The Circadia Chronicles: Omnibus: The Complete Colonization Sci-Fi Series by Heather Heckadon (books to read to get smarter .txt) 📗

and I discussed the brothers’ alternate plan all night. I woke to Jane lying in my bed still in her clothes from the night before. Drool trickled down her cheek onto my pillow she had stolen. I smiled.

I saw my tablet light up on the nightstand and turned to grab it. A message. "Aella, you're an Earth celebrity. Looking forward to our interview even more now. I'm not sure when or where we’ll meet, but I wanted to make a suggestion in the meantime. You have a tablet. You have access to the world wide web. Use it. Use the video platform to share what you're trying to do. Raise awareness of your cause by traveling to riots and areas of great impact. Record it. It will make a difference, I promise. Until we meet, I wish you luck.” —Axel Cason

Whoa. I hadn't thought of that. He had a point, though. I was already trending on the news. Why wouldn't I be online? It was a chance for people to start seeing the real me and the real Divinity. It was an opportunity to shed light on our point of view.

I quickly got dressed for the day, and Jane woke up. "What're you doing?" She was still groggy with drool on her face.

"I have a plan!"

"I thought that's what we talked about all night?" She raised her hands in confusion, then let them drop to the blankets.

"We did, but this is a new plan! Still using the old plan, last night's plan, but with this added. I'll save our plan for later." I hurried out the door and shot her a wink as I closed it.

I climbed the stairs to the upper level and shot across the facility to the conference center where I could normally find Ross. When I entered the room, he was seated at the head of the table with his feet up as usual. "Hey!" I greeted.

He glanced up from under his glasses from the book in his lap. "Good morning."

"First off, I want to apologize for last night. This is your place and your rules. I don't blame you one bit." My words tumbled out in a rush. He went to speak, but I bulldozed over him. "Second, I have an idea I want to run by you."

He gave an amused smirk. "Okay. What's that?"

"I want to start a YouTube channel."

His face contorted. "You think right now is the best time for that?" He giggled.

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not using it for ASMR or anything like that. I'm going to use it to share my views. Our views. Gather followers."

"Oh, that makes a lot more sense. I'm sorry. Haven't had enough coffee this morning." He raised his eyebrows and appeared shocked that he hadn't thought of the reason first. "Yeah." He nodded. "I think that's a great idea."

"I agree. It was Axel Cason's idea. I wanted to run it by you to make sure it was okay and see if you had any suggestions."

He frowned. "Run it by me to see if it was okay? I'm not your dad. You can do whatever you want."

"I know, but I’m a guest here, and I want to be respectful of that."

"I see. Well, I appreciate that. We have staff here that manage all our social media. We can have them set up an account for you. Then we can set up a room for you to record. Our staff can also edit videos for you."

"That would be great." I remembered the last part. "Also, I kind of want to venture out and make videos with the people I meet."

Ross sighed. "There's always more with you, isn't there?"

I grinned. "Basically."

"Aella, we want you to succeed. That's why we're helping you. Any transportation you need is open to you. Please let us know so we can have them prepared and we're able to send guard details with you."

"Deal." I reached out for a handshake, and he obliged. I liked to think we finally had an understanding.

WITHIN A COUPLE OF hours, one of the staff members hunted me down and informed me that the YouTube channel and recording room were ready. It caught me off guard.

What would I say? The first video would probably make a big splash. What if I looked like an idiot? What if people hated me? I'd seen the comments on some of the videos, and some were extremely unpleasant to say the least. My palms started to sweat, and I couldn't stop finicking with my hair. I walked toward the room down the hallway when Jane ran to catch up with me.

"Hey. Where are you going?"

I explained the whole idea to her, and she seemed ecstatic.

"What are you going to say for the first video?"

"I think I'm going to talk from the heart. Say who I am, who I've lost, where I'm from, why I'm here..." I swept my hair back once again.

Jane slapped my hand away. "Ew!" She recoiled. "Your hand is soaking wet! Gross."

"I'm nervous. "

"I know, that's why you keep messing with your hair. Knock it off."

"Have you seen the comments on some of the videos, Jane?" I pressed.

"Yeah, but who cares? Who gives a shit what those people say? You shouldn't care what you look like right now. You're not going on a date. You're screaming a war cry. Even then, you look hot. Stop worrying about what people say. Are you scared they’ll hate you?"

I thought for a moment. "I already have a lot of people who hate me."

"Exactly! What's a couple more?" Jane laughed. I couldn't help but join her. She winked and patted me on the shoulder. "You'll do fine. I'll leave you to it. Go get 'em, Aella." She turned on her heels and skipped down the hall.

I smiled as I watched her leave. I'd never had a best friend, but now I did.

Opening the door to my assigned filming room, I slowly stepped inside. It was a small, grey room just large enough