Ryker

The safe house was quite pathetic to look at. It was a worn down, beat up, two floor apartment building that had been scheduled for demolition which was supposed to start thirty-two years ago. The walls were crumbling and the rotting wooden doors all looked like a single gust of wind would cause them to disintegrate.

"Wow... this looks sooooooooooo safe," one of the kids muttered as we all got out of the truck and looked at the building.

"It's safer than where we were," Aidan responded as he shrugged and went towards the building, "we won't be here long anyway."

Slowly we all followed behind him. He pushed the front door and instead of opening it broke off the hinges and fell into the building, cracking as it struck the ground. Aidan shrugged again and went inside, the rest of us stood there a little longer.

"If anyone follows us they won't even have to do anything... the building will kill us for them," the girl named Chloe muttered in disgust as she walked by me and over the fallen door.

"Maria doesn't want to kill us... well not all of us at least... me, Aidan, and Ryker are the only ones she'll want dead, she and Chronos put way too much into getting all of you to kill you now," Xander replied as the rest of us followed Chloe inside.

Aidan was sitting on the counter of the desk that was in the middle of the lobby waiting for us to come inside. I looked around and decided that what the doctor on the ship had said about Earth not being as nice down here as it looked from space was true. I hadn't seen much, but we passed at least a dozen buildings that were in the same condition as this one on the way here, and another dozen or so that were worse. The air smelled so strongly of factory pollution that it made me want to vomit. The forest had been nice, but extremely small compared to forests on Pluto, and it looked like it was in the process of dying. I had seen almost no animals since landing at the Chronos facility... the one raccoon I had seen outside the building we had just walked into looked sickly and thin... a few days from death.

"Aidan, I really wish you had left me to die on Pluto. This planet is awful," I said as I leaned on the desk the teen was sitting on, "I never would have imagined it would be so... trashed."

"It's been trashed for well over a century... why did you think humans had to colonize the other planets and form the Solar Republic?"

"I guess I'd never really thought about it... it's sad."

"Yeah, well thousands of years of humans cared nothing for this planet, and so the planet got abused... my grandfather told me stories about what it used to be like on Earth, stories that his great-grandfather had passed down to him... I never saw what it was like, but I definitely miss it even though I never saw it."

I was about to reply when a loud ringing sound suddenly started from behind us. It was coming from a computer that looked way too old to be able to work. We looked at the device for a moment before Aidan quickly jumped over the counter and clicked a button on the display.

"Are you Aidan Colt?"

The voice came from crackly speakers that were sitting on either side of the display.

"Yes," Aidan said as he messed around with the volume on the speakers to make them a little easier to understand what the person on the other side was saying, "I'm Aidan... who are you?"

"Remy Kera, I'm with the ACR, I'm coming to get you and the kids and bring you to our headquarters," the voice answered, it was a little easier to understand now that Aidan had messed with the volume, "should be there in about three hours... you need to be ready to leave as soon as we get there, we don't want to take any more time than necessary getting you out of there and back to HQ... Chronos is undoubtedly hunting you down."

"I'm sure they are," Aidan said through pursed lips, "you can't get here any faster than 3 hours?"

"Unfortunately my team was the closest to the safe house when Colonel Joseph got in touch with us about his plan," Remy replied regretfully, "we're moving as fast as we can to get to you but I can't promise anything sooner than three hours."
"So what's the plan if Chronos catches up to us before you get here?"

Aidan was biting his lip nervously, this was the first time I'd seen him look nervous before, and that terrified me. If he was nervous about us getting caught before the ACR could get to us then that was a problem.

"If they find you before we get there, then get out... fast. We'll find you somehow," the man responded uncertainly, "I have to go now we'll see you kids soon."

With that the speakers cut off and the screen went dark with Aidan and I still looking at it.

"That's encouraging," I said sarcastically as I stared at the blank screen for a moment longer before looking back up at Aidan.

Aidan scoffed quietly before responding, "and here I was thinking I was joining a group of people ready to take Chronos down... Remy doesn't sound like he's very sure of their chances."

