Space Dragon Allepexxis

by C. K. Pershing

  Paress nodded. “Yeah, makes sense. So why all the stuff about him? The Doctor was getting a little weird when he came up earlier…”

  Jil sighed. “Well, because Dr. Behlen keeps finding these weird little clues that he thinks Professor Locke is leaving for him. Things about the Seven, he says. Other stuff. He thinks they’re being left by the Professor on purpose to lead the Doctor to some great truth that he can only achieve through a test…or trial or something.”

  “What kind of clues?”

  “He won’t tell me. He won’t tell anyone. Well, not anymore, at least.”

  “Why not?” Paress asked.

  “Well, for one, because he thinks it’s his own trial to bear,” Jil said. “Second, when he did tell someone, it got ugly. I mean, really ugly.” Her look was deadly serious. “Don’t tell anyone I said this, but there’s a sort of civil war happening here at the Academy between Dr. Behlen and the person he told. She’s using what he told her to rally support to get him removed.”

  “Uh, okay…” Paress said. He generally thought of himself as a fairly advanced kid but he had to admit this was starting to lose him. “Who’s trying to get him removed?”

  “His wife.”

  Paress had to keep himself from shouting. “His wife? He’s married?”

  “Yeah, what‘d you think the ring was for?”

  “What ring?”

  “Oh, you haven’t seen it then. He wears it on a chain around his neck so he won’t lose it while working on Machines.”

  “If his wife is trying to end his career, why’s he still married to her?” Casten asked.

  Jil gave him an incredulous look. “Are you serious? Why wouldn’t he be?”

  “Because she’s trying to get him removed?” Paress had to keep himself from shouting again.

  Jil rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a little kid.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Because when two people fall in love as hard as those two, even killing each other wouldn’t end their commitment.”

  “What?” Paress and Casten chorused.

  “Okay, I have to go,” Jil said. “I’m already running late.”

  “Wait,” Paress said. “One more quick question. Who wrote that note on the Doctor’s door threatening to kill him? Who’s ‘L’?”

  “Didn’t I just tell you? His wife of course,” Jil said. “Leah Behlen.”

  “But she’s not serious, right?” Paress asked. “She’s not actually threatening his life?”

  Jil shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re both really weird when they’re together. Two scorpions who want to murder each other, but they also love each other more than anything. If you’re smart, you won’t talk to the Doctor about any of this. You’ve seen how touchy he is about Professor Locke. He totally spirals when it’s about his wife. Just look at how he reacted to her note.”

  “Well, she did tell him he was a dead man. I’d probably get weirded-out too.”

  Jil shrugged again and turned toward the door. “Now I really do have to go. Save any questions for later. Are you guys okay getting to the office tomorrow? I have a feeling I’m gonna be there all night going over paperwork with the Doctor so I won’t be coming to get you.”

  Paress and Casten shared a look of horror. “Pass the Dread Phantoms alone?”

  “Sure, why not? Just sing your song again. They liked it, right?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

  “You’ll be fine. Promise,” Jil said with a warm smile. “You’re both stronger than you think. You got #25 fired up. That accounts for something and not just in this realm. Keep your eyes and ears, and most importantly, your heart open, and you’ll learn some really amazing stuff.” She opened the door. “Congratulations on everything today and I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Don’t eat too much junk and try to get a good night’s sleep. Bye!” Jil disappeared out the door followed by her waving fingers before the door closed.

  The two of them sat there in silence for a moment. “Wow, she’s so hot,” Casten said. I didn’t think she was my type, but her body… Whoah. I wonder how much she costs?”

  “Forget it,” Paress said. “She’s not gonna bang some kid. She told me.”

  “You asked her? Whoah…”

  “No, no… She told me even though I specifically wasn’t asking her.”

  “Oh.” Casten nibbled some more on his candy bar.

  “Hey, is that true what she said? That all we think about is girls?”

