Paragon - Chapter 60: Chapter 60

The founder disappeared into a labyrinth of stone hallways and floors.
This outpost that lay in the dusty terrain before the horizon of our target in the mountains a few miles beyond had a busy quality. It had clearly been a military outpost in a previous lifetime.
Now it was an immortal hive.
I had never seen so many in one place outside of the London keep. Yet I knew why on a deeper level. Our numbers were vanishing faster than they could be replaced... and if the quality was beneath Codius' standards–it wasn't surprising that they were being killed fastest than replaced.
Mortals were more aware and more armed.
The conventional means could do nothing to us... but what if they got lucky? All it would take were chemical weapons to steal the air from you for long enough. A little fire or an airstrike and you were in business. Bullets however, were not a good choice.
I thought back on Quinn's horrifying realisation when the flames had started to lick away at my strength and immortality in Columbia. When I reached the edge and only saw red. Only blood.
My focus snapped back into the present when the six immortals I was to share my time and brain capacity with walked into the building. I decided I had zero interest in the confrontation and quickly vanished behind a corner.
I sought the smallest amount of solitude this den of immortals could give me for as much time as the founder would spare before he inevitably called us into action.
So I went for the roof.
It took considerably longer than I liked to find the stairs. But eventually I climbed the five floors of immortal planning and facilities to reach an empty square of silent concrete. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen since I had touched down on this continent.
I strode right to the middle as the sun cut across the sky in dying hues of orange and purple. Then lay down and pulled out the sat phone.
She answered on the first ring and those pixels formed to show me Quinn Adams.
My whole body relaxed as she demanded, "Where are you?" by way of greeting.
I grinned.
"Somewhere warmer than where I left you."
Her worry morphed into a knowing smirk and I grinned back.
"It looks dark, it's barely lunch time here." She noted, spinning the camera to show me a white sand beach I had no interest in.
"Oh no, Adams you're going to keep that camera on the only worthwhile view while I still have time."
Her songlike laugh filled the phone's speakers. It wasn't the real thing but it was better than anything I would hear around me.
"How much time do we have?" She spoke devilishly with a dark smile.
I rolled my eyes and couldn't wipe the smile off my face.
"You're impossible even when you're an ocean away."
"I've never felt further from you, Fletcher." She answered seriously. "–I want to know everything. Every spare minute you get."
"You don't need to tell me twice, mortal." I answered honestly, "–I'm yours whenever I get the chance."
"They can't be that bad..." She mocked, leaning back in a hammock as she watched me intently. I glanced at the growing shadows cast by a quickly vanishing sun. It made the gold in my eyes take on a faint glow.
"They're morons and I don't have the patience to keep them all alive." I answered, deliberately leaving out the fact that one of them was alive when immortals were created.
"You're a mess without me." She decided, but I didn't miss the sadness in her eyes. It cracked a part of me to know it kept her up, held her on edge when she didn't need to be.
"I'm going to finish this. And when I do we're going to go away for a long time and they can try and find us." I promised with a slow smile. She held my gaze in that phone screen and nodded.
"That means no heroics, Tara Fletcher. That means you come back to me."
"There's nothing worth my time here." I winked, "I left it all with you."
The blush that touched her face as she looked down and laughed it off was finer than any sunset had to offer on the opposite side of the world. I savoured it all the same on the middle of a concrete rooftop while Paragon plotted my immediate future beneath me.
When she looked up to meet my gaze the smile faded and she was about to say the words I loved to hear, I know she was. But an immortal had the sheer audacity to interrupt. In fact the door I had used was kicked open.
A bleach blonde in dark combats leered at me from the threshold and crossed her arms.
I took the composure to look back down to Quinn.
"I've got to go."
"Judging by the look you just gave some poor soul I believe you." She smirked before adding. "See you soon, detective." Then she ended the call and the Quinn I held in my palm vanished to black. I tucked the phone into the place beside my heart and rolled faster than a snake onto the balls of my feet.
The immortal twisted her lips and smirked. But I spoke before her.
"You want an enemy? You have one immortal. But you haven't lived long enough to know when you've chosen a bad one." I finished in dark promise as I walked smoothly over to her.
It was only when I was a foot away and she could see the gold in my eyes that she flinched. Only a minute movement but it was enough.
I smiled.
She glared.
"If you're done gazing at the stars, we are needed." She replied cooly.
"After you."
She eyed me up and down once more as if she had any idea what adversary I was and then turned on her heel so that braided white hair flicked onto her shoulder. I flexed my fingers and resisted the urge to snap her neck and watch the body find the stairs.
Patience Fletcher.
