Subject Seventeen: Wraith Among Shadows

The jet is in the air and everyone is silent. I think they’re all still shocked about finding out about the Forgotten. Well, Twelve is simply staring out the window; he doesn’t give a damn. Thirteen is leaning against the wall of the cabin near the back with his hand held up to his face, almost as if he’s covering it in shame. I wonder what that is about.

“What about Three?” I blurt out.

“She’s probably conscious by now,” Four says. “Though she’ll be too weak to ghost. We might as well go get her. She's in the back. If we look at how bad things are now then I think we can all agree that we need her.”

“How will Nine even be able to land the jet on such uneven terrain? The island doesn't exactly have a runway.”

“He has telekinesis remember?”

I turn my head away. I feel stupid for forgetting about his telekinesis. My entire body aches. Even though Seventeen healed me, he only healed the burns. The rest of the damage I’ve taken over the day still remains and is taking its toll. I doubt that I will even be able to walk when the day is over. I’ll be that knackered.

And what did Seventeen mean about his promise? What did he promise me? I'll need to ask him later.

No-one seems to be talking anymore. Not even Sixteen is saying anything. Everyone stays in their seats with their seatbelts on and they simply stare forward. Seventeen must be at the back of the cabin. Now that he has his memories back I can finally find out who I am. I don’t want to ask Fourteen to restore my memories. I don’t want all of them, I just want to know who I was in someone else’s eyes. My past self is completely irrelevant to the current me.

I don’t take note of the amount of time we’re in the air because before I know it we are already descending. I wonder how Three will react to the news of Sanders’ death and what we have done. Also, I wonder what happened to Eight. She and Three already knew the truth and still chose to work for the Youdu, so even if she is alive we all would never be able to trust her.

The jet gently touches down and I immediately unfasten my seat belt. I dash straight out of the jet before anyone else and find myself back on the cold beach we landed on before. In the distance I can still see the remains of the last jet; the one we crash landed.

“Slow down,” One shouts to me as she and Seven limp towards me. Everyone is exhausted. I doubt Eleven has enough strength to heal anyone else today. I don’t blame her – in fact I feel sorry for her. Having to heal us that much must really sap her energy, and she went way past her limits. We should be really grateful that she was here today.

Walking across the beach, I pause to look at the sky and get a feeling of nostalgia. One I feel I haven't had in years. I can't help but smile. I don't know what's ahead of us now but I know that the team, Seventeen and I, I know we can handle it all.

Thirteen exits the jet and carries a still unconscious Three and lays her to rest beside a small boulder. He then scoops up some water from the ocean and hurls it at her, causing her to jump awake. Three carefully eyes each one of us and observes how tired and beat up we are before her eyes open wide.

“What did you do?!” Three hisses at me.

It seems like a whisper is the best she can do right now. I crouch down to her level and look her straight in the eyes.

“Exactly what we said we would do,” I say. “We took down the facility and your father, Sanders, is dead.”

I watch as Three’s jaw drops opens and her eyes widen in shock. I think she doubted that we would be able to do that at all. I sense the worry and even what I take to be despair in her eyes just before she closes them and takes a few breaths to calm down.

“Who killed him?” she says.

“Seventeen.”

“I see… I just don’t understand why you people would do something like this.”

“Because you’ve been an idiot,” Twelve says, walking towards us. “I hate to be serious for a minute, but did you really not realise what the hell you were doing?”

“Twelve…” Thirteen calls out. “Don’t cause a mess. I’ll deal with this.”

Twelve shrugs and turns his back to us as Thirteen takes his place. Thank God for that. Only Thirteen, Ten and Nine can talk to him without any trouble. That guy is too crazy for me to understand. I turn my attention back to Three as Thirteen begins to talk.

“Three,” he says. “You and I both know that Sanders never gave a damn about you. What sort of father lets his own kid be experimented on when he knows she may die? That aside, you knew yourself that what you were doing was stupid.”

“Hah,” Three says. “Normally I would have hit you in the face for a comment like that.” Three looks up at Thirteen with tears in her eyes. “You know, this is all that I have. All that I had. It doesn’t matter if we’re starting a war or we’re terrorists. It doesn’t matter; none of it does. One way or the other this war was going to happen. You know it. I know it. All we did was help start it faster.”

