Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

All wars start silently, mine started with the death of a girl in my class named Sally Ferry, a girl whose classroom was three doors down from my classroom. She was the first to die in my eighth-grade class, though hundreds of thousands of kids were probably already dead. The adults hid it well enough that no one knew what was going on until Sally died in the middle of lunch.

The day she died, the entire sixth, seventh, and eighth grades were in the cafeteria eating lunch. The school's population was small to begin with, so we all had enough room to sit comfortably. As everyone talked and ate, I looked at Sally who was sitting and laughing at the end of the table when her eyes suddenly turned blank. The cup she held in her hand flew out of her hand. Instead of falling to the ground or the table like it should have done, it stopped half a foot off the table. It then twisted itself around, and Sally fell over onto the ground with a loud thud.

One of the ladies in charge of watching us during lunch, walked over concerned. Her blue eyes seemed to narrow on the girl. She walked with patience, but as soon as she touched Sally’s shoulder, she seemed to notice that she didn’t respond to the touch. She touched her neck, feeling for a pulse. She didn’t seem to find one, so she pulled Sally’s body off the chair, and started a futile attempt at CPR. 

The other lunch ladies noticed what she was doing, and some started moving kids away from their tables, while others walked to help her. I felt someone grab my arm, and when I looked up, I saw that Dylan was yanking at my arm. “Come on,” he said. I quickly stood up and followed him in a daze as he led me away from the table. 

One of the lunch ladies must have radioed the teachers, because they showed up long before they were supposed to show up to help direct us into classrooms. I walked in a daze the entire time, and barely recognized when Miss Hornton, my teacher, shoved a manila folder into my hands. I sat for maybe ten minutes in Miss Hornton’s classroom, before the bell rang, and Mrs Solace, the principal, rang through the announcement that all classes were being released to their parents' care. 

I blinked in surprise wondering why they would release us early before I remembered what happened. My entire body shook for a second, before I had enough courage to reach down and grab my backpack. I swung it over my shoulder and grabbed the manila folder off my desk. The manila folder looked like any other one, except it was stapled together and had my parents name on it. Max, a meek girl who I somewhat knew, walked up beside me. She gave me a small smile but didn’t say anything as we walked out of the classroom together. 

“Wonder what happened to Sally?” I asked. I had wanted to ask someone what had happened since it happened, but I had’t had the courage to do it since the adults seemed to be walking around the school on eggshells. 

“It's called IAAN, Idiopathic Something, it's been causing a lot of deaths recently,” Max said, and my jaw dropped. I looked at her shocked, because I had never heard of the disease or the fact that many had died. 

“How many kids have died?” I asked, fear growing in my stomach.

“Thousands apparently. My cousin lives in LA. If what he says is to be believed, his school started with three thousand kids, and only a hundred are left. It happened in a few weeks.”

“Dear god,” I said, and she nodded.

“No one has any idea what’s causing it, why some kids have died, and others haven’t," Max said and a loud grunt came from somewhere nearby. Max and I looked over at the noise, and we saw two of the older boys picking on one of the younger girls, Marie. She was one of the smallest kids in the entire school and was an easy target to be picked on. After a few seconds of us spotting them, both bullies were thrown against the nearby wall with a loud thunk, much to the surprise of everyone in the hallway.

Everyone stared at the kids in shock, and the girl being picked on glanced down at her hands before looking at the kids again. I heard Max grunt and when I glanced at her, she wiped her bloody nose. I looked at the boys again and wondered what the heck had just happened.

Before I could say anything, I heard my mom shout behind me, and when I turned, I saw she was approaching me fast. Her long red hair flowing around her face, and her long coat loosely thrown over her shoulders. “Bye Max, see you later,” I said, and she nodded. I turned to fully face my mother, and saw that her wrinkles seemed more deeply scratched into her face. I heard light footsteps walk away right as mom came to a stop in front of me. “Hey.”

“Hey,” mom said as well, and she looked at the manila folder in my hand. Her wrinkles only deepened, and she gulped. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Hornton gave it to me,” I said and handed it over to her. As soon as she grabbed it and opened it, her face blanched and I asked, “what’s wrong mom?”

“Nothing,” she lied and folded the manila folder. “Come on.” She grabbed my hand and led me away from the school and the dead body still inside. We walked to her black Honda, and she loaded me into the backseat, and threw the manila folder onto the hand rest between the driver and passenger seat. She jumped into the driver’s seat and put the car in drive. She pulled out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell.

&&& 

A month later, I was standing in my bedroom, looking at myself in the full-length mirror when I heard my mother start talking downstairs. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I could hear her harsh tone. Curiously, I set the dress that I was holding up down on the bed, and snuck out into the hallway, making sure to gently close the door behind me. The lights in the hallway were already off, so I didn’t have to worry about either suddenly seeing me. The top of the stairs could see into most of the living room, so even though I could see in, I sat down on the top of the stairs and could hear my parents talking clearly. 

“We need to keep her here,” mom insisted. 

“No, we don’t,” dad snapped back. “She can take her chances at school for the next week until we can move up to my sister's place.” 

“She’ll die of IAAN long before we can move up there. Most of the school is dead, and she’s showing signs on the packet that they sent home a month ago.” I remembered the packet that mom mentioned, as well as the cryptic message that Max had given me a month before. 

“She won’t get it,” I heard dad snap. I looked at the kitchen, which I could see from my position, and saw the drawer that mom had slid the manila folder into earlier above the fridge open. The manila folder slid out of the cabinet, flew out of the kitchen, and eventually made it into my hand. 

My jaw dropped, and I felt a pang of fear as I looked at the manila folder and saw that the staples had been removed. I looked for a second trying to figure out what to do. If I opened it, I could get in trouble, but if I didn’t, I wouldn’t know something my parents knew. 

I already have it, why not look through it? I’ll get in trouble either way, I thought and quickly opened the folder. Inside was a single piece of paper with the title reading, HOW TO IDENTIFY IF YOUR CHILD IS AT RISK. Five points were underneath it. 

1. Your child suddenly becomes sullen and withdrawn and/or loses interest in activities. 
2. S/he begins to have abnormal difficulty in concentrating or suddenly becomes hyper focused on tasks, resulting in s/he losing track of time and/or neglecting himself/herself or others. 
3. S/he experiences hallucinations, vomiting, chronic migraines, memory loss, and/or fainting spells. 
4. S/he becomes prone to violent outbursts, unusually reckless behavior, or self-injury (burns, bruising, and cuts that cannot be explained). 
5. S/he develops behaviors or abilities that are inexplicable, dangerous, or cause you or others physical harm. 

IF YOUR CHILD DEMONSTRATES ANY OF THE ABOVE SYMPTOMS, REGISTER HIM/HER AT IANN.GOV AND WAIT TO BE CONTRACTED ABOUT THE LOCAL HOSPITAL TO WHICH S/HE SHOULD BE TAKEN. 

I closed it quickly when I heard my mother step away from dad’s office. Panic set in, and without warning the paper caught on fire. I jumped, dropped it, and as soon as I realized what was happening, I stamped it out. As I looked at the half-burnt piece of paper, smoke in my nose, mom walked into the living room, and looked right at me. 

“Hey, Ava, are you still asleep?” mom called out, stress in her voice. I blinked in surprise. What’s going on? How come she isn’t seeing me? Acting quick, I called out. 

“Yeah, I’m up,” I answered, and I saw her small body sag in relief. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just checking on you. Are you planning anything for tomorrow?” 

“No, just hanging out,” I said. She cocked her head to the side, confused, because my body was in my bedroom, while my voice came from the hallway. 

“Okay,” she said and looked at the kitchen. Fearing that she would see the open cabinet, it somehow miraculously closed silently before she could notice it. What is going on? I thought as I walked quickly to my bedroom door, and opened it. I turned so that it would appear that I had just walked out of the room. “How about you go to bed?” 

“Okay,” I said and scooped up the manila folder as best as I could before I walked back into my bedroom, closing the door behind me. I wanted to clean up more of the mess in the hallway, but mom already knew that I was in my room, and she would be pacing around downstairs instead of coming upstairs. Besides she wouldn’t know what had happened unless she turned the light on, which was just as unlikely. 

I dumped the folder in the trash, and turned off the lights. I walked over to where I knew where my phone was plugged into the wall. I grabbed the phone, and pulled the charger out of it, before walking over to my bed and lying down. I pulled my sheets up and over me, before opening my phone to look at the death toll of IANN once again.

&&&

The next morning, after I walked up, got dressed, and started walking down the stairs, I could hear my mother talking. “I know, I’m just checking,” mom said to someone I couldn’t see. “Alright, thank you. I’ve been so scared of her for the last few days.” She paused again, before saying “thank you. I’ll see you later.” She hit a button, and I realized she had been talking on her phone. 

I was shocked. Mom had said she feared me, instead of for me, like she hadn’t said that she was scared I was going to die sometime soon. I shook my head, sure that I had misheard, and continued walking down the stairs to start breakfast. Mom seemed to recognize when I walked down the stairs, but she didn’t say anything as I grabbed a bowl, spoon, cheerios, and milk, 

I poured my cereal, and milk into the bowl, while mom walked around the house nervously. It wasn’t anything new, mom was a worrier, she always was. Even when I was young, she would worry. She had a lot going on in her younger years, so it made sense that she would be worried for me. IAAN made it a lot worse, instead of being somewhat laid back, she would constantly check on me, and always seemed to be right behind me.

It made sense that she wanted to take me out of school, but I was surprised that she hadn’t done it earlier. Dad was the opposite, he figured that I could do most things by myself, and whenever I needed help, I would only have to ask, and he would help me in the best way he could. 

As I looked down at the cereal in my bowl, I remembered the strange incident that happened last night. It was weird, but not as weird as some of the other things that happened, like how my arm had healed after I fell on the stairs the other day, or when my bedroom lights had suddenly gone out, or how I was suddenly doing better in school than I had ever done before. My grades had been fine at steady B’s and C’s, but over the last few weeks my grades had skyrocketed to solid A’s. 

When mom walked into the dining room, she gave me a strange look. She, and most of the town and school, had been shoving healthy food down everyone’s mouth’s the last few weeks. She shook her head and said “come on. Time for school and leave your bag here.” 

“What?” I asked, looking at the clock on the wall. School didn’t start for another thirty minutes, and the school was only three blocks away, and why would I never not take my book bag with me. 

“I don’t know, the school just said they don’t like having to keep sending book bags home every day,” mom snapped waving her hands in the air. My eyebrows raised, and my jaw dropped. Mom rarely snapped, especially at me. She dropped her right hand and pinched her nose with her left hand. “Sorry honey, I’m just worried.” 

“I know,” I said, and stood up to put my bowl in the sink. I could feel my mother’s sad eyes on my back, but I didn’t turn to look her in the face. Instead, I turned and walked out of the kitchen, and into the entryway. I heard mom’s light footsteps behind me and heard her grab her keys out of the bowl we keep on the kitchen counter. I opened the front door and walked out of my house. 

I walked down the three steps, and onto the driveway. My mother’s black Honda stood a few feet from the garage. I always wondered why she put it in the driveway, instead of cleaning out of the garage, but I didn’t argue with her about it. When Sally died, most of the parents had pulled their kids out of school. So many had dropped out, that the school didn’t keep the buses going anymore. Even if it was available, I doubt my mother would have let me ride it. 

I opened the passenger door and slid into the seat. I closed the door behind me and watched as mom walked out of the front door, and closed it behind her, her keys in her left hand. I looked at the driver seat, and wondered once again, would I live long enough to be able to drive? Or would I die like everyone else in my class. I was snapped out of that morbid chain of thought when my mom opened her door. 

She slid into her seat, and without thinking about it, shut the door, and slid her seat belt across her chest before putting the keys in their place, and turning the car on. Mom always slid the seat belt on before starting the car, because she claimed that she had once accidentally forgot to put it on and had gotten in a bad accident that made her head snap against the steering wheel. She turned out fine, but scared, nonetheless. 

Mom muttered something under her breath and put the car in reverse. She pulled out of the driveway with practiced ease, and as she pushed the car into drive, I looked up at the house, and wondered like every time I had left my house in the last month would I see it again or would this be the last time I saw it again. Mom slowly drove away from the house, and I wondered if she knew why I kept looking at the house like I was. 

I shook my head, and watched my suburban neighborhood pass me by. The school was only four blocks away from my house, but mom and I didn’t exchange a single word along the way, and she glanced away from the cemetery we had to pass on the way to the school. The commentary had run out of room a week after Sally died, since the elementary had also been hit, as well as the barest of the high school. So many had died already, that the crematorium was constantly running, and some kids were burned in large piers at a farmer’s house nearby. The conservative town had crumbled, and it was easy to see fear in the air. 

As mom pulled into the drop off lane of the school, I saw more cars than usual in the parking lot, and a bus parked in the bus lane. It was a normal bus, but it was strange to see one in the bus lane. As the car pulled to a stop behind the other cars, she turned to look at me. “You know whatever happens, I love you right?” mom said fear in her eyes. 

“I know,” I said, and tried a smile, though it didn’t reach my eyes. “I’ll see you later, hopefully.” She gave a somewhat brief smile, before nodding. I grabbed the unlock button on the door and unlocked it. I pushed the door open and jumped out of the passenger seat. I slammed the door shut again and looked towards the other cars. Kids poured out of them and looked around just as sad as I felt. I saw Marie Bentham jump out of her car and was confused. Marie was eight and was supposed to be in the elementary across the street. 

Her class had been hit hard, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t the only kid in her entire class. Her mother called goodbye, and I silently judged her for dropping her kid off at the middle school. Most of the third, fourth and fifth grade were already dead, and she thought it was a good idea to send her young kid into a disease-ridden school? I shook my head and didn’t say anything. 

“Come on Marie,” I heard Mrs. Solace yelled, and waved her hand at the front door. I shook my head and walked inside. Kids who showed up before the first period had to stay in the cafeteria, which stood to the right of the door. Though I had been in the school hundreds of times, and wasn’t expecting anything, I saw a few men dressed in military skivvies standing by the library, which stood next to the cafeteria. They were looking at the kids with harsh looks, and I felt a tang of fear shoot through me. 

I shook off the harsh looks and walked into the cafeteria. Most of the time we naturally secluded ourselves from the other grades, so as I passed through the doors, I looked around for the eighth graders. The four other eight graders who went to the school right now, were gathered at one of the tables closest to the door.

I walked without question to the table, noticing that some of the ninth graders, as well as the few fourth and fifth graders were sitting at different tables. I looked back at the eighth-grader table. There were two girls, and two boys. Mark and Jack were twin brothers who had unfortunately transferred in three days before Sally died from their school in Wisconsin. They were somewhat handsome with their blond hair and blue eyes, but there was nothing special about them. 

Mirable, Delta and I were somewhat friends, and we only really talked whenever no one else was around. We had somewhat gotten closer over the past few weeks, but they were slowly retreating into themselves. I was one of the luckier kids in the school, if you could call it that. At least I didn’t have to watch my siblings, or cousins, die. 

Mirable lost her two brothers, and a sister, but her younger sister, Charlotte, was still alive. I looked over my shoulder and saw Charlotte sitting with the other sixth graders. She and Mirable looked eerily similar, with their bright red hair and sharp blue eyes. Though they seemed to be completely different people. 

Delta had long blond hair that went down to her waist, and skin that reminded me of honey. I didn’t talk with her much, but I did know that her five sisters were dead. Before they died, she was sharp wit and an even bigger laugh, after though, it seemed like she was barely there in the head. She no longer smiled, and barely responded to anyone. 

“Hi,” I said as kind as I could to Delta. I sat down to her right. Mirable was on her left, and the twins sat across from us. There were several plates of buns and berries on the table in front of us. Which a month ago would have been strange to see. 

“Hey,” Delta said, sounding in the mood to talk. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” I said. “I heard a strange call from my mother this morning, saying she was scared of me.” Her interest seemed slightly peaked. I knew it would catch her interest immediately, so she turned to talk to me better. 

"I don’t think she's afraid for you," Delta said.

"No, she said she was afraid of me," I said, and she gave me a weird look.

“I heard the same phone call from my mom last night now that you mention it,” Delta said, and I saw the other three look at me with the same look. I looked over my shoulder and saw some of the military men had walked into the cafeteria. They slowly walked around the outside of the tables. Kids at the other tables recognized the people but didn’t recognize the problem. 

“What is going on?” Delta asked, snapping out of her thoughts. She looked at the men suspiciously, and I wanted to as well, but I was more curious than suspicious now. 

“I have no idea,” Mirable muttered, and started pushing her food across her plate. I looked at her, and saw her depressed face looked up briefly concerned at the men, before she looked back down at the plate again. 

I shook my head and grabbed one of the buns that was near me. As I slowly started pulling it apart, more people walked into the room. Most were kids, but some were adults. I looked towards the front of the cafeteria. The cafeteria had several windows by the entry door, so I could see into the front entryway. Mrs. Solace was talking with a woman dressed in all black clothing. Even her gloves and boots were black. The led PSF’s were written in white on the top of her arm. An American flag was underneath it as well as the psi letter. I nudged Delta’s ribs, and I could feel her eyes on me. I pointed at the woman and heard the other three turn to see her as well. 

“Now it's getting weird,” I said.

“Yeah,” I heard Mirable say. “Ignore it for now.” I shook my head, trying to get the people out of my mind, but I couldn’t really shake it. My thoughts turned to my mother’s suspicious behavior. How she was acting worried last night, then telling me how much she loved me, when she didn’t usually do it when she dropped me off. 

Large footsteps forced me to look up again. A man dressed in the same black clothes as the woman outside walked into the room. He was different from her because he was wearing a large gun across his chest. He didn’t say anything, instead he walked over to Marie. I heard footsteps behind me and saw a man in military skivvies walk up behind us. 

“Stand up please,” the man ordered in a harsh tone. I looked at Delta, who gave me an equally suspicious look. “Now.” I slowly started standing up, while the others did the same. I looked around the room and saw that someone had approached the others and they were standing up slowly as well. Everyone seemed just as confused as I was. 

Delta was moving slower than everyone else, and the man must’ve liked her moving so slowly because he grabbed her arm and yanked her off her seat. Delta turned at him pissed, his arm was yanked off without warning, and he was sent into the wall with a thud. “Blue,” a man yelled from behind me. I looked at my shoulder towards the man who was holding Marie. His eyes were wide open with fear. 

“What just happened?” one of the men asked, pointing toward his comrade in fear. I looked at Delta confused, and she jutted out her chin at the man. The table in front of him, where the two fourth graders had been a second ago, was flown into his chest. He landed on his back, and I could hear the crack of his skull as he landed. 

I swung my head around confused and saw the man with the gun pick his gun up and shoot it into the ceiling. I covered my ears a second to late and could hear the shot and the resounding screams from everyone around me. 

“Line up right here,” the man ordered, pointing toward the floor right in front of him. I quickly scrambled from behind the table and into the space in front of the man. Mirable finding her way in front of me, and Delta behind me. The rest of the cafeteria fell in line behind us. “Alright now, I want you all to calmly follow me onto the bus outside. If any of you try to run, we will shoot you. Understand?” No one said anything, too afraid to say anything. “Understand?” I nodded quickly, and Mirable did the same. “Good.” 

The man turned around and started walking forward. Mirable started walking after him, and I followed right behind him to not get behind. We walked out of the cafeteria with the other men following behind us. I looked slightly behind me and saw Ms. Solace staring after us. Several other teachers had joined her and were staring at us. They seemed to have known that we were going to be taken, but seemed surprised that there was going to be this big of a response. What’s going on, and what happened just now with Delta? Is she like me?

Since one of the men had shot a bullet into the ceiling, I figured it would be to stupid to ask any questions. The man led us toward the front door and shoved it open. Not holding it open for Mirable, who had to reach out her arms to catch the door before it hit her in the face. She was nice enough to hold it open long enough for me to grab it. I grabbed the door and held it open for Delta. 

She grabbed it, and I walked behind Mirable. I heard the door finally close a minute after I walked through. The bus that had been in the bus lane had been pulled into the drop off lane. Two more men dressed in military clothing were by the bus. One by the door, the other at the end of the bus. 

We walked the short distance to the bus, and the man stepped aside to let us onto the bus. Mirable hesitated for a second, and the man raised his gun in her direction. She lunged forward onto the bus with me following close behind her. “Sit in seat three,” the driver ordered Mirable. She quickly followed the order and sat down. I sat down next to her, and watched as everyone passed me. All the others were terrified, and when she passed, I saw tears streaming down Marie’s face. I longed to reach out and hug her, to tell her that none of this was her fault but knew that the men had a trigger finger.

As Marie passed, I turned slightly in my seat, and saw her sit in the back of the bus. In total, there were sixteen of us all crowded in that small bus. I looked out of the window and saw the man and woman standing a few feet from the bus talking quietly with Mrs Solace. She seemed mad about something but seemed to be trying to keep her calm. I took a calming breath and looked down the aisle towards the back door. The bus driver doesn’t have a gun, I could make a run for it, I thought. 

“I wouldn’t try it kid,” the bus driver snapped, and I swung around to face the front of the bus again. The man was looking at me with fury in his eyes. The fat under his chin bobbled for a second, and he stared at me as the man and woman walked onto the bus. They both seemed to notice the drivers staring. The man walked past me, and walked down the aisle where I could hear him turn and sit down in one of the back seats. The woman sat down in the seat diagonally from me. 

“You can go Bob,” the woman said to the driver. He gave a deft nod and pulled the door close. He pulled a lever and hit the accelerator. No one said anything as he slowly made his way around the bend of the parking lot. As he turned onto the street, the woman turned to us with a glare in her eye. 

“If any of you freaks try anything we will shoot you,” the woman said with a sneer. She looked over at me dead in the eye, and I reeled back in my seat. The woman lumbered off her seat, and stood in the aisle, keeping her eyes on me the entire time. “I need your hands.”

I quickly did as she asked and handed her my hands. She reached into her right back pocket and pulled out a zip tie. She didn’t waste any time wrapping it around my wrists and she pulled it so right I was worried she might cut off my circulation. 

She reached back again and grabbed another zip tie. She leaned over and grabbed Mirable’s wrists, which she was holding in front of her. The woman wrapped it around her wrists and seemed to find pleasure when Mirable grunted at the sudden pain. As she pulled back, I looked out the window. I heard the woman turn to Delta and heard her put a zip tie around her wrist. 

I watched as I passed through my hometown for possibly the last time. People were walking down the street, and some stopped to stare as the bus passed. I looked up at the mirror above the drivers head and saw them still staring long after we passed. I wanted to wave to them, but at the same time knew I couldn’t do it. Rage filled me. Rage at my father, my mother, any adult really, for having to put us through what they had done. I knew that they were afraid, but could have at least sixteen parents willingly handed their kids over to the military? 

Shouldn’t they have protected us from whatever danger was headed our way? I heard a thunk and swung my head around. The woman was now sitting in her old seat. She let out a sigh of relief. What could have gone so wrong that she only found relief in binding kid’s hands together with zip ties? I was too afraid to ask any questions.

We drove thirty minutes from Wichita to Newton which I recognized from a few trips that my dad and I had done when I was younger, before he got caught up in work. We drove through the town, and two miles out, the driver swung the bus wide and turned us into the parking lot of a small two-story brick warehouse. 

Are they going to kill us here? Wait, they had two hours to do it already, if they wanted us dead, they would have done it by now, I thought as Bob pulled the bus to a stop by the stairs of the unloading docks. “Come on,” the woman, who I had nicknamed Snaggletooth, said to me. I gulped and quickly stood up as fast as I could. 

“When you get inside, walk directly to the group of kids and sit down on the edge of the group,” Snaggletooth ordered. I nodded and quickly walked off the bus, going slower than normal because of the situation with my arms. My feet hit the gravel, and I started quickly toward the stone stairs. I took them one at a time and walked into the door. 

As my eyes adjusted, I saw rust on the walls, and smelled skunk in the air. The group of kids Snaggletooth had mentioned was gathered by the door, surrounded by PSFs and tall spotlights. I looked at the nearest PSF, who waved her gun in the direction of the thirty kids. I nodded in understanding and walked toward the group. As Snaggletooth ordered, I sat down at the edge of the group with everyone else sitting down as well. 

Snaggletooth and her buddy walked into the warehouse behind us and joined their friends at the edge of the group. Both seemed happy to have reassurances in their comrades. I could see them smile and start talking excitedly as they walked around the room. 

In the distance, I could hear another bus pull up and stop. All the PSF’s turned their heads in the direction of the door, and I had an opportunity to look at the other prisoners. All were around twelve years old, though there were differences between some of the ages. It seemed like eight- to fourteen-year-olds were in the growing circle. Footsteps approached, and I turned to see more kids walk into the room. There were about fifteen in the group. Two girls in the back had their mouths closed by muzzles. As they walked into view, I saw the PSF’s look at them in disgust. 

Marie, who had sat down beside me, seemed to have finally broken, and she started crying. Absolutely heartbreaking sobs, and I gave a brief look around the room. None of the adults seemed to want to confront her, and I saw Snaggletooth grab her gun. I grabbed her arm and pulled her into my lap as best as I could. “Don’t let them see you are afraid of them, it’ll only give them more power,” I whispered, and she nodded. Slowly she stopped crying, and I could see Snaggletooth pull her hand off her gun. 

She looked at me despised, before walking around the circle. The girl had finally dissolved into sniffles, and I sent a look at Mirable, who was wearing a pissed off look. I shook my head and looked down at Marie again. Within a few minutes, I heard another bus pull up in the distance. Instead of more kids walking into the room, two of the PSF’s walked into the circle, and started yanking kids off the ground one at a time. The two men then would shove them into a small line. When the line reached ten kids, two different PSF’s would lead the group towards the door. 

When one of the women, a stocky Hispanic woman, walked up to me, she snapped and with the click of her fingers ordered “up, both of you. And let each other go.” I glared at her, but slowly let Marie out of my arms. I stood up as quickly as I could, pulling Marie up as I went. I grabbed her left hand pulling her behind me I joined the line of other kids. She was about to say something about it, when another PSF shouted from the other side of the circle shouted, “let them hold hands, it’s less likely they’ll try to run.” She glared back at the voice but said nothing. She turned back to the group and pulled more kids up. 

I looked down at Marie, and tried to reassure her as best as I could without saying a word. She looked up at me scared. I heard shuffling feet behind me, and within a few seconds a PSF stepped in front of us, and I heard one walk behind the line. “Move,” the PSF in front of us ordered. He stepped forward, and we followed close behind him. 

We followed him out of the building, and as I walked through the door, the light blinded me. I dropped my head and looked at the gravel as I shuffled along. When my eyes finally caught up with the light, I looked up. A normal school bus was standing a few feet away from the bottom of the stairs. Kids were already sitting in the back of the bus. The back seats were filled with kids who I didn’t recognize. While the ones in front of them were from the last group of kids who had shown up. 

The last group was slowly being shoved onto the bus, and the PSF in front of us led us to the steps and had us join the line of kids. He stepped aside, and I saw him slowly slink back into the building. I looked back at the bus and saw the few kids in front of me had walked onto the bus. I quickly scrambled up the few steps, and I heard Marie’s small footsteps behind me. The bus driver sent me a disapproving look at me, and I looked down at his hip, where a gun sat. 

“Keep moving,” the man snapped, and I moved as quickly as I could down the aisle of the bus. There was a PSF halfway down the bus, and she pointed at the seat she was next to. The girl in front of me slid into the seat. I sat down and pulled Marie into my lap. The PSF looked down at me, mouth slightly agape. She looked at the next group of kids, and she shook her head. She walked up to the next seat and started putting the kids in the next two seats. 

It took maybe twenty minutes to fill the rest of the seats on the bus. I counted each kid as they walked onto the bus. There were sixty-seven of us, shoved onto the bus. The entire time I was wondering, where are we going? Why would the government want us? Is there something wrong with us? Does this have to do with what happened last night, or what happened with Delta this morning? 

As the last of the kids sat down, the bus driver pulled the door closed. I looked up and down the bus and saw four PSF’s standing in the bus waving the guns around at the kids. The PSF in the front walked forward and muttered something in the ear of the driver. The driver nodded and the PSF stepped back to stand with the kids. The driver put the bus in drive. The gate opened, and the driver pulled through it. 

He turned onto I-35 towards Nebraska. Okay, where are we going now? I looked over my shoulder and looked at the PSF who stood slightly behind me. There was a mask of terror on her face, as well as one of boredom. Clearly, she was not expecting anything to happen on this trip. I turned to face the back of the seat in front of me. I leaned back into my chair, preparing myself for the long journey to wherever these people were taking me. 

We drove for hours, and I recognized signs as we drove out of Kansas and into Nebraska. My family had been to Nebraska a few times, so I recognized certain landmarks. No one spoke as we drove along, everyone feared the men and women with guns to do anything, even though most of us hadn’t eaten or drunk anything for the day. 

Hours later, the PSF’s stood at attention, and their hands seemed to grip their guns harder. Their eyes wandered the bus even more than before, and I could practically feel their anger and fear. We must be close, I thought as something appeared in the distance. 

It was towards our left, and I had to look over the kids in the seat across from mine to it. An eight-foot-tall metal fence with barbed wire on top of it appeared out the window. Multiple buildings sat behind the barbed wire fence. My mouth dropped as I took in the camp. 

There were four buildings gathered a few hundred meters from the main gate that we were approaching. Smaller wooden buildings surrounded the larger ones. They seemed to be cabins, but I couldn’t tell from a distance. The bus took a long swing and pulled in front of the gate. 

A man in the small building next to the gate hit a button, and the gate slowly rolled open. As soon as there was enough room, the driver pulled the bus through the gate, and drove a few hundred feet into the camp. It stopped fifty feet from the door of the closest building. 

There was a two-story building to our right, and a one-story building on the left. The two buildings were not next to one another, and the one-story building was much closer to the three-story building at the end of the street. Over the one-story building, I could see a two-story building. The four buildings were made from brick, while the smaller ones looked like they were made from some stone that could resemble wood in the distance. 

PSF’s who had been leaning against the building closest to us, straightened as we came to a stop, and with practiced ease towards the bus. They quickly surrounded it, and after a few seconds, the driver opened the door. A tall man walked onto the bus and came to a stop by the driver. He was easily six feet tall, and his spikey brown hair barely brushed against the ceiling of the bus. The stark white skin of his face stuck out against the black PSF uniform he was wearing. There was a thin white scar above his eyebrow. He gave us a look of sympathy before he grabbed the microphone from the driver and put it to his mouth. 

“Do not try to run. Do not do anything unless specifically asked of you. Do everything that is asked of you without question. I’ll need you to get off the bus slowly and line up in lines of eight,” the man said, and he handed the microphone back to the driver. He nodded at one of the PSFs, who started directing the kids off the bus.

The process was extremely slow because everyone was tired from sitting all day and not being able to move their hands. When it was my turn to stand up, I quickly moved Marie off my lap and into the aisle. I stood up behind her, and we slowly walked down the aisle. The girl who had been sitting next to me stood up as well and followed behind me. 

I walked down the aisle and turned right. I walked down the steps of the bus. The PSF who was standing next to the door pointed at the line that I needed to go. I followed right behind Marie and joined a line of five other kids. I didn’t hear the footsteps of the girl who was behind me, so I looked over my shoulder to see that the girl had jumped off the bus, but instead of heading behind me, she was trying to walk in the direction of the gate. 

“Hey,” the PSF next to the door snapped, reaching her arm out to prevent the girl from going any further. The girl stepped aside to walk around the arm, but the PSF caught her hair before she could walk any further. The girl screamed at the sudden contact, and reached up to try and grab something that could be used against the woman. She struggled for a second before catching the wrist of the woman.

A deep groan came out of the woman’s mouth, and her skin paled. Her eyes popped out of her head, and salvia started to pool out of her mouth. The woman doubled over, before dropping onto her knees. The girl didn’t let the woman go, even as she dropped onto the ground. Her eyes seemed to roll into the back of her head. 

The girl finally released the woman’s hand, and the PSF’s seemed to have finally noticed what was going on. I heard shuffling behind me and saw a PSF bolt in the direction of the girl. She noticed the man running towards her, and she tried to run, but the man was larger and faster than her, so he easily caught up to her and forced her onto the ground. He yanked the girl off the ground and carried her back into the line. He dropped her down behind me, though he didn’t let her go. 

One of the other PSF’s walked towards the first kid in line and grabbed the first two kids in line. She yanked them forward towards the two-story building and started walking towards the door. The others started following behind her, and I could hear the men and girl walk behind me. What can she do? Is she like Delta and I, or is she different?

I looked to my left and looked around the bus. There were two cabins on the other side of the bus. Kids dressed in orange outfits were walking toward the one-story building. They were handcuffed, and so were their feet. They were cuffed to the kids in front of them and the one’s behind them. Their mouths were bound with muzzles. 

What can they do, and if they’re so dangerous why would they be letting them near the bus? I looked at the handcuffs again and realized that they wouldn’t be able to get out of formation easily, and if they did, they would trip the rest of the group, and they couldn’t move as a group because they would trip up. 

I turned back towards the front of the group when I heard a door open in front of me. The PSF who had been by the door had opened it for the woman who had finally reached the door of the two-story building. The woman yanked the kids behind her and yanked them inside after her. The rest of the line followed in after her, and as I walked through the door, I saw a sign with the word Infirmary written in blue ink hung up on the door. My eyes took a second to catch up with the lights inside the building. In front of me stood rows and rows of cages with a bed inside each of them. There was a staircase to my immediate left, and right. The man behind me shoved me towards the staircase on the left. 

I grunted, and walked up the stairs as quickly as I could, and when I topped the staircase and looked down the hallway, I saw seven doors on the left and three on the right. The door on my left had the number one on it, and the one next to it had a two on it. The kids who had been in the line before me were being led out of the rooms, with a different uniform on, ranging from red to purple. 

They were led away out of the offices, and down toward the end of the hallway. They were led down a small hallway, between the two rooms next to me. As soon as kids were past the door, the PSF in the front of the line would drag the kids out of the line and shove them into the waiting arms of a nurse who would take the kids into the office.

Eventually all the kids in front of me were taken into an office, and the woman came back for me. As soon as she touched me and dragged me away from the man and girl behind me, I heard the man start pulling the girl toward an empty office. The woman dragged me down the hallway, and opened the door of office eight, which was at the end of the hallway. 

She opened the door and shoved me inside. I caught myself and looked around the office. It looked like a doctor's office with white walls, and a certain disinfection about it. There was a small bed next to the door with an x-ray machine above it. A few feet away from the head of it was a standing desk with a computer on it. A six-foot white man stood behind the computer. He had small glasses covering his brown eyes and had a white coat over his shoulders. There was a small poster on it, I didn’t have time to look at it before the doctor started talking. 

“Lay down on the bed,” the doctor said in a gravelly voice. I nodded and quickly laid down. The bed underneath me was uncomfortable and the ac started as soon as my head hit the attached pillow, which made me shiver uncomfortably. 

"What's your name?" the doctor asked in a dry tone. 

“Ava McBrian,” I said, and he typed something on his computer. As he continued typing, the X-ray machine started up. "Is this a hospital?" I asked, looking around the room.

“No," the man said in a harsh tone. 

I looked around the room again and looked at the poster which was next to the door. On it was a triangle with eight different sections on it. The smallest one at the top was black with the largest on the bottom was green. There were words in each section. On the bottom was green, intelligence. Blue; telekinesis. Yellow, electrokinetic. Purple; arborkinesis. Red; pyrokinesis. Silver, healing, and disease. Orange; telepathy. Black; combined forces. 

I gasped and felt my stomach drop. Most of the powers I knew off the top of my head like telekinesis and electrokinesis, but after a few seconds, I remembered that arborkinesis meant plant growth. Gulping, I realized I had shown two different powers last night, blue and red. Though it could be proven that I could do orange if mom’s reaction last night was not an act. 

“You don’t have to worry about being above the purple line,” the man said. “Our studies have shown that reds and above are very rare.” Yeah, I thought that's not going to work. “There have only been three blacks ever recorded and none here.” Right as he finished talking the computer beeped. The man's eyes widened, and I knew that he knew what I was. As the beeping grew louder, he said “it’s okay, we can fix this.”

“What?” I asked him and he brought up the black can. I sat up and as he walked closer, I grabbed his arm. His eyes became cloudy and without thinking I said, “You're wrong, I'm blue.” He nodded slowly and walked back toward his computer. He switched off the noise and typed something on his computer.

"You're a blue," he said, and he hit a button on his computer. A second later, a woman dressed in scrubs walked into the room carrying a set of blue clothes. 

“You’re going to need to change in here,” the woman ordered. I nodded and sat up. I grabbed the clothes and realized that the man wasn’t going to turn around as I changed. I held up my hands, and she saw that my hands were still bound by the zip tie. She sighed and grabbed a set of scissors from off the desk. She walked up to me, stuck the scissors between my wrists and started gnawing the zip ties open. It took a second before the zip tie was off my wrists. 

I rubbed my hands as I slowly started walking back towards the bed. I grabbed the clothes and started changing into the clothes. Humiliated, I stripped and changed into the clothes. When I was done, I turned around and handed the clothes to the woman. She handed me the other set of clothes before grabbing my arm. She pulled me behind her towards the door, which she opened and forced me past her into the hallway. 

She ended up shoving me into a PSF who was standing right outside the door. He looked down at me surprised. After a second, he grabbed my arm and started pulling me down the hallway. I looked down and saw that he was also holding onto Marie. Her zip ties were off, and she was wearing a blue uniform. At least she’s safe, I thought as the man pulled us into the side hallway. 

There were several doors in the hallway, and it was wide enough for several people to stand shoulder to shoulder together. Several different colors were standing in the hallway, segregated by color and gender, and each color seemed to be treated differently by the PSF’s. Yellows, silvers, and reds had their hands covered by rubber gloves, and handcuffs, while oranges were the same way, except they were wearing muzzles. Purples, greens, and blues didn’t have to wear anything extra. 

The PSF next led me to the line of blue girls, which consisted of Mirable, Delta, and two girls I didn’t recognize. She shoved us into the end of the line before she walked away again. I looked down at Marie and grabbed her hand. She held onto me, as we watched the rest of the kids go into the offices and come back with a uniform on. They would then have to join us. 

When the last kid had joined us, it seemed like the doctor was right, above purple were rare with only two oranges, and fifteen greens. It was slow getting out of the hallway, as they led each color out individually. My line was the third to last to leave, followed by the guys. The PSF in front of the line led us down the stairs that were to the right of the stairs. 

She led us out of the infirmary, and onto the gravel road. The rest of the camp seemed to be alive as I stepped onto the gravel road. Some of the kids were walking out of the dining hall, while others seemed to be walking out from behind the three-story building in front of me towards the right of the infirmary. The PSF in front of us led us around the infirmary, and I saw four rows of buildings surrounded by barbed wire. It seemed like it was where the kids dressed in green outfits were headed as well. 

The distance from the infirmary towards the smaller buildings were about two hundred feet, so it didn’t take long for us to walk to the small gate. As we walked up to it, I looked to my right and saw that there several smaller buildings stood on the other side of the infirmary. I looked back in front of me, and barely stopped myself from running into Marie as the line came to a stop in front of the gate. 

I heard the rustling of keys and saw the PSF’s right hand moving something along the gate. After a second the gate swung open, and the PSF stepped forward. She turned around keeping her left hand on the gate. She waved us in, and everyone stepped into the gated area. When the girl behind me stepped through behind me, the woman slammed the gate closed behind her. 

She walked around the group and walked back to the front of the line again. She waved her hand in a follow me motion, and the girl in front of her stepped forward. We all followed behind her, and walked toward the last street which we took a left onto. She led us down the street and stopped in front of cabin forty-nine, which was on the right side of the road and third down from the gate. It had a security camera above the door, and forty-nine on the door. Two cabins stood to our right, while two others stood next to ours. 

The PSF walked up to the door and pulled out the key. She put the key in the door handle, and turned the key to the left, and pushed the door open. She walked into the cabin, and the girl behind her stepped into the cabin. The rest of the line followed close behind her, and as I walked into the cabin, I saw that there were fifteen beds in the room. Seven on the right, seven on the left, and one pushed against the far wall. The beds were pushed long way on the wall so that the middle was open. 

Ten girls were already in the cabin, sitting on the beds on the right side of the cabin. They looked down at us with wide eyes, but I could also see pity in their eyes as well. The PSF in the cabin was showing the girls in front of me their beds, and I waited my turn for her to show me mine, which ended up being the bottom bed of the seventh bed of the cabin. 

As I sat down, and looked around me, I saw a security camera sitting atop the door pointed towards us. So much for security, I thought bitterly as the two women were walking out of the cabin. I leaned back against my bed as the door slammed close behind the women. 

I wanted to sit up and talk with someone, but I couldn’t compel myself because of the long day I had just gone through. I laid down on my side and saw the feet of the girl who was on the bed next to me. Marie moved a little on the top bed, and I could hear Mirable’s breathing from the bed next to me.

I wanted to sleep, and I also wanted to cry into the poorly made pillowcase. I heard Marie start sniffing in the bed above mine, but I couldn’t make myself want to crawl out of the bed to confront her. I knew that I should probably do it, but I was too afraid to do anything. She also needed to cry it out of her, and probably wouldn’t want to be touched. 

I didn’t say a word, even when the ten girls who had been here when we showed up started talking, most of the other girls didn’t want to either it seemed, and the ten girls started talking amongst themselves about something I didn’t bother to listen to. When the lights in the cabin finally turned off, I felt myself finally fall into the land of sleep. 

Chapter Text

The next morning, a loud alarm clock woke me up from my slumber. I sprung up, surprised, and looked around. The girls who had shown up with me moved around in the same fashion, looking around scared. The ten girls who were in the other corner jumped out of their beds without a care in the world, as if they had done this repeatedly in the last few weeks. 

Without a word they started changing into their second pair of clothes, which were much dirtier than the ones that they had worn to bed. They sent repeated looks at us as if trying to convey something. After a few seconds of us staring at them, one of the girls finally said, “get up, get dressed, and make your beds. You can borrow one of our ponytails until they decide to give you one.” 

None of us moved and one of the other girls snapped. “Move it now,” she said, pissed. “If your late when they come in, then they won’t give you enough food to survive.” Her words quickly panicked me, and I scrambled out of bed. I looked around for my second set of clothes and saw that they were no longer sitting on my bed and had fallen to my bed. Clearly having fallen off from where they had been sitting on my bed. I winced and bent to pick them up. I looked at my bed and sighed. I would have to move the clothes again to make my bed so instead of grabbing my clothes I started pulling my sheets to the top of my bed. I quickly tucked it into the corners and made it as best as I could. When I was done, I finally bent down and grabbed the clothes off the floor. 

“What are some of the rules?” I asked, looking in the direction of the front of the cabin. 

“You can talk in the cabin,” a red headed ten-year-old said from the front of the cabin. “But you can’t talk anywhere else in the camp. Sometimes we talk in the mornings, but we usually don’t have time to talk. We usually try to talk, but we work long hours in the warehouse, so we don’t usually have energy to talk.”

“The PSF’s don’t like being annoyed, so don’t say anything, and don’t try to annoy them ever,” another girl said. “They will get mad and try to eat as much as you can. I know the foods disgusting, but it's better than eating nothing.” 

I gave a sharp nod and finished pulling my shirt over my head. Marie slid off her bed and hopped onto the ground. She reached up and grabbed her clothes off her bed. I looked away as she started to change. I looked at the camera, interested, and saw that the little red circle in the camera part was on. One of the girls must have noticed me looking at it, because she said, “they watch us all the time. Have mostly okay audio, I think. Also, one thing to do, never, ever use your powers, the camp controllers hate it when you do.” 

I gulped and looked down at my hands. I didn’t want to look at anyone and I could practically feel their eyes on me. Fear spread through me, fear at being caught, and what would happen if I was eventually caught. I knew deep down that if I kept my head down, and didn’t cause problems, that I wouldn’t be caught, but an accident could happen, and people could get hurt. 

I was brought out of my thoughts by the rustling of footsteps. I looked up, and saw the girls were starting to line up at the door. The red-haired girl looked back at us, and said “line up according to your numbers.” I looked at Mirable confused, before we walked together to stand in the line. Mirable in front of me, Marie beside me, and Delta in front of her. Two girls lined up behind me. 

It wasn’t a minute later, when the door opened, letting in sunlight, and a somewhat cool breeze into the cabin. Two PSF’s dressed in colder gear than the ones who brought us in yesterday walked into the cabin. The one on the right, a tall white woman with brunette hair, walked down the line to line up behind the two girls behind us. The woman in front stepped in front of the line, and walked forward, the two girls behind her started following a few steps behind her.

I eventually started moving forward with the line and walked the few steps out of the cabin. The woman had turned right when she had walked out of the cabin. She had lined up the kids next to the front of the cabin and waited for us to finally walk out of the cabin. When we all finally stopped, the woman behind me turned and I heard the door swing close and the jingle of keys as the woman closed and locked the door. Her footsteps behind me moved the woman in front of the line to move forward. She stepped a few steps and walked to the cabin two doors down, as she opened the door, I looked at her curiously. When she opened the door and stepped aside the girls in front without a word. 

As I walked into the building, I saw that it was a bathroom with three sinks on the wall to the left. There were multiple stalls on the wall, and the girls in front immediately started walking into some of them. Taking a chance, I opened a door, and a low toilet in the stall. I quickly went in, happy to finally have a toilet. The toilet paper was terrible, but I was honestly not expecting any considering the somewhat poor state of our uniforms. As I walked out of the stall, and towards the sink, I saw that there weren’t any mirrors above them. There was soap at least, which was something like you could find in a poor hotel. 

I quickly washed my hands, and noticed the girls were starting to line up again. I quickly turned off the water, and shook my hands off, before lining up again before the PSF’s could get mad at me. Everyone else followed closely behind me, and when we were all perfectly lined up, the PSF’s lined up again. 

We walked silently out of the cabin and waited for the woman behind me to close the door behind us. We walked silently down the road, and passed cabin forty-eight, who were headed towards the bathroom. They were in terrible shape, even though they hadn’t been here for very long probably. Their clothes and shoes looked fine, but their eyes were sunk in, and they looked like they no longer wanted to be alive. 

