KARA

The young woman was terrified. This was for the sole reason that she was on the rooftop of a very tall building. Add that she had never been on top of one before, her nerves were stacked up high, twisting and turning her stomach into tight, miserable knots. Her breath came out shakily and her knees trembled as she let her mind wander and think of how horrible it would feel like to suddenly trip over the edge...

"Hey, don't worry, I won't let you fall," a voice, masculine and caramelized traveled her ears and she shivered, not because of the possibilities of her death, but because of the way that his voice ran through her body in such an exciting way.

"A-Alright." she nodded, her body racing with new-found adrenaline despise the nerves, she supposed that those nerves were the ones fueling her excitement. She shook out her muscles and Luca laughed at her, embarrassed she stilled,

"So, how do we do this? Just jump?"

"I know you've never done this before, but you don't just jump, you need a running start." She watched him back up and so did she.

"Huh." she said somewhat uncertainly, she had looked over the edge, she knew it wasn't the smallest gap.

"C'mon." they took a sprint , muscles pumping and heart beating faster, kicked off and landed on the other side with a hard thump, and on her part, collapsed on her knees.

"How much more of these jumps do we need to make?"

"A few, just up until that building, over there." He pointed to an extremely high building with millions of glass windows and delicate and elegant designs hardly visible. Obviously the designers wanted the elegance of the building to show through as the patterns were also moving, not in a flashy way like all the other buildings, but in a slow way. She gasped, she knew this building, it was where all the rich people lived, it was one of the most famous living quarters in the world and she was shocked to see this was where he lived.

Tokyo was the epitome of the Rebirth. With its bubbly yet advanced appearance, the neon lights dancing across pale buildings, the streets flooded with people having fun in a never-ending party. There were places, like the one she was in, in the world where life was at its fullest, Japan was not one to disappoint. Because of that there were certain spots where life was... expensive, it cost her a lot to believe that Luca lived in one of those places.

"Kara, let's go." he took her hand and together they ran and jumped across all the buildings, thankfully, nearly all of them were about the same height and until they came upon Luca's apartment, did she worry.

"Tell me again why we aren't on the walk? It's much safer that way, everybody else is doing that."

Kara was right, hardly anybody was ever on the rooftops anymore, that had been a trend that had faded away rather quickly when a couple of guys didn't make their jump correctly and fell to their deaths. She had never participated in that one, though she did go through the violet hair, blue teeth, zebra patterned skin and the extremely tight clothing fads. Nowadays, everybody was either walking, driving, using their cycles or, the new trend which was sure to stay; hoverboards. They used to be unknown when Kara got one, but now, there were millions being used everywhere, they were very energy-sufficient, fast if you got the right one, and hardly took much money out of your parents' pockets for repairments. And if you were good at riding them, you would never get a scrape. Right now, Kara was wondering why she wasn't on the ground.

"Because if we go though the front door, we'll have to go through the routine scanning and risk showing our faces to my family, and they always check those scans to allow anybody to come in. This way, it'll be a surprise."

"A surprise? Alright then,"

After almost falling to her death after trying to jump up on to the balcony Luca said was the one to his apartment, Luca pulled her up by her forearms. He said he was glad she hadn't screamed and hugged her tightly. She clutched on to him, her breathing coming at a haggard pace. Heart pounding fiercely as she shook in his embrace,

"You're alright, you're fine," he muttered in her ear, and only because of that, did she manage to calm down.

"So... this is where you live? Seriously," she had doubted it true, especially when he said he didn't want to go through the front door, but now that they were on the balcony, she started to believe he really did live here.

As he worked on the glass door, Kara caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, her slightly tanned skin from going down to the beach in Cali, her golden eyes and the dark brown hair with silver ends. Her hand was suddenly caught his and she felt herself be pulled away from the glass.

Once she stepped past the balcony doors, she noticed that the apartment was large. No. It was huge. Just the living room appeared to be big enough to fit fifty people comfortably. Not to mention how it was furnished, it looked absolutely dream like. As she stood there looking around she noticed a door leading to what appeared to be a kitchen area and a staircase lead to another floor. Glass and metal appeared to be the main theme, soft pastel colors adorned different white couches around the room and the high walls allowed for plenty of natural artwork to be placed on them. It had been a while since she had seen a canvas with real paint on it. She didn't know what the floor was made of, it was stone hard, black and shiny where the light hit it. In the middle of the room, was a Centre, all apartments had one, but this one was larger and more... customized.

