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He stared down into the opening with me. "You would not believe."

"It's that fantastic?"

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"No," he said. "But you would find a way to believe that I created it all for your benefit." His words stung, but they were nevertheless accurate. "Let's get this over with," I muttered. He nodded, then lowered himself into the hole to reach the ladder. I followed with a load of misgivings and as much air as my lungs would hold.

"So, how did they build this place?" I tried to distract myself with questions. As we climbed down, the air became warmer and more stale, a major trigger for my claustrophobia. "And what was it used for?"

Caelan had already reached the bottom, and I could feel him watching my descent, ready to move if he thought I was going to panic again.

"I would prefer that you make those determinations on your own," he said. "See if you come to the same conclusions I have. Though I will tell you that the others did not agree with me." With both my feet on the ground again and my breathing still in control, relatively speaking, I took a look around. It was as it had appeared from above, the start of a corridor, but a relatively short one, only about fifteen feet long. In the dim light from above, I could see it ended at a closed metal door.

"We go through the door," he said, mouth tight. "It will close behind us–there is no way to prevent that. But it will not lock. We will be able to return to this side."

I shook my head, my heart pounding at just the idea. "I can't."

"I promise no harm will come to you." He held out his hand. I shook my head again. Right now I could still see the way out, so I was pretty okay. But the second we stepped through that door and it closed behind us...

He took my curled fist into his hand. "You have come this far already. Will you stop now?"

I bit my lip, thinking about it. He did have a point. "All right." I relaxed my hand enough for him to thread our fingers 140

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together. "But if I start to freak out, you have to get me out of here."

He nodded. "On the other side, it is not so bad. The lights are on still."

And with that, he led me to the other end of the corridor. When we reached the door, Caelan pressed a small panel set into the wall, and the door slid back. I hesitated before stepping through the doorway, wondering if I was about to be blitzed by another panic attack, but Caelan chose that moment to squeeze my hand. He'd picked up on my worry, I suppose. So, I sucked it up and followed him through the door–he was right. I hadn't come all this way to stop just short of my goal.

The room was huge, probably about half the size of a football field, and the ceilings were higher than they'd seemed in Asha's memory. It probably ran the length and width of the clearing above ground, at least. If possible, it was hotter in here than in the hallway, but the lights were on in here, making it possible to see rows and rows of the gleaming stasis tanks.

The tanks resembled glass test tubes lying down on their sides, but they were sealed on both ends and resting on a metal base. Each row was perfectly straight with each little see-through coffin lined up with the ones on either side of it. The floor was the same white tile as in the corridor, and the walls were equally nondescript, except for the cracks in them, cracks too evenly spaced and straight to be anything but intentional. A control panel stood along the back wall, a little bigger and wider than a kitchen counter, covered in buttons and switches some of which were obviously still turned on.

"These are what they have called stasis tanks," he said. "And over there," he indicated the long wall with the cracks, "storage units."

"Storage for what?" I asked.

He gave me an odd look. "Discover for yourself." 141

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I stepped toward the wall, my curiosity aroused. Upon closer examination, the divisions in the wall created long rectangular outlines, about three feet long and a foot high, each one stacked on top of another until the wall returned to its normal seamless self about six inches above my head. I reached a hand out to touch one of the lines but looked to Caelan first. I didn't want to get zapped by some kind of security measure that happened to be invisible to the naked eye.

He nodded, and I touched, running my fingers along the seam, pulling at the edges of it carefully. There was definite depth behind this panel; the cracks were openings into something, right?

I tried pulling a little less gently but to no avail. Caelan reached between my prying hands and placed his hand over the center of the panel. A soft whirring sound started, like that of a refrigerator kicking on, and then the panel moved out toward me. I stepped back to get out of the way, heart thumping hard in my chest.

Once I was sure the panel wasn't coming out any farther, I moved forward again to peer inside. It wasn't the high-tech, computer chip board innards I expected, but a bunch of clothes, human apparel, and a pair or two of shoes, all jumbled together. I shrugged. "Okay, so it's a drawer of clothes." I looked up at him, pretty sure I was missing the significance of this one.

"Try this instead." He knelt down by the bottommost drawer. I crouched down next to him, frowning. This drawer was deeper than all the others, probably meant for storing bigger objects, like boots or coats or guns or who knows.

I pressed my hand flat against the front of it and it slid open, empty, the shiny black interior glinting in the light. "Sorry, I still don't get it."

"Turn this way." He reached over and shifted me until my back was pressed against the wall of drawers, parallel to the open drawer. "Now watch."

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I raised my eyebrows and shrugged. "Okay." He moved to the front of the drawer and began to close it, whispering softly. I only caught one of the words. An'Ashi. I stared down at the closing drawer, and my dream flashed in front of me and with it, a horrifying realization. The box, the darkness that the silver-haired female forced me into...it was a drawer. Just like this one.

I scrambled away, but my legs got tangled up and my butt hit the floor with a thud that I felt through every bone in my body, particularly the broken ones. But I kept scooting back, fear turning my body into a quivering mass, until Caelan came after me. I stared up at him. "What are you saying, that I've been here before?" I whispered.

"No." He shook his head. For a second, I was relieved, but then he continued. "I believe there are many facilities such as this around the world and that you were in one of them."

"No." I pushed back from him until I collided with the adjacent wall.

"I thought I recognized it from your dream. The details you see but do not acknowledge. The sound of the drawer closing." I closed my eyes and thought about it. A distinct hissing sound and then a click.

"The reflection of something shiny just behind her." A portion of rounded glass, appearing just above her left shoulder, obviously part of something larger. "A stasis tank," I mumbled.