I only saw them for a few seconds before we were shoved forward towards the gate. As we came to a stop, I saw that the camp didn’t look better in the light. Looking around I saw that the other colors were walking out of their cabins slowly. I could see the silvers and reds were walking out of the cabins near the three-story building. 

The greens and yellows were in the garden, pulling weeds and carrying baskets of what looked like tomatoes. There were ten or so cabins standing behind the tower, but as I watched several PSF’s and what looked like a doctor walk out of the gated area, and not any kids. 

I heard the gate open, and looked forward so that I could move as soon as the others started walking out. After I walked out of the gate, I heard it snap close, but we didn’t have enough time for the PSF to close it behind us. It didn’t matter since the gate opened again, and footsteps passed through the gate. 

I wanted to swing around and look but wasn’t brave enough to do it. Instead, I kept my eyes on Mirable’s head as we walked the short distance to the one-story building across the street from the infirmary. There didn’t seem to be any security system on the door since we were able to waltz right through the door and into the building. 

As I walked through the door, I immediately saw eighteen long tables in the room, all of which could easily hold a cabin or two. There was still plenty of room, but when the camp started to become fuller, it would probably change. The oranges, reds, and silvers were sitting on the tables in the middle of the dining room. Where they could easily be seen by the PSF’s who were walking up and down the aisle of the seat with their hands on their large guns. The oranges had their muzzles off, but they were attached to their right arms so they couldn’t be thrown. 

They still had their handcuffs on, I wasn’t expecting them to be removed, and the ones who had been here a while looked like they were used to having to eat with their hands bound. I looked over their heads and saw that there was a small kitchen in the back of the building, and I could see through the window between the two rooms, multiple kids dressed in green scrubs were walking around and doing basic tasks that didn’t require a knife. 

The woman led us forward to the window and had us line up against the wall. The first girl in line picked up a tray of food from a kid I recognized from the bus I was brought in yesterday. His green uniform was probably too large, and hung on his skinny shoulders, making him look even smaller than the grown adults around him. He easily handed food out to the kids, though it seemed like he hadn’t fully gotten the hang of it yet. When it was my turn to grab a tray from him, I smiled at him, and he gave me a sad one. I stepped away and let the girls behind me get their trays as well. 

I looked down at my tray and saw that there was a small carton of milk that reminded me of the cartons used at school. There was a blob of something grey in a tray in the middle of it, and some corn in the corner. It looked absolutely disgusting, and if there had been another option, I would have thrown this in the trash, but there wasn’t and if the girl in front of me was to be believed I had to eat all of it. 

The woman stepped forward and led us over to the far wall far away from the orange tables. She came to a stop beside one long table and made a sit here motion. I walked slowly behind Mirable, as the line split in two, and sat down next to her as she sat down, setting my tray down on the table as I went. I looked down the table to the girls who had been here, and saw that instead of waiting for utensils, they started scarfing down their food without any problem. 

I looked down at my tray again, and with much hesitation, reached down, and grabbed some of the corn. It was sticky and gross, but I picked it up, and threw it into my mouth. It was terrible tasting, and it didn’t help my stomach, but it was food. When I was finally finished with it, I looked at the grey stuff, and with the same hesitation, grabbed the bowl and brought it up to my mouth. With a glance around me, I started drinking the soup, and tried not gag. It took me three gulps before I was done and set the bowl down back on the table. I wanted to puke but knew that it wouldn’t go well if I did. 

I looked up and down the table and saw that most of the others had finished their food and were setting their bowls back down on the table. The others looked just as disgusted as I was, but no one said anything. I could practically feel their disgust directed in the direction of the bowls, but their will to stay alive was stronger than saying anything. 

When Marie finally finished her food, the PSF assigned to our cabin waved her hand, and the girl who was on the left side of the table stood up and started collecting the trays and bowls. She easily stacked all the bowls and trays together and left the milk cartons behind. I grabbed my carton and managed to drink it in three large gulps before I set it down back again. It wasn’t as bad as the soup, but it wasn’t good either. 

When the girl showed up again, the PSF knocked on the table, and the rest of the girls stood up. I quickly stood up as well and stepped behind Mirable as the woman started walking forward. We walked quickly away from the table, and into the aisle. Kids we passed gave us strange looks, before looking away. I heard the door open, and a breeze hit my skin. We quickly left the building, gravel scraping against our shoes as we walked. We walked down the street and turned left before the three-story building. 

We walked down the street, where I could see the two-story building better. It was made of dark red bricks, and two long windows stood on the wall with a door on it. The door looked like the rest of the doors that I had seen, and I saw that there wasn’t an electric key card machine by the door. Apparently only the cabins got that honor. So the woman in front could easily push in the door without any resistance. 

I was curious about what was inside, but at the same time wanted to hide in the cabin until I died. But I couldn’t do that, so I put a brave face on, and walked into the building after the girls in front of me. Inside there were short tables standing in neat rows, purples and blues who had come in here before us were already standing around the tables, getting ready for their shift. 

Electric cords hung from the ceiling, giving a clear reason why yellows weren’t in here. Some of the cords were connected to sewing machines, while others were rolled up and hanging from the rafters of the walkways that made up the second floor, which seemed to be entirely made up of metal walkways. Three PSF’s were already in the rafters, walking around the walkways, making sure no kid dared to disobey the rules of the camp. In the corner of the building opposite the door, stood several doors that seemed to lead somewhere.

There were two ladders that led up to the second floor, and there were two big windows on the wall opposite of the door, and when I looked up, I saw the lights were out. It was probably to save money since some people were starting up some sewing machines. Most of the kids who had been here before yesterday had looks of sadness on their faces, while the ones who were from yesterday were just as confused as I. 

The woman in front of the line led us to several tables that were about halfway down the main aisle. Some of the blues I had seen earlier looked up at us as we passed but didn’t seem as interested as the people in the dining hall. The girls at the front of the line seemed surprised that we were being led to these tables. 

The woman eventually stopped and waved at the tables that we were supposed to be at, which were loaded with several boxes of shoes. They were mostly the PSF’s boots, but I saw several spare shoes for kids. “Four to a table, except for you three,” the woman said, picking three kids out of the line, including Marie. 

She looked up at me scared but stepped out of line as I followed Mirable to one of the tables. There was some shoeshine, and cloth on the table I ended up at, and nothing else. The girls closest to the boxes of shoes picked a pair out of the box and started checking for anything wrong with them. I looked at her curious, before stealing a look at Marie and the two girls who had been pulled out of line. 

They were being led to the back of the warehouse, where I could see several boxes waiting to be picked up. The boxes seemed to be light, since even Marie was able to pick up a box without much trouble. I watched as the three girls were led out of the warehouse, and eventually as they walked out of the warehouse, and the door closed behind them. 

I was shaken out of my staring by Mirable. I gave her a concerned look, and she held up the pair of shoes that the girl had been working on earlier. Mirable set the shoes down in front of me, and I quickly picked up the shoeshine and started shining the shoes in front of me. When I was done, I set them down in the box next to me. 

We worked like that for hours, working through the boxes. It wasn’t hard work, just boring. Every two hours, my cabin mates would be pulled from our stations and taken into the corner of the warehouse where a small bathroom was. We would quickly go, get a few mouthfuls of water before being brought to our stations again. 

The bathroom breaks were our only breaks, and it was the only way to keep track of time. After our sixth bathroom break, instead of being taken to our stations, we were led out of the building and towards the dining hall. As I walked down the street with my numb legs, I saw that the workers in the fields were still working, even though it had been at least twelve hours. 

The woman led us through the door of the dining hall, through the line again, before leading us to the same table that we had been sitting at earlier. As I sat down, with my disgusting food on the table in front of me, I saw that the reds, silvers, and oranges were already in the room. They were looking just as tired as us, even though I hadn’t seen them working anywhere earlier. 

I looked over at the girls who were sitting at my table and saw that they seemed to fear the upper scaled kids. I looked back down at my food, which was the same grey stuff as earlier, some peas and a water bottle. It wasn’t appealing, but much of the camp wasn’t. Though they were tired, most of the kids were inhaling their food, as if they were scared the PSF’s were going to come and take it from them. 

I looked around nervously but started eating my food just as quickly. I didn’t like the food but if it was eaten fast instead of slow then it didn’t taste as bad. It wasn’t good, but less bad. Within a few seconds of me finishing my food, the same woman knocked on the table, and the same girl stood up again, and started collecting the trays. 

I willingly gave up my tray, and watched as the girl collected the trays, and walked them back to the kitchen to be cleaned. The green boy who picked up the trays, looked both pissed off, and extremely tired. The girl walked back quickly, and the woman knocked on the table again and we all stood up. When I stood up I saw Charolete sitting amongst the purples. She looked at me surprised, before shoving her face in her food again. 

I didn’t say anything, not that I was allowed to, as I turned to face the front of the line. As soon as I was facing Mirable’s back, and we were all lined up, the woman stepped forward away from the table, and we stepped forward behind her. We walked out of the building, and my eyes were immediately blinded by the sun. 

I dragged my feet along as we walked back toward the blue section. I looked over at the garden again and saw that they were still working. They were working exhaustingly, and they might have had time off, I still felt bad for them. I turned to face Mirable’s back again. We didn’t walk for very long before stopping in front of the gate. There was a small bus, and the gate swung open. 

The woman stepped forward and we followed close behind her. We all walked tiredly behind her and didn’t try to run away as we stopped in front of the cabin. The woman unlocked the door and shoved the door open and stepped aside to let us inside. We slowly walked inside and started falling onto our beds. 

As I climbed back onto my bed, I realized exactly why the shifts were as long as they were, because they didn’t leave enough energy to let anyone think about escaping. My bones were tired. The bed felt a lot better now than it had last night, but it still wasn’t the most comfortable. I was content to fall asleep when I heard Marie’s voice peek up from above me. 

“What is this place called?” she asked in a small voice. I sat up curious as to what the answer was. 

“Tundra. From what I heard, I figure it's one of the later camps built, because the PSF’s are always threatening to send us up to these two experimental camps up north,” came the response from down the way. I looked in the direction and saw the red-haired girl had spoken. She was leaning against one of the posts of her bed and seemed slightly annoyed at us. 

“Why do they hate the oranges enough to put them in masks?” Marie asked, and my heart broke at the innocents still in her voice. I wish I could protect her but knew I couldn’t do it. 

“Simple,” another girl said. “They're too dangerous. The bus I came in on, had an orange try to run for the gate. A PSF caught her, and the girl spoke two words to the woman, and the woman shot herself in the knee.” I felt like she had shot herself somewhere else based on her tone, but she seemed to have stopped when she realized that Marie was young, even compared to the rest of us. 

“Now, lay down. Most of us want to go to sleep,” the red-haired girl said in a kind voice.

“Fine,” Marie mumbled. “What’s your name?”

“Jackie,” she said in response, and she laid back down on her bed.

“Marie?” I asked, and I heard her grunt in acknowledgement. “Where did you go today?” 

“I had to take things to the silver cabins,” she muttered. “They do some manual labor in their cabins to keep them from trying to think about running away. The reds and oranges apparently do the same thing. Anyway goodnight.” I laid back down on my bed, content for now to know where I was, and terrified that there could be a place worse than this. Conversations started up eventually, but I was too tired to join in, and was happy when the lights finally switched off. 

&&& 

Days seemed to pass quickly by Tundra. I would get up with my cabin in the morning and do the same exact routine that I had done the first day I had shown up on. Despite blues being common, it took three buses for the cabin to be filled all the way. The girls who had shown up were just as scared as I was, and Elizabeth calmed them down with her soothing words. 

She seemed to be a kind of leader, though only because she was the last blue on her bus and had to figure everything, she told us out on her own until the next group had shown up two weeks later. The bus system was the only way I counted the number of weeks that had passed, because no matter what, rain or shine, the buses showed up every two weeks. 

Though I couldn’t see them come in because I was in the warehouse, I knew when they showed up because I could hear the bus in the distance and kids walking down the street to fill the cabin next to mine and start filling up the one across the street from us. There was always a varying number of kids, and few were above purple. 

The oranges, reds, and silvers weren’t seen much by the rest of the camp, but from what Elizabeth told me, they weren’t that interesting to begin with. They were the most depressed out of everyone here because they very rarely got to do anything, and rarely saw outside of their own cabins. 

One afternoon, in the beginning of May, five months after I came to Tundra, instead of walking immediately out of the cabin like she usually did, Silver Eyes stuck around. She waited for us to line up in front of our beds before she addressed us. “Tomorrow morning, you will be taken out of the warehouse and put to work in the garden. Apparently, it's recommended to have a purple near a garden, so my superiors are having one grow the plants, so we don’t have you brats starve to death. Unfortunately, the purple cannot control her powers, so all the plants are growing in the garden including the weeds. They do not have enough greens and yellows right now, and not enough work in the warehouse, so you were slated to work there.” 

I blinked slowly at her. She didn’t seem to be joking, and instead of saying anything else, she turned around and started walking out the door. She caught the door and closed it behind her. As soon as the door closed, we all groaned, and sagged out of our straight positions.

“They really hate us now,” Mirable rumbled rubbing her shoulder. 

“Why do they have to do this?” Elizabeth groans. “I know I complain about my job, but it's better than the garden. I’ve only seen them give jackets to the greens and yellows a couple of times, and that was in January when it was freezing outside.” 

“I know,” Jackie groaned, sitting down on her bed. I sat down as well, trying to imagine my day tomorrow. Elizabeth was right, the kids in the garden didn’t get treated fairly, even amongst the others. Even the reds, silvers, and oranges were able to stay out of the cold for long hours at a time. I groaned and buried my face in my pillow. I could practically feel when Marie climbed onto the bed above me. 

She groaned and flopped down on her bed. I smiled and rolled onto my side. I curled into the fetal position. I cupped my hands together, and slowly brought a small fire into my hands. I didn’t do it for more than a few seconds before turning it off and rolled onto my stomach again. 

According to Elizabeth, who sometimes worked as a runner in the tower, said that greens had one of two powers: intelligence, and perfect memory. I had both, and since I really wanted to be out of Tundra, I was slowly practicing my powers to help my escape. I could only practice my red ones when the lights were on, and everyone was awake. If I did it when the lights were out, the camera would catch onto the light immediately and it would have blown my cover. It was a risk since the others could easily see me doing it, but even if they did, they probably wouldn’t tell anyone. 

Some of the powers were easy to learn and use, like green, while others could only be used in some circumstances, like to heal the wounds of the others caused by the PSF’s, but things like purple and blue were harder to do. I was nowhere near the garden where it would make sense, and since everyone thought that I was blue, they were watching us more for those instances than anything else. 

I didn’t feel like using any other powers, so I tried to fall asleep. Most of the cabin was still moving around and talking though they seemed to be moving around more slowly than usual. I could hear Marie muttering something above my head. I didn’t want to say anything to her, but she seemed to be muttering something bad about her mother. I heard her feet hit the ground and felt her climb into my bed. 

Marie had started getting night terrors a few months ago and had started climbing into my bunk at nights. I didn’t have any problem with it, but it did make practicing my powers any easier. As soon as she was settled, I finally managed to fall asleep. 

When the alarm finally woke me the next morning, and I looked at the clock above the door, I saw that it was three in the morning. I pushed Marie off me, and she slowly started moving around. I saw that most of the cabin was moving just as slowly. I groaned and shook my head. I picked up my clothes and changed as quickly as I could. When I was done, I heard the door open and heard the PSFs walk into the room. 

“Come on everyone,” I heard Silver Eyes murmur, and quickly lined up with everyone else. The woman nodded, happy to see that we had gotten it down to perfection. She turned around and started walking out of the cabin. After a quick bathroom break, silver eyes led us toward the gate. As we approached, I saw a cabin of green girls walking towards the same gate. The woman called halt, and we all stopped behind her. The greens walked quickly through the gate, and the PSF’s in the back held the door open for the woman in front of us. 

We walked through the gate, and to my surprise, we didn’t walk towards the dining hall like we had been used to, instead we walked immediately to the garden. I looked at Marie confused, but I kept walking forward until Silver Eyes waved us to a stop. Most of the greens and yellows found their ways to their usual spots, while the rest of blues stopped. Silver Eyes looked around for confirmation, which she got from a completely covered PSF from nearby. She nodded and led us down the slim walkway to about a fourth of the way down from the tower. Close enough where we couldn’t use our powers to lift ourselves over the fence, but far enough where we wouldn’t steal from the PSF’s cabins or tower. 

“Kneel down every five feet from each other,” Silver Eyes ordered. “If you pick anything, throw it into the exact basket that it’s needed to.” I looked at her confused, before following Mirable down the row of plants and kneeling five feet from her. The tomato plants in front of me were overgrown, and weeds seemed to be everywhere. 

Not knowing what to do, I started picking tomatoes off the stems and threw them in the basket that was near me. Slowly I got used to the routine, picking tomatoes or weeds, and throwing them into the respective baskets. The purple who was growing the plants must have been there a while because the tomatoes and weeds grew back almost as soon as they were pulled. 

A few hours into my shift, and the sunlight started shining, I heard a PSF walk up behind me. I looked a little to my right and saw that the man beside me was one I called Bucktooth. Bucktooth was the guard who had walked onto the bus the first day. He was one of the nicer adults in the camp, only being mean when there was another PSF around, or a kid had used their powers. 

“What are you doing?” he growled from behind me. I looked down at his feet and tried to think of what I could have done wrong. After a second, I realized that I had done nothing wrong and that he was being mean, just to be mean. I was surprised, Bucktooth was one of the ones who wouldn’t immediately be mean to a kid who would do something wrong. 

“Hey, I’m talking to you,” the PSF said to get me to look at him, which I didn’t. Among the many rules that the PSFs had was don’t talk back and don’t look them in the eye. Mirable knocked over the large bucket next to her. The tomatoes that we had been picking spilled onto the ground, with some of them smashing along the way. 

Bucktooth immediately homed in on Mirable, and instead of doing anything he said, “You know if you're going to waste food, you're going to have to be punished, right?” Mirable nodded confused. The man looked around and instead of hitting her, he reached down and picked up some of the fallen vegetables. He threw them back into the container, and when he was about to leave, another PSF walked up. He was one of the cruelest guards at Tundra and enjoyed bringing pain to the kids. 

“What happened here?” he asked. 

“Got clumsy and knocked over the girls' basket,” the kinder guard said with a shrug. The cruller one seemed to think that wasn’t the truth, and taking the opportunity to punish a kid, grabbed Mirable by the hair and yanked her off the ground. He started walking away from where Mirable had been, much to the objection of the other guard. 

Mirable looked at me and I winced. Sorry, I thought, and her eyes widened. I flinched and realized that I could have accidentally sent her a thought. Mirable didn’t say anything, and I was grateful for it. The reward for discovering a black would be large, so much that Mirable probably wouldn't be punished again if she played her cards right. 

The PSF dragged her over to the electric fence and forced her onto the ground. The man handcuffed Mirable to the fence, making sure that the rubber side was facing towards the fence. Even though I felt sorry for her, I knew that I couldn't do anything without attracting the attention of the PSF. Doing so would mean my death. When the sun had risen, Silver Eyes called for our attention. I looked at her surprised. 

“Come on, time for breakfast.” I looked around at the others, before looking at Mirable, who was still at the fence. No was going to get her, and I couldn’t do anything, so I stood up with my cabin. We lined up easily, and Silver Eyes led us down the rows before turning us down the main one. We all walked solemnly down the main row, before walking around the tower, and in front of the dining hall. We walked inside, were given our food, ate, before walking back to our cabins to nap. As soon as Silver Eyes walked out of the room, I was jumped by several people. 

“What happened to Mirable?” Elizabeth asked. 

“That PSF was bothering me, so she knocked over the basket to distract him,” I said simply. I didn’t feel like saying anything else, so I laid down on my bed again. I looked at the clock again and watched as the hours ticked by. Mirable showed up in the cabin when we were eating dinner and was waiting on her bed as we walked into the room. Her thighs, shoulders and arms were completely sunburned, and she winced as she sat up to greet us.

Since the PSFs were still in the room, the hellos were polite nods and smiles of sympathy. As soon as silver eyes closed the door though, she jumped off her bed, walked around to my bed, and shoved me further into the corner. The bed could barely fit Marie and I, so it was quite a squeeze when she shoved in next to me. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you were an orange? I would have tried to protect you more,” she whispered. I looked around the room, and noticed no one facing me, so I grabbed her injured wrist and healed it. She gasped and I saw the question in her eyes. I nodded and she looked around to see no one was paying attention to us. She leaned back, trying to figure out what to say and after a second, she leaned back in and whispered. “I knew it.” 

“You did?”

“Yeah, I mean most of us knew you could do strange things for a blue, so we connected the dots a while ago.” 

“How? You've never mentioned it before."

“Really in this camp? That would have killed you. How much do you know anyway?” 

“Practice orange, silver, and red. I know how to use the others, but I couldn’t find a place to use them without being caught.” 

“Why didn’t you hide as a green?” 

“I panicked okay, it was easier to hide as a blue because if I accidentally threw something then everyone would think I was a blue and not something weird was going on.” Mirable nodded in understanding. I hope she really did understand. Though she and I had become closer in the last few months, she could easily slip up, and tell everyone. Though it seemed like everyone in the cabin at least knew what I was. 

“Okay everyone,” Delta said loudly, getting everyone’s attention. I couldn’t see her because of the angle I was lying at, but I could hear the smile in her voice. 

“We’ll finish this talk later,” I said quietly, and she nodded. She didn’t move though, instead she laid there as Delta started going on about a long-winded story, she claimed that she had heard when she was younger. There were interjections, and craziness, but it was a good story, nonetheless.

When it wrapped up, everyone started crawling around to get ready for bed. Marie dropped down from her bed and gave Mirable a pointed look. “I’m getting up,” Mirable said, raising her hands in a surrendering motion. Mirable rolled out of bed and stood up. As soon as she was gone, Marie made a cluck noise and slid into the bed next to me. 

Mirable slid into her bed, and she seemed to relax into it. I smiled at her, and she seemed happy for now. I wanted to read her mind but didn’t want to push her personal life. Instead of immediately going to sleep, I started working on my plan to escape from the camp. I had been working on it for a few months, trying to find a good way to escape and bring some of the kids with me. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was a plan. 

&&&

The next morning when everyone woke up, I looked over at Mirable, who gave me a smile, paused, and waved me over. “What’s going on?” I asked. 

“My sister and I were planning on escaping. Couldn’t tell you last night because of Delta and Marie. We’ve been using a form of ASL to talk, and the plan is to run when the next bus comes in. If the two of us run when the guards are distracted, then they’ll look at you guys. I don’t want you to get hurt,” Mirable explained quietly. I paused and nodded. 

“I’m good with languages, could you show me some of it?” She nodded and started signing some of the words. As she did, I started changing, then she did as well. Right as I was about to talk about the plan, Silver Eyes showed up to take us to our terrible breakfast. I wanted to talk with Mirable more about it but had to keep quiet as we walked to the garden.

The garden work wasn’t hard first thing in the morning, so it wasn’t hard getting into the repeating cycle of work. All was going well until one of the guards stopped behind me. “What are you doing?” Bucktooth asked. I paused for a second, because usually there was disdain in his voice, not anger. Bucktooth reached down to pick something up, and I saw Mirable look over at me as he did so. I took a deep breath, and before he could touch my shoulder, Mirable used her powers to shove the weed bucket next to her into the man’s leg. 

I paused and looked over at her in shock. I heard the rustling of plants stop near me, as the girls in our cabin started to realize what had just happened. Mirable using her powers was a strange thing, since she had never done it before. One because everyone knew that using your powers ever, especially to hurt a guard, was to get beaten, and locked in a cage like room in the control tower for the night. Secondly, because Mirable was a rule stickler, and had never used her powers before. 

Kids couldn’t even use their powers to save themselves. An eleven year old girl in the cabin across the street was almost beaten to death because she used her powers to get fire ants off her after a PSF had shoved her into the ant hill. It took Bucktooth three seconds after the bucket hit his leg to figure out what exactly happened. He looked down at Mirable pissed, and without a second thought grabbed her by the hair and yanked her off the ground. 

He yanked her to her feet, and I could see her strain against him as he reached down and grabbed me by the hair as well. He yanked me off the ground, and I stumbled to find my footing as he led us out of the row, and onto the pressed down dirt that made up the main path. I could practically feel my hair straining as he yanked me off the dirt path to the concrete around the rest of the camp. 

Bucktooth immediately started walking towards the control tower, while Mirable and I tried to yank away from the harsh grip on our hair. It didn’t work, and only seemed to make the man more pissed. As he dragged me along one thought seemed to go through my mind; why did he want to punish me? Mirable, I understood, she had used her powers, but I had done nothing wrong. 

There was always a PSF standing in front of the control tower, because it was a good tactical advantage to see everything right in front of the building and provided good backup. So, as we rounded the front of the building, the woman standing in front easily snapped her head to her left and saw us walking forward. 

“She used her powers,” Bucktooth said, releasing Mirable, and pushing her forward. Mirable stumbled for a few seconds, before the woman grabbed her by the arm and pulled her beside her.

“What did she do?” the woman said, looking at me. Bucktooth looked down at me, seemingly not understanding why he was mad at me. He picked his brain for a second, before saying anything. 

“She made me mad,” he said, and without saying anything else, started pulling me away from the tower in the direction of the infirmary. There was a camera angle behind the infirmary, because the purple cabins were behind it, but the angle of the camera didn’t show a twenty-foot area, which was why it was considered a perfect spot to beat the kids who misbehaved. 

The woman didn’t say anything as he pulled me away, and I could hear Mirable’s footsteps going quieter as the woman unlocked the door, and pushed her in. The slam of the door sealed her fate, and only seemed to make the PSF madder. He yanked me by the hair down the street, around the building, and he threw me as we got into the blind spot. 

Not wanting a beating, I gathered my courage as best as I could, and decided to use my powers, because who could say he really hurt me if no one could prove it? My orange powers were simple, I could use mind control to gain control of anyone who was within a forty-foot range. I didn’t have to touch a person, or look at them in a certain way, they just had to be forty feet from me to control them. I didn’t use them much, but it was nice to knock a PSF down a bit without them knowing what I could do. 

I took a deep breath, and tried to control his mind, but to my surprise, he didn’t stop moving, and just seemed confused. I tried it again, and it didn’t work again. Now I was confused, because no one seemed to be able to resist my mind control before. Horrified, I shuffled through my memories to see if I had ever tried this trick with anyone before. 

As I came to the last of my memories of the last few months, I realized that I had never tried to control him before. I’ve never had a reason to because he usually didn’t beat a kid. I looked at Bucktooth’s face, which was in a resting confused look as he tried to find out exactly what I was. I hoped that he couldn’t figure out what I was, but Elizabeth had said last night that he was now working with the oranges. After a second, he paused and looked me in the eye. 

“Are you an orange, or a black?” I looked at him dumbly, before waving my hands in a, look at my clothes, motion.

“I’m a blue,” I said, trying not to make him mad. 

“I seriously doubt that, and I don’t care if you’re either. I’m not going to turn you in. I need your help.” My left eyebrow raised, and he noticed it before he contoured talking in a fast tone. “My daughter, she's silver. She was picked up the other day and is being driven into Tundra today. If you switch her classification to green or blue, I won’t tell anyone what you are, okay?” 

I looked at him surprised, if he really had a daughter, that would explain that while he was mean, he was kinder than the rest of the PSF's, using violence, when necessary, because he wouldn’t want the same thing to happen to his kid if she was in the same position. If his daughter was a silver, she would be treated horribly at the camp, and if I helped him, he couldn’t turn me in because I could hand his daughter into the camp controllers. 

“Look,” I said, thinking about it. “I’ll help you, but the second you betray me, I’ll turn in your daughter to the PSF’s.” 

“Deal. Though we’re going to have to fake an injury, to get you into the infirmary. I don’t know how to get into the registration wing though.” 

“I have an idea. Toss me your knife,” I ordered, and he looked at me surprised before reaching down and grabbing the pocketknife in his right pant leg. He tossed it to me, and I caught it one handily. 

“What are you going to do?” he asked, looking slightly scared. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to attack you,” I said, snapping it open. I looked down at my palm, trying to figure out exactly where to cut so it would look believable. “What’s your name anyway?” 

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

"What's your name?" I asked, looking up for a second. "If I'm going to help you, I want to know your name."

"Calvin," he said, and I looked back at my hand again. "What's yours?"

"Ava," I said. 

“What are you doing with my knife?” 

“I’m trying to figure out where to cut my hand to make it believable,” I said, finding the perfect spot to cut it. I quickly sliced my palm, missing the veins and arteries, wincing as I went. I folded up the knife and threw it back at him. “Come on.” I walked past him, with a small smile, and he had to scramble to grab my arm. He grabbed my elbow and put a pissed off look back on his face. We walked together around the building, down the side of it, and onto the street. Right as my feet hit the pavement, I heard Calvin’s radio buzz. He ignored it and grabbed my arm. He yanked me towards the door. 

Calvin opened the door, and shoved me inside the building, surprising some of the doctors and nurses who were heading up to the registration wing. One of the women, a six-foot tall Hispanic woman who I somewhat recognized stepped away from her colleagues to meet us. "What do we have here?" she asked curiously. 

"Cut her hand, didn’t want blood spilling into the food," Calvin said in a monotone voice. She nodded, looking at my hand. 

“This way,” she said, gesturing to her right. Calvin gave a sharp nod and pulled me to the cell that was next to the stairs. The woman followed a few steps behind us. “Sit on the bed.” 

Calvin released me, and I sat down on the bed facing Calvin. He sent me a small smile and stepped away to let the woman working on my hand. She seemed surprised how shallow the cut was. Calvin noticed it but didn’t say anything instead walking out of the building.

I felt a sting in my hand and saw the woman had grabbed a small rubbing alcohol wipe. The blood was cleaned off in a few seconds, and when she moved to throw the wipe away, I looked back at the door that had just opened. A PSF walked through the door followed by a group of kids. The door shut behind the last PSF and they all walked slowly up the stairs to the registration wing. 

Their footsteps topped the stairs, and I could hear kids being shuffled into offices. Two minutes later, the door opened again, and Calvin walked through the door bringing another line of kids behind him. He waved for my attention, and I turned to the nurse. I pressed, and her eyes turned blank, she was under my control. I stood up and looked at the girls in the line. The girl at the end of the line was wearing yellow rubber gloves, which meant that she was a yellow. 

I gave her a look, trying to figure out how to short circuit the camera’s without it looking bad. I looked up at the camera, which was pointed away from me, towards the new line of kids. Some of my anger bubbled to the surface, and I could feel the camera shut down. I smiled to myself, and quickly joined the line behind the man. 

I walked up the stairs, and rounded the stairs with the group, short circuiting the camera upstairs with my suppressed anger. As I rounded the corner, and looked down the hallway, I saw that the first groups of kids were being led out of the offices, and into the side hallway while others were being replaced from them. As I looked around, I used my powers to not notice my presence. Calvin was standing in the corner and waved to me after I looked around the hallway.

“Girl is the eight-year-old at the end of the hallway,” Calvin said, pointing towards the opposite side of the hallway. I looked down the hallway and saw the red-haired girl at the end of the hallway. She was obviously scared, and kept looking toward her father for reassurances, but none came. 

“Alright. You’re going to have to explain why the security cameras are down in this hallway, downstairs pointed at the stairs, and in that office.” 

“What did you do?” 

“I shut some of them down,” I muttered, and walked away before any of the PSF’s could notice what I was doing. I could hear him sputter in surprise, and I felt bad for him for a second, but it was only for a second. I shook it off and walked calmly into the office number seven. 

The little girl was lying in the bed, looking around scared at her surroundings. She looked even smaller since she was in pajamas. They were pink and sporting little elephants on them. She looked like she had been yanked out of bed yesterday. I knew Calvin wouldn’t have called her in. He saw the signs of being a silver, and he knew how she would be treated as one in the camp. Even if he did, he couldn’t have been sure that someone could change the test. 

I looked at the doctor, who was standing behind her standing desk. She was dressed in a black shirt, black pants, and a white coat. Her silver hair was pulled behind her head in a ponytail. I recognized her from the day that I was brought in. She hadn’t been the one to test me, but she was in the hallway. She snapped up surprised as I walked into the room and closed the door behind me. 

“Who are you?” she asked, surprised. 

“Uh,” I said, before taking control of her mind. Her head immediately snapped down toward her computer again, ignoring me. 

“Hi, my name is Ava,” I said, walking forward, and kneeling beside her. “I’m a friend of your dad’s.” 

“What’s going on? Where are we?” 

“I’ll explain in a second,” I said, looking at the woman who was trying to speak. I stepped back, releasing her somewhat from my control. The woman shook her head, and the woman snapped back, though she didn’t notice me. 

"What's your name?" she asked in a monotone voice.

"Felicia Brown," the girl said, looking at me in suspicion.

"When you were brought in, were you given a color?" the doctor asked.

"Color?" Felicia asked. The woman sighed and pointed at the poster. Felicia’s eyes snapped over to the poster, and quickly ran over the eight sections of the poster. I could see the questions in her eyes, and I wanted to explain what was going on better, but the computer beeping rang out in the small room. 

I walked quietly around the computer and saw that on the screen there was a scan of a brain, presumably Felicia’s, on the left side of the screen. On the right side of the screen was Felicia’s information, including her name, birthday, height, and weight. There was a silver glow on one section of her brain that I didn’t know the name of but was probably attached to one of the powers. 

There was an alert above the brain scan that read silver, with the word detain underneath it. I looked at it confused for a second, before I turned to the woman. I gave her a look, and without a word, she clicked a button which popped a small tab that asked, manual override? She instantly tapped the confirm button, and it popped up a list of the eight colors. The woman dragged it over and hit the green button. 

The brain scans immediately changed from the silver one and picked out a different section of the brain that lit up green. Another alert showed up with the word green on top, and the words safe to approach underneath. I sighed in relief but felt a gnawing feeling in my gut. Me changing what the camp controllers understood to be her power was an opportunity, one I hoped she didn’t waste. The woman reached over and hit the call button for one of the nurses. I walked around the desk and kneeled in front of Felicia. 

“Look. You have a chance here. Okay? They treat silvers horribly here, but they treat the greens well. If you play your cards right, you will never be treated like the silvers. You must promise me that you will never use your powers. Understand?” She didn’t say anything. “Understand?” 

“I understand,” she said, nodding quickly. 

“Good,” I said standing up. The door opened behind me, and small footsteps walked into the room. I looked over my shoulder and saw one of the nurses walk into the room, holding two green uniforms in her arms. She noticed me, but I had her ignore me. “I need you to change into one of those uniforms, okay?” Felicia looked at the uniform and looked at me sadly. 

“Will I be, okay?” she asked me. 

“I think so, but I’m not sure. I must go.” She gave me a look of understanding, and I stood up. I walked through the door, and into the hallway. The next group had been brought up, and I could see Calvin waiting for me at the end of the hallway. He nodded his head at the stairs next to him, and I nodded. I walked through the hall, avoiding everyone. 

I didn’t stop beside him, but I could tell that he noted his daughter’s new color. I walked down the stairs and into the cell where Calvin had taken me originally. The nurse who had treated me was sitting on the bed, staring at the wall with glazed eyes. I gave a small glare, and the woman stood up. She walked out of the cell and started climbing the stairs. I sat on the bed and waited for the rest of the kids to go through the line. When Calvin finally reappeared, he looked impressed at me. 

“Thank you, but why did you go with green instead of blue?” 

“Because they keep the blues more monitored than the greens and let’s be honest no one expects anything from the greens. Plus, if I went any higher, she would be treated the same, nonetheless. Also, why can they manually change the classification? I just thought that they deleted everything but the blue for me.” 

“You’re a black?” 

“Say anything, and your secret comes pouring out,” I threatened. I looked down at my hand, where it was still bleeding slowly. I healed the wound easily. “You mind handing me one of those alcohol wipes?” I pointed at the cabinet where the nurse had been messing around earlier. He nodded, and I looked out of the cage at the kids passing by. While he messed around with the cabinet, I looked at the kids passing by. 

“What story did you manage to create?” 

“Yellow kid accidentally destroyed them,” Calvin said, walking back up to my side. He handed me the wipe, and I used it to clean my hand. 

“Thank you,” I answered before throwing it into the trash can. “Come on.” He nodded, grabbed my arm, and led me out of the cage. We walked together out of the infirmary. I looked at the bus as we passed and saw that there were even more kids waiting to be taken into the infirmary to be tested. How many of them would be sent to the upper scaled cabins? How many of these kids were in the same position as I was once in but didn’t have the same opportunity as I once did. Calvin yanked my arm, and instead of dragging me back towards the garden he dragged me to the street that led to the green and blue cabins. 

“What are you doing?” I asked curious.

“Returning you to your cabin, your shift is almost over,” he whispered. I nodded in understanding and walked with him to the cabin. 

“So why can they manually override the color?” I whispered asked him.

“I have no idea. Maybe it’s something in the programing,” he said with a shrug.

Chapter Text

Three days after I changed Felicia’s status, I was woken up to the sight of Mirable lying in the bed next to mine. I was happy to see her again but was pissed to see that she was still covered in bruises. She should have been in the infirmary, and not in the cabin. Mirable slowly climbed out of bed, and I winced as she stood up, and put pressure on her feet. 

I could feel Marie wince as she saw her, but she didn’t say anything as she climbed out of my bed to get ready for the day. I slid out of the bed behind her and stood up. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Marie grab her day clothes off the hook they were on. While she was distracted, I walked the two steps to Mirable’s side. I grabbed her hand discreetly and started healing her wounds. I couldn’t heal the ones that couldn’t be covered by her uniform. 

"Thank you," she signed as her wounds stuck together. 

"What happened?" I asked and pulled back.

“Took me to a cage-like room in the tower for a few hours, then they took me to the infirmary. What happened to you? No one told me.” 

“The PSF who took us a few days ago has a child that was brought in the same day. She was a silver, so he had me change her status to a green one.” 

"How did he know?

“I have no idea.” I felt something hit me in the side of the head. I looked down and saw a shirt fall to the ground. I looked up and saw Delta staring at us pissed. I threw my hands up and started getting changed into my day clothes. My movements were slow from tiredness. 

When I was done, I looked at the clock and saw that it was three fifteen in the morning, not bad for talking with Mirable and getting dressed, but it was unusual for the guards to show up fifteen minutes after we woke up. They were usually here within ten minutes. “Where are the PSF’s?” I asked, and Delta looked at me, then at the clock. She looked back at me surprised and shrugged. 

“No idea,” Delta said, and I paused, I had gotten used to checking the camp whenever I had a second. Usually, it was checking how the kids were doing, and seeing who was moving around. The yellow’s cabins were empty, but the greens were filled. I could hear rumbling in the distance, and I started feeling on edge. 

"Are you okay?" Mirable asked, and I looked at her. I opened my mouth to answer her when I heard the alarm on the door unlock. I looked at the door when it suddenly snapped open, and Calvin barged into the room. The girls scrambled into their usual positions, but he ignored all of them and grabbed my shoulder. Mine did as well since he left the door wide open.

“Come on,” Calvin ordered, leaving no room for argument. He dragged me past the other girls, and out of the cabin. He slammed the door behind him, and I saw the door didn’t completely shut behind us. We walked quickly onto the street, and in the distance, I could see that reds and silvers were being dragged from their cabins and in the direction of the tower. 

“What’s going on?” I asked as Calvin, and I walked through the gate. 

“Operation Robin. They know that the kids can’t be cured, so they’re segregating the camps by color. Greens, blues, and purples are supposed to remain in the already established camps, they’re more of a threat in transport. Yellows are being pulled and put into non-electric camps. Reds are being sent to an experimental camp. Most of the oranges and silvers are to be killed, while a select group is to be taken for experimentation. I couldn’t come and get you earlier. I want you to help them out and hide them.” My stomach dropped to my feet, and for a second, I wondered if he was about to turn me in, but remembered that if he turned me in, I could easily do the same thing to his daughter in revenge. 

“There are four hundred total adults here, right now. All but two of the cooks are asleep, none of the doctors are awake, there is no one in the laundry room or warehouse. There are about fifty adults in this operation, sixty if you include the drivers for the buses. Do you think you can handle them long enough to knock them out?” 

“Sure, I guess.” 

“Good, knock them out, have one of the oranges fry the brains of the drivers. Have them tell the higher ups that they all escaped and were killed in a gun battle. We can make the crime scene later.” 

“What about the people in the tower?” 

“Most phones aren’t allowed on the property, most outside communication devices don't come to think of it. The only phone that the camp has is a stat phone in the director's office, and the computers in the infirmary couldn’t be used to communicate because the only things they're good at is seeing test results, and accessing the system where all the kids are put into. There aren’t many computers in the towers because everyone is afraid a kid will sneak in there and leak everything to the media. The computers are used to keep watch of the camp, and track shipments and how much we produce in the garden.”

“You are making this way too easy to do.” 

“I know,” Calvin said with a smile. I looked around him towards the tower. 

“Okay. I don’t have much control over the yellow one’s so I’m going to need to get closer.” 

“Come on then,” he said, and turned to practically run towards the tower. I froze for a second, before chasing after him. He skidded to a stop beside the tower, and I almost ran into him as I stopped as well. I looked towards the gate and saw that the yellows were already in the buses, while the oranges, silvers, and reds were being loaded into others. The oranges and silvers seemed to be going on the same bus. The oranges were being loaded onto the bus closest to the tower, and the last few of them seemed to have noticed Calvin and I skidding to a stop a second ago. What are you doing? I heard one girl think. 

“Here goes nothing,” I muttered, and I sent a projection to the three girls who noticed me. I’m a black, and Calvin here was nice enough to bring you over here to help you out. I’m going to short circuit the cameras in the tower and knock the guard’s unconscious. I’m going to need help moving them and keeping the rest of the kids under control. Who among you is good at using their powers?

Everyone but Betty is good at it, but she showed up yesterday, the African American girl thought. Name’s Penelope by the way. She pointed at the thirteen-year-old Hispanic girl next to her, then the ten-year-old Japanese American. Her name is Camilla, and her name is Mia. 

Okay. Camila, you make sure the yellows get into the dining hall. Mia, you take the reds, oranges, and silvers. Penelope, you, and I will need to get the PSF’s unconscious, and we need to work together, we don’t want anyone hurt, I thought back to her and looked back at the tower. I concentrated on the camera’s and short circuited them. They're off. You can go.

“Brown,” I heard a voice call, and looked to see the captain walking toward us. “Who is she?” 

“Umm,” Calvin said, and looked down at me. I shrugged, and simply took control of his mind. His eyes went pale, before slowly sitting down, then lying down. I looked up at the other PSF’s and slowly they started falling unconscious as well. Mia and Camilla at least had the decency to wait until they were unconscious and out of the way before they started directing kids into the dining hall. It was easy for the reds and silvers, since they weren’t handcuffed together and already off the buses, but the yellows were slow walking as they clamored off their buses. I sent a look over at Calvin, whose eyebrows were reaching into his hairline. 

“What?” I asked. 

“That went better than I thought,” he said, looking at the yellows walking past him. 

“Yeah, but we’re not done yet. Penelope, Camilla, and Mia.” All three of the girl’s heads snapped back in the direction of me, eyes curious. “Calvin, help get their handcuffs off, they're going to help us.” 

“On it,” Calvin said, stepping forward making a grabbing motion for his keys. The suspicion only seemed to furrow in the girl’s eyes. Calvin didn’t even pause and continued walking forward until he was in front of Penelope. “Look kid, if she hadn’t wanted me here, I wouldn’t be moving.”

She gave him a doubtful look, but handed out her hands Calvin nodded and quickly unlocked her handcuffs. As soon as her hands were free, and Calvin had started on the ones for her feet, she reached up to her head, and untied the muzzle on her head. Her fingers were quick, and the mask was off in seconds. She threw the mask aside and took a deep breath. 

“Thank you,” she said, rubbing her hands.

“You’re welcome,” Calvin said with a smile. 

“Calvin, where are the keys for the armory? We need to lock up the weapons before someone wakes up and gets a stupid idea,” I said, and Calvin reached down, grabbed the keys off one of the other PSF’s and flipped through them. 

“Mia can take the weapons for now, I trust her,” Penelope said, and Calvin handed her the keys, with one away from the group, presumably the one that was supposed to get into the armory. 

“Alright, the armory is first hallway down the right of the entrance hallway, and then it's the first door on the left.” Calvin said, and she nodded. She looked at some of the passed-out guards and forced them to stand back up again. Twenty lined up beside her, and she started marching away. 

“Hang on,” Penelope said, and she halted. “Where are we supposed to put the PSF’s?” 

“Put them back in their cabins for now. Have a couple of your most trusted people guard them,” Calvin said. 

“Mia, have them lie down, and I’ll be over there in a second. I know how to knock people out for hours,” I add, and she nodded, before walking away again. 

“Alright, Penelope, right,” Calvin said to Penelope, and she nodded. “Send a couple of your cabinmates over to the cabins and start waking up everyone and get them into the dining hall. They're all confused right now, and if we address them all at one time then we won’t have to keep asking questions. Do you trust the kids in cabin two?”

“Yeah, we used to talk sometimes. They're trustworthy, why?” 

“I was going to have them keep order around here, that way no one gets a bright idea,” Calvin said with a shrug. 

“Alright,” Penelope said, and she turned to address her cabin, as well as cabin two who had wandered over. “Girls, we will be collecting kids from their cabins and bringing them here. Boys keep order here and keep an eye on all PSF activity.” She quickly handed out individual orders, and the kids quickly moved to obey them and when she was done, she turned to look at Calvin and I again.

“Come on then,” she said, and woke up some of the PSF’s nearest to her, before dragging them towards the armory to relinquish their weapons. The first twenties head snapped, and they turned slowly, with their eyes to the ground, and as a group started walking forward. I heard a door open, and when I rounded the corner, I saw that the door for the control tower was open, and the people were walking inside slowly. 

I joined behind the line and forced them inside in front of me. As I walked through the door of the control tower, I closed the door quietly behind me, and followed everyone else as they walked down the hall and made a left at the first hallway. As they got closer to the armory, they stopped and waited their turn to remove their guns from around their necks, and to hand their keys to Mia’s waiting hands. 

