“No.”
He shifted up on his elbow and began tracing soft circles on my arm. “Most prisoners don’t remember. The injection makes the memories of the capture foggy. But every now and then, some slip through.”
“I was at a pet store? In Morton?”
“Yeah, you were letting all the animals loose. Shooing them out into the woods behind the building.”
“I worked there,” I said absently, grasping for the memories. “After I found my parents, I ran from the house … ran into town, to the pet store.”
He tensed, his shoulder muscles working beneath his skin. “Is it coming back to you?”
“I was about to run into the woods, was going to hide … but I couldn’t stop thinking about the animals stuck in their cages at the store. I wondered if they’d already broken out or been stolen. I couldn’t stand the thought.”
“So you went to the store to let them go?”
“Yeah.” I laughed, wiping at my tears. The memories were flooding me now. “Yes. I broke in through the back door, and was so relieved when I saw them all—the rabbits in their pens, the birds still in their cages—I was frantic.”
“You were. That’s when we spotted you. You were at the back door, opening cages and begging them to run. I just stood there staring at you, completely transfixed. The look on your face killed me.”
The tears flowed freely now, my fingers making quick work to sweep them up. “I knew the neighborhood pets had been disappearing. We lost our dogs, Cooper and Riley. It broke my heart, and I just couldn’t stand to think what might happen to them if they were trapped like that, just waiting in that store for God knows what. I figured they’d have a better chance at surviving, defending themselves, if they were just …”
“Free.”
“Yeah.”
“See?” He pressed his lips to my collarbone, his stubble tickling my skin. “A heart like rain.”
CHAPTER 7
“Hey,” Jet said, his voice a smooth drawl, “why in such a rush?” He gently slowed my stride and tipped me back against the cavern entryway wall, just outside of Sector Two. His blue eyes roamed lazily from the tips of my boots to my lips. He looked down at me with a hint of a crooked smile, and all I wanted to do was disappear again with him in Sector Two and say to hell with the world, but I made a promise to Jimmy the bartender, and Kale would be wondering where we were by now.
“Our hour’s up, Phoenix.” I smirked back, clasping my hands around the nape of his neck. “I have a promise to keep.”
“Looks like my theory was right. You were sent to drive me crazy.”
“You like crazy, though, don’t you.”
He chuckled deep in his throat, strutting closer. His broad shoulders cast me in shadow against the cool rock. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Do you promise to play nice with Kale now?”
“What makes you think I’m going to play nice?”
“Because now you know what I want.”
“Ha.” He lowered his head and traced my bottom lip with his tongue. “Yeah, okay. I’ll think about it.”
“Hey!” Kale’s voice echoed at the end of the hall. “Where the hell have you two been? There’s not another meeting until tomorrow night, but I managed to talk Rico and his crew into talking to you guys right now. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” He slowed as he approached, his gaze sliding between the two of us. A beat later, recognition registered on his face.
Jet pushed off the wall and swaggered up to meet him. “Where we’ve been is none of your business.”
“Jet,” I warned.
He sent me a side-glance. “I thought about it.”
“Uh, it kind of is my business. I’m your ticket into this Hole, and we’re making a trade here, remember?”
“Whatever. We’re coming.” Jet started forward but stopped, leaning in to pin Kale with a confident gaze. “Oh, for the record?” He nodded to me. “She’s spoken for. Touch her and I break your fucking hand.” Clapping Kale’s shoulder with a wink, he strolled down the hallway. I started after him, rolling my eyes.
Boys.
“Hey, Skylla?” Kale asked, following me.
“Yeah?”
“When Jimmy told me where I could find you, he said something about a dog?”
I laughed. “Yeah, I owe him. I’ll meet you guys in twenty, okay?” Kale nodded, and we walked silently after Jet, back to the main gathering area. Jet and Kale slipped away from all the music and dancing to go meet with the rebel group, while I returned to Jimmy.
I handed Jimmy the cardboard sign from Sector Two. “Thanks for that,” I said. “So, where’s this lab retriever of yours?”
He finished wiping down his section of the bar and waved to the left. “Follow me.” I did, to a quiet area nestled away in his sleeping quarters. Tied up in the corner with a bone and a bowl of water sat a black lab, about a year old.
“His name’s Zeke. He’s a great dog.” He leaned down to pat Zeke on the head. “But I don’t want him running off. It’s too easy for him to get hurt around here. I just need him to listen to me, but he’s got zero attention span.”
I smiled and bent down to greet the dog, letting him sniff my hand first before moving to gently stroke his ears and the side of his face. “Yeah, he’s at that age. Well, I can start teaching him some basic commands. I think my friends and I are going to be here for a few days. But you’ll need to keep up with it, put the commands into practice. He needs consistency.”
“I can do that.”
“Cool. Same time tomorrow good for you?”
“Yeah, that works. Guess I’ll leave you to it.”
“Thanks.”
