My breath was still going fast when I followed him slowly, back to the glade. Lucas was a bit ahead of me, slowly flying down to wait at the ground for me, already stepping off from his glider.
I landed a bit away from him, taking my arms out of the mechanism and stretching them, giving him a confused glance.
"You're white as a paper, I'm gonna get you something to drink." He informed me chuckling, jogging over to the garage. I drowned in confusion. "Do I really look this pale?" I whispered quietly, disabling the mechanism around my feet and wanting to step off.
You do. He gave me the answer, quietly laughing while sitting on Lucas' glider. I stepped up a bit wobbly, using the front glass as something to hold on. Seems that your first time was fun, but please don't be mad at me, you're not used to it.
I rolled my eyes, groaning annoyed. "No shit Sherlock..." I groaned, sitting down beside the glider again and taking a deep breath when my vision started to black out a bit.
But you did good tho, and that even without my help. I sighed quietly, rubbing my cheeks to focus again. "Thanks I guess..." My voice was quiet and Fynn jumped off walking over to me and kneeling down in front of me.
Are you okay? He asked worried, touching my shoulder carefully. "Just a bit dizzy." I muttered but glanced up as soon as I heard steps coming closer.
Lucas was approaching towards me, a water bottle and a glass in his hands. The sound of shattering glass beside me told me that Fynn was gone again.
Thankfully smiling I took the bottle he handed me and opened it, drinking it halfway out. Lucas next to me laughed loudly, waiting for me to being finished. I closed the bottle again and looked up, taking a few deep breaths.
"Feeling a bit better?" I just nodded, putting the bottle into a special case in the front of the glider. "Yep thanks." He smiled slightly. "Happens often for the ones who are flying for the first time."
I locked my feet in place again and threw a glance at him. "Doesn't stop me though." He laughed and quickly jumped on his again, being ways quicker than I was.
Faster than I expected, we were in the woods again, flying closely behind each other, and practicing quick turns and direction changes.
I don't know how much time we spent, until I suddenly received a call from Alan. Instinctively answering it, I smiled at the Norwegian and leaned over to the left to follow Lucas.
"Christine I... I want to apologize." He started, glancing at the ground before looking up, his blue eyed meeting mine. "Wait where are you?"
I suddenly realised where I was and slowed down until I was hovering in the air. "Getting teached how to fly a glider?" I asked back, disabling my glasses.
Alan sighed and glanced to the side. "Seems like I can't tell you what to do eh?" He chuckled in an ironic way and glanced up again, his blue eyes luckily sparkled with positive amusement.
"Just like Andreas." I rolled my eyes, noticing that he was referring to his younger brother. "Who's teaching you?" Alan asked, leaning back in his chair.
Lucas was coming closer and I glanced at him for a second. "Lucas." I answered quietly and Alan smiled. "At least you're learning it from the pro then. How is she doing?" He raised his voice and Lucas laughed quietly, answering with a loud 'yes'.
It warmed my heart when I saw the slight proud smile appearing on Alan's face. "Can you stop for today? I have to tell you something." He suddenly turned a bit serious again and I asked Lucas the same thing.
He shrugged before he turned around back to the garage. "Welp that was a yes I guess." I laughed quietly, smiling at Alan again. "Well then, I'm in my office. See you there hun." He waved at me before ending the call before I even had the chance to say something.
Being a bit happy because he seeming accepted that I wasn't going to tell him where I've been, I followed Lucas quickly, getting off of the glider in front of the garage.
Lucas was already pushing his one back into the garage and I followed his example before smiling up to him. "Well this came to an unexpected end, but hey you're doing great!" He smiled, touching my shoulder slightly.
I blushed a bit and glanced to the side. "Thanks, it was really awesome!" Lucas laughed and pushed me away. "Come on, go already, I wouldn't let Alan wait!" Turning even more red, I waved at him before turning around and jogging towards the office building.
Using the scanner and waiting impatiently until the elevator was up on the right level, I entered the cabin and as soon as the doors open again, head over to Alan's office.
