Soldier of Time

VI: Weakness Will Make Them Survive (1)

Slevin carried out his daily routine taking the food that he always took and went up the path that he always climbed until he reached the place he always wanted to go.

As he climbed the hill, he contemplated the abandonment of the place on his back. He weighed his clothes, but nothing weighed more than the long rectangular briefcase he carried on his arm.

The briefcase was black with silver edges and with a deer symbol on one of its faces. The young man remembered how the contents of that briefcase had helped to create great destruction in that place.

He stopped halfway and looked at the entire east coast of El Morro, the side of that city that was mired in the great confrontations of the civil war, you could only see destruction in that place, and that destruction was part of Slevin’s childhood.

The man took a deep breath and kept walking while he adjusted the briefcase. He thought about everything he had to do and what it meant to take that to his current assignment.

When he was in front of the entrance of the building where Amber lived, he looked again at the east side of El Morro and tried to forget what he knew with a sigh.

The landscape in front of him was a ghost town full of buildings and houses that no one habited and where memories of a better time still roamed.

 Upon entering, he went up the stairs slowly, and everything remained much the same. After a few minutes of ascent, he reached the top floor, only two apartments appeared, one in front of the other, but he perfectly knew which one to enter.

He put the key in the door and realized that it was open. Slevin frowned and said unhappily, “You should close this door!”

And a voice answered him from a distant room, “Yes... it’s not like anyone is going to steal something.”

“Know-it-all,” Slevin answered more for him than for the girl.

He put his suitcase on the floor and walked over to the grocery table where he put what he had bought and the briefcase with his brand on it.

On the side of the table was an envelope that the Slevin took while he asked, “Amber, where are you? What is this on the table?”

“I’m in here,” a voice said from the next room, “I did something for you, is on the table.”

Slevin took the envelope and opened it, and slid his fingers inside to draw a drawing. A perfect self-portrait made in the realism of a beautiful young woman with short hair looking at him directly from the paper.

“Amber! This is! Is incredible…” Slevin said with his gaze, captivated by the drawing.

The figure on the paper was the portrait of the girl in the continuous room. The resemblance to her was such that Slevin felt a certain essence of her that he had never seen.

The girl left the room. The clock was in her hand, this time marking exactly eight minutes. When she left the room, she pressed the button, and the time began to count down.

“I know you have to leave soon, and I know that you will not come in a few days. I thought it would be good if you had something to remember me.”

Slevin smiled as he looked directly at the drawing.

“You are incredibly melodramatic, Amber,” Slevin said. Looking up at her and smiling warmly, he asked, “You know that I will write to you daily, right?”

The girl smiled and leaned against the door frame, and she said, “You can leave the gift behind if you didn’t like it. How ungrateful! You always say that I should draw more. Now that I do this for you, I am melodramatic.”

The girl’s complaints were genuine, but her look was funny. She smiled as she played with the clock in her hand.

Slevin, smiling, took the drawing and put it back in the envelope. When he did this, he said, sweetening his voice exaggeratedly, “You’re right, it’s beautiful. I will have it with me all the time, and I will remember you watching it!”

“Don’t exaggerate either. You were taking it with you and not losing it. It’s enough for me.”

Slevin rolled his eyes, “God! It is impossible to please you, woman.”

The girl smiled, and her gaze took in the briefcase on the table. She remembered the briefcase, and she was there when the pieces inside it were put away.

She looked at the Slevin seriously and then asked, “Is it that serious?”

Slevin followed the look of the young woman to his briefcase, and his smile slowly faded, he looked at the young woman, and she returned the look with melancholy.

Slevin sighed and said in a canine voice, “I do not plan to get anything out of there. It is a mere precaution.”

Amber pursed her lips, “Yes, you also said that if it was too dangerous, you would not accept the job.”

Slevin sighed at the firmness of what the young woman affirmed. Without the slightest decorum, he changed the topic of conversation.

“I already arranged for someone to bring the provisions. They will leave them in the old guard’s pot.”

The girl nodded as she looked at the clock in her hands.

“I’ll also call you whenever I can,” Slevin continued, “I don’t think I’ll be going for much more than two weeks, but I still left a couple of books with the supplies.”

She nodded once more. Slevin opened the briefcase on the table, inside it on one side, there were ten throwing knives arranged in parallel, while on the other side of the briefcase, there were several spaces with two kukri daggers, two survival knives with finger guards, an empty space that belonged to a knife and in the center, a weapon, a Konsberg of 45millimeters in perfect conditions, all the objects were marked with the symbol of a deer on their handles, and the young man grabbed the pistol.

“I’ll leave this to you, so you can protect yourself,” he said after taking out stuff from the briefcase.

“You know I don’t need protection,” Amber uttered helplessly.

“Call me paranoid ... Maybe if she doesn’t take care of you, you will take care of her.”

The girl snorted for a while, and from the back pocket of her jeans, she took out a knife that had the same symbol as the gun, put it on the ground, and said, “I don’t want the set to be incomplete. The Deer needs his horns.”

The young woman’s voice carried the temperature of an iceberg in her tone, and Slevin nodded, and there was only one minute left on the clock.

The girl saw it and said, “I hate the fact that you took this job!”Amber looked at Slevin while she pressed the clock without realizing it, “I understand you must do it, but I hate it... will you be okay?”

Slevin saw the watch in the young woman’s hands then planted his eyes on hers. The beautiful sincerity they reflected stopped time with more power than he could ever use. At that moment, he stopped time.

He thought about what was ahead and what could happen, but he had to give an answer. As time passed once more, he said something that he hoped was true, but he knew every word was a lie.

“I’ll be fine, I promise!”

_______

Slevin walked towards the train station. These enormous transports took people to different destinations every day at unsuspected speeds, but only to El Morro arrived practically empty.

At certain times the trains were crowded but the rest of the day was nothing more than transport without people to transport.

“I think you still have time to change your mind, man!” Simon said, placing an arm on Slevin’s shoulders. He saw him as the train arrived at the station and, with a nod, told him to board it.

Simon waited for his companion to enter the train when he marked his eyes on the briefcase. When he saw it, a small chill ran down his back and smiling, and he entered the train.

Slevin and Simon shared a wagon all to themselves, and the train was heading at full speed towards the central city.

The young people watched the sea disappear in the distance while they left El Morro when Simón asked, “What’s the plan, Deer?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What will we do to survive?”

“We will stay alert...”

“That is not a plan, less against Hanibal. Tell me, will you explain to these guys how his power works?”

Slevin meditated for a second, remembering the confrontations that he had already had with Hanibal, many physical pains leave marks for life in the body of a person, but those confrontations left deeply rooted fears in Slevin’s heart.

“Even if I wanted to, that is not the case. Nobody would believe me. Hanibal’s abilities are not exactly normal. If he spat fire or fly, it would be different, but what he does is too weird to explain. And even if I did, they probably wouldn’t believe me... No one would believe that those “gifts” exist,” Slevin said, marking that last word with his own fingers, placing the quotation marks in the air.

“Of course, they will believe it. There are already hundreds of rumors about them, and don’t forget that some of the bastards who work for the government have powers. Do you remember…”

When he remembered the name of the person he was referring to, a memory butchered Simon’s stomach, Slevin’s eyes were planted on him, and once again, he looked at the briefcase next to his friend. Slevin’s gaze was calm, but he felt it like a hundred needles in his heart.