Author: Shannen Crane Camp
Date: 2014-01-02 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Dystopia; Young Adult
Description: The façade is fading, questions are growing, and time is running out. Brynn wanted to find answers about her world's carefree existence and her own insatiable curiosity, and upon learning the truth about her planet Halcyon, Brynn's task became simple: stop what she knew was coming. Behind the veneer of simplicity, though, nothing but complexity awaited. How could three people who were just learning to throw off the shackles of their unconscious limitations challenge an entire social order? More importantly, how could they survive the wrath of the deadly Angels who invaded Brynn's dreams and lo
Publisher: Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing

Rose Tinted

The Sugar coated trilogy
book two

by shannen crane camp

Published by

Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing, LLC.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Text Copyright © 2014 Shannen Crane Camp

All rights reserved

Published by

Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.

Edited by Elizabeth A. Lance

For Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing

Cover by Rue Volley

Formatting by: SK Whiteside

For The Husband (as per usual). And for Ashlee Wille, who stormed out of the office after reading this book. Thank you for that priceless reaction. And sorry for what I did in that chapter. It was unkind. But not personal… I swear…

Also by Shannen Crane Camp

The Breakup Artist

Pwned

Finding June (The June Series #1)

Chasing June (The June Series #2)

Sugar Coated (The Sugar Coated Trilogy #1)

Under Zenith

Rose Tinted

Chapter 1: Indulgence

Brynn leaned disinterestedly against the wall of a crowded black room, feeling like an infiltrator amongst the ranks of the inebriated and slow of judgment. Bright lights illuminated the space that had been dark only moments before, creating the same effect as a camera flash in a pitch black room. For that one second of illumination, everyone seemed frozen in time, laughing, flirting, drinking, or dancing and totally oblivious to the girl whose blue eyes flew across their faces, searching for someone she had lost only weeks before. When one of the club goers leaning against the bar happened to meet her gaze, she looked down guiltily, fingers playing with her short electric blue wig, feeling as if she had given herself and Ty away simply by existing. She glanced quickly back up to see that the tall, lanky girl with long fiery red hair  was no longer staring at her and Brynn took that as her cue to stop being so paranoid.

Living off the grid the past two weeks had been anything but simple for her and Ty. Though it was easy enough to spot a Worker a mile away between their violet eyes and unnatural movement, Brynn had developed a deep sense of paranoia. Anyone who made eye contact with her that wasn’t Ty was an instant threat; a spy for the Angels. More than once Ty had been forced to take Brynn into an alley away from the public eye to give her a pep talk while she hyperventilated over what new plot Eris was coming up with to torture Jonah.

All it took was one simple flashback to the impossibly strong woman from her nightmares breaking her arm with one hand to remind her to lay low and not cause a scene. This didn’t seem to be a problem in her current position, surrounded by the intoxicated residents of Eastern Metropolis in a loud club where she felt miles away from where she wanted to be.

Brynn’s childhood hadn’t included any visits to Eastern Metropolis, though she was beginning to suspect there was a reason for her parent’s reluctance to take her there. The city made Seaside seem small and quaint with its constant commotion, extreme fashion trends, and insistence that if something was going to be done, it should be done loudly. It was a far cry from the life she was used to, but so was breaking into hotel storage rooms and living comfort free. Brynn hadn’t had the luxury of speaking to her house Charlie since she’d left on her last trip to Central Wildwood, which had resulted in the loss of Jonah, and her and Ty’s reduction to wanted nomads.

Remembering her home clear on the other side of the world (or the continent of Halcyon, as she had to keep reminding herself) gave Brynn a moment of sadness, reminding her just how cut off she was at the moment. She and Ty had managed to get into contact with their friends Amber and Bennett to obtain medicine and supplies from the city, but any hope of returning there had been dashed when she had escaped from the facility of A1 where the truth about the purpose of her continent had been discovered; though the fact that Ty had tried to kill Eris, the woman in charge of everything, probably hadn’t helped their situation much.

Now, as she stood in the dark room, tying to look as if the current scene was typical and boring to her, she wondered where Eris was. She still couldn’t believe that these inhuman beings who were capable of creating and populating a society, wouldn’t be able to find her and Ty as they broke into hotels and moved from place to place. They were trying to be secretive but failing miserably, and yet no one had come after them yet. Still, that hadn’t stopped Brynn from trying to disguise herself in public.

Tonight, she wore thick black eyeliner that flared up on the sides to give her cat eyes, and nude lipstick to keep her full lips from sticking out so much in a world where physical traits were so closely monitored. Though Brynn was grateful for her odd physical extreme, she sometimes wished that the unwitting gift from Rachel, her DNA donor and former colleague of Eris, didn’t make fitting in so difficult. The inhabitants of Halcyon weren’t supposed to have any genuine human tissue in them. Brynn had been the exception and at the moment, it didn’t seem to be doing her any favors.

“Do you see him anywhere?” Ty’s familiar voice said.

Brynn involuntarily brought her hand up to the earpiece she wore, hoping it wasn’t obvious to the people surrounding her that someone was talking quite loudly into her ear. She couldn’t blame Ty, really. It was so loud in the club that he would have to shout for her to make anything out. She tilted her head slightly so that the pin on her strapless, knee-length, navy blue sequins dress would pick up her speech.

“I can’t see anything in this place,” she complained, trying to look like she wasn’t talking to herself in the crowded club. “Every time my eyes adjust to the darkness they flash those stupid overhead lights again.”

“Yeah there’s a reason we don’t live in Eastern Metropolis,” Ty agreed in her ear. “We’re not cut out for this level of crazy.”

“Drink?” said a stocky looking man who had just arrived beside Brynn.

She brought her hand to her ear self-consciously, hoping he hadn’t seen her talking to herself.

“What?” she asked, not sure she had heard him correctly and searching the room for Ty.

“Can I get you a drink?” he asked again, grinning at her in a charming way.

With his short bright purple hair and fingernails, Brynn normally would have turned him down instantly. But something about this boy caught her eye and sent a chill down her spine. His purple eyes.

“Your eyes are beautiful,” she lied, feeling that he was too clumsy to be one of her elegant Angels. “Is that your natural color?” she probed, wondering how the boy had imitated the Angel’s purple eyes so perfectly.

For a moment the man searched her face in a puzzled way. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to figure out if she was serious, or deciding if she was pretty enough to go through the trouble of answering her. Whatever the battle, Brynn must have won because he said, “They’re contacts.”

“Contacts,” she repeated.

People in Seaside hadn’t been big into colored contacts, though Brynn had heard of them before. Seaside had always seemed extreme in its trends to her but after spending only days in Eastern Metropolis, she was beginning to regret ever thinking anything bad about the residents in her home town. At least they’d stopped at fake eyelashes and dyed hair. Eastern Metropolis seemed to be exceedingly fond of the more extreme fashion choices of Seaside with the addition of colored contacts, facial tattoos, and odd body art that Ty had described as scarification.

“So how about that drink?” the boy asked her again, his eyes staring at her large lips that she had apparently failed at hiding with makeup.

“Um,” Brynn managed, not quite sure what excuse she should give this faux Angel.

“Tell him you have to run to the bathroom and take care of some girl business,” Ty said in her ear with a laugh, trying to keep his voice down so that the boy wouldn’t hear him. “No faster way to get rid of a guy,” he promised.

Brynn tried to keep her face neutral, even as she wanted to tell Ty to get out of her head and let her make up her own excuse. Having him giving her advice while she tried to formulate a sentence was far too confusing in the already loud club.

“Sorry I’m actually meeting someone,” she said, hoping with all of her heart that what she said was true.

“Next time,” the purple haired boy said, winking at her the way Jonah used to and walking away.

“I liked my line better,” Ty informed her.

“Where are you?” she asked him, searching the darkened faces just as the overhead lights came on in the club for just a moment, instantly blinding Brynn. “I seriously hate those lights.”

“I think it’s supposed to be disorienting,” Ty said thoughtfully.

“Well it’s working. Now where are you?” she asked again, still unable to locate her friend amidst the crowd of dancing people in the deafening room.

“I’m near the entrance. Don’t worry about me. Just focus on finding Jonah,” he instructed her, sounding as intent on finding their friend as Brynn was.

Only two weeks before, Brynn and Ty had waited under a tree in the forest of Central Wildwood just as Jonah had instructed. After hours of silent anticipation, Brynn began to suspect her friend wasn’t coming.

“Maybe he got the dates mixed up,” Ty had suggested, trying to reassure her as they’d waited, though they both knew what had happened. In the same message that Jonah used to tell them where to meet, his tablet had been knocked out of his hand by an unknown threat, sending it crashing into the wall and short circuiting his entire message. The second his screen went dark Brynn formulated every possible worst case scenario. She hadn’t really expected him to meet them at the tree that day, though she still held on to some small sliver of hope that her friend was alive.

As she and Ty were preparing to leave their meeting spot that day, Brynn climbed up the tree in a last ditch effort to look out over the city of Central Wildwood, hoping for some sign of Jonah. What she got was much more than she hoped for. Stuck into the deep grooves of the bark, high up in the tree, she’d found a piece of paper with Jonah’s untidy scrawl. The paper only contained three sentence fragments reading, Eastern Metropolis. Two weeks. Indulgence.

Though the note made absolutely no sense to either her or Ty, its implications were clear; Jonah was still alive, even if he was inexplicably unable to meet them at their spot. The first two sentences were simple enough for them to follow: meet in Eastern Metropolis in two weeks. The word Indulgence had been the really tricky part to figure out. The entire twelve hour train ride spent hiding in the train bathroom hadn’t offered any illumination on the subject and it wasn’t until arriving in the vast sprawling city of Eastern Metropolis that the note made any sense at all.

Wandering through the crowded and noisy streets of the city, Ty and Brynn had felt insignificant and unimportant. It was the perfect place for them to hide out; a pair of nameless, faceless people in the overcrowded city of Eastern Metropolis. It wasn’t until their third day of exploration that they found a club with glittering letters reading Indulgence, that they began to have some hope that they’d actually be able to find Jonah.

In Seaside none of the rec buildings, restaurants, or stores had names and seeing titled buildings in Eastern Metropolis had thrown Brynn for a loop. Now as she was slowly making her way through the crowded club called Indulgence she was grateful for the odd little trait.

“Where are you going?” Ty asked in her ear, watching her weave in and out of the crowd from some unseen place near the entrance.

“I can’t stand it in here anymore,” Brynn said in frustration, trying to ignore the noise and flashing lights as she walked.

Though she knew her expectations were unrealistic, she had thought that she and Ty would walk into the club, sit at the bar for a few minutes, then find Jonah standing nearby as if nothing had ever happened. Now after three hours without so much as a glimpse of the boy she’d lost back in A1 she was beginning to feel dizzy with the possibility of what had happened to him.

“Brynn, you can’t just leave,” Ty said reasonably. “He might still be coming.”

“He’s not coming, Ty,” she countered angrily. “Either he left us another stupid note somewhere in here or he’s dead because Eris got a hold of him.” She tried to sound tough as she spoke her fears aloud but her voice cracked on the end of her sentence, giving her away.

She quickly wiped away a tear that slid down her cheek, staining her fingers black as her eyeliner ran. She had spent every waking moment imagining exactly what they had done to Jonah to make him look the way he did on the video message he’d sent them. The image of his face smeared with blood was burned into Brynn’s memory.

“You missed a spot,” someone said beside her in the throng of dancing club goers.

A warm hand wiped away a stray tear under her eye, causing her to recoil instantly at the unwelcome touch of another drunk bar hopper hitting on her.

“Calm down, I don’t look that bad do I?” Jonah asked, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her easily into a dance.

Brynn stared in disbelief at the boy in front of her. Besides an angry red scar on his left cheekbone he looked exactly the same as the day she’d stared at him through the bookshelves in the library back in Seaside: short black hair, blue eyes, tan skin, and a cheeky smile.

“You’re alive,” she whispered, though her words died instantly on the constant noise of the club.

“Didn’t think you’d get rid of me just by leading me into the den of some crazy murderous Workers did you?” he asked, one eyebrow raised with his ever present half smile. “Which, by the way, you owe me a rain check on a promised kiss if I remember correctly,” he reminded her, still grinning.

“Please let him know I can hear every word he says,” Ty said in Brynn’s ear, sounding like he was halfway between joy at Jonah’s safe return and fury that the first thing he’d done since coming back into the picture was hit on Brynn.

“Ty wants me to tell you he can hear you,” Brynn said as a look of confusion passed over Jonah’s handsome features. Brynn tapped the microphone on her dress and wrinkled her nose at her friend.

Wordlessly Jonah pulled Brynn in close to him, leaning so that his cheek was pressed against hers and sending chills throughout her entire body.

“Nice to see you’re still as responsible as ever you killjoy,” he said in the direction of the microphone. “Nice hair by the way,” he added to Brynn who had almost forgotten about the short electric blue wig she had worn in an attempt to fit in with the residents of Eastern Metropolis.

“Why does he make it so hard to like him?” Ty asked Brynn.

“I think he’s doing an excellent job,” Brynn admitted with a laugh, feeling giddy at seeing her friend again.

“What’s he saying to you?” Jonah asked, suspiciously. “Probably singing my praises I’d imagine.”

“He was,” she lied, pulling her friend into a tight hug and abandoning the charade of dancing. “I was so worried about you,” she whispered to him, closing her eyes and letting her fear and stress over her friend melt away.

“You know, you still smell like sugar. It must just be your natural scent,” he replied.

Releasing him and returning to their dancing position, she asked the question that had been playing over and over in her head for two weeks.

“What happened to you?”

Jonah’s lips parted minutely but he remained silent; thinking as usual. Brynn couldn’t remember a time when she’d asked Jonah a single question that he’d answered right away. He was a thinker if nothing else.

“Not here,” he finally said over the din. “We need to go somewhere more private.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Ty said in Brynn’s ear, startling her for a moment as she had almost forgotten he was listening.

It was a little more than confusing having both boys instructing her at the same time.

“Let’s go,” Jonah said as he took Brynn by the hand and led her easily through the crowds of people to the exit where Ty leaned nonchalantly against the wall with his arms folded across his chest.

His blonde hair was tinted green as part of his disguise and he wore black eyeliner, accenting his already almond shaped brown eyes.

“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” Jonah remarked as he walked past Ty, leading the group out the front door of the club and through the noisy streets of Eastern Metropolis.

Even though it was nearly two in the morning, the city was alive with interesting sights and sounds at every turn.

“Yeah, I missed you too buddy,” Ty answered with a big fake smile.

Brynn shook her head at the boys. She knew they weren’t exactly crazy about each other but since each of them thought they were the best person to help Brynn with her obsession, they were stuck together. It amused her to see the way they pretended to hate each other more than they actually did. At the very worst, they shared a mutual annoyance with each other.

Jonah silently weaved through the busy streets expertly and Brynn began to wonder if that was just the way he moved. Back in the Seaside library, she had been amazed at how confidently he passed through the dusty shelves of books. He always seemed to know where he was going.

After several blocks they came to a large building that Brynn guessed was a hotel, though it was difficult to tell since the sign simply read Respite.

“It’s so weird that all of the buildings here have names,” Brynn commented as they walked through the nearly empty lobby towards a long hallway. “How are you supposed to know this is a hotel if it doesn’t say Hotel on the building?” she asked Jonah.

He simply shrugged at her question before opening the door to a very large hotel room that looked more like a home. It had two large beds, a couch, a wall screen, a small kitchen and bathroom; pretty much anything you’d need in a home.

“Fancy,” Brynn said, whistling at their lavish surroundings.

“How can you check into a hotel?” Ty asked him, ignoring the extravagant room. “Aren’t you worried the Workers will come after you when they see your name and ID number pop up in the system?”

“I really think you guys are overreacting about the whole Worker thing,” Jonah said in a devil-may-care way, though he quickly explained himself at the incredulous looks he got. “I mean, I know they’re horrible and tried to murder us, but I honestly don’t think they’re after us. If they were we’d already be dead. I have no doubt in my mind.”

Jonah’s confidence was contagious, but even he couldn’t convince Brynn that they were safe.

“What if we’re just really good at staying off the grid?” Brynn suggested, almost sheepishly because even as she said it, she realized how childish it sounded.

“I don’t think we should go around announcing where we are by any means. But I don’t think they’re going to suddenly appear and kill us at any moment.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Ty asked. “Don’t you think they’re worried about us exposing them?”

“If you hadn’t weaseled your way into our little adventure and Brynn came back to Seaside a week later telling you everything that had happened would you believe her?” Jonah asked. “Honestly.” He added at Ty’s indignant expression.

Ty glanced over at Brynn, studying her face and looking guilty. “Probably not,” he admitted finally.

“Definitely not,” Brynn emphasized with a laugh.

“Exactly. I don’t think they’re too worried about us exposing them. Who would believe us?” Jonah said with a smirk.

The boy from the library was nothing if not confident. Even with the biggest secret known to man resting on his shoulders, he still found time to laugh at the people who had created an entire world. His assured nature was irreverent, and Brynn loved it.

“So, what? They’re just letting us go after all of that?” Ty asked skeptically.

“No they’ll definitely kill us if they get the chance. I’m just saying I don’t think they’re obsessively watching the city computers waiting for us to show up. We should still be careful, we just shouldn’t lose too much sleep over it,” he said. “But on that note, I reserved the hotel under Bennett’s ID number,” Jonah finished with a grin.

“Oh she’ll love that,” Brynn said, already imagining Bennett getting flustered over the fact that Jonah remembered her ID number.

“Where have you guys been staying if you’re not in hotels?” Jonah asked, seeming very interested in this little detail of Brynn and Ty’s adventure.

“Various places,” Ty responded, not sounding as if he wanted to elaborate as he rubbed the green powdery hair color out of his eyebrows.

“Some café storage rooms and hotel basements,” Brynn clarified. “It’s been pretty classy.”

“And you’ve been getting the interesting costumes… where?”

“It helps having friends in Seaside so willing to put together crazy ensembles,” Brynn said with a smirk that matched Jonah’s, finding that she was smiling for the first time in weeks.

Even with the constant threat of Eris and the other hundreds of Workers around the city looming over them, Brynn felt better about the whole situation now that Jonah was with them. His unbound knowledge put her at ease.

Brynn pulled her blue wig off, letting her long black hair fan out across her shoulders as she fell backwards onto the soft bed, grateful for the luxury of a real room, which she had sorely missed over the past two weeks. Jonah sat next to her, gingerly placing one of his long fingers over the angry red scar on his cheek and instantly drawing Brynn’s attention to it. The blemish didn’t mar his beautiful face at all. Instead it made it seem more interesting where others would only look damaged.

“How did you escape?” Brynn asked as she brought her hand up to Jonah’s cheek lightly, feeling where the red skin raised up into a welt.

It was a mark of what she had unwittingly gotten him into and she wondered if it would ever heal completely. It seemed that with their advanced medicine, a small cut would be easy to get rid of, even living off the grid. Even Brynn’s broken arm had healed quickly with smuggled pills.

“They wouldn’t have just let you go unless they really thought you were dead.” Ty shuddered with some unspoken memory of their short time in A1, wordlessly asking Jonah to explain his mysterious escape from the place that had affected each of them so differently.

As Brynn and Ty sat raptly at attention, waiting with bated breath for an explanation of Jonah’s impossible feat, Brynn wondered if they had ever really left A1, or if their journey inside would leave them mentally trapped there forever.

Chapter 2: Escape

“When I first got into the elevator in A1 and the door closed behind me, I knew we were in trouble,” Jonah began, getting the faraway look in his eyes that he often did while deeply contemplating something. “There were so many floors to choose from and there was no way we’d all be able to read your mind, Brynn, as much as you may think we can.” At this statement he smirked. “So, I just tried to think of what you would choose and went with that.

“Turns out, the third floor of the third test was actually a really bad choice because there were Workers everywhere. I mean literally everywhere.” Jonah shook his head at the memory, almost looking like it was amusing to him that he had such bad luck.

“Did they notice you right away?” Brynn asked, her eyes wide as she listened to his story in horror and recalling how unnaturally empty the hallways were on her floor.

“Well, the elevator doors opened. I saw all of the Workers. I tried to push the button on the door to close it again without being noticed, and right as the door started to close, this paper white hand grabbed the edge and forced it back open. It was honestly terrifying. I can’t believe how strong this woman was,” Jonah said.

“What did she look like?” Brynn asked, not having any doubt in her mind that the Angel he spoke of was Eris.

“She had this weird white skin, purple eyes, and short blonde hair. Well… sort of blonde. It almost looked white actually,” he responded.

“It was her,” Brynn whispered assuredly.

The short amount of time she’d spent with the Angel from her nightmares was enough to instill a deep and crippling fear of the woman. Her dreams had always suggested that Eris was dangerous, but until Brynn met her in person, she hadn’t realized that the woman was a deranged sociopath.

Jonah didn’t ask any questions about who Brynn was referring to. He and Ty were well aware of Brynn’s constant nightmares about the woman who tortured her for information she didn’t have. Instead he continued on with his story.

“She ripped open the metal elevator door with one hand. Just ripped right through it like it was a piece of paper,” Jonah said with a shudder. “Then she pulled me out into the control room and asked where you were Brynn.”

This caught Brynn off guard. She hadn’t expected Eris to automatically know she was in the facility just by seeing Jonah. This only added to Brynn’s suspicions that Eris had been monitoring Brynn long before she showed up at A1’s front door.

“Did you tell her where Brynn was?” Ty asked, always ready to suspect the worst in Jonah.

“Yeah, Ty. I just said, ‘Oh she’s on the third floor with this other boy. How about you go kill them instead of me’,” Jonah remarked sarcastically. “No I didn’t tell her anything. I said I had no idea what she was talking about and that I had gotten lost.”

“I bet she saw right through that,” Brynn said.

“Oh, she did.”

“Honestly I think she knew who you were long before you got to the facility,” Brynn explained. Jonah looked carefully concerned for a moment, trying to read Brynn’s meaning in her face. “I think they were monitoring me for a while, so they knew what we were up to the whole time,” she elaborated.

“I think you’re right. I can’t imagine after seeing that place that they had no idea what we were doing. That probably didn’t help my case when I decided to lie to their psychopathic leader.

“She didn’t even ask me any more questions. She just brought me into this white room that looked like a hospital and strapped me to a metal table. At first I thought she’d leave me there, but then her little minions came into the room with these surgical knives on a tray.

“I guess by that point I was still hoping she was about to leave the room at any minute and forget all about me.”

“But she didn’t?” Brynn guessed.

“She used the knives as a way to get me to talk. She said she’d start between my fingers, because it seemed like a waste to mark my face.”

Jonah involuntarily brought his hand up to the scar on his cheekbone once more.

It was obvious to Brynn that she hadn’t stopped with his hands.

“She eventually got frustrated with the fact that I wouldn’t say anything and she lashed out. I’m guessing she was trying to hit me, but instead she sort of clawed me and her fingernail cut my cheek open.”

“Is that where that scar came from?” Brynn asked, her eyes locked on the red shiny skin on his face.

“I swear she’s got to have some sort of poison or something in her nails. This is the only cut I got in that place that won’t heal properly. I stole some medicine from them before I escaped, figuring that if you guys were still alive, then you’d probably need it,” he said with a shrug. “It worked perfectly fine on the cuts she made with the knives. The only one it won’t seem to heal all the way is the wound from her nail.”

“So we’ll just add that to the list of creepy things this woman is capable of,” Ty said in a resigned sort of way.

“Consider it done,” Brynn responded. “So what happened after that? Why didn’t she kill you?”

“Thanks for sounding so disappointed about my escape,” Jonah joked, showing his true colors for a brief moment before he turned serious again to continue explaining.

“I think she would have killed me, but right after she scratched my face, her and all of the other Workers just froze, as if they could hear some alarm I couldn’t hear.”

“Like a dog whistle,” Ty added helpfully.

“Exactly,” Jonah agreed. “Then the woman turned to the other Workers and told them to deal with me. She said it was time for her to go have some fun.”

At this statement Jonah turned to look at Brynn, assuming that the ‘fun’ Eris had left for, was torturing Brynn. Brynn simply moved her gaze to the ground, trying not to remember that particular encounter with Eris.

“What did the other Workers do to you?” Ty asked, trying to shift the attention away from Brynn.

“Killed me,” Jonah said nonchalantly, as if he were saying they had offered him a plate of cookies. “I don’t think the other Workers are as psychotic as that woman--.”

“Eris,” Brynn corrected.

“Yes, Eris,” Jonah agreed. “I think they just do what they’re told but they don’t have the same relish for killing people that she does, so they tried to make quick work of me. They injected some sort of warm liquid into my veins and dumped me in this dark, cold room really far under the facility.”

“Did the walls look like they were made out of stone?” Ty asked, obviously remembering some detail from their own escape that Brynn couldn’t recall because of the effects of the drug Eris had given her.

“Yeah, they did.”

“Is that how you got out? Did you find a tunnel there?” Ty pressed.

“There were a bunch of tunnels there, so I just hoped my good luck would stay with me, and I just picked the one closest to me,” Jonah explained. “But I didn’t go through the tunnel right away. Whatever they had injected into me messed me up way too much so I took one of those pills with the Nano particles in them, hoping they would target the poison in my system and get rid of it.”

“I’m guessing it worked?” Brynn asked.

“Must have,” Jonah said with a raise of his eyebrows and a grin. “It took a while for the world to stop spinning and for my body to stop burning, but once that acid left my veins I was pretty good. The stupid pill just knocked me out for a few hours.”

“Maybe that’s why they assumed you were dead,” Brynn suggested. “They gave you a lethal injection then left you in a tunnel where you didn’t move for hours. Sounds about right to me.”

“I just have all the luck, don’t I? Once I woke up it was like the facility was empty. It was weird. I thought about taking the tunnel wherever it might go, but I wasn’t going to leave that bizarre place without any answers so I got right back on the elevator and rode it to the records room.”

“This is exactly why I think you and Brynn aren’t good for each other. She would have done the exact same thing and I’d have to be the rational one saying, ‘let’s not do that. The Angel will try to kill us’,” Ty said with a deep, long-suffering sigh.

“That’s why we keep you around, Ty,” Jonah said with a smirk, “To make sure we stay grounded.”

“Thanks for that,” he replied sarcastically.

“Well we definitely don’t keep you around for your sense of adventure,” Brynn joked, trying to lighten the mood Jonah’s terrifying story was casting.

“Anyway,” Jonah interjected, obviously excited about the next part of his story. “When I got to the records room I learned some pretty interesting stuff that I think you guys might want in on.”

“Our planet is actually one of three continents,” Brynn said automatically.

“We’re actually just a test to find the perfect society and Halcyon is one button push away from termination because they’ve learned all they can from us,” Ty added in an equally dry voice.

“You guys really know how to steal a person’s thunder,” Jonah remarked grumpily. “Well, if you’re so smart do you know how we stop our imminent death?”

At this, both Brynn and Ty were silent, instantly causing Jonah to smile triumphantly at them.

“That’s what I thought.”

“What is it?” Brynn pressed.

“Don’t let me tell you. You guys both know everything already don’t you?”

“Just tell us,” Ty said, quickly losing interest in Jonah’s game.

“Panurgic,” he said simply.

“I told you!” Brynn practically shouted at Ty. “Didn’t I say we had to get to Panurgic because they could help us figure everything out?”

“Yeah, you said that and the other crazy person in this room agrees with you. Doesn’t it tell you something that the one unanimously elected sane person here doesn’t think that’s a good idea?”

“Doesn’t matter if it’s a good idea,” Brynn answered stubbornly. “It’s our only idea.”

“Well it’s not technically our only idea. The other idea is we do nothing and either the Workers find us and kill us or we wait for Halcyon to be wiped out,” Jonah said sarcastically. “So there’s always another option.”

“You two are impossible to deal with sometimes,” Ty responded with a shake of his head. “Fine. Go ahead and make some crazy plan and I’ll follow along like an idiot on an ‘adventure’ that will probably get me killed.”

“You don’t have to come you know,” Jonah pointed out.

“Don’t sound so eager, Jonah. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“So how do we get to Panurgic?” Brynn interjected loudly, trying to stop the boys from getting too far into their testosterone fuelled standoff.

It took Jonah a minute to realize that Brynn had spoken and he reluctantly turned his harried gaze from Ty.

“The same way we get anywhere Brynn: Trains.”

Chapter 3: Underground

No one could have guessed the conversation one simple word could spark until Jonah uttered the exact word to spark it: Trains. The idea of trying to get back on a train frightened Brynn more than she wanted to admit, though she was sure this time they wouldn’t be leaping from the speeding vehicle. She had managed the train ride from Central Wildwood to Eastern Metropolis with only a few mild panic attacks, though being locked in the small bathroom smashed between Ty and the train wall hadn’t helped her claustrophobia any.

“So what, are we just going to hop onto a train that rides across the ocean?” Ty asked skeptically.

“Always so cynical,” Jonah replied calmly, looking like a cat who had caught a mouse; hiding his satisfied smile. “There happens to be a transport train that goes under the ocean from one continent to the other.”

“You’re kidding,” Brynn said in awe. “It goes under the water? Is that even possible?”

“Apparently,” Jonah answered with a shrug.

“And how exactly did you figure this out?” Ty asked him, still never losing the doubt in his voice.

“In the records room,” he answered triumphantly. “The tunnel starts right on the outskirts of Eastern Metropolis so all we have to do is sneak on the train.”

“And there it is,” Ty said, raising his hands into the air in exasperation and letting them fall back onto his legs with a slap.

“What?”

“The catch that will get us killed. I’m assuming this is a Worker transport train meaning we’ll be riding with a bunch of super strong psychopaths who want us dead? So again, this is a plan that will probably result in Brynn dying.”

“Actually I think you guys are more likely to be killed,” Brynn corrected distantly, trying to go through everything in her mind and decide exactly how much she was willing to risk after her terrifying encounter in A1. “Eris wants me alive so she can torture me for information. So I’ll be fine,” she finished dryly.

“See? She’s fine,” Jonah told Ty with a grin.

“And how exactly do we sneak onto a train loaded with Workers who all probably have our faces memorized?” Ty asked.

“That’s where Amber and Bennett come in,” he answered, turning to face Brynn to gauge her feelings on the subject. “We can have them make our clothes and do our makeup so that we look like Workers. You said they’re pretty good with that kind of thing right?”

“I think they can do it,” Brynn agreed, thinking back to the boy she’d met in the club who wore purple contacts.

Suddenly this plan didn’t seem so outlandish. It was actually doable.

“So once we get over to Panurgic do we just start telling everyone their planet is actually one of three continents about to be destroyed and see who decides to help us?” Ty asked, sounding resigned to the fact that this plan was actually happening whether he went with them or not.

“That’s the brilliant part,” Jonah said. “Remember that I’m brilliant Brynn? Or has it been too long?” he added with a wink in her direction, instantly reminding Brynn of just why she loved being around Jonah so much.

“No, I definitely remember that you’re brilliant,” she said, causing Ty to make an irritated sound as he sat on the bed next to her, still trying to rub the green powdery dye from his blonde hair.

“Don’t worry Ty, you’ll learn soon enough of my brilliance,” Jonah assured him seriously. “A1 has a list of people in Panurgic who have been causing trouble. They’re like rebels trying to start an uprising.”

“So is this like a hit list?” Brynn asked, wondering if she would be on that list for Halcyon if it existed.

“It’s a hit list for them and a grocery list for us. They basically made a list of every person we need to contact in Panurgic,” Jonah finished, sounding almost giddy with the idea.

Though the thought that the Workers were keeping lists of troublemakers was less than comforting, Brynn had to admit that it worked in their favor.

“Does the list give you any idea of where we can find these people?” she asked, becoming more and more excited with the prospect of being able to take down A1 before they destroyed her continent.

“They’re all over the place but the biggest concentration of people is in The Moor which, conveniently enough, is pretty much right next to the train’s final destination from Halcyon to Panurgic.”

“Let me see!” Brynn exclaimed, presenting her upturned palms to Jonah so that he could deposit the list there.

“So here’s the problem,” he began hesitantly, lowering Brynn’s hands for her. “I took a picture of the list with my tablet and my tablet is now useless after that Worker smashed it against the wall.”

This declaration brought back Brynn’s recollection of the fuzzy message Jonah had sent them after escaping from A1 and she couldn’t believe she had forgotten to ask about the most troubling part of his escape.

“When did that happen?” she asked. “Was it when you were in the facility?”

“I wish,” Jonah replied. “I escaped through the tunnels under A1 in one of those small transport cars. Escaping was actually no problem, which seems a little backwards. Staying away from the Workers once I was out of the facility was the hard part. It seemed like they were patrolling every street in Central Wildwood for at least a week after we escaped.

“As soon as I felt I had gotten away, I went into a dark alley to record that message for you guys. As I was finishing up my instructions this Worker walks over to me and hits the tablet out of my hands and into the brick wall, completely destroying it.”

“I bet I can fix it,” Ty remarked in a way that would seem cocky if it were anyone but Ty saying it.

Jonah ignored his statement and continued.

“It was two male Workers. They were both dressed in white and looked like they had come straight from A1. They asked me who I was sending a message to and why I had blood all over my face. I’m assuming that I was pretty unrecognizable from the boy they had tortured in the facility all covered in crimson liquid,” Jonah said, smirking sideways despite the grim implications of what he was saying. “It made a perfect face mask.”

“What did you tell them?” Brynn asked, sitting up to meet Jonah’s icy blue eyes.

“I told them the injuries were from a climbing accident. I could see them exchanging glances like they didn’t believe me. After all, the Workers aren’t idiots, but by that time my blood streaked clothing was amassing quite the crowd from the people of Central Wildwood. Obviously the Workers couldn’t just say, ‘Come with us to our secret facility so we can kill you off in private’, so they insisted that I go to the hospital with them.

“I knew they were just trying to take me back to A1 so I grabbed my tablet and made a big deal about saying I could walk to the hospital on my own. I made a point of staying in sight of the crowd of people so they couldn’t take me away. The second I rounded a corner out of their sight, I took off,” he said.

“Could you really outrun them? They’re so fast,” Brynn said in disbelief, remembering her own encounter with the impossibly fast Eris.

“I knew I couldn’t outrun them for long, so I climbed up a rain gutter onto the roof of one of the cafés and made my way back to a hotel. I could see them running down alleys below me. They were barely trying to hide the fact that they were looking for someone. Their desperation scared me enough to get out of Central Wildwood right away so I left you guys a note and got out of there on the next train,” Jonah finished.

“I thought they had killed you,” Brynn said, her voice haunted as she rested her head on Jonah’s shoulder.

“I was worried you might get that impression,” he admitted sheepishly. “I just didn’t have many options for getting in touch with you guys.”

“You’re safe now. That’s what really matters,” she said. “Why don’t you give Ty your tablet to see if he can fix it?”

“If,” Ty repeated with a roll of his eyes.

“Let me rephrase. Why don’t you give Ty your tablet so that he can fix it for you with his endless supply of technological knowledge and we can get that list? Better?”

“Much,” Ty said with a smile, green powder staining his cheeks from his attempt to remove the color from his hair.

Jonah reluctantly handed his damaged tablet over to Ty, who looked like he had just gotten the best present he could ever receive; the gift of broken technology that needed fixing by him. He wasted no time as he took the hard black case off of the tablet and began fiddling with wires that were a foreign language to Brynn.

“So, what about that third continent?” Brynn asked, not able to recall the name of it.

“Arcadian?” Jonah offered, to which Brynn nodded. “I don’t really think they’ll be of much use to us. From what I could tell, their whole continent is one giant food source. All they have are fields with agricultural crops growing and pastures with animals grazing. I get the feeling Arcadian is where most of our food comes from.”

“It’s amazing to me that there are two other continents on this planet whose sole purpose is to make food and raw materials for us,” Brynn said with a shake of her head. “I’ve never felt so spoiled in my life.”

“We’re not supposed to realize we’re spoiled,” Ty mumbled from his position beside Brynn where he sat bent over Jonah’s tablet with a determined look in his eye, his quick and intelligent fingers flying over different panels within the inner workings of the hard drive. “We’re supposed to think it’s normal not to work.”

“We’re not supposed to be curious,” Brynn whispered, needing to say what she didn’t want Ty to know.

She hadn’t found a way to bring up everything she had learned within A1 to Ty. Her main concern being the fact that Eris had somehow found a way to suppress curiosity in people.

The part that was the most troubling, however, was the fact that Brynn and Jonah were overly curious while Ty seemed content to live a life of compliant happiness, just like Eris wanted him to. She couldn’t quite figure out the link that made her and Jonah so different but she did know that Ty’s lack of curiosity was a troubling detail she needed to work out.

As she pondered on this thought, a sharp pain shot through Brynn’s head, sending her off of the bed and to her knees on the floor. She clasped one hand over her forehead and closed her eyes until the pain suddenly subsided and she was able to see once more.

“Brynn, are you okay?” Jonah asked, worry lining his voice.

“Another headache?” Ty asked, already knowing the answer.

Brynn nodded but didn’t speak, still feeling a few residual throbs from her sudden attack.

“Another?” Jonah asked, not quite following.

“Brynn’s been having headaches ever since we left A1,” Ty explained, helping Brynn off of the floor and back onto the bed, always keeping a wary eye on her.

“It’s nothing,” she assured them even as she tried not to wince at one of the aftershocks of her pain.

“It’s something Brynn,” Ty insisted. “She gets them a few times a day along with dizzy spells and blurred vision. That’s not a coincidence.”

“And it’s been happening ever since you escaped from A1?” Jonah asked, trying to be calculating about the situation.

“Ever since Eris injected me with that medicine,” Brynn answered, rubbing her head as the pain finally subsided. “You don’t think it was poison do you?”

“I don’t think poisoning you will benefit her much,” Jonah said. “I think you might just have some lasting effects from the stress and trauma of everything that happened.”

“I think it’s more than that,” Ty said quietly behind them. “Not that anyone in this room cares about their own well-being.”

“We’ll keep an eye on when they happen to see if it’s a situational thing. Just keep us up to date,” Jonah concluded, shooting Ty an annoyed look for his comment. “In the meantime, Brynn why don’t you contact Bennett and Amber and have them come meet us here so we can discuss Worker disguises, Ty you keep doing what you do best, and I’ll get to researching the eastern coast to find the best route out of the city to our little escape tunnel.”

“Ty, how does that sound to you?” Brynn asked, wanting to know if Ty was completely on board or just a prisoner held in the group against his will.

“Sounds like a much better plan than sit here and wait to be terminated,” he answered.

Chapter 4: Backtrack

Something was off about the state Brynn found herself in as she slowly opened her eyes in the stark white room. Ever since her excursion into A1, her nightmares featuring Eris had become blurry and unstable, almost as if Rachel’s memories were crumbling around her.

The first troubling fact that offered her little relief during her one-sided conversations with the psychologically unstable Worker, was that she had become self-aware within her nightmares. Though she took comfort in the fact that Eris couldn’t actually kill her within the dream state, she still had no control over her body or voice and was forced to witness whatever memory she was pulling from her subconscious with no way to run or wake herself up.

The second troubling fact in this particular case, was the fact that Brynn was not strapped to a table, drugged, or confined in a small glass cylinder like she normally was. Though most people would find this calming, Brynn only became suspicious of her surroundings.

Brynn’s nightmares had been haunting her ever since she was a little girl, but never once had she been sitting in a room of her own free will. Eris was nowhere in sight, though Brynn had no doubt the woman would appear within the room soon enough, revealing some new mechanism of torture or story about Rachel’s friends who Eris had destroyed.

Taking an uncharacteristic moment to take in her surroundings, Brynn couldn’t help but notice the lack of menace in the room. It looked almost as if she were sitting in a hotel room where the decorator had possessed a certain love for a white color pallet.

Floor to ceiling every wall, chair, and sheet was a stark shade of white that gave Brynn (or Rachel as the memory suggested) a dull headache. Had she had control over her own voice, Brynn would have groaned loudly at the fact that she was inevitably going to have another confrontation with Eris in her sleep in the too bright room.

The door to her room opened and the walls shifted for a moment, looking like a video on her wall screen that hadn’t loaded properly and was now skipping. This was an odd glitch in her nightmares that had become routine since leaving A1 and she had to wonder if Eris had somehow damaged her mind when she’d slammed Brynn against the wall of the facility.

“How are you doing, Rachel?” the woman asked as she sat in a chair opposite Brynn, stunning her with her lack of menace or sharp objects.

It was almost as if Eris, in her infinite perniciousness, was playing one last mind-game with Brynn by pretending she wasn’t two seconds away from killing her at any given moment, depending on her mood. Brynn half wondered if Rachel would actually speak in this memory since none of the normal rules of her nightmares seemed to be applying at the moment.

