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Series Finale
“Do you think they found cover in time?” a woman wonders aloud, spinning around in her chair to face a man that stands behind her, one arm crossed over his chest whilst his other is lifted toward his face, allowing his knuckle to be gently bitten anxiously. “Velma, I’ve got no idea” the light-skinned man replies, letting his fingers fall from his mouth as he stares into the monitor that his acquaintance sits at, “all I know is that they shouldn’t have waited so long to find somewhere to settle.” “Leon, you know how Jay and Sidney operate” Velma retorts, fully turning her seat to face the man, who leans against the desk on the opposite side of the room from her. “Yeah, yeah... They push the boundaries. I don’t expect them to change their ways- I’ve heard it a million times before” Leon responds, stepping away from the desk and approaching a wall of computer towers in the corner. “Just because they don’t play things safe like they should doesn’t mean that it’s the right approach to take...” the man continues, clearly displeased with the worrying situation they find themselves in, “...especially not so far away from home.” Looking toward the ground with a frown, Velma sits quietly for a moment before leaving her seat, approaching the man that fiddles with various cables at the room’s side, his hands turning at dials and adjusting antennas wherever possible. “Look, there are some things in life that you just have to work around. The nature of the people that you associate with is one of those things” she explains, resting her hand on the man’s shoulder, “you can’t argue they haven’t made it through worse.” Ceasing his various manoeuvring of the radio equipment that stands stacked atop each other directly in front of him, Leon takes the woman’s words into her mind and feels them leave his stomach sickly, knotting his intestines and leaving him pained. “You never hear the shot that brings you down, V’” he responds, wishing not to let the past dictate his future assertions, “surviving a tornado wouldn’t mean you’d stand around doing nothing the next time one comes around.” “No, but in that same metaphor- knowing that they’ve survived the worst already lets us know they’re at least aware of what to do this time” Velma rebukes, tightening her grasp on the man’s shoulder whilst staring at him with eyes of reassurance, “so, for heaven’s sake, just try to have a little bit of-” “Anybody there!?” a man’s voice calls out through the radio, immediately sending the two people who’d been waiting for it back to their initial stations. “Velly!? Leon!?” the voice persists, speaking over the sound of heavy rainfall whilst waiting for an answer. “Jay! Jay! We’re here!” Velma hurriedly exclaims, firmly pressing her thumb into the bright, red button at the base of her microphone whilst hastily throwing her headset on, “what happened!? Are you guys safe!?” “Yes! Yes! Hahaha!” Jay excitedly calls back, pausing to take a deep sigh of relief as he holds his head whilst staring toward the sky, “we made it to an apartment complex a short way out from the city just before the rain started coming down!” Nodding to himself, Leon keeps to mute whilst his friend follows through with the line of dialogue, trying to keep the steady stream of information flowing whenever the opportunity arises. “Here, let me see that” the woman beside the thrilled wanderer remarks, handing off a remote control she’d wielded before placing her ear to the inner part of her hand phone. “Hey Velly, it’s Sidney” she greets, stepping closer to the nearby window and looking out at a desolate, sand-covered road just a short distance away whilst speaking, “don’t worry about us, we’re both safe.” “Good! Good!” Velma responds, unable to hold back the smile that spreads across her face, “what about the drone? Did you get anywhere close to the city before the storm hit?” Yet to reply in words, Sidney begins shaking her head in refusal whilst looking toward the man in her company, his eyes staring daggers into the video screen that’s built into the centre of the controller. “No, but we did finally get that metal shield you’d sent it with bolted on. We’re testing it out right now, and so far- the drone’s making it through the storm just fine” she finally answers in words, having yet to see anything of note before handing off the machine’s ownership. “Alright, did you get anything worth talking about?” Velma questions, receiving her answer whilst the woman on the other end of the line joins her friend at his behest, sharing a look at the screen he wields. “Actually, we haven’t really captured anything... But that’s kind of the thing worth talking about” Sidney responds, quietly waving her finger in a multitude of directions toward Jay before stepping away, gesturing for him to follow through on some action. “The people with the guns and the planes and stuff left the city” she carries on, returning to the window she’d recently stepped aside from, “I don’t know why, but they started running for the hills in unison just before sunset.” “Why?” Velma immediately questions, continuing to stare blankly at the speaker her handset is set up to, focusing on the source in which her friend’s voice emanates. “We’re not sure, but we saw all the planes and helicopters hurry off. The power went out a while ago- maybe an hour or two- and that boat on the coastline left too” Sidney doubles down, “you said there was supposed to be a ton of people here, but even before the rain started... There’s no one here.” “Of course there wouldn’t be, the storm was coming in” Velma replies, trying to offer an alternative to the woman’s conclusion, only for it to find an immediate challenge. “I was flying the drone past windows of the skyscrapers, of the little suburban homes, of cars... whatever there was” Sidney explains, shaking her head whilst coming up without much of an alternative way of viewing the situation, “there’s no one in the cars, in the homes, in the shops... nowhere.” “That can’t be possible! You just said you could see lights all over the place yesterday!” Velma retorts, shaking her head whilst failing to comprehend such a rapid change, “what the hell happened!?” “I’m trying to tell you that we’re not sure either” Sidney clarifies, just as baffled as the woman on the other end of the line is, “we’ve only found one thing that even remotely shows any sign of life, and Jay just spotted it a few minutes ago. I had him send you a screenshot.” Hurrying to the empty seat beside Velma, Leon sets his fingers upon the keyboard to a second computer and quickly moves from one tab to another, the gentle redirection of the mouse allowing him to catch the file that their allies had sent them. “What the hell is that?” the communicating lady questions, staring at the same photograph as the only other person she shares the room with. “Mount Cedars-Sinai Medical Center” Leon whispers, reading out the lights in the distance of the photograph whilst his friend watches on, trying to explain the oddity just as he does. “If you don’t want us to, just say so- but Jay and I are sending the drone to that building as we speak” Sidney remarks, suddenly feeling her friend nudge at her elbow as the man on the other end of the line grants her permission to continue with the mission. “What?” Sidney asks, looking back into the controller’s screen whilst Jay continues to guide the drone, having captured something else of interest with the intent on following it. “Hold on, Jay’s following something” the woman speaks to those back home, describing the scene as best she can to usher them along the journey with her, “I think he... I think... I think he’s following a car.” Looking back to each other, the pair of computer-stationed figures nod to each other without uttering a word, pulling apart and moving their separate ways. “Jay, Sidney- whatever you do... Do not lose sight of that car!” Velma warns, taking over full operation over the control centre as her friend makes for the room’s exit, his hand grasping the handle of a metal door and pushing it outward to reveal a well-lit building that fully surrounds him, surviving the night sky with lamps and lanterns. Weighing the information that they’ve come into, Leon’s fingers wrap around the top of a railing that overlooks a baseball diamond, its dirt track surrounded by amateur construction that occupies every stretch of what had once served as the in and out fields. Sketched along the scoreboard at the base of a towering, green wall, the words “Athens of America” are scrawled in white paint, the view one that appears pleasant to the man, who makes for a nearby tunnel with a sign over its head. “Thank you for visiting Fenway Park.” = Dire is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards = Grasping the steering wheel with a firm and unrelenting squeeze, Jaime focuses on the asphalt road that she navigates whilst trying to ignore the acidic waters that run down her windshield. Having been seared away and greatly worn down, the sedan’s wipers do little to aid the chancellor’s sights, but the small amount of good they do perform at least allows the woman to make it to her destination in one piece. Hoping for the best, Jaime leaves the truck running and steps beyond the door with the help of an umbrella, its cloth quickly being eaten away by the vicious weather conditions, but affording her enough time to rush to the hospital’s front entrance with minimal burns. Though she steps through the building’s entrance, the chancellor’s ears take toward the air just a few yards behind her, catching the gentle sound of whirring as it draws nearer. With a squint, the woman looks through the dense pellets of rainfall to catch a large, flying object drawing closer to her, coming to a curious stop whilst still in the midst of the storm. As if staring each other down, Jaime and the metal-reinforced drone refuse to move from their positions, the pair eventually coming eye-to-eye with the other with only five yards between them. “If you’re with the NDF... You better take your shot at me now while you have it” Jaime shouts with confidence, continuing to look into the camera lens without an ounce of fear in her guise. For a few additional seconds, their unwavering staring contest comes to an end when the machine concedes, pulling back into the rain before flying off into the distance, disappearing from the chancellor’s line of sight and continuing on with its uncertain travels. Though she doesn’t know what to make of the robot’s appearance, Jaime’s mind takes back to her reason for her own adventure too quickly for her to concern herself with it, the rest of her body following suit with the half that had already entered the building. Having begun her journey toward the building with haste, Jaime’s roll slows once she finds herself within its confines, aware that the only way she leaves it alive is with blood on her hands. Inspecting her surroundings for a brief moment, the chancellor finds an odd aura about the place, as the wing she enters- which had once served as an emergency room- remains entrenched within the darkness despite the building’s continued use of the electricity. “The sensors just went off at the front of the building” Julia’s voice remarks through the public address system, immediately catching the ear of her long-awaited foe, “unless a fly just zipped by, or unless another poor soul missed the chance to get out of the danger zone in time- I believe we have a chancellor amidst our company.” Wanting to speak back, Jaime recognises that her voice will not be received through the building’s speaker, holding her aggressions back in favour of letting her continued silence afford her room to remain discreet. “I’m glad you saw the sign out front, though. I prefer the layout of this battleground over wherever else we could have this take place” Julia continues, toying with her adversary whilst the opportunity affords itself. “Think about all of the memories we’ve shared in this building, Jaime” the doctor carries on, unsure of where her enemy is within the building, but knowing very well how long she has to speak freely at minimum. Ignoring the words as best as she can, the chancellor continues on from one end of the room and to the next, following the signs that adorn each wall in search of the rooms that would make the most sense to find her nemesis in. “There was that time you let Ryan escape and high-tail his way into Lancaster... That was fun” Julia remarks, serenading the chancellor’s ears with the various displeasing recollections that stand at her disposal. Though she follows her gut’s instinct by venturing toward the end of the hospital she’d most-anticipated the doctor’s presence to be in, Jaime returns to the room in which she bode a farewell to her fiance, finding it not only empty, but stripped of bedsheets and machinery. In place of the hospital equipment and curtains, only a bed remains at the room’s centre, its surface void of even the thinnest pillow or coverings, instead remaining as naked and impersonal as the day it’d been delivered to the building. “Another fun memory would’ve been when we struck a deal to make sure your people were fed... It’s actually kind of ironic now” Julia carries on, visibly displeased with the recollection at hand, “it seems like neither of us could keep them fat and happy, huh?” Flaring her nostrils, Jaime carries on through the wing, stepping through automatic doors that her purposefully locked themselves open when the power had died throughout the building, quite fittingly leaving not a single obstruction to hold the chancellors back from each other’s wrath. “Neither of those compare to the one we’re both thinking of, though” Julia persists, unsure of whether or not her efforts are succeeding in digging their way into her enemy’s skin, but keen on continuing to prod at the woman with whatever chance she can get. Though she fears not where the woman is or what kind of fight she will put up when found, Jaime seethes at the knowledge that her fiance’s name is within seconds from leaving the tongue of the serpent she chases. “I don’t know if this will help you sleep at... Well, technically you won’t get the chance to sleep at night, but maybe knowing this will set your mind at ease for a little bit” Julia explains, forced to correct herself amidst her pause, “for a while there, I had pretty heavy second doubts about killing Jordan.” As her lip curls, Jaime pushes in whichever doors she can’t see through partially with enough force to let out a little bit of aggression, but not enough to give her positioning away. “I know I was really keen on keeping to the plan, but there was a part of me that questioned whether or not he had to die to put me in any position of power” Julia continues on, leaning one arm against her desk whilst the other holds down upon the microphone’s red button. “I really didn’t mind him. I tried to convince myself that I could just keep sedating him, but I just couldn’t make sense of it” the doctor confesses, her eyes wandering from one side of the room to another, “I needed you at your weakest. I needed you to be vulnerable and willing to doubt anyone if I was going to not only get inside your inner circle, but usurp all others from it... Just like I usurped you.” Growing more impatient with every door that she opens to no success, Jaime begins aimlessly navigating the corridors of the hospital whilst the doctor carries on, trying to ignore the voice that earns the same reaction from her as nails dragging against the surface of a chalkboard. “I never thought you would become as gullible and weak as you did. It honestly came as a surprise to me how easy the process was” Julia admits, letting out a light chuckle, “I straight-up broke you.” Though she’d not memorised the building’s layout in great detail, Jaime finds herself in a hallway that she finds familiar, curiously finding the sight of its entrance being covered up with tarp. “Of course, it turned out to be good for nothing since you ousted me all the same with a disappointing amount of ease, but the pleasure of knowing that remains intact” Julia proceeds, having long-since reached the point in which she’d expected her adversary to draw close. With ease, Jaime steps through the opening in the corridor’s obstruction and begins walking past the various doors that line its immediate surroundings, taking interest in only one destination in particular. “I already told you once that you were right about us not being friends. We’re enemies- through and through” Julia continues, casually leaning into her desk with a dismissive smirk, “and until I take my last breath, I will revel in knowing that I was what brought down-” Falling silent at the instant the ground shakes, Julia braces for cover as the door to her brother’s office fires inward, caved in by the shoulder tackle of the enraged chancellor. Having failed to take notice of any footsteps beyond the room’s entry, the doctor hurries out of her chair and kicks the seat backward, attempting to run around the opposite end of the table from the one in which her enemy advances. Sprinting into action, Jaime leaps onto one side of the desk and runs through the air that separates her from the woman who’d left her as a soul waiting for the sweet relief of death, wrapping her arms around the doctor and taking her to the ground alongside her. Kicking and grunting, Julia tries to fight off her aggressor to little use, her main goal of keeping the chancellor from mounting her quickly falling futile. With one strike after another, Jaime beats upon her archenemy without the intention of stopping, raining one punch to the side of the woman’s face with equal satisfaction to the last. Getting carried away, the chancellor’s distinct pleasure in the vicious assault opens a shot for the vindictive opportunist to strike upon, laying in three good shots to the woman’s side and preventing any further attack for enough time to push her assailant away. Grabbing at her ribs, Jaime rolls onto the ground and stares at the ceiling for a moment, grimacing as she winces in pain before hurrying back into action, lifting herself back to two feet as her nemesis scurries away. Trying to get her wits about her once more, Julia hurries out of the office and crashes into the wall immediately outside of it, eyes taking toward the direction in which the chancellor had closed in on her from. Not too far behind, Jaime retains enough fight to give her adversary chase, following her down one corridor after another and around corner after corner, unsure of where their journey is meant to take them, but refusing to stop until one of them definitively topples the other. Running without knowing for sure where she wants to end up, Julia recognises that no amount of her retreat had gone without an equal push, the distance between herself and her foe having grown no further than it started. Seeing little other choice, Julia takes a pause as she enters the building’s surgical ward, surveying the area before finding one door in particular that catches her eye. Gaining ground, Jaime spills out into the larger wing not too long after, making it just in time to find the door the soul she chases after just nearly closing shut. With the acoustics of a nuclear war bunker, Jaime enters a cramped and lengthy stairwell, its each side encased within a layer of concrete thick enough to reverberate sound back in on itself. Though her ears can capture the noise of footsteps being taken, the chancellor fails to discern which direction they’re headed. Approaching the bannister closest to the winding passageway’s centre, a brief glance upward and downward fails to produce much of a sight to go off of. Aware that her assailant has been put off by the echo, Julia stays close to the side of the steps where the wall is, preventing her adversary from figuring out her position through the use of her sight. Trying to conceal her every breath as best as she can, the doctor makes use of her familiarity with the structure to gain enough breathing room to feel comfortable with her chances of victory. “Up, up, and away, chancellor!” Julia mocks, playing riddles with her pursuer to guide her in the right direction, finally advancing to the highest level of the stairwell and placing her hand against the crash bar of the nearest door. Shaking her head with displeasure, Jaime frees her mind of the games that her enemy attempts to play, keeping herself focused on ascending each step and making good on her vow to finish what she’d allowed to start. With a grin, the scheming doctor stares at the door and pushes it open, licking her lips and laughing as she steps through. Aware of the dangers that lie ahead in unfamiliar territory, Jaime fails to find the fear within the unknown, motivated by the desire to avenge her fiance and make right by the strife that has seen her forced to part with the ones she loves most, leaving her alone in the republic she’d founded with only the one she looks to kill sharing the abandoned city. Rounding the final corner, Jaime’s sights set upon the door her enemy had hurried through, unsure of what lies on the other side other than the woman who she knows is already in dire straits. Bracing for impact, the chancellor hurries past the final step from the top and slams her palm into the door’s crash bar, spilling out into the open and discovering a night sky clear of clouds and filled with stars, the acidic droplets that had tainted her republic having now moved past. “How do you like this!?” Julia exclaims, emerging from behind the chancellor with a led pipe in her hand, swinging it through the air like a baseball bat and bringing it down upon the woman’s back. Lifting her head toward the sky as the pain comes over her, Jaime’s hands clenched into fists as she falls to her knees, the agonising sensation of soreness that immediately drives through her back in waves instantly falling out of favour to the burning sting that befalls the flesh of her kneecaps. Screaming in pain, Jaime lunges forward and back onto her feet against all odds, kicking at the ground as the denim fabric of her pants is burned away, revealing the seared flesh on her knees from the potent water that covers the ground she inhabits. “Not too well, I see” Julia remarks with a smile, the molar on the left side of her face broken and blood flying with every strand of spit she hurls through the air with each word. Licking her chops, Julia pulls her hands back and prepares to take a second swing with her weapon, only to be caught by surprise when the weight of her adversary is thrown against her sternum. With the same guttural agony, the doctor howls in pain as her back is singed against the soggy ground, kicking and screaming as she fights to get up whilst Jaime collects herself, evening the score with nothing left to hold them back. “You clever little bitch!” Julia groans, stammering backward before finally regaining her balance, holding enough wherewithal to compliment her hated adversary, “I really thought I had you dead to rights there, damnit!” Balling her hands into fists, Jaime steps forward, shaking off the pain as Julia maintains a safe distance, looking for every advantage she can to avoid a fist fight with the chancellor. “I shouldn’t really have expected anything less from you” Julia quips, chuckling with amusement at the woman’s progression, unable to do much more than look for a way of getting her enemy off balance. “Stop talking and fight me” Jaime responds, not needing to utter a word more than she already has, intent set on putting an end to their struggles once and for all. “You sure you wanna kill me so soon?” Julia questions aloud, quickly leaping back from one of the chancellor’s attempted swings, the fist flying by her much more closely than she’s comfortable with. “What happens when the morning comes and you get a good look at that missile headed for home, huh!?” the doctor continues, ducking another swipe before hurrying in a different direction, trying to keep the ground between them covered, “do you really wanna die all alone?” “You killed my fiance, nearly killed Chevy and Kayla, and would’ve killed me if I’d have given you the chance” Jaime calmly retorts, nodding to herself as she continues to step forward, knowing the doctor has nowhere left to go, “if anything, you don’t deserve as quick of a death as you’re getting... I’d be really appreciative of that missile if I were you and just accept what’s coming.” “If you’re going to get the privilege of killing me yourself, I’m going to make you work for it” Julia rebukes, assuring the woman that there will be no easy conclusion to this fight. With their words having been shared, the women stare down from each other before the sound of whirring in the air catches their collective attention, both sets of eyes taking to the side of the building they stand closest to, where the metal-shielded drone rises over the edge, affording the women an audience. Squinting with confusion, Jaime stares at the lens for a moment longer than the doctor, its appearance enough of a distraction to let her foe capitalise on her oversight. Running forward, Julia drives her shoulder into Jaime’s stomach and begins pushing the woman backward, unable to take the woman off of her feet, but leaving her no room to stop the push back. Standing three feet above the level they occupy, the brick wall that marks the edge of the building’s rooftop catches Jaime and prevents its owner from driving her back any further. Wrapping her arm around the doctor’s neck, the chancellor holds her enemy in place and begins swinging fists into the woman’s back, eventually forcing her to step back out of self-preservation. Though in a better position than she’d started, Jaime still finds herself backed into a place she has no choice but to fight from, allowing the doctor to take advantage of the short ground to work with. Running into the chancellor’s body, Julia begins swinging fists at her opponent’s head before being shoved away, her offence not yet stalling as she closes the distance once more. Eating one punch after another, Jaime retains enough sound mind to pull her head back and drive a fist forward, hitting the doctor on the chin and forcing her to take two steps back. Dazed and confused, Julia watches the chancellor draw closer toward her before slapping the woman across the face, the effect failing to buy her the time it was intended to. Brushing off the strike, Jaime eats it with ease and continues marching forward, sending another jab the doctor’s way before shoving her back for a second time, the foggy sights that fill Julia’s vision in the moment preventing her from easily regrouping. Hovering overhead with enough of a perspective to catch the entire brawl, the drone continues to spectate the attack whilst lightning fires off in the distance, its sound leaving traces of the republic’s final storm to be followed. Having begun to forget about the drone’s presence as is, Jaime continues her onslaught, stepping forward with one shot after another as her eagerness to push forward grants her the ability to brush off whatever defence the doctor attempts to muster. With her lip fattened, face swelling, and left eye seeing stars, Julia begins to take on the wear and tear of the brawl in a way that leaves her helpless to make a comeback. Only able to cover the ground that’s available to her, Julia’s back soon finds itself in a similar position to that in which the chancellor had waged war away from, pushed against the brick wall that separates her from ten-plus story drop to the earth below. “This is for Chevy!” Jaime exclaims, feeling the height of the skirmish pass on as it begins its descent toward the finale, adding extra emphasis to her next swing in the name of her trusted right hand man. Cocking back, Julia’s head swings back in the direction of the republic’s capitol before Jaime pauses, continuing to pull back further with each strike whilst holding the doctor by her collar with the opposite hand, holding her up and making sure to connect with every last blow. “This is for Kayla!” the chancellor howls again, delivering a second brutal blow to her rival’s face, quickly pulling back again with further declaration, “this is for the child you stole from their lives!” For a third time, the chancellor’s fist drives into the side of Julia’s face, its weight so strong that it dazes the doctor beyond the point of defence, shattering her orbital bone and rendering her nearly unconscious. Though she wishes to leave the doctor conscious enough to experience every last sensation in her life, Jaime loses all control with the sight of the bloodied and mangled antagonist, finally able to do as she’s been waiting so long to. “This is for my mother!” Jaime cries, swinging again before quickly standing the doctor upright, “this is for my sister!” Taking the fifth punch dealt to her in succession, Julia struggles to retain consciousness as her assailant pauses once more, taking longer to deliver this strike than she had on the other occasions. Pulling her hand back and looking at her own bloodied knuckles, the persevering and accomplished survivor revels in the moment before looking back toward the professional. “This is for me” the chancellor calmly says, watching Julia stir with a regained composure, noticing the woman’s retained consciousness before spitting blood in her oppressor’s face, holding back any punches in favour of delivering the final blow in literal fashion. “And this...” Jaime declares, grabbing her adversary by the neck and pushing her onto the brick wall’s ledge, forcing the woman to stare at the ground she now hovers over with nothing to break her fall. Her eyes widened and stare intense, Jaime aims the doctor’s face toward the ground for a few seconds before forcing her sights back toward the chancellor. “This...” the victorious survivor proclaims, pausing as Julia looks her in the eyes, the former chancellor helpless to defend herself and bound by the hand of her enemy, offered a recollection of the eldest Morris daughter’s own on her path to the afterlife, “...this is for Jordan.” With a leisurely shove, Jaime pulls her hand back and watches Julia topple over the edge without a word, silenced by her brutality until only the faint sound of a body crashing against the pavement below and bursting like a watermelon is left of the villainous devil. As if on command, the chancellor’s strands of hair are blown back by a calm and steady breeze, the winds of change having not only rung without warning bells, but ushering in the final change of the guard for the republic to see. With her eyes staring into the distance, Jaime looks into the starry night with a blank visage, the cooling breeze affording her a moment of clarity. Holding her side, the chancellor collects her breath before turning toward her right, looking up at the drone that had caught every last second of the battle on both video and audio, paying no care for whomever may be watching on from beyond the lens. With her free hand, Jaime presents the machine with only her middle finger, flipping it off for the final few seconds that it roams the area before watching it drift off into the night, seemingly returning to where it’d come from and leaving the chancellor alone with her nation. | As the sun rises on the republic’s final day, Jaime descends the way she’d entered the hospital and makes a brief stop at the office where her fight had begun, snatching the unopened bottle of wine from atop the desk before carrying on with her day. Lifting just above the horizon, the nation’s final sunrise is spent by the chancellor walking past the pile of fragmented bone, splattered blood and loosened skin that Julia’s corpse now presents as, paying it little more than a smile. Stepping back into the driver’s seat of her truck, the chancellor calmly reclaims ownership of the wheel and pulls out of the driveway, leaving behind Mount Cedars-Sinai for the same fate that awaits her and the rest of her kingdom. With blue skies and not a single cloud to disturb the rising sun, Jaime brings her drive to a slow and casual stop outside of familiar territory, leaving the vehicle running and the door to its driver’s side open as she abandons it. Though its debris has been left to rot beneath the weight of the Californian elements, the place in which the chancellor’s hillside mansion had once stood remains intact, the walkway that leads around it being taken by the woman who intends to spend her final moments where she belongs- at home. Descending the stairs to her algae-filled pool, Jaime approaches the furthest balcony from her residence and easily opens her bottle of wine, lifting its rim to her lips as she takes in her final sunrise. “Ahhh” she sighs with satisfaction, leaning against the glass railing whilst taking in the sights of the Angelino Republic’s skyline, staring past the palm trees that line the hill she stands atop and out toward the charred remnants of the central skyscraper and the buildings that surround it. “This might just be the most fitting way for me to go out” Jaime remarks aloud, nodding to herself for a brief moment before looking toward each of her sides, affirmed in her stance with a pleasant smile, “I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better ending.” “Revenge, red wine, and a really nice view” Jordan’s spirit remarks, standing to the woman’s right with a nod of his own to offer, “I guess there aren’t many better ‘three r’s’ to go out on.” Offering her spirit’s own amusement, Kate matches the railing lean that the couple present, finishing the trio as the sight of a missile draws nearer. “So, Jaime...” the therapist wonders aloud, turning to look the survivor in the eyes, only to see the woman staring at the sunrise with a smile. Left with a pause, Jaime’s teeth appear beyond her lips as her grin further widens, her mind finishing the woman’s question with an answer to it. “I feel real damn good, Kate” the chancellor replies softly, allowing a tear to run down the left side of her face as the final seconds of life dawn upon her, another sip taken directly from the bottle. For the first time, the relieved chancellor feels the sensation of true happiness, allowed to spend her dying moments with the people she loves most- even if only in spirit- without any business to leave unfinished. “The republic put up a good fight” Jordan quips, staring at the sunrise with equal pleasure, dismissing the missile as anything other than worth worrying over, “it truly fell with defiance.” Finally at peace, Jaime lets her eyes roam toward the air in which her fate awaits, taking the form of a brilliant glow headed toward the world she’d built from the ash it was left in. “Are you sad to see it go?” Kate wonders aloud, continuing to look at the side of her friend’s face as the chancellor’s eyes retain their view of the missile, “you may have the best seat in the house to watch something spectacular, but that doesn’t change what has to happen now.” With the gentle shake of her head, Jaime takes another swig of her drink before defying any such conclusion. “I have nothing to be sad about” the chancellor replies softly, refusing to pay her demise the satisfaction of counting down the seconds to it, instead using those precious moments to reflect on the life that she’s about to put a bow on and send back to its maker like the gift that it is. “I feared only one thing in life... I feared being alone” Jaime responds, beginning to hear the soft, campfire-like crackle of the missile’s journey toward the earth, her face being overwhelmed with another smile and a burst of tears that fall down the soft skin of her face. “My family is safe. Chevy and Kayla are safe. My people are safe” the chancellor continues, truly overjoyed to finally be done with all that there was to live, “my job is done, my time is up, and I’m...” Overcome with emotion, Jaime stops her speech, letting her eyes depart from the missile and take toward her right, offering her a look at Kate’s smile before turning toward the opposite direction, allowing her the sight of Jordan’s own. “...I’m the only one here...” she whispers, her smile widening and laughter following, accompanying the nod of reassurance that she gives herself, “...and yet... even if it is just for my last moments...” Stopping once more, the final survivor pulls her arms away from the railing as the others follow, sharing yet another glance with each other before coupling their hands. Coming together whilst the charred skyscraper stands in the background, Jaime’s left hand finds the embrace of Kate’s own, whilst the missile’s streak of light serves as the background to the coupling of her right hand’s reunion with that of fiance’s, the three once more becoming one as the chancellor finishes. “...I’ll never be alone again.” == Dire ==
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“What are they doing?” Kennedy wonders aloud, standing beside her sister whilst watching the various members of the NDF’s forces return to their prior descent from the capitol’s stairs, pushing through the crowd of Angelinos. “They’re fleeing” Julia answers from a few yards away, her breaths slow and worried as the men and women she’d allowed to station themselves within the republic now actively shove their way toward safety that the nation can no longer provide.
