Laura, Rebecca, and I were fine. Rebecca was hurt from dealing with the AI, robots, and Anderson, but she was still standing. I couldn’t convince her to take a break, anyway. Laura was hurt from both of Beth’s attacks, but she was just as stubborn as Rebecca. I was tired, but my electricity was coming back. I’d shock until I passed out if it meant getting my friends out of this.
Kaela, Manning and Dylan? The complete opposite. Dylan’s case was obvious because it had just happened and I still felt awful about it. Kaela was lucky to be alive. She’d taken the most damage, and she still hadn’t opened her eyes. Laura refused to leave her side. Manning was hurt, but he was standing. Laura was hurt much worse than him, but he had enough sense to not want to go to Epsilon.
Dylan wanted all of us back at base to give Surge the coordinates. That would have been the smart decision. Too bad I wouldn’t be making it. When Beth had been captured, it had taken me a year to go after her. Look how that had turned out…I wasn’t waiting this time.
With Anderson unconscious, there was no one stopping us from taking his ship. We wouldn’t take it back to base because, obviously, First Division tech had tracking in it. I would just use it to get back to the ground, where our ship was waiting for us. Manning and Rebecca sat behind me and checked on each other. Laura sat beside Kaela and held her limp hand.
“Are you sure you can pilot a xeno ship?” Laura asked as I gripped the yoke.
“I don’t have time to learn.” I adjusted the monitor so that it would show me the ground. I spotted our ship and all the lava surrounding it. “Don’t worry. There’s no ship in the galaxy that I can’t pilot.”
I regretted my words the second I lowered the ship. It was much heavier than I’d imagined. It was like balancing a potato on a paper plate. The whole ship rumbled when we hit the ground. I didn’t have to worry about the lava, though, because it wasn’t my ship.
I ignored the heat of Venus as we all limped back to our parking bay. It didn’t faze me anymore. The explosions in the sky didn’t matter either. Why was the battle still going on? What was the point? God, this whole planet had stressed me out to the point where taps on the shoulder could cause me to burst into tears. That was why I yelped when Laura did it.
“Whoa, sorry!” She held up her hands defensively. “I was just going to ask about the plan. We’re in a bit of a hurry here.”
I looked around. We stood in our ship’s parking bay. The black lite ship we’d brought was beside us. Right, time for the next step.
I took a deep breath. “Manning, take Kaela and yourself back to the Oppressed base. Laura, Rebecca, and I are going to Epsilon. We’re going to get Dylan back. We may not have the ruabrum, the Oppressed, or most of our team, but our assault starts today. The AI want me, and they’re about to get me. Any objections?”
Silence. Even though this was the craziest thing I’d ever suggested?
“This mission is foolish, and I would never approve a visit to Epsilon, but I know I cannot stop you.” Manning leaned over and hugged me. I hugged him back as my chest filled with warmth. Hard to believe that my opinion of him had changed so much in so little time. “Please stay safe. All three of you.”
He glanced at Rebecca as he said that. She stared back with intensity. Their last conversation hadn’t ended well thanks to Rebecca’s weird denial.
“Theodore…we don’t know what happened to the others.” Rebecca frowned, looking uncharacteristically gloomy. “I have trouble accepting that. But then I realized that you did too. You went through the same thing I did once.”
Manning nodded. “Yes, and I only got over it because I had Upton. After losing the others, I still had someone. That’s why, when you get back, I’m going to do everything in my power to be there for you. We can be alone…together.”
Rebecca snickered. “What an awful phrase. Still, it’s a tempting offer.”
“One you can discuss when Kaela isn’t dying.” Laura gave Manning a quick hug and then pushed him away. “Go, go, get back to base! We’ll see you after we rescue Dylan and possibly murder the AI leader.”
“Here’s the key. We’re taking the lite ship.” I handed Manning the exploration ship key. “Make sure Surge gets Epsilon’s coordinates.”
He nodded and bent down to pick up Kaela. It took everything I had to turn away from them and unlock the lite ship. Rebecca and Laura stepped into the heavy atmosphere first, and then I joined them. This ship wasn’t as cold as the xeno ship, so the heat only added to the anxiety. I sat in the captain’s chair, but the cushion didn’t offer relief.
I started the ship and flew it out of the parking bay. I wouldn’t miss the depressingly desolate surface of Venus. The heat fading from the cockpit wasn’t welcome either. I glanced behind me to check on my friends. Neither of them seemed happy, but I was right there with them.
My hand shook as I held up Dylan’s phone. I wouldn’t be touching it at all if I didn’t have to. My eyes moved back and forth between the phone and the monitor as I inputted the coordinates. Orange light left the cockpit, and darkness replaced it. Space again. The stars were too beautiful to shine on a day like this.
