But there’s something else there, too. Rehabilitation holding cells for Sliman who have strayed
from the alien agenda ingrained in their brains. This is where the aliens fix them, restoring them back to their original state. That’s where we will have to look.
It still feels like the world is spinning out of control every time I associate Damian with Sliman.
It doesn’t matter whether I believe it or not. He could be an android for all I care. It wouldn’t make any difference to me.
Rabbit and Scout meet me halfway back to the base.
“Who sent you after me?” I ask.
“Nobody, we’re just getting some air,” Rabbit says.
“Come on, Rabbit, you had it as bad as me during the battle. Maybe I should send someone to
watch over you when you go out.”
“Fine, Doc sent us,” Scout admits. “You really shouldn’t take chances like this, Freya.”
“I’m perfectly fine, he has said so himself. Repeatedly.”
“You’re a fine target as well,” Rabbit says. I can tell he’s truly worried.
My connection with Rabbit has only grown deeper since we both came very close to dying,
since Wudak showed me how to bond our life forces in order to save Rabbit and just barely survive
myself.
“Have you seen Shy Boy?” I ask.
“No, but he should be back soon. There’s no way he’d miss breakfast. Not even Biscuit can
provide enough food for that chimp,” Rabbit teases.
“He deserves every last morsel,” Scout says. “He saved Freya and probably the entire world
when he crossed that mud crater on his own.”
I don’t need to be reminded of what Shy Boy has done for me. Not a minute goes by that I don’t
think of it, that I am not grateful to him. I never want to put him in harm’s way again. But it might not be up to me. The world demands justice for everything that lives and justice comes with a price tag.
In the underground base I come face to face with Gritu. He visits almost daily and seeks me out
because I’m the one who understands his grief over Wudak’s death more than anyone else. If Sliman
could have friends, Wudak would be Gritu’s closest friend. And now he’s gone.
What could I have done differently to save Wudak? Or to keep Damian with us? These questions
persist though I know they are not useful or hopeful or even answerable. The past entrenches itself
behind us, untouchable and unchangeable. We have only the present and how quickly it slips through
our fingers faster than water.
“You are feeling better, but you shouldn’t take chances,” Gritu says.
“Enough with this obsession for my well-being,” I say. “Maybe the best thing would be for me
to perish.”
“You are speaking stupidly,” Gritu says bending his brow. “Wudak died for you. You must make
it count for something.”
I nod. He’s right, of course. Everyone is right. But I am too deep within my own plans for
revenge to consider myself anything more than the harbinger of death. I want to get Damian out of the
hellish alien prison and I want to watch that prison burn. He should not have to pay for my mistakes,
but the aliens should have to pay for theirs.
If you want sunrise, you must make it through the darkness of night. To return to the light, you
have to walk through the shadows of your fears. And if I dig down to the roots of my pain, I will find my way and my destiny. These things I know as well as anything I have ever known since I was born
into this wretched world and forced to play a part in its disintegration.
*
THEO AND ZOE SIT DOWN with Pip in the lab. They are trying to draw a map of Plantation-15 and the underground network based on what Pip is telling them. The network is so complex and
Pip’s instructions so detailed that I sometimes think the mapping could take months, even years.
“It’s important that we know all entrances and exits, guard posts, camera and sensor controls,
levels, elevators, locked cells, test labs and secret Sliman passages,” Theo reminds us.
We know it’s necessary. Theo does not have to remind us. There are hundreds of safety systems
in use. Even with this preliminary mapping it’s obvious that getting in there will be as hard as can be, but getting out will be next to impossible.
“It would take an army to break through their defenses,” Zoe mumbles under her breath.
“We are an army,” I remind her. “A very capable one as we have proven.”
“When did you become such an optimist?” Zoe says smiling.
“I’m not an optimist, far from it,” I correct her. “I don’t think we can save the world, but we will
save Damian.”
“Here,” Pip says pointing to a spot on the map. “Here is where they would keep Damian if they
intend to restore him.”
I place two fingers on the point on the map where they keep him. I touch the paper wanting to
feel Damian’s presence. I want him to feel me reaching out to him. I want his heart to beat through the paper.
“Hang on, Damian,” I whisper. “We’re coming for you.”
“Are you sure, Pip?” Theo asks.
Pip nods. She turns to me with certainty. “I found him, Freya,” she says. “The data is in my head.
That’s where they keep them. Retrieved Sliman Warriors. Level 6.”
The gravity of Theo’s expression makes my heart skip a beat. “What is it, Theo?” I say.
“If the map is correct and Pip’s data hold is accurate, then it seems Damian is being prepared
for take-off.”
“What do you mean take-off?”
“This is where they process mutants for their return to planet Sliman,” Zoe says. “When it has
been determined they are of no use on Earth. Isn’t that what you said yesterday, Pip?”
