Title: Mixed Feelings Category: Books » Host Author: Bisa Language: English, Rating: Rated: M Genre: Horror/Sci-Fi Published: 12-11-08, Updated: 11-07-10 Chapters: 22, Words: 57,407 Chapter 1: Captured Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N I'm currently going through and fixing some of the more glaring errors, fleshing some of the weaker parts out, as well as re-adding linebreaks which were deleted sometime after a FFnet system update in the past two years. I'm currently at about chapter 12 and should be done by 29 Jan 2011.

Mixed Feelings

Captured

He had been told the beginning would feel like the end. Moonlight had been forewarned that humanity was a barbaric race, yet nothing could have prepared him for this.

I know our lives are over; the Seekers are looking for us and have doubtlessly radioed in a report of our presence. I don't know who saw me, or what gave me away, but it doesn't matter anymore. Even if we manage to get away by some miracle, there will soon be helicopter searches and infrared scans of the forest - and we can't hide from those for very long. The centipedes take us very, very, seriously, though God only knows why. It's not as if we can do anything to them, we can barely even feed ourselves. Seriously, what are a lone pair of humans going to do?

Sophia hears the sirens and swears under her breath. I take a final look at my sister. We're beginning to resemble skeletons - it's been a long time since we've been able to get adequate amounts of food. She's grown to be nearly six feet tall, though she probably only weighs 120 pounds soaking wet. She's not complaining about the hunger, though. She never does. "Well, that solves our food problems," she mutters.

Moon was shocked by the way the memory of this bitter, skeletal young woman triggered a protective instinct in his host, strong enough that it felt like his own.

"I told you we would want this," she grimly jokes, picking up her stolen rifle from it's resting place against a tree. That rifle is practically her baby; an AK-47 we found on a raid nearly five years ago. She insisted that we take it, and lugged it herself when I refused to carry it. "For when we get caught," she said, every time I asked her about it. She hadn't spoken a full sentence for months beforehand, and I'm pretty sure it makes her feel safer to have it, so I never made her drop it even when it was inconvenient.

"Let's get moving. Maybe we can throw them off - I'll try and lead them away from you. Run, as fast as you can - stay away from any places we've been to, in case I get caught - stay away from obvious places. Its snowing hard right now, so you won't leave any tracks." I try to stay optimistic though I know we're screwed.

I don't fool her. "Thanks, Alex. I appreciate it, I really do. But... look at us!" She gestures at our skeletal bodies. "We're not going to make it through the winter, anyway." She smiles, sadly. "It's better this way," she adds, sliding a magazine into her rifle. "We get to skip the whole 'starving' bit and we might take a few bugs with us."

Moon shied away from the emotions this last phrase stirred in his host.

I would protest her analysis of our situation, but I know she's right. I pull out my pistol and load it, seeing no alternatives but a last stand - maybe we can make them kill us.

We lay down and wait for the Seekers to come. It doesn't take long before they arrive, making an incredible amount of noise crashing through the snow and winter foliage. It looks like there are five of them, though they're too far away to make out much detail.

"Come out with your hands behind your heads," blares one of them through a megaphone. I'm glad we've got a group of stupid ones - they're standing in a spot where we can clearly see all of them outlined against the snow.

"Go to hell, you fucking bugs!" Sophia snarls at them, and opens fire. She hits one, and it falls to the ground screaming.

The disorienting pleasure that Moon's new host experienced at this violence jerked him momentarily out of the memory, with a gasp. His eyes fluttered.

"He's awake!" Moon heard someone yell in the present.

Sophia gets off another burst of fire, this time hitting two of them. Then one of the survivors returns fire. A near miss blasts a puff of ice and dirt into my face. I reply in kind, though I don't think I hit any of them.

Suddenly there is an explosion of pain in my left arm and chest, and spots dance in front of my eyes. I grunt in pain, and see my blood strewn across the snow behind me.

Sophia's AK roars again, and I hear another cry from one of the bugs. I see it cowering behind a tree. Sophia doesn't have a clear shot, but I do. I line up on the last one, and am rewarded when it falls to the ground after a single shot.

Sophia runs to me after making sure all of them are actually dead."Alex! Oh God, oh God, you have to get up!" she cries, tears streaming down her face.

The world is starting to spin, and I know I don't have much time. I need to get her to run. She might have a chance on her own if they think I was the only one here. "Go... I was the only one they saw on the raid. If they don't know you exist, they won't look for you." I whisper.

"But -"

"Run, Sophia. You can't save me."

"Alex-"

"I love you, Sophia. Be brave, run." Sophia's smart. She knows I'm right, and she takes my advice and turns tail. She won't get caught, I'm certain.

I can't keep up my head anymore, and I let it fall, content that at least Sophia will get away.

"He's screaming!"

Where am I? Where's Sophia?

"Of course he's screaming. Do you know what his host went through, the condition we found him in?"

Somebody talk to me!

"This is barbaric, something that the humans would do. Nobody should have to suffer through memories like these."

... Oh, I see. Well, this is interesting.

"It's necessary. He took out five seekers, for crying out loud - and there's evidence there are others. Some of the shell casings we found around him don't match the weapons of the Seekers he killed or the weapon we found him with, and there were tracks in the snow leading away. We need to know if how many other humans there are in the area. Who knows what they'll do to any innocent souls they run across?"

He's afraid of marauding humans? You must be kidding me.

Gradually, the memory began to subside, and Moon stopped screaming. He slowly sat up, aware that something was very wrong. This host was the most disorienting one he had ever had, and seemed to very nearly have a mind of its own.

Damn right I do. Moon was too distracted trying to exorcise Alex's last memory to catch this coherent phrase from his host.

The Healer greeted him. "Hello, Moonlight. I'm sorry that your awakening was not as pleasant as it could be, but this was an emergency. Are you completely awake yet?"

"Yes. I assume the Seekers will have questions for me, won't they?" Moonlight felt an instinctive wave of hate roll over him at the thought of the Seekers, but suppressed it. He knew that he would have to deal with his host's ingrained reactions for some time. He hoped that they would weaken rapidly as the new emotions were much stronger than anything he had experienced in any of his previous incarnations.

Another person spoke up from the corner. "Yes, we do. Who are these humans, and what weapons do they have?"

Moonlight opened his eyes, and saw a man about his host's age in a police uniform leaning against a wall. He was obviously a Seeker. Moon struggled to suppress another instinctive shiver of rage from his host at the thought of the title. Anger was not an entirely unfamiliar emotion, but Moonlight had never dealt with it very frequently before.

After a moment he searched for the answers the Seeker wanted. "His name was Alexander Conrad. He was traveling with his sister, Sophia Conrad. He was twenty years old, and she was fourteen. Sophia discovered our existence very early on when she witnessed her parents being implanted with souls, and they fled together. That would have to have been about seven years ago." Moon rubbed his forehead. "They had a difficult time. Early on, they were just runaways, but as we infiltrated more of human society it became difficult for them to feed themselves. It eventually became a battle to stave off starvation." Moon experienced a secondhand flash of the growing nightmare the siblings' world had been, and shivered.

"As the Seekers got more organized, it became harder and harder to avoid discovery. It was unlikely they would have survived this winter." He shuddered. "They didn't associate with anyone else - both of them were understandably very paranoid."

The Seeker looked pleased. "There weren't any other humans they knew? None?"

"No."

"And the weapon?" asked the seeker.

"An AK-47." The Seeker looked less pleased at this news. "Sophia stole it from a household they broke into nearly five years ago. It seems like she wanted... wanted..." She wanted to kill some of the bugs who obliterated her world. It's not that hard to understand. Moon heard the phantom voice this time, and paused. It sounded almost like Alex, but that was impossible.

"What did she want, Moonlight?" prompted the Seeker.

"Sophia really, really hates us souls. We took her parents from her, forced her to flee for her life. Most of her life was spent hiding from us, on the edge of starvation. I think... she just wanted to cause harm to the Seekers when she was caught." Moon was bothered that he understood such a pointless, violent sentiment. Humanity was the only species that would even consider something so counterproductive and barbaric. Yeah, I don't think that much of you, either.

"There were no other weapons? No other humans? No organized resistance?" the Seeker asked again. Moon shook his head. "This is a serious threat - a human, armed, and desperate! Where would she go, do you think?" the Seeker asked feverishly.

Moon frowned in thought. "I don't know. She's never been without Alex before, and she's not likely to return to her previous hideout in case Alex was captured. She can't have more than half a magazine of ammunition left for the weapon, and she won't willingly come anywhere near any souls; the Conrads were careful to avoid any attention from us. She thinks we don't know she's out there, so she'll be very careful to avoid attention." Moon's stomach rumbled. "I think the first thing she'll do is try to steal some food. Alex was on a raid to get some when he was seen, and neither she nor Alex had eaten in nearly three days."

The Healer interrupted as the Seeker began to reply. "That's enough, I think. Your questions have been answered. Now please leave, Moonlight will have a difficult enough time adjusting to human life without a Seeker hounding him."

The Seeker handed Moon a card. "Contact me if you remember something you think I would want to know."

A/N This is the first fic I've ever written, and I actually have no idea where I'm going with it. Please review or flame if you like or don't like it.

Chapter 2: Unhinged Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Unhinged

After abandoning Alex, Sophia had fled quickly and thoughtlessly, away from civilization and the bugs, until she collapsed from exhaustion. She had bawled her eyes out for the next several hours, until she couldn't work up any emotions beyond a dull hatred of the universe for taking absolutely everything she had ever cared about away from her.

Sophia was tired, literally starving and freezing, and for the first time in her life, truly alone. Alex, her brother, her only companion for seven long years, was dead. She had seen the wound; it was definitely fatal. Sophia had always thought that they would die or be captured together - they had intended to make a doomed last stand, but one that would leave them together, whatever happened.

Eventually she passed out. She woke up after several hours of fitful sleep, rolling over and ending up with her face in the snow. She sat up, mechanically, and tried to take stock of what assets she currently had at her disposal. She couldn't allow herself any emotion until she had her bearings. "Stay alive and human, Sophia. Then worry about other things," she muttered to herself.

Night had fallen, though in spite of the time that had passed, she didn't feel rested. It was the perfect time for travel, though she felt like just curling up and dying.

She couldn't do that though. She'd promised Alex she'd try to stay alive.

She was about a mile from the nearest road. Her boots were almost new, and would certainly carry her many more miles before coming apart. She was not so fortunate with the rest of her clothes - her pants were Alex's old pair, and beginning to wear thin; her jacket was in fair condition, but too small. After checking her sleeping bag, she found it had been hit by a bullet. Because it had been rolled, that meant there were eight holes in it.

She need to go on a raid. Badly. Her stomach rumbled, accentuating her conclusion. And yet, a raid was also the last thing she needed - the bugs didn't know she existed, but would be on the lookout after a human killed a ton of Seekers. It was probable she would be discovered, and that left her between a rock and a hard place. Without a better jacket, sleeping bag, and food, she would be dead before the week was out, but if she raided a town, the Seekers would come after her in force.

She still had the AK, and a backup pistol. She checked the AK's magazine, and found that it held twenty-one rounds. Together with the pistol's eight rounds, plus one in the AK's chamber, she had thirty shots. If it came to it, that meant twenty-nine potentially dead Seekers, plus one bullet left for herself.

She saw another path, a better path. If she left the region, went far away - out of state - she could raid at will, and the Seekers wouldn't be on such a high alert. She'd have to hijack a vehicle, but that would be easy - the bugs were surprisingly cowardly at gunpoint. Yes, hijacking was a better plan than a suicidal raid.

Her path settled, Sophia allowed herself to try and sort out her feelings.

Something within her felt numb, broken - she couldn't muster much emotion towards her brother's death, or even anything beyond her average day-to-day hatred at the bugs. She had always known a day like this would come, and Alex seemed to become less significant when she thought about it in the backdrop of the death of humanity. The bugs had ended the lives of six billion people - what did one more matter against that kind of scale?

Her brother was dead, and she felt no grief. None at all. Especially since she knew she'd be joining him soon, no matter what she did. The Seekers knew she existed – that meant game over was coming, very soon.

A tear rolled down her cheek, and she fell backwards to stare blankly at the sky.

After a time, her stomach rumbled. While she couldn't, wouldn't, summon much emotion, she did care whether or not she got something to eat. She hadn't eaten anything for - well, it seemed like forever since the last time she hadn't been hungry. I'm not going to go far if I collapse from hunger. I really, really need food, she thought.

Despite her nearly blind flight away from the scene of Alex's death, Sophia still knew where she was relative to the road. She set out staggering towards it, in a fatalistic sort of mood. She didn't really care if she brought the Seekers down on herself, as long just as she could get something to eat.

It took ten minutes, but finally an SUV passed by with no other cars in sight. Sophia stepped into the middle of the road, blocking the driver's path. The car came to a halt in front of her, and the parasite inside rolled down the window. It wore the body of a young woman, probably only a few years older than herself. It looked healthy, relatively happy, and warm. She felt a stab of jealousy towards it, and its comfortable, comparatively easy life.

"What's going on?" it asked her, looking worried. Sophia hadn't bothered to try to hide any of her features, and she knew how she must appear - covered in her brother's blood, blond hair haphazardly hacked short, in mismatched clothing. Its silver eyes widened as she pulled the AK off her back. Sophia couldn't help but be amused at that, but part of her still felt nothing.

"Park on the side of the road and unlock the doors. If you scream, I'll kill you." Sophia had considered shooting the thing right now, but thought better of it; she only had thirty rounds left, and she'd want them later, when there were Seekers coming for her again. Sophia clambered into the vehicle's backseat. "Drive southwest," she told it. "You'll be the first to die if any Seekers come gunning for me, so don't try anything to get their attention."

As the car began moving, the parasite started talking. "You're Sophia Conrad, aren't you?" it whispered, breathless. "How do you know my name?" Sophia murmured, quietly. "I saw an emergency warning about you on television yesterday." With those words, Sophia knew she was a dead woman walking. She already knew that though - it wasn't exactly news. Still, a warning on television... She had to admit, it was pretty cool, even though it was a death sentence. She might be utterly screwed, but at least she'd go out in style.

"It had a description of you with a professional sketch," the centipede continued. "They said you were to be considered armed and dangerous. You should turn yourself in and avoid bloodshed - everyone in the state is on the lookout for you."

"I don't think so. We're leaving the state, you see. And you'd better hope the Seekers don't find us, because if they do, I'm shooting you, first."

The car was silent for a moment.

"What's your name? What do you do for a living?" Sophia asked abruptly. "You know all about me, but I've got nothing on you. 'Hey, you' isn't going to work out long-term."

"I'm Zoe," it said quietly, then whimpered as it saw irritation flash in Sophia's eyes through the mirror.

"That's a human name. I didn't ask about the girl whose body you stole, I want to know about you. What the hell's with the act, anyway? You know I know what you are."

"It's not an act. We take our names from our hosts," Zoe said. "Some choose names from the previous planet they lived on, but mine translates poorly." Zoe didn't know what to think about Sophia's strange conversation, but as long as she wasn't shooting... They were through town, and if Sophia was distracted someone would see her rifle and call the Seekers.

"Try me. While you're at it, go to that Burger King on the outskirts of town." Zoe hid her disappointment as Sophia put her AK under the passenger seats and drew a small pistol. "Go to the drive-through. We're getting four of whatever their largest burger is. I don't want any trouble from you while we're at it." She pulled back the pistol's slide, chambering a round.

Zoe gulped. "Why are you doing this? What do you hope to accomplish? Violence won't solve anything..." she whimpered.

"What. Is. Your. Name." Sophia ground out the words like they were painful.

"It would translate to something like 'Examines Fractals' in English. Please don't kidnap me like this, my mother -"

"We both know you don't have a mother, Fractals. Shut up now, you're pissing me off."

They pulled into the drive-through. Zoe followed Sophia's directions and ordered four heart-stopping quad stackers. She tried to silently communicate her situation to the drive-through clerk, to no avail.

They pulled out of the drive-through, and began driving south once more. Between bites, Sophia began talking again.

"What's your job, Fractals?" she said, around a mouthful of burger.

"I tracked down the families of human hosts captured after we first took over," Zoe said. Sophia's eyes narrowed, and she clicked off the safety on her pistol.

"You're a Seeker? Stop the car." she said.

"No, no, I'm not! I reunite families after they were separated by their hosts fleeing the Seekers. I was actually looking online to see if I could find your parents, recently. Why do you care, anyway?"

"If you were a Seeker, I'd have to kill you." Zoe's blood chilled.

"Why are you humans so violent? It only causes problems..." Zoe whispered, half to herself.

"Let me tell you something, Fractals. When I was a little girl, I got to watch both of my parents having one of your kind put inside of them - dying - at the hands of one of your Seekers. The only person who believed me was my brother, and everyone else thought I was crazy. We left town as fast as we could, and got to watch as the same scene was repeated across the country. Nobody believed the two crazy kids screaming about aliens, and eventually we gave up trying to warn people about it. Your kind killed my species, Fractals - six BILLION dead - and I got a front row seat. Don't try and get on a high horse. At least humanity was honest about it when we committed genocide."

The car was silent for a long time after that, save for the sound of Sophia gorging herself on cheeseburgers.

A/N I still don't know where I'm going with this. I was going to drop it but Sophia kept waking me up saying "Write me, write me!". This is my first fic, so please review, flame, or just comment after reading. Many thanks to TopKat90 for commenting on the first chapter!

Edit 24 Jan 2011 - long overdue formatting and typo fixes

Chapter 3: Epiphany Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Epiphany

Over the course of the next hour, Sophia demolished all four burgers. Zoe was impressed Sophia could eat that much and not get sick, though she wasn't suicidal enough to comment. Something within the human seemed... unstable, to say the least.

Zoe didn't think she was going to make her see reason. If Sophia turned herself in, she would be fed, cared for... The problem was that she saw implantation as death. Zoe wasn't sure if Sophia even viewed the Souls as people - in any case, she needed to find a way to escape as soon as she could so she could call the Seekers before anyone got hurt.

Sophia started flipping the safety of her pistol on and off absentmindedly in the backseat. Click, click, click.

Zoe shifted uncomfortably at the noise. As she did so, she felt her cell phone inside her pocket. Suddenly, her prospects seemed slightly better, and she smiled. She'd have to wait until they stopped for the night, but Sophia had to be getting drowsy after eating so much and it was nearly 2 am.

The clicking from the rear seat stopped, and Zoe froze.

"What are you smiling about?" the child asked.

Suddenly the car felt ten degrees colder.

"I'm smiling because... the scenery is beautiful around here," Zoe lied. Poorly.

"Pull over to the side of the road," Sophia said sharply. "Stop the car and get out."

"You don't want -"

"STOP THE FUCKING CAR!" Sophia roared.

Zoe pulled over to the side of the road, chest tight with fear. "I -"

"Get out. Now, damn it!"

She's going to kill me if I don't cooperate, Zoe thought. Her spirits sank as she realized that a human, comfortable with the concept of lying, would spot any deception on her part immediately. She had no options, she'd have to give Sophia the cell phone.

Sophia hit Zoe in the back of her leg with her rifle, forcing her to drop to her knees. Something cold and metallic was pressed to the back of her head. "What the hell were you smiling about, bug?"

"Don't kill me, please... I'll show you." Zoe slowly reached into her pocket and withdrew the phone.

To her surprise, Sophia began laughing. "Its good you suck at being sneaky then, huh Fractals?" She dropped the phone on the ground, and smashed it with the butt of the AK.

"Let me make it clear," Sophia said in a deceptively saccharine tone of voice. "If the Seekers find me, I'm going to kill you. Then I will kill as many of the Seekers as I can. If I win that fight then I'll start on any bystanders until I run out of ammo. Don't fuck with me."

Zoe shivered. How could you respond to that? After a moment of silence, she realized Sophia was waiting for some kind of reply. "I understand," she said cautiously. Who knew what would set the human off?

"Let's go, back in the car. We're going to stop at the next motel we see." Sophia hauled Zoe to her feet, and pushed her back towards the vehicle, making her stumble. Zoe heard her chuckle quietly.

"Everything all right, miss?" the soul at the desk of the motel's office asked.

Zoe realized she was wringing her hands. She was acutely aware of the fact that Sophia had a clear line of fire from the car into the office, and wouldn't hesitate to blow her away if she became a hindrance - it was enough to make anyone nervous.

"Yes, I'm fine," she lied. "I don't usually travel that much, and it makes me nervous." Sophia was almost certainly serious about killing everyone she could in the event of discovery - thus all of their lives rested on Zoe's not-so-impressive acting skills.

"Well, you'll probably feel better after a good rest. Why are you out so late, if you don't mind me asking?"

Zoe hadn't thought far enough ahead to make a solid cover story. "Um... My roommate and I are heading back to college. I thought we could make it in one night, but I was starting to get drowsy."

"Yes, its better to be safe than sorry." The soul brought up a window on his computer. "What's your name, miss?"

Zoe paused. Sophia refused to call her by her actual name, and they might be overheard. "Examines Fractals," she said.

"Oh, a Spider! How interesting, I've never been there. Did you like it there?" It was just her luck that she'd arouse the interest of the clerk.

"It wasn't as nice as Earth. You could understand everything, but they don't have emotions like humans. It got boring fast." She faked a yawn. "I don't mean to be rude, but can I get going? We're both exhausted."

"Certainly, certainly. Here you go, room four." He handed her a key. "I get so used to the night shift, I forget other people aren't used to keeping such hours. I'm sorry about that," he apologized.

"Thank you," she said, hurrying out the door. She breathed a sigh of relief and waved to Sophia in the car while walking to room four, signaling she had the key. Sophia left the AK under the passenger seat and ran over, staying out of the light. If Zoe hadn't known she was there she would have been invisible.

She was holding a roll of duct tape Zoe recognized from the back of her car.

"Good job, Fractals," she said, taking the key and opening the door. She pulled Zoe inside the room and locked the door. Rapidly Sophia bound Zoe's hands and feet together behind her back and dragged her behind the bed. She heard the rasp of tape again and then Sophia placed a strip over her mouth, preventing her from making any noise.

"Be good now," Sophia said, heading into the bathroom.

Sophia stood in the shower, luxuriating under the hot water and watching as the accumulated blood and filth of several months washed down the drain. This plan was working out better than she had envisioned - Fractals was too terrified of the results to try and warn anyone. She hadn't realized how much the bugs cared about each other, but Fractal's response to her earlier threats had revealed an exploitable weakness. Its reaction was almost... human. She knew the souls were pathetic actors from the few times she'd seen the television shows they produced.

If she didn't know for a fact that Fractals had killed a girl named Zoe, that it was a thief and a murderer, she might even feel bad. The way it acted... if she wasn't careful, she'd start thinking of it as a person, not an alien parasite thing that was bent on seeing her demise.

As it stood now, Fractals knew how the aliens' society functioned - and it could possibly reveal flaws she could use to her advantage. With Fractals terrified she would go on rampage, she didn't even have to keep it within her line of sight. She'd never have to raid a store again.

That left the question of what to do next. Her jacket was too small, and her jeans were not in the best condition. It wasn't as vital now that she had Fractals and her car, but her sleeping bag was full of bullet-holes and also needed to be replaced.

After that, she'd have to find a way to get more ammunition. That would be the most difficult task.

And after that... Hell, with a car, an assault rifle and a centipede, she could do whatever the hell she wanted.

A/N Hurrah directionlessness! Review, flame, or just comment, but let me know what you think. Thanks to TK-MR, Jaffee Leeds, Evil-Clowns-Rule, fusedtwilight and TopKat90 for commenting on previous chapters!

Edit 24 Jan 2011 - Typo/formatting fixes

Chapter 4: Secrets and Lies Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Secrets and Lies

Moon was in the back of a bus, heading towards the local college. Alex had fled from the souls before finishing high school, and so Moon had to suffer through a battery of placement tests for the next several days to find out where his education should restart.

The past two days had been the strangest that Moonlight had ever experienced in any of his lives. In neither of his previous lives had he ever heard of a host body which remained conscious after the insertion of a soul. He would have thought that Alex would try to retake control of his body, but he remained civil (though moderately hostile) the entire time. *Hey, I should have died in that forest. I figure any more time I get is just a bonus - I guess I'm kind of like a ghost. Anyway, it wouldn't change anything if I could retake control, would it? I couldn't call off the search for Sophia, right? * Alex responded to Moon's line of thought. He was hiding something, but Moonlight couldn't tell what.

Sometimes Moonlight got the feeling that Alex could read him far better than he could read Alex.

No, you couldn't, Moon responded guiltily.

Heh. It's a good thing for you that Sophia's smart, then. Otherwise, we might have a problem.

That was the one thing that Alex occasionally did use to make him uncomfortable - while neither of them believed that Alex had any information that would help the Seekers, Moon believed it was his duty to help them in any way he could. Alex... didn't. You all have made her life a living hell. She's been hiding from you since she was seven years old. Just leave her in peace, and she'll be glad to do the same with you. What difference does it make if she steals some food? Alex flashed through memories of hunger and terror during this tirade. Moon fought, but was drawn into the memory of a night Alex remembered when they were nearly caught, about four years before.

It's the best time of day to be moving; it's beginning to get dark, and even better, there's a light drizzle that covers the sound of our footsteps. We're going into town to try and scrounge up a new set of jackets, as both of us have outgrown our old ones and winter is coming.

We hear voices and drop to the ground like puppets with our strings cut. I look in the direction of the noise and see four humanoid shapes gathered around something directly in front of us - I can't see what it is. I'm behind a tree, but Sophia is in the open with only grass between her and them. The bugs don't know we're here, but if they look around the area at all they will find us.

What now? Sophia signs at me, using a set of hand signals we've been working out for the past several months.

We're too close to the road and we don't know how many of them there are, I sign back to her. One of them will hear us if we try and fight them. Crawl to that ditch on my mark. I point. One of them is looking in your direction right now. She goes very still. Wait... wait... Go!

She moves quickly and silently as soon as I tell her to. Once she reaches the ditch, she covers her face and hair with mud, effectively camouflaging the most visible parts of herself.

"Do you think there actually are any humans out here?" one of the bugs asks another. "I'd think they would stay far away from towns, nowadays."

"I don't think there are any, but suffering through the cold is a small price to pay to ease people's minds," another responds. "That's why I became a Seeker. Any humans out there wouldn't bother with such a small town anyway, but its something people worry about. If there was a real threat, I think a lot more than just eight of us would be patrolling. We're in more danger from bears than we are any humans."

Moon was slowly learning to deal with Alex's ingrained hatred, but this time it was suppressed a moment after he felt it. This was very strange, but Moon had no time to think about it as the memory continued.

Sophia snorts. We need to keep moving, she signs, shivering. I see now that there is a small current of water running through the ditch she's in. She had no choice but to move out of the Seekers' line of sight, but she can't stay there indefinitely.

Lets see what they do. Maybe they'll split up or move on, I hope.

After a few minutes the Seekers fan out into a line and begin ambling away from us. They're not very observant, but all it will take is one of them to walk in the wrong direction...

We stay deathly still, and soon the patrol line has passed by. I signal to Sophia we should get moving, and we run towards the sleeping town, away from the Seekers.

At least we know they're there now.

Moonlight felt another wave of malevolence from Alex, but again, it was oddly suppressed after a moment. He tried to figure out what Alex was up to, but was blocked by another wall.

Leave me alone, Alex thought.

His cell phone rang.

"Hello?"

It was the seeker he'd met his first day on the planet. "There's been a disappearance. Sophia was probably responsible. If so, she now has a hostage and a vehicle. You may remember the missing person; she was the one assigned to find your host's biological parents." Moon did remember her. It had only been two days ago, after all. He wasn't sure why the Seeker was calling him about this, though.

"How can I be of assistance, Seeker?" he asked.

"I need to meet with you later to discuss where Sophia would go if she had a vehicle, and everywhere the Conrads had ever been in the past. When's the soonest you'll be available?"

No, no, no! Alex protested furiously.

Moon ignored him. "I have a bunch of tests I have to take today, but I can see you tomorrow morning."

Alex's education had been cut short by the souls' invasion. Moon had known this on an intellectual level, but hadn't grasped the implications until he stared down at the pages of the test. He could read the text, but he had no idea what any of it was asking him. He was beginning to get discouraged, but Alex refused to stop thinking about the questions.

No, no, I think x must be equal to seven.

It was a blatant attempt to distract Moon from thinking about Sophia. It didn't work, especially since Alex disliked the test as well.

I have to do my civic duty, Moon told him.

She'll leave you alone if you don't bother her, Alex replied, trying to be persuasive. If she sees a bunch of Seekers coming after her, many of them will die, and she'll just kill herself and the hostage anyway. Leave her be.

I'll help the Seekers however I can, Moon thought. I'm certain they'll be able to catch her without any bloodshed.

Yeah, that's what worries me.

After distractedly working on the placement tests for a few more hours, Moon got back on the bus and returned to his apartment. The place was still nearly completely bare, save for a phone on the counter. The light on it was blinking.

I wondered when you'd notice that, Alex thought, wryly. It's been that way since we got here two days ago.

Who would be leaving him voice mail? Moon fumbled with the device, but eventually it ran the message.

"Hey, its me, Zoe!" the message began cheerfully. "I talked to you earlier about finding your host's family. It looks like they never moved, so I found them pretty fast. If you -"

Moon shut it off, disturbed by Alex's tumultuous emotions. Alex didn't know what he wanted Moon to do with this knowledge. He had no desire to see his family - he knew there wasn't anything left of his parents, and seeing them would just remind him of losing them the first time. He did, however, want to see the souls who had taken his family out of a morbid curiosity. These two conflicting things left him feeling quite lost.

Moon couldn't think, overwhelmed by the influx of emotions from his host. Finally, he recognized that there was little he could get done in this state, and decided to go to sleep. Perhaps he'd be able to sort out his emotions in the morning.

A/N As always, please review! You can even flame me or leave a one-word comment, just let me know what you think. If I don't know how I'm doing it's hard to improve!

Thanks to TK-MR, Jaffee Leeds, Evil-Clowns-Rule, fusedtwilight, Pantherfan, and TopKat90 for commenting on previous chapters!

Chapter 5: Inspired Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Inspired

Zoe lay on the floor behind the bed, bound in an extremely uncomfortable position. She heard the shower start in the bathroom, and realized this was the best opportunity she was going to get to warn anyone about the human. Sophia wouldn't be able to hear her trying to escape over the running water, and the AK was in the car.

She struggled against the bonds holding her, but she couldn't work any of them loose. She tried wriggling herself to move, hoping to find something she could try and work the tape off with, but it was exceptionally hard.

Zoe heard the shower shut off. A minute later, the bathroom door opened.

She'd only managed to move about a meter.

Sophia walked over and stood above her with a predatory grin on her face. "Trying to escape, hmm?" She viciously kicked Zoe in the ribs, still smiling. "We've got a busy day tomorrow. You might want to try and sleep." Sophia dragged her back to her original position and drew the window shades closed. "Obviously, I didn't use enough tape," she said, spooling off another length with a sharp rasp.

"Night night, little bug."

That night, both Zoe and Sophia dreamt of the wars which had plagued Earth before the Souls come.

Zoe had a nightmare of being trapped in an endless, pointless conflict in an unnamed third-world country. Children armed with automatic weapons fought brutal battles of attrition and annihilation. Many of them wore Sophia's face, and all of them blamed her for the fighting.

Sophia dreamt of vague memories of strategic bombers, napalm strikes, artillery barrages, and burning cities. Several times she thought she saw Alex inside one of the houses before it was wiped away in flame.

The next day, Zoe entered the office of the motel again to check out. Despite her terror (and developing bruise), she could barely keep her eyes open as she opened the door as she hadn't managed to sleep very much at all. She prayed nobody would see Sophia; her gaunt frame and bloody jacket would give her away as human as surely as a good look at her non-reflective eyes.

"Good morning, Fractals! Did you have a good night of sleep?" asked the man at the desk.

"Good enough, I suppose. We've got classes tomorrow, so we need to get back today," Zoe lied, yawning.

"I've got an extra can of Awake here, if you'd like it. I'd hate to hear you crashed because you were too tired to drive," said the soul.

He had a point. In her current condition, she was likely to fall asleep at the wheel and crash. While that would probably stop Sophia's plans, Zoe herself would likely be killed in the process. And if Sophia survived, she would take out her anger on innocent bystanders.

"I would appreciate that very much, thank you," she said, taking the can.

Sophia watched the two bugs talk to each other through the window of Fractals' car. Her eyes narrowed as she saw the can pass hands. She didn't know what it was, but she intended to find out.

As soon as Zoe entered the car, she leveled the pistol at it, careful to keep the weapon out of the motel worker's vision. "Give it to me, Fractals."

Fractals sighed and handed her the can. "It's just Awake. It's harmless, Sophia."

"Right... What's it for? It just looks like spray-paint or something." Sophia said, holding the can up and examining it.

"If you breathe it in, it resets your sleep cycle. I didn't get much sleep last night and I didn't want to crash and die on the highway. Can I have it back please?"

Sophia looked at the can skeptically. "So if I huff this can when I'm tired, I won't have to sleep anymore?"

"Yes. Please give it back, it would be dangerous for me to drive as tired as I am."

Sophia looked at the can and then back at Fractals. Eventually, she pointed the can at the bug, holding it far away from her own body, and depressed the nozzle.

A fine mist erupted from the can, and she held her breath. Fractals breathed in deeply, and it almost immediately seemed to perk up a little, so the mist couldn't be poisonous.

Sophia took a tentative sniff. It smelled like blueberries. She didn't feel any different, but she'd already had a good night of sleep, so it probably wouldn't affect her anyway.

It wasn't harmful, however it worked. She still wasn't going to let Fractals keep it, though.

"Mine, I think," she stated, putting the can into her jacket pocket. "Let's go. We're going to get some food, and then to the closest mall. I need a new jacket, sleeping bag, and jeans."

Forty-five minutes later, Zoe was frantically trying to estimate Sophia's jacket size. She considered just leaving the child out in the car and calling the Seekers, but it would inevitably lead to a large number of innocent deaths. Sophia had made it clear that if Zoe wasn't back in the car, with a jacket, jeans, and sleeping bag, within fifteen minutes, she would come in and start killing people. The mall had no security guards as it would have in human days - why would it? Souls didn't require watching in the way that humans had, and nobody would expect a human to be as crazy as to attack a crowded center of commerce - it would be certain death on their part.

Sophia didn't seem to place much value on her own life, though. And even if there had been guards, Sophia probably would have outgunned all of them with that cursed AK she always had with her.

Souls were not supposed to hate, but Zoe really despised the child. If Alex had been anything like her, she pitied Moon a great deal.

Sophia lay in the back of Fractal's car, examining her AK while keeping an eye on her watch. The AK was her greatest asset, but it also meant that the Seekers would never, ever stop searching for her. Even if she abandoned the thing, she'd killed a bunch of Seekers with it and her face was on the damned news.

A wave of depression and loneliness rolled across her, and she fought it back – her minutes left on Earth were numbered; she had to accept it and move on. Crying about it would just waste time and wouldn't change a thing – and in the worst case, it might give away her position. The bugs didn't care, her brother was dead, and she was literally the last human being on the face of the planet.

The funny thing was, before her brother had been killed, she would have been perfectly happy to leave the Souls to their own devices. In fact, now she thought about it, running into the Seekers may have saved her life in the short term picture - she had been in a bad way before kidnapping Fractals. Longer term, though... The Seekers were going to catch up with her probably sooner rather than later, and the only plan that made sense was to arm herself to do as much damage as she could when they did.

She looked up at the clock and began to wonder where Fractals was. Nearly ten minutes had passed, but there was still no sign of it. She idly wondered if it had called the Seekers or not. It made little difference to her whether or not it had - with her face on television she was screwed. She almost... no, she did look forward to going out in a blaze of glory, but... She felt that given a month, or even just two weeks, she could find a way to hit the Souls somewhere where it really hurt.

It would be better if Fractals came back soon, but even if it didn't, she would be content in shooting up the mall – there might be somewhere else where she could cause more chaos, but the world was most definitely not fair and she'd have to settle with what she could get. Another minute passed on her watch. Fractals now had less than five minutes, and so Sophia flipped the AK's bayonet forward, locking it into place. She would enjoy this.

Zoe ran outside as fast as she could without drawing suspicion. She knew she had nearly overshot Sophia's deadline and she didn't want to test her resolve at all. She crossed the parking lot to the car, and knocked on the window.

Inside the car, she saw Sophia look up in surprise. After a moment, she opened the door and dumped the clothing and the sleeping bag into the front passenger seat. Sophia sneezed, and looked back at her wrist.

"You're cutting it awful close, aren't you? Two minutes difference and things would be very different around here, Fractals." Sophia said, gently placing the AK on the floor and grabbing the jacket Fractals had just brought her.

She held it in front of her, staring at it. "Red? What the hell is this, Fractals? A bright fucking red jacket? Are you trying to get me killed?"

There were many arguments Zoe could bring up, chief among which was that Sophia had never specified a color. In addition, the parking lot was huge and they were parked far from the entrance. She hadn't known any of Sophia's clothing sizes. All the items were in different stores. With the time constraints she had been under, she'd had no choice but to grab the first thing that looked like it might fit Sophia. Sophia's overriding concern was the response time of the local Seeker station. She hadn't been trying to find something conspicuous, it had just worked out that way, but she doubted Sophia would care.

She settled for the short answer. "No, just captured. Preferably without any deaths." Violence was humanity's domain, not the Souls'.

"Good luck with that," Sophia said, shaking her head. The girl unseated her rifle's bayonet and Zoe swallowed.

"Come on, let's get going."

A/N I finally have a vague idea of where I'm going with this story. As always, please tell me what you think - just comment, or if you feel more motivated you can leave a longer review/flame - and thanks to my previous reviewers, especially TopKat90!

24 Jan 2011 Typo/Formatting fixes and minor edits

Chapter 6: Malevolence Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N This is a violent chapter. You have been warned.

Hangover chapter #1

Mixed Feelings

Malevolence

"Turn on the radio, Fractals. I want to hear a news station."

The parasite reached over and turned on the radio, taking her eyes off the road for a moment in order to find a suitable frequency.

"Fzzz... The search for Sophia Conrad continues. The Seekers now believe that she is connected to the disappearance of Zoe Parva, who went missing two days ago. The Seekers ask our listeners to call them if they see a black 2000 model Ford explorer with a driver matching Parva's description."

The radio continued to detail what Sophia and Zoe looked like, and gave the car's license plate number.

"Well, fuck." Sophia said. The license problem would easily be solved, as screwdrivers were not hard to find, but now that they had a description of Fractals' host body...

All news was bad news, she supposed.

It looked like the bug had outlived its utility. She needed it to drive to the next town over, but after that it would be almost useless. With the bugs aware Fractals was missing, having anyone see its face would be nearly as bad as being spotted herself.

Its host's name had been Zoe Parva. Sophia felt a momentary surge of curiosity about the host woman's life before Fractals had stolen her body. She buried it; allowing herself any sort of attachment to the body of someone she planned on killing could make her hesitate to pull the trigger when the time came. For all intents and purposes, the host woman was already dead, anyway. When she killed Fractals, it wouldn't be murder; she'd just be putting Zoe's body to rest.

She'd have to find a new driver and a new car after she put down the bug. After she found one, she wouldn't have to think about who Zoe had been at all. But... It might still be useful in the short term picture, so she wouldn't kill it immediately. She'd been planning on interrogating it; she'd have to do that before she killed the thing.

First things first, though. Food wouldn't be much of an issue for the next few days, as she'd had Fractals get a couple crates of canned foods just in case something like this happened. She needed ammo, and Fractals would have to stay out of sight and in the dark about that anyway. She was keeping it in line by threatening to go on rampage, and there lay the problem; it would do everything within its power to keep from enabling her to do more damage. Also, as soon as she started shooting, it would stop helping her so readily. This meant that she'd have to keep it from figuring out what she was doing.

The rest of the day, Sophia directed Fractals to keep driving on the highway, with deliberately vague directions such as "Go southwest" or "Turn here" as its only guidance.

She'd been considering where she could get bullets from, and she could only think of a few places that might still have any - Seeker stations, military bases, and the like. Regardless of how much the Souls had gutted the world's militaries, it was unlikely she would get very far at all on an Army base. That left the Seekers.

"Fractals, how many people are in one of the smaller Seeker stations?" she asked.

"..."

Click, click, click, click. Sophia absently flipped her pistol's safety a few times, casually looking out the window.

"The smallest one I ever dealt with had about twenty people on an average day."

Sophia loved the noise that safety made. It was nice, being able to send a message so easily.

Sophia smiled. She figured that at night, at a suitably early hour - say, 3:30 am - it would be almost empty. CCTV cameras, once the bane of her existence, were now no longer an issue - her face was probably on national news! - and so she didn't have to worry about them any longer. She felt she had a solid chance of taking out whoever was inside as long as she had the drop on them. And if she couldn't, it made little difference. No matter what happened, she'd take a few Seekers with her.

It was strangely liberating, not caring about things anymore.

She'd need to find a suitably small station, which wouldn't be too hard with Fractals driving. She'd need to have Fractals park the car somewhere far away from the station, and then...

Zoe stared at the point of Sophia's bayonet, barely ten centimeters from her left eye. The child had ordered her to drive into the woods, away from another one-stoplight town only memorable for its tiny Seeker station. She had then removed Zoe from the car (forcefully and enthusiastically), taped her hands and mouth, and brought her to a frozen creekbed nearby.

"You have thirty seconds to give me a good reason not to kill you. Scream and I'll make it very, very slow." Sophia's voice was harsh and monotone.

Zoe thought quickly, wincing as Sophia roughly removed the tape. She didn't want to put anyone else in harm's way, but looking down the barrel of the AK things seemed different.

"I know where your brother is, Sophia," she said.

Sophia began circling around her, AK still trained on her head. "Alex is dead, I saw it. I saw him die. Try again, bug. Fifteen seconds left."

"I'm not lying. If you knew more about my people's Healers, you would understand how much damage they can repair."

"Bullshit," the girl stated succinctly. "Five seconds, Fractals."

She needed something more. "I know where your family is, Sophia," she desperately said, immediately regretting her words. If Sophia believed her she would come after the unsuspecting Souls like a demon out of human legend.

"Mmm-hmm." Sophia sounded disinterested. She heard a familiar click behind her. "Sorry, Zoe."

Radiant Reflection was considering moving to another line of work. Seeking had been a fulfilling profession several years ago, but today there were barely enough wild humans left to justify the size of the Seeker force. As soon as this crisis with the Conrad girl was over, he intended to move on.

There was a regulation (outdated, in his opinion), that there had to be several Seekers on call at the station at any given time. Thus he found himself at the station in the wee hours of the day, bored out of his mind.

He heard a deep crack from outside the station. Though he couldn't place where he'd heard it before, it set the hair on the back of his neck on end.

"I'd better go find out what that was," he said to Ray, his partner. Whatever the noise was, it didn't quite fit into the Souls' world, but he still couldn't remember what it was. He grabbed a flashlight and his jacket, and headed for the exit. Opening the door, he heard the crack again, this time much louder, and accompanied by the tinkling of shattered glass.

He remembered what it was in a flash of horror. His host had been a veteran of one of humanity's internecine wars. If that noise wasn't a Kalashnikov, he'd eat his own boots.

It's the human from the news! He realized, turning back into the station and drawing his Glock.

Then he heard it again, again, and again, this time accompanied by screaming.

He grabbed his radio. "Conrad's here!" he said. "Does anyone see her?"

He heard the AK again, and this time someone shot back. His partner's voice crackled over the radio. "She went into the basement!" she cried, obviously fighting to stay calm. "I think she killed everyone else, Radiant!"

He ran around the corner into the main hall and saw Ray kneeling behind a desk, crying over somebody's body. An unfamiliar voice came over the radio, young, female, and mocking. "'I think she killed everyone else, Radiant!' Jesus, you guys are pathetic. And thanks for the heads up, bug, I thought you were the only one."

"Conrad. You don't want to do this," he said, keeping an eye on the basement stairwells. There were only two of them, and he could see both.

She ignored him. "Ooohh, what's this? All kinds of goodies down here."

He whispered to Ray, "You watch the left stairs, I've got the other one. She has to come up sooner or later." Ray nodded, wiping her face.

"Ammo! It's like Christmas, guys, you should come down here!" Conrad squealed into the radio. They heard the AK again, once, twice, followed by a crash and then an opening door. "Let's see... thirty cal, thirty-eight, nine mil, forty cal, forty-five... Ooh, you saved me some ten millimeter!"

"Is she high?" Ray asked, confused. "How can she be so..." she trailed off, unable to find the right word.

"She's making fun of us," he told her. "She found the ammo lockup from the early days - everyone wanted to get rid of their dangerous guns and ammo, remember?"

"'Seven point six two by thirty-nine'," Conrad said quietly, dropping the kid in a candy store act for a moment. "Every once in a while, I guess I do get what I want," she breathed into the radio.

"Oh, no," he said, with a sinking feeling. He hadn't been down there for a long time, but if he remembered correctly...

"Three thousand rounds. Damn, I don't think I can carry even a third of that."

"What does that mean?" Ray asked Radiant, noticing him shudder.

"She just found a 3000 round box of AK ammo. We've got to stop her here, because if she makes it out... That's enough for her to shoot until her barrel melts," he informed her. "Watch your side. We can't let her get away."

"Conrad. Put down the guns, we won't hurt you if you do." he lied. There was no way she would be considered suitable as a host after this display of sociopathy. Lying was detestable, but allowances had to be made when dealing with feral humans.

However, the girl wasn't listening. "Give me a minute, give me a minute. Geez, can't I rob you in peace?"

Crack!

"A phone! I guess I should call an ambulance for your friends before I go."

Just keep waiting, she'll have to come up eventually, he mouthed to Ray.

Crack! Crack-crack!

"Bug drugs. I've been meaning to find out what these all do. That Awake stuff is incredible, you should try it." He heard cans clanking in the background as she spoke. "Awake, No Pain, Heal, Still... Oh, there's directions on the side."

Crack!

"Lockers! I wonder what's inside them." Crack-crack! "Uniforms! What a surprise! I wonder if any fit? Then I can be a Seeker too!"

They heard the AK again, several times, and then silence for several minutes.

"Close enough. I'll be up in a second. Tell me how I look, okay? I've got a present for you first, though."

Something sailed up the right stairwell, hissing and trailing silvery mist. It bounced off the wall and rolled next to Ray. She looked at Radiant, and then collapsed forwards.

Still, Radiant thought, covering his mouth and nose while backing up.

Another can flew up the stairwell with an uneven trajectory. This one bounced off the ceiling, and rolled away from him.

He saw a flash of red in the left stairwell and shot at it, realizing too late that it was just a jacket. Then Conrad herself stepped forward, firing on full auto.

Radiant Reflection never stood a chance. He did hit her in the chest, twice, before she brought the AK under control. However, neither round penetrated her freshly stolen body armor, and thanks to her new best friend No Pain, she barely felt a thing.

"I don't think the uniform looks that bad on me," she commented. "What do you think?" she said, grabbing a pair of handcuffs from a corpse and securing Ray's paralyzed body.

After ten trips, Sophia had finally dragged everything - drugs, ammo, Ray, and Fractals' bound body out to her shiny new Seeker-mobile.

She went back inside one last time to look around, saw nothing left that she wanted, and left.

A/N Flame, review, or comment, but let me know what you think!

Chapter 7: Investigated Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Investigated

Moonlight looked upon the camera footage, appalled. He was shocked at the violent deaths of eight Souls, the disappearance of another, and the three thousand rounds of ammunition which were now missing.

Worse, Alex's emotions were bleeding over again. First, he didn't like the inside of the Seeker station. Alex had spent nearly a full third of his life trying to avoid places like this, and despite the fact that he now had nothing to fear, a small voice insisted he should be running and hiding. Bright, even lighting contributed to his discomfort, and the crowd of Seekers looking at him triggered an instinctive desire to run, or fight, or hide. Moon felt his worry over Sophia, and his puzzlement about why she would do such a thing. Worst of all, he felt the pleasure Alex took from the knowledge that there were now eight less Seekers in the world.

Moon felt sick about the last part. Alex realized he was bothering Moon, and focused on the danger his sister was in.

"Give him space, people," One of the Seekers ordered forcefully. "He's only been here three days. People with hosts who were part of the rebellion sometimes have trouble with crowds." Moon looked at the short, graying man and wondered if he'd had firsthand experience with the problem.

"Thank you, Seeker," Moon breathed gratefully. The pressure subsided as most of the crowd dispersed. Though the irrational desire to flee didn't go completely away, it dropped off enough that Moon was no longer paralyzed with fear. Dimly, he still felt Alex's loathing of the place, but he was growing used to dealing with his hatred.

Two Souls were left with him. One was familiar to him, the one assigned to the Conrad's case. The other was the short one who had saved him from the crowd.

Moon took a moment to compose himself, then spoke. "I don't know why she did this, Soaring Leaf, I really don't. When she was with me - Alex, I mean - they were very concerned about attracting any sort of attention from civilization."

"She knows we know what she looks like," Soaring Leaf and the short Seeker said in unison. "Obviously, she doesn't care anymore."

The camera footage continued rolling. "You might not want to watch the next part," the short one said.

Watch. I need to know why she did it. This was borderline suicidal!

Moon thought knowing what had happened might help find Sophia, so he took Alex's order over the Seeker's advice.

The footage showed Sophia come in through a window, guns blazing. Moon looked away as two Seekers died messily. Both he and Alex were disturbed by the look of bliss on Sophia's face as she stepped over the bodies.

The camera footage continued rolling. Five more Seekers fell, then she grabbed a radio off of one of them and walked down a flight of stairs into a basement as another Seeker ran back through the main entrance. She proceeded to shoot the lock off of a door.

She's looking for something. Alex was deep in thought. What's so important she would do this?

Despite the poor video quality, they saw her clearly as she searched the room, and her face light up when she found a huge box of... something.

"What is that room, Seeker? What's in it?" Moon asked Soaring Leaf.

"Munitions lockup. That's the ammunition she stole," he informed Moon.

What does she need so many bullets for? She has to know she'll die if she gets into a situation where she could use that much ammo. both Moon and Alex thought.

Sophia rapidly continued through the rest of the basement, using the AK to remove any offending locks that got in her way. The video cut back to the Seekers above watching the stairwells.

Moon and the Seekers watched Sophia change into a Seeker uniform and take down the last two Seekers. She then went around and shot all of the dead in the head, save the one incapacitated by Still, and then carried a great many things out of the station.

It looks like she just came to rob them... Alex thought uncertainly. It made no more sense to him than it did to Moon.

"Any insights, Moonlight?" asked Soaring Leaf.

Moon registered a flash of understanding from Alex, then sadness. Probing, he found that the wall was back.

I'll talk to you later, he thought, irritated.

Moon shook his head in response to the Seeker's question. "I don't understand it. The Conrads were always obsessive about keeping a relatively low profile. All I can tell you is that she was very happy to find that ammunition for some reason. I'm sorry, Seeker."

Sophia needed to get moving. It wouldn't do to sit in one place and let the Seekers catch up with her.

"Alright, Ray. Just drive southwest until I tell you differently," Sophia said.

"Why would I help you, human?" the Seeker asked, silver eyes glaring.

In response, Sophia pulled out a can of Heal and toggled her pistol's safety a few times. It had the desired effect.

That noise was one of the few pleasures in her life.

For the first time since she was seven, Sophia suddenly found herself with in a favorable situation. She had enough food to last for weeks, which was longer than she expected to survive, three thousand rounds of ammunition (again, enough to last her until she got killed), and just as importantly, nine magazines to put it in. She had a bulletproof vest, a Seeker uniform, and a Seeker's vehicle.

If she'd come across all this before Alex got shot, she'd have thought she'd died and gone to heaven.

She also had a crate full of various Soul drugs. If the Awake and the Still were any indication, the Heal would be nearly magically effective. She didn't know exactly what it did, but that was a problem easily rectified. She had a bonus bug now, didn't she? Fractals was far less useful, but it would be so much more fun to test it on Ray. Sophia was quite curious to find out how well it worked.

In a Seeker's car, with a Seeker's uniform, she could pretty much go anywhere, no questions asked. And with that much ammo, she had the ability to do some damage when she got there.

All she needed was a high value target. And with Soul security being what it was...

Once upon a time, Alex had been a teenage boy interested in the military. As such, he'd known all about the various ways humans had invented to destroy one another. By extension, so did Sophia - the quiet times when they were in hiding got mind-numbingly boring pretty fast. If they hadn't had each other they probably would have gone crazy.

Her comfortable numbness began to erode, and she quickly dropped that line of thought. There wasn't time to have a breakdown right now, especially with a Seeker in the car. A crying fit would probably be fatal.

She wondered if the Souls had scrapped all of the human-era WMDs yet. A nuke would be unlikely - even if one was still around where she could get it, the bugs would undoubtedly have lost the codes. But if she could get her hands on some nerve gas or a sample of smallpox... Just thinking of the damage she could cause gave her the shivers. However, knowing the bugs' pacifist rhetoric, it seemed like a long shot. Anyway, she wouldn't know the first place to look to find any of those things.

She just didn't know enough about how the parasites' world worked. She knew how to hide from it, yes, but beyond how the Seekers operated, she'd never had any reason to investigate it very closely. She didn't even know where they came from beyond the obvious fact that they were from outer space.

It looked like Fractals might still be relatively useful after all. The Seekers were all trained to lie convincingly, but Fractals obviously wasn't.

Zoe woke up in the dark. She wasn't expecting it, and wondered if she was dead for a moment before everything shifted, and she bumped the back of her head. Stars erupted everywhere.

After a few moments, the sound of a car engine registered. I'm in the trunk of a car, she realized. There was still tape around her wrists and ankles, but at least her mouth was free.

If she didn't believe me, why didn't she kill me? Zoe wondered. She must want something from me. Somehow, the thought made her less comfortable than she already was. Judging from the way her head felt, she'd been knocked out.

Several hours later, she wished she'd stayed that way. The edges of the trunk were quite hard, she'd discovered, and with her hands bound she bounced inside of it helplessly. With her numerous bruises from the child, the trip quickly became unbearable, and she began to cry silently. It was a relief when the car finally stopped.

She heard the doors open, and two sets of footsteps fading away.

Time passed. Eventually, one set returned, and suddenly the trunk opened.

Blinking as her eyes adjusted to the sudden change in lighting, she saw Sophia towering over her, looking angry. Zoe shrunk back instinctively from the malice that practically poured off of the human in waves.

The girl was wearing a Seeker uniform, complete with Kevlar. Zoe knew better than to ask questions that she didn't want to know the answer to, and so she stayed quiet.

The child predictably added a few more bruises to her numerous collection of them, then pulled her out of the trunk.

She got a good look around as Sophia was dragging her away from the car. Zoe had no idea where they were, but it was obviously far from where she'd been knocked out. They were in the woods somewhere along an abandoned road, and the car she'd been in used to belong to the Seekers. She also noticed there was blood on the bayonet of Sophia's AK.

She didn't want to know why or whose it was. She really didn't.

Stars exploded across her vision again, and she tasted zinc. When they cleared the child was yelling at her. "Listen to me when I'm talking to you!"

"Please, Sophia, just let me go," she moaned. "I won't -"

Zoe didn't even register that she'd been hit this time. She found herself on the ground several seconds later, head spinning.

"You don't talk unless I ask you a question, got it?"

Zoe nodded, mutely. That small movement made her stomach rebel, and she hoped she didn't have a concussion.

"Good. All right, first things first. How many planets have you infested, and why did you come here?"

An hour and several liberal beatings later, Sophia understood a lot more about the bugs. Naïve, technologically pathetic body snatchers had managed to hijack a series of more and more advanced civilizations. They'd never run across a violent species other than humans, obviously - war had been a foreign concept to them before Earth.

It was just horrendous luck that had allowed them to take over the Spiders' world, which then enabled them to expand their hegemony much farther than ever before. If there was even the slightest hint of cosmic justice in the universe, in a few centuries they'd find another violent species like humanity, who would proceed to wipe them out. Given their outlook on violence, they would not be able to defend themselves - hell, if humanity had realized they were here earlier, they could have done it on their own!

None of this helped her now, but at least she understood a little more about them. Up until now, the bugs had been quite literally alien to her.

But there were further questions to be asked.

"The ships, tell me everything you know about them."

Fractals became incoherent after a while, so Sophia gave it a break. It had started to get a little boring, and her arms were getting tired.

She hadn't expected the Seeker to kill itself. She hadn't even known they could do that. In retrospect, she probably shouldn't have beaten on Fractals so hard either, but she'd been very pissed off about Ray.

Well, at least she knew that Heal worked miraculously now. And she now knew several places she could hit with almost no risk to herself that would yield rich rewards.

Unguarded cryotanks. It's almost as if they want me to kill them all. It can't be that easy, can it?

A/N I'm curious to know who people sympathize with the most in my story. One of my friends read it and came out with a very different outlook than I had intended.

To answer Kat's question in the reviews, Sophia has no special training beyond seven years of growing up with everyone on the planet trying to kill her. A lot of this story was inspired by reading The Host while my roommate was watching Red Dawn :P

Reviews are love! I know almost nobody reads this because it's not a typical romantic fluffy Host story but I'd love to hear the flaws of my writing style from those few that do read!

Chapter 8: Resurfaced Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Resurfaced

Sophia had a problem. She supposed she had hit Fractals too hard; it seemed like it had a concussion. It was completely incapacitated, puking its guts out on the ground.

She wouldn't care, but she couldn't drive very well, and Ray was dead. It was infuriating. She wanted to hit one of the cryotank transports more than she'd ever wanted anything in her entire life – as an act of vengeance, it paled in comparison to the human death toll the bugs had inflicted, but it was the best shot she was ever going to get. However, she was at least thirty miles from the nearest Healing facility which might have any tanks.

It was like finding El Dorado, only to have it be just beyond her grasp.

She could drive, but not well enough to obey any sort of traffic laws consistently. Getting from point A to point B wasn't the problem, it was that the bugs followed all the traffic laws religiously. She'd bring the Seekers down upon herself in minutes. Using the car's sirens would let her ignore the laws, but it would just draw too much attention.

Thirty miles. She smacked herself as she realized how spoiled she'd become with access to a car. She could go that distance in a day or two on foot - she an Alex had walked much longer distances than that several times in the past.

Actually... now that she thought about it, now that she'd made the news, it didn't exactly matter if the Seekers eventually got a report of a stolen vehicle, and so there was nothing to stop her from hijacking another car, was there? Getting away afterward would be a problem, but again, that didn't really concern her very much - she was probably going to get caught soon.

If she was going somewhere, she'd need to secure the bug, first.

Sophia dragged Fractals' incapacitated body back into the trunk of the vehicled, sprayed it with Still, and slammed the lid shut. In the remote possibility she lived through this, Fractals might provide her with another Holy Grail target like this one.

She'd need a way to carry her extra magazines, so she grabbed the roll of duct tape from the car and started fashioning a harness for the extra magazines, deep in thought.

How to destroy a tractor trailer in the middle of a city and still get away... It was an interesting problem. The simplest way would just be to light it up with the AK; the tanks probably wouldn't stand up to gunfire. However, that would be noisy, and more importantly, slow. She couldn't get all of them before the Seekers showed up and killed her.

If she could the truck somewhere else, that would be ideal. Then she could take as much time as she wanted to to destroy its contents. Unfortunately, the bugs cared too damned much about the whole rather than the individual - and now that she knew they could kill their hosts on a whim, torture was out.

It was too bad. She really wanted to go Aztec on a few of them.

She thought some more, before the answer came to her. Gas, she thought. A gasoline truck would yield an awesome explosion. The driver wouldn't know what was going on until too late, and the resulting blast would surely breach the tanks' containment. Getting the truck to blow might be hard, but she'd worry about that once she had one.

She could hijack another vehicle in the confusion. Or, alternately, she could open up on the emergency services when they arrived.

Could be fun, she thought, weaving tape around another magazine. Doubt I'll get away afterward, but who cares? It's not like I'll get another shot at the cryotanks.

The only problem with this plan was that she wouldn't get to see the drama afterward. And the drama would be half the fun.

Also, she'd be passing up on the chance to hit them a second time.

She'd need to consider this on the way. Sophia added a pair of Still canisters to her makeshift harness and then headed towards the nearest road.

Zoe found herself in the trunk again. This time, it was a relief to be away from the psychotic human, even if that meant being locked away, covered in blood and vomit.

She definitely had a concussion. She wasn't puking anymore, but only because her stomach was empty. Her head was pounding and the world seemed to be spinning.

She needed to get away, but she didn't think she could walk even if she could get out of the trunk. Her hands were still bound behind her back. And it would be hours before the paralysis from the Still wore off.

Where am I? came a plaintive voice. Why can't I move?

Zoe would have gasped were she not paralyzed. Just when she thought she might have a moment of relative peace...

Zoe felt a wave of confusion. She'd heard of cases like these before, when a human host retained consciousness after implantation. She'd never heard of any waking up spontaneously after so long, though.

Hi, Zoe, she thought.

Who are you? What's going on? thought the human.

What's the last thing you remember, Zoe? she asked.

I was going to a party...

This would take a while to explain. The human apparently didn't remember anything since she was captured for implantation.

They couldn't move, so they had nothing better to do. Maybe they could find a way to escape if they worked together - two minds were better than one, after all.

Several hours later, Sophia lay out of sight near a gas station in the woods, waiting for a gas truck to come up. One would have to eventually. It would just take time.

Sophia was capable of being very patient. She had learned that talent quickly on the run; staying stationary in a single spot for hours or even days if need be was second nature by now. The trick to staving off boredom was to just think about something else.

She let herself drift. Hours rolled by, though she didn't really notice their passage.

Sophia found herself thinking about a story Alex had told her once, that of a kingdom that was under attack by an evil demon named Grendel. The monster came to the king's palace in the night, and slaughtered the sleeping inhabitants, sometimes eating them. The king promised half his land to any man who could slay the monster. After many had died, a great hero from across the ocean came in response to the king's call. After a vicious battle, the hero emerged victorious.

The irony didn't escape her. Today, she was filling the role of the demon Grendel.

But I don't think the bugs have any heroes to stop me, she thought, suppressing laughter.

Eventually, a truck did roll up. Sophia checked her weapons to make sure she had full magazines, then got up and walked towards the station.

She needed to be scary enough to prevent coherent thought, but not so terrifying the bugs would commit suicide. Everything hinged on getting the gas truck to the town with no Seekers on her tail.

