A Small Spark

Amaris

Breaking into Kirio was not as easy as it sounds. Amaris knew cameras would be pointed at them in every direction. While they could use the cameras to see into the facility, Damon was having a hard time trying to break down the firewalls surrounding the mainframe. On the bright side, she had spent a lifetime watching Atlantis, she knew where the cameras were going to be.

They devised a plan, or at least they tried to. Matthias would interject his opinion and they would have to restart their planning. He was correct, though. The could not do anything that would expose them. They had to be more careful than any other job they had been hired for.

A week passed.

Matthias approached them and said they needed to complete the mission within twenty-four hours. They had been taking too long and Matthias’s contact in the castle had mentioned that John and Lyla were growing weak and ill. The longer they waited, the worse they were going to get. A rescue mission with two people from Kirio would be difficult, but two people with serious sicknesses would be a thousand times harder.

As she was contemplating this, all the televisions suddenly went black across Atlantis. She glanced at Damon, knowing what this meant. King Ahab had a message for them. The screen was only dark for a few seconds before reigniting with King Ahab’s face staring at them. The background instantly told them he was in the throne room of the castle. “Hello,” he said in false greeting. “It has come to my attention that a rumor regarding my family has spread across Atlantis. I would like to quench any and all rumors now. As you all know, my older brother, King Jonathan, died tragically in a car accident ten years ago. Before he and his wife died, his wife was pregnant with a girl. Queen Aralia never gave birth to her child, as that pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage. As you may know, there is a rumor that my niece is living in the forest. You see, this is impossible as the child died eighteen years ago. I know not who is living in the forest, but I guarantee it is not my niece. To prove this, a group of Keepers has been sent into the forest to investigate who is living there, as it could not possibly be my niece. That is all.” The screens returned to its original position.

Damon tensed beside Amaris. In the distance, they could hear marching, they were coming and quickly. Matthias shook his head. “Guess you’ll be needing somewhere to stay,” he said. Annoyed, she walked over to the window and looked out. Sure enough, there was the army of the king, walking to take her home. The thought of those ignorant morons in her forest struck her to her core. This was her home. Hers. Damon started typing away at one of the computers.

“They’re coming from the north, Mare,” he said. “If we move quickly, we might be able to make it out through the south.”

“The electric fence will be on there,” Matthias interjected.

“That’s okay,” she replied. “Let’s just go.”

Damon took a deep breath before sending the virus through the computers and everything, killing all the information they had ever gathered. Damon and Amaris were always prepared for any inconvenience possible. They closed the treehouse and took with them the most important belongings. They fled, keeping to the shadows as they headed south, towards the mountains.

When they reached tree 156,736, a tree closest to a small village, Amaris tied a loose rope around the trunk of the tree. She could see the Keepers looking through every single tree in the distance. Hopefully, the treehouses would keep them preoccupied for right now. She looked over at the roof on the other side of the fence. This was going to be simple, all she had to do was swing over the electric fence and drop at the right time onto the roof so that she did not kill herself by landing on the hard ground.

Easy.

Matthias went first, swinging easily across to the roof as though he had done so a thousand times before. Amaris knew that he had once. This used to be the only escape from the forest, this was before they found the break in the fence. Damon went next. He fell to the roof, landing on his right arm. Then it was her.

Amaris glanced behind her to the forest. Her home. She took a deep breath and with one long swing, she left the forest.

They found themselves entering Central as the fake sun began to rise in the sky the next day. Matthias was no longer with them, he had stayed behind in Jasper when they had passed through.

Damon spent the day in a crummy inn, re-hijacking the Kirio’s mainframe. Likewise, she spent the day scouting the facility, walking around the perimeter. She tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. Damon made sure to remind her to stay away from the guards. If they saw her, they would take her fingerprints to find out who she was. Her fingerprints had not been in the system since she was eight.

Amaris did enter the building around noon. When everyone was heading to their lunch, she walked into the crowd, “accidentally” bumping into one of the scientists. The papers he had been holding fell to the ground. In his distraction, she grabbed his badge and used it to let her onto the elevator. The elevator took her to the sixth floor. Once there, she maneuvered her way around to the window overlooking the city. She could see the tree perfectly. She opened the window and placed a small device onto the side of it. At exactly one o’clock tonight, the device would push the window open.

Once this was done, she quickly fled from the building, leaving the scientist’s badge in lost and found.

