by Natalie Reid
People were screaming, calling out to those they knew, moving blindly through the smoke. Jessie swung her head about while holding onto the girl’s hand. No one seemed to be seriously hurt. In fact, the explosion seemed to be less of an attack and more of a release of steam.
A smoke screen.
This thing was not over. Purple was the color of the Resistance. This was some kind of message from them, and the smoke was only the beginning.
She was proven right when suddenly another explosion crackled through the air like a bolt of lightning. This one was different. The shock wave caused some of the purple smoke in the air to clear out, enough so that she could see the top of the Division Bank erupting in grey smoke. And then there was a horrible creaking sound, like the moaning of a large, dying animal. The metal pole at the top of the Bank, the pole that was three stories high in length, was breaking off and plummeting to the floor.
Those that had looked up to see screamed even louder, but their screams were soon lost in the breaking of glass as the pole crashed into the side of the building. Jessie did not wait to see the rest. She knew that they were close enough that a gust of wind could blow dangerous amounts of glass towards them. She looked down to the frightened girl she had gripped to her side. Then, swinging her head to the right, she found the girl’s mother, staring up to the sky in horror.
“Take your daughter!” Jessie yelled out to her.
She placed the daughter’s hand in her mother’s, and urged them forward. She wanted to stay with them to make sure they would make it out of this alright, but a little ways ahead she saw that a man had fallen down to the ground. The people around him were so intent on getting away that they were trampling him.
“Keep going!” she told the mother, before breaking off from her and running over to the man.
When she got within a few feet of him, she bent down as swiftly as she could and pulled him to his feet. He let out a loud groan, and then his weight swung completely to her shoulder. She stumbled for a moment, not expecting so much weight. Then, spotting a bench in front of a building, she painfully dragged him through the crowd of screaming people and set his heavy body on the wooden bench.
Just as she did this, there were three more explosions. They were in quick secession, one right after the other. She looked up to the sky to see the damage that was done, but could not spot anything at first. Then purple showers of fire lit up the sky, forming a giant R before disappearing in a dazzling shower.
When the fireworks disappeared, she looked across the street to see if anyone else needed help. That was when she spotted the Task Force uniform and the short black hair.
Ritter.
An irrational thought crossed her mind that somehow he was behind all this, but she knew it was a stupid and spiteful thought. Task Force hated the Resistance.
She looked to see what Ritter was doing in front of the building across from hers, and saw two girls huddling behind him. They weren’t so young as to be newly evolved, but they were young enough that their necks showed the tan-lines from where their Potentian Bands used to rest. Their eyes were wide as they looked up at all the commotion from behind Ritter. Their legs rattled in fear, and their hands reached up to his jacket to steady themselves.
From across the sea of purple smoke and panicking people, Ritter caught sight of her and held her gaze. She couldn’t quite figure out what it was that he was thinking. She looked from him to the girls he had saved, and he looked from her to the man on the bench. It was weird, but she almost felt like she could relate to Ritter more than anyone else in the crowd. When disaster struck, they had reacted in exactly the same way.
A siren cut through the air and drew their attention away from each other. Help had finally arrived. It was now time for things to go back to normal.
She was about to walk away from the bench and disappear into the crowd, when the man on the bench reached out for her arm and held her back. “What’s your name?” he croaked out. His throat was caked in smoke and dust, but he had asked the question with such hard-fought intensity that she didn’t even debate about telling him the truth.
“Jessie Fifty-Fifty,” she said, crouching down so he could better hear her over the sirens and dying panic of the crowd.
His eyes grew big at the sound of her name, and then narrowed in on her face as if scrutinizing her expression for a sign of deceit. “I… I thought it was just a rumor.” His hand remained clutched to her wrist, and he continued to search her face in suspicious amazement. “They say you survived the Bandit. I didn’t believe it.”
Jessie felt her heart quickening. She didn’t know that anyone outside the military and BLES knew about her condition. Were people really listening for news of her recovery? Did they think she was some sort of answer to all those that had given into the Bandit?
She wanted to say something to this man to keep him from getting his hopes up, but before she could, he placed both of his hands on hers and gave her his genuine and sincere thanks. He said it over and over again that it rendered her speechless, and she could do nothing but stand in that awkward, half-crouched position as sirens wailed around her, and this complete stranger emptied out the remainder of his hopes on her shoulders.
* * *
When the smoke had first hit, Griffin stood next to Melissa, dumbfounded and completely at a loss of what to do. He wasn’t quite sure what had happened the following minute, but when he heard that shower of glass coming down, he was finally certain of one thing. He had to protect her.
With a wild leap, he covered her body with his own and sent them plummeting to the floor. Though, he didn’t know whether it was his own strength or the strength of the explosion that sent them falling to the floor. Either way, Griffin landed on top of Melissa, and took the brunt of a shower of glass that had fallen from the Bank.
He didn’t cry out in pain. He was too shocked to do anything but lie there and shield Melissa’s head with his hands. A sharp pain stung his legs, and he was vaguely aware that he might have several shards of glass sticking out of them.
