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Pago had been right about Hulen forgetting. He was still at his desk when I returned and hadn't mentioned anything about Pago or I to the H.A.R.

Sitting there, those three little words churned over and over again in my head.

Mrs. Westin had been right: the H.A.R. didn't take power-we gave it to them, the hybrids and the humans. Both of us. We saw the destruction left by the H.A.R at Kennedale and MLK and did absolutely nothing about it. No retaliation, no organized revolt. Nothing. We'd allowed what they did.

It was easier that way, easier to moan the sadness of seeing bodies hauled off and dumped into mass graves, all the while rejoicing secretly in the fact that it had been somewhere else, someone else's parent or child. And life, or even half of one, suddenly felt good like a drug and everything around you was precious and wonderful. But if by chance, it was your school being raided, your friends in harm's way, you'd bemoan the sadness all over again.

We were cattle, every last one of us. I wanted to stand, to take up arms and risk everything. I wished I could, but I couldn't. Passivity kept me grounded.

And then, out of nowhere, a spark, an ember, a flame of a chance...

"It's not me, I'm not suppose to be here." It was Hulen. He was standing. He'd cracked.
"Sit down, shut up, eyes on your desk," the guard said.

"You've got to believe me," he said. "I'm not one of them. My uncle is a high-ranking A.I.A. official. Here's my ID. Look me up. I'm not a hybrid."

The muzzle of a gun was pressed into his chest now. The guard looked down the barrel at Hulen: "Number 105, you have 20 seconds to collect yourself and be seated before I'm forced to take action," he said.

"It's...not...me!" Hulen screamed.

The deafening roar of the guard's laser rifle...

I turned my head to see Hulen slumped to the floor, just like in the boy's bathroom, only dead this time. Behind me, the floor was blood-streaked from where they had dragged Jamison's body away. I was blinded by something, though not from the electrocution or bright interrogation lights. Something else. They wanted me to help cover up what they were doing. They wanted me help give this phony positive statement to media:

"Everything is all right. H.A.R. is looking out for us." I was blinded by rage. I hated the H.A.R. I hated the A.I.A. Everything they touched turned to ash. Hulen had it wrong: they were the bloodthirsty monsters, not us.
Hulen was gone to me. In his place, I saw Pago, my friend, slumped over, his balloon lips drooping toward the floor, his tubby midsection, his legs, his hybrid arm peeking through tears in his prosthetic sheath. Dead. My blood boiled, my organs flipped around like a bucket of eels.

Suddenly, it wasn't Pago anymore at all. It was me, my face, my death, my end. And I hated that even more.
I am here.

"You stupid bastard," I said, standing. "That was my best friend you shot."

"Number 106, you have 20 seconds to collect yourself and be seated before I'm forced to take action," the guard said.

His rifle and scope were on me now.

Through Hulen's death, I saw a way out, a means to break free of the H.A.R. and their grip on our school.

"That kid you just shot," I said. "He was my only friend, you puss-sucking miserable bastard."

It was a long shot, but what the hell-I am here. I sprinted after him, the track star I never was allowed to be, the warrior in me screaming out. I ran up against his breastplate, beating it like mad, ready to spit back into those cursed black eyes.

The butt of his rifle got my cheek and nose, knocking me back. I fell hard. I thought my neck was broken.
"Hold your fire," the regular commander said, suddenly back on the scene. "What the devil is this?"

"He killed my only friend," I said, getting up to make another dash at the guard. A few tears had already made their way down my chin.

"Save your strength," the commander said, pushing me back.

He looked deep inside me. I felt my nose running with something warm. It ran past into my lips and my mouth. Thick and metallic. Only humans bled, right? It was enough for the commander.

He looked at me, sizing me up: "You're free to go," he said.

"What?" the guard said, his rifle dropping to his side.

"Go home, wash up and report for training, 0900 hours at H.A.R. central division."

"Sir?" the guard said.

The commander's eyes were glassy and emotional. I must've done something to him, way down deep.
"Don't force us to pick you up at your house," the commander said tenderly as if I were his son. "You don't want that."

"No sir," I said. He drew a line with his infrared pen against my bar code, clearing me to leave campus.
"But sir, he might be a hybrid," the guard said.

"No hybrid had such firepower and spirit. Why if you had even one sliver of what this young man has, we could've taken that bridge at Poog Bai at Timmian. Get out of my sight," he said, shoving the guard.

But I didn't get to see all of it. I was already out the door, walking as slowly and as calmly as I could for anyone that had just escaped annihilation.

The sun blinks as tree limbs pass over us. It's so cold outside that my breath on the passenger side of the hover car has frosted the window into an icy fog. I write my name in it.

Mom pulls me closer, holding an ice pack over my swollen eye. Through her coat, beneath her human flesh, I can feel the hardness of her robot endoskeleton, reminding me of what she is, what I am.

Dad is focused intently on the auto-way. He curses under his breath whenever it begins to curve and bend, forcing him to pull back on the throttle. Otherwise, his hand would keep it the red. His silly looking Cloud 9, the one that looks like a giant soap bubble, truly had some power to it. From my view, I'd never seen the world slide by so quickly. We shot across the countryside, hardly touching the ground.

At these speeds, we'd reach the northern frontier in no time and join up with dad's elusive trailer park group. I had a feeling the survival training he'd taken years to forget would come back to him in seconds.

In the back seat were boxes of food, water, whatever we could pile together in as little time as possible. The suitcases were stuffed tight with unfolded clothes. I don't know how we managed to shut some of them. Winter clothes are always harder to pack than summer ones.

The Cloud 9's phone system whistled. A number flashed on the dashboard HUD. I couldn't believe it.

"It's Pago's line," I said.

"I'm not answering it," dad said. "It could be a decoy signal." A text message appeared under the number: "A half-life is still one worth living and not in fear. See you at the frontier, young warrior."

We sat there as a family, basking in the tropical shine of Pago's words.

"I like this Pago," dad said, finally. "I'm sure you guys are destined for great things together."

Mom drew me in closer. How had he managed to get free? There was no telling. All things were possible with Pago. I would travel to the ends of the earth if he told me to. It could be months or even years, but I knew we would meet again, and the time past would be scattered like sand on a beach.

My ankle itched where a patch of bio-metal had begun to form. Those cursed fools with their thought machines-the H.A.R. had hastened my transition. No matter. It meant the preliminary stages were ending. No more nausea, no more headaches or paranoia. I was moving toward being fully hybrid, and I wasn't ashamed or afraid. I was finally free to live, to run and jump, to scream at the top of my lungs, "I am here."

And even without Pago around, I really was.

On the window of the Cloud 9, in frosted letters, the words...I am here...
Letters that do not fade...