Jenny’s eyes fluttered open as consciousness came back. She had no idea where she was. Her body was resting on a cold stone floor, and everything was dim and dark. Horror rushed into her. Had it finally happened? Had that long and sweet dream that she had been having finally broken? Had she awoken back in the tiny space that had been allocated to her family there in the Below?

Her hands flew out, and her fingers touched the floor. She levered herself up slowly. Her eyes scanned her surroundings and despair hit her hard as the events that had recently unfolded came back to her. Ben stood nearby, one hand holding a protein bar that he had obviously stolen while in the hospital and the other one holding a refresher bottle that he was drinking from greedily.

She spoke. “What is happening?”

Ben gave her a smile; it was razor-sharp and filled with malice. “I thought I already told you what I want. Maybe I gave you a harder knock on the head than I intended to. Have you already forgotten?”

She shook her head and as she did, a small lance of pain flew through her temples. She put her fingertips to it and rubbed lightly. Immediately the pain went away. That startled her a bit, but she ignored it. There were other things that she had to consider right now; a headache was the least of her worries.

She asked, “Do you really think they will ransom for me, Ben?”

He said, “Yes. I do. They think of you as a healer, and they thought enough of you to first rescue you from a slave ship and take you to their home planet, didn’t they?”

Yes. They had. She sighed. “It isn’t what you think, Ben. Their race is not like ours. Theirs is a very rational and logical race, but they also have a huge depth of compassion.”

He sneered at her. “Let’s see if they have enough compassion for you to hand over that stack of credits that I know they are hoarding.”

She asked, “How could I not have known that this is who you are?”

Ben looked at her. His eyes glittered in the dimness. “I don’t know Jenny. You grew up in the Below. You know how things are. It’s everyone for themselves. You get whatever you can take, and you keep what you have. That is, if you want to live.”

She did want to live but not if it meant killing someone else or causing them to suffer. She looked down at her hands. “Ben, did you ever love me?”

He snorted. “There’s no such thing as love, you little idiot. I kept you safe because you had value. I had thought that I could pawn you at some point. Especially after your parents were gone and you had no family to speak up for you. I still don’t know how you managed to get yourself captured and put on that ship. But I will say that you did it mere hours before I was to go to the pawn shop and have you taken.”

Hatred started in her chest. “I loved you. At least I thought I did. But then again, what did I know of love?”

She closed her eyes. The image of her little hut on the hill came back to her, soothing her. She could picture every object on her shelves and the small bed that she slept in at night. She could hear the sound of the waves crashing on the shore and feel the sunlight on her face.

With those things came something else. A strong and sure determination that she had never known she could or would ever possess. She was going to live. She was going to fight if she had to. She was going to live if there was any way, any way at all, that she could get out of whatever this place was that Ben had brought her to and get back to the hospital; she would take that way.

She did not want to go just back to the hospital though. She wanted to go home. She wanted to go home, and she wanted to see Marik, the one that she truly did love.

That was what all those emotions and feelings that she constantly felt near him were. They were all precursors of the love that she had been unwilling to admit. They were the sure signs of her affection for him, and she had thrust them away carelessly and ignored them out of fear and commitment to this horrible man who had never cared for her at all.

Well, so be it.

Knowing that he had no love for her and never had simplified things in a way that made it possible for her to think more clearly. She had no doubt that Ben would use her to get the ransom and then kill her. If he did not kill her, that he would find some other use for her, and she was sure whatever that use was, it would not be pleasant.

Home.

She had to get out of there and away from him. She had to find Marik and tell him how she felt. She had to go home.

This planet was not her home. She came back here to try to help, and she had done that. It was not enough, but it would never be enough. She could live several lifetimes and never be able to do enough for this planet.

Ben tossed her the refresher bottle. A scant swallow remained in the bottom. She set it aside, not willing to put her lips on the same object that his lips had touched. He ignored the fact that she did not drink from it.

He said, “You know, this planet that they took you to. There are some here, those who lived above and have flight training, who want to take that ship and go find that planet. If we have large enough numbers, we could.”