“They have no leader, so all they know to do now is return to Pearl Harbor and figure out a new plan of attack” the newly-deposed chancellor further clarifies, somberly offering the two women whatever insight she has. “I guess it’s a shame you won't be able to go with them, isn’t it?” Jaime quips, stepping away from her sister’s side with the knife still in hand, approaching the woman who’d ousted her from power before taking notice of the defeated way in which her foe stands. “Now that Wade’s dead, I wouldn’t be allowed in even if I did get to the boats” Julia replies, her words prompting the newly-rechristened chancellor to pause her approach, instead watching on as her adversary stares out with a loss. “So you’re just gonna let my sister kill you and that’s it?” Kennedy wonders aloud, watching the conquered nemesis turn back toward her and shrug. “If Jaime doesn’t kill me herself, I’ll die when the missile hits” Julia responds, failing to find a reason to approach her circumstance in any other way, “I’m fucked either way.” Though she wields the blade with the intent to kill, Jaime’s mind takes toward the conflict at hand, her eyes falling upon the NDF’s frontline and the stubborn residents of her republic who make them earn their passage. “Jaime, what are you waiting for?” Kennedy inquires, uncertain of what the hold up in her sister’s desires are, aware that the goal was to gain revenge on the pair of figureheads who’d done her wrong, but surprised that the opportunity to take it is being refused. Without a word, the chancellor looks back to her sister and bites her bottom lip, coming to terms with the responsibility she still holds, “I have something else to do first.” Wiping the blood that lines the tip of her dagger against the denim fabric her pants are made from, Jaime returns the blade to her side and climbs down a few stairs, trying to close the distance between herself and the civilians. “Do not let the NDF soldiers pass!” the chancellor orders, coupling her hands together at either side of her mouth as the declaration is offered, her same decree immediately putting her republic’s front line into action. Though they’d initially been making themselves difficult to manoeuvre around before, the combined forces of the residents and the peacekeepers begin closing whatever gaps the New Democratic Front had been looking to exploit, holding them at bay as the frontline closes in. “Jaime!” Chevy shouts aloud, ushering Carly off to the side whilst wrapping his arms around his wife and the chancellor’s mother, holding them close to ensure their safety from the skirmish. Hearing her friend’s voice, the chancellor drops one stair further down the capitol before pausing, aware that Kennedy follows alongside, but unsure of what awaits the scene she leaves behind. As if left without a hope to cling onto and opposed to running off for safer pastures, Julia lowers herself to the ground and takes a seat along one of the capitol’s front steps, looking out into the sea of chaos as a spectator with no skin in the game, her fate already written in stone. Though in the same boat as the woman she’d sentenced to a fruitless fate, Jaime opts not to let her own doom prevent her from seeing to her loved ones’ safety. With a sprint, the chancellor leads her younger sister down the steps and into the waiting arms of their mother, who embraces them with all the might she can muster before the pull of her arm reignites their shared desire. “Where do we go from here?” Chevy wonders aloud, his question offered for anyone to hear whilst his hand reaches for Alex’s inner elbow, keeping the Morris family closeby. “We have to get you guys out of the republic now” Jaime responds, gently pulling away from her mother’s hug in order to address the small group, “unless Wade and Julia were bullshitting me, there’s gonna be a missile headed right for this place if there isn’t already one en route.” “What the hell are we supposed to do about the acid storm?” Carly questions back, watching the group she’d led to the steps engage in a full on fight with the NDF, the brawl escalating into a firefight within seconds. “It might have been a much weaker storm, but we survived the first storm by hiding out in tents” Kayla responds, shaking her head as she pieces together a solution, “if we find a car and head as far north as it’ll take us, maybe we’ll be able to wait this storm out too?” “The whole point of the missile is to keep anyone from being able to live here. Wade doesn’t want anyone having this place unless it’s himself” Jaime reassures, shaking her head at the woman’s suggestion, “whatever missile he was talking about, I highly doubt it’s the kind we’re supposed to be able to outrun.” “If he’s sending a missile to wipe out Los Angeles from the map, then whoever’s firing it will surely wait until after the storm to send it out” Chevy responds, his claim doubled down upon by the Morris’ mother. “Well if the NDF’s heading back for Hawai’i, maybe it’d be best for us to set sail for the same?” Alex questions aloud, unsure of whether or not her suggestion is any better, “maybe we’d be able to outrun the storm? Or use the extra time to cover ground?” “Where the hell would we even find a boat!?” Kennedy calls out, only for her father-figure to provide a solution not too long after. “There might be some we could use around the Santa Monica pier?” Chevy wonders aloud, the brow over his right eye lifting as he surveys the rest of the group. “Some of those cruisers? You really wanna navigate the Pacific in one of those?” Carly challenges, the odds of their safety being anything but guaranteed. “I think our chances of making it across to Hawai’i in one of those boats is better than whatever chances we’ve got of surviving this storm and a missile are” Kayla responds, the claim being one that presents doubt, but isn’t too unreasonable to make. “It’s better than staying here and waiting to die, I’ll tell you that much” Jaime responds, spotting one of the republic’s soldiers and calling him back from the scene of turmoil. “Hey, kid... What’s your name?” the chancellor inquires, only for the man to be kept from answering. “That’s the kid Julia sent to shoot us back when she took over!” Kayla calls out, able to recognise the face with the same ease that her boyfriend soon proves to. “Tell everyone to take over whatever boat the NDF came here on” Jaime commands, dismissing her friend’s claims with the wave of her hand as more pressing matters persist. “Yes, ma’am” Charlie responds, nodding to his commander before hurrying off, shouting the same call to action he’s been tasked with. “I’ll do the same with the peacekeepers!” Carly exclaims, preparing to hurry off and serve those that she’s still in the commanding chair of. “Carly, come here!” Chevy shouts, preventing the younger woman from walking off just yet by pulling her in for a hug, his lips parting to whisper into her ear as the moment for offering goodbye’s proves to be upon them, “I’m proud of you, kid. None of this would’ve been possible without your help.” “I was no more of a help than you were, big guy” Carly replies, pulling away from the hug with an appreciative smile, playfully swatting the man’s chest as she steps away to attend to her duties, “now get to the docks! I better see all of you when we board!” As hopeful for a reunion as the peacekeeper’s leader is, the Morris family and their wedded blood brethren nod and wave goodbye, yearning to prevent the NDF from leaving them high and dry. “Alright, let’s get moving!” Jaime exclaims, gently pushing her sister and mother in the back toward the direction they’re meant to venture toward, guiding the four survivors- both family by blood and family by choice- in the direction of insanity. Staying behind, Julia watches the five survivors she’d done everything within her power to catch, hurry off into the night with every last ounce of their power reclaimed, helpless but to watch on as helicopters depart through sickly heavens. = Dire is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards = “Get back! Get back!” an NDF soldier exclaims, gesturing for the crowd of Angelinos to cease their progression toward the cruise ship-sized vessel, the various ramps that lead on board threatening to swell with the souls of what had once stood as Los Angeles. Refusing to obey the commands of their unwanted leadership, the souls of their chancellor’s republic- some of which armed with rifles they’d snatched from the New Democratic Front- continue their onslaught of the ship’s entry. “Captain, we’re not gonna be able to hold them back!” a second of the Front’s soldiers calls back, speaking to the man tasked with returning the ship to their Hawaiian homeland. With a frown on his face, the suited official snatches a handset radio from the corner of the room and calls into his director. “Sir, they’re refusing to obey our orders” the ship’s navigator explains, his finger pressing firmly into the handset’s side, “if we open fire, this will just turn into a massive firefight and may be too grizzly to return home from.” For a moment, all that emerges from the other end of the line is the deafening sound of silence, contemplation persisting beyond the ears of the man responsible for bringing the vessel home safely before a response is finally provided. “Fall back and grant entry” the Hawai’i-based NDF controller replies, his declaration prompting the ship’s captain to press his eyelids together tightly and hang his head, disappointed to hear the decree that’s paid to him. “We can verify identities when the passengers reach land, but until then- you are to permit any civilian to enter the vessel en route to the NDF” the controller carries on, “do you understand these instructions as I am giving them to you?” Letting out a deep sigh as he scratches the back of his head, the captain responds with displeasure, “yes, sir” he speaks before returning the radio to its receiver, walking for the soldier that stands just beyond the entrance to the helm. “Tell your men that I don’t care about what the director says. No one is to board this ship without NDF credentials, understood?” the man queries, watching a nod of approval come from the stationed soldier before he ventures off, relaying the message. “What are they doing!?” Kennedy shouts aloud, following the republic’s civilians onto the dock whilst staring up at the various soldiers that occupy the length of the ship they approach, their guns set aside and positions of leverage relinquished. “I believe they’re surrendering to your republic, chancellor!” one of the nation’s soldiers proclaims, having journeyed the last half-mile alongside Jaime and her loved ones in an effort of protecting the nation’s sovereign. “Does that mean they’re not going to attack us?” Kayla questions aloud, her inquiry falling on deaf ears however, as the same soldier who’d answered the chancellor’s spoken-aloud wonder hurries ahead, trying to secure the safety of the nation’s leadership and people. “Attention, citizens- this is an order from the leadership of the New Democratic Front” one of the militants speaks through a megaphone, his voice carried through the air of a dying day as its sunset appears closeby. “If you do not have credentials bearing the name of the New Democratic Front, you are not to be granted entry to this vessel” the man proclaims, his words declaring something other than what the republic’s soldier has assumed. “Any and all attempts to board without New Democratic Front credentials will be taken as a sign of hostility and will be deemed a threat” he carries on, warning those that stand before the ship, “threats are ordered to be shot on sight.” Not taking the answer as final, the conjoined efforts of the republic’s civilians and the peacekeepers continue to war with the New Democratic Front, pushing and shoving their ways onward with both sides desiring a departure from the missile-bound city. “That makes no sense! Surely they’d want everyone on that boat that they can get!” another NDF soldier calls out, too far behind the republic-peacekeeper frontline to engage within the fighting. “Why is that!?” Jaime shouts aloud, watching the face of the same soldier Chevy and Kayla had spared so many moons ago turn toward her, having yet to realise it was the chancellor’s voice calling out to him at first. “Well, like I overheard one of you say earlier- they’d be hesitant to launch the missile before the storm struck!” Charlie answers, armed with a weapon that has expended all its ammunition, “they wouldn’t need to destroy the city if there was no one here to occupy it!” “That does nothing to help my family!” Alex shouts back, cutting through the brief interaction with her own question, “where are we supposed to go if we can’t get on that boat!?” Though the question is raised toward him, an answer is hoped for from anyone willing to present one, though Charlie’s eyes take toward the scene in search of a reply worth offering. Through the thick of chaos, the soldier’s eyes stare through the hundreds of people that the cloud of warfare is made up of, staring off into the distance before taking toward the ground, a thought suddenly popping into his head. “Follow me!” Charlie calls out, his voice serving as more of a solution to the problem at hand than anyone else is able to put up, the hurry he takes into the scene of frenzy matched by the chancellor, who leads her kin onward. | Still where she’d last been left, Julia sits on the steps to the capitol building and awaits the end that draws near, surrounded by the silence that the departures of various aircraft have left her with. Not a soul to be seen, the deposed chancellor stares at the empty grounds of what she’d once ruled, only to be left with the empty and meaningless void that she now sits host to, not a subject to lead, nor a kingdom to rule. In a moment, the sky flashes a dark green once more before the street lamps of the Angelino Republic power down, the entire city having been plunged into darkness in a way that it hasn’t been since the origin of the catalyst. “Fucking lovely” the woman mutters aloud, shaking her head with dissatisfaction as the sundown draws nearer, the deep shade of green only further coming over the sky as the sun begins to set, marking the start of when the storm is meant to be feared. Pulling in a deep breath, the woman crosses her arms and leans against her lap, staring at the dark roads of the republic for a moment whilst growing increasingly-perturbed. Whilst the public searches for a shred of hope to hold onto, Julia is left behind, her grand plan to become chancellor having failed so spectacularly that she- along with one other soul at least- is left staring death in the face before it can even meet her itself. “Fuck this” the woman grumbles, stomping her foot against the step before standing to her feet, aware that death is what awaits her, but dissatisfied with the wait it forces her to endure. Returning to the top-most step of city hall, Julia spits on Wade’s corpse and bids adieu to the chapter of the republic under the NDF’s rule, her eyes taking toward the same direction that she begins to walk, a sight from beyond the treeline and atop the hills drawing her in like a fly. | “There’s no fucking way that this is going to work” Kayla grumbles, joining the rest of her group in huddling close to the ground and behind the cover of an abandoned car, watching the soldier hold a lighter to the face of an NDF badge. “Unless you want to head for the hills like everyone else is gonna have to, this is your best bet” Charlie responds, burning the photo of an identification card before shaking it rapidly, trying to cool the melted plastic that now obstructs the I.D. photo. “What the hell would we even do when we get to Hawai’i?” Kennedy wonders aloud, accepting the burnt card whilst looking out at her peers, never having known of a world outside of Los Angeles. “It’s not like Honolulu was a ghost town before the catalyst came on. I’m sure they’ve still got some sort of society going on down there” Chevy responds, trying to be reassuring as he flaps his own plastic card, still trying to cool the plastic that obstructs vital information. “It’ll take some getting use to, but we’ll have to integrate into whatever they’ve got going on down there” Kayla responds, holding out her best hopes as Alex sends Kennedy into her arms. “Alright, the two of you will have to take Kennedy up there and claim she’s your daughter” the Morris sibling’s mother remarks, graciously accepting a pair of uniforms that Charlie hands to her, “Jaime and I will mask ourselves as one of their crew and hope they buy it.” “Woah, woah... No” Jaime responds, immediately handing her mother the uniform back, though the woman refuses to accept it on account that she’s already beginning to fit into her own. “What do you mean ‘no’? Do you have a better idea?” Alex inquires, funnelling her arm into one sleeve whilst watching her daughter toss the NDF-emblazoned gear aside, dismissing the question as one that lacks importance. “No, mom... I’m not going with you guys” Jaime responds, those particular words prompting her mother to halt her dressing. Coming to a sudden stop in their efforts as well, Chevy, Kayla, and Kennedy join the chancellor’s mother in looking on without saying a word, taken by surprise at the claim she makes. “What do you mean you’re not coming with us?” Alex calls into question, pulling her arm the rest of the way through the sleeve whilst approaching her offspring, “you have to.” “She can’t” Chevy speaks aloud, suddenly realising what the chancellor is trying to get at before becoming the centre of the group’s focus, a sombre look on his face, “the NDF already knows who she is with or without the credentials.” Hanging her head, Jaime reacts as if this conclusion were true, though her mother refuses to buy into the same call. “They may know who she is, but not necessarily what she looks like” Alex fights back, looking into the man’s eyes before hearing his wife double down on the line of thought. “The soldiers on the boat know what she looks like, though” Kayla responds, aware that her husband’s discovery is not only accurate, but unavoidable, “if they catch us with her, they’ll know who we are too.” “I’m not going to take the risk of hiding out on that boat for two weeks and potentially getting all of you caught” Jaime reassures, doubling down on the claim that prompts Kennedy to leave the arms of her parental figures, hurrying into the reach of her sister’s own. “Bullshit! We’ll be careful and stow you somewhere quiet and private!” Alex calls out, refusing to believe that the only way free from danger involves leaving her first born to suffer whatever fate awaits those left behind. “I’m not taking that chance, mom” Jaime responds, shaking her head as she presses her eyelids shut, holding Kennedy close knowing that these are amongst their final moments together. “Yes, yes you are!” Alex shouts back, her voice having lifted into a yell that the scene of fighting and havoc keeps from unintended ears, “we’re not leaving this dock without you!” “You have to, mom” Jaime replies, no amount of pressure that she can close her eyes with is able to prevent tears from slipping through, falling down her face as Kennedy’s own tears accompany them. “No, I don’t!” Alex shouts back, walking up to her daughter and taking the woman by both sides of her face, holding her child close with absolute refusal to accept the terms of their interaction. “Even if you don’t have to, you might as well” Jaime rebukes, continuing to hold her crying sister tight whilst looking her mother in the eyes, her voice dropping to a faint whisper, “if you don’t go, then we all die.” Moving her lips to form the word “no”, Alex’s voice falls silent as her face becomes overwhelmed with emotion, no amount of her stubbornness to accept the facts allowing her to ignore that the claim the chancellor makes is true. Instead of fighting, the woman’s mother wraps her arms around her daughter and holds her close, turning the sibling-only hug into an entire-family embrace, realising that it will be the last one they ever partake in. “We really have to get going if we’re gonna make it on the boat” Charlie interjects after a few seconds, hating to interrupt the moment the remnants of the Morris family share, but aware that the clock is ticking. “You guys are going to live a longer, happier life than what I would’ve given you here anyway” Jaime assures, looking her tear-stricken mother in the eyes whilst dropping to a knee, at least certain of the first half of her claim, “so just go, alright?” Wrapping her arms around her big sister once more, Kennedy holds her as tight as her arms can manage for another few seconds before pulling her head back and pressing her lips into the woman’s cheek, a kiss goodbye paid. “I’m gonna miss you” the younger sibling mutters, hyperventilating as Jaime’s face leans in to kiss the side of her face goodbye as well. “I’m gonna miss you too, sis” Jaime whispers, pulling the young girl in for a third and final hug quickly before ushering her back, leading her into Alex’s arms before she can loose her will to do what must be done to ensure the safety of her family. Looking to the air whilst pulling in a deep breath, the chancellor stares at the heavens for a moment before watching her married pals draw closer, pulling both hands from the sides they’d briefly been stationed on to spread her arms. “I love you, Jaim’” Kayla cries, the first to enter the woman’s reach and hug her tight, struggling to breathe beneath the pain that their goodbye leaves her with. “I love you too, Kay’” Jaime whimpers, no longer able to hold back the weeping she’d tried to conceal from the group, as saddened by having to leave herself behind as they are. Incapable of saying anything more without breaking into a full blown wail, the girls split up and Kayla moves onto Kennedy, prepared to follow through with the plan Alex had initially attempted to lay out. “If you make it out of this, you better find your way down to Hawai’i, Mrs. Cutler” Chevy remarks, stammering over his words as he pulls the chancellor in for a big hug, hearing her cries as he leans in, aware that she’s trying her best to stifle them. “I love you, ya’ big lug” Jaime sighs, patting the man on the back before pulling her head back, looking the man in the eyes and sporting a smile of reassurance, trusting him to fulfil her request as she truly always has, “take care of them, okay? Look after them and keep them safe.” With tears of his own, Chevy nods with a sorrowful sniffle, trying his best to smile beyond the pain within his contracting muscles, physical hurt brought on within their final seconds as a true group. “It’ll be my honour, chancellor. I will look after them with every last fibre of my being” Chevy replies, pausing for a moment as he looks deep into the woman’s eyes, recalling every last high and low that they’ve experienced since meeting each other and feeling incredibly moved by the truth behind his response, another nod paid to the woman as he doubles down, “it really has been an honour, Jaime.” Smiling back, Jaime pulls the man in for another quick hug before gently patting him on the shoulder, gesturing for him to join the others in making for the ship. Cradling her daughter, Alex surrenders Kennedy into the arms of Chevy and Kayla before wiping her tears, trying to conceal her grief as she accepts the rifle that Charlie bestows upon her, taking a final glance back at the chancellor before following through with the plan, little other choice left aside from dying alongside the eldest. All respectively paying Jaime their final looks toward her, the group she sends off into the next chapter wander into the scene of destruction, each boarding the vessel successfully and walking off into the ship with a final nod to their leader, who returns the gesture with a relieved smile. For the final time, the republic’s leader watches her group venture off whilst the gunfire continues to ring out, letting off a heavy sigh of sadness before turning away- only one job left to do. | After nearly an hour of walking, Jaime returns to the desolate scene of the Angelino Republic, climbing the stairs toward the capitol without any sign of the figure who’d exiled her in the first place. To the sound of increasingly-rapid lightning strikes, the chancellor eventually finds herself atop the highest step of what she’d once conquered in the name of rebellion from the NDF’s predecessor, and had now successfully conquered all the same from what succeeded it. Through the empty and aimless halls of a large, vacant building, the disposed chancellor walks alone through a dark and lifeless cavern of pain. Hearing the sounds of lightning bolts firing off throughout the air, Julia marches her way through one corridor and into the next, climbing a flight of stairs before spilling into another hallway, only able to wait for the fate that awaits her. Entering her old office, Jaime enters a room shockingly similar to the way in which she’d left it, provided with a view of the old Los Angeles landscape and a variety of dead trees, their bark all having long-since been burned to a crisp. Taking in the view she’d gone so long without and had, perhaps, once taken for granted, the chancellor of a now-unpopulated republic shares in the same wait as the woman who’d dethroned her, though arguably with a more preferable view. With the sound of acidic raindrops tapping along the glass of the various windows that line each hospital room surrounding her, Julia steps through plastic curtains and carries on toward her brother’s office. Thanks to the direction of the wind, the deposed chancellor finds the droplets to be carrying themselves away from the window as opposed to through it, freeing her to walk around Chris’ desk and retrieve the bottle of wine that she’d stored for safekeeping. Sinking into the chair she’d once ruled upon like a throne, Jaime occupies her desk for what may be the very final time as the storm beats upon her republic with dreadful conditions. Striking a match and lighting a candle, the chancellor surveys the room and lays her palms flat upon the desk, feeling the grooves in the hardwood finish before closing her eyes and thinking quietly to herself, appreciating the finer details of life whilst she still has the chance to. Sitting upon her brother’s old seat, Julia retrieves a corkscrew from her pocket and plunges its tip into the cork that prevents her from enjoying her last drink amongst the living. Grasping the head of the tool firmly, the woman stares at the bottle for a moment before looking across the room, quietly thinking to herself thoughts other than how fitting it is to sip from the beverage only meant to mark the day in which she’d set sail for Hawai’i. Through the capitol’s parted doors, Jaime sets foot upon solid ground once more, using the artistic finish that adorns city hall as cover from the sickly rains that bleed out from the unnaturally coloured sky. Looking at her world the way in which it’s left behind, the chancellor follows the routes that each street leads to and stares at the grass that would certainly die within hours after the storm’s conclusion with or without the missile that’s inbound, taking it all in. Holding a metal tray over her head, Julia fights through the entrance to the long-deceased rooftop garden and approaches the lip of the building empty handed, staring out at the republic’s downtown before taking a glance toward the sky. Covered in heavy clothing and protected by the thin layer of industrial material, the doctor approaches the opposite end of the roof and grabs a hold of the door to an obscure panel, reaching out for the largest lever it can offer and hesitating. Closing her eyes and smelling the putrid stench of corrosion, Jaime embraces the Angelino air amidst her final evening amongst the earth, plunged into darkness with only time to await her final sunrise. The foul odour being one that she cannot ignore, the chancellor also chooses to not hide from it, enduring what the rest of her public would’ve had to if the circumstances were any other, opening her eyes to survey the world in the way which she’s sent it toward before focusing elsewhere. Stepping back to the building’s lip, Julia stares out at the republic’s downtown once more, uncertain of where the only woman she shares the city with is, but knowing very well that she’s sought after. Choosing to instead go out in the world on her own terms and with more than just empty patience to provide for her final hours, the woman signals to her valiant foe that there’s no better time to finish what they started than now, with hours to spare and nothing to gain for either of them. Just as it had on the night of the catalyst’s origin, the lights over the Mount Cedars-Sinai Medical Center burn bright in the midst of night, protected by an exterior structure that shields the bulbs from mother nature’s brutal washout. Taking an instant notice of the signage, Jaime’s tranquil peace of mind is replaced with the same vigour and drive that she’d taken over the republic with earlier in the day, a target painted for the chancellor to find, welcoming her to one, final battle. == Dire == “No, I think you’ve lost touch with reality!” Kennedy chuckles, her feet dragging along the ground as she’s forced through the main hallway of the republic’s capitol, shielding her face almost immediately with the expectation of the Californian sun bleeding into the building through the now-parting doors. “Does this little runt ever shut up?” an NDF soldier in heavy armour questions aloud, passing the question to the man whom he walks alongside with a casual reflection.
“She’s Morris’ little sister. Do you really think she’d make this easy on you?” the second guard replies, ignoring the younger sibling’s comments as the teenager pulls her face away from her inner arm, surprised to not find her eyelids shaded red at the intense illumination of daylight. Without a word, Kennedy takes her eyes toward the sky that she’s guided toward, the ropes fashioned around her wrist making it impossible to wriggle away without a challenge. “The sky is... green?” Kennedy whispers aloud, looking on in awe at the ill colour that the heavens present to her, unsure of what to make of it other than the storm it threatens to cast over the republic. “When did the-?” the teenager asks, only to discover that the men carrying her onward have come to the same stop that she has, a man near the front of the group having already wrapped her restrained around a wooden stake at the centre point of the capitol’s foremost set of stairs. “Good luck, kid” one of the soldiers behind the republic’s prisoner calls out, taking amusement in the predicament that befalls the young enemy of the state, “let’s hope your sister is as selfless as she is selfish.” Without offering another word, the soldiers who’d escorted Kennedy out to the front steps of the capitol now leave her where she was left, her binds tied to the stake out in the open without any obstruction overhead to protect her from the elements that pose an obvious threat. “Sorry, little one” a second man calls out, his uniform dawning the insignia of the Angelino Republic, whereas his contemporaries’ had emblazoned the American flag. Visibly apologetic, the man who’d once sworn to the service of Kennedy’s sister retreats with those that he’s meant to serve alongside, taking disgust in the action they partake within where his colleagues take distinct pleasure. “The little bitch couldn’t aim for shit” Julia groans, sliding her arms into the sleeves of a jacket as she stares through the window of her hospital room. With the left side of her throat heavily bandaged, the chancellor eyes the republic’s downtown with visibly malicious intent, very little of note to offer through her words. “Send one of your men to fetch Blake and have him post a team around the capitol’s perimeter” Julia carries on, moving past the circumstance that had left her as a patient in her own hospital in favour of what their next plan of attack is, “once word gets back to Jaime about us leaving her sister to die outside the capitol, she’ll do whatever she can to get there.” “Actually, Blake will no longer be serving as the head of your security detail” Wade interjects, his proclamation being one that earns the chancellor’s full attention, her body turning along with her head as her eyes take to the NDF’s leader. “He, nor those in his ranks, have shown enough competence to be trusted with carrying out duties on behalf of the city or the NDF any further” the man carries on, “for that reason, I’ve chosen to relieve them of their responsibilities.” “You fired my security detail?” Julia quips back, asking a question that the NDF’s leader has already answered. “I’ve ordered a group of NDF soldiers to serve as your protection from this moment forward. These men have at least proven they are capable of getting the job done when asked” Wade replies, taking no concern over the displeased expression the chancellor returns to him, “from this moment forward, Blake’s services are no longer beholden to this city.” “You can’t just fire my security deta-” Julia retorts, her obvious dissatisfaction interrupted by the voice of the soul that stands across from her, his interjection proving which of the two holds the greater power over the other. “Ms. Avallone, I can do whatever I please. As the figurehead of the New Democratic Front- and your ticket to Honolulu- I am beholden to no one” Wade declares, his position made unmistakably clear, “if I wish to relieve people of their duties, I do not need permission.” Though her lips sit slightly apart from each other, the chancellor’s open mouth does not present the man across from her with a retort, but instead complete silence. Instead, Julia presses her teeth together and turns away without a reply, staring back toward the republic she wields the power of whilst continuing to appear incapable of removing her eyes from the sickly glow in the sky. “How long will it be until the storm?” the chancellor wonders aloud, switching the topic at hand before her pride can present her with the opportunity to show her superior any disrespect or retaliation. “The first lightning strike came in the early hours of the morning. The storm’s coming in from the southeast, so calculations suggest it’ll take slightly longer than usual” Wade answers, watching his subordinate adjust her jacket accordingly, “it should strike no earlier than sundown.” With a glance at the watch on her wrist, Julia takes note of the smallest hand sitting at the top-most side of the device, the longest hand barely an inch ahead. “If it’s just turned noon, that should give us eight hours or so before we need to send out an ‘immediate shelter’ warning” the chancellor declares, sliding her jacket’s sleeve back to its original position before pulling her long strands of hair out from the coat’s collar, “let’s get this done with.” = Dire is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards = Staring at the ceiling as the back of his head rests firmly within his pillow, a distraught Blake resides with a blank expression on his face, unable to show more emotion than the loss that comes with having no future of certainty to speak of. “Blake!” his wife calls out from further in their home, the pause that she holds allowing the man an opportunity to reply that he doesn’t take, her voice instead just prompting him to close his eyes and try to ignore it. “Honey, I need you in here!” the woman calls out once more just seconds later, her voice immediately followed by the repetitive sound of barking not too far off. Again being left with no reply, Blake’s wife carries on with her silence for an even longer period of time, her footsteps drawing closer to the bedroom where her husband still resides, though she does not enter and instead chooses to remain beyond its door. “Honey, I need you now!” the woman calls out yet again, though her voice sounds much further off than beyond the barrier to their bedroom door, her persistence beginning to annoy the disposed-of security detail, though her distance from the room appears much more odd than it should. “Can’t you leave me alone, please?” Blake calmly asks aloud, his voice barely able to make it past the bedroom door, where he opens his eyes and believes his wife to be. For a few additional seconds, the man is met with silence as only the barking of his dog fills the air. “Honey, will you get the-” Blake adds on, beginning to speak with the same, calm tone he had initially began speaking in, only for his wife’s voice to call out from further within the home once more, thoroughly confusing the unemployed and scarred individual. “Honey, please come out here!” the woman proclaims once more, her distance further prompting Blake’s eyes to widen for a moment, only for him to immediately reach for the nightstand. Returning his tuque, sunglasses and gaiter to his head, the man- still in his sleepwear- finally climbs out of bed and makes for the room’s exit, peering around the corner and down the hallway beyond without seeing the woman he’d married. “Honey!?” Blake shouts, stepping through the door and immediately making for the larger side of the home, stepping through the darkness of a hallway whose every door remains as closed as his own had. Assuming nothing, the unemployed member of Julia’s inner circle continues about his day whilst concealing his identity from the children he anticipates are amidst the process of getting ready for school. Drawing closer to the barking, Blake rounds the final corner toward his living room before finding the back of a woman’s head standing in the centre of the communal space, staring down at the man’s wife and children, whose hands are restrained to each other’s. “Wha-!?” the unassuming father blurts out, watching the woman’s familiar face turn back to look at him as the shift in her body reveals the gun she holds at the family, though a strike to the head prevents him from finishing the thought. Hitting the floor hard, Blake’s landing sends a crashing thud throughout the home, disturbing various knick-knacks that line the walls, shaking pinned-up picture frames and triggering the caged-up dog in the corner of the room to begin barking out of anger. “Please, don’t hurt him!” the man’s wife calls out, watching the woman who’d taken aim at her with the pistol glance back and strengthen her aimed position. “We’ve got no reason to hurt any of you- so long as you do what we say” a voice all-too familiar to Blake’s ears replies, though he fails to pick up on it at first as he struggles to gather his bearings. Without another word, the figure responsible for the surprise assault on the facially-disfigured father grabs him by the neck and leads him up to his knees, the tip of a knife guided up to the skin of the man’s chin from her hand. “My glasses! Fix my glasses!” Blake shouts aloud, still yet to collect himself, but adamant that his facial wear be adjusted accordingly. Saying nothing, the person whose hand wraps around the space between his neck and left shoulder keeps her steady grasp on the blade, slowly releasing the man’s flesh from her opposite palm before following suit with his request, gradually correcting the way in which the glasses sit upon her hostage’s face and fixing the tuque that sits atop his head. “He doesn’t want his kids to see him like... the way he is” Alex remarks, her figure made out more clearly by the man who dawns his best disguise to mask the horrid reality he’s been left to live with, standing just a few feet away from his wife with a weapon directed toward her. “I get it...” the woman doubles down, looking into the glasses that shield the burns the man’s eyes, his only feature slightly-untouched by the flames that had scarred him, “...I do get it.” “What do you want?” Blake calmly asks, staring into Alex’s eyes before feeling the palm of the figure holding him at knife-point return itself to his inner neck and shoulder. “You know what I want” the familiar voice replies, this time speaking to a man much more capable of recognising the voice that answers his question, watching her figure slowly step around him and drop to a knee, making her eyes level with his own, “and by the sound of it, I’ve only got a few hours to get it done.” For the first time since his injury, Blake stares forward at the woman who sits upon one knee before him, looking into the eyes of the soul he’d betrayed that very same night. “My sister’s tied to a post just outside the front doors of the capitol. There’s a crowd growing at the bottom of the front steps, and there’s not one little bit of space that the NDF isn’t occupying” Jaime explains, painting the picture that the security detail is seemingly unaware of, “I don’t have time to waste.” “He was fired last night” the man’s wife remarks, her proclamation one that fails to resonate with either the mother who holds her hostage or the daughter who holds her husband captive. “Fired or not, he knows all the in’s and out’s of that building. And I know for a fact that he knows who to call to figure out which spots they don’t have covered” Jaime replies, still holding her blade against the man’s flesh without plans of retreating without something of value to take for herself. “Even if you got past them, you’d have no shot at getting your sister free without them catching you” Blake rebukes, challenging the woman’s conclusion, but finding no relent in her presentation. “I have it on good authority that at least a sizeable chunk of the NDF will already have their hands full by the time I get up there” Jaime responds, carefully switching the hand she wields the knife with whilst exchanging her hold on the man with the now-free one. “What I need out of you is a way to slip through them so- by the time they have other matters to attend to- I’m already inside enemy lines” the deposed chancellor concludes, having already bested her once-ally, and now setting her sights upon fulfilling her retribution, “whatever you do after that doesn’t matter to me. As long as I can get past them before they have the chance to act, you can take your family and head for the hills.” “You expect me to believe you’ll let me go?” Blake retorts, calling his former superior’s bluff whilst shaking his head, momentarily glancing back toward his family with every opportunity he has to, “you want after Wade and Julia- but I’m just as much of the reason why they got into power as they are. If you want the two of them dead- that means you also want me dead.” Keeping silent and to herself, Jaime stares into the centre of the man’s sunglasses before letting go of his body, letting her hand fall toward her lap for a moment before suddenly lifting it to rip the covers over his eyes away from his face. “Stop! No!” Blake cries out, pulling back before feeling her hand press against his neck, pulling him back up to the blade and looking him in the eyes as he begs. “The fact that you can’t envision showing your face to your own children is more than enough punishment to last a lifetime in my eyes” Jaime rebukes, taking her hand away from the man’s shoulder for a second time and slipping her finger into the top of his gaiter, holding it there for a moment. “I’m walking into the belly of the beast today, and I’m willing to sacrifice knocking three birds out with one stone in return for a leg up” the survivor remarks, “give me that and I’ll consider us even.” “If you really want to protect your kids from seeing you as you are, you’ll take her up on her offer” Alex quips from off to the side, keeping the rest of the man’s family at bay with the firm hold of her weapon, speaking to the man from the heart, “she’ll take off whatever face