“Still in shock?” Eris asked, something in her voice almost sounding like sympathy.

If anything, it sounded more like a robot who had been trained to inflect sympathy but didn’t quite understand the heart behind it. Eris awkwardly reached out and placed a paper white hand on Brynn’s arm, then immediately withdrew it, as if the kind action physically pained her.

“I understand that you haven’t been talking to any of the scientists in my department,” Eris went on, keeping her terrifying purple eyes trained on Brynn’s.

She watched her like a hawk but didn’t let the cruel half smile that she usually wore show through.

“I appreciate that you feel very alone right now. What happened was a terrible accident and what we should take from all of this is how lucky you are that you weren’t in the room with your colleagues when the gas leak started,” Eris said, forgetting to act out a few physical cues that she was actually sorry.

“I think that the most important thing that you can do right now to honor their memory, is make sure we avoid any future accidents.” She waited for a moment, expecting Rachel to respond.

Had Brynn had control over the dream she would have gladly agreed, just to get herself as far away from Eris as she could. But as it stood, she was trapped in the ever silent body of the girl who wouldn’t speak no matter what the Angel did to her.

Eris narrowed her eyes in frustration for a moment, the façade of ‘caring coworker’ melting away for a moment.

“I apologize for breaking the news to you in such a… harsh way. The freezer was a bit much. But you have to understand that until we did our research, we couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t you who had deliberately caused the gas leak.”

Brynn braced herself for the wrath of Eris but was happily surprised to see the woman exercise great self-control by taking a deep breath, smiling, and continuing with her speech.

“Rachel, we know about your transmission,” she began, sounding like a parent admitting that they saw their daughter kissing a boy on their front doorstep, instead of a psychopath who knew she had sent a video revealing all of their secrets to an unknown location somewhere on the planet. “While I can respect the fact that you’ve… fallen off the wagon, shall we say? You have to understand that the millions of people who funded this little experiment may not agree with you, and you owe it to them to let me know what else you did.”

Eris watched her for a moment, her frustration obviously growing with the silence that met each and every one of her questions. She opened her mouth as if to speak again but stopped short, instead opening a folder she held in her hands that Brynn hadn’t noticed before. Her purple eyes flew over the page for a moment before she snapped the folder closed once more.

“We’re willing to send you home, Rachel,” Eris stated simply.

At this one sentence, Brynn felt her stomach flip flop, though she couldn’t be sure if it was really her and her own residual homesickness seeping into her dream, or if this was actually a reaction on Rachel’s part.

“We’ll pardon what you did and get you home right away,” she repeated, carefully watching Rachel’s reaction. “Unless of course, you can’t go home for some reason.” Her eyes no longer held their false sympathy, she now looked much more like the Eris Brynn was used to; cunning, masochistic, and undeniably unnerving.

“Did you sabotage our way home Rachel?”

Once again, Brynn could feel the little flip flop in her stomach but the confines of her own nightmare forced her to remain silent. After a brief moment of silence, Eris stood from her chair and began walking back towards the door, turning to look back at Brynn once more before she left.

“I tried doing things your way like they suggested,” she said nonchalantly. “It didn’t work now did it?”

Brynn could feel her skin tingling as the walls shifted once more, leaving Eris as the only still spot in her vision.

“Be ready to change rooms tomorrow. From now on we’ll do things my way.”

Chapter 5: Suspicions

Jonah lounged on the bed in the hotel room frantically swiping his finger over the screen of his newly fixed tablet. Despite the fact that the tablet was practically broken in two, Ty managed to repair it in only two days, reigniting Jonah’s fervor for finding the cave where the Worker transport train was hidden. He poured over the pictures he had taken inside of A1, memorizing countless maps and instructions.

Ty sat in an overstuffed armchair facing the window, fiddling with his tablet to create a patch that would remove all tracking software from Amber and Bennett’s tablets.

Ty had been filling the girls in on everything that had happened to the group over the past few days. While they didn’t quite believe his stories, they were still more than happy to accept an invitation to Eastern Metropolis. Any excuse to go to the most party-filled city in Halcyon was fine by them and the clothing Brynn needed designed was an added bonus.

“Ty, are you sure you don’t mind meeting Amber and Bennett at the train station by yourself?” Brynn asked as she walked out of the bathroom, having just changed into a variation on her default outfit, making it a bit more metropolitan.

Her normal black and gray ensemble was broken up with random teal accents throughout the fabric that perfectly matched the long flowing teal wig she wore.

“Yeah it’s fine,” he reassured her, taking in her appearance with a bemused expression. “It shouldn’t take too long to find them and bring them back here.”

“And Jonah you have some idea of where we’re going, right?”

“More of an idea than I did a few hours ago,” he replied, nodding to Ty. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“No problem,” Ty responded without looking up from his work.

“Jonah, are you going out like that?” Brynn asked skeptically.

He wore his typical default outfit of black fitted jeans and a grey T-shirt.

“I thought I looked pretty,” he joked, giving Brynn an offended pout.

“Don’t you worry you’ll stick out too much looking so normal?”

“I think you’re the only one worried about sticking out too much,” Ty answered, also looking much too normal for Brynn’s taste in his usual dark brown pants and cream colored shirt.

“Fine. Go ahead and be normal but don’t come crying to me when everyone looks at you like you’re complete weirdoes.”

“Okay,” both boys responded in unison, annoying her to no end.

Though Brynn hadn’t succeeded in convincing Jonah to change, she had gotten him to put on thick black-rimmed glasses to break up the monotony of his outfit. By the time they had walked through the majority of the city and were nearing the suburbs, Brynn was feeling very comfortable with her surroundings.

Ty had already gone to meet Amber and Bennett at the train station and had planned to meet them back at the hotel room so they could all get on the same page with the current plan.

Jonah and Brynn walked in silence for a long while, keeping an eye out for any Workers as they made their way through the maze of a city. Brynn tried not to be paranoid in the city full of people after Jonah and Ty had reassured her many times that she was safe, but as she passed by an outdoor café and made eye contact with a red haired girl she swore she had seen in the night club only a few nights earlier, she had to believe it wasn’t a coincidence.

She stopped in her tracks to turn and look at the woman who was very openly staring at her. She was a tall, lanky, pale girl who seemed to have a light dusting of red powder over her cheeks and nose, giving the impression that she was constantly blushing. Her long hair was a bright orange that Brynn thought was natural except for the blonde tips that made it look like her hair was on fire. And her pale green eyes were practically luminescent against freckled cheeks.

Had she not been such a striking girl, Brynn would have assumed she was wrong in thinking she had seen the girl before. But standing there on the sidewalk, staring at the girl with the upturned nose who didn’t seem to have any desire to hide the fact that she was staring at Brynn, she knew she wasn’t making things up. The corner of the girl’s mouth began to twitch as if she were hiding a smile when a horrible pain shot through Brynn’s head, surprising her so much with the violence with which it came on that she doubled over, grasping at her forehead.

“Brynn!” Jonah exclaimed, grabbing her elbow to keep her from falling over. “What happened?”

Instead of answering Brynn looked up at the café once more to see if the girl was still watching her, only to find that she had vanished, much like the night in the club.

“Brynn?” Jonah said again, this time with more worry in his voice.

“I’m fine,” she finally answered, straightening up once more and rubbing the side of her head. “It was just one of those stupid headaches again.”

“It looked pretty bad.”

“It was. But it doesn’t last long,” she assured him, beginning to walk towards the ocean once more and deciding against telling Jonah about the red haired girl, afraid that she’d come off as paranoid again.

“Is it getting any better?”

“No,” she admitted guiltily. “But don’t tell Ty I had another one, okay? I promised him they were getting better.”

“Why would you lie about something like that?” Jonah asked, his brow furrowed as he watched her, making sure she wasn’t about to suddenly collapse into a heap.

“He won’t let me go to Panurgic if it’s still happening.”

“Wow,” Jonah said in disbelief, never quite approving of Ty’s overprotective nature. “He said that?”

“Well, no,” she replied. “But you know he won’t.”

“Can’t say it doesn’t sound like him,” Jonah answered with a laugh, finally taking his eyes off Brynn, his worry gone.

As the suburbs of Eastern Metropolis disappeared and gave way to the sandy open terrain of the beach that Brynn was so used to, she voiced a thought that had been bothering her for some time.

“Do you think Eris built every seaside city on a peninsula to keep people from getting out and finding the other continents?”

“I think all seaside towns are probably built on a peninsula, yes,” he answered, taking off the fake glasses and putting them in his pocket. “But I don’t think Eris did it. According to those files they built all of the cities hundreds of years ago. What you should be asking, is how in the world did we really believe our civilization had existed for thousands of years instead of hundreds?”

“She said it’s because we’re all too lazy to crack open a history book,” Brynn answered.

“I’ve looked in several history books in the library back in Seaside,” Jonah said, sounding almost indignant that Eris thought they were all so uneducated. “They have a history going back to the beginning of civilization. Or at least what they’re pretending is the beginning of civilization.”

“I guess when you populate a continent with people who lack curiosity, little details like the beginning of time are easy to fabricate.”

“I guess they proved that pretty effectively.”

“And what do you mean you don’t think Eris built the cities?” Brynn suddenly asked.

“I mean, she can’t be hundreds of years old, Brynn,” he responded logically as they walked through the deep sand that began to turn dark brown as small raindrops dotted the ground.

“You still really believe she’s human?” Brynn asked incredulously. “After seeing how fast and strong she is, you really think she’s just a normal human like you and me?”

“I think she definitely got a few enhancements like the Workers do,” he answered.

“If she’s human then I might as well grow wings and fly across the ocean like a bird, because anything must be possible,” Brynn said with a laugh.

“Fair enough. That’ll make the rest of this trip pretty fast,” he responded with a grin in her direction, making the scar on his cheek stand out.

The two walked in silence after that, both agreeing to disagree and keeping their eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. It wasn’t until they had walked for quite some time that Jonah pointed out something Brynn would have never noticed.

“Does that cliff look strange to you?” Jonah asked, pointing at a jagged rock formation just ahead of them.

They had seen many similar formations jutting out of the ocean and the shoreline, but this one in particular looked a bit off. The dark brown rock was marred by a single crack that could have been caused by any number of things. The crack itself, however, looked too perfectly carved; its lightning bolt shape too precise.

“Do you think that could be it?” Brynn asked, looking up at the crack. “If it is then we have a little bit of a climb ahead of us.”

“Let’s just do it,” Jonah said excitedly, the prospect of a good adventure always putting a smile on his face.

“Don’t you think we should wait until it stops raining? The rocks are probably pretty slippery,” Brynn responded, looking skeptically at the jagged edges they’d have to scale and worrying what would happen if she had another headache halfway up the cliff.

Jonah grabbed Brynn by the shoulders and turned her around so that she faced him. He looked down into her blue eyes that matched his with excitement.

“Let’s go,” he said again, a smile spreading across his face.

“But the rain,” she repeated.

“Not just up to the cliff Brynn. Let’s go to Panurgic. Right now,” he said, this time a little more urgently.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, smiling through her confusion and trying not to look too concerned. “What about Ty and Amber and Bennett?”

“I didn’t want to say anything before. I really have tried being logical about the whole thing but I just don’t know if I can really trust Ty,” he admitted, looking like it was the last thing he wanted to say out loud.

“That’s ridiculous Jonah. Of course you can trust him. He’s more worried about our safety than we are,” she reminded him.

“I have no doubt in my mind he cares about keeping you safe. That’s my point. I don’t think he brought Amber and Bennett here to help. I think he brought them here to convince you to go back to Seaside.”

Jonah brushed a few stray teal hairs away from Brynn’s face, knowing he couldn’t convince her of his suspicions.

“Please just leave with me,” he said again.

Brynn could feel her heart beating in her stomach as she looked up at Jonah. He had trusted her with so many things and followed her wherever she asked without any explanation needed. She knew there were times when Jonah had to go on blind faith, following Brynn on crazy adventures even when she could have been totally wrong. Could she really ignore Jonah’s plea for her faith this one time?

“Even if you don’t believe me, can you trust me?” he asked, leaning his forehead against Brynn’s and closing his eyes. “Can you just do that?”

Though she knew this was an important point in her friendship with Jonah, and whatever she said next would have great implications no matter what she decided, she couldn’t help but notice their close proximity and how much she wanted to kiss him right at that moment.

“Maybe we could make it alone,” she said, closing her eyes and trying desperately to resist the urge to tip her lips up to meet his.

There was something about Jonah that had completely intoxicated her and her thinking seemed to have become fuzzy. She knew she should be worried about how upset Ty would be if they left without him, but Jonah could also be right that there would be no trip if Ty had a say in it.

“I think if we don’t do it now, it might never happen,” Jonah answered, his voice much closer than Brynn thought it was a moment before. She could feel his breath just inches from hers. “Let’s go Brynn,” he whispered, releasing her shoulders and instead wrapping his arms around her.

“Ty would get over it,” she said, trying to convince herself more than Jonah. “No, that’s a lie. He would never forgive me, would he?”

“Once I bring you back safely he’ll be fine,” Jonah answered, still startling Brynn with just how close they were.

Jonah brought his lips to hers briefly in the smallest hint of a kiss, giving Brynn goose bumps all over her body.

“Was that the rain check?” she asked him, her eyes still closed.

“Not much of a rain check,” he answered before pressing his lips forcefully against hers.

Brynn felt a rush of warmth pass through her whole body as she kissed the boy who had put so much trust in her. All it took was that one action on his part to convince her that she needed to go with him.

The kiss was brief and much too short-lived for Brynn’s taste, but it left a burning in her stomach and a tingling on her lips that made her want to pull Jonah close to her once more. She never wanted to stop kissing him.

She opened her mouth to tell him that he was right; that they should leave right then and there. Run away together to solve the biggest mystery of their lives. But before she could voice this opinion, her tablet buzzed within her purse, causing her and Jonah to untangle themselves guiltily.

She quickly pulled the tablet out and answered the call from Ty, his face appearing on her screen and instantly making her feel like a horrible person for her thoughts of leaving him behind only seconds before.

“It must be cold on the beach, your face is all red Brynn,” Ty said with a laugh, the sounds of the city muffled behind him.

Brynn instantly brought a hand up to her cheek in embarrassment while Jonah suppressed a grin beside her.

“It’s really cold,” she lied, while trying to look innocent and not like she had just kissed the boy Ty couldn’t stand. “So what’s up?”

“Amber and Bennett insist on seeing a few sights before I drag them back to the hotel room, so we’ll be a little later than expected,” he informed her with a roll of his eyes. “Have you two made any groundbreaking discoveries?”

“It’s been a very enjoyable trip,” Jonah said, leaning in close to Brynn to smile at Ty on the screen.

“Can’t wait to hear all about it,” Ty said, his complete lack of comprehension making Brynn feel even guiltier. “Well I’ve got to go pretend I care about the millions of clothes Amber and Bennett are making. I’ll see you guys soon.”

With that, the screen went blank and Brynn’s guilt increased.

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say you won’t be coming with me now?” Jonah said with a raised eyebrow.

“I can’t just leave him, Jonah,” she responded, already beginning to walk back to the city so that he couldn’t ‘convince’ her anymore.

She knew she wouldn’t be strong enough to resist that kind of persuasion. He ran to catch up with her and sighed deeply.

“Can’t blame me for trying right?”

“Did you kiss me just to get me to go with you?” Brynn asked indignantly.

“That’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while but I couldn’t very well kiss you with Ty always hanging around now could I?” he asked, amazing her with how up-front and honest he always was with her.

There was never any pretense with Jonah.

“Anyway,” Brynn began, trying to change the subject off of the embarrassing turn it had just taken. “We should probably head back to the hotel room.”

“I was thinking of hitting the library, seeing if we can find anything interesting there.”

“I don’t know. I’m exhausted,” she answered, finding that the emotional rollercoaster she had just been on had completely worn her out.

“Why don’t you go take a nap while I look then? You can tell me what new and interesting things Eris has in store for you this time,” he joked, reminding Brynn of exactly why she slept as little as she could.

“Sounds like a ball,” she answered sarcastically. “I guess we’ll all regroup tonight and figure out a game plan for getting up that cliff to the tunnel.”

“That works for me,” Jonah began. “Oh and Brynn?” He said, looking over at her with the smile that always seemed present on his handsome face. “Thanks for the rain check.”

Chapter 6: Maxwell

Brynn had only spent a short amount of physical time in A1. The brief trip she’d taken there had been enough to scare her away for the rest of her life. The same, however, could not be said for the too-brave-for-her-own-good scientist whose memories Brynn dreamed in.

For a moment, as Brynn walked through the hallways of the white facility, she forgot that she was most likely dreaming and actually felt as if she had somehow wound up back in A1. The mere fact that she was walking around and not strapped to a bed was enough to suggest such a bizarre twist in her fate.

As she walked though, she realized how little control she had over her own body. While she felt internally compelled to walk down this hallway with a purpose, she had no idea why and she got the sneaking suspicion that even if she had wanted to turn and run, Rachel wouldn’t let her. Passing in front of a reflective door Brynn turned to take in her appearance, shocked by what she saw.

Staring back at her, was an exact physical copy of herself that looked slightly off. It was as if someone had taken her body but didn’t use it the same way Brynn did. Instead of the determined yet apprehensive stance Brynn usually assumed, this copy of herself was brimming with confidence, her eyes alert and slightly suspicious of her surroundings. It was like hearing your voice recorded for the first time and realizing what you really sounded like.

Brynn continued to look at the reflective surface of the door, finding that she was oddly interested in what lay on the other side of it when a pair of arms encircled her waist and pulled her into a hug from behind.

“Hey you,” said a male voice that she was sure she had never heard before, though it did stir something in the recesses of her memory.

She could feel warm lips press against her neck but she didn’t pull away like she would have if she had been in control of her body. Instead she could feel a smile passing across her face, a warm feeling bubbling up in her stomach much like it had when she and Jonah had kissed earlier that day.

“Hello Maxwell,” she heard herself saying, breaking away from the boy’s embrace and turning to face him.

He wore a white lab coat like Rachel, though he was several inches taller than her. He had light brown hair, dark brown eyes, a wide smile that made Brynn’s cheeks go warm and thick black-rimmed glasses. Brynn looked down the hallway to make sure no one was coming, causing Maxwell to do the same before smirking at her.

“Right. Professional,” he said, setting his face in a mock serious expression. “I almost forgot we’re on the clock.”

Brynn smiled at the strange boy’s antics in spite of herself, not sure if it was her or Rachel who was actually amused by him.

“Have you heard from your parents lately?” he asked Brynn, making her wonder when the last time she had spoken to Orson and Lia was. They were probably worried about her.

“They sent a message last week,” she told the boy, bound by Rachel’s memory to repeat whatever she had said on this day. “They’re thinking of moving to Washington.”

Though it was difficult to have her own thoughts when trapped inside of Rachel’s memory, Brynn did have a fleeting moment of curiosity, wondering which continent Washington was on. If Rachel knew about the imminent destruction of the continents how could she let her parents live there?

“You know I went to school in Washington?” Maxwell asked her, a playful glint in his eye.

“Must be why I’m so much smarter than you,” Rachel replied, equally as playful as him. “You went to a West Coast school.”

“Says the girl who got her PhD at a party school,” he shot back.

The conversation happening right before Brynn’s eyes was utterly baffling to her. The terms Maxwell and Rachel used were foreign to her and she tried desperately to keep up.

The boy who stood before her gave a short laugh at his own joke before becoming inexplicably serious once more.

“Have you looked anymore into what we talked about yesterday?”

“I don’t need to,” Rachel said. “I know Eris hijacked the main computer. She’s about to overthrow the whole program, I just have to figure out the best way to stop her before--.”

“There you are,” said a smooth voice that sent a wave of panic through Brynn. “I was beginning to think I’d lost you, Maxwell.”

Like the awful reoccurring nightmare that she was, Eris appeared a ways down the hallway, swiftly approaching the two.

“I guess they can always hear us,” Maxwell muttered to Brynn before turning to greet Eris. “Hello doctor,” he said in a voice so comfortable, Brynn couldn’t believe that he really understood how deeply disturbed the woman he addressed was.

“Maxwell, I’ll ask you to please meet me in my office in a moment or two. I’ve got some research to discuss with you,” she said calmly, her eyes still locked on Brynn.

“Of course,” he answered, giving Brynn one last nod before walking away.

Eris turned to watch him go with a smile creeping up the side of her face, accentuating her sharp cheek bones.

“He’s a very nice boy, Rachel,” she said slowly, giving Brynn a sick feeling in her stomach.

She could only imagine what Eris did to Maxwell and had to wonder if Rachel knew what his fate was before reaching her own.

“I usually only see him in a work environment but yes, I suppose he is,” she answered, speaking to Eris for the first time in any dream Brynn had ever had.

The walls around Eris shifted for a moment, as they had been lately in her dreams before coming back into focus.

“And how is your work coming along? I hear your efforts to streamline the human creation process have proved very effective.”

It was odd, listening to someone as terrifying and powerful as Eris making small talk, though some small part of Brynn couldn’t help but find the whole situation slightly amusing.

“I have a lot of work to do, so did you need me for something specific, or were you just hoping for an opportunity to chat?” Rachel asked, instantly showing Brynn how someone who was physically no stronger than her could be tortured for weeks by this terrifying woman without talking.

She was strong; much stronger than Brynn had ever been.

Eris’s smile faltered for a moment at this response and she could see the Angel exercising all of her will power to not kill Rachel right then and there.

“I’ll leave you to your research then,” she said simply, her purple eyes narrowing. “Oh and don’t forget about the meeting later. My department has even offered to bring refreshments.”

“Great,” Rachel said dryly, obviously desperate to get away from Eris.

“I hope you like sugar cookies.”

“Brynn?” Ty said quietly, bringing her back to reality in the dark, quiet hotel room.

She could feel the moisture on her cheeks from involuntary tears and wiped them away quickly, hoping Ty hadn’t seen. She closed her eyes again wishing that, for once, she could forget the problems in her real life by falling asleep like everyone else.

“I really can’t escape,” she whispered into the darkness.

Ty lay down next to her and comfortingly rubbed her back while she buried her face into the pillow.

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t ever get away, Ty,” she said again, her eyes closed so tightly that it hurt. “I have to worry about Eris and everything going on every second that I’m awake, but when I sleep, it’s almost worse because I’m living it all out again.”

She turned her head to look into his concerned eyes, almost glad for once that he worried so much about her. It felt nice to have someone more concerned about her than about what they were trying to accomplish. Ty used his free hand to prop up his head as he watched her, obviously unsure of what to say.

“I don’t know how to make things better for you, Brynn,” he answered finally. “I honestly don’t. I wish that I could but the only solution I can see is going through with this crazy plan to bring Eris down, and it kills me.”

“Ty you care about me,” she answered. “That’s all I need from you. You worry about me and you keep me safe. Do you know how comforting it is to know that you’ll always be one step behind me, making sure I don’t fall?”

“It’s still not as much as I want to do for you. I just wish I could make it all go away,” he said with a sigh.

Brynn scooted over to him and laid her head on his chest, wrapping one arm around him and breathing in his comforting scent.

“I wish you could too,” she told him.

Brynn thought back to her nightmare and the feelings she had that were indiscernible from Rachel’s. The more she had these dreams, the more she came to realize that Rachel’s feelings really were the same as hers, not just because they had to be by the confines of the dream, but because they were the same person. Though she didn’t know who Maxwell was, she mourned for him the same way she had mourned for Jonah when he had been missing. Losing her friends was not something Brynn was prepared to do and she hoped desperately that her path wouldn’t follow Rachel’s quite that accurately.

Ty made little circles on the back of Brynn’s neck with his thumb, relaxing her as much as he could after such a terrible nightmare. She snuggled closer to him in the darkness and wished for a moment that everything wasn’t so complicated; that her mind didn’t constantly compare Ty and Jonah to each other. Though she knew such a petty problem wasn’t even worth examining when the world as they knew it could end if they didn’t act quickly, she couldn’t push the questions from her mind.

On the beach only hours before, she knew she wanted Jonah. She would have run away with him had they not been interrupted. But laying there with Ty in the darkness and listening to him say all the right things to calm her down from his years of experience doing just that, she couldn’t imagine how she’d ever want to be with anyone else.

“Do you want to talk about your dream?” Ty asked her, interrupting the internal dispute she knew she wouldn’t be able to solve any time soon.

“Rachel wasn’t alone, Ty,” she said simply.

“In A1?”

“I mean we know she worked with a team but there was this boy in my dream; Maxwell” she began, not sure why this particular dream had bothered her so much when it was the least brutal she’d had. “Rachel loved him, I know she did.”

“What happened to him?” Ty asked, still tracing circles on Brynn’s neck and speaking carefully.

“What happened to everyone? Eris killed him, and Rachel couldn’t do anything to save him.” Brynn’s voice broke as she said this, causing Ty to pull her closer until she was entirely engulfed in him, her muffled crying almost inaudible in his shirt. “Ty I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she said brokenly.

“Nothing’s going to happen to me, Brynn,” he reassured her, now stroking her hair and making shushing noises to calm her down. “I’m always going to be right next to you.”

“What if she gets you?” she asked, turning her tear streaked face up to look at him, her blue eyes fearful.

It always amazed her how the mere thought of Eris could reduce her to nothing more than a crying child in only seconds.

“She won’t get me, I promise,” he said.

Ty kissed her forehead gently and brought her head back to his chest, keeping his strong arms wrapped securely around her.

“I bet Rachel was glad to die after seeing all of her friends get killed because of her actions.”

“Brynn, you’re not Rachel. Not in this situation. Your friends chose to follow you and you aren’t working alone. She may have had Maxwell, but you have a whole team of people who understand the situation,” he told her, silencing the dark path her thoughts were taking.

They stayed like that for a long time, Brynn’s tears gradually lessening and her breathing returning to a slow pace. She took one deep shuddering breath before wiping the itchy salt water from her cheeks and tilting her head up to face Ty once more.

“Where is everyone else?” she asked, her voice hoarse from crying and disuse.

“I got tired of following Amber and Bennett to every store in Eastern Metropolis, so I just told them how to get to the hotel and came back here,” he said. “Not sure where Jonah is though.”

“He must still be at the library.”

“Sounds about right,” Ty answered with a laugh before sitting up, causing Brynn to follow suit. “Feeling better?”

“Much,” she responded, giving a weary smile. “I hate to whine but it just takes its toll sometimes. It helps having you here.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek, lingering there for a moment longer than she had intended then clearing her throat as she pulled away.

She had to keep reminding herself that saving the world was definitely first on the list of things to do; sorting out her boy issues could come later, no matter how much she wanted to kiss Ty and no matter how horrible of a person that made her. Ty’s cheeks were slightly pink when she pulled away and he cleared his throat as well, making her laugh.

“So what’s the plan once we’re all here,” he asked, clearly trying to dispel the tension in the air.

“We turn into Workers.”

Chapter 7: Puzzled

The once dark and quiet hotel room was instantly transformed the moment Amber and Bennett set foot in it. Not only did the twenty plus shopping bags they’d brought with them create a very cluttered interior, but the level of gossip and excited storytelling had taken a dramatic rise.

Brynn loved her boys, but there was a definite difference in topics of conversation and after weeks of wondering if Eris would show up at the least expected moment to kill her, she found this to be a welcome distraction.

“The second we got here I knew I had to change my hair,” Amber stated with so much authority it was impossible not to agree with her. “People here really get fashion don’t they?”

“Oh yeah,” Bennett agreed with a somber nod, very serious in her reasoning. “This place makes Seaside look ridiculous.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Brynn agreed with a laugh, knowing that their definitions of ‘ridiculous’ were very different.

“Just because you don’t care about fashion doesn’t make our statement untrue,” Bennett said as she launched a pillow over to where Brynn sat on the bed next to Ty.

“Well, either way, I like the new look on both of you,” she told them.

Amber and Bennett had arrived at their hotel room dramatically transformed from the girls Brynn had left behind in Seaside. Amber’s normally sunny blonde hair was now a cotton candy pink that she had cropped to her chin and curled into big fluffy ringlets. Her default pink sundress had been replaced with a grey, tight-fitting, mini dress with light pink diagonal stripes and matching heels.

Bennett sported her normal long, dark brown hair though it now slowly faded halfway down from a dark forest green that lightened gradually until it reached bright lime green tips. The effect was stunning when matched with her long black T-shirt and tight emerald green pants. The two girls had definitely embraced the feel of the city.

“Please don’t get face tattoos or anything like that,” Ty begged with a shake of his head. “I can deal with your head looking like a lollipop, but I just couldn’t take you seriously with little stars and hearts all over your cheeks.”

“Actually,” Bennett began before a sharp look from Amber silenced her.

“You’re kidding me,” Ty said in exasperation, always playing the role of ‘responsible adult’ in their group of friends.

Bennett put her pointer finger and thumb together to indicate that the tattoo would be a small one, causing Ty to sigh deeply.

“You’re such a buzz kill,” Amber informed him casually as she pulled her tablet from her purse.

“I’m just trying to keep you from doing something like that on a whim,” he countered.

“Well assuming everything you’ve told us is true, we don’t have much longer to live anyway right?” Bennett asked, silencing the room with that one innocent question.

Amber shrugged her shoulders at the obviousness of Bennett’s statement while Ty just looked at the ground, not answering her.

“Well, that very awkward moment was a perfect segue into our next topic of conversation,” Jonah piped up from the armchair by the window. “What brilliant disguises have you girls come up with for us?”

Bennett blushed profusely at this praise from Jonah, never trying very hard to hide her opinion of him while Amber hid a small smile at the compliment before turning her tablet to face them.

“Ty, we’ll start with you.” Amber swiped her finger over the smooth screen to reveal a digitally created image of Ty that made Brynn’s stomach drop.

His normally tan skin was whiter than snow, making him look like his body had just been recovered from the bottom of the ocean. His sandy blonde hair was dark brown and his warm brown eyes were a light purple.

“We thought we’d shade your cheekbones to make them a bit more dramatic,” Amber added, pointing out his very sharp cheekbones in the picture she held.

“Well, I definitely don’t think anyone will recognize me,” he offered. “You guys really are amazing.”

“We know,” both girls said in unison.

“Do I even want to see my picture?” Brynn asked. “I mean this whole thing is pretty eerie,” she corrected, seeing the hurt on Amber’s face.

“We can look at Jonah’s sketch next if you want,” Amber offered.

“Or mine!” Bennett chirped.

“Wait, yours?” Brynn asked, not quite following the conversation.

“You didn’t really think we were going to let you go alone, did you?” Amber asked her incredulously.

“But you guys don’t even believe us,” Brynn responded.

“Sure we don’t believe you now, but what if it turns out you’re right and there’s this whole new place for us to explore? We aren’t going to miss out on that,” Amber said matter-of-factly.

Brynn raised her eyebrows at the statement, wondering if somehow Amber and Bennett’s suppressed curiosity was starting to falter. Ty’s curiosity certainly seemed greater now than it had at the beginning of their adventure.

The only information learned in A1 that Brynn had withheld from the group was the fact that Eris had found some way to suppress curiosity in people, making Halcyon a continent full of complacent lazy airheads. She didn’t want to bring this little fact up because of the questions she was scared it would raise.

She still couldn’t understand the link between her and Jonah that made them naturally curious, unless he was the third thing Rachel had secreted away.

Brynn had been toying with the idea for some time, that Rachel’s third transgression was another sample of human DNA placed in the human creation bay. She knew the odds of another person like her were almost nonexistent, and it was even less likely that they would be born in the same time frame and on the same continent, but it would explain an awful lot.

She stared at Jonah as he sat in the overstuffed armchair. His intelligent blue eyes scanned the faces in the room; always thinking, always curious. If anything, Brynn thought, he was more curious than her. She wondered if it had something to do with who Jonah was created after back in A1 before she reminded herself that until she had proof, this crazy idea was just a theory.

Still, she couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the two of them. It would make perfect sense that Jonah had been created from genuine human DNA just like Brynn.

“Brynn?” Jonah said suddenly, pulling her from her reverie. He had been watching her watch him for quite some time, a dazed look on her face.

“What?” she asked, unsure of how long the group had been trying to get her attention.

“Amber asked if you’ve been in a maze yet?” Ty clarified, looking a little worried. “Did you get another headache?”

“I didn’t,” she replied honestly. “I promise. I was just thinking.”

“So, have you been in one yet?” Amber asked her, apparently not for the first time.

“I really wish I knew what you were talking about since it sounds really exciting, but I don’t,” Brynn replied.

“You guys seriously haven’t done one yet?” Bennett asked, appropriately shocked by this revelation.

“What maze are you guys talking about?” Ty asked, fed up with being out of the loop.

“You know how we make movies in Seaside?” Amber began, a chorus of ‘yeses’ prompting her to continue. “Well in Eastern Metropolis they create interactive mazes for people to go into.”

“So much cooler than movies,” Bennett stated with assurance.

“Without a doubt,” Amber agreed.

“Wait, people make mazes?” Brynn asked skeptically.

“Not like a physical maze to go into. It’s a virtual maze. You put these little brain receptor things on your head and it makes you feel like you’re in the maze.”

“But it’s all just in your head,” Bennett finished. “You can walk around in the maze, touch things, talk to people and everything but none of it’s real. You’re just sitting in a chair.”

“So it’s like a dream?” Brynn asked, finding the idea of a dream that didn’t make her want to jump off a cliff quite appealing.

“It’s better than a dream because someone else made it and they can make sure it doesn’t suck,” Amber clarified proudly.

“And it’s like a real maze? Are you supposed to find the center or what?” Ty asked.

“That’s what’s so great, they can be anything. Some people just make it look like you’re out in the wilderness and you have to follow broken tree branches or fight through fog until you get to a certain marker,” Amber said. “I can’t believe you guys really haven’t heard of these.”

“We’re not as up to date as you guys. Living off the grid will do that to you,” Brynn admitted. “We haven’t really had much time for fun out here.”

“We should totally do one tomorrow,” Bennett said excitedly. “Some of them are just plain old mazes where you’re looking for a way out, but most of them are like puzzle games. You have different things you have to find and turn on to get yourself out.”

“It actually requires strategy,” Amber agreed.

“How do you guys know so much about them if you’ve never done one?” Ty asked.

“We looked up all the fun things to do here on our train ride over,” Amber explained. “It was a long trip.”

“I think it sounds great,” Jonah said, his need for adventure and excitement never quite quelled.

“It would be great if we had time to do it,” Brynn said slowly. “But we need to try to get on that train tomorrow, right?”

She was trying to elicit a certain response from her friends. She could see that she was losing them to the idea of a fun-filled day in a maze when all she wanted to do was find the Worker train before she lost her nerve or before her continent exploded. Whichever came first.

“You two have turned her into a workaholic,” Amber said dryly to Ty and Jonah.

“Very funny,” Brynn shot back. “You guys can go ahead and spend the day in the city if you want. There’s always the chance that the Worker train won’t even be there or we’ll have complications getting on.”

“Yeah, right. There’s no way we’re not coming with you. You’d just better promise us we can do a maze when we get back,” Amber said.

“Deal,” Brynn agreed. “If we make it out of this alive, stop the planet from being destroyed, and manage to shut down A1, then you can go in a maze.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Amber said, giving Brynn’s hand a shake to seal the deal. “Bring it on.”

That night, Brynn fought to stay awake as she lay silently on the couch. Adding Amber and Bennett to the mix had shaken up the sleeping arrangements a bit but Brynn insisted that they refrain from ordering more beds or upgrading their room, not wanting to draw attention to their large group. Ty slept on the ground next to the couch, his soft calm breathing urging Brynn to sleep even as she tried desperately to keep her eyes open. The last thing Brynn needed right before boarding a Worker train was a head full of Eris doing horrible things to her. Nothing would shake her resolve faster.

Brynn rolled over on the couch and looked down at Ty’s peaceful form, jealous of how easily sleep came to him and how enjoyable his dreams must be. All of the worrying he did during the day had to wear him out enough to put him right to sleep at night, she thought. She wished silently that her sleep was as restful as Ty’s before closing her eyes and letting herself get pulled into what she was sure would be another frightening memory of Rachel’s.

The odd thing about dreaming in Rachel’s memories, was the way Brynn would open her eyes in the middle of a situation and feel as if she had been there all along. She could come in midsentence and know exactly what she and another person had been talking about for hours.

This instance was no different.

As Brynn sat in a large white room full of long white tables with scientists working over them like little bees buzzing around a hive, she felt a sense of purpose; as if she had a perfectly good reason to be in that room right at that moment, though she had no idea what that reason might be.

Without thinking about it, Brynn reached into her lab coat pocket and pulled out a sugar cube, popping it into her mouth like she did so often when she was awake. Encountering this odd trait in her dream made her start, and she wondered if her recently destabilized dreams were starting to mix Rachel’s memories with her own real-life experiences.

“Your addiction to sugar is sick, you know that?” said Maxwell, walking up to Rachel’s table and smiling over at her as he adjusted his glasses.

“How so?” Brynn found herself asking, leaning closer to Maxwell as if this was something she always did.

He glanced quickly around the lab to see if anyone was looking, before placing his hand on the table and leaning against it in a relaxed manner, suddenly looking much less like an important scientist and much more like a boy trying to impress a girl he liked.

“You do realize that the gas we’ve developed to terminate each society is sugar scented right?”

“I can’t be around that smell all day and not crave sugar. Let’s be honest,” she said, laughing as she pulled another sugar cube from her pocket and pushed it into Maxwell’s mouth, letting her finger rest against his lips a moment too long.

He made a face at her that strongly reminded Brynn of Ty for a moment before sarcastically saying, “Thank you for that,” and attempting to swallow the sugar cube without really tasting it. “Oh and if you’re smelling sugar all day long, that’s probably not a good thing. You know… gas leak and all that.”

“There’s not a gas leak,” she reassured him, instantly reminding Brynn about her recent dream where Eris had told her that all of Rachel’s colleagues had been killed by a gas leak. “My lab just happens to be right next to where they manufacture that smell.”

“Which actually reminds me, have you talked to Eris yet?” Maxwell asked Rachel in a low voice.

“I tried to explain to her that the backers of our project weren’t expecting us to kill off the human test subjects after we were done with them,” she stated lamely.

“And?”

“And she said sometimes unfortunate measures have to be taken for progress,” she finished, sounding like she didn’t agree with that conclusion at all.

“But it’s not necessary,” Maxwell said indignantly. “There’s absolutely no reason to kill off an entire planet of people just because we’re done learning about them. It’s wasteful. And besides Halcyon, they’re pretty self-sustaining, we wouldn’t even have to interfere. We could just leave.” Maxwell’s face had become red as he tried to contain his disgust with Eris.

“Trust me, I’ve tried reasoning with her,” Rachel told him, still keeping her voice low in the room full of scientists. “I’ve even tried to think of ways to alter the gas so that it won’t kill anyone, but she’s kept that room under lock and key. I can’t get in.”

“Tell her they’ll cut our funding,” Maxwell insisted.

“I’ve threatened her with that too many times. She just keeps telling me that what the backers don’t know, won’t hurt them.”

“Well we have to do something about Eris. She’s completely out of control,” Maxwell began just as something unexpected caught Brynn’s eye.

Through the glass door that separated the large white room from a hallway, Brynn saw a boy walk by. She had only caught a glimpse of the side of his face before the walls of the facility flickered, letting her know that her dream was slowly falling apart.

His black hair and blue eyes were so familiar to her that she would have automatically assumed it was Jonah, had he not looked just slightly off. His skin wasn’t sun kissed and he didn’t wear the mischievous grin he normally sported, but something about him reminded Brynn of Rachel. Of how Brynn could see someone that looked exactly like her but acted totally different. Maybe this was the evidence Brynn needed to conclude that Jonah was just like her; a scientist from A1 whose DNA Rachel had stolen to create a person from genuine human tissue.

Her head ached as she contemplated this possibility, ignoring Maxwell’s rant until one word brought her back to the reality within Rachel’s memory: programmed.

“What did you say?” Brynn asked, feeling as if it were really her asking and not Rachel.

The more control she felt over the situation, the more the walls flickered around her. She felt a tremor beneath her feet as if her entire dream were about to collapse.

“I said ultimately we can’t blame Eris for all of this since she’s just doing what she was programmed to do. We should have been smart enough to know that she would find a way to complete her task no matter what the cost.” Maxwell repeated, so nonchalantly that Brynn couldn’t believe he had just taken what Brynn thought she knew and cracked it wide open.

“Programmed?” was all Brynn managed to say, her voice coming out low and muffled as if it had been recorded and played back to her while she wore earplugs.

The walls flickered once more, the entire facility going dark for a moment before the white lights illuminated everything too brightly. Brynn had to squint against the sudden overwhelming brightness in the room as she struggled to hear Maxwell’s answer.

