that because she would be crushed.”
“Do you think her mother knew? Of the truth?”
“If she did, she kept a tight lid on it from the start.”
Orah nodded grimly. “That wouldn’t surprise me at all. Alicia still has her secrets which her daughter has never been privy to—which is why she left her in the care of Felix, the Resistance, and the Underground.”
Charlie was confused. “But why?”
“Tillie’s been living in the shadow of Greta Freeman all her life since that horrific night years ago. She has never known a moment of peace and tranquility. Certainly not her family either since the inquests ended. This has been their life ever since.”
“So by breaking the family up—?”
“It would give them all a chance to heal. And grow stronger individually.” Orah finished for him—before they were interrupted by Shay herself.
“Mom? It’s about to start. Just thought you should know.” She said, before giving Charlie a friendly wink of her own.
Her mother smiled before nodding. “Good. We’ll be there in a minute. I just need to finish talking with your childhood friend here.” She said imploringly.
“I’m sure Felix won’t mind waiting another minute,” the other girl said in passing. “But if you don’t hurry up, I’ll be eating that other plate of English nut brownies that Tabitha and her boss brought over.”
Her mother blew her breath out in silent exasperation. “Go.” She told him. “We’ll pick this up some other time—when things aren’t so pressing. But remember my words, Charlie. Remember them well.”
The older boy nodded. “I will, Orah. I will.” He promised—before taking his leave of her and joining the others at the table. Tillie snuggled up next to him—leaning her head against his shoulder abruptly—which he took in measured stride.
Roz didn’t blink or argue that one. She had no real reason to except to smile a little in return.
Rachel took her seat at long last before Felix called the room to
attention.
“I’m sure you all know what’s going to happen in less than eight hours time. By now, some of you may have noticed on Level One and Two that the majority of the underground city’s population is being evacuated as a precaution against the impending air strike on this area by the Third Watch’s massive battalion of slug launchers. So I won’t tell you all how dangerous this will be either.”
Someone from the table raised their hand at that point.
“Yes? Go ahead, Teena. Say what’s on your mind.”
“I was told that this place was hardened against such things?”
“Normal artillery—? Yes. But slug launchers are a bit on the mean side of ground warfare employed by the armies of the Third Watch and the Seventh Arm.”
“New missile technologies?”
Felix shook his head. “No. Portable fusion-powered ballistic weaponry.” He revealed to the table at large.
“Nucleonic?” Tabitha whispered in horror.
“In a sense? Yes. But these are what you would call mass drivers. It’s something recent that the Regency Council’s Space Command had been working on to clear asteroidal debris from a ship’s path while traversing the Inner Rim sectors between Mars and Jupiter.”
“So how could they possibly be used against us? And why?”
Felix sighed. “The technology is rather new still, but easily adaptable to multi-purpose missions. My guess is that the Third Watch and Seventh Arm’s intelligence bureaus “stole” the plans for the mass drivers and reverse-engineered them for ballistic weaponry on selective ground targets.” He said. “Which is amazing in itself—considering the damage potential from each aimed payload. It won’t happen all at once. But it will be lethal and brutal to anyone caught out in the open like this.”
“Sounds fun.” Tillie quipped from her seat.
Rachel studied her for a moment. “Even I don’t think you have the capability to redirect incoming ordinance like the type Felix is describing.”
The teen girl scoffed. “Let me tell you about the time mom did her Fire Burn incantation on me during one of my more—intense—training sessions. If it’s anything like that, I should be able to handle things with relative ease—providing it goes all according to plan.”
“But war rarely does, honey.” Felix threw out in warning. “I should know. I’ve had plenty of first hand experience.”
“So we’re supposed to do…what? Hide? In holes? If those mass drivers are as powerful as you claim they are, it’s going to turn this place into Swiss cheese. There will be nothing left of Level One—possibly Two—to look forward to once the shelling stops.”
Tabitha nodded in quiet agreement. “She has a point there.”
“That’s why we are largely evacuating and leaving behind a skeleton crew to take up defensive positions. Just in case.”
Tillie rolled her eyes at that one. “Look man, I don’t mean to rain on your plans or parade but those weapons have a timed delay, sonic frequency inhibitor that will shred human flesh from the inside out. It’s one part of the weapons’ attractiveness which makes it a double whammy for anyone unlucky enough to be hit by it. I can deflect the hard stuff, but sonics is not one of my specialties as a highly trained combat witch.” She revealed to everyone at large.
“So what to do you propose we lessen the hits with?”
Tillie grinned. “Charlie here tells me that you have some limited AA capability for this part of the quad.”
Charlie blushed in response to his name being so casually called out like that.
The old man eyed the pair and then nodded. “We do. But we don’t know how effective it would be. It could very well attract elements of the Third Watch to our very doorstep. Quite possibly during the last leg of the evacuation.”
Tillie smiled. “Let me worry about that. I have a few tricks up my sleeve to deal with them.”
“Your Apocalypse Gun?”
“I won’t be using it as much during the fighting—especially against the slug launcher units themselves. Caseless rounds—even fired at max velocity—will not even dent their tritium armored plating.”
