Ties (10)

Sitting in the passenger seat driving through the heart of the city, Cecilia peers out her window. Sky scrapers are lined up one after another. The reflection of the sun set sparkles off the windows of the buildings. As the sun fades, lights shine brightly from neon billboards, signs and street lights illuminating the large sky scrapers. Even at dusk the city glows. The bright concrete jungle is nothing to what she is used to growing up.
The hover car arrives at the Tempest. Cecilia steps out of the car and opens the back door. Virge gets out and together walk to the foyer. The pair is greeted by an athletic woman in army attire.
“Virgil Dylan?” the woman shakes Virge’s hand. “I’m Charlie Jordan, second in command in Lt. Thames unit.” Charlie turns to Cecilia. “And you must be Cecilia. I want thank you both for coming today.”
Charlie leads the two into the Tempest building and head towards an elevator. As they walk Cecilia examines the interior and the layout, she is amazed how large it is. They enter the elevator head down to the second lowest floors, nine levels underground.
“Above ground is mostly offices and where the mayor resides, most of the levels underground are for training the government’s soldiers,” Charlie explains. She takes Virge and Cecilia out of the elevator and to a large steal door shaped like a bank safe. “This is where our unit trains. We are the human division, made up of over 5000 human soldiers. They are currently in the middle of a training session, so this door is sealed shut. No one can get in or out while the training is on.”
“So do we wait?” Cecilia asks.
“I have already contacted Lt. Thames on your arrival, so he will be stopping the training at any moment, once I have the okay I can open the door,” Charlie explains. There is a devise in Charlie’s ear that lights up blue. “Speak of the devil.” She turns to the steal door, inserts a key and types in a numeric code. The heavy door unlocks and slides open from the centre. She heads into the room as Virge and Cecilia follow.
Behind the door is a gigantic room with steal walls. Lined up in hundreds of straight rows, 5000 soldiers stand like statues with perfect posture. In front of all of them Lt. Bison Thames greets his visitors.
“Thank you for coming Virge,” Bison says as he shakes his hand. He looks over to Cecilia as she grins from cheek to cheek. Charlie sees how Cecilia looks at Bison admiringly and interrupts.
“So these are our soldiers, each and every one of them is trained to defend and fight for our planet,” Charlie explains as she walks in between Cecilia and Bison.
Bison turns to Virge. “What do you think of them?” he asks.
“Do you mind if I take sit down?” Virge asks. Bison nods as Charlie brings a chair for him.
Virge sits and closes his eyes as his body collapses into the chair. His neck no longer supports his head as it falls to his shoulder. Virge cringes as his spine cracks out of alignment. He can no longer move from his neck down. He breathes and adjusts to the pain before opening his eyes. He looks at the army of soldiers that stand in front of him. None of them make a sound but he hears every single one of them and their intentions. He hears their thoughts and listens out for any indication of betrayal in the division.
Everyone is silent as Virge sits. After a few minutes Virge closes his eyes. His back cracks as all his disks realign. He opens his eyes and stands. He nods to Bison as he walks out of the room, Cecilia and Bison follow him.
“So what did you find out? Do we have a traitor in my team?” Bison inquires.
“No, none of them know about the core or what happened to it,” Virge informs. “You’ll have to search elsewhere for your answers. And Bison, don’t lead Charlie on.”
“Excuse me?” Bison asks confused.
“If you can’t give her affection you should tell her, it will make life a lot easier for the both of you,” Virge says. Bison stares at Virge frustrated. “Thank you for having us Bison.”
Virge and Cecilia get into the elevator and head to the ground floor. As they walk to their hover car Virge turns to his assistant.
“I know fancy Bison, but don’t. Not only is it going to cause confusion to our mission, but it’s also rather pointless” Virge says.
Cecilia nods not questioning him. She opens the back door of the car for him and closes it behind him.
Once Virge is comfortable he presses his watch and uses it to make a phone call, there is no hologram. The call is answered as he begins to speak.
“I just read his mind and Bison has no clue about our plans,” Virge advises. “Excellent,” the voice on the other end of the call says. “Everything is going according to schedule. We will prevail.”
Virge ends the call and stares out the window. Below him on the lowest level in the Tempest building Liam hangs up the phone from his end of the conversation. It is the largest room in the entire building. It could fit a seven story house in the room alone. Liam walks around the floor as dozens of engineers and mechanics are working on a large machine. Liam heads towards the machine to an engraving written on it: E18. He touches it with his hand.
“We will prevail,” He whispers.