The lab worker’s jaw gaped as he read the names attached to Evan and his group’s uniforms.

  Twitch bowed his head and mouthed, “Sorry,” before he grabbed the head of one of the workers and bashed it against the wall. The others screamed as they scrambled for the elevator door, which was still sealed.

  Luna knocked down another. A third followed, courtesy of Blink.

  Evan grabbed the fourth, pulling him back, not sure what he was going to do to him. The worker snatched something in the right of his coat. Evan fought to restrain the hand, but the man managed to unsheathe a stubby gun with a strange liquid sloshing within it.

  The other rebels tackled the worker to the ground. The gun slid away. Twitch bashed the guy’s face with his foot, sending him to sleep.

  “Gahh!” Luna reeled back, grabbing at her neck.

  The fifth lab worker, the one who had helped them into the lift, stumbled back with the weird gun in hand. Luna knocked his head back against the elevator door. His body slumped to the ground.

  Luna grasped at where she’d been stuck in the neck.

  “What was in this?” Evan asked as he picked up the weapon.

  “Drugs… that… subdue…” Luna’s words slurred, and her footing wobbled.

  Evan helped her sit against the wall.

  Her eyes battled to stay open. “Security… ahead… stairs…” Her head dropped to her chest.

  “Is she…” Blink rubbed her hands together nervously.

  Evan checked some labels on the gun. “No, it’s just a tranquilizer. What do we do now? We can’t leave her here.”

  Twitch signed to his sister.

  “What’s he saying?” Evan asked.

  Blink translated, “He thinks this lift won’t be going anywhere because of the lockdown, like at Alpha base. So, we could leave her here and come back for her after we get your friend.”

  There wasn’t anything else Evan could think of other than lugging Luna blindly around the facility. “I guess that’s our plan. Let’s swap into these lab outfits.”

  “You guys can, they mentioned your names, not mine.” Blink winked.

  Evan and Twitch took off their enforcer gear and donned the lab worker outfits.

  “Help me get one of these lab guys up so we can open the door,” Blink said.

  The three of them took the worker’s card and forced his eyes open to be scanned. The door popped open with the confirmation of his identity, “Carlos Moreno, S-3380 – Afflicted Studies.”

  Blink scrunched her face. “Afflicted Studies?”

  The doors popped open.

  Evan didn’t know what to make of the title either, but now wasn’t the time to contemplate the implications. They could figure out what was going on after they had saved Ken and got out of there.

  They entered a hallway that split three ways. The facility was soaked in spinning red lights. Signs on the ceiling designated that the left was Cell Blocks, forward was Security, and to the right was Stairs. Evan led his friends down the security section, tranquilizer still in hand.

  The hallway opened to a catwalk overlooking rows and rows of glass and steel cells the size of sports cars. So many cells, thousands of them, stacked upon each other to make up colossal walls that stretched for miles in both directions before breaking off at hard angles, a hallway system big enough for giants.

  Loader drones, about the size and shape of tireless trucks, would back up to gaps between the cells and then move whole glass cages onto their backs before taking them away to some other part of the facility. They had white headlights that broke up the red emergency lights spinning from the ceiling and better illuminated the thousands of prisoners within the cages. The lot of which banged against the walls of their glass cages, waved their hands, or were red faced from shouting – their cries inaudibly trapped by the glass with them.

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  “It’s true…” Evan muttered. “They’ve been holding Afflicted here.”

  Blink asked, “To do what?”

  That was an answer Evan wasn’t sure he was ready to find out, despite his mind’s appetite for the truth. For now, they had their mission.

  At the end of the catwalk was a hexagonal pillbox. A couple of guards stood watch there, and small windows revealed more soldiers managing an orchestra of control systems inside.

  One of the catwalk guards flashed a palm. “No unessential personnel permitted here at this time. Get to your designated lockdown zones.”

  The trio slowed down their pace but didn’t stop.

  “What should we do?” Blink whispered.

  Evan concealed the tranquilizer in his coat as best as he could without making it obvious. “I can hit them with this.”

  “The farther guy will notice before you get this one. Maybe I can teleport you over to the other before they have time to do anything.”

  “Luna says the base has systems that can detect stuff like that, energy signatures and what not.”

  Blink shrugged. “The base is already on alert, right? Does it matter?”

  “It might tell the purifiers where to look.”

