Chapter 29 – Alfie
"Guys," I opened up the whole sheet of my collected data, shaking John's shoulder to wake him up, "I think I've got the basics of that happened," I had worked over the last hour to try and put together everything I had gotten from the various pieces of recording devices from the girls. Originally, I was sitting in Lila next to her bed, but Virgil dragged me away and put me on a chair outside Lila's medical room and told me that sitting over her wouldn't help her in the slightest and he gave me the job of working out roughly what happened after taking off all machinery from the girls. So that's what I did for the last, what, hour, hour and a bit maybe? I called my brother Jason and asked him to look after Chris and Evie, and he was there in ten minutes with his girlfriend to look after the kids, taking over the neighbours who I got to briefly look after them, so even if I wanted to use that as an excuse I couldn't. But now, after having headphones in for at least an hour I made a bit-too-complex sheet on everything I could find and the chances of different scenarios happening. And now I think I had everything I could've gained from the machinery the girls had on them at the time of the explosion.
"Right, here's the layout of the warehouse," I opened up a bird's eye view on the layout of the old warehouse, which actually was just a rectangle with two doors on either side of it and a square-shape in the dead centre of said rectangle. I mean, there was also a square to the side, but that was part of the original stables, a separate stabling house, not part the barn-cum-warehouse.
"Great, what about it?" John asked, still half-asleep.
"Give it time, mate," I sighed, going back to the holo-projector, "The square in the centre was where the original main office was when it became a production warehouse for adhesives. They're called command squares in warehouses nowadays. From the area where the square is, there was the electronics that ultimately controlled the entire warehouse. You can't trigger any electronics unless you trigger it from the electronics linked to this command square."
"Right," Virgil said slowly, "So what about that square to the side?"
"It's not officially attached to the warehouse – the guys probably didn't use it," I shrugged off the idea, "Anyway, the guys seemed to be located here," I pointed at the central command square, "And the girls were all going out this way," I pointed to the door at the bottom of the layout.
"Okay," Virgil said slowly. I wasn't sure if he was following, but I continued anyway.
"I'm guessing they had a simple, small security bomb tethered to the wall on the same wall the exit they were using was on, probably I the corner, so when it went off, it didn't kill them but it did knock them out cold. With enough time for the guys who set off the bomb to get away,"
"So where did the guys go?" John asked, slightly more awake now,
"I don't know yet," I admitted, turning off the holo-projector and putting it to charge since it was on three percent battery, "I got Michael, Lila's biological brother, to go check out the scene." I was deliberately not telling them what I heard on Lila's recording device and Kayo's comms scan. I didn't want to panic them.
"Biological brother?" John asked, "Why is there a difference from biology when it comes to her brother?"
"John," Virgil hissed at him, before looking back at me, "Sorry. My brother here has no sensitivity when he wakes up,"
"Its fine, he has a right to ask," I shrugged, since it seemed quite a rare thing to happen, in a bad-ish way, "Basically, when Lila was younger, she was in a car crash that killed most of her biological family. All of the people in the car died except her and her brother, Michael. Then one of Lila's uncles adopted her, and another uncle adopted Michael. In the family Lila was adopted into, her uncle had a daughter and a son, meaning she gained an adopted sister and an adopted brother." I sighed, "Wanna know a fun fact? My brother's dating Lila's cousin, or rather, Lila's adopted sister."
"Hmm," Virgil hummed, but I couldn't tell what his reaction was. Personally I was fine – they were happy together for at least a year before he decided to bring his girlfriend, Lila's adopted sister/cousin, over to meet me and Lila (Queue awkward moment of realisation). But, hey, they were happy together, and that was all that mattered at the end of the day. "Anyway," Virgil shrugged, "I've made sure Lila's stable and she's stopped having nosebleeds for now, so you can go in if you want." I nodded, walking down to Lila's room.
