Chapter 10 – Motivum
January 28th, 2532 - (21:40 Hours - Military Calendar)
Sol System, Earth
Australia, Old South Wales
Mount Umberumberka
(20 Years Ago)
:********:
The creek was a body of the foulest looking water Carisa had ever seen. From the western bank, she was given a panoramic view of the brownish-yellow tides. The cool push of the Pacific westerlies forced them to lap against the bank which was the reason why she was afraid to get too close. That and the viscous texture of the surface which she could only describe as bordering on polluted.
Giana led them north. There, the walls of an old dam arced across the creek's northern corner. The numerous cracks and breaches in the barrier as well as its extreme discoloration hinted at years of abandonment. Carisa guessed its age at the late 20th to early 21st century. It had probably shut down well before the turn of the 22nd if its current state was factored in. Hundreds of years was a long time for such a large body of water to remain stagnant.
As they moved towards the dam, Carisa relied on thinking of the place from a bird's eye view. There was the creek's vague oval-shape, the various inlets that dented the banks and the long reservoir that branched off from the south to snake through the hills. Everything worked together into the image of a dissected kidney. That image was even less helpful and she ditched the idea altogether of trying to ignore the sights and smells.
The aim was to use the dam to circumvent the creek. Better that than trying to swim to the other side, or so Carisa thought. Coming closer to the structure itself made her grasp how much it had deteriorated. The railed walkway leading over the top was cracking in most places, broken in some and destroyed outright in others. The two of them had to leap over a few gaps. They didn't dare try the rails which the years had strangled and twisted with rust.
Once they cleared the dam, they skirted up the banks to a network of trails that wormed westward. According to White's map, the route would take them past the summit. With the sun already going down, they worked their way along the path.
Through the curves and depressions within the hills they reached the base of the largest spot in the area. Mount Umberumberka stood 400 meters above sea level. For all that height, it was utterly featureless save for a covering of short trees, shrubs and dust. That and an ever-steepening climb to the summit.
The first 200 meters passed in relative ease. The next 50 gave them a run for their money. The last 100 was surmounted with hand over foot. Soon they crawled out onto the relievedly flat ground of the summit and collapsed.
Carisa spent half an hour listening to her own breathing as it quickened and slowed. The weight of her rucksack made things worse but she couldn't find the strength to pull it off. Finally, a pair of hands undid the straps and helped her to her feet. Giana lent her a shoulder. Together they hobbled over to the base of an artificially elevated dirt structure. The stumpy remains of an old wind turbine rose overhead, covering them in its shadow as they sat down.
The relief was instantaneous. Carisa stretched out her legs to unlock her stiffening joints. Her stomach growled. She retrieved a special forces emergency bar from her ruck. The nutrition-dense ration bar would give her a high dose of the necessary proteins and vitamins she would need for a day of rigorous activities. For all that beneficence, a single sniff made her gag. UNSC Procurement was able to master the art of making their MREs preservable for months and years at a time. What they were yet to master was the art of flavor. The culinary scientists in charge of creating the right chemical mixture of food were probably so overfocused on extreme edibility that they forgot about the basics. It doesn't matter how nutritious something is if a soldier is reluctant to put it in their mouth.
Carisa couldn't afford to be reluctant. There were no fruits to be found on the branches of the trees that dotted the summit. This was the best she could do. She stomached the fact of the matter first before she gained the will to bring it between her teeth.
A finger tapped on her shoulder. She stopped, the bar nearly to her mouth, and turned to Giana. Giana in turn was looking off somewhere else, visibly awestruck. Carisa followed her gaze and immediately forgot about the foul smell of the ration bar.
To the east, past the surrounding hills, across the wide expanse of the plains, was a gathering of lights. Yellow, orange, red and white illumination glowed in clusters, moved in lanes and rose well into the sky. Streets, suburbs, highways, apartments, skyscrapers galore lay together in a living circuitry of urban development.
The city of Broken Hill stood afar off but seemed so close that Carisa thought she could touch it. She reached out towards the rays of light. Hard to believe it was 30 kilometers away, she thought.
"Just 30." Giana whispered. "That's it."
"We can make that." Carisa said.
"Yeah, we can."
"I mean, right now."
Giana turned to her and gave her an empathetic shake of her head. "No. It'll be wilder out there in the night. Try to get some rest."
"But-"
"No, Caris. It's too dangerous. We'll sleep in shifts. I'll take the first watch, two hours."
Carisa sighed and flicked on the safety on her MA5K. "When do we head out?"
"We'll move at 0400. We can get some rest that way then split before any trackers show up."
"And our gear?"
Giana pulled up her carbine, yanked the charging handle and chambered the first round. "We'll ditch it once we're within two kilometers of the city limits. The last thing we want on people's minds is why two young girls are walking into town armed. Our first stop is the starport. We'll use the credits White gave us and book a ticket off-world."
"Were you still aiming for Luna?"
"Luna then Sigma Octanus. I want to put as much vacuum between me-, between us and Sol as possible."
Carisa noticed it, the correction. She dared press her luck on a question that bordered on what she really wanted to ask. "So it's okay if I tag along with you then?"
Giana nodded. "Of course, so long as you don't slow me down." She looked away, partly downcast. "Unless you had your own plans already?"
A warmth tugged at Carisa. It was the answer she was hoping for. "You know I don't like thinking that far ahead."
Though Giana looked like she was trying to hide it, the traces of a smile appeared. "I know. No worries then. We'll get close, ditch the guns then ditch the planet."
"Makes sense. It's risky but we don't need the attention." Carisa considered whether ONI would pursue them to Broken Hill too. If so, their M6s would have been small enough to keep on their person without arousing too much suspicion. That made her think of something else and she looked back to the west. "What do you think Brett and Andy are up to?"
