Thanks everyone for being so patient, I've been dealing with way too many family emergencies this week lol.
Thanks to my reviewers: Honest, Peacexfreedom, Phantomgirl96, Lilly, Kristie, Tigerlily99, MacGaulyver, Emma, its Danni, and Kaylee.
The next chapter will be arriving quicker.
Asleep
Chapter 8
The front door was still ajar as Six ran down the stairs. "Sandra!" he yelled. He leapt the last three stairs, grabbed the door and slammed it against the wall. "Sandra!"
Outside the street was empty, a cold wind twisting a spiral of dead leaves through the gutters, and stars glittered coldly from the darkness overhead. Six's eyes burned as he turned back to Rex.
"Come on!" Rex reached for the door but Six slammed the door shut before he could. He pinched his forehead with his fingers, trying to be rational. Rex had never seen him so rattled. "Six! We have to get her!" Rex insisted.
"No. I need to think…" Six's voice was thin with strain. "She'll have gone to Providence…but why? Has she gone to turn herself in? Or to tell them where to find you? Or to turn me in? No, she'd never do that. She'd only turn herself in…but right now?" his voice rose in anger. He cast his eyes over the hallway until he saw the letter lying facedown on the carpet. The wind from the door must have knocked it from the hallway table.
Six crouched and picked it up. Rex watched him, concerned, he'd never seen his guardian so…strained, he was usually so calm and collected no matter what. Six's jaw tightened as he read the note. Then he nodded, almost to himself. "She's right," he said quietly.
"Right about what?" Rex demanded, and tried to see over Six's shoulder, but Six palmed the letter and slipped it into his pocket. "Come on. We have to go."
"To save Holiday, right?"
"Yes." Six turned and went back up the stairs. "Rex, there's a holdall under your bed. Grab it."
Rex obeyed, running to his bedroom, threw the already rumpled duvet against the wall and pulled out a big battered holdall. He surreptitiously drew the zip aside a bit to peek inside, but saw nothing more exciting than food rations and a few folded blankets and first aid supplies. He hoisted it onto his shoulder and went towards Holiday and Six's room, trying not to think about how they actually slept in the same room. Did Six sleep in his suit even when sharing a bed with Holiday? Heck, did Holiday ever change out of her lab coat, or at least the black skirt and orange sweater? He accidentally had a mental picture of Holiday in a negligee. Bad, Rex! He told himself. They're your parents, well foster parents I guess.
He entered their room just in time to see a gun disappear beneath Six's jacket.
He never uses guns, Rex thought, aghast. It was wrong…it was like nachos with steamed vegetables, or like cheeseburgers with boiled potatoes, or like playing lacrosse.
Six turned and brushed past Rex without a word, going back down the stairs and out through the front door. He opened the garage door from there and went inside. Rex followed, heard the click of the padlock on the metal cupboard.
"That's more like it," Rex said softly, seeing his foster father take out his beloved katanas. The dim light from the naked light bulb gleamed down their edges. Six flipped them down to their smaller length and slid them up his sleeves, then went to the darker side of the garage. It took Rex's eyes a moment to adjust, and during that moment Six whipped a heavy cloth off a gleaming mass of metal.
Rex's heart stopped at the beauty of the motorbike underneath it.
"My ride," Six said before Rex could even plead. "You have your own ride."
Rex grinned. "True. Race you."
"You don't know where to go."
"Ah."
Rex retrieved the Build from his mind, his Ride. Six straddled his motorbike, turned the key in the ignition and it purred to life, he twisted the throttle and surged out from the garage, leaving Rex in his dust.
Rex raced out after him, barely catching up to him. "What's the plan then?"
The wind streamed past them, forcing both of them to raise their voices in the darkness of the streets. "Follow me." Six was brief, his concealed eyes trained on the road ahead.
Houses and then shops streamed past them, getting more and more spaced out, then it was like a blast of cooler air as they emerged into open land, the air grew more arid, drier. Six kept going even as cliffs loomed over them.
"The badlands," Rex whispered, his words vanishing on the wind. There was nothing out in the badlands, nothing lived out here, Providence couldn't be here, could it? Six kept going though, combing between narrow roads then finally turned off the road and onto a narrower dirt path. Rex's teeth chattered with how bumpy the ground was.
An overhang of rock formed over them and Six continued in under it. Finally, some metres ahead, his engine halted. Rex changed back to human and walked inside hesitantly. "Six?" he whispered, hardly able to see anything in here. "What are we doing here?"
"Come here," Six's voice drifted to him.
A shiver crawled up the back of Rex's neck.
This isn't…he said we were going to save Holiday, didn't he? Six doesn't lie. Well, my version of Six doesn't lie, but what about this one?
It unsettled him to doubt Six. But his fists couldn't unclench as he followed the sound of Six's voice. Then a lone match flared into existence, casting a tiny cone of light before settling into a small lamp, that Six set down on the floor.
