Project Apollo

Chapter 24

The Compound

9:45 AM

Fiona began pacing before Ezra's cell. He remained motionless and completely in control, despite the aggression she carried in her step. Fiona had no ideas about the riddle he had given them but realized that she could coax other clues from him. It was the only way to help her husband from her position.

I have the biggest clue to the cure in front of me. I need to break him. I can't just torture it out him, he's too good for that. But I could start playing the role of his student... Let him teach me things... Gain insight into his mind.

She grabbed the back of a chair and slowly dragged it across the Compound floor. It let out a harrowing shriek, but she did not speed up. She took her time, letting the awful sound wake Ezra up from his meditative state. Finally, after reaching the glass cell she dropped the back of the chair and casually took a seat right in front of the glass. After a moment of squaring him up and drawing his eyes to her's, she began.

"Why me?" she asked plainly with a gentle inflection. "I'm enjoying civilian life, baking pies and you had to come along and ruin my cover."

Ezra paused for a moment as if to consider whether he was going to engage in conversation. "Don't lie to me... we both know you weren't enjoying life on the other side."

"Okay... I'll grant you that. Being a housewife is not as exciting as being one of the US government's best kept secrets. But the question still stands, why me?" she asked again.

"Because you have a different perspective, now that you're on the other side. Because you've escaped the mental confines of Project Sparta. Your mind is free..." His head rested in his hands as he talked.

"What do you know that I don't, Ezra?" It was the first time she had used his name, attempting to connect personally with him.

This question seemed to pierce Ezra's hard exterior. He lifted his head from his hands and straightened up.

"I know that a government that preaches truth, freedom and liberty but then hides ten sixteen-year-old prodigy recruits in an underground bunker is hiding more than just a black ops program." His candor knocked her breath out, but only because it made logical sense.

"Sure, there probably has been some moral grays along the way—"

"There is no such thing as moral grays," Ezra interjected.

"Of course, there is..."

"Moral grays are what people call them to exempt themselves from culpability. Tell me this... what two colors make the color gray?" he asked.

"Black and white..." she answered perplexed.

"Exactly! If you look closely enough at a moral gray you will be able to see its black and white components. You will be able to see the truth that is difficult to see at first glance," he explained.

"So, we are supposed to look closer to find the truth?" Ezra did not offer a dissent, but rather arched his eyebrows confirming her logic.

"But why this game at all? Why don't you just tell us what the government is hiding from us and we'll be the judge?" Fiona asked, almost pleading for the future lives that would be taken.

"If I tell you, you will dismiss it immediately, general bias against homegrown terrorists, you see? But if Xander and you are led to discover it yourselves..." his voice trailed.

"Why do you have to kill innocent people, though?" Fiona's curious façade had faded.

"Innocent people are sometimes collateral damage to a much more important operation, just ask your own government about that one..." Ezra cracked a maddening grin. Fiona, frustrated with his defenses, broke her approach. Her fist tightened, her blood boiled. She darted up from her chair and chucked the chair across the Compound floor.

"What gives you the right to do this?!" she yelled an inch from the glass. A moment passed as their sights remained deadlocked. The glass fogged from her breaths. Ezra, calm and composed as ever, began to recite.

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." She stumbled back from the glass upon hearing the words as if punched in the gut. She then saw a familiar maniacal smile curling Ezra's lips as he cited the source of the quotation.

"The Declaration of Independence."

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