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After two weeks of solid eating and planning, Yasmine was satisfied that the plan was understood and might just work. In six days time, at the end of the first month of their imprisonment, they put their plan into effect, escape, head back to Aiedo, find Zara, and then plan their next move. Yasmine’s first lesson of leadership was that nothing ever goes according to plan. On the 27th day, two guards supervised by a scientist carried Dee away. No explanation was given, and none was asked for as they took Dee by gunpoint. She would never be heard from again. Dee’s abduction threw the whole plan into disarray. They couldn’t escape quickly and cleanly if they had to search the base for their missing kinsman. Thinking long and hard, Yasmine asked for two volunteers to accompany her on a rescue mission while the others escaped. Ceena and Laya put their hands up, but the next thing Yasmine suggested was to push the plan back a few days in case they returned Dee to her cell. The 28th and 29th days passed without incident, but the last day of the month dawned to find the male’s cell invaded by armed guards. Again, they were accompanied by a scientist, who pointed at the youngest male, Sean, before a guard with a shock of white hair pouring out from under his helmet grabbed the boy and dragged him away. First a female, now a male, Yasmine mused as she worried about her friend. He had cried out only once as they had taken him away, but that cry rang in Yasmine’s ears and brought tears to her eyes. The shock of losing two of their small number in such a short time had shaken the captive NeiChildren to their core. Morale was at an all time low, as they now spent their days sobbing and mourning their lost friends or relatives. After Sean was taken, each day another NeiChild was kidnapped from their cells. After the fourth day of this, and the NeiChildren’s numbers had dwindled down to nineteen, a commotion erupted at the end of the hall of cells. Jarred from another night’s lack of sleep, Yasmine rushed to the front of her cell, Ceena and Laya right beside her. Their cell was closest to the end of the hall, but they couldn’t see anything. They did, however, hear gunfire coming closer and closer. Suddenly, the white-haired guard burst around the corner, slipping on the cold steel floor as he charged around the corner. He had lost his helmet, and his long white hair flowed around his head, a sharp contrast to the fresh, jagged cut down the middle of his face. He puffed and sweated as he reached Yasmine’s cell. “G, g, get out of here…” He gasped as he fished inside his uniform for the keys. Finding them, his sweaty palms slipped twice before he finally thrust the right key into the lock. Exploding from the cell, Yasmine grabbed the guard’s shoulders, shaking him like a rag doll. “Where are the others? Why are you helping us? What’s going on here?” The guard’s pale face turned even whiter at the barrage of questions. “Look, there’s not much time, I’ll free your friends, but…” He glanced back down the hall, as the sound of marching feet met their ears. Strangely, it struck Yasmine as the sound of metal upon metal… “Genetic testing… Your friends that were taken away…” He trailed off and went to open the other cells. As he opened the last, he turned back to the bewildered NeiChildren. “Your friends are dead. I, I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta get out of here… It was so horrible, what they did, I just had to do something…” Looking over the assembled NeiChildren’s heads, the guard screamed and bolted away down the hallway. Turning, Yasmine saw a large black android round the corner, backed by at least ten red and blue smaller guards, all armed with shotguns. The leader spoke in a monotone as he pointed at the former captives. “They’re escaping. Get them.” Crying out in rage, Yasmine sent multiple blasts of RaFoi down the hall at the androids. Following suit, the rest of the NeiChildren, putting aside their grief for the moment, sent their own magical attacks down the hallway. Noting the lack of return fire, Yasmine reasoned that they might have at least stunned the androids for now. “Let’s go! Split up and get out of the base! I’ll see you all back in Aiedo, safe and sound – now get out of here!” Firing one more blast of NaFoi down the hall, Yasmine dashed after her fleeing clan. As she passed some cells, she noticed other prisoners, and stopped to set them free. Half the time, the prisoners simply barreled out of their cells without a backward glance, but one young man, with strange violet eyes, stopped momentarily, smiled at Yasmine, and flung a blast of RaZonde down the hall before running away. Reaching the end of the hallway, Yasmine panicked momentarily at the choice of four directions. Choosing the leftmost hallway, she aimed one last RaFoi spell at the ceiling, causing it to cave in behind her. Moments later, Yasmine cursed her luck. This hall was empty of any other escapees, but seemed to lead directly into the base’s laboratories. With no way back, Yasmine resolved herself to finding out exactly what happened to her friends before she herself escaped. Just as she approached the first electronic door, sirens began to go off all around her. The lights in the hall