 
Origins

(A Travellers Story Part 1)

Antonia Fields

Published by Antonia Fields at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Antonia Fields

Updated 2020

ISBN 9781310306549

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favourite authorised retailer. Thank you for your support.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, incidents, organisations and dialogue in this story are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarities are coincidental.

Cover design by Antonia Fields using canva.com

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For Charlie Boy

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Chapter 1

Lily

This is the way he trains me. He creeps up behind me, surprises me and will admonish me if my surprise is genuine. "You're still daydreaming Lily, allow your mind to empty and you will hear me coming." Of course, it isn't just about emptying my mind. Does he think I have forgotten all those hours as a child closing my eyes and listening to the world around me? The same question "what else can you hear" and even when I thought I had it all covered, it came again "what else can you hear". "There is nothing else out there," I'd reply. "Yes, there is, pay more attention."

Sometimes I'd make it up, tell him I can hear the ants scurrying to their nests, the worms moving beneath the earth, the rainstorm on the other side of the planet. He would reply with a "hmphh". Displeased? maybe, but something more. He knew something I didn't, I felt that a lot with him. I would always put it down to him knowing about my future wise self and that one day I would come to recognise the sound of the insects scurrying in the dirt, sense the air when rain was coming. He knew. That's why he pushed me so hard. It's easy to be thankful and grateful for that now. Back then when all this first started, I just wanted to scream with frustration.

So, it's a game now. He knows I can hear him. Untrained ears couldn't. His footfalls are so light that it's not actually the sound of his feet I'm listening for, rather the change in sounds around him. Very small, very quiet sounds. We have begun to play this game every morning, our way of greeting each other. I sit out on the riverbank, close my eyes and listen to the world around me. I don't know when he's coming. There's no point anticipating his arrival. I use to and he wouldn't come. Anticipating wasn't stilling my mind – I had missed the point of the exercise. So now I close my eyes and listen. It could be ten minutes, thirty minutes or over an hour. It doesn't matter, because I'm not waiting. It's a listening game. The fun part is knowing where his strike will come from. It changes every day and I don't begin to know his mind. He's crafty like that. Totally unreadable, never repeating any patterns. I guess that's what makes him so formidable. I'm not quite there yet, not by a longshot. Sometimes I wonder if I will be able to reach the point where I don't make a decision until I make it. I always imagine how peaceful one's head must feel to live life like that.

It comes from my right side, just above my ear. I feel and hear the change in the air as his hand slices through. Funny, I would have laughed at myself a few years ago if I'd heard myself say that – hear the change in air indeed, and yet I move my head. We are both successful and unsuccessful. I moved my head but not enough. He brushed my ear, but it wasn't his intended target. The student comes close. He smiles, pleased that I have finally stopped fighting him and allowing him to teach me, allowing myself to learn. Although secretly I always thought he enjoyed that side of me, the stubborn side, challenging him as much as he was challenging me. Does he miss it or is he happy that we have found balance between us? Clearly my mind hasn't quite stilled. Cheeky devil on my left shoulder wonders if it is time to mix it up. After all, I don't want him to become complacent now do I?

We've grown very fond of each other over the years. I don't know who my real parents are, and I could only wish that my real father is just like Axel. I guess if he was though, I'd be with him and not with Axel right now. I was left on the doorstep of the Library, just six months old, or there abouts. Axel was instructed by the Library curator to take me to the orphanage. He's never told me why he didn't. I know he tried to take me. I know he bundled me up and started the journey to take me there. I know he brought me back to the Library. I just don't know what happened in between. I understand there was a standoff when Axel arrived back with me. The Curator was not happy. I don't even know how Axel convinced the Curator to allow me to stay. I do know it was a both of us or no-one deal and stay we did. Axel lived in the cottage out the back of the Library acting as the library-caretaker, keeping the building and everything in it safe and this was my new home.

A big giant library, filled with loads of books, folios and scrolls, mostly old stuff. It always smelled musty to me as a child, it was however a smell I began to find comfort in. I'm eighteen now. It's the only life I've known. Axel taught me to read, write, calculate, draw, play the piano and still my mind. He taught me to use my mind and body to heal my body and mind and get me ready for a world that probably wasn't ready for me. I have never ventured far from my little sanctuary, have never really felt the need. Even the Curator has grown accustomed to me. I say accustomed because I never knew until recently that I wasn't very welcome here as a baby, I never knew that part of my story. The Curator has always been kind and in fact took charge of all my philosophy and history training. He enjoyed my stubbornness with my lessons growing up. "Keeps me on my philosophical toes" he would say in that accent that didn't sound like he came from anywhere in particular.

It was the Curator's idea to let me work and earn my keep in the library. The archivists needed help and I was old enough to arrange books in their proper order, place them on a database and know where to find everything. Restoring, now that's what I really wanted to do. The Curator thinks I'm still too young. Unbeknownst to him though Melody lets me do bits and pieces. Prepare a brush here, dry paper there. She said us girls must stick together so, when no-one's looking, she teaches me what she can. Last week she let me restore the bottom part of an old manuscript that had been brought in. I was thrilled and terrified all at the same time. Melody was pleased with my work. Not so pleased that she told the Curator but pleased enough to want to continue teaching me this very delicate craft. I couldn't be happier. My life was perfect, and I could have continued to live quite contently this way forever.

Who knew that it's not the quiet contentment that one remembers in their latter days but that very moment, when everything changes, that moment that remains so clear, so vivid in your memory. It was something I was about to discover for myself.

Chapter 2

Wolf

Wolf was supposed to have more time. That's what he had hoped for when he left her on the steps of the Library. He couldn't believe that the Esperanzi had finally picked up his trail. What was it that had led them to him? He'd been so careful, always careful, always watching, covering his tracks. There was no time to wonder any more.

They were here, crawling through the streets of the city sniffing him out, dirty, disgusting creatures. He'd heard the shrill of the scout when it had picked up his trail. A coffee cup, a napkin? Is that what had blown his cover a caffeine and sugar hit? Something he would have to beat himself up for later when he lost these foul creatures once and for all. Although no-one ever lost the Esperanzi. Once they had picked up your trail it was only a matter of time.

No-one on the streets could see these creatures. They were genetically engineered hybrids. Wolf DNA for pack hunting abilities, hyena DNA for scavenging abilities, chimpanzee DNA for rudimentary problem solving abilities, a little bit of something not quite earth bound for manual dexterity and enough understanding to follow orders and a more than basic understanding of technology, and that was just the stuff we knew about. No-one on the streets could see them because of the cloaking device strapped to their forearm manipulating the ambient light around their bodies blending them into their surroundings. That's why the Palace called them Klingons, although I doubt it's been said directly to their faces, there would probably be a very Klingon response to the perceived insult.

Noiselessly, effortlessly they move through the streets undetected except for puzzled looks on the faces of the passers-by, what was that? Someone must have walked into me....no-one knows. And that's a good thing. Their appearance was the kind of stuff nightmares are made of. At 4ft, their legs are built for strength and endurance, their short pointy ears are made for listening with a thick coat of short hair for warmth and protection against the elements, so there's no real need for holing up and waiting out winter.

To be fair 4 foot is their down on all four stature, they can also sit up on their hind legs, extending their height to nearly 6 foot. The depth of field in their eyes has been genetically altered so that tracking their victims from far away has been made easier while playing with their little wrist bands close-up is also easy, all the better to find their victims with. The Esperanzi are the trackers used by Gentech. Ever hear about the conspiracy theories, you know the ones, where there are labs making smarter animals, faster humans, combinations of both. We all put that down to ridiculous, paranoid, anarchy fuelled hob gobble. Who knew it was all true. Something about telling the people the truth about what you do and of course it sounds so far-fetched no-one is going to believe. Mulder wasn't kidding about the truth being out there. He should have started looking a little closer to home though.

While the human genome project was getting all the attention, Gentech was playing behind closed doors, answering questions like what happens when we switch this gene off and turn this one on. Of course, they weren't the first people to ask such a question and they won't be the last. They were however among the first to come up with some answers. There were some hits and some gruesome, short lived misses. Persistent buggers though, they never gave up and item thirty-seven on the catalogue, ladies and gentlemen we present to you, the Esperanzi. Cue applause.

Their job, however, right now was to track Wolf. They'd been looking for him for the past two months. A very, irritatingly small lapse in judgement has been the cause of their presence here today. Wolf still had some tricks up his sleeve though. At least enough to buy him some time to get his memory erased. When caught, his torture would be brutal. He would give up her location and they would find her. So right now, he knew what he had to do. He'd been given a few tricks to use on his assignments. The game wasn't all there's, the game wasn't all Gentech's. He wondered if taking her to the Palace would have been the wiser path. They would know what she was, but again isn't that what he wanted to protect her from. No time for second guessing though. The Library was the safest place for her, he knew that to be true. Her anonymity was the only thing that could save her.

Right, bag of tricks now, sentimental self-loathing later. The Palace guards had given Wolf fake DNA. That's how the Esperanzi tracked him, their fancy cloaking bands also contained a DNA mark tracker. DNA, Wolf thought to himself, something that is so easy to just leave all over the place. It was the saliva on the coffee cup or the paper towel. Damn, it had to be. What else could it have been? Careless, absolutely careless.

The Palace DNA had been slightly combined with Wolf's DNA, just enough to set off the trackers, different enough to lose the trail for a while. Confuse the readings, confuse the trackers. This wasn't the Esperanzi's first ball game, however. They had done this before. They'd figure it out sooner rather than later and once they did, oh boy were they going to be super pissed. For animals that were supposed to be complete drones they had big enough egos to get very mad when they were outsmarted, even for a short while.

DNA delivery was easy. It came in the form of an aerosol can. All Wolf had to do was spray it in areas while avoiding touching any surface with his bare hands. First, he wore his gloves, next on the list, his head. He'd first shaved his head long ago, it was much easier to manage the risk of lost hair this way. He would burn his hair after every shave. He found that smell sickening. It reminded him of what he left behind and why he had to do this. It reminded him of his sadness mixed with loathing and contempt for the world he found himself in. Next, his ever-faithful beanie covered his head, scarf round his neck, enough to look unnoticeable on the street. Enough to cover his tracks. Fingers crossed, he'd already screwed up once.

He spent the next three hours leaving four trails in the city before dumping the spray can in a very smelly and gooey trash bin. The Palace guards would have chewed him out for doing this, leaving evidence behind, allowing the Esperanzi to uncover the ruse. What did they know anyway? They hardly ever left the Palace. The Esperanzi would find him, not if; when. He wanted to give them a big screw you, tricked you, haha. It made him feel better, like he still had control over what was about to happen.

The Esperanzi never work alone they will always faithfully stay with their packs following every lead a single lead at a time. Each trail Wolf left became longer and he set the order, there was no way they were going to find that spray can first. He probably bought himself another one to two days three tops before they caught up with him. He knew now that no matter how careful he was, he was going to track DNA somewhere. Geez, a coffee cup! He was tired of the chase and he was ready to have this out once and for all. Three days tops, it was enough time to get to Magic Man. He'd already been in contact. Magic Man was ready and waiting all Wolf had to do was turn up.

Chapter 3

Lily

The face looking back at me in my bathroom mirror is tired, weary and a little fed up. It's been three nights of nightmares, waking up screaming after each one, and me, a peaceful sleeper. The first night I tried everything I knew to get back to sleep. Breathe deeply, relax muscles, empty mind. I think I was at it for an hour the first night and nothing. I couldn't let go of the images, the smells, the attack. Yeh, the mirror tells me exactly how much these nightmares are affecting me. Even my eyes look darker, my weird eyes with their funny goldy-brown colour. I'm the only one that has them here in the Library and the only answer I get from Axel is genetics. "One of your parents must have had that colour". They're darker right now, brown with only the goldy coloured ring on the outside of my iris. Yep, even my eyes hate the nightmares.

I've never seen creatures like that before. Determined, angry, downright scary that's what comes to mind when I think of them now. I can still see their image behind my eyes. What are they anyway? They don't look like any one creature, more like a mix of animals. It can't be any type of food giving me nightmares, I don't eat before sleep. In fact, I don't eat after dinner, so, not food, not drink, subconscious? My subconscious is creating scary mixed animal creatures to tell me what?

Funnily enough though, as scary as these creatures are it's the man in my dreams that leaves the greatest impression. He meets the creatures head on. He didn't run. I yelled at him to run. Told him they were coming but he didn't hear me. I wasn't there. He couldn't see me, hear me. He just stood there waiting for them. He had a gun in his hand, and I could tell it would be no defence against these creatures. I could tell he knew it too. He wasn't trying to defend himself, he was just trying to be brave, unafraid. I kept yelling at him but he couldn't hear me. I started crying in the dream, yelling, begging him to run. It was no use.

The first creature came from his left, he wasn't expecting that. He was surprised but also had good reflexes. He used the hand holding the gun and managed to make contact with the side of the creature's neck. It yelped. Like a dog.

How can that be? It doesn't look like a dog. Not really. That sound, that sounded like a dog yelping in pain.

It fell away. Not before the next creature jumped though, this one knocked him off balance. The creature didn't stop. It ran through him, as if knocking him off balance is exactly what it wanted to do. He tried to recover, it didn't work. The one that knocked him down actually sat on him, pinning his arms down to the ground.

How can it do that? It's some kind of animal. It can't pin someone's arms. Yet it's pinning his arms.

Their heads are level now and they're looking into each other's eyes. The creatures aren't trying to kill this man. The other scary looking animals- are they animals, have surrounded them both. There is no way this man can escape. I don't know if he's going to be a prisoner or dead. I start crying again, yelling, feeling helpless "leave him alone" I scream. That's when he turns his face towards me. He looks straight at me. No wavering. It's like he knew I was there all along. He could hear me yell. He could hear me cry. He was ignoring me until now. The look in his eyes, his beautiful brown eyes reads fear, pain, terror and with that look, he turns to me and screams "Run." I don't even have a second to register what he is saying because as he yells this the creature also turns its face to look at me. Stares at me with those goldy brown eyes, smiling.

It's definitely smiling, wait, its eyes. They're the same colour as mine. That's when I wake screaming. I stare at my eyes in the mirror and it's like looking at the eyes of the creature. So, is that supposed to be me? Am I supposed to see myself in it?

I haven't told anyone about my dreams and restless nights. There's no point. I'll just be told to explore inside and ask myself questions. How does seeing the creature make you feel? What comes to mind when you think it's you? Blah blah blah. I'm not in the mood for soul searching. I'm in the mood for sleep but I won't do it. Not until tonight anyway. I can't have that dream again just now. Instead I have an oh so hot shower which helps me climb man's evolutionary ladder a couple of steps. Maisie's hot buns should get me the rest of the way. The Library complex is quiet, Maisie and I are the only one's up.

My timing is so perfect she has just taken the buns out of the oven (no pun intended). If she's alarmed to see me at this time of the morning in the kitchen, she doesn't acknowledge it. It's been this way for three days now. She does wrap up two hot, sweet smelling steaming buns and a thermos of green tea and sends me on my way. She likes working alone and although she enjoys teaching me to cook, I do believe these early hours are hers and hers alone. It's time to give her space.

The Library data base is on computer in the main study on the second floor, I'm hoping it will shed some light on these dreams. The Library is magnificent. I do believe my Goth girl predisposition comes from growing up in this building and staring at the gargoyles guarding the building entrance and the beautifully laid out red rose garden gracing the path to the Library front doors. Huge wooden doors laced with iron work in case you're wondering.

There are five floors altogether: The top floor houses all the staff live-in suites, the next two floors are where all the archives, secret or otherwise - meaning of course all the restricted areas as well as storage areas. The floor below this one is where all my education took place surrounded by classrooms and laboratories where all the restoration work is completed. Below that are the offices of the employees that need them, and the ground floor houses the main reception and office, the oh so beautiful and majestic library, kitchens, common rooms and recreation rooms. By all staff I mean there are only four other people living here apart from Axel and me. Any extra staff needed comes in only for short times. The truth is I barely see any new faces apart from delivery staff. I have never met anyone my own age. I guess this is something that would weird most people out but it's the only life I know and every growth experience I've had as a child or teenager came courtesy of TV and books which turned out to be excellent babysitters. Or at least I hope they would. In any case as I never planned on leaving the Library I guess it didn't really matter.

I've always marvelled at how I'm surrounded by such old things, the building, books, manuscripts, the Curator. And yet we have every technological convenience at our fingertips. I remember asking Axel to let me try some brainwave entrainment exercises. He very patiently told me to "stop being lazy and meditate the old-fashioned way". He still brewed his tea in a pot of water on the stove. I guess not everyone is a tech fan. I am. I love how quickly everything happens, which is why my search is well under way as I sit here in the library consulting the data base hoping something comes up about my dreams.

Golden brown eyes. Funny how it comes up with zero matches. I narrow my next search for eye colour to gold, brown, yellow. I really was expecting another zero. Then there it is, one match, curious. The title has me a little confused. _'Gene splicing: common traits amongst test subjects'. Highly classified, red clearance required._ ' I know where these books are. They're on the upper most level of the archives behind an electronically locked door.

I broke in there once in my 'can I break into electronic doors' phase. Axel had taught me once a long time ago to pick locks. That way I'd never be locked out in the rain when everyone was away and be sick in bed for days with a little flu. I did suggest a key but got the "we don't need keys when we can pick a lock" speech. I became curious. What else could I break into and I did. I MacGyvered the keypad with some dust off our not so clean floors (seriously, I saw him do this in an episode) and found the key sequence that opened the door. OK, so it wasn't that easy, and MacGyver looked way more knowledgeable than me when he picked a safe keypad with a graphite pencil and some shavings. I had the help of a little technology, jack the keypad and wallah in I went. I guess no one believed we needed any more security than that and I was chuffed that I managed to do it.

Til this day no-one knew that I had done it, at least they weren't admitting it to me. You never can tell with these people. It's less talking, more doing around here. It was easy to break in. I found the book exactly where the data base said it would be. I sat down cross legged on the floor, opened the book and began to read. My knowledge of genetics wasn't the greatest. I understood the basics, knew enough to figure some things out with a bit of reading, but a lot of what I was looking at was out of my league.

Until that is, I came across a diagram of my dream looking back at me. Not my dream exactly, that creature, looking straight at me from the pages of the book. With the same eyes, the same expression, I can even see that smile. Lots of thoughts running through my head foremost being have I seen this book before, is that why I dreamt it.

Before I could register that nagging thought tugging at some place in my mind, I was startled by Melody rushing towards me, she actually snatched the book from my lap while yelling, actually yelling, nothing but kind words all these years and now yelling. "Well you did break into the highly classified section" says the angel on my right shoulder. I start to apologise, start to explain, even try to tell her about my dream and how I came to be here, but she's not interested. No that's not it, she's not disinterested, she's scared. Shoving me out the door I realise it's still much too early for her to be up.

And that's when it hits me. They've known about my break ins all along. That's why she's here. Why now though? Why acknowledge it now. That's also when I notice a flash of something above the door, silly me, thinking they have lax surveillance. By now the Curator was coming up the stairs. I knew that look, he was not happy. "Come with me" is all he said.

Chapter 4

Wolf

The train was his shield for now. The Esperanzi couldn't track him while he was on it, they couldn't keep up. By now they would have figured out his ruse and eventually would have found the spray-can that would lead them to the train station. He'd been on the phone trying to call the Magic Man. All he got was his answer phone "want some magic you called the right man, I will ring you back when I can." Eye rolls. "Magic Man please call me back. I'm on the way." How many times should he leave that message? He would just have to turn up and hope, dear God hope, that he's ready to do this.

It's unusual for Wolf having this time, knowing that for now he was safe. He thinks back to that day, he's been thinking of it more and more these last few months. It broke his heart leaving his baby on the Library steps. It broke his heart knowing she would never know who he was, believing she had been abandoned. It broke his heart knowing that she would never know her mother and how much they both loved her.

He waited by the Library. Watching, making sure they took her in. He was terrified when he saw Axel walk away with her, he followed her not knowing what he would do, just following until for some reason that he still doesn't understand – he saw Axel look down at his sweet baby girl and turn around running, back to the Library. They never came back out, he knew his baby girl was safe.

His wife couldn't come to terms with what they had done. She refused to get out of bed, she refused to eat after a while. Stopped speaking, stopped recognising until one day she quietly went to sleep and never woke up, a broken heart was her unofficial cause of death. His life shattered, first his daughter, then his wife.

He hit the bottle, very hard. He didn't want to remember, self-analyse, get better, get past it. He wanted to forget. He forgot so much, that he started to talk in his forgetfulness about his little girl with her golden eyes. Most people ignored him, that crazy dude who sat at the bar and just got drunk every night, except for the guy in the funny suit. He watched and listened, if Wolf had his wits about him, he'd have noticed funny suit guy was there listening for three days in a row.

Eventually he approached Wolf and told him it was probably a good idea to be quiet now. A fight broke out. Wolf's reflexes were drink laden, no contest for funny suit guy. He didn't feel the prick of the syringe, didn't know it was a chemical that knocked him out. All he remembered was waking up in what he later learnt was the Palace. No-one really spoke to him, they cleaned him, fed him, sobered him up. Then came the interrogation. Not the scary bamboo under the fingernails type. These people were much too civilised, just questions, relentless questions mainly about a baby born with golden coloured eyes, over and over and over again.

Mere confusion kept Wolf silent. He was still in somewhat of a liquor-sobering haze and was really just trying to understand what was happening, and that's what he did when he was confused. He retreated within himself until he could figure out what was happening around him. That's what saved his baby's life, his refusal to speak.

By the time he understood what they were asking him, who they were asking him about, his dad protection mode kicked in. Til this day they didn't know the truth, at least not through him, not to his knowledge. He lied. When he finally answered yes to the question, that he did have a daughter with golden eyes he told them she was dead. Died from an illness with her mother, they were hiding, protecting their daughter and never received the medical treatment they needed. Wolf was angry, distraught, terrified, in tears telling them this. It was easy. He didn't have any alcohol in his system, the pain became new again with every image, every memory. The lie came easy, the emotion was all too real. This is probably why they believed him. They had to sedate him because after the tears and anger came the punching and the throwing furniture. It was very convincing.

He came to a few days later to the face of a smiling nurse checking his pulse, with her far too chirpy "lovely, you're back with us". He could only groan in response. He refused to get out of bed for a month and they just left him to it, left him alone with his grief. He didn't have to lie about that. The all too chirpy nurse, her name was Juliet, coaxed him into a wheelchair and took him for a turn in the park every day. Slowly with the help of chirpy Juliet, who never had a bad day- didn't believe in them, he managed to get out of bed on his own.

They fed him, clothed him, recruited him. After all, he knew about the children, his daughter was naturally that way, so he became an operative for them. He preferred field work, he couldn't stand staying at the Palace seeing all those kids with their golden eyes. It was the only thing they had in common with his daughter, it was one thing too much. He left the Palace whenever he could, on whatever assignment he could find.

This wasn't part of his assignment, running from the Esperanzi. He cut communication with the Palace over a month ago when the Esperanzi picked up his trail. Gordon, the old man as most people called him behind his back, wouldn't be happy, actually the word livid comes to mind. He wouldn't understand what was happening and that makes him angry.

It surprises Wolf that the Palace guards haven't found him yet. He was sure the Palace implanted everyone with trackers, it was something that was never discussed only implied. They probably did it when he was unconscious after his little break down. The conversation would have been something like "let's keep him, right, tag him". He could actually hear Gordon saying that. So where were they? It didn't matter anymore anyway. In two hours he'd be at Magic Man's studio and he'd wipe it all, that was the deal, the money in his pocket for memory loss.

