Rebellion (Zero Series) (3 page)

We moved swiftly through the alleys until we reached
my back window. We opened it and climbed in. I walked over to the hiding spot
where I kept my footlockers hidden. I quickly realized that we wouldn’t be able
to get the third footlocker out with us. “How are we going to get the third
case?” I asked frantically.

Frost thought for a minute and said, “Flare has a
cart I think. We could see if she would let us use it.”

“What if she asked what we need it for? Or why we are
dressed like this?” I asked.

“Then we tell her,” Frost replied.

“Just like that? What about the lecture you gave me
about how I blew our cover?” I asked.

“Well you screwed up far worse than I have and I
think we can trust Flare,” he said.

I thought about it for a minute and weighed the pros
and cons. “Alright. Let’s go find Flare,” I said reluctantly.

We quietly exited the house and started towards
Flare’s house. I followed Frost through the streets. I put my hood down after a
minute. I thought that the hood would make me look more suspicious. We
approached Flare’s house. Frost knocked on the door. It opened slowly and the
first thing I saw was Flare’s bright orange and red shoulder length hair. Her
voice came through. “Frost? What are you doing in the open?” she asked opening
the door wider, “Come in before someone sees you.”

We entered the house and she shut the door behind us.
She looked over at me and said, “I like the haircut.”

“Thanks. It was time for a change,” I replied.

“A change? Like attacking Hades at his first public
appearance in ages?” she asked angrily, “You have a gene spike and you never
told me? I thought we were friends.”

“Let me explain. We kept our spikes secret because we
didn’t want the same thing to happen to us that happened to our parents,” I
replied.

“We?” she asked looking over at Frost. The look on
her face was horrifying. She had the look of a mother who was about to punish
her child for breaking a lamp.

Frost’s face turned red with embarrassment. “I was
going to tell you. Today was an accident. We didn’t expect to have to go into
hiding,” he said.

“After all we have been through? You didn’t think you
could trust me?” she said in a louder voice. His face turned a darker red.
“Since we are revealing secrets now, we should probably tell Zero,” said Flare.

“Tell me what?” I asked already knowing the answer to
my question.

“We uh… we have been together for a few months,”
Frost stuttered.

“I knew it the whole time. He never stops talking
about you,” I said to Flare.

She smiled for the first time since we arrived. “So
then, what’s your spike Frost?” she asked sarcastically suddenly realizing that
his name and ability had a correlation.

He held out his hand and made a diamond out of ice.
He placed it in her hand and she looked at it. As she held it up, a small flame
emerged from her hand and melted the ice. We both looked at her surprised. She
slyly smiled and said, “We all have secrets.”

“Well now that all the secrets are out, can you help
us?” I asked.

“What do you need help with?” she asked pouring a cup
of water.

“We have three footlockers of scientific papers at my
house and we need to get them back to The Sanctum,” I said.

“The Sanctum?” asked Frost in an almost laughing
voice.

“I thought of it on the way here. We need a name for
it and it fits I think,” I replied.

“What do you need my help with then?” she asked.

“Frost said he thought you had a cart we could use,”
I said. As I said this, I realized that this was just a ploy by Frost to get
Flare in on our secret.

“I don’t have a cart, but I can help carry one of the
footlockers,” she said.

“If Frost thinks it’s a good idea then you can come
along,” I said.

“Let me gather a few things,” she said. She grabbed a
bag and started putting some of her belongings in it. She scooped up a cloak
and we set back towards my old house. On the way, I heard a commotion in an
alleyway. I looked to my right and saw a man being robbed at knifepoint by a
much larger man. I threw my hood back up and took off towards them. I threw my
hand down and the robber was smashed into the ground. The ground was to his
hips and he started to struggle. I heard Frost and Flare’s footsteps close
behind. Frost froze the criminal from the waist up and I pulled him out with a
gravity flux. He laid on the ground frozen and the man who was being robbed
looked with a mixture of fear and awe. How could that situation have looked to
him? He suddenly was saved by three people who were strange looking and all had
illegal abilities.

He stuttered and asked, “Who are you?”

Without thinking, I answered, “We are the Insurgency.
Spread the word.”

Frost looked over at me with wide eyes. Before I
could realize what I had said, I took off running the opposite direction. I
didn’t stop until I reached my house. I sat on my old bed and put my hood down.
A few minutes later, the other two arrived. “Twice in one day? Is there just
something in your brain that makes you do stupid things?” asked Frost.