Suddenly slightly nervous, I knocked on the door and waiting for Alan's warm "Come in!" I entered the room and immediately bumped into his chest, his arms wrapped around me.
"Hey little one!" He chuckled and I just hugged him back tightly, not questioning what was the reason for his change of mind, just being happy that it happened.
"Hey Zero.." I whispered quietly looking up to him. He gave me a surprised glance before a big wide smile appeared on his face.
"I'm sorry that I was do rude to you... I just..." He started stammering to explain himself, stepping back a bit. I blushed a bit, lowering my glare for a second before stepping forward and wrapping my arms around his neck.
"No need to explain yourself idiot. Mistakes are happening and even you can't prevent them." I whispered, looking up to him while noticing that my face turned warmer.
"But I still love you, whatever may happen." I whispered, stepping on my tiptoes and kissing him. He smiled slightly before kissing back, wrapping his arms around me.
It's been a month since we became reconciled again and since I've completed the mission in Spain successfully.
A lot of things happened in this one month, I trained more, learning the Hacking-, Fire- and Protection advanced code.
I had a little fight with Alan because Ryan taught, or at least started to teach me the flying code, but I convinced him that I am experienced enough to learn it.
But week ago, I received a weird SMS from a unknown number, giving us coordinates. Alan immediately contacted Walkers in the region where the coordinates belonged to, before taking the next flight over there.
He first told me to stay in Germany and keep on training with Ingrid and Ryan, but well my stubbornness won and Ingrid took me with her on her flight when Alan called Ryan for support.
And now we're standing a few metres away from the given coordinates in the glowing hot desert, the heat reflecting from the hot asphalt underneath our shoes at the second last day in march.
#4684 stepped beside me, glancing at the weird lines, carved into the ground in front of us. "So these are the Nazca lines huh?" I muttered impressed, crossing my arms in front of the bullet proof vest I was wearing.
The brown haired girl called Julie nodded slightly. "Where were the coordinates exactly?" She asked quietly, turning around to Alan. He told me that she wasn't on the first trip to the coordinates.
Alan nodded towards the spider like carving. "At the second leg on the left side." Julie nodded and jumped on the motorcycle again. "Alright." The seventeen-year-old girl waited until Ingrid mounted on behind her before driving off road towards the carving.
The drone was flying shortly behind her, broadcasting everything to every Centre HQ and to Lachlan, because I promised him to keep he informed about how the mission is going.
He grabbed his motorcycle, me jumping on behind him and quickly followed both. My red hair was blowing into my face and I pushed them aside, still annoyed on the fact that Ingrid decided to give me waist long fire red dyed hair to smuggle us to USA unseen.
She herself changed her hair to a ginger colour. I still don't know how me managed to end up in a desert, dressed in the typical Walker clothing that kept us surprisingly on normal temperature.
We finally reached the point the coordinates pointed and Julie got off of the motorcycle, parking it a bit away. They waited for us to arrive before Alan wrapped his arm around me, pulling me over to the small box, laying on the orange sand like someone forgot it there.
I kneeled down in front of the square clean white box, slightly hesitating raising my hand and putting it on the hand scanner. A weird sensation ran through my fingers, the screen lightning up blueish.
Holding my breath, I waited for something to happen as soon as I took my hand down.
I stepped back, staring at the box in disbelief. "Don't tell me I was forced to fly over here, getting said that it only opens for me and it isn't even thinking about opening!" Alan chuckled when he heard me complaining like an offended child.
The same second I reached my hand out to let it scan my hand again, something clicked quietly and the top just flung open, revealing a piece of paper, simply laying on the ground of the box.
Slowly moving forward, Julie reached out to pick it up but before she was able to take it, the top snapped back in its original place, showing a red crossed circle on the screen. Groaning she got up and looked at me in a way, that made me smile slightly.
"Alright alright, seems like this thing wants me to open and pick it up tough." I chuckled in amusement and reached down again, pressing the scanner again. The circle top flung open again and I reached out through the small hole to pick the white paper up.
