#and ayda giving her the ability to punch even more things is just beautiful

[lonely-space-ace]

I've only had Adaine and Ayda's friendship for a day but if anything happened to them I would kill everyone in this room and then myself

[blooblooded]

Travel Adventure pt 1

Quick 15 pages from tonight. Going to expand on Marty getting the gang out of prison. I just thought it would be funny if they evaded Smiles and his squad only to get dragged into jail by this fairy-tale era Colony.

I need to git gud at writing about groups :/ It’s hard to split my attention between everyone idk. I used to be better at writing than I am now and that’s kind of disheartening but right now I’m really engaging with the idea of making this story uhhh real.

##

It took 9 hours of driving for Tabby to reach the Territories after breaking through the gates. 9 hours of nonstop driving. She did not have directions-- after all, how could she? The Northern Territories were closed off from all the other Colonies. She followed the old roads and the instructions Marty had programed into the truck's GPS. It was easy going, though a few times they had to stop and clear debris from the long-abandoned roads. As epic journeys went, it was not as interesting as any of them imagined.

Kassidy was not aware of the majority of this trip. The fight against the four masked secret police agents and Cihad Tariq had taken most of her energy. She spent over 90 percent of the trip asleep in the truck bed. When she woke up, she found that there was blood trickling out of her nose again. The way that her body was quickly breaking down troubled her, but not as much as the way that she was losing consciousness did. She wiped her nose inconspicuously on the back of her sleeve to hide it, but then realized that meant she would have a blood stain on her favorite shirt.

Tabby, Casey, and Ayda sat up front to drive and guide, while the rest of them were relegated to the loser section in the back. Kassidy coughed and brushed her hair away from her face. Tony sat beside her, having some kind of internal freak out over Cihad, so she ignored him. Rosaline was on her other side, her body still monstrous from her transformation. She held Esther's awkward long-limbed self tightly in her arms, like Esther was the only thing that mattered. Esther, in obvious pain, cradled her right hand to her chest. It was mangled into an unrecognizable form from being crushed by the lead secret police agent's heavy boot.

They were all fucked.

Rosaline noticed that Kassidy was awake. She turned her broad, honest face, now made predatory and canine by whatever had been done to her. She still refused to talk about it. Her droopy brown eyes were now orange slits but did not take away her candidness. "You good?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah," said Kassidy, who did not look good at all. She knew that she had grown uglier-- a few years ago she wouldn't have believed that was even possible. Using the magic she gained from her brief relationship with Cihad's Book took energy from her that she did not have to give. It made her pale and gaunt, retaining water in her belly and her extremities like a corpse. Her acne was making a comeback and left open sores on her cheeks. She smelled foul no matter how many times she washed. But it was all worth it. She had always been ugly. She could deal with being a little uglier if it meant she wasn't useless. If she had not used blood magic during their fight against the secret police, then the pyrokinetic one would have fried all of them and the escape would have never happened. "Why?"

"I'm worried about you," Rosaline replied with the air of a person who did not have much room to talk. She rearranged Esther in her arms. Esther winced and groaned.

If they didn't get medical help soon, Esther was going to have two messed up mutant hands. Kassidy remembered that she was 3 years into a nursing degree and grimaced. She didn't have much confidence in that.

"Can I look at that?" Kassidy asked her, only because she was the only one with any medical experience.

"They'll have to amputate my hand to the elbow if you mess with it. No offense. When you practiced drawing blood on me you permanently paralyzed one of my nerves." said Esther, without even opening her eyes. Since her dress had been torn by the secret police freak, she had retrieved one of the sweaters she had packed. It was girly-pink and beautiful and looked like it had been purchased by her father. "I think that big guy smashed all of my fingers, I have to see a real doctor."

"If Marty's Colony even has doctors."

Esther opened her eyes in alarm. "Marty gets on the Internet, how can a place have Internet and not any doctors?"

Kassidy shrugged and coughed again. There was something wrong with her lungs and she probably needed to see a doctor as well. "I'm just saying. Everything he's told us about that place seems backwards to me. They have all their buildings above ground." She remembered that they were all above ground and felt momentary panic. All the grade school documentaries about the pollution and dangers of the outside world came flooding back to her. If there really was toxic pollution, mutant cannibals, and nonstop environmental disasters, they would be completely unprepared for it after a lifetime of living in an underground metropolis. Somehow Marty had survived 20 years, and he was a basement-dwelling mega nerd. Whatever skills he had, he would have to impart them to the Edenites quickly.

