Sunlight bled through a crack in the tent's door. With it, a breeze of ice that clawed and tore at her skin. Adeladia awoke at last. Pain and aching radiated through her entire being. Each breath was laboured and shallow as to not disturb the deep rest of her fragile bones.
Her eyes peeled open and she tried to look out through the thin layer of crust that had settled over them. She didn't even consider wiping it away as she knew the pain such a movement would cause. She heard the monitor lowly buzzing beside her. The breeze whistled past the pristine tent door. She heard something else. A scratching? Quick and smooth. It was a pen against paper. Somebody was in the room with her.
"Wh-" She tried to begin. The pain overtook her quickly, though, and silence fell again. The pen stopped and footsteps began. Light and elegant. Whoever it was seemed to glide over to her. "Are you awake?" The voice whispered. Ade peeled her eyes back open but still couldn't see through the crust. "Hang on, darling." The voice said as a warm towel wiped over Ade's eyes. Her vision was quickly returned and before her stood an angel. Blond hair tied back into a tight braid. falling red strands seemed to highlight her face. Emerald green eyes and a smile like fields of sunlight. It was Iris. The soldier who had helped save her. "That's better. How do you feel?" She asked. Her voice was warm, safe. Within it Ade could almost forget her agony; almost. "It- hurts." She managed to slip through her barely parted lips.
"I know, darling, it will. Hopefully this helps somewhat." She said as she inserted a syringe into her IV drip. It hit her immediately. A warmth of euphoria filled her veins. It blocked out the worst of the pains but did little for the general aches and pinches. "Do you remember me?" Iris asked.
"Yes, ma'am." Ade answered. Her voice had gained strength but she still couldn't move more than to face Iris. "Clearly not well enough to stop calling me ma'am." Iris teased. Ade felt a hand on her cheek but she couldn't look low enough to see it. Iris looked to a clipboard before continuing the conversation. "Okay, I need to do some small tests. It's just to make sure everything is working right." Iris took out a small torch and flashed it into Ade's eyes. She asked her to follow her finger and she took her temperature. "Can you tell me your name and age?" She finished as she sat on the foot of Ade's bed.
"Ade- Adeladia Tempish... I'm sixteen." Ade answered.
"I still can't believe you're only sixteen... Listen. They are going to ask some things of you. They are going to need your help. It is up to you if you want to or not, but don't let them take advantage of you. I will be as near as you want and always here to help you." She sounded close to tears. Why? What could 'they' want of her? Why would she need a stranger to support her? Surely if she needed support she would just ask her... Dad?
"Otets!" Ade realised. She took a breath but could already see Iris' face drop. "Where is he?" She begged. Iris held her down as Ade tried to climb out of bed through all the pain.
"Ade, lie back." Iris ordered. Her tone was warm but final.
"Where is he, Iris?" She demanded.
The perfect visage cracked. Her confident eyes dropped to her feet. There was shame in the sunshine and she could not hide it.
"I did everything I could, Ade." Iris started. Ade didn't hear the rest. Pouring rains seemed to rage in her ears. Her city, her home, her friends, her family... her father. She had lost it all in the space of a few hours. Iris could say what she wanted. She could apologise and beg forgiveness. She could explain she was simply too late to save him. It wouldn't matter. It wasn't her fault. Somebody had dropped those bombs. Somebody had thrown that grenade. Somebody had destroyed her whole world and she hated them. She wanted them to know this pain. This burning. In that moment, Ade could have watched the world burn, and it would have made her smile.
She didn't even cry. She thought she would but she didn't. She didn't know how to feel. How she felt. She only knew that she was going to make them pay.
"Ade." Her rage broke and focus returned. Iris had her hand on Ade's knee. "Look at me, Ade." She did. Wrath and hatred met warmth and empathy. "It's okay to be hurt, Ade. It's okay to cry."
"Don't waste tears on the dead." Ade recalled her father saying. He said it often. She never understood. She would cry when her mother passed but he never did. She understood now. If she cried, she would release the anger and focus. Decisions which were now clear would become clouded. She steeled her heart and tightened her grip. She would kill them all.
"That's fucking stupid." Iris retorted. "Reese will like you."
"That's not an achievement to strive for." A woman mocked as she peeled back the tent door. The blast of cold air knocked Ade from her wrath filled contemplation and she regressed deep beneath her blanket. "How is our new scientist doing?" The woman asked.
