CHAPTER 5

Week 2

Jasmine heard the wind whistle past her ears and blow in her hair as she ran. The sky was dark with thick clouds, and rain poured on her. She made sure to watch every step she took not to slip and hurt herself.

Running was still tiresome, but it was easier now as long as she didn’t push herself to beat the fifteen minutes they had to complete the two laps. She couldn’t do that yet. The girl felt a pang of guilt because she knew she was forcing the others to do pushups. She shook her head and turned left. The yard was in full view now, and the three metahumans were waiting for her.

The structure had changed since the first day. The fence had been removed to give everyone more space to spar, and there was a long military tent in front of the building. It had been built specifically for cases like today— to avoid getting soaked by rain. The past three days had been clouded, and it had rained the past two.

Agnes and Franz cheered as Jasmine made it past the finish line. She leaned on her knees as she gasped for air.

“Ten pushups for everyone.” General Loeb said.

Jasmine looked at the ground in disdain. The rain had created mud, and she didn’t want to get her hands and clothes dirty, but just like yesterday, she would be forced to do them. The girl got in position.

One, two, three, four, five, six… seven… eight…

She collapsed in the mud, her arms feeling like jelly. Franz had barely managed to make it past ten and get back up. Jasmine looked at him in admiration. He was looking a lot better now than he had almost two weeks ago. He noticed her looking and approached her while shaking the mud off his hands.

“Good job out there, kid. You’re getting faster.”

Jasmine winced discreetly. Kid. He had started calling her that this past week.

“I’m sorry you had to do pushups because of me. I’ll do better tomorrow.” She answered.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s just ten pushups. You’re making it sound like I’m about to die from a little physical activity. Plus, I didn’t even make it in fifteen minutes either, although I was close.”

Jasmine smiled, feeling a little better. She looked in the distance and noticed some shooting targets.

“Right, we’re learning to shoot today.” Franz said, more seriously this time. “I’m nervous.”

“I am too. But this is good knowledge.”

“Really?” He raised one eyebrow. “I don’t plan on shooting anyone. That’s basically the opposite of what I want to do.”

“You want to save lives?”

“Yes. I want to get out there and help people. I tried before coming here but… you know… they wouldn’t trust me.”

“Who?”

“Anybody. I tried contacting doctors, hospitals, the military, no one got back to me, and I even got shit for it. Once, I tried freelancing for a while a few years ago, and it worked for a time until the lies, and the propaganda got too bad. One guy— he was completely insane. You could see it in his eyes, there was only hatred. He stabbed me as soon as I approached him even though he was bleeding out right in front of me on a dirty sidewalk. I still have the scar, look.”

He lifted his top and revealed a scar on the right of his abdomen.

“Sorry. I’m guessing your power doesn’t heal scars.”

“No.”

Jasmine and Franz made their way to the makeshift gun range, which was just a few boxes forming the line they were supposed to shoot from.

“Today, you’re learning to shoot multiple types of guns.” General Loeb said while pointing at the targets. “You’ll be wearing hearing protection as you shoot to protect your hearing.”

Jasmine grabbed one of the headphones, and the others did the same. One of the soldiers placed four handguns on the boxes, and she noticed it was the same one that the general used on Veronica when they had first met.

“This—” He said as he unholstered his gun. “is the Henrick 1845 or H1845 for short. Every soldier has— had one of these during the Great Patriotic War and the civil war. You can grab one, they’re not loaded yet.”

Jasmine lowered her hand and hovered it over the dark handgun. After a few seconds, she grabbed it. It was lighter than she had expected.

“Agnes, get your hand off of that trigger. Now.” He said, raising his voice.

“But you said it’s not loaded.”

“It’s to train your muscle memory. Always keep your hand off the trigger unless you intend to kill someone. Now, has anyone fired a gun before?”

The group said nothing.

“No then. Let’s start from the basics. Grip it with two hands, use your dominant hand to grip the back strap with your thumb to lower the impact of recoil.”

Jasmine followed his instructions closely, pointing toward one of the targets while imagining pressing the trigger.

