{M} People Like Us {Numbers & Natora}

[Numbers]

"She'll handle it fine. Her father is one of the original chosen so he should be able to teach her to control her powers no problem. Not to mention, it will probably be a week or two before they reassign me. I want to make sure a certain little girl here gets to my family to be taken care of since they live in Bristol now because of my work. I'm sure the Commander will approve of adding her to my family." He sat in the car with her until they eventually got to his place. "Wait in here. I'll be back in a minute. If she wakes up, place nicely this time Geneva." He got up and out of the car, quickly heading into his place. He talked to the operatives who were there as they gave him his extraction zone and time. It would be a few days until they could be pulled due to the bomb at the wall going off early. He then grabbed all the documents related to Kelly and her father before coming back into the car.

He saw that Kelly was still asleep and sighed. "Hopefully she didn't hurt herself too badly. She's supposed to be brought back uninjured. Her father and the Commander, will not be happy if she is injured. Anyways, it looks like due to the bomb at the city wall going off early extraction is going to be delayed by a few days. They gave me the new time and place of the extraction pickup. Until then, we need to go dark. We'll head to Kelly's place for now. She'll call out sick, and we'll have one of the agents forge a doctors excuse to call it in. That'll give me time to teach the basic control of her newfound power, and if her power gets out of control, you simply negate it by cooling her hands and not knocking her out." He started to put in the address for Kelly's place in order to give a better sense of direction in where they needed to go.

[Natora]

Geneva rolled her eyes as he told her to play nice. What did his opinion ever do to influence her actions anyway? She was stubborn to a fault. She would maintain her face to the ends of the Earth. This new marked was getting dangerous quickly and there was no reason to treat her kindly until she learned to control it. Once she did, she would consider becoming friendly.

Before he gave her the address she started driving in the right direction. Why does he still doubt me? she wondered. It was as if he thought she hadn't reviewed every important piece of information that was necessary towards what they were doing. "You should take your mask off before we get out of the car in her neighbourhood. If we're going dark, no reason to attract attention," she said simply. The body armour would be bad enough for strange looks if there were many people about. The streets were rather empty right now, though, as reports of the city walls being bombed was getting around rather quickly.

When they got to her house, she parked by the sidewalk in front of her house. "I'll take the girl. You take Beta," she said simply before getting out of the car. She avoided any glances from the public by making sure she faced the car and then carrying the girl inside. If it was necessary she could hide her face by leaning her head on the girl's cheek. When she got to the locked door, she froze the lock before twisting the handle quickly and breaking it open. She would freeze it shut later. Once they were inside, she set the girl down and let her go wander around the house.

Kelly on the other hand was completely passed out for the next hour. When she woke up in her bed, Daphne lying beside her, she looked around confused. Daphne barked happily from beside her and Kelly responded by giving her gentle pets. She was home again. Back at home. Safe. Maybe it was all just a bad dream. That had to be it. She drank too much last night and had a horrible nightmare. She sat up in bed and realised how pounding her headache was. Crappy hangover.

[Numbers]

Once everyone was inside he spent the next hour working medical work on himself. Thankfully, thanks to Geneva, the wound was roughly sterile and easy to patch it up. After he removed the bullet, he used the electricity from his fingers to burn the wound closed. He then moved into the kitchen and pulled out some documents that were in his black duffle go bag.

The first document he started to lay out on the table. It was a map of the city and started to mark different locations. He didn't know that at this point Kelly had woken up and could hear him now. "Alright, so, since the bomb at the wall went off early. Plans have changed slightly. Instead of us heading to the opening in the wall at night, we have to instead wait for a different pickup. There are unmarked all over the hole, working to repair it in order to keep our agents from doing more damage to the wall. This means that in order for our inside agents to keep their positions hidden, the city is going to be in lockdown until the hole is fixed. When I was in there, they said we were going to go with backup delta."

He grabbed a marker and circled one of the tallest buildings in the city, which was in the merchant district. "They said that they will send a VTOL to the top of the building in a week to pick us up." He could sense the tension between him and Geneva. "Look. We both agreed that it was best if we put work ahead of our relationship. So why the ice queen mode." He walked over to her and put his hand on the table and looked over at her, being close to her.

