Trent

"Well, that could’ve been timed better,” Trent chuckled, as his eyes met the rest of the team.

He reclined in his seat, stretched his arms, and waited for them to speak up. No one did. He placed his legs on the table and lit his favorite brand of cigarettes. No one said a thing. He inhaled a lungful of smoke and let the fumes fill the air around him. Nothing but the sound of the evening news playing in the background.

“What on Earth?” Hope spoke up, at last. Her voice had no energy to it.

“Whatever do you mean?” he asked in return, a sly grin plastered across his face.

“Why is he dead? Why is Dr. Boon dead? I thought we had an agreement. No casualties!”

“No innocent casualties.” Trent corrected her. “That pig was in the same league as Roland. He had to be put down sooner or later. And as it happens, tonight was just the chance we needed.”

“No.” She shook her head and stepped away from him. Her limbs went limp as noodles as her head struggled to comprehend the words. “No no no no no. It can’t be.” She leaned against the sofa for support as her breathing got uneasy.

“Sir Trent, what is the meaning of this?” Ren asked with a puzzled expression. “You never mentioned killing Dr. Boon.”

“Change of plans, kid. Although, I’ll admit the whole thing was terribly last-minute. But all of you performed adequately and the mission, on the whole, was a resounding success. So, congratulations. Give yourselves a pat on the back or whatever. You’ve earned it.”

Before Trent had the chance to bask in the glory of his successful heist, Hope decked him across the face with a powerful left jab. The entire room fell silent. He inspected the bruise with a firm finger.

A drop of blood. He smiled.

The Red Death of Regalia got up from his seat with a pained grunt and watched as the former hero retreated before him. There was fear in her eyes, but her body was arched in a defensive position. Trent raised his arm in a disarming gesture and laughed. “Now, if you’ve gotten that out of your system. Let’s talk like civilized people. If you are familiar with the concept, that is.”

Hope tightened her bruised knuckle and took a step back as the rest of the team gathered around him. Sebastian sat in a quiet corner of the room, away from the drama. Ren stood tall and proud, ready to defend his master at a moment’s notice. And Alicia, well, she seemed to be more amused by the sudden developments than anything.

Ever since she’d been recruited by Trent, she’d taken a real liking to Lucidean soap operas. The woman would spend all night binging Seasons of Love while he and Ren scoured their targets for information. It was during this quiet period that she’d acquired a taste for Lucidean snacks. Even now, the brat was busy munching on a bowl of popcorn.

“Bish pleash,” she mumbled, her mouth still full. “Whatsh there to talk about? We did our jobsh and thatsh the end of it. Ash for shome random schmuck, I could honeshtly care lessh.”

“It is as Miss Miller has put very eloquently. You all performed wonderfully, and you should be proud of yourselves. Any details beyond that are none of your business.”

Hope jumped in with her hands around her waist. “And what if we quit, huh, genius? I didn’t sign up for cold-blooded murder. I’m not sticking around to see what else you’ve got in store for us. Right, Seb?”

Her friend gave them a weak smile and a thumbs-up from his seat.

“My word, I love your energy.” Trent clapped his hands. “Great enthusiasm too. Such a shame that you never put it to good use. Where exactly do you plan to go? Vega is a fugitive. Hope, an even bigger one. You have no place in the world anymore, Miss Hastings. Or did you forget about that part?”

Hope gulped and lowered her head.

“I will say it again. You need me. That is not up for debate. That is a cold-hard fact. I don’t care how highly you think of yourself, Miss Hastings, but if you refuse to cooperate, you are more than welcome to go back to that shit-hole you call a life. Have I made myself clear this time?”

Hope’s red face cooled down to an embarrassed pink as she dropped her charade and returned sulkily to her seat. He had called her bluff.

“Excellent. Anyone else feeling like mutiny today? No? Great. In that case, get some rest. You’ve earned it.”

Just as Trent was about to disappear behind the door, Alicia barked in her usual abrasive tone, “Hey, big guy! While I was busting my ass getting into that giant dildo you call a building, I met a friend of yours.”

“Oh?”

“Tall, red hair. Speaks all fancy-folks-like. Ring a bell?”

His body went stiff for a moment. “I see. Thanks.”

The door slammed shut and the room fell silent once more. Only the pungent odor of cigarettes remained as the evening news continued to play in the background.

∆∆∆

Long after the entire team had gone to sleep, his phone rang. The message ‘by the docks’, was plastered all over its screen in ominous black letters.

“Of course.” He sighed and grabbed his jacket for yet another midnight excursion.

Downing another bottle of Blue, he sneaked out of the hotel and stepped into the ice-cold streets of New Manhattan. “The docks. Just what are you planning this time, asshole?”

