by J. A. Huss
"You know those giant puzzles, Junco?"
"What?"
"Those puzzles that have thousands of pieces?"
I sneer at him. "So?"
"You're like the kittens in the middle of the puzzle, right? I can see the ears, the eyes, the whiskers. And I can take a few dozen pieces and put them together and know there's kittens in there. But the subject of the puzzle is never the hard part. It's the background. And your background is black. No shapes, no colors, no forms. Just black. It's a clusterfuck of emptiness that makes no sense." He sighs and lowers his voice as he looks me in the eyes. "And I'd be OK with that, ya know? If I thought you knew what the background was. Can you see the background, Junco?"
I stare up at him for a few seconds and then look away. "No."
"No. No one can see it, not that I know of, anyway. If Lucan sees it, he's hiding it, Junco. And I'm gonna break my security clearance right now and tell you that Lucan hides nothing from me. Nothing. I know every dirty fucking secret that guy has ever had. I might just be the number two guy to everyone else, but he doesn't trust Tier, so he tells me everything because I'm the backup. Not Tier, not Rikan. Me."
I look up at him again as I think about what this means. I'm just about to ask what Rikan has to do with anything when he continues.
"So if he knows what you are, he's lied to me about it. This is a problem, Junco. And when you add in the fact that we've got a lot of other secrets ourselves? Well. The shit is piling up. We keep you in the dark because one wrong move might make it all come apart."
I laugh. "You keep me in the dark because you don't trust me, Ashur. It's as simple as that."
"I trust you, Junco. Tier, Isten, Arel, Rikan, Mish, Braun, Ryse, Layla, and Lucan. We all trust you."
"But?"
"But you're unpredictable. Wild. Indecisive." He hesitates for a moment. "Powerful. And we've not been upfront with a lot of things, Junco." He lets out a deep breath. "We're afraid if you know the truth, Juncs, you'll leave and never come back." He shrugs. "And you might. It's a real possibility that when you figure it all out, it'll be more than you can take – send you careening down a deserted road towards the Stag again, straight into the arms of insanity. Or cutting yourself in half just to make it end. We give it to you a little at a time, so it won't overwhelm you."
"But this Aren stuff, this Subjack being my father, that isn't about you guys. So why? Am I that wild? That I cannot be reasoned with?"
He takes a step towards me but I back up and he stops. "They, Subjack and your mother, they want you too." He shakes his head and sighs. "They raised you. Kept you alive through impossible odds. They made this moment in time because without you, Junco, those six other Siblings, they're not worth anything – it only works if you have all Seven Siblings from the same clutch alive when you extract and transfect the genetics, and getting the Seventh to cooperate has always been the major issue."
"That makes no sense, Ashur. Lucan wanted me dead when you guys were here. So how the fuck were you gonna get the genetics if I'm supposed to be dead?"
"Lucan called us back because he wanted to wait for the next clutch, Junco. It was over. We wrote your entire clutch off – and Tier was sent to kill you because without the Seven, the other six don't matter. If we came back without you, Esta would've been killed on the spot. It was over, get it? It was over. Our decision to save you shifted everything. But like I said, your parents, they raised you. They have a better claim than us. And Earth and the humans need you as well."
I huff out a laugh that is more disgust than anything. "A better claim? I'm property now?"
"You know that's not what I meant."
My eyes are wild as I walk towards him, pointing my finger at his face. "No, Ashur, I don't know that. I know there's stuff about Lucan and you guys that I don't understand. I get it. But that has nothing to do with you hiding the truth about the people I know from Earth. If there is a good Aren, do you have any idea how much that changes things for me?"
I wait but he doesn't answer.
"He was my first, Ashur. My first fucking love, my best fucking friend from the time I was thirteen to the day he left for the MR when I was sixteen. And if that guy who went over to the MR wasn't the same guy who spent all those days and nights with me in cadet school, then this changes my whole world. Do you get that?"
He swallows and nods. "I get it, Junco."
