Whoever these people were, they did a good job. Her room here was just like her room back home. The posters were of different bands and movies than she had in her own room, but they looked similar. Her bedframe was identical, and the vanity felt familiar. As if it was the actual piece of furniture from her room. Maybe it was. These people seemed to have quite the resources. Teleporters, prison cells, reconnaissance. But why would they steal her vanity?

She stepped over to the vanity and looked at her reflection. The t-shirt she picked out of her closet was a little tight in the chest area, but she could complain and get a new one. If she decided to stay. The jeans fit comfortably, though. She whipped her hand. Her long blonde hair braided itself and lay over her shoulder. When had her hair grown so long? How long had she been asleep? Maybe it was an alteration spell someone cast on her. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that had happened to her in her life.

She whipped her hair over her shoulder, so it lay down her back. She stood straight up and stretched. She felt more comfortable no longer in the body suit. But she still didn’t know where she was. Where her parents were. Why she had been extracted. And where she had been extracted from. Her mind kept flashing back to all the incubator pods. Filled with people of varying ages, sizes, and ethnicities, just a large swathe of people trapped. How long had she been asleep there? She was promised answers, but now she had to wait on Agent August Sun. That was what Cami said the name of the large man was.

Rae collapsed on her bed and went to turn her optical chip on, only to realize it wasn’t there. She ran her hand over the spot it should be, and she didn’t feel the slight bump in her skin. They’d taken it out of her. While her hand was there, she brushed her ear and realized her piercings were gone, too. At least the jewelry was. The holes were still present—those bastards.

Before she could go on a cursing streak in her head, she heard a sharp rap at her door. “Rae?” a voice came from the hallway. She hopped up and walked over to the door. She opened it to find the large-framed August.

“Hello,” she said, staring up at him.

“Hello, Rae. Or do you prefer Ms. Riot? Either way is fine with me.”

“Rae, please. Where are my parents?” The thought of going by Ms. Riot reminded her that Mrs. Riot was nowhere to be found.

“That’s a very complicated answer, Rae. Why don’t we find a place to sit down, and I’ll answer all of your questions?” He turned and started walking. Rae closed her door behind her and followed without a word. The halls in this section of the complex were slightly different than where she had landed earlier. The white had dulled to more of an eggshell color, and artwork decorated the walls. Most of it depicted Hecate in some fashion. Rae recognized her in all of the mythologies that she had been a part of over her illustrious history. Her family had been devoted followers of Hecate throughout her life. Though she had fallen a little out of practice, she still knew Hecate watched over her from above.

As they continued walking, the walls got whiter, and the artwork got thinner. Soon they were back to the stark walls and glass doors. Agent Sun stopped at one of the doors and opened it, holding it open for Rae. She went through without a word and sat at one of the chairs at the lone table in the steel room. The table was made of steel, too, as were the chairs. It was all very industrial. It made Rae uneasy.

“Okay, Rae. We can do this one of two ways,” August said. Oh shit, that didn’t sound good. “You can ask your questions free fire, and I’ll answer them as they come out, or I can tell you everything from the beginning and then answer your questions at the end. I would suggest the second option, but I’m fine with just answering questions.”

“I’ll ask questions as we go along. Start from the beginning.” Rae sat back in her chair and started bouncing her feet. She was anxious but needed to know what was going on.

“Okay. So, Rae Riot, your entire life has been a lie. An illusion, to be more accurate. You were placed under Hecate protocol when you were born. You were stripped from your parents the day you were born, tested for your magical capabilities, and put under an illusion before they even held you.”

“Alright, stop there. What the fuck is Hecate Protocol? Are you telling me that my parents weren’t real?” Rae refused to believe it. There was no way that her life wasn’t real. She had experienced it. Had eighteen birthdays to prove it. And her parents had loved her through all of it. From her first scraped knee to her first heartbreak, her parents had always been there. There was no illusion powerful enough to fake that.

“Your parents were very real. Just not the set you knew. And they loved you very much, just like the set you knew. They would have done anything for you. They gave everything to try and get you back.”

“Why are you talking in the past tense? Where are my parents?” Rae choked on the words. She felt like she already knew the answer.

“They died, Rae. Shortly after you were born. They tried to find you and did everything they could. One day they went on a raid of a containment center where you were being held. They didn’t make it. You were then moved to a higher security center, and it took us eighteen years to find you. We never stopped looking. We promised your parents we would never stop looking.”

Rae felt tears running down her face. She was crying. Over people she didn’t even know. But she had known them. Different versions of them. And now both versions were dead. “The ones I knew. The ones that raised me. Were they like my real parents?”

“Exact copies. The illusion you were under streamed your parents’ consciousnesses from the day you were born into it. It’s the one kindness the Hecate Protocol offers. It rips children from their parents, but the children get to experience life as if nothing happened. Except for being stripped of their power.”

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned the Hecate Protocol,” Rae said between sobs. “What is it? Who did this?”

“The Hecate Protocol has been in effect for the last two hundred years or so. When one of Hecate’s Chosen is born, they’re immediately placed under an illusion to contain their power. Their magic is then harvested and used as electricity. It’s supposed to keep the magical balance. Harvesting the magic is just a way to profit off the misery.”

“What’s a Chosen?”

“The gods choose children before they’re born. Those children are born with special abilities. Hecate chose you. It meant you were born with magical potential greater than that of a regular witch. In your illusion, the maximum magical power of a witch is one hundred cells. That’s the limit the Hecate Protocol put in place. The real limit, as we know it, is one hundred cells per school, for a maximum of six hundred cells. That is what’s known as a perfect witch. None have ever been recorded. Not until you.”

