Etherno

by Aaron DeMott

  Onin’s jaw dropped. Crap. This wasn’t good. He twisted around to the right and managed to dodge most of the beams. One of them hit his leg, and he screamed as fire shot up his leg. A healing beam came out of the servitor on his foot, and that too was sucked into the portal. None of the other beams from the servitors would disengage.

  Onin kept trying to dodge the blaster fire, but the beams from the servitors were like ropes, tying him to the portal and limiting his maneuverability.

  The rest of the team just stood there, poking at the force-field that separated them from him.

  “Hey, help,” Onin yelled.

  “I’m trying,” Kasai shouted back.

  “I’ve got problems of my own here,” Cerina said.

  Tannin just saluted him and slammed a flurry of attacks against the thugs shield.

  The ground was getting closer. Onin looked around. The black portal pulsed every few seconds, and with every pulse it sucked in an foot or so of the energy streamers from his servitors. Onin tried again to get them to disengage, with no success. He sent a burst of energy to the servitors, and was yanked a few yards toward the portal.

  What was with that portal? He’d always been able to control his servitors before. Was the portal from that girl from before? He looked around. No mostly-naked women in sight. Could it be some kind of technology?

  There… a small blue light blinked on the ground below the portal. It could be generating the portal, or focusing it or whatnot. A burst of energy from a servitor might take it out—if it wasn’t all being sucked inside.

  “Guys,” Onin yelled. “There’s some kind of device on the ground under that portal. Try to destroy it!”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, one of the thugs took off running.

  “I’ve got him!” Tannin took off running after the thug.

  “No, come back and help,” Onin yelled.

  Tannin either didn’t hear him, or didn’t listen. He was out of sight in seconds.

  Another thug pulled out something, and a cone of flame shot at Kasai. She spiraled her array of debris into a shield, but had to keep it around her to keep the fire from burning her.

  They seemed to ignore Cerina. Onin waved to her, and pointed to the device.

  “You don’t need to tell me what to do.” She twirled the tuning forks in her hands. “I’ve got this.”

  The forks vibrated, and she sang a high note. Pain lanced through Onin’s skull, something exploded, and the world went dark.

  Chapter 5

  Team Bonding? Sounds Sticky...

  Onin slumped in the chair in Profressor Jakao’s office. Kasai sat beside him. She stared at her hands that she kept folded in her lap. Tannin was on the other side of him, busy digging dirt out of his nails. Cerina leaned against the door frame behind him and hadn’t quit sighing, snorting, and making other annoying, disrespectful noises since she arrived.

  Professor Jekao sat leaned back in his chair with his fingers steepled in front of him. He frowned as he gazed at each one of them in turn.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Deep subject,” Tannin said.

  Professor Jekao jumped up and leaned over his desk. “Do you think this is some kind of joke? All of you were injured yesterday, and you let the criminals escape!”

  He took a deep breath and sat back down. Onin glanced over at Kasai. She had pulled her legs up against her chest and had her arms wrapped around them.

  “You’re supposed to work as a team. Onin ran off on his own, then the rest of you went off without him. Then the enemy uses a new device or has an unknown power, and do you work together? No. No teamwork, no co-operation. If you keep going like this, you’re going to get yourselves killed. And if by some miracle you don’t die, that kind of nonsense won’t fly in any kind of profession you’re studying for.” Professor Jekao took a deep breath. “Forget it. I’m not going to recap the whole debacle. You were there. Tonight, I want each of you to go back to your rooms and write a five page paper on how you could have handled that better. Tomorrow, report back to my office.”

  “Man, he was in a bad mood.” Tannin said.

  Onin rolled his eyes and turned right on the sidewalk that led away from the office building.

  “Where are you going?” Tannin asked.

  “Uh, back to our room. We have a paper to write, remember?”

  “You’re really gonna do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, come on. That paper’s a joke. The prof can’t give us homework when we’re not—”

  Onin turned around and grabbed Tannin by the shoulders. “Do you ever take anything seriously? We almost died tonight.”