“I think Eris is broken.”

Chapter 8: Façade

Standing in a room filled with people dressed as Workers would have been enough to put Brynn on edge on a normal day, but constantly replaying her dream from the night before had made her practically unstable as she bit her short fingernails and stared at the floor.

“Brynn you’ve got to pull yourself together if we’re going to do this today,” Ty said to her as he adjusted his dark brown wig.

Looking up at her friend with paper white skin, brown hair and purple eyes did nothing to silence her nerves.

“You’re really creeping me out right now,” was all Brynn managed to say to Ty whose presence wasn’t comforting her for the first time in her life.

“At least we know we did our job,” Amber said happily.

She hadn’t bothered to change her hair’s conspicuous color, despite Brynn’s pleading. None of her friends looked like themselves and finding herself in a place surrounded by almost familiar faces was hitting too close to home for her taste.

Her shock at seeing who she thought might be Jonah’s DNA donor in her dream the night before didn’t even come close to her shock that she had been right about Eris all along.

She wasn’t human.

She was some sort of computer. Brynn had tried to convince her friends of this fact though it wasn’t going over as well as she had hoped.

“I’m pretty sure a few wigs and some makeup aren’t going to fool a thousand year old super computer,” Brynn mumbled loud enough for Ty to hear.

“We still don’t know that she’s a robot or whatever,” Ty said in exasperation, having already had this conversation three times that morning.

“Think about it,” Brynn began, everyone in the room letting out a collective sigh at what they knew was coming. “She’s been alive since the beginning of this ‘program’, she has impossible strength and speed, and she’s entirely unfeeling. Sounds like a robot to me.”

“Well,” Jonah began slowly, eliciting a stern glance from Brynn. “I’m just saying she’s not unfeeling. Rage is a feeling isn’t it? Malice. Hate. Sadism. Psychosis.”

“Psychosis?” Brynn repeated skeptically.

“Okay, that one’s not a feeling but it’s an attribute that she definitely possesses.”

“I’ll say,” Ty agreed, shooting a furtive glace at Jonah’s scarred cheek.

“I bet they’re all robots,” Brynn said, not for the first time that day.

“Here we go again,” Amber sighed in exasperation.

“I just want you all to admit that I was right about the Workers all along. They’re probably some crazy super computer people.”

“What does that even mean?” Bennett asked.

She was dusting blush onto her cheeks to make them seem more angular, puckering her lips at the mirror as she did so.

“It means that the second we step onto the Worker train, an alarm will probably sound because they have some sort of technology that tells them other non-computers are boarding.”

“Okay, now you’re just making things up,” Jonah said.

His short white wig was slightly askew on his head and Brynn noticed more and more how pitiful their attempt to disguise themselves was. Now that she knew what they were actually up against, it seemed pretty obvious that they would get caught if they thought some wigs and makeup could hide them.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to you know,” Ty stated.

“Does that mean we get to do a maze?” Bennett asked, perking up at the suggestion, even if it was made by her.

“No, we’re doing this. We’ve come this far, we’re not just going to turn back when we might finally get some answers,” Brynn answered with certainty.

“Well then, let’s get going before you come up with more farfetched theories about all the ways we’re going to get caught and die,” Amber said, holding open the door for the first victim to pass through.

Brynn stood with her hands tightly clutching the edge of the granite counter top in the bathroom. Her head was tilted towards the floor and her eyes were closed. She tried to keep her breathing even, but every movement brought back into sharp focus the fact that she was knowingly leading her friends into a bad situation. She had told herself a few times that they had their free will and she wasn’t forcing them to come with her. But at the same time she had to admit that they didn’t believe a word she said about Eris and the Workers actually being dangerous robots, or whatever they were. They couldn’t exactly knowingly be walking to their deaths if they didn’t believe that the danger was real.

So again, it came back down to Brynn and her responsibility to protect her friends from the things they didn’t even know they should fear.

“You’re kind of a terrible person,” she told herself in the empty bathroom, the sound of the fan whirring soothingly above her head.

Her reflection in the mirror didn’t respond. She hadn’t expected it to, though with how crazy her life had become as of late, she didn’t doubt for one second that it could. She looked herself over in the mirror, shuddering at how frightening Amber and Bennett had made her. It was as if she were looking at someone else reflected back at her.

Her skin was as paper white as Eris’s though her lips matched the pale tone in an attempt for her friends to conceal them. She wore a tailored white dress that came to her knee and hugged her figure in a way she was sure a Worker would not appreciate. Her long white wig set pale curls cascading down her bare shoulders. But the worst part of the entire disguise were the bright purple eyes that stared back at her.

She’d had some trouble getting the contacts in and asked if she could just skip them altogether. Her idea had gotten shot down surprisingly fast for a group of people who didn’t even believe they should be wary of the Workers.

Now, looking at her reflection in the mirror, Brynn felt as if she were staring down her nightmare face to face. She brushed the white bangs away from her forehead and stared at the bright purple eyes challengingly, drawing courage from her fear of Eris and the Workers.

“I can do this,” she said to the empty room with surety.

Brynn had been designated as the last of their group to leave. A large group of Workers walking towards the beach would have been slightly conspicuous and so Ty, in his infinite wisdom, had decided that they should leave one at a time, agreeing to meet near the entrance to the Worker train.

Though Brynn volunteered to go first, Ty insisted that he lead the group, obviously worried that she’d get onto the train without them and try to take off to Panurgic on her own.

As she left the hotel alone, she almost had the urge to stay behind and let her friends do all the dirty work involved with saving the world. Ty would never believe her if she told him about her mutinous thoughts, though she had no intentions of letting her cowardice become publicly known.

Keeping her eyes trained straight ahead and trying to avoid making eye contact with anyone on the street, Brynn gave herself a mental pep talk, reminding herself that no one was looking at her. After all, she was the only one who paid any attention to Workers. Everyone else ignored their existence unless their tablet broke and they needed someone to fix it.

She let herself relax a bit until a familiar flash of red hair passed by her, instantly reminding her of the red haired girl she had been seeing around Eastern Metropolis. She turned to stop the girl, wanting to ask her why she’d been following Brynn, but the second she turned around she was met with an empty sidewalk.

Not only an empty sidewalk; an empty city.

The once busy streets of Eastern Metropolis were suddenly silent, casting Brynn into an eerie nightmarish space.

It was odd to find yourself in surroundings that should have been chaotic only to find that you were suddenly the only person there. The whole scene was off, like listening to music under water. Brynn couldn’t make sense of it and wondered fleetingly if Eris had finally come up with the perfect way to kill everyone off; complete silence and no cleanup.

Walking tentatively down the silent sidewalk, her heels clacking on the pavement and glancing into café windows and shop fronts to confirm that she was, in fact, alone, Brynn felt her panic rising. Her initial response to the odd situation had been one of confusion but now that it was wearing off, the logical panic was beginning to set in.

The faint sound of conversation could be heard inside one building further down the street and Brynn picked up the pace, convinced that there was a perfectly logical explanation for what was happening around her. As she neared the door, the sounds of conversation and clinking glasses grew louder, confirming for her that she was in the right place.

She turned the old brass knob and quickly entered what she hoped would be an answer for her troubling circumstances. Instead, she was met with a long white hallway lined with doors, instantly cuing her in to the fact that she wasn’t where she thought she should be.

“This can’t be good,” she thought aloud, trying to ignore the similarities between this hallway and A1. “Maybe I fell asleep somehow?” she questioned, thinking she must be trapped inside of one of Rachel’s memories.

“Maxwell?” she called, trying to think of any friendly entity from her memories.

If she had to confront someone in her nightmare, she’d rather it be Maxwell and not Eris.

She tried to exit the building once more but found that she was unable to open the front door.

“Typical,” she muttered, not at all surprised that she was finding herself trapped in an all-white building with no hope for escape.

It was the norm for her these days.

“Well I’m not going to sit around here and wait to be caught,” she told the room bravely, walking through the hallway and wondering which door she should pick, assuming they weren’t all locked.

“Rachel?” a voice said above her.

Brynn started, not expecting to actually run into anyone in the odd hallway, and even more surprised by the fact that the voice seemed to be coming from nowhere.

“Hello?” Brynn called, looking for any sign of a speaker in the wall to explain the disembodied voice she heard.

Receiving no response, she continued down the empty hallway, finally picking a door that proved to lead to nothing more than another hallway full of doors. She continued opening doors with the same result every time until she finally concluded that the building she was in was impossible.

One right turn, another right turn, and yet another right should have landed her back in her original hallway, and yet, she found herself in a completely different and impossible space with each door she opened. She may not have been as smart as Ty or Jonah, but she knew that it was impossible for the space she was in to actually exist. The layout didn’t make any sense.

“Should I make this easier for you?” the oddly garbled voice said above Brynn once more, urging her out of her silence.

She had been standing mutely in the hallway for a few minutes, trying to decide what she should do when the voice startled her into action. She went through hallway after hallway trying to find a door that would yield different results until finally, one random door in the middle of one random hallway led to a small white room that she gratefully stepped into.

The room was eerily similar to the hospital room where many of her nightmares with Eris took place and she wondered when the Angel would step out of the metaphorical shadows of the bright white facility to finally finish what she had started.

“Eris?” she managed to say, wondering why in the world she’d summon the psychopath to her when she should be looking for a place to hide.

The more Brynn took in her surroundings, the more she was able to conclude that the room she stood in was identical to the one Eris had almost killed her in, right down to the metal water pitcher, which she promptly grabbed to use as a weapon, should Eris suddenly become dense enough to fall for the same trick twice.

As the doorknob to the white room began to turn Brynn realized how much bravery she lacked when compared to Rachel. She had walked into this room feeling confident in her ability to fight off the Angel if it came right down to it but now, standing against the soft white wall and shaking so much that she could hear the water sloshing around in the metal water pitcher, she realized that she simply wasn’t as brave as her DNA donor.

When the door opened and Brynn was sure she’d collapse into a heap from the terror the anticipation had caused, she was surprised, yet again, by the sight of the red haired girl entering the room with a huge grin on her face.

“Pretty good huh?” she asked in a husky voice, her luminescent green eyes crinkling up at the corners as her already wide grin spread to cover the rest of her pale freckled face.

Brynn couldn’t think of anything to say, still baffled by the entire situation and residual fear still coursing through her body. She wondered how this girl could simply stand there and smile after putting her through a near mental breakdown.

As the red haired girl stared at her unmoving form, her smile faltered for a moment, suddenly realizing that maybe the situation wasn’t as great as she seemed to think it was.

“Was the room too much?” she asked, her smoky voice unlike anything Brynn had ever heard.

The red haired girl let her smile fade completely as she looked around the white room, now chewing nervously on her bottom lip.

“Yeah, I guess it would be a little jarring,” she admitted, pulling an old metal device from the pocket of her tight brown pants and pushing a button.

Suddenly the white room around them faded and was instantly replaced by a rolling green landscape, covered in hills and consumed by fog. Brynn could feel the cold around her and jumped when she saw her breath coming out in small puffs in front of her.

“Weapon?” the girl asked, nodding to the pitcher Brynn still had a white-knuckled grip on.

“Who are you?” Brynn finally managed, her eyes wide as she stared at the lanky stranger in front of her.

“Oh yeah,” she said suddenly, hitting herself on the forehead with a flat palm. “Manners, right?” she asked rhetorically, her face-engulfing smile returning once more. “I’m Rusty,” she explained, though those two words offered little explanation. “I’m kind of a genius,” she added, bringing her finger to her wide mouth in a shushing gesture, indicating that this was some sort of secret.

“Where are we?” Brynn asked, still not sure if she should trust this girl or not.

After all, the only thing she knew about her was her name and the fact that she had been following Brynn around Eastern Metropolis for a few days. That didn’t exactly inspire much confidence.

“My little creation,” Rusty said proudly, wiping a fake tear from her startlingly bright eyes. “Well, one of them. I didn’t really have time to build you a proper maze, I just needed something to keep you occupied long enough to talk to you in private,” she said with a nod as if this were a normal thing to say to a complete stranger. “Sorry about the whole A1 thing by the way. I just needed a quick way to show you that I know about all the secret stuff you know about.”

“How do you know about A1?” Brynn asked, finding that every time Rusty spoke, it only brought up more questions.

“That’s actually a long story and I get the feeling your friends will be finding us soon,” Rusty answered, looking around the foggy green expanse as if Amber and Bennett would suddenly walk over one of the hills. “Honestly I didn’t drop us in the cleanest of places either so I’d like to get out of here ASAP, and I think if you could see where we were, you’d agree.”

“Nothing you’re saying makes any sense to me, I hope you know that,” Brynn informed her, hoping that this woman would stop being so cryptic and would get down to the point.

“Oh! I’m sorry, they told me you would be smart,” she said with so much genuine concern in her voice that Brynn was convinced she didn’t understand how rude she had just been. “I guess I couldn’t expect you to be a genius just because Rachel was. Or just because I am,” she added very seriously, not even a hint of malice or sarcasm in her voice.

“I guess we’ll just start with the basics for now. This is a maze,” Rusty said slowly, gesturing to the field they currently stood in and making Brynn wonder how she could be the unstable one with people like Rusty running around in the world.

“It doesn’t look like a maze,” Brynn pointed out. “It looks like a field.”

“That’s what makes it so good,” she replied proudly. “Frankly, I’m the best maze maker in The Alliance. Well, I’m the best at a lot of things with The Alliance but that just sounds like bragging so we won’t go into that,” she said with a wave of her hand.

“Wouldn’t want to brag,” Brynn said sarcastically, though she could instantly tell that it had gone right over Rusty’s head.

Instead of responding to her comment, the red haired girl walked up to Brynn and brought her face so close to hers that it made Brynn want to take a few steps back. Her wide smile was instantly back as she scanned Brynn’s features.

“Wow, you really do look exactly like her,” Rusty said in awe, finally taking a step back and making Brynn feel infinitely more comfortable. “Even with those stupid purple contacts in you look like her.”

“Like who?” Brynn asked, though she was certain she already knew the answer to that particular question.

“Rachel, obviously.”

“And how do you know about Rachel?” Brynn asked.

“I already told you, it’s a long story that I don’t have time for right now,” she said in exasperation as if having to explain this to Brynn once more was the most tedious task in the world. “You aren’t really a great listener, are you?”

“I listen just fine, it’s you who doesn’t explain anything,” Brynn answered, equally exasperated.

“Okay, I’m going to get rid of the maze, which is always a little jarring so brace yourself,” Rusty advised, holding her little handheld button at the ready. “And if your friends get to us before I can talk some sense into you, don’t get on the stupid train. You’ll be dead in two seconds flat and I will have wasted a trip.”

Chapter 9: Rusty

The sensation of falling was the first thing Brynn noticed in her transition from the maze to the real world. Once that passed, however, the immediate pressure of a dingy brick wall against her back brought her quickly to reality. Unfortunately, that reality happened to be in an old alleyway between two brick buildings covered in moss and dirt.

“Yuck,” Brynn said, hastily standing from the ground and instantly regretting the quick movement.

She placed one hand against the cold brick wall to try to steady herself as she came to, her white dress ruined with dirt and mud. Her stomach turned and she took deep breaths to avoid vomiting.

“I told you it was gross here,” Rusty said matter-of-factly, crinkling her freckled nose at the surroundings. “I didn’t really have much of a choice though. You were about to go get yourself killed, which I couldn’t have, so I had to take drastic measures.”

“What kind of drastic measures?” Brynn asked, suddenly wondering what else this bizarre girl had done to her.

“Technically, it’s frowned upon to pull someone into a maze without their knowledge but this was an emergency. I had no choice.”

“How did you pull me into the maze?”

“It was easy. I just slapped a neuro-transmitter onto your forehead and caught you as you fell,” she said enthusiastically.

Brynn brought a hand up to her forehead to feel a sticker there with a metal ball inside of it. She pulled it off and examined the device, wondering how one little ball could give her an entirely real experience inside of the maze.

“I could touch things in there,” Brynn said, forgetting all of the questions she had for Rusty for just one moment of complete awe at the technology this girl had at her fingertips. “This tiny little sticker created a whole new world.”

“Yeah it’s pretty amazing, but focusing on what’s important, if you could just not tell Rift that I pulled you into a maze by force, I’d really appreciate it. I don’t exactly feel like being lectured for doing what’s necessary,” Rusty explained.

“Rift?”

“Long story,” Rusty responded once again, making Brynn roll her eyes.

“Why did you bother pulling me into that maze and following me around for so long if you aren’t going to explain anything to me?” Brynn asked in irritation, rubbing her forehead where a small headache had just begun to form.

“I never said I won’t explain anything to you. I just said it’s a long story that I don’t have time to tell you right now,” she corrected. “And I had to stop you right away so you didn’t get on that train that would get you right back in A1 with a bunch of dead friends and a much worse headache than the one the maze will give you.”

Rusty put the handheld maze device back into her pocket and brushed her clothes off absentmindedly.

Little motes of red dust escaped her brown shirt and, not for the first time, Brynn noticed the slight dusting of red all over Rusty’s face.

“Those Workers from A1 were probably just waiting for you on the train. I’m sure you’ve got a tracker in your head or foot or… something,” she concluded with surety, making Brynn wonder if the headaches she’d had regularly since leaving A1 were actually headaches.

“How do you know so much about everything?” Brynn asked, hoping that she’d finally start getting some answers from this cryptic girl.

“Besides the fact that I’m a genius?”

“Yeah,” Brynn sighed, “Besides that.”

“I belong to a group on Panurgic called The Alliance.”

“Pretty dramatic name,” Brynn remarked.

“Rift is all about the drama,” Rusty agreed. “We’re planning to take down the A.I.s and every once in a while I’ll go to Arcadian and Halcyon to look for new recruits. Though I hardly ever find any on Halcyon since all of the citizens are so stupid and lazy,” she said without any reservations, then, as if realizing that maybe that statement had been rude she shot Brynn an apologetic look. “Sorry,” she said, though Brynn did notice she didn’t take her harsh words back.

“So you’re here to recruit me?” Brynn asked, knowing that even if this girl was a complete nut case she still had answers that Brynn wanted.

“Not exactly. I mean, of course I want to recruit you but I had no idea you existed until this week. Imagine my surprise when I happened to see the leader of our little rebellion standing in that loud night club in a blue wig, looking like she actually had a purpose in life,” Rusty exclaimed excitedly, her deep voice still not quite fitting with her skinny little frame. “Rift had faith that Rachel’s clone would come in our time but I was pretty sure we’d be doing this whole thing on our own.”

“I still don’t understand how you know so much about Rachel and A1. Who told you about everything?”

“Rachel told us,” Rusty said, as if this fact should be quite obvious.

“Wait, you know Rachel? She’s alive?” Brynn asked urgently, even though her very first dream of Rachel had been her death in a gas chamber at the hands of Eris.

She knew better than anyone that Rachel was dead.

Rusty sighed deeply, placing her fingers against her temple theatrically as if her patience were beyond tested by Brynn.

“Her video transmission,” Rusty said slowly. “I’m guessing you know about that?”

“You guys are the ones who found the video?” Brynn asked, ignoring how rude this girl was.

It genuinely seemed like she just didn’t understand how she was coming off.

“We sure did. That’s what sparked this whole rebellion,” Rusty said, then added as an afterthought, “Well, that and the fact that we didn’t happen to land on the pampered little world of Halcyon. Panurgic kind of sucks.”

“What’s so bad about it?”

“There’s this thing called ‘work’. I don’t expect you to know what it is. But it’s not fun,” Rusty said in a serious tone, as if Brynn really hadn’t ever heard that word before. She rubbed at callouses on her hand to emphasize her point.

“I know what work is,” Brynn mumbled defensively.

“So I know you aren’t Rachel, but you must have her knowledge… to some extent,” Rusty said, again calling Brynn’s intelligence into question. Brynn couldn’t really blame her since she’d been unable to form an intelligent sentence since meeting Rusty. “I need to bring you to Rift right away.”

Rusty looked around the alleyway once more, taking a mental inventory of how long it would take her to somehow get Brynn across an ocean and to a new continent. It was highly unlikely that there was anything in the alley that would prove useful in this task, but Brynn was beginning to think that Rusty really might be a genius; albeit a rude, socially inept genius. It wouldn’t surprise her one bit if Rusty could build a train from the few loose bricks and piles of dirt around them.

“How will you get me to Panurgic? How did you even get to Halcyon in the first place?”

“You ask so many questions,” Rusty said in exasperation, pulling a small device from yet another pocket.

For wearing such tight brown pants, the girl could definitely store a lot of technology on her person. Her belt was loaded with little mechanical objects that Brynn didn’t recognize, and she had about a dozen pockets and straps on the legs of her pants, holding other mechanisms in place.

“What is all of that?” Brynn asked her, pointing to the various devices Rusty toted with her.

“Again, stop with the questions, you’re on a strictly need to know basis and right now, you don’t need to know,” Rusty said, waving the little mechanical device in front of Brynn’s face and slowly trailing it down the length of her body.

“If you want my help you’d better start trusting me. I’m not an idiot all right? I know you expect me to be because I’m from Halcyon, but I can actually hold my own pretty well,” Brynn informed her, straightening her stance and trying to look sure of herself and important like Rachel always did.

“Okay, fine, you aren’t an idiot,” Rusty agreed, though it sounded like she only did it to appease Brynn so she would stop talking. “I built this myself,” she said, indicating the little handheld device she was now pressing against Brynn’s shoulder. “It tracks bugs.”

“Bugs?” Brynn asked, realizing that maybe she did ask too many questions.

She silently wished she were as tech savvy as Ty so that she would understand Rusty better.

“Trackers,” she clarified. “I’m not about to take you to our little headquarters with trackers in your blood. That would be asking for those creepy A.I.s to find us.”

Brynn found herself about to ask yet another set of questions about what an A.I. was and how she would have gotten trackers in her system, when Rusty cut her off, obviously sensing more questions.

“You’re clean, as far as I can tell.”

“Brynn?” Ty shouted from around the corner, running down the alleyway with a worried expression on his heavily made up face. “We got worried when you didn’t show up at the train tunnel so we split up to look for you. What happened?” he asked, glancing over at Rusty curiously.

“I’m Rusty,” Rusty said slowly, as if Ty might not understand her if she spoke too fast.

Brynn wondered if she ever managed to get recruits from Halcyon with how condescending she was to the citizens there.

“I’m Ty,” he responded with a puzzled look in her direction.

“Ty, Rusty is from Panurgic. She knows all about A1 and Rachel,” Brynn explained. Ty looked over at the red haired girl again, this time sizing her up. “She’s here to help us get to Panurgic.”

“Is that a bug finder?” he asked her, nodding towards the device in her hand.

“Oh, a smart one!” she exclaimed, practically beaming at him like he were a caged animal who had managed to do a trick.

“I almost made one of those, but I couldn’t quite get it to work,” he told her.

“They’re pretty tricky,” she said almost modestly.

Almost.

“You’d have to be pretty smart to figure it out.”

“You’d actually have to be a genius, but we won’t get into that,” she responded with a shrug.

“So you’re here to take us to Panurgic?” Ty asked, looking very doubtful that this eccentric flame-haired girl could somehow manage to get them across an ocean safely.

“We really shouldn’t be talking here,” Rusty suddenly said, as if remembering a very important fact. “Let’s go back to your hotel room. I have some information I think you guys might need.”

Chapter 10: Alliance

One thing Brynn was very sure of after spending a few hours in the hotel room with Rusty, was that she liked to eat.

A lot.

For such a skinny girl she had already polished off more food than Brynn would eat in a week, and she didn’t look as if she would be slowing down any time soon. Brynn had made introductions when Amber, Bennett, and Jonah had rejoined the group and Rusty barely stopped eating long enough to say hi between mouthfuls of potatoes and bread. The group had all sat around staring at the redhead in awe as they pretended to eat their own food.

Brynn waited uncomfortably for Rusty to begin explaining her plans to them since she had seemed to be in quite the rush to get off of Halcyon back in the alleyway. Still, she knew better than to ask the girl a question, scared she might send her back into a tirade about how ignorant Halcyonites were and how Brynn was on a need to know basis.

“This is the best part of Halcyon,” Rusty finally said, her mouth full and her voice muffled. She wore a content smile as she washed down the food with a large glass of water, her long lanky frame lounging sideways on an arm chair so that her legs dangled over the arm. “I may have to put up with a lot when I’m here, but the food more than makes up for it.”

“Don’t you have food on wherever you’re from?” Amber asked with her arms crossed over her chest. She and Rusty hadn’t gotten off to the best start since the very first thing Rusty had said to her was, “Oh you’re more like a typical Halcyonite. Dumb as a box of rocks.”

“We trade hours in the factory for food, clothes, water… pretty much everything. And since Rift and the rest of us are so busy building up the rebellion, we can’t work in the factories much. We have people in The Alliance specifically assigned to work to provide food for everyone in the house and trust me, it’s not nearly enough,” she said, stuffing another roll into her mouth.

“You can’t ask your wall screen for more?” Bennett asked, making Brynn want to shoot her a look to silence her.

Bennett hadn’t quite understood the concept that Panurgic was very different than Halcyon and every time she spoke, she only solidified Rusty’s belief that people from Halcyon were too pampered to understand what work was.

“We don’t have wall screens,” Rusty said simply, actually being a lot nicer than Brynn had anticipated until she added, “We can’t all expect to get anything we want without anyone to actually make it. Where do you think the material for all your clothes comes from, Princess?”

“Okay, you don’t need to be rude about it,” Brynn interjected.

She was fine with Rusty saying condescending things to her, but not to her friends who honestly didn’t mean any harm.

“I was just stating a fact,” Rusty said, raising her hands up in surrender.

“Why don’t you tell us how you plan to get us to Panurgic,” Jonah said from the corner of the room.

He hadn’t taken his eyes off Rusty since she had gotten there and Brynn could sense the distrust coming off of him in waves. She had recognized his intelligence right away but it didn’t cause Jonah to warm up to her the way Ty had.

“You need to fuse that blue cord to the red one instead and remove the black chip with that yellow dot on it if you really want to disable any tracking linked to the tablet,” Rusty said to Ty, ignoring Jonah’s statement.

It seemed that the only person who was getting along with Rusty was Ty, who shared a love of technology with her.

“That’s brilliant,” he said in awe, quickly following her directions. “I thought I could just override the tracker by hacking into the system.”

“You can but it’s more effective to remove it all together. Just to be safe,” she said, actually smiling at him and giving Brynn a small pang of unexpected jealousy.

“She’s amazing,” Ty said to Brynn. “How do you know so much about technology if Panurgic is so far behind?”

“We’re not far behind. We just don’t use technology for luxury over there like you guys do. We use it for more industrial purposes, which allows me to modify it for my own uses.”

“I still say you’re brilliant,” he responded once more, giving more body to Rusty’s already inflated image of her intelligence. “How did you get involved with this rebellion?” he asked, and much to Brynn’s surprise, Rusty actually answered his question.

At least she knew for future reference who to use to get information from the cryptic girl.

“Rift is our unofficial leader,” Rusty began, still eating as she spoke but finally slowing down after hours of packing food into her system. “He’s about thirty five-ish now, which is quite a feat for someone on Panurgic. We have a high mortality rate compared to you guys. It’s mostly from all of the factory accidents and bad working conditions.”

Rusty spoke about the death toll on Panurgic so candidly that Brynn had to wonder what kind of life this girl must lead to find the topic so unimportant. It occurred to Brynn that her life really may have been more sheltered than she wanted to admit.

“When Rift was little, his parents died in a factory accident and he went out to live in an old boarding house that the city had abandoned a while ago. He’s pretty good with computers too,” she said before quickly adding, “though not as good as me.”

Amber scoffed from the bed but didn’t say anything.

“While he was at this boarding house he learned how to hack into the city’s computer and he somehow managed to stumble across Rachel’s video transmission.”

“So it’s real then,” Jonah said with a grin, looking over at Brynn with excitement lining his features.

The pieces were beginning to fall into place.

“What did it say?” Brynn asked anxiously.

“I’ll have you watch it once we get to Panurgic, but the gist of it was that Rachel had done three things in her attempt to stop Eris but they were only temporary fixes to a long term bug. Like a patch,” she added to Ty who nodded in understanding. “So the person who found her video transmission would be tasked with using this knowledge and Rachel’s attempt to slow Eris down to stop them all together.”

“Oh good, I’m glad she just left us a little job,” Amber said incredulously, voicing exactly what Brynn was thinking.

“I like a good challenge,” Rusty replied with her wide smile. Amber just rolled her eyes. “Rift has been trying to figure out how to take Eris down ever since he found the video, since these stupid tests are pretty much the reason his parents are dead. So he’s been working on this for a long time; taking in data, building up our armory, finding recruits, pretty much anything he can do to outsmart and outnumber her.”

“Good luck outsmarting her,” Brynn said hopelessly, wondering if this girl really understood what they were up against. “She’s pretty smart.”

“We’re smarter,” Rusty said without a hint of sarcasm.

“Where is Rift finding recruits?” Jonah asked.

“He takes in orphans around Panurgic, which is like taking in airheads on Halcyon: they’re everywhere,” she said dramatically. “Factory accidents, bad working conditions, people trying to escape. There are a lot of deaths once people get old enough to realize they can run away from the cities and be better off. That’s how Rift found me,” she said almost proudly. “My parents died in a factory accident too when I was four, so I tried to run away. Built a little vehicle and everything.”

“When you were four?” Ty asked, his voice a mix between awe and skepticism.

“You have to grow up fast on Panurgic,” she answered in her smoky voice. “Rift saw that I was smart and took me in for the cause. He’s good at finding smart orphans who hate Eris… even if they don’t realize it’s her they hate at first. Once we see the video we all know who’s responsible.”

“So this Rift guy just has a giant house full of smart orphans and no one’s suspicious?” Amber asked, not quite buying the story.

“He got an official job change from Factory Worker to Orphanage Guardian so the paperwork would all check out. Once we get old enough to no longer be ‘orphans’ who need care, he lets us stay there under the title of teacher or caregiver.”

“What exactly does Rachel’s video say?” Brynn asked, knowing full well she was changing the topic a bit, but too curious to care at the moment.

“A lot. You’ll just have to watch it,” Rusty said, placing another empty plate in the already large stack on the side table next to her chair.

“What are the three things she did to slow Eris down?” Brynn asked, not giving up easily.

“The first thing is you, obviously,” Rusty said, pointing to Brynn and smiling. “She snuck her DNA into the human creation bay in the hopes that the person who was made from that sample would possess her knowledge… or at least enough of her knowledge to finish what she started.”

“And the other two things?” Jonah asked, as enthralled with this story as Brynn was.

“The second was the video transmission so that she could build a group of followers who knew the truth and knew that Eris had to be destroyed,” Rusty said, ticking the second thing off on her finger. “And the third was something about home.”

“Something about home?” Brynn asked, wishing Rusty wasn’t so impossible to get information from.

“The video very conveniently cuts out on that part,” Rusty said. “I don’t know if Eris somehow found the video and managed to sabotage it, or it really was bad timing that the video didn’t pick up the last thing.”

“Eris didn’t do it,” Brynn said confidently. “She wants to know what the third thing is just as badly as I do.”

“All I know, is that Rachel said something about the way home,” Rusty said with a shrug, patting her stomach that still didn’t look any bigger than it had when she began her epic feast.

She twisted her long red hair around her finger so that the blonde tips stuck out like a bouquet of fiery flowers.

“The way home,” Brynn repeated, thinking back to her nightmares. “Eris said something about that in one of Rachel’s memories.”

“What did she say?” Jonah asked, walking over to Brynn and placing a hand on her shoulder.

“She asked Rachel if she couldn’t go home. If she had done something to keep them from going home,” she said, trying desperately to remember but finding that her crippling headache instantly came back when she attempted to recall the information.

She placed a hand over her forehead and closed her eyes against the pain, trying not to draw attention to the episode.

Ty shot her a worried look but Rusty looked thrilled with the revelation.

“See? This is exactly why we need you,” she exclaimed happily. “You’ve got insider information that will help us fill in the missing pieces.”

“Glad I can help,” Brynn said, dropping her hand from her head as the pain passed.

“So, shall we go?” Rusty finally said, the grin never leaving her interesting face.

“Go where?” Bennett asked.

“To Panurgic,” she answered with a hint of annoyance.

“You still haven’t told us how you plan to get us there,” Jonah pointed out.

“Are we going through the Worker tunnels?” Ty asked.

“We’re definitely not taking their train unless we want to get killed,” she said.

“Just tell us,” Brynn practically shouted, her temper growing short in the presence of this mysterious and frustrating new player in their game.

“We’ll go under water.”

Chapter 11: Under

The trek to Rusty’s underwater machine took long enough to instill in the group a deep-seated belief that the machine in question, in fact, did not exist. They left Eastern Metropolis the same way they had gone to find the Worker transport tunnel, but continued on far past the rocky cliff that jutted out from the rest of the landscape.

Bennett and Amber were skittish of the trip from the beginning, not having ever been in the ocean like the rest of the group. Even walking along the beach seemed to take all of the courage they possessed and Amber eyed the turbulent salt water suspiciously as if it might suddenly take shape and chase after her.

After the group had been walking for several hours, the novelty of the whole adventure was quickly wearing off.

“Rusty, are we getting close?” Bennett asked from the back of the group, pulling on the straps of her backpack.

They had all taken a few minutes to pack any supplies they might need which, to Bennett, meant more clothes than she could carry. Luckily, seeing her friend’s choice in “supplies” Amber had displayed a rare moment of responsibility by packing more food and supplies than clothes.

“We’re almost there,” the red haired girl called back in her husky voice.

Rusty’s backpack consisted entirely of food and she had explained to the group that it was her responsibility to bring as much food back to Panurgic as she could to ensure that their little band of rebels didn’t starve to death.

“Is it really this far away?” Brynn asked, growing more and more suspicious of Rusty’s true intentions the farther away from the city she took them.

The landscape had already turned from the wide open sandy beach, to a coastline filled with rocky walls and inlets.

Brynn had to admit to herself that she wouldn’t be at all surprised if Rusty wasn’t a genius recruiter from The Alliance at all and was, in fact, just a crazy person who had persuaded a gullible group of people to follow her to their deaths. It was amazing how similar a genius and a psychopath were.

“We’ve been walking for hours.” Brynn stated dryly.

“I had to keep it far from the city so the A.I.s wouldn’t find it,” she explained, once again using her strange name for the Workers. Brynn opened her mouth to ask Rusty why she used the odd name when she was quickly cut off by Rusty’s proud, “Aha!”

“Is this it?” Ty asked, looking skeptically at what appeared to be nothing more than a pile of seaweed and old foliage hanging on a rocky outcropping.

“Of course not, silly,” Rusty said, ruffling Ty’s hair affectionately before sweeping the green cover from the mouth of a cave majestically. “It’s hiding.”

Brynn and Jonah exchanged wary glances but followed the strange girl dutifully into the dark cave.

“This place looks like a dead end to most people,” she shouted over the sound of rushing water, causing Brynn to wonder if she was mentally stable. “But it actually lets out into a big open cavern with a lake inside.”

“And your machine is in the lake?” Brynn yelled back, finding that her voice was almost completely drowned out by the quickly intensifying volume of the waves crashing against the walls of the rock outside.

“It’s not really a lake,” Rusty called back in her I’m a genius and you aren’t voice. “It’s an air pocket in the rock. The water is part of the ocean and I just drive my beautiful Bucket right under the rock.”

“She calls the machine The Bucket?” Brynn heard Bennett whisper behind her back.

“Doesn’t inspire much confidence,” Amber agreed as the sound of the waves began to fade the deeper they walked into the dark, wet, stone passageway.

Eventually the group was engulfed in complete silence as Rusty pulled a flashlight from her backpack and shone it around the large empty cavern she had described to them. The ceiling of the cave was high though the walls seemed narrow and quickly made Brynn feel claustrophobic. A steady dripping was the only sound to be heard in the peaceful yet eerie space.

“Where is it?” Ty asked, obviously excited by the prospect of such advanced technology.

He didn’t even seem to be scared by the prospect of travelling under the ocean, which surprised Brynn. She could remember when simply standing on the beach made him nervous.

“Right there,” Rusty said, the misty beam of her flashlight cutting through the darkness to what looked like a rusty metal bowl resting above the calm water.

Though Brynn couldn’t quite put her finger on it, something about the whole scene made her very nervous. Rusty pushed a button on the wall and the dark water was soon illuminated by bright underwater lights, showing her exactly what was going to carry her from Halcyon to Panurgic.

In the ghostly green water sat something that very much resembled a metal egg, though the front curve of the machine was all glass. A hatch sat above the water level and Brynn couldn’t help but feel that there was nothing Rusty could say to assure her that the hatch was water tight.

“It’s really…” Brynn began, though her words trailed off into the silence of the cavern. She had meant to say scary, or big, or something equally disbelieving but Ty quickly finished her sentence for her.

“Amazing,” he breathed, his brown eyes wide as he took in the scene before him.

“I made it out of some scrap metal and spare parts from the old train station,” Rusty said proudly, the ever present red dust on her face becoming runny from the mist that hung thickly in the cavern air.

“Why is it all covered in rust?” Amber asked skeptically, voicing Brynn’s concern.

The device didn’t look stable at all.

“Everything in Panurgic is rusty,” she said. “Everything worth keeping at least. It’s really wet there so the metal goes rusty quickly. Then they throw it out and I take it.”

“Is that why you’re always covered in that dust?” Ty asked, brushing a finger across her cheek to gather some of the red powder there and instantly causing a fire to burn in Brynn’s stomach that she tried to ignore.

“That’s why they call me Rusty,” she explained with a grin. “I’m always building things like this so I’m constantly covered in rust dust.”

“How do we get in?” Brynn asked, afraid of the answer that she felt she already knew.

“That’s the unfortunate part,” Rusty said with a slight grimace. “The Bucket is too big to get it really close to the walls of the cavern so we have to… swim.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Amber said from behind the group, sounding like she’d reached her breaking point. “You can build that thing but you couldn’t build a little vessel to get us over there? That’s ocean water,” she pointed out.

“It is,” Rusty agreed sagely.

“It leads out to the ocean,” Amber tried again, attempting to get a point across that Rusty wasn’t picking up on. “What if the tide goes out and we get sucked under the cave wall and into the ocean?”

“That doesn’t really happen,” Rusty laughed, shaking her head and grinning. “I’ve done it hundreds of times and nothing’s ever happened to me.”

“Brynn, I’m not doing this,” Amber whispered to her friend, slight panic in her voice.

“If she says it’s safe I’m sure it is,” Brynn attempted weakly.

“You’re scared too,” Bennett pointed out.

“Yeah but we can overcome our fear right? That’s always a good thing to do,” Brynn said, trying to sound motivational but failing miserably.

“I’ll go first you bunch of babies,” Rusty said with a long suffering sigh.

Pulling her backpack off and lifting it above her head with one hand, she gingerly lowered herself into the seemingly serene water. The lights she had somehow installed around the cavern lake caused the pool to look a luminescent green; the same color as her eyes. As she swam silently through the large lake to the eerily quiet machine, her eyes almost appeared to glow.

“Almost there,” she called back to the frightened group of people who could easily tell she was almost there.

When she reached the machine she threw her bag up to the hatch and Brynn couldn’t help but be impressed that she hadn’t overshot it. She quickly reminded herself, however, that Rusty had been doing this for a long time.

“Just have to open it up,” she yelled to the group as she used the tarnished makeshift ladder on the side of the machine to hoist herself out of the water.

Her dripping clothes cast a chorus of noise through the deathly quiet space and as she reached the top of the machine, it let out a loud, low, metallic creek that resonated through the water, sending chills down Brynn’s spine.

“Hatch is a bit rusty,” she called with a laugh, proud of her own play on words.

She threw her weight into the metallic wheel and it began to turn slowly, emitting a screeching sound and causing the group on the land to cover their ears.

“Got it,” she told them as the hatch popped open in a puff of condensation.

She threw her bag into the expanse below and Brynn could see the shadow of the bag falling on the cave wall underwater as it reflected through the glass front of the machine.

“Who’s next?” she asked, her voice echoing eerily in the cavern as the bobbing of The Bucket cast shadows skittering around the room.

Brynn looked over the edge of the ground and balked at the blackness of the water below them. The lights turned the surface of the pool light green but about ten feet below that, the light faded to a deep black abyss.

“How deep is this water?” Brynn asked, finding that for the girl who was supposed to be fearless, she had suddenly become quite the coward.

“Oh right,” Rusty said finally. “You guys are all scared of water, right?” she asked.

No one answered her but she nodded slowly as she remembered.

“They gave you an irrational fear of water to keep you trapped on your continent,” she explained, though Brynn didn’t need to be told something she was already painfully aware of.