Slowly, night began to fall. Amaris felt more comfortable in the darkness and the shadows. That night, she took out a black shirt she had bought from the street market earlier that day. With her knife, she carved for herself the perfect mask to cover her face in order to hid her true identity. She also took out black leather gloves and pulled them over her hands. If her fingerprints got anywhere, scientists would be called in to analyze the prints. When the results returned void, they would broaden the search to the dead. Then, the problem would only grow worse.

Lastly, she placed a small plastic earpiece in her ear. This would allow her to talk to Damon from inside the facility. He would be watching her every move from the safety of his computer. Her life was in his hands now.

The pseudo-moon rose high in to sky. Unlike the citizens of Atlantis, Amaris knew the truth about the moon. It was fake, like everything else in this cursed land. But the moon and the sun were Ahab’s secret weapons. About ten years ago, Ahab developed this sort of super camera, it worked like a fingerprint scanner in a way. Instead of showing an overview of this country, it showed where every living person was. It was a tracker, a way for Ahab to know what they were doing and why. If he wanted to see explicitly what they were doing, he had the birds. They were inconspicuous, unless you knew about them. They flew around Atlantis, gathering images of the people for Ahab. It was one of the factors as to why all the rebellions had been stopped in the past years.

A feeling of liberation flashed over Amaris as she realized that she was not on that camera. She crouched in the bushes outside of the gate of the facility. The guards changed shifts every thirty minutes on the dot. This was in effort to decrease tiredness and keep the guards moving. She crawled slowly to a large nearby tree. She wanted for the guard closest to her to be replaced. His replacement was going slower than anticipated and she could tell even he was growing annoyed. Eventually, the replacement came and the two began to argue. Swiftly, Amaris climbed the tree until she was about fifty feet in the air. She leaned against the trunk as she sat on a strong branch. She sighed inwardly.

“Thirty minutes, Mare,” she heard Damon’s voice in her head. She sat in silence for thirty minutes. When the time had finished, Damon murmured in her ear that it was time for them to move. She saw the guards begin to talk to one another, it was time. She unhooked the rope tied to her and swung it back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Suddenly, she let go and the hook side latched onto the opened window. She pulled at it confidently, testing it to make sure it would stay.

She watched the ground below. The Keepers began to pace. She grabbed her bag and flung it over the top of the rope. It was now or never. She pushed herself off of the branch and raced down the rope like a zipline. Reaching the opened window, she grabbed a hold of the window sill and threw her bag over her shoulder, making sure it would not fall to the ground below. She pulled herself through the window and into the room.

After landing, Amaris raced to the door at the far end of the room. To her surprise, it was unlocked. This worried her more than the Keepers pacing around the halls. Cautiously, she opened the door. It creaked loudly as it went. The hall before her was completely dark.

Five feet.

There was five feet between the door and the nearest camera. Without hesitation, she pulled knife from her belt and threw it at the camera, destroying it. “One down,” she heard Damon mutter in her ear. She rolled her eyes and headed towards the top floor. She had exactly ten minutes to reach it. She began to run.

Turning the corner, she did not hesitate before plunging her knife into another camera. She stopped only a second to dislodge the knife before she continued to run. “That’s two,” said Damon as he watched her progress from the computer. She counted three minutes before she saw a Keeper. He must have been sent to see to the camera situation.

Without batting an eye, she sent a knife straight into his heart. She grabbed her knife, wiping the read blood on his shirt as she went.

Another corner. Another camera.

Down another hall. Two cameras this time.

Another corner.

“They’re on their way, Amaris,” I heard Damon say. Above her stood an opening to the ventilation shaft. With haste, she climbed up into it. She crawled as quickly as she could. All too soon, she came to a fork in the road. She needed to climb up to the top floor. Without hesitation, she turned and climbed upward, using the side of the shaft. It was harder than she anticipated, but to stop was certain death.

Parallel to her was a ladder. She knew better than to try and grab ahold of it. When she was thirteen, back when Matthias lived in the forest with them, they were casually checking the surveillance footage. It was there that they happened upon a conversation between Ahab and the owner of this building. They were discussing this ladder. She did not know what it did, but she knew that to touch it was a trap. So, as weary as she was, she held onto the side of the shaft for her dear life.

It took a long time, but she could see the end before her. With newfound strength, she propelled herself forward and pulled herself into the opening. She crawled quickly, nearly there.

She found the room in which John was being held. From the bars, she could see him sitting against the wall, looking miserable. She noticed the texture of the walls. The room was sound proof; Ahab did not want the people of Atlantis hearing their screams. She removed the bars and jumped down to the him. Startled, he looked up at her.