A sting caused pain at my wrist and I hissed, pulling my arm out and staring at the little pinch wound in disbelief. "Fucking god damnit!" I hissed, rubbing the spot to stop the bleeding. "Must have cut myself somewhere..." I muttered and heard Alan chuckling in the background before finally taking out the paper again and unfolded it slowly.
The drone was hovering above my shoulder, scanning the text immediately as soon as it was visible. I glanced up in shock, getting up again and handing Alan the paper. "They know that we are here."
The facial expression of literally everyone around me dropped in milliseconds when Alan read the sentences out loud.
"We know who you are and where you are hiding."
My immediate reaction was the move to the pistol on my waist, my hand shivering slightly while I took a few nervous glances around.
"Grab your stuff, we're leaving." Alan muttered quietly, still barely moving. While Julie was already on the motorcycle, Ingrid was grabbing her drone, muttering something quietly. I quickly picked up the box, stuffing it into the storage container at the end of the motorcycle.
My vision kind of zoomed out when I accessed my drone, checking the sand fields around me. I was able to see us as a group, standing in the middle of a unicolour light brown desert, just black spots next to the lines.
But like they said, we weren't alone.
I blinked several times when I heard someone calling my name, glaring at Alan while he has turned around to me, sitting on the motorcycle.
"They're already here. We need to be fast." I informed him quietly, sprinting up to him and sitting down, my arms wrapped around his chest.
He shortly nodded and turned the machine around, following the dust cloud which was covering Ingrid and Julie.
The wind was blowing the sand into our faces but luckily the masks kept it mostly away from our mouths. I closed my eyes, focusing on my drone several metres above us to access it.
They were coming closer fast.
My arms wrapped around Alan's upper body, while I closed my eyes against the sand, only hearing the loud sound of the motorcycles engine, but also at least two or three other cars behind us. The engines behind us rumbling, we accelerated ahead of the cars by a few metres before the first bullet was fired. I screamed as I felt a bullet brush my shoulder, flinching, making Alan swerve in fright.
I opened my eyes suddenly, seeing that Alan was covered in a layer of the protection code, glancing over his shoulder for a second, his glare telling me to do the same.
Opening the menu within a second I glared to my left side, scrolling hastily through my list of codes and activated the protection code. Without even thinking about it directly, I created a layer of the blue shield around my whole body out of thin air.
My three now activated codes were still showing up in the corner of my sight for a few seconds - protection, hacking and flying.
Another bang behind us made me turning around seeing the bullet approaching towards us in slow motion. I slammed it aside with the back of my hand, ignoring the slight burn it caused.
I turned back, seeing the bullet slamming into a dead tree nearby in the corner of my eye.
Are you okay back there?
Julie's voice suddenly echoed in back in my head and I glanced up to my drone which was joined by Julie's.
They're freaking close and are sniffing our dust but besides that we're okay. Free way for you?
Alan uttered with a sarcastic undertone and sped up even more, towards the road.
Kinda so far. We're on the road, nothing yet.
I allowed myself to take a deep, hopeful breath when our tires finally got a better grip on the hot asphalt and Alan turned left, rushing down the highway.
Ingrid and Julie were almost invisible due the heat flickering above the black asphalt. The government's jeeps were closer than before when I took a look over my shoulder, my eyes meeting the ones from a soldier.
His scoped gun was aimed at us and my eyes widened a bit when I realized his plan. Turning around and screaming Alan's name I prepared myself for the bullets impact.
Before we were even able to react, the bullet hit the tyre, causing the thick rubber to explode and go off in every direction. The sudden loss of the back tyre threw us several metres into the air, the flames of the exploding engine around us.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion when I recalled what I've learned last week, stabilizing my position and shooting towards Alan who was falling back to the ground slowly, his blue eyes open in shock and screaming something.
My hand reaching out for his, I shot towards him, still faster than the time was actually running, picking him up a second before he hit the ground. I struggled a bit to keep my balance when I pulled him over my shoulder, my feet hitting the hot asphalt.
