Chapter Seven

Adam, Rex, and Kelly debate on what to do in light of the information that Kelly is now Garde and that the UN has suspiciously enlarged the mass of soldiers that guard their internment camp.

     Kelly guffawed as she gently floated the log back to the ground. “Oh, brother Adamus,” she laughed, “I adore the look on your face.”

     Adam’s mouth fell quickly open and closed as he scrambled for purchase on his reeling mind. His sister--an ardent supporter of Setrákus Ra and Mogadorian Progress--was telekinetic.

     His mind repeated that fact over and over in his mind, but he couldn’t come to terms with it.

     It was Rex who broke the silence. “What the hell?” he murmured.

     “It seems that the stunt your Loric friends pulled to give their human pets powers went further than they could’ve imagined,” Kelly said, smiling.

     “No, that’s--” Adam tried to speak, tried to put his thoughts into words. He was there with Six and Marina when the Entity had bestowed humanity with legacies. He had grown up being taught that the powers that the Loric possessed were some sick mutation inflicted upon them. Even when he learned that was clearly not the case, he had never put much thought into where they were from or how they worked until he met the Entity, but the idea that it would’ve bestowed the Mogadorians--a race that was collectively responsible for so much pain and suffering--with these abilities--on a planet that wasn’t even their own--was an insane thought. “It’s…no, that’s--”

     Adam felt a sudden force fold his tongue back before clamping his mouth tightly shut. He was stunned for a moment before he saw the amused smirk on his sister’s face. He glared at her.

     “It’s not impossible,” Kelly said, releasing her telekinetic hold on his mouth, “if that’s what you were attempting to sputter out. Obviously.”

     “I was there,” Adam blurted. “I was at the Sanctuary where the Loric Entity gave humans legacies. It gave those powers to help them stand up against us. I--it--we--this doesn’t make any sense.”

     “Did this mysterious Entity tell you that?” Kelly challenged.

     “What?”

     “Did it tell you that it gave the humans these powers to fight us?”

     “I, uh, well, no, I guess not.”

     “Then what ground do you have to stand on to say that was its purpose? Besides, let’s say that was the purpose. If you haven’t noticed, brother Adamus, the humans successfully defeated us--for the moment. So, whatever reason that it has for choosing who gets powers now must be different.” Kelly splayed her arms wide. “There must be some higher purpose that I should have powers now, mustn’t there?”

     “No, I--” Adam blinked hard a few times, rubbed his eyes, tried to wake himself up from what was clearly some horrible nightmare. There was no reason that Kelly should get powers. What reason could the Entity have to bestow those powers on someone so clearly maniacal and bloodthirsty--someone who to this day lusted for Mogadorian Progress to prevail?

     Even if the Entity did choose Mogadorians for legacies, Adam thought bitterly, why her? He had given up his entire set, comfortable life to become a turncloak against his own people and help the Loric, and he only had powers by virtue of being gifted them by One’s consciousness. Why wouldn’t the Entity choose him--give him telekinesis, perhaps beef up his seismic legacy, maybe even give him more powers than that?

     Why would it choose her?

     “Why did you bring us out here?” Rex interrupted, ostensibly recovered from shock. “Just to show off?”

     “This is a show of good faith,” Kelly said. “I have no love for either of you or any of our people that you’ve managed to whip into being submissive dogs by your Loric propaganda, but the continued survival of our race is now being threatened by the humans. Our factions have been fighting each other for a long time out here in this camp. I’m trying to propose that we band together and figure out how to save ourselves before we are wiped out entirely.”

     “I told you,” Adam insisted, “John will never let that happen. An influx of soldiers has to be nothing more than increased security for…because--”

     “For what? Because why? None of us have managed to escape since we got here. They were doing just fine with the soldiers they had. There is no reason to increase security so drastically unless they plan to do something that they will encounter resistance for.”

     “What if they know about your power?” Rex asked.

     “I have kept that well under the table. They have no idea about that. Even if they did, they’ve at least quadrupled the number of soldiers they have around the camp. Do you really think they would feel a need to add so many to account for one prisoner who can move things with her mind?”

