Instead, he looked purposeful.
He looked like he did when they were setting traps out in the woods.
“Come on,” he said. “Get up. Now, Jet.”
He rose smoothly to his feet.
He threw back the covers on her bed on his way up.
Jet recoiled and shivered at the shock of cold air, but swung her legs over the side of the mattress without protest, and climbed to her feet. Anaze handed her a heavy cloak while she was still rubbing her bare arms, trying to focus her eyes, trying to wake up.
While she put on the cloak, he jerked his head, indicating for her to follow him.
She didn’t speak until they’d reached the door to her room.
“Wait! Wait a minute.” She whispered it softly, realizing suddenly where he was going. “What about… you know…” She pointed up and around, at the invisible microphones Anaze warned her about before.
“Switched off,” he said, in his regular voice. “I got the signal right before I woke you up. We have maybe forty minutes. We’ve already used up two.”
“But where––”
“Come on, Jet. I’ll explain once we’re out of here.”
Shutting her mouth, she frowned in confusion and frustration, but didn’t protest.
Anaze was getting her out of here.
They were getting out of here.
Anaze lifted his hand, hitting the panel on the side of the door with his flat palm. The door slid open easily after a low tone, although Jet checked that panel herself before Laksri and Anaze showed up.
When she’d tried it, the door refused to budge.
Anaze obviously knew a lot more about all this than he’d told her. He knew more about the Green Zone than she ever would have dreamed. He must have known these things before they got here, which meant Richter must have been right about him.
Anaze must really be a rebel.
Clearly, he knew people in the Nirreth capitol.
Clearly, they had help.
“Who is helping you?” she whispered. “Is it one of the servants here? One of the humans?”
Anaze shook his head, giving her another warning look.
Jet wasn’t sure what the head-shake meant, but assumed the warning look was for her to be quiet, now that they were in the hallway. Biting her lip, she decided not to argue. Hell, she’d never talk again, if it meant Anaze could get her out of here.
Even so, she felt her frustration worsen, along with her fear, when she realized she had no idea where he was taking her, or to whom, or how they’d get past the Green Zone dome. She had no idea where their Nirreth guards had disappeared to, either.
On the plus side, not knowing anything had adrenaline coursing through her body, waking her up a lot faster than the cold air, making her fingers itch for the hilt of her sword.
She wanted answers.
She wanted answers almost as much as she wanted her freedom.
She also wanted her sword.
She hated the thought of leaving here without Black. There was likely no way around that, given where they were, but Jet hated it anyway. She wasn’t going to risk her life, and Anaze’s life, and her brother and mother’s lives, for a sword, no matter how much she loved it, or where she got it, or who made it, or how much it felt like a part of her. It broke her heart, though, the idea of leaving it behind, with a bunch of lizard-skins.
She ran silently down the hallway with Anaze, remembering she was barefoot only when she heard his boots creak a few times and chanced a look at his feet.
The boots he wore looked like Nirreth military wear.
That struck her as strange until she remembered he’d been clothed by their Nirreth “hosts,” as well. Also, they hadn’t felt the need to throw him into a virtual simulation with a fake T-Rex and a baby Nirreth to assess his loyalties.
Presumably, for the same reason, they’d given him real shoes.
Anaze led her through a number of twisting corridors.
Then, through a few larger rooms.
One of those rooms looked to be some kind of bathing area, with a shallow pool filled with steaming water. Another housed nothing but different kinds of native Earth plants. Long and narrow, that building reminded her of their underground greenhouses back home. The only difference was, the plants here were easily four times as big.
Glass-fronted cages filled another room, built in odd, strangely-geometric shapes. Each of those cages housed an Earth animal, half of them extinct.
Some had been extinct for hundreds of years.
Some for thousands of years.
Jet barely had time to look at them in the dark, but she glimpsed a living tiger in one of those cages, a black bear, a wolf, a lion, a polar bear, a leopard, alligators, a pair of cougars, giant snakes. Jet also glimpsed what might have been the real T-Rex she supposedly “fought.” She couldn’t help noticing the one in the cage looked a lot smaller than the one simulated in her demonstration.
They passed through more rooms housing animals.
In each one, Jet had time to give a swift look around, to glance upward at the high, domed sunroofs, note a few animals…
Then they reached the next passageway, the next room.
Eventually they left the animal area behind. Anaze took her through a few more twisting passageways, until Jet found herself following him through two large, double doors.
For the first time, she recognized her surroundings.
They walked through the darkened banquet hall with its winding canals and heavy, stone tables just as quickly as they had every room before it.
Jet barely had time to note the birds sleeping in the branches of the potted trees before they’d reached the other side of the long space, and she found herself back in the foyer, next to the large green doors leading to outside.
Her heart lifted.
Even as it did, she got hit by another jolt of fear.
Anaze really was going to try and break them out.
Jet again remembered Richter accusing Anaze of being a rebel. She remembered the knowing way he’d said it while they were still on the culler ship, the utter lack of doubt in his voice. She remembered how utterly she’d dismissed his words, assuming them to be just another lie. They hadn’t been a lie, though.