  “Yeah, but we didn’t.” Tannin shrugged out of Onin’s grip. “Look. We can either get all freaked out and too scared to do anything, or we can laugh it off. I don’t want to get so wound up that I can’t think. And yes, I’m going to the cafeteria. I haven’t eaten in forever, and I’m hungry. If I’m hungry, I can’t concentrate. And how’s a stupid paper supposed to fix anything, anyway?”

  “It’s supposed to make us think and then learn.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe writing helps you smart types think, but it doesn’t work for me. I need to eat, talk about stuff, and then have a re-match.”

  Onin sighed. Perhaps Tannin did need some time alone. “All right, I’ll see you back at the dorm.”

  Tannin waved a finger at him and shuffled down the sidewalk.

  Onin wasn’t the first one to Professor Jekao’s office the next morning. Kasai leaned up against the door-frame and was apparently deep in study of one of the floor tiles.

  “Hey,” Onin said.

  “Hi.” She looked up and waved a few folded sheets of paper at him. “Get your homework done?”

  “Yup.” Onin grinned and held up his own paper. “I wonder if Tannin and Cerina did?”

  Kasai snorted. “I doubt it.”

  They both turned at the sound of a door shutting down the hall. Tannin stumbled toward them. His hair stuck out in every direction, and he carried a cup of coffee. Onin didn’t see evidence of a paper anywhere.

  “Morning, Tannin,” Onin said.

  “Uhhh.” Tannin slumped against the wall and slid down the floor. “Who decided mornings were a good thing, anyway?”

  Onin glanced over at Kasai. Her hand was over her mouth, and her chest shook with silent laughter.

  “Good morning, students!” Professor Jekao shifted his briefcase to his left hand, squeezed past them, and unlocked the office door. “Cerina here yet?”

  “We haven’t seen her, sir,” Kasai said.

  “I see. Well, come on in and have a seat while we wait for her.”

  Onin took a seat, and Kasai took the chair against the wall to his right. Tannin flopped into a chair behind him and leaned back against the rear wall of the office.

  “Did you finish your papers?” Professor Jekao asked.

  Onin and Kasai held out their papers at the same time. A light snore came from Tannin’s direction.

  “Did he get anything done?” Professor Jekao jerked a thumb at Tannin.

  “I don’t know. He went to the cafeteria first. I finished my paper and went to sleep, and he still wasn’t back yet,” Onin said.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” Professor Jekao said.

  Cerina entered and flopped into the chair at the far side of the room.

  “Huh?” Tannin sat up and looked around. “Oh, Cerina’s here.” He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and tossed it over to Professor Jekao.

  “Tannin, this is only one page.” The Professor unfolded the paper and attempted to smooth it out. “Is there any more to it?”

  “Nope.” Tannin leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “That’s the best I can do in one night with no notice. I was up all night working on that.”

  “Okay then. It’d better be good. Cerina, do you have your paper?”

  “As-if.” She snorted.
“I had real homework to do last night.”

  “Cerina, with that attitude, why did you decide to minor in criminal justice?” He held up his palm. “No, wait, don’t answer that, I can’t take it right now.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “On to what you’re all here for. All of you have special talents and presumably some kind of interest in some sort of career in criminal justice. Such a career however, requires teamwork. And that’s something you’re all sadly lacking in.

  “Next week is holiday. I want all of you to work on teamwork during holiday. A lot. As in, I’ve signed you up for a week-long team-building bootcamp.”

  “You can’t do that!” Cerina jumped to her feet. “I’m going home to see my family!”

  Tannin groaned. “Man, there’s some sweet parties that week.”

  “You’re right.” Professor Jekao smiled. “I can’t force you to go. What I can do though, is put you on academic probation, and recommend to the dean that you be dropped from the criminal justice program.”

  Onin sat up straighter in his chair. The professor wouldn’t really do that, would he? He elbowed Tannin in the ribs.

