S5, E6 | No Sleep Until Sundown

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.

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“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.”

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“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.

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“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 ==