Chapter Seven: Thinking Means Trouble
1900 Hours, August 7, 2564 (Military Calendar) \
Earth, Sol System
Insurrectionist Safehouse, Philadelphia
Captain O'Riley had received the transmission from the hidden COM in the cupboard several minutes ago. The message was simple: proceed to the extraction point for pick-up. The Director had cleared their prowler and was now waiting for them at the exfil point outside of the city.
"Alright, boys, time to go!" he hollered to the other operatives, who were now playing their thousandth round of blackjack, 21, or whatever name that card game went by these days. Sanchez gathered up the cards and Holtz straightened up the table. Ibrahimi, who had been upstairs on watch, clambered down into the basement and joined in the clean-up. Gradually, the Shade team erased all evidence that they had ever been there. That done, each operative gathered up their bedroll and headed up the stairs, packing their things into the car parked outside.
"I'll be right up!" O'Riley called up to his team once everything was ready to go. The officer opened up the cupboard and removed the COM unit, pocketing it so that no potential intruders or wanderers could find it if they just so happened to stumble upon this place.
He then turned to Robin Ambrose, who was curled up in his corner, sleeping. The position was somewhat awkward, having both hands tied behind his back, but somehow he managed. He hadn't spoken a word since his outburst two days ago. O'Riley had even removed the duct tape covering his mouth, but the eleven-year-old still refused to speak. He accepted food and drink, but he still said nothing, showing no emotion. His eyes had become unfocused and dull and his face was an expressionless mask. He had been like that for two days, so O'Riley had good reason to be surprised when he opened his mouth and started to speak.
The captain grabbed hold of the boy, waking him, and started to pick him up.
"So why do you do it?" Robin murmured after a yawn, startling O'Riley. His voice was hoarse and cracked from two days of disuse, but the tone was clear; bitter resignation.
"Hm, you're talking now?" O'Riley hoisted Robin up in his arms and started moving towards the stairs, "Why does any soldier do what he's asked? For the good of the—"
"Don't give me that," Robin snapped, his voice suddenly resentful and spiting, "Since when is kidnapping children for the good of any self-respecting government or nation? Why are you an insurrectionist, why are you against the UNSC? Is it because you disagree with their methods? Something along those lines?"
O'Riley said nothing at first, climbing the stairs into the warehouse in silence. "The UNSC is aggressive and imperialist. They wouldn't listen to us in the beginning, when we were just peaceful protestors. No, it takes violence, a potential war to get them to listen, and even then, they paid attention to us with the intention of destroying us. They created you Spartans before they started the war with the Covenant; the Spartans' original purpose was to bring us down, not the Covenant—"
"Hold it, back up," Robin interrupted, "When we started the war with the Covenant? Are you serious?! Three words for you, buddy: Battle-of-Harvest; ring a bell?"
O'Riley's forehead contorted in a confused frown, not recognizing the name. "Battle of what?"
"Harvest! H-a-r-v-e-s-t; Harvest!" Robin cocked an eyebrow, seeing his bearer's blank expression, "You really don't know anything about the war, do you? I bet you were told by your people that the UNSC started the war; you never bothered to find out yourself. I'd bet that if you ever went to a library or someplace where you come from, you'd find that information mysteriously missing."
"There are no libraries where I come from…the United Rebel Front doesn't exactly encourage individuality and free thought…there are better, more useful tasks to be completed before we can have those luxuries."
"Yeah," the eleven-year-old snorted, "I bet that's what they told you during the war, and now that that is over, you've all got yourselves a whole new brace of 'tasks'. Let me tell you something; I'm not so naïve as to say that the UNSC is white-lily innocent. Your people, you insurrectionists have always lived, breathed, and existed on the basis of believing that you were better than the UNSC, that the original government was corrupt and something worth resisting. You think the UNSC's methods were horrible?" Robin posed the rhetorical question to O'Riley, who was nearing the warehouse entrance, "Well I've got news for you; the moment you dragged me into that van, you proved that you and your government is just as bad, even worse than mine. The UNSC did what it had to do to try to prevent an all-out war with you rebels…then when the Covenant attacked us, every questionable, immoral deed which the UNSC committed they did to save Humanity, they did it for self-preservation in the face of extinction. Your government is doing the exact same thing now, but what's your excuse? Are you faced with annihilation? No; up until now we had no idea that you still even existed. You weren't even being attacked. Your leaders are doing this for their own selfish desires and—"
"That's quite enough!" O'Riley barked at the young Ambrose, "I liked you better when you were a silent shell, boy; your tongue will only earn you more pain and punishment where you're going. Learn to control it or I'll tape it over for the rest of our trip!"
