Opheliac

by J.F. Jenkins

Published by Astraea Press

www.astraeapress.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

 

BATTLEFIELD: OPHELIAC

Copyright © 2014 J.F. JENKINS

ISBN 978-1-62135-351-5

Cover Art Designed by CORA GRAPHICS

Alan helped restrain Sprout on the medical table while one of his comrades strapped her down with thick leather belts. He'd sworn to his charge, Orlando Holmes, that no harm would come to the teenage girl, and so far he'd been able to keep his promise. She was a feisty one, so it was a bit easier said than done. The restraints may have seemed harsh. After all, she was still technically a child. Earlier on, however, Alan's fellow officer had made the mistake of underestimating her and ended up with a black eye and broken nose. Sprout would not come quietly.

“Tuveen, if you think I'm going to tell any of you anything, you've got another thing coming,” she spat.

His comrade, Sir Ulan, rolled his eyes, an Earth expression the entire ship was starting to pick up. Alan nodded at him, and a gag was placed over her mouth. He glanced over at Bean, Sprout's twin brother and partner in crime. They both had normal, family-given names, of course, but Alan only knew them by their code names. The teenage boy was a drastic contrast to his sister. His blue eyes were wide and sweat trickled down his face. He was terrified. Alan actually pitied him.

But not Sprout, Alan felt little for her. She had committed many crimes against her own people, aiding in the murder of her peers, theft, and who knew what else. Ever since Alan had begun his mission on Earth, she had been a thorn in his side, both literally and figuratively. She could control plants, and she had no issues with attacking him with massive vines back in the fall. Beyond that, she also seemed to get in the way of all his tasks. If it weren't for Orlando, Alan would have never known her true identity. With that information known, his tribe could possibly pull ahead in the war on Altura—a war that was bleeding over onto Earth.

With the two teenagers bound and gagged, the rehabilitation process could begin. Each had been tapped by an enemy tribe and manipulated into believing in the horrible things that tribe stood for. Rehabilitation was the only way to keep both Bean and Sprout out of intergalactic jail, and possibly saving them from execution as well. Children or not, they were knowingly committing the horrible acts they had been instructed to perform. They had a choice, and there would be consequences when everything was said and done.

Alan's job, along with the rest of his tribe, was to stop the Alturan war from impacting the people of Earth too much. Outside of a few government programs scattered throughout the world, no one knew about Altura or of the Alturan ships in orbit around the planet. Technology allowed for Alan and his people to stay hidden. Because the Alturans were identical in appearance and genetics to the Earth humans, they were able to blend in well on the planet's surface. That was also why his enemies had chosen Earth as their next battlefield. With so many similarities, the humans would be easier to manipulate and use.

The rehabilitation program was supposed to be painless and easy, but time-consuming. Thanks to an ancient technology Alan's tribe was able to gain access to, his ship could make it so Bean and Sprout were once again normal Earth teenagers. While the program was old, it was new to Alan and his comrades. They were all still learning the ins and outs of how it functioned. There were other programs available to them that did the same thing, but not only were they painful, but they were also not as precise. He would rather take his time with the process rather than rush. His ship had tried the other technologies on other Earth teenagers already, and the results were not quite what he desired.

Multiple treatments would be necessary to make the process complete. Unfortunately, time was not something Alan and his team had. There was no way he could kidnap the two teens from home for longer than a few hours at night. If their parents noticed they were gone, a lot more memories would need to be wiped clean. He had to handle the process delicately. Many factors needed to be weighed in as well.

Not only did the teens have normal home lives to consider, but also the impact the rehabilitation would have on the tribe they worked for. If their boss suspected anything was amiss, Alan's entire operation would be compromised, and he didn't want to think about the consequences of such a thing happening. Eventually the rehabilitation would be made known, one way or another, but it needed to happen after the process was complete for the safety of all the teens. The enemy would not want their help anymore if they couldn't remember the war in the first place. All of the previously rehabilitated teens had been abandoned by the enemy tribes; he could only hope the same when it came to Bean and Sprout. The two were much higher-ranked than the other teens had been.

The whole point of rehabilitation was to take away the memories of his enemies. As the captives were made normal once again, Alan and his tribe would be able to access the memories from the teens and hopefully make sense of everything they saw. That knowledge could give his people a huge advantage in the war. He already had centuries' worth of memories stored on the device. If his people could understand what was happening better, then perhaps they could find a fast end to the conflict before things got worse and even more planets were harmed in the process. The Alturan war had already devastated another planet besides their own. Earth would be the second alternative battlefield being fought on. It could not spread to a third.