A thin girl flowed down the steps with surprising grace, and with a hop, she smiled brightly at Luca. She was pretty, decided Kara. With long dark hair and an easy smile, she bounced over to them looking solely at Luca. Kara wondered who she was, she looked nothing like the Frenchman beside her, the other woman was short and had large burnt amber eyes, a beauty mark just below her left eye and full lips. Italian.

"Luca! You're finally back," she wrapped her arms around him and Kara let go of his hand, suddenly feeling very shy, something that was not a usual characteristic of her.

"Who is she?" Kara was surprised at the girl's forwardness but said nothing, her words momentarily caught in her throat.

"Kara Scott." Luca answered for her, "A good friend of mine. Kara, this is Jocelyn, my sister."

She didn't know why but when he called her a good friend and not his girlfriend hurt her a bit. Still, she tried to shrug it off telling herself that maybe he was just being familiar with this girl. And then there was that title, sister. There was no way that they were siblings, at least not biological. Wait, no, their parents might have genetically altered her, yeah, that has to be it, she thought. It wasn't uncommon for parents to receive the DNA results and realize that maybe they wanted their children to have hazel eyes instead of the blue ones they would have received It was a rather long, and slightly dangerous despite being around for fifty years now, operation, especially if the embryo was already developed past a month. But it appeared that the results were beautiful children, and who didn't want that?

"Hello, you're not from around here, right?"

"Um, no, I'm from the States." Kara answered.

"Really? Seattle, right?"

"Yeah, how did you kn-" she was about to ask when Jocelyn answered as if it were a question already answered,

"That's where Luca was."

It was a while before anybody said anything,

"Luca, you know Artemis won't be pleased to see you..." a teasing tone slipped into her voice and Kara stood there slightly perplexed at the raven haired woman. Firstly because she couldn't fathom how somebody wouldn't be pleased to see Luca, it was an idea so foreign and secondly because she had no idea who Artemis was. It wasn't even a common name, in fact, she could hardly think of anything that sounded like that.

But Luca took the teasing in stride and smiled a brilliant smile at her,

"I know, especially since Kara doesn't know..."

"Right, well you've got to find a way to fix that."

"I was hoping that you would be that way."

"Luca! Are you serious? You want me to do it?"

At this point, Kara was seriously confused, she was still thinking about who Artemis was, and now they were talking about who would be explaining something...

"Explain what?" she blurted out,

"He wants Jocelyn to explain what goes on in this apartment and what goes on out of it that concerns us." a quiet but sharp voice ended the conversation between Jocelyn and Luca.

A tall, willowy woman pushed herself off the pale wall that she appeared to have blended into. There was a coldness about her, a feeling, that had nothing to do with the washed out colors that composed her appearance. Her skin was ghostly white, her mismatched eyes were also pale and her hair, her hair was short, soft and a light ashen color. Her clothes consisted of a thin white shirt, pale gray leggings and loose gray leather boots.

Who were these people? How rich were they to be able to afford a place in this apartment complex, a large Centre, real artwork and leather? Of course, the leather could be faux, but Kara had a feeling that those boots were anything but false.

"Luca?" In times of question, turn to Luca.

"Artemis, nice to see you."

"You're late." her voice was quiet, too quiet, soft and sharp at once, her face betrayed no emotion and there was hardly any in the other woman's voice except for the slight annoyance that Kara could detect. It was unnerving, so Kara pressed herself closer to Luca, buried her face in his shoulder and gripped his hand all at once.

Late from what?

"You know that mission was going to take long."

"Luca, I know that at most that would've taken you a month to carry out, you took three more months of delay, I sincerely doubt that you took all that time to do a simple job."

"Well, you know."

"You must be getting spoiled."

"Oh, Arty, don't say that." he laughed at Artemis, a hint of mischief in his voice.

"And her. You don't expect me to believe that you are really pulling her in here, right?"
"Artemi-"

"No. Luca. You can't just bring a random girl in here, you know that, we all do." her arms crossed across her chest and Kara flinched at the tone in her voice but decided that she very well might stand up for herself.

