“We don’t care who you are,” one of the girls said, her red curls bouncing at her shoulders as she spoke. “And we couldn’t care less about impressing you enough to let us come to Foundation Zero with you, so don’t waste your breath trying to convince us of your greatness.”
“Yeah,” the guy said, scanning our blue suits. “You might be dressed like us, but you’re not like us. We’re here to serve the Invaders, but we don’t get special privileges. We have to work for our place here.”
Kale and I snuck glances at one another. Blue text scrolled across my vision, causing me to blink.
“Andrea Adams,” a voice that sounded much like Elara’s said, then filled my ears with an entire profile rundown on the girl before me. The blue text rolled and sparked, laying out a record of everything I’d ever want to know about Andrea Adams: her old street address, number of siblings, what her college major was back on Prototype Seven. I dismissed the profiling report so I could focus on Andrea. “That’s not … impressing us isn’t necessary,” I said. “And you’re right. We do get special privileges. But we’re not here to throw that in your face. We’re all in this thing together, okay?” I extended a hand, and the redhead eyed me like I’d sprouted two heads. “Skylla. And this is my friend Kale.”
“How’s it goin’?” Kale offered his hand.
“Profiling kind of makes traditional introductions obsolete, huh?” Andrea said, a stubborn smile springing on her lips. “But what the hell. I’m Andrea.” She carefully accepted our handshakes and pointed to her guy friend. “And this is Paul.”
It was beyond weird to see a stranger’s life rolled out for you before you even met them. Yet the reality was, we were here to observe these people, just as much as we were here to get our bodies into shape for the journey to Foundation Zero. Andrea and Paul knew, just as Kale and I did, that there was little point in making friends with them. Eventually, as Shepherds, we’d decide who went to Foundation Zero, and who was shipped back to Prototype Seven and ultimately sentenced to death there. Thankfully, it seemed like Andrea and Paul were one step ahead of us.
“See you at the next station?” Paul asked as he slipped into the ring to meet his opponent.
“Sure thing.” Kale nodded, watching Andrea turn to watch her friend fight.
By the time it was our turn to get in the ring, Kale and I were already ready to head back to our rooms. Neither of us had slept much the night before, and the mental exhaustion from all we’d endured since we’d arrived in Lucenta was beginning to catch up with us. We powered through a few techniques and punches, then made our rounds around the arena’s stations together, spotting one another on the weight benches and finishing off our workouts with a bout of cardio on the hamster wheels. I was beyond relieved when it was time for lunch. Kale and I shared some sort of seaweed soup and a few energy drinks before returning to the fitness arena for more workouts. Conversation was sparse, and when we met up with the other Shepherds outside the arena at the end of the day, the others didn’t say a word to us as we gave them a goodnight salute.
Kale stopped in front of our bedroom doors, stretching and yawning before he reached to key in his door code. “So, I know this sounds super weird, considering we’re underneath the Pacific Ocean and we’re like minions for an alien race now and all, but … do you wanna come inside? They stocked my mini fridge with booze. It’s the good stuff.”
“Ha.” I laughed, rubbing at my eyes. “I’m beat, but sure, what the hell.”
We shuffled into Kale’s room and he went straight for the refrigerator, which of course looked nothing like the human appliances back home. These things were clear glass, with doors that you tapped to open. Bubbles streamed along the edges and the inside was illuminated by some unseen light source. Kale handed me a drink and I accepted, dropping the cool liquor down my throat. It burned on its way down, and I instantly relaxed.
“Call me crazy, but I think I could start to like this place,” Kale said, chuckling. He set his drink down next to his waterbed and reached back to unzip his suit. Peeling it down his torso, he let it hang at his hips, which were undeniably chiseled to perfection.
I gulped down another sip of my drink, unable to pry my eyes from that work of art. He caught me staring and grinned.
“Let me get that.” He walked around me, and his cool fingers grazed the back of my neck as he tugged at my zipper. The contact sent a wave of warm goose bumps down my spine. I swallowed, then froze. “Oh, thanks.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier.”