Shock raced all across her system. Was he insane? One look at his face told her that he was not so much insane as he was power-hungry. He was no better than the Federation’s top officers, those who disregarded life because it was of far less value to them than wealth and power.

She said, “They are warriors there. They will kill you before the ship even lands.”

His eyebrow lifted. “I have had spies in and out of that hospital for weeks now. I have heard all of the stories of that planet. It sounds as if there are few creatures on it that we would have to fight and plenty of resources. A man could be king there.”

King? What was the king?

She had no idea, but the term seemed ominous and frightening. She looked back down at her hands to avoid looking at his face. There was something absolutely terrifying about his visage now. “You can’t do this, Ben.”

He snorted. “Those who have flight training can absolutely fly that ship. Once we have a ship, we can get there. Once we get there, we can take it over. It will be ours. You would do well to remember who I am in this new world that we have here, Jenny. You would do well to remember that I am now a master of everything that I see. These people, they follow me. They believe in me.”

Oh, God. He really was power-hungry. Not just that though: he was drunk on power. Whatever power he had been given, he had probably won it by force. She had seen for herself that he was willing to murder. She knew from the stories that she had heard about the Rovers that they had started off picking off the weakest and sickest. That they had plundered and looted every building that they could regardless of whether or not that meant killing those who had taken shelter within it. They had built their pack by demanding that people either join or die.

She did not know what to say or if there even was anything to say. She stayed silent. Ben began to pace back and forth, his booted feet echoing on the cold floor. He said, “This planet is a mess. It’s ruined and not any good anyway. I hear that you have been living on a planet in such splendor while we’ve been down here struggling just to eat. It will give us everything we ever needed and dreamed of. We can live there and feast every single day. We can have clean water whenever we want it.

“I could charge a great deal of money to people who wanted to come there. They would have to pay a heavy and high entrance tax. They would gladly pay it to have such riches.”

Her heart froze. Not so long ago she had been thinking that the planet was safe from such things simply because it was so out of the way and so small, but it was clear that she had been mistaken. Would war come to that planet as well? Would there come a time when they would have to fight for their home?

Ben stopped pacing. “I just sent the ransom demand. It will take a couple of hours to get there because the city is in such chaos.”

She said, “What will you do with me?”

Ben said, “I told you already. I have not quite decided yet. I don’t know if you can be loyal to me. I demand complete loyalty from everyone who joins me. You may already be loyal to them. If that’s true then how can I trust you? What if I put you on the ship to go with us to that planet and you somehow signal them that we’re coming?”

She would. If she managed to get on that ship, if he and his despicable crew managed to take it, she would absolutely signal her home and tell the people there, the people that she loved, that they were about to be set upon by humans who were no better than feral dogs.

He said, “I have things to attend to. So I will see to you later. By then, I should’ve made my decision.”

He walked away and she sat there with her head lowered until she heard the clang of a door. Her head jerked up, and she gazed at the door at the far end of the room. She stood and managed to walk over to it. It was locked from the outside, and there was no way to open it. She tried a few times and then gave up. Maybe there was another way out.

She began to walk around the room, circling it, her eyes continually scanning the walls. They were wet with damp mold and slick as well. She drew her fingers back every time she touched the surface of those walls, an expression of disgust settling on her features.

The walls were airtight despite the mold. The door was locked. She had to find a way out, and she had to do it soon. Ben would likely kill her, either because Talon and Marik simply did not have the credits that Ben thought that they had, and could not deliver the ransom, or because he had decided that she could not be loyal.

She would never be loyal to him again. She had done that once. She had been loyal to him out of blindness and obedience. Out of ignorance of his true nature.

Her arms went around her middle, and she whispered, “Oh, Marik. I love you so much. I have to find a way back to you, even if it’s just to tell you with my dying breath that I love you.”

Despair threatened, but she thrust it back. She dug deep within herself, trying to find some reserve of courage and that determination that had surfaced earlier. It was still there, coalescing and hardening into something else. She was not going to die there, not if she could help it.

She needed a weapon.