I glanced over at the rest of the group sitting in the lobby. Xander was sitting on the floor playing Rock Paper Scissors with one of the younger kids, seeming like he was trying to distract her from everything. A different kid was sitting on the couch behind him braiding his hair and laughing. Other kids were in small groups talking to each other nervously. I looked back at Aidan and saw him nervously biting his lip again.

"If Chronos finds us before Remy and his people get here... what are we gonna do?"

"Since me and Xander are the only ones who would stand a chance against whoever they sent to find us in a fight we'll distract them while you get everyone into the truck and ready to go. Once they're ready Xander and I will come join you and we'll drive and hope for the best."

"Well... at least we have the start of a backup plan," I said before chuckling nervously.

Maria

I stared at the three corpses lying in the cells that had previously held Xander and Ryker. Two bodies were in the one that had been Ryker's and the third was in Xander's. Blood had pooled around the bodies and covered much of the floor of the cells. I clenched my fist angrily.

"Who did this?" I asked as I looked over at the guard who had come to the pits. "And how the hell did they manage to kill three of our guards, free those boys, and get out of the facility without us knowing?"

The guard just shrugged and opened his mouth to speak before an alarm started to blare. An alarm that only went off when things in the pits got out of control and we needed to send extra security to get things in order.

"WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE?!"

I stormed out of the prison block and ran for the pits with a small army of guards behind me. People were running around and shouting, many were getting their weapons out and ready to fight. I shoved my way through the hallway leading back to the pits when I heard gunfire coming from what sounded like a few hallways over.

"Go find out what's going on down there!"

I turned away from the guards I had just ordered towards the gunfire and ran the rest of the way to the pit. When I arrived I found Spencer lying in the doorway grasping his thigh to stop blood from flowing.

"What happened here?"

"Aidan... it was all Aidan... he just opened fire, took me down before I could react," he answered through gritted teeth, "after that he jumped down into the pit and shot the guards. He's trying to free the kids."

I punched the wall beside me so hard that I put a large dent in the stucco.

"Aidan... fucking... Colt," I said as I shook my hand to ease the pain from the punch, "you finally snapped huh? Damn it!"

I called for some guards that were running by the doorway to come in and start moving the injured to the medical wing. If Aidan had really done this I needed everyone in top condition. I glanced down into the pit, glowering at the bloody scene. I tapped on my C-Watch and the display appeared. I tapped a few buttons, requesting an emergency meeting with the Chronos leadership that oversaw the projects I was head of. Instantly they accepted and I made my way to my office. I slammed the door shut behind me and locked it, then sat at my desk and turned my computer on. When I joined the meeting all but one of the councilors was already waiting.

"Maria, what happened?"

"I don't want to repeat anything... where is Councilwoman Kera?"

"Here," a woman's voice answered after a quiet beep notified us that someone had joined the meeting, soon followed by a new hologram joining the four that already sat in front of me, "what is the meaning of this, Maria, I was having a lovely time in my garden."

"Aidan Colt," I answered simply, instantly all the councilors sighed and muttered angrily.

"We told you that boy was a bad choice. A risk we should never have taken," Councilman Veillon said as he glared at me."What has he done?"

"Exactly what you were worried about him doing. I admit that I thought I had control over him, and that I was wrong," I replied as I crossed my arms and sat back in my chair, "but I do not regret using him for everything we've used him for... even what he didn't realize he was being used for. I need Archangel activated."

All five of the councilors scoffed indignantly.

"Absolutely not. Archangel was authorized to begin barely a week ago and is nowhere near ready," Councilmember Calder responded instantly as they crossed their arms over their chest. "You only have one active agent, and you know that Arch-1 is not ready for this."

"Arch-1 is as ready as possible right now... I did most of the early training myself... and even better yet we won't have to worry about infiltration," I replied as I leaned towards my holo-projector, "Arch-1 is already with Aidan."

The councilors all looked at each other then back at me with mixed expressions, disbelief, surprise, and suspicious.

"Give us a moment to discuss this amongst ourselves," Councilwoman Kera muttered as she pushed her hair over her shoulders and tapped a button which caused her holographic image to blur and her audio to cut out.