Perhaps Alan's plan was a bit unethical. Memories were a personal part of an individual's psyche. He certainly would not want to be taken captive and have his enemies do the same thing to him, even if the process was supposedly painless. His life was his own. At the same time, hard decisions needed to be made. For the sake of the entire planet's safety, the more people from Earth who did not know about what was going on, the better. Panic would spread worldwide if it was ever made known that aliens walked among the people.

Besides, how could Bean and Sprout live with what they had done? If he were doing it to anyone else, he'd feel guiltier. The two teens were directly linked to the experimentation on and murder of other Earth youth. Alan would personally not be able to handle continuing on like everything was normal if he held such a shameful and disgusting secret.

I'm doing them a favor. Children should not hold so much weight on their shoulders.
While Alan's teen charges would argue that they were not children, but bordering adulthood, the fact still remained that they were sheltered to the ways of war.

All the more motivation to end the war on Altura so it no longer leaked over onto Earth. His planet's problems needed to stay on his planet.

“Begin.” Alan nodded at Sir Ulan.

His comrade flipped a switch and the Ilotus, the machine that was being used to help with the rehabilitation, turned on.

Alan faced away, not wanting to watch. “Let me know when this round is complete.”

Orlando Holmes was almost afraid to go to school that morning. His alien boss, Alan, had warned him that Tait Darling and her twin brother Payton were taken in for rehabilitation over the weekend. Otherwise known as Bean and Sprout, Tait and Payton were high on the Alturan bad guys' most-wanted list. Because of Orlando, the two had been captured.

Guilt wasn't something he felt often, but betraying Tait, no matter how good the cause was, had him sick to his stomach. Tait was the first girl he'd ever truly cared about, which spoke volumes about how important she was to him. Loving, even simply liking, someone was not his thing. Orlando enjoyed being alone. For whatever reason, Tait broke through his tough shell. If something went wrong with the rehabilitation, he'd never forgive himself. Attending school would be the first time he'd get to see her since the process took place, and he wasn't sure if he was ready to see the results. If there was anything to see, of course. Assuming the process went smoothly, there shouldn't have been any obvious side effects, right?

Coming to class put him in between a rock and a hard place. Because while he didn't desire to see any aftermath of the rehabilitation, he also had to get out of his house before he went crazy or his mother killed him with the toxic sludge she tried to claim was food. Stopping for breakfast at a fast-food joint had been a necessity. The woman couldn't even make cereal right, and he'd been positive that was impossible to screw up. What was so hard about pouring milk over a bowl? Whatever she'd done to it had made everything inedible. Even worse, she wouldn't let him just take care of himself. Orlando was a big boy; she needed to accept that. If she wanted to baby him and be a mother, she should have stayed home to do so instead of shoving the responsibility onto his sister, Lyssa, five years ago.

“Do you have any idea how bad that is for you?” His sort-of friend, Nia, pointed to his bag of food.

Orlando reached in and pulled out his hashbrown cake…thing. He wasn't sure what to call it or if it counted as food, either, but he'd take his chances.

He bit into it defiantly. “You say that like I care.”

“So gross. All that fat and grease. I'm gaining twenty pounds just watching you eat it.”

“Then don't watch me. I didn't ask you to come over here,” he mumbled. Louder, “I'll burn it off by lunch. See, I'm still going through this magical thing called puberty. While I become even more manly and amazing, I also get to have the metabolism of a god. So really, there's no need to be concerned over my health or my guyish figure.” He rolled his eyes, as he was prone to do. It wasn't his fault people were so annoying.

Nia scowled. “It's not going to last forever.”

“Newsflash, I'm a dude. I. Don't. Care.” He almost pointed out that at his last exam, his doctor had told him he should gain weight, but he didn't want to make her even more jealous. Why did it matter so much anyway? She wasn't his mother, sister, teammate, or girlfriend. He wasn't sure he could even call her his friend. Nia just sort of hung around him because nobody else would. He put up with her because she had moments where she was enjoyable. Not to mention the fact that she was dating his best friend.

Sighing, Orlando slung his backpack off his shoulder so he could get ready for class. “Something is bothering you. Care to share? You're more neurotic than normal.”

“Dallas.”

“What about him?”

“He's eating nonstop.”

“And we covered the puberty thing. It applies doubly to him since he's catching up to the rest of us.” Not to mention, Dallas was newly raised from the dead. Orlando would certainly miss eating when he croaked.