Chapter 5

Lily

The Curator just sat there and stared at me for hours. OK maybe not hours, but he made it feel that long. I was already blushing, I could feel beads of sweat running down my back. I tried as hard as I could to keep that neutral face Axel always had on. I was beginning to get annoyed. All I did was break into their precious don't let anyone read these books area. Big deal. Except it was a big deal because the minute I saw the pictures of those gargantuan animal things, they were at the door and now I'm in the office, sitting opposite the Curator who is just staring at me.

"Why did you do it?"

"Do what," I said. I decided that I was going to play hard to get. Make him sweat.

Axel sat to one side of me, neutral faced, calm as ever. I had no idea if he was mad at me or not.

I used to think he was just laid back until I asked him one day. I told him his face was really difficult to read and I often wondered what was going on in that head of his. All he said was "people's thoughts and feelings are their own private business, if they want to share them they will, until then there's no point trying to figure it out. It's a waste of worry. "You want to worry about something, worry about getting your lessons in on time."

And that was it. And he meant it. There was a lesson in there of course. There always was with Axel. Don't worry about things you have no control over, very enlightened. One day I will come to value this as good advice. For now, however, I just wanted to scream at all of them and tell them to let me go.

My attention was jolted back to the Curator when he slammed his hand down on the table. God that made me jump. It made me a little scared too. Why was he so angry? "Why did you break into the classified section, you know you are not allowed in there."

"Because I could," I said. "I was bored, just had a theory and wondered if I could do it, so I did."

"Really," sneered the Curator. He actually sneered at me. "Did you just try to find books about gene splicing at five in the morning and figure I may as well just break into the classified section and see if I can get it?"

Aha, surveillance not just in the classified section. They were watching the computers too. OK, so that's the game we're playing right now. I could work with this.

"So you're watching my every move now. Tell me something is it just here in the Library or does it extend to my home and private room as well," I was so mad, seeing Axel just sitting there passively. How naïve was I to think that no one was watching me.

"Do you know about this," I scream at Axel "do you know they watch my every move, our every move, are they watching our house too". Axel looked at me blankly a stranger would have said, but I knew that look. That impassive, neutral blank look he gave everyone. "Really" I scream at him again. "You're just going to sit there and say nothing".

The Curators face was turning red now. I had forgotten about Melody sitting on my other side. She could be as quiet as a mouse sometimes. She looked like she was looking for a wormhole in the back of the chair so she could silently travel to another dimension. Why was everyone so on edge?

"OK," I finally say just to fill in the silence. The Curator had asked his question, he was now waiting for an answer. "You caught me. I broke into the scary section. I read a book about something I don't understand. Actually, reading isn't quite the word I'd use, it was more like looking. What's the big deal? Do what you need to do. Change locks, punish me, make me sweep the floor for a month" I was raving now, deliberately. I was starting to get very scared, why was I in trouble exactly.

"Enough" screamed the Curator. "You will answer my question and answer it now. Why did you break in? Why were you looking at that book?" Yep as angry as he was and as scared as I was, I still didn't want to give in, I couldn't help myself.

"Extra credit on the assignment you set," I said quietly. "I wanted to prove you wrong about not being a very good student because actually I am, so I went looking for some material that was actually interesting considering the stuff you get me to do is so boring".

Deafening silence, now I'd done it. He rose up out of his chair, came around to my chair yanked me out of it by my arm and screamed in my face. "Tell me."

Axel was out of his chair, standing, ready to do- I don't know what he was ready to do. Melody just sat there meekly in the chair that was way too big for her very petite body. This situation was getting out of hand now, confusing, to say the least. All I wanted to do was run away and hide so of course the next logical thing to do was kick the Curator in the leg. Not my fault, Axel had taught me to do that. It was instinct by now. My plan was to run to the door, get out of the Library, run into the woods and keep running until everybody came back to their senses. It was just a book.

I had kicked the Curator so hard that he had no choice but to let me go as his leg collapsed out from under him. I didn't need an invitation. As soon as he let go I ran. Except I wasn't running, not exactly, my legs were kind of kicking but when I looked up to see what the problem was there was Axel.

He knew what I was going to do the minute the Curator stood up. He was ready and waiting. He caught me before I even knew how far away the door was. And he had his eyes locked with mine, that calm, passive face that I had come to care for and trust just looked me in the eyes, kept looking at me in the eyes until I gave up trying to run. It was no use, I would never outrun him. We stood there, Axel holding on to my arms, looking at each other neither wanting to look away first and softly, ever so softly and calmly he says

"Tell him what he wants to know Lily, its important."

Just like that I was ready to spill everything. My stubbornness melted away with Axel and his aggravating gentle manner, I swear that man could get me to do anything just by being kind.

With the fight knocked out of me, Axel gently lowered me back down to the chair. This time I didn't sit defiantly as I had before. I folded my legs under me and hugged my knees. Defeated I started telling them about my dreams, how I couldn't sleep for the past three nights, how I couldn't save the man in my dreams. I left the animal thing til last, my last stand of defiance. I knew that would be the centrepiece of my story, in my mind I sounded quite dramatic when I said "I went looking for any reference I could find because I wanted to know why that beast in my dreams had the same colour eyes as me."

I'm not sure what I was expecting. 'Thank you. Great story. Why didn't you come to us before if you couldn't sleep', something other than dead silence. The Curator had paled, Melody whimpered and was really digging around hard to find that worm hole. It wasn't until I looked at Axel that my earlier feelings of fear increased tenfold. For a second, just a second his eyes went wide and his skin paled. If I'd been alone with him I would have believed I imagined it, but throw the other two into the equation and I knew that what I thought I saw was real. An emotional reaction out of Axel, what the hell was going on? It took quite a few seconds for all of them to recover.

The Curator just rushed out of the door, bruised leg and all. Melody took off after him having failed to dimension hop and Axel and I were left alone in the Curators office. He had gone to the window, staring outside. I waited for him to say something but he had gone somewhere inside his head. He wasn't going to talk any time soon.

He didn't jerk exactly when I touched his arm. It was more an impulse, he just looked at me blankly, neutral face again.

"Axel tell me what's happening, I'm confused. I don't understand what I have done to anger everyone and you, your reaction to all this is scaring me," I said "please."

He lifted his hand to my cheek and just laid it there. Now I'm terrified. The only time Axel and I ever have any type of physical contact is when we train, even when I was younger, no cuddles, no hugs, not even a handshake, so this new development was terrifying. The normally pretend dull look in his giant blue eyes disappeared only to be replaced with sadness. The neutral demeanour he usually expressed softened. Two expressions within minutes of each other. Terrified.

"Let's go and sit down," he said, in a way that makes me feel like he's really sorry about what he's going to say.

He was still touching me, his hand guiding my elbow to the sofa. Terrified. I didn't want to look at him anymore. After spending all these years trying to get a reaction out of that face, I now no longer wanted to see it. I wanted my neutral faced, plain, bored faced Axel back. He turned me to face him. Terrified.

"I think it's time I told you why you were brought here to the Library."

I had been so happy living here that apart from idle curiosity I never really cared why I was here. I was always just happy that I was. I never really thought about parents. There were no other kids around so parents never really came up in conversation. Axel had been my mother, father, brother and friend. He was all I needed, all I wanted and I was happy. Whatever it is that he was about to tell me was going to shatter my world, my happy, happy world and I don't know how I'm going to bear this.

I covered my ears "I don't want to hear this," I cried out.

He gently, carefully pulled down my hands as if they were made of porcelain and held them for a few seconds longer than anyone really needed too. Terrified.

"I was the one that found you on the steps of the Library," he said. "I brought you to the Curator, you were a tiny, tiny baby. He was not interested 'this isn't a home for abandoned babies take her to the proper authorities' he said. I had no choice. I had to follow his orders. I remember that day so well. You were asleep when I found you, bundled up tightly. I guessed you were a girl only because you were wrapped up in a pink blanket, you know the one, you made a pillow out of it. Throughout all the activity you generated, my protests, the Curators shouting, you slept. I didn't want to give you up. I'm not sure why, not even now. I wanted to keep you and walking out of the Library towards the police station was excruciating. And yet you slept, you weren't bothered by anything happening around you. Halfway to the station I heard gurgling noises coming out of your little bundle so I looked down at you. I swear you were smiling at me, unafraid, feeling safe and that's when I saw you properly. That's when I noticed the colour of your eyes."

Chapter 6

Wolf

Magic Man could hear his mobile phone beeping with every message that was deposited into his mailbox. He knew it was Wolf. He knew he couldn't help him. Considering the Palace had a reputation for fairness and objectivity they weren't exactly playing the role of gracious house guests. Not when they had him tied up and gagged in his own living room. They didn't even try to torture him. They broke in, guns aimed and syringe straight in his arm, veritus potion right into his vein. He told them everything. At least everything he knew which wasn't much. He was expecting to die but for some reason that he hadn't quite worked out yet he was still alive.

It was an ordinary house, in an ordinary city and Magic Man looked quite ordinary to any passer-by. His special room wasn't ordinary though, the Palace guards had found it without too much trouble, the room beyond the pantry that housed his special equipment. Quite the biological genius was our Magic Man. He had been playing around with people's brainwaves for years. Some of his research was so abhorrent – and this in a field where gruesome animal experimentation was the norm- that he was eventually blacklisted from every research facility in the country, and then some.

He was even too hard core for Gentech, that's really why he fell off the grid and into suburbia. That was when everyone knew him as Dr Neil Carter, neuroscientist. Not anymore, his black-market tag Magic Man seemed to have evolved on its own, something to do with how he always disappeared after a transaction as if by magic. The research world may have shunned him but there were other agencies that had need of his services. That's how Wolf had come to know him, they had worked together a few times over the years and a type of camaraderie had formed between them. Wolf was an introspective, non-judgmental, objective man who never asked too many questions. That's why Magic Man liked him. That's why he felt so guilty now.

The ambush came by surprise. Wolf didn't know what hit him. With a syringe full of who knows what piercing Magic Man's neck, he called to Wolf to come through the door.

"It's open."

Wolf barely had time to say "Hey man, you had me worried" when they jumped him.

Wolf never saw it coming. His special brand of syringe was full of something enough to knock him to the ground and render him speechless. He was zip tied to a chair next to Magic Man, uncomprehending, dazed. His instincts told him he was in trouble, still consciously unsure of how this was going to play out. He recognised the Palace guards, he recognised Magic Man gagged next to him. Had they figured this out?

Gordon sauntered into the room with that stupid smirk on his face all but answering that question with a big fat yes.

"You're probably wondering why it's taken us so long to track you down agent Wolf. It may or may not surprise you to know that we have known of your whereabouts ever since you "disappeared"". Stupid air bunnies.

"We were in the process of dispatching a retrieval team when the Esperanzi showed up on our radars. Following you it would seem, because wherever you were, they were not far behind. Interesting don't you think. Now why, I asked myself would the Esperanzi be after agent Wolf. There was only one way to find out, so we sat back and watched. When we intercepted your path here to this lovely house in downtown suburbia, well we decided it was our chance to finally find out what you were running from exactly. Our friend Mr Magic Man hasn't been all that helpful. All he could tell us was that you were on your way here to have your memories erased."

Gordon likes speeches and dramatic pauses. He will use any excuse, just like this one to orate. He wasn't as eloquent as he liked to believe he was. Wolf could hear everything Gordon was saying. Was slowly but surely starting to make sense of what was happening. He knew it wouldn't be too long before they put the whole story together. He was kind of hoping the Esperanzi would find him right about now, have a real fight on his hands, maybe then he could get away. Maybe then he could....

"Wolf," Gordon's scream made him look up. He was losing patience. He too must have known the Esperanzi were on their way.

"We're wasting time here" Gordon screamed at the guards. "Get him ready for transport, we leave in five minutes."

As they were untying Wolf, they injected another syringe full of who knows what into Magic Man. This had an instant desired effect of knocking him out. They untied Magic Man and just lay him on the sofa as if he'd been asleep there all afternoon. Wolf looked on sadly. This was not going to end well and he knew he would never see this man ever again. Wolf was too weak to fight. Whatever they injected him with had rendered his muscles useless for anything other than standard functions, and maybe, just maybe if he was lucky he would be able to see out his last ditch plan to protect his daughter.

He nearly didn't find out. The Esperanzi didn't bother knocking and using niceties. They tore the front door off its hinges and three ran in with a roar. Not just the front door either, ten seconds later the back door was thusly opened and four more Esperanzi trotted up behind the Palace guards surrounding them. Where the guards had hidden their weapons is still a mystery. There were no tell-tale signs, yet on seeing the Esperanzi they had all whipped out their Glock's and a stand-off was in play. Wolf was the prize standing between the Esperanzi and the Palace guard.

Surprisingly the only sound was that of Gordon laughing. He was nearly hysterical. "Wonderful," he managed to say. "I have never seen any of you this close before, just wonderful." Just peachy thought Wolf.

When the fight came it was vicious, the ferocity of the wall of death unsurpassed. Without warning both sides reacted to a change of energy and instinctively ran at each other with nothing more than death on their minds. There was a prize and both sides wanted him. The Palace guards barely had time to fire any of their weapons. They were in close quarters and their guns should have handled the fight, that is, if the Esperanzi had given them the time they needed to react. They instead had to rely on hand to hand combat and the odd knife that made an appearance.

In the midst of the attack there was only one set of eyes on Wolf. The Esperanzi pack leader was coming for him. These animals were smart, they had every one of the Palace guards occupied, the screaming of humans in pain was testament to that. Wolf knew he couldn't get away, he didn't care anymore. He didn't flinch when the Esperanzi jumped at him knocking him to the ground. There were guttural sounds coming out of the pack leader's mouth. If Wolf didn't know better he would think they were words. In fact, they were words. The Esperanzi could talk.

He could make out a word here or there, something that sounded like prisoner, back, guard. This was going to be his last chance. He had to take it.

The pack leader was thrilled with his catch, that's why he didn't notice Wolf going for his boot. He must have thought that Wolf was doing the necessary struggling to free himself, thinking he had a chance at escape. That's why he didn't notice Wolf putting the gun to his temple and pulling the trigger. There were a few seconds of stillness in that little corner of the room. The pack leader piecing together what he had just seen, understanding what just happened. As he looked down on his blood and brain splattered fur he let out a fierce cry, loud enough to stop the fight. Six Esperanzi and four Palace guards including Gordon were still standing.

Chapter 7.

Lily

"Please Axel, just tell me what's going on."

"It's not that easy to explain, I need to tell you a few things first, so you can understand. Please be patient, it will all start to make sense. What I'm about to tell you is a true story." He paused for a moment and just looked at me, and stroked my hair. Oh my god, terrified in ways I cannot express. He was stalling, as if he didn't want to say what he knew he now had to.

"The Library isn't just an ordinary library. It's more like an archive for things that happened on Earth a long time ago. We are like keepers of these stories, watching, chronicling. My people, we are ancestors of the original Library keepers as are the Curator's. You've noticed that we live a very secluded life only going out into the world as necessary, well most of us, the Curator likes it out there. He resents being stuck here." I was starting to sweat. I didn't understand, "Axel!"

"Please Lily let me get this out. You can ask me any question you want when I finish." Now he was staring off into the distance, recalling some memory maybe. It gave me a second to gather myself. I did not want to fall apart, not in front of Axel. Deep breath in, now let it out. I looked up to find Axel watching me. Under different circumstances I would have called his expression amused to find me trying to regain composure by breathing. He had taught me to do that.

"We've done a really good job covering our tracks. Nobody knows who we really are and we are quiet enough that people just leave us alone. For centuries we have just stood alone without anyone looking on. It helps of course that we cloak this building and make it look like a warehouse, people around here think we're in the import/export business. It also helps that we cloak ourselves and no one out there really knows what we look like. I knew though, when you were left on the Library steps that our secret wasn't an absolute." He looked at me then, searching my face, looking for a reaction. What was I supposed to be reacting too, the building being cloaked or looking like a what, old lady when I was out on the street.

"Lily are you alright?" He was still searching my face.

"Sure I'm alright. Wouldn't you be hearing about this, please continue your story, tell me about the little green men."

Axel took a big, patient breath. "You're not that far off you know. They weren't green, that much I know." OK, where are the cameras because these are real tears that are leaking out of my eyes. "Conspiracies are interesting things," he said. "Did you know that all conspiracy theories are put out there by the people involved in the conspiracies? It's how they throw the general public off their scent. If we're talking about it then it can't possibly be happening. We're a good example of that." I think he's waiting for me to start screaming, yelling, hitting, running. I'm paralysed though. I feel torn apart believing the man who has never lied to me, except that he's been lying to me all along.

"My ancestors are not of this planet, where they came from and who they are exactly is another story for another time. It doesn't matter right now. What's important for you to know is this. When they first arrived, they co-existed with the people of this planet. We were all humans we just came from two different places. Some were happy with that, some weren't. Some of our ancestors felt themselves far superior and wanted to be in control of this planet's evolution, the other half thought it only right to allow human evolution to take place at its own natural pace. You see, they had come from a world whose technological and conscious advancement were far beyond the years of Earth humans. A war broke out between the factions and between Travellers and the humans. It was an ugly fight. The Travellers –as the ancestors were generally known- had far superior technology and eventually gained control. The fight then became a fight between Travellers. Sometimes the humans were caught in the crossfire. As time and history went on, the humans had begun to forget about the Travellers and they were relegated to ancient history and myths. This was a deliberate offensive on the part of the Travellers so that they could fight for control in private with no interference from a group of people who had no clue the gift they had been given when our ancestors arrived from the stars."

Again, he's searching my face. He can't read it. He has no clue whether I'm buying this or not. This is a moment, a small, tiny victorious moment that I'm supposed to be able to enjoy. Damn him, here come the tears again.

"Go on," I say impassively, trying to keep up my blank expression-my Axel expression, not wanting him to see how much he's freaking me out.

"A group broke off and set the Library in motion, archivists, record keepers, archaeologists, explorers. They wanted to chronicle what was happening, maybe someday someone would read all this and make sense of it. Just in case life on Earth did not survive the war between the Travellers. At least not survive as we know it. What you see in the Library is human history, the classified section that you know so well houses the literature that combines human and Traveller experiences. The real stuff, the stuff my ancestors left behind, that's in an area you have never been too, deep below the foundations of this building. If at any point in this discussion your expression changes from disbelief to curiosity I may just take you down there."

He was attempting to lighten the mood except what he's seeing on my face isn't so much disbelief as it is raving hysteria held under some amount of control. Again, he's staring at me.

"Shall I continue or do you want a break?" "I have a question," I said. "I know you said not to ask until the end but I have one now."

He nods his consent, watching, preparing himself. "Where are they, all these archivists, if you're all supposed to be here, I'd imagine all means more than three. Wait... Is Maisy one too?" He wasn't expecting this, not sure if that was a smirk or something mirroring regret.

"There are more of us. Several decades ago, alliances were formed among the archivists. There were those that didn't want to remain hidden- cloaked, anymore. We broke up into two groups. Us and the other group, they wanted to be out in the world, they wanted to fight the other factions. The other factions are strong, slowly placing their people into positions of power, running countries and all the technology, slowly feeding it to the masses until one day...(big pause)....so the other archivists wanted to get out there and fight, allow human evolution to take place at its own pace. This life, sitting here, taking care of documents wasn't the life they wanted anymore, not once they discovered what the world out there looks like, so they went out and formed a foundation called the Palace, they are the ones that continue to fund the Library."

"So why are you here," I interrupted, and I wasn't reprimanded for it so I waited for Axel to answer.

"I never wanted to leave. I didn't need the life out there. I had seen it as a young man and I knew I would be much happier living here and protecting my ancestor's legacy. It was the best decision I had made, staying, otherwise who would be here to keep you under control." He smiled at me as he said this and took my hand. I wasn't terrified anymore, numb was a better word to describe it.

"Lily, you are one of us. That's what stopped me dead in my tracks when your sweet baby face looked at me. We have an extra base pair in our DNA, an extra building block embedded into our genome. It's not something found here on Earth, it's an adaption our ancestors had to the planet they were originally from. We're essentially the same as Earth humans with just a few tweaks here and there, and we're older historically. We've been around longer than humans on Earth. We just come from two different places and have evolved a little differently, that's how for the most part we blend in and no-one's the wiser. We just get put down to some conspiracy theory and well it was actually our ancestors that propagated the theory of little green men, or grey as is the current theory."

Axel did something then. He tapped a button on his fancy watch. The one he never let me play with. The one he would never let me read the time from. I thought it was some fancy gift from a long-forgotten paramour and he didn't want me to break the precious memory of her. He let me believe that. Another lie.

"Lily look at me." No, I screamed in my head. I don't want to look at you, go away. "Lily please," and he grabbed my chin and turned my face to look at him. He held my head, not letting go, waiting until finally I looked up.

One of the things I remembered most about Axel from when I was a little girl were his big blue eyes. They always sparkled when he was amused at something I did. This stopped when I was older, his eyes and face growing impassive, but I'd seen it, the sparkle in that deep blue ocean that looked at me fondly, proudly and made me feel safe. I always remembered that when I looked at him, even to this day, except I wasn't looking into his big blue eyes anymore. The eyes that were looking back at me right now were golden in colour. The same colour as my eyes.

It wasn't a conscious thought. I didn't command any action from my body, it did it all itself. My body picked itself up and ran for the door. In retrospect Axel could have easily stopped me but something tells me he felt a little defeated himself. He let me go. I ran, ran until I was outside, by the river. I ran along the river until I finally collapsed onto the fallen tree trunk, my tree of safe haven. The last thing I remember was wondering if what I was looking at was real or is my small sanctuary a lie as well.

Chapter 8

Lily

This was going to turn into a nasty headache. My neck was sore, the pain radiating up through the back of my head. My eyes were all cried out. My body was still numb and cold. I finally opened my eyes after fighting it for a while. I knew I wasn't alone in the room and I wasn't yet ready to face anyone. Not even Axel. I never, ever believed I would ever think that. Not about him. And yet I knew him well enough to know that he would stay there until I was awake. He probably knew I was awake and was just waiting patiently for me to find some courage to face him.

I saw him sitting on the recliner by the fireplace opposite the sofa where I had been laid. I was surprised to see the fire blazing. I should be feeling warm right now lying here but I wasn't. I was chilled right down to the bone. He was watching me, waiting. I just stared back at him. He hadn't bothered to mask his eyes, they were still goldy brown and I hated them. This wasn't Axel, my Axel had blue eyes. My Axel was tall, blond and had the blue eyes that made me believe he descended from the Vikings I had seen in my history books. This man, the one sharing this cottage with me was a stranger to me. Oh God, there aren't supposed to be any tears left.

He was the one that finally broke the silence.

"I found you by the fallen tree trunk. I thought you were asleep but I couldn't rouse you, so I carried you back here. You've been asleep for most of the day. You're cold too." I didn't answer him, didn't speak. My throat felt raw, paralysed. All I could do was stare at him, stare at his eyes.

We just stared at each other in silence for what seemed like an eternity. I wanted to say so much, but my brain couldn't process anything into one single thought, I had heard too much, it all sounded so far-fetched and yet something inside me rang true. Was that the start of a screaming sound in my head.

Eventually, unconsciously I whispered, "You lied to me."

That was a laugh of sorts, something I hadn't heard out of Axel in years. "Is that all you have to say after everything you've heard that I lied to you."

"You told me you would never lie to me. You told me I could trust you and only you, absolutely."

His elbows were on his knees now, he dropped his face into his hands. Weariness was beginning to push its way through his calm defences. It was unsettling seeing Axel this way. I knew the Axel I had grown to love was gone forever, somebody else had taken his place.

"You know, trust isn't black and white Lily. You trusted me to keep you safe and I have, I always will. I lied to you to keep you safe, so you would always feel safe."

"So why do I get the feeling I'm not so safe anymore, now that the big secret is out. Or shouldn't I be saying any of this, you know cos the scary Curator is watching."

"I've disabled the surveillance cameras in here, in all places in fact. They're not necessary anymore. The Curator didn't know I knew about the ones in here. I played along with him though, to keep you safe. I played dumb, to keep you safe." Was it my imagination or was he growing a smidge hysterical?

