Chapter 3

This Seat Taken?

“Pardon me, but is this seat taken?” The SWAT gear wearing soldier asked, a slightly desperate tone to his voice.

Seeing him, Arla just took one glance at him, then instinctively shook her head no. Despite the fact that her eyes tracked trails of blood splatter.

“Thank you,” the man stated as he quickly jumped into the seat and began strapping himself into place.

Puff.

As he sunk in and caused a cloud of sweat to rise up through his once soaked uniform, Arla could tell that this man had recently been on a mission. Arla noted a few other characteristics about the person next to her. First, he wore a wedding band on mission, which meant he was either new to this line of work, or had been called in as an extra.

There was also the fact that despite having his torso size nearly doubled due to the vest and protective gear, he still fit inside his own seat easily, without expanding out as most older males did, further reinforcing the idea of him being a greenhorn.

Still, it was best for Arla to avoid the man at all costs, in this case being a single female paid of handedly for this set of circumstances.

Turning her head right, away from the young soldier, Arla began using the glass to pretend like she was looking outside. All the while she was using the reflective surface of the glass to show her what everyone else was doing.

Marcon’s Fifth Rule: If there was one guard that was obvious there were likely twice as many that were not obvious.

The one that made a bee line towards her could have been an obvious attempt to get her, but that didn’t meant that there weren’t others nearby. Taking her time Arla scanned the people immediately in front of her. One or two met the build type, but one was old and clearly in the age of retirement, not one that would be called in to track down an unlicensed awakening team.

The other person, they were of the same height and build as the young soldier next to Arla, but they had managed to change out of tactical gear. If they ever wore tactical gear in the first place, as the other one that fit the mental role of an operative was a female.

Arla knew that these outer sectors were sometimes archaically chivalrous when it came to allowing females into combat. This was a factor that Arla herself exploited constantly thanks to constant training from Marcon.

Thanks to Marcon and her symbiotic relationship with those she Awakens, her experience gains were astronomical. Allowing her to maximize skill growth.

In order to enhance a skill, an Awakened individual needed three components.

First: The individual needed a base Attribute rating that was high enough to meet the skill threshold level.

For most introductory skills just having the base 10 to 15 was enough to get the first step in all skills.

Second: An individual also needed to either learn through repetition, or could have their understanding increased by being watched or taught by an Awakened expert.

This was where Marcon was invaluable to Arla, for despite his constant grief about never being able to give Arla an easy life. He sure made up for it with skills, either he knew each skill himself, or he would call in every favor he ever had to have someone train Arla on his behalf.

For that alone she was eternally grateful to him.

It was also thanks to these trainings that Alra knew that Marcon was not easy to kill.

This of course led Arla to the third thing needed to become proficient in skills.

Third: An Awakened user also needed the required amount of experience to raise and learn each new skill level. Depending on the skill’s noted rarity or complexity, Skills cost anywhere from 100 experience points for simple tasks like Running, Swimming, Deep Breathing. This could be purchased a total of ten times maxing the base skill out at level 10 for a total of 1,000 experience.

From there, one could specialize again going with an advanced version of the basic skill. Focusing on Endurance Running, Deep Water Swimming, or Meditation for 1,000 experience to evolve the skill. Then an extra thousand per level, for a total of ten thousand experience to max out an Intermediate level skill.

From there Advanced skills could be learned at a base of ten thousand experience, and master at one hundred thousand.

Once one got to the point of expertise in one form of a skill, they could start over. Where they would have to have a new mirrored base that would cost half as much as the original and be able to grow out to be as large as the primary skill line.

In these cases the first progression of any skill from start to finish was called a trunk, then each half priced off shoot would be called a branch.

For many skills having one perfect trunk was more than acceptable.

The only skill progression that Marcon was adamant that Arla learn to make into a full-fledged tree was the unarmed combat discipline.

This was why Arla felt somewhat relaxed, even by the man being next to her and essentially pinning her in place. Arla knew from experience that the person next to her had gym muscles, which meant they looked pretty, but did not allow for functional movements. Especially considering he was wearing a full tactical suit, while strapped into a seat, further reducing his mobility.

No, he wouldn’t be a problem, but the girl operative, she looked like she would be trouble.

Glance.

Just as Arla had been peering into the window taking in the full measure of the woman, the woman seemed to have felt her reflected gaze and stared back at her reflection.

In that moment, there was a silent challenge given. One noted by two people who were using the same exact methods to try to remain undetected, only to be found out by that very method.

Right now, Arla had only a few options available to her. First, she could look away, all but admitting guilt of some kind, for only a person with a guilty conscience would look down and away after such a glance. This might defuse the situation but would likely draw attention to her. Second, she could stare intimidatingly at the girl, until she backed away. If the female did, then she likely wouldn’t be an operative, but would stand out in the mind of the woman for all the wrong reasons. Or she could go with option three.