When the glass finally stopped falling from the sky, he lifted his hands from around her head and inspected her face to make sure she was alright.
She stared up at him in shock, her beautiful eyes mixing with the haze of the purple smoke.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
A slender hand came up to his shoulder.
He tried to bite back the pain as he strained out, “Yeah. I don’t think I’m bleeding to death. You would know if you were bleeding to death, right?”
Her mouth remained slightly open in amazement as she realized what Griffin had done for her. Then the hand that she had placed on his shoulder gently lifted up to hold the side of his face.
She lifted her head up to his, and he stared down at her in quiet shock, wondering what she was doing and not quite believing that she was about to do what it looked like she was doing.
But then her lips met his, and his eyes closed in bliss, releasing his mind of all its ramblings.
Chapter 13
The Thirty
Everyone that had been within a block radius of Division Bank at the time of the Resistance attack had been loaded up into vans and sent to BLES headquarters. This was less to offer them medical attention, though some obviously received it, and more to make sure that the smoke they had breathed in wasn’t harmful in any way.
Jessie had been herded onto one of these vans, along with the man she had saved. When the man took a seat in the front of the van, she stole to the back, hoping he wouldn’t follow her. The bus soon loaded to full capacity and started off. They were now stuck on opposite ends, and she thought she was finally rid of the man and her momentary celebrity status. However, this did not last long as she saw the man lean to the woman sitting next to him. He whispered something in her ear and then pointed to the back of the bus to where Jessie sat. Jessie turned to look out the window, but she could tell by the hurried whispers that followed, that this woman had
been excited.
During the few minute trip over to BLES, the entirety of the van seemed to find out about who Jessie was and what she had survived. The whole vehicle was alight with excited whispers, and someone just entering the van would never have been able to tell that these people had been involved in a horrible attack a few minutes prior. On several occasions, eyes glanced back to where Jessie sat, and at one point a man got up from his seat and grabbed her hand in a firm shake. Needless to say, Jessie was immensely glad when the van stopped and the passengers filed out one by one.
They were led around the main BLES building to a back courtyard that stood in between two outward branching complexes. Upon first glance of this place, she could tell that BLES was in full emergency mode. The large courtyard had been covered with tents, guards were stationed at all the doors to make sure that civilians didn’t enter into the restricted zones, and countless personnel in dark blue uniforms were patrolling from cot to cot, checking the vitals of each person.
Jessie had to give BLES credit. They were like a well-oiled machine. Prepped and ready for each kind of situation. Through the panic of the crowd, their doctors and scientists managed to stay perfectly calm and resort to protocol.
Jessie was led to a cot nearer to the front of the courtyard, which was closer to the back entrance of the main building. A woman in blue told her to lie down before she pulled a circle of curtains around her bed. Jessie made the effort to look as if she was lying down before immediately sitting back up again. Her mouth felt dry, and she looked around for any water they might have left.
Nothing.
She stood up to look on the other side of the bed, when the curtain was pulled back. A young lady with auburn hair and a long green dress stepped inside. Seeing Jessie, she immediately placed her hands over her mouth in shock.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I thought this was someone else’s, um…” She trailed away and then gave Jessie an apologetic smile. “I’ll just leave you be.” She shut the curtains closed, and Jessie could see her outline as she scampered off to check another cot.
Running her tongue on the roof of her mouth, she checked the other side of the bed for water. Still nothing. She looked back over to where the girl had poked through the curtains. If this girl could just walk around without anyone stopping her, then why couldn’t she do the same? She knew she probably shouldn’t. Breaking the rules in an emergency could land a person in big trouble. But she was just so thirsty; she didn’t think she could sit still for another minute.
She poked her head out of the curtains and checked to make sure the coast was clear. When she didn’t see anyone in dark blue coats, she slipped out and began making her way to the main building.
The guard that was stationed at one of the doors had his head turned away as he watched a woman in blue check a nearby patient. Jessie was a just few feet from the entrance. She was deliberating whether she should risk slipping through it or not, when suddenly it opened. She was about to dash behind one of the curtains to hide, when she saw a flash of light reflected through the opening door.
She froze. She knew the only thing that would cause the light from the emergency tent to reflect back at that specific height would be a pair of glasses.
Tom opened the door fully and stared down at the tablet in his hands. When he looked back up, he stopped in his tracks, seeing that familiar military green uniform coated in dust.
“Jessie?”
Though she felt a tightening knot of anxiety at seeing him again, her thirst took over, and she strode over to him saying, “Tom, I’m dying of thirst!”
She hadn’t expected her first words to him to sound so demanding, but she couldn’t help it. Tom, however, nodded his head as if he expected this.
He reached down and took her hand, saying, “Follow me.”
He led her into the building, and she wondered if they hadn’t set up a stand for food and water outside. It seemed highly unlikely, but she wasn’t about to argue with him as he led her further away from the cold, crowded outdoor tent, and into the carefully regulated warmth of BLES.
