“Hello?” I asked, tempted to bring up the video function of the application but deciding against it.
“Hello, Higgens. How are you this evening?”
“Oh, Harunya. Why do you have Bahn’s datalog?”
“I believe the twins told you of our dinner together with my parents?”
I screwed my eyes shut and groaned. I had totally forgotten! “Right, right, I’m so sorry. But something incredibly important has come up. Can you get them for me?”
“Of course, that is why I answered. You are painfully polite, Mister Higgens, so when I saw that you were trying to contact Bahn, there was no way I could ignore it.”
“Thank you. You have no idea how much this means.”
“No, but I look forward to hearing about it in your next bestselling biography.” There was a slight pause where I thought that perhaps she was summoning one of the Coin Twins, but instead, her voice dropped low. “I have to be honest,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve never felt what I feel now. As foolish as it might be, I think this is love.”
“Um, that’s great, bu—”
She kept going, and suddenly, I understood why she had brought it up. “Look, whatever adventure you’re about to whisk them away on, please promise me you’ll keep them safe. They can’t live without each other, and I’m beginning to think I can’t live without them. Do you promise?”
Although emotions had never been my strong point, I knew exactly what she meant and exactly what she was feeling. “I promise,” I answered.
“Thank you.” I heard her set the datalog down, then call for the twins. A few moments later, their voices were coming over the line.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
“Mimic sent me a distress signal. Apparently, the aliens have appeared at the edge of our system. She’s been trying to notify our gov, but her messages haven’t been getting through.”
“What, are you kidding me?” That was Ciangi, who came in loud and clear.
“This would be a terrible thing to joke about. I’m completely serious.”
“So, what do we do then?”
“Exactly what she’s asking of us,” I said. “We need to call another meeting and inform the generals of what we know.”
“What about Gonzales?”
“What about her? I can’t reach her and as far as you guys know, she’s down one of her rabbit holes and elbow-deep in new weapon experimentation.”
“Of course, I knew that. I just… It feels weird not to have her with us for something this big. What, are we going to leave her behind?”
“Never!” I answered quickly. “I’m sure once we get the project approved, one of the higher-ups with the appropriate security clearance will get her the information.”
“Right, that makes sense. We’ll meet up at your place then all go over together. Goodness knows those upper echelon folks will not appreciate being called back where they just left.”
“I don’t care,” I said intensely. “If Mimic needs help, then we are getting her help.”
“And that attitude is why you’re the most popular out of any of us.”
“What?” I objected. “No, I’m not.”
“Higgens, I realize you like to live under a rock as much as you can, but you have an action figure.”
“I…what?” I shook my head. “We’re getting sidetracked. Apologize to Harunya for me and of course, thank her parents for their graciousness. Be here in a half-hour.”
“But we’re—”
I clicked off the conversation, not letting them object. I knew they were probably more than half an hour out in the city, but the deadline would certainly make them hurry.
In the meantime, I needed to gather my things. It seemed like my trip to see Mimic was coming much earlier than I had expected.
What a great surprise wrapped in such terrible packaging.
5
Bound in Red Tape
I paced in the same room that we had just vacated hours earlier. It was taking forever for the generals to reconvene and I wanted to strangle someone with my impatience.
It wasn’t like me to be so fired up and aggressive, but it also wasn’t like Mimic to send such a heartfelt plea for help. She needed me. She needed us. And there was no way I was going to let her down.
“Relax, Higgens. You’re going to wear a trench in the floor,” Ciangi laughed.
“I can’t help it,” I said, continuing to pace and twist my hands around each other in a specific pattern. “It helps me think and calm down.”
“Oh, sorry. I forgot.”
“It’s fine,” I said, turning on my heel and walking away until I reached the end of my path, and then I returned to her. “I’m just going over in my head of what to say. They’re gonna give us some pushback, but in the end, they’ll know that this is the right thing to do.”
“I’m glad you have faith,” Bahn muttered, rearranging the several datalogs he had in front of him. “Because I find mine wavering.”
“Really?” I asked, pausing for just a moment. “Why?”
“Because I find it—” He paused, and I belatedly realized that it was because one of the assistants had entered the room, soon followed by one of the generals that I didn’t quite know the name of, and then two other political figures. I sensed that the conversation between myself and my friends was over, so I sat and patiently waited for the rest of them to arrive.
Of course, it was Masevkov and Santos who strolled in last, looking like they were the ones inconvenienced instead of us, who had been waiting for them over two hours.
“What is all of this about?” Masevkov asked, voice even growlier than usual.
“What this is about,” I said before Ciangi could step in, “is the survival of both our species and the Mimics. Thank you for joining us. If you’d have a seat, we can get started on saving life as we know it.”
The general looked somewhere between surprised and affronted, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to care. I didn’t have time to be diplomatic, to dance around the red tape like a trained artist. Mimic needed our help and she needed it now.
