When the hour was almost up, I knew I had to force the issue of their powers. I couldn’t let even one precious moment pass by. “If you needed to, could you use your powers at the moment? Or would you need to work at them first?”
Mom hadn’t been privy to our previous conversation so she gasped quietly. “Our powers?” She whispered scandalously. “We aren’t allowed to use them.”
“You might need to.”
She exchanged an uncomfortable glance with her husband. Dad sat stone-faced. “It will get us into even more trouble. The humans won’t like it.”
“They don’t like anything we do. Now, can you use them or not?”
Dad cleared his throat. “We can use them.”
“And what’s your ability?” I asked, keen to hear the answer and unable to believe I hadn’t already found out. Powers were largely genetic, chances were whatever they could do, I might be able to do one day.
“I can control fire,” Dad admitted.
Mom hesitated before she spoke. But when she did, she was proud of her ability. “I can move things with my mind.”
So a fire controller and an object manipulator. I could do worse. Both of those abilities could come in handy sometime. Perhaps if I had actually tried to develop my own powers, I would have been able to use them by now too.
The guards posted around the room were starting to move, indicating we wouldn’t have much more time together. “If you get to see anyone else, will you tell them to prepare their powers? If we’re ever going to get out of here, we have to all work together to make it happen. Will you promise me you’ll spread the word?”
They both looked uncomfortable with the prospect but nodded anyway. I didn’t get a chance to say anything else before a guard came specifically for me. He returned me to my cell where I remained for the rest of the day.
After that afternoon, I had lunch nearly every day in the cafeteria. More and more faces I recognized turned up at the prison. It seemed nobody had a chance of avoiding jail time.
I didn’t waste a moment of my lunchtimes. I made my way around the room, sitting with someone new every day. We whispered about their powers and I started to build up a mental database of who could do what. There were some interesting abilities amongst them, but mostly they were the standard levitation and manipulation.
A plan was starting to develop in my mind, one made out of desperation and panic rather than actual strategy. The crux of the situation was that we had to get the hell out of the prison. Being at the authorities’ mercy did not sit right with me. I could never relax knowing they could decide to end our lives any day.
The only change to my daily routine were the visits to the doctors. They didn’t take me every day to perform new and often painful tests on me. A guard would just turn up at my cell and drag me away. I knew the route by heart, they could have saved all their energy instead of pushing me the entire time.
I hated the doctors. I hated the tests they performed on me. I hated the fact they saw me as a test subject with no feelings. And I hated the way they talked about me like I wasn’t a real living thing in the room.
Above all, I absolutely hated the fact they were planning my autopsy. Any one of the needles they pointed my way could hold something fatal. I doubted they would use a weapon to end my life. They were scientists, they’d do it with some concoction that would stop my heart from beating.
But I put up with it anyway. I didn’t have a choice. Even if I did, I wanted them to find something they could use to help the humans recover from the disease spreading throughout the globe. If it took me being subjected to all that, then I would do it to save them. But I didn’t have to enjoy it.
Nobody would tell me anything about what was happening in the outside world. I asked any guard who moved into my vicinity but they wouldn’t say a word. I ached to know what Lochie, Lola, and my parents were doing. I desperately needed to know they were okay.
That was probably the most frustrating thing. I knew they were sick and there was nothing I could do about it. If I lost even one, I didn’t know how I would be able to live without them. When I laid awake in my cell in the middle of the night, I could hear Lochie’s wheeze haunt me and it was terrifying.
I counted nine days being locked up when I found myself strapped down to the doctors’ table again. My body was so covered in bruises and needle marks from my previous visits that they were having trouble finding a place to draw more blood. One had already tried and failed twice so he was trying to find a good place on my neck. I hated him being that close to me. So close I could feel his breath on my skin.
“Hey, Barney, check this out.” The other doctor’s voice interrupted his endless hunt for a vein. He left me and joined his colleague at the table against the wall.
“That confirms our initial findings.”
“It certainly does. This could be what we were looking for.”
I was used to listening to their endless boring science chatter, but this conversation actually seemed worth eavesdropping on. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Have you found the cure? Something to stop the disease spreading?”
They both turned to look at me as if noticing I was alive for the first time. The one with white blonde hair arched his eyebrows at me as he spoke. “Not a cure, no. But we have confirmation that your blood is not exactly the same as ours.”
“Can that help in any way?” I really needed to know all the torture wasn’t for nothing. Surely they had to find something that could be of use. Even if it was just the cure for the common cold I would have been happy.
“We don’t know yet. But you have an extra protein and that could be significant.”
“So what are you going to do now? Can you work on a cure for the disease? Or at least some immunity for those that aren’t sick yet?” My voice was so high pitched it didn’t even sound like my own anymore.
They both smirked in a way that said I wouldn’t find whatever was on their mind as funny as they did. Grey-haired man spoke first. “We have almost finished with stage one. We will implement stage two very shortly.”
