Abigail led us manically through the corridors, using her insane ability to memorize maps and things to navigate. It was dark and weirdly empty, punctuated by slow flashes as the alarms continued. The Protector must have had the attention of most of the guards. I couldn't say I entirely understood what just happened. Abigail had been in a state ever since we found out about Jayken, understandably, but I'd only worried about her more and more as she kept learning something new and spiralling further away from us. But then in the control room, watching her take in all the data surrounding us, talking to Ray - I still didn't believe that, Ray here? - something had finally clicked into place and she was back and she was frantic and she knew what was going on. I had gotten bits and pieces of it. The code on the screen they were using to monitor Jayken had been instantly recognisable to me, it resembled some of the test code we'd been given to feed to the machines Rojjel and I had been working on. So Abigail was at least right about that - they had been testing our work on Jayken, and more than likely on the other Weraynians as well. And the state they were in... Yeah, I guess we'd been installing transmitters designed to latch onto Weraynian minds, and hurt them. That was really not good. I hadn't gotten much of a good look at Jayken in the midst of everything; I hoped he was okay. I was very happy to be heading towards him. We approached a bulkhead door. I glanced at Abigail as she slowed down a bit, dropped my hand and started cursing furiously.
"Teleport watch is jammed," she thrust her arm at me and sure enough, that thing was not going to work. "They wanted us to do this, they wanted us stuck and they sent Ray in there to deal with us. It's sick! I can't-"
"Drat!" I added helpfully. "The Protector will have to get us all out, I guess."
"Yeah..." she said but then she placed her hand on the opening mechanism beside the door and screwed up her face in concentration. I hadn't seen her do this in years.
I turned to Rojjel. "How did you go? You were able to download some of that data?"
"I was," he said. "Not as much as might perhaps be useful, but something nonetheless. Abigail, can you actually get that door open?"
"I don't see why not," she replied nonchalantly and as if on cue the door shuddered and hissed as it began to open. She turned to face us with a bit of a deranged grin on her face. "Come on then." She squeezed through the door before it was fully open and I followed suit. Rojjel sighed and clambered through behind us.
We navigated through more corridors and doors. Before too long Abigail was blasting them open in an instant. We still hadn't encountered any guards. It was eerie, really. I was getting all worked up, hand on my blaster, ready to go. As we continued through the prison it felt like the atmosphere was pressing down on us, and the air seemed almost electrified. We started to come across bodies of guards, slumped on the floor, vague electrical burns on their faces. I didn't look too closely to see if they were alive or dead. I supposed it didn't matter, in the grand scheme of things. Suddenly the door to what I assumed was Jayken's cell hissed open and Alexa appeared, gun trained on us and a fierce look on her face until she recognised us and lowered her arms in sheer relief.
"Abigail!" she cried out. She looked extremely tired and stressed. I couldn't really blame her.
"How is he?" Abigail ran forward and the two engulfed each other in an embrace. I'd never seen Alexa express so much vulnerability.
She pulled back and wiped her face frustratedly. "He's alive. Anise seems to think he'll be okay once he gets some medical attention. She's stabilising him with her powers somehow." To my surprise, she turned to me next. "Sophie, I'm so glad to see you." She wrapped me in a bonecrushing hug as well. I guess it must have been an Alexa trademark. I was really confused for a moment and then I remembered that we hadn't seen each other in weeks, since before the trip to Werayne. I felt light headed as she let go of me and then Rojjel stepped forward and also got violently attacked by Alexa.
"We should get going," Abigail prodded gently. "We won't be safe here for long."
Alexa nodded and led us into the cell, which was rippling with light as The Protector knelt over Jayken, who was positioned against the wall as if he was maybe napping. She had a hand firmly placed on his forehead, her eyes were glowing and her distinctive tendrils of electricity were emanating from her. She fixed us with a robotic stare as we entered - it was crazy unsettling. When she spoke it sounded like her voice was coming from somewhere else. "So we meet again."
Abigail nodded wordlessly.
