Taelin Kaan

12 Milana 3003
*1*

The meeting started without much fanfare and if he was honest with himself Tae was actually a little disappointed by the banality of it all.  There were perhaps nine Cells of Rebels in Capitol City and one or two people from each Cell were asked to attend.  Each person connected to Nama, added their code words and submitted to a light scan before being allowed to connect to the others in the mental connection.

Tae found it disorientating to be telepathically connected to so many people; their thoughts and words chattering inside his head in about fifteen different voices. He couldn’t imagine how disorientating it was for Nama: he being the hub and gateway of the meeting and all.

It wasn’t until after everyone had been confirmed and scanned that Hawk arrived.  Upon his arrival, the underlying tense excitement of everyone suddenly flared up to a point where his head pulsed slowly with a tense empathic throb.  He was certainly excited as well so he completely understood why the others were despite the headache it caused.  This was after all the first meeting Hawk had ever called and the historical consequences of attending such a meeting hadn’t been lost on anyone, least of all him.

“Greetings everyone and thank you for attending this meeting; I know how awkward and uncomfortable this situation is for many of you.” Hawk’s mental voice was clear and calm, and throbbed with an odd pulsing static that Tae felt even through the mental filter of Nama.  “I have called this meeting because the Agency is getting smarter in their strategies and attacks.  In the last six months we have lost several key individuals and four entire Cells to Assassin and Searcher attacks.  If we do not change our tactics to match we may face annihilation.”

“But, sir, much of their success is because of this new assassin, not necessarily because of their better tactics.” Amana’s calm reddish mental voice hummed in Taelin’s head; she had been chosen to be the contact for Hilla Norman’s Cell.

“Yes, you are right, Amana, this new assassin has caused a great deal of our problems, however, Cheetah isn’t the only problem.  The Agency has started using specialized Searcher Agents to scout for information about where our bases, certain key individuals and strategic resources are located.  Then, they pass on this information to specialized assassins like Cheetah to do accurate and devastating damage to us.

“There is, unfortunately, also mounting evidence that we may have a mole in our midst.  There have been reports…” Hawk’s deep calm mental voice faltered into silence and Tae felt a wavering shimmer in the static pulse coming from him.

At first others seemed confused in the silence, he felt the confusion flow through the empathic pulse around him.  But, then a wave of intense dark static pushed through the other minds and hit him like a huge breaking tidal wave.  The energy (whatever it was) pushed at his mind so firmly that his body flinched back sharply in response.  All other Psi senses were overshadowed and made dim in his mind under the roaring energy wave.

He focused on riding out the feeling and holding onto the mental link he had with Nama and the meeting.  So focused was he that he didn’t realize that he’d stopped breathing.

From underneath the overwhelming waves of dark static came mental voices from the meeting.
“… what’s wrong, sir?”
“…One moment…”

The intensity lifted suddenly and Tae was left gasping physically for air.  His grip on the mental link wavered randomly and he tried hard to hold onto it but felt it slowly releasing from his undisciplined mental grasp.

“This will have to wait….”
“What happened, sir?”
“There is no time.  Nama, Amana I need you to collect together a recon group and get to the Southern Motorway…”

The mental link slipped out of his grip and he fell away from the meeting and the calm clear mental voice of Hawk.  As he regained more awareness of his body and the world outside of his mind Tae groaned in pain.  There was a spiky almost electrical headache that permeated randomly through his scull like one of those gimmicky lightening globes.

He lay on the ground flat on his back next to to the couch on which he had been laying.  Just my luck for something bizarre like this to happen and right when things were getting interesting, damn it.

“Tae, get off the floor, quit playing around.”  Nama’s voice was playful and he felt a gentle kick in the shoulder.
“I’m not playing, Nama.”  He looked calmly up into his friend’s face.
“Well, get up we need you.”

Tae sat up carefully but much to his relief the weird headache did not worsen with motion.  “What happened?”
“Hawk had a Time Psi episode, c’mon we don’t have time, the assassin could already be there taking the Resource.”

