CE 63
Sarah hit the snooze button, silencing the annoying racket that the alarm clock was making. She started to clump back into her bed, but, knowing that if she didn't get up now she would fall back to sleep, quickly threw off her thin blanket and stretched. She glanced around the small, cramped room in which she slept, quickly remembering that she was no longer at home, but a Blue Cosmos training center.
Sarah also remembered the disappointment that she had felt the day before. She had accepted this job under the premise that she would assist in training new soldiers who would eventually be able to combat the Coordinators. Several promotions within the Blue Cosmos organization were promised for her services, along with a full time job among their ranks.
Sarah had no idea they would be using children. She had practically been lied to. It was just wrong. She could possibly understand using adolescents, but CHILDREN?!
And to make it worse, until yesterday, many of the trainers were allowed, if not encouraged, to be highly abusive to their charges. Now that most of those trainers had been removed, the assistant trainers were required to take their places. Permanently.
Sarah picked up four blue folders she had been given the night before off of her small bedside table. They contained relevant information and psyche profiles compiled during the past week of the children within her team. She figured she should get a little more familiar with her charges before working with them.
Sarah looked over the one on top first, labeled Blue One.
The name of this child was Sarik Ostheim. Eight years old, excellent physic for his age, and a mental prodigy. He was by no means socially incompetent, but he had a hard time making attachments, as he seemed to be somewhat distant to most of his teammates during his first week at the facility. Those he did make, however, he seemed to hold onto almost obsessively, such as his apparent relationship with a particular girl in his team. Regardless of this, he tended to get along with others when required to interact, and testing showed that he had the potential to become an excellent strategist. He was one recommendation for team leader after the children completed their training in a few years.
Sarah was puzzled when she looked over his genetic type, marked "Inconclusive", but she simply noted it before moving on to the folder marked Blue Two.
Her name was Stella Loussier. Six years old, average physic, well above average intelligence. The notes showed her to be potentially unstable mentally, but after reading further, Sarah was able to empathize her circumstances. Stella's file showed a history of exposure to abuse and violence that had lead to the deaths of fellow children in two of the three orphanages that she had spent the last two years of her life in. When she was unable to adapt to a stable environment, Blue Cosmos moved in quietly and "acquired" her. No one missed her, apparently, as missing person's reports weren't filed until a month after her disappearance. She had shown some improvement here in the facility, especially during her week with Blue Team, but she still was still not as settled in as the others.
Next was Blue Three.
Grey Malik. Ten years old, decent physic, extremely high mental potential. Mentally stable, socially competent, made friends quickly. Spent his life in orphanages, including a Blue Cosmos run facility prior to his transfer here. He was recommended for team leader by several of the psychologists. Sarah wished she had been among the psychologists writing these reports, as Grey seemed almost perfect, which in Sarah's opinion, meant something, or many things, were being overlooked. But, she set her personal biases aside, because it was her intentions to follow anything that the facility's assigned doctors suggested.
One more was left. Blue Four.
His name was Alexander Nasser. Seven years old, excellent physical condition, had above average mental potential. He apparently could think well on his feet and had above average reflexes. He wasn't mentally unstable, but he proved to be extremely defiant and mouthy, ESPECIALLY for his age. He managed to get into fights regularly in two different schools back at his old home.
Yet another challenge, Sarah thought gloomily.
She looked at the time and realized she was nearly late to wake up her team. Sarah quickly dressed in the gray sweatpants and the blue colored t-shirt that she was expected to wear for physical training, then stumbled out of her room, running down the hallways of the facility towards the cells.
When Sarah arrived at the cells, she had to present her I.D. in order to enter the sealed off section. Once it was verified, she was required to enter into a room similar to an airlock, where the door behind her sealed shut before the one in front of her opened.
Tight security for kids, Sarah remarked to herself.
The young woman walked through the door, where she had to present her I.D. to a guard once more. He was useful enough to point out the cells where her charges slept.
Sarah walked up to the cell where Sarik slept, typed in her personal code on the keypad beside the door, then waited as the door cycled and opened silently.
Sarah strolled in and blew her whistle at the sleeping and unsuspecting Sarik.
* * *
Sarik set his tray of food down on the table as he sat down next to Stella and yawned.