Even with the effects of the cryoelixir kicking in, Trent noted that the air felt colder than Haven City. Was the potion losing its efficacy? No, he shook his head. It’s just a moonless night.

He checked his wristwatch under a nearby streetlight. It was well past three. Must be why the streets are deader than the sea trade. As if to spite Trent, at that very moment, an ambulance sped past him with sirens blaring at top volume.

“Must be headed for Boon’s tower. A bit too late, isn’t it gents?” He smiled to himself.

At a quarter to four, with cheeks flush full of red, he arrived at his destination.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The New Manhattan Docks, or what remains of them, is, to this day, one of the biggest tragedies of the 25th century. When Boon Industries hijacked the economy and made aerial transport commercially viable, the sea route was the first one on the chopping block. The pride of New Manhattan was now nothing more than a graveyard for abandoned ships.

Trent bowed lightly to pay his respects.

Even as he walked amidst the rubble, flakes of rust continued to fall around him like the world’s most pitiable rain. The gargantuan wreckage gave way to the caved-in hull of an old cruise liner. The LSS Apollo.

This ship had been instrumental in rediscovering the world. Trent remembered it like it was yesterday. The day he’d first boarded this ship was still etched into his memory. He’d been one of the first people aboard the LSS Apollo to travel the world and discover its secrets for the first time in half a century. That was twenty years ago.

Twenty years before the Treaty had expired. Of course, he would choose this place to meet.

A laser sight emerged from the dark and positioned itself between his eyes. Rob’s voice echoed from the hull. “Password.”

“It’s me, you insufferable prick,” Trent answered as he scanned the shipyard for outsiders. That moron better not make a scene.

“Password or your skull goes pop,” Rob bellowed even louder.

He is trying to make a scene. Trent slapped his forehead. “Fucking perfect.”

“You have to the count of five, maggot. Password or I fill your guts full of lead. Five! Four!”

Trent groaned. “Nathan Sharp can kiss my ass. Now, let me in.”

The laser sight disappeared from his forehead. A hearty laughter echoed from within the hull. “Ha ha! Yeah, fuck him! Come on in, slum dog. I got something to show you.”

Before he could take the next step to sock his friend, Trent felt faint. He touched the area around his nostrils.

There was blood. Lots of it. Before he knew it, he puked out a whole puddle of it right in front of the ship.

A crippling pain shot through his torso. The former Knight gripped his chest as his legs gave out under him and he fell to the cold, wet floor. “Be right there with you, mate. Just… give me a sec. Gah! Goddamn it. Why now?”

The last thing he saw was the terrified look on Rob’s face.

∆∆∆

Trent was not a fan of alcohol. The aroma, the bitterness, the loss of control, especially the loss of control bothered him. That’s why he’d chosen cigarettes as a coping mechanism. In his vehemence, the man had smoked over eighty thousand in the last fifteen years. A decision he’d come to regret over time but at that point, there was no turning back.

Even so, waking up to the smell of liquor was up there as one of the worst possible feelings. Just by the smell, he could tell it was Rob’s favorite: Neptune’s Bounty.

Opening his eyes, he found himself surrounded by large wooden kegs of liquor decorating every inch of the room. As his senses returned, he looked more carefully. It was a suite. A luxury suite, in fact. Just like the ones onboard the…

He was inside the ship.

“Nice place, isn’t it?”

When Trent lifted his eyes, he saw something he had never expected to find inside the hull of the old-abandoned LSS Apollo. “Caroline?!”

“The one and only,” she answered, playing with a glass of wine in her hand.

“What are you doing here?”

“This one was looking for a reunion.” She rolled her eyes as Rob emerged from the wooden door with another keg in his arms.

“Damn right, I was!” he grumbled, setting it down in a corner. “I retire for a few years and it’s like I just disappeared for you guys. Now, this one.” He pointed at Caroline. “I get why she’d ghost me. But you, slum dog, you done gone and broken my heart.”

“I-”

“Oh, not another word out of you, you bastard, “ said Rob. “You keep your mouth shut, you hear me? Now, tell me, what the bleeding hell was that all about?”

An awkward silence fell upon the room. Caroline took a deep breath and clicked her tongue. Trent attempted to speak but the woman shut him up with a knowing look. As the realization fell upon Rob’s bloated face, he let out an embarrassed “oh.”

“And that’s just one of the reasons we broke up.” Caroline shook her head. “You’d think this one would get faster with age but no. You would have had better luck teaching the alphabet to a monkey.”

Rob stuck his tongue out and spoke in a dismissive voice. “Teaching alphabet to a monkey. Go jump off a cliff, you hag.”

“I see the catfights still going strong after all these years,” Trent chuckled. “More importantly, are you out of your mind, Caroline? What if Roland notices you’re gone? Lawrence can’t handle things by himself.”