It turned out, Richter knew Anaze better than she did.
Well… in that area, at least.
Anaze had to be some kind of rebel.
Nothing else could explain this.
The rebels must have people here, in the Green Zone.
They must have found out Anaze got picked up, and came here to help him escape.
Whatever the precise truth of it, Anaze was certainly something more than he’d been telling her all these years. The thought angered her, frustrated her, but also filled her with relief. The conflicting emotions made her want to talk to him again, right now––but she bit her lip, forcing herself to remain silent.
He was taking her somewhere.
Eventually, wherever he took her, it would be safe to talk.
Reaching the green doors, Anaze walked directly to a flat security panel to the right. Jet watched in disbelief as he hit swiftly through a set of keys with odd symbols on them.
She barely had time to memorize the sequence for herself, when the nearest of the green doors opened silently, bringing in the sound of the large fountain outside the building.
Jet followed Anaze out of the palace of the Royals, and down the stone stairs towards the Trevi Fountain.
She started to think Anaze was bringing her to the fountain itself, maybe as some kind of meeting spot for the rebels, or maybe to walk down the same road they’d taken to the palace grounds. Then Anaze veered sharply to the left, bringing her around the fountain’s stone basin, walking swiftly up a narrow path that wound around behind it.
Looking out at the high, impenetrable-looking stone fence that surrounded the Nirreth gardens, Jet glanced up at the sky, wondering if some kind of ship would come down to take them away from
here instead, something the rebels stole, or something they managed to slip past the Nirreth shields.
Following her eyes, Anaze shook his head.
He took her hand, leading her deeper into the garden.
The noise of the water continued loudly behind them for the first fifty or so yards, but as they wound deeper behind the stone facade, into a grove of trees overlooking a sloped lawn and a pool of darker, mirror-like water, the sounds grew more and more faint.
By the time Anaze stopped, Jet was utterly confused.
She watched her friend sit down on a stretch of grass under the branches of what looked like real fruit trees. He arranged his legs so he sat cross-legged, then looked up at her seriously, patting the ground to indicate for her to sit, too.
Out here, it was almost quiet.
For the same reason, Jet heard him when he spoke in a low voice.
“No one’s coming for us, Jet,” he said quietly. “I just really needed to talk to you.”
He patted the grass a second time.
“Sit,” he said. “Please. It’s important, Jet. And we don’t have much time.”
“No one’s coming,” Jet repeated numbly.
It wasn't really a question.
She felt that lifting hope she’d felt, deep in her chest, abruptly crash.
“No one’s coming,” she said again.
She sounded almost angry that time.
Anaze met her gaze. His eyes glinted in the moonlight, studying hers. She recognized the look, even as it hit her that maybe she didn’t know her friend as well as she’d thought, and not only because it turned out he was probably a card-carrying rebel.
He reached over, patting the grass a third time.
“Please, Jet,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”
After the faintest pause, she lowered her weight to the grass across from him.
“So what are we doing out here?” she said.
She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.
Not just disappointment. Grief. She hadn’t fully recognized how quickly she’d grasped onto that hope. Not only hope for herself, but hope she’d see her mother again, that she’d see her brother again, that she’d talk to Chiyeko again. Hope that she and Anaze would be free, that they wouldn’t be slaves of the Nirreth, after all.
Before she could say anything else, Anaze startled her.
Leaning over to where she sat, he caught hold of the back of her head, pulling her face to his. She didn’t have time to take a breath before he kissed her, wrapping his other arm around her shoulder. The kiss was warm, more than friendly, but Jet’s only reaction was confusion.
She and Anaze had never been like that.
She’d never looked at Anaze like that.
Before she could make up her mind whether to push him away, Anaze leaned into it, deepening the kiss. Jet raised a hand, still going back and forth on what to do.
She felt his pulse leap when her fingers touched his neck.
At that, she made up her mind, pushing him back, one hand on his chest.
“No.” She shook her head at him, frowning. “No. I don’t see you that way. And this is… wrong. I thought we were leaving here, Anaze. I thought you were taking me home.” Swallowing, hearing the disappointment and confusion in her voice, she frowned harder. “Why would you do this now? What are you doing?”
He grinned at her, unapologetic.
Reaching towards her, he touched her face briefly with one hand.
“Sorry. I should have asked.”
“Yes,” she said, a lot less amused. “You should have.”
“I've been wanting to do that all day… ever since the venom wore off.”
“You should have restrained that impulse.”
“Jet, I’m sorry. I am.”
Jet stared at him, a frown still etched on her face. She honestly wasn’t sure what to say to him now. She still had no idea what they were doing out here. Would he really have dragged her out here to kiss her? Seriously?
Given everything they’d both been through over the last two days, that just struck her as twisted. Deeply misguided, anyway.
“Anaze––”
He didn’t let her finish.
