Runner

Chapter Five

I felt sick with nerves.

I stood in the darkened tunnel, the walls damp and the overhead pipes creaking with complaints. I was hypnotized by the heavy-set door in front of me. Inside, Jack was briefing Reaves, his team leader, Jo Jo, logistics director, and a couple other tactical members, including my brother, on the proposed mission.

It had only taken minutes for the shouting to begin. The blast-proof doors and cement walls were enough to dim the explosion of noise, but I was pretty sure I could hear the voices of Jack, Reaves, and Elek, all fighting to dominate the argument. I paced the entrance, flicking my boots through old puddles.

This was the part I had been dreading. Elek was not going to like this plan one bit. Hell, I didn’t like it. But I’d been left with no choice: I needed this to prove myself, to secure my place here, I needed this to get medicines and vaccines for the collective, and I needed this because I wasn’t going to let these losers die when then was a very real chance I could prevent the blood shed entirely.

Ten minutes later, the doors rebounded open with an unnatural and piercing force. Had Elek’s face not been a furious red, veins on his neck pulsing, I would have scolded him for such an obvious display of strength.

Inside the room, the rest of the team was hunched around a white office table, one that had a giant split through the middle. Reaves was defensive, arms crossed, and Jack was silent.

“Go in there and tell them you are not going to do it!” Elek shouted, the proximity making me wince.

I didn’t respond.

“TELL them now!” He repeated, with equal force.

I couldn’t respond, I looked into the room once more, the entire cohort watching me – waiting.

Jack was now staring, and as I dropped my eyes to my feet, no longer able to look at Elek with fear I might crumble to his demands, I was sure I saw a glimmer of defeat in his eyes. Elek slammed his fist against the wall with a grunt, before he marched into the darkness.

I didn’t see Elek again until that night, just before we departed.

I’d walked into the locker room, the team packing bags, pulling guns from the racks, and sorting supplies. They were all men, the youngest in his twenties, all of them brutes and outlaws.

The metropolitan hubs were more densely populated with humans, there was more security, humanitarian support, and policing. Hence, Elementals in those parts were almost inexistent and so were people like this.

Elementals were now registered and institutionalised, or employed by the Confederation. There was propaganda that those who handed themselves over, and were rehabilitated of all ‘violent and homicidal tendencies’ could be reintegrated into society. But I was yet to see any proof that that had actually ever happened. So basically, if you wanted to keep your freedom, and avoid whatever atrocities awaited us on the other side, then you avoided Raiders, Seekers – Elementals working for the Confed to help capture runners like me – and basically any other form of authority.

Places like this, isolated and remote, were filled with people who didn’t want to be found – human and elemental alike. There were no women on the frontline teams, no one without a tattoo or a missing tooth, and generally no one with an ounce of morality.

In a black tank top and jeans, wearing my cargo boots, I fixed the straps on my back pack. Moving it to a bench in the centre of the room, concentrating on the things I needed to do. No longer wanting to contemplate the fate I would soon be meeting.