She began to pace around the room again, her eyes examining the scant furnishings in the hope that something there would make a decent weapon. Despair swamped over her despite her best efforts to hold it back. What would she know about fashioning a weapon? Even if she found something, what would she do with it?

Those thoughts were still running around her head, circling endlessly and nagging at her when she spotted the small stand on which stood a short metal jar.

She went to it and lifted the jar experimentally. It was heavy and seemed to be of good quality. She had no doubt that it held little value as far as credits went, but at that moment, it was the only thing that had any kind of weight to it that she could find. Maybe she could hit him with it when he came back.

The time passed. Jenny had no idea how much. Time seemed to slow down and speed up all at the same time. She continued to pace, but slowly now. She paced merely to keep herself occupied but reminded herself continuously not to overexert herself. She would need her strength.

She sat down again eventually. Her head hurt, and there was a strange shoving sensation coming from somewhere within her brain. That sensation was so odd and the pain that came with it so present that she forgot all about her little metal jug as she curled up on her side with her knees to her chest and her eyes staring at the wall. What was that? Why did it hurt so much?

Her eyes closed and sickness exploded in her stomach. She tried to force her eyes back open, hoping that would dispel the illness that had somehow managed to worm its way into her entire body but it did no good. Her eyes stayed closed.

The memory came floating back in. Marik standing at the side of her bed saying, “I’m sorry, Jenny, but we have to do this.”

Being lifted, carried like a child through the hallways of the ship. The doors of the med-bay opening and closing again. The feel of a cold table on her back. Not being able to move. Marik saying to her, “It is okay. It’s a simple drug and it will wear off soon.”

Faces hovering all around her and staring down at her. Someone asking, “Marik, are you sure? If she is not a natural healer, this might kill her.”

Marik saying, “It’s a chance we have to take. I feel the risk is worth it.”

Her blood ran cold in her veins as she huddled more tightly within herself there at the moment. What had happened? Something had. That shoving sensation was back in the middle of her brain, and she could feel something cracking. Literally cracking. What was it? What was happening? What had happened?

The memory came back in again, drifting through the pain and stirring it to new heights.

Marik saying, “I see the natural healer in you. I don’t know if you can touch heal but I know you can heal. There’s no time to teach you everything you know already. It’s all there. I don’t know how you learned it, but you did. Now you must remember.”

That other voice coming in again, “If you implant her with all of the knowledge, will her brain be able to take it? She’s a human after all. Their brains are so weak.”

Marik saying, “We have no choice.”

Marik.

Had he deceived and hurt her? What had he done to her there on the ship?

She could remember feeling sick for a few days and being very tired. She could remember a headache that came and went and the odd flashing light around the corners of her vision. Was that due to whatever it was that he had done to her?

Again, memory surfaced. Marik saying, “Give me the implant.”

That other voice, still protesting said:

“She can heal enough as it is. If we lose her now even bringing her aboard would be for no reason at all.”

Marik said, “We won’t lose her. I will make sure she lives through this.”

Live through what? What had she lived through?

The pain soared to a level so intense that her teeth grit together to hold back a scream. She could feel her skull opening. Her hand went up into her hair and then under it, moving along her scalp. Her fingers sought out and found the long red ridge of scar that was up there hidden below her hair.

A shout of pure misery and rage tried to break free from her lips, but she kept them snapped shut tightly. She was a prisoner to whatever was happening in her mind. It was a far less danger to her than what might happen if Ben came back and decided that she had gone mad or something else and to just kill her.

The pain was so bad that it cycled through her body, making her limbs spasm and her stomach contract then loosen. All of her muscles began to go rigid and then loosen as well. She had a terrible moment when she was really afraid she would lose control of every bodily function and movement forever but, eventually, her body settled again.

In her mind’s eye, she saw Marik standing above her, a tool in one hand and some strange glowing orb in the other. He said, “I shall have to build a wall around it to protect her from its worst effects. It will seep into her consciousness slowly I hope. If it all comes to her once, it might be too much for her to take.”

