Rebel

by L. C. Mawson

  “Okay, what’s the problem now?” he asked her, trying to keep irritation from his voice. He suspected he didn’t do a brilliant job, given how tired he was. “We’ve managed to find a recruit who was more than happy to join us. She’s enthusiastic, even. Why are you constantly watching her like a hawk?”

  Alex frowned as she folded her arms. “Don’t you think it’s a bit too convenient? That she was so happy to join us? I mean, why would she be so glad to turn her back on the Enhanced?”

  “She told us,” Gus said simply. “She agreed to join us because she wants more freedom, and I can’t exactly blame her. None of us liked growing up being told when to do everything down to the last millisecond. We didn’t really know anything else, but now that some of us have been out in the field? Now that we’ve seen the outside world, of course, we would start to want that kind of freedom. And we approached her, remember? It’s not as if she came to us.”

  “But what if they knew that you would go to her? Why did you decide that she was the person you should recruit? How did she make it onto your list?”

  Gus sighed. “I went to her because I remembered our classes together. I know you were never one to consider the other Enhanced as anything other than competition for your top spot, but I actually spent a little bit of time getting to know them. Jan was always restless, and I figured that she would be exactly the kind of person who might want the freedom we could give her. I didn’t expect her to be so eager to jump at the opportunity, I expected to have to spend some time convincing her of the freedom we could provide, but this wasn’t so out of line with what I expected to happen.”

  “But to throw away everything over something so trivial...” Alex said as she glared at the floor, her folded arms becoming tighter over her chest.

  “Maybe it’s not so trivial,” Gus told her, any irritation dropping away at the reminder that Alex was just scared. “Maybe she doesn’t want to say that she doesn’t want to be used as a weapon.”

  “But why? We were raised to know nothing else, why would she suddenly see it as something negative?”

  Gus sighed. “Because maybe she’s just a better person than we were.”

  Alex gave him a confused glare.

  Gus just shrugged, his previous tired irritation back in full force. “I mean, neither of us was particularly opposed to the idea of being used to assassinate magical beings, or even as soldiers if it ever broke out into full-blown war again, before you met Freya. Until you had a reason not to want the war to start up again, you were more than happy to do your part. You never questioned it.”

  “I never believed it would come to war again,” Alex reasoned.

  “And if it had? If you had never met Freya and you were sent out onto the battlefield, would you have seen the magical beings as anything but enemies?”

  Alex just glared at the ground, unable to refute him.

  “I know that before your monitor betrayed you, I would have followed any orders they gave me. It was only when I saw them hurt someone I cared about that I realised the truth. Can you honestly say it was different for you?”

  Alex shook her head. “But that’s my point,” she eventually said. “Neither of us was willing to turn our backs on the Enhanced until they were hurting those closest to us. How can I expect anything else of Jan?”

  “You can choose to believe that there might be someone out there better than you,” Gus said softly. “That’s what I’m doing.”

  If I don’t, then I have to admit that they’ll all see me as a monster.

  Gus couldn’t deny that the ‘incident’, as he was now referring to it, was responsible for him so desperately clinging to the belief that not all of the Enhanced hated magic.

  Even Alex, who had fallen for an Angel, he couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth...

  “And if you’re wrong?” Alex asked, oblivious to his thoughts. “If this is a trap that you have walked right into through your naivete...?”

  Gus sighed, knowing that she was right, in a way. He had to believe that the others were better, but what if they weren’t?

  They had beaten up Alex, but they had tried to dissect Freya to learn more about magic.

  What the hell would they do to him if they caught him?

  His chest tightened as he said, “Then do whatever it is you have to do to protect us.”

  “I thought you disagreed with my methods.”

  “I do. I just don’t believe that you’ll have to use them. Give Jan one chance, that’s all I’m asking, and then, if I’m wrong, you can pull the trigger.”

  Alex nodded. “One chance,” she agreed.

  Jan greeted them with the chirpy wave as they returned to her.

  “So, do I get to know where we’re going?” Jan asked them.

  “Yeah-”

  “No,” Alex said firmly, cutting Gus off. “You will know where we’re headed when we arrive. Not a moment beforehand. It’s safer that way.”

  Jan looked away. “You don’t trust me.” It was a statement, not an accusation or question. She seemed more resigned to it than anything else.

  Alex just shrugged. “Like I said, it’s safer.”

  Jan smile quickly returned as she shrugged. “Well, it’s not as if I would be doing anything different in your shoes,” she said, her chipper attitude returning in full force. “Like you said, it’s safer that way. I don’t really have any need to know where we’re going, I was just curious.”

  Gus felt Alex stiffen beside him at Jan’s chirpy demeanour and almost told her to tone it down, though he held his tongue.

  Let Alex be paranoid for now, he reasoned. Jan would prove her right or wrong sooner or later.

  And as much as he hated to admit it, if she proved her right, he might be glad of Alex’s readiness with a gun...

  Though, as much as Jan had been overly chipper, as soon as they arrived, her smile faded.

  “We’re in Torino,” she noted. “Sam’s stationed here.”

