Chapter Seven
Faye
On a cold October night, my mother passed away to sleep among the stars. Her sad eyes have been forever ingrained into my memory and I pray she feels no more sadness.
My mother was psychic because my family was related to Sabrina's bloodline. She was able to see the future, a future so distant that it could not be described in words. But, as she would tell me, the future is emotion. Every emotion is what causes the future, even apathy, no emotion at all. I am not a psychic; such powers skip generations, so I only have minimal gifts and cannot read minds or levitate or anything like that. Instead, I have the gift of understanding; my mother knew this and wrote down her visions when I was a young child for me to read later.
The government knew the comet was coming a decade before the general public were informed. I was the Ark's historian; it was my job to record our journey and all the events which took place during it. Yet there was a problem.
In the beginning, they had plans for us. The planet we were supposed to land on was riddled with danger, the sole purpose of landing there being to rid us of the weak. But, then, they had a better idea. They knew there were worlds which were already inhabited . . .
Just as I was reading about their plans, I sensed someone coming and had to escape. For twelve days, I hid in the piping and, on the day we landed, my Pokemon concealed me briefly enough for me to escape into the wilderness. I walked for more miles than you can imagine, moving slowly for fear that I might fall into a trap.
I finally settled on a hilltop meadow with a few trees and a small stream. From here, I could see the Colony being set up and it gave me a sense of security I hadn't had since losing my mother.
Since it was only early afternoon, I decided to go and search for food. The first plants I approached looked non-toxic, but I decided to use different things I'd learned to judge my safety. First, I released my two Pokemon, a Skiploom my mother gave me for my birthday before she got sick and a Flaaffy someone gave me to look after on the Ark. Flaaffy immediately went up to the plant and sniffed it, but it made her sneeze and I decided not to risk it. Skiploom, on the other hand, jumped up and down happily by my side before darting off and grabbing flowers. I laughed, remembering how much she loved to be surrounded by flowers. This world was like an unblemished version of Earth.
"Flaa!" my Pokemon exclaimed excitedly from where she was standing next to a light-green bush. I ran over and looked at it carefully. There were squarish, amber-colored things hanging from the branches and I picked one.
"Is it safe?" I asked.
Flaaffy nodded and I put the item into my mouth, closing my eyes and tasting with all my energy. It tasted like blueberries in maple syrup. "Good job, Flaaffy," I said. "Now, where is Skiploom?"
Flaaffy bleated, but Skiploom didn't reply and I got worried. "Skiploom!" I shouted to no avail, as a breeze whipped into my face and I saw storm clouds in the distance.
Then, I heard a soft crying sound, followed by my Skiploom's comforting voice. Immediately, Flaaffy and I began to run towards the sound, arriving to find a girl petting Skiploom.
Skiploom looked at me and smiled. "Loomskippu!" she said, bouncing towards me.
The girl turned around and screamed.
"Hey, don't worry," I said. "I'm from the Ark!"
I wondered why she kept running once she knew I was from the Ark? Could she be trying to stay away from it as well? "Wait up!" I shouted after her. "I won't turn you in, I promise! I'm trying to stay away too!"
She didn't reply, but I could still hear her running in the distance. I kept on running until I found the girl breathing heavily and looking as if she was about to faint. I ran up to her. "Don't . . . take me . . . back . . . there!" she cried out between gasps.
"To the Ark?" I asked. "I'm trying to stay away from there."
"You don't understand," she said, turning away.
"My name's Faye," I told her, shaking my hair back.
"I'm Vicky," she said. "Is this your Skiploom?"
"Yes - and this is Flaaffy."
"I wish I had a Skiploom," she smiled, bending down to pet my Pokemon.
"Flaaf!" Flaaffy suddenly shouted. "Flaa flaa flaa flaaffy!"
"There's a storm brewing," I said. "I don't think this hill is safe. We should find shelter."
Vicky agreed and we all looked around for somewhere we could all fit without getting soaked.
Vicky
We sat in the shelter and waited for the storm to pass by. Ditto tried to pass the time by copying Skiploom and Flaaffy.
"So why are you trying to keep away from the Ark?" Faye asked.