covers you’ve got left, slit your throat, let your family watch you die and take her chances at getting into the capitol without your help if you don’t.” With his lip quivering out of fear, Blake pulls his eyes away from the Morris family’s matriarch and steadies them upon Julia’s predecessor, the unwavering line of sight she holds upon him making it clear that Alex’s conclusion is accurate. | “Even if we’re getting closer to the handoff every day, I’d still appreciate it if you allowed me to run this city undisturbed for whatever time I have left with it” Julia remarks, remaining seated at her chancellor’s desk as her colleague occupies the visitor’s half. “Ms. Avallone, you’ve played pretend-leader for almost a year at this point. I think you’ve had your fun” Wade explains, calmly seated with one leg crossed atop the other. “Who says I’m having fun with this job?” Julia questions sincerely, leaning back in her seat as the world around the republic’s capitol building grows increasingly green. “Do you think I like spending every day having to step around eggshells just to make sure whatever call I make doesn’t go against the best interest of the NDF?” the chancellor carries on, challenging her acquaintance’s line of thought, “do you think having my every call second-guessed is appealing?” “I don’t think you care about what is- or is not- appealing so long as it lands you in that beach house you’ve been working toward ever since taking office” Wade responds, a smile carried over his face. “A beach house that I’m no longer entitled to if you end up dead” Julia corrects, letting one arm sit atop her lap whilst her dominant one rests along the side of her chair, “and ever since I got a whiff of Jaime, you’ve been doing everything in your power to get that way.” “It’s easy to consider yourself untouchable when you’re surrounded by the best that the world’s greatest military power ever has to offer” Wade reassures, the smile only further establishing itself along his face. “It’s unfortunate that such a power’s leadership ultimately landed us where we are now” Julia cuts back, ignoring the sound of hassle that her ears barely capture in the distance of the capitol, “I’m sure the people in charge back then thought they were untouchable too, right?” “What’s done is done. The world that we live in now- one ripe for the NDF to retake and subject to the occasional acid rain storm every now and then- is all we’re left with and can work for” Wade retorts, ending the woman’s line of thought before it can unravel too far, “and in a few week’s time, the New Democratic Front will begin that process by officially reclaiming Los Angeles- reunited- as its own.” “Then let’s hope our plan today goes off without a hitch” Julia replies, watching the NDF’s leader grow more comfortable in the give that his chair provides. “Hitch or no hitch- I don’t see a reason why anything about this should sit too heavily on my conscience” Wade rebukes, shrugging in his seat whilst he speaks, quickly fixing his tie as he sinks further into the chair, “I’ll give Ms. Morris credit for where she left this city, but she’s hardly the boogeyman you-” “Excuse me, sir?” a man in a suit calls out from the office’s doorway, earning the refocused attention of the NDF leader upon his request. “Yes, Patrick?” Wade replies, forced to sit upright just slightly in order to look toward his own security’s high-ranking detail. “There’s an issue at the steps of the capitol that I think you might want to see” Patrick answers, leaving the quip at that for those in his presence to make of. | “Get out of here you dirty twats!” a man in a windbreaker exclaims, spitting similar vigour to what most of his Angelino peers do, their words directed at the large group that share the space of public gathering with them. “May glory befall the Republic, may she stand in spite of those who did her wrong!” Carly cries out, standing at the forefront of her peacekeeper brothers and sisters at the bottom-most step of the republic’s capitol, their collective voices ringing through the air in unison. “May glory befall the Republic, may those she loves never stop singing her song!” she continues to cry out, leading those behind her in chanting the anthem that had remained a tightly-kept secret, one for only the ears of those that remained perceptive enough to hear them. Being made privy to this disruption, Julia and Wade join the suited soldiers in stepping out to the steps of the once-city hall, their presence immediately being noticed by the teenager tied to the wooden stake. “May glory befall the Republic, may justice befall those who smother her name!” the peacekeepers continue to exclaim, crying out with the spirit of the republic’s true underground revolution. “Do you see Jaime anywhere in there?” Julia questions, standing to the right of the NDF’s leader with a few feet of space to spare between them, a quiet shake of Wade’s head making the answer clear. “May glory befall the Republic, may those she loves forever love her the same!” Carly continues to cry out, her words caught by Kennedy’s ear and bringing a smile to her face, aware that those she’d chosen to stand beside have done much the same- just as their anthem would’ve wanted. “Do you see any of the others in there then?” Julia questions aloud, again receiving no response of valuable use, the united voices of those she’d once guided into a rebellion now defeating those of the Angelino’s. With a pause, the peacekeepers pull apart along the frontlines and make room for those within their ranks to step forward, revealing themselves to the figures that be. “Fuck yeah” Kennedy murmurs, watching on with a smile from her imprisoned place as three familiar souls step into the public’s eye for the first time in nearly a year. “Boss!?” one of the NDF’s leaders proclaims, looking back at their commander whilst patiently awaiting his orders. Slightly displeased to find those he does, Wade quietly stares at the rebellion group’s front line before taking his eyes back to the subordinate who’d looked for his approval, nodding in the man’s direction and granting his men permission to descend the capitol’s steps, their collective intent being to arrest the fugitives familiar to Kennedy. “Live or die, fight with pride- she stands tall!” Chevy, Kayla, and Alex call out, joining Carly and the peacekeepers in putting up a front that the NDF, nor the republic’s forces, truly know the intention of, “heart beating- no retreat in the face of war!” Looking toward each other, members of the republic’s own military take notice of their former commander in the crowd, quietly wondering amongst each other whether or not their allegiances reside where they’re meant to. “Put your hands where we can see them!” the highest-ranking member of the NDF’s on-duty fleet calls out, aiming his rifle at the Morris’ matriarch, the married couple she’s befriended, and the opposition group’s newest leader with the intent of seeing them stand down. Unwavering in their positions, Carly, Chevy, Kayla, and Alex continue to cry the tune of the republic as their oppressors approach, “glory, glory to the Republic...” On command, the peacekeepers fall silent at the conclusion of the anthem’s penultimate line, joining the members of the republic that oppose them in staring toward the top steps of the capitol in shock and awe, some unable to believe who they’re seeing whilst others cheer in the long-awaited sight. “...Or may she fall defiant forevermore” Jaime concludes, loud enough for only the republic’s figureheads to overhear as the occupies the space between them, both sets of eyes taking toward her with surprise and disbelief. “Guar-!” Julia exclaims with widened eyes, unable to finish her thought before her predecessor adjusts her stance and punches her in the mouth, only to follow it up by quickly ducking a sneak attack from the NDF’s leader and dragging her blade against his sternum. “Ahh!” Wade grunts in pain, clutching at his stomach before falling over, staring toward the desired sight of his former subordinate’s face beyond the backdrop of the ill-coloured sky. With her knife in tow, Jaime stands over her staggered enemies with flared nostrils and an odd composure, her presence only now taken notice of by the two force’s various militants. With their weapons aimed, the NDF’s soldiers attempt to ascend the stairs once more before finding their efforts interrupted by an unexpected turn of events. Grasping her blade even firmer, Jaime stares at the republic’s fleet of militants and quickly takes the collar of Wade’s shirt into her grasp, pulling his head closer toward her knife as a way of convincing them to stand down, only for shock to come over her own face as the men she once manned the helm of carry past her. “Put your weapons down!” one of the men at the frontline of the republic’s soldiers calls out, descending the few steps at the top of the capitol as they take aim at the NDF’s forces, surprising the New Democratic Front, the peacekeepers, and the remaining citizens in betraying the current regime. “What are you doing!?” Julia screams out, pushing herself off the ground whilst holding her jaw, running after the men her command is supposed to be followed by before leaping back, watching the nearest member of the republic’s militia turn their gun against her. Standing by with Wade still in her reach, Jaime stares toward the opposing forces with widened eyes, unsure of whether or not the sight that’s unfolding before her is real. “What’s going on!?” Alex calls out, struggling to process the sight of the Angelino Republic’s military holding that of the NDF’s back, preventing the superior forces from interfering with her daughter’s mission. Ushering not a single word in response, Chevy and Kayla take each other’s hands and ascend the first few steps of the capitol, drawing closer to the first wave of NDF guards, who refuse to open fire against their republic-serving colleagues despite the danger to their leader. Relinquishing her grasp on Wade’s collar, Jaime stands upright just a few feet away from where her sister is restrained, realising that the republic’s leader may have changed nearly one year prior, but their loyalty to her never had. “Men and women of the Angelino Republic... Protect Chancellor Morris at all costs!’ Chevy howls from one of the bottom-most steps of the city hall, his voice reaching the ears of the deposed chancellor, the woman’s sister, and those who’d ousted her. “Yes, sir!” the same soldier who’d turned his weapon against Julia shouts back, his place amongst the frontline taken over by one of his peers, his motivation now dedicated to keeping the faux-chancellor in place. “What’s happening?” Jaime questions aloud, struggling to fully comprehend that the men whose services the once-doctor had stolen from her have now been returned. “They’re turning against Julia!” Kennedy screams out, watching her sister’s face turn back toward her as the answer is called out. “You bastards! I’m your leader!” Julia wails out, berating the men whose actions are supposed to be dictated by her for their betrayal, the efforts she takes in scolding them doing little to change the fact that she’s now been rendered powerless over the republic, its people, and its military. “Goddamnit” Wade hisses, speaking through his teeth as he quickly scoots away from the knife-wielding survivor whose leadership he’d disowned once she’d been ousted, reclaiming her full attention as he attempts to create separation between them. For a few seconds, Jaime pulls her eyes away from the NDF’s wounded commander and looks back toward the republic’s front line, their devotion to her made resoundingly clear as they answer her call to action. “Cut my sister free” Jaime orders the man who’d held Julia at gunpoint, his eyes taking toward her before joining his head in nodding, retreating from the ex-chancellor’s attention and hurrying toward Kennedy’s aid, quickly slicing at her restraints and sparing her from harm. “And here I thought it was just your security detail and closest confidants that were incompetent” Wade grunts, staring at an irate Julia as her eyes meet his own, “it turns out... I backed the wrong horse.” “You’re not much better looking yourself, asshole” Jaime quips, regaining the injured founder’s line of sight as she slowly closes the distance between them, his retreating crawl the only thing that keeps him from facing the consequences he’s due for. “You were the one that convinced yourself that you were untouchable” Julia angrily bites back, speaking with a striking amount of composure as she grimaces at the man. “I was under the belief that you were the true chancellor of this city, you wretched bitch!” Wade shouts back, a vein protruding from his forehead as he climbs to a knee, struggling to stand upright once more. “Say no further... That was the only mistake you needed to make” Jaime responds, speaking with the newfound reassurance that her blind sides are covered and her command is as intact as it ever was, each word uttered with the utmost confidence, “this republic has only one, true chancellor.” Unanimous in their subscription to such a declaration, the Angelino Republic remains at Jaime’s guard, unrelenting in their act as a blockade between the NDF as its leader, leaving the man at the mercy of their true commander. “Perhaps you’re right... Perhaps I underestimated the power you wield over this place” Wade responds, finally making it back to his feet, though partially hunched forward as his hands press against the gash on his abdomen. Slipping her hands away from the rope that had restrained her at the wrists, Kennedy watches on with the soldiers of both forces at the conversation had amongst the capitol’s top step, the leader of the world’s new direction face-to-face with its prodigal daughter. “One thing- however- that I’m certain I haven’t underestimated is your intellect” Wade continues, watching the returned chancellor’s slow march toward him pause momentarily, “specifically... your common sense.” Holding his hand out as a precaution, Wade keeps the space between himself and the chancellor as long as he can, pausing his retreat just as she halts her progression. “He’s all talk, Jaime” Kennedy remarks, seething at the NDF’s leader and the gutless display of self-preservation he presents, “do the world a favour and finish what you started.” “Sentencing me to death would do nothing but sentence everyone else here- yourself, your sister, your family, everyone- to death as well” Wade quickly responds, briefly looking toward the younger Morris sibling before turning his sights back toward her elder sister. “Without me, there is no future for this city. The second I die is the point of no return for your republic, Jaime” the man carries on, explaining himself fluently, “if I can’t have this place, nobody can.” Taking four steps forward with an increased grasp of the knife, Jaime’s progression is halted once more by a voice she’d not anticipated being worth anything to her. “He’s telling the truth, Jaime!” Julia calls out, her balled fists hanging by each of her sides as the scenario plays out, watching the woman’s eyes fall upon her, “if Wade dies, the rest of the NDF is supposed to fall back and retreat for Pearl Harbor.” “Bullshit!” Kennedy shouts back, only for her rebellious remark to be discouraged by the same man who’d once held her older sister beneath his thumb. “It’s not bullshit. The NDF’s orders are to retreat for Pearl Harbor, report the city as a lost cause, and authorise a missile strike that would render it inhospitable for anyone- both ourselves or people like you- to live in” Wade hurriedly reassures, wincing in pain whilst keeping himself standing upright, “without me... this place goes away.” “Jaime, he’s not lying!” Julia cries out, doubling down on the man’s claims beyond what Kennedy can muster. “If you kill him, everyone here dies!” she carries on, remaining stood in the same place the gun had been drawn toward her, the event officially marking the end of her reign over the republic, “maybe you don’t care about that. Maybe you didn’t expect to make it out of this alive, but I highly doubt you’d be willing to kill Chevy and Kayla, or your mom, or your sister for this.” “She wouldn’t, which is why she hasn’t killed me yet!” Wade shouts back, dissuading his former business partner from speaking any further than she already has, preferring to take over the mantle himself. Trying to catch his breath as he drops to a knee for a moment, the man extends his hand toward Jaime as a gesture to not capitalise on his weakness, pleading with her to afford him the chance to explain himself. “I’m not going to pretend like I’d be willing to leave you with this city, because I’m not. However, what I would be willing to leave you with is a choice” Wade continues, pausing for a moment as Jaime’s chin lifts, suggesting the woman is willing to at least hear his offer out. “I respect you, Ms. Morris. I’m very displeased to see how easily Ms. Avallone had manipulated you, but that displeasure is nothing compared to how impressive the loyalty of your subordinates is” the man proceeds, his hand gesturing toward the armed forces that stand at her every demand, “for every second that I live, I will forever be kicking myself for underestimating just what kind of impact you’ve left this city- and its people- with.” “Yeah, you fucked up” Kennedy quips from aside, quickly being met with the founder’s agreement. “I certainly did. I underestimated your people, Jaime. I underestimated your replacement’s true pull with this city, and I underestimated you” Wade rejoinders, gingerly lifting himself back off of a knee whilst Julia scoffs at how easily his tune had changed, “but, I’d like you to allow me the opportunity to make this right.” “How the fuck do you think you can accomplish that?” Jaime inquires, shaking her head with an incredible doubt over her adversary’s claims. “First of all, I can guarantee your loved ones safety. I think assuring you that your family, and the married couple that you’re close with, and anyone else you may have fondness for will be safe is a good place to start” Wade replies, viewing the conversation as one worthy of believing there will be a preferable outcome to. “And while I can’t stand for the continuation of your- Angelino Republic- any longer, I can stand for allowing you to remain in power whilst the NDF ventures further inland” Wade proceeds, unable to see the scowl emerge over Julia’s face a few paces behind himself, “I’m not going to be able to stay in Los Angeles forever. Eventually, I’m gonna need to leave someone to look after it while we move on with reclaiming the lower forty-eight, and who better for that to be than you, Ms. Morris?” Pressing her lips together, Jaime stares into the man’s frantic eyes and takes notice of the softening to the gel he’d styled his hair with, allowing for strands to slip out of their previously-fixed positions and hang in front of his eyes. “You’ve already proven your leadership qualities to me, and now- you’ve proven to be the kind of person an army of men and women would stop at nothing less than to die for!” the wounded founder declares, a smile coming over his face. “I may not value the republic in the way that you do, but I certainly value what it’s become thanks to you! Through it, you have become a leader that the people of the old world could’ve only ever dreamed to fall under the leadership of” Wade begins to conclude, feeling as though his point has been made as resoundingly as it’s ever going to be, winding down to the final stretch, “believing someone like that could simply be pushed out of power was a mistake.” “Of course it was” Jaime calmly replies, watching the man across from her vehemently nod in agreement with the claim. “Yes, yes! Of course it was!” Wade laughs with amusement, believing himself and the woman who’d given him the wound he struggles to keep from continuing to spill blood to finally be back upon the same page, “I’ll admit that it was nothing less than a terrible, terrible mistake! So please, Ms. Morris... Let me correct that mistake.” Keeping to herself, Kennedy stands by as her focus turns away from the hunched-over man a few yards away and takes back toward her older sister, unsure of what outcome is to unfold. Worried that she already knows what call is about to be made, Julia reserves her suspicions and holds her breath for seconds on end, feeling the weight of the tension that arises with every tick of the clock that goes without a reply. Hanging her head for a moment, Jaime stares at the ground before looking back to the knife, her grasp on the weapon releasing just slightly for the first time since launching her attack. Thinking to herself, the chancellor stares out toward the crowd of peacekeepers who she’d earned the trust of through promising for a better future, only to set her sights on the few figures that stand at the forefront of them, considering the comfort that comes in assuring their safety. Pulling her eyes away from the populous that endures the threat of the storm their green heavens threaten to rain down whenever it pleases in order to bear witness to the outcome of this showdown, Jaime takes her eyes back to the blade that sits in her palm. Parting her lips, the chancellor stares at the ground and lets her knife-wielding hand slowly return to her side, appearing to relinquish her intentions of using it to finish her mission. “Everyone knows how this is supposed to end” she mutters, afforded the silence by the three figures that stand before her, within earshot of her words as they’re now impossible to ignore. “It’s the only thing that gets me to sleep, it’s the only thing that keep me going, it’s the only thing I’ve been thinking about for so, so long” Jaime doubles down, speaking toward the ground whilst those within her company listen on, one pleased to do so whilst the others have no choice. “And now that I’m here, it doesn’t even feel like the thing that lulled me to sleep, but- instead- the dream that waited for me once my eyes actually stayed shut” she continues, the remark confusing the three that stand before her, unsure of where her remarks are leading. “Maybe I just devoted so much of myself to it that it no longer even feels real” Jaime proclaims, unsure of which is more likely, “but regardless, I know how this is supposed to end.” Straightening his stance upright, Wade remains clutching at his wound as the chancellor’s slow approach resumes once more, though her hand wields the knife in a much less threatening manner. “It may not always seem like it, but I’m pretty sure everyone else does too” Jaime continues to declare, a smile beginning to sprout upon her face, “they might not admit it, but they all know the same exact thing that’s coming from all of this.” “You’re not a stupid woman, Ms. Morris” Wade responds, assuring the woman that her intellect is more powerful than the drive that carries her onward, “you’re not selfish, either. You know what the right call is, and the right call is what’ll offer everyone here the best outcome.” “The best outcome doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the right call, Wade” Jaime retaliates, shaking her head as she pauses her forward steps, the man’s feet no longer retreating. “In wanting revenge against you and Julia, I’m also admitting that there’s only one way out for me” the woman continues, no longer receiving pushback from the NDF’s founder, “and with all of this dreaming that I’ve been doing, it really feels like the right call is the one that brings me back to reality.” “Jaime-” Julia calls out, taking notice of the slight shift in her predecessor’s voice, though her call out of the woman’s name fails to prevent her from carrying on. “The Republic was a dream- a great dream- but one that- no matter what- doesn’t survive this” Jaime progresses, taking another step toward Wade, who lifts his chin and awaits the woman’s arrival toward him, “and even if it’s the last thing I do- with or without your help, Wade- I’ll make sure my loved ones make it out of this.” “You’re making a mistake, Ms. Morris” Wade responds, assuring the woman that the conclusion he believes she’s coming around to is the one she’ll regret for the limited time she has left. “No, the mistake that I made was the one that got me pushed out of power, Wade” Jaime corrects, shaking her head with an increasing smile, “that was the last mistake I will ever make.” “Jaime, all of this goes up in smoke if you follow through with this!” Julia warns, drawing the same conclusion as her superior and the woman who holds the fate of the circumstance within her hand. “The republic is already doomed, Julia. A pipedream is still a dream, and saving what’s already been sentenced to death is just that kind of pipedream” Jaime retorts, “and maybe it’s too late for my dream to have a happy ending, but I know it’s not too late to do this...” Firming her grasp on the knife, Jaime closes the distance between herself and the NDF’s leader, who grimaces in preparation and presses his eyes shut, watching the woman’s arm swing back and ready itself to propel forward. “It’s not too late to wake up!” the chancellor declares, lunging forward and piercing Wade’s sternum with the tip of the blade, every last inch of the knife plunging into the man’s flesh before quickly being ripped out, bringing the man to his knees. Having done as she’d set out to do, Jaime recalls one of their earliest conversations and the irony that’d befallen the vow she’d made to him before departing from their dinner table. Leaning down with the blood-soaked blade in her hand, the chancellor listens to the man’s grunts as the blood oozes from the wound she’d made, getting close to his ear and speaking in a whisper the declaration she’d promised to show him out of this life with. “Even if it’s upon its final hours, it will die just as it lived like I told you it would...” Jaime hisses, watching the man struggle for air as his face takes toward her, looking the woman in the eyes as his final moments are spent bearing witness to her declaration, “...as my republic.” Trying to capture a final breath, Wade’s airways fill up before he can utter a response, sending his eyes toward the ground that his body soon collapses the rest of the way toward, his death marking the impending end of the great republic as it stood. With her knife in hand, Jaime stands back toward her feet as smiles come over the face of the republic’s frontline, the sound of cheers shared between both the nation’s law-abiding civilians and its rule-bending peacekeepers. Pulling in a deep breath without awareness over what is still to come, Chevy, Kayla, Alex and Carly join in the festivities with a nod of reassurance once their friend- the chancellor- looks toward them. Smiling all the same, Kennedy watches her sister’s face take toward her for a moment before their collective attention sets upon the one figurehead that remains, Julia’s sight taking toward the younger sibling at first before settling on Jaime, whose dream has yet to be fully awakened from. == Dire == “I think it’d be better if we were to just focus on what we do know” Wade responds, standing in the open with his arms crossed as his political colleague paces from one side of the corridor to the next. “What we know is that Jaime’s teenage sister is in our custody and locked in a room I’m sure she knows every way out of right now” Julia replies, assuring the man that what they’re privy to is more than understood, “what we know is that, if Kennedy’s here, then Jaime and the others are too.”
“Then there are an assortment of questions we have that we’re left without answers to” Wade counters, offering a second line of thought for the chancellor to feast upon, “such as where they are, who they’re working with, how they got back inside, and more importantly- what do they want.” “We already know what they want, Wade” Julia bites back, scoffing at the question whilst carrying on with her repetitive stroll, “they want us dead and this place back under their control.” Shaking his head in refusal, the NDF leader dismisses anything close to such a conclusion as beyond reasonable. “If that is the goal, then their efforts are already useless” the man rebukes, unfurling his arms and letting his hands fall into the pockets at his side. “Count your lucky stars all you want, but that won’t stop what I know is the case” Julia replies, stopping at the centrepoint of her walk, looking toward the man that stands opposite her. “Jaime’s got supporters rooted deep into this administration. They’re quiet about it to stay on my good side, but that loyalty is there” the chancellor doubles down, reassuring the fact that they don’t face a non-threatening foe, “if she finds a way to oust me, she’ll be taking her men to you.” “Ms. Avallone, she stands no chance at ousting the NDF from the republic. As I’ve stated, your administration may fare differently, but mine will not allow it to happen” Wade retorts, only to draw the interest of his collaborator, who lifts her eyebrows toward him. “And why is that, Wade? What makes you so confident in your men that no one stands a chance at ousting you?” the woman caves, begging the question she’d never thought to ask prior. “Because the lack of a chancellor in the city still leaves me in charge. Without me in charge, there will be no city to retake” Wade clarifies, watching the woman’s slightly-resumed pace come to a halt once more. “The NDF will not allow an enemy’s forces to push us off of the mainland. The mission statement here is final. If we can’t have it, no one can” the man doubles down, his motivations made clear, “if Jaime lucks her way into ousting me, the city would be dust in hours.” For a moment, the chancellor’s mind stops thinking of anything more than the claim made by her associate, assuming it to only indicate one thing above any other. “You’d bomb the city?” Julia whispers, her voice carrying further within the cramped walls of the tight and narrow dungeon, allowing it to reach the ears of the NDF’s leader rather comfortably. “Pearl Harbor has been an institution within the American military for nearly a century. If you think we hadn’t thought of putting even a few missiles on an island in the middle of the Pacific- that oversight isn’t our fault” Wade replies, taking a quick look through the two way mirror at the teenage girl that sits within, awaiting them, “if Jaime’s end goal is to just take our heads, that’s probably for the best... Because she’s in for a rude awakening if she thinks she can retake this city.” Parting her lips as this information settles in with her, Julia stares blankly at the NDF’s leader as he takes a pause, taking a few steps closer to her. “While we’re on the subject, I’d just like to make myself clear. If I were you, I would really hope Jaime gets the chance to kill you before she gets the chance to kill me” Wade remarks, looking he chancellor in the eyes, “because, in the event that your inaction gets me killed? Well, let’s just say there’s no beach house for you in Honolulu.” Swallowing her pride as the remark settles in with her, Julia continues to stare Wade in the eyes, aware of his proclamation as he turns away, setting his sights on the open space directly at the two-way mirror’s centre. “Go get whatever you can out of the girl” the figurehead of the NDF calls back, staring forward with his arms crossed once more, refusing to pay the chancellor even his line of sight whilst giving her the order. Trying her best to mask the aggravation that tries its hardest to present itself on her face, Julia steps into the stuffy interrogation room with open arms, quickly making it to the open end of the table without so much as a peep. Dragging the legs of the seat across the ground, the chancellor lets herself fall into the chair before staring at the silent teenage girl, who grimaces at the sight of the woman who’d ousted her sister from power. “Where’s Jaime?” the chancellor inquires, watching a smile immediately take in the corner of the young girl’s mouth as she leans back in her seat, aware of the game her opposition is attempting to play. “That’s not how this is going to work” Kennedy retorts, immediately refusing the woman a sufficient answer to much of her own satisfaction. “And how do you think this is going to work, you brat?” Julia questions aloud, seething in her seat whilst continuously trying to keep the younger adversary from noticing it, disliking the soul across from her on a personal standpoint, but not foolish enough to discredit her intelligence. “You keep looking for my sister because you want her dead, and you want her dead because she wants you dead” Kennedy replies, running through the cycle as if routine, “you ask about where she is because you know that she’s here- and she is- but you want the jump on her before she gets it on you.” “That’s exactly what’s happening here” Julia replies, reassuring the young woman of the accuracy in her statement, though her adversary needs no such reassurance. “Which means you know that I’m not going to tell you where she is. By the way, I find it funny to know that- even if I did tell you- she’d get away from you again” Kennedy carries on, feeding the chancellor words that only further irritate her, “and she’d keep getting away from you because this only ends when you die.” “So why bother turning yourself in? I don’t take you for a fool, so I’d warn that you’d be best off doing the same with me” Julia asks, aware that the younger woman’s motivations have pushed her to this approach, “you could’ve stayed hidden, but there was more use in being caught by me then sticking to the shadows. So why turn yourself in?” Though her answers had initially come off so quick that they almost appear pre-rehearsed, this question seemingly brings a pause over Kennedy, who stares with a straight face into the soul of the republic’s chancellor. For a few seconds, this silence persists as Julia waits on, aware that the young girl is thinking quietly to herself, and is intrigued by the retaliation that she assumes is amidst preparation. “Do you know what you were doing when the catalyst came in?” Kennedy suddenly wonders aloud, watching the brief squint come over the chancellor’s face before continuing. “I was in class yelling and calling this one kid- I don’t even remember his name- every name in the book you can think of” the girl carries forward, reflecting on the moment as if it were a fond memory, “he made some joke about me crying about getting yelled at by the principal. And I just lost it on him.” “What does this have to do with your sister?” Julia wonders aloud, only for her question to be disregarded by the younger girl as she carries on with her verbal look back at time. “Even though everything changed after that day, I kept thinking back to whether or not I should’ve yelled at the kid like that for a few months. I’m sure he died along with the others, and those might’ve been his final moments alive” Kennedy moves on, shaking head head in disappointment, “-being insulted by me.” Barely parting her lips with the intention of interrupting, Julia thinks better of her choice and opts to remain silent, hoping that her cooperation will earn much the same in response. “I felt bad about it. Everything I said was true from what I know, but I just felt bad that he- most likely- spent some of his final moments being embarrassed in front of his classmates” Kennedy confesses, a more sorrowful look carried on her face as she concludes, “and it was my fault.” “If you’re stalling, you might as well tell me now” Julia interjects, aware that the tactic is one she wouldn’t put past the teenager, though it’s one she doesn’t actually believe is unfolding. “I don’t think you feel bad about anything that you’ve done. I don’t know that there’s a part of you that can even comprehend feeling guilty for doing something horrible to someone” Kennedy proceeds, looking the chancellor in the eyes, “and that’s something I just don’t understand.” “You’re referring to my kicking your sister out of power, yeah- I get-” Julia immediately speaks aloud, only for the voiced refusal and shake of her adversary’s head to correct that assumption. “No, I’m referring to you killing your own brother” Kennedy responds, watching the chancellor fall silent as her lips press together again, not having expected that to be the conclusion her opposition was drawing toward. “The kid I yelled at was a dick, but I feel bad about speaking to him the way that I did- even after all these years” Kennedy carries onward, speaking though the pause that the chancellor provides her with, “but you... You killed your own damn brother for... For what?” Leaning back in her seat slightly, Julia uncouples her hands and lets them sit firmly upon the table’s surface, her eyes keeping glued to the ones worn by her prisoner as her thoughts try to adjust themselves. “He was having second thoughts and I did what I had to do” Julia soon answers, providing the most political answer she can conjure up in the moment, “besides, why would you care? You didn’t like him any more than me. Besides, he was fucking your mom, so I’d imagine you’d like him even less than me.” “You might’ve been two peas from the same pod, but there’s a very obvious difference between the two of you” Kennedy replies, the point she makes genuinely compelling the chancellor into remaining quiet, actively wanting to hear the captive girl out. “I’m not sure it would’ve changed much, but- even a year ago- I realised that Chris at least seemed like he cared. He seemed like he could at least be redeemable” the teenager continues, shaking her head as she looks her foe in the eyes. “You...” Kennedy concludes, pausing to inspect the woman’s distant visage before deepening the disappointed jostle of her head, “...you’re just a monster.” Though her irritation remains, the genuine anger she’d entered the room with no dissipates in favour of a deeply-contained sensation of respect- or rather a lack thereof- within the chancellor. Clearing her throat and looking away, the republic’s leader couples her hands and directs the conversation back toward where it belongs. “Why did you voluntarily turn yourself in?” Julia wonders aloud, getting back to business with the inquiry, “what do the others have to gain from it?” “Because now I’m your bait” Kennedy responds, answering the chancellor honestly with the assumption that the republic’s leader will wave it to lure her group into the open. “You know we’re after you and that we want you dead. The problem is, there’s not much of away for Jaime to get the jump on you, and there is definitely no way for you to get the jump on us” the teenager continues, finding very little reason to not spill the beans with the knowledge of what it’d lead to. “It doesn’t matter where this happens, but all of this can only end with you and Jaime approaching each other from the front...” Kennedy concludes, speaking the quiet part out loud, “...face to face.” “And you don’t see the concern with four people going up against the entire republic and the entire NDF?” Julia questions, watching Kennedy’s lips turn upward into a smile. “I suppose that depends on the circumstance-” the teenager replies, gradually leaning to the right in her seat whilst setting her eyes upon the mirror at the front of the room, “isn’t that right, Wade?” Taking her pupils to the corner of her eyes, Julia glances in the direction of the two-way mirror without a clue over how the man in the hallway is reacting. “My sister’s used these tunnels before and I’ve seen them for myself. I know you’re just as interested in finding Jaime as Julia is, and I know you’re out there” Kennedy calls out, leaving her chair and slowly approaching the front of the room, hand dragging the seat into the open. “This conversation doesn’t involve Wade, Kennedy” Julia interjects, only for the younger woman’s voice to suggest otherwise. “Of course it is. That’s the person who’s going to put all of this into motion just to set an example” Kennedy rebukes, coming to a stop at the front of the room and staring directly into the place which the NDF leader stands, “when the republic is thrown into chaos, it’ll be Wade that’ll make the calls. And it’ll be those calls that I’m counting on.” “What’re those calls?” Julia proceeds to question, leaving her seat before standing behind the chair she steps out of, aware that the question isn’t going to receive the answer it’s intended to earn. In silence, Kennedy narrows her eyes as her head slowly glides toward the direction of the chancellor, her lips parting to only to answer with a smirk. “The one’s he’ll make in response to this” the teenager replies, uttering not a word further before lifting her metal seat and hoisting it at the window with all of her might, immediately shattering it into hundreds of pieces. “What the fuck!?” Blake shouts from outside the corridor, ducking for cover as Wade hits the floor, having seen the attempted assault coming just in time to avoid the chair’s strike. Having thrown the seat with such force that she’d been taken to the ground, Kennedy climbs up to her knees and stumbles into the corner, holding her ribs as if the outburst had brought her pain. Angry, Julia marches across the room and reaches out for the collar of the teenager’s shirt, pulling the girl’s face toward her own with the tug of the fabric. Without a word, the chancellor stares into the eyes of Kennedy for only a second as the forces standing outside collect their bearings, not seeing an immediate need to take action in spite of the event’s violent nature. “What the hell do you-?” Julia immediately asks, staring into the girl’s face before taking notice of her responsive eyes and uncharacteristic smile, having assumed at first that the young woman was hurt, though such a conclusion now appears to have been premature. “I’ll let my sister finish the job, but I owe my friend at least this one thing” Kennedy calmly speaks, shoving the chancellor back before swiping at the woman’s throat with the other, using the shard of glass mirror she’d collected from the ground to slice at Julia’s jugular, prompting the woman to stumble back at the attack, “-that one was for Amelia.” Though some had begun to enter the interrogation room cautiously, the republic and NDF’s soldiers rush into the action the moment they watch the chancellor stumble back and grasp for her throat, trying to stop the blood that gushes from her wound. Without a care for the prisoner’s age or stature, multiple men tackle Kennedy to the ground and disarm her of the glass shard, wrapping handcuffs around the girl’s wrists whilst the republic’s leader bleeds out on the ground a short distance away. Though it had provoked trouble, Kennedy’s actions do little more than provoke a smile to spread across her face as Julia struggles to breathe, forcing whatever medics are on call to do their best at stopping the bleed. Having just climbed off the floor outside, Wade enters the room after everyone else does to find the result he’s now last to discover, looking at the chancellor curiously as she’s attended to by the medical professionals before staring at the prisoner to notice her pleased grin. = Dire is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards = “Why don’t we just run with the same plan!?” a man calls out, standing at the opposite side of a parking garage from the leader of his group, whose eyes take toward him once his voice is overheard. “Because Julia and Wade won’t just hold onto Kennedy without trying to use her as a way to lure me out to meet them” Jaime replies, standing off to the side of an exhausted Carly with hands tucked into her pockets and seated against the hood of a sedan, whose lamps shed light on the area. “Besides, going