Aries (#Wattys2018)

Chapter Nine

***

  Training was canceled the next day.  The official reason was because of the weather - they had been plagued with a giant snowstorm overnight - but knowing Captain Abboud, she probably would have had  them training even in the middle of a hurricane.  She had given them a day off, which everyone was grateful for.
  For Squad Two, this was the perfect opportunity to write up their official reports on how the mission had gone.  Technically, it was a success, since Faaris Shojaei wasn't able to kill anymore.  Azah wrote it down as a failure anyways.
  The only sound in the rec room was that of pens and pencils scratching on paper, and some murmuring of other soldiers, who had heard of Myrna's death and wisely left them alone. 
  'I'm done.' said Lutfi, slapping his report down and drawing his chair back loudly.  The silence was getting to him.  'Who are we supposed to give this to again?'
  'Colonel Muhsin, I think.' Azah said, lifting her pen from the page momentarily. 
  'That was only for Squad One.' said Amal quietly.
  'I'll just give it to him anyways.' Lutfi grumbled.  He slammed the door behind him vehemently.
  'I'm done too.' said Laila, a minute later.  Her paper was only half filled with text, which was still considerably longer than Lutfi's.  'I should go help him find the Colonel's office, he'll probably get lost.' 
  'Wait.' Azah called, right before she left.  'Have you seen Ommer today?'
  'No.' Laila frowned.
  'Have any of you seen him at all since the ... since yesterday?'
  Shaking heads.  Furrowed brows.  Puzzled faces.
  She stood up from the table abruptly, causing a few people to turn and stare at her like she was mentally unhinged.
  'I'm going to go find him.'  She could use a break from this stupid report, anyways.  Everytime she tried to put into words what exactly had happened that day, her mind suddenly came up as blank as an empty canvas. 
  She walked as fast as possible, not making eye contact with anyone and trying to escape the sidelong glances that people kept sending her way when they thought she wasn't looking.  Azah knew that practically everybody had heard about what had happened in Ranrik, and she wished that they would all stop looking at her like she was made of glass, something delicate enough to shatter into a million pieces.
  Even when their class all sat together - in the rec room, the mess hall - his absence hung over them like a corpse.  They were all painfully aware that it was there, but nobody was willing to address it.  Lutfi dealt with it by acting even more obnoxious than normal.  Amal became a shell of her former self, much quieter, more tired.  Like a pale little ghost.
  Azah wasn't exactly sure where she was going; she just needed to clear her mind.  Her hands pushed open doors, and she looked up, realizing that her feet had led her outside.
  She shoved her hands into her pockets and wandered aimlessly, not minding the icy wind that bit at her skin.  The snow was completely smooth and bare of footprints, and Azah thought it almost criminal to be ruining it with her boots.
  As she approached the training grounds, she froze as the sound of a bullet pierced the air.  Then another, and another.  She knew that it was probably just someone practicing with the targets, but her hand subconsciously moved to the pistol tucked away in her belt.
  After her squad had returned to the military base, Laila, Lutfi, Ommer and Amal had all been presented with new handguns and watches to replace the ones that had been taken by Shojaei.  Ommer was now the only one who preferred a revolver over a pistol.
  She kept close to the wall as she moved towards the source of the noise, and was hit with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu from her first day, when she hadn't been sure where the training grounds were even located.  Had that really been months ago?
  Captain Abboud's attack rifle was held out in front of her as she walked sideways, hitting every one of the twelve targets in the dead centre.  She was shooting so violently that she didn't even notice that Azah was standing behind her, or that she had pierced straight through the wood of some of the human-shaped targets.
  'Captain.'
  She turned around, and her expression softened slightly, lowering the rifle.
  'Aren't you cold?'
  'I could say the same about you.'
  'Well, I have an excuse.  Colonel Muhsin spilled coffee on my coat this morning.'
  'Were we supposed to submit our reports to him?'
  'Yes, I forgot to specify before your squad left for Ranrik, but yes.  Normally, it's due within a day of your return, but I've extended it this once.  Although the Colonel was expecting it before the end of today.  Pass on the message.'
  'Will do.  I was just looking for Ommer, do you know where he is?  No one's seen him since yesterday.'
  Captain Abboud turned away from her, and started shooting again.  A few rounds later, she paused.
  'He left.'
  'Left?  Where did he leave to?' Azah asked urgently.  'He was blaming himself for what happened to Myrna, if we don't find him he might-'
  'He resigned.  Left the military.'
  She kept firing her rifle as she spoke, like she was trying to drown out the sound of Azah's disbelief.
  'It was too much for him.  Said that it was all his fault that Myrna-'  Either the rifle had omitted the sound of her last word, or Captain Abboud just couldn't bring herself to say it.  'Turned in his uniform and revolver last night, and went home.'
  'Almonds.  They represent a promise.
  'That this won't ever happen again.'