Pip drops her head. “Yes,” she says, “it’s all so confusing at times. My thoughts are pieces. I
never have the whole picture. Retrieved Sliman Warriors return to Sector C which merges with
Sector F. They both lead to Sector K. Take-off. That’s how they restore them.” She grabs Theo’s
hand. “Take-off is scheduled for the beginning of each lunar cycle,” she says.
“When the moon is full?” Theo asks.
Pip nods.
Zoe calculates in her head. “That’s in eighteen days.”
“Good job, Zoe,” Theo says. “Eighteen days until the next full moon.”
“We have to go in now,” I say. “They might change plans and take off sooner than planned. We
can’t take that chance.”
“How do we know Pip’s data is correct?” Finn says loudly as he enters the lab. “What if it was
placed there on purpose?”
“What purpose would that be?” I say.
“Oh, let me see,” Finn says mocking the question, “as a simple trap to ensnare you for starters.”
My blood boils at Finn’s disappointed expression, the only one he seems to have for me lately. I
have no answer but to look away.
“We can’t be hasty or reckless,” Finn continues. “This is no time to be overly emotional. We
could lose a lot more than we stand to gain.”
“Stand to gain?” I say, glaring at him. “There’s nothing to gain in this, Finn. I’m not going to let
Damian rot on some weird planet that’s been turned into a concentration camp. I’m the reason he got
caught. I owe it to him to bring him back. I don’t care if it’s too inconvenient.”
“Don’t be so selfish,” he says. “Not everything that goes wrong in the world has you at its
center.”
&
nbsp; Finn. His words hit me so hard every time he opens his mouth. I want to destroy everything
when he gets under my skin. “I should have protected him,” I say but my voice breaks in mid—
sentence.
“Freya, you’ve seen the blueprint of 15,” Finn says finally softening to me. “We make this plan
with our minds not our hearts. We need to make sure nobody else gets hurt. We have to protect what
we have left.”
“You’re the boss,” I say. I feel hot tears running down my cheeks.
“We all want Damian back,” he says. “And when we work together there’s no power in the
universe that can stop us.”
I feel like I am losing my mind. One moment I want to hit Finn, then a moment later I want to kiss
him. The more we have grown apart, the more I hunger us to be close again. Things fade away and
change and mutate.
I am so tired of mutations. Change sucks. Mutation sucks. Why can’t things stay the same for five
minutes in this dying world? I was a naïve young girl who loved only Finn, then I became a young
woman who loved Damian.
Now I don’t know what I am, besides a girl who loves vengeance.
2
I close my eyes to quiet my mind. I concentrate on one word. Peace. I repeat it silently again and
again until the world lets go of me. Until I am part of the shimmering cosmos and its ever expanding
consciousness. But then a distant noise distracts me. When I open my eyes, I am myself again.
Chaos returns to me even more demanding and urgent. Why does Pip know what she knows?
What purpose did the aliens have in making her mind so full? Is Finn right? Is Pip’s knowledge an
elaborate trap? Is Damian alive, tortured, brainwashed, destroyed?
This room that I have been calling my own, set deep within the earth by the Sliman rebels,
guarded by the people I have been calling my friends and family, what does it all mean now that he is
gone? How did he entwine himself so completely within my skin and bones? The questions come like
bullets. I wish my heart was bulletproof.
Everyone is impatient. I’m not the only one. They’re scared to admit it. If they were being
honest, they would either run or attack. They would not sit here in a cold, dark cave while Damian is
subject to unnamed horrors.
In many ways, Damian was our courage. If he, the fiercest among us, can be captured, then
nobody is safe. Finn is leading us now. There was talk of electing a new leader. I knew what the
younger ones wanted of me, but I am too damaged. I cannot lead them in this war. I am an emotional
wreck.
There’s a knock on the door. Zoe walks into the room. She looks tired, haunted. Her beautiful
red hair looks duller somehow and her face has grown more pale. I see fear inside Zoe for the first
time since I’ve known her. Even when Daphne died, Zoe still believed in victory. Now she’s not sure
anymore and there’s nothing she can do to hide it.
She sits on the floor next to me. “What’s going on with Finn and you?” she asks bluntly.
I could tell her everything, I guess. Or I could deflect her questions and act innocent. I look
away, then down at my boots. If only I knew which path would make what I’m going through any
easier.
The silence becomes a humming within my brain. “We’ll sort it out,” I say. “We have no
choice.”
“There’s always a choice, Freya.”
I shrug my shoulders. “When there’s choice, mistakes are quick to follow,” I say impatiently. I
want her to go. I want to be alone. I want to wallow. Concern suffocates me even when it comes from
those I love.
“We’re all tense,” she says. “But you and Finn are our rocks. We depend on you two getting
along. He can lead us, but the two of you leading us together would be so much better. You could lead
the Saviors into the future.”
