"Aren't you and Babel going to do anything!" Raptor shouted.
Jessica breathed in and out, steadily. She could have scrambled the airship's system; she could have deduced a method of disengaging the claw. "You just have to trust me," she insisted. "This isn't Asgard."
Raptor stared spitfire, the seat unbalancing him and everything else. Despite incredulity in his eyes and fists, he didn't move from his seat. Like Valerie and Shannon, all he could do was hold on and wait. At that moment, Jessica's swirly vision caught a stir in the backseat. Dexter was waking up.
He opened his eyes. From a squint to dilation, they widened with surprise—or horror. "What 's going on?" he croaked.
Jessica removed her seat belt and leaned into the back seat, vying for balance in the car's free-flight rumble. She took Dexter's wavering expression between her hands and looked him in the eye. "Dex, listen, you're okay...
"Homegirl!"
Valerie appeared beside Jessica to inspect the boy for herself. "Whatever you do, stay calm and don't look at your arm," she said. Jessica glared and froze so intensely she thought her bones would creak. Without creaking, she pushed Valerie away and held Dexter close.
"We're going to make it!" was all she could say, while Dexter's chest heaved and compressed.
They flew to the climax of speculation. Before they could contemplate—or panic—at length, the airship descended. Outside the windows, a theater of canyons greeted them in the middle of nowhere country.
A thud meant landfall, but after the metal clamps came undone, the car continued its clinks. They were on a platform, where the sky surrendered to rock until the morning light disappeared yet again.
"Not another cave!" Shannon whined.
Desperation carved Valerie's eyeshadow, but the wrinkles seemed to smoothen when she met Jessica's confident gaze. Goosebumps, nevertheless, ran down Jessica's spine; the likelihood of being wrong sunk in, the closer they came to the end. Dexter had emotionally stabilized, breathing normally as he looked at her and nothing else. Surprising, especially since he had seen his arm stub. Jessica couldn't help but lament internally at that moment... when the elevator stopped. The car doors were forced open.
"Get down on the ground!"
Weapons and threats waited for them on the other side. Jessica and her friends were greeted by yet more guns in the arms of tech braces. She remembered the Sicario suits.
Valerie hit the ground, alongside Shannon. As the last out of the vehicle, Jessica grabbed her bearings. Dexter eliminated her sense of self-preservation, reaching out just as black hands grabbed hold and took him.
"Dex!" she stammered.
He swiftly broke free with a fearful look in his eye. Reality had dawned on him, and so he outstretched his arm and touched her hand for a second.
"Easy with him!" Raptor barked.
Just as quickly, Dex was restrained and carried down the only tunnel, where he disappeared from sight. Jessica glimpsed the object he'd pressed into her hand; it was a miniature touchscreen. She pressed the single button, illuminating a topographic map with nothing more than a blip.
A gunpoint fell within inches of her face, so she stared down the barrel before staring down the wielder. Swelled in bitterness, she coldly awaited search and seizure. "The hell do you want?" When visor slid down, Monarch's dark smirk prevailed.
"You were gone a while," he said, lowering the weapon. "Get them up. And be gentle about it..." Shannon and Valerie could breathe when they rose to their feet.
"Wait. No apology for throwing us on the ground like scumbags?" Shannon drawled.
Monarch stared. "Comes with the territory when you're careful. At least, you weren't shot."
"We've been shot at," Jessica retorted. "It's a miracle we haven't been shot to death and burned, or done in by some alien machination. It's just been one precarious shitstorm after another. Now tell me; where are you taking Dexter?"
"Corporal Darkstar is being escorted to the medical bay, Lynx. Speaking of which, do you need attention? Or can you explain what happened out there, right now, in a debriefing? I hope you didn't lose the data." In lieu of waiting for a response, Monarch peered over Jessica's head. "Complications, Raptor? Report!"
"Nothing we didn't manage through the skin of our teeth," he said coolly.
Jessica leered between Raptor and Monarch. "Well, you two can stand here and be soldier—get that fucken gun away from me!"
The nearby guard slowly backed away. Jessica kept her eyes on him until he stepped a few meters off, into his own private space. The whole room was staring.
"You can calm down, Lynx," Monarch soothed. "You're out of the woods, now."
"Am I?" Jessica sniffed. "3.14159265359..."
"It's okay to be mad, Jess," said Valerie, inching from behind.
"Who's mad?" she coughed. "71693993751058209... I'm just tired. You should be, too. I haven't had coffee, is all."
"Mitch!" cried Monarch.
Another Sicario suit approached. "Yea, boss?"
"Get this girl some coffee."
Shannon jumped. "I'll take one, too!"
"Me three," said Valerie.
