Taelin Kaan

Sibling Rivalry

*1*
11 Mecra (a week later)
The Year of our Founder 3003
Capitol City, Country of Arana
Fifth Planet around the star Beta Five

It was warm in bed and if he didn’t move his leg didn’t hurt. He lay in the warmth willing his body to go back to sleep again. But, his body knew it was day time and he couldn’t force it to sleep any longer. He sighed and carefully turned over onto his side; his leg protested sharply and he grunted.

“Good morning, sleepyhead.” The woman’s voice was near him she could even be right next to the bed. Taelin opened one eye and looked up into the face of someone he did not know. She had long straight black hair, an oval face and light blue eyes.

He opened the other eye and frowned at her. “Who are you?”
She smiled broadly; bringing out a calm gentleness in her eyes.  “I am Asha and Hawk has sent me. How is your leg feeling?”
He shrugged.  “It hurts. What does Hawk want with me?”
“Well, nothing, I’m here to help Kala with a mission.”

“So, why are you visiting me?” He frowned again.
Her light eyes seemed to go uncertain for a moment. “I… I… don’t you remember me, Taelin?”
“No.” He shook his head and pulled himself carefully up into a sitting position.

There was a moment of confused silence between the two of them.

“Mommy, mommy!” A small girl came running into the sleeping room; she couldn’t have been much older than four years old. “They got toys here! And look look! I can keep this one!” She held up a little battered handmade doll that had no hair. The woman lent down and picked the small child up and placing her on one hip.

“That’s wonderful, Tempa!” The smile on the woman’s face was gentle and loving. “Tempa, I’d like to introduce you to someone.” They both looked calmly at him and he was blown away at how similar in the face they were; even their eyes were the same color.

“Tempa, this is Taelin, he’s your Uncle.” The girl wriggled out of her mother’s arms and onto the bed next to him.

“Uncle!” The young girl crawled up the bed towards him and reached up to wrap her little arms around his neck. Through the girls hug he felt a genuine friendly affection from her, which made him smile.  He gently wrapped one arm around her tiny frame and looked over the child’s shoulder at her mother.  This woman couldn’t be his sister, surely.  His Asha was in the Agency.  He frowned, trying to recognise the woman’s face.

“The last time we saw each other I was only ten. You were sixteen.” She laughed sadly. “You look exactly the same as I remember you.”

He still couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “But Asha was taken by the Agency fourteen years ago.”
“I escaped.”  Her voice was quiet and he sensed sadness in her words.
“But… you don’t look anything like her.” His little sister had a tiny build, this woman was broad and strong looking. His Asha had long loose curls in her hair and was so shy she would talk with her fingers in her mouth, this woman had an underlying confidence and there were no curls in her hair.

He sat there staring at her for a few moments in his shock.

The girl wriggled in his arms and leant back to look at his face. She was such a cute child: big blue eyes and a mountain of dark curls around her face. In fact, he realised with surprise, if her curls had been a little straighter she would be the spitting image of his sister Asha at the same age.  He’d only been nine or ten, but he could remember the little Asha running around the house and her cute little face, which was mirrored spookily in this little girls face.

The girl reached up and touched his eyebrows with one tiny hand.  “You have big eye hair.”
He chuckled. “That I do.”

“Come on Tempa, Taelin and I need to talk, you go and play with your new friends.”
“Ok, Mommy.” The little one wriggled off his lap and down onto the floor. Still feeling surprised and shocked he watched her run out of the room dragging the battered doll with her.

Asha sat down next to him on the bed looking a little shy and uncertain. “I heard you became a cop like father?”

He nodded slowly gathering his thoughts enough to respond to her question.  “Yeah, Dad arranged for someone else to do the genetic test at the academy for me. But a couple of years ago they started random testing and I had to get out in a hurry.” He paused; feeling a little uncomfortable, but added casually: “How about you?”

She smiled slightly. “They were training me to be an A1 Specialist Assassin; thankfully Tempa was born before I went on active duty. Then,” She sighed sadly. “Three years ago an intruder got into our house and my husband Tesh fought him off long enough for Tempa and I to escape. He was killed saving us. We went on the run from the Agency then Hawk found us and kept us safe. I’ve been working for him since then.”

There was an awkward silence for a while. He didn’t know what to say, and she seemed uncertain as well.  They had once been very close; inseperable eveb, but now there was an awkwardness that made him a little sad.  He had to recognise her again and get to know her.  He’d missed his sister over the years.

He looked up at her trying to see his ten year old Asha in her twenty-four year old face. She had loose straight black hair, an oval face like their mothers, blue eyes like their father and a new look in her eyes, one he’d seen a million times in other ex-Agents; as if someone had taken a piece of her spirit, a piece of her soul.

It was so strange. His sister who he’d given up for dead here in front of him and grown up with a child of her own.  One side of her mouth lifted up in a cheeky smirk. “Feel like going for a walk?”
He frowned. “What kind of walk?”
“Just some recon,”  Her tone was suddenly lilted with mischief and she gave him a playful smile.  “I can walk slowly for you.”

As she stood, he recognised that playful look in her eyes: it was just the same as when she was a child and she managed to cause trouble that he’d always be blamed for.  He raised one eyebrow at her suspiciously.
“Ok… I’ll just find my walking stick.” He leant over the side of the bed to look for it; he was sure he had dropped it down next to the bed the night before.

“Oh, you won’t need it. I can help with that.”

As he leant over the edge of the bed looking for the stick, he found himself rising out of bed and floating slowly towards the ceiling. Yelling in surprise he jerked back up to a sitting position in the air.

“Hey! Put me down, you smartass. That’s not fair picking on a non-PK like that!”
She laughed playfully. “Taelin, you are a Psi PK.”