Nama offered a hand up and he stood then he followed Nama’s broad form through the lounge doorway.  They walked quickly from the main hallway into the small armory room.  Nama unlocked the nearest locker and passed him a weapon and bullet clips.  Together they loaded their own weapons as they talked.

“So why did I get decked then?  And what’s this Resource?”
“You got decked because you have Time Psi genes.  Hawk is something like a 20/5 Time Psi, you’re, what?  A 1/5?  You’re lucky you’re not in a coma.”

They finished loading and Nama turned to leave the small square room as he continued speaking.
“The Resource: well that is a laptop that one of the Rebels found last week when they took out an A3 Searcher Agent.  The laptop has access to the Agency database up to A2 security level.”
Tae was surprised.  “Oh.”
“Yeah and some assassin is about to try and take it.  Come on.”

They followed about ten other members of Nama’s Cell out of the building into the dim afternoon street.
“That wave of… static… was Hawk having a vision?  To that kind of detail?”  He gave Nama a look of disbelief and was answered with a wink and a grin.
“Yep… what did I say?  20/5 Time Psi.”

*2*

Cheetah stared down at the building, her green eyes and long oval face utterly emotionless.  It was a whole story down onto the Rebel base rooftop and there was a sufficiently wide void between the two buildings.  If she didn’t make the distance she’d fall five stories down the alley below and probably break her neck.

She’d arrived in the peripheral of the target building to discover about thirty people outside guarding all entrances and access ways.  Of course they made an effort to hide this intension but it was fairly obvious to her that they were guarding the place; someone must have tipped them off.

After retreating to higher ground and re-thinking her plans the only way she could realistically get in to complete the mission was to jump from one building to the next.  It was not the most ideal solution and it was a decent distance for her to jump without risking injury.  The biggest problem; but only one of many with this plan to jump the gap, was that she was quite weighted down by her weapons and a backpack with safe-cracking supplies.

She needed the gear.  But in lieu of the distance she’d need to jump she realized that if she wanted a much better chance at succeeding at all she’d have to go in without the extra weight.  This meant she’d have to acquire tools and weapons inside the building.  This was also a risk but it was better to risk not having the right gear to get to the target than it was to risk almost certain death by falling.  In addition to this her supervisor would not be pleased if she cancelled the mission simply because things got a touch complicated.  So it was jump the gap or try the hard way through the front door.

Cheetah took off her backpack and crouched over it on the windy rooftop.  She would have to leave everything with the backpack and stash it somewhere hidden so no passerby would stumble on it.  Shuffling with her dark clothing she took out three back-up weapons and placed each one carefully into the backpack on top of the other gear.  Then taking it out from the holster in the small of her back she held the large onyx-handled gun that her father had given her on her 17^th birthday nearly three months ago.

It was an intimidating weapon.  It looked far too big for her small hands but she was strong enough to use it and because the barrel was significantly longer than standard handguns it was even fairly accurate to shoot.  She didn’t want to loose it but she would have to leave it in the bag with the others.  Flicking the safety on she carefully pushed the gun between two layers of protective material at the bottom of the bag.  Then, zipping it up and standing, she stashed the backpack in the lip of a nearby air vent.

Walking back to the center of the roof she turned to face the long jump.  She took a deep breath and focused her mind and her body on the goal.  Then she started into a swift run.  When she reached the edge she leapt up with her long legs and thrust herself through the air across the gap towards the other roof top.   Landing into an impromptu forward roll she rose again to her feet in one fluid motion and kept running towards the roof entrance doors.

—-

Tae stood in a narrow alley that separated the Rebel building from one of its neighbors.  There had been no noise and no sign of any Agency assassin.  If it weren’t for the underlying ill ease he was feeling he would have suggested that this assassin wasn’t coming after all.  Though, considering the stories he’d heard so far of Hawk’s accuracy he probably shouldn’t have even thought to suggest that this might be a false alarm.

This tension he could feel was getting intolerable, it made him itchy on the inside and distracted.  The strange spiky headache he’d gotten from the meeting had eased somewhat to a dull background ache with the occasional sharp spark of pain.  But the strange headache seemed somehow connected to the tension because as the tension rose so did the sensations of the headache (but thankfully not the actual pain).

