[CHAPTER 6] — The Memory

Cal rushed through the corridors until he reached the Generals quarters. He pounded on the door and waited several seconds, listening for noise inside. Hearing none, he pounded on the door and repeated this process until he heard a rustling inside.

“Generals, it’s Seargent Cal Thorne. I need to speak to you, it’s a matter of great urgency.” The door flew open and the Generals were standing in their dressing robes behind it. “I’m so sorry, but I have to show you something.”

Mark motioned him inside and Cal hurriedly opened his old journal to the pages he was looking for. Once he found it, he handed the book to Mark and gave him a moment to read it. His eyes widened and he handed the book to Lana who read quickly before gasping quietly and covering her mouth with her hand.

“When we first landed, I was sixteen. Old enough to understand right from wrong, but not old enough to really do much about it. What I was able to do was keep a record of everyone I met and my perceptions of them. For what it’s worth, I have a record of the woman I think is Meg. This is a woman I met through her husband, Gage, and didn’t have much interaction with. I tended to focus on the less trustworthy types, and these two did not fit the bill.” Cal quickly explained his reasoning for waking them up, hoping that they wouldn’t be angry and would find this information as valuable as he did.

“It says here that Meg and Gage met on the Ark and married which means we probably won’t have a record of them as a couple.” Lana said quietly, a little disappointed.

“Yes, but it also says that Gage and Meg were in the Nursing field. We know that most of those in the healthcare field ended up in a limited number of counties. If we can narrow down our search to the counties that focus on that field we may have better luck; we have no idea what kind of life Everlea has lived up until now, but time is of the essence here for Katerina’s sake. So, if we can focus on the most likely options first, we might be able to expedite this search.”

“You really love her don’t you, soldier?” Mark said quietly, looking over his half-moon reading glasses at Cal.

“My feelings don’t matter.” Cal said, heaving a heavy internal sigh at how blatant his feelings had obviously been. “What matters is that Katerina will never be able to heal until she finds out what happened to her daughter.”

There was a long moment of silence as Mark and Lana looked through a few more pages of his journal. Cal stood there wishing that he had simply made copies of the pages as they came closer and closer to pages he definitely didn’t want them reading. He hadn’t, and he couldn’t very well take it from them at this point; but if they turned one more page, they would come face to face with Cal’s sixteen-year-old opinion of them both. Just as this thought formed in his mind, Lana turned that page and she and Mark began reading his passage about them both.

They both looked at each other and burst out laughing, clutching onto each other and wiping tears from their eyes. Cal was immediately thrown off-guard; he had called Mark a pompous asshole who enjoyed giving orders way too much, and Lana as a gorgeous sexual encounter he hoped to conquest one day. His face flushed, turning him red from the tips of his ears to the nape of his neck as he grinned. This was humiliating; it was one thing for them to be reading about other people but knowing that they knew his thoughts from that time were truly embarrassing.

“I sincerely apologize, everything I said was out of line and- “

“You were sixteen years old and a kid?” Mark finished Cal’s sentence for him. “It’s fine, we’re hardly going to hold it against you a dozen years later. Besides, I really did enjoy giving orders too much back then and Lana was drop dead gorgeous.”

“What do you mean, was?” Lana said, giving him a look that would have sent Cal running.

“Oh, don’t start that, Lana. You know you’ll always be the only gorgeous woman to me.” Mark said quickly.

“So you’ve said many times before… But what did you mean by WAS?!” Lana was clearly not going to let this go, and Cal felt for the General.

“My perception was that back then you turned everyone’s head, not just those with good taste.” Cal offered. Lana looked at him through narrowed eyes before looking at Mark expectantly, clearly waiting on his answer.

“Yes, exactly!” Mark replied, relief etched in his face.

“Okay, then!” Lana said with a smile and a bounce of the head. She kissed Mark on the cheek and headed towards their bedroom. When she had left their earshot, Mark turned to Cal.

“Thanks for that. I wouldn’t have come up with a satisfactory answer at this hour and she would have teased me mercilessly if I didn’t explain myself on that one.” Mark said, clapping his hand on Cal’s shoulder once.

“No problem, sir.”

“Now, as far as this intel goes; We already have this mission planned and though we suspect we will not find the girl, we will still see this one out. Someone there may know which of these counties are the best possibility. I assume Katerina doesn’t know this yet as she’s not here with you, am I correct?” Cal nodded his head to this question. “Good, I don’t want you to tell her just yet. This mission is still important and dangerous, we need her to focus on the mission.”