The time suddenly sped up again, Alan's sudden full weight causing me to stumble while he was fighting for his own balance.
"Damn #5120, warn me next time." He hissed through his gritted teeth, grabbing me by the waist and leaping into the air while the cars behind us doged the flying parts of the now destroyed motorcycle.
Metal pieces slammed next to us on the asphalt while Alan was trying to do the best to keep us safe. His speed was insane, the cars had a hard time catching up.
"Let me down." I demanded, slowing down the time to kick another piece of metal away.
"You don't have the speed code activated, I can't let you down." His answer was short and demanded but as always, I easily ignored the strict undertone in his voice.
The sound became muffled when I concentrated to slow the time down to a minimum percentage, opening Alan's grip around my waist and throwing us both up into the air.
A few metres above the air I caught him again, lifting him on my back while the flying code and the time code for us two was straining my energy to the last bits.
A bit struggling and still not stable nor straight I was flying towards the slowed down motorcycle driven by Julie. The rubber under my feet squealed when I landed hard, stumbling a bit while Alan was slowly moving on my back.
It took me a few metres to stop, stumbling and heavily breathing. I let down Alan, as well as letting time run normally again. Julie hit the break, causing the motorcycle to stop right in front of us.
"Jeez, are you okay?" Ingrid screamed slightly panicked when I was still taking deep breaths, my vision slightly blacking out. Alan blinked confused, realising where he was.
He immediately grabbed my arm, preventing me of falling face first to the dusty asphalt and just nodded as a reply. A second motorcycle appeared in front of us, generated out of thin air, the black colour reflecting the sun.
Still wobbly on my legs I sat down behind Alan and was glad that we were driving with high speed over the dusty highway again as soon as I heard the government trucks behind us.
"That was close." I muttered, Alan just groaning as reply. "Too close." Like following a secret commando, Julie and Alan left to road, driving towards a smaller hill in the wide light brown desert.
The sun was burning with no mercy, the heat reflecting from the sand.
We split up once more, Julie and Ingrid going to the left, Alan and me to the right. I noticed, that the government's jeeps split up too, following each of us.
We stopped behind the small hill, Alan and Julie immediately reacting. My eyes widened in surprise when a second pair of each of us plus the motorcycle appeared right next to us, continuing our trail.
Alan's pale hands were barely shaking and I watched the jeeps passing by in fear. But they didn't seemed to notice us, standing at the hill, our backs pressed against the warm sandstone.
My drone flew closer, flying around my head, running a scan over me. Alan let go of my hand, a weird burning sensation running down my arms and I glared down, seeing that the colour was slowly coming back.
"I think they fell for it." He muttered breathlessly and leaned on the motorcycle, sweat running down his face. Julie nodded slowly, taking a few deep breaths.
"Has been a good idea to use the clone and invisibility code." She stated quietly, wiping the sweat away. Ingrid just nodded in addition, opening the motorcycles box and handing everyone of us a water bottle.
"We should get back to the centre as soon as possible." Ingrid said, everyone nodding in agreement.
The hallways were quiet as we walked in our group, our footsteps echoing against the concrete floor. The first person to greet us was Tim, who had just walked out of his bedroom with a cup of what looked like herbal tea.
He smiled widely and welcomed us back, asking how the mission went. After a short conversation he waved us off and said that we probably have better things to do that talk to us, so Ingrid quickly rushed forward and embraced him in a hug before following us to the meeting room.
The sweat was still running down my neck even though I pushed my hood back and the meeting room was already climated. Alan took his hoodie off, revealing the shirt underneath. I glanced over at Julie as a Walker I had never seen before with dyed green hair began talking to Alan.
"So you're back early?" He asked, leaning forward on his chair.
Alan's jaw clenched. "Yes, we are. We got a little... caught up with the authorities."
"Any major damage?" He moved position on his chair again.
The Norwegian changed a glance with Julie before nodding slowly.
"We found this piece of paper, saying that they know where we are." He sighed, slamming the paper on the desk.