Returning to the ground he put his feet cautiously on the wood floor.  Even with the walking stick the gunshot wound hurt a lot and he expected there to be pain the moment his leg took any of his weight.  But, as he gently tested it out he found that there was very little pain in his leg.  He looked at Asha who stood at the same height as him.  “How does this work?”

“I’m redirecting your weight.  Kind of like wearing a brace, I’m redirecting the weight from below the wound to above the wound, so that there is no pressure on the injury itself.  You should be fine to walk, just be careful.”

He frowned uncertainly at her.  “Just how high are your ratings?”
She laughed gently.  “Well, I am a 3/5 Psi PK, if that’s what you mean.  You’d only need to have a 2/5 Thrust to do this yourself.  I learnt this trick when I was at one of the Desert Training bases, both of my legs were broken but I couldn’t stay in bed to heal.  Got so good at it I didn’t need to think about it.  Maybe I can teach it to you?”

“Well, I don’t even rate at 1/5 Psi PK so I doubt I can learn it.”  Gently he bent at the knees to see how much give it gave him.  He flinched, not much, he thought cynically.

She gave him a sly look and turned towards the door.  “You’d be surprised what you can learn.  Come on, we need to get a lot of recon done today.”

*2*

Someone grabbed him roughly by the arm, dragging him sideways behind the wall of a nearby building. He let out a shout of surprise and turned to see Asha standing there next to him. She looked angry.

“What are you? Blind? Didn’t you see the Agents across the road?”
He stared at her still surprised from being dragged sideways. He shook his head and she rolled her light blue eyes at him.

In truth, he hadn’t seen anything, at least not at that particular moment. She’d told him to stand in the wide driveway entrance while she went off to look at something. He’d seen a few cops walk by across the road on the foot path and one guy wearing a blue coat similar to the kind Agents normally wore. With each possible threat he’d pulled out his cell phone and pretended to be talking on it while turning his face away from the street in a way that would have looked like a person pacing as they spoke on their cell phone.

He frowned at her. “I didn’t see any Blue Coats. Where were they?”

She turned away from him and walked further down the drive, away from the entrance and the street. “They weren’t blue coat Agents, they were A2 or A1, really Taelin, you’ve got to learn to see the higher rating Agents as well as the low. The Agency isn’t interested in you yet but the moment they realize you’ve got active Quad Psi genes you’ll be…”
“I will not and I do not.” He interrupted her angrily; he was getting quite sick of this tone of hers as if she thought he was a rookie or something.
She turned looking equally irritated with him. “You do so and you will be.”

She paused and took a deep breath her tone lightening a little. “Taelin, our Psi genes are identical. You are an active Quad Psi, whether you are consciously aware of it or not. Accept it and then maybe you’ll finally learn to use them properly.”
“Why should I? You were conscripted because of them and I had to leave a job that I loved. As far as I’m concerned I’d rather not have them at all.”
She glared at him but did not respond.

At that moment a shaft of pain shot through his right leg and he suppressed a noise of pain. He rubbed the side of his leg just above the knee next to the gunshot wound. He’d been lucky; the bullet had gone straight through and only damaged the muscle, but it still hurt a great deal. He rubbed the side of his leg until the shaft of pain eased.

She waited silently for him as she had done for the last two or three times it had come. Then when he stood upright again she turned to walk down the long driveway ahead of him. “I hope you brought your gun, there’s trouble up ahead.”

Jogging carefully to catch up with her; he un-tucked his shirt under his jacket to get at the holster and gun hidden in the small of his back. “Of course!”

The long driveway they were walking down ran parallel with the street. The driveway was nearly wide enough to be two lanes and on one side were the backs of those buildings which sat facing the road they’d just come from, the other side of the driveway were the backs of warehouses and the high metal fences of industrial yards. There were one or two other small lanes that led off the main one between fences and buildings for foot access to the backs of the warehouses, so there were plenty of directions that trouble could come from.

Asha walked quickly ahead of him and he followed her, silently. On their left the huge truck entrance of a three story warehouse was wide open. He watched Asha curve towards this entrance; her own gun held up.

“Don’t speak, Taelin.” Her mental voice cut a little at his mind but he was surprised that he could hear her so clearly without physical touch. He wondered if she could hear his thoughts and if that was a way they could communicate discretely.
“You’re a smart cookie, brother.”

Before he could respond to her sarcasm they both heard a shot echo out from inside the dark warehouse entrance. Someone yelled angrily and another shot sounded. A deep feeling of ill-ease settled in his stomach and he wondered tensely what they would find inside.

Asha stood with her back to the wall of the warehouse her gun up listening through the wide doorway. He quietly stood next to her, his own back up against the wall. The yelling sounded again and he heard someone running towards them and the entrance.
“Grab him, he’s one of us.”
Taelin quickly put away his gun and readied himself.

A young man ran right out of the doorway past them. Taelin grabbed the scruff of his shirt, and wrapped an arm around the young man’s shoulders, clapping one hand over his mouth. Through the skin of the man he felt a wave of terror.
“This is why I hate touch, sister.”
He allowed the young man’s terror to flow over him and away without absorbing any of it.
“Don’t be such a wus, Taelin. Hold him, I’m going in.”

Asha stepped into the dark entrance and out of sight. The boy struggled against his grip but Taelin; being twice the guy’s size, kept a firm hold of him and waited.

Gunfire rang out and echoed out of the large doors around them. He hoped his sister was as good as she said she was.

There was silence for a moment. “It’s clear, Taelin.”
Releasing the young man’s mouth he turned him around to face him.
“We’re on your side, son. Relax.”

The young man looked frightened still; his gray eyes were wide. He was tall and lanky with a mess of dark brown hair drooped over his head like a hat.  The young man swallowed and nodded tensely.

“Come on, let’s see what’s happened.” Taelin gestured the dark warehouse entrance with his head and walked slowly inside; leading the young man with a hand on his back.

