The Fractured Prism (The Prism Files Book 1)

by Brendan Noble

  “…on two. You said on three, damn it!”

  Delaware looked at me, gave a wry smile, and rolled her eyes before directing her attention back to Razor. “You would have moved if I did it on three and then your shoulder would be even worse.” Razor grunted something under his breath that I’m sure involved a few four-letter words.

  I stepped in. “Now, if you guys are done with arithmetic, we need to see the boss.” I looked to the side and took a breath. “I’m not looking forward to this.”

  Chapter 3

  We reached the bottom floor of the basement, also known as the war room. Dozens of Reds sat with headphones on along the edges of the room, corresponding via radio with agents and patrols across the region and tracking their positions on the computers. In the center of the room was an old pool table that we had turned into a strategic map; markers of all colors and shapes were spread across it, indicating important buildings, agent locations, and more. A strong aroma of cigarette smoke wafted through the room, mixing with the ashy smell from decades of disrepair. He is definitely here.

  El Capitan was in his usual position: hunched over the map when he wasn’t barking orders at someone. With his red hair and beard the guy looked like he belonged in the old Irish Republican Army, not the Northern Mississippi Militia. Even his tag was red. He liked to say he was born with brown hair, but he killed so many tyrants that it stained him red. You didn’t mess with El Capitan.

  I smiled as we approached, hoping to lighten the mood a little and avoid death by an angry El Capitan. Stopping at the table, I slapped my hands against its sides and exclaimed, “Oh captain, my captain!”

  He didn’t look up from the map and spoke with a Milwaukee accent, “Cut the crap Coyote. What part of ‘without being detected’ didn’t you understand.”

  I paused for a second and crossed my arms defensively. “Something went wrong, they knew where we’d be.”

  El Capitan looked up at me, still leaning on the table, his sunken eyes like daggers. “I’ve heard reports of both Southpaw and Bobcat being captured as well as one of our safehouses burning down. What happened?”

  Sighing, I paced along the table, looking at nothing in particular on the map. “Well. The initial meet-up went well. The five of us got the camera locations from them and were about to leave when the UPF goons swarmed the place. One of those bastards must have leaked the location for the transfer to make some side money. We barely made it out but couldn’t shake them. The safehouse seemed like a reasonable spot to lay low until they gave up looking, but apparently, they knew about that too. Bobcat and Southpaw were downstairs when they broke in…” I lowered my head. “I doubt they even had a chance to hide.”

  His cold glare continued as he paced around the table, ending up right in front of me. “Please tell me you have the flash drive.”

  I reached into my bag and pulled out the small black drive. So much lost for such a little thing.

  He snatched it eagerly from my hands, hesitated, and then spoke again, softer, “I’m glad you’re okay. I can’t afford to lose another lieutenant and a friend. Though I’m sure Zeus will not be happy you lost two of his people.”

  Biting my cheek and scanning the room, I struggled to find a response. “No, he won’t. How did they know we were coming and where the safehouse was?”

  His brow furrowed as he scanned the room. “I’ll look into it. There’s a chance we have a mole. Keep an eye out among your people too. There are only so many people that knew about this mission.” He put his hands on his hips and sighed. “Even with the losses and trouble, this,” he held up the flash drive, “this will change everything. With the details of their cameras, we can map out their coverage zones and what holes we can exploit. Plus, now that we have their system data, we can finally start the last phase of preparations for Operation Blackout.” He looked over to Razor. “Not bad for your, what, third mission?”

  Razor gave a tentative half-smile back. “Yeah, but…”

  “No ‘but.’ You did good. What happened to Southpaw and Bobcat is awful, and we’ll get to the bottom if it, but their sacrifice will save so many more lives. We might finally be able to make a difference.”

  I thought for a second before responding, “Razor, you did everything you could. Don’t worry about what you can’t control.” I turned back to El Capitan. “Let me know if you need anything. I’m going to take these two home before running an errand.”

  He turned his attention back to the map. “Tell Aaron I say hi.”

  Chapter 4

  Razor was one of the few Militia members who lived with his family, or even had a family, though he was technically adopted into his just a few years ago. Most of us with Red parents had lost them to slavery or a tragic death a long time ago and were left to fend for ourselves. Few Reds were provided housing by the government or their owners, and we weren’t paid beyond our measly rations, so we scavenged what we could just to survive. That’s what we got for failing the Prism Test.

  Razor was one of our youngest recruits, just a few months away from his sixteenth birthday, when he would pass through the Prism, lose his black tag, and earn his colored one. I gave him his name because he was just starting to grow a few patches of facial hair when he was assigned to me four months before. The kid could fight with a knife like nobody else and was a sneaky one, though he was sloppy with a gun. I liked him. He was my favorite agent besides Delaware, but because of his anxiety and clumsiness in any situation that didn’t involve hiding from people, I could tell he would need special help too.

  His adopted family was rough. His dad was addicted to anything that could make him forget the pain of the life he was forced into. He never did what his previous owner demanded and was sold to the state for dirt cheap. When you’re owned by the state and don’t work, you’re punished; it was only a matter of time until they found his dad and dragged him off somewhere to be killed for his “insults to the people.” Razor’s mom raised kids while stuck working at least twelve hours a day in the chemical factory. She had seen one of her kids taken to work in Minneapolis while the other two were able to work in St. Paul and live in the Enclave. Razor, meanwhile, did the classic work of being a janitor at a coffee shop for the Purple, Blue, Green, and Yellow Tags. He didn’t enjoy it, but it was lighter work than most.

  We reached his home on the west side of the Enclave; it was nothing more than some ragged green tarps thrown over what used to be a house. I stopped him before he went in. “Hey, Delaware, give me a second to talk with Razor.”

  She nodded understandingly and kept going.

  I held onto his arm, speaking softly. “You alright? I know today was rough, but you did everything we needed from you, what I needed from you. Bobcat and Southpaw, that’s not your fault.”

  He solemnly nodded, keeping his head down.

  “This life… this life is not easy man. It’s not easy being from a Red family, but actually standing up for something and risking everything, that’s brave. I’m proud of you, Razor. You came to me younger than most other recruits and trained as an agent faster than I’ve seen in a long time. Most Reds don’t get to really see what we do in the field. It’s easier to give the occasional tip here and there. What’s hard is what you’re doing, fighting for something even before you face the Prism. You understand that?”

  He nodded again, still avoiding eye contact.

  I patted his upper arm. “We’ll have a full debrief later. Go be with your family.”

  He walked solemnly towards the house.

  “And Razorblade. I don’t give everyone such a badass name. You earned it today.” He turned back to look at me, and I handed him a few dollars, most of what I had. I was not well off, no Red was, even as a lieutenant, but he needed the money way more than I did.

  He looked up at me with his youthful eyes in a battle to avoid showing emotion. We met in a brotherly hug; he didn’t need to say anything.

  He let go and walked in before turning around at the last second
and quietly said, “Thank you, Coyote.”

  I smiled and nodded, then ran back towards Delaware. “Sorry about the wait Del.”

  She had been gazing at the stars, her brown monolid eyes full of wonder. “Someone’s gotta help the new kid.”

  I laughed. Delaware was eighteen, three years younger than me and sassy as hell. When she was assigned to me four years ago, after I had pulled her out of a tough situation and into the Militia, I knew we would be having some good battles of wit. The girl knew how to talk shit and could take it right back, a rare quality for a 5-foot-4 scrawny wannabe gymnast. She was the closest thing I had to a best friend. Both of our families had been killed when we were little, probably why we had both developed such independent streaks. Neither of us took orders well, but luckily, she had learned to trust me at my word, though I could count on her to tell me when my ideas were useless. I also knew that on a night like that, if anyone could help me feel better about what happened, it was her. “So, on our list of adventures, where did today rank on us almost getting killed?”