All of the children in the cafeteria were showing signs of fatigue, yet it was only nine o'clock in the morning. The past week's physical conditioning had been hard on them all. Nearly two dozen teams had been eliminated as a result, with a couple of close calls for Blue Team.
"What's with you guys this morning?" Grey asked with a hint of enthusiasm.
"Tired," Sarik replied.
"Homesick?"
"Nope," Sarik said.
"So, are we going to pull it off today?" Alex asked.
"Shhh," Grey whispered at Alex. "They could be listening. Keep it down."
Everyone remained silent for a moment.
"So, are you guys ready?" Grey asked quietly.
"I am," Sarik answered.
"Been ready," Alex replied arrogantly.
Stella remained silent, staring off into the distance.
"Stella?" Grey said to get her attention.
Stella's head snapped forward.
"Ya," she replied.
"Alright," Grey said. "Here we go."
* * *
The plan was supposedly simple. Alex and Grey would start some commotion and get the staff's attention for a short time. While this was going on, Sarik and Stella would sneak out of the cafeteria and search the nearest rooms for something that could cut fence wire.
The only thing that they didn't count on was all of the extra guards. Time was of the essence now.
Sarik and Stella waited quite anxiously at one of the back tables near the cafeteria exit. Waiting, waiting...
"Ow!" someone yelled.
Looking back, Sarik spotted that Alex had just picked a fight with a large boy who looked to be about ten years old. He had walked up to him and quite intentionally smashed his tray full of food into the elder child's face.
As the boy was about to retaliate against Alex, food started flying all over the place from a single source.
Grey, of course.
A chain reaction started, and within seconds, a full fledged food fight was in progress. Somehow, it had really worked. Sarik was impressed.
Sarik looked back as he heard the guards running into the fray, leaving the entrance completely unguarded. He tapped Stella on the shoulder, then grabbed her hand and ran.
* * *
This is not good. This is not good. They're going to kill me!
The security officer was busy typing into his console, rerouting guards to the cafeteria. This wouldn't have been able to happen if the facility wasn't so disorganized.
Shit, have to inform the director, or I WILL be dead.
He typed a quick message, attaching a camera bank location, and mailed it to the director's secretary.
Like his counterpart at the other end of the facility, this security officer had a bad habit of getting too caught up in what he was doing to notice some run-away children on another monitor, this time moving from room to room, committing an unknown deed within.
* * *
Still aren't back, thought young Alex, who was now covered in eggs, oatmeal, and other sticky substances.
The cafeteria was running low on food, most of it now disintegrated into portions too small to throw or even pick up.
He grabbed a fork from the nearest table and threw it.
* * *
"What the hell?!" yelled the security officer to no one in particular.
In the last five seconds, silverware had started flying. The food fight had just turned dangerous.
He started typing to the security teams again, informing them that protection was required.
* * *
With Alex's help, Grey had pushed over a wheeled serving tray from the cafeteria's bar, which they were both hiding behind to prevent injury.
Where are they? Grey thought.
"Where did you get the idea to throw FORKS?" he yelled at Alex.
Alex simply shrugged and smiled.
A fork came flying over the tray, landing next to Grey and scratching the floor. Knives and spoons soon followed. Grey wondered where they had got the knives from, to begin with.
Hurry up, hurry up...
* * *
Sarik and Stella ran down the halls as fast as their little bodies could.
"There!" exclaimed Sarik, who spotted the now closed cafeteria doors.
He cracked it open, letting Stella enter before sliding in behind her. Inside, it was a mess.
Sarik ducked as he realized the other kids were throwing silverware at each other while the guards were running around trying to incapacitate them before they could hurt each other. The children quickly caught onto this, and it soon became a war of the children versus the guards.
Sarik pulled Stella to the edge of the room, making sure they stayed out of the middle of the fight. As they were sneaking along, however, a guard spotted them. In his frenzy, he charged them with his tong fe.
Sarik pushed Stella away as they man neared, forcing her just outside of his reach. The man smacked Sarik across the face with his tong fe, knocking him to the ground. When he landed, he saw Stella running, carrying away their precious cargo.
The man bent down and tightened plastic cuffs around Sarik's wrists, completely immobilizing his arms behind his back.
Not again, Sarik thought.
* * *
Stella ran past children, guards, and silverware, trying to avoid getting hit by any of them. She couldn't find Grey or Alex anywhere.
"Over here!" she heard someone shout.