“So what will you be reliant on instead?”
“My incantation spells. My Storm Blades. I can do a lot of concentrated damage with them in quick fashion.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen you use them before,” Tayna Beck motioned with a hand gesture of her own. “Just your Gatling gun.”
“The gun is only used against human targets or mobile targets. But stationary ones like the slug launchers will require…the more direct approach.”
“But you may not be able take them all out at once.” Felix worried then.
Tillie nodded in full agreement. “That’s why I am only going to go after the ones that are targeting the area around this place first.”
Felix looked at Rachel and then the other cell leaders in with him.
“Our best estimates place the nearest mass driver units at about ten city blocks from here. Fifteen—if you want to be conservative. That’s quite a distance to travel—even for you.”
“Who ever said I had to travel by foot?” The girl laughed, activating one of her spell incantations. In the blink of an eye, she had vanished from her seat and appeared behind Felix’s desk.
And no one even saw it happen.
Then she used it again to reappear back in her original seat. With a noticeable grin, she said: “It’s a great time-saver.”
Tayna Beck was amazed by what happened. But then her own personal suspicions began to set in a moment later as sudden realization set in.
“If you could do that, why did you have us carry you all the way to the nearest transit capsule by foot?” She outright accused the girl then.
“It hurts worse when I transit if I’m injured—like I was. Right now, I’m feeling 100% better and nary a blister on my feet.” The other girl calmly explained—while propping her legs on top of the table leg bar itself. “I wasn’t able to think clearly to do anything about it.
“Also keep in mind something else which some of you may not be made aware of about witches like me and the others: “We were taught not to just be as reliant on our spell incantations or as our weapons—along with everything else. If I can’t use spells, I go to Plan B. And if Plan B doesn’t work, I go to Plan C. And so on and so forth. Until something works. Or something breaks. I’m not picky about how to get the job done so long as the job gets done.”
Rachel nodded in understanding. “She’s right, you know. She’s right. That’s what we trained her for in the end. Or at least, her mother did after she was equivocally suspended from the Academy for a breach of ethics and rule breaking.”
Charlie looked at his girlfriend in amazement. “You? Breaking the rules? Get out!”
Tillie shrugged a bit in turn. “It’s true. But that’s only part of the story—of which I cannot divulge in in that time—for secrecy’s sake.”
Her boyfriend didn’t have an issue with that.
“Ah. I see. Okay. So where do we go from here?” He wanted to know.
Felix laid out a chart board off the side of him and flipped up the first page.
“Now? We get started on who we send out and who will remain behind to play guard for the fortress.”
“With his run of bad luck, Charlie here will be on lookout duty like all the other times he’s been on lookout duty.” Tillie ribbed at his expense.
“Hey! That’s not fair! I’ve seen some action! Trust me!” He retaliated then—shoving his girlfriend in her chair some more.
Tillie giggled at his display and tried to return the favor, but she missed on the account that her legs were still propped up beneath the table and she fell out of her seat sideways.
“Whoop…!” she exploded in surprise—while whacking her head on the side of another chair and she went down in a heap.
There was silence for a grand total of a few seconds before laughter was heard and everyone relaxed.
Charlie grinned despite
himself.
“I’m okay!” Tillie called out from her new position. Then got back up and started dusting herself off—before sneezing a couple of times in response.
Sniffling, she muttered: “It’s a bit dusty too. But I’m okay. No harm done.”
Felix nodded patiently, while everyone else waited for the spectacle to die down and they could all get back to business of saving a few lives in the process.
“Kids.” Teena uttered with slight amusement—while Shay looked on enviously.
Tillie sat back in her seat and allowed Felix to start with his plans and presentations.
It didn’t take the girl long to figure out where this meeting was heading.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Rebirth
0230 hours
17 April 2190
Tillie sighed as she joined the other lookouts on the roof for one final night.
“Isn’t this how we met in the first place?” She teased openly—as the two of them walked over to the very edge of one of the encasements which sat next to an automated self-repeating AA battery.
“A bit down that way—actually.” Charlie pointed out helpfully. “Still can’t believe that you elected to go at this alone—even when everyone else was willing to go to bat for you in the end.”
Tillie nodded—leaning over the side a bit, her long hair dangling forth.
“I’m not about to put anyone else at risk for my sake. That meeting was enough.”
“You walked out of it halfway for a couple of minutes. Why?”
Tillie sighed heavily. “Because Felix intended to sacrifice half that table to the enemy—when we both know damned well who Kara really wants in the end.”
Charlie went quiet for a couple of moments and then shook his head.
“It shouldn’t be you, Tillamook. It should have been me,” he boldly proposed right out in the open.
Tillie glanced over at him for a second in complete shock border-lining on personal amusement.
“You? Dude…you may be great on sentry duty, but you’re not much of a fighter out in the real world. Not like me at any rate.”
“That’s not entirely true, Tillamook. If I had the proper training. If I had the proper education like you at the Academy of Magic and Arts, I could have been one of the most powerful…sorcerers around.” He managed without flair or difficulty.
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