I was finally about to receive the real truth behind Archibald Dennett Lace – or at least Aizel’s version of it – and even though I could not guess his words, I knew right away where this story was going.
“You see,” Aizel was saying, “this conflict between Lace and Benson goes way back, even before the war was even considered. As far as I know, it all started in a family home about forty years ago – they are brothers after all.”
I stopped to check that I had heard it right, because I was so sure that I was mistaken. “Brothers?” I asked.
Aizel nodded, and his face appeared grim in the dark of night. “That’s right, brothers. Now, whatever happened between them when they were young is a mystery – chances are only your father new that. What I do know is that ten years ago on November the eighth, Arthur Benson finally accused his brother of various treasons along with unfair treatment of his own people. He then told Lace that if he didn’t hand Tartarus City over to someone who was more suitable to lead it, then there’d be no other choice but to take it by force. You need to understand, though, that Benson was not the only person who disagreed with Lace’s motives – more and more people were beginning to believe that after ten years of being a ruler, Lace was finally being driven mad by his own power. So, Benson was indeed to be the first person to voice his disagreement with Lace, and as a result, he came home two days later and found his wife and child murdered…” Aizel paused for a sudden emotional moment – I think we was trying to figure where to go from here. “Benson was the last person to rebel against Lace alone, and that’s why he formed the resistance – to ensure the safety of everyone who saw the truth of Lace’s hedonisms, including your father and the professor. Quite frankly I don’t care who owns Tartarus City – although I think Benson would make an excellent president – as long as Lace is gone.”
After that Aizel was silent, apparently waiting for my response, and I sure took my time trying to think of one. I still didn’t know which side to choose – or rather, to believe. I had just heard Benson’s side of the story… but for all I knew, Aizel had just fed me a well-comprehended lie. It seemed I still wasn’t satisfied. I needed more, and I began to believe that Aizel was the key.
“And what about you?” I asked him. “What’s your reason to hate Lace?”
He glanced up and a smile broke upon his lips. “Oh, well for me it’s more about Benson than Lace.”
He stopped, and his eyes transformed like a hound catching onto a scent. I was about to ask why but like a striking cobra his arm latched onto my shoulder and he pulled at me. “Get down!” he shouted.
I fell to the ground like an old ragdoll, and this time I scraped my other knee and it started to bleed. Ouch!
What followed chaotic to say the least. I listened carefully to the fast crescendo of the thunder of a car engine as it sped towards us like a charging animal. Aizel tried to shield my body with his own, and I would have liked to think that he was being a gentleman, however I assumed he was just protecting the code. The speeding car screeched to an unsteady halt in the middle of the street and before I knew it I had smoke grenades flying at me. They sailed through the air and clattered across the ground at my feet – of course, at the time I thought that they could have been anything, and I was scared out of my shoes. I was fortunate enough that the grenades weren’t the explosive type, but after one whiff I felt like coughing up my lungs – it smelt so bad! I choked and coughed, and my eyes stung like crazy as the smoke quickly began to fill the street. I could no longer see, and over the sound of smoke spilling out I heard Aizel’s voice crying out. “No!” he begged. “Don’t take her!”
From within the smoke the alien face of a gas mask jumped out at me, but of course my throat was by now far too sore for me to call out. The expressionless eyes of the mask loomed in and two thick leather-gloved hands reach over me. I swiped at them and the alien mask stepped back. With tears running down from my eyes that I imagined would be burning red right now, I tried to run – I didn’t know where I was running to, but I knew I had to run. Alas, as some great beast sprung from the smoke and bear-hugged me – lifting me off of my feet – I knew that I could no longer flee.
I kicked and screamed, with my eyes shut tight, but for all my efforts I could not break their grip, and then I once again heard the constant humming of the car engine. The door creaked open, I was hurled into the back seat, the door slammed shut, and the engine started revving. I had just been kidnapped.
My eyes hurt, my nose hurt, my throat hurt, and my lungs hurt. I was incredibly alone in the backseat if this stranger’s car, and I’ll admit that by now I had felt like crying – and not just because of the gas – I felt like actually crying. Who were they? What were they going to do to me? What had they already done to Aizel? How was I going to escape?
Escape… it dawned on me that the word escape was one that pretty much defined my life now. I had so many things to run from: my decision, the resistance and the capital, these people, my own emotions… In full, my situation right now sucked! And worst of all, there was nothing I could do about it.
It had occurred to me that the best-case scenario here was that Lace actually is the good guy and that he thought he was rescuing me from the Resistance. Now his men would take me somewhere safe, show me definitive proof that Benson was the bad guy, and then ask me very nicely for the code. Best case scenario. It sounded really stupid, but I wasn’t prepared to think about anything worse than that.
As I rested against the back seat of the speeding car, I very slowly regained my ability to see and speak – although talking still involved a great deal of pain.
“Who are you?” I demanded, and my voice took on the thinned-out croaky appearance of a ninety-year-old woman. “What do you want?”
I don’t know why I asked that question, because I knew exactly what they wanted: 6573-4532-7710-2169-3490. The question I should have asked was; how are you going to get what you want? But to be entirely honest I don’t think I was prepared to know the answer for that.
The fact that they didn’t answer any of my questions absolutely terrified me. It meant that my current scenario could be anywhere between the worst possible situation I could ever imagine, to that nice happy ending I had just recently invented. I didn’t know which one to prepare for – and that was the worst part.
“At least tell me where we’re going?” I begged, with little hope for anything. There was no response, and so I threw my hands up – already defeated. “Fine, you can tell me when we get there.”
After our lovely discussion, I sort of just sat there and stared at the window. Mot out the window, at the window – they were tinted on the inside, or at least they were in the back seat. As I said, I couldn’t do anything nor could I know anything – not until I had reached my destination.
I was stuck in the car for a very long hour or so, and that meant that when I stepped out – or was dragged out or whatever – I would either be standing somewhere on the outskirts of the city, or somewhere on the northern end – Lace’s side of the chess board.
The car finally rolled to a stop and I heard the driver pull the handbrake on. When he turned and looked at me, I had expected some ghastly evil looking criminal, however the face I saw was perfectly ordinary – no scars, no piercings, no tattoos, nice clothes, neat hair – he looked like a businessman.
ns 108.162.216.53da2