The armory was painted in the same paint as the hallway. There were no widows in the room, and several safes lined the walls. There was no one in the armory except for the PSF’s we had taken control of. Penelope and I directed some of the PSF’s out of the room and let more into the room. I waited in the hallway, waiting as PSFs came in, and out of the door. When they were almost done, Camilla and another orange I didn’t know the name of walked in more PSF’s. 

“We found them around the camp,” Camilla said, making the PSF’s line up against the wall. “Do you want us to take some of them?” 

“Yeah, take them over to their rooms and have them pass out like we did before. I can come and knock them out for a few hours when we’re done over here,” I said. 

“Okay,” Camilla said and grabbed some of the PSF’s whose weapons had already been grabbed. They walked off and the other orange grabbed twenty as well.  Penelope and I waited for the rest of the PSF’s to finish unloading their weapons into the safes. When the last of them were in the safe and they were locked, Penelope and I led them out of the building, around the side of it, and through the gate. 

There were five cabins on each side of the road, and the cabins were designated by gender like the rest of the cabins, with the women at the front of the cabins, and the men in the back. As we watched the group go into their cabins, Penelope’s curiosity finally got the best of her and she asked, “are you really a black?” 

“Yeah.”

“So, you have all the powers?” 

“Yep,” I said, popping the p. 

“How did you manage to hide?”

“Tricked the doctor who was testing me, then it was just a matter of keeping control of my powers enough to not be noticed by any of the guards.”

“But why blue? Why not green?” 

“Because if I accidentally used my powers, people are going to notice, but it wouldn’t be as bad if I was hiding as a green then it would be a blue, right?” 

“True, I guess. What are we going to do? If we leave then it’ll be noticed right away, and we couldn’t help any of the kids who are coming into the camp. If we stay, and don’t do anything about the adults, then we’ll be hurt.”

“What if we stay for now, and then leave when its safe enough for us to leave? When is no one going to pay any attention?”

“Ehh, sounds fine for now.” I heard footsteps behind me and saw one of the orange boys walk into the small, gated area. “Ava, this is Karl. What are you doing here?” 

“One of the silvers, Isabella, knows how to use her powers. She walked around the camp and said that none of the PSF’s were wandering around the camp. She and some of her cabin mates also checked the infirmary, dining hall, and warehouse, no people.” 

“Can all silvers do that?” Penelope asked, turning towards me. 

“I have no idea. I’ve never really been around them before. I know I can do that, but my powers are a little stronger than the other colors I have had close enough contact with to talk about it.”  

“Okay,” Penelope said, slightly scared. 

“I’m going to knock everyone out,” I said, and held out my arm to Karl, who without question took the walkie talkies. “I want you to keep an eye on every walkie talkie, okay. The only ones I want you to give them to is Penelope or I, okay?” 

“Of course,” Karl said in a serious tone. I nodded and walked towards cabin sixty-one.

“Anything we missed will be piled into the center of the room,” Penelope called behind me. 

“Thank you,” I called out. Mia and Camilla were walking out of the cabins at the end of the row. 

“Give them to Karl,” Penelope called, and the girls nodded. They walked past me, and I walked into the next cabin. It didn’t take me more than ten minutes to check the cabins and knock the people out again. When I was done, and walked out of cabin seventy, I saw that the only kid left was Penelope, who was standing guard next to the gate. 

“I sent everyone else ahead in advance,” Penelope said as I joined her. “Karl said he would keep an eye on the armory once we clear things up with the PSF’s.” 

“Thanks,” I said. She smiled at me and stepped through the gate. I stepped out behind her and closed the gate behind me. Like the rest of the fences in the camp, this one was electric. Since none of the guards have any keys, it was the perfect holding place. I stepped forward, and Penelope stepped up right next to me. I knew she wanted to talk about something, but she seemed to understand that I had no idea how to answer her questions.

We walked together around the control tower, onto the main street towards the gate, and into the dining hall without saying a word. I immediately saw that all the kids were inside the building as soon as I was in the door. There weren’t that many quite honestly, and we could easily fill in the building without trouble. As I walked into the room, the upper scaled kids started quieting down, while the others continued to talk.

Calvin was leaning against the wall that was connected to the kitchen. He was no longer wearing his weapons, and I gave him a look of confusion before I smiled at him, and he smiled back at me. I walked up beside him and leaned against the wall beside him.

“Do you have a plan?” he asked, and I shrugged.

“Maybe,” I said, and I saw one of Penelope’s cabin mates walk towards me. It was one of the older girls, maybe thirteen years old. “You mind helping me quiet everyone down?”

She nodded and turned. She looked around, and without much effort, the kids in the room quieted down, and looked in my direction. My jaw dropped slightly. I knew the oranges were powerful, from personal experience and watching others, but that was the most impressive thing I had ever seen. It was also terrifying.

I straightened myself, and prepared my throat to shout what I was about to say. Before I could open my mouth, Calvin tapped my shoulder. I turned to look at him, and in his left hand was a loudspeaker. I looked at him surprised, and he simply shrugged. I grabbed it out of his hand and brought it to my mouth.

“Hi everyone, my name is Ava. I know all of you are confused, but we’re fine now. I know all of you are confused about what happened tonight, but most of the upper scaled kids were supposed to be moved tonight. Reds were supposed to be experimented on. Yellows were going to be moved to a camp with no electricity, and the oranges and silvers were going to be killed.” Kids gasped and looked around at one another.

“What’s going to happen to us? Are we going to leave? Are we going to stay here?” A boy I recognized, but didn’t know the name of, said.

“I have talked with some of the older kids, and we have decided to wait to leave for a little while. That way we could train ourselves in our powers, and help the kids who are going to be driven in. We are going to take the time to figure out a plan from there on.” People grunted and started disagreeing. I felt like I was losing their attention, when someone asked a question that I was wondering when I was going to happen.

“Why should you be in charge?” a small green boy asked.

“Because she’s a black, and she managed to convince a PSF into letting her out of her cabin, took control of an entire camp’s worth of PSF’s, and managed to save hundreds of kids from being experimented on or killed,” Penelope said, defending me. Everyone looked at me in shock.

“She is also one of the few people who actually has a plan,” a silver girl I recognized from earlier said. “She is trying to keep kids in a place where food and water is regularly delivered and has built-in-shelter. In a place where we can practice our powers in peace, we can protect others since more and more are going to show up, and we can find our families. All we would have to do is control the PSF's, and anyone passing by to make sure they don’t know what’s going on."

“How would we prevent her from gaining too much power, and doing something too dangerous towards us? None of us can stop her if she goes psychotic,” the boy asked. I raised an eyebrow at him, surprised.

“We could pick someone from each cabin, and have that person advise her. That way she could understand how everyone feels about a particular thing, and more people would interact with her personally and know if she was going insane,” a green girl suggested, and I blinked. That would work, in a sense. “And the person from each cabin would have to be picked by the cabin, not someone she likes. With each cabin that’s filled, someone new would have to be picked.”

“Sounds good, but what about her cabin, should she be in charge of that one or someone else?” Penelope wondered. Delta raised her hand, and Penelope picked her out. 

“We should put someone else in charge of the cabin, and put her somewhere else, like a red cabin or in the infirmary. I trust her, but she almost accidentally set the cabin on fire a couple times, and quite honestly, I don’t want her to accidentally hurt someone while she’s sleeping,” Delta said, at least having a look of shame. I couldn’t blame her though, she was right. I had almost set the cabin on fire a couple times, and honestly, I did feel like I should move. 

“Okay,” Penelope said and looked at Delta weirdly before addressing everyone else. 

“Does that sound like a good idea? To stay here and have her in charge until we have a better plan?” Practically everyone nodded, even Calvin, who was still awake for some reason.

“What about him?” the older silver girl said, finally noticing him as well.

“He can steal for us, and we don’t even have to mind controlling him,” I said and got several weird looks from the others. “It's called blackmail, his daughter is silver. He asked me to switch her powers earlier, and someone who asks someone like me to do that, won’t be handing us over to the proper authorities.”

“Alright,” Penelope said. 

“Alright everyone, I want you to talk with your cabin and figure out which of you should be the leader. I also want you to pick out your new jobs as well. We’ll try and accommodate everyone,” I said, and kids broke away to start talking with each other. 

“You, okay?” the silver girl asked me. I nodded, though I could feel a little lightheaded. She didn’t seem to believe me, but she didn’t say anything. 

“Go join your cabin,” I said, and both girls nodded though only the silver girl walked away. Penelope stayed right in her place, seemingly talking with her cabinmates. After a second, she looked at me with a determined look on her face. 

“Everyone wants me to be cabin leader,” she said confidently. 

“That was fast.”

“There are fifteen of us, and I was already in charge, there wasn’t much of a discussion,” she deadpanned. 

“Plus, she was able to keep us under control,” an orange girl said, and I couldn’t agree more. 

“Fine. What are we going to do for security? I don’t want just anyone in charge of that.” 

“What about Mirable?” Penelope asked, and I looked at her confused. 

“How do you know Mirable, and why would you want her to be in charge?” 

“Calvin accidentally left the door of your cabin open, and she managed to convince everyone else in said cabin to go and find you. Plus Mirable, Charlotte and I all went to this summer camp awhile together, and I know how observant she is, and how people like her.” 

“I didn’t know you two knew each other, and I would have thought you would run for that position yourself.” 

“Yeah, we used to be somewhat friends, but we didn’t talk much when IAAN started. I would have taken the security job, but I would rather help my kids learn their powers and keeping them from hurting anyone.” 

“Thank you for your honesty,” I said, and looked at Felicia, who was still sitting amongst the green cabin she had placed in. “Hang on.” I concentrated on her and sent her a thought. Go join the silver girl who had been next to me earlier. She looked at me surprised before standing up and walking towards the silver girl. Her cabin mates looked at her confused and one of the older girls was about to stand up, grab her arm when I stepped in and sent her a thought. It's okay, she's silver. The green girl looked at me confused. What’s your name? 

Do I just think back to you? I could hear her think. 

Yes. I can’t hear your thoughts usually, only when I focus hard. Who are you?

Alex Sophrao. Cabin thirty-one, I just got promoted to cabin leader. 

Okay Alex, I want you to ask your cabinmates what they want to do, I suggested. She nodded and turned back to her group to ask them what they wanted to do. I turned back to Penelope, and the silver girl who had just returned. 

“Who is in charge of cabin three?” I asked. 

“You’re looking at her,” she said, and I raised an eyebrow. I looked at her cabin mates who nodded in agreement. 

“Alright. Name’s Ava, she’s Penelope.” 

“Isabella,” the girl said. She looked over at Calvin, who was still leaning against the wall nearby. “You know, he apologized to some of the kids unprompted for his behavior earlier, said he was out of line, and should have never done what he had.” 

“That was nice of him. Anyway, Penelope and I managed to find someone to oversee security.” 

“That’s nice. I do have a question though, what are we going to do about the young kids? Like the eight- and nine-year-old. They would get in the way of the older kids, and quite honestly, I want them to have some basic education.” 

“We could make a small school and have one of the older kids teach them. They could also be figuring out better ways to use our powers. We could turn the dining hall into a school because we’re not using it for a good chunk of the time,” Alex said as she joined the small group. 

“Who are you?” Isabella asked. 

“Alex, cabin thirty-one. I know we don’t have a lot in terms of books, paper, and pens, but I’m sure Calvin would be willing to steal some things for us. They could spend the next few days practicing while he looks for supplies.” 

“I have a friend, Charlie. She used to be a tutor for the local elementary school. She likes teaching, and figured out how to use her powers,” Isabella offered. 

“Thanks,” I answered, looking around to see anyone walking around. “We need to find all the kids under ten so we can start teaching them.” 

“I’ll track down the records and find out who is young enough to go. I have to update them anyway.” 

“Thanks. Where should this council meet up?”

“I know there’s a couple meeting rooms in the tower,” Alex said, and I looked at her confused. “I used to be a runner.”  

“Alright, what’s a good time for everyone to meet?” 

“If we meet at seven a.m. and p.m. then we could talk about what things are going to happen that day, and at the evening shift we could talk about what happened that day, and what we could do better in the future. Everyone but the people in the garden wouldn’t be working, and they could leave long enough for the meeting,” Bob, leader of one of the blue cabins, said. 

“Okay, does that work for everyone?” I asked and several kids nodded. “Alright. What are we going to do with the PSF’s? I know the oranges can do their thing, but do we really want them around for so long? Even if we move them, where would we put them, and who would watch them?”

“I have an idea,” Calvin said, stepping into the conversation. “This is the second location for Tundra. The first one was a bunch of little worker cabins nearby with a dining hall and several bathrooms. It’s not very big but should be big enough to house the adults.” 

“How far away is it?” 

“Five miles away from here. We could walk there.” 

“Okay, I’ll go look at it later,” I said, and the last of the cabin leaders walked out of the woodwork. I looked over at Mirable, who was sitting in the corner of the room. Do you mind coming up here? She looked at me shocked before nodding and standing up and walking down the aisle towards us. 

“Penelope, I know you don’t want to be head of security, but would you be willing to at least be willing to guard the PSF’s until I can see that the old camp is secure?”

“Fine,” she said. She wasn’t happy about it, but she was the type of person to want to keep them locked up. Kids suggested people for other jobs, and I took note. 

“Alex, you mind keeping an eye on the tower. Isabella the infirmary? Philip, the laundry room? Will, the warehouse? Sabrina, the garden? Charlie, the school? Levi the dining hall? Finally, Mirable security?” Mirable seemed surprised when I said her name and suggested a job title. 

“Why me?” 

“Because you’re the only one I trust to do it, and most of the time you wouldn’t be doing anything.” 

“Fine,” she said after a second. 

“Alright,” I said, and grabbed the microphone again. I put it up to my mouth and started speaking into it. “Alright everyone, I thank you for your patience. I know all of you want to get out of here and do something else. We have come up with a solution, and we will be taking care of jobs carefully. We have leaders who are willing to do certain jobs as well as ones who are leading their cabins. All kids under ten years old will remain here and start up a school system. When I finish handing out assignments, please start going to the location.

“Kids who want to work in the kitchen, line up against the wall behind me. Garden workers line up by the control tower. Warehouse and laundry workers line up near the doors of the warehouse and laundry. The person in charge of the tower, infirmary and security will be slowly pulling kids to work within their borders. Understood?” A few people nodded. “Good, you can leave now.”

Kids started standing up and walking towards the door. Everyone dispersed to head towards their cabinmates, while Levi walked back towards the kitchen to get started on breakfast. Penelope stayed behind so she could say something else. 

“Most of cabin one is willing to work for Mirable. They want to keep the peace more than anything else. Despite everything, we don’t like making people hurt themselves,” Penelope said.  

“I know.” 

“Cabin two is willing to work with Mirable, at least to keep an eye on the PSF’s. There are a couple of them who want to move immediately in the garden,” Felix, leader of cabin two, said. 

“Talk with Sabrina,” I said. Sabrina was a yellow girl who was good at her job. She could do math in her head very quickly and could figure out exactly what we needed for the camp. “Though thank you for offering the kids.” 

“No problem,” Felix said, and walked off. I sighed and sagged a little bit. Penelope instantly noticed it, and I could feel her concern. 

“I’m alright,” I said, and she looked at me doubtfully. “I’m not fine right now, but I will be.”

“Fine,” she said, stepping forward.

Chapter Text

“Fine,” she grumbled, and I followed her over to my old cabinmates table. All of them were still sitting down at the table. They were talking with one another about the jobs they wanted. From the murmurs I could hear, it seemed like most wanted to go to the garden. Penelope instantly noticed them and seemed to understand my hesitation in approaching them. 

“The longer you hold it off, the worse it will be,” she said in a quiet tone. 

“I know, but how can I approach them now that they know?” I asked. 

“Like you always do. They still care about you, remember that. I have to talk to a friend of mine, Susie. She can create illusions. I’m going to see if she can create a convincing enough one to put on the drivers.” 

“Thanks,” I said, and heard her footsteps walk away. I took a deep breath and stepped forward. Some of the girls closest to me heard my footsteps and stopped talking long enough to watch my approach. 

“Ava,” Marie called, spotting me. She ran from behind Mirable and Jackie and came bolting at me at top speed. I bent down so I could catch her. She ran into my arms without hesitation, and I caught her without a misstep.

 “I’m happy to see you again,” I mumbled into her hair. 

“You too,” she said, pulling back. “Are you really a black?” I nodded, and her eyes widened. I looked up and around at my former cabin mates, who didn’t seem as shocked as Marie. Delta looked at me upset, and she wanted to say something, but she didn’t know how to do it. 

“What’s wrong Delta?” I asked, breaking the tension. 

“I’m sorry about kicking you out of the cabin,” she said in an apologetic tone. “I know it came out of left field, but you must understand where I’m coming from. You could burn down our cabin in your sleep if you wanted to.” 

“I know,” I said, and she looked me in the eye. 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, I probably would have done the same thing if I were you.” Delta blinked surprised. “But I can find somewhere else to sleep, so don’t worry about it.” 

“Alright,” she said, and looked around the group. “So, now what?” 

“I guess we get started on rebuilding our lives. What are you guy’s new jobs going to be?” A variety of answers pounded my ears. Most of them were for the garden, some for the warehouse, while one surprised me, Delta wanting to join Mirable’s team. I looked at her surprised. 

“What? I’m done with the garden and warehouse, I’m terrible at cooking, and I don’t have enough experience in medicine or technology for anyone to consider me. Plus, I was a girl scout.” 

“It's Mirable’s call to make,” I said, and looked down at Marie. “You need to go to school.” 

“But there isn’t anything to do in school,” she whined. 

“Well,” I said conspiracy. “Since we don’t have any to teach you with, you’re going to be the one to try and figure out our powers.” 

“Really?” she asked. 

“Yeah, I mean none of you are going to really be doing anything, so you can figure things out.” 

“Cool,” Jackie said.

“Yep,” I said. “Alright, let’s get moving. Go and find everyone, please.” I heard several people say okay, and everyone slowly started dispersing to find their new jobs, and Marie and Gretta started walking towards the dining hall. “What are you going to do for kids?” 

“Most who are willing to join up, but I think most of the oranges are going to help me find people,” she answered, looking around. 

“I’ll check in with you later, okay,” I said. 

“Of course,” she said, and smiled at me. I walked away, and immediately ran into Calvin. He was leaning against the infirmary, and looked like he was waiting for me. “What are you doing here?” 

“Waiting for something to happen. Quite honestly, I’m waiting for someone to try and run,” he answered.

“No one is stupid enough to try and run when we’re in the middle of a desert,” I grumbled back at him. 

“Are you okay?” 

“No. What are you going to do?” 

“So, I have an idea.” 

“What is it?”

“None of the kids want me around, so why don’t I go to some of the smaller towns and steal some books. I know the schools need some.” 

“I guess so, how far away are they though?”

“Closest is Hyannis, it's about an hour away. There are other towns closer to there, but I don’t want to risk getting caught.” 

“Fine. You can go look. I need to get the drivers out though. If they don’t report soon, then we can get in a lot of trouble and none of this would be worth it.”

“Alright. What are you going to do?” 

“Make sure everyone does what they are supposed to do. I’ll see you later.” I turned and walked away. I heard his footsteps walk towards the gate. I immediately saw Alex standing by the tower talking with some kids. “How are you doing?”

“We’re doing fine. Found some kids at least.” 

“Good. Oh, I mean to tell you. One of the oranges is guarding the armory for me,” I said. 

“Good to know. Look, we don't have much for you to do here. Though I might need Calvin to help us later.”

“Alright,” I said, and looked around for something to do. Most kids in the garden were fine, so are the ones in the warehouse. “I’ll find something to do.” 

“See you around,” she said as I walked away. Penelope was walking with some of her cabinmates, and everyone seemed to be getting along, although nervously. 

“Hey Ava,” Penelope shouted. 

“What’s up?” I asked. 

“We’re going to go work on the PSF’s. Try and get them out of here,” Penelope said. 

“The kid came through?” 

“Yep.” 

“How did you figure out how to use your powers so well?” 

“We didn’t have much to do in our cabin, so we practiced, on ourselves and the guards. Having someone who is telepathic really helped,” Penelope said. “Alright, the ones who aren’t going to be working on the PSF’s are going to make sure that everyone remains calm. I know you don’t have to worry much about the kitchen, laundry, or garden, those work fine on themselves without anyone’s interference. Worry about security, the warehouse, and the school.” 

“I know,” I said and shook my head. “Go, I’ll tell you when the camp is done.” 

“Alright,” she said, and walked around me to head to the small group of cabins behind the tower. Shaking my head, I walked back to the dining hall to see if the school aged kids were supposed to be starting their things. As I walked through the door, I saw that most of the kids were gathered in the corner where my cabin was usually sitting. They were sitting around the tables looking at Charlie, who held a small flame in her hand. There was fear, but there was curiosity as well. 

“Hey Ava,” Charlie said without looking up at me. 

“Hey. What have you guys figured out?” 

“Mostly how to start a flame,” a yellow boy said. Charlie looked at me shyly. 

“We haven’t found a way to not blow something up,” an older yellow boy said looking down at the kid.

“That was one time,” the small boy muttered under his breath. I snorted and shook my head. So did the older kid.

“Don’t worry about it, it took me a while as well,” I said, and the smaller boy grinned a thousand whatt smile. 

“How did you figure it out?” he asked, and some of the kids looked likely they wanted to hear the story as well. 

“At first, I avoided electrical outlets, then I found out how to keep my emotions in check when I was around them. Then I figured which ones affected the yellow ones,” I answered. “It's not the best but, it's better than nothing.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like the best,” the older boy said, and I shrugged. 

“I know. What else have you learned?” 

“Mostly the flame, but we also figured out how to move a piece of gravel,” one little blue girl mumbled. 

“Well, we can’t start with the big things,” I said, and stopped to think for a second. “How about after sunrise you guys go hangout by the yellow cabins. You would be in the sunlight, and you couldn’t accidentally destroy anything?”

“Sounds good,” Charlie said. I turned to look at the dining hall. It was mostly empty, with Levi’s kids walking around the kitchen, and a few others were still lingering around. I shook my head and walked back out of the dining hall.

I spent the next few hours bouncing between spot after spot, trying to find a peaceful solution to problems in the camp. It wasn’t hard, but since everyone wasn’t used to talking with people out of their cabins, simple arguments were blown way out of proportion. 

When six am finally rolled around, Alex practically shoved me out of the tower and in the direction of the dining hall for breakfast. As I stumbled through the door, I saw that it was a quarter full, with the school kids taking a break in the corner of the room. I stumbled my way to the back window, where there was a kid dressed in blue waiting behind it. 

“Hey Kevin,” I said, walking up to get a plate of food. The food on the counter was slightly better than the food offered yesterday. “Umm, what is this supposed to be?” 

“I don’t know,” Levi said, walking up to the counter. “We found it in the recipe books the head chef used to keep. Supposedly it had enough food to feed a few hundred kids without costing the camp too much.” 

“I’ll try and look for more spices,” I said, and Levi gave me a doubtful look. “I’ll try and find some spices that we can grow here.” 

“Thank you,” he said, and grabbed the spoon and splattered some of the goop onto my plate. 

“You’re welcome,” I said, looking at my plate in disgust. The only thing compelling me to take it with me was that it looked slightly better than yesterday. “I’ll see you later.” 

“Bye,” Levi said, looking over his shoulder further into the kitchen. I walked away from the window, towards Calvin who was sitting at one of the old yellow tables, eating his own food.

“Are you doing, okay?” I asked, setting my food down on the table in front of him. I sat down across from him, and his head snapped out of his food to look at me. 

“Eh,” he said, shaking his hand in a dismissive wave. “Saw Felicia earlier, she’s doing fine. You want to go check out the smaller camp later?” 

“Sure, why not,” I said, and heard shuffling behind me, I turned and saw Penelope walking up to me, followed by the little girl who had been with her earlier. “What are you doing here?” 

“We finished with the drivers; it wasn’t hard to do. We must take pictures of the dead kids,” Penelope said, sitting down next to me. 

“Don’t worry about it right now,” Calvin said, and the three of us looked back at him. 

“Why now?” I asked curious. 

“The colors supposedly killed are rare, and dangerous, but it wouldn’t go over well with anyone. President Grey wants everyone in the country to believe that the camps are doing good. If word got out, then parents wouldn’t willingly hand their children over, and he wouldn’t remain in control for very long. Pictures would be physical proof of the evident failure of the camp system, so he wouldn’t want to do it. I bet more than anything, he does nothing but change the system to help prevent this from happening again.” My eyebrows raised at his explanation, and so did Penelope’s. 

“Alright, we’ll take the pictures anyway,” I said, and looked back at Penelope. “We’re going to go check the smaller camp out. You mind keeping an eye on things here?”

“Sure,” she said with a shrug. 

“It shouldn’t be more than thirty minutes,” Calvin says. 

“Alright. Can we send the driver’s off?” 

“Sure. I’ll call the tower to let you out,” I said standing up. 

“I’ll clean up,” Calvin muttered. 

“Thank you,” I called out, walking away from the table. I followed the two girls out of the dining hall, where the six bus drivers were being lined up along the last bus. Their cloudy eyes were sunk into their heads. They didn’t seem confused, but there wasn’t any life in them. Mia and Camilla were leading them, and as they walked towards the door of the last bus the last man would step away and walk onto the bus. 

“Alex should be able to let us out,” Calvin said, walking up next to me. “I showed her how to do that earlier.” 

“Thanks,” I said, and scanned the buses for signs of life, but there were none but the drivers. “Come on.” Calvin and I stepped forward and jumped onto the last bus. We sat down behind the driver. We only had to wait a minute for the gate to open and the driver to pull out of the camp. We turned left and within a minute and a half pulled beside a small parking lot with three cars in it. “Stop,” I told the driver, who pulled to a stop in front of a van. He didn’t say anything as we stood up and walked off the bus. As soon as we were out of the way, he shut the door, and pulled the bus forward to join everyone else. 

“Is that going to work?” Calvin asked, staring into the distance after the bus. 

“Who knows,” I said and walked around the van to the passenger side. “Let’s just see the camp and get back.” 

“Fine,” he said, walking towards the passenger side of the van and jumping into it. We shut the doors behind us, and he turned the van on. Then he pulled out of the parking lot, turned left, and drove for five minutes before turning right into a smaller gate. The gate was leaning open slightly, and seemed to be rusted, it was connected to a long chainmail fence. I could see several buildings in the distance from the gate. 

Calvin drove through the gate and stopped in front of a small building. There were two rows of ten buildings on the right side of the camp. While three buildings stood to the right. We opened the doors and slid out of the van to walk around. “The one on the left is the medical center and laundry building, middle is the control building, and the right is the dining hall.” 

“Why was this place abandoned, it looks good,” I said looking around. 

“It was going to be used before they found out how dangerous the upper scaled kids were. I mean they don’t like the psi, but they did want them to be alive at the end of all this. Who knows, they might send kids here one day. Probably not though.” 

“Who knows, but I’ve seen enough, let's get back to Tundra. I’ll send some kids out here later.” 

“Fine,” Calvin said, and we jumped back into the van. 

The rest of the day, I wondered about the camp trying to get kids to work their jobs, with a two-hour break in the dining hall to help teach the kids what I knew about controlling the powers. After that I helped find a spot for the kids to learn. Mirable and some of Penelope’s cabin mates went out to check out the smaller camp. They hadn’t said anything about it, but I wasn’t expecting them to.

Calvin stuck around for the morning, helping the kids in the tower to communicate with people outside the camp. When they finally got it, with help from the oranges, Calvin left the camp and went to a nearby town to get some basic supplies that we would need including deodorant, some books, a couple movies that could be used on a projector, some childrearing books, and books that could help Charlie.  I was quite happy with that it, and kids smiled and waved at him.

When six forty came around, I stopped my work in the garden, and walked towards the control tower. Kids waved as I passed, mostly the upper scaled kids, though lower ones did as well. Most of them were afraid, especially the greens, but once they realized that I was helping them out, and was listening to their complaints, they had calmed down some. As soon as I walked into the control tower, I felt the ac against my face. 

I looked around for anyone I recognized and saw no one. There were two hallways that walked immediately down the wall of the tower, with a stair right in front of me. I heard footsteps approaching me and looked right. A teenage girl walked around the corner looking down at a tablet. I recognized her as one of Alex’s cabin mates, Jacquie. She was five feet five, dark skinned, and her dark black hair was tied behind her head. 

“Excuse me,” I asked, and she jumped slightly. She looked up at me shocked. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“It’s fine. How can I help you?”

“Where is the meeting being held?” 

“Go up the stairs. First door on the left.” 

“Thanks.” She nodded and looked down at her tablet. She started walking forward again, and as soon as she passed, I walked up the stairs. As I climbed the last of them, I saw that there was a staircase that led up to the third floor a few feet in front of me. I looked to my left and saw that there was a door slightly ajar. I looked around and saw that there were several other similar doors that were closed. 

The walls were a bland white color, and I could smell hand sanitizer in the room. Kids were walking past, just as interested in their tablets as Jacquie was. I looked at the open door again, before walking towards it. I touched the door and heard people talking inside. I pushed it open and saw that several kids were already inside. Some of them were cabin leaders, others were simply in charge of a different part of camp life.

I walked inside, and some of the kids looked at me, before continuing to talk with whoever they were talking with before. I looked around the room and saw that it was painted the same color as the hallway. There was a long window that looked out toward the red and silver cabins. Five tables were shoved together to form a long rectangle with a space in the middle for someone to walk. There were chairs set up between the tables and the walls.

I walked around the table and towards the corner of the room. I heard the door open behind me before it closed again. I ignored it and walked to the seat in the corner. I pulled it out and sat down. As soon as I hit the chair, I looked around, and saw that Mirable had walked into the room. I smiled at her, and she did as well. I looked around expecting to talk to someone, but no one was around me. I leaned back in my chair, and started waiting for everyone to start slowly pouring in. 

I didn’t have to wait long because within a few minutes the entire council was in the room sitting around talking. Calvin was also in the room sitting in the corner. He was invited because he would be needed in getting anything outside the camp. Mirable grunted, and I decided to start the meeting with her.   

“So Mirable, did you manage to find kids you wanted on your team?” I asked her, and she narrowed her eyes. I narrowed my eyes back at her before she opened her mouth to answer me. 

“I managed to get through the kids who signed up for the job. They're competent, though I did have to send some of them to other spots because they were causing too many problems,” Mirable answered sweetly. 

“And the old summer camp?” 

“The cabins need some work, but they should be fine.” I turned to look at Penelope who was on my right. 

“You mentioned earlier that the PSF’s were making things difficult. Did you manage to get them settled down?” 

“Yeah. We had to sedate some of them, but some genuinely believe that we escaped this morning. We were also able to find some of the information to run the tower in their heads and passed it along to Alex. I think it's best that we move them out of Tundra. There is too much of a danger to be left behind.” I nodded in agreement and looked at Calvin. He looked up at me shyly. 

“When I was picking things up earlier, I looked around the surrounding towns. Some of them were abandoned. The one’s who didn’t leave for jobs were kicked out when construction started. I set up security camera’s though, and I’ll keep doing it tomorrow as well. There were a couple construction shops, so I should be able to steal some things and insulate the buildings.”

“That’s good,” I said. The meeting passed in an orderly fashion, with each kid saying how their cabin was doing, and their plan for the evening. As I walked out of the building, Calvin walked up beside me. “What do you want?” I asked tiredly. 

“Did you finally manage to find a new place to stay?” he asked in a somewhat serious tone. 

“Most don’t want me because of the red powers, and they also rejected me because of the yellow ones,” I answered as we walked down the last of the stairs. We walked the short distance out of the door, and into the open air. I took a deep breath, before releasing it.

“You could always stay in the infirmary,” Calvin suggested, and I gave him a confused look. “What? It's one of the few places that has a bed that isn’t also a cabin, and the beds there are halfway decent. Only negative side is there is very little privacy, which you are used to by now.” 

“How would you know the beds are halfway distant?” I asked, deciding to ignore his privacy comment for the stranger part of that sentence. 

“Some of the guards would sleep on the job in there.” 

“Really. That sounds like a lot of irresponsibility that higher ups wouldn’t want.” 

“It was, that’s why most of it happened before it started getting more crowded.” 

“What time is it?” I asked curiously. He looked down at his watch, before looking up again. 

“Eight. Why?” 

“I’m going to get some sleep. I’ve been up since three.” He gave me a side eye, before walking away. Instead of reacting, I waved it off, and walked to the infirmary. Kids walking to and from waved at me as I passed. Most seemed to be heading towards their cabins to do the same thing I was about to do. There were still people in the garden, but that was because they hadn’t had enough workers earlier. 

Mirable’s kids were walking around keeping an eye on things, identifiable by the star that was sharpied onto their foreheads. Calvin had given Mirable the sharpie, and hidden the rest, so that she could make the mark. We weren’t going to keep doing it but would until we found a better way to identify them. Some of them had insomnia and could stay up for days. Their jobs were easier since the entire camp was covered in camera’s that originally been set up or Calvin set up, so every inch of the camp was covered; but their jobs were also harder since kids would probably try and run.

I walked up to the infirmary calmly and opened the door. The ac hit my face and I sighed in relief. I walked through the doorway and let the door close behind me. The lights in the building were still on, though they would automatically turn off at nine. No one was on the first floor, and I didn’t feel like checking the second one to see if anyone was in there. 

I walked down the farthest row of the cage-like rooms, all the way down to the wall, before stopping. I looked at the room on the left and sighed. The small room was cold and unforgiving, but I couldn’t go back to my cabin. I shook my head and walked into the room. I walked to the small bed and sat down. I gave the room a small look around, before lying down on the sheets. I buried my face in the pillow and hoped that this wasn’t a bad dream. 

&&& 

The next morning, as I woke up and looked around at my surroundings, I saw that I was in the infirmary. There was no one around, and I could hear the AC blasting. I sat up and got a better look at my surroundings, but no matter what I did, my surroundings didn’t change, I was still in the same cage I had fallen asleep in last night. 

I slid off the bed with a groan and stood up on my somewhat numb feet. I stumbled out of the room, and into the hallway, before slowly stumbling out of the building. I looked around and saw the sun was slowly rising in the distance. Some of the kids were moving around, but not everyone seemed to be up. I stumbled the short distance to the dining hall, where kids were also walking into. Two young green girls held the door open as I approached, and I smiled at them as I grabbed the door. 

“Morning ladies,” I said, and I heard them give a shy good morning. I gave them a brief smile, before walking past them to head toward the kitchen. Levi and his workers seemed bright and chipper this morning. As I stopped in front of the kitchen window, several kids gave waves at me. Levi was standing in front of the window, ready to hand out windows. 

“How are you doing?” He asked with a smile. 

“Fine. Did you manage to sneak out without waking anyone up?”

“Most of the kids woke up when we did, but that’s because we usually woke up around then. I think we should make a cabin for all the kitchen workers.”

“Ehh,” I said looking at the red teenager who was working the grill. “It might work, it might not. Though it might be resolved by having breakfast later.” 

“What about the garden workers? Don’t they need to start earlier?”

“True, but it would make sense to make a limited amount of food for them then having the entire camp wake up for them.”

“True. Now take your food and get eating. I heard Mirable say she wanted to talk with you.”

“Thanks,” I said, and grabbed a bowl. I walked quickly over to one of the tables and sat down to start my meal, which was slightly better than what the camp was known for. I made a mental note to have Calvin start stealing from grocery stores. As soon as I was finished eating, I placed my bowl on the kitchen counter, and walked out of the dining hall. It was still early but people were finally getting up and moving around. I recognized most and saw Alex and some of the tower workers heading in the direction of the dining hall. I heard a truck pulling up to the gate and was surprised. No one should have been here, and if they had been, we would be in trouble. I turned to face the gate and saw a pair of headlights behind the gate. 

“Oh, good you’re up,” I heard Alex’s voice say behind me, her southern accent thick with lack of sleep. I turned slightly back to the tower and saw her standing a few feet away with her workers. 

“What’s going on?” I asked, pointing in the direction of the gate. 

“Calvin went into town. Finished putting up a lot of cameras and said he wanted to get a start on stealing things,” Alex said as the gate started to open. Calvin slowly drove through the camp and pulled past us. As he drove by, I saw that there was a tarp covering the back of the truck, and something that wasn’t moving much was underneath it. He stopped in front of the control tower. The truck turned off, and the driver’s door opened. Calvin jumped out of the truck and sent gravel flying as he did. 

“Come over here,” he shouted towards Alex and me. I shot her a look and she shrugged. We both stepped forward and Calvin started undoing the bindings of the truck. When we finally walked up to the truck, he pulled the left side of the tarp over the stack of books in the back, and onto the right side of the bed. 

“Where did you get all of this?” I asked as I stopped beside him.

“Whitman Library,” he said happily.

“Well, most of the kids should be happy with this,” I said looking at the books again. 

“Yeah. Alex and I said that we could put the books in the tower for now, in several of the conference rooms and offices. She said it was fine as long as no one bothers the workers there.” 

“As good of a plan this was, how long did this take you?” 

“Two hours, maybe.”

“You’re sure no one saw you.”

“I’m sure,” he said in a reassuring tone. “No one is going to miss this anyway, because the building looked like it hadn't been touched in a year, and even then, it wasn’t touched much since IAAN hit and any survivors are here.” I looked at him disapprovingly, before shaking my head and looking at the books.

“Come on, let’s get these into the tower and organize them, we can tell everyone later,” I ordered, and I heard several people mutter something, but I couldn’t hear what they said.

Chapter Text

Day two was the same pretty much as day one, but since we had books, a lot of the kids were able to read and keep their minds distracted. Since the kids in school were able to at least get the basics down, they started teaching everyone else about how to control their powers. Which let a lot of older kids who were bored to start creating small games with their powers. It was mostly the warehouse kids since we didn’t have much to do.

The school kids also came up with the creative name of Rallying Day for the first day. I couldn’t blame them since it was a name, but I wished they had come up with a more creative name. Since no one had any better idea, we kept it. On day three I was sitting in the council room; we were talking about our day and what kids who would be doing what when Penelope raised her hand. She was still dressed in her old uniform, and her eyes were extremely tired. I called her, and her hand dropped.

“We finished the renovations for Cuckoo. We can start moving the kids after the meeting.”

“That’s good,” Alex said. 

“Yep,” she said.

“Okay does anyone have anything else they want to discuss?” I asked, looking around. Everyone shook their head. “Alright. Calvin, you need to find more things for the kids in the warehouse to do. Will, come up with something for your kids to do while he does it. Charlie, keep having your kids practicing, and Harry keep an eye on the writing competition.”

“Thank you,” Harry said, and I nodded. Harry had come up with the idea on the first day and had been going strong since it started. He figured it would be a distraction and would help distract some of the more creative kids. It would also help bring up the number of books that we had in the camp.

“Okay, we’re adjured. I’ll see all of you at seven,” I said and stood up. Everyone else stood up as well, some walked out of the room immediately, while others talked with their neighbors. I walked up to Penelope and started walking off with her. Mirable gave me a look, and I smiled at her. “We’ll talk later.”

“Okay,” she said, and smiled back at me. Penelope and I walked out of the room together, and I could tell that she was a bit nervous

“Are you ready for this?” I asked. 

“Of course,” she said and gave me a smile. I opened the door, and we stepped outside. The brown van was waiting out front. It was the smaller of the two that we had here. We had to give the bigger one to Calvin so he could have more room when he left. He could have used the truck, but he wanted to switch the cars out so that it would be less obvious what was going on.

Everyone was curious about what he would bring back today. He had pulled a couple trips the first day, which we now called rallying day, and had spent much of yesterday trying to find things. He was right about the kids not wanting him around, but as he brought books, comics, candy, movies, and a projector for everyone to watch, better food, new seeds for the purples to grow better, new clothes, he started growing more and more in popularity.

There was no one around the van, so Penelope and I had no problem walking up to the van and hoping in. Penelope was going to be driving us to Cuckoo since she had been driving since she was nine. Her parents had taught her so that she could get around the farm she had lived on. My parents didn’t want to teach me until I turned fifteen.

I was thankful that at least someone other than Calvin knew how to drive. I closed the door, and Penelope turned on the van. I looked over my shoulder and saw that there was a door separating Penelope and I from the prisoners in the back, which I could tell even without looking through the flaps. As soon as she turned the van on, and pulled forward, the gate slowly started rumbling open. 

She turned left and drove the short distance to camp Cuckoo. It wasn’t the name that originally had been given to the camp, but since its original name was Biros, we decided to change it. It looked the same as it had a couple days ago, and wasn’t much different than before, though it looked a little better. The gate was as rusted, and someone had picked up the broken twigs and branches. The cabins had a new coat of paint, and the hinges were replaced.

I opened the door and jumped out of the seat. The few kids in the camp walked toward us as Penelope’s and I feet hit the ground. Camilla, who was standing near one of the cabins, looked up and waved at us. Her long hair was pulled into braids, and she was wearing one of the unclaimed PSF’s black shirts. She was painting one of the sides of the cabin.

“Welcome back,” Camilla shouted, standing up to greet us.

“It's good to see the place in better condition,” I said, walking up to join her. 

“Prisoners in the back?” she asked looking around me to better see van. 

“Yep. There’s twenty of them, we couldn’t fit more in there.”  

“Good.” She walked around the van to get the people out of the van. I heard her unlock the door, and people shuffled out of the van.

“Thank you,” I said, and she waved at me as she passed and directed the group to the first cabin. I caught a glimpse at the pieces of fabric around their arms. They were red, and any pity at their soul sucked eyes disappeared in a heartbeat.

We had created a system that disquieted what crimes they had done in the camp. The red band was for the worst of the worst. The one’s who would touch kids in wildly inappropriate ways, and the ones who looked to long at the kids. We don’t know if one of the guards had gone past inappropriate touches, none of the kids had said anything, but we were keeping an eye out for any cases.

“Come on,” I said to Penelope, pulling myself out of my depressing thoughts. She gave me a look, before turning to walk back to the van. We hopped back in and drove back to Tundra for the next group of people. It took us two hours to finish with all the kids. Penelope dropped me back at Tundra while she went back to Cuckoo. She was going to help everyone settle into the place, and help the kids over there get the prisoners on a set routine, so that the camp could run more efficiently.

Mirable didn’t wait until Penelope was out of the gate before she approached me. By the look of her face, she wasn’t here for gossip. I wanted to have a short break, but I guess that I could jump immediately into this other problem. I held back a groan as I asked, “what’s going on?”

“Calvin was supposed to be back an hour ago. He hasn’t called in, and hasn’t shown up yet,” Mirable said, stopping in front of me, crossing her arms as she did. 

“Where was he going today?” 

“He said he was going to be around the town of Whitman.” 

“Maybe he ran out of gas?” 

“Or he turned us into command?” 

“He likes Felicia too much to turn us in.” The walkie talkie that was in my pocket buzzed and I brought it to my mouth. I hit the button and asked, “what’s going on?”

“Calvin is a minute out, said he found something interesting on his trip.” 

“Did he say what it was?” Mirable asked. 

“No, he said it was better to show than explain, and he also said and I quite “he didn’t turn us in”,” Alex said. 

“That doesn’t sound good,” I said.

“I know,” Alex said. I heard the gate buzz open and turned to face it. 

“Time to face the music,” Mirable said. To my surprise there wasn’t one van, there were two. The second one was a white van with no windows on it but the front ones. My jaw drooped and I spotted Calvin in the first one. He was in the driver seat, wearing a sheepish smile on his face. I folded my arms across my chest and put on a you’re in trouble face. Calvin’s smiled immediately dropped. He turned the van off and opened the door. He climbed out of the seat, and slammed the door shut. The blond-haired man who was driving the other driver hopped out and walked forward to talk to us.

“She’s mad,” he said.

“She’ll be fine,” Calvin said, waving the brunette-haired man off. He looked back at me. “I know you're mad at me for being late, but I have a surprise for you.”

“What would that be?” I asked.

“Come and check.” I looked at Mirable, and she shook her head. Mirable and I stepped forward and we walked together to the second van behind Calvin. He pulled the back doors open and leaned down to pull something out. A second later a five-year-old white girl jumped out of the van. I paused for a second before walking around the van and peering into the back of the van. There were nearly twenty people in the back of the van, ranging from an infant to a seventy-year-old woman. There were two infants, and a couple toddlers, as well as some kids around the age that was the designated age for psi, as well as some above it. Most of the adults seemed to be their parents or other relatives. All of them blinked at me curiously before they started jumping out of the van.

“I found them in Arthur. They wanted to keep the kids with them so when PSF’s started collecting kids, they left their homes. Bob and I used to be in the same platoon, so it was easy to convince them to come with me. Figured it would be better to have them hide here and have the adults help around the camp.”

“Okay, but why did you bring two vans? Why not just the one?”

“I already had it full when Nancy found me putting some more deodorant in the back, and I didn’t feel like emptying it after I convinced them to come with me. Plus, we now have another van,” he said cheerily.  

“Fine, at least you helped them,” I said, and pinched my nose with my fingers. “Mirable, call Alex. Have her call the council together and explain what’s going on. I’m going to let them stay, for now. I want everyone to know what’s going on.” 

“Fine,” she said, stepping away. I looked back at the people who were slowly getting out of the van. About half of them were out of the van, and I saw a little white woman, dressed in a white t-shirt and a pair of blue jean shorts that went down to her knees. Her curly white hair was right next to her head. She seemed to be struggling to get up, so I stepped forward and helped her up.  

“Thank you dear,” she said, patting my hand. 

“No problem,” I said, walking her around the van. I let her lean up against the side of the van before I released her hand. One of the other women, a forty-year-old black woman with braids in her hair, walked forward to keep her stable.  

“I’m positive Nancy’s kids have powers, but I want Isabella to check them out,” the blond-haired man said. “Names Bob by the way.”

“Ava,” I said, and he nodded.

“Thanks,” I said, and heard footsteps approaching. I turned my head and saw Jackie and Isabella walking up to me.  Jackie and Isabella were waiting for us, giving the new arrivals curious looks. “Uh, what are you two doing here? And aren’t you supposed to be working in the warehouse Jackie?”