His eyes took a while to adjust to the dimmer light inside. When they did Taelin saw a huge empty warehouse and two stories high with boarded windows near the ceiling; it was obviously some kind of storage building. At the back of the huge oblong room an uncovered stairway led upwards into the darkness.

In the middle of the concrete floor Asha stood up; at her feet lay a crumpled body. “Agent?” He asked aware already of the answer.
She looked at him sideways as she replaced the magazine in her gun.  “Of course.”

She addressed the young man confidently. “What’s your name? What Base are you connected to?”
“I’m Arlan.” The young man’s voice wavered with his fear. “I only got out this morning.”

Asha smiled at him transforming an iciness in her eyes to a sense of friendliness and stepped up to offer the young man her hand to shake. “Well, I’m Asha this is my brother Taelin. Welcome to the Psi Rebel army.”

The young man turned as Taelin offered his hand to shake.  There was still a lot of fear in the young man when Taelin took his hand, he’d obviously gone through a lot for one day.

“How,” Arlan stumbled shakily with his words. “How… did you know I was here?”
Taelin shrugged at him and looked at Asha.

“Hawk.” She answered nonchalantly and walked past them back towards the wide gaping entrance of the warehouse. “We have a few things to do, Arlan, would you like to come with us? Then we can settle you into a base later today.”

“Um… ok.”

*3*

The three of them sat in a café near the massive public-access wharf. It was a warm busy day and there was a continuous flow of people walking in all directions around where they sat.

Tae sat with his back to the café doors and looked out at the flow of shoppers around them. The weather was nice, so nice that if it weren’t for the slight nip in the air and in the occasional gust of wind one would think it was a nice spring day and not the second week of winter. Asha sat opposite him sipping her coffee from a large bowl. Arlan sat to his right with his own hot drink. He hadn’t said much since they’d helped him but he seemed a lot more comfortable with them now.

He took a sip of his own coffee and looked up at Asha over the rim of the cup listening to her describe the mission she was helping Kala’s Cell with.

“The target is an A1 Empath, Ee-Yaan Norman…”
Putting the cup down again he frowned and interrupted her. “Is she any relation to Hilla Norman?”

“No, not directly, may I go on?” A cheeky smile twitched at the edges of her mouth and he suppressed his own. He gestured with one hand for her to continue.

“She works as a liaison between the Agency and the local Middle schools around East and Central Capitol City. She’s the one who brings in the eleven and twelve year olds for conscription. She’s also the main Agency liaison for the many taskforces assigned to bringing in those adults who have avoided conscription.”

He shrugged. “That doesn’t sound too hard, so she does a lot of talking no combat there why do we need so much planning to take her out?”

She gave him another one of those “damn you’re stupid, brother” looks, and took a deep long-suffering breath. “Taelin, she is A1. All other security levels below A1 graduate at the age of 18. A1, the graduating age is 21. Whether she is an active combat Agent or not she has still had three more years of extra combat training than any other Agent below her security rating. Her position alone makes it almost impossible to get her.”

Tae nodded slowly. “Ok, so it’s going to be hard.”
“Yes, Taelin, it’s going to be hard.”

At the same time both he and Asha frowned and turned their heads to look out at the line of shoppers to his left. He could feel an ill-ease crawling up from his stomach. There was a sickening feeling of static and a sense of… wrongness.
He reached behind his jacket to unhook his weapon from the holster in the small of his back.

He looked at her and she looked at him. “Something’s wrong.”
“I concur.” She nodded slowly then turned to address Arlan. “Do you have a weapon?”
The young man looked tense. “No. Do you have a spare?”
Asha nodded and passed something to the young man under the table.

Bringing his own weapon to the front so that it was hidden under the table, Tae checked it was loaded and ready. Gun checked he looked sideways at Arlan. “What did you do in the Agency, Arlan?”

“A3 Searcher.” There was that look in the young man’s eyes; that look of having had a piece of his spirit taken out. His voice was cold and Tae sensed that he didn’t want to talk further about his time in the Agency. But he’d gotten enough information from him; an A3 Searcher had a good general skill set and fairly reasonable gun skills. If there was a serious problem coming he could probably hold his own.

Gunshots sounded to his left and it wasn’t very far away; maybe at the entrance of the shopping area a hundred meters or so down the footpath out of sight. Pedestrians started running for cover many of them screaming and yelling as they ran from the nearing sounds of gunshots. The three of them stood as the area around the café cleared quickly of people.

“Shouldn’t we get under cover, sister?” Tae indicated the other side of the café building with a sweep of his head. Arlan didn’t wait for Asha to reply he backed up towards the cover of the side of the building with his newly acquired gun up. Asha didn’t reply; she simply looked down at the ground with a frown on her face as if she was thinking.

“Asha?” More gunshots fired and they were very close. He didn’t know whether he should just grab her and get them under cover or whether to wait.

Her face seemed to twitch and then she reanimated herself again. She lifted her own gun up and started towards the gunshot sounds.

“Arlan, stay where you are. Tae, follow my lead.” He frowned about to argue with her but she interrupted his thought. “Just trust me, come on.” He paused, and then stepped around his chair to follow Asha.

They stood together up against the edge of the building waiting for whatever trouble there was to come to them.
“Asha, what’s going on?”
“Nama is in trouble. We’ve got to help him.”

More gunshots fired and shop windows shattered nearby. Then someone ran past them. They turned and he and Nama had a moment of eye contact before Asha stepped out of cover and started firing. He stepped sideways out of cover and next to Asha ready to shoot.

There were three men running in their direction from the shopping center entrance and firing their weapons. Tae aimed and fired at the man on his far left. The man in a dark blue suit yelled out in pain and fell sideways as the bullet caught him off center. He re-aimed and fired at the second person; a shorter male in plain clothes and he was hit twice once by him and once by Asha. The third man had already been hit and lay on the ground near the other two.