She looked to her right and spotted Alex and Grey. They were beckoning to her from behind an overturned serving tray. Stella ran over to them, taking cover behind the makeshift barricade just as a wave of silverware flew by.
"Did you find anything?" Grey asked her.
She dumped in front of them a few knives of various designs, a pair of scissors, and two sets of objects that looked like large, sharpened pliers.
"Wire cutters," remarked Grey. "These should work. Now, how to get them to our rooms..."
"Hey guys, one of the guards is running over here!" Alex yelled to them.
"Stella, you have to get those back to our rooms somehow!" Grey told her. "Get them to Sarik. He can figure it out."
Stella gathered the cutters and carefully but quickly placed them in her pants while Grey and Alex hid the other tools beside the serving tray.
The guard, completely covered in food, jumped over the tray and landed beside the children as another wave of silverware flew by.
"You kids don't move!" he yelled at them while ducking down behind the tray.
* * *
"Who started this?" William asked his secretary, completely enraged.
"We don't know yet, but all of the children seemed to have participated," she replied. "I think that disciplinary measures should be taken against ALL of them, regardless of who started it."
"Agreed," said William. "Inform cell blocks B and C to prepare for massive lockup."
The secretary pulled a headset from her pocket, changed the channel, and informed the appropriate supervisors.
"Done," she informed William.
They were almost to the cafeteria, where nearly fifty armored and masked security guards waited with glass shields, pepper spray, and tear gas grenades. This was absolutely ridiculous. The first week, and they were already calling in the riot unit.
"Commander, you have permission to use all forms of force at your disposal," he informed the officer in charge.
"Division one, you have point," the guard commander informed.
Twenty men lined up in columns of ten against the cafeteria doors. The two line leaders glanced at each other, nodded their heads, then charged in, lobbing tear gas grenades into the mob of children. After their grenades were expended, they pulled out cans of pepper spray or tong fes to engage the out-of-control children at close range.
Soon after, the remaining thirty men rushed in and helped to subdue the children. It was over in minutes. The security guards lead hundreds of cuffed children outside to the track area.
* * *
"Casualty reports?" William inquired of the guard commander, who had remained behind.
"Thirty," he replied. "Twenty-eight children injured, two security guards injured."
"How badly were the guards hurt?" William inquired.
"One broke an ankle while attempting to round up the children. The other tripped and cracked his head pretty bad. All of the children were injured by the guards. Broken bones, organ damage, the works. One of the paramedics informed me two may not make it."
"Then have those children and their teams eliminated," William told him.
"Sir, is that right?" the commander asked.
"My word here is law, and it is not to be questioned if you value your job and title within Blue Cosmos," William threatened.
The commander let out a most audible "hmph" and walked off.
William let out a deep sigh.
"Are the children ready?" he asked his secretary.
"They should be," she answered.
* * *
Sarik waited in line on the large track with the other children. Today, the sun was glaring, thus the pavement was radiating heat unlike any other.
William walked out of the facility, this time followed only by a single woman. He looked like he was going to give another one of his speeches.
"So this is how it is?" he asked the children, like a parent his child. "Why do you do this? Do you truly desire punishment?"
Everyone remained silent.
"You have forced me to make a decision on this matter. I was going to give you more time to settle in, but obviously, this was too lenient of me. For the rest of the day, every single one of you will be in a cell. All day, all night. Then tomorrow, the gloves come off. Your real training will begin."
Then he simply strolled back to the facility.
Most of the children didn't know what to think. The younger ones didn't understand what they did wrong, and the older ones didn't know what was to come.
Sarik, however, had a feeling this speech was partially for him, and that all his problems had just compounded.
* * *
Sleep. That's all she did. Sleep. It passed the time quickly, and it would help prepare her for tonight.
Stella heard a thud and jerked her head up, fully alert. The escape ladder Sarik had found was hanging into her cell. She stretched a little, then climbed up.
"Grey told me on the way here you have something that can cut the fence," Sarik said.
"Yep," Stella replied, showing him the wire cutters that they had found in a custodian's closet.
Sarik gathered up the ladder and ran over to the fence, followed by Stella. She took her cutters and was about to start snipping at the fence when Sarik stopped her.
"Wait," he said.
"What?" Stella asked.
"If we cut this right, we can hide the hole we're making," Sarik informed her.