  Gus nodded. “He was the next one on my list. You two are close, right?”

  Jan looked away. “We used to be,” she said cryptically, causing Alex to frown, though if she had any questions about the answer, she kept them to herself.

  It didn’t take them long to find Sam. Enhanced were nothing if not predictable, Gus figured.

  They waited at the outdoor seating of the cafe across from the hotel he was staying at, waiting for him to leave.

  As soon as he headed out of the hotel doors, he caught sight of them, stopping still as his gaze flickered between them all.

  He stormed over to them, a furious glare directed at Jan. “So, you’ve decided to turn on the Enhanced altogether? To fall in with these traitors?”

  Gus just raised an eyebrow. Last he had heard, Jan and Sam had been close. What had happened?

  Or had nothing happened, and he simply felt betrayed by Jan joining them?

  Neither was good for either them or Alex’s sense of security.

  Jan just gave Sam a confused frown. “Of course, I did. After what they did, are you honestly surprised?”

  Sam shook his head. “They did exactly what they should have done. We were the ones who broke protocol, and they had every right to correct our mistake.”

  Jan looked as if he had slapped her. “Do you really believe that?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

  “Of course, I do,” he said, seemingly untouched by her distress. “I can’t believe you would think otherwise. So, what? Do you think we should have been above the rules? That they should have given up precious resources to deal with the consequences of our mistake?”

  He looked over to Alex and Gus. “You two betrayed the rest of us. You turn your backs on your fellow Enhanced, and for what? Your own selfish mistakes?”

  Alex glared at him. “I made no mistakes,” she told him firmly.

  “So, what would you call fucking a magical being if not a mistake?”

  “My choice,” Alex told him. “I chose to be wi
th Freya because I cared about her, and she is not the enemy that the other Enhanced would have you believe. None of the magical beings are. And even then, I did my job. I betrayed no one, and yet my monitor used me to kidnap Freya and then tortured me to hurt her. If anyone has been betrayed here, it was me.”

  “And me,” Jan said, though her voice was little more than a whisper. “What they did to me,” she continued, her voice becoming more confident with every word, “that was a betrayal. And I will not suffer it again.” She looked up at Sam, her eyes glassy with tears. “I can’t believe that you think of it any other way.”

  Sam just shrugged. “We were the ones who broke the rules,” he said simply. “We shouldn’t be above the consequences of our actions.”

  “It wasn’t a consequence, it was a decision they forced upon me. And one that I will not stand for again.”

  “If you don’t make the same mistake again, then it won’t be a problem.”

  Jan shook her head. “You don’t get it. Of course, you don’t. It’s not just that they made this decision for me this time, it’s that they will make it for me again and again. But you will never have to live through that lack of choice, will you?”

  Sam had the decency to look slightly chastised at that, though Gus remained utterly confused as to what they were talking about.

  “It doesn’t matter what I say, does it?” Jan asked. “You won’t join us, will you?”

  Sam shook his head. “I won’t betray the others. Not even for you.”

  Jan looked away. “I understand,” she said, her voice taking on a slight chill. “But if you ever cared about me, please don’t tell them we were here. Don’t just hand us over to be killed. Or worse...”

  Sam sighed. “Fine,” he said after a few moments. “I won’t tell them that you were here. But if they ask, I won’t lie either.”

  Jan just nodded, seemingly happy with that.

  “Do you trust him to keep his word?” Alex asked as soon as Sam had walked away. “To not turn us over, I mean.”

  Jan nodded again. “If he was going to turn us over, he would have just said so. Sam was never any good at lying.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Alex

  As soon as they were headed to the next destination, Jan found a quiet corner to sit alone.

  “I’m gonna go speak to her,” Alex said, only for Gus to grab her by the arm to stop her.

  “She hasn’t done anything wrong yet,” he defended.

  Alex frowned in confusion as she yanked her arm away, before realising that Gus thought she was going to cut Jan loose.

  Alex shook her head. “No, I know,” she said. “It’s pretty obvious from what she was saying to Sam that she had more of a reason to leave than she initially gave us. They hurt her somehow, and that’s as good a reason to trust her as any. I’m just going to make sure that she’s okay.”

  Gus blinked, seemingly caught off guard by her words, though after a few moments he nodded. “Okay, then I will leave you to talk to her alone. I doubt she will want to be crowded.”

  Alex nodded before heading off to find Jan.

  As soon as she approached, Jan sighed, though she didn’t look up.

  “I suppose you’re mad at me for not telling you why I wanted to leave,” Jan said, her voice hoarse and tired.

  Alex shrugged as she went to sit next to her. “What you want to tell us is your own business. As long as you’re not working with the other Enhanced, I have no problem with you. And it seems pretty clear from what you were saying that you most definitely aren’t with them.”

  Jan just nodded, still looking away. “When I realised that we were going to speak with Sam... I had hoped that he would join us. That what they did would have hurt him as much as it hurt me. But I suppose I was wrong...”