"Yes," he said. I opened my eyes to find him watching me with concern. "But I wasn't certain until just now."

"You and me both." I pulled my knees up as close to my chest as my injury would allow. "So what does it mean?"

"It means as I have said before, that you were around Observers or at least an Observer as a child. And at some point, you were hidden in a drawer to keep from being found." 143

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Tears spilled down my face, and I wiped at them with the back of my hand. "But it doesn't make sense. I was born here on Earth. My mother told me the story of the day I was born. They have documents, my birth certificate, social security card." I looked up at Caelan. "How can any of that be, if what you're suggesting is true?"

"Memories can be altered," he said. "You have seen that. Someone powerful enough, like a Council member, might have been able to give them memories of your birth. Or," he hesitated,

"perhaps they knew you were not theirs, but they did not know where you came from."

I started to protest, but then I remembered with sudden clarity the odd look on my mother's face when I'd once asked her why I didn't look like anyone else in our family. They all had dark hair, olive skin, and dark eyes with poor vision. I have red hair, pale skin, and green eyes with 20/20 vision.

"And what did she say?" Caelan asked, obviously having followed along in my thoughts.

"She said...she said recessive genes." I swallowed hard. "And I believed her." I looked up at Caelan. "Why would she lie? Why would they lie to me my whole life?"

He sat down on the floor next to me, hesitating before pulling me against him. "They may not have known the truth." His chin rested lightly on the top of my head, and I could feel the vibration of his voice deep in his chest. "Or, they may have been trying to protect you."

"Protect me from what?"

"Whatever you were hidden from in the first place," he said. In some crazy way, all the pieces now came together in a surprising whole. My lack of memories before age five...

"Probably removed to keep you from being confused," he said.

"Too late," I muttered. The strange dreams might then 144

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actually be repressed or partially erased memories coming to the surface. I truly did have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, not that anyone would believe me if I told them how I came by it. And the powers I seemed to have, connecting with the Observer mind, using their gifts with my control...

I sat up suddenly, pulling away from Caelan. "Oh God." I looked over at Caelan. "You think I'm not even human." He hesitated, then nodded. "Not completely, no." I tried to laugh, but it came out as mix between that and a sob. I could almost feel the ground slipping out from under me, like gravity had suddenly reversed itself. Everything I'd ever known as fact in my life was fiction. My parents weren't my parents, and Scott...Scott wasn't even my brother. "So I'm not crazy, I'm just some kind of science experiment, Observer and human blended together."

"As are we, I believe," he said.

"What do you mean?" I wiped under my eyes with my sleeve.

"I don't believe the story that has been given to you as explanation for our arrival. I think we were here long before that, creating an army of human/Observer hybrids, like us, like you."

"But that would mean that you're not missing memories at all." I stared at him, the idea turning over and over in my brain.

"You never had any before waking up. You didn't exist before you woke up."

His mouth curved into a tight smile. "You can understand why Asha and the others did not want to agree with my theory." It made sense in a frightening way. If Caelan's theory was correct, then all the research teams wandering the world were actually part of a big military operation. That would mean the Observers, probably the Council, had access to any human mind they desired and the ability to make more soldiers when they needed. It made sense except...I frowned. "Why bother? Why not just bring more Observers, or whatever their real name is, from 145

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wherever they're from?"

"I don't know. Perhaps they can't or perhaps there is an unknown advantage in blending Observer DNA with humans."

"Well, you end up looking like us. I mean, them. I...crap, you know what I mean." I didn't even know which camp I fell into now, human or Observer. Was there an in-between? I guess there was now. I suppose they could run tests to prove what we were speculating and that would tell me which I was more of. But that also might land me in a cell somewhere for scientific study, so no thanks.

"Zara, wherever you align yourself, we are with you. I don't believe we are pure Observer either, nor are we as human as you."

"So, you think I'm an early model or something?" I shifted a bit uncomfortably. "I'm not nearly as strong or fast, and my, uh, powers are dependent on yours."

"It is possible," he conceded. "But I also think that you may have been designed to work in conjunction with us, somehow." I flinched at the word "designed." "Like a human face to your activities? No one would suspect someone who looked so human."

"Perhaps, but you must understand how the other research teams, as they are called, seem to work now." He frowned. "They are different. They do not speak frequently, and when they do, there is an air of control about them."

"Like someone's telling them what to say and do?" I asked. He nodded.

"But you guys aren't like that, so maybe you're earlier models too." That idea made me feel a little better for some reason.

"I don't think so." He started to get up, then looked back at me. "There is more, if you wish to see it."

"I don't know. Any more horrible surprises? Am I second cousin to a wookie now?" I got to my feet. He frowned.

I shook my head. "Never mind. An old movie reference." One 146

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that my parents had loved and watched repeatedly when I was growing up. And just then, I knew. Even if my parents had known who or what I actually was, it wouldn't have bothered them at all. They might have even volunteered to take me.

"Shit." I whispered. I needed more time to think about this.

"I will show you this and then we will return." Caelan took my hand again and led me toward the stasis tanks. Or maybe growth tanks would be a better phrase, knowing what I knew now. Observers, at least some of them, had been grown right here. The rows were so tightly packed we had to start on the end closest to the door and go single file down the aisle in order to reach the tanks in the middle. One of the rows was shorter by one stasis tank.

"Rick Sutton?" I pointed to the empty spot. Caelan nodded.

He stepped around me to stand at the head of one of the rows.

"This way," he said, his voice softer than normal. I followed at a bit of distance, checking each tank as I went. They were, of course, all empty, but they were marked with the strange characters I'd seen in Asha's memories.

We were probably about halfway down the row when something occurred to me, something I should have noticed much sooner.