“Agnes, hold it tighter. Tighter. Yes, just like that. Eventually, you will be good enough to shoot with one hand but for now, always use two. Now, to aim, raise your H1845 to eye level. Do you see those crevices? Those are your sights. You want your target to always be in the center.”

She noticed the crevices that the general was talking about and centered her gun appropriately.

“Of course, that doesn’t apply to moving targets, and you also have to account for how far they are… these are things that you will learn in time. But today, you will be shooting these.” He pointed at the human-like targets.

The general handed Jasmine a dark rectangular object and proceeded to do the same for the others.

“This is a magazine. There’s a hole inside of the handgun’s handle; that’s where you put it. Before you put it, however, I need you to turn the safety on. There’s a lever on the right side, it should be angled down. Angle it up.”

She took some time finding the switch, but after turning it upward, she put the magazine inside of the gun and heard a click.

“You’re going to go one by one. Jasmine, you’re up first. Shoot only once.”

Her heart sped up as she walked in front of the boxes. Her hands were so sweaty she was worried the gun would slip out as she shot.

“Safety off.” He said firmly.

The girl felt a dozen stares behind her back as she aimed for the target’s ‘head’. Her breathing shortened, and she cursed internally at the rain obscuring her vision. She steadied herself in the mud and squeezed the trigger, and felt her hands vibrate as the gun recoiled. The handgun’s barrel smoked, and Jasmine anxiously looked at the target.

“You hit the chest. Good job.”

Jasmine was still feeling shaky, but appreciated the compliment nonetheless, especially from Loeb.

The rest of the group also took their shot, and their results were worse than Jasmine had expected, especially from Veronica. She had missed entirely, as had Agnes, and Franz managed to shoot the target in the leg.

“Now, let’s do the same but for machine guns.”

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Week 3

Jasmine was late. Terribly late. The girl weaved between the research center’s hallway and ran toward the elevator, avoiding scientists, IT specialists, janitors, and the like. She pressed the elevator button and screamed internally.

“Come on, come on…”

Agnes had pestered her what felt like the entire night talking to her about the kind of guys she liked, so she had decided to take a well-deserved nap after her training. It had been exhausting, and they were currently learning about how to deal with knife attacks.

Regardless, as it turned out, not only had they been summoned by Doctor Biermann to the common room through an intercom twenty minutes ago, no one had come back to get her until one of the guards knocked on her door to tell her.

Jasmine went down the elevator and rushed to the common room. As she entered it, she instantly noticed Biermann’s judgemental stare.

“I’m so sorry I’m late. I was sleeping…” She said with her head hanging down. The girl noticed Agnes mouthing ‘sorry’ to her in silence. “Did I miss anything?”

“You delayed the start of the lesson. I would have expected this from Agnes but not from you, Jasmine.”

“Sorry, it won’t happen again.”

“I hope not.” He replied. “But we can finally start. Forgive me for being more serious than usual, but I won’t beat around the bush. Usually, this would be General Loeb’s job, but he had to leave on urgent business for a few days. The MSA has finally struck at the heart of our nation.”

Biermann grabbed his personal phone and plugged it into the television. A blurry video started playing. Jasmine instantly recognized the National Assembly. It was surrounded by scaffolding.

“No way… Adelind?” Franz asked in disbelief.

“Correct. Watch.” The Doctor said as he played the video.

Dozens of men armed to the teeth with machine guns and body armor got out of multiple vans. They all made their way toward the steps of the National Assembly while ignoring all passersby staring at them, including the one filming the video. They all wore a bright red armband, but the footage was too blurry to know what was on it. At this point, the camera pointed at the sky and showed an individual floating in the sky. It was hard to tell if they were male or female until they started barking orders in a foreign language. It was a man.

He was wearing the same body armor, but he held no weapons. He charged the building in the blink of an eye, and one of the pillars at the entrance collapsed as he went through the wall to enter. At this point, the person filming the video started running, and the video ended.

“What the hell…” Franz muttered while tapping the ground with his foot repeatedly. “That’s fucking insane!”

“Who was that? The MSA did not have a flier the last time they made an appearance in Plana.” Veronica asked. Jasmine noticed a certain intensity in her eyes that had never been here before.

