The Lambs: Part 3 (4/11)     
by Lamia (AKA so kiss me goodbye) 
                                        
Rating: PG-13 (violence, strong language)
Category: S                             
Spoilers: Seasons 1-9, Fight the Future           
Keywords: William; Colonization              
Summary: Liam van de Kamp's life changes the day two 
FBI agents kidnap him and his parents.
                                   
Author's Note: The Lambs is a three-part story plus
epilogue.  The prologue and Parts I (Chapters 1-10)
and (Chapters 11-31) were completed between 2008
and 2015, and posted on FFN.


Chapter 35 

December 21, 2012 
New Mexico 

Blood had crusted in trickles over Gibson's knuckles - 
he could have been wearing lacy red gloves. Holding his 
hands like a boxer fending off a blow, he huddled on 
the floor in the middle of the pie room. 

"Gibson -" 

Liam gulped when Gibson lifted his head in a 
directionless scowl. Deep welts were branded into his 
cheeks. Dark patches stained his t-shirt. 

"Fuck you." 

The air tasted of salt, sweat and metal. Liam hesitated 
at the wall. "What happened?" 

The anger faded to something different. Hope? "Liam? Is 
that you? Your bag. Have you still got it?" 

"No, they took every -" 

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit." 

"Are you okay?" 

"Do I look okay?" 

"What did they -" Liam swallowed again, creeping in for 
a closer look. 

"I'm supposed to give you a message." Blanching as his 
hands grazed the floor, Gibson tried to push himself in 
the direction of Liam's voice. He thrust out his hands. 
For a second it looked as though he would pass out. 
"Don't resist. That's the message. Got it?" 

Had someone scraped the skin from his arms? 

"What -" 

The energy went out of Gibson and his head dropped. 
"Don't resist." 

"But -" 

"Help me" - his hand made a feeble wave - "need 
something to lean ..." 

There was nothing but the walls. Liam hooked his arms 
around Gibson, careful not to touch the exposed flesh, 
and dragged him to the closest one. He looked at the 
back of Gibson's neck. It was smooth. No sign of any 
telltale bump. 

Gibson sank against the support with a twisted smile, 
his shoulders heaving as he panted. 

"Sick of ... being ... a ... lab rat." The lenses of 
his glasses magnified his unfocused gaze. He gave 
himself a minute to catch his breath. "Know why ... 
they made me?" 

Stealing a look at Gibson's tortured skin, Liam shook 
his head. His gut twisted and he had to turn away. He 
panned the empty room. A blanket, two towels, a bucket 
of water, his old clothes - folded. 

"I was a prototype. A thing that gets made first." 

*A thing that gets tested.* 

Liam scooped up the towels and bucket. "They're still 
doing tests on you?" 

"They *all* do. None of them will stop. Don't know why 
they bother." 

Gibson could have been a meditating monk the way his 
elbows rested on his thighs and his arms extended over 
his knees. 

"This is nothing," he said through clamped teeth. "Men 
did brain surgery on me once. No anesthetic." 

As calm as he appeared, the raw flesh on Gibson's arms, 
hands and fingers screamed. 

The thought of sticking towels to the weeping injuries 
made Liam shudder. The hands themselves glistened. How 
could this sort of wound even heal? 

For five days he had stewed and fumed over Gibson's 
betrayal - over Dr Scully's. He had dreamed of this 
moment, of confronting them. But the sight of Gibson 
injured and hurting tore up his revenge script. He 
wished furiously his medic molecules were real. 

A memory of the pillar in the round room jumped into 
his mind. "*Shine*," he heard in a whisper. 

"Are you still there?" Gibson asked desperately. 

"Yes." Liam shuddered into action. "I'm going to try to 
cover your arms. They - they don't look good. Your 
cheeks look grilled -" 

"I can't see anything." 

Liam set about tearing the towels into strips. He was 
forced to use his teeth to start each rip - which he 
knew wasn't very sanitary. "What happened?" 