“That’s not true,” I say. “No matter what anyone says, I’ve come to realise that we’re still human. Shadows or not, we’re still human. Thirteen once told me that the history of man has been filled with war and bloodshed, hate and anger. Doesn’t that mean that we’re just fickle creatures? Yet we have the intelligence to know what we’re doing and right those wrongs. You could have helped us, regardless of whether Sanders was your father or not.”

“He’s not my father.”

This takes me aback, but Thirteen doesn’t seem to care and starts walking off. What an ass. I turn back to face Three as I ponder exactly what she means by saying she’s not Sanders’ daughter.

“What are you on about?”

“Sure I helped them and followed orders, but like you said, no father experiments on their daughter. So he’s not my father. I only followed orders and kept the rest of you in check because that was my responsibility as a leader. And now you’ve all gone and done something stupid, knowing full well that you won’t be able to take it back.”

I sigh and sit down next to Three. Now she’s making me feel sorry for her. I guess this is what happens when you beat her down to size.

“Three…” I say. “None of us wanted this. We just couldn’t let it continue.”

“You couldn’t let it continue? Hah, what a laugh. Do you really think you brought down Youdu? As if failed test subjects could take down a faction that big.”

“What are you on about?”

“Noah isn’t dead. Besides Sanders there are two other leaders of Youdu, all with their own factions and enough power to fight a full scale war by themselves. We were just the guinea pigs for them.”

“So who are the two other leaders?”

“You should already know about Director Henshaw. The Prime Minister of Britain.”

“What?! How the heck does that happen?!”

“I don’t know and don’t care. I don’t ask questions. As for the other, even I don’t know who he is. It seems like he is the one pulling all the strings. If you fools think that you can stop this war then he’s the one you’ll have to take out. But trust me, not one of you will be able to do that. What do you think you can do with a rag-tag defect team of fifteen Shadows?”

“Fifteen?”

“Not counting me and Eight.”

“Where is Eight? I thought she might have made it back to the island by now.”

“Eight is dead.”

I sigh as I raise my head to look at the sky. The thought had crossed my mind but I guess that deep down I was silently wishing she wasn’t. Three is right. We made a big deal out of escaping and going solo, but the hell do we even know about the world as it is now? What can we do? We know nothing and have no power to make a change. We’re just a small minority that has been caught up in this storm that's engulfing the entire world.

Getting to my feet, I give Three a tiny smile of encouragement before I leave her alone. I’ve never seen her so defenceless or broken down before. Maybe she’ll even think about joining us now. Even she knows there’s no way she can beat us all by herself in this place. If she tried anything, Ten, Thirteen or especially Twelve would all take her apart by themselves. Seventeen can probably beat her too. Come to think of it, where is Seventeen? I haven’t seen him since we boarded the jet.

“Two!” Nine yells. “Get over here.”

I follow Nine’s voice and walk over to him. He’s standing a bit far off with Fourteen and almost everyone else. The only ones missing are Thirteen, Twelve and Ten. Oh, and Seventeen. What’s going on? As soon as I draw close, Nine ushers me forward so we’re all standing in a semi-circle with Nine and Fourteen in the middle.

“Guys,” Nine says. “You already know that we’ve been through a lot. God knows we’ve been through shit. But we pulled through and now we’re stronger than ever.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re going to give us some sort of useless pep talk,” Seven cries.

“Yeah,” Fifteen says. “We really don’t need it right now.”

“I agree,” Eleven says. Everyone else murmurs in agreement.

“Ah shut up,” Nine says. “Of course it’s not some cheesy pep talk or speech. I just want to discuss what we’re going to do from here on out.”

“Really?” I say. “Then where is Ten, Twelve, Thirteen and Seventeen? If we’re some sort of team then shouldn’t we be having this discussion together?”

“Well, Ten, Twelve and Thirteen are having an important discussion right now. I don’t know where Seventeen is. He’s probably off doing his own thing. Lord knows what he’ll be like now that he has his memories back. But anyway, that is what I wanted to talk to you guys about first; our memories.”

I sigh and shake my head. We finally get through all that mess and now it doesn’t even look like any of us know what we’re doing. Nine continues.