after Julia or Wade individually would leave the other with Kennedy” Carly adds on, lending further support to the change in approach they must now endure, “whoever that is would hold all the cards in their favour.” “Not to be a negative nancy or anything, but don’t they already hold all the cards?” a second voice calls out from the group of peacekeepers, all braving the unusually chilly night whilst forced to meet away from the tavern for their own protection, “they’ve got the little one. All they’d need to do is lure Jaime out with her, make her surrender, and that’s it.” “Which means I’d have to get the jump on them” Jaime interjects, still looking at the ground whilst she talks, “if I’m going to meet with them, I need to make sure I catch them by surprise, and I leave them no room to breathe.” “If you’re looking for that, you might as well just hire a hitman to take care of her” Alex scoffs, her voice only loud enough for her lone remaining daughter to hear clearly as it breaks within its whisper under the weight of knowing that her youngest offspring is in danger. “Wade almost never goes to the capitol and Julia doesn’t even make her addresses in public anymore” Carly responds, able to make out the words the mother speaks with despite her distance, “no chance of hitting both.” Sitting in the passenger’s seat of the vehicle the former chancellor leans against, Chevy holds a distant-eyed and angry Kayla, whose eyes refuse to leave the random place on the ground they’ve become fixed to. “It’ll only be a matter of time bef-” Jaime begins to remark, joining the peacekeepers, her married friends and her mother in ducking for cover as a jarring crash rings through the air out of nowhere, emanating like an explosion that prompts her to pause. “What the fuck was that!?” a voice shouts from within the group of peacekeepers on standby, looking toward the heavens in time to find a bolt of lightning zip through the sky, though the storm it indicates is just around the corner is anything but common. “Does anyone know if it’s dangerous to be in a parking garage when a rainstorm hits?” a second figure questions from within the core, ducking for cover against as Carly approaches one of the garage’s sides. “Why the fuck is it green!?” an even louder member of the peacekeepers calls out, begging the question as a second streak of lightning flashes through the sky, the colour it paints the clouds for the brief moment that it appears, however, being a dark and solid shade of green. “‘Cause it’s not a regular rainstorm...” Carly answers, her voice reaching the ears of all those who stand within her presence, “...it’s an acid rainstorm.” “Like the shit from when the catalyst hit!?” another peacekeeper calls out, just as worried and frantic as his peers appear to be. Quickly journeying up to Carly’s side, Jaime peers over the structure’s lip and stares into the sky, watching the grey clouds continue to roam their usual patterns without much in the way of disturbance, the sights allowing her to make a fairly-informed assumption. “No, no, no- the storm when the catalyst hit was made by the catalyst” Jaime responds, speaking loud enough for the rest of the group to overhear her, “we should still have a good amount of time before the rain actually starts falling.” “Yeah, this is more like when the waters in the ocean recede before a tsunami. The tsunami definitely will come, but the water receding is like a warning in advance” Chevy adds in, his wife standing from in his lap to join their friends at the garage’s side. “Should we get back home then?” another peacekeeper wonders aloud, calling out to the figures they look to for answers. “Not until we figure out a way to get my daughter back we’re not” Alex responds, a conclusion that her peers had already come to long ago. “It’s already safe to assume they’re going to use Kennedy as bait. The plan we should really be figuring out is how to get the jump on them so we’re not dead to rights when we come out of the woodworks” Jaime proclaims, returning to the vehicle she had seated herself upon the hood of. “Alright, then. What’s your plan?” Chevy queries, using the open passenger’s door to pull himself out of the vehicle, challenging his friend to follow through with her declaration and plot out a plan of attack. With a steady face, Jaime stares at the group of peacekeepers as she thinks to herself, considering the options at hand before questioning the approach she anticipates the republic’s figureheads to take. | “-and the chancellor is recovering well. The cut was not deep enough to cause any significant damage, and that is all we’re interested in saying at this time” Wade remarks, waving his hands to a group of journalists as they speak out in hopes of their additional questions being answered, only to receive the same dismissive gesture that prompts them to accept that inside information will not be disclosed to them. Turning away, Wade adjusts his neck tie and begins walking out of the hospital’s emergency room, venturing into the many corridors that line its halls with one of his particular interest. “Blake, I’d like you to do me a favour and get someone to make sure not a word leaks to the papers without my direct permission” the NDF leader requests, a displeased expression caked upon his bitter face as he pats the man on the shoulder. “Would you like me to return to the chancellor’s bedside after that, Mr. Cordova?” Blake questions, still wearing the tuque in spite of the lack of a need for it, his sunglasses still fashioned over his eyes despite being within the hospital’s interior. “No, after that, I want you to go home and spend time with your family” Wade replies, answering the man honestly whilst he continues to march, “I hate to have to tell you like this, but your services will no longer be required shortly enough.” “I’m sorry?” Blake questions back, stopping in his tracks before the question prompts the NDF figurehead to turn back, “you’re- you’re firing me?” Cold and with a lack of empathy, Wade tucks one hand into his pocket whilst gesturing toward the man’s figure with the other. “Well, if anybody fired you, it was Jaime when she decided to turn you into a human barbecue” the man says with a chuckle, taking humour in the misfortune of Julia’s closest thing to a right hand man. “In all honesty, though- I just don’t trust you” Wade confesses, doubling down on the way in which he views the head figure of the chancellor’s security detail. “Your crew allowed Clark to enter the dungeon with a blade, it allowed Margot to slip in antidepressants, it let Jaime and her family slip right through their fingers, and in all honesty- is undependable” the NDF’s spokesman proceeds, “why Julia trusted you- I have no idea. But you turned on Jaime, and I’m not risking you turning on me.” Though the man across from him cannot see past the gaiter, Blake stares at the republic’s inevitable commander with an agape mouth, unable to fully process what’s being told to him. “I’ve given my full devotion to this republic since the day I stepped up to chancellor Morris’ side! It’s left me permanently disfigured!” the distraught security detail proclaims, still finding it difficult to believe he’s being discarded as casually as he is, “there’s no one more dedicated to the republic than me!” “Alright, a couple of things there. First thing’s first, this is not a republic... It is a city. The city of Los Angeles to be more specific, so let’s not allow Jaime Morris’ deceased ambitions butcher the actual reality of what this place is” Wade corrects, firming up his dismissive posture toward the mutilated professional, “and number two, I don’t want anyone dedicated to this city- I want people dedicated to me. Los Angeles does not matter, it’s leader- that would be me- does.” With a look of awe written across his face, Blake watches Wade turn away and continue marching onward to the hospital room that yearns for his attention, seemingly stripped of every last shred of access he’d entered the day having. With little other choice, Blake inevitably takes himself to the driver’s seat of his town car and drives it back home, parking it in the paved over strip of asphalt just beside his well-manicured front lawn. Disheartened and without a clue over how to break the news to his wife and children, the deposed guard of the republic’s chancellor hangs his head and slowly strolls across the cobblestone path that sits between his vehicle and the entrance to his modest home. With the turn of his key and the pressing of his thumb against the door’s knob, Blake retires to his home for the final hours of the morning that are spent in absolute darkness, growing more accustomed to the sounds of thunder that ring throughout the republic in preparation for yet another disastrous storm. Quietly shutting the door behind himself, Blake’s hand swipes at the light switches just to the side of the house’s main foyer, turning out the lamps that line the building’s exterior, and plunging his yard and driveway into the final hours of darkness before dawn. Within the shadows, a figure steps out from behind the bushes that adorn the fence at the edge of the home’s front yard, staring down the residency with eyes of malicious intent as the means to an end. == Dire == Hanging her head whilst losing track of time, Margot listens to the sound of the room’s entrance opening, allowing the chancellor to join the woman’s company. “Sorry for making you wait so long” Julia remarks, listening to the woman, who’d been waiting hours for her arrival, scoff at the apology and take humour in it.
“No, you’re not” Margot answers with a faint and exhausted tone of voice, glancing up at the woman who slowly approaches her table, “you were there in the car ride with me. If you didn’t want to keep me waiting... you didn’t have to.” Entering the room empty-handed, the chancellor smirks at the woman’s reply for the truth that it contains, only able to find locks of hair covering the face of the peacekeeper’s leader. “I applaud you for your perception” Julia retorts, unable to see the face of the woman she speaks with, but able to make out the redirection of it with the motion of her long locks, “but I’m afraid even that won’t be of much use.” “What am I supposed to be looking at?” Wade inquires from beyond the two-way mirror, his arms crossed as he stands beside the chancellor’s security detail, unimpressed with the call that he’s been made present to answer. “Julia’s got a hunch that Jaime and the peacekeepers are in touch. I’m not sure why, but she said something about a talk they had a few nights ago” Blake answers, not understanding the full story, “we almost had them last night, so now Julia’s get impatient.” “I don’t know how long I’ve been down here, but you might as well just hurry up and get to the point” Margot replies, her speech sounding as if it were one glass of wine away from being slurred beyond the point of coherence. “I don’t know why I’m here or what you think that I did, but I know how this turned out last time one of us was dragged away” the oppositional group’s leader carries on, her voice soft and drawn out longer than it usually happens to be, “if you’re gonna kill me... do it.” “Unlike some other people who would be brought down here, I don’t actually have a reason to kill you-” Julia reassures, coupling her hands together atop the table they sit on opposite ends of, “-that is, unless you give me a reason to.” “As far as I’m concerned, I haven’t done anything to give you a reason to drag me down here in the first place” Margot corrects, pointing out the flaw in the chancellor’s logic with relatively little issue, “I wouldn’t say killing me is the first unprecedented action the republic’s taken.” “Unlike my predecessor, I have proven to be a woman capable of following through on my word” Julia responds, lowering her head toward the ground for a brief moment, only for her surprise to be caught in the returned quip. “Really? Last I checked, we were promised something better than your predecessor” Margot cuts back, regaining the chancellor’s centred sights, “but here we are almost no different than where we were back then. If there’s anything you’ve proven... It’s your incompetence.” Pulling below her bottom teeth, the chancellor’s lower lip recedes as she looks off toward the back of the room, able to make out the stars that reside within the night’s sky whilst running through her thoughts. “It’s funny that you mention that” Julia responds, setting aside her displeasure for the lack of respect shown in the attitude of the citizen she’s arrested without bulletproof cause, “I have a feeling that you and your group may have incentive to be- or rather not be- fat and happy.” “Oh gee, I wonder what would make you think that” Margot rebukes, still keeping her face held toward the ground as her posture appears less stable and becoming of a woman at the helm of her peers, “maybe it’s the spit that our fellow Angelinos hurl at us? Or maybe it’s the-” Wanting to continue speaking, the woman across from the republic’s leader pauses to engage within a coughing fit, unable to fight the urge to clear her increasingly-dry throat whilst the bemused chancellor watches on. “-or maybe it’s the curse words that we’re called? Maybe it’s the treatment we get that you seem to do so little to solve?” Margot follows through, finishing her thought defiantly as her political superior watches on, “maybe we have a few pretty good reasons to be less than happy, chancellor.” “Are you sick or something?” Julia wonders aloud, her curiosity having established itself upon the odd nature of the woman she interrogates, though it peaks upon the violent and guttural fights for air that the hacking seems to bring along. Not responding, Margot leaves the chancellor in the dark over whatever her condition may be, the refusal of an answer only prompting those that watch over the circumstance to fall further mystified. Climbing out of her chair, Julia slides the tips of her fingers across the table as she steps around it, watched on by her superiors beyond the mirror. Thinking little of her own safety, the chancellor’s actions find themselves motivated by the desire to seek an answer to the curious state of her subject. With a gentle push, the woman guides her person of interest back against the seat and pulls the loose strands of hair away from her pale face for the first time since entering the room. “Jesus!” Blake exclaims from outside, stepping back as Wade silently storms off toward the door, violently throwing it open as his lips part. “Medics... In here now!” the man barks out, waving his arm toward the crew that had stood in the event another peacekeeper interrogation had gone awry, and gesturing for them to tend to the woman who now sits against the back of her chair. “What the hell happened!?” Julia shouts aloud, turning away from the woman that sits beside her, not needing to see anything more than her deep blue lips and widened eyes to know that something was horribly wrong. “I’m not sure, it looks like an overdose!” the first woman to enter the room on behalf of the emergency crew responds, quickly pulling the woman off the seat and onto the floor to work on her. “Did none of you bastards check her for drugs!?” Wade shouts back, stepping through the room’s entrance and calling out to the security detail the chancellor had carried out the arrest alongside. “She was doing a town hall when we went in! She never left our sights!” Blake rebukes, defending himself as Julia leaves the room next, her fist punching at the air with anger as the sound of hurry and desperation ring out through the grizzly halls of the underground dungeon. = Dire is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards = To the patterned beep of the machines that she’s hooked up to, Margot lays in bed with her hands folded over her chest, eyes staring toward the one window left without the obstruction of a curtain. Having been stripped nude whilst unconscious, the leader of the peacekeepers meant to appear as a beacon of leadership toward those she’s tasked with manning the helm of finds herself rendered immobilised and bedridden, dressed in only a thin hospital gown without any dignity to spare. “Will all on-duty NDF and Angelino Republic servicemen and women please make for the fifth-level cafeteria at this time, please” a young female voice speaks through the building’s speaker system, repeating the message for a second time in the event some hadn’t heard it the first. Squinting, Margot waits for a moment before turning her head, allowing her face to take itself toward the open door to her room, where two men with guns look at each other with confusion. “Didn’t they tell us not to leave?” one of the men inquires, looking to the other for assurance without earning much for his efforts, paid only with a shake of the head and shrug of the shoulders from his colleague. “Why the fifth floor is my question” the equally-curious and answerless mercenary responds, pulling away from the room to answer the call that’s been offered to them without much else to go off of. “Dude, where are you going?” the serviceman who’d initially asked for clarification wonders aloud, budging from his post as he steps forward, trying to look for a reason not to break off as his partner does. “Dude, I don’t wanna get yelled at ‘cause I flaked out on- well- whoever it is” the second man replies, turning away from his colleague to continue his venture toward the fifth level. Without much of an excuse aside from his earlier commands, the still-present serviceman turns back to look at the bedridden leader of the peacekeepers, trying to argue against departing internally before thinking twice of it. “Alright, wait up!” he finally caves, stepping away from the room’s side to join the man in heading for higher ground, too convinced by the motivations uttered for anything other than cooperation to drive his actions. Though she finds the spoken request odd, Margot thinks little of the call to action that her captors have answered, relying on the hope that she holds for something to come out of it in her favour. After a few seconds of the room going back to its hush, Margot’s eyes take toward a nurse in a pair of maroon-coloured scrubs as the woman enters the room, ignoring the patient completely whilst venturing toward the opposite side of the room. Without a word, the medical professional cranks open the window as far as it can part before removing a tape roller from her pocket. “What are you doing?” Margot inquires, only for the question itself to fall on deaf ears. From the comfort of her thin mattress and sterile-smelling bed sheets, the peacekeeper’s leader watches the nurse rip off a small piece of transparent tape before using it as the arms to a cross she sticks to the window’s bottom. Making sure the longer strip is secured in place, the unnamed practitioner releases her grasp of the dispenser and leaves the room, allowing its wait to guide it downward. “Excuse me?” Margot asks again, watching the woman’s face refuse to even take itself toward her direction before stepping out of the room, returning to work as if she’d never even entered to begin with. At a loss for words, the leader of the opposition group attempts to push herself out of the bed before succumbing to the weakness that consumes her, preventing any movement other than the lightest jostle she may experience during sleep. For an additional few minutes, the only action Margot is left with proves to be waiting for the result of the escapade her caretaker had partaken in. Counting the seconds that lapse between each noise of the machines that surround her, the woman continues to listen closely for a change in the eerie silence that suddenly comes to an end without warning. Though distant and muffled, the sound of hollow ringing throughout the pipes that line the building’s tall exterior precede the snapping of the transparent adhesive, which is suddenly ripped from the window. Grunting as a result of lacking the power to propel herself away from the pillow her head dreams of returning to the comfort of, Margot sits up on her mattress and stirs for a moment, regaining her breath as the top of a head pokes up from the window’s bottom. | “Because I was told she was awake” Julia responds, answering the question presented by the man who accompanies her through the hospital’s entrance. “You’ve already arrested a woman without probable cause, and now you want to go back to interrogating her after she tried to take her own life?” Wade questions back, profoundly curious to the motivations of his immediate subordinate, “are you trying to rival some presidents in the fastest plummet of approval rating?” “Wade, we came this close to getting our hands on Jaime and taking care of that problem” Julia answers, holding her fingers a minimal length apart whilst they venture past the building’s front desk, “I smell blood in the water, and it leads to that woman’s hospital bed. I want answers.” “The woman tried to kill herself during an interrogation that she should’ve never been in, and your highest-ranking officials overlooked the need to check her for drugs” Wade repeats, doing little more than respeaking his prior declaration, “word of this getting out would tank your standing in the eyes of the public, and you want to double down on it?” “First of all, the republic doesn’t have laws in place that require me to have just cause to warrant an arrest. If I want something done... It gets done” Julia answers, making for the elevator’s just a short distance away, only for the sound of a voice to keep her from continuing to step onward. “Doctor Avallone!” a nurse exclaims, hurrying past the front desk to catch up with the chancellor and the man that accompanies her, a thin folder held in the air for attention to be drawn toward. “Can I help you?” Julia replies coldly, extending her hand to take the select few documents that are held out toward her. “Yes, these are the results of the tests you wanted us to run on Margot Merriweather last night” the enthusiastic nurse replies, watching the republic’s leader take her eyes toward the first sheet carried within. “She OD'd on fluoxetine?” Julia questions aloud as if in disbelief of the conclusion, scoffing at the conclusion as she looks up to the woman, “she nearly offed herself on an antidepressant?” Though the discovery is one that makes sense from a technical standpoint, the likelihood of the results indicating such appear less favourable than they first appear. “In a way, yes. The drug she used to- do as she did- was fluoxetine” the nurse answers, speaking to the same specification of interest that Julia’s eyes wander toward on the paper, “but the amount of fluoxetine that she overdosed on was just over a hundred milligrams. It’s definitely not safe, but it’s also really difficult to induce an overdose- if one were trying to take their own lives- with that much of the drug unless the patient’s system was completely unfamiliar with it.” “But she is familiar with it since she was last prescribed a refill of it a little less than a month ago” the chancellor responds, taking note of the prescription history listed on the paper. “And that means it wasn’t a high enough dose to get the job done” Wade concludes, finding the same line of thought that Julia had initially made herself privy to, “and that means she either didn’t realise it wasn’t a high enough dose, or she did know it wasn’t high enough.” Though his revelation is one that requires more depth to make sense of, Wade finds himself suddenly standing without the presence of the republic’s chancellor, turning around to find the woman heading for the now-open elevator just before she boards it. “Something doesn’t feel right about this” Julia speaks aloud, turning to face the lift’s entrance just as the NDF’s leader catches up to her, occupying the open space on her right side, “I’ll be damned if these fucks pull another fast one on me.” | “How is Jaime supposed to lure Wade in if Chevy and Kayla hold the chancellor here?” Margot questions, trying her best to grow comfortable as the thin mattress begins to take its toll on her body. “We’re not sure. Jaime says she has an ‘in’ with someone on her security detail and that we shouldn’t worry about it, but I’ve got no idea what she’s talking about” Carly responds, unsheathing a blade from within a leather pouch on her hip, “Chevy says I should trust her and I trust Chevy.” “At least your priorities are in order, I guess?” Margot replies, leaning to the side and allowing the younger woman to conceal the small knife within one of the flaps of her hospital gown. “I know having loyalties to people may not always be the popular- or even correct- choice to make at times, but some people are worth that sacrifice” Carly reassures, doubling down on her belief in the man she speaks of whilst returning the covers to her group’s leader, “Chevy and Kayla are worth it.” Pressing her lips together, Margot lets the younger woman adjust the blanket that covers her, providing little decency the rest of her ensemble fails to offer, whilst holding back the pessimism she’d more frequently react with. “Then I just hope- for your sake- that they’ll have your back the way that you have theirs” the bedridden leader remarks, sharing a hopeful stare with the woman at her bedside before the optimistic eyes that she wears begin to widen at the sound of trouble. “Get under the bed!” Margot hurriedly whispers, using whatever strength she has available to gesture the woman toward the ground. Though her body is weak and her energy has been nearly drained in its entirety, the woman’s ears latch onto the sound of a pair of footsteps carrying themselves toward their direction, allowing her to expend whatever power she can muster into ushering her successor into hiding. Though she fails to hear the same sounds that prompt the exhaustion-stricken leader into such quick action, Carly throws herself to the ground and slides beneath the hospital cot at the last possible second. “What’s your play here, Margot?” Julia rounds the corner and asks aloud, nearly making it to the woman’s bedside before Wade follows suit, entering the room and closing the door upon stepping through it. “Hopefully to get out of this bed and get back to my people?” the hospital’s patient replies with a feigned voice of exhaustion, though the bags that sit below her eyes lend the act credence. “Why put yourself in this bed to begin with?” Julia retorts, begging the question that sits most-firmly upon her conscience, only to watch the peacekeeper’s leader grin at the notion. “Do you think I’m an idiot, chancellor?” Margot questions back, the rebellious tone in her voice not sitting kindly with the woman who sits above her in the republic’s hierarchy. “When you try to fake an overdose with a licensed doctor? That sure doesn’t make you seem like the smartest cookie in the whole jar, does it?” Julia retorts, watching the self-assured expression in the bedridden leader’s face fall. “We know you did just enough to get yourself in this bed, but not enough to get yourself in the grave” Wade doubles down, stepping up to the chancellor’s side and calling the patient into question, “there was a reason for getting yourself here and we want to know now.” Grimacing, Margot remains quiet and stares toward the ceiling without a word to offer the pair, preferring to remain mute on the matters before the two figureheads standing before her prove that their patience is all-too short. Having bought into the web the chancellor had spun, Wade acknowledges the trail she’d been catching up to by unholstering his pistol, lifting it up to the group leader’s face and readying it to fire. “Are you working with Jaime Preston, yes or no?” Wade barks, his voice rising well beyond the point of civility as the peacekeeper’s leader shifts to the side, reacting with fear toward the weapon that takes aim at her. “Dude, put the damn gun down” Julia calmly demands, stepping back with widened eyes at the sudden change in her superior’s demeanour, not certain whether or not he’d actually follow through with the threat that he poses. “Failing to surround yourself with professionals that couldn’t prevent people like this from smuggling drugs into the capitol’s dungeon or allow people like Jaime to slip through their fingers is why I- from a professional standpoint- don’t believe you are in any position to tell me what to- or not to- do, Ms. Avallone” Wade rebukes, his eyes taking toward the chancellor with vehement refusal, “you have presented yourself as incapable of tying up loose threads, and examples must be made.” “I’m not working with Jaime Morris” Margot interjects, answering the question before any further silence could provoke him into taking her hush for a response. “Whether she is or isn’t, shooting her will only hurt us in the long run!” Carly quickly doubles down, not allowing the reply of her patient to settle within the minds of either herself or her superior, “if she is, then we might lose whatever leverage on Jaime that we have. If not, then we’re just pissing off people you need in line.” Though his eyes had retaken toward the bedridden patient, Wade’s face slowly turns back to the chancellor beside him, the angry reflection in his voice replaced with a composed and poised tranquillity. “Ms. Avallone, the fact that we don’t know whether they are or aren’t means they’re already not in line” the NDF spokesman retorts, a point made that Julia finds nearly impossible to refute. “You knew that dose of fluoxetine wouldn’t be fatal. There was a reason that you needed to be in this bed and I want to know what it is” Wade explains, stiffening his grasp on the firearm as he stares into the eyes of the weak leader, a gentle shake in his head carried through the pause in his proclamation, “I’m only going to give you one chance to give me an answer. If you aren’t careful with what your next few words are... They may just be your last.” Her fear alleviating with each second that the trigger isn’t pulled, Margot finds her mind freed for a moment as the chance to consider the options falls upon her. On one hand, the route of confessing to the entire plot would render her- and the people she’d sworn to serve- the same enemies that the republic already takes them to be. On the other hand, swearing secrecy would provide those that threaten to do away with her for good with a lack of insight in return for her life. “I guess that means you leave me with two options, wouldn’t it?” Margot inquires, squinting her brows as she looks away from the weapon’s barrel, her eyes taking toward the NDF foreman’s own. “On one hand, you’d shoot me and I’d die right here” the bedridden spokeswoman carries on, her voice reaching the ears of the younger woman that hides beneath her hospital cot, covering her mouth and keeping herself as quiet as a mouse whilst listening in. “On the other hand, you’d be leaving me with a fate worse than death itself. Regardless of what I tell you, there’d be no part of you that would be willing to believe me” Margot carries on, yet to present to her political adversaries the acceptance that she’s come to, “so, I guess you leave me having to take option number three.” Squeezing her eyelids together, Carly keeps herself to an unnoticeable hush, knowing what kind of scene unfolds above her and wanting to drown out as much of it as she can manage. With the curl of her lip, Margot looks back toward the firearm’s barrel for a brief few seconds before staring back up to Wade himself, her eyes never leaving this from this moment onward. “Fuck you” she whispers. | “Fuck!” Jaime shouts, slamming her fist against the flat’s kitchen table as she steps away, hands finding their way to her hips as the conversation continues behind her. “I left through the window before they had the chance to catch me” Carly confesses, staring aimlessly at the near-empty pitcher of beer that her palms press against the sides of, holding it just a few inches from her car keys in the centre of the tabletop whilst the sheltered fugitives carry on, “but yeah... Margot’s dead.” “Does that mean the plan is dead?” Kennedy wonders aloud, seated near the opposite end of the table from the one the flat’s owner occupies. “Well, we needed Julia in the hospital in order to snatch her up and put Wade between a rock and a hard place” Chevy replies, his elbows pressing into the coffee table as his hands couple together a few inches above it, “without Margot there to take a stab at Julia, there’s no putting the woman in the hospital without straight up trying to kill her.” “Then maybe we don’t need Julia in the hospital in order to get Wade to answer our call?” Kennedy retorts, trying to find a solution around the plan-killing circumstances that suddenly befall them. “The only reason Wade would’ve come when we called for him would’ve been because the republic would’ve been without a leader. Even with the NDF stationed in the republic- that would’ve been a longshot” Kayla rebukes, finding the same conclusion as her husband. “All roads lead to this plan being dead in the fuckin’ water” Chevy concedes, finishing his wife’s point with the depressing finale it had warranted. “Let’s not get too comfortable with the disappointment. Just because this plan isn’t good anymore, that doesn’t mean there’s no plan” Jaime interrupts, fearing where the group’s pity party may lead and wishing to avoid that path at all costs. “How else is it supposed to work?” Chevy inquires, turning in his seat to face the pacing woman off at the room’s side, her face holding toward the ground as she slowly turns back for the group. “She’s already suspicious of the peacekeepers. Luckily, we have the cover of being furious at the fact that they killed Margot to conceal this business we’re conducting- but it won’t be enough” Carly reassures, speaking with the tone of a woman who’d seen horrors beyond her guests’ comprehension. “If she’s suspicious that the peacekeepers are working with us, maybe we won’t need to separate Wade and Julia in order to get them both where we want then” Alex proceeds, carrying on with her daughter’s hopeful outlook, “for all we know, they might think we’re already squirming our way back into the republic. If we give them a reason to think there’s no doubting that, we might be able to use that to our advantage.” “How?” Jaime questions, crossing her arms and lifting her dominant hand toward her mouth, allowing her teeth to bite at the top knuckle on her thumb as she returns to the table. “Well, I could walk up to the capitol building and turn myself in for a start” Alex replies, immediately bringing an even louder silence over the flat than there already had been leading up to her suggestion, “she’d know we were already here and would find a way to use that to call you out.” “Not happening” Jaime immediately retorts, refusing the solution before her mother can even finish voicing it. “Those two just shot the last woman that walked into their custody willingly” Chevy adds on, wasting no time in voicing his agreement with the deposed chancellor, “what in the hell makes you think things would turn out any differently for you?” “I don’t think they would be any better or any worse for me. I’m just saying that they’d try to use me the same way I’m sure they would’ve tried to use Margot if she would’ve let them” Alex counters, confidently presenting herself up as bait for the government to bite on. “Like I said before... Not happening” Jaime doubles down, refusing her mother any further opportunity to present the plan by dismissing it outright. “You banked on the idea that cutting Julia off would provoke Wade into meeting with you as long as you orchestrated it” Alex furthers, not taking her offspring’s answer as final, “you’ve already made it clear that they want you more than any of us. If I walk up to them with open arms, they might just call you out directly and use me as a bargaining chip.” “As insane as that is, they clearly already realise something is going on with the peacekeepers. That didn’t stop them from killing Margot” Kayla rebukes, aware that the figurehead of the plot is as adamantly against the idea as anyone else, though furthering herself in the woman’s corner. “The difference between Margot and I is that they’d have a reason to believe Jaime would crawl out of the woodworks and come to them if they threatened me” Alex explains, “by the looks of it, the game our two sides are playing is already one of cat and mouse.” “Mom, I’m not taking the risk of letting them press a gun to your head with hopes of making me dance” Jaime clarifies, her arms unfurling to allow her palms to press against the kitchen table, “as adamant as I am that Julia and Wade need to be taken are of, I am not willing to let the four of you die in exchange for that.” “That’s why you’d figure out a plan between now and then to come to whatever meeting they’d arrange prepared” Alex counters, climbing out of her seat and stepping up to her daughter, not backing down from the proposition, “they’d be expecting you to have tricks up your sleeve just as they’d have their own. If nothing else, as long as you played your cards right, you’d be guaranteed to have a shot at taking them both.” “If the game is going to come down to a battle of mental gymnastics, I am not going to put your life, or Kennedy’s life, or Chevy and Kayla’s lives on the line just to give myself a target to hit” Jaime argues back, watching her mother’s eyelids press tightly together, aware that her way will not be had in this discussion. “I’m sorry, mom. If anyone’s going to turn themselves in to make something like that happen, it’ll be me” the group’s leader concludes, making herself well-understood. Hanging her head with disappointment, Alex remains quiet as the conversation settles, those that circle the room and hope for answers becoming more aware that there will be none to find this evening. “Everyone get a shower in, brush your teeth, and get to bed” Jaime demands, turning away from those that occupy the communal space whilst shedding her heavy moto jacket, “whatever ‘plan b’ any of us can come up with can wait until sunrise at least.” Without another word, the republic’s previous leader vanishes into the dark confines of an already small apartment building, one they’ve been promised is well-hidden from the powers that be occupying the capitol building as the republic’s foremost figureheads. Disheartened, Alex’s head follows the direction in which her daughter ventures, her mouth staying shut as she’s left to sit with her thoughts like everyone else. Though the night had already come upon the Angelino Republic by the time their conversation had concluded, the earliest hours of the morning now mark yet another day that the exiled leader fails to sleep fully through the night. Instead, Jaime lays on her back and stares at the smooth ceiling that sits above her eyes, its white paint casting the shadows of thin tree branches that flow with the gentle breeze that comes over the nation. Turning her head to the side, the sleep-deprived woman finds the faintest outline of a sleeping bag sitting along the floor at the room’s centre, the thin mattress set up upon a table just beside that being occupied by her sound-asleep sister. Rolling her eyes, Jaime gives into the fact that rest will not be had until at least the next sunset and climbs out of her own thin mattress, letting her feet carry past the empty bag in the middle of the room and into the adjacent kitchen. Wiping the crust from her eyes, the tired woman journeys up to the fridge and bathes the room in a deep, orange glow whilst reaching for a carton of apple juice. Groaning as she leans into the counter and retrieves a cup, Jaime casually returns the beverage to its place once she’d taken enough to satisfy her, affording her the chance to make for the table in the middle of the room. Satisfied with the relief that comes in taking a seat, Jaime stares toward the heavens and closes her eyes, aware that no amount of exhaustion will allow her to sleep soundly until her dreaded foes are stopped literally dead in their tracks. With only the lonely hum of a nearby central unit to keep her company, the woman gathers her own sense of peace before slowly lowering her chin, letting it descend back toward earth before her eyes lock onto the table, or rather what’s missing from it. Before she can take a sip from her glass, Jaime’s eyes widen beyond what her natural state of physical fatigue will allow, duped into firing on all cylinders by a sudden and daunting realisation. “Guys!” the woman shouts aloud, throwing herself out of the chair and back into the cramped bedroom, continuing to shout that one word as her hand fumbles along the wall in hopes of turning on the lights. “What!? What’s going on!?” Chevy calls out, the first to gain enough wherewithal to answer the call to action his group’s leader beckons for, the hurry in her voice bringing a frantic pace over the group that slowly stirs around her. “Mom’s gone!” Jaime cries out, kneeling to the ground and tossing over the comforter of the sleeping bag in the middle of the room, finding it absent just as she’d expected. “What are you talking about?” the woman’s familiar voice asks aloud, sitting up from the thin mattress across the room from her daughter’s, watching the woman turn to look back at her, “I’m right here.” With shock, Jaime indeed finds her mother sitting up in the bed that had occupied the other half of the sleeping area, finding Chevy and Kayla emerging from the same bed she’d expected to find them in whilst Carly rounds the corner from the next room over. “What’s going on!?” the flat’s primary tenant calls out, pressing her hand against her forehead as a headache comes over her, just as confused as the rest of the group is. With a makeshift peace symbol scrawled along the rear window in white out, a sedan strolls through the empty and quiet streets of the Angelino Republic in search of trouble, occupied in the driver’s seat by just one singular soul. “Code Orange, we have a single, uninvited vehicle approaching the front steps” a man mutters into the radio stationed atop his shoulder whilst joining his colleague in stepping forward, descending the tall stairs with rifles readied for action. Slowly and as if nothing were out of the ordinary with its presence, the civilian vehicle rolls to a stop at the base of the republic’s city hall whilst other armed mercenaries approach it with caution. For a few seconds the vehicle remains stationary and the driver refrains from stepping foot beyond the comforts of its interior, instead choosing to lift the volume of its radio to the maximum setting, filling the streets of what had once been Los Angeles with the music of The Notorious B.I.G. “Get out of the car!” one of the NDF-Republic soldiers calls out, demanding the immediate response of the figure behind the wheel to meet the commands set for them. Within seconds, the door to the vehicle is gently guided open by a set of hands that soon lift into the air, joining the outside world as the radio’s music only grows louder with her exit. “Someone get Julia” Kennedy orders, stepping out into the open without a care in the world, knowing what duty she’d come with the intention of fulfilling and wishing to get a good look at the woman who she requests the presence of, “I think she’s gonna want to see me.” == Dire == “Come on, come on! Let’s go!” Alex hisses from the bottom of the staircase, armed with the same automatic rifles that they’d escaped from Jasmine’s tavern with. “Go where!?” Chevy whispers back, leading the trio away from the home’s second story as the first to reach ground level, “the backyard is a jungle and the only way out that’s clear enough is blocked by those bastards outside!”
