Madam Cecilia

Camden awoke from his dreamless sleep, and found himself bound tightly to a metal chair. His arms and legs unable to move from their restrained positions, his breaths echoing through the cold, damp air that surrounded him. His captor had given him the courtesy of not leaving the bag on his head, a fact that Camden only briefly considered before looking around. He took stock of his situation. The last thing he remembered was being apprehended on the battlefield, whilst trying desperately to escape the once abandoned city. He was still alive, which was a plus. The room was barely illuminated by a single light bulb screwed into the ceiling, which didn’t exactly reveal much of anything beyond a small table in the front left corner. The walls of the room were the same copper and bronze coloured metal as everything else, bolted and riveted together at the edges. In front of Camden, laid a thick metal door, bolted shut. The window in the middle of it quite resembled that of a submarine porthole, though he couldn’t see through it. Either it had been deliberately obscured, or there simply wasn’t enough light on the other side to reveal anything.

Left with no other option, Camden decided to speak.

“H-Hello?” he asked, his voice bouncing off of the metallic walls. No response. He tried again.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

All of a sudden, he felt the ground begin to rumble and shake gently. He was lurched slightly forward, and realized what had occurred. He wasn’t currently in some hidden bunker. He was in a moving vehicle. Maybe the transport vessel that he’d followed into the city? And presumably, it was off to its next destination.

Interrupting his thoughts, a mechanism of gears within the door spun, cogs turning in unison, all ending in the click of a lock being opened. The door moved slowly, scraping against the metal plated beneath it. Into the room, stepped a mysterious woman. Her figure was slim, and she stood tall compared to Camden, especially from the chair. Her dark brown hair, interrupted by the occasional streak of grey, was tied up carefully in a bun, with a thin decorative blade jabbed diagonally through it.

She donned a worn leather jacket, its desaturated amber only broken up by lighter coloured rips and tears and weathering marks. Its left arm was dyed blue, and contained an ironed insignia, that of a metallic gear with a dagger down the middle. She methodically closed and locked the door, then approached, stopping directly in front of Camden, clipboard in hand. She adjusted her thin rectangular glasses, her piercing blue eyes directed towards him.

“Who are you?” she asked, coldly.

Camden responded nigh-instantly. “Who am I? Who are you?? Are you the one who kidnapped me while I was trying to escape? W-what kind of person does that?” Camden asked with a slight sense of panic, tryingly masked by a false indignation. The woman didn’t respond immediately, simply writing something on her clipboard before speaking.

“You may refer to me as Madam Cecilia. Any other colloquial terms are strictly unnecessary at this point in time.” She refocused her attention on him.

Now, I’ll ask once more. Who. Are. You?” she repeated, her voice curt and professional, though containing a slight tinge of irritation.

Camden hesitated this time, before speaking. “C-Camden Valaraki. My name is Camden Valaraki”. So much for trying to act confident.

The Madam sighed sharply. “Right. And Mr. Valaraki, where do you come from? Your clothing’s not that of any faction I know of. Nor is your supposed ignorance.” She said in an accusatory manner. She then paused, before asking another question, pointedly. “How did you find us?”

“I followed that massive… vehicle-transport thing? The one with the wheels.”

“The vast majority of our vehicles have wheels, Mr. Valaraki.” she replied. “You’re going to need to be more specific.”

“You know what I mean, t-the transport! The one that you took to the city?”

The Madam took another note down on her clipboard. “Ah, the Goldenrod Pathfinder. I figured as much, but it’s good to have clarification. In fact, it may interest you to know that we’re on that very vehicle right now.”

At least Camden had deduced that one correctly. Camden decided to try his luck, asking a question.

“Those aircraft that attacked, who were they?”

The Madam clicked her tongue. “I ask the questions here, understand?”

“Y-you’re the one who kidnapped me, I think I’m owed some amount of explanation."

“We saved you, Mr. Valaraki,” the Madam stated, matter of factly. “You were running around like a headless Laaki-bird. You would have likely gotten yourself killed, had we not intervened.”

“Speak for yourself. I could have figured it out.” he replied.

“No, you couldn’t have. And the fact that you think you could proves our point exactly. Though I’m sure it will bring you some peace of mind to know that all three of the aircraft have now been thoroughly decommissioned. And an explanation will come in time, provided that you cooperate.”

She placed down her clipboard onto the table, and from her belt, pulled up a leather satchel, unbuckled it, and carefully removed the remains of Camden’s smartphone. She must have taken it off of him while he was unconscious. The Madam held up the electronic scraps, looking at them briefly before focusing back on Camden.

“What is this?” she asked.

Camden was a bit shocked. “You… you’ve never seen one before?”

“No, obviously not. If I had seen one, I wouldn’t be asking you, now would I?” she replied, stating what she thought should have been obvious. He supposed that made sense, what with everything seeming different here than it did back home.

“It’s a smartphone.” Camden paused, deciding instead to use language that he thought his captor would respond better to. “A small device used for long distance communication. For taking photos, videos, etc. Or at least, it was before it combusted or whatever. I’m still not sure what happened to it.”

“Fascinating. And where does it originate from?” she asked, voice still prying for information.

“...the factory? Where it was manufactured?”

“So you mean to tell me that where you live, such a technologically advanced device can simply be purchased?” Her eyes narrowed.

“Yes, tha–” Camden began to answer, but was suddenly interrupted by Madam Cecilia.

