Chapter 5
Date: February 21st
Time: 1:08 a.m.
Location: Main room, Guardians base
Heaving open the door I entered the room to see two sides clearly divided which were still yelling at each other. The new people, which I didn’t recall ever meeting, looked like they jumped straight from the army to here. Half of them were still in their military uniforms while the other half were dressed completely in black. Judging from the screaming I could only assume that the people in black were trying to break in. However, since we were kind of a big organization I never thought we resulted to bickering with our intruders.
“Wait for a moment,” Fran stopped me before I could play peacemaker.
Biting the inside of my cheek I held in any retorts I had and kept towards the back to see how the others would handle it. For once Matt looked to be the one taking charge of everything, which was a shock seeing as in all the time that I’ve known him he wasn’t really much for calming down large crowds of strangers.
“That’s enough!” Matt barked out and the room finally quieted down as they looked towards him. “You need to leave, now.”
Ok, confusing. So they couldn’t have attempted to break in seeing as we never just let those people go. However, they obviously didn’t have free access in and out of the building since they were met with such hate. They also couldn’t have set up a meeting because it was one a.m. in the morning and it would be ridiculous to discuss any terms then.
“No,” A woman with a hard pressed face stepped forward, clearly the leader of her group and wearing sleuthing clothing. “Not until we get what we came for.”
“The answer is no,” Matts voice was cold and even though his back was to me I knew he was glaring at her. “How can you even ask a question like that?”
“Because unlike you we don’t have an army,” The woman stressed and I noted anger leaking into her voice. “We need every advantage we can get.”
“Tough,” Matt replied and I saw the woman pat something around her waist and I panicked moving forward only to be stopped by Fran again.
Glaring at her I tried moving forward again and she gripped my arm tighter causing some pain. I could’ve broken out of her grip but the message she was trying to get across was clear. I wasn’t supposed to get in the way even though that’s what I’ve been doing for the past few years.
“If you would at least just give us the blueprints,” The woman tried to reason or at least persuade but Matt and the other Guardians didn’t seem to buy into it.
“No,”
“You piece of shit!” A man actually in a military uniform shouted. “You can’t just expect us to face them without any help.”
“Then don’t go after them,” This time it was Maria who spoke up and I wondered how I missed her red hair in the crowd. “Hide.”
“We aren’t cowards,” The main woman from their side again. “The Reapers are getting stronger and you are getting nowhere with them, if you would just let us,”
“What?” Kyle broke in. “Abuse something that isn’t yours? You know it’s locked up for a reason.”
“The door can always be unlocked,”
And just like that the screaming matches began again. It was a wonder that everyone in this room was an adult and knew how to fight, to sleuth, to kill, to basically be a criminal. We were all capable and yet they were all squabbling like children.
I wasn’t going to be sitting on the sidelines, no matter what Fran’s fictional worries were about.
“Enough!” My voice came out loud and strong and everyone stopped talking as I walked towards the center of the room. I could almost hear Fran face palming.
It was a few steps in that I remembered I was in my pajamas but figured there was no going back now. I stopped once I reached the edge of my side that had Kyle looking worried that I was here and Matt looking relieved.
“What’s going on?” I ask my friend but he never got the chance to really say anything.
“You’re,” My head swivels over to hear the woman looking at me stunned like she saw a ghost.
Then it hit me. These people still thought I was dead.
I hadn’t exactly made an announcement that I was back in the breathing world and I had forgotten that basically everyone outside of this base still thought I was six feet under. No wonder Fran kept trying to hold me back, now probably wasn’t the best time for me to make an appearance to people we didn’t know we could trust.
“You’re Aurora Carter,” She finally managed to spit out.
“Yes,” I said simply trying to look a little bored, it was better to look a little cocky and confident, especially if I had a reputation of beating death to look up to.
“You’re supposed to be dead,”
I look down at what I was wearing, rumpled sweat pants and a t-shirt with hair that was carelessly tossed up in a ponytail but slowly falling out of it. But my feet still poked out of the bottom of the sweats, my arms were still their pasty color and I could feel my heart beat in my chest.
“Sorry to disappoint,” I shrugged and took a few steps closer to them. “So why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here.”
Seeing as she was the leader I expected her to go into full detail about what they’ve been through, what they needed, why there were here, maybe why they were wearing army clothing. Instead she just stared at me.
“We need something of yours,” One of her male companions said and even though I was shocked that they came specifically for something of mine, I only arched an eyebrow.
“And what would that be?”
“EHID.”
“No,” The guy had barely gotten a word out before I said my refusal.
I was content to have EHID locked up forever in its little box and collect dust for the rest of its days. The only reason I hadn’t destroyed it was because of pride, it was the first thing that I created that could potentially change the way the game is played. But it was like cheating and while it worked in my favor now it could turn on me within seconds.
