Chapter Two

"How do you know?" I crossed my arms over my chest. My heart felt as if it was racing, but I knew that couldn't be true. I wasn't even sure if I had a heart or any other vital organs. My entire body was a complete mystery.

"I don't know for sure, but it suddenly feels different," his eyes searched the area above my head. "Go get dressed. We need to leave. Our time on this planet is up."

The water shut off and I walked swiftly towards my preparation tube. Within seconds, my long hair was dried, pulled up into a tight ponytail and a new white suit was covering my body. I looked at myself in the mirror. Everything was in place. I rolled my shoulders backwards to try and ease the tension in my neck. Nothing seemed to help. Of course, I blamed her.

Before I could ask another question, he grabbed my hand and opened up the Jump Line. We landed in a new place. The air inside felt different. I sucked in a deep breath, but it almost felt as if I couldn't fill up my lungs with oxygen. I tried to take in another deep breath, but still couldn't manage to get enough.

"Theo, where are we?" I grabbed onto his shoulder as I began to feel light headed. "This place doesn't feel normal. I don't feel right. We need to jump back."

"Esa, we're on one of Troy's ships. Don't worry, your body will adjust in just a little bit. It took mine a few minutes, but I guess that's the thing about being Ciphers, we can survive in most environments," he looked down the hallway as if he was analyzing our landing spot.

Taking a deep breath, I let my body slide down the wall into a sitting position on the floor. "How do you know that?"

"I don't. My knowledge is as limited as yours, but it makes sense. We've always been able to adjust to any environment, in any decade."

"Good point. I guess," I sucked in another breath. "Did you just say we are on one of Troy's ships?"

"Yes."

"Perfect. It seems an appropriate way to cap off this day." The words escaped out of my mouth as my head dropped forward onto my arms. I didn't quite know what Theo was trying to tell me, but everything seemed blurry right now. I needed a distraction to help me focus on something else. I had seen one of Troy's ships take off on a recon mission, but I had never been inside. This vessel seemed larger than the recon ships.

"Yeah. Don't freak out, but it was Luther's idea. This ship took off from Earth two years ago. He found the coordinates and we decided it was time to take matters into our own hands and jump here before Dr. Marie and Paul forced us onboard. We've practiced this jump several times over the past few days, which is why my body is already acclimated, but the first time we made the jump, I struggled, like you."

"Everything hurts right now," My head tried to sink further into the darkness, hoping some sort of relief would happen soon. "Why are we up here?"

"Because it's the one place we really need to be right now. We need to be here to figure out exactly what Marie and Paul plan to do next and how we are connected to Merak."

I thought about his last words. "Where is the rest of the team? Why are we the only ones up here right now?"

"The entire team will be here shortly. They needed to take care of a few things before making the jump."

"Like what? Are you sure it was a good idea for us to separate?" I asked, even though I hadn't fully absorbed everything he had just told me. "Wait a minute, was Luther in the shower with us a few seconds ago?"

"No. The serum worked on him. He's back to being his old self, but there are many others who she has already started the process of changing into Ciphers and they are all have various capabilities."

"So, it's now you and Luther coming up with plans for the team?"

"Don't be ridiculous. We made this one plan and the others agreed to it."

"But I didn't—"

"That's because you went and hid in a shower. If you had come back to the team you might have known what we discussed. Now, stop."

"Stop what?" My head snapped upwards.

"Stop asking so many questions," he shot back.

My cheeks began to burn with his condescending comment, but I needed him, and the rest of the team right now. If I lost them, I would have nothing. I thought back to my days of walking down the hallways of the high school in 2010. I had let their cruel words roll off my back. I would need to do that again. I had to figure out a way to not feel so much every time Theo said something mean to me.

"I'm sorry Theo."

"Thank you," he stood up and began to pace in front of me. "For your information, we discovered the Napoleon a while back and Luther has been watching its movements. We learned recently that its final stop is Merak. That was enough to get our attention."

"Napoleon?"