Ade looked at her. She was the sniper who had held her hair back as she threw up. She was notably shorter than Iris, and younger too. She had pure white hair that she kept short and tied behind her in a messy tail. She didn't wear makeup like Iris did, instead she wore black face paint. A stripe of black across her eyes and deep red across her forehead. The most notable part of her face, however, was her mask. It covered her entire lower face and her nose. It even covered her entire neck all around. It came up just below her cheekbones. It used to be pure white but the events of the day had stained it grey. Ade had heard of people like her. People who never show their faces. The Macks. Nomads and travellers who raid and kill everywhere they go. Her beautiful blue eyes could not hide what Ade knew to be a dangerous woman.
"You're a Mack?" Ade said, almost unintentionally. The words, almost an accusation, had leaped from her tongue before she even saw them running.
"Yup. Don't go shouting it though, hey. Wouldn't want Iris to catch on." She said with a wink.
"What?" Ade asked. The woman's tone was joking but how could a Mack make a joke? She had always been told that Macks were vicious and murderous.
"Ade, meet Sgt. Lara Black." Iris introduced the two while digging around in a draw. She seemingly found what she was looking for with an audible "Aha!"
"How are you feeling, sweetie?" Lara asked. She moved to sit by Ade's bedside but stopped when she noticed Ade shift away. "Look. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not evil, I just grew up different from you." She spoke as though she had been forced to have this conversation one too many times. She spoke as though she wanted to be kind but her patience had worn thin.
"I- I'm sorry." Ade said. "I've just heard things."
"Oh, I'm sure. Don't worry, the whole virgin sacrifice and bathing in the blood of children was retired like... two, three weeks ago? So, you're in at the right time." Lara joked again.
"Lara." Iris interjected in a cold tone. "The girl has just lost her father. Do the jokes and introductions later." She ordered in an almost motherly tone. Lara's eyes fell. Shame and empathy filled her face. Ade realised how much emotion Lara could portray with just her eyes. She had always assumed a Mack would be completely unreadable but this woman, this girl before her felt genuinely remorseful. "I'm sorry, Ade. I lost my father when I was young." Lara said. She pulled her eyes high to look deep into Ade's own. Up close, Ade noticed something strange in her eyes. They didn't look quite right. Like something was in them. Lara seemingly noticed her looking and a great big grin consumed her beneath the mask.
Lara blinked. Her greying blue eyes closed and glowing crimson opened. "Cool right?"
Ade shifted back. This woman was claiming normalcy and yet her eyes glew bloody. "How?" Was all Ade could slip out.
"It's part of my kit." Lara explained. She blinked again and her eyes returned to blue. "Electronic contact lenses. They let me see further away and show me the wind speed. Makes shooting from a distance easier."
"That's... Incredible. I've never heard of anything like that?" Ade responded.
"If you think that's cool, wait till she gets shot." Iris called out as she filled a syringe. Ade turned back to Lara with a confused face.
"That one will have to wait." Lara said with a wink. A serious look overcame the white haired woman's face and she seemed to grow smaller. "Has Iris told you about what comes next?" She asked quietly.
"Not yet, Sparks. I was going to wait till' she was better." Iris answered on Ade's behalf.
"Please, tell me what I can do. I want to help! I want to fight!" Ade enthused.
"You're a child, Ade. You can't fight." Lara quickly shut down. Her tone was serious but not unsympathetic. She still remembered what it was like to be too young to help.
"So what? I have to wait for two years? Sit around and do nothing?"
"No. Ade, your father was working on something for us. We believe he finished his project and that is why he signalled us to come and extract him. Only, the message was intercepted. We don't know how. We believe there is some new operative that was assigned to observe him. By the time we arrived, the ministry had already invaded the stack. A battle commenced and we were sent to find him. You know the rest." Lara said. She leant in closer to Ade before taking a breath. "We need you to pick up where he left off. To finish what he started."
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"Ade, what do you remember about Apotheosis?" Iris asked.
Ade contemplated for a moment. She hadn't answered when Iris asked her earlier but things were different now. She was alone. She needed their help to survive. What did she know? She racked her memory. "My father believed that will power was a physical component within the human body. Like a muscle but on a genetic scale. He believed that the 'will gene' could alter parts of the person. Like if a person believed they were sick, the gene would make them physically sick. He was interested in the implication of thought physically changing a body. He asked for my help a couple of times over the years but only with minor issues, code sequences and strange reactions. I have no idea what his end goal was or how far into his research he got."
"Brilliant, sweetie!" Lara responded. "Do you know if it's possible? If he was right?" She asked.
"No. He never showed me any proof of some kind of physical component to 'will power'."
The three women sat there in quiet contemplation. Their faces filled with curiosity and possibility. "We have his files, or, at least some of them; only, the files are encrypted and we don't know the password." Iris pointed out. Ade knew. Her father might have been a genius but he was still an old man. His password was always the same. 'Adeladia59'. She decided to play this close to the chest, to ensure that she remained useful to these soldiers.