“About what?”
“How Jet and Hera aren’t important anymore. How whoever they were to us, they’re not the same people to us now. Not anymore, anyway. It’s just … I was so hung up on the fact that Elara lied to us, I just didn’t know what to believe. But you know what?” His hands found my shoulders and his breath fanned my back. Carefully, he turned me around, his brown eyes raining down on me. “It doesn’t really matter. Because we’re here. We made our choice, and I have to believe that whatever the Invaders have planned for us on Foundation Zero is better than what we came from up there. I freaked out at first, when we got here. None of this is what I pictured, and yet …”
“Yet what?”
“I just want to give in. I’m tired, you know? I don’t really care about the why anymore. Sound crazy?”
I gazed up at him thoughtfully, realizing I was grateful to have someone who understood how I felt about the whole thing now. Grateful to have a friend. I was going to need one in this place; none of the other Shepherds wanted anything to do with me.
“No. I get it,” I said. “I feel the same way. When Elara showed me my past with Jet, when she showed me how I was collected, she restored some of my emotive memory—so I could feel the full effect of it all.”
“That can be done?”
“Yeah, apparently.” My gaze drifted to the left, just over Kale’s shoulder. His hands were still planted on my shoulders, moving in slow circles now, massaging me. It felt amazing. “I hadn’t felt that kind of pain since losing my parents. It wasn’t seeing that he was the reason I was collected, or seeing him with that other girl. Sure, that was part of it, but the feeling of losing him because he deceived me, of having to say goodbye … that was the painful part. Getting attached to someone you love, and then having to walk away.”
Kale’s fingers pushed down the top of my suit, holding my eyes, his hands gently rolling the material down past my collarbone. The spaghetti straps of my under-suit were exposed now, and the tips of his fingers grazed along their sides, causing my breath to jump.
“I’m sorry you had to feel all that,” he said. “But it’s over now. We can say goodbye to it. Aren’t you just ready to give in? I know I am.”
His words sent a thrill racing through me, because I was ready. Between yesterday and today, my need to devote myself to the Invaders shifted into something strong, something palpable I couldn’t explain, that I didn’t want to. I just wanted to act, wanted to serve.
That was reason one. And two, because of the way Kale looked down at me as he said this.
“Has it already happened?” I said.
“Has what— huh?”
“Have we lost ourselves to the activation? To who the Invaders want us to be?”
“Maybe,” he answered, then bit his bottom lip. “But suddenly I don’t feel so afraid of that anymore. Do you?”
“No. I don’t.”
Kale’s hands dropped to my hips and slid around my waist to my back. With a quiet intake of breath, he hesitantly pulled me in and pressed me against him, lowering his chin to rest it on top of my head.
My reaction was automatic. I slipped my arms around his firm back and let him hold me, breathing in his masculine scent. Sweat, the sea, and lime. Incredibly soothing.
“Then let’s take the plunge together,” he said. “Screw it. Let’s be the best Shepherds we can be, and show these alien bastards our species is worth saving.”
“What, you think they have our rooms bugged? You think we’re miked? Let me see.” He pulled back a bit and pinched my side, then behind my ear, his fingers jumping from place to place, launching us into a full-on tickle fest. In seconds, I was pinned beneath him on the bedroom floor, waving the white flag.
“Please!” I screamed with laughter. “Stop it!”
“Uppp, they heard that, Skylla Warden. They’re coming for you right now. Your punishment for laughing your ass off is two hours on the hamster wheel and twenty laps. And a Hail Mary.”
“Get off of me, you crazy man!”
“What if I don’t want to?” He hovered above me, steeling himself on his fists. “I happen to really like the view from up here.”