"Safe from who?" I was starting to reach a new level of hysteria myself.

"Safe from the Curators plans for you. I'm worried now. This isn't how it was meant to play out I'm sure of that now and I'm worried about what he's going to do. He's always wanted to impress the Palace, find a way into the top. He had a plan for you, and it was all going to end with him revealing you to them. This has thrown his plans and I'm afraid of what's coming next. Lily we have to get out of here, just you and me. I know of a place we can go where we can be safe for a short while, figure out what to do next. Our bags are packed. The Curators gone, he left the Library and won't be back for a week. I'm afraid of who he might bring back with him."

OK, hysterical now. I started shivering; I had no idea where this was coming from why this feeling of dread was starting to creep its way up my spine. And then...Axel was on the couch, holding me to him. Repeating over and over, "we have to go, we have to leave here."

"What are you doing?" I yelped a little too suddenly.

"What," he replied, startled.

"This, this hugging thing. What are you doing?" He smiled then. "Lily, you're shivering, your cold, this room is hot and it's having no effect on you. You're trying very hard to mask how scared you are right now. So, this hugging thing, I'm comforting you. That's what people do for one another at times like this."

I really liked it, the feeling of his arms around me. It made me feel safe. It made me miss all those times when he never hugged me, never touched me, never showed any emotion. And it made me more scared.

"You never do this. Hug me, why now? You're just freaking me out more." Again, the smile.

"I wanted to. The times you were sad, upset, when you bounded through that door with a smile on your face, but I couldn't. The Curator watched every move we made, every day of your life. I couldn't let him know how I felt about you. How I had come to love you. You're my daughter Lily. It's that simple but I couldn't let the Curator know that. He had to believe that I was unattached to you. I needed to know what he was up to. Once he found out what you were, he became obsessed, searching for your origins, your parents. He never found out where you came from, but he started forming a plan. I have my suspicions, but I don't know for sure that I'm right, it's more a feeling. To keep you safe, I needed him to believe that you were little more than a burden thrust on me because nobody else here wanted to raise you. He did in fact order me to raise you. His idea of a burden was the greatest day of my life, something I never shared with him."

The water works were on. I couldn't help the tears, they were streaming down my face and I didn't care that Axel could see them. He slowly caught my face in his hands and started wiping the tears away.

"You really love me, like I'm your daughter and you're my dad." As I looked at him, I noticed how shiny his eyes were with unshed tears. Axel was starting to cry. "Yes," he said. "You're the most precious thing to me and I'm sorry I couldn't tell you this before. You have to know Lily, I never believed I would have children and when you turned up, it was like my greatest wish had come true. I couldn't have chosen a better daughter. You and I, we need to survive whatever's going to happen next because we have a lot of time to make up for."

"Do I have to start calling you dad now?" Axel chuckled through his tears. We were both blubbering. The unmovable, passive, uncaring faced Axel was crying by my side. This definitely was the beginning of a new world.

"Lily listen to me. We have a small window of opportunity, we have a few hours before we absolutely have to leave. The Curator won't be expecting us to take off, he will have left the Library unguarded. I think you need to see the Library, the real one. I have to pick up some stuff from there anyway. Then we're leaving. Once we have time, distance and safety on our side we can discuss our options and decide our next move." I still felt numb.

"I know you don't feel like getting up right now."

He had magically pulled a cup of his special this will cure anything tea out of thin air and shoved it into my hands. "Here, drink this. You'll feel better in no time. I will finish up here and then we have to make a move."

He stopped for a moment and smoothed down my unruly I'm feeling hysterical hair and smiled at me. "It's going to be ok, we're going to be ok. Do you believe me?". "Yes," I whispered. How can I not believe my dad.

And that's the moment it happened. The moment my life changed forever

Chapter 9

Lily

There were times when I used to delay returning from my errands in town. I never told anybody that I would sneak into the local town library and just sit there. It wasn't anything like our Library. There was hustle and bustle and people coming and going. Students studying, librarians reading to children, someone always trying to hush someone else-that was my favourite part, it made me smile, our library wasn't noisy. I would think, 'this must be what a library is supposed to look like', that is until I saw the ancestor's library.

We rode an elevator I never knew existed down to the lower sub-ground. I nearly said level except there wasn't just one level. There were three. The first held all the literature, the second all the equipment and on the third is a lab. Axel sounded like a tour guide as he was explaining all this. He spoke very patiently, very academically as if we were safe and he had all the time in the world. His description didn't prepare me for what I saw when the lift doors opened. Axel had to push me out of the elevator so that I wasn't left behind in stunned silence.

I could see all three levels from the platform we were standing on. Gangways joined sections of the library all encased in glass. Down along the central platform of every level stood desks, computers, writing facilities, copying facilities like lots of students could be accommodated for study on any given day.

"What I need is on the next level down," said Axel.

"Wait," I said. "Don't leave me, I just need to see one thing that these people have written then I will come down with you to get your stuff and we'll go." He was impatient but he didn't speak, he knew my curiosity was masking my shock. He walked over to a shelf taking the gangway to our left, looked through the shelves, he chose a book and motioned me to meet him at a desk in the centre aisle.

It was eerie and quiet down here. I was starting to feel like there were eyes everywhere watching me, waiting for my reaction? Maybe they were trying to keep me down here, seriously this place was huge and I could live a lifetime down here and still not have seen everything. Axel placed the book in front of me.

"Do I need a magic spell, code or key to open this book," I asked. "You watch too much TV Lily, quick now just open and have a look through we should try and get out of here sooner rather than later."

Well nothing exploded. I was onto the fifth page, my hands were still intact, there were no strange winds burning off my skin once I'd opened it. Oh Boy, Axel was right I do watch too much TV. I blame Indiana Jones. Of course, my mind was trying to distract me because the only other option it had was to explode with everything that was happening right now.

The writing in the book, it was like something I recognised but couldn't read. Like I knew it was English but not a dialect I recognised. "Can you read this Axel?" I asked. "Yes," was all he said. He was trying very hard to be patient. My mind blew apart a little more with every page that I turned. Then came something I recognised. Writing, a gene sequence, hieroglyphs and pictures of pharaohs?

"Axel, what is this?"

He peered over my shoulder and took a deep breath. "What do you think it is," really Axel we're playing twenty questions now.

"It looks like a gene sequence and hieroglyphs and portraits from ancient Egyptian times." "Right." he said. "Look at the pictures, what's unusual about them."

I know the answer, oh my gosh, the Curator made me study ancient Egypt extensively. "I think this is Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti. They had elongated heads, all the royal family did back then. He was the first pharaoh to make the artists draw them in their true form, so this is the first time we see these deformities depicted in ancient Egypt."

I looked at Axel waiting for my well done. He was back to blank face again. "Do you know how the deformities came about?"

Yes, I knew this stuff. "Boards and bandages, they use to torture their poor kids and tighten the bandages around their heads and boards until their craniums were forced to grow into this shape."

"Yes," he said. "Eventually that's what happened but that's not how it started, at least not with these two. Here's what the history books don't say. When our ancestors (I wish he'd stop saying our) came here, they lived among the people but only made their true selves known to the rulers hoping they could integrate in a way where they could teach the human population on Earth all the universal truths they knew, share technology and as we said for some factions, to gain power. There were some among them that thought this Earth version of humans was a little crude and tried to upgrade them to be the same as the visitors. That's what the gene sequences here on this page are. They genetically manipulated the Earth human DNA to look like their DNA by adding the extra base pair. Something didn't work though. In theory it should have, they had the technology and knowhow but there was an unknown factor. The offspring of these experiments grew with some anomalies and deformities. The abnormally shaped head was the most obvious. Elongated torso, arms, legs, fingers and toes was the other way to identify them physically. They were infertile, suffered from ill health and didn't live a long time, although not many humans did back then."

Stop. Pause.

Head exploding.

Axel was on a roll and he didn't stop talking. He was getting to a point and then he wanted us out. I take a deep breath, deep breath in I calm myself...deep breath out and smile...ok.

"Wait," I remembered something. "Didn't these two have children? How's that possible if they were infertile." He smiled. Super stressed but still thinking. Axel was proud, my dad was proud.

"Their children aren't the offspring of Mr and Mrs Pharaoh. They're embryos from the lab, the next level of experiments trying to get it right. See our friend here Akhenaten was somewhat of a favourite amongst the visitors. They raised him, taught him and when he was old enough and took power, he absolved the many gods theology of the time and started preaching a single origin theory, one creator, one source, one universe. That's what he was being taught. The visitors didn't want to live in this makeshift, crude existence. They understood the universe, they did not want to worship a bunch of different gods so this was another step to transforming human existence on Earth. One that they could control and fit into, or rather make the humans fit for them. Akhenaten wasn't very popular for this, his death was a victory for the polytheists. They labelled him a heretic, destroyed as much of his philosophy and existence as possible and went back to normal, worshipping their many gods. The Earth humans weren't ready for what the visitors had to offer. They had to get there on their own evolutionary time, not just physically but consciously as well. The humans still aren't there, well to be fair, some are, but this is an all or nothing deal. They're still missing the point of their existence, that's why the war between the factions is raging."

"But what about Nefertiti, she wasn't born in Egypt."

"No," confirmed Axel. "These experiments didn't just take place in Egypt they were worldwide. She was deliberately chosen for Akhenaten by our ancestor teachers. Evidence is found today from all over the world of these anomalies. Some of the skeletons are real deformities, genetically based. Others were mimics. You see only the people in power looked this way, so the general population started to deliberately deform the heads of their children to look like their 'gods'. Barbaric, I understand why some of the ancestors hated being here. That's where the paddle and bandages come into play."

This was all starting to sound like a bad dream. "The modern history books say that Akhenaten was afflicted with Froehlick's Syndrome, if you remember Tutankhamen, Akhenaten's son was also afflicted with many physical ailments and deformities, the next generation of embryos still had many problems." I remembered information buried in the recesses of my exploding mind.

"Yes, the origins of this disease lie in genetic experiments from ancient times. If you look at the humans today you can still see some of the features, not as pronounced. Eventually, the experiments gained back fertility for these people and softened some of the more obvious deformities but never quite made it to a complete copy of our DNA. It's still a problem some of the otherworld scientists are working on although they have found more horrific ways of using what they learnt."

Oh I really am not ready to hear about this, I remembered the scary giant ape-dog with the goldy brown eyes. Axel continued oblivious to my mounting horror.

"If you know what you are looking for you can see it in today's population - elongated faces, elongated appendages, some of the people afflicted with this are still infertile."

"Is that what the labs downstairs are for, for this type of experiment?" I'm not sure I wanted to know the answer.

"At one time yes. The results of these experiments can still be found here. Not anymore though, at least not by us here at the Library." Well that sounded ominous.

"I don't want to see anymore," I decided quite suddenly. "Can we go now."

I'm not sure why Axel closed the book ever so carefully and returned it to its place. He stopped speaking, like he had filled his quota and just took my elbow and guided me back to the lift. We made it down to the next level and walked into tech world.

"Whoa, what is all this stuff," I was impressed.

"There are just a few things we need to help us on our journey. Stay here, don't move, don't touch anything, I won't be long."

Of course, I wanted to touch everything. This stuff looked awesome. I couldn't imagine what half of it did, some of the things I could see from where I was sitting didn't even look like they had controls, buttons, handles or anything. Just smooth ball shaped objects that looked like they could fit into the palm of my hand. I was engrossed watching Axel methodically deposit stuff into the two backpacks he was carrying. He definitely knew what he wanted and were to find it.

I noticed Axel looking at his watch for want of a better word and purposely looked my way. "Let's go," is all he said and then we were leaving the library. Part of me wanted to stay here and explore, this is the part of me that began to collapse under the enormity of what was happening, what was about to happen.

"Am I ever going to see this place again?" Axel looked at me sadly. His expressive face was beginning to unnerve me.

"I hope so Lily, this is your home and your legacy but right now, I just don't know what the future holds." Great, now he decides honesty is best.

Axel practically ran out of the lift. "I've already hidden most of our belongings outside, I'm going to add this to the pile, no one can see us leaving with bags. Check the cottage once more, make sure we haven't left anything behind and then meet me out front. It's time to go".

There wasn't anything I was really attached to in the house. Just a photo I'd had since I was ten of me and Axel sitting on our cottage steps, his blue eyes twinkling, a big gleaming smile. It was the last time I had ever seen him look at me like that. I started for the front of the Library by way of the kitchen. I couldn't help myself, I had to see Maisy one last time.

I stopped at the door "Any treats for me Maisy", this was our daily ritual. She came over with a towel holding two pies filled with something very yummy smelling.

"Here you go sweetie, just out of the oven".

I hadn't realised I'd done it until it was too late, I was hugging her, tight. "Oh my, what's got into you Lily, they're the same pies you've had a million times," she giggled.

"I know," I said, "I really love your pies, it's exactly what I wanted."

"Be back here at six" Maisy said as I started for the door "you're helping me with dinner tonight".

"Will do," I said. I had my back to her, if she saw my face she would know something was wrong because I had no capacity for holding back my tears any more. "See you then Maisy, thanks for the pies."

And that was that. In only a few moments I was going to the leave the Library forever.

Chapter 10

The beast

Only three Esperanzi and two palace guards made it out of Magic Man's house. After Wolf took his life, after the initial shock it was a free for all. All hands-on deck made for retreat and any man or beast in the way was cut down. The pack leader and Gordon were the only ones that remained calm in the melee. The pack leader was distracted for only a moment while he was taking blood and tissue samples from Wolf. It took him a second to register the muzzle of a gun at his head. He looked up the barrel of the gun to find the man named Gordon smiling back at him.

"He's one of ours, the body belongs to us. Run along now back to your masters, tell them how you failed, and tell them that we in this story have the upper hand". With this he cocked the gun, ready for the next move.

The pack leader wasn't stupid. He understood the choice he had to make and joined his remaining pack in retreat. He was pissed but he also had the samples. He didn't question whether this would console his superiors or not, he just knew he had to return with something. The pack regrouped outside the house and ran through the quiet, night-time suburban streets. They needed to find refuge for the night, lick their wounds, contact head office. The pack leader needed to make his report.

An hour of running led them into dense woodland, a narrow running creek and a now empty cave would serve as their cover for this night. All the Esperanzi were equipped with medical kits and a working knowledge of first aid. None were seriously injured, cuts and bruises and a ripped ear for one member. The pack leader was unharmed, he had avoided battle by going after Wolf. He sat and gathered his thoughts. Angry was the emotion he was feeling, something he was beginning to feel all the time. He hadn't anticipated any adversity, he hadn't been told the Palace were tracking them. Was this deliberate or were Gentech unaware.

The pack leader knew his best defence with Gentech was the appearance of blind stupidity. It's something he cultivated amongst his pack. The humans thought they were stupid, even though exercises such as retrievals were difficult and dangerous requiring smarts that the humans still didn't quite understand these creatures possessed. They believed the Esperanzi were no more than blood hounds with special skills. They believed the Esperanzi were only as good as they were because of the technology they were trained to use. Wrong. The Esperanzi had grown intelligent enough to assess, plan and assault a target. They were smart, instinctive, vicious and egotistical. The pack leader's feelings were hurt. He did not complete his assignment and he was ready to make someone pay. He prayed his next target would be the one the humans called Gordon. An instinctive growl rose out of the leader's throat whenever he pictured this human. Specifically, the picture of Gordon smiling down at him as if he'd just discovered a fascinating relic at the museum. The leader was already creating new and wonderful ways of making this human suffer. Another growl as his thoughts were interrupted by the incessant beeping of his watch. The secure communication satellite was above them now. It was time to make his report. The pack leader put on his stupid face and dialled in.

The Esperanzi's brain- the part that connected images and memories- had been fitted with a communications microchip. Their vocal anatomical structures were such that they could only make short syllable guttural sounding words. One could not simply chat with an Esperanzi over coffee. Instead the chip allowed the beast to access certain memories and relay the pictures back through the satellite system to its recipient. Something like the multimedia messaging service smart phones use, just a little more detailed and fancier. This is how the leader gave his report. He replayed the whole event all the way to Gordon taking ownership of Wolf's body.

There was a great deal of shouting on the other end of the communicator. The Esperanzi may not be able to use their words properly, they did however have no problem understanding what was being said to them. Gordon's appearance came as a great shock, shouts of 'why is he there', 'how did he know', 'we were told the Palace didn't know about Wolf'. So, they didn't know the Palace was tracking his pack. This amused the pack leader, it wasn't often the board where taken by surprise.

The board wasn't happy. They wanted Wolf's body and there was a lot of arguing due to the fact that they would not receive it, alive or dead. The pack leader felt like slapping his forehead to show his frustration at the not so awe-inspiring humans. He once again showed them the samples he had taken, interrupting their screaming matches. Only one of the board members had quietened down, only she began to understand what she was seeing.

"Stop, everyone, stop talking. Look. It's got a sample of blood and tissue. We haven't lost everything. So he can't tell us where his daughter is, but we may be able to track her through their common DNA".

The rest of the board quietened down, some by now where feeling a little simple for not recognising this. Really that's all they needed. Some common DNA and the Esperanzi could track her down using their Gene Trackers.

"Return to this facility immediately, no rest, no delay. We must have those samples before they become compromised".

The sample of course would not be compromised. It was stored in a small chamber of the collector, temperature at -40 degrees Celsius and all air sucked out creating a vacuum environment. The leader knew this, the leader knew he and his remaining pack could rest for the night, he also knew the board didn't care. All they cared about was the sample. Douche bags is what he didn't think in case a picture of his feelings for them came up on the screen. He continued the simpleton act until they were offline.

The rest of the pack had heard the orders. Enough of their guttural sounds could be understood to know they were not happy and they all shared images doing pretty much the same things to the board members. The Esperanzi didn't like humans. That's what made them good hunters, they enjoyed the ruthlessness they were allowed to display during their hunts.

Each Esperanzi had nutrient pills in their bracelets, one quick swallow and they were on their way back. They would run cloaked all the way back to Gentech where they would be given the once over by the medical team before being sent out again. And once again, the pack leader would find himself with new pack members. This meant re-initiating and training new members and he hated doing that. He was not having a great day.

Chapter 11

Lily

We had been driving silently for about an hour. I didn't even know Axel had a car, more lies. At this point I believed that whatever happened from now on I couldn't possibly be any more surprised. I didn't even ask where we were going, I was just all questioned out. Axel said that we would be on the road for about four hours before we reached our destination. Great, thank goodness for my iPod, a very thoughtful gift from Maisy on my fifteenth birthday. I could just pretend that everything was just peachy while I tuned out of the distressing conversation taking place in my head.

I had noticed Axel looking at me several times. I guess he was looking for some sign as to what I was feeling and thinking. I was wrong. Eventually he removed my earphone and said, "are those things just for looks or do we get to eat them". He was referring to the pies I had sitting on my lap. I couldn't bear to part with them let alone eat them. "Sure," I said "if you want," eventually giving in to Axels white flag.

He looked more exhausted than I'd expected. Since we left the Library, I had avoided any form of eye or verbal contact with him. I was overwhelmed, yet the lines on his face, the weariness I could see there managed to surprise me, just when I thought nothing more could. We stopped at a truck stop on the side of the road. Two hours to go and we were losing light. The pies were delicious, as always. I felt guilty eating them as if I was betraying Maisy. She would be looking for me now it was already 6.30 in the evening. Soon someone would raise the alarm, first Maisy would notice I was gone and then they would realise that no-one had seen Axel all day. I guess we were officially on the run.

"Believe it or not Lily, I understand why you don't want to talk but it's unsettling me a little, this quietness from you. I usually have to beg for your silence."

He startled me as he spoke and I dropped my water bottle. I just stood there watching the water spill out of the bottle, forming a small river on the dirt ground heading away from the car. Startled again as I felt Axel's arms wrapping around me. They were so warm, so strong, so comforting and it was my undoing. I sobbed like a baby. I don't know for how long, Axel picked me up after a while "we have to get going," he whispered, softly, sadly, and placed me back into the front seat of the car.

He placed a kiss on my forehead. I remember touching that spot with my fingertips. I don't remember Axel ever doing something like that. I could feel his amusement, he knew I wasn't coping well with his change in overt affection. This was a whole new world.

"A little longer Lily and we'll be safe. We both need to sleep and tomorrow we can start making our plans." That was the last thing I remembered before I felt Axel's hand on my shoulder, shaking it to wake me up.

"We're here. Help me with this gear, we're going to have to camouflage the car," which he did, with a piece of fabric that when placed over the car looked exactly like the forest around us.

"It's a blend of synthetic materials that bends the surrounding light, something like a hologram, it camouflages anything to look like its surroundings," a cloak of invisibility, awesome. I would have been so much more impressed if I wasn't so scared and tired.

We had to trek up the side of the mountain and through this incredibly narrow passageway. I couldn't see it, I just followed Axel's exact steps. It's a path that couldn't be seen from our point of origin. I had to file it away for future questions. We eventually walked into what looked like a sanctuary, old -definitely, musty -somewhat, well lit- yes. There were clear quartz crystal formations in certain places in the high-domed ceiling carved from the rock that allowed the light to penetrate this oversized cavern. No bats, just a little dust, some spider webs and us.

"I found this place by accident when I was looking through some of the ancestor's books. It's an observatory of some kind. I've only been here once before, to check it out, use it as a safe haven if we needed it. So here we are." I was too tired to really appreciate what Axel was saying, he led me to what looked like a bench, set up the sleeping bag and I lay down. Simply, quickly and I think I was asleep before my head hit the makeshift pillow.

Chapter 12

Jason

They had met in the library soon after Wolf came to the Palace. Jason had heard rumours about this man of course and after several weeks in his presence he began to feel how unfair the 'unhinged' rumours had been. Jason was always in the library, nose in book reading everything he could possibly get his hands on. Wolf escaped to the library, whenever he could.

It was later that Jason discovered the library helped Wolf feel closer to his daughter, metaphysically speaking that is. Occasionally they would nod in acknowledgment of each other's presence, occasionally a pleasantry would be exchanged. Jason came to find Wolf's presence in the library comforting, the consistency of it made Jason believe that all was ok with the world. First contact came when Wolf had collapsed one day, grief stricken.

He had tried to comfort Wolf on that day. Wolf forever distant tried to persuade him that all was ok. He couldn't though, his grief was all too real. It was the day of his daughter's birthday Jason had come to learn two years later. That's how long it had taken Wolf to come to trust Jason, to confess a truth or release a burden, Jason was never sure which. It was a huge secret, one that Wolf had considered carefully before trusting it to Jason.

Wolf wasn't entirely sure why he had entrusted this secret to one boy when he had lied to the entire Palace, maybe he understood that with his death his daughter would be vulnerable and he needed to know there was a way out for her. Maybe it was the earnest way Jason sat and devoured any printed word. Maybe it was Jason's disregard for Palace authority always questioning, always being reprimanded, occasionally being punished for not towing the party line.

Maybe Jason saw in Wolf the exact same thing and came to trust this man in an institute where he had learned at too young an age that trust is a gift carefully given and rarely received, Wolf's trust in Jason was just as precious as giving Wolf his own. Whatever it was, Wolf's trust was well placed. Jason knew about Wolf's daughter, he promised Wolf he would look for her, care for her, protect her if anything had ever happened to Wolf.

He wasn't sure why he was receiving these dreams. He knew his extra base pair enhanced all of his senses, he knew many of the Travellers could do some really scary stuff with their minds but he had never been one to apply himself to that type of training, relying instead on his instincts, his very finely tuned instincts that were now screaming at him to get himself ready to leave the Palace. He had a bonafied mission on his hands.

He knew Wolf was dead. He knew Wolf had sacrificed himself, he had seen the whole thing in his dream. Maybe it was a telepathic projection, maybe Wolf meant it, maybe it was their emotional connection. It probably didn't matter now. All that mattered was making sure Wolf's daughter was safe.