[Natora]

Geneva was sitting in the kitchen when he came in. She was watching the poor little girl on the couch. She would have no family. Thankfully, Etmere was hoping to have his family take her in. She would be like a little sister to him. As it was, she would have little to do with the girl when this was all over but she couldn't help but feel sad for the orphan as she was also one. Before the pick up she would have to talk to the girl about it.

While Etmere was putting his girlfriend down to sleep, she had gone around and made sure all the curtains and windows were closed. She had made sure that no one saw the marks coming in but that wasn't to say people wouldn't look through the windows at some point if given the opportunity. As much as they could be, they were safe. When Etmere came back down the stairs, she turned her attention to him and the things he was spreading out before her. The extraction plan was the next big step to getting home.

She watched the maps as he explained what the plans were. When he mentioned back up delta, she groaned inside. She maintained her poker face in front of him but at the same time she couldn't help but not be excited to have to spend a week here in a house she wasn't comfortable with, with her ex and his new girl. At least she would have the child to help. "We can make a plan to get there as quickly as possible then," she stated as he went to circle the building.

When he moved around the table towards her, she looked up at him. "What ice queen mode?" she asked him simply. "You loved me for the fact that I am blunt and honest. The company likes me for the fact that I am cold and calculated. It was business. Not pleasure. You were the one who married them by calling me your ex," she explained, putting her hand on his. "And just because we put our work in front of our relationship doesn't mean that my love for you went away," she told him honestly.

Just then there was the shatter of a vase hitting the floor from the hall. She looked up quickly to see Kelly standing over a broken vase with a wince on her face and a hand out as if she had tried to catch the vase and flowers a moment ago.

Kelly had made the great decision of getting out of bed not long after she woke up. There was Tylenol and orange juice in the kitchen. And bacon. Lots of bacon. Grease to kill the hangover and then she would be able to continue on with her Sunday. It only made sense that the hangover was from the event her and Etmere went to. The rest of what she "remembered" was just a long, bad, dream.

She got out of bed and didn't notice that her clothing was the same as that of her latest dream. Following Daphne down the stairs, she had to make sure she held on to the railing as she walked down the stairs towards the kitchen. That was when she heard Etmere speaking. She didn't notice that Daphne had bounded off to the living room. He must be on the phone, she thought to herself. Then she heard some of the words. Agents? Bombs? Oh God. This couldn't be happening. She was at the bottom of the stairs but her head was still swimming. She grabbed on to the hall table where a vase of her favourite flowers were sitting.

His voice stopped and she was grateful for the pause so she could try and process what was going on. But then another voice came in to pound in her head. It was her! The ex. She explained things so beautifully. It was as if this mission of his had never happened. Then she confessed that her love had never left and Kelly slipped forward. Her movement hit the vase which started to fall forward. Kelly tried to stop it but everything was moving in slow motion and she was the slowest moving part of it all. She didn't managed to catch it and a moment later, there was a loud shatter as the vase broke around her feet. She winced as the sound only made her head ache pound harder. Oh this was turning out to be an awful day.

It was true. It was all true. The fight her and Etmere had, a mere ploy, a scheme, a way to make him break things off with her so that when he betrayed everything that she had thought he believed in it would be easier for him. Cruel. Calculated. He had used her. Everything that she had thought was an act of good will or a compelling conversation was wrong and false, information later used against her in an attempt to undermine everything that she had ever worked for.

This would require something stronger than Tylenol and bacon.

She heard a slightly quiet, "Look who's up," from her. The woman who had frozen her hands and then knocked her down a flight of stairs. She was about to stand up when she saw the pieces of the vase start to move and then a split second later a small breeze around her feet as the pieces were blown into a nice little pile under the table they had just fallen off of. "Etmere, do you know where the broom is?" the woman asked him. The bastard who had used her.

Kelly shook her head. She had yet to say anything or look up in order to actually see the pair. It wasn't hard to know what she was going to do. "I'm going back to bed," she said and turned around to head back up to the stairs.

[Numbers]

"There is a difference between you doing what needs to be done for the mission, and you doing something because you don't like it, only to blame it on the need of the mission. Love is important, but so is our duty to our people. The dream that our people can live freely to enjoy their lives instead of having to live like creatures of the forest that hunt down any threat. More important than how we feel about other people." He heard the vase break and he turned around to see Kelly standing there. "Shut up Geneva. Just go through the radio channels and make sure that we have the resources sent to their correct spots." He then left and ran over to where she was at the stairs. He moved up a few stairs with her before finally speaking.

