Transparent Color's

The trees are still, and the air is calm. We hide behind the rough brown bark, peaking at the gloomy wall before us. I see the spot I escaped at. I look over at the tree to my right, where Maliki is stationed. I think about the proud look on his face when I came to my senses and went back to training, that was only about four hours ago. Time flies, but it seems like forever ago. I turn my head and look at the tree to my left, Vichor is peering at me. He is probably still upset that I told him I will not be following his plan and that I won’t betray Maliki. His eyes look at me like a snake. A chill suddenly comes over me. I quickly look to my back; the tree behind me has Ora and the one next to her Jo-Shana. More than fifty trees serve as a hiding place, thank God for the trees.

My hands touch the bark of the tree. I can smell the bitter and sweet of it. I start thinking; …remember the plan Maggie, stay focused. We are going through the hidden city, capturing the guards as we go. Dress up in their attire, take any extra weapons, and remember the key, yes the key, the key is what you are aiming for. Without the key you cannot get out of the hidden city or back in. What’s next? ...Oh yes, we split into four groups. Jo-Shana and his team go to the control room at the gate entrance. Ora will be with them, she’s some kind of computer whiz. And I’ll be splitting off with Maliki’s team; Vichor will be with us as well. We head to the Majestic’s mansion. The rest will stand guard, some in the city and some in the forest. Yes…The ones in the forest will deal with those flying blue balls. Ultimately they are our fast escape crew, hopefully things go smoothly and we won’t need them.

“Maggie are you ready?” the voice comes into my right ear.

I look over to Maliki’s tree and whisper into a button on my jacket, “Yes.”

“Alright teams we are at go in 3, 2, 1”, a group of men come running from behind wearing brown cloaks. They cover two at a time. I’m in the cloak with Ora. We all start running for the wall.

My feet glide through the grass, feeling unstoppable, until we reach the wall. As we press against the wall, the man in the cloak runs back towards the forest. We slide to where the opening is. When I approach it, I hear a buzzing sound fly out from above me. I look up and see the blue balls flying out after the men running to the forest. A diversion, those men are. An ingenious plan, but I sincerely hope all goes well for them, and they destroy those buzzing monsters. I look back to the opened hole in the wall and step inside.

I maneuver myself into the small space. One can only imagine how any one bigger than I could fit, but Jo-Shana managed twice, so I guess it’s doable. I hold my jacket over my face. The dust is trying to make its way to my nostrils and mouth. I can feel a sneeze coming, but I hold my nose in control. Our feet quietly shuffle along the dirt; I now approach the hole that leads into the cell where I was prisoner. But instead of going in we move passed it. The further we moved the air became easier to breath. I can see a slight light in the direction we are headed, the light gets brighter and brighter, my eyes are fixated on it. I suddenly get a chill through my body, and start to feel like I’m walking to my death, like I’m walking to the light at the end of a tunnel. My mind stays in a mist, until I bump into the man in front of me.

“Oh, sorry.” I whisper.

We have stopped. I stretch up to my tippy-toes to see what the holdup is. But all I can see is the back of the head of the man that is in front of the man in front of me. So I lower my feet back down.

“What is going on?” I whisper to the man in front of me.

He turns his face and leans down to me, to where I can see his eyes. I recognize him, he is the man named Oscar. He was sitting next to Vichor at the first meeting, where Vichor and Maliki argued. He seemed like an alright guy. Maybe a little eccentric, but from what I gather of this man, he is one of the engineers who created our weapons; he’s an extremely intelligent guy.

He says to me in a quiet steady voice, “They are waiting for the light to move. The light is a sensor. Every minute, it moves in a circle, kind of like a clock. But its super sensitive, so make sure you do not step even close to the edge of it. Watch me.”

“Okay, thank you.” I say back. He then brings his head up and turns his back towards the light. In conclusion, I gather, I should stay close to him until we split ways.

The light finally leaves the opening of the crack, and now there is only darkness. The line starts to move out; when I reach the outside, I scare myself and fall against the high wall. For the light is only a couple of inches away from the opening. I was afraid I had almost touched it. I let out a breath, and look at Oscar motioning with his head for me to follow. I move to let the others out and we are back between the wall and another building. We make our way through there, and into another hole, in this new building.

Inside it looks to be an office. The lights are all off, so my vision is not quite clear. Then I remember I have not switched my glasses back to night vision. I do so. We all sneak through the room, with no sound to be heard. I see the shadow of Maliki next to the door. The plastic glass window on the door is illuminating some light from beyond this room. Maliki’s voice comes in my ear.

