Activate

by Crystal Perkins

  “You’re fine.”

  “What if we weren’t?” I ask.

  “Casualties are always a reality when you’re at war.”

  “That wasn’t war,” Coalton reminds her.

  “Whatever. Listen to Levi, and you’ll all suffer for it.”

  “Right now, I’m thinking aligning with him is way better than sticking with you. Sister or not, you left two of us for dead,” Hinton tells her.

  “Just remember; you were warned!”

  “Noted,” I say. “Now tell us what you know, Levi.”

  “With pleasure.”

  Sabrina

  The mood in the room is tense, but also hopeful. My mood is one of wonder. I’m intrigued by Levi. Not because he’s dangerously good looking, but because there’s something about him. I can’t put my finger on it, but I trust him. I don’t know why, but I just do. I can tell Hinton does, too. Michaela wants to believe, and Coalton is waiting to see what happens, but he’s leaning that way.

  Abigail, well, she’s a totally different story. I feel hate, genuine and pure, rolling off of her. Not just for Levi, but all of us as well. It’s like a switch has been flipped inside of her, and all of her humanity has been stripped away. It makes me glad she’s in her cage right now, and I won’t be advocating for her release anytime soon.

  “Have a seat,” Levi tells us, sitting next to me as I take mine. I like that he did that—too much. “So, you all know we were created, but I’m going to explain to you the how and why of all of it.”

  “It’s not important!” Abigail yells.

  “It is, and she knows it. Ignore her. Twenty years ago, five ‘aliens’ landed in our world, looking for a new place to live because their planet was failing. They were all they had left of their people, and they didn’t want their species to die out. Since they could shape-shift, they made themselves look human, spread out to cities around the world, and tried to blend in. It worked for a little while, until the government in China found the first one, and tortured her until she admitted there were more. They forced her to contact the others through telepathy, and though they knew it was a trap, they came for their sister anyway.

  “Once taken, they were brought into a room where the leaders of the covert services for their countries were waiting for them. These men told them they could live if they helped them create a new species. The five wanted to live, but they also knew not to trust these men. They agreed, while planning their escape. They became known as the Muses; blood and tissue from their bodies was taken from them.”

  “We can shape-shift?” Coalton asks.

  Levi shakes his head. “No. When our DNA was created, it was done with diluted matter from them. The governments wanted us to be like them in some ways, but they knew having twenty-five more who were just as powerful would be too dangerous. Also, they had other things they wanted to put in there. In addition to the alien part of our DNA, they were somehow able to give us the skills of famous detectives and spies from literature, movies, and television. I don’t know how they figured it out, and made it into something concrete that could be passed on, but we all have the skills.

  “We think like Sherlock Holmes, fight like James Bond, charm people like Charlie’s Angels, and we can adapt like Jason Bourne and Sidney Bristow. There are others we have traits from, like Veronica Mars, Monk, Nancy Drew, and the detectives created by Agatha Christie, but I won’t name everyone—it would take far too long. Suffice to say, we can solve any crime, and fight any fight with no problem at all. We were born this way, and in the minds of the different government men, that would make us the perfect soldiers one day.”

  “You don’t know how it was done?” Hinton asks.

  “The DNA manipulation? No. Maybe if we’d been given the DNA of famous doctors or scientists, but I think they kept those skills from us for a reason. We aren’t meant to know, and really, we weren’t supposed to think for ourselves, even before ‘activation.’”

  “We did have a different life, didn’t we?” Michaela inquires.

  “Yes. You remember there was more, don’t you?”

  “I do. I just feel like there is more than what I am now.”

  “There is, and we’ll help all of you remember.”

  “How? How can you do all this? Was your DNA manipulated differently than ours?” I ask, because I feel like I should’ve known.

  How does Michaela know, and not me? Or the other three? Do they know, and I’m just the one who doesn’t? Levi’s hand lands on my knee, giving it a squeeze. I look up and he’s smiling at me.

  “Our DNA was all done at once so there could be no variations, or advantages, to one country over another—remember some of our countries are not friends. But…the five men wanted to be able to have each of their five have a specific focus, so they manipulated the DNA even more, and came up with five versions. The leader, the fighter, the empath, the super-soldier, and the analyst.”

  “I’m the empath,” I say.

  “Fighter,” Michaela admits, holding up her hand.

  “Analyst,” Hinton tells him.

  “Super-soldier. I have the strength and the brains combined.”

  “You do, Coalton,” Levi agrees.

  “Obviously, I’m the leader. So let me lead,” Abigail yells out.

  “Moving on. the Muses also knew how to manipulate their own DNA, so they collectively put something extra in there. Because the DNA was diluted, only two of every five of us got what they gave us. One remembers—a little at a time, but it will all come back eventually. The other has the gift of telepathy, and can communicate with their Muse. I am the telepath in my group, and Alejandra is the one who remembers. We’ve already established that Michaela is the one of you who remembers.”

  “I’m our telepath,” Hinton admits.

  “Yes, not the ‘analyst’ that your Creator wanted you to think you are, but a telepath like me.”

  “Traitors,” Abigail yells. “Kill the traitors!”