“I don’t know where we’re supposed to go, but all I know is that we can’t stay here!” Alex replies, watching her eldest daughter step past the married couple who’d awoken her and begin cautiously stepping toward the front door. “Alright, fine- I’ll reiterate” Chevy calmly retorts, stiffening his arm as he tightens the grasp he holds his pistol with, “how are we supposed to mobilise? We can’t go through the backyard and we can’t just walk out the front door.” So reluctant to move the curtain that she refuses to even touch it, Jaime peers past the delicate cloth still intact from the initial raid of the home they’d assumed the militia had carried out shortly after their departure from the republic. Though her view affords her a very narrow line of sight, the armed woman dressed less for a battle and more for a night out with friends catches the glimpse of her former security detail approaching the front door, his hand reaching for the locked knob. “The door’s locked, Blake” Jaime speaks out, purposefully lifting her voice to the point where the man can hear it- much to the dismay of those that reside within. Pausing his intentions to enter the home uninvited, the armour-wearing right hand of the new chancellor steps back from the entrance at the sound of the old one, his earlier commands not being ones he’d anticipated would be replied to. “Well, if it isn’t Jaime Morris” Blake calls back, speaking to the home’s heavy entrance in lieu of an actual face to speak with, “I knew you were all in there.” Though they wish to speak out against the woman’s actions, the four members of the group that remain are ushered to remain silent through the finger that Jaime holds against her lips. “The others left when they saw your headlights a ways down the road, Blake” the former chancellor speaks to her once-subordinate, her back pressing against the front door as she readies her grasp on the rifle, “as far as I’m concerned, we’re right back where we started... Just you and I.” Though remaining quiet as per her demands, Chevy steps forward and draws his pistol, aiming the barrel at the centre of the front door before his hand is swatted at by the woman. “After I bought the mansion out in the republic, I paid to have a bunker built under the garage. There’s a door at the back of the kitchen that’ll lead to it” Jaime explains, whispering to ensure the man beyond the home’s entrance hears nothing that’s said, “there’s a door that looks like a massive vault. Go there.” “And leave you here to deal with them!? Hell no!” Chevy hisses back, paying no mind to the words that Blake begins chatting outside, his lengthy speech only buying them additional time. “The only person those guys out there want dead is me” Jaime responds, taking her friend by the arm and shoving him back to the three members of the group she’s entrusted him with protecting, “if you don’t want to hide there, cut through the grass in the backyard and head for the next street over.” “We’re not leaving you!” Kennedy adds on, her sister’s dismissive head shake implying little choice is to be had in the matter. “If the four of you start marching through that grass out there and hop the fence now, I can stay here and buy you a few minutes. But you have to go now” Jaime responds, gesturing to the group- now smaller than it was when the day began- to begin making their escape without her, “I’ll try to catch up, but just keep moving north until you find somewhere safe!” “You stalling in there!?” Blake soon calls out, finding it unusual that his words would have caught the ear of the former chancellor, but her lips haven’t parted to keep him from continuing. “No, Blake... I’m just having a hard time taking you seriously” Jaime shouts back, stepping to the side of the door in the event anyone on her front step has a similar idea to the one Chevy had, “you’d sworn loyalty to me. You promised to give up your life to protect me for years and all for- for nothing.” “I did what was in the best interest of my family and myself” Blake rebukes, his head covered in a litany of accessories, a black baseball cap sitting atop his head and a camouflage gaiter covering everything below his eyes. “You betrayed me, Blake” Jaime refuses, watching her mother take a quick glance back as the final member of the departing group to enter the overgrown lawn, wanting to take a final mental snapshot of her daughter in the event that it’s the last she’ll have. “You can paint it up however you want, but the bottom line is this- you turned your back on me” Jaime responds, overhearing the guttural laugh that the man on the home’s other end reacts with. “As I have said, I did what was best for my family and for myself. And honestly, what’s best for us is what’s best for the republic as well” Blake retorts, defending his position to a woman who couldn’t care less for it, “do you really think you stood a chance of pushing the NDF out once they settled in?” “I pushed Django out to start the republic in the first place, damnit. I weathered forest fires and food shortages and keep the place in line” Jaime answers, bowing her head toward the ground as her voice increases in octaves, the woman who projects it not wanting a word to be left unheard, “it might not have always been sunny over the republic, but I kept that place standing. If I could do all of that, you better believe I could’ve pushed the NDF out... And I still can.” “For god’s sake, Jaime- your stubbornness is both your greatest asset and your greatest burden” Blake quips back, shaking his head with disappointment as he glances over his shoulder, nodding his head toward the men that stand at either side of the home before taking a mental note of the dozens of others he has at his disposal. “You’re surrounded on all sides by the strongest militaristic force on either side of the catalyst, and you still think you’re leaving this house alive” Blake chirps, speaking words that even he’s beginning to find laughable to utter. “Maybe you won’t believe this, but I genuinely don’t want to have to kill you. I’m convinced that you’ll leave me no choice, but I’d rather you did” the man continues to speak, “I don’t have any personal hatred for you. But what I do have are orders to follow.” Keeping to herself, Jaime huddles closer to the ground at the sound of shuffling near the back of the home, the calm air allowing for a silence to come over so long as she lets it. Directing the barrel of her weapon toward the open backdoors, the deposed chancellor prepares to squeeze the weapon’s trigger at the first sight of danger, one which reveals itself just as Blake begins to speak again. “Those orders-” the man declares, quickly ducking for cover at the sound of two consecutive gunshots ringing out just a short distance away, the trigger pulled only behind the cover of a door the two sides stand on opposite ends of. “I have multiple magazines and all the firepower you’d expect me to have, Blake” Jaime replies, watching a pair of armoured bodies collapse to the ground with bullet holes in their heads, “if Julia sent you here... I’m definitely leaving this house alive.” “You can’t kill all of us, Jaime” Blake responds, the swiftness of his voice making it sound as if he were adjusting his stance, a shift that the former chancellor makes out the intentions behind. “Don’t worry about yourself, Blake... I can’t kill you...” Jaime interjects, stepping away from the home’s entrance as the man on the other end pauses for a moment, waiting to hear the woman’s reasoning, “...you’re gonna come in handy later.” Considering the declaration as a threat, Blake musters an expression of disgust as he thrusts his foot forward, a firm boot paid into the centre of the front door that fails to cave in fully upon the first strike. “Damn!” the man exclaims as he steps back, winding himself up for a second attempt at success to great avail. “Get her!” the man shouts as the door flies open, nearly breaking from its hinges as he watches the chancellor’s body vanish into the sea of tall grass, prompting him to give chase to the escapee. Opening fire into the woman’s path, Blake hurries alongside the armoured detail that join him in the evening’s activities, rushing into the unmanicured lawn with hopes of finding his former superior’s body along the travels he embarks upon. Though she’d already opened the can of worms that come with engaging in a firefight, Jaime discards her initial thought to engage in a final stand with the guards, preferring to use the weapon as a tool to strike at the overgrowth with. Eventually finding her passageway blocked, the woman forces herself to leave the rifle behind in favour of quickly hoisting herself over the fence that marks the end of her yard. For a few minutes, the woman sprints through a dense layer of grass before spilling out and into a strip of flat land, the jungle-like environment suddenly becoming a steady, open and sand-covered asphalt street. “Jaime! Over here!” Alex calls out, reaching out for the woman that emerges from the unkempt field from the back of a marked sedan. “Is this an NDF car!?” Jaime exclaims, slowing herself down so as not to crash into Chevy’s arms as the man steps forward to catch her, guiding her head down as she slips into the vehicle’s backseat. “No, it’s a peacekeeper car” Carly corrects, her hand thrusting the gear shift into drive as her mentor lowers himself into the passenger’s seat, slamming the door shut as the car takes off for the road that remains ahead. “Hold your fire!” Blake exclaims, fighting through the cornstalk-tall grass in an effort of joining his fellow militants in standing along the roadway, barely able to make the outline of a vehicle that speeds into nowhere. “But we can hit them!” a man calls back, only for the wave of the security detail’s hand to double down on the declaration he’s made, refusing any further shot. = Dire is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards = With her elbow pressing into the surface of the tavern’s countertop, Jaime looks out at the crowd of disturbed patrons with a squint, not uttering a word as the conversation she partakes in goes quiet. “Stop looking at them, look at me” Margot proclaims, re-earning the attention of the woman that she sits across, snatching it from those that follow her lead with the simple command, “I want you to tell me again why I should trust what you’re telling me.” “Because I’m not spewing fallacies out of my ass like anyone else would. I’m digging my feet into the sand- I’m being realistic” Jaime answers, forcing herself to yet again accept the truth of what surrounds her, “there’s no road back into power for me. The only thing that I have to gain from this is to get back at Julia for crossing me and Wade for trying to take my republic.” “Which, of course, leaves us to clean up the mess that you leave behind” Margot responds, a remark that prompts Jaime to look away and nod, “without a chancellor, there is no republic for us to live in. Without Wade, there is NDF to keep us protected from any outside dangers. Without both of them, there is no home to go back to.” “You say that as if this is any home you actually want to live in” Jaime retorts, her eyes swiftly reclaiming their prior gaze upon the leader of the peacekeepers, watching the woman lean back in response. “I spent the whole car ride home asking Carly what could’ve changed your mind, and her response was the same damn thing, over and over and over again” the deposed leader continues, “the republic views you as social pariahs, and this time- you can’t just blame me anymore.” “You started the issue” Margot replies, only for the lifted finger her adversary raises to prompt a correction. “No... Julia started the issue. Julia paid Ryan to go after Jordan, and Ryan going after Jordan put the two of us on opposite sides of each other” Jaime responds, Chevy and Kayla sitting together to her right whilst Kennedy and her mother occupy seats to her left, “you wanted me gone, I wanted to get rid of you, and Julia orchestrated all of it.” “So this is all Julia’s fault now?” Margot questions, again finding a reply offered back with very little hesitation. “Of course not. I wrote the narrative that the public cashed like a check. That stain still follows you now, and it’s a stain that I placed upon you...” Jaime answers, providing the leader with a shrug of dismissal, “...but I never claimed that I wasn’t to blame. The only thing I claimed was that I’m no longer the only one.” “So what is your proposal?” Margot interrupts, the palms of her hands resting flat atop the counter as she stares into the face of the woman that sits across from her. “Help me take Julia and Wade down, it’s as simple as that” Jaime replies, not paying much thought to the ramifications that such a proposition presents until she watches Carly and the group’s leader pull their faces away and grimace. “I know implying the two most powerful figures in the republic’s government ought to be ousted from power doesn’t exactly provoke thoughts of success or even pleasant days, but there isn’t much of an alternative for the lot of you if you’re thinking the image of this group can change with the republic still standing” Jaime reassures, doubling down on her troubling declaration, “the people, the government, the chain of command- everything here- will hold you at ground-level forever.” “And this solution is being offered to us by the woman who put us there” Margot rebukes, finally speaking with something that the exiled chancellor doesn’t immediately reply to, only reacting with an eye roll and gentle pat of the wooden service table. “Oh, fucking hell. Do you want me to get an ‘I’m sorry’ tattoo just over my ass? How many times do you want me to apologise?” Jaime calls into question, “and don’t say that you don’t, because constantly bringing that up feels like your M.O.” “Tell me I don’t have a reason to find it odd that the person who put us at the bottom of the food chain wants to correct that ‘mistake’ without a catch!” Margot rebukes, her fiery energy at least compelling the rest of the peacekeepers to believe she’s speaking in good faith. “There is a catch, it’s just not a ‘you owe me’ sort of deal!” Jaime counters with equal enthusiasm, slapping the countertop once more, “I want Julia and Wade gone and I want to do it myself... That’s it.” “And what are we supposed to do after that? Go off and make our own settlement somewhere else?” Margot questions, the answer one that doesn’t please her, but one that the former chancellor feels required to offer. “Pretty much, yeah. That’s probably how this will go” Jaime responds, shrugging her shoulders as she gestures toward the rest of the crowd watching on from the back, “but then again, I have no fucking clue what you lot want. I don’t even know why you formed in the first place.” “We came together right around the time you knocked Django out of power. The only reason we stuck around was to make sure you didn’t turn into the same thing” Margot replies, the tone of the entire conversation shifting as Jaime’s voice lowers a couple of octaves. “Well, unfortunately for myself... I did” the woman responds, bringing a hush over the room as the quiet part is not only spoken aloud, but comes from the subject of the complaint itself. “I’m not an idiot. I’d be lying if I sat here and said that- as the days went on- I didn’t start feeling like I understood Django more than I did before” Jaime persists, carrying on with her claim as the room listens in, “I don’t agree with what he did. I don’t agree with what he wanted to do. But I’d be lying if I sat here and said it was impossible to see why he’d make the calls he did once I sat in his chair for myself.” Though her words are spoken to the peacekeeper’s leader, Jaime’s eyes take to the mass of humanity that sits in the various pockets of the room, joining together in little groups to watch on at the spectacle unfolding before them. Though they stand unified in the corner of the group’s leader, the sense of intrigue begins to surround them at the continued speech of the republic’s former shot-caller- their willingness to listen to her offer increases the longer Margot allows her presence. “Just like Django, I let power fall into hands other than my own. And now- because of that- the republic is just getting consistently closer to falling into the full grasp of the NDF” Jaime continues, her words beginning to touch upon the consciousness of the peacekeepers that remain present, “when that happens, you can bet your ass that this stigma surrounding the peacekeepers will never go away.” “From your expertise, why would we be better off without a home to crawl back to as opposed to toughing it out here and just bringing home whatever we can muster?” Margot questions, still finding herself unable to move past that final hindrance in the plan. “Because the alternative is the life you live now. The alternative is a life that’s so frustrating and miserable that you’d actually hear me out” Jaime concludes, a rather difficult point to argue against, “the alternative is Julia.” “Speak of the devil!” a voice calls out from the audience, catching the ears of those that occupy the bar’s countertop and earning their full focus. Just beyond the tavern’s front windows, a fleet of armoured vehicles roll to a slow and cautious stop at the building’s entrance. Though the need to act has fallen upon her, Jaime’s hands prove difficult to pull from the wooden countertop regardless of their need to do so. Instead, the deposed chancellor’s eyes take to the reflection that bounces off the bulky vehicle she had once been moved around within the comfort and safety of knowing very well who occupies the seat she once had. “Jaime, come on!” Alex grunts, grabbing her daughter’s wrist tightly and pulling it from the serving table, fighting against the woman’s reluctance as if her palm had been glued to it. Though the sun falls upon her Angelino Republic, Julia enters the tavern as if it had already dipped below the distance, the indulgence of an alcoholic beverage being the furthest thing from her mind. Though they play it cool and remain as present and aware as they would for any other town hall, the peacekeepers stare at their chancellor as if something of importance were being interrupted, though the only scene that awaits the entering leader is a patiently-waiting Margot. Clicking her tongue, Julia stares around the room for a brief moment to find nothing out of order, allowing her to slide the bands of her sunglasses away from over her ear. “Early town hall today?” the reigning chancellor queries, stepping further into the room and descending the short row of stairs that lead to the common’s area, another look across her surroundings preceding the follow-up, “I wouldn’t want to impose... Is there something I’m interrupting?” “I’m not sure you’d want me to answer that question” Margot responds, taking a snippy attitude to the woman invading the home turf of the group she beckons control of. Reacting with a widening grin, Julia takes humour in the reply that’s paid to her and glances back to the men that stand before her, pointing a finger toward the leader of the publicly-adversarial group. “You see this, Blake? This is a woman whose attitude reminds me of myself” the chancellor queries to the armed man behind her. Though limited through the mask and cap he adorns, Blake takes his pupils to the corners of his eyelids, trying to dismiss his superior’s claims as the playful quips he hopes them to be. “You know what else she makes me think of, Blake?” Julia continues to inquire, speaking words whose motivations are impossible to misinterpret as his eyes meet her once more. “She evokes the images of someone that I’d be able to trust to do things...” the chancellor carries on, quickly taking note of the recognition within her subordinate’s face, “...like go out and get jobs done when I ask for them to get done.” Irritated and disrespected on top of already having fallen victim to defeat when Jaime was within his reach, Blake’s eyes take toward a distant corner of the tavern out of shame as his superior moves on with the conversation. “Why are you here?” Margot asks, jumping directly to the point much to the pleasure of the woman who stands before her. “I just had a few questions to ask you about our conversation the other night” Julia responds, slowly guiding her own hands behind her back and coupling them together in the least threatening, and yet visibly imposing manner. “Oh. Are you referring to the one where you practically told us to fend for ourselves after docking our collective hours at the hospital?” Margot questions, beginning to feel the presence of the chancellor in the room shift the odd aura that falls throughout the tavern before continuing, “or are you referring to our rather fat and happy conversation a little later?” “I’m sure you’re very well aware that it’s the latter of the two, Ms. Merriweather” Julia replies, her grin continuing to take on a more malicious nature that can only be sensed and not seen, “your cooperation would be appreciated.” Grimacing, Margot shows the woman her teeth whilst panning out to the various souls that sit by and watch as spectators, not one of them knowing for certain where this sudden and unexpected visit is meant to lead. “As you can see, there’s a rather large crowd of people here already. As the woman in charge of this group, I can’t just leave them unattended” the woman responds, watching the chancellor’s head dip with disappointment at the answer, “I’m afraid now is not a good time.” Nodding her head and puckering her lips, Julia stares back at the group as they surround the floor’s centre, watching on like an audience awaiting the surprise twist that altercations like these so often present. “I’m afraid I said your cooperation would be appreciated and not that it was necessary” the chancellor reiterates, again proving that some things are said more clearly in the remarks that aren’t uttered as opposed to the ones that are. “Oh, I’m sorry. You’re saying that I am required to answer these questions, yeah?” Margot questions, realising what the republic’s leader is getting at and holding her hand out at Carly once the younger woman’s footsteps begin tapping along the floor. “I’m saying you can be led back to town hall willingly or you can be led back in a rather unpleasant and unbecoming manner” Julia corrects, essentially repeating the same thing that she’d gotten to seconds prior, “either way, you will be coming with us at this time.” “Margot, you don’t-” Carly interjects, disobeying the gesture her leader has presented her with before its repetition prompts her to pause. “Carly, I think it’d be better if you just stayed out of this, alright?” Margot turns around and interrupts, looking the younger woman in the eyes whilst using a voice much less concerned and angry than she otherwise should sport, “I’m afraid I don’t have much of a choice in this matter. So, I suppose that means you will have to take over from here, okay?” As if trying to plead with the woman subconsciously, Margot stares into Carly’s face with wide eyes and a smile, trying her best to conceal a nod before the touch of Julia’s hand finds its way to her shoulder. “Come on, let’s go” the chancellor orders, gesturing for the woman to turn back and join the united forces of the republic and the NDF in heading back to the capitol building. Nostrils flaring and blood rushing to her ears, Carly watches her superior turn away and make for the building’s exit, receiving a few rude and indecent glares from the armoured security detail her chancellor had arrived with as if all were as ordinary as ever. Without so much as a word, Margot dips into the backseat of Julia’s armoured vehicle and joins the government in heading for the capitol, flanked by the remaining vehicles that had joined them on their brief excursion. “Nothing’s fucking changed” a man mutters from within the crowd, still holding his voice low as if there were members of the government still hanging back, the grunts that unite the crowd in displeasure making it clear he’s not the only one who feels this way. “Y’all can come out now- they’re gone” a man calls back from off to the tavern’s side, waiting a few seconds before Jaime leads her family and closest friends out from cover, rejoining those she once deemed ‘the enemy’. Continuing to stand in the centre of the room with her eyes on the door her superior had just stepped through, Carly finds herself- even if only for a temporary span of time- as the leader of the peacekeepers. “Of course nothing’s changed” Jaime speaks aloud, her voice finally snapping the younger woman out of the statue-esque daze that had encompassed her, eyes taking back to the wanted survivors that she shelters, “and like I said... nothing will change.” “Not unless we agree that all of this needs to come to an end” Chevy reassures, stepping up to the side of the chancellor he’d never turned on the way others had whilst speaking, “Julia and Wade need to go. And if any of you are to live like actual people instead of blemishes to society... So does the republic.” “That’s part of your anthem, right? May glory befall the Angelino Republic... or may she fall defiant forevermore?” Kayla interjects, stepping past her husband and slightly further ahead of the republic’s last chancellor, “I think the time’s come to fall.” With her lips pressed together, Carly stares at the five survivors looking toward her for guidance before looking back to those she now stands at the helm of, their faces guided toward her and uncertain over what to feel. With the light shining upon her and time being now to make a call, the wake of the sight the peacekeeper’s new leader had just witnessed proves too great for her or those that follow her to ignore, and the time to plan an attack of their own becomes too present to dismiss. Looking back to her mentor and those that he stands by, Carly lets out a deep breath and stands firm in her place, parting her lips to raise the golden question that finds itself at the tip of the entire group’s tongues. “What’s the plan?” == Dire == With wet hair, Kayla slips a black tank top over her head and covers the black bra she’d just recently put on. Finishing the ensemble, the woman buttons a pair of black jeans into place and steps out of the bathroom, stepping aside to grant Kennedy the next access to a candle-lit bathtub filled with cold water and soap.