  “Yay.” Tannin raised a fist in the air, but his tone was devoid of emotion. “Bootcamp. Woo.”

  “I’ll just pretend that your lack of enthusiasm is due to sleep deprivation. Cerina?”

  “Fine. I’ll go.”

  Cerina crossed her arms and if she frowned any harder, her face might split in two.

  “Good!” Professor Jekao glanced over to Onin and Kasai, then handed each of them a packet. “Here are your monorail tickets. Also, be aware that the retreat is located very close to the Matari enclave. You are not, for any reason at all, to cross the border. Dismissed.”

  Onin looked around. The team building bootcamp was at the very end of the monorail line. Onin didn’t even know the monorail had an endpoint. They stood in a clearing in the middle of a pine forest. Snow covered mountain peaks were visible to the north. A single path wound from the monorail station deeper into the forest.

  “Well we’re in the middle of back-butt nowhere,” Tannin said.

  “Not nowhere.” Kasai pointed ahead and to the right. “The Monks of Ard have a monastery in the foothills of the Kurushimi Mountains.”

  “No mobile signal.” Cerina held her phone up and waved it around. “Now what am I supposed to do?”

  “Develop real relationships with real people.”

  Everyone turned. The speaker had much paler skin than most of the people in Dabrath. Her hair was light blond and pulled back into a ponytail. She wore hiking boots, jeans, and a blue t-shirt with stick figures that were holding hands and dancing.

  “Hi!” She raised her hand high in the air and waved vigorously. “I’m Karen. Welcome to Team Bonding Bootcamp.”

  “Hello, I’m Onin, this is Kasai, Tannin, and Cerina.”

  “We’ve been expecting you, come on into the lodge. We’ll get you set up in your rooms, then we have a brief activity before dinner.”

  Karen led them down the winding path into the forest. Two turns later a large two-story log building came into view.

  “Get a load of that.” Tannin pointed at the building. “A log cabin.”

  “Just a mite bit big to be called a ‘cabin,’ numbskull,” Cerina said.

  Tannin stuck his tongue out at her. Karen led them inside and up to the second floor.

  “Onin and Tannin, you’re in the room to the right. Kasai and Cerina, you’re in the room to the left.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Cerina held up her hands. “I can’t share a room with her!”

  “You can, and you will.” If it was possible, the smile on Karen’s face got bigger. “We have other groups here at the same time, so we have limited space. Also, the whole point of you being here is to learn to get along and work together as a team. Team, team, team! I even love the word team, don’t you?”

  “Ugh. I think I’m gonna puke. Fine.”

  Onin opened the door to his room and leaned around it to mouth ‘good luck’ to Kasai, who shot him a desperate look. Onin stepped in his room. A fireplace was on the left wall. Two recliners were across from it. A large picture window was on the far wall. Three doors lined the right wall.

  “I’ll take door number one,” Tannin said. He pulled open the door and leaned inside. “Private bedroom, sweet!”

  The middle door led to a large bathroom, and the third door was another bedroom.

  “Nice. If the girls room is like this, even Cerina won’t find anything to whine about,” Onin said.

  “Ten yen says she’ll find something.” Tannin said.

  “Do you even have ten yen?”

  “Um… No. Gotta pee.” Tannin darted into the bathroom.

  Onin rolled his eyes and went to put his suitcase in his room.

  Onin sat on the back porch of the lodge and watched other groups while he and Tannin waited for the girls. A large grass field was full of different groups of people engaged in a variety of activities. Some of them were divided into pairs, each tied together at the knee, and were trying to move a giant ball around. Some sat back to back with paper and pencils, and the last group faced each other with palms together doing something.

  “What kind of nutty kindergarten games do you think they’ll make us play?” Tannin asked.

  “One way to find out.”

  Tannin muttered something and started to pick at his fingernail. A door creaked open behind him. Onin turned around. Kasai and Cerina came out, with Karen close behind them. Kasai’s hair was up in a ponytail today.

