Chapter 3: Sefina
In just two days, we will load onto the Titan ship, a BlazeStar I have not yet seen but heard many of our leaders speak about. I’m not sure we are ready for an escape with three, soon-to-be-four, enemy motherships in orbit. But I want off this rock. I want Solcrue to pay, and I want my friends to be safe, not hunted like animals and forced to hide in dirty tunnels, even if some of us aren’t entirely human.
Shifter slinks through the passageway beside Poppy and me. His body is made of tiny metal bars that he can fold and crawl through cracks.
After I confronted him, Menace has retreated to his post in the shadows behind us. I don’t think he wants help protecting the rebels. Maybe he just doesn’t want to live. I don’t know. But what Poppy said about him concerns me.
All I can see when I look back is the faint red glow of his eyes. When he’s in stealth mode, and I can’t see his eyes because he’s relying on scanners, all I know for sure is a feeling he’s back there and that blob of pulsing blue light. I can sense him when others can’t, just like I sense Shifter, Poppy, and every human and welvir.
Tumble is ahead of Bomber in the parallel tunnel to our right. I don’t know how I know, not for sure. But I can feel them in the local area. I can count them. I know if it’s a machine, a human, or an animal by the vibration in my spine and the way the image shimmers or pulses if I can see them without rock in the way. I am a divining rod and likely the last of my people to survive.
And I will never tell a soul. It’s the only way to keep myself from being experimented on or used to track others again. Poppy just happened to know what I was.
Commander Savage of the CyberTitans seems to think our little group of outcasts like working together or because we’re the rejects no one wants to talk to. I’m still unsure. We are, unfortunately, often assigned to the same camp or patrol zone.
“Ow!” A woman jerks away from Shifter.
“Everything’s going to be fine. We’re going to get out of here soon,” he says. The emaciated woman huddles in threadbare clothes, shuffling along behind the group. By the bandage on her side, she’s likely putting all her energy into healing.
“Shifter, don’t lie to her.” I snap. “And keep your hands to yourself. Everyone knows you sneak around the women’s quarters.”
Shifter slips into the shadows. “I don’t want her to be scared. She’s not doing well.”
“Fear makes us pay attention,” I tell him. “It can save us from dangerous things in the way your scanners do because it keeps us watching what’s going on around us.”
“Too much can kill a human,” he replies.
I sigh, knowing he’s right. It’s why I try not to show my weakness in front of those who look to me for protection. “Don’t say something you can’t for sure follow through with. Captain Forthus lied about me to get others to buy me. It’s why I’m here. I had to deal with the consequences and their furious disappointment. Forthus and every other seller told me I would be fine. But this is war. Nothing is everfine.”
I take Horvina’s bag and reluctantly sling it over the rest of my gear. Then I hand her a meal ration from a stash I always keep on me. “Did his skin pinch you?”
“Yeah.” Horvina quietly cries. A healing bruise tarnishes her left cheek.
I nod but am unsure of what else to say to comfort her.
Shifter has a strange body texture like many Titans—Drillbit, Thruster, Spike, Talon, and electrified Reactor—something that makes it difficult to touch humans. I sense Shifter’s loneliness as he sulks away from us, and now I feel bad for my outburst.
“Shifter.” His radiant purple eyes watch from the cracks. We can’t raise our voices too much or it draws the attention of welvirs, so I reach for his wrist with a gloved hand.
His body ripples out of my grasp like a hundred thousand links of very fine chain mail. Shifter just looks at me with dejection. I reach again, and his body caves and splits into two shimmering waves of metal.
Menace grabs him from behind, his hands seizing the shoulders of Shifter, who squirms and wraps himself in threads around a nearby stalagmite. But Menace’s grip doesn’t let him go.
“How are you doing that?” Shifter’s voice wavers like he’s struggling with dry gears or his engines have hit their Rev limiters.
I have the same question.
“Because of what I am,” Menace rumbles. “Leave the females alone. Next time, I won’t let go.”
Menace releases Shifter, who immediately slinks back behind the stalagmite. I know by Menace’s tone that he intends to hurt Shifter if he does it again.
“You should’ve called for help,” Menace remarks to me.
“I was going to handle it fine on my own.”
“One, no, you were not. No one can physically control Shifter except me, Savage, and Morbid. Two, you are too hardheaded to see that you are still mortal.”
“You’re not invincible either,” I protest as he walks off.
