Subduable

Subduable is the fifth chapter of Season Two.

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Muhammad’s phone rang again. “Quick! Please, we need you here now. Meet us on the top floor, dormitory 1-H.” The phone hung up before Muhammad could say anything else. He wondered for a moment, why would they hang up on him? Why dormitory room 1-H? Something was up.

“Stay.. still...” said Adrien, tapping the end of the firearm against Ezra’s front teeth. “Adrien, please..” Ezra said softly. “It’ll be over when Muhammad arrives, so shut up!”

Minutes later, the door handle of the room turned. Muhammad stepped in. He loosened his pockets and put his hands up. He was weaponless. By this point, the school was infested with the minions of the Hydra. Two of the men searched Muhammad, and held him by the shoulders and he proceeded towards Adrien.

“Now,” said Adrien. “Line them up.”

Sarah, Muhammad, Scarlett and Dane were all lined up, on their knees, in front of the smug Adrien.

“I will watch in satisfaction as each of you see each other drop dead. One by goddam one. Except for you Dane, who I will start off with first..”

Adrien raised the gun and started to clench the trigger. But then he felt something prod into his own back. “Drop it.”

Adrien hesitated.

“DROP IT NOW!”

Adrien dropped his gun. He turned to see his so-perceived Hydra minions had turned their weapons on him. The minions un-buttoned their uniforms, and revealed themselves to be agents of Tanen’s. Mrs. Tanen then walked into the room.

“I thought I told you to kill her separately!” Adrien blared at the other minions standing around in the room, who looked confused. “What is this?!”

“No one can out-contest our agency, Adrien. When we were one, many years ago, and your father decided to split us into two, he got the bad handful. Your tactics and techniques have lagged behind ours ever since.” Mrs. Tanen clicked, and ordered some of her undisguised agents inside, who were holding some of Adrien’s real men, by the shoulders. They were handcuffed and gagged. They threw them on the floor in front of Adrien. “They failed to keep a steady guard. We got the upper hand. Aren’t you going to punish them? Go on, shoot them.”

Adrien stared coldly at Mrs. Tanen, who was crossing her arms, with her heel at the head of one of Adrien’s top men. “Or shall I do it for you?” she suggested mockingly.

“No...” Adrien’s face then started to beam.

“There’s nothing to be happy about..” Mrs. Tanen proclaimed. As she was about to lift a gun out from her dress, howling and calling was heard from outside. Dozens of Adrien’s real men were charging out from the bushes and other buildings, in all directions.

“Out-thwarted, are we?” Adrien snickered. “If, by luck!”

Mrs. Tanen grabbed Ezra, Sarah, Muhammad and Dane and escorted them out of the room, to one of their sedans, waiting outside.

“Here are the keys! There is a location marked specially on the GPS. Just go. You’ll be safe!” Mrs. Tanen insisted. “We’ll take care of these!”

Mrs. Tanen dodged some of the passing bullets, drew out a samurai sword from underneath one of the layers of her dress top, and began swinging it at the oncoming men. With a few swift and well-choreographed swipes, she knocked several men to their knees and faces, as more of her agents covered for her. Mrs. Tanen ran to the black sedan on the small road behind the dormitory block.

“I thought I told you to drive off?” she yelled to Muhammad.

“No, we have something to do first!”

Before Mrs. Tanen could lecture him, Muhammad released a firework from underneath the car. It flew straight towards the charging mob of Hydra men that seemed to at the moment be outnumbering Tanen’s agents. The result was a lot of men coughing and retreating in all directions as the fireworks blazed all around the place. Windows smashed and walls chipped, as the commotion subsided into unusual silence. The gang got out of their car and inspected the scene. There was debris, rocks and small flames scattering the place. Suddenly Mrs. Tanen’s phone rung. “We got signal!”

Dozens of Tanen’s agents ran out of the dormitory and cheered, all holding up their smartphones, with their now functioning 3G connections. Ezra and Dane grinned over their victory. “It’s all thanks to you, Muhammad,” said Sarah, kissing him on the cheek. “Now, you have to tell us how you escaped.”

“Uhh.. I don’t really remember how.. err, I remember smoke, some sort of.. hmm.. pain in my neck, and a clear door. But it was all a blur. I remember falling out of a window into a bush, and all that was on my mind was to get back to the dormitory.”

