Sigma/Star

Chapter 70: Enter Beijing Part 3

"Good, I can do that," Chase said, rubbing his hands together with glee. "I'm very good with creative."

Ling Shi shifted his eyes over to Porter and the two exchanged glances. The Jade Fang leader had caught on to Chase's antics quite quickly. "Don't worry Ling, I'll handle the excuses then."

"Excellent. I must return to the Fang, but do not worry. You are always under surveillance from some of my finest men, and, if they see a safe opportunity, they may rescue you from any difficulties you encounter. Good luck."

"Thank you." Porter turned and looked over his shoulder but found Ling Shi had melted back into the crowd, disappearing in an instant. Impressive. "No time to dawdle then I guess Chase. Let's do this." The new "diplomats" strolled up to the library with faked confidence, pretending to chat with one another before nodding at the guards as they attempted to pass them. A hand crossed their path though, barring their entrance.

"Hello good gentleman," one of the guards said with extreme difficulty. He struggled to get around the pronunciations of this foreign language and was very clearly stating a pre-planned line. "May I ask your reason of entry?"

Porter withdrew the insignia and showed it to both of the soldiers. "We were sent by the embassy to collect a couple copies of documents." The guard snatched the insignia, examining it with great distrust. While he had his clear reservations about the legitimacy of the symbol, probably after seeing so many forgeries from the Jade Fang, but the clearly foreign appearance of the Enian pilots sealed the deal. The hand was withdrawn.

The smell from the last library was gone in this building, along with any books made of paper. This was a completely digital library, with row upon row of metallic hard drives storing information, amidst clusters of servers holding more data in internet clouds. "Well let's get to work then Chase." Porter dragged his partner along, who seemed far more engaged this time than previously, his sense of adventure and danger propelling him along. They accessed one of the many computers with ease, finding this one had their language built right into it. Obviously this was a commonly visited place by foreign parties.

A database scan began, scouring through the vast resources contained within the entire collection. While it went on, Porter thought back again to the discussion between himself and Ling Shi in the base...

"Tell me Porter," Ling Shi mused as they wandered the halls of the abandoned factory. Chase had been left to actually go to the bathroom, something he had apparently been holding the entire time. "Why is it that you wish to see this general freed, really? I can understand the bond of friendship, but I sense something deeper here."

"Well it's sort of a long story." Ling Shi tried to give Porter his reassuring smile in an effort to coax the tale out of the young man. "Like an extremely long story," Porter repeated. "But I can say that my friend and I have had similar lives. We both lost our family to these wars and I had a chance, a brief moment really, where I was given mine back. I want to see if I can give that back to my friend as well, or at least give him closure." Porter withdrew the chain from his pocket that Ardwen had given him. "This belonged to General Carter Veillon. He gave it to his brother and he gave it to me for now. This is the lack of closure my friend has lived with. Clutching to a memory, a tiny shard of hope and that's it."

"We all have lost so much in these wars Porter. That is why the Jade Fang or the Red Scarf exist. We fight against this endless violence, to restore the lives of the families touched by it. This event, this potential break out, is just another step towards that end goal. You are a cog within the endless machine of the military but I feel like you are a bit different from the usual ones. Perhaps your outlook has been warped by what you have seen or maybe this loss of your family shapes your future but I have a very strange belief in you Porter, something I cannot say of any other soldier who has passed through this place." Porter tried to twist his mouth into a smile at the compliment but couldn't shake the burden of his past weighing down on him. Ling Shi was right: he was a product of the past. But with such a sullied past, did that make him a ruined product?