It's official. When this whole thing was over–if that ever happened– I was going for two years of intensive AI therapy afterwards. Normally, I would be opposed to venting my feelings to an AI Doctor that would never be able to relate despite its over the top people skills and dance moves that would beat me any day. But if I didn't, the countless surprises I've been bombarded with in just a few hours would be the reasons I'll become crazy enough to believe pigeons are the government's eyes or that apple-picking should be an Olympic sport.

   The two ways I knew that I wasn't insane–still debatable– were the choked gasps from Rav and Dorian, who, with their wide twitching eyes, looked like near corpses with a foot in the grave.

   As messed up as it was to say, their reactions were comforting. Otherwise it would have meant that I was the only one who was seeing the sea green complexion covering every inch of Camila's body with the exception of her purple mouth and eyes.

"B-but," I was not surprised that Dorian was the first to speak, "h-how did i not realise?"

"Because unlike you, I actually fit in with other humans." Camila flipped a loose strand of her once light brown now raven-black hair over her shoulder. "And I didn't blurt out my identity while under the delusion I was in love."

   Ouch. "That was very uncalled for." I frowned.

"But the truth." She didn't budge. "I mean, what were you expecting, Dorian? Lacey to jump into arms and beg to have your mixed-species babies? Give me a break. Look at Beth's reaction when she saw who you really were. She was obviously repulsed by yo–"

"Shut up, Camila!" I snapped. "You know that's not true!"

   A tense wave of silence reigned for an uncomfortable amount of time.

   Until Rav broke it, "Okay, so, just to be clear, Camila, because you're an alien like Dorian–"

"I'm nothing like Dorian!"

"So because you're an alien with brain capabilities similar to..." Rav gulped at the gun that became unstable in her hand. "...He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, you weren't affected by the Neuroskel. Nothing about that explains your–er...alliance with Speck."

"True," Camila nodded. "The genesis of everything that led to that can be traced to a place. A place not just I in this room am familiar with. Those who run it had a different name for the place but people like me who lived in this place called it The Institution."

   The strained squeak that left Dorian was the proof I needed that I was going to have a future AI Therapy buddy. "Y-you were there, t-too?"

"Yes, Dorian, just like you."

"So you knew who I was all along."

"Yes and No. I knew you were an alien but I didn't know you were one of the kids from the institution until I saw the scars on your chest alongside your tattoo here."

   Now makes sense how Speck knew Dorian was an alien .

   The Institution.

   The source of most of Dorian's childhood trauma that resonated in his nightmares, insomnia and serious trust issues today. The place which gave him his damning chest tattoo.

   I wasn't sure what Camila's story was going to be, but since it had to do with the cursed place, I already knew it would have a lot to do with how she was now.

   Camila released a huge breath, "The government's policies on planet exploration and alien immigration benefited less than a handful. Underneath it all was The Institution; the place you get when the earth's top government officials pair up with rich assholes and alien traitors to invade and exploit other planets and their resources, kill off all the genuine aliens who condemn them and drag their surviving children to earth against their will because these people don't want them to 'have any ideas'."

   My gaze shifted to Dorian, who was staring into space the whole time with glazed blue-grey eyes, proving Camila right. I wanted to hug the little boy in him that had fresh memories of his parents dying in such a horrific manner.

"At first, many children made the mistake of believing that The Institution was a sanctuary," Camila continued, "with most of us thinking that we were being saved from the evil invaders. On the night of our arrival, a number of my species along with others which were also new arrivals were taken away while we slept, not to be returned until the next morning. That was when the wounded state of taken ones hit us with the cold truth."

"Experiments..." Dorian sounded like he was in a completely different world at this point. "These people conducted experiments upon experiments on us. On those who managed to survive the first dozen anyway."

   I had to stifle the tears that welled up in my eyes.

"You remember those?" Camila's voice dropped to a sober whisper, even though her eyes remained dry.

   Dorian glared at her, and said in a harsh tone I knew he didn't really mean, "Of course I remember!"

"They kept us, just a little over a hundred, in tiny, dark rooms. We were barely fed and disinfected at intervals rather than given proper baths. When we weren't in these dark rooms together, there'll be a few of us in large, white labs like Mr. Sacury's lab, going through physical, emotional, psychological and social experiments for days on end. They'd cut us, infect us and even instigated mating between the older kids amongst us. Mind you, they were not older than 13-15."

   Good God. Who were these people?

"But then, you were lucky to get adopted, right?" I made sure to keep my voice stoic. Sounding optimistic was bound to set her off. "Like Dorian."

   She threw her head back, releasing a soft chuckle before asking, "Is that what he told you?!"

   I glanced at Dorian whose head was now facing south. Deliberately. Wasn't this a confirmation of what Camila was implying? That Dorian had lied to me? Again?

"Dorian didn't lie to you, Beth." Rav spoke like the mind reader he'd suddenly become.

   I still kept looking at Dorian though, clinging onto some inexplicable expectancy he could use this moment to be the one to tell me that instead.

   After a while, that expectancy disappeared.

   Dorian did raise his head to glance at Rav though, giving him the stiffest nod before reverting to his position.