I turn and take a deep breath to dampen down my anger a little. "I don't think you do, Ashur." I whirl back. "Because if there's a good Aren, then that means that not everything about my life has been horrible. And maybe your life has lots of good things about it that you can hold on to, but mine doesn't, OK? I need all the fucking good things I can get."
"I get it, Junco."
I look in his eyes, but I don't see the understanding I need. "Maybe you just can't relate to what it means to have nobody. What it's like to be alone. Because you've had your brothers the whole time, right? Your Fledge team is still together, you lived all your days together, and grew up together without betraying each other."
I stop and he repeats himself for a third time. "I said I fucking get it, Junco."
I shake my head at him. "No, you don't. You don't get it because you can't even imagine what it's like to never have a real friend aside from your goddamn HOUSE! So you could never understand what it means that my Aren was a real friend and I never knew it."
He comes towards me and takes my hands. "You're right. I've been lucky. We've all been lucky to have each other for so long. So, no. I can't relate to the world you live in. I'm sorry. If you want the truth about us I'll tell you–"
"Ashur, it's not about you guys. You're not hearing me. It's about me. I don't care about your stupid fucking secrets! I don't care! I just need the truth about me. What's real and what's not. Every time something new pops up I walk a little farther away from sanity."
Ashur smiles, but it's forced. "Shit, Junco, the last time you gave me the it's-not-you-it's-me speech you went and sliced your fucking chest open." He lets go of my hands and turns away. "Please tell me you're done with the death wishes? Because I can't fucking think about that shit. I might not know what it's like to be you, but I know what it's like to lose you. And I can't fucking do it again."
I can appreciate that. If I take the time to look at things objectively and choose my perspective like Lucan asked, I can see their side of things. The rational part of me can at least. They are, in some ways, simply trying to protect me. "Lying to me, Ashur, is not the way to protect me. I'm so fucked up–"
He turns around, his face sad, waiting for me to continue.
I take a deep breath. "I'm so fucked up I don't even know what's real anymore. I don't know. I'm going insane, Ashur. And you guys will be the ones to push me over the edge with these lies. If you love me, then you'll back off and let me figure it out. Just back off."
Chapter Fifteen
When I fly back to camp I grab all my weapons, except for the 50 cal – it's just gonna have to stay unless someone else wants to huck it around – and strap them on me one at a time, fill my pockets with ammo and plasma cartridges, and stuff some shitty fucking avian rations down my shirt and in my boots. When I'm done I stand apart from camp, apart from Tier's team, looking over a cliff that has a long vertical drop. I see a pair of eaglets venture to the side of the mountain and flap their half-feathered wings a little as they wait for the next meal to appear. "Ya better stay a little longer, boys. It's a fucking bitch out there."
I hear a grunt behind me and turn to find Arel.
"Hey."
I smile but say nothing.
"So, Junco. I thought you might like to know that I corrupted your HOUSE once."
I squint in confusion and stare up at his dark eyes. "Yeah, Ash mentioned that."
He laughs. "Just listen for a second, OK? I realize this is strange timing, but I noticed she was in shutdown mode when we showed up for that battle in your driveway."
"Aren, well, that bad
Aren, corrupted her and I had to put her to sleep that night."
"Which means she reverted to the last backup, correct?"
I nod as a shiver of hope runs through my body.
"So, where do you keep the backups? Do you know?"
I know.
My eyes fill with tears before I can stop them and he moves in and squeezes my arm. "Thank you, Arel. You have no idea how much this helps."
"You're welcome, Junco. You look like you need a friend, so maybe there'll be time later?" He shrugs. "At least you know where she is and she's not dead."
I nod and look past him. The whole team is waiting on us. I nod to Moju and he takes off. I follow and then behind me comes the thunder of wings.
We fly northwest until the sun is high overhead in the south. My wings ache like fuck with every thrust, and I find myself praying for a tailwind, but more often than not the headwind blows in my face, chapping it as the infamous low-pressure systems that come out of the Pacific Utopia create havoc on the currents. If Moju hadn't headed down to the ground when he did, I might have fallen out of the sky from exhaustion.
