Illumination

The Apexes took them in a plane.

Jack had only flown once before in her life. She’d been nine and still new to the advancing technology that would soon become her entire world. The air had been cool. The sky, surprisingly light (a misty grey through which you could see for a long distance), which was a rarity and usually happened only in summertime. But it was October, according to Old Earth time, and Jack had just been adopted by Robin’s family.

The paperwork had been filled out the day before while Robin, then almost thirteen, entertained his new sister by taking her around the courtyard. They’d laughed, eaten sweet fruit with juice that dripped down their chins, and tickled two-year-old Sierra as she sat on the floor of the office. For once, Jack’s ears were free of her parents’ yells.

But they were not silent. The alarms had come later that day, just as the paperwork was turned in and Jacklyn Ferris was now Jacklyn Ferris-Amundsen (a terrible token that she couldn’t shake from her name). Screams had echoed down the halls. Screams, not of fear, but of utter terror.

Jack never got to see what the problem was, but the entire colony evacuated within minutes. She could hear the sound of screams and roars from outside the colony as she was bundled up in a coat and shipped off, but didn’t know what they were for. Hours later, she was lying on the plane, head in her father’s lap, ears throbbing from the new altitude. She couldn’t bear to look out the window and see the world so far below, so she’d sat and held back tears instead. Dana and Sierra were being flown in a separate, medical plane. So it was just her, her father, and Robin.

Jack looked all around her, clearing the memory from her mind. The roaring of the plane the Apexes were using was different and less noisy. The flight overall was much smoother. Too bad Jack was stuffed in what looked like an alien cargo compartment with her hands tied behind her back.

She shook her head fiercely to try and wipe the sound of screams from her head. “Hello. Anybody?” Jack unclasped her hand and tried to prop herself upright, to little success.

“Jackie?” Robin’s voice echoed to her left. He wormed his way over so that his head was sticking out from behind a crate. When he saw his sister, his face relaxed into a more neutral expression. “Oh, thank the gods you’re safe.” His legs scrabbled underneath him as he pushed himself against the wall of the cargo hold. Robin looked around groggily, his Illumination beam swinging from side to side and revealing more and more crates piled up around them. It was like a maze. “The Apexes have a plane?”

“Guess so,” Bailey said, knocking over several unmarked boxes in her attempt to wriggle over. Liam and Sierra soon emerged from the darkest corner near the back of the plane, where they were probably loaded in. “Ugh, this stuff stings.”

Jack, who hadn’t completely recovered from the lupium, swallowed in an attempt to wet her swollen throat. The Apexes had surrounded them before anyone could draw weapons. They’d pressed cloths to their mouths and made them inhale chemicals that burned Jack’s nose...and then all had gone black. The faint, tinted smell of whatever had knocked them out still hovered it the air, pungent and unavoidable.

“Strong. Never heard of it before,” Liam muttered. “Too many chemicals for my taste.”

Jack looked around them; the combined strength of their Illuminators was overpowering her senses and making everything look like a faded, white blob. She turned a knob at the side of her helmet down and the row of lights above her visor dimmed to a slight glow. Now she could see that they were in a large, dark silver cargo hold. The boxes that she’d seen all around were all wrapped in cloth and unmarked. Jack flopped over to the center of the plane, where a sheet of glass about the size of one of the boxes was built into the floor. Probably to...drop crates? Jack braced her knee against a crate to keep from sliding to the back of the cargo hold and looked down.

Motion sickeness gripped her and forced her up against the metal plating of the floor. Jack made herself watch as the ground approached from below. They were descending towards 186 and about to land. “Brace yourselves!” she called. Jack flung herself back towards the others just before the plane’s hoverpad made contact with the ice. Everyone was tossed forward into a pile as the giant plane stopped abruptly, rocked back and forth as it steadied, then was still.

“Everyone good?” Sierra asked from underneath Bailey. They all nodded and disentangled themselves, heads spinning. A few crates had toppled over and now boxed them into a tight group, as they were unable to climb over the new wall thanks to their handcuffs.

As they inched back to their spot up against the furthest wall, there was a loud thud and a beeping noise echoed through the cargo hold. Opposite them, the door was opening up wide, making terrible grinding noises as it did so. Jack could now hear the sound of growling from outside the plane. We’re going to be loaded off, she realized, and elbowed the others. “This is our chance to escape,” she whispered as a ramp extended down to the ground. The door finished opening with a clank, and as it did so, three Apexes strode up the ramp and into the hold.

“Good idea,” Bailey muttered, facing away from their captors so as not to attract attention. Jack lolled her head on Liam’s shoulder and did her best to seem unconscious.

