Chapter Three

Adam meets with his sister Kelly who has mysteriously claimed that she wants to bring an end to the hostility between their Mogadorian factions at the internment camp.

     Adamus Sutekh sat uneasily in a rickety wooden chair in the hovel that had been generously called the rec room for the Mogadorian prisoners in the Alaskan internment camp. The cabin was afforded two chess boards, a couple of pop culture board games that hadn’t been updated since the 80s, a couch more comfortable than their beds, and the only heater in the entire camp that worked more often than half of the time. Thankfully, it was working then.

     Usually, the rec hut was as full as it could be without the guards raining hell on them for violating the rule against forming large groups. Ten Mogs seemed to be the magic number. At that number or below, the UN soldiers that held the perimeter around the camp didn’t seem to care. More than that, the intercom system if it they were inside or the drones if they were outside would lambaste them with horrific, grating sirens until the group split up--or, if they resisted for a few minutes, soldiers would drive in from one of their camps just outside the border--or from their camp patrol if there was one ongoing--to break the group up by force.

     Adam had Rex as backup behind him, and he was only expecting one more Mog, but he was far more nervous than he would’ve been flagrantly breaking the rule against large gatherings.

     Adam hadn’t spoken to his sister face-to-face like this since back in Ashwood Estates. Ever since they had arrived at the camp, Kelliis Sutekh--Kelly--generally kept her distance except to sneer at him in the company of her loyal posse. The Mogadorians had broken apart into those who had rejected the teaching of Setrákus Ra and the Great Book and those who still foolishly clung to his and its teachings, and Kelly had slowly grown to become the face of the latter, the anthesis of all Adam stood for.

     Adam could leave the internment camp whenever he wished. He had no reason to be there except that he felt compelled to protect those Mogs who were capable of rejecting the teachings of Setrákus Ra, and his sister--his own blood--led the opposing faction in the camp, the ones who tried to perpetuate the idea that Setrákus Ra and his ideas could still hold true, could still shine through.

     And it was Kelly who had called this meeting with little justification except that she wanted to propose peace.

     Adam didn’t believe her. She had been loyal to the cause of Mogadorian Progress to the very end. He had no doubt she would come in to spout some nonsense about how the lessons of her Beloved Leader would pay off in the end and how Adam would be a speck of dust trampled in the eventual rise of Mogadorian Progress.

     Yet, still, Adam hadn’t been able to turn down the meeting. He was wary of what it could mean--of what could happen here--but he tried to keep himself calm. He focused on his breathing, trying and failing to keep it steady.

     He desperately wished One was still around, to keep him on his toes with casual negging and off-color jokes.

     It was times like this that he missed her the most.

     After countless minutes of awkward silence, Kelly entered the room.

     She seemed to grow ever taller and gaunter by the day, the pale Mogadorian skin accenting her black hair and eyes to an extent that even Adam found extreme. She had forgone the drab uniform that had been assigned to each Mogadorian, instead wearing an expertly-crafted black wool outfit that looked thick enough to combat the heat. Adam bristled at the sight, feeling suddenly colder despite the heater in his several hardly-effective jackets and pairs of thin beige uniform pants.

     It still shocked Adam to see anyone out of the fatigues that they had been assigned when brought to the camp, but the guards had grown more lenient on that rule. A new UN declaration had turned the internment camp from simple detention to a work camp. New facilities had been hastily constructed at the camp’s southern border to give the Mogs a chance to work under heavily-armed supervision. The Mogs didn’t get much in return for their efforts except that the guards would be occasionally lax on some rules, and they could keep some of the things they made. Textiles and clothing was one of the workshops. The official UN decree stated that this was a measure to give the Mogs something helpful and productive to do to help prove that they were on a path to rehabilitation by providing for humans. Adam knew that was just a lie to get free labor. As Gregark--one of the Mogs in Adam’s faction--had pointed out, humans had been using prisoners for cheap labor for a long while, and that had yet to make most of the law-abiding citizens view them in any better of a light. Still, it was nice to have the option to be able to make warmer clothes.

     Adam noticed the outfit that his sister wore was incredibly well-tailored, seamless and almost elegant, and he was momentarily shocked at the craftsmanship--but he reminded himself there was next to no way that Kelly made it herself. As of then, workshop labor wasn’t mandatory, and he couldn’t imagine her voluntarily going. It must’ve been made by one of her lackeys.