So during the next few minutes, Sarik and Stella cut into the fence carefully under his instruction. After Sarik had tested his idea and was satisfied, he had Stella walk through while he gathered up the ladder.
Once they were both on the other side, Sarik replaced the fence and they went about finding Grey's and Alex's cells.
* * *
The security guard was, once again, watching local television rather than putting his attention into the cameras. Tonight, the news was reporting on the rising tensions between Naturals and Coordinators after a terrorist attack in the Atlantic Federation. Even more Coordinators had started re-locating out to the space colonies.
Good, he thought haughtily.
When the news took a commercial break, the security guard decided to quickly scan of all his cameras. He was about to go back to watching television when he spotted movement. Focusing the main monitor on that camera, he saw something that he couldn't believe.
Two of the children were lowering a ladder into a cell.
Without hesitation, he hit the alarm switch and quickly went about directing the security forces to his section of the installation.
* * *
Alex had just finished climbing out when a loud, blaring alarm sounded off.
Sarik, invigorated by a sudden burst of adrenaline, yanked the escape ladder out of the cell in seconds and dumped it down into Grey's cell. Grey, who knew more than anyone what the alarm meant, scurried up the ladder at record pace.
"We gotta run!" Grey yelled, not wishing to fail this escape as he had at his last home.
Sarik lead the group, running straight into and through the hidden hole in the fence he and Stella had made, nicking himself on razor wire as he did. They arrived at the fence encircling the storage yard and started cutting with the wire cutters. In less than a minute, they were through.
As the young children entered into unfamiliar territory, they heard several sets of footsteps approaching their location.
"Hide over there!" Sarik told them quietly, pointing at a vehicle parked several meters across from the storage yard.
They all sprinted towards it and managed to get under it before the guards were in view, but just barely. The footsteps stopped, and Sarik could hear talking nearby. But suddenly, they started again, and much faster this time.
They were growing closer.
"Get out and run!" Grey whispered to them, who happened to be the last one under.
The four rolled out from underneath the vehicle on its opposing side and bolted. The general area they appeared to be in was a storage location for vehicles and equipment. There were trucks, construction vehicles, mixers, giant cranes, and many other machines useful for constructing military-grade structures.
The four kept running until Stella spotted a dome shaped building. She veered towards it, the group following her, not arguing any ideas at this point.
Sarik ran ahead of her and pulled open the nearest door, making sure everyone else was in before he quietly shut it.
The inside was dark, with only a single light illuminating a large, metal vehicle in its center. Sarik recognized this vehicle to be a tank.
"We need to hide," Grey stated.
"Why not that tank?" Sarik suggested.
"First place they'll look," Grey replied.
"I bet they won't check it," Alex remarked.
"Why not?" Grey asked.
"If it's the first place they would look, it's the last place they would check," Alex explained.
Sarik heard footsteps, much lighter now.
"They're coming," he whispered.
"I don't hear anything," Grey replied.
Sarik ignored him and ran to the tank, Stella blindly following behind.
"Better than nothing," Grey grumbled before running after them.
* * *
The guard stepped lightly on the earth beneath him, making almost no sound. He had heard the children come this way, so he diverted his unit to search for them. He could find no footprints, but common sense dictated that he search the vehicle hangar looming in front of him. He signaled for his men to move forward. He reached the door to the hangar and silently opened it.
From what he could observe, the edges were dark, so he moved silently to one side of the door and directed his unit with hand signals, keeping them in the shadows. However, the last man clumsily slammed the door shut, causing far more noise than the patrol leader would have preferred.
Their cover being blown, the security officer directed his men to do a quick, thorough search of the hangar. After a few moments, the search was finished, and not a single trace of the children were found.
But no one had checked the tank.
They're not going to be there, he dismissed.
He decided to check anyway. The commander walked over beside the tank and shined his light underneath the treads, exposing nothing but concrete flooring.
The patrol leader quickly wrapped up the search and lead his men out of the hangar to search elsewhere.
* * *
"At least you were right about this being the LAST place they'd check," Grey remarked, rubbing his sore arms.
When Sarik had heard one of the guards walking towards the tank, he had everyone climb up into the tank's internals. They were barely able to hold on for as long as they did because of the pain that their irregular positions brought.
"What do we do now?" Sarik asked Grey.
"Don't know," he replied. "The first time I tried to break out, I got caught and sent here."
"Nice of you to remind us," Alex remarked arrogantly.