“You’re giving up on Damian already?” I say and stare into her eyes.
“No, I didn’t say that. But for now we need to find our own unity and to do that we will need
guidance. We’ve never done it otherwise.”
“There’s always a first time.”
Zoe springs to her feet. “I understand you’ve been through a lot, but it’s time you stepped up.
Whatever it is that has Finn and you at odds has to stop.” She hesitates at the door, frustrated. “You know where to find me when you feel like talking.”
“It’s Damian,” I say before she goes.
Zoe turns back. “What about Damian?”
“He told me he loved me.”
Zoe sighs. “He finally managed.”
“You’ve known?” I say forcing a smile. “Before I did. From Daphne?”
“Daphne said a lot of things. I couldn’t be sure. Some were facts, some were premonitions. It
was hard to tell at times.”
“So now you know.”
Zoe nods and sits beside me. “Damian’s confession somehow caused tension between you and
Finn?”
I shake my head. “It’s more than that.”
Zoe places her arms around me. “You should have told me,” she says as she wipes tears from
my cheeks.
“It’s okay,” I say. “We’ll get him back. Everything will be resolved.”
Zoe stammers for a moment. “Let me get this straight, you’re actually in love with Damian, not
Finn?”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Of course you do. You can trust me, Freya. You don’t have to keep everything bottled up inside
you.”
There’s a second knock on the door. This time, Nya walks in. Her cheeks are all flushed, her
breathing fast and short. She has been training as usual.
“I just came to say that I’m with you,” she says. “I’m ready to go get Damian out of that hellhole
and blow things up in the process. Just say the word.”
“I appreciate that, Nya, but it has to be a team decision,” I say.
“We can help the team make that decision,” she says and her eyes gleam at the prospect.
“How?” Zoe asks.
Nya and Zoe have been a bit at odds over Theo ever since Nya stated she wanted to get closer to
him. Zoe is not convinced of her sincerity and Nya doesn’t seem to want to give any indication either
way.
“We can fake an attack,” Nya whispers and motions for us to move closer to her. “I can have
Theo mess with the sensors, make it look as if the whole damned army of Slimies are on their way to
our base. Like they already know we’re here. Then, attacking Plantation-15 might seem like the
perfect retaliation.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Zoe says rolling her eyes. “Leave Theo out of your games.”
“Zoe, come on, she’s joking. How can you not see that?”
“Am I?” Nya says but then it doesn’t matter anymore whether she is or not because our
touchpads start buzzing all at the same time. The red emergency lights at the top of our screens blink like crazy.
Theo is sending us a warning message.
Zoe glares at Nya with fire in her eyes. “What have you done?”
“Nothing!” Nya yells. “Don’t be dumb.”
Zoe looks at me. “Do you think this is real?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” I say as we head to the dining hall which is also the
designated meeting area. It’s a large cavern with a long table and red metallic chairs. Candlelight
casts enormous shadows on the cave walls.
Theo, Doc and Gritu are checking the signal on Theo’s brand new radar screen. I scan the room.
Besides Gritu, three more Sliman are present as well as most of the Saviors. Finn and Rabbit are
missing.
The thought of them being outside chills my blood. Whatever this is, it’s serious. There’s no
mistaking the terror on Theo’s face.
“What’s happened?” I say breaking the silence.
“An unidentified craft approaches from above,” Theo says.
“A drone?” I ask as fear tightens my throat.
“No, it is smaller and faster,” Gritu says. “Something we have not seen before.”
“How long before it gets here?” I ask.
“Thirty seconds,” Theo estimates.
“Seconds? That’s all we have?”
Theo nods. His lips have turned white. If Damian were here, he would know what to say to keep
us calm. He would start passing orders around, making everyone feel that they have a duty to perform.
“We let our guard down,” Theo says. “We should have been monitoring air traffic more
closely.”
I turn to look at Pip, Tilly and Scout. They stand together with panic written all over their faces.
I flash my eyes at Biscuit. He gets my message. He moves toward the girls and talks to them in his
usual calm manner.
Finn and Rabbit come running in. They are disheveled and out of breath.
“There’s something up in the air,” Rabbit starts, “and it’s looking for us.”
“You were actually able to see it?” Theo asks.
“It’s going in circles scanning the area within a few miles around the base. It’s not random,
they’re looking for a place to land,” Finn says. “We activated the camera at the entrance before we
came in.”
The camera has been out of use for some time now because of a defect that causes it to overheat
and shut down automatically within a few minutes of usage. Theo hasn’t gotten around to fixing it as
there’s always something more urgent to do. The Sliman haven’t been able to bring in a new one,
either, but now Theo has no option but to connect it to his screen. Even a few minutes of the feed
could be useful.
Theo rotates the camera searching for the target. The image is blurry at first, but Theo clears it
up as he zooms in. The small, shiny black hover craft emerges above the trees moving slowly, way
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