FLY BOY - Completed

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Finally River was able to enjoy flying her Arcane Fighter. Thankfully there was no one on her tail trying to blow her out of the sky. In truth there wasn't much difference in flying the real thing compared to being in the simulator, yet somehow it felt so much more exciting and so much more powerful. She did as Dayden suggested and stayed close on his wing. 

Their flight to the Resistance base camp was fairly quick and though Riley barely uttered a word over the radio, Dayden and River kept up a constant chatter the entire way. They had so many questions for each other. Dayden probably knew too, that River was particularly nervous about seeing her father again. He could tell she was worried about how badly her father had been hurt. He continually came up with new questions whenever there was a lull in the conversation.

River told him all about the run in she had with Richard Hamilton as she left the simulator lab. At first Dayden was extremely angry when he heard what River had gone through, but then she added that she had only escaped because of the Stunstik that Dayden had not only provided for her, but had also shown her how to use. Dayden laughed out loud when she told him that she gave Richard a swift kick to the solar plexus as well before leaving him unconscious on the floor. 

In turn Dayden told River how he had been jumped after his last class while he had been on his way to meet up with her. He said he was taken at gunpoint by two hooded guys and escorted to the basement of the Carter building, which he pointed out was the building located directly across from Thomson Hall. He shocked River when he said that there was a long stone chamber in the basement of the Carter building that contained a number of locked cells.

The two masked men tied him to a chair in one of the cells and proceeded to interrogate him on why he had been snooping around in unrestricted files. When Dayden refused to answer, they beat him. They also asked him questions about secret files they believed River's father had hidden. Dayden told them he knew nothing about such files, but they didn't believe him and continued to beat him until he eventually passed out.

When Dayden finally came to, he was lying on a dirt floor inside the locked cell, but thankfully he was alone. His captors along with the chair they had tied him to, were gone. He must have groaned as he tried to pull himself up from the floor because suddenly he heard voices calling to him from the other cells. The voices were asking if he was okay. He found out shortly thereafter that the voices belonged to three of the missing Fly Boys. 

River was shocked. She like everyone else had thought the three Fly Boys had gone missing in action. At least that was the story that the General and his closest men were passing around. Yet, in truth they had three of them locked in cells in the basement of one of Special Ops own buildings. She wondered why the General would do such a thing? She did not have to wonder for long though, because the next words over the radio from Dayden explained answered all of her questions.

The three guys told Dayden that they and the other Fly Boys had started getting suspicious over different orders they were given from their superiors and whenever they asked questions they were reprimanded. Eventually though, they and four other Fly Boys found out that the General was kidnapping females from the safe zones and selling them to the highest bidders from other regions. As a group the seven of them went to the General and basically refused to follow his orders, saying that they would have no part in carrying out any mission that involved kidnapping women. They thought because there were seven of them that the General would back down, but instead they were immediately arrested and imprisoned. 

Four of them were killed while resisting arrest and the remaining three were thrown into the cells. Scotty's brother Shane and David, the Fly Boy who had accompanied River's father on his last mission, had been lucky. They had been out in their Arcane Fighters on patrol at the time of the confrontation, so had no idea as to what had gone down.