“But, sir-“Cal began to protest, but Mark held up his hand to stop him.

“You know how she gets, and you know what will happen if she finds out information that hasn’t been authenticated. Her focus needs to be on her safety and the mission at hand. She will know, in time, once we’ve been able to find out more and give her as much detail as we can. You know that it’s better for her this way.”

Cal simply nodded at this, and Mark showed him to the door. As Cal made his way through the hallways, he realized that there were only a few hours left until dawn; he’d better hurry up and get some sleep. He turned a corner and ran into someone coming from the other direction. The man was knocked back and fell on his rear, landing with a dull thud that echoed through the empty space. Cal immediately held out his hand to the man to help him up.

“I’m sorry, man. Are you okay?” Cal said to the guy, who knocked his hand aside and stood to his feet. He noticed the man’s uniform was an unauthorized combination of Army and Airforce uniform insignia; his uniform displayed an Army rank while his cover held an airman’s and none of the required accessories adorned this unauthorized combination of uniforms.

“Watch where you’re going, asshole.” The man said in a gruff voice, keeping his head cast toward the ground as he began to walk away. Cal grabbed the man’s arm to detain him; he clearly didn’t belong here and he wasn’t going to let him walk off.

“Who are you? What’s your purpose here?” Cal was able to get these questions out before he felt a sharp pain at his back; his body tensed and he blacked out as he fell to the floor.

“What do we do with him, James?” The man that Cal had confronted looked panicked at the person who had snuck out of the shadows to taser Cal.

“Don’t call me that! James is dead, remember? Put him in this storage closet and tie him up. Gag him so when he wakes up, he can’t alert anyone else until we’ve well cleared this place.” James had made the choice 12 years ago to have a stand-in for him that did all his public speeches and appearances. Once he had taken over and his family moved into the center of camp, he’d had his twin brother act as him protecting James himself in case the Cult failed in their mission. This worked well because his brother loved being the center of attention, and James loved making the plans and decisions. It was a good thing he did, because Kevin took the Council’s sentence meant for him.

“Sorry, Kevin.” The man, Murphy, said as he grabbed Cal up by the shoulders to drag him into the closet. “Christ, this man is a fucking mountain! He’s a tall man but he’s dense as a boulder!” Murphy was really struggling with dragging Cal’s dead weight.

“Fucking A, Murph. You’re pathetic.” James grabbed up Cal’s legs and nearly threw out his back in the process. Fuck he really is heavy, James thought to himself.

James and Murphy finally got Cal into the closet, zip tied his feet and his hands to a steam pipe within the closet, then he pulled out a length of heavy cloth and slipped it between Cal’s upper and lower jaw and tied it tightly around his head, tight enough that if Cal tried to speak, he wouldn’t be able to. James then pulled out a pair of shackles from the pack he carried and shackled Cal on top of the zip ties; feeling how heavy Cal was made James feel like the extra protection was warranted if this guy were to wake up and try to get out.

“Did you find out what we needed to know, Kevin?” Murphy asked as James triple checked Cal’s shackles and prepared to head out.

“They know who has the girl, and I know just where to find her. I know which county Meg lives in; we’re going to get to her first.” James said this as he closed the door to the closet behind him. The next phase of their plan needed to be put into motion immediately.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

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Two days later James and Murphy were sneaking into Pierce County under cover of night with a small group of men. It was hard going, but James was letting nothing get in the way of his mission. Like the Council, James had been looking for where this child had ended up; his hope was that the girl would have the same abilities as her mother had developed, if the rumors about Katerina were true. He was going to groom her to be his weapon and his sex slave so he would have her power and make children with that power. His own army of freaks to control the masses.

After several hours of hiking and climbing, the first signs of civilization came into view. There were only a few sparsely lit buildings about a mile away. If James’ calculations were correct, they had entered the county from a position that would have brought them straight to their doorstep without crossing too many other residences. From the ridge they stood on, James could see the meadow he was looking for, and started his descent in that direction. As they reached the home, they set their watches and Murphy went to the front door while James went to the back with their respective teams. James checked his clock to time the entry with Murphy, and the moment his watch hit time James and Murphy burst through their respective doors and the two groups fanned out through the house to gather the residents.

The men brought Meg, Gage, and Evee into the living room and forced them to their knees; guns pressed against the backs of their heads. Meg and Gage looked terrified but said nothing, knowing that trying to negotiate was pointless and would likely result in worse circumstances than they were currently under.