"I am not a just girl, and what makes you annoyed at the thought of my presence?"

At that moment, Kara watched the slight burrowing of Artemis' eyebrows deepen into a scowl which frankly terrified her.

"I am not annoyed. I am furious of your presence, he knows what he's doing by bringing you here, he knows the dangers and I am not about to have my family endangered by some girl."

"If you're talking about having to jump rooftops and climb up balconies, then I'm fine, you don't have to worry, and he brought me here because he loves me and wants me to meet his family."

Kara watched Artemis' face turn back into that blank eerie expression, and a sharp laugh filled the room.

"Artemis." Luca's voice was protective and concerned,

"I'm already leaving anyways, Luca." she strode out of the room, but not before Kara heard her muttered something resembling the word 'stupid'.

"Sheesh, who was she?"

"My sister." Luca looked tired all of a sudden and he pulled her towards a white couch with a light red pillow. He tugged her to lay down on the chaise lounge beside him.

"Are you and your sisters related?"

"If you mean to ask if we had the same parents, then no. But we do have a close relationship since we were kids and consider ourselves siblings along with our brothers."

"Brothers?"

"Yeah, Skye and the twins; Akira and Kazu."

"So, what about all of your parents? Do you all live with them?"

"No, they, uh, they all passed away... a very long time ago." his voice was quiet and soft as he played with a lock of her hair.

"Oh, sorry."

They spent a while just laying there, breathing and thinking. Kara thought of how his parents had died, and what a shame it was that they hadn't been here to meet her; Luca's girlfriend. She had a feeling that maybe they would have liked her and Luca would have been happy of that. She thought of what a shame it was that they weren't alive to live in the Rebirth of the world's society. Kara had to admit that it was a bit disappointing that they were dead, she would've had a chance to have a more... amiable set of parents. After all parent discord was what had driven her into Luca's arms.

"What're we going to do? Just hang around here?" It had felt like hours since they had last said anything, and she didn't like this side of Luca. This quiet and tortured person wasn't what she liked to see, it wasn't healthy, in her mind, to be so sad. Fortunately for her, Luca was resilient and always bounced back into his happy self. It never took long.

"Well, I want you to meet Skye and the twins first and then I thought maybe we could go out, let you see the beauty of Tokyo. Did you that there's still a few places in Japan that stand from the first Birth?" an excited tone governed his voice and his eyes shone with promise.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. They're called temples, where the Older people used to 'worship' their 'ancestors'. Crazy, right?"

This was news to her, though she knew that Japan had successfully maintained a few of their Old traditions, she hadn't imagined something like this. Temples and castles and churches had almost become completely extinct from the third War's bombings. It was a rare thing for countries to still have a representation of their past. This was exciting.

"Come on, I'll go introduce you to Akira and Kazu." They walked down a narrow hall and into a glass room. Seriously, everything was made of glass. Of course, almost all technology involved glass today, and though that was abundant in that day and age, it was still costly. Glass was almost precious.

Two people were sitting at a thin table on tall stools. They were leaning over something between them and they laughed slightly. They were thin, almost to the point of skinny. Their dark red hair was unkempt and messy. The two males' clear cut eyes and softly tapered nose indicated them Asian, and the language they were speaking affirmed their Japanese heredity. Overall the were bright and youthful. One of them kicked at the ground and his stool slid over to the flickering red dot on their wall.

His face turned sharply towards her, and she was caught in the surprise of his silver eyes. His twin's face also shot up from what he was toying with in his hands.

"How did we not see her?"

"Is the security faulty?"

"Why didn't Artemis send a ping?"

It appeared that Kara's sudden appearance had sent them in a frenzy before Luca laughed and explained the situation. After that the two calmed down, but Kara noticed that they were bouncing as if anxious and impatient for Luca to leave so they could make sure everything was actually okay.

"Kara, this is Kazu," he motioned to the twin with longer hair, "and Akira." They both waved and smiled, "They are... our techies." It made sense, Kara thought, they sure did exude that futuristic look.

"Are you showing her around?" asked Akira.

"Yeah, do you know where Skye is?"

"His room or... the kitchen."

