by Elin Wyn
“You don’t need to sustain the city yet. You have to sustain this building and our operations.”
“But eventually, I’ll have to sustain the city. I have a few more tricks to try before I throw in the towel and sell all of my belongings to fund us. Until then, can we talk about something else? My head’s going to explode.”
“Are you sure distracting conversation is the best thing right now?”
“I wasn’t being figurative when I said my head is going to explode,” Vidia repeated.
“Okay, okay. We’ll talk about something else.” I shook my head and laughed.
“You’re bad at talking,” Vidia declared after five minutes of silence.
“You already knew that about me.”
“I know something we can talk about.” Vidia lifted her gaze from the three datapads she held at once and flashed a conspiratorial smile.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I want to talk about Sk’lar.”
“What about him?” I looked back at my datapad, blushing.
“I want to know what’s going on between the two of you to make you blush like that.”
“Nothing’s going on between us.”
“Right. That’s why he spent as much time as he possibly could at your bedside after your surgery. Totally reasonable.”
“We’re friends,” I shrugged. “We’ve been working together a lot. It’s only natural a friendship would develop.”
“For everyone else on the planet, yes. But not you. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve gone to great lengths to keep your personal and professional life separate.”
“But you and I are friends. That disproves your statement.”
“Remember how we became friends? I kept approaching you to start conversations. I asked you to go out to lunch or to get coffee before work.”
“I remember. You were extremely pushy.”
“I needed to be. You wouldn’t have become my friend otherwise.”
“Why did you go to all that effort?”
“Because you were coming off a little sociopathic in the workspace,” Vidia laughed. “You needed a friend and I needed a friend who was as intelligent and driven as I was. Match made in heaven. Stop steering the conversation away from Sk’lar.”
“Damn it.” She caught me. “If you really want to know, we occasionally engage in casual sex.”
Vidia tipped her head back and laughed.
“So, you fuck?”
“I wouldn’t say-”
“Screw.”
“Well-”
“Hook up.”
“Vidia!”
“What? You can’t expect me not to tease you for what you just said.”
“There’s nothing wrong with what I said.” I crossed my arms defensively. I knew I was being childish, but this sort of conversation was uncharted territory.
“You sound like you’re filing an official report, not talking about your bang buddy.”
“Fine! Yes, we fuck!” I exclaimed.
“Thank you. But that doesn’t explain why he refused to leave your side when you were in the hospital.”
“General Rouhr would’ve done the same if that was you in the bed instead of me.”
“Yes, he would’ve,” Vidia nodded. “But Rouhr and I aren’t casually screwing. We’re going to be together for the rest of our lives. See the difference?”
“Sk’lar and I aren’t going to be together for the rest of our lives,” I said quickly.
“Are you sure about that?” Vidia asked with a knowing smile.
“Yes! But hypothetically speaking, even if I wanted to be in a real relationship with him, I wouldn’t know how to make that transition.”
“Right, hypothetically speaking.” Vidia fixed me with a piercing stare. I immediately started to squirm.
“Okay, okay! It’s not hypothetical at all.” I caved. “How do you do that?”
“I received enhanced abilities when I decided to become a politician.”
“Very funny.” I narrowed my eyes at her.
“Have you talked to Sk’lar about this?”
“Between the siege, the election, and getting shot, there hasn’t been an abundance of time.” I rolled my eyes.
“Yeah, I’m sure while you were quite busy confined to your hospital bed.”
“I didn’t know what to say,” I admitted in defeat. “I don’t even know if he wants something more than casual. Casual works for us.”
“Are you sure casual works for him?” Vidia pressed. “Or is he just waiting for you to make a move?”
“I don’t know.” I placed my head in my hands. “Why does this have to be so complicated?”
“Because you’re making it complicated. Rouhr and I are both busy people. We didn’t have time to dance around each other playing silly games with our affections. When we both realized we had feelings for each other, we talked about it. We had to put some aspects of our relationship on hold, since the Xathi invasion was still in full swing, but we still talked.”
“I’m not the best at talking,” I mumbled.
“How are you when you usually talk to Sk’lar? You must not be as bad as you think if he’s still hanging around.”
“Usually we have a few drinks while we talk.”
“Okay. Try it without the drinks next time. Talk openly. Don’t build walls around yourself like you always do.”
“What if he doesn’t feel the same way?”
“That’s always a possibility.” Vidia reached across her desk to give my arm a squeeze. “But if you want my opinion, and I know you do because you’re hopeless without my guidance.”
“Hey!”
“Sk’lar truly cares about you. You need to give him a fair chance.”
“You’re right,” I sighed. “He deserves that much.”
“So you deserve that much, too.”
Sk’lar
We were only in the air for a short time before we arrived at the crater where our home used to be.
The last time we’d been here, the rim of the crater had been taken over by an anti-alien faction.
Yet now, the compound was empty.
The shuttle landed and we all exited, weapons at the ready. Yet no one was here.
“Where is everyone?” Navat asked.
“This doesn’t seem right,” Tyehn added. “Something is wrong.”
