CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - WATCHFUL
Lance left Jonathan in the room that had been prepared for him by the resistance members, knowing that his companion wanted time alone to contemplate his plan for wiping out the possibly dangerous Brian and Sammy. Lance would feel safer once those two were out of his way and there was a clear path to B. they were too watchful for his liking and too protective over B which made Lance’s job much harder.
He had spotted them as a threat the moment he had been given this assignment. At first it had been difficult for him to ‘make friends’ with B because he was constantly with his father or palling around with his older brother. They were like his own personal guards for Christ’s sake half of the time.
Now they were even more irritating as he tried to find an opportunity to inject B. Jonathan had told him to do it as soon as possible for although the effects of it would appear quickly, it would take a few days for B to be weakened enough for them to snatch him easily. Lance also did not want to hang around in case anybody discovered it and began to question him.
He had gone in search of B the moment he had left Jonathan and at first he had smiled to hear from one man that Brian was currently in an important meeting with Darren, which surely meant that B was vulnerable? Lance could invite him to hang, maybe with some others as well so that B wouldn’t notice the slight prick as the needle sneakily pierced his skin.
However, B was not as alone as he had thought and Lance gritted his teeth in agitation when he spied him playing basketball with his blond brother Sammy in an empty room. Damn… why did Sammy have to be so tall and strong as well? He was more of a physical threat than Brian was… Brian was just a plain and simple painful annoyance that never seemed to die or fade away.
He tried to speak to Sammy and B when they stopped in the dining hall for a few minutes and he had thought that luck was changing when Sammy was called away to help out in one of the computer labs, but instead of leaving B alone with Lance he had decided that his brother could come and help him. B was quite happy with that idea and not even a promise of a soccer game with some of the other people around could tempt him away.
Lance now appeared to have no choice but to inject him with the… whatever it was… while he was asleep, but what if B woke up? What would he think if he saw Lance leaning over his bed in the night?
Then there was the Brian factor… He shared a room with B and that meant that Lance would have to find a distraction for him.
“Lance,” a voice suddenly said, startling Lance out of his thoughts. He turned and fought hard not to grimace.
Speak of the devil… It was Brian.
“Hey,” Lance greeted, flashing the older man a forced grin.
“Have you seen B anywhere?” he asked.
“Yeah he’s with Sammy in the computer lab,” Lance replied. “I saw him earlier.”
“Okay. Thanks,” Brian said before turning away.
Damn… now B was completely surrounded. He shrugged and decided to return to his room. He would wait until night before he attempted to complete his mission.
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Like Lance had said, Brian found Sammy and B in the computer lab. They were looking at Gerai codes and information, trying to figure out a way to enter the new underground base.
“Hey,” Sammy greeted as he caught sight of Brian in the reflection of the computer screen before him. “How did the meeting go?”
“The Gerai are on the move,” Brian replied. “They’re moving slowly but heading in this direction. Darren wants everyone prepared in case they try to attack.”
Sammy and B exchanged a look but then shrugged. Brian frowned in surprise. Weren’t they bothered in the slightest about an impending attack? Brian’s eyes lingered on B. he was normally always a little scared when it came to the Gerai as they were his nemesis. Now though he seemed hardly to be affected by the news.
“Don’t worry,” Sammy said as he returned to his work. “We’ve sat through Gerai attacks before with no worries. This place is really difficult to break into. The only trouble we’ve ever had is with Gerai spies, but that hasn’t happened for years. We’re usually very careful about who we let in now. We’ll be fine.” Sammy patted his brother’s shoulders. “And B will be perfectly safe as long as he doesn’t run off anywhere!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” B asked.
“It means don’t run away,” Sammy said simply. “You have a bad habit of doing that when you’re in trouble.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” B said as he folded his arms.
Brian laughed at the scowl that suddenly appeared on B’s face. B had run way several times and there had been more before Brian even arrived at the base. No matter how many times the resistance tried to stop him, he always managed to slip through their defences somehow.
“Good,” Sammy replied.
B rolled his eyes. “What do you expect when I’m constantly locked up underground like a cockroach or worm or something? It’s so dull down here!”
“It won’t be for long,” Brian assured him.
“I’m getting sick of hearing that,” B shot back. “Everyone says that and everyone lies. I know and you know that we’re gonna be stuck down here for weeks, probably even months. Darren’s never gonna let me go now that he knows about the virus.”
“That’s not true!” Brian protested, slightly stung at B’s tone rose.
“Yes it is!” B cried. “All anyone cares about is the computer chip1 if I wasn’t carrying it, they wouldn’t even care!”
