Hope (Book 2, Harvester of Light Trilogy; Young Adult Science Fiction) (12 page)

“Where are Ash and
Zoe?” I asked.

“They’re in my
lab.”  Lucena continued to walk down the hallway to another set of opaque glass
doors like in the first lab.

When we walked
into the laboratory, I saw Ash and Zoe sitting on a bed in a glassed in room to
the right.  Zoe was softly crying while Ash held her.  They were both dressed
in only a pair of white scrubs.

“Ash! Zoe!” I
yelled running to the glass, pressing the palms of my hands against its cold
hardness.

They looked up.

“Skye!” Ash yelled.

They both ran to
the glass and placed one of their hands over one of mine.

“Are you all
right?” I asked, quickly scanning them for any injuries.

“We’re ok,” Zoe
said, drying the last of her tears with her free hand but the puffiness around
her eyes told me she had been crying for quite some time.

I turned to
Lucena.  “Can you let them out?”

“Ash can come out
but Zoe must remain in the room,” Lucena said.

“Why?”

“Because I know
what she can do.  She would shield you all and take you away from me before I
could stop her.”

“It’s ok, Skye,”
Zoe said.  “Let Ash come out.  We’ve been cooped up in this room for a while. 
I think he’s getting tired of me leaving a permanent wet spot on his shirt.”

Ash put a
comforting arm around Zoe’s shoulders.

“You know I don’t
mind,” he told her, before kissing the top of her head.

Zoe laid her cheek
against his chest.  “I know.”

The tender way Ash
comforted Zoe seemed almost too intimate for the casual relationship they
shared.  Apparently they had become closer within the last four days.  For some
reason, I didn’t like it.

Lucena instructed
Ash to step into the glass ante-chamber separate from the room Zoe remained
in.  Once the interior door closed and locked, the outside door opened and Ash
was able to walk out.

He walked straight
to me like we were tethered to one another by an invisible pull string and put
his arms around me, resting his cheek against the top of my head.  My arms went
around his waist automatically.  We’d hugged each other a hundred times like
this over the years.  It came as naturally as breathing.

I heard him inhale
deeply.

“God you smell
good,” he said.  “Like flowers in sunshine.”

“I just smell
better than all the bleach in here,” I said, trying to play off the compliment.

“No, you’ve always
smelled like that to me.”

“Did she hurt
you?” I asked.

“It could have
been worse,” he shrugged.

Ash hugged me
closer.

“We’ll get out of
this,” I promised.

I felt more than
heard Jace walk up behind me.  Ash reluctantly let me go to meet the man he
shared my heart with.

I turned so I could
face them both equally.

“Ash, I’d like you
to meet Jace.  Jace, this is Ash.”

Jace held his hand
out to Ash.

“Nice to finally
meet you,” Jace said, sounding genuine in his greeting.  “Skye’s told me a lot
about you.”

Ash looked at
Jace’s hand like he was trying to decide whether or not to shake it.

I almost jabbed
Ash in the side to make him accept Jace’s offer of friendship, but Ash didn’t
need my prodding, he did the right thing and shook Jace’s hand.

Ash fell to his
knees screaming.

“What did you do
to him?” I yelled at Jace.

“How is that
possible?” Jace asked Lucena, his eyes wide in shock.  “He shouldn’t be one.”

Ash crumpled to
the floor bringing his knees up to his chest.  Sweat broke out across his brow
and his breathing became labored.

“Be one what?” I
demanded, kneeling down by Ash not sure if I should try to touch him or not.

“What’s
happening?” Zoe screamed inside her cell, banging on the glass with her fist.

“Oh for God’s
sake, you people need to calm down,” Lucena said coming to stand over Ash with
her arms crossed looking down at my best friend with a sense of expectation
surrounding her, “we should all have our answers soon enough.”

“What answers?” I
asked her.  “What did you do to him?”

“Let’s watch and
see,” was her only reply.

Ash finally stopped
screaming.  He looked at me with wild eyes.

“Skye…”

And then he
vanished.

“Hmm,” Lucena said
in the ensuing silence.  “Well, I certainly didn’t expect that to happen.”

I scrambled to my
feet looking around the room.  “Where did he go?  What happened to him?”