  “Ah, good, you’re all here. Right on time too!” Karen said.

  “Great. She’s perky. I hate perky,” Cerina muttered.

  “Like I said before, we’re going to start with a quick activity to have some fun before dinner. So, after this, dinner, like I said, then you can relax until tomorrow!” Karen turned and almost skipped out onto the grass. “Follow me, please!”

  She led them over to an unoccupied corner of the lawn and sat down cross-legged.

  “Okay, we’re going to start with some meditation exercises.”

  “And the point of this would be…” Cerina asked.

  Karen’s smile slipped for half a second. “We’re going to try and purge some of that icky negative energy. Can everyone sit, please?”

  Onin dropped to the grass and had to use his arms to force his legs into position. Kasai smoothly folded herself into the proper position with apparently no effort. She leaned in closer to him.

  “The monks taught me to meditate. I think this might be a little different, though. Their focus was on spiritual matters.”

  “Okay, now that everyone’s seated, I want you to close your eyes, and focus your thoughts inward. To work together as a team, we need to first make ourselves the best me we can be,” Karen said.

  Someone groaned. Onin wasn’t sure if it was Cerina or Tannin.

  “The only person we can change is ourselves.” Karen either hadn’t heard, or chose to ignore the groaning. “So, I want each of you to find the negativity in yourself, the anger, irritation, impatience, or whatever. Then, take a deep breath, and as you exhale, imagine all that negative energy floating out of you.”

  “Nope. Not quite how the monks taught me,” Kasai whispered.

  Onin shrugged. He didn’t think this exercise would accomplish anything, but then it couldn’t hurt, either.

  A few minutes later Kasai screamed. Onin opened his eyes and jumped to his feet—and almost fell over. Both of his legs were asleep. He shook each one and stumbled over to Kasai.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I… I don’t know.” Kasai stood, wrapped her arms around herself and actually took a step closer to Onin. “I was exploring my feelings, praying for Ard to help me find any negativity and remove it like the monks taught me. Suddenly there was fire… everywhere. I actually felt fire.”

  She shuddered and took another step toward Onin. His breath quickened at her proximity. He p
ut his hand on her shoulder, and she leaned in to rest her head on his bicep. She was so soft.

  Everyone stood clustered around Kasai.

  “That shouldn’t happen.” Karen pressed the back of her hand against Kasai’s forehead. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine. Just a little freaked out. That’s never happened before.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Onin said.

  “Yeah.” Kasai straighted up and took a deep breath. “I’m fine, let’s continue.”

  “I don’t know.” Tannin scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know much about meditating, but it’s supposed to be relaxing, right?”

  “Well, let’s stop for the day.” Karen felt Kasai’s head with the back of her hand again. “You do seem a little warm. How about we all go in to dinner, then we’ll meet back here tomorrow morning at about eight, okay? And Kasai, there’s a nurses station on the first floor.”

  Kasai nodded, and they filed into the building. Onin frowned. Conflicting feelings ran through him. The more he got to know Kasai, the more he liked her. But was now the best time to bring that up. Clearly something was going on with her. Well, whatever it was, he’d give her whatever help she wanted.

  Onin lowered himself into one of the recliners in his room. Tannin flopped into the one next to him.

  “Man, if all the food is gonna be that good, I might stay,” Tannin said. He rubbed his belly. “Of course you’ll have to roll me into the monorail car for the ride home…”

  “You’d probably even willingly participate in the activities if they gave you a treat for doing them.”

  “I might. I’ll have to suggest it.”

  Onin shook his head. “Hey, speaking of that, was it you or Cerina snorting and moaning and whining through meditation time?”

  “Eh.” Tannin shrugged. “Probably both of us, what a waste of—”

  A knock on the door interrupted him.

  “Come in, it’s open.” Onin said.

  “And we’re too stuffed to get up to open it for you,” Tannin added.