Read Wasteland (Flight) for Free Online

least in the conventional sense. I’m just like you,” she replies.
    I frown. I have a mother. I may never know who fathered me and David, but my mother has been enough for me. More than enough.
    “Don’t worry, Piper Madden. Soon everything will begin to make sense. You have an interesting future; filled with love and passion and agony. You are special, even for a Hunter,” she continues.
    “What do you mean, special?” I ask.
    “What do you think they’ve been doing to you here each day, when they’ve been injecting you with all those needles?” she counters. My heart begins to pound. I don’t think I want to know what has been continually injected into my body, but deep down, I need to know.
    “They’ve been testing me,” I answer. Io nods her head, just once.
    “More than just testing. They’ve been preparing you for what is to come, though even they don’t yet know what that is.”
    “Why didn’t they just kill me when they had a chance?” I wonder aloud. Io’s smile fades, leaving a serious, almost spiteful expression on her face.
    “Because Rupert would never allow that. You mean too much to him. He will never let you die if he can help it,” she says.
    I have so many questions boiling within me. How does she know so much? How old is she really? Can she see the future? Why does Rupert protect me, after all that I have done to him? But I don’t have time to ask anything. Io answers first.
    “Your questions will be answered sooner than you think, but not now. Many more events must pass before the truth may come to light. I would not say that I can see your future, in the way that you perceive, but I do see threads of time and motion. I see the thread you cling to now, and the many threads that may come to be. I can never know what will happen, but I always know what might.”
    A small tremor of fear wiggles through my body. This girl. I remember reading something about her, or something like her, years ago. I don’t know from where, but a few words populate my mind:
    The next evolution .
    She is it. She is the Corp’s experiment. A girl who can see the shards of time.
    “Don’t worry, Piper Madden. We will see each other again. We are connected,” she says.
    I’m about to question her statement when the lights above me dim and then shut off, leaving me in darkness. Mist shoots from the cell ceilings, and my body once again falls, unconscious.

     
    “Piper, wake up.”
    I groan as I once again struggle to wake from my chemical sleep. How many times can I go through this? This time there are no bright lights, no painful shackles, and no strange girl.
    I open my eyes to find Essa standing in front of me. I’m seated upright on a lush, stuffed chair. The sight of her bright eyes brings back the stifling panic from when she’d betrayed me, and she covers my mouth with her gloved hand.
    “Listen to me. There’s not much time. He’ll be here soon. Piper, listen to me. We are on your side, but we can’t release you just yet. A lot of shit has gone down while you’ve been locked up, and the Corp thinks me and Rassler are still loyal. So you need to shut up and pretend I’m your enemy now. I promise we will get you out soon, but right now I need you to play dumb or we’re all screwed, okay?” she whispers.
    I take a moment to let it all sink in before nodding. She removes her hand from my mouth and grabs her gun from its holster, pointing it at me like I’m some feral, dangerous creature.
    I don’t even know how long I’ve been here anymore; months, I imagine. All I want to know is where Asher is, if he’s safe, if he still thinks of me like I think of him; every time I breathe.
    But I listen to Essa. I don’t move, but instead look around the room I’m in. The first thing I notice is frail sunlight from the windows, and warmth. We’re in one of the waiting rooms in Central. The walls are slate gray and the art hung up is eccentric and abstract.
    Most of all, beyond Essa’s gun,