“Tae, come to the front I think something’s wrong.” Nama’s voice was cool and tense in his mind.
“What’s wrong?”
“I haven’t heard anything from inside for about ten minutes.”
Reaching the end of the alley he frowned slightly.  “But their report schedule was every fifteen minutes.”
“No Tae, I’m not talking about their report schedule, there’s nothing on their personal frequency, no chatter, no checking in with each other, no teasing, nothing, it went completely silent.  There has been ten minutes of complete silence.”
Tae swallowed tensely as he turned from the alley onto the street at the front of the building.  “Oh… shit.”
“Yes Tae, oh shit.”

Nama stood next to the building entrance waiting for him.  His light face looked tense but he managed a partial smile of acknowledgement then he indicated with his head for them to go up the steps into the building.
“C’mon, we go in the front door for a sweep.  Amana’s team will stay outside; we’ll meet the others from our team on the inside.”

Inside, the building was dim and dark.  Beyond the double doors that served as the building entrance was a long hallway that led to a small empty elevator shaft and a wide stone stairwell.  Everything was dusty and faded.  Tae didn’t know the story of how the Rebels got the building but he assumed it was similar to his old Cell building: that it had long been abandoned and probably scheduled for demolition at some point.

As they neared the elevator shaft they both saw that a body lay sprawled on its back at the base of the stairs.  Tae’s heart quickened.

When they reached the body Nama knelt down next to the man; whom Tae didn’t recognize, and checked his pulse.
“Dead.”  Nama’s deep voice was flat and emotionless.  As Nama stood again he picked up the small automatic rifle that lay next to the body and hitched its strap over his shoulder.  With a sigh, Nama touched a finger to his ear and started speaking.  “We have a dead Rebel in the ground floor entrance.  Team three; meet us at the Resource. Team four; continue your sweep.  Team one and two; hold your positions.”

He followed Nama’s broad back up the wide stone stairs.  A deep sense of dread crept into Tae’s heart and he wondered grimly what they’d find when they got up to the third floor.

The building must have once been some kind of office block.  From the stairwell on the second floor Tae caught a glimpse of some lawyer firm’s name blazoned in black across a dusty glass entrance.  Dimly, he wondered how long this building had been abandoned and why that lawyer firm had left without even scratching their name off the glass.

His absent thoughts were interrupted as they came out of the stone stairwell and were on the third floor.  They jogged down a faded dusty hallway towards a large central room where the Resource was stored in a small vault.

They stepped into the large square room through a double doorway.  Tae saw the bodies on the floor, he saw the open vault and then he saw the young assassin known now as Cheetah, bent over a metal briefcase.  She looked up at him for a moment; surprise clear in her vivid green eyes.

Before they even had time to fire their weapons the assassin ducked out of range and behind the cover of the heavy metal vault door.  Tae ran towards the vault door with his gun up but had to duck behind a kitchen bench for cover as she fired in his direction.  Nama jumped as well and landed in behind him.

Tae took a careful look around the side of the bench in her direction and a bullet flew past near his face and lodged itself in the wall behind him.  He flinched away, turning to stare at the hole in the wall.  This girl is terrifying.

He sensed a flare of fear and then he heard the sounds of footsteps running away from them along the bare wood floor.  He stood without looking around and ran towards a doorway after the footsteps.  Tae ran down a long hallway after her firing his gun at her receding form.

A deep rage lifted from inside him and pushed him to run faster.  He had to get her, he had to stop her and he had to kill her.

Ahead of him at the end of the dusty wooden hallway she turned left and out of sight.  By the time he followed after her around the corner she’d jumped out through a wide open window and was disappearing up over a fire escape and in through a window of the neighboring building.

He only stopped firing his weapon when the clip emptied and there were no more bullets.  Nama ran up behind him; his voice ordering people on the radio into the other building after her.  But in his gut Tae knew that she’d gotten away.  With a near growl of frustration he kicked the wall hard with one boot and swore obscenely at the window.

Behind him Nama’s voice changed tone as he laughed and addressed Tae and not the radio.
“Well, at least she didn’t get the Resource.”

