by Megg Jensen
"Um, an experiment," Rell said. "Gets a little warm in there sometimes."
"I get that." His frown turned into a smile. "We'll be safe soon enough."
"Do you know who's attacking?" she asked.
"I heard it's some alien species from that planet we were fleeing."
"The dragzhi?" Rell asked.
"No. I think they said it was the tark."
Rell's heels dug into the carpet. "The tark?"
He yanked on her hand, but Rell let go. "Come on. I don't want to be out here when we start shooting. Do you?"
Rell shook her head, then took off in a run after him. Her breath came in jagged gasps. She wasn't used to running, but knowing the tark were out there concerned her more.
Why had they come? She wasn't aware they were capable of space travel, though she shouldn't have been surprised. Despite their innocent appearance, they were a cunning species. They'd hidden from the humans for two hundred years while keeping watch over the fire dragzhi. That wasn't an accident.
The man darted into a room, and Rell's stomach sank as she realized she'd followed him back to the place she'd just left.
Dr. Anderson stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, a smirk on her face. "Welcome back, Rell. We're under attack. Are you going to let us die, or are you going to help us?"
"Even if I wanted to help you, I can't possibly teach all of these people what it's taken most of my life to master. I can't put it into words."
"You don't have to." Dr. Anderson motioned for Rell to follow her.
Reluctantly, she did, realizing she had little choice. Dr. Anderson held up a small device. "Let me put this on your head. It will connect you to the thoughts of all of the subjects at once. You can transmit everything you know about controlling your dragzhi just by thinking about it. Hopefully, they will understand, and they can help us survive this battle."
"What good will that do?" Rell glared at Dr. Anderson.
"If the tark board our ship, the subjects can protect the humans."
"The subjects are human, too!" Rell yelled. "What is wrong with you?"
"They are a hybrid. Not fully human." Dr. Anderson's smirk turned into a sneer. "Like you, Rell. You aren't fully human either. Therefore, you aren't granted the same rights as a human. The dragzhi are our enemy. Therefore, you are, too. But if you help us, we can grant you immunity."
"Immunity from what? I've done nothing!"
"Exactly. You've done absolutely nothing to help us. You stand here in clear defiance, refusing to offer assistance. Should you help us avoid injury, we can cut you a deal." Dr. Anderson held out the device. "Are you ready?"
"I won't do it." Rell backed away.
A click from behind caught her attention. The man who'd brought her to the lab held a gun in his hand.
Rell shuddered, remembering the pain when Leila shot her. "Don't." She thrust her hand toward him, a lick of flame knocking the gun out of his hand.
"Fascinating," Dr. Anderson said as she stepped closer, the device in her hand. "You see, Rell, you can help us achieve more than we ever could on our own. It's a good thing we've been listening in, or we might not have learned about you."
"Listening in?" Rell asked. She looked around for an escape, but the only door was blocked by another man.
"Did you think we would let one of our ships crash and not do anything about it?" Dr. Anderson took another step toward Rell.
"You mean on Phoenix? You knew we were there all along? Why didn't you come to our rescue?" Rell stammered as she backed into a corner.
"We thought it would be a good chance to observe human evolution in action. Our predecessors made a choice, a wise choice, to allow the survivors to live on their own. Look at what your ancestors did. They continued using technology to further their ambitions. They separated into worker, military, and religious castes. They didn't just survive, Rell. They thrived." Dr. Anderson's brow furrowed. "At least until the dragzhi interfered. Of course, one of them had to impregnate a human and screw everything up."
Dr. Anderson glanced back toward the glass cages. "Then again, perhaps it was a gift. Now we can use you to help our creations evolve. It's a win-win situation."
"No." Rell's hand flew to her mouth. She looked at the man in the doorway, who didn't seem surprised by anything Dr. Anderson said. He knew. They all knew.
For over two hundred years, they'd let the people of Phoenix believe they'd been abandoned, when really they'd been watching the whole time.
A shudder skittered down Rell's spine. Goosebumps bloomed on her arms. All of this was so wrong. Was everything an experiment to them? Had the human race forgotten what it meant to be human?
"I won't help you." Rell stepped against the wall behind her.
"You will. You don't have a choice." Dr. Anderson placed the device on Rell's forehead while the man grabbed her arms.
She struggled against him. She thrashed her head around.
But she was overpowered. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. No one to help her.
Rell screamed as Dr. Anderson powered up the device. Jolts of electricity zapped into her brain. Rell's eyes rolled back in her head. Dr. Anderson's sneer was the last thing she saw before blacking out.
34
Rell floated downward, spinning in an endless loop. No nausea. No sense of space. Nothingness.
Help us!
The voices echoed around her.
Pleading.
Begging.
Help us!
Rell reached out, not with her arms, but with her mind. Her body was gone. Or in another place.
Help us!
Rell focused on her thoughts, blocking out the voices screaming from all directions. She needed to ground herself before she could help them. Memories flashed through her mind. Dr. Anderson. The device. The subjects, no, the people in the glass cages.
They needed her help. They called out for her.
Help us!
I don't know how, Rell thought, hoping they could hear her.
The voices went silent.
