Falling (8 page)

“This is potentially very dangerous, Jack,” Lionel points out.

“I know that, sir, but you agree that it needs to happen?”

The ex-military man nods. “Sebastian is too valuable to leave in the Others’ hands.” He looks up at me. “Hello Celes, Annette. Please sit down, both of you.”

We take seats, and Lionel continues. “The necessity of the mission does not make it less dangerous, however. We lost a lot of good people today. Too many to mount an immediate full scale mission without additional support.”

“That’s why I think we should use some of the Faders who had to flee Location Six. They will be able to boost our numbers, and they’ll be close enough to help with the operation.”

“So the Others’ headquarters are in the US?” I ask.

Jack nods. “Though it’s not an easy location to assault. It’s not well away from everywhere, like Location Six was. They prefer to put their bases in ordinary houses, in suburbs and near schools, malls, homes.”

“It makes it easy to fit in,” Annette says.

“It also means that civilians could be hurt in any full scale assault,” Jack shoots back. “So we need to be careful.”

“Where exactly are they located?” Lionel asks.

“Virginia,” Jack replies. “Near Celes’ house, in fact.” Jack pauses then, as though wondering whether to say what he’s thinking. “It’s also not too far from the location where we placed Celes’ family.”

My family. Will this put them in danger? Could I maybe see them? I know I can’t think about that, but I don’t know how to stop it. Lionel cuts into my train of thought, though.

“Then we’ll also be able to get a small amount of support from Location Four. I’ll contact Jonas there to let him know.”

“Location Four?” I guess the name of Location Six should have given me a clue that there are a lot of Underground bases out there, but I’m having enough trouble adjusting to the scale of places like this without imagining still more of them.

“It’s one of the Underground’s smaller operations,” Jack says. “It’s mostly research and surveillance, unlike Location Six.”

“Or this base,” Grayson says. “Location Two is large because it’s a training ground.”

I look over at him. The more things like that Grayson says, the easier it is to see him as what he is now. Somehow, Sebastian has used his memory machine to make a real Fader of him.

“Talking of which,” Grayson says, “I should probably get some training in. I… my mind knows what I need to do, but I’m still not sure about the rest of me.”

“I’ll arrange something,” Annette says. “Though I hope this won’t mean you’ll leave me out of the mission, Major. I’m ready to go.”

“You’ve just been shot,” I point out.

“And?”

Jack speaks up then. “I think Celes is right, Annette. You should probably stay here for this one.”

Annette looks over to Lionel pleadingly, but the older man shakes his head. “Jack is right. You’re out for this one. In fact, there won’t be many people here we can take. A few of the advanced trainers, perhaps, but mostly Location Two is full of trainees who aren’t mission ready. Perhaps if I’d thought of that, the casualty count on the last operation wouldn’t have been so high.”

Annette starts to argue, but Lionel cuts her off. “This is my decision to make, Annette.”

The Fader hangs her head, obviously upset about it, but apparently unwilling to argue further. “Yes, Major.”

Lionel looks over at Jack. “Give me the location, and I’ll start to arrange things. I’ll let you know what we have available to us, and we can work out a more detailed tactical scenario from there. Annette, why don’t you arrange that training for Grayson now?”

Annette nods, and I hear her mutter something about it being all she’s good for, apparently, but she leads Grayson from the room. Lionel heads off, apparently to make a few important phone calls, which leaves me in the room with Jack.

“Don’t worry about Grayson,” Jack says. “Location Two is a good place to train.”

“Do all Locations serve a specific purpose?” I ask.

Jack nods. “Most of them. I like Location Two though. I spent a lot of time here. I came here at sixteen, straight from school, looking to be a Fader. The Major agreed to let me start training, but forced me to stay at school into the sixth form too, so that I had the option of going on to university. I learned a lot from him.”

“He seems like an amazing man,” I agree. “Was this where they Faded you?”

Jack shakes his head. “All the bases have basic surveillance and signal interception capabilities, but Fading is purely done in Location Six. It’s my father’s specialty.”

“So that’s why they attacked Location Six,” I say. “They want the memory device.”

Jack nods. “And that’s why they’ll go to any lengths to get the information about it from my father. He’s strong, but everyone breaks eventually. My only hope at the moment is that they won’t trust to… aggressive methods to get information on something that complex, because they wouldn’t be able to trust the fine detail.”

“You mean torture, don’t you?”

When he nods, I can’t help swallowing slightly. It’s a reminder of how harsh the secret world the Underground works in is. I can see the worry on Jack’s face too. I haven’t seen him show this much emotion about his father before. It’s enough to make me want to reassure him, so I reach out to put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sure everyone is trying their best to get him back safe. I mean, you
know
how much they’re doing, because you’re helping to plan it.”

I turn the hand on Jack’s shoulder into a one armed hug. It’s a nice sensation, and I turn my face towards his ever so slightly. Our eyes meet.

That’s when I feel it again. The burning power I have brought out only a couple of times before is rising up in me, making me feel like I’m glowing from the inside. A second later, and I’m really glowing, because I can see the painfully bright light coming out of my skin, pouring from me in golden waves. For a moment, it feels perfect, but then I realize what that feeling might mean. I remember the faces of the men I’ve killed, and what they looked like in the seconds after I touch them. I start to jerk back. I won’t burn Jack. I can’t burn Jack.

