Direction (Lana)

She wasn't a failure.

She knew about her step-mom's modeling gig and how she stepped out of the Adventure Society spotlight for a while to recharge. She even watched her mom's work and got strangely turned on by it all. She never wanted to admit it though, because it all seemed sort of perv to her. But she was happy her mom was finally doing something different for once, something for herself, not dangerous, and something that let her explore a more beautiful and feminine side of herself.

And when her mom gave her permission to drop out of college she felt so guilty, like she had let down everyone she knew, her family, her friends, and her professors. She felt like a failure at life. The darkness of never getting a degree hung over her like a cloud. She felt like she wasn't going to amount to anything, she would end up working at FastMart or doing porn like her mom. She had just started in life, and found her road ended short.

But she just couldn't take it anymore.

She felt like she was heading down a nowhere road. A place she could see but never wanted to be. A degree that would keep her from living life, lock her into a position, and choose a life for her that she wanted no part of. She wanted to be out here, hanging by her fingertips on the edge of life and feeling alive. If she was only going to get one ride on this thing called life she wanted to do it her way.

And the Shangchi Communists didn't help matters any. Their money flowed through the university system like a stench. All her friends indoctrinated in pseudo-communism. Her professors all spies for their regime. Software and technology flying out the doors to their industries, the theft of IP and research sickened her, and those in charge smiled and told her, "It didn't matter," as they took money under the table.

And after Luna's war to rescue Lian, all the new Shangchi friends that encircled her. Became her best pals. Wanted to know everything about her. Wanted to hang out with her. Wanted her to visit their country.

She was in the airport and headed to Zoshan Province when Lilith appeared from nowhere and took her aside. Lilith told her if she got on that plane with her friends she would never be seen again.

She cried in the luggage area of that airport for an hour as she tried to reason with Lilith and tell her it was going to be okay. But that is what she wanted herself to believe, and it wasn't actually reality. Sometimes the lies you want to believe hurt more than the truth. Lilith showed her the arrest warrant that the communists would use to detain her when she landed. She would be used as a pawn to trade Lian back to them, or she would be executed and another one of her sisters would be next.

Those people weren't her friends, they were spies luring her into a trap.

She watched them from the back door leading into the service area of the airport. She watched them look for her as their flight approached. Her phone rung constantly as they tried to get in touch. They made calls to other people. They got in touch with airport security. Lilith said even Laura got called on her remote island.

Three members of the Shangchi consulate of Los Angeles in their suits and hammer and sickle pins and black suits showed up and talked with her friends. They were mad at her friends. Like they somehow screwed something up. Her friends argued they wanted to go look for Lana, but the consulate members said no and angrily ordered them all onto the waiting plane.

She had just sent all her supposed friends to their death or eternal imprisonment in some work camp and she didn't care.

They were never her friends.

They were a lie like her education had been.

She walked out of that airport with red, swollen eyes but never feeling more alive than she had ever been.