Takar

by Elin Wyn

  He feigned shock, his mouth overdramatically open. “Ah, me? Cheat? When?”

  “The last time we did this,” I said.

  “Eh,” he laughed. “On three…a real three.”

  “Good.” I took a deep breath and got myself ready.

  “One.” I wasn’t going to lose to him, not today.

  “Two.” I dug my foot in and tensed myself.

  “THREE!” We launched at the same time and sprinted towards our weapons. Rokul, in his usual immature fashion, reached out towards me in an attempt to slow me down.

  “Not this time, brother,” I yelled back as I swatted his hand away. We reached our shooting positions at the same time. I grabbed my gun, snapped a clip into it, chambered a round, and took aim.

  Rokul was the first to fire by half a heartbeat. I cleaned out the fifteen rounds in my clip, released it, snapped the next clip in, and cleaned it out. I was ahead of my brother going into the third clip.

  I released my clip, set the gun down quickly, and stepped back…one step before Rokul.

  “Fine,” he huffed. “You were faster, but I’m pretty sure I was more accurate.” I pushed him away with a laugh. We brought our targets back in and did a quick count.

  Skrell. He beat me by one shot. “Well,” I said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve tied.”

  “What are you talking about? Accuracy is more important than speed,” he argued. “That means I win.”

  I laughed again. “Fine, you win,” I conceded.

  “At least you’re smiling and laughing,” he said. When I flashed him a look, he explained. “I’ve heard complaints about the ‘charmer’ in the office this morning.”

  I rolled my eyes and let out a sigh. I grabbed my clips and gun. “Why should I care what those people say?”

  “Uh, because we work with those people and we’re trying to fix what we broke?” Rokul answered.

  “Brother,” I said in anger. “I did not train and work so I could listen to people whine. I did not participate in two wars so I could listen to people complain. I did not sign up to be in customer service.”

  “I know, but it’s not that bad. It’s only once every two weeks,” he argued. “Besides, those are good for you.”

  “How?” I snapped.

  “They might just turn you into a decent person,” he said, his mouth hanging open in mock horror. I threw a clip at him. He ducked and took off running, his laughter trailing behind like a wisp of smoke.

  We turned in our weapons and sat down to eat. I was honestly surprised he had remembered to get the food this time. I was cycling through the daily reports on my tablet when a warning light went off.

  “What’s that?” my brother asked through a mouthful of food.

  “Someone is trying to hack into our system,” I said. His eyes bugged out and he stopped chewing.

  “Really?” he said, tiny particles of food falling from his mouth as he spoke.

  “Learn to eat,” I snapped, mind focused on the intrusion. “We need to talk to General Rouhr.” He nodded and grabbed his meal, something he had ordered called a burger, and mine, as well.

  “Here,” he said as he shoved my burger at me. “You’re the one always saying food is important. Eat.”

  I devoured my food in three bites as we jogged back to the office. Again, I ignored the line waiting for me and went right to Tobias. “The general?” I asked, knowing Tobias would always be aware of Rouhr’s current location.

  He said nothing, but he did point downstairs. I knew where he would be. Under the main floor of the building were the computer servers and cool storage. If I had gotten the alarm notice, then he had, as well.

  We rushed down and found him in the main server room with three techs, already working on the issue.

  “Any information, sir?” I asked as we walked in.

  “Nothing yet,” he said without looking up. He was leaning over the chair of one of the techs, looking at what had been found. “All we know is someone is trying to hack into the system from the hospital.”

  With a nod, I looked at the tech to my left. “Pull up hospital employment records.” He immediately turned in his chair and began typing on his keyboard. “Bring up pictures if they’re available,” I added.

  It didn’t take long.

  The tech began cycling through the records of everyone that worked at the hospital; doctors, nurses, techs, scientists, lab personnel, janitors, cooks. Then, there was a picture that caught my attention.

  “Wait. Go back…more…more…there, that one!” I pointed at the screen. “I know her.”

  “You do?” Rouhr asked.

  “Yes, sir. She was one of the people in line for the complaint office this morning,” I explained. There was no way I could ever forget that face. Or that body.

  He sighed. “You know I hate it when my soldiers call it that, but that’s beside the point. What was she concerned with?”

  “She came in under the pretense of being nervous over what the direction of the city was, but then she tried pressing me for information about the Puppet Master,” I answered. “She knew about it by name.”

  “Fantastic. Did you tell her anything?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No, sir. Standard rote answers.”

  “Good,” he breathed a sigh of relief. “If she is part of this anti-alien group that seems to be gaining momentum and size, then we need to find out why she was interested.”

  “I agree,” I said.

  “Well, good, because you’re the one that’s going to look for her,” he said with a smile.

  Of course I was. “Yes, sir. Permission to make my brother go with me?”

  “What? Why do I have to be part of this?” Rokul blurted.

  Rouhr laughed. “Granted. Go.”

  We left the office building and made our way to the hospital.

  “I hate you, you know that?” Rokul grinned as he punched me in my shoulder.