“Make sure he can’t follow us.” James said to Murphy as he pointed Gage. “Tie those two up and take them.” Gesturing to Meg and Evee and addressing the men on either side of him. “The rest of you, make sure nobody heard us and wait for us outside. Take care of anyone that gets in the way.”

Murphy grabbed Gage roughly under one arm and dragged him into his bedroom. He tied Gage to the bed and, ensuring that nobody was able to hear him, whispered to Gage.

“My real name is Joshua Thorne; I’ve been undercover for twelve years. Get the message to Councilmembers Carl and Melinda Thorne that James is still alive and that he’s captured your wife and the girl. Tell them that I’m still alive and that I’m so close to bringing James down. Tell them I’m sorry, I was never really on James’ side. I had to let everyone believe that to make the transition undercover believable. Now, I’m going to have to shoot near you to make them think that you’re dead. When I raise the gun start screaming but make sure you stop as soon as the gun goes off, okay?” Gage nodded his understanding. When Josh raised the gun, he began screaming like his life depended on it and the moment the gun went off he went silent.

“Please make sure you tell Meg and Evee that I’m okay the moment you can.” Gage said quietly as Murphy-Josh reached the door.

“I will. I won’t let them suffer any longer than is necessary. Good luck.” Murphy said as he closed the door behind him. He sighed as he walked down the hallway towards the rest of the men in the backyard. A room caught his eye, and he stepped into the doorway; this was clearly the girl’s room, it had a stuffed bird with red and orange hues on the bed and flowered bedding. He walked over to the bed and picked up the stuffed bird; he could tell it was well-loved, so he shoved it into his pack. On the bedside table were two photos, a young girl with a newborn baby on her chest, and a photo of the three people that lived here. He took both photos out of their frames and carefully packed them in his pack. The last thing he took was a journal he found under the girl’s pillow and a pen for her to write with.

“It’s done.” Murphy said as he joined the men outside. He looked towards Meg and Evee, who were looking at him with hatred; silent tears streaming down their faces as they clung to one another. He cast his eyes to the ground, saddened that he couldn’t immediately tell them that their loved one was okay.

“Let’s go.” James said, leading the group back the same way they had traveled into the county. He went quickly, they needed to be far into the wilderness by dawn.

Murphy took Meg’s arm and as he zip tied her hands behind her back, he leaned in to whisper in her ear, “Your husband is fine, I’m undercover, too much to explain now. Elbow me in the gut like I just said something disgusting in your ear, and I’m sorry for slapping you.” Meg stomped on his foot and elbowed him in the gut, and Murphy slapped her in the face before grabbing hold of her again.

“Thank you.” Meg said to him quietly. Murphy saw her look towards the terrified girl, he pulled Meg over to the girl and he grabbed the girl’s arm with his other hand.

“I got these two. Everyone else fall in around us so they can’t escape.” Murphy ordered the other men. James had heard the commotion and stopped for only a moment before turning around, disinterested, and continuing the hike.

They hiked through the rest of the night, making it out of the county before dawn with no event. They had hidden their off-road vehicles just on the other side of the county line knowing that they would need a quick way to escape with their prisoners. Murphy’s vehicle, an old Jeep Wrangler with the back modified into a cage, was the closest; he shoved the pair into the cage and closed and locked it as the other men passed by to their own vehicles. Murphy got into the driver seat and an older man got into the passenger seat.

Neither man said anything, and Murphy didn’t start the car right away. Meg tried to say something but Murphy quickly shouted at her to shut up as he watched his watch. Forty- five seconds later, Murphy turned the engine over and began to fall into line with the other vehicles.

“I’m sorry I shouted at you, Meg. We can’t take the chance that anyone finds us out. This is Henry.” Murphy gestured to the man in the passenger seat. Meg looked at the older man and gasped as she noticed the eyes staring at her adopted daughter.

“You look so much like your mother, young lady. It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’ve been hoping for this for a long time.” Henry addressed the girl gently, assessing her with his blue-green eyes. She looked terrified, but then she was also still under the impression that the father she knew was dead.

“I told your mom here that your dad is okay, and I haven’t really been able to give much more information than that. My name is really Joshua Thorne, and my parents are high ranking Councilmembers. When I was eighteen, I went undercover with The Cult of Seedbearers; allowing everyone I loved to believe that I had really betrayed them. The Cult was growing stronger and stronger, and I knew we would have to take them down from the inside. When the Council started executing high ranking members, they established a secret base in an old mine in Elbrus County. The location is remote and nobody known exactly where it is unless they have been there. It’s guarded closely and once you’re there they don’t let you leave. I’ve not been there yet and Henry has only been as far as the nearby town. The only way in is to be invited, and it’s taken me twelve years to be invited in. This is where my mission really starts.” Murphy addressed the two of them, trying to shed some light on the background.