“Fourteen is back,” he says while pointing to Fourteen next to him. “And that means that for all of us who have had our memories manipulated by the borrachero, we can get it back. Especially for you, Five. I know that you have some pretty painful fake memories of being raised in Russia. Don’t you all want your memories back?”

“I’ll pass,” I say. Everyone turns to give me the weirdest looks I have ever seen. “What’s the point? Our past lives can’t possibly be connected to our current ones, can they? No matter what memories come back, that way of life is gone. This is who we are now. No-one needs emotional baggage to drag them down in the war we’re about to fight.”

“If that’s what you want, then it’s alright,” Sixteen says. “But as for the rest of us, I think we would all like to at least know what precious memories we once had.”

“Stop acting like a grown-up,” I say.

Sixteen rolls her eyes at me and I can’t help but feel a hint of annoyance. It isn’t as if she’s done anything significant lately. I continue.

“All I want to do is find out from Seventeen – who seems to know me by the way – what I was to him and bury any history we once had and instead look to the future. That’s all.”

“Well, that won’t be a problem,” Thirteen says. He walks up from behind me with Ten and Twelve on either side of him.

“What are you talking about now?” I say.

“You don’t want to be attached to Seventeen, but you keep instinctively reacting to him. You want to find out who he is to you but don’t want your memories back. Aren’t you pushing it a little, Two?”

“Not really. I just want to focus on what needs to be done.”

“Well, to be fair, you’ve had a decent amount of time to sort out your feelings. Sometimes you love him, others you want nothing to do with him. So if you definitely want to bury all ties you have with Seventeen, then you’ve just got your chance. Look up there.”

Thirteen points in the direction of the facility that we just escaped from. Surely he knows we can’t exactly see it from this distance? In the corner of my eye I see Thirteen tell Nine something and Nine simply nods back while pushing his glasses back up.. What’s going on? What does Thirteen mean that this is my chance.

The next thing I know is that I’m thrown off my feet and I’m sent flying through the air. There is a tremendous booming sound, greater than any thunderclap or explosion I’ve ever heard. My ears ring from the sound alone. When I land on my back a stone pierces in between my shoulder blades and I grimace in pain but refuse to vocally express it. Looking up I see a series of white and bright orange flashes continuously light up the sky. I hold my hand up to protect my face as a fearfully powerful gale of wind blows us all back. My hair whips all around me and I begin to lose my footing as soon as I get back up. What surprises me even more is that the wind is not cold. If anything it is hot and sears my skin. I clench my teeth and fight back against the sheer force of the wind and push myself forward. There’s no way that I can control such wild wind. I take one step forward using all the energy I can but I’m suddenly sent flying back into the ground by what seems like another wave of energy – similar to the first which sent me flying. What the hell is this?

Looking around, I see that everyone has the exact same problem. Everyone is being blown off their feet by the wind and force of the energy which seems to be a result of the explosion I heard earlier. Even Four who is trying to speed his way back up against the force just gets knocked off his feet as the force of the wind gets even stronger. Seriously. What the hell is going on?

I’m about to try and force myself up to my feet again but the wind dies down and everything becomes calm again. I look up, simply bewildered as to what the hell just happened. In the sky – in the direction Thirteen pointed at – is a shining white ball. It almost looks like a star and for a moment is feels as if I’ve seen a scene like this a million times before. It rises up for nearly half a minute before simply fading away into the air. What the hell was that?

“You want to explain that to us, Thirteen?!” I scream at him. “What the hell was that supposed to be? In what way has that got anything to do with me and Seventeen.”

Thirteen simply looks at me as he brushes dust off of his shoulder and gently rotates his arms around. I watch him warily as he yawns lifts his head to look up in the direction that blast originated from. Everyone else looks at Thirteen for an explanation as well.

“That,” Thirteen says. “That, good friends, is Seventeen.”

“What the hell are you on about? That makes no sense. That sounded like a bloody planet exploding!”

“I know. That was Seventeen.”

I look at Thirteen for a good while before recognition finally starts to set in. My face drops and my heart begins to beat faster. There’s no way that Thirteen is telling the truth. It isn’t possible. It just isn’t. This must all just be some sort of prank he is trying to play on us. I won’t fall for it. I know it is a prank because it isn’t possible. After all we went through there is no way in the world that Seventeen would supernova.