"The teleport watch isn't working Protector," I chimed in helpfully. "I know you're super powerful, but can you get us all out of here?"
"Of course," she said, and deftly scooped Jayken into her arms and stood, her presence somehow filling the room more than before. The tendrils arched around her and latched onto us; the room grew brighter and brighter until everything was light. There was a sound like a great welling scream and then all sound cut off and the room around us switched from Weraynian prison to some sort of makeshift medical facility.
Huh, that was painless. Maybe the teleport watch was jankier technology than I thought.
It wasn't long before medical staff - including my boy Mickey!! - descended on us, wheeling equipment and communicating hurriedly. Anise lay Jayken on their medical stretcher and the electricity withdrew as she focused on him once more. Alexa and Abigail ran forward into the fray, and Abi of course was able to jump right in with Mickey, working fluidly as they attached wire after wire and spoke medical jargon at each other.
Satah and Rintoul approached us, looking like they could do with some rest. But they looked pretty determined also. "Rojjel, Sophie, come with us. We'll let the medical professionals do their work."
I looked at Rojjel, who shrugged, and we walked away from the chaos to a side room, with some chairs and an absurdly old looking monitor. We sat down and Satah started talking over the muffled noises of medical happenings the outside the door.
"So tell us what happened," he said. "Reeina gave us a brief report and it sounds like you encountered a lot in a short time."
"How does Reeina kno- wait, nevermind. Duh." I said dumbly. "It was... Confusing. Confronting. One of the leaders from Abigail's town was there. He was waiting for us. He tried to convince us that the Weraynians need to be exterminated. That they should all be like the Weraynians in that prison. Abigail shot him. We saw the code for the experiments they were doing on Jayken."
Rintoul and Satah glanced at each other. "Oh?" Rintoul prodded.
"Rojjel used a drive Reeina gave us. I don't know how much info he was able to take."
Rojjel fished the device out of his belongings and held it out. "I'm sure we'll be able to do something with it." He leaned forward and started speaking urgently. "I don't know what your plans are but I think we need to put together some sort of broadcast and leak the information we have about their plans for the Weraynians. Abigail's analysis of what we saw is that they have the capability of directly targeting Weraynian minds, and potentially they want to use the force field stations to transmit a signal and eliminate all Weraynians at once. We can't let that happen."
Satah frowned. "Are you sure of this? So, what, they were testing whether their targeting would work on Jayken? Whether his mind is distinct from others?"
"I'm not sure. In any case, there appears to be mixed results. Although that Paladanian, Ray, implied that they kept him alive purposefully."
"Right..." Rintoul stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Well, we've got a lot of data to analyse and compile now. I like your idea of a broadcast, Rojjel, we can use our existing channels and maybe see if we can hijack one of the Staarus force ones. Sophie, we've got a workshop set up by some of our contacts on Werayne, trying to run interference on the force field technology. They've had to relocate a few times but we could send you, once things calm down here, to that location to lend some help, if that's alright with you. If their transmitter technology is as insidious as it sounds we'll need to find a way to counteract it as soon as possible."
"Right." I said, though internally I was thinking that these people thought way too much of me.
"I'll let you work on the analysis," Satah addressed Rintoul, slapping his knees and rising tiredly. "It looks like we're all in for a long night; I'll get some food sorted to keep everyone going."
"Can I help with that?" I offered meekly. "I feel like I'll get in the way more than I'll be useful with the data, at least at this stage."
I saw Rojjel purse his lips and cock his head to the side out of the corner of my eye and took that as confirmation I was right. Rintoul glanced between us and said, "Alright Sophie, that would be a great help. Satah?"
"Sure, come with me Sophie." he gestured to me and I followed obediently. Now, I couldn't say I was very good at cooking, or even at following instructions, but I was determined to be of some use. It felt wrong to kind of sit by while so much was going on.
He led me to a sort of kitchen, set up in a room that was probably not designed to be that originally. It was hard to tell the sort of building we were in, maybe an office building or something. I could get glimpses of the Halapatovian cityscape out of the occasional window. Satah started up a burner and moved around some boxes and equipment.
