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The strategy meeting was a small one.
Typically, Rouge wasn’t invited to them. She was a spy who specialized in infiltration. There wasn’t much strategy to it—she received her orders, carried them out to the letter, and then went on with her life. To do her job, she only needed to be somewhat smarter than the average lackey. Why would her opinions ever be considered?
Everything changed one week ago, when Tails revealed his Master Emerald deterrence to the world. Now, everyone in G.U.N. knew the destruction of the human militaries hadn’t just been the result of a chaotic fight for supremacy: it had been coordinated by a single person. A person who now held the power to doom human science forever. And, most importantly for G.U.N., a person whom Rouge had communicated with during her time in the Eggman Empire.
There were only three other people aside from herself: two high ranking generals and the newly-appointed GUN Commander William Douhet. If Rouge was needed for this kind of meeting, it meant the military was considering something that would test Alhazen’s deterrence conditions. Or, if they were feeling frisky, something that would attack the kid directly. They needed her assessment of his personality to gauge his potential response to their actions. Typically, it was the President who green-lit all military operations. This time, it would be Rouge.
She fiddled with her pen as Commander Douhet finished up his long-winded update on GUN’s status. Everything was still a mess—they’d lost a lot of men to Alhazen’s attack, including many important personnel. Construction was starting on new bases and command posts. Thankfully, they were on track to rejuvenate their forces at the same rate as everyone else. It wouldn’t be long until the world returned to the pre-Alhazen order.
The commander presented this as something to celebrate. Rouge wasn’t sure she felt the same way. Dual loyalties, and all that.
“That’s all for the update. Please open the folders in front of you,” said Commander Douhet.
Everyone opened their folders. A quick glance at the memo inside made her blood run cold.
Commander Douhet was proposing a direct missile strike on Angel Island. A few months from now, once the dust of Alhazen’s attack had settled, a volley of rockets would launch from the United Federation and touch down on Angel Island. They would destroy the Master Emerald, briefly destabilizing the planet’s energy as GUN then stormed the island and seized control of the Master Emerald. They would then put it back together and have military engineers find a way to control its energy absorption qualities.
Rouge looked up to see the reactions of the other generals. One of them didn’t seem phased at all. The other, whose name tag read General Mitchell, huffed out a laugh.
“To defend ourselves from someone threatening to destroy science, you’re suggesting we destroy science. What’s the point?”
Commander Douhet smiled. “Agent Rouge, your previous testimony states that Alhazen is a risk-averse individual. Is that true?”
Shit. It was somewhat true, but something she’d only said so they wouldn’t worry about him destroying science over minor issues. It was supposed to make his deterrence stronger, not weaker!
She kept a straight face and gathered her bearings. “Yes, that is true,” she said.
“Then the Master Emerald can be put back together!” Commander Douhet kept his eyes on Rouge, as though asking for further confirmation. She shrugged, as she was unsure if it could be put back together. Probably. “Alhazen knew the risk he was taking by threatening the Master Emerald. He knows that one day he may need to push the button in retaliation. A risk-averse person would never put themselves in that situation, unless . . .”
The other general spoke up. “. . . Unless they knew the damage could be recovered.”
Rouge eyed the general’s name plate. General Tower. Strange. That name was familiar to her. Had she read about him somewhere before?
General Mitchell nodded. “Right. Then we would just need to make sure our engineers are capable of controlling it.”
“I assume the engineers will be using machinery to control the Master Emerald . . .?” General Tower asked.
“Of course. How else would we do it?”
“Then your plan won’t work. Sonic will sabotage you.”
When Rouge looked up from Tower’s name plate, she noticed that he was staring right at her from the corner of his eye. For a brief moment, they locked gazes. There was something in his eyes she couldn’t quite place—was it trust? Suspicion? Or maybe something closer to mutual understanding . . .
Douhet frowned. “Agent Rouge, how did Alhazen deal with Sonic?”
She recalled the information package Amy had given the world governments. It had deliberately avoided revealing Tails’ methods to defeat Sonic. However, the bombs in the radio towers were public knowledge. She could work with that.