Rae froze. The only motion she made was the tears that still spilled from her eyes. What did he mean until her? She was an average witch. Sixty cells. She had come to terms with it. Or at least, she was coming to terms with it. Her parents were powerful witches with around ninety cells each. That was a powerful witch. Six hundred cells was more akin to a god. That much power was horrifying. And he was implying that she contained that?

“So…” she started. “I’m a perfect witch, then?” She sniffled from crying still.

“Yes, Rae. The only one we’ve ever seen. You’re special.”

“Be honest. Did you come for me for my parents’ sake or because I’m valuable?”

“Your parents were friends of mine, Rae. You could have been a one hundred-and-one cell witch, and I still would have chased you to the ends of Rath.” Rae looked him deep in his brown eyes. She saw nothing but honesty. He seemed genuine. But what did she know about genuine? Her whole life had been a lie.

“Do you have magical promises in this world?” Rae asked.

“Yes, Rae. We do.” He answered and extended his hand. Rae met him.

“Promise me you found me for the right reasons. You did this because of who my parents were, not because I’m some tool you want to use.” Rae didn’t know what she would be used for, but she could tell this place had a use for powerful witches. Cami was proof of that.

“I promise Rae Riot. Under the eyes of Hecate. I came for you because your parents were friends of mine. I would not allow them to die in vain.” Rae felt his magic infuse with hers, and she knew he was telling the truth. Good. Someone she could trust. She was going to need that. That also meant he was probably telling the truth about her power. Her terrifying power.

“That said, Rae,” he continued. “We are at war. And you’re the most powerful witch to ever walk the planet. I cannot force you, nor would I want to force you, to help us. But you would be an invaluable addition to our cause.”

“Who is we? Who are we against? Are these the people that killed my parents? Are these the people that stole my life from me?” Rae’s tears had dried up by this point, but she could feel them coming back on. She wasn’t sure if they were from sadness or anger, though.

“We are the Church of Hecate. Officially, we’re an organization that worships Hecate and advocates for her interests in the world. Unofficially, we’re trying to free those under the Hecate Protocol and get the protocol lifted altogether.”

“And our enemies?”

“The Church of Thor. And, to a lesser extent, the Church of Ra.”

“Why are they both against us? What did we do?”

“To understand that, you have to go back a bit further. The War of Gods. The Chosen from Hecate and the Chosen from Thor constantly battling for supremacy. Where Hecate’s Chosen are imbued with strong magic, Thor’s Chosen are imbued with raw power. They are resistant to magic. A regular witch could never hope to beat one of Thor’s Chosen. But Hecate’s Chosen put up more than a fight. The battles were bloody. Heads ripped from bodies by the power of Thor. Entire buildings were razed by the power of Hecate. Society was being torn apart. So the Church of Ra had a choice to make. Side with Hecate and shut down the Thors. Or side with Thor and shut down the Hecates. They chose to side with the Church of Thor. To them, it was the most logical decision at the time. Ra’s Chosen are extremely intelligent and analytical. They tend to lead governments. They made the decision that Thor’s Chosen were less capable of mass destruction than Hecate’s Chosen were. We were more dangerous. Ra’s strategists helped pick the battles, and the government enacted Hecate Protocol. The war didn’t last much longer than that.”

“So the entire world was against us. Is still against us. What’s the point?” Rae felt dejected. Her parents were dead. Or never existed, depending on how she looked at it. And now she was with a small resistance against the rest of the world.

“The entire world has softened to our plight. More and more people believe the Hecate Protocol is inhumane. Now it’s only the ardent supporters of the Church of Thor that keep it in place. The government has introduced bills to lift it, but the Church of Thor uses its influence to kill the bills. They need to be brought to heel. And the only language they know is force. But our first priority is to get everyone out of Hecate Protocol. Once everyone’s free, then we’ll worry ourselves with the Church of Thor. We’ll have an army.”

“How can I help?” Rae asked. There was no other option. She had to help. She had to help others like her. She had to free them.

“I don’t know how power scaled in your illusion, but hopefully, you know it doesn’t scale linearly by cells. A witch with fifty cells is far more than five times as powerful as a witch with ten. Similarly, you’re a witch with six hundred cells. You’re far, far more powerful than witches with less than you. Even a five-fifty witch wouldn’t so much as hold a candle to your power. Your power, with proper training, should allow you to reach the minds of entire containment centers and break them out of the illusion at once. At least, that’s what we’re hoping. Currently, we have to break people out one at a time. Some of our more powerful agents can break up to ten out at once with enough time. We think you could break them out en masse.”

“How many containment centers are there?”

“We don’t know. We know of fifty-seven. Each one has anywhere between a hundred and twenty-thousand. For some of them, we could storm and free everyone in days. For the larger ones, just getting inside of them takes months, if not years, and generally requires subterfuge. Getting to you took us a couple of years. We had to install John as an employee and then have him sneak in our agents.”

“What’s stopping you from storming them? And why aren’t you storming the smaller ones? That’s hundreds of people that you could free.” August sighed. He looked exhausted. Rae was offended he would even look tired. She had objectively had a far longer, far worse day than he could imagine.

“We’re biding our time, Rae. We have to. We don’t want to lose more people in raids. Your parents weren’t the only casualties. But we’re reaching a strength now where we’re almost ready. We’re gaining confidence. We think we’ll be able to go for the smaller centers without casualties. For the larger ones, we just need more people. Or, more accurately, more power.”

They needed more people like Rae. Strong witches that could tip the scales in their favor. Were they tracking powerful witches? Were they focusing only on freeing them? Or did they have some other selection criteria? Rae still had so many questions. But suddenly, she was tired. And she didn’t have the energy to keep going.

“Can I go to bed?” Rae asked. She just wanted sleep. She needed it. To escape this reality that she’d been broken into. Away from power and war. Just sleep.