Grey replied with a "hmph" and turned his back to them.
"Maybe we could use that," Stella suggested, pointing at the tank.
"Can you drive it?" Grey asked her.
"No," she replied sadly.
"Who's going to stop us?" Sarik asked Grey, hopping up onto it's armored chassis.
"We're not supposed to..."
Sarik glared at him.
"All right, but we have to figure out how it works first," Grey informed them. "And hope we don't die."
"Give me a try," Sarik said with a smirk.
* * *
Where are they?
The base commander was checking all of the monitors with his team from the facility's control room, trying to locate the escapees. The last time he saw them, they were cutting their way out of the base's main equipment storage yard.
Suddenly, alarms started going off, and the main screen automatically zeroed in on a vehicle hangar. A vehicle hangar with its front and back walls missing, and a tank steaming out of it.
"These brats can drive tanks?!" he yelled to no one in particular. "What are they teaching kids these days?"
The tank surged forward, forcing its way over a now downed tree and ramming into a building as it tried to turn. The wall crumbled, but did little in the way of stopping the juggernaut.
"Get me a complete list of our available resources NOW!" the officer yelled to his subordinates.
* * *
It came so naturally to him. From the moment he touched these controls, he could just tell how the machine worked. The logical order, the markings. Everything about it seemed like de ja vu.
"What's this do?" Alex asked, forcing his way past Grey in the cramped compartment.
Sarik, already overexerting himself by trying to drive a tank designed for grown men, ignored him.
"Seriously, what's it do, genius?" Alex asked obnoxiously.
Everyone was slung forward as Sarik hit the tank's braking mechanism, preventing it from plowing completely through the building he'd just rammed into.
Sarik took advantage of the break to glance over at the object of Alex's interest, just to make sure it wasn't something important. Alex had jumped into a chair parallel to Sarik's. In front of it was a set of controls, and above it, a visor of some sort. He would be forced to stand up in the chair in order to look into it.
"Don't touch that!" Sarik yelled. "I think it works the guns."
"Cool," Alex remarked as he proceeded to look into the visor.
Before he could do anything stupid, Grey pulled Alex out of the chair and forced him to the back of the cramped control center, which was designed for two people, not four.
Sarik backed the tank up as quickly as he could, causing parts of wall to fall around the tank. He then forced the tank forward between the buildings, hoping to find a way out.
* * *
"How the hell did they get this far?!" William yelled as he walked towards the base's control center.
"We're still investigating, but the tank they commandeered has already severely damaged two buildings," William's secretary reported. "We still don't know how the children are piloting it, or what they intend to do with it."
William remained silent about his brother's special condition for fear of exposure.
"Have we mobilized any forces to capture them?" he asked.
"No sir," the secretary replied. "We only have six units of armor, and all of our crews were asleep in the barracks that the tank just totaled."
"Helicopters?" William inquired.
"We have two on the way, but they're configured for anti-infantry warfare. Light traps, machine guns, and countermeasures. We won't have anything anti-armor capable for at least fifteen minutes."
"And by then they could be well out of the base," William said.
"We're working with everything we have," his secretary informed him.
He sighed.
"I know," William assured her.
They walked into the small control room, which was in complete chaos.
"Sit rep!" William yelled.
"They're getting closer to the base perimeter," the commanding officer reported. "We estimate they will be able to force their way out within seven minutes, possibly sooner."
"Resources?" William asked.
"We have two choppers inbound, but they're not anti-armor material. We're also working on getting two tanks online and crewed."
"Good. Tell them to pursue, but no shooting," William ordered.
"Sir!" the officer acknowledged.
* * *
"Do you know where we're going?" Grey asked.
"I know we're going outward from where we were," Sarik answered in a frustrated tone, clenching his teeth.
He grazed another building as he made a sharp turn, causing a chunk of its wall to fall off.
"Smooth one," Alex remarked.
"Shut up!" Sarik and Grey yelled together.
Stella, who was trying to balance herself against the main console, noticed two red dots appear on a previously blank screen.
"Um," she murmured.
"What's wrong?" Sarik asked.
"I think I did something," she told him ashamedly.
Grey slid out of the seat he was guarding from Alex and shuffled over to Stella.
"You didn't do anything," Grey told her. "I think somebody's chasing us."
"How do you know that?" Sarik asked.