Giana shrugged. "They're probably getting some rest right now. We should too." She got up using her carbine and set it across her chest. "I'll patrol the nearby area. Try your best to knock-off while you can."
As Giana was preparing to step away, Carisa felt she was losing out on the moment she was waiting for. A part of her sought to seize it and her mouth moved free of her own will.
"Hey, Big Sis? Can I call you that?"
Giana stopped. She peered over her shoulder at her. "What?"
Carisa swallowed. "Can I-, can I call you that?"
"Call me what? 'Big Sis'?"
She nodded.
"No." Giana turned and started walking.
Carisa sighed in defeat and pulled her legs in close.
"Not unless I get to call you 'Little Sis'."
The momentary defeat alighted from her mind and Carisa beamed with hope again. "Wha-, you mean..."
Giana turned around, grinning from ear to ear. "It's a trade-off you see. You can't just call me an embarrassing name like that if I don't get to call you one too."
"Even if it's true?"
"Especially since its true."
Carisa nodded and fell prey to the turmoil in her thoughts. They sat and stood together in the quiet moan of the wind for a time, contemplating what they had ultimately allowed into the open again. The ideas, the suspicions and connections were never coincidences. They were facts and now they knew it for a certainty.
Carisa cleared her throat. "Did you always think we were related?"
"Me? I always assumed there was something going on that ONI wasn't telling us. To be honest, I figured you might be a long-lost cousin I never got to meet on Andesia. I had plenty of extended family on my dad's side." Her grin softened as memories played behind her eyes. "But I never would've thought that-…"
Carisa sensed the heaviness within her sister's thoughts and felt it best not to touch on them. However, her curiosity got the better of her. "What was he like, dad, I mean?"
Giana flinched as if she suddenly remembered she wasn't alone. "Oh, what? Dad? Oh. He-...he was...nice. He was a good man, or so I thought, as good as they could get in Noctus. I knew plenty of other kids who lost their parents to the Insurrection. He stayed around, kept us close, taught me things I never thought I could understand. There was one thing he didn't teach me though."
"What was that?"
She eyed Carisa. "How to keep secrets."
Another deep silence passed.
"Did your mom ever talk to you about him?" Giana asked.
"Not really. She told me not to be wherever he was. That was because he'd usually be blowing people up every other week. That's about it, really. I don't know much else about him."
"I see. Do you want to know more?"
Carisa hesitated. "N-, no actually. I think I have a good enough picture of him in my head now."
"It's probably for the best then."
A nagging quandary buzzed at the forefront of Carisa's thoughts. Ignoring it seemed to give it energy, building it up from a concern to a worry and finally into a fear. One she was intent on not living with for the rest of her life. She mumbled it out.
"What was that?" Giana asked.
"Do you hate him for never telling you? About the Insurrection, about my mom?" She clasped her legs and pulled her knees in close to her chest. "About me?"
The question seemed to catch Giana off guard and she paused for a long while until she dawned an exhausted expression. It told Carisa she was really the second person to ask her that after herself.
"I don't know. I wouldn't say I hate him, but I wouldn't say I respect him for it. It's painful to find out your parents weren't as perfect as you grew up thinking they were. I realize that nowadays things are pretty gray. Sometimes too gray. I hate that he never told me. Not to mention it's partly his fault that we're both here. I don't think it's all bad though." Her countenance lightened and she managed to smile again. "After all, it helped me find the last person I could still call family."
The earlier fear dissolved. In its place, Carisa felt an unfamiliar comfort.
Giana walked back to the dirt structure and leaned against it. "And you? What do you think?"
"Me?"
Giana stared at the nighttime lights of Broken Hill. In its glow, Carisa saw her demeanor soften.
"There's an elephant in the room between us so understand that I want to move it out while I still can. He chose us, my mom and me, over you and yours."
The sense of comfort cooled and faded. Carisa looked away, not wanting to touch that sore spot or to meet her sister's gaze as she turned to her.
"Do you hate me for it?" Giana asked.
Carisa could hear the worry in her voice, verging on fear, telling her it was a long-awaited question.
"No."
"No?" Giana straightened. "You-, you're sure?"
"What sense does it make to hate the one person you have left in your corner? No, I don't hate you. I was a little jealous when White told me. I got it under control before I could start brooding like that."
"...And dad?"
"I don't hate him either. You have to know someone to really hate them and I didn't. I only know what he did and, somehow, I'm able to live with it. I think it's because even though he killed people, I always knew before it would happen but never told those people. If I hate him for killing them, I have to hate myself for never warning them." She thought back to her life on Andesia, to her schoolmates, to her mother and imagined what it might have been like if her family was whole. If Giana was there. "But I do wish things were a little different. That I got to meet you in a different way, and known who you were from the start. That's all."
Giana breathed easier. She reached down and patted her on the back. "They can still be different if you want. Once we get to Sigma Octanus, we can think things through from there, start a new life. Sounds good, right?"
"...You think we have a life waiting for us out there?"
The two of them looked to the stars that began fading into view in the night sky. The glowing baseball-sized satellite of Luna was the most vibrant thing in sight aside from the city.
"I don't know." Giana said. "But I hope so." After a while, she gave Carisa a playful kick in the leg. "Get some shut-eye already. Your two hours started five minutes ago."
"Wha-, hey, that's not fair. We were talking."
"Six minutes ago, actually." Giana corrected and headed off to begin her patrol.
Carisa growled at her as she walked off. Then a smirk broke through. She set her rucksack up between her and the dirt structure, lay her head against the softest part she could find, closed her eyes and refused to open them until she had drifted off to sleep.
:********:
"One day, we will win."
