Owen

"Was Other Vai late for school again?" Shel asked. He stood with his feet in the blue ocean. Minmin sat on the beach underneath the tree. Shel's bird sat in the tree above her. For a moment I was afraid the bird might poop on her, but then I remembered that none of this was real.

"No," Esther said. She sat in the water not too far from where Shel stood. The waves came up to her waist before folding back out to sea. Silver grains of sand shifted all around her.

"I hope that means he didn't kill another innocent," Minmin said quietly.

"We don't have a lot of time. Other Vai is probably already on his way to our quarters for training." Shel said. He sat in the sand next to Esther but whereas she faced out towards the ocean, he faced the beach. My chest twisted in a weird knot seeing the two of them close together.

They are foster siblings, I reminded myself. The knot eased a little. I went and sat in the water on the other side of Esther anyway. She smiled at me. The knot eased away completely.

"Do all of you really have to sit in the water?" Minmin asked. She stood up and leaned against the green tree. "Have none of you learned anything from Waters Reaching?"

Shel's blue eyes rolled upward. "Minmin, that's just a show. Giant watery hands are not going to grab you and pull you under the water unless I program them to."

A little squeal escaped her throat.

"I'm not going to program it to," Shel assured her.

"Still," she said and bounced a little on her feet.

"How are we going to incapacitate Warpaint?" Shel asked.

"I picked up the electrical disruptor Alessandra used on Warpaint," Esther said. "I can modify it a little to make its effects last longer."

"How long will that take?" Shel asked.

"I can probably finish it tonight. Probably earlier if I skip the training."

"I say skip it," Minmin said. "The longer we delay this, it will give Other Vai another opportunity to kill some innocent K'thaktra."

Esther shifted in the sand so she could better see Minmin. I did the same.

"Esther will take care of Warpaint then," Shel said. "What about Other Vai? How are going to kill him? I know Vai can heal now, but I think it would be best if we don't damage the actual body too much."

"Do we really have to kill him?" I asked. Three pairs of eyes turned to look at me incredulously. "I mean, Vai did say there is another Vai body in his father's room. Couldn't Vai just go into the empty one?"

"And leave two Vai's running around?" Minmin asked.

"How will we explain that to his father and everyone else?" Esther said.

"That would still leave an incomplete Other Vai around to kill innocent people," Shel said. "Vai's father won't stop him. We all know now to what lengths Lieutenant Commander Ma'amaloa will go to in order to keep a semblance of his son by his side. Morals don't matter to him when it comes to his son."

"You're right. You are all right," I said. "We should acquire euthanasia from medical. That would be the easiest way to kill Other Vai. Do you think once real Vai is inside he will be able to heal himself from that?"

"He seems to think he can bring the body back from the dead," Shel said.

"And if that doesn't work, there is still the other body in his father's room like you said," Minmin said. "But then at least there won't be two Vai's running around - one of whom is turning out to be a serial killer."

"I'll get the euthanasia," Shel said. "We'd better logoff. I think Vai is knocking on the door." Shel and Minmin logged out immediately.

"It's going to be all right," Esther told me. I nodded. I thought she said the words as much for her as for me.

"I'll be down in a minute," I said. I logged out of the ansible. I reshaped my okulus to fit around my wrist.

«I get off work at 7 tonight. I'll have the chocolate with me. It was a message from Security Officer Pereira.

I had received a message from my contact back on Earth that he did indeed have a Silva doll from Sol II. I told him I would give him something worth more than he could imagine in return for it, but that the exchange would have to happen in person when I returned to Earth. He agreed. I wasn't sure yet what that would be. That wasn't exactly true. I was fairly certain I would open his light if he wasn't already infected with the Corruption. What could be greater than that? Honestly, I wasn't sure why we kept hiding it. It made more sense to me to spread the light to as many people as we could.

«I'll stop by your quarters at midnight. I sent her a message in reply.

Then I sent Spencer a message.

«I'll have some of the chocolate tonight. I'll meet you in the corridor behind the Starrise after midnight.

I climbed off my bed and went into the living quarters.

My dad stopped playing his viola and smiled when he saw me.

"Going down to Shel's again?"

"Yes."

"I'm glad you are making friends. How is Vai doing after his injury?"

How should I answer that one? "Fine," I lied.

"Good," my dad said. "Have fun." I walked into the corridor.

I started towards the elevators. I didn't see who it was. I didn't hear anything until it was too late. I was grabbed from behind and pulled backwards. I was pulled into a maintenance shaft and dragged away. I couldn't see who had me, but a human male climbed into the maintenance shaft after us and closed the hatch behind him. He wasn't as big as Vai. If he had been, he wouldn't have been able to fit into the the maintenance hatch. When he looked at me to follow us, pink was in his eyes.

I screamed because that was what I had been taught since I was little. If you're ever kidnapped, you're supposed to scream. The person who held me dropped me, but before I could react he hit me in the back of the head.

My vision went black for a moment. I retained enough of my faculties to put my light shield up.

We should have known the Corruption would come for us at some point. How long would they just sit back and keep letting us kill them? We knew they knew us and yet, we had never discussed this possibility. Was it my turn to die now? Now that I had really killed, it was my turn.