“Who are you really, Mr. Valaraki? The south was the most advanced out of all of us before they fell. And even they only got as far as mechanized helpers. We’ve already had forensics go over these remains, and none of them were able to even begin making sense of it.”

She leaned in closer.

“Which means one of two things. Either you’re lying, or we’re missing a very crucial piece of information.”

Her eyes stared at him with an intensity that bore directly into his soul.

“So… what will it be?”

Just then, the room shook violently, jerking Camden to the side. Madam Cecilia steadied herself, having almost fallen over. A voice crackled through a loudspeaker outside of the room.

“Substantial damage, starboard side! All crew, attend to your assigned stations!” it yelled. They were under attack. An alarm began to sound, and the lights dimmed, presumably to save power.

She quickly stuffed the phone’s remains back in the satchel, and turned back to Camden.

“Stay. Here.” she ordered. And with that, she reopened the door, nearly ripping it off of its hinges as she ran off into the vessel.

In the chaos, she had forgotten to lock the door. Camden thanked his lucky stars. And there wasn’t a moment to waste. If there was any time to escape, it was now. He tugged at the ropes holding him down, jostling this way and that until the rope on his right arm caught on a sharp point on his watch. Bingo. He moved that arm back and forth, fraying away at the rope thread by thread, until it broke with a satisfying snap. With one arm free, he got to untying his other, and then both of his legs. It was a tedious process, and the shakes of the room weren’t exactly helping. But eventually, he was out. He shook out his limbs, cracked his back, and began his escape. He snuck out of the room where he had been held captive, and made his way down a long hallway, doors similar to that of his own room lined the walls, the air smelling faintly of smoke. It was strangely devoid of people, though Camden figured that most of them would be busy fending off whatever had launched the attack. He did his best to stay quiet as he continued with utmost haste, but with the blaring of the alarm, it was unlikely anyone would be able to hear him regardless.

He ended up at an intersection, and decided to rush left. Poor choice. As it turned out, the hallway to the left led into the main bridge of the Vessel. The room was relatively circular, with one person positioned in the middle, and numerous others around the edge, each one doing their part to keep the vessel from being taken down. At the front of the room laid the windshield, an assembly of glass held together by a metal frame, all forming a dome to survey the horizon line. Though the sparse cracks that danced at its edges seemed to suggest it had seen better days. Positioned in the dome was a gunner, swiveling his turret to the side, attempting to shoot down one of the aircraft. It was too fast, however, narrowly dodging the pink jolts that flew through the air.

Amongst the stations at the edge of the room, Camden saw the one person he was hoping he wouldn’t find. It seemed that Madam Cecilia was monitoring a number of readouts, all represented by a matrix of blinking lights that laid in front of her, quickly but methodically pressing buttons and levers that Camden could only assume were of utmost importance. She looked up, and was the first of the bridge crew to spot him, a slight panic showing in her eyes, confusion on how he had escaped. But only for an instant.

She turned back to her station, the situation at hand clearly being of greater priority than attempting to recapture and interrogate Camden.

“Status report.” said the older looking man in the middle of the room, his voice stern with a hint of worry. He must have been the captain.

“Multiple hull breaches on the starboard side, one on the portside.” came a response from the front right. This man looked a bit younger than the captain, but not by more than a decade. “Three bogeys remain. It would seem that the first five brought a little bit of backup, wouldn’t it?” he said sarcastically, his dialogue directed towards Madam Cecilia.

“Can it.” she responded with irritation, pressing a few more buttons while she talked. “I take it you have a better idea on how to obtain more Valos Alnovarium?”

“Just because I don’t doesn’t mean that nobody does. I’m sure that–”

“Enough. Both of you. We have a crew to save. Gunner, do you have them in your sights?”

“Negative, Captain.”

The Vessel shook once more, this one less violent than the first one. The loudspeaker cracked to life once more. “One eliminated by aft cannon. Two remain.”

“Evasive maneuvers.”

The vessel took a sharp right turn, the whole room swaying to one side, nearly causing Camden to fall over. It left the main roadway, and headed into the forest. The oversized wheels toppled the trees in its path, causing the vessel to shudder this way and that. It struggled against the obstacles as it continued forwards, attempting to lose the aircraft in the density of the forest, if only briefly. One of them had flown too close to the ground, and in an attempt to follow the vessel, turned a bit too widely, crashing into a tree with another explosion. The vessel advanced, shooting out of the wooded area, ending up on a different path than before. One hostile remained.

Camden was just about to run back the way he came, when the last remaining aircraft made quite the wide radius to the frontside of the vessel, shooting right at the glass as it made its approach. The windshield withstood the first few hits, the cracks widening. But with the next flurry of blasts, it shattered, a massive chunk hitting the gunman in the head, his body falling as the gunning chair snapped backwards, tumbling to the floor. He appeared to still be alive, but was unconscious.

“Gunner down!” someone cried.

“Bogey coming back around for another pass.”

The bridge was defenceless. It was only a matter of time before the aircraft repeated its last maneuver. Camden shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he was about to do. He rushed his way up to the gunner’s seat, cracking it back into place, sitting down, and gripping the controls tightly in his hands. The aircraft was already maneuvering its way back around, heading straight for the front of the vessel, blasters only waiting to get in range. Camden controlled the cannon, getting the enemy fighter directly in his line of sight. He took a deep breath. Tightened his fist. And fired the cannon.