CHAPTER THIRTEEN
6
I've started scorching my sleeves at the bluely glowing force field out of boredom.
The hissing sound and the acrid stench of the cotton being dissolved in the wall of pure blue energy distracts me from our nagging problems. Or at least I'm trying to convince myself of that.
The worst thing is doing nothing all day long.
Just sitting here, damned to inactivity and not knowing what's really going on outside this stinky prison cell… it drives me crazy. I miss moving around freely, I even miss training, and most of all I miss talking to people.
People other than Nine, that is.
Well, to be honest, he's not much of a talker at all. Every time I try to start a conversation, all he gives me are vague, one-word answers. Either he is still pissed for whatever reason he had that outburst a day or so ago, or he's just very shy and bad at conversation.
And from what I've seen so far, he doesn't really seem like the shy type.
So I stopped trying to get him to talk to me a while ago and decided to think about a way out of here instead.
Without success, unfortunately.
My stomach growls and I press my hand against it to stop the noise. When did I last eat something? Must have been at breakfast, the morning we got captured. My mouth begins watering when I think back to the bulks of tasty food we had back then. I'd eaten at least half a dozen toasts with strawberry jam, my favourite flavour, and a glass of Ella's fresh, hand-pressed orange juice. God, I would kill for just one more sip of it.
I close me eyes and picture the seven of us – John, me, Marina, Eight, Nine, Ella and Sarah – sitting at the kitchen table, not a care in the world, happy that we're all together. Eating piles of food, joking around, planning our next steps.
My stomach's hungry growl reminds me that just imagining all this won't get us closer to eating anything, either.
The guards haven't brought us food in all the time we've been here, neither anything to drink. I wonder how long we can survive until we die from dehydration. One more day, maybe two? If I don't croak from boredom until then.
I glance at Nine. He's sitting a few feet away from me, trying to play the cool guy, leaning backwards on his elbows, half a crooked grin on his face. He's been surprisingly calm since the outburst of emotions he'd had when I had first woken up in this cell. After agent Walker had told us they had captured Five, I expected him to be out of his mind.
But he's not. The whole thing about Five doesn't seem to bother him at all. What seems to bother him are the short beard stubbles have grown on his chin in the past two days. He keeps scratching and running his hands through them, and it starts to really drive me mad. He makes such a big deal around his chin, you could think we don't have other problems.
He shoots me a quick glance and our eyes meet. He blushes and turns away.
"What?" I say, when I finally have enough. Nine raises an eyebrow.
"What what?" He says in an innocent tone and looks at me with hypocritical eyes.
"What were you staring at?" I say, and he immediately blushes. Not quite as self-assured now, huh?
"I wasn't staring… I was just… thinking of a way to get out of here," he hesitatingly says.
I allow myself an amused grin about his excuse. He shyly looks away and scratches the tiny beard on his chin. Desperate for a conversation to distract me from the boredom, I try to grab the chance before we fall silent again.
"Right, so, did you come up with something to bust us out of here?"
"Actually, yeah," He says, staring at a spot in the blue force field.
"Well, are you going to tell me?" I ask, hoping to keep up the talking. He seems to consider if it's actually worth telling me for a moment, then he sits up and straightens his back.
"Okay, here it is. Next time agent Walker comes in through that hole in the force field, we take her by surprise, knock her out and escape through the hole before it closes again. Simple as that."
Nine looks at me with big eyes, waiting for me to congratulate on his brilliant plan. He reminds me of Ella, when she shows me one of her drawings. Fishing for compliments.
I almost laugh.
"And then what? There definitely are more guards here than just Walker. What do you expect us to do, just trash our way out?"
"I'm sure we'll figure something out once we are outside," Nine replies with a shrug. He's definitely disappointed I don't appreciate his incredible plan.
"And how can you be so sure Walker will even come back at all. For all we know, they might just let us rot in here until we're just skin and bones."
Nine shakes his head.
"Nah, if they had wanted to kill us, they could have just done that any time in the past two days. I think they got something else for us in mind," he says and lays back.
I know what he means. Our captors haven't killed us yet, because still they need us. They are setting up a trap, with Nine and I as the bait. They think that as long as they keep us alive, the other Garde will try to save us. They're trying to get to them through us. That's the only explanation I can come up with for why they wouldn't just kill us right away. They didn't hesitate to kill One, Two and Three, so why would they show mercy to us, if not for their own benefit?
Nine clears his throat. He strokes his long dark hair back and, surprisingly enough, he changes the topic.
"So, Six… With all this saving-the-world stuff going on, I feel like we should get to know each other better," Nine silently mutters.
He lays on his back, staring at the ceiling, and I can tell it took him quite some overcoming to get out this sentence.
I tilt my head. He might be the shy type after all.