Although Carisa hadn't said it, whoever had sounded close. So close that-
"One day."
She whirled around to the voice. Standing behind her was a woman in a torn T-shirt and savaged jeans. It was her mother. Blood ran down in thick rivulets between her glazed eyes which ignored the pain of some unseen head wound as she fixated on her daughter.
"Mom!?" Carisa yelped and started to cough. Something was squeezing her neck. She looked down and found her mother's hands wrapped around her throat. She wanted to scream, to ask her why, but her powerful grasp squeezed the air out of her.
Her mother replied with the same monotone voice as before. "One day."
Carisa reached for her hand to pull it away. The fingers gripped her tighter and she wheezed.
"One day."
Her chest was on fire. She frantically searched for anything she could use to free herself. Despite her hazing vision, she realized that she was wearing military green. She was in the battle-dress uniform of a Marine. She spotted a sidearm on her waist. Without hesitation, she pulled it out and pointed the barrel square in her mother's face. Only it wasn't her mother anymore. The face of her father stared back, equally bloody, equally remorseless.
"Carisa." He croaked. "Carisa."
His grip became iron tight and she saw stars.
"Carisa."
She thumbed off the safety and pressed the barrel to his forehead. If it bothered him, he refused to show it as he continued to strangle her.
"Carisa!"
She had almost squeezed the trigger when she recognized Giana's voice. Carisa shot awake, gasping for air and finding none as Giana ran into her at full force, knocking the wind out of her lungs as she tossed her over her shoulder. The cool night air chilled her yet she could feel the heat of objects zipping past, heard the rhythmic crack-crack-crack of gunfire and saw, though vaguely, multiple muzzle flashes.
Thuck-thuck.
Carisa felt the impact through Giana herself. Her sister gasped and tripped, revealing the pair of tranquilizer darts lodged in her back. She took several stumbling steps before she fell forward. Even as Giana struck the ground, Carisa kept falling. At her first impact with the ground, she knew it was at a sharp angle and realized that she was on an incline, falling down the mountain.
Her world flipped end over end in an endless cycle of hard landings, spins, cuts and more falling. She hit her shoulders on tough tree trunks, scraped her skin on thorny bushes and knocked her head on boulder after boulder. Within the blurry pinwheel of motion, she felt herself being roped back into unconsciousness as gravity continued to pull her down the slope. She was almost gone when a final, bone-jarring impact killed her momentum.
Breathe. That was what she needed to do. Using what scraps of consciousness that she had left, she sucked in a breath. Her chest expanded painfully, stopping halfway thanks to something hard pressing against her spine. A few agonizing breaths strengthened her to open her eyes.
At first, she thought she was surrounded by dozens of tall figures. She blinked and her sight cleared. The figures were in reality a sparse collection of sandalwood and desert oak trees. Shadows danced in the moonlight around her. Remembering the object at her back, she craned her neck to look up into the umbrella-like canopy of an acacia tree. She was sitting up against the trunk, the wide base of wood that had stopped her descent. Her only hope was that it hadn't paralyzed her in the process.
The landscape in front of her curved out from a sharp incline down into a gentle plateau. She understood that she was on the edge of a shallow ravine, though exactly where she wasn't sure. She sighted up the incline and found out.
The western face of Mount Umberumberka stood high above her. Spotting the summit made it obvious what had happened. She had slid and tumbled down 60 meters of mountain before her savior-acacia stepped in to her rescue.
Shapes moved on the edge of the summit. Several silhouettes were converging on a single shape lying down there. Carisa comprehended the situation quickly. She watched, silent, while the newest ONI tracker team descended on her sister's limp form. They were dressed in a kind of camouflage pattern that made it hard to distinguish where the night sky ended and where their BDUs began. She surmised that was likely the reason Giana hadn't noticed them until it was too late, but not too late for Carisa.
She clenched her jaws as they picked Giana up and dragged her off. In the face of certain defeat, her team-leader had forfeited her own chance at freedom to save her. The pain of that was more than she could bear to think about. She gave in to the aches and scrapes all over her body and started to cry.
Against the gravity of her situation, her training kicked in and her emotions kicked out. She willed herself to stand. The agony of her injuries was overruled as she analyzed her environment. She located her carbine next to a fallen log and picked it up. She spied her rucksack lying a meter away in a small pond. She reached for it and something also reached for her. She reeled back from the snake that came racing over her ruck. In the moonlight she recognized the silvery-brown scales as belonging to an eastern brown snake. The thing coiled itself to a stand and hissed at her, flashing its fangs.
She glanced at the summit. Some of the trackers were still standing there. They were looking down the western face of the mountain, searching for her.
Her options narrowed down to one. Carisa raised her carbine and fired. The snake blew clear off her rucksack from the shot that struck it like a lightning bolt. Then came the thunder, the report of the discharge that echoed up the otherwise quiet terrain. She wasted no time fishing her ruck out of the pond, securing the straps and beelining it for Broken Hill.
The math was plain and daunting in its immensity. She needed to cover 30 kilometers on her own without getting caught. There was no way of knowing where the trackers might show up or some other animal intent on taking her life in a creatively excruciating way. The one thing she did know was that she could not afford to stop for any of them.
She ran out of the ravine and headed down the mountain. A solid 340-meter dash remained between her and the base. The finish line for that part of her race would be one of the larger dried creeks in the region called 'Lakes Grave Creek', a foreboding albeit apt name for such an arid place.
She dashed from tree to tree, shrub to shrub, utilizing any route that kept her in the shadows. The next 100 meters blinked past in a routine of rapid strides accompanied by a scan of her surroundings.