“Alhazen advised Eggman to take the villages hostage by putting bombs in empire infrastructure. He left everything alone because he didn’t want to hurt the innocent villagers.”
General Tower turned his attention back to the Commander. “The only person living on that island will die during the initial strike. If you use Eggman’s formula for Sonic deterrence and plant bombs around the island, the only people you’ll end up threatening are the ones Sonic is trying to stop. Will that still work?”
Her heart skips a beat. After this meeting, she’ll need to look into Tower’s history. If he’s always this cautious, he may turn out to be something of an asset in the future.
Commander Douhet hummed. “Let’s move on. In the meantime, Agent Rouge is excused.” He turned to her. “I want you to recall what you know about Sonic over the weekend. I’ll be asking you questions when we reconvene on Monday.”
As she collected her things, Rouge’s thoughts ran a mile a minute. “What kind of questions?”
“I need to know if Sonic believes all life has equal value.”
Rouge nodded and felt a rush of terror erupt in her chest. The implications of Douhet’s words were clear: he wanted to know if Sonic was unwilling to risk human lives, too.
No matter her answer, Sonic would lose. A Sonic who didn’t care for human life was a Sonic that posed a threat to the United Federation. A Sonic who did care was one that could be manipulated. Either option was only bound to get him hurt.
Fuck.
Rouge went through most of her life walking a very fine line.
Before she was scooped up by G.U.N., she had one foot in the criminal life as a thief and one in the common life as herself. Her bosses turned her into a spy, and then she learned to travel the diplomatic worlds of governments and businesses. The mission in the Eggman Empire tested every lesson she’d ever learned on the job, forcing her to balance her loyalties to G.U.N., Eggman, the Restoration, and the kid she found hidden away in a bunker. The outcome was violent; a two-day worldwide war that ended with the little kid on top. And she’d secretly helped orchestrate it all.
Her decision to help the Restoration was a personal one. Rouge didn’t care much about the islands—not in the way people expected her to. Despite growing up there, her dreams had always been up north, in glittering human cities and all they had to offer. They still were. But . . . but she couldn’t help that it felt like she’d left behind a piece of her heart on the islands. She wanted the Restoration to succeed, even if it went against the wills of her bosses. Even if it meant betraying G.U.N.
Rouge pushed open her apartment door. Once inside, she put her keys on a hook and kicked off her shoes. She reached into the shopping bag hanging off her elbow and removed the pre-paid flip phone inside. If she went through with this, her punishment wouldn’t be an easy prison sentence. She would fully disappear. No one would ever see or hear from her again. And yet, she felt like she had no other choice. Douhet had put her in an impossible position. This was the only way out, regardless of how much it was going to hurt.
Carefully, she removed the phone from its packaging. She flipped it open and hovered her thumb against the first digit of Amy’s phone number. As it stood, the only way she could reach Tails was through Amy. She had a cell phone and rarely travelled to islands without service towers. Out of everyone down there, she was the only one who could reliably pass on her message to Alhazen. She’d already tracked down Tails once before—certainly, after Rouge explained Douhet’s plan to her, she would use her powers to find him once again. All Rouge had to do was make the call.
If anyone could figure out the best way to stop Douhet’s plan, it would be Alhazen. Commander Douhet wouldn’t stand a chance once the fox was involved, even if he wanted nothing to do with that kind of life anymore. But Tails would step up for the Master Emerald. For Knuckles and Sonic.
Before she could hit the call button, a voice materialized from her living room.
“Agent Rouge.”
A history of heists and espionage rendered her difficult to scare. As Rouge turned around to face the intruder, her thoughts were a chorus of curses. Someone from G.U.N. must have been assigned to tail her. They knew she was going to warn the Restoration. Her life was over—
Instead, she encountered General Tower sitting elegantly in her armchair.
He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I don’t know who you’re calling, but I would put the phone away. They’re listening.”
Rouge looked him up and down. What was he doing here?
“They’re always listening,” she decided to say. Nice and neutral. The kind of response spies like her needed to be good at.
