by Drew Avera
"Serus, you're awake," she said.
"How long have I been out?" I asked.
"A day and a half," she replied. "They pumped you full of drugs for the surgery."
"Surgery for what?" I asked.
"You had a broken rib that punctured your right lung. It was pretty bad so they had to do emergency surgery on you. You've been sleeping off the drugs during since then."
"What happened with Sorell and the policemen?" I asked.
"They are all dead and disposed of," she said. "Laurel had a hand in ensuring their disposition. I guess it pays to have friends who know their way around a transport." Kara smiled at me and I returned it.
"Where is Laurel now?"
"She's at work. The commander said that she could have some time off once you woke up, but he couldn't justify giving her the time when there was nothing that she could do."
"Sounds like a lovely person to work for," I said.
"Maybe, but he was the one that helped us get rid of the bodies so he must not be that bad," Kara said.
I chuckled a bit though I had to hold my side due to the pain. "Maybe so."
"Serus, there is something that I need to speak with you about."
"What is that?" I asked.
"It's about Laurel," she said.
"What about her?"
"I've had a pretty long conversation with her last night while you were recuperating. It seems that she still holds some very strong feelings for you. My concern is that the lifestyle that we will be leading on Earth will not allow for you to explore the possibilities of a restored relationship with her."
"What are you suggesting? That I not pursue a relationship, or that I kill the mission before it even begins?"
"I don't know," Kara said. "Either way life will be hard. If we allow the Syndicate to control everyone like they have been then there will be no hope for a decent future, if you step away from Laurel then you may lose a chance at being happy."
"We'll why can't I have both in my life?" I asked.
"Do you really expect her to accept the kind of life that you will be providing?"
"What kind of life would that be, Kara? One where I am fighting for freedom?"
"No, one where you will be fighting for anything. Do you not realize the potential risks involved? It would be unfair to uproot her from a secure life without at least speaking to her about the potential harm that may come because of her decision."
Kara was right. If I allowed Laurel to get hurt because she didn't know what she was stepping into then I would never be able to forgive myself. It was something that I was going to have to discuss with her when I saw her next. I knew what I wanted and I knew what I had to do. I couldn't easily let one go for the other.
"What does she know about our mission and what we are involved with?" I asked.
"Nothing. I skirted around her questions, but I'm sure she will ask you many of the same things that she asked me."
"Alright, I'll talk to her tonight and let her make the decision after I tell her everything," I said.
"Are you sure?"
"I have to be. There's too much at stake," I laid my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes, thinking about a future with Laurel was filling my heart with hope, but the possibility of pushing her away because of my mission stripped that hope away and stomped it to death. It would be her decision in the end, I just hoped that I could live with it.
Chapter 34
The hours passed like days as I waited for Laurel to come and visit me. The doctors insisted that I stay under observation for another day or so, but I was ready to make a break for it. The sterile hospital room made me feel uncomfortable to say the least. Kara went out to grab a meal at the galley as I sat and fiddled around with the media device trying to find something to occupy my time.
We were receiving transmissions from Mars and the reports were bleak regarding the escalation of rioting in the streets. It was a variable frenzy of anarchy not just in Archea, but elsewhere as well. Frustrated and bored I flung the remote controller to the foot of the bed and laid my head back to rest. I had counted the ceiling tiles more then once and I was getting ready to count them again when she came walking into the room.
"Hey," she said with a smile across her face. Laurel leaned over the bed and planted a firm kiss on my cheek and I could smell the fragrance that she was wearing. It was a very familiar scent.
"Is that Prim Rose that I smell?" I asked, taking the smell deeper into my lungs.
"Yes, I'm glad that you remembered. It's the only perfume that I've worn since you gave it to me on my birthday. You know, the birthday before you were recruited into the Agency."
That memory hurt quite a bit. There are so many things that I wished that I could go back and change if I was given the chance. "I do remember," I replied.
"Well I'm glad that you're awake now. You missed our meeting the other night that we were supposed to have after dinner."
"Yeah, I was a little caught up in something," I cut her a sly smile. She seemed to be taking things rather well considering the fact that she had been abducted momentarily by a psychopath.
"About that, what was that all about?" She asked somewhat sarcastically.
"I guess I rubbed him the wrong way," I replied.
She laughed and flashed her perfect smile, the one that made my heart race. "Serus, there's something I want to discuss with you and it's very important."
She was serious now. Her flirtatious looks disappeared completely like someone flipped a switch. "What is it?" I asked with a little concern creeping into my thoughts.
"I was talking to Kara last night and she insinuated that the two of you were into something that would not allow me to be a part of your life. I'll admit that the thought had crossed my mind millions of times. I’ve pondered what I would do if there was ever a chance of us being together again."
"And?" I interrupted.
"And there is a reason I never married," she said. "If I was not able to marry the man that I loved, then I was not going to get married at all. I suppose it was some kind of hopeless romantic thought that we could be together in the end, but if what Kara said is true, then maybe it just wasn't meant to be."
