Chapter 1

She simply sat there, oblivious to the world, oblivious to what the scientist and researchers where trying to get her to do. She didn't want to please them today, she was not a trained animal, and her stubborn nature was going to prove that. The MNU were just stupid to think that she was simply going to comply after forcefully trying to tame her.

Well, nope. Not gonna happen any time soon. The USA had handed her off for a reason, and this was it. She wasn't going to kill them. Sure that's what she was designed to do, what her sole purpose in life was supposed to be. Ever since she was little, she was supposed to hate the nonhumans, just like her brothers and sisters did.

But she didn't. She simply didn't. She felt some sort of compassion to the nonhumans, and could relate to them slightly. She had always been the outcast, even before her parents had died. Then the scientists came asking for any kids that had no family that wanted them, had nowhere to go, around her age. So she was taken. She felt happy, finally leaving that dreary orphanage where everyone purposely made things even more difficult for her.

She couldn't help that she was blind, for Christ's sake! She couldn't help that she had scars from the shattered glass in the accident that had claimed her parents. Everything seemed pointless after that and she retreated deeper into her shell, making her body just that; a body with no soul. The scientist had shown some kindness to her, offering to remove her scars. She agreed, enthusiastic. Wouldn't any 12 year old?

But they had done just more than take away her scars. They had done so much more. They had injected her with some sort of virus, as they called it, actually made her bones lighter and had her grow wings. Wings.It was like she was that guy in a book she had read before, that really popular one. One of the older orphans had been talking about it, and was kind enough to read it to her. Who was that guy's name? Iggy, or something like that. It had been a long time since she had read it. She hated her wings. She didn't know a thing about them other than they were big, bulky and let her fly at insanely fast speed. During the training she actually had come close at breaking the speed of sound, but was ordered not to.

She was drawn out of her thoughts the second that she was hit. Hard enough to make her head jerk sideways. Her cheek was smarting, and she could feel the heat rolling off of the area in angry waves.

"Subject 297, respond to the question!" a frustrated male voice screamed at her. The room had gone deathly silent, and she could picture all the other people in the room staring at the man who had slapped her in shock. She dimly remembered that they had been asking her as of why she would not kill the prawns.

"They prefer to call themselves Poleepkwa." She corrected emotionlessly. She then shifted her head, staring at the man with her sightless eyes. "How much do you know about the American Revolution?"

A pause. He was probably confused by her question. "Excuse me?"

"How much." She said slowly, like speaking to a child. "Do you know. About the American Revolution?

"Enough to get me through a history course." He replied snobbishly.

"Then are you familiar with the statement 'No Taxation, without Representation'?"

"Where are you going with this?" he was suspicious now. Good. She wasn't some stupid animal, and she wasn't going to be treated like it.

"It means that the colonists where not going to pay the taxes British Parliament had set down because they did not have a colonial representative in Parliament. They wanted a say in the matters. And that was unfair because they had to live in England to be elected into Parliament. Where I am going with this, is that I want a say in the matters. And my say is this: I'm not killing anyone, or anything for that matter, without a good enough reason to. And that reason has to be witnessed by me. Not you, not a soldier, not a civilian, but me. And only then, if I believe that a good enough reason to kill a living breathing creature, I will kill that creature without hesitation. And nothing you will do or say will change that. Understand?"

She said this in a calm, collected demeanor, and she could feel the shock and surprise radiating off of the people in the room.

"Bravo, Riley."

Her head snapped in the direction of the words. She knew who it was instantly, the deep regal voice that literally commanded your attention, and the fact that he was the only one that used her real name.

"Dr. Payne." She returned the greeting. It was cold, yes, but that was how they treated each other. They weren't friends. They were simply the creator and the creature.

"Excellent speech, very informative, and to the point. If that is how you feel, then I will allow you." His voice moved closer to her, until it was directly in front of her.

"Pardon?" she replied, confused.

"You will live in isolation; with no contact from the laboratory or any of the experiment subjects; for one whole year, among the prawn. You will be on your own, and cannot come crawling back to use any time before that year is up. Understand?"

"Yes." She said flatly, but inside her, she was a mixture of disbelief, excitement, and confusion. She knew Dr. Payne was high up there, but was he seriously allowed to do this without any consequences?

"All we shall do for you is: provide a place for you to stay, with some food that will last you for about a week. Everything else will be left up to you. Do you agree to these terms?"

She was suspicious. This seemed too… thought out. Like they knew this was going to happen. "Why?"

"Leave." Dr. Payne commanded to the others still in the room. There was shuffling, the sound of a door opening and shutting, signaling that they were alone. He knelt down to her level, his voice now coming directly in front of her face.

"Riley, my dear, you are different. You always have been. Others would have lapped this offer up, no questions asked, just be free. But you are smart enough to question it. We need somebody on the inside, to understand them, to know what's going on. That ship just left, and everybody is preparing for the worst. It's been one year in a few weeks. We need somebody smart enough, and can take care of themselves, and understand will happen. The prawns have the best idea about what's going to happen, but they aren't talking."

"You want me to spy." She clarified.

"Yes." was the answer. She was torn. She did want to leave, to meet the Poleepkwa, to learn about them. But to spy on them?

"You will not bother me at all, correct?" she questioned, determined to find a loophole.

"Yes."

"I will give you all of my information that I will collect at the end of the year, correct?"

"Yes."

"I accept." She found it. "Provided that you do not put a tracker on me. I refuse to be an animal, and that not only you, but anybody in this building or anything related to this building bother me. I will allow the MNU only to come because that is their job to do daily rounds and so on, but they will not pester me for information. That's my arrangement." She so could do this. You don't get by 4 years in an orphanage without picking up some habits.

"Riley," she could hear the weary amusement in Dr. Payne's voice. "If we didn't need this information so badly, I would leave here so fast, there would be smoke. You make deals like a lawyer."

She smiled one thing she had not done in a long time. "I would know; my parents were lawyers." She turned serious.

"When do I leave?"

*dramatic music*

hello! um i'm a little nervous about this, because this is actually my first story ever on this website. if you dont like it, i'm pretty sure that this will get better as i continue it, but dont freak out if i randomly vanish for a while. (real life sucks. alot.) i feel confident in this story, and, with luck, this will be my first ever story to finish. Ah, i'd bette shut up now, so if you'd like to give me any advice, i would love to hear from you.

~Sky