LUCEM
LXXXIX

The plane again gave a sudden loud jolt.

Marbella was speechless, words dying down her throat. Magenta jumped to his feet. We all rushed to the cockpit.

Lights flashing, alarm bells that I don't understand. Magenta scans the monitor at the same time as Venus, and the two share a view.

The plane gave another loud jolt, and I slammed, hard, into something sharp and made of metal. I made a long swearing and for some reason, Magenta reached out to help me.

i'm freaked.

“Will someone tell me what's going on? What the hell's going on? Are we being shot from the sky right now?” I turned around, observing the flashing lights, a loud beep echoing throughout the cabin. “Design vu fucking! I know that!"

Magenta took a deep breath. Closed his eyes. "We're not shot from the sky."

"Then-"

“As we enter the airspace of Grimoland,” clear Venus, “their bases are alerted to the presence of our unauthorized aircraft.” He glanced at the monitor. "They know we're here, and they're not happy about it."

"Right, I understand, but—"

Another great jolt and I fell to the floor. Venus did not seem surprised. Magenta stumbled, but gracefully, and collapsed into the cockpit seat. Surprisingly he looks relaxed.

“So, um, okay— What happened?” I gasp. My heart is beating fast. “Are you sure we won't be shot from the sky again? Why is no one panicking? Did I have a heart attack?”

"You didn't have a heart attack, and they didn't shoot us from the sky" Magenta said again, his finger hovering over the button, sweeping the screen. “But they have activated the plane's remote control. They've taken over the plane.”

"And you can't rule it out?"

He shook his head. "I don't have the authority to override the commander-in-chief's official orders."

After a moment of silence, he straightened his body. Turn around facing us.

"Maybe it's not too bad" he said. "I mean, I'm not so sure how we're going to land here or how it's all going down, but it's definitely a good sign that they want us to get in there alive, right?"

"Not necessarily" said Venus quietly.

"true." Magenta. “Yes, I realized it was wrong only after I said it out loud.”

"So we have to wait here?" I felt my panic begin to fade, but only slightly.

“We just wait here until they land our plane and then when they land our plane, they surround us with armed soldiers and then when we get off the plane, he said, they kill us and then—you know, we die? That's plan?"

“That,” said Marbella, “or they could tell our plane to crash into the sea or something.”

"Oh my God, Marbi, this isn't funny."

Venus looked out the window. "He's not kidding."

"OK, I'm just gonna ask you this one more time, why am I the only one who's scared?"

“Because I have a plan,” said Magenta. He glanced at the dashboard once more. "We have exactly fourteen minutes before the plane lands, but that gives me more than enough time to tell you all what we're going to do."

First, I saw the light.

Bright, orange, flaring behind my eyelids. Sounds began to appear shortly afterwards but the disclosure was slow, muddy. I heard my own breath, and then a slow thump. Metal hissing, gusts of air, sounds of laughter. Footsteps, footsteps, sounds that say—

Lucio

The moment I was about to open my eyes, a stream of heat flowed throughout my body, burning bones. Strong, percolating. It pressed hard down my throat, suffocating me.

Suddenly, I was numb.

Lucio, said the voice.

Lucio

I listened

"A little while now."

A familiar voice of a man broke through the fog of my mind. My fingers twitched in cotton sheets. I felt an insignificant weight from the thin blanket that covered the bottom of my body. Clasp and needle sting. Sadness roars. I realized, then, that I could not move my left hand.

Someone's clearing.

“It's been twice trial and not working as it should,” someone said. The voice is not foreign. Angrier.

"With Magenta gone, this whole place will be hell."

"Anna managed to make a big change to this man's body," the man said, and I wondered who he was talking about. "There's a chance that something in his new physical makeup is preventing his sedative from disappearing as quickly as it should."

Laugh without humor. “Your friendship with Anna has given you a lot over the last few decades, but a medical degree is not one of them.”

“It's just a theory. I think it might po— ”

"I don't care to know your theory" said the man, cutting it off. “What I want to know is why you think we should hurt our main subject, whereas maintaining his physical and mental stability is very important to—”

"He, it makes sense," interrupted another man. “After what happened last time, we just want to make sure that everything goes as it should. We came just to test it lo—”

“We all know about your penchant for torture, so just shut your big mouth and keep working. The updates on his ailing mind had faded. We're running out of time.”

“We are not running out of time,” the man said again, sounding very calm. “It's just a small setback. Anna or Mr. Bababawanna can fix it immediately.”

"Little setback?" Another man's voice rumbled. “This lucio lost consciousness. We are at high risk of regression. The subject should be in a static state. I let you control that guy, again, because I honestly don't think you'd be this stupid. Because I don't have time to babysit you. Because Tuktuk, Tukta, and Tukti and I are all trying hard to do your and Anna's work in addition to our own. Other than.”

“I did my own job well,” said the man, his voice like sour. "Nobody asked you to come in and take care of it."

“You forgot that you lost your job and your place when Anna's daughter shot you in the head and claimed your departure for herself. You let a teenage girl take your life, your livelihood, your family, and your people out the front of your nose."

“You also know that she is not an ordinary teenage girl,” said the man. “She's Anna's daughter. You know what he's capable of—”

"But he didn't!" The man who spoke grimaced. “The half reason this man and the girl are destined to live in isolation is so that she never knows her full strength. He is meant only to metamorphose silently, undetected, while we wait for the right moment to establish ourselves as a movement. He was only entrusted to you because of your friendship with Bababawanna for decades — and because you were a cynical and cunning novice who was willing to take any job you could get to ride."