Operation Fortnight

Fünf: Niedarlage

10949 1000hrs

Inside of an unidentifiable underground militia base deep in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil.

I could pick that white and red facemask out of a crowd from ten miles away. Only one person has the audacity to strut about with a maple leaf painted on his face all the time. 

My only question is this:

Exactly how in the name of all that is good and reasonable did Arland Shambler get here?!

I leaned back against my crate and swallowed the urge to swear out loud as the bearded man who bore a striking resemblance to Jean Valjean back when he was still just prisoner #24601 began to deliver a speech, something about how his cause was righteous and how he would wipe away the filth of the world of some other related nonsense. By this time I had heard that exact same speech or something so remarkably similar to it that you'd think that all the looneys of the world all hire the same guy to write these things. 

It was at this point that I was very glad that I had decided to take up sign language as my twelfth proficiency, because outside of the overlapping noise from the dozens of televsions all blaring the same guy shouting the same speech, but echoing intensely, the room was totally silent, and in order to avoid risking alerting the impossible number of soldiers standing eerily still a small force not even ten feet from the wooden crates we were currently hiding behind, Sequoia after putting away her bird-watching binoculars, began to sign to me: I found an air duct across the way that you'd fit in, but unless you plan to fly over there, there's no way you'll reach it. I quickly responded with: Oh haha, very funny. Pick on the short girl. Her reply: Just because you're named after a bird, doesn't make you one.

You're right. I'm not a bird. I'm better than a bird. I'm Albatross. 

She just gave me a look like I was looking to get turned into a cheese grater. I didn't mind. She can make faces at me all she wants, she's still going to do what I tell her because unlike my indecisive teammates, this girl trusts me with all of her life, all of the time. She can try to suavely play it off like that's not the case, but I can see it in her eyes. She practically idolizes me. She knows that she and I would have died in that ancient ruin those seven hundred and twenty some odd days ago were it not for my quick thinking and resourcefulness. She may have had the home field advantage outside, but down here, where every wall is metal and they're all slowly closing in to crush you, and the chance of walking away alive get slimmer by the second, that's where I am the Queen, and in my domain, I reign supreme. I'm called Albatross because even out in the middle of the open ocean, where all hope of shore is lost forever, I will keep on flying. I soar higher and farther than any other could. 

Nothing can keep me out of the sky. 

And that's a fact. 

I motioned with two fingers that we'd better get a move on, seeing as how there's no way of really knowing when this guy'll stop talking. It didn't seem like it'd be soon, he looked like he still had plenty of hot air left in him to left this whole base to sea level, but you never really know for sure. 

Sequoia was never less than a step behind me the whole way as the two of us stealthed our way behind the crowd of men all hyponotised by the speaker, who they would occasionally cheer and praise as "The Great Beckar," whatever that means. Of course, it's easy to go unnoticed when you have government issue stealth gear equipped with active camouflage which makes you blend in like a chameleon no matter what the environment, but Sequoia didn't have that advantage, so I'd have to be double cautious for her sake. Right about halfway around the bend, when we were still quite a distance away from the east terminal, I noticed that the gunfire in my ear had stopped, which to me, was bad news. It would only be a matter of time until the boys found the north hatch and entered a firefight with us in the crossfire.