RED by Dejirah

[The Taco]

Well, our wonderful new member Deji happens to be a writer who would like to share her work with us. She asked me to make a place for her to post her writing, and her it is. This is where she will be posting her work, and I believe that she would like some feed-back.

~The Taco

[dejirah]

Prologue

Silently, she crept down the dark, damp hall, her gun pulled tight to her chest as she slipped along the wall. A voice crackled in her ear, “RahabDelta2A, are you active?” RahabDelta2A slowly let one hand off the gun and slid it up her neck to touch the recall button on her earphone. She whispered softly, “RahabDelta2A, here.”
“Are you in position?”
“Just a few more steps.”
“Press your com button twice when ready. We’ll respond with the code; base out.”
RahabDelta2A took a deep breath, slowly exhaled it through her nose to calm her nerves, and continued her slow steps to the position before a huge, metal door, a keypad on one side of the cave wall.
The room she was attempting to creep towards was an underground, secret meeting room for a group of criminals. Information had been given to the Galactic Intelligence Agency, GIA, informing the agency about the meeting of two slippery, intelligent leaders of two separate gangs, here to sign a peace treaty. And, of course, the GIA could not ignore this information when it proved true. So here her team was.
Eventually, she reached the door and pressed her communicator button twice, awaiting further instructions.
Her com crackled, “Ready, RahabDelta2A?”
She responded by pressing the button twice again and was answered with a string of numbers to get her and the other agents through the door, “2-1-2-3-6-1-7-2-5-1-1-3-1-2-2-5-R-E-D.” She input the numbers quickly, knowing the entrance to the room would open as soon as she finished. And it did.
Swiftly, RahabDelta2A slipped into the opening and stood in the middle of the now open doors, her gun at the ready, finger near the trigger. “You are surrounded. Hands in the air and face me.” In her peripherals, she saw the other four agents, each in the same position, gun pointing to the center of the middle, standing between two open doors in one of the five entrances to the underground room. She nodded and two moved forward to cuff the two men in the middle with their hands up.
Another mission completed. It was time for a long reboot and a hot aqua-bath.


RahabDelta2A carried the small PlastiGlass cube into the GIA’s Headquarters for Criminal Arrest, dropping the cube containing the two criminals, shrunk down to three inches, onto the Arrival desk, before turning to the speaker to create a prisoner profile for the two men.
“Stan Misten of the Darktan gang and Mitt Dent of the Stitel gang, arrested for conspiracy, evading arrest, and corruption of the justice system, arrested by RahabDelta2A of the second Delta team.”
Pivoting abruptly on her heel, she left, entered the blinding sunlight, and lightly tapped her wrist. A small blue screen opened before her left eye, scrolling through her schedule for the next two days. Nothing. She would finally have a break. A small smirk lifted the left side of her mouth as she headed back to the Delta base, to the second floor where her team resided.
Passing the rooms for her team, SelenaDelta2C, ArineDelta2D, HannahDelta2B, and CorineDelta2E, she came to the last door, LukasDelta2-1’s room. She knocked twice, paused, knocked once, paused again, and knocked three times, a secret code designed to let the other know who was outside the room and whether it was safe to speak freely. He opened the door, smiled, and moved so RahabDelta2A could enter, slipping passed him, throwing herself down onto his GIA-approved mattress, and reaching to grab the battery charger, plugging it into the back of her right hand.
Sixty percent battery, now charging.
She sighed and smiled up at him as he lowered himself into his desk to work on another silly invention. “Nice arrest, earlier.”
“Thanks. Nice work with the code.”
He smiled and nodded without looking up as she leaned back against the bland, grey wall and closed her eyes. “Hmm…” She mumbled softly.
“What is it?” He asked quickly.
“Nothing. Just ready for an aqua-bath.” He nodded his head towards the bathroom attached to both her and his rooms.
“Just binged. All ready for you, so hop to it.” Smiling, she slipped off the bed, unplugged herself, and ruffled his white-blonde hair before disappearing into the bathroom. She locked the door from his side and walked through the bathroom to her room, grabbing a towel for her hair and taking off her synthetic, dragonscale leather suit and placing it in the clothes-recycling chute.
Returning to the bathroom, she tied her hair up in the towel, slid herself into the bath, and grabbed the charger off the bathroom wall, plugging it in.
Seventy-five percent battery, now charging.
Leaning her head back, she let the aquatic water slip over her body. Slowly, her eyes drifted closed and she felt herself slip into sleep.