There is something Jason never told Wolf. Last year Jason did something that would have severed all connection with Wolf had he found out. The Palace students were encouraged to take a field trip every year and live among the humans for a month at a time. Learn to blend, become one with them and understand the differences between the humans and the Travellers.

It was Jason's second month out. He had a set assignment and coincidence or not it was living in a city a short distance from the Library. So of course, the logical thing to do was to find his way there and take a look. It would help, he argued that if he ever needed to lend his aid, that he should know what she looked like. Nothing of course to do with the fact that he was 18 years old and thought a lot about girls.

He didn't immediately see the Library, it was his magic watch as he fondly thought of it that alerted him to alien tech in the vicinity. He definitely had the right place, although going to visit undetected was going to be difficult. If he was to do anything to the cloaked Library he would alert its inhabitants to his presence.

His solution wasn't long in forming. In fact, there wasn't much he had to do at all. There was someone coming out of the warehouse building and without giving it too much thought, Jason pressed his magic invisible cloak button and ran through the open door. If he had been detected then no-one was responding. Of course, Jason always had his magic watch on high and immediate alert when he was in human land- paranoid to every degree, he fleetingly wondered if maybe whoever walked out, cloaked themselves and therefore didn't worry about high alerts.

It took him several attempts to find the door that revealed what was behind the cloak. This did not look like his library. This was something different, something older and overwhelmingly awesome in such a way that he just wanted to sit in it and read for the rest of his life. He climbed the stairs to a level where everywhere he looked he saw books, parchments, scrolls, old things, new things and right there in the middle of the room sitting at an old wooden desk, feet tucked under her legs, absorbed in a book was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen. She was smiling, reading and smiling.

An outsider looking through Jason's invisible cloak would have seen a young man staring open mouthed at this poor, unsuspecting girl. If he could see himself he would not have been very impressed, not cool. It took ages for his legs to start working again, his muscle fibres remembering their job and carrying him forward towards the desk, towards the girl 'god I hope this is Wolf's daughter, please let it be her' he silently prayed to himself.

Her chestnut coloured hair lay in a curtain around her. Every now and then she would flick it over her shoulder until she became impatient enough to pick up a pencil and use it to tie her hair up behind her head. And in that moment, preoccupied with her hair she jerked her head around and stared straight at him.

Jason was gaping like a fish out of water terrified at being discovered, terrified at explaining his presence. That is until he noticed something strange in her expression. She wasn't looking at him exactly she was looking straight through him. She was responding to something, a shift in energy, a ghost in the room, not sure. The only thing Jason was sure of was those beautiful almond shaped golden-brown eyes looking at the exact spot that he was standing in.

He was holding his breath now that he had enough sense to close his mouth, too afraid to move, close enough so that if he did reach out his hand he could touch her.

That's when the alarm sounded, loud and shrill. He knew that sound was the 'I can detect foreign alien tech' alarm, he was about to be in a whole world of trouble if he didn't move. There was nothing else he could do.

Wolf's daughter had whipped her head around, unsure it seemed of what was happening. With one last look at her, Jason turned and ran as quickly as he could out the door, out of the library, out of the warehouse and kept running until he was on the edge of town. He was too afraid to go back for his car. Too afraid that whoever had responded to that alarm would come looking for him. He couldn't risk it. Coming here was a stupid idea, stupid boy.

This little stunt could have led the Palace straight to her or worse, the Library inhabitants straight to him. He knew he had to lay low for the rest of his time out with the humans. A Ute was getting ready to drive out of town, within seconds of it taking off Jason jumped into the empty rear tray, still cloaked, and hitched his ride out of town.

He would come to pick up his car in a couple of days. No cloak, no alien tech. No-one would know he was ever there. He couldn't stop thinking about this girl as his mind's eye filled with her every detail. Jason had noticed what she was reading and with a smile knew that he was going to dream about this girl a lot.

Chapter 13

Lily

My dreams that night were filled with laughter punctuated with warm arms, running, fear, giant hairy animals and someone screaming run. I had woken with a start, sitting bolt upright staring into complete darkness. We're not in Kansas anymore I thought... Unfortunately for me there was no wizard to give me the secret to going home. Fortunately for me my companion had a heart, brain and courage.

My back ached a little. Axel had tried to make the stone bench as comfortable for me as he could. A reflection I guess of things to come. "Lily are you ok?" I heard Axel say, concern in his voice. He must have heard me rustling around in my makeshift bed.

"Where are you Axel? Please don't tell me you're sleeping on the floor." I realised his voice had come from somewhere down below.

"Yes," he replied. "I wanted to stay close in case you needed me."

"I'm fine," I said. "I'm having trouble sleeping. I don't suppose you've got a stun gun or knock out serum in that backpack of yours." I just wanted to sleep, an unconscious, dreamless, emotionless sleep, for a very long time.

"I'll make some tea. I can't really sleep either," and with that Axel rose from the very hard and uncomfortable stone floor, switched on his camp lamp and readied himself for tea making. This use to amuse me to no end growing up, every restless, uncomfortable, sickness, angst ridden moment in our lives was always accompanied with some of Axel's tea. I was hoping this was a sign of some kind of normalcy, not just covering fear and apprehension.

It was not cold in the cave, surprisingly, so fortunately there was no need of a warm fire although I'm pretty sure Axel would never have lit one, smoke and all. There was a warm glow reflected through the crystal panes in the ceiling. It was somewhat comforting as it wrapped us both in its filtered moonlight haze.

"Axel, what is this place?" The tea was also contributing to my warming body. I could already feel the aches dissolving.

"As far as I can tell it's an observatory. I found reference to it in an old book in the other library. I've been here before, to scout it out in case we ever needed it. I even stored some supplies for us (as he pointed to my makeshift bed). We can't stay here though Lily. It's tempting I know but if I found it, you can be sure at some point the Curator will too. We have to be long gone before he does."

Silence.

There was no sound in this cave, this observatory. I don't think I had ever experienced no sound before. I couldn't even hear Axel breathe or sip his tea, just the constant heavy thud of my scared heart beating in my chest.

"Axel, you said the Curator had plans for me. What plans?" OK, I heard that. That was a sigh coming straight from Axel. I braced myself, he was either going to tell me something horrible or try very hard to avoid answering this question.

"Do you really want to know Lily, because if I say it, I can't unsay it and you may prefer not to know."

He was back to blank face. In the last couple of days Axel's blank face had been replaced by expressive face and I found that I was now becoming wary of blank face.

"Just tell, like ripping off a band aid."

Axel took a moment, I guess he was gathering his thoughts. I wonder, what is the best way to tell a scary story.

"When you first came to the Library," he started, "the Curator took some of your blood. Obviously the colour of your eyes told us you had the ancestor base pair, our eye colour is just one of the quirks of our DNA, but we didn't know to what extent. I mean"...he sounded nervous. I've never heard Axel sound nervous, what else are the days are ahead going to reveal about him.

"There are variations of our DNA out there now. There is the original source Travellers, the experimental hybrids and various generational offspring of both. The Curator wanted to know what you were exactly. The results of your blood test were unexpected...stunning actually. You had evidence of human DNA in your genes so at first hybrid is what we thought. We continued testing though, the Curator wanted to know how far back your human DNA went because you didn't have the typical hybrid phenotype I've told you about before." He paused a little unsure maybe as to how to continue, or was he waiting for me to catch up.

"Do you remember what genetic junk is Lily?" Yes I nodded, we only understood the function of a small percentage of our DNA, the rest is thought to be useless, ergo junk. I always thought this was a little conceited on sciences part. You know, just because we don't know what is does doesn't mean it's not doing anything.

"Well you don't have any. A certain amount is normal, in humans and Travellers. You don't have any. In fact, our theory as to why you don't have any is this extra component to your blood that we have never seen before."

Pause to catch up.

"I'm following Axel, please tell me."

"We've talked about nanites before in our science-tech lessons." It was between a comment and a question.

'Yes, I remember. Microscopic artificial components added to the human body to repair damage...unless they take over human consciousness." I got the reprimanding stare from him. He knew what I was thinking of and again the stare very loudly told me I was watching too much TV.

"These components in your blood are biological in origin. They do however act like artificial nanites cleaning up the junk and repairing your DNA and your body and probably allowing you to function as clearly and concisely as you do. That's one of the reasons you don't stay sick or hurt for long. Do you understand how unexpectedly amazing this is? We identified something new in the alien/human DNA. It could have arisen from an evolutionary process, a mutation we're not sure but it was, it is, big news."

Thankfully he paused because I was breathing in very short breaths now as dizziness was starting to overwhelm me. Axel as stoic as always filled up my now empty cup with tea.

"Do you want me to stop Lily, we can finish this later." I was a little stunned at how fragile Axel thought I was or at least was in this instant. Maybe I looked fragile as I had laid my head between my knees trying to stave off hyperventilation. It worked at least, that and a good swig of the happy juice.

"No, you started now. Tell me everything you know."

"OK...There's a place called the Palace, I told you about this yesterday. I also told you that the Curator always had aspirations of moving there some day. They wanted him to look after the archive halls, much to his displeasure so he spent time looking for ways out. You were his way out. He tried to harvest your cells, grow them in tissue culture. Problem was he could never find the right media combination to support the growth of these live nanites – that's what the Curator called them. He was very frustrated. I believe his plan was to grow the live nanites in culture and take them to the Palace. He would have been heralded a hero, prodigal son returns home, you get what I mean (as I nod absently). Live nanite growth however was not supported outside your body, these components in your blood did not survive in artificial conditions. He had to come up with another way." Pause again, except this one was different. I had the very distinct feeling that he really didn't want to say the next part out loud.

"Please Axel," I begged. "Just tell me."

"Last year I overheard a conversation the Curator was having on the phone. He was talking to someone about egg harvesting procedures, how to stimulate ovaries, how to collect human eggs. Keep in mind that I only heard his side of the conversation, but it was enough to start me snooping, my instincts were alarmed and I knew he was trying to find another way to grow your nanites artificially. I formed a theory over the next couple of months. I'm pretty sure I had guessed what he was planning."

I did not like where this was going.

"The only other way the curator could have any success in harvesting the live nanites was to harvest your eggs, freeze them and take them to the Palace for further culturing. They have technology that may have more success with the original DNA." I didn't realise I had started to shake until Axel wrapped a blanket around me.

"I'm going to continue Lily, we're nearly at the end of this." I couldn't control the shakes. They were coming from somewhere deep inside, some primitive area that was finely attuned to a physical threat, hell to an emotional threat. I could hear Axel speaking, I understood what he was saying, it all sounded so distant though as if I was hearing a story on the radio.

"It was around this time I had started putting an escape plan in motion. I kept a close eye on him, any evidence that he was going to go on with this plan and we were leaving. As it turns out you beat him to it by finding that book, dreaming that dream." Oh God that dream, I'd nearly forgotten about it. I can't ask about that yet. I can't hear any more about aliens right now.

"I checked the lab when he left the other day. We had three vials of your blood frozen, they were all gone Lily. I checked the cameras. The Curator has taken them. Best guess, he's taken them to the Palace and he'll be bringing Palace guards back with him. The Palace is going to come after you Lily. They're going to want to know where you came from and how you work. That's why we have to disappear."

Find a word that reflects how you feel, this will ground you- that was a lesson Axel had taught me a long time ago. Numb. In a couple of days I went from being a happy teenager living a pretty sweet life in a library aspiring to become an archival conservationist and instead I've turned into an alien oddity everyone wants to poke needles into. A cliché, I have become a friggin cliché I think to myself while Axel pours me yet another cup of tea.

Jason

Jason has an inexplicable acute sense of timing. He arrived at the warehouse cloaked Library just as a car had pulled away from the curb. Luckily, he was paying attention because he noticed the pretty brown-haired girl of his adventure last year sitting in the front passenger seat. He didn't hesitate he turned the steering wheel and followed. If she was heading in a certain direction than so was he, he was determined.

Something wasn't right though he knew that, although whoever was driving the car wasn't drawing any attention to themselves by speeding or breaking even a left-hand turning law, he felt the need for the car's occupants to leave, very quickly. He followed them at a distance. He silently thanked the stars for the amount of traffic on the road, enough to keep his pursuit disguised. Jason had quickly scanned the car he was pursuing for alien tech as they all left the Library and couldn't detect anything other than trace elements, it was very faint but it was definitely there.

They weren't cloaking themselves, this suggested that they were trying to avoid identification by any Travellers in the area. Good idea, Jason in turn turned off all his alien tech. These thoughts brought his awareness back to the ache coming from his left arm. That's where the trackers were inserted in all Palace inhabitants.

What the Palace didn't know is that since learning Wolf's story Jason had been working on a device that would neutralise the tracker. He couldn't afford the Palace following him straight to his intended target. It was nearly a year on completion and Jason had tested it on a child in the cafeteria one lunch time. He simply walked up to the boy, accidentally fell into him and pressed the device into his arm emitting a silent put powerful sonic pulse directed to the area of tracker insertion.

It worked, within half an hour the Palace guards were on the terrified child and eventually explaining it all away as a technical malfunction. By this time the tracker had started to degrade and seep toxins into the boy's blood stream. Not deadly, not yet at least. The tracker had to be removed immediately, left inside the muscle for a long period and death by toxic poisoning was a very real possibility. Luckily the leak had been detected in the boy and the device removed. A child's life on his hands is not something Jason was ready or willing to live with. He never tried an experiment of this kind again. The fact that he had tried it in the first place meant he had been at the Palace for far too long.

An hour after Jason had left the Palace he had pulled into a motel. Jason placed the sonic device on his arm and boom, tracker disabled. Cutting open his arm and extracting the tracker wasn't as easy or as glamorous. It was bloody and painful and nauseating. He couldn't use pain killers, not if he was going to get back behind the wheel and get to Wolf's daughter as soon as possible, so he endured the pain ever increasing as he used a device to stitch up his arm, the only relief coming from a topical anaesthetic his nimble fingers found in the Palace infirmary.

Jason took all of the bandages, blood-soaked cloth and plastic covers to the bathroom and burnt all traces of his blood. He did not want to be found on this road, on this path at this time. Jason used his watch to scan the room for any DNA he may have missed, a lot was found but none was his. With his arm bandaged Jason took a deep breath reminding himself to stop for a very strong coffee to go, he jumped back into his car and resumed his journey to Wolf's daughter. He had no plan as to what he was going to do once he found her which was fine. Winging it was much more his style anyway.

It was night-time when Jason finally saw the black Ford he was following turn onto a dirt track. He decided to slow down considerably, now was not the time to be detected. Clues to their destination would be evident without him having to stay too close now, he would find them eventually. By now he had decided that this was indeed Wolf's daughter.

He remembered Wolf describing a tall blond man picking up his daughter from the library steps and indeed, from the small glimpses Jason had of the cars' inhabitants, the driver did have blond hair. His instincts were screaming that this was the right girl and he had to keep on this trail.

After a fifteen-minute head start, Jason turned onto the dirt track. It hadn't been used in a while so it was easy to follow the tyre tracks. Eventually the driving path came to a stop and all Jason could see in front of him was a wall of rock, moss and vines. Curious, the tyre tracks stopped, there was evidence of someone trekking through the brush and then nothing, every track disappeared. Jason took a chance, he turned on his magic watch and the alert light flashed immediately.

The senses on his watch identified a cloaked car. Risky but ingenious, he also detected some kind of motion beyond the rock face although he knew getting closer would risk identification. He used his magic cloak and cloaked himself and the car and waited. He figured if they're going to run, they're going to do it by car so he positioned his car some distance behind theirs, waiting.

Chapter 14

The beast

The pack leader had never trusted the humans. Of course, most of this distrust was inherent, the rest of it just came from shear hatred of them. The humans didn't know how closely some of the pack animals in the pens watched them, learnt from them. They understood how dangerous these humans were not just from instinctive intelligence, they had seen the things these humans could do and that was what the pack leader was watching now. Not just watching, participating in.

There were three humans at three different tables. They all had a small tube of what smelled like blood in their hands, the blood the pack leader had collected from Wolf. Wires were connected from their temples to a screen and the screen showed images of places, streets, houses, cars, trucks and warehouses. This is how they were intending on finding Wolf's daughter. The pack leader had heard the humans call it remote viewing. Just by harnessing the psychic energy from the blood the humans were able to find the general location of their intended target.

These instructions were relayed to the Esperanzi by image projection via the visual thought chip lodged in the Esperanzi brain. Once they reach their destination, the beasts would use their DNA trackers and literally follow this girls' DNA trail until they found her. Of course, it was her father's DNA, hers would have been better but the pack leader was a very experienced hunter. He knew how to read signs and look for the right clues to get him to where he needed to be. He hated the humans for doing this to him, yet this is what he was born to do and once the hunt began, he would enjoy every second of it climaxing with the girls capture.

They were downloading the images into the pack leaders' chip now, he would remotely share this with his pack once they were on the road. He felt like this was going to be one of the biggest chases of his life. With the download now complete the humans dismissed him. He couldn't wait to get started. With a growl of satisfaction, he ran to find his pack.

The Palace

Gordon couldn't believe what he was reading. His first thought was that the results were incorrect, inconclusive at best however it was also undeniable, the test was repeated five times and all results came back exactly the same with a 99.9% confidence ratio.

"How long have you known about this Curator?" He felt like crushing this man with every might of strength contained within him.

"Since the child was left at our doorstep. I have been trying to harvest and grow the live nanites. I wanted to bring you something you could use, that's why I never reported this earlier."

This wasn't going as the Curator had spent all these years hoping for. No one cheered, no one congratulated him, and no one hailed the returned hero. He felt the underlying current of intrigue in the room but it was laced with something more menacing. The Curator was beginning to fear for himself.

"You should have brought us these samples as soon as you discovered the nanites. I am not pleased Curator." Gordon had this oratory way of speaking calmly yet theatrically. What he was in fact doing was threatening the Curator without actually causing him any physical harm.

"You're right of course Gordon, I'm sorry, Director. I had hoped through further studies to deduce the origin of the DNA so that I could bring you not only this sample but its source too." Gordon just stared at him, insolent, stupid man.

"It might interest you to know that we have one of the child's parents here at the Palace. Really Curator you should leave the science and detective work to the people who know how to conduct it. Your job was simply to run the archives. I see now that that simple task was too hard for you." The Curator felt the old man's stare boring into his very soul. He knew he needed to be very afraid.

"Tell me Curator. Is the girl still at the archives? Does anyone suspect the reason for your absence?"

"No director. They are none the wiser, they are not a very bright group of people. Lily thinks she is in trouble for breaking into the sealed section and I'm sure Axel is continuing to keep his quiet self away from any type of confrontation, if anything life is simply just going on."

Incredulous is the word used to describe Gordon's present mood. This man truly is an imbecile he thought to himself.

"Right," said Gordon, "time to get to the Library. I understand Curator that you believe your people are simpletons however simpletons do not break into sealed sections of a library, ask questions about creatures that have the same colour eyes as them and then go back to playing in the garden. For your sake Curator, they had all better be there when we arrive." And with that Gordon stormed out of the room.

There was a flurry of activity from the Palace guards, two of which escorted the Curator out into the foyer, sat him down on the lounges and told him to wait. The rest of the guards were collecting their gear. Orders had been given that they depart for the Library in half an hour.

The Curator sat waiting, thankful that he was not imprisoned or worse. He knew the old man was interested in seeing the work he had done, he also knew that had he brought the samples years earlier to the Palace, the work the Curator was trying to do would be complete by now. Who knows what that would have meant for his people. As he sat there in the centre of the organised chaos around him he silently prayed that Lily would still be at the Library when they arrived.

Chapter 15

The beast

The pack leader was standing outside of the warehouse. He knew it was cloaked, his bracelet alerted him to that. He didn't, however, know what to expect inside, so he was considering his options when he caught a clear scent that partially reflected the DNA in his tracker. He and his pack were after all hunters and it wasn't just DNA he needed. The remote viewers were still continuing to work back at the Gentech labs, and they were constantly feeding the pack leader images. He was on the right track, he wasn't surprised, well maybe surprised that the humans hadn't figured out yet how good he was at his job.

Storm it. That's what he decided and projected his orders to the pack. They were all in agreement. Pack leader didn't need their consent, but he liked it all the same, it meant they moved as a coherent group and he didn't have to worry about dissent amongst the pack. He was a betting beast and he was betting that no-one knew they were coming so the element of surprise was all theirs.

He was right. There were ten Esperanzi in his new pack and they tore at the cloaked doors and broke them down. They spread out in teams of two and searched the Library. There weren't many people present in the Library. Maisy in the kitchen, Melody in the Library and the grounds keeper, nobody had alerted the Curator yet as to Axel and Lily's disappearance. No one knew what it meant, there were no notes, no clues and quite frankly they were too afraid. They knew the Curator would be back any day, so he'd know soon enough.

The first team of Esperanzi ran into the actual library where poor, unsuspecting Melody was working on Axels' personal laptop looking for clues as to his whereabouts. She heard the crash outside and quietly, carefully rose from her chair and walked towards the door.

The two Esperanzi had already entered the library and moved towards her, menacingly baring their very long, very sharp canines warning her to stand very still. She did of course. Melody wasn't the type of person to do anything that might be called braved. She knew what these creatures were, was smart enough to understand the danger they posed and her survival instincts were acute enough to do exactly what the Esperanzi wanted her to do.

The lead beast moved toward Melody slowly sniffing the air around her. The hairs on her arms were standing on end, her knees trembling moments from buckling beneath her. The beasts' nose was moving up and down her bare arm, smelling her, Melody was as still as a statue, completely paralysed into submission. The Esperanzi snorted loudly and used its bracelet to scrape her arm. She recognised the DNA tracker, it was assessing the DNA from her skin cells she thought as she noticed the red light flashing on the bracelet. The beast backed off a little, it seems she was off the hook however, her relief was short lived, the beasts weren't leaving. The Esperanzi tilted its head up, snorted and stayed where it was just staring at her. The second beast was standing near the doorway cutting off her escape which was quite laughable really because Melody's legs were in no condition to run, instead they gave out and she collapsed onto the floor. Apart from a very loud growl, the Esperanzi didn't approach her it just stood and waited.

The pack leader had picked up the girl's scent, it was off putting for a while because he could smell her everywhere, eventually he tracked her scent to the backyard. On his way out he noticed the woman in the kitchen being held back by two of his pack. She held something metal and heavy in her hands, shouting obscenities at his pack but was no real threat he noticed, just very loud. His pack had her under control. He knew his members had found two people and told them to keep them at their posts while the rest of the pack continued searching the Library.

He eventually tracked the girl's scent to a cottage outside the main building. His excitement was mounting, hoping he had found the girl. He noticed the man standing in front of the cottage, holding a long metal pipe in his hand. She had to be in there, why else would he be defending that building. He ordered his team mate to run at the grounds keeper and take him down, using any force necessary. After all, this man was ready for a fight so why not give him one.

The beast however was quite young and it was his first assignment out. He underestimated the human, he leapt at the man and noticed only too late that the metal pipe had been brought up and the beast came down sharply on the pipe piercing his chest. He died immediately, the pipe severing his spinal cord.

The pack leader used the distraction while the ground keeper had tumbled to the ground with the fallen beast and leapt on the man catching his head between his paws twisting his neck snapping it. Obstacle taken care of the pack leader proceeded to tear down the cottage door and sauntered inside expecting to find the girl cowering in the corner.

A thorough search of the cottage revealed no humans. No-one had reported them in any other part of the Library, in fact there were no reports of any other humans in the Library. She wasn't there and he wasn't happy. He continued sniffing and noticed another scent in the cottage, very distinctive. He walked out to the ground keeper but the scents didn't match. There was another person, another absent person. This was not good.