“I’m in,” she said to Damon.

“Alright,” he replied, she could hear the gentle taps of his computer keyboard, “system restarting in three, two, one.”

“Who are you? John coughed out to her. His face was butchered and his shoulder seemed to have been bleeding, but after a quick inspection, Amaris did not think it still was. He looked as though he had not had a real meal in months and she was certain he could hear her heart breaking inside of her chest at the sight of him. The John that she had known have a never-creasing smile on his face. His blue eyes would stand out against his blond hair. Everything about him typically exuded happiness. Yet now, he just looked like a shell of a human being.

Amaris walked toward him, knowing that for some reason, he already trusted her. This was always John’s down fall. He trusted people too quickly, he trusted strangers with no proof they’d be a benefit to him.

She pulled the glove off of her hand and felt his head. It he had a fever, the chances of a clean getaway would diminish greatly. He felt hot, but he claimed that he was okay to walk. She didn’t fully believe him, but she didn’t have time to protest.

Damon and Matthias had told Amaris that John would be dehydrated. Remembering this, she handed him a bottle of water to drink from while she tried to pick the lock of his chains. She heard him gulp the water like it had been the only thing he’d wanted in the world. “Thank you,” he said, returning the bottle to her. She nodded and offered him her hand, which he took gratefully.

It was obvious from the beginning he had little strength. There was no possible way he was going to be able to pull himself into the ventilation shaft on his own. Amaris climbed back into the shaft, turning around to offer him her hand. He tried all he could, but she was the one who initially pulled him up.

“Where’s you sister?” Amaris asked.

“One room over,” he replied, gasping for breath. The short climb into the shaft had apparently winded him quite a bit. He lent against the shaft wall. Amaris assumed he’d be alright while she jumped down into the next room.

In less than two minutes, she returned to the shaft with the sickly Lyla trailing after her. It was apparent that she had been less harmed than her brother. She was able to move on her own while John would nearly pass out every few minutes from sheer exhaustion. He desperately needed to see a Healer.

It took them awhile, but they finally reached the fork in the road. Amaris tied the second rope she had brought to the side of the shaft. Lyla went first. Amaris gave her specific instructions as to how to repel herself down to the opening where she had left her bag earlier.

To her credit, Lyla had absolutely no trouble climbing down the shaft. She pulled herself into the correct opening, as instructed. John went next. She tied the rope meticulously around him. She knew that he did not have the strength to repel down the shaft himself. She was going to have to do it for him. She lowered him inch by inch into the opening where Lyla was ready to catch him. Repelling him took an immense amount of strength and she could feel her arms beginning to shake as she was lowering him. She forced herself to focus on ensuring John reached the correct opening.

When reached the opening, Lyla pulled into the opening beside her.

Now, it was Amaris’s turn. Sweat beaded across her forehead She wiped it away, overly aware that she was losing precious time. “Mare,” Damon say in her ear, “update.” She was thankful for the distraction and the extra time to rest for a moment.

“We’re in the ventilation shaft,” she answered.

“Still? You need to get out of there. It’s almost two.”

“Alright,” she muttered. It was now or never.

She grabbed the rope and jumped downward, ignoring any feat that could potentially arise. Everything was working out well until Amaris started to hear the rope begin to crack. It was her own fault, really, as she had the option to buy new rope or the one that had been sitting in the treehouse for five years. She should have been smarter than this. She threw herself off of the rope and grabbed the first thing she could get her hands on. Which happened to the be the ladder.

For the love of Poseidon, she cursed to herself.

Amaris looked down at her hands. Instead of the calloused skin she was accustomed to, all she saw were boils. She could smell the grotesque scent of burning flesh. Sickened, she started to let go of the ladder. It’s an illusion, the thought appearing in her mind. She took deep breaths. It was just an illusion. She blinked and the boils were gone. Triumphant, she smiled. At least she knew what the ladder did now. She glanced back around. Twenty feet below her stood Lyla and John, still awaiting her. She started making her way down the ladder.

Then, a devilish dragon-like creature rose from the depths of the air vent. Amaris gasped and held tightly to the ladder. The creature breathed fire as it flew higher towards her, preparing itself for the toxic acid it would spit at her. Another monster like it entered the scene as well. Their eyes glowed fiercely red and its green scales illuminated the shaft. Amaris stiffened, fear paralyzing her where she was.

