The forge’s metallic scent was the only greeting I would get. The suspension tables, orange flashes, and clangs of machinery made me feel like I’d never left. The machines were the main source of light because the windows had been placed too high and were no bigger than my face.

I caught a few looks of disgust from the people behind the tables. It seemed that, if Nessa did not like someone, no one did. Just like high school.

“Oh, hey. It’s our newest ‘recruit.’” Nessa stepped past a green door, wearing the silver space suit arms that she’d had the previous time. She never took those off, did she? Everyone in the room looked up as she stomped toward me. Not this again. “Look, everyone! This”—she gestured to me—“is what it looks like to get special treatment. This guy never applied to join us. He never took the entrance exam. He hasn’t even been here for a full week. He’s only here because he did Surge a favor.”

A murmur of disagreement spread through the room. People exchanged glances with each other before glaring at me. My brain screamed at me to run. I was panicking partly because Nessa kept getting closer. I shouldn’t have panicked at all. I hadn’t done anything wrong. The whole reason I’d decided to do this was to prove that I belonged.

“Right, because nearly dying on a faraway planet is less impressive than passing a stupid exam.” I furrowed my brow. “I’ve been tinkering since I was a kid. I had a vivepen that I modified to produce glowing text before it got destroyed. I only did that stuff for Surge because you decided you hated me. Did you expect me to give up? All I had to do was find another solution to the problem, which is the basis of engineering isn’t it?”

I looked at our “audience.” Obviously they weren’t cheering me on, but they weren’t glaring at me either. It was fun to pick on someone until they got confident or shrugged off what you’d said. Thanks to school, I was no stranger to bullying.

“Relax, Rookie, I was just stating a fact.” Nessa crossed her mechanized arms. “You didn’t earn your way in—not in the traditional sense. That’s why I’ll be keeping you on a leash.”

I pouted. “I’m not an actual dog. Even dogs get treated better than this.”

Nessa stifled a snicker before putting her serious face back on. “I’m saying that you’ll be working with me today. I need to see what you’re capable of. Firsthand. Follow me.”

She was babysitting me. That was all I heard. Why had I nearly died for this gig again?

I followed Nessa through the green door that she’d previously exited from. Light blue walls lined the room. In the middle were four people, gazing up at two halves of a metal star. The pieces hung in midair, outlined by a green glow. The glowing table beneath them—a suspension table—held them there.

“Listen up, guys. I appreciate the help, but this one”—she patted my back, which propelled me forward—“and I can take it from here. All of you can go back to your own projects.”

“Really?” They all shot me disapproving looks. I shot them right back. “All right, we understand. We must have been progressing too fast, guys. She wants someone slower to take over. Talk to you later, chief.”

The jerks made their way to the door, and a few bumped shoulders with me on the way out. I flinched as the door shut behind me. The more horrible things I witnessed, the less I liked loud noises…

Nessa chuckled at my nerves. “Calm yourself, it’s just a door. You should be more focused on this.” She tapped the controls on the tables until one of the star pieces fell out of suspension. She caught it and turned it over in her hands. “That soldier sure didn’t give this up easily. I heard he took two stun shots from the Gamechanger. Hey, you saw that baby in action, right? What did you think? Keep in mind that I’m the one who manages it. It’s my handiwork you’re judging.”

I slumped against the door. “I don’t care. Aren’t I just here to help you fix that weird star? Let’s get that over with so I can leave.”

Nessa shook her head. “Now you sound like me. I hope you haven’t been taking your treatment too personally. Even though I’m the one in charge of this place, I’m not friendly with my subordinates. I treat them well enough, but it’s not like we’re friends or anything.”

“Subordinates? Is that what these people are to you? They’re supposed to be your family.”

“If you’re going to make assumptions about my relationships, then I regret talking at all. Catch.” She tossed half of the star to me. I caught it without thinking because I was now used to people throwing stuff at me. The thing was no bigger than my palm, but its circuitry was nuts. This must have been designed for something…impossible. “We’ve been messing around with this device for a while. Now we’re going to put it back together. Most of the hard stuff is already done. Just follow my lead. The tools are here.”

Beside the suspension table was a plain table overflowing with tools. I saw meldtorches, wrenches, screwdrivers, and even a metalbound ray. I was about to comment on it, but my words caught in my throat when I looked at Nessa. She gripped her hair and produced a black hair tie. Then she looped her hair through it a few times, forming a silver ponytail. I’m ashamed to say that I suddenly found her cute. Why was my face warm? Oh, I’d better not be blushing. I rubbed the warmth away and went back to the device.

“Hey Chief, would you mind telling me what this thing does?” I held my piece up to her.

She pressed her half against mine. Now it was a complete star again, but nothing happened. This was likely a sneak peek at what it’d be like when we were done.