"Locked me in a holding pen. Left me. Don't know about 
... Jeremiah." Gibson ground his teeth when Liam 
knotted the first bit of makeshift bandage around his 
left arm. 

"Am I - am I prototype too?" 

"Always about you." Gibson snorted but shook his head. 
"The trouble ... with you, Liam ... is that no one ... 
knows what you are." 

"Not even the aliens?" Liam gave a particularly savage 
yank. 

"Especially not the aliens. You're what you should be - 
what you were designed to be - but you're more than 
that." 

"What do you mean?" 

"You were not entirely ... what they expected." 

"Who's 'they'? The Grays? The supersoldiers? My 
*mother*?" His lip curled in a sneer. 

*That's right*, he wanted to say, *I know*. 

He expected one of Gibson's knowing smirks. The 
expression of a race winner watching his competition 
collapse over the finish line of truth. Instead, 
feverish sweat dribbled down Gibson's face, and his 
only discernible emotion was pain. It frustrated Liam 
that his medic molecules were all in his head. And it 
frustrated him that he couldn't rid himself of his wish 
that they worked. 

He clutched at his temples when he heard the whisper 
again. "*Shine ... remember*." 

He tried to chase the voice away by thinking of other 
ways to help Gibson. "Rudi's artifact! It came from a 
ship. If I could find one here, I could heal -" 

Gibson paid him no mind. "It doesn't seem right that I 
should be the one telling you this." 

"I can heal you! I just need to find -" 

"You don't need to. *You* shouldn't need it." 

The vehemence of his words stabbed Liam in the chest 
like an accusatory finger. But when he continued, he 
rambled down another track. It was hard to tell if he 
was delirious or not. His breathing was less ragged and 
his speech was more steady. Even so, his head lolled to 
one side. 

"Did you know she wasn't supposed to have children? 
Probably not. I can't imagine how that would ever come 
up in conversation." 

The image of Garrett de Rosier, so long in the past, 
flashed into Liam's mind. "One of the men who helped us 
escape -he told us Dr Scully had a daughter. He never 
mentioned ... he never mentioned a son." 

"No surprises there. Every electronic record mentioning 
'William' was very carefully expunged from the system." 

"How?" 

"Same way we were protecting the camp. Paperwork, 
surveillance footage, texts, phones messages - all 
wiped. Our own version of Purity Control. Better than a 
bomb. We've been controlling information. An entity 
capable of staying one step ahead of her opponent is a 
handy person to have on your side." 

He paused to take in a slow, laborious breath. "You 
were the result of years of testing. On me. On Scully. 
On women like Scully. They thought *they'd* made you. 
That might be true, but when you were born they 
realized you were also something more. Something they 
hadn't counted on. Not yet. It didn't change their 
plans - if anything it convinced them even more. You 
were some sort of miraculous proof they'd been 
seeking." 

Starting at the elbow, Liam knotted a loop and wound 
the bandage down Gibson's other arm. Ragged edges of 
skin were starting to dry and shrink. The pain alone 
should have knocked Gibson out. Instead he was awake 
and talking. Telling Liam's story. 

Liam had no feeling. He listened in a daze. The 
numbness suppressed his urge to vomit. 

"It suited them to have Scully think you were an 
experiment. To keep her doubting." 

"Is that why she got rid of me?" 

"Scully did not 'get rid' of you." 

"That's what it seems like. I was eight months old when 
Mom and Dad adopted me. Seems like she wanted me for a 
while - then she didn't." 

He pulled tightly on a strip, making Gibson grunt. 

"Things happened to you. People kidnapped you, tried to 
kill you. What your uncle did - wait until you find out 
about *that* side of the family - it had the most 
lasting effect." 

Liam couldn't help rolling his eyes, but his mind 
boggled. *I have an uncle*? Aloud he said, "What did he 
do?" 