Rubbing at the side of her head with a hand towel, Kayla steps down the stairs from the second level and returns to the unnamed space where the living room and kitchen connect. In the same room, the woman’s husband occupies a recliner off to one side of the coffee table whilst the mother who’d once served as the building’s hushed matriarch occupies a seat near one end of the sofa. “Has anyone seen Jaime?” Kayla wonders aloud, earning the attention of both residents, whose eyes take toward her after initially not hearing her quiet return. “Uh, yeah. She’s out in the backyard, hun’” Chevy replies, one leg crossed over the other as a natural support for the hardcover book that he reads, its pages lit by the candle that burns just a short distance away. Nodding to herself, the woman steps through the living room and makes for the sliding door that already sits open, acting as a natural ventilation for the room in lieu of any air conditioners their lack of access to electricity would render inoperable anyway. With gentle footsteps, Kayla carries herself onto the back patio and takes a look into the spacious backyard that’s become overgrown with grass made tall through a lack of maintenance. With a glance to the side, her eyes take to the outline of a figure who spends the dying hours of a day sitting in the one corner of the yard that’s been recently cleared of the tall lawn. “You know, it’s pretty odd to forgo showering before anyone else just so you can spend your time staring at the grave of someone you just buried” Kayla mutters, her words catching the ears of whom she wishes them to, but can’t prompt her to turn around and acknowledge her presence. “It’s pretty odd to bury someone in your backyard too, but I don’t see anyone slapping cuffs on me for it or digging him up” Jaime replies, sitting on the grass with one leg crossed and the other arched upward, her wrist sitting at the tip of her raised kneecap. “It’s not so much odd as it is illegal- or at least was” Kayla responds, walking around her friend to take a seat beside her, “but hell, as long as you don’t say anything- I won’t either.” Trying to make light of the rather bleak circumstances that bring them to this place in the yard, Kayla’s breathy laugh and smile is only accompanied with the minimal arch in the corner of her friend’s face. Instead, Jaime’s eyes continue to supplant themselves upon the makeshift tombstone that had spent the last number of years awaiting a body to join the grave it was situated at the head of, finally earning the corpse it had so longed for. “I don’t really feel anything about it” Jaime confesses after a brief pause, eyes not once leaving her own name, which had once been etched into the rock but was since poorly scraped out, replaced instead with marker bearing the name of her father. “I thought I would feel something when we settled on coming back here. I didn’t know what it would be, but I expected something” she reiterates, all whilst her friend looks at her with a lack of judgement, “but it’s like I couldn’t care less.” “You’ve known he was dead for years, though” Kayla replies, trying to offer an explanation for the way in which the woman reacts to the sight she’s beholden to, though she knows that’s not what her friend wishes to hear. “I’m not just talking about my dad. I’m not talking about seeing him, well- the way he was left. And I’m not talking about having to bury him-” Jaime corrects, a slight squint in her eyes held as her gaze never wavers from the grave, “-I just feel nothing about any of it.” Looking off toward the thick, jungle-like layer of unkempt lawn that they sit ahead of, Kayla thinks about the claim for a moment as the air grows colder, a calm and peaceful silence held in the air. “I thought it’d be weird to see this place again. I thought it’d be weird to see these graves, nevermind putting someone in one” Jaime continues, admitting that the entire environment is something far different than what she’d been expecting to see, “but I don’t feel anything for it.” “Almost as if it meant nothing to you?” Kayla questions, the inquiry spoken aloud finally proving to be something the once-chancellor reacts with the turn of her head toward. “Yeah, almost as if it meant nothing to me” Jaime replies, a gingerly nod of her head provided as she looks to her friend in that moment, allowing a few seconds to pass before looking back to the tombstones and continuing, “I know they tore the place up looking for us, but I figured even that would spark something.” Staring ahead to join her friend in the sight they take and need not worry about losing anytime soon, Kayla looks at her friend’s grave and thinks quietly to herself, finding irony in how way too ahead of time it was prepared. “Maybe it’s because the life you had here- the one before the catalyst took shape- happened so long ago that you’re a totally different person now” the woman wonders aloud, staring deep into the chiselled-out name of the woman that sits beside her as she thinks aloud. “You were never ‘the chancellor’ when you were here. There was no ‘Angelino Republic’, you were just-” Kayla murmurs, only being stopped when the voice of the woman she speaks of interjects. With a steady face, Jaime stares at her own grave and finishes the woman’s thought on her behalf, aware of where the woman was intended to go with the conversation, but too entranced within the thought that her tombstone provokes, “-a broken little girl from a broken little home.” = Dire is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards = “What the hell are you doing!?” Wade calls out, taking the lead on his security detail before shouting his question aloud whilst shoving the chancellor’s door in. “Mobilising a ground unit to fan out and search for Jaime Morris and whoever else is still hiding out with her” Julia answers honestly, pressing the handset of her desktop phone to the side of her head whilst patiently waiting for an answer from the other line. “How many days has it been since we reclaimed Lancaster?” Wade questions aloud, the question a rhetorical one that he doesn’t desire an answer to, this made clear by his continuation. “Our troops- combined- are already stretched thin, and you want to stretch them thinner?” he doubles down, reaching over the phone to press his finger into the receiver, hanging up the call before the chancellor can earn a response. Without a reply at first, Julia watches the man’s finger pull away from her phone before stepping out of her seat, placing the headset atop her desk’s surface before striking the NDF leader across the face. “The day I no longer need to pull teeth just to get you to answer a phone is the day you can have the permission to touch mine” the chancellor commands, watching her uninvited guest stare at her with shock as the sting of her swipe lingers. “And you’re goddamn right I want our troops spread thin! If I even catch a faint scent that Jaime or any of her buddies leave behind, I will be nipping at their heels” Julia doubles down, remaining stood from the comfort of her chair, “if catching them means I spread those men out thinner than an anorexic model, then that’s how thin they’ll be spread!” “You have an unhealthy obsession with that woman!” Wade angrily retorts, his voice calm though the rage he subdues for the sake of keeping the peace is impossible to hide entirely. “Wade, that woman is a danger to me, she’s a danger to you, and she’s a loose thread that needs to be tied-the-fuck-up” Julia responds even calmer than her legal superior, “the longer she goes without us catching her only puts us in even more danger.” “Even when the woman in charge of this city, she had nothing that would’ve made her a threat in my eyes” Wade reassures, a smile through the pain beginning to replace the grimace he’d worn. “How many times do I have to tell you that Jaime is a lot trickier to deal with than you give her credit for?” Julia calls into question, watching the man’s eyes roll as he turns away, “do you even realise how many things I needed to make fall in my favour in order to just get her out of this chair?” “Maybe I should reiterate myself more clearly, how’s that sound?” Wade rebukes, cutting back toward the woman before stepping as close to her as the desk between them will allow, “as far as Jaime Morris is concerned- I am untouchable.” “And how so?” Julia challenges further, a second roll of the eyes coming over the face of the NDF leader before it joins the rest of his head in taking toward the floor. “Jaime Morris will not accept anything less than seeing the two of us dead and buried. She will not let anything stop her and she will not let anyone else take the satisfaction of doing it themselves” the chancellor doubles down, “if Jaime Morris is not caught, then Jaime Morris’ hands will be covered in both of our blood.” “Ms. Avallone, I have more firepower than three Angelino Republic’s put together. The day one singular woman poses a threat greater to me than the mightiest force in recorded human history is the day I start believing in god” Wade answers, his voice dropping multiple octaves, “could she be a threat to you? I’m not sure. But what I am sure of is this- the day that Jaime Morris kills me is the day that we send a missile out from our silos in Pearl Harbor, do you understand that?” “I sure do, but what I can’t understand is how you don't realise that that’s already her endgame here” Julia corrects, her words earning an angered grunt from the man who swings his fist through the air in frustration. “Do you honestly think she expects there to be any way back into power for herself, Wade?” the chancellor persists, “of course not! The woman is more stubborn than anyone even books and television can conjure up! She may love this republic, but she’s not delusional!” “Ms. Avallone, I am not insisting that Jaime is the delusional one in this scenario” Wade retorts, his insult wagered not in the words that he utters, but the message contained in the ones that he doesn’t. Pressing her lips together and forming a frown, Julia grimaces with displeasure before looking away, her face stricken with the afternoon sun of a brand new day that peers through the window at the back of her quarters. “Perhaps I am the delusional one here. Maybe- just maybe- I’m giving a pain in the ass a whole hell of a lot more credit than she’s due” Julia replies, retrieving her headset from the desk and pausing as she redials the number and reclaims her seat at the business-end of the chancellor’s desk, “but I’d much rather be delusional and cautious than I would comfortable and next on the chopping block.” Lowering her head and pressing her free hand against the ear still exposed to the air in the room, Julia returns to her prior phone call as Wade stares away and licks the dry spot on his bottom lip. With a smug frown and a dismissive shake of his head, the man turns away from his subordinate and rejoins the men and women employed to ensure his safety before walking past them, showing himself through the door he’d used to enter and beginning the journey back toward downtown Los Angeles. | With the sound of pool balls crashing into each other in the background, Carly sits alone at the serving counter of the peacekeepers’ tavern, her fingers wrapped around the handle to a glass mug almost emptied of the IPA that had once filled it to the brim. Though the establishment is more recognisable when those that reside within it argue amongst each other, the times where it spends its days as a genuine pub make clear the unity that is shared amongst those in search of a brighter future. “I’ve got next on the table!” a black man calls out as he steps through the bar’s rear entry, his presence immediately catching Carly’s eye the second that it appears. As if waiting for the re-arrival of the same man who’d unexpectedly shown up the prior day, the disheartened survivor returns her eyes to the near-empty cup sitting before her, its exterior covered in a thin layer of condensation, the droplets that form from it aimlessly wandering down its length and to the wooden countertop. Continuing to drink well into the afternoon, Carly sips from her beverage every few minutes whilst spending the rest of the day lost in thought, taking her mind toward various thoughts whilst pausing every now and then to glance back at the tavern’s second entrance. Though each soul that enters through the back catches her eye, none of them hold a face familiar to her, and the mug gradually empties over the course of the following hour before reaching its inevitable point of refill. Eventually, the analog clock mounted to the wall just over a neon light beer sign has its smaller hand reach the numeral seven, and the sunlight that covers the republic begins to finally vanish to start the process of yet another evening. “Town hall is in thirty minutes, lads!” the on-duty bartender calls out, momentarily regaining the attention of the woman that’s sat at his bar through the entire day before her eyes inevitably retake toward the drink she’s yet to finish. “What’s wrong with you?” Margot wonders aloud, her voice guiding itself through the air that separates her from Carly, who looks back to the tavern’s not-so-secretive entry to find the arrival of the group’s leader to have evaded her. Surprised at first, the younger woman sits upright in her seat and quickly reaches for her eyes, grinding the base of her palms into them as the sudden exhaustion from spending the entire day in a near-lethargic state takes immediate effect. “Nothing, I’ve just been sitting here all day” Carly answers, watching Margot depart the conversation for a moment upon her reply to gesture other peacekeepers away. “Whatever concerns you have can wait for town hall!” the leader proclaims, directing those that wish to speak with her back to their former activities, “I have to speak with Carly privately for a moment, so everyone keep to yourselves in my absence.” “You do?” the younger woman wonders aloud, hearing her name spoken and the words that followed before receiving no immediate answer to her inquiry, instead finding herself taken by the arm and led the way the leader had entered through. Though they travel in the direction of the rear entry, their journey comes to a close halfway toward it, instead allowing their discussion to remain hidden within the shadows just as they had operated prior to Jaime’s exile. “I wasn’t going to tell you, but I slipped this off you when you were hammering back drinks last night” Margot explains, returning the piece of paper Chevy had offered his protege to the woman it was originally handed off to. “You can hate me in a second, just quickly let me explain why and what I need you to do now while I have the chance, alright?” the woman carries on, offering the lesser-ranking peacekeeper no time to process the betrayal and scheming that she’d otherwise be scolded for. “Last night, I went to give this to the chancellor and let her take care of Jaime and the others so they wouldn’t put us in danger. I was an asshole for doing that- I know- and I’m sorry” Margot confesses, speaking too fast for the already-tipsy younger woman to interject her displeasure into. “When I saw Julia walking through the hospital, I got this feeling that something wasn’t right and so I followed her. I still intended to tell her where Jaime was hiding, but I knew there was a part of me that was hesitant to do so” the group’s spokeswoman continues, “when we started talking, something came over me and it was convincing enough to give Jaime’s advice a try. After talking to the woman for a minute, I started to feel like Jaime might’ve been right about the chancellor.” “Wait, wait, wait- I’m not sober. Give me a second to process all of this, won’t you?” Carly inquires, finally catching up to what’s been said mentally, though she still struggles to pull the woman back from the metaphorical ledge her comments had been gradually carrying her toward. “Sorry, Carly. I was running late as is and I’ve still got to get to some people before town hall starts” Margot replies, trying her best to slow the pace in which she’d begun speaking at. “I don’t know what I do or don’t think about Jaime other than that she’s a massive bitch with a smug face that makes me want to punch it-” the group’s forewoman confesses, pausing as a dissatisfied expression of acknowledgement seeps over her face, “-but if she was telling us the truth about what’s going on with the NDF, with Julia and with what kind of role we have to play in it, I think it might be at least worth talking to her and trying to hear her out.” “So we are in business with Jaime, or we’re in business with Julia, or-” Carly questions, trying not to trip over herself as her eyes squint, the brain she’s dumbed down to an almost-moronic level trying desperately to connect the dots, “-wait, who are we in business with now?” “Right now, we’re in business for ourselves” Margot replies with an amused and dismissive frown, patting the younger woman on the shoulder as she shakes off the cobwebs and tries to regain her conscious composure. “If Chevy and Jaime are with the others at the place written down on that piece of paper, I want you to go there and bring them back as quietly as you can, alright?” the leader commands, keeping the woman within arm’s length to ensure she doesn’t topple over. “Where do you want me to take them then?” Carly questions, a conclusion that- whilst necessary- the spokeswoman has yet to fully figure out. “For now, just bring her back here and we’ll figure out where we can hide them- if it’s even worth doing so- after that” Margot explains, staring into the dark and following the barely-visible outlines of the bricks that make up the nearest wall, “if worse comes to worse, we can hide them in the crawlspace I’ve got in the bedroom of my apartment.” Shrugging at the gesture, Carly feels the weight of her superior push at her back and direct her toward the exit they’d initially ventured toward. “Now just go get them and bring them back in one piece- Jaime especially” Margot orders, watching the woman wave off the claim with a comedic enthusiasm as she continues for the door, overhearing the peacekeeper’s leader speak to the heavens with words meant only for her own ears, “I cannot believe those words just left my own lips.” | Parting her eyelids, Jaime stares into the darkest depths of her childhood bedroom as the moonlight that pierces through the window her curtains have been parted around spills onto the floor in her quarters’ centre. Though she’d just been shaken from her slumber, the woman, whose head rests comfortably against the puffy and recently dusted-off pillow, awakens without the slightest hint of exhaustion, staring at the open door near her chambers’ entrance and the figure that stands before it. “Who are you?” Jaime inquires, quickly lifting her head from the pillow without so much as a second thought, sitting upright beneath the covers as the apparition stares back at her, the features of its face too concealed within the darkness to present themselves toward her. Not uttering so much as a sound, the person within the sights of the deposed chancellor stares at the woman calling out to her before refocusing her sights elsewhere, instead choosing to wander throughout the home. With intrigue, the fearless survivor throws her comforter aside and steps out of bed, her lilac-coloured panties and white t-shirt the only articles of clothing she leaves the room with. Though her own feet step across the wooden floorboards with the weight of a human being, the featureless soul that traipses onward ahead of her steps with the mass of a feather, their each contact with the ground leaving such little sound that they’re almost non-existent. “Excuse me?” Jaime wonders aloud, questioning aloud the figure that journeys throughout the home as she descends the stairs, stepping past a sleeping Chevy and Kayla on their way through the open doors. Remaining mum along her travels, the awakened former head of household by default follows the entity into the backyard and onto the rear patio, finding the lawn that had grown beyond feasible control to have now returned to its well-maintained and recently-mowed state. Though her adventure has led her to the back of the home, the figure whom she’d followed is now nowhere for Jaime to find, instead replaced with a peaceful and calming landscape that puts the woman at ease. “Am I dreaming?” the self-described ‘broken little girl’ questions, unsure of who would answer her now that she’s breached the boundary line of her ‘broken little home’. “You must be” an enthusiastic, warm-sounding and feminine voice replies from the area in which an assortment of graves have been dug, re-earning the chancellor’s attention. “How else would we be here?” a more masculine voice carries on, his tone just as comforting as the soft-spoken one that had preceded it. Leaning against the side of the home, Jordan provides his fiance with a warm smile whilst Kate stands a few centimetres away, her own pleasant visage paid to the distressed and troubled woman that stands before them. “Through my thoughts and imagination, I suppose?” Jaime sarcastically replies, her in-character reply only helping to widen the smile upon those her mind conjures up. “Well, that’s the way that I normally appeared-” Kate corrects, passing a glance back to the man whose spirit realistically finds itself in the same afterlife as herself, “-though, I suppose I can make room for others to share the same flattery with.” Chuckling to herself, Jaime nods before looking back toward the direction of the newly-manicured lawn, which has now vanished- replaced with a vast sea of rolling hills all covered in a thin layer of snow. “I’m two thin pieces of fabric away from being butt-naked, and yet I don’t feel an ounce of cold” the woman proclaims, letting out a deep sigh as she takes a moment to accept that none of this is forged in anything resembling reality. “You’re also back where you spent the majority of your life- both by circumstance and by choice- before the catalyst took shape” Kate responds, now dressed in a heavy coat whilst Jordan sports a thin jacket, their breath fogging the air just ahead of themselves, “and yet, here you are. Two thin pieces of fabric may separate you from your birthday suit, yet there isn’t even an inch that separates you from a world where you no longer belong.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m back home and I feel like that couldn’t be further from the truth. I thought I already established this with Kayla a couple hours ago?” Jaime responds, turning back to re-enter the home, only for her eyes to take back toward the side in which the conversation had taken place. “You’ve gone over these lessons for how many years now?” Kate retorts, joining Jordan in following her once-client as they slowly make for the litany of graves at the home’s side. “If we’re here, it’s usually ‘cause you’re trying to make peace with something” Jaime’s fiance continues, amused at the recollection that the once-chancellor has come up with, “maybe you followed us out here because-” “-because I never really made peace with it” Jaime replies, finishing the man’s sentence on his behalf whilst standing at the foot of her own burial plot, the empty grave residing without a body once more as the tombstone at its head reverts from its now-adjusted state. As opposed to being scraped out, the chancellor’s name remains boldly carved into the stone tablet that serves as the tomb’s marker, a collection of words written in smaller letters sitting just below that. “How does that make you feel, Jaime?” Kate wonders aloud, watching the chancellor’s face turn toward the woman from over her left shoulder, an eyebrow raised on the near-nude woman’s face. “Are we really gonna resort to therapy cliches now, Kate?” Jaime retorts, scoffing at the question as the woman carries on with the point of her inquiry, the survivor’s attention re-centring upon the tomb that bears her name as her feet begin to feel light. “Knowing the truth about something that everyone keeps leaving unsaid can have various effects on a person” Kate says, pausing for a moment to glance toward Jordan, who reassuringly nods back to her. “And what truth is everyone ignoring, exactly?” Jaime challenges, hands hanging by her sides as the sound of distant pops climbs over the horizon where the sun rests- though they sound too far away for her mind to be dragged from the conversation at hand. As though they’re weak, Jaime’s legs begin to wobble whilst the woman herself fails to take notice of them, experiencing the dream as if nothing were out of the ordinary. “Telling people that you live to see the day where retribution falls upon Julia and Wade at your hands says one thing, but what it doesn’t say is the thing that brings you back here... Looking at your own grave” Jordan responds, taking over for where his fiance’s therapist leaves off whilst resting his hand upon the woman’s shoulder, “the thing about it is that everyone else knows what taking down Julia and Wade for good means. More specifically, what it means for you.” Though one shoulder feels heavy, the one that experiences the grazing of her fiance’s hand soothes Jaime to the point where she feels light enough to defy gravity, leaving the earth’s surface in ascension of the heavens. Though it isn’t spoken between the three, the question that leaves itself off with an open end brings itself back to the open plot of land awaiting the soul it intends to host. “You know exactly why you’re here, Jaime. Everyone else knows it and they care, so they overlook the part where the journey ends so they can, instead, join you in going along with the fight” Kate concludes, her hand joining Jordan’s in resting on the woman’s shoulder, “so my question remains… How does that make you feel?” Lifting her chin high, Jaime’s face takes toward the sky as its dark and gracious waves of blue gradually turn lighter, becoming a faint shade of light no different than the day before defying the colour barrier and becoming a pearly white. Without warning, the woman’s body ceases to contain mass as her feet leave the ground, and instead fall through the air as the woman whom they belong to plummets into her open grave, entering the cushiony comfort of the coffin that awaits her below. “Jaime!” Kayla hisses, shaking her friend violently with both hands wrapped around the woman’s shoulders, watching her jolt from the slumber that prompts her head to shoot off the pillow. “What!? What!? What!?” the woman quietly stammers three times, guiding her hand toward her exhaustion-covered face as she’s awoken from her sleep, looking into the eyes of her friend who kneels before her bedside in the same black tank top she’d worn earlier in the day, her black jeans hastily put back on. “The NDF... They’re outside” Kayla whispers, watching Jaime’s eyes widen in spite of the crust that desperately tries to force them shut, the words spoken both as a horror and as a profound jubilation. “They found us?” the chancellor queries, only receiving a vehement nod from the woman before Chevy hurries into the room, a pistol brandished in his hand as he hurries toward his wife’s side. “Come on, we’ve got to go!” Chevy hisses, grabbing his wife by the arm and pulling her upward, trying to afford the woman time to finish putting her pants back on whilst helping Jaime out of bed. “We know you’re in there!” Blake calls out, speaking through a megaphone at the front of the weed-covered driveway, unable to see any signs of life within the suburban home from his place atop the overgrown grass of its front lawn. “On Chancellor Avallone’s orders, I’m going to give you one opportunity to come out with your hands held up and surrender peacefully” the man continues to proclaim, uncertain of what kind of ruckus is going on within the building’s confines at his voice’s resonance. “If you do not surrender at this time, I have orders from the chancellor and NDF leader Wade Cordova to enter the home and take you by force in the name of the Angelino Republic” Blake carries on, the deposed chancellor they search to bring in already buckling her pants in preparation for their grand escape. “I have been authorised to use lethal force if you do not give yourselves up now, so be warned-” he concludes, making his mission incredibly clear, “-your compliance is the only way out.” == Dire == “It’s fuckin’ bullshit!” a rowdy gentleman calls out from within the crowd of equally-perturbed drinkers, the claim he makes earning a round of applause and similar cheer. “Of course it’s bullshit, but continuing to shout about that does nothing” Margot replies, identifying the vigour behind the man’s chorus-earning declaration and trying her best to sympathise with it.
“Well what do you expect us to do then?” a second man calls out, his thick, Australian accent making the mouth it comes from easily identifiable, “we’re being sworn at everywhere we go! I went to the store the other day and someone spat in my wife’s face!” Though appalled by the remark, the crowd struggle to find much more than a dismissive attitude to take toward it, having become desensitised to the reality that is their constant beratement too much to react how others would. “Threatening to fight people that bad mouth you isn’t going to keep them from bad mouthing you- it’ll just lead to more fights” Margot retorts, standing at the front of a bar a small group of calm women and men occupy the rear side of. “That’s not going to end well for them” a woman calls out from within the barfront, the handle to a half-empty pitcher carried in her fist. “And if you think it’ll change the way they shit-talk us, I promise that it won’t end well for us either” Margot responds, trying and struggling- ironically enough- to keep the peace. “Then what are we going to do!?” the man whose exclamation provoked such an irate reaction from the crowd he’s joined alongside wonders aloud, “we’re targets to everyone! We can’t live without being attacked and harassed! You don’t just expect us to sit down and take it, do you!?” “I don’t see what other choice you have!” a voice calls out from the very back of the tavern, catching the ears of the crowd and the leaders they speak to at once, earning their shifted focus. “There’s no amount of good P.R that you can conjure up to clean up the way the peacekeepers- or anyone associated with them- are perceived by the public” Chevy continues, stepping out from the purposefully-hidden entrance he’d initially used to discover the bar long ago. Without uttering a word, Carly steps off her barside seat and hurries to the man she’s gone nearly a year presuming dead, rushing into his arms and squeezing him tight with a hug. “Chevy? You’re-” Margot mutters aloud to a hushed sea of patrons, unsure of what to say other than offering the warning of what dangers may reside beyond the walls of the tavern, “-you’re probably best off not being here... Or anywhere in the republic, for that matter.” “It won’t be a republic for much longer if Julia and Wade are still in charge” Chevy rebukes, speaking matters beyond the knowledge of those that surround the room. “Listen, I’d love to stay around and catch up for hours on end, but I’m just as aware of the dangers that my being here brings and I don’t want to waste time” the man continues, patting the woman that hugs him on the shoulder and gently letting her step aside, allowing him the freedom of speaking to the group’s now-leader. “I gave you all my word once upon a time that I wouldn’t sell you out to Jaime, and now I need you all to give me your word that you’ll say nothing about my- or anyone else- being here right now” Chevy explains, trying to cut down to the brass tax of his surprising arrival before the time to do so elapses. “I’m only here because I need to be and I think that what’s about to be said is within all of your own best interests” the man clarifies, waiting a beat before continuing. “No matter what you say- whether it’s a yes or a no- I’ll be on my way and won’t tell anyone about what’s discussed here, alright?” Chevy questions aloud, looking out to the crowd of silent agreement that befalls him, providing him with the respectful acknowledgement and trust that he’d once bestowed them with. “What is it?” Margot questions, crossing her arms reluctantly whilst remaining fully aware of the dangers that are poised by this sudden drop-in, “what did you come to say?” Hesitant at first, the man hangs his head and lets out a sigh at first, holding off on a reply for a few seconds. “It’s actually not something that I- myself- can say” Chevy responds, lifting his eyes back up to the woman before cautiously looking out to the audience, pressing his lips together anxiously before moving aside. “Oh hell no” a man near the front of the crowd murmurs whilst rolling his eyes, angrily slamming his open palm against the top of the table he sits at. Appearing from around the corner, Jaime enters the room with raised palms to the crowd that now react to her with the same subdued disgust that the majority of the republic views them with. Pressing the tip of her tongue against the corner of her mouth, the deposed chancellor sits with her thoughts quietly and lets the hushed unrest settle. = Dire is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards = Though some remain seated, the majority of the tavern-based peacekeepers rise from their chairs and slowly descend upon the room’s farthest point, making their shared disdain for the woman they see before them clear with the disgusted visage they wear. “How’s everything been since I left, boys and girls?” Jaime questions aloud, genuinely wanting to know the answer, though she presents the question with a less-than-affable tone. “Chevy, what is she doing here?” Carly quickly interjects, taking one full step away from the man whilst glueing her eyes onto the woman who’d threatened her with execution just a year prior. “I know that neither side here likes the other, but I wouldn’t have brought her here if I didn’t think she had something important to say” Chevy responds, his voice loud enough to reach all ears within the room, “we’ve been hiding out in Lancaster. It’s not hard to figure out how people take to Julia.” “How long were you in Lancaster?” Margot inquires, an eyebrow raised as she remains standing near the bar’s modest counter. “For a good number of months. They came in and sniffed us out not too long ago” Chevy answers, standing closer to the deposed chancellor than he does to anyone else. “We heard Julia reabsorbed the town into the republic” Jaime adds in, paying no mind or consideration for the various judgemental stares that are directed her way, “sounds like they’re making progress.” “Progress toward what?” Margot questions back, a straight and unabashed reflection carried in her voice whilst her mind focuses on the various open-ends the visiting voices fail to tie up on their lonesome. “Progress toward expanding the NDP’s reach past the point of needing Julia’s government” Jaime responds, stepping away from her friends’ side to drag a chair away from the corner of the room, taking a casual seat upon it as if she weren’t the public’s ‘enemy number one.’ “If you want us to cooperate and not give the whole town a ring about their former chancellor, you ought to start leaving us more context to work with” Margot interjects, taking a few brief steps away from the serving table and drawing closer to the woman. “The two of you came here for something and I’m not sure what that is, but I’m not a very patient woman” the group’s apparent leader proclaims, “so quit dancing around the point and give me a reason not to turn the two of you in.” “Because I already proved to everyone here that I could be trusted” Chevy responds, offering his side of the explanation at first before being cut off by the supposed leader. “And then you ran off with Jaime the moment shit hit the fan for her” Margot replies, widened eyes paid to his direction, “you being truthful to your word is the only reason we haven’t already blown the horn on this” she says whilst turning to look back at Jaime, “now I want her to give me a reason to keep off it.” “Because you’re all being used” the republic’s former fore-woman responds, kicking one leg over the other whilst both hands tuck into the pockets of a moto jacket, “you’ve been being used since Julia put you to work at the hospital, and you’ll be used until she sets sail for Hawai’i.” Though the hostility and tension remains, a faint, yet noticeable hush comes over the room as the members of the united front look to each other, uncertain of whether or not they’d heard the one-time chancellor correctly. Sharing this confusion, Margot looks to Carly with squinted eyes whilst the younger woman peers in a similar way. “Keep talking” the new leader of the peacekeepers commands, taking her eyes away from the young woman remaining close to Chevy’s side in favour of her once-loathed opposition. “Gladly” Jaime replies as her shoulders shrug, eyes wandering to a random and unimportant corner of the room as she funnels through her thoughts. “When I was chancellor, Julia fed me with a strategy to keep the public at odds with each other. After the trouble we’d gone through trying to rebuild the republic after the city that’d come before it had fallen, it didn’t sound like a bad way to keep power in my corner” Jaime confesses, paying little concern for the way her confession will be received by the public which she sits before. “So I let her- and Blake apparently- continue to give or withhold your rations. However, she had ideas of her own. While I thought you were behind things like painting the town hall in pig’s blood or hacking into the republic’s radio broadcasts, she knew you weren’t” the woman carries on, “so- to me- you were all just a group of uncivilised chaos-makers trying to get back at me for Ryan, or whatever it is that you hate about me, and I was whatever Julia painted me out as behind the scenes.” “Bullshit” Margot replies through gritted teeth, holding great distaste for the proclamation being made from the woman that sits before her. “I wanted her to start giving you back the rations because Wade- the guy in charge of the NDF- wanted me to get the civil unrest under control” Jaime explains, continuing to speak freely as if the confrontation sparked by the group’s leader seconds prior means nothing, “I wanted her to supply directly from the republic’s food source instead of her own.” “I know you don’t want to believe it, but Jaime’s telling you the truth” Chevy interrupts, spotting the rising tensions before they have the chance to grow beyond control. “Wade’s whole plan since coming into the republic was to eventually re-integrate it into the old United States. What remains of the old government is apparently still functioning out of Pearl Harbor in Hawai’i” Jaime adds on, “I wasn’t very fond of the idea to say the least, but Julia is a very different story.” “I’m still calling bullshit” Margot doubles down, carrying the same weighted hatred that she’d tried to subdue when the former chancellor began speaking, “the only reason you’re here is because you’re desperate.” “Yup” Jaime replies, vehemently nodding with a callous smile as she steps forward, “I’m here because- in what’s probably a short amount of time now that Lancaster’s back in the NDF’s hands- Julia will set sail for an island in the middle of the pacific and never return.” “Jaime wants to take down Julia before she has a chance to leave and Wade before he has a chance to take over with the NDF completely” Chevy clarifies, trying to offer a voice that provokes less vigour than the woman’s own. “And you think we’d help you with that?” Margot questions, visibly surprised that either of the guest’s would assume any different, “we helped put Julia in that chair and we’re at least in a fine standing with the NDF. Why would we want to help you?” “Because nothing’s changed since I’ve been ousted. The quality of life has taken a dip, you’re all still social pariahs from what Chevy and I could overhear, and nothing about that is ever going to change” Jaime responds, stepping forward to close the distance between herself and the group’s leader. “For what it’s worth, I’ve come to realise that the only reason Ryan went after Jordan was because Julia put him up to do so. She wanted him dead so she could squirm her way into my good graces” the former chancellor doubles down, continuing to speak amongst a lulled crowd, “and, sadly, that bitch got exactly what she wanted. She took advantage of every opening I left her, she put you all to war with the promise of getting rid of me, and now history is repeating itself.” “Wait, how?” Chevy questions aloud, curious to the rationale behind the woman’s declaration, unsure of the meaning behind the most-recent remark. “Because the whole point of pitting the peacekeepers against the others was so they’d fight each other instead of the actual people in charge... Just like before the catalyst happened” Jaime answers, turning to look the man in the eyes before redirecting her stare toward the group’s leader, “only now- it’s the peacekeepers against me.” “Do you really expect me to believe you?” the woman in her mid-thirties and at the helm of the largest political opposition group in the republic questions aloud, “how are any of us supposed to believe a word that comes out of your mouth?” “Because Clark would believe Kayla and I” Chevy answers, re-earning the eyes of both the group’s leader and his well-wanted friend, “and I believe Jaime.” “Clark also despised Jaime” Margot replies, watching the man’s finger lift into the air from a place of correction. “But he always made it clear that the point was never to kill Jaime since whoever replaced her would likely just keep the cycle repeating” Chevy responds, a recollection that the hate-filled group reluctantly remember all too well, “whether it’s intolerance toward you, or painting you out like the second coming of the devil, or simply withholding government aid- it’d just repeat.” “Then how are any of us supposed to believe that this isn’t just another ploy to get Jaime back in power?” Margot reiterates, discarding one concern in favour of the next, only for her answer to come from the lips of the figure herself. “Because I’ll never be able to fully go back to being chancellor” Jaime confesses with a slight amount of disappointment, “I may have some supporters suppressing themselves, but Wade would never let someone that lost power take it back on his watch.” “And like Jaime said, it’ll only be a matter of time before the NDF re-absorbs the republic into whatever new version of the old United States they have planned again” Chevy retorts, allowing his friend to reclaim the conversation’s centre once more. “The bottom line is that I’ll never be able to retake the republic. At this rate, what matters is that Julia and Wade need to go, and I need your help getting close enough to them.” “Well you’re not getting it” Margot concludes, keeping the spirit of hostility alive and thriving as she refuses the deposed leader of the assistance she came for. “I don’t know what you think we want, but taking Julia and Wade out of the equation is not it” she reassures, a firm finger held toward the direction in which the pair had entered through. “No, what you want is something that you can’t have” Jaime corrects, both eyebrows lifted as he hands pull free from the jacket she wears, passing each other as their arms cross. “You want the people of this republic to look at you differently. You want them to stop treating you like dirt, but the issue is that it’ll never happen” the exiled survivor reiterates, “Julia’s not going to change the narrative that I’m partially responsible for creating.” “Then what would agreeing to help you do for us?” Margot questions, grilling the woman whose presence alone irritates her, “if we ousted Julia and Wade, what would we be getting out of it?” “Like I said, you’d be helping me put this cycle to rest” Jaime responds, not wasting a moment before answering the question asked of her, “without a leader, the republic falls. Whoever sticks around will be left there to rebuild what’s left of it. And only then will you be able to live your lives as something other than what Julia and I convinced the public you were.” “If you think we’re going to help you burn the republic to the ground, you’ve lost your mind beyond what even you can imagine” Margot retorts, watching Jaime’s head bow in disappointment before continuing, “now I’ll give the two of you one last chance to turn around and leave without a pair of cuffs around your wrists.” Accepting her failure, Jaime lifts her hands in surrender before slowly turning back to the man that she’d entered with, his face carrying an equal dejection to her own. “Come on, Chevy” the woman concedes, stepping past the man on her journey to the backroom’s exit before a sudden thought pops into her mind, prompting her to turn back out of curiosity, “do you believe me? Do you believe what I’m telling you about Julia?” Scoffing at the inquiry, Margot widens her eyes and continues to smile, “not at all” she replies, an answer that brings another grin over the face of the republic’s deposed sovereign. “Well just do me a favour and ask her yourself then” Jaime concludes, stepping back the way she came whilst adding emphasis to her plea, “as far as governance is concerned, I’m sure she’s no different than me. And if she’s used you to get what she wanted before, I’m sure she’d have no problem using you again.” Her face souring, Margot turns her back to the exiting pair as Carly ventures onward, trying to pay the man departing words that she never had the opportunity to offer him before. “Chevy, I-” the younger woman begins to remark, only to be cut off by a folded piece of paper that he extends at his side. “That’s the address of the home Kayla and I are staying at with the Morris’” Chevy informs, watching the woman’s eyes wander up toward his own. “Why can’t you two stay here with us?” Carly questions aloud, only to be met with the vehement shake of a refusing head for her troubles. “They took Kayla and I in on the same night they deposed Jaime” the man admits, tucking the folded note into the girls’ hand, “Julia ordered her guard to kill us, but Kennedy got to us in the nick of time.” “What?” Carly questions back, her struggle to process what’s been shared becoming clear to those that still occupy the tavern and watch on. “Julia knows we’re associated with Jaime, and she wants us dead just as much as she wants Jaime gotten rid of. Nowhere is safe for Kayla and I here- that’s why we left with the Morris’ instead of coming back here” Chevy carries on, still needing to depart with the deposed chancellor, “if anyone in here changes their mind- that’s where you’ll find us.” Patting the woman’s folded hands, Chevy gives her a nudge on the shoulder before pulling away, retreating to reunite with his friend and leave the republic behind for a second time. | “Good evening, chancellor” an on-duty nurse remarks, paying an off-hand greeting to the woman who owns the hospital that she works in. “Good evening” Julia replies, passing the woman whilst walking in the opposite direction, intentions set on making it to one room in particular with the bottle of red wine that is carried in her hand. Not too far behind her, a woman follows the trail that the building’s owner blazes, following her around various corners and dipping into long stretches of walkway not too long after the republic’s leader. With no mind paid to the figure pursuing her, the chancellor continues her journey through the large building alone, entering territory that gradually becomes less occupied the further she travels through it. Eventually reaching metaphorical uncharted waters, Julia dips her head through the opening of a tarp that spreads from one side of a wall to the other, making it clear that the corridor is not one meant to be traipsed through. Regardless, the once-doctor carries into the underbelly of the hospital itself, entering a stretch of hallway no different to the one that she had just entered from. With a look of pleasure in her face, the chancellor reaches for one door in particular and opens it, stepping into an office space no different to any other from the perspective of her shadow, who catches up to the republic’s leader right as the door closes completely. On her own, Julia stares forward into an office that had spent the better part of the last year gradually falling into smithereens, becoming victim to the elements that no other office in this wing of the hospital seems to have experienced. “I would’ve thought this place would look worse all this time later” the chancellor mutters aloud, her eyes taking to the blood splatters that stain the portion of wall that sits beside a shattered window. “You’ve got the obvious moulding, but other than that and a wet floor from the rain- it’s not too bad in here” the woman continues to speak to herself, rounding the desk that remains exactly as it was left at the time of her brother’s murder before kicking the chair away from where it was left. “You know, if the people that sold us this building knew how durable it was- we probably wouldn’t have gotten as good of a deal as we did” Julia continues, speaking as if her brother’s spirit were sharing her presence within the room’s haunted confines. Though she’s too entranced within the conversation she shares with herself, the chancellor’s company is soon split inside the office by the woman that had pursued her, slowly and quietly opening the door from the outside. Ducking below the desk and obstructing her view of the room’s front in the process, Julia slides open one of the desk’s drawers before securing her bottle of alcohol within it, slowly getting used to the stench that is the buildup of moisture and water damage the workspace has accumulated. Without thinking that she has any reason for concern, the chancellor gently lets the bottle come to a rest in one of the cabinets before sliding it shut, leaving it in place for future indulgence. “Are you planning to reintroduce prohibition?” Margot suddenly inquires, watching Julia jump back at the sound of her voice, startled by the surprising appearance of someone she hadn’t expected. “What the hell are you doing here!?” the chancellor shouts, visibly angered once she’s recollected her wits. “I needed to talk to you, but Blake said you were busy with other matters” Margot replies, speaking as if her story were one anybody else would’ve made the decisions that’d leave them capable of saying the same. “I know you don’t really go anywhere other than the city hall and the hospital, so-” the leader of the peacekeepers continues, only to be interrupted by the still-irritated leader. “So you decided you were going to follow me!?” Julia retorts, her voice continuing to echo throughout the room as she yells, “you realise that’s a crime, right!?” “Well when you walk through the halls of a place you don’t work at anymore with a bottle of wine in your hand, it’s a little odd” Margot responds, the conclusion her chancellor had made prompting her to start growing snippy, “I could always argue it looked like I had a reason to be concerned.” “What the hell do you want!?” Julia barks suddenly, having grown tired with the aimless discourse and, instead, desiring to know the reason behind her solace being disturbed, “what was so important that you needed to follow me like a fucking creep?” Growing more offended the longer the conversation wages onward, Margot stares into the widened eyes of the republic’s chancellor before parting her lips to speak, only for them to close as second thoughts fill her head. Though she had been anticipating a remark of some sort, Julia takes the continued silence as a prompt to bow her head and regain her composure, trying to alleviate the anger that she’d brought upon the room before a word could even be uttered. “If you’re here about the lower hours of the peacekeepers, there hasn’t been any change in how much staff is needed” the chancellor concludes, believing their interaction to be nothing more than an attempt to continue their discourse from the day prior. “People are a resource just like any other. I’m sure it’s tough being scoffed at all day for being associated with the peacekeepers, but I can’t just have everyone shuffled somewhere they’re not needed” Julia continues, “shit needs to get done.” “This has nothing to do with the hours you’re giving us” Margot responds, shaking her head before attempting to speak further, only for yet another moment of hesitation to come over her as the chancellor carries on. “Then what is this about?” Julia questions, her eagerness to end the conversation that shouldn’t even be occurring at the moment, one that the leader of the peacekeepers takes easy notice of, the offence she’d taken almost appearing more like a lack of respect. Retreating from her initial intentions, the leader of the political adversaries slips a piece of paper into her back pocket, keeping it concealed from the eyes of the woman she speaks to. “I was just looking for some advice, I guess” Margot explains, bringing the chancellor down from the pillar of worry she’d erected for herself to stand upon, “the group is sort of split between people that say we should deal with the harassment and people that say we shouldn’t. I don’t know who’s right.” “Well, the people who say you should deal with it are right” Julia answers with ease, not taking more than two seconds to consider the conflicted sides, the haste in which such a response were provided surprising the peacekeeper spokeswoman. “Really? Wh- what makes you say that so quickly?” Margot questions, not having anticipated the reply to come with such swift motivation. “Because fighting is what you’ve been doing for years now. It’s the thing that made them hate you in the first place” Julia confesses, speaking the harsh truth she believes her affable acquaintance to not desire hearing, but to be in need of it. “Starting trouble with them will only hurt everyone involved. It’ll make me look bad, it’ll make the peacekeepers look bad, and it’ll cause more problems than what you’ve already got” the chancellor continues, trying to appear courteous. “Well, what do you suggest I do?” Margot inquires, watching the doctor-turned-politician take a seat upon an empty space left behind on her brother’s desk. “I’ve got two sides that hate each other and there’s nothing that I can do about it” the group’s leader proclaims, recalling the words spoken by the woman whose remarks refuse to leave her mind, “I’m just worried that, if I do nothing to stop it, they’ll eventually start turning against me in unison.” “And you need my help with that?” Julia questions, puzzled by the inquiry that feels too familiar to just dismissively take note of and set aside. “Well, we got the job done against Jaime. You were close to her while she was chancellor, right?” Margot inquires, her motivations upon entering the room having changed- adjusting to the intentions she now sets forth with, “there’s got to be something there I can learn from, right? Something to keep them off my back and at least on each other’s?” “Well, sure. But aside from keeping them fat and happy, I’m not sure you’re in a position to do much” Julia replies, yet to take notice the slightly-widened eyes that come over the woman devoted to ‘keeping the peace’, “I’d just keep your head on a swivel and try to get them all to see the sense in playing nice.” “Fat and happy?” Margot asks simply, watching the chancellor’s head nod as she repeats the three words. “Yup. Fat and-” Julia replies, her bobbing head soon growing stiff and motionless, the brow over her left eye lifting slightly as she pauses. As if surrendering herself to a recollection that brings sense upon their conversation and sheds light upon the words they’d shared amongst each other, the woman refuses to follow through with her reply in favour of grander curiosities. “Who have you been talking to?” Julia softly wonders aloud, looking into the stoic face of the peacekeeper’s leader as it refuses to budge from its prior stance, mouth partially agape to prepare for a line of speech that fails to come before the question is raised. Presenting the chancellor with the face of a woman discovered for what she’s hiding, Margot looks away and struggles with the conflicting thoughts that surface upon her head. “I-” she murmurs, struggling to speak as she finds herself entranced by a sudden lack of trust for the woman she’d rewritten the republic’s future with the assistance of. Remaining silent as she rummages through her flurry of thoughts, Margot finds herself incapable of simply reaching into her back pocket and giving up the chancellor she’d spent so long working with the group she now leads to get rid of- a part of her conscience not willing to write off Jaime’s warnings as desperate mumble. “There’s just been some talk amongst the peacekeepers that you might be using us” Margot confesses, covering her tracks and spilling guts of redirection to the chancellor. “It’s probably just someone from the dissatisfied side trying to spew hateful rationale to provoke the other half into thinking of everything as hopeless, but the chatter has-” “What are they saying?” Julia inquires, cutting the leader off before asking the question seated so close to the tip of her tongue that it threatens to fall off. Letting free a sigh, Margot stares at the ground and swipes her hair back as it falls from over her shoulders, the locks being returned to their place running down her back. “They’re saying you said a lot of stuff to people about keeping everyone ‘fat and happy’ so they’d cooperate. It’s a lot of chatter about how you were just using us to get Jaime out of power before moving onto whatever benefitted you” Margot continues to explain, trying to mutter nonsense in hopes that the chancellor’s ear will catch to something she deems worth biting into, “again, it’s probably just the side that’s pissed off. I get it and I don’t blame them. It’s just hard to dismiss.” Though her eyes are normally just wider than most others, the resting rigidity of the chancellor’s ice queen stare toward the peacekeeper leader proves enough to send a chill down the woman’s hair-strewn neck. Without uttering a word, Julia remains seated and silent within thought long enough for time to seem as though it had stopped. Finally parting her lips, the woman’s unchanged demeanour remains in slightly of the slightly-warmed tone taken in her voice. “Please leave, Margot” Julia requests, remaining seated with one hand pressing against the centre of her brother’s desk for support. Both feigning and holding true disappointment in the discussion’s end, the forewoman of the peacekeepers hangs her head and turns away, pressing her lips together before stepping through the door and politely closing it. Sitting with thoughts of her own, the chancellor’s face sours further as it takes toward the open window near the room’s rear, nostrils flaring and lids remaining as parted as they usually do. “Bullshit” Julia whispers to herself, hearing a gentle breeze pass the windows by and move throughout the republic’s air, which appears to be on track to grow colder throughout the week. == Dire == “Aside from a slight hiccup that won’t be dug into at this time, the recovery of Lancaster and its subsequent absorption into the Angelino Republic was a resounding success” Julia proclaims from the podium that’s stationed within an enclosed room, her shadow-superior standing off to her right side with his hands folded.