The other four councilors' images also blurred and I was left in silence as I watched blurry images have an intense discussion which I couldn't hear. I sighed and started to pace behind my desk impatiently. I pulled my C-Watch display back up and sent a message to my chief biological engineer instructing her to prepare to put Archangel into full effect then started tapping away so that I could activate the transponder in Arch-1's head when the council inevitably decided to allow me to take my requested action. The councilors' images refocused at the same time as C.B.E. Beyett responded to my message saying she would gather her team immediately.

"Maria... you are authorized to activate Arch-1, and to start preparing more Archangel agents," Councilwoman Hyden said in a somewhat defeated tone, clearly she had voted against allowing this but had been outvoted.

"There is one condition though," Councilman Dai picked up from where Hyden had stopped, "you have to loop all five of us into all your communication with Arch-1 for this first mission, and if it seems like things are going bad for Archangel then we're pulling the plug and sending an extraction team to get our asset out safely."

"Done," I responded as I activated the transponder then linked the new line of communication with the five councilmembers.

I typed a message and sent it.

Operator: Arch-1, this is your operator, you are activated. Your mission is to spy on Aidan Colt and the group with him. Report everything that happens to me immediately.

After a short moment a message came back.

Arch-1: Acknowledged. We're currently in an ACR safehouse on the edge of Talpolis in the abandoned district. ACR team on the way, arrival expected in about three hours.

Operator: Good. Keep reporting with any news.

Arch-1: Acknowledged.

I looked up at the councilors to ensure they had seen the messages, they all nodded at me and turned their C-Watch displays off.

"Good. It's settled then, send a team out to hunt Aidan down and take him out. Keep as many of the people with him alive as possible, but kill anyone you have to."

"I'll assign a team of Phantoms now and, with the council's permission," I said as I squinted my eyes at them in a challenge, "give them a small army to assist."

"Granted... send fifty soldiers of your choosing with them."

Sophia

"Aidan finally crossed the line," Maria said as she looked out at all of us in the auditorium seats, "you all know I let him get away with things that normally a Phantom would be killed for. I did that because he never failed to give me near-perfect results. But now... he has betrayed us all, even those closest to him."

She gestured over to her left where David Joseph was sitting. After pointing towards the man she then turned her attention to the front row, where I was sitting with several other Phantoms who had been close to Aidan and gestured at all of us as well. There were angry mutters all throughout the room.

"I am sentencing Aidan Colt to death. He is our highest priority target right now, every member of Chronos has been given the order to kill on sight," Maria said as she looked at all of us, "since he came from this facility we have been tasked with hunting him down, so I am sending out a group of Phantoms to lead the chase. Sophia, you will lead this group, you know him better than most of the other Phantoms here. Spencer, Kali, and Carter... you three will go with her, the four of you should be capable of catching and killing Aidan and anyone who tries to help him, however just to be safe I am also giving you command of a small task force, fifty of our best soldiers who aren't Phantoms. Once he's dead, bring his head back here for confirmation of the kill."

I stared at the woman as her words registered with me. I had never led a group of Phantoms before, Chronos stopped sending groups out after what happened with Omega Squad on their last mission. Their near failure had cost Chronos a lot. I couldn't believe that Aidan had done all of this, I know he doesn't like Maria, or Chronos, or any of the things we're forced to do... but he never seemed like he would openly rebel against all of it.

"Sophia, meet me in my office so I can give you the latest information that I received about their location. That way you'll be able to start off on the right foot," Maria said as she walked towards the door, "everyone else get back to work, for now I won't be sending anyone else out to kill Aidan, but your time may come, so be ready."

The woman left the auditorium and I jumped up to follow her to her office. I saw the three Phantoms who had been assigned to help me find and kill Aidan sitting together near the doorway. When they saw me they got up as well, Kali helping support Spencer since he was still recovering from the thigh wound he had received from Aidan during his escape.

"Let's go get that information, boss," the injured boy said as the three Phantoms joined me.

Spencer I knew before having him assigned to my team, I had been the Phantom he was pitted against when he arrived here, he did well, I still have the scar from when he managed to steal my knife from me and slashed it across my arm. His cerulean eyes had a determined look in them, he was ready to go after Aidan so he could get back at him for betraying us. I knew why he was so bothered by Aidan's betrayal, he had always looked up to and almost idolized him... now Aidan had turned against us, and Spencer had been directly affected by that betrayal when Aidan shot him, he wasn't just physically hurt when that happened.