"This is the tank's radar," Grey answered.
"This is going to be fun," Sarik remarked sarcastically.
He made another turn, this time barely missing the buildings along his path.
Two more dots appeared on the screen.
"I take that back," Grey said. "We're being chased by FOUR someones, and the new ones are faster."
"Do you know what's chasing us?" Sarik asked.
"Can I see outside?" Grey replied with a hint of sarcasm.
"Try that," Sarik suggested, nodding at the weapons visor.
* * *
William watched data and video stream in on various screens, trying to find some pattern that he could exploit without harming the children. Both helicopters were hovering overhead, providing him with live feed of the escaping tank. By now, the two tanks piloted by his own men had caught up, both within firing range of the runner.
"What the hell?!" one of the operation room's operators yelled.
William was thinking the same thing as he watched the tank's turret rotate backwards.
"Tell our tank commanders they have permission to open fire!" William yelled, now caring more about the damage the children could cause than the children themselves.
* * *
"I see two tanks and a helicopter," Grey reported, finally getting a hang on the gun controls.
Suddenly, there was a large explosion next to the tank, causing it to shake like nothing else.
"They're firing at us?!" Alex yelled from the back of the compartment.
"No duh!" Sarik yelled, making a sharp turn and forcing his way between two buildings.
"Grey, can you fire?" Sarik asked desperately.
"If I can figure how it works," Grey replied.
"Try knocking a building over," Sarik told him.
Grey started pressing buttons and pulling triggers.
* * *
William watched as the tank forced its way between two buildings, causing the walls to collapse outward behind it.
The tank was now between the final wall blocking the childrens' escape and a line of buildings.
"What do those helicopters have on them?!" William asked in desperation, having forgotten in the panic that his secretary had already told him.
"Twelve point seven millimeter anti-infantry machine guns, anti-personal mine droppers, and anti-vehicular nail cylinders," the CO informed him.
"Would the nails work on tank treads?" William asked.
"Not outright, but maybe in combination with the mines?"
"Try anything to keep them from breaking out," William ordered.
Then, the escaping tank fired.
* * *
Grey watched through the visor as his shot fell short of the building he was aiming at, blasting a crater in the ground nearby.
"Guess I gotta aim a little more up..." he mumbled.
As Sarik swerved to avoid incoming shots from the tanks behind him, he noticed a tall tower-like building several stories high.
"Hit the tall one!" Sarik yelled.
"Which...oh."
Grey fired, hitting the building at the base and causing part of it to collapse outward, littering the path behind them with large chunks of debris. Soon after, the rest of the building fell over in the same direction.
Although the pursuing tanks were now moving far too slow to have any hope of keeping up, it didn't stop them from firing, which they did without discretion.
Sarik felt the tank begin to tip as a shot exploded near it. It took all of his new-found skill to keep it under control.
"Grey, what do you think is behind that wall?" Sarik questioned.
"I don't know," he replied.
"Why don't we blow it up?" Alex suggested.
Sarik smiled as he stopped the tank and turned it towards the wall.
"That's the only good idea you've had all day," Grey remarked, catching a confused look from Alex.
Grey opened fire on the wall, unleashing his assault as fast as the cannon's auto-loading mechanism would allow. After about ten shots, there was just enough clear space to force the tank through.
Sarik drove the tank forward as fast as he could make it move, clearing the rubble in seconds.
But just as they were clearing the debris, a helicopter dove down in front of the tank and dropped something. Sarik attempted to avoid it, but the tank's right tread ran over it, causing the objects to explode. Another helicopter swooped in after it and released something else as Sarik tried to press forward. After the tank ran over those objects, the right tread wouldn't move, and the tank's compartment started to grow hot.
Sarik stopped trying to force the tank forward and jumped out of the pilot's seat.
"Run!" he told everyone else.
Alex, closest to the hatch, popped it open and jumped up, then helped Stella to climb out. Sarik and Grey climbed out quickly behind them, trying to get away.
As they were getting off the tank, two spotlights lit up the four children.
"Don't move and we won't hurt you," someone said over the helicopter's speakers.
* * *
"Inform the pilots they're not to hurt the children under any circumstances!" William yelled.
"But aren't those four expendable?" the CO asked.
"No more than you," William replied in a threatening tone.
