Gods Under The Dome

15.1

She twists her fingers and Tujo winces. Quint turns toward the pair and slaps Marava's hand. "The guard's coming. Enough." 

He wields his words like a lion tamer would wield a whip and chair and its enough to get Marava to retract her claws.

I stiffen in the driver's seat, hands gripping the wheel. "Everyone remember the plan?"

Tujo and Lilly nod their heads. Quint blinks. A low grunt comes from Marava. Not all that reassuring, but it's enough. 

A middle-aged man, his skin as ashen as his uniform, trudges up to the van and taps two gloved fingertips on the glass. 

I roll the window down and come face to face with a pair of dull, brown eyes. "Praise Dove," the officer says. 

Relief washes over me as I peer into his unencumbered face. No visor veils his eyes, no eerie blue of Accuracy Assist drips down his cheeks. Despite the lack of chin, ruddy complexion and trail of acne over his nose, he looks fairly pleasant. He even smiles, which deepens the wrinkles around his mouth giving him an elderly, gentle appearance.  

No gun rests in his arm, or is slung over his shoulder. Instead, the only form of protection he has, hangs from a leather belt loop. The familiar cylindrical tube of a mini-cattle prod, sways as the man shuffles from foot to foot.

"Praise Dove," I say.

A name tag dangles from his crumpled lapel - Officer Sareesh Kundai. He takes note of my uniform and his eyebrows arch. "Are you Militia?"

I shake my head and point at the three red stripes laying horizontally across my shoulder. "Contractors," I say. "For the Birds."

Naming the Council's elite assassins elicits the same look of panic in Kundai's eyes as it would in anyone else's. Taking a step back, his head cocks to the side, where his partner stands rolling a cigarette between fingers under a lamplight. The other officer, noting Kundai's expression, gives him a disinterested shrug.

"Forgive me." Kundai straightens and runs a hand through his hair. There's not much left on his head to warrant him doing so, but I imagine its a nervous tick, bred from habit, more than anything else. Nervous ticks were also common after someone name dropped the Birds of Prey. "I haven't been told much about the," his voice dips and he leans in, his breath fogging up the window glass. "Situation. I didn't know Contractors had been called in." His face pales.

"Don't worry." I nod over my shoulder. Kundai leans in, spies the twins shackled to the floor. "We're on our way back to Center. Suspects in tow." I glance over my shoulder. 

Kundai leans in, raises his hand light. Illumination floods the van, highlighting each of our grimy faces. I try to sit straighter, pull back my shoulders, add to my bulk to conceal the fact this uniform wasn't made for me.

The light lingers on the twins for a little too long. A lump forms in my throat. Had Kundai had access to the Network? Had Dove deemed the situation so dire, they gave lower sect security access to our files? Our faces? Did he know? My mouth goes dry.

Kundai shakes his head. "But they're kids," he says, shock painting his features.

"Yeah," I say, leaning my arm on the windowsill. "But you know kids these days. Virtual space ruins their minds. Stuffs them full of notions of grandeur. These two probably ran an illegal program on the Network, got the idea to be rebels and went to town with homemade explosives."

Kundai's gaze flits back to the twins. His Adam's apple bobs above the collar of his uniform. "Any casualties?"

I nod, grimly. "A few. Though most civilians had exited the Hall prior to detonation."