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“Huh. I think it could use more gadgets.”

“Will you listen!” Matrix hissed, putting on his shoes. “I went blind.”

“Well you’re clearly not blind enough to have gotten dressed this morning, mate. I’d say you’re fine.” Beta looked at his biceps in the mirror, but when Hershey exited the bathroom he stopped immediately.

“He already said that it went away right after Halsey left, Beta,” Hershey piped in. “Weren’t you listening?”

“Not really.”

Matrix finished tying his shoes and turned to yell at Beta, but stopped when he saw him. “What are you wearing?”

Beta turned so Matrix could see the full outfit. He was wearing a black jumpsuit accompanied with a hood that almost covered his eyes, a mask that covered his mouth and nose, and gloves that showed his fingers but nothing else. He wore black boots which his pant legs were tucked tightly into. He also wore padding over his torso and on his shoulders. “What do you mean?” Beta asked, his voice muffled by the mask.

“I mean…were you going for assassin?”

“Ninja.” Beta looked at Matrix like his lack of knowledge of the ancient fighting arts was disappointing.

Matrix nodded. “Ah, yes I see it now. Thank you.”

Beta rolled his eyes. “Okay, too much. I get it.” After he changed back into his usual sweatpants, they walked out of their new bedroom for breakfast. Matrix took one last look in the mirror. His new outfit was significantly blacker than his old ones, and he appreciated it. Hershey rolled his eyes and pushed him out the door, deciding he wasn’t going to wait for him to decide if he looked cute.

The three crossed the bridge that straddled and connected the treehouses. They went down the ladder hanging against the tree to the forest floor, Beta still not over how cool it all was.

They walked a little way to get to the main shops which held the line of tents titled “Dining Hall.” They passed through the plastic curtain and looked around themselves. There were wooden tables set within the tents where people sat and ate, a line of grills and counters where people were serving food lining the backs.

Matrix sniffed the air and grumbled. “Ugh, I still can’t believe we have to go back to that ‘eating so you don’t die’ and ‘watch your diet’ crap.”

“Well I mean, technically you never stopped,” Beta argued, walking up to the counters. They got their breakfast food and sat down at an empty table. There were so many people staring at them since they got there that they’d learned to ignore it within the first five minutes of it being an issue. Beta sighed. “I still can’t believe you had this whole private and deep conversation with the guy you’ve said you hated for weeks now,” he brought up. Matrix rolled his eyes and put his bread down. “For the millionth time, don’t you think I preplanned it?”

“Okay, but why? How much time did you actually have to plan it out?” Beta argued.

Oh trust me, I had time, Hershey waited for Matrix to say, but he didn’t. He just munched on his bread in silence and Hershey sensed something was off immediately. “You’ve been planning this for a while now…haven’t you?” Matrix looked up, but that was all Hershey needed. His eyes widened. “How long?” Hershey asked and Matrix looked away. “You knew about El when we were on Plato, didn’t you!?” Hershey accused. Matrix stammered and Beta jumped in. “You knew about him!?” Beta exclaimed.

“No! No!” Matrix turned to Hershey, panicking. “No!” he lied, taking in a sharp breath before choosing to tell only some of the truth. “I didn’t know El was El, I only knew him as the guy who escaped Plato to go running around on Earth,” he argued, pausing before he took another bite.

“But you did know that he was friends with Halsey,” Hershey pushed. Matrix rubbed his forehead. “Okay, yes. Yes I did, but again, I had no idea that that was the person we were dealing with. No one spoke of his name or what he looked like, not even Halsey,” Matrix clarified. “But trust me, ever since then I’ve planned a lot to say to him…not that any of it actually came out when it came down to it.”

Beta finished chewing his strawberry before he spoke. “What’s goin’ on with you and Halsey anyway?”

Matrix cleared his throat at the mention of him, rubbing his sweaty eyebrow. “Oh you know, we’re just…” Matrix couldn’t finish, choking on the word he wanted to say. Luckily, Hershey caught on right away. “Bonded?”

“Can you stop doing that?”

“Wait, you two are bonds?” Beta said, shocked. “You sure as hell don’t act like it.”

“And how would you know how they act?” Matrix said, glaring.

“I’ve known about bonds since I was four. Go on then, try me,” Beta replied. Matrix groaned as Hershey and Beta started bugging him for a story.

“When’d you find out?”

“Yeah, what was it like?”

“Tell us!”

“Yeah, tell us!”

“Okay, alright! Shut up!” Matrix exclaimed, urging them to lower their voices. “It’s not a very interesting story to tell. It just kind of, happened one day. It had really started the second I got on Plato, but it didn’t really start bothering me until later on.”

“Was this before or after you met me?” Hershey asked.

