Authors note whatsit: Some of you are probably going to think that the maturity levels shown by Alice and Charlie are too high for their age but do remember that none of the kids that trained with Julia were exactly normal. I can't tell you much more with out giving stuff away... Let's keep those comments rolling in. This is now dedicated to AlphaFive who has commented the most. Go AlphaFive!
Everyone sat there in stunned silence.
"But she doesn't..." Otto trailed off. He had never seen Julia favour an eye, none of them had.
Alice smiled, "We don't know which eye it is either. Julia's never told us and she doesn't make it obvious..."
They sat there in silence for a few minutes more before Raven spoke.
"If you don't mind me asking," she was being polite for once, "How do you guys know each other?"
Alice leaned her arms on the table thinking.
"We met about 15 years ago, right?" she asked looking at Charlie. He nodded in agreement, "Bout that."
Both of them looked sad at the memory.
"Are you okay?" Nero asked, he looked concern.
"We're fine, some people we loved died that day."
Everyone knew that it was a lot more than that.
15 years ago:
Alice scowled at her Mother and muttered something in Russian which a two year old should not know. She had been stuck in this bunker for nearly two whole hours, this was way more boring than the practice drills they had done. The young woman tutted at her, even in this situation she still found time to tell her off.
"Alice, we do not have cause for that sort of language. I am aware that our situation is a little more chaotic than usual but I wish that you will keep you composure."
Her older brother Danny, only by 3 years though, was arguing with their Father. He wanted to help barricade the door but he was too small. Suddenly there was a commotion at the other secret entrance, within 5 seconds of the noise being noticed every single adult had some sort of weapon in hand. There was several sighs of relief as another beautiful young woman appeared in the narrow gap, she handed a small bundle through the hole before coming through herself. She was covered in blood and looked like she had been crying.
"Mi, they just, Mick." Alice's mother was already hugging the woman and muttering soothing words. Alice jumped down and ran over to the small bundle, sleeping. Of course he was sleeping, one of the most exciting things in their life was happening what else would he be doing? Poking the the bundle a few times there was a moan and a small boy unraveled himself sleepily.
"Go ways Ali," he muttered.
"Get up, Charles," Alice responded, "The most exciting thing of our life is happening! And you're sleeping through it?!"
"It's Charlie," he muttered using his links arm to pull himself up and looked around the room. Including them there was about 15 people in the room. He didn't want to know what happened to the other 50 or so people in the facility. He caught sight of the only other two working links here, Jasmine and Jacob, comforting each other in a corner.
It seemed like hours but it was probably only 20 or so minutes when the rescue team finally arrived. Leading them was none other than Dominika Mercer, 2 month old Julia skipping by her side.
"Domi, please tell me you didn't just bring your 2 month old daughter through that?" Alice's mother embraced the woman who scowled but allowed it.
Dominika sighed, "It was her choice. Anyway she proved to be a great help to the operation."
"I suppose you didn't think of her link?"
Dominika laughed, "He's waiting in the shroud."
Alice smiled shyly at Julia, who smiled back.
Once both the links had been put with the best fighters, small groups began moving heading slowly through the building to the shroud. Alice and Charlie had been put in Dominika's group along with both their Mother's and Alice's Father. Julia and Danny were also in the group of course. Being the last group to leave they knew that they would be in the most danger. It was estimated that over 100 hostiles had enetred the facility and only 56 had been counted as dead or unable to fight.
The other 44 caught up with them when they reached the last corridor before safety. 5 year old Danny was the first to go down. In the next 3 minutes 47 people died. The 4 survivors didn't say anything as they walked the rest of the way to the shroud and nobody asked.