     Kelly strode across the room and sat at the other end of the table without a word before reaching it, when she looked at the chess board spread out and chuckled. “Did you think this was a family game night?” she asked.

     Adam surveyed his sister severely, looking for any hint of mercy and compassion in her cold, dark eyes.

     He saw nothing but malice and hate.

     “Why did you call for this, sister?” he asked.

     Kelly didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes flicked over to Rex, who she smiled at. “You didn’t need to bring your bodyguard,” she said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

     “I know--you couldn’t if you tried. I just want him to be here.”

     Kelly rolled her eyes. “If you insist.”

     “You said you wanted to make peace?”

     Kelly leaned forward, grabbing a pawn and pushing it along the board. “As hard as you may find it to believe, brother Adamus, yes, I do.”

     Adam laughed. Even Rex chuckled in the background.

     “Yes, yes,” Kelly said, “I get it. We’ve beat you guys up pretty badly. It’s only by virtue of your mutation that you and your fellow deserters have been able to defend themselves at all. But there is a bigger enemy here, brother. We still want the same fundamental thing: the prosperity of the Mogadorian race. We can fight over how to achieve that later on, but we’re never going to have the chance if we destroy each other through infighting.”

     “We don’t want the same thing, sister,” Adam sneered. “I want our people to accept the fact that they lost, that they were manipulated by a Loric charlatan who used us for his own gain for as long as possible until he was killed by a handful of teenagers with superpowers. I want our people to prosper, sure, but I don’t want that under false pretense.”

     Now, Kelly laughed. “You amuse me, Adamus,” she said. “The Beloved Leader is not dead. The Beloved Leader never died. He is transcendent; he is immortal. Haven’t you read the Great Book? There is nothing beyond his power--nothing beyond him at all. At worst, your Loric friends coerced him to abandon his most recent form. But the Beloved Leader lives on, and he will vindicate us.”

     Adam laughed again. “Really?” he said. “F*****g really? That’s what you’re holding on to? Well, hell, Kelly, if that’s true, I don’t know why you’re trying to call for peace. I tried to kill your precious Beloved Leader at the Loric Sanctuary and almost succeeded. I doubt his tortured soul is trying to make peace with me.”

     “The Beloved Leader is nothing if not forgiving, Adamus,” Kelly pressed. “Our father, blessed and wise as he was, pressured you into a situation you were not ready for. Because of that, you grew certain unnatural sympathies that led you astray. Because of--”

     “Unnatural sympathies?” Adam interrupted, eyes narrowed and voice taut. Flashes of One desperately fighting for her life in the ruins of a Malaysian hut flickered behind his eyes. “Is it unnatural to you, sister, to sympathize with a race of people being slaughtered for no reason beyond some other race claiming baseless superiority?”

     “The Beloved Leader is forgiving, Adamus,” Kelly repeated, “and the world is not so simple as it was when he was in the form that was familiar to us.”

     Adam slammed a hand on the table, eyes alight with passion. “I traveled across America on foot when I first escaped from you people, eating from dumpsters with a man who had been victimized by our experiments for so long that he could barely remember anything about his past. The world may have been simple for you while you were living in the lap of luxury in Ashwood Estates, but for those of us with a heart--for those of us who were no longer brainwashed--nothing was ever simple, and nothing was ever right. If you think that you can convince me to forsake everything I’ve learned about Setrákus Ra and his sick, twisted ideology, you’ve done nothing but waste both our times.”

      Kelly allowed Adam to finish his monologue with nothing more than a raised eye. She looked between him and Rex, then sighed. “Adamus,” she said, “there’s something you need to see.”

     “What?” Adam asked cautiously.

     Kelly stood up from the chair. She leaned forward and moved the displaced pawn back to its starting position. “When was the last time you went to the camp border?” she asked.

     “Does it matter?”

     “Come on.”

     Adam frowned and looked back to Rex, who shrugged. Adam honestly wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had been to the border--it was rather far out of the way of the central camp where the rec hut and the housing was, and he had constantly had major issues to deal with regarding the fracturing of the Mogadorians. A significant portion--more than he had ever imagined would come to reason--had turned over to his side and forsaken Setrákus Ra. But a majority still reigned on the side of his sister and her ilk--of those who believed that the teachings of the Beloved Leader extended beyond his death and that the Mogadorians were meant for a more glorious fate than that which they were given by surviving the invasion as failures, losers--unvictorious.

