Knife in the Dark

C.L.O.U.D.

Slowly, one at a time, everyone agreed, each adding on an extra argument on why to stay as we went, it ended with Rapier explaining the probability it is a trap over the chance it's real and there is something to look for. When we were done, we looked at Voulge, which have done ever since we were little kids with toy weapons. Voulge sat there, deep in thought, stroking her rabbit slowly.

Finally she spoke, "I must agree with you all, there is too much of a risk that we won't survive and that there will be nothing to get, it's simply too dangerous to simply get all of us to go and try and retrieve a piece of information we know nothing about." Her voice rang clearly out to all of us, making us instantly remove any doubt from our minds that we should be trying to go after the information.

We were then confronted by a truth, how do we get this information? Or at least, how do we find out about this information? Both questions wouldn't be able to be answered by The Storm, we needed inside information, for which we had nothing, no one would help us, no one would even care about us, apart from to run and yell our whereabouts to everyone so that they could get a dumb pay rise or something along the lines of that.

That was where I was wrong, apparently Glaive's sister, Bianca, worked inside the archives section of C.L.O.U.D. and there was no way she was going to give up her little brother, even if she was killed in the process. I could tell that this made Glaive feel guilty, using his sister like this, so we all used everything we could to cheer him up, not saying that there is much of a way to cheer up an assassin doing what Glaive is about to do. His fingers quivered while he started punching in Bianca's number, who picked up the phone on the first ring and promised that we were encrypted, which was the only thing protecting us from exposure and indeed Bianca as well. She said she would meet us at the coffee store in two days with the information, which helped prove that it existed, but Bianca wouldn't say what was in it, probably more frightened than Domovoi, as he had his father's gene, as opposed to Bianca, who was related to one of C.L.O.U.D.'s most hated enemies, which didn't see her with any work friends or brownie points to the company in charge of her job and really her life in a sense.

We spent the next hour finishing any homework required and packing, ready for the journey ahead, which wasn't that far, but gathering from what people act like around the information, it would spell out a new start in our lives, for better or worse was yet to be seen. Adrianus watched me pack, it was impossible not to notice that cat, there was no way that someone couldn't say this cat was elegant, from his strong muscles to his rippling coat, which seemed to change whenever he walked. The cat was clearly annoyed that we would be heading off soon, and tried in every way he could to stop me from finishing me from packing. This was an inconvenience but nothing more, but when I was done, I picked up the cat, cuddling him to make him feel better than I felt.

Xavier came in, obviously starved of attention from Katana. Adrianus took this dog to be a playmate and jumped on him, much to the amusement of the dog, who then persisted into making Adrianus play chase with him, and they took off, looking for a better area to play it then the dreary space known as my room. I sat down and started to draw, every so often Xavier or Adrianus or both would dash in, grab whatever was left, then scamper back out. They would never take anything serious until they calmed down, which was another thing that would need to be waited for, and so began the battle between dogs and cats, which disrupted my assignments and their planning, but I didn't care all that much, it was a nice distraction from what was happening in the real world. The animal's joyous personality was contagious, and slowly I began to smile with the animal's silly actions. 

After two hours of the constant distractions, I moved onto the roof, away from everyone, meaning that I could do my work in peace, and so I did. There wasn't that much to do, it just took time, and time is money, and so therefore was required to be finished quite quickly, which for me is impossible as I find it hard do work in a loud environment, the irony in that was so large I had to stifle my laughter. It was funny watching all the issues that people had to face, even though there was little to no sorrow from me, I was still able to empathize with them. True it's not exactly the same as me, but I have to face a lot of things similar to what people who live normal everyday lives have to face, so I didn't laugh when I heard Rapier smash his leg against the table's leg, I knew that when that sort of thing happened to me, I wouldn't want people laughing at me, as it hurt, but I didn't go help either, because that was too far for me. I don't do personal feelings sort of things.

I stayed on the roof for a long time, too long perhaps, but I didn't care, it was away from the drama of downstairs, and meant that there was always a safe spot, like a half time break in a game of soccer. I stayed up there for about three hours, at which point the sun was already starting to set. Hitting the surrounding houses in beautiful glittering sunshine. I didn't know how I was going to deal with people when I got back down, but that didn't matter, I would deal with that when it came, until there was someone yelling my name from downstairs that there was something for me to do, I was content in staying up here, in the sun, with the wind rustling past and trees shaking all around.

My life turned upside down when I was called inside. Xavier and Adrianus were still playing around, but Voulge was sitting there, in her armchair. When Voulge is sitting in her chair, the best thing to do is go and hide, but there was no escaping her eyes which, like radar, had zoned in and a locked on their target, namely me.

Voulge's face remained serious as I sat down, which mean that the news was even more serious. Voulge then made the guards leave, this means that serious stuff was going to take place.

"Knife, you know that this going to be a dangerous and probably deadly mission, don't you? You need to be prepared to do anything that I tell you too, even if you don't think it's working, ok?" Her voices struck like daggers, wedging their way in as far as they could.

"Crystal clear Ma'am," I answered, having only heard half of the conversation. Two days from now we were going to be given potentially deadly information, I couldn't afford to fall out with anyone now.