Phoenix (Part 2 of the 2 Part Malevolent Series)

Chapter 16

We all huddle around the small TV which is set to broadcast the President any moment. The screen begins to glow, and then the circling globe appears. It slowly transitions to Alemans face, he looks worse and worse every broadcast.

"Good morning, it seems that I am delivering important news more than ever. And we can blame that on the weak rebellion, just hours ago our cameras caught something awful." The screen transitions into a photo of me shooting Sandra.

"The esteemed James Delgado seen here shooting one of his own soldiers. We don't know why this happened, but what we do know is that this group is a fraud, they only seek power, they don't want to fix anything." Aleman smugly says

"Lucinda, do you have the broadcasting gear." I sternly ask

"Yeah, it won't be as strong of a signal, but I'll set it up." Lucinda offers

I turn back to the screen, "We need every citizens support, whether it be a money donation, or just flat out support, we need everyone on board to destroy the rebellion."

"James." Lucinda says, I turn to her and see everything set up. I walk over there and ready myself.

She presses a few buttons and counts down from three. She eventually points at me, and I begin to speak.

I straighten my posture, "Good morning, this is James Delgado with the rebellion." I pause for a split second, "Yes, I did shoot that innocent women. However, it was a justified killing. Your government is making it very hard to liberate everyone from the grasp of this awful leader. This women, Sandra, was trapped in a steel cage, a trap designed to kill someone off. This also activated a river of acid to flow directly to our location. Sandra chose to be shot, rather than having to be slowly drowned and burned to death. So yes, I did shoot her, but only to ease her burden. Do not let this man stretch the truth, he is corrupt, and seeks nothing but power. We have come a long way, and need everyone's support to destroy President Aleman." I finish, Lucinda turns off the camera.

"A bit impromptu, but as always, well executed. Good job James." Chloe smiles and pats my back.

"We need to find a way to get past that barrier, or else we're just sitting ducks." Hudson says

I scoot closer into the small group, "Guys, do you remember what our base camp said?"

"No, not really." Hudson adds

"Well, they said to watch what we say, because they've tapped into our communications network. If we can divert them, by sending them elsewhere, we could find a way to get past that wall." I say

"Well that's nice and all, but how are we going to break through that wall?" Chloe asks

"There has to be a weak point somewhere." Lucinda pulls up the map of the wall.

"There's probably no weak spot in the wall itself, they have some smart people working for them." Lucinda says

"Well what about generators? Oscillators? We could blow up the physical display." Hudson says

"I like the generators or oscillators idea, but they have either or, not both." Lucinda says

"I'm guessing generators." Hudson says

Lucinda looks around the map, she looks around the wall, there's nothing to see. She zooms farther out, she pauses for a moment, and then zooms back in to a wooded area miles away. She keeps zooming, and focuses on a big plant of some sort.

"That, my friends, looks to be what we need to take down. It's outside the charter walls." Lucinda says

"Then we'll send some jets over, and punch through the wall." I say

"Unfortunately, it's not that easy. These generators, if shot down, are probably just secondary power sources. So we wouldn't have much time to pass through." Lucinda says

I look at the map, and see a small physical wall before the digital wall begins. "Then why don't we blow that thing up too?" I point to it.

"Okay, so we'd need to destroy that power plant, and land the charges at the same time. However that wall doesn't go where we need to enter, it stands as a projection for the north side of the wall. So someone would need to go over there and plant the charges before hand." Lucinda says

"I'll go." Wyatt says

"Okay, thank you Wyatt." Lucinda says

"How are we going to relay this to base camp so they can scramble jets?" Chloe asks

"The only way I could see that happening is passing the information through another network, one that is very close to the one we use, so they can pick up the necessary information." Lucinda says

"I also propose on the day we do it, that we relay false information. Like, say, we head west on a street, instead we go east." I say

"That could work, and also, as soon as we pass that wall, we don't know how many traps there will be on the ground. So we need an alternative way to get in." Lucinda says

"How about the sewers." Noah breaks his silence.

"Good, good, I like it. If we can find an entrance, we'll take it. Otherwise, we'll have to battle it above ground." Lucinda says

"Okay, so I suppose we can launch this plan tomorrow, as long as base camp can scramble jets." Chloe says

"Tomorrow it is, I will get a hold of base camp." Lucinda says

Lucinda leaves the room, and we're reduced to 18.

I get up and look outside and see the large, menacing wall ahead of us. The wind picks up the leaves and whistles against the building.

"This is gonna take a lot of luck." I say

"There's no such thing as luck." Chloe joins me, "Only skill and precision."