“Hey, are you going to be okay?” Laura stood in her usual spot, beside me. Our next ship needed to have a chair installed for her. She couldn’t keep standing in moving ships. “That was a lot to deal with down there. Anderson, Beth, Dylan…Now I’m positive you’re not okay. How many hugs do you want?”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, but I’m a little busy here. Plus I’ll be fine as soon as we get Dylan back.”
Laura sighed. “Most important lesson I’ve learned during our time with the Oppressed: lying to yourself is a lose-lose situation. You know the truth, you’re just burying it. Takes a lot out of you…which is why you need to spill. Vent about your awful life.”
“Fine…of course I’m not okay. Anderson hunts me wherever I go, Beth hates me no matter what I do, and Dylan’s probably going to become a Hybrid because of me. Plus we’re going to try and assassinate the AI leader! I don’t know; do you think ending the war is gonna be that simple?”
“I don’t know, let’s ask the person who’s going to do it. Rebecca, you’ve been weirdly quiet. Thoughts on the assassination thing?”
Rebecca ran her finger along her javelin’s edge. “As long as this does what you say it will, there’s nothing to worry about.” Rebecca looked right at me. Her expression wavered like she was struggling to get something off her chest. “Little Locke…I mean Wander. I didn’t know you felt that way about your grandfather.”
I thought back to my talk with Beth about being compared to others. She had been listening? I’d assumed she’d been thinking about punching stuff, which she’d proceeded to do five minutes afterward.
“That’s because it’s no big deal. No need to apologize or anything.”
“It is a big deal. I didn’t mean to contribute to your self-consciousness. As a foreigner in the First Division, I understand how it feels to doubt yourself. I just couldn’t look at you without seeing Mikey because of his impact on my life.”
Laura looked at me and then looked back at Rebecca. “What did he do?”
Rebecca huffed. “The Sixteenth Division is a rotten and old-fashioned place. Their approach to the war is different from the First Division’s. In the Sixteenth Division, children are raised to be soldiers. It was cruel, but we didn’t understand that. We were children. I trained my whole life and didn’t care about anything other fighting until I met Michelangelo and the rest of our team. They showed me that there was more, especially your grandfather. He was the closest thing to a father.” Her eyes flickered pink when she said that. “I…don’t remember my original family. I was taken too early. That’s why…that’s why I care so much about my team. They are—they were my family.”
Her voice was so hushed and vulnerable. It was the exact opposite of how she usually sounded. That explained her denial. She’d lost one family that she didn’t know and one that she did…
Laura shook her head. “That’s awful. Why do you still like fighting after going through all that?”
Rebecca’s face twisted with grief. “It’s all I know. It’s like a sixth sense. I don’t have hobbies besides exercising. I feel alive when I fight even though I know that I shouldn’t. Just because you know the name of your ‘condition,’ it doesn’t mean you’ve been cured of it.”
She shouldn’t have had to live like that. Even if she had been forced to because of the galaxy we lived in. When this war was over, we’d have to help her find something else. I glanced down at the monitor. It had finished calculating the route. Apparently, it’d take thirty-four hours to reach Epsilon at our current speed. It was definitely time to warp.
“Strap in, guys. We’re warping to Epsilon.” I couldn’t believe my own words. It was the first time anyone had ever announced that they were warping to the AI’s planet. I took pride in that.
“Got it. Are you going to be okay, Rebecca?” Laura asked.
She chuckled. “You’re very sweet, child. Yes, I will be fine. It’d take more than emotions to fell a beast like me!”
She was definitely growing on me. Hopefully I wasn’t piloting her to her death.
I shut my eyes and initiated the warp sequence. I absolutely welcomed the numbness that followed. Fuzziness filled me as my skin was reduced to rubber. This needed to last forever. If it did, I wouldn’t have to deal with the harsh reality within which I had locked myself.
I gasped as feeling rushed back to me. Why had that been so short? I hadn’t had enough time to relax. Time flew when you were actually having fun flying at warp speed. I shook my head free of the excess fuzziness as I peered out the windshield.
Nothing. There was nothing but an endless stream of stars on the windshield. Did we get a set of dummy coordinates? No…because I could sense Epsilon now. It was here, I just couldn’t see it. I increased the speed slider and flew forward as Laura and Rebecca exclaimed, expressing the confusion that I felt.
An enormous ball of metal popped into existence once I’d flown far enough. Silver lines broke up its red exterior. Its multicolored bumps must have represented cities and towns. On a metal ball. One that was evidently cloaked. This was Epsilon?