"Snuck into your room, injected you with an inhibitor, 
tried -" 

"*You* injected me with something." 

Irritation flickered on Gibson's face and he raised his 
bandaged hand to his lips in wordless warning. 

There was no way of telling who might be listening, or 
how. 

"Some details don't matter." He sucked in a breath as 
Liam secured a binding. "What you should know is this: 
your origins were set in place by both men and alien, 
but you were more than they expected. They tried to 
convince Scully you were solely the result of 
experimentation. Mulder saw through that. He recognised 
that you were more." 

"Mulder is my -" 

"Biological dad? Yeah." 

"So it's true." 

"What's true?" 

Liam tied the final knot. "They gave me up because I 
was a monster." 

Gibson couldn't see but it didn't stop him rolling 
*his* eyes and then wincing from the movement. "You're 
determined to see this from the worst possible angle, 
aren't you?" 

"Well, what other reason could they have?" 

"It's very, very complicated." 

"I'm old enough to ask - I'm old enough to know." 

"You were all she ever wanted." 

"Could've fooled me." 

"When she couldn't have you, all she wanted was to have 
you be happy. When an opportunity came up for you to 
vanish, she took it. As much as it upset her, the 
inhibitor your uncle injected you with served one 
valuable purpose - it rendered you invisible. Until 
that point every supersoldier in the Milky Way could 
have found you in a black hole if they wanted to." 

"If they wanted to?" 

"While you were still a kid, it was easier for the 
Grays to let your parents raise you. Even once you were 
invisible, they weren't too concerned." 

Liam turned an unused scrap of towel in his hands. "If 
I was so invisible, how did Stan end up moving next 
door?" 

Here, Gibson glowered. "Jeremiah *said* it was a 
miracle. That God led him to you." 

"Don't you believe him?" 

"I don't know what to believe anymore. He kept things 
from me. He shouldn't have been able to do that." 

Liam was tired of having to put the pieces together. 
Tired of having to swallow unpalatable truths. He 
scooted to the wall to sit next to Gibson. "Why didn't 
she just tell me?" 

"That you were her son? You still don't get it, do 
you?" 

Liam let out a sigh. "Get what?" 

"Everything Scully has ever done for you has been so 
that you could be safe and away from the craziness of 
her world. Safe - that's what you were in Wyoming. You 
had great parents, a nice home. You had an idyllic 
childhood." 

"But something went wrong - the supersoldiers *did* 
find out where I was." 

Gibson turned his head away. "*Did* it go wrong? Some 
might argue what happened next was for the best. 
Wyoming could never be a permanent solution. Scully 
never understood that. You couldn't be left there. We 
needed an excuse to get you out. 

"The Grays weren't worried about finding you because 
they've always believed you'd end up here by 
circumstance. They have no concept of doubt. For them, 
things just are. No one understands how their belief 
system works. They're not mystics like the 
shapeshifters, but they must have some sort of faith. 
Hell, seeing where we are now, maybe they have a point. 

"But the supersoldiers - and the men who helped make 
them - don't have the luxury of absolute certainty. 
They're too new to have any beliefs. They were 
desperate to have you in time for December 22." 

"That's stupid. Aren't they all on the same side?" 

"You saw what camp was like. People can want the same 
things, but disagree on how to get them." 

"So how did the supersoldiers find me?" An answer so 
surprising popped into his mind, he gasped. "Did *you* 
send them to my house?" 

Gibson's nose twitched. "We knew it would only be a 
matter of time. We knew Doggett had been turned and he 
had some clues on how to find you. Wyoming was no 
longer safe. The immediate threat of supersoldiers was 
the only way I knew I could get Mulder and Scully to 
step in. 

"They got a message with a code word and instructions 
on where to go. They didn't know until the last minute, 
though, what they'd find." 

"Me." 

