ROGUE

A month after Ringer joins our makeshift team, three members of Squad 53 break away from the group to head for the caverns. From Ringer's Wonderland, it is easy to guess that it is Zombie and two others searching for the missing Ringer and Teacup.

Colonel Vosche decides this is the best time to begin the plan. "Lieutenant, you and Ringer will wait in the caverns for them. It will take more than a day to reach the outskirts of Urbana, giving us enough time to drop you within walking distance. Rogue, we'll drop you in the forest on the other side."

"Attack them from both sides." I almost ask what I'm supposed to do if those remaining in the cabin spot me, and then realize it won't matter. They won't stand a chance against the 12th System. "What about the Drone?"

"There is only one in the city," Vosche glances at the three green dots moving along the map, "We should assume the Drone will be taken care of by Private Ghost."

Bile rises in my throat. "Do we know for sure that she is with them? This plan is flawed without her. I won't be able to convince them to let me join them if she doesn't vouch for me."

"Where Zombie goes, Ghost goes," Ringer says. Her face gives away nothing about how she feels, but Wonderland tells me that giving that information makes her feel guilty. Like she is providing private information about the people she cares about. It makes her feel raw, sore and open and all-over gross. But I can't care about that right now. I can't; even if that makes me more Other than human.

      But it gives me more information about the squad — and about Sofia. She and Ben Parish are the closest, aside from Evan Walker and Cassie Sullivan, and Cassie's little brother, Sam. It's ironic. I wonder if Sofia remembers that most of us went to high school together. That Ben Parish, star quarterback, had been the most popular, most attractive guy in school.

Oh, how times have changed.

__

Ringer stands at the front of the plane. Her skin is healthier, her cheeks fuller. Despite the loss of Teacup and Razor, she has returned to help them. No. In spite of the loss of Teacup and Razor. She is not here to help them at all. She is here to make sure her squad is protected at all costs. Vosche had promised her that when Constance was able to snag Evan Walker, Squad 53 would be let go. There would be no casualties so long as they did not intervene.

      "We will be dropped first." Constance hands a bag to me containing a knife, three cans of beans, half a bottle of water and some stale crackers. "Your story is that you're heading to the city for supplies. Make it believable. Remember that we don't know each other, so I will not vouch for you. It is up to you to get Private Ghost to let you join us."

      "Sofia won't be able to turn me away," I tell her, but the look on Ringer's face tells me otherwise. If Sofia had really changed that much, then there was a slim chance that this plan would even work. It made me wonder why the hell Vosche had me be part of this plan in the first place. "Besides, they'll be so fed up with you, Constance, they might trade you out for me."

      Constance sneers at me, but Ringer seems to enjoy the comment. Still, she says nothing as we board the plane and take seats together. It's only once Constance leans down to check her bag that she says anything at all. "Do you know him? Evan Walker. You must all know each other, right? You spent ten millennia together up there. Did you have any idea he'd go rogue?"

      Constance smiled. That's all she does.

      "Okay, that's bullshit," Ringer says. "Everything you think is the truth is bullshit. Who you think you are, your memories, all of it. Before you were born, they embedded a program in your brain that booted up when you hit puberty. Probably a chemical reaction kick-started by the hormones."

      "I'm sure that's a comforting thought," Constance says.

      "You've been infected with a viral program that literally rewired your brain to 'remember' things that didn't happen. You aren't an alien consciousness here to wipe out humanity and colonize Earth. You're human. Like me. Like Vosche. Like everyone else," Ringer continues.

      "I'm not anything like you." Ringer struck a nerve.

      "You probably believe that at some point you'll return to the mothership and let the 5th Wave finish the human genocide, but you won't, because they aren't going to do it. You'll end up fighting the very army you've created until there are no bullets left and history stops. Trust leads to cooperation leads to progress, and there'll be no more progress. Not a new Stone Age, a perpetual Stone Age."

      Constance straightens up. She seems unbothered by Ringer's rant. "That's a fascinating theory. I like it."

      I try to relax into my seat as the plane engines turn on. The familiar hum I can feel in my chest almost makes me smile. Two years ago, I went on a family vacation to Hawaii to visit relatives. If I close my eyes hard enough, I can almost still hear my mother rushing to the bathroom for the fourth time in a row, my brother in tow. He was adamant about drinking a giant slushie in the airport. I would give my life to hear him begging for a cherry drink one more time.