"Okay, let me see… I'm an alien from another planet so far away, the journey to earth took one whole year. I'm one of the last of my species that survived a senseless war and now I have to live in constant fear of being found and killed by bloodthirsty monsters that won't rest until they have wiped out every single one of us.
In my free time, I like picking flowers, writing cheesy crap in my little pink diary and exchanging gossip about boys with my friends," I say and Nine frowns at me.
"Come on, what do you expect me to me to say?" I smirk.
"Tell me about your life on earth, you know, after we landed," he answers with a straight face.
"Seriously? You want me to tell me about my boring, sheltered life? A tough guy like you would actually care about a wimp like me?"
My voice drips from sarcasm, but, as usual, he doesn't get it and actually seems to take the 'tough guy' part as a compliment.
"Well, as I said, I feel like we should get to know each other, anyway," he replies, as if to console me, and I have to suppress the urge to smack him in the face.
"Alright, my life… Well, obviously, it was all about Katarina," Nine gives me an irritated glance.
"My Cêpan," I explain.
"What was she like?" He asks, and I start wondering what this is really all about. Seriously, what does he care about Katarina?
"Well, obviously, she was like a mother to me. Probably even more than just that. I don't know, she was really all I ever had, all I could ever hold on to. The only consistent thing in my non-stop changing life. She always had her duties in mind, but also left me my space when I needed it. She was just…" I stop before I get too emotional.
"I just wish she was here right now. She would know what to do."
"Yeah, that's what I've been thinking all along. If our Cêpan were here, things would look quite differently," Nine mumbles. I nod, even though that's not what I actually meant to say. What I meant to say is that I'm missing Katarina.
Forever.
We stay silent for a few moments. The constant buzz of the static force field is the only sound in our little prison cell.
"Did your Cêpan ever let you go to school?" Nine asks after a while.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, after months of begging, she allowed me to, but I had to be on alert all the time. If there was anything suspicious, I'd have to be on the run immediately."
"Did that happen often?" He asks and sits up again.
"All the time. There was that one time in a small town near the Mexican border; it was our third week there, and I was just getting used to the new school and everything. We were in the middle of PE class - it was summer and our school had its own pool, so we were allowed to swim in there – when Katarina suddenly drives right up to the school's entrance in our jeep and yells at me to jump in. News of strange men strolling through the region whose description barely even matched the Mogadorians' had been enough for her. Just like that, she had decided to pick me up in the middle of school and to never return again.
All my classmates were watching with their mouth open as I got out of the pool and trotted to the car with nothing on but my wet swimming suit. There would be time to change into dry clothes later."
I make a short pause to look up and check if Nine is still paying attention. You wouldn't believe it, but he is. Sitting with his legs pulled to his chest, he listens to every word I say. So I continue.
"I hated this constant running away. Every time I found the few friends I was allowed to have, we just had to disappear. Every time we stayed longer than a couple of weeks, and I thought that this time, I might get the chance to live a normal life, bam," I throw my hands up in the air in frustration, "out of nowhere some threat appears and Katarina and I move again."
Nine nods sympathetically.
"Ever left any boyfriends behind on one of these runs?" he asks in an overly casual way.
"What?" I raise an eyebrow. The question took me completely by surprise.
"Boyfriends, you know, lovers, admirers, whatever."
"No, never had any. How about you? Any vengeful ex-girlfriends I should know about?"
Nine blushes and looks away. "Not too many."
He thoughtfully scratches the small beard on his chin. It's hard to admit this, but I actually like the short stubbles. They add something more mature to his otherwise rather baby-facelike features.
I shrug, turn away and get back to singing my sleeves.
I still don't understand his sudden interest in my life, but at least it's helped pass some time. Not too much, but I'm grateful for any distraction.
Nine clears his throat behind me. "So, umm… Tell me, how was it for you, living among humans?"
I almost smirk at his desperate attempts to try and keep up the conversation. It's like we've swapped roles.
"Well, I always felt different than the humans. I could never commit to anything other kids my age would do, out of fear that someone might find out who I really was. I always had to keep in mind that if somebody lifted our secret, they would put me in some science laboratory and do all kinds of experiments."
"Can't trust these humans, huh?" Nine grins and shakes his head.
"Actually, that's not what I meant at all," I reply. "Why are you always so down on humans anyway?"
Nine laughs. "Well, 'cause they're humans, duh. They're selfish, greedy and they destroy everything they get their grip on."
"Are you still talking about the humans? 'Cause that sounds a lot more like the Mogs to me," I say in a mocking voice and turn around to him.
"That's exactly the point. I've been thinking…"
"Wow, thinking?" I interrupt him and he crooks half a grin.