“What, the heck just happened?” Laura ran up to me and held her face up to the windshield. “Is that a freaking piece of metal floating through space? Does it rotate? Does it have gravity? Did it just pop out of nowhere? I seriously doubt it has an atmosphere.”
“The planet was cloaked. That was why Frost could never find it. That, and it’s so far away from our solar system that it might as well be in another galaxy.”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
An invisible metal planet. The AI must have created it. It was not the only invisible planet in the galaxy, but it was the only artificial one.
“Metal?” Rebecca scoffed. “It’s as hideous as they are! Land as quickly as you can. I’m ready to wreck this travesty.”
I flipped through the monitor’s menus and initiated the cloak. The ship made an odd twinkling sound as the exterior presumably shimmered out of sight. I couldn’t risk triggering whatever defenses the AI had, so I had to waste the last of our power on the cloak. Now we couldn’t warp out if there was trouble, and it’d take a day to get back home, but better safe than sorry…
The monitor flashed green as we neared the surface. This place actually had an atmosphere. How, and why? Robots didn’t need to breathe. It must have been for Beth and the other Hybrids they were holding hostage.
Every building that jutted from the red surface was of a different color. I saw blue, tan, green, and purple buildings everywhere I looked. Their windows didn’t have glass, they were more like holes forced into existence like the one Rebecca had made on Venus.
Laura pressed her face against a window. “What the heck are those down there? People?”
I switched the monitor to a view of the ground. I spotted a plethora of colorful humanoids. I didn’t understand the AI’s obsession with colors, and these rainbow people were equally confusing. They were too slim for combat unless their insides were stuffed with weaponry. Moreover, their movements were stiff, and they all walked around each other like magnets were pushing them apart. It was like they were programmed with a certain walk cycle.
“These guys are like NPCs,” I said as I shook my head. “They seem useless. Maybe that’s deliberate. They’re harmless until they get deployed, and then they transform into real AI?”
“Doesn’t matter, they’ll get smashed all the same.” Rebecca pounded her hand to demonstrate. “Send me in!”
“Not yet. This is a stealth mission. We’re trying to get in and out without being seen. We just need to figure out where they’re keeping Dylan—oh, I think I know.”
A gigantic dome loomed over all the other buildings. It was (you guessed it) red, had actual windows, and was big enough to hold exploration ships. I scanned the area and realized that it was the only red building.
Laura’s eyes grew as wide as the dome. “The heck do they keep in there? Spare planets?”
“We’re about to find out.” I pushed the yoke, steering the ship downward. “Get ready for anything.”
We couldn’t enter the front door (if it had one), so I circled the structure. Then I lowered us in front of a purple blip, which I soon realized was a door. Purple AI? We’d seen blue, tan, and green, but never purple. We’d either be stuck with the strongest AI or the weakest. I was willing to take that chance.
The whole ground reverberated as the ship settled on it. Metal transmitted vibrations easily, and the whole planet was made of metal…so creating quakes would be as easy as snapping fingers. None of those rainbow guys were anywhere near us, so the coast was clear. Seeing all the AI structures from below made me realize how weird they were. Some were curvy, some were bent over, and I couldn’t sense tech in any of them. They all seemed empty.
I would have queried the reasons for their existence, but I had already done that with the humanoids, and I didn’t have time to nitpick everything the AI did. They were clearly insane.
I got up despite my trembling legs. “Okay…as soon as we get inside, stick close to me. Maybe my Alpha senses will lead us to where we need to go. If the AI are actually Implanting Dylan, I’ll have no trouble locating him.”
“And if he’s not Implanted?” Laura asked.
“Then we’re about to see how well I can interrogate an AI. Let’s move.”
I hopped off the ship and landed on the ground of Epsilon. The immediate vibrations threw me off. How did the AI walk on this all day?
Pride flooded me as I placed my hands on my hips. I’d made it to Epsilon, something no other human had ever done. Besides some of the other Hybrids, like Beth and now Dylan. That meant I wasn’t even the first man on Epsilon. I’d ruined my own moment…whatever.
I shuddered with each vibration-creating step I took until I reached the purple door. It had no handle, no hand scanner, and no keycard scanner. There was no way to open it. AI could interact with their technology, so I assumed that was how they opened these. Luckily, I could do the same. I pressed my hand beside the door and concentrated. My hand crackled for a second before the door slid aside. I couldn’t believe that had worked.