I had to agree with both of them. Something seemed wrong. The compound seemed to be abandoned, empty of anything living. “General, I believe it would be best if you were to stay here.”
“Really? Don’t try to treat me like an old man,” Rouhr scoffed at me. “I’m not quite there, Sk’lar. Let’s check this place out.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. I motioned for the rest of the team to spread out as I stayed close to the general. We moved through the compound quickly, clearing it in less than ten minutes.
“Nothing, sir. It’s all clear,” Jalok said to the general.
Rouhr looked at me and I shook my head. “I’m as lost as you are,” I said to him. I looked at everyone else. “Was there anything?”
A collective shake of their heads, until Tyehn shrugged. “I might have found something.”
“What?”
“In one of the makeshift sheds, I found a lot of digging equipment that looks like it’s been used recently.”
Rouhr took a step forward. “Show us.”
As Tyehn and Cazak led the way, I motioned for Jalok and Navat to bring up the rear. “Stay alert,” I told them as we got to the shed that Tyehn had found.
“Here we go sir,” I heard Tyehn tell the general.
I looked back to see the shed. Inside were numerous shovels, drills, and a small, portable digger. “Any idea how much digging they could have done with this?” Rouhr asked as I looked at the equipment.
“Not sure,” I answered. “It all depends on how long they had to dig.”
“Well,” Tyehn interrupted. “That’s not the only factor to
take into account. We need to also consider how many people were digging, what the consistency of the ground was wherever they were digging, then we count in how long. They could have been digging for the last two days if they had enough people digging in a spot soft enough.”
“He has a point,” Cazak added.
“Okay, okay,” Rouhr said. “Do we have any idea where they might have been digging and what for?”
We all shook our heads.
“Then I suggest we spread out and look for their dig site,” Rouhr said. “Keep comms open, but stay quiet so everyone can hear what’s happening. Activate tracers, as well.”
I hated using the tracers. It wasn’t that they weren’t a smart tactic and that they didn’t have their uses. I hated them because they were connected to our comms and they always created a buzzing noise in my head. After a while, the buzzing became highly annoying and drove me crazy. I hated them.
I activated my comm and my tracer as we spread out. Six different directions to the edge of the trees, then we began our search pattern. “Clockwise pattern, people,” Rouhr said quietly into his comm. I took a quick look to my left, then proceeded to move to my right, looking for anything that might show either a dig site or a heavily used trail that might lead to something.
I was maybe halfway to Tyehn’s starting location when Rouhr came on over the comms. “I found it. Get here, quietly and quickly.” He clicked off the comm and we made our way to Rouhr’s location beacon. Navat was the last to arrive, as he had been the furthest away.
What we looked at was a massive dig site in the cover of the trees. There was a fifty-foot run leading down into a hole that went dark quickly. At least six different mounds of earth filled in some of the empty spaces between the trees.
“Looks like we found it,” Navat said needlessly. I looked at him like he was an idiot, then shook my head.
“Lock and load. Navat, since you’ve got the big mouth, you can take point. I’ll back you,” I said. “Jalok and Cazak, you two bring up the rear.”
“You’re not thinking of leaving me behind just because I’m in charge, are you?” Rouhr asked, a little bit of venom in his voice.
“Of course not, sir,” I said. “You’re right behind me.” I motioned for Navat to lead the way.
We entered the tunnel, moving carefully. Each of us had our rifles at the ready, except for Cazak, who preferred his handgun. We travelled what must have been nearly a mile into the earth before Rouhr tapped my shoulder. I tapped Navat’s shoulder, stopping him.
“What’s the matter, sir?” I whispered.
Rouhr shook his head. “I’ve been trying to contact Puppet Master while we’re down here, to see if he has any information for us. I’m not making contact.”
“Is that normal?”
He shook his head again. “No. Ever since our introduction, once the Puppet Master enters your mind and speaks to you, he can converse telepathically with you anywhere on the planet. I usually can initiate a conversation by reaching out to him and thinking thoughts. He can, in times of great urgency, send a message to someone who has never been exposed to him. But he always answers me within seconds. Except this time. Something’s not right down here.”
I nodded, then motioned for Navat to lead on. The tunnel was straight, very few turns, yet it consistently angled downwards. There were a few places where they tunneled straight down, a makeshift wooden ladder to help bring people either down or back up.
After nearly an hour of traversing the tunnel, albeit slowly, Navat held up his hand and got down into a crouch. “I think I hear something up ahead.”
That was my cue. “I’ll take a look,” I said. I moved forward another fifteen yards and came to the only corner in the entire tunnel. I risked a glance around the corner and saw maybe two dozen humans in one of the caverns that the Puppet Master had created for us to speak with him. In front of the humans was a cluster of vines that seemed to be gyrating in an uncontrollable fashion. When a few of the humans moved, I saw what looked to be a portable generator on the ground emitting something from it.
I waved for the others to come forward and met them five yards from the corner. “There’s maybe two dozen, and they have some sort of generator that’s making a cluster of vines act abnormally.”
