Something Organised Pt 2

  “What a waste of time,” said Ian as he threw the broken arrow on the table next to the broadcast device. He had tried sending a message again, same as the last time but to no avail. “CNet, any news from Stronghold Romulus?”

  “No, Commander, though I’ve lost communication with the stronghold once more. Whatever is going on there, it cannot be good,”

  “Unless Ed’s managed to deal with the corrupt VIs,”

  “True enough, but without access, I will not be able to take control of that stronghold. Without control, we are left in the dark, as is Ed,”

  “You’re telling me I need to fly out to Stronghold Romulus and fix this?”

  “No, that will not do. We have no idea of the situation. I would suggest patients. Ed is more than capable of dealing with this himself at some point in the near future. I hope,”

  “So do I,” said Ian.

            Ian made his way down to the sparring room where he found the small team De Beer had brought with him to the manse. They were all sparing against each other in pairs with JR among them. He was sparing against one of the younger looking women armed with a trident.

            She wasn’t as skilled as the others, which was probably the reason De Beer chose to pair her with JR. JR had gotten better if only by a small margin, but his swings were still way too slow and his footing way too clumsy.

            He managed to block every blow that the Others agent threw at him, parrying the tips of the trident with his sword, but she did the same and their sparing was at a stalemate. Ian wondered how long they had been at it as he made his way to De Beer.

  “Your friend’s getting better,”

  “Still not ready, though” noted Ian, “not that it matters, we move on the Cage tomorrow,”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “I’ll inform everyone tonight. After this sparring session, tell everyone to go out and relax a bit, in case we don’t all make it back,”

  “Where do you think you’re going?” De Beer asked as Ian made to leave.

            Ian turned towards him just in time to see him throw two swords towards Ian. He caught them and took the man’s meaning. De Beer got an axe off of the wall and took up position opposite Ian, who took up his favourite stance.

            It was De Beer that charged first and unleashed a volley of blows on Ian, who blocked every one of them with minimal effort. The blows were quick but light so as to cause Ian to retreat, but he knew better. When De Beer was done, Ian unleashed his own sequence of blows, one of which landed on De Beer’s left shoulder.

            He staggered back and smiled before lunging at Ian once again, this time with more furious blows. Ian dodged a few and parried others but one blow slipped past his defences and caught him on the knee making his right leg feel numb for a few seconds.

            Everyone had stopped their sparing and started staring at the two of them as the exchanged blows. They were at it for a good half an hour, but neither of them managed to land another blow, though a few times they came very close. Ian nearly landed an uppercut that would have caught De Beer under the chin had he not caught the blade with his free hand. Closer to the end of their session, De Beer managed to unbalance Ian and create an opening which would have caused a great black bruise on Ian’s right thigh had he not blocked the haft with his own hilt.

            After they agreed to call it a draw, Ian told everyone to take the rest of the day for themselves and return at ten that night for briefing. No one objected to his terms.

  “Well, what an unpleasant surprise,” said Connor as JR entered his bar and made his way to where Abigail was sitting.

  “Nice to see you to, Connor,” said JR as he passed him.

  “So, about that drink you owed me,” said Abigail with a smile as JR sat down across from her. “I missed you,”

  “I missed you to,” he said, “A glass of whiskey and whatever the lady is having,” he added as the waiter came by.

  “The same, thanks,” said Abigail and the waiter scurried off. “So, what is Ian planning?”

  “Really? You want to talk about Ian? You know he’s getting married, right?”

  “I’m not interested in the man, just what he’s planning,”

  “I don’t know what he’s planning. He hasn’t told anyone yet,”

  “No, Ian never does anything without running his plans past someone. What about Ed, does he know?”

  “We haven’t seen or heard from Ed in days. Why the sudden interest in what Ian is planning?”

  “It’s not sudden, and I have my reasons. Like I told you, he has a lot of skeletons hidden in his closet,”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I don’t go around killing mothers and fathers in front of their children,” Abigail burst out angrily but softened her composure as the waiter came by and gave them their drinks, which she downed instantly.