The pack leader re-entered the cottage and rummaged through all the belongings until he had DNA particles from two distinct scents. He added these samples to his tracker. This original DNA would make his search easier, but this did very little to appease him. He wanted to destroy something and destroy it now. He alerted his pack, growling at the fallen Esperanzi as he left the cottage. He hated when Gentech gave him novices on important missions. There would be no love lost here thought the leader as he ran for the front of the Library. He also wanted to leave the Library inhabitants a memento, just enough to scare them into cowering in the Library instead of coming after his team.

He stood outside the warehouse and just stared trying to decide his next move. It would be a while before he could download his images to Gentech and receive more intel about the girl's whereabouts. He could make out his two favourite scents on the curb, he sniffed around the cars hoping he would come up with more. He guessed that they were in a car. Great he thought they're not on foot. A decision had to be made there were two ways in and out of town, he briefly relayed this information to the pack and told them they would be heading east.

With very little information to go on, there were no arguments amongst the other pack members so they followed their leader. In two hours the satellite would be in position and they would find out if they were heading in the right direction. The pack split in half and each team took a different side of the road, sniffing, tracking, hoping to find some evidence that the girl and her companion had come this way.

Lily

Axel had been at the wheel for two hours. He kept evading my offer to drive but then again I was not officially allowed to drive nor did I technically know how. I just needed a distraction. Soon after we left the observatory I found a spark of courage somewhere deep inside me and asked Axel about the beast I had dreamt about, like ripping off a band aid. I hadn't spoken after that, neither of us had until now as I made my driving offer. Just when I thought I couldn't hear anything more horrifying, I heard something more horrifying. Axel said that he knew the dream was significant, he didn't know who the man was or why the beast attacked him. He just knew the dream was a message and he knew that these beasts would at some point make an appearance. That's why he had brought the weapons. That little piece of knowledge did not make me feel any better.

I silently wondered if I would ever get any rest ever again. I thought the Palace was our main worry and now to find that I had two groups of aliens after me was terrifying. How does the world at large not know about this? Oh but they do, Axel informed me. The people, correction, the humans that need to know do know about us, they're for the most part trying to stay out of our way because we are more terrifying to them than they are to themselves, and I've studied history I know how terrifying humans can be and still we are supposed to be scarier. That's why I asked my next question, I couldn't help it.

"Why are you helping me Axel?" It sounded strange my voice in amongst that silence and I wasn't even totally sure that Axel heard me. He just stared straight ahead gripping that steering wheel tightly.

"I mean there are the so-called good guys at the Palace, which for the record I am not convinced are good, the bad guys at Gentech and then me. Why haven't you chosen a side, why are you risking your life to protect me?"

Axel didn't answer straight away and when he did I was surprised to hear anger in his voice. "What do you mean why have I chosen to protect you rather than any other side. You're my daughter Lily my place is with you."

"Yes," I said, except I really didn't know what I was trying to say. "You could just give me over the Palace, what's the worse they could do to me. Right now, we're on the run and you will never get a chance to go back to the Library, that you love, and you probably will never be safe while you are with me."

"Lily stop it." Strained white knuckles wrapped around the steering wheel, anger once again lacing his voice.

"I chose you when I held you in my arms all those years ago. The Palace and Gentech will want to use you like a lab mouse, you and I deserve a life, a happy life and I'm willing to protect wanting that, let alone having it." He sighed then.

"Lily, you came from somewhere. You didn't come from Gentech or from the Palace. That's where the two populations of Travellers come from. You being here means there's another population out there, a population that's evolving differently from us, one that's very well hidden. I've been searching for them since you arrived, I haven't had much luck finding them but I know they're out there. My plan was always to take you back to them as soon as I found them, to give you some sort of a normal life", again another sigh. "Face it Lily, you're stuck with me. I'm not going to leave your side. Now, enough of this talk."

After a short while Axel spoke again, jarring me out of my mind-numbing nothingness. "I know you're scared, the truth is I'm a little scared myself because I'm not sure what it is exactly that we're facing, but whatever it is we will do it together. Now we will drive for another hour and then stop for something to eat."

And with that the conversation was closed. We didn't speak again even as we pulled into the roadside diner. It took every bit of will power I had to get out of that car and walk. I keep looking at people wondering are they human or not. I have no idea how I could tell humans and Travellers apart when the Travellers can conceal their true faces so easily.

I guess I was so preoccupied with my thoughts, that's why I didn't notice the car pull in straight after us, it probably wouldn't have mattered if I did. As it turns out the driver would save my life the very next day.

Chapter 16

The beast

The pack leader's team followed the girl's scent into the forest. Earlier communication from Gentech had them searching in the right area. He didn't know how far behind the girl and her companion his pack were but the scents were strong so he was guessing a day, maybe less. He was curious about this cave he tracked the scents to. He had never seen anything like it. It was obvious the two people he was following had stayed here. They hadn't bothered to cover their tracks, it looked very much like they had left in a hurry. Curious. It's not how he would have played it, but then again he always thought the humans made strange and wrong decisions all the time.

He ordered his pack out to continue tracking on the road. He had been told to capture images of this observatory before re-joining his pack, special orders for him and him alone. He wondered if the humans were trying to hide something, he had very clear orders to share this information with no-one except his lead human partner.

The pack leader also knew that this little secret assignment would put him half a day if not more behind his team and this made him very angry. He didn't like leaving anyone else in charge of his assignments, his very untrusting nature always expected something to go wrong when he was not there. He didn't exactly have very clever lieutenants either, all very new, all very wet around the gills, or whiskers as the case may be. Instead he would have to cross his proverbial fingers and hope they hadn't lost the girl when he caught up with them.

Lily

Axel had decided we needed to rest for the night. He was exhausted, emotionally as well as physically as was I, so there were no arguments coming from me. Luckily, we didn't have to travel far, there was a motel right behind the diner. Very convenient I thought, I wasn't hungry exactly, I just found the notion of food so close at hand comforting. And these days, I take comfort where I can.

We shared the same room, Axel didn't want to let me out of his sight. I thought the motel manager had figured out that something wasn't quite right as he was looked at us curiously. Axel had managed to dye his hair black when we were at the observatory and we were both wearing blue contact lenses. I caught a glimpse of us in the mirror behind the manager and was startled to see how much we resembled each other in our disguises.

The manager sighed and curiously asked Axel 'this your daughter?"

Seriously.

"My one and only," said Axel and looked over at me with a grin. We did in fact look like father and daughter for the very first time, and I found myself silently thinking how much I liked that feeling.

The very loud snort coming from the manager broke me out of my reverie. I guess he was satisfied that nothing untoward was going on, even wishing us a pleasant stay as he handed Axel the room key.

I can't remember falling asleep, I hadn't realised just how physically exhausted I was. As soon as my head had hit the pillow I was out, of course there was the tea Axel made me drink before sleep. I was alone in the room when I woke. I found a note on Axel's bed. It made me smile just because he made his bed, Axel didn't believe in other people picking up after him. I was informed that Axel was getting our gear and car ready and ordering our breakfast, he would be back in...oh no I had ten minutes to shower and get dressed.

The shower water was as scorching hot as I could bare it. I remember thinking once that all I needed was a long, very hot shower and all would always be ok with the world. Unfortunately, this wouldn't be a long one and I had just finished dressing when Axel came back into the room.

It was a short walk to the diner, no more than two minutes. Who knew two minutes would actually feel like two hours when this was over. The beasts came out of nowhere, in fact I couldn't see them at first, I was knocked off my feet by something invisible as was Axel. I heard the faint sound of a click and the cloaked world around me exploded to life.

Four of those beasts from my dreams were coming back at us, Axel had a knife, I had nothing, this was not going to be a fair fight. Axel had already punched one in the mouth trying to get his knife under its chin. I couldn't move. These beasts were enourmous and they were making sounds. The one Axel was fighting, it sounded like laughter coming from its mouth. I looked over at Axel and he was screaming "run". That word again.

I couldn't move, I wouldn't, I wasn't going to leave Axel's side. I heard the grunt before I saw the beast and it was getting ready to charge straight at me. It was inches away, legs/hands I'm not sure what, extended, grabbing at me when I heard a loud explosion. I saw the beast thrown from the spot in front of me, bleeding as it whimpered hitting the ground.

This distraction is all Axel needed, the beast standing over Axel now searching for the source of the explosion, didn't notice Axels' knife slicing its throat. Three beasts remained, two of which fell following another two explosions. I found the source, a young man standing in front of the diner holding a very large gun. He was looking at me now and neither of us noticed as the last beast bounded toward Axel's turned back.

The man came up to me hand extended "come with me if you want to live," he calmly said with a smirk on his face. In retrospect I would appreciate the reference, even charmed by it but right now I was too terrified and shocked to do anything but stare at him.

"Lily, it's ok." He said my name, how did he know my name. "Your father sent me to protect you." I didn't have time to react to hearing that, what I heard instead was Axel's scream.

I turned just in time to see the beast tear Axel's knife arm with its claws then slicing into his chest as it retracted its limb. The too cool, movie quoting guy, didn't miss a beat. He aimed his gun and fired a shot directly into the head of the beast.

There was a lot of blood, I wasn't sure which was Axel's, and which was beast. I ran over to him and just held him, he was conscious, barely and as I sat terrified and shocked our saviour had taken off his shirt and was pressing it into Axel's chest wound.

"We have to go now. I've cloaked us so no-one can see what's happened but they did hear the gunshots, we're starting to get an audience." He looked at Axel, "can you stand or do I have to carry you," again the smirk.

"Who are you?" It was barely a whisper from Axels mouth, I was afraid I was losing him.

"My name is Jason sir, Lily's father told me that if he died I was to come and protect her because the Palace would come looking for her. He died several days ago, and they were not Palace guards," he said nodding towards the dead beasts. "Which means that Gentech are after her as well. I will explain more when we're on the road but for now we have to move."

Axel barely nodded, "stand" he whispered and with that Jason lent him his shoulder and helped him back to our car.

"Get your friend comfortable, I need to get my gear from my car," shouted Jason as he ran towards his car. "Axel," I shouted after him. 'His name is Axel." He just looked at me then barely nodded and turned towards his car.

As I was strapping Axel into the back seat, I quietly said "Axel, please don't leave me. I don't know what to do. I don't even know if this guy is safe."

Axel startled me when he opened his eyes "right now, we must trust, he saved us" and with that he lost consciousness.

I had just sat next to Axel in the back seat when Jason piled his belongings onto the front passenger seat and sat behind the steering wheel. He turned and handed me a box.

"There are instruments in here that you can use to fix those gashes, we need to close them he's lost a lot of blood. You will have to do it as I drive, we need to keep moving." I must have looked terrified, that's the only thing I knew to explain that look of pure compassion on Jason's face.

"He's going to be OK Lily you just need to close his wounds." Right I thought. I have a job to do.

I didn't recognise anything in this box as I screamed in frustration. Our very calm and collected driver however did, he pointed out an instrument and explained how to use it. As soon as I placed it on the end of Axels first wound and pressed the button the wound started to knit together, first the underlying muscle fibres and blood vessels then the skin. It's all I needed to see to start feeling centred again. This was going to work and everything was going to be ok.

I looked up and noticed this strange man watching me from the rear-view mirror, smiling encouragingly. By the time we had lost ourselves amongst all the other cars on the freeway all of Axel's wounds were closed and dressed and I had given him a prophylactic shot of antibiotics, yet another fancy piece of tech. Axel was still unconscious but his vitals, yes there was an instrument that scanned his body, heart and tissue and gave me his vitals and according to this Axel was weak but ok. Hopefully he would be conscious again soon and we could figure out exactly what the hell was going on.

There was silence in the car, my saviour wasn't talking, I was not in the mood to ask questions, I turned and looked out the window and became fully aware of the phrase playing over and over in the back of my mind, my father is dead.

The Beast

The pack leader felt like ripping the rest of his useless pack to shreds. Only four of the team who had lagged behind remained. He observed bodies of his fallen pack littered all over the parking lot. His human was not going to like hearing this news. His next communication was due in an hour and the leader scanned the area thoroughly recording as much information as possible for Gentech to see. Special assignment indeed, the pack leader would have enjoyed hearing his human explain that one.

There was nothing else to do except pick up the trail. The pack leader managed to pick up the scents all the way to a car spot in the parking lot. There was something else there too another scent but there were scents everywhere so for now he was going to dismiss this as nothing. Maybe they had someone help them to their car. This was the companion's blood, he had been badly injured, it was a fair assumption. Also a pleasing revelation, with this much blood that wound would be severe enough to slow them down. The pack leader was really looking forward to catching up with them.

Chapter 17

Lily

We had been driving for an hour, at least I'm pretty sure it was an hour counting every second to every 'my father's dead', over and over again. Jason finally broke the silence

"How's Axel doing back there?"

"OK, I think," I said distracted out of my repeating mantra,

"His vitals are stable, I'm not sure if he's sleeping or unconscious though." I was worried I hadn't seen Axel look so helpless before and it made me feel all the more helpless.

"Once it starts getting dark we will find somewhere to sleep for the night and we'll take a good look at him. He did lose a lot of blood so at the very least he's going to be weak," said Jason.

"What about those creatures." I could not shake their image. "Won't they find us."

"Not for a while, I've thrown them off our trail for now and I still have a few tricks up my sleeve we should have a couple of days before we need to start worrying about them again. It's going to be harder for them to find us than it is for us to lose them." Jason was looking at me through the rear-view mirror, encouraging smile on his face, it wasn't making me feel better.

"Are you wearing contact lenses," his eyes were grey, I was curious.

"Yes," was all he said. "Lily, I know you must have many questions, I too have some of my own. Do you think they can wait til we're somewhere safe and secure for the night?"

"Yes," I answered weakly, "except I need to know something right now." "OK," he said cautiously.

"Can Axel and I trust you?" OK so that was a loaded question and Jason looked none too pleased that I had asked it so before he could say anything I leapt right in "Before Axel lost consciousness I asked him the same question. He said you saved our lives so we had no choice but to trust you. Was he right?" Again, silence, although I think this time he was forming an answer, one that I could accept I bet.

"Lily, I knew your father for a while and I came to love him like my own. He would never have told me about you if he didn't think he could trust me, he would never have made me promise that I would come to you when he died unless he trusted me. I can never betray his trust, that you can believe. Whether you trust me or not, (cue dramatic sigh) well that's your decision to make, just know that I didn't come here to hurt you, I came to keep you safe from the people your father thought would hurt you." Here he paused, watching me in the rear-view mirror, waiting for my reaction.

"Is that answer good enough for now," he asked, hopefully. "Yes," I said, "for now." Ha! a smile. I don't think I was supposed to see that.

It was strange seeing him here like this, disguised like us. A few days ago I never knew aliens were on the planet and now I discovered that I'd been surrounded by them my entire life, that I was one. The truth is that I'd never even met a young man before and I felt a little weird like I was supposed to act in a certain way, like giggle when a handsome boy was around, that's what they did in the movies anyway. I didn't feel much like giggling. Especially since I really didn't know what he looked like and he really didn't know what I looked like, at least that's what I thought at the time.

I reached over and took hold of Axel's hand. It was warm at least and his complexion wasn't as ashen as it was when I first patched him up.

"Do you think Axel will need a blood transfusion," I wondered aloud.

"Maybe" said Jason, "Are you the same blood type as him?" he asked somewhat hopefully. "I'm not sure," I said.

"Tell you what," said Jason. "Once we find a place for the night we'll check him out. There's a gizmo in that box that tells us blood compatibility. If either of us are matches and he hasn't come round yet we can give him some blood. I've seen it done before, it's not hard. We just can't take him to a hospital neither ours or there's, so we're going to have to heal him ourselves."

O..K.. then. I sent out a silent prayer that Axel was going to be just fine, this mantra replacing my previous one. I could always revisit my father's death later when Axel was well and recovering.

The Library

Gordon was most displeased. He felt like locking up the Curator and throwing away the key. One dead Esperanzi, Gentech. He growled as he looked over the dead beast. This was a disaster. From a simple snatch and grab to this, Gentech, always one step ahead. How is that possible, unless..."

"Curator, I want your files on all your employees and I want to interview them all one by one, including your file."

The Curator felt horrified, he knew what the unspoken accusation was. "To what end Director?"

"I need to know if any of your employees are working for Gentech. Considering where I got my intelligence from and now this, my logical conclusion is that you have a leak."

As soon as the Esperanzi made an appearance in Wolfs' life Gordon started investigating. His informant at Gentech had enlightened him to the existence of Wolf's daughter. Of course, he had only just made the connection feeling put out at believing Wolf's convincing lies. He couldn't wait to learn from his informant how Gentech had pieced this family story together.

"No, that's not possible" cried the Curator. "My employees are honourable, loyal people, none of them could have done this. The only other person that knew about the live nanites was Axel and he would never inform on us."

How much more ridiculous could this man be, Gordon was flabbergasted.

"Of course it wasn't Axel you stupid man, he's with the girl right now and they're running from the Esperanzi. Have you not figured that out yet? I do not know why he's protecting her, a question for him another time, but I am sure he is not your leak. Now please do as I ask before I begin to lose my temper."

The Curator stared grim faced at Gordon trying to comprehend the enormity of what he was saying, one of the Palace guards shoved Gordon on the arm "Proceed, I will come with you." Feeling somewhat like a prisoner, the Curator was forced out of the room ready to hand one of his trusted people over to the man that until a few days ago he was willing to risk his own life for.

Chapter 18

Lily

My dreams had changed.

There were no more beasts killing people the beast was now staring at me, throughout the whole dream. Yet it changed from night to night. This night's dream brought a new surprise, a conversation between us. The beast had looked at me, looked through me and made guttural sounds, eventually they turned into words, single words or two, never more than two words. I had asked it its name "no name" it replied.

"Why do I keep seeing you?" It didn't answer just shrugged, really it shrugged.

"Why are you after me?" I needed answers. "Orders," is all it said.

"From who?"

"Guardian."

"What's going to happen to me?" I asked.

"Will catch," it said as it curled its snarly mouth up at me staring straight through me with those goldy brown eyes.

"What are you?" I asked,

"Creature," it replied, then it smiled, its eyes lowering

"You scared?" That was the first question it had asked me

"Yes," I replied.

"Should be" it said, and it chuckled, seriously chuckled. Then suddenly it raised its head, looked straight into my eyes, growled and ran off and just like that it disappeared from my dream and I woke up in a nice, uncomfortable cold sweat.

It had been a worrisome night. Axel had been in and out of consciousness and Jason and I had decided to transfuse some of my blood into Axel after the little gizmo declared me a universal donor. Actually, I'm not sure I made that decision. I was thinking about it and I heard Axel say "do it" except I can't remember seeing him awake. I remember thinking how scared I was, what if it didn't work, what if it made Axel worse not better and again Axel's voice "it's safe, it will help me then I can help you, please Lily, do it". Again, I'm sure he was out of it and yet hearing his voice strengthened my resolve. Jason had to help me, there was no way I was going to do this on my own, putting a needle into my own vein.

Jason was right, it did look really easy to do. First he worked on my arm and then on Axels and as he looked up I noticed that his mood had changed to weary.

"Are you ok Jason" I asked. "Not going to faint at the sight of blood are you."

He smiled a little then, a weary smile "no," he said. "I'm not afraid of blood."

And then silence, the pin drop kind. I wasn't sure what to make of it. It would take about 15 minutes to transfuse about 300 mls of blood into Axel. It was going to be a long 15 minutes. I had started to zone out when Jason startled me with a question

"Lily, how much do you know about us?" he asked.

"Us as in you and where you're from or us as in Travellers," the look on this face worried me a little.

"Travellers" he said.

"Well," how was I going to say this without sounding too stupid? For some reason, I didn't want him to think that I was stupid.

"Up until a few days ago, I didn't know Travellers existed. I thought I was like everyone else, you know on TV, on the streets. I didn't know anything about this. I didn't even know about the alien archive under the Library. I didn't even know Axel disguised me when I left the Library, I didn't even know that everyone in the Library had the same colour eyes as me because everyone told me that my eye colour was a fluke, I didn't know that they cloaked themselves around me, I didn't even know aliens had come to Earth. I didn't know anything until I saw that creature in my dreams, it had the same colour eyes as me and I went looking in the library for information and that's when I got into trouble for looking in that particular section and that's when I found out what I was and who everyone around me was."

Stop talking now.

That rant not only made me sound stupid it also made me sound hysterical. Which I guess I was a little, I was incredibly tired, weak now from the transfusion, worried about Axel, feeling strange things every time Jason looked at me or touched me and now he was beginning to look at me like I had grown horns instead of giving blood.

I wasn't looking at him when I heard him let out a slow deep breath.

"Wow," he said. "Your identity has been kept a secret from you, that really sucks." OK, now I started laughing hysterically, I couldn't help it.

"There's something different about you Lily, you're not the same as any Travellers that I know, you're different somehow and I'm just not sure what it is." That sobered me up a little, I stopped laughing.

"I have no idea what you mean" I said

"I'm sure you don't, I kinda guessed you didn't know much. Can't wait to hear what Axel says about it when he wakes up." And with that he came towards me to remove the transfusion tube and patch me up.

"You need to sleep Lily, you've been through a lot today. Take that bed," he said pointing to the second single bed in the room.

"Where are you going to sleep?" I asked already making myself comfortable on the bed. I couldn't even be bothered taking my shoes off, I just lay on the bed and started drifting.

"I'll patch Axel up then I'll sleep on the couch."

I'm not sure if it was my imagination because I felt someone take my shoes off and cover me with a blanket then smooth down my hair. It must have been Axel, he did that sometimes when I fell asleep on the couch in our cottage. Except Axel couldn't have done it, with this thought I fell asleep watching the beast come towards me.

"You're up sunshine."

What! I thought, sunshine, what the hell.

I guess my expression amused Jason because I finally saw the weary expression disappear just to be replaced by the most enigmatic grin I'd ever seen.

"What time is it, is that coffee I can smell, and food", as my stomach growled just in case my words didn't speak loud enough on my behalf.

Again a grin and Jason was bringing over a cup of coffee and what looked like a bagel – my growling stomach was very pleased.

"Guess what?" he said. "Axel woke up a couple of hours ago, it was amazing, he even got up to check on you." I stopped chewing, my heart racing. "Are you telling the truth," I said, as I looked over at Axel. His pallor had changed completely, back to normal. He looked peaceful, sleeping like he had no care in the world.

I put down my food and jumped over to his bed. I felt his forehead, held his hand everything seemed normal. I looked up at Jason, my expression wearing the 'how can this be' question. He just shrugged his shoulders.

"I guess the transfusion worked, his vitals are all back to normal and there is no more tissue damage according to the scanner. I convinced him to go back to sleep, just in case. He was pretty tired but I'm guessing he won't be out for long. He was worried about you, wouldn't go back to sleep until he checked you were ok." Jason was looking at me, I couldn't read his expression, wasn't really interested actually. I was focused on Axel.

"Lily he's ok, he's just sleeping. You should finish your breakfast you need to keep your strength up, this is probably the only bit of rest we're going to get for a while."

"hmmmmphh' I said through another mouthful of food and coffee. A shower, a really hot shower, that's what I needed. Finish eating and hot water and everything would be ok with the world.

Chapter 19

The Beast

The pack leader was picking up speed. He'd just communicated with home base and the remote viewers had him back on track again. He and his pack had been on a grand old goose chase, he's not sure yet how the prey had managed it, how they managed to plant all that DNA, the false scents that smelt oh so real. He didn't want to admit it, without the help of the remote viewers, the pack would have been lost.

The lead Esperanzi had been so focused on the girl that he was no longer surprised that she made an appearance in his rest hours. Well, surprise at first, then he managed to have a sense of when she was resting, he would stop and rest himself just to see her, eventually talk to her. He found he was starting to crave the contact. His pack of course thought he was losing it his behaviour seeming very erratic to them.