"We can try to figure it out when we get back to Elysium. For now, you should rest." Iris said, sitting at the foot of Ade's bed.
"I've rested enough. I want to see my father."
"Sweetie, he's gone. He can wait. You can't even stand on your own right now." Lara warmly said. Ade hated the words but knew them to be the truth. She knew that if she were to leave her bed then she would quickly collapse to a puddle on the floor. She didn't respond but lay back in a huff.
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A restless hour passed and Ade lay in her rage. She boiled and seethed and plotted demise. She imagined the roof of the tent to be the stars she watched her father die under. She imagined running to the grenade and throwing it back to the bastard who threw it. She imagined being the soldier that had stormed the building on his own. She imagined being calm and deadly. Taking life as easily as breathing. She pictured the ministry scum bleeding at her feet. She felt powerful, feared. She wanted to hurt them. All of them. She would. She will.
"Ms. Tempish." A man called into the tent. He did not enter but waited for her response.
"Yes?" Ade responded.
"Ms. Tempish, I'm Lieutenant Reese. I understand Iris has briefed you on our plan?" The man said as he entered the tent. This was the man who had saved her from the grenade earlier. The soldier who had killed an entire building of trained soldiers. He had shaved back his stubble but not very well and he had washed the paint from his face.
"Yes, sir. They told me I was to come with you to Elysium?" Ade said. She realised she had no idea what, or where, Elysium was.
"That's true, yeah. But I meant for today?" Reese asked.
"No, sir. I've not been told anything." Ade answered. He dipped his head and gathered his breath to tell her something he clearly didn't want to say. "I'm sorry... We- We have to bury your father."
Words failed her. Breath fled from her. In all her rage and anger; in all her plots to destroy and avenge, Ade hadn't even considered a funeral. A goodbye. She would not cry. A promise to herself. Her father would be buried and she would move on. No time for pity nor grief. She had been given a mission, Apotheosis. She would focus on that. Only that, only the mission. Nothing else mattered, not even her father.
Reese helped her out of bed. She tried to stand but quickly toppled and had to be caught. It was humiliating needing his help. She hated that he had to carry her in his arms, over to a wheelchair. Her legs would heal but it would take time, too much time.
He wheeled her behind a curtain where she dressed herself in the clothes placed before her. An oversized black hoodie caught on her bandages and the grey sweatpants had to be rolled up just beneath her knee else they drag along behind her. She crawled back into her chair and let Reese know she was ready.
The tent flap opened and the wind barrelled in. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She had no idea how long she had been in that tent for but a fresh snow had fallen in the time since she entered.
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"Sorry, sir!" A soldier called as he ran past, nearly bumping into Ade.
She looked around. There were soldiers everywhere. She was surprised she hadn't heard them from within the tent. There must have been a hundred tents like the one she had come from. Did they all have wounded within?
"Mr. Reese- or lieutenant?" Ade sputtered.
"Just Reese is fine." He said while wheeling her forth.
"How many survivors were there?" She asked. He didn't answer. He kept walking onward with a grim look.
"Few." He finally admitted. "And fewer each day that passes."
"Why did they bomb the city?" She asked.
"It wasn't just them, Ade. We did too." He said with little shame. "The Alliance launched an assault to take the city, the ministry decided it was better to level one city if it meant destroying a significant Alliance force. They wanted us dead more than they wanted you alive. Our artillery targeted their garrison and main troop locations but still... The destruction of the city was a joint effort." He explained.
"Why would you admit that? If you are just as bad as them, why would I join you?" Ade asked. She was hurt. These people who had supposedly saved her, who her father had told her to trust, freely admitted to be just as cruel and evil as those she intended to kill.
"Because the ministry troops are people. No more or less evil than anybody else. The sooner you stop thinking of us as the good guys and of them as the bad guys, the sooner you can help us." He explained.
"But then why do you fight? Why kill them if you know you are no better?" She asked.
"Because they stand in the way." He said. Ade felt a sliver of ice creep down her spine. She heard murder in his voice. She saw death in his gait and vengeance in his eyes.
Silence fell between the two. This was not a day for politics or moral lectures. This was a day for silence.
A small group had gathered. They stood over a small cardboard box near a freshly dug hole. The soldiers from earlier stood together. Lara, the white haired Mack; Iris, the beautiful doctor and a few others. A man, no - more a titan. Well over two metres tall and built from pure muscle. Where dark hair once flowed, now a long grey mane struggled. His skin was wrinkled and sunscorched, every inch adorned with a regalia of scars. He stood in stark silence with his head bowed and his eyes shut. A grim counterpart to the other gentleman beside him.