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Biting her lower lip.

Alra gave a slight blush to her cheeks as she forced her acting skill to take over and guide her body through the emotional range she wanted.

Instantly, her reaction had the desired result, for the girl that had noticed her. The muscular female operative had also blushed, but Arla could tell her reaction was a natural response to flattery from someone they found attractive. While Arla’s was clearly feigned, albeit feigned at a high level that was taught to her by experts in the field of manipulation and expression.

With this, Arla glanced with her eyes and then broke eye contact first, looking down at her lap, but forcing the same intense emotion of energy to fill her cheeks.

Arla counted to five and then nervously glanced over out of the side of her eyes at the operative, this time looking at the woman directly. Their eyes locked and this time the amount of blush in the female operative’s cheeks grew in intensity. Seeing that it was working, Arla nervously curled her recently dyed black hair past her left ear, the ear facing the stranger. Then blushing she looked down again, and when she looked back up, she saw that the woman had broken her own eye contact, while smiling to herself. Then with that, she began actively scanning the rest of the car.

From the way her eyes were searching, it was clear she was likely looking for someone. Given that she had apparently decided to skip over Arla, she mentally relaxed as the hardest part had been taken care of, at least as far as she was concerned.

Of course, now that she had obfuscated herself from the suspicion of the female operative, Arla had to keep in mind another of Marcon’s rules.

Rule 21: Always keep the con going.

This meant that since she had expressed interest in the female operative, she needed to keep up the façade, lest she draw even more attention to herself.

The only problem was, how could she do this, but before she could get too lost in her own thoughts on this, the soldier in full swat gear next to her took on the role for her.

“So where are you heading to?” The man asked, being this close Arla could smell his breath, laced with coffee, accelerants, and ethanols. The first two were for obvious reasons as he likely wanted to be hyper focused during the operation, while the use of ethanols meant he was an Awakened power user, and expected a prolonged battle.

Hearing this, Arla smiled and stated the truth. Something that would normally give her pause, but from here on out she was free of the previous life. Right now, she was her own independent person and ready to become a fully accepted citizen of the Federation.

It was odd, taking a deep breath, Arla realized that for the first time she could almost disregard rule number six, as it would not be necessary.

Rule 6: Make the Con believable.

Exhaling slightly at the odd way that she didn’t feel the need to have any pressure on her, she told the truth. Though she kept the full details vague, mostly out of habit. But partially because she knew she was not fully out of the woods yet.

Still, lying now and being caught lying to an officer of the outer systems would not bode well for her chance at citizenship.

“I got accepted to Uni, and am heading there now.” Arla admitted, letting a bit of an accent come to her words, while also making sure to use the local colloquialisms.

“Congratulations,” the swat member stated and actually seemed to mean it, then with a downcast look he responded. “I eventually plan to go to Uni as well, but to one of the Military academies, if they will accept me.”

Hearing that, Arla couldn’t tell if the man was fishing for information on her, or if this was his actual course in life. Still, Arla planned to keep her full details to herself, as she didn’t know who else could be hearing her.

“Oh, congratulations. So, you are wearing this for?” Arla pushed.

“Global Guild Guard, in fact I just got a mission completed, which is why I am still in full regalia,” the man, more of a late teenager, to twenty-year-old at most exclaimed excitedly.

“Oh?” Was all Arla had to say, her tone inquisitive as she let the soldier give away as much information as he wanted to, without Arla fishing for anything.

“Yeah, it was so much fun. We went out, protected the streets from an underground arms dealer, and made the sector a better place. All in a day’s work though,” The man said, excitedly talking to Arla, as if trying to impress an ignorant college girl caught between connecting hops and flight liners.

“Very cool,” Arla pretended, her voice conveying the fake emotions she needed to survive in this role she now found herself.

“Yeah, I can’t really go into too many details, but if you watch the local sector news, you might hear about us.” He stated smiling what he likely thought was an energetic smile, though the accelerants clearly didn’t have time to run their course through his system causing his eye and cheek to twitch out of synchronization. Though you could never tell that based on the way he excitedly pointed to himself with his left hand and just smiled.

It was clear that he was likely trying to use this to curry some kind of favor with Arla, but Arla took that exact moment to visibly glance to the wedding ring that was still on the boy’s finger and then respond.

“Your partner must be extremely proud of you and all the good you are doing.”

Hearing the words the boy paused for a moment, and then seemed to follow the trail of Arla’s gaze to his left hand, where he looked down to see the traitorous golden ring still sitting there for all to see.

“Oh, uh, right, she is. And she is very amazing,” The Swat soldier said embarrassedly.

