Lili gave Kyle a look of puzzlement as he finished his declaration. After a long pause, she finally had to ask, “Ok, this time you’re really gonna have to explain exactly how you came to that particular conclusion.”

Though it wasn’t Kyle who responded first. Instead, Jared let out a slightly pained sigh before speaking up, “He means, that if the ship really is gone, and all of the people with it, then that means we’re stranded here. And that would mean, that for all purposes, we’re the last four humans on the planet, which may as well be the whole world. That would make you, the last woman in the world,” he finished breathily as he stood.

Ian and Kyle both looked downwards as Lili’s breath caught at all of the implications of the statement. Though none of them said anything more before Jared stood and headed for the door of the increasingly claustrophobic pod. Before any of them could fully react, he had already opened it to whatever new world was waiting right outside.

“Jared!” Lili exclaimed as she moved to follow him as he stiffly, slowly stepped out of the pod into the odd gray light of their brand new surroundings, and quite possibly, their brand new home.

Forgetting what she had originally planned on even saying to him as the hatch opened, Lili stepped out into the gray lit forest around them as well, her eyes trying to take in everything in the span of one quick second, while Ian rushed to move after them as well, weapon at the ready.

Jared took a long breath as his eyes also attempted to take in all of the strangely colored plants and trees that now surrounded them in that eerie light. Simultaneously, he tried to take in the sensation of having solid ground under his feet for the first time ever, in his entire eighteen years of life. But more startling than even the feel of that ground beneath his feet, was the fact that he had truly seen all of this before.

“What the hell, Jared?” Ian finally managed after several long moments to get over his own awe at all of these new surroundings, as well. After allowing another swallow to try and center his concentration in the midst of the magnitude of the very moment, he forced his words onwards, “I always go first, got it?” he told him, though shakily as his eyes continued to scan the woods surrounding them as well.

With her own overwhelming awe plaguing her as well, Lili finally managed to turn her blue eyes up toward the gray skies above them, searching desperately through those strangely shaped clouds for any sign whatsoever that maybe someone was still up there looking down at them, after all.

Kyle also swallowed hard as he stepped out of the pod next to where Lili still stood just outside the door, her sad, scared eyes scanning those skies, still, “You wouldn’t be able to see it from here, anyway,” he attempted to assure her with a whisper as he gently squeezed her shoulder before stepping out onto the ground next to Ian and Jared.

“I don’t see anything moving or anything, yet,” Ian managed, trying to force down his own awe-inspired reactions in favor of the vigilance he would need to focus from that moment on, as if their lives all depended on it.

“So, is this where we try and still fulfill our mission, just in case?” Kyle attempted with still wavering breath as his eyes moved around them.

“What else can we do?” Jared stated with his own remaining distraction, brought on by too many things to even try and count, right then.

After forcing themselves to remember to go back and gather that first day’s supplies from the pod, the four of them then spent nearly the next two hours moving with deadly slowness through all the plants of blue and red and pink, and trees of equally strange hues, Jared attempting to concentrate on logging each and every one into his own computer as best he could. Ian continued leading the way, always moving no more than five to ten feet ahead of them at any given time, his weapon always at the ready. Each time Jared stopped to inspect, profile and catalog any piece of plant life, Kyle took that pause in their forward motion to attempt to make any kind of contact, once again.

By the time they reached that two hour mark, Lili finally sighed softly, “Has anyone else noticed that we haven’t eaten…in three days?” she managed, causing them to all look back at her words as if they too just realized the fact as well.

“I guess the stasis is finally wearing off,” Jared offered, as he had not been very hungry himself until just recently.

“Anyone bring smores?” Ian had to offer with a bit of his wryness finally slipping through his unwavering façade of the last couple hours.

“No, but we have silver vacuum sealed packages one through four,” Lili offered with a somewhat forced attempt at lightness.

“Sounds tasty,” Ian returned as he glanced at a nearby fallen tree behind where they had stopped, “So, is it like safe to sit on that? Or like, touch anything?” he asked Jared cautiously as Lili began moving to sort through her backpack where the day’s food had been stored before their tour began.

