C. Adams - Version 2.0

“She has more law enforcement experience than any of the agents currently in commission,” Kale retorted. “She just needs to be read in. Completely.”

“Come on,” Maverick gruffly objected. “You’ve gotta be a ten-year loyal in order to be read in. You know that.”

“I don’t see where we have much of a choice under the circumstances,” Kale’s head tilted in frustration with the man.

“Enough,” Simon interjected. Kale and Maverick looked to him. “Agent Kale is right. It is necessary.” Maverick clenched his jaw. “Everyone is dismissed. Agent and Mr. Farran may remain.”

“The book nerd gets read in, too?” Maverick asked, incredulously.

“Book nerd?” Brian looked offended.

“Mav, honey,” Emmett said as he stood and gathered his things, “I think you need to loosen the ball cap and go home and have a drink of that fifty year old whiskey you keep bragging so much about.”

“Why don’t you shut your cherry trap, Abner,” he scowled back.

“Oh cherry trap! I like that,” he smiled. Maverick growled, picked up his things and stormed out. Emmett glanced over to Birdie as he made his way to the door, himself. “Don’t worry, sweetie. Mav’s just jealous because he can’t go hunting with the big boys. Too much of a trouble maker.” He winked at her and filed out with the rest of the dismissed team.

Once the door closed and the three of them were alone, Simon turned to one of the walls. “I’m sure you’ve been told about the Regeneration Room and Detention?”

“Yes,” Birdie replied.

“Both are located here. Where we are right now, specifically, is sub-level C, sector one. It’s where Detention begins.”

“Where does it end?” Brian asked.

“Sub-level Z,” Simon glanced away from the wall as he told him.

“What exactly is Detention?” Birdie asked. “I know it’s sort of like a jail.”

“Yes. For the most part, it is. Let me show you.” Simon looked back at the wall and reached out to press a button. It was then that Birdie realized that what she thought was black marble, was actually more like a two-way mirror. The room’s light dimmed down dramatically, as lights began to flicker on the other side of it.

The depth of the room beyond the mirror seemed endless. Brian and Birdie stood there staring in awe as the blue-tinted globes continued to light up. They were at least a few yards away from the room. It took a few moments to realize that each blue-lit globe was actually a liquid-filled capsule, housing a single body.

There were hundreds of them. Maybe thousands, it seemed, as the lights kept flickering on farther and farther down. The room was so deep, they couldn’t see to the bottom of it. The pod-like structures wrapped around off the sides, surely continuing past where they could see.

“When a Proprietor chooses to become a Defector, they essentially announce themselves enemies of their own people,” Simon told them. “We do our best to recover and rehabilitate them. But more often than not, they are beyond our help. Because they are so dangerous, there are only two options. Put them behind bars like a normal prison, or do the more humane thing and put them in stasis.”

“Stasis?” Brian questioned. “They’re…”

“They’re dead,” Birdie finished for him. “They’re being kept drowned.”

“They’re Proprietors,” Simon reminded them. “If we were to take them out, they would regenerate. Which is more than we can say for what they did to the Observers today. Or the military personnel that died on the plane they blew up.”

Birdie and Brian looked back out at the pods as they considered what Simon told them. Though it seemed a bit cruel, it made sense. The Defectors were murderers. This way might even have been better than they deserved.

Birdie looked thoughtful for a moment before turning back to Simon. “Earlier, you said you’d been waiting for me. What did you mean by that?”

“Just as I said,” he told her. “We’d been expecting this day. The day the Defectors would go to great lengths and strike against us like this. They were waiting for you, too.”

“What does that mean?” she asked. “Why would they be waiting for me ?”

“Because their leaders have been preparing them for it. For the day that came to be that both of you were here.”

“Their leaders? What do they have to do with us?” Brian asked. “Why do we matter to them? Who are they?”

Simon turned away from the glass and faced the siblings. “Your parents,” he told them. “Your real parents…”

“Why do you think our parents deserted the island?” Birdie asked Brian as they sat on the couch in their apartment.

“Probably the same reason as anyone,” he replied.

“You said people were brainwashed by other Defectors. But they’re their leaders. They started everything!”

“That’s not necessarily true…”

“Time for your first hunting trip, Agent Farran,” Kale said as she threw her a set of keys.

“What are these for?”

“How do you think we get off of this island?” she raised a brow.

“You’re Farran’s daughter,” the Defector realized, twitching his arms against the cuffs that bound his wrists. Birdie didn’t respond, but simply watched him from where she sat across the bench in the back seat of the truck. “You don’t understand. Everything we’ve done, everything we came back out of the woodwork for was for you and your brother…”

© 2013, C.M. Adams. Except as provided by the Copyright Act no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.