It was trivial to get everyone to do what she wanted. She couldn't kill any of them yet, for fear the truck driver would refuse to help, but she gathered everyone's phones, disabled the cars there (emptying a magazine of 7.62 into a car's engine pretty much destroyed it), and grabbed some lighters and empty bottles.

She didn't know about the silent alarm, but fortunately for her, neither did the Soul working there. In the years since the planet had been colonized, there had never been any armed robberies, and so new hires weren't briefed on the system.

Sophia slid into the cabin of the truck with the terrified parasite. "Hi," she said brightly, leveling her pistol. "Lets go to the city."

The parasite looked back at the Soulless human grinning at him, and saw in her eyes she would take him apart if he didn't obey.

A/N Reviews, comments, and flames are welcome! Let me know your opinion of my story, please!

Sorry for the short chapter, but I needed to put out something after so long with no update. Thanks to all my reviewers!

Edit 24 Jan 2011 Typo/reformatting/minor edits

Chapter 9: Bang Mixed Feelings

Bang

A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths are a statistic.

-Stalin

Zoe wasn't happy about her situation, once she grasped it. She'd been effectively dead for nearly eight years, and now was probably about to be killed for real. And there wasn't a thing she could do about it. Even if she could, the best she could hope for afterward was a half-life where she couldn't even lift one of her own fingers.

Fractals was not happy either. Zoe's anger was so strong, she could feel her blood pressure rising. Given her concussion, this was most definitely a Bad Thing.

What the fuck gave you the right to invade Earth? the human's mental voice thundered, and Fractals winced as the world spun violently.

She couldn't keep any mental barriers up given the situation, and Zoe saw her thinking of thousands upon thousands of ICBMs with the letters CCCP or USA painted on the side.

Every major country on the planet was engaged in a mutual suicide pact when our first scouts arrived, Fractals thought weakly. You were about to destroy yourselves, and the ecosystem as well. How could we not save such a beautiful place?

The Cold War had been over for over a decade when the first wave of you came! Nobody was about to destroy anyone! Zoe cried.

Ten of your years is not a very long time by our standards, Fractals thought. That your people had the weapons suggested you thought you might still need them one day. I won't argue with you right now, Zoe. We need to escape, or Sophia's going to kill us.

Yeah, I might be better off that way, Zoe replied bitterly.

"So, how's your family?" Sophia asked, amused. It was cute how the bug kept giving her sidelong glances as she asked random questions to keep it distracted. It was even more fun to fuck with than Fractals.

With this question, though, its demeanor changed.

"I have a human son," it said. "He's never had an implantation. You wouldn't want to leave him without a father, would you?"

"How interesting, sir. Please, continue your bullshitting. How old is this fictional son, and why should I care?"

It looked at her, turning its head this time. "He's human, Sophia. How can that not mean anything to you?" It sounded shocked.

Sophia turned to meet its gaze and cocked her head to the side. "Should it? First, I don't believe you. Second, if he's real, he'll have been brainwashed to love your kind for at least seven years. He might as well be one of you; he'd probably call the Seekers if he ever met me."

"So then why am I helping you if you'll kill me anyway?" it asked.

Score!, Sophia thought. Now she had to pretend to negotiate, but it wasn't asking what it was helping do.

"Well, you can kill your host, but I can take you out of his body and pull off your limbs one at a time," she said in a fit of inspiration. "Also, I doubt it would be particularly hard to track down your family. I bet they'd just be thrilled to meet me!" she added sarcastically.

It paled, and she smiled sweetly.

Eventually, the Still wore off. Fractals managed to turn herself enough to discover there was a release on the inside of the trunk. She needed to get her feet turned the right way, as her hands were behind her back.

The world spun, her vision swam, and she stopped struggling, trying not to pass out.

Come on, come on! Zoe urged her. We've got to get out of here or that psychopath will kill us!

Fractals suddenly found her arms and legs moving, though she was trying to gather her strength and not move. She was too weak to resist Zoe, who flowed into her limbs like a tidal wave.

They twisted and turned, and soon managed to open the thing.

Next they just had to get out. Zoe got her side over the lip of the trunk, and they rolled out onto the ground.

It was only a meter drop, but they were not in good shape. They briefly felt a very sharp pain in their chest, and this time, they did lose consciousness.

Sophia could tell when the bug realized her plan. Its eyes widened, and it hit the brakes.

"No," it whispered.

Sophia grinned and sprayed it with Still. There was nobody else on the road, so she slit its throat, unbuckled it and shoved its body out of the truck.

She worried that someone would notice the shift in driving, but figured that she was too close to the target for the Seekers to show up in time to stop her.

It wasn't too hard to find the place by herself, as the Souls had put convenient signs all over everything. A pair of trucks were being unloaded of tanks, so she pulled up next to them.

She needed to move fast. The loading crew was beginning to get curious, so she put a strip of No Pain in her mouth, tied a cloth around her face, stabbed a can of Still in the side, and threw it into their midst. All of them collapsed almost instantly.

She got back into the cabin, grabbed the AK and went to find the valve for the gas tank. She put a few holes into it with her pistol, filled one of her bottles with gas, and ran back to what she guessed to be a safe distance.

She lit the bottle, and threw it as hard as she could. She realized too late that she should have taken cover as the bottle spiraled in the air and she turned to run right before the truck lit.

The explosion knocked her off her feet and showered her with burning gasoline. When she got up and looked back, there was nothing left of any of the trucks but flaming wreckage, and the Healing facility was on fire.

It was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen, but she couldn't stay to admire her handiwork. She could hear sirens.

Sophia ran away as fast as her feet would carry her. It wasn't worth it to engage the Seekers, as she saw just how much damage she could do by hitting soft targets.

And with the bugs, damned near everything was soft.

A/N I've reached the end of my story arc, but this isn't over yet. Back to aimlessness!

Review, flame, or just comment, but let me know what you think, please!

Chapter 10: Whisper of Armageddon Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Whisper of Armageddon

Sophia ran as fast as she could down the street, looking for a car to steal. Suddenly, it mattered again whether she lived or died.

Sophia knew deep down that the Seekers would kill her when they found her. Fractals had been very clear on that point – humans with malevolent tendencies were euthanized, in spite of the Souls' insistence that they did not kill.

They tried to put a happy face on it, like they did on everything. What was the word she used again? Sophia thought. Discarded, that was it. Like I'm some kind of broken tool.

She was aware of the irony – she knew they weren't people, and they didn't really view her as a person, or even respect her enough to own up to the fact that they planned on killing her. The difference was that she was right in viewing them as things; judging from what Fractals had said on the subject, the bugs were probably not even sentient when outside of a host.

While the way they thought of her was insulting, she wouldn't have it any other way, to be honest. Up until this morning, she wouldn't have really worried about it much, as long as she could hurt them in the process of getting killed. Alex was dead, and she was screwed. Her thought process pretty much began and ended there.

Now, though, she had a purpose in her life. Alex was still dead, and she was still screwed in the long run, but she'd discovered the bugs' fatal flaw; they found it hard to consider violence, and had only the barest concept of security. If she was smart about it, she could hit them again before they took her out.

She didn't think she could pull the gas truck stunt again - only complete morons wouldn't post checkpoints and armed guards around something so critical and vulnerable as the cryotanks after something like this had happened.

But there were always other targets. There had to be. She'd have to chat some more with Fractals, but she could think of some now.

Schools, shopping malls, power plants, airports - well, they were actually spaceports now. Fractals had mentioned something about them redesigning the nuclear plants so it was harder to make them melt down, and she'd need a big bomb to do anything at the schools, but there was so much stuff happening at the spaceports that there had to be something valuable to hit there.

Spaceships. Something about them was niggling at her head, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out what it was. It seemed like she was missing something about them that was obvious.

She'd be having another long chat with Fractals, concussion be damned.

A group of parasites were walking down the block as she turned the corner. She knew she wouldn't pass for one of them - if the AK wasn't a giveaway, she was covered in arterial blood, and was probably still smoking from splashes of burning gasoline.

As long as they already know I'm here... she thought to herself, drawing a bead on them. She opened fire, and two of them dropped, but the rest got away.

Gotta move really fast now, she thought. She saw a parking garage, and turned towards it. Given how trusting the bugs were, half of them probably left their keys inside. Keeping an eye out for any parasites, she checked a few before finding a truly ancient station wagon with the keys still in the ignition.

Sometimes it's hard to believe they beat us, they're so stupid, she thought.

As she opened the door, she saw the blinking light of a security cam. Sometime soon a Seeker would probably be reviewing this footage. She couldn't resist; she smiled, waved, and flipped it off.

Zoe and Fractals woke up to a kick in the ribs. They screamed and curled into a tight ball, expecting the butt of Sophia's rifle to come down on them at any moment.

Fortunately, Sophia seemed to be in a good mood, and only kicked them one more time before dragging them into the front seat of the car.

The human spoke hurriedly. "I think our last talk was very productive, don't you? We need to move fast right now, but as soon as we're on the road, we're going to have another one. Won't that be fun?"

"You're... an evil... bitch," they managed to gasp.

Sophia started laughing. "All's fair in war, Fractals. You chose this planet - you picked the wrong species to take. Now shut up, I'm going to be driving for a change. I need to focus for a while." She slammed the door and got into the other side.

All of this was caused by a fourteen year old girl, Soaring Leaf thought.

There were nearly twelve thousand dead Souls, total. He suddenly found that everyone was taking his concerns about rogue humans very seriously.

He was becoming suspicious of Moonlight. Everyone else suddenly would drop everything to help him, but Moonlight was now avoiding calls and very distant when he talked to him.

Coupled with the way he acted - shying from crowds, avoiding the light - Soaring Leaf was beginning to wonder how much Moonlight was being influenced by his host. He resolved to watch the Soul very closely.

According to the witnesses at the gas station, she'd come on foot, and stolen a gas truck. Oddly, she hadn't shot anyone or started a fire, though they had recovered the trucker's body and a few unlucky bystanders in town. Soaring Leaf informed the witnesses they were lucky to be alive, and sent them on their way.

They had brought in an old human reconnaissance helicopter to search the surrounding woods for several miles, and started CAP overflights to search for the human, but nothing had turned up except her abandoned getaway vehicle which was reported missing the day of the explosion.

He'd checked the security videos of the garage, and lo and behold, she had come in about five minutes after the explosion. She was covered in minor burns, wearing Kevlar and what looked like a tactical rig made of duct tape. He counted at least seven magazines on it, as well as what looked like a can of Still.

Well, that explains how she took out the loading crew so quietly, he thought. He was horrified at humans' ability to turn anything into a weapon.

She saw the camera, and he had the eerie feeling she was looking through the camera directly at him. He met her Soulless gaze, and started to get goosebumps. Then she flipped him off, and the illusion was broken.

Teams of Seekers had searched the woods surrounding the area they'd found the abandoned station wagon. Sophia had disappeared without a further trace, but they'd found the mutilated body of the missing Seeker she'd kidnapped, leaned against a tree about three miles away.

The Soul who'd discovered the body was inconsolable. Just from the description, he felt queasy. Ray's injuries were horrible beyond description. Dozens of injuries repaired by Heal covered her body. They'd identified stab wounds, gunshot wounds, and broken bones among other things that were too horrible to describe.

Worst of all, Sophia had removed Ray from her host and twisted her body until it squished.

Humanity leaves their regards, she had written in silver blood above the corpse. Soaring Leaf had begun to wonder if she was completely sane. She'd dotted the i's with hearts.

Tire tracks led away from the area, but they disappeared as soon as they hit the main road. The human had disappeared like a ghost.

Another horrible thought occurred. He knew there had to be other wild humans out there, and that they had little to lose.

In human times, a big terrorist attack was usually followed by waves of copycat attacks.

God forbid she finds how to remove Souls from their hosts...

He began to wish he hadn't poured out his host's alcohol.

A/N Kat makes a good point about Soul space drives in the reviews, and has thus provided me with a possible new and awesome direction for my story. Thanks, Kat!

[Insert mad cackling, thunder and lightning, etc.]

I've decided to stop worrying about overkill regarding Sophia's sociopathic tendencies, (or anything else in this story) as everyone that's read so far hasn't complained. Or, as my roommate put it, "Overkill is what makes many things epic. Go for it."

}:-)

Chapter 11: A Strange Quiet Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

A Strange Quiet

Innocence is the first casualty of war.

Click, click, click, click. Sophia was reloading her magazines, looking at the city in the valley below. She'd decided to keep her head down to get some breathing room from the Seekers, and to lick her own wounds. Once the No Pain had worn off, she discovered that in addition to deep bruises from getting shot in her body armor, she'd also received more extensive burns than she'd realized. She decided to conserve her limited reserves of meds for when she really needed them, as her injuries were minor, if quite painful.

It hurt like a bitch, but it also served as a reminder that she was anything but powerless - she was Sophia Conrad, Destroyer of Souls! - and as far as she knew, the best hope for humanity's survival.

Sophia snickered at the hopelessness of her situation. It was so bleak it was funny. Hilarious, in fact - here she was, hiding out, pretending she could make a difference, but in the end, the best she could hope to do was to spread pain and suffering. Humanity's parting shots - a final 'fuck you' to the bugs, in a sense. She was fine with that, but wished she could do something more. Something they'd tell stories about in hushed tones centuries from now.

Sophia looked up, and noticed Fractals was staring at her. She resisted the urge to throw it to the ground and kick it until something broke, reminding herself that she needed it relatively intact to answer questions.

Sophia had unbound Fractals. "I figure you can barely stand right now," she'd said. "I need you in one piece." Still, wonder of wonders, the child wasn't hitting her anymore. For now, at least - she didn't know how long it would last. At least a day had gone by, and she was beginning to feel a little better, though it was the difference between having been thrown under a bus and falling down a flight of stairs.

Fractals didn't know what Sophia had been up to while she was locked in the trunk, but she was reloading an alarming number of magazines for that cursed weapon of hers. And she'd been covered in blood when she came back. It was obvious she'd killed someone, up close and personal.

Fractals was still getting used to having a passenger. Zoe's initial rage at her situation had passed, thanks to a common enemy. Fractals had the sensation of double vision when she looked at some things now, though - her own impressions and Zoe's hit her at the same time.

Sophia creeped out Zoe. The kid was deeply disturbed, there was no way around it. This was about the same as Fractals' view, but Zoe also felt a tinge of pity towards her that Fractals found incomprehensible.

Why do you feel sorry for her? Fractals asked.

Do you think she would have been so... psychotic, if this hadn't happened? Zoe responded.

What do you mean?

Before you all came, I mean. Do you really think she was cracked in the head like this before? I mean, I think she pretty much saw the end of the world when she was little. Zoe dredged through Fractals' memories. She said she saw the Seekers take her parents when she was seven. The first time you saw her, she'd just come from seeing her brother get shot; she was still covered in his blood, remember? Things like that change people, Fractals.

PTSD doesn't excuse the fact that she's evil, Zoe.

Did I say she wasn't? Do you see me saying we should be friends? I just mean it's not all her fault.

Sophia turned to look at them, and grinned maliciously. A small folding knife appeared in her hand, and she flipped it open with a practiced motion. "Something interesting, Fractals?"

Don't stare at her!

"No," Fractals said, looking down at the city, hoping this peaceful spell wasn't over.

Sophia pulled a bag of sunflower seeds out of her backpack, and opened it with the knife. "Gotcha," she said, still grinning.

Fractals continued to look at the city, as if it had suddenly become very interesting.

She saw a glittering metropolis below, full of vibrant life and happy people. She wished she could find a way to warn them of the danger that lay up here.

Zoe, on the other hand, saw a necropolis. She was still coming to terms with the fact that she'd missed seven years. She was glad she hadn't been there to see it – friends, neighbors, and family killing each other. It couldn't have been pretty.

Zoe's viewpoint bothered Fractals. Nobody's dead, don't be so morbid, she told the human.

I guess that depends on how you define 'dead', the human replied cryptically, and a wave of depression flowed through her.

Sophia remembered when she'd realized it was never going to end, that the bugs had won. It had been the first time she'd spoken a full sentence for months after finding her parents were dead, and that what they had become wanted her body as well.

The complete surreality of breaking into a house to steal food, finding a machine gun, and actually wanting to keep it, had broken her shell. She'd been convinced for a long time it was just an extended bad dream, and one day she would go to sleep and wake up back in her bed. But her dreaming mind wouldn't come up with something like this.

"How do you work this thing, Alex?" She could still remember the open gunsafe full of glittering weapons.

Alex had been ecstatic that she was talking again, and had shown her everything he had known about AK-47s. He didn't think it was worth it to carry it, but hadn't stopped her from doing so. He'd told her several years later he'd thought she would drop it, as it was almost as big as she had been at the time. When he'd realized she was actually going to keep it, he'd shown her what little he knew of tactics.

"No sister of mine is going to fight like a hajji," Sophia remembered Alex saying, later. "The sights are there for a reason - if we're going to be in a fight, use them, Sophie!"

Sophia was not sure why it was so important to him at the time, but now she was quite thankful Alex had taught her how to use the AK. If he hadn't, she wouldn't have been able to take out that Seeker station, and would probably have died along with Alex.

Or worse, she'd have been captured. And that would have been the end of humanity's story, as far as she knew. The bugs did leave a few children human, but they would be so heavily indoctrinated to believe wild humans were evil that they might as well be centipedes themselves. She hadn't believed the trucker at first, but she'd been watching the city and seen a few.

They might as well be bugs themselves.

Sophia realized something. One of the Soul raised humans would probably know how to remove the bugs safely. She'd have to think on this.

Sophia had never heard of Geneva, and even if she had, she would have found the concept baffling. Still, something within her rebelled at the thought of torturing a human child for info. It had to be done - she could see it clearly now that the path was before her, yet...

Get a hold of yourself, Sophie. Any one of those kids would cheerfully turn you in to the Seekers in a heartbeat, she reasoned. It's past the end of the world - there isn't anything you can't do; hell, you're pretty much obligated to try to find a way to save other people. And if it pays off...

Sophia recognized that Fractals might not have been lying about her brother - she was now intimately familiar with how well Heal worked, thanks to Ray.

I could rescue Alex, if he's alive. Maybe I could even rescue mom and dad!

She could become much more than just a parting shot. Maybe she could even make the centipedes think twice about coming here. She couldn't stop them; she'd never stop them, she knew it; but having other people around could dramatically improve her life expectancy – it would go from days to weeks, possibly even months if she could save enough of people to actively fight the bugs. And she might even see her family again before she died.

Alex had found it difficult to keep Moonlight apathetic towards Sophia after they heard the news. Twelve thousand dead was a very large number, and it was made more difficult because he was terrified she was losing her mind. She'd have been home free if she'd kept her head down, but instead opted to go on a quixotic quest to fight the Souls. Nobody liked to find out their sibling had genocidal aspirations. He felt a little guilty, too, surprisingly The Souls were not so bad, for invading body snatchers.

Alex ended up playing up how puzzled he was about her actions - not hard, as the Souls had trouble grasping why humans were so violent - and focusing on how much he hated the Seeker station.

It seemed to be working so far. Moon had hung up on Soaring Leaf twice now. He was even beginning to dislike the Seeker a little on his own accord.

Because Alex had little real education to speak of, Moonlight was still searching for a Calling. This made it easier to influence him, because he had lots of free time. When he was deeply occupied with something, for some reason Alex found himself much, much weaker.

He'd convinced Moon to go and find some decoration for his sparse apartment. It seemed like a good way to waste time.

Ten o'clock, five yards away - look! Alex thought at him.

Moon followed Alex's directions, and saw a Soul with a beautiful host struggling with a large potted plant.

Help her out, Moon! She's hot!

I shouldn't help someone just because they have a pretty host, I should because it's the right thing to do, Alex, Moon replied. But Alex was right, she was very pretty.

A room full of uniformed Seekers sat, waiting for Soaring Leaf to begin. He cleared his throat, then began the briefing.

"In light of recent events, we've decided to brief several teams of Seekers from every state in the region so we all know who and what we're fighting. As I'm sure you all know, several days ago a wild human managed to penetrate deep within a city long since pacified, and destroy a shipment of cryotanks. Right now, we're making due by posting units of the National Guard around the Healing facilities, but if there is a natural disaster, they'll be called away and it will fall to us to defend them."

"For those of you unfamiliar with the case, the human's name is Sophia Conrad, a fourteen year old who - yes, do you have a question?"

One of the briefees stood. "Twelve thousand people were killed by a child?"

Soaring Leaf realized he should address this now. "Can you really call her a child? She's seen more in her short life than most of us have in two or three. Just because she's young doesn't mean we should underestimate her - young adolescents fought in wars all the time, when humans controlled the planet. Sixty years before we came to Earth, during World War Two, human children as young as twelve fought - and delayed, I might add - Soviet troops advancing inside Berlin. Just because they're young doesn't mean they aren't vicious and dangerous."

The other Seeker sat down.

"All right. We believe that Conrad has kidnapped a girl named Zoe Parva. I think it's safe to assume she's dead, though we haven't found a body. She also assaulted a Seeker station, where she stole drugs and assorted small arms and ammunition, and killed everyone on duty at the time. If any of your teams find her, do not try to capture her - she's unsuitable as a host." Behind him, video of the human's raid on the station played. Several people gasped at the violent display.

"The human is armed with an illegally imported automatic Type 56 assault rifle. During the raid of the Seeker station, Conrad found a case of 7.62 and a crate of medicines. Be aware, she likes to throw Still as a makeshift hand grenade. If you come across her, don't try to be a hero. Call in backup, or she'll kill you, or worse, capture you. If that happens, it's probably best to kill your host." The screen behind him began playing a slideshow of all the injuries they'd discovered on Ray's body.

There were more gasps from the audience.

"I show you these images to reinforce how dangerous this human is. She is just a child, but she's incredibly vicious and very well armed."

Soaring Leaf continued the briefing, though he wasn't sure how much they were learning from him, and how much from the slides.

"Though it pains me to say it, we're going to have to run combat drills. Humans, even just an adolescent like this one, are far better than us at fighting."

That night, far away from the briefing, a coughing thump echoed from inside a military base. Several seconds later, deep inside the nearby town there was an explosion. Someone ran from the old human artillery he had just fired, hoping his Soul would remain none the wiser, and the Seekers wouldn't catch on.

"Hoorah," he whispered, as the sirens began. He'd hit something, hopefully the spaceport. Those ships looked expensive.

A/N Google 'relativistic kill vehicle'. It's fun. I was going to share this fun with you, my few faithful readers, but TopKat90 pointed out several flaws in my assumptions.

Therefore, Mixed Feelings is officially aimless once again! It's impossible to tell whether or not the Soul ships are FTL or not from Wanda's meager conversations about them, which ruins my evil plans. Darn you and your English major, Smeyer! -_-

Thanks to Kat for catching my slip of words at the end. It's fixed now.

24 Jan 2011 Typo fixes/reformatting/minor edits

Chapter 12: Irrelevant Revelations Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Irrelevant Revelations

A mortar. A mortar had been fired upon a city's spaceport, and killed several of the bugs. She'd the bugs talking about the blast on the radio, after she'd (unfortunately gently) made Fractals go to sleep.

I'm not alone. Well, alone with nobody but the bugs for company.

Sophia was so happy she had to fight back tears. For five years, she'd been dead certain she and Alex were the only human survivors anywhere.

From the sound of it, whoever it was had better equipment than her - she really envied that mortar. Maybe, they even actually knew what they were doing. This could potentially change everything.

Then her realistic side kicked in.

She knew better than to get her hopes up - she was used to having dreams crushed, and anyway, odds were astronomical that she would ever meet up with them. They probably wouldn't want to see her in any case, what with the whole nationwide manhunt and televised face and all. To the bugs, she was what went bump in the night and scared children.

And from their point of view, she had enormous teeth. Nobody wanted that type of attention brought to their front door.

Sophia realized she might have gotten humans killed by her actions - an increased Seeker presence to look for her meant that they would find more free humans, if there were many left. And that would be her fault.

She certainly wasn't expecting any sort of rescue or assistance. She'd given up hope on that by the time she was ten. And she couldn't worry about the unintended repercussions of her actions when she might be able to learn to remove one of the bugs so soon.

For all practical intents and purposes, she still might as well be the last of her kind. Still, it was good to know there were others, somewhere, even if she would never meet them. Somebody else would still be left to carry on the fight when she was gone.

Sophia turned her mind back to the problem at hand. She needed to catch one of the Soul-raised humans, and do it quietly. She knew there was a heliport somewhere nearby, as she'd seen the copters flying in and out of the city. That meant that if she was seen, it would be the end - she just couldn't see a way to get away from one if spotted.

There were also occasional small aircraft buzzing overhead periodically. She wasn't as worried about those (though they were incredibly dangerous as well) because she was pretty sure a little groundfire would make them think twice about following her. Yes, she'd have to move afterwards, but at least she could do something about them, unlike the infuriatingly bulletproof helicopters.

She knew that school was out of session, and was flattered that the bugs thought she was so dangerous that they should cancel classes. However, it made things more difficult - hijacking a school bus would be by far the easiest way to do this.

Staying here made sense. She was most likely to be seen when moving, so it would be bad to leave when she didn't have to. She had enough food to last for at least another week (damn, did that feel good to think about after barely scratching out enough to eat for most of her life) and her hiding spot in the woods was about as good as any. If she waited long enough, classes would eventually resume, and then she could strike.

Fractals would have time to heal, as well. She was certain it would yield more useful tidbits of info if she kept it around.

Fractals was worried, because Zoe's voice was becoming louder and more frequent. Her experiences with Sophia had convinced her humans were incorrigibly violent creatures, and a conscious one could not be allowed in the utopia Souls had built.

If she ever got away from Sophia, Zoe would be abandoned as a host and subsequently discarded.

She wasn't sure how she felt about that. Zoe was also murderous - suffering through one of her fantasies of getting the gun away from Sophia had dispelled her illusions about that. But Zoe's fantasies were strangely logical if you believed violence was acceptable.

And allowing Zoe to be discarded would be uncomfortably close to committing murder, herself. Zoe was very quick to remind her of that.

But what choice was she left with? She couldn't go around with a live human inside of her head – she'd incite violence, or drive her crazy.

Hey! I can still hear you! Zoe cried, insulted. I'm not crazy or evil!

The sporadic, uninvited commentary on her thoughts would drive her to madness, if nothing else. Of course, the point was moot if Sophia tortured them to death.

Come on, Fractals! There's gotta be a way we can get away. Zoe said.

Her host was desperately trying to find a way out. Fractals realized the human was trying to steer her thoughts away from weighing whether to discard her or not, but the two of them did need to work together if they wanted to make it out alive.

You know I'm trying to figure one out, Zoe.

If we can get a can of Still, we'd be home free.

Fractals looked, but the Sophia had made sure she had the Still very secure inside the car.

I'd have to break a window. She'd hear me do it.

Wait till she's distracted. Do it fast and she won't have time to react.

If she does, she'll definitely kill me, even if she still wants to interrogate me. It's not worth it, Zoe!

She'll kill us anyway, you idiot!

Zoe, we've seen that she's off fighting people when she puts me in the trunk. The Seekers have got to be looking for her. They'll find her soon, and then we'll be free.

What if she gets killed when we're locked inside the trunk and the Seekers never find us? I don't want to starve in the boot of a police cruiser!

The human had a point.

I'll -

Click. The noise came hard and sharp, interrupting the conversation.

"I was trying to be nice and let you heal, Fractals." Sophia pulled a can of Still off of her harness.

Oh, shit. Zoe groaned.

"Please don't, I'm not doing anything!" Fractals cried, but the child ignored her.

Fractals was learning to dislike the scent of blueberries.

Sophia noticed that Fractals had been acting oddly ever since she'd returned from the Healing Facility. She'd been chalking it up to the concussion, but now its face kept changing expressions. It almost looked like it was talking on a phone or radio - an exceptionally alarming idea.

Her first, paranoid thought was that they had some kind of telepathy. But that made no sense - she'd never seen anything to suggest that before, and if Fractals could contact anyone, she would have so many helicopter gunships after her that you couldn't throw a stone without hitting one.

Whatever it was doing, it was mysterious and therefore dangerous.

Click.

"I was trying to be nice and let you heal, Fractals." Still was awesome stuff, and Sophia was thankful she had so much of it.

The bug looked like she'd caught its hands in the cookie jar, and then made a feeble protest as the Still hit it. Sophia looked at it laying on the ground, considering what to do next.

Ray had passed out from pain when she'd stabbed it in the lower back. As soon as it woke up after that, it had killed itself. She wasn't sure if it was just because it had given up on ever escaping, or if that particular spot was especially painful, but whatever the case, she needed Fractals alive.

Knees, then, she thought. Gotta be gentle or it'll commit suicide.

Sophia flipped out her bayonet. "Fractals, I want you alive. You want to stay alive. We agree on that much. I'll admit, it is fun to beat the shit out of you, but it's not very productive. But if you're going to keep plotting behind my back, I will kill you. Next time something like this happens, this is going into your kidney, and I'm not going to patch you up again."

With that, she plunged the steel into the back of its leg.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" She said, slowly twisting the blade a few degrees. "I can't play games with you, Fractals. If this happens again, you're dead. I'll find someone else to ask questions."

She pulled out a can of Heal, and poured it into the wound. "I'm not going to do this next time," she reminded the bug.

Fractals tried to pretend to be paralyzed after the Still wore off, but Sophia wasn't having any of it. The child prodded her with the bayonet every few minutes until she responded.

"So, what were you doing, parasite?"

Fractals was in a bind. Sophia wouldn't believe her if she told the truth, but she didn't think she could lie plausibly.

Zoe tried to remain silent, but it was hard. She was the one who had gotten them into this trouble, and was terrified beyond belief. She still couldn't believe her knee was whole again, it had hurt so much.

"I'm waiting, Fractals." Sophia brought up the Still again, and Zoe panicked as a rush of adrenaline flowed through Fractals' body.

"Do it! Kill me, you crazy bitch!" Fractals covered her mouth, too late.

The child looked surprised. She eyed the can of Still she was holding, and Fractals could almost hear her debating whether or not to kill her.

That wasn't smart, Zoe, Fractals said.

Why does everyone want to kill me? the human cried in response.

The child replaced the Still in her holster. "I know what you're doing. You're trying to convince me Zoe's still awake somehow." Her voice turned bitter. "Who knows, maybe she is. Probably not, but there's no way to tell. If you are in there, Zoe, I really hope you can't feel anything, cause I'm not gonna stop till somebody kills me."

Fractals' heart thumped loudly as she spoke. "She feels everything I do, Sophia."

Sophia raised an eyebrow. "Well, if that's true, I guess you won't kill her under torture. Assuming you consider killing humans murder, anyway." She smiled.

"I think it's lunchtime. Have some Spam."

Soaring Leaf was happy with the progress his Seekers were making. Several Souls whose hosts had trained human soldiers were trying to get everyone into fighting shape. They were drilling by assigning one person to play the 'human' (or op-for, as the instructors whose hosts had been in the military called it), and the rest of the group was meant to go and find them. To simulate a battle, they were using what was essentially glorified laser tag equipment attached to rifles filled with blanks. It worked surprisingly well.

His only complaint was that the 'human' players tended to try to run, while the Conrad girl seemed like she would fight to the death.

Still, it was good training. His comrades were learning not to stand around cluelessly when they heard a gunshot, and also the best way to cut someone off who was trying to run.

He hoped it would be enough, and that they would pass on what they learned. He still wasn't sure what the human was after, so this was the best he could do.

It was worrying, the news about the mortar attack, but there was little he could do about it. The military types could take care of their own business, and he could not help their investigation much.

Moonlight was still avoiding him, so he'd assigned someone to watch him. Every once in a while, a human with a strong spirit could influence a Soul to do things against their nature (there was even a case where the Soul had been unaware of the control!), and if Sophia was any indication, the Conrad family was very strong indeed. So far, he hadn't done anything out of the ordinary, but given a few days that might change.

He hoped Sophia didn't have another attack planned. There had been enough death already.

A/N Please review! Thank you to those who do, especially TopKat90 who has reviewed every chapter so far!

Chapter 13: Learning Experiences Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N Hangover chapter #2

If this chapter is bad, blame Budweiser; I had a very strange night. All praise to spellchecker programs, this chapter would be more horrible without them.

Mixed Feelings

Learning Experiences

Blossoms Sunward had met Moonlight when he had offered to help carry her orchid, and she'd discovered she liked him quite a bit. His host had been part of the resistance, she'd gathered, and it gave him an aura of mystery that other Souls lacked.

In a world where most Souls were nearly interchangeable, he was different and interesting. She'd chatted with him a little, and invited him to the neighborhood cookout one of her friends had organized to take advantage of unseasonably warm weather (and also to counter the general melancholy that had settled in some people following recent disastrous events).

Of course, sometimes, his host's history made him act just a little weird.

"Come on, Moonlight, I know you don't want to eat those cold," Blossoms Sunward said, exasperatedly taking Moon's hotdog out of his hands to put on the grill. "It's called a cookout for a reason."

He looked panicked for a moment as his food disappeared, but recovered after a second. "Sorry, force of habit. My host, Alex, he always ate them this way. Fires are very visible, you know."

She couldn't help but giggle. "Well, you don't have to worry about that type of thing. Enjoy the fruits of civilization, Moon!"

"Thanks, Blossoms. I've got to say, it's been a very strange couple of weeks. I don't really know anyone around here, and Alex hid from just about everyone except his sister. It's culture shock of the worst kind."

"Oh! Well, everyone here is very nice. Go talk to someone! As soon as you get to know some people, I'm sure it will get better."

Moon looked into the crowd that was beginning to grow, and shuddered. "Oh, no... That wouldn't end well. I want to talk to you more than them, anyway - you're the most interesting person here. Where did you come from before Earth? I'm guessing you were a Flower or See Weed, from your pretty name."

Blossoms Sunward blushed. "I lived in the southern forest of the See Weeds for two life terms. It wasn't as nice as here, though; human emotions are so much more colorful! I think I'm going to stay here - how about you?"

"Well, you're definitely right about the emotions," Moon said, looking into her eyes. "I haven't liked it very much here so far, but there are a few things that seem like they might be worthwhile."

"Like what?" she asked, grinning impishly.

Sophia lay down on the side of the road, and waited. An insistent voice told her what she was preparing to do was very wrong, but she ignored it. This was necessary - quite possibly the most meaningful thing she could do with her life.

She reminded herself that most of the schoolchildren were not really children - except for the occasional human one, anyway. The ones with a bug in their heads would never have developed a personality of their own, and would be nothing more than empty shells without them.

And the bugs themselves? According to Fractals, even if they wore the body of a child, most of them were centuries old. Some of them had probably been born (hatched, divided, whatever) before the pyramids had been built. There was something inherently satisfying in destroying something so ancient like that - they would live forever if not for her intervention.

Also, if she was bothered by her course of actions, what would the parasites think? They really believed all the bullshit they spouted about peace, love and harmony. She wondered if they found her as incomprehensibly alien as she found them.

She was struck by the utter unfairness of it all. Even if they hadn't come, she'd have been lucky to live to see ninety, yet none of them would ever die unless she dragged them, kicking and screaming, before the grim reaper. As it was, she'd be lucky to live another month, whereas they'd go on forever, erasing entire planets full of people without a second thought.

Life's never fair, she chastised herself. Crying about it won't get you anywhere.

There was a loud rumbling down the road, and Sophia watched a convoy of Humvees roll into town. They've called in the National Guard, just for little old me, she thought, as a familiar detachment returned with a vengeance, and her struggling conscience went completely silent. Normally she would feel envious of the hardware, but there was no way in hell she could steal one, as they were traveling in a group. She counted herself lucky she saw no automatic grenade launchers mounted (so far, anyway), but even a .50 cal would put a serious dent in her day.

She'd stay far, far away from the Guard. They actually had somewhat of a clue, or at the very least the equipment to get by without one. An AK and her mediocre marksmanship wouldn't let her take on mechanized infantry, even if the Souls who'd taken charge were completely incompetent. Hopefully this wasn't a nationwide change in policy, and hopefully they no longer had any tanks. If so, she wasn't going to get another shot at another big strike.

But that was a problem for another day. Classes had resumed today, and so now she had a bus to hijack. Hopefully, one would come by this way.

Fractals was safely locked back in the trunk; she'd found the safety latch inside and destroyed it. She was aware there was a risk of the car being discovered while she was away; however, she'd done her best to reduce its visibility from the air. She'd looked for a place to park with dense trees and covered it with brush, so any helicopter flying overhead would just see an oddly-shaped boulder through the trees.

Probably. Hopefully. But there was nothing to be gained by worrying about it, so she turned back to her task.

"So Moon, do you want to come over and watch a movie later tonight?" Blossoms Sunward asked him as people started to filter away from the cookout.

Do it do it do it do it... Alex chanted. He'd been very loud the entire time, especially when Blossoms wasn't looking, and it was wearing on Moon's nerves. Alex liked Blossoms Sunward even more than Moon did, and was not shy about voicing his opinion.

"I'd love to, Blossoms. What movie were you thinking of seeing? I don't know any of the current ones."

Alex cheered inside his head.

Will you please be quiet! You're driving me crazy!

She wants you, man! Alex said, ignoring him.

"Lets see what's on when you come over," she replied.

Does any interaction with a woman have to imply sex to you? Moon said, trying a different track. I don't think that's what she has on her mind. Calm down, Alex, please. I'm trying to talk to her and she'll think I'm weird if I'm distracted.

That last phrase got Alex to shut up rather quickly. Still, Alex's and his own attraction to Blossoms Sunward combined to be so strong that he felt like there was a magnet drawing him towards her.

"Here we go," Sophia muttered as a bus came over the hill, finally. A pair of binoculars she'd found in the car let her see that, yes, it was full of schoolchildren.

They're really all like seven hundred years old, and the kids are already dead, she reminded herself as she lined up her sights on the driver. He was definitely unnecessary no matter what happened. Even if the bus crashed, it was only a mile or so back to her own car, easily close enough to carry a child, and in the woods out here it would probably take at least twenty minutes for the Seekers to arrive, assuming anyone called them.

As the bus approached a few dozen yards away, she jerked the trigger.

The front windshield suddenly gained five new holes to the driver's right, and the bus swerved off the road into a ditch, nearly rolling onto its side. Sophia got up and started sprinting to it. Three of the passengers left the bus through the windows, and another two ran out of the front door. She paused to shoot all of them, and then pulled her pistol out and slung the AK over her shoulder.

She entered the bus, silencing screams by firing a pair of rounds into the roof.

"Cell phones, please! If I catch you with one I will kill you slowly and painfully, so throw them out the windows, right fucking now!"

Nobody moved, so she moved on. It didn't really matter that much if they called the Seekers, anyway - she'd be gone before they showed up, and if they did, she might even get the chance to see the panic that an entire busload of dead would create.

"All right! Form a single file line and leave the bus out of the front exit! Once you do, sit down against the side of the bus!" This would let her check the eyes of everyone, and keep them within sight. Faces went by, and she met every single one's eyes. A few of them suspected what was coming, she could tell.

After five minutes, she'd identified a human in the crowd, and he looked like he was about ten or eleven years old. If anyone would know how to remove one of the parasites safely, he would. Fractals had said it was an emergency procedure, taught to everyone, so he had to know.

That meant the rest were no longer necessary. She sprayed the human in the face with Still, then punctured the can and threw it into the crowd.

Then came the next step, the one she'd been dreading. Too late to turn back now, she thought.

Sophia went down the line, and shot all of the hosts in the head. Then she switched out her AK's magazine, grabbed hold of the paralyzed human, threw him over her shoulders, and moved as fast as she could back towards her own car, hoping all the way that she was right about the children being merely empty shells.

This had better be worth it, she thought.

Moon found the movie boring, and Alex found it positively torturous. Alex had dim memories of human cinema, filled with conflict, violence, and eventual resolution. The Soul movies had none of these things; there were no real dilemmas or problems in the utopian world they'd built, and this was reflected in their television shows. In addition to that, the actors were terrible.

Moon looked over at Blossoms Sunward, observing how her long dark hair fell across her back. He was in awe of her; she was so nice, and so pretty - and she liked him. He'd gladly put up with bad TV to get to know her better.

Inside his head, Alex laughed.

A/N Once again, this story has jumped off the vague plans I had for it. It's been working okay so far, so I'm just going to let it happen.

It makes my day when I get feedback! Let me know your opinions, and/or the direction you would like to see the story take please!

Edit 27 Jan 2011 - Reformatting/minor edits/typo fixes

Chapter 14: Detour Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N Extra violent chapter }:-)

Mixed Feelings

Detour

Sophia found the human kid... difficult. After a short car trip (she wasn't up to highway driving), she'd found another hiding spot. He'd stayed paralyzed the entire way, but several minutes after she'd gotten there the Still wore off.

As soon as he'd woken up, he'd begun wailing incessantly. Understandably, she supposed, but very irritating. After about an hour or so, his wails slowed to moans, then sniffles.

She knew she should feel sorry for him - he'd have led a horrifyingly sheltered life before this, and this initiation into the real world had all the subtlety of a tactical nuke. Somehow, though, the best she could manage was that cold, intellectual understanding that she should feel something. She just couldn't bring herself to care about a traitor to the species like him.

"You done yet?" There wasn't much point trying to be gentle - she'd killed all his friends, and might be torturing him in a few minutes.

He reached up and wiped a tear from under a puffy eye. "Why?" he croaked. "Why?"

"Do you know who I am, what I want?"

He met her eyes, and she could tell he did know, though he didn't understand her. "You're a human. You're the one who wants to kill everyone, aren't you?"

She paused. "Yeah. Well, mostly just the Souls." It was an accurate description, but phrased that way it made her sound like she was... well, crazy.

"Why not me, too, then?"

She gave him a look. "You're not a Soul, and I still might."

He looked insulted. "Yes I am!" he cried. "This is my first life, but I am a Soul!"

Sophia stared at him. "They never told you? You never figured it out?"

He looked confused, so she took his hand and brought it to the back of his neck. "No implantation scar, no silver eyes. You're only going to live one life, cause you're a human, kid."

It was very eerie. If she had been born just a few years later, this might be her that was so clueless.

He broke down crying again. She waited until he stopped, then began speaking again. "You're going to show me how to remove a Soul from its host safely."

"I don't know how, the Healers do it!" he practically snarled, face red from crying. "Let me go home!"

There wasn't any easy way to do this; he obviously viewed her as evil incarnate, and was probably lying. But he was human, and couldn't escape torture through death. She could - needed to - break him, completely and utterly.

"I was afraid of that," she said, pulling out a can of Heal and flipping open her knife. "But you'll forgive me if I don't believe you."

Fractals awoke when the car began moving again. Fractals wasn't sure when she'd fallen asleep, and it didn't really matter. It was a short, painful trip, and her head was spinning again by the end of it. Thankfully, Zoe was quiet - bouncing inside the trunk didn't do much for concentration.

The doors of the car opened, and then the other side opened as well. She heard voices, but couldn't make out what was going on.

What's Sophia up to? she wondered helplessly. Hopefully, nothing too bad.

Unfortunately, several minutes later she could hear muffled screaming.

Three hours and two cans of Heal later, Sophia concluded the kid was telling the truth; he didn't know how to do the procedure. However, now she knew for certain it was possible; he knew about a case where a Seeker had traded hosts with another bug early on.

In addition, he'd told her the story of a bug named Rides the Beast.

It had been traveling in a group when they had been ambushed by a local predator. One of its friends had been dealt a lethal wound, so it had removed it from its dying host with nothing but the crudest of tools, and managed to implant it into the attacking predator.

In spite of herself, she was kind of impressed at the bug's actions; from the kid's description of the life on the icy world, standing up to that thing would have been an almost suicidal act of bravery - something she wouldn't have expected from one of the bugs.

If it's so easy they can do it with no tools while a giant monster is coming for them, it can't be too hard, she reasoned. I might be able to figure it out for myself.

Granted, she'd probably kill a few people in the process of finding the way to remove the bugs, but they might as well already be dead, and they certainly couldn't complain about her trying to free them.

She needed test subjects. The fastest way would be to go after the kid's family, but she wasn't in any particular rush. She needed to lay low for a while, and the implanted weren't going to get any extra implanted after a few days.

Fractals ought to be back up to driving after a few days, and then she could let it out of the trunk. She'd go a few hours away from here, and pick up where she left off with her investigation.

That left the kid. It was refreshing to see another human, even if he was a traitor, but she couldn't keep him around if he sympathized with the bugs. However, she couldn't let him go, as he knew where she was, and had told her during her interrogation that he would call the Seekers given a chance to.

"What am I going to do with you?" she wondered aloud. He stayed silent - he'd learned much faster than Fractals had - but his face took on a strange look.

He was kind of funny, in a way. He'd believed he was a Soul on its first world until now, and was obviously having some kind of identity crisis after being told the truth. He'd been taught humans were vicious, brutal creatures. She wasn't helping her species' stereotype, she supposed - not that she cared what the bugs thought... However, now he knew he was one of the evil-bad-scary humans, and it bothered him, she could tell. He'd actually asked her if he was going to turn evil, to her great amusement.

There was only one way this could go, though. He didn't understand her worldview, and didn't even want to. She'd already learned everything she was going to from him, and he would call the Seekers given half a chance.

And he was human. Keeping him around for long enough could become dangerous; while the bugs (Seekers aside) all refused to be a party to violence of any kind, she was living proof of how violent her own species could get when under pressure. It wouldn't do to get stabbed in the back.

Click.

"I guess you don't really want to join me much, do you?" she commented. "I can't keep you around with all the patrols and shit going on if you're going to keep trying to get away. Bye, kid."

Fractals jumped as a gunshot cracked outside of the car. She wondered who had just died, and why.

Outside of the car, Sophia swore loud enough she could hear it. Then she heard the chatter of automatic fire, much, much closer. Farther away, larger guns replied.

What's going on? Fractals asked, panicked.

Sounds like a gunfight. I think the Seekers finally caught up, Zoe commented, with some glee. Something thumped against the side of the car, and then the smaller gun resumed firing, right underneath her.

A pair of holes appeared in the trunk on both sides, and sunlight shone through. Fractals curled herself tighter, hoping she wouldn't get shot during the rescue.

If there is a God, he's got it in for me, Sophia thought furiously. She'd been so close! Just another two weeks, and she'd have been able to do some good for once. All of her dreams of forming some kind of refugee resistance were going up in smoke.

"Guess you lucked out, kid," she told the boy. "Stay down. Cry a lot when the Seekers come, and maybe they won't do an implantation on you. Try to run if there's a lull in the shooting."

She took a strip of No Pain, then turned back to the Humvee on the road, and took cover behind the car. Not that that would do much good - the .50 cal would easily go through the car, her body armor, and whatever was behind her, without even slowing down appreciably. Still, maybe the bugs might not realize that.

They were about two hundred meters away, so she flipped back to single fire, adjusted her sights, and lined up on the Humvee's gunner. She felt a burst of elation as it fell, but a second later someone else was on the gun.

There was a very slim chance she'd make it out. She had to end this fast, then get the fuck out of here before they called in support. She knew there was an Apache nearby, and she had no heavy weapons.

.50 caliber sized holes appeared in the trunk, and she swore again. She could see the Humvee's crew getting out, and let off another few rounds. Two more dropped, leaving two to oppose her. Maybe this wasn't so bad after all - she'd just have to move fast.

Then a Bradley APC rolled up, and about ten more bugs jumped out. That was it, this was the end. The only way out was through them, and she didn't have enough firepower. Fortunately, they didn't start shooting with the APC's cannon. She didn't know why but was thankful. However, the MGs were worrying.

The ones outside the Humvee figured out which end of the gun bullets came out of, and a hail of 5.56 made her flinch. The ones from the APC ran closer, firing from the hip, and the Bradley's MGs left puffs of dirt all around, wildly inaccurate.

At least they still can't shoot worth shit, she thought hysterically.

"Fuck it," she muttered, flipping back to automatic. It wasn't like she'd get another chance to expend any ammo, and they were coming close enough that she could hit them without that much effort.

She went through the rest of her magazine in a few seconds, and rocked another one into the rifle. She only hit one, but the rest took cover and the rate of incoming fire slowed.

If she was lucky, she'd get shot and killed right here. If she wasn't, there would be some Seeker in her head in a few hours, poring through her memories.

She resolved to make it as unpleasant for them as possible. They didn't like causing violence and death, but she definitely did.

Another near miss put a hole in the car, and it shook as the back tires took a round. She laughed, remembering Fractals was still in the trunk.

She dropped another two, but one of them got back up. It looked like she'd wounded it pretty badly by how slowly it moved.

"Suffer," she whispered with some pleasure. If they were going to kill her, she wanted to make the process as painful as possible for them.

She slid another magazine into the AK, hissing as she burned her fingers on the barrel.

One of them seemed like it could hit the broad side of a barn - a puff of dirt blasted alarmingly close to her. She saw one braced against a tree, and let off another few rounds at it.

It dropped, but then another Humvee drove up. She saw a line of fire stitching across the ground, then felt a tug on her side.

She looked down and saw blood - not a lot, but some. She let loose another magazine, then took a look. A round had shredded her body armor on the left side, and taken a chunk of flesh with it. She was thankful for No Pain.

Then she felt another tug, and realized her can of Still had burst, right as she inhaled. She collapsed, rifle falling to the ground in front of her.

She tried to get up, to move, to run. No matter how hard she tried, her body refused to respond. She couldn't move, couldn't even twitch.

That's it, then, she thought. At least she'd managed to show her murderers a little bit of love before she went. Twenty on one, she'd managed to take out six - better than she'd expected to do. She hoped that they were actually dead, not just wounded.

For a time all she could hear was the boy she'd captured crying, and the hissing of her rifle as the snow around it evaporated from the barrel's heat.

Idiot, she thought. He should have run while he had the chance.

Voices approached. "There's two humans here, sir. Do you think we can save Spiraling Smoke and Widepetals?"

Sophia swore internally. Why won't they just let me die? she thought, irritated. She supposed it didn't make much difference either way; there was literally nobody left for whatever bug infested her to hurt or betray, and it wasn't like she'd be around to complain anymore, but... she'd much rather be dead than be used as a host, even if it was temporary.

There was a pause. "Bring their hosts over and perform an implantation. The girl's not suitable as a long-term host, but I don't want to lose anyone."

A Flower, huh? Sophia thought. They didn't seem like the Seeker type, but then again after a lifetime of immobility she'd be itching to do something interesting too.

"Here's Widepetals, sir. I'll get started now. Ice Pillar's bringing Spiraling Smoke over." The Seeker rolled Sophia's inert body over, and turned her head.

She felt the odd, No Pain-dulled sliding of the knife as it opened the back of her head, and something slip inside. She recalled every moment of joy she'd felt in causing pain, and the beauty of the destroyed cryotanks.

Have fun, Widepetals. Someone's going to make you all pay dearly one day, even if it's not me, she thought, leaving a last message for the parasite who would dare defile her mind. I hope you're around when it happens.

Soon after, she felt nothing.

A/N The second half of this chapter went several different directions in 3 rewrites before I settled on a showdown with the Seeker Guardsmen. I was getting tired of having Zoe/Fractals be basically a non-character, and this was the only way I could think of to get them out from under Sophia's thumb. Also, this was fun to write

If you didn't guess, this isn't the end of Sophia's journey. I'm not sure what's next (as always, haha), but Widepetals isn't going to handle Sophia well at all.

Thanks to all my readers, and especially to those who review!

Reviews, questions, comments, and flames are welcome; if you have thoughts, please share them! TopKat90 shouldn't have to do all the reviewing!

Edit 27 Jan 2011 - Typo fixes/minor edits/reformatting

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Chapter 15: Kick the Board Over Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Kick the Board Over

Sol III. Terra. Earth. Every name was a lie, a pretty name for a planet filled with contradictions. It looked serene from space, but a closer look revealed a biosphere teeming with deadly life. The dominant complex species, humans, seemed nice enough when examined as individuals, but on the larger scale, they killed each other by the millions daily, and devoted much of their time to finding more efficient ways to do so. On a smaller scale, on the surface, Widepetals' new host seemed to be an insane murderer, choosing victims at random.

Widepetals was surprised to wake up. Surprise was all there was time to register before Sophia's memories hit like a sledgehammer.

A chaotic maelstrom of fear, hatred, and sadistic joy tore through the Soul as the last few minutes of Sophia's life played in fast forward. Hours seemed to pass, and there was no way to judge the passage of time.

Widepetals and Ice Pillar had met on Earth - both of their hosts had been good friends who had met while in basic training. The bond, as strong as that between brothers, had endured the Soul's coming.

Previously, Widepetals had had a male host, in his late twenties. But now, that body lay dead on the ground, while Widepetals worked his way - her way, now, he reminded himself - into Sophia Conrad's brain.

Ice Pillar watched his friend's new body, hoping Widepetals was going to adjust to such a radically different host, and wondering how this would change their friendship - or if it would even survive.

He wished he knew what was going on inside her head, but she was still paralyzed by Still.

Sophia had been able to almost completely shut down her negative emotions, but Widepetals had no such defenses. The mixed messages of horror at the human's actions, overlaid with Sophia's elation at doling out a last bit of vengeance, were completely overwhelming.

It was insanity - harming sentients was unquestionably wrong, but experiencing through these memories was shaking the foundations of everything she believed as a Soul. She tried to scream, but was still immobile.

The memories ended with a hate-filled message directed at her, coming from her new host, and Widepetals' new heart thumped loudly. She didn't want to think, didn't want to feel anything after going through that, but she didn't have any choice. She wouldn't be like her host. She'd have to deal with it or risk betraying everything she stood for. She now understood why Sophia had performed every detestable act, a fact which horrified her.

You weren't insane, were you? she asked rhetorically.

Thankfully, no one answered her question. But that simple fact, that there was a dark logic behind everything she'd done, every hauntingly fulfilling atrocity, made the universe feel much more hostile.

She'd viewed her actions as dispensing justice. And from her people's point of view, she had been. Adjusting from being male was the least of her problems. The waiting list for new hosts was very long, and only children were offered for implantation nowadays. Widepetals did not want to be a child, or spend years in stasis, so it looked like she might be stuck this way for the rest of this life term.

In the time between when Widepetals was implanted and when she woke up, the seriously wounded were Healed, and Sophia's car was searched. Dancing Storm had noticed something within the vehicle's trunk through a bullethole, and they'd popped it open.

It was a miracle to find Zoe Parva alive, if not completely well. She'd caught a glancing round during the firefight, and was unconscious from shock, though the wound was minor. Weaving Root healed her, and was gently checking for any other injuries. So far, she was just in rough shape - she had a concussion and at least two broken ribs, along with an extensive patchwork of bruises.

Spiraling Smoke seemed to be adjusting to his new host pretty well. Nobody was quite sure what was going to happen with him - his host had Soul parents who were looking for him, and they wouldn't be happy to discover he'd had an implantation.

Widepetals moved, and Ice Pillar moved to help her up. She took his hand, and threw her arms around him as tears began to flow.

Fractals woke up in the back of a Humvee, shaky, but whole again. She started as she recognized Sophia's face next to her, but relaxed, seeing her eyes were now silver like hers, and her face was streaked with tears.

The stranger held out a hand. "I'm Widepetals. Sorry we were so slow, Zoe."

Don't trust her, Zoe thought to Fractals. Sophia hadn't seemed like the type to go down without a nasty fight, and was probably still in control of her body.

Stop being so paranoid, Fractals chastised, though Widepetals' face made her feel a little uneasy as well.

Fractals eyed the hand wearily.

Widepetals winced. "I'm not going to hurt you, I'm not her." She shuddered. "I'm curious, though - did your host really wake up, or were you trying to trick Sophia?"

"No, I was lying," Fractals replied, too quickly - she hadn't decided if she wanted to leave Earth yet, and Widepetals was a complete unknown.

Widepetals saw right through it, though. "Don't worry, I won't tell," she said, grinning.

Fractals cringed instinctively, remembering that same smile every time right before Sophia had started hurting her.

Widepetals winced again. "Sorry."

Widepetals wondered why Sophia wasn't present - not that she was complaining, of course. However, Zoe was obviously still conscious (though harmless), and she wondered why the stronger willed Sophia was not. The only thing that occurred to her was the age difference between the two. Perhaps that meant Sophia's memories would fade, with time.

She was still struggling to ignore Sophia's ingrained reactions. Suddenly, everything about the world seemed off, different - like someone had searched a room and put everything back in the wrong places. The other Souls' automatic kindness now seemed creepy, and she didn't even want to think the word 'Seeker'. She'd had to send Ice Pillar away after she'd stopped crying, and she could see the hurt in his eyes.

Zoe's thoughts were becoming irksome again - as they drove into the city, the feeling that she was seeing the living dead was making her claustrophibic.

Now that she had been patched up by the medics and was no longer distracted by pain, the barriers between Fractals and Zoe was much more distinct, and Fractals saw that this was no way to live. It rankled, but she intended to apply for a new host as soon as she got the chance.

Moon turned on the television, and saw there was breaking news.

RENEGADE HUMAN CAPTURED, read the scrolling text below.

Alex struck at Moon, who had become complacent while his host had gathered strength. To Moon's shock and horror, his limbs started moving themselves.

Alex moved quickly - there was no telling how much time he had - pulling open a drawer and taking out a can of Sleep (Moon had suffered nightmares the first week) and a knife.

He picked up the phone and dialed Blossoms Sunward's number.

A/N Unplanned developments! Subplots become relevent! The heights shall sink and the depths shall rise!

Yeah, there is no plan, even less so than usual. Stay tuned though, hopefully I won't write myself into a corner and it will stay interesting.

Please let me know what you think! You don't have to even leave a full review, just a comment - ie 'I liked/didn't like this chapter' or 'you are twisted' or 'oh no' or something like that. To be honest, I'd be happy if you'd just leave a dot if you've read it. I mostly want to know who more of my individual readers are.

TopKat90, as always, thanks for your support.

Chapter 16: Whispering Demons Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N Hangover Chapter #3

Salutes Captain Morgan

Mixed Feelings

Whispering Demons

Though going through the city made Fractals uncomfortable, for Widepetals, it was a trip through hell. Sophia had been single-mindedly driven to hurt Souls whenever she had the chance, and now Widepetals' host's subconscious mind seemed to whisper to her like a malevolent spirit. Widepetals had to suppress the urge to crash the Humvee, to lash out and hurt someone - knowing all the while that she would enjoy it if she gave in.

It would be so easy, she found herself thinking. Steal the driver's sidearm, kill all of them, and then disappear. It's dead simple.

Widepetals recognized the direction of her thoughts, and sighed. She'd deal with it; she'd have to, or she'd end up with a child host - an unappealing prospect. If it weren't for the disturbing imagery, Sophia would actually be an ideal host - young, intelligent, and fit. She didn't want to be moved into another one.

As they approached the city, Sophia's fantasies of humans getting a nuclear weapon were brought back to the surface. Widepetals suffered through an exquisitely detailed scene involving the crew of a nuclear sub on a long deployment, who'd recognized the Souls' coming and not returned to dock. As the scene replayed in her head, it almost seemed like Sophia was speaking to her through the memory.

There has to be one that they missed. I'll never find it, and I'd need the codes to use it, but a girl can hope, can't she?

I wonder what they'd do if I ever managed to pull it off. Would they leave, abandon the planet? They've never fought a war before, never suffered any real hardships in their entire species' existence. What happen if they left, anyway? Would they kill their hosts? Take them somewhere else? I still don't know if their victims' minds can be recovered.

If they didn't murder their hosts, and people did come back, I guess we'd have another war about ten seconds after they left. People don't function in a utopian society the way the bugs do - we value ourselves as individuals way too much, we're too selfish and shortsighted. Everything's still pretty much intact, though they've dismantled most of our military equipment - I guess it wouldn't be able to get that bloody. It doesn't matter, though - I'd nuke them in a heartbeat, bloody war or no.

I wonder where I would fit in that world. I don't really have any education, and the only things I'm really good at are stealing, breaking things, and causing pain - not exactly legal skills, no matter what world I live in. I'm not old enough to serve in an army, and those are the only things I know how to do.

Just one more reason in a long list of why to hate the bugs. I think I'd be in high school now if they hadn't come, making friends and learning things. Instead, I'm trying to find a way to nuke a city.

Widepetals was bothered most of all by her own lack of reaction to the vivid imagery of death, and the bitter commentary in her head.

No, that wasn't right, it was worse than that; she found herself looking at the memory, and trying to figure out where put a bomb in order to cause the most damage. She caught herself again, and shuddered, breaking out into a cold sweat.

Widepetals didn't want to think anymore. She closed her eyes and tried to go to sleep.

She soon found that was no escape either. Sophia had been using Awake to keep from sleeping for a very long time. Now, Widepetals found herself wide awake despite her wishes. She hoped she could find a way to make Sophia's memories fade faster.

Alex knew that Soaring Leaf was monitoring Moon (the camera was ridiculously obvious to notice, and easier to avoid), and so he'd told Blossoms Sunward he was going to meet her at her place.

There was probably another Seeker watching him, but he figured he'd take care of that later. He pocketed the knife and started on the way to Blossoms Sunward's building, careful to keep the Sleep out of sight. He exchanged greetings with several of his building's inhabitants on the way out careful to keep his voice natural, though his heart was trying to escape his chest, and Moon was making a lot of noise inside his head.

He kept an eye out for anyone who looked like a Seeker, though he didn't see any suspects. Then he made it into the street, where there were too many people to follow any one person for long. If a Seeker was tailing him, he'd lose them here for a second, long enough to hopefully get away if he moved fast.

Now he just had to make it through the crowd without freaking out. Large numbers of people close to him made him uncomfortable, and it was bright outside. It didn't help that Moon was resisting every step, trying to warn someone, anyone, about the loose human.

He ran down an alley, then tried the handle of a back door. Souls almost never locked anything, and it opened easily into a room filled with wires and computer equipment of indeterminate purpose. He stayed there a few minutes, then moved on.

Alex made it to Blossoms' neighborhood within ten minutes. He waved to one of her neighbors, and knocked on her door.

Alex, please don't, I'm begging you - she's my friend! I'll do anything!

Alex ignored the desperate pleas as Blossoms opened the door, smiling at him. "Hey, Moon! How are you today? Getting used to people, I see!"

Alex shut the door behind himself, then sprayed the Sleep in her face.