"Yes, that's the ship's name. It's almost five times the size of any recon ship that Troy or anyone else ever sent up."

"But, why is it called the Napoleon?" I remembered learning about some guy named Napoleon back in one of my classes when I was attending high school.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and I could instantly tell he was frustrated again. I had asked too many questions. "I don't know. That's just its name. Something to do with history. Maybe you could ask Dr. Marie about the name of this ship. I'm sure she would be more than happy to provide you with the answer."

I thought about what he had said. We were headed to Merak, but that wouldn't help anyone if we didn't destroy Dr. James' work and return all of the innocent lives she had taken.

"This ship. This has to be the reason Marie kept her friendship up with Troy. She needed him and this thing to transport the normals to Merak."

"That's a good point. I hadn't thought about that connection, but you're probably right. I'm sure she told Troy a different story. Probably something about creating a new home for mankind."

"It's been a few minutes and the team is still not here. Do you think we should jump back?"

Theo shook his head. "No. Luther, Audrina and Gave are taking care of everything. I promise. I sent them to see if it would be possible for us to destroy her work and return any of the normals we could find. They should be here shortly to report on their findings."

Just then a loud alarm went off inside the ship. My eyes searched the area around us. The piercing wales were beginning to give me a headache. "What does the alarm mean?"

"I don't know. I've never heard it before."

"Should we go and find out?" Just as the last word left my lips, the alarms stopped. It was once again quiet.

Theo stood calmly as he looked at a device on his wrist. "The team has been successful. They've set off the explosives. Marie and Paul should be dead."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Theo obviously didn't understand their power. Those two would never go down easily. They were smart and not human. We really didn't know the capabilities of our enemy. "Hmmm...I doubt our tactics did anything. She is strong and there is very little chance we will be able to stop her," I stared back into his eyes.

"Don't underestimate Luther or the rest of the team. He was telling you the truth. Luther was the highest ranking soldier on our team until he had the accident on the Jump Line and now he's spent the past few years working with Troy. He is valuable to us. He's the only one who has been on both sides. If there is a soldier capable of destruction, it's him."

"What happened to Troy? Or, I guess I should say...his body." It suddenly dawned on me that I didn't know the locations of some of the people I wanted to make sure couldn't harm us.

"She only kept him alive to keep up her lies that Troy was the enemy. He was never the enemy. It was always her and Paul. Those two were the puppet masters. I'm not sure what happened to his body after we left. It was still in one of those cylinders."

"Do you think we can fully trust Luther now? Luther hurt all of us and I don't really think he trusts us, so why should we trust him?"

"He was pretty upset with your family for a while, but he is also a part of this team. He knows any potential future rests with whatever we do right now. There isn't anyone else we can trust. It's just us."

"Don't ever refer to Marie and Paul James as my family. We know that's not the case. They are not related to me, at least, not by blood. If anything, we should identify them as our true enemies."

I tried to push back the thoughts of how Luther had looked at me after he had killed Mary.

"What are you thinking about right now? You have a weird look on your face," Theo asked.

"Mary," I whispered. It still hurt to say her name. She had been so happy and welcoming the last time I saw her and the next time I had visited, she had been dead. A single gunshot wound to the chest had killed her and the person who had shot her had then tried to kill us and was now back on the team.

"What about her?" Theo asked. "Why would you bring up Mary's name right now?"

My thoughts raced back to the happy woman who seemed so welcoming. "You finally found her." Those were Mary's words the first night I had knocked on her door after being gone for three years. She had seemed genuinely surprised by my appearance.

She had also told us Luther had paid her a visit and that he had been acting weird before he disappeared.

"Alright, how do you feel?"

"Fine. You were right. I feel like my body is starting to adjust to the air in here."

"Good," Theo stood up. "We should inspect this ship and see who all is on it. I have the manifest. There are at least a hundred normals being stored on board and four Sentex guards.

"What are Sentex guards?"

"Robots created to watch over the normals while they sleep. LUX disabled them, but we need to confirm their locations."