It’s only as I pull away that I see that Jack is glowing too. Not as much as me, but he’s glowing. His eyes are golden, the way mine are when the power comes into me, and his skin is almost luminous. He doesn’t let me pull away the way I want to, pulling me back, pulling me into a kiss. It’s… amazing. I can feel the energy in that kiss, pulsing between us, moving through me. It’s warm, and loving, feeling like I’m immersed in gently heated water, with nothing else around me. It feels like I could float in it forever. Except that I can’t. Eventually, of course, the kiss has to end. We have to move away from one another.

We pull apart, and the feeling fades. The glow in Jack disappears, and the energy in me quiets down.

Jack smiles, looking at me. “I wasn’t expecting that. From the looks of it, when you and I are… emotional, the energy of what we are feeds off it, becoming stronger.”

I nod, and can’t help returning his smile. “You were glowing too. It seems like your mother’s side is beginning to emerge in you.”

“I know,” Jack says. “I’m not sure what that means.”

“Whatever it means,” I promise, “I’ll be here. Remember, I’ve been there.”

Jack kisses me again, gently. There’s no rush of energy this time, but it’s still a nice kiss. “I can’t get enough of you, Celes. You’re the only one I’ve ever felt this much for, even when I try to rein in my emotions. It’s probably only because of that I was able to reach this point at all. You’ve helped me, Celes.”

“I know, and I feel everything you feel, Jack.”

For a moment, Jack looks happy. About as happy as it’s possible for one man to be. Then his expression changes to something more serious. “We have to be careful though, Celes. We’ve already let too many people see us kissing and being close, but that’s fine if they think that it’s not serious. There are too many people who would look at us and see what we feel as a weakness to exploit. They would use our feelings against us.”

I nod. “I won’t let the Others see us.”

Jack leans close, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I’m not just talking about the Others. We have to be careful, even in Location Two.”

TEN

I
t takes Lionel and the others another couple of hours to make preparations. I guess important, life or death missions aren’t something you can rush. Even so, it’s frustrating being stuck there, knowing that every moment we waste is another moment Sebastian has to spend as a prisoner.

If it’s bad for me, it’s far worse for Jack. He tries to distract himself by talking to me and spending time with me, but even so, I can see the worry in him starting to creep through. Several times, he leaves me to check on how the preparations are coming, and each time, I get the feeling that he’d send us off on the mission right then if he had his way.

Eventually though, we’re ready to go. That means yet another private plane ride, and we take the helicopters to a small airfield where our jet can take off. There’s a small group of us going; less than a dozen, composed almost entirely of Faders in their late thirties and beyond. Mostly beyond. When I shoot a questioning look Lionel’s way and glance over to them, he seems to get the message.

“They are our master instructors,” Lionel says. “As I believe I mentioned before, many of those at Location Two are simply trainees, and so are not ready for combat.”

The master instructors are certainly ready. They load enough assorted weapons onto the plane to take on a small army. I hope we won’t have to. I go aboard with Jack and take my seat, keeping as close to him as I can. Since the plane is a private one, there’s plenty of room, but why would I want to be anywhere else?

We get airborne, winging our way across the ocean to set up the rescue. How many trips like this have I taken in the last day or two? Still, all I have to do for now is sit there and relax, so maybe it won’t be so bad.

Grayson is out towards the front of the plane, working with one of the experienced Faders on combat moves. The moves themselves are simple things, from upward palm strikes to the jaw to chopping moves attacking the throat, but the speed with which the instructor makes Grayson work makes it all far more complex. When they drop to the floor of the aircraft, working on grappling moves, it’s hard to even keep up with what’s going on.

Maybe I should ask them for a few tips on fighting too, yet right now, I can’t bring myself to move away from Jack. Right here, we can just be alone together. I reach out a hand to cover his, the way I used to when it was just Jack Simple and Celeste Channing, the young couple so deeply in love around the New York fashion scene.

I know we should be careful. I know Jack has told me that much. I even know that I don’t want to flaunt our relationship around Grayson. Yet none of that matters right now. Even Grayson doesn’t matter, because half the time now, it’s not like he’s the same Grayson he was before. Maybe, thanks to the memory device, he isn’t.

One of the female Faders steps in to take over training Grayson, and she quickly has him in knots, tripping him and moving him to awkward submission holds with ease. She laughs while she does it though, and Grayson laughs too. It’s only then that I realize that they’re flirting as they go along. Flirting, right in the middle of their training session. And even though she’s one of the younger instructors, she’s still far older than Grayson. Far
too
old for Grayson. She’s not even that pretty. Not really.

I look at the way I’m thinking, and I realize that I’m jealous. Pointlessly, irrationally jealous. I shouldn’t be. I’m sitting here with Jack, holding onto him, being close to him. Jack’s my boyfriend now, and Grayson… well, he’s just someone who used to be my boyfriend. Except that it doesn’t feel quite that simple. I think the problem is the way we broke up. Or rather, the way we didn’t break up. We never made a clean break of the relationship, so I can’t help feeling a little connected to Grayson.