*3*

How Cheetah had gotten into the building was the subject of much debate.  But what she left in her wake was something no one could miss even if they wanted to.  She’d killed everyone inside the building; a little over thirty adults, in what looked like a matter of minutes.  It also seemed that at least half of them had been killed without a weapon.  A teenage girl killing fully grown adults with her bare hands, Tae shivered slightly at the thought of it.

Taelin sat on a battered couch in the large central room.  The “Resource” was on a small coffee table in front of him in a lockable metal briefcase.  Much of the rest of the room was complete chaos from a combination their own brief gun battle with Cheetah and the deaths of those people who’d been in the room when she arrived.  Thankfully however, they’d moved most of the bodies into another room where they would stay for a short while until it was possible to move them and bury them somewhere safe.

He guarded the Resource while the rest of Nama’s recon team secured the building.  Amana’s Team was still outside watching for trouble even though everyone was fully aware that Cheetah must have another route that bypassed them somehow.

The plan was to secure the building first and then move the laptop somewhere safe; once of course they had decided where was the safest place.  In front of him on the coffee table the Resource was in a metal briefcase; it was large and bulky with a combination key lock.  He stared at it apathetically.  It really was ridiculous: thirty people dead for a stupid computer.

“You look glum, brother.  Cheer up.”
At the voice Tae looked up to discover Asha standing in the doorway in front of him.  He stood quickly with a laugh.  “When did you get back?”  Stepping around the coffee table he gave his sister a big hug.
“Just now.”  She laughed and wrapped her arms around him.

When they parted from their hug she was smiling sympathetically.  “I hear there’s been some trouble?”
He shrugged.  “If you call an entire Cell of thirty people killed while a recon group was outside the building “trouble”, I guess so.”

There was a noise of movement behind him and as he turned to see what it was a silenced gunshot reverberated around the room.  Tae pulled out his weapon.  Cheetah stood in the other doorway with her own gun aimed at him and the Resource firmly in her grip.

His utter surprise stopped any immediate reaction in him for about half a second.  Green eyes stared calmly over the extended barrel of the weapon and silencer.  Her voice was quiet.  “I only want the computer.  See to your sister and no one else has to die today.”

Asha! With his guard suddenly dropped he instinctively looked down at his sister.  In that moment the dark haired green eyed assassin swiftly left the room.

Asha lay on her back on the floor with a look of deep pain in her face.  She was alive, at least she was alive!  Blood spilled slowly from one shoulder.  She put a hand to the wound and stared up at him.
“Go, Tae.”  She gasped.  “Go get her!  I’ll be ok.”

He knew if he waited even a second longer he’d loose Cheetah and if Asha said she was ok she of all people would know.  He turned quickly and ran out of the room in pursuit of the assassin.  As he ran he reached mentally out to Nama; who seemed to be downstairs.  “Nama!  She came back.  She took the computer.  I’m going after her but she injured Asha.”
“Back up is on the way.  How bad is Asha?”
“Right shoulder, below clavicle, not a bleeder, she says she’s ok.”
“We’re coming.”

The hallway he ran down was narrow with many tiny broken down rooms off to the side of it.  It looked like this section must have once been a group of private office cubicles partitioned by glass sheets that were long gone now.

At the end of the hallway, on his right was a blank wall with a closed window set into it and to the left a narrow stairwell cut down into the floor.  Without pausing at all he ran down taking two steps at a time in his rush to locate the assassin.

The dusty stairwell curved around on itself dizzyingly.  On the second floor there a single locked door to enter that level and after checking the handle he continued to run downwards.  For a moment he thought he heard the sounds of footsteps on the concrete stairs below him.

In the last section of stairs down to the ground floor his view opened up to a long narrow passageway.  Dusty lime linoleum covered the floor and faded patterned wallpaper fell from the walls in little moldy strips.  As he neared the last steps the end of the passage revealed a half open door with light from outside coming in through the gap.  A silhouette stood momentarily in the doorway.  Instinct took over and he lifted his gun firing at the figure.  He ran down towards the door firing his weapon as he got to it the door at the end of the hallway closed.