Almost 200 meters from the base she was able to see the creek. It was a minor sprint away. The scenery disappeared upon reaching a denser area of tree-cover. A greater, taller variety of bushes stood in her path. She pushed on into a natural maze of leaves and branches that made it hard to see her way forward. She ran, crouched and crawled through the labyrinth and came to a spot where the bushes lessened.
With a leap, she hopped down into a lower area and came to a particularly sparse spot in the maze. Her boots hit the ground right as two figures emerged on the opposite side. Her temporal perception sped up while their movements slowed. She analyzed them on the edge of her periphery; two trackers decked out in the same nighttime BDUs as those on the summit. Their visors, aglow with night vision optics, failed to give them the same reaction time as her. Carisa rushed past them both and slipped into the bushes between them.
She heard the pair come to a stop behind her. She put more distance between them and herself in the second it took them to realize she had just passed. Their pursuing footsteps grew faint in a failed attempt to match her speed. As small as she was, it made finding a way out of the undergrowth an easier task than it was for armor-clad adults.
Carisa cleared the maze and ran headlong down a growing descent in the mountain. The last 100 meters lay ahead. At its end was a sharp dip; a berm feeding into the Lakes Grave Creek that stretched on to the north and south of the mountain. An area of little tree cover like the one she was looking at was unideal. The guys coming behind her would have a good line of sight if she didn't get far enough. She carried on regardless, the lights of Broken Hill prompting her forward.
Her worry proved well founded. Halfway down the descent, she heard the crack-crack-crack of rifle fire. Tranquilizer darts landed all around her. She zigzagged, pivoting at random intervals in an effort to widen their shots. It worked and one close call after the next zipped into the ground at her feet or past her shoulder.
The shots suddenly stopped once she was within 10 meters of the edge. In synch with the cessation, a trio of trackers pulled themselves up over the berm. They were spread out in a visible attempt at an encirclement. They crouched and leveled their M7s at her. The one directly in front of her had the best lineup.
"Stop right there!" He shouted.
Carisa did the opposite, running straight at him. He tensed as she came within three meters. She gauged his trigger finger, waited for it to flex then quickly leapt aside. The burst of tranquilizer darts missed her as she slid down the steepening ground, leveled her carbine and fired point-blank into his face plate. A blast of full-auto fire whipped his head back while her momentum carried her boots into his chest, drop-kicking him over the berm.
Both of them fell over into the creek bed. The tracker crashed to the bottom, impacting the ground the first time then the second as Carisa tucked and rolled over him. She barreled up onto her feet and broke into a sprint. She aimed for the greater tree cover on the opposite side of the creek. The pursuit crew, momentarily stunned, took aim.
The best they could do was a measly return fire that failed to stop her from vanishing into the trees. Her racing mind stayed on par with her body. She maneuvered into yet another creek that wound eastward through a set of hills. So long as it led her east she didn't care. Her land navigation training helped her steer along the winding passageways. She clambered up hills with increasing ease but prioritized networks of dried creeks whenever she could find them. The memory of the geographical map was keeping her going. That and the increasing visual of Broken Hill. Freedom was close.
At what she guessed was three kilometers from Umberumberka, the sounds of her pursuers disappeared into the landscape. She took the chance to reorient herself to the southeast on a straight course for the city. They could keep heading east if they wanted. They could chase her ghost all the way to Sidney. All she wanted was to get to Broken Hill. She would reach the starport and then...and then what?
She eventually happened upon the Umberumberka Creek, the continuation of the dried reservoir that ran from the body of water a dozen kilometers back. Her recollection told her that following it would take her to a highway that would bring her directly into the city. She trotted down its length to the point of exhaustion. Hours passed before she heard anything other than her own breathing.
The sound of a car driving by on the other side of a hill made her alert. She crested the top and found the highway. The strip of asphalt cut a long path through the barrens. A distant car light was driving east in the direction of Broken Hill. The engines didn't sound like that of a Warthog's, a reassuring fact. Once it was gone, she felt comfortable enough to descend to the side of the highway and jogged alongside it. Her eyes, tired, shifted from place to place. No more threats or obstacles stood in her way. There was nothing aside from a direct route to her refuge. Perhaps another 10 kilometers and she would be home free.
The next few hours progressed in a similar fashion of controlled breathing and jogging. Making regular perimeter checks became less important the closer she came. The quietness of the highway gave her no real reason to keep them up. She saved her energy for enduring the bitter cold of the night and putting one foot in front of the other.
:********:
Broken Hill was a strange place to see up close. From the suburban sprawls gridding the outskirts to the buildings and skyscrapers rising at the center, the assortment of structures was odd. There were no Pelicans flying overhead on delivery runs. There were instead civilian and commercial starships floating to and froe in the clouds. No Warthogs patrolled the streets. Rather, there were unfamiliar cars, jeeps, trucks and vans that lacked the slightest inkling of militarized production or purpose. In the place of Army troopers moving along the sidewalks there were regular passerby. The denizens of the city, those out and about in the early morning, moved at a leisurely and carefree pace that Carisa found odd.
It was around 0600 by the time she reached the city limits. There she stayed while the first light of Sol purpled and reddened the sky. Dawn was at hand and so was her escape. And yet she found the last kilometer of her days long trip to be the most impossible.
The hills that encompassed the city's western outskirts gradually flattened out into a more even area, still hilly but not as challenging. She could reach the first homes of the suburbs in minutes. Yet she stayed in the last of the greater hilltops for what was going on half an hour. She had sat down at the spot where the shrubs died off and the emptiness of the plains started up. There, she set aside her carbine, pulled her legs into her chest and watched.
She particularly eyed the starships that descended through the clouds to the starport on the far east side of the city. It was right there, visible, close. She could make it.
Her feet stayed put.