"Oh man, do you think we're breathing in radiation?" Rosaline put her clawed hands over her nose and mouth.

"Babe, even if we were, you've already grown fangs and back hair and stuff. You're basically a werewolf. What else could possibly happen to you?"

"I could get cancer, Esther!"

Listening to the couple lovingly bicker while wrapped in each others' arms irritated Kassidy. She looked over at Tony. His long black hair had come undone and hung down to his shoulders. He had his hands clutched to his chest like he was holding himself and stared directly in front of himself, focusing on nothing. His expression was blank but Kassidy could see from the way he held his jaw that his big fake teeth were clenched. She nudged him and he jumped.

She didn't think she would ever understand Tony Delmont. He had seemed OK with this plan, right up until the second they were stopped at the city gates and he saw Cihad barreling towards them. Now he was acting like their mission to Marty's Colony was doomed, even though he had been the one to propose it. He had...well, he had Seen something in Cihad's furious, terrified face and that information had changed him completely. Kassidy was almost afraid to ask him about it.

Almost, being the key word. Kassidy's social skills remained in the nearly nonexistent category. She nudged Tony again.

"Really?" asked Tony. He re-adjusted his eyepatch.

"Did that freak you out?"

"Did fighting off some super-powered government children while my psychotic ex frantically tried to stop me from leaving the city freak me out? Did the knowledge that I'll never be able to go home or see my daughter again without getting my ass thrown in prison forever freak me out? Am I freaked out because I found out that there's a demon out there that wants my body? What do you think?"

Kassidy decided to take a hard swerve around the family stuff. "Those weren't children."

Tony laughed humorlessly. He rubbed his stubble. "Yeah. I learn something new and horrible every day. Rosaline, you punched a 15 year old."

"Aw, don't tell me that," said Rosaline, whose face grew genuinely sad and upset. "No I didn't. Your eyeball was stressed out from seeing Tariq, you got your info all switched up. I would never hit a kid."

"There's no way that big guy who fought me was a teenager," said Esther. She had a good point. That guy had been huge and fought like he had been fighting for years. He fought so well that he didn't even use an Ability, unlike the pyrokinetic, the psychic, and the impossibly fast one.

"He wasn't, but two of them were, the little one and the psychic one." Tony shook his head. "It makes sense, doesn't it? All the missing kids."

He was talking conspiracy theories again. Then again, he had the right. After all, he had been the subject of one of the greatest tabloid conspiracy theories of the last 3 years. Even now, even knowing him and his story, Kassidy couldn't feel entirely sure that he wasn't responsible for the grisly death of his pregnant wife. What kind of innocent man runs away to hide in the sewers like that? He remained cagey about the thing that had made him run and Cihad's involvement in all of it only brought up more questions.

Well, even if Tony was a murderer, he wasn't a very scary one. He was more like a depressed uncle.

The truck ran over something with a loud crack and jostled everyone in the back. The brakes squealed as the vehicle rolled to a clumsy stop. Esther yelped in pain because she bumped her hand, which made Rosaline instinctively wrap her big arms around her, hurting Esther's hand again in the process. The little porthole that connected the truck bed to the front seats slid open and Casey poked her head through it. The giant sunglasses she wore made her look like a bug. She wrinkled her nose.

"It smells like farts back here," she said. "Have you people been marinating in this the whole time?"

"What's happening?" demanded Esther.

Casey shrugged. "Truck won't move."

"Why won't it move?"

Casey slid the sunglasses down the bridge of her nose so that she could give Esther a cheeky look. Her dark brown skin was covered in a sheen of sweat that had melted her eyeshadow, making her look like a brightly colored raccoon. "Judging from the way we just bounced 5 inches into the air, I would say we hit something. But I really couldn't tell you, since it's been all of one minute. Tabby got out to risk life and--well, life and limb but I mean limb in the singular sense-- to check it out." She briefly gave Kassidy a once over. "You're finally awake I see, sleeping beauty. I was starting to think you were dead."

Sleeping beauty. It really got on Kassidy's nerves when Agapama made fun of her like that.