Jimmy left me with Zeke and I spent the next fifteen minutes showing him how to sit and stay. He was a smart dog; it wouldn’t take him long to start picking up basic obedience commands. Visions of Cooper and Riley, of the days my dad and I had spent teaching them to heel overwhelmed me to the point of distraction while I worked with Zeke, but I focused on my part of the deal. I’d promised Jimmy I’d help him in exchange for some privacy with Jet. And in this loud, crowded Black Hole, beneath a war-torn Earth, privacy was golden. Who knew how much of it was left? The hour I’d just spent with Jet might very well have been the last.
It was worth dealing with Zeke’s impatience and puppy slobber.
When I was done paying my debt, I went to find Jet and Kale. They were huddled around a table in Sector One, in the middle of an epic verbal showdown with a group of men and women who didn’t sound happy with Jet’s presence.
“I’ve seen the maps for their base stations on the coast,” Jet insisted. “I’m telling you, there’s no way in hell you and your little rebel movements are going to make it inside alive. You’ll be lucky if you even make it to California. By the time you get there, your numbers will be dwindling, just from the journey. If you want to do this, you need to work with the groups already in Cali. They need to be on the front line for a mission of this magnitude.”
“Why are we even listening to him, anyway?” a woman hollered. “Just because he’s not being tracked anymore doesn’t mean he won’t go right back to the Invaders and report everything we’re saying as soon as he leaves this place.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Jet snapped. “I can’t communicate with them anymore. They speak to us through chip implantation. And I have no reason to run back to them. I want to bring them down just as much as you do.”
“Says the traitor who willingly turned himself over to the enemy. You weren’t even collected! You weren’t forced into service!”
I moved forward in Jet’s defense, squeezing my way around the table. “I wonder why that is, huh? Did you ever stop and ask that question? Desperate people volunteer to serve. Before you start pointing fingers, maybe you should think about that.”
The woman reaming out Jet glared at me, leaning forward across the table. “Like we should listen to you. Your boyfriend here told us how you two met. Why would a prisoner, collect
ed by this traitor, be defending their captor? For all we know, you two are in collusion with the enemy. Maybe you were sent to uncover Black Hole locations. Maybe you’re the reason we’ve been losing so many Holes recently. You can’t just waltz in here and expect to join our movement like this.”
Jet gritted his teeth. “I told you that so you’d understand whose side we’re on.”
“People, listen up!” Kale shouted, standing to his feet. “Jet comes from the inside: just like Porter, just like Kavinsky and a dozen others who changed their mind or escaped and joined our movement to fight back. This is no different.”
“This is different, Kale,” the woman insisted. “They had to prove their loyalty. Worked with us for weeks before we brought them with us on a mission. You want to drag this guy and his girlfriend along for a crucial recon, two days from now? You’re putting everything at risk here. Remember what happened with Marcus? He ran back to them, had himself reimplanted. Told the bastards everything—locations, times, objective. We cannot risk that ever again. We can’t take in any more service dropouts!”
The ruckus in the room grew even noisier, the brawl making my head spin. A loud bang cut the argument short, the metal door in the corner slamming angrily.
“That’s enough,” a gravelly voice said. “Who are these dropouts you speak of?”
The woman at the center of the argument turned to face the source of the voice—a short, middle-aged man with a long black ponytail. His skin was tan and wrinkled; a jagged scar sliced across his left cheek. “These two,” she said, eyeing Jet and me.
The man came to stand in front of her, placing his palms face down on the table. Slowly, he lifted a hand and extended a shake to Jet, then me. “I’m Rico. What do you know of the inside?”
“What do you want to know?” Jet asked.
“Whatever you’ve got.”
“I know what happens to the Collected. I know lab locations, prison codes, and a little about the children’s camps on the west coast.”
“Have you been inside one of those labs?”
“Yes.”
“So have we.” Rico’s gaze lowered to the table; his palms gripped the edge tight. “Our little rebel groups, as I overheard you refer to them as a few seconds ago, have not only been inside some of those labs, they’ve made it all the way to Central Control. Only once, but enough to know that what’s happening here is much bigger than all of us.”
“That’s impressive.”
“Damn right it’s impressive,” Rico said. “But we need to know more. We need to go back with enough manpower to put Central Control on lockdown. So we have time to make our move. That’s the next step.”
Jet stood and crossed his arms, leveling his gaze with Rico. “How exactly do you intend to take them down? What will help you if you gain access to Central Control? Even if you have access, only the Invaders can operate the technology—we can’t read their language, and it’s all over their panels and strategy maps.”
“We don’t need to operate their technology. We need them to.” Rico looked at Jet sternly, then turned to the pegboard on the wall, smoothing his dirt-caked fingers over the collection of maps and blueprints. “Each coastal base station they’ve set up houses a Central Control station. We’ve seen the inside of C1—the Central Control station in New Orleans. In California, there are three bases.” He pointed to California, clunking his knuckle on each red X, one by one. “Word from our allies has confirmed that only one of those three—San Francisco—houses the Capsules for the Sacred Seven. This same location also possesses the strongest children’s workforce, which further confirms that the Invaders are paying special attention to guarding this particular base. This is the Central Control station we need access to. It takes priority over all. Our mission is to gain entry, gather the activated Sacred Seven, then force them to bring their own kind down before we execute them. They can read the language and operate the control panel. If the Invaders don’t have the Seven, they can’t follow through with their plan. Crash and burn, baby.”