"Black for me," added Raptor.
Jessica glared at him. "You would go black..."
The guard's eyes rolled white as he committed everyone's order to memory then sauntered off.
Another deep breath, Jessica strolled up to Raptor with a faint. Dreary-eyed, she knew that he knew what she was going to say. She said it anyway. "I'm sorry about Dexter. And I'm sorry I couldn't stop it from happening." I hate this...
"I can guess what happened," he replied, sympathetic. "He charged in, thinking he could make up the difference, right? He didn't know what he was up against. At least, I can hope he's ignorant and not simply reckless."
"If I had calculated correctly, I usually do, the outcome would have been less cruel. It had to be."
Raptor crossed his arms. "I think you're selling yourself short. You're damn right; it could have gone differently. You don't square off with an agent and come out alive. That's twice now, right? So, I have to wonder; how are you not dead?"
Jessica's cat-like gaze tilted to the hollow ceiling above. "Accurate threat assessment, time, and friends. Mostly friends."
"You're the reason he's still alive," Raptor assured, glancing Shannon and Valerie. "You're the reason why we're here, you're the reason how we're here, and I hope you're the reason we'll make it out of here."
Shannon approached Raptor, too. "I'm sorry about what happened too, man. Sorry about a lot of things, but the whole ride has been hella more unpredictable than I imagined." She touched his shoulder. "And the most I can do for my friends is be their friends."
Raptor cocked a brow. "You read a lot, don't you?"
"Of course, I do."
The knot in Jessica's back began to slack when she felt footsteps. Raptor squinted past her, nervously. "Is there a redhead behind me?" she asked.
"Apparently, you're important," said Beelz.
"Technically, I was right." Jessica turned, wincing. "Looks like we both made it, near-insurmountable odds notwithstanding."
Clothed in nothing but black, cigarette between her lips, and muscular arms on her cargo hips, Beelz wore the eyes of a fox on the prowl. Not far behind her crept the boy wonder, Boros. In complete contrast to Beelz's laser focus, the kid advanced with eyes averted.
"The leaders of this cell are asking for everybody in the main hall," Beelz continued. "Grab your posse and report, Raptor."
"Yes, ma'am," he replied enthusiastically.
"Ma'am?" Jessica, Valerie, and Shannon said in unison.
Monarch looked over his shoulder and into the nearby tunnel, at a marching collective of men and women who resembled the lines at a J-Rock concert. "Looks like we're taking that coffee to go," he said. In cliques, people on the platform started down the underground avenues.
"When in Rome," said Jessica, following the uniforms. Alongside Raptor and her friends, too many new faces sprung, the base not unlike the one back under New Sumer. Some structural differences cropped up here and there.
The tunnel leading from the platform was dark and cramped, compared to the one in New Sumer. Like a subway, adjacent corridors and doors lined every underground detour. But disturbing, so far as Jessica was concerned, was the utter lack of symmetry. Entryways of every shape were detrimental decorations on the wall of rock. They distracted her until she saw a familiar face outside the marching column.
"Hey, is that Chris?" she said.
Lean in Sub Terra fatigues, the young member had his nose in holographic jet turbines. It was indeed Chris Tsushimoto.
Valerie thrust her hand in the air. "Hey, Sushi!"
The young face looked up from his tablet, oblivious, then homed in on Valerie and saluted. "Hey there, cool girls!"
Valerie waded past the crowd. "Que pasa, Chris? Glad to see you made it."
"Glad I can say the same! I wasn't so sure who the welcoming party was for, but now it makes sense."
Jessica blinked. "Wait, what are you implying?"
"It's you," he said. "Commander Wessex has to be calling the meeting because of you. There's gonna be a new initiative based on the intel you brought. Amon was in a tizzy."
Jessica scratched her head with Valerie and Shannon in sync.
"You really didn't know?"
"Uhh, no, said Jessica.
"Huh..."
A heavy arm tap, and Jessica turned around. It was Raptor, who's eyes sank into a glare.
"You're going to need to be up front for this, Lynx," he said, gesturing toward the end of the tunnel. "That's the name they know you by."
"Who's they? And what does they expect from me?" she said.
"You'll meet them soon. Just channel that energy you've been storing. Trust me." As the Lieutenant departed down the tunnel, Shannon grabbed Jessica's hand.
"If it's any consolation, baby girl, I'm glad it's you and not me. I'll be on the sidelines though, encouraging you and shit."
"I guess being a genius does have its downsides," said Valerie.
Nothing but. Considering Raptor's words, she latched onto a speck of motivation to carry her through the day. Morning left time to prep and make the night worthwhile.
ns 15.158.61.40da2
