Chapter 5: Leader

The classrooms were all the same: Oval shaped, white, and occupied by no more than thirteen Soliad students. Students sat on the floor with pillows for seats behind a desk that folded from the floor. The floor desks were pretty convenient, Sam admitted. She found a small handle on the floor, pulled up and over her lap.

All of the students wore uniforms; a red and orange tunic, lightweight pants and white socks were required inside of the classroom. Shoes were placed in a compartment just under the floor surface outside of the door. Sam hated the uniform. She was threatened many times to wear it or be kicked out, but due to her status, and her pugnacious nature, the guards figured out that they wouldn't be able to kick her out even if they tried.

Sam sat in the back corner of the room looking out the curved window of the classroom, trying to ignore the sour feeling she felt at the pit of the her stomach. The hours kept passing, and soon it would be time for Contador to make his speech. She had no doubt that Hauser was on his way to kidnap her and force her to attend the speech though she had deliberately ignored Contador's messages and replied to Hauser saying that she would 'no way in hell attend that speech' even if her life was threatened. And she meant it. Of course, she knew that in anywhere between four and ten minutes either Hayden would drag her out of class or Hauser would find her himself and drag her out like he said he would. It wouldn't be the first time.

Sam could feel the hot gaze of Hayden's eyes on her back, but she didn't care. Her fingers traced the outline of the tablet on the side of her desk as she watched the traffic outside. Her window gazing was distracted by a blue envelope, which appeared on her tablet. She opened it. It was from Hayden.

She turned around and glared at him. "What?"

His blue eyes narrowed. "Are you trying to get me fired?"

Sam turned back around and read the message.

You're not even paying attention. You're wasting your time just sitting in a classroom half listening to a teacher who can't even see you.

Mr. Kawai, the history teacher, was a hologram. His lesson was projected from the outside schools, the schools that she was forbidden to attend.

I know you're not interested in the history of the Global Peace Force so why don't we get out of here before something happens?

Sam turned around again. "Nothing is going to happen, Hayden. Calm down."

"I still have to enforce Neo-Conquistador regulations. You, by default, are a Neo-Conquistador." He drew his face closer to hers. "Don't be difficult, Samantha." He looked at his eye monitor as a blue envelope appeared in the corner.

"It's Hauser isn't it?" Sam asked, narrowing her eyes into slits at the fact that Hayden had called her by her full first name. He was getting annoyed and authoritative.

"Correct."

Sam stood up, her desk folding back into the ground, and streamed out of the room. As soon as she exited the door, she halted in front of the guy who let her borrow his stylus a couple of weeks ago. Vincent. He stumbled back, wobbling back and forth to make sure that the tablets in his hands didn't spill onto the floor.

"Sam!"

"Vincent, sorry. I'm in a hurry."

"I noticed," he grumbled as he managed to hook long strands of dark red hair behind his ear with one gloved hand. The rest of it was tied back behind his head in a slender tail down his back. Vincent was a new student, quiet, shy, but he was far from blending in as the majority of the female population started to cling to him more than any other male student.

"Where are you going? And where's your uniform?"

Sam scratched her head. "I have to go do something for…someone."

"Your father," he said bluntly.

"Yes."

He nodded and repositioned the tablets in his arms. "Well, I was hoping to get with you at lunch to discuss something that you would be highly interested in but…" he took a quick glance over Sam's shoulder to see Hayden moving his way. "I see you really do have something important to do."

Sam gave him a one handed pat on his shoulder and shuffled by him. Hayden followed, not caring to greet him.

"You know him?" Hayden asked, treading right on her heels.

"Yeah, why?"

He paused for a moment. "There's something strange about him, but I'm not sure what it is."

"Vincent is...special."

"That doesn't say much. All Soliads are special."

"Not that kind of special. He has no idea where he's from or who is really is. He just named himself Vincent when he woke up in the hospital after a week in a coma. Apparently he was blurting words in an unknown language when he woke. No one has been able to translate it. Some think it's some code for something." They walked down the hallway to a set of transportation portals.

"I don't like him."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "You don't know him, Hayden."

Hayden took a breath and closed his eyes. "There's something off about him."

Sam placed her hands on her hips. "Oh and let me guess. You sensed this, right? Okay. Personally I think you're paranoid."

"I'm not paranoid. I'm just a little suspicious, is all."

They were back at the lobby where they first started. The only difference was that Colin Hauser stood with two other Neo-Conquistador agents at the front door.

"That was fast," Sam muttered, her gut tightening.

Colin's green eyes were focused on her as soon as they stepped off the platform. And as they stepped off, Hayden assumed his place in front of her, greeting Colin first.

"Agent Bettany, I'm glad you're still in one piece."

Sam glared at Colin behind Hayden's shoulder.

Hayden and Colin exchanged a handshake. "I'm pretty sure my life was threatened more than once during these last few hours, but I'm still standing as you see."

Colin winked at Sam, and in return she glared at him even more.

"Sam, you're coming with me."

"I know."

"Agent Bettany, you're required to come with Sam until Contador says otherwise. That's probably not a surprise to you."

Hayden nodded. "I wasn't planning on leaving so soon anyways. Perfect."

Sam made her way to Colin and placed her hands behind her back. "Colin."

"Sam."

"Tell me…what does my father want with me anyway?"