Because she was made from Rachel’s DNA, Eris hadn’t been able to plant the fear of water in her system. That, however, did not stop her from being logical; and jumping into a black bottomless pit of cold ocean water did not sound logical to her.

“Not sure why they bothered. It’s not like you were inventive enough to find your way off the continent anyway.”

“Why didn’t they program you guys to be scared of water?” Brynn asked.

She had thought all of the test subjects had been given a fear of water and had their curiosity suppressed.

“No need. Instead they gave us a desire to work, so that doesn’t leave much time for exploring.”

“What happened to you then?” Jonah asked reasonably.

“A desire to work isn’t specific enough, apparently. It very easily turns into a desire to work towards destroying a tyrannical psychopath,” Rusty said matter-of-factly. “So who’s next?” she repeated in a chipper voice.

“I’ll go,” Ty volunteered, swallowing hard and trying to look tough.

Brynn could see right through his façade and walked over to him, taking his hand in hers.

“Can I come with you?” she asked, finding that she didn’t want to brave the eerie water alone.

“Yeah,” he said automatically in a relieved voice.

Apparently he hadn’t wanted to go alone either.

“I’ll go first,” Brynn said as she held her backpack above her head the way Rusty had.

She sat on the ledge of the rock and gently dipped her toes into the water. It didn’t immediately seep into her boots and for a moment she had been lulled into a false sense of security. As she lowered herself completely into the icy water, however, the frigid salty liquid instantly poured into her boots, freezing her toes within seconds. Goosebumps sprang up over her arms and she tried to keep her teeth from chattering.

“Whoa,” Brynn said, letting out a loud breath at the shock of the temperature.

“Cold?” Ty asked with a look of concern on his face as he followed Brynn’s lead. “Oh yeah,” he breathed the second he got into the water.

His default outfit was much less substantial than Brynn’s and his brown pants, tennis shoes, and cream T-shirt were doing nothing to keep him warm, instantly clinging to his body.

“Let’s go,” he said, anxious to get out of the water.

As they swam slowly through the silent cavern, Brynn tried not to look at the unknown expanse of black water below her feet. It didn’t take much to imagine some terrible creature swimming up out of the depths and dragging her down into an icy grave.

As they approached The Bucket, however, she wasn’t sure which was more terrifying; the deep water underneath them, or the large metallic machine in front of them.

“You go first,” Ty said through chattering teeth, allowing Brynn to climb up the rusty ladder ahead of him.

Her frozen hands barely worked as she climbed slowly up the ladder, causing the machine to let out its deep metallic groan once more.

“That sound is terrifying,” Brynn told Rusty as the girl offered her hand to help her up.

“I think it’s soothing,” Rusty said with a shrug. “Just climb down the hatch and hope your cowardly friends make it as far as you.”

Chapter 12: Bucket

Brynn entered the underwater machine as she was told and was instantly surprised by how warm the interior of The Bucket was. Warm orange lights cast a welcoming glow over the large oval room. There were no private rooms in The Bucket except for one small sectioned off place that Brynn assumed was the bathroom.

A few red velvet couches dotted the interior and Brynn had to wonder if Rusty had stolen them from some coffee shop in Eastern Metropolis. They looked far too luxurious to be anything from Panurgic, and the more Brynn inspected her surroundings, the more she realized how nice all of the furnishings were inside of the terrifying metal egg.

Intricately woven rugs covered the metal floors, stained glass lamps rested on fancy wooden end tables, and big fluffy down blankets seemed to be draped over every available piece of furniture. Brynn had to half wonder if Rusty had volunteered to take her trips to Halcyon in order to get away from the dreary existence of living on Panurgic.

“Much nicer than I expected,” Ty said directly behind Brynn, making her jump when she felt his breath on her neck. “I can’t believe she built this.”

His voice held an awe that Brynn had never heard before, and for reasons she couldn’t understand, she hated it.

“You realize we’re probably going to die in here right?” Brynn asked, looking around the cozy interior of the water machine with less pleasure now.

“When did you and I switch places?” Ty asked with a laugh, walking to the glass covered front of The Bucket and inspecting dozens of blinking lights, knobs, and other things Brynn didn’t understand.

Things that made perfect sense to people like Rusty and Ty.

“I never thought I’d see a scenario where I was excited for an adventure and you were terrified. It’s kind of nice being the reckless one,” he said with a playful smirk in her direction as Jonah jumped into The Bucket without a sound, not even bothering to use the ladder as he fell gracefully from the open hatch.

“Not bad,” he said with a whistle, raising an eyebrow and joining Ty at the front of the room. “Not bad at all.”

Brynn looked out the glass front of the water machine but didn’t dare walk to the front of the room with the boys.

She didn’t think having everyone’s weight in one part of the room was a very good idea. Plus she really didn’t want to look out the window to see the ghostly green water that currently surrounded them.

“I’m getting the feeling Amber and Bennett won’t be joining us,” Jonah remarked to Ty.

He leaned up against the walls of The Bucket with his arms folded easily over his chest, his ever present smirk challenging Brynn to be the adventurous girl he had met in the library not so long ago.

“Although I thought the same thing about Brynn when we first got into the cavern.”

“I was the first one to get into this death trap,” Brynn countered, determined to prove to Jonah just how adventurous she was. “You forget so soon.”

“Fair enough,” he replied just as a high pitched scream rang through the silence of the cavern, followed by a splash. “Looks like they’re coming after all.”

“How long will it take us to get to Panurgic?” Brynn asked a distracted Rusty hours later.

Brynn’s knuckles were white as she clutched the arm of one of the overstuffed red velvet sofas. Her eyes were closed and she attempted to refrain from looking out of the glass window at the front of the room that revealed a much too dark, swirling mass of water in front of them.

It had never occurred to her just how much water was in the ocean until she was travelling through it in an unstable rusty old machine, built by a girl her age, out of spare parts from a condemned train. When she thought of it that way, it made it pretty obvious to her why she was feeling so panicked.

The only problem was, everyone else seemed to be taking the whole thing very well. Even Amber and Bennett who were terrified of the ocean (and had a fear of water medically planted into their psyche by Eris) were chatting with Rusty at the front of the machine like they were shopping in Seaside rather than who knew how far under the water with death possible at every turn.

Brynn felt an arm encircle her shoulders as Ty gave her a squeeze, leaving the front of the vessel for the first time since they’d descended into the ocean. He had been like a kid ever since Rusty started explaining what everything was and how it worked.

“You doing okay?” he asked her in a voice so calm she shot him an annoyed look.

“How are you okay?” she asked incredulously. “You of all people!”

“Ouch,” he said as he pulled his arm away from her and instead rested his hands awkwardly in his lap.

She didn’t feel great about lashing out at her best friend, but ever since they’d left A1, she’d been on edge. Now, finding herself in a situation as the only scared person in a group full of notoriously cowardly friends, she was even more off balance.

Brynn tried to ignore the headache and blurred vision that was trying to overpower her at the moment, not wanting another reason to appear weak in front of her suddenly strong friends.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, meaning it even though it had sounded like the least sincere apology ever spoken.

“Your head?” Ty guessed.

“No,” she lied, slightly annoyed that he knew her so well.

“I know it’s kind of scary being underwater but you were the one who wanted answers,” Ty reasoned. “Just think of how simple our lives would have been if you’d never set foot in that library.”

Brynn glanced over at Jonah as he slept on one of the couches in the oval room. His arm rested lightly over his eyes and Brynn was instantly reminded of the time the three of them had stayed in their tent in the barren wasteland between Seaside and A1.

At the time, Brynn had been sure she and her friends were about to die from heat stroke. Now something more sinister than heat stroke was tracking them across the planet and the mere thought made her instantly exhausted.

“You really should try to rest,” Ty suggested, the old familiar concern back in his voice. “You look like crap,” he added with a grin in her direction.

“I hate you sometimes,” she joked as she let herself sink into the comfort of the sofa.

Ty draped a blanket over her gently as she began to instantly sink into a deep sleep.

“You love me,” he corrected her. “You just aren’t ready to admit it yet.”

And with that, he kissed her forehead and she drifted off to the place where her nightmares lived.

Her nightmares, at that particular moment, apparently lived in the only dark room she’d ever seen in A1. The facility was notoriously immaculate and blindingly bright, but her current circumstances found her in a more subdued part of the sprawling city-like base. While the room she had awoken in was still perfectly clean with a disinfected smell wafting around her, the dim lighting and silence scared her more than anything else.

Brynn had long since given up trying to figure out the chronological order of her dreams. Ever since she’d escaped from A1, her mental trips into the facility every night had been unstable, fuzzy, and totally out of order. Glad that she had at least found herself out of Eris’s company tonight, she scanned her surroundings, wondering what Rachel had in store for her this time.

The room seemed to be a lab of some sort, with metal tables situated every foot or so. White sheets covered whatever experiments lay on the tables and Brynn had to wonder why this memory in particular would be important enough for her to dream about it.

In her experience, she had never had an insignificant dream. It was as if Rachel had somehow ensured that every time Brynn slept, she’d receive a clue from some monumental event in her past life.

Today, however, she stood alone in an empty room surrounded by tables and an odd smell she hadn’t ever encountered before. She walked between rows of tables and didn’t notice until she began the movement, that she could see her breath in front of her. The room felt like a freezer and the more closely she observed it, she realized she could hear the gentle mechanical whir of a cooling implement.

She was in a freezer.

“What would Rachel be doing in a freezer?” she asked herself.

As soon as the words escaped her lips, (an occurrence that shouldn’t have been possible in her current dream state) the walls began to shift out of focus. The lights flickered out for a moment before coming back to life, blindingly bright as they had been in her previous dream, before coming to rest on the dim setting she had started the memory out with.

Trying to ignore the many reasons why her dreams might suddenly be falling apart since leaving A1, and hoping it had nothing to do with her encounter with Eris, she resumed her walk around the strange room. As much as it didn’t make sense for Rachel to be in a freezer, it made even less sense to her why hundreds of tables with sheets would be there.

Compelled by one sheet in particular, Brynn walked deliberately over to a lone table near the wall. She felt a sense of dread creep through her body, though she had no idea what had invoked the emotion. All she knew was that Rachel didn’t want to look under the sheet but felt that she had to.

She reached out with one shaky, pale hand towards the white linen, grasping it firmly in her determined fingers. As she began to slowly pull the sheet away, the faint smell of sugar hit her nose and suddenly, Brynn wanted to back away. She wanted to be anywhere but in that room with what she suddenly realized would be under that particular sheet.

Her eyes prickled with tears and she desperately wished she had control of her own body. She tried to tell Rachel mentally to run away from Eris, and A1, and the horrible secrets the place held.

But instead she pulled the sheet away and saw Maxwell lying on the cold metal table. His smirk gone and his face much too pale.

He was too incredibly still.

She heard a scream that had either come from her or Rachel and instantly knew in her gut; that had been the last time Rachel ever uttered a sound.

Now she understood the girl’s silence.

Brynn woke with a start in the semi darkness of The Bucket’s only room. The orange lights that lined the oval walls had been dimmed, and in the silence she could hear the steady breathing of her friend’s around her, telling her that everyone was asleep. She glanced towards the front of the room, expecting to see Rusty at the controls but instead saw Ty there, steering the vessel confidently.

“What did you dream about,” Rusty whispered in the darkness, startling Brynn.

She was perched on the coffee table with her long legs folded in half so that she could hold her knees against her chest. She watched Brynn with her wide luminescent eyes in the stillness, intent on getting an answer.

“What are you talking about?” Brynn asked, the lie sounding much more convincing in her head than it had when it actually escaped her lips.

“It’s not like I don’t know about the dreams,” Rusty stated simply. She wasn’t a person to beat around the bush. “We’re on the same side. Just tell me what you found out.”

Brynn sighed deeply. The last thing she wanted to do was reveal the emotional dream to the least emotional girl in the world. She could already imagine Rusty’s dry response of, “Oh they killed someone? So what? People die on Panurgic every day.”

“Spill it,” Rusty prodded.

“You already know what happened. It wasn’t anything new. They killed Maxwell,” Brynn said.

She had tried to keep her voice neutral but it cracked on the last word.

Maxwell meant something to her.

It didn’t matter that she hadn’t ever met him herself. It was what he represented that scared her. Eris burned every last person out of Rachel’s life and she was perfectly capable of repeating the action in Brynn’s. She just wondered how many of her friends would have to die before her spirit broke like Rachel’s and she simply ceased speaking all together.

She knew she never should have told her friends about her suspicions. She should have just kept it to herself and tried to bring down A1 alone so they wouldn’t be in danger.

“Who’s Maxwell?” Rusty asked, puzzled.

She knitted her eyebrows together, searching her immensely large brain for any recollection of the name.

“Rachel never mentioned him in the video?” Brynn asked, shocked by this revelation. She couldn’t imagine losing Ty or Jonah and never mentioning it to anyone.

“Maybe it happened after she made the video?” Rusty offered.

“Yeah, it must have,” Brynn agreed slowly.

She tried to piece together the broken memories Rachel had left her with, trying to understand the order of events she had been given. She could imagine Rachel hoping that the ‘meeting’ her co-workers had with Eris’s department didn’t end badly. Maybe she even hid away in A1 thinking she could find a way to break them out.

She could imagine the video being made sometime in that period before she had discovered Maxwell’s body and stopped speaking all together.

“This is why we need you, Brynn,” Rusty said in a way that she felt carried more weight than the erratic girl normally possessed. “I know it hurts you, but we need the information in your head.”

Brynn looked over at Rusty, the girl who was rude, brilliant, and never too serious about anything. It made her wonder what things she had seen in her life to make her that way. She tried to detach herself from being serious in order to keep from getting attached to people, that much was clear. Brynn could see that she wasn’t the only one who had lost things because of Eris and then she thought back to the secrets that apparently resided in her head.

Secrets that Rusty and her cause needed.

Secrets that Eris desperately wanted.

Secrets that she couldn’t recall even if she wanted to, and she sighed with the weight of it all.

“Doesn’t everybody?” Brynn finally asked mirthlessly.

Chapter 13: Panurgic

Brynn hadn’t realized just how awful being stuck in a small confined room with five other people could be, until she had spent one week in that very situation. She hadn’t expected the journey to be a quick one since Rusty had designed the machine herself, but one week had never gone by as slowly as it had aboard The Bucket.

Ty and Jonah, who had been getting along better than normal at the beginning of the trip were now constantly at each other’s throats, snapping at the smallest comment and making life very awkward for Brynn who frequently had to choose who she would spend her time with.

Because Bennett was so anxious for an excuse to talk to Jonah, she gladly volunteered to keep him company so that Brynn could try to calm Ty down. In the end, Jonah just ended up being annoyed, Ty would mock him, and the whole group would fall into an uncomfortable silence with Rusty muttering about how often airheads fought.

“How do you even know where you’re going?” Amber asked on the last day of their journey.

Everyone was anxious at the prospect of finally seeing the sunlight again, something they had definitely taken for granted before.

“I know,” Rusty answered mysteriously, not bothering to answer a question that was apparently so beneath her.

Amber let out a frustrated little sigh and stomped over to one of the many sofas, plopping into it and shooting Rusty death glares that she very pointedly ignored.

Ty and Bennett were playing a game against each other on their tablets, while Brynn and Jonah sat on a couch near the back of the room, trying to figure out their next move.

“I guess it’s a good thing you didn’t run away with me when I asked you, huh?” he said, nudging Brynn with his shoulder and instantly reminding her of the kiss they had shared.

She tried to push the memory from her mind to keep from getting distracted, though in reality, it was one of the few good memories she possessed after leaving A1.

“Try to seduce me all you want, I’ll still be headstrong and do whatever I think is best,” she tried to joke, her laugh coming out all wrong.

“You’re giving me permission to seduce you?” he asked her with a devilish grin that made the blood rush to her cheeks.

“Stop changing the subject,” Brynn said, “We’re supposed to be figuring out what we’ll do when we get to Panurgic.”

“You always have to suck the fun out of everything, don’t you?” Jonah asked. “But if you insist, I guess we’ll just meet with Rift to see what he knows and go from there.”

“That doesn’t really sound like a plan,” Brynn said with a frown. “What if he doesn’t really know anything? Or what if he refuses to help us.”

“Why would he refuse to help the girl from the video he’s religiously followed his whole life?”

“I’m not really Rachel,” Brynn reminded him, facing the fact that she couldn’t seem to forget.

No matter how brave she tried to be or how much she wanted to get rid of the threat of Eris, she’d never be as smart or courageous as her DNA donor. The longer her nightmares persisted, the more skittish and paranoid she became, and Brynn couldn’t help but feel that her mind was slowly unraveling.

“You’re as good as,” he said in a way that left no room for question. “You have her memories, you’re made from her DNA, and somewhere in your head, you have her secrets. We just have to figure out where they’re hiding.”

“And there’s the problem,” Brynn said with a sigh, slouching down into the soft velvet couch in aggravation. “If she wanted to hide her secrets in my mind, she definitely did a good job.”

“They’re in there,” Jonah said, stroking Brynn’s hair and looking at her like a puzzle he was trying to solve. “Don’t worry Brynn. We’ll find them.”

“You kids ready to get off The Bucket?” Rusty called from the front of the much too small room.

Through the murky beam of light that cut through the water ahead of them, a dark stone wall could be seen. The Bucket slowed gradually to a stop in the dark water and let out a deep metallic groan that resonated around the room.

“Did we stop?” Bennett asked, looking up from her game with Ty in confusion.

“Are we about to surface?” Ty asked urgently, his eyes brightening with excitement as he practically leapt off the couch and ran over to where Rusty stood by the controls.

“How exactly does this huge metal thing rise to the surface?” Amber asked. “It’s so heavy.”

“I wouldn’t want to confuse you with the mechanics of it, but I built compartments in the side of The Bucket that either store water to sink us or air to bring us back to the surface,” Rusty said in her most condescending tone.

She paused and stared at Amber to see if her response had sunk in, thoroughly misreading Amber’s annoyed glare for ignorant confusion.

“Let’s see,” Rusty said almost to herself, “How can I relate this to shopping?”

“I’m going to kill her,” Amber said to Brynn, so seriously that Brynn felt the need to step in.

“We should probably hurry up and surface so we can meet up with Rift and get this all figured out,” Brynn said quickly, trying to stop the confrontation between Amber and Rusty that was bound to happen eventually.

“You’re the boss,” Rusty answered with a shrug before adding, “Sort of.”

She proceeded to push buttons, pull levers, and do other things that Brynn didn’t understand until she heard an odd mechanical sound coming from the walls of the room.

It sounded to her as if bubbles were rushing through the walls as the water left the compartments Rusty had built and air filled the spaces. The Bucket began to move slowly upward towards the dark surface of the water and Brynn hoped they wouldn’t end up in another cavern pool to swim through. She didn’t think she’d have the courage to go through that ordeal twice.

The Bucket felt as sturdy as solid ground when it reached the surface and Brynn couldn’t understand how Rusty had figured out technology that was so advanced. As difficult as the girl was to work with, she had to admit, she really was a genius.

Ty didn’t say anything when Rusty stepped away from the controls, but he watched her walk over to the ladder leading up to the hatch with a reverent awe. Brynn rolled her eyes at the gesture before glancing at Jonah to make sure he wasn’t making a fool out of himself on Rusty’s behalf too.

He watched her as well, but his eyes held a suspicion that Ty’s definitely didn’t. It didn’t take long for Brynn to remind herself that her boy problems could be sorted out after she saved the world and everyone on it.

Walking through a landscape unlike any Brynn had ever seen, with wet hair and dry ‘new’ clothes, only one thought passed through her mind: It’s all real.

She had known that A1, Eris, and the testing were real, but until she walked through the foggy rolling green hills of Panurgic, it had all felt like a bad dream that she would wake up from.

And yet there she was.

On a completely different land mass that she and her friends hadn’t even known about until a few weeks ago. It was amazing to Brynn how much everything could change in such a short period of time.

Brynn and her friends had changed (at Rusty’s request) into clothes that would help them fit in on Panurgic. Even Amber and Bennett were more than willing to wear the brown, threadbare clothes after having swum through the freezing cold water to exit The Bucket.

Unstylish clothes were better than wet clothes it turned out.

The walk from the cavern where Rusty stored The Bucket to the old boarding house she called home was much shorter than the trek from Eastern Metropolis. Only an hour had passed before they were standing outside in the damp foggy air, looking up at the large wooden house in wonder.

“Welcome to The Moor,” Rusty said grandly, waving her arm at the rickety old house.

“You even named your house?” Amber asked in the manner of someone who thought the idea was ridiculous.

“The city is The Moor,” Rusty corrected, not taking offense to Amber’s tone. “The house is just a house.”

Talking, clanging, and general chaos could be heard from outside of the unstable structure and Brynn was instantly reminded of the loud night club in Eastern Metropolis. If anything, she knew, this would be quite a bit different from that noise. This din was less enjoyable.

“Ready for the pandemonium?” Rusty asked with a much too wide smile as she escorted them over the porch and into the dark stuffy house.

The whole structure seemed very different from anything Brynn had seen back in Halcyon. The entire house was made from wood and didn’t seem to have any SmartHouse wiring whatsoever. No mechanical voice greeted her when she entered (which made her miss Charlie), no wall screens could be found anywhere, and most of all, it was dirty.

The house didn’t pick up after its owners.

Brynn and her friends stood crowded in the doorway as if frightened to enter any further into the unfamiliar structure. The whole thing was entirely too archaic to make them comfortable.

The sound of machines humming loudly could be heard from somewhere upstairs, and it didn’t take long before a young boy who couldn’t be older than nine or ten ran down the wooden stairs on bare feet.

The boy was small for his age, with dirty blonde hair and brown eyes that slanted slightly in the corners.

“Do you see that,” Brynn whispered to Amber, staring at the boy who was almost to the bottom of the stairs, still running.

“He looks just like Ty,” Amber agreed with a nod, her eyes wide as she watched the boy rush past Rusty.

“Oy!” Rusty called to him. “Where’s Rift?’

“He’s out,” the boy shouted back over his shoulder, taking a corner so quickly Brynn thought he’d surely slip and fall, but in an instant he was gone, his thumping bare feet receding into the back of the house.

“Who was that?” Jonah asked, watching the empty hallway where the boy had been only seconds before.

“Dash,” Rusty said in annoyance. “He’s our little gopher. Sends messages to other cities and does some spying for us.”

“He’s so young,” Bennett remarked sadly.

“His parents died years ago so we recruited him,” Rusty shrugged her shoulders matter-of-factly.

“Ty, did you see him?” Brynn asked, still amazed by just how much the boy had looked like her friend.

“He looks like my dad when he was younger,” Ty answered distantly.

“Was your dad on ‘orphan’?” Rusty asked, putting air quotes around the last word.

“Yeah.”

“Then he was probably one of the people made in the lab. He and Dash’s family were probably made from the same sample,” Rusty answered dryly, as if this weren’t a shocking discovery.

“That’s…” Ty began, though he didn’t finish his sentence.

There was really too much and yet not enough to say when you found out you were made from the same DNA as another person you’d never met. Brynn knew this fact very well.

“Of course orphans on Halcyon aren’t the same as orphans on Panurgic,” Rusty went on. “Our orphans actually had parents at one time who died. Your orphans are just given the title when the A.I.s decide to make someone in the lab but don’t want to weird out the citizens on your little Utopia.”

“Yeah we know,” Amber said in annoyance.

Brynn had filled her and Bennett in on everything she thought might be useful to them on the ride to Panurgic. Of course, she’d left out the little detail about their curiosity being suppressed. She still wasn’t sure how to breach that subject with them.

“Well I guess we’ll start with the twitchy one upstairs,” Rusty said with a long suffering sigh. It was apparent that she was less than happy to be stuck in a house with a bunch of other ‘geniuses’ as she called them. “You’ve already met the spazzy one.”

Rusty led the group up the old wooden stairs to the room where all of the noise seemed to be originating. When she ushered them inside, it was instantly clear where Ty would be spending most of his time.

Despite the old exterior of the house, this room was alive with technology. Screens lined every wall, computers were stacked on the floor, and every spare surface was covered with tablets, keyboards, and other odd electrical devices.

“Wow,” Ty said, voicing everyone’s thoughts perfectly.

“This is Hadlock,” Rusty said reluctantly, pointing to a boy a few years older than Brynn who was buried in piles of cords.

He had light brown hair that stuck up in every direction and dark blue eyes that seemed to constantly be blinking behind his thick black glasses as he took in the group of people around him. Brynn couldn’t help but think of a squirrel when watching the boy turn his head from side to side while examining the group.

“Hadlock, these are the newest recruits from Halcyon,” Rusty informed the boy.

He let out a short laugh, as if he thought she might be joking, then quickly replaced his smile with a serious look.

“Sorry. Did you say you recruited people from Halcyon?” he asked, finding the prospect very amusing.

“Don’t be rude,” Rusty said, shocking Brynn completely.

She never thought she’d hear the day when Rusty told someone to be polite.

“I bet she told you she’s a genius too?” Hadlock asked, looking at Amber for confirmation.

“Over and over,” Amber told him with a shake of her head.

“Rusty, why don’t you tell them who found the plans for that submarine,” Hadlock pressed, his hands still fiddling with wires and pulling things apart.

It was as if the boy were never at rest.

“You didn’t build that?” Ty asked in disappointment, just as Brynn asked, “What’s a submarine?”

“Oh no, she built it all right,” Hadlock corrected. “But she wasn’t clever enough to come up with the idea of it.”

“So you did that?” Amber asked the boy, looking impressed.

“I hacked into the files in A1 and found all sorts of technology they just never bothered to introduce on our planet,” Hadlock said conspiratorially. “Those selfish A.I.s have been sitting on a heap of transportation devices, weapons, and recreational technology and I’m about to blow it all wide open.”

“Information is power,” Rusty said with mock gusto.

“Exactly,” Hadlock agreed, pointing over his shoulder at the girl who was making fun of him and barely skipping a beat as he continued to rewire the device in his hands.

“What are you making?” Amber asked the boy, looking over his shoulder at the small round object he held.

“It’s a pinch,” he said, opening his mouth to explain further before Rusty cut him off with a silencing look. “Oh sorry, don’t want them to think I’m smarter than you huh?” he asked. “You know she’s good at building things, but when it comes to actual technology, I’m the one you want guiding you through that maze of a facility.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Rusty said with a roll of her eyes, leading the group out of the room and back down the stairs. “He’s such a pain,” she told them over her shoulder; solidifying to Brynn the fact that Rusty definitely didn’t realize what a pain she was most of the time. “We just keep him around because he’s the only person who can hack into A1. Though now that we have Ty, maybe I can get rid of him,” she added, shooting Ty a wide smile that he returned before looking down at the ground sheepishly.

Brynn glared at the exchange but didn’t say anything.

“I’m hoping Rift will get back soon so I can show you guys the video,” Rusty said excitedly. “I can’t wait to see your face when you see… well… your face on the screen,” she told Brynn before stopping in her tracks, almost running into a young girl in front of her.

If Brynn wasn’t sure that they were in the main headquarters of the group specifically trying to take down the Workers, she’d swear they had just run into one.

The girl appeared to be around thirteen years old, with long platinum blonde hair that ended at her lower back. Her skin was pale and her large eyes were a blue so faint that they almost appeared light grey. She looked, to Brynn, exactly like one of the Workers from her nightmares. The fact that she was now glaring at Brynn didn’t do anything to discourage the resemblance.

“Great,” the girl said angrily, her lip curling up on her otherwise angelic face. “You finally find her and she’s from Moron Town.”

“Devey!” Rusty said indignantly, apparently forgetting the many times she’d called Halcyonites idiots. “They’re standing right there.”

“They probably can’t even understand what I’m saying anyway,” the girl spat, turning on her heel and flying up the stairs so lightly that Brynn couldn’t even hear her footsteps. She was like a wisp of smoke, so small, light, and fast that if you blinked you might miss her.

“She seems great,” Amber said sarcastically.

“That’s Devey,” Rusty answered, not bothering to apologize for her friend’s behavior. “She’s our medic.”

“So why is everyone here so… angry?” Brynn asked hesitantly.

She already knew that the people of Panurgic didn’t like her or her friends simply because they’d been born on Halcyon and had been given an easy life. But what she couldn’t understand, was the way everyone seemed to interact with each other. They were sarcastic and teasing all the time. It was like living in a house with a bunch of brothers and sisters who always fought.

“When you’re stuck with a bunch of socially awkward geniuses, things get tense,” Rusty said, though it sounded like she didn’t count herself as one of the “socially awkward” ones.

Rusty continued to show them around the old wooden house that looked very much like the boarding house they were pretending it was. The orphans of all different ages that populated the space were their most convincing asset, and Brynn wondered how there could really be that many people on Panurgic who were both orphans and geniuses. It didn’t seem like a likely combination, though Rusty quickly pointed out that the circumstances on Panurgic were a veritable breeding ground for that combination.

It wasn’t long after their tour that the group heard the front door open. Rusty sprang to her feet from the living room where the group had been discussing possible plans, and rushed to the house’s entrance to meet Rift.

He was an older man, and it was very obvious to Brynn that he had not had an easy life. His skin was a dark chocolate brown and his short brown curly hair seemed to be graying much too early for his age. He couldn’t have been more than thirty five. He had a kind but tired face that had seen too much hardship and his movements were weary.

“How was your trip to… where did you go this time? Halcyon or Arcadian?” Rift asked Rusty in a deep gravelly voice.

He looked at her the way a father would look at a daughter and it was confirmation that the residents of this fake boarding house did, in fact, function like a family.

“I found someone that I think you’re really going to want to meet,” Rusty said excitedly, looking over at Brynn and wearing the proudest smile she had ever seen.

Rift followed her line of sight and his dark brown eyes grew wide when he saw her. A small smile came to his face as he looked back at Rusty.

“You found her?” he said in complete disbelief and suddenly, Brynn wished she really was as important as these people seemed to think. She wished that she had done something to earn their respect, until one sentence changed everything.

“Where was she?” Rift asked, and Rusty stopped for a moment, not answering him right away. She looked down at the ground in silence, her bright red hair hiding her face from Brynn’s sight. “Rusty?” Rift asked again, this time slowly with a slight suspicion in his voice. “Where did you find her?”

“Halcyon,” Rusty answered finally, sounding ashamed.

Rift was silent for a moment, looking from Rusty to Brynn, then back again as his face fell.

“I should have known,” he said angrily, storming out of the room and down the hallway, Rusty running after him. “I shouldn’t have waited for Rachel’s generation to set everything in motion just in case this happened,” he shouted, making it easy for Brynn and her friends to listen in to the conversation even after Rift slammed the door.

“Rift they’re different!” Rusty insisted, her voice muffled behind the door.

Left alone in the living room, every set of eyes turned to Brynn slowly and she tried to ignore the burning in her cheeks. She couldn’t tell if she was angry or embarrassed but suddenly, the only thing she did know, was that the only people in the world who could help her find answers, didn’t want her.

Chapter 14: Unwanted

If standing in a silent room was an uncomfortable thing to do, standing in a once silent room surrounded by your friends and the shouts of the leader of a rebellion who really didn’t want you there, was a completely different level of uncomfortable. Rusty and Rift could be heard arguing down the hallway and all Brynn wanted to do right at that moment, was turn around and run away.

She looked down at her brown canvas pants and fitted long sleeved cream shirt. The clothes were worn and distressed in a way that people on Halcyon would think was stylish. On Panurgic, however, it just showed how hard someone had worked while wearing them.

Brynn knew that she and her friends didn’t fit in with people who had worked so hard for everything they had, but she was slightly indignant that Rift wouldn’t even give her a chance to prove herself.

“Rift, you don’t understand,” Rusty was shouting, actually surprising Brynn with how intently she was standing up for her.

For someone who acted like she didn’t really like Brynn or her friends, she was definitely putting up quite a fight on their behalf.

“They aren’t like everyone else. They came with me because they wanted to help. I didn’t drag them here against their will.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rift countered in his deep booming voice.

With the authority he projected, it was easy to see how he had come to lead a rebellion.

“They’re useless to us. Do you really think anyone from Halcyon will be able to do what we have to do? They can’t handle hardship, Rusty. They’ll cave the second they see an A.I.,” he insisted, again using the word that Brynn didn’t understand; not that she’d admit that to Rusty or Rift now. She didn’t want to risk sounding even more ignorant than they already thought she was.

“They’ve seen them,” Rusty finally shouted, silencing Rift for the first time since his outburst. “They’ve been inside A1 and they’ve seen Eris face to face,” she went on, sounding more confident now. “And they escaped and lived to talk about it.”

There was silence on the other side of the door for a long time and Brynn desperately wanted to know what Rift was thinking.

“Do you really think they’re up for it?” he asked slowly.

“I wouldn’t have brought them here if I didn’t,” Rusty assured him.

She began to say something else but Brynn’s eavesdropping was cut off by the sound of Ty’s voice in her ear.

“We should just leave,” he said, making Brynn jump with how close to her he suddenly was.

He grasped her arm in his strong hand and stood just inches from her, blocking everyone else from her view.

“That arrogant man obviously doesn’t want us here and we’d get further without him anyway. This whole operation is a complete waste of our time. Look around you, Brynn. These people are barely holding it together, there’s no way they could help us.”

“Ty we can’t just leave,” Brynn said quietly, looking around the room at her friends who were intently listening to the conversation going on behind closed doors.

Everyone except for Jonah.

Jonah was staring straight at Brynn and shaking his head, trying to get a message across silently.

Had he heard what Ty said? Jonah was already convinced that Ty wasn’t really there to help out their mission. He was just there to bring Brynn home as soon as he found an opportunity to put doubt into her mind. As much as she hated to admit it, Jonah’s theory was looking less and less crazy the more Ty spoke.

“We came to Panurgic, Brynn. We did what we were supposed to do to get answers and now that we’re at a dead end, we need to go back home and regroup,” Ty went on and as he spoke, Jonah shot Brynn an I told you so look.

“Are you guys okay?” a small angelic voice asked from the entrance to the living room.

The little wisp of a girl Rusty had called Devey stood there, smiling at the group and looking like the perfect little hostess.

Brynn looked suspiciously at the girl who, not moments before, had glared at her and called her a moron.

“We don’t need your help kid,” Amber said icily, obviously not ready to forgive the last encounter they’d had with her.

“Oh,” she answered shyly, sounding heartbroken by Amber’s statement.

The change in her attitude was so sudden that even Amber looked sorry for her words.

“I mean we just…” she began, trying to find a way to remove the look of complete sadness that had washed over the fragile girl’s face. “We just don’t need anything right now. But thank you for asking?” Amber finished weakly.

It was amazing the things a cute, innocent, childlike face could make you do. Amber looked around the room pleadingly at her friends, begging for some help with making the little girl with odd mood swings smile again.

“Your name’s Devey, right?” Bennett asked, trying to salvage the situation.

“No,” the girl said in bewilderment. “My name’s Cambria.”

“Don’t confuse them too much Cam, their brains might explode,” said a sour voice from the top of the stairs.

Brynn looked up and could have sworn, just for a moment, that she had entered one of her nightmares again. Nothing she was seeing seemed to make sense.

The girl at the top of the stairs looked exactly the same as the one standing in the living room. They both had the long platinum blonde hair, pale skin, and big, practically see-through eyes. They were both petite and about thirteen years old and the light grey work clothes they wore only solidified the fact that they seemed almost transparent. The only difference between the two girls, was the fact that Devey wore a scowl while Cambria had a look of innocent curiosity.

“Excuse me, but… what?” Brynn finally said, looking between the two girls in complete bewilderment. “What’s going on?”

She looked around the room quickly to make sure her friends were as confused as she was, fearing that maybe her mind had finally unraveled itself and she was nuts. Luckily, everyone else was staring at the two girls in shock.

“We’re twins,” Cambria explained, as if the words were supposed to make perfect sense to the group.

“They don’t understand what that is Cam. They’re from Halcyon,” Devey said in annoyance. “Twins are brothers or sisters that are born at the same time,” she explained slowly, as if the explanation process were beneath her. “Sometimes they look different and sometimes they look the same. We’re not supposed to have them in the test environment but somehow our fabricated DNA got messed up and now there are two of us.”

Brynn thought this over for a moment. It seemed far-fetched to her that two people could look exactly the same. The idea that this was some sort of mix up in the human creation bay made more sense but the fact that Devey appeared to think this was a normal occurrence outside of the testing environment seemed like a complete lie.

“Twins?” Brynn repeated, trying the word on for size.

“It happens a lot in… natural human creation,” Cambria said quietly, her meek voice different from her sister’s commanding presence. “They were able to somehow suppress it in our worlds,” she went on, gesturing to herself and Brynn to indicate Halcyon and Panurgic, “but our DNA sample got messed up and here we are.”

“Does Eris know?” Brynn asked, thinking that if Eris was unaware of this little anomaly they could use it to their advantage when trying to take her down.

“Of course she does,” Devey said, sounding like she thought Brynn was brain damaged. “Do you think she really lets anything slip by her?”

“What about all of this?” Brynn countered, pointing to the house where their ‘secret’ operation was held.

“We’ve been avoiding Eris for a long time,” Devey answered with venom in her voice. “If we want to hide from her, we can. We’re good at what we do. Which is why we don’t need pampered little…”

“Devey,” Rift said in a deep and threatening voice, instantly silencing the girl.

Brynn hadn’t even heard Rusty and Rift stop fighting, and she definitely hadn’t heard them enter the living room again. Her attention had been so focused on the girl at the top of the stairs that she had completely missed whatever decision Rusty and Rift had come to.

“Rift, you’re not seriously going to let them stay, are you?” Devey asked, sounding more like a whiney teenager and less like a member of a top secret rebellion. “They’re worse than useless! They’ll bring us all down with them. They’re dangerous!”

“That’s enough,” he said with a note of finality.

Devey opened her mouth to speak but thought better of it and instead huffed away quickly, her stomping footsteps echoing through the house until the slam of a door could be heard.

“Sorry about her,” Cambria said softly.

It was amazing to see two people who looked exactly the same acting so differently. It took Brynn a minute to remember that she wasn’t angry at Cambria, it was Devey who was totally unreasonable.

“She doesn’t realize how she comes off,” the girl explained, making excuses for her sister as she ran upstairs to join her. “It was nice to meet you all,” she called over her shoulder sweetly.

Brynn wanted to turn to Ty and ask him if that entire experience had been as bizarre as she thought. She wanted to joke with Amber about everything that had just happened. But as it stood, Rift was in the room, looking like he might actually have a calm and reasonable conversation with them and the last thing Brynn wanted to look like was a brainless teenager who joked around all the time. So instead she straightened her shoulders and looked Rift in the eyes, waiting for him to speak first.

“I’m sorry for my outburst,” Rift began after a moment of silence. “But you have to understand my hesitation to let you join us. We’ve been working under the assumption that Rachel’s generation would be someone experienced. Someone who would be able to help us.”

“What makes you think I can’t help you?” Brynn asked, slightly annoyed that the older man was underestimating her so much. “Have you been inside A1?” she asked, already knowing the answer before he opened his mouth to speak.

“No,” he answered stoically.

“Have you been face to face with Eris? Have you navigated the endless white hallways? Do you have to dream about all of the horrible things Eris does to people you love every night?” Brynn said, not realizing how loudly she had been talking until she stopped and the group was instantly engulfed in an uncomfortable silence.

She looked around at her mute friends. Most of them looked at the ground though she couldn’t tell if they felt sorry for her or if they were embarrassed by Brynn’s sudden outburst towards the frightening man.

“No, I don’t suppose I do,” he said after a moment.

“You guys need me,” Brynn finished firmly, feeling more like Rachel at that moment than she ever had. “You need what’s in my head. And I need a way to get to Eris. So it looks like we have to work together whether we like each other or not.”

Rift watched her for a long time, some internal debate playing in his mind.

“Told you she was different,” Rusty whispered to him, though everyone in the room could easily hear her with how intently quiet it was.

Rift sighed after a long time and began walking towards the stairs.

“Before you make your final decision about joining us, I think you need to see Rachel first.”

Chapter 15: Rachel

At first all Brynn saw was static as she watched the screen with baited breath. She had looked in the mirror before. She’d seen her reflection in A1 in her nightmares. But to actually see and hear Rachel would be a very different experience.

Glancing around the room, Brynn could see that her friends felt the exact same way. Ty kept his eyes locked on Brynn with a furrowed brow, trying to gage her reaction she guessed, while everyone else stared at the screen in anticipation.

When Rachel’s image appeared, Brynn felt her breath catch in her chest. It was too surreal for her to stare at the screen, watching herself adjusting the camera and looking over her shoulder but having no memory of the action. Rachel looked exactly like Brynn though the determination in her eyes was stronger, and Brynn knew instinctively that Rachel didn’t know about Maxwell yet.