     “So, there’s only one of you?” Adam asked.

     Kelly shrugged. “As far as I know of, yes. But, while I entertained your fantasies about the Loric Entity and its purpose, the Beloved Leader promised to bestow us with powers that will rival and even surpass those of the Loric. He clearly figured out how to do it, and my telekinesis is a gift from him to help lead our people into prosperity, and I have no doubt that he will soon bless others loyal to him with the same augmentations.”

     Adam laughed at that. “You’re insane,” he cackled. “Your precious Beloved Leader is dead, Kelly. There’s no way to escape that fact. This is an absolutely ridiculous situation, but this has been ordained by the Entity that I saw--for whatever batshit reason.”

     Kelly rolled her eyes. “Brother Adamus, you’re so naïve it’s almost cute.”

     “What would we get by aligning ourselves with you?” Rex asked.

     “What kind of stupid question is that?” Kelly spat. “You’ll survive. After we escape this hellhole and figure out how to move forward, we can go our separate ways if you truly have no loyalty to your own. But it will likely be difficult for even all of us together to escape, let alone those still loyal to the Beloved Leader alone. I’m requesting your assistance because I’m working under the assumption that you do, in fact, want to live.”

     “We don’t even know that we’re going to be killed off,” Adam insisted. “Like, okay, fine, yes, it’s odd that they’ve increased security so much. But what are you planning to do? Attack them? If they aren’t planning to kill us off, that’s just going to give them the excuse to.”

     “As much as I would love for us to tear through our oppressors, for now, we need to escape, not attack. With you and I being the only ones with powers and the rest of us not having any real weapons, we can surely cause enough chaos and distraction to get our people out of here, but we don’t stand a chance against the army they’re amassing out there. There are rumors about other Mogadorians--even vatborns--still out in the wilderness and our technology still being collected and sold out in the world. If we do eventually need to fight, we can get in touch with the others and their resources. Until then, we just need to escape.”

     “And then what?” Adam pressed. “If they want to kill us, they’ll just hunt us to the ends of this planet to find us. When you say that you believe in Mogadorian Progress, do you mean that you still have pipe dreams about us rising up and taking over this planet, even though we’re nearly extinct?”

     “Mogadorian Progress must take on a different approach going forward, but we are the most superior race in the universe, and all others will come to see us as such in time.”

     “That doesn’t answer my question. What do you plan on us actually doing to survive out there?”

     “Why are you so curious? So you can claim amnesty and tell your Loric and human masters about what we’re going to do? Until I have a reason to believe that you are truly and fully on our side, I’m not inclined to spill my guts to race traitors.”

     “Well, unless we think that you have an actual plan, we’re not inclined to try to help you uprise or escape, either of which is going to make our situation way worse if you’re wrong.”

     “I understand that you, Adamus, were goaded and manipulated into becoming a Loric pawn long ago, but what of you, Rexicus? You were on our side until nearly the very end. Are you, too, so callous or cowardly that you can be so stupid in the face of an obvious threat to our survival?”

     Rex shifted on his feet, apparently nervous at having the attention centered on him. “I, uh,” he started and stumbled, eyes darting between Adam and Kelly. “Adam’s right. I don’t want them to come in here and kill us, obviously, but this could just be a misunderstanding, and we can’t just start breaking s**t and rioting if we don’t know what’s going on.”

     Kelly groaned. “If I pointed a blaster at your face to shoot you,” she said, “would you really have to wait until I pulled the trigger to assume I meant you harm? They didn’t need this many soldiers to keep us in here, so there’s no reason for them to add so many unless they plan on doing harm.”

     “Or maybe they expect an attack,” Adam suggested, pieces of what Kelly had said earlier inspiring a new idea.

     “Yes, Adamus, I’m sure that they’re expecting the ragged remnants of our race to become organized and break us out of here--or, better yet, they expect your Loric buddies to come save us.”

     “That’s not what I meant. You claimed that public opinion was turning against the Loric and that’s it’s probably also turning against us even more than it already was. Maybe they’re worried that some sort of organized hate group of humans is going to come try to destroy the camp.”