“Nama!” Tae pushed open the heavy door and stepped outside looking around him in the afternoon light.  “She’s out, North side of the building.” Three bodies lay near the door to his left beside a grotty dumpster but in front him a narrow alley revealed a running figure in its depths.  “We have some more casualties near the back door.   I’m following her, North up an alley.”
“We’re right behind you, Tae.”

He ran into the narrow alley.  Lifting his gun and dropping the almost spent clip to the ground, he reached into his jacket pocket for another full clip.  The alley was long and cut a thin line between two high brick buildings.  The assassin ran ahead of him.  The full clip slotted comfortably into place and he pulled the loading mechanism back.

He wasn’t nearly as good a shot as she obviously was, but in a narrow alley at the range of maybe thirty meters it shouldn’t be too hard to actually hit her.  He stopped running for a moment and aimed carefully at her back.  Firing two shots in quick succession ahead of him she stumbled and fell.

By the time she was starting to get up again, he’d bridged the gap between them.  He lifted his weapon into her face and she looked up at him over the barrel with those vivid green eyes of hers.  She held her left side; blood had stained the dark cloth of her shirt and much of her hand.

“Stay where you are.”  He growled.

The coldness lifted from her eyes and quite suddenly she had all the body language of a scared young woman in a lot of pain, even her eyes were filling with tears.
“Please, please let me go.  Or at least kill me.  Don’t let them capture me.”  Her voice sounded genuinely scared and pained but he remembered how she’d been able to trick him before with this fake emotion stuff.
His eyes narrowed and he shook his head slightly.  “You’re not going to manipulate me again, Cheetah.  You’ll do anything to get what you want.”
Some of the coldness returned to her face and she nodded slightly.  “Yes, of course.  I would do anything to live and anything to keep my family alive.  Wouldn’t you?”  Her voice was cold and almost leathery.  “Will you at least allow me to stand?”

She didn’t give him time to answer her; she simply started to stand very carefully and slowly.  He stepped back from her a little in case her plan was to try and take the gun from his grip.

When she was fully standing; bent a little over the wound in her side, she was just slightly to one side of him.  He turned to make sure she remained directly in front but in the motion of him adjusting his position she moved very quickly, striking out at his gun with the bloody hand and then smacking him full in the face with the palm of her other hand.

He fell back, stunned and seeing stars.  Consciousness fell away from him so quickly that he did not even feel himself hitting the ground.

*4*

It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds that he’d been unconscious.  He came to very quickly and found himself lying on his back with his arms and legs flailed around him.

With a groan he lifted one hand up to his face to touch the bridge of his nose.  It was very definitely broken.  The pain in his nose and face was immense and worse than many of the other breaks he’d had in the past.  He rolled onto his side and got to his feet.  Blood was spilling from his nose and down his face.  A few meters away from him lay his gun on the concrete and he carefully bent over and picked it up.

Warily looking around him he searched for any sign of the direction she’d gone.
“Tae, where are you?” Nama’s mental voice sounded tense and worried.
“Me?  Where are YOU?” He didn’t mean to snap back at Nama but the pain in his face made him very angry.
“We’re North of the building, there’s just a car parking lot here, where are you?”

“I’m North…” He glanced up at the sun and swore.  “Ah, for Founder’s sakes!  South, I’m South.  I had her for a short while, but she got away…”

Looking a few meters ahead of him up the alley his eyes picked up a blot of bright red blood on the concrete and further ahead he could see some more blood splatters.
“She’s left a trail of blood to follow, I’m going after her.  Are you coming?”
“We’re coming.”

Walking towards the trail she’d left he searched his pockets for something to put to his nose.  In a back pocket he found an old rag, which he un-scrunched and folded in half to apply carefully under his nose.  He was going to be in a great deal of pain for a long while but it could have been worse.

Now, he thought angrily, let’s find her.

Much to his annoyance it took some time to follow the blood trail.  It led through a few blocks of back roads and alleys, and at points seeming to disappear only to start again a decent distance away.  When he finally came out into a main road he was surprised to see where he’d been led: the blood trail led right up to Cathedral Square and the main entrance.