I kept quiet for a bit before deciding I could trust her. "If I go back, I'll be in trouble. I can't return now."
As we sat in the shelter, we told each other of our lives up until this moment.
Faye
"What do you miss most about Earth?" I asked Vicky.
"Earth," she said quietly. "They are so many things I miss."
I nodded, turning my gaze towards the swirling rain and wind. "I miss a lot of things," I admitted. "But more than anything else, I miss things that were part of our daily lives: watching movies, walking in the park. Yes, some of it will be the same here, but much of it can't, and never will be, the same. There's just so much here we don't know." I turned to Vicky and smiled.
"Are you scared?" she asked me.
"I've never thought of it that way before," I told her. "I think I've been a bit preoccupied with settling in and such."
"That's the best thing to do, I guess. But sometimes I miss things that we knew too."
The storm was finally dying down and Vicky seemed to be in a lighter mood. Surprisingly, the rain water was already draining away. "I wonder how the water goes away so quickly," I pondered out loud.
"Underground tunnels," Vicky replied instantly. "A cave network."
Do you know this for a fact?"
"Yes," Vicky told me. "My friends saw it."
I looked towards the woods, thinking I saw some unusual movement. "Why did you leave your friends?" I asked her. "Did you do something to make the Ark people mad at you?"
"Can we please talk about something else?"
I shrugged. "OK. But now would be a good time to tell me, since there's someone coming."
Vicky
"I'll tell you when we get away," I told Faye.
This time, I meant it; I really thought Faye was a friend. Of course, I considered everyone I met on the day the alien infiltrated the Ark a friend. Then, it hit me: if they were my friends, what was I running away from? Only DS's Charmander . . .
I put my hand out in front of Faye to stop her. "Do you want to go on? Or do you want to stop running away?" I asked. I looked at Faye and waited for her to answer.
Emily
As it turned out, finding the source of the screeching would have to wait because, just as we were looking for it, we came across two girls. One of them was Vicky and the other was someone I'd only seen a couple of times during the whole journey through space.
"Vicky - thank goodness you're safe!" I called as they drew nearer. "We've been looking all over for you!"
"Emily?" Vicky said with an expression of disbelief on her face. "What are you guys doing here?"
"I just told you. We've been out searching for you and . . ." I broke off when I saw the other girl staring at our group as if she was studying us.
We stood there silently for what felt like hours before Vicky spoke again. "I - I thought you didn't want me," she said, her eyes filling with tears as she spoke. "So I left . . ." She paused and glanced at her companion. "This is Faye," she added. "And I think you'd better hear what she's got to tell us."
We studied Faye closely, wondering just what it was she had to say. I had never spoken to her before, but some deep instinct told me that she knew something important.
Faye took a deep breath and began. "Do any of you know why you were chosen for the Ark?" she asked.
We shook our heads. "Well, I was chosen because I'm a well-known historian and they needed me to keep track of things," she explained. "And I'm also borderline psychic. As for the rest of you . . ." She paused and we all sat, waiting with baited breath to hear the answer to the question that had dogged all of us for ages: why we had been sent those emails.
Faye
"OK," I said, "as I'm sure you may have realised, none of us were randomly selected like they claimed we were. In fact, we were carefully chosen and so was this planet. And why did they choose us? I'll tell you why they chose us specifically. You don't think there's anything out of the ordinary about you? Well, I wouldn't be too sure. Every person here has some gift or ability or even a near perfect DNA sequence."
"And the Ark was built fifty years before the comet came. Remember the alien that appeared? I can't tell you for sure, but I know that, to some extent at least, it was planned. And, as for this planet, notice how it just so happened to fit our requirements; there were so many things that could have been a bit off but weren't. I'm sure you know by now that we were intended to settle this planet. But - Vicky hint at this earlier - this planet is already colonised . . ." I closed my eyes and exhaled, feeling like I'd said all that in one breath.
Vicky raised her hand. "Everything you said makes sense," she told me. "Except, what do you mean I hinted at something earlier?"
"You mentioned an underground cave system, didn't you?" I replied. "Maybe it's me, but I think we need to find out exactly what's underground. I'm pretty sure the people of the Ark know and we have a right to know as well."