"You guys are going to flip when you see what it looks like out here," Casey continued. "It's like what you see in all the holo-vids, but crazier. I never thought anything could be so big and empty. There's trees like you would not believe, way bigger than anything growing in the glass gardens. A while back we drove through I guess a cloud of small insects and they got splattered on the windshield. And the moon! You all missed seeing the moon and all the stars, I watched them move across the sky and disappear. Before the sun came up, the sky went pink and purple. I don't think I've ever seen something so beautiful." She was being sincere because she didn't add anything about how she was beautiful. The world out there must be really something.

From up in the front seats, Ayda said something unintelligible and Casey pulled her head out of the little window to reply to her. Since they were not moving, Tony stood up and stretched his scrawny legs. He paced around a few times anxiously, but the truck bed was only about as big as a king size bed and most of the space was taken up by the luggage, so he did not have enough room to get his nervous energy out. Whatever Tony had Seen had really shaken him up. He touched his hair, realizing for the first time that it had fallen from its bun. He put his hands in his pockets to search for a hairband, came up with nothing, and sighed.

Kassidy had an extra one on her wrist. She took it off and wordlessly handed it to Tony, who nodded at her and put his hair back up.

Casey stuck her head back through the truck bed. "Good news-- Ayda's portable has a signal again. We're close."

"You mean we've been driving around without Marty to guide us?" asked Rosaline.

"No signal. I don't know, there were mountains and shit in the way. It's not like that boy actually knows geography, he was working off maps that were made 200 years ago from before the blockade combined with smuggler shit from the darknet."

"Your dad's a smuggler, Case."

"Yeah, not to the Northern Territories. No money in that shit."

Suddenly, the truck door swung open. The unexpected bright light that poured in from the outside made everyone flinch, and Esther scream. It was a light unlike any that Kassidy had ever seen, even on the Upper Levels. In Eden, the lights on the ceilings of every District only mimicked sunlight, and compared to the real thing it was a pale imitation at that. Kassidy squinted and put her hands up in front of her face. No wonder everyone up front needed protective lenses. It made her feel exposed and overwhelmed and it hurt her. Rosaline's mutation allowed her to adjust to the light instantly, her pupils narrowing to tiny slits the same way that a cat's does. Esther seemed to be in pain because she did not have her eyes open at all-- probably an Artificial thing. Tony did not react.

Tabby crawled up into the truck and squatted there with one of her elbows resting on her knees, holding something in her metal hand. Her lenses were not big and stylish like Casey's--  it seemed as if she was wearing a mechanic's goggles. She had a scarf wrapped around the bottom half of her face and a baseball cap hiding her salt and pepper crew-cut. She pulled down the scarf. "Bad news kiddos," she said raspily. "We're fucked." She held out her hand to show them a long chain with inch long metal spikes poking out of it at even intervals.

"Was that on the road?" asked Rosaline. "Did someone put that there?"

"Yup." Tabby discarded the device. "Caltrop. Knocked out all four tires."

"What?!" exclaimed Casey. She pulled her head away from the window, presumably to leave the truck and see for herself. She said something Ayda before getting out and slamming one of the doors.

"Do we have any spares?" Esther still could not open her eyes. For all her alleged genetic superiority, she really was worthless most of the time.

"Yeah. One. A whole lot of good that's going to do us."

Tony sighed and got out of the truck-- probably to properly stretch his legs rather than to help. It had become clear that he did not like to be in confined spaces. Kassidy followed him, leaving Rosaline and Esther behind.

When she got her first look at the outside world, she couldn't help but freeze stupidly.

The road ran between two sandy rock formations, both over 3 meters high. Centuries ago, when the road was being made, someone must have had to hew through the middle of the rocks with tools and dynamite. Huge evergreen trees grew thick together around these formations, taller than any tree Kassidy had ever seen. So much green in one place seemed like an impossibility, especially when juxtaposed against the blue of the sky. There were other rock formations here and there but apart from them, the land was flat. It went on forever: trees as far as the horizon. The fresh air was cool and crisp, cooler than the temperatures ever reached in Eden. Casey was right. It was beautiful. She had not realized that the world was so big. It made her feel tiny.

The truck's tires were shredded. Kassidy did not know much about vehicles but she could see that. The prospect of walking the rest of the way to Marty was not a pleasant one in her mind. Something in the woods made a weird sound and she glanced around, on the lookout for mutant cannibals.

"It was a bird," said Tony.

"Oh." Birds made more than one noise? She had a lot to learn about nature.

