Crimson Red, Cerulean Blue
Chapter 15

(Blue)

“Blue?Blue, can you hear me?”

The voicewas distant, and I struggled to recall who it belonged to. Someone close to me.Someone I cared about…

Big Brother…?

Is it... Is it you?

“She’s notresponding! Why isn’t she responding? Did you screw up?! Blue! Answer me!”

Anothervoice replied, “No, I didn’t screw up, idiot! It’s just… My magic isn’tdesigned to deal with magic overuse, just injuries! I don’t know if it’s goingto be enough to fix her!”

“What’sthat supposed to mean, Green?! Are you saying that Blue’s gonna…”

“I’m sayingthat I don’t know!”

Green. The name sparked mymemory, giving me enough energy to force my eyes open slowly. My visioncleared, and I realized that I was staring into a black void.

“AH!!!”

“Whoa!” Redtumbled backward, and I realized I was just looking into his sunglasses. Oops.

“Wh-Whathappened…?” I asked groggily, attempting to sit up and failing when a headachethe size of Sapphire City slammed into me.“Owww….”

“That’swhat you get for overusing magic like that!” Green scolded. “Especially after Itold you not to!”

“Overusing…magic?” The memories of what happened in Orange Villagesuddenly flooded into my mind, and I gasped. “Kyore! What happened to Kyore?!And Orange… Is Orange okay?!”

“Relax,Blue, I’m fine,” Orangecalled from the corner, his laptop once again in front of him. But there wassomething different about him. His steel-gray eyes carried a hint of…

Guilt?

“What Iwant to know, though,” he continued, “is why in the world you would go and riskyour own life to save us like that, especially since we’ve only known you forabout a day. Are you just insanely reckless like Red here, or was there someother reason for it?”

I respondedbefore thinking. “Because you’d do the same for me.”

The instantthe words were out, I realized it was true. Red, Green, Orange… For some reason, they genuinely caredabout me. The question was… Why?

Orange looked mildlysurprised for a second, then his face went back to being neutral. “Well then.Anyway, thank you.”

“You’rewelcome. But I was wondering…” I shifted uncomfortably. “Why? Why would you dothe same for me? Like you said, you’ve only known me a day. Why do you…”

“Becauseyou’re my friend.”

It was Redwho’d spoken this time. He was staring at me as if the answer was the mostobvious thing in the world.

I wasn’tsure I’d heard him right.

“Your… friend…?”

“That is,if you want to be,” he added.

“I…” I wasat a loss for words.

“As much asI hate to agree with this idiot, we’re friends. That automatically means we’llstick by each other, no matter what,” Green told me, smiling. “Or are we notfriends?”

Friends…?

The wordwas unfamiliar, something I’d really only read about in books and observed froma distance. But books definitely couldn’t do it justice. The warm feelingflooding through me was something entirely new, something only reality couldcreate. It was…

It was possibly,no, probably, the best feeling I’d ever had.

I smiled,really smiled, even though my head was killing me. “Friends, huh?”

“Why don’tyou just hurry up and hug already?” Orangeasked dryly from his corner, looking exasperated. “Sheesh.”

I laughed,really truly laughed for the first time in a really, really long time. Once Istarted, there was no way I could make myself stop, so pretty soon, everyonewas staring as I cracked up.

“Uh… Ithink you broke her,” Red said, which only made me laugh harder.

“I’m…sorry,”I gasped, wiping away tears of laughter. “I haven’t felt anything like this ina really long time…”

“What,you’ve never had friends before?” He looked shocked. “No way!”

“I didn’tthink any of you guys would either. I mean, I’m one of the Seven, so I wasalways on guard... Sorry, I’m so bad at this opening up stuff…!”

“Sheesh.Well then. Good thing I caught up to you, or else you’d be seriouslyuneducated.” Red shook his head. “Nofriends. Honestly!”

No friendsindeed. For the first time ever, I wondered why I hadn’t bothered trying.