“Right. I can only assume you’ve made calls like this before.” Tower laced his hands together over his knee. “I guess that also explains why the Restoration is so good at rooting out our spies. Or why Alhazen was able to escape Restoration HQ while you were in the same building. You like warning people, don’t you?”
A rush of cold terror flooded her chest. “I’ve never helped the Restoration with anything.”
General Tower stood up and brushed his hands on his pants. “Rouge, I’m only here because I think you do help them. I didn’t break into your apartment to arrest you. In fact, I’m here because I need your help.”
Her first instinct was to assume this was a trap—that Douhet had instructed Tower to act weirdly during their meeting and then sent him here to test her loyalty. But then she looked into his eyes, and branded across his irises was that same mutual understanding from the meeting. And this time, there was desperation in the mix, too.
He was telling the truth. He needed her.
“For what?” she asked.
Tower’s expression hardened, erasing his previous desperation in an instant. “It’s complicated. I can’t tell you—not until I know I can trust you. For now, all I can do is assure you that it’s in your best interest to help me.”
Rouge scoffed. “You’re going to need to do better than that, General. I don’t accept jobs based on promises.”
“It’s a matter of planetary security. We may soon be entering a crisis similar to the one that forced humanity to leave Terra. When this happens, I want Alhazen on our side.” Tower slipped his hands into his pockets, posture surprisingly relaxed. “Douhet’s plan is going to make Alhazen very unhappy. It’s going to make him hate humanity. I want his brain for what’s coming, which means I need to keep him complacent until then. I need him to be willing to fight for us when the time comes.”
That was surprising. Tails was smart, sure. He was a good strategist. But . . . “He would never work for you. You know that, right?”
“I do. In fact, I want him to hate me.” Tower shrugged impassively. “Let G.U.N. be his enemy. As long as he doesn’t hate all of humanity, I’m happy to be the target of his anger.”
His phrasing intrigued her. “Just you? What exactly do you plan to get out of this partnership?”
“It’s simple. You are going to assassinate Commander Douhet. Then I will take his place as leader of G.U.N.”
“That’s insane,” she breathed. She was a thief, not an assassin—and especially not one who killed one of the most powerful people on the planet!
“It’s necessary,” Tower replied coolly. “When I’m in charge, I will make sure Alhazen and the Restoration are protected. I will advise the President that making sure our allies uphold the Convention on Cohabitation is in our best interest. Alhazen will get everything he wanted from threatening the Master Emerald. Is that enough to convince you?”
She was tempted to laugh in his face. “I only got this far by looking out for myself. I’m kind of a selfish person, you know. What’s in it for me?”
Tower nodded to the flip phone she still held in her hand. “I don’t think you’re as self-serving as you used to be, Agent Rouge. Unless risking treason charges for your friends is your idea of being selfish?”
The comment made her bite the inside of her cheek. Had she really changed so much . . . ?
“On Monday, tell Douhet that Sonic values all life equally. My plan will only work if he gets approval for his operation. I’ll tell you the rest of the details later.”
Tower began walking towards her apartment door. Rouge bristled as he passed her. “I never said I would help you.”
He opened the door. “No, you didn’t. Have a good weekend.”
General Tower stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind him. Rouge stared at the door for a long time, heart feeling as though it was going to burst from her chest.
What the fuck was that?
During Monday’s strategy meeting, Rouge could feel Tower’s eyes burning holes into her skin. He hadn't said a word to her since leaving her apartment. And yet, she could sense him communicating something to her just as clearly:
Help me.
After the general update on G.U.N.’s rebuilding progress, Commander Douhet called on her to testify for Sonic’s behaviour.
Rouge steeled herself. Her time in the Eggman Empire had made her well-acquainted to enabling plans she knew would end in disaster. It felt a little strange, once again lying to powerful men so the fox could get his way. So they could both be free.
Thinking about it like that, Rouge felt no hesitation when she sat up in her chair and answered the Commander’s question.
“Sonic loves everyone. He won't be an issue.”