She couldn’t.

She didn’t have the look of someone who had lost a loved one yet.

Her white lab coat was smeared with dust and her hair was slightly disheveled but she looked completely firm in her resolve as she took a deep breath and began speaking to the camera.

“To whoever finds this, and I really do pray that someone finds it, I’m so sorry for what we’ve created,” Rachel said with a sigh, looking as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders as the focus went in and out on the screen.

“Eris was ultimately supposed to make things easier on everyone. We made her because we knew this project to find the perfect society would outlast any of the original scientist’s life spans and we couldn’t risk all of our hard work going down the drain. I never imagined in a million years that our A.I. would lose it.

“I guess when it all comes down to it, this is really my fault. I’m the head scientist. I created Eris. The whole A.I. program was my idea,” Rachel looked away from the camera for a moment as if some sound had startled her, then she continued on, faster this time. “I was in charge of the scientists and Eris was in charge of the A.I.s. We thought it would be better that way. But it turns out, having one A.I. who suddenly becomes corrupt means that the others follow almost immediately.

“But I’m getting ahead of myself, and I don’t have much time left before they find me. If you’re watching this video, then half of what I’m saying probably won’t make sense to you. I’m mostly just hoping you can get it into the hands of someone back home so that they can know how sorry I am.”

Rachel stopped again, pondering how to explain herself before continuing once more.

“Earth was falling apart. That’s basically the gist of it. There was disease, famine, wars. Order was gone and people were destroying each other. So the U.N. tasked a group of scientists to test for the perfect society so we could fix our planet. We were supposed to populate a nearby planet with fabricated humans all set up on different social systems to see what the best combination was. After we found our Utopia we would leave the test humans to fend for themselves and sustain their own existence and we’d come back to Earth to put the test results into effect.”

Just as Rachel had warned, Brynn was having a difficult time understanding the words being used. She wished she could make more sense of everything she was saying, but instead settled for taking what she could from the video transmission. She could understand that the main point Rachel wanted to convey was that they had made a terrible mistake with Eris.

That was pretty obvious even without watching the video.

“We never wanted a planet full of people to be killed off because we were done with them,” Rachel pleaded, “We just wanted to save our dying world.

“Eris was programmed to find the perfect society, but we didn’t take into account the fact that no matter how advanced our technology is, A.I.s aren’t humans. They can’t feel the emotional aspect of a test. They don’t reason the way we do. They don’t understand that some losses are simply not acceptable just to generate test results. Eris felt that any means were appropriate as long as she completed her task to find the perfect society. Once she began manufacturing the sugar scented gas that would terminate each society, I knew I had to shut her down.”

Brynn could feel her friend’s eyes on her at the mention of the gas. They were all well aware of her obsession with sugar, but until that point, only Jonah and Ty had truly understood the dark undertones of that odd little personality trait Rachel had passed along to her.

Now, she kept her eyes locked on the screen and waited for her friend’s to stop staring at her like she were some twisted monster.

“Unfortunately, when I created Eris I didn’t make an idiot. She knew what we were up to and she attacked the threat to her program like a computer attacks a virus. At first she tried to be subtle, but I know that at any minute she’ll completely unleash the power we never should have built within her and kill us just as unapologetically as she plans to kill all of you on the test planet. She’s already called a meeting with my department but I didn’t expect her to do this so soon.”

Rachel stopped talking for a moment, her voice cracking. She had needed to take action sooner in order for her friends and colleagues to make it out of this ordeal alive; in order for Maxwell to make it out alive. Because she had waited so long, she’d had to choose between letting her friends go to that meeting to die or sending out her video transmission to warn the inhabitants of the ‘test planet’.

Brynn wondered if she’d ever be strong enough to choose the lives of complete strangers over the lives of her friends if it served a greater purpose. She shivered at the thought and hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

“She might not have killed them,” Rachel whispered more to herself than to the camera and Brynn could hear the lie in her voice, though she was sure it was a lie Rachel desperately wanted to believe.

A thud sounded off camera and Rachel looked into the distance for a moment, regaining her focus and trudging on through her message.

“I know I’ve lost control of Eris and she’ll take lives because of that, but all hope is not lost. I’ve done three things to keep you all safe. To get the ball rolling so that you can take her down and make sure she doesn’t cause any more harm. You see this?” Rachel asked the camera, holding up a small glass tube between her dirty fingers. Brynn looked at the tube with wide eyes, knowing exactly what it was.

“This is me,” she said almost affectionately. “I’m smuggling this DNA sample into the human creation bay in the hopes that the person generated from my sample will possess at least some of my knowledge of Eris. With at least some direction from her, Eris won’t have as much of an upper hand,” she explained, giving the tube a little shake before dropping it into the pocket of her lab coat.

“Second is this transmission. I know a lot of these words won’t make sense to you since we’ve had to keep you all in the dark to make sure the test environment isn’t corrupted, but you can understand the general message. Your planet is part of a test to find the perfect society. The Workers are A.I.s,” Rachel said before stopping to explain the word Brynn had wondered about for so long. “They’re basically computers with artificial intelligence capabilities. She can learn, grow, understand things. She’s so advanced, most of you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between her and a real human. But trust me, she’s different. All you really need to know is that your planet will be scheduled for termination shortly and if you don’t stop Eris and her A.I.s soon, you and everyone you love will be dead.”

Brynn looked over at Rift just for a moment, reading the stoic patience in his expression as he watched the video.

“Last, I’ve managed to---,” she began, before the transmission cut out for a moment and Brynn had to agree with Rusty, the corruption in the video was almost too perfect to be a coincidence.

If Brynn hadn’t seen firsthand just how much Eris wanted that third component of Rachel’s plan, she would have thought the Angel had destroyed the video. The static only lasted about fifteen seconds before Rachel’s image appeared on the screen once more, talking as if nothing had happened.

“Home,” she said, finishing a sentence that the video hadn’t picked up. “I don’t have much time left before they find me. It’s impossible to hide here and I need to make sure I get this DNA into the bay before they come. I’ve done what I can to help you out. Eris will find me soon,” Rachel said, stating the fact firmly as if she were trying to make herself come to terms with this fate. “She’s going to kill me,” she said simply. “I know she’ll kill me. And I’ll welcome it because frankly, the things she’ll do to me to get me to talk will be far worse than death. But I can promise you this: I’ll never tell her anything. It won’t make up for the fate I’ve doomed you all to but I hope it’s a start.

“The rest is up to you.”

Chapter 16: Intelligence

No one said anything for a long time.

There wasn’t much to be said after watching something as enlightening, life changing, and terrifying as what they had just witnessed. Brynn felt just as dizzy as the day she’d broken into the records room in A1 and learned that her existence was nothing more than a test. The knowledge had been shocking, but somehow, seeing an exact copy of herself on a video transmission was more shocking.

She could tell that Rift wanted to get on with their plans but was respectfully letting everything sink in. The odd lapse in efficiency was unexpected, but appreciated.

Brynn kept her eyes locked on the now blank screen, trying to decide how she felt about everything. She had been so overloaded with information that she couldn’t quite decide what the most pressing matter was. She wondered if she should be mad at Rachel for creating Eris, though somehow that didn’t seem right. Rachel had tried to make things better. The only reason she’d even created Eris in the first place was to help her own home.

Still unsure of what she wanted to discuss first, she decided to bring up the main thing that came to her troubled mind.

“Artificial intelligence?” Brynn asked in a scratchy voice.

It sounded as if her friends let out a collective sigh, and she hadn’t realized until she spoke that everyone was watching her, waiting to see how she would react.

“That’s why we call them A.I.s,” Rusty said slowly, looking like she was actually quite willing to explain things to Brynn without making fun of her. “They’re like robots or computers… kind of.”

“Told you,” Brynn said over her shoulder to Ty.

“I’ve seen her,” Ty said, “She didn’t look like a robot to me.”

“They’re not like a tablet,” Rusty said in exasperation, sounding more like her old self. “If you throw water on them they aren’t going to short circuit or anything. They’re pretty much humans with upgrades.”

“What does that even mean?” Amber asked.

“It means they’re faster than us, stronger than us, and they don’t get hurt like we do,” Rift said quietly.

“So how do you kill them?” Bennett asked.

“We’re still working on that part,” Rusty said sheepishly, ashamed to admit the shortcomings of a house full of geniuses.

“So if they’re computers…,” Brynn began before Rift swiftly cut her off.

“It’s best not to think of them as computers at all. That’ll give you a false sense of confidence around them. You need to realize what a threat they are before facing them or you’ll be dead in minutes.”

“They can regenerate because they aren’t technically human. Which totally isn’t fair,” Rusty pouted. “You cut off our arm and we’re a goner, but you get one of them and they just build another one. They definitely don’t play by the rules.”

“And you know this from experience?” Jonah asked skeptically.

“Well, no,” Rusty said slowly, looking upset that she had been caught in her own exaggeration. “But we know things from the files Hadlock’s managed to get.”

“There’s no way to stop them yet but we have Hadlock working to get into their programming. It shouldn’t be long now before we level the playing field,” Rift stated solemnly.

“You can really just hack into their programming?” Brynn asked.

She didn’t quite buy that things were as easy as Rift made them sound.

“They’ve safeguarded the programming to make it almost impossible to get to, but if we can get inside of the facility…,” Rusty began before Rift shot her a silencing look, still not trusting Brynn and her friends enough to divulge their plans.

“Then, what?” Brynn pressed. “What do we have to do?”

She wasn’t about to give up on the whole mission now. Watching the transmission had solidified in her mind that she was more than willing to do whatever she needed to in order to finish Rachel’s work. The girl had died for her and she wouldn’t let that sacrifice be wasted.

“Hadlock has come up with a program. Like a parasite,” Rusty began. “Something that will give us access to the files in A1 that Eris tried to hide from Rachel.”

“So we’ll know how to stop them?” Jonah asked curiously.

“If the files are as extensive as he seems to think they are… yeah, we should be able to,” Rusty said.

“He, knows the files are extensive,” Hadlock said, coming down the stairs with yet another resident of the house.

Brynn was beginning to wonder how they all fit in the space together. The house wasn’t small by any means, but it didn’t take many people to fill a place up.

The boy following behind Hadlock wasn’t actually much of a boy. Brynn would put his age around twenty five, though with how tall and thin he was it was difficult to gauge properly. He had brownish red hair that fell just below his chin in slight curls and his cheeks were covered in stubble. He was lanky and had a look of amusement on his face as he surveyed the room.

“Oh great, there’s more of them,” Amber sighed.

“You were telling them I don’t know what I’m doing, weren’t you?” Hadlock accused Rusty.

“I just said we don’t exactly know what’s in the files,” she answered innocently. Hadlock narrowed his eyes at her but didn’t press the matter.

“So, what’s your thing?” Brynn asked the new boy behind Hadlock.

He gave her an odd look before saying, “My name is Tate,” as if that would explain everything.

“No, I mean what do you do? Everyone in this group seems to have some sort of specialty.”

“Oh, right,” he answered, comprehension dawning on him. “I blow things up.”

“You what?” Bennett asked, sounding shocked and excited by the prospect of a little destruction.

“Well I would blow things up if they ever let me. At the moment I’m just ready and waiting.”

“He’s the ‘wiring guy’,” Rusty said, giving them a better explanation of Tate’s job in the group. “I build things, Tate can wire them, and Hadlock can manipulate the wiring.”

“Hack it,” Hadlock corrected her.

“It’s like Hadlock is the software person and Tate is the hardware person,” Rusty went on, unfazed by Hadlock’s interruption. “And I’m the mechanic.”

“Cambria and Devey are the medics with mood swings,” Hadlock said.

“Royter is sneaky, and Dash is our little spy,” Tate finished, summing up everyone’s responsibilities in a few short sentences.

“As thrilling as I’m sure this all is for our guests, why don’t we tell them how we plan to get the files before they agree to anything out of their league,” Rift said evenly.

He was definitely the father figure of the group; always trying to keep the kids from fighting.

“Right,” Hadlock said, just as Rusty said, “Good idea.”

“Here’s the problem,” Hadlock began, his eyes still flying across the group at breakneck speed; he never seemed to be completely still. He constantly pushed his glasses up the brim of his straight nose. “In order to get at the files we need someone to plant the bug inside of A1.”

“Wait, you want us to go inside of the facility full of crazy Workers who want to kill us?” Bennett asked, wanting to clarify that the plan actually was as bad as it sounded.

“Exactly,” Hadlock explained, happy that she had understood and misreading her apprehension. “I can’t hack into their system from outside the facility, it’s just too good. But if we can get inside for me to plant a bug in there, I’ll have full access to their files,” he said, though he quickly and quietly added, “In theory.”

“I’m in,” Brynn said automatically. She knew that the plan wasn’t the best and that it was far too dangerous, but she was tired of sitting around and waiting for things to be fixed for her.

“Brynn, are you sure about this?” Ty asked her, suddenly by her side with a protective arm around her. “You realize how dangerous it is to go back in there, right? They need your memories here; maybe it’ll be better for you to stay behind to ensure they don’t lose that asset?”

“I have to go, Ty,” Brynn said evenly, looking over at her friend and hoping he saw how firm her resolve was.

“Then I guess I’m going too,” Ty answered and Brynn tried to ignore the memory of Maxwell lying dead on the metal table in A1.

“We’ll go,” Amber said from behind Brynn who turned to look at her friend.

She hadn’t ever thought Amber and Bennett were cowards by any means, but she hadn’t expected them to step up to the plate so quickly.

Brynn did notice Amber shoot Hadlock a quick glance and had to wonder if her sudden interest in volunteering had something to do with the arrival of Hadlock in the group, though she didn’t say anything to that nature.

“Of course I’m in,” Jonah said, sounding a lot more excited than he probably should have been to walk into a complete death trap.

Brynn glanced over at him and he gave her a sly smile and quick wink that made her blush.

“We’ll start making arrangements then,” Rift said heavily. “And Brynn?” he asked, meeting her excited eyes with his weary ones, “Welcome to The Alliance.”

Chapter 17: Initiation

“Until you build a submarine, a car, and rewire a Worker train to do your bidding without their knowledge, you can’t call yourself a proper genius, that’s all I’m saying,” Rusty stated matter-of-factly to Tate in the dusty old living room where the group seemed to spend most of their time.

Over the course of their stay and in the days leading up to their trip back to Halcyon, Brynn had gotten to know most of the people in the house pretty well, with the exception of Rift and Dash. Rift was always gone trying to find new recruits to build their numbers, and Dash was constantly running messages back and forth to other groups who might be interested in joining The Alliance. He was also busy spying on Workers, and just generally being a good little spy.

A girl named Royter, with short black hair and dark eyes had introduced herself to Brynn and her friends briefly before she was gone again.

“She’s out being sneaky,” Tate informed them fondly, running his fingers through his long hair as he plopped down on a couch that instantly gave off little puffs of dust. “She’s our spy.”

“I thought Dash was your spy,” Amber said, confused.

“Dash had to learn it all somewhere, didn’t he?” Tate asked.

He was apparently a big fan of the mysterious girl who they’d barely been able to meet.

“We send Dash on the less dangerous jobs,” Cambria said from the doorway, carrying a small tray of food into the room for the group. “Royter goes on the more difficult missions because she’s…,” Cambria let her voice trail off, not the type of person to feel comfortable calling someone ‘better’ than someone else. “Older,” she finally finished decisively. “Here’s some dinner, by the way.”

The petite, pale girl brought the tray into the room and sat it on the small wooden coffee table that was, of course, covered in dust just like everything else in the dark and dreary house.

“Sorry it’s not much,” Cambria said self-consciously, knowing that they were used to eating much more with their endless supply of food on Halcyon.

“We normally don’t eat much, but this is just ridiculous,” Tate said. “What happened, Cam?”

“We’ve had a lot of people leave The Alliance,” she explained quietly, her voice barely above a whisper and her eyes downcast. “They either got scared when they found out we’d be going to Halcyon, or they got tired of waiting. Now we don’t have as many people to put in hours of work for food.”

“What about all the food Rusty brought back from Halcyon?” Brynn asked, knowing first-hand that she had stuffed her bag to bursting with various food items.

“We have to ration that,” Rusty said seriously. “For this very reason.”

“Is The Alliance only made up of the people in this house? Or are there more of you?” Jonah asked from his spot beside Brynn.

“There were more of us,” said an all too familiar unpleasant voice from the hall. Devey entered the room on silent feet, padding over to the pathetic tray of food and sniffing at it. “Then everyone decided that they cared more about themselves than saving the world, so now we have to do it for them.”

“And I can tell that you’re just thrilled by that prospect,” Amber said sarcastically, never quite meshing with the unhappy girl.

“Don’t talk to me,” Devey responded simply, taking an apple from the tray and retreating back upstairs once more.

“Sorry about her,” Cambria said apologetically, following her sister up the stairs quickly.

“How are they the same person?” Amber asked. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand that.”

“Twins just look the same,” Rusty informed them as she bit into one of the rolls she’d brought from Halcyon. It was now so stale that it crumbled into little pieces on the couch around her but she continued to eat as if she didn’t care. Apparently any food was good food to her. “They don’t have the same personalities or anything.”

“That’s for sure,” Ty said with a small laugh just as a loud boom came from Hadlock’s room upstairs.

“What was that?” Brynn asked in shock.

“Oh Hadlock is just working on something. Don’t pay any attention to him,” Rusty answered with a wave of her hand, her mouth full of the dry bread.

A door slammed upstairs and suddenly Devey and Hadlock were stomping down the staircase shouting at each other.

“If you’re going to share a wall with me you’d better stop those stupid experiments!” she yelled at him. “It’s not like they’re getting you anywhere as it is.”

“You don’t even know what I do all day, how can you say I’m not making anything valuable?” he asked incredulously, walking into the living room to grab one of the remaining rolls. “What do you do all day? Talk about how bitterly unfair your life is? Poor baby,” he said harshly.

Devey was fuming now, her eyes burning a hole through Hadlock’s head as she opened her mouth to retaliate.

“Hey!” Rusty shouted over the din, effectively shutting them up for a moment. “We haven’t put our new guests through initiation yet.”

Brynn wasn’t quite sure what that was supposed to mean, but the fact that it instantly stopped the argument and brought a smile to Devey’s face for the first time since they’d met her, frightened Brynn to no end.

“Finally, we get to have some fun,” Devey exclaimed much too happily, clapping her small hands and grinning wickedly at Brynn.

The landscape on Panurgic was vastly different from the one on Halcyon. For all of the flaws of the continent’s social structure, Brynn couldn’t deny the beauty she saw all around them.

There wasn’t a brown patch to be found in the lush green rolling hills. The constant fog that hung thickly in the air clung to their clothes in damp layers, making the group shiver as they walked closer and closer to the sea.

The smell of salt permeated the air and the wind began to gradually pick up as they neared the edge of a sheer rock cliff. The grass never really ended, it simply ran out of room to grow at the rocky outcropping that protruded over the crashing waves far below. A few trees dotted the land, but the most bizarre thing they noticed, was one lone tree that grew right at the edge of the cliff, completely horizontal as its thick roots clung to the rock face.

“That,” Devey said happily, “Is your initiation.”

“Devey, Rift is going to kill us if we make them do it,” Cambria said timidly. She hadn’t stopped looking around nervously or picking at her fingers since they’d left the boarding house and now, Brynn knew why. “He told us we weren’t allowed to do this anymore.”

“Then don’t tell him,” Devey shot at her sister coldly.

“He said we shouldn’t waste the lives of people who are actually willing to help us,” her sister persisted, not willing to back down.

“Fine,” Rusty said with a roll of her eyes, obviously upset that her fun was being taken away. “They don’t have to do it if they want into The Alliance.”

“They just have to do it if they want our respect,” Hadlock finished with a grin.

“I don’t want your respect,” Bennett immediately said, stepping to the back of the group quickly.

“I kind of figured,” Devey remarked.

“Have you all done this?” Brynn asked, feeling an odd rush of excitement at the prospect of doing something so reckless.

She had spent weeks feeling weak for her fear of Eris, out of control of her own body because of her mysterious headaches, and completely useless because she hadn’t gone back to A1 to finish what she started.

Now, standing on the sheer cliff with the ocean far below them, she knew she wanted to do something to get her old adventuring spirit back in working order. It felt just like the time she’d stood at the edge of the sandy beach in Seaside, about to immerse herself in the icy water.

“It’s not that hard,” Devey answered with a sigh. “All you have to do is walk out on the trunk and touch the first tree branch.”

Not wasting any time, the small wisp of a girl walked slowly over to the trunk, placing one foot in front of the other on the narrow strip of wood. Her weight barely registered on the tree as she continued until reaching out with one small arm to touch the first branch.

Turning around carefully she practically sprinted back before jumping onto the ledge once more.

“Easy,” she said proudly, her cheeks flushed with adrenaline.

“I hate it when you do that,” Cambria said under her breath, her arms red where she had been grasping them nervously.

“Who’s next?” Devey challenged.

“Don’t even think about it,” Ty said to Brynn, reading her mind far before she had made any move to walk out onto the tree.

She knew there was no use in arguing with him, so instead she ran over to the ledge and placed one foot on the horizontal tree trunk carefully before gingerly setting the other foot on the narrow strip of wood, allowing her whole weight to rest on it.

The tree groaned slightly as she shuffled forward with Ty yelling at her to come back. Wind whipped her long dark hair around her face and she stretched her arms straight out at her sides to keep her balance. She felt like she was flying. The open ocean stretched on forever in front of her, and underneath her was nothing but air and a small tree trunk to keep her from falling.

Brynn tried not to look down at the tumultuous ocean far below her feet, knowing it would throw her off balance. Instead she kept her eyes trained on the tree branch that was just within reach. She stretched her arm out as far as it would go, barely grazing the rough wood with her fingertips.

“Okay, you touched it Brynn,” Ty said, slightly hysterical. “Now come back.”

“Be careful when you’re turning around,” Jonah insisted, sounding much more like Ty than himself with the worry that had suddenly come into his voice.

Had Jonah not said anything, Brynn would have felt completely safe, knowing that others before her had done this. Now, hearing her friend who wasn’t supposed to be scared of anything with fear in his voice, her confidence left her.

If Jonah thought something was too dangerous, it definitely was.

“How do I turn around?” she called over her shoulder, noticing for the first time how slippery the hard soles of her boots were.

Her ankles began to wobble as she tried to slowly pivot, praying she wouldn’t get one of her dizzy spells as she walked back to the cliff.

Placing one foot in front of the other carefully, she inched along the trunk, keeping her eyes locked on Jonah. His black hair that had gotten shaggier since their trip began, was flying into his blue eyes, but he never once blinked. He kept his wide-eyed look of panic locked on Brynn, urging her to get back to him safely.

“Brynn,” he whispered simply as her foot slipped and fell through the open air.

It didn’t seem humanly possible how fast Jonah slid on his knees to the edge of the cliff and grabbed her by the wrist, his free hand holding the tree trunk tightly.

“Brynn!” Amber shouted as she and her friends rushed forward to the edge of the cliff.

Even Devey looked concerned as she peeked over her sister’s shoulder.

The feeling of nothing but open air under her feet was a thrilling one, but even in her current state of adrenaline filled bliss, she couldn’t deny the sheer terror she was feeling, swinging from the ledge like a pendulum in a clock.

Jonah’s vice-like grip hurt Brynn but she wasn’t about to complain as he pulled her back up onto the soft, safe grass. He wrapped his arms tightly around her and buried his face in her neck, acting more protective than Brynn had ever seen him.

He didn’t let her go as he looked over the group with a serious expression and simply said, “We’re done.”

Chapter 18: Sanctuary

With her eyes closed and her head resting against a soft pillow, Brynn had a feeling she hadn’t possessed in a long time; she felt relaxed. She wasn’t sure if she was dreaming or awake, but at that moment it didn’t matter. She didn’t feel the normal panic that usually controlled her every waking moment (or her moments asleep for that matter).

Embracing the brief reprieve from the norm, she took a deep breath, letting a smile play on her lips in the semi darkness of wherever she was. It wasn’t until she heard someone take a deep breath next to her that her eyes snapped open, suddenly aware that she wasn’t as alone as she thought.

The white ceiling and walls that surrounded her were enough to inform her that she was back in A1, though the dim lighting suggested that she wasn’t about to be tortured by Eris for no reason in particular.

Turning her head lazily to the side she saw Maxwell lying next to her, his eyes closed and a smile playing on his lips. He wore the ever present white lab coat that Brynn had come to recognize and his thick black glasses still rested on the bridge of his straight nose, but he looked completely at ease.

Lying next to him made Brynn wonder just how close Rachel and Maxwell had been, though her current situation seemed innocent enough.

“Isn’t it great that instead of staying home and getting normal jobs where we get to leave work, we opted to come on this mission so that we never really get away from our responsibilities?” Maxwell asked sarcastically, his eyes still closed and his smile still present.

“What? You don’t think it’s nice constantly being reminded that we have a job to do?” Brynn found herself asking, though she had absolutely no control over what Rachel said.

“One day off, that’s really all I ask,” Maxwell answered.

“Well,” Rachel began, propping herself up on one elbow and turning to face Maxwell.

She still wore her own white lab coat and Brynn wondered fleetingly if there were any sugar cubes in her pockets.

“We could always say we need to do a little research amongst the natives and go to our place,” Rachel suggested with a slow smile, leaning over Maxwell and letting her nose touch his.

The gesture was far too intimate for Brynn to be comfortable, though she couldn’t ignore the warm feeling in her belly that it brought on.

“Our place,” he repeated, his eyes still closed as he breathed in slowly. “If only we really did have a place where she couldn’t find us.”

“She doesn’t know about it, Maxwell,” Rachel said, lying down once more and resting her hands lightly on her stomach.

She stared up at the ceiling, counting the tiles above her head and waiting for the boy beside her to respond.

“We don’t think she knows about it,” he corrected her.

“Trust me, she doesn’t,” Rachel answered resolutely.

“I miss the yellow plants,” Maxwell said suddenly, quite out of the blue.

“And the smell of the ocean.”

“And not worrying about psychotic A.I.s who want to ruin our lives.”

“Yeah, there is that,” Rachel agreed with a laugh.

A real laugh.

It felt like the first time Brynn had ever heard Rachel laughing or joking. It was a nice change from her usual nightmares and suddenly, she didn’t want to wake up. It was amazing to her that normal people were lucky enough to experience normal dreams every night; that other people didn’t dread going to bed, and just for one moment, Brynn joined their ranks, feeling like she never wanted to wake up from this memory.

“Why did you pick Arcadian?” Maxwell asked her, piquing Brynn’s interest.

She hadn’t heard much about the third continent and wondered if she’d ever see it. Hearing Maxwell mention it now was an unexpected surprise for her.

“What do you mean?” Rachel asked.

“Why did you pick Arcadian for our little place? Why not Panurgic?”

“Oh, I see what this is,” Rachel teased. “You’re offended that I picked someone else’s continent design over yours.”

“I’m not offended,” Maxwell mumbled, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips.

“Jealous, then?” Rachel asked, bringing her hand to his face and running her thumb lightly over his lips.

His ghost of a smile turned into a full blown grin at this gesture as he opened his eyes to look over at her.

“Maybe,” he answered neutrally.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love the whole Irish feel of Panurgic,” Rachel began, “But Arcadian looks like Iowa and Seattle had a baby and made the perfect rural, forested, coastal area.”

“I don’t think a rural, forested, costal area is a real thing,” Maxwell said, laughing softly.

“You’ve been there,” Rachel countered. “You know it is.”

“I think our place could be in the middle of the desert and I’d still love it,” he told her, turning his head and giving her a light kiss.

Brynn felt slightly embarrassed to be reliving this particular memory of Rachel’s. It seemed much too intimate for her, like something private that she shouldn’t be witnessing. But she supposed it was important for her to understand every aspect of Rachel’s life if she was ever going to try to figure out the last thing Rachel had left behind to sabotage Eris. And hearing that she had some sort of house or hiding place on Arcadian where information might be stored was definitely the kind of thing that would earn her the respect of The Alliance.

“You’re sure Eris doesn’t know?” Maxwell asked again as the walls began to melt away around Brynn, much to her dismay.

She didn’t want to leave.

“Positive,” Rachel answered, just as the world faded away completely.

Brynn woke on the hard wooden floor without jumping or being shocked awake. For the first time since she could remember, she simply opened her eyes and found that her dream had ended. There was no cold sweat; no panting or panic attacks. She was simply awake and slightly colder than she had been when she’d first fallen asleep.

With just one blanket to cover her in the drafty room, she went over the dream in her head again.

Finally having a peaceful dream meant that Brynn actually wanted to remember it, though she found she was already beginning to forget the details. Instead, she was left with a fuzzy recollection of a secret place Rachel and Maxwell had built, and a general feeling of contentment.

She tucked away the idea that Rachel may have hidden information somewhere other than A1 and instead replayed the events of the previous day in her head. The ‘initiation’ she’d been put through had riled her up quite a bit but the most shocking thing to Brynn, was the look on Jonah’s face right before she fell from the horizontal tree trunk overhanging the ocean. She wondered if Jonah were beginning to realize how serious everything they were doing was.

It had always seemed to Brynn like Jonah was along for the ride. He had agreed to help Brynn with finding A1 because he just wanted an adventure, or something out of the norm. Jonah hadn’t ever been the type to think before he leapt, but the way he reacted when she had fallen from the tree trunk made her rethink her view of the carefree boy.

Brynn could hear the rhythmic breathing of Rusty, Devey, Cambria, Bennett, and Amber in the room and she suddenly felt claustrophobic. The house was easily too crowded when everyone was in different rooms. But now, as Brynn tried to sleep in a small, cold room with five other girls, she realized just how much she needed some space.

Trying to be quiet, she walked on bare feet through the house, holding the brown boots Rusty had given her against her chest as she attempted to keep her breathing silent. Wind whipped through the trees outside and made howling sounds as it rushed through the old windows. Shadows danced on the walls and Brynn felt an odd sense of unease that seemed deeper and more primal than her fear of A1.

She hadn’t ever been one to be afraid of the dark, but walking through this old house that didn’t speak to her, she was beginning to understand where that particular phobia came from. A complete lack of technology was a frightening thing. It made her feel alone.

Walking over to one of the windows on the top floor of the boarding house, Brynn pressed her warm palms against the cool glass, a thin layer of condensation forming a perfect halo on the pane around her skin. She looked out at the turbulent and stormy world just beyond the safe confines of the building and felt a desire to be out among the chaos, rather than contained within the house.

Grasping the wooden window frame and pushing it open with the palms of her hands, she tried to ignore the loud scraping sound it made as it inched upward. Wind instantly rushed through the hallway, ruffling her clothes around her and sending a chill through her body.

Brynn slipped her boots on, hoping they would offer her some sort of grip as she attempted to find a place of solitude in the overcrowded house.

Crawling through the open window and standing up on the sill outside, she stretched her arms high over her head, trying to reach the lowest portion of the roof above. It took a moment for Brynn to convince herself that she could easily hoist herself up onto the roof, and an even longer moment for her to pretend she had any idea how to get back down once she was ready to stop toying with her safety.

Eventually she pushed off of the window sill with her boots and used all of her arm strength to pull herself onto the roof.

Her feet scrabbled against the side of the house as she slowly and shakily got herself into a safe position on the very slanted ridge. The wind did nothing to silence her fears and she rubbed the bumpy bottoms of her boots, hoping they would give her some traction on the loose shingles.

Brynn crawled up the roof, taking refuge on the highest point and squinting her eyes to look out over the place Rusty called The Moor. The wind whipping her hair around was enough to convince her that finding a little peace and quiet in the too crowded boarding house wasn’t worth falling off of a rooftop and breaking her neck, but she had already made it to the top and figured she may as well take advantage of the solitude.

Lights twinkled in the distance and Brynn could almost make out people walking around in the city that lay just beyond the foggy field, keeping the boarding house safely separated from the rest of The Moor. She thought briefly that the residents of Panurgic may be coming home from a party at this late hour before reminding herself that they were more than likely returning from a shift at one of the many factories that spewed dark smoke into the constantly overcast sky.

Tall smoke stacks dotted the skyline, backlit by orange factory spotlights that never seemed to be turned off. The wind sent the dark billowing smoke that hung over The Moor skittering across the murky night sky and the sight instantly made Brynn realize just why Rusty and the rest of The Alliance hated people from Halcyon so much.

How could they not dislike someone who was constantly surrounded by beauty and leisure when they were faced with the dark and dreary existence of Panurgic?

“Not much to look at, is it?” said a voice directly behind Brynn, causing her to start and almost sending her rolling down the steep incline of the roof.

Brynn whipped her head around as quickly as she safely could to find the Royter, the one member of The Alliance she hadn’t really spoken to, standing behind her. She didn’t understand how the girl had gotten up onto the roof, let alone how she had managed to sneak up on Brynn without making a sound. Her short black bob framed her face, making her olive skin seem lighter than it really was.

“What are you doing up here?” Brynn asked, a bit more loudly than she had intended.

The wind was beginning to die down, leaving the girls in silence as it slowly turned from the raging wind storm it had just been, into a light breeze that picked up the ends of Brynn’s hair and made them dance across her shoulders.

Royter studied Brynn’s face with her dark, slanted eyes, a small scar near her mouth creasing when she smiled at her.

“I could easily ask you the same question.”

Brynn had to admit that the girl did have her there. She didn’t exactly have a great excuse for nearly getting herself killed as she climbed onto the unstable roof, so instead of fabricating an interesting lie, like her gut told her to, she settled for the less impressive, but more reliable truth.

“I needed somewhere to think and the house is way too crowded,” Brynn said honestly.

“That’s not a crime,” Royter replied easily, taking a seat next to Brynn and crossing her long legs in front of her. “What did you need to think about?”

“I don’t know if you know this or not,” Brynn began, not sure how much Royter was kept in the loop of everything that was going on, “But I dream in Rachel’s memories.”

“I know,” she said simply, not sounding like she was offended that Brynn thought she was uninformed, but simply like she was answering an easy yes or no question. “So what did you dream about tonight?” she asked, guessing where the conversation was heading.

“Rachel and this other scientist who worked in A1 had some sort of house…,” Brynn said, not quite satisfied with the explanation she was giving. “Or a base or hiding place. I don’t really know what it was,” she finished, hoping she was making sense in the late hour.

“Like some sort of safe house?” Royter asked, raising a black eyebrow at Brynn.

“Something like that,” she agreed. “I should probably tell The Alliance tomorrow just in case she hid information there. I just wish she had been a bit more specific about its location. Narrowing it down to Arcadian doesn’t really help me.”

“If I were you,” Royter began, before stopping mid-sentence.

She squinted her eyes for a moment as she stared out over the foggy field below the house and the factory filled city that lay beyond. She didn’t speak again for a moment and Brynn almost wondered if she had forgotten what she was going to say.

“What?” Brynn pressed.

“I wouldn’t tell anyone about the safe house,” Royter finally finished, not looking at Brynn.

She kept her eyes trained straight ahead.

“Why shouldn’t I tell The Alliance?” Brynn asked, genuinely interested in Royter’s reasoning behind this revelation. “Aren’t you on their side? Shouldn’t you want me to share every bit of information I have?”

“I know Rusty and Hadlock put a lot of stock in their little inventions, but knowledge is the only power any one of us has. Give that away and you have nothing,” she said with a shrug. “I, personally, don’t think power is something we should be giving away freely when we have so little of it.”

“But isn’t that the whole reason I’m here?” Brynn asked, still confused. “The only reason The Alliance has been looking for me for so long is because they think I have information they don’t have. Information like this.”

“I’m not telling you what to do,” Royter said simply. “You’re a grown woman capable of making her own decisions. I’m just telling you that I’d keep that particular bit of information to myself until it became absolutely vital to our mission. If you’re on a need to know basis, why shouldn’t they be?” she asked quite reasonably.

“I guess that makes sense,” Brynn agreed, not sure when she had gone from loving the ambition of The Alliance, to withholding information from them on the word of a girl she barely knew.

The two girls sat in silence for a while longer, both pondering over different things before Brynn finally broke the quiet.

“So what are you doing up here?” Brynn asked. “You never told me.”

“Same thing as you,” Royter answered with a smile in Brynn’s direction. “The house is too crowded so I come up here to think sometimes.”

Brynn nodded at this statement but didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say.

She was sure she should trust Royter, but this short five minute conversation was the most Brynn had gotten out of her since meeting her. It was always difficult to trust someone who kept their own secrets so close to the chest.

“What exactly do you do for The Alliance? Rift was very vague about your role,” Brynn asked.

“I deal in the one thing worth trading,” Royter answered simply. “I collect information and help spread the word to other cities.”

“And people just believe you when you tell them there’s some sinister plot going on?” Brynn couldn’t keep the disbelief from her voice.

“Things are different here,” she said. “People on Halcyon wouldn’t believe it because they don’t want to. Everything is perfect there. Why change it?”

“Fair point.”

“On Panurgic people are hoping for a change. They’re more than willing to believe that their lot in life isn’t final. That there’s some way for them to change their fate.”

“Is it really that bad here?” Brynn asked.

She was sure hard work was never a fun thing, but it didn’t seem like the quality of life was as bad as everyone let on.

“Working isn’t what’s difficult. If anything it gives you some purpose in life. I feel like I’d have a harder time living on Halcyon where I never did anything productive,” Royter began, casting a quick glance in Brynn’s direction.

She was actually quite surprised that she was getting the girl to speak to her so freely and so she said nothing and let her continue.

“The thing that’s hard is never progressing. We work hard but there’s no possibility to work towards a better life. Nothing changes here and while it does help that you can change your profession as you get older, you never really progress. Life without progression just doesn’t make any sense.”

“No one progresses on Halcyon,” Brynn pointed out, never having thought of it before but now finding the concept very odd.

“Yeah, but people don’t really care as much because they have everything they want. It’s a lot more obvious when you’re miserable.”

Brynn mulled this over for a moment in silence. It was true that life on Halcyon had always been comfortable, but that had never been enough for her. She’d always wanted more and the suffocating feeling that a lack of progression brought on was not a foreign one to her. She understood the restlessness Royter spoke of.

“Why do you think the A.I.s built A1 on Halcyon?” Brynn finally asked, not sure where the question had come from.

Royter was silent for a long time, staring off into the distance and breathing slowly. Brynn wondered if the girl had heard her question before she finally answered.

“I think the lack of curiosity and the fact that Halcyonites are already so happy made it an ideal location. Why go looking for something when you have everything?”

“You know about the curiosity?” Brynn asked, slightly amazed by this revelation.

“All of us do,” Royter answered, giving Brynn an odd look.

“I haven’t told anyone in my group yet,” she admitted, though she was sure Jonah already knew since he had seen the records room where the information was kept. “I don’t know how you drop something like that on someone.”

“I don’t think they’ll take it as hard as you think. Besides, it’s not like it’s an irreversible thing.”

“What does that mean?”

“The suppressed curiosity is just an impulse they placed in your brain,” she explained. “The more you explore and discover, the more you learn to be curious. Just because they took away the natural inclination doesn’t mean you can’t teach yourself to be curious.”

“Well that makes it better,” Brynn admitted, feeling like she wouldn’t mind telling her friends the news if she could quickly assure them that they had probably already overcome the suppression.

“You don’t seem to have any lack of curiosity,” Royter said.

“That’s because of Rachel,” Brynn reminded her.

“I wonder then,” Royter began slowly, her eyes locked on Brynn, “if you’d be curious about something The Alliance and the A.I.s don’t feel the need to share with those they don’t find important.”

Chapter 19: Ruin

Brynn wasn’t sure when she had consciously decided to follow a girl she hardly knew into the cold, muddy world outside of the boarding house. One minute, she and Royter had been talking on the roof, and the next she was trailing behind the girl through a muddy landscape that offered absolutely no light through the cloudy night sky.

Royter walked expertly through the sinking ground, looking as if the mud didn’t affect her at all as Brynn struggled to keep her boots from being swallowed whole. With each step she took, a deep slurping noise could be heard as the mud reluctantly surrendered her knee high boots back to her. The wind had died down considerably though a small breeze still blew, making the air much chillier than Brynn cared for.

She had asked Royter numerous times where they were going but the girl only told her that she would see once she got there.

They hadn’t gone through The Moor as Brynn had hoped, instead they walked parallel to it, though the lights from the factories quickly faded into the distance, once more engulfing both girls in darkness.

“How far are we going?” Brynn asked after a while, pulling her brown jacket tightly around her and wishing she had brought gloves or a scarf.