Jared moved over to Ian and ran the computerized analysis on the fallen tree as well, “Despite the colors, they’re all coming up with the same types of organic makeup the ones on Earth supposedly had,” he told them with a slight shrug.

“Still, there were some poisonous plants and trees and stuff on Earth,” Ian returned, “Not that I remember much from any nursery school camping trips or anything,” he scoffed, which almost produced the tiniest trace of a smile from Lili, almost. It was difficult for her to smile at all though, considering the still missing ship, not to mention that last revelation Jared had made before they all got more than a bit sidetracked. Though, sidetracked or not, she knew it was most likely running through all of their heads, nearly as much as it kept repeating in her own.

After they had all finished eating, Ian and Kyle moved off in search of a still nearby tree to take care of nature’s call, but only after Ian insisted on leaving both a gun and a knife with Jared and Lili ‘just in case.’

A moment after the others moved off, Lili couldn’t take the silence anymore, especially considering the way Jared had made his statement and then stepped right out into this new world a moment later, almost as though he would rather face whatever was waiting outside that door, than the reactions of those who were inside it, including her.

“So, do you think the ship’s actually still up there?” she asked quietly.

Jared sighed softly as he moved his now empty food carton away, as his stomach had insisted that he force himself to eat, despite the knot it was otherwise tied into right then, “Are you asking for my psychic input again?”

She matched his sigh before answering, “Well, if you have any you can give,” she returned in a near whisper.

“Everything that I can see with any clarity at all, which isn’t much: None of it involves any of the four of us, being anywhere near that ship anymore, or with any of those people anymore, either. Not that I even know if that means a damn thing, anyway,” he whispered back, with a sullen shake of his head.

Lili took a moment to try and deal with the possible ramifications of that statement before she couldn’t help making another of her own, “So, then I guess we have to prepare for the possibility that you were right about something else, then,” she attempted, though her voice shook the entire time.

“What’s that?” he asked, his normal gentleness finally tinting his tone once again.

“There have been other ships out there that disappeared without a trace. I, myself, know that over five hundred are no longer up in that sky anymore, themselves. And a lot of those five hundred, no one knows what happened to a lot of them, either. And if the same thing happened to my mom’s ship now, then that means that we actually could be the only people in this whole new world.”

~3 days earlier~

When Miranda finally made her way back to the computer hub, looking more than a bit wracked with worry, she found Serena sitting at Kyle’s old station with a menacing grin to greet her. Miranda narrowed her eyes a bit at that particular expression, but tried to move past it, as she spoke up, “We’re not going to be able to talk with them at all now, for at least twelve hours, right?” she asked with concern as she moved a few steps closer.

“And then some,” Serena stated with an obvious glee.

Miranda just shook her head at the young woman, “I realize you’re happy to finally get a chance to do this job, but the rest of us are still just a bit apprehensive, so could you not say things like that without explaining them a bit, first?”

“How’s this: Do you know how easy it is to switch two simple little computer commands, when you know what you’re doing?”

“Not sure I follow,” Miranda stated a little slowly as she watched the girl warily.

“Like, say a command to shut off some gas, or leave on an engine. One little switch-up here or there, and who knows what would happen?” she shrugged with an obvious insincere innocence to her tone.

Miranda swallowed a bit, “I think you need to tell me exactly what it is that you’re trying to say here,” Miranda told her, placing a roughness into her tone as she stood up straighter.

“I think that I don’t really need to do anything you say,” Serena returned as she stood again, looking around the room like a child with a brand new box of toys.

“I think you need to remember who’s in charge he---” Miranda began, only to have her words suddenly stopped, through no seeming will of her own, as she froze in place just as she was about to reach for her own link up.

“I was talking here, Miranda. No need to be rude,” she told her as the older woman looked at her with widened eyes, obviously having no idea of exactly why she, and the few others in the room seemed to all be frozen in place, suddenly and without warning.

Serena then glanced up at the alarm panels and the doors surrounding them with a slight smile as they all simultaneously went into lockdown, seemingly of their own accord.