For the most part, I’d followed him, but one thing he said confused me. I said, “Sacred Seven? What are the Sacred Seven?”
“The Shepherds,” Kale elaborated. “The Head Keepers of Prototype Seven.”
“Come again?” Jet said, his brow furrowed, clearly as confused as I was.
Kale chuckled, exchanging pleased glances with Rico. “For being an ex-insider, you really don’t know much, do you?”
“I was a prison guard. A Collector. I’m familiar with ground combat and weaponry, capture strategies, prison operations … shit like that. All of this is Greek to me.”
“See, Thelma?” Kale cocked a brow at the woman who had been arguing with Jet before. “Nothing to worry about here.”
She huffed and mumbled something under her breath, but didn’t comment further. Rico grunted and gestured to Jet’s chair. “You might want to take a seat there, brother.”
“No. I’ll stand.”
“Suit yourself.” He shrugged. “Like most Keeper Agents, the Sacred Seven are preselected. We call them the Shepherds. They’re human, here on our planet, designed to activate upon invasion. Only their purpose is far greater. They all must be activated before they can complete their task for the Invaders—the most important task on the Invaders’ agenda. The activation process can be delayed based on the Shepherd’s willingness, though. They can resist the pull, which can slow things down. They can’t resist for long, though. The activation is too strong.”
Up until now, I’d mostly been observing, quietly taking it all in. Now my ears were burning with the need to know. “What task?”
“To seize control of and lead Prototype Seven—also known as our Earth.”
The burning desire to soak up this knowledge increased, stinging my temples with innate need. “Why call Earth ‘Prototype Seven’ … am I missing something?”
Kale and Rico went still, their expressions suddenly guarded. “Go on,” Rico said to Kale, plopping down in a chair. “You do the honors.”
Kale crossed his arms and inhaled a deep breath. “We call it Prototype Seven because it’s exactly that—the seventh prototype. A model.”
“A model of what?”
“Skylla,” he chuckled, sending me a sympathetic glance, “you don’t honestly think this is the only Earth, do you?”
Jet straightened beside me. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Sorry, it’s just … a lot of people in the Underground already know about this. Word’s spread since the attack. We uncovered the truth about the prototypes when we broke into C1 in New Orleans. There are seven Earths, all controlled by the Invaders. Our Earth was the seventh prototype to be created. Ours is the last prototype.”
Jet finally found the chair, his body quietly dropping into the seat. “That can’t … there’s no way.”
“The operation panel in the control station outlined it clear as day. We didn’t need to read their language to make out the images. It’s all laid out—seven different planets, all identical, each with their very own operating station. The seventh was activated, lit up like a firework, with markings on each coastal base station—the exact stations they set up here. The other prototypes had entirely different base station locations. The Invaders can control each prototype from that main panel.”
“But that would mean … that would mean the Invaders …”
“Own Earth. Our planet is theirs, not ours. They’re only here to reclaim what’s theirs.”
Rico spoke up before Kale could get another word in. “But that doesn’t change the fact that these things are Invaders. They might have made this planet, but we made lives here. We’ve established our race, created our own destinies, fought and worked for what we have, for what we love. These bastards came here with hostile force, killing men, women, and children; they’ve forced hundreds of thousands into servitude. Nothing will change that. We fight.” He pounded his fist on the table. “We bring them down and fight for this planet. It�
��s ours now.”
“Amen to that,” someone murmured. A wave of agreement washed through the crowd, the enthusiastic energy palpable.
“Wait a second.” Jet stood again. “Do you know why they did this, then? Why they created these models of our planet? And these Shepherds you’re talking about—the ones you need to activate—how do you know they’re not already activated?”
“Who knows. Maybe we’re a science project for them. Maybe they were bored half out of their minds, and created Earth for the hell of it. The why doesn’t matter. It’s what we do with it that matters.”
“The why always matters,” I said, my voice a whisper. “If it didn’t, what does that make us? We have the will to live, the desire to find purpose in life, to belong to something. We live and feel and fight and hurt … all of that matters.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Rico shrugged. “But we won’t be answering that question anytime soon. What we do know is, the Sacred Seven haven’t all been activated yet. If they had, the Invaders would have disappeared by now. It’s all on their blueprint layout, confirmed for us by an ex-Keeper Agent. Once the Seven Shepherds are activated and have control over the planet, the Invaders leave. The Seven’s Capsules can’t transport them to their destination from Central Control until all seven are accounted for. So, if any are activated already, they’ll be there, waiting for the others.”
Jet shook his head. “And you figured all this out without being able to read their language? Where do they go?”
“We have ex-Keepers, drop outs like you, working with us to help translate. We can’t read everything, but we’ve come a long way. The invaders go back to wherever the hell they came from, we guess.”
Jet started sauntering around the table toward Rico. “So you want to execute the Sacred Seven? How do you know the Invaders won’t just designate seven others to take their places? They might still be able to go through with their plan. If they have control over the whole goddamn solar system, this is a losing battle, don’t you realize that?”
Rico kept his gaze steady as Jet moved. “Not if we have the Sacred Seven destroy the Invaders before we destroy the Seven.”
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