Blossoms Sunward came out of her host easily, and Alex put the Soul on top of her counter. "Sorry, Blossoms," he said. He picked up a phone book, and smashed the writhing creature, as Moon screamed inside his head.

He tried not to feel guilty.

The convoy arrived back at the Healing facility where they were based, and Widepetals saw dozens of Seekers moving around.

She saw an image of herself getting on the Humvee's .50 cal, raining lead down into the crowd. Then Ice Pillar opened the door, and she slid out of the vehicle, shaking her head to dispel the image.

She'd deal with Sophia. She had to, or she'd end up skipping. She forced herself to ignore the hate that burned through her as Ice Pillar lead her into the facility, focusing on the good times they'd had together. Soon the sensation faded to a tolerable level.

"Widepetals, Zoe, come on. Let's get you checked out, then debriefed and extracted."

"Zoe, you want to be extracted? What about... you know... her?" Widepetals asked, shocked. Ice Pillar looked on in puzzlement.

"That's why."

"Well, I don't want a new host. I'll stay in this one," she replied to both of them.

Ice Pillar turned Widepetals to face him. "What? No, we've got to get you out of her. She'll drive you crazy in days!"

She lightly punched him in the shoulder. "I'll be fine. I don't want to be some baby, and they don't offer adult hosts anymore. She's not awake or anything, so she'll fade." She started walking again.

Zoe jumped into the conversation, face drawn tight. "I don't like this, Widepetals. You should ask the Healers, first. Nothing against you, but I don't think you can handle Sophia for long."

Widepetals looked back at Zoe. "You think on your decision, I'll think on mine."

She leaned in and whispered. "Don't make yourself a murderer, Zoe. What would your mother think?"

Blossoms' host woke up soon after the extraction.

"Where am I? What happened?" she asked, softly. A second later, "Who am I?"

Alex gave her the short version, then explained the extraction process to her.

He closed his eyes, and handed her the can of Sleep.

Zoe and Fractals were not very happy. Fractals' decision to get a new host understandably caused some tension.

Fractals was wavering. She was attached to many people in Zoe's life, but seeing them would just cause Zoe pain - and by proxy, she would feel it.

Zoe had another point to make.

Discard me, but if Sophia comes back, she'll destroy you if you stay on Earth, she stated.

I think Sophia would kill me regardless, now. If she overpowered Widepetals, I think she'd come and try to extract me.

Well, I'd try to save you if she did. If I'm dead, though...

Perhaps you're right. I'll wait. We need to keep an eye on Widepetals, though.

After a brief examination by another Healer, Widepetals was brought to another room to talk to a group of Seekers.

She wondered why she wasn't getting mad at them, then noticed the vents in the ceiling, leaking silvery mist. She sniffed and noticed the scent of blueberries. Probably Calm, and maybe Truth. They're prepared, she noted.

The Guard-Seekers asked her a bunch of stupid questions. She answered them as best she could, though a lot of them didn't seem like they mattered.

They wanted to know if Sophia had been involved with the disappearance of several other Souls, including a few way out west where she'd never been. Widepetals didn't like it, but she was forced to sift through her host's memory again looking for nonexistant clues.

She had a talk about switching hosts; as she'd suspected, the waiting list was long for a new human one. They advised her to get a new host anyway, but said they wouldn't make her.

Then she had a talk with Ice Pillar, made easier by the lingering effects of the Calm vents.

She tugged his arm to get his attention. "I just realized I have nowhere to stay. Military housing's not going to work anymore, is it?"

He laughed. "No, I guess not. Your old host's family might put you up for a while, though."

"Ugh, no. We weren't very close, I don't want to stay there unless I have no choice."

"Well, I bet your new host's brother will keep you."

She remembered Zoe mentioning him. "Yeah, Zoe knows where he is. I'll ask her."

A/N The idea of the drugged vents is unashamedly stolen from Warui-Usagi's story, Definition: Life.

Thanks again to Kat for reviewing faithfully! The rest of you, please say something, it only takes a second! I know you're still reading from my hits counter, but I'd like to see a few names.

Chapter 17: Unease Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Unease

When you trip, you have two options. Put out your hands to catch yourself, or try to run and regain your balance.

Ice Pillar's superiors decided it would be best if he went with Widepetals for the next few days in order to make sure she really could handle her host. The two of them ended up going to a nearby motel to get situated.

The very first thing they did was go out and get clothing; Sophia only had had two sets of clothing to her name, one of which was a stolen police uniform.

When Widepetals went to change out of Sophia's ragged Seeker uniform and discard the duct-tape bandoleer she'd made, a short wild-eyed brunette ambushed Ice Pillar in the hall. He had no idea who she was, but she seemed to remember him - and wasn't shy about getting grabby.

"You've got to convince her to change her mind," she ordered him, gripping his shoulders and pushing him into the wall. "I can see you two are friends, and you're going to lose her if she goes through with this."

Ice Pillar cursed his inability to remember names and faces. Still, there could only be one person she could be talking about.

He gently grabbed her hands to remove them from his shoulders, but she kept a death grip on him. If she wasn't nearly a full head shorter than him, it might be irritating, but as it was right now, it was more like being attacked by a chihuahua. An anonymous chihuahua, to boot.

"What do you want me to do? Believe me, I've checked with the healers. They won't perform an extraction on an unwilling subject, unless we can show that they're a danger to themselves or others. Anyway, it's not so bad, is it? You said her brother hasn't had any problems so far, right?"

"You don't understand. Sophia was crazy, but single-minded enough that if she wakes up, your friend won't be able to stop her." She shook him ineffectually. "You're a Seeker! If you tell them that she's acting violent, they'll believe you."

"You want me to lie?" he asked, not believing his ears. Sophia wasn't the only crazy one, he thought to himself.

"It won't just be to save your friend. Sophia will try to kill us all if she retakes control, and Widepetals will be in the middle of it."

The conversation was cut short as Widepetals emerged, cleaner and with a clean set of clothes.

"What's up?" she asked. Then, "Zoe, why are you manhandling my friend?"

Ice Pillar recognized her then - she was the hostage from earlier. He hadn't recognized her without bruises...

Zoe's eyes went wide at the sight of his friend, and she let go of him immediately. "You know why I'm here," she said.

Widepetals rolled her eyes. "Sophia isn't coming back, Zoe, chill out." Her voice was even; however, he noticed her hands were balled tightly into fists.

"Widepetals, use your head! You know you won't be able to control her when she wakes up - people will die!" Zoe's voice rose in fear.

"Both of you -" he began, but Widepetals interrupted him.

"I can handle her," she snarled. "She wouldn't hurt anyone, anyway - she was smarter than that. If someone turned up dead, everything would lead back to her!"

"I really hope you're right," Zoe said, then turned and left. It was obvious she was fighting not to break into a run as she went.

Ice Pillar turned to his friend and opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

"Don't you dare start. I'm not skipping." She stormed off after Zoe, who hastily broke into a sprint upon realizing she was being followed.

Zoe fought back waves of terror from her resident alien as Fractals ran in a nearly blind panic. After a few blocks, she finally got through to the Soul, who stopped.

That could have gone better, she said to Fractals after they stopped shaking. She hadn't expected Fractals to get so frightened so suddenly, but her subconcious was convinced Widepetal's host was going to get her.

Gee, you think? the Soul replied. Not good - she was getting sarcastic.

As Fractals caught her breath, Zoe felt her fear turn to shame and anger at the entire interaction. She realized she had made the situation worse than it had to have been - she'd gotten mad, pushing Fractals to be more aggressive, and ultimately drawing Widepetal's ire. The only good thing was that Ice Pillar seemed to think she was more amusing than anything else.

Fractals stood and started aimlessly walking, ignoring the curious stares of people on the street. You know, I could have just run screaming through the building. It would have been faster, and had the same effect. Ice Pillar's going to think I'm a complete nut now! Advocating lies!

This was really not good. She was directly stating why she was mad - her version of incandescent fury. If she were human and this angry, there would be screaming and thrown objects.

Sorry. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time... Zoe said, trying to make her presence as small and meek as possible.

How? How does aggression help any situation?

Look, we both panicked. But at least we learned something out of it! Zoe replied, trying to be cheerful. If it comes down to it, I bet we can get Widepetals mad enough to hit us.

That's good?The Soul was calming down some, thankfully.

Yeah! If she hits us, we can convince the Healers her host is making her unstable.

Unless it's just Sophia pretending to be Widepetals, in which case she'll kill us if we make her that angry.

No, she said it herself. If we die, all paths lead back to her.

Fractals stopped walking, and if she'd had control of her lungs Zoe would have held her breath.

I guess you're right, the Soul admitted. Next time let's not freak out. And we can't let her get us alone, just in case.

Ice Pillar was even more worried about Widepetals after Zoe's appearance. Widepetals swore that her host's mind wasn't present save for her instincts, but he would have figured someone who fought to the death wouldn't disappear so easily.

She was very distant all day, though that might not be a sign that anything was wrong - she'd just had a near-death experience a day before. But whenever he shook her to get her attention, she practically hissed at him. And when he brought up the subject of changing hosts, she stopped talking to him for nearly an hour.

He couldn't force her to abandon her host, no matter how much it frightened him. He'd asked the Healers, but they said that as long as she wanted to stay in the same host, and wasn't a danger to others, they wouldn't do anything. And he wouldn't lie to change things, no matter how much he wanted to.

As they were sorting through Widepetals' possessions, his phone rang and he excused himself.

"You've got to do something," the girl from before ordered him as soon as he picked up.

I can't believe I forgot her name again! he chastised himself, as she launched into a rant.

Five minutes into the lecture, Widepetals came looking for him.

"-rebel human who can perform extractions and-" the woman continued, and he decided she wasn't amusing anymore. He wasn't the one she needed to talk to, anyway.

"It's for you," he said, handing the phone off to Widepetals.

As a shouting match began, he smiled to himself. He probably should have listened, but sheesh, that woman had a funny voice.

In the end, after going through her old host's stuff, they soon realized Widepetals' laptop and cell phone were all that she could really make use of in her new body. He offered to drive her out to the wrecked car where Sophia had been captured, but she just shivered and hugged him.

Alex wasn't sure what his next step was. He honestly hadn't expected to get this far - his plan to cooperate with Moon until he dropped his guard had actually worked.

Blossoms Sunward's host was very confused and barely knew who she was. She'd performed the extraction as he'd instructed her, but then had put Moon in a jar, thinking she was going to save him.

Fortunately, Souls couldn't survive on Earth without a host for very long, and he suffocated in minutes. Alex felt a little bad about it, but Moon was an invader.

Blossoms Sunward's host, Jane (he had to call her something, and she didn't remember her real name) was one of his many problems, now. She shied at the thought of violence, and didn't remember enough of her Soul's life to pass as her for more than a few minutes - and only then if they thought she was taking Valium.

Thankfully, she trusted him, but that was his only lucky break.

People would come looking for them soon, and then it would be over; he hadn't thought this through very well. He was making it up as he went.

"Jane, can I see your cell phone?" he asked.

"Sure," she said after a few seconds of alarming blankness, handing it to him.

He went through the contacts, quizzing her on who she thought would come looking for her. It was more complex than it was for him; Soaring Leaf was the only one who would look for him.

He had Jane call one of Blossoms Sunward's friends and ask her to come over. The person on the other end didn't seem to get suspicious at Jane's vacancy. He prayed that after they performed an extraction this one would remember more than Jane.

As she was doing that, Moon's cell phone rang, and Alex answered it.

"Is this Moon? My name is Widepetals, and Sophia is my host. I don't have anywhere to stay, and was hoping you had some free space," his sister's voice said.

It hurt to hear a stranger's words coming out of her mouth. Sophia's worst fear for a long time had been implantation. Thankfully, now he had the means to save her.

Alex forced himself to speak around the lump in his throat. "Yes, this is Moon. It would be good to see a familiar face!" He gave her his address. "I'd be glad to help you, Widepetals."

He turned back to Blossoms Sunward's host and hauled her to her feet. She didn't remember much from before implantation, but assured him she didn't want to go through it again.

"Jane, that was the Soul in my sister's body. She's going to be coming here tomorrow, so I need to stay in the area."

"Your sister?" Jane asked. "Is she human too?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Good," she said, to his horror. "Humans are... are mean liars. Except you. And me, I hope..." she mumbled.

This was going to be more difficult than he'd thought. She had no idea what was going on.

While she went through the wreckage of both her previous lives, Widepetals had a few revelations.

Widepetals recognized now that humans would eventually reclaim their planet. Souls were too compassionate, and humans too ruthless, for there to be any other result, though it might take centuries. Many Souls did not implant their children, and now Widepetals could see it would be their eventual downfall. The unimplanted children that Sophia had hated so much would change things - not now, perhaps, but generations down the line they would have a major impact. The humans would breed with each other - they'd be attracted to each other rather than the Souls. Human parents wouldn't stand to have implantations on their sons and daughters, and suddenly there would be two branches of humanity - the majority, comprised of the implanted, and the less stable branch of those raised by humans in a Soul society.

This wouldn't work very well, she could see. Someday down the line there would probably be a war between the two branches. Wild humans just didn't coexist well - xenophobia was part of what made them what they were.

And even a peaceful takeover would yield a violent culture within a generation. It was just the way they were. Human lifetimes were too short for any of their cultures to stay the same for very long, and they would gravitate towards barbarity without a strong influence from her own race.

And once they controlled the planet... They would have the technology to reach the stars. Several centuries from now, they'd be building ships, and weapons.

Humans had put a lot of thought into what would happen once they reached the stars. Even in their most peaceful visions of the future world, they had trouble conceiving of any galactic order where they did not exploit, destroy, or enslave everything their race came across, unless the other races were unimaginably more powerful - which was not the case for her race.

Her own kind would be humanity's largest competitor, squarely in their sights. When it came to a conflict (and it would, sooner or later), humans would have many weapons, and the Souls would not.

Even if none of this happened, her people would inevitably run into another violent race. It was only a matter of time before it happened again. The scenario would be the same - being virtually defenseless, her people would be wiped out.

A simple solution occurred to her. Simple in concept, anyway, though execution would be harder...

She could prevent all of this, if she could convince her own kind how stupid pacifism was. Eventually, someone her people ran across in deep space would have a better technological base than them, and unless they had weapons they would be exterminated. She could see that now, and supposed she had to thank Sophia for that.

But nobody was going to listen to her, she knew - they'd think she was being unduly influenced by her host. She'd have to do something radical to get their attention, and someone else would have to take the blame.

She needed a violent human resistance movement. She needed them to do something completely crazy, to get people's attention.

She suppressed a giggle, as she realized the irony. She'd been out to halt the bloodshed, but now here she was, adopting Sophia's goals as her own. Yes, she'd be killing people, but in the long run, she'd be saving her race from extinction. What were a few hundred thousand lives worth against the billions she'd be saving?

She needed to get her life straight first, though. It might be good to wait a while, too. As she'd told Zoe, if people started disappearing around her right now, she'd be the prime suspect. People would think her host had taken over.

She'd play it safe, and keep acting as if all was normal. It wouldn't be too hard to start her very own cell of rebel humans - extractions were so easy to do.

Zoe might be a prime candidate for her first recruit - people with conscious human hosts would be her best bet for the beginning. She'd be able to pass as Fractals long enough to cut contact with everyone else.

And if she wasn't cooperative, then... Actually, she'd pretty much have to be. If Zoe was recaptured, she'd be discarded in short order.

A/N Sorry for the wait - my lack of planning caught up with me. I promise I haven't learned my lesson. :P

If this chapter seems kind of crappy, well, - OMG LOOK SOMETHING SHINY hides

Review please - it only takes a few seconds. If something doesn't make sense, let me know! This chapter didnt feel as natural as the others and I want to know if any of it seems forced.

As always, thanks to those who review faithfully, like TopKat90 and Incogneat-o. (Sorry about Moon, by the way.)

The rest of you who read and haven't ever reviewed are ungrateful punks :P.

Chapter 18: Mirrors Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N I's back

Widepetals and Ice Pillar are hard to write

Mixed Feelings

Mirrors

After a long battle, during which she cursed herself for her stupidity, Widepetals finally managed to log in to her computer. She'd forgotten the damned thing's password, as it had been her previous host's birthdate. Curious as to why she wasn't inundated with reporters, she checked the news.

Another mortar strike had managed to tag one of the ships at the spaceport; everything was focusing on how the Seekers were working to find the culprit. Along with that, there was an upsurge in the number of wild humans caught.

The news reports left her feeling strange. She found she didn't really care about the dead Souls as much as she thought she should; in fact, deep down, a small part of her (a very tiny, terrifying one) was amused at the Seekers' inept response.

Her current host sucked, in that sense.

"So we're leaving tomorrow?" Widepetals asked Ice Pillar as they looked for a restaurant a while later. The Calm hadn't worn off yet, and it was nice to be able to talk to him without her body's reactions. They'd come to an unspoken agreement to pretend that nothing had changed after her previous host's death. She did so out of convenience, but didn't know what motivated him.

"Yeah. No point in waiting after they let me go for a while." he said. Then he winced. "That girl said she's going to come with us before she started ranting again. Said she'd keep you from hurting anyone." He looked like he was going to implore her to skip again for a moment, but then shut his mouth. He learns, she thought.

Widepetals rolled her eyes. "Why not let her come? If we go for an entire car trip and I dont start breathing flame, maybe she'll calm down and stop bothering us. I still don't know where she got my cell number from." In fact, when she checked the call history, she realized Zoe had found her number before she'd sorted through her possessions.

In fact, she did feel a little guilty about her host's treatment of the other Soul, and her host. It was irrational - she'd done nothing, it was her host who had committed the crimes - but after one trip down memory lane, she couldn't help but feel something.

Still, Zoe and Fractals were annoying, and potentially dangerous to her goals. She needed to get them to stop making noise about her, and the only way to do so was to earn their trust. Or at the very least, to discredit them.

"I hope she'll stop, but she seems pretty desperate," she said. "That'll be an awkward ride, I think. Jeez, there's nowhere to eat in this town. Mickey D's all right?"

"Sounds good to me."

Widepetals soon discovered that her new body found just about anything delicious. It figured – there'd been points in her life where she'd had to survive on dog food because it was what she and her brother could steal. Thus, she now had a great appreciation for the high cuisine that was fast food.

She looked up and saw Ice Pillar staring at her with wide eyes and a slack jaw. "What?" she asked, self conscious.

"You just ate that burger in three bites. I didn't know anything other than a snake or an alligator could open its mouth so wide; I'm in awe."

She was silent for a moment. "It wasnt that big," she said defensively. "I'm still hungry, it couldnt have been that large of a burger."

"What!? You're half the size you used to be, and that was a Big Mac. I thought you'd be good for the next two days!"

She tried to think of a suitable retort to that. "Uhm..." Suddenly her hand darted out and closed on the burger in his hand. She brought the liberated food to her mouth and bit it.

"Now I'm good," she said, grinning behind his stolen food.

"Thief!" he cried with mock outrage as he threatened to douse her with condiments. "Give it back, you little twerp!"

She shoved the rest of his burger into her mouth, dodged a squirt of ketchup, and grabbed the fries, running outside. He followed, and she sprinted past staring onlookers. She made it just past the edge of the parking lot before he caught up and grabbed her. She tried to escape, soon finding her new body unsuited to wrestling. After a few moments checking the instinct to bite him, she surrendered.

"No fair! You're twice as big as me, fatty!"

Ice Pillar laughed and let go. "Fatty? I'm not the one stealing people's food," he said. "Now I need to get more food for me."

She laughed, and silently wondered what she was going to do about him. It wasnt going to matter for the next several months, as she'd be laying relatively low, but he'd eventually be in the way. He wasnt very bright, and never had been – she didnt think he'd understand her plans. Of course, his lack of intelligence was also a blessing – he obviously wanted to believe that everything was normal.

"You got shot first, Widepetals," he said out of the blue as they were waiting for a second round of food.

"Yeah, so?"

"You've gotta drink it."

"Non sequitor, any? I dont follow, drink what?"

"I cant believe you dont remember!"

She stared at him blankly. "What should I remember, Ice?"

"The meatshake! If either of us got shot, we had to down a meatshake!"

It clicked into place.

"Oh God. I never agreed to that!" Long ago, before the invasion, their hosts had made a deal that if either one was dumb enough to get wounded, they would drink a concoction of spam, milkshake, alcohol, and hot sauce that one of the other people in their unit had come up with while unbelievably bored.

"I was there, I remember. You were the one that came up with the deal, remember?"

She made a face. "That was my host, not me. Not even the same host... I don't think anyone even sells alcohol anymore, anyway!"

"Forget the vodka, then. You still swore, after implantation, that the deal still held!"

He was right, she had. She didnt know what she'd been thinking at the time. She swore under her breath.

"What? Cant hear you," Ice Pillar sang.

"Crap. Let's go get the spam and hot sauce, after this."

She wondered what she was going to do about him. He was her friend, and she was finally beginning to be able to talk to him without tripping her host's hatred of Seekers, but if he discovered her plans, he would stop her. That was unacceptable.

She'd have to do something, but she didnt know what. Fortunately, there was no rush.

A girl woke up, and for a few panicked moments didnt know who or where she was. After several minutes, some of it came back to her. She was called Jane, though that wasnt her name, and she'd spaced out again. She didnt know how long she'd been out of it, but she was still in her - Blossom's house.

Her head was clearing to the point that she was not just confused anymore, but also terrified. She was a wild human, she'd figured that much out pretty quickly. She still had no idea who she really was, and couldnt remember many of the details of Blossom's life.

It wasnt good. She didnt want to be implanted again, but she would be when the Seekers caught up with them. She hoped Alex had a plan to get away from them, because she was too hazy to come up with anything other than 'run away from the Seekers'.

Speaking of Alex, she realized she had no idea where he was. Had he been found, captured? Should she try to hide? Try to run?

Where would she go? Was there even any point to it? Without Alex, the Seekers would get her eventually, no matter what she did.

She had to try, though. Alex had saved her from implantation; she couldnt just throw that away.

Jane got up and looked around the room she was in; she'd been sitting against the wall of her living room, and her back hurt because of the odd position she'd been in. As far as she could tell, nothing had been disturbed from where it had been when Alex had removed Blossoms – if anyone had been around, it had been other humans, or she'd already be a Soul again.

"Where are you, Alex?" she half-whispered to herself, wondering what to do now.

If Alex was gone, she needed to disappear, fast. She realized she was barefoot, and went off in search of her shoes. She briefly thought about finding something to defend herself with as well, but decided against it; she didnt think she could bring herself to hurt anyone, not even a Seeker.

There was a noise down the hall, and she hid behind the couch. She knew it was a poor spot to hide, but it was better than nothing. Footsteps rapidly approached her, and she went still.

"Jane?" It was Alex's voice. She peeked over the edge of her couch and saw him coming towards her. He had a rifle across his back, and had his hand on a pistol in its holster on his waist.

He might have been caught. He might be a Seeker now, come back to get her.

He saw her, and lowered his hand. "There you are. Are you all right?"

She had to trust him, because there was nobody else to trust. "I – I was scared," she said, coming out from her hiding place. "I woke up and didnt know anything for a minute. Please dont leave me alone again," she pleaded.

He closed his eyes for a second. "Okay. Keep trying to remember your real name, Jane. I'll stay with you for a while."

She remembered something that he'd said earlier, through the haze. "What happened to Blossom's friends you had me call?" she asked, worried for them. She had fuzzy memories of dialing a couple of people, one after the other, asking them to drop by for a minute.

His voice sounded worried. "Don't worry about it, Jane. Just try to remember what you can abou-"

"You took out their Souls, didn't you? You didn't hurt them, did you?" she interrupted.

Alex stayed silent for a second. "I stole some cryotanks, I did, but one of the girls saw I was human before I could hit her with the Sleep. The rest of them are fine, Soul and body - I buried the Souls in cryotanks out back. Nobody will find them, but they'll be fine there for now."

"Where are the humans?" she asked.

"Come on, I'll show you."

Widepetals found herself in a blank, featureless plain.

"You're going to have to take care of him, you know." someone commented in her own voice. "You shouldnt be befriending the enemy." She spun, and came face to face with her new face.

"Wh-What?" she stuttered. Her doppleganger sighed.

"You havent thought this through much, have you? I'm talking about Ice Pillar. He's going to keep tabs on you forever unless you do something about it. He cares about you too much to let you break off contact. He'll come searching for you."

As she recovered from shock, she recognized the tattered Seeker's uniform and shredded body armor she'd woken up in after getting shot. Sophia, she thought. I'm dreaming.

"I'm not going to hurt anyone I dont have to," she said emphatically. Sophia laughed hysterically, chest heaving under her armor as she fought for breath.

"What happened to the whole plan to show everyone how defenseless all you bugs are?" she eventually gasped out. "It was a good plan, I liked it! As soon as your targets have a face and a history you have second thoughts, is that it? How cute."

"I dont have to listen to you," she said, turning away. This wasnt really happening; all she needed to do was wake up and it would banish this ghost.

"Waking up wont let you get away from me. Maybe I'm not really Sophia, but you're using her brain to do your thinking. You'll see I'm right soon enough."

"Sure..." she muttered, ignoring the imaginary human as she tried to figure out how to wake herself.

"Let's see, what else can I solve while I'm here? I guess if you're squeamish about Ice Pillar just because he's your friend you could send him off-world. You don't have to hurt him." it said disapprovingly.

Widepetals ignored it, pinching herself to no effect.

"You need weapons," Sophia's image told her. It produced an old revolver out of the air and rotated its cylinder, loading bullets one by one. Widepetals remembered where her host had cached a pistol like the one she saw before her, before the phantom spoke again. "This thing is all right for a start, but for a full fledged rebellion you'll need rifles, and lots of them. You can't steal them yourself; people will recognize your host if you go anywhere near an armory. You gotta start recruiting, little bug."

The Soul ignored Sophia's visage, and started off in a random direction.

"Leave Zoe alone, for now. There's too many people watching her," it said, following her.

Widepetals resolved to try and make up for what her host had done to the other Soul.

"You know what would work? Sneak out while Ice Pillar's sleeping, and find where some of the Seekers live. I bet their hosts would be pretty helpful, and if they dont wake up, you could torch their houses or something like that. You'll need Awake, and Still or Sleep – shouldnt be too hard to get your hands on it."

The phantom turned, and fired a pair of shots at something in the distance that she couldn't see. After a third shot, she heard a scream and saw Ice Pillar appear out of the air and fall to the ground, bleeding.

"You're not real. Go away." Widepetals told it, continuing to walk. But however far she went, the phantom of her host and Ice Pillar's body stayed nearby.

It began talking to her again as it drew a knife. "I'm not sure if you should do anything to Moon; there's probably people watching him as well. Alex would be really useful to have on your side, but I dont know if he'd be worth the trouble; you'd have to convince him you're really Sophia..."

The ghost flipped the knife open and turned over Ice Pillar's body. Suddenly, Widepetals found it was her hands holding the knife, checking for a pulse. She found one, and cut his throat.

She screamed.

"-etals? Wake up, we're back at the motel." Widepetals was jolted awake as Ice Pillar shook her.

She cried out and flailed for a moment until she realized she was no longer dreaming.

"You all right? You look like you've seen a ghost," he said, concerned.

"Bad dream." That didn't do it justice, but she didn't know how else to describe it without alarming him.

"I thought you might have that problem. I've got the cure right here," he said, brandishing a can of Sleep.

She thanked him and took it, feeling uncomfortable about her dream. It had been frightening, but dream-Sophia had made a few points. She did need to arm herself, and she had to do something about Ice Pillar, sooner than she'd like.

The dream might end up being prophetic, if things turned out poorly. What was she going to do with him? What was she going to have to do to him, if he found her out before she was ready?

She wished she could use the Sleep; it would make things easier. But she had dirty things to do in the night, and couldn't afford the luxury.

Fractals was surprised that Widepetals and Ice Pillar agreed to let her come along with them, though Zoe was not.

She's trying to throw us off, the human informed her Soul. She'll probably try something along the way. Don't go, or at least bring a knife.

Fractals was indignant. We're going, and you know that I'm not going to use a weapon, Zoe. I'm sure we can think of something else. In any case, why do you think having a knife would help us?

We've got to be able to defend ourselves in case she turns psycho on us. Bring a can of Sleep, at the very least.

I'll be careful to keep her from catching us alone, Fractals said, her mental voice braver than she felt.

This isnt smart. You know this isnt smart, I can feel it. Dont do this to me! Zoe cried.

We need to paint her as the unstable one. If we bring a weapon, that can only hurt our case. Ice Pillar already thinks I'm overzealous, and if I got caught with a knife, or even medicines that could be used against someone, I'll only cement his opinion of me. And if Sophia takes over, I dont think a knife or Sleep will help us.

Zoe kept arguing, but Fractals was adamant.

Widepetals had never really appreciated search engines until she looked at them through her new host's eyes. She could type in anything, anything, into the search box, and get an answer.

It had started out innocently enough - Ice Pillar was off talking to the higher-ups again, and she'd gotten bored. After five minutes of searching the hard drive for something to do, and finding nothing but emails and boring games, she'd discovered she had an internet connection.

She booted a web browser, and typed in 'bored' in the search box.

Another five minutes later, and she'd found a repository of violent human-era videogames that hadn't been taken down yet. After loading one, she wondered why her people had stopped making violent games - blowing up Nazis was a lot of fun.

An ad looking for people to help out SETI flashed on top of her T-34 on the screen, and she closed it. She idly wondered why it still existed - they'd found what they'd been looking for, after all. She supposed that the Souls involved in the program were searching for more planets to colonize.

The ad broke the flow of her game, and she decided to get down to business. It made her exceedingly uncomfortable (and a little excited, though she didn't want to admit it), but it needed to be done - she typed in 'silencers' into a search box, and found that they were frighteningly easy to make for smaller caliber weapons. Another few searches showed her how to make black powder. There were possibilities there, but she had to get a move on; Ice Pillar wouldn't be gone forever.

She wiped the browser's history, and set out to go get her hands on the necessary materials, as well as a few choice drugs. And of course, find a weapon, preferably a gun.

She 'borrowed' a car (the keys were in the ignition - it was almost an invitation, after all) then set out for a short stop at a few stores. She pulled up her hood, and got started looking for some necessary items.

First, she found a big suitcase, and then she got a few more things; sunglasses, black hair dye, and a few changes of clothes. She also went to a pharmacy to get all the drugs she needed. There, a fellow shopper recognized her face, but she was able to convince them it was just a similar host.

Next, she set out to do a little raiding. Rather than being strange to steal things from other people's homes, she found it eerily familiar from her host's memories.

Almost everyone was at work, and Souls didn't lock doors. After searching a few houses to find nothing but asinine 'non-stabbing' kitchen knives, she found one with a basement full of stuff piled halfway to the ceiling. This was her best bet - it looked like it had been there since before the invasion.

She didn't find a gun, but there was a box filled with folding knives, and buried inside that she found a switchblade.

Better than nothing, she thought, hefting the box. This was just until she got a different weapon, hopefully the pistol she'd stashed so long ago, still inside layers of plastic bags.

She returned the car and ran back to the motel, chilled to the core at what she was going to have to do to ensure her species survival. It was much more real when she was trespassing to find weapons.

It's necessary, she told herself, imagining human warships pounding the Origin into glass from orbit. Her trip only demonstrated how defenseless - how utterly naïve - her people currently were. Why couldn't anyone else see it?

An hour later, Ice Pillar came back with a few bags from the grocery store, including a bag of kibble. He found her playing tetris, trying to forget the rest of the world. He didn't comment on her new suitcase, nor did he have any reason to go it to find the multitude of blades. He did notice her hands were shaking, though.

"Hey, you all right?" he asked, coming over towards her, looking like he came right out of Seeker motivational video.

Now that the Calm had completely worn off, she had to put her hands in her pockets to keep from reaching for a weapon. Still, her reactions were getting better; she no longer felt the urge to eviscerate him, though her body's reaction brought the ugly reality back to the front of her mind.

She wanted to hug him, but she was going to have to harm him eventually. He was her best friend, but her blood pressure rose at the mere sight of him.

It's necessary, she thought, eyes stinging. "I'm fine," she said, too quickly, looking away.

"Why do you look like a hummingbird on drugs, then? What's wrong?"

It was nice that he cared. But also problematic, she needed to avoid attention.

"I'll be fine, don't worry about it. How'd it go?" she asked, trying to change the subject.

"Ugh, don't want to talk about it. The short story is I'm free for the next week, then possibly another. It depends, we've been picking up more stray humans ever since they re-upped the copter patrols. The news hounds are bothering anyone who will talk to them about it."

"What do you know about the humans in the area? Are they organized?"

"We haven't taken any alive for questioning. They got cyanide pills from somewhere," he said sadly.

Widepetals had a momentary flashback to her host echoing the similar sentiments about Souls.

"They don't understand we don't want to hurt them," he continued, not noticing her pale at the memory.

She let that one slide without comment; from the human point of view it was death either way. The rest of her people did not understand humans, not at all.

"If you do get one, find out if I can have them as a host after interrogations are over with, will you?"

"Sure, but don't count on it. Most of them seem to be too old," he replied.

"What's with the kibble?" she asked, changing the subject.

"We have unfinished business," he said dramatically, dumping a tin of spam, a tub of ice cream, habanero sauce, lime juice, cheese, and some gatorade onto the table in front of her. "Meatshake. Now."

"No."

"You swore!"

"I'll swear again, no."

"You're breaking your word, Widepetals..."

She was, and there was no way around it.

"Mix it." she said, swearing at her previous stupidity under her breath.

She drank the mixture without further complaint. She had sworn she would. She'd made a promise, and she kept it.

It was vile.

"Gonna get shot again, Widepetals?" Ice Pillar taunted as she fought her rebellious stomach.

Sometimes, I think I could kill him pretty easily, she thought, deciding not to puke on him.

From the side of the road, three pairs of eyes watched Widepetals leave the motel again, this time at 3 am.

"Jesus, doesn't it ever sleep?" asked one of the watchers.

"Probably not anymore. Didn't you see how much Awake it got earlier?" a second one commented.

"Yeah, but still..."

"Just because you sleep too much doesn't mean everyone else has to."

"Fuck you, I was tired."

The third spoke up. "Keep on task, idiots. If we lose her, it won't be good."

"Why the fuck are we watching it again?"

"Because command told us to. If we needed to know more than that, they would have told us. The less we know, the less the Seekers can get if they find us. Now shut up and watch."

Zoe and Fractals woke to a knock at their room's door. After a short, customary argument, Fractals got up to see what was so important at - she checked the alarm clock - 3:25 in the morning.

Fractals looked through the door's peephole and saw Widepetals leaning against the wall in the hallway, listening to an ipod. She'd dyed her hair black, for some reason, too.

After another moment's argument with her host, they decided to find out what the other Soul wanted - Widepetals wasn't being overtly threatening, and there was a security camera in the hallway - they'd checked for a place that had one.

Fractals made sure the chain on the door was done, then opened the door a sliver.

"There's a security camera in the hall, you know," she told Widepetals through the crack.

"It's not hooked up to anything," the girl said, grinning as though she hadn't said something alarming. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folding knife. "I recognize the model; there's a little light that comes on when it has power."

Fractals slammed the door in her face. She heard laughter from the other side.

A second later, something slid under the door.

Back! Zoe ordered, fearing it was harmful. Fractals complied.

Nothing happened, and the laughter died down.

Fractals recognized it was the knife Widepetals had drawn in the hall, and went to pick it up.

Through the door, the other Soul said "I know you don't trust me, but you really shouldn't go around unarmed."

"Uhh..." Fractals said, intelligently.

"Just keep it, will you? I remember what Sophia did to the people she captured, and it gave me a nightmare."

"I don't think I could use a knife to hurt someone, even a human," Fractals said.

Widepetals and Zoe responded at the same time, echoing similar responses.

You couldn't. But I could, if I had to.

"I bet Zoe could, if it came down to it. And who knows? You might surprise yourself."

At that, the girl left, leaving a bewildered Soul and human.

Well, that was different, Zoe eventually said.

"Do you think she really wants to make amends?" Fractals spoke aloud.

I can't tell. I don't trust her, and I don't know what she wants.

"She did say that if something happened to us, she'd be the prime suspect."

She knows I'm here... Do you think that might have something to do with it?

"I really don't know."

She's very strange, commented the human, but I don't think she has any plans to hurt us. I hope. Still, bring the knife, or I'm going to sing '99 bottles of beer on the wall' the entire trip.

A/N

Thanks to everyone for reviewing.

Thoughts? Comments? Flames? Glaring errors? Post a review, please!

Chapter 19: Murky Waters Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N

My computer's hard drive died and I lost most of the original chapter I had written. This version sucks in comparison.

Murky Waters

Widepetals stared out of the window for the entire trip. Zoe and Fractals watched her scanning the road, all the while thumbing her phone on and off with a familiar cadence.

Click, click, click, click.

She didn't seem to realize she was even doing it - in fact, she seemed like she was in another world - but that made it even more unsettling.

"Widepetals, could you please stop that?" Fractals asked.

"Huh?" the girl blurted, looking like she'd just woken up. Then, "Oh, sorry," going red as she realized what she'd been doing. She put the phone inside of her pocket, then promptly went back to staring out the window.

I think you might have been right about the knife, Fractals grudgingly admitted. Widepetals doesn't think the child is awake, but... just look at her!

Ice Pillar gave them a strange look, but didn't say anything. He'd tried to start conversations at several points in the trip only to be met with stony silence; now he was sulking.

Then again, she might be telling the truth. How can we tell?

I wonder if this is what Sophia went through when she figured out I might still be here.

I doubt it. She didn't worry about it very much, remember? She thought I was lying, she thought that it was some plot against her.

Zoe recognized there was a certain soulless merit in that approach. But Widepetals was a (semi) innocent bystander, and Zoe was not a murderer. Besides, it was pretty much completely up to Fractals what they did.

And Fractals did not approve of the direction her thoughts were taking her.

What's wrong with you? We can't just kill her! Fractals cried indignantly.

I didn't plan on it, I was just thinking. Can't I think to myself?

You humans can rationalize anything! Its no wonder you almost destroyed yourselves.

If Fractals started going on about how evil humans could sometimes be, she would probably (politely) rant for half an hour. Zoe decided to try and nip it in the bud.

Calm down, Fractals. You're making my head hurt. Let's not get started on racial arguments, we'll just make ourselves more miserable.

It was time to change the subject.

What do you think she's looking for? Zoe asked as Widepetals scanned the side of the road for the thousandth time.

I don't know. Seekers, maybe? It might just be another leftover habit.

I hope that's all it is. God, she's creepy, Zoe commented with a mental shiver.

What do you want to do when we get home? Fractals asked Zoe. I want to go see Mom and-

They aren't your parents. Zoe interrupted, angrily.

They're the closest I have, and I love them, Fractals said protectively. Technically, they aren't your parents either.

Their bodies are! Zoe growled.

'No racial arguments', Fractals quoted back at her.

Zoe fumed for a few minutes.

We can't visit the family, I don't want to bring them into this if something happens, she grumbled, eventually. Even if they are strangers now.

I feel bad about not contacting them earlier, Fractals said.

We'll feel worse if Sophia surfaces and kills them, Zoe replied. Who knows what she'll do? Best to avoid them for now.

But what if Widepetals doesn't do anything? How long should I pretend not to know them?

Beats me. Not my decision, Zoe remarked glumly.

"Those cars are following us," Widepetals commented, pointing at a line of three gray SUV's several hundred yards behind them. "Ice, are there Seekers monitoring me?"

"Nobody's supposed to be following us that I know about..."

Widepetals swore and flipped her phone open. "No signal," she reported.

"Calm down, I'm certain there's an explanation," Fractals stated.

"Really. They've been behind us for almost a hundred miles. When we had to get gas, when we got back on to the highway, they were still there."

"They're probably just going to the same place as us," Ice Pillar said.

Widepetals unbuckled herself and turned around to stare at Fractals. "Do you really want to be kidnapped by humans again?" she asked flatly.

Fractals didn't respond immediately, and Ice Pillar cut in. "They must be fellow Seekers. Humans wouldn't be so brazen as to attack in broad daylight."

"If I were human, I would, if I thought I could cover it up. My host certainly did. Give me your pistol."

"Um, no. Sit down, there haven't been any violent attacks in this area since -"

"Since a few days ago?" Widepetals interrupted, looking back again to see the cars were getting closer. "Screw it, keep the pistol. Zoe, hand me Ice's M4, would you?"

Fractals stared at Widepetals. "No."

"I will not die because the two of you are too stupid to get worried about humans. Hand me the fucking rifle, or I swear if we live through this I'll - I'll - " she sputtered.

Zoe was ecstatic. There's some proof, she said.

Ice Pillar began speaking. "Don't be paranoid, Widepetals. Here, I'll pull over and let them -"

"No! There's nobody else on the road!" Widepetals cried, but Ice ignored her.

She watched in horror as a figure stuck a head out of a window behind them, and then all three cars sped up.

And passed them.

"See?" he said. "Stop jumping at shadows."

They arrived at Moon's apartment without conflict. However, they entered and found the building suspiciously empty – Widepetals thought the amount of dust covering every surface suggested Moon hadn't been there for a day or two.

After talking to his neighbors, all of them admitted they hadn't seen him for a similar amount of time. Where could he be? Widepetals wondered, having a sinking suspicion that Moon's host had been even harder to deal with than Sophia.

One of the neighbors suggested he might have gone to visit a potential girlfriend, a Soul named Blossoms Sunward that he'd been seeing a lot of recently. Ice Pillar got the name of the neighborhood she lived in, and they set off in search of her home. Zoe insisted upon coming, saying she wanted to see Widepetals safely with someone stable before she would leave.

Soon, they found the neighborhood, though it was strangely empty.

This might be my chance, Widepetals thought. If she could extract Moon and ditch Zoe and Ice Pillar, she'd quickly convince Alex she was Sophia. Then they could find the resistance.

Jane was following Alex around like a lost puppy. She seemed to be getting better – she no longer had that glazed look in her eyes and responded quickly when he talked to her, and she was starting to ask questions about future plans. She even remembered a little bit about Blossoms' life.

Alex prodded one of the comatose humans' sleeping forms, hoping more than just Keith would wake.

'What if none of them wake up, Alex?" Jane asked. "The Seekers will come here soon, wont they?"

Then we're fucked, he thought. "I guess if they don't wake up before the Seekers come we'll have to leave them behind. By that time the centipede already know it's us and it wont matter."

"Centipedes? What?"

"The Souls, Jane."

Understanding dawned on Jane's face. "That's not very nice," she said, frowning.

"They're not very nice," Alex said. "They'll kill both of us if they catch us; why are you worrying about hurting their feelings?"

"Uh..."

"By the way, do you think you're up to passing for Blossoms if they show up today or tomorrow? Widepetals should show up any time now, but until then we're stuck here."

Jane's eyes glazed over again.

"Jane?" Alex waved his hand in front of her face. Guess that's a no, he thought.

"All right, you need to learn to use this then," he said, pressing his pistol into her hand.

Jane shook her head in protest. "You want me to shoot the Seekers?" she said incredulously.

"Unless you shoot them in the head they'll probably live, what with Heal and all. It's just for a worst-case scenario." He tried to hand the pistol to her, but she backed away.

"I don't think I could if I wanted to, Alex," she said, shaking her head. "They're still people, you know? I don't want to hurt anyone. Don't we have Sleep?"

"I guess that will work too," he said thoughtfully. "How fast can you run?"

"I used to be on the track team at high school," she said. Then, "Hey, I remembered something!"

He couldn't help smiling at her happiness.

Soaring Leaf would have cursed, had he been human. Moonlight hadnt been seen by anyone for almost two days and nobody had noticed a thing. There was potentially another psychotic human on the loose with a long, long head start. With two days to get away, he could be anywhere by now.

He got up and went to go talk to the neighbors, to see if they knew when Moon had gone missing.

Alex turned the corner and was suddenly staring down the barrel of an old, old revolver, held by his sister's body.

"Nice to meet you, Moon," the thing wearing her body sneered.

Alex swore. "And the same to you, Widepetals." He'd been caught by the bug in his own sister's body. It didn't get any more humiliating than that. "How did you get in so quietly?" There wasn't much else to say, this was it, unless Jane showed up miraculously.

"This house has a lot of ground-floor windows. You missed one," it said.

"It's about that time, huh?"

"Yep. Still or sleep?" it asked.

"Aren't the Healers supposed to do this?"

The bug paused, then pulled out a flashlight and shined it into his face. He didn't know why it was checking his eyes – it already knew he wasn't Moon.

But then an odd grin spread across its face, and it lowered the gun. "Alex? How'd you lose Moon?"

He wondered why it even bothered trying to trick him. There was nothing it couldn't learn from him this way that it wouldn't also learn by performing an implantation. "I'm not stupid, Widepetals. You're not my sister."

"Relax, Alex, I'm still me. I'm still Sophia. I've got Widepetals pretty well mindfucked – it'll think almost anything I want it to at this point."

"Why should I believe a word you say?"

"Got any Seekers that need killing?"

"What?"

"Do you have any Seekers or other bugs that you want dead? I'll kill them. That'll prove I'm me, right? Bugs don't sacrifice their own."

Widepetals – or perhaps Sophia - thought for a second. "I guess you'll have to trust me. If I was a bug, I would have called the Seekers by now. Do you even see any cryotanks around here? I'll trust you to believe me." It spun open the cylinder of it's gun and unloaded the weapon. "Don't take Widepetals out – it's the best cover ever."

"What's the plan then, if you're not one of them? We cant stay here, there'll be Seekers coming pretty soon."

"Haven't thought that far ahead yet. We'll get a car, and see if we can link up with the resistance. Widepetals' friend mentioned that the Seekers are finding signs of humans. They're not sure what it means, but it's pretty obvious to me there's some kind of organized group of people out there. Speaking of him, I need you to come outside to smile and wave at them. Him and the hostage I took earlier were afraid that just this would happen, but if they see you they'll probably go away."

She was right. Ice Pillar and Fractals came inside, talked to him briefly, and satisfied he wasn't a human, left. They didn't bother to check his eyes.

Alex was worried. Only two of the rescued humans had woken up, and he was confused. The man, an unmemorably featured person, remembered his name was Keith, to Jane's mild jealousy.

Other than that, nothing. Any doubts he'd had about his sister's control over her Soul were assuaged by her alarming eagerness to kill all of them, human and Soul, and dump the bodies somewhere.

This attitude did raise other alarm bells, though. "When did you get so bloodthirsty?" he asked, after she first suggested the idea.

"The day I thought I'd become the only human on the planet," she replied earnestly. "Seriously, I think we've got an honest shot at taking back Earth, or at least sending a strong message to the bugs. But if we get bogged down by morals that don't apply to the situation -"

"Don't apply? You're talking about cold-blooded murder!"

"The humans are already dead, Alex. They just haven't stopped breathing yet, they're never going to wake up. And who gives a flying fuck about killing a few bugs? It's only murder if it's a person that dies."

"They are people. Both of us have had one in our heads – you still do! How can you say they aren't people, Sophie?"

"I look into Widepetals' memories, and all I see is a reflection of all the hosts its ever had. It doesn't have an independent personality. When it's in my head, it thinks blowing shit up is a great idea. In someone else's? Who knows?"

"We're not murderers. Whats the point of winning the war if we become monsters in the process?"

"I dunno... Maybe winning the fucking war? Surviving as a species? Vengeance?"

"We're not murderers, Sophia. We're better than the bugs, that way."

"We are?"

"We're not murdering them. End of story, Sophia."

"Okay, okay," she said exasperatedly, throwing up her hands. "You win."

As he left the room, he heard her muttering to herself. "Idiot."

"I don't think I like your sister very much," Jane whispered to Alex after he gave up trying to reason with Sophia. It was obvious she'd heard much of the shouting match.

"She's just been through a lot of shocks. She'll come around. Imagine the state you'd have been in if I wasn't there when you woke up."

"She's creepy," Jane persisted. "How can she say things like that?"

"She'll calm down after a while, I promise. Have you remembered anything else, Jane?"

"I think I used to work at the supermarket, for a while, anyways."

"That's good," he said, smiling. "Anything else?"

"I don't trust your sister," Jane repeated softly.

Things were not going well for the resistance. After nearly six years of no other human activity, there was suddenly a flurry of violence.

Violence meant the Seekers were somewhat alert again. Violence meant reconnaisance copter patrols. Violence meant lost raiding parties - three whole groups this month, along with two people lost individually in the past few days.

Violence meant they had to move up the schedule. They'd been planning on waiting another couple of weeks to finish a few special projects, but the fuel-air bombs, Ricin and Sarin they currently had would have to do, and there was probably more things some of the more creative cells had made but not told anyone about. Any more waiting might jepoardize everything.

The leader of the resistance switched on his radio. "Three days and we're a-go, everybody. If we wait any longer, somebody's going to get taken alive. Finish any projects you have before then."

A/N

If anyone's still reading, please review!

Chapter 20: Conscripted Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N

Do not make silencers unless you enjoy getting pwnt by the ATF or your country's equivalent agency. This should go without saying, but I believe one should never underestimate the stupidity of people on the internet.

I feel bad for Jane, Keith and Alex in this story. They don't deserve the things I do to them.

Mixed Feelings

Conscripted

"Omelettes are not made without breaking eggs."

• Attributed to Robespierre

"I think that's everything other than the sleeping people," Jane told Alex as they loaded Blossom's tiny econo-car with supplies. "Where are we going?"

"Far, far away," he replied. "We can't stay here any longer, Jane. The Seekers have got to catch on sooner or later. Do you think you're up to driving around?"

Jane tried to fight through the fuzz in her memories to see if she still could. Alex watched in amusement as her face scrunched up in the effort.

"I don't think that would be a good idea," she said eventually.

Alex suppressed the desire to swear in front of Jane. "It's probably for the best, then. We need to get another car to move the people we rescued in, and I don't think leaving Keith and the rest of them with Sophia would be a good idea."

Jane didn't want to get left behind, but Alex's sister had made her stance on the unconscious humans clear. She was afraid of what the girl would do to the unconscious people left to her own devices, after overhearing her arguing to murder all of them.

"Be quick, okay Alex?"

The Repo Men, as they referred to themselves, were part of a larger network of resistance cells, and knew that they were pretty far down the chain, as things went. Blackbird, their leader, had been recruited a full two years into the invasion, back when removing a Soul almost always resulted in a full mental recovery. He'd saved the rest of them from host-hood.

Originally, most of the work they'd done was recruitment - capturing unsuspecting Souls wandering far from civilization and rescuing their hosts, then making sure they left absolutely no evidence of their passing. As the years had passed, it had become harder and harder to get people to remember who they were, and in the past two, almost nobody even woke up after removing their parasites. As a result, they'd turned to other tasks - mostly watching the Seekers' patterns of movement and relaying it to other cells when they had the chance.

Communication inside the resistance was patchy, at best, in order to make it difficult for the Seekers to infiltrate them if they ever captured a member alive. Nobody ever used their real names (half of them couldn't remember them, and others didn't want to be identified easily), and Blackbird suspected many of the other cells changed their monikers on a nearly weekly basis to confuse infiltrators. Despite this, the Repo Men knew that the larger resistance had been planning for a day when they would make a stand for a very long time. Ocasionally, they would recieve a radio transmission from the top leaders of the resistance - usually only once a year. The transmission they had recieved the day before indicated the time was near.

Their task was to find and neutralize the Conrad siblings, either by killing them or by extracting their Souls. According to a packet of surveillance information they'd been passed by another cell, they were acting erratically, possibly due to the influence of her host, but nothing had been confirmed. The report emphasized, however, that both of the siblings were likely to be very slippery to catch due to their host's pasts.

"How high up the chain do you think these reports came from?" Greasefire asked the cell leader. "It doesn't seem like it fits in with what's going on. What's the big deal about these two kids, anyways?"

"You know what I do," Blackbird responded. "I'm certain there's a reason."

"I swear I've seen the brother before," Oakwheel commented. "I can't remember where, for the life of me, though." He frowned.

"Hey, yeah, he does look kind of familiar," Bookend said. "Wasn't he that kid that we saw get caught on TV when we were raiding for food a few weeks ago?"

So after we get a Comforter to examine Widepetals, what then? Zoe asked Widepetals.

I'm going to go home and get a Comforter of my own, Fractals responded.

Are you going to talk about me to them? Zoe asked nervously.

Of course I am, Widepetals said. You're part of the problem.

What have I done?! Zoe asked. I've been trying to help keep you alive whenever I can!

You make me feel like I don't fit in, Fractals said. Everytime I talk to someone, you always make me feel like they're a murderer. That I'm a murderer.

Well, you all kinda are, Zoe responded aggressively. Not on purpose, but... Seriously, how is erasing someone's mind okay with you people? And then to justify it by saying you made the world a better place by wiping us out?! It doesn't make sense to me.

We do feel regret over the loss of awarenesses, but you were inevitably going to wipe yourselves out, Fractals said. Such a pretty planet, endangered by your reckless actions, she sighed. And we don't kill anyone. We... guide, and try to keep things as much like they were as possible.

I can sort of see where you're coming from there, Zoe admitted grudgingly, But what about all the other species? The Vultures? The Flowers? The Dolphins? The Spiders? Hell, the the See Weeds couldn't even move, much less fuck up their planet! Did you think all of them were going to nuke each other as well? And what about those unfit to be hosts? The ones you 'discarded'. I think they'd argue that you all kill plenty of people. Did discarding them make the world a better place for them, too?

The Spiders did not protest when we came, Fractals defended herself. And the Vultures were invading.

Fair enough. But what about the others? The See Weeds and the Bats and the Bears and the Dolphins?

The Dolphins and the Bears barely had basic medicine. They commonly died from simple afflictions.

So you killed all of them to stop that?

They're not dead, Zoe.

They might as well be! You erased their minds so that they wouldn't die of primitive causes? There's a saying we humans have for actions like that, "We had to destroy the village to save it."

You would, wouldn't you, Fractals commented dryly.

What's that supposed to mean? Zoe grouched.

Maybe I should just go visit Mom and Dad for a while.

Please don't go back to them, Zoe asked. I don't think I could take it.

So what should I do that you approve of? Fractals asked, finally showing some sign of her growing irritation. I can't see a comforter, I can't visit my family -

MY family, Zoe cut in.

• and I can't switch hosts without being a murderer. What do you want from me?

Well, I figure you should try and get your car back from where Sophia left it first.

Fractals had hoped the trip to retrieve her car from where it had been abandoned would be uneventful, but there was no such luck. Getting the car back was relatively easy - it had only been left a few hours away and just took a bus to get there. Coming back, though, was another story. Stopping off to refill her car with gas late at night, she'd come across an interesting scene - two obviously human children emptying the shelves of the station's attached mini-mart. The older one (probably female, though it was hard to tell at a distance) was running through and picking out everything that looked to have a long shelf life. She then threw it into one of two backpacks that the other child was carrying.

Fractals could see the janitor, who looked like he'd been in the process of closing up when they came in, dialing a number on a cellphone while crouching in a different aisle. The Seekers would come soon, and the children would probably be none the wiser.

Help them! her host demanded insistently.

Zoe, how can I? They wont trust me. Why should I, anyway?

They're obviously not hurting anyone, Fractals. They're just trying to live. Go in and talk to the janitor. Tell him they're your siblings and you didnt want them implanted at the beginning.

Fractals could see Zoe's argument. The children werent causing any damage - they were only trying to survive. There was no point in calling the Seekers. And honestly, after dealing with Zoe she was beginning to feel that some of the humans did not deserve the fate her people had condemned them to, the Conrads notwithstanding.

The girl's too old for him to believe that she wasn't implanted, Fractals said to Zoe.

Say she has seizures. The healers dont implant people with dangerous incurable conditions, right?

We can cure epilepsy, Zoe. And I don't think I can lie that well.

I'll help you, and he won't know that. And why would he suspect you of treachery? You're a Soul, arent you?

Fractals entered the mini-mart, and tapped the janitor on the shoulder. "Have you seen my brother and sister? I stopped to fill up the tank, and when I turned around they were gone."

He nearly jumped out of his skin before he realized she was a Soul. Then he pulled her to the ground and whispered to her furiously. "Ssshh! There are humans here, run!"

Fractals thought it pretty sad that a grown man was terrified of two half-grown adolescents, but contained any comments she might make. It was obvious he hadnt been listening to her, she began to make up a story with Zoe's help.

"Those are my siblings. Sarah's epileptic, she's unsuitable as a host. And Daniel was only three when we colonized, and we decided not to implant him. They're perfectly well socialized, I promise - don't worry about them." The janitor seemed to calm down, so she stood. "Daniel, Sarah! I told you to stay in the car. You nearly gave the poor janitor a heart attack! What were you thinking? You know that people think you're feral when you run off like that - he almost called the Seekers on you!"

The children froze. Fractals crossed the aisles to stand next to them. "Do you really want that much food? I know it's been a long trip, but we're almost home. We can get something to eat when we get back. Now apologize to the nice janitor and lets go."

After a moment of panicked glances, the older girl decided to play along. "We're sorry, Angeline, but we were really hungry." She waved to the janitor. "We're sorry if we scared you, sir. Sometimes we forget that people get nervous around us."

Fractals tugged the younger boy into motion as the girl sashayed out of the station. "Have a good evening, sir," she said, waving goodbye to the janitor.

Widepetals realized her host was massively compromising her judgement. She stopped denying it around the time she started advocating killing the Souls in stasis along with the unconscious human shells. Though she tried to tell herself it was just to establish to Alex that she really was Sophia, she'd realized it really was the most sensible course of action - the Souls might give away something useful to the Seekers, and the humans would soon die of dehydration if they didn't wake up.

It would have been horrifying for her to look at sentients that way in her previous host. But now, her earlier viewpoint seemed foolish. She thought of the potential for a human empire that enslaved everything that stood before it, and her resolve to do the right thing strengthened.

It was frightening, how hard it was to recognize she was compromised. But there wasnt a damned thing she could do about it, as she had to infiltrate the human resistance and could not do it without someone to vouch for her. Alex no longer had any doubts that she was who she claimed after her performance.

Widepetals worried he would try to extract her anyway, just in case she was acting, but he'd made no noises in that thread of thought. But then again, he wouldn't tell her if he suspected her, would he?

She'd keep playing Sophia, and hope he didn't catch on. It was frighteningly easy to do.

She started as Alex came through the back door. "Sophie, we've gotta find a van or something to move these people in. Jane can't drive, and you scared the bejeezus out of Keith, so you're coming along, okay?"

What would Sophia say in her place?

"I saw like thirty cars parked in this neighborhood. None of the bugs lock their doors or anything - why dont we steal one of those?" she asked. "It would be easier and faster."

"Come on, Sophia! We can't go running around the division - if someone calls the Seekers, they'll be all over us!"

"All Souls are completely trustworthy and free of deceit," she sang. "I'll just go take one. Keep trying to wake up the sponges while I'm gone, okay? And convince Keith that I'm not going to murder him while you're at it."

"Sophie, it'll take at least twenty minutes to load the car. If we take it from someone who can see the car in the driveway, they'll call the Seekers. And if they see you taking the car, they're not going to come up and talk to you - they'll assume you're the wild human you are."

"How do you think Jane and Keith will fare by themselves if the Seekers come?" Widepetals asked.

Alex looked pained. "Not much better than we would in their place. The faster this gets done the faster we can get out of here - that's why I'm bringing you."

"All right, all right. Let's do it your way."

Blackbird knew that his cell was pretty low on the totem pole as far as the resistance went. However, that didn't mean that their mission was unimportant, just not critical for the rebellion's goals to succeed.

"Everybody ready?" Blackbird asked.

Everyone responded with positive answers, and the Repo Men double-checked to make sure that their cans of Still and Sleep were easily accessible. Then they moved towards Blossom's house. On the other side of the building, Alex and Widepetals pulled out of the driveway just as they approached.

"Are they gone?" Keith nervously whispered to Jane as Alex and Sophia drove away.

"You don't have to be afraid of them," Jane told him. "Alex won't let anybody hurt us."

"Why do they have guns?" he asked her, still whispering. "Peaceful people don't carry guns and knives with them everywhere they go."

"They've got guns to scare away random Souls. I think both of them only have a couple of bullets."

"The girl, the Soul - why doesnt he do anything about her? I don't understand..."

"That's his sister," Jane said. "She's really mean - the Soul inside of her went crazy, I think. She wont hurt us either, unless we call the Seekers," I hope, anyway, she thought to herself.

"But... wild humans," he mumbled. "Shouldn't we do something?"

"Don't be silly, we're wild humans now too!" she said as cheerfully as she could. "Come on, lets go talk to the people who havent woken up yet." She remembered how frightening it had been to reawaken even with Alex there, with fresh memories of Blossom's and Moon's deaths. "I think it would be better if someone's around them."

Blackbird sprinted across the open ground to the house, then waved the rest of his team over. Looking in the window, he saw the brother and sister talking to each other, though the girlfriend was nowhere to be seen.

"All right, on three," he ordered. "As soon as we neutralize those two, search the rest of the house. The girlfriend's in there somewhere."

'Silencer' is a misleading term. The word 'suppressor' is more accurate - most 'silenced' guns are not truly silent, just not deafeningly loud indoors. This is especially true with homemade silencers, which usually do not trap escaping gases as well as professionally manufactured ones.

The rebel's suppressors were more or less soup cans with internal baffles, mounted onto the end of their pistols. They were crudely made and only good for five or six shots, but that was more than the team needed. The sound the guns produced was not quiet by any definition of the term, but was not loud enough to be heard outside of the house, and that was all that the team needed.

Blackbird saw one of his team members drop both of the standing people with one shot to the chest each. Less than a minute later they realized that they had the wrong people - they had no idea who the male was, and both the brother and sister were missing.

"I don't understand how we missed them leaving," Greasefire told Blackbird.

"It doesn't matter that much, we'll get them later. Roswell, Oakwheel, you're taking everyone we find here back to base while the rest of us wait for the brother and sister to get back. We'll catch them then."

Oakwheel secured the two people bleeding on the ground and then began removing the bullets from them. He was not a trained medical professional by any sense of the word, but Heal was so forgiving that it did not matter. Within another five minutes both Jane and Keith were fine again with only small scars to show for their encounter. Soon they had found the sleeping humans, and began moving all of them out to their vehicles.

