My concerns about Eric’s hidden talents creep up again. “How much is there that you haven’t told us about you, Eric? I mean, how much more?”
From the shift of energy in the room, I can tell everyone is interested in hearing an answer to my question.
“I’m nothing,” he says. “It’s about survival. Contact Exodus. Ask for their advice and support. You will see that my proposal is your best option.”
We have no choice but to consider his plan. No one else has a better one.
*
BY THE TIME the meeting’s over, I’ve lost any confidence in deciding things today. Only Dom, Finn, Theo and Zoe remain with me. That was on purpose. They are the only ones I want present when we contact Exodus.
“Saviors, you have called us,” Commander Eldritch says in a hoarse voice. He coughs suddenly and then clears his throat. “Forgive me, what would you like to bring to our attention?”
From the looks of it, I’d say the commander has a cold even though that’s unlikely. Exodus is sterilized and, basically, germ-free which leads me to believe something far more serious is wrong with him.
Lainey, Armand and two more officers sit next to him up on the screen.
“We trust you’ve been briefed on events here,” Finn says.
“Of course,” Lainey says. “Is this why you called? Or perhaps you have concerns over the aliens shutting down Freya after the little girl?”
Members of their intelligence team are everywhere obviously, I think as I steal a glance at Dom.
“We need your missile systems to back us up,” I blurt out.
Their faces turn instantly grim.
“We need to know we have backup,” I say, turning to Theo for support.
“Freya’s right,” Theo says. “Having the missiles active and ready to go would give us a huge advantage.”
The commander clears his throat, but Lainey does the talking. “Using the missiles while you are in the district would be too dangerous.”
“You don’t have to use them,” Finn says. “We just need the aliens to know we have them at our disposal. Theo tells us they can detect them once they’re armed. Right, Theo?”
“They’ll know immediately,” Theo says enthusiastically.
My eyes fall on Dom who’s remained silent throughout the exchange. The look on his face tells me there’s more to this story.
I move closer to the screen and stare into the commander’s eyes. “You’d tell us if there was something wrong, wouldn’t you?”
Eldritch covers his mouth with his right hand as the cough returns. At this point, I’m not sure if it’s a coughing fit or a stalling tactic.
“There are no details,” he says. “The missiles are unusable and have been for many years.”
Zoe’s disappointment spills out into a sigh. I feel the urge to cry. Damian was right when he said Eldritch had no intention of using his best weapons. Now we know why.
“How did this happen?” Theo wants to know. His frustration is palpable.
“It matters not,” Eldritch says. “Time is the greatest saboteur.”
“More likely an actual sabotage,” Finn suggests. “It had to be someone on Exodus. Did you run an investigation?”
“Of course we did,” Lainey says impatiently. “It’s not easy to investigate something that no one can ever know about.”
“Ah, the people don’t know the missiles are useless?” Finn realizes.
Eldritch shakes his head. “It would cause unnecessary distress and a secret like that would travel quickly to the wrong ears.”
That’s it then. We cannot count on Exodus unleashing its fury on the plantations. It will all fall on us, the Saviors and those who will join us.
I hurry from the room to collect my thoughts. In the half light of the early evening, the absence of the people I need most becomes overwhelming. I’ve hardened myself in so many places, but the places I’ve left soft, the ones I thought I had given up on years ago, are the ones that take over now and make my very breathing painful.
Pretty soon I’ll be leading a suicide mission. My life and all those I hold dear have never been more precious and needed.
16
We find in hope what we lack in certainty. I’m sure I’ve read this in a book I found on Exodus but I can’t remember which one. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that hope must breathe as long as we do.
I enter my room in a terrible mood. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out I’m going to spend most of the night doubting myself, debating risky ideas and filling my head with false hopes.
You don’t have to control the entire universe, Eldritch told me just before the feed was cut off. I have no idea what he meant but I still find it irritating.
I turn on the light and take a look at my orderly room and for the first time I feel like messing it up. My life is not tidy, it doesn’t fit in neat rooms. I want to destroy everything that binds me to life’s lust for order.
Tucked underneath my mattress, I find the small box that Zoe gave me a while ago. I sit on the bed and go through its random contents, makeup bottles and brushes that I’ve used once or twice.
I take the items out one by one and place them on my lap. Lipstick, mascara, rouge, eyeshades. Bizarre little things seeking to transform me into someone I’m not. Lotions and potions with weird names that might have elevated me to being a member of one class of women or another had the world not been invaded by shadows.
I stare up feeling a tear or two welling up in my eyes. I try to understand what’s wrong with me but I can’t.
The knock on the door startles me. I quickly wipe away the moisture from my eyes and hurry to put the little bottles back in the box before I go to meet my visitor.
His presence at my doorstep hits my heart like an electric shock. I’m sure that was his intention. Why else would he not have told me he’d be back tonight? But it makes no difference. I’m glad to see him.
“Remember the part where I told you not to do anything crazy while I was gone?” he says with the sexiest grin ever.
