Evolve - Chapter 13 Chapter 13

The others have been asleep for a little while now, I imagine everyone’s tired. I know I should be sleeping too but I’ve been fighting sleep.

Why you might ask?

Because seated on the small desk in the corner of my bedroom on a laptop I’m watching the footage taken by the camcorder. The lights are off in my room.

The camcorder had a good view of the street during the fight with the Shudder sisters, it is a little spikey at points though especially the audio with loud noises and such. I am surprised at how close Whisper and Nicole who were in the air got to the camcorder without accidentally knocking the damn thing out of orbit or how some vibrations didn’t knock it off, the view does shift a few inches proving that it did at least move. There’s good stuff to use here though.

Now for the main event. In one corner a dragon person with invulnerability for an ability and the other corner three lab born monsters of unknown origin. Now to see what happened exactly between Nicole and the Black Forms.

The first thing I notice is how much Nicole just lets loose without worrying about anyone around getting hurt. She’s spitting fire at the Black Forms that are out of her reach, moving in furiously quick motions using her tail as well. Switching from Dragon to invulnerability, using each ability in tandem not just to keep them at bay but to actually push them back. It didn’t take long for the destruction to be evident, between Nicole spitting fire, slamming and throwing her enemies all over the place and the Black Forms were pretty much doing the same to her.

As I watch, she’s thrown backwards by the extended spike shaped arm of one Black Form that would have pierced straight through any other person but not her in invulnerable mode. She stands and switches to dragon mode but even from this video it’s clear to see that attack is what got her wrist got broken. Just then a Black Form comes up behind her, then I see what she meant about taking two hearts out of one.

She grabs a discard gnarled twisted guard rail with three or so ends exposed and thrusts it toward the attacking Black Form and they pierce straight through. Nicole removes the guard rail and thrusts her hands through the holes then pulls out a pair of velvet red organs that bleed black tar like blood. A screech rips through the air from the other black forms that makes my ears ring and cringe to a point where I almost rip of the headsets I have on.

They attack at once but at this point Nicole knew where to hit and she does so quickly, taking four velvet tar bleeding hearts and frying them but they weren’t done. Although they were significantly slowler and seemed to lack a lot more power the Black Forms keep attacking. And Nicole keeps punching holes through them hoping to hit the right last spot.

And she does with the first who’s hearts she’d removed by tearing a hole through its gut and pulling out a third velvet tar bleeding heart.

The other two try to now run but Nicole doesn’t let them, from behind she tears through the heart of the other just as they’re about to get out of camera view. The other disappears down the alley where with the single camera angle we had can’t see what happened afterwards.

She was in tough but at the same time the way she handled herself was efficient. If we were forced into a corner where we couldn’t have used Toni’s healing hands then she would have survived and Marc would have died.

Is that what you’re trying to prove Marlea? We can be dependent on each other but not too dependent, how would that even work.

I honestly still don’t know what I’m doing, I think. Everyone else is far more profient at the use of their abilities, more suited for a fight I guess at times it almost feels like I’m holding them back…. That being said I took up the leader role and frankly I have a bone to pick with Carmichael and Marlea and whatever else we’ve gotta face, so I gotta buck up somehow.

One thing’s for sure though, Nicole was right about us having some good material to use. Every propaganda fueled rebellion needs some good honest footage to use to slander whoever they wish to bring down, well unless you lived in medieval times or during Spartacus’ time then it would be word of mouth. Which actually might not be a bad idea if it’s done right. Rescue a few people here, liberate a burning building there, I think I’ll put a pin in that one.

There’s a lot we gotta do but right now I need sleep, for myself and my bad back which has bothered me less today.

A knock comes on the door of my room

“It’s open.” I say

The door creaks open and in steps Carla

“Hey.” She says

I’ve never actually been alone with Carla, I think. The other times were in the Rec rooms and whatnot. I thought everyone was alseep. And also I’m staring at her standing at the door illuminated by the light from the laptop display, she’s in the coolest looking pair of Buggs Bunny theme pants and shirt combo pyjamas.

“Uh… Come in.” I say clearing my voice.

“Thanks.” She says. As she steps inside and shuts the door behind her.

She slides onto my bed and sits in a cross-legged position while I get up to switch on light because it’d feel weird somehow to sit in the dark.

“I kinda thought I was the only one awake.” I say as I sit back in the desk chair.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she replies, “everyone else is asleep though I think.”

“Yeah it’s uh been a day and a half… Kinda feels like that’s how almost all days have been, at least from my perspective since I woke up.” I say

Carla meets my eyes and smiles, “I sometimes forget that you slept through year one of the superpower version of the world.”

