READ FIRST:

This story was first and foremost inspired by a friend of mine at the time by name of ChibiXzaide. The original concept of Kiros was hers, as well as the idea of Irkens in slavery. It was her dream that I based this on. Though we've fallen out and I continue to write this independently, I still want others to acknowledge that she is the creative genius behind this. I wouldn't have written any of this if not for her.

The harsh facts of this, a few simple words, hit me like a brick, and I found my breathing getting heavier and faster, my eyes going round and wide. Again, that sickeningly foreign sensation of being somewhere outside my body, looking down upon myself, settled down upon me, but this time… this time it wasn't caused from fear -or at the very least not all from fear- but from pure shock. The human had been right… She was right, and had been telling the truth…. there were humans who cared about Irkens. In a daze I began reading down slightly, skimming quickly over the pledge the main page made… the goals of the program, and I felt myself growing progressively more amazed as time went on, my muscles jittery and something fluttering in the midst of my gut, making me feel as if I had to make an effort to even remain standing. The humans were working towards getting better conditions in general… coming close to making a law that all slave masters would have to follow to give their Irkens chemical baths for the rains… Improving the conditions in the factories… Breaking down the brothels….

"What is this…?" the words came before I had even realized I'd said them, and I again felt rather than saw Maya take her legs off from their propped position on the desk. The human leaned forwards, her lanky arm stretching to delicately take hold of the white, oblong device that I had before distantly heard of being referred to as 'the mouse'. Moving the mouse so that the pointer on the screen shifted, she went to position it over a small button on the bottom of the screen entitled 'Member Networks'.

"I'll show you," she said after what seemed to be a long, tense moment. As she clicked the button, another screen came up almost instantly, and I quickly read what I could, gathering that from the bars and words, the computer was asking for something called a 'password' and 'screen name'. Maya pulled out the keyboard from under the desk a bit noisily, rapidly clicking a few buttons, and I was granted just enough time to read that her 'screen-name' was 'Mouse', the same name she had told me she preferred as a nickname, before the page changed yet again, asking for another 'password', and apparently the answers to a few questions that I didn't even have time to do more than skim my eyes over before she had finished and the screen had changed again. Before my overwhelmed and slightly hurting eyes the screen came alive with words and names, revealing another page that thought I tried, I couldn't make any sense of whatsoever other than it was another page of what was abbreviated as the InRA. It was just a moment before a pop-up appeared over all the other information on the screen, flashing urgently with a light that made me squint as my eyes were already hurting and nothing about the computer was helping them any. That window apparently made the speakers of the computer ding as it appeared, as the sound reached my antennae a mere second later. I read the words on it silently, as best as I could while squinting, the feeling of being helplessly out of my depth rising in me from the onslaught of all this new information as Maya typed her reply.

Salamander: Hey, Mouse! Long time no see, eh? What you been up to?

There was a little blip from the computer speakers as Maya entered in her reply, the words appearing under the first an instant later.

Mouse: A lot. You know me, always have somewhere to go and things to do. What's the situation going?

Before I could even get my muddled mind to form a question to ask, Maya answered, "This place is the networks for all Irkens rights activists around the world. It's the only safe site where no member has ever been found out. Every new member has to have extensive background checks and an interview before they're let on… I was one of the earlier members… It's grown, but there's still not too many people, something I'm not proud of…"

I just glanced to her blankly as I let my addled mind absorbed that information, allowing one of my antenna flick lightly, before another ding announced the reply, and my eyes were drawn back inexorably to the screen.

Salamander: Heh, they guys out here are still trying to get to that escaped Irken before the cops do. It's hell out there, from what I can gather. Too much snow to get a trail, even with dogs, and they keep getting distracted by a bunch of deer in the area. Bet Doe would find that hilarious.

Maya glanced up at me a moment, as if gauging my reaction, but my mind had already drifted off as I remembered my trek through the deeply falling snow, only just now realizing how close I had probably come to being caught. The deer in that area… that was something I knew of fairly well. I was at least glad that even those had been able to help me somewhat, no matter how indirectly. After what seemed like an instant, Maya cleared her throat, and I managed to drive away my thoughts and look at her, quirking a brow in question.

"Kiros, do you care if I tell them that I've found you, or do you want to keep that under wraps?"

I froze a moment, all my muscles just… stopping. Tell them that I had been found by one of their members already…? I knew this was a type of… human resistance against it's own actions, and such information would likely spare them a lot of time and effort on a fruitless endeavor, but no matter what I had seen I couldn't bring myself to trust them. As far as I knew, they would force Maya to bring me to them, where I could be kept in a cage or worse, and if there was one thing I didn't want, it was to be somewhere more unknown and unstable than my current situation. I shook my head slightly, but upon suddenly realizing with a panic that Maya might take that as a go ahead; I spoke quickly before she could begin typing.

"Don't…!" I cut myself off, not wanting to say any more than I had to. She, still looking at me, quirked a brow, one of her odd human eyebrows rising, and I wasn't certain if she was reacting to what I was sure was desperate terror on my face, or her own thoughts. Nonetheless, when she typed her reply, nothing about it gave any sign that I might have been in the room with her.

Mouse: I'm sure she would. But at least with the trail being so lost then there's a better chance he'll get somewhere slightly safe, huh? I hope he does… But there's no use worrying about it too much when we can't do anything. How has your mission done? Did you manage to get those files out?

Files..? What files? Again, Maya answered before I had a chance to even voice my question.