"Come on, let's get you back to your room. We can talk privately there." Was all he said as he walked next to her, letting one of her hands hold his, even though he knew that her power could activate and start to burn him. It was a risk worth taking. He needed to let her know that he was there for her, despite everything that was changing around her. She was about to leave one world, one that was safe but filled with lies to make life easier, to a world that was much different, a world of truths and pain, one where every day could be the last for someone close to you or yourself. She was going to need a guide, someone to hold her steady until her father could do that for her, and he and Geneva were the only one around with previous experience training someone since it was a part of their job.

[Natora]

Geneva wasn't fond of his opinion or his chastising of her. She was doing what she was told and she wasn't doing anything really wrong. When he walked away from her, she sent a small gust of wind at his spine so he would shiver. She had done it before to him countless times. It was something she had done out of affection but this time it was out of spite. When he was gone, she shook her head and used her powers to get all of the shards of glass into the garbage.

Kelly could feel his presence. That electric spark that she used to think was the energy between them was now recognised as the off shoots of his constant power buzzing around him. Something that a day ago would have sent a shiver of excitement through her was now something she was detesting. When he tried to offer his hand, she jerkily took her own back and away from him. She used the wall and the railing for supports, not wanting to touch him. "You still owe me evidence," she groaned. "And if I don't get it, I'll still shoot you and your ex and take the girl back. Just after the headache goes away," she promised.

She got back upstairs and went to her bed. It was a struggle not to reach out and grab him. She was terrified, horrified, and ridiculously conflicted about the whole thing. Thankfully emotions were being suppressed right now with her head pounding as it was. When she made it to her bed, she fell on top of the covers and laid across it sideways, not caring how she seemed to him. He was a traitor, one of them, the outsiders. He was trying to convince her that she was one of them now too. This was ridiculous. There was so much! So much anger! So much fear! How could he use her like that?! Finally she figured that she would have to talk to him. But what to say? "Was any of it true?" she asked bitterly.

[Numbers]

He sighed before leaning against the wall in her bedroom. "Yes. The best lie is the one that has truth built into it. Bristol is a real city. A city of marked people. The first generation of chosen found the city, in shackles, in ruins, and consumed by nature. It was a sign from our creators. The first generation disappeared into non-existence to rebuilt the city. That is why all the people who disappeared from your father's generation were just disappeared and not connected to being marked agents. When the second generation of chosen was born, they were sent into the wilderness to establish the will of the chosen. To them, we, the third generation of chosen were born. It became mandatory for everyone to serve in the military of our people. Once we complete a tour we are allowed to enter the city, the more service we do, the higher we can start in the city. If one wants to return to service to push themselves higher, they can." He walked over to the side of the bed.

He crouched down next to the bed so that his face was level with her. "Then there are some people like me. We choose service over life." He stood up and turned around sitting on the bed. "Because of our ultimate commitment to the cause, our family never has to serve. My sisters, never have to fight unless they choose to. My family just gets to live their life, helping the city grow and get better. In return, my life no longer exists. I go from one mission to the next. We have a few rules, never talk about our past, never go back to a place we have done a mission, and never fall in love." He stopped talking for a moment before turning to look at her.

"That being said, I talked about my past, even if only fragments of it were actually true because I wanted to share them with you. Getting close to you, dating you, that was never part of the plan. I did it because I started to fall in love with you. Then I found out about your father, and I knew that I had to give you the gift of life. I had to find out if he was still alive and sure enough he was." He pulled out a folder from underneath his jacket. It was filled with files and pictures of Kelly and her whole family, including her father with his mark. He threw the files next to her before standing up.

He went to the door of her bedroom, getting ready to leave it before he turned around to say some more stuff to her. "The truth is there, you have a mark, something heat related. We don't know for sure what exactly it is but we have the resources to teach you. We won't be leaving the city for about a week when a VTOL will be landing at the top of the highest merchant building in the merchant district. I'm telling you this because I trust that you will see the truth in what I say. If you decide that you want to learn your power, come down and let me know." He then started to head downstairs to meet back with Geneva.