“I sometimes forget it too, weird to say but it is what it is.”

“You’re not gonna ask why I’m here?” She asks raising an eyebrow.

“And here I was assuming it’s because you just wanted to behold my dashing good looks.” I say jokingly and thankfully she laughs.

“I figure you just wanna talk about nothing in particular.” I say to which she nods

We both sit silently for about a minute, not the uncomfortable kind of silence, more the good kind of silence where words aren’t really needed at that point.

“So do you really think we can pull of this revolution, slash, rebellion thing?” She asks finally breaking the silence.

Maybe but with Marlea throwing curve balls every now and again from unexpected angles that maybe kinda gets knocked down a couple pegs. But of course I can’t tell her that.

“We gotta try,” I say after a couple of seconds, “I feel like if we don’t keep moving forward somehow no matter what happens we’ll get rolled over by something.”

“That’s awful positive of you.” She says

“I don’t know about that…. My mom taught me that life’s always gonna throw haymakers and a lot of them are gonna connect and you will go down but if you’ve still got a heartbeat then you can stand before the ten count, if you can stand you can fight even if you’re just throwing a weak headbutt.” I say

“She sounds like a wise lady.”

“She is.” I reply. That’s why I can’t be around her, she’ll be safer if I don’t get involved in my mess, at leasy I hope so.

There’s that silence again.

“I froze today,” I begin, “when Marc went down, I didn’t know what to do I just shut down and….. You know I hadn’t really thought about one of us dying you know?” I say the question more hypothetical than anything.

“Yeah… And with Toni’s new thing it’s like maybe we all won’t make it. That I guess includes whoever we’d be able to recruit to fight with us.” Carla says softly. And she might be right.

“If I do go I hope it’s a cool death, go down in a blaze of glory Logan style or like Brad Pitt in Fury.” I say with a slight smile in an attempt to lighten the mood

Carla returns my smile, “Nah I think I’d want it more Captain Mifune style from the Matrix.” She retorts as she goes with the flow.

“Captain Mifune,” I repeat thoughtfully, “Is that the guy in the third film, Revolutions, who was wearing of those battle suits and went down fighting the robots?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah that’s the guy.” She replies

“Alright, that’s a good one.” I say

“I love the Matrix, doesn’t matter what anyone says it’s the greatest action trilogy of all time.” Says Carla

“Dude Keanu Reeves is awesome.” I add.

“I’ll drink to that.” Says Carla raising an invisible glass and being a dabbler of the silly I too raise an invisible glass to toast.

“We’re all we got, Carla.” I say. “When it comes down to it, we can’t really can’t go back to our parents or the people we care about until we see this through all the way. Through WECA, through Marlea through everything… I only ever had one friend at pretty much any stage of my life and I’ve got four just by being in a coma.”

“Well technically by being trapped in a simulation but we’ll go with that.” She says jokingly

“You know when you came up with the plot to escape WECA and all this I didn’t imagine we’d be living this cozy.” Says Carla

“Oh yeah?” I say, “Can’t say I don’t agree, at first I imagined the whole find a forest, build a cabin and sit around a fire kind of thing.”

“It’s not too late, we ain’t in the shit yet. We might just end up in the woods at some point, the only question is where the woods would be.” She says.

“I actually just tried to think and realised I don’t know a whole lot about the world and I wouldn’t wanna die by the sting of a bug or something like that.” I say

Carla chuckles, “Now you’re thinking jungle… So what are we gonna do about that Frank guy, I’m sure he’s close to finding us out.”

“Actually I forgot about that to be honest. Speaking of which I think I’m gonna need you to find us a new place tomorrow, like a secluded place somewhere, I’m a shit leader so I don’t know what to say about how and where to find a place like that.” I say

“Yeah, you really are a shit leader,” she says with an impish smile, “but don’t worry I’ll take Marc with me and we’ll find a place somewhere from the richy riches and maybe Janice can do some of her computer wizardry to help out.”

“Well I guess it’s a good thing I’ve got such capable around me.” I reply

“What are you gonna do tomorrow?” She asks

“It kinda depends on Janice but tomorrow our propaganda drops and I might need to go somewhere.” I say. To which Carla raises her eyebrow.

“I don’t really like how easily you’re trusting her considering who she works for someone who would want us dead.” She says

“I know but I reckon she’s the only person we can really trust right now outside of the circle of five for probably as long as this will last.”

