"There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and Hell is a democracy of demons where all are equal."

- Herman Mellville

Chapter Three

Against those you claim to love

"Thank you again for the tip," the Anarchist says to the boy with the bright blonde hair. "It helped a lot."

"Where is my sister?" the boy asks, grinding his teeth together. "You promised you'd give her back if I told you what I wanted to know."

The Anarchist waves his hand dismissively. "Yes, yes. I am well aware of what I promised you." He turns to the burly, black-haired man standing next to him. "Go fetch the girl, please."

The man disappears through an arch at the back of the cavernous room, and comes back a moment later, dragging a young girl with blonde hair and ocean-blue eyes behind him by her thin wrists.

"Did you hurt her?" the boy asks, hurrying across the room to his sister.

The Anarchist yawns. "Of course not. Despite what you might think, I am not a monster."

The girl leans against her brother weakly, almost unable to keep her head up or her eyes open.

She's a beautiful girl, and under different circumstances, the Anarchist might've felt himself drawn to her—but she's only a bargaining-chip.

Sort of like a shot-term version of Grayson Carstairs.

"You'll have to excuse me for a having a different opinion," the boy spits, and then he disappears through the door, supporting his sister all the way.

A brown-skinned woman with curly hair enters the room shortly after. "Was the boy of any use?"

The Anarchist smiles wryly. "Yes, very. Those Edens are too easy to manipulate. He gave me everything I asked for the moment I told him his sister would suffer if he refused." He turns to the man. "Make sure those two are captured during the Radical-invasion."

The man nods and disappears.

"Have they started yet?" the woman asks, pushing her unnecessary glasses up on her dainty nose.

Absentmindedly, the Anarchist nods. "If they're sticking to the schedule I have them, they should've just about entered the Colony." He turns away from the woman and turns to the door through which the boy and his sister had left. "But the funny thing about Radicals is, they tend to be unpredictable."

When I finally get my eyes to open again, Haylan has somehow managed—with only one useful arm, as it seems—to stand up, holster his gun, and hide the Eden-soldier's body in the shrubbery underneath one of the windows.

I try to stand up; wanting to get as far away from Haylan and his Gen as possible, but my leg won't allow it.

"Don't bother trying," Haylan says shortly, not looking at me. "You won't get for with a leg like that."

He's referring to the thumbnail-sized bullet-hole in my left thigh, which has been roughly bandaged with the sleeve of my red school sweater.

With a sigh, I settle back, hating how the dust sticks to my sweaty palms, and I bid my time studying the back of Haylan's head:

His hair is still the same shade of charcoal black it had been when Fallon introduced us for the first time; the triangle-shaped birthmark on the back of his neck is still there, unnoticeable to anyone who doesn't know what he's looking for.

My gaze travels down the rest of him.

Haylan had been a skinny, fragile child while we were growing up, just like Fallon, but looking at him now, I wouldn't have guessed it. He's gained some muscle over the last two or three years. I won't call him bulky, but he's definitely bigger. Lean, is the word people might use to describe him.

I briefly wonder if Fallon looks like his brother now. Considering the fact that I haven't seen either of the Pearce-brothers in little over three years, the possibilities are big.

When Haylan turns around and crouches next to me—his injured arm haphazardly bandaged with the other sleeve of my sweater, I notice that he also no longer has the round face he used to have. His jaw-line and cheekbones are more defined now.

Haylan slowly undoes the makeshift bandage from around my wound and inspects it while I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying. Then he abruptly stands up again.

"Stay here," he says in a harsh, dry voice, as if me being shot in the leg while protecting him is some kind of inconvenience. "Don't move an inch."

I roll my eyes. As if I have a choice here.

Haylan takes a few steps towards his Gen before turning around and adding: "And for God's sake, Grayson, if you move just because I said you shouldn't, I will leave you right here to bleed out. Understand?"

I nod, not knowing what else to do.

Haylan returns five minutes later with a needle filled with blue-ish liquid in his right hand.

I try to scramble away, but again,, my leg doesn't allow me to.