One calm, young feminine voice responded. You have come. We believed you would help us. You would be the key to our salvation. Her lilting voice caressed Rell's mind.
The key. The Key. Rell was the Key. Foretold by the tark. Her destiny stretching across the universe to people who, like her, were more than what she appeared.
I don't know how to teach you, Rell thought.
Relax. Think about yourself. Tell us your stories, the voice answered sweetly. We have been trying to reach you, but you have blocked us. Now we can access your memories.
Rell wanted to help them understand themselves, but she didn't want them to become all-powerful warriors at the beck and call of the scientists who made them.
Don't fight it. Teach us.
Unable to resist, the device mining her thoughts despite her best efforts to hide them, Rell sank deeper into the abyss. All sense of body was long gone. The ship had disappeared. The battle wasn't waging outside.
The screams began anew. Help us!
All that mattered were the voices. Soothing them. Helping them.
Rell thought of the days after she'd killed her father. How she'd spent them in prayer and fasting. Not only to mourn her father, but also to cleanse her soul. She'd stepped onto the path of righteousness and humility. Everything she did from that day on was in service of the Menelewen Dored.
The fire was contained by ascetic self-control. Denial of everything that made her human. Retreating from relationships with others. A focus solely on the gods who she served.
The Menelewen Dored. She would find them through the council who lead them.
Markel told her the council had collapsed after the dragzhi invasion, only bones found under their mysterious robes. Who had they been? What had they been?
She thought of the day she'd been summoned to the council. The same day she'd traversed the sacred tunnel, hoping for communion with the gods. She'd scrubbed her hands until
they were raw and partaken of the flesh in preparation. Still, she was not ready. Ready for what?
It was a question she'd always been desperate to answer. She had tried to be ready, for what, she wasn't sure.
Help us!
I don't know how.
She cried in her mind, tears flooding her emotions. There were too many pieces missing. Too much she didn't understand. Helping these poor souls could give the humans greater military strength. Not helping them would damn them to a life of senseless captivity.
Rell was the key to everything.
But why was Dr. Anderson after her memories about her father?
Rell dived deeper into her memories, passing her own and into those encoded in her DNA. Her mother's memories. Her father's memories. The memories of their ancestors. They swirled in a jumble, making her alternately sick and captivated. It was here. Everything that came before her, all inside her waiting to be discovered.
Her father stood before the council, his head bowed and his long braid hanging over his shoulder.
"You must ensure her faith in us," one of the hooded beings said. "You must sacrifice yourself for your daughter. Once she no longer believes, we will no longer exist. Our power will be spent. Until then, she must believe. It is your destiny to make this happen."
Rell's father bowed further in assent, then backed out of the room.
Rell jerked back into her own consciousness.
Help us! The voices screamed again.
Who did I worship? Rell asked herself. And why did my loss of faith cause them to die?
Then it hit her. Rell had always wanted to do what was right. Perhaps right didn't exist. Perhaps there was only each person's perception. Only the opportunity to create a new reality through choices.
I will help you.
Rell's mind fell silent. Instead of telling them what to do, she let them search through her mind, choosing their own reality.
If the council ceased to exist after Rell stopped believing in them, if she had that kind of power, then perhaps she had the ability to create a third choice for these people. Not soldiers or experiments, but something else entirely.
Hands reached into her thoughts, some gentle, others grasping. Taking what they needed. Synthesizing her thoughts, dreams, and memories in their own minds.
She reveled in their differences, fascinated by what they accepted and what they rejected. Always, her thoughts were open to them to do as they chose. Not as she wanted. Certainly not as Dr. Anderson wanted.
Rell gave them free will, the ability to answer for themselves.
She gasped for air as her eyes snapped open.
Dr. Anderson snatched the device off Rell's head. "What did you do?" she hissed at Rell, her eyes wildly darting around. "I can't control them anymore. They're ignoring my commands."
"We need to get out of here, Dr. Anderson." The man at the door held out a hand to the doctor, and they ran out together, leaving Rell crumpled in a ball on the floor.
She stood on shaky feet, supporting herself on the furniture as she made her way to the window separating the office from the glass cages. Inside, the people were no longer cowering and afraid. Many of them stood proudly, no longer ashamed. Others worked at the locks, attempting to break out, their eyes intelligent and alert.
Rell stumbled into the lab, resting her hand against the glass wall of one of the cages. The woman inside pressed her hands against the glass, mirroring Rell, just as she had when Rell had first come into the lab with Dr. Anderson. Subject 483. She would need a name.
“What would you like me to call you?” Rell asked.
“I don’t know any names,” she said. “You can choose one for me.”
"Eve," Rell said. "I'd like to call you Eve. What do you think?"
Eve smiled. "I'd like it better once I can get out of this cage. Can you help?" The voice came through the glass clear as day.
"I'll figure out," Rell said. She ran to a nearby control panel. Her fingers hovered over the unlabeled dials and buttons. "I don't think they wanted anyone else to know how to work this."
"I've seen the doctor use it in the past. Place your hands in the middle. I'll guide you to the correct button," Eve said.
Rell hovered her hands over the board.
"Move your right hand to the right."