“I am, but my headaches were starting up again, so I went to the infirmary. I was with Isabella when she got the call, and I was curious,” she said with a shrug. I stared at her for a second, before shrugging it off. I couldn’t even blame Jackie, she got some bad migraines sometimes, and if I was her, I would come and look at what was going on.

“Okay,” I said, and turned to the group of people next to the van. “Hello everyone. My name is Ava McBrian. I’m Director here. Jackie is one of our warehouse workers, and Isabella here oversees our Infirmary. Mirable over there oversees our security. Now, I want you to split into three groups, everyone under the age of seven will go with Mirable. Kids between the ages of seven and twenty years old will go with Isabella to the Infirmary to be tested. Anyone out of that range will stay with Jackie and I as we explain things to you.” 

“Come on now. Anyone between seven and twenty with me,” Isabella said. Some of the kids seemed to be hesitant to go and sent curious looks at Calvin’s friend. 

“Go,” he said, and the few kids between the ages stepped forward and formed a small line behind Isabella, who gave them a smile as they approached. There were only five people, and they seemed rather curious as they followed behind her. The kids sent looks over their shoulders as they walked, but continued walking. 

“Okay,” I started again, and everyone turned to face me. “Kids, how about you go with Miss Mirable and Jackie for me, so that the adults and I can talk?” They gave little nods of agreement. “Good.” The two women holding the newborns willingly handed their kids over and everyone else filled far enough away from their kids to be seen, but not heard. “Keep an eye on them.” They nodded and I walked to join the people. 

“Why did you pull us away?” the old woman asked. 

“Because I didn’t want them to hear what I had to say. None of the kids here have had good experiences with adults recently. It’s been a bad few months, weeks, and days for us, so not a lot of the kids are going to react well to you being here. I’m going to allow you to stay here on a trial basis though, but only for the sake of your children. If any of you try to go past our rules, and try to do us harm, you will be kicked out without your memories here. Understand?” A few people nodded. 

“Where are we going to stay?” the old woman asked, looking around. 

“The old PSF’s cabins, we’ve moved them out, so they're empty for now,” I answered. “Tundra wasn’t supposed to be meant for kids without powers, so you keep your kids with you. Though I insist that if any of the kids are yellow and above stay in the cabins with the others of their color. I wouldn’t ask for it if I didn’t know how dangerous they were. The rest of the kids can choose if they wanted to stay in the cabins.” 

“Okay,” the old woman said, and several people nodded as well. 

“All of you will be doing some form of job as part of your trial here, so I need you to tell me what you used to do.” 

“Teacher,” the black woman said, and two others were former teachers as well.

“We used to work on a construction crew,” another woman said. She pointed at two men who were standing next to her. 

“Worked at the grocery store,” Bob said. 

“I’m retired. Used to be a librarian though,” the old woman said. 

“That’s convenient,” I said looking at Calvin. 

“There were less than seven thousand people in their town before IANN started. Those were the major jobs.”

“Fine,” I said, and looked over at the infirmary where some of the kids were coming back out again. Three of the kids were holding clothes that were meant for the psi. “Look, the teachers, I have a job for you. I’ll get you in contact with the correct people. I’ll find jobs for the rest of you soon. What are your names?” 

“Nancy,” the black teacher said. 

“Elise,” the old woman said. The others told me their names. 

“Alright,” I said as Isabella joined me. “What do we have?” 

“Red, yellow, and green. None of them seemed to have known.” 

“Thank’,” I said, and she nodded.

“I already called the cabin leaders.” 

“The green could stay in with their parents if they want to, but we can keep the red and yellow in their cabins. What about everyone else?” 

“No one is showing any signs of being a psi.” 

“Good, have your people keep an eye on the kids in the future. Calvin can you start unpacking the van so you can head out again. Mirable, have your people go around the camp and tell kids that there here,” I said, and both nodded. I turned to the group. “Come on, I’ll show you where you will be staying for now.” 

“See you around,” Mirable said, and dragged Jackie away. Isabella seemed to know she needed to leave, so she walked away. A few workers from the tower walked out of the building and walked around the group curiously before walking to the second van and starting to pull out the back.

“What did you manage to find today?” I asked Calvin.

“A bunch of deodorant, some supplies for the school, toothpaste, toothbrushes, and managed to find some stuffed animals. I was thinking about giving them to the younger kids,” he said.

“Deodorant is good,” I said, and it was. With over twelve hundred kids packed into a couple acres with little deodorant form the old system meant this placed reeked often.

“Yep,” he said, and turned to help the kids unpack the van. I turned to face the group.

“Come on, everyone,” I said and turned to walk towards the old cabins. They followed right behind me. As we walked kids stopped to stare at us. I gave them a pointed look and they went destination. No one stared for long, and we walked into through the gated area.

“Why is there so much barbed wire up?” Nancy asked. 

“I don’t know, most of the gates are electric, but I guess that they didn’t want yellows getting far if they wanted to make a break for it. We haven’t found a way to get the barbed wire down, but we shut the fences off. Okay you guys are in here for now. The mom with the infants can stay in a different cabin if you want to. We have to clean the sheets, so don’t touch the beds for now. Kids ten and under are going to the school we have in the dining hall. It’s not the best, but their getting better, and they’re mostly focusing on the power and basics.”

“You don’t know how to use your powers?” Elise asked. 

“Rallying day was two days ago. We’re still kind of shocked about that happening, and the PSF’s didn’t want us using their powers. So we’re trying to get on top of that first, then continuing with their education.”

“Thank you,” Tracy, one of the moms, said. There were footsteps approaching us, and Charlie and Logan appeared a second later at the gate.

“Hey,” Logan said looking at the group of people. 

“Everyone, this is Charlie and Logan, they're in charge of the school. Everyone under ten will stick with them for the next few weeks. They're going to show the two kids around and meet up with others with their powers.” 

“Alright,” the red said. 

“Why don’t you three go and see the cabins?” I asked, looking at the three psi. “Logan can introduce you to the cabin leader with green beds.” 

“Okay,” the red boy said, after looking at his mother. Logan stepped aside, and Charlie stepped forward to lead them out. 

“Why don’t you go as well?” I asked the ten-year-old girl who didn’t have any powers. She didn’t fit in anywhere, but she could always meet anyone. 

“Are you sure?” she asked in a small voice. 

“Of course. You’ll probably get powers one day, why wouldn’t you want to see what you might get one day?” I asked and she smiled up at me, before running after them. Once she was gone, her mother stepped up beside me.

“You know the chances of her surviving aren’t great?” she asked. 

“I know, but we have silvers, and we will try our best to make sure she survives,” I answered and looked back at the group. “Alright. Families on the first cabin on the left, individuals first on the right, infants second on the right.” 

“Thank you,” Tracy answered, and they all walked away to see the inside of the cabins. 

“You know this isn’t going to go over well with some people,” Mirable said walking up beside me. 

“I know, but we saved three kids from the camp, and we have the possibility of saving five more from death. Keep an eye on them for me.” 

“Of course,” Mirable said, and I stepped away so that I could talk to the rest of the council, which had gathered right outside the gates of the PSF cabins. There seemed to be varying degrees of confusion and anger amongst the group. With many of them more confused than angry.

“So, you let adults back into Tundra?” Levi asked, and I winced at his tone. Levi had every reason to be afraid of the adults, most of the colors could defend themselves with their powers, but greens had a major disadvantage compared to everyone else. 

“Okay everyone, I want you to remain calm. The new adults are not a part of the PSF’s, they are just concerned parents that want to stick with their kids. Despite what most of Tundra will tell you, there are parents who don’t mind having kids with superpowers.” Several kids gave me a doubtful look. “Look, they are on a trial basis here, which means we are being judgmental of them. If they mess up in a big way, they're out. They’re in the same position as Calvin, and they are willing to help us. 

There were grumbles amongst the crowd, and I had to give more reassurances to them for them to begrudgingly accept their new reality and walk away to tell everyone else. Most of the kids seemed fine with it, though some, mostly greens, weren’t as happy about it. When the last of the kids walked away, I turned back to the small encampment. I took a few steps back through the gate.

Most of the people seemed to have settled into the cabins, and some of the younger ones seemed to be getting anxious waiting around for something to happen. Calvin and Bob were talking quietly with one another by cabin sixty-one. They seemed to be in an argument but weren’t upset with each other to raise their voices. 

“What ‘s going on over here?” I asked deciding to approach the pair and figure out what was going on and to sop the argument before things got heated. Both looked at me surprised. 

“The two of us were in the same platoon for a while. When I left, we split up. Most of us are still in Nebraska, some are in surrounding states. We kept in contact, and I know that some of them have kids. I was wondering if we could bring them here. Calvin here thinks that it’s a somewhat bad idea,” Bob said, giving his friend a pointed look.

“Look he does care about your friends, but he also knows that it is extremely dangerous for people to go about galivanting around the countryside. Heck the only reason he ever leaves is because he’s getting things that we need. As much as I want to help people, you better have a plan to get them here with no one noticing us.”

“We could meet somewhere and drive all of us in together,” Bob said. I gave Calvin a side look, and he tapped his head. What’s going on? I thought to him. 

Look, I want to help the kids, but isn’t it dangerous to be constantly driving in and out of the camp? Calvin thought. 

That’s not the question I’m worried about. Do you trust them? Calvin looked at me surprised, before nodding. Okay, where would they be?

Mostly Kansas. I know some relocated to Nebraska. 

Okay. I want you to meet up with them somewhere in Kansas. Take the van and ditch it eventually. Travel through the night, you're less likely to be caught. Take one of the oranges with you, and don’t come back until you’re sure you have everyone. 

That’s a risk.

Don’t you think I know that? We have an opportunity to keep kids out of the camps. It's a risk, but we’ll all feel worse if one of those kids is an upper scaled kid, and they're caught and killed. 

Fine, he thought and looked back at his friend, who was looking at us confused. 

“What’s going on?” Bob asked, looking between us confused. 

“Some oranges can talk with their minds. Anyway, I’ll let you and Calvin go on this round trip of yours. There are some basic rules I want to lay out though. Calvin’s in charge, you listen to him. Don’t do anything so dangerous that you will attract attention to yourself. You do it, I’ll throw you in the program I have at Cuckoo. Don’t show up again until you find all your friends.” 

“You’re just going to let us go, without a fight?” Bob asked. 

“Yes, because I have leverage material. You hand us over, your kids will end up dead, or an experimental camp. I hear the camp officials are really interested in kids who haven’t contacted IAAN yet.” Bob paled, and Calvin seemed unfazed by the comment. “Now get out of here before I change my mind.” Both men nodded and walked away towards the tower. 

I looked at the others, who had walked out of the cabins to look at us confused. They were hanging around trying not to be suspicious but were failing horribly. I heard kids screaming and playing around me in the silence, and turned to see the school aged kids were playing around happily. 

“Come on. I’ll give you a tour,” I called out, and the rest of the people walked out of the cabins to join us. They seemed interested in looking in their new surroundings. They formed a kind of line, but once I was sure everyone was in front of me, I turned to the gate, and led them out. 

“Alright,” Mirable called out, pointing towards the tower. “That’s the control tower. Everything that is important going on goes on in there. Over there is the dining hall, and the infirmary. The warehouse is on that side of the building. The cabins go counterclockwise from purple, blue, green, yellow, red, silver, then orange. It’s simple once you get used to it.” 

“What are some of the jobs we're going to do?” Tracy asked, and I took the opportunity to step up.

“The former teachers will join up with ours for now. We need people to help us move forward. The rest of you will end up splitting your time between the garden and the warehouse. You won’t be allowed on the security team, but you can find things to do,” I said, and everyone gave murmurs of agreement. We walked towards the dining hall, and I saw kids give us wide eye looks. I ignored them and led them into the airconditioned building. 

Several people sighed in relief and started shuffling out of the way to let more kids through the door. We wandered through the tables and lined up against the wall in front of the window. There wasn’t usually food still left in the dining hall at this time of day, but there could be crumbles left. 

“Hey. How are you guys?” Levi asked, walking over to the window. Several people’s eyes widened in surprise. “You guys can eat anything you want. It's not the best, but it's better than nothing.”

“Go,” I said, and several people grabbed plates, and started scoping food out of the long metal tubs and putting them on their trays. Levi looked down the line and looked back at me. 

“Where’s Calvin?” 

“He and one of the incomers are going to go check out a lead on some kids,” I answered. His eyebrows raised, and I shrugged. I waved him off and walked with the group to join the others at a table in the corner of the room. 

&&& 

It took me a little while to figure out where to put everyone, but I was able to find places for them to stay. Everyone except the teachers and Elise ended up in the garden. Elise joined with the few kids we had in the library and spent the day rearranging the few rooms to make it easier to get the books. While the three teachers we got spent the day devising a plan with Charlie to help find a way to give kids actual substance in their learning. 

I spent the rest of the day jumping from place to place finding places to help others and checking on Cuckoo every few hours. When everything was starting to slow down for the night and everyone was finding their way back to their cabins, I walked back to the old PSF’s cabins. Most of them had settled down, and someone had dragged a bench out for Elise to sit on, so she could watch the sunset. 

“How are you doing?” 

“I’m good. Did you enjoy today?” I asked stopping in front of her. 

“Of course, I haven’t felt this alive in years,” Elise said with a bright smile. “It was so interesting to watch some of your kids using their powers. They seemed happy playing their games. I talked with Isabella and the silvers today. They said they could help me find a way to release some pain from my bad hip.” 

“Good,” I said, happy that she seemed to be doing well. It had been one of my biggest fears that she and the others would accept us as is, but she seemed to be doing good with everything. 

“Have you heard anything from Bob and Calvin?” Nancy asked, walking up to join us. 

“Nope, but that’s not a surprise. None of us have any phones,” I answered, looking at her. “We should hear from them in a few days though.” 

“Fine,” Nancy sighed, and looked over at Amelia, Bob’s ten-year-old daughter. She was playing with a soccer ball that Calvin had brought back yesterday. She was upset that her dad had left, though she understood why he was doing it. Nancy shook her head, before she walked away to see her kids before lights out. Tracy walked up to me, clearly exhausted. 

“Are you okay?” I asked. 

“Yeah, just tired,” she sent a look at Amelia, before looking back at me. “I’m worried about her; she’s never been without her dad for a long period of time. Even when he deployed, she had her mother around.” 

“What happened to her mother?” 

“Committed suicide a few months ago. Amaia lost her two older brothers near the start of IAAN, and her mother couldn’t bear it anymore.” I sighed and looked at the girl heartbroken. 

“Look, I can put her in my old cabin, some of the girls went through the same thing as her. It should keep her entertained for a while.” 

“Thank you,” Elise said happily. 

“No problem,” I said with a forced smile. 

“Ava?” Tracy asked. Looking at Amelia for a second before looking at me again. “What are the chances that Amelia actually makes it?” 

“You mean survive IAAN?”

“Yeah, with the silvers it makes it easier for her to survive it, right?” 

“Honestly Tracy, I have no idea. The kids you came with are the first we’ve seen without powers in months. I don’t even know where to start on making sure she survives, no one does. We don’t have any information on it.” 

“Dangit.” 

“I know,” I said pity running through my veins. “We do have x-ray machines we can use to help us understand it, but I don’t know how we can help.”

“Thank you. That’s all I needed to know.” 

“No problem. Will you guys be fine here?” 

“Yeah,” Elise said after sharing a look with Tracy. 

“Good,” I said and looked over at the girl in question. “Amelia.” The girl looked over at me and stopped playing with her soccer ball. 

“Yeah?” 

“Come on. I’m going to put you in my old cabin.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah,” I said leaning down in front of her. “Elise told you some of the things you’re going through, and some of the girls have gone through the same thing you did. I figured you would like to talk to them.” 

“Okay,” she said, and looked at Tracy and Elise. She waved and they waved back.

“Come on.”

“I’m coming,” she said, and she followed me out of the gate. We walked in silence for a few minutes before she spoke up. 

“I overheard your conversation with Tracy,” Amelia said, throwing me a curve. “What’s IAAN? Everyone seems to know what’s going on, but no one wants to explain it to me. I keep hearing different things, but no one is saying anything. They expect me to know everything but refuse to acknowledge it.” 

“IAAN stands for Idiopathic Adolescence Acute Neurodegeneration. It’s a near fatal disease that strikes at random killing ninety eight percent of the affected and leaving survivors with powers. It has no known cure, and no way to know who is going to survive.” 

“The survivors have powers like the ones you have?”

“One of the seven, or all of them. Why are you asking me instead of your dad, or one of the others you were brought in with?” 

“They wouldn’t explain it to me. I have a question though.” 

“What is it?” 

“I heard that you could have a microchip in someone which reads the brain and send it somewhere else. Have you heard of it?” 

“Yeah, doctors use it to track tumors. What are you getting at?” 

“How hard would it be to find one and put it in my neck?” My jaw dropped, and I stopped walking. Amelia stopped walking as well and looked up at me with a serious look on her face. 

“Why would you want a microchip in your neck?” I asked after a second of terror. 

“I’m going to die anyway, might as well do something with my life. If this information helps others survive IAAN, then why would I pass over the chance of doing it. Plus, it beats being in an x-ray machine for hours at a time each day. It would allow me to play with everyone else, and give you guys an opportunity to study how someone becomes a psi.” My stomach seemed to be getting lower and lower with each word she said. I took a deep breath and released it. 

“Amelia, if you want to do this, I will support you in every way I can. Not a lot of people are going to like it though.” 

“You’re going to have people critze you no matter what you do. The question is would you rather have faulty or good information?” I took another deep breath and released it slowly. 

“I’ll talk with Isabella about getting a microchip in your neck,” I said, and her face took on a bright smile.

“Thank you so much,” she said and wrapped her arms around my chest. 

“No problem, now why don’t we go meet everyone?” I asked, and she nodded. I smiled and she followed me to my old cabin. The kids inside were playing around and telling stories, but as soon as we walked in, and everyone saw my face they knew something was wrong. 

“Hey,” Jackie said, sliding out of her bed. “What are you guys doing here?” 

“Well Amelia’s dad left with Calvin this morning, and she didn’t have anyone to stay with her. So, I figured it would be a good thing to have her spend some time with kids her age.” 

“Alright,” Jackie said, leaning down to talk with Amelia face to face. “It's nice to meet you Amelia, I’m Jackie. Do you happen to like stories?” Amelia nodded. “Well, we do the best stories here. Do you want me to show you your bed?” She nodded again and grabbed Jackie’s offered hand. Jackie stood up and led her to my old bed. 

Delta, Elizabeth, and Mirable instantly jumped out of their beds, and walked down the aisle to join me. Delta gave me a look, and I turned around to walk back out the door. The three girls following close behind me, and Mirable shut the door behind her. 

“What’s going on?” Delta asked as soon as the door was shut. 

“Her mom committed suicide a few months ago, and her brothers died of IAAN,” I said, and paused.

“What else is going on Ava? You’ve heard this story about a hundred times now.” Elizabeth said.

“She asked me to put a microchip in her neck. She figures she won’t survive IAAN, and she wants to give us information about what happens when someone dies of it.”

“Oh Ava,” Delta said, and threw her arms around my shoulders. I hugged her back, and Elizabeth and Mirable hugged me as well. After a second, they pulled back and Delta smiled at me. 

“You know she could change her mind about it?” Delta said. 

“I was going to do it. She doesn’t want to have to spend a lot of time in the Infirmary,” I said. 

“Okay. You know she does have a chance to survive?” 

“I know, but she doesn’t have a good chance,” I said, and looked at the sunset in the distance. I wish I had an answer, but I didn’t. I wish I could prevent Amelia ’s death, but I knew deep down that I couldn’t do much about it. I looked at my friends, and with a nod towards the cabin. They recognized that I didn’t feel like talking anymore, so they walked back into the cabin. I sighed and went back to my small room in the infirmary. 

Chapter Text

By the morning of day seven of our freedom, everyone had finally figured out that the PSF’s were never coming back, and the new people weren’t like the previous group. They helped around the camp, relieving the stress in certain areas, and allowing for more kids to go to school, and not have to worry about helping as much. The school was now thriving because of Nancy’s care, going from focusing on primarily on the powers to being able to teach actual knowledge. Though figuring how the powers worked was important and still apart of the school’s system.

The school kids met at eight in the morning, and would continue for most of the day, helped by some of the older kids and the three teachers. They had moved out of the dining hall for most of the day and had started their teaching depending on the subject and time of day. Power classes would be housed around the camp, where no one would get hurt, often bringing in older kids so they could learn in a class area. Science classes often took place wherever something interesting was going on. While classes like English, social studies, and math often took place underneath trees, and in the fields on the outskirts of the camp, using things that the camp originally had, or what Calvin stole, or what could come in the trucks that came every so often.

Everyone else’s schedule really depended on what job they did and how much o a certain thing we needed at the time. It also helped that one of Alex’s cabinmates was able to create a scheduling system so that people could now have official start and stop times. People in the garden and dining hall still had to wake up relatively early since people nodded food and it was significantly colder in the morning. Everyone else slept in, only getting up when they needed to go to school or their jobs.

It took us a few days of massive discussion to finally conclude about what Amelia had asked, but eventually we did come to a decision. Isabella had a few microchips that the former medical staff had for some reason and had put one into the back of Amelia's neck to monitor her. Amelia was happy about it and would happily run around with the other kids. 

Though many things had changed for the better, there were still glaring signs of what happened to us. Rations were still low since the purples hadn’t fully figured out their powers yet, and we still had to wear our old uniforms, cause Calvin had been more focused on stealing things like food, fans, ac machines, and clothes. Kids were still scared of the adults though they were putting in an active role of showing they meant them no harm. 

Calvin and Bob had returned last night, bringing back three vans completely full of people. Kids who had powers were spread out amongst the cabins to give room for the adults. Those who didn’t joined Amelia in Project Genesis. When Bob had been given the news of why she had done it, he broke down crying. 

Like every day for the last week, I was sitting in the conference room with the thirty-five cabin leaders and Calvin, doing our daily talk about what the camp needed for the day. We had been talking about the usual things when I saw Calvin glance at Mirable, then Alex. Mirable has just finished a long talk about how we needed to up our security. 

“What’s going on Calvin?” I asked him as soon as she finished talking. He looked over at me surprised and I raised an eyebrow. He looked at Alex, who gave him a sheepish look, before she turned to me. 

“Calvin and Bob approached me last night, concerned that we won’t have enough room for the kids who are going to arrive in the next few months,” Alex said. “The people sending the bus still think that we have about eight hundred empty beds right now. We don’t have eight hundred beds empty thanks to Bob and Calvin. So, they thought that we could build multiple large buildings instead of several smaller ones. This time building smaller rooms in the buildings so we can give kids more privacy.” 

“Large buildings would also give us more room to move around and would reduce the amounts of things we need to steal. It would also reduce the amount of people we need to have to walk around the buildings, because we could simply put security cameras in the hallways,” Calvin said, finishing what Alex was trying to say. 

“And?” I asked. 

“I mean it would require some time, and a lot of stealing, but we could do it,” Calvin said. “We just haven’t figured out how many people to put in each building, how many stories we put in each building. Would we segregate like we’ve been doing up till now?” 

“Have any of you talked to Tia, or any of her crew?” I asked, and they looked at each other before looking at me. “Alright. I want both of you to talk with her and see how many supplies we would need. Figure out what we can scavenge from the cabins, and what we have to steal. Let them figure out all the important questions. When’s the next bus coming in?” 

“Three days from now. Should be arriving at the same time as the rest,” Alex said. 

“Alright,” I said and looked at Mirable. “Do you have a plan on how to get everyone off the buses safely?” 

“There are three PSF’s on every single bus and a driver. There isn’t any security system on the bus, no one wants to have physical evidence lying around. Someone would have to knock the four people on board within seconds of the bus pulling through the gate and stopping, otherwise we have to worry about them spotting something. Then the only concern is that the oranges would miss someone.” 

“If they were knocked out quickly, and saw no one’s faces or powers, it wouldn’t be hard to convince them it went routine,” Penelope said, and Felix and I nodded in agreement. 

“She’s right,” Calvin interjected. “Those four don’t leave the bus, and it's usually the same people being sent in. It’s less of a security risk to use the same ones repeatedly. All the oranges would have to cover is to take a memory from before and slightly change events. It should be easy. The upper-scaled kids and adults could hide. We would just have to find people to take the kids off the bus, into the registration wing, and make sure they end up with the right people.” 

“Okay, I want kids on this. Especially ones who’ve been here for a while. They would best understand what’s going on, and the incoming kids won’t react very well coming in and seeing a bunch of adults with guns. Mirable, you have some kids who could work well with it?” 

“A few.” 

“Good. Alex, Calvin, talk with Tia and her crew, figure out what they have to say about our building situation. Everyone else, go about your business.” Everyone nodded and started standing up to go about their business. Mirable turned to face me head on. 

“You should greet the new kids.” Mirable said, and I paused. “Calvin makes a great motivational speaker, but shouldn’t you be the first person to greet everyone once the four people on board are knocked out?” 

“I mean, I guess so. It would ease everyone into the camp.” 

“Good,” Mirable said with a smile. 

“Everyone can go,” I said, and everyone stood up talking amongst themselves. I took a second to process everything, before standing up so I could go to my morning class with Logan. I volunteered some information, but it was still nice to learn from someone, and to talk about it with yellows. 

I walked out of the room, and down the stairs. I heard multiple people talking to each other and smiled at myself. There were many things still wrong with the camp, but there were many good things, like how we could talk with each other whenever we wanted to. 

I walked down the stairs and out of the building without talking to anyone. As soon as I was out of the building, others shouted hello and waved. I waved back and headed in the direction of the yellow cabins. As I walked slowly down the street, I looked at the old PSF cabins. Some people were walking around and talking with each other. Elise was sitting on her bench, which had been pulled out next to the garden. Kids without powers were sitting around her listening to stories. The first class of the day was powers class, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that they had started talking with her. 

I looked around again and looked at the yellow cabins. There were kids sitting on the outskirts of the buildings. I smiled once again and joined them. Instead of interrupting, I waved at Logan and sat down at the corner of the circle.

“Hey,” Ziva whispered beside me, and I smiled at her. Ziva was one of the youngest kids in the camp at eight years old, and though she had more of her childhood taken away than anyone else here, she had the brightest smile in the camp. She had a small security camera in front of her, and as soon as she said hi, she looked back at Logan, who was talking about how to turn it off. 

I paid attention to Logan, who was talking excitedly. Though within a few seconds, he wrapped up the lesson, and sent the few kids surrounding him to practice on the cameras he somehow managed to get his hands on. “Hey,” I said with a smile. “How have you done today?”

“Managed to start and stop this without blowing it up,” Ziva said with a bright smile, looking down at the camera and I couldn’t help but smile. Though it had only been a few days, Ziva was one of the first yellows to ever figure out how to use her powers and was always eager to learn more. “How was the meeting?” 

“Fine, there’s a new bus coming in a few days, and I have to give a speech to the kids coming in, as well as making sure everything goes smoothly,” I said and looked at the camera, which as promised was perfectly fine. “Mirable and the other guards should be able to keep things in check though. Tia and her crew are going to start building new cabins soon. Though it’s going to be awhile until we get it done.” 

“You’re worried something might go wrong?” Ziva asked with a knowing smile. 

“Yeah. There’s a lot riding on this.” 

“I know, and you’ll do fine,” Ziva said and picked up the camera. She handed it to me with a knowing smile. “Practice is what you need.” My eyebrows furrowed. “Look, your powers allow you to know how to control your powers, but until you practice them enough, you will never be sure of them.” 

“Fine,” I said and grabbed the camera out of her hand. I set the camera back on the ground and started figuring out how to control it. With a few prods and pokes, it started up. “How are you doing?” 

“Good. Alex said that the tower might have found a lead on my grandmother.” 

“Good,” I said, and the camera turned off. 

“You’re getting better,” Ziva said with a smile. “Now, you need to practice everything else.” 

“I know,” I said and touched the camera again. It started up again, and her eyebrow raised. I looked around the small area and saw that the others were making good on their cameras.

“You said that there might be new buildings?”

“Yeah. We have to few cabins right now, so Calvin was thinking about building some more.” 

“Calvin has enough things to build everything right?” 

“Yeah, but Alex said things like the concrete take a lot of time to dry. While she isn’t sure that everything can be done easily. Honestly, we need to keep things safe right now,” I said and smiled. I looked up and saw Mirable walking up to me. “Keep practicing though, you’re getting better.”

“Of course,” she said, and I quickly stood up. Mirable stopped walking a few feet away and waited for me to take a few steps toward her. 

“What’s going on?” 

“Managed to track down some of the kids who want to join the entry team,” Mirable said, practically whispering. I looked at her confused, then looked back to see how close we were to the class of yellows, and I understood why she was whispering. 

“Let’s take this elsewhere,” I said, and she sighed in relief. Without a word, she turned and started heading down the street towards the tower. I looked at the class again, and Ziva sent a small wave. I waved back at her, before turning and following behind Mirable. We only walked a few meters when Mirable started talking again. 

“I managed to find four kids who can dress as guards, six if you include you and me. I already talked over things with Alex, and she said that she could fake any reports the PSF’s should have been sending. Though there is going to be a problem.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Central expects upper scaled kids to keep showing up. I mean of the ones who should be taken away make up around thirty seven percent of the psi population. Even if Alex and her team can get the higher ups to let us keep the yellow survivors here, that is still a rough seventeen percent of kids who are supposed to be showing up here. Well fourteen percent since oranges only show up in three percent of cases. There is only so much death we could report that won’t get noticed. Honestly, I’m surprised no one has shown up yet to confront us about the supposed deaths on Rallying Day.” 

“I’m surprised as well,” I admitted, suddenly scared that more PSF’s could show up at any second. They did know where we were, which was one of the few disadvantages to remaining here. “If they were going to show up, then they would have done it by now, and reds and silvers only make up fourteen percent of the population? I know they were rare but not that rare.” 

“Yeah, that’s rare, but Ava, that’s not the problem. The problem is at the rate we’re going at, there is almost certainly going to be a red on the bus that comes in. I know we can’t send kids to the experimental camps, but if we go from a camp that had plenty of reds, oranges, yellows, and silvers, to being one with only greens, blues, and purples someone is going to notice.” 

“I know,” I said and rolled my head backward in a long sigh. “For the oranges and silvers, it's going to be a lot easier because we don’t have to prove anything, but for reds, that’s going to be trickier. What percentage is red again? I think you said it was nine percent, right?

“Yeah, right?” 

“There were twelve hundred of us before we started adding kids Calvin brought in?” I asked, my mind suddenly going in a thousand directions. 

“Twelve hundred and twenty-seven. Why?”

“There are four hundred and forty-five yellows, oranges, silvers, and reds, right?” 

“I’m not sure about the specifics, why?” 

“Because that leaves us with the people in charge thinking we have seven hundred eighty-eight empty beds. Which by my calculations at thirty-nine silvers, seventy reds, and twenty-three oranges, give or take a few decimal numbers. The oranges and silvers would be easy to get rid of and we could always be truthful with those so we could always help more kids. Now what to do with the others?” 

“I might have an idea for that,” Mirable said, and I looked at her surprised. “Have you ever heard of the children's league?” 

“Sure. Aren’t they trying to help the kids?”

“Trying is a keyword, but that’s not the issue. If we were honest about the reds, and sent them on their way, away from the camp, and say they were attacked by the children’s league, or some other nefarious group of people, wouldn’t they focus more on them then us? Especially if it were to happen in West Virginia, or South Carolina? Far enough away from Tundra to be connected back to us, especially if we were able to find some of the other trucks that were taking other kids?” 

“Alex was able to find other trucks?” 

“Well, a few, but those were ones that were already too late,” Mirable said, looking her head down in defeat. 

“Dangit,” I said and shook my head. “What do we do if a red shows up?” 

“I’ll have to talk to Alex, but I think we can just go with a masked bandit approach? I mean they don’t have a camera on the buses, but I know for a fact they have a tracker on it. So, we could have a few people on the bus, have the kids hang out on it, then conveniently break it down on the edge of the highway. We then have some of Calvin’s friends come up in masks and drive them away.” 

“That doesn’t sound all bad honestly. Alright, see if you can convince the higher ups to keep the yellows, if not we’re going to have to do the same thing as the reds. We may even find where other camps are, and when to avoid them,” I said. We couldn’t easily track where the other camps were because of how little information was being passed around. We knew of at least two, Blackrock and Thurmond, but that’s only because of the old guard. They had shed no information either. When the camp first started people from other camps had helped to start the camp, but as soon as it was finished, they had gone back to their original camps. 

I paused and looked around. Sometime during our conversation, Mirable and I had stopped walking and were talking right next to the fields. Some of the workers were giving us strange looks but said nothing. I looked down at the ground by my feet and saw a small weed poking out of the soil.

I took a deep breath and focused on what Ethan had told me during my purple class, to focus on what was in front of you, and to imagine what you wanted the plant to look like in your mind. I took another deep breath and let the air out of my mouth slowly. I pictured in my mind what I wanted to look like, and as soon as I felt the urge in my fingers, the weed started to grow into the one that I had in my mind. Growing as fast as possible out of the ground until it reached the top of my shoe. 

“Huh,” I said with a smile. 

“You’re getting better,” Mirable said nicely. 

“I was wanting it to go to my waist.” 

“You’re still learning, Ava, and just because you’re bad at one thing doesn’t mean you won’t ever not be good at it.”

“I wish I was learning faster,” I said, and stepped away from the plant I had just grown. I looked around and saw one young girl playfully growing a tomato to the right color to be picked.

“Just because someone else is better at someone than you at something, doesn’t mean you can’t bring yourself down.” 

“I’m supposed to know everything about my powers, because of my green ones. It was how I was made leader.” 

“You became a leader because you could understand what we could do, and nothing more. Your powers make you special, but don’t forget while they make you unique, you are just like everyone else.” 

“Now come on, I want you to meet everyone.” I followed her and met the ten kids who were going to help us. 

&&&

After my quick discussion with the group, all of Mirable’s security kids, I walked towards the silver cabins. I needed to check on some of the younger kids who I hadn’t talked to earlier. I was halfway there when Bob appeared out of nowhere.

“What is it?” I asked.

“We needed your permission to do something,” Bob said, and I paused.

“What is it?”

“I want to start a team, me and four other people. Take the reds from the group.”

“I’m hearing hesitation in your voice.”

“We would have to take a kid.”

“Which one?”

“Mark,” he said, and my eyebrow raised. There was somehow only one Mark here. He was a fifteen-year-old silver. He was pretty good with his powers, and the younger kids trusted him. I didn’t know much about him, but knew he was once an Eagle scout.

“Why him?” I asked.

“Eagle scout, nice,” he said with a shrug. “Anyway, Dave was also wanting to start a team so that he could have more people with him when he starts stealing things again.”

“Who was he thinking?”

“Mostly adults, and he was thinking about taking one of the yellows with him. Gas prices have gone up in the last few years, and we’re having to go farther and farther to get it,” he said.

“Alright. Have him give me a list,” I said, and he nodded before walking away.

Chapter Text

Three days later, our plan for the upcoming bus was finished. Bob’s team was waiting by their van. Whoever had been in charge said it was a good idea that we should keep the yellows that arrived at our camp. As much as I appreciated the fact, I wished we could have helped more kids. Mirable’s collected kids and I were gathered in front of the control tower. There were kids dressed in yellow and green uniforms walking around the garden, which could be seen from the gate. Everyone else was hidden.

The team was all dressed in the former PSF’s old collecting gear, and we were all bored. There was nothing to do but talk, and since the crew was around each other so much they didn’t have much to talk about. The bus wasn’t supposed to show up for another few minutes. Mirable was waiting beside me, her mask pulled off her face. The clothes loosely fitted her and seemed two sizes too large for her small frame. She seemed to notice me watching her and raised an eyebrow. 

“Are you okay?” she asked me, looking at the gate.

“Worried,” I said, looking in the same direction. I turned and looked around the group of gathered kids, and for a second, I was reminded of when I had come into the camp. Though this was different than then, I could still feel the betrayal that I had for my mother. I had always wondered what my father would have done, if he even knew about what I was, but I couldn’t think down that road without thinking about my mother.

“We’ve been practicing for days now,” Mirable reassured me.

“I know,” I said, and gave her a brief smile. My radio buzzed before Alex started talking.

“Bus time is three minutes out,” she said.

“Copy,” I said in response, and waved my hand. The entire team knew what the wave meant, and easily pulled their masks over their heads. The masks were made of cotton, and weren’t the most comfortable things to wear, and limited my field of vision by at least a fourth. The uniform I was wearing was extremely uncomfortable, pinching and pulling. The gun in my hands was also extremely heavy, even though I had it strung across my shoulder.

I was pulled from my thoughts about the uncomfortableness of my clothing, by the sound of a bus stopping, and the gate squealing open. I looked to my left, where a bus was slowly coming to a stop in front of us. It was one of the bigger ones, and I could see scared faces poking out from the windows. Mirable’s team instantly surrounded the bus, and Calvin, in his calming presence, walked up the stairs of the bus. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but after thirty seconds, he raised his left hand and closed it tight, the signal to take control of the situation.

I used my powers and pushed past the four PSF’s natural defenses on the bus. It was easy enough to do, and they fought with little resistance. Calvin stepped aside as the bus driver stood up and walked off the bus without a smidge of a fight still in him. Calvin sat down in the chair that the driver had abandoned to watch as the four PSF’s walked off the bus. Penelope, who had been waiting by the door in the infirmary, walked out of the building to take control of the four prisoners. She smiled brightly at me, and I tried to give her one, but she probably couldn’t see it because of my mask. I released my control slightly on the PSF’s and Penelope took control instantly.

I could feel her powers push past mine and could feel as they seemed to be solidifying in their minds. As soon as they were in her care and had walked around the side of the bus to line up against the opposite side of the bus, I handed my gun over to Hailey, the girl in charge of the armory. Karl had been a good kid, but he had decided to work in the kitchen instead of broilingly guarding the armory. She nodded at me, and I walked up the steps and into the steaming hot bus. I gave Calvin a smile as I walked up the steps, which dropped when I turned left to look at the kids into one of shock. There were over a hundred kids on the bus, at least thirty more than any bus that had been here previously.

I heard five thuds in quick succession outside and knew that the PSF’s had been knocked out. It was easier to work on the PSF’s when they were unconscious. Calvin touched my arm and offered me the microphone he had grabbed from underneath the driver’s seat. I grabbed it out of his hand and brought it up to my mouth.

“Welcome to Tundra everyone. My name is Ava McBrian, and I am the director here at Tundra. I know all of you are confused as to why you are all here, and I know that some of you were unfortunately given up by your parents, and some of you were picked up for some other reason, but what I can assure you is that you are safe here. Whatever your story, you are safe here. Now right to the point all of you survived IAAN, and now all of you have one of seven powers.”

“Powers,” someone snorted from halfway down the bus. I raised one eyebrow but continued anyway.

“Yes. The seven powers were given a color identification to make things easier to keep track of which kid has what power. Going from the most common to the least, it's the greens who have basic intelligence. Blues can move things with their minds. Yellows can control electricity. Purples can grow and move plants, and reds can create and control fire. Silvers can heal any wound, as well as create any. Oranges can control people. Finally, blacks can do every single one.”

“That’s not possible,” one girl yelled, and my head snapped to face the girl who had said it. Which was a thirteen-year-old girl with blond hair, and a skinny face.

“Really?” I asked, and before she could answer my hair caught fire. She leaned down further into the seat. “Exactly. Each of you will be taken into groups of eight into the infirmary where you will be tested, and then segregated into groups according to those colors. After you are segregated you will be placed into one of our cabins. By rule you do have to sleep in your assigned cabin with the only exception being for a medical condition, in which you will be put into our infirmary. We do this as a matter of not only safety but allows you to be properly represented in our council.

After your abilities have been discovered, you will immediacy meet your new cabin leaders, who will be your representative here in the camp. They will show you your cabins and give you a tour. They will also go over the rules of the camp and will start teaching you how to use your abilities tonight. Now I won’t keep you here, so let’s get you organized.”

Calvin stood up and I let him walk down the aisle to the back of the bus before I started directing kids out of the bus, trying to let groups of eight go at one time so it was easier for Mirable’s team. It took us twenty minutes to get all the kids off the bus and lined up in front of the infirmary. The organized kids were lined up against the left side of the building.

As Calvin and I walked off the bus after the last group of kids, the driver and PSF’s hopped onto the bus. My eyes scanned the group of kids who were finished. Some were talking with their cabin leaders, others were looking around scared, while others were looking around curiously. The others were keeping their distance from the infirmary, though they were curious. They remembered how badly their first days were and knew they should give them space.

When we finally flipped through all of the kids, and divided them up, cabin leaders started leading their kids away from the infirmary. As I did the mental math, I realized I would need two more green cabin leaders before the next bus arrival. There weren’t any oranges and silvers, but there were two reds. They were both girls on the younger side. Dave walked up to the two girls. their cabin leader Sophia, and her right-hand woman Henrietta.

“You okay,” Bob asked, and I jumped in surprise.

“Yeah,” I said, and turned to walk away. I knew they would be fine the two girls would be fine with Dave’s team. All of them would be going up to South Dakota because that’s where they were collecting a few kids. They would fake a crash and would take the kids before they would hide and return the kids back to the camp after a few days. Henrietta would be going with them so they could practice their powers before they returned.

\

I only took a few steps towards the infirmary before I immediately ran into Calvin. Where Bob had just left me be, Calvin immediately noticed my reluctance. He gave me a pointed look, and I stopped.

“Are you okay?” Calvin asked.

“I worry about them,” I said, nodding at the two girls.

“I know,” he said.

“I was just hoping another black would come in,” I said with a shrug.

“Why?” he asked.

“I get lonely sometimes, being the only color. I can talk to everyone else about one power, and one of the adults or older kids about some form of personal thing, but no one else truly understands where I am,” I said, and he seemed to understand. “Anyway, why were there so many kids on this bus? This is the largest shipment we’ve seen here.”

“The government started forcefully collecting kids not long after you arrived. I guess they started reaching towns where they would collect a lot more kids, or one of the other camps near here filled up and they started sending kids out here instead of sending them to a camp that’s farther away.”

“Anyway, how are you doing, really?”

“I’ve been better, and worse,” I said, and heard the infirmary door open. I turned slightly and saw Felicia walk out of the building. She had been helping the older kids on the registration team, running between each office handing out oranges and apples for kids and giving kind words to the scared kids. She looked tired, and I was worried about her. She had decided to stay with the other silvers and when Isabella had seen me this morning, she had said Felicia had not slept one bit. When Felicia saw her father, she smiled at him and gave a big wave. “Go,” I said, and he looked down at me. “Go, hangout with Felicia, let the elders handle the newcomers.”

“Thank you,” Calvin said and walked away toward his daughter. I walked away as well and started toward the green /blue section, to help with the new arrivals. I didn’t have to go very far before I was stopped by Alex, and a blue girl who were both out of breath and sweating. I let them catch their breath for a second.

“What’s going on?” I asked, looking between the pair. Alex caught her breath first, and she quickly started talking.

“Ava, this is Delilah Moring. PSFs pulled her out of Douglas Wyoming after a random caller called her in. I don’t know how but she ended up here. She was traveling with three others when she was picked up. None of the others were, and their probably still in danger. What makes it worse is one of the kids is a red.”

“Okay. Alex, I need you to run and get Calvin. His crew was going up there to find some supplies. I don’t think that he’s left yet,” I ordered, and Alex ran away to go find Calvin. I turned to Delilah. “Okay Delilah. Don’t worry, okay. We’re going to have Bob and his team drive you out to Douglas. I’m going to need you to convince them to come in. I know this place isn’t pretty, but it is much better than being on the run.”

“Alright,” she said after a second.

“Good,” I said and looked down at her. She had changed into her uniform and a brief memory flashed through my head that she had arrived in pajama’s. “You’re going to need a new set of clothes.”

“Here,” Calvin said and tossed her a backpack. She blinked in surprise but didn’t drop the backpack.

“There’s a changing room inside the infirmary,” I said, and she nodded before walking away. I looked at Calvin.

“You mind if I take Camilla with us?” Calvin asked. “Kurt is cool and all, but I would like to have an orange and a blue who know how to use their powers to keep an eye on things.”

“If she’s cool with it, I don’t care,” I said, waving him off. Calvin had a small group of people who he would smuggle things with, and I trusted them enough to not hurt the kids and knew Camilla would like to get out of the two camps for a little while. She had pulled a lot of shifts over at Cuckoo and needed a distraction. Delilah appeared a second later, dressed in blue jean shorts and a black V-neck shirt.

“See you later,” Calvin said, turning and walking away waving behind him. Delilah walked behind him confused. Julian, Calvin’s right-hand man for this new team, pulled their van up next to the gate. Calvin said something to Delilah, and she opened the back door and hopped into the back of the van. Calvin shouted something to someone, and Camilla appeared a second later, and hopped in after Delilah. Alex and I watched in silence as the van pulled out through the gate.

“What is it, Alex?” I asked, sensing that she wanted to talk about something else.

“I was talking with one of the new greens who came in today, she mentioned that she overheard one of the PSF’s saying there was a yellow camp near here.”

“Did she say where?”

“No, but we can have Bob and Dave’s team look around after they drop the kids off.”

“Alright,” I said, right as Ethan, a eleven year old silver boy ran up to us. He was panting hard and had to stop for a minute to catch his breath.

“What is it, Ethan?” I asked.

“It’s Amelia, she’s in the Infirmary,” Ethan panted. “She’s getting her abilities.”

“What?” I asked. “When?”

“A few hours ago, look Isabella can better explain things,” he said. I looked at Alex before walking with Ethan to the infirmary. We walked up the stairs together.

“What powers does she have?” I asked as we toped the stairs.

“Purple,” Isabella said. I looked around and spotted her next to one of the office doors. “Already called Elizabeth and Sylvia, their packing her things and putting her in an empty bed in Sylvia’s cabin. Delilah’s going to take her old bed.”

“Does Bob know?”

“Yes,” she said and gave Ethan a pointed look. He walked down the stairs.