Casey bounded over to them, seemingly unperturbed by the sights and sounds of the outside world. She already had her glasses pushed up on top of her head like a headband. As with everything else, she adapted unnaturally fast. Her face was not eager or curious, simply focused on the situation at hand. She noticed that Kassidy was having a difficult time in the sunlight and took her sunglasses off to put them on Kassidy’s head.

“So how do we fix the tires?” she asked. She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. Being cooped up for hours on end was not good for Casey. “You have something to fix the tires, right, Delmont?”

Tabby crossed her wiry arms. “What do I look like to you?”

“Like somebody I assumed was competent up until this very moment, I don’t know.” She was a pragmatist, but lacked realism. Spoiled people always do. Casey had never wanted for anything in her life, it was like she always expected a material solution to be right in front of her. She watched as Tony got down on his hands and knees to inspect the caltrops that had been laid down across the road. “Maybe I’ll get a new favorite Delmont twin this afternoon though. What are you figuring out down there, old man?”

Tony ignored her, the way that he usually did. He pulled up one of the lengths of metal chain and held it in his hands.

As she watched him, Kassidy felt an uncomfortable twisting in her stomach. She had not eaten in nearly a day so she figured it was simply hunger. But the strange thoughts and feelings she was developing when she was around Tony had started to worry her. Now that she was no longer in possession of the Book, she thought that they would fade away. That was the source of all this, wasn’t it? Even though she still used blood magic when she had to, she was no longer in proximity of the real darkness-- whatever it was. There were times that she did not feel like herself. It was like she was running a fever at all times and certain things she did or said were part of that haze. She could not remember everything and most of the time she felt sick.

It was worth it though. She did not want to be a worthless person. Everyone made sacrifices, this was just hers.

She breathed in the clean air. It smelled a little funny and plant-like. If she had to describe it, Kassidy would have called it ‘green’. Totally unlike the recycled air in Eden. That alone was worth it.

Soon they would be in the Northern Territories with Marty. They would all be safe and would have time to figure out their next steps when it came to Eden.

At length, Tony discarded the metal chains. He looked up, his expression mild and resigned. “Does Ayda have Marty on her comm right now?” he asked in the voice of a man who has something terrible to reveal but finds it almost funny. He dusted his hands off and stood up. His knees popped audibly and he winced.

“AYDA!” Casey yelled. She was loud enough to scare a couple of birds in a nearby tree into flying away. Tabby smacked her, saying ‘shhh’, which made Casey attempt to grab one of Tabby’s metal fingers and pull it off. Her impulses to be loud and violent trumped her good sense.

Ayda got out of the truck and gingerly walked to the back where everybody else was. She picked up her feet with each step like the dirt underneath was the worst thing she had ever encountered. Unlike everyone else, she did not seem interested or awed by the nature around her. She seemed disgusted. A small insect flew near her face and she swatted it with both her hands and squealed in distress. Her lips were twisted and her nostrils were flared.

She adjusted her own sunglasses and pulled the edges of her headscarf closer to her face as if that would keep the sunlight away from her. “What?” she asked unpleasantly. Habitually she held her right forearm close to her head, since she was in constant communication with Marty. “Did you fix it? We’re almost there, we need to keep driving.”

“Yes. I magically fixed all four tires in 10 minutes,” Tabby snapped, rolling her eyes. Ayda was even worse than Casey because she lacked realism.

“Does Marty know where we are?” asked Tony from behind clenched teeth.

“You’re at the border of a Territory called Kamenka, just beyond the Valley and the Hinterlands,” came Marty’s funny, accented voice from Ayda’s comm device. She held out her wrist so that the rest of them could hear him better and so that they could see the small blue holo-projection of his face. Even as a projection he had a difficult time making eye-contact. “It’s an hour away from the Capitol City where I live. What’s wrong, could you not fix the tires?”

“Border, huh?” said Tony. He pointed down at the metal caltrops that had destroyed the tires. Ayda moved her comm so that its little screen was facing the ground, so that Marty could see the tires as well. “You mean a border in a strategic location that might be defended by a military outpost?”

Marty stared at the caltrops for a second blankly. “Uhhhhh,” he said, and his face disappeared.

“Marty!” Ayda said shrilly.

“Marty?” repeated Casey, realization dawning on her face. She looked around sharply, her clever brown eyes taking inventory of their strange new environment. It was clear that she was out of her element, after years of living and fighting in a densely populated brutalist city. The rock formations on either side of the road were vantage points for potential enemies. The thick evergreen trees provided cover that she could not possibly keep tabs on. “Kassidy, get back in the truck.”