Royter wore all black, making it difficult for Brynn to follow her in the darkness. The only hint that she was still on the right path was the small patch of bare neck that could be seen below Royter’s black bob and above her black jacket collar where something that looked like a tattoo of a bird peeked through. Brynn made a mental note to ask her about the picture another time, when she wasn’t close to being swallowed up by the muddy ground.

“We’re almost there,” the girl replied. “It’s surprisingly close, which seems risky on a continent full of curious people who’re likely to run away because they don’t like their lot in life.”

Brynn didn’t understand what Royter was talking about but continued to follow her anyway, knowing that soon enough all would be explained. At least, she hoped all would be explained. If this excursion went anything like all of the other adventures Brynn partook in, all she’d get would be more questions and absolutely no answers.

“Here we are,” Royter finally said, coming to an abrupt stop in front of a small town.

The little wooden houses and few factories that sat squat at the center of the town were dark and silent.

“Where is everyone?” Brynn asked, getting the feeling that the town wasn’t asleep; it was abandoned.

“Gone,” Royter said cryptically.

“They all just… left?”

“In a manner of speaking,” she answered. “They were terminated.”

The word ‘terminated’ sat heavily in Brynn’s mind and she couldn’t help but feel that using the euphemism didn’t make the loss of human life in this town any better.

The silent town suddenly seemed even more eerie to Brynn who couldn’t suppress a shudder at what she was hearing. The small, dark windows seemed to peer back at her as she stared at the still scene. She could imagine little children pressing their faces up against the glass or running happily through the street. The image left a sour taste in her mouth.

“Killed by who?” Brynn managed to ask, though she already knew the answer.

“Eris learned everything she needed to from them so she released the sugar scented gas into the town,” Royter explained. “They probably thought someone was baking cookies,” she added with disgust in her voice, making the exact same comparison Eris had once expressed.

Brynn could remember the way Rachel had taken a deep breath when the gas had entered her chamber, welcoming death it had seemed. And suddenly, something didn’t make sense to Brynn. If she was a clone of Rachel, how could she possibly dream in a memory that had happened after Rachel put her DNA into the human creation bay?

“Unless we were still linked somehow at that point,” Brynn mumbled.

“What?” Royter asked, looking at if she thought Brynn might be unstable.

She wasn’t quite ready to share her suspicions with the girl she didn’t trust yet, and so instead she said, “I thought they only terminated entire continents, not individual towns.”

“Apparently this town was too useless. It didn’t give them what they wanted, so they got rid of it.”

“How did no one else find out about this?” Brynn asked. “It’s so close to The Moor. Surely someone has wandered out here and found an empty town?”

“I think Rift knows about it,” Royter said quietly. “But I don’t think he wants anyone else knowing that we’re all a button push away from being killed. I think he wants us to feel safer than we are.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Brynn protested. “If anything, this would help his cause.”

“He wants us to feel picked on,” Royter said. “He wants us to feel out of control enough to do something about it and join his cause. He doesn’t want us to feel like no matter what we do we’re beat. If that were the case, no one would join him, they’d all be too scared to cause problems because we can be so easily destroyed.”

Royter didn’t continue, though she looked like she wanted to. Instead she walked into the empty city, Brynn following closely behind her. They wound through silent cobblestone streets past small homes and large factory buildings. Brynn sniffed the air a few times, swearing she could still smell the sugar that clung to the walls and for the first time in her life, she didn’t crave sugar cubes.

“How did you find this place?” Brynn asked as they neared the center of the small town where a dried up fountain marked the town’s main focal point.

“I like to know things so I make it my business to collect knowledge,” she answered, walking on silent feet to the fountain and siting on the dusty stone there.

“How do you know this town was destroyed by Eris? Maybe the citizens left because of something else.”

Royter gave Brynn a pitying look and suddenly made her feel very naive for asking such a childish question.

“Hadlock isn’t the only one who can look up records from A1,” she said.

“Does Rift know that you’ve found this city?” Brynn asked, beginning to wonder how much she could really trust the man she didn’t know at all.

“I don’t think so,” Royter answered uncertainly. “I feel like he would have talked to me about it if he did. He’d want to make sure I didn’t tell anyone else so he can keep them all blissfully ignorant enough to follow him.”

“If you think he’s so awful, why are you a part of his movement?”

“I don’t necessarily think he’s awful,” she answered. “I think his heart is in the right place for wanting to get rid of the A.I.s and carry out Rachel’s wishes.”

“But?”

“But, I don’t think withholding information is the way to do what he wants. He pretends he wants to teach his followers the gritty truth so that they’ll be scared into helping him, but he doesn’t tell them everything. A little fear is a good reason to join a rebellion; a lot of fear is a good way to break a rebellion.”

“So you don’t think he should withhold information from us?” Brynn asked, slightly incredulously.

“I don’t,” she confirmed.

“And yet you don’t think I should tell him what I found out tonight?” Royter’s mixed signals were beginning to give Brynn a headache.

“If he does it, why shouldn’t you? It only seems fair, right?” she asked.

“I guess,” Brynn answered, still confused. She had been right, this trip hadn’t offered her any answers, only more questions.

“Brynn, do me a favor,” Royter said after a moment of silence. “Don’t be so trusting of people when you leave for Halcyon tomorrow. It’s just going to get you into trouble.”

Chapter 20: Strategy

The trip to Panurgic had seemed endless when they’d taken it the first time. Returning to Halcyon, however, Brynn almost felt that she hadn’t had time to mentally prepare herself for encountering A1 again before they were all practically there. Even though she had come to terms with the fact that she may actually have to face Eris again, it didn’t mean she had to be happy about it.

The woman could reduce her to a sobbing mess just by speaking and Brynn wasn’t proud of the power the Angel had over her. She felt as if the memories Rachel had left her with were more of a hindrance than a help. Because of her constant nightmares Brynn was completely unbalanced when faced with anything having to do with Eris. It was as if her dreams had conditioned her to fall apart the minute she heard the Angel’s voice.

For someone who prided themselves on being strong and adventurous, the effect was quite a nuisance.

For the duration of their journey through the water, Brynn had sat by herself, thinking of every possible scenario she may come up against in A1 and avoiding speaking to the others with Royter’s advice echoing through her mind.

She thought of all the ways she could stop Eris: 0.

All the ways Eris could capture her then torture her for information: 387.

All of the reasons they shouldn’t go into the deathtrap of a facility that would probably end up killing them: 15.

And finally, the reasons why they should go in: 1.

The odds didn’t exactly appear to be in their favor, but Brynn didn’t have the heart to point that out to her friends. In fact, she was pretty sure they already knew, but it seemed like everyone was putting on a brave face and trying to ignore the facts.

She was glad that Royter hadn’t come on the trip with them. She knew the girl was trying to help her, but their conversation had left Brynn feeling very uncertain about where Royter stood with the rest of the group. She presented yet another mystery that Brynn couldn’t solve and at that moment, that was the last thing she needed.

Now, as Brynn sat on the bench of an old Worker train car that Rusty swore she had ‘debugged and repaired’, she couldn’t help but feel that everything was happening much too fast. They were hardly prepared for the assault they were about to lead on A1 and on the best of days, Rusty and her friends could barely keep from killing each other.

Rift had opted to stay behind on the mission, directing Hadlock through his tablet as to what he should do. He had claimed to stay behind because he’d be of more use to them with Hadlock’s technology at his hands, but Brynn knew the truth. Rift had lived a hard life on a difficult planet and he didn’t possess the youth that an easy life brought on. He was too old to come on the mission but he didn’t want to be out of the loop where his life’s work was concerned.

She couldn’t really say she blamed him, though she did feel sad for the man who had dedicated so much of his life to bringing down Eris. A task that monumental was bound to disappoint time after time. Not to mention the fact that Brynn now felt that he was putting all of his hope on this mission that was definitely going to fail.

“Where did you find this train car again?” Ty asked Rusty who sat at the front of the compartment with her hand poised over a control.

“It’s one of the Worker’s trains,” she answered absentmindedly.

She kept her eyes focused on the tunnel ahead of them with a purpose. Their train car resided on a set of tracks that ran parallel to the main train route underground. Rusty had informed the group that the tracks were used for damaged trains so they didn’t actually go anywhere, they just got the damaged car out of the way.

“Won’t they notice you’ve taken it?” Amber asked.

“I haven’t moved it from its original spot yet,” Rusty replied, still distant as she watched some unknown spot in the dark tunnel ahead.

“But you plan to, right?” Amber pressed.

“Why else would we all be crammed in this place?”

“What are you looking at?” Bennett asked, causing Rusty to sigh with annoyance at the constant stream of questions.

“I’m waiting for the train going from A1 to Eastern Metropolis. Once it passes by us, I’ll put our train car in motion towards A1. Ours isn’t as fast but I’m hoping that with their stop in Eastern Metropolis, we’ll be able to outrun them to the facility,” Rusty said, unconvincingly.

“You’re hoping we can outrun their train?” Brynn asked, suddenly wary.

“Most of what Rusty does is hoping something works,” Tate put in from his bench.

He had his long legs crossed and was fidgeting with something that Brynn was sure would explode at any minute, given what Rusty had told her about his tendency to build unstable bombs.

“And most of what you do is singeing your eyebrows off because you can’t make a stable explosive to save your life,” Devey shot from the back of the train.

The submarine ride from Panurgic had been a tense one to say the least, with Devey constantly launching rude comments to anyone who crossed her line of sight. Rusty and Hadlock had bickered the entire ride about who was smarter. Tate sat in the corner by himself causing sparks between his fingers every once in a while from one experiment or another. Ty and Jonah had (apparently) not forgiven each other yet for whatever argument they were in and sat as far away from one another as possible. Amber and Bennett sat together whispering behind their hands and shooting Hadlock secretive glances every few minutes. Dash sat quietly by himself (though Brynn suspected he was listening in on everyone else’s conversations). And Brynn tried to be the mediator between the ship full of crazy that was passing between Panurgic and Halcyon, all the while giving herself pep talks and trying to forget the image of the empty town outside of The Moor.

“As compared to the girl who doesn’t actually have a job so we just call her the ‘medic’ and hope none of us ever get hurt?” Tate answered with a raised eyebrow.

His tone wasn’t particularly malicious. If anything it sounded as if he were egging Devey on, but all she did was shoot him an icy look, cross her arms, and turn away, leaving Cambria to try to piece things back together.

“I think we all have an important role in the group,” she offered helpfully.

“Except for those two,” Devey said, looking over at Amber and Bennett.

They had definitely not gotten off to a great start and the longer they were in closed quarters together, the worse it seemed to get.

“Glad I finally get to visit the land of the bimbos with the two leaders.”

“I hope you realize I could kill you with any article of clothing on this train and make it look like an accident,” Amber said with pursed lips, trying to contain her rage at the small angelic devil.

“Look, it speaks,” Devey answered with mock shock.

“Will you guys shut up?” Rusty yelled, watching the tunnel intensely. “The train will be passing by soon and if we don’t leave the second it passes us we might be smashed to pieces on its return trip. So be quiet,” she finished dramatically, giving everyone a good enough reason to stop bickering for at least a few minutes.

“I still don’t know how she rigged this thing in a way the A.I.s won’t be able to detect,” Brynn whispered to Jonah.

She had decided to sit by him for the train trip, feeling like she had neglected him too often lately in favor of shielding Ty’s feelings.

“I’m a genius,” Rusty called from the front of the train. Happy to break her concentration to remind the group of this ‘fact’.

“And she has scary good hearing,” Jonah whispered to Brynn behind his hand, laughing as he said it, his blue eyes creasing in the corners as he looked at Brynn.

“Here it comes,” Rusty exclaimed, just as a single light could be seen in the distance of the otherwise darkened tunnel. “I’m turning off the lights in our compartment so they can’t see us,” Rusty informed them just as the train went pitch black.

It was an eerie feeling, sitting in the dark of a train car that actually had windows, unlike the civilian trains Brynn was so used to.

The single beam of light grew larger as the ground underneath them began to rumble. Brynn grabbed Jonah’s hand, hoping that Rusty really did know what she was talking about and held her breath until the train passed right alongside their stationary car; so close that the train swayed back and forth but not close enough to actually hit.

The second the train passed by them Rusty went to work. She got the train in motion slowly at first, but it soon picked up speed and Brynn had to admit that she was, yet again, impressed by the girl’s ability to do things she could never attempt in a million years.

By Rusty’s calculation, the ride from Eastern Metropolis (which they currently resided under) to A1 would take them a little less than six hours. The Worker tunnel was a more direct route than the civilian train route above ground and even with their slower train car they were making good timing.

Despite the fact that Brynn was sure everyone was panicking slightly, most of their now large group somehow managed to sleep on the way to A1. Brynn couldn’t even imagine sleeping with the possibility of seeing Eris again hovering over her like some inescapable nightmare.

Unable to take her own silence anymore, Brynn wandered to the front of the train where Rusty sat at the controls. The girl didn’t actually have to do much once the train was in motion, but something told Brynn she liked to look like she was in charge.

“I’ve got a question for you,” Brynn said quietly, not wanting to wake those who were sleeping or attract the attention of the few who weren’t.

“Color me surprised,” Rusty said sarcastically before glancing over at Brynn and smiling her wide smile to show she was joking.

“Why does everyone on Panurgic work so hard? Why not just refuse?”

“We don’t work because the A.I.s tell us to,” Rusty said indignantly. “I mean… we do. But we work because hours of work earn us food, clothes, and supplies. No one has to work but those who don’t, die off because they don’t have anything to eat. The way they’ve set up our society we don’t really have much of a choice.”

Brynn thought this over for a moment, wondering if there were some way to break that cycle before realizing that if there were, the house full of orphaned geniuses probably would have figured it out.

“I want to know what that third thing is that Rachel talks about in the video,” Rusty began, looking at Brynn sideways. “You really don’t know? You haven’t dreamed about it yet?”

“I don’t know for sure what it is,” Brynn began cautiously, looking over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening to them. “But I have an idea.”

“What is it?”

“I think it might be Jonah,” she said quietly.

“Jonah?”

“I swear I saw him in one of my dreams once. Inside of A1,” Brynn explained, trying to remember the brief flash of the side of a face she’d seen. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was enough to convince her that Jonah might have a bigger part to play in their story than she had originally thought. “I think he might be made from human DNA like me.”

“Why though?”

“I think he might have been a scientist who worked with Rachel. Maybe he knew some secrets too and Rachel was hoping he’d pass them on to his generation.”

Rusty looked over her shoulder at Jonah who slept on one of the benches inside of the train car. She studied him for a moment, watching him as if she could understand exactly what he was by looking at him long enough.

“Have you told Jonah about your idea?” she asked.

“Not really,” Brynn admitted. “I didn’t want to sound crazy or anything. Plus he hasn’t ever told me about dreaming in memories and I’m pretty sure, based on my situation, he would have mentioned it by now if it was something he was plagued with.”

“You should probably tell him about your suspicions pretty soon to see if he thinks there’s any stock in them,” Rusty said. “You never know, maybe he’s not realizing that he’s dreaming in memories until you mention it to him.”

When the group was only one short hour from A1, Hadlock gathered them all together to ‘debrief’ them, as he put it.

“Everyone needs to change into their white clothing after we’re done with this meeting,” he said, pushing his glasses up on his nose once more and looking very happy to be commanding such a large audience. Rusty huffed that she had been demoted from the center of attention for a moment. “Also, I’ve made each of you an ear piece to wear. I’ll be able to hear you from the train, you should all be able to hear each other, and I’ll give you instructions on where to go and what to do.”

“He has permission to boss us around. It’s like his dream come true,” Devey whispered to Cambria, though it was more than loud enough for everyone to hear.

Hadlock shot her a dirty look but continued on with his speech.

“I’ll be splitting you up into three groups because, unfortunately, Eris is also a genius and split all of her important files up so that we couldn’t just break into one room and have every secret they’ve ever kept.”

“Smart lady,” Tate said with a sigh.

“Yeah but she never planned on people working as a team to get her files,” Rusty pointed out.

“Rusty, Devey, and Cambria,” Hadlock said, looking at each of them in turn. “You guys are in charge of getting the files on ‘Earth’,” he said, the word sounding odd and foreign coming out of his mouth. “Since we have the man power, we might as well get as much information as we can on the place. We don’t want to be caught completely off guard if it plays a bigger role in Eris’s plans than we thought.”

“Plus it probably won’t be that difficult to get,” Rusty said. “I don’t think she’s too concerned with us learning about that other place.”

“True,” Hadlock agreed before continuing, not worrying about the fact that Brynn and her friends were completely in the dark on what they were talking about. “Amber, Jonah, and Brynn,” he began, getting their attention right away. “You guys will be in charge of stealing any of Rachel’s old files related to Eris, her inner workings, and how in the world we shut her down or corrupt her file or whatever we need to do to get rid of her.”

“Awesome,” Amber said, surprising Brynn, yet again, with how on board she suddenly was for adventure.

All of her friends had been surprising her lately and Royter’s words soon came back to her; maybe you could teach yourself to be curious. Once they were able to see that something bigger than them was actually going on they seemed to be ready to do their part.

“Last we have Ty, Bennett, Tate, and Dash,” Hadlock said. “You guys will be stealing information about the sugar scented gas. I want to know where it is, how it’s deployed, and how we can shut down manufacturing and destroy whatever stock they already have saved up.”

“Fair enough,” Ty said, looking over at Brynn and obviously worried that he wouldn’t be there to watch over her during their separate missions.

“You guys will actually be pulling double duty because I want you to plant the bug in the facility as well,” Hadlock told them, handing over a small device. “Which is why I’m sending Dash with you. He’s our stealthy little spy. I’ll let you know how to install it once you’re in position.”

“And I’m guessing you’ll be staying in the safety of the train car?” Devey asked sourly.

“For your information, I’ll be tracking the movement of not only you guys, but the A.I.s to navigate you safely through A1. You’ll have two way comms units in your ears so we can hear each other and I’ll let you know where to go. So you’d better start being nicer to me or I might just have you turn down a wrong corner by accident.”

“You wouldn’t,” Devey said, narrowing her eyes at the boy.

“Do you really want to take that chance?” he asked her with a challenging look. “Besides, I’ll be staying in the train car, which we’ll move off to the side on a maintenance track. If the Worker train comes by and stops at A1, chances are they’ll notice there’s a train car that wasn’t there before and if they do, I’m probably a dead man anyway,” he said nonchalantly.

“It kind of sounds like we’ll probably all end up dying from this plan,” Brynn said dryly.

“That’s probably true,” Hadlock agreed with a slow nod. “But won’t it be fun to go down swinging?”

Chapter 21: Pinch

“Brynn!” Rusty called as the groups were preparing to head into A1. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Jonah shot Brynn an odd look but she shrugged her shoulders and walked over to the girl, anxious to hurry up and get their mission over with. They had guided the train onto the small stretch of track that ran parallel to the main line, forcing the group to walk over the tracks to get into the facility.

“What is it?” Brynn asked, a little more impatiently than she had intended.

“I want you to take this with you in there,” Rusty said, handing over a small metal ball with a red button on top. It was no larger than an egg and fit easily into Brynn’s pocket.

“What’s this?”

“It’s the pinch Hadlock’s been working on,” Rusty said, making absolutely no sense to Brynn.

“What’s a pinch?” she asked, turning the small device over in her hand before Rusty covered it with her own, wordlessly directing Brynn to put it in her pocket.

“If you press that red button within three feet of an A.I., it scrambles their inner functioning for about a minute,” Rusty explained in a hushed voice. “It’ll completely immobilize the A.I.s so they can’t attack you and you’ll have a chance to get away. It takes a good ten minutes to recharge so don’t push it unless they’re right on you and you have no hope of escaping.”

Brynn looked at the sphere with new eyes, impressed that Rusty and Hadlock could have constructed something so advanced.

“Don’t tell anyone you have this,” Rusty warned in a serious tone. “Anyone.”

“Why not?” Brynn asked.

“Just don’t. Don’t tell Ty, or Rift, or Amber… anyone,” she said, forcefully reminding Brynn of the distrust Royter had voiced before Brynn left for Halcyon. She couldn’t help but feel that this group had a serious trust issue going on.

“Why are you giving this to me and no one else? If we have a way to stop the A.I.s we should all be using it.”

“The sad truth is, the A.I.s will almost definitely go after you before any of us. They want you Brynn and they’ll do all they can to get you, so it makes the most sense to give the pinch to you.”

“And why doesn’t anyone else have one?”

“We’ve only been able to make one so far,” Rusty answered dejectedly, looking disappointed in herself. “We haven’t been able to replicate it on a larger scale or else we’d just shoot the entire facility. Plus they aren’t exactly easy to make so we’ve only gotten one successful prototype so far.”

“Thank you for this,” Brynn told her, pocketing the device and hoping she wouldn’t need to use it.

“Just don’t tell anyone.”

“Brynn, turn left,” Hadlock’s static filled voice commanded through the communication unit in Brynn’s ear. “You should be clear. A few A.I.s just passed through that hallway and took an elevator to another floor.”

“I still don’t think I trust your technology enough to believe you know exactly where they are at all times,” Brynn whispered back to the boy who sat safely on the train far underground.

“Well, you don’t have a choice so turn left and follow that hall to the end. You’ll see a door on your right. I want you to go through it.”

Though Brynn definitely didn’t think they were safe just because Hadlock had apparently found a way to detect the A.I.s, she was glad they weren’t going into the facility as blindly as they had the first time.

“We got the files,” Ty said from wherever he and his group were. “We’re transmitting them to you right now Hadlock.”

“I see them,” Hadlock confirmed. “Did Dash plant the bug like I told him to?”

“Got it,” the young boy’s voice rang out happily.

“Head back as soon as the files finish uploading,” Hadlock instructed. “Rusty, how are you guys doing?”

“We’re good so far we just…,” Rusty began, before nothing but static filled the ear pieces.

“Rusty?” Brynn asked.

“This stupid facility is like a maze and we keep…,” her voice cut out again.

“She’s getting out of range,” Hadlock explained to the group. “Her comms unit keeps going out.”

“How will she know where the A.I.s are?” Brynn asked incredulously.

“Brynn, stop and go into the door on your left right now. Some A.I.s just got off the elevator on your floor,” Hadlock yelled, causing her, Amber, and Jonah to bolt into the nearest room.

The three friends pressed against the door as the silence persisted over their ear pieces. It was as if the entire group were collectively holding their breath. The stark white walls were just as blinding as Brynn remembered from her dreams and from the last visit she’d made to A1. She was glad that, this time, everyone was wearing white and they had someone to guide them in their search.

“You’re clear,” Hadlock finally said.

“Brynn, are you doing okay?” Ty asked over the ear piece.

“We’re fine. What about you guys?”

“We’re already almost back to the train,” he told her, sounding more relieved than she’d ever heard him. “Now you just need to make sure you get back here too.”

“Will do,” she told him with a smile that she knew he’d hear, even if he couldn’t see it.

“Are we almost there?” Amber asked behind Brynn.

She and Jonah had been mostly silent the entire time they’d been in the facility and Brynn could see how shocking the whole thing was for Amber. She could remember the first time she’d seen A1 and how overwhelming the entire experience had been. She couldn’t really be surprised by her friend’s amazement.

“That door coming up on your right should be where the files are held.”

“Let’s get this over with then,” Brynn said with a shudder.

She opened the door slowly and was relieved to find that the room was empty, just as Hadlock knew it would be.

It looked just as every other space in the sprawling facility did, too white, too clean, and loaded with screens and consoles.

“I trust you and everything Hadlock,” Amber began in a whisper. “But I don’t believe for one second that the Workers don’t know we’re here. They have to have cameras or something.”

“I’m not detecting anything, so if they have them, they’re pretty well hidden,” he reassured her. “Besides, if they knew we were here, they’d be doing a pretty awful job of stopping us from stealing their information.”

“It just seems way too easy,” Amber went on undeterred.

“Easy?” Hadlock asked incredulously. “This was not easy. The preparation alone--.”

“Would you both be quiet?” Brynn interrupted, feeling entirely on edge about her current situation. “I’d really like to make it out of here alive.”

“We can do this, Brynn,” Jonah said behind her, giving her shoulder a light, reassuring squeeze. “We’re so close.”

“Get to one of the computers and plug in the card I gave you,” Hadlock instructed in Brynn’s ear, sounding shaken at his argument with Amber.

She did as she was told quickly, wanting nothing more than to be on a completely different continent than Eris. She was sure they wouldn’t get away with what they were doing but was amazed that so far, the plan actually seemed to be going off perfectly.

“It’s plugged in,” Brynn said.

“Good, it should start automatically sending me the files we need,” Hadlock told her.

“How long will it take?” Amber asked nervously, looking over her shoulder every few seconds and fidgeting with her cotton candy pink hair.

“Done,” Hadlock exclaimed. “Now get the card out of the computer and get back here as soon as you can. I still can’t hear Rusty but her, Devey, and Cambria should be back in about two minutes. I expect it’ll take you guys about five and then we can get out of here.”

“I switched the tracks like Rusty showed me,” Ty piped up from the train. “That way we can leave right when you guys get back without running the risk of hitting an actual Worker train.”

“All right then we’ll hurry back,” Brynn said, looking at her friends almost happily. “Can’t wait to not be in here.”

“Ditto,” Amber agreed nervously.

They navigated through the maze of a facility that was A1, cloaked in complete silence except for the occasional instruction from Hadlock on which door or hallway to take. Jonah walked close to Brynn, his protective side coming out as they got closer and closer to their goal. His hand absentmindedly brushed her back a few times as he led her down the hallways and she tried to ignore the shiver it sent through her.

“You guys should have a straight shot out now. Just go down the hall and take your third door on the right,” Hadlock said, sounding like someone who was very happy to almost be done with this experience.

Brynn walked a little faster with the end in sight. She tried to keep her breathing even and ignore the nerves that were rising up in her stomach at the thought that they might actually make it out of A1 undetected. It seemed much too good to be true.

“We’re almost out,” she whispered to herself, chanting that same phrase internally to keep herself from breaking down.

“Well, you’re definitely out of time,” said a deep, rich voice that Brynn would recognize anywhere.

“Brynn, what’s going on?” Ty asked in her ear. He had obviously heard Eris’s voice as well. “Hadlock is anyone near them?”

“My screen doesn’t show anything,” he promised in a panicked voice.

“Oh, so you’re all connected are you?” Eris asked.

Brynn spun around on her heel to see the Angel from her nightmares walking towards her with two other Workers; one Brynn had never seen before, and the Worker with short black hair who had harassed her in the library many times back in Seaside.

Amber backed up a few steps, her mouth hanging open in shock and her eyes wide as she saw Eris for the first time. Part of Brynn always knew Amber didn’t really believe her stories, but seeing her now, she knew her friend would never doubt her again.

Jonah kept his eyes firmly locked on Eris but didn’t seem frightened and Brynn instantly wished she could be as brave as her friend. He stood a little straighter and set his jaw firmly as the Angel came closer to them. She could imagine that he was reliving the last time he had been with Eris; when she had given him the scar on his cheek.

As disturbing as it was for Brynn to see Eris again, there was something much more pressing about her appearance that Brynn couldn’t ignore, no matter how eager she was to run away from the woman.

“Blood,” Brynn said quietly, as the woman grew ever closer to her.

Eris’s stark white pants and lab coat were spotted with red drops and a large line of smeared red liquid dripped from her stark white face, making the Angel even more terrifying than Brynn thought humanly possible.

“That’s blood,” she said again.

The contrast of Eris’s pale skin against the bright red blood that smeared her face was one that made Brynn sick, and suddenly, she was glad that Maxwell had only been subjected to gas rather than the full wrath of Eris’s physical prowess.

“Really now, Brynn,” Eris said as she closed the distance between herself and the three people who were breaking into her facility.

Her two Workers stood silently behind her, staring at the scene before them with mild amusement on their sharp features.

“Did you think I didn’t know you were here?” she asked innocently. “I know everything you do darling.”

Brynn’s stomach turned at the false endearment coming from the Angel’s lips and she wondered what she was playing at with her current act. If she really had known Brynn was there, then she knew about all of them which brought the next question to Brynn’s mind; whose blood was on Eris’s face?

“Brynn, we need to go,” Amber whispered.

Eris’s expression of innocence instantly turned to one of anger as she looked at Amber. In a flash the woman knocked Amber off of her feet, sending her flying into the wall and crashing onto the floor.

“Brynn what’s going on!” Ty shouted. “Brynn!”

“I liked it better when it was just the two of us,” Eris said as she turned her attention back to Brynn.

Her voice was calm once more as she slowly brought her hand up to Brynn’s cheek in a delicate manner. Brynn closed her eyes and tried to calm her frantic heartbeat as a long cold finger stroked her face before reaching up to tuck her long black hair behind her ear.

“That’s a lovely piece of equipment,” Eris said smoothly, letting her finger run over the comms unit. “Maybe you aren’t as brainless as I thought.”

Brynn finally opened her eyes, her legs shaking so much that she thought she might fall over at any moment. She tried to channel Rachel; to be as brave as the girl she was made from, but no matter how hard she tried, Eris’s psychological hold on her was too strong.

She glanced over at Jonah for a moment, wondering if the boy stood a chance now that they had been caught. Eris didn’t want him, and there was no doubt in Brynn’s mind that she’d dispose of him and Amber at any second. She just wasn’t sure if she’d make it quick, or draw it out in an attempt to get into Brynn’s head.

Amber groaned behind the group as she got slowly to her feet. Eris’s eyes twitched over to the girl for a moment before finding Brynn once more. Apparently the task at hand was more important than keeping Amber on her back.

“Whose blood is that?” Brynn finally managed to ask, her voice sounding small and frightened.

“That’s not what matters right now,” Eris said, looking over at Jonah as if sizing him up. She smiled a terrifying smile at the boy before turning her attention back to her prize. “I think you and I need a little one-on-one time. We need to get rid of the excess.”

“Don’t you dare touch them,” Brynn shouted, remembering almost too late about the pinch Rusty had given her.

“Brynn, don’t make things difficult. You know how well that ended for Rachel,” Eris said with a self-satisfied smile. “Now, why don’t you come with me while they take care of your friends?” Eris suggested as she grabbed Brynn by the wrist in her iron grip.

Acting purely on instinct, Brynn kicked out at the woman in front of her, catching her in the stomach. Brynn knew she was absolutely no match for what Rift had referred to as a ‘human with upgrades’, but the element of surprise had worked in her favor as Eris released Brynn’s wrist and took a step back from the unexpected force of the blow.

“Get them,” Eris screamed out in rage as she lunged towards Brynn and her friends.

Panicking, Brynn shoved her hand frantically into her pocket to locate the small device and pulled it out just as Eris reached out for Brynn’s throat.

“What is that?” Eris asked, sounding genuinely shocked by the sight of the little metal ball and stopping her hand only inches from Brynn’s neck.

Her Workers stopped as well as they took in the unknown object in Brynn’s outstretched palm nervously.

Jonah looked at the device in her hand too, his eyes widening as he recognized it from the first time they’d met Hadlock.

“Brynn?” he asked, puzzled as she pushed the button that she knew would save them.

It emitted a short, high-pitched beep, and at first she thought it hadn’t worked.

“What is that thing?” Amber asked from behind her, coming closer to her friend for the first time since seeing Eris.

Brynn was silent but looked straight ahead at the terrifying Angel in front of her and the Workers who stood still. Eris wore a scowl with her purple eyes narrowed at Brynn and her arm still outstretched, but she didn’t move. Her chilling face was completely frozen as she stared blankly ahead.

“It worked,” Brynn said in amazement.

“Brynn get out of there!” Ty shouted in her ear. “Amber pull her out!”

“The pinch worked, Hadlock!” Brynn yelled, looking at Eris and her Workers in amazement and wondering how the Angel could possibly be in such a vulnerable state at that moment.

“It only lasts for a minute, you need to run,” Hadlock reminded her, trying to remain calm in the face of their plans falling apart around them.

“Come on,” Amber yelled at her, pulling Brynn by the wrist away from the woman who wanted to kill her.

“Right,” Brynn agreed, coming to her senses. “Jonah, we’ve got to leave now,” Brynn said over her shoulder, finally realizing the dire situation they were in.

Not hearing any response from her friend, she turned around to pull him away as well, knowing full well that the shock of seeing Eris frozen was enough to keep anyone from wanting to leave.

“Jonah!” Brynn shouted again, looking at her friend.

Her friend, however, was not looking at her.

Instead, Jonah stared straight ahead at the spot where Brynn had been only moments before.

His eyes unblinking and his body immobilized.

Just like Eris.

Chapter 22: Knowledge

“Stop it!” Brynn screamed as she forcefully fought against Amber who was dragging her backwards towards the train. “Let me go!”

“Ty, help me grab her,” Amber yelled back to the train car where half of their group sat waiting, complete shock and lack of comprehension on their faces.

They had no idea what had just happened.

“It’s not what you think,” Brynn shrieked in a complete state of terror, still using all of the strength she could muster to fight against the grips of Amber and Ty who had just joined them.

“What happened?” he asked Amber as he grabbed Brynn by the arm and began pulling her towards the train. “Where’s Jonah? Did Eris get him?”

“Jonah is an A.I.,” Amber said grimly as she continued to force her friend away from the facility.

“He’s not,” Brynn insisted, tears now pooling in her eyes as she pulled against her friends. “There’s something wrong with him. We can’t just leave him in there with her!” she cried. “She’s going to kill him!”

“Stop screaming,” Amber said harshly, slapping a hand over Brynn’s mouth and looping her other arm around the girl’s stomach to drag her onto the train. “You’re going to bring the Workers down on all of us.”

Brynn continued to struggle against her friend’s grasp but her fight was quickly leaving her as tears began pouring down her cheeks in full force. She shook with the effort of holding her emotions in but was failing miserably, gasping for air that wouldn’t seem to fill her lungs.

Amber, who had suddenly become the unspoken leader, shoved Brynn into a chair, looking over at Ty and saying, “Make sure she doesn’t try to leave, I’m going to go find Rusty so we can get out of here. The only reason we’re still alive is because Eris is frozen and can’t call the facility down on us.”

Ty sat silently next to Brynn, placing his arm over her shaking shoulders with a look of complete shock on his face.

“Rusty?” Hadlock called over the comms unit from his position at the front of the train.

They had already started it up and it had begun to slowly move forward.

“Rusty the train is moving you guys have to get here now or you’ll miss it.”

“They got her!” Rusty shouted once the static died down on her end.

They could hear a high pitched screaming coming from the entrance to A1 as Rusty appeared, carrying one of the twins over her shoulder.

Rusty and the girl were covered in blood, much like Eris had been, and Rusty wore a look of grim determination on her face as she carried the screaming girl into the train.

The two of them hopped in the car that was quickly picking up speed and shut the sliding door as they left A1, engulfing the group in an eerie half silence only broken up by the sobs of Brynn and the screams of the unknown twin. Rusty plopped down on a bench, letting the twin fall to the floor of the car in a heap; her small pale hands clawing at the ground and leaving little red lines wherever they touched.

“She killed Cambria,” Rusty whispered as her voice cracked, though her eyes were surprisingly dry.

“He didn’t know what he was,” Brynn said between muffled cries that were barely audible over the blood curdling screams Devey was emitting.

Bennett ran over to the girl and pulled her into a hug, trying to comfort her and quiet her terror but Devey lashed out, pushing Bennett away from her and continuing her ear piercing screaming.

“She didn’t just kill her,” Rusty went on in a shocked monotone over the noise Devey was making. She was apparently oblivious to the chaos going on around them as she stared off into the distance. “She completely ripped her apart. With her bare hands. In two seconds.”

“Stop it!” Devey screamed, her voice sounding like shattered glass as it broke over them. “We have to go get her!”

“She’s dead,” Rusty yelled. “You saw what Eris did to her.”

“Stop!” Devey shrieked again, clamping her hands over her ears and beginning to rock back and forth on the floor of the train car, her blood soaked clothes leaving red marks on the ground.

Dash and Tate sat in the corner of the car silently, Dash’s eyes watering with tears that he silently wiped away as Amber and Hadlock held a whispered conference. Rusty placed her hand against the window of the train car, leaving a bloody handprint on the glass.

“They have to know how we got in. They’re going to shut down the train tunnel and kill all of us,” she said slowly. “They’ll collapse the tunnel before they let us get away.”

“Rusty, that’s not helping,” Hadlock shouted over at the shell-shocked girl.

“Ty, he didn’t know what he was,” Brynn insisted, looking over at her friend and grabbing his face, forcing him to look into her eyes. “You have to believe me. He never knew what he was.”

“Brynn, we’ll talk about it later,” Ty said in a hushed voice, glancing tentatively over at Devey who was now emitting a low, strangled sob.

The entire train compartment was in a state of pandemonium and after a while, Brynn couldn’t tell who was crying, who was shouting, or what was real.

“Rift?” she heard Hadlock say from the train controls. “We had a leak in our group. You need to get everything out of the house, they know who we are and where our base is. We need to relocate on Halcyon and figure out what we’ll do from there.”

Hadlock paused for a moment and all that could be heard was Rusty’s heavy breathing, Devey’s whimpering as she rocked herself, and Brynn’s occasional sniffle as she tried to stop the tears that wouldn’t relent.

“I’m just hoping they don’t have a way to cave in the tunnel or we’ll all be dead pretty soon,” he went on, his one sided conversation echoing through the train car. “Yeah, we got the files and the bug planted,” he said.

He paused again and looked over at Brynn for a moment before quickly bringing his eyes to the floor and lowering his voice, though Brynn could still hear his last statement as it rang through her head.

“It was Jonah”

The train ride from A1 to Eastern Metropolis was a long and tense one. With the constant possibility of the A.I.s caving the tunnel in and the emotional strain they were all under, the train car felt more like a time bomb ready to go off.

Devey had fallen asleep on the ground, refusing to let anyone touch her and still soaked in her sister’s blood. Rusty had stopped repeating, “Eris ripped her apart” and instead rested her head against the window of the train car, her eyes wide and unblinking as she stared at the tunnel walls flying past. Tate, Dash, and Bennett kept to themselves, trying not to get in anyone’s way and keeping quiet while Amber and Hadlock talked in low voices at the front of the compartment about what information had been compromised because of Jonah.

Brynn lay on a bench with her head in Ty’s lap as his thumb made small circles over the back of her neck soothingly.

“He didn’t know,” Brynn said for the millionth time, her voice thick from her constant stream of tears. “He didn’t know what he was and we just left him there to die with her.” She wiped at her puffy sore eyes with the back of her hand.

“Brynn, if he’s really an A.I., Eris isn’t going to hurt him,” Ty reasoned softly, his gentle voice beginning to calm her nerves as it always did.

“But look what she did to him last time. She left that scar on his cheek.”

Ty stopped rubbing the small circles on the back of Brynn’s neck at this statement, his face reflecting the deep thought he had fallen into.

“A.I.s don’t get hurt. They don’t get scars,” Ty said in confusion.

“Exactly,” Brynn agreed. “So he can’t be an A.I., which means we left a human being from the opposition in the lair of a psychopath.”

“No Brynn, that’s not what I mean,” Ty said, trying to get his point across. “The pinch stopped Jonah, which means he’s an A.I.,” he began, “But he got that scar from Eris supposedly.”

“What are you trying to say Ty?” Brynn asked, finally sitting up to look her friend in the eye.

“I think Jonah might have set the whole thing up. If A.I.s can’t get hurt like us, then they shouldn’t get scars. So the only way Jonah could get a scar is if they redesigned his face to have one… which would make sense if he was working with them.”

“He wasn’t working with them Ty,” Brynn said in a dangerously low voice, her sadness now turning to anger. “He didn’t know what he was.”

“How do you not know you’re a robot?” Ty asked her incredulously.

“If they can suppress curiosity, why couldn’t they suppress someone’s memory? Maybe they erased any knowledge he had of his past life and made him believe he was a human.”

“What makes you think they can suppress curiosity? Why would they bother to do that, Brynn?” Ty asked in a pained tone, obviously thinking that now Brynn was just making things up to justify Jonah’s existence.

“They can suppress curiosity all right,” Rusty stated simply, her wide green eyes never blinking; still looking hauntingly out the window. “Why do you think you lot are so pliable?”

Brynn winced at the harsh way in which Rusty had decided to deliver this news. She supposed she couldn’t really blame her though, given the state of shock she was currently in.

“They suppressed our curiosity?” Ty repeated, his voice sounding distant as he looked over at Brynn, hurt in his eyes.

“Not Brynn’s, just everyone else’s,” Rusty added, very unhelpfully.

“How long have you known about this, Brynn?” he asked her, looking slightly disgusted that his best friend could keep something so monumental from him.

“I was going to tell you, I just had to figure out how,” Brynn pleaded.

“Let me guess,” he began, “Jonah doesn’t have suppressed curiosity either, does he? And somehow Eris just happened to know we were coming.”