Kali I recognized because she had been part of the same group of recruits as Spencer. Other than getting taller and looking a little older, she hadn't changed much since she got here. She still had the same dark brown, pixie cut hair, her eyes were the only thing that had changed much, they were still brown but they looked colder now... less innocent, which wasn't surprising since she had now been a Phantom for two years.

Carter was the youngest of the four of us, only twelve, and had only been a Phantom for almost a year. He had light, olive skin and dark brown eyes that didn't have the same broken look that most Phantoms get after being in the program for long enough. He constantly had to push the bangs of his wavy, dark brown hair out of his face. As far as I knew he had never been on a mission, and he still looked somewhat innocent which reinforced that idea. Despite not having done a mission yet I knew he was good, I had seen him practicing and training, and he was nearly as good as I had heard Aidan had been at the same age. Many people talked about his potential as a replacement for Aidan, long before Aidan became a traitor and high priority target.

"You don't have to call me 'boss,'" I said as the four of us walked out of the room and towards Maria's office.

"Not comfortable with the idea of being in charge of a group that's responsible for hunting down your friend?"

I turned and glared up at Spencer. He had an evil gleam in his eyes, but despite the evil look I could tell that he didn't like the idea of hunting down and killing Aidan, no matter how angry he was.

"Of course I'm not comfortable with it. I've known Aidan since I got here four years ago, he was not only a great Phantom but he was a decent friend. Now I've been tasked with going after him and killing him," I said as I continued to glare at the boy, "none of us should be comfortable with it, he's still one of us... he's gone through everything we have and more."

Spencer raised his hands up in a gesture of surrender. Kali glanced between the two of us warily, as if she expected us to start fighting right here in the hallway, and didn't know if she should side with the boy she had trained with for two years or the girl who was now her leader. Carter rolled his eyes and muttered something that sounded like "so much for being a team" under his breath.

"We don't have time for this, Maria wants to see me... she didn't say anything about you coming with me to get the information. Go get ready to leave, I'll let you know what she tells me later," I finished as I walked ahead of the three of them.

I knocked on Maria's office door when I arrived, I heard Maria say for me to come in and I opened the door. The woman was sitting behind her desk scanning through something on her computer.

"Took you long enough to get here."

"Sorry, the others made it kinda difficult to get here very fast."

"Whatever. That's not important," she said as she waved her hand dismissively, "I know where Aidan and all the kids are, I've been tracking them with the C-Watch that they used to hack into our system."

"How'd you manage that?"

I had always thought it was impossible to hack into a C-Watch because the newest models, like the ones we use, are connected to the DNA of the person using it to prevent them from being hacked into.

"That's not important, all I want you to worry about is your job... your only job right now is to go after Aidan," she said as she crossed her arms and frowned, "Aidan must die, try not to kill too many of the others with him if possible, I want them. But if it's necessary, kill anyone who gets in your way."

I nodded in response as I thought about everything I had learned so far. The mission seemed to be very straightforward, follow Aidan's tracks and kill him while trying not to kill the others with him if possible... I've had far more complicated missions before... this one was only different because on my other missions I wasn't assigned to kill someone I cared about, and they were never trained to be able to combat my abilities. If I have to fight Aidan one on one I'll lose for sure. Even if the other three phantoms with me helped we would likely lose.

"Give me your C-Watch, I'll connect our devices so that I can stay in touch with you and give you updates on their location if you need," she said as she gestured at the device on my wrist.

I took the watch off and handed it over to her, she did whatever it was she needed to do so that I could talk to her directly, then handed it back to me.

"I'll send you their location now, if you don't manage to catch them there then message me and I'll tell you where they are," she said as she crossed her arms again, "now go get your team ready, I have the soldiers I gave you waiting in the garage, we had to hack into the trucks to start them because Aidan took all the keys. You have three trucks at your disposal, don't turn them off and don't lose them... it'll take hours to get new ones hacked and out to you if the ones you've got are turned off or otherwise lost."

I nodded and got up and left the room, closing the door behind me. I found my team waiting in the hallway with all their gear.