“Where is she?” Isabella nodded her head at the door she was next to. I walked up to her and into the office. Amelia was sitting on the bed.  

“I came as soon as I heard,” I said in a calm voice. “How are you feeling Amelia?”

“I feel weird,” she said in a small voice, and she looked up at me with big eyes.

“Yeah, you went through a big change. Do you mind if I ask what powers you have now?”

“Purple,” she said with a small smile.

“Oh, that’s good,” I said with a bright smile.

“It's not really a useful power, I wished I had a more useful one like the blues or greens.”

“I know you do, but purple can do amazing things as well. They can create beautiful life with their powers. Blues and greens can’t do that.”

“True,” she said, her tears subsiding. I heard loud footsteps behind me and turned to see Bob running into the hallway. As soon as he turned the corner, Amelia jumped up and ran to hug her father, who immediately bent down to hug his kid. She's purple, I thought to him, and he looked at me for a second before returning his attention to his daughter. Isabella and Macy stood up as well.

“What did you find?” I asked, looking at the two girls.

"I mean we found what we expected, but the process took three days to complete. The only reason we didn't notice it was because we've been so distracted."

"And?" I asked.

“How about you let me help?” a female voice behind me asked. I turned my head and saw Dr. Hawkins standing behind me. Dr Hawkins was married to one of Calvin’s army buddies. She had been a pediatrician before and during IAAN and was a great help to the silvers in learning their powers. She had hidden herself in the infirmary when the bus came, in case one of the kids came in with a problem and would need her help.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m not quite sure what’s going on.”

“Okay, the easiest way I can describe it is Amelia is going through the earliest stages of puberty.”

“How does this relate to IAAN?” I asked.

“Simple,” Dr Hawkins said. “Her brain got the powers because she was going into puberty. It’s like it was biological. Like how kids start getting taller.”

“Are you sure it was caused by it? What about some airborne disease?”

“Yes, the woman who has been a pediatrician for thirty years can mistakenly say something was caused by an airborne disease instead of puberty,” she deadpanned. “Look, I have my doubts that it’s fully caused by puberty, but it looks more like it than some airborne disease. More kids will have to change for any confirmations, but one thing I can say is the reason so many kids died is because their brains didn’t have enough to accommodate their powers. Amelia’s brain took three days to change, but we don’t know if that’s the average or if it was an extended period.”

“So, for another kid it could be shorter?” Isabella asked.

“Of course,” she said positively. “Nice catch putting a chip in her neck.”

“It was her idea actually,” Macy said.

“It’s a nice idea either way,” she said, before grabbing Isabella’s tablet and walking away.

“So, we need another kid to go through the change to see what’s going on?” Macy asked.

“Unfortunately,” I said, and looked at Amelia and Bob, who had stopped hugging one another. “Let’s let them have their time alone.”

“I think I have some work we have to do,” Isabella said, and grabbed Macy’s arm to pull her down the hallway. I shook my head, and walked after them when Bob called my name. I turned around and he gave me a nod. I smiled at him, and continued walking. Isabella and Macy disappeared into a door, and I continued walking down the stairs and out of the building. Mirable and Elise were standing next to one another by the tower, and Elise looked upset.

“Hey, Elise,” I called out, and they looked at me.

“Hey,” she said sadly.

“What’s going on?”

“Delilah is the granddaughter of one of the women who used to live in her retirement home,” Mirable said.

“I haven’t seen them in years,” she said.

“How about you and I take a walk?” I asked her. “You can tell me all about your friend.” She nodded, and we slowly walked away from Mirable to talk about her friends. We talked for a solid hour about her friend, and how Delilah had grown up.

Calvin and his friends didn’t show till the next day. Douglas was almost eight hours away in one direction. All of them were exhausted, and the kids were nice enough to stay awake long enough to be tested. As they started unloading the supplies, I walked up to them curiously.

“How are you doing?” Calvin asked.

“Curiosity,” I answered.

“What happened to Amelia?” Calvin asked.

“

Purple,” I said, and smiled at Delilah who walked past me to go to her cabin.

“That’s good,” Calvin said, pulling a bag of dry cement out of the back of the van. “I

could use your help.” I didn’t say anything and stared at the cement bag. I thought about it floating a few feet above the others, and without much effort it did as I asked.

“You’re getting better,” Bob muttered, poking at the bag. It didn’t drop to the ground, and he shrugged. “Could you put it in the tower? We’re putting everything in there.” I shrugged, and slowly started walking towards the warehouse. My steps were tentative, and the night air seemed to be cool around me. No one seemed to want to interrupt me as I walked. There were few people around me, most asleep in their cabins or with their relatives. I walked into the tower and turned left to head towards one of the storage rooms on the bottom floor. It was the first door on the left. So, it was easy to walk into the room and set it down on the floor. Some of the others came in after me and set it down with my bag. I walked back out and helped bring the rest of the bags into the building.

After that was done, I walked back over to Nancy and the other construction trying to find exact places for the upcoming buildings. It was a pretty good distance from the Tundra so the kids wouldn’t come over here and mess with anything. The housing buildings were going to be three story buildings and could house six hundred kids in the hundred and fifty rooms. They would be on the left side of the camp, while the right side of the camp would be dedicated for almost everything else, including an actual school for the kids.

Chapter Text

Five days later I was standing at the front gate pissed. What should have taken a couple days ended up as a five-day trip and ended with them showing up two pickup trucks each pulling a horse trailer behind them. As soon as I saw them, the vein under my eye started pulsing, giving me a slightly insane look, which Dave quickly tried to remediate as soon as he parked his truck. 

“Alright look,” he said walking up to me with his hands raised. “You know as well as I wouldn’t just steal something without reason.” 

“Yeah, and what would that be, because I’m pretty sure stealing two pickup trucks and horse trailers constitutes something crazy,” I said, trying to remain calm. Though I was barely keeping it together. 

“Uh, would kidnapping a bus full of kids heading towards a camp be considered useful?” he asked sheepishly. My eyebrow raised and my eyes seemed to pop out of my skull. “Yeah, we found a bus headed toward a camp and we stopped it and stole the kids. Before you get mad though, Terry did knock them out before anyone saw anything, and no one saw us load anyone onto the trucks.” My jaw dropped, and I wanted to argue with him, instead I grabbed my walkie - talkie and brought it to my mouth. 

“Isabella, could you gather the registration team?” I asked politely. 

“Why?” Isabella said curiously. 

“You’ll see. See you in a minute,” I said simply. I took my finger off the talk button and sent a glare to Dave, who simply smiled. 

“Good news, some of the kids are pre psi,” Dave said. I glared at him, and he decided to stop talking. I turned to the trailers again and saw that Mirable and some of her kids were fast approaching the sides. 

“Hey, be careful,” I called. She stepped back and waited for everyone to come around. I shook my head in silent defeat. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Dave had done what he had done, I would have done the same thing. From the stories that everyone had told me about, Dave was always the kind of guy to do the crazy things, and the one to stick his neck out for anyone, especially children. 

I took a deep breath and walked around the side of the trailer. Calvin seemed to know what I wanted to do, because he walked around the side, and grabbed the latch before I could. He pushed it up and pulled it out to the right of the trailer. I looked around the corner, and into the trailer. 

About a hundred kids were crammed into the back of the trailer. They were aged two to sixteen years old. The two years old surprised me. There had never been a case of kids under eight years old collected, and even then, eight- and nine-year-old were rare to be picked up. Of the original twelve hundred twenty-six original kids, there were only twenty kids who were picked up underneath the age of ten. I took a deep breath as I realized exactly where these kids would have been taken, an experimental camp. 

Though thankfully there were only about five kids underneath the age of nine. The trailer was cramped enough that the younger and smaller kids had to sit on the laps of the larger ones. Dave and his crew had been nice enough to give them water bottles and snack bars. Most of them were dressed in pajamas or clothes meant for school, probably because Dave didn’t want to steal a bunch of clothes when he needed to find a way to find food and water. Everyone looked at me frightened, and seemed confused as to why a fourteen-year-old girl was standing at the end of the trailer. I looked at Dave briefly before shoving the door all the way open.

“Come on, everyone. Please line up on the outside of the trailer please,” I ordered and started helping kids out of the trailer. “Terry, did you manage to find the list of their names?”

“Yeah. One of the people had a physical list for some reason. I guess they didn’t want the lists being possibly hacked, but I don’t know. I’ll go give it to Isabella.”

“Thank you,” I shouted to him and turned to the kids again. “Come on now. You’re safe. When all of you are out of the trailer were going to divide you by age. Kids under seven on the right, kids over seven on the left. Siblings, please line up in the middle. We’ll figure a way out to test you at the same time.”

I bent down, and looked at the young girl who was by the door. I offered her my hand and she took it. I grabbed her other hand and helped her stand up. Some of the others started standing up. Some kids jumped out of the trailer, and slowly walked around me, lining up where I had asked him to. Several kids, obviously siblings, held each other.

“Okay everyone, let's line up in groups of eight,” Mirable started calling, she started directing kids in certain directions. Dividing them by age for testing and confirmed Genesis cases. One of the older teenage boys I had seen earlier that was walking past me was holding a little girl no older than two. She looked absolutely terrified at what was surrounding her, though the guy didn’t look much better. I pulled them aside so that kids could keep walking past. 

“Hi. What’s your name?” I asked the girl, and she turned her little face at me. She looked like she was ready to cry at any moment, and was holding onto the kid for dear life, as if he was about to disappear. She didn’t answer, either because she was scared, or because she didn’t know it. I looked up at the older kid. 

“Her name’s Sally. I’m Sam,” he said, and I gave him a bright smile before looking at the girl again.

“That’s a pretty name. Sally, do you want to see a magic trick?” She nodded, and I cupped my hands in front of me. It might have been because of her age, but it wasn’t hard to make a small butterfly in between my hands. I opened them and showed her the trick. She looked at it surprised and reached out for it. I made the little illusion fly away, and she looked at it in amazement. I had it fly over the trailer and disappear. 

“That was pretty,” she muttered in two-year-old speak. 

“Yes, it was,” I answered, and I could see the boy look at me confused. So, I decided to address him instead of Sally. “You two siblings?” 

“No, I used to babysit her all the time when she was a bit smaller. Her parents had to work a lot, so I watched her all the time. I don’t know how she was picked up,” the kid said. 

“You two close?” 

“Close as can be,” he said. 

“That’s sweet. Alright, you two can stay together while you’re being tested. I’m sure she’s scared and needs someone she knows to keep her calm.”

“Of course,” he said and looked around briefly.

“Oh, hey don’t worry about that one,” Dave shouted from against the dining hall wall. “He’s blue, apparently moved a table when he was picked up.” 

“Is that true?” I asked him, and he nodded. “Okay. I would still like you to be tested, make sure we’re not missing anything, and I’ll start getting Sally here put into our baby program.”

“Could I possibly stay with her?” Sam asked.

“I’ll look into it myself and see what I can do. Though considering that you two have known each other for so long, you’ll probably be accepted with the other parents.”

“Thank you,” he said, relief in his voice.

“Okay just join the line over there,” I said and pointed at the sibling line. I turned to the next girl to help her out. Within a few minutes, the kids were out of the trailer, and were being lined up according to age.

Most of the kids in the second trailer had also been led out, and were divided by age, and confirmed powers. Isabella and her team had long ago disappeared into the infirmary, dragging some of the younger kids behind them. Once everyone was out of the first trailer, Dave jumped back out into the truck, and drove it towards the gate side. Five minutes after Isabella disappeared into the infirmary, I heard her voice on the walkie talkie “hey you can bring some of the kids in.” 

“Hey Sam,” I shouted, and the boy looked up at me. “Come on.” I waved my hand, and he and some of the kids near him stepped forward to follow me into the building. Up the stairs and into the registration wing. With Ethan’s help, I started directing kids into rooms and trying to keep the kids calm. Ethan walked out of the office Sam had walked in a few minutes ago concerned.

“What’s going on?” I asked as he stopped next to me. 

“Isabella needs you. She wants you to not make a big deal about it.” 

“Alright,” I said, giving him a side glance. Calvin, who was walking up the stairs with the next group of kids, heard what Ethan had said, so he nodded in agreement, and I walked into the office door next to me, where Sam, Sally, and Isabella were waiting. “What’s going on?” 

“Come here,” Isabella said, looking at the computer in front of her. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked, walking around the desk to look at the computer. On the screen was a brain scan with three different sections highlighted. The green, blue, and purple sections. I looked up at him wondering how he managed to have so many powers and not be a black. 

“No idea,” Isabella said, acknowledging what was going on. 

“Keep going through kids, I’ll deal with this,” I said, and she nodded. Since this group was officially in the system, she finished closing it out and started setting up for the next group. “Come on,” I told Sam, and he stood up confused. He followed me out of the office where I ran into Ethan. He was holding onto some of the blue uniforms in his hands. “Thank you,” I told Ethan, grabbing the clothes out of his hands. He nodded and walked back down the hallway. 

“Where are we going?” he asked as I led him towards Calvin, who didn’t even question handing Sally over. I didn’t say anything as I led him back down the hallway and into the smaller one. I shoved him into one of the smaller storage rooms in the hallway. I walked into the room and closed the door behind me. 

“What’s going on?” he asked again, this time getting more frustrated. 

“You don’t have just one power.”

“You mean I’m a black?” 

“No, well maybe, but you only have green, blue, and purple powers, and not the other four.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“Honestly, I have no idea. We haven't had anyone with three powers before.” 

“Don’t you have seven?” 

“Okay. You're the second person to come in who has more than one power, but the first person who isn't full on black.” 

“Is there a chance that I can be a full one?” 

“Maybe,” I said and shook my head.

“So, what do I do?” 

“Simple. You’ll be put into project Genesis. It’s a project that we have to monitor the brains of the kids who haven’t changed yet. For now, you’ll stay in the cabins with the other parents. It’s the best way to ensure that Sally gets the least amount of trauma and doesn’t accidentally get injured by one of the older kids. If or when you get another power, or all of them, we’ll figure something else to do with you.” 

“Thank you,” he said. 

“Come on,” I said, and nodded at the door. He pushed off against the shelf and stood up. He scooped Sally out of my arm, and she giggled as he did it. I opened the door and let him into the hallway. “You can stay with the whites for now. I’ll come and get you in a minute.” He nodded, and stepped into the line of kids who were holding white shirts in their hands. Since so many kids who didn’t have powers were coming in, we just started calling them whites to identify them more easily.

We weren’t quite sure what to do with whites honestly. The only white’s before now had been with their parents, so it made it a bit trickier since some arrived with siblings with dangerous powers. Though I knew we would try and keep siblings together.  

Macy, who was usually in charge of making sure Project Genesis got started up easily, looked at Sam with a suspicious look. He is going to stay in the adult section for now, I just need somewhere to put him. I thought to her, and she nodded in understanding. I walked down the hallway, and down the steps to help the others get everyone through. The rest of the testing of the kids went fast and I was relieved when cabin leaders started pulling kids away from the infirmary.

“Okay,” Alex said, appearing out of nowhere. I jumped slightly and looked at her a bit concerned. “The adults said they would help us take care of the kids, but the construction workers wanted a quiet place where they could get their beauty rest. I talked with some of the others and the plan is clear and good. We have twenty Genesis kids and three Bunny kids.”

“Bunny kids?” I asked.

“Kids under seven years old, their too young to be able to understand Genesis and give their informed consent to be placed in it. Figured it would also be better to finally give them a name. The parents said they could keep the bunny’s and start taking care of them. They’re in an age where parental interaction is in its extreme high and they don’t want them more traumatized. Plus, they said we could politely monitor them. We have two white kids who have siblings. Their cabins are empty enough for now that we could get away with it for now. One’s green, the others blue. The other whites can stay in the adult area for now, but in different cabins.”

“Thank you,” I said after a second of hesitation.

“You’re welcome,” she said, and I looked at the small group of whites, there were only twenty of them. All of them were standing around bored, and seemed like their terror was slowly dissipating.

“We’ll vote in a new person into the council to make sure their voices are being heard,” Alex said.

“Thanks. Do you need anything else?”

“Nothing personally. I’ll have some of my non busy workers and some of Mirable’s kids baby sit them for now. We’ll find someone to keep an eye on them permantly today. I’ll see you later.”

“See you later,” I said and walked over to the kids. “Come on kids. I’ll show you your cabins.” The kids nodded and followed me away from the building, and into the adult section. The few people inside were surprised but didn’t say anything as I led them to the last cabin on the right. We would have to keep the kids together for now since a couple of them were siblings.

As I let some of the kids into the cabin, Cici and Ziva decided to join us in the cabin area. It was a bit strange, since kids didn’t usually come to the adult’s section. Most kids didn’t come into this section since they had no reason to.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Ziva skipped her power class this morning,” Cici said. I sighed, unsurprised. Ziva had been ditching some of her classes for the last few days.

“Can you watch them?” I asked her, nodding at the kids.

“Sure,” she said.

“Okay everyone,” I told the group, “Cici will be watching over you guys for now. If you need her, you can ask her anything.” I heard a few okays from the group. I looked at the pair, who just smiled. 

“I’ve got this,” Cici said in a calm voice.

“Thank you,” I said, and led Ziva away from the cabin area. I knew Cici was trying to keep Ziva in her power class so that she can get better at them, but it was hard to keep here there. I didn’t blame her for trying to find another way to get Ziva to get to go to class, she had to keep an eye on twenty-nine kids, so she was constantly tired.

“Why aren’t you wanting to go to class?” I asked.

“Because I already know how to control my powers,” she said, showing me her gloveless hands.

“You can still learn more,” I said.

“Logan is getting more and more distracted by the new kids, so he’s not helping around much anymore.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but if you want to you could start a new group of yellows who know how to use their powers. Try and figure out to push them further. It would help you guys and relieve Logan of some stress.”

“Really?”

“Sure, but start that later today. I’m going to drop you off with Nancy. I think she’s doing a history class right now.” 

“Fine,” she said and followed me out of the cabin area. I shook my head and sighed, because I knew I would have to find more teachers for the school. Ziva and I didn’t talk much as we walked, but she didn’t seem to be upset with the idea of school now that we weren’t in the time frame to do power class. 

I dropped her off at class with a glance at Nancy, before deciding to check on how the construction once again. Tia and her crew had already completed their plans and started breaking ground a few days ago. Since the buildings would be simple, and each building served for one purpose, they weren’t more complicated than anything else.

“Hi, Tia,” I said approaching the woman. She looked up at me surprised.

“How was the run, Hun?”

“It was good, found some whites in the group.”

“Good,” she said.

Chapter Text

The 197 rescue changed a lot of things at Tundra. We realized we could help people outside our camp. Not in the sense we could raid camps, or interfere with the PSF’s a whole lot, but realization that we could possibly help kids who couldn’t help themselves. It wasn’t even three days later before Calvin made an interesting proposition to the council. He was standing in the middle section, as per usual, receiving slack jawed looks from the people around him.

“You want to start tracking teams?” Isabella asked, and he nodded.

“Yep,” Calvin said proudly.

“How exactly are they going to track down kids or keep themselves from being captured, or on the road? We aren’t exactly rolling in money or defenses here,” Penelope said.

“Each team would be assigned one or two kids. One’s who look like they can hide as non psi kids. It would be completely voluntarily, and they could come back as soon as they wanted to. I know for a fact the old skip tracer system still works, and I know the greens are currently working on ways to cheat into the gas station pumps and get gas. Plus, most of the people who will be going will be people from the army, and the first people we’re going to target are friends and family members from here, try and figure things from there,” he said, and I gave Alex a pointed look.

There was no doubt that the greens were doing a lot of experimenting with technology. It was their way of dealing with their abilities, and I couldn’t blame them for trying to do something, but I didn’t know their experiments went as far as gas pumps.

“All in favor of at least trying this?” I asked, and slightly more than half of the council, raised their hands. “Fine, you have your permission to start this program, but keep your people in check.” He nodded and smiled, and I hopped I didn’t make a mistake.  

&&&

Approving the tracking program wasn’t a mistake in a sense, but it did draw attention from just about everyone in the camp since Calvin, Bob and Dave had set up shop right next to the red cabins, training people day in and day out to prepare themselves. It was honestly quite interesting to watch some of the scenarios they would put the kids in.

But it got people talking more than just the buildings, which were raising day by day in the distance, and the many new people that would be brought into the camp. Each new arrival seemed to get more and more people down, with a good chunk of them being delivered by the government buses. There were others that were found, a friend or family member of someone already living in the camp, or someone found by the stuff stealing teams, or the tracking teams we would send out when Dave thought they were ready enough to try it.

Since we wanted everyone to remain safe, we decided to wait until after construction was done with all our buildings before, we decided to move everyone to the new area. A construction site was not the best place for people to wander around since things like rusted nails were common. And everyone who could influence anything knew that most kids would not be able to understand certain dangerous things. We also knew that our tetanus vaccines were very low, and we could not heal the disease with what we had here.

Construction unfortunately took four months. Which meant eight buses came in, carrying under a hundred kids in each bus. Most of the people had started moving away from their homes to not have their kids taken, while some kids had smarted up and run away from home. A couple kids wound up finding search teams completely off guard, while most of the people the teams found were on the tracer lists.

All of the buildings weren’t the most beautiful things in the world, but they weren’t supposed to be. They would do their jobs and I was thankful for that. Everyone was quite happy to finally move out of the Tundra area since it had become incredibly crowded. The eight buses didn’t help, but what made things worse was the fact that the search teams found three hundred people wandering around, and four buses going to different camps. We were sure that we had been noticed by the government, but since we had people who were part of navy seals and the government, we were able to avoid having a huge response to us.

Before the buildings were complete, it was so crowded that some of the younger kids had to double up, and we had to start putting kids in the infirmary beds. When that was filled, and we could no longer double kids up, we had to start putting kids in the warehouse on mattresses stolen from Cuckoo. When they were finally finished with the buildings, and Tia said we were clear to move in, everyone took a deep sigh of breath.

The day after I ordered everyone to slowly start moving over to the new housing units. There weren’t enough oranges and silvers to get four buildings, so they had to share one. Reds and purples were given two for the sheer number of people there were. Yellows got four and blues and greens and got six each. Parents were kept in one building, while nonparents were assigned to a different one. Whites who were close to changing were kept in one building, while the bunnies, and kids a few years above them, were partnered up with parents found so they would be able to learn actual lessons from parents, and not a bunch of kids.  

One thing I was happy about was finally moving out of the infirmary. It had become quite crowded in the last month as more and more people came in and we could no longer fit people in cabins. There were only about eighty reds in the girls' building, so they allowed me to stay, though I had to stay in a different hallway.

I was standing by the front of the green buildings checking in the last of the kids in when I heard nearby chattering. I turned my head slightly and saw Ziva and some of the yellow kids in her powers class walking past. My attention was pulled away from the kids to look at some passing greens when I heard a scream from the girl’s direction.

My head snapped and I saw the plastic bottle that Ziva had been holding a second ago was now floating a good foot from her. Ziva was pale, and her eyes were rolled into the back of the head. The kids surrounding her were backing up, most having seen this same thing before. Instead of dropping, Ziva remained on her feet, though her bottle dropped as if it realized gravity existed.

“Kids,” I called out to them, and the group turned to face me. “Get back to your rooms all of, now.” All the kids bounced, still scared. I abandoned my post, thankful that the building was finished, and walked over to Ziva who was still standing where she had when I shouted. “Come on sweetie, let’s get you over to the medical building.” She didn’t move, so I grabbed her shoulder’s and pointed her in the direction of the building.

I slowly led her away for the buildings, giving anyone who tried to stop us a pointed look. I used my telekinesis to drag the door open and stepped inside. Isabella, who was standing right next to the door, looked over at me concerned. Get up to the registration wing now and power up one of the computers, I thought to her, and after a second of confusion she ran up the stairs. I could hear Isabella yelling at a kid to get out of her way when she reached the hallway. I walked calmly as I could the stairs, and into the hallway. 

“She’s in there,” Macy said, pointing at the office at the end of the hallway that was farthest from the stairs.  

“Thanks,” I said, and walked calmly through the hallway. Trying to keep my heart calm to not scare Ziva. I took a deep breath before turning into the office. Inside Isabella, and Felicia, were running around trying to get the room ready. 

“You can lay her on the bed,” Isabella ordered, and without a word, I did as she asked. “Felicia get out of the way.” The girl instantly followed the order and stood in the corner of the office. Isabella took her right finger and tapped her forehead in the, I want to talk but not out loud symbol. What happened to her? 

She caused a cup to twist before dropping it, I said looking down at her.

And you want to make sure that she is a black? I nodded. Blacks were rare, and rightfully so. The running theory is that the only reason I survived the process was because I was a teenager when I started, and not as young as the rest of the population when they started. Sam seemed to have kind of backed that theory, but for some reason he had stopped at only three. I heard the x-ray machine start up, and I looked down at Ziva. She looked up at me scared. 

“You’ll be fine,” I reassured her. She didn’t say anything in response. I looked at Isabella again, and I heard the computer beep. She looked at me concerned but remained calm for Ziva’s sake. Isabella waved me over, and I quickly walked over to see behind the computer. On the screen was an x-ray picture of Ziva’s head. I knew enough about what I was looking at to see that Ziva had red, yellow, green, blue, and purple powers. Two more and she would be a full on black. I looked at Isabella, then Ziva, and Isabella again. 

“What’s going on?” Ziva asked, sitting up. I walked around the computer, and gently sat down beside the young girl. I sighed trying to find the words to explain what was happening to her. 

“You have red, yellow, green, blue, and purple powers,” I said, and she gasped. “I don’t know if you’re going to survive getting the other two.” The girl just seemed to break, and I didn’t hesitate to bring her into my arms. She broke down crying, and she wrapped her arms around my chest. 

“You’re going to be alright,” Isabella said, coming around to sit on her other side. 

“No, I’m not,” Ziva cried, and put her face in her hands. I looked over her head and looked at Isabella. I couldn’t say anything about what was going on to her, because no one had ever gone through this before. I had no idea what was going on when I got my powers, and I had to deal with the fallout of finding out by hiding because finding out meant death.

Ziva had three options, and I had to worry about all of them. One was she stayed at five powers, another she got another power, and the and the third is she got both missing powers. Both powers were not only extremely dangerous, but they were the hardest to survive getting.

I knew she could live and get both powers if she got them, but I was worried about how she would be treated afterward. There was plenty of talk and murmurs about me. Stares from people who knew what I could do but didn’t trust me enough yet to not hurt them. I didn’t want that kind of life for anyone, much less a girl who just turned nine years old. I slid out of my seat and knelt in front of her. I reached up and tilted her head up so she could see into my eyes. 

“Look, I’m going to be honest with you, I have no idea what is going on,” I admitted. “I don’t know if you’re going to get all seven powers, or if you’re just going to have the five powers you have right now. If you only have these five, then great you only have five. If you end up with all seven, then you will have all seven. Let’s not panic, until we can run some more tests and figure out what’s going on. For all we know you could be like Sam, okay?” She gave a sad nod. “For now, let’s have you be monitored by the silvers, just in case.” 

“Okay,” she whimpered, and I smiled at her.

“Felicia,” I said looking at the young girl in the corner, who perked up when her name was called. “You mind sitting with her for a minute while Isabella and I talk privately?”

“Of course,” she said with a bright smile. Isabella and I stood up, while Felicia took Isabella's spot beside Ziva. Isabella shot me a look, and I followed her out of the room. I closed the door behind me, and followed her down the hallway, into the room usually used by the search teams. The only reason they had a room in the new infirmary was because they would often get distracted by the commotion in the tower, and a lot of people would constantly get distracted by them. Nowadays the vast majority of the thirteen teams weren’t even in the same state as us, so having a large room where weapons were constantly brought in and out was not a great thing to be placed in a place of business where kids usually worked.  

“What did you want to talk about?” Isabella asked, turning my attention back to the problem at hand. 

“We need to redo the x-rays of all the kids in the camp,” I said, and she raised an eyebrow. 

“That’s over twenty-five hundred kids, Ava. That could take weeks.” 

“I know, but what if there are kids here who are getting more powers, and we aren’t realizing it. Project Genesis only extends to the kids who don’t have powers when they show up. Not the one with powers, because we always assumed that a multicolored kid would have more than one ability when they show up. It’s what happened to Sam and me. We also assumed that anyone from the originals would have spoken up by now if they did have more than one ability.”

“Look, finding more kids here isn’t my biggest concern. Well, it is a concern since it makes my job infinitely harder, but what makes my job even harder is we can’t predict when kids get their powers, even in Genesis. We can slow the process down, make it easier to get through, but they show up randomly.”

I paused, and pinched my forehead, trying to understand what she had just said. She was right, we couldn’t predict when a white would get their powers or even what power they would get until they started the changeling faze. We were getting better at seeing it, and somehow, we hadn’t lost one of the ten kids who had changed so far, but that didn’t mean we were good at it yet.  

“Okay. The best we can do for now is to keep the changeling kids in the program and lets drag the kids who just went through the process into the Genesis program if we can. The kids above fourteen should be fine, their hormones are leveling out. Everyone else can choose to become a part of the Project if they wanted to. How many of the chips do we have?”

“Alpha team stole about two hundred of them when they did that Leda Corps raid a few weeks ago, but I know that some of them went into the Maureen project,” Isabella said, trying to find how many chips we still had left.

“Speaking of which, how did we miss this? I thought Ziva was in the Maureen project,” I asked. The Maureen Project was a program that we had set up a few months ago to do small experiments on kids. We figured that the information we picked up from the few Leda Corps hits we did wouldn’t be the best since the kids in the experiments weren’t treated the best, so we created our own experiments. But in the Maureen project kids could walk away physically and mentally sound, unlike the few Leda corps kids we found.

“No, she isn’t apart of it. She considered it, but she eventually backed out of it.”

“Okay. Until we know more, we can offer kids a spot of Project Genesis, or we can do regular x-rays,” I suggested. To be honest, I hadn’t really put too much thought into the blacks showing up here in Tundra. Sure, Project Genesis helped relieve the stress of knowing, but I had always assumed that the powers would show up around the same time and not at one time. An assumption that was clearly false thanks to Ziva’s sudden power appearance. 

“Fine. It's almost dark, how do you want to play this?” 

“Let’s start with the silvers, then go oranges, reds, purples, yellows, blues then greens. I think everyone should be settling into their rooms by now, but we can have Alex release a message to everyone and do Mirable’s crew one at a time. If we use those portable CT scanners that Bob found, things will go much faster, and we don’t have to make everyone pass through here.” 

“Alright, you go get Ziva into the red building, and I’ll gather my team. They should be here within a few minutes. Get her settled and we’ll get started on the retesting.” 

“Thanks.” 

“You’re welcome.” I turned and walked out of the door, Isabella right behind me. I turned right, while she turned left to walk to the room where we kept the portable CT scans. I walked back to the office room where Ziva and Felicia still were. The door was pushed open, and I could see that they had moved from hugging each other and were now talking about something. Felicia noticed my presence as I approached, and she stopped talking instantly to look at me. 

“What’s going on?” she asked as I approached the door. 

“We’re retesting everyone to make sure no one else is going through the same process as Sam and Ziva,” I said, leaning against the door. “Ziva, I’m taking you over to the red building, I’ll move your stuff later.” 

“Do I have to?” she asked. 

“It's the rules, sorry. If you didn't have the red powers, I would consider leaving you in the yellow building, but since you have them, I don’t want you to have an accident while you’re asleep.”

“Fine,” she said, slightly sad. 

“You can still see your friends, but you can’t sleep in there for now. Come on. Let’s get going.” 

“Fine,” she said and both girls stood up. I pushed myself off the door so they could walk past me. Together we started walking down the hallway, and as we walked down the stairs, I saw some of the workers walk into the building, giving us side looks as they did. They didn’t say anything, but they were mostly curious looks. We walked down the small road and walked to the street with the orange, red, and silvers. The red girls building was in the corner of the camp, and without a word we walked through the small courtyard up front, waved at several girls sitting in the common area, before turning left to head towards my dormitory wing. 

We reached the next corner and turned left again. We walked down to room 102, it was the empty room next to mine. Most of the reds started living in the other wing on the first floor, and there were a few in this hallway, but most seemed to want to give me space. I opened the door and pushed it into the room. It wasn’t a large room, with most of its furnishings being the two bunk beds, and a desk shoved in the corner. 

“You’ll stay in here for now. I’ll get your things later. Felicia if you want to stay here, I’ll test you later.” 

“Okay,” she said, and walked into the room to plop down on one of the beds. Ziva followed her and sat down next to her. I took a second just to look at them before I turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind me. I walked out of the building, through the courtyard and down the street, where some of the silvers were starting to gather. Mirable seemed to have noticed the growing crowd, since she was standing among the crowd. I walked over to her and settled next to her. 

“What’s going on?” she asked. 

“We’re rechecking everyone’s powers. Ziva managed to get another power, so we’re trying to see if anyone has another power.”

“Really?” she asked surprised. 

“Yeah, didn’t notice the change in Ziva,” I paused for a second, before looking at her. 

“What?” she asked, and I took a second to honestly look at her. There wasn’t anything particularly interesting about her, but she seemed different than she had a few months ago. Before I could say anything though, Isabella walked up to us. 

“Hey, Mirable, why don’t I test you now so that I could clear you?” she asked, and Mirable looked at her unsure. Her brain seemed to be going through a million miles an hour before she slowly nodded. Isabella walked up beside her and put the machine against her head. The machine took a few seconds before sending a beep to the tablet in Isabella’s hand. The hand holding the machine dropped as Isabella used the hand to see what the result was, and to my surprise she gasped. I looked at her with wide eyes, and she turned the tablet to show me that she had all seven powers. I looked back at Mirable, who looked at us confused. 

“I’ll let you two talk,” Isabella said, slowly backing away to go and start checking someone else.

“What’s going on?” Mirable asked, confused. 

“Mirable, you have all seven powers,” I said surprised. 

“You have to be kidding me? That’s impossible.” 

“Do you want me to drag Isabella back over here?” She looked at me with widening eyes. I knew she was confused, though she finally seemed to understand what I said. 

“How did I not notice?” she asked, more to herself than me. “I’m supposed to notice these things.”

“Mirable,” I said, and she looked back up at me. “You were busy with your job, and you didn’t know that it would randomly show up. I mean, look at Sam and me. We didn’t notice when we were getting all these powers until someone else told us we had them. Unless you directly lit something on fire or started hearing thoughts you wouldn’t have really noticed. I mean with all the kids we have here who don’t know how to use their powers; you could have assumed that someone else is doing it.” 

“It’s not just that, but I knew deep down that something was wrong, I mean I noticed people listening to me more, but I thought that they were just respecting me. And I noticed a few things here and there, but I never strung it together.” 

“Hey. It’s alright. Let’s just be happy that you survived all the powers,” I said. She nodded and took a deep breath before letting it go. “How about you get your things from your room and move it into the female red housing?” She nodded slowly, before walking away. I turned to go and walk with the silvers in checking everyone. 

Hours later when everyone was finished, I could take a deep breath, and let it go. Everyone had been checked and the most scared kids went into Project Genesis. It seemed that most of the kids were fine with the multiple black things, though they might have been putting up a show. There were five people with more than one power who had been hanging out around that weren’t Sam and me. 

There were only two with a complete set of black powers, while there were three with less than seven. Two of them didn’t have the upper scaled powers yet, so they were allowed to remain in their rooms.  While the other one with a complete set, a fourteen-year-old boy named Gage, had to move to one of the empty rooms in the red building. I was walking around the camp exhausted when Alex rang for me. I changed directions and walked into the tower. Alex’s office was on the first floor and the door was open as I approached it. The office didn’t have much. There was a desk, chair, a computer, and books on the desk. Alex was sitting behind her desk, typing something on her computer.  

“Please tell me you have good news, Alex,” I grumbled as I walked into the room. Alex thankfully seemed to have noticed that I wasn’t in the best position to make the big decisions right now, and that I probably didn’t want to hear a long-winded explanation. 

“Just got news from Derek, and Malika,” she said happily, turning to face me. Derek and Malika were two team leaders from two different small tracking crews. Derek’s team usually tracked down people’s family members to bring them in, while Malika usually tried to track down kids. They usually didn’t cross paths on the outside, so hearing that they both had news was slightly concerning, but Alex’s face just confused me even more. 

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Malika found a camp. Derek called in and said he found someone building another camp. He thinks it might be overflowing for this one since it's only a few hundred miles from here over in Wyoming. No kids are out there yet though.” 

“How many kids are in the first one?” 

“Oh, Second Horizans. About three hundred, it's a green, blue, and purple camp. It doesn’t seem to be all that bad of a camp in all honesty. Not like what we’ve heard about in Thurmond and Blackrock. It’s in the north eastern side of Utah. Malika is really wanting to get them out.” 

“Isn’t Jemma’s team out there as well?” 

“Yeah, why?” 

“Have her team move out there and have Malika’s team continue searching for kids. Her team is better at finding kids than Jemma’s and I know Jemma’s team had an orange who can mind control people. Malika’s doesn’t.” 

“Alright,” she said, and typed something on her computer, before looking at me again. “How are you honestly? I know you’ve been excited about finding another black. How is that treating you?”

“All of them are scared. Tony and Harry are happy that they can remain in their cabins with their friends. Ziva’s scared, but she’s calmed down some. Mirable is trying not to panic, but she’s failing. She’s trying to throw herself into her work, but Delta’s basically through a coup and kicked her out. She said as soon as she’s calmed down, she’ll let Mirable come back to work, so.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said.

“I’m not sure how to act, honestly. I’ve only had to deal with one other person having more than one power, and honestly that was easy enough to handle. I mean I might have to have the other teachers help me teach them their powers, but I don’t know how to help them any further than that.”

“Take it one step at a time,” she said. “It’ll get better.”

“Hopefully. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine, I’m doing well, my kids are fine,” she said with a shake of her head. “Ava, I’m nervous about Second Horizons. What if we fail? What if something happens to the kids while we sit here doing nothing about their situation. I know we can’t do something right now, but…” 

“Alex,” I said, and she took a breath to see what I had to say. “The PSF’s hate us, but they’ve never really targeted the greens, blues, or purples. They weren’t even going to be hurt when the upper scaled were a few months ago. I’m nervous too, but I know for a fact that we can help them. I have no idea how to do it at this very second, but we will help them.” 

“Thanks for that.” 

“No problem. Now get some rest, you’ve been for how long?” 

“Since lunch,” she answered. 

“Okay, take some time off, and get some rest. We’ll continue this conversation tomorrow, okay?” She nodded. I turned to walk back out of the building again. 

Chapter Text

By the next afternoon, I thought everything had calmed down, to be bombarded at five p.m. that not only had Jenna and her team not only found yet another bus load of kids but had also found a small group of federal agents who had been roaming around the country side. They had managed to get everyone tested, thanks to advancements in technology, which I was thankful for. It would make everyone's job a bit easier if we knew what we were looking at. One of the girls traveling with the federal agents was a full on black, which was surprising since she would be the second black with all their powers to be driven into the camp. Although I was happy that another bus was found and could be rescued, but I wish it hadn’t happened a few days after we got another bus full of kids and after discovering two more blacks yesterday. 

I barely had enough time to go through my daily chores and eat dinner before I was on the main street waiting for Jenna and her crew to show up. Jenna only had five workers with her right now in her crew, including herself. Two adults and two kids. All five were picked up together. The two girls in the group, Bianca, and Sara, parents called them into the PSF’s. Before they could be taken in the three adults had grabbed the kids, shoved them in a work van and drove away. They decided to join the search teams not long after they showed up here. The other two adults, John, and Robert had been wildlife experts before they showed up and was a great contribution to the team. 

I was waiting in the sun for the team to show up when Mirable and Ziva walked up beside me. I blinked in surprise as they came to a stop. Among all the people I expected to show up, it wasn’t these two. Despite all odds they had taken the gaining more powers deal pretty good last night and had started going to practice’s this morning. Thankfully none more had shown up on Ziva’s brain scans.

“Hey,” I said, and got a good look at both girls. Both girls looked tired, and kind of pale. 

“Hey,” Ziva said nicely. 

“What are you two doing out here? I thought you were supposed to be in practice class.” 

“It's my job to be here,” Mirable said, in a duh tone. I looked down at Ziva and she quickly explained. 

“I have enough green friends to know how their powers work,” Ziva said with a shrug. "Besides I wanted to see when a bus came in." I opened my mouth to argue but shut it after a second. I wasn’t in the mood to argue, and quite honestly, I wanted to keep an eye on the girl. She was trying to act tough, but I could see through the act, and I could see the scared little girl she really was. 

“Fine, then you can go join Charlie,” I said, and she nodded in agreement. My walkie talkie buzzed, and I addressed the small group who were waiting for Jenna’s team. “Look alive everyone.” Everyone stirred and started paying attention to the gate. The gate swung open, and a truck pulling a horse trailer pulled through it, stopping maybe ten feet in front of me. "Stay here," I told Ziva, and walked around the side of the trailer to open the door. As I reached the end of the trailer, I saw Bianca and Sara were standing up waiting to be let out. I walked around the end and unlocked the door, pulling it open to let them out. Both Bianca and Sara jumped out of the back and landed with a soft thud. I looked around them and into the back. 

There were the usual hundred or so kids pushed further into the back, with eight adults sitting between the door and the kids. The youngest was a thirty-year-old black woman while the oldest was a white man dressed in a suit who was easily in his nineties. I used my powers to lift him up and gently set him down on the ground out of the way. The woman with black hair next to the two kids is the one who's paralyzed,’ Sara thought to me, and I gave one sharp nod in understanding. I used my powers to pick her up and set her onto the wheelchair that Sara had brought over to me. 

“Thank you,” the woman said, and I gave her a smile. 

“You’re welcome,” I said and turned to the back of the trailer again. “Come on now, psi on the right, humans on the left.” The few adults who jumped out of the trailer started walking in the direction where they were asked. 

Hey Ava,” Sara called out, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye, some of the adults pausing to look at me. “What happened?”

“We found out that some of the kids here were black and multi-colored.” 

“Like Sam?” Bianca asked, and I nodded. 

“How many, and who?” Sara asked. 

“Mirable and Gage are the only blacks. Ziva, Tony and Harry joined Sam, with a mixed result,” she said, and her eyes shot towards the group once again. She looked at us, but she didn’t say anything to us. “Sam, why don’t you take them to the adult building. We can have their children join them later.” 

“Okay,” he said and stepped forward to lead the group away. I looked at Bianca who had walked up beside me. 

"Where's the black?" I asked, and she pointed at a blond teenage girl who was talking with two other children. 

"Her name is Victoria. She didn't give any warning about knowing what was going on. She knows basic information though." 

"Thanks," I said, and called out the girl's name. I waved her over and offered her my hand. "Name's Ava." 

"Victoria," she said shaking the offered hand. The handshake went on for a second before I dropped it. I quietly led her away so that we could talk in private. 

“So,” I said, trying to find something to say to her. I had so many things I wanted to say, but I couldn’t find the words. 

“I’m guessing you’ve never done this before?” She asked. 

“No. The only other two blacks who’ve shown up were already from here and it came with time. And you’re allowed to freak out if you need to.” 

“Thanks,” she said and paused for a second. “What’s going to happen to me?” 

“You’ll be taught your powers and go to school. I don’t recommend trying to leave, people don’t like kids like you and me.” She nodded solemnly. “I must ask; do you know anyone who's still alive under the age of sixteen? We could track them down and help them.” 

“A few here and there.” 

“Good, I’ll have Alex help you figure out where they might be.”

“What’s going to happen to my dad, uncles and aunts?” 

“They’ll be allowed to stay here for as long as most of us do. They have to follow the rules and not harass anyone, but they should be fine. How about I show you the room you’re going to be staying in?” 

"Sure," she said, and I led her to the red buildings. “How many blacks are here?”

“Three, but we have three who have multiple powers that could end up as blacks, but they could just end up with more than one power.” 

“How often does that happen?” 

“Not rarely, there’s just one right now. It's very rare for anyone to get more than one power, so it probably won’t happen very often.” We walked up to the street with the red, orange, silver, and black buildings. “Oranges and silvers stay in those buildings, while the reds and blacks stay in those.” I pointed out each building. “The sleeping quarters are the only place we segregate by color and gender. No one is really allowed into other building's between ten pm and six am, but that's to reduce the number of people walking around when most people are trying to sleep. The only reason we keep the colors separated is for organizational and safety sake." 

"What about parents and kids?" Victoria asked. 

"We have rooms that they can share, but yellows and reds are usually forbidden from staying in other buildings because of the increased risk one would expect from it. Siblings of other color's can also stay in the same building, but they're usually put in a separate room. Adults are sometimes allowed to visit but they usually have to have a reason for being in there." We walked into the courtyard of the building I stayed in. I opened the door, and we walked together down the hallway where Mirable, Ziva and I were staying. 

“This is you,” I said, stopping at room number one sixteen. She opened the door and looked around it briefly. 

“Why are there so many beds here?” 

"We have limited resources right now, so we have to be prepared incase more kids come in," I said with a shrug. 

“Hey, Ava, I need you,” Alex said over my walkie talkie. 

“How big is it?” I asked back. 

“Kind of big,” she said in response.

“Give me a minute,” I said. 

“Okay.” 

“Come on kid, I need to talk to someone, and I’ll introduce you to the other blacks,” I said, and her eyes brightened. 

“Alright,” she said and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. We walked out of the building and through the camp to the control tower where Gage, Mirable and Ziva were all waiting for us. 

“Victoria this is Mirable, Gage and Ziva,” I said as we walked up to them. “Mirable and Gage are full blacks while Ziva has all but silver and orange though we expect her to get them soon.”

“Hi,” Victoria said shyly. 

“They're going to watch you and start helping you learn your powers while I talk to Alex really quickly,” I said giving them pointed looks. All three nodded. “Good, I’ll see you later.” I stepped away and the three kids started talking with one another. I walked into the control tower and into Alex’s office. 

“Hey,” Alex said as I walked into the room and sat down. “I found the files for the NCIS agents who arrived with Jemma’s team.” She grabbed her tablet and tapped something before handing it to me. 

“Do we trust them?” I asked.