A ghost of a smile plays on Haylan's lips as he crouches down next to me again. "Still afraid of needles I see."

Before I have enough time to form a proper and witty response, Haylan plunges the needle into my neck, and everything in my body goes slack. I fall against Haylan's hard, muscular chest, paralyzed briefly.

"That should numb the pain," he says as he helps me sit up. His words are clipped and cold, but his touch is soft. "You'll be fine until I can get you back to the ship."

I don't fully register what he'd said until he's almost halfway to his Gen again. I feel myself gaining control of my body once more as the serum evaporates from my system.

"Haylan, wait!" I shout, struggling to my feet. The pain in my thigh is still there, but at least now it's bearable. "What do you mean you're taking me back to the ship? What ship?"

Raking a hand through his hair, Haylan turns back to me. "I have to, Grayson," he says, sounding formal and rigid. "You've seen too much."

"Too much of what?" I ask with a high voice, but he doesn't answer. I take a wavering step away from him. "You can't take me with you." I won't leave me Colony aboard a vessel of the enemy.

"I have to," he repeats.

I switch tactics: "The people aboard your ship will use me as some sort of political bargaining-chip!"

This makes him look at the ground, torn. "What do you want me to do, Grayson?" he asks quietly.

Before I can answer, a tremor rungs though campus, shaking the ground. The Colony's structure moans in protest. I look behind me just in time to see the giant Eden-warship taking off from the Graythorn Lake-area. "Please, Haylan," I beg, feeling like an invalid. "Just let me go."

"Where's the school's entrance to Nerian's underground-tunnels?" Haylan asks, covering the distance between us easily. He has to shout for me to hear him above all the noise plaguing the sky.

I shake my head. "I can't tell you."

The Radicals are looking to kidnap the people of Nerian and use them in some twisted way; if I tell Haylan where the entrances are, I can just as well paint the word TRAITOR on my forehead in neon yellow and get it over with. I'd rather die than let my friends suffer.

Haylan narrows his beautiful eyes dangerously, taking hold of my left arm in his iron grip. "Why the hell not? I can't save you if you don't tell me, Grayson; taking you back to the ship with me will be my only other option." His words hold equal parts threat and warning.

Another tremor runs through the ground and I momentarily lose my balance, falling against Haylan's injured shoulder.

He winces, but doesn't say anything about it. Instead, he takes my hand and drags me towards the awaiting Gen.

"Stay here," he orders for the second time in less than fifteen minutes. I want to laugh—I can't run even if I want to.

Haylan begins his ascend to the machine's cockpit.

"Where are you going?" I ask, panic rising in my throat. As much as I don't want to be anywhere near Haylan and his machines, being away from him seems almost worse.

"You can't climb with your injured leg," Haylan shouts. "I'll lower the ascension-cable for you."

I wait with baited breath for Haylan to secure himself in the Gen's open cockpit and then lower the ascension-cable for me.

A steel cable as thick as my ring-finger then unwinds from the machine's 'shoulder' with a whir, to almost an inch above the ground.

"Hook your foot onto the latch and hold on tight," Haylan instructs shortly, and I do what he says, even though every fibre in my being is shouting at me to turn and run, or crawl, or whatever. As long as I get away from this machine.

But I don't listen. Not even thirty seconds later I'm in the cockpit, squashed uncomfortably between the machine's frame and the left side of Haylan's lean body.

Haylan starts the Gen, then he flips the keyboard down over his lap and starts typing things that should probably be a lot more complicated.

I'm a high-school student—a civilian, no less—but I understand everything written on the screen in front of my eyes.

"Damn those Edens," Haylan says to no-one in particular, his scarred fingers flying to and fro over the keyboard, as if he can't quite decipher the machine's code. "They said this would be easy!"

I don't say anything. Not because I don't know what to say, but because I don't know how to say it.

I know how to start the Gen, but how would I justify doing something so destructive? How would I be able to live with myself knowing that I helped a soldier destroy my home? With that in mind, my options look even bleaker than before.

Maybe if I help Haylan get the thing started, I can convince him to drop me off somewhere safe—near my house maybe.