"Dorian wasn't lying about being adopted," Rav repeated. "It just didn't happen... conventionally. You see, years before Dorian's planet was invaded and he was brought to The Institution, my parents used to supply The Institution with all their security-based equipment; cameras, alarms, all that. One day, while testing out a camera that was returned to them for being faulty, they found a deleted recording of one of these lab experiments that were being carried out on the alien children like Dorian and Camila. Obviously, they didn't want to believe what they saw but it wasn't something they felt they could just let go. My parents therefore decided to dig a little deeper. After hacking a few of their cameras The Institution had installed, they were overwhelmed with many more visuals of these experiments, the living state of the alien children and the ways The Institution 'disciplined' any child that didn't behave according to their wishes."

   That was when, according to Rav, the Hoodas knew that they needed to act. And do so fast.

   They subsequently made calls to the people they knew in the innermost parts of the government, knowing that this was a matter way bigger than the police. Anytime Rav's parents told their friends about it, they always promised to look into it but when the Hoodas called to check in on the progress made, their friends either pretended they'd forgotten or blamed bureaucracy for their failure to raid The Institution. The Institution, on its part, cut ties with Hooda Security on the basis of a shallow excuse.

   After weeks had gone by with nothing, one of such friends suggested that they meet up out of the blue. What made it even more suspicious that she requested that their meeting be carried out of the country, in a desert of one of these border states. There, she introduced them to a current worker in The Institution that told them everything about the place; that it had been standing for over a century now– so way before Dorian and Camila even existed– with alien children, most barely living long enough to become adults, the adult aliens trying and mainly failing to escape and the government's involvement in everything. The worker concluded by pleading with them to stay away if they didn't want themselves and the ones they loved in danger.

"On that same night," Rav's voice dropped an octave lower, "It was on the news that a top government official, their friend, had been killed by an enemy state but of course my parents knew better. They knew that this was not only a fatal punishment to the woman for revealing classified information, but a warning to them."

   The Hoodas laid low for more than five years, living lives that were as transparent as possible, expanding their business, even having Rav during that period. But that period wasn't just for being normal again, but also planning behind closed doors. After making sure the government was no longer on their backs, they began contacting the alien activist groups they'd researched and observed all these years and forming secret alliances committed to taking down The Institution and liberating the children.

"And how did that turn out?" Camila scowled down at Rav. "Tell her."

"The day The Institution was raided had its ups and downs," Dorian startled us with his grim tone. "With the help of the Hoodas and many activists, The Institution fell and has not been in operation since then. But by the time they got there, we'd drastically reduced from over a hundred to less than fifty. Also, the lives of some of the activists were lost at the hands of those working in the Institution and all the chaos spooked so many of us that most ran away during the raid. After days of thorough searching, Rav's–our parents and the activists were able to find 15-20 of us out of 40 children. Us kids were made to live with them. With the help of the camouflage tech they provided and other future modifications, you couldn't tell us from the average human. That's how I got the Hoodas."

   I guess that explains how he'd been able to hide his identity for so long.

"Leaving the rest of us who they stopped looking for to find our way on a planet we did not know to live lives we did not choose," Camila said, looking at Dorian who seemed to shrink under her hate-filled glare. "in an environment that was straight up toxic. Did you know that by the end of the week, there were only 10 of us left? The environment was just either too much or not enough to sustain those lives lost. Those of us who survived were barely holding up ourselves. And it wasn't only the natural environment that was trouble. Those of us who were unlucky–yes, unlucky– to survive, had to deal with the harshness of human nature. The streets were merely much bigger labs. So tell me, Dorian, Rav, were your parents really saviours you so portray them to be?"

"They said they really looked–"

   Rav interrupted himself by inhaling a sharp breath upon Camila aiming the gun at him.

"That's my problem with humans." She continued on like she wasn't threatening someone's life. "Their inability to do anything right. Even if they have the best intentions, the best techniques, and technology, they would still end up causing considerable damage."

"Isn't that exactly what Speck was doing?" I found myself asking. "What makes him different from the people you just described."

"Because Speck is not hurting anyone. He's saving everyone." Her eyes flashed with something I couldn't recognise. "Like he saved me."

"Saved you?" The words left Dorian, Rav and me at the same time like we'd rehearsed it.

   Camila put her shoulders back and held her head high. "That man right there is the reason I haven't slept in the streets in the past decade; the reason I haven't had to steal, beg or fight for my next meal; the reason my identity has been hidden all this time, the reason Minji's uncle and aunt opened their home to me. Although his schedule made it next to impossible to raise me, he is more of a parent to me than anyone else. And soon or later, just like I always have, you're going to realise that what Mr. Speck is doing for the world is for no other person but themselves."

   What I realised now, though, was that all the remnants of doubt within me that still wanted to cling onto the belief that Camila's every move was being controlled by a device in her head disappeared without a trace. In an instant they were replaced by two emotions.

   The first being dread. Because I wasn't saying that no device meant she wasn't being mind controlled. It just meant that her kind of mind-control was the worst kind: good, old-fashioned cult-like, long term manipulation to the highest degree.

   But in a weird way, it was a good thing, since unlike a device, this didn't make her mind immune to change.

   And that ignited in me the second feeling:

   Hope. 

A/N: How the New Year going for you so far?

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