Standing next to him Asha re-loaded her weapon and put it away again.
“Come on, Taelin, we have to get out of here.” She turned away back towards Nama and Arlan. Taelin pulled the safety and put his own weapon away as he followed her.

Nama sat on the ground his back against the window of the café holding his side with a bloody hand and panting. He looked up at them calmly with those odd light brown eyes of his. “Thanks for that.”
Tae smiled back at his friend and offered a hand up. “No problem. You ok?”
“Yeah, I just got clipped.”

Nama took his hand and he helped him to stand. His square face looked pale and Tae recognized that his friend was in a great deal of pain. Tae pulled Nama’s arm and put it over his shoulder, wrapping his own arm around Nama’s back to support him.

“Come on, we’ve got to go before their backup arrives.” Asha had an almost cold look in her eyes but she turned away and walked around past where Arlan had been hiding. There was a footpath entrance to a small car parking lot in that direction, it was probably the fastest way out of the shopping area and to safety.

*4*

Tae sat on a long table that had been converted to a medical exam bed. Nala stood in front of him carefully re-bandaging his thigh. She’d already done the daily Healing treatment to accelerate his recovery.

Asha paced back and forward to one side of them.
“Why me, Asha?” He looked sideways at her.
“Because Nama obviously can’t do it now.” She seemed annoyed with him; her voice was cooler than it had been and as she paced nearby her arms were crossed defensively over her chest.

“Think about it, I can’t exactly run far in my current situation, can I?” He indicated his injured thigh with both hands. “Even with strong drugs I’m not going to be able to run long or hard enough to be the best Agent-bait. If you’re not around I won’t have that PK splint thing that you do, either.”

She stopped pacing and turned to face him with her hands on her hips. “You really have no clue, do you, dumbass?” Now her voice was angry and he frowned at her.
“What are you talking about?”
“I completely stopped supporting your leg just before we found Arlan. You’ve been doing it all by yourself since then.”
He shook his head.  “That’s bullshit.” She had to be playing some kind of game; he was no Psi PK.

By this time Nala had finished changing his bandage; she turned away and left the room a little too quickly.

Asha stepped closer to him her blue eyes flaring with anger. “Bullshit? Well, you are a stuck up egomaniacal shit bag who refuses to better himself because it might actually make you a real strategic advantage for the Rebels! Did you know that we two are the first ever adult Quad Psi in the Rebel army? Ever. And you are happy to just squander that!”

He stood up off the table pulled his pants up over the bandage and glared at her. “And you’re so proud of your Agency training you don’t see that it’s turned you into a cold hearted killer like that bitch who murdered my entire Cell!” Bellowing in his anger he barely noticed the unusual suddenness of his mood shift.

“And you are a coward who would rather hide behind not having had any Agency training than put any effort into your skills; skills which could have saved the lives of your Cell and brought down that assassin for good.”

Completely enraged Tae snarled at his younger sister. “How dare you blame their deaths on me!”
He felt a release of rage and anger, which somehow flew out in Asha’s direction. She was pushed back a couple of steps by something unseen and the cloth on the nearby table pulled off and flew past her along with a lot of random paper that had been sitting at a desk nearby .

He opened his mouth in surprise and stared at the mess around and behind her.

All trace of her anger dropped from her face and manner, and she grinned mischievously at him. “Didn’t I tell you that you were Psi PK?”

As the surprise lifted from him he realized she’d been deliberately goading him the whole time to get that reaction. He shook his head emphatically and turned away to leave the room.
“No, Asha, I’m not going to be your bait to get at this Yaan woman.”

He pushed open the door and walked out into the first floor hallway. Kala and Nama’s base was much nicer than his old one. It was not run down, it had running water and electricity and it even had a form of central heating which made it quite a pleasant place to stay; it had been a fully functioning apartment building just before the Rebels had acquired it.

Asha followed behind him with none of the previous anger or coldness left in her manner. “But, Taelin, you’ll be perfect. You’d be just the person she would target for adult conscription and you are fully able to defend yourself.”

Stalking up the blue carpeted hallway and around a corner towards the elevator he pointedly ignored his sister.  Following closely behind him she continued with her convincing; much to his irritation. “Tell me who else could do it? Nala? She couldn’t shoot someone to save herself. Could any of the other non ex-Agent Rebels do it?  Are any of them combat trained? No one, none of them would be able to do this. And all of the other combat trained Rebels are taken up with their own places in this mission or other missions. You’re the only one, you’d be perfect.”

He sighed and turned around to face her with his anger plain on his face. “No.”  Other Rebels walked around them in the busy hallway and she frowned at him.
“Why not? Nala can give you painkillers and you can do the PK splint thing by yourself. Where’s the problem?”
Tae suppressed the urge to growl. “You are my problem. I will not be manipulated by my little sister.”
“Is that it? Is that your reasoning? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. C’mon Taelin, you know you can do this and you know that you’re probably the only one who can do this now Nama’s injured.”

Wordlessly, he turned away from her and continued up the wide hallway towards the elevators.  Behind him he heard her sigh in frustration. “Taelin! C’mon.”

As he reached the metal doors of the elevator it dinged loudly and the double doors opened in front of him. A woman he didn’t recognise walked out as he walked in. He turned to face Asha again with his anger clear on his face.

She stood in front of the elevator; she didn’t seem to realize quite how mad he was with her.
“The mission starts tomorrow morning, Taelin.” Her voice was almost pleading.
He shook his head. “No, Asha. Not until you apologize.” He leant over and pressed the ground floor button.

She laughed. “Apologize for what?”

The doors closed in her face leaving him alone in the elevator. It jolted and he felt it start to descend to the ground floor. The elevator was pretty small and a little cantankerous. The cables made twisting creaking metal noises that sounded as if they were about to snap and drop him down the shaft into the basement and his death.  But it never did.

The chime sounded mutely as it slowed down and came to a creaky stop. When the doors opened Asha stood there panting slightly. She looked apologetic.