"Move up," I say hesitantly, before I think better of it. In my mind's eye, I see my fellow Edens looking at my disapprovingly. "I know how to decode it."

Haylan scoffs. "This isn't a toy, Grayson," he says shortly, not moving.

"And I am not a child, Haylan," I shoot back, "now move. We handled programs like this in Computer Sciences last semester; I have a better shot at understanding it than you."

Nothing.

I try another approach: "The next tremor might kill us if we don't move right now."

When he continues to ignore me, I decide to play dirty: I bring my elbow down on his wounded shoulder and use the few seconds that he takes to scream out in furious agony-and to grab his gun from his thigh—to push him aside with all my remaining strength and position myself in front of the monitor. "Sorry," I mutter just as a full-powered explosion ricochets through Graythorn Academy.

I bite the inside of my cheek. Please let them be okay. Please let them be alive.

Ignoring the fear spreading through my body, I restart the machine.

The engineers who had built this Gen had made sure that not just anyone can get into the system; which means that the thing won't move properly.

Smart.

"The OS is password-protected," I tell Haylan without taking my eyes of the screen. If I don't look at my captor, I can try to pretend that I'm helping an Eden reprogram his tablet. "Until it's broken, you won't have access to anything."

"Well, can you break it?" Haylan asks, pressing the muzzle of the gun into my shoulder.

Like you're giving me a choice, I think snidely.

His tone has changed somewhat, telling me that he's finally acknowledged that I am no longer the ten-year-old girl who'd played in the dirt with his kid brother. He doesn't take the gun away, though.

"I can . . . if you just give me a minute."

TRAITOR echoes through my mind, bouncing around on the backs of my eyelids. I try to ignore it, but it doesn't work.

After bypassing a few firewalls, changing the multiple passwords protecting the machine's mainframe to 1-2-3-4, and rewriting the OS from a system that an Eden can understand, to that which a Radical can understand, I lean back and breathe a sigh of relief.

It shows everything outside to the left of the Gen—not that there is much to see: A dark stretch of lonely gravel and a few furiously swaying trees. My old life, that's what I see.

"Thanks," Haylan says, struggling back into his previous position in front of the monitor. He drops the gun into his lap.

While Haylan struggles to figure out how to get the machine to move forward, I allow my mind to wonder:

Why are there Gens in Nerian? Neutral Colonies aren't involved in the Cosmic War—they aren't allowed to be involved.

Being cut off from any and all forms of warfare is what makes a Neutral Colony neutral.

And from what I've gathered, these Gens don't even belong to the Radicals; they belong to the Edens. Why would the Radicals come all this way to steal machines they can't even pilot?

"How do I turn the video-feed on?" Haylan asks, shaking me from my thoughts.

I scrutinize the main monitor, studying every inch of it. "It depends on what you want to do," I say after a while. "Do you want an enlarged view of what's going on outside, or do you want to link another Gen's pilot?"

"Link another pilot," Haylan says immediately.

I explain to him what to do up until the point where the machine asks for the data-code of the Gen Haylan wants to link.

He types: "GX005 Poseidon."

"Is that the name of the Gen?" I ask, fascinated by how the military could give a machine with such a simple mainframe, such a complicated name.

Haylan nods almost reluctantly. "This is the GX004 Ares; there are four more of this particular Gen-model."

Seconds later, the masked pilot of the GX005 Poseidon appears on the screen in front of me and Haylan.

"Caleb, is that you?"

The pilot pulls the helmet from his head, revealing soft-looking, almost-blonde curls and a friendly face. "Yeah, it's me." His grey eyes are question marks. "Who's your friend in the uniform?"

Haylan shakes his head, and I feel myself blush. "I'll explain later. Where are Nickel and the twins?"

"On their way back to the ship last time I heard. I spoke with Crim a moment ago and she said everything went according to Albert's plan on their side," Caleb answers. "We should probably head back as well, before the Edens figure out we've stolen their Gens."

So my suspicions were right. The Gens do belong to the Edens.