My heart sank. What had Kara said to her exactly? All I wanted right now was to hold Laurel forever and I thought that I had that chance. Was I wrong? "Laurel,"
"Hold on," she said. "I don’t care what you and Kara are up to. I can handle it. I promise. I just need to know if she was warning me of the danger of getting involved or," she trailed off for a moment.
"Or what?" I asked. My mind was exploding with what could possibly come out of her mouth.
"Or if she was trying to push me away because you no longer wanted to be with me," she said as a tear poured down her left cheek. She was sitting on the bed next to me and I reached out and plucked the tear from her cheek. My heart was racing. All that I wanted was sitting in front of me. Without even thinking about it I reached my hands around her and brought her down on top of me.
Her weight hurt my rib where it had broken, but I didn't care. I would take the pain if it meant that I would be able to have the life with Laurel that I wanted. We kissed each other and held each other close. This was what I had been missing over the passed five years. This was the only thing that I had truly wanted.
Still I had a nagging thought in my head. Should I cower before the Syndicate and the duty that I had decided to uphold in bringing them down? Or instead do I risk my relationship with Laurel by doing what I had sworn to do? I couldn't allow this to go further without having first told her everything.
"Laurel," I said between long passionate kisses. "There is something that I need to tell you."
"What is it, Serus?"
"It's about what Kara and I are doing." She looked up at me waiting for me to finish. "I think that the reason Kara said what she did is because she doesn't want to see you hurt."
"I'm not worried about that. I just want to be with you," she sa
id.
"That's what makes this so hard for me," I said. "I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you. It's just that Kara and I have something very important to do and it could put you in danger."
"What is so dangerous, Serus? Do you mean like what happened last night?"
"Yes and no. Last night was an accidental incident. What we are doing is going against the Syndicate. Kara and I made a vow to take them down by killing all of the board members. Things are going to get worse before they get better, and I just don't want to put you in the crossfire."
"Isn't that something that I should be able to decide for myself?" She asked. I could see the outrage in her eyes.
"Laurel, I'm only trying to protect you."
"I don't need your protection, Serus. I need you!"
"It's no that simple. If anything were to happen to you then I don't know what I would do with myself. I can't lose you."
"If you take the decision for me to be with you out of my hands then you've already lost me," she said. Tears were beginning to well up in her eyes.
"What would you have me do? This life is dangerous. These people are dangerous, heartless fiends who will use anything that they can to bring down their enemies.
"Then why don't you teach me how to defend myself?"
"We're talking about people more dangerous than a common mugger. These people kill without blinking an eye!"
"Then let me help you. If Kara can help then so can I."
"With what?" I asked. The longer this dragged on the worse I felt.
"With this," she said as she pulled a gauntlet out of her purse. I looked down at her hand and could see my reflection in the silver finish of the weapon that she was holding.
"Laurel, where did you get this?"
"Off of one of the bodies that we disposed of last night. I saw Kara wearing one and figured that there must be a reason. Women aren't allowed in the Agency, so she had to have taken it from a dead policeman."
"That is somewhat true."
"Look, Serus. I'm just trying to meet you halfway here. Last night as everything was happening around me the only thing that I knew was the truth was that I loved you and that I would never give up on you. Please don't give up on me."
"Alright," I said as I took the gauntlet from her hand and opened it. I put it around her wrist and held it there for a moment. "This is going to hurt a little." I closed the gauntlet around her wrist and heard the lock engage with a click. Laurel's eyes welled up for a moment, but she wiped them dry. Once the pain subsided she fell into my arms. She was one of us now. A warrior against oppression. A victor over the bold men who would condemn a planet. Laurel, Kara and I would stand together to avenge a dead planet.
I held Laurel in a warm embrace and loved the way that it felt. I closed my eyes and breathed in the sweet smell of her Prim Rose perfume. I remembered the occasion when I had bought it. I had bought her flowers, but felt bad for going the cheap route. I had come across a vendor on the street selling perfume and picked the one fragrance that didn't make me gag.
I had told her this five years ago and in our absence from each other she had continued to wear the fragrance that I had bought her. It's funny how love worked. I smiled at the memory and opened my eyes to see Kara standing in the doorway looking at us. She smiled back at me and I knew that everything would be alright. I was surrounded by those I loved, and together we would bring down the Syndicate.
Epilogue
I have stood before these people for thirty years as Pontiff. The thoughtless puppet of the Syndicate. It's power had reached into the soul of every man, woman, and child for so long that the people feared life without the comfort of its dominion over them. I watched from my office window in the palace as the mobs ripped themselves apart. The fear of death caused outrage through Archea, and the entire world for that matter. Holographic images painted the walls of my office with footage of destruction throughout Plenum and Ferette. Clenist, which was only one hundred miles from here was completely torn apart by the mobs. Recent reports showed their declaration of coming to do the same here at the capital.