The anger inside him had deepened to become almost cold.  He wasn’t quite conscious of it, he only knew that he had to find her and get her and damn anyone who got in the way.

He stepped over the blood trail through the front door and into the main Cathedral.  There was no one in the main room except for a single priest kneeling at the altar with his back to Tae.

The blood trail dripped down the long middle isle weaving left and right towards the front of the room.  He was about halfway towards the altar when to his left a small door in the far corner opened and Father Owen strode into sight.

“Taelin, get out of here, now.”  Father Owen’s angry voice echoed off the high stone ceiling.
Tae shook his head and walked towards the man.  “Give me Cheetah and I’ll leave.”

The priest strode along the front of the pews and towards Tae up the center of the room.  The priest’s long black robes hugged his square form and somehow, oddly, made him seem a little menacing.
“How dare you come here and demand anything from this Church.  Leave.  Leave now.”  Father Owen’s blue eyes were the color of ice.
Tae glared angrily back at the man and he spoke through clenched teeth.  “Don’t make me go through you to get her, Father.”

Father Owen leveled a commanding glare at Taelin.  If he hadn’t been so mad, Tae would have probably flinched.  “This is your final warning.  Leave.  Now.”
“Or what?”  Tae laughed slightly and lifted his weapon a little.

He intended to push past the man not actually shoot him, but Father Owen reacted by stepping towards and disarming him.  The priest moved so quickly that Tae did not have any time to react.  Suddenly, he found himself on the stone floor looking up at the priest over the barrel of his own weapon.
Ice blue eyes glared down at him coldly.  “I said leave.  Now.”

The surprise of being on the floor so quickly shocked Tae out of his rage and he looked up at Father Owen over the barrel.  For the first time he noticed the rage permeating the air around Father Owen and then he noticed the steady gun hand.  To be so enraged but completely in control was somehow terrifying to Tae and the realization brought with it sharp flare of genuine fear.  His mouth opened slightly and he froze.

Somewhere in the direction of his feet the double doors that were the public entrance to the Cathedral opened.  Near to his face, Tae’s weapon clicked loudly as Father Owen switched the safety on.

“Get him out of here, Nama.  I will get what she stole, but I don’t want to see any Rebel here until the morning.  Do you understand me?”  His voice was cold and harsh, and very angry.  In that moment the man near him was not a priest and certainly not the Father Owen that he had begun to know.  Instead he was something commanding, something powerful and strong, and something formidable that he should never have tried to go up against.

“Yes, sir.”  There was a very real fear in Nama’s voice.

The man threw the weapon for Nama to catch and strode back down the wide middle aisle towards the side door again.  Tae got up by himself as Nama bridged the gap between them.  Behind him the side door slammed closed.

“You dodged more than one bullet today, Tae.  Are you mad?  What were you thinking coming in here?”  Nama shook his head dismissively and handed him back his gun.  They turned towards the exit and Tae followed him quietly out of the Cathedral.

*5*

Cheetah woke to a great deal of pain from the gunshot wound.  She was far less able to ignore it now that her cold assassin’s mindset had faded with her adrenaline.

She put a hand to the pain and let out a groan as a flare of agony pulsed through her abdomen.  The bullet would need to be removed, which meant she would have to source some form of medical help immediately.

“Your people will be here soon.”

The voice came from next to her and she turned her head slowly to look at the speaker.  It was the priest; the priest with blue eyes who wasn’t afraid of her.

“Father Owen?”  Her voice sounded incredibly tired.
“Yes.  The doctor who normally volunteers at our shelter is unavailable.  So, I figured it would be better to call your people and ruin any cover you had rather than let you die here.  I hope that’s ok?”  There was a trace of amused sarcasm in his eyes and she laughed a little.  “Of course.”

There was a comfortable silence for a few minutes and they watched each other calmly.  She was expecting him to speak or ask her a question but he seemed comfortable in the silence.

“Aren’t you going to ask my name, Father?”
A smile lightened his square face.  “A name is not required for the Church to help you, especially considering your current profession.”