But that still doesn't explain what they're doing in Nerian.

"How'd you get it to move?" I ask before I can stop myself. Sighing, I go on, figuring that I might as well, "The OS is Eden-based; Radicals shouldn't be able to figure it out." My voice comes out louder than intended.

Caleb looks at me as if really acknowledging my presence for the first time; there's a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "You've got a smart stowaway there, Hayle," he comments before answering my question, "And Eden-mechanic was kind enough to offer me some assistance."

The way he says the word 'assistance' makes me think that he might not have given the poor mechanic much of a choice.

"Hayle! Hayle help!" someone shouts out of nowhere. A second person then suddenly appears on the screen, dividing it in two.

This time it's a girl. She has shoulder-length black hair accentuated with a hot-pink streak down the right side and a tattoo of some sort on her left bicep. A deep-looking gash runs down her cheek, parallel to her sharp cheekbone.

"Crim?" Haylan leans forward with a tense body. "What's wrong? Did something happen? Are you alright?"

I smile secretively. Fallon had done that as well, asking question after question, never waiting for an answer. The Pearce-brothers are so much alike that it almost makes me miss Fallon from scratch. Almost.

He'd left me without a word goodbye. That wasn't something easily forgiven.

Tears stain Crim's cheeks, and she looks almost scared, but not quite. There's a fierce determination behind her intelligent green eyes. "I can't find Prim!" Crim says, clearly biting back a fresh wave of tears.

"What do you mean you can't find her?" Caleb asks, including himself in the conversation. There is a certain tenderness in his voice; one that speaks of something he won't admit.

"We were attacked at the last moment; right after I spoke with you, Caleb," Crim explains. "I managed to get into my Gen with only a scratch, but by the time I was far enough away from that damned Research Facility to stop, Prim was nowhere in sight."

Prim and Crim? I've never heard names more Radical-sounding than those.

"Hayle, she'll do something stupid if I'm not there to stop her," Crim goes on. "She'll get herself killed! We have to find her."

I know the feeling, I want to say, but I keep my mouth shut. Considering the circumstances, it won't be of much use. The feeling of uselessness.

Then an idea comes to mind: "Do any of you know the data-code of the machine Prim was supposed to pilot?" I ask, startling Haylan. Why are you helping them? I ask myself silently. I know the answer, of course: Because of Haylan.

Crim regards me coldly. "And who are you?" she asks snidely. Her vibrant eyes jump from me to Haylan and back, calculating the worst.

Before I can answer, Haylan intervenes, saving me, "She's an old friend, Crim; you can trust her."

Crim throws her hands into the air out of frustration. "I don't know which one she took; these machines all look the same to me! And besides, why does it matter?"

I roll my eyes in my head, deciding that I don't like this girl. "If you know the data-code of her machine, you can use Haylan's machine to track her general location," I explain slowly. "This is the 004 Ares, and Caleb as the 005 Poseidon. Which one do you have?" I try to keep the snide out of my voice. "The calculation won't be spot on, but it'll help."

Crim thinks, closing her eyes tightly. When she opens them again, I can see new understanding. "I have the GX003 Athena." She allows herself a brief smile, showing off perfect white teeth—teeth only Radicals can have.

"And Nickel has the GX001 Zeus," Caleb chimes in, struggling with the pronunciation of the final word. It's cute.

"That means Prim has to have the GX002; the Hestia," Haylan concludes.

Zeus. Hestia. Athena. Ares. Poseidon.

The names sound familiar, as if I've learned about the people they'd belonged to somewhere along my life. If I make it out of this situation—which is unlikely—I definitely have to go look them up.

"How do I use the data-code to track the Hestia?" Haylan asks, pulling me from my thoughts once again. I can hear that he's annoyed with himself for having to ask me for help the whole time.

"Move up," I order. "It's easier for me to do it myself than to explain to you how." Traitor. Traitor. TRAITOR.

Haylan nods and moves to the side without a fight.

It takes me about two minutes to find what I'm looking for, and I silently thank my mother for forcing me to take Computer Sciences when I started high school.

