I wasn't able to meet up with the multicolors until nine am the next morning. Jenna's team had started taking pictures of Second Horizons and had been sending them to Alex for the last few days. She had overtaken most of the planning for the raid, and I was worried about her neglecting her duties in the tower. She was responsible for all of our activities, but she was like me, she had people doing the things for her. I was still worried about her, though.
As I rounded the corner of the furthest old yellow cabins and spotted all the multicolors but Sam standing around loosely in a circle. The youngest were running around playing, while the older ones were standing around talking.
"How was the meeting?" Mirable asked me, everyone seemed to have not noticed me approaching quite yet.
"It was fine. Jemma's team managed to get out there late last night. They're going to be sending Malika's team back for supplies and some rest. They haven't found anything out there yet, but Derek's team has an idea where a yellow tribe is hanging out, and Jay's team thinks they might have an idea for a blue one."
"What about the others?"
"Most of them are fine. They haven't spotted anything yet, and Jake, Nate, Amara and Nicki haven't responded since two days ago, but that's normal for them."
"So why did it take you so long? You're usually in and out when you're talking with her."
"Trying to decide if we bring in the rescued kids or do something like we're doing here."
"What side are you guys leaning towards?"
"Leaving them there and starting to send kids around there to Second Horizons instead of here, so that there are fewer chances that we're spotted here."
"So I need to find some kids to go over there?"
"Soon hopefully."
"Who's going to be in charge?" Gage asked, finally noticing Ava standing next to me.
"Alex mentioned Sam since he had all three powers in the camp, but he has to take care of Sally, and we're going to be sending so many kids over there that we're probably going to send a black."
"Anyway. Let's get started," I said, bringing the discussion to a close. Everyone quieted down, and I sighed in relief. I mentally prepared myself
After I was done with my lesson I walked over to the tower to talk with Alex one last time about our plan before we started involving actual people. She had called me on the warlike talkie before Mirable had accidentally blown it up. She had said it all planned out, and I trusted her that she had considered everything. As I walked into the room, I saw Alex behind her desk and Jessica Knight standing on the opposite side. Both looked up as I walked into the room.
"Did you finish the plan?" I asked as I sat down.
"Of course. Jessica was kind enough to offer her assistance when she found out what I was doing," Alex said, shuffling some papers in front of her.
"Thank you," I said to the woman, who gave me a curt nod. "What do you have for me?"
"This is the entire camp's layout," Alex said, handing me a piece of paper. It was a hand drawn map of the camp. There were little squares drawn in to show what each building was. The control tower was in the center of the camp, with the dining hall standing parallel to the tower, while the garden sat next to the dining hall closer to the gate. The warehouse sat on the opposite side of the dining hall. There were two housing buildings, one for the kids, and the other for adults that sat on the opposite side of the tower from across the dining hall. The medical building sat next to the gate across from the garden.
"All of the kids live in the one building," Jessica said pointing at the map and showing me a picture of the building that Jenna's team had taken. It was a three story brick building with windows evenly spaced. Each window was covered with bars on the outside of them.
"What's with the bars?" I asked.
"They used to have electrical problems, so they put the bars on to save costs on keeping the lights on," Alex said with a shrug. "Plus it's easier to have someone keep an eye on the building. Each room has ten kids in it. They are segregated by color and gender. There are sixty purples, a hundred blues and a hundred forty greens. The bottom floor is only greens, the second is blue and greens, and the top is blues and purples. When we run this attack it would be easier to drive a van up to the doors, kill the electricity for the van, and take the building."
"We figure it's best to attack when the kids are in their rooms. There are more adults running around, but it's less chaotic and the kids are less likely to get hurt. If we did it any other time there could be injuries," Alex continued. "Some of my workers are working on a small EMP device that could take out the electricity of the camp, but not hurt any yellow we take on the mission. Once the electricity is out, we can force the gate, and drive inside. The space between watch building is big enough to drove a van through. We could use a group of six or so people to take control of each building. It wouldn't be that hard to get the warehouse, dining hall, kitchen, and laundry room once the prisoners are out of the building. We would just need a stronger force to take the tower. As soon as we finished raiding the camp, we would put the kids in the dining hall, and the adults in the medical center."
