Flames licked at the edges of the crumbled concrete, slowly finding its way in through a hole in the wall.
Five other children were with him, orphans, just like himself. They sat in the middle of the room, huddled together, struggling for breath as smoke descended from above.
Their cries were drowned out by the crackling of the fire, and the scorching heat burnt off their tears before it could flow down their cheeks.
“There’s five more!” A voice shouted.
White torrents of water began to shoot in through the hole in the wall, fizzing and boiling violently as it came into contact with the flames.
Bits of concrete at the edges of the hole were pushed away, and a face peeked over. It was a young man, everything aside from his eyes and lips covered in a thick layer of soot. A red fireman’s helmet which he was holding down with his hands covered his head.
The young firefighter beckoned for him to climb towards the hole, but he was too young and too terrified to move. Fear had frozen his limbs in place, and every time he tried to move them, the fierce heat from the fire forced him back even further.
The firefighter tried to push himself through the hole, but it proved to be too small, and nothing past his shoulders would make it through.
“Get the jackhammers!” The young man shouted.
There was the sound of metal rapidly impacting against concrete, and moments later, a large section of the wall crumbled away.
With some of the support gone, the already weakened ceiling caved in a little. Chunks of debris fell down together with the echoing boom of shattering concrete.
“Stop! Stop!” The man shouted, and the rapid dinging of jackhammers ceased to sound. “I’m going in to get them.”
More and more pieces fell from the ceiling as the roof caved in bit by bit. The brave young man heaved himself up over the wall, and scrambled towards them on his hands and knees. He grabbed Lenn, who was closest, and began making his way back towards the opening in the wall.
Suddenly there was another powerful crunch, and the ceiling gave away. The intense shaking made the young man stumble and fall. The man tried to get up, but the collapsing roof was already upon him. At the final moment, the young man was able to throw the child in his arms towards the opening in the wall.
He remembered seeing the flames tumble and turn as he flew, then a gentle impact as the rough gloves of someone caught him.
A huge gust of hot air and flaming debris exploded out from the hole as the ceiling caved in, causing the remaining firefighters to dive out of the way. Throughout the whole ordeal, Lenn was completely unhurt aside from some minor smoke inhalation.
“Kenny!” One of the firefighter screamed as he rushed towards the pile of concrete which used to be Lenn’s nursery room. “Kenny!”
“Get back here!” Another one of the firefighters shouted, tackling the first to the floor and dragging him backwards. “You dumb piece of shit, did you learn nothing during training! It’s a miracle that the first floor held up, but it’s not gonna be steady for long. We need to get out of here.”
“But Kenny! Kenny’s still in there!”
“He’s dead! Forget about him! If you want to join him in the afterlife, then go find him!”
Then the person holding Lenn handed him over to another team of firefighters, who took him outside into the courtyard away from the fire. From inside the man’s arms he could see the tower of black smoke rising up into the blue sky.
“He the last one?”
“Yeah… that’s still alive, at least.”
“Everyone out safely?”
“…”
“Damnit…”
“…”
The man tore off his oxygen cylinder and slammed it into the ground, causing the valve to break and begin steadily sending out a stream of white gas.
“…Who is it?”
“Kenny.”
“Tell me that he’s at least in critical condition…”
“…He’s dead. Ceiling collapsed on top of him and four other children. This one is the only we managed to save from the east wing.”
“I’ll inform his family.”
“Also tell them that it’ll be a closed casket. I doubt there’ll be much to recover after the fire, and even if there is, it’ll look more like coal than a human body.”
“Got it…”
“How many did we manage to save?”
“Five hundred and forty two including adults made it out before we arrived, and we managed to extract a further ninety one. This child you are holding being the ninety-first and final one.”
“Have we managed to contact their guardians yet?”
“Most of these children are orphans, the one you are holding is most likely one too. All that people are going to do is send a few angry text messages, hold a rally maybe, death threats even. But that’s about it. They’ll say that we’re cowards for not fighting on the frontlines, and call us inept for not dousing every fire the moment it ignites, like always.”
“…Where the hell are their parents?”
“They like to say that they went off to help with the war effort. But in truth, they basically just pretended these children aren’t their’s because they don’t have the resources to care for them. The care center has a place where parents can leave children in their care anonymously, forever. And two or three infants show up there like everyday.”
