SILVER EYES (GXG)

Chapter 57: Time And Loneliness

Nothing prepares you for changes, especially big ones. Even knowing in advance and having the time to rehearse different scenarios mentally isn't enough. I had imagined a thousand times how seeing Michael again would be. What I would feel, what I would say. I assumed he would have changed and did my best to be ready. But when the moment came, nothing helped me. Even though I did my best to hide it, deep down I was mourning. Mourning for his name, which didn't define him anymore, mourning for his skinny bones, which talked about hardship, mourning for his tired eyes, which revealed his sleepless nights, mourning for that sweet smile that was nowhere to be found.

After our conversation at the Phoenix Group's headquarters and showing me Erik's gift, I was relieved to see that Michael finally trusted me. He wanted to tell me everything: why he stayed on the other side, why he joined the Phoenix Group, and most crucially, what Heather had to do with it all.

As we left the house, we walked down a sandy path and arrived once again at that cabin where, weeks earlier, they had caught us. I looked at it again, remembering the moment when I realized we had been ambushed.

"Wait, how did you know we were coming?" I asked.

"We led you here." Michael said.

"You... led us here?" I repeated frowning.

"You came to destroy an energy source, right?" Michael said, and I nodded. "Well, it doesn't exist. It was a trick. We faked a signal, and The Nexus Court fell for it."

"So, you wanted us to come here?" I asked.

"Yeah... We set it up to make sure Heather Anderson would come, but I didn't expect to find you on the team. That wasn't part of the plan." He said.

As we passed by the cabin again, Michael told me the trapdoor inside led to the cells where we had been held for those weeks.

The Phoenix Group's settlement was about a twenty-minute walk from the cabin. When we arrived, I was shocked at how large it was. This couldn't be considered a settlement; it was more like a sprawling town. It wasn't as high-tech as the Reg Society, but I couldn't see the end of it.

They had used the largest trees to build round houses around them, stacked on top of each other like cylinders. There was a lot of vegetation too which was odd because greenery was quite limited on the other side.

"This is amazing." I said.

There were quite a few people on the streets, but no one paid much attention to us. Some children were playing in a fountain, splashing water at each other, while others moved swiftly using some kind of flying skate that lifted them half a meter off the ground.

Suddenly, I saw a group of people waiting in a long, snaking queue that stretched out from an establishment and wrapped around it. When I looked closely at them, I realized they were Techno-humans. However, it was hard to be sure because most of them had their implants half-torn out. There was a woman with an implant hanging from her neck, a man with a prosthetic arm that seemed not to be functioning, and a child who kept scratching the back of his head, where a metal plate was rusting.

Michael stopped and locked eyes on them. "Refugees from the Reg Society. We welcome everyone here and help them get rid of their implants if we can."

"Is that possible?"

"Sometimes it is. Sometimes it comes with side effects. Each case is different. But we do our best." He explained.

"There are so many." I said.

"And more will come. The Reg Society is suffocating its people. More and more are deciding that a brief taste of freedom is better than a long life as a slave."