Kassidy did not get back in the truck, and felt insulted at being ordered to do so. She also looked around but could not sense anything dangerous. Then again, she had never been so good at that. When she was a kid she had walked straight into every trap Kip had ever left for her.

“Is everything OK out there?” called Rosaline. She didn’t get an answer but did not leave the back of the truck. To her, staying with her injured girlfriend was more of a priority than being aware of the situation at hand.

In the distance-- or perhaps nearby, it was impossible to tell out there in the open among all the rocks and trees-- was the unmistakable sound of an engine. Or engines.

Even if they could run away, it would not be successful. None of them knew how to survive in the wilderness. They didn’t have weapons or supplies for such a thing. Kassidy’s stomach flipped like she was about to throw up and then it twisted as the terrible thing that had made a home inside of her grew aware. It was almost like anxiety, except more painful. It seemed to push up and out of her and she knew that was her new body’s way of preparing itself for what it thought was another fight.

She didn’t want to use blood magic again so soon. Fighting off the pyrokinetic had knocked her out for the entire day. She couldn’t afford to have that happen again, but if it came down to it, she didn’t have a choice.

Tony laughed quietly to himself and Tabby gave him a dirty look.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” said Marty over Ayda’s comm. His face popped back up on the holo-projector. “Bad news, you guys are about to get arrested. It’s OK, just don’t resist and they’ll take you to the city instead of shooting you.”

“Marty, you little bastard!” exclaimed Casey, grabbing Ayda’s wrist so she could move her face close to the projection in an attempt to threaten Marty long-distance. “You said everything was good on your end. You didn’t say anything about-- about police officers that pop out of the forest!”

Marty’s projection was shiny like he was sweating in real life. “Well, we actually don’t have police officers, everything is run by the military since the coup 12 years ago--”

“That’s worse!!”

Kassidy’s nose started to bleed again. She wiped it once more on her sleeve and didn’t call attention to herself. She felt faint and her vision was blurry; suddenly she wished she had eaten something before they left. Only Tony seemed to notice amidst all the ire towards Marty. He stared at her with his one wide blue eye and she could only wonder what he Saw. She kept wanting to ask him, but ever since the first incident with Cihad he had been acting like a skittish animal. Somewhere along the line he had stopped trusting her.

The engines roared closer. They didn’t sound like a train, nor did they sound like a truck. So much smaller. Were there other types of vehicles that people used out here in the world?

“Kid, I’m real disappointed in you,” Tabby growled toward the Marty-projection. She kept looking past the truck, down the road where the engines were coming from. Tabby did not have a weapon-- none of them did except perhaps Casey who was never without a knife-- and her fists were not clenched, but she seemed ready to spring into action at any moment. “All my life I’ve been dodging prison in my own Colony, so if I get chucked into some military cell in your backwoods operation out here I’m never going to forget it.”

“I said you don’t need to worry! I’m taking care of it!

“You’re a 20 year old with no job, how are you going to take care of it?” Tabby noticed Tony spacing out and staring at Kassidy and she gave him a little push to snap out of it. Her brother blinked and re-focused himself.

Kassidy wiped more blood from her nose, using her index finger. Almost unconsciously, she pushed up one of her sleeves and drew a small circular symbol on her wrist using the blood. She did not know why. She did not know what it meant. It was like her body was acting of its own accord and she was trapped there, watching. It did not distress her even though she normally wanted to be in control. The skin of her wrist grew unnaturally cold beneath the blood. Her vision got blurrier.

“I’m going to kill you, Marty.” Casey said into Ayda’s comm, but keeping her eyes on the road beyond the truck. “You idiot. You nimrod.”

“Will you people calm down so I can contact a guy I know??” Marty’s voice squeaked when he spoke; it was obvious he was forcing himself to sound calmer than he really was. “This isn’t that serious, I’ve been held up at military checkpoints more times than I can count! I’m taking care of it!”

But it was too late. Eight 4-wheeled vehicles drove out from either side of the truck, squeezing between it and the rock formations on either side in order to form a tight semi-circle. The vehicles were far smaller than the truck and did not have roofs or windows. Their wheels were larger and hardier than the ones on the truck, suited for all forms of terrain. A few of them were trailed by sturdy little carts. All of them were driven by young men in blue military uniforms who had large firearms strapped to their backs and long bladed weapons at their sides.

