Part 11 - We Could Burn it All Down

Chapter 182 - The Volente Guard

Miles was busy with a vacuum cleaner when Gwen and Grace arrived. He swiched it off as Gwen threw the leaflet down on the coffee table in front of the couch.

"I literally just cleaned that. You really gotta make it messy again?"

"Yes. Take a read. You've got a spider job to do; I can handle the cleaning since you've missed half the apartment."

"I just didn't get round to it yet."

Miles examined the leaflet and found the address for the Volente Guard's headquarters on the back page.

"That's only a block over from Jacob's house. Maybe he's seen something?"

"You heard how much he knew when I asked half-an-hour ago."

"Yeah, well maybe he'll talk to me since I still care about Max's memory."

"Whatever. Waste all the time you want."

"I will. Have fun with all this cleaning. Oh look, you missed half the apartment."

"I haven't started yet."

"Ex. Act. Ly."

Grace growled, face-palming.

"Will you two just shut up? Gwen, get cleaning. Miles, get spidering." She snapped.

Miles put on his suit and jumped out the bedroom window. He swung for a few minutes to Jacob's house, where he rang the doorbell and waited. There was no answer, so he tried again, but still nothing. He looked through a window, but it seemed nobody was in.

"Guess I'll go in blind." He muttered to himself.

He swung a block over to a house not very different from Jacob's, except it had windows in the roof. Miles turned invisible, then climbed up on the roof. Peering through one of the skylights, he couldn't see anything. It made sense since it was blacked out. He checked the others up there, but it was the same story, as well as for all the ones built into the walls. He returned to the ground and became visible again after making sure nobody was around. He thought about how to get inside, then noticed a window hanging open just a little. It was hooked on a latch, but he might be able to force it open, so he climbed back up and set to work. First, he tried to get his fingers in to shift the hook but the gap was too small. Second, he tried using a small stick, but it was too flexible. Finally, he just decided to pull it which worked perfectly except for breaking the lock.

"That's…not gonna be a nice bill to pay."

He sneaked inside, closing the broken window behind him to avoid alerting anyone, and started looking around.

For nearly fifteen minutes, Miles searched the house to no avail. He did note, however, that nobody seemed to be home. That was strange; usually there'd be someone here doing admin. Unless there was a secret hideout here? He started searching for much more subtle things, and noticed the carpet in an office was a little curled in a corner, and loose, as if it was often pulled back. Miles pulled it back, and discovered a black glass panel. He knelt down to examine it, and it lit up with a number keypad. There were four empty squares above it, so it was a four digit code. Miles groaned; he hated secret lairs with good security. He put his mind to it and wondered what numbers could be significant to the Volente Guard. Something to do with Max? Perhaps his birthday? No; nobody except his family and friends knew that. He tried it anyway, but it didn't work. What about the date he'd arrived on this world: 2108? Miles tried that, and the panel lit up green. There was a clunk and a mechanism started grinding away.

"That was too easy."

The office's bookcase began to swing back revealing a staircase. The spider could hear voices coming from the bottom, so descended quietly. He turned invisible when he spotted someone moving around, and clung to the roof just to be sure. He was in some sort of conference room with chairs laid out facing a screen that displayed a grey shield containg a red and gold V and G. The chairs were mostly filled, except for those belonging to the people talking amongst themselves. Suddenly, there was a ping and they took their seats, falling silent, as a figure walked in. They wore a red cloak with a hood that covered their face, as well as some sort of silver armour with gold decoration here and there.

"You all know why we're here." They started.

Their voice was clearly being changed to sound deeper and distorted by their outfit, which led Miles to believe they were wearing a mask under the hood.

"The Global Mourning ceremony is on Saturday at the temple, and the Church have big plans for the five year anniversary. You have your missions; I don't want a single hitch. Let's make sure this is one year people will never forget. For the true Dei Volente!"

The other people in the room echoed the call and the figure turned to leave, then stopped.

"One more thing: those spider people know about us. Keep an eye out, and don't let them mess up anything. Clear?"

"Clear."

"Dismissed."

Miles followed the cloaked figure to the stairs, where they stopped and frowned at the open doorway. They turned around slowly, gazing around, then looking up at the roof giving the spider a good view of their mask. Or what mask? Their face was pitch black as though it devoured all the light that touched it, except the eyes burned like blue flames. They looked round to check the room was clear of their fellow Volente Guard members, then looked back up at the roof again, straight at Miles.

"I see you. I will not tell the others that you were here, but do not interfere or you will suffer. Or your partner will, anyway. Zihþ norst."

Suddenly, Miles found himsel standing back out on the street. He looked himself up and down, wondering what had happened, but couldn't work it out. He had to report back.

When Miles arrived back at his and Gwen's apartment, he found Jacob was there which surprised him. He couldn't see Gwen, but it sounded like she was cleaning the bedroom.

"Hey Jacob."

"Hello. I hear you were snooping around."

"Yeah. Round the Volente Guard HQ a block over from you. You seen anything weird round there?"

"Not really, no. What did you find?"

"They have a secret lair under the house where they conduct meetings. They're planning something for Saturday."

"I hope nothing bad. People have enough to mourn about then."

"Yep. I'm gonna keep an eye on things out there. Are you going?"

"No. I've got better things to do than listen to people talking rubbish about my best friend. It just skews my memory of him."

Miles sat next to Jacob.

"You've not done much talking like this for a while. I swear this is the longest conversation we've had in years."

"Probably."

"You seeing a therapist? It might help the guilt."

"I tried it for a year after; didn't help. Guilt isn't something you can magic away; you have to work to get rid of it."

"Max wanted this. He'd just have tortured himself and all of us trying to find another way if you hadn't stepped up."

"I know. I should suck it up, but I can't. I wish all those people going out there to celebrate all those miracles their God performed knew the real Max."

"Maybe they will one day."

"I hope so." Jacob glanced down at the watch on his wrist and sighed. "I should go. I've got stuff to do."

"OK. I'm here if you need someone to talk to, Jacob."

"See you later."

Crossovers in this Chapter

None, for once.