"So what do you want me to do?" I asked, crouching down with him as he searched through some sharp looking implements.
"Lot of people to feed..." he said, sounding understandably stressed. "I should be able to make a proper meal with what we brought from the foodbank, and there should be some bits and pieces already here in the building. This place is usually a medical hub, but we've sent over some aid parcels before. I'll have a look at what we've got in here and figure out what we can make; I'll get you to gather the rest of the ingredients from around the place."
So I ran around fetching things for Satah. A lot of the ingredients were in distant cupboards or still needed unloading from the truck. He also directed me to an upstairs balcony where they were growing some simple herbs and vegetables. I had to make a few trips to understand which specific things he wanted but that was okay. It was really interesting watch him make a meal for such a large group of people from mostly basic rations and the few fresh ingredients on hand. He showed me how to mix up a basic flatbread, and after a few false starts I got to work with the makeshift stove, flipping seasoned discs of dough until they were nicely browned (no need to mention the ones that burnt because I got distracted). I scooped up the leftover flour at Satah's instruction and we used it to make the sauce he was making stretch a little further and thicken better. I felt sure Abigail or Mickey or basically anyone else would have gotten some wonderful cultural insights from the dishes Satah was making - it was very interesting smelling the different spices that bore some similarities but were ultimately different from ones I was otherwise familiar with - but unfortunately that was a bit lost on me. I tried to remember back to my research on the Staarus system from five years ago when I'd first visited Flauraan. I'd had lots of really cool food on Halapatov, and was pretty familiar with food in Abigail's area of Flauraan, but Aandriggian or Weraynian food? Not so much. I wished I'd looked closer into Aandrigo at least back in the day. Werayne had obviously been a difficult topic to broach, but Aandrigo as a refugee settlement of Werayne obviously had a unique culture and traditions and everything. I guess as a researcher I'd done pretty poorly, but in my defence I hadn't been able to complete the research. I tried not to think about the last time I was properly on Halapatov, and the teleport watch ended up interacting with an ancient technology and accelerated a process that was turning people into ghosts from another dimension. Well, it was a little hard to understand but all that mattered in the end was that our friend Riowyn died and it was my fault. That guilt had followed me all these years, and my research in the Staarus System had been cut short by it, and by my search for my father; another bad outcome for all involved. I kind of felt like everything I got involved in I ended up making a little worse. If Abigail was right, and of course she was, Rojjel and I had been helping build machines that were going to be used as weapons against the Weraynians. To be fair, I'd felt pretty certain they were able to interact with some sort of electronic systems on Werayne, but I'd assumed machines, not minds!! It was a cruel concept. I tuned in once more to the distant sounds of medical work being done, and hoped again that Jayken would be okay. I knew my stupid guilt would help nothing - that's why I was in here, trying to contribute meaningfully in some way. But sometimes it felt like nothing would ever be enough.
Once we had a pretty big pile of bread and the meal was still simmering, Satah sent me to sort out some chairs and tables and everything in the hub's staffroom. It was already somewhat set up but I crammed in some more places to sit and made sure there were drinks and cutlery and stuff like that. Things had quieted down a bit by then and when I wandered curiously back to the main room I saw a lot of people hanging back, cleaning and restocking and such, and Jayken (!!!) sitting up in a bed with a few less tubes than before attached while a smaller team stood around him shone lights in his eyes and asked him questions and generally did some tests with him. I almost couldn't believe it. In such a short time they'd transformed a tortured unconscious body back into our friend. Poor Jayken, I was so glad he was okay. Alexa was holding onto his hand, and Abigail was supporting her, and Mickey walked over to me with a big smile.
"He's okay!" I said giddily, hugging Mickey tightly. His tendrils were a bit droopy, he was clearly pretty tired and dehydrated.