“He’s not an A.I., Ty,” Brynn insisted firmly.

“Then what is he Brynn?” Ty asked incredulously.

“Maybe they didn’t need him? Maybe they needed more test subjects? Maybe they wanted an A.I. out in Seaside to keep an eye on the citizens without his knowledge?” Brynn said, listing the many possible scenarios she’d come up with to explain Jonah’s little secret.

“Or maybe the boy from the library had the answers to your questions all along.”

Chapter 23: Caves

The entire dynamic of the group had changed overnight and it left Brynn utterly off balance. Devey hadn’t spoken since her screaming fit in the train but no one seemed to press her on the matter. Everyone tip toed around the small, fragile girl as if she might shatter at any moment. The scowl she normally wore was gone, replaced by a haunted look that never left her angelic face.

The group had relocated to a large cave on the coast, far from Eastern Metropolis or any other city. Rusty explained to them that she knew about almost every cave system on the coast of Halcyon since she’d been forced to find one just right to store her submarine in and had come across, what appeared to be, an old Worker’s headquarters that had long since been abandon. This was where they would be spending their time.

After directing everyone to their new temporary headquarters, she’d left right away, fearing that Jonah would tell Eris where The Bucket was hidden and that the Angel, in turn, would completely destroy the mechanical feat Rusty had been so proud of.

Amber, who had never been one for having adventures, had changed in A1. Brynn hardly recognized her friend’s determination or sudden leadership skills. Amber had taken charge once Rusty left the group behind to go get Rift and any other recruits willing to join them in what now appeared to be an all-out war. Amber and Hadlock constantly held private conferences in the cavernous room near the sea, strategizing and keeping information on a need-to-know basis.

Apparently Jonah’s betrayal had left everyone with the feeling that sharing every detail of their plans wasn’t such a good idea.

Brynn and Ty didn’t speak for days after their return to the relative safety of the cave. They avoided eye contact and skirted the subject of Brynn’s lie until eventually, the sadness that Cambria’s death had left behind, forced them into an unspoken agreement that they had forgiven each other. Brynn could no longer face her quickly worsening nightmares on her own and Ty could no longer watch her wake every night in terror without wanting to help her. It was in his nature to watch over her.

The small group that made up The Alliance slept on the floor of the cavernous cave, crowded into one spot in a mess of clumsily scattered blankets and pillows. In the midst of the chaos, Brynn spent her evenings beside Ty, trying to stop the dark thoughts that wouldn’t seem to leave her alone. Her dreams were more vivid now, more violent than they had been before, though the walls still shifted and the lights still flickered on and off. In the background of her dreams, Brynn constantly saw a mangled and bloodstained version of Cambria, staring wordlessly at her.

Her normally pale skin looked more purple than white and the usual smile was gone from her face, replaced by a silent scream that even Brynn couldn’t hear. Her headaches were coming with more force now and the dizziness she had almost grown accustomed to over the last few months was now too much to handle.

Things were falling apart.

One night, when the rest of their party was asleep, resting up for the next day when Rusty would be back, Brynn replayed her conversations with Jonah to give herself a rest from her constant visions of Cambria’s lifeless body. She tried to find some clue that he had been working with Eris all along but didn’t find anything that suggested such a betrayal.

Jonah hadn’t ever approached her. Brynn found him in the library and practically forced him to work with her.

Jonah hadn’t ever come up with the ideas that ultimately led to them finding A1. Brynn had decided to jump off of the train.

If Jonah knew what was happening all along and was trying to lead Brynn to A1, he hadn’t done a very good job of it.

Brynn shifted next to Ty at the thought that she had left Jonah in A1 to die.

“Are you all right?” Ty asked sleepily.

Rolling onto his side to face Brynn and breathing deeply as he attempted to blink away whatever dream he had been having.

“Jonah didn’t know,” Brynn whispered, the phrase so common for her now that it almost felt rehearsed.

Ty sighed at this statement and brushed a few stray hairs away from Brynn’s face to get a better look at her, being quiet so that he didn’t disturb the others sleeping around them.

“I know you don’t want to believe that he betrayed us,” Ty began slowly. “As much as we didn’t get along, I never would have thought him capable of that. But it doesn’t change the facts Brynn. Jonah is an A.I., and that means he’s been working with Eris.”

“The one fact doesn’t lead to the other,” she protested. “I know it seems bad because he didn’t know he was an A.I., but think back to all of the times I was alone with him, Ty. How many times could he have hauled me off to A1 forcefully? How many times could he have killed me or you?”

Confusion passed over Ty’s sleepy face for a moment before he answered.

“Eris loves her test results, right?” Ty asked, to which Brynn nodded in response. “Maybe this whole thing with you was a test to see how much they could get you to remember without having to torture the information out of you. She already knows that doesn’t work out too well since she killed Rachel without getting any answers. Maybe she’s getting smarter. She does have artificial intelligence; that means she’s capable of learning from her past mistakes.”

“But Jonah never approached me,” Brynn said, repeating the one thing that convinced her Jonah had nothing to do with Eris. “If I hadn’t happened to go to the library that day, I never would have met him.”

“I don’t know if that’s really conclusive evidence,” Ty began, but Brynn quickly cut him off.

“Even after I met him, he didn’t make an effort to seek me out, Ty,” she said pleadingly. “I had to go find him again and try to get him to help me. He didn’t come looking for me after we met.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Ty agreed halfheartedly, though Brynn could tell he was just saying it to get her to rest. He pulled her close to him, letting her rest her head against his chest and stroked her long black hair methodically. “We just can’t know anything for sure yet.”

Brynn touched her nose gently to Ty’s neck with closed eyes and breathed in his comforting scent, hoping that the familiarity she felt there would help her fall back asleep.

“Ty, I love you for always trying to keep me safe,” Brynn began, her eyes still closed and her voice barely above a whisper. “But I have to go back to A1 and get Jonah out of there whether you come with me or not.”

Ty was silent for a long time and it was impossible for Brynn to tell if he had fallen back asleep before her proclamation, or if he was thinking it over, deciding how to respond just as Jonah always did.

“Ty?” Brynn finally whispered, unable to take his silence any longer.

“Well I love you too and that’s why I’ll follow you back into that death trap if you insist on throwing away our lives for someone who betrayed us.”

Though it wasn’t the most enthusiastic response he could have given her, Brynn decided in this instance, she would take what she could get.

“Rusty said they had to take a less direct route to get here so they’ll be arriving tomorrow instead,” Hadlock informed the group the next day. “She was afraid the A.I.s would know where to find her sub if she took the normal path so she’s switching things up a bit.”

“Are they bringing any recruits back with them?” Amber asked, being her new and efficient self with gusto.

“The only one who opted to come was Royter,” Hadlock said sadly.

“She’s coming back?” Tate asked from the other side of their cavern, his interest piqued by the mention of the girl Brynn wasn’t sure she trusted.

“She’s the only one,” Hadlock reminded him, apparently not as happy that only one person wanted to come save the world with them. “Rift salvaged what he could from our base and destroyed everything else, though it doesn’t really matter now. The A.I.s know what we’re capable of building.”

“They know who we are,” Bennett pointed out solemnly.

“They know every place we’ve ever hidden,” Dash added.

Though she knew she shouldn’t, Brynn couldn’t help but feel that the constant Jonah attacks were digs at her as well. Any time someone mentioned Jonah’s betrayal she had to quell the anger that bubbled up inside of her, knowing that they would never believe her when she told them he didn’t know he was an A.I..

Being the only person in the group who still believed in the boy she’d met in the library was beginning to take its toll on her and the longer this division of opinions persisted, the more ostracized from the group she felt.

“What did you find in the files about Eris?” Brynn asked, wanting to turn the topic of conversation away from Jonah and his supposed affiliation with A1.

“Nothing,” Hadlock said, looking over at Brynn sadly.

“What do you mean nothing?” Ty asked incredulously. “There has to be something in there that will help us take her down.”

“The files weren’t real,” Amber answered for Hadlock.

She hadn’t said it in a mean or hurtful way and yet, the words still felt like a slap in the face to Brynn.

“They weren’t real?”

“They were dummy files,” Hadlock explained calmly. “Somehow Eris knew when we were coming and what we were coming for so she replaced the normal files with fakes.”

“Why even bother replacing the files at all?” Ty asked, voicing Brynn’s thoughts exactly.

By now the rest of the group had gathered around to hear about their failure that had cost Cambria her life.

“To give us something to wait for?” Hadlock said with a shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“The more time we took to upload the fake files, the more time Eris had to come after as many of us as she could,” Amber answered, looking at Devey for a moment before quickly averting her gaze.

If the girl noticed, she didn’t show any signs of it. She simply continued to stare straight ahead with the same blank look she’d worn ever since leaving the facility.

“So we don’t have any information on how to shut Eris down?” Brynn asked heavily, massaging her temple against the headache that was beginning to form there as it always did.

“Not exactly,” Hadlock replied, now looking more hopeful than he had before. “We were able to get most of the real files pertaining to the sugar scented gas,” he said happily. “I don’t know how or why, but for some reason those files were completely legitimate and now we’ve got blueprints, instructions, and just about anything else we could need about how to shut down the gas.”

“We don’t have a way to stop her but we have a way to make her at least slightly less deadly,” Amber finished, looking just as proud as Hadlock.

“What do we need to do to destroy the gas?” Dash asked from the back of the group, his voice and physical presence so small that everyone had forgotten he was even there.

“We’re going to need to break into the facility again,” Hadlock said hesitantly, his eyes trained on Devey to gauge her reaction.

“I’m sure they’ve blocked off the train tunnel by now,” Brynn pointed out. “Or they’re at least monitoring it better. Now that they know about the weak spot in their security they aren’t going to let us go the same way twice.”

“While that may be true, it’s also true that they’re arrogant when it comes to their facility. They feel like it’s a fortress no one can get into,” Hadlock countered.

“Except for us,” Ty said simply.

“Twice,” Brynn added with a small smile in her friend’s direction.

The gesture was short lived but it still felt good to Brynn to be joking around with Ty once more.

“Eris feels like the only reason you were able to break in was because she knew you were coming and let you break in,” Hadlock said, stating a fact that Brynn couldn’t deny.

Eris was nothing if not overly confident in her ability to run things. She would never admit that Brynn could outsmart her.

“But if we don’t use the main door above ground and we don’t use the train tunnel below ground, how do we get in?” Brynn asked.

“Or better yet, how do we get there in the first place without a train?” Ty asked.

“That’s what we keep Rusty around for,” Hadlock said. “She built a car a while back that I think a small group of us could fit into. We got the plans from some of our stolen A1 files.”

“A car?” Brynn asked, confused by the term. “Like a train car?”

“Kind of. It’s like a train car with bigger wheels so that it doesn’t need a track. It can just drive right over the terrain.”

“That sounds made up,” Bennett stated simply. “Like something you’d read in a book.”

“When have you ever read a book?” Amber teased, sounding much more like her old self for a moment.

The self she was before facing Eris and seeing the woman stained with Cambria’s blood.

“Fine, it sounds like something you’d see in a movie,” she corrected, not denying for a second that she definitely wouldn’t read a book.

“Do you know where Rusty hid the car?” Brynn asked.

“I don’t, but Rusty will be back tomorrow. When she gets back we can decide who’s going back to A1 and we’ll start off again.”

“It feels like we just left A1. Oh wait. We did,” Tate joked dryly.

“Why wait until Rusty gets back?” Brynn wasn’t in much of a mood for sitting around and waiting for things to happen while Jonah got tortured because she had left him. “Why don’t we decide who’s going right now?”

“I’m in,” Bennett said enthusiastically, surprising everyone in the room that, despite the horrors they’d witnessed on their last trip in, she was still ready and willing to help her friends.

She was nothing if not a loyal friend.

“I’m definitely going,” Amber stated. “I can throw a wild guess out there and say Brynn and Ty are going?”

“Good guess,” Ty answered, glancing over at Brynn nervously. She hoped he wouldn’t voice the thoughts she knew were passing through his head.

If her friends knew she wanted to try to rescue Jonah, they wouldn’t let her go with them. They’d think it was a waste of manpower when they had more important things to take care of. It was for that reason that Brynn simply kept her mouth shut and smiled at being recruited to go back. She didn’t want to give her true intentions away.

“I have to go to direct you guys,” Hadlock said, “And Rusty will need to go to operate the car. I think that’s more people than we can actually fit in the car but we’ll just be really comfy.”

“And we’re going to shut down the gas production?” Bennett asked.

“Not just shut it down. I want to destroy the gas she’s already made and stockpiled, shut down the gas production, and plant a bug in the facility that will disable the gas emitters all over the world. That way, when Eris realizes she can’t stop us and she’s desperate to prove she still has power, she won’t have anything to threaten us with.”

“Awesome,” Amber said eagerly.

She had definitely been transformed into someone who liked to take action. Brynn was glad that her friend had suddenly become so willing to help, but she worried that she was turning into someone as reckless as Brynn.

“All right. Those of you coming tomorrow go pack your bags and be ready to leave as soon as Rusty gets here in the morning,” Hadlock said, clapping his hands together happily.

As the group split up to complete their various tasks, Brynn pulled her tablet from its case. She had felt it vibrate during Hadlock’s little group meeting and wondered who could possibly be sending her a transmission.

Opening the message and hoping Rusty wasn’t in any trouble, Brynn’s heart stopped at the words on the screen.

The address the message had been sent from was a complicated string of letters and numbers that she didn’t understand. But despite the cryptic origins of the message, she knew exactly who it was from, and all she could do was hope that this message meant that he was still alive.

The words read: Please help me.

Chapter 24:Promises

Brynn stared straight ahead at the screen in front of her. She sat cross legged on the soft white floor of a small room in A1 though she didn’t feel particularly frightened right at that moment. She could hear an odd mechanical sound on the other side of the door but paid it no mind, knowing that in that moment, it wasn’t important.

The stark white facility didn’t seem as cold or harsh to her for some reason and she was almost relaxed as the screen informed her that her transmission had been sent successfully. Smiling to herself and tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, Brynn stood up calmly, taking the small handheld computer with her. She looked over at the door as another loud bang resonated through the room.

“Open the door, Rachel,” she could hear Eris screaming.

A terrifying sound to say the least.

But she didn’t shiver like she knew she would if she were actually Brynn in that moment and not Rachel. Instead she smiled at the wall, raised the computer above her head, and threw it at the door as hard as she could, watching it shatter into a million little pieces.

“Open it!” Eris yelled again, still pounding the wall, “Or I’ll scratch your pretty eyes out.”

Rachel sighed deeply, a little sadly Brynn thought if she was being honest. She couldn’t ignore how calm the girl seemed when she knew she was about to die. Instead of panicking the way Brynn would have, she pulled a sugar cube from her lab coat pocket and popped it into her mouth for the last time, the taste bringing a thousand memories flooding into Brynn’s mind instantly.

Rachel walked to a small receptacle on her wall, placed the glass tube that held her DNA inside, pressed a button, and watched her future generation disappear into the white folds of the facility.

She sat on the floor once more and rested her back against the soft wall, still calm. Looking around the small room that offered her no escape she pulled a folded up piece of paper from her pocket. Unfolding it gingerly, taking all the time in the world that Brynn was sure she didn’t have, she revealed some sort of sketch that made no sense to Brynn’s mind, though Rachel seemed to think it was an important thing to study right before dying.

The sketch appeared to be some sort of blueprint, though for what, Brynn wasn’t sure. It was a large disk-like structure with large spheres on the bottom that were labeled ‘engine’. An endless number of markings and numbers filled the blueprint and Brynn tried desperately to memorize it, knowing that it would be important for her to tell The Alliance when she woke up, but try as she might, she couldn’t make sense of the paper.

“Why is it taking you so long to override her hack?” Eris spat just beyond the door. “She’s not exactly one of us; she couldn’t have been that brilliant.”

Rachel emitted a little laugh as she pulled a lighter from her pocket. Igniting the small device, she held the open flame to the paper that was pinched between her long fingers, letting it lick the white material and turning it instantly brown. As the flame grew bigger Brynn felt the need to pull her hand away, but Rachel just continued to hold it, letting the flames almost engulf her hand before allowing it flutter to the ground, reveling in the burning on her skin. Once the paper had been reduced to nothing more than a small pile of ash, she swept the remains into a small air vent on the floor.

Getting to her feet and facing the door that was now sliding open, Rachel smiled at the sight of Eris in her full rage. The Angel stormed over to her, shoving her fist into Rachel’s stomach and sending her crashing against the wall with a thud. She grabbed her face with her cold strong hands, squeezing her cheeks painfully and forcing Rachel to look into her purple eyes.

“What did you do?” she whispered, only inches from Rachel’s face.

Becoming quickly enraged by the girl’s silence she pushed her head agonizingly into the wall, bringing her face even close to Rachel’s.

“If you don’t tell me what you did, I’ll take the utmost pleasure in thinking of creative ways to extract the truth from you, Rachel,” Eris said venomously, her hand moving from Rachel’s cheeks and down to her thin throat.

Her purple eyes darted back and forth over Rachel’s face for a moment before she realized that the girl really wasn’t going to say any anything. For the first time since her nightmares had begun, Brynn hadn’t tried to speak to Eris.

For the first time, she completely agreed with Rachel’s vow of silence.

“Fine,” Eris said slowly, twisting Rachel’s arm painfully behind her back at an impossible angle and forcing her out of the room and into the hallway.

“If you refuse to talk to me, I’ll just show you how much damage your stupidity has already caused,” Eris told her, the walls shifting and fading away for a moment before coming back into focus. Brynn’s dream was starting to fall apart again.

After a moment Eris opened a door to a dimly lit room, shoved Rachel forcefully in, and shut the door, calling through the wall, “Enjoy the consequences of your actions.”

The smug smile Rachel had worn the entire time Eris had been pushing her through the facility instantly vanished as she looked around the dark room.

It was a room Brynn had seen before in her nightmares.

The tables that lined the space were eerie now that she knew what rested on them and she prayed silently that she’d wake up before reliving that experience again.

She saw her breath coming out in little puffs and knew she was in the freezer where Rachel had discovered Maxwell’s body.

Brynn twitched violently, waking herself up from her nightmare unintentionally. Ty had his strong arms wrapped securely around her though they had started the night sleeping an appropriate distance apart. Yet there he was, protecting her from her own nightmares like he always did. It didn’t seem to matter to Brynn that they were sleeping on the floor in the middle of all of her friends; without Ty’s presence, Brynn felt alone.

Reliving the experience of finding Maxwell once more hit too close to home for her and she moved closer to Ty’s sleeping form, hoping he never met the same fate because of her actions. She couldn’t bear to lose another friend.

Brynn thought about the way her life might have been if she hadn’t had so many questions. Maybe suppressed curiosity was a blessing.

If she had never decided to go looking for A1, would Jonah be trapped now? Would they be torturing him to get to Brynn?

She replayed the night before she had left for A1 in her head. She remembered how desperately Ty tried to keep her there with him. Even if Jonah had been suspicious of Ty’s intentions from the beginning and thought his only motivation in this whole ordeal was to bring Brynn back home, would that have been such a bad thing? Ty had pleaded with her that night, saying that he couldn’t lose her.

Then he kissed her.

She had tried desperately to keep the memory from her mind but at that moment, scared for what the day ahead of them would bring and wrapped up in Ty’s arms, she let herself remember. Of course that meant she let herself remember the confusing feelings that accompanied Ty’s actions.

Between trying to save the world from a psychotic A.I. and trying to break her friend out of the top secret facility he was being held in, Brynn hardly thought it was appropriate to worry about her boy problems.

Ty versus Jonah didn’t exactly seem like an end of the world decision when compared to the actual end of the world decisions she’d have to make soon.

And yet she couldn’t help but feel guilty that as Jonah lay rotting in some stark white padded room, she was snuggled up in Ty’s safe arms, thinking about how he had looked at her the night before she’d started this whole mess.

His warm brown eyes always held so much love when they were turned towards her. Like everyone else in the room looked at her but only he really saw her. She often thought of him as overbearing and overprotective, but assessing her current situation, she was beginning to feel as if those traits were necessary when dealing with Brynn’s adventuring spirit.

“Brynn?” Ty asked, opening his sleepy brown eyes and looking down at her. “Did you have another nightmare?” he whispered in the darkness of the cave, surrounded by the deep breathing of the other members of The Alliance.

She nodded her head but didn’t say anything, embarrassed that her thoughts hadn’t actually been on the very serious task at hand.

“It’s all right,” he said soothingly, rubbing her back with his free hand that she wasn’t laying on. “I’m right here.”

“You always are,” she replied.

And even with her friend locked up, a group of people who didn’t believe her, and a complete and total suicide mission to prepare for, Brynn did something she couldn’t quite explain. She tilted her head up and brushed her lips lightly against Ty’s, not quite kissing him as she breathed him in.

A look of complete confusion passed over his sleepy features that made Brynn smile for the first time in a long time. She could feel his entire body tense at her actions, as if he didn’t want to move an inch in case he misunderstood what she was doing, before she pressed her full lips against his. Despite the fact that she was pretty sure Ty was half asleep, his arms tightened around her small body, pulling her closer to him. He knotted his fingers in her hair and inhaled deeply as he kissed her, seeming to breathe the moment into his very being.

Though she knew it could have only lasted a few seconds, it seemed like minutes passed before Brynn gave him one last gentle kiss and nudged his nose with her own, pulling away slightly and looking up at Ty through her eyelashes in the darkness.

“Thank you for actually believing all of the crazy stuff I tell you,” she whispered finally, running her long fingers up and down the length of his back as she spoke.

“Is that how you normally thank people?” he asked, his cheeks obviously flushed, even in the darkness.

“Not usually,” she answered, knowing that she had inevitably made things weird between them.

Tomorrow she was sure they’d be awkward around each other and worried about what their late night kiss might mean when all they should have been doing was focusing on their mission. But right at that moment, Brynn wasn’t thinking about their mission the next day, or how weird things were going to be, or if her kiss with Ty meant she didn’t care about rescuing Jonah. Instead she allowed herself one moment of peace and selfishness in her otherwise chaotic existence.

“If that’s how you’re starting to thank people, I’ll have to start doing more nice things for you,” he said, half joking.

“I hope you remember that when we get to A1 and I ask you to complete some impossible task,” Brynn whispered back, suppressing a yawn and wondering when her eyelids had suddenly gotten so heavy.

“I will,” Ty answered, though his voice seemed distant to her, as if it were fading with her consciousness.

“I’ve been right about everything else, Ty,” she whispered, though with her mind slowly slipping into sleep, she wasn’t sure her words made sense. “I’m right about Jonah.”

She was vaguely aware of the soft pressure of Ty’s lips against hers for only a second before she heard him say, “Goodnight, Brynn.”

Just as Brynn had anticipated, in her moment of weakness, bad judgment, or whatever else she was calling it, things had gotten weird between her and Ty. As they stood in a group the next day listening to Rusty’s plans, Brynn knew her mind needed to be on their next trip to A1 where she might very well get kidnapped and murdered, but instead she was wondering if she was standing too close to Ty; or perhaps not close enough.

He could sense the change in their relationship as well as he shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. When he spoke to Brynn he would find a reason to touch her arm or her back, then, as if suddenly realizing that maybe things hadn’t changed between them, he would quickly drop his hand and look down at the ground.

Brynn was determined to keep things as normal as possible and make up for leaving Jonah in A1. She had to save him to make things right and so, she put her feelings aside as she usually did and tried to focus on Rusty’s run down of the days to follow.

“We’re going to take the car I built a while back. I haven’t really given it a proper test run but I think it should be okay,” Rusty was saying, running her fingers wildly through her long red hair like she couldn’t stand still no matter how hard she tried.

“That’s comforting,” Tate said from the back of the group.

“Yeah, and you’re not even coming,” Hadlock put in, apparently lacking faith in Rusty’s abilities.

“How many people does the car fit?” Rift asked.

He had been all business since his return and the group had finally become efficient in his presence.

“Normally it only fits five; two in front and three in the back. But I’m sure we could fit a third person in the front seat, it just might not be as comfortable.”

“That’s not too bad actually,” Ty said. “I thought it would be much more crowded than that.”

Brynn didn’t bother to mention the fact that if everything went according to plan, they’d actually have seven of them coming back instead of six. She knew that her ‘plan’ wasn’t exactly high on the agenda of the group who thought Jonah had betrayed them.

She had thought the facts over, every free second since she’d left A1 and had come to a few decisions. Brynn could admit that Jonah was an A.I.. The evidence was just too monumental to deny. That, however, didn’t mean that Jonah had been working with Eris. The more she thought back on her conversations with him, the more she came to believe this.

No matter what, she knew no one else would believe her, but they hadn’t seen the way Jonah had looked when she’d almost fallen from that tree overhanging the ocean on Panurgic. He had looked as if his whole world had just ended when her foot slipped, and that proved to her more than anything that he wasn’t working with Eris.

He actually cared about her.

Eris’s disdain for Brynn was so all-encompassing that she couldn’t hide it if she tried. Jonah had never so much as looked at Brynn sideways and she knew he couldn’t fake that kind of affection for her.

“Brynn?” Rusty said, her voice a little worried.

“Huh?”

“I asked you if you’re claustrophobic,” Rusty said, apparently not for the first time.

“Oh, no I’m not… why?”

“Air vents,” she said simply.

Apparently Brynn had missed a big chunk of Rusty’s speech and she felt her cheeks flush as the group looked at her.

“Are you going to be okay to go with us?” Hadlock asked, looking at her apprehensively. “Because Rift isn’t really on board with bringing our information source into A1 anyway. He just figured we wouldn’t be able to stop you.”

“Yeah, I’m fine I just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” she said quickly. Ty tensed next to her and she could have slapped her palm over her face in embarrassment as she realized how that had sounded. “Nightmares,” she mumbled by way of explanation.

“Nightmares?” Rusty repeated, sounding more excited than someone should when they hear their friend is having bad dreams. “Did you learn anything new?”

“Actually I did!” Brynn exclaimed, suddenly understanding Rusty’s excitement.

She had almost completely forgotten to tell The Alliance about the strange sketch Rachel had burned.

Her kiss with Ty was clouding her thinking.

“Is it something that can help us with our mission?” Rift asked.

“I think it might be the third thing,” Brynn answered.

“What is it?” Hadlock and Amber said at the same time.

“I’m not quite sure what it is. It looked like blueprints for some kind of mechanical vehicle or something. I tried to memorize it so I could draw it for you guys,” she offered helpfully.

“Here,” Ty said instantly, handing over his tablet and letting his fingers linger on hers for a moment too long.

She very pointedly ignored the chills that went down her spine.

“Thanks,” she muttered as she pulled up a blank screen to draw on.

She moved her fingers quickly over the smooth surface, drawing almost mechanically as her memory took over. It was as if Rachel were inside of her mind, guiding her fingers around each curve of the sketch to make sure she got it just right. When she finished, the group was staring at her strangely.

“What?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious.

“You were drawing that with your eyes closed,” Amber answered, sounding like she wasn’t sure if she should be impressed or frightened.

Brynn didn’t say anything. She wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. So instead she handed the tablet over to Rift for evaluation.

“Rusty, have you seen this before?” he asked her.

“It looks like a ship,” Rusty said slowly, as if she were trying to remember the word for what she was looking at.

“Royter will you go through Hadlock’s files while they’re gone and see if you can find anything about ‘ships’?” Rift asked the mysterious and quiet girl with the short black hair who stood stoically behind him.

She didn’t say anything but nodded as she transferred the sketch from Ty’s tablet to the handmade one Hadlock and Rusty had built, before handing it back to Ty.

“I knew you’d remember something,” Rusty said happily, giving Brynn a quick wink. “Now everyone get your stuff and we’ll head out.”

As the group scattered to gather up their things, Brynn stopped Ty, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him away from everyone else.

“What was she saying about air ducts?” Brynn asked.

“You really were spacing out, weren’t you?” he asked with a laugh. “She said we’re going to go in through the air duct system since they already know about the front entrance and the underground tunnel. We definitely don’t want to try the same trick twice.”

“We probably don’t want to try any trick,” Brynn said dryly. “And how are we destroying the gas when we get in?”

“Hadlock wrote some sort of computer virus to destroy whatever they already have stockpiled and he’s giving us a bug to plant in the facility so that he can manually override the gas emitters all over the planet.”

“Oh good, so just an easy job this time,” Brynn said sarcastically.

“Should be a piece of cake for you. This is old hat right?” Ty joked, bringing his hand up to her cheek for just a brief moment before walking away.

Brynn felt a jolt of nerves at the prospect of revisiting A1, but the secret she kept from her companions weighed more heavily on her than anything.

Though she would do what she could to help them plant the bug and destroy the gas, her main purpose for entering the terrifying facility once more was to rescue a friend she’d left behind.

She only hoped she wouldn’t be too late.

Chapter 25: Car

Riding in the ‘car’ Rusty had built turned out to be one of the most terrifying experiences of Brynn’s life. And that was saying something coming from a girl who’d been in A1, the ocean, and faced the awful Eris on numerous occasions.

The car was a structure built from metal pipes that had been welded together. It was completely open as compared to the closed-in train cars they were used to, and the large wheels were rubber rather than metal. The group had strapped themselves into the car with harnesses, though Amber, who sat in the front middle where there wasn’t actually a seat, had to use a makeshift harness.

Brynn suspected that the car wouldn’t be such an alarming device if Rusty hadn’t been driving. It was almost certain that ‘laying low’ wasn’t an easy task when driving across the desert landscape on the way to A1 in a car that kicked up so much dust the group was entirely covered from head to foot. But the fact that Rusty was screaming happily at the top of her lungs and trying to locate any bump in the road to drive over didn’t really help their predicament at all.

The engine alone was loud enough to give away their location at the drop of a hat. All you had to do was listen and you’d know exactly where they were. But the long trail of dust that spanned out behind them in an endless wall was like a giant sign, pointing the A.I.s to Brynn and her friends.

Needless to say, they felt very conspicuous driving through the desert.

“Rusty!” Brynn shouted from the backseat.

She gripped Ty’s hand tightly in her own, trying to blink away the dust in her eyes and hoping Rusty could hear her over the din of the loud engine.

“Rusty!” she called again when the girl didn’t respond.

“What?” Rusty called back, taking a break from her manic screaming but still going just as fast through the bumpy desert.

She wore large brown goggles that blocked out the dust, allowing her to continue driving like a maniac unhindered.

“Maybe you should slow down!” Brynn yelled.

“Or stop screaming at least,” Ty suggested with a grin, in an unusually good mood when he was on his way back to A1.

“You guys take the fun out of everything,” she pouted, adjusting the goggles she wore and turning her attention back to the endless sandy landscape in front of them.

Apparently their advice didn’t make a dent in her intentions because she continued to make sharp turns and even got all four wheels of the car off the ground at one point as she sped over a hill, giggling like a crazy person all the while.

“If we’re going to die in there, I want to make sure my last few hours are amazing,” she called back, causing Brynn to grip Ty’s hand even tighter.

They were clearly in the company of a psychopath.

By nightfall they had reached A1. The facility stood ominously in the distance. Its lights glistening like thousands of stars in the night sky. Brynn swallowed hard at the sight, remembering the way she, Ty, and Jonah had stood out in the sandy darkness not too long ago.

So much had changed in such a short time, but she was still as determined as ever to find answers and protect her friends, despite all of the horrible things she’d seen since that fateful night.

“Are we going in during the night or will we wait until it’s light out?” Amber asked, looking at the facility as if she could size it up right then and there.

“I don’t want to waste any time. We need to hide the car, get in there, plant the bug, and get right back out. I don’t need anyone else dying because we’re taking too long,” Rusty said, able to be as blunt as she wanted to be now that Devey wasn’t with them. “Besides, now that they don’t know we’re coming we should get right back in there. They’ll be expecting us to take a long time to recover from our last trip.”

“That’s all well and good, but do we actually know what we need to do to navigate through the vents?” Brynn asked skeptically, ignoring the dig at Jonah.

“Of course,” Hadlock answered, sounding offended. “The main air duct is located on the wall closest to us. We’ll pop the grate off and wriggle through there until we find the control room where we need to plant the bug.”

“Do you think it’s really good for all of us to go in when all we need to do is plant a bug? Isn’t that like asking for casualties?” Ty pointed out.

“I’ve got two bugs and we have two groups taking different routes in case…,” Hadlock let his words trail off.

“In case one of our groups doesn’t make it,” Brynn finished for him.

“It’s important that we get this bug planted. Even if we never stop Eris, we can still slow her down and prolong everyone’s lives.”

“Which I’m sure they’d appreciate if they knew we were doing it,” Bennett said with a what can you do shrug.

“I want Rusty and Ty to go together,” Hadlock said, handing them one small device. “And Amber, Bennett, and Brynn to go together.”

Ty looked over at Brynn with a worried look in his eye. He seemed like he might protest but thought better of it. As much as she hated to admit it, she was glad she wouldn’t be going with Ty, though it made absolutely no sense to her that Hadlock would group the two tech savvy people together. She definitely didn’t question his choice though, since it would be easier for her to slip away from Amber and Bennett to go find Jonah. If she was with Ty he’d insist on coming with her and probably end up getting himself hurt. She didn’t want that to be her fault so instead she shot him a reassuring smile and shrugged her shoulders.

“Where will you be, Hadlock?” Amber asked, surveying their surroundings.

“I’ll be just a few feet from the air vent system, hiding in the bushes,” he said sullenly, as if hiding in bushes were very beneath him. “I’m a little worried that the comms units won’t work in the air vent system since you’ll be surrounded by metal, but luckily I brought a map for you guys to follow.”

“What about once we’re inside? How will we know if the Workers are coming?” Brynn asked, suddenly worried.

“The communication system should pick up again once you’re out of the vent,” he said unconcernedly, as if their lives didn’t rely on this very important fact.

“On that very confidence inspiring note, shall we go?” Rusty asked in a chipper voice.

Crawling through the air vents was a lot harder than Brynn thought it would be, and their white clothing was quickly becoming brown with the dust they were picking up.

For a spotless high-tech facility, they had a lot of dust.

The cold metal box was so confined that they couldn’t actually crawl on their hands and knees. Instead the group had to lie on their stomachs and use their elbows to drag the rest of their body across the slick metal surface.

They had all entered the vent together though they would soon be splitting up as they came to a fork in the tunnel.

“Ty and…,” Hadlock began to say, but his voice quickly cut out and melted into static, just as he said it would.

“Do you guys have the map?” Brynn called back in a hushed voice.

Despite the cold air blowing past them, she was sweating with the effort of dragging herself through the small confined space. Her arms burned and her breathing was heavy.

“I think Rusty and I are supposed to go right at this fork and you guys keep going straight,” Ty said from behind Brynn. “Then you keep going straight past two more forks before turning right. You’ll need to backtrack to get to the room from the way you’re going.”

“Ty?” Brynn said.

“Yeah?”

“Be careful.”

He reached up and squeezed her ankle lightly before saying, “You too.”

And with that, the group split up, Brynn continuing forward with Amber and Bennett following behind her and Ty veering to the right with Rusty. She got a sinking feeling in her stomach as she let her friend go, and she hoped it was just her nerves and not a bad omen for what was to come.

Brynn, Amber, and Bennett did as they were told, continuing straight on until they reached the third fork. They pulled themselves through the vent system as quietly as they could before coming to the grate they needed to exit through.

“Brynn?” Amber called up in a whisper just as Brynn was about to open the grate for them to leave.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I never believed you about all of this stuff before,” she said. “I guess I wasn’t a very good friend.”

“Honestly, if you had come to me insisting that there was some mad woman on the loose trying to kill everyone, I probably wouldn’t have believed you either,” she answered with a soft laugh. “You and Bennett are great friends.”

“Thanks for letting us come with you,” Bennett said from the back of the group. “I never thought I’d do something like this.” She almost sounded excited rather than scared and the tone in her voice made Brynn smile. “Plus Amber wouldn’t have met Hadlock if you hadn’t let us come,” she added conspiratorially.

“Bennett!” Amber said a little too loudly. “First of all he’s on the comms unit,” she whispered back to her friend.

“That doesn’t work at the moment,” Bennett pointed out.

“Second,” Amber went on, not even acknowledging Bennett’s interruption, “We’re about to break into a top secret room in a top secret facility full of people who want to kill us. I hardly think this is the time to talk about boys,” Amber finished, making Brynn feel that ever present pang of guilt when she realized she’d be compromising her friend’s safety because she insisted on saving Jonah.

“Well let’s hurry up and get this over with then so we can have a nice little talk about Hadlock,” Brynn said with a smile, almost happy to be talking about something as normal as boys when the world as they knew it was falling apart.

“We can analyze your conversations,” Bennett said happily and Brynn knew she’d be clapping her hands if they weren’t in such a small space.

“Fine,” Amber relented, pushing Brynn’s foot with her hand in an attempt to get her to start moving again.

Brynn pushed open the grate below her and stuck her head through, looking at the hallway they were about to drop into upside down. Her hair flew up over her face in a dark curtain, so long that she knew it would be a dead giveaway if anyone actually were in the hallway at that moment. Luckily for them, there wasn’t a Worker in sight.

“We’re clear,” Brynn said, slowly lowering herself from the grate in the ceiling and dropping silently onto the soft white floor. “I swear no one ever works around here,” she added, trying to keep the nagging feeling from her gut.

Every time she’d ‘broken into’ the facility, Eris had known where she was all along. Of course, that had been when Jonah was with her. Even though she knew he wasn’t working for Eris, the fact that he was an A.I. meant Eris had probably used him to monitor Brynn’s movement. Now, even though it was far too easy for her to break into the facility, she knew she had the element of surprise.

“How are we supposed to get back into the vent?” Amber asked as she dropped down next to Brynn, her cotton candy pink hair standing out quite obviously in the white space.

“Hopefully he’s got another vent in mind. We definitely can’t reach up there,” Bennett said as she flew through the air above them, landing with a soft thud on the ground.

“What took you guys so long?” Hadlock suddenly said in their ears, startling the three girls who had almost forgotten the ear pieces were even in.

“Nothing,” all three said guiltily at once.

“I don’t even want to know,” Hadlock said with a sigh. “Now go right, down the hallway and take your first right to backtrack to the control room. You guys should be clear as far as I can tell.”

“Rusty,” Ty’s voice said in exasperation over the comms unit.

“What’s happening, Ty?” Brynn asked, suddenly worried for her friend’s safety.

“Rusty won’t stop looking at the technology in the building. She’s stopping every few feet to examine some wall screen or elevator,” he complained as they heard Rusty “ooing” and “awing” in their ears.

“Rusty,” Hadlock snapped. “Focus!”

“Pretty big words for someone who’s trapped on the outside of this absolute gold mine of technology,” Rusty said, her voice sounding distant and happy.

“Rusty,” Ty warned.

“Fine,” she pouted, apparently relenting.

“Hadlock, we’re at the control room,” Ty said while Amber, Bennett, and Brynn continued to make their way through the facility.

“Perfect,” he answered. “Rusty, go ahead and install the bug into the wires like I showed you. Make sure it’s hidden so the A.I.s won’t see it even if they’re looking for it.”

“Yes sir,” Rusty said with mock seriousness.

Hadlock could be heard sighing audibly, though he didn’t actually reprimand her for being so cavalier about their serious mission.

“Almost done,” she said after a moment and all Brynn could think of was how perfectly everything was working out.

If Rusty and Ty were able to install the bug without them, it would be easy for Brynn to sneak away and find Jonah. Of course it also meant that it was completely pointless for her friends to have come to the facility in the first place, when they could have just sent one person in to complete the task rather than risking all of their lives.

As they neared the control room, Brynn let herself fall to the back of the group, wondering if she should even try reasoning with her friends or if she should just make a break for it and hope she didn’t run into any Workers. It definitely would have been easier if her friends were on board with the idea of finding Jonah. Then she’d be able to use Hadlock’s Worker tracker as a resource and she wouldn’t have to worry about turning a corner to find a group of A.I.s standing there.

But, as it was, no one believed her that Jonah was actually innocent and it wasn’t likely that they would any time soon.

“Done!” Rusty said, just as Brynn and the group reached the control room.

“We’re coming in to meet you guys,” Amber said and Brynn knew she couldn’t quite escape yet.

If they were all meeting in the same room, Ty would be looking for Brynn to make sure she hadn’t somehow gotten captured by Eris.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Ty said as they entered the small white room.

“Why isn’t anyone in here if this is such an important room?” Bennett asked, looking around at the many computers that lined the walls and impressing Brynn with her curiosity.

“They usually come in shifts and right now they’re between people,” Hadlock explained. “But they’ll be coming soon so you guys need to get out of there now.”