  She pondered as we walked. “It’s pretty near the top. I mean, there was the time with the grenade on one of my first missions.”

  “Oh yeah… Dang, that feels like centuries ago at this point. Lucky, I grabbed you before that thing went off.” I gave a slight smile and laughed. “I had a burn on my butt so bad that I couldn’t sit down for a week after that.”

  She laughed. “You saved me there, didn’t you?”

  “I had to. No one else on my team is going to tell me when I’m full of crap.” I sighed, still shaken from the night. “Shit. This sucks.”

  She noticed my shift in tone. “We’ll figure out who told them.”

  I shook my head. “Doesn’t fix it.”

  “Can anything?”

  “I guess not.” Losing people sucks. “I don’t know what I would have done if I lost two of you guys. Zeus has been around so long and has seen too many people come and go, but this stuff is still new to me.”

  “Yeah. Without me and Razor you’d be lost. Penn, especially, is a pushover, and Snapback and Blitzkrieg would just encourage you to run in guns blazing and get more people killed.” She shrugged, either too jaded to care about tossing around the possibility of death or too scared to address it without a laugh. I secretly worried that I was no different.

  “It just wouldn’t be the same. Blitz doesn’t tend to have his head on straight, and Snapback would be lost without his crush on you.”

  She blushed and sighed, embarrassed. “Oh, Snap…”

  “I’m your lieutenant, not your relationship counselor. I will say no more.” I raised up my hands in surrender.

  She was intent. “We’re not a couple.”

  “In his head you are! Ha!” Well, I guess that lightened the mood at least. She punched me in the shoulder. I deserved that. “This is workplace violence and it will not be tolerated.”

  We both laughed and took a breath before walking in silence for a bit. We needed a good laugh after such a crappy night, but it felt wrong. Any one of us could have been on the first floor when they came in, and we were lucky to be alive. That was too often the feeling as a Red. I felt numb to it and just added it to the jar of things that had gone wrong.

  We had reached her house: a one room red brick building that she shared with Pennsylvania, who I lazily named because she was taller than Delaware. I gave her a hug. “Sleep well.”

  “Night, Ivan. Don’t blame yourself for this. Don’t.” She gave me a stern look and then lightened up. “Tell Aaron to run a story on my suggestion for once.”

  “Okay. Debriefing tomorrow night.”

  Now for my errand…

  Chapter 5

  Everyone knew that my “errand” was visiting Aaron at the St. Paul Free Press, our underground paper and the only one not run by the government. Aaron was a stressed-out upper thirty-something Yellow Tag who needed me to annoy him every now and then. On a night like tonight, I needed the fresh air to clear my head and a good chat with an old friend. Aaron was also one of the few people who I could trust with both my real name, Ivan, and my Militia codename, Coyote.

  I knocked on the door to his house in downtown St. Paul with the code: three quick knocks, hesitate, one, and then two more. He was careful for good reasons. Being an underground printer would get him killed if he was discovered. The Ministry of Information didn’t like competition.

  He popped open the door and I was met by his gravelly voice. “Oh, hey Ivan. Come on in.”

  I followed him through the house and down into the print shop he had in the basement, hidden beneath a trap door in the back corner of the living room. The overwhelming smell of paper and ink smacked into me the second I was beyond the trap door. The machines were hard at work and making a lot of noise while they were at it. Aaron looked at them with a sense of pride.

  I hopped up onto one of the printers, just to annoy him. “Man, it has been a crappy day.”

  He glared at me for violating his precious printer but didn’t interject. “What happened?”

  “We had a trade set up with some underpaid UPF bureaucrats who got us the information on all of their camera systems, but someone sold us out.”

  “So, you didn’t get it?”

  “We got it, but the police found our safe house. They caught two of our agents, Bobcat and Southpaw, and burned the place down.”

  He ran his brown hands through his basically non-existent hair. “Dang.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But at least you got the information, right?”

