SURVIVAL 101

Rephan shifted a little to the side causing Gordon's arm to drop back to his side.

He was beginning to feel a little unnerved at the prospect of leaving the safety of the cave.

Biting his tongue to shake of the hesitation, he forced himself to focus.

Gordon's voice rang out in the cave again.

"Its getting dark outside."

Rephan shifted his gaze to the cave opening to find that there was no light filtering through.

Gordon walked over to the cave entrance and poured a powdery substance onto the ground before turning around.

'Is that how he creates the barriers?' Rephan thought.

"I think we should catch some sleep, tomorrow is going to be aa… stimulating day. "

He wasn't surprised when Gordon summoned beanbags and a luminescent orb out of thin air.

He tossed one in Rephan's direction before resting his back against his.

The chairs they had been sitting on were also unsummoned.

Placing his beanbag on the ground, he proceeded to lie against it as his mind wandered.

'I wonder how Gordon found me in that forest.'

Turning his head In Gordon's direction he noticed Gordon's arm was covering his eyes.

His chest was falling and rising in a steady rhythm.

Taking his eyes off of Gordon, he stared back at the ceiling of the cave.

'Is he not afraid of me?'

'Shouldn't he afraid that I could harm him in his sleep.'

'Then again, I'm the one who is going to croak without him.'

'I don't know where Gordon is taking me tomorrow, but one thing is for sure.'

'If I want to find my way out of this place I will have to get stronger, a whole lot stronger.'

'So I can return back home, to the Blackjacks.'

At last, he asked himself the question he had struggled to answer all his life.

'Will I survive tomorrow.'

At that thought he drifted into restless sleep.

****

Back on Earth, in the Blackjacks syndicate hideout.

The interior was filled with malfunctioning tech, products of failed experimentation.

Boss was laidback as he sat in the dim lighting.

He was constantly checking his communicator waiting for an update on the situation.

At that juncture, Echo burst into the hideout looking frantic.

A couple of the syndicate's members trailing behind.

"Boss, Boss this is bad."

Boss looked up from his phone, his mood shifting.

The moment he noticed Echo's expression his heart sank into his stomach.

'The operation, something had gone wrong.'

'Rephan was supposed to have posed as an intermediary and receive the package from the collector, and from there they were going to dispose of him…'

'Everything had been planned to the last letter so what could have gone wrong.'

Echo stood a few feet away from Boss nervously fiddling with his automaton fingers.

"Look Boss, Rephan was intercepted, the package was lost."

"We tried to give them a chase but we had to back off after we lost a few men.''

"Boss that's not even the worst part."

"Rephan has also disappeared, we suspect he may have been taken by the guys who did this."

"When we tried to use our connections to find out who did this."

"We were blocked before we could get anything concrete."

Echo paused, breathless at the end of his explanation of the events that had just occurred.

He was waiting for the Boss' reaction.

Surely, Boss would come up with a way around this just like he had done countless times before.

If Boss couldn't do it, nobody could.

At that moment Boss' shoulders started to rise and fall, laughter soon filled the hideout.

Echo and the two syndicate members stared at their Boss in confusion.

They all had the same thought.

'What was so funny?'

Meanwhile Boss just continued to laugh.

However he wasn't laughing out of mirth, his laughter was a bitter one.

'Who would have thought eh? , the irony of it all.'

'After rising to become a syndicate he had thought he was untouchable.'

'And not just any syndicate, they were the feared Blackjacks.'

'It all began when he received a call from an organization called the Order of Rebirth.'

'They had charged him with the task of obtaining a package from a collector and transporting it underground.'

'If he succeeded he would be rewarded handsomely, if not he along with his syndicate would become a mere memory of the past.'

'And he believed them, anyone involved in the matters of the underworld knew of the Order of Rebirth.'

'Their power would make the Blackjacks look like wannabe gangsters.'

'Then came along another group offering to pay thrice what the Order of Rebirth was offering if he handed over the package to them.'

"So of course, he took the money."

"But, he needed a plan something that would allow them to evade the wrath of the Order."

'That's when he came up with the plan.'

'He would use Rephan to collect the package.'

'After the Blackjacks received said package, he would pull a few strings to frame Rephan as the person who had stolen the package.'

'Rephan would then then take the brunt of the Order's wrath.'

'That's why he had needed someone who wasn't really a part of their syndicate.'

'He had only made Rephan feel like he was a part of the syndicate, so that he would take the job.'

'Now all of that was out of the window.'

'Now both groups would be gunning for his head.'

'The Order would be coming for him because there was no one to take the fall since Rephan had dematerialized.'

'The unnamed group would be coming for him because he had failed to deliver the package.'

 'He was screwed, so royally screwed.'

'Did these nebulous figures decide to come together and ruin his life?!'

These thoughts and so many others whirled around in his mind like an unyielding storm.

Eventually, the sound of laughter died down.

'No, this isn't how my story is going to end.'

'I'm not going to fall here.'

'I'm the leader of the Blackjacks syndicate, I have brought us this far and I'm going to continue to lead them into the future.'

Standing up, his voice rang out in the dim hideout.

He was addressing Echo in particular.

"Tell every Blackjack to hunker down."

"We will be going underground."

As for Boss himself, there was at least one thing he could do something about.

The faction that had stolen the package.

Well, he was going to find them and he was going to make them pay.