The murder card

Dear diary, we still don’t have Ian back. Our time is running out, we know, but we don’t know how we can safely get him. We do have enough proof of their doing that we could go public, but what would be the point? The could just do the same thing they did when we released footage of their murder theatre. So we need to think and we need to think hard. We can’t waste this precious information. It wouldn’t be enough anyways. They need to be eliminated. Wouldn’t be fair to do this final steps without Ian. Surely, he would be of big help. A week has already passed since we left him there and some are starting to wonder if he is still alive. To be honest I have doubts myself but I can’t let them get to me. Not now, not right now. It would take me down a bad road. We try finding a perfect solution, but so far, every single one of them has had a fault, one that could risk all of our lives. Most likely, we will get caught. They have gathered themselves, reinforced their guards and are now very well prepared for us. Hopefully, we will be too and soon. Just as we were discussing on how to get Ian out, suddenly on of Reis’ screen lit up and there she was, talking to us. “Greetings, brave souls who chose to defect our order.” Lola started talking. Everyone froze in silence and listened to what she had to say. “I must admit, your little attacks have been clever and you got us. You got us good. But it stops now!” In an instant, she went from soft voice to a threating one and just like that, the room got colder. “I still have one of you and he is just barely breathing. If you don’t surrender by midnight tonight, I will kill him. I’ll take my sweet time and believe me when I say this, I will like it.” She takes a moment of silence and I stare at her threating eyes, full of anger and vengeance. “I would strongly recommend the choice of surrender, otherwise the consequences will be slow and painful, for all of you. So bad, you can’t even imagine. But you can find out.” As soon as she was done, she cut her connection and disappeared from the screen, leaving us in terror and shock. Not even Quin or Rei knew what to say. It probably won’t take them long to find us if they were able to send this message. “Do they know where we are?” Someone yells towards Rei. I feel panic starting to erupt among us. “No, they don’t. They just found our frequency.” He replies, trying to hide how nervous he was. “How long until they do find us?” I calmly ask, hoping for a good answer, while knowing I won’t get one. Whatever he would answer would be too soon. “I don’t know.” He simply replies. “If we are lucky, three days at most.” He adds, getting more and more nervous. Fear and dismay take over the room. Everyone was talking over each other, screaming, with no point whatsoever. Some wanted to go right away, but where even would we go. We could hide again, but that would only buy us little time it wouldn’t provide a solid solution. “I say we surrender.” Quin sadly says. Everyone stops talking and looks at her on what she has to say. “Let’s face it, it’s over. We lost.” Her eyes start to water and her voice starts cracking when she continues. “It’s over. We fought a good fight, but now there is nothing more we can do.” She wipes tears of her face when I hear myself say, “No it’s not. There is always a solution. We just have to find it.” I would never have thought a situation would come where I would be the positive one. I’m not sure why the sudden change. “It’s not all lost. I don’t know why, but I just have a gut feeling, something still can be done.” I add, hoping anyone would side with me. “What Addilyn? What can we do now? We can’t attack. They’ll expect that. Face it, we are out of tricks.” Quin says, infecting others with her negativity. “If we give up now, all of this, it would all be in vain. Just wasted time.” I reply to her comment. “You’re right.” She replies. “This was all just a waste of time.” She said with darkness in her voice. “You can’t be serious. After all this time, all the effort and now you just want to surrender?” I reply, angry at her. “Why?” I snarl at her. I wasn’t trying to be mean, I genuinely wanted to know why the sudden change. “I would like nothing else but to win this fight Addilyn. I really would. But I know now that we can’t. You saw Lola’s message, it’s over.” At that moment, a shadow of doubt came over me as well. For a moment, I thought she might be right. That everything we have done was silly and just an empty dream. Just some random, ordinary people who took on more than they could handle. “Rei, what do you think?” I ask in last ray of hope. “This is bad and end has come sooner than