We were all asked to leave for a few minutes, leaving Mariah alone with Jasmine and the doctors. It was unfair that Jasmine was allowed to stay, but not Logan and me. We anxiously went back through the elevator, waiting until we were allowed to see Mariah again. Back in the bottom of the base, Juliet was asking all sorts of questions. “Why are you so excited?”
“Why’s Miss Barnet upstairs with all those weirdo people?”
“Can we make cookies?”
“Why didn’t Miss Barnet talk for herself when we were upstairs?”
“Why did we need to come back downstairs after seeing Miss Barnet?”
“Can we make chocolate chip cookies?”
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“Juliet, why don’t you and I go make some cookies? Whatever type you want. Let’s leave everyone else alone for a little while,” Maggie said. Juliet smiled. “Okie dokie!” The two of them walked to Maggie’s room. I was left with Sammy and Melissa. “Elias, I’ve been meaning to find you. I’m meeting with the leaders, excluding Jasmine, to discuss some plans we have for our attack. Would you be willing to come to the briefing?” Melissa asked. “Uh, sure. Can Sammy come?” I said, not wanting to leave him alone. “Unfortunately, the meeting is for leaders only. And you, of course,” she said, taking out a phone from her pocket and typing out a quick message. “The meeting starts in a few minutes. We’d better get going. It’s in the green room again.” We started walking away from Sammy, who watched us with a longing gaze.
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We walked through the halls to the green room. When we walked in, I remembered what had happened the last time I’d been here. Has that been a few days ago? Weeks? I didn’t know. Sitting at the donut table were the other leaders. One approached me, shaking my hand. “Hello, Elias. I don’t know if you remember my name. I’m Jackson Errech. I oversee all medical operations. I’ve been keeping a close eye on your sister.” I plastered on a smile. “That’s good. I just saw her a little while ago. We’re all really happy that she’s awake.” Jackson smiled and walked back over to the table. Melissa took her seat, and I sat next to where Jasmine usually did. “Thank you all for meeting with me on such short notice,” Melissa said. “As you all should know, Mariah, our second general leader, has recently been in the med. wing. Today, she woke up from her coma. While her road to recovery will be long, we must continue forward with our plans. I believe that with proper preparation, we could finish our attack on Salef within a few months. Nathan, Alexander, the floor is yours.”
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The weapons and security leaders stood and rolled over a projector and screen. Turning it on, I saw an image I recognised. From where, I couldn’t remember. It was a map, scattered with red dots. “The plan is this: we’ll broadcast the message to all public and private servers in the morning, exact time still undecided,” Nathan started. “Roughly two hours after that, we’ll use that same broadcast to call everyone to the fence points, which are located here.” Nathan pointed to various red dots on the map. “When people arrive at the points, they will be sent out to the actual fence in groups tailored to their skills. More athletic people will be sent to the mountains, while younger and older people will be sent to areas with easier terrain. You get the idea. Once everyone is in position, the leaders will send out a message to a closed messaging channel. Only the other leaders will have access to that channel. A countdown will start once all messages have been received. When it hits zero, the last two people, Melissa and Mariah, will grab hands. If everything works as planned, all the demons in Salef will be destroyed. For good. Also, with Mariah’s research, we know that there will be a fifteen second window where there will be a weak point in the fence. A team will slip out through that weak point, to get outside. Once they’re out, more teams will be sent through as the first team disables the fence from the outside.” Alexander pulled up a few more images and graphs. “We’ve been running tests, and everything should work. We’re also prepared to choose a new second finisher in case Mariah isn’t able to. What happened to her isn’t ideal, but it’s nothing we can’t work around.”
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I stood quickly, my chair scraping against the ground. “She’ll be able to. When is this happening?” Alexander looked to Melissa. “Roughly two months. We’re still preparing, and we need everything to run perfectly for us to have any chance of it working. Elias, we want you to be part of the first team to get out. Do you want that spot?” I thought for a moment. How was that even a question? “Yes,” I replied, my voice steady. “Good. When this meeting is over, we can talk more about it.” I was internally bursting with joy. When I first learned that Mariah was trying to get out of Salef by destroying the demons, I was terrified. I didn’t think that she would kill me and Logan just to run an experiment. But now that I wasn’t Reaper anymore, I was excited. This could start a new world. A world outside of the fence.
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But then I thought about Logan, and Juliet. They were both still demons. I couldn’t destroy them, even though I was safe. “Wait,” I said. “If I am going to join this team, and believe me, I want to, I need something to happen first.” Melissa nodded. “Name your conditions.”
“You remember what you did to me to remove and disable all the Reaper bits?” She nodded again. “Well, I want that same thing done to both Logan and Juliet.” Jackson looked at Melissa, and whispered something to her. She whispered something back, then said, “Elias, we will try our best. We don’t know how effective it will be, especially for Juliet, but we can try. Jackson has agreed to perform the operations himself. There is no one else better than him to do this. I’ll call the two of them to the med wing later today, and the process can start.” I smiled. “Thank you.” She returned my smile, and turned back to Alexander and Nathan. “Are there any other items that need to be briefed, regarding the plan?” Alexander nodded to Nathan, who grinned. “Yes, actually. We need to come up with a name for the operation.” My mind immediately started searching for names, names that had meaning. The demons were part of Operation Lost Ones, so how about, “Operation Resurrection,” I said. “What?” Melissa turned to look at me. “Operation Resurrection. That should be its name. The demons, when they were first created, were part of Operation Lost Ones. This would be Operation Resurrection.” Nathan smiled. “I like that. Welcome to Operation Resurrection.”206Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWdtTc9Mtw2