I sat back impressed with the plan. Everything had been covered except for who was going on the mission. I would have to probably pick them up, but I had plenty of people who could go on the mission and use the clean up.
"Okay, just make sure we finish up those electricity replacements," I said with a wave of my hand, and I saw Jessica look at me confused. "Their replacements are meant to speed up the recovery of a yellow after an EMP hits an area."
"How did you figure that out?" Jessica asked concerned.
"We run small experiments on the kids here," Alex said, and we turned to look at her. "Everyone in the programs agrees with it and they are adequately repaid for their time and energy. Anyway, one of the experiments we run is to see what happens when a yellow is exposed to an emp. We would put a chip like we use in the Genesis program on their shoulder, take them someplace else and release a small EMP near them. We would take the information, send it to the doctors, and test ways to return it. Best we can come up with is to store electricity and give it to them whenever an EMP hits."
"Simply stated, it's like giving insulin to a diabetic," I explained, and she looked at me confused, but shrugged. "Is that all you have for me?"
"Nope," Alex said, popping the p.
"Thank you," I said standing up.
Somehow, nothing big happened for the next two weeks. Search teams brought people in, before leaving again. Kids went to school and the adults tended to the heavier tasks. More parents were found and brought in, and kids without parents, either unwanted or a guardian couldn't be found, were partnered up with someone else.
I was able to find people for the upcoming mission, which was named Project Reseruct, really fast. So fast and many that I actually had to reject about ninety percent of them. Though they did say that they were willing to give up their spots so we could bring the kids in. When they realized what we were doing, more offered themselves up to help us expand our horizons so we could help more.
Though Dr Mallard was pretty adamant that the original camp in tact so that no one could call us liars when we finally told the world, which I agreed to after a while. As I planned and practiced with the team, I practiced with the multi colors on their powers. They were getting much better than before, Gage better than anyone. His first known power had been green, and though he had known something was wrong, he had figured out how to use his powers quickly.
As I helped plan the raids I realized that Second Horizons would be the harder of the two to take, so we needed to focus on it more than anything else. We were worried about Golden Palms, the empty camp that Derek's team had found a few weeks ago, but since we were a few weeks away from topping out we weren't as worried.
Fourteen days after that first power class with the blacks, I was standing with the people of Project Reseruct in the old warehouse. It had been used for storage for the last few weeks since we had no other place to hold the supplies. It was half full, and it wasn't hard to shove everything into good spots for us to be able to use as blocking points for everyone.
There were seventy people going to Second Horizons, ten oranges, two reds, four silvers, two yellows, two greens, four blues, four purples, and forty adults who had been in the army. Gage and I were going along because someone needed to be in charge and it was better to have two blacks going along. Mirable also needed practice to take control of Golden Palms. As soon as we were finished, the entire team would head back to Tundra with the kids and some of the adults before they went up to Golden Palms with Mirable in my place.
Gage and I were waiting by the door of the warehouse taking a break when Jacqine walked into the warehouse. She was wearing blue jeans shorts and a red tank top and she was holding a box in front of her. She gave a look around for a second before walking up to Gage and I.
"What do you have there?" I asked.
"Emp's and phone blocking equipment," she said, holding the box out to me.
"Thanks," Gage said as I grabbed the box.
"No problem," she said.
"How's the tower?" I asked.
"Everything's great, and everyone knows what to do when you leave. And I sent the call to all the teams to start sending kids found in that state of the country over there. Nancy said she finished the plan to expand and we wouldn't have to destroy the original camp." I nodded in understanding. Dr Mallard was kind of upset that we weren't preserving what happened here, so he suggested that we preserve camps from now on so that when we decided to go public we could show them the literal grounds that we had once been held at.
"Thanks for that, is everything prepared for our run tomorrow and moving some of the others up?" Gage asked.
"Everything was finished this morning," Jaquine said.
"Thank you Jaqunine," I said and she seemed to notice that I was dismissing her. She nodded before turning and walking out again. I turned to the rest of the group who were all taking a break as well.
"Come on everyone, let's get going?" I called out, and everyone looked at me surprised. "Everything's ready to go, and we need to go." Everyone slowly stood up and started walking towards the door. I opened the door and waited for everyone to walk slowly out of the building. As soon as everyone was out, Gage walked up beside me. "Gage, we're going to be fine." He looked at me surprised.