“The government is as clueless as you. It appears they’ve been recruiting. Moving on, the MSA has taken all three hundred and ten senators hostage and killed three. As you can guess, this is why General Loeb left. Adelind is on lockdown, and they’re all still inside the building. The military and police have it surrounded. They’re saying that they are going to kill one senator every hour Marshal Gessner doesn’t give himself up. Other government officials are resigning en masse to avoid getting targeted. By all accounts, this is a disaster.” Doctor Biermann said. With a sigh, he leaned against the wall, grabbed a cigarette, and started smoking.

“You don’t expect us to fix this, I hope? This shit is serious, way more serious than I thought it would be. I don’t think we as a group could ever deal with this.” Agnes said as she bit her nails.

Biermann paused before answering.

“No. Of course not. Not yet.”

He paused again.

“But seeing as they’re doing these things now—” He took a long drag of his cigarette. “We need to get you up to speed. Loeb’s soldiers will be taking over your training, by the way.” He continued.

“What do you mean by that?” Jasmine asked.

“Debriefing you on everything we know about the MSA. Leaders, tactics, and whatnot.”

“Wait, we’re still doing this? You’re joking, right? Did you not see that flier just fucking go through concrete as if it was nothing?! You’re expecting us—” Agnes paused as she gestured around the room. “Three kids and this guy who wants to be, like, a doctor—” She pointed towards Franz. “To deal with a professional terrorist organization. I mean, might as well kill us right now!”

“Marshal Gessner selected you four specifically. I do not know the details, but there must be a reason.” Biermann paused as he let the statement sink in. “I also have my doubts, but I am loyal. I believe he knows what he is doing and that he has a plan because if he doesn’t, our country is truly lost.”

“What the MSA did to Plana will happen here.” Jasmine muttered.

“Correct. A complete collapse of any semblance of social order, all while other countries gobble Azeris up bit by bit.”

“Fuck Azeris!” Agnes screamed as she got up from the couch. “I fucking hate this country, and it deserves anything it gets for how they treat us.”

“Treated you.” He corrected her. “Marshal Gessner closed the camps have closed down, and discrimination against metahumans is banned. These laws were passed by the very senators who are being murdered every hour.”

“They stopped last fucking year! It’s still fresh in memory! And discrimination might be banned, but it stops fuck all! You don’t know what it’s like to walk down a street in your hometown and risk getting stabbed by a fucking lunatic! You don’t know what it’s like having to hide for three years in a basement not to get taken to a fucking death camp. You don’t know what it’s like to have your mother despise you the moment you awakened your powers! You don’t know anything.” Agnes stopped, out of breath.

“You don’t know anything.” She repeated.

Biermann didn’t answer her. No one in the room spoke as a tearful Agnes stormed out of the room.

“I’m sorry, doctor, but she’s right.” Franz said quietly. “We… I don’t think we can do this. I thought we could have. I thought we had to. But you showing us the video, I think it just sunk in for me.” He paused and glanced at Jasmine. “This is real. We could die. And for what? People that don’t care for us?”

He got up and started leaving the room.

“I need to think. Sorry.”

Jasmine got on her feet as well.

“I’m going to look for Agnes.” She said as she left, leaving only the doctor and Veronica in the room.

The walk back to the residential quarters was slow. Jasmine felt her head spin and stumbled, having to lean on the wall to support herself.

Had another senator died already? She thought. Was this right?

On the one hand, Jasmine thought Agnes had hit the nail on its head. Biermann could never understand what it was like to be a metahuman. But she had a feeling in her gut that something wasn’t right.

The girl knocked on Agnes’ room.

“Agnes, it’s me. Open the door, please.”

She heard no response. Only sobs.

“Please.”

Still, there was no answer.

“I’m in my room if you change your mind.” Jasmine said as she felt her hand slide down the door frame.

She made her way to her room and left the door open. She grabbed a book from her desk that she had taken from the common room and started reading. Jasmine couldn’t get into it. It was as if the words didn’t make any sense. She read, but her mind was somewhere else.

Two hours later, Jasmine heard footsteps down the hall. Her head turned, expecting Agnes, but her eyes widened in surprise.

“Kaleb? What are you doing here?” She asked.