Nia gazed down at her hands. “Right, but he's eating everything in my house, and I can't keep up. If you knew my mom…I can't hide him at my place anymore. He needs to go someplace else.”

“I don't gain control over my trust fund until the beginning of April. If I'm not eighteen, everything I buy gets checked out. My sister trusts me. My parents, on the other hand…” Why did his parents decide to stay home
now
of all times? Couldn't they go back to sucking and pawn him off on his older sister like before? Life was so much easier that way.

Nia pursed her lips, folding her arms in front of her. “You live in a mansion that's bigger than our school and you're telling me you can't find a place to hide him? If I can in my tiny house, then you can too.”

“Yeah, but your family didn't know him before he died, so if he got caught, it wouldn't be an earth-shattering event.”

He had a feeling she forgot Dallas was a resurrected corpse. Nia had used her secret superpowers to bring him back to life. Powers she had gotten from the Alturans. Orlando had new abilities as well. His were a lot less disgusting. According to the Alturans, all humans had the potential to unlock those kinds of gifts, Earth just had yet to discover them with its science. The whole thing was confusing to Orlando. He barely understood it and he considered himself a science nerd. The most he got was that Alturans were genetically the same as Earth humans. Same species, different planet, essentially. It blew his mind. Little green men would have been more believable to him for some reason.

Aliens being on Earth in and of itself was mind-blowing. Then add on that they were fighting a war on his planet, using Earth people to do their dirty work for them, and potentially changing life as they knew it…Orlando didn't think he'd ever recover from the whole ordeal completely. Rather than fight their wars on their own planet, the Alturans traveled from planet to planet and fought there. The Earth people were supposed to help with guerrilla warfare, or something along those lines. He wasn't a war strategist, so he wasn't quite sure of the correct terminology or the logic behind what was happening. At least he'd been allowed to volunteer, which was more than he could say about some of the other tribes.

That was how the Alturans divided their nations, in tribes, whose names were apparently so complicated Alan only referred to them by colors with Orlando and his teammates. It was a little insulting, but Orlando kept mum about it, preferring the ability to communicate effectively over learning all the nuances of Alturan culture. Alan was a part of the red tribe; Bean and Sprout were followers of the blue tribe; Nia, on the other hand, was tapped by the yellow tribe. There were still several others involved as well. Someday, he would like to know more, and possibly even see Altura. He liked to keep those dreams to himself. No one on his team would believe him if he said he was interested anyway. He was far too cool for that sort of thing, apparently.

After a moment of silence, Nia poked him in the arm. “It's just until you turn eighteen. That's like, what, three weeks away? Less than that! Like, two. Just do something, please?”

“I'll talk to my people.” And that was about as much as he could promise. Nia knew Orlando was involved with the Alturans, even though they were affiliated with separate tribes. Hopefully, she'd understand he couldn't make any major decisions without talking to everyone from his team.

She must not have, because she scoffed and stomped away, her heavy, black combat boots creating a loud thud that attracted more attention than he liked. People at school already thought they were dating. Not a rumor he wanted circulating if it kept Tait from wanting to date him again. Then again, it also might make her jealous. In the end, Nia was nowhere near his type and just thinking of being her boyfriend gave him the shivers. Still, was she worse than Tait? He wasn't sure.

The circumstances of his breakup with Tait were messy. She'd blown him off one too many times to do evil deeds for her alien boss, who just so happened to be the ex-fiancée of
his
alien boss. Messy, complicated, frustrating. Tait didn't know he was a part of the Alturan war, whereas he knew everything she'd been doing. Pretending, lying, was difficult for him to do. He'd never been one to enjoy hiding things in the first place. Keeping to himself was one thing, but being dishonest was something else entirely. In the end, lack of trust was what destroyed his relationship. Neither one of them could tell the other the truth.

If she could be rehabilitated and go back to being a normal teen, he could look past what she'd done and go out with her again. Hypothetically, that is. There were a lot of factors for him to weigh. Mainly, he wasn't sure he still cared about her the same way as he had when they first met. All of her war crimes disgusted him, and the way she acted as if they were no big thing made her a monster. Another girl may have caught his attention as well, but that was beside the point.
At the same time, who's to say Tait wasn't being manipulated? What if the other tribe brainwashed her into believing whatever they wanted her to?
I owe it to her to give her a real chance at being a normal couple, don't I? The only reason we broke up was because of the war. If that's not a problem anymore, then we should work. Right?

