Getting to know Jean was pleasant in an unexpected way, since she did not seem like a person with an evil past. Her father was one of the Mother's personal bodyguards, the highest level in the hierarchy of the base working unit. It required a great deal of trust from the Mother and efficiency on part of the members to reach the top of the ladder, and her father had attained the position with years of dedication. Rick who was our commander and in charge of the army unit was also part of the protocol.
Her father died while protecting the Mother during an ambush by a group of rogue rebels from the Northern Village. The Mother took Jean in, the youngest of his children under her custody and brought her up, as a regard for his sacrifice, while sending monthly remittances to her family so that they may take care of themselves.
It sounded like the Mother had made a pact with her father, where she would perform his duty in his stead another slave and the remittances she sent was the price she paid to keep Jean under her custody, but Jean wouldn't believe otherwise. She kept praising the Mother and how kind she had been to her, treating her as her own daughter.
Her story was honest, retold with genuine emotions, unlike mine which was a stream of lies I had rehearsed so many times that my tongue did not stutter and my heart did not skip a beat while uttering them. It revolved around how I had served under ISIS as part of the troop assigned on the Pak Afghan border, the exact one I had been sent in as a spy and was responsible for its downfall.
"The army attacked us and I was among the few ones who escaped," I told her. "Gul Badin, our leader, had told us about the Mother and her generosity, and advised us to take a trip to the North where we would find her. "She might be your only escape, whenever such a time befell" he said." He was taken as a hostage himself by the Pak army."
A few tears dripped from my cheek onto my leg, which was enough to make Jean reach over and clasp my hand in her own to comfort me from my supposed loss. I did not expect the story to arouse sentiments in me, but I believe this is the power of deception. When enough facts are mixed with lies, it will sound like the truth and with it you can deceive anyone, including yourself.
"Don't worry," she consoled me. "Mother is powerful and kind. She will take care of you and save your leader from the Pak Army."
"All I want now, is revenge. They took away everything from me. My family, my friends, my leader. I want to make them suffer." I said it with enough poison that I surprised even myself.
"We will get that and much more, Raksana. I promise." For a moment, I forgot I was Raksana and not Jala. The anger that was boiling in my veins, the vigor I had in me to push forward came from my mission to destroy the Mother and her allies. What would Jean do if she got to know the truth?
We grabbed our dinner from the cafeteria and talked some more about our childhood and families. Well she did more of the talking and I just kept the conversation topic steered towards her, asking questions about her school and her relationship with her family. Turns out she never went to school and all the basic education was provided here within the base. She got to meet her family once or twice a year due to the high security protocol within the base, one that each of the inhabitants must strictly follow. I couldn't imagine a young child being ripped away from her family so that she could take her father's role within the base, completing what he could not.
"It was hard at first, I'm not going to lie, but I found another family here," she said, quickly clarifying after seeing the horrified expressions on my face. "If I hadn't come here, I would have been reduced to mere survival. The Mother has given me a purpose, something to live for. My family is leading a far better life now, than they would if I was still living with them. What more could I ask of destiny if not the happiness of my loved ones?" It seemed like she had made peace with her fate, and I wondered if I would ever be able to come to terms with my own.
We drifted off to sleep after we shared our stories and had nothing left to say any more, and bade good night to one another, once she reminded me that training would begin at eight in the morning, and I would not want to be late on my first day. Despite being a completely new place, where I had plenty of good reasons to be uneasy and stay on my guard, I slept more soundly than I had in days; however, the night passed away too quickly for my liking.
The sunlight shimmied through the small space between the curtain and wall, and fell on my face, waking me up before the alarm clock could start ringing. It took a few minutes to adjust my eyes to the surroundings and the anxiety to settle down on me to get out of bed and prepare for the day ahead. After a few body stretches, I washed my face and brushed my teeth to freshen up, before returning to the room. Jean had just woken up and was getting her outfit ready for the day and handed one out to me, telling me this was a uniform we were all expected to wear during training, so it would be best if I could quickly change into it.
It consisted of a plain black t-shirt, cargo pants and a military jacket. She also lent me a pair of her combat boots which were thankfully my size. The right shoe size wasn't something I found easily. I quickly changed into the outfit, threw my hair back into a ponytail before going out on a walk with Jean, on the other side of the dorm. We broke into a jog, on the track in the ground, where I found plenty of others in similar uniforms, warming themselves up for the session ahead. After running a few laps, we assembled in the courtyard where Rick was already waiting for us, filing his gun in with cartridges and looked grumpy enough to shoot us all in one go.
"Alright, rookies," he addressed us, loudly, aiming his gun in the direction of the humanoid targets placed in one side of the court, and flicked off imaginary dust at the head of its nozzle. "Run around two to three laps in the ground at the back of the courtyard and meet me back here in ten. Come on, guys" He clapped his hands loudly, twice and gazed around at the whole lot of us. "Chop, chop!"
Me and Jean gave each other exasperated looks, before making our way to the ground again. This is what we get for putting in the extra work. We gathered in the ground again, waiting for the next set of instructions.