“Mostly, but we need to proceed with caution as always.” 

“Thanks, but you wouldn’t call me to your office to tell me something that is very easy to explain over walkie talkie,” I said, leaning back against my chair. 

“Malika got back to me, her team found the bodies of the oranges and silvers killed,” Alex said. I sighed and my head hit my hand. 

“How many?” 

“Forty.” 

“God.” 

“Yeah. They also found a few ways to get into the camp, but they're not going to do anything until Jenna’s team shows up.” 

“Sounds good. Were they able to hack into the database?” 

“No, but they’ve been getting pictures and have a rough estimate of how many kids per color.” 

“Good,” I said and paused. “How many people are needed to go to Second Horizons?” 

“At least two yellows, a few silvers, and three or four oranges. I would send thirty or forty adults to help them out. We would just have to knock out the electricity and the guards before we could remove the kids.” 

“Sounds like a good starting plan,” I said. “You have any idea what people to use?” 

Chapter Text

I couldn’t meet up with the multicolor until nine am the next morning. Jenna’s team had started taking pictures of Second Horizons and had been sending them to Alex. She had overtaken most of the planning for the raid, and I was worried about her neglecting her duties in the tower. She was responsible for all our activities, but she was like me, she had people doing the things for her. I was still worried about her, though. 

Since part of the school had been dictated for the power classes, we decided to meet up in one of the orange classrooms. They weren’t in this part of the school in the morning, so it was easy enough. All the kids were gathered in the center of the classroom. Lounging on chairs and talking with one another. Mirable, who was sitting next to the doorway, noticed me walking in, while no one else did.

“How was the meeting?” Mirable asked, referring to the long meeting that I had with Alex this morning.

“It was fine. Jemma’s team managed to get out there late last night. They're going to be sending Malika’s team back for supplies and some rest. They haven’t found anything out there yet, but Derek’s team has an idea where a yellow tribe is hanging out, and Jay’s team thinks they might have an idea for a blue one.” 

“What about the others?”

“Most of them are fine. They haven’t spotted anything yet, and Jake, Nate, Amara, and Nicki haven’t responded in the last two days ago, but that’s normal for them.” 

“So why did it take you so long? You’re usually in and out when you’re talking with her.”

“Trying to decide if we bring in the rescued kids or do something like we’re doing here.” 

“What side are you guys leaning towards?” 

“Leaving them there and starting to send kids around there to Second Horizons instead of here, so that there are fewer chances that we’re spotted here.” 

“So, I need to find some kids to go over there?”

“Yeah probably,” I said.

“Who’s going to be in charge?” Gage asked, finally noticing me. 

“Alex mentioned Sam since he had all three powers in the camp, but he has to take care of Sally, and we’re going to be sending so many kids over there that we’re probably going to send a black.” 

“Anyway. Let’s get started,” I said, bringing the discussion to a close. Everyone quieted down, and I sighed in relief. I mentally prepared myself. 

&&&

We only went over the basics of each power for our first lesson. We had to start there since not only had Victoria arrived yesterday, but most of the others had limited information about how the other colors remained in control so their powers wouldn’t lash out. Mirable knew a lot about it since every color was involved in security, but even she was surprised by some of the information I talked about. Our discussion ended when Alex radioed me to come to her office, and Mirable accidentally blew up my walkie talkie. As I walked into the room, I saw Alex behind her desk and Jessica Knight standing on the opposite side. Both looked up as I walked into the room. 

“Did you finish the plan?” I asked as I sat down. 

“Of course. Jessica was kind enough to offer her assistance when she found out what I was doing,” Alex said, shuffling some papers in front of her. 

“Thank you,” I said to the woman, who gave me a curt nod. “What do you have for me?” 

“This is the entire camp’s layout,” Alex said, handing me a piece of paper. It was a hand drawn map of the camp. There were little squares drawn in to show what each building was. The control tower was in the center of the camp, with the dining hall standing parallel to the tower, while the garden sat next to the dining hall closer to the gate. The warehouse sat on the opposite side of the dining hall. There were two housing buildings, one for the kids, and the other for adults that sat on the opposite side of the tower from across the dining hall. The medical building sat next to the gate across from the garden. 

“All of the kids live in the one building,” Jessica said pointing at the map and showing me a picture of the building, that Jenna’s team had taken. It was a three-story brick building with windows evenly spaced. Each window was covered with bars on the outside of them. 

“What’s with the bars?” I asked. 

“They used to have electrical problems, so they put the bars on to save costs on keeping the lights on,” Alex said with a shrug. “Each room has ten kids in it. They are segregated by color and gender. There are sixty purples, a hundred blues and a hundred forty greens. The bottom floor is only greens, the second is blue and greens, and the top is blues and purples. When we run this attack, it would be easier to drive a van up to the doors, kill the electricity for the van, and take the building.”

“We figure it’s best to attack when the kids are in their rooms. There are more adults running around, but it’s less chaotic and the kids are less likely to get hurt. If we did it any other time there could be injuries,” Alex continued. “Some of my workers are working on a small emp device that could take out the electricity of the camp, but not hurt any yellow we take on the mission. Once the electricity is out, we can force the gate, and drive inside. The space between the watch building is big enough to drive a van through. We could use a group of six or so people to take control of each building. It wouldn’t be that hard to get the warehouse, dining hall, kitchen, and laundry room once the prisoners are out of the building. We would just need a stronger force to take the tower. As soon as we finished raiding the camp, we would put the kids in the dining hall, and the adults in the medical center.” 

I sat back impressed with the plan. Everything had been covered except for who was going on the mission. I would have to probably pick them up, but I had plenty of people who could go on the mission and use the clean-up. 

“Okay, just make sure we finish up those electricity replacements,” I said with a wave of my hand, and I saw Jessica look at me confused. “Electricity replacements are meant to speed up the recovery of a yellow after an emp hits an area.” 

“How did you figure that out?” Jessica asked concerned. 

“Project Maureen. It’s our experimental department. We run small experiments on the kids, try and figure out how exactly everyone works. Everyone in the programs agrees with it and they are adequately repaid for their time and energy. Anyway, one of the experiments we run is to see what happens when a yellow is exposed to an emp. We would put a chip like we use in the Genesis program on their shoulder, take them someplace else and release a small emp near them. We would take the information, send it to the doctors, and test ways to return it. Best we can come up with is to store electricity and give it to them whenever an emp hits.” 

“An example would be like giving insulin to a diabetic,” I explained, and she looked at me confused, but shrugged. “Is that all you have for me?” 

“Nope,” Alex said, popping the p.

“Thank you,” I said standing up. 

&&&

Somehow, nothing big happened for the next two weeks. Search teams brought people in, before leaving again. Kids went to school and the adults tended to the heavier tasks. More parents were found and brought in, and kids without parents, either unwanted or a guardian couldn’t be found, were partnered up with someone else. 

Upon hearing that we were finally being brazen enough to raid a camp, a lot of people joined up to help with Project Resurrect, which I was thankful for. So many joined up that I had to reject about ninety percent of them. They weren’t happy about it but understood.  

Though Dr Mallard was adamant that we the original camp intact so that no one could call us liars when we finally told the world, which I agreed to after a while. As I planned and practiced with the team, I practiced with the multi colors on their powers. They were getting much better than before, Gage better than anyone. His first known power had been green, and though he had known something was wrong, he had figured out how to use his powers quickly. 

As I helped plan the raids, I realized that Second Horizons would be the harder of the two to take, so we needed to focus on it more than anything else. We were worried about Golden Palms, the empty camp that Derek’s team had found a few weeks ago, but since we were a few weeks away from topping out we weren’t as worried. 

Fourteen days after that first power class with the blacks, I was standing with the people of Project Resurrect in the old warehouse. It had been used for storage for the last few weeks since we had no other place to hold the supplies. It was half full, and it wasn’t hard to shove everything into good spots for us to be able to use as blocking points for everyone. 

There were seventy people going to Second Horizons, ten oranges, two reds, four silvers, two yellows, two greens, four blues, four purples, and forty adults who had been in the army. Gage and I were going along because someone needed to be in charge, and it was better to have two blacks going along. Mirable also needed practice to take control of Golden Palms. As soon as we were finished, the entire team would head back to Tundra with the kids and some of the adults before they went up to Golden Palms with Mirable in my place. 

Gage and I were waiting by the door of the warehouse taking a break when Jacquine walked into the warehouse. She was wearing blue jeans shorts and a red tank top, and she was holding a box in front of her. She gave a look around for a second before walking up to Gage and me. 

“What do you have there?” I asked. 

“Emp’s and phone blocking equipment,” she said, holding the box out to me. 

“Thanks,” Gage said as I grabbed the box. 

“No problem,” she said. 

“How’s the tower?” I asked. 

“Everything’s great, and everyone knows what to do when you leave. And I sent the call to all the teams to start sending kids found in that part of the country over there. Nancy said she finished the plan to expand, and we wouldn’t have to destroy the original camp.” I nodded in understanding. Dr Mallard and the other historians suggested we preserve camps as much as we could so that when we decided to go public, we could show them the literal grounds that we had once been held at.

“Thanks for that, is everything prepared for our run tomorrow and moving some of the others up?” Gage asked. 

“Everything was finished this morning,” Jacquine said. 

“Thank you Jaqunine,” I said, and she seemed to notice that I was dismissing her. She nodded before turning and walking out again. I turned to the rest of the group who were all taking a break as well. 

“Come on everyone, let’s get going?” I called out, and everyone looked at me surprised. “Everything’s ready to go, and we need to go.” Everyone slowly stood up and started walking towards the door. I opened the door and waited for everyone to walk slowly out of the building. As soon as everyone was out, Gage walked up beside me. “Gage, we’re going to be fine.” He looked at me surprised. 

“How do you know?” 

“Because I know you, and know that you’re a good person,” I said and smiled at him. “Now come on, we really should leave soon. It’s going to be a long drive out to Utah.” 

“Of course,” he said with a small laugh, and we walked out of the old warehouse together. I pulled the door behind me and let one of the two guards at the door close it behind me. I could sense their annoyance that we hadn’t put everything back to before we left, but I knew the director of the warehouse liked the set up in a particular way and he would be even more mad if we messed up his storage system than the two guards. 

As Gage and I approached the vans that would take us a few hundred miles from here, I saw some people not going on the mission waiting near the vans. I instantly noticed Mirable confronting Victoria, who was standing in front of her father and Dr Mallard. Palmer was going on our trip to help dig up the bodies of the silvers and oranges, while Dr Mallard was remaining behind. He was in good shape for someone his age, but we all knew that it would not be a pleasant trip for him, so he agreed to stay behind to watch Victoria.

Mirable looked at us over her head before ducking down again to continuing talking with her. I shook my head and walked up to the van I was going to be riding in. I used my powers to lift the far seat and set the emp and phone blocker underneath it and set the seat down again. When I turned around again, I saw Gage and the rest of my crew standing behind me. 

“Are you ready to go?” Dave asked as he set down some more supplies, he had managed to find in the last few minutes. 

“Yeah, I’m going to go say goodbye to Mirable,” I said, and he nodded. The crew walked around me and started loading in the van. I walked up to Mirable, Victoria and the two doctors. Dr Palmer seemed ready to go and was trying to convince himself to not stay behind. 

“Are you ready to go?” I asked Dr Palmer. He looked down at me concerned before nodding. “Go sit in the van.” He nodded and walked away to join my van. I crouched down in front of Victoria whose face betrayed her emotions. She was a scared little kid, and I wouldn’t be taking her father with me unless I needed to. “I’ll bring your father back; I promise you that.” 

“I know,” she said, fear in her voice. I smiled at her and stood up again. I looked at Mirable who nodded. Take care of her, I thought to her. 

I will, she thought back, and gently grabbed Victoria’s hand. I looked at Dr Mallard. 

“Keep an eye on her for me,” I said, and he nodded. 

“Take care now,” he said, worry in his voice. 

“I will,” I said, and gave him a smile. I turned and jumped into my van. Dave, who was driving and had started the van, pulled the van forward as soon as I closed the door behind me. We didn’t wait for any of the vans to follow us. All of them would be going different routes and would meet up at different times, and though I was worried about them, I was happy about finally leaving Tundra. 

Though that happiness passed within three minutes of us pulling out of the gate. The van didn’t have any windows and it would be a long drive to the camp. Time moved extremely slowly as we drove along the nine-hour drive. We did take small breaks, but because of our desire to not be seen. I used to be able to do this trip no problem, but Tundra had weakened my resolve. 

When Dave had finally pulled to a stop three miles from Second Horizons, I practically jumped out of the van. I wasn’t the only one since Gage and Sebbie jumped out just as fast as I did. I took a few breaths and looked around for anyone. We were in a small, forested area off I-45. There were a few small old shacks that looked lived in nearby, and I could smell the freshness in the air. 

“Hey,” Sara said, calling out to us as she approached. I looked up at her and saw that she had somehow grown three inches in the time I had last seen her. She looked pretty good all things considered. 

“Hey,” Gage said, standing up all the way. “Come on everyone, let’s start unpacking.” I saw Sara look at him confused before looking at me just confused. 

“He’s taking over Second Horizons,” I said, and she nodded. I nodded in the direction of the other vans. She seemed surprised but followed me as I started walking away. “How have things been?” 

“They don’t know we’re here,” she said simply. “We’ve managed to keep things on the down low, and we managed to keep out of the camera’s view.” 

“How bad is it?” 

“Not good, but better than Tundra. There’s an outcrop of buildings near here. They built it recently to keep the adults.” 

“Is it secure?” 

“Of course,” she said in a way that made me think she thought I had a moment of stupidity. 

“How long are you going to stick around?” I asked. Among the many things that we had planned, I hadn’t asked what the team would do after we broke the kids free. 

“Stay here for a few days, then keep looking for others.” Bianca said as she joined us. We stopped by the van, and she leaned up against it. 

“Aren’t you guys getting tired of constantly being on the road?” 

“Sure, but it doesn’t bother us since we’re helping so many others, and I think it would be quite boring if we stayed in one place for too long,” Sara said with a shrug, and I heard the squeal of tires nearby. I looked over my shoulder and saw two vans coming to a stop nearby. Ten people jumped out of each van, and they immediately started sorting what was needed for the raid and what would be needed for later. 

“Why did you bring the NCIS agents, and not someone else?” Bianca asked.

“They're better than what I have, and they're good with crime scenes. Where is the rest of your team?” 

“Making sure all of the prisoners are sent to their rooms, so we don’t have to worry about it,” Bianca said before standing up and walking towards one of the vans. 

“Come on,” I said to Sara. “Help us unload things while the others show up.” She gave a kind of side nod, before walking over to one of the vans to help them unload. 

“This is impressive,” Bianca said from her position next to one of the vans. She held up one of the guns that we had brought with us. “Where did you find this stuff anyway?” 

“There are the guns that we pulled from the PSF’s at Tundra when we took the camp,” I explained as I walked up to her. 

“Really?” Dr Palmer asked, confused. 

“Yeah. We couldn’t find enough of them elsewhere, so we used the one’s we had,” I said with a shrug, and used my powers to take some left over out of the box and pass them out to some of the guns to the people who were going on the mission. Almost as soon as I was finished with passing them out the last of the vans pulled up. The people inside jumped out and started walking towards us. 

“Come on,” Gage ordered as he started passing out more guns. 

“Everyone ready to go?” Calvin asked, as he grabbed his own gun from my hand. 

“Yeah,” Gage said nervously. 

“You’ll be fine,” Dave said reassuringly, and he closed the lid of the box he had pulled his gun out of. 

“Come on everyone,” I called out, closing my own box. Everyone who was going jumped back into the vans we were taking for the raid. I settled into the passenger seat and adjusted the emp in my lap. Dave pulled forward and I grabbed onto my seat belt. I looked down at the emp again. It was highly concentrated and would completely knock out the camp’s electricity for about ten hours. I set it up so that it would fly out of the window when I hit a button. As soon as it was finished, Dave looked over at me. 

“Hit it,” Dave ordered, and I hit the button to release the button. It flew out of the window and flew out of my view. I could feel the camp's electricity, which was less than a quarter of a mile away, go dark. 

“The camp’s electricity is out,” I said, and everyone nodded in agreement. They brought their goggles over their heads and shifted their weapons. I reached out and grabbed the gate, sliding it against the railing to open it. As Dave drove through the gate, I knocked the PSF’s unconscious. 

“How close am I?” Dave asked. 

“Two hundred feet,” I said, and he started to slow down. I could feel the rest of the vans pull off so they could take their own buildings. Dave pulled the van in front of the building, and Calvin pulled the side door open. Dave and I opened our own doors, and I used my powers to shut down the van so no one else could use it. I walked right behind Zeke. 

“Open the door,” Zeke ordered. I used my powers to throw it open. There were two men on each floor and with a snap of my fingers I knocked all of them unconscious. 

“Space out everyone,” I ordered, and everyone moved out to secure our newly acquired prisoners and to make sure none of the kids tried to run.

“We’ve got this, go help clear the warehouse,” Zeke ordered as he approached one of our prisoners to handcuff him. I turned and before I could walk away, I could feel the increased panic from one of the rooms down the hall. 

“Are you okay?” Calvin asked, and I waved my hand in a follow me motion. I walked down the hallway and used my powers to force my way into the room. Nine of the girls inside were awake and some of the girls were crowded around the bed of the last girl who was lying in the middle of the room on the right. All the girls but one flinched back and covered their eyes while the last tried to protect the fallen girl. 

“What’s wrong with her?” I heard Zeke demand from somewhere behind me. I approached the girl and knelt next to her.

“I don’t know,” I muttered as I put my hand to her head. I used my powers to check her head and gasped as I realized. 

“What is it?” Calvin asked. 

“Jesus Christ. Get Horton, she’s a yellow,” I said as I started pulling the sheets towards the end of the bed. I heard Zeke call it in over his walkie talkie. “She would have been hurt by the emp.” 

“What emp?” one of the girls asked curiously from the corner of the room. 

“We’re rescuing you. We had to knock the electricity out so the adults couldn’t call out or see us as we drove in. We assumed that the higher scaled kids hid amongst the lower scaled ones, but we didn’t give too much consideration to a yellow hiding out so low, though,” I said, and as gently as I could I picked her, and her mattress, up with my powers and set her on the ground. 

“How often does that happen? A higher scaled kid hiding out as a lower scaled one?” the same girl asked. 

“Well, you’re the second camp that I’ve ever been it. My original camp had twelve hundred, but only one hid as anything that they weren’t," I said, pulling my own electrical repressor and sticking it against the girl's arm. There was a little needle that stuck into her vein."

“What's that?” the same girl asked, looking at the machine in my hand.

“Yellows are knocked out by EMP’s, so we created these little devices to give them short burst of electricity. It helps them get back on their feet much faster than before.”

“Will she be, okay?” a different girl asked. 

“Yeah, she’ll be fine,” I said and looked down at the girl on the ground in front of me again. The girl’s name was Julia O’Hara, and she was maybe thirteen years old. She must have been scared, and I was happy that we could have helped her. 

“What did you mean to rescue us?” one of the older girls asked. I turned to see that the one who spoke was a fifteen-year-old girl named Miriam. 

“Means we’re picking you up and taking you to our own base,” I said, standing back up. I heard footsteps approaching me and saw Horton run into the room. I stepped aside and let him look at the girl.

“What’s her name?” Horton asked. 

“Julia,” one girl said. 

“Thank you,” Horton said as he started checking her out, before agreeing with my previous statements. “I have to go check on everyone else. Apparently, a blue boy got bit by a rattlesnake.” 

“Alright, thank you. How is it going, by the way?” Calvin asked. 

“We’re good,” Horton said. 

“Alright, get him to the dining hall as soon as you can,” I said, waving him off. Horton walked off, and I looked at Calvin. 

“Start talking with them, I’ll check in with everyone else,” he said quietly. 

“Of course,” I muttered just as quietly before he walked out of the door. I turned back to the girls and quickly connected names with faces from the files that Jenna’s team had pulled. “I know you’re all confused but trust me you will be safe from here on out. The PSF’s, doctors and camp controllers will be punished for what they did here.” 

“What about Dr Horgan?” Miriam asked. 

“Who?” 

“He’s one of the doctors here, he’s nice and treated us fairly. He even knew about Julia and didn’t say anything,” Miriam explained. 

“I’ll have him separated from the rest and interviewed. I can’t make any promises, but if he is a good man, he will be spared our wrath. Could you please line up for me?” I asked kindly. “We’re going to the dining hall so that we could explain things in a large group.” The girls nodded and I heard footsteps approaching behind me. I turned my head and saw Gage walk through the door. Gage looked at the unconscious girl on the ground, before looking up at me. “I need a word in private.” 

“Sure,” I said, stepping away as the girls lined up in a straight line. “What happened?” 

“Boy across the hallway is an orange, and there’s a red upstairs. I don’t know how much they know about their powers though,” he said quietly. 

“Alright. Make sure you’re the one accompanying them as they go down,” I muttered, and gave the signal for Calvin to start walking the girls out of the room. He nodded and started leading the girls out of their room. Zeke stood at attention right outside the door so that no one could bother Julia. Several people walked into the building and started walking to the rooms to let the kids out. I could hear their confusion as they opened the doors. 

“What’s up with Zeke?” Gage asked, confused. 

“Yellow girl, got hurt by the emp. She’ll be fine though,” I said and waved him off. He walked away so that he could start helping release kids out of their rooms. It took us maybe five minutes to clear the entire floor, and fifteen to clear the entire building. Each room was the same, kids panicked as we opened the door, and we had to wake some of the kids up on the third floor since they somehow missed our commotion. As I looked around the dining hall, I saw all of them were extremely nervous about what was about to happen. 

“Are you okay?” Calvin whispered as he stopped next to me. 

“Yeah,” I whispered back as Gage took the stage. We had brought a microphone so people could hear him. 

“Hello everyone, my name is Gage Thatcher. My people and I are from a reformed camp that some of you might know Tundra. We kept the name because it was easier to keep than give a new name. Anyway, half a year ago, a group of the prisoners took the camp and the adults of the camp, and we’ve lived in peace since then, bringing in kids and adults for safety. All of you are going to be sent to Tundra, while people are being sent here to start new and help even more. You will be expected to help contribute, but are expected to go to school and learn, not only what you would have learned in school, but your powers, and are expected to know them well. Any questions?” 

Kids raised their hands to ask questions and Calvin leaned forward to whisper something in ear. “Jimmy and the rest of the NCIS agents are ready to go outside,” he said, handing me his phone. I grabbed it and saw the text message. 

“Alright,” I said, and sent a message to Gage. He looked at me scared, before nodding along. I turned and walked out of the door, leaving Calvin behind to help in case of need. I walked over to the control tower, where the team had gathered. 

“Hey,” Jimmy called from the passenger's seat. “How did it go?” 

“One red, yellow, and orange. Sixty purples, ninety-nine blues, a hundred and thirty-eight greens,” I said, stopping in front of the van. 

“Nice,” Nick said, and I opened the door so I could slide inside the van. Kasie drove us slowly away from the camp, two miles to where the bodies were buried. As soon as we approached, she pulled to a stop next to the large mass grave. She pulled to a stop, and everyone jumped out grabbing their supplies out of the van. 

“Did Jenna’s team finally figure out how many kids were here?” Jimmy asked, as we walked to the burial site. 

“There were five that she was able to find names for, but proportionally there should be less than forty here,” I said. 

“How did you find this place anyway?” Nick asked as he set down his gear. The area in front of us was covered in the same plant life as everywhere around it. So, if I hadn’t noticed it earlier, it wouldn't have been easily found. 

“The roots of these bushes only go down a few inches, while everything else goes a few feet, plus they must have been wrapped in plastic to prevent the smell from breaking out. Their about ten feet down I want to say,” I said. Sheila, Bob, and Harry used their powers to bring out large blankets to lay down to defiritate the dirt from the grave from everywhere else. 

“Let’s get the lights set up,” Parker said, and we broke apart to help set up everything. We had to set up video cameras and search the entire area for clues. There weren’t many, because the PSFs who had buried the kids had murdered the kids had done a pretty good job of making sure no one would know what had happened to them. When Parker finally gave the wave, the four of us blues moved to the corner of the grave, and used our powers to bring up the dirt, moving it the tarps we had laid out. 

It took us maybe ten minutes to pull up all the dirt, and as the first body appeared, we had to take a minute to just stare open mouthed at it. Everyone here was used to death, had seen it more than anyone should have, but even we had to pause to realize how bad what we were seeing was. Because of how deep the hole was the other three and I had to pull the bodies out and lay them down. All in all, there were forty-five kids in the grave, all under the age of fifteen. 

Calvin showed up as I pulled the last of the kids out, and as soon as I saw him, I dropped the body gently on the ground and I saw him give me a pitiful look before grabbing Harry and pulling him away towards the van. I walked over to Bob and Sheila and pulled them along to the van. I wanted to cry from the stress of the day, but I didn’t want to cry in front of everyone else. I guided the pair into their seats and joined Calvin in the front seat. He gave me a pitiful look but didn’t say anything as he drove away from the grave site and towards the camp. Calvin must have sensed that we weren’t in the mood to talk since we didn’t say a word. 

Chapter Text

The Second Horizon raid was good because we were able to successfully pull kids from the camp, though the deaths of the kids we couldn’t save still haunted everybody. Time was hard for everyone afterwards, having to deal with what we knew. We had brought the kids back and had buried them in a small graveyard behind the old camp. Time marched on, and we started taking more camps even though we knew we would get hurt with the kids’ stories.

Mirable eventually left, and started up the program at Golden Palms, doing good in the process. Several of my old cabin mates went with her, though Delta remained to help with our security. We were kind of embolden with what happened at Second Horizons, and we eventually took bigger camps like Black Rock. The foster system we had set up expanded and we soon found parents to take pretty much all of the kids. We eventually had enough rooms where families could stick together. We weren't all at Tundra because of how many people we had. I was proud with how far we had come in the last two years, though we still had several camps to take. Three days before the second anniversary of Rallying Day, I was standing in the cold North Dakota air, waiting Jenna’s team to appear. Her team had been found by Canadian’s a few days ago, and they were just now being released.

“Where are they?” I asked, looking around impatiently.

“They’ll be here. Sara would have convinced them to release them by now,” Calvin said, trying to reassure me. I was nervous being so close to the boarder. The only reason Calvin, Victoria, Ziva and I were up here originally was to try and find a kid running near here while the Gator team was busy with a different tribe. I heard nearby rustling and I instantly shot up. Instead of a wild animal, I saw fifteen people walking up to us, led by Jenna. Several of the other people I didn’t recognize, and they only had one kid with them, Sara. 

“Hey,” Jenna called out as she approached us.

“Where is everyone else?” I asked, getting concerned. 

“They're fine,” Sara said, waving me off. 

“Who are they?” I asked, turning to look at the people who were surrounding the two people. 

“Canadians,” Jenna said, coming to stop beside me. She pointed to a fifty-year-old man who had come to a stop beside her. “This is Justin McKinley. He’s the current Prime Minister of Canada.” I could sense the order to play nice in her tone.

“Hi,” I said, trying to put my politician voice on.

“He’s wanting to help us,” Sara said.

“Really? Why?” I asked, giving him a pointed look. 

“Heard that you guys needed help, so I decided to come and help you guys,” Justin said. 

“Quit lying, why are you really here?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest. My people seemed to have gotten used to this line of questioning, so they didn’t say anything. Justin’s men seemed surprised by the question though. As Jenna and Sara walked around the truck to put their things in the back, Justin seemed to have finally caught his breath. 

“What do you mean?” Justin asked.

“It’s been six years since the outbreak started? I think five and a half since you closed the border with this country. Why do you suddenly care now?” 

“Because your team gave me pictures of the camps and told me what IAAN really is. I’m trying to lend you a helping hand.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I care?” 

“Why? Again, you haven’t sent anyone over here, you barely sent food, and you’re suddenly brought to pity by a couple of pictures and very bad puppy dog eyes from a couple of teenagers?” I asked, and he nodded. “I don’t believe you.” 

“You should."

“How about,” Sara said, interjecting into the conversation. We turned to look at her. “We should go somewhere where it isn’t freezing.” 

“It’s not that bad,” I said, not even feeling a slight chill.

“There is literal snow on the ground, and you can’t feel the cold,” Sara said looking at my clothing, which consisted of blue jean shorts and a tank top. Reds, and blacks, were immune to most cold temperatures.

“Wait really?” Justin asked. I gave him a side look before looking at Sara again. 

“I explained things to him, but he doesn’t fully believe it yet,” she said with a shrug.

“Come on. There’s a secure location fifty minutes away," Calvin said. 

“Almanze?” Sara asked, and I nodded. Almanze had been the fourth camp we had raided. It had been a yellow camp that hadn’t used it much since we took it, but it was warm and secure.

“How about we go up to our own base,” Justin suggested. “That way we aren’t infected by Agent Ambrosia?”

“Fine. Sarah, Jenna, we’ve been tracking this kid for the last few hours, keep tracking them until Gator shows up.

“Alright. See you around,” Jenna said with a halfhearted wave goodbye. 

“Bye,” I said as they jumped into the van. I watched the van pull away before I turned back to the crowd. 

“Shouldn’t you have an entire team searching for the kid?” Justin asked. 

“We do, but they're searching a different area. Plus, I was wanting to meet up with the rest of the Hare team.” 

“Hare,” one of the men said with a laugh.

“Wyatt knock it off,” Justin said with a sigh. 

“They got that name because they managed to find and kidnap over three thousand kids going directly towards the internment camps and not leaving any sort of trail,” I said, putting my right hand on my waist. “Plus, they managed to round up over eight thousand people on the outside. Mostly they got it because they’re the crew we use whenever we’re about to raid a camp.” The men seemed to pause in surprise again. 

“So how did we catch them?” Wyatt asked. 

“Better question, why did they let you catch them?” I asked, walking around the crew. “Come on, it’s a hike back to your cars.” I could feel them look at me confused, but nonetheless followed behind me. 

“Where are you from, originally?” Justin asked, trying to be friendly.

“Maryland, Kansas, Kansas, Nebraska,” Victoria said, pointing out each person as she said it. 

“Anywhere specific?” Wyatt asked, curiosity in his voice. 

“Why does that matter? Almost everyone we know who isn't connected into our system is dead, in a camp, or is willing to sell us for ten grand,” Ziva grumbled. Wyatt flinched, and I couldn’t blame him. Ziva was young and shouldn’t have that much bitterness in her voice yet. 

“So, Sara said that you’re going to create a new city,” Wyatt said towards Victoria.

“Yeah, I’m pretty excited about it,” Vic said happily.

“Yeah, that’s coming up pretty soon,” I said looking back for a second. Victoria was pretty excited about helping out. She had grown a lot since she had arrived. 

“Yeah, fifteen is a big age,” Calvin said. 

“What camp are you taking over?"

“Highland. It’s this small green, blue camp over in Wyoming,” Vic said eagerly. 

“It’s going to be camp number eighteen we’ve either raided or incorporated into smaller camps,” Ziva said proudly. We topped a small hill, and three cars appeared on a road. They weren’t anything special, but they were better than walking.

“Calvin ride with Ziva. Victoria, you, and I are going to ride alone.” 

“Alright,” the three said at one time, splitting up and going to two different cars. I walked to the third and used my powers to open it. Justin and his men followed and slid into their seats, leaving me to settle by the window. It was strange being next to the window, but I liked being able to watch nature pass me by. The men in the car let me sit in silence for a while before their curiosity got the better of them.

“Can you really set things on fire and move a car with your mind?” one blond twenty-year-old asked. I turned my head surprised, and he looked sheepishly away. “Sorry.” 

“Don’t be,” I said with a small laugh, and he brightened up. “I haven’t had someone ask me curious questions about my powers in a very long time, and it’s good to see someone who is actually curious and not terrified.”  

“Oh,” he said, and to pass his curiosity I held out my left hand, which was the farther one from the window, and created a small flame. I held it open for thirty seconds before letting it burn out. 

“Cool,” another one of the men said, and I looked out the window again. “Are you alright ma’am?” 

“I’m fine. Whenever I’ve traveled for the last two years, I couldn’t sit next to the window because it was too dangerous. If I had been spotted, then someone could have called me in, and we would have skip tracers and bounty hunters on my butt. I’ve also never been out of the United States before,” I said. 

“Oh. Sorry to hear that,” the man said. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said, and I looked at Justin. “Justin, as soon as we get to your base, can I see my people? I know you probably wouldn’t hurt them, but it has been a while since I’ve seen them.” 

“Of course. I’m sure they would be quite happy to see you. The kid you were tracking, are they in serious trouble.”

“Maybe. If they were to be picked up by a skip tracer, they would probably end up in Black Rock. It was a distribution center for kids before we claimed it. I just worry that they're going to be out there in the elements for too long. Reds and purples would probably be fine, they're less likely to fall to the elements, but when we found him in the system, it said he was likely a blue. Why do you ask?”

“Because I could have some of my army look for the kid. They would be able to assist more than your crew.”

“If you wanted to, go right ahead,” I answered, and I felt the car slow to a stop. We slid into a parking spot, and I saw some buildings in the distance. 

“We’re here,” Justin said, sliding his door open. 

“Thanks,” I muttered, sliding the door open, and jumped out. I let the guy next to me out before slamming the door shut. There were a few buildings in front of me, and it was easy to separate them out using my powers. It was also easy to find where my people were being held, so as soon as the three in the cars jumped out of their cars, I started walking towards the building they were in. 

“So how much information did the Hare team give you?” I asked. 

“Where all the camps you know are, which one’s you’ve raided. They told us about the color system, and how everyone’s treated according to how they were organized. We also know about Project Jamboree, and how you’ve been eradicating it,” Justin said, and I opened the door of the building. I walked through a few hallways and into a large room where my three missing search people were, who seemed surprised that we were here. 

They were all standing around a table that held multiple documents and drawings. There was a map of the United States hung up on the wall with stars marking the camp's locations. Maps of states with camps were hung up as well so the camp's locations could better be seen. There was a small piece of paper taped next to the camps with the camp's name, if it had been claimed by us, or were still unattacked. There was also a list of how many current residents were in each camp. Bianca, and John noted me, but for the most part ignored me as I walked into the room, though everyone else’s heads snapped towards us. 

“Hey,” Bianca said with a small wave. 

“Hey,” I said and sighed with relief. All three of them were dressed in fresh clothing and none of them were dirty or harmed. If not for the strange people around me, I would have thought they had swung back to Tundra for a little while. “How are you doing?” 

“Fine,” John said as I walked closer to the table to get a better look at the table. 

“Who are you?” A brunette-haired white man asked. He wasn’t dressed in military clothing, and his hair was much longer than would have been accepted. 

“Hastings, what are you doing here?” Justin asked as he walked around me to get a better look at the man. 

“You missed our meeting on those airplanes, then I heard you went and found you guys had some psi here,” he said looking at Bianca. He looked back at us. “Who are you?”

“Ava McBrian,” I said, and nodded at the others introducing them as well. “Who are you?” 

“David Hasting. Tech billionaire. Not involved in the government though,” he introduced. Okay how did he get onto a military base? David seemed distracted by something, though he did seem interested in us. As Victoria, Ziva and Calvin spread out to talk with their friends, and the government works went to talk with theirs I focused on David's thoughts. They were kind of simmering and I knew Ziva and Victoria could sense he wasn't really paying attention to us. 

"David?" I asked and the man looked up at me. I waved him over, and he willingly came to stand next me. "I’m sorry for asking, but who’s Sulvia? I only ask because your thoughts are quite loud." 

“She's my daughter. She was in a car accident a few months ago, and she had to be put into a medically induced coma." 

“How about I have one of my people come up and heal her? I do have a soft spot for injured people." 

“I would like that very much," he said, much happier than he had been a second ago.

“I'll have her healed, if you answer one question. What are you hiding about your daughter?”

“She survived IAAN, from what I gathered from Bianca she’s a blue.”

“Oh, then we’re definitely helping her,” I said, and since his thoughts calmed from a ranging fire to a cool calm, I could hear the nearby conversation. The group seemed to be discussing some of the finer details of our raids. “We’ll finish discussing this in a minute.”

“Thank you,” he said, and I walked closer to the table. The Hare team had obviously sharing a lot of information about what we had been doing in the last few months to these people, and I wondered what exactly made them start talking.

"Justin," I said loudly, and the entire room turned to face me. 

"Yes?" he asked, just as loud. 

"Now that you have been caught up with what is happening in the United States, what is your plan on helping in the future?" 

"I propose an alliance between Hastings company, New Hope Organization, and the Canadian government. It's pretty clear that you will not be able to keep this charade forever. The New Hope Organization can come to Canada, and be given citizenship to Canada. Which would be beneficial to you since your people would be able to get paying jobs, and your children's education will be improved with access to universities. It would be beneficial to Canada because the purples and silvers could be hired out and give us more plant based food, and less sick people. Hastings company would improve since he could hire greens. He would have to foot the bill, but considering he is a billionaire, it wouldn't make that much of a difference." 

“Okay. How long would it take for everything to be prepared for our arrival? If money isn't an issue?" 

"If your people give us you're people's basic information, it wouldn't be hard to give it to immigration. They don't have a lot to process nowadays. I figure it would be a couple of weeks before everyone you have is allowed up. We could always hire more people to help."   

“It sounds like a good idea,” Calvin said, and I felt my wristwatch buzz. I looked down at it and saw that it was my reminder to go to Wyoming.

“A good idea that is going to have to be put on hold for right now,” I said, and everyone looked at me, confused. “Victoria, Calvin and I have to go and help raid this camp in Wyoming, and I have to return Ziva to her grandmother.”

“You could leave Ziva here,” David suggested. “If she knows how to use her powers, then she could heal my daughter, and I can start looking into my finances. See what I can spare to help you.”

“And I can start bringing my own people up to speed,” Justin offered. I looked at Ziva. Could you control them if you needed to? She nodded.

“Alright, Hare team stay here. I’ll have Jenna and Sara join you as soon as Gator team comes in this direction. I’ll send up one of our lawyers and Ziva’s grandmother up as soon as I can. For now, just try and keep your heads down and don’t cause too many problems.”

“Alright,” John said, and I smiled. I looked at Justin.

“I’m going to need someone to drive us off where you picked us up.”

“Wyatt will drive you,” Justin said.

“Thank you,” I said, and Wyatt led us out of the room, and then the building. I didn’t want to leave my team, but I knew that we would need someone outside of the country helping us. We couldn’t keep going as we were. Eventually something needed to change, and if the Canadians could help us, I needed to take that chance. The Hare team would keep Ziva safe and would try and keep peace with the Canadians.

“You know you shouldn’t have left them,” Victoria said as we stepped into the car. 

“I know,” I said, as I sat down and shut the door. 

“Then why did you leave them?” Calvin asked as he started driving. 

“Ziva is safer here than the U.S, and do you honestly think I would leave them here alone? The Gator team should be here in a few hours and can keep an eye on them. Justin wants to help for some reason. He doesn’t like the whole power thing, but he knows that he probably couldn’t do anything about us changing that. Also, the camp system is one heck of illegal, and he cares enough about us to know that we don’t deserve that.” 

“So why Ziva? Why not change yourself out with someone else, we have time for that,” Victoria asked. 

“Ziva looks a lot like David's kid, I mean a lot, and David and Justin seemed to have been friends for a while now. Ziva is smart. She knows how to use her powers and will be fine. If anything happens, she’s the first to go completely nuclear, and they don’t have any way to contain her.”

“Alright,” Calvin said with a wave of his hand. 

&&& 

After we finished with Highland, Calvin and I returned to Tundra with the rest of the raiding team. Bringing about two hundred of the kids with us to make room for more at Highland. It was two days after my conversation with Justin, and as Calvin drove me through the gates of the camp, I felt relief, since I was finally able to handle the problem head on. I saw Levi and Penelope standing next to the control tower. Levi was amongst the group who had gotten his powers right around when Mirable and Ziva had gotten their powers, but it had not only taken awhile for them to set in, but he hadn’t wanted to move away from where he had been. He had finally changed his mind last month and I decided to put him in charge of our next raid.

“Go,” Calvin said, as he parked by the gate. 

“Thanks,” I said jumping out of the van. I slammed the door behind me and walked over to the pair. 

“What’s going on? You seemed more stressed than usual,” Penelope asked as I approached. 

“The Hare team was picked up, and the Canadian Prime Minister offered us a spot up there, and now Ziva and her grandmother are in another country,” I said with a sigh. 

“Why would they do that?” Levi asked. 

“The Hare team got picked up and started talking. Now they want to help us.” 

“What did you say?” Penelope asked. 

“I didn’t say anything. I had to get down to Wyoming and help them out, but Ziva said she would be trying to figure things out, but she can’t do much. Anyway, what happened here?”

“We’re fine, found some more people. Nothing unusual,” Penelope said. 

“Good. I’ll finish talking about the Canadian issue tomorrow morning,” I said tiredly. 

“Of course,” Levi said, and I walked to my bedroom, and laid down on my bed. As I did, I pulled out the secured phone from my pocket, and pressed Ziva’s phone number. I didn’t have to wait long before her face appeared on my screen. 

“Hey,” Ziva said quietly. “How are you doing?” 

“Good. The Highland raid went well,” I said sitting up. “How’s Sulvia?” 

“She’s fine, managed to heal her easily enough and Justin is trying to push our cases through immigration. He wants us to start sending kids stuck in the camps information up to him before we raid the camps. That way it's easier to press charges on the camp workers.” 

“That’s nice, but it wouldn’t explain where we would live. I know we’re eventually going to move apart when all of this is over, but I would like to be able to have a city of some kind where the psi could go where they would be accepted as they were.” 

“David and I might have a solution for that. David has been helping the homeless situation here by building new housing and helping people move into already existing homes. He’s also been helping forgive debts. One of the things he’s been doing is creating small cities around the country. One of the cities that he starting to create is on the west coast, and no one is out there yet. David said if we wanted to we could move out there if we wanted to, but he wants us to tell him soon so that could change up the plans so that he could add more fire protections, and add some of the protections that we have here.”

“Wouldn’t that possibly bankrupt him?” I asked. 

“His tech company made two hundred billion dollars last year alone. The people on the team said it would take around fifteen billion to finish.” 

“Huh. When does he need the answer?”

“He needs it by Friday.” Friday was three days from now and would give me plenty of time to finish talking with everyone.

“Alright. How are they treating you?”

“Pretty good. They're mostly leaving us alone, but their not treating us badly.” 

“Good. Hey, I’ll talk to you sometime later,” I said with a yawn, and she smiled in sympathy. 

“Bye,” she said, disconnecting the call. 

Chapter Text

The next two weeks passed slowly as I talked with both Justin and David over the phone about the future of the psi race. Both were extremely eager to help us and were willing to negotiate things that we would need and not considering we could produce a lot of our own things. Justin and I had to negotiate rules that would need to be added to the law book to not only protect us from getting hurt but would appropriately punish us if we committed a crime. 

But these things took time, and it was taking even longer since I had to negotiate with everyone else. Levi and I were standing next to one of the vans by the gate. It was a white one with no markings on it and was good to travel long distances on it. Levi was leaning against the van, trying to remain calm. 

“I’m going to be fine,” I said as I threw the last of the bags into the back of the van. 

“I know you will, but I still have to worry,” he said. 

“I know you do, but I will be fine,” I said, closing the doors. “You have everything settled?” 

“Of course,” he said with a smile. “Now get going.” ‘

“Sure thing,” I said, turning to see Calvin, Agent Parker, and Bob walking up to me. They were dressed in blue jeans and brown shirts. All three were extremely happy and I could see Felicia and some of Bob’s friends in the distance walking back to the housing to go to their rooms. “You guys ready?” 

“Of course. Are you?” Bob asked. 

“Yep. Bags are packed,” I said, pointing towards the van. 

“Good. See you later Levi,” Calvin said walking towards the driver’s side of the van. I gave him a bright smile, before walking towards the side of the van and using the side door to jump into the vehicle. I closed the door behind me and settled next to our loose bags. Bob walked up to the passenger side and jumped into the seat and pulled the door closed behind him. Parker joined me in the back. 

The four of us were going up to Canada so that we could see the locations we would use in case of an emergency leave. We already had places to go in case someone got word what we were doing, but since Canada was already being nice to us, they offered us different locations in several of the larger cities. Calvin started the van and pulled the van out of the gate to start the almost twenty hour drive up to Toronto. 

Luckily nothing happened over the eighteen hours between Tundra and the Canadian border, but as soon as we were close, I found a van following us. It wasn’t very far away, and it took me a second that they weren’t Americans but instead Canadian’s. “Hey, pull over,” I ordered, and Calvin pulled off the road and onto the shoulder. The van pulled to a stop right behind us, and collectively we all jumped out of our respective vehicles. Some of the men I recognized, not everyone but enough to recognize them. 

“Hey,” I called out, and Whatt waved at me. We stopped a healthy difference between the two vans. 

“Ava, this is Shawn McKinley. Former Canadian Armed Forces Reserve Force, he’ll be your guard for the foreseeable future. I trust your men, but Justin wanted to talk with them in person,” Whatt said, and I looked around Whatt to see Shawn was a five-foot six white man with light brown hair. 

“Fine,” I said, and the three men who came with me walked towards the other van, with the others joined them. Shawn stood for a second before he started walking towards the van, I showed up in. He jumped into the driver seat, and I waited for a second before I joined him in the passenger seat. He didn’t say anything as we crossed the border with no problem and drove into Toronto.

As McKinley pulled to a stop in front of the Chelsea Hotel, I noticed a small group of people waiting by the doors. McKinley wasn’t even surprised at the group of people. He turned off the car and unbuckled himself from the chair. “Come on,” he said as he opened the door. I unbuckled myself and opened the door. As I slammed the door behind me a woman walked up to me. 

“Ava this is Clara Cassidy, the owner of the Chremont Hotel,” McKinley introduced. “Clara, this is Ava McBrian, she the director of the camps Tundra.” 

“Hi,” Clara said, reaching her hand out for me to shake. I took it and gave a firm shake. 

“Did McKinley tell you what you’re getting into if we needed to enact Project Hammer?” I asked. Project Hammer was the name given to our evacuation plans and what would happen to us after we escaped. 

