We pop into the building that holds those captured. Masha’s eyes grow wide and she spins marvelling at how our surroundings have changed. “You are truly exceptional! What else does your chip allow you to do?”
I ignore her question and search the building for her sister. I start down the hallway turning right and then left until finally we reach Masha’s sister. I unlock the door and Masha and I step into the cell. Masha’s sister has an alarmed look on her face when she sees Masha, “Mas, what are you doing here?”
“Calm down Tati, I am here to investigate what happened to you and the other six trainees that went missing.”
“What are you doing here with the leader of them?” Tati gives me a disgusted once over before turning back to her sister, “please tell me you are not pushing for this idealized peace you have in your head. It will never work; they will never listen to us.”
“I am here because of their commander. Who will they listen to if not her?”
“Guys can we talk about this later? We need to go; there’s a guard heading this way.”
“How do you suggest we go anywhere? If the guard looks in here and sees that I am gone is he not going to raise an alarm?” Tati asks, still giving me a disgusted look when she thinks I can’t see her.
“Just trust me; I’ve got a plan. I need you both to put your hands behind your back and turn your back to me.” Masha does it immediately, but Tati give me a look that tells me she isn’t going to take orders from me. “Tati, come on, it’ll just be long enough to get past the guard.”
Masha turns to her sister, “Do it, Tati, we’ll be fine.”
Tati looks between her sister and me, “Fine but to you I am Tatiana not Tati. Only my family calls me Tati.”
I nod sharply and they both turn their backs to me, “Masha, my threat still stands. Not a word to anyone about what you see.” I pull the leg off of the bed at the back of the cell and form it into two pairs of handcuffs around their wrists.
The guard rounds the corner just after I bring them out of the cell. As soon as he sees me he stops and salutes. “Commander Fleming. I didn’t know you were back from Oregon.”
“I came back early just to question these two.”
His brows twitch together in confusion, “I thought there was just one female that they brought back from Oregon.”
“It was but turns out one of our other prisoners is this one’s sister,” I respond pushing Tatiana forward slightly. Tatiana grumbles under her breath about being manhandled so I pull her back a bit to quiet her.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in here before,” he says motioning to Masha. “And I know eve-”
“Barrond, sorry to cut you off but I really need to get these two upstairs to interrogation, so if you’ll excuse us.” I snap.
“Right! Sorry ma’am.” He holds his salute until we move past him.
Once he’s out of sight the handcuffs become metallic dust on the floor. Masha smiles widely at me and starts to speak but I cut her off, “Don’t. You’ll just remind me of how much I’m not supposed to be doing any of this around either of you; least of all you!”
I jump us across the base to the obstacle course because it’s one of the only places on the base that doesn’t have cameras. Masha contains herself a little better this trip but Tatiana lets her facade fade away and shows how afraid she actually is of me. “You can teleport things and people?” She asks slowly, “and you can manipulate metal into new objects. Could you take over an entire country, our country, easily?”
I just shrug, “Probably. It hasn’t really crossed my mind.”
“Why not? You could end this ‘Cold War’. You could win. So why do you not attack us?” Tatiana asks, still trying to process.
“Because I’m a twenty-three year old who didn’t really want to be made into a weapon in the first place, yet they made me into one. It doesn’t mean that I have to be their weapon. Now if we could stay on point; your sister has some questions for you. I ask that you answer them truthfully because I will know if you’re lying.”
Tatiana nods and turns to Masha, “How did you end up here, Tati? Did you willingly leave training camp to come here and attack Gavenia?”
Tatiana vigorously shakes her head no, “They came in the middle of the night. They had a device with them that one of them said it must be working because they could hear us screaming. The device made my abilities go away and made it feel like my brain was on fire.” Her eyes well with tears she takes in a deep breath before continuing, “we tried to fight back but we were in so much pain. Grigor did not make it but they took his body anyway. Then they brought us to a lab and played with our chips,” Masha’s eyes light up when Tatiana mentions her chip, “they tried to reprogram us so that our main focus would be on attacking you, Gavenia. They wanted to see how a smaller less effective version of their device would work on you.”
“So why aren’t you attacking me right now? If ‘they’ reprogrammed you then shouldn’t you be trying to kill me or something?”
Masha answers for Tatiana, “When Tati was first chipped, I put safeguards on her chip. Just in case anything ever happened to her. Checking her chip now those safeguards were barely breached, so they were able to control her chip for a short time but they were never really able to fully control her like the others that attacked you.”
“Did you catch a name? Or see who did this to you?”
Tatiana shakes her head no, “I did not. I might be able to remember a voice but they were careful not to use names and they kept us blindfolded so I could not see those around me.”
Masha’s brows knit together, “What are they trying to accomplish with this device? It killed one of us and they were testing out a smaller device on you Gavenia, and you said it was like fighting agents that had not been properly trained. Why did they not just use the proven powerful device on you instead of this one? And why abduct seven Urics to attack you?”
“They didn’t want anything that could lead back to them and I guess if they used the more powerful device they couldn’t claim it was the Urics that attacked me because they would be incapacitated on the floor or dead. What ha-” the sound of someone approaching causes me to pause. I’m surprised by what I find when I do a scan, “Parker?”
Author: Kailan Counahan 