“Why not?” He pressed.
“Destroyed it,” I casually remark with another shrug and I could see a flicker of irritation flash across his face before he composed himself.
“Can you make us a new one?”
“No,” It’s like that word didn’t mean anything to them.
“Why not?” I had a feeling their theme was going to be stubbornness and repetitiveness and flexed my fingers again and noticed some of their eyes were drawn to the scar on my hand. “You know how useful it can be.”
“I also know how dangerous it can be,” I said back just as quickly, not wanting to give him any room to expand on. “If people knew there was a device that could find out all their information like that,” I snapped my fingers. “Then there would be chaos to get it, to be the one who knows all and privacy wouldn’t be sacred anymore.”
“What do you care about privacy?” The woman broke out of her reverie to question. “You’re a hacker.”
“I’m a complicated person,” I start to pace lightly and look over to see Matt grinning wildly, liking my take charge attitude and I was liking it to. “Why do you want it?”
“The Reapers have been taking out our bases one by one,” The woman said shaking her head as if to shake off the horrors of the things she had seen. “We’re dwindling and we can’t seem to beat them.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Actually it answered a few more, like what the Reapers were doing, and who they were affecting.
“If we get EHID, we can find their bases, bug them, monitor them,” The woman rambled on.
“And what, see if they like CSI or NCIS better?” I was determined to never use EHID again unless it was under dire circumstances and this didn’t really seem that dire.
Yes the Reapers were a huge threat, yes they needed to be dealt with, yes they were probably incredibly dangerous from what I’ve seen and heard. However, that didn’t mean my little device was going to magically fix everything by finding old police reports and files that connected them to anything.
“We need help,” Her voice broke. “They’re almost done with us, then they’ll go after you and then who knows what they’ll do.”
I paused, took a few steps and let the ideas of what could be done roll over in my head carefully dissecting what we could do. It was a far cry from the impulsive me who had just decided to act on things whenever I cared to. Last time I used an impulse decision I woke up in a coffin a few months later in a different country.
“You’ll stay here,” I heard murmuring from my side and quickly went to quiet it. “We need to know more about the Reapers, how they attack, especially if they’re going to be coming after us next. We need to be ready.”
Thankfully my reasoning seemed to calm them and I was thankful that they would let me back into a leadership position after my time away.
“You either accept my offer or you leave,” I continued towards the other group who looked cautious as if wondering if this was a trap. “You will get nothing else.”
“We accept your offer,” The woman replied after a few moments of silence.
A group of the Guardians decided to lead them through the building to most likely house them in one of the monitored rooms. It wasn’t determined if we could trust them or not, but one wrong move and they would be toast.
“So,” I dragged the word out. “Anyone feel like filling me in?”
Most of them looked uncomfortable and wore the expressions that reminded me of a kid getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar. I wasn’t supposed to know about the Reapers, I wasn’t supposed to know the danger we were in, but I was tired of being out of the loop and they were just going to have to suck it up.
“Pay up,” I saw Maria hold out a hand and ten different people coming up to her and handing her money. She skipped over to me counting the bills in her hand and giving me a megawatt smile. Wasn’t she supposed to be the innocent one?
“Do I wanna know?” I ask as she leads me out of the room and down a hallway.
“We all made bets about when you were going to find out about the Reapers,” Maria pocketed the money. “Matt said you’d figure it out before Valentine’s day, I thought you might need a few more days to ease back in.”
I laughed and shook my head at her and briefly wondered what times the others bet I was going to find out about all of this. I can’t imagine my parents betting and L.J seemed the most determined to keep me in the dark about all of this. Iris, however, would probably be the biggest better out of all of them and wondered how long she thought it would take me to find everything out.
“It was for your own good,” Fran popped up on the other side of me. “We didn’t want to put too much stress on you,”
“I know I’ve heard the tune before,” I cut her off before she can continue her rant on wanting to protect me. “But I am better now,” I stressed the words. “I want to help and it looks like you guys need it.”
For once I see Maria’s face go grim and she pauses for a moment and opens up a door to reveal a room that was basically filled with pillows and everything soft. They were monitors everywhere bolted in the walls and some even on the ceilings with scraps of paper littering the floor as well. Some looked to be math equations, while other were sketches of people and some were hastily scribbled notes.
The walls were painted black and the color was provided by the soft objects in the room. Bright oranges and pinks and greens assaulted the eye but overall everything did look to be put together. Even with the paper on the ground and the various remotes lying around.
“The Reapers were a gang originally from Italy,” Maria started off flopping down onto one of the bean bags and Fran and I followed suit. “We know V may have had a run in with them once or twice back where he grew up, but he doesn’t seem to remember much.”
“V knew about all of this before me?” I was almost offended by that.
“No,” Fran shook her head. “We asked him about it…discreetly.”