Alex wondered about his sister's state of mind as she pulled searched a car's glove compartment for keys. She'd shown beyond a doubt that she was no bug - they just didn't get bloodthirsty the way she'd become since his capture. But she wasn't acting like the Sophia he knew, either - she'd always hated the bugs, but she'd become consumed with a desire for revenge, almost a caricature of herself. He'd seen it from afar on the news, but it hadn't really hit home that she'd gleefully made herself a mass murderer until he saw her in person. Seeing him 'die' must have really done a number on her already-fragile psyche.

He thought she'd snap back to herself after they were reunited, but if anything, she'd become worse. She needed therapy. Honestly, he probably did as well, but all of the therapists were Souls nowadays.

As always, the two of them would have to make due. He wasn't in any way shape or form qualified to fix his sister's problems, but he'd have to try.

"Sophia, I'm worried about the way you've been acting lately," Alex said out of the blue as they were searching another car.

Widepetals tensed, worrying he was on to her. "How so?" she asked warily as she looked under the visor.

"You've been acting differently ever since I got captured," he said to her as he looked in the glove compartment. "You're becoming..."

"I think the word you're looking for here is 'pragmatic'," she said, in a suitably dangerous tone.

"No, I was thinking something more like 'cruel' or 'reckless'."

"I survived, didn't I?" Widepetals asked rhetorically.

"You got captured," he said. "You abandoned all pretenses of stealth. If you couldn't control Widepetals like you can I would have to be rescuing you right now."

"Alex, I thought I was literally the last free human in the universe," Widepetals said. "It didn't matter if I was sneaky or not, humanity was done for, and the Seekers were on my trail. What should I have done, rolled over and died? I don't think I could have lived with myself if I hadn't fought."

"You didn't have to do it the way that you did!" Alex cried. "It's not worth trading your humanity for a shot at revenge!"

If only he knew, she thought to herself, snickering. "You don't understand, do you."

"Sophie, this isn't a joke!" he shouted.

"Alex, I don't think you get it," she said calmly. "We can win the war, if we do this right. Sacrifices will have to be made."

"It's not worth your soul," he said. "Do you seriously think the four of us can retake the planet? Make them just pack up and leave?"

Again, she had to fight not to snicker at his phrasing. "Obviously, you haven't been paying attention to them. Alex, they've never fought a war before. They didn't even have a word for it before they came here. I would gladly sell my soul to the devil himself to see them go down."

"Don't you feel bad about some of the things you did?" he asked desperately.

Widepetals cocked her head. This was easy, as Sophia had asked herself similar questions. "Sure. The bug I took hostage - its host woke up halfway through when I was pumping it for info. She's definitely gotta hate me now. And there was a human kid I fucked over right before they got me. I try not to think about it too much."

"What about the hosts of all the Souls you killed? What about the Souls in the cryotanks that you blew up?"

Widepetals rolled her eyes. "The hosts were already gone, Alex. They didn't feel a thing. And are you seriously asking whether I feel bad about torching the bugs?"

"I'm not dead, Sophie. You don't have to avenge me." Alex said, sounding desperate.

"This isn't about you," Widepetals said trying to let a fanatical gleam into her eyes. "This is about making a safer world for our descendants. One where children don't have to worry about their parents taking them away for a 'doctor's visit' and coming back as an alien. One where we don't have to hide on the outskirts of our own civilization just to survive. One where somebody else's children can curse our evil, wicked ways a hundred years from now. But today, we have to win, or else they won't be able to, no matter the cost."

"You can't save the world," he said.

Sure I can, Widepetals thought. Just not your world.

"We'll see," she said aloud, sighing. "Honestly, though, I think it would be a kindness to the people you 'rescued' to just shoot them now. They're going to die of thirst if we don't put the Souls back in, and there's no way to do that without revealing ourselves. You do know that they scramble their host's brains if they feel too threatened, right? If those people don't wake up soon, they'll die anyways, and there's not anything we can do to change that."

Alex went white.

"Don't tell me you didn't think of that," she said, pulling the keys from the front seat's back pocket.

"Why are you helping us?" the boy asked Fractals as they drove away from the gas station. "I thought all of you wanted to catch the last of us."

"I've seen how you have to live," Fractals replied. "We took everything from you. I feel kind of guilty about it."

"Why you? Are you the only one that feels that way?" the boy asked her.

"You'd have to ask the other Souls," Fractals said.

"Where are you taking us?" the girl asked.

Fractals opened her mouth to speak. Feed them, Zoe said. Look at them, they look like they're half starved.

It was true, they did.

"I'm going to a motel room. I've got food there, if you want any," she said. "As long as I vouch for you, nobody will get suspicious."

The two humans started whispering to each other at length. After nearly a minute, Fractals realized they were discussing whether to run away.

"Kids, if I wanted to get you I would have just let the Seekers come. Come on, what are your names?"

The boy opened his mouth to answer her, but the girl elbowed him. "Sarah and Daniel will work," the girl told her.

"Still don't trust me, huh?" Fractals asked, mildly stung.

What did you expect? Zoe commented in her head. They've been running from your kind for years. It'll take more than ten minutes of kindness to fix that kind of paranoia.

"I guess I can't blame you. But my name is Examines Fractals."

Widepetals had never heard anyone swear like Alex did upon returning to find the house ransacked and blood on the floor, not even in her old host's memories of the human military.

"We've got to find them," Alex cried. "We've got to move, now!"

"Alex, calm down and let's think." Widepetals said.

"YOU calm down! I just rescued Jane and Keith!" he shouted.

"The Seekers won't implant them immediately. They always take the injured hosts to a Healing facility before implantation, and by the blood on the floor it looks like there was a fight." She breifly thought of pointing out that losing Jane and Keith would be no great loss, but decided against it.

"Let's go, then! We've got to catch them before it's too late!"

He's not useful like this, Widepetals thought to herself.

"Hold on, let me fix something first," she said, opening her suitcase and looking through the various cans of Soul drugs.

"What's in there that's so important? Let's go!" Alex said, practically hopping.

Widepetals uncapped a canister of Soul medicine and sprayed it into his face.

"Here we are," Fractals said. "Let me do the talking." You're going to have to help me again here, Zoe.

Sarah whispered something to Daniel. Widepetals overheard 'Seekers' and 'run for it' in the phrase.

"Please trust me," Fractals said to them. "Honestly, I want to help you."

Soon, Fractals found herself sneaking humans into a Soul building once more. It was much easier to lie convincingly now that she wasn't under the stress of a human threatening to kill her - Zoe barely had to help her at all.

She worried about how easy deception was becoming. Fractals, you know that any human would have seen through you immediately, right? Zoe asked her in response to the discomfort.

She kept worrying until they got to the room and Sarah commented on it too. "I thought he wasn't going to buy it," she said. "Seriously, take a class on acting or something."

"It's... hard, for me to lie," Fractals said. "I'm not used to it."

Alex reached for his pistol, then stopped as the drug hit his system. "What was that?" he asked.

"Calm," Sophia said. "Now let's sit down and plan this before you run off and get yourself captured again."

Alex swallowed, then sat down. He knew he should be livid, but the Calm wouldn't let him. It was an odd sensation. "Okay, let's figure out which center is closest. That's where they'd be taken. Let me see your laptop."

He googled the local Healing facilities, and picked out the one that Jane and the rest would be moved to for implantation.

"Are you up to passing for Widepetals for a while?" he asked Sophia after he found the place.

She gave him an odd look. "Yeah, I think so," she said. "What's your idea?"

"Well, I figure if you can -"

Suddenly both of them stopped, hearing footsteps in the hallway. They turned their heads towards the door and drew weapons.

Two strangers had an MP5 and a UMP pointed at them. "Drop 'em," someone else ordered from another doorway.

Both complied.

"The invisible resistance, I would assume?" Widepetals said, seeing no silver in their eyes. "We could use your help."

The one with the MP5 responded with a round to her chest.

"Quiet, bug," he said. "And you, how can you let that thing stay in your sister?"

Alex dropped to the ground, checking to make sure the wound wasn't fatal.

"She's got it under control," Alex said, kneeling between the man and his sister.

Sophia coughed. "I'm really glad... that I take No Pain every hour," she said. "Was that necessary? I can prove... I'm not going to call the Seekers," she said.

"Unless I see you eat another bug, I'm not going to believe a thing," MP5 told her.

"I'd be... happy to. Alex... go dig up one of the Souls... from the backyard for me, will you? And... do you have any heal? This is kind of... inconvenient."

"My... host. She talks to me, sometimes. All of the time. That's part of why I'm helping you," Fractals told the children.

They gaped at her unprompted admission. "What's her name? How'd she wake up?" Sarah asked, wide-eyed.

"Zoe," Fractals told them. She explained her ordeal to them, explaining everything she could.

"That girl sounds kind of crazy," Daniel told her at the end of the story. "Do you think she's really awake now?"

"I really, really hope not," Fractals told them. "But I couldn't tell. I'm afraid that she might be, so I'm going to have a Comforter examine her."

"What's a Comforter?" Sarah asked.

"Here we go," Roswell said, holding a can labeled 'Awaken - now with CS flavoring' in a style reminiscent of the Soul drugs. "Oakwheel, you ready?"

Oakwheel pulled the charging handle of his M16 and pointed it at the unconscious rescuees gagged and bound with zip strips. "Always got your back, Roswell."

Roswell made sure the wind was blowing away from her, then popped the canister.

Jane woke up to the sensation of being burned alive. She tried to scream but she'd been gagged, so all she could do was moan in terror.

"There's one," Roswell said through the cloud as Keith began moaning as well.

"I always feel bad about doing this. It seems wrong to wake them up this way," Oakwheel said.

"Birth is always painful," Roswell told him. "Also, they'd all die if we didn't do this." She took a deep breath, then closed her eyes and pulled Jane and Keith out of the cloud.

"I just feel like an utter dick, doing it this way," he said.

"Well you are an utter dick, so don't worry about it," she told him, eyes tearing.

"Roswell, I swear if you weren't so cute I would do horrible things to you," he mock-threatened.

Soon, two more of the former hosts were making it known they were awake and unhappy. Roswell pulled them out of the cloud as well.

"I really hate doing this to them too," she admitted, coughing. "It's bad enough waking up in the first place, but to wake up in a cloud of teargas?"

"It's gotta be done," he sighed. "I cant blame people for being pissed off when they wake up, though. We all went through the same thing, even Blackbird."

"Yeah, I remember when we woke you up. You tried to bite Cancerman when you were a sponge." she told him.

"I can't stand cigar smoke, okay? And what about you? Blackbird says you tried to kill yourself." He crossed his eyes in imitation of a suiciding Soul.

"I thought I was a bug, how many times do I have to explain it? I still can't remember much from before the invasion. And you never did stop acting like a sponge," she told him.

"According to the Wrecking Crew, you never did either," he told her.

"They think we're all idiot sponges," she responded. "Even Blackbird." Pretty much all the other cells they'd had contact with had expressed similar sentiments - putting the Souls of the rescued into cryotanks instead of outright killing them cemented that opinion.

A minute passed as they watched the teargas run dry. "Only two?" Oakwheel asked with deep resignation.

"We'll try again in an hour," Roswell said, walking up to Jane, Keith and the two others.

"Allright, sponges. There's been an alien invasion, and you've been body-snatched for the past several years. We just rescued you. Because of how long it's been you might not remember anything, but some of it will come back over the next few weeks, I promise. Dont worry about the pain, it will go away pretty quickly. I regret having to wake you that way, but you were all comatose. Welcome to the Repo Men, by the way."

Jane whimpered.

A/N This chapter took forever to write. Coming up with a believable structure for the resistance that still allowed for anything resembling protagonists took some serious thought - the Repo Men are just about at the very bottom of the resistance's hazy chain of organization, and have no realistic idea of what's about to happen. }:)

Chapter 21: Prelude Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Prelude

Widepetals looked down at the cryotank in her hands, acutely aware of the submachine guns trained on her. Moment of truth, she thought, feeling ill. She deftly popped the lid on the cryotank and dumped its occupant into her lap. The Soul unfurled its feelers, and she picked it up.

Part of her saw it as her sibling, a beautiful representation of her people. She fought the urge to run her hand across it, to curl her arms protectively around her sibling and remove it from these humans who would do it harm.

Widepetals closed her eyes, trying to gather the mental will to do what was needed.

Part of her saw it as a representation of everything wrong with her people, their potentially fatal naivety. If anyone involved in Alex's capture had possessed one whit of common sense, he'd have been discarded immediately after they'd finished questioning Moon about her current host, and this poor Soul would not be about to die.

Another, tiny part of her leftover from her host's most deeply-held beliefs, saw it as a pest, a sub-human creature less worthy of life than common insects. She saw a murderous, hypocritical invader that deserved nothing better than a painful, gruesome death. Her hands longed to tear it apart.

She surrendered to her host's subconscious mind, closing her eyes.

"That's enough," one of the rebels said after a few minutes. "I believe you." She opened her eyes, looked down and blanched.

Her hands were sticky with her tiny sibling's blood, and its severed attachments littered her lap. Her entire front was covered with silver.

The world spun, and she felt as though she'd been kicked in the chest. She fought for breath as she processed what she'd just done.

A wave of discordant amusement washed through her, and suddenly she was laughing and fighting not to cry at the same time. Her hands rose almost of their own accord, and wrapped around another one of the Souls attachments, then tore it out at the root.

"You said you needed our help?" Blackbird asked Alex as Widepetals fought not to lose her bearing.

"My friend, Jane. The Seekers took her, and we've got to get her back. Her and a couple of others."

"The sponge? Black hair? Medium height?"

"Sponge?" Alex asked sharply.

"She's still retarded from the de-implantation, right?" one of the other rebels asked rhetorically. "They're like sponges."

"She's a little out of it after I took out Blossoms Sunward, but she's coming around," Alex said angrily. "But yeah, that's her."

"We've got her, and all the others that were in this house."

"Have you hurt her?"

"She's fine," Blackbird said. At Alex's questioning look, he added "We'll be meeting up with the rest in a few hours, soon as we pack up and move out."

Widepetals fought not to shake once she was away from the humans. Looking down at the front of her silver-stained body, she prayed she'd never have to do something like that again. Knowing she'd have to do something like this was one thing; actually carrying out the action with her bare hands against a defenseless sibling was another.

One of the dismembered attachments of the Soul she'd murdered twitched, and she couldn't suppress a shudder any longer. She knew she'd be haunted by this day for a very, very long time. Her only condolence was that in the end, after her people woke up to the danger they posed, the rebels who had made her do this would all be discarded when her people cleared the planet of humans.

The worst thing about it was that part of her, feeling emotions leaking from Sophia's subconscious mind, had actually enjoyed the act. It had helped fool the rebels, but left her feeling filthy. Used.

She wanted a shower to wash herself clean of her sibling's blood. Desperately. But that wouldn't remove the stain on her psyche from what she'd done in the name of necessity.

Someone was talking to her. "Sophia, right?" Blackbird asked. "We've got to get moving. The Seekers are slow, but they're going to show up at some point in time. Get that blood off of your hands and change your shirt - you look like something out of a horror flick. Sorry about shooting you, but I'm sure you understand."

Widepetals plastered on her best borrowed fanatical grin, and tossed aside the handful of severed attachments she'd been pulling apart.

"Gotcha, chief. No hard feelings here." Being sure to step on the carapace she'd peeled open, she headed out to see if any of Jane's clothing would fit.

Unknown to Widepetals, Ice Pillar had bugged her stuff. He'd gone through her things after seeing dirt on her shoes when he came back from the store, and found a plethora of weapons that a Soul would have no desire to have.

There was only one conclusion - Widepetals was being controlled by her host, like everyone had said she would be. He'd wanted to extract her immediately and discard the host, but higher-ups had wanted to follow her and see what she did.

It was not a nice picture. The device's audio stream was very poor, though its GPS signal was coming in fine. From what he'd heard so far, the brother was trying to organize some kind of larger resistance movement, and had kidnapped several people.

He'd heard them arguing about Blossom's Sunward's host, then a gunshot. The audio quality dropped to the point that he couldnt distinguish the conversation from static.

He'd already asked for a team to go rescue Widepetals. At the gunshot, he made up his mind, knowing she was likely already dead. He owed it to her to save her.

After showing up at Blossoms Sunward's house, he'd found the door open and nobody home. A cursory check of the first several rooms found a .357 round along with an expended 9mm that had bounced behind a door - almost a guarantee the rebels were armed. He couldn't think of any reason for a Soul to have such an artifact.

Then he entered the living room, and his stomach siezed - the floor was coated with red and silver blood, and a Soul's body was strewn across the room, having been torn apart piece by piece. He forced himself to look through the rest of the house, and found one of Widepetals' shirts - covered in red blood, silver blood, with a bullethole through it.

After a moment of panic, he realized she was alive - she had to be. Her host was too stubborn to die from a simple gunshot wound, the dismembered Soul was too big to be Widepetals, and there was no human corpse. That meant she was still inside of Sophia, still being controlled by her host.

He'd have to subdue the humans by himself, make sure not to injure Widepetals in the process, and find her a new host. Then he'd have to ensure that she actually went to a comforter - she'd always had low opinions of those who needed to visit the professionals, but now she'd have no choice. He'd drag her by force, if necessary.

And if she wasn't alive, he still had to track down her killers.

He checked their location once again, and headed back to his Humvee.

Alex, Sophia, and the Repo men were on the move to meet the recently de-implanted humans and their watchers. Alex was quickly growing to dislike the rebels, but there wasn't much he could do as long as his sister was hellbent upon joining them, and they had Jane in their care.

Sophia, on the other hand, was ecstatic - the rebels had equipped both of them with rifles. Alex had taken the opportunity to replace the bolt-action relic he'd been carrying with an FAL, and Sophia had jumped at an Uzi.

He was suspicious of the Repo Men - every time he asked whether Jane had been hurt in the capture, they got quiet. Sophia didn't seem to care. He supposed she might after the novelty of meeting other humans wore off, but right now she was all but ignoring him.

The trip took nearly an hour in the Repo Men's van, and he overheard snippets of conversation on the way. They were counting down towards something that was going to happen in the next few days, but he wasnt sure what and didn't care to ask.

Sophia was chatting it up with Greasefire, talking about the best way to break into buildings with a particular type of lock. He wondered whether it was good for her - she needed socialization, but the Repo Men... they were just going to encourage her destructive tendencies.

When they arrived at the meeting point - an abandoned house in the woods miles from anyone's property - Jane ran to him and practically tackled him with a tearful hug.

"Alex! They want me to fight for them!" she cried. "I dont want to fight! And they shot me!"

"Jane, you're not going to have to fight anyone," he assured her, glaring at Blackbird. "And why the hell did you shoot her?"

Blackbird shrugged. Oakwheel, however, took offense.

"Look around you, kid. Do you see the world we live in? We thought she was a Soul, and at some point, she's going to have to realize the world is out to get her. The sooner she learns to fight, the better off she'll be."

"Let's go, Jane. They're crazy." Alex started off into the woods with Jane. "Come on, Sophie."

Sophia glanced at Blackbird, and ran to her brother. "Give them a chance, they're all we've got," she cajoled.

"They shot Jane, Sophia - do you want to stick around people like that? If there are other groups, how long do you think you'll make it with a Soul in your head?"

"It's better than taking our chances by ourselves. They might be able to help us find our parents, Alex."

"Sophie, are you serious? Nothing's going to send up a flag in the Seeker's systems more than humans kidnapping relatives."

Jane spoke up as well. "They wont remember who they are. They'll be like me."

"God dammit, Alex, we find a group of competent people and your first instinct is to run? What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me? I think there's something wrong with you. I dont want to get involved in a battle, especially with Jane. How likely do you think it is that the Repo Men will succeed at whatever they're trying to do?"

"They've made it this long, haven't they?"

"I think that was mostly luck. Come on, lets get a move on." He broke into a jog, and Jane followed him.

"God dammit, Alex! I never thought you were a coward!" Sophia shouted after him.

After they'd gone nearly three miles, he heard an engine approaching and he dropped to the ground, pulling Jane down with him.

Blackbird and Roswell jumped off of ATV's, carrying weapons.

"Are they going to kill us?" Jane asked quietly.

"No," he reassured her. "Stay quiet."

Blackbird began shouting. "Sorry, Alex, but we cant let you go any farther. You know who we are, and all of our faces. If you get caught, we get caught."

Alex swore. "Jane's not going to fight, you hear me?" he shouted back.

"She's going to have to, in the next few years. We're taking the planet back, Alex, and in case you havent noticed, us humans are more violent than Seekers and we wont have police for at least a few months."

"I can protect her for that long," Alex shouted back.

Something hit him in the head. He looked, and saw a can of Sleep hissing at his feet.

The last he saw before he passed out was his sister's face glaring at him with silver eyes.

Ice Pillar tracked the signal across the state. It was coming from an abandoned house along a highway that had been moved back in the 1920s. After the road had been moved, a forest had grown up around the formerly inhabited area as everyone had left.

He stopped the car several miles away and continued on foot through the woods, bringing his M4 with him. He didn't want to have to kill any of the humans, but as there was only one of him, capturing them seemed unlikely. They were probably not suitable as hosts, in any case, as Sophia had demonstrated.

He approached the house through the woods, careful to avoid hitting any branches. The humans had cut down all of the bushes directly next to the house, and he covered the clearing to a broken window in a sprint.

Ice Pillar peered through the window cautiously, his M4 at the ready.

A pair of silver eyes stared back at him, right overtop of a machine pistol's sights.

"You should have let it be, Ice," she said tiredly. "Everything would have been fine if you'd left me alone. Drop the gun and get on your knees."

The safety was on on his rifle, and she was watching him like a hawk.

"Tell that to whoever I found splattered in Blossoms Sunward's house, Sophia," he said, driooubg the gun and raising his hands above his head.

"I'm not her. I'm not," she said, though she sounded unsure. "She's gone. Dead."

"So who am I talking to, then?" Ice asked. "You sure aren't Widepetals - she wouldn't kill innocents. She wouldn't point that gun at me."

Sounding more sure of herself, the girl responded. "Trust me, it's for the greater good, Ice. I don't think you could understand, even if I explained it."

"Widepetals, this isn't you - put down the gun and let's run! Your host's playing you like a piano!"

"I don't think so." She narrowed her eyes. "Having you out of the picture will make everything so much simpler. Bye - sorry it turned out like this. I don't like it any more than you do."

Her hand shook as her finger tightened on the trigger.

"Don't do it, Widepetals! You can fight her!" Ice Pillar desperately urged her.

Her face broke out into a sickly smile. "Trust me, I am, Ice. Every second of every day."

A string of gunfire rang out, impacting his chest in at least four separate places, and he went down. All the shots hit his body armor, but he felt at least one bone break.

"Blackbird, I think I've been bugged!" she shouted, stepping next to his body and kicking his carbine away.

The pistol's barrel gaped wide in front of his face.

"Bye, Ice," he heard her say through a sea of pain. "Sorry it has to be this way."

Stars exploded across his vision as a size nine boot impacted against his face, and then he blacked out.

Widepetals remembered the dream she'd had a day prior, and the phantom that had warned her that something like this would happen.

You were right, she thought, defeated, as several of the Repo men came running. She threw on a disgusted expression as they came into view, and started kicking Ice Pillar again.

"Sophia, what's going on?" Blackbird asked.

"A fucking Seeker," she said, throwing another kick. "Knew the bug in my head, came to 'rescue' it. I don't know how it found us. Search my stuff, I think he planted something in it."

Blackbird swore. "Bookend, search and secure the Seeker. Move everybody to the car - we've got to get moving before more Seekers show up!"

The Repo Men got on the road again within minutes, leaving Widepetals in awe. She tried to get Ice Pillar to tell her where the bug was, but he refused to talk to her.

Not surpising, she supposed. He thought she was a human.

Widepetals had to watch as Roswell removed him from his host and placed him in a cryotank. His host didn't wake, as she expected, so they began searching all of her stuff for the electronic device.

She found it after ten minutes - it was inside of one of the pockets of her backpack. They removed the tracker and attached put it inside of a parked car in a rest area.

They decided to move to one of their backup safehouses - an empty family fallout shelter built during the cold-war scares and subsequently forgotten after the war ended.

Then came the hard part - to keep up the act, she'd have to urge them to kill Ice Pillar, and give Alex another shot at joining the resistance.

She struggled with the thought, but with the memory of the previous killing fresh in her mind, she couldn't gather the strength to do so.

But what were the alternatives? She'd been talking to the Repo Men for most of the day - most of them 'knew' that she absolutely hated the Souls.

The humans had been discussing some kind of upcoming operation. It didn't seem like they knew much about it, but from what she'd gathered, it was going to be big. Big enough that her participation, or lack thereof, would not make a difference. She couldn't kill Ice Pillar, now that the time was upon her, she found she couldn't do it. Just thinking about the possibility made her realize she had to get out of her current host.

---

The rebel 'leader' such as he was, pondered what was going to happen if his people were successful.

There were three main objectives to the upcoming battle. First and foremost, they had to take the spaceport.

There were not that many interstellar capable ships, and they were not designed for atmospheric flight. The Souls solved this problem by building a space station where incoming ships unloaded their shipments of incoming cryotanks. These cryotanks were distributed via shuttle across the planet's surface. It was an efficient way to make use of the limited number of interstellar ships; the interstellar spaceships carried millions of Souls, but due to the time it took to fly between stars there were only a small number of flights every year.

From the viewpoint of the resistance, taking out that space station was key to retaking the planet. It would take months for the Souls to construct another one, during which time there would be no transport to or from Earth's surface.

The station was relatively tough; it was intended to withstand high-velocity impacts with the accumulated debris that humans had left in their fifty years of space flight. It was not, however, intended to withstand impact with one of the Earth-based shuttles moving at full velocity.

By taking the spaceport and rigging one of the shuttles as a missile, they would effectively have millions of hostages, and could credibly make demands upon what passed for the Souls' heirarchy - demands for food, supplies, space to live, and the disbanding of the local Seeker force.

Next, they had to take the healing center. The building was guarded by several hundred Seekers, in response to that idiot girl's fuel-truck bomb. That meant they'd have to use one of the FAE they'd been planning on using to deter ground-based counterattacks. The Seekers, while more security-minded than the average bug, were still Souls and thus hopelessly naive. Two of the more resourceful cells had a plan to capture a cryotank delivery truck and load it with one of the bombs, which would take out most of the building's defenders. The survivors would be left shellshocked and disorganized, leaving the facility open for capture.

The healing facility contained several tons worth of Soul miracle drugs. The Heal, in particular, would save many lives after the battle. In addition, the Health and Inside clean would be invaluable in dealing with any non-rebel humans who came to the city if the humans won. The rebellion, early on, had been forced to deal with infections and malnutrition as a fact of life in the outskirts of the Souls' world - but with the drugs, they might be able to help any latecomers get over such problems in short order.

Next, they wanted to take the SETI radio beacon. This wasn't as important as the other two tasks, but was still a main objective. The beacon had been upgraded by the Souls - now it was several orders of magnitude more powerful than it had been in human days. It still sent out the same message - basically just an "We are here, please talk to us" along with basic information about humanity. It made no mention of the Souls, and any species coming to investigate the beacon would face a bug infiltration of their society.

He wanted to reprogram it to send out a warning to any listeners about the bugs, and a plea for assistance. If it looked like they were going to lose, the message could be changed to a request for the sterilization of Earth. If anyone heard it, the bugs wouldn't be able to continue their current method of stealing higher civilization's technology, as any victims would be forewarned.

Of course, there would likely be a counterattack. From what scouts had found out, most of the leftover human-era military equipment of the area was tied up around the healing centers. The bugs had made a big deal about decomissioning most of the Air Force's inventory, so they wouldn't have to worry too much about airstrikes, but there were several attack helicopters and a few scattered IFV's in nearby towns. Several cells possessed Stingers for the choppers, but the armored vehicles might pose a problem.

If the bugs caved, that would mean everyone would have to shift their way of thinking. They'd be able to move non-combatants out of the various underground shelters they were in, and set up an actual government. The rebellion hadn't had to deal with much crime, but as soon as the imminent threat of extinction passed, humanity would once again need a police force. This would be made difficult, as pretty much everyone who had survived this long was good at getting around without notice, and nobody was used to following the societal rules necessary for any kind of concentrated population. Any kind of census would be near-impossible - the human survivors had long been conditioned to make it very hard to identify them, and most had dozens of aliases - many of the cells lower in the heirarchy had no members that remembered their real names, and the core resistance members would lie about their names and histories even to other humans.

They'd need to extract the bugs from everyone they captured. He worried there wouldn't be enough people to bury the dead - they might capture as many as ten thousand bugs, and optimistically one in ten would be successfully returned to the ranks of free humans. That meant thousands of bodies to bury, and even with bulldozers it would be a daunting task.

They'd be able to make demands if they captured the spaceport - the bugs would not sacrifice millions of their own for any reason. He doubted they could force them to leave, but they probably could manage to get the city declared off-limits to all Souls and a promise of safety, along with food deliveries. That meant they wouldn't have to worry about feeding the city, but the few bugs coming into the city to deliver food and fix things would need protection from the human populace.

He was about to be a very unpopular figure - nobody wanted any bugs to be in the city, anywhere, but common sense dictated that they would have to work with them if they wanted to live. He worried about rogue attacks on neighboring cities - even some of the core members of the resistance mostly wanted to keep up the momentum and free another city after this one, but they weren't going to be able to. He'd probably have to work with the Seekers to catch them...

It was going to be a long year if tomorrow's attacks succeeded. The top cells were already taking bets on the number of assasination attempts he'd have to deal with.

Alex had been separated from Jane again. They'd blindfolded him for the trip away from the meeting house, and he had no idea where he was aside from an empty concrete room with cold filtered air coming in from the ceiling.

He'd been there for hours when the door opened, and Sophia came in.

"Sophia! Stop this, you're going to get killed when they get caught!"

"I'm not your sister," she said. "Sorry."

Alex took a breath to shout for help, but she pointed a pistol at her own chest.

"You want her to live, right? Shouting might not be the best idea. These bodies - they're so fragile," the Soul commented airily, continuing to point the pistol at itself. "All it takes is a few grams of lead, and it's all over for you. No amount of Heal will fix a dead person."

"Let me let you in on a secret - I hate your species. Of all the species there are in the galaxy, yours is the only one that's come up with the concept of a war. You are, on the whole, potentially the most powerful force for chaos there has ever been, especially since we trashed your civilization. My people are mostly too naive to see it, but its obvious to any of you, isnt it?"

"If you kill her, I will end you," Alex ground out.

"Oh, I'm certain you will. But that leaves me in a difficult situation - if I let you do what you want, you'll kill me."

"So why the reveal, then?"

"I want you to re-implant Ice Pillar, and I want you to provide me with a new host. Male, if you can. Let us leave in peace, and we'll move me to the new host and send Sophia back to you."

"Bullshit. You'll just stay inside of her."

"I want out of her head. Your sister's a psychopath, Alex - all these little urges and violent emotions are too much for me to take. I cant tell right from wrong anymore. She's not awake, but she's manipulating me just the same and I want out. You have something I want, and I have something you want. We can trade and go our separate ways."

"I dont think the Repo Men will like that very much."

"The way I see it, you dont really have a choice. I dont really need the gun - I can just scramble her brain. If you want your sister back, you're going to get my friend."

Alex thought. He had no choice, really - Sophia was at this bug's mercy.

"Let me out and I'll see what I can do."

Sophia woke up looked around, finding herself sitting oun the ground in total darkness. "Am I dead? Alex, are you there?"

She struggled to move, and found that her hands were bound. She swore as a door opened with a metallic noise, and a Seeker walked in with a Soul in civilian clothing. Dim light spilling in revealed she was tied up in the corner of an empty shipping crate.

"Let's just kill her," the civilian urged. "We'd be saving ourselves a lot of trouble."

"You just went through a lot of trouble to avoid killing anyone else, Widepetals. I dont think that's a good idea."

The name Widepetals got her memory moving again - Widepetals had been the Soul she'd been about to be implanted with, and the Seeker looked rather familiar as well.

"Yeah, but... If we let her go, we'll be seeing her again shortly. And she'll be armed."

Ha! They've got no idea what to do with me!

Sophia spat. "Go ahead," she taunted. "Murder me, bug-boy. It wont be hard, I'm completely defenceless."

The Souls wouldn't kill her, not like this. It would be in a cold, sanitized Healing facility, under the guise of "discarding". Not anonymously, in the back of a shipping crate like some kind of criminal gang.

"Don't try me, I might do it," Widepetals countered violently, grabbing the M9 from the Seeker's holster.

Sophia laughed. "And hell froze over yesterday. I know you people. You dont do things like this. What do you want from me?"

"We dont want anything from you," the Seeker - Ice Pillar, the name filtered to her - said. "We want peace."

Both Widepetals and Sophia stared at the other bug.

"Well I want a nuclear bomb, and I'm sure if there are other humans out there, they want the same," Sophia eventually responded.

Widepetals agreed. "Ice Pillar, they're never going to surrender. Ever. Unless we have a navy, they'll sterilize every planet we've ever been to. I think the best we can hope for in the next few centuries is a protracted interstellar conflict."

There was another awkward pause.

"Sophia, do you know where you are, and what's happened over the past few months?"

"Last I remember, I'd just gotten shot. How'd dying feel, Widepetals?"

Widepetals grimaced. Score! she thought.

"After you shot me, I was implanted into you and tried to infiltrate the human resistance. Ice Pillar didn't know what I was doing and followed me, blowing my cover. Do you remember any of that?"

"That's right... And then you threatened to kill me to free him," she said, slowly remembering Widepetal's plan to sabotage the Repo Men's plans.

She paled - who knew what the Soul was thinking right now? It might very well kill her if it was still thinking like it had been inside of her head.

"So you see our problem," Ice Pillar said. "Honestly, I think Widepetals might be right about killing you. Taking you back to a Healing facility to be discarded would just give you a chance to escape."

Widepetals raised the pistol, and Sophia's eyes widened. "Well, if you have no objections..."

Its hand trembled holding the pistol, and Sophia thought quickly.

"Didn't you promise Alex you'd let me go?" she asked.

"I'm a Seeker. We're allowed to lie," the bug told her, its finger tightening. Sophia closed her eyes.

The gun clicked. "Its off to therapy for you, Widepetals," Ice Pillar said. "We're going back to the Healing facility, and you're going to listen to the Healers this time after we discard the girl."

Sophia was sprayed with Sleep - she tried to hold her breath, but the cloud persisted for too long to let her avoid breathing it.

---

Any proper first strike requires a great deal of planning and preparation to be successful. The rebellion's attack was no different. Through the past several years, several different cells had been tracking where different Seekers lived, the different routes of communication they used and routes of transportation within the city. When the announcement of the impending attack went out, everyone prepared to disrupt these things in any way that they could.

"Tomorrow's the day, people," the cell leaders heard through their radios late that night. "Drop any unfinished projects you have and start moving things into place. Zero Hour is 0700. Make sure everyone knows how they fit into things, and make sure you are not in the city at seven, or you'll be having a bad day. And remember, do not hit residential areas at zero hour."

Bombs were planted, power lines were destroyed, telephone lines cut, cellphone towers and internet hubs sabotaged. Seeker's cars were vandalized beyond repair, and in one case, a grounded helicopter's rotors were destroyed. The resistance did everything they could to ensure that the city would be paralyzed.

As Ice Pillar drove back to the Healing Facility, Widepetals filled Ice Pillar in on what she'd been doing.

"Sorry about shooting you, Ice. I thought I was doing the right thing, but..."

"Souls have been overcome by lesser humans than that one," Ice told him. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't really you," he said.

"It was me, that's the thing! She never really woke up - I came up with that retarded false flag plan all by myself."

"You wouldn't have, if it weren't for her. It wasn't really you."

Widepetals shook his head. "It just bothers me. If you think I need therapy, I'll go."

Thank goodness, Ice Pillar thought.

"Let's not worry about that now, what were the humans planning to do?" he asked.

Widepetals thought. "That group was called the Repo Men. I think they're part of a larger organization, and from the sounds of it, there's going to be a large operation in the next few days. They dont know much of the details."

"We've got to warn the city," Ice Pillar commented.

"Well, keep driving. Once we get where we're going, we can get debriefed. We're almost there. I wish they hadn't smashed your radio," Widepetals said.

They heard gunfire. A second later, the car lurched as one of the tires blew, and bulletholes appeared around them.

Ice Pillar fought to keep the car from flipping, and thew were thrown against the seat restraints. The car came to rest, and Widepetals grabbed Ice Pillar's M9. Ice Pillar saw a muzzle flash and began firing at the side of the road as Widepetals jumped out of the car.

As she did so, there was a distant boom, and she saw a small mushroom cloud rise above the city.

A/N I'm continuing this story just to find out where it takes me now. It was hard to think of what's going to happen next, but I have an outline for the next chapter.

Chapter 22: Zero Hour Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Zero Hour

A truck pulled in front of the Seeker checkpoint in front of the healing facility, and exploded. Another did the same in front of the checkpoint at the spaceport.

Hundreds of Seekers were killed instantly by the shockwave. To the survivors, it seemed like the entire world was on fire.

In different places everyone had varied reactions. Rebels around the city were prepared - to them it signaled the start of the assault.

Fractals turned Zoe's head towards the window, and she saw the cloud rise above the cityscape. They stared through the window until Sarah and Daniel pulled her to the ground.

Oh my God... Zoe whispered. How could they?

"Looks like the rebels decided to show their faces," Sarah commented.

What now? Zoe asked Fractals.

Pause.

Fractals?

Fractals didn't answer, though Zoe could feel her mind racing.

Staccato gunfire rang out very nearby and they heard shouting and screams.

Zoe threw off her shock and horror.

Hide. Now!

Fractals still wasn't speaking, but she dropped them to the ground and started looking around. Daniel and Sarah were whispering to each other on the ground across the room from her.

They stopped whispering and stared at her, eyes unreadable. Shivers of more immediate fear ran up Zoe's spine. What were they thinking? Fractals had helped them, but that didn't mean they wouldn't sell the two of them out to gain favor with whatever resistance there was.

Zoe realized Fractals was shaking violently, and gently pushed at their mental barriers. There was almost no resistance and suddenly she could hear what Fractals was thinking to herself.

• force is pressure times area, the surface area of the motel is large enough that it should have collapsed, not to mention -

Zoe felt Fractals register her intrusion, but there only a sense of mild unease and then the Soul went back to speculation about the bomb. Zoe found that now that she'd 'tuned in' to Fractals thoughts, she couldn't filter the stream of words out.

The children stood and came towards her.

Keep an eye on those two, Zoe ordered shakily. I have no idea what they're going to do. If they tell the rebels we're here...

Fractals didn't even register what she'd said.

• no sense, the radiation hazard would make the area uninhabitable for weeks and they have to want to capture the Souls for extractions -

GET UP! MOVE! DO SOMETHING! Zoe shouted, fighting to get Fractals into motion.

Zoe found her body moving, though Fractals was not paying attention to anything beyond her calculations of nuclear figures. She tried moving her hand, and found that she was in control of her body once again.

• fallout from a small bomb would be significantly more of a problem than the norm, we need to find some way to filter out the alpha emitters to avoid the worst of the radiation -

Gunfire sounded again, this time muffled by distance.

Zoe tried to filter out Fractals droning to herself about fallout precautions, and an insistent tugging brought her back to reality. She looked down and saw Daniel pulling on her sleeve.

"Come on, Fractals. We need to get moving."

• the children will be more at risk from radiation poisoning, Sarah looks like she's about fifty kilos and Daniel might be about 40 -

Zoe couldn't concentrate and didn't have a better idea, so she decided to let the kids lead her. Sarah opened the door and peeked into the hall, then they ran out the emergency exit into the street with Daniel pulling Zoe behind him.

• doesn't fit together. Why attack the city after nuking it? Isn't a nuke good enough, or are the humans so bloodthirsty they want to kill absolutely everyone in the-

I get it, we're bastards, Zoe interrupted her in mid-thought.

Fractals continued her train of thought, undisturbed by Zoe's interruption.

• can't possibly have built an implosion type, far too hard to maintain for a rebel force... area of a sphere is four thirds pi times the cube of the radius...

Sarah led them to a line of cars and tried a few until she found a set of keys on the dashboard of a minivan and handed them to Zoe.

• estimate pi as three and 4/3 as one... we must have been about 500 meters minimum from the blast, 500 squared is 250,000 -

"You're a better driver than I am," the girl said.

• it had to have been under a kiloton -

Zoe flipped the keys into the ignition and slid into the driver's seat, and unlocked the doors.

• the United States as of 2001 didn't have any nuclear weapons that small. If it was a nuke, they'd have had to build it themselves -

Zoe felt Fractals' relief wash through her, and her hands stopped responding to her. Fractals was back in control.

• utterly unfeasible to do so in hiding, even if they had all the Plutonium that they wanted.

"It wasn't a nuke." the Soul concluded aloud. "We need to get out of here anyway, but at least it wasn't a nuke."

Oh, thank God, Zoe moaned.

Fractals started the car and pulled out of the lot.

Fuck the speed limit! GO! Zoe shouted at the Soul as she stopped accelerating.

Fractals took a deep breath and pushed the accelerator into the floor.

Ice Pillar and Widepetals had no attention to spare for the distant explosion, beyond keeping their heads down as bullets traced lethal paths all around them.

"Behind that bank," Widepetals whispered as the last rumblings of the bombs faded. A round blasted icy mud into Ice Pillar's face. "Cover me. I'm going to flank them." After a blank look, Widepetals elaborated, grinding himself as low as he could into the snow as a close shot blasted ice into his face. "Shoot at them to keep their heads down. I'm going to come up along their side and shoot them in the side. It sounds like it's only three or four of them."

Ice Pillar recalled old human training, and flipped over to full auto. "Now!" came Widepetal's command, and he popped up and started firing back rapidly. Widepetals took advantage of the lull in incoming fire to sprint across the street and over the bank. Moments later he heard his friend's pistol bark many times in rapid succession, along with accompanying screams.

"Clear!" Widepetals called, popping his head over the bank. "Five of them - all with bolt-action rifles and cans of Heal and Still. This isn't good, Ice."

Ice Pillar swallowed. The presence of Heal and Still indicated the humans hadn't been shooting to kill, just incapacitate.

"They know," he breathed, spirits sinking even lower.

"Yeah, they're trying to 'rescue' our hosts. Let's get to the city. It looks like there's some serious fighting and we can probably lend a hand, even if we missed the chance for a warning."

"Better flag down a car then," he responded. "It's too far to run."

"Hold on," Widepetals said, dissassembling the rifles and throwing the parts in random directions. "Wouldn't want to see these rifles again."

They flagged down one of the many vehicles streaming out of the city and after apologetically kicking the car's owner out, crossed the divider in the middle of the road and headed back towards the fighting.

Sophia, who had broken a window that had cracked from gunfire, bolted as soon as the car came to a stop. She threw herself to the ground upon seeing the explosion, half-expecting herself to flash-burn from radiation at any moment. After nearly a minute passed with no blinding, burning light, no shockwave, she realized it hadn't been a nuke, and her heart skipped a beat. That meant... what, exactly?

Then the muffled sound of distant gunfire told her the answer, and her heart leapt.

Get to the city! was her primary thought. There was fighting, and heaven knew the rebels needed manpower.

She got up to run, the flames and smoky clouds a beacon of hope.

Gunfire meant fighting. Combat meant humans. Humans in combat meant dead Seekers, and that meant there was a resistance. A resistance meant that there was still some kind of hope for a future that didn't involve carrying a bug in her head.

Judging by the size of that explosion they were well organized. She had no idea what it was, but it would have required months of planning to orchestrate.

As she ran her lungs started to burn, and she realized she would need a car to get there so she wouldn't be dead on her feet when she showed up.

She ran across the first sign of the battle very soon. There was a police cruiser, riddled with bulletholes crashed on the side of the road.

Sophia picked up a rock and sprinted towards it. Smashing the driver's side window with the rock, she looked inside to find a pair of dead Seekers. As she reached inside and opened the door, she nearly jumped out of her skin when the driver moaned and opened his eyes.

Almost reflexively, she hit him with the rock. He kept moving, so she kept bashing until a while after he stilled once again. Chest heaving, she dropped the rock and dragged both of the Seekers out of the car, liberating them of their pistols and gifting them both with slit throats.

The gunfire in the city was becoming more frequent. Realizing that showing up into the middle of a gun battle inside of a police cruiser was a really bad idea, she settled upon finding another way towards the city.

A car screamed over the hill, travelling at far over the speed limit.

Must be Souls fleeing the battle, she thought with a grin. There's my ride.

Jumping into the street, she brought out her gun and stood waiting for the next vehicle to come her way.

There were bound to be many.

Another car - a minivan - careened toward her wildly, and she raised one of her pistols.

It swerved unexpectedly.

She fired a warning shot, and was surprised when the car accelerated directly at her. Sophia stood her ground and continued to fire.

Inside the car Fractals was determined to get the hell away from the battle as fast as she could.

Don't you dare slow down, Zoe shouted inside her head. If she doesn't want to get hit by a car she'll get out of the road.

The woman started shooting directly at her, and she screamed. A bullet hit the windshield directly above her head and blew a hole through the ceiling. Panicked, she pushed the gas to the floor as more near misses left their marks on the car, spraying glass across the interior. She couldn't see, eyes squeezed shut against the incoming projectiles.

Daniel reached over and grabbed the wheel, preventing them from driving off the road. She opened her eyes again and saw the rebel jump off out of the way as they passed.

Dimly she registered pain in her right bicep. She looked quickly and saw she was bleeding. So was Daniel - there was blood streaming from a deep cut on his forehead.

"Everyone okay?" he asked, releasing the wheel.

"I'm fine, as far as I can tell," Fractals whispered.

He took off his shirt and wrapped it tightly around the wound on her arm.

"Sarah?"

No answer.

Unbuckling himself, he clambered over the seat into the rear of the car and checked to make sure his sister hadn't been shot.

"How is she?" Fractals asked.

Daniel patted Sarah down, checking for any wounds.

"Fine. Must've been too much stress. Keep driving, we've gotta get away from this place. It's going to be lousy with Seekers in a few hours."

"You can say that again." Fractals commented grimly.

"It's going to be lousy with Seekers in a few hours," Daniel repeated dutifully, and she groaned.

"Seriously, though. What are we going to do next?" he asked. "I don't think I want to go back to the rebels after the show they just put on."

Fractals considered the possibilities. "They must think they have some kind of trump card to pull something like this..." Her mind raced, considering the possibilities. "I have no idea what it could be, though. That bomb was large, but it had to have been conventional. The entire country's going to panic, and there are still a lot of leftover weapons from when your kind was in charge of the planet."

"There have to be a lot more survivors than we thought to launch an attack like this. Where do you think they came from?"

"I have no idea," Fractals sighed. "It's going to be tough to take you through any populated area after that stunt. That resistance is a big target, and there's enough of the Army left to take them out pretty quick, but..."

"But the Seekers are going to be patrolling everywhere now, not just around areas where people were dumb," Daniel finished her thought.

"I think this might be where we part ways," Fractals said.

"NUKE!" Soaring Leaf screamed, hitting the floor as he saw the cloud rise. He pulled out his cellphone and dialed the Seeker garrison. Halfway through dialing he realized that first, he had no signal, and second, a nuke would have rendered the electronics inert.

However, the screen was still working. That meant the explosion wasn't a nuclear bomb.

"We've got to move!" he shouted to over the chaotic panic overtaking the room. "Grab your gear and let's go!"

He grabbed his partner who was curled up under a table, and ran outside towards his car. They had to get in contact with whoever was alive - the explosion could only signify an imminent rebel attack.

Almost immediately he came under fire as he moved, and his partner took a round in his body armor. He couldn't tell where the fire was coming from, and as he ran chunks of concrete blasted around him, and he saw a can of Still arcing towards him through the smoky air, leaving a trail of silver mist.

He held his breath and charged through, firing blindly in the general direction he thought the attack was coming from as he pulled open his car door.

There seemed to be humans everywhere, and after appraising the situation, he realized he was surrounded by humans in cover - they were firing from the windows of several buildings around him.

His partner piled into the other side of the car and he pounded the gas pedal, bringing the car into jerking, screeching motion. Spiderweb cracks appeared in the cruiser's windows, signifying near misses. One hit him in the arm, and he nearly lost consciousness.

His partner grabbed the wheel to keep the car from hitting an abandoned car, and then they were ought of the ambush area.

"Find out what's going on," he ordered. As his partner turned on the radio, all that came out was pleas for assistance from other Seeker units. The most desperate ones were coming from the Healing facility.

That's their goal, then, he thought.

After about three blocks, a bullet plowed through the top of the car and took off the top of his partner's head in a gory spray of blood. A second round took out the remnants of the car's rear window.

He dove out of the car and ran into the nearest building - an empty laundromat. He kept his pistol at the ready and ducked behind one of the machines to check over himself.

He thought he had a broken rib, and his armor wasn't going to stop another shot on that side of his body. However, the shot in his arm wasn't serious. He got halfway through checking his ammo before what had just happened hit him, and he fought down nausea at the thought of all the blood and death he was going to see before the end of the day.

All his worries were cut short as he heard the door being broken, and he peeked over the counter.

Four humans with assault rifles piled through the door and ran to different corners of the room. He only had one chance of survival - injure one, and hope there was a backdoor to the building. He popped up and fired at the one closest, then bolted.

Rounds pinged off of the machines around him and water sloshed out of several of them. He thought he was clear, but then a sharp pain blossomed in his back and he went down hard. The last thing he saw was the butt of a Mini-14 closing rapidly with his face.

The Repo Men were not really in the loop, too far down to get told anything important.

Blackbird coughed as smoke and dust blew in his face. Half of the city was in flames and everything was utterly chaotic.

Most of the Souls had found that venturing outside was a very bad idea - most of the resistance would fire upon anyone with silver eyes. Some weren't even waiting to identify their targets - everyone else seemed to have a coordinated plan of action, while the Repo Men were nearly clueless.

Find another cell, he thought. We've got no idea what's going on and we're just going to get in the way unless we coordinate.

He guided the group through an apparently empty street, pausing only to chase the panicking Souls into the nearby buildings with a few rounds at their heels.

Gunfire echoed everywhere within the city, but it seemed to be most persistent around the Healing facility. Hence, that was the direction they went.

They ran into a few disorganized groups of Seekers which they rapidly dispatched with only one casualty - Bookend took a round to the neck and died almost instantly.

The Repo Men were familiar with death, and abandoned his body, pausing only to strip it of weapons before they moved onward.

They dealt with sporadic gun battles with individual or small groups of Seekers, mostly wearing police uniforms. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Seekers either ran or died very quickly.

Soon they came across another firefight. In front of them a group of Seekers in military uniform were keeping a pair of survivors pinned under a car while another group moved around to come from behind.

It didn't take long to rescue the pinned rebels - Blackbird and Greasefire lined up and opened fire on the group trying to flank the survivors, and then the rest of the Seekers ran away.

"We're heading to the healing facility - that's where most of the action is. Follow us!"

Sophia ran into her first group of survivors while trying to get another car. A pickup truck with an M2 bolted onto the back stopped as she screamed at them, and she jumped in without a second thought.

She sat down only to find four people in the bed of the truck with pistols pointed in her face. It jerked into movement again, and the vehicle sped towards the city.

"What cell are you with?" one of them, an ancient-looking woman demanded. Sophia was in awe - the woman had to be at least 40.

"I was with the Repo Men for a day," she replied, keeping her voice even. "I've been surviving with just my brother for most of my life though. I didn't know about the resistance until about a week ago."

"Never heard of them," the woman said, eyes narrowing.

Very slowly, Sophia placed her pistol on the bed of the truck, holding it by the barrel. "Check my eyes. I'm not a bug."

After the rebels had verified she was, in fact, a human, they became far more friendly. "I'm Alice, and that's Bob driving the car," the old woman explained, pointing to the wiry man at the truck's wheel. "Charlie's the one next to him, and this is Dave on the gun here, that's Eve, and you're now Fran."

"And with our powers combined, we're -" Dave began.

"Shut up, Dave," Eve and Alice groaned, cutting him off.

"I see how this works," Sophia commented. "Where are we going? Who's in charge?"

Eve pointed towards the spaceport. "We need to take the spaceport with as many shuttles intact as we can. Command wants us to meet up with another four cells and then take out the defending seekers, then hold position until notified further."

Sophia could barely keep herself from bursting with excitement as the car sped closer and closer to the airport.

"So what's your story, Fran?" Dave asked.

"Not much to tell," Sophia said. "Saw the bugs take my parents when I was seven. My brother and I ran for it. Spent the last seven years hiding from them, until my brother got caught." She worried for a second that they'd comment about her age, but nobody did.

"Holy shit, kid. I know you! Did you know you made national news? We were betting on you - I thought you got caught!" Eve exclaimed.

Sophia made a face. "Yes, I saw the news," she replied shortly. "And I did get caught, but Widepetals... didn't like the way I think. Something about my 'violent personality' bothered it, and it had a friend help it skip to a different host. They were taking me to the Healing facility to discard me until this attack happened and they got ambushed."

Eve grinned at the 'violent personality' comment. "Good job with the fuel truck, by the way. They were freaking out on the news like you wouldn't believe."

Dave suddenly pointed the mounted weapon into the sky at a sharp angle and started firing, making everyone jump and cover their ears.

Eve swore at him as he showered her with brass. "What the hell, Dave? Give us some warning when you shoot that thing!"

"It's one of those CAP bastards," he shouted over the din. Sophia squinted at the sky but couldn't see a thing, until a few moments later she saw a plane turn and fly away. A few seconds later Dave stopped firing.

"So what's the deal with the resistance?" Sophia asked, ears still ringing. "My brother and I never knew about you."

"Us personally... well, we don't know you that well yet," Alice explained. "Same goes for the rest of the resistance. Wouldn't want the bugs to be able to compromise the entire organization by capturing one cell."

They passed a sign announcing they were five miles from the spaceport, and everyone began to prepare for action.

"What do they have defending the port?" Sophia asked, as everyone began checking weapons and Charlie passed a Stinger missile out the back window to Eve.

"Don't know. We've heard there was a Stryker there a few days ago. We know they've got some Humvees and at least forty Seekers from the Guard, but beyond that, nothing."

"Hold on, we're going off road," Bob called from the front. The car slowed, then ran off of the road. "We're going to meet with the other cells in the woods off the end of the runway."

Sophia spent the next few minutes wishing she had body armor, and a rifle instead of the M9, and then they were in the woods. Moments later the truck pulled up next to a set of parked vehicles, and everyone jumped out of the sides of the vehicle. There were at least a dozen cars here, half of which had heavy weapons mounted.

Sophia's jaw dropped at the number of armed people. There had to be nearly sixty free humans here, armed to the teeth with small arms. This was far more than she'd hoped for in her wildest dreams. It was surreal, impossible - but it was happening.

"Listen up!" Alice shouted to the assembled rebels from atop the cell's truck. "You all know the drill - we don't know what equipment the Seekers have, so keep your eyes open. Team one," she pointed at on particular group of rebels, "you've got the radio, so it's on you to keep in contact with command. Team two, your job is to let the Seekers know we're here so they come to us. Teams three and four, be ready to ambush as soon as the Seekers come chasing team one. Any questions?"

A heavily scarred, massively muscled man from team three raised his hand. "What happens if they bring in heavy vehicles, or that Apache?"

Alice grinned. "My cell has a Stinger missile, and our sister cell has a pair of Javelins. And if that fails, we have a few 50 cals. We should be able to handle anything up to an Abrams."

"And if they have an Abrams? Or more than one helicopter?"

"We try to draw them away. Team two will take the vehicles and create a diversion, while everyone else retreats to point alpha and gets ready to re-attack if possible. If we can't, we return to the city and provide whatever assistance we can there."

Soaring Leaf woke up to see a scene that looked like it had come out of a human horror film - blood was everywhere, and there were several corpses lying in front of him. In the midst of it was a pair of other Souls - a mid-height brown-haired woman with a pistol, and a massive Guardsmen Seeker in uniform carrying a rifle.

"Ice, he's up," the woman said. "We've got to get out of here; they'll be sending patrols out by tomorrow."

"We can't abandon the city, Widepetals! What about all the people trapped inside?" the guardsman asked, uncomfortably.

"The city's lost for now - we can't stay here any longer, I almost died again when my host got shot. We need to get out and tell anyone who'll listen everything we know about the rebels."

"What happened here?" Soaring Leaf asked, slowly.

"We found you on the ground, having been removed from your host by these wonderful people," Widepetals said, gesturing at the corpses. "They were about to kill you, so we took them by surprise and got all of them. Your host was fatally injured, so we moved you to one of them. Any problems so far?"

Soaring Leaf searched his memory, becoming alarmed when he turned up nothing but a giant blank. "I can't remember anything from this host. What happened to him?"

Widepetals swore in a very un-Soul like manner. "That happens sometimes with resistant hosts. He's probably awake - let us know if you suddenly have the urge to jump out a window or something."

He gasped alarmed by her nonchalant attitude towards what could potentially be a lethal threat. "What should I do?"

"Deal with it as best you can. I don't see any other, more pliant humans around, do you? Trust me, it's probably not as bad as it could be."

Widepetals turned back to Ice Pillar. "You said they're blockading all the roads you checked? There were snipers posted on all the roads I saw."

"From what I saw, yeah - both bridges have been blown, and there were snipers at checkpoints on every road that heads out that I saw as well. I think we're trapped."

"Soaring Leaf, do you have any thoughts?" Widepetals asked.

"Is there still a lot of fighting going on inside the city?"

"Not that either of us saw, but there's still the occasional gun battle," Ice Pillar said.

"Maybe we could find and gather with others before we try any kind of breakout," Soaring Leaf suggested. "More people mean a better chance."

Widepetals looked at the ground, kicking a loose shell. "It'll take longer, though, and the humans will set up more guards and blockade more roads the longer we wait."

Ice Pillar peered out the door. "Whatever we do, we've gotta get moving," he said.

Taking the spaceport was easy. Unnervingly easy. The Seekers split their forces chasing team two, leaving their defensive positions, and were cut down in seconds by the waiting rebels. The remaining Seekers were assaulted from all sides and soon most had either run or were either dead or facing extractions. The humans had only taken four casualties - one from friendly fire, and three from panicked shots. None were life-threatening.

Alice appeared to be the one in charge of the entire operation and was directing the force in setting up fighting positions. The rebels were dragging sandbags from one of the vehicles around one of the rows of shuttles, though Sophia wasn't much help there - many of the fighters were far larger than she was. She settled for grabbing an M16 and some ammo from a fallen Seeker, and guarding the extractees who hadn't woken up yet.

The counterattack, when it came, was larger than expected. Sophia heard one of the Javelins fire and dropped behind a sandbag. Seconds later, a cacophony of guns opened up and bullets came whizzing overhead.

She peeked and saw that the entire treeline was lit up with enemy fire. A Bradley was already nothing but smoking wreckage, but the treeline was concealing most of the Seekers.

She sighted at one of the few she could see clearly, and opened fire.

The rebels were slowly losing the fight. After dropping when a fellow rebel took a round to the shoulder, Alice ran a rough count of the survivors left. This isn't good, Alice thought. Most of her cell was down, injured or dead - she saw Fran laying down fire with an M16 that was slowly turning white-hot, and Dave was picking off Seekers with careful shots, but Eve and Charlie were nowhere to be found, and Bob was lying dead with a round that penetrated his chest armor. Most of the other cells were in slightly better shape, but not by much.

Gotta do something, Alice thought.

She grabbed a passing cell leader she recognized, and told him the plan. "Get your cell together. Grab the vehicles with heavy weapons and try to flank the bugs." She shouted for the rest of the force to provide as much covering fire as they could and then ran towards the nearest truck with a mounted gun. She stumbled as a round skipped off the concrete in front of her, and landed on top of Charlie.

She shook him, hoping he was just knocked out, but then noticed he was lying in a pool of blood. She grabbed a magazine off his corpse and got up again to run.

Fran was the only one from her cell still with her by this point, and jumped into the back with the M2. Immediately she began laying down fire on the Seekers, and the Alice threw the truck into gear.

As soon as they started moving, the rebel survivors began burning through ammo more rapidly, trying to reduce the incoming fire on the vehicles. It worked to a point, but the things were too obvious to go unnoticed. One of the cars took a .50 cal round to the side, stopping it as they accelerated towards the bugs' flank, and another lost its gunner to a well-placed shot. Fran managed to hang on in spite of the heavy fire and jerking acceleration, screaming incoherently over the din of the guns. A round caught the girl in the side and she dropped for a second before standing again, angrier than ever.

Finally they reached the treeline, and were close enough that Alice could hear shouts of panic from the bugs.

As soon as the remaining six cars hit the Seekers in the side, they broke and ran, most of them dropping their weapons. This was good, as half of the rebels were temporarily deaf from the massive amounts of gunfire. Alice tried to organize the rebels, but found that it wasn't really necessary. The attacking Seeker force was routed, and there were nearly fifty wounded to deal with. They took a minute to collect the weapons and ammo the Seekers had discarded, and returned to the airport.

After several hours of digging in further, using their reserves of Heal on the dangerously wounded, and monitoring the captured Seekers, only seven of the extractees woke up, and only two of those had any clue what was happening. Twenty-two of the wounded rebels had taken injuries too serious to be dealt with even with Heal, and everyone was chewing nails waiting for another attack that might or might not come.

Alice, Dave, and Fran were the only survivors of their cell. Fran and Dave had taken minor injuries - a round had grazed one of Fran's ribs and another had nearly taken off Dave's entire ear.

Finally, after several hours of watching smoke rise from within the city, a cheer went up from the crowd surrounding team one's radio.

Alice missed the announcement, but got the gist from chatter among the survivors. The bugs had agreed to a temporary cease-fire in the city and surrounding area following human threats to use the captured shuttles to take out the orbital docking station. These threats had been broadcast through the captured local radio station, and the Souls wanted to send in negotiators.

Command wanted to get a formal hierarchy set up amongst the rebels - the cells worked great for avoiding being uncovered by Seekers but were not so good for organizing a temporary government, and so they were having a resistance wide meeting to assign positions and get everyone on the same page. There were quite a few more human cells than anyone had expected - the best estimate that command had was around three thousand survivors - and some of the outer cells had no clue what was happening.

A/N This chapter is broken apart because I realized most of the first section was done. Yes, Alex and Jane are noticeably missing. Even I don't know where they are.

Let me know if I've left any massive plotholes or glaring problems, and as always, reviews are love.

