As Tomorrow Begins To Die

 “So, you completely lost the target?!” The female voice rang out, making sure her displeasure was on full display. Levema had come out to the field just to ensure the operation went smoothly, but yet it still failed. Now, her chief concern was figuring out why that was.

“B-but, Supervisor Levema, we stopped pursuing her because she handed off the payload to a local boy! We switch our forces to pursuing him!” The brown haired woman on her knees tried to excuse her own failure, taking on the burden of the man behind her as well, who was still passed out from having his head slammed into a wall.

“What you mean to say,” Levema glanced down at her subordinate, already tiring of her. “Is you gave up a target who could’ve given us valuable information, for a target you were also, evidently, unable to catch?”

“I— Uh…” She couldn’t patch together any more excuses at this point, so she unconsciously turned to her sleeping ally for help, who notably did not give her any ideas. Her attention was only brought back by the mention of her name.

“Josephine Glassner.” Levema crouched down to meet her eye to eye. “You failed, that is undeniable. However, that isn’t our priority at the moment. Icarus has been gravely wounded. If we don’t withdraw back to base, he will very likely die. We will discuss any punitive actions further after Icarus has been treated. Understood?” Levema stood back up. Josephine gave a reserved nod, before being slightly startled at her supervisor’s hand reaching down to assist her up. Not wanting to anger her further, she simply took it and stood up as well, brushing herself free of any dust.

“Also, what about…” Josephine turned back to the sleeping man on the ground.

“I already contacted other disciples to be sent to pick him up. Don’t worry about Horace.” Feeling the situation had been addressed, Levema turned her back to the disciples and walked back in the direction she had arrived from.

“Wait!” The subordinate called out. “Are we really going to do nothing about this? Let them get away?”

“I never said that, did I?” Levema’s head turned to see over her shoulder, then fully turned to face Josephine again. “Icarus simply takes priority. That doesn’t mean I haven’t already requested to have every exit to this district cut off to prevent their escape.” Levema rubbed her neck thinking of the chain of command she had to go through to accomplish such a feat. Stress like this never failed to make the scar circling her neck to begin aching.

“You mean, we can still catch them?!” The brown haired woman let her excitement get the better of her. Levema gave her a soft nod to confirm.

“And should we be successful, you won’t face any punishment this time.”

Josephine’s eyes sparkled, whether it was of relief, admiration, or both was difficult to discern. Her eyes lost their luster soon, as another thought hit her. “But…” Her hand went to her chin, and her head tilted. “They seemed to be organized once a third man joined their group, do you think it’s possible they would attempt to emigrate?”

The supervisor’s hand went to mimic her subordinate’s position. “Then, that would be outside of our jurisdiction. That’s a policy issue with the Western States themselves.” Levema drew out her tablet, scrolling through various contacts before finding one she found adequate, and beginning to type out a message. “In that case, we can just contact some acquaintances of ours that work in law enforcement to handle this. That way, all of our bases our covered.” Once she finished sending out the message, her tablet went to her side and Levema saluted. “Thank you for your input.” Soon after addressing Josephine, Levema relaxed her salute and continued on her way. The subordinate saluted back, then jogging forward to catch up to her superior, prepared to assist in any way she can. Levema, however, was preoccupied at the message she had just sent to Vergil after she had contacted their law enforcement allies:

Prepare one of the parts, otherwise, Icarus will not survive.

“Hurry it up!” was all Slater could hear. He was currently occupied getting his jacket back to normal after it had turned inside-out when he took it off earlier that morning. His predicament didn’t matter in the least to his impatient sister, however. Not responding was his simple fix. After he slipped the jacket on and left the small bathroom, he was greeted by his sister, whose expression matched the intensity of her yells from while he was inside. Lillian had changed outfits, now wearing a sleeveless black hoodie with her arms now only covered by her arm bandages, contrasting the dark blue pants tucked into her boots covering her legs. She had a small bag full of miscellaneous supplies slung over her shoulder. The way she was holding it reminded Slater briefly of his time with the bundle that ended up on his waist now. He gave a brief check to make sure the blade was still there, despite the fact there was no way for it to have left his side since he put it back when he woke up this morning. Slater was surprised they made it through the night without being found, especially considering he had just left the thing they were after lying beside his bed. Elijah must have put a lot of effort into making us untraceable was the only explanation his mind could think of.