The protester spoke again. “You cannot stay with her night and day, Marik.”

Marik replied, “But I would.”

A last final shock of pain so terrific and terrible that it made her entire body arch upward off the pallet that she lay on, her spine forming a curve so taut that she could hear little crackles and pops coming from there.

Her body collapsed. Her feet drummed against the floor and the pallet. Her hands opened and closed.

Words flew through her brain. Operations, performed by people and beings that she had never seen, flowed through her mind. The image of a book rose up. The book was vast, bigger than anything she had ever seen and she could not escape from the sight of it. The cover was red and of some material that she had never seen before.

The book cover flipped open. Illustrations and printed words met her eyes, and she could feel her eyes moving as she read every single word as the pages flipped wildly and swiftly. Sickness came back, but she did not vomit. She was hung fast in some strange corner of her own mind, trapped by the sight of the book of the words and the illustrations within it.

Things she had never heard of. Ways to heal but she had never considered. So many things and all of it soaking into her brain so fast that she could feel herself trying to flee from that knowledge. She tried to shut down and escape it in order to protect herself from it.

The book slammed shut. Everything went black.

Her eyes fluttered open. The dimness was still all around her. She was still in the same room that she had woken to a short time earlier. She stared at the ceiling. There was a new wealth of knowledge in her head, she could feel it in there, crawling into the little cracks and nooks in recesses of her brain, burying itself into her mind forever.

Tears leaked down her face. How could Marik have done that to her? It was not so much that she minded having that knowledge. It was the way that he had given it to her. He had known that she might not be able to survive and she was fairly sure, as she lay there weeping silently, that she barely had.

She knew a great deal of time had passed simply by the way the dimness had increased and the shadows had grown thicker in the corners of the room.

She did not dare try to sit up. Her strength was gone. Her limbs felt loose and weak, like someone had run water into her skin and left her without bones. The sickness came back again, and that time she didn’t bother trying to hold it down. She rolled over and retched onto the floor, grateful suddenly that all that was in her belly was some water that she had had earlier that day. She had been given a protein bar as a ration, but there had been a small and very hungry child in one of the rooms, and she had given the child her food instead of eating it herself.

Everything ached. Her eyes felt gelled in their sockets. Her fingers did not want to work. She still felt boneless and weak even after she’d been sick, and she managed to roll away from that small puddle, but it took a great deal of exertion for her to do so.

Her breath was labored. That prickling, crawling sensation in her brain continued. It repulsed her as much as it fascinated her. It was knowledge, and she knew it but if it were not done yet, then maybe she would not survive after all. She was not sure how much more of that she could take.

Marik had betrayed her. He had done something to her wholly without her permission, and he had done it knowing that it could kill her. She loved him, but he had zero regard for her. That was clear. If he cared for her at all, he would never have done that.

More time passed. The skittering feeling in her brain began to subside. The weakness did not flee her limbs, but she slowly regained some strength in them. The sick feeling went away, thankfully, and she was able to sit up. She could not stand, however. She staggered a few steps and then landed on the floor right on her bottom. She stayed there, unable or unwilling to move again.

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on one thing, but the only thing that would come up in her brain, the only thing that she could think of, was Marik.

Her heart broke. The pain of his betrayal was nearly as great as the pain of the implant that he had placed within her mind.

The implant. Her eyes flew open. Had it broken somehow? In her memories, Marik had said that it would slowly seep its knowledge into her brain and that he would build a wall around it so that she would learn, but not at a high enough rate to kill her.

Had he been both right and wrong? Had it somehow seeped in slowly and then somehow burst, that implant?

She could recall that first day at the hospital, the day she had knelt beside the body of Melinda’s mother. Marik had said to her, “You know what to do. Now do it.”

And she had known. She closed her eyes for a moment, and she had seen how to heal that awful and violent injury.

Her shoulder straightened. Her anger was still great and too high for her to even understand. Anger was not something she had ever felt much in her life. It left her feeling shaken and ill all over again. It was still there though.

No matter what his reasons for doing it, Marik could have killed her with that implant.

