When I saw Aizel he looked tired as hell. I rolled over in my sheets, our eyes met, and I tried to make a face as if to say really? To be perfectly honest I felt quite fine. I had a goal to attend to and I wasn’t going to let a simple thing such as torture stop me.
Aizel noticed my expression and smiled. “You’re awake,” he whispered.
“I am,” I replied, noticing something new in his eyes. Was it fear? Or perhaps guilt?
“Do you remember much?” he asked suddenly. “About what happened, I mean.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, nearly hysterically, at the approach he made to ask if I still had the code. He was confused at first – probably thought I had gone insane – however he just stood there quietly until I calmed down.
“I remember all of it,” I eventually told him. “Every face, every window, every floorboard,” I paused for a moment and my expression changed, “and every scream. I can see it all as clear as day, as if it had happened just a few moments ago.”
“That’s good, because you’ve been asleep for two days. The doctors had to pump all of those drugs out of your bloodstream, they say based on the amount in you the pain must have been horrifying.”
It was then that I noticed the crackling scab upon my bottom lip, and when I pushed it with my tongue it began to sting and throb. “Huh, that’s an understatement. Look at what I did to my lip.” I showed him, however he didn’t react much. I examined my hands and flexed my fingers, feeling pins and needles every time I moved them, and it was the same throughout my entire body. It’s strange – I had thought the pain would never go away. “So that explains why I’m feeling all tingly,” I remarked, wondrously. “I knew it couldn’t have been because of you.”
He chuckled, and though he tried to act casual I could see the question he was holding in the back of his mind. I figured there was no point in beating around the bush.
“I suppose you’ll be wanting the code now,” I said brashly, and I was careful to notice his response. It was different to what I had expected.
“Actually, Abigail, things have changed slightly since your capture.”
“Changed how?” What could have possibly changed in the past two days?
“It’s…” he checked over his shoulder to make sure that the door was closed. “It’s Benson. I haven’t left his side since I reported back to him after we brought you back. He’s been frantic non-stop, which isn’t right. He’s always been him a collective man.”
“Are you doubting your leader?” I asked him, wanting to smile but finding I couldn’t.
“It’s a necessary superstition,” Aizel answered swiftly. “I owe Benson a great deal, but I owe your father even more, and right now I can’t be sure that Benson is going to use ATLAS in the way that I first thought. He means to end the war his own way, Abigail, and that’ll involve hundreds of innocent deaths.”
“Do you know if he’s responsible for my father’s death? What do you think I can do about Benson that I’m not doing already?”
Aizel moved in and stood just a little closer. “I don’t know who killed your father but I intend to find out, but not yet. Listen, I still believe in Benson’s cause just as your father did, however the way he’s going about this is wrong. Help me destroy ATLAS and it’ll serve both our interests; I’ll save a hundred or so lives, and you’ll be free of that code.”
And the war will keep going. Even still there were obvious flaws in this plan. “Destroy ATLAS? I can give you at least two reasons why that’s a stupid idea.”
“Yes, yes, I know. Lace has the device and we’re at the wrong end of the chessboard. Also, according to Sierra, the device is theoretically indestructible.”
“We’re also running the risk of arming it for whoever the hell wants to use it. We’ll be walking right into a trap.”
“Do you have any better ideas? I can’t say anything about how we’ll get to ATLAS but at least I know a way to destroy it, and I need your help, Abigail.”
“You found a way to destroy it?” I asked, repeating his words. Maybe he was right, and this was my way out, the third path, the solution. “How?”
Aizel managed to smile again, appearing to feel pretty smug about himself. “Well I did some digging and I managed to get my hands on some of the good professor’s plans. Now, I don’t know half of what it all meant, but I do know that he installed a self-destruct function into the device, in case it ever fell into Lace’s hands – which it did.”
I was most surprised, which was weird because I really shouldn’t have been. It made sense! I should have known that Sierra was way too careful to build a weapon like this and not have a backup plan in case something went wrong. It seemed that Aizel was right – my father’s killer would have to wait. If I wanted to be free of this war, I’d have to agree with Aizel and his plan.
“How does the self-destruct work?” I asked.
Aizel hesitated for a moment. “Well, there’s a problem. In order to disable ATLAS we’ll need to activate it first – using the code. That’s why I need you for this.”
“I’ll be keeping the code to myself,” I said, very sternly. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t entirely trust you yet. I was tortured just two days ago.”
That was a necessary precaution. The truth of it was that I did trust Aizel, and his plan was the about the only option that I had, however I knew full well what these people were capable of – especially Benson. Indeed, Benson could have easily told Aizel earlier that he was to convince me of this plan, gain my trust, and then have me tell him the code. It made me feel sad, however right now it was far too easy to be paranoid.
“It’ll be dangerous,” Aizel warned. “We’ll be heading right into enemy territory until we locate whatever terminal Lace has the device connected to.”
“Couldn’t we activate the self-destruct remotely?” I asked, knowing that that is how Sierra would have done it.
“We could,” explained Aizel. “When I was going through the professor’s designs I found the schematic for a sort of transmitter that he would have used to initiate the self-destruct, but as far as I can tell it would have been in his workshop…”
“And now Lace has it too,” I finished, cursing my bad luck.
Aizel suddenly moved and sat down next to me on the bed. “Listen Abigail, I’m not forcing you to do this, but as far as I can tell this is the only way for you to be free of that code.”
I realised just then that we had been referring to the code this entire time as if it were some kind of curse that needed to be broken. 6573-4532-7710-2169-3490. That’s all it was – just a bunch of numbers and nothing more, and yet it had caused so much grief.
I looked at Aizel with content in my eyes. “I was about to say the same thing to you. You’ll be defying the resistance, you know. Destroying ATLAS will be a major blow to the cause and I can’t see Benson being too happy about that.”
Aizel stood up. “Destroying ATLAS will not be a blow to the cause. The resistance was formed so that we could stop the killing. If we use that weapon then we’re no better than Lace, and that means that this entire damn war has been pointless – everyone who had died, their deaths would mean nothing.”
It was my opinion that the war was stupid either way, however I had always been careful not to voice that. I did care about the lives of those people, I had proven that two days ago, however all I really wanted was to be free of this. “When do we leave?” I asked.
“Tonight. Make sure you’re ready. Just leave the escape to me. I’ll come get you when it’s time, alright?”
I nodded, and couldn’t help but laugh – I was just saved by the resistance and now I was already trying to escape. There really were no good and bad guys here, were there?
Aizel stood up and made to leave. “Get plenty of rest. You’ll need to be sharp come tonight.”
I gave him a sincere smile. “Aizel, I’ve been asleep for two days.”
“Oh, right.” He gave me one last glance and then left the room, and I wasn’t going to see him again until tonight.
ns 172.70.178.52da2