At first the leader thought they too had seen her in their dreams considering their telepathic connection, he was wrong though. The honour of her presence was his and his alone and he had become very possessive of these moments. He wondered for a moment why this was happening, wondering if the connection was opened through the man he had taken down. He had seen her then as well.

He found himself beginning to wonder why Gentech was after her. Surprised to say the least, he had never had such a thought before, never cared. A job was a job no questions asked, in fact it wasn't the Esperanzi's place to ask questions. He knew however, that the girl and her companions would be on the move soon. One amongst them was clever, a challenge. The leader smiling considered the challenge, enjoying, wandering what was coming next. The diversion was frustrating and puzzling, he was really going to enjoy this hunt.

Lily

I'm not sure how long I was in the shower for, a very long, luxurious, healing time, that's for sure. I indulged myself knowing a similar experience may not be in my near future. Contemplating this I was surprised to see Axel sitting up, dressed and eating as I came out of the bathroom. He held out his arms just as I launched myself into them, this was my safe place here in Axels arms. I didn't even know the tears were streaming down until Axel held me back and started wiping my face.

"I've never been so scared," I cried as he held me. "Don't ever do that to me again."

Axel just chuckled, happy to be back, happy to have me back. In that moment there were only the two of us as the realisation that I may in the future, if this goes badly, have to live a life without Axel. It wasn't something I could comprehend. When the sound of a throat clearing came from behind me, the startling reality of our situation set in. Jason. I had forgotten about him in that moment.

"I'd hate to interrupt" he said quite gruffly "but now that we all seem to be up and about, we should think about making a move. The Esperanzi won't be too far behind us and I'd like to keep as much distance between us and them as possible."

Jason seemed distant in that moment. I wandered if he understood what was happening, what he had got himself into, the danger he had put himself in. I was wondering at what point he was going to change his mind and say 'I'm not playing any more' and leave.

"Jason has a place in mind, you know for us to go to," Axel said to me. Apparently those two were catching up and becoming good friends while I was lost in my own little shower world.

"Where's that?" I asked, looking at Jason for the first time since I'd come out of the bathroom. He was staring straight at me, unnerving.

"It's a place your father told me about. Actually, he made me promise to take you there if and when this all happened." There it is, my father, directing my life and I still didn't know anything about him.

"It's still five day's drive from here so we should get going. We will all be safe there." I huffed at this- safe. What does that mean anyway? I couldn't at this point believe that I would ever be safe again.

"It's as good a plan as any Lily" Axel reassured me. "Help us pack up so we can go."

Then it hit me. "Axel, how is it your up and about. A few hours ago you couldn't stand," something, knowledge stirring at the edges of my mind.

"I'm made of strong stuff Lily, you should know that," is what he said in words. What I heard was "not now Lily, we'll talk about this later."

With that curious thought, we finished packing up, climbed back into the car and were on our way to who knows where and safety.

Chapter 20

Lily

Ever since I can remember Axel would make me sit and still my mind, clear my thoughts and find my centre. When I was old enough I studied some of these philosophies and marvelled at the wonder of Axel, teaching me mindfulness just so I could manage my life better. But no, as it turns out he was teaching me these techniques so that I could learn to control my mind and thoughts without realising I was doing it. Why? Because hey, did you know that Travellers have freaky mind powers. No, neither did I. Apparently, you learn something new every day.

It was a remark from Jason that set off the enlightening revelation. It was simple really. "We're not going to have much time to stop and talk so we may as well get some things out in the open while we drive." One dramatic pause later and Jason turns from the front seat to look at me sitting in the back. "Lily, I have a message for you from your father."

I was expecting a spoken word, a letter maybe even a video message and instead Jason says, "just open your mind to me and I'll send the message through." He must have thought I was playing games because he was starting to look irritated as I sat there dumbly staring at him saying "um what?". It took a while for Axel to chime in, he was taken by surprise, he probably thought he'd never have to have this conversation with me.

"She actually doesn't know how to do that, in fact she doesn't know she can." She is sitting right here I'm thinking. Jason just looked bewildered now, much better than irritated.

That's when I got the whole story. The Travellers have the ability to control certain things with their minds. Receiving thoughts and images is a must have for all and the very least any of them, I mean, we can do. Depending on the level of training the mind powers increase from simple communication to actually controlling other people's thoughts and actions. Neither Jason or Axel would give up their personal powers, apparently it's rude to ask. I guess it's better to find out when one of them is torturing you mentally instead.

"You have the basic ability Lily, you've used it all along, I just didn't quite point it out. You instead just assumed you'd heard incorrectly or just didn't notice people speaking.... you do have a daydreaming problem, I never discouraged it as it explained a lot for you when you accidentally heard people's thoughts." That's what Axel told me, I wondered out loud if that's how I knew to transfuse him with my blood which he confirmed with a nod of his head.

That's why I'm sitting in the back seat holding hands with Jason. The message he has from my father is in his memory and he's going to let me take a look. Our hand holding opens a connection or at least helps release the mind to one so as I breathe and empty my mind the images and sounds from Jason's memories start flooding in.

I'm looking at my father. It's crazy really because he doesn't look all that different from Axel except for the colour of his hair, it's the same as mine. He looks sad though, a man who has given up on life and is just surviving, waiting for his time to come. He's sitting outside surrounded by a green, grassy hill. I can hear Jason's voice

"Is there anything you want me to tell her when I find her." "Yes," replied this man who is supposed to be my father.

"Tell her that leaving her at that Library was the hardest thing her mother and I ever had to do but we did it to protect her, so she can live and have a life away from the danger. We loved her so much. I kept coming back every year to check on her, I watched her grow. She's so beautiful, she looks just like her mother. I fantasised that someday we could all be together but of course her mother isn't here, and that can never happen. Jason, you must promise me that you will go to her, protect her from them, keep her safe. Take her home." He stopped talking here, too choked up, tears flowing down his cheeks.

"I promise," I heard Jason say. "I will keep her safe." And that was it, memory finished, and Jason shut it down. I felt his eyes on me but couldn't bare to open mine.

"What happened to my mother?" I asked, still afraid to look at Jason. "She passed away when you were just one year old." I opened my eyes now, looking straight at him "I'm sorry Lily." I wasn't trembling physically it was more that it was coming from the inside, something energetic.

Axel and Jason were firing questions at me but I couldn't listen, wouldn't listen. I took my hands back from Jason who had kept a firm grip on them long after the memory was gone and took refuge as far from him as I could. I leant my head on the cool glass of the window finding some relief from the ache that was building inside my head. The questions were still coming but I wasn't going to answer them, I didn't want to. I stared out the window just watching the scenery flash by and lost myself in my father's image. I stayed like that for the next hour, his words replaying in my head over and over. The questions around me finally subsided as Jason and Axel begun to understand my need for space.

Chapter 21

Lily

It was deathly quiet in the car and this gave way to sleep for me. I had been seeing the Esperanzi every night, conversing every night and this sleep was no different.

"How come I see you whenever I sleep? It's not even night-time here," I asked him.

"Sense you" he said, "rest too." I understood this now. Obviously the Esperanzi had the mind powers all the Travellers had.

"In car?" it asked. "Yes," I said, "escaping from you." And that's when I underestimated the Esperanzi for the first time.

As I replied I had a mental picture of the truck stop we passed just before I fell asleep. It had a sign saying 'Tarrington' with an arrow pointing to the right.

I heard the Esperanzi laugh and it said "got you," just before it broke contact.

I guess I was screaming because Axel was next to me shaking me awake as Jason was pulling the car onto the side of the road, it would seem we had stopped at some point and I had been oblivious lost in my own turmoil. I opened my eyes to see Axel yelling at me, concerned. "What's happened, Lily, you look terrified."

"They know where we are," I said "I told them, I didn't mean it, I thought about where we were and he saw the sign and now they're coming, here." This was not the way to figure out how the mind thing worked.

"Who knows?" said Axel, sounding very concerned now. "Lily what are you talking about, what were you seeing."

I looked to the front of the car and I could see Jason watching me through the rear-view mirror, trying very hard to mask his concern.

"The Esperanzi, it's been coming when I sleep, talking to me. I didn't realise it could read my mind, I still don't understand fully how this works but I thought about being in the car and the last thing I saw before I fell asleep, the Tarrington sign and it understood what I was seeing. It said 'got you' and disappeared.... they're coming aren't they."

There was a time when I used to be such a confident, positive, courageous young girl. I was afraid of nothing. Axel had taught me to be afraid of nothing yet ever since I discovered my origins I'm blundering my way through life putting myself and everyone else in danger. I was not handling this well.

Axel leaned back into the seat, rubbing his very tired eyes with his hands. Jason just let out a slow breath. "For how long have you been talking to it?" Jason asked.

"Ever since we were attacked, it was just appearances first then it started talking."

"It's the one that was with my father," I said. "I know now it was my father. Remember those dreams I had Axel. That man, telling me to run, that was my father. I didn't see it kill my father but when my father told me to run, the beast looked straight at me. It knows what I look like now," ugghh that was definitely a chill creeping down my spine.

"You should have told us" Jason said, he was trying to contain his rising anger. It was never going to get any better with him, he was always angry, annoyed or upset with me for one reason or another.

"I didn't know. I thought they were just dreams, until now". I whispered. "What are we going to do?"

Jason wasn't listening to me, instead he asked Axel to swap spots with him. "You drive Axel just keep going straight. I have some tricks of my own, but I need to concentrate. I will gain us some time." He looked at me then, stony faced before getting out of the car.

Axel was driving and Jason was sharing the back seat with me. It looked like he was in a deep trance, unmoving, barely breathing. I wanted to ask Axel what he was doing but I didn't want to make any noise, I didn't want to disturb Jason, I didn't want him getting any angrier with me so instead I sat and watched him.

I still didn't know what he looked like. The colour of his hair was fake, the colour of his eyes was fake. Most of the time he held a grim expression, I had only seen him grin a couple of times never being fortunate enough to see a full tooth revealing smile. I was fascinated by people's smiles guessing each time which one's were generated from the heart and which were a product of manners and politeness, or something else entirely.

What I did know was that Jason was tall, as tall as Axel. If height was a Traveller trait then I didn't get the tall genes. I was short compared to these two standing at a proud five foot six inches. This made me smile a little. I had never been hung up about my height. Looking back now everyone at the library was tall. I wonder why I had never noticed that before.

I resigned myself in that moment, watching strong, focussed unwavering Jason. I was going to find my own self again. She would have been strong and met this challenge with courage and strength and from now on she was going to help me do the same.

The beast

The pack leader relayed new orders to his pack. They were going in the wrong direction, the remote viewers had got it wrong. It was curious, not something that had ever happened before but the girl clearly did not know she was projecting her location until it was too late. He trusted this projection, he knew where she was. He would deal with the angry viewers later. He was becoming addicted to these communications with the girl, he knew this. Maybe it was because he never had this type of contact before, it felt intimate, something that only the two of them shared.

Something had been going wrong ever since they left the motel where the prey had encountered his pack. He kept getting jumbled images and the girl's scent was everywhere, the remote viewers were sending him in all sorts of directions, making erratic turns causing them to run in circles. He wasn't sure what was happening, it did however feel like someone was messing with the tracks.

He was beginning to feel it now. He kept getting flashes of an ocean which was weird because according to his satellite navigation Tarrington was not near an ocean, it was far inland. It was very confusing. Maybe the girl was thinking about something else mixing the images. It didn't matter, for now Tarrington was the first solid lead they had for days and that's the one he was going to follow.

Jason

What Axel and Lily didn't know was that Jason was able to distort and change the thought patterns of the people around him and even those far away. All he needed was some kind of connection and he had this with the Esperanzi. They shouldn't have jumped him at the motel, he was able to get into their minds and just get a fix on the whole pack. He made a mental note to try to get into Lily's head next time she was asleep just to get a look at the Esperanzi and figure out what he was up to.

Right now he was flashing up images of the ocean, the forest and finally mountains and snow hoping this would be enough to throw the beast off their trail for another day. The other two didn't know that Jason had been doing this from the time he began travelling with them, distorting their surroundings making sure the things projecting from their minds were lies. He hadn't anticipated the sleeping images, those given up freely by the unconscious mind in its relaxed state. Now he knew, now he had to start manipulating these images as well. He was determined, he was not going to let anyone get their hands on Lily.

Chapter 22

Lily

The attack came out of nowhere. We had stopped for fuel when two black cars came rolling up behind and beside us. Men came out with guns holding them at our heads and before any of us could make a move the Esperanzi were there on the guns. There was a battle going on and for a very split second we were not involved. It wasn't long enough though and once again we all had guns pointing at our heads through the car windows.

Jason groaned when he saw these men, Axel just looked blank. I had no idea what was going on. Behind us more of these men came out battling with the Esperanzi.

"Well, well, well," said the man holding a gun to Jason's head. They had bodily dragged us out of the car by now.

"How long exactly Jason did you think you could evade us?" Jason just glared at him, he was trying very hard not to look my way.

"And Axel," said this man, "long time no see. I thought placing you in the Library would get you out of my way once and for all."

Axel's expression wasn't all that different to Jason's. I on the other hand was just plain confused, this was starting to feel like a very bad family reunion.

"And you young lady, must be the elusive and very special Lily, I am most pleased to finally meet you." Again confusion. I couldn't begin to know who this man was. He obviously knew Jason and Axel so I'm guessing Traveller, then again, he had a gun to our heads so bad guy, or badder guy.

"So, who are you then?" I asked proud that I sounded a whole lot calmer and collected than I felt considering the gun fire and screams in the background.

"Introductions can wait," he said as he turned to his men. "Get them in the car and for Christ's sake kill the beasts once and for all."

We didn't have time to get to the car. The surviving beasts were now upon us tearing at anyone who held a gun in their hands. One of the beasts was looking at me and it took me a second, but I knew this one. I'd seen him in my dreams.

"See you," said a voice in my head. That's when one of the other beasts came at me, boy was he angry he knocked me over, completely winded I couldn't get my bearings to defend myself.

I heard shouting all around and gunfire, confusion and then I felt the shadow of something standing over me. The pack leader. He was snarling and I'm sure I heard some interesting expletives coming out of his mouth finished off with a very clear "she's mine."

The humans just started shooting wildly now and they were aiming in my direction, in our direction. The pack leader was taking on the humans by himself as I was yanked to standing by Jason. He was screaming at me to run but I couldn't move. He was half dragging half carrying me away. All I could see was a figure on the ground, unmoving, blood pouring from his body. I started screaming, fighting Jason trying to get back to Axel. He was hurt, bleeding and all I could think was I needed to get to him. Standing over him were two men with guns while the remaining were fending off the last three Esperanzi.

Jason lost patience with me and hauled me over his shoulder as he ran to the car. I went kicking and screaming the whole way. He unceremoniously dumped me into the car and drove off leaving behind as much smoke and rubber as he could. I continued screaming at him, yelling at him to stop. We had just left Axel behind and I couldn't comprehend this. Jason pushed me back into my seat and held me there with his arm. "Listen to me, stop screaming and listen to me." He kept repeating this until I finally stopped screaming.

"Axel's hurt pretty bad. We can't help him, the Palace can. They won't hurt him Lily, he used to be one of their people. He'll get better. He told me if anything happened to him, I should keep going with you."

I sat quietly, still, while I digested this and quietly said "I don't believe you. Axel would never leave me behind."

"He hasn't left you behind," Jason sighed. "We left him behind, but this is what he wanted and this is what's best for you."

"This isn't best for me," I said. I was containing my anger now, I was so ready to lash out and physically hit something, or someone. "We have to go back."

"We're not going back. Lily you have to calm down. Axel will be ok and I'm taking you home so that you will be ok." Jason was still highly strung from what had just happened, I could hear it in his voice, he was trying so hard to stay calm and I knew he was doing it for me. I wasn't trying to shield my emotions, Jason knew exactly how I was feeling.

"Lily right now we caught a break and we have to put as much distance between us and them, we have to keep going. We will find time later to sit and talk about this if that's what you want." That was condescending, although I didn't imagine at the time that he ever had to deal with a situation like this before and hysterical girl wasn't his forte.

"There's nothing to talk about, we're going back for Axel." When Jason wasn't angry or annoyed with me he just sighed a lot. I didn't have time to reflect on that then, but now, I couldn't begin to imagine how much his life changed over the last few days.

"If you try to stop me Jason I'll just run away." he laughed at this, actually laughed and the scowl on my face just livened his mood all the more.

"Do you even know where they are taking him Lily? We don't even know if any of them are going to survive. For all we know the Esperanzi are killing them all right now." Because that was going to make me feel better, until this moment I hadn't thought of that.

Jason was driving very fast, I noticed a few minutes ago he was playing with his magic watch so I know that he had cloaked us so we wouldn't be detected by highway patrol. "I can't leave Axel behind," I said again.

To my surprise Jason simply replied "I know." We drove on in silence for a while longer. I closed my eyes and concentrated on Axel, it took a while and there was only a spark but there was something tangible, something of Axel that I could take a hold of.

"Axel I'm coming back for you." I felt him smile then and heard a very faint "no, go with Jason." I shook my head, "no, I'm coming back for you" then nothing. The little spark was gone, but I wasn't alone. There was a pair of goldy brown eyes watching me. The pack leader was still alive.

Jason spoke then, softly he said, "I promised your father I would keep you safe and take you back to his home. I have to keep that promise Lily. I have to take you there now". Again, I shook my head "Axel is my father. He's the one I have made a promise to and I'm going to get him back."

"Drive all you like Jason, drive until you feel safe and when we stop you and I are going to work out a plan to rescue Axel. And if you won't help me then we can part ways and I will do it by myself."

With this declaration I sat still faced staring ahead as I felt Jason turn and give me a cold hard stare. Surprise, surprise, he was angry with me again.

Chapter 23

Lily

We had been driving for four hours straight only breaking to fill the car up with fuel. Neither of us spoke for the last two. Jason was exhausted. You only had to look at his dark circled eyes to know how tired he was. It was time for a break. Neither of us noticed anyone following us and considering we were cloaked and our Traveller tech would have been very noticeable to anyone tracking it, we were still all alone. This just made me more worried wondering what exactly had gone on back at the petrol station, I never did believe that no news was good news.

Jason finally made the executive decision to stop for the night. He drove into a motel which had a car park out front and back. He parked us out back and mumbled something about ditching that car and stealing a new one in the morning. Great, now I was also to be an accessory car thief. The lady that checked us in winked at Jason as she handed him the key.

"What the hell was that all about?" I asked. I was still silently seething, the expression on my face speaking anger loud and clear. "She thinks we're an item...you know, together" said Jason, he sounded really tired.

"Why is that?" I demanded. He just snorted and shook the single room key. So once again I ignored one of the lessons Axel drummed into me over and over again – no matter what type of mood you are in your head, always be aware and pay attention to your surroundings – how many times had he drilled this into me and here I was completely distracted by my own anger that I hadn't noticed Jason booking us into the same room.

"You have got to be kidding me," I screamed "I don't even get a little privacy?" and alone time I really needed alone time.

He turned to face me and scowled at me "no" he said. "I want you where I can see you. You are not going to run away from me. We are going to shower, sleep and talk about everything in the morning. Then we are going to come up with a plan about what happens next, we are going to agree on it and then we are going to carry it out. Is that ok with you?"

I just wasn't in the mood. I really just wanted to aggravate Jason as much as I could, push him to his limits, I was lashing out, feeling helpless. We had reached 'our' room by now and he hurriedly turned the key in the lock.

"Actually, what if I'm not ok with that" I said as I followed Jason into the room. He slowly turned to look at me, gracefully – you know – the way predators look graceful when they are about to pounce on their prey, yep that move made me take a sharp breath.

"Actually," he said carefully, slowly. "I don't care. We are going to do this my way. I'm tired and I need to sleep. So do you. We will talk about this in the morning."

Truthfully, that move was enough to help me keep my mouth shut. I stood my ground defiantly. At least I did in my head. In reality I was probably slouched and flushed because I heard Jason's satisfied grunt as he turned towards the bathroom. That's when I gained some clarity and shot passed him

"Oh no you don't, I'm taking first shower," and with that I slammed the bathroom door shut and turned the water on to hot so that I could scorch the day's events off my body and out of my mind.

When I walked out of the bathroom half an hour later Jason didn't even look at me. He just brushed past me and closed the door to the bathroom behind him. I took the opportunity to jump into bed and pray I was fast asleep before Jason came out. The truth is that I was exhausted and shaken, if I had entertained the idea of taking the car and running I couldn't, not physically anyway. It didn't help when Jason cracked open the door and laughed a little saying "if you think you're going to find the keys to the car to run away think again, I have put them somewhere you just won't dare go fishing for them" and quickly closed the door.

I wish I had the energy to pick up something heavy to throw at that door. I didn't like arguing with Jason, a thought for another time when I wasn't so tired and worried about Axel. I also wasn't asleep when he came out of the bathroom, but I pretended to be, I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of thinking I was waiting for him.

We hadn't discussed our sleeping arrangements and I had burrowed into the right side of the bed pulling the covers up as high as I could. I felt his weight sink into the bed next to me although, Jason being all politeness didn't come under the covers, he chose to sleep on top of them instead. I didn't have the energy to think about why I was thinking about this so much instead of sleeping, I also didn't have the energy to think about how comforted I felt knowing Jason was beside me.

The beast

The pack leader was the only Esperanzi left. He had felt the girl communicate with the man on the ground, the one that had been shot. There was desperation to her and him that the beast didn't quite understand.

The beast had sauntered over to Axel, he lay alone while all the others were distracted by the remaining number of Esperanzi. The pack leader lowered his nose to Axel's body, he smelt his blood, his heartbeat was faint. That's when Axel reached out to the beast, he whispered into his mind "protect her" before his mind became completely blank. 'I'm not supposed to protect her, I'm supposed to capture her and keep her until Gentech come to get her' thought the pack leader quite surprised by this event.

His comrades were all but fallen, the last only moments from death, and with this realisation the beast noticed all guns turn to him and that's when they started firing. The beast ran, as fast as he could as he felt searing pain through his hind leg and left flank as they caught the bullets fired on him by the humans. He continued running.

The men with the guns pursued for a few minutes but eventually just stopped turned around and retreated. He didn't know why, not for him to question. He just kept running until he reached a farm that looked to have little activity. He could hide here for a little while and mend his flesh wounds. Satellite check in would be coming up soon and he needed time to heal. He would wait for orders. The pack leader was the only Esperanzi left and all he could hear in his mind was "protect her".

Chapter 24

Gentech

"What the hell is going on?" The director's expression reflected the thoughts of everyone at that table. "This is turning into a shambles. We should have retrieved the girl by now and had the entire team of Esperanzi back in the pens. Instead we have one beast left and no girl."

To say the silence was deafening was an understatement. Everyone was too afraid to speak, everyone but the Library guy, he raised his hand while everyone looked on astounded. He turned up to Gentech headquarters two days ago, the only reason he was sitting at this table right now was because he was the only one who knew the girl and might lead to some insight.

"She will go to save Axel. She won't leave him alone, it's a stupid move but she's actually brave enough to think she can pull it off." He lowered his hand and cleared his throat just watching for the director's response. He gave up his allegiance to the Palace the moment Gordon confined him to quarters and told him to 'shut up and stay out of it from this point on because he'd messed up so much already'.

All the Curator wanted was to play with the important players, the one's that made the decisions and ran the show. He believed he was on his way when he was promoted to Library head but after years of isolation he again thought he would win his way back into Gordon's good graces when he discovered Lily's unique blood properties, but again that wasn't enough. So he schemed and talked and schemed some more, finally breaking out of his confinement. No one cared about him anyway, no one would miss him so he decided to try Gentech. He wanted someone to listen to him, why else would he be here betraying Lily and Axel like this.