From the corner of her eye, she watched General Tower lean back in his chair. He closed his eyes, and for a moment, it appeared like the weight of the world had been removed from his shoulders.
Rouge shifted uncomfortably. And now, that weight had been transferred to her own. They were now on a path with only two outcomes: the destruction of the Master Emerald, or Douhet’s death at her hands.
The East Pacific cluster wasn't a very spiritual place. By the time Rouge was born, Metropolis Zone had been turned into the kind of rational city that wasn't too friendly towards old beliefs. She went to school and learned about causes and effects, about how the world worked, and spent a lot of time on her computer watching shows and videos about life up north. She never paid much attention to how things used to be. It didn’t feel like something that would ever matter to her.
As she watched Commander Douhet continue their meeting, she imagined what it would feel like to kill him. And then she silently prayed to the powers that be to help her get out of this mess alive.
—
It didn’t take long for Commander Douhet to get presidential approval for his plan. By the end of the week, Operation Angel Island was officially underway.
Rouge stopped being invited to the strategy meetings. Her high security clearance enabled her to request updates on its progress, but she never bothered to submit any. General Tower was very good at keeping her up to speed on his own.
As the operation moved ahead, they eventually got an expected timeline for its completion. They had two weeks until the missile attack was scheduled to take place. If they were going to take out Douhet and prevent the destruction of the Master Emerald, they would need to make their first move as soon as possible.
General Tower met Rouge in her apartment again. This time, he brought large pieces of paper and many thick markers. He spread the paper across her kitchen table and began to sketch the outline of a building she’d never seen before.
“This is Tanex, one of our weapons testing facilities. Commander Douhet and General Mitchell will be there this weekend to observe a test of the Dakota III, the IRBM they intend to use against Angel Island. You are going to make sure it explodes while they’re in the blast radius.”
“An . . . IRBM?” She gave him a withering look.
Tower rolled his eyes. “Relax. We’ll need long-term proof that Alhazen’s energy theory is stable before we consider developing a nuclear arsenal. The missile tip is conventional.” He flipped the paper over and began another sketch of the building, this time from above. Once it was done, he drew a circle close to the eastern wall. “The Dakota III computer terminal is here. Use it to change the target coordinates to the testing facility’s location.”
“Won’t they check for that sort of thing before the test?”
“Yes. You will need to be in the facility to give it new orders while it launches.”
“While it launches?” Rouge sputters. She presses her hands against her temples in disbelief. “Are you telling me that I need to be in the building when it happens?”
“This should be child’s play compared to your work in the Eggman Empire,” Tower said flatly. Either he didn’t care about her safety, or he was severely underestimating the kind of danger this would put her in. Rouge wasn’t a fan of either option.
“When I was in the empire, I was never expected to break into a building while a missile aimed directly for me.” She backed away from the table, unable to keep looking at the building outline as she considered the potential consequences of doing this. The break-in would be tough. She would need to bypass their security systems, avoid any patrolling guards, and then hack into their computer terminal. All without getting caught. And then she would need to do the same thing in reverse quickly enough to escape the blast radius when the missile came down. How was she supposed to get out of this alive?
Despite her anxiety, Tower remained unfazed. “The range of the Dakota III is around 2000 miles, or a little more than 3000 kilometres. It travels at a speed of around 4800 kilometres per hour—so, it will reach its maximum distance after 35 minutes. The missile uses radio-guided command control, which means its target can be changed at any moment via radio communications. If you adjust its target halfway through the missile’s flight path, you will have seventeen minutes to leave before it touches down. That should be more than enough time to escape the blast radius.”
As long as she had some kind of escape vehicle, then Tower was right. She could get far enough away from the facility to survive. But there were still issues with Tower’s plan. “Can the missile be intercepted?”
“No. Our missile defence systems were taken out during the mini-war. The only ones we have left are guarding more important national assets.”
“How many people will be in the building when the missile hits?”
Tower gave her an annoyed look. “The Tanex facility is staffed by one hundred military personnel. Every single one of them signed up to die for their country. Don’t get cold feet over them.”