“Crazy for one girl might be normal for another,” I argue.
He laughs. “You’re a big jumble of double standards. You did exactly what you told me not to do. You took off alone and put yourself in danger.”
“The important thing is I got results,” I say and give him a short, sensual kiss.
“New friends, you mean,” he says shutting the door behind him.
“I wouldn’t call them friends just yet.”
His arms squeeze me tightly. “I wasn’t planning on coming back tonight,” he says resting his chin on the top of my head, “but when I saw the space pod ready for take-off with only one passenger, I just jumped aboard. With all that’s been going on, it seems like Spring Town is the place where I need to be.”
“Forget the town, I need you,” I say wrapping my arms around his neck.
“My desperate little girl,” he whispers.
“I’m not.”
“Oh, that’s right,” he says. “You don’t need anyone.”
I hide my smile from him. “Who was the other passenger?”
“In the space pod? Who cares?”
“Just curious,” I say.
“Ella.”
“Ella’s here?”
“Yes.”
“Poor Zoe,” I say so quiet I don’t think he heard me.
“What?” he says.
“Nothing. Just come sit with me. Tell me about Pip and Tobi. Did you get to spend any time with him?”
“Not as much as I would have liked. Our little bug knew who I was right away.”
“Of course he did,” I protest. “He’s young, not stupid.”
“How about you, Freya? How’s your health and mind?”
I don’t know how much of my truth I can confide in him when I’m scared of it myself. “I’ve been restless,” I say. “Trying to figure out how to proceed. I’m glad you’re here to help with that.”
“A
nd your energy?”
“Better. Improving.”
He rubs my hands in his, patiently, lovingly. I brush my face against his smooth cheek taking in his scent. His hands move down my thighs, his breath is on my face. I play with his ear, then rest my head on his chest.
“It’s like we never had an argument,” I tell him.
“Arguments are stupid. We should never argue again.”
“I’m all for that.”
“Will you wait for me? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I don’t understand. Where do you have to go? It’s late.”
His body tenses. “I have to make sure Daphne is settled in.”
He could have said that he’d fly to the moon and back and I wouldn’t have been more flabbergasted. “Daphne? Why would she be here?”
“It’s where she belongs.”
“You brought her back?” I say, infuriated. Blood rushes to my head and I cannot see clearly. Has his affection been a setup? Does he think his charm will blind me?
“She’s clean, Freya,” he says. “Read the report yourself.”
He produces a small yellow envelope and pulls a touchpad chip out of it. He tries to put it in my hand but I refuse to close my fingers around it.
“I don’t care about your report. You knew she had to stay on Exodus for as long as Armand saw fit. What did you do? Did you help her sneak out of the hospital? Did you threaten the staff?”
“My god, you are crazy,” he says. “I got his approval and he gave me the report. Talk to him yourself.”
“Oh, believe me, I will.”
“I thought we were done arguing,” he says, exhaling hard.
“You went against our agreement. The reason why you didn’t tell me you were coming back was because you knew I’d forbid you to bring Daphne.”
“You ran all the way to your village without telling anyone.”
“It’s not the same! How you cannot see that is beyond me.”
“Of course, it’s not the same. What you did is worse.”
I try to talk as calmly as possible under the circumstances. “There’s a war brewing, Damian. Daphne is too vulnerable, too unpredictable. She should not be here.”
“I’m telling you Daphne is fine and ready to become part of the Saviors again. Why can’t you believe me?”
“I’m tired of all this. I’m tired of not knowing who you’re going to be next time I see you. I’m tired of the guessing game.”
He considers my words for a while. I can see his veins pulsating in his temples. “It sounds like you’re tired of me,” he says. “I warned you about who I was, who they had turned me into. I told you I had trouble adjusting to new situations. You kept saying it didn’t matter.”
“Maybe I was wrong.” I regret the words as I say them but I don’t know how to take them back. I don’t know if they can be taken back. I wish I could freeze this moment in time and repair the damage my words have caused. I wish I could break them down into syllables until they lost their meaning.
The only thing I feel when he leaves is the breeze that enters the room right before he shuts the door behind him.
*
I CALL ARMAND at the break of dawn. It’s probably against some kind of protocol to open the shields and use communications control on unofficial business without a proper justification but doctor Armand is kind enough to not bring it up.
“All I can tell you is that Daphne is human,” he says when I ask him point blank about the results of the tests. “There’s no question about that,” he goes on. “Let’s see, what else? Ah, yes. She’s about the age she’s supposed to be. No tracking devices, mechanical enhancements or chemical substances found during the scans. I have no reason to suspect she’s different than any of the rest of the Saviors.”
I make an effort to sound reasonable and calm. “But can you guarantee it is Daphne? The person we knew as Daphne, our friend and companion? The one and the same?”
“There’s no way for me to answer that. Not unless you can give me samples of Daphne’s DNA. Do you have any?”
I consider his words while searching my memory for clues. In the end, I don’t have an answer. Maybe if Doc was here he could help out.