“Well, allthis friendship stuff is all well and good, but I’m sure you’re wondering aboutwhy in the world we broke into that place,” Orange interrupted, bringing us all back toreality.

“Of course.But you didn’t retrieve all of the data yet. Kyore interrupted, remember?” Ipointed out, serious again.

“Suchlittle faith you all have in me. Of course I got the data. I was just about toshut the computer down when he oh-so-conveniently did the job for me.”

“Seriously?”Red looked like a little kid on Christmas Day. “So? What’d you get? Why’d weeven go there in the first place?”

“SPACE,” Orange replied simply.

Redsquinted. “We went there because you needed some space?”

But Iunderstood the meaning behind the single word. I’d heard about it from a coupleof minions I’d spied on back in Sapphire City. (I was bored thatday, and my homework was done. So…yeah.) “No way… That was SPACE?!”

“Correct.Though I didn’t expect their security to be so weak.”

“Weak?! Wealmost died!”

“Wewouldn’t have died.” His voice was firm, completely honest. “I would’ve madesure of that.”

Green interrupted before I could ponder the meaning of this cryptic sentence. “Hangon a minute. Just what is this SPACE thing?”

Orange looked at me,raising an eyebrow expectantly. “Blue?”

“SPACE is adata storage facility,” I explained. “The most secure one in Spectrum. It’swhere Mask keeps his most secret files, like his plans and most important info.It also contains personal files. Special ones.”

“LikeViolet’s,” Red said, realization dawning on his face.

“Correctagain,” Orangereplied, looking pleased. Well, as pleased as Orange ever did, anyway. “I managed toretrieve Violet’s file and a few other bits of information as well. And here itis.”

We allcrowded around the laptop as a file popped up onto the screen. But…

“Nopicture?” Green asked, frowning.

“Theyprobably didn’t want any hackers like us knowing what Violet looks like,” Isighed. “I mean, if you have a high enough security clearance to know thisinformation, then you should also have a high enough security clearance to gosee Violet in person for yourself.”

“Crayik!”Red complained. “Why’re these guys so freaking smart?”

“They’rethe bad guys, if they weren’t smart, then they’d be dead already,” Greenreplied dryly. “There aren’t any physical descriptions, other than the factthat she’s female. No locations, either. There’re only a few useless bits ofinfo, like whether or not she’s had all her vaccinations or not. Sorry, Orange, but I think thisfile’s completely useless.”

“Lookagain. It does tell us one thing that’s important.” Orange pointed to a single line on the screen,looking grim.

STATUS: CAPTIVE. EXECUTION SCHEDULEDFOR MARCH FIFTEENTH.

We allstared at the line, dread filling the air.

“Oh no,” I breathed.

“That’s aweek from today,” Green choked out, her voice barely a whisper. “If we don’treplace her in a week, Violet’s going to…”

The finalword hung unspoken. No one said anything for a long, long time.

“We’ll replaceher.” Red’s voice broke the silence, firm and clear. “They won’t be able to doanything to her. Not over my dead body.”

The wordstook away some of the dread in the room, and I turned to Orange, hoping against hope. “Wasn’t thereanything else in the data you got?”

“Yes. Butit doesn’t have anything to do with Violet. And I can’t make any sense of it.So it’s probably not what you were looking for.”

“Great!Just freaking great!” Green threw up her hands. “Violet’s about to get killed,and we can’t even do anything to help! We’re screwed if one of us dies. You allknow that just as well as I do! What’rewe supposed to do?!”

I bit mylip, because she was right. We couldn’t afford to lose any one of the Seven,because there was no way to get a replacement for the protector of their city.So if Violet died…

“Orange, what else do youhave besides Violet’s file?” I asked. Even if it didn’t have anything to dowith Violet, any info about Mask was better than none at all.

“Threewords. That’s it. And don’t ask me what they mean, because I have no idea.”

“What arethe words?”

He scrolleddown, opened another file, then showed me the screen.

THE OPPOSITE PLAN.