"Come on, we're losing time, let's get to the garage and go find them."

Soon everyone was loaded into the trucks and I instructed some of the soldiers to start driving. I looked at my watch and found the location Maria had shared with me, it was right on the outskirts of the city, an hour away at most. We launched out of the garage and down the road after I instructed the driver where to go, the other trucks would follow. I sat down and stared down, thinking about what I would have to do once we found Aidan.

"Do you think this is as crazy as I do?"

I jerked my head up to look at who had spoken, it was Carter.

"What do you mean?"

"Us being sent to kill one of our own. It's crazy."

"Yeah... but he betrayed us, so we have to."

"In the hallway you said Aidan was a friend of yours. Will you be able to kill him?"

I glanced away from him and back at the ground before responding.

"I have to b-"

"Sophia, I know you HAVE to be able to," he said, cutting me off and causing me to look back at him, "we all HAVE to be able to... but can you do what you have to do despite the fact that he's a friend?"

"Yes," I answered, not quite as confidently as I wanted to.

"Maria should have given this assignment to someone else," he said before scooting away from me and over to Spencer and Kali.

Maybe he's right... if I'm not able to kill Aidan then I'll fail the mission, my team, Maria, and Chronos. But I've known Aidan so long... and I'm not certain that when the time comes I'll be able to take his life as easily as the targets I've killed before... I had no connection to them, they were just names and faces... but Aidan was different.

"If you can't do it... don't get in the way," I heard Spencer whisper threateningly as he walked by me, before walking the rest of the way to the bathroom at the back of the truck.

I put my face in my hands and stared down at the floor through the spaces between my fingers. After a moment I steadied my thoughts. I would do this, I don't want to, but I will NOT fail. Spencer came out of the bathroom and as he was walking back towards Kali and Carter I stood up and grabbed the neck of his shirt and pinned him against the wall of the truck.

"Don't ever threaten me," I said as I stared into his eyes, "otherwise you won't make it through this mission."

Soldiers looked over at us, I heard a few mutter stupid comments about "lovers quarrels" but chose to ignore them. Kali and Carter had both looked over, slightly shocked by my outbreak, but hadn't moved.

"I am in charge of this mission and this team, Maria made that choice for a reason, sit down and shut up," I said as I shoved him towards his seat.

The boy stumbled slightly as he tried to catch himself after the shove. He glared at me as soldiers chuckled around him. He sat down and continued to glare at me.

"Maybe you'll be able to do it after all," Carter said as he slid away from the other two Phantoms and back to me.

I scoffed and sat back down as well, "of course I will, it's my job."

We sat in silence after that. I stared straight ahead of me, determined not to let myself think about anything that was going on too hard.

"We don't always perform well in our jobs," Carter's voice broke the silence suddenly, "just ask Xander about that when we see him."

"Well I'm not Xander," I said stubbornly, "and Aidan isn't a friend anymore, he's a traitor and a target. This should be easy."

"It doesn't have to be," the boy whispered as he looked up at me, "just because he's not a friend now, doesn't mean it needs to be easy to kill him."

"Where the hell do you stand, kid?" I asked as I looked at him in confusion.

"With myself and my team leader," he answered confidently, "I've got new respect for you after that little display with Spencer... whatever you choose to do, you've got an ally now... if that means we kill Aidan, then we do... if it means we follow in his footsteps... I'm right there with you, and the two of us should be perfectly able to take care of these soldiers and those two."

He glanced over at Spencer and Kali, who were talking quietly and ignoring us.

"You're more conflicted about all of this than I am... and that is very, very conflicted. One moment you're telling me we all have to be able to kill Aidan... now you're saying if I choose not to kill him then you'll do the same. You need to sort yourself out," I stated as I scrunched my eyebrows together and looked at him.

"Yeah maybe I do," he replied with a shrug, "but the more I think about things... the more I realize that we don't have to do anything we don't want to do. Chronos only has as much control as we let it have."

I stared at him as I tried to process everything. Now I was even more conflicted than before, and it was all this little boy's fault.

"We'll see what happens... you may be prepared to do whatever I do, but I'm not sure the others are. They're going to try to kill Aidan no matter what."