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Today, Seattle is the first city in the world to officially be back under human control. It wasn’t easy to get here, but the worst of it has passed, even if there’s still much work to do. Other cities are on their way to regaining their human sovereignty. They will need help and many—like the members of our IgNiTe cell, Clark, Blare, Aydan and I—are willing to provide it. Los Angeles, James’s childhood home, will be our first stop.
With the Seattle Wheel behind me, I stand facing the water. My bike sits within arm’s reach. I barely leave it out my sight unless it’s stored safely. When everything was said and done and it was reasonably safe to do so, I went to SeaTac to find it. I almost cried when I spotted it parked next to the bike racks outside of the baggage claim area. Like my father’s house or the Def Leppard t-shirt I’m wearing, I feel as if the bike is part of me, a link to Xave and what he means in my life.
The sun shines in the distance, dipping slowly into the Pacific Ocean. My gaze drifts over the sun-kissed surface of Puget Sound. It’s a beautiful summer day, the kind that used to drive city residents outdoors with half their clothes missing.
These days, there are few brave souls out, though. Fear still reigns in people’s hearts, so they stick to their homes or shelters. For the most part, those out and about enjoying the day are emergency workers: police, firefighters, military, cleaning crews. And they are enjoying the day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen people work with such pleasure and energy. We have our world and lives back, and everything seems twice as bright after being in the shadows for so long. So much to be thankful for.
“Think fast,” Aydan says behind me.
I turn and realize a bottle of water is sailing through the air, headed straight for my face. Reflexively, energy flows from my core and travels outward. The bottle stops just inches from my nose and hovers in midair.
“Impressive. You’re getting really good,” he says.
Meditation is nothing for me these days. I do it for about thirty minutes every morning with no ill effects or help from anyone. I enjoy it immensely, especially when I think of Azrael suffering the torture through each session.
I let the bottle glide gently to my hand, unscrew it and take a sip.
“All the workers checked out.” Aydan closes the distance between us and stops at my side.
For weeks, this has been our job: mingling with the emergency crews, trying to spot Eklyptors among them. We have found many attempting to pass themselves as human. Sometimes everyone feels like a threat, and it makes me wonder if we’ll ever stop looking. An ingestible version of the cure is in the water system now, but we can’t be sure everyone’s got a taste. The airborne version has proven more difficult to develop, though Kristen and her lab soldiers work restlessly on it day and night. She’s confident they’ll manage, though, and I trust her.
Our relationship has grown leaps and bounds just like my meditation skills. We moved into James’s condo. It’s in the same building where The Tank used to be. It’s still awkward living with them, but it gets easier every day. They are making a big effort to be parents. I have a curfew, chores and even an allowance. It’s weird and great all at the same time. The weirdest thing is living in a different house than my own, than Dad’s, but James says it’s temporary, at least until I turn eighteen and can live on my own. For now, he’s helped me get the deed under my name and put it under the care of a real estate management company.
“I’m glad we didn’t have to use these today.” Aydan points at the pouch of cure cartridges at his belt.
We both carry them along with authorization to administer them. James made it all happen through his friends in high places. We can sense Eklyptors through their buzzing and are uniquely equipped to detect them. James and Kristen control the cure, its production, distribution, administration channels, and tracking. As it’s to be expected, there has been much controversy around this: people questioning the wisdom of a private company wielding such power. Congress was in session until their faces turned blue, arguing that this responsibility should belong solely to the government. But there’s no way in hell James and Kristen would ever trust bureaucrats with such a crucial task. And what can the government do? Jail the only man and woman who know what’s what? The literal saviors of the human race? Instead, President Helms, someone who has received the cure and lived, put them in charge, and everyone else follows their orders. Smart man.
Aydan’s black eyes take in the view of the sound and Bainbridge Island in the far distance. “What a magnificent day.” He inhales and closes his eyes, relishing the fresh air.
I don’t think this area of town has ever smelled so clean. Months of reduced traffic on land and water have really made a difference in air quality.
