Page 8 of Senseless
“Yeah,” I agreed. That was how desperate we were. She could throw us scraps, any small acknowledgment of our existence, and we’d eat it up like starving dogs.
The conference room door opened, and I peered through my bleary eyes to see my dad walking in. He came through with something held high above his head, like a victory trophy, then subsequently dropped his arm when he saw our faces.
“You boys look shittier by the day,” he remarked, approaching the table with one of his lieutenants behind him.
“You got somethin’?” I nodded at the folder he placed on the table, not caring to hash out my marital problems at work.
Dad nodded, his grin returning. “Andrea has made contact. So she’s alive and carrying out her part of the mission.” He turned to his lieutenant, a slender south-Asian man who radiated a calm, understated strength. “This is Anurak. He developed the code and will be translating Andrea’s messages. I figured you boys would want to be the first to know what it says.”
“Yes, please.” Gunner reached over and shook Anurak’s hand. “Thank you for working with us on this.”
“It’s my pleasure.” Anurak took a seat and opened the folder, examining the full page of foreign characters while my dad got him a pen and plain sheet of paper.
I leaned over to look at the glyphs Andrea had written, my weary eyes quickly blurring all the symbols together. “Is that a made-up code or a real language?”
“It’s based on my native language, which is Thai,” Anurak explained. “But it’s altered slightly, so that even if a Thai speaker were to find the message, they would not be able to decode it.”
“I didn’t know Andrea spoke Thai,” Gunner mused.
“She doesn’t,” Anurak said with a polite chuckle. “She’s using the phonetic sounds of the characters to compose a message in English. Because Thai and English consonants don’t match up exactly, we did have to invent a few.”
“She learned it pretty fucking fast,” I remarked.
“We gave her a copy of the codex to carry with her,” my dad said. “But encouraged her to memorize it and destroy it at the first opportunity, so her messages wouldn’t be compromised.”
“Here.” Anurak dragged his finger across a row of characters. “She says she burned the codex, and this message is composed entirely from memory.”
Dad clapped his hands once. “That’s our girl.”
The three of us waited as the lieutenant transcribed the message onto the piece of paper, capping his pen with a definitive click. “Would you like to do the honor, General?” Anurak slid the translation across the table to my dad.
General Bray accepted the paper, his eyes scanning it before relaying the information. “Everyone here worships General Tash like a god,” he read aloud, his brow pinching. “From food and clothing, to weapons and victories in battle, everything is attributed to his greatness. However, no one seems to have direct contact with him. Everyone is a messenger, or a foot-soldier. The only ones who speak to him directly are a small group called the General’s Council. They have immense power and influence, and are the ones who relay the general’s orders to the rest of the army. I have met several men in saloons who claimed to be General Tash undercover, keeping a watchful eye over his citizens. It’s clear, however, that no one knows who the general trulyis. He stays out of sight and gives commands from on high like a deity.”
Dad paused in his reading, noticing as Gunner and I exchanged a look. “You two said you traded goods with this guy?”
“Yeah.” Gunner stroked his jaw, his eyes more focused than they had been in weeks. “It was always the same guy, his uniform decorated in medallions and with general’s stars. He claimed to be Tash, and his soldiers referred to him as such. But apparently that’s not the case, huh?”
“It was probably one of these council members acting in his stead.” I drummed my fingers on the table. “What else does Andrea say?”
“She says, ‘I’m getting close to some of the unit leaders, but must tread delicately. I can’t dig for intel too aggressively, or else I risk my position. Below are current estimates based on what I’ve already found out.’” Dad proceeded to list numbers of Jeeps, ground units, sniper units…and other shit my exhausted brain was too tired to catch, before setting the message back down on the table. “Her message ends there.”
“Nothing about Big G’s fuckery, huh?” Gunner shoved his hair back. “I still can’t wrap my mind around that.”
“If she’s getting close enough to unit leaders to bring us these numbers already,” Anurak tapped his fingers on the original coded message, “she’s likely not being regarded as a suspicious person. Is it possible Big G may have done what he did to throw suspicion off of her?”
“Maybe,” I sighed. “I hope she gets closer to these council people. I need to know how to topple Tash himself.”
“It’s just the first message, son,” Dad reminded me. “This is a long game. Every message will give us a clearer picture of what’s going on in there.”
“I know, you’re right,” I sighed. “Anything else?”
Dad’s smile wavered. “Yeah, that was the good news. We’re also getting reports that Blakeworth units are mobilizing. They’re moving toward us, but staying just out of our reach in the neutral territory north of here. It’s looking like they want to draw us out for a skirmish.”
“Great.” I went back to rubbing my eyes. “Just fan-fucking-tastic.”
“Gunner, I’m gonna want your input on the best way to engage them,” Dad said. “How many units we should send, what kind of artillery to bring. We want to shove them back, but be mindful that we’re dealing with conscripts and don’t want overkill. Regardless, they won’t go away unless we respond. Can you meet with us this afternoon?”
“Yeah,” Gunner said blankly. “Sure.”