She thought back to Andy and Brett. She could see it in real time: the twins yelling at each other, ready for a fight on the trip to the mountain. Things changed when they finally needed to separate. Brett stayed put. Eventually, so did Andy. She found herself repeating like a mantra what Andy had said on the slope.
In nearly a decade there was never a better chance at escape than the one facing her now. Her body seemed not to care. It refused to budge despite the promptings of her haggard mind. Except that was exactly the problem.
The image of Andy sitting beside his brother on the hood of that Hog hadn't left her. Neither had that of Giana sitting next to her on the summit. They were playing out in her head every waking moment. Their silent voices challenged the one telling her to get moving. She could honor what they did for her and leave, or she could do the opposite. She could try the terrible option and find out how awful it really was. It was that terrible yet terribly convincing prospect that kept her sitting on the hilltop, watching the ships come and go.
Then as if someone had tuned on a switch, light flooded over her in a concentrated beam. She subsequently registered the whine of turbojets whipping up the air around her in a blast of wind.
"DO NOT RUN." A man's voice boomed. "PUT AWAY YOUR WEAPONS, LIE ON YOUR STOMACH AND PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK."
She put a hand to her eyes and peered into the light. Its source made a maneuver that allowed her to make out its full shape: a Hornet flying less than several meters overhead. The outline of the pilots stared her down from the cockpit, as did the rotary cannons and launch systems locking onto her.
Carisa refused to budge. The most she did was throw her carbine aside. She put her head between her knees and blocked out the rest of their demands. She peered through her legs to the nearby city, watching its people go about their day even as the sound of turbojets was joined by that of Warthogs and eventually approaching footfalls.
"Idiot." She murmured. "You stupid, dumb idiot."
:********:
Two days spent in a holding cell was admittedly better than two days spent in the wilderness. There was good air-conditioning for one. A continuous stream of temperate airflow through the vents was better than the environmental mood swings of the outback. The same went for the other accommodations. A clean bed to lay her head instead of dirt, a set of new clothes to replace the torn ones, trays of food delivered to her cell for all three meals of the day instead of the nutritional abomination that was the special forces bars. The change of scenery was an improvement in almost every way. Every way except for the sense of impending doom.
Unlike the two days in the wilderness, the two days she spent here involved hours sitting alone in a corner of the room. The comfortable bed and palatable food were the farthest things from her mind. The silence gave her the chance to think. Giana, Brett and Andy were most likely in the same predicament as her. She wagered they were wondering about the same thing.
What punishment would the review board hand out for this latest act of not only insubordination, but also evasion and assault? What about the theft of the equipment they used to get as far as they did? That thought made her consider whether the four of them would be the only ones facing the consequences.
There was also Instructor White.
Did the other instructors sniff out the traitor among them? The idea that the recruits could steal all those supplies was possible. Survival and Evasion training could have its repercussions. Then again, it was not far-fetched to think they had help.
Would the board give them the usual disciplinary action for escapees? Or would they all be disappeared, sent to wherever the program's unusable materials went to spend their days or end them? She was unaware of any previous escape attempts that led to the neutralization of an entire tracker team. There had to be extra ramifications for that, surely.
Carisa got her chance to find out. On the evening of her second day back at Topkapi her cell door slid open. Seeing the person standing on the other side made it abundantly clear that the review board hadn't pieced everything together yet.
"Come with me, 108." White said, wearing the best disguise of an impartial expression she had ever seen him wear. "It's time."
Carisa picked herself up out of the corner. Without a word, she followed him out into the corridor. A pair of Army troopers tagged along. She glimpsed the assault rifles they carried as well as the alertness in their demeanor. Perhaps they were suspicious, no, they probably knew what a little kid like her and the others had done to guys like them.
A short walk later, they arrived at the doors of the review board. They opened and she was ushered inside.
The crescent table at the center of the room was fully occupied by the board. Lutgens was there, his displeased mug present. So was Patstone who watched her like he would a patient ready for a check-up. Mahmud sat in the middle. He was by far the hardest to read. She couldn't tell whether he was displeased or amused.
The door shut behind them and White took his seat, leaving Carisa to bear the brunt of their scrutiny.
She thought it amazing how her personal instructor was able to blend in so well among the innocent. She made sure not to pay him too much attention either. Guilt by association was still a possibility.
The board played out the first seconds of the meeting in silence. At the end of it, she noticed Mahmud smile. The Head Drill Instructor raised both his hands and brought them together in a slow clap. The other instructors did the same, beginning a round of applause that left her stunned. Everyone, Patstone, White and even Lutgens clapped. It took her a moment to understand that they were doing it for her.
The applause faded off and Mahmud shot her an approving grin. "Well done, 108. Well done."
"S-, sir?"
"You've more than proved your efficiency as a candidate of this program. You and your team not only managed to successfully escape on your own, you also evaded the teams sent out to find you, neutralized the first one that did and disabled their air support. All with TTR rounds." He leaned towards her. "That...is impressive."
The instructors nodded in agreement.
"Though your team cohesion did fall apart at the end, your personal actions to escape the special dispatch team impressed all of us after we reviewed the footage. You've shown that you're quite the capable recruit when pressed into a genuine combat scenario. That's more than I can say for most others. Not even Team 1 has proven itself under the same circumstance, though it remains to be seen what they'll do if they're ever tested like you were."
"Tested?" Carisa thought aloud. She snuck a glance at White. Had the entire escape been a test?
"Allow me to explain," Mahmud said. "Escape attempts are not uncommon, but when they happen, we don't panic. What we do is sit back and observe. We know that we can bring back most of those who try their luck at running. What we don't know and want to see is if those escaping are still effective operators, basically, if they're still worth keeping around once we retrieve them. There's no better way to assess their capabilities than in the real world. Successful evasion is a good sign. Successful resistance? That's what made your group stand out from the rest. You can rest assured of that. Because of your performance, we've decided to keep you in the program."