“What do you mean ‘abnormally’?” Rouhr asked.
“They’re gyrating, sort of like we do when we’re being hit by one of the tasers that Tona and Skit showed us,” I answered.
Rouhr’s eyes went wide. “They’re attacking the Puppet Master. Move,” he ordered without waiting for us. He was at the corner within a few steps, opening fire.
We had made a switch to non-lethal rounds in our weaponry when people began changing suddenly. We wanted to make sure that if we were forced to fight one of our friends, we didn’t kill them.
However, they weren’t sharing the same mentality. Their rounds were real, as the scratch from the bullet grazing my wrist could attest to. I quickly took aim, fired, and took some pleasure that when my target fell backwards, he took three others down with him with his flailing. Tyehn shot three more in quick succession, each one hit in the solar plexus. As those three lay on the ground gasping for air, Navat and Cazak rushed in, handguns blazing as non-lethal rounds found their targets.
Once the fight was over, some forty seconds after Rouhr rushed around the corner, every one of the humans were down. Tyehn, Navat, and Cazak were all binding the humans as I looked at Jalok, who had taken a round to his left arm. It wasn’t bad, the bullet had barely penetrated his scales. A quick wrap was all that was needed. As I was tying the bandage, a gunshot rang out. All five of us had our weapons pointed at Rouhr before we realized what had happened.
He had destroyed the generator, and the vines behind us stopped gyrating. Within seconds, Puppet Master’s voice filled our minds. “I thank you, my friends.” However, before we could hear anything else from him, a massive humming sound began to emanate from the generator.
Rouhr looked at it in confusion for a split second, then yelled “Run!” As we started to run for our lives, I saw the vines cover the humans. We were maybe halfway down the line when the generator exploded. The shockwave from the blast shook the ground around us, knocking us off our feet.
“Cover!” I yelled out as I covered my own head. The tunnel collapsed on top of us, burying us in who knows how much dirt. My mind immediately broke into a panic as I tried to dig myself out. I was buried. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. The air was disappearing, my mind was shutting down, I couldn’t think.
I couldn’t even feel the vine that wrapped itself around my arm and pulled me out of the dirt. As I lay there, hyperventilating and struggling to get my mind back, I could hear some of the conversation that Rouhr was having with Puppet Master. There was something about the generator causing him tremendous pain, but there only being the one. Something else about having a few prisoners, but I couldn’t piece it together.
My mind was racing, my heart was pounding, all I could think about was being covered in so much dirt. I looked at the others to see them looking similar to how I felt.
At least I wasn’t the only one to have been stressed out by being buried alive.
Phryne
Several days had passed since I’d spoken to Vidia about how I truly felt for Sk’lar. When I’d walked out of Vidia’s office that day, I didn’t want to follow her advice. Sk’lar meant a lot to me, I wasn’t going to deny that any longer. My feelings for him were true and deep. The last thing I wanted was to put my relationship with him in jeopardy. At first, I believed the best way to do that was to tell him nothing and let things carry on as they always had.
But then I didn’t see him that day. Or the day after that. In fact, it had been almost a week since I’d last seen him. We spoke when we could, through comm units or messengers. It was fine, but I found myself missing his company. I missed seeing him smile when I said something witty. I missed beating him at pool. I missed sleeping next to him at ni
ght.
I hadn’t had another dream like the one I had the other night, but that didn’t make sleeping alone any easier. If I wasn’t working such late nights every night, I’d invite him over, but for the last couple of nights, I’d been working past three in the morning. Sk’lar had to report in at sunrise in order to get to Fen and the Aurora crash site before too much of the day had passed.
When I approached my office that morning, I saw a fresh line of new applicants for my alpha team. Two days ago, I finally hired two replacements for the alpha members that had turned on me. Benta and Nast were supposed to start training yesterday, but Mekinna injured her knee.
She slipped on her wet kitchen floor at home. One of the most highly trained professionals on the planet slipped at home. Of all the damn things that could’ve happened. According to Evie, Mekinna shattered her kneecap, and she had to be on desk duty for the next three months.
I hadn’t gotten a chance to tell Sk’lar about Mekinna’s unfortunate turn of events. I was sure he’d think it hilarious, if only for the fact that it forced me to continue my interview process. At least, this time I wasn’t looking for a permanent replacement. That didn’t make sitting through interviews any easier.
Many of the applicants were wildly underqualified for the position. That wasn’t completely their fault. I required extensive combat knowledge and weaponry knowledge, as well as a page-long list of characteristics that most people didn’t possess. Vidia thought my list was too specific, but that list was what built the alpha team that kept her alive.
I sat across my desk from a perky girl who turned out to be one of the operations interns. As grating as her voice was, she was already familiar with the buildings and standard protocols. I felt safer bringing her onto the team.
“Report for training with Cyrus tomorrow morning. Be there before dawn.”
“Are you serious?” Her eyes bulged out as her voice reached a pitch only a forest creature could hear. “I got the job?”
“You will be a temporary replacement for Agent Mekinna while she’s recovering from her injury, that’s all.”