February 4, 2138 (Noon)

As much as I thought that maybe we would, we really didn't talk after we returned to Rachel's building. I imagined the three of us sitting there and trying to get to know each other better. Maybe we would understand her more and she would understand us, but I couldn't think of what I wanted to say. I just kept looking at the hat she had thrown out of the cage and onto the floor with the Dread symbol on it, and it took all of my words away before I could say any of them. Tommy tried to carry on a conversation and I can't even remember what he was saying. I just kept thinking about Dad and the look on his face when he asked Kim how she could live with it every day, and Sarah crying in Tad's arms. They weren't turning to me at all. They were turning away from me like I was becoming the enemy. Like they had forgotten how much they mean to me.

After ten or fifteen minutes of the two of them trying to find things to talk about without me, we all decided to just stop for the night and go to sleep. Tommy wrapped his arm around me and told me that he loved me, and we finally fell asleep.

This morning we woke up rather early because Kim came in and woke us up. It must be the military in her. The whole getting up early in the morning thing must be a hard thing to get away from once you started it. She wanted to get us all together outside for some reason that I didn't know at the moment. She also wanted us to bring Rachel along with us. After a few minutes we went outside and Kim was there, waiting with Tad and Sarah who looked at Rachel with a disgusted look on their faces. After we gathered around Kim in a half circle, Kim started talking to us.

"The reason I wanted you all out here is that we need to start some defensive training. There's a new threat that we've been made aware of that requires a different approach to deal with. You can't just rely on laser weapons to deal with everything for you. This is going to be one of those cases. We haven't run into them yet, but there's a team of specialists that Rachel has made us aware of that are basically immune to energy weapons. They're also physically enhanced by artificial means. They'll have unnatural strength and speed and can keep it up for an indefinite period of time. And they're going to be looking for us. You have to be prepared, and that's why we're here," Kim said.

"Are you saying that we have to mix it up with this team in close combat? How are we supposed to beat some freaks of nature like you're describing," Sarah asked.

"We'll beat them by being smarter than they are and using skill instead of strength alone. I can tell by the looks on your faces that you don't think that skill can outdo strength and speed. But you'll see what I'm saying. I can give you an example of how I can stop both of you guys right now," Kim said as she looked at Tad and Tommy.

"What do you mean? You think that you can take both of us at the same time," Tommy asked in a confused tone.

"I'll make you a deal. If both of you together can pull my arms apart from each other, I'll give you both the day off and I'll do all of your chores for you. If you can't, you'll stay here and pay attention to me more than you ever have before. Is it a deal," Kim asked.

"Prepare to lose," Tad said in an arrogant voice.

"I have dinner and dishes tonight, so you won't mind shining them up for me there. Will you," Tommy asked with a smirk.

"You talk a lot for two guys that haven't done anything yet," Kim replied as she bent her elbows outward so that each of the guys could get a grip on one of her arms. As I watched on I expected her to interlock her fingers and hold on for dear life, but she clasped her hands together in such a way as though they were hooked together by the fingers on the opposite hand. As though her fingers on each hand were a single hook that caught each other and her thumbs covered up both the top and the bottom of her grasp. I could see her muscular tone in her arms, but the guys had bigger arms than her and I couldn't see how she was going to win this. All they had to do was pull hard enough to straighten her fingers and she would lose her grip.

Tad and Tommy each went to one side of Kim and grabbed onto an arm. Tad took the left arm and Tommy took the right one. Tommy patted her on the back and said, "We'll try not to hurt you."

"You'd better worry about getting the job done, boy," Kim replied.

After this it began. Both of them started pulling and neither of them was getting anywhere. They started leaning back and putting their weight behind their pull, and yet they couldn't get her hands apart. In fact, she acted as though it was hardly any effort at all to keep them together. Their grunting to separate her hands continued as she started laughing at them, and Tad let go of her upper left arm and went for Kim's hands as he grabbed her forearm with his right hand and tried to pry into her grip with his left hand. Because of her thumbs being in the way, he couldn't get inside of her grip to pry it apart. So he went back to pulling on her upper arm again. Tommy hadn't stopped pulling on her right arm, and was wearing down fast as they still weren't getting anywhere near breaking the grip she had on her own hands.

Sarah seemed to be getting a kick out of Kim embarrassing the guys like she was, and managed a short smile. "Come on, put your backs into it," she said as she shook her head.