      Ringer clamps down on my arm. It sends a shock through my system and brings me back to reality like a slap to the face. But then my gaze locks on hers, and I know why she did it. She wants to know my intentions. That's why she has Constance's arm in her other hand.

      Ringer sees whatever she does, and then she's turning to face me. "What are you getting out of this?"

     "Don't know." A shudder runs down my back. This feels like a test. "Feels a lot like running to the past. But maybe it's not running to the past if the past brings you to the future."

      "You sound like Razor," Ringer says.

      The name startles me. "I guess... once you spend so much time with someone, you start to sound like them."

      Ringer looks lost in her thoughts. I wonder who she's thinking about. If it's Razor, what happened between them. Then I look at her, straight in the face, and wonder what she would say if I asked her to go with her squad. After Walker is captured and Vosche lets them go. I don't need to. Her hand on my arm lets the 12th System tell her everything she needs to know.

      "Why?" she asks.

      "Same reason you came back." Because Sofia's all I have left. Because she's the last thing that I care about. Because I need something to keep fighting for.

     "Yes," she says, finally. A look of agreement between us, this mutual feeling that would make us trust one another even if w we weren't half-human.

      A sigh of relief escapes. "Yes?"

      "Yeah." She looked forward again, but she was still talking to me. "Then you know what we have to do, right?"

      Yes. I do.

      Evan Walker and Constance Pierce have to die.

__

Thousands of trees are my drop zone. Dead in the forest, thirty miles from Grace's cabin, where Squad 53 cannot see me. They won't be able to hear the plane or see the parachute on the drop. And, still, I will be in Urbana before tomorrow. That's the good thing about the 12th System. Nothing can kill me. Not even the trees.

      I jump.

      The wind whips around my face, but it doesn't hurt. It feels freeing. Even with the white jumpsuit, even though I am been embedded with the enemy's hub. Even though I could die in the next three days.

      I'm coming, Sofia.

      At nine hundred feet, I realize something. From this height, if I don't pull the parachute, my bones will shatter on landing and it could kill me. Even with the 12th System, it would put me out of commission for a full day. That's time I don't have.

      At eight hundred and seventy feet, I notice how close the trees are. If I pull the chute and the wires get tangled in the branches, I could be stranded. I could break my bones, hang there until it heals and then try and cut myself out. But that brings up the time issue. I have to choose. I have to take a chance.

      At eight hundred and fifty feet, I deploy the parachute.

     Before the trees touch me, I tuck my limbs into my chest and pray to whoever or whatever is out there that I don't get impaled. That's when the impact happens. A guttural scream erupts from my lungs as the pine needles scratch my skin, heal, and scrape them again.

      And then it stops. As fast as it had begun, it had ended. She stops abruptly, a stick poking my neck dangerously close to my carotid artery. I gulp. The stick scratches me. I reach to the side and snap it in half. Then I pull my knife from the breast pocket of the jumpsuit and begin to cut the cords keeping me hanging here. Because they're tangled in the tree limbs and not my limbs, it's not as hard as initially thought out to be.

      Dropping to the ground, I roll to protect myself. Once I'm down, I make my way back up the tree to cut the wires of the parachute. It's time to hide the evidence. This should take just long enough for the trio to pass me on the way to Urbana. Whether or not they shoot me on sight is up to them. Knowing Ben Parish, it isn't likely.

Folding the fabric, I shove it into under a bush to hide it. Then I remove my bag and peel the torn clothing from my body, being mindful of the scrapes and bruises that are already healing. Black jogging pants, a thin t-shirt, a winter hat, gloves, and a red hoodie are the clothing Vosche had given me to wear. Clothes that are easy to find in run down stores and homes, he said. The hub will keep you warm, but remember to shiver. It'll put them off if you don't.

Once the jumpsuit is in the bush, I turn and start to run toward the city, faster than should be possible. It takes only forty-seven minutes for me to reach the sign outside of the city: URBANA, DEAD AHEAD. The irony almost kills me.

I'm here.

AUTHORS NOTE:

Well, hello. Next chapter Ghost returns!

As I posted on my profile, I am going to require a certain amount of comments and votes chapter before I update another one. And they cannot be "please update" or any other variation of the same. Those will not count.

15 votes and ten comments... I love you guys. See you next time!