On the Run

15 - The Plot Thickens

The ancient, rickety elevator shuddered as it ascended back to the abandoned city of Craco with Mia inside, ripping off her disguise before she reached the surface. The elevator came to a shaky halt and the ceiling slid apart, the frigid air greeting her body harshly. She climbed up to the surface and ran out of the shadowy building and onto the empty street. The wind whistled throughout the hollow buildings, only pushing Mia to run faster. She didn't want to think about it, but the thought that Orabella had sent squads of highly trained men and women after her was kicking about at the back of her mind.

She turned out of the street and almost jumped out of her skin as her body collided with someone else. Mia stumbled back, her hands flying up to grab anything to stop her from hitting the ground. Her fingers landed on the jagged, uncomfortable concrete next to her. A few stings of pain shot through her palm, but she payed it no mind.

"It's only me," a familiar voice spoke. Mia felt her nerves calm down as she registered who was speaking.

"Daniela," Mia said almost breathlessly as she looked up to her, "you scared me."

"Sorry," Daniela replied as she held her hand out and helped Mia up from where she was clinging onto. "I'm guessing shit hit the fan for you too."

Mia nodded before briefly inspecting her hand, the small trickles of blood glistened in the moonlight. "A guard cornered me when I was looking through some files. Killed him but once I got outside, there was some sort of outbreak with one of the people being kept down there. It was unbelievable just how strong they were. Then Orabella saw me and sent her servitor after me. I barely made it out."

"Gesù," Daniela said. "About that person you saw, I think I know exactly what happened to them."

"What?" Mia asked, ripping a small piece of fabric from her shirt and wrapped it around her cut palm.

"They are the Potential Program. The select people down there all have something called the potential, something that allows to potentially to unlock and control their entire brain capacity," Daniela explained.

"If they do this, they can transform themselves into highly trained, highly adaptable killers. They could instantly pick up any fighting style, or they could instantly know how to use a weapon if they were given it."

Mia felt bombarded with the information Daniela dropped on her. If that was the case, then her worries of Orabella starting a global war were only becoming more of a possibility.

"It all began during the early 2000s," Daniela then said, motioning Mia to follow her as she walked. "The Russians wanted to create soldiers that could take down the Stati Uniti from the inside, unlike any normal spy could. But the first Potential Program went wrong, causing the subjects to go rogue. Russia terminated the program and tried to keep it hidden."

Mia thought back to her mission to Siberia and the documents she was sent to retrieve. She was starting to make the connections between each little piece of information they discovered. And she was sure that at the centre would lie Orabella's grand plan.

"She has to be planning to use them for some sort of attack," Mia said. As much as she wanted to think of Orabella as her mentor, someone who was there for her and saw something in her, all of that was gone. It was all a lie. "I found Lorenzo's brother is their top subject. Whatever they're doing to him, it's working because they're extremely impressed with his progress."

"Do you think Orabella has fixed where the Russians went wrong?" Daniela asked.

"Maybe. But if she has, then we haven't got long before they're sent out to do God knows what," Mia replied as they picked up their pace and jogged out of the city, heading down the slope to where the car was hiding away for them.