Title: Mixed Feelings Category: Books » Host Author: Bisa Language: English, Rating: Rated: M Genre: Horror/Sci-Fi Published: 12-11-08, Updated: 11-07-10 Chapters: 22, Words: 57,407 Chapter 1: Captured Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N I'm currently going through and fixing some of the more glaring errors, fleshing some of the weaker parts out, as well as re-adding linebreaks which were deleted sometime after a FFnet system update in the past two years. I'm currently at about chapter 12 and should be done by 29 Jan 2011.

Mixed Feelings

Captured

He had been told the beginning would feel like the end. Moonlight had been forewarned that humanity was a barbaric race, yet nothing could have prepared him for this.

I know our lives are over; the Seekers are looking for us and have doubtlessly radioed in a report of our presence. I don't know who saw me, or what gave me away, but it doesn't matter anymore. Even if we manage to get away by some miracle, there will soon be helicopter searches and infrared scans of the forest - and we can't hide from those for very long. The centipedes take us very, very, seriously, though God only knows why. It's not as if we can do anything to them, we can barely even feed ourselves. Seriously, what are a lone pair of humans going to do?

Sophia hears the sirens and swears under her breath. I take a final look at my sister. We're beginning to resemble skeletons - it's been a long time since we've been able to get adequate amounts of food. She's grown to be nearly six feet tall, though she probably only weighs 120 pounds soaking wet. She's not complaining about the hunger, though. She never does. "Well, that solves our food problems," she mutters.

Moon was shocked by the way the memory of this bitter, skeletal young woman triggered a protective instinct in his host, strong enough that it felt like his own.

"I told you we would want this," she grimly jokes, picking up her stolen rifle from it's resting place against a tree. That rifle is practically her baby; an AK-47 we found on a raid nearly five years ago. She insisted that we take it, and lugged it herself when I refused to carry it. "For when we get caught," she said, every time I asked her about it. She hadn't spoken a full sentence for months beforehand, and I'm pretty sure it makes her feel safer to have it, so I never made her drop it even when it was inconvenient.

"Let's get moving. Maybe we can throw them off - I'll try and lead them away from you. Run, as fast as you can - stay away from any places we've been to, in case I get caught - stay away from obvious places. Its snowing hard right now, so you won't leave any tracks." I try to stay optimistic though I know we're screwed.

I don't fool her. "Thanks, Alex. I appreciate it, I really do. But... look at us!" She gestures at our skeletal bodies. "We're not going to make it through the winter, anyway." She smiles, sadly. "It's better this way," she adds, sliding a magazine into her rifle. "We get to skip the whole 'starving' bit and we might take a few bugs with us."

Moon shied away from the emotions this last phrase stirred in his host.

I would protest her analysis of our situation, but I know she's right. I pull out my pistol and load it, seeing no alternatives but a last stand - maybe we can make them kill us.

We lay down and wait for the Seekers to come. It doesn't take long before they arrive, making an incredible amount of noise crashing through the snow and winter foliage. It looks like there are five of them, though they're too far away to make out much detail.

"Come out with your hands behind your heads," blares one of them through a megaphone. I'm glad we've got a group of stupid ones - they're standing in a spot where we can clearly see all of them outlined against the snow.

"Go to hell, you fucking bugs!" Sophia snarls at them, and opens fire. She hits one, and it falls to the ground screaming.

The disorienting pleasure that Moon's new host experienced at this violence jerked him momentarily out of the memory, with a gasp. His eyes fluttered.

"He's awake!" Moon heard someone yell in the present.

Sophia gets off another burst of fire, this time hitting two of them. Then one of the survivors returns fire. A near miss blasts a puff of ice and dirt into my face. I reply in kind, though I don't think I hit any of them.

Suddenly there is an explosion of pain in my left arm and chest, and spots dance in front of my eyes. I grunt in pain, and see my blood strewn across the snow behind me.

Sophia's AK roars again, and I hear another cry from one of the bugs. I see it cowering behind a tree. Sophia doesn't have a clear shot, but I do. I line up on the last one, and am rewarded when it falls to the ground after a single shot.

Sophia runs to me after making sure all of them are actually dead."Alex! Oh God, oh God, you have to get up!" she cries, tears streaming down her face.

The world is starting to spin, and I know I don't have much time. I need to get her to run. She might have a chance on her own if they think I was the only one here. "Go... I was the only one they saw on the raid. If they don't know you exist, they won't look for you." I whisper.

"But -"

"Run, Sophia. You can't save me."

"Alex-"

"I love you, Sophia. Be brave, run." Sophia's smart. She knows I'm right, and she takes my advice and turns tail. She won't get caught, I'm certain.

I can't keep up my head anymore, and I let it fall, content that at least Sophia will get away.

"He's screaming!"

Where am I? Where's Sophia?

"Of course he's screaming. Do you know what his host went through, the condition we found him in?"

Somebody talk to me!

"This is barbaric, something that the humans would do. Nobody should have to suffer through memories like these."

... Oh, I see. Well, this is interesting.

"It's necessary. He took out five seekers, for crying out loud - and there's evidence there are others. Some of the shell casings we found around him don't match the weapons of the Seekers he killed or the weapon we found him with, and there were tracks in the snow leading away. We need to know if how many other humans there are in the area. Who knows what they'll do to any innocent souls they run across?"

He's afraid of marauding humans? You must be kidding me.

Gradually, the memory began to subside, and Moon stopped screaming. He slowly sat up, aware that something was very wrong. This host was the most disorienting one he had ever had, and seemed to very nearly have a mind of its own.

Damn right I do. Moon was too distracted trying to exorcise Alex's last memory to catch this coherent phrase from his host.

The Healer greeted him. "Hello, Moonlight. I'm sorry that your awakening was not as pleasant as it could be, but this was an emergency. Are you completely awake yet?"

"Yes. I assume the Seekers will have questions for me, won't they?" Moonlight felt an instinctive wave of hate roll over him at the thought of the Seekers, but suppressed it. He knew that he would have to deal with his host's ingrained reactions for some time. He hoped that they would weaken rapidly as the new emotions were much stronger than anything he had experienced in any of his previous incarnations.

Another person spoke up from the corner. "Yes, we do. Who are these humans, and what weapons do they have?"

Moonlight opened his eyes, and saw a man about his host's age in a police uniform leaning against a wall. He was obviously a Seeker. Moon struggled to suppress another instinctive shiver of rage from his host at the thought of the title. Anger was not an entirely unfamiliar emotion, but Moonlight had never dealt with it very frequently before.

After a moment he searched for the answers the Seeker wanted. "His name was Alexander Conrad. He was traveling with his sister, Sophia Conrad. He was twenty years old, and she was fourteen. Sophia discovered our existence very early on when she witnessed her parents being implanted with souls, and they fled together. That would have to have been about seven years ago." Moon rubbed his forehead. "They had a difficult time. Early on, they were just runaways, but as we infiltrated more of human society it became difficult for them to feed themselves. It eventually became a battle to stave off starvation." Moon experienced a secondhand flash of the growing nightmare the siblings' world had been, and shivered.

"As the Seekers got more organized, it became harder and harder to avoid discovery. It was unlikely they would have survived this winter." He shuddered. "They didn't associate with anyone else - both of them were understandably very paranoid."

The Seeker looked pleased. "There weren't any other humans they knew? None?"

"No."

"And the weapon?" asked the seeker.

"An AK-47." The Seeker looked less pleased at this news. "Sophia stole it from a household they broke into nearly five years ago. It seems like she wanted... wanted..." She wanted to kill some of the bugs who obliterated her world. It's not that hard to understand. Moon heard the phantom voice this time, and paused. It sounded almost like Alex, but that was impossible.

"What did she want, Moonlight?" prompted the Seeker.

"Sophia really, really hates us souls. We took her parents from her, forced her to flee for her life. Most of her life was spent hiding from us, on the edge of starvation. I think... she just wanted to cause harm to the Seekers when she was caught." Moon was bothered that he understood such a pointless, violent sentiment. Humanity was the only species that would even consider something so counterproductive and barbaric. Yeah, I don't think that much of you, either.

"There were no other weapons? No other humans? No organized resistance?" the Seeker asked again. Moon shook his head. "This is a serious threat - a human, armed, and desperate! Where would she go, do you think?" the Seeker asked feverishly.

Moon frowned in thought. "I don't know. She's never been without Alex before, and she's not likely to return to her previous hideout in case Alex was captured. She can't have more than half a magazine of ammunition left for the weapon, and she won't willingly come anywhere near any souls; the Conrads were careful to avoid any attention from us. She thinks we don't know she's out there, so she'll be very careful to avoid attention." Moon's stomach rumbled. "I think the first thing she'll do is try to steal some food. Alex was on a raid to get some when he was seen, and neither she nor Alex had eaten in nearly three days."

The Healer interrupted as the Seeker began to reply. "That's enough, I think. Your questions have been answered. Now please leave, Moonlight will have a difficult enough time adjusting to human life without a Seeker hounding him."

The Seeker handed Moon a card. "Contact me if you remember something you think I would want to know."

A/N This is the first fic I've ever written, and I actually have no idea where I'm going with it. Please review or flame if you like or don't like it.

Chapter 2: Unhinged Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Unhinged

After abandoning Alex, Sophia had fled quickly and thoughtlessly, away from civilization and the bugs, until she collapsed from exhaustion. She had bawled her eyes out for the next several hours, until she couldn't work up any emotions beyond a dull hatred of the universe for taking absolutely everything she had ever cared about away from her.

Sophia was tired, literally starving and freezing, and for the first time in her life, truly alone. Alex, her brother, her only companion for seven long years, was dead. She had seen the wound; it was definitely fatal. Sophia had always thought that they would die or be captured together - they had intended to make a doomed last stand, but one that would leave them together, whatever happened.

Eventually she passed out. She woke up after several hours of fitful sleep, rolling over and ending up with her face in the snow. She sat up, mechanically, and tried to take stock of what assets she currently had at her disposal. She couldn't allow herself any emotion until she had her bearings. "Stay alive and human, Sophia. Then worry about other things," she muttered to herself.

Night had fallen, though in spite of the time that had passed, she didn't feel rested. It was the perfect time for travel, though she felt like just curling up and dying.

She couldn't do that though. She'd promised Alex she'd try to stay alive.

She was about a mile from the nearest road. Her boots were almost new, and would certainly carry her many more miles before coming apart. She was not so fortunate with the rest of her clothes - her pants were Alex's old pair, and beginning to wear thin; her jacket was in fair condition, but too small. After checking her sleeping bag, she found it had been hit by a bullet. Because it had been rolled, that meant there were eight holes in it.

She need to go on a raid. Badly. Her stomach rumbled, accentuating her conclusion. And yet, a raid was also the last thing she needed - the bugs didn't know she existed, but would be on the lookout after a human killed a ton of Seekers. It was probable she would be discovered, and that left her between a rock and a hard place. Without a better jacket, sleeping bag, and food, she would be dead before the week was out, but if she raided a town, the Seekers would come after her in force.

She still had the AK, and a backup pistol. She checked the AK's magazine, and found that it held twenty-one rounds. Together with the pistol's eight rounds, plus one in the AK's chamber, she had thirty shots. If it came to it, that meant twenty-nine potentially dead Seekers, plus one bullet left for herself.

She saw another path, a better path. If she left the region, went far away - out of state - she could raid at will, and the Seekers wouldn't be on such a high alert. She'd have to hijack a vehicle, but that would be easy - the bugs were surprisingly cowardly at gunpoint. Yes, hijacking was a better plan than a suicidal raid.

Her path settled, Sophia allowed herself to try and sort out her feelings.

Something within her felt numb, broken - she couldn't muster much emotion towards her brother's death, or even anything beyond her average day-to-day hatred at the bugs. She had always known a day like this would come, and Alex seemed to become less significant when she thought about it in the backdrop of the death of humanity. The bugs had ended the lives of six billion people - what did one more matter against that kind of scale?

Her brother was dead, and she felt no grief. None at all. Especially since she knew she'd be joining him soon, no matter what she did. The Seekers knew she existed – that meant game over was coming, very soon.

A tear rolled down her cheek, and she fell backwards to stare blankly at the sky.

After a time, her stomach rumbled. While she couldn't, wouldn't, summon much emotion, she did care whether or not she got something to eat. She hadn't eaten anything for - well, it seemed like forever since the last time she hadn't been hungry. I'm not going to go far if I collapse from hunger. I really, really need food, she thought.

Despite her nearly blind flight away from the scene of Alex's death, Sophia still knew where she was relative to the road. She set out staggering towards it, in a fatalistic sort of mood. She didn't really care if she brought the Seekers down on herself, as long just as she could get something to eat.

It took ten minutes, but finally an SUV passed by with no other cars in sight. Sophia stepped into the middle of the road, blocking the driver's path. The car came to a halt in front of her, and the parasite inside rolled down the window. It wore the body of a young woman, probably only a few years older than herself. It looked healthy, relatively happy, and warm. She felt a stab of jealousy towards it, and its comfortable, comparatively easy life.

"What's going on?" it asked her, looking worried. Sophia hadn't bothered to try to hide any of her features, and she knew how she must appear - covered in her brother's blood, blond hair haphazardly hacked short, in mismatched clothing. Its silver eyes widened as she pulled the AK off her back. Sophia couldn't help but be amused at that, but part of her still felt nothing.

"Park on the side of the road and unlock the doors. If you scream, I'll kill you." Sophia had considered shooting the thing right now, but thought better of it; she only had thirty rounds left, and she'd want them later, when there were Seekers coming for her again. Sophia clambered into the vehicle's backseat. "Drive southwest," she told it. "You'll be the first to die if any Seekers come gunning for me, so don't try anything to get their attention."

As the car began moving, the parasite started talking. "You're Sophia Conrad, aren't you?" it whispered, breathless. "How do you know my name?" Sophia murmured, quietly. "I saw an emergency warning about you on television yesterday." With those words, Sophia knew she was a dead woman walking. She already knew that though - it wasn't exactly news. Still, a warning on television... She had to admit, it was pretty cool, even though it was a death sentence. She might be utterly screwed, but at least she'd go out in style.

"It had a description of you with a professional sketch," the centipede continued. "They said you were to be considered armed and dangerous. You should turn yourself in and avoid bloodshed - everyone in the state is on the lookout for you."

"I don't think so. We're leaving the state, you see. And you'd better hope the Seekers don't find us, because if they do, I'm shooting you, first."

The car was silent for a moment.

"What's your name? What do you do for a living?" Sophia asked abruptly. "You know all about me, but I've got nothing on you. 'Hey, you' isn't going to work out long-term."

"I'm Zoe," it said quietly, then whimpered as it saw irritation flash in Sophia's eyes through the mirror.

"That's a human name. I didn't ask about the girl whose body you stole, I want to know about you. What the hell's with the act, anyway? You know I know what you are."

"It's not an act. We take our names from our hosts," Zoe said. "Some choose names from the previous planet they lived on, but mine translates poorly." Zoe didn't know what to think about Sophia's strange conversation, but as long as she wasn't shooting... They were through town, and if Sophia was distracted someone would see her rifle and call the Seekers.

"Try me. While you're at it, go to that Burger King on the outskirts of town." Zoe hid her disappointment as Sophia put her AK under the passenger seats and drew a small pistol. "Go to the drive-through. We're getting four of whatever their largest burger is. I don't want any trouble from you while we're at it." She pulled back the pistol's slide, chambering a round.

Zoe gulped. "Why are you doing this? What do you hope to accomplish? Violence won't solve anything..." she whimpered.

"What. Is. Your. Name." Sophia ground out the words like they were painful.

"It would translate to something like 'Examines Fractals' in English. Please don't kidnap me like this, my mother -"

"We both know you don't have a mother, Fractals. Shut up now, you're pissing me off."

They pulled into the drive-through. Zoe followed Sophia's directions and ordered four heart-stopping quad stackers. She tried to silently communicate her situation to the drive-through clerk, to no avail.

They pulled out of the drive-through, and began driving south once more. Between bites, Sophia began talking again.

"What's your job, Fractals?" she said, around a mouthful of burger.

"I tracked down the families of human hosts captured after we first took over," Zoe said. Sophia's eyes narrowed, and she clicked off the safety on her pistol.

"You're a Seeker? Stop the car." she said.

"No, no, I'm not! I reunite families after they were separated by their hosts fleeing the Seekers. I was actually looking online to see if I could find your parents, recently. Why do you care, anyway?"

"If you were a Seeker, I'd have to kill you." Zoe's blood chilled.

"Why are you humans so violent? It only causes problems..." Zoe whispered, half to herself.

"Let me tell you something, Fractals. When I was a little girl, I got to watch both of my parents having one of your kind put inside of them - dying - at the hands of one of your Seekers. The only person who believed me was my brother, and everyone else thought I was crazy. We left town as fast as we could, and got to watch as the same scene was repeated across the country. Nobody believed the two crazy kids screaming about aliens, and eventually we gave up trying to warn people about it. Your kind killed my species, Fractals - six BILLION dead - and I got a front row seat. Don't try and get on a high horse. At least humanity was honest about it when we committed genocide."

The car was silent for a long time after that, save for the sound of Sophia gorging herself on cheeseburgers.

A/N I still don't know where I'm going with this. I was going to drop it but Sophia kept waking me up saying "Write me, write me!". This is my first fic, so please review, flame, or just comment after reading. Many thanks to TopKat90 for commenting on the first chapter!

Edit 24 Jan 2011 - long overdue formatting and typo fixes

Chapter 3: Epiphany Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Epiphany

Over the course of the next hour, Sophia demolished all four burgers. Zoe was impressed Sophia could eat that much and not get sick, though she wasn't suicidal enough to comment. Something within the human seemed... unstable, to say the least.

Zoe didn't think she was going to make her see reason. If Sophia turned herself in, she would be fed, cared for... The problem was that she saw implantation as death. Zoe wasn't sure if Sophia even viewed the Souls as people - in any case, she needed to find a way to escape as soon as she could so she could call the Seekers before anyone got hurt.

Sophia started flipping the safety of her pistol on and off absentmindedly in the backseat. Click, click, click.

Zoe shifted uncomfortably at the noise. As she did so, she felt her cell phone inside her pocket. Suddenly, her prospects seemed slightly better, and she smiled. She'd have to wait until they stopped for the night, but Sophia had to be getting drowsy after eating so much and it was nearly 2 am.

The clicking from the rear seat stopped, and Zoe froze.

"What are you smiling about?" the child asked.

Suddenly the car felt ten degrees colder.

"I'm smiling because... the scenery is beautiful around here," Zoe lied. Poorly.

"Pull over to the side of the road," Sophia said sharply. "Stop the car and get out."

"You don't want -"

"STOP THE FUCKING CAR!" Sophia roared.

Zoe pulled over to the side of the road, chest tight with fear. "I -"

"Get out. Now, damn it!"

She's going to kill me if I don't cooperate, Zoe thought. Her spirits sank as she realized that a human, comfortable with the concept of lying, would spot any deception on her part immediately. She had no options, she'd have to give Sophia the cell phone.

Sophia hit Zoe in the back of her leg with her rifle, forcing her to drop to her knees. Something cold and metallic was pressed to the back of her head. "What the hell were you smiling about, bug?"

"Don't kill me, please... I'll show you." Zoe slowly reached into her pocket and withdrew the phone.

To her surprise, Sophia began laughing. "Its good you suck at being sneaky then, huh Fractals?" She dropped the phone on the ground, and smashed it with the butt of the AK.

"Let me make it clear," Sophia said in a deceptively saccharine tone of voice. "If the Seekers find me, I'm going to kill you. Then I will kill as many of the Seekers as I can. If I win that fight then I'll start on any bystanders until I run out of ammo. Don't fuck with me."

Zoe shivered. How could you respond to that? After a moment of silence, she realized Sophia was waiting for some kind of reply. "I understand," she said cautiously. Who knew what would set the human off?

"Let's go, back in the car. We're going to stop at the next motel we see." Sophia hauled Zoe to her feet, and pushed her back towards the vehicle, making her stumble. Zoe heard her chuckle quietly.

"Everything all right, miss?" the soul at the desk of the motel's office asked.

Zoe realized she was wringing her hands. She was acutely aware of the fact that Sophia had a clear line of fire from the car into the office, and wouldn't hesitate to blow her away if she became a hindrance - it was enough to make anyone nervous.

"Yes, I'm fine," she lied. "I don't usually travel that much, and it makes me nervous." Sophia was almost certainly serious about killing everyone she could in the event of discovery - thus all of their lives rested on Zoe's not-so-impressive acting skills.

"Well, you'll probably feel better after a good rest. Why are you out so late, if you don't mind me asking?"

Zoe hadn't thought far enough ahead to make a solid cover story. "Um... My roommate and I are heading back to college. I thought we could make it in one night, but I was starting to get drowsy."

"Yes, its better to be safe than sorry." The soul brought up a window on his computer. "What's your name, miss?"

Zoe paused. Sophia refused to call her by her actual name, and they might be overheard. "Examines Fractals," she said.

"Oh, a Spider! How interesting, I've never been there. Did you like it there?" It was just her luck that she'd arouse the interest of the clerk.

"It wasn't as nice as Earth. You could understand everything, but they don't have emotions like humans. It got boring fast." She faked a yawn. "I don't mean to be rude, but can I get going? We're both exhausted."

"Certainly, certainly. Here you go, room four." He handed her a key. "I get so used to the night shift, I forget other people aren't used to keeping such hours. I'm sorry about that," he apologized.

"Thank you," she said, hurrying out the door. She breathed a sigh of relief and waved to Sophia in the car while walking to room four, signaling she had the key. Sophia left the AK under the passenger seat and ran over, staying out of the light. If Zoe hadn't known she was there she would have been invisible.

She was holding a roll of duct tape Zoe recognized from the back of her car.

"Good job, Fractals," she said, taking the key and opening the door. She pulled Zoe inside the room and locked the door. Rapidly Sophia bound Zoe's hands and feet together behind her back and dragged her behind the bed. She heard the rasp of tape again and then Sophia placed a strip over her mouth, preventing her from making any noise.

"Be good now," Sophia said, heading into the bathroom.

Sophia stood in the shower, luxuriating under the hot water and watching as the accumulated blood and filth of several months washed down the drain. This plan was working out better than she had envisioned - Fractals was too terrified of the results to try and warn anyone. She hadn't realized how much the bugs cared about each other, but Fractal's response to her earlier threats had revealed an exploitable weakness. Its reaction was almost... human. She knew the souls were pathetic actors from the few times she'd seen the television shows they produced.

If she didn't know for a fact that Fractals had killed a girl named Zoe, that it was a thief and a murderer, she might even feel bad. The way it acted... if she wasn't careful, she'd start thinking of it as a person, not an alien parasite thing that was bent on seeing her demise.

As it stood now, Fractals knew how the aliens' society functioned - and it could possibly reveal flaws she could use to her advantage. With Fractals terrified she would go on rampage, she didn't even have to keep it within her line of sight. She'd never have to raid a store again.

That left the question of what to do next. Her jacket was too small, and her jeans were not in the best condition. It wasn't as vital now that she had Fractals and her car, but her sleeping bag was full of bullet-holes and also needed to be replaced.

After that, she'd have to find a way to get more ammunition. That would be the most difficult task.

And after that... Hell, with a car, an assault rifle and a centipede, she could do whatever the hell she wanted.

A/N Hurrah directionlessness! Review, flame, or just comment, but let me know what you think. Thanks to TK-MR, Jaffee Leeds, Evil-Clowns-Rule, fusedtwilight and TopKat90 for commenting on previous chapters!

Edit 24 Jan 2011 - Typo/formatting fixes

Chapter 4: Secrets and Lies Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Secrets and Lies

Moon was in the back of a bus, heading towards the local college. Alex had fled from the souls before finishing high school, and so Moon had to suffer through a battery of placement tests for the next several days to find out where his education should restart.

The past two days had been the strangest that Moonlight had ever experienced in any of his lives. In neither of his previous lives had he ever heard of a host body which remained conscious after the insertion of a soul. He would have thought that Alex would try to retake control of his body, but he remained civil (though moderately hostile) the entire time. *Hey, I should have died in that forest. I figure any more time I get is just a bonus - I guess I'm kind of like a ghost. Anyway, it wouldn't change anything if I could retake control, would it? I couldn't call off the search for Sophia, right? * Alex responded to Moon's line of thought. He was hiding something, but Moonlight couldn't tell what.

Sometimes Moonlight got the feeling that Alex could read him far better than he could read Alex.

No, you couldn't, Moon responded guiltily.

Heh. It's a good thing for you that Sophia's smart, then. Otherwise, we might have a problem.

That was the one thing that Alex occasionally did use to make him uncomfortable - while neither of them believed that Alex had any information that would help the Seekers, Moon believed it was his duty to help them in any way he could. Alex... didn't. You all have made her life a living hell. She's been hiding from you since she was seven years old. Just leave her in peace, and she'll be glad to do the same with you. What difference does it make if she steals some food? Alex flashed through memories of hunger and terror during this tirade. Moon fought, but was drawn into the memory of a night Alex remembered when they were nearly caught, about four years before.

It's the best time of day to be moving; it's beginning to get dark, and even better, there's a light drizzle that covers the sound of our footsteps. We're going into town to try and scrounge up a new set of jackets, as both of us have outgrown our old ones and winter is coming.

We hear voices and drop to the ground like puppets with our strings cut. I look in the direction of the noise and see four humanoid shapes gathered around something directly in front of us - I can't see what it is. I'm behind a tree, but Sophia is in the open with only grass between her and them. The bugs don't know we're here, but if they look around the area at all they will find us.

What now? Sophia signs at me, using a set of hand signals we've been working out for the past several months.

We're too close to the road and we don't know how many of them there are, I sign back to her. One of them will hear us if we try and fight them. Crawl to that ditch on my mark. I point. One of them is looking in your direction right now. She goes very still. Wait... wait... Go!

She moves quickly and silently as soon as I tell her to. Once she reaches the ditch, she covers her face and hair with mud, effectively camouflaging the most visible parts of herself.

"Do you think there actually are any humans out here?" one of the bugs asks another. "I'd think they would stay far away from towns, nowadays."

"I don't think there are any, but suffering through the cold is a small price to pay to ease people's minds," another responds. "That's why I became a Seeker. Any humans out there wouldn't bother with such a small town anyway, but its something people worry about. If there was a real threat, I think a lot more than just eight of us would be patrolling. We're in more danger from bears than we are any humans."

Moon was slowly learning to deal with Alex's ingrained hatred, but this time it was suppressed a moment after he felt it. This was very strange, but Moon had no time to think about it as the memory continued.

Sophia snorts. We need to keep moving, she signs, shivering. I see now that there is a small current of water running through the ditch she's in. She had no choice but to move out of the Seekers' line of sight, but she can't stay there indefinitely.

Lets see what they do. Maybe they'll split up or move on, I hope.

After a few minutes the Seekers fan out into a line and begin ambling away from us. They're not very observant, but all it will take is one of them to walk in the wrong direction...

We stay deathly still, and soon the patrol line has passed by. I signal to Sophia we should get moving, and we run towards the sleeping town, away from the Seekers.

At least we know they're there now.

Moonlight felt another wave of malevolence from Alex, but again, it was oddly suppressed after a moment. He tried to figure out what Alex was up to, but was blocked by another wall.

Leave me alone, Alex thought.

His cell phone rang.

"Hello?"

It was the seeker he'd met his first day on the planet. "There's been a disappearance. Sophia was probably responsible. If so, she now has a hostage and a vehicle. You may remember the missing person; she was the one assigned to find your host's biological parents." Moon did remember her. It had only been two days ago, after all. He wasn't sure why the Seeker was calling him about this, though.

"How can I be of assistance, Seeker?" he asked.

"I need to meet with you later to discuss where Sophia would go if she had a vehicle, and everywhere the Conrads had ever been in the past. When's the soonest you'll be available?"

No, no, no! Alex protested furiously.

Moon ignored him. "I have a bunch of tests I have to take today, but I can see you tomorrow morning."

Alex's education had been cut short by the souls' invasion. Moon had known this on an intellectual level, but hadn't grasped the implications until he stared down at the pages of the test. He could read the text, but he had no idea what any of it was asking him. He was beginning to get discouraged, but Alex refused to stop thinking about the questions.

No, no, I think x must be equal to seven.

It was a blatant attempt to distract Moon from thinking about Sophia. It didn't work, especially since Alex disliked the test as well.

I have to do my civic duty, Moon told him.

She'll leave you alone if you don't bother her, Alex replied, trying to be persuasive. If she sees a bunch of Seekers coming after her, many of them will die, and she'll just kill herself and the hostage anyway. Leave her be.

I'll help the Seekers however I can, Moon thought. I'm certain they'll be able to catch her without any bloodshed.

Yeah, that's what worries me.

After distractedly working on the placement tests for a few more hours, Moon got back on the bus and returned to his apartment. The place was still nearly completely bare, save for a phone on the counter. The light on it was blinking.

I wondered when you'd notice that, Alex thought, wryly. It's been that way since we got here two days ago.

Who would be leaving him voice mail? Moon fumbled with the device, but eventually it ran the message.

"Hey, its me, Zoe!" the message began cheerfully. "I talked to you earlier about finding your host's family. It looks like they never moved, so I found them pretty fast. If you -"

Moon shut it off, disturbed by Alex's tumultuous emotions. Alex didn't know what he wanted Moon to do with this knowledge. He had no desire to see his family - he knew there wasn't anything left of his parents, and seeing them would just remind him of losing them the first time. He did, however, want to see the souls who had taken his family out of a morbid curiosity. These two conflicting things left him feeling quite lost.

Moon couldn't think, overwhelmed by the influx of emotions from his host. Finally, he recognized that there was little he could get done in this state, and decided to go to sleep. Perhaps he'd be able to sort out his emotions in the morning.

A/N As always, please review! You can even flame me or leave a one-word comment, just let me know what you think. If I don't know how I'm doing it's hard to improve!

Thanks to TK-MR, Jaffee Leeds, Evil-Clowns-Rule, fusedtwilight, Pantherfan, and TopKat90 for commenting on previous chapters!

Chapter 5: Inspired Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Inspired

Zoe lay on the floor behind the bed, bound in an extremely uncomfortable position. She heard the shower start in the bathroom, and realized this was the best opportunity she was going to get to warn anyone about the human. Sophia wouldn't be able to hear her trying to escape over the running water, and the AK was in the car.

She struggled against the bonds holding her, but she couldn't work any of them loose. She tried wriggling herself to move, hoping to find something she could try and work the tape off with, but it was exceptionally hard.

Zoe heard the shower shut off. A minute later, the bathroom door opened.

She'd only managed to move about a meter.

Sophia walked over and stood above her with a predatory grin on her face. "Trying to escape, hmm?" She viciously kicked Zoe in the ribs, still smiling. "We've got a busy day tomorrow. You might want to try and sleep." Sophia dragged her back to her original position and drew the window shades closed. "Obviously, I didn't use enough tape," she said, spooling off another length with a sharp rasp.

"Night night, little bug."

That night, both Zoe and Sophia dreamt of the wars which had plagued Earth before the Souls come.

Zoe had a nightmare of being trapped in an endless, pointless conflict in an unnamed third-world country. Children armed with automatic weapons fought brutal battles of attrition and annihilation. Many of them wore Sophia's face, and all of them blamed her for the fighting.

Sophia dreamt of vague memories of strategic bombers, napalm strikes, artillery barrages, and burning cities. Several times she thought she saw Alex inside one of the houses before it was wiped away in flame.

The next day, Zoe entered the office of the motel again to check out. Despite her terror (and developing bruise), she could barely keep her eyes open as she opened the door as she hadn't managed to sleep very much at all. She prayed nobody would see Sophia; her gaunt frame and bloody jacket would give her away as human as surely as a good look at her non-reflective eyes.

"Good morning, Fractals! Did you have a good night of sleep?" asked the man at the desk.

"Good enough, I suppose. We've got classes tomorrow, so we need to get back today," Zoe lied, yawning.

"I've got an extra can of Awake here, if you'd like it. I'd hate to hear you crashed because you were too tired to drive," said the soul.

He had a point. In her current condition, she was likely to fall asleep at the wheel and crash. While that would probably stop Sophia's plans, Zoe herself would likely be killed in the process. And if Sophia survived, she would take out her anger on innocent bystanders.

"I would appreciate that very much, thank you," she said, taking the can.

Sophia watched the two bugs talk to each other through the window of Fractals' car. Her eyes narrowed as she saw the can pass hands. She didn't know what it was, but she intended to find out.

As soon as Zoe entered the car, she leveled the pistol at it, careful to keep the weapon out of the motel worker's vision. "Give it to me, Fractals."

Fractals sighed and handed her the can. "It's just Awake. It's harmless, Sophia."

"Right... What's it for? It just looks like spray-paint or something." Sophia said, holding the can up and examining it.

"If you breathe it in, it resets your sleep cycle. I didn't get much sleep last night and I didn't want to crash and die on the highway. Can I have it back please?"

Sophia looked at the can skeptically. "So if I huff this can when I'm tired, I won't have to sleep anymore?"

"Yes. Please give it back, it would be dangerous for me to drive as tired as I am."

Sophia looked at the can and then back at Fractals. Eventually, she pointed the can at the bug, holding it far away from her own body, and depressed the nozzle.

A fine mist erupted from the can, and she held her breath. Fractals breathed in deeply, and it almost immediately seemed to perk up a little, so the mist couldn't be poisonous.

Sophia took a tentative sniff. It smelled like blueberries. She didn't feel any different, but she'd already had a good night of sleep, so it probably wouldn't affect her anyway.

It wasn't harmful, however it worked. She still wasn't going to let Fractals keep it, though.

"Mine, I think," she stated, putting the can into her jacket pocket. "Let's go. We're going to get some food, and then to the closest mall. I need a new jacket, sleeping bag, and jeans."

Forty-five minutes later, Zoe was frantically trying to estimate Sophia's jacket size. She considered just leaving the child out in the car and calling the Seekers, but it would inevitably lead to a large number of innocent deaths. Sophia had made it clear that if Zoe wasn't back in the car, with a jacket, jeans, and sleeping bag, within fifteen minutes, she would come in and start killing people. The mall had no security guards as it would have in human days - why would it? Souls didn't require watching in the way that humans had, and nobody would expect a human to be as crazy as to attack a crowded center of commerce - it would be certain death on their part.

Sophia didn't seem to place much value on her own life, though. And even if there had been guards, Sophia probably would have outgunned all of them with that cursed AK she always had with her.

Souls were not supposed to hate, but Zoe really despised the child. If Alex had been anything like her, she pitied Moon a great deal.

Sophia lay in the back of Fractal's car, examining her AK while keeping an eye on her watch. The AK was her greatest asset, but it also meant that the Seekers would never, ever stop searching for her. Even if she abandoned the thing, she'd killed a bunch of Seekers with it and her face was on the damned news.

A wave of depression and loneliness rolled across her, and she fought it back – her minutes left on Earth were numbered; she had to accept it and move on. Crying about it would just waste time and wouldn't change a thing – and in the worst case, it might give away her position. The bugs didn't care, her brother was dead, and she was literally the last human being on the face of the planet.

The funny thing was, before her brother had been killed, she would have been perfectly happy to leave the Souls to their own devices. In fact, now she thought about it, running into the Seekers may have saved her life in the short term picture - she had been in a bad way before kidnapping Fractals. Longer term, though... The Seekers were going to catch up with her probably sooner rather than later, and the only plan that made sense was to arm herself to do as much damage as she could when they did.

She looked up at the clock and began to wonder where Fractals was. Nearly ten minutes had passed, but there was still no sign of it. She idly wondered if it had called the Seekers or not. It made little difference to her whether or not it had - with her face on television she was screwed. She almost... no, she did look forward to going out in a blaze of glory, but... She felt that given a month, or even just two weeks, she could find a way to hit the Souls somewhere where it really hurt.

It would be better if Fractals came back soon, but even if it didn't, she would be content in shooting up the mall – there might be somewhere else where she could cause more chaos, but the world was most definitely not fair and she'd have to settle with what she could get. Another minute passed on her watch. Fractals now had less than five minutes, and so Sophia flipped the AK's bayonet forward, locking it into place. She would enjoy this.

Zoe ran outside as fast as she could without drawing suspicion. She knew she had nearly overshot Sophia's deadline and she didn't want to test her resolve at all. She crossed the parking lot to the car, and knocked on the window.

Inside the car, she saw Sophia look up in surprise. After a moment, she opened the door and dumped the clothing and the sleeping bag into the front passenger seat. Sophia sneezed, and looked back at her wrist.

"You're cutting it awful close, aren't you? Two minutes difference and things would be very different around here, Fractals." Sophia said, gently placing the AK on the floor and grabbing the jacket Fractals had just brought her.

She held it in front of her, staring at it. "Red? What the hell is this, Fractals? A bright fucking red jacket? Are you trying to get me killed?"

There were many arguments Zoe could bring up, chief among which was that Sophia had never specified a color. In addition, the parking lot was huge and they were parked far from the entrance. She hadn't known any of Sophia's clothing sizes. All the items were in different stores. With the time constraints she had been under, she'd had no choice but to grab the first thing that looked like it might fit Sophia. Sophia's overriding concern was the response time of the local Seeker station. She hadn't been trying to find something conspicuous, it had just worked out that way, but she doubted Sophia would care.

She settled for the short answer. "No, just captured. Preferably without any deaths." Violence was humanity's domain, not the Souls'.

"Good luck with that," Sophia said, shaking her head. The girl unseated her rifle's bayonet and Zoe swallowed.

"Come on, let's get going."

A/N I finally have a vague idea of where I'm going with this story. As always, please tell me what you think - just comment, or if you feel more motivated you can leave a longer review/flame - and thanks to my previous reviewers, especially TopKat90!

24 Jan 2011 Typo/Formatting fixes and minor edits

Chapter 6: Malevolence Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N This is a violent chapter. You have been warned.

Hangover chapter #1

Mixed Feelings

Malevolence

"Turn on the radio, Fractals. I want to hear a news station."

The parasite reached over and turned on the radio, taking her eyes off the road for a moment in order to find a suitable frequency.

"Fzzz... The search for Sophia Conrad continues. The Seekers now believe that she is connected to the disappearance of Zoe Parva, who went missing two days ago. The Seekers ask our listeners to call them if they see a black 2000 model Ford explorer with a driver matching Parva's description."

The radio continued to detail what Sophia and Zoe looked like, and gave the car's license plate number.

"Well, fuck." Sophia said. The license problem would easily be solved, as screwdrivers were not hard to find, but now that they had a description of Fractals' host body...

All news was bad news, she supposed.

It looked like the bug had outlived its utility. She needed it to drive to the next town over, but after that it would be almost useless. With the bugs aware Fractals was missing, having anyone see its face would be nearly as bad as being spotted herself.

Its host's name had been Zoe Parva. Sophia felt a momentary surge of curiosity about the host woman's life before Fractals had stolen her body. She buried it; allowing herself any sort of attachment to the body of someone she planned on killing could make her hesitate to pull the trigger when the time came. For all intents and purposes, the host woman was already dead, anyway. When she killed Fractals, it wouldn't be murder; she'd just be putting Zoe's body to rest.

She'd have to find a new driver and a new car after she put down the bug. After she found one, she wouldn't have to think about who Zoe had been at all. But... It might still be useful in the short term picture, so she wouldn't kill it immediately. She'd been planning on interrogating it; she'd have to do that before she killed the thing.

First things first, though. Food wouldn't be much of an issue for the next few days, as she'd had Fractals get a couple crates of canned foods just in case something like this happened. She needed ammo, and Fractals would have to stay out of sight and in the dark about that anyway. She was keeping it in line by threatening to go on rampage, and there lay the problem; it would do everything within its power to keep from enabling her to do more damage. Also, as soon as she started shooting, it would stop helping her so readily. This meant that she'd have to keep it from figuring out what she was doing.

The rest of the day, Sophia directed Fractals to keep driving on the highway, with deliberately vague directions such as "Go southwest" or "Turn here" as its only guidance.

She'd been considering where she could get bullets from, and she could only think of a few places that might still have any - Seeker stations, military bases, and the like. Regardless of how much the Souls had gutted the world's militaries, it was unlikely she would get very far at all on an Army base. That left the Seekers.

"Fractals, how many people are in one of the smaller Seeker stations?" she asked.

"..."

Click, click, click, click. Sophia absently flipped her pistol's safety a few times, casually looking out the window.

"The smallest one I ever dealt with had about twenty people on an average day."

Sophia loved the noise that safety made. It was nice, being able to send a message so easily.

Sophia smiled. She figured that at night, at a suitably early hour - say, 3:30 am - it would be almost empty. CCTV cameras, once the bane of her existence, were now no longer an issue - her face was probably on national news! - and so she didn't have to worry about them any longer. She felt she had a solid chance of taking out whoever was inside as long as she had the drop on them. And if she couldn't, it made little difference. No matter what happened, she'd take a few Seekers with her.

It was strangely liberating, not caring about things anymore.

She'd need to find a suitably small station, which wouldn't be too hard with Fractals driving. She'd need to have Fractals park the car somewhere far away from the station, and then...

Zoe stared at the point of Sophia's bayonet, barely ten centimeters from her left eye. The child had ordered her to drive into the woods, away from another one-stoplight town only memorable for its tiny Seeker station. She had then removed Zoe from the car (forcefully and enthusiastically), taped her hands and mouth, and brought her to a frozen creekbed nearby.

"You have thirty seconds to give me a good reason not to kill you. Scream and I'll make it very, very slow." Sophia's voice was harsh and monotone.

Zoe thought quickly, wincing as Sophia roughly removed the tape. She didn't want to put anyone else in harm's way, but looking down the barrel of the AK things seemed different.

"I know where your brother is, Sophia," she said.

Sophia began circling around her, AK still trained on her head. "Alex is dead, I saw it. I saw him die. Try again, bug. Fifteen seconds left."

"I'm not lying. If you knew more about my people's Healers, you would understand how much damage they can repair."

"Bullshit," the girl stated succinctly. "Five seconds, Fractals."

She needed something more. "I know where your family is, Sophia," she desperately said, immediately regretting her words. If Sophia believed her she would come after the unsuspecting Souls like a demon out of human legend.

"Mmm-hmm." Sophia sounded disinterested. She heard a familiar click behind her. "Sorry, Zoe."

Radiant Reflection was considering moving to another line of work. Seeking had been a fulfilling profession several years ago, but today there were barely enough wild humans left to justify the size of the Seeker force. As soon as this crisis with the Conrad girl was over, he intended to move on.

There was a regulation (outdated, in his opinion), that there had to be several Seekers on call at the station at any given time. Thus he found himself at the station in the wee hours of the day, bored out of his mind.

He heard a deep crack from outside the station. Though he couldn't place where he'd heard it before, it set the hair on the back of his neck on end.

"I'd better go find out what that was," he said to Ray, his partner. Whatever the noise was, it didn't quite fit into the Souls' world, but he still couldn't remember what it was. He grabbed a flashlight and his jacket, and headed for the exit. Opening the door, he heard the crack again, this time much louder, and accompanied by the tinkling of shattered glass.

He remembered what it was in a flash of horror. His host had been a veteran of one of humanity's internecine wars. If that noise wasn't a Kalashnikov, he'd eat his own boots.

It's the human from the news! He realized, turning back into the station and drawing his Glock.

Then he heard it again, again, and again, this time accompanied by screaming.

He grabbed his radio. "Conrad's here!" he said. "Does anyone see her?"

He heard the AK again, and this time someone shot back. His partner's voice crackled over the radio. "She went into the basement!" she cried, obviously fighting to stay calm. "I think she killed everyone else, Radiant!"

He ran around the corner into the main hall and saw Ray kneeling behind a desk, crying over somebody's body. An unfamiliar voice came over the radio, young, female, and mocking. "'I think she killed everyone else, Radiant!' Jesus, you guys are pathetic. And thanks for the heads up, bug, I thought you were the only one."

"Conrad. You don't want to do this," he said, keeping an eye on the basement stairwells. There were only two of them, and he could see both.

She ignored him. "Ooohh, what's this? All kinds of goodies down here."

He whispered to Ray, "You watch the left stairs, I've got the other one. She has to come up sooner or later." Ray nodded, wiping her face.

"Ammo! It's like Christmas, guys, you should come down here!" Conrad squealed into the radio. They heard the AK again, once, twice, followed by a crash and then an opening door. "Let's see... thirty cal, thirty-eight, nine mil, forty cal, forty-five... Ooh, you saved me some ten millimeter!"

"Is she high?" Ray asked, confused. "How can she be so..." she trailed off, unable to find the right word.

"She's making fun of us," he told her. "She found the ammo lockup from the early days - everyone wanted to get rid of their dangerous guns and ammo, remember?"

"'Seven point six two by thirty-nine'," Conrad said quietly, dropping the kid in a candy store act for a moment. "Every once in a while, I guess I do get what I want," she breathed into the radio.

"Oh, no," he said, with a sinking feeling. He hadn't been down there for a long time, but if he remembered correctly...

"Three thousand rounds. Damn, I don't think I can carry even a third of that."

"What does that mean?" Ray asked Radiant, noticing him shudder.

"She just found a 3000 round box of AK ammo. We've got to stop her here, because if she makes it out... That's enough for her to shoot until her barrel melts," he informed her. "Watch your side. We can't let her get away."

"Conrad. Put down the guns, we won't hurt you if you do." he lied. There was no way she would be considered suitable as a host after this display of sociopathy. Lying was detestable, but allowances had to be made when dealing with feral humans.

However, the girl wasn't listening. "Give me a minute, give me a minute. Geez, can't I rob you in peace?"

Crack!

"A phone! I guess I should call an ambulance for your friends before I go."

Just keep waiting, she'll have to come up eventually, he mouthed to Ray.

Crack! Crack-crack!

"Bug drugs. I've been meaning to find out what these all do. That Awake stuff is incredible, you should try it." He heard cans clanking in the background as she spoke. "Awake, No Pain, Heal, Still... Oh, there's directions on the side."

Crack!

"Lockers! I wonder what's inside them." Crack-crack! "Uniforms! What a surprise! I wonder if any fit? Then I can be a Seeker too!"

They heard the AK again, several times, and then silence for several minutes.

"Close enough. I'll be up in a second. Tell me how I look, okay? I've got a present for you first, though."

Something sailed up the right stairwell, hissing and trailing silvery mist. It bounced off the wall and rolled next to Ray. She looked at Radiant, and then collapsed forwards.

Still, Radiant thought, covering his mouth and nose while backing up.

Another can flew up the stairwell with an uneven trajectory. This one bounced off the ceiling, and rolled away from him.

He saw a flash of red in the left stairwell and shot at it, realizing too late that it was just a jacket. Then Conrad herself stepped forward, firing on full auto.

Radiant Reflection never stood a chance. He did hit her in the chest, twice, before she brought the AK under control. However, neither round penetrated her freshly stolen body armor, and thanks to her new best friend No Pain, she barely felt a thing.

"I don't think the uniform looks that bad on me," she commented. "What do you think?" she said, grabbing a pair of handcuffs from a corpse and securing Ray's paralyzed body.

After ten trips, Sophia had finally dragged everything - drugs, ammo, Ray, and Fractals' bound body out to her shiny new Seeker-mobile.

She went back inside one last time to look around, saw nothing left that she wanted, and left.

A/N Flame, review, or comment, but let me know what you think!

Chapter 7: Investigated Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Investigated

Moonlight looked upon the camera footage, appalled. He was shocked at the violent deaths of eight Souls, the disappearance of another, and the three thousand rounds of ammunition which were now missing.

Worse, Alex's emotions were bleeding over again. First, he didn't like the inside of the Seeker station. Alex had spent nearly a full third of his life trying to avoid places like this, and despite the fact that he now had nothing to fear, a small voice insisted he should be running and hiding. Bright, even lighting contributed to his discomfort, and the crowd of Seekers looking at him triggered an instinctive desire to run, or fight, or hide. Moon felt his worry over Sophia, and his puzzlement about why she would do such a thing. Worst of all, he felt the pleasure Alex took from the knowledge that there were now eight less Seekers in the world.

Moon felt sick about the last part. Alex realized he was bothering Moon, and focused on the danger his sister was in.

"Give him space, people," One of the Seekers ordered forcefully. "He's only been here three days. People with hosts who were part of the rebellion sometimes have trouble with crowds." Moon looked at the short, graying man and wondered if he'd had firsthand experience with the problem.

"Thank you, Seeker," Moon breathed gratefully. The pressure subsided as most of the crowd dispersed. Though the irrational desire to flee didn't go completely away, it dropped off enough that Moon was no longer paralyzed with fear. Dimly, he still felt Alex's loathing of the place, but he was growing used to dealing with his hatred.

Two Souls were left with him. One was familiar to him, the one assigned to the Conrad's case. The other was the short one who had saved him from the crowd.

Moon took a moment to compose himself, then spoke. "I don't know why she did this, Soaring Leaf, I really don't. When she was with me - Alex, I mean - they were very concerned about attracting any sort of attention from civilization."

"She knows we know what she looks like," Soaring Leaf and the short Seeker said in unison. "Obviously, she doesn't care anymore."

The camera footage continued rolling. "You might not want to watch the next part," the short one said.

Watch. I need to know why she did it. This was borderline suicidal!

Moon thought knowing what had happened might help find Sophia, so he took Alex's order over the Seeker's advice.

The footage showed Sophia come in through a window, guns blazing. Moon looked away as two Seekers died messily. Both he and Alex were disturbed by the look of bliss on Sophia's face as she stepped over the bodies.

The camera footage continued rolling. Five more Seekers fell, then she grabbed a radio off of one of them and walked down a flight of stairs into a basement as another Seeker ran back through the main entrance. She proceeded to shoot the lock off of a door.

She's looking for something. Alex was deep in thought. What's so important she would do this?

Despite the poor video quality, they saw her clearly as she searched the room, and her face light up when she found a huge box of... something.

"What is that room, Seeker? What's in it?" Moon asked Soaring Leaf.

"Munitions lockup. That's the ammunition she stole," he informed Moon.

What does she need so many bullets for? She has to know she'll die if she gets into a situation where she could use that much ammo. both Moon and Alex thought.

Sophia rapidly continued through the rest of the basement, using the AK to remove any offending locks that got in her way. The video cut back to the Seekers above watching the stairwells.

Moon and the Seekers watched Sophia change into a Seeker uniform and take down the last two Seekers. She then went around and shot all of the dead in the head, save the one incapacitated by Still, and then carried a great many things out of the station.

It looks like she just came to rob them... Alex thought uncertainly. It made no more sense to him than it did to Moon.

"Any insights, Moonlight?" asked Soaring Leaf.

Moon registered a flash of understanding from Alex, then sadness. Probing, he found that the wall was back.

I'll talk to you later, he thought, irritated.

Moon shook his head in response to the Seeker's question. "I don't understand it. The Conrads were always obsessive about keeping a relatively low profile. All I can tell you is that she was very happy to find that ammunition for some reason. I'm sorry, Seeker."

Sophia needed to get moving. It wouldn't do to sit in one place and let the Seekers catch up with her.

"Alright, Ray. Just drive southwest until I tell you differently," Sophia said.

"Why would I help you, human?" the Seeker asked, silver eyes glaring.

In response, Sophia pulled out a can of Heal and toggled her pistol's safety a few times. It had the desired effect.

That noise was one of the few pleasures in her life.

For the first time since she was seven, Sophia suddenly found herself with in a favorable situation. She had enough food to last for weeks, which was longer than she expected to survive, three thousand rounds of ammunition (again, enough to last her until she got killed), and just as importantly, nine magazines to put it in. She had a bulletproof vest, a Seeker uniform, and a Seeker's vehicle.

If she'd come across all this before Alex got shot, she'd have thought she'd died and gone to heaven.

She also had a crate full of various Soul drugs. If the Awake and the Still were any indication, the Heal would be nearly magically effective. She didn't know exactly what it did, but that was a problem easily rectified. She had a bonus bug now, didn't she? Fractals was far less useful, but it would be so much more fun to test it on Ray. Sophia was quite curious to find out how well it worked.

In a Seeker's car, with a Seeker's uniform, she could pretty much go anywhere, no questions asked. And with that much ammo, she had the ability to do some damage when she got there.

All she needed was a high value target. And with Soul security being what it was...

Once upon a time, Alex had been a teenage boy interested in the military. As such, he'd known all about the various ways humans had invented to destroy one another. By extension, so did Sophia - the quiet times when they were in hiding got mind-numbingly boring pretty fast. If they hadn't had each other they probably would have gone crazy.

Her comfortable numbness began to erode, and she quickly dropped that line of thought. There wasn't time to have a breakdown right now, especially with a Seeker in the car. A crying fit would probably be fatal.

She wondered if the Souls had scrapped all of the human-era WMDs yet. A nuke would be unlikely - even if one was still around where she could get it, the bugs would undoubtedly have lost the codes. But if she could get her hands on some nerve gas or a sample of smallpox... Just thinking of the damage she could cause gave her the shivers. However, knowing the bugs' pacifist rhetoric, it seemed like a long shot. Anyway, she wouldn't know the first place to look to find any of those things.

She just didn't know enough about how the parasites' world worked. She knew how to hide from it, yes, but beyond how the Seekers operated, she'd never had any reason to investigate it very closely. She didn't even know where they came from beyond the obvious fact that they were from outer space.

It looked like Fractals might still be relatively useful after all. The Seekers were all trained to lie convincingly, but Fractals obviously wasn't.

Zoe woke up in the dark. She wasn't expecting it, and wondered if she was dead for a moment before everything shifted, and she bumped the back of her head. Stars erupted everywhere.

After a few moments, the sound of a car engine registered. I'm in the trunk of a car, she realized. There was still tape around her wrists and ankles, but at least her mouth was free.

If she didn't believe me, why didn't she kill me? Zoe wondered. She must want something from me. Somehow, the thought made her less comfortable than she already was. Judging from the way her head felt, she'd been knocked out.

Several hours later, she wished she'd stayed that way. The edges of the trunk were quite hard, she'd discovered, and with her hands bound she bounced inside of it helplessly. With her numerous bruises from the child, the trip quickly became unbearable, and she began to cry silently. It was a relief when the car finally stopped.

She heard the doors open, and two sets of footsteps fading away.

Time passed. Eventually, one set returned, and suddenly the trunk opened.

Blinking as her eyes adjusted to the sudden change in lighting, she saw Sophia towering over her, looking angry. Zoe shrunk back instinctively from the malice that practically poured off of the human in waves.

The girl was wearing a Seeker uniform, complete with Kevlar. Zoe knew better than to ask questions that she didn't want to know the answer to, and so she stayed quiet.

The child predictably added a few more bruises to her numerous collection of them, then pulled her out of the trunk.

She got a good look around as Sophia was dragging her away from the car. Zoe had no idea where they were, but it was obviously far from where she'd been knocked out. They were in the woods somewhere along an abandoned road, and the car she'd been in used to belong to the Seekers. She also noticed there was blood on the bayonet of Sophia's AK.

She didn't want to know why or whose it was. She really didn't.

Stars exploded across her vision again, and she tasted zinc. When they cleared the child was yelling at her. "Listen to me when I'm talking to you!"

"Please, Sophia, just let me go," she moaned. "I won't -"

Zoe didn't even register that she'd been hit this time. She found herself on the ground several seconds later, head spinning.

"You don't talk unless I ask you a question, got it?"

Zoe nodded, mutely. That small movement made her stomach rebel, and she hoped she didn't have a concussion.

"Good. All right, first things first. How many planets have you infested, and why did you come here?"

An hour and several liberal beatings later, Sophia understood a lot more about the bugs. Naïve, technologically pathetic body snatchers had managed to hijack a series of more and more advanced civilizations. They'd never run across a violent species other than humans, obviously - war had been a foreign concept to them before Earth.

It was just horrendous luck that had allowed them to take over the Spiders' world, which then enabled them to expand their hegemony much farther than ever before. If there was even the slightest hint of cosmic justice in the universe, in a few centuries they'd find another violent species like humanity, who would proceed to wipe them out. Given their outlook on violence, they would not be able to defend themselves - hell, if humanity had realized they were here earlier, they could have done it on their own!

None of this helped her now, but at least she understood a little more about them. Up until now, the bugs had been quite literally alien to her.

But there were further questions to be asked.

"The ships, tell me everything you know about them."

Fractals became incoherent after a while, so Sophia gave it a break. It had started to get a little boring, and her arms were getting tired.

She hadn't expected the Seeker to kill itself. She hadn't even known they could do that. In retrospect, she probably shouldn't have beaten on Fractals so hard either, but she'd been very pissed off about Ray.

Well, at least she knew that Heal worked miraculously now. And she now knew several places she could hit with almost no risk to herself that would yield rich rewards.

Unguarded cryotanks. It's almost as if they want me to kill them all. It can't be that easy, can it?

A/N I'm curious to know who people sympathize with the most in my story. One of my friends read it and came out with a very different outlook than I had intended.

To answer Kat's question in the reviews, Sophia has no special training beyond seven years of growing up with everyone on the planet trying to kill her. A lot of this story was inspired by reading The Host while my roommate was watching Red Dawn :P

Reviews are love! I know almost nobody reads this because it's not a typical romantic fluffy Host story but I'd love to hear the flaws of my writing style from those few that do read!

Chapter 8: Resurfaced Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Resurfaced

Sophia had a problem. She supposed she had hit Fractals too hard; it seemed like it had a concussion. It was completely incapacitated, puking its guts out on the ground.

She wouldn't care, but she couldn't drive very well, and Ray was dead. It was infuriating. She wanted to hit one of the cryotank transports more than she'd ever wanted anything in her entire life – as an act of vengeance, it paled in comparison to the human death toll the bugs had inflicted, but it was the best shot she was ever going to get. However, she was at least thirty miles from the nearest Healing facility which might have any tanks.

It was like finding El Dorado, only to have it be just beyond her grasp.

She could drive, but not well enough to obey any sort of traffic laws consistently. Getting from point A to point B wasn't the problem, it was that the bugs followed all the traffic laws religiously. She'd bring the Seekers down upon herself in minutes. Using the car's sirens would let her ignore the laws, but it would just draw too much attention.

Thirty miles. She smacked herself as she realized how spoiled she'd become with access to a car. She could go that distance in a day or two on foot - she an Alex had walked much longer distances than that several times in the past.

Actually... now that she thought about it, now that she'd made the news, it didn't exactly matter if the Seekers eventually got a report of a stolen vehicle, and so there was nothing to stop her from hijacking another car, was there? Getting away afterward would be a problem, but again, that didn't really concern her very much - she was probably going to get caught soon.

If she was going somewhere, she'd need to secure the bug, first.

Sophia dragged Fractals' incapacitated body back into the trunk of the vehicled, sprayed it with Still, and slammed the lid shut. In the remote possibility she lived through this, Fractals might provide her with another Holy Grail target like this one.

She'd need a way to carry her extra magazines, so she grabbed the roll of duct tape from the car and started fashioning a harness for the extra magazines, deep in thought.

How to destroy a tractor trailer in the middle of a city and still get away... It was an interesting problem. The simplest way would just be to light it up with the AK; the tanks probably wouldn't stand up to gunfire. However, that would be noisy, and more importantly, slow. She couldn't get all of them before the Seekers showed up and killed her.

If she could the truck somewhere else, that would be ideal. Then she could take as much time as she wanted to to destroy its contents. Unfortunately, the bugs cared too damned much about the whole rather than the individual - and now that she knew they could kill their hosts on a whim, torture was out.

It was too bad. She really wanted to go Aztec on a few of them.

She thought some more, before the answer came to her. Gas, she thought. A gasoline truck would yield an awesome explosion. The driver wouldn't know what was going on until too late, and the resulting blast would surely breach the tanks' containment. Getting the truck to blow might be hard, but she'd worry about that once she had one.

She could hijack another vehicle in the confusion. Or, alternately, she could open up on the emergency services when they arrived.

Could be fun, she thought, weaving tape around another magazine. Doubt I'll get away afterward, but who cares? It's not like I'll get another shot at the cryotanks.

The only problem with this plan was that she wouldn't get to see the drama afterward. And the drama would be half the fun.

Also, she'd be passing up on the chance to hit them a second time.

She'd need to consider this on the way. Sophia added a pair of Still canisters to her makeshift harness and then headed towards the nearest road.

Zoe found herself in the trunk again. This time, it was a relief to be away from the psychotic human, even if that meant being locked away, covered in blood and vomit.

She definitely had a concussion. She wasn't puking anymore, but only because her stomach was empty. Her head was pounding and the world seemed to be spinning.

She needed to get away, but she didn't think she could walk even if she could get out of the trunk. Her hands were still bound behind her back. And it would be hours before the paralysis from the Still wore off.

Where am I? came a plaintive voice. Why can't I move?

Zoe would have gasped were she not paralyzed. Just when she thought she might have a moment of relative peace...

Zoe felt a wave of confusion. She'd heard of cases like these before, when a human host retained consciousness after implantation. She'd never heard of any waking up spontaneously after so long, though.

Hi, Zoe, she thought.

Who are you? What's going on? thought the human.

What's the last thing you remember, Zoe? she asked.

I was going to a party...

This would take a while to explain. The human apparently didn't remember anything since she was captured for implantation.

They couldn't move, so they had nothing better to do. Maybe they could find a way to escape if they worked together - two minds were better than one, after all.

Several hours later, Sophia lay out of sight near a gas station in the woods, waiting for a gas truck to come up. One would have to eventually. It would just take time.

Sophia was capable of being very patient. She had learned that talent quickly on the run; staying stationary in a single spot for hours or even days if need be was second nature by now. The trick to staving off boredom was to just think about something else.

She let herself drift. Hours rolled by, though she didn't really notice their passage.

Sophia found herself thinking about a story Alex had told her once, that of a kingdom that was under attack by an evil demon named Grendel. The monster came to the king's palace in the night, and slaughtered the sleeping inhabitants, sometimes eating them. The king promised half his land to any man who could slay the monster. After many had died, a great hero from across the ocean came in response to the king's call. After a vicious battle, the hero emerged victorious.

The irony didn't escape her. Today, she was filling the role of the demon Grendel.

But I don't think the bugs have any heroes to stop me, she thought, suppressing laughter.

Eventually, a truck did roll up. Sophia checked her weapons to make sure she had full magazines, then got up and walked towards the station.

She needed to be scary enough to prevent coherent thought, but not so terrifying the bugs would commit suicide. Everything hinged on getting the gas truck to the town with no Seekers on her tail.