He felt his phone vibrate and saw a message in his inbox waiting for him from his girl-who-could-be-more-than-just-friends, Angela. To make matters worse, Tait just walked into the school, looking as radiant as ever. Her winter coat hugged around her hips, and even the dorky knit hat covering her head was cute. Why did she have to be so captivating?

The new message would have to wait. Even if getting texts from Angela was often the highlight of his day. He needed to stay focused on Tait. If something about her was off, he needed to pick up on it right away.

From across the hallway, Orlando watched her get her things settled into her locker. She brushed away from her face some of her blonde hair that had fallen out of her hat. Nothing about her seemed different. When her gaze caught hold of his, she waved, giving him a small smile. He waved back, a mix of emotions filling him once again. A few of her friends were nearby and saw the exchange. They whispered into each other's ears, laughing, and smirking at him. He wouldn't consider them good friends of hers, however, since all three of them had hit on him at least once after Christmas. Friends weren't supposed to do that sort of thing, last time he checked. All three of them were on the cheerleading squad with Tait.
They probably think they're my type, or something, but the cheerleader thing was not what got me interested in Tait to begin with. She actually has a personality.

Why does she have to be so addictive?
Orlando put his remaining breakfast back into the bag so he could take it to class and finish it at his desk in peace. Chemistry class wasn't good for him to do much else. The subject was interesting enough, but his teacher was far from engaging. Rather than focus on the lecture, he doodled and did his homework for other classes instead. He used to be discreet about it, but once he figured out that his teacher either was dense or didn't care, he stopped being polite. If he were failing the class, he'd most likely be in a lot more trouble, but he finished the last semester at the top of his class. Chemistry was nothing like his Advanced Biology class which had a lot more hands-on tasks. The former was a cakewalk in comparison.

Like usual, Tait gave him a smile as she entered the room. She winked then took her seat. Rick, one of the jock boys who was BFFs with her brother, went over to hit on her until the bell rang. She was unreceptive to the point where it was painful to watch. Rick would talk to her, lean forward, poke her, and practically tap dance in hopes of a smile, and she kept herself stiff and emotionless. While Orlando couldn't hear the conversation going on between the two of them, he could see she wasn't even bothering to humor him. A rather polite rejection. When she noticed Orlando was still watching, she rolled her eyes. He laughed. Nothing new.

Right when he had a minute to say hi to her, a tall redhead with curly hair bounced between him and Tait.

“Hi, Orly!” She waved and sat on top of his desk. Right on top of his notebook.

He didn't smile or wave back. “Hello, Beth.”

“I was wondering if you could help me study for the next test. You're
so
smart.” She batted her eyelashes at him. How could anyone have so much energy so early in the morning?

Taking in a slow breath, and holding back just about every rude comment he could think of, Orlando gazed up at her with a frown. “I don't do study dates.”

“Well, we wouldn't actually study anyway. We could just call it a date.”

“While I admire your progressive thinking and getting out of the Stone Age where the guy is the only one who asks a girl out, I'm going to have to decline your invitation.” He grabbed his breakfast sandwich and took a bite, hoping she got the hint that she wasn't even remotely sparking his interest.

Beth pouted. “Still too soon? I can respect that. I thought if you knew other girls liked you, then maybe you'd be more receptive. Now I get that you're just not over her yet.” She kissed his cheek. “Just remember there are other fish in the sea.”

“Too bad I left all my hooks in my other pants,” he mumbled.

She frowned, but finally got off of his desk just as the bell rang. Orlando risked a glance back at Tait and saw her seething. Hopefully, he wasn't the cause of her anger. It wasn't like he asked for Beth to talk to him. He shook his head at Tait and pinched the bridge of his nose in an effort to communicate how much of a headache he now had. Being social was not his idea of a good time, especially when it was done with someone he'd rather not talk to. His brief opportunity to chat with Tait was now gone.

We'll have to actually talk if I'm going to figure this mystery out, anyway. That's what lunch hour is for when I have more than five seconds. Still, it would have been nice to at least confirm she was okay.
He pulled out his notebook so he could doodle.

When his sister Lyssa had arranged his schedule at Lunar Falls High School, she'd gone out of her way to torture him. Orlando had transferred to the school after getting expelled from Morningtide High for fighting. Rather than ground him for life like a normal guardian would, she slammed him with unreasonable amounts of class credits. Most of them could have waited for his senior year of school, which would have been the following school year.