“What, so you don’t know how you escaped?” asked Sarah. “Muhammad-”

“Maybe we should talk about it later,” said Mrs. Tanen. “He is clearly exhausted. We have a job to do now. We’ve managed to prevent the authorities from getting all over this. The “official” authorities. And so, the mass media.”

Ezra’s face lit up. He felt hope. Hope that he could possibly have a normal life again. That he could resume his college life. But then he remembered the shootings.

“But what about the shootings?” asked Ezra. “Those students.. gone..”

“The gunfire was of Adrien’s men. Not the college students. They are all in a light coma, but we’re working on an antidote. We discovered it was spread through the water system. We’re still doing an analysis of the pipeline, which won’t be easy, but we’re sealing off the water systems and alternative water tanks.”

As the sunlight began to fill the sky, Ezra and Dane yawned. The commotion of the night seemed like one big dream in the midst of the morning. It seemed so impossible for something like that to happen, not when there was all this sunlight and beauty. A day of opportunity to behold.

“We’ve managed to get a few awake!” some of Tanen’s scientists announced.

Ezra then started to reconsider his earlier thoughts. This was definitely not a normal teenage life. He’d always been a believer of some sort of destiny, and was starting to learn that he would have to accept what life dished up to him. He was now fully involved in the agency again. He had his life and the world to protect from Adrien. He was the sin to his deed. Adrien had mysteriously disappeared that night during the brawl, which was now having every trace of its appearance being removed. This was difficult, so the convincing explanation of a windy or stormy night was being considered.

Marge asked Dane and Sarah to help go around and inject everybody with a formula that would pass them into a deep sleep then wake up as normal, so they would not suspect anything had happened- that it was all just a strange dream. Hours later, students started to gather in the courtyard of the college. They were all shocked they had “slept in”. Gossip started spreading about who rigged all of the alarms, and whether the teachers were competent enough for their jobs. Several teachers approached Mrs. Tanen to ask what she knew, who acted as confused as they really were.

“Why can’t the water system be used?” moaned one of the Science teachers. “We found a few students pulled a few strings and gained access to the main pipeline and er.. used it as a loo,” said one of the maintenance officers, secretly an agent in disguise. “What? I don’t believe it,” said the Science teacher. “We trust these students, we promote an adult ethos, and-” “You’ve only known them for barely a week,” the officer argued. The Science teacher was shocked someone of his “rank” would talk to him like that.

An announcement from the head of college was heard on the intercom, and the 3rd and 4th periods would resume as normal. Ezra didn’t know whether to be overjoyed or intimidated by his Human Biology course he had next. He remembered all of the x-ray scans his favourite detectives would search through. He was happier when he saw x-ray equipment was set up in the class.

“Right, today we’ll be looking at this flash, and rather expensive, piece of kit,” said the tutor. Ezra always thought of her as resembling a wild activist but hadn’t had any proof of what she did in her spare time and was not to jump to conclusions yet. “Our college was lucky enough to be one of the first to test out this breakthrough. Now who would like to be the first to step through?”

Without a word, Muhammad got up and walked through. There was a limp in his walk as he went through the screen. The class gasped as they saw his skeleton. Ezra was noiseless. He couldn’t help but notice a peculiar shape in Muhammad’s neck. It looked almost like a worm.. no, a small snake, wedged into his neck. Ezra rubbed his eyes and thought he was seeing things. He looked around him to see if anybody else noticed, but they didn’t. Muhammad turned around to show the other side of his skeleton. His neck was normal. Ezra laughed in his head at his own so-thought foolishness.

As the course ended, Ezra packed his portfolio into his bag. It was starting to feel heavy already. He had a sense of satisfaction, though, he had gotten a lot out of the class, as much as he’d hoped for. As he turned towards the hall, lined with lockers, he saw Muhammad leaning against a locker, flirting with a few girls. He was, without drawing attention, scratching his neck. It looked sore. Ezra stood and watched as he pinched the skin some more, like something was underneath it. Muhammad didn’t seem to pay much attention to what might be causing it, though, concealing his irritation. The girls paused and looked at Ezra. Muhammad turned around noticing Ezra, thinking he was jealous. “Look Ezra, there are still plenty of fish..” Ezra rolled his eyes and walked past the girls as they giggled with Muhammad. What happened in his bedroom that night was not another surprise he had counted on.

Trivia

 * Adrien had a backup escape plan, and was not arrested during the small war at the college.