“So what do with these children then? I mean… all the other schools are already operating past their max capacity. Even if we distribute these children evenly across all schools in the area there will still be too many.”
“The military’ll take them.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The military would want to take them. Soldiers who don’t have family to be worried about and no idea of life outside of the military are the best sort of soldiers.”
*****
“Lenn… Lenn, get up, someone’s coming.” Ying whispered as she tapped on his shoulder.
Lenn snapped out of his shallow nap, getting to his feet slowly with the support of the wall. He had had a strange dream. A dream of events which had never happened, but felt too real to be just his imagination.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Or rather, it was a dream of events he wish had never happened.
“Lenn?” Ying asked with a concerned tone.
“Yeah… yeah sorry. What’s the matter?”
“Someone’s coming.”
As Lenn listened more closely, he could hear the sound of boots approaching from further down the hallway.
“Are they coming for us?”
“Most likely, yeah.”
A person dressed in the orange uniform of the janitors stopped before their cell. A wide mask covered most of his face, and an orange cap covered his hair. He looked up and down the hallway, before pulling out a key from his deeps pockets
“What are y…” Lenn asked as the man carefully inserted it into the keyhole of their lock.
Within seconds there was a click, and the lock sprang open. The man removed it from the door, and slid it open.
Instead of running out of the open door, Lenn and his teammates stood back, unsure of what to make of the situation.
“Who are you?” Lenn asked the man.
The man didn’t answer, instead he lifted a bronze colored badge from his chest pocket, which Lenn recognized. It was the same badge as what Takeshi had worn back when they first met him.
“The…Merchant’s Cabinet?”
The man nodded. “Time is tight, please follow me.” He said in a voice which Lenn found familiar.
He gestured for Lenn and his team to follow him, and began making their way down the hallway at a brisk pace.
They found their way to their hangar, the bulkhead leading to it open all the way like during normal flight operations. There wasn’t much security within the base, because it would get in the way of efficient operations. Their planes had no locks either, because without years of training, no one would be able to figure out how to start them.
To protect this expertise and information, there are no manuals or written records of how to operate these planes. All of it is stored inside of their heads. Of course, the pilots themselves could also be captured, so they are all equipped with suicide pills which they can use in case of a shoot-down. Well, evidently, few ever used it.
“That’s your replacement plane right there, take it and fly away. You are no longer welcome here, and the only thing that awaits you here is death.” The man said, pointing towards a brand new VX-200 parked in their original parking place.
“Who sent you to help us?” Lenn asked.
“No one.” The man answered
But Lenn knew that wasn’t true. He knew that person had, once again, spoken a lie. That person had, once again, failed to let go of a past he didn’t want to remember.
How very like me.
They climbed up to the cockpit of their new plane, strapped themselves in, and began to go through the startup procedures.
Since they are a fast-response squadron, their planes are always fully loaded and fueled for an intercept mission at all times. So that meant they could just start it up, and fly away whenever they wanted.
But there was one more problem; the huge blast door which sealed off the opening of the hangar.
There is a manual override located besides it, but hitting it would trigger alarms. It was designed only to be used as a last resort, in case Air Traffic Control had been taken out of action, or if the comms network had been destroyed.
The man walked up to them with four flight suits in his arms. Those flight suits are heavy, but the man was carrying them without much difficulty.
They quickly stuffed themselves into the suit and linked it up to their jet. With a flip of a switch the helmet mounted sight flickered to life, and their headsets automatically connected to the ATC frequency.
“Runner-1 please standby for launch clearance.” A voice came over their headset as the blast door began to lift open.
The solution to their final problem had presented itself.
Kang chuckled. “The reach of the Merchant’s Cabinet really is far and wide huh.”
Lenn reached for a lever to close the canopy, and tapped the side of his headset to contact ATC.
“Standby for launch clearance, Runner-1.” He read back the last transmission as per protocol.
“All engines in the green, catapult connected, we are go for cat launch.” Rei reported.
They waited for a few seconds, just sitting there in silence, feeling the familiar vibrations of their jet once again.
“Runner-1, you are cleared for launch at your own discretion.”
“Copy, Runner-1.”
The light turned green, and Lenn looked over at the man who helped them escape. He was just standing there, looking at them from next to the catapult.
They saluted the man, and the man saluted back. Then the catapult engaged, and they were launched forwards at breakneck speeds.