“The recovery that we have been slowly working toward since the day of the catalyst is now beginning to take shape” the chancellor announces, a convincingly warm smile held upon her cold-to-the-touch face. “Having now recovered the lost half of Los Angeles in its entirety, the reclamation of Lancaster into this union does, in fact, lend credence to that statement” she proceeds, not noticing the slight grin that comes over the corner of Wade’s face, “as your chancellor, I could not be prouder.” From their places in the seats stationed in the floor that the podium faces, people with cameras, notepads and microphones lift their free hands in an effort of gaining whatever knowledge they’d yet to come by when entering the room. “I don’t have much time for questions, but I suppose it would be rude of me not to at least take a couple” Julia remarks, the conclusion one that doesn’t please the NDF leader, though it’s not one that earns much in the way of a dissatisfied reaction. “You’ve said that our recovery in the aftermath of the catalyst is ‘taking shape’” a woman stands up to ask, her hand spotted out from the crowd by the republic’s representative, “can you specify what you mean by that?” Whilst some citizens occupy spaces at the front steps of city hall like they had during the former chancellor’s reign to watch on monitors, most of the civilians that call the republic home watch from home or work on their televisions or radios. “We’re the only society that remains intact within the continental United States” Julia begins, folding her hands atop the podium whilst leaning forward slightly, eyes steady and holding firm upon the reporter. “There were forty-eight states operating with individual local and state-wide governments before the catalyst turned all of that on its head” she continues, trying to keep her response brief, yet well-informative, “the expansion of the Angelino Republic is important to that process.” “What about Boston?” another voice calls out from the set of reporters, his face eventually catching the attention of the chancellor and those that stand behind her. “I’m sorry, can you elaborate?” Julia retorts, curious to the man’s question just as the NDF leader is, though he appears less stammered than his subordinate does. “Well, the prevailing rumour is that there’s a settlement on the east coast that’s still been operating since the catalyst hit” the man responds, this information surprising the off-guard chancellor. “Some people that were brought in when the borders expanded said they had initially been planning to head east for Boston around the time the skyscraper went up in flames” the man reiterates, casually standing out from the group of civilians, “if this is the last society, what happened to Boston?” Parting her lips, Julia stares at the man with confusion before feeling the weight of a man’s shoulder gently brush her off to the side, freeing a space at the forefront of the podium from himself. “Hello, I’m Wade Cordova of the New Democratic Front...” the man introduces himself, addressing the reporter as the chancellor watches on at a loss, “...reports of any activity in Boston have been blown out of proportion. A small camp remained operable but has since gone offline.” “So what happened to them?” a woman asks from a few seats behind the man whose question had initially provoked the NDF leader’s reply, “and were you in contact with them before they went offline?” “I won’t speak to matters beyond what I’ve said as they are of little importance to the republic as it stands” Wade responds, looking back to offer the chancellor a brief smile and nod for her troubles, almost as if asking her to play along and cooperate, “your chancellor will be with you later in the day to enter further detail regarding the future of Lancaster as a subsection of the Angelino Republic. Until then, we’d like to thank you for your time.” His voice having carried the words that now bring about a slight surprise over a nation simply operating to survive, Wade steps away from the rostrum and gently lets his hand rest against the chancellor’s lower back, turning her for the room’s exit and guiding her to quieter corners. “I’m sorry... Boston?” Julia questions aloud, only speaking once she’s comfortable with the distance they’ve travelled from the crowd, “when were you going to tell me that there was a camp in Boston?” “I wasn’t because it has no bearing on you or this city” Wade retorts, pulling his hand away from the woman’s lower back to let it hang by his side, “I didn’t take you for someone to speak to the public in terms of a bigger picture than just the republic, so I didn’t find it necessary.” “You didn’t find it necessary to tell me there are other people running communities out there?” Julia challenges, stopping her guided retreat by pausing in the middle of the hallway, prompting the NDF leader to turn back and partake in the discussion. “No, I didn’t since I figured you would’ve already assumed such a thing” Wade answers, a professional tone carried despite his slightly-irritated demeanour, “Jaime already knew not everywhere came down, so I figured you would’ve too.” “It’s bold of you to assume that Jaime wouldn’t keep things secret” Julia responds, visibly more disturbed than the man she speaks with. “Well, considering she managed to hide out in Lancaster for all this time under your watch- I suppose I shouldn’t have expected such great investigative work out of you, huh?” Wade snipes back, turning away to resume his progression toward greater matters, only for the voice of the chancellor to spark his face’s retreat. “I’ve already told you about how dangerous Jaime is. I never implied she wasn’t the craftiest bitch as well” Julia doubles down, watching the leader turn back to face her, “but now that she’s running low on connections, it’ll only be a matter of time before we close in on her and take her out of the equation for good.” Bowing his head, Wade’s face supports a smile that soon remains intact as he approaches the chancellor once more. “The fact that you’re in charge of the second-greatest militaristic force likely on the whole planet and yet, you still consider that one girl to be a threat-” he begins, pausing as the distance between himself and the republic’s foremost woman is almost entirely cut down, continuing only with a whisper-like voice, “-that doesn’t speak well of you.” “I knocked that woman out of power. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve already more than proven what I’m capable of...” Julia rebukes, lifting her face closer to the leader’s own to reciprocate his imposing demeanour, “...so it’s not so much that it speaks poorly of me, it’s that it speaks highly of her.” His grin only growing larger, Wade nods to the woman as he pulls his head back, regaining his upright composure before beginning to walk off. “You’re more than likely right, chancellor” he admits, starting to turn around and refocus his attention on the business that lays ahead, “I guess it’s just a good thing that I probably won’t be the first throat she comes at with a knife, isn’t it?” His warning waged, Wade continues his departure whilst the chancellor remains behind, watching him walk off and disappear around the corner with the rest of his security- her own detail standing by and waiting for her progression. Snarling, Julia’s arched lip soon recedes into a steady frown that the rest of her visage supports, her eyes taking toward a second corridor that she begins journeying down- attending to other matters herself. = Dire is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards = “Just don’t let it get out of control” Alex reminds, lowering herself to the ground and taking a seat in the dirt, the back of her head against a tree as she watches the flames of a bonfire grow higher. “We’re not looking to start a wildfire, mom” Jaime responds, stripping branches of the various leaves that coat them before handing them off to Kayla, who joins her husband in adding fuel to the fire that serves to keep them warm. “We’ll keep it contained, Mrs. Morris” Chevy reassures, kneeling beside the hand-dug pit to adjust the bricks that they’ve lined the edges with whilst providing the woman a less-snarky reply. Without saying a word, Kennedy leans her back against a curved rock that sits just beside a bush, a majority of its branches snapped and ripped away in order to feed the flames that burn before her. “Is this how we’ll have to spend the rest of our lives?” Kennedy wonders aloud, her voice catching the ears of all involved, though her mother’s face is the only one to direct itself toward her. “No, honey” Alex soon replies, Kayla’s face beginning to direct itself toward the young girl as she discards sticks into the fire, “we’ll find a home and stay there. We’re only camping in the woods for tonight.” “That’s not what I meant” Kennedy responds softly, staring into the orange glow and rising embers as the two women look toward her, patiently waiting for her to continue, “are we going to have to kill people for the rest of our lives?” Her stripping of the branch that she wields being the only noise that permeates the air, Jaime’s work ceases just as Chevy’s does, both of their eyes now joining their peers’ own in glancing back to the young girl. With widened eyes, Alex looks toward Kayla- who continues to look at the girl who’d broken the silence. Keeping to themselves, Jaime and Chevy redirect their sights toward each other just as they had in looking at Kennedy, a silent discontent carried in the disappointment that’s made clear in their eyes. “Not unless we have to” Kayla responds, stepping away from the campfire and joining the girl at her rock, reading into the saddened expression that she wears like a harness. “Bad people kill for the sake of it. That’s not what we’re doing or what we did” the woman continues, the child she’d lost during her pregnancy not having taken the woman’s motherly composure and care along with it, “we killed those people because they tried to do bad things to us.” “I don’t care what we are or what they did” Kennedy defeatedly confesses, staring at the ground whilst digging the front of her running shoe along the dirt, “I just want to know if we’ll have to keep doing it for the rest of our lives.” Keeping to themselves, Chevy and Jaime half-heartedly tend to the fire whilst keeping their ear on the conversation, Alex doing much the same whilst staring into the lifting flames. “Why do you ask, Ken?” Kayla questions back, placing her palm against the oak tree that sits beside the young girl in order to lower herself to the ground, “is something bothering you?” Pulling his hand away from the excess sticks, Chevy takes satisfaction in the fire they’d started enough to watch on at the discourse’s continuation, the trust he has for his wife to take care of it allowing him to play the role of spectator. “I’m just tired of seeing people fight” Kennedy glumly responds, one knee arched higher than the other, its counterpart stretched out along the ground, “I thought it would’ve stopped by now.” Sorrowful, Kayla mimics the position of the woman’s legs in her own, however, switching the order around in the opposite way. “I hear you” the older woman confesses, their voices loud enough for the rest of the camp to listen into, though none of them interrupt the heartfelt conversation. “We don’t have a home anymore. We’re in the middle of the woods hiding from people that want to kill us, and that means we have to kill them instead, and the cycle never stops” Kennedy carries on, growing more perturbed the longer that she hears herself speak, “and now it just feels like we’re never going to have a home again.” “That’s not going to be a problem. Don’t you worry about that” Kayla responds, only to watch the young girl’s eyes roll dismissively. “I know you mean well, but I know you’re just as clueless about that as I am” Kennedy reassures, looking into the woman’s face to see an acceptance that comes only with agreeing to the terms that her efforts have proven futile, “I’m not a little girl like I was a few years ago. I know when you’re lying to make me feel better- and this is one of those times.” “I can’t be lying about that since I don’t know what’s in store for the future, but I am just trying to make you feel better- that’s true” Kayla admits, nodding her head before looking back to her husband, whose knee is still firmly planted within the soft dirt. “We may not all be in a very good position right now, but it’s not like we’re helpless” the woman continues, eventually passing her sight to the deposed chancellor and then to the mother. “You do remember what was going on the last time we camped out like this, right Ken?” Chevy interjects, finally spotting a moment to introduce his voice to the conversation, “the ground was covered in that acid residue shit and we had no idea what we were doing or where we were going.” “And we still made it out of that just fine, didn’t we?” Kayla doubles down, looking at the girl seated beside her with a hopeful arch in her eyebrows. “A lot of things were different back then” Kennedy retorts, looking up at her second mother figure with an apathetic frown, “we weren’t being chased by crazy people and soldiers. There wasn’t an entire city that was off limits because it wasn’t safe. We were camping out in these woods because we could- not because we had to.” “And we won’t have to soon enough” Jaime interrupts, keeping her sister from speaking any further before capturing the focus of all those seated around the fire. “I trusted the wrong person. I fucked up and that’s why we’re in this mess” the woman continues, opting not to mince words, “but the fact of the matter is this... The people that are hunting us want me. If they have me, I’m sure they’d be more than happy to cut bait and let you head off wherever you please.” “That’s not going to happen” Alex rebukes, a gesture that the woman fails to convince her daughter of. “Of course not... Not yet” Jaime replies, eventually taking her eyes back to Kennedy with a nod after a prolonged pause, “but if push comes to shove- I’m the ticket to your freedom. Whether it happens with me or without me... I’ll be damned if the rest of you don’t get a future because of my mistake.” “It’s not going to come to that” Chevy retaliates, still defiantly devoted to the woman that he still looks at as if she were chancellor whilst the rest of the world chooses instead to turn their backs toward her. “I’d like to hope not, but let’s be realistic here” Jaime responds, showing where her mind rests and where her optimism lies, “we’re not just running away from some parent with a gripe against me. This is a whole damn community sending everything they’ve got to keep us on edge.” “I am being realistic. It may be a tall task, but we’re not running away from the most impenetrable force on the face of the planet” Chevy doubles down, stepping off the ground and dusting his knee off. “Come with me” he commands, curling his finger toward the exiled chancellor whilst walking off into the depths of the woodlands, his eyes passing a glance toward his wife as he departs, “we’ll be back in a couple minutes.” Unsure of what the man’s reasoning is, Jaime chooses to provide him the blind faith that- had she never refused it to him- may have kept her in the seat of chancellor up to this very day. “We’ll be back” she says, splitting off to join the man in his destination-less voyage without much of a clue over what's to be shared between them. | “Greetings and salutations!” Julia remarks with a chipper tone, placing the palms of her hands to each side of the chair that she occupies, using them to push herself to both feet and provide pleasantries to her guests. “Hello” a woman responds, wearing a grey t-shirt and a pair of black jeans with scuffed knees, the attitude she presents being neither affable, nor rude. “What can I do for you?” the doctor-turned-dictator questions aloud, taking notice of the haste displayed in the speech of the woman that steps before her and trying to remain hospitable. “It’d be nice if you could explain why some of the peacekeepers are getting less hours than they have been for the last year and some change” the casually-dressed spokeswoman proclaims, joined by three additional members of the protest group, all of whom stand back and allow the discussion to carry on. “Well that’s an easy one- we don’t need as many of you” Julia answers honestly, the remark one that initially surprises the group’s spokeswoman, “not as many people are getting hurt and going out to get tests and treatment. When you don’t have as many patients, you don’t need as many volunteers.” “Well where does that leave those of us that depend on being paid volunteers to make a living?” the spokeswoman questions back, watching the chancellor look off into the distance for a brief second before shrugging. “I don’t know. Get another job, I suppose?” Julia replies, staring into the face of the woman that now appears offended, slighted by the retort paid to her. “Get another job? We help you get into this position and your way of helping us is to suggest that we get a better job?” the woman rebukes, eyebrows raised and head tilted to the side. “That’s what everyone else does. If they can work for someone that’ll pay them more, they go work for that person” Julia doubles down, reassuring the woman that her conclusion was meant as intended, “if you find someone that’ll give you better hours and more work, you go work for that person.” “You think it’s that easy for people like us?” the peacekeeper replies, watching the extended palm of the chancellor’s hand lift to prevent her from continuing to speak. “Margot. That’s your name, right? It’s Margot?” Julia questions, lowering herself into the chancellor’s seat before kicking one leg over the other, “Margot, you’re not black and this isn’t segregationist America, alright? You’re not kept from walking into diners and using bathrooms just because of the way you look.” “Ever since you let it slip that you had peacekeepers volunteering for you, it’s become close to a game of ‘hide the truth’ for all of us” Margot retorts, speaking as if the conclusion the chancellor had made was wrong. “Whenever we apply to work somewhere else or get involved in stuff, we either have to leave out working for you or deal with the side-eyes everyone else gives us” the woman confesses, “you may have told everyone to play nice with each other, but their hate for us hasn’t changed.” “Well, how else do you expect them to react when you smear the capitol in pig blood, hijack our radio transmissions and foster a guy who burns a good chunk of their food supply?” Julia questions back, able to spot a woman step ahead of her peers just a short distance away, “don’t sit here and act like you haven’t given them a reason to think less of you. All of the trouble that’s come over the last year and a half was started by you. It may be reprehensible, but you’ve made the mess yourselves.” “You know damn well we had nothing to do with the capitol or the radio waves. And you know Ryan was acting of his own volition” Carly declares, her finger pointing into the face of the smirking chancellor. “Oh, and if it isn’t Chevy’s little henchwoman” Julia says, rolling her eyes and leaning further into her chair, “fall back in line with the others and keep your mouth shut. You’re lucky you weren’t excommunicated like he was.” “You owe us for helping you push Jaime out of power” Margot doubles down, taking even greater offence to the laugh that spews from the parted lips of the chancellor. “Oh please. I’ve already refused to punish you for any discretions and have outlawed any employer from refusing hire on the basis of group affiliation” Julia responds, gesturing the group the way they’d come, “I’ve given you all the tools to keep your heads down and earn a living. You can choose to take it or not.” “We’re not members of society- we’re stains to it” Carly responds, watching the chancellor place her fingers to her lips and fire off a resounding whistle. “Then acclimate with the rest of it and contribute to society like everyone else. Work, go home, eat and take a shit. Then put your head on the pillow and do it all over again tomorrow” Julia responds, watching her security detail enter the room to show her guests out, “you’re just the same as everyone else. Go work your way up the ladder.” | “Chevy, we’ve been walking for- like- ten minutes” Jaime explains, not complaining about the distance, but curious over the need for such vast amounts of it. “I don’t want anyone back there- Kayla included- hearing what I’m about to say” Chevy retorts, continuing to venture into the unknown as the sky begins to settle into its darkened state. “Needing to lead me into the middle of nowhere to say something you’d rather your wife didn’t hear?” Jaime repeats, coming to a stop at the same moment that the man himself does, “I love you like a brother, Chevy- but not in the Alabama way.” “Alright, as much as I appreciate your sarcasm and light-hearted banter, I’d prefer it if you took this seriously” Chevy responds, wrapping his hand around a thin tree trunk for support as he stands near a patch of rocks. “Then just come out with it already” Jaime requests, shaking her head and crossing her arms as their only light source proves to be a flashlight they’d snatched from the armoured vehicle they’ve already walked more than two miles away from. “Alright, fine. I want to bring you to the peacekeepers” Chevy replies, watching the eyes of the former chancellor widen almost immediately. “You better be about to say ‘syke’ right now, dude” Jaime rebukes, watching the man’s free hand extend its palm toward her. “I heard what you said last night about falling asleep dreaming of getting revenge against Wade and Julia. I wasn’t going to say anything in front of Kayla and Ken, but I want to help you get that” Chevy explains, watching his friend’s eyes roll disparagingly. “Before he died, Clark would routinely warn the others that their mission shouldn’t be to kill you because they’d only hate whoever replaced you all the same” the man proceeds, “from what Jasmine was telling us, he might’ve been right.” “Geez, thanks for that outstanding report card” Jaime sarcastically quips, again watching the disheartened expression emerge upon the man’s visage. “My point is that it doesn’t seem like Julia is giving them anything more than what you were. And since there’d be very little republic left after you took out your mercy on the two of them, I don’t think the group would mind helping you turn the city to ash.” “Why are you only just telling me this now?” Jaime retorts, vehemently shaking her head with uncertainty as she stares off into the distance, “and even for that matter, what makes you think they’d be willing to work with me at all?” “Because there needed to be some time to pass for them to get used to the way Julia ran things. If they had the chance to see how she ruled for themselves, I figured it’d better your chances of convincing them to join you” Chevy explains, watching the woman’s reluctance to believe in such a stance take shape, “besides, I’m pretty sure I’ve made myself likeable enough for them to at least hear you out. If that doesn’t work, then at least my wife and your family wouldn’t have to see that outcome.” “Wait, you wanna head off there now!?” Jaime questions aloud, quickly watching the refusal of such a notion grasp Chevy like a pair of firm hands around an uncontrollable mess. “No, of course not! But when we get the others settled into somewhere safe, we can sneak off and claim that we’re looking for stuff to hold ourselves over” the man explains, staring into the millions of stars that shine faintly within the night’s sky, “we’ll make for the republic, slip in and try not to get caught.” “It’s rather bold of you to assume that we’ll be able to pierce through such an impenetrable fortress such as that one” Jaime says, speaking with sarcasm in spite of the real gravity behind the task they appear to agree to. “We managed to hide out in Lancaster for almost a year before they started sniffing around to the right track” Chevy reassures, a grin coming over his face out of a place of hope for the first time in all too long, “I’m pretty sure we can handle ourselves.” Pleased, Jaime nods along with the conclusion and shares the smile that her friend holds onto firmly, peering in the distance that still remains uncovered between the man and herself. “So...” the woman quips, slipping one hand into her pocket whilst her other remains hanging by her side, the brow over her left eye raising, “...where to next?” With a half-chuckle, Chevy bows his head and lets free a deep sigh, able to recall the first time such a question was asked and the result it was met with. Looking back upward, the man sets his eyes onto the visibly chipper former leader of a republic that appears not to be what she’d last known it to be, the disheartening reality of what’s left in its wake unable to keep her from at least enjoying the moment she gets to spend with her friend as his lips part to reply. “North.” == Dire == Season 5 Premiere
\ Eleven Months Later / “Alright, you tragic drunks- get out of my bar” Jasmine proclaims, gesturing her hands toward the front doors that her patrons begin to drunkenly stumble toward. “Go beat up your wives or something, just do whatever it is somewhere else” she reiterates, continuing to gently shove older men through the dining room and toward the building’s entrance, ceasing the evening of banter and liquid courage whilst it’s still young. Through groans and amused laughter, the drunken citizens of a post-Cody era in Lancaster spill into the street and listen to the mechanisms within the tavern’s door shift to lock it. With ease, Jasmine tugs at the string to the curtain that hangs over the door’s long, glass centre to shut off the sight of what resides within from the outside world. “The coast is clear” she speaks aloud, turning back for the wider room before beginning to step toward the bar. Along her journey, the woman’s fingers wrap around the backs of each stool and seat that had been left toppled over or distanced from the tables they’d originally come from- the aftermath of a drunken gathering most know the familiar sights of. Along the wooden frames that span across the ceiling, balls of orange lights hang from cords that eventually connect to the closest outlet available, having replaced the old ceiling-mounted bulbs to present a more personal and relaxed vibe. “You closed twenty minutes late” Kennedy complains, the first to step out from the breakroom just beyond the bar, her mother following shortly thereafter. “When the five of you shake that ‘fugitive’ label Julia’s given you, I’ll let you take a crack at trying to weed out a room full of drunken dudes in their fifties reliving the glory days, Kennedy” Jasmine responds, watching a visibly exhausted Kayla follow Alex through the doorway. “I’m sure I’d be much better at it than you are” Kennedy responds, the appearance of visible cabin fever having given her the urge to just move about freely- regardless of the reason behind it. “I have a hard time disagreeing with Ken” Kayla remarks, tilting her head toward her right shoulder as the muscles within her neck pull and pop with satisfying resonance, “you’re seasoned at this, Jasmine- but if I were in your shoes, I’d be a lot less pleasant if those dudes started getting handsy.” “If they tip well and don’t ruin the mood for the rest of my customers, I don’t really think much about how often they slap my ass” Jasmine replies, continuing to push in the stools that have been strewn about her bar whilst the conversation ensues, “I just want them to drink, pay, and leave.” “I’m glad that mindset’s endured the end-times” Chevy interjects as he steps further into the bar, sharing the same exhaustion his wife wears whilst taking a hold of a half-drunk bottle of liquor from the counter. “Society’s still here. That means there are still people for me to not like and prefer hiding away from” Jasmine expresses, rolling her eyes at the sight of the man wrapping his lips around the bottle’s rim. “That’s the spirit” Kennedy quips sarcastically, walking to the opposite side of the bar where a plethora of cardboard boxes sits- patiently waiting to be unpacked. “Well go ahead and tell me what other spirit there is to have, Kennedy” Jasmine responds, shaking her head with a slight frown carried over her face, “Lancaster’s a mess, Los Angeles is a one-party state and the NDF is more concerned with policing than they are with protecting. See the looting and riots if you need evidence of that.” “I made a comment, Jasmine. I never said anything about it being deserved” Kennedy retorts, sporting an equal-displeasure in the tone of her voice, almost as if she’d already accepted defeat and were just treading water like the others. “Let’s not get snippy with each other” Alex comments aloud from the centre of the room, helping the bartender slide in chairs whilst her youngest daughter carries a cardboard box of refilled liquor bottles to the tavern’s counter. “Why not? Everyone’s fighting nowadays... It’s practically our national pastime” Jasmine responds, taking as little offence to Kennedy’s rebuke as she does care over returning the favour. “That doesn’t mean we need to fall to the same shit the rest of the city has” Alex retorts, only for her eyes to be taken back to the exit from the backrooms, her eldest daughter’s voice capturing her ears. “I think it’s already a little too late for that” Jaime replies, rubbing her eyes as the nap she’d taken to pass the time between the tavern’s opening and closing presents wrinkles around her biceps and forearms. “Why? Just because you made some wrong calls? Just because a selfish wench took over your city and turned its morale upside down?” Alex questions back, seemingly the only one of the group with an optimistic bone still left in her body, “is that supposed to be why?” “No, but I’d be willing to argue that our fortune over the last year has a good deal to do with it” Jaime responds, a bitter visage sported similar to that of her younger sister as hands fall upon her hips. “If anything, I’d be willing to argue the exact opposite” Alex replies, unopposed to the idea of challenging her offspring’s conclusion, “we can’t expect to live in the breakroom of Jasmine’s tavern- as appreciative as we are for her hospitality- forever, right?” “We’ve been asking ourselves that same question for a little over eleven months now, Alex” Kayla replies from the counter, pulling a stool off to the side in an effort to clear Kennedy a pathway to the serving area. “We’ve never had much of an answer before, and I highly doubt we’re going to come up with one now” Jaime continues on, joining her friends at taking a seat along the counter, “so just drop it, alright mom?” “No. We might not come up with one tonight, but I’m not dropping that question until we do find an answer” Alex replies, watching her daughter shake her head with disappointment as she climbs upon the nearest seat. “Well you have fun with that, mom” Jaime responds, bowing her head toward Kayla whilst accepting the bottle that’s passed to her, “in the meantime, the rest of us will sit around and shoot the shit while you do... whatever it is you’ll be doing.” Clattering together with a pleasing ring, Kennedy unloads one bottle of liquor after another into their respective places along the tavern’s walls and inner corners, doing the bartender’s job with joy. Puckering her lips, Alex hangs her head and tucks her thumbs into the seams of her pockets whilst Jasmine watches on, having paused her duties to take notice of the mother’s demeanour. Standing along the backdrop of hardwood walls, Alex remains dejected at the conversation’s conclusion as the building’s legal tenant watches on, incapable of feeling anything less than sorry for the result in which she’d received. “I wouldn’t wait too much longer in finding one if I were any of you, though” Jasmine interrupts, prompting both Chevy and Kayla to turn toward her, the former chancellor’s eyes remaining glued to the bottle whilst her sister continues about her chore. “Why is that?” Chevy inquires, resting the ball of his elbow against the wooden countertop as he stares into the distance, eyes making it to the room’s centre. “Because I’ve heard rumblings that the NDF will be coming through Lancaster for something soon enough” Jasmine explains, continuing to slide in chairs whilst peering toward the mother every few seconds, “if they decide to go around doing inspections, there’s not much that I can do to keep y’all hidden.” “And you’ve just decided to tell us this now?” Kayla wonders aloud, the tone of a woman confused by the sudden revelation made clear. “I only just got a flyer in the mailbox this morning confirming it. I’d just figured it was nothing more than speculation amongst the people as per usual” Jasmine answers, shrugging her shoulders toward the larger group’s direction, “I don’t know what it means for me, but I’m not fucking around with what to expect out of them.” “So what does that mean for us?” Kennedy inquires, her repeated process of putting one bottle away after another having now stalled, “do we have to leave?” Shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head as she continues about business, Jasmine speaks through her duties. “I’d certainly prefer you leave if that happened than to just stand around and get captured” she replies, passing a glance to the youngest of the group, “that’d get you all killed- myself likely included.” “Great” Jaime sarcastically rebuttals, putting down the bottle of liquor before sliding it into the awaiting palm of Chevy’s open hand, spinning around in the seat she occupies to rejoin the tavern’s main floor. “So, does this mean we’re reopening that earlier conversation about where we go after all of this isn’t safe anymore?” Alex inquires, watching her daughter’s perturbed expression meet her. “Even if it did, what good would it do?” Jaime inquires, half-heartedly accepting the need to discuss matters in that moment whilst crossing her arms, still sceptical of anything than can be presented. “It would give us all a chance to- in good faith- talk about where we all go next” Alex answers honestly, overhearing a faint scoff out of Kayla at the notion whilst her eldest daughter grins with eyes staring into the distance. “Alright, mom. Let’s talk about it in good faith” Jaime soon replies, pulling out one of the seats the bartender had pushed inward, occupying it and letting an arm rest against the