NaNo :: Day 4 - 2,212 words. 9,917/50,000.
Day One.
Day Two.
Day Three.
“I thought you were going to stay outside,” said Tobias, turning partially toward the door as he drew in all of his rage, tightly holding onto it.
“She can’t be here!” It rushed out of John before he could follow Tobias’ example; it welled up into a slightly shrill pitch that he would regret later. “Make her wait in the hallway, Gainswellow!”
“I’ll only just listen at the door, anyway, you know,” said the girl, frankly. “Might as well let me stay.”
“Gainswellow!” Reaching the end of his short string of patience, John felt his distress reach a fevered pitch. “Who is she? How can we trust her? What have you done?” The last came out in a desperate groan, his head falling back repeatedly against the dresser’s drawers.
“Trust her?” Even with his eyes closed, John could see Tobias’ suspicious glance and the subsequent shake of his head. “Not even as far as we could throw her.”
Another groan worked out of John as his nightmare grew even darker.
“I don’t know, ‘Ox,” tried Wolfe. “She’s pretty tiny. I bet I could probably throw her a long way.”
Something swelled in that air at that moment, but then it settled and showed that Wolfe’s attempt to lighten the mood had worked. Slightly, anyway. Enough to breathe, at the very least. John licked his lips, which felt incredibly dry, while his palms seemed to have just gotten sweatier. He wiped them on his pants, mind reeling off course, though he was trying to get it back down to a workable speed.
“I can help,” the girl’s voice broke in, but John couldn’t tell if it was her desperation he was hearing or his own, projected out into the room and tainting everything with that certain tragic hue. After all, it grew steadier as she continued on. “I know I can. I don’t know what you’re involved in, what it is you do, but I don’t care. Let me help.”
A waiting silence followed and John used it to try to sort through some of the fog in his head. This was not a part of the plan, and the plan had been so meticulously balanced for weeks now that it felt as if it was entirely in jeopardy now with this new element. Even the slightest shift could throw the whole world off. It was no small thing to ask to suddenly be included in it.
“It’d be an extra pair of hands.” Wolfe’s voice was a sympathetic blade of reason slicing through the chaos. John’s lip curled back at the soft gentleness of his suggestion; it was a tone Wolfe adopted when he was getting attached to something, an idea or a thing or a person, and he always did that far too quickly and all too much.
And Tobias’ voice came in stubborn contradiction, tugging John back in the other direction. “She won’t have a clue what she’s doing. She could slow us down or mess things up.”
“Strap bombs to me,” the girl’s voice rushed in on the tail of Tobias’ argument. “Hold a gun to my head as a hostage. Smuggle drugs where the sunstar doesn’t shine or prostitute me out for information. I don’t care. Just let me frexing help.”
That certainly opened up a few eyes around the room, all pairs focused right on her. She didn’t even flinch, staring unblinkingly forward toward John. She wasn’t pleading; she was demanding. There was a demand in her voice and her face looked positively immovably set. Her shoulders squared and her chin lifted and John wasn’t so sure even Wolfe could throw her now.
John could tell within two second of looking at her that she meant every word, too, so much that it left him flabbergasted and a little ashamed for his tirade of mistrust. The dismal prospects of disaster began to fade, though faint traces of other concerns remained. The most prominent stain was left by the simple question of why. If he could figure that out, it could be something he could cultivate. She had a fierce loyalty, he could tell. An accolade, a devotee, but she had no cause. They needed to be that cause for her indefinitely.
John bit down on his lip for a moment, and then he decided.
“What was your name again?”
“Ada.”
“Well, Ada,” said John, grunting slightly as he pushed himself up off the floor, “if you could just shut that door behind you when you come in, hm?”
She stared after him for a moment, but when she blinked, her brain seemed to have caught up with anything and she obediently hopped to the task, a spark lighting in her eyes. She spun around so quickly he thought she would fall, taking the doorknob and pulling it in, and then looped the chainlock into the place and turned the deadbolt.
“You can’t possibly-“
Tobias has started to speak, but John lifted a hand and looked over, which effectively got him to bit back the words for the moment. He held his hand for a long moment, watching as the annoyance and impatience flickered across the dramatic contours of Tobias’ face. He drew in a breath. Then, reluctantly, Tobias nodded, and John lowered his hand. The tension still hung between them, but Tobias had agreed to hedge his arguments. For the moment, at least.
If they just got to business right now, then perhaps business would help them all forget about this little freak out. But Tobias’ cold eyes on him made him feel like this whole thing would follow one of them to the grave, whichever came first, and the irony about not trusting the girl hit him full on the face. He couldn’t even be sure he could trust any of them, really.
“Just a slight shift in the plan,” he said. “That’s all.” He was probably trying to convince himself more than the others, repeating it over and over in his head like a mantra that it would work, it has to work, it will even work better now. There was no time for all of this, anyway. He’d done enough worrying. His brain was working overtime as he moved to the panel in the wall and shifted just enough to hopefully obscure as much of the view of how exactly he opened it from the others.
Where were the gaps? He spent every waking hour smoothing over those details so that there were no gaps, and now he had to find one to fit his newest agent. With absolutely no time to do it. He fumbled excessively with the files, as if that could buy him at least a little bit more time after all.
“Gaps,” he muttered again, under his breath. “Always gaps. Maybe she’ll…”
But he stopped before the conversation with himself could carry on much further. He turned around and looked them over as he held all the important documents. Tobias was leaning against a wall, face in the dark shadows with his arms crossed in front of him. Wolfe was giving Ada a small, encouraging smile, and Ada herself was taking politely nervous nibbles out of a large biscuit. That was another thing that struck John. Her eyes were wide and dancing with hunger, he could see it all the way from where he stood, and her stomach even gave a tiny rumble in excitement at the food being introduced into her system, but she very carefully restrained herself. She had incredible control, and seemed slightly calculating. That could be a blessing or a curse, quite possibly both.
They got to business. The bed became their war table, under a light that occasionally blinked with questionable light. John set most of the documents to one side so that he could spread out the large rolled map. Without words, Tobias and Wolfe moved to help; a moment later, shoving the rest of the biscuit into her mouth, Ada joined, until they each held down a separate corner in place.
A flood of warm relief washed over John to see this. It seemed like a very good sign, a very promising start for young Ada and a hopeful reflection of the mission that, there they stood, four strong pillars in each corner. It was superficial, he knew, perhaps even superstitious, but it made him feel better, and he took what he could get when it came to settling his nerves.
“It’s the train system,” said Ada, quietly, blinking owlishly at the map, all the multi-coloured circles and circuits, lines criss-crossing and looping around the system spread through the entire City.
“Great,” grunted Tobias. “What I needed today was more trains.”
“Highjack?” asked Wolfe, looking up like a large, eager puppy.
“No joyrides.” John felt himself warming slightly more again. He was cautious about getting comfortable again, though; it was easy to lose yourself in amusement, though Wolfe’s consistent reminders that it was no crime to smile were a comfort. There were too few dependable elements in the world. “Just a lift.”
He slid a fat red marker from his pocket, uncapping it between his teeth, and drawing a big red circle. “Here,” he muttered around the plastic.
“That’s Yetomini Station,” said Tobias, his face draining with the implications of the location. The expression recharged John a little more. It was good to know that the weight of the job was settling in effectively.
Even Ada realized it, drawing in a sharp little breath that made her chest swell slightly. Her eyes widened as she realized all the unspoken details: that Yetomini was a governmental station, and not even one of the regular service-stops, but the very station that ran in and out of the Medical Department, the hospital, and all its subsequent laboratories. The most guarded and top secret platform in the entire system. She was smart enough, too, clever enough to not say anything, letting too much of their mission slip in case anyone was listening, and just let all the implications settle quietly with deep, personal attention.
He liked her more and more. But he was also realizing that she could be trouble if she started working contrary to them.
Wolfe, however, did not seem to have her control.
“Holy shitballs.”
John snorted, grinning. He could grin about it so long as their conversation was kept vague, without details being spoken and only passed through the visual channels that were harder to eavesdrop on. “Rendevous,” he said, taking the marker to the map again, “is here.” He circled it, scribbling the time above it. “Target starts here.” Other markers were found, different colours for different things, and the map grew increasingly more elaborate with points, circles, times, directions and speeds. Two groups were to form, one technical, one active, and the three listened carefully to what other details John actually mentioned out loud instead of just scribbling down for them to read. Dozens of questions were passing over their faces, thoughts and opinions, but they kept them quietly, knowing it was potentially unsafe for discussions. Wolfe and Tobias had worked with him long enough that he didn’t like unnecessary risks, and Ada was either just smart or simply too stupid or shocked.
Shaking his head, Tobias passed the folder he’d been reading over to Wolfe, one with the extensive list of exactly what the shipment would contain. “Have you lost your frexing mind, Jacksonox? This is huge.”
“It’s perfect,” John gushed. “It’s what we’ve been waiting for for years. Our shipment has finally come in.”
“And is this all true?” asked Tobias, now holding up the other folder that contained all the information and its various sources.
“I know what you’re thinking.” After all, a cynic could smell his own, and you probably didn’t have to be cynical to question a source that came from Garfarlion’s camp, and there’d always been bad blood between Tobias and Ophedius, ever since Tobias came into the City. “It’s been checked from all different angles and then some, and some of it’s from the book boys direct. Straight as an arrow.”
“Then why…?”
Wasn’t Garfarlion taking it himself. John shook his head. “Too risky. You’d have to be insane to try something like this.”
And what was left unsaid there was very simply that they were. Utterly and completely, and John couldn’t help a slightly mad grin, filled with a new sort of adrenaline now. “Just think of it, Gainswellow; what this could mean if we pull this off.”
So another silence settled and more things went unspoken, though they were communicated by the drifts of their eyes. John looked at all them, examining their reactions carefully. “Look them over really good,” he warned, imparting to all of them the silent wisdom of their tasks. “Memorize as much as you can, because I’m destroying them as soon as we’re done.”
Ada started to gravitated toward Wolfe, though her eyes strayed constantly over toward Tobias, who was paying her absolutely no mind. Her brows were drawn tight in a frown as she looked over the information, and she finally, tentatively, had to break her silence, but she whispered all her building questions to Wolfe so low that not even John could hear them.
Time to play catch-up! This is what I had written for Day 4 but didn't have a chance to upload. Man, this one had some major editing in the typing, and I feel better about it now than I did, but if anyone's reading and has any suggestions or thoughts about how to manage the vagueness of the operations, I'd love to hear them! It didn't feel as stilted as I thought it might, but I worry that it's awkward and not as suspense-building on the "OHGOD WHAT IS IT?" as it should be. More is explained in the next chapter, too, part of which will go up if I get around to finishing the typing of Day 5 today, too.
Day Two.
Day Three.
“I thought you were going to stay outside,” said Tobias, turning partially toward the door as he drew in all of his rage, tightly holding onto it.
“She can’t be here!” It rushed out of John before he could follow Tobias’ example; it welled up into a slightly shrill pitch that he would regret later. “Make her wait in the hallway, Gainswellow!”
“I’ll only just listen at the door, anyway, you know,” said the girl, frankly. “Might as well let me stay.”
“Gainswellow!” Reaching the end of his short string of patience, John felt his distress reach a fevered pitch. “Who is she? How can we trust her? What have you done?” The last came out in a desperate groan, his head falling back repeatedly against the dresser’s drawers.
“Trust her?” Even with his eyes closed, John could see Tobias’ suspicious glance and the subsequent shake of his head. “Not even as far as we could throw her.”
Another groan worked out of John as his nightmare grew even darker.
“I don’t know, ‘Ox,” tried Wolfe. “She’s pretty tiny. I bet I could probably throw her a long way.”
Something swelled in that air at that moment, but then it settled and showed that Wolfe’s attempt to lighten the mood had worked. Slightly, anyway. Enough to breathe, at the very least. John licked his lips, which felt incredibly dry, while his palms seemed to have just gotten sweatier. He wiped them on his pants, mind reeling off course, though he was trying to get it back down to a workable speed.
“I can help,” the girl’s voice broke in, but John couldn’t tell if it was her desperation he was hearing or his own, projected out into the room and tainting everything with that certain tragic hue. After all, it grew steadier as she continued on. “I know I can. I don’t know what you’re involved in, what it is you do, but I don’t care. Let me help.”
A waiting silence followed and John used it to try to sort through some of the fog in his head. This was not a part of the plan, and the plan had been so meticulously balanced for weeks now that it felt as if it was entirely in jeopardy now with this new element. Even the slightest shift could throw the whole world off. It was no small thing to ask to suddenly be included in it.
“It’d be an extra pair of hands.” Wolfe’s voice was a sympathetic blade of reason slicing through the chaos. John’s lip curled back at the soft gentleness of his suggestion; it was a tone Wolfe adopted when he was getting attached to something, an idea or a thing or a person, and he always did that far too quickly and all too much.
And Tobias’ voice came in stubborn contradiction, tugging John back in the other direction. “She won’t have a clue what she’s doing. She could slow us down or mess things up.”
“Strap bombs to me,” the girl’s voice rushed in on the tail of Tobias’ argument. “Hold a gun to my head as a hostage. Smuggle drugs where the sunstar doesn’t shine or prostitute me out for information. I don’t care. Just let me frexing help.”
That certainly opened up a few eyes around the room, all pairs focused right on her. She didn’t even flinch, staring unblinkingly forward toward John. She wasn’t pleading; she was demanding. There was a demand in her voice and her face looked positively immovably set. Her shoulders squared and her chin lifted and John wasn’t so sure even Wolfe could throw her now.
John could tell within two second of looking at her that she meant every word, too, so much that it left him flabbergasted and a little ashamed for his tirade of mistrust. The dismal prospects of disaster began to fade, though faint traces of other concerns remained. The most prominent stain was left by the simple question of why. If he could figure that out, it could be something he could cultivate. She had a fierce loyalty, he could tell. An accolade, a devotee, but she had no cause. They needed to be that cause for her indefinitely.
John bit down on his lip for a moment, and then he decided.
“What was your name again?”
“Ada.”
“Well, Ada,” said John, grunting slightly as he pushed himself up off the floor, “if you could just shut that door behind you when you come in, hm?”
She stared after him for a moment, but when she blinked, her brain seemed to have caught up with anything and she obediently hopped to the task, a spark lighting in her eyes. She spun around so quickly he thought she would fall, taking the doorknob and pulling it in, and then looped the chainlock into the place and turned the deadbolt.
“You can’t possibly-“
Tobias has started to speak, but John lifted a hand and looked over, which effectively got him to bit back the words for the moment. He held his hand for a long moment, watching as the annoyance and impatience flickered across the dramatic contours of Tobias’ face. He drew in a breath. Then, reluctantly, Tobias nodded, and John lowered his hand. The tension still hung between them, but Tobias had agreed to hedge his arguments. For the moment, at least.
If they just got to business right now, then perhaps business would help them all forget about this little freak out. But Tobias’ cold eyes on him made him feel like this whole thing would follow one of them to the grave, whichever came first, and the irony about not trusting the girl hit him full on the face. He couldn’t even be sure he could trust any of them, really.
“Just a slight shift in the plan,” he said. “That’s all.” He was probably trying to convince himself more than the others, repeating it over and over in his head like a mantra that it would work, it has to work, it will even work better now. There was no time for all of this, anyway. He’d done enough worrying. His brain was working overtime as he moved to the panel in the wall and shifted just enough to hopefully obscure as much of the view of how exactly he opened it from the others.
Where were the gaps? He spent every waking hour smoothing over those details so that there were no gaps, and now he had to find one to fit his newest agent. With absolutely no time to do it. He fumbled excessively with the files, as if that could buy him at least a little bit more time after all.
“Gaps,” he muttered again, under his breath. “Always gaps. Maybe she’ll…”
But he stopped before the conversation with himself could carry on much further. He turned around and looked them over as he held all the important documents. Tobias was leaning against a wall, face in the dark shadows with his arms crossed in front of him. Wolfe was giving Ada a small, encouraging smile, and Ada herself was taking politely nervous nibbles out of a large biscuit. That was another thing that struck John. Her eyes were wide and dancing with hunger, he could see it all the way from where he stood, and her stomach even gave a tiny rumble in excitement at the food being introduced into her system, but she very carefully restrained herself. She had incredible control, and seemed slightly calculating. That could be a blessing or a curse, quite possibly both.
They got to business. The bed became their war table, under a light that occasionally blinked with questionable light. John set most of the documents to one side so that he could spread out the large rolled map. Without words, Tobias and Wolfe moved to help; a moment later, shoving the rest of the biscuit into her mouth, Ada joined, until they each held down a separate corner in place.
A flood of warm relief washed over John to see this. It seemed like a very good sign, a very promising start for young Ada and a hopeful reflection of the mission that, there they stood, four strong pillars in each corner. It was superficial, he knew, perhaps even superstitious, but it made him feel better, and he took what he could get when it came to settling his nerves.