For a second, all the Edenites could do was gawk at how foreign these strangers were. Their uniforms were made in a style that seemed straight out of a fairytale, with brass buttons and everything-- but the body armor they wore over it was more suited for the secret police. Most of these soldiers wore their hair long or tied back. Their eyes were very cold and fierce, and their faces were unsurprised even though it was unlikely any of them had encountered such strange and brightly colored people.

One of the soldiers dismounted his all-terrain vehicle and took his rifle from his back. He aimed it at Tony, despite the fact that Tony was visibly not a threat. The simple silver epaulets on the shoulder of his uniform marked some kind of higher rank than the others. He barked something in a strange, harsh language.

“Marty, this guy is pointing a gun at us!” Ayda wailed into her comm.

“He said put your fucking hands up!” said Marty, whose holo-projection showed that he was not focused on the situation at all. He was holding another communication device and typed on it furiously. “Do you want to get shot, Ayda? Put your hands up!”

They all put their hands up. A few of the soldiers came around to the truck and pulled Esther and Rosaline out of it, then pushed them over to the others so that they were all in a big group. Esther had a hard time keeping both her hands up, she winced with the effort of extending her mangled right hand and she winced at the brutality of the sunlight. Rosaline literally bristled when they manhandled her girlfriend.

The soldier who was in charge did not take his gun away from Tony. He looked Tabby up and down once as if assessing her, and his eyes lingered on her metal prosthetic. But he did not seem to consider her or any of the girls a threat. He gave his men another order.

The blood symbol on Kassidy’s wrist burned now. She had her skinny arms stretched up above her head to seem inoffensive to the soldiers, and her sleeve began to slip down. The skin of her wrist was turning purple and yellow in the way that an old bruise does. From far away she wondered what the mark meant and what had possessed her to put it on her body. But these thoughts were pushed from her mind like memories from a dream. They were gone before she could even comprehend them.

Several soldiers began to pat the girls down. They did it more gently and respectfully than the hyper-violent secret police had, and a couple of them even blushed as if they did not feel comfortable doing so. One of them pulled 3 knives from Casey’s possession. Another took Ayda’s comm. When he did so, Marty began to jabber in his own musical, nasally language, which was different than the soldiers’. The soldier made a face, rolled his eyes, and turned the device off.

“English, huh?” asked the one with the rifle and the epaulets. He was younger than any of them, with only the beginnings of a mustache growing on his upper lip. “Where are your people come from? Why are you been in contact with a boy from our Valley?” He spoke to Tony, who was absolutely not the group’s spokesperson or leader. Tony looked like he was going to melt. They had frisked him more intensely than the others and he was concerned with re-adjusting his sweater and his pants.

“We’re from Eden!” said Rosaline.

“Girl, shut up!” hissed Casey.

The soldier-boy rested the butt of his rifle on the ground. He looked at Rosaline and Casey uneasily. “No word from Eden since the established Monarchy,” he said in his broken yet passable English. “Two hundred and thirty years. You people are spies, huh?”

“We aren’t spies,” said Tabby, who was the best smooth-talker out of any of them. It was dubious that her skills would work on someone who spoke English as a 2nd or 3rd language though. She put out her hands in a sleazy, charming manner and smiled. Tabby’s face was as sharp and angular as a hatchet and when she smiled she looked like a shark.  “We’re refugees. We’re escaping some bad people who want to do us harm. Take us to whoever’s in charge and we’ll explain in full, but we ask for safe passage through your land.”

The 8 soldiers spoke to one another. A couple of them laughed. They put away their weapons like they didn’t have anything to worry about-- and they probably didn’t. Unlike the group of 8 hours ago, none of them had any fight left. Especially not against machine guns.

Kassidy began to feel faint. Her vision continued to fog over and her wrist burned painfully. She could not hold her arms up any longer so she brought them down to her sides. She couldn’t think straight, like she was the star of a film that was playing backwards. Beside her, Esther grew concerned and nudged her with her hip.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered. It seemed like she was talking through several filters, distorted and far away.

“I think I’m hungry,” lied Kassidy, swaying on her feet.

“Shut up!” Casey said again, glaring at them. “Do you want these guys to shoot us?”

They weren’t going to shoot. It looked like the young men thought the group was more of a joke than a threat. One of them pointed at Casey’s purple hair, said something to his buddies, and then laughed. They were all in their very early twenties. Even in Kassidy’s fog, it made her think about what Tony had said about the secret police being teenagers. Was that what soldiers really were? Overgrown kids? What was the difference between soldiers and cops?