“B,” Sammy warned, his eyes wary as he saw an argument brewing right in front of him, the clouds rapidly beginning to multiply and turn a stormy black.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Brian said. Despite being angry and even cruel at times, Darren cared about B. B was the type of kid who you couldn’t help but care about because of his tragic past. They all loved him. “They care about you! They took you in before they even knew about the computer chip in your arm or the virus! They went out of their way to rescue you!”
“What are you shouting at me for?” B asked, his eyes flickering slightly.
“I’m not shouting!” Brian said. “Why are you being so ungrateful? They’ve tried so hard to make you happy and to look after you!”
“Both of you stop it now!” Sammy hissed, seeing that several people were now watching them curiously and that tempers were about to fly.
Brian didn’t understand. Couldn’t B see that they were only trying to protect him! It wasn’t Brian’s or anybody else’s fault that they had been dragged back and they were all in the same situation. They were all being dragged back into a war they didn’t want to fight.
“I’m not doing anything!” B snapped. “Why is everything always my fault?”
“It’s not your fault!” Sammy said. “Look B, nobody wanted this to happen.”
“Why do we have to stay here though?” B cried. “Why can’t we go somewhere else where they won’t find us?”
Brian sighed. A headache was suddenly beginning to burn his head, B had entered one of his moods now and it wouldn’t be easy to calm him down. B simply did not want his freedom taken away after he had only just been given it after seventeen years.
“Don’t sigh and shake your head at me!” B snapped.
Brian’s head shot back up. “I wasn’t-”
“Oh I’ve had enough. I know exactly what you’re gonna say, ‘It’ll be over soon’, ‘I’m sorry you’re here’ and all the rest of your sympathies. Well I don’t want them!”
“B!” Sammy said. “For God’s sake it, stop it!”
“Why won’t everyone stop picking on me!”
“B.” Brian tried to stop him but B shrugged his arm away and stormed out of the computer lab. “B!”
“Leave him. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He was fine this morning!” Sammy said. “I think you accidentally hit a nerve. B really doesn’t like being back down here and the words ‘it won’t be for long’ really irritates him at the moment. He’s right. We don’t know how long this is going to go on for.”
Brian sighed and held his head in his arms. “I was shouting at him wasn’t I?” he said, suddenly remembering how much his voice had rose.
“Just a bit,” Sammy said softly.
“I’m terrible at this. I should juts keep my mouth shut. Maybe that will stop the arguments.” He slowly sat down in the chair B had left behind and leaned back with his eyes closed. Why did this keep happening?
“It wasn’t your fault. B started that. He can’t stand all this sympathy directed at him and he feels like some sort of object that the resistance and the Gerai are fighting over.”
“Well there’s not a lot we can do to help that. In the eyes of the Gerai, he is an object.”
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Jonathan slowly wandered the long corridors of the base, unable to help but admire the skill that had gone into its construction. No wonder it had always been almost impossible for the Gerai to penetrate it. Acting as a curious visitor he had peered into several rooms to get an idea of the layout. He already had a plan in mind for a distraction while they snatched B away but he needed to decide where would be the best place to set it off.
He glanced at his watch and then began to make his way back to Lance’s room. He disliked the man enormously. He was too weasely and wiry for Jonathan’s liking and he couldn’t stand that irritating face and big eyes, but his work so far had been exceptional. He had cleared a path to the kid and won his trust in the process. This assignment would be easy.
The resistance members mostly ignored him as he walked the corridors or they offered him welcoming smiles and commented on how Lance was such a ‘decent kid’. They really were all blind it seemed. It was Jonathan could do not to laugh at their innocence.
Eventually he found Lance sitting alone in his room and staring up at the ceiling. He turned and grinned as Jonathan entered. “What do you make of the place?”
Jonathan shrugged. “Pretty impressive. Almost as well made as our research base. At the moment though, they’ve become soft. They would never have let us just walk in if they were still in the middle of the war. They don’t know what they’re dealing with. We can use that to our advantage. We have the element of surprise.”
“We have to be careful though. They are becoming more aware of the situation and they have become a lot more cautious.”
Jonathan snorted slightly. The resistance still knew very little they knew nothing about their research base of the size of it. It had been kept a secret for a very good reason. It was the home of all the main experiments of the Gerai. It would have become a prime target if they had found out about it.
“We’ll deal with this. In less than a week we’ll be long gone along with the kid.”
Lance nodded, a smile curving his thin lips. “But first we have to deal with this.” He held up his hand with the syringe in it.