"If they'd been given any more time, they might have 
tried something different. They wouldn't have agreed 
with my plan. They didn't want to disrupt your life. 
They didn't want any of this for you. And they never 
listened when I told them it would be inevitable." 

"How did you know Doggett had been turned?" 

Gibson sniffed. "I was told it was going to happen. I 
didn't have a chance to stop it." 

"Who told you?" 

"Someone who controls the flow of information. That's 
all you need to know." 

"Someone keeping watch." Liam turned in time to see 
Gibson's tiny nod. 

Sensing the danger of the subject, Liam took another 
tack. "What did they do to you? I saw the room with the 
supersoldier cocoons and the green stuff. Did they try 
to put you in one of the pods?" 

Gibson shook his head. "There's a room. It's like the 
energy center of the ship, but it's not like energy as 
we know it - it's part of them. They wanted to see if I 
could become a part of it. I can't." He put up a 
bandaged hand. "Human flesh is frail." 

"I've seen that room." Liam swallowed, looking at 
Gibson's mummied arms. How close had he come to the 
same fate? 

"Why do you think they have all those pods? I thought 
people just caught a virus and turned into 
supersoldiers later on?" 

"Clones. They needed humans to create supersoldiers - 
but clones are better. Quicker to grow, less expensive 
to feed." 

"Oh," Liam said queasily. "I don't want to be a 
supersoldier." 

Gibson reached out and, finding Liam's arm, patted him 
awkwardly. "You are what you are, brat. You can't run. 
None of us can." 

"But shouldn't we fight? Isn't that what you want?" 

"I used to." Gibson touched his hands to his cheeks. 
"Fighting hurts. I don't know that the price is worth 
it." 

Five days stewing over the betrayals - but now, looking 
at Gibson, Liam struggled to know what to be angry at. 
He squirmed, trying to get comfortable, absorbing what 
Gibson was telling him. 

He stared at the wall in front of them, hypnotized by 
his thoughts. "We wouldn't have believed them - if they 
had told us. Dad would have chased them off the 
property. And I guess after that they didn't know how 
to say anything. It would have been weird." 

"Mulder and Scully knew you'd have enough to deal with. 
You, and your mom and dad." 

"But we trusted you. We trusted them. Now I don't know 
where my mom and dad are - and they won't know where I 
am." He frowned suddenly. "What am I saying? You can 
hear them, can't you? In your mind. Are they alright?" 

Gibson dipped his head. "Sorry, kid. It doesn't work 
that way for everyone. Wherever they are, your parents 
are too far for me to reach. This room doesn't help 
either." 

The sudden hope in Liam's heart died. He hugged his 
knees to his chest, trying to keep the sting out of his 
voice. "If you'd told us the truth, we wouldn't be 
here." 

"Scully was afraid of scaring your parents. Afraid that 
if they knew the truth, they'd take you and run. She 
was afraid she wouldn't be able to protect you. Scully 
tried her hardest to make a new life for you. She tried 
fighting the truth. Can't blame her - that's what 
mothers are supposed to do, aren't they?" 

"Did your mother" - Liam stumbled - "did she try to 
help you?" 

Gibson went rigid. "My mother got written out of my 
life." 

Was that some sort of euphemism? Liam shuddered. 
"What's going to happen?" 

"Who knows?" 

"Can they read your mind?" 

There was no need to say who "they" were. 

"We can communicate, but no, I don't believe they can 
take my thoughts without my permission. I can read 
theirs - but now I know they can also hide their 
thoughts from me. Some of them, anyway." His face went 
hard. 

"You mean Jeremiah?" 

"Sending bounty hunters to the camp - that wasn't part 
of the deal." 

"Kidnapping me was?" 

"You'd have done the same thing. You've got advantages 
we don't have. And if the Grays are to be believed, 
you'd have ended up here anyway." 

Since he was not sure exactly what it was that Gibson 
had done (apart from arrange for him to be kidnapped 
and injected), Liam felt he could argue the point. But 
there was something more important to consider. 

