Chapter 36: Exposure Will Ruin Us

Location: Port Stanley, East Falkland

Unit: GOU

Date: 7th May 2022 CE

A week passed as James grew ever closer with his workmates and the GOU. It was quiet, the weekend... 'Fucking finally,' he thought.

He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, he looked in the room as the sun shone through his open window, and noticing it he looked at his clock. He felt a tear drip down his face as he saw the dreaded 7:30 am.

He swore, hiding under his cover.

Zeller immediately slammed the door open, "Wake the FUCK up!"

James muttered, "It's not even nine yet. AND it's a weekend,"

Zeller spoke, "It's not even nine yet, he says. You think the NZA care anything about your already fucked up sleep schedule?"

James sat up, "Was that a Major Payne reference?"

In response, Zeller tore James's cover off before yanking him off the bed by his collar and throwing him to the ground. Zeller stepped out of the room as James flipped her off. He sighed and turned to his counter. Picking up his phone, he slipped into some proper clothes.

Then a call came through. It was Leo.

Picking up the phone, he spoke, "Go for James."

Leo responded, "Uh, I have something interesting to show you and the lads, meet me by the Liberation Memorial."

James nodded picking up a coat from the side of his wardrobe.

Quickly exiting the house. Zeller exchanged a glance with Baker.

Baker swore, "What the hell is he doing?"

Zeller sighed, "No clue, but he won't be able to do this every week... lucky bastard got off lightly with Mclaw being in the UK."

Baker chuckled, "We all did, looks like ol' Queeny truly did us all a favour," before his face grew dark.

Outside the house, James ran down the street as he heard a loud groan from a nearby alley. Seeing a figure standing over another, he hid around a corner. Peaking around the side, he saw the standing man had a black hooded poncho and a white face mask, the man spoke with a voice-changer, "Let this be a message, go near them again and I'll do more than cut your arms."

The standing figure walked into the darkness, disappearing.

James walked closer, noticing streaks of blood across the walls like someone had flicked blood from a sword in a perfect pattern.

He approached the injured figure on the floor, the guy had a hammer laying against his side. Getting a closer look at the face, James recognised him. He noted this was one of the boys who had threatened their shop before the odd customer entered.

Kneeling, he looked closer. The guy had several cuts down his sleeves. His face was in severe pain, with fear visible beneath his closed eyelids. He rocked back and forth as James attempted to get closer, "He'll come for you too... run while you still can."

James touched his shoulder, "Who?"

The injured spoke, "The man in the skeleton mask."

James froze falling back, looking around he noticed thunder clouds form overhead, looking back to the entrance he saw the figure in the black poncho staring him down. They exchanged a glance as James saw the white facemask with skeleton-like paint on the front, he wore blacked-out goggles like the figure behind it was soulless.

Then lightning struck somewhere in the distance and the man disappeared in the flash.

James looked around, not seeing him... he was gone.

Pulling a burner phone from his bag he typed in the emergency number before calling. Quickly, giving the necessary information on the victim, we walked into the darkness before tossing the phone in a bin.

***

Rain still descended from the sky. James noticed the memorial was well kept, including the bronze figure of the national personification of Britain. He walked around the memorial, observing the plaques, he noted the names, the names of the fallen. Coming back around to the front, he stood in front of the statue, Britannia. He analysed the sculpted figure as he heard a whistle from behind him.

"Over here!" He heard Leo say as he swung around.

Walking over to a covered bench, he sat down.

Leo nodded at him, "Well, took you long enough."

James chuckled, "Got slightly side-tracked, anyway what's so urgent that you had to hold this today?"

Leo's mood darkened, "Something seriously strange is going on..." he threw down an image, "And this radio station is the source."

Klay picked it up, "An old military radio centre?"

Leo nodded, "I've been scoping it out, but it seems to be surrounded by landmines."

James stood up, smashing his hands against the table, "You want us to go into a minefield? Are you insane?"

Leo shook his head, "No, well, yes... but no, I've found a path through."

James stared at him, "How?"

Leo nodded his head, pulling a small pack of images from his bag, "I found these in my father's office along with several letters addressed to Reaper-1."

The group looked up, and one of them questioned, "Reaper?"

Leo nodded, "My father is in cahoots with him it would seem."