His hand remained determinedly clasped around hers as he guided her to an empty holding room on the first floor. Once she was inside, she spotted a sink with a pile of paper cups stacked up next to it. She ran over to it, moving so fast she nearly bumped into the metal of the sink. Then her hands scrambled for a paper cup, and she dumped it under the running facet. She could only wait until it was half-way full before downing the cup in one swallow.
She placed the cup back under the facet again. Filling it to the brim this time, she downed it just as fast. She kept this up for near on a minute. Fill, swallow, fill swallow. By the time she had drunk enough water to temper the thirst that was raging inside of her, she was clenching onto the side of the sink and gasping for air.
“I don’t know why I’m so thirsty,” she breathed out. She didn’t turn back to look at Tom. She wanted to regain some sense of composure before she did that. “I think it has something to do with a shot Tag gave me this morning. I’ve been thirsty ever since.”
Finally she turned around, keeping her palms against the metal of the sink for support. Tom had put his tablet down on a table. His hand went to his hair as his eyes searched the ground. She looked down at the floor too, as if hunting for her answers in the lines of the tile.
Tom opened his mouth and muttered something that she couldn’t make out.
“I’m sorry?” she asked.
He lifted his head, and his shoulders tightened, as if to apologize for what he had to say next. “Gap Q,” he said, louder this time.
Jessie stilled. She remembered seeing those letters on top of his tablet when she had returned it to him at the pool. “What does that mean?”
“It stands for genetically altered physical quickness. It was a project that Tag conducted years ago. He was trying to make people quicker.”
“So he just decided to do a test run on me without my consent?!” She put a hand to her head, and she could feel the fast pounding of her heart through her skull.
“Actually, no,” he said, speaking the words slowly and carefully.
She lowered her hand and looked over at him—his expression, his demeanor. He knew something that she didn’t. A secret that would hurt coming out.
“Tom, please tell me what you know,” she urged softly.
He gulped, and the skin on his neck contract as he swallowed.
“I didn’t work on the project,” he began. “I wasn’t even alive at the time. But, from what I was told, it didn’t consist of just giving someone a shot. In fact, none of the tests were a success. GAPQ was labeled a failed project.”
He stopped to give Jessie time to process this.
“So what was that shot?” she asked.
He sighed. “I can only guess, but I think that shot was nothing more than an enhancer of something that was already inside of you. GAPQ already works in you, and the shot was something more like a key to open up the door a little wider. From what I understand about how it works in the body, the incredible speed that it gives comes at a bit of a cost. The body needs to be super hydrated in order to run at an accelerated rate. At least at first. It might level off later.”
She ran a hand through her hair and shook her head. “Back up. What do you mean it’s already in me?”
Tom’s hand reached for his glasses and placed them carefully on the table. When he looked up, his wary expression reminded her so much of the conversation they had together before she left BLES. She wondered if this was what he had tried to tell her that day.
“Why is this so hard,” he said, shaking his head and wincing through the words.
“I think this might go a lot smoother if you just come right out and say it.”
She took a step towards him, but he looked at her suddenly with an expression that told her she’d want to stay put.
“The experiment didn’t work on any of the test subjects,” he said slowly, “because it had t
o be inherited.”
Jessie stopped breathing as the word inherited rocketed through her brain like it was another wave of Resistance attack.
“Did… did he experiment on my mom?” she whispered out.
He shook his head. His eyes would not meet hers. Swiftly his feet pointed towards the door, but before he could reach out for the handle, Jessie was right there behind him, placing a gentle hand on his wrist.
“Please,” she begged.
He turned to face her. A long suffered pain reflected back in her eyes. Tom was so close; she was sure that he could see it, could feel it coming off her in waves. She needed to know who her father was.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like not knowing who you are?” Her voice cracked in emotion. “Not knowing anything about the other half that made you?”
Tom’s eyes fell. He kept them downcast as his head leaned closer to hers. Jessie’s heart sped up. She hardly knew how she could prepare for what happened next.
When his mouth was only an inch from her ear, he said softly, “Do you ever wonder why Lieutenant Carver doesn’t want you back on active duty?”
Jessie’s heart froze, and for a moment she felt as if she had come outside of herself. Her body felt incapable of moving, and even her lungs didn’t seem to want to breathe right.
He pulled away to look back at her. “You aren’t just some soldier to him.”
Her face was blank, but her eyes glistened with moisture as she gave them a blink.
“Jessie?” Tom asked gently.
“I’d like to be alone right now,” she spoke emotionlessly.
He took a step back. “I understand.”
She didn’t even notice when he had left the room. Her whole world seemed to have changed in the span of a single utterance. And not just her present or future world, but her past as well. All that time spent feeling like an orphan, and her father was right there. All those times he pushed her harder than any other soldier, all the calculating and stern looks he gave her—she hadn’t understood any of it, but Carver had known all along that she was his daughter. And she didn’t know if she could forgive him for keeping it a secret.
