Station 2-14: Chapter Twenty-One

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The Station is slowly coming back to life. Back-up generators power on and a murmur of a heartbeat returns. Voss pays it little attention as he strides through the streets. He can only hope that Ley survived the blast.

The power-outage would at least buy them time. The stadium won’t recover as quickly so they’ll need to reschedule her match. And by then he would have found Tessa and together they would have gotten Ley the hell out of the Station.

For some reason, Jin is still behind him. It isn’t the worst problem to have. After being thrown about by Derek in the elevator, Voss figures that he can use an extra set of hands laced with telekinetic abilities. If he was completely honest with himself, he needs all the help he can get.

Voss only wished that he would shut up for one second.

‘But how would he know that her mother was there? Let alone killed her? Do you think he had the drug on hand or did he buy it? Where do you even buy something like that - isn’t that illegal? Voss - I really don’t think that Derek would do something like that. And what can Tessa do to help? Do you know where she is?’ Voss whirls around to face him,

‘Let’s just shut it down for a minute,’ he snaps. He doesn’t have time to convince Jin of Derek’s character. He doesn’t care if he believes him or not. His only focus is finding Tessa and saving Ley. He continues on and Jin falls into place behind him.

He has no doubt where Tessa would go; back to where she thought she deserved to be. Back to the club that he and Ley first found her in. It was originally built as a bunker, long before the Station itself. The place could survive a nuclear attack, so power would no doubt be flowing and the fights would be continuing on without a passing thought to the world outside.

‘She’ll be at Section 8.’

‘That club near the Fringe?’ Says Jin. ‘Why would Tessa be in that dump?’

‘Well, not all of us experienced the glittering success that you did after our Games.’

‘Hey, I won fair and square.’ Voss stops in his tracks and glares at Jin. ‘Well… I mean, I had nothing to do with the tape.’

‘I’d say that’s more accurate - still not the whole picture though is it…’

‘But surely she’s over that by now…right?’ Voss doesn’t answer, choosing instead to quickly cross the street to the underground, hoping that his new shadow would be collected by incoming traffic. As he descends the stairs he peers over his shoulder to find Jin still skipping along behind him.

‘Just trust me,’ he calls. ‘She’ll be there.’

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Section 8 is exactly how he left it. It was calming for Voss to know that even with the chaos unfolding outside, the show goes on. Something loosens in his chest - this is where he wants to be. He wants to melt into the crowd and forget everything that weighs down upon him. But he knows that time is against them.

If he was at home in Section 8, Jin was a stranger. His eyes dart around the scene but can’t find a safe place to land. He falls back onto his media-training. No one can know that he’s uncomfortable, so he sets his shoulders straight and stands taller than those around him before fixing his smile into place.

And people start to notice.

While Voss shrinks beneath their gaze, Jin gleams at the attention with rehearsed nods to their onlookers that breathes: Yes, I know, I can’t believe it’s me either.

Voss can’t be sure that the public have been this close to him before. That kind of attention can quickly turn sour. He nudges him forward but Jin doesn’t notice, he’s too busy gently waving to everyone around him with a practiced hand, drawing more eyes to his winning smile.

Voss shoves him forward,

‘Focus up pretty boy. We don’t have time for you to play tourist - make us a path out of here?’ Jin turns back to the room and gently pushes people away with his mind, clearing a path for them to walk through to the elevator to get to the basement. Voss sighs as he forges ahead; the things he would do if he had a band of his strength.

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They hear the roar of the crowd before the doors open and the thread of rage that threatens beneath. When they step out to join them Jin hesitates, convinced that Voss has made some sort of mistake. But even at a distance, they can see Tessa in the ring.

Voss hates every second of it.

That she would choose to fight here to begin with let alone come crawling back at the first sign of defeat. She had all the power in the world to change it, but instead she came back to the basement scrambling for scraps.

‘Is that her?’ Asks Jin, hoping that he’s wrong.

‘Yeah - come on.’ He pulls them forward into the crowd, drawing them closer to where Tessa is getting her ass kicked.

The crowd is loving it.

They force themselves to the front and start following her around the ring, trying to get her attention. Voss is about to call her name when Tessa is knocked from her feet. She falls to the ground, inches from the fence and looks up into Jin’s eyes,

‘Jin?’ She says.

‘HEY!’ Shouts Voss, snapping his fingers in front of her face. She drags her attention to Voss, ‘They’re gonna hurt Ley.’

‘What?’

‘Ley’s in trouble-’ Tessa’s opponent hauls her away from the fence, picking her up like a bag of sand and throwing her at the opposite wall. She smacks into the fence and slides down to the floor but Voss doesn’t care. He yells across the ring:

‘Get up!’

He remembers yelling that in a match countless times before in her own Games. When she was ready to give up, it was Voss who told her to keep going. When she didn’t believe that she could, he would wrangle her shame into something useable.

‘Ley needs you - finish this!’

Tessa gets to her feet just as her opponent begins to charge, for the first time giving him her full attention. Voss grabs Jin’s arm, was he seeing this? She’s not losing this time.

She clears her throat, spitting blood to the ground and waits. Then, just before he arrives, she uses her TK and swings the door open. He slams into it, hands flailing out to try and grab her. Cheers from the crowd quickly become furious but Tessa ignores them. She rips the door away from him and slams it shut as he falls forward, off balance, and straight into her foot that strikes out to meet him.

He keels over, breathing hard before he stands up to face her. She dances around him, forcing him to turn again and again. When she finally stops, he follows and she raises her hands in front of her - making him to do the same. She clips the air and brings his hands up into his own face. He shakes off the confusion and she uses her TK to make him hit himself over and over.

Voss is leading the chorus, he doesn’t care that a riot is about to start around them. He just wants Tessa to win.

Her opponent starts to wobble on his feet, she sends her chair flying towards her and grabs hold. Using all her strength she cracks it across his back, and he hits the ground - out cold.

She tosses the chair on top and leaves the ring grabbing her money from the agent on her way before ploughing into the crowd. Angry fans race forward but she shoves them aside with a thought and makes a path to where Voss and Jin are waiting for her.

‘Tell me everything.’

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