We land just past the tree line in an open area littered with marmot dens. The air is frigid as I pick my way around the golden little rodents and pray the mountain lions are less aggressive than the ones we have on the prairie. It's an irrational fear when you're strapped down with more weapons than you have limbs and there's no sane reason for a lion to be above the tree line in the first place, but that fear goes deep in me for various reasons.
Moju finally directs us to a small hole in the side of the hill. Everyone except Moj is huffing from the low oxygen and my vision is spinning wildly as my voice echoes in my head. "I'm sick, Moj." I look at him and he weaves back and forth. No, wait. I'm weaving back and forth.
Sucks to have altitude sickness. I've lived above eight thousand feet my entire life. But it only takes a few weeks away from high altitude to wipe away every compensation my body ever made for it. I've been gone a lot longer than a few weeks and this is a lot higher than eight thousand fucking feet. It feels more like fourteen to me.
"We're here, Juncs. Just breathe in and focus, OK? We're going down now, all right?"
I nod and take a deep breath. I know from experience that it does go away on the descent. The cog that used to wind up and down the side of Peaks got you back down quick enough to make the sickness go away in minutes, but I've gotta walk down. And I'm getting worried that walking will be out of the question pretty soon.
I slip inside the hole behind Moju and slide down the steep interior hillside, sending rocks tumbling down on his head. If he's upset, he doesn't show it. He just stands at the bottom and drags me up to my feet.
"You OK?"
I hear him, but the words come in fuzzy and I weave a little. "I think so."
The rest of the guys come up behind me and I catch Tier and Isten looking at me funny. I ignore them and let Moju keep my hand as we walk along in the cave. We're not going down, we're walking horizontal. "Moju, I need to stop."
He doesn't even turn. "No, Juncs. You don't get better by stopping."
He's dragging me now, and then we come to a door. A door of all things, in the side of this mountain.
He peers into the biometric retinal scan and I hear a loud click. It opens to a large cargo elevator and we all file in. Moju peers into the interior biometrics and the door closes. He thumbs his print and the box begins a quick descent.
I breathe a sigh of relief as my head clears within seconds and hang onto Moju's arm. "Thanks for the help." He smiles at me and leans down to kiss my head. I smile, then lock it down. No more trusting anyone, not even Moju, until I figure out what the fuck is going on. Isten's words come back to haunt me, You can't give that shit away like that, because the minute you do, they own you.
He shoots me a look from across the elevator and I meet it head-on. "You're such an asshole, Isten. Omission of facts is the same thing as lying. But you know what, you were absolutely right about that. I won't give it away from now on, don't you fucking worry about it again."
I get funny looks all around, but Isten doesn't say anything.
"Just let it go, Juncs." Moju shakes his head at me. "Can't turn back time. Besides, you have to trust someone."
The car stops and Moju scans his retinas one more time to make the doors open. We step out into a hallway.
There's another door but this time it's guarded by one of those sentry bots from the tunnels under Ramah. Moju scans, then pushes me up to it. "Everyone has to scan in." I blink at the biometric pad and it flashes and chirps at me to move away. The team scans in after me and then Moju palms a final biometric pad on the side of the wall and the large doors click open.
We walk into a bustling underground city filled with aisles upon aisles of people selling goods.
A market.
Under a mountain.
We walk out into the grid of open-air stalls and all eyes turn to face us. Within seconds this part of the cavern is deathly silent. I look around uneasy, not sure if these are my people or not. Not sure if I'm avian or human or neither. Not sure about much of anything.
"Junco!"
Selia is running towards me with a giant smile. She stops short when she sees my face. "What's wrong?"
I can use a friend right now. So bad. This thought sparks the tears and I cry, I can't help it.
Selia pulls me in and gives me a hug. "It's OK, Junco. Really."
"Get me out of here, please – just get me out of here, Selia. Please."