we expected. But do have one idea.” Everyone turns towards him, anxiously waiting what he will say. “There is a way to get Ian out and still beat them in the end. But it won’t be easy.” Quin interrupts him. “Nothing so far has been.” She was starting to gain back some hope. “We go to their headquarters tonight and we surrender.” Before he was able to continue, people started disagreeing with his plan. “Just let me continue!” He yells over everyone. We weren’t used to him raising his voice, so everyone went silent and listened to what he had to say. “We go in under false presence of surrender. I can trigger the fire alarm which will make everyone evacuate. I also can create an illusion of fire composed from digital files and some special effects, like they use in movies. Not everyone will be going, just enough so it will look like a real surrender. I stay back and do all this. When you hear the fire alarm, you run. Addilyn, you will go to the thirteenth floor, that’s where they have Ian. Your job is to get him out. When you do, run.” He gets interrupted again by some man I did not know, I’ve only seen him her a couple of times. “So far it sounds good Rei, but I see one problem. You said it yourself, it won’t take them long to find us here. So after we supposedly run when the alarm goes off, where do we go? We can’t just rent an apartment.” He raised a good point. Rei takes a moment before answering. `We don’t need an apartment, because we already got one.” Everyone looked at him, with surprise as no one knew of this before. “Well explain.” I nervously say. “When my mother passed away she left me her old apartment. I never got around to selling it. So it’s just there, empty, waiting to be used for emergencies. It’s not as big as this, but we can go there. It will be fine.” He tells us. “What do you think Quin?” He asks her. “I’m not sure. In theory, it sounds doable and very much plausible. But can we pull it off?” She says, still with worry. “If we move fast and efficient, it can be done.” Everyone need to stick to their own task and do anything foolish. That applies to you too Addilyn. If you aren’t able to get Ian, save yourself first.” Rei says. “Well I can’t just do that. I have to try.” I answer back. “Of course. But if it comes to it and it can’t be done, don’t try something brave.” He says. I agreed with the plan, knowing very well I’ll do everything to get him, even if it did cost me my life, so I nod in agreement. “Okay. So how will we do this?” I say. Immediately, Rei starts forming the plan, giving tasks to everyone, almost if he had this planned before. He divides us into groups. One groups, made of children, their mothers and most of the adults who could handle the physical pressure will transport our stuff to Reis apartment. Only the absolute necessary, like weapons, clothing, food, seeds. Then they will be divided into smaller groups, so they don’t raise suspicions. They immediately start packing and gathering supplies. Meanwhile, further orders followed for the second group, where I and Quin were. This one was larger. It needed to be, so it looks like a surrender. Not only are the strong and able going, elderly as well. Quin and I enter first, then the rest follow. Not long after that, Rei will set his plan of fire in motion. When the fire starts, I go to the thirteenth floor for Ian, rest will try their best to get out. Rei tells us hell try to disable the security system, if it will still be possible. If not, Ill initiate plan B, real fire. Then the security system will fall, so people can get out. Soon, the first group leaves our hiding place, while we loaded up on weapons, getting ready to go as well. I nervously prepare and so does Quin, who was not any calmer. I could see it in her eyes she was uneasy, still unsure. “It’s going to be fine. We just have to pull through.” I say to her in hopes of comforting her. She returns a forced smile. “Are you sure you can go? Maybe it would be better if you joined the other group.” I say. “No! I’m fine. I am a bit nervous but that’s just a normal chemical reaction that our body does. Soon it will fade and I’ll be fine and well.” She tells me, anxiously. She was more than nervous than anyone, even more so than me. I carried a strange feeling. One I have never had before. I felt as if something strange, maybe not so good might happen. Maybe the plan is to dangerous, but then again so were other and I didn’t have this feeling. Something is going to happen, I just don’t know what. Will it be good of us or then? That is something I soon will learn. I don’t know, maybe it’s just paranoia and everything will end up fine. Nothing is decided yet.