"I asked that we discuss this on the plane because we don't want this to go public yet."

Sam looked around the briefing room of her father's company jet and then to the briefing table. She sat with his her knees to her chest, even though she knew that Hauser preferred that she kept her feet on the floor. Hayden sat across from her on the other side of the table.

Hauser glided his hand over the smooth, metallic surface and a map of the galaxy appeared between them.

There was silence until Hauser asked, "How are you coping with your new abilities?"

Sam blinked, realizing she wasn't listening. "What?"

Hauser raised an eyebrow. "I saw on your recent medical reports that you were gaining new abilities. How are you coping with them?"

Sam looked at him hard. "I'm not."

"Rejecting them is going to be harder than you think it is. You can't stop the process."

"I know that."

"Then you might as well get comfortable with them. Being stubborn is not in your favor, Sam."

She placed her chin on her knees and focused on the map. "What is this about, Colin?"

"We're in trouble. The system, the entire human race. We're in trouble."

Sam was uninterested. "Okay…"

"There's an unknown alien species coming our way from this direction." He pointed to a section on the map that was about two inches from their location. "They're dangerous and they're coming for us."

Sam shrugged. "And you're telling me this because…"

"We're going to need your help."

The first thing Sam did was laugh. Hauser had barely gotten the words out of his mouth. Hayden and Hauser both stared at her with confusion. Hayden couldn't understand why she was laughing at such a situation or why she was laughing at all.

Sam threw her head back and held her stomach. "You're telling me…you actually want me to…"

Hayden and Hauser patiently waited for her to pull herself together. Once she did, she kept a grin across her face.

"You're saying you actually want me to do something like save the world. No, no, you want me to save the human race."

"Sam, so far you're the only one who may be immune to the attacks of these people."

"Hauser, you're a nice guy, but I think your recommendation is ridiculous. No one on this damn planet wants me to do anything. Haven't you heard the protests in the last twenty years? They were protesting me! Us! Soliads! Why the hell would I want to risk my life to save humans? They tried to kill us, Colin. Kill us. Do you know the descriptive meaning of the word 'kill'?"

"Sam…"

"And you know what else is funny? Dr. Thomas said that I was an important person and she said that I didn't realize how important I was! Important my ass!"

Hauser's jaw tightened. He was able to keep himself at bay…for the moment. His gaze turned stern. "Sam. This is extremely serious. We have no idea when these extraterrestrials are arriving. It could be today, it could be ten years from now. Their timing is fickle, but we know that the fleet that is coming from their tour is in immediate danger." He leaned in towards her. "Your sister is on that fleet, isn't she?"

Sam's grin faded. "My sister will be fine. No one is going to attack that soon."

"How do you know that?"

Sam looked down to the floor and fell silent. She shook her head. "I can't."

Hauser took a breath. "You can't do what?"

"I can't be who you want me to be. You guys already tried the whole superhero-leader thing with me remember? I sucked at it."

"That's all in the past now, Sam. You don't have to worry about that anymore. Years have passed since then, and over the years you have changed both as a person and as a warrior, but what we need now is your expertise. You have experience that no one else has even if you deny the fact."

"It's not in the past, Hauser." Her legs dropped to the floor and she placed her elbows on her knees. "You may have forgiven me, but the others…they haven't. They still remember what happened four years ago and they will never forget." Her eyes turned dark. "You remember, don't you Hauser? Of course you do. You never forget."

"They must forget if they know what's best for the rest of the system."

"I know what you're asking me to do, but I can't. I'm not important. There are thousands of other people who are just like me. Choose one of them. I'm an…an experiment that went wrong and I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I hardly remember how to lead anymore."

"Yes you do. You have constant physical evaluations. You run through tests every week to make sure that you're at the peak of your game. Your academic and critical thinking evaluations show that you are a leader. Your father is closely linked to the results of your tests and he tracks your progress closely so don't give me any more of your excuses. I've had enough of them."

"You're saying that I don't have a choice."

"You always have a choice, Sam. I'm trying to convince you that there are other things more important than the grudges that you have against a race that cannot even touch you. To me it sounds like you're wasting valuable energy on holding grudges."

"If I'm a representation of the Soliad race, then I should care about the others who have been killed, shouldn't I? I can't deny the fact that humans hate us and they can touch us. They don't deserve to be saved."

"And yet you fail to remember that you were once human. You spend so much time hating humans when, at the same time, you care so much about your human life. I say that's contradictory."

"You're debating with me."

"I'm trying to convince you to get your head out of the gutter, Samantha."

"My head isn't in the gutter. I don't want to do it."

Sam's face was heated. She didn't expect this attack from Hauser. In fact, she was a bit surprised and hurt at the same time. He was smart, but how dare he tell her about her life and how she experienced it.

Sam angrily rose to her feet and left the room without another word.

Hayden rose to follow her, but Hauser grabbed his arm and shook his head. "Give her a little time. She won't realize what's happening until it smacks her in the face."

"She's thinking about them," Hayden said, his eyes pointing in her direction. "The anniversary is tomorrow and the memory is hitting her harder than the rest of us. I think she's trying to repress a terrible memory by refusing to take on a task like this."

"Of course. She was their leader. She has every right to feel sorry for them and for what happened. But she has to realize that even though she was an improbable result from a failed experiment, she still has a purpose in this life."