Robin fell silent as he was carried outside and thrown into the large black car's trunk. As O'Riley slammed the trunk door down, the last thing he saw was a satisfied smile tugging at the corners of the boy's mouth.
Damn him...O'Riley swore to himself. The kid had just taken every uncertainty of his life in the URF which he had labored for years and years to bury and forget, and he had thrown them back in his face. The young Ambrose knew that there was no possible way to talk his way out of his predicament, but if his goal had been to unsettle Captain O'Riley, he had been successful.
Ever since his earliest days in indoctrination school on his home planet of Hyndareus far away in URF-controlled space, Liam O'Riley had been taught to despise the UNSC, he had been raised to believe that every problem in society was its fault. As a child, he had been gifted with, if not a good sense of right and wrong, a strong sense of logic. Logically, he had reasoned, the problems in society could not possibly all be the fault of a government; most would have to be the faults of the people; indifferent citizens who didn't have the inspiration or motivation to better their situation. Were the insurrectionists so different? After all, wouldn't the amount of death, chaos, and destruction caused by their decades-old crusade against the UNSC have been the fault of the insurrectionists themselves for not seeking a peaceful resolution?
He made the mistake of presenting this argument to his classmaster when he was ten years old. He had been taken to a military facility deep underground someplace nearby his home and he had been beaten and starved for a full week until something inside of him broke or weakened mentally, because O'Riley had never questioned the authority, motives, or methods of the United Rebel Front after that incident. He had been thoroughly indoctrinated, along with the rest of the insurrectionist youth.
And here he now was, operating as one of its most useful and trusted assets; a Shade team leader. But now, a lifetimes-worth of certainties and values had been shattered, brought down like a house made of playing cards, by the bitter words of an eleven-year-old child who was starting to make him think again…and that put O'Riley on edge. Thinking meant trouble, thinking meant punishment; it was best not to think at all, best to simply carry out one's orders to the letter. If your superior tells you to blow up a building, you blow up that building. If your superior tells you to assassinate an official, you assassinate that official. If your superior orders you to kidnap an eleven-year-old, then, God damn it all, you kidnap that eleven-year-old!
"Something on your mind, sir?" the subtly accented voice of Omar Ibrahimi jerked Captain O'Riley out of his well of thoughts. Half an hour had passed and the view of the city had been replaced by one of open fields. They were close to the extraction point.
"No…nothing…" O'Riley murmured. He twisted around in his seat and rapped the soundproof transparent aluminum barrier separating the front seats from the rest of the car. Pacelle gave him an 'okay' nod. He turned back and gazed out through his window. "No one can hear anything through that glass, right?" the captain asked Ibrahimi, who was next to him, driving the vehicle.
"It's transparent aluminum, not glass," Ibrahimi corrected the captain, "But yes, it's completely soundproof."
"I do have something on my mind, Omar…this," O'Riley stated.
"Sir?" Ibrahimi gave his commander a quick sideways glance.
"This whole thing," O'Riley gestured all around himself, "Kidnapping an innocent child. We've done snatches before, but they were all military or other dangerous targets. This is different…this feels different…I've watched every member of this Shade Team for months now, Omar. You want to know one thing I've noticed? When Alex Ambrose killed Wells, Moreau, and Stracci back in Riverside, no one seemed to care very much. Sure, the others were put out by the loss of a comrade, but they weren't touched by the loss of a fellow person…has indoctrination really made us all that detached? You were always different from the others, Omar. Tell me, and answer me honestly; I swear to you that this conversation won't leave this vehicle. Have you ever had misgivings about what we do? What if you realized and discovered something that revealed that everything you had been taught as a child may have all been a lie?"