I look up at Aydan as he throws his head back and lets the sun shine on his face. His longish, black hair tickles his brow as a briny breeze blows from the north, carrying a small, winter bite in its midst. He shivers slightly, his eyes still closed. I smile at the sight of his sharp profile, feeling so grateful for his company. Since he resurfaced and regained control of his body, he’s been with me as much as possible. It seems we can’t stand to be apart from each other. Our similar experiences have linked us more than ever. To our knowledge, we’re the only ones who have come back after being eclipsed which has given us a unique understanding of one another.
We are both recovering, getting our lives and our minds back in order. Sometimes we have nightmares. They normally involve losing control and being lost in the dark. We talk about them, and it helps process the fear. But, for the most part, we are okay, adapting, getting back to normal.
I wish I could say the same about everyone else, but some of us will never get back to anything resembling normalcy. Rheema is under arrest. She will go to prison for a very long time, if not for life. Lyra is dead, sacrificed by Elliot. Our IgNiTe cell retrieved her body from Whitehouse headquarters and took care of the arrangements to send her back to France. James says she had no family to mourn her, and I don’t know if that’s better or sadder than the alternative.
Then there is Luke. Poor, deluded Luke Hailstone who dreamed a twisted, impossible dream. I’ve seen him once in the last couple of months. It wasn’t easy and hardly an experience I want to repeat. That makes me feel guilty, like I owe him something, like I’ve abandoned a part of myself. But I would rather deny there’s a connection between us, even if that makes me callous or the most despicable human being on the planet. I just don’t think I could ever truly forgive him for trying to make me part of his delusional plan, for thinking I would become some kind of freak factory. So, again and again, I have resolved not to feel sorry for him. At least, he’s better off than all the people his faction killed. He has three square meals a day and a nice view from his cell’s window—never mind that his DNA-changing body is now a wonder of science. It’s nothing worse than what he planned to do to us. I’m glad he is alive because the thought of his death is still repulsive to me. I’m not sure he feels the same way.
“We’ll need to be back in a couple of hours.” Aydan opens his eyes and catches me watching. He blushes and smiles wryly. “What?”
“Nothing, just looking at you.”
He turns and stands in front of me, his arms finding their way around my waist. “I’m the one who needs to be looking at you.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and presses a warm, tender kiss to my forehead.
The way he kisses me and touches me makes me feel delicate. It’s as if he’s afraid I will break, even though he knows well, better than anyone, I won’t. His love is gentle, patient, imbued with an even mixture of passion and rationality. He says he loves me because it makes total sense and because it doesn’t. We’re so different and yet so similar.
He calls it perfection.
In his arms, I feel safe and whole. Most of the time, anyway. Some days, dread finds its way into my heart and, no matter how hard I try, I can’t push away the fear of losing him. I guess he feels the same way. We carry a constant threat inside our brains, and the possibility of losing control is always there, no matter how small. I wish we could take the cure, but it would destroy us. We are so intertwined with our agents that the person left behind would be nothing like us.
I pull Aydan to me, bury my face into his chest.
I will not lose you.
He brushes the length of my hair, his hands traveling gently down my back. With his nose pressed to my forehead, he inhales deeply and makes a sound in the back of his throat. “You smell so pretty, like the wind and sunshine have found their way into your hair, like a beautiful day.”
I chuckle. He manages to do and say the goofiest things—like that day he made fireworks over the surface of Lake Union for me. All for me. And I’m such an insipid, unromantic girlfriend, but I guess that’s just another way in which we’re fundamentally different—not that I’m not capable of being goofy myself.
Suddenly, an idea occurs to me. I pull away and look up at the Ferris wheel. “Is there any power in that thing?”
“Hmm.” Aydan closes his eyes as if listening. “Yeah, there is,” he says after a moment. He’s so attuned to his skill that he can sense electricity, or the lack of it, all around him.
“How about you close your eyes,” I say.
He looks down at me, a question twinkling in the depths of his eyes. But he doesn’t ask anything. He just does as I say and closes his eyes.
I guide him toward the wheel and the gondola area. “Don’t peek!”
“I won’t.”
The gondolas are all closed, but their sliding, glass doors pose no obstacle when I reach forward with my power and ease them open. We step inside. I help Aydan sit opposite me. As I push the doors closed with my mind, a knowing smile plays over Aydan’s lips. He knows just where we are, but he doesn’t know I plan to keep him here until the sun kisses the horizon.