“It’s a personal cloaking device,” she said. “A miniature, condensed version of the tech used in ships. We’ve been in the process of reverse engineering this thing for weeks. Now all we need to do is put it back together.”

“A cloaking device?” I eyed my piece. Something this small could cloak a human? I felt an idea forming, but it was insane. Nothing out of the ordinary. “That’s…interesting. I guess we’d better get to work then.”

“Time to show me that you can work. Remember you’re trying to prove yourself here. Show me you’re not dead weight.”

She wouldn’t have called me that if she’d known what I was planning. With nothing left to say, the two of us got to work. It’d be hard to repair a device I’d never worked on before, but, surprisingly, Nessa helped with that. As I examined the ins and outs of my half, she looked over my shoulder and explained how it worked. She talked about the tiny chip that I had to be gentle with. She showed me how there were no air vents, so it had to be a newer model. She smelled metallic like the forge…one of my favorite scents.

When she wasn’t explaining something, Nessa was putting her words into practice. She gripped tools with purpose, used them with determination, and threw them into the suspension field when she was done. It’d be hard to get them out, but I wouldn’t question her methods.

She ran a silver light over her star piece and pressed two fingers to her forehead. Her eyes blinked green as she stared at the ceiling. A glowing series of lines showed up on her forehead.

“What are those?” I pointed at her face.

Her eyes became gray again as she glared at me. “Never seen someone use a cerebral implant before?”

I gripped my arm. “Implant?”

That word was tainted for me. I couldn’t hear it without thinking about the AI tech inside me.

“How could you not have heard of them? They’re pieces of technology designed to be planted into your head and used through thought. Designed by Almas Pretiosus, of course. They turn your brain into a computer. I’m using mine to keep track of the progress I’m making with my half.”

That description was scarily familiar. Ignoring my bad history with Implants, this seemed suspicious. How had I never heard of these cerebral implants? The only technology I hadn’t delved into was the dangerous and experimental stuff.

“You have a piece of technology shoved into your head?” I asked. “I’ve thought about how cool that would be, but I’d never go through with it. That’s crazy dangerous.”

“That doesn’t matter. The results do.” She touched the glowing lines on her head. “Kaela said that she’s seen you shoot electricity. I don’t understand how, but it has to be because of technology, right? If that’s the case, then how can you chastise me for this? Don’t you understand the desire to upgrade yourself? Isn’t it great to be more than you already are?”

I gripped my arm even tighter. “Kind of. Except I didn’t ask to get my Implants. They’re just in me. An upgrade was forced on me as if I were a meaningless lab experiment. It’s cool to have powers, but it’s not cool to have no say about them. I don’t even understand them. It’s not so much an upgrade…it’s just something that’s there.”

Nessa seemed taken aback by my answer. Had she expected me to say that I loved having dangerous technology inside me? I understood her drive to improve, but doing it artificially wasn’t the way to go. I’d seen her work. She had so much skill that her stupid implant didn’t even matter. Why couldn’t she see that?

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Nessa frowned. “I can’t imagine having my implant forced on me. Look, I know you won’t believe that mine isn’t dangerous now, so let me just show you. Activate your helmet.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. I willed the metal pieces of my helmet to fly up and fit together. My visor formed between the bits, giving everything a bit of a tinted look. It didn’t matter outside, but, indoors, it felt like I was wearing sunglasses. I watched from my tinted point of view as Nessa walked toward me. A mild sense of panic pounded through my heart. She wasn’t going to hit me, was she? I couldn’t think of why else she’d have such an intense expression on her face.

When she was close enough, she placed her forehead against my visor. Oh. This was better than I’d expected. She shut her eyes as the lines on her head glowed again. My heart was already beating, but it quickened when windows popped up on my visor. I saw a model of the cloaking device and a series of numbers beside it. I saw a heartbeat monitor, a news feed, and a picture. It was a little girl standing in front of two adults. Those must have been her parents…but, while the mother’s face was fine, the father’s was torn?

I looked past all the extra stuff and made eye contact with Nessa. She stared directly into my eyes, so I stared back. She clenched her jaw like she was contemplating something.

“What is it?” I asked, my voice coming out in a whisper.

“Your eyes,” she said. Nessa had also mentioned my eyes when I’d first met her. Everyone always complimented them. I was used to it by now. “I hate the color, but they’re not so bad. They’re focused, but they’re kind at the same time. Makes you approachable.”

She hated my eye color? That was as refreshing as it was mean. More importantly, had she called me approachable? I was getting mixed signals here.

“Wha—”

“Back to work!” She swiveled away. The implant’s display disappeared from my visor. She examined her half of the cloaking device as if nothing had happened. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

I disabled my helmet. “What’s up with that picture? The one on your HUD?”