nearby table, “where do we all go next and how do we get there?” With lips parted, Alex runs the tip of her tongue against the bottom one and looks away with hands placed against her hip, the lengthy pause she first responds with opening the floor for her daughter to provide the answer. “I’m glad we’re all on the same page in admitting that we’ve got no fucking clue” Jaime says with a shit-eating smirk, nodding her head whilst patting the table with her outstretched fingers, “it was a great talk and I can’t wait to do it all over a-.” “We’ll go somewhere further out. Somewhere north, or maybe we can head east until we get past Las Vegas” Alex replies, immediately being reacted to with a groan and animatedly-pained expression from the woman across from her. “Mom, can’t you just accept that we’re screwed and there’s no changing that!?” Jaime exclaims, growing tired of the repetitive questions that all receive the same lack of an answer- the toll it takes now begins to weigh heavily upon her. “I’d prefer not to accept that, thank you very much” Alex retorts, her daughter’s eyes rolling as she turns away, beginning to walk back for the countertop. “I don’t care if the NDF seems unbeatable. I don’t care if Lancaster is a shit show or if Julia is burning that chair you used to sit at in a symbolic bonfire! I’d prefer to think there’s a way out of this that isn’t just waiting for fate to come force our hand!” the mother continues. “I always used to think it was my generation that got ‘I feel like’ mixed up with ‘the fact is’ without a second thought, but maybe I was wrong” Jaime quips aloud, shaking her head in the direction of the woman who’d given birth to her, “the fact of the matter is that we’re stranded here without a way out no matter what you’d like to believe, mom. No amount of hope or prayer is going to change that fact, alright?” “Then why don’t I step outside that door right now?” Alex questions, pointing to the tavern’s entrance whilst the rest of the room watches on, the bartender as captivated as the survivors of the republic’s fallen order. “If we’re screwed, then there’s no reason to just stay in here indefinitely. If we’re all done for, why not just get it all over with?” the mother inquires, allowing the lack of an immediate answer to prompt her journeying for the front door. “Mom” Jaime says with a breathy sigh, hanging her head as a calm prevention to usher the woman away from the entrance. Calming herself, Alex turns back for the room and stares at her daughter, who continues to hang her head and think quietly amongst herself, waiting for any set of words to keep her from entering the open with nothing to protect her. “The only reason we’re still here is because our hand has never been forced. Tearing through Lancaster with a spot in mind hoping that it’ll be safe there has always been too dangerous to risk without a reason” Jaime explains, clarifying their motivations beyond what’s arguable. “And what happens when that day does come- as Jasmine’s made it clear that it might?” Alex challenges, daring her daughter to reclaim her role of leadership in answering the question. “Then I’ll get you all somewhere where you’ll be safe” Jaime responds, a strange distancing of herself from the others slipping through the remark she makes, one that she’s aware her mother has caught onto. “I don’t know where that place is, but when the day comes- we’ll go looking for it. That’s where you’ll stay and where you’ll go on to live whatever lives you’re going to” she reassures, coming clean about her motivations now that there’s nowhere else to turn. Keeping to themselves, Chevy and Kayla watch on at the interaction whilst Kennedy stares confused, the same reaction as her mother, who holds the power of calling such distance into question. “And what about you?” Alex inquires, proceeding through the silence that immediately follows her daughter’s words. With steady eyes, Jaime chooses to reaffirm her stance and remain honest in her delivery, not missing a beat as the rest of the group watches on without a peep. “I made a promise to Julia. And for that matter, I made a promise to Wade too” the deposed chancellor responds, her rigid and grizzled tone carrying the words of a woman possessed by the need to finish what she’d started and carry out the declaration she’d made long ago, “there’s no life for me to live until the two of them are dead.” = Dire is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards = Walking with a face of displeasure, Wade leads two lines of armed guards through the foremost corridor of the building that had once stood as the capitol of the Angelino Republic with a half-scowl. In silence, the man’s march carries him to the very depths of the passageway, its walls now lined with framed artwork that had been snatched up from museums and private households throughout the mass of land that had been known as Los Angeles in a past life. “Ms. Avallone” the man remarks, stepping past an armed guard of the chancellor’s own and through an already-open door to find the woman awaiting his arrival. “Thanks for meeting me on such short notice” Julia replies, climbing out of her chair and extending her hand, hoping for it to find the palm of the NDF’s leader, only for him to take a seat of his own volition without reciprocating the gesture. “I’ve told you not to contact me unless absolutely necessary. Furthermore, I’ve instructed you to only request an in-person meeting when equally in need” Wade explains, clearly dissatisfied with having to find himself in the room which he does, “I’d like to make it clear that- whatever this meeting is about- better be worth both my time and my presence.” “You also made it reasonably clear that there were things you’d like be made aware of at all costs before they’re follow through upon” Julia retorts, watching the man’s lifted eyebrows meet her as the hand she’d stretched outward lowers back, joining her as she reenters the comfort of her seat. “I am well aware. Disputes beyond your half of the city, claims over lands beyond the coastline and interactions with any such forces are pretty much the only things that qualify here” Wade responds. “Exactly. Which means that- by your own qualifications- this is something that your presence is required for” Julia explains, holding the palms of both hands up for the man to inspect for himself, “regardless of the outcome to this discussion... My hands are clean. You- yourself- asked to be brought in.” “Then let’s not waste any more time than we already have” Wade rebukes, undoing the lone button that had held each end of his suit jacket together, “why am I here?” “Because I’d like to help you get ahead of schedule with your ingratiation of the outlying territories into the NDF” Julia replies, her introduction to the subject earning the man’s interest as it was hoped to. “Of course, this includes the small camps we’ve set up between there and here- but this mainly pertains to Lancaster” the chancellor recapitulates, crossing one leg over the other as she sinks further into her seat, “I want to put an end to this self-governance deal we’ve got going on.” “Why? It was your idea” Wade responds, lifting the knuckle of his right index finger to the base of his chin, “is there a threat they pose that makes you desire to take them under the city’s wing?” Shaking her head, Julia expresses her refusal before she can voice it aloud, softly introducing the man to her opinion before placing it into words. “No, but the longer they continue to operate mostly-independent of this place, the more the people will become accustomed to their own self determination” Julia explains, not finding much of an argument otherwise from her distinguished company, “I’m sure the NDF wouldn’t allow that self-governance to carry on after I’m gone, so why not nip it in the bud before anyone gets too comfortable with it.” “Explain what your reason for installing it in the first place was then” Wade responds, trying to uncover the deeper roots of such a motivation that could be lurking beneath the surface of his acquaintance’s purposefully-murky waters. “They’d just lost their leader. It was some skirmish he must’ve gotten into. Either way- he died” Julia explains, wiping her hands clean of the ordeal, “we had a deal that went when he did. It seemed advantageous to let them clean up their own mess.” “And now it doesn’t?” Wade questions, continuing to try and search for what may be hidden beyond what his view is afforded. “Oh no, it’s just not necessary anymore” Julia replies, folding her hands upon her lap whilst her elbows rest against the leather armrests to each side, “they did it. On their own, the businesses opened back up again, the people carried on with life, and- even though they had some obvious questions- a few vague answers seem to have held them over and helped them forget.” “So what’s the issue?” Wade continues to wonder aloud, finding himself able to see through the metaphorical waters, though still unwaveringly hesitant to buy into what he believes is a less than transparent tide. “There’s no issue. Like I said, it’s just better to keep them from getting too comfortable with being in charge of themselves. That won’t be the norm after a while, so why not start getting them antiquated with that quality of life?” Julia questions, “you’ll take over soon anyway.” “I suppose I’m just not seeing eye to eye with you over why it has to happen now- that’s all” Wade follows through, leaning forward in his seat with one arm draped over the edge of the chancellor’s desk. “I’m not saying it has to, I’m just saying it’d be beneficial to” Julia reassures, eyeing the man’s change in posture and dismissing it as unimportant, “if we get them under the republic’s wing now, you’ll already be there by the time you set me up in that beach house I asked for in paradise.” With a smile, Wade’s eyes take toward an unimportant side of the office and stare toward a dark corner, allowing his mind a freedom from sight as he ponders what to say next. “Ms. Avallone, the people here are barely reacting well to our presence as it is. You’ve proven to be able to keep them cooperative, but they’re hardly over the moon about us being here” the man explains, “why should we expend any of our strength in claiming Lancaster as our own when we’ve yet to settle things here?” “Because I’ll be taking Lancaster in. Your troops and other forces can stay here while you take in the sights from your penthouse downtown while my men and women get their hands dirty up north” Julia explains, letting her draped-over foot bounce in mid air. “Besides, it might also help me get down to those magnificent beaches in the middle of the Pacific a whole lot sooner” the chancellor doubles down, putting a smirk over the NDF leader’s face, “and I like the sound of that.” Lowering his amused expression back to the one of reserved patience and distrust, Wade sits with his thoughts and leans back in his seat, passing a glance to one of the guards stationed nearby. Considering the proposition, the NDF representative stares at the ground for a moment before looking back into the woman’s face, curious to what may yet to be spoken. “What do you stand to gain from this? Aside from an earlier retirement to paradise, there’s got to be something more for you” Wade explains, making it clear that he feels not all is being shared between the two, “is there a revolution brewing that I don’t know about? Is the dissatisfaction amongst the people something more to do with you than what we know about?” “The people are happy and fat and that’s all that matters” Julia responds, watching the shake in her company’s head tell the tale of someone clearly in objection to such a statement. “The people are going to work, coming home with food to feed their families, and going out to do the same thing the next day” Wade interjects, refusing the notion, “Under Jaime, they were happy and fat. Under you, they’re just going to work to put a meal on their plate and repeat the cycle.” “And under the new rules that you and I have worked to lay out in this city masquerading as a republic, ‘happy and fat’ really just means ‘cooperative and non-threatening’” Julia counters, dismissing the opinion of the people who simply act in society so as not to starve, “they may have been happier under Jaime’s government, but they were guaranteed nothing. As long as they don’t start trouble, my government at least guarantees that they’ll get to stay alive.” “And how long will it be until they decide that the shackles we’ve put on them are no longer worth living with?” Wade questions back, watching the chancellor’s hands uncouple so as to raise a finger toward his direction. “There it is. You’ve finally gotten the reason that you’ve sought after” Julia responds, confessing to the motivation that she’d buried below the surface of her murky presentation, “whenever they decide there's a reason for another Angelino Spring, I want to be long gone.” “And going into Lancaster is your ticket onto the next ship out?” Wade questions, immediately watching the chancellor lean into her seat and mimic his former stance, leaning against a crooked arm she presses into the surface of her desk. “You’re goddamn right it is” Julia admits with a smile, pleased with the conclusion they’ve come to and confident it will result in her obtaining the permission she’d sought out the leader’s offering of. | Locking the deadbolt on the front door, Jasmine pulls the curtain over the front door to put an end to yet another shift, freeing the disorganised room for her smuggled allies to venture toward once more. “Help yourselves to whatever’s left lying around” the woman proclaims, hearing the first set of footsteps venture out from within the backroom, immediately taking them to the kitchen, where an assortment of dirty glasses await a thorough rinse and wash. “Nothing for me tonight” Jaime proclaims, the second soul to escape the room at the tavern’s rear, the married couple casually following her lead shortly thereafter. “Same for us” Chevy declares, collecting an assortment of glass bottles that the now-departed patrons had left behind in an effort to empty them out one at a time. “Yeah, the whole threat of the NDF coming around for inspections kind of hampers our comfort in being anything less than sober” Kayla doubles down. Pushing in a few chairs, Jasmine lifts her eyes toward the ceiling whilst Alex traipses out from the breakroom, the final member of the group to join the overnight gathering. “I thought you said people didn’t get drunk after just one drink?” Kennedy inquires, raising the question toward the married couple that make up the set she considers to be a second family before dipping through the entrance to the kitchen. “They don’t. I was just looking for a reason to keep you from trying to sneak a drink behind anyone’s backs” Chevy responds, collecting a pile of thirty discarded bottles near the countertop’s halfway point as his wife nears closer to help. Pulling her bottom lip inward with the suction of her tongue, Jasmine continues to organise the seats in the room as a thought weighs heavily on her conscience, only making itself louder as the conversations of those around her fall silent. With the legs of one chair dragging along the ground a few paces beside her, the bartender’s eyes take toward a slightly downtrodden Alex, who carries on with her usual duties of assisting the woman in returning seats to their rightful places. Standing in place as the mother moves onto the next stool out of order, Jasmine stares at the ground amidst the sound of hustle and bustle that comes from the work of those around her, coming clean to the truth she’d concealed the night prior. “There was no notice from the NDF” Jasmine explains, feeling her conscience grow heavier with each passing second that those around her in all directions sit with anxieties high. “I lied last night to try and help Alex get the rest of you to talk about where to go next” the bartender continues, both Jaime and her mother taking eyes toward her whilst Chevy and Kayla split their attention between the discussion and their emptying of each glass. In silence, the former leader of a republic that’s now- and honestly always has been- anything but stares toward the woman without a word, questioning herself internally for a moment. “So they’re not coming?” Jaime inquires, shrugging her shoulders before snatching a bottle from her friends’ pile and taking it to her lips upon the tavern’s keeper shaking her head in refusal. “Alright then” the woman answers, sipping from the bottle without the outburst of displeasure that the bartender had been anticipating. “You’re okay with that?” Kayla questions aloud, not very disheartened by the false information they’d been fed the night before, but visibly less enthused about it than the former chancellor appears to be. “Well duh. You think I liked waiting for the people in suits to show up all day?” Jaime retorts, downing her swig of the beverage with lifted eyebrows, not showing an ounce of irritation whatsoever, “grab one of those bottles and let’s get to drinking.” Confused and unsure of what to make out of their friend’s demeanour, Chevy and Kayla stare in bewilderment as the young woman in the kitchen re-emerges from her seclusion. “What does that mean for our plan?” Kennedy wonders aloud, sparking intrigue from the tavern’s owner, who looks toward her with widened eyes. “It means we don’t have to worry about any of it just yet, Ken” Jaime responds as the bottle lowers from her lips, the tip of her tongue dancing across the brown glass’ rim. “Wait, you really made a plan?” Jasmine questions, stepping away from the bar’s centre at the announcement of such detail, “when was this?” “After you left for the night, mom went into the back for a smoke and Chevy and Kayla snuck off to fuck in the bathroom” Jaime casually replies, bringing slight ignominy over the married couple and a brief shame over the present mother. “Jaime said we’d go back to our old home since it’s outside of where Julia and the NDF are” Kennedy answers, watching her sister silently nod at the plot they’d secretly crafted. “The old- you mean the one we shared with your-?” Alex stutters, the conclusion she speaks of being one that the deposed chancellor doubles down on. “Yes, the one we shared before the catalyst mom... That home” Jaime responds, spinning around in her seat before leaning against the counter, lifting the bottle to her lip for a second time, “you wanted us to make a plan, so we made one. Whether you care for it or not doesn’t matter to me. So now, you can stop incessantly asking the question.” “We can’t go back to that home, Jaime” Alex argues back, immediately watching her daughter lift the drink to her lips yet again, enduring her parent’s response in order to wait for an opportunity to dismiss it. “Number one, it’s too far away to safely get to. Number two, it’s too close to the republic as is for it to be truly safe” the woman continues on, watching her daughter sigh in relief at the finished sip of lite beer, “and number three, I’m sure Julia and Wade would know to look there.” “I will gladly welcome any alternative that you have to offer, but as last night showed- you don’t have one” Jaime confesses, stepping off the stool with a disparaging attitude toward the conversation that appears to be unfolding once again. “Look, can we all just take a second to admit that we’re not in the most enviable of positions here?” the former leader wonders aloud, passing a glance to all that surround the tavern’s gathering room. “Hell, we’ve all spent the better part of the last year and a half being stripped of any and every reason to have the slightest hope for what comes next anyway” Jaime proclaims, evidence that she points out and fails to find an argument against, “I lost Kate, and Jordan, and the republic. Kennedy watched Amelia die, Chevy and Kayla went through a miscarriage, and even mom lost David. If there was any group that had the best year of their lives... It sure as hell isn’t us.” “And instead of doing something about it, we’re hiding out in the bar of a town that smuggled slaves in to put together cheap goods in order to operate” Alex calmly replies, only for her daughter’s raised voice to project itself back toward her. “You’re damn right we are because we’ve got no other fucking choice!” Jaime screams back, her passive aggressive and partially placid presentation falling aside immediately in favour of a hearty and passionate explosion of emotion. “I let a woman play me like a fucking fool and take away everything from me! My republic, my trust, my fucking fiance! SHE TOOK IT ALL AWAY!” Jaime explodes, irate in ways she doesn’t believe she’d ever felt before, “the only source of comfort that I ever take nowadays is the thought that there’s still a chance for me to go out and brutally massacre the same people that have gotten me here- that have gotten all of us here! The only comfort I have in life is a vicious cycle of murder!” Pressing her lips together, Alex stares into the face of her daughter with sorrow whilst she continues to speak, seeing the fragile display of unenthused composure break like glass behind the weight of a baseball. “I spend every second of the day- when not asleep- dreaming of the moment where I can finally take away from Wade and Julia what they took away from me” Jaime confesses, tears streaming down her enraged face, “and I do that knowing they’re un-fucking-touchable now.” In the background, Chevy and Kayla keep to themselves as Kennedy slips behind the counter, taking comfort in standing between them and wrapping her arms around their waists, hugging them the way she can’t hold her mother and sister. “I may have made the wrong calls to get here, but it’s them that took everything away from me and I have no chance in hell at getting them back for it” Jaime continues to declare, incapable of keeping her tense body from shaking. Off to the side, Jasmine stares with disheartened eyes at the discussion that’s had before her, having never truly felt the kind of pain that the group had been enduring in literal silence. “The only reason I keep waking up every day is so I can get that one moment where luck falls in my direction and I get finally get my revenge” Jaime proceeds, not hesitating in carrying on, “that’s what I live for now. My life’s purpose has become seeing Julia and Wade writhe in pain for what they’ve done.” Without a response, Alex steps forward and wraps her arms around the woman once referred to as ‘a broken little girl from a broken little home’, too overwhelmed by emotion to do anything more than pull her close. Without a fight, Jaime instantly falls silent, her tears staining the shirt over her mother’s shoulder as her face presses against the woman, her body held close for comfort that befalls the two of them. Without uttering a peep, the mother and daughter embrace brings a momentary peace over the room, one that the three souls off to the bar’s side experience for themselves amidst each other’s loving hug. “New Democratic Front... Open up!” a voice calls out as a closed fist repeatedly slams against the wooden frame of the tavern’s entrance, unable to collide with the glass panel before his eyes. Taking away from each other’s touch, the five stowaways that the tavern houses immediate enter a state of panic and confusion, the shared tranquillity that they’d just welcomed instantly dissipating. “I thought you said you were lying!” Alex hisses back, turning to look at the bartender with eyes of betrayal, only to see an equal shock and surprise in the woman’s face meet her own. “I was!” Jasmine retorts, unable to say a word more before a second set of knocks further demand her attention. “This is your last chance to open the door before we break through this glass!” the NDF soldier proclaims, barking an order to those within- who are uncertain if he’d heard any of the prior discourse. “I’m coming, hold on!” Jasmine shouts, walking up to the mother and daughter before quickly shoving them toward the direction of the backroom. “Either hide somewhere back there or slip through the backdoor” the woman commands, passing her orders off to the embracing mother and daughter as quietly as she can, “either way, just don’t get cau-!” As if impatient or distrusting of the tavern’s owner, the commanding NDF officer slams his rifle’s base against the glass pane and shatters the entrance, not offering the bartender a chance to approach the bar’s front. “Go now!” Jasmine suddenly shouts, watching the curtain flow inward as the first soldier steps through the violently-made entrance, overhearing the declaration before looking forward to face the commotion. “What the-!?” the soldier exclaims, instinctively reacting with confusion at the sight of the five fugitives whose faces have been burned into his memory by this point, yet to act for the first two seconds. Upon the sound of shattering glass, Chevy leaps into action and climbs over the bar’s counter, hurrying past the three souls that stand between himself and the intruder before swinging his fist at the soldier’s face, taking him to the ground and immediately disarming him. “Put the-!” a second soldier commands, unable to utter a word further before he and two other NDF officers feel the various punctures throughout their body of the man’s opened fire. “Chevy!” Kennedy exclaims, joining Kayla in rounding the bar counter to assist the man that now ducks for cover beside the door, hearing gunshots ring throughout the air and through the still-downed curtain. “Go!” Chevy barks, too embroiled within the chaos to even take notice of the unconsciousness he’d sent the first soldier in- the man now just lying on the ground in a heap as his colleagues are picked off by his assailant. “Stop shooting!” a man exclaims from outside the tavern, only for his orders to be disobeyed when the gunman puts two slugs through his cheek. “Get down!” Jaime exclaims, shoving Jasmine and her mother toward Kennedy and Kayla’s direction before zipping onward, throwing herself into the body of the first soldier and searching him for anything to aid in the altercation. “Jaime, go to the others and get somewhere safe!” Chevy orders, made aware of the woman’s refusal when she unholsters a knife and a pistol from the officer’s tactical belt. “If we’ve made anything clear to each other by now, it’s that none of us are leaving each other high and dry!” Jaime responds, snatching two clips from the soldier before taking cover on the opposite side of the door from the man. “Jaime, I’m not kidding!” Chevy retorts, peaking around the wall to spot a few NDF mercenaries hurrying for cover behind a car parked closely nearby. “Neither am I!” Jaime exclaims, peering around the corner and opening fire on the first soldier that comes into her sight, watching blood spew from his neck once her bullet impales him. In silence, the remaining four survivors duck into the breakroom and into cover, hurrying as if they had poor intentions on their mind. “Jaime, just get back and look after Kayla if I don’t make it out of here!” the man barks, stepping out of cover once more to pierce another officer with bullets once he stands from behind a concrete pillar. “Not happening, Chevy. Just do what I say and we’ll make it out of here without a scratch!” Jaime shouts back, catching her breath and pausing to press her back against the wall, looking the man in the eyes as she goes to speak. “I counted four people ducking behind that car a few yards away, alright? If we can take care of them, that should give us an opportunity to climb in and make a break for it” Jaime declares, unable to tell whether or not the mercenaries that surround them are aware of who opens fire in their direction. “That’s the NDF’s car, Jaime! They’ve probably got trackers and other shit all over it!” Chevy rebukes, firing blindly into the air so as to provide them with a brief amount of cover fire. “So we’ll ditch it somewhere further up north and make out on foot or find a different car after that!” the discarded chancellor barks back, catching a glimpse of her group returning from the backroom with renewed vigour, readied with rifles of their own from Jasmine’s personal stash. “It’s still our best bet at getting out of here!” Kayla chirps, gesturing for Kennedy to keep herself covered behind Chevy whilst joining her husband’s side in battle, both Alex and Jasmine occupying the side of Jaime. “There’s still way too many of them out there for us to just climb in and get it going!” the man rebukes, watching the former chancellor duck toward the ground and carefully aim her pistol, firing at the ankles of those that use the vehicle for protection. In silence, the group watch the woman go to work with the firearm before she sports a pleasured grin, overjoyed with her work before glancing back for the man across from her, “they’re not a problem anymore.” Though it’s delivered with a menacing and almost psychotic smirk, Chevy takes a strangely distinct delectation in the proclamation before opening fire into the distance again, coming to terms with the plan that’s been made. From the safety of their various places of cover, the remaining members of the NDF’s frontline watch the building’s inhabitants slip through the door’s opening one at a time, racing for cover behind the vehicle with the aid of return fire. “We’re outnumbered now, sir!” an officer barks toward his superior, whose nostrils flare from the same anger that prompts his eye to squint. “Well, whoever they are will have to shoot every last-” the irate superior proclaims, falling over his own words before his thought can even be finished as he spots one of the escapees from the corner of his eye. “Sir!?” the subordinate calls out, unable to hear the man’s conclusion as he remains in cover, unloading a few blind rounds toward their assailants as he waits for the man’s continued declaration, “sir!?” Waiting to cover the rest of the group from the back, Jasmine remains within the tavern’s entrance as the group sprints through the shattered window, racing for the vehicle’s cover with reignited hopes that this will prove to be their way out of hiding. Letting out a deep sigh, the bartender performs the sign of the cross in hopes that any god watching over her and the other survivors will allow the outcome to be one that works in their favour. Peering from around the cover of a rock off to the side of the dirt road, the subordinate glances back to find a face familiar to him rounding the front of the distant vehicle, her visage one imprinted upon the conscience of those that remain part of the Angelino Republic. “Is that Jaime Morris!?” the younger soldier questions aloud, looking back to his superior to watch the man take aim with his rifle, firing a shot that connects only with the ground she walks over. Stepping ahead of Kennedy, Jasmine provides the young woman cover and provides her with a route to the backseat of the vehicle before catching a glimpse of the distant subordinate, who follows through on his superior’s shortcoming by emerging from cover with his rifle drawn at Jaime. Instinctively, the bartender glances toward the man’s side to find his presumed higher-rank as his eyes collide with her- his aim following suit whilst her opportunity dwindles. Also rounding the vehicle’s front, Chevy steps into the open and draws his weapon toward the superior as a round is fired off, pulling his own trigger just as the older mercenary does. With the squeeze of her finger, Jasmine fires a bullet through the subordinate’s head just as his aim had been centred upon the deposed chancellor, squeezing her eyes shut to brace for the impact of his superior’s shot as it pierces her chest. Closing off the trifecta of well-placed shots, Chevy sends a brass jacket ripping through the superior’s throat as a line of blood falls through the air alongside the body it’d spewed from- the shot fired just one second too late. “Jasmine!” Kennedy shouts, racing to the aid of the tavern’s owner as she stumbles backward, falling into the same shattered window she’d stepped through just seconds prior. Unsure of whether or not the danger has been alleviated, Jaime braces for cover within the armoured truck’s driver’s seat as Chevy and Kayla race around the vehicle, hurrying to the call of her younger sister. “Ken!” Alex calls out as the married couple near closer, hurrying after her daughter as the young girl leaps through the tavern’s broken entrance. “Kennedy, go!” Jasmine groans, struggling to breathe as her hand applies pressure to the bullet wound that clogs her airways, limiting the time she has to spend amongst the living substantially. “Kennedy, we have to go!” Alex hurriedly exclaims, rushing to the young girl’s side as Chevy and Kayla near closer before pulling her child back, sending her into the arms of the couple that join her in the tavern’s entrance. “You guys have to go!” Jasmine stammers, pushing Alex away as the woman attempts to help, refusing the assistance as Chevy sends Kennedy into the arms of his wife, directing them to the awaiting vehicle. “We can get you help! We can patch you up and-” the man attempts to plead, trying to return the favour of kindness to the bartender who refuses anything less than their departure. “It’s too late... Go!” Jasmine pleads for a third time, swatting the man’s hands away as they reach out to help her up, preventing him from assisting her before Alex’s pull guides the man back. “Chevy, she’s not going to come with us...” the mother declares, trying to lead the man who’d been there for her family in ways that makes him just the same, “...we need to go.” “Come on!” Jaime calls out through the rolled down, passenger’s side window as Kayla holds Kennedy close in the backseat, watching Chevy and her mother climb through the tavern’s entrance to make for their great escape. Joining her daughter in the front seat, Alex buckles herself into the seat whilst the man joins his wife and the young lady she cares for in the back. Without warning, Jaime’s foot stomps into the gas pedal and thrusts the car forward, kicking up dirt just as they had nearly a year ago- making an escape from the adversity that faces them now as it had before. Without much of a destination in mind, the deposed chancellor begins the long journey into the great unknown, hoping for the best out of what lies ahead, though uncertain over whether this travel will be amongst their final in this life or their first at the start of a new one. == Dire == |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
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