William watched the camera and let out a grunt of amusement as one of the children ran, soon followed by the others. His amusement vanished as the helicopters overshot the children and lost them as they ran into a field of cane.
"How soon will we have men out there?" William asked.
"They're boarding right now," one of the operators informed him.
* * *
Sarik sat completely still as he listened for the helicopters, trying to figure out where they were going.
"Let's go," he told Stella, Grey, and Alex as another passed over them.
Sarik walked slowly through the tall plants, hunched over so that his head couldn't be seen. A moment later, he heard the helicopters coming back.
"Get down!" he whispered.
The four fell onto their stomachs as one of the helicopters buzzed over the field about ten meters above them.
The helicopter's spotlight fell over the four, but the reeds were so thick that they weren't spotted by the pilot.
"Go," Sarik ordered.
For the next twenty minutes, they continued this routine until they reached the edge of the reeds.
When they stopped to hide at the field's edge, Sarik could hear men searching for them.
"Where can we go?" Sarik asked Grey, the most experienced in these types of situations.
"I don't know," he replied. "They had to have used trucks to catch up with us so fast, so we won't last long in the open."
Sarik looked around, searching for a way out. All that was in front of him was a set of cliffs. Water could be heard from the other side of them.
"There's only one way to go," Sarik remarked.
Before anyone could say anything to stop him, a helicopter passed over, and Sarik made a run for it.
He was soon followed by young Stella, and after her, Grey and Alex.
Sarik made it to the cliff's edge and saw nothing but water. After a moment, however, he noticed a small ledge at the cliff's base, right above the water. Hearing a helicopter circling around for another pass, he started to climb down the rock face, hoping to stay out of the spotlight by hanging off of the cliff's edge.
Everyone started to follow, but Stella, who started climbing last, was still partially exposed, and the spotlight from the patrolling helicopter passed over her.
Within seconds, the helicopter flying parallel to the cliff face, locating all four children with its spotlight, soon after accompanied by the second helicopter.
"Climb back up, NOW!" one of the pilots ordered over the helicopter's speakers.
When the children kept climbing down, one of the helicopters fired its machine guns a few meters below the children, spraying them with metal and stone fragments.
"I said climb back up, NOW. If you cannot, remain in place and we'll get you up from there."
The children remained frozen in place, but Grey soon persuaded them to keep going.
The helicopter pilot grew frustrated and strafed about two meters above the child highest up, who happened to be Stella. She was peppered with rock and metal fragments, some sticking in her skin. The blond-haired girl lost her grip and fell down the final ten meters into the ocean.
When the helicopter pilot realized what he had done, he and his wing man changed attention from the children on the cliff to the one in the water, scanning over the surface with their spotlights.
Sarik, who was only three meters from the bottom, let go and fell the rest of the way, landing on his feet on the not-so-wide ledge at the base.
He looked around for Stella, who had not resurfaced. Then, as if on cue, the younger child broke the surface twenty feet away from the ledge, apparently in deep water. By now, Grey and Alex had reached the ledge upon which Sarik stood.
"What should we do?" Sarik asked, looking around for a stick, a line, anything.
"We can't do anything," Grey replied. "We don't have anything that floats or to pull her in with."
Stella sank back under the water as she thrashed.
Sarik, having found no other alternative, dove into the water.
"What are you doing?!" Grey yelled to Sarik, who was unable to hear him from under the water.
Sarik swam after the sinking Stella, trying to get a hold on her before she sank too deep. When he finally got a grip on her, she grabbed onto him, trying in her thrashing to reach the surface. This caused Sarik to begin sinking, and he was already starting to feel a burning in his lungs.
Sarik's lungs were hurting so much that he almost passed out. They sank deeper and deeper. Stella had stopped thrashing, but her grip on him was adamant.
Suddenly, as he neared unconsciousness, Sarik received a burst of adrenaline for some unknown reason. Stronger than he ever had been before, he grabbed onto Stella and pulled her towards the surface. Sarik was about to pass out from suffocation and exhaustion when he and Stella finally broke the surface, right under the spotlights of the hovering helicopters.
Sarik pulled Stella to the ledge, where several men were waiting to apprehend them. They pulled both of the young children out of the water, laying them on the ledge to rest.
Guess they were good for something, were Sarik's thoughts as he remembered the swim lessons his parents forced him to take since he was five, though he had broken just about every rule that had been taught to him.