The room was as purple as the door. Well, every part of it that wasn’t covered with blinding screens. I summoned my helmet just so that my visor would shield me from the light. The screens provided all the light in the room. Tall purple robots with orange eyes hovered around and stared into them. They were like bees buzzing around a hive. Unlike the other AI, these guys wore clothes. Their orange cloaks flowed around them as if the room had a draft.
“Whoa.” Rebecca jumped back. The door slid shut behind her, spooking her again. Goodness! It’s like a haunted house!”
Every AI in the room pointed their orange gaze our way. Rebecca had just lost some likability points.
“Humans? On Epsilon? What year is it?” asked one of the dozen AI. This one spoke in a female voice. It was still electronic, but it was also shrill like that of an irritated librarian.
“These must be Hybrid candidates, like the boy that Beta brought back,” said another AI in the exact same voice.
“She did what? There’s a new Hybrid candidate?”
“Do you ever check the Knowledge Stream, Tera?”
“Excuse me, Tera. I’ve been busy doing my job! You should attempt it.”
“Every single day, I find it harder to resist draining your power and leaving you to rust.”
The Teras continued to bicker amongst themselves in the most literal sense. All these AI were the exact same model. How the heck could they be arguing? Didn’t they have the same thought process? On the bright side, they weren’t shooting us full of plasma. These AI didn’t seem to be combative. They were more “Intellectual” than “Aggressive.”
This could be fun.
“Hey!” I said, silencing the purple jerks. “One of you freaks mentioned Beta bringing a boy here. Where did they go?”
Teras had gaping frozen faces like all other AI, but their eyes still bled contempt. “Why would we tell a human anything? Stand there while we report you to General Peta.”
“No, don’t.” I panicked a bit before I realized my status. “I’m the Alpha! I’m a pretty big deal around here. That means you have to do what I say.”
“The Alpha?” The Tera floated back a little. “Oh my! In that case…I’ll be the first AI to tell the Alpha to shut up because he’s not the boss of me!”
“What? How dare you speak that way to your Alpha? Rebecca! Show them why they should fear Hybrids.”
Rebecca scanned the room before stomping over to one of the many screens. She took hold of it and yanked until she’d torn it out of the wall. Electricity crackled as the wires snapped. Rebecca twirled around and chucked the screen across the room like a frisbee. The Tera screeched as it crashed into another screen, filling the room with blinding flashes. The crackling had become music to my ears. The Tera looked at the fallen screens and then back at us. Was that fear I detected?
“All right, fine!” The Tera raised its arms in surrender. “See this? You humans do this idiotic arm motion when you give up, don’t you? Bested by a couple of Hybrids. This is what we deserve for denying ourselves those combat upgrades…We’ll tell you where the boy is, just stop ruining our work environment.” The Tera sniffed, despite not having a nose or the ability to cry. “Please. Our job is all we have.”
My family was all I’d had, but I hadn’t gotten a say regarding how that turned out.
“Dude, infiltrating a planet filled with AI has been easier than I thought,” Laura said. “We’ve been here five minutes and we’re still alive!”
“That’s what happens when you have someone like Rebecca around.” I patted her arm, which didn’t budge in the slightest. “Thanks for coming, by the way.”
Rebecca grinned. “No problem. Someone has to be the, what was it? Champagne? No, that’s incorrect.”
As she struggled to remember the word for someone who accompanied and looked after another person or group, I spied something odd behind the Teras. Every single Tera had their arms raised. All except one, whose orange eyes flickered like a faulty wallscreen. What were they up to? I pushed past the wall of Teras as I snuck over to this oddity.
“So, feel free to tell us where the boy is. Any time now.” I made eye contact with all the Teras that I passed. If I stayed inconspicuous, they wouldn’t catch on.
“Of course,” said a Tera who enunciated each word slowly. Almost like they were buying time. “He is in the only Implantation Room on this floor. Look for it in the silver hallway. Wait, where are you going? Don’t go over there. That’s where all the rude Teras are. They’ll burp in your face and display rude gestures with their appendages!”
Sounded like they knew what I was doing. I quickened my pace and finally reached the Tera with flashing eyes.
It showed no sign that it had seen me even though I was right in front of it. I waved my hand in front of its face. Still nothing. Time to use the experience I’d gained from hacking Rebecca’s mind. I grabbed the Tera’s face: it still didn’t respond. So I concentrated as hard as I could on reaching its thoughts. Something clicked in my own brain just before my body went cold. Voices skipped my ears and funneled straight into my brain.
Alpha, Rho, and a human are standing in the Tera Room on the first floor of the Machina Mansion. Send assistance.