  “Ian would never do that,”

  “How sure are you? Up until a month ago you were the wounded bird in that house of his, while he and Ed were hiding secret lives from you for ten years, not once bothering to mention it to you,”

  “Okay, fair enough, he hid things from me, but he wouldn’t kill parents in full view of their children,”

  “I know of a little girl that says otherwise,” said Abigail before getting up from her seat and heading out the door, leaving JR alone at the table.

            He thought about following but his legs would not rise. Ian and Ed had hidden things from him, they had done it a few times even before they finished school, but never anything as big as their secret lives. And now Abigail hinted that Ian had killed innocent people. He couldn’t believe it, but what if she was right? And if Ian could do such things, what was Ed or Devon capable of?

            JR got up, resolute to get to the bottom of this. He knew it would not help to confront Ian directly, but he knew how to get some information.

            Devon and Melisa were driving along is his Jeep Wrangler. It was late, almost nine thirty, as they made their way to Stronghold Prime.

  “What do you think Ian has planned?” she asked.

  “No doubt infiltrating the Cage,”

  “You think he’d do that with only a handful of agents?”

  “Ian no doubt has a full proof plan,”

  “I don’t like his full proof plans, they tend to get Swiss cheesed at the first sign of gunfire,”

  “We managed to pull of two successful assignments for the Council, and quite a few for the Agency before the Fall, and we’re still alive,”

  “And how many of them went down without a hitch?”

  “Most of them,” lied Devon.

            He parked his car in the underground garage next to Ian’s and made his way inside with Melisa through the garage entrance. It lead them to the lobby, where they found JR and the three of them made their way to the briefing room on the fourth floor.

            Ian was already in front with the projector on and De Beer and his agents were already seated. Devon and Melisa took seats near the front while JR seated himself towards the back.

  “Good, everyone is here so let us begin,” started Ian, “This is an aerial photo of the Cage, the only known Council safe house we are aware of. After tomorrow night, hopefully we know of more.

  “We’ll split into three teams. De Beer, you will take the larger part of your force and storm the front gate,”

  “That’s a suicide mission!” objected one of his female agents, a pretty red head.

  “Shut up, Kylee and let the man talk,” said De Beer.

  “I don’t want anyone to get themselves killed, I just need a diversion,” said Ian. “Melisa, you and Kylee will be running Tactical Command from here. We’ve got Betsy for an hour tomorrow, which will be more than enough,”

  “That means we have three shots,” said Melisa.

  “Yes, so make them count. Don’t fire at the house unless you really need to. I don’t want to be caught by one of those bolts. The last team will be Devon, JR and myself. We’ll infiltrate the building from the back a minute or so after the diversion starts, make our way to the restricted area and find out what we can,”

  “What are you hoping to learn?” asked De Beer.

  “What they are up to, how many more safe houses there are, how many spies they have in the Others and whatever other agency they have interest in, and where they are keeping Aaliyah,”

  “Isn’t finding her Ed’s job?” asked JR.

  “Yes, but perhaps we can help,” said Ian and he looked over to Devon, who gave him a you know we’ll end up doing it look. “We’ll start the attack at ten tomorrow night. Until then, get some rest. Dismissed,” he said and everyone started leaving the room, except Devon and Melisa who came towards him.

  “Isn’t Danny gonna be pissed that you’re not home?” asked Melisa

  “She’s got night shift again,” said Ian as he switched off the projector.

  “I see,” she said and nudged Devon.

  “Is there something the two of you want to get of your chests?” asked Ian suspiciously.

  “Well, yes, kinda,” said Devon, “Melisa is pregnant,”

  “What? How far along?” asked Ian, surprised.

  “A week,” said Melisa.

  “Wow, congrats, even if it is a bit early,” Ian said, hugging Melisa and shaking Devon’s hand. “Who else have you told?”

  “No one,” said Devon, “just you, and we’d like to keep it that way at least until the end of the first month,”

  “Yeah, no, definitely,”

            In the early hours of the next morning, Ian found himself on the roof of his house, looking out at the town below him and the stars above, strumming random tabs on his guitar.

            Of all the people he knew, he never thought Devon would be the first to get a child. If anything, he thought Ed would have been married and had a whole string of children by now. But that did not seem likely anytime soon. Not with Aaliyah held hostage, Ed’s hormones running away with him (at least as far as Ian knew) and the communications blackout between them.