It was trivial to get everyone to do what she wanted. She couldn't kill any of them yet, for fear the truck driver would refuse to help, but she gathered everyone's phones, disabled the cars there (emptying a magazine of 7.62 into a car's engine pretty much destroyed it), and grabbed some lighters and empty bottles.

She didn't know about the silent alarm, but fortunately for her, neither did the Soul working there. In the years since the planet had been colonized, there had never been any armed robberies, and so new hires weren't briefed on the system.

Sophia slid into the cabin of the truck with the terrified parasite. "Hi," she said brightly, leveling her pistol. "Lets go to the city."

The parasite looked back at the Soulless human grinning at him, and saw in her eyes she would take him apart if he didn't obey.

A/N Reviews, comments, and flames are welcome! Let me know your opinion of my story, please!

Sorry for the short chapter, but I needed to put out something after so long with no update. Thanks to all my reviewers!

Edit 24 Jan 2011 Typo/reformatting/minor edits

Chapter 9: Bang Mixed Feelings

Bang

A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths are a statistic.

-Stalin

Zoe wasn't happy about her situation, once she grasped it. She'd been effectively dead for nearly eight years, and now was probably about to be killed for real. And there wasn't a thing she could do about it. Even if she could, the best she could hope for afterward was a half-life where she couldn't even lift one of her own fingers.

Fractals was not happy either. Zoe's anger was so strong, she could feel her blood pressure rising. Given her concussion, this was most definitely a Bad Thing.

What the fuck gave you the right to invade Earth? the human's mental voice thundered, and Fractals winced as the world spun violently.

She couldn't keep any mental barriers up given the situation, and Zoe saw her thinking of thousands upon thousands of ICBMs with the letters CCCP or USA painted on the side.

Every major country on the planet was engaged in a mutual suicide pact when our first scouts arrived, Fractals thought weakly. You were about to destroy yourselves, and the ecosystem as well. How could we not save such a beautiful place?

The Cold War had been over for over a decade when the first wave of you came! Nobody was about to destroy anyone! Zoe cried.

Ten of your years is not a very long time by our standards, Fractals thought. That your people had the weapons suggested you thought you might still need them one day. I won't argue with you right now, Zoe. We need to escape, or Sophia's going to kill us.

Yeah, I might be better off that way, Zoe replied bitterly.

"So, how's your family?" Sophia asked, amused. It was cute how the bug kept giving her sidelong glances as she asked random questions to keep it distracted. It was even more fun to fuck with than Fractals.

With this question, though, its demeanor changed.

"I have a human son," it said. "He's never had an implantation. You wouldn't want to leave him without a father, would you?"

"How interesting, sir. Please, continue your bullshitting. How old is this fictional son, and why should I care?"

It looked at her, turning its head this time. "He's human, Sophia. How can that not mean anything to you?" It sounded shocked.

Sophia turned to meet its gaze and cocked her head to the side. "Should it? First, I don't believe you. Second, if he's real, he'll have been brainwashed to love your kind for at least seven years. He might as well be one of you; he'd probably call the Seekers if he ever met me."

"So then why am I helping you if you'll kill me anyway?" it asked.

Score!, Sophia thought. Now she had to pretend to negotiate, but it wasn't asking what it was helping do.

"Well, you can kill your host, but I can take you out of his body and pull off your limbs one at a time," she said in a fit of inspiration. "Also, I doubt it would be particularly hard to track down your family. I bet they'd just be thrilled to meet me!" she added sarcastically.

It paled, and she smiled sweetly.

Eventually, the Still wore off. Fractals managed to turn herself enough to discover there was a release on the inside of the trunk. She needed to get her feet turned the right way, as her hands were behind her back.

The world spun, her vision swam, and she stopped struggling, trying not to pass out.

Come on, come on! Zoe urged her. We've got to get out of here or that psychopath will kill us!

Fractals suddenly found her arms and legs moving, though she was trying to gather her strength and not move. She was too weak to resist Zoe, who flowed into her limbs like a tidal wave.

They twisted and turned, and soon managed to open the thing.

Next they just had to get out. Zoe got her side over the lip of the trunk, and they rolled out onto the ground.

It was only a meter drop, but they were not in good shape. They briefly felt a very sharp pain in their chest, and this time, they did lose consciousness.

Sophia could tell when the bug realized her plan. Its eyes widened, and it hit the brakes.

"No," it whispered.

Sophia grinned and sprayed it with Still. There was nobody else on the road, so she slit its throat, unbuckled it and shoved its body out of the truck.

She worried that someone would notice the shift in driving, but figured that she was too close to the target for the Seekers to show up in time to stop her.

It wasn't too hard to find the place by herself, as the Souls had put convenient signs all over everything. A pair of trucks were being unloaded of tanks, so she pulled up next to them.

She needed to move fast. The loading crew was beginning to get curious, so she put a strip of No Pain in her mouth, tied a cloth around her face, stabbed a can of Still in the side, and threw it into their midst. All of them collapsed almost instantly.

She got back into the cabin, grabbed the AK and went to find the valve for the gas tank. She put a few holes into it with her pistol, filled one of her bottles with gas, and ran back to what she guessed to be a safe distance.

She lit the bottle, and threw it as hard as she could. She realized too late that she should have taken cover as the bottle spiraled in the air and she turned to run right before the truck lit.

The explosion knocked her off her feet and showered her with burning gasoline. When she got up and looked back, there was nothing left of any of the trucks but flaming wreckage, and the Healing facility was on fire.

It was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen, but she couldn't stay to admire her handiwork. She could hear sirens.

Sophia ran away as fast as her feet would carry her. It wasn't worth it to engage the Seekers, as she saw just how much damage she could do by hitting soft targets.

And with the bugs, damned near everything was soft.

A/N I've reached the end of my story arc, but this isn't over yet. Back to aimlessness!

Review, flame, or just comment, but let me know what you think, please!

Chapter 10: Whisper of Armageddon Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Whisper of Armageddon

Sophia ran as fast as she could down the street, looking for a car to steal. Suddenly, it mattered again whether she lived or died.

Sophia knew deep down that the Seekers would kill her when they found her. Fractals had been very clear on that point – humans with malevolent tendencies were euthanized, in spite of the Souls' insistence that they did not kill.

They tried to put a happy face on it, like they did on everything. What was the word she used again? Sophia thought. Discarded, that was it. Like I'm some kind of broken tool.

She was aware of the irony – she knew they weren't people, and they didn't really view her as a person, or even respect her enough to own up to the fact that they planned on killing her. The difference was that she was right in viewing them as things; judging from what Fractals had said on the subject, the bugs were probably not even sentient when outside of a host.

While the way they thought of her was insulting, she wouldn't have it any other way, to be honest. Up until this morning, she wouldn't have really worried about it much, as long as she could hurt them in the process of getting killed. Alex was dead, and she was screwed. Her thought process pretty much began and ended there.

Now, though, she had a purpose in her life. Alex was still dead, and she was still screwed in the long run, but she'd discovered the bugs' fatal flaw; they found it hard to consider violence, and had only the barest concept of security. If she was smart about it, she could hit them again before they took her out.

She didn't think she could pull the gas truck stunt again - only complete morons wouldn't post checkpoints and armed guards around something so critical and vulnerable as the cryotanks after something like this had happened.

But there were always other targets. There had to be. She'd have to chat some more with Fractals, but she could think of some now.

Schools, shopping malls, power plants, airports - well, they were actually spaceports now. Fractals had mentioned something about them redesigning the nuclear plants so it was harder to make them melt down, and she'd need a big bomb to do anything at the schools, but there was so much stuff happening at the spaceports that there had to be something valuable to hit there.

Spaceships. Something about them was niggling at her head, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out what it was. It seemed like she was missing something about them that was obvious.

She'd be having another long chat with Fractals, concussion be damned.

A group of parasites were walking down the block as she turned the corner. She knew she wouldn't pass for one of them - if the AK wasn't a giveaway, she was covered in arterial blood, and was probably still smoking from splashes of burning gasoline.

As long as they already know I'm here... she thought to herself, drawing a bead on them. She opened fire, and two of them dropped, but the rest got away.

Gotta move really fast now, she thought. She saw a parking garage, and turned towards it. Given how trusting the bugs were, half of them probably left their keys inside. Keeping an eye out for any parasites, she checked a few before finding a truly ancient station wagon with the keys still in the ignition.

Sometimes it's hard to believe they beat us, they're so stupid, she thought.

As she opened the door, she saw the blinking light of a security cam. Sometime soon a Seeker would probably be reviewing this footage. She couldn't resist; she smiled, waved, and flipped it off.

Zoe and Fractals woke up to a kick in the ribs. They screamed and curled into a tight ball, expecting the butt of Sophia's rifle to come down on them at any moment.

Fortunately, Sophia seemed to be in a good mood, and only kicked them one more time before dragging them into the front seat of the car.

The human spoke hurriedly. "I think our last talk was very productive, don't you? We need to move fast right now, but as soon as we're on the road, we're going to have another one. Won't that be fun?"

"You're... an evil... bitch," they managed to gasp.

Sophia started laughing. "All's fair in war, Fractals. You chose this planet - you picked the wrong species to take. Now shut up, I'm going to be driving for a change. I need to focus for a while." She slammed the door and got into the other side.

All of this was caused by a fourteen year old girl, Soaring Leaf thought.

There were nearly twelve thousand dead Souls, total. He suddenly found that everyone was taking his concerns about rogue humans very seriously.

He was becoming suspicious of Moonlight. Everyone else suddenly would drop everything to help him, but Moonlight was now avoiding calls and very distant when he talked to him.

Coupled with the way he acted - shying from crowds, avoiding the light - Soaring Leaf was beginning to wonder how much Moonlight was being influenced by his host. He resolved to watch the Soul very closely.

According to the witnesses at the gas station, she'd come on foot, and stolen a gas truck. Oddly, she hadn't shot anyone or started a fire, though they had recovered the trucker's body and a few unlucky bystanders in town. Soaring Leaf informed the witnesses they were lucky to be alive, and sent them on their way.

They had brought in an old human reconnaissance helicopter to search the surrounding woods for several miles, and started CAP overflights to search for the human, but nothing had turned up except her abandoned getaway vehicle which was reported missing the day of the explosion.

He'd checked the security videos of the garage, and lo and behold, she had come in about five minutes after the explosion. She was covered in minor burns, wearing Kevlar and what looked like a tactical rig made of duct tape. He counted at least seven magazines on it, as well as what looked like a can of Still.

Well, that explains how she took out the loading crew so quietly, he thought. He was horrified at humans' ability to turn anything into a weapon.

She saw the camera, and he had the eerie feeling she was looking through the camera directly at him. He met her Soulless gaze, and started to get goosebumps. Then she flipped him off, and the illusion was broken.

Teams of Seekers had searched the woods surrounding the area they'd found the abandoned station wagon. Sophia had disappeared without a further trace, but they'd found the mutilated body of the missing Seeker she'd kidnapped, leaned against a tree about three miles away.

The Soul who'd discovered the body was inconsolable. Just from the description, he felt queasy. Ray's injuries were horrible beyond description. Dozens of injuries repaired by Heal covered her body. They'd identified stab wounds, gunshot wounds, and broken bones among other things that were too horrible to describe.

Worst of all, Sophia had removed Ray from her host and twisted her body until it squished.

Humanity leaves their regards, she had written in silver blood above the corpse. Soaring Leaf had begun to wonder if she was completely sane. She'd dotted the i's with hearts.

Tire tracks led away from the area, but they disappeared as soon as they hit the main road. The human had disappeared like a ghost.

Another horrible thought occurred. He knew there had to be other wild humans out there, and that they had little to lose.

In human times, a big terrorist attack was usually followed by waves of copycat attacks.

God forbid she finds how to remove Souls from their hosts...

He began to wish he hadn't poured out his host's alcohol.

A/N Kat makes a good point about Soul space drives in the reviews, and has thus provided me with a possible new and awesome direction for my story. Thanks, Kat!

[Insert mad cackling, thunder and lightning, etc.]

I've decided to stop worrying about overkill regarding Sophia's sociopathic tendencies, (or anything else in this story) as everyone that's read so far hasn't complained. Or, as my roommate put it, "Overkill is what makes many things epic. Go for it."

}:-)

Chapter 11: A Strange Quiet Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

A Strange Quiet

Innocence is the first casualty of war.

Click, click, click, click. Sophia was reloading her magazines, looking at the city in the valley below. She'd decided to keep her head down to get some breathing room from the Seekers, and to lick her own wounds. Once the No Pain had worn off, she discovered that in addition to deep bruises from getting shot in her body armor, she'd also received more extensive burns than she'd realized. She decided to conserve her limited reserves of meds for when she really needed them, as her injuries were minor, if quite painful.

It hurt like a bitch, but it also served as a reminder that she was anything but powerless - she was Sophia Conrad, Destroyer of Souls! - and as far as she knew, the best hope for humanity's survival.

Sophia snickered at the hopelessness of her situation. It was so bleak it was funny. Hilarious, in fact - here she was, hiding out, pretending she could make a difference, but in the end, the best she could hope to do was to spread pain and suffering. Humanity's parting shots - a final 'fuck you' to the bugs, in a sense. She was fine with that, but wished she could do something more. Something they'd tell stories about in hushed tones centuries from now.

Sophia looked up, and noticed Fractals was staring at her. She resisted the urge to throw it to the ground and kick it until something broke, reminding herself that she needed it relatively intact to answer questions.

Sophia had unbound Fractals. "I figure you can barely stand right now," she'd said. "I need you in one piece." Still, wonder of wonders, the child wasn't hitting her anymore. For now, at least - she didn't know how long it would last. At least a day had gone by, and she was beginning to feel a little better, though it was the difference between having been thrown under a bus and falling down a flight of stairs.

Fractals didn't know what Sophia had been up to while she was locked in the trunk, but she was reloading an alarming number of magazines for that cursed weapon of hers. And she'd been covered in blood when she came back. It was obvious she'd killed someone, up close and personal.

Fractals was still getting used to having a passenger. Zoe's initial rage at her situation had passed, thanks to a common enemy. Fractals had the sensation of double vision when she looked at some things now, though - her own impressions and Zoe's hit her at the same time.

Sophia creeped out Zoe. The kid was deeply disturbed, there was no way around it. This was about the same as Fractals' view, but Zoe also felt a tinge of pity towards her that Fractals found incomprehensible.

Why do you feel sorry for her? Fractals asked.

Do you think she would have been so... psychotic, if this hadn't happened? Zoe responded.

What do you mean?

Before you all came, I mean. Do you really think she was cracked in the head like this before? I mean, I think she pretty much saw the end of the world when she was little. Zoe dredged through Fractals' memories. She said she saw the Seekers take her parents when she was seven. The first time you saw her, she'd just come from seeing her brother get shot; she was still covered in his blood, remember? Things like that change people, Fractals.

PTSD doesn't excuse the fact that she's evil, Zoe.

Did I say she wasn't? Do you see me saying we should be friends? I just mean it's not all her fault.

Sophia turned to look at them, and grinned maliciously. A small folding knife appeared in her hand, and she flipped it open with a practiced motion. "Something interesting, Fractals?"

Don't stare at her!

"No," Fractals said, looking down at the city, hoping this peaceful spell wasn't over.

Sophia pulled a bag of sunflower seeds out of her backpack, and opened it with the knife. "Gotcha," she said, still grinning.

Fractals continued to look at the city, as if it had suddenly become very interesting.

She saw a glittering metropolis below, full of vibrant life and happy people. She wished she could find a way to warn them of the danger that lay up here.

Zoe, on the other hand, saw a necropolis. She was still coming to terms with the fact that she'd missed seven years. She was glad she hadn't been there to see it – friends, neighbors, and family killing each other. It couldn't have been pretty.

Zoe's viewpoint bothered Fractals. Nobody's dead, don't be so morbid, she told the human.

I guess that depends on how you define 'dead', the human replied cryptically, and a wave of depression flowed through her.

Sophia remembered when she'd realized it was never going to end, that the bugs had won. It had been the first time she'd spoken a full sentence for months after finding her parents were dead, and that what they had become wanted her body as well.

The complete surreality of breaking into a house to steal food, finding a machine gun, and actually wanting to keep it, had broken her shell. She'd been convinced for a long time it was just an extended bad dream, and one day she would go to sleep and wake up back in her bed. But her dreaming mind wouldn't come up with something like this.

"How do you work this thing, Alex?" She could still remember the open gunsafe full of glittering weapons.

Alex had been ecstatic that she was talking again, and had shown her everything he had known about AK-47s. He didn't think it was worth it to carry it, but hadn't stopped her from doing so. He'd told her several years later he'd thought she would drop it, as it was almost as big as she had been at the time. When he'd realized she was actually going to keep it, he'd shown her what little he knew of tactics.

"No sister of mine is going to fight like a hajji," Sophia remembered Alex saying, later. "The sights are there for a reason - if we're going to be in a fight, use them, Sophie!"

Sophia was not sure why it was so important to him at the time, but now she was quite thankful Alex had taught her how to use the AK. If he hadn't, she wouldn't have been able to take out that Seeker station, and would probably have died along with Alex.

Or worse, she'd have been captured. And that would have been the end of humanity's story, as far as she knew. The bugs did leave a few children human, but they would be so heavily indoctrinated to believe wild humans were evil that they might as well be centipedes themselves. She hadn't believed the trucker at first, but she'd been watching the city and seen a few.

They might as well be bugs themselves.

Sophia realized something. One of the Soul raised humans would probably know how to remove the bugs safely. She'd have to think on this.

Sophia had never heard of Geneva, and even if she had, she would have found the concept baffling. Still, something within her rebelled at the thought of torturing a human child for info. It had to be done - she could see it clearly now that the path was before her, yet...

Get a hold of yourself, Sophie. Any one of those kids would cheerfully turn you in to the Seekers in a heartbeat, she reasoned. It's past the end of the world - there isn't anything you can't do; hell, you're pretty much obligated to try to find a way to save other people. And if it pays off...

Sophia recognized that Fractals might not have been lying about her brother - she was now intimately familiar with how well Heal worked, thanks to Ray.

I could rescue Alex, if he's alive. Maybe I could even rescue mom and dad!

She could become much more than just a parting shot. Maybe she could even make the centipedes think twice about coming here. She couldn't stop them; she'd never stop them, she knew it; but having other people around could dramatically improve her life expectancy – it would go from days to weeks, possibly even months if she could save enough of people to actively fight the bugs. And she might even see her family again before she died.

Alex had found it difficult to keep Moonlight apathetic towards Sophia after they heard the news. Twelve thousand dead was a very large number, and it was made more difficult because he was terrified she was losing her mind. She'd have been home free if she'd kept her head down, but instead opted to go on a quixotic quest to fight the Souls. Nobody liked to find out their sibling had genocidal aspirations. He felt a little guilty, too, surprisingly The Souls were not so bad, for invading body snatchers.

Alex ended up playing up how puzzled he was about her actions - not hard, as the Souls had trouble grasping why humans were so violent - and focusing on how much he hated the Seeker station.

It seemed to be working so far. Moon had hung up on Soaring Leaf twice now. He was even beginning to dislike the Seeker a little on his own accord.

Because Alex had little real education to speak of, Moonlight was still searching for a Calling. This made it easier to influence him, because he had lots of free time. When he was deeply occupied with something, for some reason Alex found himself much, much weaker.

He'd convinced Moon to go and find some decoration for his sparse apartment. It seemed like a good way to waste time.

Ten o'clock, five yards away - look! Alex thought at him.

Moon followed Alex's directions, and saw a Soul with a beautiful host struggling with a large potted plant.

Help her out, Moon! She's hot!

I shouldn't help someone just because they have a pretty host, I should because it's the right thing to do, Alex, Moon replied. But Alex was right, she was very pretty.

A room full of uniformed Seekers sat, waiting for Soaring Leaf to begin. He cleared his throat, then began the briefing.

"In light of recent events, we've decided to brief several teams of Seekers from every state in the region so we all know who and what we're fighting. As I'm sure you all know, several days ago a wild human managed to penetrate deep within a city long since pacified, and destroy a shipment of cryotanks. Right now, we're making due by posting units of the National Guard around the Healing facilities, but if there is a natural disaster, they'll be called away and it will fall to us to defend them."

"For those of you unfamiliar with the case, the human's name is Sophia Conrad, a fourteen year old who - yes, do you have a question?"

One of the briefees stood. "Twelve thousand people were killed by a child?"

Soaring Leaf realized he should address this now. "Can you really call her a child? She's seen more in her short life than most of us have in two or three. Just because she's young doesn't mean we should underestimate her - young adolescents fought in wars all the time, when humans controlled the planet. Sixty years before we came to Earth, during World War Two, human children as young as twelve fought - and delayed, I might add - Soviet troops advancing inside Berlin. Just because they're young doesn't mean they aren't vicious and dangerous."

The other Seeker sat down.

"All right. We believe that Conrad has kidnapped a girl named Zoe Parva. I think it's safe to assume she's dead, though we haven't found a body. She also assaulted a Seeker station, where she stole drugs and assorted small arms and ammunition, and killed everyone on duty at the time. If any of your teams find her, do not try to capture her - she's unsuitable as a host." Behind him, video of the human's raid on the station played. Several people gasped at the violent display.

"The human is armed with an illegally imported automatic Type 56 assault rifle. During the raid of the Seeker station, Conrad found a case of 7.62 and a crate of medicines. Be aware, she likes to throw Still as a makeshift hand grenade. If you come across her, don't try to be a hero. Call in backup, or she'll kill you, or worse, capture you. If that happens, it's probably best to kill your host." The screen behind him began playing a slideshow of all the injuries they'd discovered on Ray's body.

There were more gasps from the audience.

"I show you these images to reinforce how dangerous this human is. She is just a child, but she's incredibly vicious and very well armed."

Soaring Leaf continued the briefing, though he wasn't sure how much they were learning from him, and how much from the slides.

"Though it pains me to say it, we're going to have to run combat drills. Humans, even just an adolescent like this one, are far better than us at fighting."

That night, far away from the briefing, a coughing thump echoed from inside a military base. Several seconds later, deep inside the nearby town there was an explosion. Someone ran from the old human artillery he had just fired, hoping his Soul would remain none the wiser, and the Seekers wouldn't catch on.

"Hoorah," he whispered, as the sirens began. He'd hit something, hopefully the spaceport. Those ships looked expensive.

A/N Google 'relativistic kill vehicle'. It's fun. I was going to share this fun with you, my few faithful readers, but TopKat90 pointed out several flaws in my assumptions.

Therefore, Mixed Feelings is officially aimless once again! It's impossible to tell whether or not the Soul ships are FTL or not from Wanda's meager conversations about them, which ruins my evil plans. Darn you and your English major, Smeyer! -_-

Thanks to Kat for catching my slip of words at the end. It's fixed now.

24 Jan 2011 Typo fixes/reformatting/minor edits

Chapter 12: Irrelevant Revelations Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Irrelevant Revelations

A mortar. A mortar had been fired upon a city's spaceport, and killed several of the bugs. She'd the bugs talking about the blast on the radio, after she'd (unfortunately gently) made Fractals go to sleep.

I'm not alone. Well, alone with nobody but the bugs for company.

Sophia was so happy she had to fight back tears. For five years, she'd been dead certain she and Alex were the only human survivors anywhere.

From the sound of it, whoever it was had better equipment than her - she really envied that mortar. Maybe, they even actually knew what they were doing. This could potentially change everything.

Then her realistic side kicked in.

She knew better than to get her hopes up - she was used to having dreams crushed, and anyway, odds were astronomical that she would ever meet up with them. They probably wouldn't want to see her in any case, what with the whole nationwide manhunt and televised face and all. To the bugs, she was what went bump in the night and scared children.

And from their point of view, she had enormous teeth. Nobody wanted that type of attention brought to their front door.

Sophia realized she might have gotten humans killed by her actions - an increased Seeker presence to look for her meant that they would find more free humans, if there were many left. And that would be her fault.

She certainly wasn't expecting any sort of rescue or assistance. She'd given up hope on that by the time she was ten. And she couldn't worry about the unintended repercussions of her actions when she might be able to learn to remove one of the bugs so soon.

For all practical intents and purposes, she still might as well be the last of her kind. Still, it was good to know there were others, somewhere, even if she would never meet them. Somebody else would still be left to carry on the fight when she was gone.

Sophia turned her mind back to the problem at hand. She needed to catch one of the Soul-raised humans, and do it quietly. She knew there was a heliport somewhere nearby, as she'd seen the copters flying in and out of the city. That meant that if she was seen, it would be the end - she just couldn't see a way to get away from one if spotted.

There were also occasional small aircraft buzzing overhead periodically. She wasn't as worried about those (though they were incredibly dangerous as well) because she was pretty sure a little groundfire would make them think twice about following her. Yes, she'd have to move afterwards, but at least she could do something about them, unlike the infuriatingly bulletproof helicopters.

She knew that school was out of session, and was flattered that the bugs thought she was so dangerous that they should cancel classes. However, it made things more difficult - hijacking a school bus would be by far the easiest way to do this.

Staying here made sense. She was most likely to be seen when moving, so it would be bad to leave when she didn't have to. She had enough food to last for at least another week (damn, did that feel good to think about after barely scratching out enough to eat for most of her life) and her hiding spot in the woods was about as good as any. If she waited long enough, classes would eventually resume, and then she could strike.

Fractals would have time to heal, as well. She was certain it would yield more useful tidbits of info if she kept it around.

Fractals was worried, because Zoe's voice was becoming louder and more frequent. Her experiences with Sophia had convinced her humans were incorrigibly violent creatures, and a conscious one could not be allowed in the utopia Souls had built.

If she ever got away from Sophia, Zoe would be abandoned as a host and subsequently discarded.

She wasn't sure how she felt about that. Zoe was also murderous - suffering through one of her fantasies of getting the gun away from Sophia had dispelled her illusions about that. But Zoe's fantasies were strangely logical if you believed violence was acceptable.

And allowing Zoe to be discarded would be uncomfortably close to committing murder, herself. Zoe was very quick to remind her of that.

But what choice was she left with? She couldn't go around with a live human inside of her head – she'd incite violence, or drive her crazy.

Hey! I can still hear you! Zoe cried, insulted. I'm not crazy or evil!

The sporadic, uninvited commentary on her thoughts would drive her to madness, if nothing else. Of course, the point was moot if Sophia tortured them to death.

Come on, Fractals! There's gotta be a way we can get away. Zoe said.

Her host was desperately trying to find a way out. Fractals realized the human was trying to steer her thoughts away from weighing whether to discard her or not, but the two of them did need to work together if they wanted to make it out alive.

You know I'm trying to figure one out, Zoe.

If we can get a can of Still, we'd be home free.

Fractals looked, but the Sophia had made sure she had the Still very secure inside the car.

I'd have to break a window. She'd hear me do it.

Wait till she's distracted. Do it fast and she won't have time to react.

If she does, she'll definitely kill me, even if she still wants to interrogate me. It's not worth it, Zoe!

She'll kill us anyway, you idiot!

Zoe, we've seen that she's off fighting people when she puts me in the trunk. The Seekers have got to be looking for her. They'll find her soon, and then we'll be free.

What if she gets killed when we're locked inside the trunk and the Seekers never find us? I don't want to starve in the boot of a police cruiser!

The human had a point.

I'll -

Click. The noise came hard and sharp, interrupting the conversation.

"I was trying to be nice and let you heal, Fractals." Sophia pulled a can of Still off of her harness.

Oh, shit. Zoe groaned.

"Please don't, I'm not doing anything!" Fractals cried, but the child ignored her.

Fractals was learning to dislike the scent of blueberries.

Sophia noticed that Fractals had been acting oddly ever since she'd returned from the Healing Facility. She'd been chalking it up to the concussion, but now its face kept changing expressions. It almost looked like it was talking on a phone or radio - an exceptionally alarming idea.

Her first, paranoid thought was that they had some kind of telepathy. But that made no sense - she'd never seen anything to suggest that before, and if Fractals could contact anyone, she would have so many helicopter gunships after her that you couldn't throw a stone without hitting one.

Whatever it was doing, it was mysterious and therefore dangerous.

Click.

"I was trying to be nice and let you heal, Fractals." Still was awesome stuff, and Sophia was thankful she had so much of it.

The bug looked like she'd caught its hands in the cookie jar, and then made a feeble protest as the Still hit it. Sophia looked at it laying on the ground, considering what to do next.

Ray had passed out from pain when she'd stabbed it in the lower back. As soon as it woke up after that, it had killed itself. She wasn't sure if it was just because it had given up on ever escaping, or if that particular spot was especially painful, but whatever the case, she needed Fractals alive.

Knees, then, she thought. Gotta be gentle or it'll commit suicide.

Sophia flipped out her bayonet. "Fractals, I want you alive. You want to stay alive. We agree on that much. I'll admit, it is fun to beat the shit out of you, but it's not very productive. But if you're going to keep plotting behind my back, I will kill you. Next time something like this happens, this is going into your kidney, and I'm not going to patch you up again."

With that, she plunged the steel into the back of its leg.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" She said, slowly twisting the blade a few degrees. "I can't play games with you, Fractals. If this happens again, you're dead. I'll find someone else to ask questions."

She pulled out a can of Heal, and poured it into the wound. "I'm not going to do this next time," she reminded the bug.

Fractals tried to pretend to be paralyzed after the Still wore off, but Sophia wasn't having any of it. The child prodded her with the bayonet every few minutes until she responded.

"So, what were you doing, parasite?"

Fractals was in a bind. Sophia wouldn't believe her if she told the truth, but she didn't think she could lie plausibly.

Zoe tried to remain silent, but it was hard. She was the one who had gotten them into this trouble, and was terrified beyond belief. She still couldn't believe her knee was whole again, it had hurt so much.

"I'm waiting, Fractals." Sophia brought up the Still again, and Zoe panicked as a rush of adrenaline flowed through Fractals' body.

"Do it! Kill me, you crazy bitch!" Fractals covered her mouth, too late.

The child looked surprised. She eyed the can of Still she was holding, and Fractals could almost hear her debating whether or not to kill her.

That wasn't smart, Zoe, Fractals said.

Why does everyone want to kill me? the human cried in response.

The child replaced the Still in her holster. "I know what you're doing. You're trying to convince me Zoe's still awake somehow." Her voice turned bitter. "Who knows, maybe she is. Probably not, but there's no way to tell. If you are in there, Zoe, I really hope you can't feel anything, cause I'm not gonna stop till somebody kills me."

Fractals' heart thumped loudly as she spoke. "She feels everything I do, Sophia."

Sophia raised an eyebrow. "Well, if that's true, I guess you won't kill her under torture. Assuming you consider killing humans murder, anyway." She smiled.

"I think it's lunchtime. Have some Spam."

Soaring Leaf was happy with the progress his Seekers were making. Several Souls whose hosts had trained human soldiers were trying to get everyone into fighting shape. They were drilling by assigning one person to play the 'human' (or op-for, as the instructors whose hosts had been in the military called it), and the rest of the group was meant to go and find them. To simulate a battle, they were using what was essentially glorified laser tag equipment attached to rifles filled with blanks. It worked surprisingly well.

His only complaint was that the 'human' players tended to try to run, while the Conrad girl seemed like she would fight to the death.

Still, it was good training. His comrades were learning not to stand around cluelessly when they heard a gunshot, and also the best way to cut someone off who was trying to run.

He hoped it would be enough, and that they would pass on what they learned. He still wasn't sure what the human was after, so this was the best he could do.

It was worrying, the news about the mortar attack, but there was little he could do about it. The military types could take care of their own business, and he could not help their investigation much.

Moonlight was still avoiding him, so he'd assigned someone to watch him. Every once in a while, a human with a strong spirit could influence a Soul to do things against their nature (there was even a case where the Soul had been unaware of the control!), and if Sophia was any indication, the Conrad family was very strong indeed. So far, he hadn't done anything out of the ordinary, but given a few days that might change.

He hoped Sophia didn't have another attack planned. There had been enough death already.

A/N Please review! Thank you to those who do, especially TopKat90 who has reviewed every chapter so far!

Chapter 13: Learning Experiences Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N Hangover chapter #2

If this chapter is bad, blame Budweiser; I had a very strange night. All praise to spellchecker programs, this chapter would be more horrible without them.

Mixed Feelings

Learning Experiences

Blossoms Sunward had met Moonlight when he had offered to help carry her orchid, and she'd discovered she liked him quite a bit. His host had been part of the resistance, she'd gathered, and it gave him an aura of mystery that other Souls lacked.

In a world where most Souls were nearly interchangeable, he was different and interesting. She'd chatted with him a little, and invited him to the neighborhood cookout one of her friends had organized to take advantage of unseasonably warm weather (and also to counter the general melancholy that had settled in some people following recent disastrous events).

Of course, sometimes, his host's history made him act just a little weird.

"Come on, Moonlight, I know you don't want to eat those cold," Blossoms Sunward said, exasperatedly taking Moon's hotdog out of his hands to put on the grill. "It's called a cookout for a reason."

He looked panicked for a moment as his food disappeared, but recovered after a second. "Sorry, force of habit. My host, Alex, he always ate them this way. Fires are very visible, you know."

She couldn't help but giggle. "Well, you don't have to worry about that type of thing. Enjoy the fruits of civilization, Moon!"

"Thanks, Blossoms. I've got to say, it's been a very strange couple of weeks. I don't really know anyone around here, and Alex hid from just about everyone except his sister. It's culture shock of the worst kind."

"Oh! Well, everyone here is very nice. Go talk to someone! As soon as you get to know some people, I'm sure it will get better."

Moon looked into the crowd that was beginning to grow, and shuddered. "Oh, no... That wouldn't end well. I want to talk to you more than them, anyway - you're the most interesting person here. Where did you come from before Earth? I'm guessing you were a Flower or See Weed, from your pretty name."

Blossoms Sunward blushed. "I lived in the southern forest of the See Weeds for two life terms. It wasn't as nice as here, though; human emotions are so much more colorful! I think I'm going to stay here - how about you?"

"Well, you're definitely right about the emotions," Moon said, looking into her eyes. "I haven't liked it very much here so far, but there are a few things that seem like they might be worthwhile."

"Like what?" she asked, grinning impishly.

Sophia lay down on the side of the road, and waited. An insistent voice told her what she was preparing to do was very wrong, but she ignored it. This was necessary - quite possibly the most meaningful thing she could do with her life.

She reminded herself that most of the schoolchildren were not really children - except for the occasional human one, anyway. The ones with a bug in their heads would never have developed a personality of their own, and would be nothing more than empty shells without them.

And the bugs themselves? According to Fractals, even if they wore the body of a child, most of them were centuries old. Some of them had probably been born (hatched, divided, whatever) before the pyramids had been built. There was something inherently satisfying in destroying something so ancient like that - they would live forever if not for her intervention.

Also, if she was bothered by her course of actions, what would the parasites think? They really believed all the bullshit they spouted about peace, love and harmony. She wondered if they found her as incomprehensibly alien as she found them.

She was struck by the utter unfairness of it all. Even if they hadn't come, she'd have been lucky to live to see ninety, yet none of them would ever die unless she dragged them, kicking and screaming, before the grim reaper. As it was, she'd be lucky to live another month, whereas they'd go on forever, erasing entire planets full of people without a second thought.

Life's never fair, she chastised herself. Crying about it won't get you anywhere.

There was a loud rumbling down the road, and Sophia watched a convoy of Humvees roll into town. They've called in the National Guard, just for little old me, she thought, as a familiar detachment returned with a vengeance, and her struggling conscience went completely silent. Normally she would feel envious of the hardware, but there was no way in hell she could steal one, as they were traveling in a group. She counted herself lucky she saw no automatic grenade launchers mounted (so far, anyway), but even a .50 cal would put a serious dent in her day.

She'd stay far, far away from the Guard. They actually had somewhat of a clue, or at the very least the equipment to get by without one. An AK and her mediocre marksmanship wouldn't let her take on mechanized infantry, even if the Souls who'd taken charge were completely incompetent. Hopefully this wasn't a nationwide change in policy, and hopefully they no longer had any tanks. If so, she wasn't going to get another shot at another big strike.

But that was a problem for another day. Classes had resumed today, and so now she had a bus to hijack. Hopefully, one would come by this way.

Fractals was safely locked back in the trunk; she'd found the safety latch inside and destroyed it. She was aware there was a risk of the car being discovered while she was away; however, she'd done her best to reduce its visibility from the air. She'd looked for a place to park with dense trees and covered it with brush, so any helicopter flying overhead would just see an oddly-shaped boulder through the trees.

Probably. Hopefully. But there was nothing to be gained by worrying about it, so she turned back to her task.

"So Moon, do you want to come over and watch a movie later tonight?" Blossoms Sunward asked him as people started to filter away from the cookout.

Do it do it do it do it... Alex chanted. He'd been very loud the entire time, especially when Blossoms wasn't looking, and it was wearing on Moon's nerves. Alex liked Blossoms Sunward even more than Moon did, and was not shy about voicing his opinion.

"I'd love to, Blossoms. What movie were you thinking of seeing? I don't know any of the current ones."

Alex cheered inside his head.

Will you please be quiet! You're driving me crazy!

She wants you, man! Alex said, ignoring him.

"Lets see what's on when you come over," she replied.

Does any interaction with a woman have to imply sex to you? Moon said, trying a different track. I don't think that's what she has on her mind. Calm down, Alex, please. I'm trying to talk to her and she'll think I'm weird if I'm distracted.

That last phrase got Alex to shut up rather quickly. Still, Alex's and his own attraction to Blossoms Sunward combined to be so strong that he felt like there was a magnet drawing him towards her.

"Here we go," Sophia muttered as a bus came over the hill, finally. A pair of binoculars she'd found in the car let her see that, yes, it was full of schoolchildren.

They're really all like seven hundred years old, and the kids are already dead, she reminded herself as she lined up her sights on the driver. He was definitely unnecessary no matter what happened. Even if the bus crashed, it was only a mile or so back to her own car, easily close enough to carry a child, and in the woods out here it would probably take at least twenty minutes for the Seekers to arrive, assuming anyone called them.

As the bus approached a few dozen yards away, she jerked the trigger.

The front windshield suddenly gained five new holes to the driver's right, and the bus swerved off the road into a ditch, nearly rolling onto its side. Sophia got up and started sprinting to it. Three of the passengers left the bus through the windows, and another two ran out of the front door. She paused to shoot all of them, and then pulled her pistol out and slung the AK over her shoulder.

She entered the bus, silencing screams by firing a pair of rounds into the roof.

"Cell phones, please! If I catch you with one I will kill you slowly and painfully, so throw them out the windows, right fucking now!"

Nobody moved, so she moved on. It didn't really matter that much if they called the Seekers, anyway - she'd be gone before they showed up, and if they did, she might even get the chance to see the panic that an entire busload of dead would create.

"All right! Form a single file line and leave the bus out of the front exit! Once you do, sit down against the side of the bus!" This would let her check the eyes of everyone, and keep them within sight. Faces went by, and she met every single one's eyes. A few of them suspected what was coming, she could tell.

After five minutes, she'd identified a human in the crowd, and he looked like he was about ten or eleven years old. If anyone would know how to remove one of the parasites safely, he would. Fractals had said it was an emergency procedure, taught to everyone, so he had to know.

That meant the rest were no longer necessary. She sprayed the human in the face with Still, then punctured the can and threw it into the crowd.

Then came the next step, the one she'd been dreading. Too late to turn back now, she thought.

Sophia went down the line, and shot all of the hosts in the head. Then she switched out her AK's magazine, grabbed hold of the paralyzed human, threw him over her shoulders, and moved as fast as she could back towards her own car, hoping all the way that she was right about the children being merely empty shells.

This had better be worth it, she thought.

Moon found the movie boring, and Alex found it positively torturous. Alex had dim memories of human cinema, filled with conflict, violence, and eventual resolution. The Soul movies had none of these things; there were no real dilemmas or problems in the utopian world they'd built, and this was reflected in their television shows. In addition to that, the actors were terrible.

Moon looked over at Blossoms Sunward, observing how her long dark hair fell across her back. He was in awe of her; she was so nice, and so pretty - and she liked him. He'd gladly put up with bad TV to get to know her better.

Inside his head, Alex laughed.

A/N Once again, this story has jumped off the vague plans I had for it. It's been working okay so far, so I'm just going to let it happen.

It makes my day when I get feedback! Let me know your opinions, and/or the direction you would like to see the story take please!

Edit 27 Jan 2011 - Reformatting/minor edits/typo fixes

Chapter 14: Detour Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N Extra violent chapter }:-)

Mixed Feelings

Detour

Sophia found the human kid... difficult. After a short car trip (she wasn't up to highway driving), she'd found another hiding spot. He'd stayed paralyzed the entire way, but several minutes after she'd gotten there the Still wore off.

As soon as he'd woken up, he'd begun wailing incessantly. Understandably, she supposed, but very irritating. After about an hour or so, his wails slowed to moans, then sniffles.

She knew she should feel sorry for him - he'd have led a horrifyingly sheltered life before this, and this initiation into the real world had all the subtlety of a tactical nuke. Somehow, though, the best she could manage was that cold, intellectual understanding that she should feel something. She just couldn't bring herself to care about a traitor to the species like him.

"You done yet?" There wasn't much point trying to be gentle - she'd killed all his friends, and might be torturing him in a few minutes.

He reached up and wiped a tear from under a puffy eye. "Why?" he croaked. "Why?"

"Do you know who I am, what I want?"

He met her eyes, and she could tell he did know, though he didn't understand her. "You're a human. You're the one who wants to kill everyone, aren't you?"

She paused. "Yeah. Well, mostly just the Souls." It was an accurate description, but phrased that way it made her sound like she was... well, crazy.

"Why not me, too, then?"

She gave him a look. "You're not a Soul, and I still might."

He looked insulted. "Yes I am!" he cried. "This is my first life, but I am a Soul!"

Sophia stared at him. "They never told you? You never figured it out?"

He looked confused, so she took his hand and brought it to the back of his neck. "No implantation scar, no silver eyes. You're only going to live one life, cause you're a human, kid."

It was very eerie. If she had been born just a few years later, this might be her that was so clueless.

He broke down crying again. She waited until he stopped, then began speaking again. "You're going to show me how to remove a Soul from its host safely."

"I don't know how, the Healers do it!" he practically snarled, face red from crying. "Let me go home!"

There wasn't any easy way to do this; he obviously viewed her as evil incarnate, and was probably lying. But he was human, and couldn't escape torture through death. She could - needed to - break him, completely and utterly.

"I was afraid of that," she said, pulling out a can of Heal and flipping open her knife. "But you'll forgive me if I don't believe you."

Fractals awoke when the car began moving again. Fractals wasn't sure when she'd fallen asleep, and it didn't really matter. It was a short, painful trip, and her head was spinning again by the end of it. Thankfully, Zoe was quiet - bouncing inside the trunk didn't do much for concentration.

The doors of the car opened, and then the other side opened as well. She heard voices, but couldn't make out what was going on.

What's Sophia up to? she wondered helplessly. Hopefully, nothing too bad.

Unfortunately, several minutes later she could hear muffled screaming.

Three hours and two cans of Heal later, Sophia concluded the kid was telling the truth; he didn't know how to do the procedure. However, now she knew for certain it was possible; he knew about a case where a Seeker had traded hosts with another bug early on.

In addition, he'd told her the story of a bug named Rides the Beast.

It had been traveling in a group when they had been ambushed by a local predator. One of its friends had been dealt a lethal wound, so it had removed it from its dying host with nothing but the crudest of tools, and managed to implant it into the attacking predator.

In spite of herself, she was kind of impressed at the bug's actions; from the kid's description of the life on the icy world, standing up to that thing would have been an almost suicidal act of bravery - something she wouldn't have expected from one of the bugs.

If it's so easy they can do it with no tools while a giant monster is coming for them, it can't be too hard, she reasoned. I might be able to figure it out for myself.

Granted, she'd probably kill a few people in the process of finding the way to remove the bugs, but they might as well already be dead, and they certainly couldn't complain about her trying to free them.

She needed test subjects. The fastest way would be to go after the kid's family, but she wasn't in any particular rush. She needed to lay low for a while, and the implanted weren't going to get any extra implanted after a few days.

Fractals ought to be back up to driving after a few days, and then she could let it out of the trunk. She'd go a few hours away from here, and pick up where she left off with her investigation.

That left the kid. It was refreshing to see another human, even if he was a traitor, but she couldn't keep him around if he sympathized with the bugs. However, she couldn't let him go, as he knew where she was, and had told her during her interrogation that he would call the Seekers given a chance to.

"What am I going to do with you?" she wondered aloud. He stayed silent - he'd learned much faster than Fractals had - but his face took on a strange look.

He was kind of funny, in a way. He'd believed he was a Soul on its first world until now, and was obviously having some kind of identity crisis after being told the truth. He'd been taught humans were vicious, brutal creatures. She wasn't helping her species' stereotype, she supposed - not that she cared what the bugs thought... However, now he knew he was one of the evil-bad-scary humans, and it bothered him, she could tell. He'd actually asked her if he was going to turn evil, to her great amusement.

There was only one way this could go, though. He didn't understand her worldview, and didn't even want to. She'd already learned everything she was going to from him, and he would call the Seekers given half a chance.

And he was human. Keeping him around for long enough could become dangerous; while the bugs (Seekers aside) all refused to be a party to violence of any kind, she was living proof of how violent her own species could get when under pressure. It wouldn't do to get stabbed in the back.

Click.

"I guess you don't really want to join me much, do you?" she commented. "I can't keep you around with all the patrols and shit going on if you're going to keep trying to get away. Bye, kid."

Fractals jumped as a gunshot cracked outside of the car. She wondered who had just died, and why.

Outside of the car, Sophia swore loud enough she could hear it. Then she heard the chatter of automatic fire, much, much closer. Farther away, larger guns replied.

What's going on? Fractals asked, panicked.

Sounds like a gunfight. I think the Seekers finally caught up, Zoe commented, with some glee. Something thumped against the side of the car, and then the smaller gun resumed firing, right underneath her.

A pair of holes appeared in the trunk on both sides, and sunlight shone through. Fractals curled herself tighter, hoping she wouldn't get shot during the rescue.

If there is a God, he's got it in for me, Sophia thought furiously. She'd been so close! Just another two weeks, and she'd have been able to do some good for once. All of her dreams of forming some kind of refugee resistance were going up in smoke.

"Guess you lucked out, kid," she told the boy. "Stay down. Cry a lot when the Seekers come, and maybe they won't do an implantation on you. Try to run if there's a lull in the shooting."

She took a strip of No Pain, then turned back to the Humvee on the road, and took cover behind the car. Not that that would do much good - the .50 cal would easily go through the car, her body armor, and whatever was behind her, without even slowing down appreciably. Still, maybe the bugs might not realize that.

They were about two hundred meters away, so she flipped back to single fire, adjusted her sights, and lined up on the Humvee's gunner. She felt a burst of elation as it fell, but a second later someone else was on the gun.

There was a very slim chance she'd make it out. She had to end this fast, then get the fuck out of here before they called in support. She knew there was an Apache nearby, and she had no heavy weapons.

.50 caliber sized holes appeared in the trunk, and she swore again. She could see the Humvee's crew getting out, and let off another few rounds. Two more dropped, leaving two to oppose her. Maybe this wasn't so bad after all - she'd just have to move fast.

Then a Bradley APC rolled up, and about ten more bugs jumped out. That was it, this was the end. The only way out was through them, and she didn't have enough firepower. Fortunately, they didn't start shooting with the APC's cannon. She didn't know why but was thankful. However, the MGs were worrying.

The ones outside the Humvee figured out which end of the gun bullets came out of, and a hail of 5.56 made her flinch. The ones from the APC ran closer, firing from the hip, and the Bradley's MGs left puffs of dirt all around, wildly inaccurate.

At least they still can't shoot worth shit, she thought hysterically.

"Fuck it," she muttered, flipping back to automatic. It wasn't like she'd get another chance to expend any ammo, and they were coming close enough that she could hit them without that much effort.

She went through the rest of her magazine in a few seconds, and rocked another one into the rifle. She only hit one, but the rest took cover and the rate of incoming fire slowed.

If she was lucky, she'd get shot and killed right here. If she wasn't, there would be some Seeker in her head in a few hours, poring through her memories.

She resolved to make it as unpleasant for them as possible. They didn't like causing violence and death, but she definitely did.

Another near miss put a hole in the car, and it shook as the back tires took a round. She laughed, remembering Fractals was still in the trunk.

She dropped another two, but one of them got back up. It looked like she'd wounded it pretty badly by how slowly it moved.

"Suffer," she whispered with some pleasure. If they were going to kill her, she wanted to make the process as painful as possible for them.

She slid another magazine into the AK, hissing as she burned her fingers on the barrel.

One of them seemed like it could hit the broad side of a barn - a puff of dirt blasted alarmingly close to her. She saw one braced against a tree, and let off another few rounds at it.

It dropped, but then another Humvee drove up. She saw a line of fire stitching across the ground, then felt a tug on her side.

She looked down and saw blood - not a lot, but some. She let loose another magazine, then took a look. A round had shredded her body armor on the left side, and taken a chunk of flesh with it. She was thankful for No Pain.

Then she felt another tug, and realized her can of Still had burst, right as she inhaled. She collapsed, rifle falling to the ground in front of her.

She tried to get up, to move, to run. No matter how hard she tried, her body refused to respond. She couldn't move, couldn't even twitch.

That's it, then, she thought. At least she'd managed to show her murderers a little bit of love before she went. Twenty on one, she'd managed to take out six - better than she'd expected to do. She hoped that they were actually dead, not just wounded.

For a time all she could hear was the boy she'd captured crying, and the hissing of her rifle as the snow around it evaporated from the barrel's heat.

Idiot, she thought. He should have run while he had the chance.

Voices approached. "There's two humans here, sir. Do you think we can save Spiraling Smoke and Widepetals?"

Sophia swore internally. Why won't they just let me die? she thought, irritated. She supposed it didn't make much difference either way; there was literally nobody left for whatever bug infested her to hurt or betray, and it wasn't like she'd be around to complain anymore, but... she'd much rather be dead than be used as a host, even if it was temporary.

There was a pause. "Bring their hosts over and perform an implantation. The girl's not suitable as a long-term host, but I don't want to lose anyone."

A Flower, huh? Sophia thought. They didn't seem like the Seeker type, but then again after a lifetime of immobility she'd be itching to do something interesting too.

"Here's Widepetals, sir. I'll get started now. Ice Pillar's bringing Spiraling Smoke over." The Seeker rolled Sophia's inert body over, and turned her head.

She felt the odd, No Pain-dulled sliding of the knife as it opened the back of her head, and something slip inside. She recalled every moment of joy she'd felt in causing pain, and the beauty of the destroyed cryotanks.

Have fun, Widepetals. Someone's going to make you all pay dearly one day, even if it's not me, she thought, leaving a last message for the parasite who would dare defile her mind. I hope you're around when it happens.

Soon after, she felt nothing.

A/N The second half of this chapter went several different directions in 3 rewrites before I settled on a showdown with the Seeker Guardsmen. I was getting tired of having Zoe/Fractals be basically a non-character, and this was the only way I could think of to get them out from under Sophia's thumb. Also, this was fun to write

If you didn't guess, this isn't the end of Sophia's journey. I'm not sure what's next (as always, haha), but Widepetals isn't going to handle Sophia well at all.

Thanks to all my readers, and especially to those who review!

Reviews, questions, comments, and flames are welcome; if you have thoughts, please share them! TopKat90 shouldn't have to do all the reviewing!

Edit 27 Jan 2011 - Typo fixes/minor edits/reformatting

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Chapter 15: Kick the Board Over Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Kick the Board Over

Sol III. Terra. Earth. Every name was a lie, a pretty name for a planet filled with contradictions. It looked serene from space, but a closer look revealed a biosphere teeming with deadly life. The dominant complex species, humans, seemed nice enough when examined as individuals, but on the larger scale, they killed each other by the millions daily, and devoted much of their time to finding more efficient ways to do so. On a smaller scale, on the surface, Widepetals' new host seemed to be an insane murderer, choosing victims at random.

Widepetals was surprised to wake up. Surprise was all there was time to register before Sophia's memories hit like a sledgehammer.

A chaotic maelstrom of fear, hatred, and sadistic joy tore through the Soul as the last few minutes of Sophia's life played in fast forward. Hours seemed to pass, and there was no way to judge the passage of time.

Widepetals and Ice Pillar had met on Earth - both of their hosts had been good friends who had met while in basic training. The bond, as strong as that between brothers, had endured the Soul's coming.

Previously, Widepetals had had a male host, in his late twenties. But now, that body lay dead on the ground, while Widepetals worked his way - her way, now, he reminded himself - into Sophia Conrad's brain.

Ice Pillar watched his friend's new body, hoping Widepetals was going to adjust to such a radically different host, and wondering how this would change their friendship - or if it would even survive.

He wished he knew what was going on inside her head, but she was still paralyzed by Still.

Sophia had been able to almost completely shut down her negative emotions, but Widepetals had no such defenses. The mixed messages of horror at the human's actions, overlaid with Sophia's elation at doling out a last bit of vengeance, were completely overwhelming.

It was insanity - harming sentients was unquestionably wrong, but experiencing through these memories was shaking the foundations of everything she believed as a Soul. She tried to scream, but was still immobile.

The memories ended with a hate-filled message directed at her, coming from her new host, and Widepetals' new heart thumped loudly. She didn't want to think, didn't want to feel anything after going through that, but she didn't have any choice. She wouldn't be like her host. She'd have to deal with it or risk betraying everything she stood for. She now understood why Sophia had performed every detestable act, a fact which horrified her.

You weren't insane, were you? she asked rhetorically.

Thankfully, no one answered her question. But that simple fact, that there was a dark logic behind everything she'd done, every hauntingly fulfilling atrocity, made the universe feel much more hostile.

She'd viewed her actions as dispensing justice. And from her people's point of view, she had been. Adjusting from being male was the least of her problems. The waiting list for new hosts was very long, and only children were offered for implantation nowadays. Widepetals did not want to be a child, or spend years in stasis, so it looked like she might be stuck this way for the rest of this life term.

In the time between when Widepetals was implanted and when she woke up, the seriously wounded were Healed, and Sophia's car was searched. Dancing Storm had noticed something within the vehicle's trunk through a bullethole, and they'd popped it open.

It was a miracle to find Zoe Parva alive, if not completely well. She'd caught a glancing round during the firefight, and was unconscious from shock, though the wound was minor. Weaving Root healed her, and was gently checking for any other injuries. So far, she was just in rough shape - she had a concussion and at least two broken ribs, along with an extensive patchwork of bruises.

Spiraling Smoke seemed to be adjusting to his new host pretty well. Nobody was quite sure what was going to happen with him - his host had Soul parents who were looking for him, and they wouldn't be happy to discover he'd had an implantation.

Widepetals moved, and Ice Pillar moved to help her up. She took his hand, and threw her arms around him as tears began to flow.

Fractals woke up in the back of a Humvee, shaky, but whole again. She started as she recognized Sophia's face next to her, but relaxed, seeing her eyes were now silver like hers, and her face was streaked with tears.

The stranger held out a hand. "I'm Widepetals. Sorry we were so slow, Zoe."

Don't trust her, Zoe thought to Fractals. Sophia hadn't seemed like the type to go down without a nasty fight, and was probably still in control of her body.

Stop being so paranoid, Fractals chastised, though Widepetals' face made her feel a little uneasy as well.

Fractals eyed the hand wearily.

Widepetals winced. "I'm not going to hurt you, I'm not her." She shuddered. "I'm curious, though - did your host really wake up, or were you trying to trick Sophia?"

"No, I was lying," Fractals replied, too quickly - she hadn't decided if she wanted to leave Earth yet, and Widepetals was a complete unknown.

Widepetals saw right through it, though. "Don't worry, I won't tell," she said, grinning.

Fractals cringed instinctively, remembering that same smile every time right before Sophia had started hurting her.

Widepetals winced again. "Sorry."

Widepetals wondered why Sophia wasn't present - not that she was complaining, of course. However, Zoe was obviously still conscious (though harmless), and she wondered why the stronger willed Sophia was not. The only thing that occurred to her was the age difference between the two. Perhaps that meant Sophia's memories would fade, with time.

She was still struggling to ignore Sophia's ingrained reactions. Suddenly, everything about the world seemed off, different - like someone had searched a room and put everything back in the wrong places. The other Souls' automatic kindness now seemed creepy, and she didn't even want to think the word 'Seeker'. She'd had to send Ice Pillar away after she'd stopped crying, and she could see the hurt in his eyes.

Zoe's thoughts were becoming irksome again - as they drove into the city, the feeling that she was seeing the living dead was making her claustrophibic.

Now that she had been patched up by the medics and was no longer distracted by pain, the barriers between Fractals and Zoe was much more distinct, and Fractals saw that this was no way to live. It rankled, but she intended to apply for a new host as soon as she got the chance.

Moon turned on the television, and saw there was breaking news.

RENEGADE HUMAN CAPTURED, read the scrolling text below.

Alex struck at Moon, who had become complacent while his host had gathered strength. To Moon's shock and horror, his limbs started moving themselves.

Alex moved quickly - there was no telling how much time he had - pulling open a drawer and taking out a can of Sleep (Moon had suffered nightmares the first week) and a knife.

He picked up the phone and dialed Blossoms Sunward's number.

A/N Unplanned developments! Subplots become relevent! The heights shall sink and the depths shall rise!

Yeah, there is no plan, even less so than usual. Stay tuned though, hopefully I won't write myself into a corner and it will stay interesting.

Please let me know what you think! You don't have to even leave a full review, just a comment - ie 'I liked/didn't like this chapter' or 'you are twisted' or 'oh no' or something like that. To be honest, I'd be happy if you'd just leave a dot if you've read it. I mostly want to know who more of my individual readers are.

TopKat90, as always, thanks for your support.

Chapter 16: Whispering Demons Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N Hangover Chapter #3

Salutes Captain Morgan

Mixed Feelings

Whispering Demons

Though going through the city made Fractals uncomfortable, for Widepetals, it was a trip through hell. Sophia had been single-mindedly driven to hurt Souls whenever she had the chance, and now Widepetals' host's subconscious mind seemed to whisper to her like a malevolent spirit. Widepetals had to suppress the urge to crash the Humvee, to lash out and hurt someone - knowing all the while that she would enjoy it if she gave in.

It would be so easy, she found herself thinking. Steal the driver's sidearm, kill all of them, and then disappear. It's dead simple.

Widepetals recognized the direction of her thoughts, and sighed. She'd deal with it; she'd have to, or she'd end up with a child host - an unappealing prospect. If it weren't for the disturbing imagery, Sophia would actually be an ideal host - young, intelligent, and fit. She didn't want to be moved into another one.

As they approached the city, Sophia's fantasies of humans getting a nuclear weapon were brought back to the surface. Widepetals suffered through an exquisitely detailed scene involving the crew of a nuclear sub on a long deployment, who'd recognized the Souls' coming and not returned to dock. As the scene replayed in her head, it almost seemed like Sophia was speaking to her through the memory.

There has to be one that they missed. I'll never find it, and I'd need the codes to use it, but a girl can hope, can't she?

I wonder what they'd do if I ever managed to pull it off. Would they leave, abandon the planet? They've never fought a war before, never suffered any real hardships in their entire species' existence. What happen if they left, anyway? Would they kill their hosts? Take them somewhere else? I still don't know if their victims' minds can be recovered.

If they didn't murder their hosts, and people did come back, I guess we'd have another war about ten seconds after they left. People don't function in a utopian society the way the bugs do - we value ourselves as individuals way too much, we're too selfish and shortsighted. Everything's still pretty much intact, though they've dismantled most of our military equipment - I guess it wouldn't be able to get that bloody. It doesn't matter, though - I'd nuke them in a heartbeat, bloody war or no.

I wonder where I would fit in that world. I don't really have any education, and the only things I'm really good at are stealing, breaking things, and causing pain - not exactly legal skills, no matter what world I live in. I'm not old enough to serve in an army, and those are the only things I know how to do.

Just one more reason in a long list of why to hate the bugs. I think I'd be in high school now if they hadn't come, making friends and learning things. Instead, I'm trying to find a way to nuke a city.

Widepetals was bothered most of all by her own lack of reaction to the vivid imagery of death, and the bitter commentary in her head.

No, that wasn't right, it was worse than that; she found herself looking at the memory, and trying to figure out where put a bomb in order to cause the most damage. She caught herself again, and shuddered, breaking out into a cold sweat.

Widepetals didn't want to think anymore. She closed her eyes and tried to go to sleep.

She soon found that was no escape either. Sophia had been using Awake to keep from sleeping for a very long time. Now, Widepetals found herself wide awake despite her wishes. She hoped she could find a way to make Sophia's memories fade faster.

Alex knew that Soaring Leaf was monitoring Moon (the camera was ridiculously obvious to notice, and easier to avoid), and so he'd told Blossoms Sunward he was going to meet her at her place.

There was probably another Seeker watching him, but he figured he'd take care of that later. He pocketed the knife and started on the way to Blossoms Sunward's building, careful to keep the Sleep out of sight. He exchanged greetings with several of his building's inhabitants on the way out careful to keep his voice natural, though his heart was trying to escape his chest, and Moon was making a lot of noise inside his head.

He kept an eye out for anyone who looked like a Seeker, though he didn't see any suspects. Then he made it into the street, where there were too many people to follow any one person for long. If a Seeker was tailing him, he'd lose them here for a second, long enough to hopefully get away if he moved fast.

Now he just had to make it through the crowd without freaking out. Large numbers of people close to him made him uncomfortable, and it was bright outside. It didn't help that Moon was resisting every step, trying to warn someone, anyone, about the loose human.

He ran down an alley, then tried the handle of a back door. Souls almost never locked anything, and it opened easily into a room filled with wires and computer equipment of indeterminate purpose. He stayed there a few minutes, then moved on.

Alex made it to Blossoms' neighborhood within ten minutes. He waved to one of her neighbors, and knocked on her door.

Alex, please don't, I'm begging you - she's my friend! I'll do anything!

Alex ignored the desperate pleas as Blossoms opened the door, smiling at him. "Hey, Moon! How are you today? Getting used to people, I see!"

Alex shut the door behind himself, then sprayed the Sleep in her face.