My nerves were shot and I have gone days without sleep. When I gave up the lottery ticket to Serus I had figured that Mars would dissolve into oblivion without much fanfare. I guess that I was delusional because the mobs had already started protesting. The escalation of the protest began last month which marked one year since the transports left us behind. I swore under my breath. I could be on Earth right now fighting the Syndicate, instead I'm here and waiting for the final curtain to fall.
There was a sound of shattering glass as someone hurled a stone through the office window behind me. There was no need to have it replaced, based on the power level of the northern nuclear generator, our magnetic field would only survive another thirty some odd days. I had employed some crews to reroute power from many of the factories near it in order to keep the field alive for as long as possible. They were still working against the clock as final preparations were in place to shift the power over. Best case scenario, the alternate power source would feed the magnetic field for another nine to fourteen months. That was a pretty wide margin for error. I supposed that was their nice way of saying that they didn't know how long it would hold up.
I walked away from the window leaving the broken glass scattered on the floor. I took a seat at my desk and began typing away at the holographic keyboard. I was working on my final address to the people of Mars. How do you start a eulogy for people who are still alive? How do you pluck hope from their fingertips?
The display in front of me filled with words that didn't seem to make sense, even to me. I was no longer the man with a secret. I was the man who was trained to hold everything together as it splintered apart in my hands like a dried out sand castle being whipped by the wind.
I felt the tingling sensation in my left arm just before it went numb completely. This was the fourth time it has happened in the last month. I was just concerned enough to keep it a secret because we were all going to die anyway. I rubbed my hands together and tried to shake the blood flow back into my hand. Frustrated I swiped my hand across the display and clear all of the words that I had typed. It didn't matter what I would say. No one would care. My words would not benefit anyone beyond a few minutes of relative comfort anyway. Why should I even bother?
"Pontiff White?"
It was my secretary, Nila. She had continued working for me over the last year. I guess she figured the relative safety of the palace was better than roaming the streets as they were destroyed by the mobs. "Yes, Nila?"
"The media is all set up for your speech in the square. They asked me to tell you that security would not be an issue."
"Of course," I said. "I'll be down shortly. I'm just trying to figure out what it is that I'm going to say."
"Maybe you can tell them to hold on to hope," she said.
"Don't be naive," I said. "What hope do we have beyond dying painlessly in our sleep? No one will be returning for us. My only hope is that Serus survived the transport to Earth and has succeeded in killing the names on the list. I'll die happy knowing that my wife and unborn child have been avenged." The numbness in my left arm became a sharp pain as my blood pressure increased at the thought of our peril.
"Yes, sir," she said in her meek voice. I had offended her by stripping her hope out of her grasp.
"I'm sorry, Nila. I'm just stressed out from a lack of sleep." I was holding on to my arm and massaging it, trying to dull the pain.
"Very we'll, sir. I'll go and let the media people know that you'll be down soon." Nila walked away, but not before I saw a tear fall from her eye. She was trying to be strong, but this new world that we were living in was filled with discomfort. We now lived by a different set of rules.
I paced around my office willing the words to come to me. I was at a lose. I didn't want to stand in front of the world and have nothing to say, or even worse, to say the wrong thing. I cringed at the pain in my arm and gri
tted my teeth. I walked over to the shelf and opened the box that contained the picture of my wife and the article regarding her death. I pulled down a bottle of whiskey and drank from it as I starred into the thirty year old picture. It had been taken the day she discovered that she was pregnant. I still remembered every line of her face in my mind, even after all of these years.
I downed another pull of whiskey as I fought back tears. I had kept this bottle as a memento after I had stopped drinking. It was a poor mans drink, but I didn't care. There was something about the burn as it went down my throat that I had craved. I found it comforting for the first year after they had killed my wife. Something had happened to cause me to stop escaping into the bottom of the bottle. Maybe I had become like them, the people that I hated. I didn't know the reason why now any more than I did then, but I had kept the bottle and thirty years later I was finishing every last drop.
I sat the empty bottle down on my desk and placed the picture into the inside pocket of my jacket, right over my heart where it had belonged all of these years instead of being put away in a box on the shelf. I had been a coward through my life. I should have welcomed the death that would have been awarded to me by denying the Syndicate. Instead I had just crawled into their arms like a baby, becoming another pawn in their game.
I walked out of the office and felt the warm glow of the lights illuminating under my feet. The elevator doors opened to allow be in and dropped me to the lobby below. I looked at the sunlight peering through the stained glass windows in hues of blue and red and I felt like I was witnessing the beauty of it for the first time. I felt a soreness in my throat like I was going to cry, but it never came. The rush of water from the waterfall across the lobby caused me to stop and take in its beauty as well. Every lavish thing in the palace I had taken for granted, just like I had taken my family for granted.
I stepped out of the exit and into the square. The crowd erupted in cheers and cries for mercy. What mercy could I show them? We were all going to die. I walked up to the crowd of media people who were finishing the preparations for my grand speech, the one that I still had not written.