The director considered the Curator a little longer while a snigger or two could be heard around the table. "You seriously think she's going to try for the Palace. I thought she didn't know anything about her background."

"She doesn't," said the Curator "but he does," he said as he pointed to the corner of the screen showing the spot where Jason was carrying Lily away to safety.

"He's a Palace boy. My guess is he's going to help her get Axel out." The director looked from the Curator to the screen and back again. He didn't trust this man, didn't trust anyone that switched sides, but at this point he didn't have anything else to go on.

"Anyone else got anything to add," said the director. Everyone at the table was quiet. The remote viewers had been relegated to another room as their skills were being thwarted and tracking the girl was unsuccessful. Their squad of beasts were all but dead and his options at this point were all out combat with the Palace trying to get to the girl or using the Library man's input to form his next plan. Fantastic, thought the director, who would love to have my job right now.

"OK, this is what we are going to do. Send a Gentech squad to the Palace keep it under surveillance and watch for the girl and her companion. We see them, take the girl, before they have a chance to enter the Palace. The Esperanzi stays on her tail – we need him to confirm that they're heading to the Palace."

He turned to the Library man, "you had better be right about this," he whispered as he turned to the guards and ordered them to take Library man to his quarters and keep him confined until further notice.

Lily

Jason wouldn't start the 'talk' until I had something to eat and drink. I guess he needed time to collect his thoughts. I hadn't slept very well, although the term log comes to mind every time I tossed and turned and noticed Jason beside me. He looked refreshed, chipper and was even smiling this morning.

"Where do you find the energy to smile," I asked as I looked at him through sleep deprived, blood shot eyes. He just grinned at me mumbling something about a really good night's sleep. We were still in the motel room, the light shining in through the window made me think it might just turn out to be a normal day. Just for a moment anyway, nothing about my life felt like it would be normal ever again.

"Earth to Lily" that's what I heard before I felt Jason's ridiculously big hands waving in front of my face. I slapped them away wanting him to understand that I was not sharing his 'big smile, I had lots of rest' mood.

His expression sobered as he picked up on my mood. "It's time to talk...We know what's coming for us Lily so we really need to figure something out quickly. We can iron out any details and pick up any supplies on the road if we need them." He paused, looking at me. Actually it wasn't so much a look as it was something between a stare and a search.

"You know, if you just let those walls come down Lily, I could pick your mind and understand more about what your face is doing right now."

Well, that got my attention "excuse me" I said, "let the walls down, what walls. And what's wrong with my face." He's grinning again. I suppose at a different time, in a different place that grin would be quite charming but right now my hand was itching to smack it right off his face.

"Your face is all contorted and serious looking. You've been frowning since you got out of bed." I poked my tongue out at him. It wasn't the most mature action I could think of, or even the most threatening but it's just what happened in that moment because by now I was sitting on my hands to stop them from doing something more drastic. Again, that grin.

"What walls?" I asked again.

"Your mind, I can't get in. You have these walls – it's the best way I can describe them – they contain your thoughts and your feelings and I can't get past them. And I'm usually good at getting past them, but yours are locked solid. I can't get through so I have no idea what you're thinking so you're going to have to contribute, verbally, to this discussion so we can figure out what we are going to do." Whoa. Was my first thought, too much to process.

"My thoughts," I whispered "you're trying to read my mind, what the hell gives you the right to read my mind."

He looked a little stunned as he raised his hands to the surrender position "calm down Lily, that's what we do, read minds. Most of us communicate that way. I'm finding it hard to communicate with you, you're not giving me anything here. Can't you just give me a break?"

I had to sit on my hands and feet right now. I was gobsmacked. So much so that I couldn't even process any of my own thoughts. "OK" I heard him say "I'm not mind reading here, only guessing, you're pretty angry right now," he said "I'm beginning to recognise that look."

Yes, I was angry among a few dozen other things which is why I started to calm myself down. It was Axel. He was the one who had taught me to accept my emotions and not be ruled by them and around Jason I was beginning to feel ruled. And around this time, remembering Axel I started to calm myself down, for this moment in time I'd forgotten all about him and remembering his words, remembering him brought back the realisation that if I didn't find him I may lose him forever.

"If you want to know something Jason, just ask. You are not getting into my mind. So stay out of it. Ask me anything you want to know and I'll answer. Can we please talk about Axel now?"

"But Lily, I need to read your emotions as well as...." I hope it was my stony 'blink' stare that stopped the rest of that sentence because soon I would be tempted to pull down those walls temporarily just to let him know exactly how pissed off his mind reading crap was making me feel.

"Tell me about Axel. Where are they taking him?" I sounded a lot calmer than I really felt at this minute. I figured getting into another fight with Jason wasn't going to help me help Axel and I just wanted him back. Jason just watched me a moment. He does that a lot. I guess he's trying to get to those walls of mine.

"They'll be taking him back to the Palace," he said with a long drawn out sigh. "Look Lily, I know you want to save him, but I don't think this is a good idea. In fact, I know it's not a good idea." He held out his hand palm facing towards me, he knew I was about to interrupt with a few very well formed and adjectives.

"Look. I promised Axel that if anything happened to him I would continue our original plan and take you to your father's home. That's what Axel wanted. That's what your father wanted. There are a lot of people out there looking for you right now and the only way I can keep you safe is if we continue our journey to your father's home." He paused here watching me, waiting. I didn't immediately speak. It took a few seconds for me to even understand how I was feeling right now. Jason, however, was clearly indicating it was my turn to speak, well, here goes...

"I understand you made a promise to both Axel and the other guy, my father." It's a word I didn't want to use for anyone other than Axel, it's a word that made my stomach churn with fear about what was happening to Axel right now.

"But the short of it is I don't care. Usually a promise is something sacred to me so I'm letting you off the hook here. This whole thing, it's not your problem, it's mine. You are just an innocent bystander caught up in something unimaginable to me. This is your cue to leave. Understand that I'm not expecting anything from you, go back to whatever you were doing before you met me and my father. No hard feelings. I have to go to Axel. I can't live a life without him knowing something terrible has happened to him. I won't live that life. For better or worse I am going to find him. All I ask of you is that you point me in the right direction and I'll figure it out from there. You've been amazing up until now and I'm never going to be able to thank you enough for your help but it's time for us to part ways."

Just for the record, that's not what I had expected to hear myself say when I answered Jason. I was looking at my feet now playing with my toes. I didn't want to look up, even I understood how cruel and heartless that sounded.

The air around me had turned perfectly still. I couldn't hear or sense anything. I still hadn't raised my head. "Lily look at me". No, I thought and continued playing with my toes. "Lily look at me." No, no, no I thought, I'm playing with my toes, it's important.

So that's when his hand shot out and oh so gently raised my head so that I was eye level with him. He kept his hand there, steadying my face and even though I tried to avert my eyes he held them in place. My breathing became shallow. I think I was on the precipice of a panic attack. And still, he just kept hold of my eyes, not wavering, not speaking, not moving. His expression was hard. That's the only way I can describe it. All his features hardened, his brow line, his cheeks, his chin. And still he just continued to look at me. It felt like an eon when he finally spoke.

"I'm not leaving." He said and with this his expression started to soften. "Yes, I made a promise to take you to your father's home, I also made a promise to keep you safe and if I leave you now you won't be safe. Also, you are not getting rid of me that easily.

"You have no idea how dangerous the people who are after you are. Not just the Palace but Gentech are after you as well. Someday, by the way you will have to explain exactly why that is, but for now you have to know, if they catch you Lily, they are not going to be kind – not if they are after something specific. Axel for now is ok. He was hurt pretty badly and they will have to heal him before anything else happens, that will take time. And you can't go up against them alone, it will take more than your pretty face and stubborn wit to get past the guards and anywhere near Axel."

Ummmm, I have no idea where this is going, so I'm just going to sit here and nod my head like I know what the hell he's talking about.

"I get it. I get that you are going to go after Axel no matter what. It's not what I think we should do. That being said, I'm also not going to wonder at every turn if this is when you're going to run away. You've got that mind of yours locked up so tight that I can't anticipate what you're about to say or do. So, against my better judgement...Really against my better judgement, I think it's time to go get Axel."

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. I nearly launched myself at him. But I didn't. Sanity prevailed, and after all I had been playing with my toes, so gross, touching anyone with my hands. I just let it sink in for a second. I had been so afraid of him leaving, in fact I'd convinced myself that he would leave, that I now had to shift reality in my head to one where Jason would actually stay and help.

"It will take Axel time to heal which means we have time to get to him before they really hurt him." There was that grin again, "Yes. We are probably cutting it close. And we do have obstacles. Gentech will know by now what happened and they're gonna be pissed, so they are probably deploying their men as we speak. We also have the Esperanzi to worry about and it's at least two days drive to the Palace. So yes, we can make it in time if we catch a bit of luck." Jason also let out a deep breath as he said this, I guess he was a little worried about how this conversation was going after all.

"So, we have a plan then. A plan we both agree on. We are going to get Axel."

"Yes," Jason confirmed. We sat there for a couple more seconds just allowing our decision to sink in.

"Right," Jason finally broke the silence. "I have to go steal a car and you have to pack up all our stuff." I know I felt worried and I guess it must have shown on my face

"Lily, I'm not going to leave you. That's another promise I'm making. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve and I am a lot smarter than most of those guys. Don't worry too much. I can get us into the Palace unnoticed. It's the getting out we may need some divine help with." Somehow that didn't make me feel any better.

"Jason," I called out as he was heading towards the door, "thank you." He looked at me for a long moment and nodded his head in acceptance as he opened the door and disappeared outside.

Chapter 25

Lily

We were on the road to the Palace and I thought now was a good time as any to try and explain to Jason what I was doing at the centre of whatever this was, to the best of my knowledge anyway. I wasn't entirely sure I understood it completely myself. No wait, that's not true. I understand that my DNA is a little different to human and modern day Traveller DNA, I understand the live nanites, I'm just not sure why it's so important.

Jason after patiently listening to my segmented explanation let out a slow, long whistle. "OK," he finally said. "Now I get why they are after you."

"Really," I snorted, "mind explaining it to me."

Nice, I snorted again.

Jason took his eyes off the road for a moment, looking at me with that searching look again. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean, can you explain to me why I'm stuck in the middle of this. So I have different DNA, so what".

He was quiet for a moment before letting out a snigger. "You're kidding me right. You mean to say you have no idea why they're after you." "Nope," I said. "I've barely had a chance to stop for a minute since Axel took me from the Library. I get that I'm different but so what."

"So what!" exclaimed Jason "OK! I'll explain the so what." It took a moment it seemed for him to collect his thoughts. I had to admire him for that. I'm so use to my filter less mouth that I can admire someone who takes a moment to consider what they are about to say.

"We," he started "specifically the Travellers have been on Earth for a really long time. As much as we would like to believe our gene pool remained undiluted it hasn't. How could it, it's been too long. It's not only because we mixed with the humans it's because our DNA has adapted to Earth over time. This is significant because with these changes some of our indigenous traits have changed. We still have our knowledge and that's our leading edge over humans. Our abilities like our psychokinetic and telepathic abilities, well let's say they are not as strong and influential as they use to be and I've never heard of anyone having naturally occurring nanites." He paused here looking still somewhat shocked at what I had told him about me.

"According to the Palace library there was a whole lot more we use to be able to do -connected with our genes – that we can no longer do. So imagine what happens when someone like you comes along and has a near identical genome to our ancestors, even with a sprinkle of Earth human. I can already think of about ten questions I'd like answers to. And that's just me. I can only imagine how eager the Palace and Gentech are to get their hands on your blood. If they can map your genome, ok, when they map your genome, they can figure out how to alter their DNA to match yours, getting their superpowers back."

OK, I can't breathe. It's the idea of what they want to do to me that's starting to freak me out.

"What do you mean alter their DNA," I asked.

"Remember the Esperanzi, the beasts" Jason said. How could I forget, I keep waking up from the beast dream before it can speak to me again, ugggh.

"Gentech have dozens of hybrids and chimeras. Animals, I loosely use that term, that have been genetically altered, and their genomes combined to enhance various features. The beast on our tail is not a wild animal. It's a soldier that can manipulate technology and use mind altering techniques – as you already know". He paused for a second. "Lily, one of the things the Travellers want more than anything is complete superiority over the human race, they want to come out of hiding. The Palace wants to be in charge to make this world better, Gentech just want to be in charge and do things their way, completely take over-out in the open. This is something both sides could achieve if they had their original DNA and all the perks that brings with it. Do you realise you healed Axel? His recovery makes so much sense now. Your blood, specifically the nanites healed his wounds. Do you understand what that could mean to all of us. We'd be indestructible."

I couldn't comprehend all this at once. I would need a minute, so instead I concentrated on one thing. "You have about ten questions. What is one of them?" Jason looked over at me again "Really? You wanna know?"

"Mhmm".

"OK, there's one glaringly obvious question I'm sure everyone's asking. Where did you come from? Wherever you came from, well there has to be more DNA like yours. I'm guessing it's your father's home. I'm guessing that's one of the big questions everyone after you has."

My gulp was pretty loud. It should be, a sick butterflies are dying in my tummy type of feeling was growing and extending out into my brain. Somewhere inside me, somewhere primal a terrified scream was building. It wasn't ready to come out yet but it was building steam. I didn't want to speak anymore. I felt Jason look at me sideways before silently bringing his attention back to the road we were driving on. Everything went quiet and stayed that way for the next hour or so.

Chapter 26

Lily

The thing that scared me the most was the lack of chase. I could feel Jason getting more and more tense and when I asked him about it he echoed my concern. "This can only mean that they know where we are heading and they are already there setting up an ambush" he quietly said.

He never asked me again whether I really wanted to rescue Axel, I guess he understood my determination. I just wasn't sure why Jason was coming along. I know he feels some kind of loyalty to the man he continually refers to as my father but I can't shake the feeling that it's something more than that, I just can't figure out what it is. Actually, thinking too hard about anything right now is difficult.

Jason has been going over our rescue plan. Luckily, he still has most of the alien tech he brought with him so he will be able to confuse our trail near the Palace to cover our tracks, hoping that at least that would throw off the beasts. He was still pretty calm about getting in, it was the getting out that he wasn't sure about. He kept saying that it was something that he would need to decide once he knew the situation, whatever that meant. I was too scared to ask. And that would be when he dropped his 'there's only one more thing I need from you to make this work' bomb.

I held my breath as I whispered ''what."

"Don't get mad."

"You know I'm going to get mad just because you tell me not too right," his laughter echoing his nervousness somewhat.

"We don't have any form of technical communication with us and we need to be in communication the whole time we are in and around the Palace, especially if we become separated. Soooooo.... You are going to have to learn how to let your walls down, open a door and let me into your mind so we can keep talking to each other throughout this mission."

My shoulders stiffened right up at the mere mention of Jason listening into my thoughts. I don't know why I was resisting so much. I guess in part it had something to do with Axel. He drilled and drilled and drilled me on this, about keeping my thoughts to myself. I spent most of my life in a state of no thought because I now knew he'd been so paranoid about someone listening in. I didn't even know why Axel taught me apart from the standard answer of 'wellbeing and mindfulness' so I just did it because it meant so much to him. So much so that I wasn't consciously doing it anymore, the walls were up and I had no idea how to bring them down let alone open a door.

I also didn't want Jason in my head. I was confused and that being said I was super confused about him. I didn't know what to make of him. Axel said to trust him so on the outside I did but letting him into my head and into all that confusion and the girly sighs I sometimes silently made when I caught sight of him. Oh no, this would not turn out well for me, so I evaded.

"I bet you say that to all the girls." He turned to me wearing that big wide grin of his and that right there, noticing that grin was why I didn't want him in my head.

He was quite for a minute or two and then "seriously though Lily, we have to do this. We could practice. We only have a day's drive left, maybe less. Once we get to the Palace we won't have time for anything other than getting in, getting Axel and getting out...so let's practice now and make it as easy as possible for us to mind chat."

"Mind chat" I said, "that's what the boys are calling it now," ok so I was acting like a bratty little girl but I just did not want to do this – and apparently I said that out loud. Wow, this was going well.

"Lily I'm not going to invade your private thoughts, not unless you want me too," he says with a grin. "Seriously Lily, it's just a silent chat, that's all." He waited while I silently chatted with my inner voice about how I really did not want to do this while my inner voice calmly told me it was a great idea and it really was the best choice so. "Alright," I screamed. That was me shouting at my inner voice but apparently Jason didn't know that yet, because I had walls up.

"Relax Lily, it's not going to hurt and you can create a special room within that wall of yours that is especially for you and me to chat in and keep the rest as secure and private as you want."

"What, really, I can do that," because I'm thinking, that I can do.

"Yes," he said. "All you have to do is visualise a room, use your imagination and confine any communication between us to that room and visualise the rest of your fortress solidly and indestructibly in place."

Huh I thought. I could do that. "Ok," I said "give me a minute."

So I did. I visualised a doorway leading into the top of my wall. I hung a sign, 'Jason and Lily chat here'. The door opens onto a room that looks very much like the Library I left behind. My favourite corner, with my favourite desk although I did add two very large cushions because I always thought I'd love to sit on something like that when I read. A little sentimental and a little sappy but I couldn't help it, when I thought of chatting I thought of my corner in the library. The only thing missing was my big window. Every time I tried to visualise a window, all it looked onto was the garden of my private thoughts, so I nixed the window and added a tapestry of the ocean instead.

"Ok done, what's next?"

"I'm going to try and feel out the edges of your mind, you focus on the room and let's see if I can find it," he said.

"Actually," I said. "I was wondering, while you're trying to probe my mind, who's driving the car?" He chuckled. At least he wasn't mad with me anymore

"I can do both things simultaneously and I'm very good at probing minds. At some point Lily you will have to start trusting that I really do know what I'm doing."

Hmm, I thought, so much for the good mood, I've managed to piss him off again, which he probably just heard because I just felt something poke my brain "hey" I screamed "can you try gentle on the dial."

Jason ignored me of course because I continually felt his poking at my brain. It reminded me of those horrible tactile bendy rubber toys that acquiesce to your touch as you transform their shapes. And he opened the door. _"Nice touch, I would have found it without the sign though."_

" _That's not what I meant,"_ I thought

" _I heard that,"_ I heard someone say it my head "what!"

" _It's me Lily, I'm in your head. Like what you've done with the place, a little rustic, but nice."_

"Umm how come I can hear you so clearly, it's like you're talking to me normally," I said out loud.

" _I can't believe you haven't done this before it's like the kind of thing we learn in kindergarten,_ " thought Jason, and that was enough for me, I was already feeling freaked out by this whole silent chatting thing and now he was making fun of me.

" _No Lily wait,'_ he screamed as I slammed the door shut after kicking him out of our chat room. I didn't want to be reminded of my childhood, not when Axel was in trouble.

"You're going to have to leave that door open at all times Lily. I can force my way in but I'd rather not. This thing would go a lot easier if you just played along," he said out loud.

He didn't sound pleased and I really didn't care but I was beginning to notice how difficult I found reading Jason. I slowly, over time, allowed him access to our room and he 'freely' allowed me admission into his mind, although I couldn't help but feel that there was a lot he was holding back. It was very weird at first, it really did feel like playing with one of those gooey toys.

There were definitely areas of Jason's mind I couldn't access, it felt like I was knocking on a brick wall, and others where had I looked more closely, I would have seen the welcome sign. Jason was very gentle with me and encouraging when I was shy about entering his mind at all. It became pretty easy and I kind of liked the idea of having a secret conversation with someone. It's something I could get use to, all in the nick of time too. We were just outside the outskirts of the city, in less than an hour we would be at the Palace gates.

Chapter 27

The beast

The beast had been tracking the two Travellers from a distance, these were his orders – track, do not engage, report. He had been trying to see the girl in his sleep. She was resisting him, every time he was about to break through, she would jolt awake. She recognised him, which should have worried him and clinically it did, emotionally though he couldn't help but smile at the thought. That's how he had tracked them. His usual methods, he now understood, were not applicable anymore.

The boy knew how to cover his tracks. He had fooled even the most sophisticated technology, "unprecedented" is what his superiors called it. The only method of tracking them left to the beast was to link with the girl and even though she woke when he probed her mind, it was enough for the beast to discover her location. If she had opened up to him, she would have known he was tracking her.

He was surprised at how disappointed he was every time she severed their connection, still, he was on their trail and he confirmed hours ago that they were heading towards the Palace. He knew Gentech personnel were there waiting for them, waiting to issue orders to the beast when he arrived. He was ready to capture her. That's the thought that kept playing over and over in his head as he followed the trail. Soon he would have her and for good measure he was quite happy to eliminate the boy.

Lily

We had arrived at the Palace two hours ago. Parked a few blocks away Jason was watching, waiting, gauging who was there, where they were and how are we going to enter the Palace unnoticed. He had a plan of course. We had been practising our mind chats, even upgrading to exchanging images. That's how I knew what the Palace looked like and looking at it now I was amazed at the exact detail and clarity of Jason's images, they were perfect.

The Palace was an elegant old Tudor mansion. Its perimeter was lined with a thicket of trees, a long winding driveway snaking its way to the front of the house. The neighbourhood was urban but affluent, the type where across the road meant a five-minute drive. For all the old worldly charm on the outside, Jason had also shown me images on the inside which belied its humble origins of Traveller technology. It was an impressive place to call home.

In amongst all of these images, Jason also showed me how we were getting in. There were a series of tunnels beneath the Palace leading in and out. Jason in his enterprising youth had managed to negotiate his way undetected through one of these tunnels. That's how he'd managed to sneak in and out of the facility. He had developed some tech, way beyond my understanding, to shield his movements and they remained operational "just in case" Jason had said and 'just in case' is where we were right now.

I had tried on occasion to break through Jason's mind defences and every time I would hear a loud, silent " _if you let me in, I'll let you in_ ". It was no use, I'm not even sure why I was trying. I guess I was trying to keep my mind off what we were about to do. I know, or rather I felt that Jason thought we had about 0.5% chance of succeeding here. This wasn't in his mind a rescue operation, it was more a suicide run, which made me wonder even more why he was still here. I wasn't buying the "I made a promise" line he kept feeding me.

I couldn't stop thinking of Axel. I couldn't link with his mind. Jason said it was because he was unconscious, he even went so far as to wonder whether they had induced a coma to interrupt any communication between us. We had no element of surprise here, everyone knew we were coming, and they were waiting.

"There," I heard Jason shout out excitedly. "Gentech... I've got five personnel there," he pointed to our left "and there," pointing further down the Palace road. "Only ten, they mustn't think we are much of a challenge. The Palace guards will remain in the grounds so we have to get past these guys first. Hopefully the Palace guards will take care of Gentech for us. I need to leave the car and plant our distractions." He paused looking at me, quite intently in fact. I started shuffling in my seat under the weight of that gaze

"On second thoughts you had better come with me."

He still didn't trust me to stay anywhere on my own. He said something about me "not following instruction when I'm trying to keep you safe" blah...blah...blah...so we would become joined at the hip. He retrieved what looked like a gun from the boot of the car.

I'm not sure if he noticed my alarm, he just very calmly stated "it's something I made. It's not a weapon as such, it's going to deploy our holographic images. We are going to get them to chase ghosts" he admitted with a very big, proud grin. I felt a flood of excitement coming from him in my mind. He was actually excited about what we were doing. "I'm hoping this distraction will give us the time and cover we need to get into the Palace."

"You made that," I said.

He gave me that narrowed look again, the one that understood I doubted him again

"Someday you are really going to appreciate how smart I am." Slamming down the car boot door he motioned me to follow him so there was no time for me to contemplate on the scale of the Hawkins to Einstein smartness meter, exactly how smart he was.

I followed him jogging down the street. We weren't camouflaged, at least not with Traveller tech. I was wearing a jacket and a beanie of Jason's, my long hair had been gathered up hidden under the cap. Jason was hoping we would blend in with the after-school rush of students on the street. I was short enough to look like a teenage school kid from a distance, that's why I was carrying the backpack.