Rell did as she was directed.
"Now up a little."
Rell moved again.
"Too far. Is there a button in between?" Eve asked.
"Yes."
"That one. Push it."
Rell set her index finger on the blue button. She pushed down on it, and a loud buzz filled the room as the doors to the glass cages opened all at once.
"You did it!" Eve ran out of the cage to Rell, hugging her.
Despite herself, Rell hugged the girl back. "What will you do now?"
"First, we'll get off this ship. Then I'll figure it out." Eve smiled, then ran out of the lab, followed by thousands of other people.
They were free. To do what, Rell wasn't sure. Hopefully, more of them would be peaceful than dangerous.
Once they'd all left the lab, Rell crept out behind them. The klaxons blared in the hall, the battle outside with the tark apparently well underway. Rell found a window to the outside of the ship, expecting to see the darkness of space, but was surprised instead to see them quickly approaching an unfamiliar planet.
35
Torsten braced himself as the orb hurtled through space, trying to keep up with the retreating EU ship.
"Cowards!" Denestra screamed, arms waving over the control panel. "They run when they should stay and fight! We will catch them. We will destroy them!"
The EU ship began a quick descent toward the planet below.
"Do you know what's down there?" Torsten yelled to Denestra.
"Their death awaits them. That is what is down there," it responded, eyes flashing red.
"What if they have a base with more troops? What if we're outnumbered?" Rutger said. "They might be leading us directly to our deaths!"
"They cannot destroy the tark!" Denestra cackled, and the orb sped up.
Torsten rolled his eyes at Rutger. "We really might die this time."
"You keep saying that. Hasn't happened yet." Rutger smiled.
"I give us sixty-forty odds." Malia bumped against Rutger as the ship slightly shifted course.
"The three of you are morbid," Leila said.
"This isn't our first time facing insurmountable odds when we have absolutely no control over the outcome," Rutger said. "It's fun."
"Fun?" Leila looked at her brother.
Torsten shrugged. What else could he do? They were trapped on the ship, at Denestra's mercy. The doll-like creature was going to do whatever it wanted. Torsten's only concern was getting off the orb as soon as it landed and located Rell. Denestra could destroy everyone else if it wanted.
Just not Rell.
"We will land soon," Denestra said. "Hold on tight. It will be rough."
Torsten grabbed Leila, pulling her close. Rutger and Malia scooted in. They held on to each other, bracing for the impact. The ship decelerated.
The orb landed on the ground, bouncing across the rocky landscaping. Leila screamed into Torsten's chest. He held his sister tightly, his arms straining to keep her close as the impact tried to force them apart.
Rutger and Malia slammed into them. The guys exchanged grimaces while Malia shouted out an expletive.
The orb came to a stop between two rocky outcroppings, dangling in the air. Torsten peered out and gulped. The ground was far below them. Much too far to jump without breaking bones.
"We have landed. Now we will hunt the humans down and kill them," Denestra said. She looked up at the revenants above. "Are you ready?"
Their arms raised in the air, and their ghoulish voices shouted their assent. Archer's body floated down to Torsten. "I will take you," she said, sounding nothing like the woman he'd flirted with on Phoenix. "Climb on my back. Three others w
ill join us to take your friends."
"I don't know..." Torsten felt sick at the thought of touching her. She was supposed to be dead!
"Man, I don't like it either," Rutger said, "but I don't know how else we're going to get down."
Torsten swallowed his trepidation, climbing on Archer's back. Her flesh was cold and bloated underneath him.
In turn, each of the others climbed on the back of a revenant. As they filed out of the orb one by one, the revenants took flight, holding hands with a tark.
Torsten was intrigued by the symbiotic relationship between the two. If Denestra was to be believed, the tark helped to reanimate the bodies, but the humans, or their souls, still had some say in what they did.
This was not what he imagined when Rell had told him the little girl, Isobel, was controlled by the tark. Perhaps she didn't know or assumed the worst. After all, her time with the tark was frightening and confusing. Spending time with the tark, Torsten now understood why. They were a conceited and strange species, though it was possible they could back up their conceit with the powers they possessed.
Archer and her tark floated through the air, slowly descending toward the ground. Torsten hung on to her shoulders and almost found himself enjoying the ride, despite the strangeness of it all.
They landed gently, and Torsten slid off Archer's back. "Thank you," he said to her.
Archer smiled. "I remember our few precious moments together, Torsten. Now I know why you didn't reciprocate my feelings. I understand. The love you hold for Rell is too strong. Don't worry. We will do our best to save her. The tark will work with us, not against us." She patted Torsten's cheek with a cool palm, then slowly floated away toward the other revenants.
"That was weird," Rutger said, coming up alongside Torsten after he landed.
"Yeah." Torsten didn't know what else to say. It was all too surreal.
"Glad the atmosphere is friendly to our lungs," Malia said as she ran over. "The air is so fresh."
"Let's go," Leila said, stomping away from them.
"I'd ask what's wrong with your sister, but I doubt you know." Malia glared at Leila's back.
His sister went from sweet to annoyed in mere seconds, then back again. He was worried, and he didn't know how to help her.