  “Eh, you know you love the work,” I shot back, then started sprinting to the hospital.

  Rokul let out a string of curses behind me as he tried to catch up.

  And I wondered what the lovely Daphne had to do with this.

  Daphne

  “What are you doing here?” Annie asked me as I strolled inside her lab. She looked up from the samples that littered her work bench, both hands on her hips.

  “What?” I smiled sheepishly. “Don’t tell me I can’t visit my good friend whenever the mood strikes.”

  “We just had lunch yesterday,” she said, narrowing her eyes as her expression turned into a suspicious one. “Please, don’t tell me you’ve come to ask more questions.”

  “Me? Please.”

  “So, I’m right. You have more questions.”

  “Yeah,” I laughed, looking around her lab to ensure we were alone. “I just couldn’t stop thinking about the Puppet Master. I’m pretty sure we’re dealing with an intelligent life form. And, even though the general believes the Puppet Master’s hostile toward us, I have my doubts.”

  “And what do you know about what the general believes?” she asked me, but all I could offer her was a shrug.

  As much as I trusted Annie, I probably shouldn’t tell her I had enlisted the help of my assistant to hack into the government’s servers.

  “It’s just a guess, really.”

  “Just a guess, huh?”

  “Yeah, and I have a lot more guesses,” I smiled, feeling so excited I didn’t even know if I should remain standing up or sit down. My body was brimming with energy, and my synapses seemed to be firing at the speed of light. “I know the government isn’t exactly hiring, but I think I’d be able to help. I have a lot of ideas about how we can conduct research and—”

  “Whoa, slow down,” Annie laughed. “The general has a lot of experts working on it. I know you just want to help but—”

  “Not just help,” I cut her short. “I want to do more. I want to solve this.”

  “You make it sound easy.�
�

  “No,” I corrected her, “I just make it sound fun. How did you get a job here, Annie? There must be a way for me to secure a position here.”

  “If only it were that easy,” she sighed. “I know you’re good at what you do, but we’re not exactly hiring, not with all the anti-alien groups making a fuss. If I had to guess, the general is worried that we might unwittingly hire a saboteur. And, since we don’t really know what we’re dealing with, he’s being cautious letting people in on our research.”

  “There must be a way.”

  “I really wish I could help you, Daphne,” she continued, smiling kindly. “But there’s not much I can do. I can recommend you to General Rouhr, but he works on his own schedule, with his own priorities. Even my position here...I just got it out of pure luck. I mean, my boss facilitated a team-up, but I only managed to stay in here because of the samples I took at the crater.”

  “Samples?”

  “Yeah,” she nodded. “At the Xathi site. The whole place was the epicenter for a lot of seismic activity in the region. They didn’t allow me to go there, so I just snuck out and…” She trailed off, probably realizing she wasn’t supposed to be sharing any of that with me.

  “A crater?” I asked her, feeling even more excited than before. Could there be a connection to the Puppet Master? The vines had come from the underground, so seismic activity would suggest a connection. Maybe if I could get to the crater, I’d be able to find out more.

  “Okay, Daphne,” she shook her head, regret burning in her eyes. “You’re going to forget I told you any of that. I don’t want to get in trouble and, more than that, I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  “I just—”

  “Look, I’m serious,” she interrupted me. “I want you to promise me you won’t do anything stupid, illegal, dangerous...or any combination of those three.”

  “I…fine. I promise,” I said, and I really meant it.

  At least to an extent.

  After all, the only illegal thing I did had happened before this promise, and I was pretty sure that a trip to the crater was everything but stupid. As for the ‘not doing anything dangerous’ part...well, I intended to be careful, and that would have to suffice.

  “I’m serious, Daphne,” she insisted, looking at me sternly.

  “Don’t worry.” Taking a step toward her, I went on tiptoes and kissed her forehead. “I’ll behave.”

  “You better.”

  “Always,” I laughed, already walking out of her lab. The moment I was out of the building I started making my way back toward the hospital.

  Except, instead of going straight to the main building, I continued down the road and toward the massive storage building on the other end of the complex.

  Being a reputable neuroscientist at Nyheim Hospital had its perks, and one of those perks was security clearance. All I needed to do was show my ID to the guards at the gate and they waved me in like it was nothing. I made my way through the parking lot and toward the main entrance, opening the door by swiping my ID across the panel on the wall. The circuitry lit up a bright green, and the massive door slid up into its partition.

  The lights came on the moment I stepped inside the massive warehouse, shelves of medical equipment going from one end of the building to the other. The whole place was automated, so I headed toward one of the electronic terminals and logged into the system.

  As I started entering my equipment requests into the terminal, Annie’s words echoed inside my head.

  I had convinced myself I wasn’t breaking the promise I had made, but...well, that was just some bullshit I had spun in order not to feel guilty about lying.

  Lying to my best friend.

  But, hell, this was important.