We came to a four-storey building just behind the building Jason suspected the Gentech men were waiting in ambush. We climbed the stairs to the roof, it was a busy building, people coming and going. Two kids went unnoticed in amongst all the activity. I watched Jason take out his device. It definitely looked like a gun, complete with trigger, scope and gun barrel. He loaded it with a small cylinder shaped object

"This houses a hologram. It is an image of you and me and I've programmed us to run. I'm going to shoot it in three different places in amongst the trees. If I'm right" and he gave me that I'm always right look "Gentech and the Palace guards will see the image, they will detect the tech first when I trigger the hologram that will guide them to our images and fingers crossed, they will take off after us. Once I trigger the holograms we will have about five minutes to get to the tunnel entrance. We will get as close to the tunnel as we can then I'll trigger the hologram. Don't worry," he finished saying "this is ingenious, it will work."

I imagined that I looked doubtful yet again. He flooded my mind with feelings of reassurance and images of what he imagined the whole thing would look like. Jason adjusted a dial on the gun. He was setting the distance and fired once. Reloaded, adjusted the dial, aimed further into the tree line and fired. Reloaded, adjusted the dial, aimed into the Palace driveway and fired.

I was holding my breath, Jason was smiling pleased with the outcome.

He tapped my shoulder and pointed to the roof of the building opposite from us. There on the roof I could see movement, nothing big or obvious, scampering is how I could best describe it _"Gentech"_ Jason said into my mind _"they have a tech signature they know we are here they are just not sure where, I've scrambled our signal. C'mon, let's go."_

Jason stayed low as he ran back across the roof to the door leading to the stairs. I followed him mimicking his movements. Now was not the time to argue his every move. I released this feeling to him and he turned around as he opened the stairwell door and smiled _"it's about time."_ I heard loud and clear in my mind as I followed him all the way down to street level.

Luckily the streets were still busy and we rushed unnoticed out of the building. Jason did his best ninja impression and seamlessly blended with the crowd. I however, feeling a little stressed failed to show such finesse and bumped into person "sorry" after person "sorry" after person "sorry".

I saw Jason double back, he took my hand and still managed to cut a path through the crowd with me in tow and not one single bump. I would wander sometime in the future with all my physical training with Axel why I had such a hard time moving through a crowd and how Jason executed our retreat so effortlessly. Could my body not move with a little more grace?

We hurried back to the car and walked straight past it "we are heading to the tunnel. I'm about to press the trigger, once Gentech see the holograms we have to move, we will be exposed for about 30 seconds so we have to move under the cover of their distraction".

Jason took a panel out of his pocket and pressed a seemingly invisible button on the top of it. He waited then pointed. I followed his finger and that's when I saw us, both of us, running through the trees towards the Palace grounds. Then he pointed to our left and right. I shouldn't have been surprised when I saw them but I was. Men dressed all in black, running out of the buildings and vehicles parked on the street, all running towards the us's running in amongst the trees on Palace grounds.

Jason waited a few more seconds until the Gentech men were all on the ground. He pressed the button for the second device and tapped my shoulder "c'mon, we go now" and we ran heading straight for the alleyway right next to the former Gentech ambush point.

Chapter 28

Lily

We were out in the open as Jason had predicted, however, there was no one there to see us. That didn't stop either Jason or me from running very fast to an alley way across the road from the Palace. As alley ways went it was quite a fancy one and by fancy I mean clean, I suppose it should be, the Palace wasn't exactly hidden amongst the poorest of neighbourhoods. It was simply an alleyway servicing two buildings. We were heading to the back of the alley, toward what looked like a wall. I saw Jason standing in front of it, playing with his special watch only to see the wall start to shimmer and a doorway appeared in its place. "C'mon Lily, we have to go now."

I was apparently rooted to the spot staring at the newly appeared doorway. I have seen some weird and maybe not so wonderful things over the last few days and yet here I was amazed as Jason grabbed my arm shoving me in through the door. As we both ran inside, Jason once again started fiddling with his fancy watch and the door once again was replaced by a brick wall.

"Neat trick," I said, "you did that all without a wand."

Quiet, from Jason, well that was a first, the one thing I could rely on with Jason was a comeback, every time, except now it seemed and I would lie if I didn't admit how unsettling that was.

"From now on we mind speak only OK. It's important. They have excellent security and can hear even the smallest of sounds." Great I thought as I watched Jason fire up a light source from his fancy watch

"Doesn't that mean they will hear us coming" I said. "Yes," he replied "but they will think we are part of the Palace general community, its unusual conversation and aberrant tech signatures they'll be looking for. I guarantee by now everyone is watching our holograms that's why we need to get into the main building quickly."

I followed Jason closely. The tunnel was dark and the light source didn't spread light too far ahead it felt like we were walking downwards until the path levelled out again. Jason definitely knew where he was going, I would have to ask him exactly how many times he had made this trip when this was all over. A look at my watch betrayed my senses showing only 10 minutes had passed as we reached a door in the tunnel.

Jason had triggered the last hologram just before he closed off the alley way entrance so by now we were both hoping Palace guards and Gentech personnel were out there occupied with each other's presence so that we had just enough time to make it into one of the Palace's out buildings.

" _We're here."_ I found myself amused that Jason was whispering into my mind. What wasn't so amusing was how nervous he was. He'd been Mr Cool, Calm and Collected all this time, not even breaking a sweat in the midst of fighting and right now he looked more nervous than me.

" _This door leads into one of the out buildings just outside the research facility door. I've stashed some gear, we need to change and look like we work in one of the labs. Once inside we will have to make it to the medical wing, I'm pretty sure that's where they are keeping Axel."_

Before I knew it I had donned a white overall and slightly large fitting boots and cap. Jason armed us both with infectious waste containers hoping that if anyone saw us they would just assume we were technicians going about out daily tasks. Luckily the containers were big enough to squeeze the backpack into so we didn't have to leave anything behind. Jason led the way with instructions to follow him like I knew what I was doing. Righty-o, I didn't know if I could pull off a science look, I guess I was just about to find out.

The beast

They had nearly fooled him. He was about to take off after the holograms, luckily, he had hesitated. His orders were to stay put and keep an eye on the outside of the Palace but when he saw the girl and boy running in among the trees his instincts forced him to stand and ready himself for the chase. He hesitated, after all he was supposed to follow orders and this hesitation delayed his hunt long enough to notice two people running, really fast, for the alley way directly across from the Palace.

Now our beast was a very observant creature and knew the movement of these people was very familiar, he realised after his initial confusion that this was his girl. He had watched her often enough to recognise it.

He didn't follow his orders, he didn't stay, he took off after the two people he had seen running. He knew it was his two Travellers, he realised what he had seen in the trees was just another ruse, clever male. He chased them directly into the alleyway to find it completely empty of humans.

The beast raised his wrist band and begun scanning the area. It was faint but he detected a trace of tech, walking up to the wall he started sweeping his forearm along its width. He knew it was a fake and the signature was fading. He started adjusting his wrist band looking for a way to break the signal and find the doorway he knew was behind this wall.

Lily

At first we didn't encounter anyone as we casually walked down the corridor with our waste bins in hand. It didn't last long as we walked through the secure decontamination door to the sound of an alarm screaming at us and people running out of rooms heading down the corridor all in the same direction. Jason held out a hand and stopped one of the runners

"What's happening?" he asked in his best alarmed voice. So much for incognito I thought as I tried to do my best alarmed impression.

"I'm not sure...someone said the Palace guards and Gentech are on the grounds shooting at each other...that can't be right though...you better get out of here man, they're shutting down this wing."

The guy ran off, he looked freaked out as did everyone else. Jason pulled me aside, he started taking the backpack out of the waste container. "We have to head to the med wing now. I've got a pretty good idea where Axel is. Hopefully we can use all the commotion to cover us. This might actually work."

He didn't wait for a reply or comment, Jason was off beginning to lose himself in the rush of people trying to leave the wing. I pulled off my boots, I had already tripped a couple of times and back in my own shoes I was able to catch up to Jason and follow him out. I couldn't believe how easy this was and somewhere in the back of my mind I was remembering Indiana Jones making it to the alter, removing the gold statue, replacing it with a bag of sand and the loud rumble that followed. I could have sworn if I looked over my shoulder, I would have seen a giant boulder chasing us down.

We were welcomed into the med wing by a hive of activity. Medical personnel were already bringing wounded guards into the medical bays, Jason and I walked passed unnoticed. We were walking away from all the activity and straight to the end of a long corridor

"He should be in this last room. I thought they would have stationed guards out here waiting for us. This is too easy." My sentiments exactly.

In fact, I'm sure I could hear the rumble somewhere behind us closing in. Jason entered the last room off the corridor and there lying on a gurney hooked up to a couple of machines was Axel. My paranoia left me the second I saw Axel, I ran over to him elated we found him, scared to see his eyes were closed and unmoving.

"Axel, Axel please wake up," I whispered as I shook him trying to wake him up. If I was thinking clearly I would have realised how fruitless this action was. I could hear Jason moving around beside me, moving machines and pressing buttons.

"He's in a coma, induced by the looks of it, I'm going to try and bring him around."

That's all I needed to hear. I took Axel's hand and concentrated so hard, probing his mind trying to bring it back to life, trying to smile into it so he could recognise me and wake up. "Axel please wake up. I've come to get you. We are going to leave here now, we are going to go somewhere safe where we never have to run again, Axel, please."

I don't know how long I kept repeating this, I could feel desperation well up inside of me, ready to spill over, but soon I felt it, faintly but it was there, Axel. It wasn't a spoken word it was more like energy like I could feel him coming towards me, I could see him in my mind's eye actually walking towards me "Lily," he said as he collected me in a hug, "you shouldn't be here you have to go, they are coming. Leave me and go."

"No, I'm not leaving without you. They can have me if it means staying with you. So it's your choice. If you want me to leave then you have to come with me." He held me back from his arms and just looked at me and ever so slightly smiled. That's when I felt him squeeze my hand, it was a feather type touch, but it was there.

"He's coming out of it," Jason said. "Lily, he can't walk, we are going to have to take him out with the bed. There's so much going on out there, cross your fingers nobody cares about us."

For the first time in as many days I felt like this was actually going to work. Jason had already unplugged Axel from all the machines and he seemed to be breathing steadily. I wouldn't let go of his hand so Jason had to handle both the bed and me.

We started moving towards the door, only inches now. The door suddenly opened and there stood a man wearing a big wide smile. I recognised him, this was the same guy I'd seen at the petrol station. Jason pulled the bed to a stop, all I could do was stare

"Excellent, you're both here," he said. "You led us a merry chase with those holograms, it took us a while to figure out it wasn't you and some of my men were injured as a result. Excellent work my boy." Ok that was weird, he was looking straight at Jason.

"I knew giving you free reign in the lab was a good idea that is some fancy work you did out there. For a second there I didn't think you were going to bring her to me." Ok, now that was really weird.

I turned to look at Jason and his expression was horror stricken. " _Jason_ ". I probed " _Jason._ " I probed again. Nothing, he had shut me down. I pushed a little more, he wasn't letting me in. I was aware that Axel was starting to stir next to me, his hand tightening on mine. Two guards came in aiming their gun at me, not at Jason, at me.

"Come with me young lady," said this strange, very tall man. "You and I are going to have a chat."

Then he looked at Jason, "and you young man have earned yourself a good meal and a hot shower. Well done, you exceeded my expectation." Ok, something inside me was starting to feel sick again. Why was he talking to Jason like he was a pet?

"I'm not leaving her," Jason then said quite determinedly.

"Oh really, you didn't go and fall for her did you Jason. You know that wasn't part of the plan."

Whatever this man was trying to do he was enjoying it, he kept looking from me, to Jason, to Axel, with glee.

"I don't care about your plan, I'm not leaving her."

"Oh how sweet, but you know Jason, you don't have to leave her voluntarily. You have fulfilled your purpose, I'm quite happy to confine you, so stop this nonsense and leave us. Young Lily and I need to have a chat." The jovial tone in his voice remained, his face however had taken on a much sterner countenance. He was losing patience. All I could do was look from one man to the other.

"Ummm, can someone please tell me what's going on," I asked. If it wasn't for the comforting pressure of Axels hand in mine I think I would have collapsed. The sick feeling was growing and that all too familiar scream was starting to build through my lungs.

"Oh well Lily you should ask your young man that." He looked quite pleased with himself as he said this

"He's not my young man and just for laughs why don't you tell me," I asked him. My sarcastic, brave, rebel without a cause ego state was putting on a fine show for all attending.

He giggled, this tall, smug, son of a bitch was actually giggling. "Do you believe in coincidences dear Lily?" he asked. He wasn't expecting an answer.

"There are none of course. Jason didn't just happen upon you, he owed me a favour and you are the payload. You were never going to leave here because Jason was supposed to bring you here and give you to me. He's done an excellent job, wouldn't you agree." And, the pit just fell out of my stomach.

I didn't notice at the time but Axels grip had become tighter. I would have fallen if it hadn't, it was the only thing giving me strength.

I turned to look at Jason. "Don't listen to him Lily, I had every intention of getting you and Axel out of here."

Jason turned to this very imposing man.

"I stopped working for you when I became friends with Wolf. I used you as much as you used me. You're not as smart as you think you are you know, if only you really knew what was happening here you would..." Jason didn't get to finish. One of the Palace guards had come up next to him and placed a device to his neck and that was the end as folks say. Jason collapsed, he was out cold, lying humped over on the floor. I just stared. I couldn't move, couldn't think, just stared.

"That's that then," he was actually smiling. "Put him in a cell, I will deal with him later," he instructed the guard and that's when he turned his full attention back to me and smiled.

"Who are you?" I asked

"Why my dear," he said with a very theatrical pause. "I am your grandfather." Dramatic pause number two. "I have waited a very long time to meet you." And that's when I felt something cool at my neck and the whole entire dark world closed in on me.

Chapter 29

Lily

The first thing I noticed was how cold I felt, I guess that's what woke me up. There was a blanket folded neatly beside me unused. My captors weren't the gracious, chivalrous kind, if there is such a thing. I could barely see anything, it was dark.

What I knew for sure was that I was lying on a bed in a small, windowless room. I knew Axel wasn't with me, I knew that my whole life had been a lie and then I met Jason and then there were more lies and oh God I'm starting to feel sick again.

Jason.

I remember a dream I just had. Jason was behind a glass wall, he looked distraught slamming his fists against the wall. I could see his mouth moving, I knew he was talking, no he was screaming something, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. I just sat behind the glass, hugging my knees into my chest watching him in a state of no thought. It was bad enough that I could see him, I didn't want to think about him as he stood there banging on the glass wall that separated us.

The events of the day started playing back in my mind, happiness at feeling Axels arms around me, terror that we'd been found, horror at the suggestion that Jason had betrayed me, my grandfather?

The sound of the door to my room opening took me by surprise, I actually jumped, the action scattering my thoughts. A Palace guard entered carrying a gun. Seriously how melodramatic were these guys, I know defeat when I experience it, as if I was going to go karate girl on them and use weapons I had cleverly concealed on my body

"You really don't need to point that thing at me, I'm not going to try and beat you up," I finally said to the guard. He had just walked into the room and stood there looking at me with a scowl that made his already unattractive face uglier.

"I'm not here to chat," he said. "Come with me now, the old man wants to see you." Oh well there was an invitation I couldn't refuse.

I stood very slowly, I knew I couldn't fight him but I knew I could piss him off and that was always my go to defence when nothing else worked. The guard was of the very impatient type, he grabbed me by the arm and roughly shoved me toward the door.

"Move now, we don't have all day." I smiled at him just then which earned me enough of a shove out of the door that it was thanks to the wall opposite that I actually came to a standstill.

"What?" I said. "Only one of you, not sure how I feel knowing you think I'm that easy." That earnt me the barrel of the guards gun in my back

"Move," he said, growing ever and ever more impatient with me. Triumphant is how I felt in that moment. We had just walked to the end of the corridor and started turning left when I'm sure I'd heard a scraping sound, I turned to look behind me and came face to face with the guard's scowl. "Move" he yelled this time.

I shook my head, it wasn't just the sound I heard, it was something else, a feeling. It grew stronger with every step I took, so I'm reasoning that that is why I turned when I did to see a look of surprise on the guards face as his gun toppled from his hand and he fell straight into me pinning me to the floor.

I too was surprised and winded when I saw the guard rise off me and off the floor. He was floating, in mid-air and all of a sudden the middle of his chest blew out. Blood sprayed all over me, the walls and the floors. I couldn't understand what I was seeing, there was no one else in the corridor and yet there was the guard, mid-air with a hole in his chest and the light of life dying in his eyes. His body was then flung towards the wall where it slowly slid down leaving a trail of blood behind it until he came to rest in a heap on the floor. I'm not sure if I was breathing or not. I felt a breath, but I knew, I just knew it wasn't coming from me "who's there" I finally called out.

It took only a couple of seconds until I saw it. I was still lying on the floor and the air above my face had started to shimmer and there it was. The beast, the face I'd seen so often in my dreams was right above me now, it opened its mouth, and with its very guttural voice it said "gotcha".

Remember that scream that had been building up since all this started, the beast heard it loud and clear. That's when it smiled.

Jason

When the old man first approached me with a special assignment I took it, hungrily, not caring about the details. I was bored at the Palace and looking for adventure. Gordon's assignment I rationalised was my ticket out but I was not prepared for what would happen next. I wasn't prepared to form such affection for Wolf and his story and god Lily.

When I saw Lily I knew I was done for. I knew I would carry out Wolf's instructions and I knew then that my future was doomed as soon as the old man discovered my duplicity. I hated the Palace, hated what it had done to me as a child, hated what it was planning for Lily.

Bringing her back to the Palace was a monumental mistake of course. I should have just knocked her unconscious and taken her to the mountains just like Wolf had asked me to do, but no, I wanted her to like me so I did what she wanted. Brought her back to the one place I promised Wolf I would protect her from and now thanks to my stupidity she hated me.

I felt it, felt her figure out my involvement in this before she shut me out. We were all in trouble now and I didn't know how I could get us all out of it. I don't know what the old man told her but whatever it was, she believed him, or at least some version of it. Now I was locked in a tiny cell and I knew what was waiting for me, reprogramming. I had lived out my usefulness and it was time to reform to Palace rule. If I let that happen, it would all be over.

I had to find a way out of this, I had to rescue the girl. I had to be that guy, it was the only way I would be able to live with myself after what I had done.

###

Lily's adventure continues in The Quiet Ones (A Travellers story Part 2) available now. Keep reading for Chapter 1 of the Quiet Ones, just a preview of things to come.

The Quiet Ones

(A Travellers story. Part 2)

Chapter 1

Lily

This felt like the first time I could think for myself in days without pain or losing consciousness. Gentech didn't waste any time putting their theories to work. I still didn't know how they knew about my special blood qualities, the naturally occurring biological nanites that exist within me. Ever since I found out about my blood, my alien ancestry and the war between the Palace and Gentech, I never once believed torture would be part of the story. Gentech weren't calling it torture. No, they believed they were conducting valid scientific research. Such humanitarians, breaking my bones and recording the length of time the nanites healed the break. In retrospect that was the nicest thing they did to me. Their idea of fun was injecting me with all sorts of nasty bugs and watch in awe as my body, my nanites mended the paralysis, blood haemorrhages, fevers and sores. They even injected me with carcinogens mutating my cells causing tumours to grow out of control, until my nanites fought back on my behalf to heal me and bring me back to my pre Gentech torture self.

I wasn't afraid to scream, sob and swear. I was in a lot of pain and I was not going to hide it from these monsters. They were moved by none of it, instead recording my reaction on their stupid notebooks standing around in their stupid white lab coats high fiving each other every time my body healed itself. They would take copious amounts of blood and leave me alone until the next set of torture, I mean experiments. It was times like this I wish I understood how my alien abilities worked so that I could blow the scientists freaking minds and get out of here.

This was the longest they had left me alone. In my semi-conscious state Jason had been able to get into my head. Remember those, the freaky mind powers all Travellers have. I tried hard to keep him out. I still didn't know if he had betrayed me by handing me over to the Palace. We were supposed to be rescuing Axel, my adopted dad, instead the Palace director found us and according to him, Jason was the one charged with the task of delivering me to him. When Jason came knocking I tried hard to keep him out but it wasn't working, not in the state I was in.

Truth be told, and I would never admit this to Jason, his contact is most likely what kept me sane throughout all this. I wasn't sure which side he was on, although he was adamant it was mine and not the Palace's. Either way listening to him, a link to something other than this torture chamber helped keep my mind working rather than going insane. It's through these discussions that I found out Axel was still heavily sedated. Jason had heard two guards talking about him. Apparently, Axel has some freaky mind tricks he can play and now that the Palace have him, they can't afford to allow him any conscious room to move. It seems the Palaces guards were a gossipy group, either that or they didn't believe any of their prisoners were going to make it out of the Palace alive, so discretion wasn't important to them. That's how Jason knew I wasn't on Palace grounds, I told him I was at Gentech. I only knew this because the beast had captured me from inside the Palace grounds and brought me to Gentech. All those pristine crisp white lab coats adorned with the company logo helped me figure it out. What could it hurt Jason knowing this, so he'd get tortured at the Palace and they would know exactly where I was. What's the difference between torture at the Palace and torture at Gentech.

Jason said he was a prisoner at the Palace, they were going to reprogram him, but he had a plan to get out and be all heroic and rescue me. I want to believe him. He won't share his plan with me, he says my mind is compromised considering how easy it was for him to get in when I previously excelled at keeping him out. He told me I had to hold on, that he was coming. I asked about Axel. Jason had a plan for him too. Honestly, I couldn't believe any of it. It just felt like Jason was setting me up for something else.

The most curious thing about the last few days though were the visits from the beast when I finally fell asleep. I thought I had seen the last of him when he captured me until I felt him in my head.

"Feel pain?" he said. He was still only speaking with as few words as possible.

"Yes," I said. "You brought me to a torture chamber, remind me to give you a treat for a job well done when I see you next."

"Don't understand," he muttered. I shouldn't have acknowledged him at all. I knew though that just like Jason this connection to the outside world was keeping me sane regardless of how dysfunctional it was.

"You brought me here, now they are experimenting on my and it really hurts, that's what you're feeling."

"Why?" he says sounding uninterested.

"They are testing my blood. I can heal myself and they want to know how it works."

To my surprise the beast sounded shocked. "That's cruel," he said "didn't know."

I wanted to laugh at him, I couldn't, it sounded more like a snort. "Like you would have done anything differently if you had known."

"Not hurt," he said shaking his head "not know." I could've fooled myself believing I was witnessing remorse in the beast. I knew I was wrong though. He didn't know what remorse was, hell he shouldn't even be having this conversation with me.

This whole experience was closing in on me. I was acting like a scared little girl instead of trying to fight, trying to find a way out of here. That's when I heard the lab door open again and saw the torturer walk in with another tray.

"How are you today Lily? Well restored I hope, this set of experiments is going to be a doozy."

I shut my eyes, I couldn't bear to look at his face. I started chanting Axel's name in my mind, my mantra whenever one of the torturers walked in with their tray. I know Jason said he was sedated but I had to try to connect with him. I had to, it was the only way I could get through the pain.

Thank you for reading my story. I really enjoyed writing it and can't wait to continue the adventure. If you enjoyed it, please take a moment to leave me a review at your favourite retailer.

Thanks

Antonia Fields

Other books by Antonia Fields

The Quiet Ones (The Travellers Story Part 2) – available now

Anubis (The Travellers Story Part 3) – coming in 2020

The Rapture series will also begin in 2020.

You can connect with me on

<https://www.twitter.com/AntoniaFields20>

or

my Smashwords author's page

<https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/antoniafields>

I would love to hear from you.