“––I am sorry, Jet,” he said more seriously. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have done that.” Pausing a beat, he added, “And I’m really sorry I had to yell at you earlier, too. I figured it was a good idea to create some conflict between us, if only to protect you. They already don’t trust me. I thought if I created the appearance of a rift between us, based on you being more sympathetic to the Nirreth, more ‘on their side,’ as it were, it might help them trust you.”
Jet stared.
She opened her mouth, but he went on speaking, almost quickly now.
“I know this is all confusing. I get that, Jet… I do. But they already have a file on me. I figured I’d better stay in character. And do what I can to convince them you had no idea who I was, or where my political allegiances were.”
“I did have no idea,” she said.
But that didn’t seem to faze him, either.
Anaze’s smile widened, even as he gripped her hand briefly in his.
“Jet… I watched you in that demo. You were amazing. Absolutely amazing. You really didn’t know it was a sham, did you? I seriously can’t believe how well you did, given that. I was blown away. Really.”
“What the hell is going on, Anaze?” Jet snapped. “Are you going to tell me?”
She had to fight to keep her voice low. She fought to contain her anger, too, but only marginally succeeded.
Her anger only mounted as she turned over his words.
“What am I doing out here?” she said. “Why are you risking getting both of us skinned alive, if we aren’t even leaving?”
Anaze frowned.
Still thinking, Jet felt her jaw harden more.
“…And who the hell are you? Do I know you at all? Who do you even work for? Are you a part of whatever Laksri was on about? With me being a spy for Richter in here? Or did you cut some kind of deal with the lizard-skins, trying to screw me up with another twisted loyalty test? Pretend to recruit me into the rebellion, see if I’ll bite?”
He frowned, but the sharpness in his eyes intensified. “What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me, damn it! You know exactly what I’m talking about. What kind of a game are you playing right now? Who do you work for, Anaze?”
That thin layer of confusion lifted.
He hesitated a bare instant, as if bracing himself, then he spoke even lower.
“My father.”
Jet frowned, confused enough to lose her anger briefly. “Your father? I thought you said you didn't know who your father was.”
Anaze shrugged, his eyes flat. “I lied.”
Jet felt her jaw harden, her rage surging back. She opened her mouth, but Anaze must have seen it in her eyes, or in her expression, even in the artificial moonlight. Leaning closer, he touched her hand again, flinching a little when she pulled it back sharply.
“Look, Jet. I had to. I had to lie. Don’t you see?”
“No,” she snapped. “I don’t see. Who is your father, Anaze?”
“Richter.”
Jet gaped at him.
Anaze sighed, combing his fingers through his dark hair. “I know. Look, Jet––”
“Richter? Your father is Richter?”
Anaze frowned, motioning sharply for her to keep her voice down, glancing around them before he met her gaze.
“Yes,” he said, frowning again. “Look. I don't have a lot of time to explain this––”
“That’s not possible.” Jet shook her head. “No. He’s not your father. You’re lying. You’re lying again––”
“He’s older than he looks,” Anaze said, his lips pinching as he studied her eyes. “And he met my mother young. He was maybe seventeen when they had me.”
“But he had his Nirreth thugs pick you up?” she said, glaring at hi
m angrily. “How does that make any sense?”
When he gave her a warning look, holding a finger to his lips, she glanced around where they sat, keeping her voice low with an effort.
“Anaze, look at you,” she whispered angrily.
When he gave her a bewildered look, she motioned to the sting marks on his arms, the bruise on his face.
“Your own father let them do that to you? Why? And why would you go along with it? Why would you need to, if you work for him?”
Anaze held up his hands, his voice matter-of-fact.
“Jet, there’s a lot you don’t know about how things work with the Nirreth. Especially here, inside the Green Zones. Richter couldn’t tell you everything. He couldn’t bring you in here, knowing some things. Not until after the Nirreth had run you through their security protocols. They would have caught it. There’s no way to hide from those things. Their brain scans pick up more or less everything––”
“You’ve worked for him all this time?” she said, still fighting to process this much. “How is that even possible?”
“Look, Jet!” He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her still.
Jet tensed under his hands.
That time, she didn’t try to get away, forcing herself still and silent as she stared into his familiar eyes. The feeling of betrayal was worsening though, not getting better. It worsened more as she took in his face, the expression on his mouth, in his eyes.
She understood more than she wanted to.
Already, she understood more than she wished she did.
At his warning expression, she bit her lip, averting her gaze.
“Look,” he said, releasing her with a frustrated exhale. “I really don’t have a lot of time to explain this right now, Jet. So if you want to be mad at me, you’ll have to do it later, okay? Or I won’t have time to tell you anything you want to know.”
He waited for her to nod, then exhaled again.
“Okay. So just listen right now. Just let me get this out first, so you’ll know the basics. We only have about twenty minutes before we need to head back, or we get locked out until dawn. That wouldn’t be ideal right now. For either of us.”
Clenching her jaw harder, Jet just nodded.
“Good,” he said, leaning back on the grass with a sigh. “Okay. Well, here it is. Richter isn’t what he seems. He’s a rebel. He’s part of the rebellion, Jet. One of its leaders, actually. One of the main strategic architects, too.”
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 17