"What about Ellie? Where is she?" 

"With her parents, presumably. We had to find a way to 
delay you in the desert. Jeremiah planted the pack. I 
don't know how he did it, but kidnapping her wasn't 
part of the plan." 

Liam shook his head. "But how did he get Jerry? He 
killed Jerry." 

Gibson shrugged. "What do you want me to say?" 

"How about sorry?" 

"But I'm not. I could say I was - would that make you 
feel better? We both did what we felt we had to do." 

"You wanted to get me onto the ship." 

"It had to be you. There was no other way." 

"Why me?" 

Gibson banged his head against the wall. "Have you 
listened to nothing I've said? You're not a test 
subject to them. You're not a lab rat. They think 
you're one of them. They were less likely to check you 
at the border, so to speak." 

The spot where the injection had gone into Liam's 
ribcage five days ago ached on cue. 

"If things had gone to plan, you wouldn't have been on 
the ship very long. Getting you on was a calculated 
risk. I was going to take over. Jeremiah was supposed 
to have you off the ship within the hour. That won't 
work now." 

Without knowing where it came from, a name formed on 
Liam's lips. "Esther." 

Gibson nudged him with his shoulder. "She has a habit 
of getting under your skin." 

A thought occurred to Liam. "You were famous for 
playing chess. You taught Eric and Rudi." 

The change in topic brought a small smile to Gibson's 
face. "Chess is a game of strategy. It helps knowing 
what your opponent is thinking." 

"This has been one whole chess game to you. You never 
gave up. *You* slipped my medical folder under our 
door." 

Gibson nodded. "I had to find some way to get you away 
from the camp." 

"My name - my old name - was on the file. Mom worked it 
out ..." 

"Your mom's a smart lady. I knew she'd figure it out - 
and I knew she'd recognize the danger you were in." 

"What danger?" 

Liam had never questioned his safety at the compound. 
Not really. There had been scares - especially after he 
broke curfew - but the thrill of adventure, and later 
on the monotony of routine life, had pushed away 
lingering concerns of threats. 

"What do you think would have happened to you if 
Drummond found out?" 

"But I'm a kid -" 

"Not if you're the commander, you're not. It was a risk 
having you in the camp, but as long as we could keep 
your secret, it was the safest place. Our friend kept 
an eye on us from outside; Mulder, Scully and I kept a 
watch on you inside." 

"Why didn't Dr Scu" - Liam struggled to know what name 
to use for his biological mother - "Why didn't she give 
me the vaccine?" 

"Scully believes you don't need it. I don't understand 
the science, but your DNA is the basis of the vaccine. 
Everything comes from you. Both the vaccine and the 
supersoldier cure - although cure isn't exactly the 
right word. You don't need it - or it wouldn't work on 
you anyway." 

"She gave me a fake one." 

"She shouldn't have done it. She knows that. She gave 
up the right to make those sorts of choices for you. 
She couldn't stop herself. She just wanted you not to 
worry. They both did. Mulder argued with her, but when 
it came to you, he deferred to her." 

Liam turned over these new facts slowly. A corner of 
his heart ached. 

*If only* - 

"Why didn't they just run away with me? All those years 
ago? You kept me hidden. You could have helped them." 

"Circumstances were - difficult. But mainly, Scully 
could never be free - not unless she wanted to gamble 
with her life. She had that chip in her neck." 

Liam's eyes burned as though sand had been blown in 
them. "She got rid of it - when she went back for 
Jerry." 

"There's nothing she wouldn't do for you." 

"The cancer ..." 

"Was kept in check by the chip." 

Liam blinked away a sneaky tear. "But she got better - 
she was sick and then she got better." 

"Jeremiah healed her - to force Mulder to move. I 
needed Mulder to get ..." Gibson's mouth twitched. "He 
wasn't going to leave her side - not when she was so 
sick - so Jeremiah stepped in. He never really left the 
camp. He simply disguised himself as another refugee. I 
agreed to keep his secret. I thought we were both 
working on the same side." 