After another minute they finally stopped pulling and let her arms go. However, that wasn't enough for Kim to prove her point. She kept her hands clasped together and turned to Tad as Tommy bent over behind her, trying to catch his breath again. She reached out without separating her hands and hit Tad hard enough in the chest to knock him backwards onto the ground. Then she dropped down and spun her left leg around behind her, kicking Tommy's legs out from underneath him and he fell backwards onto the ground also.

As they both were stuck on the ground, Kim became stern in her voice and said, "Don't either one of you two ever let me catch you underestimating a female again. And that goes for you girls too. None of you can afford to dwell on how sorry you feel for the enemy just because they're of the opposite sex. Maybe you think that they're cute or have some other redeeming qualities about them that you appreciate. But appreciate this. They're still there to kill you, and me, and everyone else that you love. Any one of you could have broken my grip on your own. But you played by my rules instead of making up your own. I never told you that you had to take an arm and pull my grip apart. You just did it anyway because I stuck them out there for you. You both should have been kicking the hell out of me and forcing me to let go. But while you play around like a fight has to be fair, the enemy will let you play their game and beat the daylights out of you. There's only one fight that's fair in this world. The one that you walk away from. Do you understand me?"

Tommy spoke up saying, "Yeah, Kim. We get it. I'm sorry."

Kim looked at Tad and he looked back, shaking his head in agreement and she put her hand out to help him up. Then she said, "I want you to pair up. Tad, you sit this out for a minute and take a break. I don't want you to overdo it today. Tommy, you get with Sarah and Amber, you get with Rachel. I want you to show them the last drill David showed you both a few days ago with the knives. I'll be back."

Kim walked off towards the lounge and we paired up like she wanted us to. I could see Tommy wiping the sweat off of his head from messing with Kim and Tad knocked the dirt off of his shirt as he moved back a little. That's when things changed.

Rachel stood across from me and said, "Hey, I can show you a tactic that the Dread Youth uses. That way you can expect it…"

"I don't want to know anything that they've taught you, Rachel. Just pay attention and I'll show you this," I said as I handed her my combat knife.

"Whatever. Show me," she replied.

I could hear Tommy behind me saying to Sarah, "Pay attention. Quit worrying about what they're doing and worry about me."

I tried to ignore what was going on behind me and said to Rachel, "Come at me like you want to stick me with it from above and I can show you how to avoid it."

"Sure. Whatever you say," she replied and did as I asked. I was able to get her arm with the knife behind her back like Dad showed me, and that's when it happened. Rachel kicked backwards with her right leg and hit my knee. It hurt a little, but then I stumbled on a rock and fell down, hitting my head on the hard, cold ground. I could hear Tad say, "Amber, are you all right?"

I looked up and could see Rachel toss the knife away as she said, "I'm sorry, I just wanted to show you a way out of that." Suddenly all that I could see was the uniform she was wearing. It's like Rachel wasn't really standing there anymore and that she was trying to force me into learning what the machines had taught her. And I couldn't stand it anymore. I told her that I didn't want to know. Why couldn't she just listen to me? How could she not know that I wouldn't want to know how they taught her to turn on her own kind? That they showed her how to kill people? People like Gina, and Mark, and Mom?

I could hear Tad say my name again as I got up, and I started swinging. I punched Rachel in the face so hard that she fell backwards into a fence behind her. But it wasn't enough for me and I went after her again as she was leaning on the fence I had knocked her into. She looked up at me with her lip bleeding and started to speak, but I hit her again before she could say anything. She tried to cover up her head and face and I hit her in the stomach instead. This doubled her over and I could hear her cough like she had lost her air.

At this point I could hear Tommy yelling at me, "Amber, stop." But I didn't care. I felt like I was fighting for him too and he just didn't understand. In my hesitation to bring my knee up into her head while I listened to Tommy plead with me to stop hitting her I gave Rachel the chance to react to what I was doing. She was already bent over from me hitting her, and she drove her shoulder into me and tackled me to the ground as she fell on top of me. I tried to wrap my arm around her head on the way down, but she kept it free. She rose up and punched me in the face once and now I was covering up. The more she tried to fight me the madder I was getting and I started throwing punches from where I was rather than trying to cover up anymore. Rachel tried to grab my arms and said, "Stop," but I wasn't going to no matter what she said to me.

I could hear footsteps moving towards us from Tommy's direction and figured he was going to step in, but I didn't want him to. I figured I would wrap my legs around Rachel's head and throw her off, then continue my beating of her. It wasn't necessary in the end as I looked off to see who was making the sounds moving towards us, and it was Sarah. Before I could do what Kim had taught me to do, Sarah grabbed her by the hair and yanked it back, pulling her off of me as Rachel screamed out in pain. "Get off of my sister you murdering bitch," Sarah said. Rachel fell back off of me and onto her back. Then Sarah jumped on top of Rachel and started punching her over and over again and I could hear Rachel crying out in pain, but I still couldn't make it matter to me.