“Yes. He was quite clear what could happen to us if you enact it. He was quite adamant that he tells me everything that your people can do, and what has been going on. Everyone’s background here has been checked, and we have things like canned food and clothing coming in rapidly in case you need it. If we don’t use it we’ll just send it out with you to the West Coast.” 

“Thank you,” I said with a smile. 

“You’re welcome, but if you wanted to, we could walk around the hotel to see if it’s to your liking, and we can meet everyone on my staff. It might change in the future, but you can at least meet some of the people who are here.” 

“If it wouldn’t be much of a hassle, I would like that very much.” 

“Of course,” Clara said with a smile. She turned and led me inside the building. The adults inside instantly turned to pay attention to us. 

“Hello,” McKinley said, and I really hoped most of the attention was being paid attention to him and not me. 

“Alright everyone,” Clara called, getting the attention of everyone. Once everyone was paying attention to her, she waved her hand at me. “This is Ava McBrian, leader of the refugee camp Tundra. Now I want you to treat her with the utmost respect. Anyone who doesn’t will be removed. If you have any questions, please ask her.” Several people looked at me and I felt a bit uncomfortable about it. McKinley walked up next to me. 

“Come on,” Clara said, turning to me. She started walking and I followed behind her. “This hotel had three restaurants and fifteen hundred and ninety rooms. We also have two swimming pools. We might not have enough room for every single person, but the apartment buildings next door has agreed to house the overflow in their empty apartments. And there are a few other hotels in the area. I can also clear the conference rooms that we have here, but I am not clear why I would need to do it.” 

“We’re sending the one’s without powers and any kids under ten first. The adults are coming up last, so we’re trying to keep calm before they show up.” 

“Ah,” she said, and continued showing me around. 

&&&

I was standing in Alex’s office once again two weeks after my trip to Canada, trying to figure the details of the next raid we were planning. Mateo was sitting in one of the chairs, while Alex was sitting in her own chair. We had called Justin when we had started the meeting and laid the phone in such a way that he could see what we were talking about. I heard a beep on Alex’s computer. She looked away from the blueprints that she had pulled up and looked at the email that was meant to be the old captain of the guards. Her jaw dropped, and I looked at her concerned. 

“What’s wrong?” Justin asked, concerned in his voice. 

“One of my teams was accidentally spotted near the camps and a skip tracer sent pictures up the command,” Alex said, shaking her head as she looked at the pictures on her computer. 

“Alright, we’ve prepared for this,” I said, trying to remain calm. We had always made plans in case of evacuation, but still our bases were huge and would need time to evacuate. 

“Ava. Start your end of Project Hammer, and I’ll start my end here,” Justin said and I sighed in relief. 

“Alright,” I said, and reached down and grabbed the emergency button. I could hear the alarm starting to ring through the building and people around me to starting to move. We had done this routine many times and everyone knew to remain calm in this situation. “Alex, make sure your people go to their rooms and get their things, and start shutting down your systems, clear as much evidence as you can. Mateo, check the warehouses and make sure everyone gets out. I'll clear the school.” 

“Alright,” they said together. 

“Justin, make sure that everything is good for us to come up,” I said, and he nodded. 

“Of course. I’ll make sure everything gets done, and I’ll call everyone to send them up here” he said and closed the call on his side. Alex turned to her computer and started typing. Mateo stood up, and we walked out together. We walked out of the building together and went our separate ways. Everyone was already going their own ways to their rooms to pick up their things to leave. They seemed to be moving quickly and as soon as they saw my face they started moving even faster. 

I quickly walked up to the gate, where some of the cars were being pulled up from the parking lot. The drivers looked bored at the prospect of the alarm, but as soon as they saw me approaching the gate, which I had never done before, boredom turned to concern. “What’s going on?” someone shouted. 

“We’re getting out of here,” I yelled back, and their faces paled. They parked the cars, and we waited for the first of the kids to show up from the tower. The kids from the school right behind them. Jaquine gave me a sad look as the youngest of our kids showed up. 

“Come on everyone,” I called out. My presence, and the trailers, seemed to startle them and what was about to happen seemed to settle in. None of them started crying, but they gave us hugs goodbye before hopping into the back of the trailers, and when we closed the doors on the first trailer, and it was starting to pull away, my stomach sank to my feet. I had to wonder if I would see them again, but I couldn’t think about it much as I loaded the next trailer. 

When Justin and I had finished the details of Project Hammer, I had buried all the trailers we had collected but were not using anymore over the last two years, a grand total of two hundred. I didn't know how we had managed to collect so many until I checked how many of our trailers had been pinged by the PSF’s. I helped load people until there none left. Everyone had agreed that the kids would go first, so the older people had to wait until they arrived again before they could leave.

There would be a small skeleton crew remaining in the camp, a total of ten people. Three of Penelope’s people, a purple, and six adults. There was enough food to last them a while. Some of Justin’s men would come down and help us guard the remainder of the buildings, but even they knew when to leave in case someone came too close. Bob was right in front of me reading the inventory list that he held in his right hand. His eyes scanned it one last time before he looked back up at me. 

“Alright, everything’s good,” he said with a grim smile on his face. “I’ll see you soon, I promise.” 

“I’ll see you soon,” I said, and quickly hugged him before jumping into the back of the trailer and settling down next to the remainder of the control tower. Alex looked at me and gave me a small smile as Bob locked the door behind me. This truckful, like the rest, would be straight shooting it from here through South and North Dakota where we would be gathered at an airport and flown to Toronto Airport and driven to our respective hotel accommodations. Most of the trailer was filled with workers from the control tower. I liked them well enough to spend almost twelve hours with them. I settled against the wall, and mentally prepared myself for the long journey ahead of us. 

Luckily for everyone in the trailer other than the gas refuels we weren’t stopped until the Canadian border where we passed the truck headed down to replace the guards and picked up our new passports. After that we stopped at a military base where we were immediately put on a plane and flown down to the airport in Toronto where we were split into smaller groups to be taken by cars. 

It only took us twenty minutes to drive from Toronto Airport to Chelsea Hotel, which was supposedly a good drive, and as we pulled in front of the hotel, I could see people milling around the front streets. No one seemed to really notice the bus that we were on, and I couldn’t be happier about that fact. McKinley, who was driving, pulled us to a complete stop right in front of the hotel and everyone quickly grabbed their bags to stand up and single filed walked out of the bus and into the entrance of the hotel. 

The entrance was just as beautiful as it had been before, and I could see Clara walking around talking with people trying to keep everyone calm and organized. She was worn and I could tell that this was wearing on her even though we had practiced this before and she knew what was coming. 

“Clara,” I called out and she turned to look at me. I waved at her, and she walked up to me with a smile on her face. 

“How was the trip up?” she asked as she stopped in front of me. 

“Went well, no problem at all. Did everyone get here safely?” 

“Yes, I heard from the other hotels and apartment complexes that everyone else showed up as well and they are expecting everyone else to show up soon. I also heard from David that he is getting everything ready for your arrival. They should be ready soon.” I sighed in relief. This entire plan had been crazy in its entirety, but I was happy that it was going as well as it was. 

“Where are we staying?” 

“This group is going to conference room four,” she said, and I remembered the room from when she was showing me around earlier. 

“If you don’t mind, we’re going to go to sleep for a little while. We’ve had a long trip up here and we’re extremely tired.” 

“Of course,” she said and waved us back. 

“Thank you,” I said gratefully and led my friends away towards the conference room. We got some strange stares from some of the people we passed, but I didn’t pay them any mind and continued my way. Conference room four was like the rest of the conference rooms. The tables in the room had been removed and mattresses had been brought in. There were several bunk beds already put together and mattresses were on them. 

The group dispersed and started going towards individual beds. Some were already claimed, so I avoided them and placed my backpack on one of the beds in the far corner away from the door. I laid down on the bed and because of my years of experience fell asleep right away. 

My sleep was interrupted ten minutes later when I was shaken awake by Mirable. Her face was drawn, and I could see lines in her face. She had grown a lot in the last few years, and I wondered if she was the same person, she was years ago. 

“What’s going on?” I asked sitting up. I was happy to see her again, but I couldn’t bring myself to start with the pleasant conversation. 

“David wants to show the leaders how the city is coming along, and Justin says he has something to reveal,” she said, slight concern in her voice. 

“Alright, I’m getting up,” I said, sitting up and looking around the room. Some people were sitting and eating some food. Others were sleeping. While others were talking quietly. I stood up and several people noted the action. Some waved hi and gave small smiles. Mirable and I walked out of the room together and out into the hallway. We had six small city towns in the group and as we walked around the corner, I saw the other four leaders. Gage waved at me, and Victoria, Ryan, and Harrison, all gave me small waves. 

They were gathered in a small group, and I could tell that they were tired as well. Ryan and Harrison were twin brothers from Portland, Oregon. They had been picked up by the PSF’s and taken to a camp in New Mexico. There had only been a couple dozen kids on an old farm near Salt Lake City, so instead of sticking around we moved everyone to Tundra. After we taught them everything, we knew they went to Moore in Maine, and Garlington in Mississippi individually. 

All of them looked much older than they should have, but I was extremely happy to all see them. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, and it was good to see them again. I stopped beside Victoria and Mirable stopped next to me. “Where’s David and Justin?” I asked, looking around. They weren’t anywhere in the lobby. 

“Front of the hotel,” Mirable said. “I wanted to gather everyone before we met up with him.” 

“Good idea,” Victoria said, stepping away to lead us out of the building. We all stepped behind her. 

“Any idea what they wanted to talk about?” Harrison asked as we walked out of the door. 

“No idea. They didn’t really say anything, and I was too tired and busy to get a good read on them earlier. Justin said that his thing happens to involve Parker and the rest of the old NCIS team and some of the other adults.” 

“That sounds slightly ominous,” Gage said, and a car pulled in front of the hotel. It was a black SUV and looked like the stereotypical government agencies cars. David, Parker, and Justin both slid out of the back of the car and approached us. All three were dressed in black suits and as soon they started up the stairs the car drove away. 

“Hey,” Justin called as he stopped in front of the group. “I see that all of you made it up fine.” 

“Yeah, and I’m wondering why you called all of us out here?” I asked, slightly bitterly. I hadn’t gotten much sleep in the last few days, and the trip up hadn’t helped. I had managed to get maybe three hours of sleep in the last three days. The three men gave me a pointed look before shaking it off. 

“Come on,” Justin said, waving us towards the building once again. We followed him into the hotel once again and into a small hallway that was not filled with anyone. Most of the rooms in the hotel had been filled with people, including storage rooms, so it was next to impossible to find a room we could hide in private. 

“What’s going on?” I asked. All three men looked at one another before Justin opened his mouth to explain. 

“I created a new international agency,” Justin said, holding his hands up in a hang on motion. “It’s supposed to help us legally go in and get everyone in and make it easier for us to track illegally behavior that psi does. It’s why I wanted to talk with Parker he has experience running large agencies. I didn’t have him tell you because I wasn’t sure it would work.” 

“How did you manage to get it up?” I asked. 

“There are a few United Nation judges who don’t see kindly to what Gray had been doing. They wanted him imprisoned, but since we couldn’t find him, they allowed us to keep looking for him as well as tracking down other camps.” 

“That was fast,” I said. It had only been two weeks since we had agreed to come up here. 

“I asked three hours after I grabbed the Hare team. It took them this long to come to a decision. It’s still fast, but it’s been a while. Parker’s taking it over,” Justin said, pointing at the man. 

“Really, why did you never mention that earlier?” I asked. 

“Same reason as earlier,” he said with a shrug. He shook his head and raised his hands further. “Anyway, it means you no longer must depend on your people to raid camps. Which should help get everyone out of all the camps faster.”

“Good,” I said, and looked at David. “What did you want?”

“Pictures from New Rose Hills,” David said, grabbing some pictures from his pocket to show me. 

“Looks good,” I said, handing them to Mirable. 

“Don’t worry, you won’t end up here for very long,” Justin reassured. “That’s not the only thing that I am going to do.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” I said.

“It is for you. Since you guys have come up here permanently, I’m creating new advising positions. Several, if not all of you will be receiving a offer to advise me of the psi people. You out of everyone knows how the psi people work, and quite frankly, I want people who are respected to advise me in how the people run. It’s quite a lot of advisors for a small nation, but considering what your people can do, and how broken it’s been in the last few years, I think that’s more than enough. For now, the people weren’t elected, but the positions will become electable in the future.”

“That sounds nice,” Gage said.

“And onto the bad news, since you will be busy advising me, that means you will unfortunately not be able to run New Rose Hills. I was going to put Calvin in charge of the New Rose Hills until we can finally set up a democratic system. The main reasons for this is quite simple; one none of you are above the age of eighteen, which is important, second none of you have a Canadian citizenship, three despite your leadership abilities New Rose Hills is quite larger than your former camps. The only reason I am allowing Calvin to remain in charge is because he is one of the originals, and I am keeping with the old council system.”

Everyone paused to accept what had just happened. All of us were simultaneously kicked out of our old positions and given new jobs. Jobs that meant directing the prime minister of Canada. It was important nonetheless, but it also offered a lot of questions. Like what would this mean for our future, and what else would change for us. We knew something would have to change, but not like this.

“What news did you have David?” I asked, looking at the man.

“I ran into some of your greens yesterday. They were trying to make some impressive tech…”

“David,” I interrupted, not trying to be rude, but not wanting to hear a long rant the first thing in the morning.  

“Right, anyway, my company allows a certain number of kids with high IQ’s to be hired, the best of the best. I have extended the invitation to the psi kids for the time being. All of whom above sixteen, of course, can apply for jobs of my company if they are well enough into their studies. We’ll provide well-funded jobs that’ll get them a step up in the tech industry. I’m sure most of your greens will be quite interested in the prospect, but we will try and figure out which of the non-greens will make a good fit in the company.”

At that my jaw dropped, and I could tell that everyone around me was just as shocked as I. Not only had Justin just offered us positions high up in the Canadian government, but David had just offered some of the kids to have jobs in his company. I could tell both men were genuine in their feelings, it was impossible for them to really hide their emotions from me, but a small nugget in the back of my mind had to wander how much of this was genuine. How much did they want to help us, no questions asked, and how much did they want to take advantage of a wounded nation with kids who couldn’t fight for themselves in court.

“Thank you,” I said, shaking off my shock.

“You’re welcome. David and I will let you be on your own to discuss what is going on,” Justin said, before stepping away, leading David away from the group. As soon as they were out of eye and ear shot, we quickly gathered in a somewhat tight circle.

“Okay, that just happened,” Mirable said.

“Yeah, and I’m thankful for the Canadian’s helping us out, but do you guys feel like they were offering a lot of things really quick. Like unnaturally quick,” Ryan said, and Harrison muttered in agreement.

“Look, I think they are doing things really quickly, but I also think they are trying to appease all of us,” Calvin said, and everyone turned their attention on him.

“How do you mean?” Harrison asked.

“I mean if we were still in the United States, they would try to find a way to help us, but we’re on their side of the border now. Things are different with us over here. They must think things through, now, and they must be careful. If something goes terribly wrong and somehow, they fuck things up badly, how hard would it be to get us removed, and how dangerous would it be to get an army who can kill their soldiers in mass by uttering a single word out of their country.”

“Pretty hard,” Victoria said.

“Really, really, hard, next to impossible without white noise. So, their offering things that we cannot say no to without looking bad, things that would help us move forward as a people, while also securing that we won’t easily revolt. Schools for our kids, jobs when the said kids hit a certain age, jobs for their family members and several voices whispering in the ear of the most powerful man in the country. Top that with the fact that someone who has been with the New Hope Organization since the beginning, and you’ve got a sated crowd.”

“That is true,” Harrison said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “For now, we trust them, but we should keep in mind that they could always betray us.”

“I think that’s good enough for now,” Calvin said. “I think we should tell our people that things will be fine for now and wait to see if what Justin and David will actually keep their promises.”

“Okay,” I said, and everyone else agreed with me.

Chapter Text

David ended up holding his side of the deal with over three hundred green kids being immediately hired and given jobs in some impressive places. Some families moved away to different parts of the country, and three girls and their families ended up going to France to be a part of their oversees groups. More were hired in the weeks afterwards, and soon other colors who had at been doing good in school and could do it online joined them. They would do other projects, though the purples seemed to be the most popular with people oversees since they would come in and help provide not only more food for everyone but helped reduce the number of wastes going into rivers.

The world seemed pretty shocked about what had happened, but since some people were in a bad spot, they couldn’t care as much as some who was in an economical good spot. Not a lot of people in the border cities seemed extremely happy that a bunch of immigrants practically appeared overnight, but since we didn’t bother them and slowly moved to New Rose Hills they couldn’t care much.

Justin had made a lot of changes to New Rose Hills, and I appreciated that he had done simple things that would make it a lot harder for some kids to accidentally blow something up. He seemed pretty happy now that his daughter was healthy and happy, and only asked two things when he agreed to help people; everyone had to go through therapy, and everyone had to get an education. Those two rules didn’t just apply to the kids, they also applied to the adults. His reasoning was everyone needed help getting through the trauma of the last few years, and getting an education would help everyone move forward. No one could complain though, and the education was a lot better than what we had.

He slowly allowed people to go out there a few weeks after we arrived, and the day I was supposed to move was about three months after I had arrived. I had pushed it back since I was helping Parker to find kids in Canada who had been affected by Agent Ambrosia. I was watching one of the first buses leaving for today with David, who had been nice enough to watch the last of us leave.

Some people would be driving instead of flying for one of various. Some were going because they weren’t confident in their abilities, and others were afraid of heights and weren’t good fliers. A large problem was that Canada didn’t have a lot of airplanes. We were lucky enough to have gotten as many as we had when we came up, but since we weren’t in a state of emergency, we had to space people out. There were only about a thousand people going per day for the last few weeks for this reason.  

“They're going to be fine,” David said, and I gave him a sideways look. 

“I know,” I said, and grabbed the tablet out of his hands. I checked off the people who had just left, and as soon as I hit their names, they moved off the list and moved to the traveling one. As soon as that was done, I handed it back to David. 

“Thanks,” he muttered and turned to his daughter. “Do you have everything packed?” she nodded eagerly, and he smiled. “Good. Now go and make sure it's in the right place.” She grumbled and walked away into the hotel. I gave a small laugh at her expense and David gave me a pointed look. 

“I finished my packing last night,” I said, and looked around. The street was somewhat crowded, with many people going to and fro. Mounted police officers stood at spaced locations around the hotel. They weren’t there to keep us in, but to keep people out. No one liked it at first, Canadians or Americans, but since they tried to make friend’s right away and didn’t try to enter without permission, no one cared. They were respectful of our wishes, and I was thankful about that. 

After my look around the block turned up nothing, I watched the bus pull away from the hotel to go to the Toronto Airport, and I had to hold my breath. I was worried about all of them and wanted everyone to be safe. As soon as they turned the corner, I looked back at David again. He was turned back to the hotel and was looking at the door. I turned my head and saw Alex walking down the steps toward us. 

“Hey,” I called out. 

“Hey,” she said with a smile as she stopped between David and me. “Did everyone get out?” 

“Yep,” I said, and David handed her the tablet in his hands. She opened it and looked at the lists that we had done. We stood in silence as she flipped through it, and as soon as she finished, she handed it back to David. 

“Are you ready to go?” She asked me. 

“Yeah,” I said. I was going with Calvin, Felica, and one of Felicia’s old cabin mates, Hailey. Part of Project Hammer was to put every single kid with an adult. We had done that before Project Hammer, but since we were moving into apartments and houses, we needed to put kids with adults. Some of the kids would be allowed to live on their own, but they had to be above seventeen, could take care of themselves, either be in school or have a job, and be in therapy.

“Go get ready, I’ll make sure everyone heads out,” Alex said with a smile. 

“Of course,” I said and walked back into the hotel. The hotel was busy with movement. The Americans were busy making sure they had all of their belongings or were gathering in groups to be taken to the West Coast. Some workers were busy cleaning the rooms to prepare for more people to come in eventually. I saw Jaquine and some of the former tower workers and hotel workers directing people around. 

I ignored the chaos and walked through the lobby towards the conference room I had been staying in for the last few months. It had been dismantled this morning and the table that was supposed to be in here had been moved earlier. The two bags that I had brought with me to Canada were sitting on one of the chairs. I grabbed them and threw the larger backpack over my shoulder and held the smaller purple one in my right hand. 

I walked back into the hallway before turning to look at the room. I smiled sadly before turning and walking back into the lobby. It was still as chaotic as it was a few minutes ago, and I joined the line with Calvin and the other two. Felicia and Hailey were talking excitedly about something quietly, so I turned to look at Calvin. 

“Are you ready for this?” he asked, curiosity in his voice.

“Maybe,” I said, and his smile dropped a second before returning. I knew that he was wanting a better response, but I couldn’t give a better one. 

“Line A four,” a woman called. I turned my head and saw a black woman dressed in skivvies forty feet away from me. She was one of the people making sure the entirety of a plane is contained to one or two buses. I was a part of the group and lined up with everyone else. As soon as we were in somewhat of a line, the woman led us out of the building and onto the bus. 

The two buses taking this group were on loan from the Toronto Airport, and when I walked onto the first one, I noticed that it was very nice and was clean. I sat down next to the front door with my small newfound family. Everyone walked on after me and took their seats. As soon as we were seated the buses pulled away and started the thirty-minute drive to the airport. 

We easily got to the airport, went through security with minimal issues, got onto the airplane with no problem, flew and landed with no problem. When we landed, we were shuffled onto buses from some of the school buses from the Vancouver School District. The irony wasn’t lost on me as I clambered on board and rode out to New Rose Hills. The city was kind of far from Toronto on the West Coast, so it wouldn’t be hard to defend if we needed it. 

I looked out the window as we approached and no matter how many times, I had seen it in pictures, I was still surprised how beautiful the city was. The few apartment buildings were taller than the pictures had made them out to be. The driver of the bus pulled in front of the elementary school closest to our apartment buildings. My nerves were extremely stressed by the fact I was in a school bus for so long, so the adults let me and the other kids who had been in camps for a while off first to catch their breaths. 

“Are you better now?” Calvin asked me quietly. I nodded, and he walked to Hailey to ask her the same question. Once he made sure all three of us were calm and not on the verge of a panic attack, he clapped his hands and said “come on. Let’s go check out our apartment, then we’ll check out Ava’s and my offices. Then the school, then we’ll just explore.” 

“Okay,” I said, and the others nodded eagerly. Calvin had been slowing down on how much he left the three of us. He went with me for longer trips far away from Nebraska, or Toronto, but other than that he never really left. He wanted more time with Felicia and wanted to be there for Hailey and me since we hadn’t wanted to see our parents that much. My mom, and her dad had called us in, and the other parent hadn’t been found yet. We hadn’t been able to find them yet, and neither of us were particularly eager to meet them. 

The apartment building, we were staying in was right around the corner from the school. So, we were easily able to walk to the small apartment building. It was fourteen stories tall, and towered over us as we walked through the front door. As we walked into the building’s lobby, I noticed that it was homely looking. There was a small lobby area with a reception desk. The woman behind the desk smiled at us we stopped in front of her.

“Name?” she asked. 

“Calvin Brown,” he said, showing the passport that immigration had given him. Hailey, Felicia, and I pulled our passports out and showed them to her. 

“Thank you,” she said, and looked down at her computer. She typed something into it before looking at something on her desk that I couldn’t see before rustling through something and pulling out four key cards. “All you must do is wave it in front of the door and put your fingerprint on the door. Your apartment is 415, the elevators are behind me, and the escape stairs are over there.” She pointed towards the wall, and I could see the stairs.

“Thank you so much,” Calvin said, grabbing his card. I nodded my thanks as I grabbed my own. Hailey and Felicia grabbed theirs with smiles. As soon as they grabbed them, Calvin led us to the elevators and pressed the up button. The elevator must have been on the first floor because the doors immediately opened. We walked in together into the surprisingly large elevator and the doors snapped shut behind us. 

“This is nice,” Hailey said as we rode up to the fourth floor. The trip was short lived, and the door opened with a small ping ringing through the room. The doors opened to a small room painted the same brown color from downstairs. There was red and brown carpet on the ground, and no furniture in the hallway. There was a hallway immediately outside the room and Calvin led us out of the elevator, out of the small room that held the four elevator doors, and into the hallway. It was nice and when we had to stop to look at a sign to see where our apartment was.  We walked down the hallway and stopped in front of the door with 415 written in gold letters on the front. Calvin held up the key card, and when it beeped put his thumb up to check it. When that beeped, the door popped open. 

Calvin pushed the door all the way open into the small foyer. He stepped inside and the three of us followed inside. There was a small kitchen immediately to our left and a wall to our right. There was a living room in front of us. I walked into the living room and heard the front door close behind Hailey. The kitchen had a small bar on the wall between the kitchen and the living room. There was a door on the opposite side of the living room that led to a small balcony. 

The main bedroom was on the right side of the apartment building with a small bathroom attached to it. I walked to the left side of the apartment where Hailey’s, Felicia’s and mine bedrooms were. We had collectively decided to get a three bedroom and two-bathroom apartment. I was going to be eighteen soon and though I enjoyed spending time with the other three I would want my own apartment soon. While Hailey and Felicia had been together for years now and were not waiting to split quite yet. 

The room I was taking was the smaller of the two. The other two girls needed a lot more space than I did, and I didn’t have a lot of belongings that would warrant a bigger room. There was a small door that led to a hallway on the left side of the apartment. My door was immediately off the hallway. The bathroom door was right inside of the room, and as I walked into the room, I saw that the bathroom and closet shared a wall. Like the rest of the apartment, the bedroom had minimal furniture. There was a bed, a dresser, and a desk. And that was it. There weren’t any hangers in the closet and there wasn’t even a bar to hang up clothes. 

Part of the reason why it took so long for us to move out here was because David had talked to a lot of psychologists while Ziva was living with him. She had been in a funk after we had sent her out there and he had wanted to know how he could help. What he discovered was the Americans had a higher chance of depression than usual. So when we had agreed to come out here, he had gone back and renovated things so it would be harder for people to kill or hurt themselves.

Everyone would get things like hangers, belts, and shoestrings after we had proven ourselves to not be a flight risk. I didn’t like not hanging basic things, but I understood why everyone was so concerned. I set my bag on the bed and started unpacking the few shirts, shorts, underwear, sweatshirts, and sweatpants that I had to my name. I did have more clothes, but most of them I had to leave behind at Tundra so that I could make more space for more personal objects. The teams that David had sent down had started to ship things up to Canada, but everything was still in storage. 

My other backpack had things like a stuffed toy that I had since childhood, and a small family photo album. There were other small trinkets that I had for a while that I didn’t want to split with. Most of the stuff I had gotten when the search towns went back to my hometown to look for survivors and anyone who wanted anything to do with us. Most of them didn’t want to do anything with us and the town had mostly been abandoned when we finally went that way.

When I finished unpacking, I set my backpacks in the closet, and walked out of the room to further explore everywhere else. There was a small room where the washer and dryer were attached across the hallway from me, and the girl’s room was right next to it tucked into a small corner. The closet was right next to the main door, and the bathroom was next to it. The two dressers were tucked into the closet and the desks were simple small tables. The two twin beds were attached to the walls. Eventually they would be given a bunk bed, but that would take a while. The girls had already unpacked their things and were working on something on their computers. 

“You girls doing okay in here?” I asked. 

“Yeah,” they said together. 

“Good,” I said sitting down on Hailey’s bed. “What are you looking at?” 

“Miss Erika sent out a homework assignment that we could practice on,
 Hailey said. Erika was their English teacher who had moved out here about a month ago to start her teaching job at the elementary school. The woman had been teaching for some twenty odd years when IAAN had hit, and had lost a lot of kids she cared about to the disease. We had found her early on in our searches and she had been a big help since she had arrived.

“Do you guys need any help?” I asked and they shook their heads. 

“It looks easy. We can probably do them when we get back,” Felicia said with a shrug and shut her computer. She placed it on her bed and stood up. Hailey did the same thing a second later. I followed them out of the room and closed the door behind me. We walked out into the living room where Calvin was walking out of his bedroom. 

“You guys ready?” he asked. 

“Yep,” I said, and the two girls nodded. 

“Well come on,” Calvin said, grabbing the keys for us to use. We walked out of the building, down the hall, down the elevator and out of the building. Waving at the woman in the front as we left. There were plenty of buses that we could use, but since the city was walkable and the temperature was at a solid seventy degrees farenight we decided to walk.

Town Hall was maybe fifteen minutes from the apartment building by walk so it wasn’t that bad. As we walked, we looked around the city which was nice. We waved at the few people that were out and about. Town Hall was actually a four-story building that took up a city block. It looked like any Town Hall and smelled like fresh paint as we walked into the building. 

There were a few people from the old control tower. We waved at them, and they waved back happily. My office was on the second floor of the building and Calvin’s was almost exactly above mine. There were a couple shelves on the right side, a desk by the window. There wasn’t much else in the offices. 

After that we swung around to the elementary school that Hailey and Felicia were going to. Thanks to my powers, and the teachers we had, I was able to get most of my high school education finished at Tundra. Justin believed us when we showed him the records of who did what and when, but he had everyone do a couple tests to make sure we were properly placed in classes that we needed. 

The elementary school was a three-story building that was extremely clean and smelled really nice. We weren’t allowed far into the school because it was in session, but we did find where they would be going. We left right after that and looked around for a bit before going back home. As soon as I was in my bedroom, I brought out the tablet that David had given me for relative cheaply.

He had given me two, one for work and one for personal use. He had given us a discount since we couldn’t pay for much, and the tablet money had to come out of the proceeds of one of Alex’s inventions that had made them a butt ton of money. He had given us a lot of things for cheap, and I always had to wonder, when was the coming for the bill? Us saving his daughter would only go so far. I turned on the facetime app and clicked Alex’s phone number. It rang for a few seconds, before she answered the call and her tired face showed up. I could see the city horizons in the background. 

“Hey,” she said chipperly, and I smiled. 

“Hey. How did everything go on your end?” 

“Good, I sent out the last flight five minutes ago, and I am ready to get out of here,” she said with a small laugh. I had to give a small laugh as well. Alex would be on the last flight out. She said she wanted to be on the last one so that everyone left before she did so that no one would get left behind. 

“I know you do. How many did you manage to get out so far?” I couldn’t see how many thanks to an increased chance of being hacked. Better be safe than sorry. 

“About twenty planes, and thirty buses. I know the drivers and piolets are getting a bunch of money.”  

“Good,” I said with a smile, and I immediately caught her frown. “What’s wrong?” 

“I got word from the viper team. They were in Delaware when they encountered a skip tracer carrying a weapon that could release short doses of White Noise. They were able to take control of the situation, but they’re spooked,” Alex said, looking around nervously. I couldn’t blame her. One of her old cabin mates had joined the viper team when the team was being built about a month before we moved up here. We had heard stories from kids we picked up from Leda Corps held locations. Frequencies that could only be heard by kids. Most of the camps we had raided hadn’t heard about them. The only exceptions were red camps under Project Jamboree, and the one silver camp that we had found. Not all of them had been killed we had found out, some of the more manageable ones had been sent to the camp instead of the grave. The PSF’s had used intimidation to keep control, not machines that they didn’t know for certain were on or off. Most of the skip tracers hadn’t know what they were either. 

“Shit,” I said quietly. 

“I know, but Ava, that's not the strangest thing. Usually when it’s released, it affects everyone. It feels like a bolt of electricity to the skin, but this time it only really affected Bailey. The rest were fine. Robert said it sounded like a bee when he heard it. Marcos said it sounded like a water stream, but Bailey was knocked out screaming.” 

“So, it could be color based?” I asked. Bailey was green, Robert was orange, and Marcos was blue. 

“Yeah. The three of them were farther apart from the rest of the group, so Terry and Christy couldn’t hear it and tell what it was, but if this is true it could change how we raid camps in the future. We wouldn’t be going in blind anymore if we could use it like an EMP.” 

“Wait, could it be used like an EMP and if we could use it that way, could we use it to find kids?” 

“How would I know that?” 

“Because you know just about everything and you’re in charge of approving experiments for Project Maureen often. How would you not know about this?” I asked, deadpanning the entire thing. I had overseen the entirety of Tundra, and in a certain way did control the other five places to a certain extent, but Alex often controlled the small details of the entire camp. 

“Fine, I know the people running that part of Maureen. I think they managed to find a certain way to use the noise to use it in an echolocation way. Its why we managed to find so many leading up to Moving day, and why we a lot after it,” she said.

“So, if we found a more usable way for it, we wouldn’t have to be so blind?” I asked, and she nodded. The teams weren’t often blind when going on their trips. All of them had either a silver or an orange in the group, and they had the skip tracer system. But often we had to use a lot of people and detective work to find people. It was quite surprising that we had so many people thanks to the few recourses that we had. I could hear a screech of a bus and Alex turned to see what was going on.

“Hey, I have to go,” she said.

“Alright. I’ll call you first thing tomorrow. If something changes call me,” I said, and she nodded before hitting the shut off button. I laid the tablet next to me on the bed, and there was a knock on the door. “Come in.” Felicia tucked her head into the room and when I smiled at her she walked into the room before sitting down next me. 

“Who was that?” she asked curiously, settling down. 

“Alex. I was checking in with her, and she said everything’s good. What were you wondering?” I could practically feel her desire to ask something. 

“I want to know what happened to my mom. Dad never talks about it, but I want to know.” I paused for a second. Calvin and I never talked about his former wife, and Felicia and I talked about her even less, but I knew one thing, Felicia’s mom had called her in after she had seen her heal a cat who had broken its tail. 

“I’ll help you, but I want to know why you're suddenly interested in knowing where she was.”

“I want to ask why she gave me up. Why didn't she want to protect me like Dad does?” I sighed and closed my eyes for a second before opening them again. 

“Alright, I’ll make a call. Make it a somewhat priority for the search teams, but Felicia just because I make that call doesn't mean we’ll find her. I mean the United States is huge.” 

“I know, but I still want to ask.” 

“Alright. Did you have anything else you wanted to ask?” 

“Nope. Thanks Ava,” she said, jumping off the bed and walking to her room. As soon as I heard the door close, I stood up and walked immediately to Calvin’s room. The man in question was sitting next to his desk, looking through something on his computer. When I walked into the room, and leaned against the wall he looked up at me, closing the computer as he did. 

“What’s up?” he asked, curiosity in his voice. 

“Felicia just asked me to find Lucy, she said she wanted to know where she was so she could ask her some questions. I was hoping you might have an idea where she was.” Calvin’s face dropped when I said his ex-wife’s name. After a second, he shook his head no. 

My last conversation with her was after you changed her color coordination with the higher ups. I knew her parents were probably somewhere in California, but at that time things were starting to get bad so I have no idea what would have happened to her.” 

“What about your family? Any chance she had a change in heart and reconnected with them?” I knew enough about the man’s divorce to know it hadn’t been pretty, and the two sides of the family had gone separate ways. 

“Not a chance, it was bad. What sparked the question anyway?” 

“Curiosity, I guess. She wants to know why you’ve been fine with her using her powers, while Lucy reacted so violently about her using them.” ‘

“Ah. What are you going to do about it?” 

“Sate her curiosity. If she wants to know about it, I’ll put in a call to the search teams to keep an eye on her, but I want to know how you’ll react.” 

“I’m fine with you finding Lucy, but I want to warn you, Lucy is bad news. She’ll only let Felicia down in the future.” 

“I’ll let her stay long enough for the questions to be asked, nothing more.”

“Good.” 

“What else do you need?” 

“Nothing else,” I said, and I could feel the tiredness in my bones. “I’m going to bed.” 

“Alright, I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, turning to work on his computer once again. I stood up and walked out of the room towards my own room. I used my powers to send a message to town hall so the message could be sent out to the search teams to keep an eye out for Lucy. As soon as the message was sent out, I fell onto my bed and fell asleep. 

&&& 

The next morning, as soon as I woke up, I smelled pancakes in the air. I slid out of bed and padded my way into the living room where I saw Calvin in the kitchen making pancakes. Calvin looked up at me as I walked into the room. 

“Where did you get all of that?” I asked, leaning over the counter to see that he had managed to find several other breakfast items sitting on the counter. 

“There’s a supermarket around the corner,” Calvin said, turning off the stove. “Could you get Hailey and Felicia up?”

“Alright,” I said, turning and walking back the way I came. I knocked on the door and heard several groans. I took that as a welcome in, and pushed the door in. “Come on ladies, Calvin found a pancake mix.” Both girls instantly woke up. We had had pancakes at Tundra, and back at the hotels, but Calvin’s cooking was halfway decent, and we hadn’t had someone deliberately make us food in years.

Both girls looked at each other than bolted towards the kitchen. I jumped into the room to avoid getting hit and as soon as they cleared the door, I followed them out of the room. As I walked into the living room, I saw that the girls had grabbed plates and were sitting behind the bar. I used my powers to grab a plate and three pancakes.

“I heard something interesting,” Calvin said as soon as my plate hit the bar. From his tone of voice, I was thankful that I had set the plate down. “The first of the trials are starting today.” I paused and felt relief. 

We had tried giving up the prisoners that we had before we came up to the Canadian’s. They couldn’t put them on trial, so they had to bounce them up to the UN. The prisoners had been enthused at the fact they were being handed to someone who didn’t have superpowers, until they realized that they weren’t going to be treated much better than they were being treated with us, sans the occasional prisoner being subjected to memories from kids they had tormented. The prisoner treatment had been a fun conversation that I had with Justin. 

“That’s good,” I said, grabbing a pancake and shoving it into my mouth. Calvin paused for a second before shrugging. 

“Lawyers are trying to figure out the witness list, but Justin is trying to prevent everyone from going to the witness stand if it can be avoided.” 

“Tell him my thanks,” I said, walking to the couch and sitting down. 

&&&

After eating my breakfast, I decided to go to work while Calvin took the kids to work. I wasn’t even halfway through the door when Michael, leader of the Gator tribe, decided to step in my way. He was a five-foot five-inch man and had pale white skin and ink black hair. He was dressed in a blue shirt and blue jeans. I jumped slightly when he appeared, but I was happy to see him again. I hadn’t seen him in a month, he had been busy trying to drag this yellow tribe over the border.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey. It’s good to see you again. How are you?”

“Good. Hey, I know you’re busy, but I saw you impute Lucy last night,” he said, pulling me aside.

“How did you see that so quickly?” I asked.

“We got back three days ago, and I’ve been trying to pick spots to start again,” he said with a shrug. “Anyway, I called a friend I had in Austin Texas. He said that Lucy was in a hit and run a few months ago.”

“She’s dead?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, that sucks.”

“I’ll call Calvin for you.”

“Thank you.”  

Chapter Text

It took a week after I arrived in New Rose Hills for me to finally get settled in my new life. There were a lot of meetings that I had to do with Justin, but most of the time I was helping around the city. Calvin had long gotten used to being in charge, and he didn’t need much help from me or the other leaders. Thanks to him taking over, I got more freedom to do what I wanted.

When I finally had settled into my new life, the last of the immigrants had arrived and settled into the city. Justin decided against all odds to finally come to the city. He had been traveling the country for the last few months, and it was finally New Rose Hills turn.

I decided not to go because I knew he would finally find me. I knew it wasn’t the best move, but I didn’t feel like seeing a bunch of people right now. Justin decided to eventually join me around three thirty in the afternoon.

“I was half expecting you to be at the meeting,” Justin said sitting down across from me.

“I didn’t feel like it,” I said without looking up. “What did you need?”

“Japan, Switzerland, and Germany are offering to help us in our quest with the United States. They had been giving food and medicine for the last few years, so their willing to help us.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. On a somewhat related note, Bob wants to start raiding camps again.”

“You’re sure that’s safe?”

“Mostly, we just need more backup and freedom over the border. Two camps we’re going to need your help with. High Hopes and Timber Lodge. Both camps didn’t segregate like the others since they’re in Hawaii and Alaska.”

“I think I remember Alex mentioning those. Didn’t they do it so no one would notice it?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, I’ll get on it.”

“Now I know for a fact that you wouldn’t come all the way over here for a talk that we could do over the phone. So, what do you have to say?”

“Catherine Connor called me,” he said, and I paused. Catherine Connor was one of our spies in the Children’s League. She’s a red outlier who has been sending us kids and information for the last few months. I wasn’t surprised that she would have called in information or a strike to get a kid who couldn’t handle the league, but calling Justin was new.

“What did she want?”

“Your father just transferred to her base. She’d never met him before, and they're pretty secretive, so she couldn’t call it in,” Justin said, and seemed to notice my face changing from a calm expression, to a pained one.

My father had always been a painful subject for me. I had always tried to suppress thinking about him since it always brought up the memories of me being sent to Tundra. The few times I thought about him, I always wondered what had happened to him. If he was still alive and doing well.

“What did she say about him?”

“That he was doing good, and he joined the League to find you. It seems like he was trying to keep you safe.” I was speechless. I was happy that he was safe. “He and Cate are driving two kids they found to the border. One’s a white, and the other is a blue who doesn’t like military fashion.”

“You want me to go?”

“I already signed you up for the trip. You’re leaving tonight,” he said. I couldn’t argue with him and made a note to get my things together.

&&&

It took me a few hours to get up to the meeting point with Dave. Dave and I weren’t particularly close. He had left with Mirable and even before they left, we didn’t spend time with one another. He had his life, and I had my own. It was the beginning of March, so there was still snow on the ground, so Dave was dressed in ski jacket and ski pants. I was dressed in a t-shirt and blue jean shirts.

We had to wait only ten minutes in the woods of Washington before the van with the two kids and two agents pulled in front of us. Cate was driving and she turned the van off as soon as she pulled to a stop in front of us. Dad was in the passenger seat, his hair more grey then the last time I saw him. Deep lines were etched into his face. Cate jumped out of the van and pulled the side door, revealing two children inside. 

I could tell even from here that they were brother and sister. Both kids were dressed in large grey sweats, and large blue sweatshirts. They were skinny and had small cuts on their faces. Despite my personal problems I put a large smile on my face and put on a happy demeanor. 

“Morning,” I called out. 

“Morning,” Cate said, and helped the two kids out of the van. 

“How was the trip?” 

“Uneventul.” 

“What are you telling Alan?” Dave asked. 

“That we lost them to a group of skip tracers in Krupp, and have been trying to find them, but we lost them after they were split,” she said gently corralling them so they were standing in front of me. “Carter, Henerietta, this is Ava McBrian. She’s the one I was talking to you about in the car.” 

“It's good to meet you,” Carter said. 

“It's good to meet you too. I know it won’t be much, but I promise you will be safe with us.” 

“You’re right, I don’t believe you,” Carter said. 

“Hopefully one day you will. Now how about you two get settled into our van. It's going to be a small drive to Vancover. Then we’re getting on an airplane.” 

“Really,” Henerietta asked curiously. 

“Really,” I said happily. They stepped towards Dave, and the four walked up to the van. I turned to my father who was slowly approaching me. There was an awkward silence between the two of us, which my father broke. 

“I am so sorry for what happened,” he said. 

“It's not your fault. You couldn’t have known what Denise was going to do.” 

“No, I should have known. I should have protected you from them.” 

“You can’t blame yourself. You can only move forward.” 

“I know, but I always will. Especially since I know how close you were to being experimented on.” 

“Cate told you?” 

“That you're black? Yeah. She told me how she became involved. How she found out that there was an organization who was getting what the children’s league always wanted to do but never could. With little fanfare to go along with it. I’m proud of you.” 

“Thank you,” I said, and felt relief flow through me. Him telling me he was proud of me was something he hadn’t done too much. So he admitted that now was quite important. “What happened to mom? None of my search teams were able to find it and they did try.” 

“We separated when you were shipped to the camps. I didn’t trust her anymore, so I left. I thought she went to her parents house, but when I went up there they didn’t know where she was or that she had sent you to a camp.” 

“How did they react?”

“They didn’t join the league, but they sure sent in information. They’ve kept a couple kids at their house for safety. They were too young to join the league. Cate and I are going to smuggle them over the border. Get them into New Rose Hills and into all the projects you guys have set up.” 

“Thank you. What happened to yours?” 

“Pops died, pancreatic cancer. Mom’s been grieving, but I think we can convince her to get across the border as well. She’s been protecting kids as best as she can, trying to make up for the fact she couldn’t protect you.” 

“Where are they living? I can have some search teams pick them up and ship them to Canada.” 

“They're in a house outside of Flagstaff Arizona. I’ll send he exact corrdinants later.” 

“Okay.” 

“What's going to happen to them?” he asked, nodding at the kids. “Cate just said they’ll be fine and that's about it.” 

“They’ll be placed in a foster home and put into a school. We have ways to keep Henrietta from dying of IAAN. They’ll be safe.” 

“Good.” 

“Come on Terry,” Cate said. She was standing by the van door. 

“If you need anything, call me and we can pick you up.” 

“I will,” he said, and turned to walk ovr to the van. I watched him get in the van, and get into the passenger seat. Cate drove away, and I turned to the van Dave and I had. Both kids were in the back and the door was locked. I joined Dave in the passenger seat. Dave drove away from our location. Carter was playing with some sort of rock, and both kids were chatting happily. 

We drove through the woods, and easily made our way to Toronto. We got on a plane which was nice, but the flight attendants were suspicious of us until we showed them the orders to transfer the kids. I was happy that they were at least keeping an eye out for human trafficking. After we finally returned to New Rose Hills, we gave the kids up to Mr Smith, a child services agent who would take the kids and try his best to keep them safe. 

“That took forever,” I said. 

“I agree,” Dave said, and my phone beeped. I looked down at it, and saw a text message from Calvin. The text read, I heard what happened. Are you okay?

I texted back, yeah I’m okay.

“You good?” Dave asked. 

“Yeah. Calvin found out about our little trip. He wanted to make sure I was good.” 

“Oh.” Another text came through, and I looked down again. “What’s going on this time?”

“Alex just texted. Justin managed to secure help to take the camps in Hawaii, and Alaska,” I said, looking over at him. 

“Good. I’m glad,” he said as he pulled up to my apartment building. He stopped long enough for me to unlock the door, hop out and close the door behind me. 