***

  'That is a lot of paper.'
  'I need it all read over by tomorrow at midnight.  Put all the useful ones in a pile, and organize the others alphabetically in that file box.'
  'You want me to read all of it?'
  'Yep.'
  'What do you mean by use-'
  And she was gone.
  Azah sighed, sitting down on a red, orange and brown ikat rug in the library.  The room wasn't all that big - only about ten armchairs long and five wide - but not even a sliver of wall was visible underneath giant floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, stuffed to the brink with books.  Old tomes that smelled like tobacco and dust, tatty paperbacks curled up at the corners.  Books with their glossy dust jackets missing, thick reference books with battered leather bindings.
  And on the floor, piles and piles of paper, along with a heavy transparent box containing twenty six folders; one for each letter of the alphabet.
  Azah picked up the top paper from the stack nearest to her and squinted at the tiny black print.  It might as well have been in a different language for as much as she understood.  The letters squiggled and turned into little black ants on the page, and she let it fall from her hand futilely.
  She stared at the page accusingly, hoping that it would just evaporate into thin air.  It didn't.
  The only reason Captain Abboud had sent her down here was to find information on what had caused the first fire at Shojaei's farm.  What did it even matter?  And this many documents?  There were hundreds of them, at least.  Maybe even a thousand.
  This was such a waste of time.  She was supposed to be finding the little red charm to give to the Shadow Man, and instead she was stuck reading random papers.
  Picking up the abandoned page again, Azah decided that she had to get this done with as fast as possible, so she could escape and try to find ... whatever it was that she was looking for.
  Random words jumped out at her.  Murder, 1532, Dexamic, shot, Minhazai -
  Minhazai.
  This wasn't about what had happened in Ranrik.
  It was a criminal record.
  For Abdur Minhazai.
  Azah sat up straighter, giving all her attention to the text, her eyes flying across it.  She hungrily absorbed whatever information was available, as a wide smile crossed her face.
  Captain Abboud had come through for her.  There had to be something useful in here.  She dropped the page and picked up the next one, furiously searching.
  She got through at least half of the first stack, and then the words began to change.  NUR, zodiac, military, pyrokineticist, Aries ...
  Azah shot up, and crossed the room while still reading the paper she clutched tightly in her left hand.  Books flew behind her, books on physics, astrology, the government. 
  It was all coded.  Everything in the documents was written in code.
  She pulled out more books.  Books with recipes, maps, piano theory.
  'I NEED A PEN!'
  Searching around frantically, and in fear of forgetting the breakthrough that she had just had, Azah began folding the pages in complex patterns to remember whichever parts were the most important.
  She worked long into the night, not even stopping to eat, and trying in vain to remember the first fifteen digits of pi.

***

  '...Hello?'
  Talib cracked the door open slowly, slightly scared of what he might find inside the room, and burst out laughing at the scene before him.
  'Guys, she's alive!' he yelled over his shoulder.
  Azah was sleeping like a log in the middle of the library floor, sprawled across an obnoxious rug that didn't really have the right to exist.  She was surrounded by mountains of books, and pieces of paper that looked like someone had tried origami with but gave up halfway through.  And the file box was completely empty.
  Captain Abboud pushed her way past Talib into the room, her mouth half open like she was getting ready to yell at somebody.  When she realized what had happened, she rested her forehead on her palm like she was exasperated so that no one would see her smiling.
  'And she didn't even finish the job properly.
  'It's going to take forever to put all these books back ...'