“How are we going to get out if the vents are on the ceiling?” Amber asked, voicing the concern that had come to Brynn’s mind as well.

“A few stories up there’s a floor vent I want you guys to crawl into. You’ll have to use the elevators though,” Hadlock said, sounding apologetic when in reality, this prospect thrilled Brynn.

Elevators would be a perfect way for her to break away from the group since they could only fit one person at a time. If she wasn’t successful, she could even claim that she had accidentally pushed the wrong button on her elevator in the hopes that they wouldn’t kick her out of The Alliance for disobeying their orders.

“Which way do we go?” Rusty asked, poking her head out of the control room and looking left and right before stepping out into the open.

Her bright red hair cascading down her white clad back reminded Brynn of Eris covered in Cambria’s blood and for a moment, she felt the world go lopsided. She grabbed the wall for support and quickly straightened herself once more, hoping no one had seen her momentary weakness.

“Turn left,” Hadlock said, and the group instantly obeyed, following Rusty down the hall in a line of white clad rebels. “Hang on. My tablet just glitched out. Stupid thing.”

“Please tell me he’s joking,” Ty sighed, looking like he was trying not to panic.

“There we go…Wait, stop!” Hadlock shouted suddenly, causing everyone to freeze almost immediately. “There are some Workers coming up in the elevators. Turn around and go the other way. Fast.”

They didn’t question him, but instead turned instantaneously and walked as fast as they could without breaking into a full on run in the other direction.

“Turn right,” he told them, and they obeyed, entering into a small white room with glass tubes that resembled the elevator system Brynn had seen in the facility before.

“Are these elevators as well?” Amber asked skeptically.

“Yeah they are… why? What’s wrong with them?” Hadlock asked, obviously confused by the apprehension in Amber’s tone.

“They’re glass,” she said.

“They’re normally metal,” Brynn explained, also feeling a bit uneasy.

Something was definitely wrong. The group looked at the clear glass tubes suspiciously for a moment before Bennett stepped into hers.

“They look fine,” she said with a shrug as the glass door rotated closed, drowning out her words.

She watched Bennett for a moment, who stood with a happy smile on her face. She waved at Brynn in the silence of her tube to show her nothing sinister was going on. Though a wave from Bennett was hardly an all clear, she relented, not knowing what else to do.

“I guess they’re okay,” Brynn said slowly, stepping into her own tube and watching her friend’s follow suit.

Still feeling uneasy about the whole thing she looked at the place where the buttons should have been. But there were no buttons there.

“Hadlock these elevators don’t have buttons,” Amber said over the comms unit, reading Brynn’s mind.

“Something’s wrong,” Ty agreed and Brynn could see him trying to open his door.

That was when she heard the faint hiss below her feet. She looked down at the grate, trying to understand why it might be making noise before Hadlock’s voice came in a panic through her ear piece.

“Those aren’t elevators,” he shouted, saying what the group had been trying to tell him all along. “Why did you get in them! What’s wrong with you guys?”

“What are they then?” Brynn asked a little too loudly.

“I’m not sure, but they don’t go anywhere. Hold on a second I’m overriding the doors to let you guys out,” he said, before silence permeated their ear pieces.

“Hadlock,” Amber said slowly, trying to hurry him as the hissing grew louder.

“Almost done,” he promised just as the glass doors slid open, releasing the captives from their tubes.

“I don’t know what those things were but that probably wouldn’t have ended well,” Rusty said, giving herself a little shake.

“Was your tube hissing?” Brynn asked her friends.

“Yeah mine was,” Ty answered just as they heard a pounding behind them.

Turning around they could see Bennett still in her tube, looking confused by the fact that her door hadn’t opened with the rest of them.

“Hadlock, Bennett is still in hers,” Amber said, suddenly sounding very scared.

“I can’t seem to override it,” he told them. “I’m working on it.”

“Oh, don’t mind me, I’ll just be hanging out in the creepy tube all day,” Bennett said sarcastically, cocking her hip and looking unconcerned.

“We’re going to get you out,” Amber promised, placing a hand against the glass wall.

“You’d better,” she threatened playfully. “We still need to analyze certain conversations between two certain people.” She smiled with her perfectly straight, white teeth, her eyes crinkling up in the corners.

Had the situation not been so dire, Brynn would have actually laughed at Bennett’s lack of subtlety. But as it was, her friend was trapped in a mysterious hissing tube, and that was just never a good thing.

“I can’t seem to get into this one,” Hadlock said in frustration just as Bennett’s smile faded.

She turned to her friends in mild confusion and furrowed her brow before saying, “Do you guys smell sugar?”

Chapter 26: Apart

“Hadlock, get her out!” Brynn shouted, not caring about keeping her voice down anymore.

“I’m trying,” he yelled back as Amber began pounding her fists against the glass tube.

Bennett still seemed confused by what was going on, looking around at her friend’s sudden panic.

“Get her out!” Amber screamed, repeatedly pounding against the glass so hard that her fists began leaving bloody marks on the tube. “Now!”

“Bennett, hold your breath,” Rusty instructed desperately, trying to think of the only thing that could keep their friend safe.

“Guys, I’m fine,” Bennett tried to assure them, looking like she was absolutely terrified but keeping a brave face for her friends.

She let out a nervous little laugh.

“Hadlock?” Brynn cried, wondering why he had suddenly become silent.

“They’re coming!” he finally shouted. “The A.I.s are coming, you guys need to run.”

“I’m not leaving Bennett,” Amber said resolutely, breathing hard as she continued to beat her bloody fists against that glass that would never break. “Bennett are you holding your breath?” Amber asked just as Bennett stopped flashing her friends a fake reassuring smile.

She looked dazed for a moment as she met Amber’s eyes and swayed slightly on her feet. For a moment she looked like she was shifting her weight back and forth.

Then, without warning her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell against the glass tube with a sickening thud. Her body slumped heavily against the small space at an awkward angle; not quite lying down but no longer standing.

“Bennett!” Amber whispered into the now absolutely quiet space, everyone’s eyes fixated on the scene before them.

“Get out of there,” Hadlock commanded them again. “You have to get back to the elevators you were supposed to go on originally. They’re coming down the right hallway. You have to outrun them to the elevators. I’ll get the car started up.”

“Bennett,” Amber said again with wide eyes, unable to comprehend her friend’s limp body in the tube in front of her.

Rusty grabbed Amber around her waist and hoisted her over her shoulder, exactly as she had with Devey when her sister had died. Not for the first time, Brynn wondered what Rusty had seen in her life to make her so immune to hardship, though her thoughts didn’t plague her for long before her instinct kicked in.

“Come on,” she called to her friends, running out of the white room and leaving one of her best friend’s behind, knowing she was already gone.

Had she been in her right mind Brynn would have cried. She would have screamed and thrown herself on the ground and kicked her feet. But Brynn was running on pure adrenaline as she ran down the white hallway with Amber’s silent lack of comprehension ringing louder than any cries could have. Her mission was to get her friend’s to safety and mourn Bennett once the threat of losing more friends was gone.

“Take the elevators to the fourth floor and the grate will be right outside. It’s a straight shot out after that,” Hadlock instructed.

“Everyone get in an elevator,” Brynn commanded.

Rusty unceremoniously shoved Amber into an elevator and pushed the button for her before hopping into her own. The metal door closed in front of Amber’s confused face. She still wasn’t crying, and Brynn then knew there was a point where you were too shocked or sad to cry.

Brynn could hear the Worker’s yelling to each other down the hallway as she looked at her own elevator, Ty standing beside her and waiting for her to get in.

This was her only chance to get Jonah back.

She had just had a friend die and she wasn’t about to let Jonah die because of her. Her hands were shaking as she stared at the open elevator in front of her. Ty looked over as comprehension dawned on him.

Before he could stop her, Brynn ran into her elevator, pulled out her comms unit and pressed the button that would take her to the room Eris had held her in.

“Brynn, don’t!” Ty yelled as the doors slid closed.

She could see him rushing forward to pull her out but he was too late.

Muffled yells could be heard over her comms unit that she had removed, so she whispered a quick, “Don’t come after me,” before dropping it on the floor and stepping on the small bud, silencing her friend’s and hoping they would leave without her.

Brynn didn’t let herself think of Bennett in the silent elevator ride that she hoped would take her to Jonah. Her mind tried to replay the look on her friend’s face as the life left her eyes but as soon as the images would come, she’d rub her hand over her head and try to envision saving Jonah just in time. If she couldn’t bring Bennett back, she could stop another life from being taken.

“Bennett,” she whispered, her throat aching as she suppressed any emotion attempting to well up inside of her. She wouldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t let herself comprehend what had just happened, not when she still had work to do.

Only a few days ago, Brynn could say she’d never had to face losing a friend. Since then she’d lost Jonah, Cambria, and Bennett. She hoped she wouldn’t have to lose anyone else to save the world. The exchange hardly seemed fair at the moment.

The elevator began to slow down and eventually stopped, opening on the room that Brynn had burned into her memory.

The white padded walls and floor gave her a literal pain in her neck as she remembered the needle Eris had stabbed into her. She rubbed the spot tenderly and wondered what horrors lay in store for her this time.

Against her better judgment, she stepped out of the elevator and looked around the cell. It wasn’t a particularly large room, and was therefore, easy to search. It became obvious to her after only a few seconds that Jonah wasn’t there. She let out a frustrated grunt that the one place she’d thought he would be was a dead end. She had been positive Eris would hide him in an obvious place, offering him up as bait to lure Brynn in.

Instead, she stood alone in the white room, knowing the elevator had already locked her in.

Though she knew she was trying in vain, she attempted to wedge her thin fingers in the small gap in the elevator door, wondering if there was any way she could possibly pry it open. It wasn’t just her life she was worried about, it was Jonah’s.

Eris wouldn’t kill her. She knew that. She had too much information for the Angel to simply end her life. She also knew there would be true horrors in store for her when the Angel found her, but somehow the motivation to save a friend she’d left behind was much stronger than her own well-being.

She continued to pull on the door that wouldn’t budge, letting her eyes dart wildly around the room for any sign of an air vent or weakness in the walls.

A small hole in the wall above the door, just out of reach seemed to be the only other access to the outside world and Brynn jumped in vain to reach it, knowing there was no way it would be of any use to her, even if she could get to it.

“I hate this place,” she said under her breath, wondering if she’d have more success if the playing field were a bit more level.

It was easy for Eris to always win when she was always the one holding all of the cards. Still, even with the Angel in control of the entire facility, Brynn and her friends had managed to break in and escape more than once. That had to lend something to the Angel’s flaws.

Sighing deeply, Brynn allowed herself to stop searching for a way out. It was obvious to her that she was trapped, but giving up didn’t seem like the right option. Rachel hadn’t given up. Even when she’d fallen into her fatal silence, the girl had kept fighting Eris by never saying a word.

Brynn wondered if she really had it in her to be as calm as Rachel. Could she really mosey around the room without a care in the world when she knew her fate was on its way, ready to kill her? As hopeless as her situation seemed, she knew the only way to take control of things, was to be like Rachel.

She could accept the fact that she was trapped and Eris would be there at any minute to take her, but it would be on her terms. It would be because Brynn had decided that she was at peace with dying if it meant her friends could live. She could find solace in the fact that she had tried desperately to save Jonah and her last act of rebellion against Eris would be her own silence, just like her brave DNA donor.

She may have been trapped, but she was still in control of how she would take on the Angel. If the only thing left in her arsenal was silence, she would use that weapon until her last breath left her.

Brynn was vaguely aware of a hissing noise emanating from the small hole she’d tried to reach above the door and she knew what that meant; Eris was leaking gas into her room. She didn’t smell the sugar but she knew it was only a matter of time before the scent hit her nose and her nose hit the ground.

Taking a steadying breath and a leaf out of Rachel’s book, Brynn walked over to the bed that she had spent so many of her nightmares strapped to. Suddenly it didn’t seem quite so frightening to her. It was the place where she’d make her last stand.

She sat on the scratchy white comforter and rubbed it between her fingers. She hadn’t ever noticed before how uncomfortable the bed was, though she attributed that to the fact that she was usually being drowned or tortured and so an itchy blanket was the last thing on her mind.

In a state of morbid curiosity, she laid down on the bed, resting her hands on her stomach and looking up at the white ceiling, trying to channel the girl who was so much braver than her so that she could honor her memory in the only way she knew how.

She would keep Rachel’s secrets. She owed her that much

“This is how you spent your last days,” she said to the room, wondering if Rachel could hear her now.

She wondered if the girl was disappointed in her for failing, or if she was proud of the fact that she had tried; despite the difficulties. In reality, Brynn had done exactly what Rachel had done. She’d tried to save her friends and she’d gone down swinging; doing the right thing in the end, even if the right thing was simply keeping secrets for those you loved.

“You were so much stronger than me,” she admitted, finding that now that she had begun speaking, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. The time for silence would come soon enough, but until Eris arrived, Brynn would speak to her long gone DNA donor, hoping that by some miracle, she could hear her. “I promise I really tried.”

Her mind still attempted to replay her last moments with Bennett, but she quickly blocked the fresh memory, opting instead for the feeling of Ty’s pinky interlocking with hers as they both kissed their thumbs to make a promise. It was a simple gesture they had shared a million times, but for some reason, right at that moment, the memory brought a smile to Brynn’s tired eyes.

In her mind, she could see the freckle below Ty’s warm brown eyes as he grinned at her, his face blurry from how close they were when they’d make their promises. His cheeks would always turn slightly pink at their closeness, then he’d clear his throat and lean away from her. Always trying to be a grown-up and hide his feelings from her.

“At least we succeeded a little,” she whispered, still smiling at the thought that Ty had escaped the facility.

If the only good that had come from Brynn staying behind was the fact that Ty had enough time to escape, she was fine with that. He was the most genuine, kind person she knew. He put everyone before himself, and that was exactly the kind of person worth saving.

“I think I love Ty,” she told the room, almost laughing at how trivial the statement sounded when she knew she’d probably be dying soon.

But somehow, that statement almost made her feel more connected to Rachel than any of the adventures she’d had.

Rachel loved Maxwell.

She would have understood the awful feeling of never seeing him again, even though in this case, Brynn would be the one to die instead of Ty.

“I hope he knows that,” she said, just as the elevator door slid open and Eris stepped out.

Chapter 27: Reality

Brynn had known she was coming. It was almost comical to see her standing there in all of her terrifying glory.

“You’re so predictable,” she mumbled under her breath, not in the mood for their little back and forth. “If you’re going to kill me you might as well get it over with,” Brynn told her, getting to her feet and trying to be brave.

Maybe this was how Rachel had done it. If she had been resigned to her fate and knew she had nothing left to live for, it would almost be easy to face it.

But there was one difference.

Brynn did have something to live for.

She had Ty. She had Jonah that she needed to rescue. And she had friends who were counting on her. And that was the most dangerous thing of all, because a person with something to live for was a person who could be broken. Not through any harm caused to them, but through the harm caused to their friends.

And that was why Brynn was shocked to hear Ty’s voice say, “What are you talking about?” even as she looked at Eris.

She knew Eris was standing in front of her. She would know the Angel anywhere.

And yet, somehow, she could hear Ty as Eris spoke to her.

“Brynn,” he said as Eris took a step towards her.

Brynn had been prepared to face Eris. She knew what the woman would do to her and she had come to terms with her fate. What she wasn’t prepared for was trying to decipher any possible scenario where Ty’s voice could come out of Eris’s body.

She took a step back as Eris took a step towards her.

“Brynn, it’s me,” Ty said with Eris’s sharp purple eyes blinking in confusion.

“Stop it!” Brynn yelled, moving away from the woman yet again. “You already have me, why are you doing this?” she asked.

“Brynn, I’m not going to hurt you,” Ty said as Eris’s hand reached out to grab her.

Instinctively Brynn lashed out, striking Eris across the face as hard as she could. The woman instantly brought a hand up to her cheek, looking shocked.

“Brynn, what have they done to you?” the Angel asked, still sounding like Ty.

Eris walked swiftly towards Brynn again, trying to grab her wrist. Brynn hit the hand away and backed up until she was trapped against the wall.

“Leave me alone,” she screamed, scratching the face in front of her and leaving four long red lines on the paper white cheek she had struck.

The walls shifted, just like they always did in her dreams and Brynn suddenly felt dizzy, falling to the floor and grasping her head.

The lights went out before igniting once more and that was when Brynn saw him.

Ty was on his knees in front of her, clutching his cheek that was now bleeding profusely and backing away from Brynn.

“What did they do to you?” he asked again, fear in his eyes now. “Brynn, can’t you see me?” he pleaded.

Brynn wanted to run to him. She wanted to apologize and stop the blood seeping from his cheek, but she still didn’t trust what she was seeing.

Somehow Eris had gotten her to see something that wasn’t real. What if that’s what was happening still? How could she trust anything she saw?

“Brynn?” Ty repeated. “I knew you were going to try to find Jonah so I followed you,” he explained. “Right back to the room I saved you in before.”

“Ty,” Brynn said in a rough voice, feeling that even if she couldn’t trust her eyes, she knew that it was her friend.

She crawled over to him quickly and brought her hand up to his bloody cheek.

“I’m so sorry,” she said over and over, tears threatening to escape as a realization dawned on her: she wasn’t alone anymore. And that meant she had to get out.

She was fine with sacrificing herself, but Ty was a whole different story.

“We need to get out of here Ty. I can’t let them take you,” she insisted.

But she was too late.

The door was already opening and a Worker stepped out.

“No!” Brynn yelled, trying to pull Ty away from the too graceful woman.

Ty, however, thought Brynn was the one who needed protecting. He put his arm in front of her, shielding her from whatever the Worker might do.

It only took a few seconds for Eris to appear next on the elevator. She had apparently sent her minion ahead of her to take care of Ty.

“Brynn, I’m so happy you’re back,” Eris said with a smile that actually looked sincere. “Eve, will you please bring our little friend over here?”

Brynn instinctively backed up, pushing away from the woman with her palms. But it wasn’t Brynn they were after. The woman grabbed Ty and forced him to his feet, practically dragging him over to Eris with his arm twisted painfully behind his back.

“He’s a handsome one Brynn,” Eris said, taking Ty’s jaw between her thumb and middle finger and turning his head from side to side.

He stared at her with more hate in his eyes than Brynn thought humanly possible, though he didn’t say anything.

Maybe that had been Rachel’s trick; hating Eris so much that she couldn’t bear to speak to her.

“Oh no,” Eris said with mock concern in her deep rich voice. “Look at what you’ve done to his beautiful face.”

She turned his head to the side to show Brynn the place where she had clawed him. The bleeding had stopped though his cheek was moist with thick red blood.

“Poor boy,” she said softly, kissing his cheek and staining her lips crimson.

“Get away from him,” Brynn growled, her anger flaring up inside of her.

She got to her feet and charged at Eris. She knew she was no match for her but that didn’t stop her from trying to knock the woman off balance like she had before.

Eris was faster this time, however, and she effortlessly grabbed Brynn by the throat and forced her back down onto the ground.

“You stay put. I’m not done with you yet,” she whispered, her eyes taking on that terrifying look she possessed when she really got angry.

She pushed Brynn across the floor until she skidded to a stop by the wall.

“What should we do with this one?” the other Worker asked, turning Eris’s attention from Brynn for a moment.

She wiped the blood from her lips on her lab coat, turning the arm red.

“What would you like me to do with him, Brynn?” she asked.

A slow grin crept onto her features as she walked behind him, placing one hand under his chin and the other at the top of his head on the opposite side.

Brynn’s stomach sank as she realized what Eris was preparing to do. Her whole body went numb as she watched helplessly, knowing that if she made a move towards Ty, Eris would break his neck like a twig.

“Do you know how easy it would be?” Eris whispered, her lips brushing Ty’s ear as he closed his eyes, accepting his fate Brynn thought. She let her purple eyes flicker up to Brynn as her smile continued to grow. “Or maybe I can find a better use for you,” she said, never moving her hands from their lethal positioning. “I don’t think Brynn will tell me anything if I torture her. What do you think, Ty?”

“Don’t touch her,” he said darkly, opening his eyes and staring straight ahead at Brynn.

“I was thinking the exact same thing,” Eris said, slowly removing her hands from Ty’s head. “I think that’s where my big mistake was with Rachel. She didn’t really care about herself much. Humans are so silly that way.”

“Brynn,” Ty said in a shaky voice, his expression pained, not because he knew what would be happening to him, but because he knew what might happen to her.

“Let me guess?” Eris said, widening her violet eyes at the pair. “You love her?” she mocked. “Well that’s exactly why I need you around Ty. You see, Brynn cares about your well-being more than her own. I should have seen it a while ago but I missed it somehow. I guess that’s the only problem with not being human. I don’t have all of those pesky emotions to get in the way.”

“Eris, please,” Brynn pleaded, knowing she had made a huge mistake the second she’d spoken.

Confirming to Eris that she cared about Ty only put him in more danger.

“Fantastic,” Eris said in a slow deep voice, grinning again like the happiest person in the world as her hand flashed through the air and landed on Ty’s arm with a deep, resonating crack.

He screamed out in pain and fell to the ground, clutching his limp arm to his chest.

“Stop!” Brynn screamed as she scrambled over to him, crawling on her hands and knees to get to her friend.

Eris stepped in front of her before she could reach him, pulling Brynn up by her hair and walking her over to the bed.

“Sit,” she commanded her, and Brynn did as she was told, not wanting Ty to get hurt anymore.

Tears were now silently spilling down her pale cheeks as she watched her friend writhe in agony on the soft floor. He groaned softly and kept his eyes firmly shut against the pain.

“You can take him away now,” Eris said, sounding almost bored.

“Please don’t kill him,” Brynn begged as Ty was pulled out of the room.

Eris already knew that she cared about Ty so she figured there was no point in hiding it. She had to find a way to save him, even if that meant giving Eris every bit of information she knew.

“Killing him means I lose power over you,” Eris said reasonably, forcing Brynn to lie on the bed. “Give me your arm, darling,” she asked sweetly.

Brynn tried to imagine how Rachel would have behaved in this situation. Would she attack Eris to try to escape, even knowing it meant Maxwell might die? Or would she do anything the woman asked in order to save him?

Deciding on the latter Brynn held out her arm and Eris stuck a needle connected to a long plastic tube into it.

“Do you see how much easier everything is when you cooperate?” she asked her, still smiling that manic smile.

Brynn instantly felt foggy as a warm sensation swept over her body. Eris leaned over and stroked her hair gently. Almost maternally.

“I’ve been conducting a few experiments of my own you know,” she said like a girl telling her friends about a boy she’d just met. “I’ve learned to navigate your mind quite effectively.”

“What do you mean?” Brynn asked, though her speech was slurred and almost impossible to understand.

“Ever since our last meeting in this room, I’ve been mapping that interesting brain of yours. My little experiment with Ty a minute ago was actually quite enjoyable to watch if I’m being quite honest with you,” she said, still sounding much too happy. “Imagine, being able to turn you against him so easily just because you thought he looked like me.”

“How did you do that?” Brynn asked, or at least she thought she did.

Eris must have understood the intent behind her mumbling though because she smiled down at her.

“Brynn you’re always such a pleasure to work with,” she said, still stroking her hair softly as Brynn’s eyelids grew heavier and heavier.

“Where’s Jonah?” she asked.

Eris laughed her deep, throaty laugh.

“I’m just stockpiling your boyfriends, aren’t I?” she said with glee. “I think it’ll make you so much easier to control, watching them suffer. Though I can’t pretend there’s nothing in it for me. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it.”

“Please,” Brynn managed to say, her voice almost inaudible.

“Don’t worry Brynn. I’ll keep them alive and well for you,” she promised. “Well… I’ll keep them alive at least”

Chapter 28: Fog

Brynn couldn’t be sure how long she was in the white room. Time seemed to come and go without her notice and after a while, Brynn couldn’t tell if she were living out one of Rachel’s memories in her nightmares, or if she had actually woken up and was still stuck in the room.

The plastic tubing in her arm felt cold and foreign, though her body was so heavy that she couldn’t move to pull it out. Eris hadn’t bothered putting Brynn in the white hospital clothes she had expected to find herself in. Instead she remained in something resembling a white version of her default outfit.

Every so often, Brynn would become aware of a Worker in her room, adjusting the clear, liquid filled bag connected to the tube in her arm, or forcefully opening Brynn’s eyelids to check her pupil dilation. She couldn’t help but think that for someone who hated her so much, Eris went through an awful lot of trouble to make sure Brynn was all right.

She knew it couldn’t just be Eris’s desire for knowledge that fueled her hate towards Brynn. It was something deeper. Yes, Rachel had somehow sabotaged Eris’s plans and that was enough for the woman to dedicate her life to getting answers from Brynn; but there was something else to it. Something that had to do with Eris’s pride.

Rachel had been the first person to ever outsmart her and get away with it and the Angel couldn’t live with that. Her hate for Brynn was a more deep-seated one. She hated the very idea of someone who could possibly ruin her programming and because of Rachel, Brynn was left behind for Eris to ‘correct’. The woman wouldn’t stop until she had gotten the information from Brynn, more to save her own pride than to save her actual purpose in life.

Being locked in the room and unable to move was reminiscent of Brynn’s constant nightmares on so many levels, the most torturing, however, was the fact that she was forced to lie motionless and imagine what was happening to her friends. She had left the group in an attempt to save Jonah and all she had done was trap Ty and herself. No matter what she tried to do, it seemed like Brynn only ever made things worse.

At least two good things had come from her visit to A1, she thought. They had managed to install the bug to stop the gas manufacturing wing, and Brynn was certain Jonah wasn’t working for Eris.

Brynn knew that Eris wouldn’t miss a chance to rub a revelation like that in her face. If Jonah really had been working with Eris she would love nothing more than to point out her sad, misguided attempt to connect with someone who would ultimately betray her.

Instead, Eris had threatened to hurt Jonah to get to Brynn. This had to mean that Jonah didn’t work for her.

As if the very thought of the awful woman were enough to conjure her into existence, Eris was suddenly at Brynn’s side, sitting on the bed and looking down at her. She couldn’t be sure how long Eris had been there since her dreams and wakefulness seemed to be indiscernible at the moment.

“Where are they?” Brynn asked, her throat feeling like she’d swallowed a mouthful of sand and her lips dry.

“Don’t worry about them, dear,” Eris stated simply. “I’m just making sure they don’t have any information I need before… well, making them useful.”

“Jonah?” she asked, hoping her short, weak sentences were enough for Eris to understand.

“Him?” Eris answered with a shake of her head. “He’s hasn’t been much good to us for a long time,” she finished, leaving Brynn to wonder exactly what that meant.

Had Jonah worked for them before but decided to leave their service? Had they kicked him out? In a perfect world, Brynn imagined that Jonah had been working for Eris when she’d met him, but had decided to leave after getting to know Brynn.

She tried to quickly remind herself how farfetched that particular scenario was though.

“I’m afraid I may have gone a bit too far with that little Maxwell stunt,” Eris said out of the blue, not really sounding sorry despite her words. Brynn could only imagine that by ‘stunt’ she meant killing him and forcing Rachel to find his body. “You remember Maxwell, right?” she asked, raising a pale white eyebrow at Brynn quizzically.

Brynn tried to nod her head but found that the task was simply too monumental, so instead she settled for blinking up at the Angel.

“I’ve seen your dreams about him,” Eris said cryptically, launching another deluge of questions in Brynn’s mind. Apparently questions were the only thing she’d ever be getting out of her conversations with Eris. “I thought I’d have a little fun with Rachel when I shoved her into that freezer,” Eris went on. “But I’m afraid I might have broken her.”

Brynn closed her eyes, wishing she had the strength to cover her ears and block out the terrible things Eris was saying.

“Do you know, when I tortured her she didn’t even scream?” Eris asked, her eyes now taking on a wickedly happy quality. “I could break her bones, cut her open, burn her skin, and nothing. She didn’t utter so much as one sound.”

Eris almost sounded impressed by this revelation that turned Brynn’s stomach.

“At first I thought she was trying to be brave. Stoic.” Eris brought her cold fingers to Brynn’s forehead to brush a few stray hairs away. “She’d just lay there with this smug look on her face and I’d think to myself, ‘finally I’ve found someone worthy of my time’. But you know what I’m starting to think?”

Brynn didn’t answer, she couldn’t. So she stayed motionless, twitching her fingers and trying to regain feeling in her limbs so that she could strike out at the woman she hated so much.

“I think I broke her long before I meant to,” she finished darkly. “And that’s why I’m afraid the Maxwell stunt was a bit too tasteless. You see, if I’d kept Maxwell alive and just tortured him in front of Rachel until she spoke, I think things would have turned out much better for all of us. I was just too anxious to have some fun.”

A small whimper escaped Brynn’s lips as she continued to flex her fingers, feeling her control slowly returning to her body. She glanced down for a brief second to see Eris sitting on the tube that connected to her arm. She was unwittingly stopping the drug from entering Brynn’s system.

I have to keep her talking, Brynn thought, hoping that if Eris stayed there long enough, Brynn would regain full control over her body and use the pinch on Eris again.

She could feel the cold metal ball still in her pocket. Because Eris hadn’t bothered changing Brynn’s clothes, she hadn’t found the device.

“Jonah’s an A.I.?” Brynn managed to ask, unable to think of anything else that might keep Eris there, sitting on the tube and unwittingly giving Brynn her strength back.

“A.I.,” Eris repeated distastefully. She glared down at Brynn in offense. “How dare you call me an A.I.. Tell me Brynn, if my intelligence is so artificial how is it that I’m constantly able to outsmart someone with biological intelligence?”

Apparently Brynn had hit a nerve without even meaning to. She hadn’t ever considered what A.I. really stood for and she wondered what Eris would call herself if not an A.I..

A ping resonated through the room suddenly and Eris turned towards the door as if she could hear some announcement that Brynn couldn’t.

“I’m sad to cut our little conversation short,” Eris said regretfully as Brynn turned her wrist from side to side. “But I need to go attend to Ty,” she finished, instantly grabbing Brynn’s attention and giving her that same sinking feeling she’d been experiencing so often lately.

“I hope you can be stronger than Rachel and not break when I take your Ty,” she said, before standing and exiting the room without another word, leaving Brynn by herself in the cold, stark facility.

Her arm instantly felt cold again as the drug began seeping into her blood stream once more and it was all Brynn could do to lift her heavy arm up off of the hospital bed and reach for the plastic tubing. She could feel it between her fingers but couldn’t raise her arm close enough to where it actually entered her skin to pull it out.

Pinching the tube as hard as she could and holding her breath, she pulled with all her might. She could feel the plastic slide under her skin a bit but it didn’t quite come out all the way. Brynn felt her stomach go sour at the feeling of the tubing moving under her skin but tried to swallow those feelings down. She had a job to do.

She pulled once more, this time gritting her teeth against the feeling and was rewarded with the sensation of liquid spilling from the tube onto her arm. The drug was slowly dripping from the plastic still but it no longer resided in Brynn’s vein. The tape that had kept the tube in place was now hanging off of her arm and she frantically tried to wiggle her fingers and toes to bring the feeling back into them.

The fog that she’d felt in her head almost instantly vanished the second she had  pulled the IV out, and the longer she kept the drug out of her system, the more control she had over her body.

Unfortunately, it was only a few minutes before Brynn heard the elevator coming to her room.

Mustering all of the strength she possessed she re-taped the IV so that the medicine would drip behind her back onto the bed, but still look like it was attached to her arm. She pulled the pinch from her pocket and held it in her left hand which lay hidden under the blanket.

As the elevator door opened, Brynn closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, hoping she seemed like she was asleep as the Worker approached her.

The Worker, a man this time, stood over her, studying her face with his intelligent purple eyes. Brynn was disappointed that it wouldn’t be Eris she’d use the pinch on but she’d take what she could get. His cold fingers ran over the tape on her arm as if he suspected something might be off. He checked the bag, beginning to look worried and Brynn knew: it was now or never.

Pushing the small red button on the pinch she heard the same high-pitched beep she’d heard right before her world was turned upside down by the revelation that Jonah was an A.I.. The Worker was still staring down at her though now his eyes were unblinking and Brynn knew he was frozen.

She said a silent thank you to Hadlock and Rusty for inventing the wonderful device that had saved her life on two occasions now as she searched the Worker for keys or anything else she might need to get out of the room and into the facility.

Brynn located a small card on the man’s belt and quickly took it, running to the elevator door on unsteady legs. Her right foot dragged across the soft white floor as she tried to get the feeling back into her legs, hoping they wouldn’t slow her down too much.

The card she’d stolen from the Worker opened the elevator door instantly and she stepped inside, pushing a button to the floor right below hers and hoping it’d be where Ty and Jonah were kept.

When the doors opened to reveal a long white hallway, Brynn silently cursed her bad luck. She hadn’t really expected to simply find Ty and Jonah right away by pushing a button at random, but that hadn’t stopped her from getting her hopes up.

There were no Workers to be found down the hallway and Brynn half ran, half limped through the white space until she realized that it actually looked familiar to her.

She had been there before and that meant, she knew the way out.

That brought Brynn to a decision she wasn’t sure she was ready to make. Did she get herself out of the facility alone in order to bring in the full force of The Alliance to try to save Ty and Jonah? Or did she stay behind and find them herself.

One thing was certain: if she left now, she was almost positive that Eris would kill both boys purely to spite her.

Chapter 29: Alive

Brynn followed the familiar hallway as if she had walked it every day of her life. Her legs were finally functional once more and she no longer dragged her foot across the floor. Instead, she walked quietly through the space, still not sure if it was better to bring in help to find Ty and Jonah or if she should just look for them herself.

The problem with finding them on her own, she realized, was that it would only take one Worker to stop her and the pinch still had a good eight minutes of recharging to do before she could use it again.

She grasped the metal ball tightly in her hand, wishing it were powerful enough to knock out the whole facility. Brynn knew that the Worker she’d frozen would be mobile again by now, probably informing Eris of her escape and bringing down the wrath of A1 on her.

With this comforting thought in mind she continued down the hallway towards the exit she knew she’d be able to locate, still unsure of what to do.

“Brynn, stop,” Eris said from behind her.

She was a good distance away and didn’t actually look like she intended on coming any closer to the girl. Her feet were planted and her arms were crossed. Even her ever present smirk was gone, replaced by a serious look that Brynn had never seen before.

“Stay away from me or I’ll…”

“Use your little device there?” Eris guessed, nodding to the pinch that Brynn grasped for dear life.

This was all too soon. It wouldn’t be ready for another seven minutes and Brynn was pretty sure Eris was well aware of this fact. The woman could come after her right at that moment and Brynn wouldn’t stand a chance.

And yet, she stood her ground a safe distance away from Brynn. Not making any move to attack her.

And that terrified her more than anything.

“Are you really going to leave your friends in here with me, sweetheart?” Eris asked, and for the first time, Brynn couldn’t tell if her terms of endearment were sarcastic or sincere.

“I want you to give me back Ty and Jonah,” Brynn finally said, knowing she really didn’t have a bargaining chip. “I’ll tell you anything I remember. Everything I know. Just please let them go,” she pleaded, holding the pinch out in front of her like a weapon, despite the fact that it was useless in her hands.

Six minutes, she told herself, keeping a mental count of the pinch’s cool down.

“Brynn, you know I can’t do that,” Eris said evenly, taking one small step towards the girl.

Despite how nervous it made Brynn to be in the hallway alone with Eris, it was the things Eris wasn’t doing that made her more nervous.

She didn’t have Worker’s coming up the hallway behind Brynn to snatch her. She didn’t run full speed at the frail girl that she could easily break in half. She didn’t force her to do anything. And that made absolutely no sense.

Five minutes, she told herself.

“The only reason you need them is to get information out of me,” Brynn said reasonably. “So if I’m willing to give you the information freely why do you need them?”

“I need them to force the memories you can’t recall,” Eris answered matter-of-factly.

Four minutes.

“And besides Brynn, I don’t just need you for your memories,” Eris said.

She took one more almost minute step forward, inching slowly towards Brynn as if she didn’t want to spook her.

“You need information on The Alliance?” she guessed, wondering if she would really be willing to sell out her friends and their cause to keep Ty and Jonah alive.

She wanted to keep them alive, that much was certain. But she wanted to believe she could be as brave as Rachel by sacrificing what she loved for the greater good.

Three minutes.

“I don’t need information on that band of misfits,” Eris said disdainfully. “They don’t pose a threat to me.”

Brynn had known that Eris was an arrogant woman. It was probably the only weakness that would be useful to the group in bringing her down. But she hadn’t realized until that moment just how unaware she was of the threat The Alliance posed to her. She may not have thought they were a contender in her great plan, but that only proved to Brynn just how misguidedly confident in her abilities she was.

Two minutes.

“If you don’t need information on The Alliance and you don’t need my memories, then what do you need me for?” Brynn asked, afraid of what the answer might be.

Her palms were beginning to sweat around the pinch, making it slippery and difficult to hold on to.

“I need you to talk to someone for me,” Eris said, her eyes now intense as she watched Brynn. “They won’t respond to me no matter what I do.”

Eris almost sounded like her feelings were genuinely hurt by this fact and Brynn wondered why in the world Eris would think this silent person would speak to Brynn instead of her.

One minute.

“She refuses to speak to me. She always has so I’m not surprised, but now that I have you, I think she’ll be a little more willing to cooperate.”

Brynn could feel the seconds ticking away. It was like an internal clock counting down to the time when she’d be able to use the pinch again. She only had half a minute to go and she was sure she’d be able to keep Eris talking for that short amount of time.

The Angel took another step towards her, coming just within range of the pinch and suddenly Brynn realized why she had kept her distance in the first place. Eris hadn’t known about the cool down time on the pinch. She had just thought she’d distracted Brynn well enough to keep her from pushing the button.

Brynn moved her thumb to the red button, counting the seconds in her head methodically as Eris stared at her.

“Who do you need me to talk to?” Brynn asked, more to keep Eris distracted than out of any actual interest.

There was absolutely no one in the world she’d let distract her from her mission of finding Jonah and Ty.

“I need you to speak to Rachel for me,” Eris said finally, saying the one thing that caused the pinch to drop from Brynn’s now limp hands.

And that was when she smelled the sugar.

Acknowledgments

First off I have to give a huge shout out to my amazing lit family at CHBB for… well… everything really. You guys always have my back and it’s wonderful! Thank you to Heather, Lisa, and Mikki for all of your input and for helping me figure out how in the world to describe that stupid hallway. Ashlee, again, I’m sorry for what happened in this book, but thank you for reminding me that the mafia doesn’t exist in this world and so, in fact, I can’t make a reference to them. That was close! Jackie Hicken, you know who you are and you know what you did… which was everything. You always do everything. And I wouldn’t have finished a single book without you. Amber, Bennett, Hadlock, Royter, Tate, and Devey, thanks for letting me use you guys. If I end up killing any of you, it’s nothing personal. Family, thank you for encouraging me and being the best family I could ever ask for. Husband, thank you for just being the best in general and putting up with me and all of my craziness. And thank you to my Heavenly Father, for the gift of writing that I would be so lost without.

About the Author:

Shannen Crane Camp was born and raised in Southern California, where she developed a love of reading, writing, and anything having to do with film. After high school, she moved to Utah to attend Brigham Young University, where she received a degree in Media Arts and found herself a husband in fellow California native Josh Camp. The two now live in either California or Utah... they still can't decide.

Shannen loves to hear from readers, so feel free to contact her: Shannencbooks@hotmail.com

Visit her website for more information: http://shannencbooks.blogspot.com

Also by Shannen Crane Camp:

The Breakup Artist

Pwned

Finding June (The June Series #1)

Chasing June (The June Series #2)

Sugar Coated (The Sugar Coated Trilogy #1)

Under Zenith

Table of Contents

- Rose Tinted
- Copyright
- Also by Shannen Crane Camp
- Chapter 1: Indulgence
- Chapter 2: Escape
- Chapter 3: Underground
- Chapter 4: Backtrack
- Chapter 5: Suspicions
- Chapter 6: Maxwell
- Chapter 7: Puzzled
- Chapter 8: Façade
- Chapter 9: Rusty
- Chapter 10: Alliance
- Chapter 11: Under
- Chapter 12: Bucket
- Chapter 13: Panurgic
- Chapter 14: Unwanted
- Chapter 15: Rachel
- Chapter 16: Intelligence
- Chapter 17: Initiation
- Chapter 18: Sanctuary
- Chapter 19: Ruin
- Chapter 20: Strategy
- Chapter 21: Pinch
- Chapter 22: Knowledge
- Chapter 23: Caves
- Chapter 24:Promises
- Chapter 25: Car
- Chapter 26: Apart
- Chapter 27: Reality
- Chapter 28: Fog
- Chapter 29: Alive
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author: