Surge’s cruiser stunk of smoke, which was why I immediately lowered my passenger-side window. Everyone else filled the rows behind me: in total, Surge’s cruiser was carrying eight people. This team would have to shrink down eventually. Thank goodness Surge let his welcoming party take those White Dwarf pilots to the hospital, or we’d probably have to stick them in the trunk.
The wind blew through my hair as Surge drove past all the Oppressed buildings that I’d missed. The last time I’d been there, the sidewalks had been crowded with smiling people. Maybe it was because of the dark sky, but, this time, I didn’t see any smiles. What I did see was pale light illuminating our path from above. I knew what that was. I sighed as I looked up.
The Moon returned my gaze. I’d forgotten that you could see it in Earth’s nighttime sky. In the past, I had thought of it as my former home watching over me. It had made me feel safe.
Now, all I felt when I saw it was an ache of guilt. It was a reminder that I had failed the one place that had needed me the most. However, that only applied to one section of the Moon. Every town and city besides New Selene was living in absolute ignorance. Frost’s stupid tower had seen to that. If there were any survivors, they would report what had happened there. Not that they’d be believed. It’d probably be dismissed as a conspiracy theory.
“Are you sure I shouldn’t take you all back to your house?” Surge suddenly asked, snapping me out of my thought process. “We left it untouched. I don’t think you are ready for a meeting at the moment.”
“We’re fine.” I crossed my arms…well, I crossed my only arm over my chest and pouted. “There’s no time for rest. You’ll understand once we explain everything. Hey, what was up with the rude welcoming party?”
My arm was still numb from the cement restraint. Surge had dissolved it with some green liquid.
He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, them? As I’m sure you heard, I had to contact Frost directly in order to save you during the Epsilon Incident. It was the first time I’d spoken to her since creating the Oppressed. Ever since then, I’ve been a little paranoid. I keep imagining that, one day, she’s going to fly down and bomb the whole base. I’ve taken every precaution to prevent that.”
The only reason I’d ever left the Oppressed had been because Surge had handed me over to Frost. Manning had come with me. I’d been mad, but I’d gotten over it. Especially now that I was in a slightly better state of mind. Besides, it sounded like Surge hadn’t wanted to do it in the first place.
He pulled up to a little building with some huge windows: his office. It might also have been his house, but I’d never asked. Below it was a huge underground lab that had been used during the days of the Frontier Project, but that was a long story. There were a lot of long stories behind the Oppressed base.
We shuffled out of Surge’s cruiser and into his office: all eight of us. I was already choking on the stench of smoke, and now I couldn’t even move. I was shoulder to shoulder with Laura and Anderson, while Surge scooted past us. As always, Surge’s walls were covered in pictures. They displayed different Oppressed members. Surge was in a few of them, but the focus was obviously on the Oppressed. These were the smiling faces I had been looking for.
“So…New Selene has fallen.” Surge plopped down behind his desk. He grabbed a ceramic mug beside a stack of papers and peered into it. Then he took a sip. “Seeing as this little group contains both the AI prisoner, Laura, and Wander’s AI-loving sister, I’m guessing your explanation is going to take a while. I’m ready whenever you want to start.”
He wasn’t wrong. I explained everything that had happened since we’d parted ways. I had to gasp for air several times before I was finished. Then I looked at Laura and Beth in the hope that they’d explain more about their situation. Beth just said what she had told me: the AI had been monitoring activity on the gremlin planet because they’d been aware of Frost’s interest in it. Laura didn’t have much to say about that. I was dying to know what her relationship with the AI was like, but I guess that explanation had to wait.
Surge took another sip from the mug that may or may not have actually held liquid. “I knew Frost was sinister, but for her to deploy Project Orwell? Seems like acquiring Epsilon’s coordinates was a giant mistake after all. I can’t imagine why else she’d become so desperate.”
“Back up, Antant,” Laura said. Her voice was loud in my ear because she was sitting close to me. Louder than usual anyway. “You know about the Dwarfs? Spill.”
“Frost had a whole arsenal of ideas for dealing with the AI. The top of the list included assembling teams like Humanity’s Oath and the Constellations. Bottom of the list? The idea of using the citizens she was trying to protect as weapons. Project Orwell. She specifically wanted to use citizens over more sensible options like convicts and prisoners. It’s poetic in her eyes, while it’s inhumane in mine. I told her that forcing people to fight and possibly die against their will was insane. She listened and agreed, or so I thought. In reality, it seems like she managed to create the awful machines without me and was just waiting for the right time to use them.”
“Why is she so obsessed with this idea?” Manning asked. “The idea of using specialized teams isn’t awful. Humanity’s Oath did just fine for the longest time.”
“With all due respect, Theodore, where’s Humanity’s Oath now?” Surge set his mug down as Manning frowned. Rebecca squeezed her fists shut but didn’t say anything. “Sorry if that went too far, but it was Frost’s thought process. She was growing tired of how ineffective it was to abide by the rules. She’s more invested in this war than anyone in the galaxy. She’ll do anything to end it…no matter the cost. That’s what makes her more dangerous than the AI.”
As crazy as that sounded, I understood. The AI were an invading force. They didn’t know us like Frost did. She specifically chose New Selene because she knew it was a small town. Her next target was probably some town on Jupiter, the next most deserted place in the galaxy. The AI could never do what she was doing.
“So how do we stop the bots?” Anderson asked. “Don’t know if you caught that part, Dude-draped-in-a-shower-curtain, but my brother’s in one of them.”
“No I got that, Kid-who-paralyzed-one-of-my-troops-last-month.” Surge shot Anderson a menacing glare. Anderson stepped back as he looked at the floor. I’d forgotten that we’d told Surge about Anderson. Why had I brought him here again? “The White Dwarfs may rely on their own human hosts, but they’re still programmed to follow Frost’s orders. Once she’s out of the picture, they’ll be left without a guide.”
“So we just need to invade Frost’s ship?” Rebecca slapped her forehead, which must have hurt. “I could have told you that! What are we doing standing around? Let’s get going.”
“If we show up at the First Ship now, we’ll be blown apart by ten different drone ships.” Beth folded her arms as she stepped forward. Oh no. I knew where this was going. “Surge, was it? Don’t you think we need more power if we’re going to assault Frost’s ship?”
“Actually, I know a way to sneak past the drones—”
“And then you’ll be obliterated by the hundreds of Dwarfs on the ship! My point is, I think you idiots should ally with the AI. You’ll find that their goals align with yours quite nicely.”
I’d seen a lot of raised eyebrows in my time, but Surge’s at that moment almost made me burst out laughing. Beth was like a door-to-door salesman who was lacking in the actual “sales” part. It wasn’t her fault. She was just asking us to do the impossible.
“I’ll give the usual response here and say that allying with the AI seems…ridiculous.” Surge shrugged like he didn’t know what else to say. “Even if it was possible to gain their assistance, I wouldn’t want it. What I do want is for all of you to get some rest before we continue. You’ve been through so much in such a short time.”
I scoffed. “The longer we wait, the more time Frost has to prepare. We need to strike before she has time to get her bearings.”
Surge rolled his eyes and picked up a table. “Kid, use your powers on this. Turn it on or make it overheat, I don’t care.”
An odd request, but it sounded easy enough. I raised a hand and pointed at it. I had to be careful not to overdo it. After what had happened in New Selene, I couldn’t be too careful. I willed electricity to fly from my fingers…but nothing happened. My fingers didn’t even crackle. Had I already broken my powers again?
Unfortunately, I had a hypothesis. When I’d faced Alhabor, I’d used my powers though I’d already reached my limit. I thought my actions had put my powers in cool-down mode. I’d have to wait a certain amount of time before using them again.
Surge nodded out of satisfaction. “That’s what I thought. Now, how about that rest and relaxation? We’ll discuss our next move in the morning.”
I scowled. “Fine. Just one more thing before we leave: don’t ever give me away again. I don’t care if I’m bleeding out of five different places; we stick together.”
Surge grinned. “Fine by me. But keep this in mind: Frost isn’t holding back anymore. That means we can’t afford to either. I can’t guarantee what tomorrow will bring, but we need to be ready for it.”
Exactly what I was thinking.
That concluded the meeting even though we hadn’t come to an actual decision. That would happen later. It was not like we had many options laid out for us.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
We walked out of Surge’s office and into the lukewarm night. I was prepared to take a public cruiser back to our place, but then I noticed Laura whispering to Manning. Were they catching up…or scheming? Who was I kidding? I already knew the answer.
“Hey, Instructor Manning said he can take us back to the house,” Laura said as she struggled to hide her smirk. “Wander, go show Opifex the forge. You could both use some cheering up.”
I gulped as Opifex’s eyes widened. “The forge? What’s that, little man?”
“It’s the lamest place on the base,” I said far too quickly. “We don’t need to go there—”
“He’s lying,” Beth said with a straight face. This must have been payback for not going with her AI idea. “Whatever it is, go check it out. We don’t care.”
I wasn’t getting out of this. The longer I fought it, the worse it’d get for me. Perhaps visiting Nessa and the forge wouldn’t be so bad. Opifex would get to see all the cool tech, I’d get to be traumatized by a reunion I wasn’t ready for; everybody would win.
I hopped into a public cruiser, while Manning and the others jumped into a different one. My cruiser smelled like pickles and creaked like an old bed when Opifex joined me in it. I might have missed the Oppressed, but I sure hadn’t missed their barely functioning public cruisers. I scrolled through my phone until I got to the cloud and summoned a key that Surge had entrusted to me a month previously. I smiled as it dropped into my hand. After all this time, I still had it. Sooner or later, Frost would cut off my phone. I’d lose access to the cloud. I had no idea what would happen to all my stuff when she did. I should pile it all in my room or something…
“So, what’s the real story behind this forge place?” Opifex asked as I shoved my key into the ignition. “I knew you were lying before your sis even pointed it out. She turned out pretty scary, by the way.”
“Tell me about it.” I stepped on the pedal as I gripped the wheel. Driving with one arm was weirder than I’d thought it’d be…because I kept trying to grab the wheel with my stump. “The forge is actually my favorite facility on the base. I had to risk my life on Jupiter before I even joined the stupid place.”
“Yeah, that sounds like your life. I’m not seeing the problem here. Are you too chicken to see all your old pals?”
“Nope…but I am too chicken to see the girl whose side I swore I wouldn’t leave.”
Opifex blinked, and then he tiled his head back and laughed. “Girl trouble? Wander Locke has girl trouble? Dude, I used to tell my hombres that you were dating your cruiser. Now you’re telling me that there’s a real girl involved, and you left her?”
“It’s complicated, man! Look, I…” I was about to explain everything, but then I realized that I’d have to bring up Alhabor, the same Alhabor who’d killed Opifex’s mom. I didn’t want to make him think about that. He deserved his smile. “Nessa’s had a rough past, okay? She doesn’t like being abandoned. Even though I didn’t do it on purpose, I feel like I don’t deserve to reenter her life. What if I have to leave again? If I disappointed her twice, I’d never forgive myself.”
“Life isn’t as complicated as we make it out to be, vato. One second, someone’s there. The next, who knows?” Opifex paused, which immediately indicated to me who he was really talking about. I was speaking from experience when I said that it took a while to get over losing a parent. “But I think she’ll understand that you had to go. Plus you’re here now. That’s all that matters.”
It sounded so simple when he said it. I couldn’t wait to see how things would actually go.
I sighed as I pulled up to the silver building that I had been in charge of. That had only lasted a week, but it counted. I shut off the cruiser and stepped outside. Opifex followed my lead, his eyes sparkling with curiosity. He was the only reason why I had the strength to come here.
“Sorry for whatever you’re about to see,” I said as I gripped the front door’s massive handle.
“I run…I mean, ran a store, I’ve seen it all.” He chuckled but then his face fell. What an uncomfortable reminder of our grim reality.
That was the other reason why I had to come here. We’d need Nessa for the upcoming fight. Her technical prowess was unparalleled. I only surpassed her with my Hybrid powers and not by much. I took a huge breath, and pulled the door open.
The metallic fragrance that wafted into my nose was the nicest welcome I’d gotten all day. A series of orange and blue flashes blinded me as I stepped inside. The clanging and sawing of metal was deafening. I could barely hear my own footsteps. It may have been the middle of the night, but the forge never slept. I saw a lot of familiar faces standing over suspension tables or hammering metal. None of them had looked up yet. It had never been this busy, so I guessed they hadn’t heard us come in.
“¡Dios mío! You could recreate my shop with the stuff in here.” Opifex’s grin grew as he scanned the room.
Seeing him happy made it all worthwhile, but he had just alerted the whole room to our presence. The noise died down as everyone turned to look at me. Why did this happen every single time I walked in here? Gasps replaced the metallic clangs as recognition flashed on everyone’s faces.
At least these guys know me.
I’d been ignoring it, but there was an occupied wheelchair in the middle of the room. The girl sitting in it had been talking to someone, but when the other occupants of the room had turned around, so had she. Her silver hair complimented her gray eyes. She was wearing the arms of her space suit but no other parts of it. Her mouth fell open in a silent gasp as she made eye contact with me. Her hair was cleaner than it had been on the day I’d left.
“Wander?” Nessa’s voice cracked. I hadn’t expected that from her.
“Hey…” I wanted to add a joke and say that I’d gone to the store or something, but I couldn’t. Not this time. I’d never thought I’d see Nessa again, and now that I had…my mind was blank. I had to focus on the reason for this visit: Opifex. “I…brought a friend. Meet Opifex. He taught me…things.”
Smooth.
I stood frozen as Nessa eyed me up and down. It was as if she expected me to burst into smoke. Her eyes kept settling on my right “arm” before she restarted the process.
She finally closed her mouth and looked at Opifex. “Welcome to the forge. I…won’t pretend to know why you’re here, but I can give you a tour while I figure it out. Right this way, please.”
Opifex followed Nessa as she rolled toward the back of the room. That had gone better than I’d expected, which was a bad sign. She either hadn’t freaked out because she hadn’t wanted to make a scene or because she was ignoring me. I didn’t like either implication. I followed the two of them in silence as Nessa described the facility’s features. I felt so many eyes on my arm as I walked past my former colleagues. This was more awkward than I’d imagined.
The conversation must have drifted to the project rooms because Opifex was holding open one of the facility’s green doors for Nessa. She glanced back at me then rolled herself through the doorway. This was my chance to see what the forge had been up to since I’d left.
I stepped past the green door, entering a room with light blue walls. This was where Nessa and I had repaired that cloaking device that had only worked once. I was expecting a new project of that caliber, but what I saw instead stopped my heart. The lower half of Nessa’s space suit stood in the back of the room, underneath a whiteboard that was coated in black scribbles. The suspension table in front of the metal legs was covered in tools.
Before I’d left the base the previous month, I’d drawn up a solution for Nessa’s mobility problem. If the legs of her space suit could be modified with a spinal attachment, they could reestablish the connection between her brain and her legs. Our space suits were already designed to read our minds, so this wasn’t a stretch. I hadn’t completed it, and it looked like they hadn’t either. I’d been wondering why Nessa wasn’t wearing the legs. Now I knew.
“Half of a space suit?” Opifex scratched his face as he walked up to it. He eyed every open hatch and wire attached to it. “I don’t—wait, what’s up with this thing?”