  “You don’t have to tell me what they did if you don’t want to,” Alex said. “I have had to relive what was done to me over and over again now to try and convince people to join us. At first, with Gus, it was easy. I needed to talk about it with someone who would understand. Not that Freya didn’t, but it was different. I needed someone who understood just what that kind of betrayal meant to me. But after that... With every other potential recruit besides you... None of them believe me. Or they do, but then they try to justify what was done. As if there could ever be any kind of justification for it...

  “I guess what I’m saying is that you don’t have to tell me what they did, but if you want to, I can at least promise that I understand what it’s like to have people tell you what they did wasn’t that big of a deal. I won’t do that to you.”

  Jan’s eyes watered as she nodded. “Thank you,” she managed, her voice wavering.

  “Sam and I used to be in a lot of the same classes,” Jan eventually said. “And, you know, we found each other attractive, so it seemed to make sense that we would hook up from time to time.”

  Alex nodded. Such arrangements weren’t uncommon among the Enhanced. They were properly educated in matters of sexual health and knew that managing such urges helped to keep them in top shape, as much as their diet or exercise routine did. Finding partners for such endeavours was simple enough and encouraged, within reason.

  “The thing is, we were both pretty terrible about following the rules,” Jan admitted. “Both in keeping our hearts out of it, and other things.”

  Alex frowned. “Other things?”

  “I went out on my first mission, and when I came back, I forgot that I was due my contraceptive shot. I mean, I should have been given it upon my return, but I suppose there must have been a slip-up somewhere.”

  Alex blinked, taking a moment to comprehend. “You were pregnant?”

  Jan nodded.

  “So, what was the problem?” Alex asked. All the Enhanced were expected to have children at some point. Before the timeline change, there had been volunteers from the outside, both to act as surrogate and genetic donors.

  Since the change, there were no more donors. Enhanced with complementary genes were paired up by the scientists, and then the women were inseminated with the genetic material of their partner. They would take a break from their work while they carried the child to term, and then the child would be taken from them and placed in the nursery, with the scientists being careful to make sure that the mother never saw the child so that she would never be able to identify them.

  There were rumours that other bases had access to artificial gestation chambers before the change, but it certainly hadn’t been something that their base had access to.

  “I mean,” Alex continued, “I know that you and Sam weren’t specifically picked to be together, but you are both Enhanced so it couldn’t be that big of a deal.”

  Jan gave a humourless snort. “I wish they had seen it that way.” She shook her head. “No, they declared that Sam and I were such an unsuitable match that any child of ours would not be worth the resources of raising.” Her eyes watered again, and this time tears fell in salty streams down her cheeks. “I... Alex, I had been outside. I had seen the families people have out here. I had watched parents dote over their children and I... I wanted that. I wanted that with Sam.”

  She sighed, shaking her head as she wiped her tears away. “That sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? I was born and bred to be a soldier, and all I wanted was to be able to have my child and raise them with their father.” She groaned, rubbing harder at the still-falling tears so that red marks appeared on her cheeks. “They told me that it was just hormones. That my body was doing this to me, and that it would all be over once they dealt with it.”

  “And was it?” Alex asked, sure that she already knew the answer.

  Jan shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. They terminated the pregnancy, and those thoughts didn’t go away. Now they’re just tainted with rage and regret... I just keep thinking, if I had been strong enough to tell them no, to leave, knowing that you were out here. I even suspected Gus knew where you were. If I had just asked him to help me...”

  S
he lapsed into silence for a few moments, the tears finally halting after she had rubbed her face raw.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she eventually said. “I mean, you saw what Sam was like. I had assumed that he felt as betrayed by all this as I did... But I guess none of it really mattered to him that much. I was just a pleasant distraction that he could set aside as soon as those in charge figured out that we were breaking the rules.

  “If I had tried to escape, I would have told him everything, assuming that he would come with me. If I had done that, and Gus had been helping me... Well, probably neither of us would have gotten out. Still, though... I tried to stay. I mean, like Sam said, it was one mistake. If I wasn’t going to end up in that position again, they would never have a reason to do that to me again.

  “But that’s a load of shit, isn’t it? Sure, they wouldn’t have forced me to terminate another pregnancy, but they would have forced one on me. One where my child would have been ripped from me as soon as it was born so that I would never know their face. It doesn’t matter which direction they do it in, whether they are telling me that I can’t have a child, or that I have to have one, they are still taking that choice from me. I would rather die than go back there and have a choice ripped from me again.”

  Alex found the certainty in Jan’s voice haunting, as she was left with no doubt that she meant every word.

  “If you ever doubt my loyalty to you and Gus, remember that,” Jan told her simply, finally looking at her. “I will not let them take me back, and the three of us are safer together than apart.”

  Alex nodded. “I promise, I will do absolutely everything in my power to make sure that they never get their hands on any of us again.”

  Jan gave her a weak smile. “I appreciate that, Alex. I really do.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Gus

  The three of them made their way to Nigeria, to pick up the next recruit.

  Alex was once again cautious when it came to Mia, though this seemed to be more through lack of familiarity with her than anything else.