Repossession (The Keepers Trilogy) (25 page)

Or my parents.

Out there, above this ocean and around the globe, was a bleak, desolate wasteland, with nothing but loss. Loss of hope, loss of life.
That
was what these creatures had brought to our planet, not peace. And model planet or not, it was still the only home we knew.

So why did I still feel I was meant to be here? Why was there this part of me that genuinely wanted to consider this role as Shepherd? Was that desire truly natural, as Elara had said? Or was it fabricated, a byproduct of the activation process? These things had killed my parents. Kidnapped me and tossed me into a prison camp. Where did my loyalty lie?

“Yes, we expect you to accept it,” Elara said. “At the very least, to consider it. All seven of you have been specifically chosen. Your selection was exact. Deliberate. You all offer invaluable traits, and are priceless assets to our mission of building Foundation Zero. We cannot simply replace you with seven other random human beings. If you choose to walk away from your role as Shepherd, we are undeniably at your mercy. However, by walking away from your roles, you are hurting your fellow man, your entire race. We hold the key to Foundation Zero. We alone have the power to create a brand new, habitable planet for your kind, and to restore what you have destroyed yourself.”

“Excuse me?” Lorie scoffed, tossing us all a glance. “Is this chick for real? That
we
destroyed?”

“Your species began destroying your prototype long before we arrived. You have wasted your resources, sucked them dry. You have destroyed your land, driven by greed and excess consumption. Your water, soil, and air are polluted. Your nations are overpopulated and ridden with disease. Much of this is preventable. Shall I continue?”

“I think I’ve heard enough.”

“Please,” Elara held up a hand, “let me finish.” Turning on her heel, she pivoted around and flitted her fingers in the air, and a luminescent keypad appeared, floating just above her head. She punched in a code and a translucent projector screen materialized at her side. Images began to flash on the screen. She waved her hand and pointed as the images changed. “Lucenta is located here, on the Seventh Prototype, because we have found that your model of Earth has the most potential. It is why only you Seven were summoned here, to Lucenta. The Shepherds from the other planets were deactivated. We no longer require their assistance. The other six prototypes have also destroyed themselves before our invasions. Prototype Two chose global, nuclear war instead of peace. Prototype Five chose isolation and self-interest over community and serving others. Just recently, Prototype One chose technology over personal interaction and in turn, became insensitive and closed off to real, genuine connection with their people and nature. They lost their humanity.”

“Doesn’t that all apply to our prototype, too?” Kale asked. “I mean, we’re all guilty of those things.”

“Affirmative,” Elara replied, pressing a button on the keypad to pause at an image of our planet. The number seven was plastered across it, in huge, white text. “However, your prototype seems prone to all of this and more, whereas the other prototypes have fallen into singular, specific patterns.”

I released a deep breath, my gaze scanning the projector screen. “So we’re the major screw-ups, is that what you’re saying? I thought you said our prototype holds the most potential.”

“It does,” Elara confirmed. “Despite this flaw, yours is the first model Earth to show signs of true progressive behavior. Your planet’s race exhibits an abundance of forward thinking. Although you’ve taken your resources and humanity for granted, you have come to recognize your errors and have begun to make efforts to restore what you have destroyed—steps toward conservation, preservation, and maintaining connection with each other and your environment. You were just too late. It was time for us to intervene. We are confident we have gathered a group of humans from your prototype that will lead Foundation Zero to a bright, fruitful future. We leave it up to you to approve our recruits and pick and choose as you please. We want your race to be as involved as possible in the new colonization process.”

Kale bristled next to me, chewing his lip as he shifted from left to right. One look at the other Shepherds, and I knew their cogs were turning just as fast as Kale’s and mine. “You went through so much trouble to create these prototypes,” I said, drawing Elara’s lifeless gaze to mine. “To create our species. Why do you care? What would motivate you to create Foundation Zero … to create a new home for us, when you see we’ve been doing nothing but destroying the experimental planets you’ve already created?”

Elara opened her mouth to respond, but that same delay bumped her speech. “Stand by.” She blinked and her gaze froze, a strange motor sound buzzing from her throat before she spoke again. “Our kind possesses something yours lacks in excess: compassion. We created you. We love you. We want to give you another chance.”

“That’s it,” Lorie charged forward, bringing herself inches from Elara’s blank expression. “I’ve listened to you speak, and my mind is made up. I want out of this underwater hellhole, do you hear me, Robo Sally? You love us? Seriously? You murdered our people! By the hundreds, by the thousands! You’ve ripped them apart in your labs, tortured them and held them prisoner. All for the sake of our own good? No. I won’t accept that, and I certainly won’t accept this crap idea that you’re allowing us to be Shepherds by our own free will. Did you guys not hear her?”

Lorie spun around to face the rest of us, her eyes wild. “If we walk away from this, we let our race down. We doom them all to an empty wasteland. These creatures won’t bring us to a new Earth unless we choose, with all the love and warmth and sincerity in our hearts, to submit to them and their plan. Free will?” She turned back to Elara, flames still dancing in her eyes. “
Please
. You leave us no choice but to help you if we want to save our people. Free will has nothing to do with it. I chose to report here to find out the truth, and because I was afraid. That’s what you’re selling here. Fear. Do what you want us to, or else. Well, I’ve had enough of that.”

“I have spoken.” Elara tapped the keypad once more and turned off the projector. The images vanished along with the screen, and her arms returned neatly to her sides. “There is nothing left to report. I have answered your questions, and what remains is your choice. You must choose to accept what I have presented to you or choose to decline.”

Kale’s knuckles whitened at his sides. They balled into fists, and I fought the urge to scream. Elara was right. We did destroy our planet. And maybe she did hold the key to a new beginning. Maybe the Invaders did have all the power here. But Lorie was right, too. We were being backed into a corner, without much of a choice. Apparently, our race was depending on us, and if we wanted any future at all, we had to choose to surrender to this plan.