  “Yeah,” Paress said. “I guess we’re kinda lame. Probably look like losers.”

  “Yeah…”

  “I hear people always talking about getting laid and then things’ll be okay. That’s probably what it is,” Paress said. “I get it that for me it has to do with puberty and all that stuff. What’s your deal?”

  “I’m tuned to be similar to my Space Knight for shared experiences during growing up,” Casten said. “I guess it’s set to a higher degree in same-sex hetero Companionships, to produce more of a brotherly type thing.”

  “Most brothers I know are always fighting,” Paress said.

  “Well, yeah. But maybe it’s not the same for us because we’re the same age. Kinda like twins? I don’t know. But anyway, because of my programming for this stage of life, if you’re dealing with puberty and girls and stuff, then so am I.” Casten gave a slightly dejected shrug.

  “Ouch, well sorry. I hate that you’re stuck with my problems. Ugh.” Paress was sympathetic to Casten’s plight of being stuck with Paress’ own issues.

  “Yeah, it’s part of the magic of being a Companion. As time goes on though, I’ll be able to transition into more of my own personality as we both reach adulthood.”

  “Great,” Paress said. “So that means we’ll end up arguing all the time and being competitive or something.”

  Casten laughed. “Nah, I don’t think so. It’ll maybe just be that we’ll develop different hobbies or something. Be into different girls. But we get along pretty well. That won’t change.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” Paress said. “Well, wanna play some video games?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Chapter Ten

  A couple hours later, Paress was getting hungry again and a little antsy. He put down his controller. “C’mon, we’re going out.”

  “Uh, okay. Even though I was winning,” Casten said.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll pick up where we left off. Just save the game and you can get your victory later.”

  “Okay.”

  After saving their game, Casten stood up and Paress led them out the door. The paper with their names written on it had since gained a few more good luck notes and Paress smiled. He missed his family, but maybe this place wasn’t so bad…

  It was around nine p.m. and the night sky twinkled with stars and orbiting starships while the planet’s ring station faded off into the horizon. Some students were milling around and talking with each other, occasionally sending a friendly glance or nod Paress and Casten’s way.

  The two boys walked over to one of the still-open food carts and got a couple small sandwiches and walked along, enjoying the cool night breeze. Paress decided he wanted to see the sky a little ways from the campus lights and started to walk out into one of the vast fields surrounding the Academy.

  “Hey, who are The Sisters?” Paress asked, suddenly remembering Casten’s promise to fill him in.

  “Ah. Right,” Casten said between bites. “They’re a group of old Companions that never changed bodies as they aged, so they look like a bunch of little girls. There’s seven of them. The first was created in 270.7, the same time as Hyper Battle Machine #1. She was kept ‘pure’ by not assigning her to a particular Space Knight or Machine. In place of the combat programming and usual synching ability, she was able to unsynch a Hyper Battle Machine from its Companion and Space Knight. She can also wake up or put to sleep any Hyper Battle Machine— unlike the usual bound Companion, like me, w
ho can only do that for our assigned Machine.”

  “What’s the point of that?” Paress asked.

  “Well, if something happens to the Space Knight and the Companion kills himself or something, or if something happens to the Companion, the Academy needs a way to ‘clean’ the Machine’s system and reset it for the next Space Knight and Companion. That’s what the Sisters do. They unsynch the Machine and reset for the next team. That’s what the Doctor was talking about when he said he kept having to get the Sisters to reset Allepexxis between each team attempt.”

  “Huh, so where’d the other ones come in?”

  “Oh, they added six more over the fifty years following the first one as Hyper Battle Machines’ main computers got more complex. Maybe they’ll add more as time goes on and Machines get even more advanced.”

  “And they all look like little kids?” Paress said.

  “Yeah. Remember that whenever a Companion changes to a new body to reflect his age, his brain has to be shut down,” Casten explained. “Sometimes the brain doesn’t start back up. Nobody knows why. Dr. Machten thinks it’s something to do with the other-dimensional part of the brain going out of phase during the shut down, but I don’t know what any of that means. Anyway, it’s pretty scary, but also pretty rare.