Thinking of my sweet, fragile mother, and how she might be dead right now, brings tears to my eyes, but I sniff them away angrily.

Crying will not help.

"There," I mutter, moving away again. I point at the pulsing red dot on the monitor to the right. "All you have to do now is follow the map."

The nerve-wracking pain in my leg has returned and it takes everything I have not to scream out in agony.

Haylan, looking oddly bleak all of a sudden, quickly forwards the coordinates to Crim and Caleb without so much as thank you, and they we start moving.

"Do you know where this is?" Caleb asks, squinting at his GPS-screen.

I look at the address closely, and my blood runs cold. "Yeah," I say, but I don't recognize my voice. I then realize why Haylan had gone white when he saw the red dot.

It's the place where I'd seen Fallon for the last time.

The Gen's movements are jerky and uneven, and I hit my head against the metal-frame every time the machine puts its left foot down. I grind my teeth together to keep myself as quiet and impassive as possible.

Once Haylan is used to the steering-mechanism, it doesn't take us long to reach our destination.

Haylan and Fallon Pearce's childhood home. Before they left without telling anyone where they were going.

No-one has lived in that house since the death of Kayla Pearce—Fallon's mother. The yellow paint is peeling off in patches, exposing the drywall beneath; the windows are cracked; the roof is no longer fully tiled; and the once-vibrant front yard is now a sickly shade of brown. Between the multiple pristine, two-storey houses surrounding it, the Pearce-residence looks out of place.

I haven't been back here in three years.

Two Gens are already waiting for us when we arrive: The Athena and the Poseidon.

And after a moment, I see a third and fourth Gen out of the corner of my eye, grasping each other in what looks to be a tight embrace.

When I take a closer look, I see that one is actually on its knees, and the other is standing over it, wielding a long glimmering sword made of radiant blue light.

I quickly realize that the others haven't seen the two fighting Gens yet, and, in an attempt to show Haylan and his co-soldiers that sparing my life after this entire ordeal is over won't be the worst decision in the world, I rip the steering-mechanism out of Haylan's hand and turn the Ares to the right.

Something inside me snaps.

At first, I don't know what it is, but then I realize: It's anger.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Haylan shouts, fighting me to regain control of his machine.

But I don't budge; I will use this war-monstrosity to save my Colony, and myself if possible. If my father won't do his job, I'll have to do it for him.

Fighting through the pain in my leg and the pounding in my head, I push Haylan—weakened considerably my his injured shoulder—aside with all my remaining strength and take his place.

I flip the keyboard down over my lap, press a pair of headphones down over my ears and cover my eyes with the specialized glasses provided.

Images appear in front of my eyes: Weapons, tactics, blueprints of the area, undetailed maps of Nerian's underground, the works.

I pick a set of short-bladed knives from the list of weapons, deciding to strike from the side.

The monitor to my right shows me the two possible outcomes of my decision: I instantly dispatch the enemy and win the battle; or he evades and the charade begins anew. Not really seeing another option, I confirm the attack and take off at a run.

It's a quick, low-risk tactic; at worst, I'll get grazed by the other Gen's sword.

"Which one is the Zeus?" I shout over the deafening sound of the Gen's footsteps slamming down on the pavement. I push the glasses up onto my head to get a better view of the outside world.

"The one with the blue chest-plate," Haylan answers simply. His fingers are white from clutching the side of the machine and there's something in his voice I've never before. Something equivalent to fear, but not quite. "Why?"

I drop the glasses back in front of my eyes mechanically, a new determination controlling my every movement. "Because now I know which one not to hit."

I vaguely hear Caleb utter something that sounds like 'badass', but I'm too focused on finishing the task at hand to pay him any mind.

The word 'traitor', however, is a protester demanding my attention; the more I ignore it, the louder it screams.

With me behind the controls, the Gen moves much smoother, and it doesn't take a lot of effort from my side to move in under the silver Gen and drive one of the knives upward.

The Hestia staggers back, shocked.

"No!" Crim shouts hysterically, the pitch momentarily blinding me. "What the hell is wrong with you?! Prim could be in there!"