Carisa thought it over. It wasn't a victory but it wasn't necessarily the worst-case scenario either. "Me?" She asked, making certain she'd heard them right.
"Yes. You as well as 151, 185 and 186. We've already debriefed the other three on our decision earlier today. Starting tomorrow, you'll be returning to your normal training regime with Instructor White, although it will be under closer observation following your attempt. We'll have our eyes on you for a while before we'll risk leaving you to yourselves again."
"...All of us get to stay?"
"Yes."
"...And no punishment?"
"Not exactly. We'll be watching you more closely. Though I won't go into detail, any secondary attempts on your part will not be tolerated."
Carisa inwardly shuddered at the veiled threat. "So...is that it then, sir?"
"Almost. I have a question or two for you and I need your honest answers."
Carisa stood straighter, preparing herself.
"Where did you acquire the supplies and materials you used during your escape?"
"I'd like to find that out myself." Lutgens added. "How'd you get your hands on my guns? The ones that got stolen were missing for years. Is that how long you four have been planning this?"
She was prepared for the question, not for its answer. She struggled not to let her eyes betray her and kept her gaze as far away from White's as she could. They really had yet to figure out his role in all this. Her first thought was to tell the truth. Foresight stopped her. If she did indeed expose the rogue instructor, there would never be a better chance for any other Janissary to escape Topkapi again.
"Didn't the others already tell you, sir?"
"They did." Mahmud replied. "And now I want to hear it from you."
She was already on a sinking ship. She surmised it was better to captain it all the way down to the bottom. The best she could do was not try to talk for anyone else; to avoid potentially exposing a lie they'd told the board with one of her own.
"I can't speak for 151, 185 and 186, but I can say that I secured my supplies on my own. I stole an M6 early on during our firearms training. The way I understood it, the weapon registry software they use in the armory has a major flaw. It doesn't always need to detect the whole gun. It just needs a piece to recognize a weapon as 'removed' or 'returned'. I took away my pistol piece by piece then reassembled it on the night we went out. The rations, rucksack and supplies I secured from our SERE training back in the plains. People lost equipment all the time out there. It wouldn't be too surprising if I misplaced a ruck with a few supplies inside."
The board was silent in its considerations. So was White, miming their curiosity with an actor's level of accuracy.
"We'll have to get a system analysis of the armory's registry software to counter that kind of tactic in the future." Mahmud said. "We wouldn't want to make it any easier for them, would we?"
Lutgens nodded. "I'll get right on it, sir."
Mahmud turned to Carisa. "And what about that datapad you used for navigation?"
"I believe that was acquired by 151. You would have to ask her, sir."
"Hmph. Alright then. We know 151's explanation so I'll let that slide. Now for another question. Why didn't you leave when you had the chance?"
Carisa's brow furrowed. "Pardon?"
"Why didn't you leave when the opportunity was right in front of you?"
"I did leave, sir."
"You're misunderstanding my question. I mean why didn't you go into the city, Broken Hill? The report from the trackers says they found you sitting in the outskirts. Their estimations for the time they lost visual contact with you and the time they discovered you again suggests you had an ample opportunity to reach the city, at least half an hour, but they found you sitting down a kilometer to the west. That's half an hour we can't logically account for. Would you like to explain what it is you did with that time?"
The images flashed before her as though she were still there, sitting on that hill. She saw the faces of the other three passing her by one at a time. Brett hopping onto the hood of the Hog, Andy turning to join him, Giana telling her to get some rest while she took the first watch.
"I'd miss them, sir."
"What was that?" Mahmud asked. "You'd 'miss' them?"
"Yessir. That's what stopped me. I didn't want to think of what life would be like if they weren't around anymore."
"And that is what made you want to come back?" Patstone asked.
"Yessir."
"Would it be fair to say then that you thought the same of the rest of Team 4?"
"...That is also correct."
Patstone turned to Mahmud who rubbed his chin, slightly perplexed. Soon some solution made itself known in his inner counsel and he appeared pleased again.
"Good." He said. "Very good. That's great to hear, 108."
"Why's that, sir?"
Mahmud peered around at the others and found a general intrigue to match his own. "You are a very resourceful candidate, 108. I'm glad we didn't lose you. You've shown us here the results of your discipline. And now we've finally found your motivation."
:********:
Topkapi's cafeteria, or chow hall as Class IV knew it, was a sacred gathering spot for those coming off of a long day of training. Being nearly the size of the auditorium allowed for a lot of room. The kind needed to host the hundreds of exhausted kids and teenagers looking for a bite to eat.
Today saw the instructors giving their respective teams the go-ahead for lunch. Long columns of tables took up most of the space besides that reserved for the dozens of food counters lining the walls. The tables unofficially divided the class into their teams, one column for each. Candidates tended to gravitate towards the same columns as their teammates and then down to the table frequented by their squadmates. Carisa usually saw it as an awkward situation where she could never leave for a different table without a few disapproving looks.
Today, however, she was thankful for the setup. It gave her the out of getting a tray, visiting the counters then heading straight for her table without any trouble. None except the suspicious glances from the rest of Team 4. She noticed them watching her at the edge of her periphery. They didn't need to look directly at her either. The slow and calculated maneuvers of fork to mouth and cup to lips was a dead giveaway. Their real attention was on her as well as Andy and Brett. The twins sat on the other side of her table. They were busying themselves with the day's serving of steak and mashed potatoes. Eating was the best way the three of them could ignore being watched.