As I started to get up, Tommy ran by and grabbed Sarah. She wouldn't stop hitting Rachel and Tommy pulled her off of Rachel. Sarah kept fighting to get free of Tommy and said, "Get off of me," but Rachel started getting up and he wouldn't let Sarah go. As Rachel had gotten to her knees, I ran forward and kicked her in the face and she went down again, hard. I looked down at Rachel and could see her bleeding from the mouth and the nose, but I kicked her in the stomach again and I knew that I hurt her.

Tommy started yelling at Tad as he struggled to keep Sarah under control. "What are you standing there for? Stop her, Tad."

But Tad just stood there with this unconcerned look on his face and didn't move. He looked back at Tommy and said, "Stop what?"

"Damn it Tad, get her off of Rachel," he demanded as Tad looked at him all wide eyed.

"No, I don't think so. If she's that important to you, why don't you stop Amber yourself? Kim told me to take it easy," Tad replied.

Rather than try to continue debating with Tad, Tommy kept struggling with Sarah as she squirmed to get free again and he tried to plead with me to stop hitting and kicking Rachel. Rachel didn't look in any condition to keep taking any more damage as she rolled to the side and was holding her stomach and blood kept flowing from the wounds on her face. It seemed like she was having a hard time breathing and I didn't want to hurt her anymore. Yet I was still mad as hell and I knelt down by her and grabbed her by the hair and started yelling at her.

"I tried to tell you! I didn't want to hear your Dread Youth crap! But you just couldn't listen, could you? Well, can you hear me now? Huh? Don't you ever try to teach me anything that they taught to you. Why would you ever think for one minute that I would want to know how to kill someone's parents, like your miserable friend did when she shot my mother in the back. Is that what you want me to know? How to be a backstabbing bitch? Well, here I am. You've got what you wanted," I yelled in her face.

Tommy pushed Sarah back behind him and away from Rachel and me, and said, "Amber, she didn't want that to happen. She wanted us to stay here and not go. She was worried about all of us, Amber. She didn't want any of us to die. Why do you think she tried to help Carrie? Because she cares even if she thinks it's wrong. She cares."

Tommy stepped forward and knelt down beside of Rachel as Kim came out of the lounge. He pushed Rachel's hair back and tried to help her sit up, yet I was so full of rage that I resented him for it. She looked over at us and yelled Rachel's name when she saw her lying there on the ground. She ran up to us and knelt down on the other side of Rachel, and leaned her up. Then Kim looked around at me and started in.

"What the hell happened to her? I want to know now," she said to me and Sarah.

Tad spoke up then saying, "She fell down. You know, she got a little carried away with the training and all."

"Don't you dare stand there and lie to me. One of you better talk right now," Kim said as she looked at me.

She had to know that it was me, but before I could say anything Rachel spoke up saying, "No. I fell. I was trying to show them something and I fell off of the fence."

"The fence is over there, Rachel. How did you fall that far," Kim asked her in disbelief.

"All right, I was trying to escape and they stopped me. It's over," Rachel replied and struggled to breathe back in the air she used to tell Kim her own version of what happened.

Kim looked at me, waiting for me to tell her more than what Rachel had already spoken and said, "Amber?"

Rachel spoke up again saying, "Do you see the knife over there? I threatened them with it and went for the fence. They stopped me. That's it. I won't do it again."

"Whatever just happened here, it better not happen again," Kim said as she glared at Sarah and Tad. Then Kim and Tommy helped Rachel up and took her to Karl's building.

Sarah walked up to me and reached out to my face to try and help me, but I pushed her arm aside.

"What? She asked for what she got," Sarah said to me.

"She helped them, Amber. She might as well have been the one that killed Mom and Karen. Just because she's done a few things to help us doesn't change that. It doesn't bring them back to us. And somebody deserves to pay for that. There has to be some kind of justice for your mother and mine. Someone has to pay, and she's the one that we have," Tad said to me.

I started crying and said, "I shouldn't have done this."

"You didn't do anything wrong. She did by putting that gray uniform on in the first place," Tad said back to me.

"Mom didn't want this," I said as I could see Karl come to the doorway and start walking towards us. I ran off towards the gate before he reached us and I could hear him running after me and yelling my name.