rise of the saviors

by Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons

  We lean up on our elbows as if on cue, each of us remembering our own story of being uprooted. I hope her story gets a bit more cheery.

  “It was late at night and I couldn’t sleep. The room was unbearably quiet without the breathing of my three older sisters. I got up and went to the window to stare at the sky. There was no moon that night so I could see all the stars. And then it happened.

  A blue lightning cut across the sky. My knees started shaking. The sky was on fire. I ran over to my mother’s bed and woke her up. Look, I said, there will be no more sky tomorrow. My mother took a look outside the window and told me the sky is not real. Just like that. The sky is not real. Then she went back to sleep. I stayed up watching the blazing sky until it stopped. I never saw anything like that again until Freya got the device.”

  “Ah, the magical receptor,” Tilly says. “Do you miss it, Freya?”

  I think about her question for a moment and I realize she’s right. I do miss it, not just mentally but also physically. “Strangely, I do.”

  Nya gives me a nudge on the shoulder. “You like being intimidating. Admit it!”

  “Anyway, that’s my story,” Zoe says. “I have dreams about it sometimes.”

  “Do you think it was an amplified energy field?” Tilly asks.

  “Most likely. But I didn’t know it then.”

  “Whose turn is it?” Nya says.

  “Do you have a story you’d like to share?” I ask her.

  Nya touches her forehead trying to decide whether she has a story in her or not. She looks to the kitchen wall where Daphne has just materialized. She stands in silence with a strand of her long hair covering one eye.

  “Would you like to join us?” Zoe asks Daphne, offering her a spot on the grass.

  “That would be nice,” Daphne says settling down on the grass between Tilly and Nya. Her eyes meet mine. We look at each other until a smile forms on her lips. “It looks like you’re having fun,” she says.

  The night is sweet with a light breeze and the incessant singing of the crickets. Daphne cozies up to us pretty fast and reaches out for some food.

  “What’s the purpose of your gathering?” she asks.

  “It’s to be silly and scare fear away,” Zoe says.

  “Oh? I didn’t know we could get scared,” Daphne says.

  “You never did,” Nya says with a surprising amount of respect.

  “We were just telling stories,” Tilly says.

  One of the lightbulbs goes off with a loud pop. The moths that were resting around it quickly move on to the next one.

  “Zoe just told us an interesting one,” I tell Daphne. “Nya was about to follow with a story of her own.”

  “No, not really,” Nya says. “I don’t have a good one.”

  Daphne turns to me. “What about you, Freya? I bet you have a lot of good stories.”

  Something about Daphne’s face as it lingers within the shadows of the artificial light reminds me of the proud and fearless girl I used to know. The beauty of her eyes together with the savage hunger for supremacy in her heart are present again tonight on the eve of destruction.

  “I’m fresh out at the moment,” I say pensively.

  “Well, if nobody has anything to say, I’d like to say something,” Daphne says. “It’s not exactly a story but it needs to be said.”

  We hold our breath as Daphne catches a flying mosquito in her fist with a single swift motion. “I haven’t always been easy,” she says. “And that’s an understatement. I’ve been difficult, arrogant and sarcastic. I used to walk around like I owned the Earth. I have flashes from events of the past that make me go red with embarrassment. If I was given a second chance, I intend to use it to improve myself. I hope you can accept and forgive me.”

  Zoe gets to Daphne’s side to offer her support. “It was not like that,” she says. “We all have moments we’re not proud of and you should not focus on those. Remember all the times you helped someone, all the times we laughed together. All the times you held my hand. Remember when you saved Freya and Damian.”

  Zoe’s words resonate with all of us. Especially me as I was on the receiving end of Daphne’s selfless sacrifice.

  “We’ve all made our share of mistakes,” I say. “Tonight is all about fun.”

  After another hour of silliness we have gulped down all the food. Zoe and I go to the kitchen to fetch dessert but by the time we get back, Tilly’s fallen asleep and Nya’s letting Daphne explore the world of her bows and arrows. They both smile at us but the exuberant joy of earlier has been reduced.

  It’s not surprising that apprehension sneaks up on us along with the stretching shadows of the growing darkness.

  “Everyone’s asleep but the guards,” Zoe whispers as we pick up dishes and cups and clean our little party area.

  My heart sinks when suddenly Kroll appears out of the shadows. It’s doubtful he’d try to find me if he had anything but bad news.

  Daphne recoils at the sight of Kroll. She is not used to the idea of Sliman being our allies yet.

  I ready myself for what Kroll has to say.

  “DSP,” he says.

  “What’s DSP?” I say.

  “The sign on the door where the two young Saviors were kept,” he goes on. “I figured out what it stands for: Desensitizing Serum Procedure.”

  I glance down at my feet and then back at Kroll. “Is it the procedure they use on those chosen to breed to make them lose their sense of self?”

  “Quite possibly.”

  “Okay,” I say looking back at Zoe, Daphne and Nya. “We knew that was the most probable scenario.”

  “The Shadow witch kills everything she gets her hands on,” Nya says.

  “Until she gets her hands on me,” I say calmly.