Their disappearance over the past four days did not go unnoticed. How could it considering the way the teams were organized required them to be close-knit. If someone vanished for even a day it would trigger alarm bells. Days had passed and there was no doubt that they had questions. However, they kept them to themselves. A smart move. The instructors would be maintaining a close watch on them. None of the others wanted to risk the same problem Instructor White had to dodge the day before; guilt by association. So they kept their distance.
Carisa could care less for what they wanted to know. What she wanted was to know what Andy and Brett were thinking. This was her first time seeing them since they parted ways at Umberumberka. She wanted to know if they were mad at her for wasting their efforts to get so far. Or were they simply disappointed that she never made it?
Above her concern for them was the one she had for the last member of their escape attempt. Biting into a piece of steak, she side-eyed Giana a few seats down. The same applied there too. Throwing her off the summit was not likely what Giana was going for. Even so, she did try to help. What did she think now that they were both right back where they'd started?
Carisa contemplated moving over to her table. Giana must have thought the same. She was the first to get up with her tray and walked over to hers instead. She settled down in the seat next to her. Her hands stopped short of her food.
Carisa also left her tray alone, her appetite long gone. She waited.
"Did you get close to the city?" Giana asked at last, her voice just above a whisper.
There was that guilt again. Carisa fought to get the words out amidst the strong desire to keep her mouth shut. "I did."
"How close?"
"...Close enough to see people's backyards..."
Andy and Brett were the only other two within earshot and Carisa noticed that they also stopped eating.
"Oh." Giana made a move for her utensils again. Her fingers took hold but refused to raise them from the tray. "It's because I dropped you, isn't it?" Her grip tightened around the knife and fork. "That's why you didn't make it. Because I let you get injured like that."
Carisa saw her hands begin to shake. "No. That's not it. And don't worry. They cleared me medically yesterday so I'm fine."
Andy and Brett met her gaze, giving her their full attention.
"I got to the city limits. The trackers made it a little hard on me. Still, I got there in one piece."
Brett leaned in. "So then, why didn't you go on ahead?"
Carisa felt herself shrinking away from the conversation. She needed to tell them the truth. She fought another battle to say what needed to be said. "I-"
The words got caught in her mouth as she saw someone approaching them with a tray of food. It was a familiar face, an unwanted face. Nevertheless, he put his food tray on the table and sat down between the surprised twins.
Normally, Janissaries avoided sitting at tables belonging to rival teams. This went doubly for team-leaders. That said, Dimitri never seemed to care much for norms. He casually set upon his food with knife and fork, eating without a care in the world.
The four of them watched him like a wolf among wolverines, something of the same nature but desperately out of place. They waited for him to say something. When he kept eating, Carisa decided she'd had enough. She got up and picked up her tray. "I think we should eat somewhere else."
"Yeah." Andy agreed, taking his try. "In fact, I don't think I'm that hungry anymore."
Brett and Giana got up and the four of them walked off for the exit. They reached halfway then came to a gradual stop. Carisa hated to admit it to herself but she was still hungry. She saw that the others knew it too: there was nowhere else to sit. Slowly, they turned back to the table, back to Dimitri who watched them with a patient smile as they returned.
None of them resumed eating except their uninvited guest. He made it halfway through his steak before speaking. His words came out jumbled thanks to a mouthful of meat.
"What?" Giana groaned.
He swallowed. "So how far did you guys get?"
A heaviness settled over the table. They glowered at him with all the vitriol they could muster. Still, he waited expectantly for an answer.
"Not far enough since we're still stuck here talking to you." Andy grunted.
"Aww, it's okay. I'm sad they couldn't get rid of you too."
Andy rounded on him and he held up his hands defensively, laughing it off. "Kidding. I'm kidding. I missed you guys, really. Things wouldn't be as fun around here if you made it. Hope you enjoyed your vacation though."
"Oh, we did." Brett said. "Four days of not having to see your face? Think about it."
Dimitri shivered. "Man, that sounds like torture. I'm sorry you guys, I didn't know it was that rough on you-"
"Why are you here?" Giana murmured.
"I just told you. Because I want to know how close you guys got to Broken Hill. So?"
Carisa and Giana shared a look of annoyance.
Carisa squinted at him. "How did you know we went to-"
"Because I do. I'm not answering anymore questions until you answer mine."
"God, I want to punch you." Andy said right to his face. He turned to Giana. "Can I, boss?"
"No." She said, stopping him cold.
"She's right." Dimitri grinned. "That would not be a good idea for...several reasons. Now, how far?"
Carisa sucked in a long breath and let it out, wishing she could be anywhere besides here. "One kilometer from the city."
Dimitri gawked. "You?"
She nodded.
He checked the others. "All of you?"
"Why?" Brett snickered. "Worried we did a better job than you could've if you did the same thing?"
"Honestly, yeah."
Brett smirked, his chest swelling with pride.
"For a group that doesn't particularly rank that high overall but still isn't at the bottom, I ruled out the idea that they were giving you extra classes for improvement's sake. The only other thing recruits from a slightly average crew would be doing is running away from the hard life. Guess I was right. And you ended up being good at it too. Imagine that."
Brett's pride wholly deflated and was replaced by a deep, hateful scowl.
"If I had to deduce it, however, I'd say only one of you actually made it that far." Dimitri examined him. "I saw you walk in with a bit of a limp. I'm guessing it's from a sprain ankle you're recovering from that you got during the attempt." He eyed Andy. "You probably stopped to help him and gave up after that." He turned to Giana. "You're not the fastest or the best at endurance so that rules you out." He focused on Carisa. "You're the opposite. You're a pretty good runner; always running straight into the traps I set like you're a cheetah or something. It was probably you. Still, you would've stopped short."
Carisa's blood boiled. She struggled not to shout at him. "And how do you know I stopped short, huh? I might've gotten caught instead."