His attitude didn’t surprise her. Someone who hung around in her circles got used to hearing casualty figures and death tolls talked about casually, but sometimes it still managed to give her pause. Sure, the Tanex workers had signed up to potentially sacrifice themselves, but . . . but their deaths weren’t something she was capable of rationalizing away as necessary just yet. Probably not ever.
When Eggman was building a rocket to the ARK, he’d temporarily moved people so they wouldn’t be harmed during takeoff. She wondered if Tower would have done the same thing.
“I’m fine,” Rouge assured him. She tried to keep her expression neutral. “I won’t get cold feet.”
“Good.” General Tower pulled a flip phone out of his pocket and placed it on the table. “Use this phone to call me on Saturday morning. I’ll give you the last details you need before you go.”
The instruction felt like a slap to the face. “You still don’t trust me?”
Tower clicked his tongue. “Agent Rouge, answer a question for me. Do you consider yourself more loyal to the United Federation or to the East Pacific islands?”
The sudden question caught her off-guard, and she froze as she thought of her honest answer. Where did she fall . . .?
“This is why I can’t trust you. If you can’t even answer that question for yourself, then I can’t rely on your judgement in the field.” General Tower pushed the flip phone closer to her. He looked down at her with a strange expression. “Figure it out. I can work with either answer, but until you stop being unpredictable, I can never tell you the truth about this mission. I cannot risk failure. The planet depends on my success.”
The whole planet. Of course, Tower could be lying about their enemy being so threatening, but Rouge didn’t peg him much for a liar. Whatever was coming, he really believed it had the potential to harm the planet. It probably did. Their planet lived every day with the knowledge that a group of human voyageurs was actively hunting them down—it wasn’t hard to believe that another planet-level threat was on the horizon. They were used to living in fear about what waited for them among the stars.
If Rouge wanted to know what terrified Tower so much, she had to answer his question. She had to stop walking a fine line between multiple worlds. She had to figure out where she stood in the world and lay down her roots. To dedicate herself to something for the first time in her life.
Unfortunately, she had no idea how to do that. Maybe it was time to learn.
This wasn’t the first time Rouge had been put in this kind of position.
Eggman didn’t go to great lengths to hide Tails’ existence from her. By the end of her first week undercover in the empire, she was well aware of the ‘advisor’ he corresponded with occasionally. It didn’t take her long to find a backlog of some of their faxes. What she saw painted a very clear picture: Eggman’s advisor was the real brains of the empire. Without the little fox in the bunker, the empire would have fallen apart well before it could expand beyond Westside Island.
She tracked down the drone responsible for bringing files to the kid. During the next information transfer, she found a way to talk to him. He reached out to her using a secret language code that told her everything he needed to know: he wasn’t working for Eggman willingly. He was a prisoner who longed for freedom.
Rouge found the entrance to the bunker a few days later. Her directive from G.U.N. was simple: she was meant to find the secret behind Eggman’s sudden success and eliminate it. She spent a whole day standing beside the bunker’s food chute, frozen with indecision as she considered her options. If she freed him, she would complete her mission and save the kid. The Eggman Empire would collapse without its main strategist. The East Pacific would be liberated from his rule. But . . .
But she knew that her bosses wanted to take the islands for themselves once Eggman was gone, just like how all the other island territories belonged to humans now. Rouge normally didn’t think too much about the potential aftermath of her jobs, but this one managed to cross a line she hadn’t known existed. It made her reconsider exactly what she was doing in the empire. It made her consider something like rebellion.
Finally, she decided to leave the kid in the bunker. He’d never asked to be rescued, and she had a feeling that he could find a way to protect the islands from her employers. He would save the world from the confines of his prison. All she had to do was give him everything he needed to do it.
After the mini-war, she was sent back into the East Pacific to gather scientific documents from Eggman’s bases. A thief like her was very good at finding valuable things, so she combed through them for any reports that looked particularly interesting. Along the way, she made sure to keep an eye out for any overt evidence of Alhazen’s existence. She burned piles of faxes and crushed delivery drones with the bunker’s location saved to their memory drives. By the time she was done, G.U.N. had all the resources they needed to reconstruct Eggman’s ring-powered machines. But they had nothing that could be used to deduce Alhazen’s identity. The fox would be free to live life without fear of being hunted.