  24

  Plantation-15 is home to no one but monsters and nightmares ever since we released the children during our last, bloody battle that claimed the life of many good people.

  The gigantic construction cannot intimidate me. Nor can the knowledge of the vast underground network that starts here and leads to possibly every single plantation in the district. Even if those tunnels are swarming with beasts and phantoms of all types, I don’t care.

  I mean to destroy everything in my path.

  The watch towers loom above my head as I approach the main gate. I switch off the misty shield that’s been surrounding me for the last hour or so to make my presence known to the plantation’s surveillance systems. Soon afterwards, the distinct wail of a faraway alarm reaches my ears and the gate opens with a creaking sound.

  Three Sliman stand behind the gate staring down at me with their eyes darkened by disbelief. I can feel the presence of more guards in the watch towers above. Two cameras are turned on me recording my every move and sound. I raise my hands up in the air. “I come alone and in peace,” I say. “I’m here to see the Empress.”

  As soon as I say the words, they pull out pulse guns and aim them at my head in a coordinated – if not orchestrated – movement. The guards in the watch towers turn their heavy machine guns on me. I have no idea if I’d be able to create a shield fast enough to prevent my death. It’s a gamble I had to take if I want to stand in front of the dark ruler.

  The Sliman order me to walk through the gate. One of them is on his communication device. Entering the courtyard brings up a number of painful memories. Everything, though, seems different. There is no one around besides the guards. Many doors and windows on the adjacent buildings have been sealed and covered up with wooden boards.

  The absolute, creepy silence is spine-chilling.

  “Move,” one of the guards urges me when I slow down to observe the vacant buildings and streets.

  The plantation paths look familiar but then my escorts take a left turn and lead me inside a building I have not seen before.

  We enter a dark hallway and I’m tempted to use my energy field to create some light. The pulse guns on my back are not very promising, however, and I decid
e to put my urge to play under control.

  One of my Sliman escorts opens a door and gently pushes me inside. When he closes the door, I find myself in absolute darkness. A few minutes go by before I give in to temptation and turn a small beam of my blue light on.

  I’m in an office complete with rotating cameras that follow my every move. Besides the metal door we came through, there are no other exits or windows or even ventilation grills. The room is completely secure. I sit on a chair and turn my energy beam off.

  An hour goes by before a Sliman comes back for me carrying a flashlight. He keeps a safe distance which makes me think he’s not immune to my charms. He studies me for a few seconds before he opens his mouth.

  “I have instructions to move you,” he says. “Follow me.”

  Will she be there? There’s no way of knowing. My guide takes me through a maze of bushes and shrubs to the small building I was kept in at some point when I was a prisoner.

  “You can wait here,” he says as he ushers me into a pleasant room with big windows and walls painted the color of peach. A variety of potted plants and flowers decorate the space giving out lovely scents. “You should be advised that the room is monitored for electromagnetic forces. Should you use your energy fields, you will be instantly electrocuted,” my guide informs me.

  As soon as he leaves, I examine the room to find the fastest way of escape if the need arises. The window closest to the door is the most promising option with its proximity to a fence I could use as a barricade once outside.

  I pace the room using the rhythm of my feet to boost my inward focusing. When she’s here, I won’t have the luxury of a single misstep.

  The Empress walks through the door with two expressionless beasts by her side and with her strange face exposed to my eyes.

  The beasts are no doubt some of her favorite new children, members of the terrifying Ghost Legion. They take their position shoulder to shoulder in front of the closed door.

  Her features are harder than I remember. “Why have you come to us again?” she sneers, raising her hand as if to strike me.

  I bow slightly. “I have come to make peace between us,” I say. “I don’t want any more deaths and I believe you don’t want any more obstacles. We can find a way to coexist.”

  The Empress lowers her hand. At a snap of her fingers, one of the beasts hands her a receptor.

  “Pretty little liar,” she says. “History suggests that when you show up unexpectedly, you have something planned.”

  “What I think is you and I are more alike than I ever admitted before. Despite your dislike for me, I believe you have felt it, too.”

  “I don’t feel,” she corrects me. “Feelings are the byproduct of your underdeveloped, inferior nature. We have conquered brain activity. We fully understand the emotional tricks of our minds. If your species survived, you’d have eventually arrived at the same step in your evolution. Such a pity.”

  She thinks she has the advantage. I’d love to let her know that unfortunately her advanced intellect has one small flaw. It doesn’t let her see through my feelings which in turn becomes my biggest weapon. I can predict her reactions, based as they are on logical sequencing. She, however, is in the dark when it comes to mine as they are driven by unpredictable emotions.

  “This will be my last and best offer,” I say stubbornly. “We’ll put our weapons down and we will sign a treaty. We will help you save your species and you will help us save Earth. When the time comes, we will split the planet in half. You even get to choose which half you want. There’s no reason we can’t share a planet that’s under populated.”

  She considers my words for a moment before she starts clapping. “Bravo,” she says. “You’re really good. I’ll make this brief. I don’t intend to share anything with a self-destructive species like humans. Left to your own devices, you’d destroy this planet all over again.”

  She laughs strangely, hoarsely, unconvincingly. No matter what she says, she’s intrigued by my proposal.