Ibrahimi said nothing at first, keeping a steady eye on the road as he executed a hairpin turn on the winding road they were driving down. "I never really agreed with everything our government has done ever since I was a boy," the Egyptian man declared finally, "I hated that feeling, that uncertainty…I tried to banish it. I kept telling myself that what the government wanted was for the best of all so much that I think I actually started believing it…I had to have, otherwise I wouldn't be a Shade commando right now…maybe I joined the spec ops to prove myself right, only…as a Shade, I've killed, abducted, assassinated, and caused enough havoc and destruction that, more and more often than not, I find myself genuinely pondering the state of my karma. I could say that I was just following orders, but is that honestly a passable excuse? No…everyone who does things like these chooses to do it…even if there are dire, dire consequences for refusing, one still chooses to comply," Ibrahimi explained, "I think this is a dangerous line of discussion and that it is best left alone for now, sir." He fell silent as the extraction point, a wide open field of grass, came up on the right. The Director's prowler was in the center of the field, waiting for O'Riley and his men. Ibrahimi turned the vehicle and drove off the road, plowing into the field.
O'Riley nodded in agreement, catching sight of the silhouette of the Director, perched on the loading ramp of the prowler. "I suppose you're right. Even so…I think my time of doing these missions is coming to an end. I simply cannot justify my actions to myself any longer; this mission crossed my line…Not a word of this to anyone else, you understand?" O'Riley said sharply, his tone of voice changing drastically as Ibrahimi drew to car to a stop in front of the prowler.
"Understood, sir," Ibrahimi replied. The driver killed the engine and the two men opened their doors, climbing out of the car. The other four operatives in the back of the car followed suit, all of them filing onto the prowler, giving respectful nods to the Director as they passed him, until O'Riley was left alone next to the car.
The thin, middle-aged man in the suit known as the Director scrutinized the Shade officer with the eyes of a critical hawk. "Something irking you, Captain O'Riley?" the Director asked the commando, taking note of his movements and expression, "You seem a bit off…you haven't been growing a conscience during this mission, have you?"
Shit, O'Riley mentally swore again, fixing his posture and wiping his face clean of emotion. "No, sir, I'm not paid to grow a conscience," he replied evenly, walking around to the trunk of the car, popping it open.
The Director cracked a cold grin, one which did not reach his eyes. "See to it that it remains that way…the Paladins are always looking for new individuals to arrest and process."
O'Riley remained silent, reaching into the trunk and lifting out Robin Ambrose who, to the captain's great relief, didn't say a word.
"So this is the fruit of all our labors…" the Director inspected the child as if he were a lab rat, "I expected him to be rather taller…" he gave a slight shrug, "It matters not. You are going to make the United Rebel Front very happy, my boy," the Director said to Robin as O'Riley carried him up the ramp and into the belly of the prowler, "A new age is coming very soon, and you shall be one of its builders."
"You seriously think I'm gonna help you?" Robin sneered at the older man, his voice dripping with defiance, "Thanks, but I'll pass."
The ship jolted slightly as its engines engaged, propelling the prowler into the air. The hull groaned slightly as it adjusted to the pressure changes of moving from a pressurized planet surface to the vacuum of space.
"Entering the slipstream in four…three…two…" a voice stated over the ship-wide COM system, followed by the loud rushing sound which signaled a slipspace jump, then silence.
The Director returned his attention to the trussed up eleven-year-old, giving the boy another emotionless smile. "I think we'll be the judge of that. You may not be so bold after the Paladins are through with you…you have steel, son; you seem like you'll be a very tough nut to crack. That's good; the Paladins always fancy a challenge…enjoy your time here, boy; it will be the last peace you will have for a long time. Captain, take him to his cryo-pod and put him under, then report to the bridge."
O'Riley turned and strode off down one of the corridors towards the prowler's small cryo-chamber, fulfilling his orders. The Director continued on his way towards the bridge, muttering something dark about politics.
As the prowler continued to venture through the slipstream, the small, fist-sized prototype rad-tracker which had been planted under the ship's starboard thrusters, unknown to the crew, continued to emit its neutron radiation, leaving its trail of radioactive breadcrumbs for others who had the capability to detect it to follow.