“I don’t know what happened. It just came out,” I
said putting my head in my hands.

“Lay off him Frost. He was just caught up in the
moment,” said Flare.

“Frost, you know I have wanted to start the
Insurgency again. I think seeing Pipes today just made me snap. We have the
resources in The Sanctum. We all have power. I won’t make you guys join, but I
am going to start trying to make a difference,” I said.

“You think I don’t want to make a difference? Of
course I’m going to help. Besides, I feel responsible for you. You do some dumb
things. Who else will keep you in check?” asked Frost.

“I’m in too. I’m tired of living under Hades’ boot,”
said Flare.

“I have nothing better to do anyway. I’m a wanted man,
too, remember?” said Frost.

“Let’s get these footlockers back to The Sanctum
then,” I said. We gathered the footlockers and a few of my belongings and we
set off back to our hideout. We moved quietly through the streets and made it
through the gate where we had incapacitated the guards earlier. After a short
walk, we made it back to the entrance to The Sanctum. We crossed through the
tunnel and into the main area. Flare looked around impressed at our hideout.

“Not too bad. This is a nice place, kind of like a
lair,” she said.

“Thanks. I’ll show you the living area,” Frost said.

“I’ll be sure to move my bed. I can sleep in the
armory,” I chimed in.

“We can work to build some separate rooms tomorrow,”
Flare said to me, “Oh by the way. You may want to try to pop back into town to
see Jet. I know she will want to see you. She was worried after the outburst at
the square.”

“I’ll be sure to go visit her. It will have to be at
night though. I don’t think that going into the city during the daytime is very
smart right now,” I said dragging my bed across the room to the armory.

“I’ll see you in the morning. We need to sort through
this equipment and paperwork to see what we have to work with for our
rebellion. We also need to see about setting up a supply chain for food and
supplies,” said Frost.

“We’ll meet tomorrow. I need to sleep. It has been a…
busy day,” I said.

Flare laughed and said, “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

I waved and walked into my new room. I sat down on my
bed which was surprisingly comfortable. I took off my new armor and changed
into my old clothes. I laid back and stared at the ceiling. I started wondering
if my parents would be proud of what I was doing. Sleep slowly crept up on me.
The Insurgency was finally reborn.

The next morning we gathered around a small table and
ate a breakfast of dehydrated foods that the scientists left in case of
emergency. It tasted so horrible but we had nothing else so it had to do. “So
what are we going to do about food?” asked Flare.

“That’s a good question. We need to figure out how to
acquire real food. This dehydrated food can’t sustain us forever,” I replied.

“I was thinking about something last night. When you
told that guy we saved about us starting the rebellion again, do you think he
actually went and told people what happened?” asked Frost.

“I hope he did. We will need support. It can’t be
just us, otherwise it will just be like hitting our head against a wall.
Kraken’s resources run deep,” Flare replied.

“I don’t think it will be as easy for us to get into
the city as it was last night. I’m willing to bet that Kraken will upgrade
security once they find the bodies we hid. Maybe you can go in and out of the
city for us Flare. You aren’t on Kraken’s radar and until we can secure a
supply line and some help, we will need someone who can go into town and be our
eyes and ears,” I said.

“That’s a good idea. I need to get going anyway. For
now, I’m going to keep my job at the shop until we figure out a way to run this
operation,” she said standing up, “I will be back later tonight.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Frost said.

“Flare,” I said quickly, “Maybe you should bring Jet
back with you. It wouldn’t hurt to have another contact inside the city.”

“I’ll talk to her later when she comes by to pick up
their weekly supply of thread,” she said.

“Now wait a minute. We should think about this. We
shouldn’t rush into bringing just anyone into the rebellion. Maybe you can talk
to her and drop hints first, Flare,” Frost added.

“I don’t think that it will go down smoothly that we
all have gene spikes and are the leaders of the Insurgency,” Flare said, “She
and I have been friends for a long time. I can ease her into it.”

“Alright. Whatever is safest,” I said. They exited
the room and I stood up from the table. I walked over to the footlockers and
began reading where we had left off the day before. I was back into the section
that was describing the gauntlets.

“
We have tried many different calculations in
order to perfect the spike amplifiers. I am at a loss. I cannot understand what
we are missing. The math says that it should work but I don’t know why our test
subjects have all failed. We have locked our test pair of gauntlets in a strong
box in the laboratory. I hope that we can find a way to fix this problem. The
amplifiers could be the key to overthrowing Kraken.”