Battery one hundred percent. Unplug.
RahabDelta2A groaned and rolled over, feeling aqua-water slide over her body. The annoying, robotic voice sounded in her head again.
Battery one hundred percent. Unplug.
She grumbled and ripped the cord out from her hand, hanging it carefully on the wall again and stood up in the bath. The aqueous water solution slid off her skin, leaving her as dry as when she had gotten into the bath.
Calling up her interscreen, she mumbled, “Time.” Appearing on the blue screen was a flashing digital clock, showing the time to be 11:31:07. Just before lunch. She left the bathroom and entered her sleeping chambers, taking the towel off her hair and brushing it. After her shoulder-length, brunette hair was clear of any knots, she smiled into the mirror. She picked up the eye paint and drew a thin, black line above her upper lashes, with a teal color above that to bring out the peacock color of her eyes. She dabbed on a small bit of clear lip-gloss before turning and walking into the clothing generator.
Pressing a button, the generator twirled around her and clothed her in another black, synthetic, dragonscale leather suit. She pulled the gloves tight and smiled. She printed a nametag, slapped it onto her suit, and pulled on her skin-formed, dragonscale leather boots. Slipping her gun into her holster, she smiled into the mirror one last time before leaving the room, the pale, fluorescent lights turning off automatically.
“Time.” Her screen presented the flashing numbers, 12:05:19. The cafeteria would still be nearly empty right now. As she passed LukasDelta2-1’s room, she knocked thrice before yelling down the hall to all members of her team, “Lunch time!” and walking to the other end, waiting for the team to file out into the hall and form a line. Eventually, with LukasDelta2-1 first in line, she smiled, nodded, and led the team down to the lunchroom.
The team walked down the teal-colored, fluorescent-lit halls towards the cafeteria. The hall leaned to the right slightly, around the round cafeteria, footsteps echoing off the walls in harmony with each other.
RahabDelta2A led her team proudly into the café, towards the tray line. There was only one other team in the room, Eta 4. RahabDelta2A waved at MarkEta4A, leader of the other team, before turning towards the food dispensers. The menu for the day appeared on her interscreen and she read the options off to her team, “SpagMeat, ChickFri, EggOm, or MhiBurg.” She turned back to the dispensers and pushed option one, spaghetti with meatballs. LukasDelta2-1 chose the Mhiaya burger and while SelenaDelta2C and CorineDelta2E chose fried chicken, HannahDelta2B, and ArineDelta2D chose egg omelets. After getting their meals and a glass of vitamin-enhanced milk, the team sat at the table beside Eta 4.
“Hey, Mark.”
“Hey, Rahab. How did the last assignment go?”
Rahab snorted and raised an eyebrow at Mark. “Think we wouldn’t succeed? We always succeed. We’re on schedule to be upgraded to Gamma 2 position.”
At that comment, Mark’s eyebrows raised and he whistled. “Big promotion. Are G 3 and 4 and D 1 not doing well?” Rahab shook her head and leaned to the side between the tables and whispered quickly into Mark’s ear, “D 1 is supposed to become the new Eta 4 and you move to Eta 3.”
A voice overhead boomed, “Team leaders, separate. You are in violation of the personnel space code 3.2.a.” Rahab and Mark leaned back over their food, each with a small, hidden smile on their lips. Rahab looked up at Lukas sitting across from her and took in his questioning face before she shrugged and continued to eat her food.


“Time.”
Rahab sighed at the time, her interscreen showing 15:08:12. Two and a half hours since lunch and another hour until training. With her left leg extended, she leaned back against the bland, grey wall, holding her gun and resting her forearm on her right knee. Unconsciously twirling her gun tip in circles, she closed her eyes.
Red.
Red everywhere.
It was all she could see for miles and miles. It was all just red landscape. Red dirt, red mountains, red valleys. Even the city ruins in the distance were rust red. Her wrist stung and she held it tight as she looked around her. She spun around and it was the same, rustic red landscape. She heard a stifled sob to her left and saw Lukas, kneeling on the ground beside a tree. He faced the city ruins as tears cleared paths down his red, dirt-covered cheeks. Rahab realized she was also crying. Tears flowing down her cheeks, carving out trails down through the dirt.
A sudden shake, her name yelled, and Rahab jolted out of sleep. She looked curiously into Lukas’s face, worry etched on his beautiful features. “What happened?” She asked him.
“You were whimpering and whispering something about it being red.” He said.
“Don’t even remember. Time.” Her interscreen appeared, 16:57:43. “We better get everyone rounded up for training.”
Lukas nodded, concern still showing on his face as he helped her up and got the team in formation to head out to the training grounds.

As the Delta 2 team exited the large, military-styled compound, a small little bug traveled back to its owner as quickly as it could. Scuttling across the walls and ceilings, it stayed out of sight until it arrived at the office it had been programmed to return to. Slipping under the door, the tiny black recording bug hopped itself up onto the desk and faced the man seated in the dark.
“Was the transfer successful?”
The little bug nodded, the fake memory placed in the team leader’s head while she was asleep. This was the purpose of the bug, to slip ideas into other’s heads and to record their reactions. Quickly, the bug brought up the image of the team leader whimpering and whispering in sleep.
“Excellent. Only one more month.”