Ice ran through my blood. Stage two was the autopsy. The stupid grins on their face and bloodlust in their eyes told me I was right without them having to say a word. I couldn’t bear to hear it out loud anyway.
There was only one thing I knew for sure – I was not going to die in the prison. My life was not supposed to end like that. I was supposed to be old, have a whole brood of children to say goodbye to. Lochie was supposed to be holding my hand as I died from nothing but old age. That was how it was going to be. I would not let them cut my life short.
I endured the rest of the day’s testing. Feeling more like a pincushion than an actual person, I was pushed back to my cell and left to my own devices once again. I sat on the edge of the bed and held my head in my hands.
I needed to get moving on my plan. I had thought that perhaps with enough collective powers, we could overpower the guards as a group and bust out of the prison. It wasn’t exactly an ideal situation but it was all I had. As far as I knew, the guards didn’t know about our powers and abilities. We would have the element of surprise and hopefully be able to overpower them with sheer force.
There were a million things that could go wrong with the plan and I had no clue what we would face on the other side of the walls. But it was all I had. My parents and Garrick said they had faith in what I would come up with. I feared their belief in me was misplaced.
Shifting to lie back on the bed, I stared up at the dirty white ceiling and said a little prayer. I figured it couldn’t hurt. I knew we were innocent, I just hoped anyone listening would agree and shine a little light on our fate.
I must have fallen asleep at some stage before I woke up hours later. So much time had passed that a guard was banging on the door with his baton to wake me for lunch. It was my favorite time of the day, easily the highlight. Not only did I get to leave my tiny cell, but I got to see some friendly faces too.
As I mad
e my way through the lunch line, I surveyed the room. I was looking for any new faces, maybe someone I hadn’t spoken to about their abilities yet.
When my eyes fell on Senph, I almost choked on my water. So the mighty leader of the resistance wasn’t even good enough to stay out of the police’s clutches. Somehow that wasn’t comforting.
I grabbed my lunch quickly and made a beeline for her table. I needed to know how she had ended up a prisoner here and if she had some brilliant plan to get out again.
“Senph, I didn’t think I’d see you here,” I said as I sat opposite her. Her head snapped up, she didn’t seem pleased to see me. “How’d they get you?”
“A random vehicle check,” she replied. “They asked for my license and registration and recognized me. I knocked the guy out and ran but he had a partner.”
“Tough break.”
She nodded sadly in agreement. “It was.”
“Did they get your kids too?” From speaking with the others, all the alien children were rounded up in facilities similar to orphanages where they could be kept separate from the human population.
“They did.” My heart went out to her, the sadness was written all over her face. But she slid on her mask again before I could see the truth depth of her misery. “So what’s going on in here?”
I gave her a quick rundown of how things had been faring. It wasn’t exactly a happy tale.
Senph grabbed my arm, examining the needle marks that were too difficult to cover in the short jumpsuit sleeves. “What are these?”
I pulled my arm back self consciously. I didn’t want anyone seeing what I had gone through, something about the experience felt oddly intimate and shameful. “Just a few tests, it’s nothing.” I really wanted to change the subject. “So, I have been planning our way out of here.”
It worked like a charm. “I’m listening.”
“I’m pretty sure the guards don’t know we have powers. I’ve been making sure people are ready when the time comes to fight our way out.”
Senph pursed her lips, thinking it through. “You know, they could have been told about the abilities as a precautionary measure. They might be expecting something like this.”
I had thought about that, but after observing the guards, I was certain they didn’t. They were too blasé and confident of their own ability to keep us under control. “It’s all I’ve got right now,” I confessed.
“It’s a good start.”
“You know, you never said what your ability is.” Senph had done a lot of talking about others using their powers but she had never gone so far as to reveal her own. She could be a shape shifting lion for all I knew.
“I can heal,” she blurted out. “I used to mainly work on the plants on Trucon, considering we don’t really fall ill. I would help them grow and the crops stay strong. The occasional cut or accident, that was the most I could do for the people.”
Healing? That was new. My mind instantly raced with a thousand new questions for her. I had to know more. “How does it work? Do you only have to think about it? Or is it through your hands?”
Senph smiled slightly at my unabashed curiosity. In the prison, where we were nothing but inmates, she was almost a different person. Almost normal. It was a little disconcerting. Like seeing the Santa from the mall in the parking lot as he climbed into his car to drive home.
“I can heal through my hands but that means I would have to continue touching the affected area,” she explained. “Sometimes it can take a few hours or more, depending on the extent of the damage. So I infuse something with the healing power and place it on the wound. It does my work for me.”
“What kind of something?”
“On Trucon I used a special type of leaf. Here, I have been using a bandage. But humans seem to heal must faster than us, my power is stronger on them. It has worked just as well.”
“Could you infuse something bigger?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. My abilities are very strong.”
Hope threatened to linger in my head. “Could you infuse water? Would that then heal whoever came into contact with it?”