"We've been there and we nearly died!" exclaimed Emily. "It would be dangerous!"
"And this isn't?" Vicky said, turning to me. "Either way, we're in trouble and, now that we know, I'd like to find out the truth. Maybe we could even do something about it."
"What do you think?" I asked the others. "I don't really feel like returning to the camp, but I'm so tired it might not be a bad idea."
DS
I was stunned. This revelation was so sudden, so . . . crazy. How did I know this Faye girl wasn't just a really good liar? Maybe she had some personal grudge against the Ark's Crew and was giving us false information to incite rebellion. There was so much evidence in favor of what she said. But what if she'd just thought this story over and made it believable by using existing circumstances? And, even if it was true - and I didn't deny that it might be - what could I do to help? I didn't know whether to believe her or not.
Vicky sure did, though. Speaking of which, Charmander owed her an apology.
"Char, charmander," Charmander objected when I told her so. "Mander char."
"I don't care. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have worried ourselves sick over Vicky."
After arguing a bit longer, Charmander finally agreed to apologize and led Hinochi up to Vicky, who at first made to back away.
"Don't worry," I said. "Charmander's come to apologize."
Still wary, Vicky stopped backing away. Charmander picked up the Cyndaquil and held him our for Vicky to pet as a peace offering.
Ken
So much for random selection. Now, instead of considering myself extremely lucky to have been picked for the Ark, I was wondering why I had been chosen. My physical skills were pretty average and my brains, while quite decent, were nothing special. When I thought about it, nothing particularly useful came to mind. I wasn't even a great Pokemon battler. So the information Faye carried was either very false or very dangerous - and I didn't like it either way.
Faye was in the middle of talking to Emily when Pads yapped softly, twitching his nose and raising his hackles.
"Faye, Emily, we should move out," I said. "Finish your chat on the way; someone - or something - is coming in this direction."
Faye
We immediately began to run in the direction I remembered chasing Vicky. Every now and then, a couple of us would look behind to see if we were being followed, but we never seemed to be quite sure.
Finally, I recognised the area and knew we were pretty much there. We waited quietly, but no-one unwelcome seemed to be anywhere nearby. "Here. Climb up this way," I said, motioning towards a tree branch. "Then, you'll be there; it's not hard to get to, but it's hard to find unless you're looking for it."
When we got to the platform, I was excited. Being here with other people made me realize just how spacious this place was. I had figured it must have a big enough area to fit all of us, but I was surprised at how much room there was to spare.
We all sat down in the grass. "You'll be able to see everything you need to from here," I explained. "So, before you decide to go back, you must make sure it doesn't look like you tried to get away."
"Why should we trust you?" Ken asked out of the blue. "Some of what you said makes sense, but I still don't understand the rest of it. Why exactly did they choose us?"
I closed my eyes, thinking quietly. "Let's see . . ." I said. "Ken, you were chosen mostly for your astronomy skills. They wanted to make sure you didn't know too much, but I suspect you know more than you're willing to tell. You've got courage, plus smarts and agility, and that's very important. Finally, you have curiosity and never take someone at their word before figuring things out for yourself. In other words, you're an explorer and you also seem to have potential in architecture and engineering. So you were, naturally, a good choice."
"You don't even know me and you read me like a book," Ken said.
I shrugged. "Whatever. Anyone else wondering?" Everyone raised their hands. "OK, let's start with Marle," I said. "You're resourceful, inventive and a strong Pokemon battler; your records show you had the potential to become a Gym Leader. On this planet, you'd come in useful for taming the local Pokemon, which are definitely a bit different from the ones on Earth."
"Jack," I went on, "you don't care what people tell you to do; you just do whatever seems right to you. You're very independent. Does that sound about right?"
"Pretty much," Vicky commented.
"OK, how about you, Vicky? You know how to avoid danger; you have a knack of narrowly scraping through unscathed even when it seems impossible to do so. And, Emily, you have an outstanding attention span for your age and you can mull over ideas logically in your head. You have that kind of understanding most will never have."
"But," I added, "before we do anything else, we need to find more information."