“Your guess is as
good as mine,” Lucena said completely nonplussed by the situation.  She walked
over to a tray holding six syringes filled with some sort of clear liquid and
picked one up with her thumb ready on the plunger.  Then she walked over to me
and simply stood like she was waiting for something else to happen.

A few seconds
later Ash reappeared.  His eyes were filled with more fear than I had ever seen
before.  Lucena took her opportunity and jabbed the needle of the syringe into
his neck plunging the unknown solution into his body.  Ash instantly went limp
but Jace caught him before he could fall face first to the floor.

“What did you do
to him?” I asked, touching Ash’s face.

“Just a little
experiment,” Lucena said.  “After all these years, I think I might finally be
close to a solution to my problem.  If he survives, I might be able to give my
harvesters nanites to activate their unique gene sequences.  Can you imagine
that: a whole army with advanced super powers?”

“What do you mean
‘if he survives’?” I demanded.

Lucena shrugged. 
“He might or he might not.  If he does, he would be the first human to survive
the treatment.  I haven’t had much luck with it though so don’t get your hopes
up.”

“You used me to
activate him,” Jace said bitterly.

“You’re the one
who shook hands with him,” Lucena countered.  “Plus, it was something new I was
trying.  Instead of placing active nanites into his system I put in dormant
ones to see if it made a difference.  If he survives…”

“Quit saying
that!” I yelled.  “He won’t die.  I won’t let him.”

Lucena’s eyes
narrowed on me.  “Oh yes, your healing power.  I almost forgot about that.”

It was like I
could see the gears of Lucena’s mind triple in speed.  “That might just work. 
Bring Ash over here,” Lucena said to Jace motioning for him to lay Ash on a bed
inside a room where it looked like surgeries might be performed considering all
the various equipment.

“With the other
subjects, their hearts gave out soon after being injected with the nanites.  It
was like their bodies just couldn’t take the added pressure of their new
abilities.  If you can heal Ash until his body is able to compensate for the
added strain, he might have a better chance at survival.  But we’ll have to
wake him up so his power can fully activate.”

“But what if he
vanishes again?” I asked.

“Let’s hope he
comes back before his heart gives out.  Otherwise he might just die wherever he
goes.”

Lucena filled a
syringe with a large needle from a small bottle of clear liquid.

“Ready?” She asked
me.

I nodded taking
hold of one of Ash’s arms.

Lucena jabbed the
needle into Ash’s chest almost making me lose my hold on him from the brutality
of the act.

Ash sat straight
up struggling for air.

He looked over at
me before the world seemed to peel away from us like paper from a wall
revealing a new world underneath.  A blinding light flashed before my eyes
forcing me to close them.  I felt my feet land like I had hopped in the air. 
When I opened my eyes, I tightened my hold on Ash’s arm. 

We were standing
on the side of a road in the middle of a desert with the sun beating down on
us.  The blue sky was clear except for a few stray white puffy clouds.

“Where are we?” I
asked.

But before Ash
could answer he fell to the ground onto his knees.

I put my hands
over his heart feeling its frantic beating.  I concentrated on him letting my
body work its magic to heal whatever the nanites in his system were doing to
his heart.  Slowly, his heart began to beat at a regular, steady pace.

“I’m all right,”
Ash said, trying to get to his feet.

“Just sit for a
minute,” I told him, crossing my legs and sitting down beside him.

“Where are we?” I
asked again.

“I’m not sure,” he
answered.

From up the road
we heard the sound of a car coming.  For a second I thought it was one of
Lucena’s vehicles as the sun glinted off the silver symbol on the front grill
but then I realized it was a symbol used by an old car company named Toyota. 
Before we knew it, the car zipped passed us like we weren’t even there.  The
sound of music could be heard coming from the opened windows.  Just after it
passed us, the brake lights came on.  Whoever was driving seemed to realize we
were sitting on the side of the road because it backed up until it came to a
stop right in front of us.

An auburn haired woman
leaned her head out the window to look down at us.

“You two need a
ride?”

I gasped.  Ash
remained completely silent as he stared at the woman.

We both knew who
she was.

She was Ash’s
mother, Grace.