There was a pair in the lab? I had to find it. I
frantically looked around the lab to find the strong box. I was tossing things
out of the way looking for the precious box. I heard Frost enter the room and
say, “What are you doing? This place was organized.”

“I was reading through the papers we were looking at
yesterday and I found a journal entry from my father saying that they left a
pair of the gauntlets here somewhere in a strong box. We need to find them. The
note says that these gauntlets could help us bring down Kraken,” I said. He
immediately began tearing the room apart as well. We looked for nearly an hour
and found nothing. I sat down on the floor and assessed the mess we had made. I
looked over at Frost who was leaning against a stack of boxes near a wall. I
noticed something on the wall behind him. It looked like a fake panel
camouflaged into the wall. I silently walked over and put my hand on the panel.
It had been made to feel like the same material as the wall. I pushed in the
panel and it receded to the side. A small compartment was revealed and inside
was a metal box. I felt a feeling of excitement welling up inside me. I reached
in and removed the box. I just stared at it in my hands. I couldn’t believe
that there was finally a way to defeat Kraken, or at least challenge them. The
thing that worried me was the issues that they had with the gauntlets. They
were scientific geniuses and we were just normal people. I opened the box and
inside was the pair of gauntlets. I turned to Frost and a big smile grew across
his face.

“We have them,” he said with hope in his voice.

“We have them, but we have no idea how to fix the
whole ‘killing the user’ thing,” I replied.

“That could be an issue. We should keep reading to
see if there are any notes on progress that they had made towards fixing it,”
Frost said.

“That’s probably the best course of action,” I said.
We sat down at the table and started reading through the papers again. I read
for another few hours but to no avail. My eyes were starting to hurt from
staring at the papers for so long. I set the packet that I was reading on the
table and rubbed my face with my hands. The papers were full of equations that
I couldn’t understand. I looked over at Frost and he was asleep with his head
down on the table. I had to get something to keep me awake. I hoped that there
was some coffee left. I walked into the small kitchen area and opened the
cabinet. I found the can of coffee but discovered that it was empty. I was
exasperated. I just needed something to keep me awake. I decided to walk outside
for some fresh air. I put on my cloak and mask just in case there was someone
this far out and they recognized me from the wanted posters that I assumed were
posted all over the city. I made my way through the tunnel out to the
wasteland. I looked around and really took in the scenery around Sanctum. It
was dismal outside. Most of the land was still scorched from the original
attack that ruined the landscape. I sat on a large boulder by a small hill. The
warm sun washed over my skin and I dozed off leaning back against the rock.

I was awoken by rain drops falling on my face. I
opened my eyes and saw that it was considerably darker outside. I couldn’t
fathom going back to read those papers anymore. I needed something else to do.

“Maybe I can go see Jet,” I thought to myself. I
stood up off the rock and started off towards town. As I was walking towards
town I began thinking about the gauntlets. I couldn’t figure out what could
possibly be wrong with them. I had no idea how we would go about fixing them. I
would have to find a scientist willing to join the rebellion. I was nervous to
go back into the city. That man we saved could have just kept to himself and
tried to hide the fact that he was saved by people with gene spikes. On the
other hand, if he had told people, we could be starting to gain some traction
in our efforts to stop Kraken. I reached the city wall and was stopped in my
tracks. There was a large floodlight every ten feet along the top of the wall.
Apparently our antics had made some impression on Hades. I guess he wasn’t
happy that we assaulted and hid his guards in the bushes. I picked up a handful
of rocks and shot them with my power at each of the lights to break them and
make it look like a short circuit. The lights exploded and I ran towards the
wall. I slid along the it until I reached the gate. The guards had abandoned
their posts to go help with the light “malfunction”. I slipped into the city
with ease and made my way towards Jet’s house. The streets were empty, emptier
than usual. I was stopped by a bit of graffiti. It was a large “I” on the wall
in red paint. What was under it was the surprising part. Underneath the “I” was
written, “Down with Kraken! The Insurgency lives!”

I was elated. It had worked. One act of kindness had
gained us some support. I smiled under my mask and continued on to Jet’s house.
I arrived at her house around midnight. I knocked on the door and waited. A
minute passed before she finally answered. She opened the door and it was
obvious she had been asleep. I pulled my mask down and asked, “Can I come in?”

She perked up when I spoke and said, “Of course.”