She heard a faint and distant clatter and bang. Strength suddenly flooded into her body, riding along a sudden spurt of adrenaline. She managed to stand and to get back to her little metal jug. She hefted it again and stared down at it with a bemused expression on her face. Was she really considering using that as a weapon?

It would have to do. It was the only thing she had.

The door opened. She tucked the metal jug behind her back, clenching it tightly in the fingers of that hand. Ben stood there. He said, “Well. It seems your friends are willing to ransom you. However, they won’t give up the chest until they see you. I knew there was some sort of thing between you and those creatures.”

His face was ugly. Everything about him was ugly. She held onto the metal jug, wondering if she should just go ahead and conk him, on the head with it anyway.

He said, “Don’t stand there, you little bitch. Get moving.”

She tucked the metal jug down into her trousers, making sure her tunic was over it. He asked, “What are you doing?”

She gulped. “I got sick. I’m was just arranging my clothes so that they weren’t so rumpled.”

She let her eyes slide toward the little slick pool of her illness. His eyes went to it too, and a curl of disgust appeared on his lip. He shook his head. “Course you did. I should’ve known.”

He should’ve known? What should he have known? That she’d be sick? He probably thought it was fear. Even better. If he thought she was that afraid, perhaps that would be the greatest weapon that she had against him.

She moved toward the door. Ben followed behind her, and she found herself having to resist the urge to put her hands back behind her and pat at her tunic to make sure that the shape of that little metal jug didn’t show. The fact that she found it comforting was probably stupid, and she knew it. It was one jug against actual weapons. It would probably do her no good at all, but she intended to keep it anyway.

To her surprise, they went up several flights of stairs and then into the front rooms of what must’ve been a grand residence at one time. Ben grabbed her arm then as they passed through the room. At least a hundred Rovers stood or sat about. All of them looked at her with speculation and greed in their faces. Jenny dropped her eyes, not willing to look at them or to have them see her face. She was too afraid that they would see that she was angry and hoping to use her makeshift weapon against Ben.

He hustled her through a series of doors. They stepped outside, and she had to squint. Her head went back, and she looked upward. The sky was there, and so was the sun. She stopped for a moment, her feet stumbling on the steps. Ben snarled, “What are you doing?”

She just stared upward. “The sun. When I arrived, there was so much dust you couldn’t see it. I’ve been in the hospital ever since I got here. I haven’t even had time to go outside. The sky, it’s right there, and I just want to see it.”

Ben actually laughed. “Yes. The sun and the sky they always denied us. Now we can look at it anytime we want while we starve to death.”

He dragged her onward. Her feet went through piles of dust and debris. More Rovers joined them, forming a sort of loose group around them. They marched onward with Ben dragging her every step of the way. She kept her eyes pinned up to that sky. This was the place she had come from, but this was not home. The sky here was not as blue and the sun not as bright and life-giving. These were not the people that she loved and wanted to spend her life with anymore.

What difference did it make where one lived? Above ground or Below? It had once mattered a great deal but those days were gone. The difference now was showing in the actions of those left.

The people who were carrying her forward and the ones who had been busy rebuilding and trying to dispose of the dead, the ones who had been searching through the rubble for lost relatives and who had sat silently alongside their injured and loved family members, those were the humans that she wanted to be with.

She wasn’t even sure Ben and his kind were human. Maybe they had been once, but they had lost something, something that gave them their very humanity, and she didn’t know that they would ever get it back.

Ben gave her a hard little shake. “Move faster!”

She did. She kept her eyes riveted forward now. The sight of the sun in the sky no longer fascinated her. She had seen more beautiful sights in her life after all.

They marched out of the residence and up the street. The Rovers looked decidedly nervous as they went. They had reason to be. At least she was fairly sure they did. They were up against skilled warriors. No matter how vicious they were, their weapons might not be enough to protect them against Marik and Talon. Not to mention Jessica.

They came to a halt. The street was dusty but empty. She looked around, seeing nothing but ruined buildings and a deserted street. Smoke hung thick in the air, further along, rising up into the heavens in a dark cloud. The scent of charred flesh came again, and she wrinkled her nose against it.