My laughter slowed and I gripped his shoulders, feeling the strong, solid muscles of his bare skin. His suit was still rolled halfway down his body, leaving me with a view of just a sliver of the sharp cut of his hipbones. My gaze crawled down his torso and sprang back up to his brown eyes. “The view’s not bad from where I’m at, either.” I lifted a hand to his dirty-blond hair and tugged, letting the soft strands run over my fingertips.
His eyes went dark and he slowly dropped his head, bringing his mouth inches from mine. “I bet we can make it even better.”
I stilled beneath him and let my eyes drift shut. The brush of his lips burned—sweet, soft, and intoxicating, all at once. My lower lip parted from my upper, giving him the green light. Which changed to red when bone-shaking bass rumbled against the ground, causing my entire body to rattle from the inside out. “Is that—?”
“—an alarm?” Kale pushed himself up and pulled me to my feet. “Grab your weapons, come on.”
I didn’t blink before my finger was on the trigger and a string of Aqua Bombs were snapped to my suit belt. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice said, Finger on the trigger. Someone had taught me that. I chased the voice away, adjusted my weapons, and dashed out the door after Kale.
CHAPTER 17
A rush of sharp blue text bombarded my vision while I jogged down the hallway outside the Shepherds’ rooms with Kale. I scanned it as fast as I could, but my mind was too frazzled to focus. “Something about a security breach?” I panted.
“Yeah, an escaped recruit making a run for the Capsule hangar deck on the west end,” Kale answered me, zipping up his suit and adjusting his gun.
“What are we supposed to do about it? Don’t the Invaders take care of this stuff?”
“Don’t know. Elara’s ordering us to report.”
We were supposed to play security guards now, too? What, saving the human race and helping build a new planet wasn’t enough?
I managed to zip my own suit back up, pummeling right into Kale’s back when he came to a dead stop to meet the others at the end of the hall.
“What good is it to have us running after the dumbass trying to escape?” Lorie asked, looking as if she’d been awakened from sleep.
“I second that,” one of the other women Shepherds said.
Ray’s eyes bounced from left to right as he worked to read his text command. “Looks like the Invaders have already tried stopping him, but nothing’s working. Elara wants us to intervene.”
“Well, let’s hurry it up before Robo Sally gets her panties in a twist,” Lorie said, launching into a sprint toward the west end. We all raced after her, banking a right and flying down a stairwell, following the directions being fed to us via text command.
We approached the west-end glass tunnel and zipped through it until we reached the Capsule hangar deck. We were met by a wall of Invaders surrounding a row of Capsules. Elara was stationed in front of them, staring down the genius who was trying to escape.
“There you are,” she said when she saw me, pointing to the back of the recruit’s head. He was lifting something into the Capsule, but I couldn’t see past all the commotion. Elara grabbed my arm. “This is your concern now. It is you who brought these humans here, and it is you who must put a stop to this.”
“What?” I craned my neck and struggled to get a better look at the scene.
“They are now a direct threat to our Foundation Zero mission. They could potentially expose classified information. If word spreads to the humans that only some are being selected for settlement on the new Earth, more rebellion and resistance will ensue. They are unfit for permanent settlement. They must be imprisoned. That is an order.” The recruit finished lifting what looked like another person into the Capsule and swung around, his gun aimed straight for Elara.
“Oh my God,” I whispered when I saw him. “Jet.”
“They are immune to our weapons. We have never seen anything like it. We cannot get within two feet of them.”
Lorie charged forward. “Well, shut down the launch port to Earth. Don’t let them get away!”
“We cannot divert the Capsule’s navigation, and the launch port is frozen. We cannot shut it. They have full exit clearance. Jet Phoenix overrode the system somehow.”
“This can’t be,” I said. “He couldn’t have possibly done that all on his own.” My mind fed me the memory of our trip from the Black Hole to the Invaders’ San Francisco base station. Jet didn’t like flying in that Capsule, and he certainly didn’t know how to operate one himself.
Kale’s mouth dropped open as he watched Jet climb into the Capsule and start the controls. “Well I’ll be damned.”
“What?”