The green-haired Walker stared closely at the piece of paper for a few seconds before looking up at us, shaking his head. "But... but which centre are they talking about? There's thousands of us, there's no way they would know where every single centre is located... right?" He said hesitantly.
Ingrid sighed. "We're pretty sure they're talking about this exact centre here. The fact that they chased us without attacking us exactly - I mean they could have shot us easily- supports that they know where we were going, they were just trying to make sure."
"Or maybe they mean it in a different way, Sean?" Alan asked quietly.
The green-haired Walker, obviously called Sean, stared at Alan with a challenging look on his face. "You're looking at a possible death threat..." Sean breathed in angrily, "and you're saying that it could just be a damn metaphor? Seriously Alan, you're the leader of these people and if you approach a situation like this with that attitude you'll get us all killed."
I touched Alan's shoulder slowly to stop him from starting a fight. He looked at me with wide eyes as an alarm started to sound, loudly ringing and warning us of incoming danger.
A voice started yelling in the background. "Mark! Felix! Get the hell downstairs now! The damn government's come to blow us up!"
Sean shot a dirty look at Alan before waving us downstairs as the lights went out, the rumbles of planes mixed with the ambient echo of the centre. "This way. We'll just have to wait it out."
Ingrid ran off in the other direction and I screamed her name but she ignored me, heading in the direction of where Tim was. Julie ran ahead, seeming to know what she had to do.
"Where are we going?" I screamed against the noise, my hand on Alan's shoulder so I won't lose him in the chaos.
"Down to the bunkers... where they hopefully won't get to us." Alan replied, pausing for a second before leading me downstairs, the taps of everyone's footsteps deafening every other noise or voice.
The chaos was real, everyone was pushing towards the bunkers, screaming the names of their friends. Sean disappeared in the crowd, his voice suddenly echoing through the wide tunnels which were leading towards the bunkers.
"Everyone please calm the fuck down, form lines. We're deep enough under the surface to stand the bombs for a while until everyone is in. But we won't get in if you are all trying to push in. So please, get in line, it's all going to be fine!" He yelled, strangely hovering next to one of the big iron doors on the left side of the corridor.
The three thousand Walkers were still muttering worried but the noise got less and less the more Walkers were guided into the bunker rooms, the alarm still ringing loudly through the corridors, muffled hits interrupting from time to time.
My eyes widened at the sight of the massive bunker. Rows upon rows of bunk beds were lined up inside, people filling up the back first. I sighed in relief when I spotted Ingrid's bright blue hair next to a tall blonde man, heading towards the next room and Julie's face not too far away from our bunk.
Alan and I took one bunk in the back row, Alan on the top. The final call for entering the bunker was called and the doors shut with a thud, the room silent in fear.
Then the bombs dropped.
The first one was quiet, further away. Despite that, everyone in the room, including Alan, jumped at the sound and vibration.
As more were dropped, the closer they got to us. Slowly, the vibrations and sound increased, before a massive blast made screams erupt from the crowd. Dust crumbled off of the roof and onto the floor.
Some people were sheltering their friends, some their family. Some were alone, worried expressions plastered on their faces.
Alan hugged me from behind, holding me tightly as blast after blast landed on top of us. They seemed to be getting closer again.
One final blast rocked the bunker, making the bunks shake on the floor and a crack appear in the concrete roof.
Then it went silent. Both the Walkers inside the bunker and the planes outside had silenced themselves.
We waited for what seemed like hours, waiting for that final blast that might blow through the roof, but it never came.
Alan's WV pinged, a call coming in. Alan answered quietly, listening to the panicked voice coming from the other end. His face paled as the call cut out unexpectedly.
"Who was that?" I asked carefully.
Alan shook his head in what seemed like shock. "Camilla."
I tipped my head slightly. "What's wrong?"
Alan's expression was grave. "Our Centre wasn't the only one to be attacked. They found the centre where Cami is stationed at."
"Which one is that?" I asked, deadly silent, almost not wanting to hear the answer.
"The Bergen Centre. They've found us for real this time."