Sorrow hit. How could she be considering deserting these people? It was clear that they needed help. Not these; not the Rovers. But the ones who were not Rovers, the ones who were desperate to stay on their planet and to make it a better place.

A voice came from somewhere, and she stiffened as she recognized it. Marik’s familiar tone drifted along the currents of the breeze as he called out, “We are here!”

Where? Where was he? She was not the only one gazing about, trying to decide where it was that that voice had come from.

Talon, Marik, Jessica, and the others appeared as if by magic. A few of the Rovers drew back, muttering nervously, and she couldn’t blame them. It was as if they were ghosts and had just risen from some underground crypt or something. She had no idea how they could’ve gotten there that fast or where they had come from. She had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with the tunnels that she had run through on the day of her arrival.

Marik carried a chest, and he walked toward them.

He called out, “It was good of you to agree to meet with us and show us the sight of our healer.”

Ben went rigid. He called back, “Open the chest, creature!”

She stiffened at the offense. Marik might not be human, but he was not a creature. He was a sentient being, and one who was gifted with all of the things that Ben himself would never know. Love, compassion, and care.

But was that really true?

The memory of what he had done to her came back, and with it came hurt and rage.

Marik settled the chest onto the dusty street and said, “It’s here, midway. Send her over.”

Ben shook his head. “No. Open the chest, or she dies now.”

Marik looked at her. He asked, “Have you remembered everything?”

Then she knew.

That implant.

It had not burst of its own volition. He had somehow been able to reach into her mind, even from a distance, probably because the implant was hooked into some sort of technological device. He had deliberately spilled all of that knowledge into her brain, knowing that it could kill her.

But why?

She stared at him. Ben gave her a little shake and her head went rolling about on her neck until she stiffened it and yanked herself away from him slightly. Ben’s shouted, “I don’t have time for this! Open the goddamn chest, or she dies now!”

His weapon pointed right at her head. Marik looked at her from across the distance. His eyes bored into hers, and she felt as she always did: that sensation, that strange feeling that he knew every part of her and that he saw every part of her.

Then he said, “It’s the last thing that I gave you.”

What was he talking about? What was it?

It bloomed up in her mind’s eye again, that book. It flipped all the way to the back, each page flying by before she had a chance to scan them. Her rage grew with each page that went by. He could’ve killed her. Perhaps he intended to kill her. It made no sense; if he wanted her dead, he would not be there to rescue her. Was there something else happening here? If so, what was it?

Then she saw it.

She saw an illustration of a woman, her body still and quiet, her eyes closed, and an enormous light radiating out from her body. What did that mean?

Marik said, “You must use it.” Use what? She had no idea what it was that he wanted her to use. But that image stayed in her mind. The woman, quiet and still, and the bright light emanating from all around her. Coming from within her. What was it?

Her eyes went to the other page of the book, and only one word flashed in front of her eyes.

Weapon.

Weapon? What weapon? All she had was the little metal jug tucked into the back of her trousers. Ben’s weapon rested against her temple now, the steel of it cold and somehow warm at the same time. He spoke in a whisper. “I think I will kill you anyway.”

Of course he would. She had a sudden premonition. She would start walking across the distance, toward them and he and his Rovers would open fire but not before they got the chest. Ben would already be gone, running hard and fast when his Rovers opened fired on the group and her. Even if they killed all the other Rovers, he would escape. Perhaps he planned it that way. Fewer people to share it with.

Weapon.

Heat blossomed in her stomach. Her entire body vibrated. Her eyes closed tightly and a bright golden light filled her mind, filled her consciousness.

A weapon. She was the weapon. Marik had done something with that implant, done something that would see to it that she was a weapon.

And she was.

A scream, so horrible and so shrill that it tore at her senses, echoed right into her ear. The gun pressed closer to her temple and then it began to jitter up and down, on its edges, raking against the flesh of her face. Her eyes flew open, and her arms came up.

And then all hell broke loose.