I gasped for air as I teetered back. “Life” returned to the Tera’s eyes, meaning that I’d hacked them out of whatever that was. My head hurt from those voices invading my brain. How had that happened, and just what was that? Was that the Knowledge Stream that the other Teras had mentioned? Oh, wait. We needed to leave.
“They called for backup. We need to get out of here!” I pushed past a crowd of the backstabbing bots and headed for a purple door in the back. “Out of my way, jerks. Laura, Rebecca, come on.”
The Teras shrieked as Rebecca knocked them aside. In her case, “aside” meant launching them into the walls, leaving massive dents behind. Her way of carving a path was the complete opposite of mine. I slammed my hand beside the purple door and willed it to open like the last one. I huffed as it did because my body reminded me of my own exhaustion. I could only open so many doors before passing out.
Laura and Rebecca ran behind me as I sped out of the room. I looked around for a silver hallway. The Teras might have been lying about that, but I had to believe that they hadn’t been. It was our only lead. We sprinted through a purple hallway, which white lights on the floor and ceiling illuminated. It reminded me of the way classrooms were lit.
I slowed down as we reached the point where our hallway ended and three more began. There was a tan one to our left, a green one ahead, and a silver one to our right. I smiled as I ran for the silver hall. This planet was just spoiling me now.
“Down!” Rebecca swatted me to the floor with a single finger. A tan blast flew past us and soared down the silver hall. Its heat warmed my back as it passed. I glanced down the tan hall and saw a gang of Megas approaching. Their arm cannons were pointed at us. Rebecca muttered something under her breath, probably in her native tongue. “They’re already here. Move!”
Rebecca pulled me to my feet, causing every single nerve in my arm to tingle. She pushed me and Laura down the silver hall. I took off, sprinting as plasma soared around us. The air was electrified with energy. I couldn’t even focus on the hallway. We passed a few doors, but I doubted that any of them led to the Implantation Room.
“Ah!” Rebecca stumbled and reached for her back. One of the shots must have gotten her. Laura and I slowed down, but she waved us away. “Keep going. I can handle it.”
She was lucky there wasn’t time to argue. We kept going, but we made sure Rebecca wasn’t falling too far behind. The metallic thumps behind us told me that the Megas were keeping up. We had to deal with them, or they’d just follow us into the room! My stomach squirmed with excitement as I spotted a blue hall coming up on our left. Perfect.
“Turn left, get ready to fight,” I said to the girls.
I rounded the blue corner just as another blast flew by. The girls did the same, so I jumped back out. Four Megas charged toward me. I pointed a crackling hand at them…and then spread my fingers apart. All four fingertips crackled separately and unleashed four different streams of electricity. They latched on to each of the Megas. The blinding streams slowed their advance to a halt. All four of them grunted as they stood frozen by my power.
My vision went black as I stumbled into a wall. It returned the next second, but I’d gotten the message. Rebecca sprinted past me and slammed into one of the frozen AI. Hopefully, the paralysis I’d induced would last long enough for her to win that “fight.”
“Do you need a second?” Laura asked as she inspected me. I was sure I didn’t look good. She’d have been able to see the sweat beading down my face if I hadn’t been wearing my helmet. “We can take a little break if you need one.”
“Taking a break on Epsilon? Not while we’re so close to the goal!” I pushed off the wall and stumbled back down the silver hall.
I shut my eyes and envisioned the Implantation Room. I’d done this before with the base on Jupiter. All I had to do was concentrate. I flinched as countless rooms filled my mind. How could I choose one weird room on a planet full of weird things? So many environments floated around in the darkness. So many AI, but I was looking for a human. So then…I should head for the room with the least number of AI in it!
“This way.” I forced my numb legs to move. “Come on, Rebecca. I’ve got it.”
“Coming!” Rebecca said, followed by a metal clunk.
None of these doors meant anything anymore. All that mattered was one door to my right. The room would be filled with tech but no AI. I pressed my hand beside the silver door and concentrated on opening it. It slid aside, revealing the room.
Red lighting filled the dark room. Wires and tubes lined the walls; they all connected to a series of chambers in the back of the room. I disabled my helmet as I walked up to them. The room’s air was stale, which made breathing uncomfortable. Screens and keyboards littered the left and right walls, and they connected to the chambers. This just screamed “Implantation Room.”
This was where I got my Implants? I’d never seen this place before. How could that be?
“Who…who’s in there?” Laura pointed to the middle chamber. The same one I was approaching.
The victim’s eyes were shut. Their hair floated up, supported by the clear liquid that filled the chamber. That explained all the tubes. His only article of clothing was a pair of white shorts that clung to his body. I didn’t know where his suit was, but, even without it, I recognized the guy.
Dylan.