Chapter 134: Quinn Larisch (Part 6)

I knew. I knew I had to do everything I possibly could to save my father. And yet, there wasn’t much else I could do than I already was. I still had to attend matters and meetings as a lieutenant while continuing the interrogation procedures on prisoners of war. All my time was forfeited, and doing anything extra would draw unwanted eyes. The last thing I needed was to raise suspicion.

Racafi’s forces soon eclipsed our defenses, and we were grasping at straws to gain what little leverage we could before reaching out and engaging in peace talks. Personally… I didn’t care about the threat of war; I never have, but if we were to lose, that would mean I’d been sacrificing years' worth of memories for nothing. If we surrendered to Racafi with little to nothing to offer them, I couldn’t foresee an outcome where my parents could be spared from their impending deadline on life.

I wasn’t fond of my chances, and if doing things straightforwardly wouldn’t generate results… I’d have to switch up my strategy. A few months before the supposed peace talks, I began acting independently. These measures I took were irregular, and the risk was high, but time was running out.

Deep underground of our military headquarters is a room devoted to storing iris shards collected over the years. Since Ryker gave me one to absorb all those years ago, I had suspicions. Still, I wasn’t sure that such a room existed until it came up during one of our meetings. A fellow general proposed that if we offered our shards to Racafi, our most valuable resource, then we might be able to save our land from being destroyed. A discussion broke out, but after I learned the location of this secret room, I tuned everything else from that meeting out.

I gave it a few days before attempting to visit this room myself. It was part of headquarters, but only a few knew of this room’s more confidential location and how to get there. Upon arrival, I instantly understood the lengths the generals were willing to go to protect these shards. A singular door was going in and out of the room, guarded by two armed soldiers standing on either side of the door frame. Off to the side was a desk with another soldier sitting behind it. And although I couldn’t see inside the room, I could only assume there were at least a few more soldiers stationed inside.

Each of these soldiers was part of our military. However, considering they were stationed deep within a top-secret part of our headquarters rather than on the front lines, I assumed they must be highly qualified or government agents like myself. Either way, I understood the generals were willing to do whatever it took to protect our most valuable resource: the shards. Meaning they had definitely juiced each of these soldiers up with iris, and if I’m not careful, I could find myself in trouble very quickly.

As I approached the desk, I requested an iris shard to be retrieved from the room, but my request was immediately denied by the soldier because I was not a general. I had prepared for this, though. Attempting to explain that I was merely following General Ryker’s direct orders, lying about how he sent me down to obtain a shard, the soldier didn’t budge as he informed me that unless I’m wearing the badge of a general, he can not retrieve a shard for me.

Glancing over at the two soldiers stationed at the door, I noticed there was a small blind spot the desk offered that blocked off the soldier's field of view of the front surface of the desk. Adrenaline began to rush through me. I knew then that if I didn’t override this soldier’s memory, Ryker and the other generals would learn I came down here on my own terms.

Doubling down on my lie, I tell the soldier that Ryker informed me that if you don’t take me at my word as a lieutenant and his right-hand man, then I should give you this. Taking out a folded piece of paper from my pocket that only contained the details of a lie detector test I had conducted earlier, I placed it on the table with my fingers holding down on it. Beginning to slowly slide it in the soldier's direction, the soldier reached out to grab the paper.

All I had to do was wait for the soldier to return the paper. As he slid the paper out from underneath my hand and opened it, he began to read through its contents before quickly realizing what he was looking at. Noticing his perplexed expression, I acted dumb and asked what was wrong.

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It was a huge gamble that was entirely out of my control. If the soldier had spoken up as soon as he opened the paper, informing the other soldiers of what he saw, I was done for.

Many different scenarios could’ve played out, too, that wouldn’t have benefitted me. But luckily, the soldier did precisely as I had hoped he would, quietly handing the paper back to me in the concealed blind spot. Closely watching his face as I reached out to take the folded paper back, the soldier was already starting to open his mouth and presumably relay that I must’ve handed him the wrong document, but it was already done.

Making contact with his hand as he handed the paper back to me, I overrode his memory. I first made the soldier believe that the paper he had just looked at was a special request from Ryker that would allow me to obtain a shard due to the circumstances of the war. Secondly, I required the soldier to retrieve the shard that would be most difficult to obtain, which would give me some time. With those ideas instilled into his mind, the soldier’s guard fell, and he went to fetch a shard from the secretive room.

As soon as he entered the room and closed the door behind him, I approached the two soldiers standing on either side of the door and asked for their names. After each formally introduced themselves, I gave them a nod and extended my hand. As I shook the hand of the soldier to my right, I thanked both of them for their service. And as I shook the hand of the soldier on my left, I asked them to join me for my lunch break in about ten minutes. Stepping back, the two soldiers saluted, voicing that they would be happy to after they swap out with the next shift in around twenty minutes.

I grin and give them a salute myself before returning to the desk. After around twenty more seconds, the desk soldier re-emerged from the room with a box. As he handed the box over to me, I made contact with his finger, simultaneously asking him if he would like to join me for lunch in around ten minutes. The soldier gratefully accepted, briefing me that he’ll have another person cover at the desk until he returns.

Leaving down the hall, I ignore the elevator, opting to take the more unconventional route, the stairwell. After climbing three flights, I arrive at the floor where garbage disposal occurs. There are cameras everywhere, and I know it’s only a matter of time before somebody notes what I’m doing and alerts Ryker. The air reeked as I entered the garbage disposal room and opened the box.

With no time to lose, I unzip my pants, letting them drop to the ground as I grab the shard inside the box. Using one of its’ pointy edges to make a wound on my thigh, I absorb the shard as it makes contact with my bloodstream. I became winded but was hardly as affected as when I absorbed my first shard.

The second ability I inherited was a game changer, and after reading its description, I knew it would significantly enhance my strength and skills in combat. But I didn’t have time to test it. Taking out a bandage from my pocket, I tightly wrapped up the wound on my leg so the bleeding wouldn’t soak through to my pants. After putting my pants back on, I got back on the stairwell with a limp. I climbed another two flights to the security unit, where camera footage was taken and stored.

As I planned, most workers were on their lunch break, so I only had to override the memories of four people to delete the footage from our entire system and forget what they saw. And once again, this was a gamble; if they had notified Ryker or anybody else before I arrived, I was toast. The fact that I was a trusted lieutenant really made my life easier throughout this entire operation.

After dealing with that, I headed straight to my room and prepared for the three soldiers to join me for lunch. There was no question about whether they would come… I had forced them to. And once they arrived, we ate our lunch and had a normal conversation. But as they left, I made sure that the memory of me ever going to the shard room was erased from their minds.

I also replaced my attendance with the name of a general who often went down to do routine checks on the shards. When I had brainwashed the soldier to retrieve the shard that would take the longest to obtain, it wasn’t only to give me time but also to significantly lower the odds of this general ever realizing that one of the shards had gone missing. As for how much I used override, I paid the price and lost another handful of childhood memories later that day.

Even though I carried two abilities from that day onwards, I was still gravely restricted as the months began to go by. Secretly training my powers, I knew I could fight if I needed to try and escape the island with my parents, but that was a last-ditch option. I was still hoping things could be resolved without violence back then, and I wasn’t even close to being done with exploring the possibilities of how I could achieve such a result. And then, one day, about a week before the peace talks and two months before my father turned forty, I decided to gamble everything.