  I don’t know who she’s talking to until Clayton moves. He has some kind of knife, and he goes for Hinton. We all jump up, and inexplicably, Levi stands in front of me.

  I don’t have time to think about that now, as I watch what’s playing out in front of me. Lauren tosses a similar knife to Hinton, and then it’s on.

  Hinton

  I have the skills to kill, and I know it, but I’d hoped to never have to use them. That must be another mutation of my DNA, since I’m supposed to want to use my skills. At least I think I am. All I know is I don’t.

  My will to live is stronger than my compulsion to put down the knife, so I go ahead and fight. We parry back and forth, knives clanging when we clash. More often than not, I’m jumping out of the way as he swings wildly. It’s almost as if he’s possessed, and because I know something’s wrong, I don’t try and strike out at him. I deflect, but I don’t engage.

  This seems to be making him angrier instead of just giving me a chance to figure a way out. “We don’t need to do this, Clayton.”

  “We do. Once I kill you, your Muse will have no one to communicate with, and he’ll never connect with your siblings.”

  “I wouldn’t be so cocky. The Muses aren’t stupid,” Levi says.

  Why is he just sitting on the table? Shouldn’t he be fighting, too, instead of calmly speaking to his friend—his brother—who’s trying to kill at least one of us?

  “Three of them are dead,” Clayton tells him.

  “And two live.”

  “Not for long.”

  “Remember what I said about being cocky?”

  “Shut up or you’re next!”

  “You can try.”

  He seems so calm, and then the voice in my head speaks to me, and I know why. “Stab him in the side, just above his left hip. It’s one of our kill spots. Do it now!”

  I don’t hesitate, because I really do want to live. I take the next opening, and stab my knife into him. He manages to slice me across my right biceps, and it burns, but I know I
won’t die from it. The voice was telling the truth—I honestly didn’t doubt it—and Clayton is dead within a minute.

  “No!” Abigail wails, before she starts yanking on the bars, trying to break herself free. They don’t budge, but that doesn’t stop her.

  “We should go, Levi. They know we’re here, and they’re liable to surround the island soon.”

  “You need to tell us the rest,” Coalton reminds him.

  “I will,” he promises. “We need to destroy everything in here, and go while we still can.”

  I’m still looking at the knife in my hand, covered in blood, when Alejandra pulls it out of my hands. “It was necessary.”

  “I know.”

  “Yet you’re angry.”

  “Not at any of you. I’m angry that I was put into this situation.”

  She nods. “We all are. With any luck, we’ll be free soon.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “If I didn’t, I would’ve given up already.”

  I guess that’s true. I need to get over this, because I can’t go back, and undo what I did. Even if I could, I think I’d always choose to save myself.

  “What can I help with?”

  Coalton

  We smash every piece of technology in the room to practically ashes. “You’re not worried about losing all of this?” I ask.

  “No,” Jennifer tells me. “We can rebuild it in a day or so, and we have a ready-made station set up somewhere else. If it were to get in the hands of one of our governments, it would be far more dangerous. Danger trumps inconvenience every time.”

  “Got it.”

  Once we’re done, they gather their things, while my siblings and I gather ours. Well, all except Abigail, of course. She’s been screeching and threatening us all the whole time. I don’t know what her cell is made of, but whatever it is, it’s somehow managed to still hold her after her assault on it.

  Lauren hands out bags that almost look like backpacks, but are made of wet suit material. “Put your things in here.”

  I do as I’m told, and am not totally shocked when it shrinks to the exact size of my pack, and seems to vacuum seal itself. At this point, I don’t think anything could surprise me.

  “Where are you going? You can’t leave me,” Abigail yells as we prepare to do just that.

  “You’ll be fine. Or you won’t. Not my problem,” Levi tells her.

  Instead of leading us out the door we came in from, he leads us through another hidden door in the rocks. This one leads to a cave with a giant tide pool in it. The pool is swirling hard, but it’s the walls of the cave that have me and my siblings intrigued. There are amazingly detailed drawings that looks to be hundreds of years old.

  “Those were made by the Aborigines,” Levi says, moving to stand next to Sabrina. If our lives weren’t at stake, I’d be giving them both crap about that, but I also think it’s kind of nice as well.

  “We have to go,” Alejandra says suddenly.

  “Yes,” Sabrina agrees. “I feel them coming.”

  “I know this is going to sound crazy, but put your packs on and jump into the tide,” Jennifer tells us.

  “What?” Not much scares me, but that swirling pool is a little terrifying.

  “You’ll be fine,” Levi says as Lauren goes first, followed by Jennifer.

  Hinton shrugs, and cannonballs, while Michaela simply jumps. Sabrina nods at me, and I jump next. I’m not sure who goes after me, because I’m concentrating on how fast I’m spinning around, and trying not to be sick. I close my eyes, and just go with it. I can breathe, and right now that’s all that matters.

  I twirl around for what feels like hours, but is probably only minutes. When I’m finally free of the whirlpool, I float in the water for another few minutes trying to get my equilibrium back with my eyes still closed. I feel a tug on my hand, and open my eyes to find Alejandra pulling me down into the sand, which apparently hides an underwater door.