“One last question,” Kale said, his voice quiet. Resolved. “Why did you make us?”

“We wished to.”

“That’s … that’s it? Please. I need to know.” I glanced at Kale and a pang of sadness assaulted my gut. His eyes were desperate, his lips turned down in defeat. He really did need to know, and I pitied him. I didn’t want to know—for disappointing reasons exactly like that.

“Affirmative. That is all. Are you accepting your role as Shepherd?”

Kale looked to me, then the others, his hurt gaze bouncing between us. He swallowed and nodded, swinging his brown eyes back to Elara. “Yes, I guess.”

“Good. Now it is time to visit the recruits. If you all agree to accept your positions, then follow me, please.”

One of the male Shepherds who’d been standing next to Lorie finally spoke. “Well, at least she’s polite,” he muttered under his breath.

“Lorie?” Kale asked.

“I want nothing more than to storm out of here, but I’ll never be able to live with myself if I did that,” she said. Rolling her eyes, she started after Elara and we all followed, closing the stretch across the tower until we reached the tall chrome door.

We made our way through the doorway and into a long glass tunnel. My jaw fell slack in awe at the sea life swimming all around us, but the alluring sight didn’t shake the thorn lodged into my side.

Everything Elara was saying contradicted itself.

The Invaders were asking us to accept their word on blind faith, after they’d torn our planet to pieces and forced us into servitude. Could I ever really accept that? Every part of me hated that I actually wanted to. Was it the damn chip implanted in the back of my neck making me feel this way? Would my loyalty really deepen the longer this thing was in me? Did I want to wait around long enough to find out?

“Now entering the recruit shells,” Elara said, her voice a lifeless guide in the long glass tunnel. We stopped in front of a dome-like door, which did in fact look like a shell. “I will escort each of you into separate shells, where you will be assigned to accommodations. You will be provided with all specifications for what to look for in recruits. Ideally, you will select humans that best possess those specifications. Remember, you are building a brand-new Earth. Your goal is to build a valuable team of upright citizens that will contribute to your new society.”

I glanced warily at the shell door. “What happens to the other people on Earth—I mean, our Earth? We just leave them behind?”

“The strongest and the most efficient are being identified in each camp and then filtered through our selection process. They are then sent here for evaluation and training until we feel we are satisfied with the selections.”

Kale spoke up. “So you’re weeding out the good from what you consider the bad, is that it?”

“Affirmative.”

“That’s disgusting, you do realize that, right?” Lorie seethed. “Oh, wait. You do realize it, you just don’t care.”

“We are compassionate creatures. Casualties are a natural part of the process, just as they are in your earthly wars. They are a necessary component for progress.”

“That’s absurd. And this isn’t a war, remember?” Lorie glared at Elara, the hate so strong, I could feel the heat radiate from her skin. “You came for
peace
,” she made little quotes in the air, “and to send us to a squeaky-clean new planet. Because you just love us to pieces and want to pinch our cute little cheeks.”

“Affirmative.”

“For crying out loud.” Lorie dropped her head into her hand, letting out a loud sigh.

Elara led us through the shell door, then escorted us one by one through different doors. As she took Lorie to one room over, I waited patiently with the remaining Shepherds in the hall. “Are you guys really on board with this?” I whispered. “Because if we want out, we need to walk away now.”

“They don’t leave us a choice,” Kale said. “They have us by the balls. This wasn’t what I imagined … not at all what I was hoping for.”

“What were you hoping for? A little handshake? A written peace treaty?”

“Hey,” he chided, pinning me with molten brown pools, “you were on board back in that control room.”

“Yeah, until I heard all of Elara’s crazy shit. Something doesn’t feel right, Kale. I want to be here, but—”

“But you want to run, right?”

I nodded.

“Me too, Skylla. Me too.” He shot a nervous glance to the door Elara had escorted Lorie through. “I’d love to know what made us all so special to be selected as the Sacred Seven. But this lady—”

“
Thing
,” I corrected him.

“This thing is sending me all sorts of mixed signals. Everything it’s saying is detailed, but cryptic. How do we know what to believe?”

“Whatever we choose to believe, we better figure it out, because that vague feeling to surrender? That desire to be loyal to these things? I already feel it, and it’s only going to grow deeper … I feel like I’m losing control or something.”

“I know what you mean. Look, just keep your wits about you. As soon as we have a chance, we’ll talk more about it, okay?”

“Affirmative.”

He rolled his eyes and cracked a small smile, but there was fear there. I understood completely.

I was afraid myself.

FIFTEEN

Only Kale and I remained as Elara returned from escorting the other Shepherds to their shells. We’d chosen to play it safe and cease our conversation. God only knew what these things could hear or what they were capable of. I wasn’t sure when would be a good time to resume our conversation, but it certainly wasn’t now.

“Kale, you may come with me,” Elara said, gesturing Kale to follow her. He tossed me an uneasy look but hurriedly recovered and turned to follow her. The hallway went silent as they disappeared, and I stared down at the cold white tile floor that matched the white walls, and the white ceilings. I fingered the collar of my shirt, beginning to feel claustrophobic. I preferred the glass-tunnel walkway that led us here. Hell, I even preferred the glass tower we’d arrived in. This place felt like an underwater tomb.

A well-lit, bright-white one.

“Skylla Warden?” Elara’s voice filled the space again, and I was about to release a relieved breath, but then I saw her expressionless face and my lungs seized up. I didn’t like being alone with this woman. This thing. I was waiting for her to morph back into an Invader at any moment and shove one of those Aqua Bombs into my chest.