A flare of despair made her she close her eyes in an attempt to block out her thoughts.  She didn’t want to be reminded of her current profession.  What she’d done wasn’t something she wanted to remember.  There were now thirty-two people dead by her hand that day.  Blinking tears away she covered her face with one hand.

“I hate my profession.”  Her voice was quiet and broken up.  A wave of despair added more pain to the overall agony of the gunshot wound.  But she forced herself to take control of her emotions.  She had to dry her eyes and keep them dry.

With the tears forceably suppressed, she lifted her hand from her face and offered it to him in a traditional formal greeting.  “I am Jaola, and I think you just saved my life.”
“That’s quite likely, Jaola.”  He took her hand with a slight smile.

In his public mind she sensed thoughts about a conflict with someone; one that ended with hostility.  Then a vivid flash of Taelin Kaan’s angry face practically jumped out of Father Owen’s public mind.
She frowned.  “Did Taelin come here after me?”
He nodded slowly.  “Don’t worry though, you’re safe here.  The Rebel’s know this is neutral territory.  And now Taelin does too.”

There was that fearless confidence in his face again and she frowned.  This priest was so strange to her.  When she’d first met him, he seemed so incredibly normal but she realized he was more than that.  He wasn’t afraid of her.  He didn’t seem afraid of the Agency or the Rebels.  How was it possible for even a priest not to be afraid in life?

She looked sideways at him.  “Why did you help me?”
“The Founder led you to the Church and me for a reason.  It is not my job to question why only to listen.  Besides, you have to have at least one ally in your situation don’t you?”
She smiled a little.  “I suppose so.”

Standing up from his chair and turning away towards the door, his voice was quiet but oddly dark.  “I’ll go downstairs and see if your people have turned up, yet.  I won’t be long.”

———————————————————————

Taelin lay back on a converted table in one of the small medical rooms of Nama and Kala’s base.

Nala had ordered him to stay there and hold an ice pack to the pain until she came back from checking up on Asha.  He felt nauseous from the pain and exhaustion of the day, and most of his head ached something terrible.  He was feeling too ill to be angry any more.  Instead, apathy was sitting nice and firmly in his heart, and if he was honest with himself he was feeling emotional enough to actually have a good cry alone in the room.

But Nala would come back soon and he’d be embarrassed if she caught him crying.  He knew it was stupid to be embarrassed because tears were a very normal physiological reaction to injury and shock, and everyone knew this.  But he still didn’t want to risk her seeing him vulnerable and exhausted no matter how illogical that feeling was.

The room wasn’t very big.  The long wooden table that had been converted into an exam bed sat in the middle of the room.  To one side a shorter table stood up against the wall with many pieces of medical equipment on top of it.  There was a chair nearby and a bright lamp mounted to the bigger table on an adjustable arm.  There was just enough room for someone to walk completely around the table unhindered and that was the total size of the room.

To his left the door opened and in stepped Nala.  She was smiling and looked into his eyes with a slight blush to her cheeks.  Smiling in return, he pretended not to see the blush.

“How is Asha?”
“She’s in a lot of pain but she’s going to be ok.  Cheetah missed everything important by millimeters.  How’s your face feeling?”
He gave her a mockingly unimpressed look over the ice pack and rolled his eyes.  “It hurts.”
“Well, at least your nose will heal straight; I’ve seen some people with permanently crooked noses before.  It’s not pretty.”  There was a look of mischief in her eyes and he smiled.

Approaching him, she gently lifted the ice pack off his face.  “Let me take some of the pain away for you.”

Putting the ice pack on the table next to him she lifted her hands up to his face.  One warm palm rested gently along his forehead and the other hand rested on one cheek with her thumb carefully under his nose.  There was a sense of warmth and a pulse of white electricity from her hands.  The sensation melted much of the sharp pain away from his face.

The healing energy made him feel calm and peaceful.  He closed his eyes and floated somewhere between sleep and awake.  The pain in his face slowly melted away into a dull warm thud.

In his hovering half-asleep state, he didn’t really feel it when her hands lifted off his face or when she pulled a blanket over him.  He hovered there half-conscious for a little while and then slipped sideways into a deep healing sleep.