  There’s a drain in the bottom of the room she takes me into, and high powered fans that dry us off. If anything could still surprise me right now, it would be this under ocean hideout.

  “It’s crazy, right?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “You get used to it after a few months.”

  “What if Clayton told Abigail about this place?”

  “He’s never been here—we always knew he’d be the one to turn on us; we just didn’t know when.”

  What? “If you knew, why didn’t you just kill him?”

  “There’s always a small chance the ‘double’ will feel something other than hate for our kind. We had to give him that chance.”

  “How can he hate us, when he’s one of us?”

  “Levi will explain all to everyone. It’s better if you all hear it at once. I’m dry enough, are you?”

  “Yeah.” I’m mostly dry, and I don’t want to wait to hear the rest of what’s going on. “Let’s go.”

  She pushes a button, turning off the fans, which causes another door to open. We walk through, and I see this room is an almost exact replica of the room above ground that I helped destroy. I already knew they were serious, but seeing this is intense. I know I’m going to probably get even angrier about our situation after hearing the rest, but instead of just blind rage, I’m pretty sure I’ll be using that anger to help get justice. For all of us.

  Michaela

  I’m feeling—remembering—even more now. I don’t know if something happened to me while I was spiraling down the ocean, or if knowing I’m not going crazy has made me more open to it; either way, it’s happening.

  I know I wasn’t always like this—this extreme fighting machine. I was a smart, but anti-social genius, who did what she wanted, and only talked when she had to. Inside, I had feelings, but I somehow thought it was wrong to show them to anyone.

  Our Creator and his crew flipped me completely, but now the joke’s on him. I’m both the girl I was before, and the fighter he wanted me to be now. I think my compassion is going to make me even more deadly.

  “You all good?” Levi asks, walking into the room with Sabrina.

  I doubt it’s a coincidence that he ended up in the “fan” room with her, but I’m not going to say anything about it, and I don’t think anyone else will, either. I don’t know if they feel like I do—that any connection we can make in the middle of this mess is a good one—but I think they know whatever’s going on with those two is real. The looks they share are potent, and if I didn’t believe in love at first sight before, I do now.

  Once we all say we’re okay, Levi continues with his information overload, which we do in fact need, even if it seems like too much to hear. “I was hoping we could’ve avoided what happened on the island, but I was afraid it was inevitable.”

  “You knew it might?” Hinton asks him.

  “Yes. One of us in each group was programmed to betray us.”

  “Is that how the other groups were destroyed?” Sabrina asks.

  “Yes. The rest of them weren’t expecting it. Moscow and China were isolated—home schooled, and never let out of their facilities. London were in regular schools like us, but they were taken into their government’s facility before they were activated. The Creators and their teams were able to figure out how to block the telepathy when we’re inside their buildings and planes, and I know how to block it in our places if I feel it’s necessary.”

  “Why would you need to block it?” Coalton asks.

  He flips a switch before answering. “Because, while I know the Creators are evil, I’m not entirely sure the Muses are all good, either. We were created to kill them because our governments could only torture, not kill, and they are who we came from, but we know next to nothing about them. What if they truly are bad, and should be killed? That doesn’t mean I’ll ever trust my government, because that’s the other part of it. They didn’t create us just to kill the Muses; they want us to die as well.”

  “They created us just to kil
l us?” I ask, feeling all the blood rush from my face.

  “Yes. They needed us to kill, and then they needed us to die.”

  “But the threats to our country…oh wait, did those come from our own country?”

  “Yes. One at a time, the Creator in each country caused things to happen, making it look like we were being attacked. China and Moscow might have activated their kids anyway, but the rest of our leaders wouldn’t.”

  “How did you get away from them?” Sabrina asks.

  “One of the people in our facility felt guilty about what they were sending us into. He was able to get us outside one at a time for small periods of time. We didn’t fully trust him, so we never told him I was the telepath, but those small times I was outside, our Muse was able to tell me what to do. Alejandra turned on her charm, and he took us all outside one day.

  We ran, and then we jumped into the ocean, and dove down.

  “All of our Muses chose an ocean near our countries, and left the things that would help us build down there. They also left things on islands, and in cities, around the world. We followed the directions I was given, and built the two you’ve been in. We know satellites were combing the ocean for us, so we tried to stay hidden.”

  “What about food?” Hinton asks.

  “Do you feel hungry?”

  “No. I don’t. Huh.”

  I don’t, either. Apparently, we don’t need to eat. “Do we need to sleep?”

  “Need? No. It is good for us, though. While we don’t need it regularly like humans, if we are going into a stressful situation, it helps us to be rested.”

  “Are we…a little human?” Sabrina asks him.

  He turns to smile at her, cupping her cheek in his hand. “A little more than a little.”

  I feel relief at his words. It’s kind of cool to be an alien, but I also like knowing I’m still human, too. It’s who I thought I was before, and who I know I still am, even with everything we've learned. I’m not ready to abandon humanity yet—not mine, or humanity in general, either. I didn’t show my feelings before, because I thought I didn’t need to. Now I know I have them, and they’re strong, and I’m tired of hiding them.