I had to give it to Virgil – he made the medical rooms look beautiful, especially considering that they weren't designed to be medical rooms at all. Each room had a double bed on one wall, and either side there was a small bedside table with two draws on. Next to these tables, there was a few basic things – oxygen tanks, different sized oxygen masks, IV holder, you got the jist. All this was against one wall, and on the other wall there was three plastic chairs and a wall-mounted TV, as well as a hologram projector on a coffee table beneath it. The rooms were rectangular, with the door on one of the longer walls near the corner of the room. As you walked in, you were nearest damnit on the wall with the TV, and the shorter-length wall furthest away from you was where the bed was. But, to be fair, it wasn't even far away. If anything, it was more beneficial there. It was more or less against the wall, with the gap between the side of the bed and the wall only about two feet, enough to jam a bedside table in near the top of the bed. And right next to the door of the medical there was a small chest of draws, which was originally for clothes and storage when it was a normal bedroom but had become a place to hold things like vials of medicines and IV bags and whatever other crap Virgil found necessary to keep in a chest of draws instead of his several medical cabinets. Most of the medical rooms followed this pattern, except for two or three of the rooms, which had windows on the walls where the bed was (nearest damnit) against. Both Kayo and Lila were in medical rooms that were linking, and the medical rooms both had windows in (bonus!). Colonel Casey and Penelope were on the beds in the infirmary that were actually designed to be medical beds; Virgil wanted to keep an eye on Colonel Casey's breathing rate, heart rate etc. just because of what a state she was originally, and Penny's temperature was just a little bizarre, going normal then cold then warm then cold then normal again… Kayo only went back into the medical room she was in because everything was set up in there and it would've taken quite a while to set it up in the infirmary. Lila was also in a medical room, but that was purely because she liked privacy in these sorts of things. The others knew that too, hence explaining why she was in there, but they kept teasing that we were going to end up doing the naughty or something, and that we needed a private room. As you'd expect from them.
I slid quietly into her room, seeing her still asleep with an oxygen mask on and an IV line in her hand that was just giving her some water to keep her hydrated – or at least, that's what I was told. Even though all the girls were out cold from the explosion, they all had to be sedated even further. But Lila only had to be lightly sedated, so she should've been awake by now. She should've been awake quite a while ago. But she wasn't awake. She was still asleep. Why hadn't she woken up? Had she woken up but gone promptly back to sleep? I would've known if I wasn't dragged out of her room by somebody who flies a ship that looks like a turtle (I mean, no, not annoyed in the slightest… heh…). I slumped down on one of the plastic chairs, picking up a hologram projector from the seat next to me. May as well do one of my favourite games – find small stories on the news, be the first to comment on them and then be smug that you were first whilst making it look like you were doing really important research. It worked a treat in school, too – they thought you were making really important comments on stories and being really active, when on the tab behind the news you were just playing online games with the rest of the class. Like most kids.
But when I went on the news, it wasn't the small news stories box that caught my eyes.
Taking up most of the hologram screen was a picture of a half-destroyed café, partially on fire. Outside the café there was the remnants of an iron coffee table, mauled and everything but disintegrated. On the top left of the picture, there was the words 'BREAKING NEWS' in bold, red letters. I clicked on it immediately. The title was 'Shopkeeper Killed In Tokyo'. Fuck. What was wrong with people these days? I scrolled down to the main bulk of the story:
"Denali Ascorpi, 37, died last night after his shop was attacked using a bomb, which the GDF say was placed in the skip outside the jewellers. Details are still scarce, but CCTV shows somebody being denied the permission to buy a piece of jewellery that cost roughly (converted) £842 right before the bomb went off. The person who tried to buy the piece of jewellery and left right before the bomb went off has been identified as Fen O'Neale, and the GDF are currently trying to track him down. If you see the man who is on the picture below, please ring the number below and tell us where you last saw him urgently:"
Below the text was a picture of a guy, probably mid-forties, and quite frankly ugly. I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it. He was flat-down ugly. Clumps of his hair in knots, random patches of his hair missing, scars across his face… I mean, some people look okay like this. He doesn't. He just doesn't. Funnily enough, he reminds me of somebody who dealt with things like bombs.
Oh well, it was pointless reading any more of this news article. I was sure I'd find a decent report on this situation somewhere in my emails. It was a regular thing in the GDF – Colonels, Lieutenants and some Admirals would get emails with about fifty to seventy thousand words reports, with the first reports sent to Colonels, then a bit later Lieutenants, and then the few Admirals that the people in the offices decide to include. I was a lieutenant, so I should get mine soon, but if I was that desperate, I could accidentally-on-purpose open up Lila's emails and accidentally-on-purpose read it.
The door clicked open, and I was half-expecting to see one of my dogs (Skye the collie or Ruby the Cocker Spaniel) which is kinda stupid since I'm not at home. But either way, it made me jump. Somehow. But, as suspected, it wasn't the dog. It was just Scott.
"Oh, hey," Scott muttered, looking over at Lila who was still asleep, then looked back at me, "Did I wake you up?"
"Nah, I was just checking the news," I shrugged, straightening up slightly, "Somebody was killed. Tokyo."