"How do you know?"
"Because I know you, and know that you're a good person," I said and smiled at him. "Now come on, we really should leave soon. It's going to be a long drive out to Utah."
"Of course," he said with a small laugh and we walked out of the old warehouse together. I pulled the door behind me, and let one of the two guards at the door close it behind me. I could sense their annoyance that we hadn't put everything back to before we left, but I knew the director of the warehouse liked the set up in a particular way and he would be even more mad if we messed up his storage system than the two guards.
As Gage and I approached the vans that would take us a few hundred miles from here, I saw some people not going on the mission waiting near the vans. I instantly noticed Mirable confronting Victoria, who was standing in front of her father and Dr Mallard. Palmer was going on our trip to help dig up the bodies of the silvers and oranges, while Dr Mallard was remaining behind.
Mirable looked at us over her head before ducking down again to talk to her again. I shook my head and walked up to the van I was going to be riding in. I used my powers to lift the far seat and set the EMP and phone blocker underneath it and set the seat down again. When I turned around again, I saw Gage and the rest of my crew standing behind me.
"Are you ready to go?" Dave asked as he set down some more supplies he had managed to find in the last few minutes.
"Yeah, I'm going to go say goodbye to Mirable," I said and he nodded. The crew walked around me and started loading in the van. I walked up to Mirable, Victoria and the two doctors. Dr Palmer seemed ready to go and was trying to convince himself to not stay behind.
"Are you ready to go?" I asked Dr Palmer. He looked down at me concerned before nodding. "Go sit in the van." He nodded and walked away to join my van. I crouched down in front of Victoria whose face betrayed her emotions. She was a scared little kid, and I wouldn't be taking her father with me unless I needed to. "I'll bring your father back."
"I know," she said, fear in her voice. I smiled at her and stood up again. I looked at Mirable who nodded. 'Take care of her,' I thought to her.
'I will,' she thought back, and gently grabbed Victoria's hand. I looked at Dr Mallard.
"Keep an eye on her for me," I said, and he nodded.
"Take care now," he said, worry in his voice.
"I will," I said, and gave him a smile. I turned and jumped into my van. Dave, who was driving and had started the van, pulled the van forward as soon as I closed the door behind me. We didn't wait for any of the van's to follow us. All of them would be going different routes and would meet up at different times, and though I was worried about them, I was happy about finally leaving Tundra.
Though that happiness passed within three minutes of us pulling out of the gate. The van didn't have any windows and it would be a long drive to the camp. Time moved extremely slowly as we drove along the nine hour drive. We did take small breaks, but because of our desire to not be seen. I used to be able to do this trip no problem, but Tundra had weakened my resolve.
When Dave had finally pulled to a stop three miles from Second Horizons, I practically jumped out of the van. I wasn't the only one, since Gage and Sebbie jumped out just as fast as I did. I took a few breaths, and looked around for anyone. We were in a small forested area off I-45. There were a few small old shacks that looked lived in nearby, and I could smell the freshness in the air.
"Hey," Sara said, calling out to us as she approached. I looked up at her and saw that she had somehow grown three inches in the time I had last seen her. She looked pretty good all things considered.
"Hey," Gage said, standing up all the way. "Come on everyone, let's start unpacking." I saw Sara look at him confused before looking at me just confused.
"He's taking over Second Horizon's," I said and she nodded. I nodded in the direction of the other vans. She seemed surprised but followed me as I started walking away. "How have things been?"
"They don't know we're here," she said simply. "We've managed to keep things on the down low and we managed to keep out of the camera's view."
"How bad is it?"
"Not good, but better than Tundra. There's an outcrop of buildings near here. They built it recently to keep the adults."
"Is it secure?"
"Of course," she said in a way that made me think she thought I had a moment of stupidity.
"How long are you going to stick around?" I asked. Among the many things that we had planned, I hadn't asked what the team would do after we broke the kids free.
"Stay here for a few days, then keep looking for others." Bianca said as she joined us. We stopped by the van and she leaned up against it.
"Aren't you guys getting tired of constantly being on the road?"
"Sure, but it doesn't bother us since we're helping so many others," Sara said with a shrug, and I heard the squeal of tires nearby. I looked over my shoulder and saw two vans coming to a stop nearby. Ten people jumped out of each van, and they immediately started sorting what was needed for the raid and what would be needed for later.
