Brave Fear (boyxboy)

Chapter 27

The voice chimed out its singsong message once more as if to remind Zane of the complete hopelessness it conveyed. "Intruders identified. Automatic pilot remotely engaged."

Zane felt his heart sink at the words.

Wawrzynski had played them again. He had never intended to let them leave New Vancouver unintentionally. He had always been one step ahead of them, predicting their moves.

Zane should have known these planes would have remote autopilot. And if he didn't, Jonas should have. But it had never crossed their minds. He was stupid to think they could have been free. There was no freedom in the world. A great sadness overwhelmed him when he realized the magnitude of those six words that had been relayed by an inanimate voice.

"He's sending us to war," he whispered.

"What?" Joseph asked, clearly taking a little longer to understand the implications.

"Where do you think the autopilot is taking us?" he said, louder. He gestured to the stack of email correspondence on his lap. "One of these mentions troop mobilization in Germany. Apparently they think they may be able to recruit them to their cause. That has to be where they're sending us." He raised his gaze. Joseph's brow was wrinkled in concentration, his lips forming words only he could hear. Marcus was gaping, his mouth fallen open at the relinquishing of their temporary freedom. Mallory was viciously staring at the cockpit, her eyes narrowed.

"How does he expect to contain us?" Daisy asked, picking at a frayed seam on her shirt. "He knows we're far too powerful."

Zane shook his head because he had no answer to her question. Joseph spoke up. "I thought we wanted to stop this war." Zane had no response for that, either.

Mallory stood up ferociously and stalked over to the ladder. Marcus, with a worried but meaningful gaze back at Zane, followed. The two scaled the ladder and a commotion could be heard. Zane sighed, wishing he could have just a few moments to ponder the implications of the recent events. But he knew he'd have to remedy the situation. Tensions were running high, and he was led to believe he was a great mediator.

He climbed the steel ladder, taking it two rungs at a time.

Mallory had Jonas by the collar of his shirt, her fist wrapped tightly in the fabric. Marcus stood nearby, his hands held out placatingly, trying to disparage Mallory's sudden flash of anger. She heeded him no attention.

Mallory punched Jonas, and he cried out in surprise. She punched him again and he fell to the ground, her fist untangling from his shirt. He reached up and felt at his face, where a bruise was beginning to appear.

"Mallory, what the hell?" Zane yelled, rushing to the boy lying prone on the ground. Mallory shoved Zane back, placing her body between him and Jonas. She was breathing heavily.

"It's his fault!" she screamed. "He turned that autopilot on! He's working with Wawrzynski to make our lives a living fuckfest!" Her face was bright red, the rage spreading.

Zane spread his arms. "He didn't do it," he said quietly, pushing as much sympathy and pity into his voice as he could. "It said 'remotely engaged'. That means it was turned on from somewhere else."

"I don't care!" she yelled viciously, a tear streaming down her face. "We left him alone and somehow with that big bulbous robot brain of his, he turned it on and programmed it to say it was remotely engaged to make us think it was Wawrzynski!"

"Does that even make any sense?" Zane asked, dismissing the theory for poppycock. Jonas wanted to get away just as bad as they did. He had been tortured, tampered with, and tricked by Wawrzynski for many years. Why would he welcome all that back?