Part 1 of 3 : A new beginning

Present day – morning

The raindrops hit hard against her head as she stood, trying to make up her mind. The airlock of the cargo bay towering before her. “This is my only hope...” she tried to sound convincing, if only to herself. It was one of the hardest decisions she had ever had to make: leave everything familiar to her, go off to who-knows-where and start a new life doing who-knows-what.

Four months earlier

Adreana Bellinsky had been working as a biochemical technician at one of the Alliance’s facilities for about six months. There was a boom in business so to speak after the Alliance pretty much won the war. She hadn’t even ever thought about on who’s side she was on. They had offered her a bursary to study biotechnology at one of the most advanced facilities and then they offered her a job she never dreamed of having. Great pay, great benefits. But she never realised (or even thought about) what the price would be. As it turned out, the price was too damn high.

One day she just happened to pick up one of the files that a high-ranking officer dropped. “TAMM, HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL, CLEARANCE LEVEL NINE” was all it said on the front. Innocently intrigued she flipped through the pages (okay, maybe not so innocently). There were photos of a brother and a sister and some notes on procedures. Suddenly, almost violently she dropped the folder. “What the hell?!” was all she could breathe. It wasn’t notes, but a detailed description of brain-altering procedures that had been performed on River (the sister). She frantically looked around to check if anybody had seen her and picked up the folder. Before she could stop herself, she threw it in the incinerator. She didn’t even notice that tears had started rolling down her cheeks. All she could think about was what had been done to that poor, innocent girl. An inextinguishable flame of hatred began to burn in her gut as she practically ran to the main lab. She swiped her security card. The doors whooshed open. Checking to see