"Why did you bring the NCIS agents, and not someone else?" Bianca asked.
"They're better than what I have, and they're good with crime scenes. Where is the rest of your team?"
"Making sure all of the prisoners are sent to their rooms so we don't have to worry about it," Bianca said before standing up and walking towards one of the vans.
"Come on," I said to Sara. "Help us unload things while the other show up." She gave a kind of side nod, before walking over to one of the vans to help them unload.
"This is impressive," Bianca said from her position next to one of the vans. She held up one of the guns that we had brought with us. "Where did you find this stuff anyway?"
"There are the guns that we pulled from the PSF's at Tundra when we took the camp," I explained as I walked up to her.
"Really?" Dr Palmer asked, confused.
"Yeah. We couldn't find enough of them elsewhere, so we used the one's we had," I said with a shrug, and used my powers to take some left over out of the box and pass them out to some of the guns to the people who were going on the mission. Almost as soon as I was finished with passing them out the last of the vans pulled up. The people inside jumped out and started walking towards us.
"Come on," Gage ordered as he started passing out more guns.
"Everyone ready to go?" Calvin asked, as he grabbed his own gun from my hand.
"Yeah," Gage said nervously.
"You'll be fine," Dave said reassuringly and he closed the lid of the box he had pulled his gun out of.
"Come on everyone," I called out, closing my own box. Everyone who was going jumped back into the vans we were taking for the raid. I settled into the passenger seat and adjusted the EMP in my lap. Dave pulled forward and I grabbed onto my seat belt. I looked down at the EMP again. It was highly concentrated and would completely knock out the camp's electricity for about ten hours. I set it up so that it would fly out of the window when I hit a button. As soon as it was finished, Dave looked over at me.
"Hit it," Dave ordered, and I hit the button to release the button. It flew out of the window and flew out of my view. I could feel the camp's electricity, which was less than a quarter of a mile away, go dark.
"The camp's electricity is out," I said, and everyone nodded in agreement. They brought their goggles over their heads, and shifted their weapons. I reached out and grabbed the gate, sliding it against the railing to open it. As Dave drove through the gate, I knocked the PSF's unconscious.
"How close am I?" Dave asked.
"Two hundred feet," I said, and he started to slow down. I could feel the rest of the vans pull off so they could take their own buildings. Dave pulled the van in front of the building, and Calvin pulled the side door open. Dave and I opened our own doors and I used my powers to shut down the van so no one else could use it. I walked right behind Zeek.
"Open the door," Zeek ordered, and since it was electronically opened I used my powers to throw it open. There were two men on each floor and with a snap of my fingers I knocked all of them unconscious.
"Space out everyone," I ordered and everyone moved out to secure our newly acquired prisoners and to make sure none of the kids tried to run.
"We've got this, go help clear the warehouse," Zeek ordered as he approached one of our prisoners to handcuff him. I turned and before I could walk away, I could feel the increased panic from one of the rooms down the hall.
"Are you okay?" Calvin asked, and I waved my hand in a follow me motion. I walked down the hallway and used my powers to force my way into the room. Nine of the girls inside were awake and some of the girls were crowded around the bed of the last girl who was lying in the middle of the room on the right. All of the girls but one flinched back and covered their eyes while the last tried to protect the fallen girl.
"What's wrong with her?" I heard Zeek demand from somewhere behind me. I approached the girl and knelt down next to her.
"I don't know," I muttered as I put my hand to her head. I used my powers to check her head and gasped as I realized.
"What is it?" Calvin asked.
"Jesus Christ. Get Horton, she's a yellow," I said as I started pulling the sheets towards the end of the bed. I heard Zeke call it in over his walkie talkie. "She would have been hurt by the emp."
"What EMP?" one of the girls asked curiously from the corner of the room.
"We're rescuing you. We had to knock the electricity out so the adults couldn't call out or see us as we drove in. We assumed that the higher scaled kids hid amongst the lower scaled ones, but we didn't give too much consideration to a yellow hiding out so low, though," I said, and as gently as I could I picked her, and her mattress, up with my powers and set her on the ground.
"How often does that happen? A higher scaled kid hiding out as a lower scaled one?" the same girl asked.