Looking back, maybe it seemed like her loyalty sided more with the East Pacific than it did with the United Federation. However, she didn’t feel particularly dedicated to either of them. Alhazen was a kid who promised liberation for tons of people, and she couldn’t help but choose him over an organization that wanted to control the place she used to call home. The locations and people who lived in either place mattered less than what they aimed to do with their respective power.
Hmm. Maybe that was it.
Abraham Tower lived in an apartment without a balcony. He was a frugal man who avoided unnecessary expenses, so even in the beginning of the warm summer he preferred to keep his windows open instead of opting for an air conditioner. Since he lived on the tenth floor, he assumed he was immune from thieves sneaking in through his window. This made breaking into his home embarrassingly easy.
Once the bug screen was pushed out of the window, Rouge leveraged half her body through the window frame and stopped flapping her wings. She crawled the rest of the way through and dropped down silently to Tower’s living room floor.
It was late. One in the morning. Old man that he was, the general was bound to be asleep by now. Rouge made her way to his bedroom without making a sound.
As assumed, he was sleeping soundly in his bed. Rouge poked his forehead. “Get up, General. We need to talk.”
Tower’s face scrunched. His breathing stopped and then his eyes shot open. “What—” He immediately shifted backwards, moving into a sitting position as he took in his surroundings. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to answer your question,” she replied smoothly.
“You—” Tower glanced at his bedside clock. “You're supposed to call me in five hours. You could have told me then.”
She shook her head. “I don’t trust phones. Like you said, they're always listening. I can't allow anyone else to hear what I’m about to say.”
The shock of her arrival appeared to be gone. Tower sighed and relaxed against his headboard. “Fine then. Tell me your answer.”
“I knew Alhazen was plotting to attack the human militaries and I did nothing to stop it.” Already anxious, Rouge played idly with the sleeve of her right glove. “I destroyed evidence of his existence so he could be free. I . . . I think he saved the world, as exaggerated as that sounds. I betrayed G.U.N. and I don’t regret it at all.”
Tower showed no reaction to her confession at all. “Why did you do it?”
“It took me a while to figure that out. You know, when I was growing up in Metropolis Zone, all I ever wanted to do was leave. I watched your movies, and read your books, and decided life would be better for me up here. It wasn’t just because you’re richer—I’m materialistic, sure, but that didn’t factor into my decision. I moved here because you allow yourselves to be individuals. Back home, prioritizing yourself is like some kind of mortal sin. I always got into trouble for putting myself first. So I left when I was twelve, and I didn’t think about home at all until G.U.N. sent me back to deal with Eggman.” Rouge took a deep breath, organizing her thoughts so she could explain herself as clearly as possible. The last thing she needed was to seem confused. It would only make Tower trust her less than before. “When I was there, Alhazen did something that surprised me. He told me that he was working against Eggman by making sure I knew he was a Mobian from the islands. At the time, I knew Eggman was crazy, but I didn’t think much else about him. He was an islander issue, and by then I didn’t consider myself to be much of an islander. Alhazen made me reconsider. Every time he used his language code, I wondered if there was a deeper meaning to his messages. It . . . it was like he was trying to tell me that I could trust him because we were from the same place. My best interests were also his best interests, that kind of thing. Like our fates were intertwined and there was nothing I could do about it.
“I started to wonder if it was true. I kept reading his communications with Eggman, and the two of them managed to convince me. They assumed GUN only had the worst intentions. And when I thought about it seriously, I realized that they were right. My job was to get rid of Eggman’s advisor and clear the way for us to take over the islands. I began to think about what that would mean. And not just for everyone down there, but for me, too. I mean, look at how quickly Amy was stripped of her citizenship and deported. Living her whole life in Station Square did nothing to help her. In the end, it didn’t matter how closely integrated she was with human society. No matter what, anyone like us who causes problems is a threat. Not because humans think we’re all a bunch of stupid animals, but because our interests contradict one another. That’s why Alhazen appealed to me as a Mobian, and why Eggman tried so hard to convince Alhazen that his empire would be good for the islands. They both knew human hegemony could only last as long as Mobians remained disempowered.”