No. I wasn't going to make it easy for them. The human male in front of me pressed down on my side that had been slashed. They didn't know it had been healed. He thought he was hurting me. It did hurt a little, but not what he was expecting. He brought up a vibroscalpel with his other hand to bare down on me. I released my light and a wave of fire rushed over him. He fell backwards and groaned as he rolled around as best he could in the confined maintenance shaft. The flames on him began to die away.

I didn't want to kill again. I crawled forward towards the maintenance hatch. I figured the man putting out the fires on himself would be too distracted to stop me. A hand wrapped around my ankle and dragged me backwards.

I rolled over onto my back to kick out at the person who had originally grabbed me. My free leg paused in mid air. It was another human male. It was the first officer. He wasn't on our original list of those infected with the Corruption, but pink gleamed from his eyes.

They had come for me because they knew I was alone. They knew I had been injured. But that didn't mean they wouldn't attack the others. I was just the first. The Corruption had finally decided to attack us.

The first officer punched at my knee in the air, but my shield kept out his blow. The man behind me stopped groaning. I tilted my head back enough to see he was coming for me despite the burns that were now all over his body.

If I died here, I didn't think my spirit would remain like Vai's. He was special for many reasons. I wasn't. If the Corruption killed me here, no one would find my body. My friends wouldn't know what happened to me. They wouldn't know the Corruption would be coming for them next. My parents wouldn't know. That thought settled over me heavily. It encompassed me. I hadn't treated them right. I was their only child. They loved me.

I kicked the first officer in the nose. I had to live. Everyone had to be warned - including my parents. He blinked in surprise and a trickle of crimson blood dripped from his nose.

I scooted backwards towards the hatch and bumped into the other man. He tried to hold me, but I lit my arms, shoulders and back on fire. This time he screamed. I crawled over him as red flames flickered over him. Pink smoke lifted out of his ears and nose.

The first officer grabbed me by the ankle again and tried to drag me backwards towards him. Pink smoke lifted from his ears and bloody nose and drifted towards me. The pink smoke from the first man intermingled with the pink shimmer from the first officer.

"Owen?" My dad's voice came from the corridor. He must have heard me scream, but if I called to him now, the Corruption would get him too and he had no defense. He didn't even know about the light or the Corruption.

I gathered fire in the palm of my hand and threw it at the first officer's face. He fell backwards as he patted at his face and tried to get away from my fire. The pink smoke drew closer. I readied another fireball and threw it into the smoke. A good chunk of the pink wisped away into little puffs of smoke. The rest flew back into the now retreating first officer.

I looked back over my shoulder at the other man. He now lay motionless as the fire burned over him.

"Owen?" My dad called a little further down the corridor.

My okulus chirped with an incoming call. I looked down at it long enough to see it was Esther, but didn't answer it. I called the flames on the dead man back to me before they could set off the alarm. I let my flames die away and crawled to the hatch. I opened it and stumbled out.

"Owen." My dad rushed to my side. "What's the matter? What happened? Are you all right?"

He helped me stand and looked me up and down assessing me for any injuries in that fatherly way.

"Call mom home now," I said.

"Why? She's at work, son."

I took his large hand in mine. "Now," I said. I heard the tears in my voice and didn't try to hide them as they began to spill onto my cheeks. I was 17, but it was okay to cry in front of my dad.

"All right," my dad said. "Let's get back inside. Should I call security?"

I shook my head. I let my dad lead me by the hand back to our quarters. He called my mom and told her to come home - that I had been injured. The tears stopped as my dad called my mom.

I thought he was lying at first, but he went into the bathroom and came out with a first aid kit. Apparently my forehead had been scraped sometime during the scuffle. I wasn't sure when.

"What happened?" he asked as he cleaned the scrape and put disinfectant on it.

I didn't answer. I put one hand on his forehead and the other wrapped to the back of his neck. He opened his mouth to ask what I was doing, but he gasped as I reached for his light. The others would be angry with me for not discussing it with them first, but I couldn't leave my parents defenseless. His light was yellow too and it blazed with a sudden brightness.

"What have you done?" he asked as he looked down at his hands filled with yellow light. I told him everything then. My mom came in halfway through. She didn't say a word, she just sat next to my dad and let me talk.

When I was finished, my mom opened her mouth and started to ask me a question, but like with my dad, I didn't give her a chance to ask. I put my hand on her forehead and the other on the back of her neck and opened her light. It blazed a light blue.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you both sooner," I said. "Those missing people do have something to do with me, but they all had the Corruption. We had to kill them."

My okulus chirped again. This time it was Shel.

"This is what you've been doing this entire time with Vai and the others?" my mom said. "Training to fight this alien species?"

I nodded.

"And Vai's father and Shel's mother know and encourage this?"

I nodded again even though Vai's father didn't exactly encourage it.

"Come down with me," I said, "to see Shel and his mother and the others while I explain that I opened your light."

"I've got to get back to work," my mom said. "There might be someone with the Corruption in my department finding my absence suspicious. We can't let them catch on."

"I'll go with you," my dad said to me.

My okulus chirped a third time. This time it was El. I didn't answer, but I sent her a message.

«I'm coming.