  She conceded with a curt nod and turned her signature charm as they approached the guard. “Heya! These two are new and stopped me for help. They haven’t gone through the lockdown procedures yet. I figured this was the best place to bring them. I love your hair by the way.

  Huh? Evan looked to Twitch to see if he was as perplexed as he was. The twin shrugged.

  The guard was nonplussed at first, but then ran a hand loosely over a braid that lay across her shoulder. “Uh, thanks. I suppose those two can wait here until lockdown is over, probably can’t make it to their zones at this point anyway.”

  “Thanks!” Blink flashed a wide grin and continued forward.

  Evan was certain that wouldn’t have worked if he’d tried, she was a dang skeleton key for this stuff. He walked toward the next guard, holding the tranquilizer close to his side.

  “Wait,” the woman guard said.

  Blink tensed up. “Keep going,” she whispered to Evan and Twitch. They didn’t hesitate, though she turned back. “Yeah?”

  “Don’t you have your own duty?”

  Evan couldn’t see what was happening, he didn’t turn back to check, he had to get to the other guard. Twitch hurried as well.

  “Uh,” Blink stuttered, “Yeah, right. I was just seeing them through. I’ll be heading there now.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be on the flight deck?”

  Evan’s scarpered as fast as he could without running, which still managed to draw the next guard’s attention, who readied his weapon intuitively.

  Blink coughed. “Yes… That’s… No. I was just borrowing this uniform.”

  “Borrowing?”

  Evan was only a body’s length from his target.

  “What’s the rush?” The male guard called out.

  “Get back!” Ordered the woman guard.

  The male guard socketed his rifle into his shoulder, but Twitch and Evan were on him before he could fire. Evan slotted the tranquilizer into the crook of the guy’s neck and pressed the trigger. The guy fell limp in a matter of seconds.

  Evan turned back. Blink grabbed the woman’s braid and yanked it full force, bringing her head against the catwalk’s railing with a clang. The guard collapsed.

  “Sorry. The braid was nice.” Blink jogged over to Evan and Twitch.

  There was no telling how many guards were exactly behind the security room door.

  The rebels readied themselves in front of it.

  Twitch flashed three fingers.

  “On three?” Evan asked.

  The twins nodded.

  “One.”

  “Two.”

  “Three!” Evan bust the door open and ran in with his friends.

  They skidded to a stop, faced with three pistols in the hands of three guards. The guns ignited. A swirl of light swept up Evan. Now he and Twitch were behind the guards. He shoved the tranquillizer into one, and then a second, but nothing happened on the third – he’d run dry. Fortunately, the trio of rebels were more than enough to overpower the last guard and choke him unconscious.

  Evan tossed the gun to the ground and listened for any change in the alarms that might indicate they’d given themselves away, but there was nothing different.

  “Maybe we are safe to use our powers at this point,” he conceded.

  No one responded, and then he realized why. Blink was no longer wearing the enforcer helmet – it’d been left behind at the door when she teleported. Her good hand was flickering. She gritted her teeth and breathed hard through her nose. Finally, the flickering stopped, and it seemed her hand was normal again.

  “Are you ok?” Evan asked.

  She sighed. “Yeah, I got it now.”

  He didn’t want to say it, but he could tell she was reaching her limit. They’d have to be careful not to put themselves in a situation where she needed to use her powers again, or else he feared she wouldn’t be able to stabilize herself.

  Evan made his way to the consoles. Dozens of screens showcased the enormity of the facility. Evan raised his wrist computer and activated Rowic’s A.I. The screens lit up with a virus program.

  “Hello?” some voice said over the system.

  “Rowic? Vihn?”

  “Is that you, Evan? You guys made it?” It sounded like Rowic.

  “Yes! We’re in one of the security rooms over the prison cell blocks. What should we do?”

  “Here, let me take care of a few things.”

  The screens flickered with data.

  “Alright! There’s a cell for someone named Kenneth Doleson!”

  Evan’s heart flipped, but he steadied himself because in every instance of good news, some ugly truth always followed.

  “But… he’s not there, look.”

  Yep, here came the ugly.

  The screen flashed to an empty cell.

  Evan clenched his teeth. “Then where is he?”

  “Uh, he might not be here… but someone else is.”

  “What?”

  The screen changed to another cell, a sight that dropped Evan’s mouth.

  Inside the cell…

  …was his father.