  “Yes, but I lost two of our people.” Emotion surged into me and I slammed my hand against the printer in frustration. “Damn it!”

  Aaron rubbed his hand across the printer like it was a wounded child. “Hey, Ivan. I understand you’re mad, but let’s not destroy more stuff in the process.”

  I sighed and jumped off the printer. “Sorry, I just hate this crap. Every time I think we’re going to make progress, something bad happens along the way.”

  “That’s not your fault.”

  What if it is? I walked over to one of the finished papers and grabbed one, eager to change the subject. “So… am I on the front page?”

  He looked skeptical of my change of topics but complied. “No, sorry. The cover story is about the Anglo-Nordic Coalition’s coup in Denmark. The Fifth International is pissed.”

  “Huh. So, the last two capitalist countries in Europe finally decided to push back against the socialists. Took them long enough.”

  He shrugged. “We’ll see if it works. Rumor has it, they’re looking at the Netherlands next. Who knows what the USSR will do in response?”

  I spun my finger in a sarcastic circle. “Yay, World War III.”

  “Oh, I hope not.” He sighed. “Anyway, you are mentioned in an op-ed’s critique of the Front making Coyote one of their main targets.”

  “Why are they criticizing the government for moving me up the rankings? I’m finally getting the credit I deserve for my mischief.” I grinned maniacally.

  He shrugged. “She said that they should focus on investigating the fraud in the state-owned enterprises instead of a freedom fighter.”

  “Well, she is right. Sounds like I have a fan.” I started flipping through the paper. “What’s her name?”

  “You know full well that everyone’s articles are anonymous or by codenames, Coyote.”

  “I’m going to ignore you using my awesome codename in a sarcastic manner. You’re not going to tell me who my ardent admirer is? C’mon, I just told you I’m having a rough day. You can’t help a guy out?”

  “No, Ivan, I’ve told you this a thousand times. Anyway, you’ve got more important things to worry about than the girls fawning over you.” He mimicked a fainting motion. “‘Oh, Coyote!’”

  I laughed. “So that’s why everybody was falling down on the streets yesterday. I thought it hitting eighty in St. Paul had everyone getting a heat stroke.”

  He sh
ook his head. “Did you have a reason for visiting?”

  I smirked. “Do I ever?”

  He scoffed. “No.”

  I sighed and set down the paper. “Just needed to vent and update you on our progress, so nothing else really… Actually! Wait. Delaware says you should publish her article idea about how the community has managed to bond together over the solar energy innovations that keep…”

  He pretended to fall asleep.

  “It’s actually pretty cool. I mean, we have lights now in the Enclave. We didn’t a few years ago.”

  He blinked at me.

  I raised my arms in a sarcastic surrender. “Fine, I promised her I’d tell you. Peace, Aaron. And make sure you publish a good mugshot of me when the police finally get me. They’re going to give you a bad picture. Just make sure my good side shows up.”

  “Oh, I would… if you had one. Night, Ivan.”

  I laughed and stepped out into the cool late Summer evening. I felt better. Losing Southpaw and Bobcat still hung over me, but I couldn’t let it slow me down too much. That was the eternal struggle: trying to move forward without losing our humanity.

  Fall was coming. Good. I always enjoyed the cooler weather of old Minnesota. The bell from the Cathedral of St. Paul rang across the town. Ten o’clock and the night is still young. It was ironic that the bell still rang, reminding us of the cathedral’s presence, despite the UPF’s near complete elimination of religion over the past century. Those that still practiced were either royals, Reds, or killed. When you worship a god, you can’t worship the government.

  The wind whipped through the trees as I wound through the side streets to avoid the police and cameras on my way back to the Enclave. The city was quiet past curfew and all I could hear beyond the wind was the birds and the crickets. I love the night. It was mysterious, I didn’t have to deal with people, and the world felt like mine. I was wanted for way more than breaking some stupid curfew law. This was my time.