[Natora]

She had asked a question. She would listen to the answer, no matter how much she hated to hear him talk anymore. How could she know that any of it was true? This entire time she had known him had been one lie after another. But he had finally started to tell her the truth, and the real truth, when they were in the lab together earlier. Maybe she could trust that he was telling her the truth now. Of course, if he was and she chose not to go, what would he have to do to her to keep her new found knowledge away from those that might use it against them. The thought sent an involuntary shiver down her spine.

She didn't move as he talked, her eyes following him without doing anything else. Even when he got close she didn't move away this time. She was still getting used to seeing him with the mark on his face. When he put the file down in front of her, she didn't really hear much else of what he said. Those files contained something that she wasn't sure if she wanted to see. She had built her entire existence on the idea that her father had been taken and killed by the marked. Her job, her ideals, her purpose had all been built around the idea of finding out what had happened to her father and preventing it from happening to anyone ever again. And here.... here had had done it in a matter of weeks. What had taken her years of ridiculous hard labour and hours upon hours of failures and torture to others and resulted in nothing ...he had managed it in the time since he had met her, a little over a month.

How long had he known? He had said earlier that the first time he had cooked for her he had sent away the DNA to get tested. He had known for a little under three weeks and he hadn't told her. He was telling her now though. Was it manipulation, a way to get her to believe him and go with him? Even something as precious as family he had kept from her in a well constructed lie.

But he had a family. He had the love and care that someone had built for him and he had sacrificed himself on behalf of the rest of his family. He had chosen a life away from them, away from the people that care for you regardless of everything, all to keep them safe from having to serve in the military.

She had been looking at the files since he had thrown them down towards her. When she looked back up to find him again, he was just leaving the room. "Wait," she said, finally moving for the first time. She didn't move to take or look at the files at all. She sat up in her bed, allowing herself to sink against the pillows behind her, and looked over at him. "What will happen now that you've broken the rules and told me things about your past?" she asked him. She assumed that him falling in love was still out of the question. She didn't ask him about it because she still believed that he probably was using that as a convenience rather than a truth. He spoke about falling in love with her in the past so much that it didn't make sense that he would feel the same about her now that the mission was over and he had to go back to his old reality.

[Numbers]

"There is a price to everything we do. A bigger price for me and Geneva. As I said we give everything up in the name of the cause. This means we are the tools of peace, weapons of destruction, birds of peace, and the hounds of war. Kill on command, destroy whatever we must to ensure our people live. For telling someone our past, the price can change based on your answer. Come with us and they'll simply see it as me telling you the truth so that you'll come home to your true family. Stay here among the humans and share with them what I taught you, and they'll give me one final mission for my punishment. The destruction of this entire city and all who live in it." What he didn't share was the fact that this city was going to be wiped out regardless.

They had seen the true power of the marked in the assault of the city to make the distraction. Now, while the city believed they beat the marked back and continued to repair the wall, the marked would gather their forces in the area to prepare for the salt and burn of the city. After they destroyed the city, they would make it look like some plague happened that destroyed the city from within, with the survivors being marked agents who would use the phlight to enter into other cities safely.

"At the very least, I will be required to stay in Bristol for a week or two while they make sure I am ready for a new identity. Which will give me time to observe my family from afar, and will give me time to make sure the orphaned girl downstairs moves in with my family. If I do visit them, only the orphan girl will recognize my mask. In that time, they'll probably have me help you get used to our city while you get used to seeing your father again. Naturally you'll be excused from military or working service since we will have brought you home."

[Natora]

Kelly nodded as he explained what was happening. Now he had just shared with her that the existence of her entire city and everything she had known and loved was going to be demolished if she shared the information that she had. It was still a debate for her. If she shared everything, wasn't it possible that they wouldn't actually have the ability to level the city? Of course, seeing Etmere's abilities, anything was truly possible.

When he mentioned her father, she looked at the files at her feet again. There were quite a few. Who knew? Maybe he had gathered together a bunch of blank files and if she looked inside, she would see that he actually was lying. Would he play that game? Keep insisting that he was real only to tease her enough to find out that he wasn't actually real? She looked up at him, trying to judge if he could possibly be that cruel to her.

"So, you'll help me get used to the city for a week and then throw me to the wolves," she stated. It wasn't much of a question though it could have been. The thought of living in a community of marked people terrified her. "Some of them will know what I've done," she pointed out to him. "The tests and the torture that I put through some of their family members in an attempt to learn more. They'll tear me apart," she said to him, showing some true fear.