Activate by Crystal Perkins Page A

again,” I say, lifting my t-shirt to scrub furiously at my neck.
    “You didn’t like my sweet, soft lips on your neck?”
    “Your lips are not sweet or soft, and no. Just really, really no.”
    “You’d do the same if you had to.”
    “Yeah, so that’s another hope—that I never have to. Can we stop talking about this, and never mention it again?”
    “Sure. Well, actually no. I mean, I’m gonna have to tell Sabrina I was kissing someone else while we were apart.”
    I don’t respond, because what can I say to that? Moving into the circular structure, I drop to my knees and press on a section of the floor that calls to me. My hands sink into the floor, and then I’m falling forward through it.
    I managed to land on my feet as Levi drops next to me. We both stand, and I survey the contents of the secret room. I don’t know how the hell I just fell through the floor when it was solid, but I don’t really care about that at the moment; I just want to start building.

Sabrina
    I got the rest I needed—I slept for almost twelve hours—and now we’re back in the park. I just convinced a guard to let us climb the fence, and it was easier than I thought it’s be. Now I just need to convince both of the ones a few feet away to ignore us as we wade into the pond. Two minds may be better in some cases, but in this one, it just makes things infinitely harder for me.
    I can do this . That’s what I tell myself, over and over, because even though I won’t be able to convince myself of that through mind manipulation, it can’t hurt to try and re-assure myself. I take a deep, calming breath and stand up picturing the pond as it is right now, with nothing breaking the surface. I motion to Lauren, and we both run as I push that image into the guards’ heads, over and over again as we walk into the water. I hold onto my focus, even though my head is starting to hurt a little from keeping two people controlled.
    Lauren goes under, and I follow her, letting go of my hold on the guards once we’re in deep enough water to dive down. The pond is only around eight feet deep, but once we swim through the tunnel that we find under one of the statues, we’re in a passageway with ceilings that are at least fifteen feet tall.
    “How is all of this under here without anyone knowing?” I ask, thoroughly confused.
    “Oh, they probably know about the passageways, and things—I mean, how could they not? The only difference is, they can only see what the humans have built. Once we get closer, we’ll be in an altered ‘state’ I guess you’d call it.”
    “Our minds are altering?”
    “No. I guess that isn’t what you’d call it,” she says with a laugh. “We’ll be here, but not really here. I don’t know how else to explain it. If someone knows to look, they can find the room, but a normal person walking by won’t ever see it.”
    “Basically, we’re hidden in plain sight by some alien magic.”
    “Yeah, that.”
    I nod like I get it, and I kind of do, but it’s still hard to wrap my head around the fact that we’re not exactly human. I swam from Australia to France, mind-controlled some people, and haven’t eaten a thing in days, and yet, I still just can’t quite believe it all.
    If that’s mind-boggling, then looking at all the pieces of metal and computer parts lying around—and knowing exactly what to do with them—is something I don’t have words for. I know I’m some creation of spy, detective, and alien, and I can’t remember knowing anything else, but it still strikes me as weird. Should it? Probably not. It might be a defect, or maybe my mind is stronger than their controls.
    “You ready to build this thing and get your memories back?”
    Memories? No one mentioned memories. “Huh?”
    “Oh yeah, we didn’t tell you. Besides figuring out how to block the Muses, we all worked together to figure out how I could remember and they couldn’t.”
    “Really? I can remember?”
    “Yes. Once