"Yes!" he responded enthusiastically. Between tests, I saw Jayken's eyes wander over to us and I waved at him excitedly. He half raised a shaky arm in response, and the others around him immediately urged him not to move so much. I tried not to push down the worry at seeing him in that condition, and just focus on how much better it was than his condition before. I tried not to think of Beth in a hospital bed out there in space. My own hospital experience had been great by comparison. I twisted my hand round my metal arm thinking about how I'd gotten off easy. An infected limb can be chopped off and replaced. Neurological damage was harder. Mickey snapped me back to the conversation. "What have you been up to?"
"Cooking!" he looked a little bit alarmed, probably thinking of Alliance cooking competitions and other disastrous attempts at food I'd had in the past. "Helping Satah cook, I mean. Come on, we'll get you something to drink, and we can check if the food's ready."
Mickey followed me and I sat him down in the staffroom and then headed back to Satah, who was stirring the big pot. He told me to start moving the food over, so I bundled up the flatbread and some of the dried food parcels and set them up on the staffroom bench. Mickey was feeling a little better and came with me and grabbed the pot from Satah and we got it all set up to serve people with. I made sure Mickey ate something first, and then we ushered in some of the other people who'd been helping with Jayken. I set some food aside, and took a few servings out to the main area, approaching Jayken.
"Is he allowed to eat?" I asked, and they had a quick discussion and then agreed he could try. Alexa took the food from me gratefully and they separated the bigger chunks from it and fed him mostly sauce, just to test his ability to swallow. It couldn't have been the best meal ever, but he raved about it, still maintaining his upbeat personality even though he was clearly very weak right now. He prodded Alexa to eat something and she claimed she wasn't hungry, but both him and Abigail bothered her about it until she ate a little bit too. Someone told us to give him a bit of space and so I found myself leading Abigail to the staffroom and maneuvering her into a seat, placing food in front of her. I had no idea exactly what her whole role had been in the whole medical situation but she was clearly shattered. I coaxed some food and water into her, and she stared off into space for a while, eyes swirling sluggishly.
"I think I need to get some air," she said after a while, pushing back her chair and standing. She stood motionless for a moment, blinking tiredly.
"There's a balcony upstairs, I can show you." I offered tentatively.
She nodded and extended a hand to me. I led her dutifully through the building and out into the open air, on the tiny cramped balcony surrounded by pots. It was really really nice, if a bit warm, but Abigail breathed in the air as if she was being revitalised by it. I watched her for a few minutes in silence, unsure if it was helpful for me to talk or not.
"I still can't wrap my head around any of this." she said eventually, leaning over the balcony, looking away from me into the dark city. "To think that both Reeina and Ray were there, it feels too coincidental. Like a bit of a sick joke. I don't know. This whole situation is getting to me. I'm so thankful that you're alive, that Jayken is too, but everything feels so fragile. There's so many events that had to happen, to get us to where we are now, so many miracles of chance that have put us in a place to make any sort of difference; it makes me wonder. Is something out there in the universe making sure that things are set right? Some powerful force of goodness? That sent Jayken to Halapatov? That gave me and Lexie and Reeina powers, of all people, or the Protector even, and brought us together so that we could make sense of this awfulness and stand up for something that matters? I hope so."
My life had mostly felt so random and chaotic it'd been hard to put any sort of thought into a higher power. I had incredibly vague memories of my parents being religious, of reciting prayers, of eids and sayings of wisdom, discussions of making sense of the universe through faith. I lost all of that when I lost my parents, and ever since had been adrift from everything, my home, my culture, my siblings. I turned her words over in my mind for a minute, before answering.
"I was so alone for so long, until I met you. And since then even with all the bad there's been so much good. Maybe there is something behind it all. That drew us all together, brought us here. Maybe the universe is rooting for us." She turned to me with a tired smile and took my hand.
"You'd think if the universe was on our side that none of the things that happened to the Weraynians and Aandriggians would have been allowed to happen." She mused somberly. "Maybe there's some sort of balance."
We stewed in this existentialism for a while before I spoke again.
"They want me to go to Werayne, try and help them with the transmitter stuff. They've got a base or something."