  Besides, it wasn’t like anybody had to know. One quick trip to the crater, coordinates helpfully noted in the reports, just so I could look around and collect some samples, and then I’d be back before anybody noticed a thing. It wasn’t ideal, but what was I to do? I couldn’t do any official research, so this was my only available option.

  And maybe I’d have enough to present some options to the general or his staff. Convince them I should be on the team.

  Not the grumpy Skotan from this morning, though. That chiseled jaw and the rippling muscles might intrigue me, but he was far too interested in following the rules for my taste.

  Even if he might be worth one, little taste...

  “Request processed,” an electronic voice announced, startling me from my increasingly off-topic thoughts, when the automatic warehouse bots were done with collecting the equipment I needed. I went to the delivery room to grab the things I would need, and sighed as I watched it all laid out on the table. Most of the equipment wasn’t state-of-the-art, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.

  In order not to trigger a review by one of my supervisors, I had to request only equipment I knew to be outdated or that hadn’t gone through the proper maintenance procedures.

  Still, I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

  Placing all the gear inside my bag, I took a deep breath and marched out of the warehouse. I was feeling slightly nervous. A little guilty.

  But more than that, I was elated. Science required its disciples to rebel against the authorities from time to time, and that was exactly what I intended to. Besides, if everything went according to plan, there was a possibility I’d collect enough information to land me a spot on the government’s research team.

  And there I could really help out.

  But first things first.

  Holding up my datapad in front of my face, I make a call.

  “Daphne? Finally found enough time in your schedule to call your worried parents?” my mother teased me, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

  “Well, actually…” I hesitated, smiling sheepishly. “I need to ask you for a favor.”

  Takar

  The rain that had stopped before lunch yesterday had returned during the night.

  This time, it hadn’t been a gentle rain, as the lightning cracked and thunder crashed for hours. The heavy winds brought the rain down in force, pinging off the metal roof of the apartment like gunfire.

  I slept like a newborn.

  That following morning, I awoke to silence. Either the storm had passed or it was simply a short lull. A quick glance out the window showed stars in the sky above us. Without a care, I went about my morning business.

  I wasn’t on desk duty today.

  Instead, I was going to be on patrol. We had the anti-alien groups to look out for as well as further attacks from the Puppet Master.

  Patrol was so much better than desk duty. Patrol meant movement. It meant conversations with people that had similar experiences. It meant being able to actually do something.

  Patrol meant I could walk away from the humans that annoyed me.

  As I ate, and was forced to listen to my brother and Tella do their morning…business…then clean up afterwards, I thought about how yesterday had ended.

  Rokul and I had left the office and raced to the hospital. He complained the entire time, saying that I had cheated during our race.

  It wasn’t my fault that he wasn’t fast enough to catch me. When we arrived at the hospital, we proceeded to the security desk. The guard on duty was a bit apprehensive at the prospect of helping us at first, but he relented.

  We double checked personnel files to find out that Daphne worked in one of the advanced labs.

  However, according to hospital records, no one had been working in any of the labs that day. The labs held the only computers in the hospital that were advanced enough to hack into Vengeance’s systems.

  Not satisfied with the information we received from the security office, we went asking around. No one could recall having seen Daphne, at least not for very long. Someone said that they had seen Daphne come in, but then she left soon afterwards.

  No one knew where she was.

  No one knew about anyone
else who had been in the labs, or might be able to breach our systems.

  Nothing.

  That had resulted in my being forced to return to the complaint office where, of course, I was forced to listen to complaints and concerns, made worse now that they had to wait for so long to have someone to complain to.

  That had been yesterday.

  Yesterday had been awful.

  Today would be much better.

  This morning, I was going on patrol with my brother. If we found Daphne, we would deal with her. If we didn’t, fine, at least I didn’t have to listen to people moan and groan about things they didn’t need to worry about.

  “Did you save any food for us?” Rokul asked as he followed Tella into the kitchen, giving her a playful slap on the butt as he sat down next to me at the counter. She let out a small yelp, smacked him in the head, and went to fix them breakfast.

  I shook my head. “I always leave food for you. Must you insist on serenading me with your exploits in the morning?”

  I could see Tella blush slightly. Rokul chuckled and had the grace to look at least a little embarrassed. “Ah, you heard that, huh?”

  I looked at him as if he was an idiot. “I think the neighbors, both next to us, across from us, and under us, heard you two.”

  They both chuckled. “At least we didn’t break anything this time,” Tella snickered as she walked to the cool-box.

  I rolled my eyes as I shook my head. “You two are incorrigible,” I sighed. “I’m getting ready for work. Let me know when you care enough to join me.”

  “Whoa, easy little brother,” my brother said as he held up his hands. “You know I’m good for work. Give me a few minutes to eat and grab my gear.”

  I merely nodded and walked away. I went to my room, grabbed my gear, and double checked it. When I was satisfied, I made my way to the common area of the apartment. Rokul was waiting for me. When he saw me, he smiled.

  “I had my gear prepped last night,” he said. “You ready?”

  At my nod, he gave Tella a kiss and we left.