“I’m sorry, for deliberately making you angry just to prove my point, I promise not to be so manipulative from now on.” She sounded genuine and looked genuine. He stepped out of the elevator and stood looking at her.
“That’s much better, thank you.”

*5*
The next day

“Group two, keep position, copy?”
Tae lifted his sleeve to his lips and spoke into the radio.  “Copy, group one.”

They sat in an empty ground floor apartment across the street from the building where Yaan and her partner were having some kind of meeting.  Next to him on the floor Arlan was checking the gun Asha had given him the day before.

Arlan was nineteen years old; he’d only been an active Agent for a year.  To Tae he looked much younger than his actual age.  Tae looked at him and wondered what was going on in the young man’s head, why he was here on the mission.

Arlan’s long almost fluffy dark brown hair sat on his head like an oddly shaped mop his small oval face seemed too long and the combination made him look almost unconfident or shy all the time.  To Tae he looked like he should still be at school maybe should have been one of those kids who never said boo to anyone; shy and socially maladjusted.  Though, he knew from the short amount of time he’d known Arlan that beyond the man’s appearance he was actually generally confident and calm, he seemed to simply be a man of few words rather than actually shy.

Arlan looked sideways at him with those little points of blue that were his eyes.  “What?”
Tae smiled apologetically.  “Sorry, was just wondering why you’d be keen to volunteer for a mission so early I mean you only became a Rebel yesterday.”
The young man shrugged.  “Kala said I’d be the better choice than the other guy.”
Tae’s eyebrows lifted questioningly.
A confident smile transformed the young man’s face.  “I’m Talented.  Danger Sense; when I run I tend to run in the best direction to survive, if you know what I mean.”

Tae nodded.  Arlan would be leading the partner around for much longer than he with Yaan and that kind of Talent-augmented instinct would keep the young man alive where others may not be so lucky.

“Group two; move into position.”  The calm voice of Kala sounded in his earpiece.

Both of them stood and headed out of the small one room apartment out to the hallway and doors at the front of the building.  Through the glass door of the building entrance Tae peeked carefully at their targets.

Yaan was a tall blond woman; her long face seemed utterly emotionless.  She looked both ways before crossing the road towards them her partner following closely.  He was tall and thin, and he seemed angry in every mannerism; maybe he was one of those people who were practically born angry.  Together, both of them looked like business people in their confident dark blue suits.  He wondered for a moment if this was a mistake; that confidence reminded him eerily of that assassin girl.  There was a moment of illogical panic but he quickly suppressed it.  They knew what they were doing and Hawk himself had supplied them through Asha with many details they wouldn’t have been able to get on their own.

The two Agents crossed the road towards them and he ducked fully behind the wooden door frame before they got close enough to see him.

He and Arlan hid behind the door frame waiting for the all clear signal to come from the recon group situated outside on the roofs and in cars.

“Group two, clear, proceed north.”  Kala’s voice was unendingly calm in his ear.
“Copy.”

Opening the door carefully, Tae moved out first looking left and right to double check and make sure it was clear.  Then he signaled for Arlan follow him.

The two Agents walked a good few hundred meters ahead of them on the pavement.  Tall buildings on either side of the road gave an almost uncomfortable feeling of being towered over in the narrow road.  It was cold that day apparently cold enough for it to snow later in the day.  He hoped quietly that this thing would be over by that time; it was no fun doing this sort of thing in the snow.

He and Arlan followed carefully behind them; their body language deliberately as non-threatening as possible.  They were just two friends going out for a walk before the forecasted snow.

Up ahead of them the two Agents dodge a group of young kids playing in the street and around a corner out of sight.  Hawk had given them the two Agent’s timetable for the day and so far they’d stuck to it.  Their project path to the next appointment put them walking past a quieter area nearby where he and Arlan were going to split them up.  It was a quiet place and there should be no collateral damage.

He and Arlan stepped around the group of very young kids; who seemed to be playing chalk games on the footpath and turned around the corner.

Down the new street the two dark suited Agents were still up ahead of them.  It was time.

He looked at Arlan and signaled with a tip of his head for the young man to get into position.  Arlan nodded and turned to cross the road.  Their timing would need to be fairly good and in sync for this to work without problems.

Up ahead of them were two alleyways between buildings both on opposite sides of the street to each other.  Arlan reached his at the same time as Tae.  The alley was thin; not even wide enough for a single car, so there was not much room to run in whilst being shot at but it was the best they could do at that moment.  He got most of his body behind the side of the building in the alley and pulled out his weapon.

“Ready, Tae.”  Came Arlan’s quiet voice over the earpiece.
The two Agents were only a hundred meters away from them walking slowly.  Tae undid the safety on his handgun and lifted one arm up to his mouth.  “Roger, go.”

Arlan started firing at them from across the road only a second before he did.  It was hard to shot not to kill, in some ways it took more skill than actually hitting them.  But killing wasn’t quite in the program yet.  Up the road a little the two Agents jumped behind a parked car and started to return fire.  Keeping himself behind as much of the wall as possible he continued to fire.  The windshield of the car smashed and several bullet holes dented and penetrated the bonnet.

The two Agents attempted to get closer to them and as predicted, Yaan moved towards him and the partner towards Arlan with each Agent on separate sides of the parked car.

A shot ricocheted off the bricks of the wall fairly near his head and Tae flinched and fired back.  Across the road Arlan seemed pinned down by the other Agent who was managing to get closer to the alley by making it difficult for Arlan to safely fire.  Yaan was attempting the same thing and managed to get close enough to open the car door and hide behind it.

“Nearly time to run, Group two.”  Asha’s voice was on the radio, she sounded amused almost as if she was having fun watching their little shootout from where-ever she was.
He fired again at the car door and yelled loudly at Arlan.  “Go!  Go now!”