"Okay." She nodded thoughtfully, considering this. "I don't think I can live with myself if I leave Lexie and Jayken behind again-"
"That's fair." I interjected immediately. I totally understood her having that desire and didn't want Abigail to feel like she had to go with me just because we were dating or whatever.
Abigail raised her eyebrows at me as she continued, "However, I would bet you that Jayken and Lexie will want to go to Werayne, if they can."
"Do you think he'll be up to it?" I said, unable to set aside the image of Jayken swamped by medical professionals trying to keep him alive.
"He's really doing very well. Considering what they did to him." She squeezed my hand, maybe a little too hard, face tightening a little. "And he'll be as safe there as here, I figure."
"I'm sure we've got a bit of time before they want me to go anyway," I said, "You should get some rest, after everything that's happened today."
I wondered when Abigail had last slept. It felt like a long time ago when we were reunited, then we'd seen Beth, found out about Alexa and Jayken, travelled to Halapatov, spent part of the night concocting a plan, then the brief escapade with the Protector - who I'd actually lost track of, in the aftermath - then however many hours we'd been here. It had been a crazy long day.
By the time we got back to the main room, pretty much everyone had dispersed. They'd moved Jayken to a smaller room where there was a desk with monitoring set up and someone keeping an eye on him. The lights were off. Alexa was curled up sleeping on a couch that had been dragged to the bedside. Jayken himself was sleeping peacefully. I wasn't sure where anyone else was. I talked to the person at the desk, asking if it was okay if Abigail and I also slept in here. We got the go ahead, and someone gave us a mattress and some scratchy blankets and we got set up in the corner closest to Jayken, between him and the exit. I watched Abi arrange herself so she was lying on her side facing them, and wondered how much sleep she would even get, I felt sure she was determined to keep some kind of watch. I lay down behind her and wrapped my arm protectively around her, drawing the blanket tight over the both of us.
I could feel how stiff she was, trying to remain alert. Despite our proximity she felt mentally very far away. I wished I knew how to comfort her; she was right, earlier, when she said everything felt really fragile. Like at any moment we could lose someone, anyone, and we'd never be able to recover. I'd experienced that before. We both had, with Riowyn. We'd never really spoken about it, mostly buried it and done our best to get away from the thoughts. I didn't want her to have to go through that pain again. But it felt like she was tensing herself for it. I held onto her hand in the darkness, rubbing my robotic thumb against it in what I hoped was a soothing manner. At least she usually slept easier than me - it wasn't long before I felt her start to relax and her breathing change. I clamped my eyes shut and tried to conjure some happy memories until the effort took me to sleep as well.
The next morning, or whenever the hell it was, I woke up before Abi after a pretty restless night and stealthily extracted myself from the bed. Jayken was sitting up and eating something that looked with mush with what I could only call a glowing look on his face. Must've been some good mush.
"Good morning, Sophie." he said brightly, as if it was any normal day. "How are you feeling?"
I was a little taken aback. "How are you feeling?" I asked, probably a bit rudely.
He laughed. "I've been better, but I'm just so happy to be here right now. People are being so kind to me. And you're here! We missed you so much."
I was once again reminded that I had been missing in action and hadn't seen Jayken in a long time. Funny how I kept forgetting that. "I'm glad to be here too."
"Lexie told me you had a new arm. Can I see?"
I pulled up my sleeve and showed the beautiful thing off. He pulled up his blankets and shook his leg at me, showing off his cybernetic leg joint. "We're twins now!"
I held my arm up against it. It obviously wasn't exactly the same, but there was a distinct similarity to it. Weraynian technology. Maybe a specific metal? Either way it was really cool. I'd forgotten about his enhancements.
While we continued to chat, Alexa entered the room holding a steaming mug. In spite of the dark circles under her eyes she smiled genuinely at us, which was nice. She must have felt so relieved.
"I talked to Rintoul and Satah." she said to us as she settled herself back on the couch. "They told me about you and Rojjel talking to them last night. Sounds like Rojjel has found some pretty damning stuff. They're working on some reports." She looked at me directly. "They said you're going to Werayne?"