“What do you want me to do?” Jonathan asked, knowing Lance already had a plan in his sick little mind.
“I just need you to distract Brian. He shares a room with B. I need him out of the way so that I can inject B with this. Just talk to him and introduce yourself or something,” lance said.
Jonathan raised an eyebrow. He had not actually met Brian yet but he had seen pictures of him and he did not believe that he posed a serious threat. The guy was tiny and was not particularly imposing. The brother… now he looked like he could be a problem. He looked stronger and taller than Brian, but Lance seemed to be as wary as Brian as he was of Sammy.
“He’s trouble,” Lance said as if reading Jonathan’s mind. “He gets in the way and he’s very determined, especially when it comes to protecting is family. Don’t underestimate him.”
Jonathan nodded but still remained unconvinced. “All right, I’ll be careful of him but he won’t be any trouble soon.”
“What are you planning?”
“A bomb. I’ll plant it. It goes off, Brian and Sammy get hurt. The resistance are occupied and we get B.”
“Sounds good.”
“Get that in B today,” Jonathan said. “It’s late and most people seem to already be asleep. I’ll come with you and keep a look out. By this time, Brian might already be asleep.” Jonathan had hardly seen anybody when he wandered the corridors so it stood to reason that Brian was asleep as well. It was a pity though, Jonathan was very keen to meet Brian…
Lance led the way to Brian and B’s room and as before, the corridors were devoid of any life at all. Jonathan watched about him carefully, knowing that it might look a little suspicious if they were caught loitering about this time.
“This way,” Lance whispered as he peered about a corner. “His room is down here.”
Jonathan nodded, his eyes still watching anxiously. They were so close and to be caught now would be disastrous.
Finally Lance stopped and gestured to a room on the left. He peered inside, careful not to make any noise as the electronic door whisked open. He drew back and then smiled at Jonathan. “B’s asleep, but there’s no sign of Brian.”
Jonathan nodded. “Be careful,” he whispered. “Very careful. I’ll look about for Brian. He can’t be far away.”
Lance nodded and Jonathan watched him slip into the room before he set off down the corridor. It was as he turned the corner that he walked into a small, light haired man. His heart lurched slightly as he matched the face to the picture of Brian. If he went to that room, he would almost certainly catch Lance…
“Ah Brian!” he greeted.
Brian frowned, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Do I know you?”
Jonathan held out a hand and smiled as warmly as he could, even when faced with the one who had lost the Gerai everything they had ever worked for. “I’m Jonathan, Lance’s uncle.”
Brian’s eyes were lit up in surprise. “You don’t look like him.”
Jonathan continued to smile. “He looks more like hi father.”
Brian nodded, but did not seem particularly interested. “Sorry, not to be rude or anything but I’m not in the mood to chat. I juts need some sleep.”
“I understand,” Jonathan said, still thinking of Lance around the corner. Brain really was an annoyance. He just didn’t act in the way anybody wanted him to… “I just wanted to meet you. Lance has told me so much about you.”
“Really?” Brian was surprised. “I don’t speak to him that much. He mostly hangs with my youngest son.”
“B? Yes, Lance told me about him as well. How is he?”
Brian rolled his eyes and Jonathan saw the unmistakable darkening of his cheeks as clouds passed over his face. That was interesting… Maybe he wasn’t as close to B as he mad out.
“He’s fine,” Brian replied coldly. “Now if you’ll excuse me.” He made to push past Jonathan and the bigger man stared about him but still Lance did not appear. He grabbed Brian’s arm and spun him back around.
“We should meet up and talk sometime.”
Brian’s eyes glared at the arm that was gripping him and Jonathan knew at once that he was in a black mood. “Sure,” he replied. “Now, I have to go.” Jonathan released him and held his breathe for a moment as Brian vanished about the corner. “Hey Lance,” Brian’s voice said suddenly.
Jonathan looked up just as Lance emerged from around the corner. “That was close,” Lance whispered.
“Did he see you?”
Lance shook his head. “No. B didn’t wake either. Now what do we do?”
Jonathan smiled. “We wait for the right moment.”
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Brian sighed as he wandered into his and B’s room and then leaned up against the wall in desperation. He knew the good atmosphere between himself and B would not last. He didn’t even know what had gone wrong.
He opened his eyes and looked down at where B was sleeping, stirring slightly in discomfort with a frown upon his face. Brian gently leant down and tucked the blanket about him, watching as he stopped stirring and returned to silent, motionless slumber.
He stared at him for a moment longer before making his way to his own bed. He felt like crying… why had the day gone so wrong?