"…And I've come to the conclusion that the Mogadorians and the humans share way too many traits. They both start wars for no reason, destroy their own planets out of greed and they both treat other races with arrogance and cruelty. That's probably why the US-government is getting along with the Mogs so well. Because humans and Mogs both are heartless, evil creatures, who enjoy seeing others crawl in the dirt" he says.
I stare at him with my mouth open in indignation. Did he really say that? I look for a sign that he's just joking, but his face is completely straight.
"Seriously? You actually believe in that bullshit?" I ask and he shrugs.
"It's the truth, Six. I was in a prison cell like this one for a whole year because a human betrayed me to the Mogs,"
"Okay, so there are some humans who have similarities to Mogs, but that's a minority. You're forgetting about the rest. Think of all the humans that helped us instead of fighting alongside the Mogs. Take Sarah, for example…" I say, but Nine cuts me off.
"To be honest, Six, the only thing Sarah has ever done is slowing the rest of us down. We're trying to fight an entire alien species here! Having to babysit a human in the process only adds to the impossibility of the task."
I glare at him in shock.
"That's what you think? That just because she might be weaker, she's superfluous? You're not better than the Mogs, Nine."
"Maybe," he replies with a shrug. "But that's not the point. I just don't see how Sarah fits into this whole thing. It's ridiculously dangerous, and chances are that none of us gets out of this alive. It would have been better for everyone, including her, if we had just dumped her somewhere on the way from that military base in New Mexico. For her own good.
You see, it's not that I can't stand humans, I'm just saying that you shouldn't rely on them. They're just not trustworthy."
"What about our greeters? The people who helped us when we landed on earth? They have been chosen by the Loric themselves, so they must be somehow trustworthy."
Nine laughs out loudly.
"The greeters? Tell me, Six, where are they now? Now that we need them the most, where are those greeters? Where are your brave and strong humans? They're hiding, 'cause they have given up hope on us, trying not to be spotted and punished by the Mogs. And what do you expect them to do, anyway. After all, they're just humans. It's not like they could walk in here and just demand our release. They wouldn't stand a chance against the Mogadorians in combat. No, we're on our own for this one. The only way out of here is punching ourselves through."
"Alright, humans aren't as physically fast and strong as us or the Mogs are. So what?"
"So what? Survival of the fittest, Six. It's what your precious humans themselves preach. The strong will dominate and the weak will have to bow down," he says, and I'm not sure if he's being sarcastic. I hope he is.
And anyway, didn't he just say that treating other races as inferior is one of the Mogs' worst traits? And now he's doing it himself.
I'm about to mention this, when suddenly the buzz of the force field around us gets louder for apparently no reason. I look around and notice a hole in the bluely glowing wall slowly opening up to my left. While it gets bigger, someone puts his head through the not yet fully opened hole and peeks into our cell. It takes me a few seconds to realize that person is agent Walker.
Her face has changed since I've last seen her, which can't be more than half a day ago. It's covered in frizzing wrinkles, as if she's grown older by many years. Her upper lip is chapped. She must have been biting it a lot in the last hours.
She has so many dark rings under her eyes that her face has some similarities with a turtle's. The right corner of her mouth keeps twitching in sudden spasms, as if she has lost all control of her own expressions. Her otherwise so carefully arranged red hair is now hanging around her head in loose strokes. The bandage she wears on her forehead has slipped down a bit and expose countless scuffs, scratches and other open wounds, some still bleeding.
She doesn't wait until the hole in the field has completely opened, but just jumps through when there's just enough space for her. As she does, she slightly touches the edge of the force field FBI uniform gets scorched around her right shoulder.
She doesn't even notice.
Instead she shrieks at us in an oddly pitched voice, and I flinch.
"WHO'S THE BOY?" she screams out of her mind. "Tell me right now, who's the god damn boy?"
What on earth is she talking about? I shoot Nine a quick glance, but his puzzled look tells me he's just as confused as I am. In fact, he seems so distracted by her bizarre appearance, that he forgot about his glorious plan to knock her out and escape through the hole.
"You don't want to answer? You think you are smarter than me? You think ol' agent Walker is stupid?" She lets out a pitched, hysterical laugh. The flickering blue light of the force field casts creepy shadows that give her a menacing look. Then her expression suddenly turns back serious and she rips her eyes wide open.
"Don't worry, my little alien friends, ol' agent Walker will make you speak," she says and the corner of her mouth twitches again. I get a bad feeling about what she might mean with that.
"That's right, the FBI has some techniques to make people talk."
With that said, she crooks a malicious smile and turns around towards the hole in the force field.
"Jenkins, give me your gun," she shouts to someone who must be standing just outside our prison cell.
"Ma'am, I don't think that will be necessa…," a man's voice begins to answer, but Walker cuts him off.
