Weird Reunion

"You've got to be kidding me," San muttered, taking one glance at Maisie and then snagging Aarti and Lucy by the arm. He dragged them back a few steps. "Are you seriously considering this?"

"She volunteered and it's just for a few hours. What can they do in a few hours?" Aarti argued.

"Are you really saying that?" Dawnie asked over the comms. "I mean, really asking that?"

"Fine, but we're going to be tracking her and they'll be too busy trying to dodge us to do anything permanent." Aarti glared at San. "If a certain someone could figure out the whole flight issue, it'd be a no-brainer, but no, he doesn't even try."

"That's cruel, even for you, Aarti," Lucy said. She glanced at San and then looked back at Maisie who was watching them with a puzzled look. "Look. That's Maisie over there. She's tougher than any of us and if it wasn't for Luac overriding the safety protocols, she wouldn't have died."

"And if she hadn't had difficulties, I'd never have been able to escape," Aarti interjected. "We owe it to her to make sure it doesn't happen again. Even if we leave her alone, it's going to happen. It might even happen faster since they're in a hurry."

"Fine, but you let me be the one who tails them," Don said as he appeared by their side. He flashed the startled Maisie a smile which she timidly returned. "We're going to make sure nothing bad happens to you."

"I trust you," Maisie said, her smile becoming a bit more brilliant.

None of them could tell who felt the worst about using her as bait.

*****

Ella looked up as they brought in the unconscious teenager. She frowned at the sight of the long golden hair. She knew that hair. She brought up a lock of her own and examined it. There were random strands of dark brown here and there, but it was same shade of gold as the new girl's. Her container left her hair color as a stamp on each of her products. She might be her parents' child, but their creators used that simple way to tell which container was used. There weren't very many that were repeats among them, and the hair contained the gene stamps.

Ella frowned. As far as she knew, her container was dead. Then again, they weren't where she was born anymore and even San's parents were still breathing. That argued that perhaps her container was still alive as well. That was an unsettling thought, especially when she glimpsed the girl's face and realized it couldn't be much older than Lucy or Aarti.

One of the overseers stopped and looked at the unconscious girl for a long time before leaving. Ella kept her eyes down. Since the last time, she didn't dare to misbehave. Her fingers slowly clenched and she winced, her eyes watering. She'd had no real exercise since coming out of the medical goo and her skin was still tender. Still, she didn't regret her actions.

She allowed herself a brief smile as the overseer left. It seemed that no one but her could hear that faint beeping noise of a tracker emanating from the new visitor.

"Are they insane? That's Arkham Asylum over there!" Aarti snarled.

She took a deep breath, trying to control her breathing. They'd run after the craft as best they could, but Don hadn't lost them at all. He was the one who'd called them with coordinates. Now they all understood why. The spooky, forbidding turrets of the asylum rose against a grey sky.

"All it needs is lightning and bats," Lucy snarked. She glanced at Court. "Is this place still functioning?"

"Right now? I think it's supposed to be closed, but then again," Court responded. He wasn't winded, having heisted someone's motorbike.

"Closed does not equal abandoned in this case," Dawnie huffed. Her eyes followed a shifting bit of yellow light against the windows. "Do you think it's squatters? Please let it be squatters."

"I'm thinking hidden lab underneath the place?" San ventured. He looked upwards and shook his head. "I'm getting too old for this."

"You're not old at all and suck it up, people! Ella's waiting for us to rescue her and eliminate the threat," Aarti said. She paused as everyone looked at her. "What?"

"Was expecting Lucy to say that. Good job! You're acting more and more like the leader you are," Court said, clapping his hands. "Whoa!"

Lucy jerked him off the bike before Aarti's fist landed. The poor bike crumpled.

"Temper, temper," she cautioned. "It's not like he's lying. Now, let's go get our girl!"

*****

"Are you okay? Are you Ella? Aarti and Lucy said to say they sent me," the teenager said, sitting up. She winced and pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. "Just what did they dose me with? Omigawd, am I going to die? I'm going to die and no one's going to find my corpse. This is so going to make my daddy feel justified in saying I was running down the road to—" As if realizing she wasn't alone, her words choked off. She looked up with panic.

"It was just some tranquilizers," Ella said, blinking. She'd never met anyone who talked so much without taking a breath. If she concentrated hard, she could still hear the beeping of the tracker. "You met Aarti and Lucy?"

"They're amazing! Just like supes, only my age. Isn't that just the most wonderful thing you've ever heard of?" Maisie struggled to her feet and looked around. "Where am I? Well, us? Where are we?"

"We're prisoners?" Ella frowned. Still, her eyes strayed to those golden curls.

"I can't believe this is all real. I thought for sure it was a prank or something. I kept thinking I'd wind up in some weird place and have to figure out how to get out, but nope! It was really all real," Maisie continued. She reached out and touched the cool glass of her cylinder. "It's so weird. Like we're stuck in a science experiment or something." She glanced at Ella. "I saw something like that on television once before Dad said that television was the tool of the devil." She huffed a sigh. "I'm Maisie and you are?"

"Ella," Ella said faintly, staring. She'd heard about Maisie. Everyone had heard about Maisie.

And everyone knew that she'd died because of an unapproved experiment just two years after she'd been born.