“Alright you guys, prepare your weapons. Most guards should be off their shift and asleep. Go for the sleepers first. I’m going to sneak out first, follow Vichor and Jo-Shana’s lead afterwards.”

There was no nervousness in his voice, but I can’t help but be nervous for him. If I should say anything it should be now, but my mouth doesn’t open. He then starts to crack the door open and inches his way outward. My emotions get the best of me and I say without thinking…

“Be careful Maliki!” I see him pause for a moment, and then continue. I press my lips together in regret. Keep focused Magolin; I tell myself, we all need to stay focused.

I feel someone sneak up behind me, and I turn my head quickly. It is Ora. She grabs my hand in comfort. She probably heard the nervousness in my voice. We keep hand to hand until I about reach the door. Then I let go and prepare my weapon in my slightly shaky hand. When it’s my turn to exit, I let out a breath and peak out the door, and see the caution light hanging from the ceiling. It almost blinds me. I blink my eyes and shake the dots away. I look out again and it’s clear, and I see Oscar waiting for me to follow. I join him, but he sees I won’t budge without Ora, so we wait for her to join us.

We all separate in groups moving through the resting rooms, strange nobody is here. So we make our way through the open offices. We crouch down as we move through. Oscar has us stop and stay low to the floor; we are hidden in some kind of a cubical desk area. I hear movement from the other side of the felt plastic wall, but not the movement of our people, rather clinging of boots from the guards. I hear thuds; something seems to be falling to the ground. Oscar peaks out of the cubical and shoots his weapon quickly. Thud, I guess that’s what’s falling to the ground. I swallow and follow him out, Ora behind me. I see Oscar crawling over to the man on the ground and taking his weapon and searching his pockets.

“Clear!” Vichor’s voice.

“Clear!” Maliki’s voice. Then Jo-Shana’s and others, including Oscar, say the same thing. Everyone stands up, and looks around, like in check to see how everyone is. Maliki looks my way, and then motions for everyone to gather around him.

When we all are circled around him, he says “Somethings up, most of the guard should be in here.”

Vichor speaks, “Well maybe the activation of the blue balls outside the wall caused them to evacuate.”

“Yes maybe. With the few here, how many keys did we find? I have three.” The response concluded to nine.

“Alright, change of plans. Two go to Ora and Magolin, and the others to Vichor, Jo-Shana, Oscar, Bruce, Kael, Luca, and Troy. You all go ahead out of this city meet at the safety spot. The rest of us need to find those keys.” I stare at him when he finished talking, and couldn’t help but wonder why he can’t have one of the keys and stay with me. He is the leader, I suppose.

Jo-Shana takes Maliki to the side, but I over hear, “Why are we splitting?”

“Because I have a bad feeling,” Maliki then stops and looks at me; he must know I’m ease dropping. But he goes on anyway, “Take them to safety.”

Jo-Shana nods his head, then walks up to me and grabs my arm and pulls me back to the room we came from. Ora and the others are right with us. We exit through the hole and start sliding between the wall and building again. I guess this is the safest route, hence why we are going back this way. We squeeze past four other buildings to the end where the glass wall stands. I move out of the crack and look to my right down the side of the building. I see the barrel the old lady sat on, when I was pulled into this city for the first time. We stay in the shadows low behind the barrels.

“Okay Maggie, pull out your key.” Jo-Shana says, so I do so. He goes on, “See the blue dot? Yes, right there, put your thumb on it.” I do so and the edge of the other side lights up blue.

“When it lights up place it on the glass, then you will be able to walk through.” I think of my middle finger and how it lit up just like this key.

“I and four others will go through first. The signal will be cut, so you will not be able to hear us in your ear. When you here two fast knocks, that means the coast is clear, you can come out. Understood?” I nod and he looks at the others for confirmation, and they all nod as well.

The five of them sneak out and I am left with Ora, Oscar, and Vichor. Oscar and Vichor stand cautiously at watch. I and Ora move to the corner of the glass listening for any sounds. I sense Vichor moving closer and closer to me. But I ignore it and inch closer to Ora. I instantly, from the inch of my move, I hear two quick knocks. I look at Ora, and she and Oscar come next to me. We all pull out our keys and touch the blue dot, they lit up. Ora and Oscar touch the glass and walk through. I go to touch the glass and my hand is pulled down. I jerk away from Vichor’s grip, move to the side, and lift the key up again. This time Vichor steps in front of me.

“Magolin, I understand why you will not help me, and I sincerely apologize for asking you. Please don’t feel you can’t trust me.” He says to me whole heartedly, I give him a little grin and nod. I honestly just want him to move out of the way. For some reason there’s something in his eyes I just cannot fully trust.

He moves from in front of me, and we both put our card to the glass.