I turn my neck sharply, glaring at Crim on the monitor. "My home comes first," I snap, offering no elaboration.

I quickly switch from my one remaining knife to a razor-edged sword, then slide my Gen forward on its knees.

Lashing out with the sword, I cut through the Hestia's right arm, separating it with one blow. Shocked, the other machine topples to the ground.

I hear Crim crying, or screaming, but it's faint, so I ignore it, lifting my sword to drive it into the heart of the Hestia.

But before I can strike, I stop short. What am I doing? I'm not a killer, I'm an Eden; a Nowhere.

Dropping the sword, I take a step back.

"What are you doing?!" Caleb and Haylan shouts in unison.

I force the Gen another two steps back, and then two more, until I'm backed up against the façade of a house; Fallon's house.

The Hestia's pilot, noticing my reluctance to finish the job, draws a gun—the radiant blue sword long forgotten—and takes aim.

The machine's aim is slightly askew, more to the left than where I'm standing, an open target.

"Why is he aiming at the sky?" Haylan wonders aloud, wording what we're all thinking.

With calculating eyes, I use the Ares's targeting-software to pinpoint exactly where the Hestia's bullet will pierce.

The Shield.

Horrible realization dawns on me, then, and my breathing becomes shallow and laboured. "The pilot is going to destroy the Shield," I say grimly.

"But the Shield is what's keeping the Colony aloft and sealed," Caleb says. "Without it, everything in here will be sucked dry. Us included."

"I know that!" I shout. My mind and heart are in a brutal race to see who will explode first. My palms are damp with stress-sweat. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing on edge.

"Hayle, do something!" Crim cries, moving in behind one of the bigger houses like a coward.

"Be quiet," I growl. A sort of makeshift plan in starting to form inside my head, and Crim screaming in my ears isn't helping. "I'm going to link the Hestia," I go on, more calmly. "Crim, stay where you are and attack when I say so. Caleb, go help the Zeus; he appears to be needing it."

The pilot of the Zeus—Nickel—is sprawled out on the pavement next to his equally-limp Gen. Blood cling to his hair and uniform.

The poor boy deathly pale.

Caleb nods and cuts the connection.

"Who put you in charge?" Crim complains, less eager to take orders from someone who isn't Haylan.

"Just do it, Crim," Haylan says in a clipped, impatient voice.

With a scowl, Crim agrees. She doesn't cut the link, however, only the video-feed, which is clever, I suppose.

I link the Hestia before its pilot can shoot the only thing keeping Nerian in the air, to pieces.

"I was wondering what took—" the pilot, a boy with familiar brown hair, starts to say, but when he sees me sitting in front of the monitor with Haylan by my side, he stops. "Gray?"

Everything around me freezes. "Hayes? What the hell are you doing inside a Gen?"

Hayes frowns intently. "I could ask you the same thing. Is that a Radical next to you?"

I don't answer, instead, I shove Haylan into the corner; there where Hayes can't see him.

Hayes's features harden.

I sigh, not knowing why I thought that this would make things any better. Just because Hayes can no longer see Haylan, doesn't mean that he's no longer there.

"You son-of-a-bitch," he spits, brown eyes flaring dangerously. "How dare you force her to partake in this pitiful war?"

I've never heard Hayes talk like that before. He's usually so peaceful; so calm and serene and collected. The perfect pacifistic Eden.

The boy sitting in the Gen with a gun pointed at the very thing keeping everyone alive is not the boy I like; he isn't my Adam. He isn't even my friend; as of now, he is my enemy.

"Put your gun down, Hayes," I say, trying to remain calm; reminding myself to stay brave. "You don't want to destroy the Colony any more than I want to shoot you if you do." I swallow past the lump in my throat. "But I will if I have to."

"If this is what it takes to keep you safe, I have no other choice," he says cryptically, and he pulls the trigger.

A scream of rage erupts from my throat. "Crim, now!" I shout.

Precisely four seconds after Crim's machine comes into view, everything in my line of vision goes black.