"It's idiocy to go rushing off," Six said quietly. "We won't be able to go home after we get Sandra back. If any of us get injured, we'll have to come back here and sort it out ourselves—if we can."
"You mean, if we don't die," Rex was blunt.
"Yes."
Then Six took a deep breath. "I need you to stay here."
"No way." Rex's answer was immediate.
"Hear me out," Six reached out and took the holdall from Rex, unzipped it and took out a blanket, laying it on the floor. Tired, he sank his lanky form down onto it. "Rex, you have a shoot to kill order over your head. We've been lucky so far, Sandra's only had to dig a bullet once out of you but next time it might not be. You…are more valuable than either of us. It has been selfish of us not to try taking you elsewhere, to one of the other Providence bases to see if we could find someone more…sympathetic to Sandra's ideas. If Sandra and I don't survive this, I need you to go to the other Providence bases, find someone you can trust, and rebuild a life there. Get them to research you without killing you, get them to let you put your skills to use. The world needs you alive. You cannot be sacrificed for two people."
"I can't," Rex said quietly, sitting down on the edge of the blanket. He drew his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them. "I can't let you two die. You're the only people I've ever remembered caring about."
"Being in hiding with us is holding you back," Six argued.
"And if I let you go, I know you won't be ever coming back," Rex said quietly, meeting Six's eyes. "It'd break my heart, Six."
"Fine." Six's reply was short. He opened the holdall again and took out a soda for himself then tossed another one to Rex. "I'm going to have something to drink until you come to your senses." Rex caught it automatically and popped it open, though he wasn't very thirsty. He felt queasy. He settled back on the blanket while Six sipped from the can of soda.
"So, they shot me?" Rex said finally though he wasn't very interested.
"Rib." Six motioned towards Rex's waist. "Fifth."
Rex looked down at his chest. A faint memory of pain woke up somewhere inside him.
"When I black out…why do I remember other things?" Rex asked finally, softly. "Six…I remember a whole other world. You and Holiday…and Noah…and White Knight…are there."
"White Knight?" Six's voice was sharp. "Who's he?"
"He's in charge of Providence…he was your partner." Rex began to feel a bit of déjà vu.
Six flinched. His voice was bland though. "Sandra's probably right, something psychological, your mind probably made up an explanation of what it couldn't remember. I guess Richie's death upset you."
"Richie?" Rex raised an eyebrow.
"You were there when he died," Six adjusted his tie suddenly. "I don't blame you for what happened, Rex. You know that, I always remind you of that. His death was not your fault. He chose his own death."
"White Knight dead?" Rex demanded. He sat up, put the soda aside and looked at Six expectantly. Something told him that he was onto something, that this was something he needed to know, urged him to know. "Tell me Six, tell me exactly what happened."
"When I first found you…Richie didn't trust you. He sold you out to Fell. Fell tried to dissect you. You didn't take kindly to it. The lab blew up. Richie…chose to die. I had to choose to save you."
"Thank you," Rex said softly, and drank some of the soda. It wasn't the best soda he'd ever had. He looked at the date stamp on it then shrugged. He'd had worse, right?
Six rested his back against the rock wall, and seemed to go to sleep.
White Knight died? The thought still got to Rex. He didn't like the guy, he was way too controlling, but at least it was easy to sneak around when Knight was in charge. He was confined to a box after all.
Now he's confined to another kind of box I guess, Rex thought morbidly with a shudder. His eyelids heavy, he yawned and stretched out on the blanket.
Gotta save Holiday…want to go home, he thought, his muscles relaxing despite the stress. The soda taste still lingered on his tongue, something a little too sweet.
With a slight groan Rex surrendered to sleep, knocking the soda can over with his arm. The liquid seeped over the ground in a thin stream.
Six straightened up, got to his feet. He uttered a soft sigh as he took a notepad from the holdall and a pen from his pocket. He wrote a note for Rex, then gently tucked it into the boy's fist.
Then he took out his own note from his pocket, the note from Sandra. Her handwriting was a comfort to him, especially if it should be the last thing of hers he would ever see.
David, there are 4 people in the world that matter to me. You, Rex, my sister and...well, that's what everything's been about for the last few years, hasn't it? Project 89. It worked, David. I found out last night, and I have to keep it safe no matter what. You need to keep Rex safe in case I fail. One day no matter what, we'll be together again.
All my love,
Sandra
Project 89. It made his heart jump in his chest when he thought of it and his jaw clenched in fear at what Holiday had done. If Fell finds out what she's carrying in her own body...she's dead. She'll be the one on the dissection table. Her and my son, or daughter, unborn or not.
"Forgive us, Rex," he said quietly, and went to his motorbike. He wheeled it outside, back into the night. His eyes stung for some reason, he took his sunglasses off for a brief moment to rub his eyes with the back of his hand, then put the sunglasses back on, got onto his motorbike and moments later, he was gone.
Rex slept on, drugged, the soda soaking into the ground.