He was well built but not nearly as massive. His buzzed hair and clean shaved beard gave him the look of a younger man but shallow eyes wore the weight of one too used to the depths. He didn't match the grim ambiance created by his colleagues. He laughed and smiled and joked. He teased the tall man and annoyed the white haired woman with good humoured slights.
She hit him firmly in the belly when Ade approached. Enough to keel him over and shut him up but not enough to stop his smile.
"Adeladia..." The titanic man bowed deeper. "Are you well?" He asked. His accent was thick, Germanic. He spoke formally but softly.
"Yes, sir. Thank you." She answered. The fact that she was sat in a wheelchair and covered in bandages was not lost on either of them but Ade felt answering with 'I am in absolute agony, every inch of my skin burns, my father is in a cardboard box and I can't even stand!' may have been slightly too heavy for an introduction.
"You are brave, frau. My name is Bernie, or Bernard Garrison. I wish we had met under happier circumstances." He said. Ade couldn't find appropriate words, she half smiled; half nodded and hoped she didn't look awkward.
"Sir, any news?" Reese asked him.
Garrison shook his head. "Not here, Reese." Reese dropped his head in apology and left Ade with Garrison.
"Today, we mourn a good man. A friend, a mentor... A father." Garrison began as he faced the group of soldiers - and Ade. "I knew Vasily during the old war. He was a boy back then and yet still twice the genius as I." Garrison paused for a moment. It seemed he hadn't planned a speech but was drawing the words as he went along.
"If I could ask Vasily by what he would define himself today, there would be one answer. Without hesitance or thought, he would answer..." He looked to Ade. "He would tell me he was a father. Not a soldier nor scientist. His greatest achievement had nothing to do with his Nobel prize or anything of his work, but his daughter. Adeladia, of you, he thought the world." Garrison finished as he threw a handful of dirt on the casket.
"Vasily was a good friend." Iris said. Reese wrapped his arm around her as she held back tears. "He helped me, held me up at my lowest... After..." She failed. She couldn't speak. Her makeup ran and the days first tears were shed. She collapsed into Reese's arms and disappeared behind them. He didn't react. He didn't comfort her or console her. He just looked blankly at the coffin hole.
Ade felt as if she was supposed to speak now, but what could she say? What words words would be sufficient to summarise her father's life? She rose from her wheelchair and timidly limped towards the inch of paper between her and her father's mangled corpse. She refused help as her knees gave way and she crumbled to the mud. "Spi spokoyno, papochka. Uvidimsya utrom."
The day passed in silence. The soldiers were preparing to leave but hadn't told Ade where to. She felt out of place, homeless. The tent she had stayed in had been taken by two dozen injured so she roamed the camp instead. Blood saturated the dirt and stained the snow. Pained moans and terrified wails echoed from the rubbled city but otherwise there was an eerie quietness. No audible words, no orders shouted at medics and no hurried explanations of injuries. Everyone was just quiet.
The sun began to set in the distance as Ade reached a hilltop. The brilliant orange burst across the darkening sky as a final cry before the dusk. Shadows grew long and encompassed her, not a minute passed before the chill set in.
"My people have a story about the sunset." Lara, the white haired soldier said as she climbed up behind Ade. "I'll tell you about it some time."
"No time like the present." Ade responded despite never looking away from the sky.
"Not today, it's a sad story. We've had enough of those for now." She bemoaned. Ade noticed the skyfire captured in Lara's hair. It shimmered golden and red as she sat beside her.
A rustle sounded and from a small bag Lara produced two fluffy blankets, she held one out to Ade without a word.
"Where are we going, Lara?" Ade asked.
"Like... In general or?" Lara joked. Ade didn't respond. She was in no mood for levity. "Elysium. It's the capital fort for Europe. It is where all of your father's work is stored. It also happens to be our home." Lara answered sincerely.
"And who are you?"
"Me?"
"All of you. Garrison, Iris, Reese, you and the other man... You slaughtered a squad of men, made a joke and slung me away to fight for the Alliance. I don't know what's going on, why it's happening, certainly not why it's happening to ME? All I know is my home, friends and family have been destroyed and it's apparently all my father's fault?" Ade exploded. Tears stung in the cold but were quickly wiped away by the quickening breeze. Her breath clouded the air and her heart fluttered and sprang. Thoughts of hatred raced through her, resentment and wrath; then thoughts of death, of running and hiding. A thousand words that would be cured with a single firm punch but instead she had to sit there, unable to wipe her own ass at the mercy of a group of complete - not to mention blatantly sociopathic - strangers.
A hand rested on hers. The warmth calmed her but didn't save her the fear.
"Sweetie." Lara whispered.
"We're Raptor squad."