“He’s got Hera with him.”
I did a double take at his words, squinting to get a look at the other passenger.
“Do not just stand there!” Elara shouted. I had no idea her voice was capable of reaching such decibels. “Stop them at once!”
“What do you expect me to do? If you can’t stop them, I can’t. And I won’t allow you to imprison them. I have final say over recruits, and I told you, they go to Foundation Zero.”
Elara stepped forward, bringing her eyes level with mine. “They are enemies. The circumstances permit me to overrule your decision. Now, Jet will listen to you. He is in love with you. Go! That is an order.” Her demand sliced into me, causing me to step back. This was it, no doubt about it.
I was serving the Invaders now.
Lunging toward the Capsule, I dashed for Jet, hearing Kale holler behind me. His words were muffled, diluted by the adrenaline coursing through my body and the blood pounding rough in my ears.
“Jet!” I screamed, signaling for him as he lifted himself into the vehicle. His eyes widened when he saw me, frozen between closing the Capsule lid and sticking around to hear me out. The struggle showered his face. “Please,” I begged, staring up at him from the ground, “don’t do this. If you go back there and tell the humans the truth … we’ll never be able to save them. We can’t risk anything interfering with our mission to get to Foundation Zero!”
Jet’s conflicted expression vanished, replaced by boiling anger. “Do you hear yourself right now, Skylla? My God, what have they done to you? Even I wasn’t this whipped when I was in service. You still have free will, you know, just like I did the day I ripped out that damn chip and took you from that prison. You can say no to this, but you’re not. This isn’t you.”
Thinking fast, I stepped forward. “This is me. I’m doing this for the entire human species. I’m doing this because I believe it’s the only chance we might have to survive, and the Invaders can give us that. You’re right. The activation only influences me. I still have free will. And I’m telling you, this is the answer, Jet. Please, get down from that thing and stay with us. If you try to escape like this, they’ll be forced to shoot you down and imprison you.”
“They were going to kill us anyway, don’t you get that?”
“They wanted to, but I chose you as recruits for Foundation Zero so you wouldn’t be left behind. To save you. As the Seventh Shepherd, I have a say. You running like this is ruining all of that, an
d for what?”
“Let me ask you something, Skylla.” His glower could’ve burned my flesh right off. “Do you honestly think they’re sending those who don’t get recruited for Foundation Zero back to Prototype Seven? You think they’re shipping them all on a first-class flight back to Earth? They’re killing them. Here, in Lucenta. Putting them down like dogs in a shelter. They’re lying to you, and you’re buying their bullshit.”
My jaw clenched as his words hit me, and a sliver of doubt crept in. He was either lying himself, or his claim was true and I was just too willing to accept it because of my chosen loyalty to the Invaders. “You don’t know that.”
“I don’t?” He sneered at me, then glanced behind him to Hera. “Sunshine, give me the bag.”
Hera reached up and handed him a backpack, passing it over the seat. As she did, the flap opened and out fell a teddy bear. It tumbled down the side of the Capsule and dropped to the ground, landing at my feet. My brain registered the memory of it, and how I’d found it in the woods on mine and Jet’s journey to find Hera.
I bent down and slowly lifted it from the ground, staring at the ratty stuffed animal as if it could unlock some explanation for why I’d once felt so strongly for Hera and her brother. I broke the distraction and handed the bear back to Hera.
“See for yourself,” Jet said, tossing a flat device to me from above. “The proof is there. We took photos of the execution sector, right here in Lucenta. Humans are being herded there, told they’re being transported back to Earth, but they’re actually being sent to their graves.”
My fingers fumbled with the flat screen, sliding the images from left to right as they appeared before me. A picture of a mother and her daughter being shoved forward into a metal, bloodstained room made my stomach roll. I looked away. “How did you get these? And how are you invincible right now?” I chucked a glance over my shoulder at an impatient Elara, the Invaders, and the other Shepherds.
Curses, Fates & Soul Mates Page 121