changed from white to red as a cold electronic voice echoed the words; “Escapees located in corridor C3. Commence capture.” Yasmine stood, dumbfounded, for a moment. Not my people… Not now! Disregarding such thoughts, she entered the lab to find herself faced with a bank of computer screens. Probably due to the dangerous prisoners loose in the base, the lab was empty. The computer screens in front of her showed different areas of the base. One of them showed the corridor she herself had blocked off, as the group of androids fired constantly upon it. Another camera showed what appeared to be an entrance to a ship. The date on it, however, appeared to be from a month ago. Seemingly hundreds of people filed onto the ship, many armed. However Yasmine nearly fell off her chair as she saw Zara being marched onto the ship at the end of a rifle. Yasmine was confused. Why the difference? Why imprison them and yet let Zara go with them? Something stank here, Yasmine realised, so she began flicking through the various cameras to see what else she could find. One camera showed the white-haired guard had paired up with the violet-eyed spellcaster and both were belting down an otherwise empty hall. On another camera was the laboratory area. Flicking past the view of herself at the console, Yasmine nearly vomited at the next sight. Laid out on a table was Sean, dead. Strewn around him were medical instruments of varying cruelty. Blood stained his clothing and bare parts of his body were covered with scars. Flicking through the various other labs, Yasmine saw similar fates for the other abducted NeiChildren. Pale with rage, she saw gunfire on another screen. In it, she saw the NeiChildren, all still in a group, backed up against a wall. The androids had broken through the blockade, and had them covered. Stepping forward, the leader said something, before the screen filled with the most horrible sight Yasmine had ever seen. Sobbing quietly, Yasmine sank to the floor in a heap, defeated. The destruction of all her family and friends left her an emotional wreck on the floor. Their lives flashed before her eyes as she cried in the foetal position. She didn’t know she fainted or fell asleep but the next thing she knew was the metallic voice calling out; “Escapees neutralized. Emergency averted. Status: green.” Getting to her feet, Yasmine wiped the tears and mucus from her face, composing herself as the gravity of the situation settled upon her yet again. All her family and friends were dead. Zara was being held captive somewhere. The planet was going to die. She was going to die if she didn’t do something. “Dangerous escapee detected in Lab area. Proceed with neutralization. Status: red.” Yasmine ran out of the lab, heading away from the cells, towards the heart of the base, and towards the spaceship. She wasn’t going to die. Neither was Zara. The NeiChildren [B]weren’t going to die.[/B] Not today. Not ever, if she had anything to do with it. And those army men were going to pay, dearly. But first she had to find her sister, and that meant getting onto that ship, whenever they finished it. As she moved through the base at breakneck speed, she realised that this Pioneer 2 must have been the sole focus of their work at the moment. The base was deserted. How many millions were they going to leave behind to perish because they had been deemed not good enough? Nobody’s bad enough to be denied life, she thought to herself. To be denied a chance. As she reached the the front gates of the compound, she realised that they were imprisoned but a short walking distance from it. The twisting corridors had simply led them to the illusion that they were deep inside the base. Probably to demoralise them further. She shook such thoughts away as she saw the unguarded gate of the base. Obviously, the threat was usually from without, not within. It was closed, locked. A keypad was at its side, but she had no idea of the code. Suddenly behind her, she heard the same metal upon metal footsteps of the androids approaching. Surely she hadn’t been discovered? Biting her lip, she sent a small charge of electircity into the keypad with a Zonde spell. The doors swung upon with a sigh, and she relaxed for a moment. There was noone guarding the outside gate either. What was going on here? About to step outside to freedom, Yasmine realised that the androids must have been cleared this area to prevent casualties from the “dangerous escapees”. Her blood boiling, she turned, to see the black leader, covered in blood, approaching her. His subordinates were nowhere to be seen. Just as she saw the android, he saw her, raising the shotgun in his hand to aim directly at her. “Halt.” Was all he said. Yasmine looked at the nameplate welded onto the android’s chest. She would know the name of this murderer, she decided. Semiru. Reacting quickly, Yasmine fired a bolt of GiZonde directly into the tip of the shotgun. The electrical charge took mere moments to work its way through the android’s complete body, leaving him convulsing on the floor. Turning away from the murderous android, Yasmine stepped outside the gate to freedom. She would go back to Aiedo, hole up, plan and train. And she would return in 6 years time to go get her sister. She would do it for all of them. For all the NeiChildren.