"I will be the one to decide what's necessary, Jenkins. If you have anything to say, we can to talk to Mr. Purdy about it, I'm sure he'll like the idea of you disobeying orders again," she hisses in a bittersweet tone that gives me goosebumps.
"No, Ma'am. Sorry Ma'am," the man stutters back, obviously intimidated by the agent. And who could blame this guy? Walker looks scary as hell in the glimmering blue light of the force field, and the way she speaks sends icy chills down my neck.
A rifle is thrown into the prison cell through the hole, and Walker takes her time picking it up. With an insane grin on her lips, she turns back to us, pointing the gun at us. She grimaces and bares her deeply yellow teeth.
"Now, my little alien friends, is there something you want to tell me? I'll ask you this one last time, who is the boy?"
She cocks the rifle and gives us and impatient glare.
Usually, I'd stay calm in this situation. Usually, I have nerves of steal. I've been at this end of a gun too often in the last few weeks to even be afraid of it now. But it's not the gun that causes the panic to rise in my chest right now, it's the person holding it.
The agent's face is one whole grimace of nervous twitching and wincing. I doubt that it's just a strategy to intimidate us.
Something's obviously wrong with her. She doesn't behave like a normal person would, not even close to that. She doesn't seem to notice the bleeding wounds on her head, she laughs hysterically at everything like a madman, and she is about to shoot us if we don't tell her who some boy is. It's like she's so obsessed with hating us, she forgets how to human.
The most disturbing thing, though, are her eyes. With a fiery, insane look they scurry all around the room, not really fixating on anything specific, as if she doesn't actually perceive her surroundings, just her enemies. Which unfortunately are Nine and me.
I may not know exactly about her mental condition, but one thing is for sure: she will pull the trigger if we don't give her the answers she wants. And she's going to do it soon.
"What boy do you mean? You know, a little more details than just 'who's the god damn boy' would help," Nine says, his voice a bit hoarse. He stands up and takes a step towards Walker.
He's trying to play the tough guy again, acting all self-confident and so, while it's pretty obvious that he's just as scared of the agent as I am. At her current state, who knows what she could do. An unpredictable enemy is even worse than one with mere power.
"The boy, the boy, my little alien friends," she yelps with her eyes so wide open I almost expect her eyeballs to just drop out of their sockets. "The boy that helped number Five to escape, who else, silly kiddo. The boy, the boy… Oh yes, my dear alien friends, ol' agent Walker knows you know him. You have to know him. So who is he? Whooooooooo is he?" she slurs.
"Wait, Five escaped?" I ask and instantly regret it. We mustn't let her know that we actually have no idea who number Five is – we don't even know if it's a boy or a girl – not to mention this mysterious boy that helped her or him escape. If she finds that out, we're screwed.
Luckily, she doesn't seem to have heard me. She's too busy glaring at some point in the force field behind us.
I catch Nine's eyes, and he shrugs. He's just as clueless as I am about what to do now.
I remember his plan about knocking agent Walker out and escaping through the hole. Maybe, if we can distract her somehow…
I turn back to Walker, who has begun to slowly topple in our direction. She aims the rifle back and forth between Nine's head and mine. Every time she points it at me, I flinch, but I don't dare to show too much of a reaction. It might provoke her.
Like a wolf stalking its prey, the agent comes closer and closer. Her finger already hovers above the trigger. I can hear her rattling breath as she thinks about just pulling it. It can't take much longer until she realizes we have no idea what she's talking about.
"Ma'am, the Mogadorian representative is here," the voice of the man that Walker was talking to earlier suddenly sounds through our cell and rips the agent out of her animalistic state. "He demands to talk to you, Ma'am."
Walker hesitates for a moment.
"He demands to talk to you, right now, Ma'am," the man says again.
"I'm going, I'm going," Walker yells back and reluctantly turns around to walk through the hole in the force field.
As she steps our of our cell, the hole begins to close quickly. Our last chance to escape. If we want to make our move, it has to be now. But I'm still too shocked, too shaken to even think about moving.
The hole is just big enough for us to see her face when she turns back around to us.
"And my little alien friends, don't think ol' agent Walker forgot about. Oh no, ol' agent Walker never forgets. And ol' agent Walker never forgives."
The cruel, sinister smile on her lips is the last thing I see before the hole fully disappears again.
Hey everybody!
Folks, this it, I admit it, I'm not what I used to be. I somehow can't just make these chapters magically appear every two or three days anymore like I used to - rather every half a month. I don't know how this changed, but it did, and it's time I face it ;)
Anyways, I have already written down about 90 % of the next chapter, since I thought I would actually use it as last chapter (chapter 12), but in the end I decided not to, which is why I'll hopefully get that out in a couple of days.
We'll see what happens after that =)
So, until then, have a wonderful time as you always do ;D
And for reading my story