  “I thought you showed some goodwill when you returned Daphne to us,” I say. “At first I was suspicious, but the labs on Exodus confirmed she is indeed human and perfectly normal. Was I wrong?”

  “So you appreciated my little gift?” she says with an expression of satisfaction on her face. “You have a strange way of showing your appreciation. I almost made up my mind to take the gift back.”

  “How did you make it happen?”

  “No special child of mine suffers needlessly. We exhumed the body soon after it was buried. My labs worked tirelessly around the clock to bring life back into her. Then, when you yourself explained to me what she was capable of when we met for the first time in Plantation-8, it made me all the more eager to restore her to her real potential.”

  “Why did you send her back?”

  “So many reasons. You act as if you know everything. How can you not know this one?”

  “To play with my head?”

  “That, too, yes. But one more life, one less, what does it matter to me? It matters to you. You think highly of a single life. Would you even be here if it weren’t for my little gift? It got you thinking. Now I have you, little girl. And I didn’t have to lift a finger.”

  One thing I promised myself when I started out on this mission to hell was that I would not let anything that comes out of her mouth affect me. Her words cannot touch me. I have to keep her talking, that’s all. No matter what the cost, she has to remain occupied until I accomplish what I came here to do.

  “Did you prepare this room just for me?” I say. “I was told I’d get electrocuted if I generated any energy.”

  “It’s nice how it works. If it senses electromagnetic pulses, it targets the source. Which would be you.”

  “Doesn’t that make your receptor useless, too?” I say and this time I’m honestly curious about her answer.

  “Wouldn’t you like that?” she says lifting her receptor at eye level. “The system is calibrated to recognize the difference between orphan, spontaneous energy and a royal receptor. I could use it to kill you right now.”

  “Like you killed your own father?” The words come out of my mouth unplanned and unpracticed. I realize the enormous stupidity of my impulse when the Empress of shadows strikes me across the face with her left hand while pressing the receptor against my chest with her right hand.

  “You do not talk about my father ever again,” she shrieks. “You puny little mutant. The only reason you have any value is because of me. I made you what you are. Without my interference, you’d be nothing.”

  “I understand,” I say as I watch her trembling hand squeezing the receptor against my breastbone. If she loses concentration, she could vaporize me unwittingly.

  “Do you? I’m afraid it’s too late. I have no use for you.” She turns her face to the door as it opens wide. “What?” she yells at the new beasts that slip in the room.

  Almost simultaneously, she lowers the hand holding the receptor. She is puzzled and forgets all about me for a second.

  “Kroll?” she says. She has eyes for him only now.

  My heart sinks at the sight of Kroll being escorted by four Ghost Legion beasts. There are several cuts and bruises on his face. His hands are in chains and there is a leash around his neck. Did we overestimate his ability to work his way through the plantation unnoticed? We knew scheduling could be altered but Kroll swore he’d be able to figure it out and blend in. And now he’s a prisoner like me.

  The Empress turns her face to me. “Was that it? Did you somehow think Kroll would bring the plantation down from the inside? Did you think we weren’t expecting that?” She comes closer, takes my face in her hands and plants a kiss on my forehead. “You just signed his death sentence.”

  “You invited Kroll, Damian and me to be part of your empire,” I say without much conviction.

  Her eyes sparkle with maliciousness. “Say your goodbyes. Then he will be executed in front of the entire Ghost Legion as a lesson to thos
e who think they can disobey me.”

  I glance at Kroll’s bruised face looking for some kind of forgiveness. Kroll stares back at me and winks. This throws me off for about a tenth of a second. Then I get it. I push the Empress out of my way and jump to Kroll as he opens his left hand and throws a receptor up in the air. The receptor lands in my open palm while my feet are still off the ground. Imitating what I have seen Finn do so many times, I manage to twist my body in midair and aim the receptor at the Empress.

  “You can’t use it in here,” she says as I land on the ground a few feet away from her.

  “If that’s true, then neither can you,” I reply with my hand happily squeezing the eager receptor.

  I climb to my feet keeping the receptor aimed at her.

  “My receptors have been calibrated, you fool.”

  “Where did you find this one, Kroll?” I say.

  “Her master quarters.”

  “Oops, I guess it’s one of yours,” I say.

  Her Ghost Legion guards step in front of her to protect her.

  “Humans are ruthless,” she says. “You don’t deserve a planet. Humans kill their own all the time. They are indifferent to the value of their own species and all the other species on this planet. They need to be put down.”

  “You may be right,” I say. “But it’s not your call to make.”

  She furiously strikes me with a short pulsating energy field that I block easily with the receptor. I had forgotten how good it feels to hold such power in my hands.

  Kroll grabs two of his captors by their necks and smashes their heads together. I don’t know how he freed his hands from the chains but the ease with which he overpowers the two remaining beasts that attack him at full blast makes me realize he allowed them to capture him in the first place. Had they found the receptor on him he would have killed them instantly.

  I switch my energy field to offensive mode but that gives the Empress the half second she needs to put up a strong shield.

  “We have to go,” Kroll says as he hears something I cannot hear.