Smoking Power

Chapter 25

The air from my lungs is knocked out. Clarence is a Hogmer? My eyes automatically zoom in on Clarence's facial expression. I'm half expecting him to suddenly leap up and attack us with some green spitballs, but he doesn't. He only looks at us and smiles slightly, almost unsurely. Aren't all Hogmers bad? Clarence certainly doesn't look bad and I'm beginning to wonder whether or not he actually is in fact, a Hogmer.

"What?" Amber asks disbelievingly, looking between Charles and Clarence.

"He's right. I am a Hogmer as well as everyone that lives here except Clark. Clark is more human than even you three." Clarence nods his head at all of us except Declan who is still unconscious in the portable hospital bed.

"How's that possible?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. I still don't understand how Clarence could be a Hogmer. We're trying to get the lavapick so we can have a weapon against the Hogmers. If Clarence really is a Hogmer then why did he help us find two of the pieces?

"Because we're the smart batch that escaped remember?" Clarence interrupts my thoughts. I look at him confusedly, how did he know what I was wondering? "I'm a Hogmer, Hogmers can read minds." Clarence reminds me of our second run-in with a Hogmer back at the Big Banana. I feel like face palming myself when I remember when he texted me at Mount Everest. He clearly stated then that he was a telepath.

"I still don't understand. Your batch is the only good one except for Marco because you're smarter than the rest? Your still a Hogmer though, shouldn't you still be on your species side?" Amber frowns in confusion.

"No because we can think. We weren't fed Gareths lies about attacking innocent people just to get more power or other rubbish. We thought about the situation and realised that what the others were doing was wrong. We want to put a stop to this war just as much as you want to, but we can't, not without the lavapick anyway. You are the only ones who can get the pieces together and after you find the controller, he can direct the power of the lavapick at only some Hogmers and not others."

I'm still struggling to wrap my mind around the fact that Clarence is a Hogmer, but his explanation makes sense so for now I'll just have to accept it and move on. My eyes turn to Clark. "How come Clark's the only one that's not a Hogmer?"

"I met Clark back in Hogmer Anti-Peace Keeping back in 1914, also known as World War One. Marco had convinced Gareth that he needed to have more control over the world again. But this time it went out on a grand scale, war of the world. Clark was a general on one of the front lines. He'd gotten severely injured by a stray Hogmer on the edges of the battle ground. Nobody noticed he was missing or needed help.

"Thankfully I was passing by with some of my warriors, trying to stop the Hogmers when we saw him. We stopped his attackers and rescued him. He'd already seen the damage the Hogmers had done so it wasn't to hard for him to pick a side. After explaining everything to him we showed him a telepick. It turns out that he is one of the controllers.

"Hogmers can't control anything. Whether it's a telepick or the lavapick itself, we don't have the ability to use it. Ever since Clark has been our transporter, friend and one of the council members of this centre, the Headquarters." Clarence explains.

I think back to how everyone here looks the same except Clark. If they are all Hogmers from the same batch, it makes sense why they all look like almost identical twins. Back in the Escaletti tunnels I remember how Clarence said that he was originally from Vertango but left with his brothers and sisters because they didn't fit in and how they are trying to do what's right now. It didn't make sense then, but it makes perfect sense now.

I realise now that beneath Clarence, Marcos, Charles, Gareths and everyone else's words there has always been a choice. Under all the piles of information that people have told us, there has always been on underlying question; who's side am I on? But as I sit in this room at this very instant I somehow subconsciously make a choice.