  “Well, the Sisters are too important to lose since they retain the memories of the Hyper Battle Machines they reset. I don’t know why, but those memories can’t be backed up to somewhere else, so the Academy can’t risk losing a Sister or they’ll lose those memories and information. They live by themselves, guarded by a small army to keep them safe, and their brains are never transferred to new bodies to avoid the chance of a non-restart.”

  “Have you ever seen them in person?”

  “Nope, the closest was the Quantum Link yesterday when the Doctor had them go into Allepexxis’ main computer to close off the secret door in his programming. The one that person used to attack your memories with.”

  “What were they like?”

  “Well, even through the monitor they were kinda creepy. The way they spoke— it’s just ‘off’ somehow. They never blinked. And yeah, they have the bodies of little kids but their eyes look ancient and pretty scary. They wear these short little black tunics that makes them kinda like…I dunno, death cherubs…or something.” Casten shivered.

  “But if the oldest is 250, what’s so terrible about that? Elves and dwarves and a bunch of other people live longer than that,” Paress said.

  “Because that’s their physical age, but think about how they have all the memories of various Machines through the years. They’ve experienced all the different things those Hyper Battle Machines have…different worlds and missions, different Space Knights and Companions…all that stuff adds up to give them the life experience of someone way older. Each sister has basically lived multiple lives.

  “The Sisters are the Companions who wake up a Machine for the very first time and they’re also the ones who will shut it down once and for all for the Machine’s final rest after it gets retired,” Casten said. “I guess it all just adds up in their minds.”

  Casten seemed to be getting more creeped out the longer he talked about the Sisters and Paress couldn’t really think of anything else to ask about them, so he continued to walk along quietly for a bit. As Paress finished his sandwich, he said, “Hey, I was thinking about our conversation yesterday about movies with school plot lines and stuff.”

  “Yeah?” Casten asked, his interest piqued.

  “Yeah. Well, later yesterday we finally met the cute perky girl who showed us around— and then dumped us before anything could happen,” Paress said. “And then today, we met the unobtainable ‘experienced’ girl.”

  “Yeah, those were unforeseen plot developments— at least from high school movies. So maybe this might all go differently,” Casten said. They were coming up on a small group of trees. “Maybe it won’t be so bad since this is a college and there are plenty of adult students here too. Maybe it’ll be different from a place with a bunch of kids. Besides we got Allepexxis to work, so the hero has received the story’s super weapon.”

  They were walking under the trees and Paress noticed some nice ripe apples hanging from the branches. He picked one and took a bite. “Wow, that’s really good! This is probably the best apple I’ve ever eaten.”

  “Really?” Casten picked an apple and took a bite. “Oh, they are good! You weren’t joking.”

  “Probably all the scientists here,” Paress said with a laugh. “They’ve figured out a way to grow Blessed apples…”

  “Who said you could eat those?” a voice called out from above.

  Paress almost dropped his apple in shock and Casten made a small squeak as he nearly ducked behind Paress.

  Two identical older girls of about sixteen with vibrantly tanned skin with a hint of green seemed to materialize out of the leaves in the trees’ canopy above. They jumped down to the ground in front of Paress and Casten, long black hair whipping around them and exposing long pointed ears. Their eyes were so dark as to almost be black. Moments later, an almost similar-looking third girl dropped down behind the other two. Paress was glad the trees were still fairly close to the light given off by the Academy and that his eyes had time to adjust to the dim conditions or he might have been caught even more off-guard.

  “You heard me,” the tallest of the girls said. She walked right up to Paress and leaned in close— she was a couple inches taller than him and a little imposing. “Who said you could have those?” The dark eyes glinted and dark red lips curved into a vicious, and yet stunning, smile. “You think just because you got an old piece of junk Machine to start up, you’re some kind of hero or something? You’re just some little shit kid that got lucky.”