“Those aliens that are coming to avenge their fallen brother have reached the edges of the sensor grid Mimic created. We still have some time, but not nearly as much as we had estimated. We need to gather whatever we have and send it within the next forty-eight hours. No more planning. No more debating. No more amassing the perfect fleet. Whatever we have approved, we send. Period.”
I finally stopped pacing and stood at the center of our trio, gazing at those gathered in front of me with resolution. I may have not been a diplomat, or military strategist or otherwise genius, but I knew how to throw myself into the action better than any other janitor-turned-engineer hopeful I knew.
“We are well aware that some of the things outlined in our treaty are not possible with this accelerated timeline,” Bahn continued. “Seeing as the threat is not acting according to our timeline, we think it more than reasonable to drop what is not possible and simply stick with what is possible.”
Ciangi stepped in, picking up on his next sentence as if she had been in his head. And who knew, maybe she was. The Coin Twins had a connection that seemed to defy the very science that they loved so much. “Which means all the ships you have assembled and what weapons are loaded onto them, and a skeleton crew of volunteers to fly them. Should we not have enough volunteers, we can program an autopilot program into any smaller ships that are undermanned.”
When she finished, I certainly expected some objections, and especially questions of how we could be sure, or even how we had come by this information. But instead, there was only silence.
It was exceedingly difficult, but I maintained eye contact the entire time, not wavering, not flinching. I felt like I was in some sort of standoff, and whoever blinked first lost.
Finally, it was Santos who spoke.
“Or, we could send nothing at all.”
I stared at him, completely
gobsmacked. “I’m sorry, what?” was all I could think of saying.
“Our treaty with the leader of the Mimics clearly outlined when they could expect our aid and what we would provide. There were no clauses about providing things ahead of time should the foes of hers arrive early. We will not accelerate our output, nor will we provide a partial fulfillment of our terms. We will provide exactly what we promised, when we promised it.”
Anger, white hot and roiling, surged through me with no quarter. I felt my face grow hot and my stomach squeeze itself into a tight little ball. “But without our aid, you’re basically ensuring the destruction of her entire species!”
“If that is what should transpire, then one might consider it the natural order of things,” Masevkov added.
I slammed my fists on the table. “Then what was this all for? Tell me, were you planning on betraying Mimic the whole time, or are you all just opportunistic sharks who smell the blood in the water?!”
“Calm yourself, Mister Higgens.”
“I will not be calm! How do you all live with yourselves at night? You’re willing to sit here and twiddle your thumbs while a nation of children is slaughtered just for wanting something so simple as their freedom! We killed all of Mimic’s people on her home planet. These children are the last bastions of a rich and powerful civilization that has helped launch us into a new age of discovery! This is our chance to make up for all the wrong we’ve done.”
“We are not saviors of the universe. Just because we discovered life doesn’t mean that it is our job to be its guardian,” Santos bellowed.
“I discovered new life, not you! All you guys did was sit here as a bunch of bloated parasites and feed off the work of their people!”
Santos’s face grew red and he looked to one of his aides. They quickly ducked out of the room, and when they returned a second later, there were three guard-soldiers behind them. “We will adhere to the treaty. You are relieved of your duty until we have further need of you. Please return your security ID badge.”
I stood there for a moment, trembling. I hadn’t felt so blindsided since Giomatti had first kidnapped Mimic. Sure, I had always anticipated some wiggling and whining from the bureaucrats in front of me, but I had never thought they were capable of outright betrayal.
When I said and did nothing, the guards took a menacing step toward me. I felt both Ciangi and Bahn tense. Clearly, if I was down for a fight then they were too. But I shook my head, and ripped my ID from my pocket.
“I would tell you where to shove this,” I hissed, trying my best not to let my voice shake. “But you’d probably need an instruction manual written in triplicate to figure it out and frankly, you’re not worth the time.”
I threw my badge onto the table and marched out the door. I could hear the Twins do the same behind me, and we exited in solidarity.
No one said a word, including the escort that met us at the elevator. We rode it down in silence, walked through the front entrance in silence, exited the doors in silence, and rode back to the lot in silence. It wasn’t until we were all in my car and pulling away that anyone spoke at all.
It was Ciangi who broke the quiet, with a long line of swears that might have actually singed our eardrums. She continued for a great while, lasting long past our exit from the lot and almost the entire way to my house. When she finally finished, silence reigned once more.
I heard a faint beeping from the backseat, and looked over my shoulder to see Bahn carefully scanning the car on his handheld. It seemed that he still loved his portable baby even after all this time. It reminded me of the good old days and I allowed myself a small smile as the scanner finished up its job.
“Your car’s safe,” he said, tucking the handheld back into his omni-present satchel.
“Really?” I asked. “Not a single bug? I’m disappointed.”