“It’s the train system,” said Ada, quietly, blinking owlishly at the map, all the multi-coloured circles and circuits, lines criss-crossing and looping around the system spread through the entire City.
“Great,” grunted Tobias. “What I needed today was more trains.”
“Highjack?” asked Wolfe, looking up like a large, eager puppy.
“No joyrides.” John felt himself warming slightly more again. He was cautious about getting comfortable again, though; it was easy to lose yourself in amusement, though Wolfe’s consistent reminders that it was no crime to smile were a comfort. There were too few dependable elements in the world. “Just a lift.”
He slid a fat red marker from his pocket, uncapping it between his teeth, and drawing a big red circle. “Here,” he muttered around the plastic.
“That’s Yetomini Station,” said Tobias, his face draining with the implications of the location. The expression recharged John a little more. It was good to know that the weight of the job was settling in effectively.
Even Ada realized it, drawing in a sharp little breath that made her chest swell slightly. Her eyes widened as she realized all the unspoken details: that Yetomini was a governmental station, and not even one of the regular service-stops, but the very station that ran in and out of the Medical Department, the hospital, and all its subsequent laboratories. The most guarded and top secret platform in the entire system. She was smart enough, too, clever enough to not say anything, letting too much of their mission slip in case anyone was listening, and just let all the implications settle quietly with deep, personal attention.
He liked her more and more. But he was also realizing that she could be trouble if she started working contrary to them.
Wolfe, however, did not seem to have her control.
“Holy shitballs.”
John snorted, grinning. He could grin about it so long as their conversation was kept vague, without details being spoken and only passed through the visual channels that were harder to eavesdrop on. “Rendevous,” he said, taking the marker to the map again, “is here.” He circled it, scribbling the time above it. “Target starts here.” Other markers were found, different colours for different things, and the map grew increasingly more elaborate with points, circles, times, directions and speeds. Two groups were to form, one technical, one active, and the three listened carefully to what other details John actually mentioned out loud instead of just scribbling down for them to read. Dozens of questions were passing over their faces, thoughts and opinions, but they kept them quietly, knowing it was potentially unsafe for discussions. Wolfe and Tobias had worked with him long enough that he didn’t like unnecessary risks, and Ada was either just smart or simply too stupid or shocked.
Shaking his head, Tobias passed the folder he’d been reading over to Wolfe, one with the extensive list of exactly what the shipment would contain. “Have you lost your frexing mind, Jacksonox? This is huge.”
“It’s perfect,” John gushed. “It’s what we’ve been waiting for for years. Our shipment has finally come in.”
“And is this all true?” asked Tobias, now holding up the other folder that contained all the information and its various sources.
“I know what you’re thinking.” After all, a cynic could smell his own, and you probably didn’t have to be cynical to question a source that came from Garfarlion’s camp, and there’d always been bad blood between Tobias and Ophedius, ever since Tobias came into the City. “It’s been checked from all different angles and then some, and some of it’s from the book boys direct. Straight as an arrow.”
“Then why…?”
Wasn’t Garfarlion taking it himself. John shook his head. “Too risky. You’d have to be insane to try something like this.”
And what was left unsaid there was very simply that they were. Utterly and completely, and John couldn’t help a slightly mad grin, filled with a new sort of adrenaline now. “Just think of it, Gainswellow; what this could mean if we pull this off.”
So another silence settled and more things went unspoken, though they were communicated by the drifts of their eyes. John looked at all them, examining their reactions carefully. “Look them over really good,” he warned, imparting to all of them the silent wisdom of their tasks. “Memorize as much as you can, because I’m destroying them as soon as we’re done.”
Ada started to gravitated toward Wolfe, though her eyes strayed constantly over toward Tobias, who was paying her absolutely no mind. Her brows were drawn tight in a frown as she looked over the information, and she finally, tentatively, had to break her silence, but she whispered all her building questions to Wolfe so low that not even John could hear them.
Time to play catch-up! This is what I had written for Day 4 but didn't have a chance to upload. Man, this one had some major editing in the typing, and I feel better about it now than I did, but if anyone's reading and has any suggestions or thoughts about how to manage the vagueness of the operations, I'd love to hear them! It didn't feel as stilted as I thought it might, but I worry that it's awkward and not as suspense-building on the "OHGOD WHAT IS IT?" as it should be. More is explained in the next chapter, too, part of which will go up if I get around to finishing the typing of Day 5 today, too.