(part two)
Sarai glanced at her own watch.
"I heard what you were saying earlier. And I'm afraid that you're the one who's got it wrong, Link. Seems we've been...out of the game for a while, without noticing."
She gestured towards the dome of St. Peters. Or what remained of it, at least.
"Do you really think that the Roman people would just sit idly by as their homes were incinerated, along with their priceless and timeless landmarks?"
She shook her head.
"No way, no how. If not swarms of fire fighters, we should at least see civilians running about the place, attempting to put out these fires. But like I said...I'm guessing that we've missed
out on a whole lot, lately."
She turned towards them.
"Look at the damage, and tell me what you see."
Link didn't budge, and Gagsy didn't seem to find it in her to face the horrific scenario either. Trunks, eyes brimming with tears of despair, found that he simply hadn't enough willpower to make a rational assessment right then and there, in the midst of it all, so that Sarai could prove whichever point she was trying to impress upon them.
So Tigerkitty, who seemed to be the only one capable of coping with the tragedy at that moment, stood at Sarai's side and looked down at the blackened ruin that was Rome.
"...the fires. They've burnt down a lot, but...in some areas, it almost looks like they've burned themselves out."
Sarai nodded. "Precisely. Which means, basically, that they've run out of material to burn down. Which means...that we really have been...gone, for a while. However that happened."
Gagsy sighed, and opened her eyes. This was too much.
"So, what is it exactly that you're suggesting, then? That we've been drugged somehow? Hypnotized by a random magician, lurking about the school? Or did we just hop into a goddamned time machine and forget about it entirely, right when we were in the middle of the beginning of this whole crisis?!"
She almost began to shake with anger. The fucking city was ablaze, and this woman was chatting about what DAY it was supposed to be? She had a hard time believing what she was hearing.
"Look, Gagsy, try to calm down for a sec--" said Link, in a placating tone.
"I'm not in the mood for your insightful, original, witty jokes at the moment Link, so you might as well just--"
"What, might as well just shut up, so you can keep up the whole jealousy-act you've got going on with--"
"ENOUGH already!" shouted Trunks.
Everyone shut up, out of sheer surprise.
"Look, I dunno how or why, but we've all been cut off from the rest of the world for about a week. What I do know, is that I sure as hell am not going back in there--"
He pointed at the school.
"--to investigate on what happened to us, or any dumb crap like that. I don't know about you people, but that's the last thing that I wanna do. The way I see it, the smartest thing we can do is try to call the authorities, from out of town if necessary, and get someone to help us out here."
He took his cell phone out, glared at it for a moment with anger in his eyes, then threw it with all the strength he could muster into the pavement. It smashed into about a hundred separate pieces.
"You know as well as I do that the phone lines won't work, seeing as how all the city's radio-transmission towers will have been destroyed too, along with any other device of that kind. So what we need to do now is just...get somewhere, where there has to be an international cell phone or something of the sort, that we can use to...call someone for help."
He stopped. Apparently, he'd finally noticed the expressions on the faces of his companions.
They were all staring at him. This was unexpected. The last person that they'd expected to come up with anything resembling a plausible course of action was...well, Trunks.
Sarai seemed pleased with him, at any rate. She nodded.
"He's right. We need to get a move on, and start heading for the nearest government building , or whatever else we can find of that sort. Some place that was built to survive a disaster like this, and that will most certainly have something inside it that will allow us to contact the army, other cities, and whoever else we can reach. And..."
She glanced uneasily behind them, towards the school.
"...we're going to have to be quick about it. Not only because the faster we go, the better chance we have of getting some help to whoever else survived this calamity, but also because I just don't think that sitting in the same spot for too long..."
A faint moaning could be heard in the background.
"...would be much of a good idea."
Link swallowed audibly. "Point made. I say we make like a tree, y'know?"
Gagsy silently agreed, nodding her head. But even though Trunks had dismissed the issue entirely for the moment, somehow Sarai's reasoning had gotten to her...made her start to think over what had happened so far.
They'd heard the screams from their study room, raced downstairs, gotten their phones and then encountered the first of the cannibals.
But before that, they'd met kids running past them, down the hallway, streaking for the exit...
...so when did they suddenly skip 6 whole days of their lives? What had caused them to forget? How had they failed to notice all of this, until now?
She knew she'd have a great deal of time to ponder all of this on the long hike down the Viale Vaticano, and beyond. She wondered whether she'd be able to talk it over with Tigerkitty and Trunks, and possibly even Link.
Sarai chose that precise moment to announce that she was going to hang back and try to close the iron gates, while the rest of them started making their way down the hill.
…"Lupus in fabula". thought Gagsy, smiling grimly to herself. It was the Latin equivalent of "Speak of the Devil".
The woman herself had inadvertently given her the chance she dearly needed to have a frank discussion with the rest of the group about what their thoughts and plans were. Which was exactly what they all needed.
She nodded once more to Sarai, and started moving down the sidewalk, quickly catching up with the other students.
The substitute teacher followed the girl’s movements for a few seconds, sizing her up. This Gagsy seemed to be the typical leader type…it would be interesting to see how she’d hold up, throughout this ordeal.
But she put those thoughts out of her head. First, she had to make sure that Gagsy and the rest of the students would survive the crisis at all. She’d have plenty of time to contemplate their personalities later.
She reached the gates she’d mentioned earlier to the others…
…but she didn’t even so much as look at them.
Instead, she reached into her left jacket pocket, and extracted one of the world’s most expensive, hi-tech phones from inside.
She flipped it open, dialed a number, and pressed “send”. It rang once, and once only, before someone answered.
“Everything going smoothly?”
The man’s tone was cool and formal, but it somehow conveyed a certain unmistakable frost to it.
“Absolutely. They’re all here with me, unscathed, as you asked. And…they’re taking it well.”
“Excellent news. I knew I was right to trust in your abilities.”
Sarai smirked.
“I’m flattered. Now, is there anything that you need me to take care of, at this point?”
The man paused for a moment, before giving an answer.
“Nothing that we haven’t gone over already. Keep an eye on them, get them where they’re going safely. I need them all, and I won’t suffer any losses. At all. Do I make myself clear, Sarai?”
Sarai almost shuddered. He had a rather chilling way of getting all the way under her skin and freaking her out from the inside.
“…absolutely, Doctor Monocrom.”
And with that, she hung up, in a way feeling somewhat relieved.
(end of part two)