Nodding, Luca steered her away down the hall again. They passed a few doors until they got to one that was a darker shade of gray than the other ones. He pressed his fingertips on the door and it slid open revealing a young man with hair a lighter brown that Kara's working on a sketch. The program he was using was complex as he opened and closed tabs put in the end, it all seemed to help the work of art. His eyes were narrowed in concentration and he let out a sigh before letting the program float back to the Wall.

"Yes, Luca?" he hadn't seen her yet, because all of his attention was on the man beside her.

"It appears that I'm gone for a few months and suddenly no one respects me enough to welcome me home."

"Well, you know." the man's eyes rested on Kara and his bored expression turned into one of slight wonder.

He had that aura about him that almost mirrored Artemis' and the quiet of his voice didn't help Kara's nerves. She wondered if he was like the other woman, she certainly hoped not. There was no way she could handle two people like that. But as she stood there longer, she began to notice that the soft and quietness of his voice held a fragile emotion that Artemis' didn't. There was also something in his ruby eyes. They didn't show the harshness and disgust reflected in Artemis.

Still there was something, something she just couldn't place, that sent shivers down her arms. For now, she would place the blame on his accent. Kara had a thing for accents, it was one of the things that had attracted her to Luca when they first met. It also seemed that everyone in that apartment had one, Artemis, Jocelyn, Akira and Kazu, Luca and now Skye.

She had to admit she was kind of jealous of them for having one.

"And who is she?"

"Skye, this is Kara, she's going to be living with us from now on." After Luca spoke, there was a long pause that included Skye looking at them with a queer look before nodded. He brought out his drawing program and began drawing on the transparent tablet again. The pen in his hand was like a paintbrush that once he neared it to the thin screen it made a stroke.

"You think Artemis will agree to going to the Comm, the seven of us?"

"She'll probably think you're being overly zealous because of the new girl; you're pushing your luck."

"True, but I'd like to get Kara some things, and we might be needing a few things."

"I'll try to get her to let us go if need be." he mumbled, it was obvious the two weren't going to be payed much attention for much longer so they left.

"Artemis!" Once back in the large entrance room, Luca called out to her while he brightened the lights and played around on the Centre.

The Centre was an part of every apartment, house or business. It was the command centre of everything that happened in that unit. It controlled everything from the shade of the lights to the temperature to what faces were allowed to pass through the front door. It was where the bills and national news were sent to. The Centre wasn't always a large cylinder that stood in the middle of a room, most times it was a box. In this case, it was a hovering glass structure in the form of a multi faced diamond.

Whenever thought of times when there were no such things in all households, she couldn't imagine what it would be like. Invitations and weather reports must have gotten lost repeatedly; Kara often felt pity for the Old people.

"Luca." she walked out of the kitchen and crossed her arms,

"I was thinking, do you think that it would be possible to go to the Commercial Centre today?"

"Why?"

"I was thinking that since it's still slightly bright out, and I just got home, the seven of us might get to spend time together."

"Once you get her scanned, Luca."

"Sca- What? That'll take hours," Kara thought that at that moment Luca looked like a child asking his mother for permission, she almost laughed had it not been for Artemis.

"She's a danger, Luca, just the thought of her being around this apartment is a danger, she's been here too long."

"Kara is clean." What? Of course she was clean, she had just taken a shower that morning, and she had no criminal record. What did Artemis have to fear?

Suddenly, the woman stilled, a pained expression overcame her face and she paled, if that was even possible considering.

"I told you! I told you!" she muttered, obviously angry she stalked over to Kara and clenched her arm.

"What's on you!?" her face was so close to Kara's she could count the specks in her mismatched irises. Kara was terrified, she didn't know how to answer, she didn't have anything on her, she was clean, Luca had said so himself. And what was going on? Why did she get so angry all of the sudden?

"Artemis, what's going o- Nevermind." he peeled Kara's arm from Artemis' hold and began calling out to his siblings.

"Guys, we're moving on! Get ready, we leave in twenty minutes tops!"

"Luca!" she called out to him, worried that he would leave her alone with Artemis.

"What's going on?"

Jocelyn whizzed past her with a couple of bags in hand. The twins were doing something to the Centre and the glass diamond suddenly shook and the light that had once shone from it disappeared. It had been destroyed. Why? What need did they have to destroy their information? What was going on? Why was everyone in such a hurry? And where were they going?

Luca faced her, a sad smile on his lips,

"We're leaving."