He patted a metallic spine that extended out of the legs. The same one I’d designed. Each vertebra was silver, and the discs between them were blue. This was my idea brought to life. Pride stirred in my stomach. If they’d made this much progress, why wasn’t Nessa wearing it?
“This is our greatest achievement.” Nessa rolled up to it and caressed the spine. Her shoulders relaxed like she was in the company of an old friend. “There are companies out there that can restore mobility with a chip or an…implant, so our invention may not seem as impressive by comparison. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m immensely proud of it. A cheap and effective way to restore the usage of one’s legs. It could help so many people.”
“Including you,” I said. “So why aren’t you wearing it?”
Nessa tensed up, and her expression turned sour. She shot me a glare that made my hair stand on end. I might have said something dumb, but I couldn’t have held in a question like that. The legs had been modified for her. She should have been standing in them.
Opifex eyed the two of us and seemed to remember what I had been telling him about girl trouble. “Uh, good job on this doohickey, but I think I’ll step outside for a bit. I’ll be back…eventually.”
He stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him. Utter silence fell over the room as Nessa and I avoided each other’s eyes. I missed the days when I hadn’t had to deal with complicated situations like this. Was she going to speak first, or should I? It had to be me. The sooner this conversation started, the sooner it could end.
“I’m sorry that I left,” I said as I stared at a muddy footprint on the floor. It probably belonged to Opifex. “I didn’t mean to. The mission just got out of hand—”
“Surge explained everything.” She crossed her arms as she looked at the floor too. It was like we were making eye contact by looking at the same thing. “I understood that you would come back as soon as you were able to…and you did.”
“So then, what’s wrong? What’s the problem?”
Her mouth quivered. “Are you sure you aren’t more curious about why I’m not in those legs?”
“At least you can still read my mind. That was going to be my next question.”
“Good. Because you’re the reason for it.” Her eyes flashed with pain. “I haven’t worn the legs because they’re not finished. I didn’t want to finish them because I’d been waiting every day for you to come back. This was your design. How could I finish it without you?”
My heart sank. I wished I had never heard that. Nessa had spent a month waiting for me while I had spent a month moping around. I needed to invent a time machine just so that I could correct this mistake. Now that I thought about it, Nessa might have been implying something else, something that I felt too. I had to confirm my suspicions.
“I missed you too,” I said as a smile spread across my face.
I bent down and wrapped my arm around her. I expected her to throw me off, but she actually leaned into the hug. She even returned it despite her hesitation to do so.
“Thank God you didn’t make me say it,” she said in a wavering voice. It sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “Next time you leave, I’ll come after you myself. I’ll drag you back if I have to.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I stepped back, but then Nessa grabbed my right “arm.” She restrained herself as she inspected it. She was handling this revelation better than I’d expected. How could I even begin to explain this? How much had Surge told her about the mission?
“Yet another thing we have in common.” She glanced at her legs. “I’ll build you a better arm. One that can lift a cruiser with its pinky!”
“Whoa, whoa! You’re supposed to be the sane one here. Besides, I already have a replacement. I just need to get it back from the jerk who stole it.”
“I’ll help, of course. Who’s the ruffian who committed such an act?”
A knot formed in my stomach. So this was where the complications came in. How was I supposed to tell Nessa that we were up against her dad? This was the fight that she’d been training for her entire life. After seeing the evil that Alhabor was capable of…it was a fight I didn’t want her participating in.
“Hey! How are things going in here?” Opifex poked his head around the door. I hadn’t even heard it open. “Am I doing this right? I’m trying to be more responsible, but this just feels nosy.”
“Things are fantastic, Op!” I grinned in relief. The Alhabor talk could wait. “Nessa and I have made up, and it turns out the legs aren’t finished. I designed them, so how about you check my work?”
It wasn’t really my right to keep info from Nessa about her own father, but he wasn’t just her enemy anymore. He was a heartless backstabber who wasn’t afraid to kill anyone in his way. I’d take him down alone if I had to just to keep my friends safe.