One of the men put his ear up to Stella's mouth and started to panic. He called two of the other men over and started doing something to Stella that looked to Sarik like kissing. When he was done doing that, another man listened to her mouth again.
The men were starting to despair after a few more tries when Stella's mouth opened on its own, and she started coughing out water.
Sarik didn't remember much more about what happened that night. He remembered riding in a vehicle of some sort, some voices talking, then blackness.
* * *
"How did they get out of their cells?" William asked.
"We're not sure how, but there were several indentions in Blue One's cell that we think he used to climb out," replied his secretary.
"What are the cell's dimensions?" William inquired.
"Sir?" his secretary asked, puzzled.
"Don't tell me you didn't have them take measurements of the cell," William remarked.
"We didn't think it was relevant. I'm sorry, sir."
"Just remember to get all the details next time and I'll forget about it," William told her.
"Yes, director," she complied. "Is there anything else you need tonight?"
"No, but thank you."
The secretary left William's office silently.
Why? William thought. Why?
* * *
Sarik woke up in the infirmary on a hospital cot. Normally, a bed would be something that he didn't think about, but sleeping on a concrete floor for a week would get to anyone.
Sarik glanced around the room. It was small and compact, with everything crammed together. To his right, Stella was resting peacefully on another bed. He got tried to get up, but Sarik found himself bound down to the bed's metal frame by metal cuffs.
He waited, and nothing happened for a while. When he tried to fall back to sleep, he couldn't. After what felt like hours, Sarik heard a door open from somewhere outside of his view, and four men walked into the room. One of them unstrapped Sarik and rolled him onto the floor, knocking the wind out of him.
"Get up," the large man ordered, a guard, apparently.
Sarik caught his breath and jumped to his feet, doing it so quickly that one of the men struck him, causing him to fall back onto the ground.
"Don't even THINK about running," the man told Sarik.
Sarik got back up, much more slowly this time, and moved forward at the beckoning of the mens' pushes and shoves.
After ten minutes of pushing and shoving, Sarik was forced into a dark room. One of the men forced him into a chair, then left.
A few minutes later, the two other guards walked in with Stella in between them, who was wrapped in a blanket. After them came William, flanked by two more men, whom were pulling a struggling young girl with black hair. She looked to be a little older than Stella.
William strolled in with an arrogant air about him. He walked towards the back of the room where a small array of lights automatically activated, lighting a desk and a small area of flooring around it. William sat down in a hidden chair behind the wooden piece of furniture.
"Do you know why you're hear, Sarik?" William asked him.
"Because I'm in trouble," Sarik replied with a defiant tone.
William let out a grunt of contempt.
"You honestly don't realize what kind of trouble you've caused me, do you?" William questioned.
"I stole your tank," Sarik retorted.
"And you caused millions of dollars worth of destruction, injured dozens of people, nearly killed that girl!" William yelled.
"Do you know what kill means?" William asked sinisterly, having regained his composure.
"To make someone die," Sarik replied in a serious tone beyond his years.
"But do you REALLY know what it is? Have you ever seen someone die? Have you ever seen someone KILLED?"
"I know what die means," Sarik informed.
"And you know that a person is gone forever when they die, right?" William asked haughtily.
Sarik thought for a moment, a confused look on his face.
"But I thought..." he started.
"It doesn't matter what you think!" William interrupted. "When you die, your life is over! You are gone! Vanished! Oblivion!"
William rose out of his chair and walked in front of the the girl with black hair. Slowly and diliberately, he pulled a small gun out of his suit and aimed at her.
"Don't!" Sarik yelled.
The boy jumped out of his chair and charged William, but one Stella's guards ran over and held him.
The other grabbed Stella and held her in a submission position with his arm around her neck.
"Is this girl important to you?" William asked Sarik, motioning his gun at Stella.
"We're friends," Sarik answered.
William smiled, then in a blink, turned on the unknown girl and shot her in the head.
Stella started screaming and struggling, and Sarik let out an animal-like yell.
"If you EVER try to escape again, THAT will happen to her," William threatened. "The next time after that, it will be your other friends. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, sir," Sarik replied darkly.
William looked over Sarik one last time.
"Get them out of my sight," William ordered his men in disgust.
Sarik walked off with defiance in his posture as he was escorted back to the cells.
As he passed her, Sarik realized that Stella was crying her heart out as the guards forced her onto her feet.