“I’ll have to look,” I say. “Do some digging. Ask Zoe and Tilly and Nya. Maybe I’ll find something.”
“Good. Send it to me when you have it. I might be able to tell you more when we check her actual DNA.”
I stare at the blank screen for a long while before running out to get to the training area. Supposedly, every teen in Spring Town should be trained to fight. That’s not the kind of life they were promised when we brought them to live out here.
I turn to go and come face to face with Daphne. She’s dressed in an Exodus training uniform and carries plastic knives with magnetic edges.
“Hi, Freya,” she says. “Are you here to train, too?”
“I was but I changed my mind,” I say. “How are you feeling?”
Her eyes lighten up and a smile forms on her lips. “I’m feeling much better, thank you. The shock has subsided and has been replaced by awe. So much has changed. You, especially.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t be modest. I heard all about your powers. You finally discovered your gift.” She walks across the training ring and picks a magnetic board with green and white circles as a target for her knives.
I take a few steps closer. “I’m not sure I’d call it a gift.”
She turns to me. “Well, it’s not a curse. You don’t have to feel like an outcast anymore. That must be a nice feeling.”
How nice of her to remind me of that. She walks away from her target and stops at about thirty feet. She aims and throws her knives. It’s one bullseye after another. The knives flip into the air and spin away until they land dead center on the target knocking off the knives that landed earlier.
“That was impressive,” I say as she walks back to me.
“Will you show me what you can do?”
I shake my head. “It’s not easy on me.”
“C’mon, just a small sparkle of energy.”
It probably can’t hurt. It’s hardly a secret that I can convert nerve impulses into palpable energy fields. I place my right palm on top of the left and generate a small sparkle of light.
Daphne looks honestly curious. She reaches out to touch the sparkle. At the same time I release it into the air. It levitates between Daphne and me for a few seconds before it flickers away.
“Now that’s impressive,” she says. “Damian told me what you went through because of this.”
“He did?”
“Of course, he did. He told me about the triumphs and disasters you were faced with since I was gone.” She stops for a moment before she adds, “He told me about Doc. Rabbit and Scout, too.”
“I’m sorry you had to find about all that at once. It can’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t. At least it was Damian who told me. He cushioned the shock for me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt closer to him. It’s like we were never apart. I could never be mad at him again. I guess, dying prioritizes things differently.”
Does it matter what she says? Isn’t it actions and knowing in your heart what’s true that matter? Running away or blindly striking back are not solutions anymore. They never were.
I let my hands fall to my sides drained of any desire to have an argument with Daphne. If it is her, no matter how she was brought back, I will help her adjust and become part of the Saviors again. If it’s not her, why on earth would I care what she has to say? It’s a simple truth I wish I would have seen from the first moment.
“What did you think of Exodus?” I ask her.
My words are not what she expected. She had hoped for some kind of reaction because reaction is the substitute of action for the weak. To her mind, I’m probably weak still. It takes her a moment to respond. “I loved Exodus,” she says. “I will always remember it as the place where I found myself again
and reconnected with Damian.”
I don’t know if this is the real Daphne or not, but I do know she is trying hard to bait me into a fight about Damian. I’m not interested.
“Well, I’m glad for you,” I say cheerfully. “I’ll see you at lunchtime.” The faster I walk away, the better it will be for both of us.
“Freya, wait.”
“What is it?”
She hesitates for a moment. Then she waves one of her plastic knives in front of me. “I’d like to train with real weapons,” she says.
“It’s just training. There’s no need for real weapons.”
“Damian said the same thing. But then he said it should be up to you.”
So, her close friend hasn’t made every exception for her. Not yet anyway.
“Okay, I gave you your answer already.”
She takes my arm. “All I want is a chance to fight. I want to be as ready as anyone else. You know I’m a skilled warrior.”
I gently pull my arm away. “You have to be patient, Daphne.”
“Patient? Do you remember what it feels like to be left out, Freya?”
I do. I remember it all too well. And truth be told, sometimes I wish I could go back to being the person who didn’t have to take responsibility for an entire planet and an entire species. I wish I didn’t have to be suspicious of every little wrinkle in the scheme of things. And I wish I could give Daphne what she’s asking for. A fight.
“It is precisely because I remember that I am going to tell you this again. It’s in your best interest to wait.”
17
The effect of not having shut my eyes for thirty hours becomes painfully obvious when I accidentally release a wave of energy powerful enough to fry a couple young tomato plants.
Tilly looks at me astonished. “Did you mean to do that?” she says.
“Not really,” I say acting casual.
“Can I just say I’m glad it was the tomatoes and not me?”
“Silly girl. I’d have been more careful if you were sitting among the tomatoes.”
Tilly puts her gardening gloves on to remove the charred plants while I reach for more seeds in the little bag I carry around my waist. It was Tilly’s idea to create this small patch of tomatoes and cucumbers as a refuge for the Saviors to visit whenever we need to escape the daily grind.
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