As soon as the blade sliced through it, her eyes popped open and she drew her first breath. In a panicked frenzy, she tried to move away from me—not knowing where she was, what she was, or who we were. I completely understood how she felt. I’d experienced the same after they woke me up on Calliope.
Angelica, Deena, and Uriel—Araquiel, too, for that matter—had suffered through the first minute of blank consciousness. Only, we had the time for someone to tell us what was going on.
This Perfect, along with her three equally befuddled and terrified brothers, didn’t have that luxury. I gripped her shoulders firmly, prompting her to look at me.
“I know this is confusing and scary. I know you don’t understand a word I’m saying right now,” I said, then pointed at the door. “But you need to get out and as far away from here as possible. I don’t want an explosion tearing you apart to be your first memory in this world.”
“We’re running out of time!” Araquiel whispered from the door.
It caught the Perfect girl’s attention for a moment, but since she couldn’t see Araquiel, she turned her focus on me. At least she was calm. I took advantage of this moment, pulled her up to her feet, and gently escorted her to the door. Angelica, Deena, and Uriel made themselves visible for long enough to bring the others forward as well. We whispered a collective “Morfuris” just as the doors slid open. The newly-born Perfects wandered out, causing some confusion in the hallway.
Nobody could see us anymore, but they could certainly see the four premature Perfects stumbling into the crowd. Several Faulties stopped in their tracks and rushed over to help them. I took advantage of a few Perfect guards rushing past me to issue an order as if it was coming from one of them.
“Take them to the infirmary!” I said out loud. “There was a glitch in the womb. They’re premature.”
One of the Faulties looked around, obviously confused. He spotted the guards moving down the hallway and exchanged glances with one of them. Fortunately, it was enough of a coincidence in gestures for the Faulty to think that the guard had spoken instead of invisible me.
They did as ordered, while Angelica dragged me back toward our original destination: the northern exit.
“Let the countdown begin!” Deena said. “Six minutes.”
“Five-fifty-nine,” Uriel continued.
“Five-fifty-eight,” Araquiel replied, a second later.
“Five-fifty-seven,” I murmured, running down the hallway.
Soon enough, this whole place would go down.
In about five minutes and fifty-four seconds, the explosive charges would go off, and we’d be one step closer to giving our brothers and sisters a new and better shot at life. Free from hate and lies. Free from Ta’Zan. My heart almost burst with both grief and excitement.
Grief for the Perfects I knew we’d lose in this war. Excitement for the future we could still build for ourselves, once we got our freedom and independence back.
Herakles
Jakkhiel hadn’t lost his edge.
In fact, in the days since I’d last seen him, he seemed to have gotten better at delivering efficient attacks. I’d enjoyed teasing him and making him chase me around the colosseum in the beginning, back when he was just a novice in this world. I loved getting him all riled up, only for him to miss me at every turn.
This time, however, it was different, and my body bore the marks. My movements were sluggish, my ribs bruised, and dozens of cuts were blooming crimson on my face, arms, and legs. Jakkhiel had yet to slash at the more important parts of my body. My energy levels were running low, though. I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d last out here.
“I can smell you!” Jakkhiel shouted through the jungle. “You reek of fear, Herakles!”
I sighed, perched up on a gnarly branch, about thirty feet to his right. I’d lost my weapon in this fight. It was somewhere on the ground, about two, maybe three yards behind him, but I couldn’t get to it just yet. Jakkhiel’s reflexes were deserving of his species name—annoyingly perfect. I couldn’t make a move without him noticing.
“And you stink of idiocy, but hey, we can’t all be perfect, right?” I shot back, then jumped on another branch in a nearby tree.
Below, my fellow Faulties and the Draenir were fighting their own fights against the Perfect guards. The Draenir managed to take shots from beneath the bushes, but the guards were quick to catch on to their positions. It wasn’t long before the Draenir were firing pulverizer pellets left and right, dangerously close to running out of ammo. They’d taken some Perfects down, sure, but they’d mostly hit trees and bushes. That meant fewer places to climb and hide, not only for themselves, but for the rest of us, too. Having such effective and destructive weapons in our possession had a downside, it seemed, since everything they touched was turned to ashes.
It became difficult to use the ground, as well, since the ashes of trees and fallen Perfects were scattered across it, making every footprint visible. That made it easier for the rest of the guards to track us. Looking around, my crew had been reduced to half of the original number. It made my heart ache, but it also made me angry enough to keep going until every single one of these winged bastards came down.
“No, you can’t all be perfect, but I certainly am,” Jakkhiel said, sounding dangerously closer than before.
I let the tip of my tongue stick out to catch his scent. He’d advanced through the jungle, but he was still somewhere behind me. He hadn’t passed my tree yet. Gripping the trunk, I craned my neck to one side, trying to spot him. My heart skipped a beat when I saw him quietly climbing another tree in hopes of finding me.
Two yards farther back was my gun. I locked on to it and made it my mission to get back there and retrieve it. I’d failed to kill Jakkhiel before, and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
I exhaled and relieved myself of any fear or doubt, then jumped higher on the tree, one branch at a time, until I reached the top. The dusky sky was red, with thin patches of orange clouds that seemingly stretched forever, above a turquoise ocean sprinkled with hundreds of islands in this one atoll. This place was a paradise, a work of art. My home. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let the likes of Jakkhiel take it from me.
My torso hurt, pain flashing red hot through me whenever I moved, but I couldn’t stop.
“Come on, Araquiel,” I whispered. “Get a move on, already…”
The moment we’d get Araquiel’s signal, we were all due to retreat and lose the hostiles, as the colosseum would finally explode and, hopefully, come crashing down. That was going to be enough to stop additional guards from coming to Jakkhiel’s aid, for sure.
A roar shot through the woods. One of mine. My stomach churned. I didn’t know whether it signified victory or a bloody loss. I’d led these people here. In many ways, I was responsible for them. Their deaths were going to be embedded in my conscience, but the more of them I could bring to victory and freedom, the better I’d feel and the more chances for our species to survive and thrive in the future.
I made a risky jump from one treetop to another. I coughed from the searing pain as I wrapped my arms around the slim trunk. Two seconds later, I reached another top. Then another. By the seventh jump, I looked down and breathed a sigh of relief. Jakkhiel wasn’t close. Concern then wiggled its tail into my thoughts. I couldn’t see him.
“That can’t be good,” I mumbled.
The wood exploded next to my face. Splinters jumped out. Some pierced my skin.
I instinctively shut my eyes and jumped back. A split second later, I was freefalling from an alarming height. Jakkhiel came down after me. The bastard had almost blown my head off!
I grabbed on to the nearest branch, the bark scratching my palms. The branch gave out with a heartbreaking snap. This just wasn’t my lucky day.
“Now, you die!” Jakkhiel snarled as he hopped from branch to branch, descending after me.
