and a buzzing press corps in my wake.
Chapter Six
I was being led to an isolated spot, and they wanted me to believe I was powerless to stop it. Adrenaline coursed through me, making me twitchy on the inside, steely calm on the outside. I’d been trained by the best soldiers, weapons experts and tacticians the States had to offer since the government had taken custody of me at the age of five. Sonicrifles, hand-to-hand combat, battlefield operations, I’d learned and excelled at them all. Violence and war had become my second and third languages.
Then, as my training had proceeded, all of that aggression had been tempered by Psychological Health Agents—PsychHAgs to those of us strong enough to actually make it through that facet of training with our minds still intact—who ground me down to my most primal urges and built me back up, piece by maddening piece, until they deemed I had enough control over myself to not be a security threat if I was ever captured.
It was this training that I focused on as we walked down the grated metal steps. Each footfall was another repeat of my guiding mantra. Another reminder of the ideology I fought for. Another reminder of the cause that was greater than me. Of the certainty of the piece I played in this game—a pawn at the ready for sacrifice once I’d served my purpose.
The temperature dropped the lower we progressed below the arena, but I had no problem adjusting to the frigid air seeping through the thin material of my clothes. Cold was my ally—it cleared my head until all my senses were heightened. And I knew I would need to be in top form to make it past Armise and onto the opening ceremony platform.
I was outnumbered and without my rifle, but the guards wouldn’t be dumb enough to think that meant they could control me. They wouldn’t know exactly how I’d been trained, that information had never existed in my official military record, but they would have been told enough to know I didn’t need a weapon to kill.
What they didn’t know was that I had no intention of stopping them.
The Olympics were a convenient cover for my mission. As elaborate of a setup that could be engineered, but whether Opposition or Revolution we were all opportunists.
The Olympics were being held in the Continental States, inside the city limits of the capital, my home city, in an area that had been built up over the last five years for the explicit purpose of the games. But what most people didn’t know was that there was an intricate system of tunnels running underneath the Olympic grounds. Most of the tunnels had been manufactured during construction—the well-lit set created with the tourists in mind decorated with artwork from each of the five countries, the sterile passages leading from athlete housing to the venues, and the utilitarian tunnels constructed for cleaning crews, laundry service and food service.
Then there were the sub-tunnels, roughly carved stone reinforced with sheets of steel. Tunnels that curved up and around in graceful, ancient arches that had existed as a forgotten part of the city for over a thousand years. They were low, damp, lit with industrial fixtures spaced intermittently along the meandering walls. There appeared to be no reason for the odd placement between the lights other than to create shadow pockets, areas deep below the earth where nothing would be seen nor heard.
We descended another set of stairs and I knew these were the tunnels the guards were taking me to.
I was more familiar with these tunnels than any of the planners who had built the Olympic village probably were. Before it was my job to be aware of all possible routes of escape in this city, I’d roamed these underground passages as a child. A childhood spent playing war games with my trainers. There was no way the President’s guard or Armise would be able to take me by surprise down here.
We reached the bottom of the stairs and there was the grating noise of a key entering a
Chapter Six
I was being led to an isolated spot, and they wanted me to believe I was powerless to stop it. Adrenaline coursed through me, making me twitchy on the inside, steely calm on the outside. I’d been trained by the best soldiers, weapons experts and tacticians the States had to offer since the government had taken custody of me at the age of five. Sonicrifles, hand-to-hand combat, battlefield operations, I’d learned and excelled at them all. Violence and war had become my second and third languages.
Then, as my training had proceeded, all of that aggression had been tempered by Psychological Health Agents—PsychHAgs to those of us strong enough to actually make it through that facet of training with our minds still intact—who ground me down to my most primal urges and built me back up, piece by maddening piece, until they deemed I had enough control over myself to not be a security threat if I was ever captured.
It was this training that I focused on as we walked down the grated metal steps. Each footfall was another repeat of my guiding mantra. Another reminder of the ideology I fought for. Another reminder of the cause that was greater than me. Of the certainty of the piece I played in this game—a pawn at the ready for sacrifice once I’d served my purpose.
The temperature dropped the lower we progressed below the arena, but I had no problem adjusting to the frigid air seeping through the thin material of my clothes. Cold was my ally—it cleared my head until all my senses were heightened. And I knew I would need to be in top form to make it past Armise and onto the opening ceremony platform.
I was outnumbered and without my rifle, but the guards wouldn’t be dumb enough to think that meant they could control me. They wouldn’t know exactly how I’d been trained, that information had never existed in my official military record, but they would have been told enough to know I didn’t need a weapon to kill.
What they didn’t know was that I had no intention of stopping them.
The Olympics were a convenient cover for my mission. As elaborate of a setup that could be engineered, but whether Opposition or Revolution we were all opportunists.
The Olympics were being held in the Continental States, inside the city limits of the capital, my home city, in an area that had been built up over the last five years for the explicit purpose of the games. But what most people didn’t know was that there was an intricate system of tunnels running underneath the Olympic grounds. Most of the tunnels had been manufactured during construction—the well-lit set created with the tourists in mind decorated with artwork from each of the five countries, the sterile passages leading from athlete housing to the venues, and the utilitarian tunnels constructed for cleaning crews, laundry service and food service.
Then there were the sub-tunnels, roughly carved stone reinforced with sheets of steel. Tunnels that curved up and around in graceful, ancient arches that had existed as a forgotten part of the city for over a thousand years. They were low, damp, lit with industrial fixtures spaced intermittently along the meandering walls. There appeared to be no reason for the odd placement between the lights other than to create shadow pockets, areas deep below the earth where nothing would be seen nor heard.
We descended another set of stairs and I knew these were the tunnels the guards were taking me to.
I was more familiar with these tunnels than any of the planners who had built the Olympic village probably were. Before it was my job to be aware of all possible routes of escape in this city, I’d roamed these underground passages as a child. A childhood spent playing war games with my trainers. There was no way the President’s guard or Armise would be able to take me by surprise down here.
We reached the bottom of the stairs and there was the grating noise of a key entering a
Similar Books