“Anyways,” Maria continued. “After the whole Lockstar thing went down did we realize that that was the only thing holding them back from taking out the K-men and other people like us?”
“K-men?” Okay I knew I was bad at making official names for people but that was just ridiculous.
“The Keepers,” Fran clarified. “They’ve been around a little longer than the Guardians, they help keep the people, the normal civilians, safe from threats like this. They’ve always held and no one has ever come close to hurting them before.”
“Then why turn them away?” Matt looked ready to toss them back out.
“The Reapers have been taking out their bases one by one,” Fran answered. “It’s hard to know who to trust anymore.”
“Did I make a mistake then?” Maybe I should’ve thought a little longer before inviting them into our base.
“No,” Maria shook her head. “We’ve met with them before, they check out, we just don’t know if any of them have decided to switch sides.”
I nodded my head absorbing this information and wondered why I hadn’t heard about the Keepers before. Maybe I had and thought they sounded too good to be true, that there were actually people out there going the extra mile to be superheroes just so they could help protect people. After living my horror story it was hard to see the fairytale come of life.
“What else?” There had to be more they were keeping from me.
“There are a lot of them,” Maria rubbed her forehead to push back an oncoming headache. “We had enough people with Lucky Criminal, but then,” She trailed off.
“I died, they didn’t trust the Guardians enough to switch over and I’m guessing I can’t make public appearances yet.”
“No,” Fran answered for Maria. “Right now we don’t have a lot of things working in our favor, you can be a big player Aura, we can’t use you just yet.”
And even though it was utterly frustrating to sit and wait and watch everyone else do the work I knew I couldn’t do anything about it. I had to play dead to the world, use one of my key moves too soon and I could find myself backed into a corner. For now I was a little ahead in the game with my advantage and I could use the time to plan.
As I felt the panic rising at the thought of coming into contact with more death and destruction that’s what I repeated in my head. This is a game, I thought, it’s just a game and you can win. Only problem with this game is that I didn’t think I had another extra life to spare if I died again.
“It’s really bad,” I said more to myself than them. “It’s really bad especially if you had to involve Caldwell.”
At that both of their faces pale and Maria’s mouth just drops open like she can’t believe I just said that. The two share a couple looks before looking at me. The silence dragged on for a minute but it felt like an eternity.
“How did you,” Maria started before stopping and shaking her head. “Of course you’d find out, you’re you.”
I was happy she didn’t press for an answer that I didn’t really want to give out. Probably telling my friends I had spied on them wouldn’t be the best idea.
“We need more people and Caldwell has been pretty helpful with John kind of being the in-between man,” Fran said even looking like she can’t believe it. “We haven’t talked much and working separately is causing a lot of problems.”
“It’s not like we were expecting Caldwell to jump back into business with you know his son going all insane,” Maria rambled off. “But he seems determined to show that he’s not a weak man and that he and his new predecessor can totally kick ass. I mean you should’ve seen it, they took out this huge base in Munich,”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I stopped Maria’s story as my brain snagged on a few words in her sentence. “Caldwell’s predecessor?”
“The man who’s going to take over his little business after he’s done,” Fran explains and I just blink at her twice wondering if she really thought I was that dense.
“I know what the word means,” I say slowly. “Why does he have one?”
“Because he wants someone to continue his business after he’s done,” Maria said that sentence slower than I said my question and I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a few calming breaths.
“Who is it?” I asked instead figuring I would make more headway with this question than wondering why the man who originally started Lockstar, that was originally supposed to be like another Guardian organization, was going back into the thick of things.
“Some new guy,” Fran shrugged and that made me more nervous.
Richard Caldwell was already a dangerous man and I still wasn’t totally clear on his involvement with Lockstar when it was forcibly kidnapping, selling and killing people. I knew he used to be friends with my parents, I knew his wife as I brought her back to him after years of separation. I hardly knew him.
“He’s gorgeous,” Maria snapped me out of my internal rambling.
“You think Caldwell is gorgeous?” True the man wasn’t that bad looking for his age all things considered but I think gorgeous was a bit of a stretch.
“No the predecessor, just,” Maria fans herself and Fran rolls her eyes. “You know it’s true.”
“He’s easy on the eyes,” Fran admits but still shakes her head at the red haired girl.
“Guys,” I wave trying to get their attention. “Can we trust him?”
“I have no idea,” Maria’s voice sounds far like she wasn’t even in the room with us. “Haven’t really met the guy.”
“So we got a new terrorist group taking out all the people trying to protect the people,” I started rattling off.
“To most likely hurt the normal people,” Maria elaborates for me and I nod my thanks.
“Have made absolutely no progress in shutting them down, are housing the rest of the Keepers who may have a few people now working for the enemy and the knowledge that Caldwell is back doing who really knows what with a new predecessor who no one knows anything about? Did I miss anything?”
“Nope.”
It was good to be back.