     Kelly laughed. “You claimed that the main reason this camp was even built was because your Loric crush John insisted on it. If public opinion is turning against the Loric, his word on anything would now mean much less, and, if one of the main reasons that we’re being kept alive evaporates, I’m going to play it safe and assume that increased security is a threat to us and not some gesture of goodwill to try to protect us.”

     “This is all based on rumors and s**t you guys are claiming,” Rex said. “We’re stuck in this camp without any news of anything getting to us. If we want to get to the bottom of this and decide what needs to be done, we need to get someone on the outside or someone from the outside to tell us what’s happening.”

     As if activated by Rex’s words, Adam imagined the pendant that John gave him suddenly blazing to life.

     “I guarantee you that will get us killed,” Kelly began. “If our options are to take action and save our race or do nothing and just hope that what’s obviously about to happen isn’t going to happen, we should abso--”

     “I can do it,” Adam blurted out, clasping his hand over the spot where the Loralite symbol rested against his chest. “I can get out of here.”

     “What, after they process your request to leave and relocate you somewhere far from here, watch the news for a few hours to come up with a biased interpretation of what your human friends are saying, and then make a long trek back here?” Kelly asked.

     “No, like, right now. I have--John was here once. About a year after the war. He ga--he told me a way that I’d be able to get out of here immediately, go to the place that he’s building.”

     Kelly furrowed her brow, then laughed. “Yeah, sure,” she said. “Your boyfriend told you how to fly away, and you stayed here.”

     “I stayed here because, unlike what you claim, sister, I do care about my people--I care about the ones who would be targeted and assaulted and probably even killed if I weren’t here to protect them. I’ve never left because I have a duty to try to talk all of us down from the insanity of Setrákus Ra and try to help us move forward in this new world.”

     “Yeah, sure. Spill it, then. You going to go ask John if he’d be interested in standing up against humanity to save our lives?”

     Adam clenched his teeth, his sister’s constant degrading assumptions tearing down his sense of civility. “I can get out of here to find out what’s really going on and come back. I’m not going to rage a war against humanity, but I don’t want us to die out, either. I think there could be a bright future for our people among the Loric and the humans. If it does seem like they’re going to try to kill us all off, I will help us escape this place.”

     Kelly raised an eyebrow at that. “Okay, so, spill it, brother Adamus. How are you going to get out of here?”

     Adam thought back to the conversations he had with John. John had brought pictures of the place he was building in the mountain--New Lorien--and Adam had seared the images into his mind. He knew that all he had to do was picture that room with the massive Loralite stone, and he would be there.

     Adam reached into his shirt and pulled out the pendant with a closed fist to not reveal it. He met his companions’ eyes; Rex looked as puzzled as Kelly--Adam hadn’t told him about the pendant. Adam looked at both of them, but his eyes rested on his sister. “Your offer of peace,” he said. “How much can I really trust it if I leave?”

     “At worst, I’ll use my powers to pants some of your friends. All of my people are under strict orders not to fight your people for now. Oh, not right now, you idiot,” she added with an eye roll, noticing that Rex was now holding the hem of his pants tightly.  

     Adam frowned, unsure of how much he could trust her word. Rex was one of the strongest Mogadorians at the camp, and he trusted him to protect the others if anything did go wrong, but there were still more people on Kelly’s side, and with her now having telekinesis…

     Rex was right that they needed to get information from outside to be sure what was really going on and what it would portend for the future, and Adam could do that, so he wanted to trust his sister’s word on this. After all, he had kept the pendant a closely-guarded secret, so it’s not like Kelly would know about it. It’s not like this was some elaborate manipulation to just get him away from the camp so that those on his side would no longer have protection.

     Right?

     He tried to perish the thought. On the off-chance that Kelly was right about the humans trying to kill the remnant of the Mogadorians off--which he had to admit that she could be--he needed to figure out for sure that it was true before he could feel comfortable helping them rebel against the law they had been placed under.

     He needed to know.

     Clearly curious about but bored by Adam’s silent deliberations, Kelly opened her mouth to say something, but Adam pictured New Lorien and teleported away before her words came out.