"But the cancer's come back. Why can't he help her 
again?" 

"Jeremiah can heal her but he can't cure her. The 
cancer will keep returning." 

"So she's dying." 

Gibson exhaled. "Worse, brat. She's dying - for you." 

Liam sought comfort in his own hug. "I didn't ask her 
to," he said, his voice small and lost. Gibson patted 
him again. "You didn't ask for a lot of things." 

They sat side by side in silence while Liam digested 
the story. Every now and then Gibson gave a whimper. 
Whatever he had planned had failed spectacularly. His 
pieces had been wiped from the chess board. What more 
was there for them to do? Without a way out of the 
room, they were stuck - unless rescue was on its way. 

Liam had had no proper visions from Doggett for days. 
He didn't like to consider what that might mean. At 
least with Gibson, the room didn't feel so heavy. He 
could concentrate - could focus his mind - more easily. 

If he gave in - if he went back to the round room - he 
might be able to help Gibson. The round room was where 
Gibson was injured - but that might not happen to Liam. 
That's what Gibson was saying. 

Liam might be able to help a lot of people. If he could 
heal people, could he heal Dr Scully too? Maybe the 
humans had made a mistake? Maybe the Grays weren't bad 
- just misunderstood. Maybe they didn't want to hurt 
anyone and everything was just an accidental. A cosmic 
misunderstanding. 

The pain on Gibson's face was hard to ignore. Yet the 
Grays had done just that. They had ignored his pain. 
And the pain of every type of being they pulled into 
their neverending quest to reach the end. Humans were 
nothing to them. 

They truly were alone. 

*And that's why they have to be stopped.* 

He glanced down at his hand which rested on his ribs. 
The words were out of his mouth before he knew what he 
was saying. "Your plan - what if *I* did it instead?" 

"Do not fucking tempt me," Gibson muttered before 
raising his voice. "Scully would never forgive me." A 
scowl returned to his face. "Don't think I wouldn't get 
you to. It's the perfect solution. But it's a bad idea 
for one overwhelming reason - it's too risky. We might 
end up making the situation worse." 

*You mean I might end up becoming the commander.* 

The coolness of the room crept into Liam's haunches. He 
tightened his arms around himself to draw in some 
warmth. Even if he could escape this room and this 
ship, he couldn't escape himself. 

-o0o- 

The only reliable measure of time Liam had was his 
stomach. When it started grumbling he estimated it was 
definitely evening. No one had come to their cell and 
the walls had stayed gray all day. He hadn't eaten 
since breakfast. Who knew when Gibson's last meal had 
been. He had gone silent hours before, slumped against 
the wall. 

Liam sat beside him for a while, counting, arranging, 
and rearranging the towel scraps in front of him. When 
that grew tiresome, he paced the walls, head bowed, 
lost in thought. When his legs got sore, he sat down, 
his hands coming to rest on curious triangular marks on 
the floor. They were so faint he hadn't paid them any 
notice before. He puzzled over the shapes, tracing them 
with his fingertip. 

A sharp gasp from Gibson put him on instant alert. The 
man had tensed. "Something's not right." Seconds later 
they both felt it. A tiny vibration in the floor. 

Liam looked around the metal room. "We're not about to 
takeoff, are we?" 

"No. Maybe. I can't tell." Gibson pushed a hand into 
his eye. Sweat still coated his forehead. Minutes 
seemed to pass before he let out a breath and dropped 
his arm. "It's gone." 

They waited but the ship had gone calm again. 

"How you feeling now?" Liam asked. 

Gibson brought his hands together like he was examining 
them. "I just wish it was all over." 

It sounded like a dismissal. Liam resumed his pacing of 
the walls. He needed distraction from the gnawing in 
his stomach. He supposed Gibson might be weary, but he 
couldn't help himself, blurting out a question he had 
longed to ask. "Why were you so mean to people? To me?" 