The Apexes loomed over them, easily ten feet tall. They spoke in an unfamiliar language with fragments of English thrown in randomly. It felt strange to be in the presence of these creatures—monsters that Jack had feared her entire life, and to know that they were even more alien then she’d thought. Yet at the same time, the fact that they had technology and a language made Jack feel connected to them. In a strange, terrifying way.

“Up now,” one of them barked at the five of them. He—for the voice was male—bent down on his haunches, drool snaking down his furry chin, and prodded Bailey. The girl stared at him with narrowed eyes that were simultaneously fearless and fearful.

“Braka vstat. Culto pas culto. Tamin dej argelstrad os bolfe k’un,” one of the other, burlier ones spat. It sounded like gibberish to Jack’s ears but the other two Apexes laughed uproariously. The one who’d made the joke strode over and hissed, his snout just inches from his captives, “You come now or bite you.” His English skills were nowhere near as sophisticated as the Apex who’d caught them back in the cave. “I know you not sleep.”

Liam got up first, gently pushing Jack off his shoulder. He reluctantly stood up, swaying slightly from dizziness, and staggered towards their captors. The Apex who hadn’t spoken yet placed a gargantuan paw on the Brit’s shoulder and clenched it. “You next.” The first Apex grabbed Bailey roughly and pulled her up besides Lim. “Fe hastelsut ke’a,” he told the Apex who was holding Liam. The other nodded and took Bailey in its other paw.

Jack tapped her siblings and they seemed to understand the unspoken message. Robin got to his feet then bent down and helped Sierra up. Jack walked over to the biggest Apex and wiggled her bound hands from behind her back. The creature stared down at her with distrust before gripping her shoulder. His grip was like iron; Jack bit her lip to keep from crying out.

“Down,” the big Apex rasped, his breath hot on her neck. The procession began to make their way out of the hold and down the ramp. The Apexes occasionally poked them in the back to keep them moving or to quicken their pace, but let them ramble without much restraint. Probably because they know they’re faster and stronger. It was then that Jack wished the Apexes had forgotten to confiscate their packs. Bailey could’ve used her gun. From the other girl’s expression, Jack could tell that she’d had the idea too.

Abandoning all thoughts of escape for the moment, she trained her eyes on Colony 186, which was rapidly coming up. They’d docked on a landing pad just a dozen yards away and now were approaching the first of several security gates. The Apexes sure are sophisticated, she thought before remembering that they’d probably invaded this colony from whatever planet they’d come from. But they definitely built these gates.

The group passed through the gates and entered a brightly-lit hallway. The Apexes cringed as the lights shone down upon their skin, but they kept them on so that their prisoners could see. When they reached the end of the hall and the path divided into two corridors, signs hanging over each one in the same language, the Apexes stopped Jack and the others. They were roughly blindfolded and led down what felt like the left path. Jack reached out her bound hands to one side as they walked briskly, feeling along the wall for any telltale bumps or cracks she could use later, just in case they escaped. But her Apex captor soon noticed what she was doing and pulled her roughly into the center of the corridor, away from both walls. So much for that.

“You stay here until the boss come for trial,” one of the Apexes said once they’d stopped, which wasn’t until after a dizzying number of twists and turns deeper into the heart of 186. Jack felt her Apex fumble at the blindfold and suddenly she was free.

The five of them were standing in the middle of a prison cell with bars cutting them off from escape. The floor was hard dirt and the walls were made of stone. They really went all out on the whole ‘prison’ thing, Jack thought, turning around in a circle and examining their surroundings. She noticed a strip of lights that wrapped around their cell, probably an electric field for extra security. At this, her heart sank and she leaned up against one of the stone walls helplessly. Jack thought of dashing forward past her captors in an attempt to escape, but before she could do that, the Apexes exited the cell and slammed the metal door shut behind them. It automatically locked, with several mechanical deadbolts sliding into place. There was an official-sounding click and then they were locked in the cell.

“Well, what do we do now?” Bailey asked, pressing her face up against the metal bars.

“Your trial will come later today, I bet. Then comes the sentencing and I promise you, it’s not gonna be pretty,” drawled a voice from above the five of them. Jack looked up in surprise to find that a metal bar ran across the top of their cell, a couple feet from the ceiling. A girl was draped over it, legs dangling down, looking at them with an expression of dejected curiosity.

“How—” Robin began, but was cut off by the new girl, who was somehow sharing the cell with them.

“Don’t pop just yet. I’m jailed like the rest of you. Once the others get back from mandatory exercise, this cell will really be jumping.”