“Before, at least a year before. I started feeling this weird pain in my chest. I didn’t know what it was, it was just like…this longing. I thought it must’ve been a ‘dead’ thing, but then that longing started to become depression. Eventually it got so bad that I couldn’t get out of bed. I’d just be lying around all day thinking about someone I didn’t even know. You couldn’t imagine the kind of agony the bond brought on me,” Matrix explained, scratching his head. “So, after a while, the other Staks got me to go see one of the doctors. I told them sometimes I felt these aches in my back like I had been working it too hard—which I later realized were Halsey’s wings—and, I don’t know, just a feeling of something more to me.” Matrix sighed. “Every day they sent me back to my room with nothing but ‘It’s just nature taking its course’ bull advice. But on the 6th or 7th visit, there was a group of higher-ups there. And for you unimportant people, they’re technically called ‘The Men,’” Matrix explained, adding air quotations. He ate the rest of his bread.

“Well that’s pretty sexist,” Beta said.

“I know right?” Matrix mumbled as the food sloshed in his mouth. “And like half of them were female. But whatever.” He swallowed. “Anyway, they brought me to the leader of the Men and that’s when I found out I was a Resurrector.”

“Were you excited?” Hershey asked out of curiosity.

“Nope,” Matrix said simply. “They didn’t even get to tell me who it was before I walked out of the building. I didn’t care how much longing I felt, I didn’t want to depend on anybody ever again.” Matrix shrugged as he leaned back in his seat. “Didn’t change anything though, we met anyway. Somehow, it was just so peaceful that I didn’t notice when all the pain went away.”

“How’d you two end up meeting?” Hershey asked, and Matrix just smiled and winked, but didn’t say a word.

As they went back to eating, a black cat walked into the dining hall, startling only a few as they did. Hershey spotted the animal first and smiled at them, seeing them look back at him. The creature hissed, running toward their table and jumping onto it. Beta and Matrix jumped back as the creature walked around in circles meowing as they did. Eventually they left, running back out of the structure and into the daylight straight toward the castle. Matrix sighed. “Something tells me El wants us,” he said, leaning forward. The other two nodded and abandoned their food. Matrix, on the other hand, took his meal with him and ate it on the way. They walked over to the ropes that hung below the castle.

Once they were up, Beta, Hershey, and Matrix jumped off the ropes and ran into the building then up the stairs, barging into the Queens’ bedroom. Their eyes were corrupted by fire and El appeared, jumping through the window. “Something’s up,” he announced.

“You know a letter would’ve worked too,” Matrix retorted.

“Don’t you guys have an official office or something?” Hershey asked.

Faith and Willow looked at them, relieved that they were there. “We do, but this is something we need your opinion on before we make it a big deal,” Faith said. The two Queens were wearing new dresses today, ones that matched. It was all baby blue silk, almost like a sleeping gown. The only difference was theirs were lined with jewels on the rims of the wrist, collar, and mid-section. “Look.” Faith un-muted the T.V. hanging over the door frame and they all gathered around the bed to watch it.

“—suicide was random and that no one could have seen it coming. In the meantime while things are being worked out, Vice President Walker has sworn in and stepped into office. She’s promised in her first interview, and I quote, ’Nothing our recently deceased leader has done will be erased in my presidency, so there is no need to wor—” Faith muted the T.V. again before the lady could finish.

“That’s shady,” Matrix stated bluntly.

“Exactly, which is why I did some research.” Willow walked over to the computer in the room and began typing. Words, signs, and numbers flew across the page before Willow opened her mouth to speak again. “I hacked into a presidential file and found some information that might help us.”

“You can do that?” Beta asked.

“She can practically do anything,” El answered. “What’d you find?” he asked Willow.

As she searched for the digital photo, she tried to provide background. “As you know, November 2020 was when we elected what used to be our current President, and then we got Walker as Vice. She and the President were always together, the magazines called it ‘scandalous.’ He was the first President not to have a First Lady. Then I found this picture of Walker.” Willow pulled up a picture of Walker outside the White House in the early morning. Behind her were women and men carrying carts holding large cages covered by white blankets into the White House.

“There’s no way they’d let that get released,” Hershey said, sitting in the chair next to her.

“They didn’t. They got rid of it, along with the guy who took it. I dug it back up.”

“You can do that?” Beta asked, astonished.

“Of course she can,” El said, shrugging as if it were no big deal.

“Nothing ever really gets deleted from the internet once it’s out there,” Hershey clarified.

“Yeah, anyway. I also hacked into their security system and found this video. Look.” Willow played the video, showing a corner wall camera in one of the White House’s East Wing hallways.