It was a blunt question, but I was tired of being faced with mysteries to which there were no answers. It wasn’t fair; I loved information.

Nessa clenched a fist. “Motivation.”

Of course her answers only spawned more mysteries. Let’s see, Nessa was probably the little girl, and those adults were her parents, so it made sense that they were dead. I assumed that all the Oppressed had dead parents, otherwise why wouldn’t they be with them? The weird part was that only her dad’s face was torn in that picture; her mom’s was fine. Weirdness followed these people like a shadow.

I was too absorbed in the mystery to speak, so the rest of the repairs went on in silence. The closest we got to talking was when Nessa left the room and came back with water bottles. She chucked mine at my head, but I caught it before it hit me! That was a lie. I actually just screamed and ducked as it soared over me. That got a good laugh out of her, which made it worth it. Eventually, I realized that I had nothing left to fix.

“I think I’m done,” I said. “How about you?”

“I’ve been done, I was just waiting on you.” She smirked as she raised her half. For someone who rarely looked happy, she sure loved being smug. “All that’s left is to connect them.”

We aligned the insides and brought our pieces together. I tightened the screws on my end, while she did the ones on hers. The middle of the star ignited with white light. It purred in our hands, like it was alive.

“Nice work, Rookie,” she said as the corners of her mouth curved up. “I knew you could pull it off. With my help, of course.”

“No you didn’t. You said I was here so you could see what I could do.”

“I just enjoy messing with you, to be honest. And thanks to the time we’ve spent sweating in this room, I don’t hate you.” She grinned as if that were meant to be a compliment. Were we friends now or something? “Anyway, here you go.”

She let go of the star, allowing it to fall into my hands. I blinked as I struggled to understand. I had designed an elaborate plan around getting this thing from her, and she’d just handed it over?

“You can’t be serious. Is this how you tell jokes? The execution could use some work.”

She rolled her eyes. “You go on missions for Surge, don’t you? This will make them twenty times easier. All I need is field data, so collect plenty of that. I need to know it won’t disintegrate the user before we mass produce them.”

She was actually letting me have this. That meant I was a test dummy. She really felt the need to insult me one last time, but it didn’t matter. As long as I had this, nothing else mattered.

“Even though this might disintegrate me, thanks Nessa. You’re way nicer than you made yourself out to be.”

“Assumptions again? I’ll take that thing back, Rookie. Don’t test me.” She pulled out her phone. “By the way, did anyone ever install our messaging app on your phone?”

“No. I’m surprised I still have my phone. I can’t believe it wasn’t damaged when my sister shot me.”

She grimaced. “She did what? Telling me the story behind that is the first thing you should do with this app. Give me your phone.”

Well, she had just donated a cloaking device to me. I gave her my phone while I examined the star. I flipped it over in my hands. A black magnet clung to the bottom of it. It must have been on Nessa’s half because I hadn’t noticed it before. I stuck the star on my chest. It made me feel like an elementary school student who had accomplished something.

“All right. Here.” Nessa held my phone out. I took it and peered down at the new orange interface. Nessa’s name stared up at me. She’d given me her number? “Surge made this app. It has secure messaging and calling so Frost can’t track us. That’s my number, obviously. If you send me anything weird, I’ll never speak to you again.”

We’d barely started talking, so that wasn’t saying much. Nevertheless, having her number left a warm spot in my heart. It went cold as I looked at the star and remembered what I had to do. My team and I didn’t have an escape plan, but now I could take care of one huge obstacle. For Upton, and for Laura’s sense of accomplishment, it was time to steal back a shield generator.

It had been so kind of Nessa to let me take a break. Actually, she’d practically kicked me out after I’d asked for one. Either way, I was out of the forge and on a mission. The green sunlight beat down on my head as if to tell me that I had plenty of time to act.

I found a public cruiser and started it up. I’d been to Surge’s office a few times but never alone. I’d have to estimate where it was relative to the forge. I slammed on the pedal. The cruiser scraped the ground for a second, rocking the whole thing. The Oppressed really needed new cruisers.

Speaking of those guys, they crowded the sidewalks on either side of me. My windows were rolled down, so their chatter filled the vehicle. Just humans and, occasionally, ruabrum walking side by side, talking about nothing. Why did I feel annoyed? Sometimes chatter sounded like buzzing in my ear. Only, this wasn’t one of those times.

I think…I was annoyed at myself. I was on my way to betray all of those smiling faces. They’d let me in and fed me even if they didn’t trust me. I was about to prove them right for being suspicious, and I hated it.

Whatever. It was just one more thing that would keep me up at night. I couldn’t let everyone down by messing this up.

Surge’s office popped up in the distance. Almost there. It’d be suspicious if I parked right outside. He could come out and see me. Unless he was at his desk. How would I sneak in if he was? I could cloak myself but not a door swinging open. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought this through until now.