Senph thought about it long and hard, making me wonder if she had ever tried to do the same thing herself. Judging by the amount of time she was taking, I’d put money on her never even considering it as an option before.
Finally, she gave a slight nod. “Probably. I’m very powerful. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.”
“Would it work on humans?” I held my breath as I waited for an answer. I didn’t hope for too much, but my heart was in my throat anyway.
“Like I said, I’ve healed humans before. The water should be sufficient,” she replied, instantly making me wonder who she had worked her mojo on. She didn’t seem like the type to willingly help humans. Not when she was building an army to overthrow them.
But that was all the information I needed. If Senph could heal humans then I had a much better plan than my previous one. We still needed to break out of the prison, but I now knew exactly what we had to do once out.
CHAPTER 13
I left Senph and hurried over to my parents. “We need some privacy. I have to talk to all the Truconians without the guards being present.”
To their credit, neither of them asked any questions. Considering we hadn’t been acquainted for very long, I couldn’t thank them enough for having such blind faith in me. I just hoped I would live up to my unspoken promise.
Mom assessed the room. “Can I use my powers?”
“Can you use them discreetly?” She nodded. “Be my guest. I only need to keep them out for a few minutes.”
Like they had done it a thousand times before, my parents hurried toward the doors without having to discuss it any further. I tried not to make it obvious I was watching them, lest the guards notice, but I caught my father waving his hands first.
A smoke alarm sounded shortly afterwards. So my dad had used his power too. They were so cute. All the guards started hurrying toward the corridor, leaving us unattended momentarily. With a wave of her hand, Mom closed all the doors.
We had the privacy we needed now. I didn’t waste any time in standing on one of the tables. I crossed my fingers, hoping my theory was right.
“Attention everyone. I need all those with the power of healing to come forward. We can save the humans with your abilities.”
I was met with nothing but silence and blinking eyes as the seconds ticked by. I could count off every one of them with my pounding heartbeats. I was going to have some broken ribs if something didn’t happen soon. The smoke alarm screamed behind the doors.
A man stood up, his greying hair neatly parted to the side. “Why would we want to help them? They’ve locked us up. They hate us.”
That wasn’t the kind of reaction I was expecting. The answer seemed so obvious to me, clearly it wasn’t to everyone else. “Because we can still integrate. If we can cure the disease and save lives, we can earn our place here on Earth. We can prove to them that we want to live harmoniously within their community.”
A woman stood, her forehead a mess of wrinkles as she frowned. “They’ll never believe we did it out of the goodness of our own hearts. Who wants to save them anyway? We can take over the planet if we wait long enough for them all to be wiped out.”
Things were definitely not progressing as I would have hoped. I looked at each of the faces. Most of the Truconians met my gaze but others averted.
It was time to appeal to those that might be more willing to see my point of view. There were dozens of project members in the room, not all of them could have forgotten their human friends and family yet.
“Look, I know being locked up in here sucks. And it’s hard to believe we should show compassion when they’ve done this to us. But it was only a few that put us in here. Think of all the humans you know, all those that might be suffering from the disease right now. Think of the ones you love and picture them going through the same ordeal. Think of the human parents who raised you.”
I paused so I could study the faces and determine if I was having any impact whatsoever. A few more were able to make eye contact with me now. I took that as a good sign and continued.
“We have the opportunity to save them. We can help the humans heal and save their life. Nobody needs to die. If we have the ability amongst us, then we have to use it.”
I hesitated, waiting to see if anyone would pipe up and challenge that statement too. Nobody did.
I continued while on a roll. “Most of the humans on this planet have welcomed us here. They have chosen to accept our presence in their community. We owe it to those people to repay them for that opportunity. We have to do this.”
Banging started on the doors, every single one of them. I found Mom in the crowd, her eyes wide with concern about how long she would be able to keep them closed. I gave her a nod of understanding – we needed to be quick.
“Please, any healers, let me know who you are and be ready to help. I beg and plead with you to do this. If not for the humans, then all the Truconians who love them.” I stood down from the table in just enough time to see the doors fly open and countless guards flood in.
With us all merely sitting around like nothing had happened, they were a bit puzzled about the door situation. I certainly wasn’t going to confess and I knew nobody else would either.
They cut short our lunch hour and ordered us back to our cells. After the excitement of actually having some hope, the tiny box of a room felt like I was a wild animal locked in a cage. I was almost climbing the walls with frustration and pent up energy.
After that, every lunch break was spent trying to rally support and hunt out the healers. Despite Senph’s self proclaimed declaration that she was extremely powerful, I didn’t want to put all my trust in one person. The more healers I had, the better my odds of being able to pull off the plan.
By the end of the week, I had four of them, plus Senph. They each promised me their allegiance and confirmed they would be able to infuse water with their ability. I had no way of knowing if five was enough, or if Senph would help at all, but it was a start. Sometimes all you needed was blind faith, right?
Project Integrate Series Boxed Set Page 104