Everett: Revised edition

Chapter 13- Edited

The sound of gunfire rang out across the yard.

"That's enough for today." Alis commanded the newbies to hand over their weapons. The new soldiers were dismissed, and a set of guards walked them back to the buildings. Alis looked over the remaining guards as they cleaned the guns and packed them away.

"Hey Alis."

Alis looked up, "Hey Greg."

"How're the newbies doing?" Greg asked.

"They've got work to do. Evander is promising. I'd like him to move to the next unit soon." Then, Alis looking a little sheepish, continued, "Everett's not doing well. With practice he may do well with shooting, but he's still green and tender. He wouldn't shoot an animal even if he needed food. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if he felt bad squashing a berry."

"You're not giving him enough credit, Alis," Greg said.

"I'll continue to train him. We'll put him on hand-to-hand combat training too... but I don't think that will make much of a difference," Alis said. Her soft, but intense blue-violet eyes peered out of the corner of her eyes and up through her eyelashes as she took a gun and began helping the guards clean.

Greg gave a gentle, decompressing sigh. "It's okay anyway. I'll be taking him away from you more. He's going to go on some foreign intel missions for a while. We need our allies' support now more than ever."

Alis wrinkled her forehead and raised her brows. Her eyes softened with earnest skepticism and her mouth conformed to show the same. "Is it a good idea to send him? You have other operatives. Everett can't fight and, as far as I know, he's not a negotiator."

"He's friendly and trustworthy. And this may be a good way to give him experience as well as confidence," Greg said.

"Fine. I have to trust that you put a good team together," Alis said. "And if it fails, A loss of one boy won't topple the organization."

Later that day, Greg gathered his team of foreign negotiators. In the Commander's lounge a long table was erected with seven, foldable, gray, metal chairs. At the table sat Everett, Evandar, Cassian, Destry, Idryssa, and Alis. One chair was empty – Greg's. He stood in front of the room as his team entered and took their seats. On the table, the team could see a simple white sheet of paper. There was a crudely drawn map on the paper. The landmarks were labeled, otherwise the team would not have been able to identify the uneven circles and squares on the childlike picture. Alis didn't look thrilled to be there.

As usual, a guard was placed outside the door and inside.

Greg began: "As some of you may know, our position here at the Old School Yard is quickly becoming unsafe. We had hoped that being outside the farmlands would enable us to have a position where the Community couldn't locate us, but, despite our base being well fortified as a former Community hotspot, we can't rely on it and ourselves alone. The Shadow Council leaders feel that we need to recruit allies in other regions of the country. The Community is not the only region on this continent to follow the Government laws. However, there are areas which we believe we can get a foothold in while we try to devise a way to get another anchor point further into the Community. I believe this is a team that will be able to develop those allies in other sectors."

My eyes darted back and forth between Greg and the others gathered in the room. Silence enveloped the room as Greg's voice dissipated among the listening ears. No one objected. They were there to serve the Shadow Council.

"What are the details of this mission?" a boy at the back – Cassian – asked eagerly.

"There is a community to the south of us, across the plains. My intelligence tells me that they have loosened up their interpretation of the government's laws over the past few years," Greg said.