The Salvation

Chapter 31

|Venelope|

Craig grabbed a chair and threw it into his lounge room wall, the wooden dining chair shattering to splinters. "He fucking has her! That's Jane's hair!" Craig argued furiously, stumbling over his words. "I know he fucking has her and we're doing nothing?!"

"We're not doing nothing Craig, we're planning! We don't know if that's Jane's hair! Seems a little too convenient!" The tired Felicia argued. It was midnight, and the three of them had been arguing different points for hours. "Why would he have Jane's hair?"

"Because she's his fucking captive you dumb bitch!" Craig shouted.

Andrew out his hand on Craig's shoulder and pushed him aside. "Call her that again, I dare you!" Andrew threatened.

"Who would tell this "Callus" about Glade?" Venelope asked, trying to divert the tension. "Are we sure he didn't just know of it already? We send out radio signals all the time... He could've just heard one..."

"He specifically said a friend of ours sent him!" Andrew explained again, irritated. "The only two unaccounted for are Jane and Malcolm, Malcolm has brown hair and it's not this long..."

Venelope tried to think. "What if it was someone you know before the bombs dropped?"

Felicia thought for a moment. "Veronica Saunders? No her hair was a dark purple... Maybe Christopher Stone? No he had curly long hair... Olivia Palmeri perhaps? Or was her hair brown...?"

"I only know one person who didn't live in Glade, that knew I did, and had black hair..." Andrew began, sitting down. "One of the Aquarius members had a sister, her name was Melinda Marez and she ended up having a daughter to one of the other members... But that was two years ago, almost three, I doubt she'd still think we lived here."

"I doubt she'd still think you're even alive Andrew..." Felicia added.

Andrew shrugged. "Fuck it, I doubt she's even alive..."

Craig calmed himself a little. "Jane is the most likely suspect! We have to go... Andrew we have to..." Craig pleaded.

"What colour was Deborah Fisher's hair?" Felicia asked. "I never seen her on the news or anything."

Andrew thought for a moment. "It used to be brown, but now it's turning grey... Definitely not hers... And Callus has always been Deborah's rabid dog, as if he'd show her off to me as what could be a prisoner."

"Could?" Venelope asked, confused.

"We don't know for certain this hair is from a prisoner of Callus, they might simply be a guest." Andrew suggested. "He said he had guests waiting for him..."

Felicia nodded. "Is that likely? I know you said this Callus was a ghost in the eyes of the government, but is he one for prisoners?"

"Honestly..." Andrew paused. "I don't know..."

Venelope remembered the day her mother died. The day Deborah Fisher gave her speech... "When I first saw Deborah there were these men behind her, three of them. One of them was in a fancy suit, the other two in plain ones..."

Andrew sat up. "Was the suit really crisp and sharp? Did he look fancier and cleaner than everything else? Every time I've seen Callus he's worn the same style!"

"Yes it was..."

"It might have been Callus, before his accident!" Andrew jumped to his feet, putting a map onto Craig's coffee table. "So where was it in Colorado City Venelope?"

Venelope inspected the map. "That large building that you need to cross a bridge to get to, it's fenced off now..."

"The Black Tower?" Felicia asked. Venelope nodded. "It was a business building, home of ApaTec. the guys who make those watches with all the fancy cameras and shit. I did some tax returns for them a couple of years ago..."

"Did they have like a basement or something...?" Andrew asked.

Felicia rolled her eyes irritably. "I did their tax returns Andrew, nor their architecture!"

"Fine, Jesus calm down..." Andrew looked at the map carefully. "Terry Mathers was another Aquarius member, before he was shot in the head by Malcolm the fucking twat, he exposed some of Callus' secrets... When he opened a window, someone got in, it had a code name, SP something... After Terry got SP into the databanks they discovered that Callus likes his facilities underground, why or how I don't know... Terry was killed and SP simply doesn't exist anymore, I looked for them for over three years and found no trace..."

"So if The Black Tower has a few secret lower levels, you think it's Callus?" Craig asked. Andrew nodded. "That's good enough for me, but how do we get inside."

Andrew turned to Venelope and smiled. "What? I'm not ready for that! The installation was one thing, but breaking into a military facility?!" Venelope argued, shocked. "People might shoot at us!"

"People will shoot at us. All three of us." Andrew said with a smirk. "You're coming."

"I'll go instead Andrew, I'm a better shot than Venelope..." Felicia said.

Andrew shook his head. "If myself and Craig are gone you need to stay. Venelope is coming, she's our escape plan for when things go to shit."

"Don't you mean if they go to shit?" Venelope asked hopefully.

"I mean when they go to shit. Craig, Shale and I will get inside and find Jane or Malcolm or whoever is in there and escape whilst Venelope holds an escape vehicle in the car port just beneath the tower and once we're inside whatever vehicle she chooses she puts that foot on the petal and fucking drives." Andrew explained.

Venelope gulped. "I don't think that's very smart..."

"We're going up against Callus, if rumours are true than nothing is very smart against him... We've gotta be ready for him to predict our moves..." Andrew said. "We're already slumped with all the disadvantages..."

"How will he predict our moves?" Craig asked, frowning.

Andrew sighed. "Our best tool in Aquarius was Callus' ability to plan and predict, he planned our actions according to what he predicted our targets would do. Ten times out of ten he was right, and ten times out of ten the mission went exactly as Callus predicted." Andrew painted a picture of a man Venelope didn't want to face. "When we were attacked or compromised, Callus predicted all their plans of attack against us and we got out alive... The only time Callus was caught unexpecting was when his own system betrayed him."

"So we be unpredictable..."

Andrew snickered. "You really don't know Callus do you?"

"You sound frightened..." Craig taunted with his own sense of uncertainty.

"I am. And when you learn what Callus is really capable of, you'll be scared too..."