“James is unbelievably paranoid, doesn’t trust anyone. He’s been moving members to the mines for years, establishing a whole city underground more populated than we could ever have thought. Many of them start out as prisoners, like you two, but the more they cooperate the more autonomy they can earn; nobody leaves regardless, and if they try, they are executed. The two of us are going to be responsible for guarding you. They will surround our vehicle as we drive to the mines until we are inside. Once there, you will be held hostage but we will keep you comfortable. We have to have time to learn all the passageways and find a way to get you out. I wish we didn’t have to, but it’s not safe to try to get you out one the way. We don’t have the resources to take on the men and vehicles surrounding us.” Henry interjected, trying to ease the young girl’s fear.

“Those aren’t your eyes.” Evee said to him bluntly. Meg looked more closely at the eyes that had initially caught her attention because they looked so familiar. Henry looked momentarily startled before he chuckled and, blinking his eyes a couple times revealed the same eyes as Evee. That was why his eyes looked so familiar, he wore a pair of neurolink contacts that she had once seen long ago in development. There was a Lieutenant General that she had been friendly with who was absolutely brilliant, but could not quite get the contacts to work; it had been Gage who had given her what she needed to complete them, though she had never really been sure what that was and neither was Gage. Something he’d said while hearing about them triggered something in the woman’s head that got her hyper focused on the work and they had left her to it. The next day they had gone with the first separatist group.

“You’re an observant one, chickadee.” Henry said as he smiled lovingly at Evee.

“Who are you?” Meg asked, her mind racing with possibilities.

“My name is Henry, I’m Everlea’s grandfather.” Henry replied.

“Everlea? I thought the girl was screaming Evee, she’s spent her whole life being called that. Oh, that poor child.” Meg leaned over and kissed Evee’s forehead.

“Where is my birth mother?” Evee asked calmly. “Why isn’t she with you?”

“Your mother, Katerina, thinks I’m dead. Our family has dark secrets that I had attempted to protect her and your grandmother from. At the time, the only solution seemed to be to fake my death and change my identity; that worked for a while, but losing my family put me in a dark place. It wasn’t until I heard what happened to your mother, found out about you, that I was able to pull myself back together and work towards getting our family back.” Henry explained.

“My bird’s named Katerina. She got left at home, though.” Evee said sadly.

This made Murphy start, he had let his mind wander for a few moments while Henry talked to his granddaughter. Hearing Evee talk about the stuffed bird had him reaching for his pack.

“Here, Henry, could you open this please?” Murphy asked as he dropped the bag in Henry’s lap. Henry opened the pack and Murphy reached in, grabbing out the stuffed bird. When Evee saw it, she gasped and reached for it. Murphy passed it through the bars and she hugged it close. “Sorry I forgot about that, love. I also have the pictures from your night stand and your journal for you. I can’t let you have any of these in front of the others, so when we get close, I’m going to have to put the stuff back in the bag until you’re in your cell; I just wanted you to be able to have it for now. It should take us a few days of driving to get to the base and you can keep it all until then.”

“Thank you, Mr. Thorne!” Evee said emphatically as she squeezed the stuffed bird. “Daddy Gage made this special for me. It’s a phoenix with eyes like mine. Well, I guess like ours, grandfather. Momma Meg says that Mother has the same eyes, too. We didn’t know her name, though.”

“You can call me Josh when nobody else is around, but it’s important that you call me Murphy if it’s not just the four of us. We have no other allies at the moment, so if it’s not myself or Henry they can’t be trusted.” Murphy said, making sure that the two of them understood. Meg and Evee nodded their understanding simultaneously. “I’m sure everyone is exhausted, but we have a long drive ahead of us. There are pillows and blankets back there, do what you can to get comfortable and rest up. It’s going to be a long journey.”

Meg pulled out the pillows and set them up against the front seats, then laid a blanket on the floor and leaving one to cover up with. She and Evee settled into as comfortable position as they could manage and snuggled, darkness quickly coming to carry them into a fitful sleep as the vehicle bounced and jolted.

This is so much to process. I’ve been calling her the wrong name all these years, what if she had an identity crisis? I hope I haven’t done damage to this poor girl, but what a coincidence that Everlea named her bird the same name as her birth mother. Meg’s thoughts raced as exhaustion claimed her.