I nodded. "Sounds like it."
Jayken gripped my arm. "Do you think they'll let us go with you? I want to go home so badly..."
"Told you." Abigail said gruffly, rising from the pile of blankets. She had never really been a morning person. We all turned to face her. "Did you ask them about it Lexie?"
She bit her lip. "Yeah. They obviously weren't keen on the idea but they understood our perspective. And besides, with the teleport watch and the stealth wave, it won't really be any more taxing on Jayken than moving him to another room. They've got some spare rooms at their base on Werayne, and medical equipment. Probably better than ours. I'll try to get in direct contact with them, I think it's a group I've talked to before. Why don't you help me try to convince Rintoul and Satah, Abigail?" Abi nodded and the two girls linked arms and left the room together.
I was promptly kicked off of Jayken's bed as they did some more medical observations on him. Then I got to help as they detached some stuff from him and got him out of bed for the first time. He was obviously very weak, and shaking quite a bit, but they said he did very well. He was able to walk a little bit anyway, which was way more than I would've expected. They had a wheelchair type thing ready and they sat him down in it. He asked if I'd be comfortable wheeling it for him, and so I took him out into the hallway, and we explored the hub a little bit, before running into Abi, Alexa, Rintoul, Satah and Rojjel striding purposefully towards us. Abigail had a triumphant look in her eyes and I knew they had good news for us.
"We've talked to the medical professionals Jayken," Satah said cheerily. "And they've cleared you to go to Werayne, but under the observation of the medics there. All four of you are welcome to go, as I believe you'd like, and they've already got things set up there."
"I want to stress to you the importance of the work you'll be doing over there." Rintoul said seriously. "Rojjel and I have isolated the signals they were testing with the brain scans, and cross referenced them with the bits of code he has from the machines you were installing. Sophie, if you can help them set up some sort of monitoring system focussed on the force field generators, we can have some Weraynian allies target some of the machinery and see if we can disrupt them. Rojjel and I have a hell of a report we're going to submit to the Halapatovian Justice Court in the meantime."
I got goosebumps at the thought, of the importance of it all. Everything we'd been involved in felt so momentous.
"So we're going now?" asked Alexa.
"Yes, unfortunately time is of the essence." Satah replied. "Gather your belongings and say your goodbyes. I'm assuming the teleport watch is functional now?"
Abigail flipped it open and assessed the interface. "Yes. But Sophie's been diverted by HQ before when using it. I know we've used it with success since then but I'm a bit nervous about crossing such a large swathe of space."
"From what Reeina told us, the stealth wave in conjunction with the teleport watch worked wonders against their diversion technology." Rintoul explained casually. "While it's active you shouldn't have a problem."
I watched Abi's face contort in frustration as she realised, as did I, that the teleport watch had only gotten jammed in the prison once the stealth wave was deactivated. Oh well, there was a lot going on, at least we got out of there. She regained her composure and nodded. "Alright then."
We headed back to Jayken's room and gathered the pitiful amount of belongings we had between us. The medical person in there gave him a bunch of information and some sort of medication to keep taking. We headed back out to go get the stealth wave and farewell the people we were leaving behind.
In the main room there were already a bunch of new patients, mostly harrowed looking Aandriggians. Mickey was within the throng attending to people. We were able to pull him away briefly for a goodbye but then he had to get right back to it.
In the small room he and Rintoul had been working in overnight, Rojjel fitted me with the stealth wave device.
"You really trust me with it?" I looked up at him, half joking, half insecure.
He looked me in the eyes. "I do." He patted me on the shoulder and moved back again.
We gathered around Jayken still in his wheelchair, which we were going to take with us. Abigail behind him, Alexa holding on from one side and me on the other. I held Abi's hand with the stealth wave activated and the teleport watch calibrating.
Another day, another mission. I wondered when this was all to end. How many more of us would be injured by the end of the war? Was there even an end in sight?
With our last goodbyes to Rojjel and Rintoul and Satah, we returned to Werayne.