     Adam had done everything he could to keep the Mogadorians sane, but it always felt like he hadn’t done enough--and here was his sister, talking to him about how their dead dictator was still in control of their lives and how some sight at the border would change Adam’s mind.

     The Mogadorians were doomed. Adam knew that. Their breeding difficulties had spanned back to before Setrákus Ra had taken control of them, and now--severely diminished and perpetually oppressed--there was no hope for them.

     Adam knew this.

     Still, he rose from his seat and followed his sister out the door, Rex tailing behind him.

     The wind bit deep into them as they stepped out of the rec hut into the night, but over a year of being captive to the Alaskan chill had hardened Adam’s responsiveness to it. He had simply forgotten that warmth was something that some people could continually achieve, and he was happier for it.

     The central grounds that the Mogadorians were given to live on were far from impressive: there were long, low dorm buildings that barely had enough beds for all the trueborns who had surrendered, and there were only five small shared bathhouses. One larger decrepit hall served as their cafeteria, and there was the rec hut. Beyond that, there was nothing but untamed Alaskan wilderness in sight until the UN border about a mile out from the dilapidated structures. At night, these central grounds were lit by weak streetlights set intermittently along the dirt paths. Right then, only three lights in the camp were working. The bulbs seemed to go out almost instantly, and the soldiers watching over them apparently didn’t think it was enough of an issue, so they rarely sent anyone in to replace them. Adam consoled himself with the fact that less light pollution meant he could see more of the dazzling field of stars that watched over them each night and learned how to get his eyes to adjust quickly to the darkness.

     Adam and Rex followed Kelly on this journey, ignoring the jeering glares of some of their fellow Mogadorians who shuffled around outside, trying to find some sense of comfort and warmth. In the absence of reliable heating, much of that came to them through optimistic tales that foretold of the potential for Mogadorian Progress to rise once more. Adam knew that for a while one story that kept his people hopeful and entertained was that of a Mogadorian warrior woman who had courageously attacked the UN border guards with a mace but had been rebuffed. The story had shaky origins coming from a Mog man who had questionable relationships with some of the UN soldiers, but, regardless of its truth, it had spread wildly throughout the camp, and now many Mogadorians prayed to be rescued by the Mog woman and her mace. Adam wondered what stories had spread about him. He knew the general consensus of the Mogs regarding him, but he had rarely heard any of the exaggerated tales.

     When he first heard the story, the thought of the Mog woman with her mace conjured images and memories of Adam’s mother. He hadn’t seen her since the night he was condemned to death by his own father--the night that One gave him her legacy and that he accidentally saved Malcolm. His mother had come down with a home-cooked meal for him--his last meal--to ask if it were true that he had abandoned the cause of Mogadorian Progress.

     He said yes. She left the room without another word, and Adam threw his last meal in the garbage. 

     He didn’t see any way in Hell that his mother could be the woman with the mace--she had trained in some types of self-defense, but she wasn’t exactly a warrior. But it wasn’t any more impossible than a Mogadorian being bestowed a legacy by the consciousness of a dead Loric Garde, so he hadn’t dismissed the idea entirely. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that: about his mother assailing the camp or about his mother at all, wherever she was. She had eluded the mass round-ups that had led him and his sister here, and she was a survivor, so Adam had no doubt that she was still alive. And she would surely want to come to the camp to save Kelly, at least.

     Adam always felt a lump in his throat when he wondered if she would want to save him, too.

     Kelly led Adam and Rex east--toward what had once been a forest, though the trees had been felled, presumably out of the concern that the Mogs could be hiding and plotting something beneath them; but there was still a narrow, gurgling stream that ran through the ruins, singing a song to tree stumps and animals that had been gone a while now. They moved cautiously, wary of all the sudden declines, holes, and brambles nearly invisible in the night that barred the way, though Kelly seemed to move confidently along. Adam wondered how often she had made this journey. Every now and then, the trio heard the quick, sudden burst of buzzing that indicated that one of the weatherproof surveillance drones keeping watch over the camp was flying above them--or at least very close.

     Kelly stepped over the stream and guided them beyond the desolated forest, toward the high fences that marked the border of the camp. Brilliant floodlights shone down on a wide space on both sides of the fences, making it impossible for anyone to approach without being spotted. As the trio neared a gap between the watchtowers, Adam squinted as he looked out beyond them.