Gibson blinked in surprise. "Can't you guess? You had 
not one but two sets of parents who'd have done 
anything for you. You intrigue people without 
disgusting them. You could have been the anti-Christ 
and Scully and Mulder still would have walked through 
fire for you." Resignation filled his voice. "Me? My 
life was different. Some people *called* me the 
anti-Christ. It makes you bitter." 

He resettled himself against the wall. "My parents 
never stuck around for me. Scully and Mulder would have 
cared for me. Doggett did for a while. Him and Monica. 
But somehow you were always there. You were the goal. 
You were the one we all had to protect. 

"No one in my life cared for me like that. Not even 
Mulder and Scully." 

"Do you hate them? Is that why you brought me here?" 

Gibson almost growled. "I *hate* the men who worked for 
the Grays. As for everyone else - I've learned to live 
with the disappointment." 

His closed eyes were probably a sign to stop badgering 
him. 

Liam walked around the room some more, ignoring his 
hunger pains and processing as much of the day as he 
could: the way the supersoldier squeezed his hand when 
they passed certain marks on the floor; the light 
guide; the smoky story walls in the round room; the 
writing he had found himself printing; the pillar and 
the dark shadow inside it. 

He knew now what the Grays were looking for - and what 
they promised. Memories and knowledge. But what did 
they want from him in return? How would he be their 
commander? What did they think he could do? If it meant 
giving everyone what they wanted, would it be so bad? 
Not all supersoldiers were bad - not anymore. 

The illness which had affected Doggett had done 
something. He could remember who he was. He could make 
choices. He had been with Mulder and Dr Scully when 
they tried to stop him getting on the ship. That meant 
he was on their side, didn't it? 

They had infected the second captured supersoldier but 
no one knew what had happened to her ... 

Gibson lay stretched out against the curve of the wall 
and floor. Sleeping again. 

The mysterious markings on the floor continued to draw 
Liam. 

Did they relate to the portals somehow? Could they be 
operated by a weight trigger? A combination of weight 
movement? Liam padded on his feet, trying various 
sequences, each more elaborate than the last. 

But that couldn't be right. Not only did it look 
ridiculous, it didn't match anything he'd seen the 
supersoldiers do. They had been their usual stiff 
selves, staring straight ahead. 

Keeping his eyes in one direction while holding a 
frozen stance was not as easy as he had imagined. His 
lawless gaze shot off in chaos. 

Concentration was the key. That's what this room was 
about. That's what they wanted him to learn. They 
*wanted* him to find a way out. 

*Breathe in. 
Breathe out. 
Drift in. 
Tune out. 
Be now. 
Be -* 

The room lurched. Liam's knees smacked the bucking 
floor. Sharp pain jarred his wrists as his palms 
slapped against the metal to stop his fall. 

*Did I do this?* 

He looked up, hopeful for the orange glow of the 
portal, but had no time for disappointment. Another 
shock flattened him. This wasn't his doing. The room 
was a kick drum. Boom after boom after boom exploded 
deep within the ship. 

"Shit." Gibson stared at nothing in the distance. 
"Rebellion -" 

"What?" 

"They're trying to disable the ship - the 
supersoldiers." 

"Disable? Or destroy?" Liam yelled as the floor started 
tilting again. The pads of his fingers burned into the 
metal to halt his slide. 

Gibson had nothing to give him purchase. The slant sent 
him careening head first. Hoping desperately to stop 
him crashing into the wall, Liam let himself fall too. 

The floor leveled itself as they smacked into the outer 
edge of the room. Gibson was a crumpled tangle. He 
blinked away tears from his burnt cheeks and gulped 
down the pain. 

The ship righted itself, allowing Liam to scramble to 
his feet. 

"That's it," he said. "I'm getting us off this ship."