Speaking of Elijah, he stood right behind Lillian, halfway out the door, trying to more silently encourage Slater to get moving, thinking that would be more effective than Lillian’s approach. Neither of them particularly worked on him. Elijah himself also held some supplies, also in a bag over his shoulder.

“Let’s get going.” Slater rang out, picking up a bag of his own to take he had prepared earlier in the morning. Lillian rolled her eyes at him of all people being the one to say that, but nobody dwelled on it as they all exited from Elijah’s home, unsure if they’d even ever return.

Elijah led the group back out through the same cramped corridor, but once the three came out back into the street, they took a turn away from where they had came. They were headed for the outskirts, it only made sense they would be heading further from where the lower and middle levels meet. The lower level was lowered into the ground somewhat. Being the first part of the city built, the intention was to prevent irradiated dust and other debris from being blow through the city. So, keeping the city in the ground and having systems to manage and protect from debris did help citizens avoid radiation exposure for the most part. As Slater walked through the middle level, seeing more of its architecture, he thought more about its history. Eventually, radiation had died down enough that the middle level was built on normal ground. That meant the housing districts would lead directly to the old debris management sites.

The group moved through alleyways instead of streets, as three people with large packages were just begging for attention. The path was very roundabout, but Slater could at least tell that progress was being made by the lights of the upper level getting more faint and distant.

For the most part, the hours-long walk had been defined by a long silence, but it was finally broken by Elijah. “It’s a bit strange none of those white cloaks are out and about, isn’t it?” He had only intended to engage the two with him in conversation to make the most of the fragile peace they would soon lose.

“Considering the fact we’ve seen none so far,” Lillian took a moment to adjust where her bag’s weight was distributed on her body. “They aren’t patrolling the inside of the district. With that in mind—“

“They must have all the exits covered.” Elijah finished for Lillian. She nodded, confirming as much.

This then prompted Slater’s thoughts. “Are you saying they know we’re trying to get out of here?”

“In their defense, it was our only viable option.” Lillian replied.

“If they know, wouldn’t that mean our entire plan is a bust?”

“Not quite.” Elijah chimed in. “Emigration is a more political matter. They can’t easily interfere with it unless they’re prepared to face serious repercussions.

Despite his explanation, Slater still had doubts. “How do we know they aren’t part of the government though?” Slater walked closer behind Elijah, wanting to have his fears put to rest. Elijah grabbed his shirt with his hand and pulled the fabric a bit.

“I work for the government, Slater. If they were affiliated, I’d know.” He then pointed out the buildings around them. Slater noticed the very clear architecture style of the lower level, even though they had never gone back down. “We’re at the debris management sector now. If they truly had a way to stop us, they would’ve had foot soldiers blocking us here.” He motioned to the very clear open area around them.

“How close are we anyways?” Asked Lillian, trying to bring Elijah back to their main objective.

“Ah, right.” Elijah started walking again, this time straight into the center of the debris management sector. The siblings followed him, taking a series of right and left turns through decrepit buildings and rotting alleyways. Eventually, after a full fifteen minutes of this, they all came to a halt outside the side door to a medium sized warehouse. Elijah took up his hand and banged the door with it, briefly stopping between some. He was clearly conveying some sort of message, but neither Lillian nor Slater had enough knowledge to decipher what it was. Once he finished, Elijah backed away from the door and silence overtook the area briefly. But before long, the scrap metal door opened, revealing an older bearded man in an eye-patch on the other side. He put up an arm in greeting.

“Yo, Elijah. I wasn’t expecting you for a while longer. These those kids I’ve heard so much about?”