Blossoms Sunward came out of her host easily, and Alex put the Soul on top of her counter. "Sorry, Blossoms," he said. He picked up a phone book, and smashed the writhing creature, as Moon screamed inside his head.

He tried not to feel guilty.

The convoy arrived back at the Healing facility where they were based, and Widepetals saw dozens of Seekers moving around.

She saw an image of herself getting on the Humvee's .50 cal, raining lead down into the crowd. Then Ice Pillar opened the door, and she slid out of the vehicle, shaking her head to dispel the image.

She'd deal with Sophia. She had to, or she'd end up skipping. She forced herself to ignore the hate that burned through her as Ice Pillar lead her into the facility, focusing on the good times they'd had together. Soon the sensation faded to a tolerable level.

"Widepetals, Zoe, come on. Let's get you checked out, then debriefed and extracted."

"Zoe, you want to be extracted? What about... you know... her?" Widepetals asked, shocked. Ice Pillar looked on in puzzlement.

"That's why."

"Well, I don't want a new host. I'll stay in this one," she replied to both of them.

Ice Pillar turned Widepetals to face him. "What? No, we've got to get you out of her. She'll drive you crazy in days!"

She lightly punched him in the shoulder. "I'll be fine. I don't want to be some baby, and they don't offer adult hosts anymore. She's not awake or anything, so she'll fade." She started walking again.

Zoe jumped into the conversation, face drawn tight. "I don't like this, Widepetals. You should ask the Healers, first. Nothing against you, but I don't think you can handle Sophia for long."

Widepetals looked back at Zoe. "You think on your decision, I'll think on mine."

She leaned in and whispered. "Don't make yourself a murderer, Zoe. What would your mother think?"

Blossoms' host woke up soon after the extraction.

"Where am I? What happened?" she asked, softly. A second later, "Who am I?"

Alex gave her the short version, then explained the extraction process to her.

He closed his eyes, and handed her the can of Sleep.

Zoe and Fractals were not very happy. Fractals' decision to get a new host understandably caused some tension.

Fractals was wavering. She was attached to many people in Zoe's life, but seeing them would just cause Zoe pain - and by proxy, she would feel it.

Zoe had another point to make.

Discard me, but if Sophia comes back, she'll destroy you if you stay on Earth, she stated.

I think Sophia would kill me regardless, now. If she overpowered Widepetals, I think she'd come and try to extract me.

Well, I'd try to save you if she did. If I'm dead, though...

Perhaps you're right. I'll wait. We need to keep an eye on Widepetals, though.

After a brief examination by another Healer, Widepetals was brought to another room to talk to a group of Seekers.

She wondered why she wasn't getting mad at them, then noticed the vents in the ceiling, leaking silvery mist. She sniffed and noticed the scent of blueberries. Probably Calm, and maybe Truth. They're prepared, she noted.

The Guard-Seekers asked her a bunch of stupid questions. She answered them as best she could, though a lot of them didn't seem like they mattered.

They wanted to know if Sophia had been involved with the disappearance of several other Souls, including a few way out west where she'd never been. Widepetals didn't like it, but she was forced to sift through her host's memory again looking for nonexistant clues.

She had a talk about switching hosts; as she'd suspected, the waiting list was long for a new human one. They advised her to get a new host anyway, but said they wouldn't make her.

Then she had a talk with Ice Pillar, made easier by the lingering effects of the Calm vents.

She tugged his arm to get his attention. "I just realized I have nowhere to stay. Military housing's not going to work anymore, is it?"

He laughed. "No, I guess not. Your old host's family might put you up for a while, though."

"Ugh, no. We weren't very close, I don't want to stay there unless I have no choice."

"Well, I bet your new host's brother will keep you."

She remembered Zoe mentioning him. "Yeah, Zoe knows where he is. I'll ask her."

A/N The idea of the drugged vents is unashamedly stolen from Warui-Usagi's story, Definition: Life.

Thanks again to Kat for reviewing faithfully! The rest of you, please say something, it only takes a second! I know you're still reading from my hits counter, but I'd like to see a few names.

Chapter 17: Unease Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Unease

When you trip, you have two options. Put out your hands to catch yourself, or try to run and regain your balance.

Ice Pillar's superiors decided it would be best if he went with Widepetals for the next few days in order to make sure she really could handle her host. The two of them ended up going to a nearby motel to get situated.

The very first thing they did was go out and get clothing; Sophia only had had two sets of clothing to her name, one of which was a stolen police uniform.

When Widepetals went to change out of Sophia's ragged Seeker uniform and discard the duct-tape bandoleer she'd made, a short wild-eyed brunette ambushed Ice Pillar in the hall. He had no idea who she was, but she seemed to remember him - and wasn't shy about getting grabby.

"You've got to convince her to change her mind," she ordered him, gripping his shoulders and pushing him into the wall. "I can see you two are friends, and you're going to lose her if she goes through with this."

Ice Pillar cursed his inability to remember names and faces. Still, there could only be one person she could be talking about.

He gently grabbed her hands to remove them from his shoulders, but she kept a death grip on him. If she wasn't nearly a full head shorter than him, it might be irritating, but as it was right now, it was more like being attacked by a chihuahua. An anonymous chihuahua, to boot.

"What do you want me to do? Believe me, I've checked with the healers. They won't perform an extraction on an unwilling subject, unless we can show that they're a danger to themselves or others. Anyway, it's not so bad, is it? You said her brother hasn't had any problems so far, right?"

"You don't understand. Sophia was crazy, but single-minded enough that if she wakes up, your friend won't be able to stop her." She shook him ineffectually. "You're a Seeker! If you tell them that she's acting violent, they'll believe you."

"You want me to lie?" he asked, not believing his ears. Sophia wasn't the only crazy one, he thought to himself.

"It won't just be to save your friend. Sophia will try to kill us all if she retakes control, and Widepetals will be in the middle of it."

The conversation was cut short as Widepetals emerged, cleaner and with a clean set of clothes.

"What's up?" she asked. Then, "Zoe, why are you manhandling my friend?"

Ice Pillar recognized her then - she was the hostage from earlier. He hadn't recognized her without bruises...

Zoe's eyes went wide at the sight of his friend, and she let go of him immediately. "You know why I'm here," she said.

Widepetals rolled her eyes. "Sophia isn't coming back, Zoe, chill out." Her voice was even; however, he noticed her hands were balled tightly into fists.

"Widepetals, use your head! You know you won't be able to control her when she wakes up - people will die!" Zoe's voice rose in fear.

"Both of you -" he began, but Widepetals interrupted him.

"I can handle her," she snarled. "She wouldn't hurt anyone, anyway - she was smarter than that. If someone turned up dead, everything would lead back to her!"

"I really hope you're right," Zoe said, then turned and left. It was obvious she was fighting not to break into a run as she went.

Ice Pillar turned to his friend and opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

"Don't you dare start. I'm not skipping." She stormed off after Zoe, who hastily broke into a sprint upon realizing she was being followed.

Zoe fought back waves of terror from her resident alien as Fractals ran in a nearly blind panic. After a few blocks, she finally got through to the Soul, who stopped.

That could have gone better, she said to Fractals after they stopped shaking. She hadn't expected Fractals to get so frightened so suddenly, but her subconcious was convinced Widepetal's host was going to get her.

Gee, you think? the Soul replied. Not good - she was getting sarcastic.

As Fractals caught her breath, Zoe felt her fear turn to shame and anger at the entire interaction. She realized she had made the situation worse than it had to have been - she'd gotten mad, pushing Fractals to be more aggressive, and ultimately drawing Widepetal's ire. The only good thing was that Ice Pillar seemed to think she was more amusing than anything else.

Fractals stood and started aimlessly walking, ignoring the curious stares of people on the street. You know, I could have just run screaming through the building. It would have been faster, and had the same effect. Ice Pillar's going to think I'm a complete nut now! Advocating lies!

This was really not good. She was directly stating why she was mad - her version of incandescent fury. If she were human and this angry, there would be screaming and thrown objects.

Sorry. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time... Zoe said, trying to make her presence as small and meek as possible.

How? How does aggression help any situation?

Look, we both panicked. But at least we learned something out of it! Zoe replied, trying to be cheerful. If it comes down to it, I bet we can get Widepetals mad enough to hit us.

That's good?The Soul was calming down some, thankfully.

Yeah! If she hits us, we can convince the Healers her host is making her unstable.

Unless it's just Sophia pretending to be Widepetals, in which case she'll kill us if we make her that angry.

No, she said it herself. If we die, all paths lead back to her.

Fractals stopped walking, and if she'd had control of her lungs Zoe would have held her breath.

I guess you're right, the Soul admitted. Next time let's not freak out. And we can't let her get us alone, just in case.

Ice Pillar was even more worried about Widepetals after Zoe's appearance. Widepetals swore that her host's mind wasn't present save for her instincts, but he would have figured someone who fought to the death wouldn't disappear so easily.

She was very distant all day, though that might not be a sign that anything was wrong - she'd just had a near-death experience a day before. But whenever he shook her to get her attention, she practically hissed at him. And when he brought up the subject of changing hosts, she stopped talking to him for nearly an hour.

He couldn't force her to abandon her host, no matter how much it frightened him. He'd asked the Healers, but they said that as long as she wanted to stay in the same host, and wasn't a danger to others, they wouldn't do anything. And he wouldn't lie to change things, no matter how much he wanted to.

As they were sorting through Widepetals' possessions, his phone rang and he excused himself.

"You've got to do something," the girl from before ordered him as soon as he picked up.

I can't believe I forgot her name again! he chastised himself, as she launched into a rant.

Five minutes into the lecture, Widepetals came looking for him.

"-rebel human who can perform extractions and-" the woman continued, and he decided she wasn't amusing anymore. He wasn't the one she needed to talk to, anyway.

"It's for you," he said, handing the phone off to Widepetals.

As a shouting match began, he smiled to himself. He probably should have listened, but sheesh, that woman had a funny voice.

In the end, after going through her old host's stuff, they soon realized Widepetals' laptop and cell phone were all that she could really make use of in her new body. He offered to drive her out to the wrecked car where Sophia had been captured, but she just shivered and hugged him.

Alex wasn't sure what his next step was. He honestly hadn't expected to get this far - his plan to cooperate with Moon until he dropped his guard had actually worked.

Blossoms Sunward's host was very confused and barely knew who she was. She'd performed the extraction as he'd instructed her, but then had put Moon in a jar, thinking she was going to save him.

Fortunately, Souls couldn't survive on Earth without a host for very long, and he suffocated in minutes. Alex felt a little bad about it, but Moon was an invader.

Blossoms Sunward's host, Jane (he had to call her something, and she didn't remember her real name) was one of his many problems, now. She shied at the thought of violence, and didn't remember enough of her Soul's life to pass as her for more than a few minutes - and only then if they thought she was taking Valium.

Thankfully, she trusted him, but that was his only lucky break.

People would come looking for them soon, and then it would be over; he hadn't thought this through very well. He was making it up as he went.

"Jane, can I see your cell phone?" he asked.

"Sure," she said after a few seconds of alarming blankness, handing it to him.

He went through the contacts, quizzing her on who she thought would come looking for her. It was more complex than it was for him; Soaring Leaf was the only one who would look for him.

He had Jane call one of Blossoms Sunward's friends and ask her to come over. The person on the other end didn't seem to get suspicious at Jane's vacancy. He prayed that after they performed an extraction this one would remember more than Jane.

As she was doing that, Moon's cell phone rang, and Alex answered it.

"Is this Moon? My name is Widepetals, and Sophia is my host. I don't have anywhere to stay, and was hoping you had some free space," his sister's voice said.

It hurt to hear a stranger's words coming out of her mouth. Sophia's worst fear for a long time had been implantation. Thankfully, now he had the means to save her.

Alex forced himself to speak around the lump in his throat. "Yes, this is Moon. It would be good to see a familiar face!" He gave her his address. "I'd be glad to help you, Widepetals."

He turned back to Blossoms Sunward's host and hauled her to her feet. She didn't remember much from before implantation, but assured him she didn't want to go through it again.

"Jane, that was the Soul in my sister's body. She's going to be coming here tomorrow, so I need to stay in the area."

"Your sister?" Jane asked. "Is she human too?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Good," she said, to his horror. "Humans are... are mean liars. Except you. And me, I hope..." she mumbled.

This was going to be more difficult than he'd thought. She had no idea what was going on.

While she went through the wreckage of both her previous lives, Widepetals had a few revelations.

Widepetals recognized now that humans would eventually reclaim their planet. Souls were too compassionate, and humans too ruthless, for there to be any other result, though it might take centuries. Many Souls did not implant their children, and now Widepetals could see it would be their eventual downfall. The unimplanted children that Sophia had hated so much would change things - not now, perhaps, but generations down the line they would have a major impact. The humans would breed with each other - they'd be attracted to each other rather than the Souls. Human parents wouldn't stand to have implantations on their sons and daughters, and suddenly there would be two branches of humanity - the majority, comprised of the implanted, and the less stable branch of those raised by humans in a Soul society.

This wouldn't work very well, she could see. Someday down the line there would probably be a war between the two branches. Wild humans just didn't coexist well - xenophobia was part of what made them what they were.

And even a peaceful takeover would yield a violent culture within a generation. It was just the way they were. Human lifetimes were too short for any of their cultures to stay the same for very long, and they would gravitate towards barbarity without a strong influence from her own race.

And once they controlled the planet... They would have the technology to reach the stars. Several centuries from now, they'd be building ships, and weapons.

Humans had put a lot of thought into what would happen once they reached the stars. Even in their most peaceful visions of the future world, they had trouble conceiving of any galactic order where they did not exploit, destroy, or enslave everything their race came across, unless the other races were unimaginably more powerful - which was not the case for her race.

Her own kind would be humanity's largest competitor, squarely in their sights. When it came to a conflict (and it would, sooner or later), humans would have many weapons, and the Souls would not.

Even if none of this happened, her people would inevitably run into another violent race. It was only a matter of time before it happened again. The scenario would be the same - being virtually defenseless, her people would be wiped out.

A simple solution occurred to her. Simple in concept, anyway, though execution would be harder...

She could prevent all of this, if she could convince her own kind how stupid pacifism was. Eventually, someone her people ran across in deep space would have a better technological base than them, and unless they had weapons they would be exterminated. She could see that now, and supposed she had to thank Sophia for that.

But nobody was going to listen to her, she knew - they'd think she was being unduly influenced by her host. She'd have to do something radical to get their attention, and someone else would have to take the blame.

She needed a violent human resistance movement. She needed them to do something completely crazy, to get people's attention.

She suppressed a giggle, as she realized the irony. She'd been out to halt the bloodshed, but now here she was, adopting Sophia's goals as her own. Yes, she'd be killing people, but in the long run, she'd be saving her race from extinction. What were a few hundred thousand lives worth against the billions she'd be saving?

She needed to get her life straight first, though. It might be good to wait a while, too. As she'd told Zoe, if people started disappearing around her right now, she'd be the prime suspect. People would think her host had taken over.

She'd play it safe, and keep acting as if all was normal. It wouldn't be too hard to start her very own cell of rebel humans - extractions were so easy to do.

Zoe might be a prime candidate for her first recruit - people with conscious human hosts would be her best bet for the beginning. She'd be able to pass as Fractals long enough to cut contact with everyone else.

And if she wasn't cooperative, then... Actually, she'd pretty much have to be. If Zoe was recaptured, she'd be discarded in short order.

A/N Sorry for the wait - my lack of planning caught up with me. I promise I haven't learned my lesson. :P

If this chapter seems kind of crappy, well, - OMG LOOK SOMETHING SHINY hides

Review please - it only takes a few seconds. If something doesn't make sense, let me know! This chapter didnt feel as natural as the others and I want to know if any of it seems forced.

As always, thanks to those who review faithfully, like TopKat90 and Incogneat-o. (Sorry about Moon, by the way.)

The rest of you who read and haven't ever reviewed are ungrateful punks :P.

Chapter 18: Mirrors Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N I's back

Widepetals and Ice Pillar are hard to write

Mixed Feelings

Mirrors

After a long battle, during which she cursed herself for her stupidity, Widepetals finally managed to log in to her computer. She'd forgotten the damned thing's password, as it had been her previous host's birthdate. Curious as to why she wasn't inundated with reporters, she checked the news.

Another mortar strike had managed to tag one of the ships at the spaceport; everything was focusing on how the Seekers were working to find the culprit. Along with that, there was an upsurge in the number of wild humans caught.

The news reports left her feeling strange. She found she didn't really care about the dead Souls as much as she thought she should; in fact, deep down, a small part of her (a very tiny, terrifying one) was amused at the Seekers' inept response.

Her current host sucked, in that sense.

"So we're leaving tomorrow?" Widepetals asked Ice Pillar as they looked for a restaurant a while later. The Calm hadn't worn off yet, and it was nice to be able to talk to him without her body's reactions. They'd come to an unspoken agreement to pretend that nothing had changed after her previous host's death. She did so out of convenience, but didn't know what motivated him.

"Yeah. No point in waiting after they let me go for a while." he said. Then he winced. "That girl said she's going to come with us before she started ranting again. Said she'd keep you from hurting anyone." He looked like he was going to implore her to skip again for a moment, but then shut his mouth. He learns, she thought.

Widepetals rolled her eyes. "Why not let her come? If we go for an entire car trip and I dont start breathing flame, maybe she'll calm down and stop bothering us. I still don't know where she got my cell number from." In fact, when she checked the call history, she realized Zoe had found her number before she'd sorted through her possessions.

In fact, she did feel a little guilty about her host's treatment of the other Soul, and her host. It was irrational - she'd done nothing, it was her host who had committed the crimes - but after one trip down memory lane, she couldn't help but feel something.

Still, Zoe and Fractals were annoying, and potentially dangerous to her goals. She needed to get them to stop making noise about her, and the only way to do so was to earn their trust. Or at the very least, to discredit them.

"I hope she'll stop, but she seems pretty desperate," she said. "That'll be an awkward ride, I think. Jeez, there's nowhere to eat in this town. Mickey D's all right?"

"Sounds good to me."

Widepetals soon discovered that her new body found just about anything delicious. It figured – there'd been points in her life where she'd had to survive on dog food because it was what she and her brother could steal. Thus, she now had a great appreciation for the high cuisine that was fast food.

She looked up and saw Ice Pillar staring at her with wide eyes and a slack jaw. "What?" she asked, self conscious.

"You just ate that burger in three bites. I didn't know anything other than a snake or an alligator could open its mouth so wide; I'm in awe."

She was silent for a moment. "It wasnt that big," she said defensively. "I'm still hungry, it couldnt have been that large of a burger."

"What!? You're half the size you used to be, and that was a Big Mac. I thought you'd be good for the next two days!"

She tried to think of a suitable retort to that. "Uhm..." Suddenly her hand darted out and closed on the burger in his hand. She brought the liberated food to her mouth and bit it.

"Now I'm good," she said, grinning behind his stolen food.

"Thief!" he cried with mock outrage as he threatened to douse her with condiments. "Give it back, you little twerp!"

She shoved the rest of his burger into her mouth, dodged a squirt of ketchup, and grabbed the fries, running outside. He followed, and she sprinted past staring onlookers. She made it just past the edge of the parking lot before he caught up and grabbed her. She tried to escape, soon finding her new body unsuited to wrestling. After a few moments checking the instinct to bite him, she surrendered.

"No fair! You're twice as big as me, fatty!"

Ice Pillar laughed and let go. "Fatty? I'm not the one stealing people's food," he said. "Now I need to get more food for me."

She laughed, and silently wondered what she was going to do about him. It wasnt going to matter for the next several months, as she'd be laying relatively low, but he'd eventually be in the way. He wasnt very bright, and never had been – she didnt think he'd understand her plans. Of course, his lack of intelligence was also a blessing – he obviously wanted to believe that everything was normal.

"You got shot first, Widepetals," he said out of the blue as they were waiting for a second round of food.

"Yeah, so?"

"You've gotta drink it."

"Non sequitor, any? I dont follow, drink what?"

"I cant believe you dont remember!"

She stared at him blankly. "What should I remember, Ice?"

"The meatshake! If either of us got shot, we had to down a meatshake!"

It clicked into place.

"Oh God. I never agreed to that!" Long ago, before the invasion, their hosts had made a deal that if either one was dumb enough to get wounded, they would drink a concoction of spam, milkshake, alcohol, and hot sauce that one of the other people in their unit had come up with while unbelievably bored.

"I was there, I remember. You were the one that came up with the deal, remember?"

She made a face. "That was my host, not me. Not even the same host... I don't think anyone even sells alcohol anymore, anyway!"

"Forget the vodka, then. You still swore, after implantation, that the deal still held!"

He was right, she had. She didnt know what she'd been thinking at the time. She swore under her breath.

"What? Cant hear you," Ice Pillar sang.

"Crap. Let's go get the spam and hot sauce, after this."

She wondered what she was going to do about him. He was her friend, and she was finally beginning to be able to talk to him without tripping her host's hatred of Seekers, but if he discovered her plans, he would stop her. That was unacceptable.

She'd have to do something, but she didnt know what. Fortunately, there was no rush.

A girl woke up, and for a few panicked moments didnt know who or where she was. After several minutes, some of it came back to her. She was called Jane, though that wasnt her name, and she'd spaced out again. She didnt know how long she'd been out of it, but she was still in her - Blossom's house.

Her head was clearing to the point that she was not just confused anymore, but also terrified. She was a wild human, she'd figured that much out pretty quickly. She still had no idea who she really was, and couldnt remember many of the details of Blossom's life.

It wasnt good. She didnt want to be implanted again, but she would be when the Seekers caught up with them. She hoped Alex had a plan to get away from them, because she was too hazy to come up with anything other than 'run away from the Seekers'.

Speaking of Alex, she realized she had no idea where he was. Had he been found, captured? Should she try to hide? Try to run?

Where would she go? Was there even any point to it? Without Alex, the Seekers would get her eventually, no matter what she did.

She had to try, though. Alex had saved her from implantation; she couldnt just throw that away.

Jane got up and looked around the room she was in; she'd been sitting against the wall of her living room, and her back hurt because of the odd position she'd been in. As far as she could tell, nothing had been disturbed from where it had been when Alex had removed Blossoms – if anyone had been around, it had been other humans, or she'd already be a Soul again.

"Where are you, Alex?" she half-whispered to herself, wondering what to do now.

If Alex was gone, she needed to disappear, fast. She realized she was barefoot, and went off in search of her shoes. She briefly thought about finding something to defend herself with as well, but decided against it; she didnt think she could bring herself to hurt anyone, not even a Seeker.

There was a noise down the hall, and she hid behind the couch. She knew it was a poor spot to hide, but it was better than nothing. Footsteps rapidly approached her, and she went still.

"Jane?" It was Alex's voice. She peeked over the edge of her couch and saw him coming towards her. He had a rifle across his back, and had his hand on a pistol in its holster on his waist.

He might have been caught. He might be a Seeker now, come back to get her.

He saw her, and lowered his hand. "There you are. Are you all right?"

She had to trust him, because there was nobody else to trust. "I – I was scared," she said, coming out from her hiding place. "I woke up and didnt know anything for a minute. Please dont leave me alone again," she pleaded.

He closed his eyes for a second. "Okay. Keep trying to remember your real name, Jane. I'll stay with you for a while."

She remembered something that he'd said earlier, through the haze. "What happened to Blossom's friends you had me call?" she asked, worried for them. She had fuzzy memories of dialing a couple of people, one after the other, asking them to drop by for a minute.

His voice sounded worried. "Don't worry about it, Jane. Just try to remember what you can abou-"

"You took out their Souls, didn't you? You didn't hurt them, did you?" she interrupted.

Alex stayed silent for a second. "I stole some cryotanks, I did, but one of the girls saw I was human before I could hit her with the Sleep. The rest of them are fine, Soul and body - I buried the Souls in cryotanks out back. Nobody will find them, but they'll be fine there for now."

"Where are the humans?" she asked.

"Come on, I'll show you."

Widepetals found herself in a blank, featureless plain.

"You're going to have to take care of him, you know." someone commented in her own voice. "You shouldnt be befriending the enemy." She spun, and came face to face with her new face.

"Wh-What?" she stuttered. Her doppleganger sighed.

"You havent thought this through much, have you? I'm talking about Ice Pillar. He's going to keep tabs on you forever unless you do something about it. He cares about you too much to let you break off contact. He'll come searching for you."

As she recovered from shock, she recognized the tattered Seeker's uniform and shredded body armor she'd woken up in after getting shot. Sophia, she thought. I'm dreaming.

"I'm not going to hurt anyone I dont have to," she said emphatically. Sophia laughed hysterically, chest heaving under her armor as she fought for breath.

"What happened to the whole plan to show everyone how defenseless all you bugs are?" she eventually gasped out. "It was a good plan, I liked it! As soon as your targets have a face and a history you have second thoughts, is that it? How cute."

"I dont have to listen to you," she said, turning away. This wasnt really happening; all she needed to do was wake up and it would banish this ghost.

"Waking up wont let you get away from me. Maybe I'm not really Sophia, but you're using her brain to do your thinking. You'll see I'm right soon enough."

"Sure..." she muttered, ignoring the imaginary human as she tried to figure out how to wake herself.

"Let's see, what else can I solve while I'm here? I guess if you're squeamish about Ice Pillar just because he's your friend you could send him off-world. You don't have to hurt him." it said disapprovingly.

Widepetals ignored it, pinching herself to no effect.

"You need weapons," Sophia's image told her. It produced an old revolver out of the air and rotated its cylinder, loading bullets one by one. Widepetals remembered where her host had cached a pistol like the one she saw before her, before the phantom spoke again. "This thing is all right for a start, but for a full fledged rebellion you'll need rifles, and lots of them. You can't steal them yourself; people will recognize your host if you go anywhere near an armory. You gotta start recruiting, little bug."

The Soul ignored Sophia's visage, and started off in a random direction.

"Leave Zoe alone, for now. There's too many people watching her," it said, following her.

Widepetals resolved to try and make up for what her host had done to the other Soul.

"You know what would work? Sneak out while Ice Pillar's sleeping, and find where some of the Seekers live. I bet their hosts would be pretty helpful, and if they dont wake up, you could torch their houses or something like that. You'll need Awake, and Still or Sleep – shouldnt be too hard to get your hands on it."

The phantom turned, and fired a pair of shots at something in the distance that she couldn't see. After a third shot, she heard a scream and saw Ice Pillar appear out of the air and fall to the ground, bleeding.

"You're not real. Go away." Widepetals told it, continuing to walk. But however far she went, the phantom of her host and Ice Pillar's body stayed nearby.

It began talking to her again as it drew a knife. "I'm not sure if you should do anything to Moon; there's probably people watching him as well. Alex would be really useful to have on your side, but I dont know if he'd be worth the trouble; you'd have to convince him you're really Sophia..."

The ghost flipped the knife open and turned over Ice Pillar's body. Suddenly, Widepetals found it was her hands holding the knife, checking for a pulse. She found one, and cut his throat.

She screamed.

"-etals? Wake up, we're back at the motel." Widepetals was jolted awake as Ice Pillar shook her.

She cried out and flailed for a moment until she realized she was no longer dreaming.

"You all right? You look like you've seen a ghost," he said, concerned.

"Bad dream." That didn't do it justice, but she didn't know how else to describe it without alarming him.

"I thought you might have that problem. I've got the cure right here," he said, brandishing a can of Sleep.

She thanked him and took it, feeling uncomfortable about her dream. It had been frightening, but dream-Sophia had made a few points. She did need to arm herself, and she had to do something about Ice Pillar, sooner than she'd like.

The dream might end up being prophetic, if things turned out poorly. What was she going to do with him? What was she going to have to do to him, if he found her out before she was ready?

She wished she could use the Sleep; it would make things easier. But she had dirty things to do in the night, and couldn't afford the luxury.

Fractals was surprised that Widepetals and Ice Pillar agreed to let her come along with them, though Zoe was not.

She's trying to throw us off, the human informed her Soul. She'll probably try something along the way. Don't go, or at least bring a knife.

Fractals was indignant. We're going, and you know that I'm not going to use a weapon, Zoe. I'm sure we can think of something else. In any case, why do you think having a knife would help us?

We've got to be able to defend ourselves in case she turns psycho on us. Bring a can of Sleep, at the very least.

I'll be careful to keep her from catching us alone, Fractals said, her mental voice braver than she felt.

This isnt smart. You know this isnt smart, I can feel it. Dont do this to me! Zoe cried.

We need to paint her as the unstable one. If we bring a weapon, that can only hurt our case. Ice Pillar already thinks I'm overzealous, and if I got caught with a knife, or even medicines that could be used against someone, I'll only cement his opinion of me. And if Sophia takes over, I dont think a knife or Sleep will help us.

Zoe kept arguing, but Fractals was adamant.

Widepetals had never really appreciated search engines until she looked at them through her new host's eyes. She could type in anything, anything, into the search box, and get an answer.

It had started out innocently enough - Ice Pillar was off talking to the higher-ups again, and she'd gotten bored. After five minutes of searching the hard drive for something to do, and finding nothing but emails and boring games, she'd discovered she had an internet connection.

She booted a web browser, and typed in 'bored' in the search box.

Another five minutes later, and she'd found a repository of violent human-era videogames that hadn't been taken down yet. After loading one, she wondered why her people had stopped making violent games - blowing up Nazis was a lot of fun.

An ad looking for people to help out SETI flashed on top of her T-34 on the screen, and she closed it. She idly wondered why it still existed - they'd found what they'd been looking for, after all. She supposed that the Souls involved in the program were searching for more planets to colonize.

The ad broke the flow of her game, and she decided to get down to business. It made her exceedingly uncomfortable (and a little excited, though she didn't want to admit it), but it needed to be done - she typed in 'silencers' into a search box, and found that they were frighteningly easy to make for smaller caliber weapons. Another few searches showed her how to make black powder. There were possibilities there, but she had to get a move on; Ice Pillar wouldn't be gone forever.

She wiped the browser's history, and set out to go get her hands on the necessary materials, as well as a few choice drugs. And of course, find a weapon, preferably a gun.

She 'borrowed' a car (the keys were in the ignition - it was almost an invitation, after all) then set out for a short stop at a few stores. She pulled up her hood, and got started looking for some necessary items.

First, she found a big suitcase, and then she got a few more things; sunglasses, black hair dye, and a few changes of clothes. She also went to a pharmacy to get all the drugs she needed. There, a fellow shopper recognized her face, but she was able to convince them it was just a similar host.

Next, she set out to do a little raiding. Rather than being strange to steal things from other people's homes, she found it eerily familiar from her host's memories.

Almost everyone was at work, and Souls didn't lock doors. After searching a few houses to find nothing but asinine 'non-stabbing' kitchen knives, she found one with a basement full of stuff piled halfway to the ceiling. This was her best bet - it looked like it had been there since before the invasion.

She didn't find a gun, but there was a box filled with folding knives, and buried inside that she found a switchblade.

Better than nothing, she thought, hefting the box. This was just until she got a different weapon, hopefully the pistol she'd stashed so long ago, still inside layers of plastic bags.

She returned the car and ran back to the motel, chilled to the core at what she was going to have to do to ensure her species survival. It was much more real when she was trespassing to find weapons.

It's necessary, she told herself, imagining human warships pounding the Origin into glass from orbit. Her trip only demonstrated how defenseless - how utterly naïve - her people currently were. Why couldn't anyone else see it?

An hour later, Ice Pillar came back with a few bags from the grocery store, including a bag of kibble. He found her playing tetris, trying to forget the rest of the world. He didn't comment on her new suitcase, nor did he have any reason to go it to find the multitude of blades. He did notice her hands were shaking, though.

"Hey, you all right?" he asked, coming over towards her, looking like he came right out of Seeker motivational video.

Now that the Calm had completely worn off, she had to put her hands in her pockets to keep from reaching for a weapon. Still, her reactions were getting better; she no longer felt the urge to eviscerate him, though her body's reaction brought the ugly reality back to the front of her mind.

She wanted to hug him, but she was going to have to harm him eventually. He was her best friend, but her blood pressure rose at the mere sight of him.

It's necessary, she thought, eyes stinging. "I'm fine," she said, too quickly, looking away.

"Why do you look like a hummingbird on drugs, then? What's wrong?"

It was nice that he cared. But also problematic, she needed to avoid attention.

"I'll be fine, don't worry about it. How'd it go?" she asked, trying to change the subject.

"Ugh, don't want to talk about it. The short story is I'm free for the next week, then possibly another. It depends, we've been picking up more stray humans ever since they re-upped the copter patrols. The news hounds are bothering anyone who will talk to them about it."

"What do you know about the humans in the area? Are they organized?"

"We haven't taken any alive for questioning. They got cyanide pills from somewhere," he said sadly.

Widepetals had a momentary flashback to her host echoing the similar sentiments about Souls.

"They don't understand we don't want to hurt them," he continued, not noticing her pale at the memory.

She let that one slide without comment; from the human point of view it was death either way. The rest of her people did not understand humans, not at all.

"If you do get one, find out if I can have them as a host after interrogations are over with, will you?"

"Sure, but don't count on it. Most of them seem to be too old," he replied.

"What's with the kibble?" she asked, changing the subject.

"We have unfinished business," he said dramatically, dumping a tin of spam, a tub of ice cream, habanero sauce, lime juice, cheese, and some gatorade onto the table in front of her. "Meatshake. Now."

"No."

"You swore!"

"I'll swear again, no."

"You're breaking your word, Widepetals..."

She was, and there was no way around it.

"Mix it." she said, swearing at her previous stupidity under her breath.

She drank the mixture without further complaint. She had sworn she would. She'd made a promise, and she kept it.

It was vile.

"Gonna get shot again, Widepetals?" Ice Pillar taunted as she fought her rebellious stomach.

Sometimes, I think I could kill him pretty easily, she thought, deciding not to puke on him.

From the side of the road, three pairs of eyes watched Widepetals leave the motel again, this time at 3 am.

"Jesus, doesn't it ever sleep?" asked one of the watchers.

"Probably not anymore. Didn't you see how much Awake it got earlier?" a second one commented.

"Yeah, but still..."

"Just because you sleep too much doesn't mean everyone else has to."

"Fuck you, I was tired."

The third spoke up. "Keep on task, idiots. If we lose her, it won't be good."

"Why the fuck are we watching it again?"

"Because command told us to. If we needed to know more than that, they would have told us. The less we know, the less the Seekers can get if they find us. Now shut up and watch."

Zoe and Fractals woke to a knock at their room's door. After a short, customary argument, Fractals got up to see what was so important at - she checked the alarm clock - 3:25 in the morning.

Fractals looked through the door's peephole and saw Widepetals leaning against the wall in the hallway, listening to an ipod. She'd dyed her hair black, for some reason, too.

After another moment's argument with her host, they decided to find out what the other Soul wanted - Widepetals wasn't being overtly threatening, and there was a security camera in the hallway - they'd checked for a place that had one.

Fractals made sure the chain on the door was done, then opened the door a sliver.

"There's a security camera in the hall, you know," she told Widepetals through the crack.

"It's not hooked up to anything," the girl said, grinning as though she hadn't said something alarming. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folding knife. "I recognize the model; there's a little light that comes on when it has power."

Fractals slammed the door in her face. She heard laughter from the other side.

A second later, something slid under the door.

Back! Zoe ordered, fearing it was harmful. Fractals complied.

Nothing happened, and the laughter died down.

Fractals recognized it was the knife Widepetals had drawn in the hall, and went to pick it up.

Through the door, the other Soul said "I know you don't trust me, but you really shouldn't go around unarmed."

"Uhh..." Fractals said, intelligently.

"Just keep it, will you? I remember what Sophia did to the people she captured, and it gave me a nightmare."

"I don't think I could use a knife to hurt someone, even a human," Fractals said.

Widepetals and Zoe responded at the same time, echoing similar responses.

You couldn't. But I could, if I had to.

"I bet Zoe could, if it came down to it. And who knows? You might surprise yourself."

At that, the girl left, leaving a bewildered Soul and human.

Well, that was different, Zoe eventually said.

"Do you think she really wants to make amends?" Fractals spoke aloud.

I can't tell. I don't trust her, and I don't know what she wants.

"She did say that if something happened to us, she'd be the prime suspect."

She knows I'm here... Do you think that might have something to do with it?

"I really don't know."

She's very strange, commented the human, but I don't think she has any plans to hurt us. I hope. Still, bring the knife, or I'm going to sing '99 bottles of beer on the wall' the entire trip.

A/N

Thanks to everyone for reviewing.

Thoughts? Comments? Flames? Glaring errors? Post a review, please!

Chapter 19: Murky Waters Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N

My computer's hard drive died and I lost most of the original chapter I had written. This version sucks in comparison.

Murky Waters

Widepetals stared out of the window for the entire trip. Zoe and Fractals watched her scanning the road, all the while thumbing her phone on and off with a familiar cadence.

Click, click, click, click.

She didn't seem to realize she was even doing it - in fact, she seemed like she was in another world - but that made it even more unsettling.

"Widepetals, could you please stop that?" Fractals asked.

"Huh?" the girl blurted, looking like she'd just woken up. Then, "Oh, sorry," going red as she realized what she'd been doing. She put the phone inside of her pocket, then promptly went back to staring out the window.

I think you might have been right about the knife, Fractals grudgingly admitted. Widepetals doesn't think the child is awake, but... just look at her!

Ice Pillar gave them a strange look, but didn't say anything. He'd tried to start conversations at several points in the trip only to be met with stony silence; now he was sulking.

Then again, she might be telling the truth. How can we tell?

I wonder if this is what Sophia went through when she figured out I might still be here.

I doubt it. She didn't worry about it very much, remember? She thought I was lying, she thought that it was some plot against her.

Zoe recognized there was a certain soulless merit in that approach. But Widepetals was a (semi) innocent bystander, and Zoe was not a murderer. Besides, it was pretty much completely up to Fractals what they did.

And Fractals did not approve of the direction her thoughts were taking her.

What's wrong with you? We can't just kill her! Fractals cried indignantly.

I didn't plan on it, I was just thinking. Can't I think to myself?

You humans can rationalize anything! Its no wonder you almost destroyed yourselves.

If Fractals started going on about how evil humans could sometimes be, she would probably (politely) rant for half an hour. Zoe decided to try and nip it in the bud.

Calm down, Fractals. You're making my head hurt. Let's not get started on racial arguments, we'll just make ourselves more miserable.

It was time to change the subject.

What do you think she's looking for? Zoe asked as Widepetals scanned the side of the road for the thousandth time.

I don't know. Seekers, maybe? It might just be another leftover habit.

I hope that's all it is. God, she's creepy, Zoe commented with a mental shiver.

What do you want to do when we get home? Fractals asked Zoe. I want to go see Mom and-

They aren't your parents. Zoe interrupted, angrily.

They're the closest I have, and I love them, Fractals said protectively. Technically, they aren't your parents either.

Their bodies are! Zoe growled.

'No racial arguments', Fractals quoted back at her.

Zoe fumed for a few minutes.

We can't visit the family, I don't want to bring them into this if something happens, she grumbled, eventually. Even if they are strangers now.

I feel bad about not contacting them earlier, Fractals said.

We'll feel worse if Sophia surfaces and kills them, Zoe replied. Who knows what she'll do? Best to avoid them for now.

But what if Widepetals doesn't do anything? How long should I pretend not to know them?

Beats me. Not my decision, Zoe remarked glumly.

"Those cars are following us," Widepetals commented, pointing at a line of three gray SUV's several hundred yards behind them. "Ice, are there Seekers monitoring me?"

"Nobody's supposed to be following us that I know about..."

Widepetals swore and flipped her phone open. "No signal," she reported.

"Calm down, I'm certain there's an explanation," Fractals stated.

"Really. They've been behind us for almost a hundred miles. When we had to get gas, when we got back on to the highway, they were still there."

"They're probably just going to the same place as us," Ice Pillar said.

Widepetals unbuckled herself and turned around to stare at Fractals. "Do you really want to be kidnapped by humans again?" she asked flatly.

Fractals didn't respond immediately, and Ice Pillar cut in. "They must be fellow Seekers. Humans wouldn't be so brazen as to attack in broad daylight."

"If I were human, I would, if I thought I could cover it up. My host certainly did. Give me your pistol."

"Um, no. Sit down, there haven't been any violent attacks in this area since -"

"Since a few days ago?" Widepetals interrupted, looking back again to see the cars were getting closer. "Screw it, keep the pistol. Zoe, hand me Ice's M4, would you?"

Fractals stared at Widepetals. "No."

"I will not die because the two of you are too stupid to get worried about humans. Hand me the fucking rifle, or I swear if we live through this I'll - I'll - " she sputtered.

Zoe was ecstatic. There's some proof, she said.

Ice Pillar began speaking. "Don't be paranoid, Widepetals. Here, I'll pull over and let them -"

"No! There's nobody else on the road!" Widepetals cried, but Ice ignored her.

She watched in horror as a figure stuck a head out of a window behind them, and then all three cars sped up.

And passed them.

"See?" he said. "Stop jumping at shadows."

They arrived at Moon's apartment without conflict. However, they entered and found the building suspiciously empty – Widepetals thought the amount of dust covering every surface suggested Moon hadn't been there for a day or two.

After talking to his neighbors, all of them admitted they hadn't seen him for a similar amount of time. Where could he be? Widepetals wondered, having a sinking suspicion that Moon's host had been even harder to deal with than Sophia.

One of the neighbors suggested he might have gone to visit a potential girlfriend, a Soul named Blossoms Sunward that he'd been seeing a lot of recently. Ice Pillar got the name of the neighborhood she lived in, and they set off in search of her home. Zoe insisted upon coming, saying she wanted to see Widepetals safely with someone stable before she would leave.

Soon, they found the neighborhood, though it was strangely empty.

This might be my chance, Widepetals thought. If she could extract Moon and ditch Zoe and Ice Pillar, she'd quickly convince Alex she was Sophia. Then they could find the resistance.

Jane was following Alex around like a lost puppy. She seemed to be getting better – she no longer had that glazed look in her eyes and responded quickly when he talked to her, and she was starting to ask questions about future plans. She even remembered a little bit about Blossoms' life.

Alex prodded one of the comatose humans' sleeping forms, hoping more than just Keith would wake.

'What if none of them wake up, Alex?" Jane asked. "The Seekers will come here soon, wont they?"

Then we're fucked, he thought. "I guess if they don't wake up before the Seekers come we'll have to leave them behind. By that time the centipede already know it's us and it wont matter."

"Centipedes? What?"

"The Souls, Jane."

Understanding dawned on Jane's face. "That's not very nice," she said, frowning.

"They're not very nice," Alex said. "They'll kill both of us if they catch us; why are you worrying about hurting their feelings?"

"Uh..."

"By the way, do you think you're up to passing for Blossoms if they show up today or tomorrow? Widepetals should show up any time now, but until then we're stuck here."

Jane's eyes glazed over again.

"Jane?" Alex waved his hand in front of her face. Guess that's a no, he thought.

"All right, you need to learn to use this then," he said, pressing his pistol into her hand.

Jane shook her head in protest. "You want me to shoot the Seekers?" she said incredulously.

"Unless you shoot them in the head they'll probably live, what with Heal and all. It's just for a worst-case scenario." He tried to hand the pistol to her, but she backed away.

"I don't think I could if I wanted to, Alex," she said, shaking her head. "They're still people, you know? I don't want to hurt anyone. Don't we have Sleep?"

"I guess that will work too," he said thoughtfully. "How fast can you run?"

"I used to be on the track team at high school," she said. Then, "Hey, I remembered something!"

He couldn't help smiling at her happiness.

Soaring Leaf would have cursed, had he been human. Moonlight hadnt been seen by anyone for almost two days and nobody had noticed a thing. There was potentially another psychotic human on the loose with a long, long head start. With two days to get away, he could be anywhere by now.

He got up and went to go talk to the neighbors, to see if they knew when Moon had gone missing.

Alex turned the corner and was suddenly staring down the barrel of an old, old revolver, held by his sister's body.

"Nice to meet you, Moon," the thing wearing her body sneered.

Alex swore. "And the same to you, Widepetals." He'd been caught by the bug in his own sister's body. It didn't get any more humiliating than that. "How did you get in so quietly?" There wasn't much else to say, this was it, unless Jane showed up miraculously.

"This house has a lot of ground-floor windows. You missed one," it said.

"It's about that time, huh?"

"Yep. Still or sleep?" it asked.

"Aren't the Healers supposed to do this?"

The bug paused, then pulled out a flashlight and shined it into his face. He didn't know why it was checking his eyes – it already knew he wasn't Moon.

But then an odd grin spread across its face, and it lowered the gun. "Alex? How'd you lose Moon?"

He wondered why it even bothered trying to trick him. There was nothing it couldn't learn from him this way that it wouldn't also learn by performing an implantation. "I'm not stupid, Widepetals. You're not my sister."

"Relax, Alex, I'm still me. I'm still Sophia. I've got Widepetals pretty well mindfucked – it'll think almost anything I want it to at this point."

"Why should I believe a word you say?"

"Got any Seekers that need killing?"

"What?"

"Do you have any Seekers or other bugs that you want dead? I'll kill them. That'll prove I'm me, right? Bugs don't sacrifice their own."

Widepetals – or perhaps Sophia - thought for a second. "I guess you'll have to trust me. If I was a bug, I would have called the Seekers by now. Do you even see any cryotanks around here? I'll trust you to believe me." It spun open the cylinder of it's gun and unloaded the weapon. "Don't take Widepetals out – it's the best cover ever."

"What's the plan then, if you're not one of them? We cant stay here, there'll be Seekers coming pretty soon."

"Haven't thought that far ahead yet. We'll get a car, and see if we can link up with the resistance. Widepetals' friend mentioned that the Seekers are finding signs of humans. They're not sure what it means, but it's pretty obvious to me there's some kind of organized group of people out there. Speaking of him, I need you to come outside to smile and wave at them. Him and the hostage I took earlier were afraid that just this would happen, but if they see you they'll probably go away."

She was right. Ice Pillar and Fractals came inside, talked to him briefly, and satisfied he wasn't a human, left. They didn't bother to check his eyes.

Alex was worried. Only two of the rescued humans had woken up, and he was confused. The man, an unmemorably featured person, remembered his name was Keith, to Jane's mild jealousy.

Other than that, nothing. Any doubts he'd had about his sister's control over her Soul were assuaged by her alarming eagerness to kill all of them, human and Soul, and dump the bodies somewhere.

This attitude did raise other alarm bells, though. "When did you get so bloodthirsty?" he asked, after she first suggested the idea.

"The day I thought I'd become the only human on the planet," she replied earnestly. "Seriously, I think we've got an honest shot at taking back Earth, or at least sending a strong message to the bugs. But if we get bogged down by morals that don't apply to the situation -"

"Don't apply? You're talking about cold-blooded murder!"

"The humans are already dead, Alex. They just haven't stopped breathing yet, they're never going to wake up. And who gives a flying fuck about killing a few bugs? It's only murder if it's a person that dies."

"They are people. Both of us have had one in our heads – you still do! How can you say they aren't people, Sophie?"

"I look into Widepetals' memories, and all I see is a reflection of all the hosts its ever had. It doesn't have an independent personality. When it's in my head, it thinks blowing shit up is a great idea. In someone else's? Who knows?"

"We're not murderers. Whats the point of winning the war if we become monsters in the process?"

"I dunno... Maybe winning the fucking war? Surviving as a species? Vengeance?"

"We're not murderers, Sophia. We're better than the bugs, that way."

"We are?"

"We're not murdering them. End of story, Sophia."

"Okay, okay," she said exasperatedly, throwing up her hands. "You win."

As he left the room, he heard her muttering to herself. "Idiot."

"I don't think I like your sister very much," Jane whispered to Alex after he gave up trying to reason with Sophia. It was obvious she'd heard much of the shouting match.

"She's just been through a lot of shocks. She'll come around. Imagine the state you'd have been in if I wasn't there when you woke up."

"She's creepy," Jane persisted. "How can she say things like that?"

"She'll calm down after a while, I promise. Have you remembered anything else, Jane?"

"I think I used to work at the supermarket, for a while, anyways."

"That's good," he said, smiling. "Anything else?"

"I don't trust your sister," Jane repeated softly.

Things were not going well for the resistance. After nearly six years of no other human activity, there was suddenly a flurry of violence.

Violence meant the Seekers were somewhat alert again. Violence meant reconnaisance copter patrols. Violence meant lost raiding parties - three whole groups this month, along with two people lost individually in the past few days.

Violence meant they had to move up the schedule. They'd been planning on waiting another couple of weeks to finish a few special projects, but the fuel-air bombs, Ricin and Sarin they currently had would have to do, and there was probably more things some of the more creative cells had made but not told anyone about. Any more waiting might jepoardize everything.

The leader of the resistance switched on his radio. "Three days and we're a-go, everybody. If we wait any longer, somebody's going to get taken alive. Finish any projects you have before then."

A/N

If anyone's still reading, please review!

Chapter 20: Conscripted Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

A/N

Do not make silencers unless you enjoy getting pwnt by the ATF or your country's equivalent agency. This should go without saying, but I believe one should never underestimate the stupidity of people on the internet.

I feel bad for Jane, Keith and Alex in this story. They don't deserve the things I do to them.

Mixed Feelings

Conscripted

"Omelettes are not made without breaking eggs."

• Attributed to Robespierre

"I think that's everything other than the sleeping people," Jane told Alex as they loaded Blossom's tiny econo-car with supplies. "Where are we going?"

"Far, far away," he replied. "We can't stay here any longer, Jane. The Seekers have got to catch on sooner or later. Do you think you're up to driving around?"

Jane tried to fight through the fuzz in her memories to see if she still could. Alex watched in amusement as her face scrunched up in the effort.

"I don't think that would be a good idea," she said eventually.

Alex suppressed the desire to swear in front of Jane. "It's probably for the best, then. We need to get another car to move the people we rescued in, and I don't think leaving Keith and the rest of them with Sophia would be a good idea."

Jane didn't want to get left behind, but Alex's sister had made her stance on the unconscious humans clear. She was afraid of what the girl would do to the unconscious people left to her own devices, after overhearing her arguing to murder all of them.

"Be quick, okay Alex?"

The Repo Men, as they referred to themselves, were part of a larger network of resistance cells, and knew that they were pretty far down the chain, as things went. Blackbird, their leader, had been recruited a full two years into the invasion, back when removing a Soul almost always resulted in a full mental recovery. He'd saved the rest of them from host-hood.

Originally, most of the work they'd done was recruitment - capturing unsuspecting Souls wandering far from civilization and rescuing their hosts, then making sure they left absolutely no evidence of their passing. As the years had passed, it had become harder and harder to get people to remember who they were, and in the past two, almost nobody even woke up after removing their parasites. As a result, they'd turned to other tasks - mostly watching the Seekers' patterns of movement and relaying it to other cells when they had the chance.

Communication inside the resistance was patchy, at best, in order to make it difficult for the Seekers to infiltrate them if they ever captured a member alive. Nobody ever used their real names (half of them couldn't remember them, and others didn't want to be identified easily), and Blackbird suspected many of the other cells changed their monikers on a nearly weekly basis to confuse infiltrators. Despite this, the Repo Men knew that the larger resistance had been planning for a day when they would make a stand for a very long time. Ocasionally, they would recieve a radio transmission from the top leaders of the resistance - usually only once a year. The transmission they had recieved the day before indicated the time was near.

Their task was to find and neutralize the Conrad siblings, either by killing them or by extracting their Souls. According to a packet of surveillance information they'd been passed by another cell, they were acting erratically, possibly due to the influence of her host, but nothing had been confirmed. The report emphasized, however, that both of the siblings were likely to be very slippery to catch due to their host's pasts.

"How high up the chain do you think these reports came from?" Greasefire asked the cell leader. "It doesn't seem like it fits in with what's going on. What's the big deal about these two kids, anyways?"

"You know what I do," Blackbird responded. "I'm certain there's a reason."

"I swear I've seen the brother before," Oakwheel commented. "I can't remember where, for the life of me, though." He frowned.

"Hey, yeah, he does look kind of familiar," Bookend said. "Wasn't he that kid that we saw get caught on TV when we were raiding for food a few weeks ago?"

So after we get a Comforter to examine Widepetals, what then? Zoe asked Widepetals.

I'm going to go home and get a Comforter of my own, Fractals responded.

Are you going to talk about me to them? Zoe asked nervously.

Of course I am, Widepetals said. You're part of the problem.

What have I done?! Zoe asked. I've been trying to help keep you alive whenever I can!

You make me feel like I don't fit in, Fractals said. Everytime I talk to someone, you always make me feel like they're a murderer. That I'm a murderer.

Well, you all kinda are, Zoe responded aggressively. Not on purpose, but... Seriously, how is erasing someone's mind okay with you people? And then to justify it by saying you made the world a better place by wiping us out?! It doesn't make sense to me.

We do feel regret over the loss of awarenesses, but you were inevitably going to wipe yourselves out, Fractals said. Such a pretty planet, endangered by your reckless actions, she sighed. And we don't kill anyone. We... guide, and try to keep things as much like they were as possible.

I can sort of see where you're coming from there, Zoe admitted grudgingly, But what about all the other species? The Vultures? The Flowers? The Dolphins? The Spiders? Hell, the the See Weeds couldn't even move, much less fuck up their planet! Did you think all of them were going to nuke each other as well? And what about those unfit to be hosts? The ones you 'discarded'. I think they'd argue that you all kill plenty of people. Did discarding them make the world a better place for them, too?

The Spiders did not protest when we came, Fractals defended herself. And the Vultures were invading.

Fair enough. But what about the others? The See Weeds and the Bats and the Bears and the Dolphins?

The Dolphins and the Bears barely had basic medicine. They commonly died from simple afflictions.

So you killed all of them to stop that?

They're not dead, Zoe.

They might as well be! You erased their minds so that they wouldn't die of primitive causes? There's a saying we humans have for actions like that, "We had to destroy the village to save it."

You would, wouldn't you, Fractals commented dryly.

What's that supposed to mean? Zoe grouched.

Maybe I should just go visit Mom and Dad for a while.

Please don't go back to them, Zoe asked. I don't think I could take it.

So what should I do that you approve of? Fractals asked, finally showing some sign of her growing irritation. I can't see a comforter, I can't visit my family -

MY family, Zoe cut in.

• and I can't switch hosts without being a murderer. What do you want from me?

Well, I figure you should try and get your car back from where Sophia left it first.

Fractals had hoped the trip to retrieve her car from where it had been abandoned would be uneventful, but there was no such luck. Getting the car back was relatively easy - it had only been left a few hours away and just took a bus to get there. Coming back, though, was another story. Stopping off to refill her car with gas late at night, she'd come across an interesting scene - two obviously human children emptying the shelves of the station's attached mini-mart. The older one (probably female, though it was hard to tell at a distance) was running through and picking out everything that looked to have a long shelf life. She then threw it into one of two backpacks that the other child was carrying.

Fractals could see the janitor, who looked like he'd been in the process of closing up when they came in, dialing a number on a cellphone while crouching in a different aisle. The Seekers would come soon, and the children would probably be none the wiser.

Help them! her host demanded insistently.

Zoe, how can I? They wont trust me. Why should I, anyway?

They're obviously not hurting anyone, Fractals. They're just trying to live. Go in and talk to the janitor. Tell him they're your siblings and you didnt want them implanted at the beginning.

Fractals could see Zoe's argument. The children werent causing any damage - they were only trying to survive. There was no point in calling the Seekers. And honestly, after dealing with Zoe she was beginning to feel that some of the humans did not deserve the fate her people had condemned them to, the Conrads notwithstanding.

The girl's too old for him to believe that she wasn't implanted, Fractals said to Zoe.

Say she has seizures. The healers dont implant people with dangerous incurable conditions, right?

We can cure epilepsy, Zoe. And I don't think I can lie that well.

I'll help you, and he won't know that. And why would he suspect you of treachery? You're a Soul, arent you?

Fractals entered the mini-mart, and tapped the janitor on the shoulder. "Have you seen my brother and sister? I stopped to fill up the tank, and when I turned around they were gone."

He nearly jumped out of his skin before he realized she was a Soul. Then he pulled her to the ground and whispered to her furiously. "Ssshh! There are humans here, run!"

Fractals thought it pretty sad that a grown man was terrified of two half-grown adolescents, but contained any comments she might make. It was obvious he hadnt been listening to her, she began to make up a story with Zoe's help.

"Those are my siblings. Sarah's epileptic, she's unsuitable as a host. And Daniel was only three when we colonized, and we decided not to implant him. They're perfectly well socialized, I promise - don't worry about them." The janitor seemed to calm down, so she stood. "Daniel, Sarah! I told you to stay in the car. You nearly gave the poor janitor a heart attack! What were you thinking? You know that people think you're feral when you run off like that - he almost called the Seekers on you!"

The children froze. Fractals crossed the aisles to stand next to them. "Do you really want that much food? I know it's been a long trip, but we're almost home. We can get something to eat when we get back. Now apologize to the nice janitor and lets go."

After a moment of panicked glances, the older girl decided to play along. "We're sorry, Angeline, but we were really hungry." She waved to the janitor. "We're sorry if we scared you, sir. Sometimes we forget that people get nervous around us."

Fractals tugged the younger boy into motion as the girl sashayed out of the station. "Have a good evening, sir," she said, waving goodbye to the janitor.

Widepetals realized her host was massively compromising her judgement. She stopped denying it around the time she started advocating killing the Souls in stasis along with the unconscious human shells. Though she tried to tell herself it was just to establish to Alex that she really was Sophia, she'd realized it really was the most sensible course of action - the Souls might give away something useful to the Seekers, and the humans would soon die of dehydration if they didn't wake up.

It would have been horrifying for her to look at sentients that way in her previous host. But now, her earlier viewpoint seemed foolish. She thought of the potential for a human empire that enslaved everything that stood before it, and her resolve to do the right thing strengthened.

It was frightening, how hard it was to recognize she was compromised. But there wasnt a damned thing she could do about it, as she had to infiltrate the human resistance and could not do it without someone to vouch for her. Alex no longer had any doubts that she was who she claimed after her performance.

Widepetals worried he would try to extract her anyway, just in case she was acting, but he'd made no noises in that thread of thought. But then again, he wouldn't tell her if he suspected her, would he?

She'd keep playing Sophia, and hope he didn't catch on. It was frighteningly easy to do.

She started as Alex came through the back door. "Sophie, we've gotta find a van or something to move these people in. Jane can't drive, and you scared the bejeezus out of Keith, so you're coming along, okay?"

What would Sophia say in her place?

"I saw like thirty cars parked in this neighborhood. None of the bugs lock their doors or anything - why dont we steal one of those?" she asked. "It would be easier and faster."

"Come on, Sophia! We can't go running around the division - if someone calls the Seekers, they'll be all over us!"

"All Souls are completely trustworthy and free of deceit," she sang. "I'll just go take one. Keep trying to wake up the sponges while I'm gone, okay? And convince Keith that I'm not going to murder him while you're at it."

"Sophie, it'll take at least twenty minutes to load the car. If we take it from someone who can see the car in the driveway, they'll call the Seekers. And if they see you taking the car, they're not going to come up and talk to you - they'll assume you're the wild human you are."

"How do you think Jane and Keith will fare by themselves if the Seekers come?" Widepetals asked.

Alex looked pained. "Not much better than we would in their place. The faster this gets done the faster we can get out of here - that's why I'm bringing you."

"All right, all right. Let's do it your way."

Blackbird knew that his cell was pretty low on the totem pole as far as the resistance went. However, that didn't mean that their mission was unimportant, just not critical for the rebellion's goals to succeed.

"Everybody ready?" Blackbird asked.

Everyone responded with positive answers, and the Repo Men double-checked to make sure that their cans of Still and Sleep were easily accessible. Then they moved towards Blossom's house. On the other side of the building, Alex and Widepetals pulled out of the driveway just as they approached.

"Are they gone?" Keith nervously whispered to Jane as Alex and Sophia drove away.

"You don't have to be afraid of them," Jane told him. "Alex won't let anybody hurt us."

"Why do they have guns?" he asked her, still whispering. "Peaceful people don't carry guns and knives with them everywhere they go."

"They've got guns to scare away random Souls. I think both of them only have a couple of bullets."

"The girl, the Soul - why doesnt he do anything about her? I don't understand..."

"That's his sister," Jane said. "She's really mean - the Soul inside of her went crazy, I think. She wont hurt us either, unless we call the Seekers," I hope, anyway, she thought to herself.

"But... wild humans," he mumbled. "Shouldn't we do something?"

"Don't be silly, we're wild humans now too!" she said as cheerfully as she could. "Come on, lets go talk to the people who havent woken up yet." She remembered how frightening it had been to reawaken even with Alex there, with fresh memories of Blossom's and Moon's deaths. "I think it would be better if someone's around them."

Blackbird sprinted across the open ground to the house, then waved the rest of his team over. Looking in the window, he saw the brother and sister talking to each other, though the girlfriend was nowhere to be seen.

"All right, on three," he ordered. "As soon as we neutralize those two, search the rest of the house. The girlfriend's in there somewhere."

'Silencer' is a misleading term. The word 'suppressor' is more accurate - most 'silenced' guns are not truly silent, just not deafeningly loud indoors. This is especially true with homemade silencers, which usually do not trap escaping gases as well as professionally manufactured ones.

The rebel's suppressors were more or less soup cans with internal baffles, mounted onto the end of their pistols. They were crudely made and only good for five or six shots, but that was more than the team needed. The sound the guns produced was not quiet by any definition of the term, but was not loud enough to be heard outside of the house, and that was all that the team needed.

Blackbird saw one of his team members drop both of the standing people with one shot to the chest each. Less than a minute later they realized that they had the wrong people - they had no idea who the male was, and both the brother and sister were missing.

"I don't understand how we missed them leaving," Greasefire told Blackbird.

"It doesn't matter that much, we'll get them later. Roswell, Oakwheel, you're taking everyone we find here back to base while the rest of us wait for the brother and sister to get back. We'll catch them then."

Oakwheel secured the two people bleeding on the ground and then began removing the bullets from them. He was not a trained medical professional by any sense of the word, but Heal was so forgiving that it did not matter. Within another five minutes both Jane and Keith were fine again with only small scars to show for their encounter. Soon they had found the sleeping humans, and began moving all of them out to their vehicles.