It showed where the two hallways met. After a few seconds, the President walked down the hallway just as Walker was coming down the other hallway. They met in the middle and words were shared. There was no sound on the tape but they could tell they were arguing. Walker pushed the President against the wall and pressed her lips to his. He didn’t push away. In fact, he wrapped his hands around her waist and they rushed out of frame. In a flash, Willow switched to another camera and it showed them in the middle of another hallway where Walker was opening the door to a private room and ushering the man inside. As she did so, Willow paused it and pointed. “There, right there. Look at her eyes.” Everyone leaned in and watched the screen.

Walker’s eyes were wide open and they were black, leaving her pupils white like the rest of “them.” “That’s no camera flare,” Faith said, feeling happy that she finally understood something Willow understood involving technology.

“Walker’s a Sync, we know,” Matrix said, leaning back from the screen as Faith, Walker, and El turned to the three. “Ah told us,” Beta clarified. “Walker was the one who put the Syncs in her head.” As the room got even quieter, Hershey coughed and pointed at the screen. “So what happens next?”

“Well, then this,” Willow said, speeding up the video until she saw a flash of black and started it at a regular pace. The President walked out of the closet with Walker beside him. She whispered in his ear and all he did was nod and walk away. Walker walked down the hallway she came from, acting like nothing had happened. Willow switched to another camera showing the oval office and saw the President with a gun in his hand hours later.

“This can’t be good,” Matrix muttered.

President Rodriguez turned off the safety and pointed the gun at his head. He spoke a few words before pulling the trigger.

“Wait, go back,” Beta commanded. Willow did so. Once it got to the part where he held the gun to his temple, he told Willow to pause it. “Zoom in on his mouth.” Willow zoomed in and then played the video. After he spoke his words, Willow paused it again.

Beta thought for a moment. “Play it again.” Willow did just that and she paused it again at the same place. Everyone turned to Beta as he thought it over, restating what he thought was said in his head, then out loud so everyone could hear.

“Let the angels fall, and the demons rise.”

Willow and Faith gave each other a worried look, not knowing what it meant. Matrix cursed under his breath. “She must’ve heard about your little ‘incident’ in Ah’s neighborhood,” he said, turning to Beta. “They’re waging war.”

El’s flesh-eating teeth flared for half a second. “She’s taunting us. We need to find out what Walker’s planning, now.” El jumped out of the window before anyone could tell him otherwise.

“We’ll get you weapons and everything else you need. Just go and get packed, there are some clothes in your closet. Hurry, we don’t have any time to waste,” Faith said.

“Actually, there’s something else I think is worth mentioning,” Hershey said and everyone stopped to listen.

“When we were stopped by the Syncs in the neighborhood, they were willing—all willing—to stop listening to Walker if Ah said so,” Hershey explained. “So maybe Ah’s a lot more relevant than she realizes.”

“Great idea,” Faith said. “Except she’s not interested.”

“What?” Beta said.

“We talked to her after she came here. She made it quite clear that she wanted nothing else to do with the Syncs, and even then it’s not like you can just bring her around wherever you go. Not all of the Syncs will be so lenient. She’s more of an end game than anything.”

Beta, Hershey, and Matrix sighed. “Okay, fine. We’ll get back to you.” The boys left swiftly, shutting the door behind them. As the door shut, Willow pulled up her dress and sat on her bed, shutting her tired eyes. “I can’t believe what a mess this has become.”

“Since when have you started coning the phrase ‘has become?’” Faith tried to make a joke as she sat down next to her, but Willow wasn’t having it. Faith sighed. “I know my raspberry love, and I’m sick to my stomach thinking about what the boys could get themselves into.”

“Then why do we let them go?” Willow argued.

“Because when they came down to Earth, they agreed to this, they agreed to fight for everyone. They’re not fighting alone, either. We have a village full of warriors don’t forget that. They’ll be fine, Slegna will be fine. Believe in our boy and his friends, okay?” Faith rubbed her thumb across Willow’s cheek, trying to calm her.

“He’s not really ours, nor is he really a boy.”

“But he comes to us whenever he needs help, I’d say that holds some value.”

“But now…he has the three other boys as his family, not to mention Halsey.”

“And we’ll still be like mothers to him, nothing will change that. The only thing different is that we’ve got a few more boys to look after,” Faith said. She kissed the top of Willow’s head and let it linger before standing up and walking away, leaving Willow to decide on her feelings before things became more serious than they already were.

“Have you noticed something different about El?” Beta said from the other side of the cracked bathroom door.

Matrix shrugged. “Sort of. I mean these are his people; he doesn’t want his soldiers to die in a war, it’s simple.”