“Relax, it’s what, like four in the morning? My shift doesn’t start until eight. More importantly, you, mister, have some explaining to do.”

Trent played with his wristwatch and smiled nonchalantly. “What, the fainting? Oh, it’s nothing. Just the usual symptoms, that’s all.”

“Don’t bullshit me, man.” Rob jumped in. “Give it to me straight. How long ya got?”

Trent licked his lips, sighed, and fixed his gaze on the wooden floor. “A few weeks, at best…” As those words left his mouth for the first time, the gravity of his situation became palpable. A few weeks, at best. He mumbled the doctor’s words to himself for a second time. That’s not nearly enough.

Looks like I won’t get to see her, after all. Hell, I don’t even know what she looks like now.

“And when were ya planning on telling us?” Rob asked softly.

“Ideally, you’d get an obituary in the company mail. But I feel like that ship’s already sailed,” he joked.

Rob and Caroline did not appreciate the humor. If anything, they looked ready to punch him in the face.

“It’s not fair,” said Caroline.

Trent laughed at her suggestion. “Give me a break, Caroline. What makes you think that anything about our lives has been fair?”

“That’s not what I...” She averted her gaze.

“Was it fair when Norton picked us off the streets in promise of a happy home? Was it fair when he then threw us into a room with sixty other kids and asked us to kill each other?” He lowered his head. “Was it fair when he asked you to… to hunt down Rob when he suspected him of treason?”

The room fell silent.

“We did not have a fair life but we played the cards we were dealt. I do not regret my actions. Fair or not, I chose this. So, chin up! I don’t want you to…” He exhaled. “I don’t want our last memory to be one of sorrow.”

Rob gave a long pause as he pulled out a bottle of Neptune’s Bounty and raised it for a toast. “Well, in that case, let’s make it a reunion to remember. To no regrets!”

Caroline looked at Trent for confirmation. Do you really want this? She asked with her eyes. Yes, I do. He answered, smiling.

She bit her lip, suppressed her tears, and joined Rob in his toast. “To no regrets, you miserable oaf!”

The trio put on a brave smile and spent the rest of the night drinking Trent, although, hesitant at first, got into the spirit of things once Rob produced a keg full of orange juice. Well, he claimed it was orange juice, but the former Knight still had his doubts. Even so, he decided to cut loose and have some fun for once.

It might be the last time I ever see them; Trent thought as he raised his glass toast with an empty smile. “To no regrets.”

∆∆∆

The morning sun was nearly upon them. Rob had passed out on the floor hours ago. Trent sat reclining on a corner sofa with Caroline leaning on his shoulder. They laughed as another puddle of saliva dropped from the big man’s mouth and seeped into the carpeted floor.

“You ever thought about giving him another chance?” Trent asked.

“What does it matter? It’s all ancient history. Like the Neolithic,” she mumbled holding her head painfully.

“Neolithic? Since when did you become a historian?” He laughed.

“What? I’ve been reading,” she groaned. “Remember those books you used to have about human history?”

“The ones you used to throw away and call me a big nerd?”

“Whatever. I picked them up recently and gotta say, it’s… really fascinating stuff. Did you know that we used to have another planet called Earth just like this one? And… and then it got really messed up and that’s why humans had to migrate to this new planet. That was a really weird chapter.”

Trent let out a hearty chuckle. “Oh dear, you don’t know the half of it. But you might wanna keep it to yourself. Don’t want the Order coming after your neck, now do we?”

“What?”

“Oh, never mind me. Isn’t it about time for Patricia to go to work?” he said, squinting at his wristwatch. It was nearly seven in the morning.

“I suppose. Ugh! I hate my job. But you gotta do what you gotta do. I’m guessing you’re headed to the Wadin Empire now?”

Trent nodded. “The Golden City of Noor. Lord knows what awaits me there. I haven’t been there since…” He welled up. Even after fifteen years, the memory was still painful.

Caroline held him in a warm embrace. She recalled how bravely he’d protected her during the Trials when she had dislocated her ankle. Even as a ten-year-old who stood a whole foot shorter than her, Trent had refused to leave her side. Even with his own life on the line, he’d never let them lay a finger on her. She tightened her embrace and softly muttered into his ear, “I know.”

She planted a gentle kiss on his now-stubbled cheeks and let go.

“You ever thought about letting go?” she asked him as she bent down to collect her stuff. “You know, bury the hatchet. Move to Regalia. Start a new life with Casey.”

He laughed at her suggestion, but his eyes were still red from crying. “That would be the dream, wouldn’t it? But that’s the problem, Caroline,” he said, his gaze dropping to the cold, hard floor. “Letting go will take a strong man. Someone far stronger than me.”