     “The humans have been talking about annihilating us,” Kelly said. “We’ve heard about that ever since we got here. They want to just do away with us and never have to deal with even the thought of us ever again.”

     “We did kind of annihilate some of their cities and threaten to make them slaves to our empire,” Rex said.

     “What ever happened to ‘no hard feelings’?” Kelly asked with a laugh. “This is bigger than just us, though. I’ve heard rumors that the tide is turning against the Garde as well--Loric and human. It seems that the humans are coming to a conclusion that they would be better off erasing any trace that the Mogadorian Expansion had ever happened, including getting rid of their new friends--or at least making them so heavily regulated that they may as well not have powers at all.”

     A loud, braying horn sounded from the top of one of the watchtowers: a warning.

     “We should probably stay back,” Adam said.

     Kelly shrugged. “We don’t need to get any closer than this.”

     Adam saw what she meant: there were lines upon lines of military tents as close as fifty meters beyond the fence, with countless soldiers milling between them and a few tanks and several pieces of heavy artillery.

     “What the hell?” Rex asked.

     “This isn’t just guards, dear brother and his bodyguard,” Kelly said. “This is an invasion force. They’ve been bringing in more and more soldiers and weaponry over time. It seems to me that the idea of exterminating our people is no longer just a question of if but rather a question of when.”

     “John wouldn’t let that happen,” Adam said, his eyes darting between each of the tents, trying to count them all. “The humans trust him, and him saying that the people that killed his could be rehabilitated is one of the main reasons they made this camp.”

     “The humans are turning against the Garde, brother Adamus. That’s what I just said. I doubt your Loric hero’s word holds much weight anymore. But it doesn’t matter at the moment. Let’s go back before the snipers decide that taking out three of the most famous Mogadorians is worth the temporary PR hit.”

     Adam stopped counting tents when he turned around. He was at thirty-four, and there were still many more.

     He wondered how many soldiers were stationed in each tent.

     Adam tried to wrap his head around this new development. He looked over at Rex, who seemed to be mulling it over as well, constantly checking back over his shoulder to get a glance at the amassing force as it became smaller in the distance.

     Kelly, on the other hand, seemed perfectly content, walking leisurely with a smile, as if declaring that there was an armed force about to wipe out the remnant of their race was the most trivial thing in the world.

     “How sure are you that they’re going to want to kill us all?” Adam asked.

     “What kind of question is that?” Kelly asked with a burst of laughter. “Go park a tank on someone’s front lawn and wait to see how long it takes before they think you mean them harm.”

     “It could just be increased security,” Rex suggested. “If they are turning against the Loric, maybe they think that we need to be kept a closer eye on, too.”

     “Yeah, sure,” Kelly said, “because obviously they’re going to assume that the Garde getting some bad PR means that they’ll immediately hook up with the race that conquered theirs.”

     “That’s not really what I meant--just that maybe they’re starting to wonder if we’re more dangerous than they think we are.”

     “Oh, that we are,” Kelly said, stopping and turning around. The trio was back at the edge of the stream. “Brother Adamus, you say that the Beloved Leader was Loric, and you act like this means that our cause was any less just. But I assure you that Mogadorian Progress was and is and always will be the natural course of the universe, regardless of the current form of the Beloved Leader himself. If even the worst of what you claim about him is true--that he really was a tortured Loric man and not an aspect of the Beloved Leader--then he was still a man who realized the truth and righteousness of Mogadorian Progress, and he was furthering the process that the Beloved Leader began.”

     Before Adam could interject to her unhinged rambling, Kelly held up a finger to silence them all, and the buzzing of a drone overhead became distinct, but it quickly fell away. As soon as it dissipated, Kelly pointed to a rotting log on the other side of the stream. “Besides, I personally believe that we should utilize every available resource to further Mogadorian Progress,” she said, and, with a dramatic flourish of her hand, the log creaked a second before it flew up in the air, lifting quickly to Adam’s height, then Rex’s, then beyond. “What’s so wrong with using something Loric if it helps us achieve our goals?”

     A thousand things were on the tip of Adam’s tongue, but he couldn’t figure out how to articulate any of them.

     The rotted log was floating ten feet in the air by virtue of Kelly’s mind.

     Adam’s sister was telekinetic.

     The face of Mogadorian Progress was Garde.