“She likely has to be, not easy being in the service, or helping those in the service,” Arla noted as she broke eye contact from the clearly nervous boy, and paused her gaze as she stopped just before the female operative. For a moment their eyes both met, as it was clear she had been watching the exchange between herself and the swat soldier.

No doubt she thought the boy was too loose with his words as well, but then she focused on Arla and smiled slightly. This time it was the operative who tucked her own stands of hair over her left ear as she blushed and stared at Arla.

Seeing this, Arla smiled coyly and proceeded to look back out the window.

From the sight of things, they were nearing the landing zone.

Hmm.

Pausing for a second, Arla had to admit that while the ship looked like it was on its last legs, it still made the jump up here relatively smoothly.

Then her mind focused back on the situation at hand, all she had to do now was sit back and wait, as all minor issues had been monetarily resolved. The married soldier now seemed far less keen on hitting on Arla, while the female operative seemed to be content to wait for this to play out.

Given the extent of everything, Arla felt secure in her position, both in terms of being able to effectively lie her way out of here, but also if it came to it, she felt she could quickly disable the guild swat member next to her, and gain a few weapons he currently had available to him.

Of course, her best course of action was to wait and pretend like everything was fine and explain any nerves she had due to the fact that she was going to Uni. That and the impressively attractive operative kept making random eye contact with her.

“Now landing, repeat, now landing. We have arrived precisely on time, and will not be able to be held liable for any missed flights or connections from here. Repeat we are landing precisely on time and will not be held liable for any missed connection flights from here.” An announcer blared to life.

Looking around she saw that everyone else was staring off at the time.

Even the operative before him flashed a glowing blue 3D image of the local time. Seeing the clock and comparing it to others around, she found that his time was roughly to standards if slow by a minute for some reason. Still this was good as it meant that Arla did not have to turn on her omni pad and personal tracker yet.

If she had it her way, she wouldn’t have to turn on her omni pad until she reached the Myaldra cluster, where she first went dark as per Marcon’s orders.

This way there would be a gap of 48 hours, but she would disappear and reappear at the exact same location, allowing her to avoid any sector alerts that turning on her communicator might normally generate.

Yes, everything was going as per the plan.

Unfortunately, Arla couldn’t shake the fact that despite being here, she was close to having her first set of problems arise.

However, this was not something she could control. She cannot control the nerves that surround a mission and extraction, she could only control the way she reacted to her nerves surrounding a mission.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Arla focused her mind on performing deep meditations, these were the advanced form of the skill, the ones that could be practiced with the eyes open and the body moving.

To have wasted so much experience on this at such a young age was sadly needed. As her other aspects, those that come from the Cerusian part of her biology, they were hyper sensitive to outside stimuli.

Like fish feeling the ripples of a predator coming in the waves, they were able to feel out danger in advance and prepare.

That was why it was almost impossible to meet up with a pack of Cerusian.

Even after unifying forces to combat external threats like the Harbingers, tensions between Cerusians and the Federation remain strained so much that both factions tried to avoid each other.

In fact, other than the time when Arla got her study materials and partook in her trials she never saw another Cerusian. Even then the woman she saw was beautiful, like flowing water given solid form.

It was clear from the way even Marcon had a hard time breathing in her presence that she was truly captivating, and that she had Marcon’s full attention right from the start.

Odd that he would be remembering this moment here.

While Marcon would never admit it, Arla liked to believe that the woman who gave him the Tribal training materials was her mother. Though it was almost impossible to tell as Marcon himself would never admit to such a thing.

That was likely the test she had failed.

There was an intense pressure that she felt at the time, one that felt like it would completely overwhelm her and drown her if she but stayed still.

Yet, Arla knew that this test was important, that she could not show fear. That was why even then she relied upon her acting and meditation skills to stay perfectly still, despite the clear danger that surrounded her.

While she had other tests that followed, that test she couldn’t help but feel she failed. Particularly as several of her judges for the tests looked at her with clear disappointment in their eyes.

Finally, it was time to leave, at which point the door opened and everyone began surging out.

With this Arla could feel that same level of intensity, that same level of warning telling her that something was wrong.

To her delight, the female operative gave one last smiling nod, before leaving. Arla could have gone to be with her, but unfortunately, she was held back by the overly large swat member who was just standing there waiting for others to go.

Then finally he looked back at Arla, smiled, and then proceeded out the door.

Arla was quickly on his heels, trying to see who the swat member would link up with, trying to see if there was a group of guards.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long to see where both the female operative and the Swat member were going, for just down the way was a second shuttle from another stop that had seemingly arrived on its own.

There was close to a platoon of highly geared soldiers, all wearing weapons and assault gear.

And there at the center was a person who was chained up that made Arla’s heart skip a beat, as she would recognize that person anywhere.

Marcon.