Watching as the bright exhaust of the fighter faded into the sunlight, the man tore off his hat and mask, ruffling his medium length black hair back into its normal shape.
He took off the baggy janitor uniform to reveal the air force uniform underneath, and retrieved a golden badge recognizing him as the rank of Captain from a pocket of the janitor uniform. With a quick and fluid motion he pinned it onto the collar fold of his uniform.
“Brother- Ah sorry, Captain Yuki, has all gone to plan?” A woman who just walked in to the hangar asked. She looks to be about the same age as Captain Yuki, and has the same jet black hair. She was dressed in white business clothes, marking her as a member of the logistics department.
“Yeah.”
“A replacement fighter is already on its way. That team of pilots never made it back alive, and the previous shipment of a VX-200 was destroyed in a training accident.”
“Yes. Very good.”
“Pardon my nosiness, but why are you going to such lengths to help those four? I mean, it wouldn’t hurt you at all to just hand them over to the higher-ups. And yet you are risking your own position to hep them get away.”
“Sister, you know I can’t refuse a request from an old friend, especially one who has saved my life on multiple occasions. And plus, I don’t want to see my men get taken to court, forced into a confession, then executed merely to send the other pilots a ‘message’ or whatever.”
“I’m damn impressed you managed to get so many people in on this. Even the traffic controllers? Seriously?”
“The reach of The Merchant’s Cabinet span far and wide.”
“You say that a lot.”
“It’s fun to say.”
“You confuse me with your thought process sometimes.”
“Even I myself get confused, so don’t be worried.”
“Has that rebelliousness you had in your youth, which, might I add, almost got you killed multiple times, still not worn off yet?”
“I guess not… I guess not…”
*****
Their rear facing radar had found several contacts coming after them, but they seemed to have turned away after they realized they weren’t going to catch them.
They were now nearing the border, and in a few more minutes, they would be in New Asian territory.
“Where do we go?” Two-six asked as they flew away from their city, their engines at full power to escape any pursuers.
The answer was pretty clear. There was only one place where they knew besides from Europa. And besides, they had one final mission to do there anyways.
*****
“Where are we flying to?” Kang asked.
They were flying low over the trees to avoid detection by radar. Luckily they found no pursuers, but still flew low just in case.
With their engines at full power, they were ripping through the air at over twice the speed of sound.
“Where can we fly to?” Rei asked back jokingly and sarcastically. "Where else?"
“I know a place.”
“Is it what I think it is?”
“Yeah…”
*****
Both traitors, both hated by their own side, both running, or rather, flying for their lives.
The two enemies sped towards each other from opposite ends of the world. A coming together that marks the final days of the war.
Without a clear aim, nor a clear motive, they both chose to go to the one place they had once found refuge in just days prior.
Valkyria.
*****
It was late afternoon when they arrived in the airspace over Valkyria. As they came in to land, they spotted the distinctive silouhette of an F-51 on the parking space besides the landing pad. It had no tail number, as is with all European aircraft.
“Do you think it’s those guys again?” Kang asked as they touched down.
Lenn shrugged.
But that question was soon answered, when as they walked away from their jet, four familiar faces stood waiting for them.
They all had brightly colored hair, and all wore the black uniform of the European air force.
“So we meet again.” One-six announced as they came closer.
“This time as friends?”
“And not enemies.”
Lenn narrowed his eyes and smiled. A small, shallow, and not so truthful smile, but a smile nonetheless.
Though none of the Europeans changed their expression, Lenn could tell they were now on even ground.
“Why are you guys here?” Lenn asked.
“I would like to ask you that question too.”
“Well…” Lenn paused. “Let me guess. You’re running away from your own city?”
One-six bent his head down and nodded. “And that applies to you four as well? No?”
“Yeah…”
They stood there eyeing each other down for a moment more. But finally the tension broke, and One-six extended his hand.
Lenn stuck out his own hand too, and snatched One-six’s hand into a firm and strong hand shake. In that one brief handshake, without them knowing, they had formed a newfound respect for one another. Although they were so different, they were also so much the same.
“I don’t think self introductions’ll be necessary?” Lenn asked jokingly. “Unless the memories of clones are faulty?”
The Europeans didn’t laugh, but Lenn knew his easy-going attitude got through. He could feel his own teammates relax a little besides him.
“No it will not be,” One-six replied. “We have other, more important things to discuss.”
“Such as?”
“The war, and how we are going to put an end to it.”