“You sure about that?” She asks

“As sure as I can be, I trust her as far as I can throw her. And I can throw her pretty far.” I say with a little laugh.

Carla laughs and lies back on the bed turning her head so she keeps eye contact.

“That’s my bed you know?” I say

“Yeah… But its.. comfy.. and big enough for.. two.” She says softly as she pulls the covers and closes her eyes.

“Carla?” Her response is to turn and Sleep.

I too am I sleepy so I grab one of the pillows and a couple of spare blankets. I lay one on the soft carpet floor to be sort of a layed out bed roll then hit the lights and lay down covering myself with the other blanket, I start feeling myself drift as head hits the pillow.

_____

It’s morning and I’m yawning as I stretch and peel myself off the carpeted floor. The floor’s surprisingly refreshing to sleep on. I look across the bed and Carla is still sprawled on it peacefully asleep. A soft knock comes on the door.

Whoever it is at least they got the timing right, would have hated to have been woken up.

Better to creep across the room and see who’s on the other side of that door which I do. I open the door a slight crack enough to see who’s on the other end.

It’s Janice and she’s her hugging her laptop, I take one last look behind me and open the door a bit more and exit the room.

“Morning.” She says with a raised eyebrow, I’m guessing she saw Carla.

“Hey,” I reply, “what’s up?” Better to say nothing about there being nothing.

“Sorry to wake you but I need to show you a couple things.” She says

“Show me.” I say leading the way all the way to the dining table.

She places the laptop in front of me and hits the space bar whilst bitting down nervously on a finger nail.

The video begins with the “W” in a circle WECA logo being swatted aside by hand which then sits within the circle the “W” was in with the fingers spread apart.

Next words float across the screen the screen:

‘The Haitian Revolution, The October Revolution, The French Revolution…. All took far too much time to take hold… The Revolution of Five is at hand, see for yourself those with more than one ability.’

This is followed by some very clever footage editing I think, showing the good bits of the fight with the Shudder sisters but not making us look too good of course the footage also shows us getting our asses handed to us a little bit, the footage is also mixed in with Nicole’s battle with the Black Forms and how they died. It ends with footage clearly taken from a news camera of the message I left behind for WECA with the piled up Black Form bodies.

The screen goes black and more words appear against the backdrop:

‘You have witnessed, will you join or continue living beneath the boot of WECA. Leave the mark of the spread five fingers and we will free you of your Pledge. The Revolution of The Five is at hand.’

The video ends. This is good, really good Revolution of The Five huh? Kinda sounds nice. This could actually rope in a lot of people, the only question is how to get it out.

“I’m glad you like it.” Says Janice.

I turn to her just as she pulls a bottle of painkillers from her pockets, she pops a couple. She used her mind reading ability, of course she did.

“How are you gonna get it out.” I ask

“It’s gonna be played in waves once a day world wide once I get it distributed right it’ll show up on cellphones, computers and any other electronic device with a screen that’s either connected to the internet or a network of some kind except for police monitored areas I think it’d be best for them to know as little as possible. And limit as much reparations gor exposure as possible.” She says

“Would people be able to save them?” I ask

“No, I’ve made it its like a firework. It goes off then dissipates, if someone misses it they gotta wait until the next day.” She says.

I guess she’s mostly got it figured it out.

“It’ll probably still show up on the news by tonight or at least screen shot of it.” I say

To which Carla shakes her head. “Like I said no one would be able to save it, that means even rerecording it or taking a screen shot to try and repost on YouTube or something. I’ll make it so there’s an algorithm running to delete any trace of it from a source that isn’t us. But that wouldn’t stop the news talking about it of course.”

I guess the news will be my version of word of mouth spread to some extent, hopefully is spreads far and wide.

“So where do I need to take it?” I ask

Janice opens her mouth and closes it again.

“What’s wrong?” I ask with a frown

“I’d need to go with you and we need to go the W Network broadcaster, their systems have the reach we need to get it up there. And I can’t walk you through the process it’d take too long and if you make a mistake….” She says

“You mean we have to break in, alright we’re already awake we’re gonna leave after I shower,” I say. The others begin shuffling in, yawning. “Which I’m going to do right now, show the others will you Janice. And Carla you tell Marc what you two need to do and get it done fast so when Janice and I get back we leave this place I don’t think it’ll be safe for much longer, it already may not be.”

“What about Nicky and I?” Asks Toni

“Stay here and keep an eye out, if there’s trouble…. Damn we need burner phones like yesterday.” I say my gaze shifting to Carla.