She couldn’t breathe. Her palms began to sweat in her fear. Her tight grip on the ladder did little to counteract the slippery grip of her hands. Her right hand slipped from the ladder and, in her fear, she couldn’t understand how to put it back. Her eyes, as though she hadn’t even noticed the slip, were still trained on the abyss below. She was vaguely aware that someone was calling to her. So, paralyzed with fear, she could not even scream.

Someone was pulling at her. Her left hand started to slip from the ladder as well. The panic within her increased. She clung with all her might to the ladder, terrified that if she let go she would fall to the drakkons below. Meanwhile, the creatures were drawing closer to her.

“Let go,” she heard a voice say.

“I can’t!” she screamed back. “Go, save yourself!”

“Trust me,” the kind voice said. Amaris did not trust the voice in the least. But between the slippery hands and the shaking arms, she knew she would not have a chance of holding on much longer. So, she let go.

Instead of falling to her death like she had anticipated, she was carried downward. Her eyes were closed, afraid of looking at the drakkons below her. She was gently placed on the shaft’s floor. She took two deep breaths. In and out. In and out. When she was ready, she opened her eyes to see that John and Lyla were starting down at her.

“Amaris?” John said in surprise. Instantly, her hands flew to her face. The mask was gone now, fallen when those creatures were climbing towards her. Amaris allowed herself two deep breaths before she rose to her feet.

“Come on,” she said, she shrank once more to her knees and began crawling their way out of the ventilation shaft. “Thanks,” she added to John, knowing that it was him who had saved her.

As she led the way, she heard Damon’s voice from the inn again. “Mare? Are you okay? I calculated an increase in her heart rate.”

“I’m fine,” she answered through gritted teeth.

Exhaustion crept up inside of Amaris again. It had been a long time since she’d had this sort of a job. She could barely remember the way back to the window and had to rely on Damon to lead the path for her. While they walked, John was forced to lean on both Amaris and Lyla, having exerted the last of his energy in trying to keep Amaris from falling to her death in the shaft.

When they reached the window, Amaris unhooked the rope and tied it firmly around John’s waist, knowing he would be unable to hold it himself. She reached out to Lyla, but the woman was able to grab ahold the rope herself. “Hold on tight,” instructed Amaris. She pushed them out of the window and, at the last moment, threw herself onto the rope with them.

When they swung over the gate, Amaris cut John free from the rope and each of them fell into the bush outside of the gate.

They headed as quickly as they could to the stable in Central. Amaris took the first two horses she saw. Lyla was able to easily swing herself onto the horse while Amaris helped John climb onto the other one. Afterwards, she climbed in front of him. “Hold onto me, John,” she murmured. His grip around her waist proved how little strength he had left. Together, they raced off towards Jasper City.

Jasper City was home to the second largest crime rate in Atlantis, something that the city had acquired after the Second Great War. It was once a beautiful, thriving city. Now, it was nothing more than a den for criminals to hide in.

As the sun began to rise in the sky, they came upon the city. The few people out at that time of day glared at them as they entered. John was asleep, leaning against Amaris’s shoulder. She had feared he was going to fall off throughout the night, particularly when he had dozed off, so she tied a rope around them. Unfortunately, if he didfall off, she would quickly follow suit.

Amaris headed for a very specific tavern in the city. The Little Turtle Tavern was owned by the founder of the Rising. Matthias had brought the place after he moved away from the forest. Amaris knew he would know what to do with John and Lyla. Besides, she needed a place to wait for Damon. This was something they did after every job. They would split up, just in case something went wrong.

When she entered the tavern, the bartender said, “Can I help you, Miss?” She turned to reply, “no” when she was who it was that spoke. She grinned a little.

“Hello, Martin,” she replied with a kind voice. “I’m here to see Matthias. I’ve brought him a present.”

“Is that how you greet old friends?” he mocked. Amaris granted him a grin again and allowed a small embrace. “He told me all about it,” he whispered in her ear. “I have a room for them both.”

“John is going to need a Healer,” Amaris stated. Martin nodded and told her that he was taking care of it. He ordered Amaris to sit down and have a drink. Amaris did not argue, but walked to the counter and poured herself a drink. There was no one else in the tavern as it was only around five in the morning. Lyla and Matthias entered the tavern, carrying Matthias between them.

Amaris was too awake to even think of sleeping herself. Sure, Martin had told her numerous times to try and sleep, but Amaris refused. Instead, she turned on the television which hung rather precariously on the wall.