"Well you're the second camp that I've ever been in," I said, pulling my own electrical represser and sticking it against the girl's arm. There was a little needle that stuck into her vein. "My own camp had three blacks, and two multicolors, but we had eighteen hundred kids, so I was expecting something, but only about one or two."
"Eighteen hundred kids? Three blacks?"
"Yeah," I said and the girl next to me started moving slowly.
"What did you do?" The same girl asked.
"Yellows are knocked out by EMP's, so we created these little devices to give them short bursts of electricity. It helps them get back on their feet much faster than before."
"Will she be okay?" a really young girl asked.
"Yeah, she'll be fine," I said and looked at her face again. The girl's name was Julia O'Hara, and she was maybe thirteen years old. She must have been scared, and I was happy that we could have helped her.
"What did you mean to rescue us?" one of the older girls asked. I turned to see that the one who spoke was a fifteen year old girl named Miriam.
"Means we're picking you up and taking you to our own base," I said, standing back up. I heard footsteps approaching me and saw Horton run into the room. I stepped aside and let him look at the girl.
"What's her name?" Horton asked.
"Julia," one girl said.
"Thank you," Horton said as he started checking her out, before agreeing with my previous statements. "I have to go check on everyone else. Apparently a blue boy got bit by a rattlesnake."
"Alright, thank you. How is it going, by the way?" Calvin asked.
"We're good," Horton said.
"Alright, get him to the dining hall as soon as you can," I said, waving him off. Horton walked off, and I looked at Calvin.
"Start talking with them, I'll check in with everyone else," he said quietly.
"Of course," I muttered just as quietly before he walked out of the door. I turned back to the girls and quickly connected names with faces from the files that Jenna's team had pulled. "I know you're all confused, but trust me you will be safe from here on out. The PSF's, doctors and camp controllers will be punished for what they did here."
"What about Dr Horzans?" Miriam asked.
"Who?"
"He's one of the doctors here, he's really nice and treated us fairly. He even knew about Julia and didn't say anything," Miriam explained.
"I'll have him separated from the rest and interviewed. I can't make any promises, but if he is a good man he will be spared our wrath. Could you please line up for me?" I asked kindly. "We're going to the dining hall so that we can explain things in a large group." The girls nodded and I heard footsteps approaching behind me. I turned my head and saw Gage walk through the door. Gage looked at the unconscious girl on the ground, before looking up at me. "I need a word in private."
"Sure," I said, stepping away as the girls lined up in a straight line. "What happened?"
"Boy across the hallway is an orange, and there's a red upstairs. I don't know how much they know about their powers though," he said quietly.
"Alright. Make sure you're the one accompanying them as they go down," I muttered, and gave the signal for Calvin to start walking the girls out of the room. He nodded and started leading the girls out of their room. Zeek stood at attention right outside the door so that no one could bother Julia. Several people walked into the building and started walking to the rooms to let the kids out. I could hear their confusion as they opened the doors.
"What's up with Zeek?" Gage asked, confused.
"Yellow girl, got hurt by the EMP. She'll be fine though," I said and waved him off. He walked away so that he could start helping release kids out of their rooms. It took us maybe five minutes to clear the entire floor, and fifteen to clear the entire building. Each room was the same, kids panicked as we opened the door, and we had to wake some of the kids up on the third floor since they somehow missed our commotion. As I looked around the dining hall, I saw all of them were extremely nervous about what was about to happen.
"Are you okay?" Calvin whispered as he stopped next to me.
"Yeah," I whispered back as Gage took the stage. We had brought a microphone so people could hear him.
"Hello everyone, my name is Gage Thatcher. My people and I are from a reformed camp where some of you might know Tundra. We kept the name because it was easier to keep than give a new name. Anyway, half a year ago, a group of the prisoners took the camp and the adults of the camp, and we've lived in peace since then, bringing in kids and adults for saftey. All of you are going to be sent to Tundra, while people are being sent here to start new and help even more. You will be expected to help contribute, but are expected to go to school and learn, not only what you would have learned in school, but your powers, and are expected to know them fairly well. Any questions?"
Kids raised their hands to ask questions and Calvin leaned forward to whisper something in ear. "Jimmy and the rest of the NCIS agents are ready to go outside," he said, handing me his phone. I grabbed it and saw the text message.