Rouge braved a look at Tower’s face. He remained as stern as ever, which likely meant that he was reserving judgement until she finished. She kept going.
“I realized that if that was true, then maybe I was wrong about the whole ‘individual’ thing. I can reject the islands all I want, I can say my home is up here, but at the end of the day, that will never save me. The people who view us as opponents don’t make exceptions. When they come for everyone, they come for us all. Which means that Alhazen was right—my interests are also his interests. That’s why I helped him.”
Tower was quiet for a long time. Finally, he broke the silence and said, “Does this mean you consider yourself loyal to the islands?”
“I’m not loyal to places. I’m still self-motivated—I’ve just accepted that my interests are often linked with other people's. I chose to help Alhazen because his motivations benefitted me. It’s that simple.” Rouge took a step forward, bumping her waist against the side of the bed. “I’m loyal to people, General Tower. Which means I can be loyal to you, too. As long as our interests are mutual.”
He looked her up and down. “Let me be clear about something. If this mission succeeds, I will still need to punish Alhazen. The government expects punitive action. I intend to give it. Will that affect your decision to help me?”
“I thought you were trying to make him happy.”
“I’ll find a way to do both. Since you know him better than I do, you can tell me if I go too far.”
A promise of a future collaboration. “Does this mean you trust me?”
The General looked nothing short of hesitant. For a moment, Rouge thought she failed to convince him. But then, Tower suddenly shifted forward and reached to open his bedside table. He removed a car key and held it out to her.
“There’s a motorcycle waiting for you in section B of the stadium lot. That’s your transportation to and from the facility.” He put the key in her hand and took a deep breath. “The fuel gauge will say the tank is full, but fill it before you go anyways. I tampered with the gauge to make you think you had enough gas to get away from the facility.”
The revelation made her heart skip a beat. “You were going to kill me.”
“Don't take it personally. The fate of the planet is bigger than you.”
She tightened her grip around the motorcycle key. “Right. Is it bigger than you?”
“To punish Alhazen without making him hate humanity, I need him to blame me and our organization specifically. Whatever happens to him and his friends will have to be my fault.” He gave her an unimpressed look, as though he were disappointed he had to explain it to her. “The last person to antagonize Alhazen was sent up to space to die. I know what I’m risking.”
Rouge decided to push. “And what is it that you’re risking our lives for, anyways?”
“Aliens. Not the lost voyagers—other aliens. Real aliens,” Tower said. “I don’t know what they want. I only know that they’re coming, and that I don’t trust them to have good intentions. I need to be in charge to prepare the world for their arrival. No one else on this planet is competent enough to do it.”
So far, her planet didn’t have a great track record with aliens. Rouge swallowed nervously. “How are we supposed to stop them?”
“I don’t know. That’s why we need Alhazen.” Tower waved his hand dismissively towards his bedroom door. “Leave. Get a head start. Discussing this is a waste of time until I know you’ve succeeded in your mission.”
Normally, being dismissed in such a fashion would annoy her. Rouge was tempted to protest, to keep asking questions, but lost her fight when the full weight of his words hit her. She took the order to leave with gratitude, thankful for the extra time to process what he’d said before such a high-intensity operation.
She found the motorcycle at the stadium. As she started the engine, she closed her eyes and took deep, calming breaths.
Okay, so another one was coming. Aliens of unknown origin with unknown levels of power. The voyagers had had the ability to kill all intelligent life on Earth from their ships in space, and Rouge was only alive because they’d chosen not to do it. What about these aliens? Were they strong enough to do the same thing? If they were, would they even consider sparing anyone?
Ugh. No, this was the wrong way to think about it. Last time, they were totally defenceless against their invaders. That wasn’t the case anymore. They could fight back now. They could find a way to protect their planet.
And Rouge was going to make sure they were prepared to do it.