A growing anxiety was making JaKaelath's stomach churn as they approached the Geeryo facility.

  Part of her was undeniably eager to see what lay within. But the greater part, the one that remembered the horrifying revelation in the Cave city, that she was in fact a Ponu, was filled with Dread.

  She had always tried to avoid talk of the wars and histories of wars, battles her people fought. She knew she was a scavenger, and whoever her people required her to fight against or perform a mission against, she would do. Now, she had learned a lot about Geeryo from Kragon. They were the "puppet masters" of the Ponu. They were the ones who really unleashed them. According to her own Kragon, the Ponu were accomplices, but Geeryo apparently showed little regard for them.

  They didn't fully understand the relationship between Geeryo and Ponu, except that Ponu seemed to come in two varieties: those who worship Geeryo, and those who not only worship Geeryo but want to kill every man, woman and child scavenger alive. There seemed to be very little outside of that, according to Kragon. Geeryo, he had told her, seemed to have little use for either type of Ponu, besides helping Geeryo achieve whatever the hell they were after.

  As they got closer to the facility, JaKaelath, her heart beating faster and faster, removed her scavenger clothing. The tight, pink Ponu-suit, now her only covering, felt like a second skin. Her bare feet, unaccustomed to the rough earth, now felt vulnerable. The others watched her. Jarigal had clear scorn. Dukota's unwavering glance told her he saw her as more specimen than a human deserving respect. Jettal merely grunted as if to say she couldn't understand this charade. A Ponu is in front of us. Why not just kill it?

  She approached the massive, metallic doors of the facility. She looked tiny in front of it. She remembered how she felt approaching the entrance to the cave. To her surprise, with the soft sound of air rushing out, they slid open, revealing a dark, lonely corridor beyond. She gave the pre-arranged signal, a quick nod, and her team moved forward. As the doors began to slide back into place, sealing with a loud thud, JaKaelath realized with a sudden, chilling clarity that Kragon would not be able to follow. She was truly alone inside this place, cut off from her only real ally.

  Jettal, smiling and enjoying JaKaelath's discomfort, probably imagined herself like a cat playing with its prey. She could not resist making a provocative comment, hoping it might incite the smaller Ponu woman to attack her. “So, you’re the one who’s supposed to be Ponu, right? Living amongst us all this time, and no one knew it.” Jarigal stood silent with a look of disgust, but a look that also promised retribution for every Ponu transgression, every historical slight her people had suffered.

  “I am not Ponu,” JaKaelath uttered, her voice thin but firm. “I am a scavenger.”

  “You sure look like one,” Jarigal scoffed, her lip curling in disgust.

  Dukota, ever the pragmatist, cut them off. “Enough. We have a mission.”

  The facility was an archaeological dig of forgotten technology. It was a treasure trove, not of gold or ancient weapons, but of information far more dangerous. There were data files filled with medical records, details on Ponu physiology, and chillingly, extensive research on their psychological and physical “weaknesses.” JaKaelath felt her heart sink, a leaden weight in her chest. Every file, every line of text, was a testament to the callous, calculated cruelty of Geeryo, and now it was falling into the hands of people who would wield it as a weapon against her own kind.

  “What’s the matter, hun?” Jarigal sneered, noticing JaKaelath’s distress. “You should be happy if you really are not one of them.”

  Dukota, meanwhile, seemed to be on a specific quest. He ignored the general data, moving with a focused intensity through the labyrinthine corridors. A few hallways down, in a larger, central chamber, he found it.

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  "Come look over here," he proclaimed, excited. They were all shocked.

  It was held in place in the wall, an android. It had human clothing on, a pink coverall.

  The silly thought ran through JaKaelath's head that whatever Geeryo was, they sure do love the color pink. The triviality of the thought was swept away by looking at the android's face; it was hard to describe for her, but it was almost as if its look conveyed an apologetic look for things it was about to do.

  She felt an unease about it that grew; something about this machine was not right, and she wanted to get away.

  "This gentleman here is what's called a Geeryo guard," Dukota proclaims. "Jarigal, remember that special mission months ago that Kallian sent some of the red band on. Jarigal looks at JaKaelath as if surprised Dukota is discussing this in front of her. "Well," he continues, "they ran into a bunch of these damn things".

  JaKaelath's body began to tremble slightly.

  "Geeryo used some of them to keep the Ponu under control, damn thing got some sort of psychological hold on them that enhances their fear of it".

  With a smirk on his face, he turns towards JaKaelath in her pink suit, "Makes them tremble in fear even".

  JaKaelath could only utter a hollow “Good,” her voice a strained whisper. She looked downward, a profound shock washing over her. The thought of it being used on the women she had begun to consider her people made her blood run cold.

  Jettal, ever the bully, chose that moment to playfully shove JaKaelath towards the android. “Go on, Ponu. Let's see what it does to her,” she jeered.

  That was it. JaKaelath snapped. With a blazing speed that took the larger scavenger woman completely by surprise, JaKaelath twisted, disarming Jettal with a deft move honed by a lifetime of instinct and the subtle enhancements of her Ponu physiology. She pushed Jettal down, pinning her to the floor with an intensity that radiated pure, unadulterated fury. JaKaelath stood over her, breathing heavily, her eyes burning with a dangerous light. “Enough,” she said, her voice a low but authoritative tone.

  Dukota, startled by the sudden outburst, quickly intervened. “Yes, that is enough,” he said, his tone surprisingly calm, a hint of respect in his eyes for JaKaelath’s unexpected ferocity. “All of you, help us get these pieces back on the wagon. We’ve found what we came for.”

  He looks at JaKaelath, "Oh, and tell your bookworm beefcake boyfriend..." he waits to see that Jettal and Jarigal found his joke amusing, "tell him he can stop hiding in the bushes now, and not to worry, I'll be the one to repair this thing and get it working again."

  With that, they began the trip back.

  Later, back at the scavenger camp, they all entered Kallian’s tent, and the parts of the Geeryo Guard were laid out on the dirt floor. JaKaelath, normally more comfortable in the Ponu-suit now, felt an urge to cover herself. In Kallian’s presence, the exposed pink fabric felt less like an act of defiance and more like a willing submission, as if she were giving him his goal of identifying her as Ponu. She quickly pulled her scavenger clothing back over the Ponu-suit, obscuring it from view.

  They delivered their report, a terse, factual account of their discovery. Kallian merely grunted, his eyes fixed on the pieces of the Geeryo Guard. When the debriefing was over, the others began to leave, but Kallian’s voice, sharp and commanding, stopped JaKaelath at the flap of the tent.

  “JaKaelath. Stay.”

  She turned back, her heart thumping. On Kallian’s desk, the hologram of the Ponu man seemed to shrink, its sad expression deepening as it watched her.

  “With this,” he began, gesturing vaguely at the disassembled machine, “it can help us win this war and wipe the Ponu off the face of the earth. We just need to remember one ultimate truth: the Ponu are not human; they may look human, sound human, maybe, who knows, at one point, they could have been human. Whatever they are now, they are not. Do not be fooled, whether you have known them for a few days in a cave in a spy mission,"....he hesitates to make sure she hears the next part, "or if you have known them for years, they will never be anything but scum". With that, he slams his fist on the table next to the hologram Ponu man, who looks like he is about to have a heart attack because of the near miss.

  JaKaelath felt a cold fury, pure and searing, ignite in her gut. She met his gaze, unflinching. Without a word, she turned and walked out, leaving him with his triumphant smirk and his menacing machine. The fight was coming, and she knew exactly which side Kallian believed she was on.