  Any other time, Paress would have loved to have a girl like this in such close proximity because, well, she was pretty amazing. Then he realized what his accuser was and that obviously this wasn’t a friendly chat.

  He turned to Casten, “Hey, first of all, remember when you asked yesterday what Driinen are? Well, these two are Driinen— I guess the Driinen since they’re twins. So now you know. That third one’s the Companion of course, cuz of the eyes…”

  “Hey dumbass,” the Driinen in Paress’s way suddenly shouted. “You wanna get your ass kicked?”

  “And,” Paress continued with an eye roll, “I guess we’ve wandered back into a school movie and found our bullies…”

  The Drinnen slapped Paress hard. He stumbled back and fell down. Casten kneeled down next to him to help him back up. Paress tasted a little blood on his lip and was shocked that somebody could go to violence so quickly. There was usually some more verbal jousting and bragging from the Driinen back home before they got physical…but in more ways than one, this certainly wasn’t home.

  “Ha, he’s got his Companion trained! Look at him helping this guy up. Like a little butler.” Paress was further surprised to see that the person saying this was in fact the Driinen’s Companion.

  Casten ignored the taunt and said to Paress, “What do we do?”

  Paress sighed, “I guess we’ve gotta do this.” Absently, he wondered if anybody could see any of this going on and come to their aid, but probably not or the Driinen would likely have not attacked.

  As he stood up straight, wiping the blood from his mouth, he said, “Listen, we’ve kicked the asses of bigger guys than you…”

  Another slap came, but this time he was ready and telekinetically froze the oncoming hand in mid air.

  “What’s with you?” Paress started to say when the Driinen suddenly shot out a leg to kick him in the balls. Obviously, this was something she’d done before because the shot was well-aimed. Paress managed to stop the foot from connecting at the last possible moment or he would likely be crumpled on the ground and keeled-over in pain.

  Without even thinking, his mind flung the Driinen up against a tree branch so hard the branch cracked slightly and then slammed his assailant into the gro
und. She tried to lift her head and Paress walked over and kicked her in the jaw sending blood and teeth flying. He then telekinetically rammed her head back into the ground and held it there. Soon, muffled sounds started to be heard as hands clawed the dirt around their face.

  “Uh Paress?” Casten asked, “You’re getting kinda rough. She’s suffocating.”

  After all that had happened that day, Paress was surprised at just how focused he was on demolishing these bullies. Maybe it was because he’d had his memories stolen. Or from being terrified of the Dread Phantoms. But here was a threat that he could actually do something about and his feelings of helplessness from earlier vaporized and were replaced by resolute anger.

  “She attacked me and was gonna fight dirty,” Paress said. “We’re not gonna screw around with this, okay? They’re tough and they heal fast. We’ve gotta stop ‘em quick or they’ll keep coming.”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  Despite Paress’ warning after how the first one acted, the other Driinen and the Companion looked utterly shocked that this was happening. “Hey jerk! My sister…”

  “Picked on the wrong guys,” Paress said. “Do you assholes know who I am? I’m the guy who saved a bunch of people from dying while wearing a suppressor! If I broke that thing, I can break you.”

  As he spoke, he could feel the first Driinen going unconscious and that allowed him to shift his focus to the second. He could feel her putting up some kind of shield. Different from his. Magical. But it didn’t matter. It was strong, but clumsy with only the side facing Paress given any strength. Just like he’d done before, he felt his power flow out like water and go around and behind his enemy’s shield. He wrapped the tendrils of his mind around the Drinnen’s neck and yanked her backward, hard.

  The Driinen gasped in surprise as she was suddenly pulled from her feet and crashed into the ground onto her back. The shield quickly fell away and Paress tightened his mind’s grip, lifting her off the ground by her neck and holding her in the air, feet barely able to touch the grass below.