I close my eyes and become one with the giant wheel. My power spreads tall and wide. It’s dizzying at first. I’ve never tried to control anything this big. I narrow my focus. It’s the motor that matters, what makes the wheel turn. I relax, searching my core, the wheel’s core, until I find it and understand its inner-workings, the source of its power. This leads me straight to the controls, the right combination of switches and settings.
Once I know just what I need to do, my eyes spring open. Aydan’s chest is moving up and down faster than normal. Even though he knows what I plan to do, he’s still nervous.
With a small push of my power, the Ferris wheel comes to life. Aydan rolls his shoulders. I’m sure he feels the surge of electricity like fingers dancing over his skin. The gondola swings slightly as the wheel turns. I never had a chance to ride it before and, if I’m honest, I must admit I’m feeling excited to be here with Aydan.
We begin to rise into the vast blueness of the sky.
“You can look now,” I say.
His eyes open slowly and lock with mine before they wander outside of the gondola’s glass walls. Downtown is to the right and Puget Sound to the left. Bits of afternoon sun still sparkle on the water, like tiny, fallen stars. When the gondola reaches the very top, I switch the power off, and we come to a stop. Our gondola dangles one hundred and seventy-five feet off the ground.
Blue-gray mountains outline the horizon in the distance. Gulls float lazily around, riding the currents. The Space Needle seems small and close, as if we could reach out and grab it.
“Wow! I never rode it before,” Aydan says.
“Me neither!” I switch places and sit next to him, leaning my back against his chest. He wraps his arms around my waist and silently enjoys the view, the stillness, the solitude. After being in the middle of a terrible war, these small comforts are priceless.
Peace is priceless.
“I could fall asleep,” I say, snuggling closer to Aydan.
He absently caresses my forearm. “You can rest on the way to L.A.”
It’s a seventeen-hour drive from Seattle to Los Angeles. I can get plenty of rest then.
“Sometimes I feel like staying,” I say.
“Me too.”
But we would never do that. We have to go and help root out all the Eklyptors, at least until Kristen and her team of scientists can figure out a way to effectively administer the cure through the air.
Those who were never infected are coming out in droves to receive the vaccine. They are voluntarily adding their names to a global database that checks against pre-takeover records and figures out the totals.
Worldwide, the numbers have been steadily improving in our favor, but we are nowhere near to eradicating the problem. As a matter of fact, James thinks we might never get there, and I tend to agree with him. Because how do you get cure water or even air to every single corner of the world? Eklyptors have gone into hiding and finding them is costly and time-consuming. Already world officials are creating Anti-Eklyptor Forces (AEF.) Their job is what ours has been, except a lot less efficient since they have no built-in way to tell humans apart from Eklyptors.
IDs aren’t trusted since Eklyptors can change their appearance. Hence, suspects are subjected to blood tests on the spot. If they turn out to be infected, a cure is also administered on the spot. With a modified formula, survival rates are currently at 95%—not bad considering all the people who died during and after The Takeover. Still, there are those who argue about the morality of what is being done, the power that these AEFs have and the abuses that are likely to ensue.
James says that if world officials expect their plans to work, it will have to be a “constantly changing game.” He thinks that once bureaucracy sets back in, and we go back to our old ways, governments will be unable to keep up with the demands. That is why he is committed to the creation of private forces. We are the first, all the IgNiTe cells around the world to whom victory is owed.
Certainly, we have our work cut out for us for a number of years—if not for a lifetime.
“Do you agree with James?” I ask. “Do you think they will always be a threat?”
“I don’t know. He’s been fighting for so long that I think he has a hard time imagining a world without them. I know it won’t be easy finding every single one of them but, with time, I think we’ll learn to feel safe again.”
I smile, already feeling safer in his arms. I like the way he looks at things, his optimism, and faith in humanity.
He says he once lost it and thought of humans as selfish creatures with nothing to give, but this battle, this plight for survival has shown him otherwise. The way we have come together: strangers taking in children whose parents died, people sharing food and clothes when they’re in short supply, men and women working as a community to restore their neighborhoods. It all makes him glad to be alive, even if the road ahead isn’t as clear as we would like it to be.
I guess I’m glad too.
And for the first time, I have faith in humanity, and faith that I will finally be all right.
I have found something worth living for. The darkness has been shattered. It’s time to live in the light.
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