The yelling was supposed to be more a signal for the Agents to run than Arlan but it worked for everyone.  Tae dropped the magazine from his handgun and started running as he reloaded.

He got to the end of the alley before the shooting started again and he barely got out of range in time.  Running out of the alley and into a square private courtyard towards another alley entrance he was very thankful for the painkillers that Nala had given him just before they’d left the base.  She said they’d last for about half an hour… which was hopefully enough time.  As he reached the second alley more shooting sounded from across the courtyard; he happily ran into the cover of the second alley.  Now he just had to keep her following him long enough to get her to the second target area.

*6*

Arlan ran left and right following the silent voice of his instinct.  Shots fired off the walls of the narrow alley either side of him.  The Agent behind him was very quick and accurate.  Had Arlan not been basically cheating with his Danger Sense Talent, he had no doubt anyone else would be very dead by now.

He hoped he would find a way of loosing this guy when the time came to do so.  For now just being randomly chased around the city was enough of a hard job.  He wondered absently how Taelin was doing.

It was very obvious to Arlan even without any Psi ability that Tae hadn’t ever been in the Agency.  He was friendly, relaxed and easy to smile.  There was an almost naivety about him; a good kind of naivety in that he’d obviously never experienced anything really ongoing and traumatic in his life.  The kind of traumatic violent things he would have experienced had he ever been an Agent.   His sister, however, had the very obvious look of an ex-Agent; there was a touch of something in her eyes.  It wasn’t that she was somehow not as “nice” as Taelin; she was friendly and obviously very loving with her little girl, it was just something about having been in the Agency that gave people something almost dark in their eyes.  He knew he had it and so did many of the other Rebels in Kala’s group.

Instinct kicked in and his legs suddenly stepped to his left and the brick where his head would have been shattered outward in a shower of clay.  He ducked into another connecting alley towards the street.

He hadn’t minded being an Agent so much up until yesterday.  Sure, it wasn’t fun, sure it was hard work and lonely and all the other problems.  But, he’d grown up in an abusive family so when he’d been conscripted at age thirteen he’d almost been relieved to get out from under his father’s drunken violence.

But, yesterday had been the last straw.  He’d found a kid with an impressive PK thrust she’d been barely old enough to go to school and she’d thrown a CAR at him trying to run away from him.  He had thought she’d be safe in the Agency: she could learn to control her PK and have a life without the abject poverty her and her family obviously lived in.  So, he’d called in the task force Team.

If he hadn’t called them no one would have found out about her and her family; they were pretty much homeless squatting in the many abandoned buildings around the city and as such they could have remained off the Agency radar indefinitely.  If he hadn’t called the Team in her and her family would all be alive right now.  If he had just left them alone and forgotten them they wouldn’t have been killed resisting conscription.

He felt a sharp stab of guilt.  That very same guilt had made him run that morning.

His body dodged again as the Agent behind him fired.  He dipped quickly out of the short alley and diagonally across the road.  A large truck rushed by behind him cutting him off from the Agent for a short time.  There was another public access alley ahead of him, he stepped into it and half turned to see if the Agent was still behind him.  The brick next to his face exploded in a shower of hardened clay and he jumped behind the cover of the alley and continued running.

Capitol City had blocks and blocks of streets bisected by these small pedestrian alleys especially where they were near the port which happened to be one of the oldest sections of the city.

There was static in his earpiece from the radio and then he heard Asha’s voice in his ear.  “Arlan, go up the next street, not down.”
He lifted the little microphone up to his lips.  “Ok, Asha.”

Ahead of him the alley opened up to another street.  He had wanted to keep to the alleys and stay out of the streets that way there was less chance of innocent bystanders getting hurt but hopefully he wouldn’t be in the street for long.

He knew there wouldn’t be much time between him coming out into the open of the street and the Agent coming out guns blazing and shooting at him.  He had to find another alley quickly.

The street around him was quite busy luckily mostly with cars.  He skipped between cars across the road and ran up the slightly inclined sidewalk.  Up ahead of him he saw another alley entrance; this one was very narrow not even wide enough for a car so it was probably only an alley to access fire escapes in the surrounding buildings.

He headed around a group of women and made a bee-line for the alley entrance.  The Agent behind him started firing in his direction.  The women behind him screamed and ran away from the Agent back past him effectively covering his retreat into the alley.

“No!  Arlan!  Dead end!  Get out of there!”  Asha’s voice sounded tense.
He swore and turned to look out of the alley again.  The tall Agent was running towards him across the road; there was no way he could escape because the Agent was too close to him.  He swore again.
“Asha, I can’t, there’s not enough time!”
“Find cover in the alley!  I’m coming.”

The alley was very narrow; it did in fact seem to be only an access for the fire escapes of the adjacent buildings.  It turned left up ahead of him and he jogged for it hoping there would be some cover there.

Around the corner there was a small cul-de-sac made by the walls of buildings meeting on three sides.  There were metal fire escapes on each of those three walls, but no cover.  If he tried to climb one of the fire escape ladders he’d end up cornered and un-protected with nowhere to go.  The metal landings were tiny as were the stairs connecting them on each level above him.  There were no doors to bang on and the windows on the ground floor all seemed to be boarded up.

He heard running sounds come down the alley towards him and he turned to face the Agent.  Bringing out Asha’s gun he took the safety off and lifted it ready to shoot the Agent coming for him.  He didn’t want to shoot the man but he didn’t want to die either.

The Agent stopped when he saw that Arlan had a gun and they stared at each other for a moment over their respective weapons.  Arlan swallowed fearfully.

The Agent’s voice was cold and emotionless.  “You can either come peacefully or be killed; it’s your choice, kid.”
He was too thin in the face and too tall like he’d never eaten a proper meal in his life.  For a moment he looked inhuman to Arlan like something else completely, something made up of hostility and darkness.  It seemed clear to Arlan that this man had been broken and taken completely by the soul destroying darkness that the Agency put into people.  That meant he would quite happily kill Arlan and sleep well that night.  Arlan simply stared at the man afraid and unsure of what to do next.

