THE OUTCASTS

Chapter 8

Kala was saying something to her, but Jane didn't hear a word until she noticed a man she had never seen before who was trying not to stare at her.

„I'm sorry, but I didn't even notice you speaking until now. Could you please repeat it?"

„A bit insolent, aren't we.", the man had said.

„This is her first time here. I understand if she was a bit in a daze after everything that has happened to her." Kala said, but Cole was silent for once. She wondered why. 

He was the one that usually led the entire conversations. Especially if it was his first time meeting them.

 She noticed then that he was here before.

 Some of the women slightly waved at him as they passed, and another man with dark brown hair nodded him in acknowledgement. 

They all knew him. 

Even this towering man who was seizing her up like he was trying to asses her. She saw that look in the Arville prison's warden. She looked at Jane like that when she was first brought there.

„Jane, this is sergeant Tucker.", Kala said as she gave sergeant a look that would frighten most men. Like she was threating him to shake hands with Jane or else. She wondered how was it possible that a small woman like Kala could make Tucker even wince, let alone feeling uncomfortable. Still, the sergeant put out his scarred hand towards her, seeming rather annoyed about it. His hazel eyes set on her as Jane shaked hands with him. She could have sworn he was saying „don't make more trouble than you're worth" with his eyes.

„Sergeant here is in charge of this room. What he says goes.", Kala said.

Jane found herself asking before she could stop herself, „And what about the rest of the house? Is he in charge of only this room or every other in this corridor? Or does every room here have it's prefect?" Sergeant's eyebrows lifted high enough that they reached his cropped hair, Cole almost choked on trying to contain his laugh, but Kala said with a smile." He is in charge of every person here. He gives the command, they listen and he reports back to the commander."

„And who is the commander?"

„Why me of course." Kala said and Jane was a bit startled.

„Why is there a commander here? What is this place?"She was getting a bit nervous.

„Come with me." Kala said as she went to table in the center of the room.

„This is the Earth's Defense Barrier. As you probably know it came online over a decade ago. It can scan everything transported around the whole world. It can track and monitor every aircraft on this planet. Disarm any stray missle and can even tell you world temperature, significant news around the world and even forcast." Kala explained what Jane already knew. She designed a small model of it when she was nine for a school project. „Over the years it had been uploaded by the world's finest software engineers. A lot of them like you actually. However, several years ago we detected a new program being installed in there. Something the government wanted to keep quiet about it. When children from several continents began disappearing a few years back, we noticed that every single one of them had been detected by the EDB before they went missing."

„What do you mean before they went missing?"She was looking at Kala now.

„The new program they installed was able to track and analyze every person who ever bordered an international transport. Ferries, planes, bus, railway. It discovered something in them that seperated them from others. Not just children, but teenagers, adults. Not older than thirty though."