Dimitri gave a dismissive shake of his head. "You got caught alright but not by the trackers." He pointed a suggestive finger at his head. "It was this."
Carisa's anger reverted to shock. As much as she hated him, she hated that specific part of him most. The one that could rip people open and see their insides without ever having to touch them. She looked away, her cheeks reddening.
"Guess I'm right." Dimitri chuckled.
"Guess you are." Giana stepped in. "You're also unwelcomed. You can hurry up and tell us your real reason for being here or you can leave."
Dimitri's laughter died off. He marveled at her, having been caught in his web by someone using his own technique. He wasn't the only observant person in the room.
"Right-right." He said. "I actually came to tell you that I'm one of those they've asked to keep an eye on you guys. I'm telling you all this so you'll know to act right whenever you're around me. That or you can face the consequences."
They stared hard at him.
"Okay-okay. I am seriously watching you guys for the instructors' sakes but that's not why I'm here."
"Then what?" Giana growled. "You want an autograph from the group that's seen more real action than you?"
Dimitri tapped an inquisitive finger on his chin as he feigned contemplating her offer. "Not really. I'm not sure how using 'tactical training rounds' counts as 'real action'. Better that you'd shot them for real if you wanted to call it that, no?" Giana glared at him and he shrugged it off. "But to each his own."
"Just get to your point, please." Carisa hissed.
"...I wanted to ask you why you thought it was a good idea to leave."
"Because we wanted to get away from you." Andy said matter-of-factly.
"Okay, well I'm sorry about that. That whatever I did caused you guys to consider leaving the one place where your lives actually matter."
Carisa's fists tightened into an air-tight grip. Sheer willpower kept her in her seat.
"Hear me out. If you went back to where ONI found you, you would wind up like you would if you failed this program: dead, unaccounted for or both. The Janissaries are giving you a chance you could never have gotten back there. A meaning, a reason to live and others to live it with. It makes no sense that you would go off somewhere to end up on some QRF's casualty report, an unnamed body no one can recognize because everyone that could is just as dead. Tell me I'm wrong."
"You're wrong." Carisa bit back. "We were going somewhere better than that mess, and better than here."
"Oh really? Then where were you going?"
She didn't answer. She couldn't. He was weaving another of his webs again, readying it for the one explanation he would, like most things, always remember. A new tool in his arsenal of weaponized information.
"I'll tell you where you were headed." Dimitri said. "Would you like to know?"
She shook her head.
He told her anyway. "Oblivion."
Carisa's fists acted faster than her restraint and by the time she realized she was standing, Dimitri's head was already twisting from the force of the punch. To his credit he stayed upright.
The wider conversation in the cafeteria died down as the sound of the blow turned dozens of heads their way.
A small stream of blood trickled from Dimitri's nose. He wiped it off with a napkin, looked at it then at her. "I guess I'm not wanted here anymore. I'll get going." He picked up his tray and got to his feet.
No one said a word as he turned to leave. Then Carisa's mouth moved of its own accord.
"Do you actually believe that crap you tell yourself?" She asked.
He stopped. Against all the odds, his smile returned again. For once, it shocked her to see that a measure of earnestness was in it.
"I do. As annoying as it probably is to you, it's the only reason I'm still alive right now. Figured it would help if you thought about things that way too. It still might."
With that, Dimitri walked away, bound for Team 1's table. The atmosphere of the cafeteria soon returned to the usual blur of conversation and clinking of utensils.
Carisa sat down. The whole ordeal somehow left her feeling more exhausted than after the escape. She reached for her fork to try eating what was left of her steak. Her lack of appetite stopped her.
Andy reached over with a fist. "Good job."
"What?"
"Somebody had to do it." He winked. "He better be happy it wasn't me."
She flashed him a tired grin and gave him a fist bump.
"Don't feel bad for that guy, alright?" Brett said. "He had it coming."
"I don't...it's' just-…"
Giana put a hand on her shoulder. "It's alright."
Carisa sighed. "Is it?"
"Yes. Sure, we didn't get where we wanted to be but at least we didn't wind up somewhere we never wanted to go."
"Like six feet under." Brett said.
"Or worse." Andy added. "They can do a lot worse than that."
"I'm sure they can." Giana said. "Which is why I'm happy they showed us a bit of mercy. You should be happy about that too."
"Yeah, so now we're right back where we started." Carisa complained. "Square one. Not to mention they have people like Dimitri watching us."
"He's always doing that. He's a creep. That's what creeps do. Besides, square one isn't too bad. We can work our way up from there."
"What about a certain someone?" Brett whispered. "You think he'll be trying to distance himself from us after this?"
"He already is." Andy said. "We had to do the same thing in front of the board. Consequences for us wouldn't be the same as for him. We're in a better spot than he is right now."
"Which is why we shouldn't bring this up anymore." Giana warned, giving them the hint to drop the topic. "Escape's no longer an option for us. That threat Mahmud gave should be taken seriously. I don't want to think of what would happen if they caught us again."
Carisa remembered the words of the head of the program. A veiled threat from him could mean many things. None of them good. "Agreed."
Giana took up her utensils. "We'll stay in the program. We'll keep our heads down until we can get them above water."
"And then?" Brett asked.
"...And then we become Janissaries." Giana resumed cutting up her steak. Andy followed suit. Brett, a tad offput by her answer, seemed to accept it in the end and refocused on his meal.
Carisa watched them eat in a manner that made them blend in with the crowd. That, she could tell, was their best bet. She pinched her fork, picked up a severed piece of steak and popped it into her mouth. Chewing drew out the beefy juices onto her tongue and for the first time in years her mind was uncluttered enough to savor the taste.
Motivum – Motive