“Cat got your
tongues?” She teased us with a nervous smile.

We got to our
feet.  Ash’s father was in the driver’s seat and a small boy of two years
stared at us with wide blue eyes from the backseat.

“You kids need a
ride?”  Ash’s father asked.  He was wearing a blue dress army uniform with a
matching hat sitting on the dashboard.

“No sir,” Ash
finally said.  “We’re fine.”

“You sure,
sweetie?” Ash’s mother asked.  “We don’t mind giving the two of you a lift
somewhere.  It can get pretty hot out here,” she said looking pointedly at
Ash’s bare feet.

“No, ma’am.  We have
friends coming to pick us up but thank you.”

Ash’s mother sat
back in her seat.  “Well, I’ll be coming back this way after we drop my husband
off at work.  If you’re still here when I come back I’m gonna have to insist
you ride back into town with me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ash
replied.

Ash’s parents
waved goodbye to us.  We watched the back of their car travel down the road
until it was out of sight.

“Was that real?” I
asked.  “Or are we in a dream?”

Ash shook his
head.  “I don’t know.”

He looked up at
the sun shielding his eyes with a hand.  “It feels real.”

Ash quickly
grabbed my hand and I felt the earth slip away again.  This time we found
ourselves back in the glass room with Zoe.

She scrambled off
of the bed when she saw us.  “Where have you guys been?”

“How long were we
gone?”

“Like an hour.”

“Ahh good,” I
heard Lucena say through the intercom system in the room but I couldn’t see her
in the lab through the glass.  “You’re back.  And in one piece I see.”

“What happened? 
Where did you guys go?” Zoe asked.

“We were in a
desert,” Ash said sounding as confused as I felt.  “We saw my parents.”

“But I thought
they were dead,” Zoe said.

“They are,” I
answered.  “But it was like we were seeing them in a dream about the past. 
They were a lot younger than I remember.”

There was a
banging on the other side of the glass.  I turned and saw Jace yelling
something but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.  Finally he stopped and
looked directly at Ash.  His mouth moved and the message was clear, ‘get them
out’.

Ash grabbed my and
Zoe’s hands but it was already too late.  A shockwave of electricity like that
from one of the harvester stun batons dropped us all to our knees.  White gas
poured from vents in the ceiling.  The last thing I saw was Jace banging his
fist against the glass screaming my name.

Chapter 12

I heard my
father’s voice.  He sounded angrier than I had ever heard him sound before.

When I opened my
eyes, I saw Lucena at her desk staring at the screen of the laptop in front of
her.  It was exactly like the one my father had with him when we evacuated the
Southern Kingdom.  I let my eyes wander around the room I found myself in.  It
was a grand bi-level library with bookshelves built into the walls of the
room.  Each shelf was packed with leather bound books.  Even if I read all day
every day, it would have taken me at least ten years to read all of the books
in the room.

“You can’t do that
to her!” my father yelled.

“Jon, you knew
this day was coming.  Don’t pretend you’re a naïve twit like my sister.  Why
wouldn’t I give my daughter the gift of immortality?”

“She’s not your
daughter, Lucena,” my father sounded disgusted.  “And you know Emma wouldn’t
want this for Skye.”

“Skye’s a child. 
She’s been brain washed by you humans into thinking becoming a harvester is
some sort of punishment when it’s the complete opposite!  That’s why I have to
do it.  To show her we aren’t the monsters you make us out to be.  We’re simply
the next step in evolution.  She deserves to be the best and I intend to make
sure she has all of the advantages I can give her.”

“Then give her a
choice like you gave Emma and me.  Let her decide her own fate.”

“The best choice
has already been made for her,” Lucena said dismissively.  “I just contacted
you in case she wanted to speak with you before the operation.”

Lucena looked
directly at me like she had known I was awake the entire time.

“Would you like to
speak with your father, Skye?”

“Yes,” my voice
sounded dry.  I had to swallow a few times before it felt like I could speak
again.

“How long was I
unconscious for this time?” I asked.

“A day and a
half.”

I stood from the
leather chair I was sitting in and walked to the backside of the desk.  Lucena
stood and motioned for me to sit down in her chair.