A shot fired suddenly and the Agent dropped to the ground like a rag doll.
“Come on Arlan, we have to go help Taelin.”  Asha’s voice sounded from the entrance of the alley and Arlan walked past the body of the Agent and down the alley towards her feeling a little shocked and relieved.

It hadn’t ended according to the plan, but he was glad it was over.

*7*

“Come on Taelin, pick up the pace!” Asha’s voice was in his head again.
As he ran he rubbed his aching leg. “I’m trying, Asha, the damn painkillers are wearing off!”

He sensed a chuckle in her mental tone. “Stop being a wuss and just do it.  You can feel pain later.”
Dodging, he sidestepped quickly out of the way of more shattering brick near his face and he thankfully managed to get temporarily under cover. “Very funny, Asha.”

There was a long warehouse on one side of the current alley and the brick wall of a block of apartments on the other making the place feel like a narrow canyon.  It was a long distance to run with an armed Agent behind him but on the other side of this alley he was only a block away from the second target area.  From the exit of the alley he only had to cross the road into the car parking lot, through the open air mall and onto one of the jetties connected to the large pier.  At least it was nearly over.

“Tae, head the long way to the target area, we’re not ready yet.”
Tae grumbled in frustration. “What? There is no long way!”
“Arlan’s in trouble, I won’t be long.”

So now he had to improvise and stall for time.  Ahead of him he could see the edge of the street and across the road the parking lot entrance.  He knew he couldn’t go right without getting to the target area too soon and from the wrong angle but if he went left too far he wasn’t sure if there was a safe way of turning around again back towards the harbor.

Mentally shrugging, he guessed he only needed to stall for a little more time; it didn’t have to be a huge change in the plan.  So he could literally just go the long way around through the mall.  Now, he just had to distract her long enough to get into another sprint.

Turning around sideways he lifted his gun and aimed at her head.  She saw his intension and dived behind the cover of a large black dumpster that sat up against the building wall.  He tracked his gun to follow her and shot repeatedly at the dumpster.

Dropping his gun arm he made a sprint for the open street; he just had to make it out of sight for long enough to get into the relative safety of the mall.

As he reached the exit of the alley he turned left and sprinted up the street away from the harbor.  Running around people on the footpath he passed the front of the huge warehouse, which, on the ground floor was all locked up with chains and boarded up.
When there was a gap in traffic he ran diagonally across the road and into the next street.  The footpath on the new street was wide and crowded with many people entering and leaving the open-air mall.

The entrance to the mall was marked by a huge sign curving over the pedestrians. “Capitol City Waterfront Mall.” The sign was old and faded; too many long hot summers and not enough new layers of red and navy paint.  There were so many people he wondered if this had been a bad idea.  She could shoot many of them trying to get him, but, she might just be smarter than that.  He hoped that was the case.

“Ok, Taelin, everyone else is in place again but I’m too far from you to take the shot.  You’re going to have to do it.” Asha’s mental voice sounded worried.
“Fine.” He ran under the mall sign and into the crowded mall.
“Are you ok to do this?”
He sighed with a touch of irritation. “This is not the first time I’ve shot someone, Asha.”

In truth he was a little pissed off he didn’t sign up to be the shooter, which had all sorts of consequences he didn’t want, the biggest consequence was being known as a Rebel to the Agency.  But if that was the mission that was what he’d do.

A shot sounded behind him and the crowd scattered randomly out of the way like startled sheep.  On his left was a wall of glass shop-fronts running the length of the mall to the base of the huge pier.  On his right was a food court and he knew between the nearby food court and the one further up was the entrance to the fair grounds which would also be open and teeming with people.

He ran towards the first food court where there was a café on one corner and some kind of fast food restaurant on the other corner both facing each other.  Between the two, the footpath leading towards the car parking lot was covered in tables and people many of whom were already running for cover.

He dodged tables, chairs and running terrified shoppers.  Another shot fired behind him nothing exploded around him and he wondered if the Agent was shooting in the air to scatter the pedestrians or whether she really was simply a poor shot.  More pedestrians scattered fearfully away from him; some stumbling over chairs and tables to get out of the way.

His leg was really starting to ache something terrible.  He would give anything at that moment to be able to just stop running and rest it but he knew that it wasn’t much further; he just had to keep going until it was finished.

The footpath behind the food court was narrower than the main walkway and there was a high fence on one side of it along with the back end of the café.  It led past the entrance to the fairgrounds on his right and into the second food court where, a day ago, they’d helped Nama get away from three Agents.  There were less people along this footpath, which made running around them much easier.

The fairground entrance was wide enough to drive up two cars next to each other.  As he ran past it and back to his left towards the shops and the second food court the sounds of the fairgrounds filled his ears with metallic tunes and laughing screaming people enjoying themselves.

He ran quickly around the second café attempting to make his running pattern look as if he was running for the small jetty opposite the café or to the base of the long harbor-view pier.  Then, once out of sight of her he ran quickly around the edge of the café to hide.

He reloaded his gun and watched the area between the café and the small jetty at the base of the pier.  The jetty was a temporary place for small boats to tie up and get passengers, and there was a local boat club who used the jetty in the summer to ferry tourists around the calm waters of the Capitol City harbor.  Being winter the jetty was mostly unused.

A gunshot sounded to his left and the remaining pedestrians skittered out of her way.  He watched her run around the corner past him and towards the jetty and the pier.  She looked around her with her gun up as she ran.  When she couldn’t locate him she slowed down continuing to walk towards the jetty and the base of the huge pier.  He was careful to keep his emotions in check so that she didn’t sense him.

Waiting he watched her look around slowly walking closer and closer to the jetty.  She looked once or twice back the way she’d come and his direction but he simply stepped out of view.  Now that he wasn’t running his leg really started to ache but he did his best to ignore it as he waited.