“Or maybe he just doesn’t want his friends to die in general?” Beta countered. “Not everyone’s a soldier.” Beta closed the bathroom door all the way and took off his still fresh clothes, realizing how less sweaty he was now for a reason he still couldn’t comprehend. Back bent over to pick up his undershirt, the doorknob turned and the door began to open. With super reflexes, Beta ran to the door and shut it.

Matrix flinched as the door shut in his face. He heard the door lock and jiggled the knob. “Dude, unlock the door. I need to wash my face.”

“No!” Beta said, frantic.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m changing!”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Matrix asked.

“Yes, it is! It’s privacy rules!”

“That is not a thing that exists,” the Stak rebutted. “Wait, is this why you didn’t want to go swimming on Plato?” Matrix let his teeth show.

“What? Shut up and go away!” the Perna responded. Beta looked down at his clothes and took a deep breath before rushing for them, putting on his outfit frantically. “I don’t like people seeing my body. Is that not reasonable?”

Matrix snickered from the other side of the door. “You’re adorable,” he taunted.

“No, I’m serious!” Beta countered, squirming on the ground to get his pants on.

There was a knock and Matrix turned away from the bathroom door to the bedroom door. “Hershey can you get the door?”

“Sure.” Hershey stood up after tying his shoes and walked toward the door. He opened it to see El standing there boldly without even trying. “Hey,” Hershey said dryly, walking back to his bed. El nodded in his direction.

Matrix held up a finger. “One sec.” He turned away from El and put his hand on the doorknob. His action caused the lock on the door to unlock. Beta noticed and quickly buttoned his pants as a last gesture.

Matrix swung the door open and looked down at Beta breathing heavily on the bathroom floor.

He rolled his eyes and stepped over him to get to the sink. He picked up the soap while Beta stood up and walked out of the bathroom. “Hey El,” he said out of breath, trying to shake his hair back into place.

“Your zipper’s down,” the hybrid stated.

Beta looked down and noticed the unzipped zipper for himself. His face turned a rosy color—which Matrix was starting to wonder if it was less of an embarrassment thing and more of a Perna thing—and he quickly zipped it up.

“Aren’t you going to change?” Hershey asked El.

“Later,” he responded.

Matrix walked out of the bathroom, his face already washed. He looked at El’s nails and saw that the teal was gone and replaced with a tangy orange. Matrix gestured to them. “I see you’ve changed your nail polish,” he said, sitting down on his own bed.

El shrugged. “Yeah.”

“We’ve only been separated for a few minutes,” Matrix said.

“I did it this morning.” El raised his eyebrow like Matrix should’ve noticed.

“Oh sorry. I guess I didn’t notice since you were a cat and all,” he retorted. Beta sensed tension, but said nothing as he put on his shoes.

“I could do yours if you want,” El offered.

Matrix laughed hard, probably harder than he should have. Hershey just knew an awkward conversation was in tow. “Oh, okay. Yeah um…no thanks.” Then he laughed some more.

Beta bit his lip, sensing the sour turn the room had taken. He looked over at Hershey and Hershey just shrugged, feeling just as helpless as Beta in the situation.

El narrowed his eyes. “Is there a problem?” he said, a testing look on his face.

“Well I mean…it’s just kind of girly.” Matrix smiled a little bit after the laughter disappeared.

El raised his eyebrow, obviously pissed. “Oh,” he said, anger dripping from his voice in a way none of the three guys had ever heard before. Beta and Hershey recoiled, not just from El’s anger but from his terrifying glare. Even when it was pointed at someone else, seeing it in action was horrifying.

The smile dropped from Matrix’s face so fast that when Hershey blinked he missed it. “I didn’t mean—”

And then it all disappeared, every bit of anger on El’s face disappeared in one swoop and his “no emotion” face returned. “No no,” El said, waving his hand. “It’s fine, you’re fine. It is girly…you just didn’t have to laugh so hard—”

“El, seriously, I’m really sorry,” Matrix tried to apologize but El waved it away.

“Matrix, it’s fine,” His face flinched for a second as if the anger was going to come back, but it didn’t. “More girls wear nail polish than guys, it’s just a fact. I’m not mad.”

“…Okay but you seem mad,” Matrix commented.

“Okay, but I’m not.”

“…Are you sure?” Matrix said, his voice small. He was afraid he was poking the bear, the bear being a very two-sided El.

“Seriously…I’m not mad,” he said, shrugging. El kicked the door open and backed up into it, glancing down at his fingernails—glancing like he was contemplating changing the color—as he walked away. “See you downstairs!” he called as he climbed over the ledge outside the tree house and flew away.

Matrix turned to Beta and Hershey huddled in the far corner of Beta’s bed. They turned to Matrix as he said, “He was definitely mad.”