I can feel her look up at my team but there is silence behind me. Selia turns me around, pushes on my shoulders, and we walk. My head is down and I can't bring myself to look at anyone. When we stop I have no idea where we are or how we got here. None of the guys are behind me, it's just us.
She reaches out for my weapons and I push her back, growling, "Don't even fucking think about it." I am instantly ashamed. "I'm sorry, Selia. I'm sorry."
"Junco, you can't possibly work them all at once, put one or two down and relax."
"I just need them right now, OK?"
Her eyes squint in confusion. "Were they— mean to you, Junco? Those avians?"
"Mean to me?" What do I say? No? I had to fight and kill almost a hundred people in Fledge. Yes? That doesn't feel quite right either. I stay silent. That question is not even answerable at the moment.
"Come on, sit down and relax. You look a little wrung-out, Junco."
Her hand gestures towards a long fluffy couch and I flop against the pillows and tip my head back to study this girl who I'd be hard-pressed to pin a label on, if forced.
"Selia, my whole world is a lie."
I watch her face drop with a frown and she nods. "Yeah, lots of people are coming to the same conclusion about everything they believed to be true as well, Junco. I've heard a lot of stories over the past few months, so while I may not be able to relate exactly, I certainly understand."
"I don't know where I belong. Hell, I don't even know what I am."
"You can belong here if you want. We know who you are, Junco. You're one of us."
Us? Really. "How can you be so sure, Selia? I'm not even human and the avians say I'm not really avian either."
"You're Junco. And that's enough." She sighs and smiles a little. "Why don't you just lie back and rest for a while, huh? It must have been quite a trip getting here and it's late evening if you're on standard time, so you're probably tired anyway."
I nod slightly but stay quiet.
"You want some clothes to sleep in?"
I choke back a sob as I bring my booted feet up on the couch. Yeah, I want to say. Throw me a tank top that doesn't require me to seal up the sides to accommodate the wings because I don't want them anymore.
But I don't. I just stay silent and keep my wish to be normal to myself. Selia chats to me for a little longer but when I turn out to be about as much fun as a bag of hammers she goes to bed. Eventually my eyelids become too heavy to resist
the pull of sleep and I sink away into the darkness.
Chapter Sixteen
I can hear them and it bothers me. Their happiness and excitement at being free on a Friday night. My fingers go to the keys of the piano and I absently pluck out a few bars of the song I've been practicing with Mrs. Strauss. I recognize the heavy thud of bootsteps approaching in the long hallway that leads to the music auditorium and I stand at ease and wait.
I smile when he enters the room and I feel a little wave of sadness as I realize I've missed him.
He pulls me in and squeezes me. "How have you been, Junco?"
"Good, Dad. Really good. I already made Cadet Captain."
"I know, they called me." He pushes me to sit on the piano bench and I do. "Which is why I'm here. Maybe you didn't understand what I said on the way home from Hawaii? You don't have to make rank here, Junco. There's time for that later. This is just—" He drops off, trying to think of the words maybe. "It's just wasting time for you, a way to make you legitimate so you can move on as an officer after graduation. There is nothing for you to learn here except how to relax. Just do your homework, do what Mrs. Strauss and Michael tell you to for piano and sports, and forget the rest. You don't have to work so hard."
I shrug and look up at him. "I want to."
"No," he says, shaking his head, "you don't. You just don't want to leave your comfort zone and do the things all the other cadets are doing. And I think you should. What are your plans for tonight?"
I swallow. "Mrs. Strauss wants me to practice the new—"
"No, Junco. Not on a Friday night she doesn't. I gave her orders. You are free to do whatever you want until 0900 tomorrow. So, go. Go out and do something. These kids are always going out, but I hear you always stay in. Why? What's the problem?"
I let out the frown I've been hiding since he left me here two months ago. "I thought it would be so fun, but it's not really. I don't get it."
"Don't get what, Junco?" His voice is soft and his eyes attentive.
"How they can be so concerned with things that don't really matter. Like hair or clothes or boys. I'm only interested in classes and—" He waits for a few seconds but I don't fill in the missing words. Even I know this is not normal.