As I closed the door I looked into the sky, the same sky she looked at in a different time of day. Waiting for me.
* * * * *
I followed that insufferable immortal all the way back to the hive of noise and planning. We found ourselves inside a central room with no windows and a large glass table. None sat.
Vanilla didn't even glance at our presence but when the doors closed he spoke and the room listened.
A screen filled the back wall with satellite imagery of a mountain range. The coordinates I had first received.
"A group of mortals find themselves foolish enough to use these mountains to store nuclear warheads." He said casually, not bothering to gesture as images flew across the screen at a rapid pace. "–We have four teams that will enter the base within the mountain. Fletcher?"
I cut my eyes away from the new generation of death incarnate and met those gold orbs across the room. I tucked my arms behind my back and waited.
"Your expertise from the Cold War shall be needed again. You will take point with Elias."
It was at that point I noticed the immortal in question. The elder that had stood in the London keep with the same pocket watch, three piece suit and dead eyed stare. The elder that had murdered both Will and Jamie.
None of them noticed my hands crushing each other. The way my blood cooled and my heart stopped beating. I promised myself I would end him.
The briefing continued on for five more minutes. Inconsequential details about our placements. But I saw an entirely different objective. I only saw the immortal that had drank my closest companions right in front of me. And smiled.
"–getting cold feet Flet–" I whirled on instinct and crushed my forearm into the blondes throat before she could finish.
The room went silent in mild irritation.
"I believe your team member is over here, Ms Fletcher." Vanilla drawled, uninterested in the temperature of the room.
The immortal beneath my arm snarled and prepared to snap her teeth down. But I was already gone and turning my attention on the elder I should be directing all of my strength upon. I smiled at him slowly and the aggression melted away into a mask of an assassin.
"We meet again, Sir."
He tilted his head at me in amusement before glancing at Vanilla.
"She's difficult this one. I can see why you had me placed at the helm." He drawled, watching the founder strike a match and take a drag of his pipe. He didn't comment, in fact he left the room without another word. He would not be joining us, merely watching.
The canon fodder teams would lead the charge and the mortal attention away from us.
The elder I would destroy, and I would drop from an altitude no mortal would dare before parachuting directly onto the runway embedded inside the mountain concealing the weapons. The first stage was disarming and collecting the weapons grade material. The next step was to bring the whole god damn mountain down on them... and a personal bonus, leaving the elder among them as another unfortunate statistic of immortal decline.
For Will and Jamie.
"Don't be a disappointment, Tara Fletcher. I know of your tendencies around mortals." The elder cut through my thoughts.
"It is my honour to serve, Sir." I replied in immaculate respect.
His half ring of gold flashed in irritation. I was taking him for the fool he was and despite his many years on this planet his patience was as waning as his intellect.
You die here.
"Shall we, Sir?" I smiled poisonously, gesturing a hand.
"We shall, immortal. Can you handle simple instructions?" He smiled back lethally.
I waited on him wordlessly with the same smile fixed in place. He scanned me closely, stepping near until I could take him in a detail I never desired. The air cooled around our silent stand off until immortals started leaving the room and the trance around us broke.
He could sense it. The predatory challenge.
It mattered not, he wouldn't be walking away from this assignment.
"A moment, Fletcher?"
I froze as the founder waited on the other side of the doors. The elder ignored my presence entirely and walked in the direction of the exit.
I avoided his eyes as I drew beside him.
"I do hope your ability to make friends is as good as your ability to deactivate nuclear warheads."
I smirked ahead as we walked the hallway. "I think we both know if that were true I wouldn't be here, Vanilla." My casual use of that name made him boom a laugh making immortals flinch nearby.
Then he spoke the next words so bluntly I almost tripped.
"You cannot kill him." He said simply.
I grit my teeth as we emerged back out onto the landing pad in the darkness. I flexed my fingers not at all surprised he could connect dots without even paying too much attention to the dots in the first place.
"I am here to serve–"
"Serve me less of your bullshit, immortal." He snorted, making me smile uncontrollably. "–I need this work to be done and I need you to vanish back into whatever life it is you want." He said with heavy emphasis on the final part.
That made me stop in my tracks. He continued as if I still walked with him towards the helicopter.
"This is your only warning, immortal." He murmured into the darkness as the doors were opened for him and the rotor blades began spinning.
The most plain way of saying... Kill an elder and Quinn Adams goes with him. Take one of the few elders we have left and we will take everything from you. They had brought me here in the first place because of those dwindling numbers. Now one of the few immortals that could recreate more was personally on my team to ensure I completed my task.
They couldn't have fucked me more if they wanted.