I entered the house and said, “How are you?”

“Good. A little hurt,” she replied.

“Hurt?” I asked.

“I am hurt that you didn’t think you could tell me
about your gene spike. You know me well enough right?” she asked.

“I didn’t tell anyone. Only Frost knew about mine and
I knew about his,” I replied.

“Why didn’t you tell me though? I have no problem
with gene spikes. You know that,” said Jet.

“We have been so careful to conceal our spikes.
Especially after Kraken started rounding up people with spikes and executing
them in public,” I replied.

“I still would have liked to have known. I could have
kept your secret. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you,” she said. I felt
my face getting red.

“I know. I didn’t want you to get in trouble with
Kraken agents because you knew some people with gene spikes and didn’t turn us
in,” I replied.

“Well that’s very considerate of you,” Jet said
sarcastically, “I care enough about you to protect your secrets and I hope in
the future, you feel that you can come to me with information.”

“I’m sorry. I will keep you informed from now on.
Well, I am sure you know that we started the Insurgency again,” I said sitting
down on her couch.

“I did hear. Flare stopped by earlier and filled me
in about Sanctum and what happened with the man who was being robbed. She also
told me that you thought of me and asked her to bring me to Sanctum,” she said
slyly.

“I…uh,” I stuttered, “I wanted you to be safe and
Sanctum seemed like the best place. We have rations and a hot shower there.”

“You have a shower?!” she said excitedly, “I am
coming to Sanctum now. When can we leave?”

“You want to come now?” I asked.

“Yes. Flare said that Frost thinks I should be a
contact in the city but the amount of people you already have on your side is
amazing. Thread, the woman who owns the tailor shop, is going to help us. She
said she can be our contact inside the city,” Jet said walking around the room
gathering her things.

“”We can go as soon as you are ready. We will just
have to move quickly. They are on the lookout for me,” I said to her peeking
out the window.

“I could go separately and we could meet outside the
city,” she said slipping on her shoes.

I pulled my hood down and rubbed my head. “I guess
that could work,” I said.

She turned around and looked surprised when she saw
me. “Your hair. It’s gone,” she said.

“I had to cut it off. I am trying to look different
since all of Kraken is after me,” I said.

“It looks nice,” she said walking over to the door.

“I’ll go first and once I make sure the coast is
clear, you come through the gate,” I said. She nodded and we set off. The city
was eerie when it was quiet. I took extra care when moving through the alleys.
If anything happened to Jet, I would feel terrible, especially if I was the
cause of it. We ran across a couple of Kraken patrols throughout the city. They
really had beefed up security since my little outburst at the square. We
reached the gate and saw that there were still no guards due to the broken
floodlights. We quickly moved through the gate and into the wasteland. It was a
quick trip to Sanctum’s entrance.

“What is this?” asked Jet as we entered the tunnel.

“The way in,” I said. We crossed into Sanctum’s main
chamber after a few minutes of walking. Jet was speechless. She just looked
around in awe at the large chamber. Frost entered the room from the bathroom
area and looked over to where we were standing.

“Zero, I thought we were going to keep her in the
city as our contact,” he said.

“Flare had already told her everything before I got
there,” I said.

“Besides, Thread is going to be our contact. You have
a lot of allies already,” she said walking over to him, “And I don’t need your
permission.” She pressed her finger on his chest and pushed him back.

“I couldn’t stop her,” I said.

He shook his head and sat down at the table. “I kept
reading and found something about the gauntlets,” he said.

“What did you find?” I asked.

“It was a paper from the day that the rebellion fell.
It said that they believed that it could be some wiring issue within the
circuits but I’m guessing that they never had a chance to fix it,” he said.

“I don’t know anything about circuitry,” I said.

“Neither do I,” said Frost.

“I know something about it,” said Jet.

“What do you know about it?” asked Frost skeptically.

“My dad used to be an engineer before Kraken outlawed
the profession 8 years ago. I learned a lot from him and I still know a good
deal about it,” she said leafing through a research packet.

“Could you take a look at the gauntlets?” I asked.

“Sure. I don’t have anything else to do now,” she
said. I brought the box over to the workbench and opened it up.

“Here they are,” I said.

“What are they and what’s wrong with them?” she
asked.

“They’re spike amplifiers. They are supposed enhance
the power of gene spikes. The papers said that the experiments all failed
though. The test subjects either lost their powers or were killed by the strain
on their bodies,” I said.