Klay tilted his head to the side, "Reaper-1 is just British propaganda though, along with the Highway Hero?"

Leo stroked his chin, "That's what I thought."

Leo looked at James, who was almost frozen in place. He noticed an uneasy look on James's face. Like James was about to be sick. Leo cocked his head to the side, "You okay?"

James shook himself, "Yeah... yeah fine, anyway if the Reaper is real, does that mean the Highway hero is also real?"

James hated talking about the Highway Hero... it was no more than a dramatised version of events of him standing against the NZA. It angered him, the story of one cadet standing up to the NZA even in the darkest of hours. But what angered him the most is why people celebrated him, they celebrated him for making a final standing knowing he would die... in reality, James had no intention of dying that day. He had no intention of letting anyone die. But in the end, he was overwhelmed before he could save anyone, those five who had survived had not survived because of James, but their own wit.

Leo scratched his chin, "I mean... most of the claimed accounts are very contradictory, no one knows which accounts are real as the Government had put the survivors into witness protection or they died in the hospital."

Klay sighed, "So we will never know..."

Leo looked left and right, "Anyway, I've found something else strange, there are specific words that ghost-block your messages on certain websites, look here, the one I discovered was Special Forces in conjunction with any mention of Antarctica or words similar to it."

He pulled his phone out, finding a social media post on the war, he typed in 'Anyone else think we need to send special forces to check out the enemy base in Antarctica?'

Before pressing send. Then quickly, he got the link for the post forwarding it to the rest of them. They scrolled through the post, but his comment wasn't there. No matter how much they searched they couldn't find the comment. It was like it had been deleted. But as Leo showed them his phone the message said it was successfully sent.

No matter how many times they refreshed the page it didn't come through, they tried with similar messages all about Antarctica, and then the radio station on the Falklands. None of these messages showed up.

James gulped knowing that they'd stumbled across something they shouldn't have, "This could be something extremely vital to the UN's war effort... maybe we should leave this stuff alone."

Leo shook his head, "How do we know this isn't the Oceanic Empire?"

James remembered the figure he had seen earlier, he had a similar presence to Mclaw. But it was less contained and much more vicious, "I guess it could be... but if so what do your Dad and Reaper-1 have to do with this? Are they loyal to the NZA?"

Leo gritted his teeth at the comment, "It's not something we should rule out, that's why I haven't asked him about it," he paused, "But if communication with the outside is blocked, we need to deal with this ourselves, the four of us."

They looked around as James spoke, "If we are going against the NZA this needs to be perfect, we'll need weapons, ammunition and perfect timings."

Leo grinned, "Can you shoot?"

James nodded, "Sorta, nothing serious," a complete white lie.

Leo nodded, "My dad has his old FAL, managed to make it disappear during the war and picked it up when he came back to the island, he also has a sawed-off shotgun and a pistol."

James nodded, "I'll take the pistol, Leo will take the FAL, whichever one of you want the sawed-off, decide between yourself, the one without a weapon will act as overwatch."

Leo nodded pulling a piece of paper. Quickly, creating times and estimates, he wrote them down.

Holding out the piece of paper, he spoke, "Everyone read this, this will be our timings for the operation."

James quickly snapped a photo before reading through it thoroughly, "I see, it's quite a basic plan, how many guards have you seen around the station?"

Leo chuckled slightly, "None. Absolutely nada."

James stroked his chin, "I see, then this needs to happen tomorrow."

James knew Mclaw would be back in a few hours, from there they could formulate either a real plan of attack if this was a hidden NZA structure or scare off his friends before they found out something they shouldn't have.

They quickly scattered all walking in different directions, James quickly pulled out his phone sending the image of the piece of paper to Zeller, informing her of everything that was just said.

Back at the house, Zeller slide the bolt of her rifle as she picked up the phone, "What the fuck."

She screenshotted James's message before sending it to Mclaw. Mclaw saw the message pop up in his HUD, "Hm."

He walked past his white face mask on the counter, cracking open a can he took a sip. Leaning on the table he pulled out a burner phone, calling James he spoke, "James, who found this?"

James gulped, "Leo Stewards."

Mclaw scratched his chin, "Stewards, huh," he paused, "Go along with the plan, but that facility is friendly."