"I can see some new faces here," he said, once we had all returned to the courtyard. He took a few steps closer, wandering to the left and right, inspecting us more closely. It felt like my heart stopped beating as his eyes fell on me, making my parched throat even drier. "So let's set a few ground rules here. Your previous identity doesn't matter, anymore. All that matters now is that you are part of the Mother's clan and nothing more. Orders will be orders and I won't hear any of your nonsense excuses about how you were too weak to accomplish them . You make it your life's mission to carry them out, or die trying. You should have left your baggage where you came from, because make no mistake none of your shit will be tolerated here. We have room only for the fittest. Anything less will be thrown to the wolves to survive on their own, or left to the Mother who will decide their fate. In a few days, you will formally get introduced to the Mother. In the meantime, you work your ass off, to be worthy enough to be presented in front of the her. Have I made myself clear?"
"Yes, sir," We said, harmoniously.
"I said, HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR?"
"YES, SIR!," We chanted louder.
"Alright then, pull your pants up, drop to the ground and give me fifty push ups!"
After we were finished with the warm up, that also included a hundred situps, we had to go through a course of obstacles, where we had to drag our bodies for a hundred yard, climb up and down a caving ladder, break into a sprint for a mile, after taking our shots at the target the precision that was to be calculated after our test was over and finish with a wall climb, ringing the bell, signaling that we had reached the end of the course. You had to ring the bell in under forty five minutes, otherwise it wouldn't be counted and you would have lost the race. I barely made it 5 minutes before Rick blew the whistle, catching my breath and resting my aching muscles that were still sore from yesterday's hike and sent a silent prayer for Dawood chacha, grateful for the way he trained me. Without him, there was no way I could have survived the obstacles today, or passed the race.
"Half of you are worse than I imagined," Rick remarked exasperatedly. "The other half were somewhat tolerable, however, not good enough." I knew the compliment was too good to be true coming from Rick and was expecting him to destroy it towards the end. "We've got a lot of work to do in terms of stamina and strength and your reflexes are probably equally worse but it doesn't hurt to give it a try. Pick your dueling partners and let's see what you've all got."
Naturally, I went for Jean, someone who I had a bit of understanding with but Rick switched her up with a taller woman, much more muscular than Jean. I think I saw her sitting among the group of people when I arrived yesterday, and she must have realized I was new here because she moved her neck side to side with an intimidating crack, before winking at me and gave me a condescending smirk.
"Ready flower?" She said, before launching herself at me. I barely dodged her attack, moved to the side and glared at her. She rubbed her hands in anticipation before attacking me yet again, but I was ready this time. I grabbed her arm, managed to twist it around her back and pushed her forward. It was her turn to stare at me angrily, and threw herself at me, pushing me to the ground. One of Rick's appointed referees, encircled our pair, ready to tap the ground, announcing my opponent's victory. But I wasn't one to back down so quickly. With a lot of effort, I tackled myself out of her grip where she was now right above my waist, trying to grab ahold of me again. I took advantage of the space she had just given me and grabbed her raised hand, managed to slip out from the side and twisted her arm yet again. The pain had caused her to weaken and slacken her grip on my leg that was still under her, which helped me remove myself completely from under her and to a position above her back, gripping her sides with my legs, and pushed her to the ground with all my might. The referee came and tapped the floor, thrice, in front of her, signaling her defeat, and blew out his whistle. I breathed out heavily, letting go of her hand, and got myself away from her, since I did not want to deal with her in that temper. She pushed me away and stomped off in the opposite direction, towards the water cooler.
I faced two more opponents after her, a male and a female. One of them ended in victory while the other in defeat. However, training was still not over, with a shooting practice that followed the brawling session, after which we got introduced to new moves and tactics for us to learn, practice and execute in the sessions ahead.
This routine continued for several days, with extremely short breaks in between where we got very little time for ourselves. I hardly saw Dawood Chacha or any of the soldiers that came with him any more, with glimpses or subtle nods of acknowledgement upon eye contact and frankly, I was tired. Tired of this isolation and wondered how long I would have to put up with it, before Ali and Amira arrived with our backup.
I had no information about the progress we made, concerning the data collection and whether or not we had gotten anywhere near finding Suleiman Khan in the base, and I was planning to confront either Hamza, Dawood chacha or Salman about it tonight. The men had been here for a longer period of time than I had, and many of them were already assigned duties around the parameters, meaning they might have gotten a clue about his location and whether or not the information was correct.
I sat down on the courtyard stairs near the water cooler and drank graciously from my water bottle, finally done with our training session for the day. Even though it seemed like it was a lot of work right now, I knew I was getting stronger with each passing day. My stamina was better than before and I had come face to face with a variety of opponents, much bigger than my size and managed to take them down. This spoke about about the strength I had developed, and the diversity within my opponents where each had their own fighting style, allowed me to improve my own technique and gain experience, crucial for the upcoming fight.
I was just making my way back to the quarters with my backpack, when I was lurched into a dark corner, with a hand that swiftly made it's way to my mouth. I was about to retaliate when I heard Hamza's urgent voice whispering to me.
"Salman has been captured and they know he was up to something. They detected the security breach, but the data was shared swiftly with the army back in Pakistan, who are preparing to leave shortly."
It wouldn't take them long to reach here. I was grateful for the training I had been going through in the past few days, because now I felt more prepared than I ever did.