“I sense you want an explanation. Am I right?” she teased as she glanced back at where Miranda still seemed frozen in place, “All right, considering the ship is already moving forward on its new flight path, away from that precious little planet down there, and considering the whole ship is already completely cloaked as well…” she began as she looked back at Miranda’s panicked expression once more, “Oh, I’m sorry, I guess I should also explain that there’s two kinds of cloaking that this little darling is capable of. No one can see her on any kind of radar, nor is there any contact allowed in or out, unless of course, I initiate it,” she had to add with another grin.

Miranda and the others in the room all continued to watch in growing fear, inspired more by their continuing group paralysis than by Serena going about her nearly singsong recital of the facts of the matter.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, nothing but a bunch of little hacker tricks, that I could pull off once I got access to the mainframe’s admin codes, right? But then there’s the fact of, well gee, why didn’t she do this before? No, no, I’m not a slacker, really. Honestly, I wasjust a hacker, before: Before I found out about all that dirty, dirty laundry you’ve been hiding all these years. I mean, it’s all there, right in the computer, you know, once you actually have the codes to get in. Which of course I could never get past, until they were finally just given to me at last, this very week. So, Kyle tells me, go learn about computers. Yeah got that one covered, so what else did I have to do except look at all those shiny little confidential files once I was finally in. I mean, one of them had my goddamn name on it. Please, you were just begging me to look at that!” she told Miranda with a lighthearted giggle.

Serena then turned back mid-rant to glance at her primary audience member, whose eyes had now turned toward the surveillance screens, which clearly showed Charles and the security team working to get past the locked down doors on their way to the computer hub.

“Well that’s no fun. I’m trying to tell a story here,” she sighed as she looked back at Miranda with a shake of her head, “Why must people always be in such a rush?” another sigh, “Oh well, they’re forcing my hand you know.”

On that eerie statement Serena glanced pointedly toward the computer screen that she still stood a few feet from, then, in the next moment, the screen started changing rapidly, all on its own.

“I know. That’s pretty cool,” she told Miranda as she gestured to the computer screen, “but you really don’t wanna miss this. Watch!” she told Miranda in an almost playful manner as she pointed toward the surveillance screens which now showed the ship’s inner defense system kick on in the form of clouds of hazy gas pouring into the hallway around Charles and his team as they were attempting to breach the next door, before quickly beginning to cough and gasp and fall to the floor, “See, I told ya didn’t I?” she smiled back at Miranda as tears welled up in the blonde woman’s eyes, “Hey, hurrying never got anyone anywhere, now did it?

“Anywho, where was I?” Serena continued on without a moment’s thought to the tragic scene of only a moment earlier, “Oh yeah, the file about me. Ok, so you obviously know that we’re all geniuses, right? Well, did you know that the only one of us who you actually chose not to lie to for his whole entire life, did you know about his whole aging theory?” she asked.

Though Miranda could do nothing in the way of answering the girl, if she even had an answer right then. All she really could do was continue to look at Serena in horror as she herself remained frozen in place.

“Oh, right you can’t talk. Sorry, I am new at this whole super-power stuff, but I’m a real quick learner, aren’t I?” she smiled sweetly, “Anyway, according to your little pet Kyle’s file...He did some self-editing of it before I stumbled upon it, you see. Well, according to his new little notes, he had this really nifty theory that the older we got, the more we figured out how to do. See, this is exciting stuff! Anyway, he says that puberty is only when this lovely freak-show begins, and the older we get, the smarter we get, and the more powerful our brains get. Still with me? I know, I’m fast. Can’t help it, was born that way. But the point behind this obviously correct theory of his is…let’s see, how to put this…” she feigned deep thought for a moment, “Oh yeah, I’m the oldest one out of all of us! Hmm, I wonder what that makes me, now, I wonder…”

Serena then moved around the room looking up at the ceiling in overdramatic thought once more before finally turning back to Miranda.

“You have an answer yet? Do ya?” she just shook her head pitifully at Miranda’s continued silence, involuntary though it was, “Ok, I’ll be nice and give you the answer. Now, I believe the question was, what does that make me, and the answer is…drum roll…Oh yeah, that’s right! That makes me God, bitch.”