Alex wondered about his sister's state of mind as she pulled searched a car's glove compartment for keys. She'd shown beyond a doubt that she was no bug - they just didn't get bloodthirsty the way she'd become since his capture. But she wasn't acting like the Sophia he knew, either - she'd always hated the bugs, but she'd become consumed with a desire for revenge, almost a caricature of herself. He'd seen it from afar on the news, but it hadn't really hit home that she'd gleefully made herself a mass murderer until he saw her in person. Seeing him 'die' must have really done a number on her already-fragile psyche.

He thought she'd snap back to herself after they were reunited, but if anything, she'd become worse. She needed therapy. Honestly, he probably did as well, but all of the therapists were Souls nowadays.

As always, the two of them would have to make due. He wasn't in any way shape or form qualified to fix his sister's problems, but he'd have to try.

"Sophia, I'm worried about the way you've been acting lately," Alex said out of the blue as they were searching another car.

Widepetals tensed, worrying he was on to her. "How so?" she asked warily as she looked under the visor.

"You've been acting differently ever since I got captured," he said to her as he looked in the glove compartment. "You're becoming..."

"I think the word you're looking for here is 'pragmatic'," she said, in a suitably dangerous tone.

"No, I was thinking something more like 'cruel' or 'reckless'."

"I survived, didn't I?" Widepetals asked rhetorically.

"You got captured," he said. "You abandoned all pretenses of stealth. If you couldn't control Widepetals like you can I would have to be rescuing you right now."

"Alex, I thought I was literally the last free human in the universe," Widepetals said. "It didn't matter if I was sneaky or not, humanity was done for, and the Seekers were on my trail. What should I have done, rolled over and died? I don't think I could have lived with myself if I hadn't fought."

"You didn't have to do it the way that you did!" Alex cried. "It's not worth trading your humanity for a shot at revenge!"

If only he knew, she thought to herself, snickering. "You don't understand, do you."

"Sophie, this isn't a joke!" he shouted.

"Alex, I don't think you get it," she said calmly. "We can win the war, if we do this right. Sacrifices will have to be made."

"It's not worth your soul," he said. "Do you seriously think the four of us can retake the planet? Make them just pack up and leave?"

Again, she had to fight not to snicker at his phrasing. "Obviously, you haven't been paying attention to them. Alex, they've never fought a war before. They didn't even have a word for it before they came here. I would gladly sell my soul to the devil himself to see them go down."

"Don't you feel bad about some of the things you did?" he asked desperately.

Widepetals cocked her head. This was easy, as Sophia had asked herself similar questions. "Sure. The bug I took hostage - its host woke up halfway through when I was pumping it for info. She's definitely gotta hate me now. And there was a human kid I fucked over right before they got me. I try not to think about it too much."

"What about the hosts of all the Souls you killed? What about the Souls in the cryotanks that you blew up?"

Widepetals rolled her eyes. "The hosts were already gone, Alex. They didn't feel a thing. And are you seriously asking whether I feel bad about torching the bugs?"

"I'm not dead, Sophie. You don't have to avenge me." Alex said, sounding desperate.

"This isn't about you," Widepetals said trying to let a fanatical gleam into her eyes. "This is about making a safer world for our descendants. One where children don't have to worry about their parents taking them away for a 'doctor's visit' and coming back as an alien. One where we don't have to hide on the outskirts of our own civilization just to survive. One where somebody else's children can curse our evil, wicked ways a hundred years from now. But today, we have to win, or else they won't be able to, no matter the cost."

"You can't save the world," he said.

Sure I can, Widepetals thought. Just not your world.

"We'll see," she said aloud, sighing. "Honestly, though, I think it would be a kindness to the people you 'rescued' to just shoot them now. They're going to die of thirst if we don't put the Souls back in, and there's no way to do that without revealing ourselves. You do know that they scramble their host's brains if they feel too threatened, right? If those people don't wake up soon, they'll die anyways, and there's not anything we can do to change that."

Alex went white.

"Don't tell me you didn't think of that," she said, pulling the keys from the front seat's back pocket.

"Why are you helping us?" the boy asked Fractals as they drove away from the gas station. "I thought all of you wanted to catch the last of us."

"I've seen how you have to live," Fractals replied. "We took everything from you. I feel kind of guilty about it."

"Why you? Are you the only one that feels that way?" the boy asked her.

"You'd have to ask the other Souls," Fractals said.

"Where are you taking us?" the girl asked.

Fractals opened her mouth to speak. Feed them, Zoe said. Look at them, they look like they're half starved.

It was true, they did.

"I'm going to a motel room. I've got food there, if you want any," she said. "As long as I vouch for you, nobody will get suspicious."

The two humans started whispering to each other at length. After nearly a minute, Fractals realized they were discussing whether to run away.

"Kids, if I wanted to get you I would have just let the Seekers come. Come on, what are your names?"

The boy opened his mouth to answer her, but the girl elbowed him. "Sarah and Daniel will work," the girl told her.

"Still don't trust me, huh?" Fractals asked, mildly stung.

What did you expect? Zoe commented in her head. They've been running from your kind for years. It'll take more than ten minutes of kindness to fix that kind of paranoia.

"I guess I can't blame you. But my name is Examines Fractals."

Widepetals had never heard anyone swear like Alex did upon returning to find the house ransacked and blood on the floor, not even in her old host's memories of the human military.

"We've got to find them," Alex cried. "We've got to move, now!"

"Alex, calm down and let's think." Widepetals said.

"YOU calm down! I just rescued Jane and Keith!" he shouted.

"The Seekers won't implant them immediately. They always take the injured hosts to a Healing facility before implantation, and by the blood on the floor it looks like there was a fight." She breifly thought of pointing out that losing Jane and Keith would be no great loss, but decided against it.

"Let's go, then! We've got to catch them before it's too late!"

He's not useful like this, Widepetals thought to herself.

"Hold on, let me fix something first," she said, opening her suitcase and looking through the various cans of Soul drugs.

"What's in there that's so important? Let's go!" Alex said, practically hopping.

Widepetals uncapped a canister of Soul medicine and sprayed it into his face.

"Here we are," Fractals said. "Let me do the talking." You're going to have to help me again here, Zoe.

Sarah whispered something to Daniel. Widepetals overheard 'Seekers' and 'run for it' in the phrase.

"Please trust me," Fractals said to them. "Honestly, I want to help you."

Soon, Fractals found herself sneaking humans into a Soul building once more. It was much easier to lie convincingly now that she wasn't under the stress of a human threatening to kill her - Zoe barely had to help her at all.

She worried about how easy deception was becoming. Fractals, you know that any human would have seen through you immediately, right? Zoe asked her in response to the discomfort.

She kept worrying until they got to the room and Sarah commented on it too. "I thought he wasn't going to buy it," she said. "Seriously, take a class on acting or something."

"It's... hard, for me to lie," Fractals said. "I'm not used to it."

Alex reached for his pistol, then stopped as the drug hit his system. "What was that?" he asked.

"Calm," Sophia said. "Now let's sit down and plan this before you run off and get yourself captured again."

Alex swallowed, then sat down. He knew he should be livid, but the Calm wouldn't let him. It was an odd sensation. "Okay, let's figure out which center is closest. That's where they'd be taken. Let me see your laptop."

He googled the local Healing facilities, and picked out the one that Jane and the rest would be moved to for implantation.

"Are you up to passing for Widepetals for a while?" he asked Sophia after he found the place.

She gave him an odd look. "Yeah, I think so," she said. "What's your idea?"

"Well, I figure if you can -"

Suddenly both of them stopped, hearing footsteps in the hallway. They turned their heads towards the door and drew weapons.

Two strangers had an MP5 and a UMP pointed at them. "Drop 'em," someone else ordered from another doorway.

Both complied.

"The invisible resistance, I would assume?" Widepetals said, seeing no silver in their eyes. "We could use your help."

The one with the MP5 responded with a round to her chest.

"Quiet, bug," he said. "And you, how can you let that thing stay in your sister?"

Alex dropped to the ground, checking to make sure the wound wasn't fatal.

"She's got it under control," Alex said, kneeling between the man and his sister.

Sophia coughed. "I'm really glad... that I take No Pain every hour," she said. "Was that necessary? I can prove... I'm not going to call the Seekers," she said.

"Unless I see you eat another bug, I'm not going to believe a thing," MP5 told her.

"I'd be... happy to. Alex... go dig up one of the Souls... from the backyard for me, will you? And... do you have any heal? This is kind of... inconvenient."

"My... host. She talks to me, sometimes. All of the time. That's part of why I'm helping you," Fractals told the children.

They gaped at her unprompted admission. "What's her name? How'd she wake up?" Sarah asked, wide-eyed.

"Zoe," Fractals told them. She explained her ordeal to them, explaining everything she could.

"That girl sounds kind of crazy," Daniel told her at the end of the story. "Do you think she's really awake now?"

"I really, really hope not," Fractals told them. "But I couldn't tell. I'm afraid that she might be, so I'm going to have a Comforter examine her."

"What's a Comforter?" Sarah asked.

"Here we go," Roswell said, holding a can labeled 'Awaken - now with CS flavoring' in a style reminiscent of the Soul drugs. "Oakwheel, you ready?"

Oakwheel pulled the charging handle of his M16 and pointed it at the unconscious rescuees gagged and bound with zip strips. "Always got your back, Roswell."

Roswell made sure the wind was blowing away from her, then popped the canister.

Jane woke up to the sensation of being burned alive. She tried to scream but she'd been gagged, so all she could do was moan in terror.

"There's one," Roswell said through the cloud as Keith began moaning as well.

"I always feel bad about doing this. It seems wrong to wake them up this way," Oakwheel said.

"Birth is always painful," Roswell told him. "Also, they'd all die if we didn't do this." She took a deep breath, then closed her eyes and pulled Jane and Keith out of the cloud.

"I just feel like an utter dick, doing it this way," he said.

"Well you are an utter dick, so don't worry about it," she told him, eyes tearing.

"Roswell, I swear if you weren't so cute I would do horrible things to you," he mock-threatened.

Soon, two more of the former hosts were making it known they were awake and unhappy. Roswell pulled them out of the cloud as well.

"I really hate doing this to them too," she admitted, coughing. "It's bad enough waking up in the first place, but to wake up in a cloud of teargas?"

"It's gotta be done," he sighed. "I cant blame people for being pissed off when they wake up, though. We all went through the same thing, even Blackbird."

"Yeah, I remember when we woke you up. You tried to bite Cancerman when you were a sponge." she told him.

"I can't stand cigar smoke, okay? And what about you? Blackbird says you tried to kill yourself." He crossed his eyes in imitation of a suiciding Soul.

"I thought I was a bug, how many times do I have to explain it? I still can't remember much from before the invasion. And you never did stop acting like a sponge," she told him.

"According to the Wrecking Crew, you never did either," he told her.

"They think we're all idiot sponges," she responded. "Even Blackbird." Pretty much all the other cells they'd had contact with had expressed similar sentiments - putting the Souls of the rescued into cryotanks instead of outright killing them cemented that opinion.

A minute passed as they watched the teargas run dry. "Only two?" Oakwheel asked with deep resignation.

"We'll try again in an hour," Roswell said, walking up to Jane, Keith and the two others.

"Allright, sponges. There's been an alien invasion, and you've been body-snatched for the past several years. We just rescued you. Because of how long it's been you might not remember anything, but some of it will come back over the next few weeks, I promise. Dont worry about the pain, it will go away pretty quickly. I regret having to wake you that way, but you were all comatose. Welcome to the Repo Men, by the way."

Jane whimpered.

A/N This chapter took forever to write. Coming up with a believable structure for the resistance that still allowed for anything resembling protagonists took some serious thought - the Repo Men are just about at the very bottom of the resistance's hazy chain of organization, and have no realistic idea of what's about to happen. }:)

Chapter 21: Prelude Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Prelude

Widepetals looked down at the cryotank in her hands, acutely aware of the submachine guns trained on her. Moment of truth, she thought, feeling ill. She deftly popped the lid on the cryotank and dumped its occupant into her lap. The Soul unfurled its feelers, and she picked it up.

Part of her saw it as her sibling, a beautiful representation of her people. She fought the urge to run her hand across it, to curl her arms protectively around her sibling and remove it from these humans who would do it harm.

Widepetals closed her eyes, trying to gather the mental will to do what was needed.

Part of her saw it as a representation of everything wrong with her people, their potentially fatal naivety. If anyone involved in Alex's capture had possessed one whit of common sense, he'd have been discarded immediately after they'd finished questioning Moon about her current host, and this poor Soul would not be about to die.

Another, tiny part of her leftover from her host's most deeply-held beliefs, saw it as a pest, a sub-human creature less worthy of life than common insects. She saw a murderous, hypocritical invader that deserved nothing better than a painful, gruesome death. Her hands longed to tear it apart.

She surrendered to her host's subconscious mind, closing her eyes.

"That's enough," one of the rebels said after a few minutes. "I believe you." She opened her eyes, looked down and blanched.

Her hands were sticky with her tiny sibling's blood, and its severed attachments littered her lap. Her entire front was covered with silver.

The world spun, and she felt as though she'd been kicked in the chest. She fought for breath as she processed what she'd just done.

A wave of discordant amusement washed through her, and suddenly she was laughing and fighting not to cry at the same time. Her hands rose almost of their own accord, and wrapped around another one of the Souls attachments, then tore it out at the root.

"You said you needed our help?" Blackbird asked Alex as Widepetals fought not to lose her bearing.

"My friend, Jane. The Seekers took her, and we've got to get her back. Her and a couple of others."

"The sponge? Black hair? Medium height?"

"Sponge?" Alex asked sharply.

"She's still retarded from the de-implantation, right?" one of the other rebels asked rhetorically. "They're like sponges."

"She's a little out of it after I took out Blossoms Sunward, but she's coming around," Alex said angrily. "But yeah, that's her."

"We've got her, and all the others that were in this house."

"Have you hurt her?"

"She's fine," Blackbird said. At Alex's questioning look, he added "We'll be meeting up with the rest in a few hours, soon as we pack up and move out."

Widepetals fought not to shake once she was away from the humans. Looking down at the front of her silver-stained body, she prayed she'd never have to do something like that again. Knowing she'd have to do something like this was one thing; actually carrying out the action with her bare hands against a defenseless sibling was another.

One of the dismembered attachments of the Soul she'd murdered twitched, and she couldn't suppress a shudder any longer. She knew she'd be haunted by this day for a very, very long time. Her only condolence was that in the end, after her people woke up to the danger they posed, the rebels who had made her do this would all be discarded when her people cleared the planet of humans.

The worst thing about it was that part of her, feeling emotions leaking from Sophia's subconscious mind, had actually enjoyed the act. It had helped fool the rebels, but left her feeling filthy. Used.

She wanted a shower to wash herself clean of her sibling's blood. Desperately. But that wouldn't remove the stain on her psyche from what she'd done in the name of necessity.

Someone was talking to her. "Sophia, right?" Blackbird asked. "We've got to get moving. The Seekers are slow, but they're going to show up at some point in time. Get that blood off of your hands and change your shirt - you look like something out of a horror flick. Sorry about shooting you, but I'm sure you understand."

Widepetals plastered on her best borrowed fanatical grin, and tossed aside the handful of severed attachments she'd been pulling apart.

"Gotcha, chief. No hard feelings here." Being sure to step on the carapace she'd peeled open, she headed out to see if any of Jane's clothing would fit.

Unknown to Widepetals, Ice Pillar had bugged her stuff. He'd gone through her things after seeing dirt on her shoes when he came back from the store, and found a plethora of weapons that a Soul would have no desire to have.

There was only one conclusion - Widepetals was being controlled by her host, like everyone had said she would be. He'd wanted to extract her immediately and discard the host, but higher-ups had wanted to follow her and see what she did.

It was not a nice picture. The device's audio stream was very poor, though its GPS signal was coming in fine. From what he'd heard so far, the brother was trying to organize some kind of larger resistance movement, and had kidnapped several people.

He'd heard them arguing about Blossom's Sunward's host, then a gunshot. The audio quality dropped to the point that he couldnt distinguish the conversation from static.

He'd already asked for a team to go rescue Widepetals. At the gunshot, he made up his mind, knowing she was likely already dead. He owed it to her to save her.

After showing up at Blossoms Sunward's house, he'd found the door open and nobody home. A cursory check of the first several rooms found a .357 round along with an expended 9mm that had bounced behind a door - almost a guarantee the rebels were armed. He couldn't think of any reason for a Soul to have such an artifact.

Then he entered the living room, and his stomach siezed - the floor was coated with red and silver blood, and a Soul's body was strewn across the room, having been torn apart piece by piece. He forced himself to look through the rest of the house, and found one of Widepetals' shirts - covered in red blood, silver blood, with a bullethole through it.

After a moment of panic, he realized she was alive - she had to be. Her host was too stubborn to die from a simple gunshot wound, the dismembered Soul was too big to be Widepetals, and there was no human corpse. That meant she was still inside of Sophia, still being controlled by her host.

He'd have to subdue the humans by himself, make sure not to injure Widepetals in the process, and find her a new host. Then he'd have to ensure that she actually went to a comforter - she'd always had low opinions of those who needed to visit the professionals, but now she'd have no choice. He'd drag her by force, if necessary.

And if she wasn't alive, he still had to track down her killers.

He checked their location once again, and headed back to his Humvee.

Alex, Sophia, and the Repo men were on the move to meet the recently de-implanted humans and their watchers. Alex was quickly growing to dislike the rebels, but there wasn't much he could do as long as his sister was hellbent upon joining them, and they had Jane in their care.

Sophia, on the other hand, was ecstatic - the rebels had equipped both of them with rifles. Alex had taken the opportunity to replace the bolt-action relic he'd been carrying with an FAL, and Sophia had jumped at an Uzi.

He was suspicious of the Repo Men - every time he asked whether Jane had been hurt in the capture, they got quiet. Sophia didn't seem to care. He supposed she might after the novelty of meeting other humans wore off, but right now she was all but ignoring him.

The trip took nearly an hour in the Repo Men's van, and he overheard snippets of conversation on the way. They were counting down towards something that was going to happen in the next few days, but he wasnt sure what and didn't care to ask.

Sophia was chatting it up with Greasefire, talking about the best way to break into buildings with a particular type of lock. He wondered whether it was good for her - she needed socialization, but the Repo Men... they were just going to encourage her destructive tendencies.

When they arrived at the meeting point - an abandoned house in the woods miles from anyone's property - Jane ran to him and practically tackled him with a tearful hug.

"Alex! They want me to fight for them!" she cried. "I dont want to fight! And they shot me!"

"Jane, you're not going to have to fight anyone," he assured her, glaring at Blackbird. "And why the hell did you shoot her?"

Blackbird shrugged. Oakwheel, however, took offense.

"Look around you, kid. Do you see the world we live in? We thought she was a Soul, and at some point, she's going to have to realize the world is out to get her. The sooner she learns to fight, the better off she'll be."

"Let's go, Jane. They're crazy." Alex started off into the woods with Jane. "Come on, Sophie."

Sophia glanced at Blackbird, and ran to her brother. "Give them a chance, they're all we've got," she cajoled.

"They shot Jane, Sophia - do you want to stick around people like that? If there are other groups, how long do you think you'll make it with a Soul in your head?"

"It's better than taking our chances by ourselves. They might be able to help us find our parents, Alex."

"Sophie, are you serious? Nothing's going to send up a flag in the Seeker's systems more than humans kidnapping relatives."

Jane spoke up as well. "They wont remember who they are. They'll be like me."

"God dammit, Alex, we find a group of competent people and your first instinct is to run? What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me? I think there's something wrong with you. I dont want to get involved in a battle, especially with Jane. How likely do you think it is that the Repo Men will succeed at whatever they're trying to do?"

"They've made it this long, haven't they?"

"I think that was mostly luck. Come on, lets get a move on." He broke into a jog, and Jane followed him.

"God dammit, Alex! I never thought you were a coward!" Sophia shouted after him.

After they'd gone nearly three miles, he heard an engine approaching and he dropped to the ground, pulling Jane down with him.

Blackbird and Roswell jumped off of ATV's, carrying weapons.

"Are they going to kill us?" Jane asked quietly.

"No," he reassured her. "Stay quiet."

Blackbird began shouting. "Sorry, Alex, but we cant let you go any farther. You know who we are, and all of our faces. If you get caught, we get caught."

Alex swore. "Jane's not going to fight, you hear me?" he shouted back.

"She's going to have to, in the next few years. We're taking the planet back, Alex, and in case you havent noticed, us humans are more violent than Seekers and we wont have police for at least a few months."

"I can protect her for that long," Alex shouted back.

Something hit him in the head. He looked, and saw a can of Sleep hissing at his feet.

The last he saw before he passed out was his sister's face glaring at him with silver eyes.

Ice Pillar tracked the signal across the state. It was coming from an abandoned house along a highway that had been moved back in the 1920s. After the road had been moved, a forest had grown up around the formerly inhabited area as everyone had left.

He stopped the car several miles away and continued on foot through the woods, bringing his M4 with him. He didn't want to have to kill any of the humans, but as there was only one of him, capturing them seemed unlikely. They were probably not suitable as hosts, in any case, as Sophia had demonstrated.

He approached the house through the woods, careful to avoid hitting any branches. The humans had cut down all of the bushes directly next to the house, and he covered the clearing to a broken window in a sprint.

Ice Pillar peered through the window cautiously, his M4 at the ready.

A pair of silver eyes stared back at him, right overtop of a machine pistol's sights.

"You should have let it be, Ice," she said tiredly. "Everything would have been fine if you'd left me alone. Drop the gun and get on your knees."

The safety was on on his rifle, and she was watching him like a hawk.

"Tell that to whoever I found splattered in Blossoms Sunward's house, Sophia," he said, driooubg the gun and raising his hands above his head.

"I'm not her. I'm not," she said, though she sounded unsure. "She's gone. Dead."

"So who am I talking to, then?" Ice asked. "You sure aren't Widepetals - she wouldn't kill innocents. She wouldn't point that gun at me."

Sounding more sure of herself, the girl responded. "Trust me, it's for the greater good, Ice. I don't think you could understand, even if I explained it."

"Widepetals, this isn't you - put down the gun and let's run! Your host's playing you like a piano!"

"I don't think so." She narrowed her eyes. "Having you out of the picture will make everything so much simpler. Bye - sorry it turned out like this. I don't like it any more than you do."

Her hand shook as her finger tightened on the trigger.

"Don't do it, Widepetals! You can fight her!" Ice Pillar desperately urged her.

Her face broke out into a sickly smile. "Trust me, I am, Ice. Every second of every day."

A string of gunfire rang out, impacting his chest in at least four separate places, and he went down. All the shots hit his body armor, but he felt at least one bone break.

"Blackbird, I think I've been bugged!" she shouted, stepping next to his body and kicking his carbine away.

The pistol's barrel gaped wide in front of his face.

"Bye, Ice," he heard her say through a sea of pain. "Sorry it has to be this way."

Stars exploded across his vision as a size nine boot impacted against his face, and then he blacked out.

Widepetals remembered the dream she'd had a day prior, and the phantom that had warned her that something like this would happen.

You were right, she thought, defeated, as several of the Repo men came running. She threw on a disgusted expression as they came into view, and started kicking Ice Pillar again.

"Sophia, what's going on?" Blackbird asked.

"A fucking Seeker," she said, throwing another kick. "Knew the bug in my head, came to 'rescue' it. I don't know how it found us. Search my stuff, I think he planted something in it."

Blackbird swore. "Bookend, search and secure the Seeker. Move everybody to the car - we've got to get moving before more Seekers show up!"

The Repo Men got on the road again within minutes, leaving Widepetals in awe. She tried to get Ice Pillar to tell her where the bug was, but he refused to talk to her.

Not surpising, she supposed. He thought she was a human.

Widepetals had to watch as Roswell removed him from his host and placed him in a cryotank. His host didn't wake, as she expected, so they began searching all of her stuff for the electronic device.

She found it after ten minutes - it was inside of one of the pockets of her backpack. They removed the tracker and attached put it inside of a parked car in a rest area.

They decided to move to one of their backup safehouses - an empty family fallout shelter built during the cold-war scares and subsequently forgotten after the war ended.

Then came the hard part - to keep up the act, she'd have to urge them to kill Ice Pillar, and give Alex another shot at joining the resistance.

She struggled with the thought, but with the memory of the previous killing fresh in her mind, she couldn't gather the strength to do so.

But what were the alternatives? She'd been talking to the Repo Men for most of the day - most of them 'knew' that she absolutely hated the Souls.

The humans had been discussing some kind of upcoming operation. It didn't seem like they knew much about it, but from what she'd gathered, it was going to be big. Big enough that her participation, or lack thereof, would not make a difference. She couldn't kill Ice Pillar, now that the time was upon her, she found she couldn't do it. Just thinking about the possibility made her realize she had to get out of her current host.

---

The rebel 'leader' such as he was, pondered what was going to happen if his people were successful.

There were three main objectives to the upcoming battle. First and foremost, they had to take the spaceport.

There were not that many interstellar capable ships, and they were not designed for atmospheric flight. The Souls solved this problem by building a space station where incoming ships unloaded their shipments of incoming cryotanks. These cryotanks were distributed via shuttle across the planet's surface. It was an efficient way to make use of the limited number of interstellar ships; the interstellar spaceships carried millions of Souls, but due to the time it took to fly between stars there were only a small number of flights every year.

From the viewpoint of the resistance, taking out that space station was key to retaking the planet. It would take months for the Souls to construct another one, during which time there would be no transport to or from Earth's surface.

The station was relatively tough; it was intended to withstand high-velocity impacts with the accumulated debris that humans had left in their fifty years of space flight. It was not, however, intended to withstand impact with one of the Earth-based shuttles moving at full velocity.

By taking the spaceport and rigging one of the shuttles as a missile, they would effectively have millions of hostages, and could credibly make demands upon what passed for the Souls' heirarchy - demands for food, supplies, space to live, and the disbanding of the local Seeker force.

Next, they had to take the healing center. The building was guarded by several hundred Seekers, in response to that idiot girl's fuel-truck bomb. That meant they'd have to use one of the FAE they'd been planning on using to deter ground-based counterattacks. The Seekers, while more security-minded than the average bug, were still Souls and thus hopelessly naive. Two of the more resourceful cells had a plan to capture a cryotank delivery truck and load it with one of the bombs, which would take out most of the building's defenders. The survivors would be left shellshocked and disorganized, leaving the facility open for capture.

The healing facility contained several tons worth of Soul miracle drugs. The Heal, in particular, would save many lives after the battle. In addition, the Health and Inside clean would be invaluable in dealing with any non-rebel humans who came to the city if the humans won. The rebellion, early on, had been forced to deal with infections and malnutrition as a fact of life in the outskirts of the Souls' world - but with the drugs, they might be able to help any latecomers get over such problems in short order.

Next, they wanted to take the SETI radio beacon. This wasn't as important as the other two tasks, but was still a main objective. The beacon had been upgraded by the Souls - now it was several orders of magnitude more powerful than it had been in human days. It still sent out the same message - basically just an "We are here, please talk to us" along with basic information about humanity. It made no mention of the Souls, and any species coming to investigate the beacon would face a bug infiltration of their society.

He wanted to reprogram it to send out a warning to any listeners about the bugs, and a plea for assistance. If it looked like they were going to lose, the message could be changed to a request for the sterilization of Earth. If anyone heard it, the bugs wouldn't be able to continue their current method of stealing higher civilization's technology, as any victims would be forewarned.

Of course, there would likely be a counterattack. From what scouts had found out, most of the leftover human-era military equipment of the area was tied up around the healing centers. The bugs had made a big deal about decomissioning most of the Air Force's inventory, so they wouldn't have to worry too much about airstrikes, but there were several attack helicopters and a few scattered IFV's in nearby towns. Several cells possessed Stingers for the choppers, but the armored vehicles might pose a problem.

If the bugs caved, that would mean everyone would have to shift their way of thinking. They'd be able to move non-combatants out of the various underground shelters they were in, and set up an actual government. The rebellion hadn't had to deal with much crime, but as soon as the imminent threat of extinction passed, humanity would once again need a police force. This would be made difficult, as pretty much everyone who had survived this long was good at getting around without notice, and nobody was used to following the societal rules necessary for any kind of concentrated population. Any kind of census would be near-impossible - the human survivors had long been conditioned to make it very hard to identify them, and most had dozens of aliases - many of the cells lower in the heirarchy had no members that remembered their real names, and the core resistance members would lie about their names and histories even to other humans.

They'd need to extract the bugs from everyone they captured. He worried there wouldn't be enough people to bury the dead - they might capture as many as ten thousand bugs, and optimistically one in ten would be successfully returned to the ranks of free humans. That meant thousands of bodies to bury, and even with bulldozers it would be a daunting task.

They'd be able to make demands if they captured the spaceport - the bugs would not sacrifice millions of their own for any reason. He doubted they could force them to leave, but they probably could manage to get the city declared off-limits to all Souls and a promise of safety, along with food deliveries. That meant they wouldn't have to worry about feeding the city, but the few bugs coming into the city to deliver food and fix things would need protection from the human populace.

He was about to be a very unpopular figure - nobody wanted any bugs to be in the city, anywhere, but common sense dictated that they would have to work with them if they wanted to live. He worried about rogue attacks on neighboring cities - even some of the core members of the resistance mostly wanted to keep up the momentum and free another city after this one, but they weren't going to be able to. He'd probably have to work with the Seekers to catch them...

It was going to be a long year if tomorrow's attacks succeeded. The top cells were already taking bets on the number of assasination attempts he'd have to deal with.

Alex had been separated from Jane again. They'd blindfolded him for the trip away from the meeting house, and he had no idea where he was aside from an empty concrete room with cold filtered air coming in from the ceiling.

He'd been there for hours when the door opened, and Sophia came in.

"Sophia! Stop this, you're going to get killed when they get caught!"

"I'm not your sister," she said. "Sorry."

Alex took a breath to shout for help, but she pointed a pistol at her own chest.

"You want her to live, right? Shouting might not be the best idea. These bodies - they're so fragile," the Soul commented airily, continuing to point the pistol at itself. "All it takes is a few grams of lead, and it's all over for you. No amount of Heal will fix a dead person."

"Let me let you in on a secret - I hate your species. Of all the species there are in the galaxy, yours is the only one that's come up with the concept of a war. You are, on the whole, potentially the most powerful force for chaos there has ever been, especially since we trashed your civilization. My people are mostly too naive to see it, but its obvious to any of you, isnt it?"

"If you kill her, I will end you," Alex ground out.

"Oh, I'm certain you will. But that leaves me in a difficult situation - if I let you do what you want, you'll kill me."

"So why the reveal, then?"

"I want you to re-implant Ice Pillar, and I want you to provide me with a new host. Male, if you can. Let us leave in peace, and we'll move me to the new host and send Sophia back to you."

"Bullshit. You'll just stay inside of her."

"I want out of her head. Your sister's a psychopath, Alex - all these little urges and violent emotions are too much for me to take. I cant tell right from wrong anymore. She's not awake, but she's manipulating me just the same and I want out. You have something I want, and I have something you want. We can trade and go our separate ways."

"I dont think the Repo Men will like that very much."

"The way I see it, you dont really have a choice. I dont really need the gun - I can just scramble her brain. If you want your sister back, you're going to get my friend."

Alex thought. He had no choice, really - Sophia was at this bug's mercy.

"Let me out and I'll see what I can do."

Sophia woke up looked around, finding herself sitting oun the ground in total darkness. "Am I dead? Alex, are you there?"

She struggled to move, and found that her hands were bound. She swore as a door opened with a metallic noise, and a Seeker walked in with a Soul in civilian clothing. Dim light spilling in revealed she was tied up in the corner of an empty shipping crate.

"Let's just kill her," the civilian urged. "We'd be saving ourselves a lot of trouble."

"You just went through a lot of trouble to avoid killing anyone else, Widepetals. I dont think that's a good idea."

The name Widepetals got her memory moving again - Widepetals had been the Soul she'd been about to be implanted with, and the Seeker looked rather familiar as well.

"Yeah, but... If we let her go, we'll be seeing her again shortly. And she'll be armed."

Ha! They've got no idea what to do with me!

Sophia spat. "Go ahead," she taunted. "Murder me, bug-boy. It wont be hard, I'm completely defenceless."

The Souls wouldn't kill her, not like this. It would be in a cold, sanitized Healing facility, under the guise of "discarding". Not anonymously, in the back of a shipping crate like some kind of criminal gang.

"Don't try me, I might do it," Widepetals countered violently, grabbing the M9 from the Seeker's holster.

Sophia laughed. "And hell froze over yesterday. I know you people. You dont do things like this. What do you want from me?"

"We dont want anything from you," the Seeker - Ice Pillar, the name filtered to her - said. "We want peace."

Both Widepetals and Sophia stared at the other bug.

"Well I want a nuclear bomb, and I'm sure if there are other humans out there, they want the same," Sophia eventually responded.

Widepetals agreed. "Ice Pillar, they're never going to surrender. Ever. Unless we have a navy, they'll sterilize every planet we've ever been to. I think the best we can hope for in the next few centuries is a protracted interstellar conflict."

There was another awkward pause.

"Sophia, do you know where you are, and what's happened over the past few months?"

"Last I remember, I'd just gotten shot. How'd dying feel, Widepetals?"

Widepetals grimaced. Score! she thought.

"After you shot me, I was implanted into you and tried to infiltrate the human resistance. Ice Pillar didn't know what I was doing and followed me, blowing my cover. Do you remember any of that?"

"That's right... And then you threatened to kill me to free him," she said, slowly remembering Widepetal's plan to sabotage the Repo Men's plans.

She paled - who knew what the Soul was thinking right now? It might very well kill her if it was still thinking like it had been inside of her head.

"So you see our problem," Ice Pillar said. "Honestly, I think Widepetals might be right about killing you. Taking you back to a Healing facility to be discarded would just give you a chance to escape."

Widepetals raised the pistol, and Sophia's eyes widened. "Well, if you have no objections..."

Its hand trembled holding the pistol, and Sophia thought quickly.

"Didn't you promise Alex you'd let me go?" she asked.

"I'm a Seeker. We're allowed to lie," the bug told her, its finger tightening. Sophia closed her eyes.

The gun clicked. "Its off to therapy for you, Widepetals," Ice Pillar said. "We're going back to the Healing facility, and you're going to listen to the Healers this time after we discard the girl."

Sophia was sprayed with Sleep - she tried to hold her breath, but the cloud persisted for too long to let her avoid breathing it.

---

Any proper first strike requires a great deal of planning and preparation to be successful. The rebellion's attack was no different. Through the past several years, several different cells had been tracking where different Seekers lived, the different routes of communication they used and routes of transportation within the city. When the announcement of the impending attack went out, everyone prepared to disrupt these things in any way that they could.

"Tomorrow's the day, people," the cell leaders heard through their radios late that night. "Drop any unfinished projects you have and start moving things into place. Zero Hour is 0700. Make sure everyone knows how they fit into things, and make sure you are not in the city at seven, or you'll be having a bad day. And remember, do not hit residential areas at zero hour."

Bombs were planted, power lines were destroyed, telephone lines cut, cellphone towers and internet hubs sabotaged. Seeker's cars were vandalized beyond repair, and in one case, a grounded helicopter's rotors were destroyed. The resistance did everything they could to ensure that the city would be paralyzed.

As Ice Pillar drove back to the Healing Facility, Widepetals filled Ice Pillar in on what she'd been doing.

"Sorry about shooting you, Ice. I thought I was doing the right thing, but..."

"Souls have been overcome by lesser humans than that one," Ice told him. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't really you," he said.

"It was me, that's the thing! She never really woke up - I came up with that retarded false flag plan all by myself."

"You wouldn't have, if it weren't for her. It wasn't really you."

Widepetals shook his head. "It just bothers me. If you think I need therapy, I'll go."

Thank goodness, Ice Pillar thought.

"Let's not worry about that now, what were the humans planning to do?" he asked.

Widepetals thought. "That group was called the Repo Men. I think they're part of a larger organization, and from the sounds of it, there's going to be a large operation in the next few days. They dont know much of the details."

"We've got to warn the city," Ice Pillar commented.

"Well, keep driving. Once we get where we're going, we can get debriefed. We're almost there. I wish they hadn't smashed your radio," Widepetals said.

They heard gunfire. A second later, the car lurched as one of the tires blew, and bulletholes appeared around them.

Ice Pillar fought to keep the car from flipping, and thew were thrown against the seat restraints. The car came to rest, and Widepetals grabbed Ice Pillar's M9. Ice Pillar saw a muzzle flash and began firing at the side of the road as Widepetals jumped out of the car.

As she did so, there was a distant boom, and she saw a small mushroom cloud rise above the city.

A/N I'm continuing this story just to find out where it takes me now. It was hard to think of what's going to happen next, but I have an outline for the next chapter.

Chapter 22: Zero Hour Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.

Mixed Feelings

Zero Hour

A truck pulled in front of the Seeker checkpoint in front of the healing facility, and exploded. Another did the same in front of the checkpoint at the spaceport.

Hundreds of Seekers were killed instantly by the shockwave. To the survivors, it seemed like the entire world was on fire.

In different places everyone had varied reactions. Rebels around the city were prepared - to them it signaled the start of the assault.

Fractals turned Zoe's head towards the window, and she saw the cloud rise above the cityscape. They stared through the window until Sarah and Daniel pulled her to the ground.

Oh my God... Zoe whispered. How could they?

"Looks like the rebels decided to show their faces," Sarah commented.

What now? Zoe asked Fractals.

Pause.

Fractals?

Fractals didn't answer, though Zoe could feel her mind racing.

Staccato gunfire rang out very nearby and they heard shouting and screams.

Zoe threw off her shock and horror.

Hide. Now!

Fractals still wasn't speaking, but she dropped them to the ground and started looking around. Daniel and Sarah were whispering to each other on the ground across the room from her.

They stopped whispering and stared at her, eyes unreadable. Shivers of more immediate fear ran up Zoe's spine. What were they thinking? Fractals had helped them, but that didn't mean they wouldn't sell the two of them out to gain favor with whatever resistance there was.

Zoe realized Fractals was shaking violently, and gently pushed at their mental barriers. There was almost no resistance and suddenly she could hear what Fractals was thinking to herself.

• force is pressure times area, the surface area of the motel is large enough that it should have collapsed, not to mention -

Zoe felt Fractals register her intrusion, but there only a sense of mild unease and then the Soul went back to speculation about the bomb. Zoe found that now that she'd 'tuned in' to Fractals thoughts, she couldn't filter the stream of words out.

The children stood and came towards her.

Keep an eye on those two, Zoe ordered shakily. I have no idea what they're going to do. If they tell the rebels we're here...

Fractals didn't even register what she'd said.

• no sense, the radiation hazard would make the area uninhabitable for weeks and they have to want to capture the Souls for extractions -

GET UP! MOVE! DO SOMETHING! Zoe shouted, fighting to get Fractals into motion.

Zoe found her body moving, though Fractals was not paying attention to anything beyond her calculations of nuclear figures. She tried moving her hand, and found that she was in control of her body once again.

• fallout from a small bomb would be significantly more of a problem than the norm, we need to find some way to filter out the alpha emitters to avoid the worst of the radiation -

Gunfire sounded again, this time muffled by distance.

Zoe tried to filter out Fractals droning to herself about fallout precautions, and an insistent tugging brought her back to reality. She looked down and saw Daniel pulling on her sleeve.

"Come on, Fractals. We need to get moving."

• the children will be more at risk from radiation poisoning, Sarah looks like she's about fifty kilos and Daniel might be about 40 -

Zoe couldn't concentrate and didn't have a better idea, so she decided to let the kids lead her. Sarah opened the door and peeked into the hall, then they ran out the emergency exit into the street with Daniel pulling Zoe behind him.

• doesn't fit together. Why attack the city after nuking it? Isn't a nuke good enough, or are the humans so bloodthirsty they want to kill absolutely everyone in the-

I get it, we're bastards, Zoe interrupted her in mid-thought.

Fractals continued her train of thought, undisturbed by Zoe's interruption.

• can't possibly have built an implosion type, far too hard to maintain for a rebel force... area of a sphere is four thirds pi times the cube of the radius...

Sarah led them to a line of cars and tried a few until she found a set of keys on the dashboard of a minivan and handed them to Zoe.

• estimate pi as three and 4/3 as one... we must have been about 500 meters minimum from the blast, 500 squared is 250,000 -

"You're a better driver than I am," the girl said.

• it had to have been under a kiloton -

Zoe flipped the keys into the ignition and slid into the driver's seat, and unlocked the doors.

• the United States as of 2001 didn't have any nuclear weapons that small. If it was a nuke, they'd have had to build it themselves -

Zoe felt Fractals' relief wash through her, and her hands stopped responding to her. Fractals was back in control.

• utterly unfeasible to do so in hiding, even if they had all the Plutonium that they wanted.

"It wasn't a nuke." the Soul concluded aloud. "We need to get out of here anyway, but at least it wasn't a nuke."

Oh, thank God, Zoe moaned.

Fractals started the car and pulled out of the lot.

Fuck the speed limit! GO! Zoe shouted at the Soul as she stopped accelerating.

Fractals took a deep breath and pushed the accelerator into the floor.

Ice Pillar and Widepetals had no attention to spare for the distant explosion, beyond keeping their heads down as bullets traced lethal paths all around them.

"Behind that bank," Widepetals whispered as the last rumblings of the bombs faded. A round blasted icy mud into Ice Pillar's face. "Cover me. I'm going to flank them." After a blank look, Widepetals elaborated, grinding himself as low as he could into the snow as a close shot blasted ice into his face. "Shoot at them to keep their heads down. I'm going to come up along their side and shoot them in the side. It sounds like it's only three or four of them."

Ice Pillar recalled old human training, and flipped over to full auto. "Now!" came Widepetal's command, and he popped up and started firing back rapidly. Widepetals took advantage of the lull in incoming fire to sprint across the street and over the bank. Moments later he heard his friend's pistol bark many times in rapid succession, along with accompanying screams.

"Clear!" Widepetals called, popping his head over the bank. "Five of them - all with bolt-action rifles and cans of Heal and Still. This isn't good, Ice."

Ice Pillar swallowed. The presence of Heal and Still indicated the humans hadn't been shooting to kill, just incapacitate.

"They know," he breathed, spirits sinking even lower.

"Yeah, they're trying to 'rescue' our hosts. Let's get to the city. It looks like there's some serious fighting and we can probably lend a hand, even if we missed the chance for a warning."

"Better flag down a car then," he responded. "It's too far to run."

"Hold on," Widepetals said, dissassembling the rifles and throwing the parts in random directions. "Wouldn't want to see these rifles again."

They flagged down one of the many vehicles streaming out of the city and after apologetically kicking the car's owner out, crossed the divider in the middle of the road and headed back towards the fighting.

Sophia, who had broken a window that had cracked from gunfire, bolted as soon as the car came to a stop. She threw herself to the ground upon seeing the explosion, half-expecting herself to flash-burn from radiation at any moment. After nearly a minute passed with no blinding, burning light, no shockwave, she realized it hadn't been a nuke, and her heart skipped a beat. That meant... what, exactly?

Then the muffled sound of distant gunfire told her the answer, and her heart leapt.

Get to the city! was her primary thought. There was fighting, and heaven knew the rebels needed manpower.

She got up to run, the flames and smoky clouds a beacon of hope.

Gunfire meant fighting. Combat meant humans. Humans in combat meant dead Seekers, and that meant there was a resistance. A resistance meant that there was still some kind of hope for a future that didn't involve carrying a bug in her head.

Judging by the size of that explosion they were well organized. She had no idea what it was, but it would have required months of planning to orchestrate.

As she ran her lungs started to burn, and she realized she would need a car to get there so she wouldn't be dead on her feet when she showed up.

She ran across the first sign of the battle very soon. There was a police cruiser, riddled with bulletholes crashed on the side of the road.

Sophia picked up a rock and sprinted towards it. Smashing the driver's side window with the rock, she looked inside to find a pair of dead Seekers. As she reached inside and opened the door, she nearly jumped out of her skin when the driver moaned and opened his eyes.

Almost reflexively, she hit him with the rock. He kept moving, so she kept bashing until a while after he stilled once again. Chest heaving, she dropped the rock and dragged both of the Seekers out of the car, liberating them of their pistols and gifting them both with slit throats.

The gunfire in the city was becoming more frequent. Realizing that showing up into the middle of a gun battle inside of a police cruiser was a really bad idea, she settled upon finding another way towards the city.

A car screamed over the hill, travelling at far over the speed limit.

Must be Souls fleeing the battle, she thought with a grin. There's my ride.

Jumping into the street, she brought out her gun and stood waiting for the next vehicle to come her way.

There were bound to be many.

Another car - a minivan - careened toward her wildly, and she raised one of her pistols.

It swerved unexpectedly.

She fired a warning shot, and was surprised when the car accelerated directly at her. Sophia stood her ground and continued to fire.

Inside the car Fractals was determined to get the hell away from the battle as fast as she could.

Don't you dare slow down, Zoe shouted inside her head. If she doesn't want to get hit by a car she'll get out of the road.

The woman started shooting directly at her, and she screamed. A bullet hit the windshield directly above her head and blew a hole through the ceiling. Panicked, she pushed the gas to the floor as more near misses left their marks on the car, spraying glass across the interior. She couldn't see, eyes squeezed shut against the incoming projectiles.

Daniel reached over and grabbed the wheel, preventing them from driving off the road. She opened her eyes again and saw the rebel jump off out of the way as they passed.

Dimly she registered pain in her right bicep. She looked quickly and saw she was bleeding. So was Daniel - there was blood streaming from a deep cut on his forehead.

"Everyone okay?" he asked, releasing the wheel.

"I'm fine, as far as I can tell," Fractals whispered.

He took off his shirt and wrapped it tightly around the wound on her arm.

"Sarah?"

No answer.

Unbuckling himself, he clambered over the seat into the rear of the car and checked to make sure his sister hadn't been shot.

"How is she?" Fractals asked.

Daniel patted Sarah down, checking for any wounds.

"Fine. Must've been too much stress. Keep driving, we've gotta get away from this place. It's going to be lousy with Seekers in a few hours."

"You can say that again." Fractals commented grimly.

"It's going to be lousy with Seekers in a few hours," Daniel repeated dutifully, and she groaned.

"Seriously, though. What are we going to do next?" he asked. "I don't think I want to go back to the rebels after the show they just put on."

Fractals considered the possibilities. "They must think they have some kind of trump card to pull something like this..." Her mind raced, considering the possibilities. "I have no idea what it could be, though. That bomb was large, but it had to have been conventional. The entire country's going to panic, and there are still a lot of leftover weapons from when your kind was in charge of the planet."

"There have to be a lot more survivors than we thought to launch an attack like this. Where do you think they came from?"

"I have no idea," Fractals sighed. "It's going to be tough to take you through any populated area after that stunt. That resistance is a big target, and there's enough of the Army left to take them out pretty quick, but..."

"But the Seekers are going to be patrolling everywhere now, not just around areas where people were dumb," Daniel finished her thought.

"I think this might be where we part ways," Fractals said.

"NUKE!" Soaring Leaf screamed, hitting the floor as he saw the cloud rise. He pulled out his cellphone and dialed the Seeker garrison. Halfway through dialing he realized that first, he had no signal, and second, a nuke would have rendered the electronics inert.

However, the screen was still working. That meant the explosion wasn't a nuclear bomb.

"We've got to move!" he shouted to over the chaotic panic overtaking the room. "Grab your gear and let's go!"

He grabbed his partner who was curled up under a table, and ran outside towards his car. They had to get in contact with whoever was alive - the explosion could only signify an imminent rebel attack.

Almost immediately he came under fire as he moved, and his partner took a round in his body armor. He couldn't tell where the fire was coming from, and as he ran chunks of concrete blasted around him, and he saw a can of Still arcing towards him through the smoky air, leaving a trail of silver mist.

He held his breath and charged through, firing blindly in the general direction he thought the attack was coming from as he pulled open his car door.

There seemed to be humans everywhere, and after appraising the situation, he realized he was surrounded by humans in cover - they were firing from the windows of several buildings around him.

His partner piled into the other side of the car and he pounded the gas pedal, bringing the car into jerking, screeching motion. Spiderweb cracks appeared in the cruiser's windows, signifying near misses. One hit him in the arm, and he nearly lost consciousness.

His partner grabbed the wheel to keep the car from hitting an abandoned car, and then they were ought of the ambush area.

"Find out what's going on," he ordered. As his partner turned on the radio, all that came out was pleas for assistance from other Seeker units. The most desperate ones were coming from the Healing facility.

That's their goal, then, he thought.

After about three blocks, a bullet plowed through the top of the car and took off the top of his partner's head in a gory spray of blood. A second round took out the remnants of the car's rear window.

He dove out of the car and ran into the nearest building - an empty laundromat. He kept his pistol at the ready and ducked behind one of the machines to check over himself.

He thought he had a broken rib, and his armor wasn't going to stop another shot on that side of his body. However, the shot in his arm wasn't serious. He got halfway through checking his ammo before what had just happened hit him, and he fought down nausea at the thought of all the blood and death he was going to see before the end of the day.

All his worries were cut short as he heard the door being broken, and he peeked over the counter.

Four humans with assault rifles piled through the door and ran to different corners of the room. He only had one chance of survival - injure one, and hope there was a backdoor to the building. He popped up and fired at the one closest, then bolted.

Rounds pinged off of the machines around him and water sloshed out of several of them. He thought he was clear, but then a sharp pain blossomed in his back and he went down hard. The last thing he saw was the butt of a Mini-14 closing rapidly with his face.

The Repo Men were not really in the loop, too far down to get told anything important.

Blackbird coughed as smoke and dust blew in his face. Half of the city was in flames and everything was utterly chaotic.

Most of the Souls had found that venturing outside was a very bad idea - most of the resistance would fire upon anyone with silver eyes. Some weren't even waiting to identify their targets - everyone else seemed to have a coordinated plan of action, while the Repo Men were nearly clueless.

Find another cell, he thought. We've got no idea what's going on and we're just going to get in the way unless we coordinate.

He guided the group through an apparently empty street, pausing only to chase the panicking Souls into the nearby buildings with a few rounds at their heels.

Gunfire echoed everywhere within the city, but it seemed to be most persistent around the Healing facility. Hence, that was the direction they went.

They ran into a few disorganized groups of Seekers which they rapidly dispatched with only one casualty - Bookend took a round to the neck and died almost instantly.

The Repo Men were familiar with death, and abandoned his body, pausing only to strip it of weapons before they moved onward.

They dealt with sporadic gun battles with individual or small groups of Seekers, mostly wearing police uniforms. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Seekers either ran or died very quickly.

Soon they came across another firefight. In front of them a group of Seekers in military uniform were keeping a pair of survivors pinned under a car while another group moved around to come from behind.

It didn't take long to rescue the pinned rebels - Blackbird and Greasefire lined up and opened fire on the group trying to flank the survivors, and then the rest of the Seekers ran away.

"We're heading to the healing facility - that's where most of the action is. Follow us!"

Sophia ran into her first group of survivors while trying to get another car. A pickup truck with an M2 bolted onto the back stopped as she screamed at them, and she jumped in without a second thought.

She sat down only to find four people in the bed of the truck with pistols pointed in her face. It jerked into movement again, and the vehicle sped towards the city.

"What cell are you with?" one of them, an ancient-looking woman demanded. Sophia was in awe - the woman had to be at least 40.

"I was with the Repo Men for a day," she replied, keeping her voice even. "I've been surviving with just my brother for most of my life though. I didn't know about the resistance until about a week ago."

"Never heard of them," the woman said, eyes narrowing.

Very slowly, Sophia placed her pistol on the bed of the truck, holding it by the barrel. "Check my eyes. I'm not a bug."

After the rebels had verified she was, in fact, a human, they became far more friendly. "I'm Alice, and that's Bob driving the car," the old woman explained, pointing to the wiry man at the truck's wheel. "Charlie's the one next to him, and this is Dave on the gun here, that's Eve, and you're now Fran."

"And with our powers combined, we're -" Dave began.

"Shut up, Dave," Eve and Alice groaned, cutting him off.

"I see how this works," Sophia commented. "Where are we going? Who's in charge?"

Eve pointed towards the spaceport. "We need to take the spaceport with as many shuttles intact as we can. Command wants us to meet up with another four cells and then take out the defending seekers, then hold position until notified further."

Sophia could barely keep herself from bursting with excitement as the car sped closer and closer to the airport.

"So what's your story, Fran?" Dave asked.

"Not much to tell," Sophia said. "Saw the bugs take my parents when I was seven. My brother and I ran for it. Spent the last seven years hiding from them, until my brother got caught." She worried for a second that they'd comment about her age, but nobody did.

"Holy shit, kid. I know you! Did you know you made national news? We were betting on you - I thought you got caught!" Eve exclaimed.

Sophia made a face. "Yes, I saw the news," she replied shortly. "And I did get caught, but Widepetals... didn't like the way I think. Something about my 'violent personality' bothered it, and it had a friend help it skip to a different host. They were taking me to the Healing facility to discard me until this attack happened and they got ambushed."

Eve grinned at the 'violent personality' comment. "Good job with the fuel truck, by the way. They were freaking out on the news like you wouldn't believe."

Dave suddenly pointed the mounted weapon into the sky at a sharp angle and started firing, making everyone jump and cover their ears.

Eve swore at him as he showered her with brass. "What the hell, Dave? Give us some warning when you shoot that thing!"

"It's one of those CAP bastards," he shouted over the din. Sophia squinted at the sky but couldn't see a thing, until a few moments later she saw a plane turn and fly away. A few seconds later Dave stopped firing.

"So what's the deal with the resistance?" Sophia asked, ears still ringing. "My brother and I never knew about you."

"Us personally... well, we don't know you that well yet," Alice explained. "Same goes for the rest of the resistance. Wouldn't want the bugs to be able to compromise the entire organization by capturing one cell."

They passed a sign announcing they were five miles from the spaceport, and everyone began to prepare for action.

"What do they have defending the port?" Sophia asked, as everyone began checking weapons and Charlie passed a Stinger missile out the back window to Eve.

"Don't know. We've heard there was a Stryker there a few days ago. We know they've got some Humvees and at least forty Seekers from the Guard, but beyond that, nothing."

"Hold on, we're going off road," Bob called from the front. The car slowed, then ran off of the road. "We're going to meet with the other cells in the woods off the end of the runway."

Sophia spent the next few minutes wishing she had body armor, and a rifle instead of the M9, and then they were in the woods. Moments later the truck pulled up next to a set of parked vehicles, and everyone jumped out of the sides of the vehicle. There were at least a dozen cars here, half of which had heavy weapons mounted.

Sophia's jaw dropped at the number of armed people. There had to be nearly sixty free humans here, armed to the teeth with small arms. This was far more than she'd hoped for in her wildest dreams. It was surreal, impossible - but it was happening.

"Listen up!" Alice shouted to the assembled rebels from atop the cell's truck. "You all know the drill - we don't know what equipment the Seekers have, so keep your eyes open. Team one," she pointed at on particular group of rebels, "you've got the radio, so it's on you to keep in contact with command. Team two, your job is to let the Seekers know we're here so they come to us. Teams three and four, be ready to ambush as soon as the Seekers come chasing team one. Any questions?"

A heavily scarred, massively muscled man from team three raised his hand. "What happens if they bring in heavy vehicles, or that Apache?"

Alice grinned. "My cell has a Stinger missile, and our sister cell has a pair of Javelins. And if that fails, we have a few 50 cals. We should be able to handle anything up to an Abrams."

"And if they have an Abrams? Or more than one helicopter?"

"We try to draw them away. Team two will take the vehicles and create a diversion, while everyone else retreats to point alpha and gets ready to re-attack if possible. If we can't, we return to the city and provide whatever assistance we can there."

Soaring Leaf woke up to see a scene that looked like it had come out of a human horror film - blood was everywhere, and there were several corpses lying in front of him. In the midst of it was a pair of other Souls - a mid-height brown-haired woman with a pistol, and a massive Guardsmen Seeker in uniform carrying a rifle.

"Ice, he's up," the woman said. "We've got to get out of here; they'll be sending patrols out by tomorrow."

"We can't abandon the city, Widepetals! What about all the people trapped inside?" the guardsman asked, uncomfortably.

"The city's lost for now - we can't stay here any longer, I almost died again when my host got shot. We need to get out and tell anyone who'll listen everything we know about the rebels."

"What happened here?" Soaring Leaf asked, slowly.

"We found you on the ground, having been removed from your host by these wonderful people," Widepetals said, gesturing at the corpses. "They were about to kill you, so we took them by surprise and got all of them. Your host was fatally injured, so we moved you to one of them. Any problems so far?"

Soaring Leaf searched his memory, becoming alarmed when he turned up nothing but a giant blank. "I can't remember anything from this host. What happened to him?"

Widepetals swore in a very un-Soul like manner. "That happens sometimes with resistant hosts. He's probably awake - let us know if you suddenly have the urge to jump out a window or something."

He gasped alarmed by her nonchalant attitude towards what could potentially be a lethal threat. "What should I do?"

"Deal with it as best you can. I don't see any other, more pliant humans around, do you? Trust me, it's probably not as bad as it could be."

Widepetals turned back to Ice Pillar. "You said they're blockading all the roads you checked? There were snipers posted on all the roads I saw."

"From what I saw, yeah - both bridges have been blown, and there were snipers at checkpoints on every road that heads out that I saw as well. I think we're trapped."

"Soaring Leaf, do you have any thoughts?" Widepetals asked.

"Is there still a lot of fighting going on inside the city?"

"Not that either of us saw, but there's still the occasional gun battle," Ice Pillar said.

"Maybe we could find and gather with others before we try any kind of breakout," Soaring Leaf suggested. "More people mean a better chance."

Widepetals looked at the ground, kicking a loose shell. "It'll take longer, though, and the humans will set up more guards and blockade more roads the longer we wait."

Ice Pillar peered out the door. "Whatever we do, we've gotta get moving," he said.

Taking the spaceport was easy. Unnervingly easy. The Seekers split their forces chasing team two, leaving their defensive positions, and were cut down in seconds by the waiting rebels. The remaining Seekers were assaulted from all sides and soon most had either run or were either dead or facing extractions. The humans had only taken four casualties - one from friendly fire, and three from panicked shots. None were life-threatening.

Alice appeared to be the one in charge of the entire operation and was directing the force in setting up fighting positions. The rebels were dragging sandbags from one of the vehicles around one of the rows of shuttles, though Sophia wasn't much help there - many of the fighters were far larger than she was. She settled for grabbing an M16 and some ammo from a fallen Seeker, and guarding the extractees who hadn't woken up yet.

The counterattack, when it came, was larger than expected. Sophia heard one of the Javelins fire and dropped behind a sandbag. Seconds later, a cacophony of guns opened up and bullets came whizzing overhead.

She peeked and saw that the entire treeline was lit up with enemy fire. A Bradley was already nothing but smoking wreckage, but the treeline was concealing most of the Seekers.

She sighted at one of the few she could see clearly, and opened fire.

The rebels were slowly losing the fight. After dropping when a fellow rebel took a round to the shoulder, Alice ran a rough count of the survivors left. This isn't good, Alice thought. Most of her cell was down, injured or dead - she saw Fran laying down fire with an M16 that was slowly turning white-hot, and Dave was picking off Seekers with careful shots, but Eve and Charlie were nowhere to be found, and Bob was lying dead with a round that penetrated his chest armor. Most of the other cells were in slightly better shape, but not by much.

Gotta do something, Alice thought.

She grabbed a passing cell leader she recognized, and told him the plan. "Get your cell together. Grab the vehicles with heavy weapons and try to flank the bugs." She shouted for the rest of the force to provide as much covering fire as they could and then ran towards the nearest truck with a mounted gun. She stumbled as a round skipped off the concrete in front of her, and landed on top of Charlie.

She shook him, hoping he was just knocked out, but then noticed he was lying in a pool of blood. She grabbed a magazine off his corpse and got up again to run.

Fran was the only one from her cell still with her by this point, and jumped into the back with the M2. Immediately she began laying down fire on the Seekers, and the Alice threw the truck into gear.

As soon as they started moving, the rebel survivors began burning through ammo more rapidly, trying to reduce the incoming fire on the vehicles. It worked to a point, but the things were too obvious to go unnoticed. One of the cars took a .50 cal round to the side, stopping it as they accelerated towards the bugs' flank, and another lost its gunner to a well-placed shot. Fran managed to hang on in spite of the heavy fire and jerking acceleration, screaming incoherently over the din of the guns. A round caught the girl in the side and she dropped for a second before standing again, angrier than ever.

Finally they reached the treeline, and were close enough that Alice could hear shouts of panic from the bugs.

As soon as the remaining six cars hit the Seekers in the side, they broke and ran, most of them dropping their weapons. This was good, as half of the rebels were temporarily deaf from the massive amounts of gunfire. Alice tried to organize the rebels, but found that it wasn't really necessary. The attacking Seeker force was routed, and there were nearly fifty wounded to deal with. They took a minute to collect the weapons and ammo the Seekers had discarded, and returned to the airport.

After several hours of digging in further, using their reserves of Heal on the dangerously wounded, and monitoring the captured Seekers, only seven of the extractees woke up, and only two of those had any clue what was happening. Twenty-two of the wounded rebels had taken injuries too serious to be dealt with even with Heal, and everyone was chewing nails waiting for another attack that might or might not come.

Alice, Dave, and Fran were the only survivors of their cell. Fran and Dave had taken minor injuries - a round had grazed one of Fran's ribs and another had nearly taken off Dave's entire ear.

Finally, after several hours of watching smoke rise from within the city, a cheer went up from the crowd surrounding team one's radio.

Alice missed the announcement, but got the gist from chatter among the survivors. The bugs had agreed to a temporary cease-fire in the city and surrounding area following human threats to use the captured shuttles to take out the orbital docking station. These threats had been broadcast through the captured local radio station, and the Souls wanted to send in negotiators.

Command wanted to get a formal hierarchy set up amongst the rebels - the cells worked great for avoiding being uncovered by Seekers but were not so good for organizing a temporary government, and so they were having a resistance wide meeting to assign positions and get everyone on the same page. There were quite a few more human cells than anyone had expected - the best estimate that command had was around three thousand survivors - and some of the outer cells had no clue what was happening.

A/N This chapter is broken apart because I realized most of the first section was done. Yes, Alex and Jane are noticeably missing. Even I don't know where they are.

Let me know if I've left any massive plotholes or glaring problems, and as always, reviews are love.