Finally, she backed onto the wooden jetty only meters from the edge and the water; she looked uncertainly up the access road for the pier.  He stepped out of cover gun up and as she turned to face him he shot her in the chest.

She dropped her gun with a yell and was pushed back by the force of the bullet; she stumbled backwards over the edge of the jetty into the water below.

“Asha!  It’s done!  Where’s the car?” Tae put away his weapon and jogged awkwardly towards the nearest road.
“Coming!”

To his right he heard the sounds of screeching tires as he made it to the roadside a battered blue car stopped with a squeal of breaks right in front of him.  Inside the car sat Asha, Arlan and Kala their faces were tense and he gave them his own tense look.

He was relieved to finally sit down in the back.  He closed the back door and Asha drove off quickly.

*8*

Tae leant back and rested his head over the back of the seat. He was so relieved to be sitting and not running even in the back of the tiny cramped car that someone must have stolen for this mission.

“Are you feeling ok, Tae?” Asha was in the front seat driving and she sounded worried.
He chuckled at her concern. “I’m not as fit as I’d like to be, but I’m fine. What happened with you guys?”

Sitting next to him Arlan spoke up; he sounded uncomfortable. “I feel like an idiot.”
“We just had a little problem with an overzealous Agent. It’s fixed now.” Tae sensed from Asha’s tone that it was a subject best left to discuss without Arlan around.

He closed his eyes letting the car’s movement flow around him.

“Score!”  Kala sat in the front seat next to Asha and she sounded very happy.  “Tae, our techie just confirmed that the security cameras got the whole thing!”
That meant that the Agency would have a confirmed death on their records.  He smiled but did not open his eyes or lift his head. “Good. Where to now?”

Asha responded.  “A dock in the South Key. We’re just about there so don’t fall asleep or anything.” Her voice had shifted to mischief again and he grinned.

He floated along with the movements of the car for a few minutes until it jolted violently, forcing him to open his eyes and look around him. They were driving on an unsealed pot-hole-filled road towards some kind of large factory.

Driving downhill towards it he could see that the factory was tall; maybe ten stories high, but so wide and long that it looked square rather than overly tall from a distance. The faded rusting building was dwarfed on one side by a huge chimney stack that towered many stories above it.

In front of the factory building a high wired fence gate was open and as they drove through it he caught a glimpse of cut chains and a padlock hanging from one gate. Someone must have come down and cut the chain before the mission started.

The car drove towards the huge factory until all he could see in front of the car was the rusting peeling paint of the factory wall. On the right side of the car the calm waters of the harbor filled the horizon. On the left an abandoned yard stretched out filled with storage barrels, rusted out vehicles and other abandoned debris from the days when the factory operated.

Asha drove around past the factory building towards a tiny wharf that jutted out into the blue waters of the harbor. Everyone got out of the car and Tae reluctantly followed. He and Kala silently walked towards the empty wharf while the other two remained with the car.

His leg ached sharply in protest to him walking so soon again but he refused to let it show. Behind them the little blue car drove slowly back out towards the gates leaving Asha standing where it had been. He stopped walking and waited for her to catch up.
“What happened with Arlan?”
She shrugged. “The Agent cornered him and he needed a little help.”
He turned to walk with her towards the wharf. “And so he’s upset?”
She nodded. “He needs to relax. And you need to get that leg of yours re-strapped did you notice you’re bleeding?”

He frowned and looked down to discover that there was a puddle of blood slowly making its way down his pant legs from just above his knee.
Wonderful. He thought sarcastically.

As they reached the wharf and Kala; who waited on one side near the water a diver surfaced with a motorized diving aid. The suited diver signaled an ok to them. Kala returned the ok signal and soon after three more divers came to the surface with a fourth unsuited diver who looked like the Agent he’d just shot. She floated unmoving on the surface of the water with a floatation vest strapped around her and a breathing mask over her face.

Together the three of them lifted her carefully out of the water and lay her on the wharf as the other divers swam to a better exit point. Asha ripped the breathing mask off Yaan’s long face and checked her pulse while Kala went to work on the flotation vest and her shirt.

“She’s alive.” Asha said calmly.

Kala pulled open the woman’s shirt to reveal a black bullet-proof vest with his bullet firmly pushed into the center of it. “Tae, help me get this off her.”
He lent over carefully and pulled at the straps on the side of her vest. Ripping the straps off, the vest loosened quickly and they pulled it over her head to reveal just a thin singlet underneath.

She coughed and groaned as she regained consciousness. “Oh, ow.”
Tae stood up to ease his leg and laughed good-naturedly at their new recruit.
“Welcome to the Psi Rebels, Yaan.”

She looked up at him from the wooden wharf her blond hair loose and wet around her head. “Thanks.” She tried to get up and he offered her a hand. She took it and they all helped her stand carefully.
“I’m Taelin, this is my sister Asha”, he nodded at Asha behind her and then at Kala next to him, “And this is Kala.”

She looked at him with grey-blue eyes and shook her head with a little laugh.
“Well, Taelin, I’ll tell you, you’re damn lucky I knew not to shoot you because your dodging really sucks.” She put a hand to her heart where the bullet would have caused a deep bruise through the vest. “But you’re a damn good shot so that’s a consolation.”

“Thanks, I think.” He smiled slightly, unsure if she was being friendly or critical. He was too tired to defend his ability to be bait; instead he took off his big winter jacket and handed it to her. It was cold and she was starting to shiver. She took it and put it on without saying anything.

There was the sound of wheels in gravel and they all turned to look up as an old rusty white van screeched to a halt at the base of the wharf. The side doors slid open quickly to allow the waiting diver’s and their equipment inside.

The three women walked towards the van and he tiredly followed. He needed to rest for a while. There would be no more volunteering for drama until his leg was healed.