She rolls her eyes. “I guess I am up for a morning run, I’ll be back.” She zips away leaving a slight breeze behind her where she stood.

And I head to the bathroom to take a nice long shower because the water pressure here is perfect so why miss out on it.

_____

“Okay so this is a schematic of the place.” Says Janice showing her laptop screen.

On it is an above look of the large space take by the spaced apart buildings known as the W Network broadcaster ‘city’. We’re seated in a coffee shop with a nice view of the place from across the street.

“We need to get into building number three, it’s got the most satellites mounted on it, with the most processing power, more servers and whatnot.” She says as she shows me a schematic of building three which I will not memorise probably so I just nod.

“How are we getting past security?” She asks

I reach into my pocket and pull out two media internship passes.

“Marc got us the these a couple days ago. They’ll get us past the front, from there its just a matter of moving around. I don’t really need the details, lets go.” I reply standing and headed for the coffee shop exit

Our passes get us past the gate security and into the ‘city’ which is pretty cool looking, like how I’d imagine Universe Studios would look.

There are six buildings set around these hipster looking lush green grass park features with benches, flowers and shrubs and such, there’s a park feature in the middle with a big WECA ‘W’ fountain in the middle. Each building is numbered one to six and each is a different shape. And now that I look at it all buildings are in a way set around the WECA ‘W’ park feature, each building looks like its got about three floors.

Two look like that’s where the more computer and paper work and etc happens which are namely two and three. The others are studios which are a bustle of film crews and whatnot.

We keep walking and find our way into building three, reaching the doors in we tag through successfully with our passes being told to wear them around our necks as we walk on which we do and walk into the hustle and bustle of a broadcasting house. Not that I really have any idea how it should be but this is busy nonetheless. I gotta give it to WECA though they do know how to design a building.

From where we’re standing the reception is right infront of me, set in a circular table cabinet thing with a 360 view of its surroundings and two people seated there. Behind the reception table is six corridors jutting out in different directions each with an elevator next to it, there’s people going down the corridors and into some of the offices and rooms I assume. Down one of these corridors and rooms is where we need to be, better to look like we know where we’re going.

“Lead the way.” I whisper.

Janice nods and walks down toward the first corridor on the far right side of the room. She’s leading the way toward an the elevator, the doors open as we approach spilling five people out.

We get inside and go up to the second floor, the elevator opens into a mostly empty corridor. Passing one person on the way to a door that’s random to me but Janice knows where she’s going of course.

We walk into the room and someone’s inside facing a couple of screens behind this person is a bunch of servers and other tech connections I can’t explain because I don’t know enough about such, the person in the room is a young girl in her early twenties. She immediately looks up as we step inside, looking slightly flustered.

“Who are you?” She asks impatiently.

Janice and I exchange a look, I had forgot to factor in the possibility of someone being in the place we wanna use.

“Uh… We’re your new interns.” I say clearing my throat

“I don’t ask for any interns.” She replies

I’m about to speak but Janice speaks before I do. “You look like you need interns though, the bags under your eyes, you look tired running through that much data. Sure you’ve got help from other people on this floor but you’re still under staffed. I know my way around a computer.” She says.

The girl looks at us for a moment. “Do you know who I am?” She asks

“Winter Charleston. Head of broadcast analysis. I’m Hera and this is Tim.” She says, those are the names on our passes.

“Come over here.” Says Winter pointing at Janice.

She goes over and the two of them start speaking in jargon I can’t understand with each one nodding to what the other says, Janice eventually reaches over and works on the computer for a bit. Winter looks both surprised and Impressed as she watches Janice work.

I gotta admit I feel a little useless at the moment. There it is again that ‘what have I done lately’ feeling.

I’m about to say something when the burner phone in my pocket vibrates softly in my pocket. I pull out the small thing and stare at its tiny screen, it’s the number I memorised which belongs to Toni.

“Hey do you mind if I get this?” I ask, Winter just waves me away and I step out into the corridor.

“Terry, they’re coming for you. You need to go.” Says Toni as soon I answer.

“Who’s coming? Where are you? Are you safe?” I ask

“Frank’s people. We’re fine, we’re headed to the new place we were jumped but made it out. Nicky and I are on our way to meet Carla and Marc.” He says

“Don’t tell me where you are, tell Nicole to leave a psychic trail linked to Janice and we’ll find you. Stay safe.” I say and cut the phone.

After cutting the call I walk into back into room with my energy projection on and fire a blast at Winter hard to knock her out but soft enough so she isn’t hurt badly.

“What——” begins Janice

“We’re out of time. Get it done.” I say.