"Alright," I said, and sent a message to Gage. He looked at me scared, before nodding along. I turned and walked out of the door, leaving Calvin behind to help in case of need. I walked over to the control tower, where the team had gathered.
"Hey," Jimmy called from the driver's seat. "How did it go?"
"One red, yellow, and orange. Sixty purples, ninety nine blues, a hundred and thirty eight greens," I said, stopping in front of the van.
"Nice," Nick said, from the passenger seat. "Where would the bodies be by any chance?"
"Two miles from here," I said, pointing in the direction where they were. "I found them when we were driving in."
"You're still going to have to show us," Nick said, and I opened the back sliding door so I could jump into the back without opening the door. Kasie jumped out of the van, before turning to grab the evidence bags to store the kids' clothes. I helped her out and grabbed the rest of the boxes.
"Thank you," Kasie said with a smile.
"You're welcome," I said, and jumped into the van. The team consisted of three blues and the original six members of the team. They were all packed to the brim so it was tough to move around, how they did it for almost ten hours, I didn't know. "I'll tell you when to stop."
"Thanks," Nick said, pulling away from the building, and out of the camp. He pulled onto the road, and as soon as we approached, he pulled to a stop next to the large mass grave. He pulled to a stop, and everyone jumped out grabbing their supplies out of the van.
"Did Jenna's team finally figure out how many kids were here?" Jimmy asked, as we walked to the burial site.
"There were five that she was able to find, but proportionally there should be less than forty here," I said.
"How did you find this place anyway?" Nick asked as he set down his gear. The area in front of us was covered in the same plant life as everywhere around it. So if I hadn't noticed it earlier, it wouldn't have been easily found.
"The roots of these bushes only go down a few inches, while everything else goes a few feet, plus they must have been wrapped in plastic to prevent the smell from breaking out. They're about ten feet down I want to say," I said. Sheila, Bob and Harry used their powers to bring out large blankets to lay down to differentiate the dirt from the grave from everywhere else.
"Let's get the lights set up," Parker said, and we broke apart to help set up everything. We had to set up video camera's and search the entire area for clues. There weren't many, because the PSFs who had buried the kids had murdered the kids had done a pretty good job of making sure no one would know what had happened to them. When Parker finally gave the wave, the four of us blues moved to the corner of the grave, and used our powers to bring up the dirt, moving it the tarps we had laid out.
It took us maybe ten minutes to pull up all the dirt, and as the first body appeared, we had to take a minute to just stare open mouthed at it. Us kids had seen our fair share of bodies, but the adults paused because of how young everyone was. Anyone would, but they shook it out and went about their jobs. Because of how deep the hole was, the other three and I had to pull the bodies out and lay them down. All in all, there were forty five kids in the grave, all under the age of fifteen.
Calvin showed up as I pulled the last of the kids out, and as soon as I saw him, I dropped the body gently on the ground and I saw him give me a pitiful look before grabbing Harry and pulling him away towards the van. I walked over to Bob and Sheila and pulled them along to the van. I wanted to cry from the stress of the day, but I didn't want to cry in front of everyone else. I guided the pair into their seats, and joined Calvin in the front seat. He gave me a pitiful look but didn't say anything as he drove away from the grave sight and towards the camp. Calvin must have sensed that we weren't in the mood to talk since we didn't say a word.
We waited for a day before we started the long drive home. When we finally arrived back at Tundra with the three hundred kids from Second Horizon's, I saw Mirable standing by the gate and I walked up to see how things went.
"Did everything go well?" I asked, and she nodded.
"Here yes, most of the search teams yes, but Bella's team is in an unusual position. They found Blackrock and Leslie and Harry went in because there was a kid who was on the brink of changing. She's fine, but the team faked the deaths of her and some of the other whites, as well as some of the upper scaled kids in the camp who were hiding as lower scaled one's. Riley's bringing them down now." My mouth dropped and I couldn't help but wonder what was going to happen there. "Figured you wanted to handle that."
"Thank you," I said and looked over my shoulder.
"I'll handle this," she said, waving me off. "Go handle Alex."
"Thank you," I said, walking away nervously. We didn't have someone who could handle that kind of stress. We had gotten lucky with Mirable and Gage, they were good leaders and people could live up too. Maybe we could move them up here? I thought to myself as I walked into the control tower.