Chapter 6 c Photokinesis

He turned around to the other side of the watchtower and stood next to Emi. They touched shoulder to shoulder, yet pretended that they both felt nothing. Her eyes were lost against the night sky. It seemed to be all that there was on the outside, until the mountain ridges revealed themselves in the distance. They surrounded everything. Between the walls and the mountains it was seemingly uninhabited land. Overgrown and wild.

“Is there anything out there?” Iggy whispered, squinting and trying to see as far as possible. The road that they had traveled on continued past the outer wall, but his eyes could scarcely trace it into the woods.

Emi glanced at him and smirked. “Of course there is. I’m from out there.” She gazed at the stars, then pointed to a large mountain far away in the distance. “I came from the other side of that mountain.” Her hand lowered. “I lived with my Mom…” Her throat tightened and her fingers interlaced before her. “My dad. My sister. We were happy…” Her throat clicked as she swallowed. “It’s hard to look at it from this side.”

“Who attacked your family?” Iggy asked. “What did you do to them?”

She turned and glared at him in only a way that a scornful woman could. “Are you asking that because you think we did something to deserve it?”

Iggy shrugged.

Seconds before fire erupted inside of Emi at Iggy’s unempathetic reply, Baine stepped in between them. His body pushed them far off to the sides of the window and separated them. “Soldiers,” he butted in. “That’s who they are. They work for the military, FUSARMIID. The infected and uninfected might have some problems with one another, but as a whole, we’ve been fighting these soldiers for the right to live freely for more than twenty years.”

Iggy narrowed his focus on him, searching for something that he could be hiding. “What do they want?”

“They attack us, collect us like animals, and kill us. All while we’re just struggling to keep the virus alive.”

“But, what are they gaining by doing this?” Iggy pried.

Baine released his arms into his pockets. “Many things,” he sighed. “They want us to stop killing them. They want our people, our discoveries, and our land. Especially here, on the New Continent. They want to make us all lab rats again, so that they can make our physiology work for their benefit.”

Emi studied his eyes for credibility, but Iggy watched his body. This man was his caretaker for many years, and he knew that not a speck of true emotion would be shown on his face. His body hadn’t changed. He was planted, his hands tucked deep into his pockets, and his eyes stared straight forward into the night.

Iggy still searched, “what else is there?” Baine broke his stance. He loosened his arms down to his sides and dropped his chin and shoulders. Iggy braced himself. The truth was coming.

“They want the two of you,” he said.

Emi stepped away from the window and squared herself to him. “Why us? We don’t have anything to do with this.”

Baine winked. “You don’t have to do anything to be a part of this war. You’re a larger part of it than you’d think, because of who your parents are; The Silgrias, and ours, The Fendersons. Let me explain...” He paused, sorting the information in his head to make it as child friendly as he could. Then, he continued. “There is an order of our kind. We have positions and stations, duties and responsibilities, ranks. If a position of high rank opens it needs to be filled as quickly as possible in order to maintain the order.

“The New Generation is a person born and raised as the future heir to the family in preparation for such a shortcoming. You two are still The New Generation, until you accept your positions and begin your own New Generation.” He stood straight and stepped away from the open window. “The reason why you are sought out, is because you have the original virus in your blood as well as the necessary evolutionary genes that made it all happen in the first place. If a person outside of the family is given our version of the virus, that alone is not enough. One needs both. And so, it is up to you two to survive this time and then start a New Generation of your own. Only then the virus will continue to grow.”

“They just want to kill us, then?” Iggy paraphrased.

Baine sealed his lips and shook his tilted head. “No. Losing you to them might be the only way to defeat our empire. And for us, the only way to defeat theirs. You are the young king and queen, and many people are expecting you to do some amazing things.”

Iggy nodded. “They just want to kill us,” he concluded flippantly.

Baine turned around and came to another window and he leant into it. “Precisely.”

Baine glared down at Amare who paced far below, and his expression melted into disgust as his train of thought threw itself off track. Then, he momentarily forgot the two standing there.

“The New Generation Queen,” Emi whispered to herself. She looked across at Iggy and grinned. “That’s a prestigious title, wouldn’t you say?”

Iggy peered at Baine’s back, not acknowledging her. He didn’t care about titles anyways. Apparently, he had a whole family setting him up to be this person that he had never even known of. All faceless members standing on his shoulders, wielding their swords, and sending him into a battle blind. He sighed. For so much pressure, there was nearly no support. He shrugged a shoulder and replied, “a prestigious title with very little real reward.”

As much as he wanted to brush it off, the blood still rushed to his head, leaving his fingers cold. He could feel a dark presence all around him. It was neither person, nor animal, but it had a body. Long reaching arms that were more like wings than limbs that stretched up to the sky and arched downward, wrapping around him. There was an eager force within them to pull him closer. He could sink into it like water. He started to feel sleepy, as if he could lay down inside of the thing, and rest. He understood the wordless promise that the darkness would take him somewhere ideal, alone, yet not. That it harbored a safe, serene place specifically for him. All he was required to do was give into it. He couldn’t resist. It was too easy to convince him to disappear. He took a step back and the whole room shifted. The shadows from the domed ceiling and from all of the little nooks and crannies stretched across the walls and floor to gather around him. The darkness concentrated over him in an embrace, pulling him further in, and engulfing him entirely.