“Gavy? What are you doing back?” He then notices the company we’re in, “and what are you doing with a pair of Urics? Masha Avakian?!” He turns to me, “holy shit, Gavy! What are you doing bringing Masha Avakian on base?! And letting a Uric prisoner, a Uric that attacked you might I add, talk to one of their commanding officers, are you out of your mind?! Wait a second. How did you manage to get her on base in the first place?” I give him a look, “OH MY GOD, GAVY, YOU DIDN’T!” I shrug and he loses it. He goes on for a little while about it before I can finally get him to calm down enough to hear what I have to say.
When I explain everything to him he’s a bit skeptical but his eyes light up regardless. He runs all of the possibilities with one of the top possibilities being that the Urics are lying; I just roll my eyes, “What are the other possibilities?”
He gives the Urics a suspicious glance, “There’s a rogue group that wants you taken out but doesn’t want the backlash if it doesn’t work for some reason. Lastner’s always had it out for you so maybe she’s developing something to take you out if she feels you’ve gotten out of hand. That’s all I’ve got if you’re not going to listen to me when I say I think they’re lying about pretty much everything.”
“But what have they got to gain from Masha coming here? We’ve got them on the base if I wanted they would be on lockdown in a matter of nanoseconds and then we would have one of their top officials. I just don’t see why they would be lying and I haven’t sensed anything. So that narrows us down to two possibilities that we’re going to go with okay?”
Parker gives them another once over and sighs, “Fine, Boss, but I don’t like it.”
“I do not like it either, but if it is what is best for all of the Chipped we should work together and get rid of this threat,” Tatiana says. “So where do we go from here?”
“Masha goes home to investigate from that end and you stay here. I move you out of the cell and into a nice room because you’re ‘cooperating’ and you help us investigate from this end. We keep in touch and hope that this doesn’t blow up in our faces.” I say matter of factly.
Tatiana opens her mouth to protest but Masha cuts her off, “Tati, Gavenia is correct. You being here will be for the best, and a missing prisoner is a hard thing to explain.”
Tatiana nods and I look at Masha, “Remember what I told you about my abilities. One word and that’ll be it. I’ll work with you and I respect you but one word and you’ll be done.”
Masha gives me a single nod before turning to hug her sister, “I will see you again soon, Tati. I love you.”
“I love you too, Mas.” Tatiana tells her before I teleport her to the nearest airport.
“I’m sorry Tatiana but you’ll have to stay in the cell for the night, because I’m not even technically here. But I’ll have you moved in the morning after I interrogate you and you start cooperating.”
Tatiana shrugs, “It will not be as bad as the first year bunks at training camp. It really did not look so bad in there.”
I smile at her optimism, “All right, if your sister did her job we should just be able to teleport straight into your cell.”
Once I drop her in her cell I go back to where Parker is still standing. “Do you really trust them?”
“I do, Parker, and do you know why?” He shakes his head, “because they had nothing to gain by telling me all of that. Tatiana is still here and Masha lost the tiny element of surprise she had in us not knowing specifically what her ability was. Of course they found out was mine is too, but it wasn’t going to stay a secret forever with me in the field.”
“I guess that’s true, it’s just hard trusting the people you’ve been programmed to attack or capture because they’re trying to kill you.”
There’s a pause in the conversation as we both process the reality of what he just said. “What were you doing out here so late anyway? I thought between the three of us we were all in agreement that I was the insomniac of the group.” I say trying to lighten the mood, but Parker’s eyes stay fixed to the ground. I bump his shoulder with mine, “Parker, what’s going on with you?”
“You have to promise not to tell Jessie.”
“Of course. You’re just as much my best friend as she is. What’s going on?”
Parker sighs and fishes around in his pocket for a few minutes before finally coming out with a black velvet box. My face spreads into a wide smile that get impossibly wider when he shows me the beautiful ring sitting within the velvet cushion. “I’m finally going to do it.”
I pull him into a tight hug, “It’s about damn time Parker!”
“So you think she’ll say yes?”
“Of course I do, but Parker, you run outcomes. It’s your ability. If you’re so worried why not just run through it?”
He gives me a look, “Come on Gavy, you know why. It’s the same reason you try not to use your abilities around your family. I can’t let that slip into my life with Jessie. I know we’re not normal but I like to think we’re still normal in some aspects of our life. That even in all of this we’re still in our twenties and allowed to act like it. Like we’re still human.”
I let what he said soak in, of course it’s true, all of it. “As much as I love my abilities I despise them just as much, because they took away my years as a teenager and now they’re taking away my years as an adult. And for what? A dickhead president and a bitchy scientist. And at what cost, Parker?”
He scuffs his boot on the ground kicking a small rock, “I know what you mean, Gavy, but look at the good we do on a daily basis. Ignoring the President and Lastner. Chipped have brought so much peace-”
“Not everywhere. I went without my contacts to Reid’s game and they were all afraid of me or treated me as if I had some crazy contagious disease. Those people had never actually knowingly interacted with one of us, so how could we be doing so much good yet those people hadn’t had any dealings with us?” I asked with a tinge of desperation in my voice as I look at Parker for answers.
“We aren’t as needed in the small towns, you know that. But I do understand what you’re trying to say and I do think we should maybe try to educate the smaller towns; I just don’t see how we’ll be able to do it. I mean we’re already stretched so thin. What brought this on? Is it just because of how you were treated at the game? Or is there something else?”
“You know there is Parker. I can’t tell you yet though because Jessie knows and we’re coming back tomorrow to tell you. And I hate to break it to you but you’re a shitty liar.”
He lets out a bark of laughter and nods in agreement, “Well in that case I think I’ll wait until later to tell you what I found out about the box you found on our Uric friends.”
I smile at his response and wrap him in another tight hug, “See you in a few hours.”
After breakfast Jessie and I wait around for Reid to make it home from Corey’s before we pack up and head back to the base. I wrap everyone in a hug before I teleport Jessie and myself to my room on the base.
“Let’s go meet with Parker,” Jessie says.
“Hang on, I want to speak with one of the Urics that attacked me first.”
Jessie gives me a strange look before shrugging and following me out the door and to the prison. I go straight to Tatiana’s cell, unlock it, and pull a sneering Tatiana from her cell. “You dirty, American scum, release me.”
“Yeah, yeah I’ll get right on that. Come on,” I say, taking her by the arm.
When we get up to the interrogation room Jessie gives me a glance when I release Tatiana without locking her in the chains that are connected to the table, but she stays silent. “Jessie, Tatiana. Tatiana, Jessie. Tatiana is the sister of Masha Avakain. Tatiana, please have a seat.”
“Okay, Gavy, explain.” Jessie says with more authority in her voice.
I recount the events from last night, and when I finish Jessie looks at me a bit dumbfounded. “Well?”
“You’ve got to give me a minute, Gavy. It’s a lot to process.” Jessie says crossing the room to take one of the seats opposite Tatiana. “You took care of the cameras right?”
With an exasperated sigh, I take the seat to the left of Jessie, “Of course I did Jessie.”
“She is your subordinate and she speaks to you like this?” Tatiana scoffs.
Jessie sends a glare across the table. “Jessie isn’t my subordinate, she’s my best friend and not my subordinate.”
“But I thought-”
“Okay, technically, I am her commanding officer, but because we trained together and are best friends, Jessie is not my subordinate.”
Tatiana looks at us with her eyes wide, “We have heard things about the mysterious leader of the Chipped in the U.S., but I never would have imagined you were like this Commander Fleming.”
“Is that a good or bad thing?”
Jessie turns to me so I can get the full effect of her contempt filled glare. “Why do we care?”
Author: Kailan Counahan 