Wait, the difference between soldiers and cops was the level of lethal force they were legally allowed to use. Especially when it came to martial law which, as luck would have it, the Northern Territories had been operating under for the past 12 years. Kassidy remembered all the things Marty had mentioned about the history of his Colony-- things that she had brushed off as unimportant. He had gone to real life executions and shit, he had seen people get lined up against the wall to be shot in the head.

Scratch that. She had seen that too, once. On TV. Kassidy quickly re-repressed that terrible last memory of her brother.

Ayda was crying; whether she was frightened or she was upset that her precious technology had been taken away was anyone’s guess. Kassidy felt tears prick her eyes and she blinked them away. A few of the soldiers had tears well up as well and their stances grew suspicious, they looked at Ayda and put their hands on their weapons once more. The link between her display of emotions and the uncomfortable way it affected others did not take a genius to see.

“You don’t have to worry about us, friends,” said Tabby with all the confidence of an underworld scam artist. “Just a group of peaceful refugees who want to speak to your leader.”

The soldier-boy smiled back at Tabby with confidence that matched. “Yes, spies,” he replied mildly. “Let us just take you all back to speak to the Prime Minister without vetting you at all. You all just skip speaking to any of the council, skip speaking to the Field Marshal. Yes, that is how it works here in the Northern Territories. We care for outsiders so much here.” His comrades snickered.

“Is that guy being sarcastic?” whispered Rosaline.

“No, sarcasm doesn’t exist outside of Eden,” Tabby replied sarcastically.

Tony sighed audibly. Ayda kept crying in the pretty, sniffy way she did. The encounter was turning into more of an embarrassment than a dangerous situation. When compared to the encounter with the secret police, it was almost pleasant. But underneath was a current of bored viciousness. These were the type of young men who killed things for sport.

Something inside of Kassidy knew that they were in danger. She sensed it from far away. She sensed it sensing but did not have the intellectual power to understand. The mark on her wrist drew from her life-force. Perhaps it was protecting her in some way, perhaps it was doing something else. She did not fight it. She trusted it to make the right choice.

That’s what people who suddenly gained great and mysterious power did in stories, didn’t they? They trusted it. Kassidy trusted the power that was making her weak and tired and smell like rotting meat because she had no other choice.

The blood magic symbol on her wrist burned like it was about to do something, and it did. Just not what she thought it would.

Kassidy passed out.

#

When Kassidy regained consciousness, she was in a different place entirely. It was something she was getting used to, along with the disturbing gaps in her memory. She rubbed her eyes, cracked the bones in her back, and felt much better than she had in the last week.

She, her friends, and the Delmont twins were all crowded together in a medium size holding cell. It was not the kind of jail cell that Eden utilized-- all white and windowless and cramped to prevent movement or stimulation. It was like something out of a fairy tale. The walls were built up from gray stones and there was one window with iron bars over it. The door was heavy looking, made of wood. The floor was also made of wooden slats. It seemed luxurious to a girl who had never seen so much wood in her life, up until she remembered that now they were in a place that was surrounded by trees.

Her mother had always warned her that she’d end up in a cell. She just didn’t think it would be like this...

She sat on the floor beside Esther and Rosaline. Esther had an unfamiliar blanket draped around her broad shoulders. No, not a blanket, the skin of some huge animal. The first thing that Kassidy did was reach out and pet the fur. Her sleeve rode up when she did so and she noticed that the mark she had drawn earlier was now just an ugly bruise with a crust of blood at the sides.

“Was I out long?” Kassidy picked out a couple brown hairs on the pelt. “Rosie, did you carry me?”

Esther and Rosaline looked at her like she had grown a second head. “Huh?” said Rosaline, who had one of her big muscular arms around Esther. “What are you talking about?”

“When I fainted by the truck.”

Esther still cradled her injured hand. All the fresh air was affecting her negatively. Her nose was red and she sniffled every couple of seconds to keep it from running. “You got frog-marched here like the rest of us.”

Kassidy noticed that her little black clogs were covered in mud. That shut her up immediately. Another disturbing lack of memory. How long had it been this time? 20 minutes? More? What purpose could knocking her out and hijacking her body possibly have?

She pushed all those worries aside because there were larger issues at hand. She did not want everyone looking at her like she was a freak again. Especially not Tony. She missed the way he used to...trust her.