“In breaking news,” the reporter started, “a car transporting two criminals was attacked last night. While the king has refused to bring forward any information on the matter, it has been noted that whomever attacked the car is the same person who has been masquerading as the daughter of the late King Jonathan. These two criminals were found missing this morning when they car never arrived to Flykai. It is believed that these criminals are armed and dangerous.” Pictures of John and Lyla flashed across the screen. “If you see them, speak to a Keeper immediately.”

Amaris turned off the television, annoyance growing inside of her. They could not say that John and Lyla were rescued from Kirio because then the people would know they were being tested on. So, Ahab concocted this half-witted story.

The day came back to Amaris, all of a sudden, like a wave washing up on the sand. It was raining, she recalled. She strode around the edge of the forest alone. She was always alone as a child; she did not trust anyone the way that most people did. She was supposed to be in school, but she had skipped it. She had determined from an early age that school could not teach her anything of real value.

As she came upon the familiar road, she saw a car turned upside down because it had rolled twice. She raced over to the crash, finding a man reaching out to her. It took all of the strength she could muster to pull him through the windshield. Covered in blood, she noted the piece of glass that had impaled him, but even with the grotesque scene, she knew who he was. He was King Jonathan. She gently removed the piece of glass and placed pressure on the wound. He was in a lot of pain, but he tried to smile. “Aralia?”

“No, it’s Amaris, sir.”

“Amaris?” he said, a strange state of bliss appearing inside of her. “That’s a perfect name.”

Unsure of how to reply, she said, “Thank you, sir.” She looked back at the wound. There was nothing she could do and there was no one in sight. The king was going to die and there was nothing she could do to the contrary. She looked at the eyes of the king as she told him, “I’m sorry, sir, there’s nothing I can do.”

“That is okay,” he answered. “It was only a matter of time before my brother took my life for the throne.” Amaris did not know how to answer him, so she remained silent. “You have to stop him, Amaris. You have a greatness inside of you and you have to do something with it. I have faith in you.” He gasped for breath, death coming swiftly for him. “You have to run now, alright? Run into the forest and stay there. I need you to be safe.” Amaris did not want to leave the man, but she could not disobey the words of a dying man. “I love you, Aralia.”

Amaris did not correct him. She could not because she was beginning to understand. She was small and young, only eight years old, but she understood entirely.

“Thank you, sir,” she answered.

“At the end of the forest, there’s a treehouse. That will hold everything you need.” He reached in desperation for another breath. “Go now,” he said. And she ran. She raced far away from the mighty king. And she did not stop until she was at the edge of the forest, near the fence.

When she looked back, she could see the car, and the king trapped beside it, explode. Whoever wanted him dead had planted a bomb under the car, just in case the crash did not end him. She vaguely wondered if that was why she had told her to run.

She heard the funeral was amazing. Ahab delivered the most moving eulogy that was still discussed in Atlantean society. He had better, she thought when she heard it, it was the least he could do after he killed his brother.

Amaris’s thoughts turned to the foreigner, the Surfacer who was supposedly King Jonathan’s son. He definitely had no idea what he was going to find when he reached Atlantis.

Around noon, the door to the tavern opened. She looked over, expecting to see Damon. It was starting to get late, she wanted to know where he was. She was ready to return to the forest. Instead, Kane and Shane entered the room, equally proud smiles plastered to their faces.

Shane and Kane, while twins, did not hold much similarity to one another. Shane wore her hair short, dying it every few months to match her mood. Today, her hair was dark brown, matching her brother’s. Kane, on the other hand, generally pulled his long hair into a bun, much like it was today. Both of them had olive skin that glinted against the florescent light above them.

They sauntered over to her. Amaris murmured a bland greeting to them. “Go ahead, ask what we did,” Kane told her. She rolled her eyes in disinterest.

“Please, tell me, what did you do?” she asked in monotone and bitter sarcasm. They threw down a disc before her. She raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “Look at you. You created something that was invented a hundred years ago.” She rolled her eyes once more to emphasize her point.

“Amaris,” Shane continued, “it’s what’s on the disc that we’re talking about.” Annoyed, she impatiently asked them what was on the disc. They smiled and pulled out their iports. Shane inserted the disc into hers.

The words “download now?” appeared on the iport. Curiosity emerged inside of Amaris. “We finished the translator,” said Kane as the program appeared on the screen.

“Whenever those foreigners come,” added Shane, “we’ll be ready for them.”

Amaris thought once more about the foreigners. Where were they? When were they coming?