"Yeah, I heard about that," Scott sighed. I already knew him – he hated hearing that people were dead. It probably helped him with saving people, with the image that he could prevent said deaths.
"Anyway, what's up?"
"Huh?"
"Why'd you come in here?" I asked.
"Oh, um…" Scott closed the door slightly, "Virgil's kinda watching Kayo's medical room door, the main one, and he hates me at the moment, and…"
"You wanna get through?" I kicked the door open behind me, gesturing to it, "Go see your girlfriend then,"
"Thanks – wait, what?" Scott looked at me a bit startled. Guilty!
"You heard me," I shrugged, going back to the holo-projector.
"She's not… She's not my girlfriend," Scott stammered.
"Mmm hmm," I smirked, "So why the hell do you act differently around her?"
"I don't!"
"Yeah you do," I shut the holo-projector down, "Like, you snap at Alan just for wanting to go out on rescues, but when Kayo punches a guy and gives him a black eye and concussion and brings back a device that could've hacked into the whole world's systems, you just had a small, relatively gentle chat." I shrugged, "Oh, and in case you were wondering, that was a really patronising chat."
"I didn't act differently then," Scott muttered, "I was just making sure she didn't end up giving me a black eye and concussion,"
"You full well know she wouldn't punch you without a legitimate reason. The only way she'd ever do it is for your safety. You know that, mate." I chucked the projector lightly onto the bundle of spare blankets next to Lila's bed, crossing my legs and putting my hands under my chin, elbows on my knees. "You gunna admit it? I won't tell!"
"Sometimes I really hate you," Scott shook his head, walking slowly towards the door.
"Can I take that as a yes? If not I got plenty more points. Yeah, mate, if you thought you were hiding it well, I am here to regret to inform you that you did a crap job, mate,"
"Fine, yeah, well done," Scott shrugged as he stopped in the doorway, "But can you keep it quiet please? For Kayo's sake?"
"Yeah, yeah," I nodded, then paused for a moment, "Scott?"
"Yeah?"
"You said Virgil wasn't going to let you into Kayo's medical room willingly, right?"
"Yeah, he's pissed at me for some reason,"
"In which case, I didn't see you go in," I turned back around as Scott closed the door. I had noticed it relatively quickly. I mean, at first I thought he was just generally lighter with his sister, like most people would. And then I began to notice that Gordon and Alan could pull pranks and get yelled at, but as soon as Kayo did it, suddenly not as bad. Not to mention he kept watching her (okay, I could maybe cut him some slack on that one – she was known for spying on people randomly, but he kept watching her a bit more than average). And then it clicked. And guess who was right! Is that bragging rights I hear coming down the corner? I think it is!
"Does this mean I'm meant to be expecting Kayo telling me she's pregnant?" I heard a voice from the other side of the room and, surely enough, Lila was now on her side, looking like she had a hangover. Bless.
"Lila. Calm the hell down. Scott's only admitted he had a crush on her, not that he's planning to have kids with her. You are literally there like 'Oh, I went to the zoo the other day. Now I'm a koala bear!'" I shook my head, sitting on the end of the bed as she looked around the room, obviously confused.
"Did we order a hotel room last night or something?" Lila muttered, sliding herself up a bit.
"No, love," God, she didn't remember anything, did she?
"Where are the kids?"
"Back home, your brother-in-law's looking after them,"
"Which one?" Lila muttered, picking up the glass of water that Virgil presumably left her.
"The only one, love, my brother? Jason?"
"Oh, that one," Lila sighed, rolling the water around in the cup, "So why am I here? And why the bloody hell do I have this little nasty?" Lila looped the IV line around the IV line she had.
"Leave that 'little nasty' alone or you'll have Virgil down your throat," I said as Lila finally ticked in where she was.
"Fine. What about the first question? How the hell did I get here?"
"I'll show you," I grabbed the holo-projector, "But careful, it's a lot to take in at once,"
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Hello! Sorry for the massive gap between uploads, first, I kind of wasn't expecting the flu (then again, who does? Like, who plans a date and writes it on their calendar to go and have the flu? Well, maybe some people, but not me!), and now I've gone hyper for some reason :D . Two: This and the next chapter was originally Alfie and then Lila, but I decided it'd be a bit more interesting to do it with another character (I'm not giving it away since, hey, spoilers!) so I had to redo that chapter and patch up this one and whatnot. But anyway, less babbling, hope you enjoyed, and if you want to see anything in either this fanfic or the next one I'll do please post it in the reviews. I'll post – hopefully – on Monday/Tuesday.