I pressed the brakes and slid the cruiser into the shadow of a nearby building. He might not notice it this way. I yanked out the key and opened my door. Clutching my star, I marched toward Surge’s place. Nessa had said it worked by bending light around you. People online had dismissed it as magic. I was a man of science, so I didn’t believe in magic. That said, how else could you explain something so cool?

I pushed down the center of the star, where the light was shining. It was warm to the touch. The white light blinked and shone as bright as my lightning. I shut my eyes and kept them closed until the light faded from my eyelids. When I opened them, I flinched. My bangs, my stray hairs, they were gone! I looked down, but there was nothing there. My feet and legs were missing. I stomped in place; a little puff of dust came up. I could add a possible side effect to the list: my head exploding from this insanity.

The clomp of my feet as I approached Surge’s door was especially mind-boggling. I couldn’t see my footsteps, but I could feel and hear them. Whoever had tested this had to have thrown up. Speaking of which, I had to document this for Nessa. Maybe she’d smile again if I did a good enough job. Assuming I could even face her after this…

I peered through Surge’s window and cupped my eyes with hand binoculars, but it was pointless if I couldn’t see my hands. No one was at his desk; the room was empty. The generator sat on top of a stack of papers. The window cooled my forehead as I took a closer look. This cloak must have been messing with my eyes. It couldn’t be this easy. The epic heist that I’d been “planning” since I’d arrived would be over in seconds.

Fine by me.

I gripped the doorknob and turned it. The door parted. It wasn’t locked either? Would I even need the cloaking? I shook my head and pulled the door open. When I stepped inside, a wave of cool air as well as that awful smoky stench met me. I closed the door behind me, unintentionally gazing at Surge’s wall of pictures as I did. Even more smiling faces to betray. Why did I care? The only people I even somewhat knew were Kaela, Dylan, Nessa, Surge, kind of the forge…did the people at the cafeteria count?

Needed to focus.

The generator sat right in front of me. I clutched it. It felt bulkier than I thought. No alarms went off, it didn’t explode in my hands, and I didn’t die instantly. The heist continued to be a breeze. The objective I’d spent a month chasing was literally in my hands. There was only one obstacle left to overcome: I couldn’t bring myself to pick the generator up.

The heavy vase sat on the desk with my hands wrapped around it, and all I had to do was lift it. If only the churning in my stomach would let me. What was wrong with me? How could I let guilt decide something as important as this? No wonder the AI were winning; human brains were stupid. Yes, I was doing a bad thing, but it was good too! Good for Frost, but bad for Surge, and Surge was the one who’d tried to enslave Red City. Oh, but Frost might have blown up Effluvium. Surge tricked me into using my powers on a mission, but Frost might have known about my powers all along and never told me.

Which side was the good one?

CLICK! SLUUUM!

I gasped and stumbled back as those sounds burst into the room. They came from…beneath me? I covered my mouth as footsteps followed. I couldn’t risk yelping. Surge’s salt and pepper hair peeked up behind the desk. The generator slipped from my hands as they went slack. I didn’t remember grabbing that thing. It thumped against the floor before resting at my feet. Behind me was the corner, and in front of the desk was Surge gazing in my direction with his chin raised.

“Odd,” he said as his gaze locked on to the shield generator.

How much could he see? He must have looked over after he’d heard the generator fall. Otherwise he’d be way more suspicious.

Surge marched toward me—or rather, the fallen generator. I backed into a corner, and kept my mouth covered. If I breathed too hard, he’d feel it. If my heart kept going at its current thundering pace, he’d hear it. He stopped a foot away and bent down to grab the generator. I didn’t even look down. The movement of my head might have been enough to tip him off. He stood back up with the generator under his arm, squinted in my direction one more time, then turned and walked away. I held my breath as I tiptoed behind him. We rounded his desk, and what I saw made me yelp. Thankfully my hands muffled it.

There was a set of downward stairs where a chair should have been. A secret passageway. Surge had a secret lair? I’d thought his office was his secret lair. He exhaled and started down the steps. I contemplated following him, but something clicked in the room. I jumped back as the opening’s sides stretched toward each other. They mushed together, sealing up the passage as though the stairs had never existed.

Surge was gone, and so was the generator.

I coughed out the breath I’d been holding and rubbed my forehead, which I still couldn’t see. I hadn’t succeeded at getting the generator. I’d had a chance, but I’d flubbed it. On purpose? I could have grabbed it and left before Surge had showed up, but I hadn’t. The fault was entirely my own. I wasn’t close to these people, but I still couldn’t bring myself to betray them. Did that mean I was betraying Frost? I could think about this until my head exploded, but it’d get me nowhere. Where would I go from here? Home.

I had to let my friends know that I’d failed them.