"Salamander had a field mission to get secret files from a government building. They were the only copies, thank god for that, and they had to do with an implant that the enemies of the Irken race wanted to install in every slave's brain to make them nothing but walking drones, unable to think for themselves or do anything more than the most basic of actions on their own. We activists consider that nothing more than fucking Xenocide. So we took measures to destroy the research and take the files so nothing like that can ever happen."

It took me a full minute of agonizing silence to fully process that information, my mind wiping itself absolutely blank as I found my limbs shivering slightly at the thought of having… something, implanted in my brain, taking over my mind… No! No, no, it would never happen! It couldn't… god; they couldn't have seriously considered that…! Not even in all the horror stories the humans had against my own race had anything so heartless been done…! Oh, no… It was just… just wrong…

By the time the ding of a reply had jogged my panicking mind out of my thoughts for a moment, my mouth was dry from having been hanging open so long, my mind reeling from so many racing thoughts as I tried to follow some line of coherency.

They couldn't… they just couldn't….

Salamander: Pfft, almost didn't. They stepped up their security, but luckily I've stepped up my skills. I got 'em out, anyway, though. Damn idiots won't be able to use that research anytime soon, especially not with the measures we've taken to make sure they don't… What about you? You manage to plant that bug?

Blip…

Mouse: Yeah, I did. Typed up my report and sent it in just a few minutes ago. Now I'm waiting to see if another mission opens up.

Ding..!

Salamander: Same here. Oh, wait… one just came up for me… Must go. Seeya later, Mouse.

Blip…

Mouse: Bye, 'Mander. Good luck.

Ding..!

Salamander: Same to you.

With that, the entire conversation ended, and Maya closed the pop-up, erasing the discussion as if it never was. A long, heavy breath escaped me, and I suddenly realized that I had been holding my breath. It was all too much… the humans having the gall to try that… having to be checked by their own damn species… Was this entire race in a permanent civil war against itself?? I didn't doubt it, considering what all signs pointed to. I only distantly took note of Maya as she signed out of her account on that site, quickly shutting off the Internet and then swiveling her chair to face me. She didn't have to move very far, for I had unknowingly, in my concentration at reading and horror at what I was learning, leaned down until I was basically even with her, one hand having gripped almost painfully tightly onto the back of her chair. Her swiveling caused me to lose my grip on the smooth black material, and I let out a quick yelp as I immediately jumped back, breathing fast, staring her with the confusion and fear of a trapped animal. I still just couldn't understand it! The entire idea of those implants… the narrowness that my race had escaped it by… not even knowing…

"That's why we exist," Maya said slowly, watching me carefully, her face illuminated in soft lines by the image in the background of the screen. Her words confused me for a long moment… but she clarified an instant later, the lexis as if reading every thought and question in my mind, "We… the humans that care… we can't let that happen. I won't let it happen. We won't!" I cringed slightly from the force of her voice, but she took no notice, a deep note of passion and belief coming into her voice as she spoke, "We don't want a world like that… I don't want a world like that. Humans hundreds of years ago used to enslave other humans. We realized that that was wrong, and it took years of fighting and war, but we stopped it. We stopped it. We said that we'd never do it again, but look at us now. People think it's right because you aren't human… but I say what's to classify what's human?? Humanity?? You're not an animal… your race isn't a race of pets, they're people! Why can no one else see that??" She made a gesture to me, and I could feel my eyes widening a bit as I stood where I had stopped. I wouldn't have been able to move if I'd wanted to, too caught up in what she was saying… what she truly believed. I could feel the power of her words in the air, how she was speaking them with truth… with passion… And for a moment… just a fleeting, tense moment, I could see it… I could see and understand what she was saying… "So you're green, so what? We're tan! Isn't that weird? I mean, god, we'd spent all those years trying to find other intelligent life in the universe, but when we do find it, we get into a war with it! But that doesn't bother me, not as much as the fact that we not only beat you're race so humiliatingly… we had to rub it in. We had to take all your dignity, enslave your people, take over your planet and use it for our own… ally ourselves with other races that yours had conquered… " She shook her head suddenly, having apparently worn herself out for now, or realized what she was doing, "...I'm sorry. Didn't mean to go on a rant at you…."

Caught a bit in the aftereffects of such a powerful speech, I found that I could still manage to shake my head a bit, consciously having to lower my antennae as I looked at her. I think there may have been a great deal of shock written on my face, because she smiled a bit as she watched me, though there was something wrong with the expression, as if she didn't exactly mean it. I had but a moment to puzzle over it before she had swiveled back towards the screen, speaking quietly.

"I need some music on… something calming… I hope you like Celtic…" with that, she clicked the mouse a few times, and within a moment there was the quiver of a few notes drifting through the air from the speakers on the computer. A voice came not too long after, soft and clear, a bit hard to understand, but obviously human. It was a matter of moments before I found myself listening hard to the melodic notes drifting through the air, interested in the twining notes, before finally deciding that I at least didn't hate the smooth, unobtrusive music. After I had waited along, somewhat apprehensive moment to see if Maya would turn back or even say something else, -almost wishing for a moment that she would, as I had never felt such effects as her speech had had on me in my life- I chanced a bit of a yawn, not knowing how the human would take it if she saw, since despite my short bout of sleep earlier and my more recent but fairly revitalizing shower, I found my eyelids growing heavy, it becoming progressively harder to concentrate as well as I usually could.

Remembering the mattress on the floor, I looked down to it, just considering it without much actual thought to it. It did look comfortable… at least a good deal more comfortable than my cot had been… and that made me wonder if I would even be able to sleep on it. It wasn't like I was used to any form of comfort…

I guess I can just sleep on the floor if I don't like it…