“See you tomorrow,” I said, waving at him. 

“See you tomorrow,” he said, pulling the van away. I looked up at my building before walking inside. The woman behind the desk waved hello to me as I passed her, and I walked into the elevator. No one was inside the elevator and I took the minute ride to have a moment of calamity. When I reached my floor, I walked out of the elevator and walked to my apartment and let myself into my apartment. Calvin was on the couch watching tv. He looked up when I walked inside and closed the door behind me. 

“Hey,” he said, turning the tv off. 

“Hey. Where are the girls?” I asked as I sat down on the other side of the couch. 

“In their bedroom, doing their homework,” he said, eyes briefly looking at the room in question. “How are you feeling, really?” 

“I’m tired. Tired that kids have to go through this kind of thing. I’m tired that non psi kids have to go through the foster system, and that they have to face homelessness and starvation. I hate that anyone has to go through this, but kids hit a different spot. I mean we’ve been lucky here in Canada, we haven’t been hurt like we were in the States, but there’s still people who are hurting,” I said, and leaned my head against the couch. 

“I know, but we’re helping. We really are, David has been donating money, and we’re in a position to help,” he said reassuringly. 

“I know, but no one should have gone through that to begin with.” 

“I know. How was your father?” 

“He was good. Said he was looking for me since mom called me in.” 

“That’s good.” 

“How was today?” 

“Justin was being helpful. He’s having his advisors start to draw up plans for the High Hopes and Timber Lodge raids,” he said.

“That’s wonderful,” I said, and smiled. 

“Ava, are you here?” Felicia asked. A second later, she appeared and her face lightened up. 

“How was today?” I asked her. 

“I got a hundred on my math test.” 

“That is amazing,” I said, happy for her. A second later I gave a big yawn. 

“Go to bed, both of you,” Calvin said, and I stood up without question. 

&&& 

The next morning, I didn’t wait for anyone to wake up and headed immediately into work. Justin was waiting for me in my office. He was dressed in a blue suit, and looked really disheveled. 

“Did you get any sleep last night?” I asked, sitting down in my chair. 

“About two hours,” he said, and my eyebrow raised. “I was finishing the plans for High Hopes and Timber Lodge.” 

“I like the ambition, but you shouldn’t let your health go downhill.” 

“I know. Once we’re done finding homes for the kids to live in, we can finish our planning.” 

“And how soon were you planning on doing that?” 

“A few days, a couple weeks maybe,” he said, and doubt spread through me. Timber Lodge was a couple hours outside of Anchorage. Like all airports in the United States their airports had been closed, so I had to wonder how they managed to get enough information to make such a claim. 

“Okay,” I said hoping that this wouldn’t blow up in my face. 

&&& 

Luckily for me, this didn’t blow up in my face. Somehow they managed to successfully pull off the raids and successfully started pulling raids. When we started planning for Thurmond it was decided that Gage and I would figure out how to sneak into the camp and help disable the camp from the inside. 

We knew from the occasional white noise pulse that there were two oranges inside the camp, which was small considering the population size. Since the camp was so large, and in the grand scheme of things the kids weren’t in any more danger than anyone else in a camp we pushed back the starting day. 

In the time it took us to start the raid many things happened. We started several projects where everyone helped the world around us. We helped regrow forests, found uses for trash that was in landfills and the giant mass in the oceans and rivers. Even ways to clear out other forms of pollution clocking the world. 

We also helped find ways to better humanity. We opened schools, orphanages, and mental asylums. While also helping find ways to get people off the streets and into  homes and jobs. Some people in power did not like that fact, but the common people sure did when we pointed things out to help them. 

One of my personal failures happened two and a half weeks before we planned on taking Thurmond at Caledonia. We had sent Mirable, Sara and Bianca down there to hide amongst the kids with military backup not far behind them. A few hours arrived three kids tried to break out of the camp and a good chunk of the kids were injured. 

Mirable had managed to find out what was going on a few minutes before the escape and called for back up. Which helped tremendously since all three girls were able to grab all of the kids in their hallways and shove them into planes, saving their lives. Mirable and Sara managed to convince the several dogs that the search teams had brought and ones at the camp to track down many of the kids, which led to a lot of very confused kids who now had issues with dogs. 

Somehow only thirty kids were able to get far enough from the camp that we couldn’t find them within a couple days. Twenty kids were now in the ICU getting treatment for the various injuries that they had received. They were pretty much all head and stomach shots, which by definition the silvers and blacks didn’t have much experience with. I also had to watch the three girls start to dissolve about what happened, it was slow but they were not doing good as they threw themselves to find the rest of the kids. 

Despite everything, Gage and I were in a van driving down to West Virginia with the first group of people to scout out the place and to get Gage and I into the camp. Cate and her partner had already shown up and were already testing everyone. We knew who was what color and so did Cate, but she couldn’t exactly tell how she knew that. Cate would be holding the two kids for a couple months until we found the rest of the kids in the country. 

Gage, Mike, Helena, Harry and I were driving along a couple miles from the camp when the car suddenly swerved and crashed forcing us to collide with one of the nearby trees. I snapped forward, and the only reason I didn’t hit my head against the back of the seat in front of me was because of my seat belt. 

“Is everyone okay?” I asked. My only response was the groans from everyone else.  I used my powers to check everyone around me, and found no injuries on anyone. 

“What did we hit?” Gage asked, and I checked the surroundings. There weren’t any obvious bobby traps, but I couldn’t feel the tire. They were made of rubber, so that made sense. 

“I don’t know,” I said, unbuckling my seatbelt and opening my door. I scanned the area around me for anyone, but didn’t find anything. “Come on.” As soon as I stepped out of the door I heard the wizz of a bullet. It missed me and hit the van. I ducked down and looked up at the bullet, calculating in my head where it could have come from. As soon as that information was in my head, I snapped back and used my telekinesis to snap back at the bounty hunter. She went down, but because of the distance I couldn’t tell much else about her, but I could tell that there was a truck full of PSF’s heading toward us. 

“Everyone out,” I ordered and everyone scrambled, making sure to grab their emergency kits as they did. Gage and I would be traveling light and we would be traveling right towards Thurmond in a vain attempt to have them catch us so that we could take Thurmond from the inside. Everyone jumped out, and Mike poured the spare gasoline into the back before jumping out and making a big show lit the van on fire. 

Gage and I waited long enough for the truck to notice we were teenagers, before we broke into a run towards the camp. We ran through the forest and stopped two miles away from where we had broken down. When my legs finally gave up I huddled over and started gasping for air. “I need to keep up with my cardio,” I said, and I could hear Gage gasping as well. 

“Same. Do you think everyone else managed to get to the secure locations?” 

“I sure hope so, but they're not going to hurt them, they're too important.” We had made plenty of safe houses around here just for this situation. I paused for a second to listen to my surroundings.  Something felt off, we were in the middle of the woods, but I could feel a strong electrical force coming from somewhere maybe three hundred yards from me. 

“Do you feel that?” Gage asked, looking towards the energy. 

“The strong electrical current?” 

“Yeah. Come on,” Gage said, stepping forward. 

“Gage,” I muttered following behind him. 

“Come on,” he said, not even turning to look back at me. We walked the short distance to the current and we stumbled upon a gate. On the other side were a bunch of people with guns leading kids to their cabins. Each one was dressed in a green or blue uniform. It was about a mile long. We found what we had been looking for, Thurmond. 

“We found it,” Gage muttered under his breath. 

“Yeah,” I said and I heard a gun cock from somewhere behind me. Found the PSF’s , I thought to Gage. We turned to face them. Six people in all black uniforms were waiting for us. All six of them had large guns towards us. We put our hands up, and two of the men walked forward, both pulling out handcuffs from their waistbands. The man who grabbed my hands to put them in my handcuffs sniffed my hair. Gross. One of the other men grabbed his walkie talkie and brought it to his mouth. “We found the two kids from the crash site, securing them now.”

The two men dragged us away from the fence and towards the gate. There was a small gate next to the larger one that was meant to let in trucks. As they dragged us up the street I saw the last of the kids being shoved into their cabins. The PSF’s practically dragged us up the street letting our feet drag. 

Eventually the men stopped in front of a two story building that had a small sign on it, which read Medical Center. One of the men opened the door and we were pulled into it. A female doctor was waiting for us inside the door, holding a small device in her hand. I immediately recognized it as a white noise machine, something that the camp was so infamously known for. If she started with one of the orange frequencies, we could be in a lot of trouble. 

“I just have to check your color dears,” the woman said. I looked at Gage sideways before taking control of the woman’s mind. Luckily for us, there was a way to lower the noise coming out of the machine so I had her lower it before hitting the release button. Even with it lowered, it was still so powerful that it brought us to our knees. 

Our reaction must have convinced them because she pulled her finger away from the button, and she nodded at the two men. The two men behind us walked around to our fronts, and pulled the handcuffs off our hands. They didn’t say anything as a young woman approached us with a stack of green clothing. Oh come on, I thought as I realized they wouldn’t give us a room to change. I watched as the woman handed the clothes to one of the men, and I convinced him to put us in the bathroom together. As the man closed the door behind us, he gave me a pointed look. 

“I guess it worked” he whispered as he started pulling his old clothes off. I bent down and pulled my pager out of my boot. I held it up and opened it and sent Justin the message that we were in Thurmond. We quickly finished dressing and walked out of the bathroom making sure all of our personal effects were hidden. Most of the men had left, presumably going back to their duties. Only two PSF’s remained waiting to take us to our new cabins. Gage and I shared a look before they grabbed our arms and pulled us out of the infirmary. We were immediately pulled away from each other. I walked with the man to cabin twenty seven and waited with him as he opened the door. 

As soon as it was open the man pushed me inside and followed behind me into the cabin. The girls in the cabin sat up in surprise, they were obviously not used to getting to people this late at night. The man touched my shoulder and pointed at the empty bed in the corner of the cabin. “You’re there for now, we’ll find a place to put you soon.” 

I wanted badly to hurt him, but knew he probably would respond badly if I did anything. I walked to the bed and sat down on it. He gave me an evil smile, and I didn’t react, I kept my face completely neutral. He looked at me pissed before leaving when he realized he couldn’t piss me off. The man turned and walked out of the cabin leaving us in silence. The rest of the girls looked at me curiously. 

“Who are you?” one of the girls asked. 

“Ava. I’m guessing this is Thurmond?” The girls gave me a pointed look. “Guessing I’m right.” I fell down onto my back. I looked at the security camera and realized it wasn’t turned on. It was a relief, but they were probably focused too much on the blues. 

“Where are you from?” the girl above me asked. 

“San Francisco,” I said, lying through my teeth. “How long have you been here?” 

“Six years,” one girl muttered. I felt a pang of quilt deep in my gut. During my escapades of helping everyone else I hadn’t spent a lot of time around Thurmond. I tried to not think about it much, but it was still in the back of my mind. I sat back up, and looked around. 

“So why is this bed available?” I knew exactly why it was but I wanted to see what they thought about it. 

“She died,” the girl above me said, jumping off her bed and sitting down next to me. I looked at her and she seemed to be trying to figure something out but she didn’t say anything else as she settled next to me. 

“Ava. I’m Ashley, I’m kind of the boss around here. This one here is Samantha, though she likes being called Sam,” she gave the girl next to me. Sam gave her a pointed look, and Ashley just gave her another pointed one. Sam stood up back up and jumped back into her bed. “Go to bed, we have to get up and work in the kitchen tomorrow.” 

“Alright,” I said and leaned back against my bed. The sheets were threadbare and turning yellow. The mattress was pretty bad and as everyone around started getting ready for bed I stared at the practiced ease around the cabin. 

“Night,” Ashley called and everyone responded the same way. The bed was so uncomfortable that I almost had to knock myself out with my powers, but I didn’t and waited for everyone to fall asleep before pulling my pager out of my bra. The small screen barley lightened the room, and I quickly opened the message Justin had sent me. It read; we’re coming for you. I smiled to myself and slid the pager back into my bra and finally fell asleep.

&&& 

It didn’t take me a day to know that I hated Thurmond. The prisoners were only allowed to speak right before they went to bed, and the adults would always try to pick a fight with the kids. It seemed like Thurmond's dining hall was built before they made the camp permanent since it could only house a few hundred people at one time. So we would be separated by gender and color.

Cabin twenty seven would work in the garden or the Factory before working the first meal then we would be brought back to the cabin. It was extremely mind-numbingly boring, but I hated it because you could practically smell the fear in the air. Our days were occasionally interrupted by the New Hope Organizations white noise machines. It wasn’t painful, but it was uncomfortable. I didn’t try to let it get to me though, since I knew it was sending useful information back to the people outside the gate.

Gage’s cabin and cabin twenty seven were across the street from one another, so it was easy for me to send messages to him when we were close enough to one another. It took me coming to Thurmond to realize how much of a difference blues are treated from greens. At Tundra there was always someone watching, but here there was barely any. Which helped me significantly when I started sniffing around the camp, trying to figure who were the good adults, and which kids would want to live with which adult when we eventually moved to Canada. 

I was sitting in cabin twenty seven on the seventh morning of my stay. The camp was pretty calm and I could practically feel the weather outside. The girls were waking up and talking quietly. I looked at the small watch that I had snuck in with me when the electricity turned off at exactly four am. It wasn’t an EMP, we had banned those from being used when yellows started showing how powerful they were, and I could still feel the electricity pulsing from the Medical Center. The girls around me started to panic, scared as to why it would be shut down. Thurmond was shitty, but electricity going out was new. 

“Okay everyone calm down,” I yelled over the panicked noise. Everyone shut up a second later. In the silence, I felt around the camp trying to figure out what was going on. As I reached out, I could feel the team of psi and humans roaming through the camp. I instantly recognized what was going on and turned to the girls. “Everyone get on your beds.” 

“What?” Ashley asked. 

“Get your beds. Someone’s going to be in soon. Something probably just happened to the electricity,” I said, and I know I got a few strange looks but I didn’t care. The girls quickly got on their beds. I could sense guards breaking down doors on the street, and I knew it would be harder to count the kids in the cabin when they're all over the place. 

Right as I jumped on my bed, the door was pushed open. The door hit the bed across from me, and the two girls in the bed screamed. Two men barged in the room, one stayed by the door while the other came in and cleared the rest of the cabin. Through the limited light from their head lamps I could see both men were dressed in military gear. I instantly noticed that they were wearing Canadian flags. Both men had rifles in their hands, but as soon as they cleared the cabin they secured them against their chests. The men at the door nodded and brought a walkie to his mouth. 

“Cabin twenty seven is secure. We have the original twenty nine and Ava. All seem fine, over,” he said. 

“Copy that, over,” Mirable’s voice said over the line and I felt a pang of joy in her voice. I smiled to myself. 

“Alright ladies, the electricity should return in a minute,” one of the men said and the lights flicked back on a second later. I blinked in surprise and covered my eyes. After a second I removed them and my vision cleared. 

The two men had turned off their head lamps, and were looking at the girls in the room, who were staring back at them curiously, and I understood their curiosity. The two men wore flags of Canada on their arms, not United States flags. I recognized both men. Their names were Zeb and Micheal Smith. They had moved to New Rose Hills four months ago with their grandmother, and yellow sister when she had gotten her powers. 

“Hello ladies,” Micheal said. 

“Hey Micheal,” I said, sliding off my bed. 

“Hey Ava,” Zeb said. 

“How are you guys doing?” I asked. 

“Fine,” Micheal said, and I could feel the girls around me confused. I sat down next to Sam, and my arm accidentally brushed her hand, and some of her memories passed by me. Ruby, the girl who was here before me, had accidentally buried Sam's memories of Ruby deep in Sam's mind about eight months ago. I had slowly been returning them for the last week. The memories had been mostly returned by now, and Sam seemed to be taking to the new memories, though I could tell she was confused where they were coming from. 

“Who are you?” Ashley asked, confused. 

“Zeb,” Zeb said, bending over slightly to get the backpack on his shoulder. He put it down on the ground, and opened it up. Inside were small baggies of chocolate and candy that I knew their grandmother had made. 

“Here you go,” Zeb said, starting to pass the baggies out. The girls took them happily and started opening them and eating the candy. 

“Don’t eat too much at one time,” I said, grabbing a baggie for myself. I usually ate chocolate and candy but after a week of Thurmonds shitty food I was happy to see it again. I could tell the girls were concerned about what was going on, but were happy about the chocolate. 

“What’s going to happen?” Ashley asked. 

“We’re going to get you ladies out of here and up to Canada,” Zeb said, which only made her more confused. She was about to ask another question when Mirable walked in with a box floating right behind her head. She was dressed in her usual black shirt and pants. Her hair was pinned and pulled into a low bun.

"Samantha, Ava, move please," she said, and we moved over to Vanessa's bed. Mirable set the box on the bed, and turned to face us. 

“I’m going to keep this very simple. The backpacks have clean clothes, food and water. We are going to have you clothes and photograph your injuries before you leave. Once you leave Thurmond you will be driven to Toronto Canada. Once there you will be flown to New Rose Hills Canada. Some of you will be placed with one of your relatives, some will be placed with other girls in this cabin’s family, some will end up with former neighbors. All of you have entered into our rapid education track. Where you will be learning on an advanced track what you have missed for the last six years. All of you will be placed into therapy, and hopefully learn how to further your own mental health,” Mirable explained.

“Why would Canada want to help us?” Macey asked. 

“Because everything about the camp system is illegal and unethical. It violates the rules of the Geneva Convention. They also recognized how dangerous the psi people could be if their issues were never addressed and they continued living in a country where their rights are violated. The economy is also bust, so it would still be dangerous for everyone in it,” she said, and gathered the first clear bags. 

“You okay?” I asked Sam, who seemed pretty upset. 

“Yeah, I wish Ruby could join us,” she said, and Mirable seemed to have heard her. 

“Ruby’s fine. She’s in Virginia,” Mirable said. 

“How is she in Virginia, I thought she was supposed to be in LA,” I said, as several girls said what. 

“Okay, Ruby is alive. She was taken by the Children’s League last week,” I said, and that only confused them. 

“Why would they want Ruby and not someone else?  Vanessa asked. “There are plenty of greens here.”

“Ruby was an orange. She’s been hiding as a green for the last few years because they killed most of the oranges a couple years ago. There wasn’t a way to get her and another orange out without tipping our hand, so we let the Children’s League take them,” I said, and I could see the connection snapping through their heads. Sam most of all. Mirable knowing I could explain things better walked out of the cabin to talk with the next cabin. 

“Who are you?” Ashley asked me. 

“Ava McBrian. I’m a founder and agent for the New Hope Organization. We started in a camp in Nebraska three years ago, where over twelve hundred kids were held prisoner in the PSF’s. A select number of those kids have been tracking down kids on the outside and taking them to a secure location. We’ve also been raiding camps for the last two and a half years. One of my search teams was found by Canadians and they’ve been taking care of us ever since,” I said, filling a lot of their questions. 

“Are you green?” Vanessa asked. 

“No, I’m a black,” I said, and the girls blinked in surprise. I wasn’t too surprised the girls had only ever interacted with green girls specifically. They hadn’t interacted with boys in years, or the blues in the camps. The last time they had interacted with anyone else was on the bus that drove them here. I leaned my head against the wall behind me and let the girls process what Mirable and I told them. Zeb walked outside to keep an eye outside. While Micheal leaned up against the side of the door. 

“You okay over there, Micheal?” I asked. 

“Yeah I managed to get a hold of Bailey. I promised her that I would text her when we were done,” he said with a smile on his face. 

“How is she doing by the way?” 

“She’s good, doing good in school. She has a new best friend who she’s getting along with. Seems to be settling in.”

“Yeah I know it was hard for her, but I am happy that she is doing good.” 

“Yeah,” he said, and fell quiet. Most of the cabin was talking quietly and I probed around the camp with my powers. The electricity had been returned to the camp, and most of the kids in the medical center were slowly being pulled from their machines and placed into one of our trucks. The warehouse was being filled with the adults, and everyone was checking everything.

“Ava. Is there a chance that someone could be forgiven? Not go through a trial?” 

“It’s very rare for someone to be forgiven. Maybe one or twice per camp, and even rarer for the Leda Corps holding facilities. The ones who get off are usually the ones who usually try and help the kids. Guards who don’t punish the kids, doctors and nurses who treat kids like people. Cooks who give people plenty of food,” I said.

“Thank you. Can I ask something else?” 

“Sure what’s up?”

“I have a friend, May, she was my friend before I was brought here. I don’t know what happened to her. Could you help me find her?”

“Of course, do you have a last name, or what color she was?”

“Her last name was Turner, I don’t know what color she was.” 

“Okay give me a second,” I said, and thought for a second. There were several Mays, and some of them had changed their names since being taken into custody. I took what I knew from Ashleys history and back tracked. “Okay. I have maybe one May Turner. She would be about sixteen, brunette hair, white skin and blue eyes?” 

“Yes that’s her,” Ashley said excitedly. 

“We picked her up in this all-yellow camp about a year ago. Last I heard she’s living with her grandmother in New Rose Hills. With so many people it's hard to keep track of everyone. Anyone else?” 

“Um. I have two,” Sam said, sounding nervous. 

“Sure. Lucas and Mia Ofereo. Lucas would be seventeen, and Mia would be fifteen. Their house foreclosed, and they moved. I know their parents wouldn't have turned them in, so I'm not sure they saw the inside of a camp.” 

“Yeah, I remember them, tragic story for both of them. They ended up living in their car after their house was foreclosed by the bank. Peter and Melissa were killed after some people robbed their car. The robbers called the PSF’s and they ended up in camps. Lucas ended up at an all red camp, and since Mia didn’t have her powers she was sent to Black Rock. She eventually got her powers, she’s a blue. I’m pretty sure she’s living with one of her cabin mates. Lucas is living with a different adoptive family. He went through a lot more than others in camps, so he's the only one in his home.” 

“Thank you,” she said. She looked distraught, and I couldn’t blame her. A lot had changed in the last twenty minutes. I quickly finished answering everyones questions, and we waited to be released. We didn't have to wait for very long before Jessica McDougal arrived. She was a professional photographer who was volunteering her time to document the injuries of the kids we picked up in the camps. She had been with us since the beginning. 

"Good afternoon ladies," she said as she walked into our cabin, camera bag in her hand. She sent Micheal a brief look, who walked out in understanding. Her sister Talia walked in. The cameras in the cabin were shut off, but Talia's body cam remained on. 

"Okay ladies, I am here to document your injuries. You can keep your uniforms on if you want to," she said walking into the room. She continued talking about what she needed us to do, and when no one wanted to go first. I volunteered and walked behind the curtain that she set up in the corner of the room. When I reappeared from behind the curtain unharmed, they slowly went behind the curtain to get their injuries documented. Once Rachel was finished, the women walked out of the cabin, and Micheal returned back into the cabin. The camera's came back on. 

"How soon are we going to leave?" Ashley asked.

"Soon. I promise. The roads between here and the boarder are treacherous and are crowded with skip tracers who are trying to find a kid to sell to the PSF's," I said, knowing they were getting anxious. "The starting price for a kid in the United States is ten grand. If someone were to capture us even one transport line, they would get two million and seven hundred thousand dollars to start. I'm sure we would be more since we were in the program." 

"That sounds like a pointless thing. Why wasn't that money sent else where?" Vanessa asked. 

"Who knows. We've never been able to find Gray, so we couldn't ask him. The assumption was always that he wanted to be able to control a lot of people. What better way than controlling the kids. Ten grand is a tempting offer to a lot of people in the United States. The economy is shit in this country. It is in a lot of places since the economy went to shit here, but its progressively getting better. There weren't any kids to replace workers, and so many died that everyone just became depressed." 

"How many died?" Vanessa asked. 

"We've managed to round up ninety thousand psi kids, and that's including all of the camps we've raided. We've managed to find about a hundred and seventy thousand kids affected by Agent Ambroisa. Agent Ambrosia is a biological weapon and is what caused the powers to appear in kids. No one who drank got powers or were affected, but when a mother drank it problems would be caused in their children. Without being treated Agent Ambrosia kills ninety eight percent of those kids affected upon puberty, but when properly treated it is very survivable. There is no known cure for it," I said, and they soaked in the information. 

"We're going to have to deal with these powers forever?" Ashley asked. 

"Yes, it's why we've been trying to send everyone to therapy. Some of the oranges are willing to remove some of the more damaging memories, but they have to have to be asked before they just do it. Eventually you're going to enjoy them," I said, and that statement got mixed results. 

"Who are we going to stay with?" Sam asked. 

"You're staying with Ruby's grandmother," I said pointing towards her. I quickly thought through the list and told everyone else about where they were going to stay with. When that was finished, I showed them some form of my powers, and explained how each power worked, and gave them more information about how and what they would be going when we finally arrived in New Rose Hills. 

About twenty minutes before we were scheduled to leave, we were allowed to go to the bathroom. The girls seemed pretty surprised about how many people were actually here. Some of them would be staying behind, but a large amount of the people here were here because they wanted to help out. The bathroom break was a quick trip, then we were lined up in front of our cabin as well as cabins twenty two through thirty. We were going to be traveling in groups of two hundred and seventy to keep things simple. There was quiet talking as we went along, but a hush went amongst the kids as the truck that was about to take us away stopped in front of the cabins. 

“Come on,” one of the guards called, and started pushing kids into the backs of trailers. I waited for everyone to get on the trailer first so that I would be closest to the door in case something happened. As I sat down, I looked around and noticed that the kids were extremely happy. As soon as the last girl hit the bed of the trailer, the door slammed shut behind her, and we started pulling forward with the two cars who were acting as our guards. There were a couple guards with us as well, but they were mostly to make sure we didn’t hurt one of the others in the trailer with us. 

I could feel us pass through the gates, and the girls who had seen it sighed in relief. I looked down at my backpack, and pulled it close to me. Mine was different from the others because I had my phone and a small speaker that had been designed by Alex and her team. I pulled out my phone, connected it to the speaker, and hit play on one of the playlists I had created. Music started playing immediately and every single kid's head snapped toward us. 

“Why are you playing music?” Sam asked, and I shrugged 

“Might as well, because we don’t have enough material to talk for ten hours,” I said with a shrug. 

“Couldn’t that be heard?” 

“Not unless they are a psi, it's a white noise frequency,” I explained. 

“Yeah we can’t hear it,” Zeb explained. 

“Oh.” 

“Anyway talk if you want, or you can put in a song request,” I said and the kids perked up. They seemed eager to put in requests of songs that they hadn’t heard in a while. That’s how we spent the next few hours, the kids asking for song requests, or questions about our futures. They were interested in just about everything and were entertained by the stories the guards and I had.

We made a few stops for gas but overall we didn’t stop for very long until we hit the Canadian border, where we had to be stopped to check our ID’s against the database and to move to the Toronto airport buses that were on loan to us. I was used to the Canadian countryside, but the girls looked out of the windows in awe. I smiled at them and just waited as we drove up to Toronto. 

When we finally pulled into Chelsea Hotel, I saw Clara standing in front of the hotel. She looked stressed, and I couldn’t blame her. She was still in charge of the hotel, and there had to be at least a few thousand people coming in at one time. Zeb had us stand up and walk out of the bus. Clara smiled at me as I hopped off the bus. 

“Come on everyone,” she called out and started directing us inside. Several of the girls looked at me. 

“We’re meeting the parents first then we’re going to sleep,” I said with a shrug, and walked into the lobby. There were a couple people milling around who were shocked by the appearance of nearly three hundred girls, but I didn’t let it bother me. We walked as a group into one of the old ballrooms we had used so long ago. It didn’t have any beds in it this time around, we had enough rooms available this time, but there were people inside of it. 

Nine tables were spread out in the room in rows of three by three and everyone was gathered around them. Each table had a number on it that aligned with the cabin numbers that were brought in at this moment. Micheal and Zeb led us to the table with the number twenty seven on it. Calvin wasn’t at the table, but Elise was. 

The old woman had come a long way since I had met her so long ago. She worked at a library despite her age, and her slightly crooked back had straightened up. She smiled at me and gave me a wave. Zeb noticed her instantly. I stepped out of the line and walked up to her. 

“Calvin and the girls are still in Mexico, so they sent me up here. They're fine, they just wanted to finish a couple things up,” Elise said as I walked up to her. My smile dropped. The girls had gone to Mexico to help out some people injured in a tsunami, and should have been back to New Rose Hills a few days ago. 

“Oh, okay,” I said, slight disappointment in my voice. 

“Don’t worry. They’ll be home in a few days,” she said with a smile. I looked over and saw the rest of the girls in cabin twenty seven start to be paired up with their new guardians. I saw some of their faces slowly dawn at recognizing people they knew from their childhoods. Though others were confused at the partnering. 

“Come on everyone,” Zeb said, once everyone had been partnered up, introductions had been made and room numbers for the nights had been given. “We have to start getting ready for the next group.” Several people nodded, and others grunted in agreement. Elise and I looked at each other before leading the group away towards the elevators that would take us up to our rooms. 

No one argued about it as we took turns riding up to the third floor and into rooms that were right next to one another. My heart hurts for these kids. The emotional wiplash in the last fourteen hours was astronomical, and now they were going to be split up. Sure they were going to be in the same city, but they probably weren’t going to see each other every single moment of the day like they had for the last six years. 

The rooms we were staying in were pretty nice all things considering, and it must have taken a lot of energy to get rooms next to one another for the kids in the same cabin. I was looking out the window as Sam approached me, she had just jumped out of the shower and was dressed in new clothes that the elder Ruby Daly had brought. I was quite surprised that they had been paired, but since her granddaughter and Sam had been best friends for years it made sense. 

“Hey. I got news about Ruby, she’s in California. It took Cate a while to get back to me.” 

“Is she good?” 

“Yeah. She’s doing well. She’s joined an already formed team, and she’s doing well with them.”

“Do you trust Cate?”

“Yes. She’s a close friend, and I know as soon as Ruby is in any form of danger, she’ll be put on a direct path here.” 

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. 

“Are you excited to see Lucas and Mia again?” 

“Of course,” she said, and I could practically see her exhaustion. 

“Go get some sleep. Your new life starts tomorrow.” She smiled and walked over to her bed, and laid down. Elise and the elder Ruby Daly were sharing the other bed and were talking quietly with one another. Sam was supposed to end up with Vanessa and Ashley, but as soon as Granny had found out who Sam was to her granddaughter she claimed her. Sam would be perfectly fine with Granny. Elise smiled at me and laid back down in her bed. I waited for only a second, before going to the bed and lying down myself, excited for tomorrow. 

Chapter Text

It took us six months for us to mostly gather people from the United States. The only ones remaining were the children’s league. Honestly, we restrained ourselves from touching them because they were honestly a distraction to the rest of the United States while we worked to clear out the country. 

As the months passed, how much therapy I was supposed to go to was reduced severely. Which I was happy about. I had mostly gotten through my mental problems by Moving Day, but it was good news that I wasn’t having to go as much as I once was. 

Me being cleared meant I could finally find my own place, which was a little apartment in the same building as Calvin. The girls were finally happy to have their own bedroom. The apartment had been kind of lonely, so I adopted a little kitten and introduced it to my place. He was happy whenever I returned but was content whenever I was gone. 

When we were close to taking the US as a whole, I returned to Ottawa to finish our planning. I left my kitten, Shawn, in the care of Calvin and the kids. We had finished most of our plans not long after I got back from Thurmond, but we still had to finish out the details. I was finishing pointing at some minor detail when Seth, one of the many aids Justin had working for him, barged into the room. I looked up surprised, and so did everyone else. Seth came to a stop beside me with a giddy look on his face. 

“What’s going on?” I asked him, curious. 

“Cate called the children’s league kids in. Their landing in New Rose Hills in an hour. They're fine, and so is Cate. Though Cate’s in rough shape. Apparently, she was grabbed by Lilian Grey, who was trying to give her version of the cure.”

“Jesus,” Airi, the Japanese prime minister, said from his end of the table. 

“I agree,” I said, and looked over at Justin. 

“Alright everyone,” he said, and everyone looked over at him. “Return to your embassies. Get your people finished and into the United States.” 

Everyone broke, and I sensed something. Happiness. I was happy. I was happy that the people in the United States would finally get the help they needed. Everyone slowly started walking out of the room, and Gage and I followed behind Justin. As we walked out of the room, I smiled at remembering how far we had come. 

Justin and Seth were talking quietly, while Gage and I walked behind them quietly. I heard a little from their conversations. Eventually we came to a stop by a barely used conference room. Gage and I shared a look before Seth walked off and Justin turned to face us.

“Gage, I want you to head back to New Rose Hills, greet Cate, get the others settled in. Ava, you, and I are going to stay here and finish our talks with everyone else.” Gage nodded and walked away. “Come along then,” Justin said and led me away. We walked down the hallway and out of the building. I knew for certain that Seth would have already called the spies we had in the United States, as well as the search teams, trying to get everyone in major cities under control. Justin and I would have to do a lot of work, but I was happy that we were finally giving the United States people the proper attention they needed from the collective trauma everyone faced. 

Justin and I jumped into his car, and the driver seemed to know where to go without even being asked. We remained silent as we drove out of the city and into a military base. There were people still walking around, but I knew for a fact that this was more of a skeleton crew than anything else. As soon as the order had been given, most of the people here would have gone to New York City, Boston, Worcester, and Providence. They were major cities and were great distribution places. There were more places that would fall to the Canadians in the coming days, but those cities were extremely important. 

“Prime Minister,” General McMuffin called out as we jumped out of the car. The general was a formidable man, standing six foot tall, and with greying hair. The man was quite large, and though his last name always made me crack up, I knew to never get on his bad side. He was standing alone, which surprised me since he was usually never alone. He gave me a pointed, but respectful nod. I could never get a read on him, but I knew he had a slight problem with an eighteen-year-old kid having a lot of sway with the head of his government, which was fair. 

“General,” Justin said, stopping right in front of him. I could tell the man was nervous, and I couldn’t blame him. Thousands of his people were going to a country that wasn’t in the best of places, with a dangerous biological weapon in the water and food, and people who wouldn’t be accepting of help.

“Mirable called in, she was on the team who went down to pick up the last of the Children’s League. Anabel Cruz was among those pulled from their base in Loni California. Cruz is wanting to talk with you. She wants to know where her family is and more on what's going on.” 

“Where do I know that name?” I asked, trying to think of where I had heard the name before. 

“She used to be the Senator for Maryland,” Justin said. 

“Oh, now I remember her. Her daughter Rachel joined the crocodiles not long after we pulled her out of Oasis. Anabel was on our search list for years, but no one ever found her,” I said. 

“You guys didn’t find her in all that time?” General McMuffin asked. 

“Honestly, she wasn’t high on our target list. Like the bottom ten percent. She was a parent of a kid, and a politician of a certain form, but she could take care of herself,” I said, and McMuffin gave me a pointed look. 

“Alright. Do we have a secure connection with our base in Toronto?” Justin asked and General McMuffin gave a sharp nod. 

“We’re ready whenever you are,” he said, and Justin gestured towards the nearby building where we could make the secure call. All three of us walked towards the building and into the entrance. The General had to salute pretty much everyone in the military we came across, but since Justin and I weren’t military, we didn’t have to. 

We walked into this secure room and as soon as we walked into the room, the door slammed shut behind us and was locked. There were a few terminals that were secured connected to one wall, and a large screen on the far wall. There were no windows in the room, and a couple people were sitting behind the terminals. 

Justin nodded at one of the women, who brought up the phone call from the base on the west coast. A woman appeared on the screen. She was an older Hispanic woman with slightly greying hair. She was dressed in a white t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. She looked extremely tired, and I couldn’t blame her. 

“Hello Anabel,” Justin said, and Anabel smiled. I looked at him confused, before looking at Anabel again. 

“Justin,” Anabel said, and looked at me.

“Anabel this is Ava McBrian, the leader of the New Hope Organization. An organization that's been helping the psi people for the last three and a half years. Since she moved here a year and a half ago, she’s been my right-hand woman when coming to any business regarding the psi people.”

“That’s good,” Anabel said. 

“Why did you want to call me?” Justin asked. 

“None of the people could tell me what happened to my daughter, or my mother and I wanted to know what happened to them.” 

“That’s odd,” I said, and everyone's attention turned to me. “We picked up Rachel and the rest of her camp not long after we started raiding camps. I never knew her personally; she ended up with Mirabel for a while. I know for certain that she joined one of the search teams, the Crocodile’s. I don’t know much about what happened after she joined up. Other than a few permanent cities, our lives were transitory. She would have traveled quite a bit around to help find others. I know she wasn’t on the short list to return to Canada.” 

“Was she good the last time you saw her?” Anabel asked, hope in her voice. 

“Yes, she was, but that was a few months ago. I think Alex would know more about her.” I could hear a beep from somewhere and felt around and found a secure phone nearby. “Do you have anything to add, Justin?” 

“Bad news,” Justin said, and my heart dropped. I looked over at him. 

“What happened?” 

“It's about Melina. She died last night,” he said, and my heart shattered. Melina was a seventeen-year-old green girl who had been given up by her parents when she developed her powers. Her parents had been the religious types who hated how their daughter's minds worked. We had found her about a month after we attacked Second Horizons in a Leda Corps holding facility, where she had been used to find a cure for the psi powers. She was messed up severely when we found her, more so in the head than in body. The experiments run on her had destroyed what little remained of her mental health, and her perfect memory just ran her memories through her head on a loop. 

When we had first got her, we had put her in a secure room and had let the therapists, oranges and some greens try their best with her. When we had moved, we had given her to the therapists that David had hired, ones trained specifically in helping severely abused children. None of them had been able to help her, and she just got worse and worse over the last few months. The room I was in was tense, and I could tell that everyone was shocked by the news. Melina’s case had been somewhat known in the news, and everyone felt bad for the poor girl who had no family. 

“Where’s her funeral going to be?” I asked. 

“Lakeline cemetery,” Justin said. 

“Thank you. Anabel, I’ll see you soon, and I’ll have Alex look for your daughter,” I said, and the woman nodded. I sighed, trying not to cry, and walked out of the room. Justin followed right behind me, and no one else did. He pulled me into a side hallway and hugged me, letting me cry into his shoulder. When I finished, and pulled away, he gave me a bright smile. 

“Do you feel a little better?” he asked. 

“Yes,” I said, pulling away. 

“Take your time. I’ll keep you in the know. I’ll get you on a plane so that you can get to her funeral.” 

“Thank you,” I said, wiping my tears. I was on a plane within the next hour, and flying home and the next morning couldn’t come soon enough. Everyone who was involved was invited out to her funeral, which was to take place in a cemetery outside of the city. It was a nice place to be buried, but I knew that no one wanted to be here. 

About a hundred people turned up, which was quite large to be honest, but I don’t think anyone wanted her to be alone. There was one person recording for some reason, but I didn’t bother with the recorder. It was quite pretty, and it was peaceful, but I wished she had been able to pull through. 

I waited around New Rose Hills for a few more days, trying to make sure that everything was running smoothly. Honestly I didn’t want to return for a few days, but I returned about a week after I got the news. Both Gage and Justin were happy that I returned to Ottwa. Much had been taken in the week I was gone, and I was happy to finally be amongst the leaders to help shed light to a dark place. 

“Are you guys ready for this?” Justin asked us. 

“I’m ready for this to be over,” Gage said, with sadness in his voice. I looked at him briefly, noting to check on him when we left the conference. Justin sent me a look, and I gave him a pointed look in return. 

“Alright,” he said, and clapped his hands. He nodded, before turning and leading us into the conference room. There had been a podium set up, and chairs had been set up for the many reporters who had been brought into the building. It surprised me slightly, but I was prepared for this when I had first come here. Justin walked up to the podium, and I took his left, and Gage took his right. 

“Good afternoon,” Justin said, and everyone turned their attention to him. “My name is Justin McKinley, and I am the prime minister of Canada. For the people in the United States, your screens and radios have been hacked so you could all receive this information today.” 

He looked over at me and I winced. I knew he would want to talk about that specificity later, but I didn’t have the time to care at this second. He looked back towards the camera’s and continued talking. 

“Anyway. Thanks in large part to Hasting’s industry and the New Hope Organization, I am happy to announce that every single psi person and child affected by the spread of Agent Ambrosia in the United States has been brought successfully into Canada.” There were a couple claps in the crowd, and Justin smiled for a brief second. 

“I am very proud of not only the New Hope Organization, the Hastings corporation, and IPPA, but I am happy how far the psi people have come along in the year that they have been in this country. I am proud to announce that all three members of the Gray family have been captured and will be facing trial in the coming months. In unfortunate news, we will be occupying much of the continental United States and help their people get back on their feet.

“Now I promise you we will not be trying to interfere personally with people’s personal lives, but we will be starting programs to help people get back on their feet, and hopefully restart the economy very soon. We will be opening schools, hospitals, asylums, and we will be hopefully finding a way to return to homes. Per my agreement with Ava McBrian, the head of New Hope, we will not be returning the psi children to the United States, until the country can prove without a doubt that they will remain safe and thrive.” Everyone looked happy at the news and one woman raised her hand. Justin nodded at her. 

“Did I misshear you. Did you finally capture former president Gray and his wife?” she asked.

“Yes, we did, and they're being held for their trials,” Justin answered honestly, and everyone cheered eagerly. “I am also proud to announce that other countries are lending their experience and resources to help the United States, and our outreach programs have delivered beyond what we were planning. Thank you, that is all for now. My people and I have to leave now to continue working with the other countries participating in the relief efforts.” Justin looked at Gage and I nodded and led us away from the podium, and into one of the many side rooms that were not being used. 

“Are you okay?” I asked Gage and he nodded before Justin asked the same question. I answered the same as Gage.

Chapter Text

It took maybe three months for our men to take complete control of the United States. Alaska and Hawaii were extremely easy to take. We had already taken much of the land when we took the camps in their respective areas. The states that had camps in them quickly fell behind them for the same reason. Texas, California and Florida were the harder states to take control. Well most of the Southern states were hard to take because of the crackhead energy from the South and the amount of guns, but those four were harder to take than anyone else because of the sheer number of people. 

Though there were the hard states, some states immediately jumped into wanting help offered, realizing that they could be given a lot of benefits if they went willingly. It was most of the boarders connecting with the north, and almost every state except New York City. I couldn’t blame them, the benefits sounded good. Cheaper food, homes, and jobs. Schools, mental asylums, planned parenthood, rehab centers and elderly centers opened up. 

Like with almost every other country we’ve helped out with was creating checkpoints to help reduce the number of human trafficking cases. One thing that we proved was that human trafficking was extremely easy to do, especially if someone knew anything about the system. 

Not a lot of people wanted to immigrate to the United States, but it was slowly getting better with Agent Ambrosia slowly being erased from the water systems. So most of the immigrants were elderly people, and people who were skilled and were being paid a lot of money to be sent down. Unsurprisingly not a lot of the psi people went to the United States, we were all too comfortable in Canada to want to move. 

When news broke out what had happened, family members of kids appeared out of the woodwork to claim their children, or to be moved so they could participate in the children’s lives. One’s who had been on the search list, and were considered good people, were allowed to come up. Others were not allowed to come. They were mostly the people who had handed their children, were abusive or were considered so dangerous they shouldn’t be allowed near children. 

I knew for a fact that my mother wanted to be a part of my life, but I couldn’t quite get over the fact that she handed me in. Dad handled her for me and managed to wrangle her into taking a position in Maryland. A lot of the parents from my hometown wanted to be in their children’s lives but not a lot wanted them to come up. 

I knew for certain that Delta and Marie’s family members wanted to be in their lives, but they had laughed them out of the room, and returned back to their adoptive parents in Ottwa. The two of them were adopted by a husband and wife who had many relatives who were willing to help them overcome the many problems that had arrisen over the last few years. 

Sam ended up adopting Sally as soon as he was legally allowed to. Which was pretty bold considering that he was eighteen. It didn’t pause his life in any way since Nancy took him in and helped them out. Penelope ended up pulling double duty by working as a prison guard and teacher for the changeling oranges. The rest of her old cabin all helped out with teaching since they were the best of the best. 

Camilla ended up finishing her school early on and ended up in Humboldt University of Berlin. I couldn’t be more proud of her, and the school seemed eager to have her come. Though they did have to set up rules to help protect the academic integrity of everyone involved, which was fair. Mia seemed to want to follow in her footsteps, and I was eager to see how both would do in the long run. 

Mirable and Charlotte had gotten closer over the years, and though Mirable was still an advisor she enjoyed spending time with her sister and her adoptive family. The girls father had skipped town after they were shipped to Tundra, while their mother had stuck around. She hadn’t sent her kids to Tundra, but she didn’t join up when offered. Neither girl tried to get in contact with their family after that, and tried not to show how it affected them. 

I lost track of Alex for a while, but knew that she was doing good with her father. Jaquine said she was doing good. I knew that I needed to talk with her more. The same with Levi, who I knew was going to some form of cooking school. Which was bold even for him. 

We ended up finding Max, the girl who had first told me about IAAN so many years ago, in Thurmond. No one knew how she managed to wind up there, and she didn’t tell us. She was doing fine with the rest of the kids, and had a potential writing gig set up when she graduated from school. I read some of her work and I was impressed. 

Most of the Thurmond kids actually seemed to be getting a lot better over the few months, and all of them had some form of track for their lives to continue. Unsurprisingly most of the greens we had picked up, not only in Thurmond, easily finished school within a few years and started going to colleges. Some started immediately with David’s company and started inventing so many things. 

For me personally, Justin switched me from working as a full time advisor to a consultant who worked part time so I got to travel a lot more. He wanted me to be able to live more of my life doing what I wanted and it was a big change. For the last four years I had either been in charge of New Hope, speaking at Humanitarian events, or helping change the many laws for several countries to allow for the psi to live in peace. Or changing rules so the world was better to live in. 

Burn out had slowly been creeping up for the last few years and I wasn’t doing good, so that was the main consideration for Justin relieving me of my duties. He would still call me whenever he needed to talk about the psi or some other humanitarian thing. Sometimes he would call just to check on me and I was thankful for that. 

Dad and I decided to go on a road trip with one another to make up for a long amount of time we had missed together. I was happy to do it, and promised everyone to keep in check. After talking with Calvin one more time, I got on a plane with Dad to fly into across the planet.