“Who are you?” Jack looked up at their cellmate, eying her nervously. The girl looked to be a few years younger than her, maybe sixteen or seventeen. She had short, red hair that hung in a bob, pale skin, and long eyelashes. She wore a floppy, brown overcoat that had all the pockets turned out, as if they’d been searched.

“I’m Hazel. Who are you?” she asked.

“Jack, Liam, Bailey, Sierra, and Robin,” Jack introduced, pointing at each one of them as she said their names. Hazel watched with interest, now hanging by her knees. Her face was just inches from Bailey. The girl held the newcomer’s gaze cooly and firmly.

“Oh, yes. Ben told me about you all.” A pointed grin spread across her face, much like a trademark Robin smile, except that she had teeth like the bat Jack had seen at the Archives.

“You know Ben? Wait...didn’t he say something about Hazel?” Jack mused out loud. The others nodded.

Bailey jumped in excitedly with, “And Bella. Don’t forget about Bella.” She swished her scarlet hair from side to side, as if comparing its color with Hazel’s, and looked around for the other solfect.

“Bella’s not here,” Hazel said, ignoring the first question about Ben. She rolled off the bar, landing gracefully on the floor. “Like I said, everyone else is out getting some exercise.”

“Why aren’t you with them?” Liam asked, backing away to the corner of the cell, his face a mixture of curiosity and fear at the strange newcomer with bat teeth.

“I don’t need exercise. I’m lazy and gonna die in two days anyways, so why does it matter?”

“Die? In two days?” Sierra gulped and looked around her for a way to escape, but found none. The bars loomed just a foot away, thick and cold as ice. “What do you mean by die?”

“Execution. Toxic gas suffocation.” Hazel gripped her neck and shook her head from side to side. Jack’s heart began to pound faster. Is that going to happen to us? Surprisingly, the solfect girl didn’t seem that disturbed with her fate.

“Why are you so nonchalant about it?” Bailey asked in Jack’s place, clearing her throat.

Hazel turned her gaze on the other and the tension in the room rose a notch. “Because I know Ben is coming to rescue me and all the other solfects.”

“You seem...pretty certain of that.” Robin didn’t look at Hazel as he said this, but instead looked out through the bars at the opposite wall.

Hazel walked over to him and followed his gaze to a spot in the middle of the wall. Evidently bored, she began to pace back and forth. “Yup, that’s me. Always certain of everything.”

“Are you Saemenstoff, then?” Sierra questioned. “Ben’s girlfriend?”

“Significant other, thank you.” The other’s face twisted in disgust. “Solfects...don’t like commitments.”

Before Jack could ponder the strangeness of this answer, there was a series of slow, plodding footsteps from outside. Hazel leapt up to her perch on the ceiling bar to hide from whoever was coming. Jack and the others slouched against the wall and watched as a tall, spindly Apex emerged from around the corner. It was the one who’d captured them at the ice cave and who had spoken so formally.

“The Boss wants to see you in the trial room. I am here on orders to escort you.” She took a few steps to one side and glared at their companion’s hiding spot. “Come down, Hazel, this isn’t for you.” The Apex scoffed and commented, “You should be out getting your exercise. Sitting here lazily isn’t good for you.”

“Choking on toxic fumes isn’t good for me either, lady.” But Hazel swung down anyways and sulked in the other corner, eyes still trained upwards.

“Enough of this. Stay there.” The guard, who seemed to be familiar with tending to the stubborn inmate, stepped up to the door. Jack watched out of the corner of her eye as she waved her hand in front of the keypad, triggering a heat signature reading. A light flashed green and the guard inserted a key to undo the final lock. The door swung open with a rusty creak. “Come on, up you go now.”

First Liam stood up, then Sierra, Jack, Robin, and Bailey joined him. They made no attempt to escape—where would they run to, after all? “Maybe we’ll find an exit on our way to this ‘courtroom’ place,” Bailey whispered as they marched, single-file, out of the prison cell and into the hall. The Apex locked the door tight, leaving Hazel alone in one corner of the cell. Then she shepherded them down the way she came, to the right and around a corner.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a chance for escape. The five of them weren’t blindfolded because their destination turned out to be up a flight of stairs. Now, they were on the second floor, standing in front of a set of double doors. Jack glanced back at the stairwell window, which looked out over the courtyard. It was a long drop down to the ground and nothing to hold on to. So much for that, she thought despairingly as the Apex guard poked Sierra up onto the landing along with the rest of them. “This is the courtroom. Right inside, if you please.” An expression of sympathy flashed across her distorted, alien face before vanishing into stoicism again. “Good luck. You will need it.”

Then she opened the doors, pushed Jack and the others gently over the threshold, and closed the doors behind her, leaving them trapped in the Apex courtroom.