The Turn: Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Turn

Chapter Twenty-Seven

~Three Points~

Two Years Before The Turn

The driver walked off a plane on an airstrip. The driver looked around with indifferent eyes. In the distance was a large facility in the middle of the jungle. There were dirt roads that weaved to and from the facility. The driver straightened out his suit and walked to a limo that was barked nearby.

Other men dressed in black opened the door for him, “Is Master Scar with you today?”

“No,” the driver smiled, “not today. He had a prior engagement.”

The man let Scar inside. The limo drove to the facility and parked. The driver and the other men stepped out and walked to the front door. They walked in to a waiting room. The receptionist looked up at them with bored-to-death eyes and sighed. She pressed a button and the back wall opened.

The group walked onto a metal ledge. Below was an enormous aircraft similar to any fictional space mother ship. People were all over it with tools in hand. The driver looked over everything briefly and smiled.

“What is your status?” the driver asked.

“Nearly complete, sir,” one of the men answered.

“Good,” the driver walked along the edge of the wall, “The New Order will be able to come into being without too much trouble it seems.”

“Very good, indeed, sir,” the men answered.

They walked down some stairs and into a room. There were several people present typing away at computers. The driver looked behind him at the others.

“Are you getting supplies all right?” he asked.

One of the men nodded and answered, “There hasn’t been any issue.”

The driver narrowed his eyes, “Then why is that phantom Tower involved in our mission?”

The man had no answer.

The driver looked at one of the computers, “I say it’s time that they learn their place,” he muttered to himself.

“What was that, sir?”

“Nothing,” the driver walked out of the room, “When do you think that the Metamor will be ready?”

“With in the month, sir,” can an answer.

The driver smiled, “I’ll report all of this to Scar. I’m glad with the—I mean—I’m sure the master will be very pleased.”

“We are glad to be able to serve the New Order.”

The driver looked at them, “Let’s hope it stays that way. I’d hate for something unfortunate to happen to any one of you. Accidents happen.”

His eyes fell on a red haired man. The driver smiled and the man shifted with unease.  The driver left the room and the others followed. As they walked something fell from above falling on the man with red hair. The others jumped out of the way. The man with red hair lay dead on the floor, a concrete block dropped on his head. The driver looked up, a silhouette of a man walking away from the edge of an industrial catwalk. The other men looked around wondering how something like that could happen. The driver shrugged it off.

“Accidents happen,” he said and walked away from the mess.

“Aren’t you going to do something?” one of the men asked.

The driver stopped and turned, “I’m the driver not the maid.”

IOIOIOIOI

Zara sighed, “So what do you plan to do?”

Chaud leaned against a wall and shrugged, “I need time to think about it.”

“Alright,” Zara was quiet for a moment.

Chaud could sense her hitting a mental wall. He filed through the archive of his mind and tried to connect the dots on how to get them out of the situation they were in. It wasn’t going to be easy outsmarting a Black team.

“Naru said something about a secret project on an island, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, so?” Zara looked annoyed.

“Well, the Tower doesn’t know anything about it right? So I say he high tail it over there before Fang and his team figure out we’re here.”

“Oh and I guess next you’ll suggest that we call the local cab company and they won’t notice,” the sarcasm in her voice was thick.

“I didn’t say I was done,” Chaud stuck out his tongue, “Besides everyone knows you can’t get to an island by cab! Seriously! I was thinking bigger.”

“Bigger?” Zara questioned.

“Yeah…like Boeing bigger.

Zara shook her head, “We’re going to fly there by air?”

“Kinda,” Chaud rubbed the back of his head, “more like try to steal it.”

IOIOIOIOI

Fang found a decent looking hotel. As usual, he had a room to himself and the others were split in two other rooms. He sat looking at the files of all the members of Zara’s team. Fang had a good grasp on each of their personalities and had almost figured out their most likely course of action. After reading several of their mission reports, he had a deep look in their tactics.

There was a knock on the door and Shadow walked in. Fang gave him barely any notice as Shadow looked over Fang’s shoulder.

“Penelope has those plans you wanted. She’s started trying to track down Chaud’s friend on the inside.”

“That’s good,” Fang stated as he closed and stacked all the folders.

“So what is our game plan?” Shadow asked, “Are we going to smoke them out? Go in guns blazing? Level the entire city? What?”

“We have to find them first,” Fang glared at him, “Then I think we’ll wait until Chaud makes his move.”

“And that move would be…” Shadow looked slightly disappointed.

“I don’t know,” Fang stated.

Shadow crossed his arms, “Are you having another panic attack like when Arisa got kidnapped? If you are, you are actually taking it very well.”

Fang pointed at the folders, “They are actually very…unpredictable. I figured the best course of action is to let them make the first move and counter them. Then we back them into a corner.”

“I don’t know,” Shadow bravely stated, “I feel like they would fight back harder in a back-against-the-wall situation.”

Fang narrowed his eyes.

“You really need to stop that,” Shadow said as he walked out, “You’re at the age when you can start to get wrinkles.”

As Shadow closed the door, Fang couldn’t shake the urge to strangle the man. Instead, however, he sighed and called Shadow back. Shadow poked his head from behind the door.

“You called?” his eyes had a mischievous sparkle in them.

Fang handed him the piles of folders, “Read through these tonight.”

Shadow looked at the stack, “All of them?”

Fang sighed with annoyance. Shadow grabbed the folders and looked down at them.

“Really, though,” Shadow fingered through a folder, “there are, like, a trillion pages here.”

“Is that a problem?” Fang looked at him, “I was under the impression that you were educated enough to read.”

Shadow shrugged, “What if I said I never made it past third grade English?”

“You’re reading it anyway,” Fang growled.

Shadow took that as his cue to leave, “Fine, fine.”

Fang walked into the bathroom as Shadow closed the room to his door. He leaned against the sink and paused a moment. Fang looked up at the mirror. His eye caught sight of a hair that was white at the root but otherwise was black. He wasn’t getting any younger and the others weren’t helping things.

At that moment there was a loud pop came from the men’s hotel room. The sprinklers turned on and the fire alarm blared. Alister was screaming that it wasn’t his fault. Fang looked up at the pouring water and wondered when he would ever catch a break.