“They probably think we’re just a bunch of nerds who will roll over if they flex their muscles a little.” She paused for a second, her bright eyes shuttling between Bahn and I. “We’re, uh, not going to roll over, right?”
“Of course not,” I answered, putting steel into my voice. “In fact, we’re going to steal a ship. Specifically, the biggest one that I saw on the requisition list.”
“Oh,” she murmured, voice quiet. “Is that all?”
I shrugged, pulling up to my gate once more. “The night is young. We’ll see what else we can plan.”
6
Grand Theft Spaceship
I crawled over the crest of a hill, pulling myself along the thick roots of the trees that stuck out of the near vertical slope. I remembered when I was a child, I would daydream about one day seeing an actual forest instead of the carefully cultivated groves of trees we had in our colony greenhouse. I had fantasized about climbing into the branches, building a ramshackle treehouse, and other generally silly things that involved ending up covered in dirt and moss.
However, none of those imaginings involved clambering up a near-mountain in a thick scape of pines while trying to break into a government hangar that held the treaty-promised ships and equipment.
Life was funny that way.
Ciangi and Bahn reached the top shortly after me. It seemed that they had been working on their physicality during their year on Earth. I guessed they figured on our next escapade, they didn’t want to be the slowest ones in the group again.
“Not bad,” I murmured quietly once they were both on their feet beside me.
“It was nothing,” Ciangi panted, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “It was just like college.”
“That was nothing like college.” Bahn said flatly, his thin chest heaving a bit.
“Anyway, are you two ready for the next leg?”
“Just give me a minute.” Ciangi said, holding up a hand. “Are we all clear on the plan?”
“I mean, we discussed it about three times on the way over here, but we can go over it again if it makes you feel better.”
“No, no...that’s alright. Just make sure your shield-scrambler is up. And did I mention that these are still in experimental phase?”
“Yes. Like I said, three different times. Are you nervous? You seem nervous.”
“Why are you talking like you’re Gonzales?” she countered, sticking out her tongue like the grown woman that she was.
I shrugged. “I dunno. I guess it just doesn’t feel right without someone in the group aggressively using sarcasm mixed with practical logic.”
“You know, if you weren’t so in love with Mimic, I would almost think you liked our gun-happy friend.”
Normally I would have blushed at that, and sputtered something about platonic feelings for everyone, but I didn’t have the time.
“Let’s go,” I said, sliding down the hill.
It was a much longer journey on foot, but it’s not like we had much of a choice. I was more than certain that the bigwigs had already put a watch on both my house and my car. If they saw me pulling out of my drive, there would have been a detail and a satellite tracking me within seconds.
So naturally, we had left several lights on at the house and set the projector to play silhouettes of us across the windows every so often before taking off on foot.
Getting past the outer layer of security had been the easiest. There was an invisible sensor wall that would trip if anyone crossed it and notify security that someone had trampled into their territory and at what speed they had trespassed. All it took was a quick jump with propulsion boots and we were over that barrier without a sweat.
After that had been an actual shield that Ciangi had partially disabled with a quick power surge to the nearest output post. It also served the added perk of drawing a contingent of repairmen and soldiers to the spot, which would draw them away from the next layer we had to peel back.
Next, we had a physical wall to clamber, then inner gates that required a badge to buzz through.
We were taking a bit of a gamble on that part. The three of u
s had surmised that since the generals had our badges, they most likely wouldn’t be in any sort of hurry to deactivate our clearance. Most likely they would barely remember to hand it off to one of their assistants at some ridiculously hour late before they went to bed, and that assistant couldn’t get it to anyone that mattered before morning.
So, we had printed out copies of our badges based on a picture we had taken together. It was hopefully the last thing the bureaucrats would suspect.
However, if they had deactivated our clearance, we would be completely SOL and forced to default to our backup plan.
I didn’t like our backup plan. It involved a whole lot of explosions and possible innocent casualties. But if it came to that, I would follow through. I had to get to Mimic, no matter what.
Suddenly I found myself wishing that I had sent her a holo. Even if she wouldn’t get it for several weeks, at least she would know that I had never abandoned her.
It didn’t take long for us to reach the wall, a looming barricade of stone and metal that spouted up from the forest, cutting between the trees like a great knife. I could feel my teeth buzz with the energy field surrounding it, and I looked to Ciangi expectantly.
“This is where we turn on our shield-scrambler, right?”
“What happened to ‘we’ve gone over this three times’?”
“Just being thorough.”
“Uh-huh. Well, yes. This is where we start to use them. And we’ll know if they’re not working if—”
“One of us suddenly falls over dead or guards literally rain down from the heavens on us?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, here goes nothing.” I was playing it much less carefully than I would normally, but I couldn’t be overly-cautious considering what was on the line. I crouched and powered on my propulsion boots, then shot myself up and over the grand structure.
I didn’t quite clear it, and landed near the top with a thump. I caught the edge with my hands, none too worried as I pulled myself the rest of the way up.
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