by Jamie Hawke
My biotech suit had taken on an almost pajama-like feel in the night, but now I selected a very superhero looking outfit from my screen, and it morphed around me, making my muscles look even more impressive than they were. I looked badass.
“What’re we looking at?” I asked, joining the other two again.
Twitch pulled up a map on the display and grinned. “Guess the enemy didn’t expect us to steal one of their ships. According to the info Shimmer gave us, we’re looking at this area here,” she indicated what looked like an old Mayan pyramid, surrounded by walls and villages, “but these areas might give us trouble.”
“Outposts,” Gale explained. “Likely to have more of the enemy. Maybe local warlords.”
“And Wendlor, they have him trapped in there?” I asked.
Twitch nodded. “We get in, trying not to cause any trouble with the locals, break him out, and make a run for it.”
“Unless he can just open the gateway right there,” Gale said. “There’s nothing to assume he can’t.”
“We don’t actually even know if it’s something he’s capable of,” Twitch argued. “Shimmer just said he’d know how.”
“Well, no use speculating,” I pointed out. “Let’s go find this guy and ask him.”
It wasn’t until we’d started walking, the ship a ways behind us, that I remembered I didn’t have any other powers at the moment aside from being able to do illusions. The cuts from before still hurt, and I really didn’t want any more. Asking these women to stop what we were doing and go down on me felt like the wrong move, or maybe I was just feeling tired, but either way, I pushed on. I still had the speed and strength, and illusions could come in handy. Plus, we had the knives and blaster pistols.
“I would’ve done it,” Gale said, walking next to me and nodding at my crotch. “Taken care of your morning wood.”
“What?”
“You know, when you were sleeping, he certainly wasn’t. But I figured we didn’t want to mess up the illusion powers, in case we need them with this next part of the plan.”
“Ah, good thinking.”
She smiled and kept walking, again in silence, leaving me to imagine her head bobbing up and down on my dick. Thanks a lot for that, tease.
Any thoughts of sex were quickly replaced with worry for my life when, moving around from a rocky hill we suddenly came face-to-face with what I can only describe as a rock-based roly-poly. Instead of being cute, the monster had massive mandibles that looked ready to tear us apart. It turned right for us, made a horrible clicking noise, and began its approach.
Gale thrust out with her powers, but all that did was send dirt at us from the creature’s back. I was sent into a coughing fit, which only sent more attention our way.
“Now might be a good time to fuck up everything around us,” I said to Twitch. “Use your powers with reckless abandonment.”
“Forget that,” she countered. “Hit it with your light, try to blind the bastard.”
“Remember how I gave up the other powers?”
“For a plan that didn’t exactly work anyway,” Gale pointed out.
“It worked enough.”
“Can we stop arguing and run?” Twitch said, her voice rising in panic.
As the rocky creature approached, I realized it was even bigger than I’d thought, and quicker, too. We started to run, but as it kept coming, it became clear the thing was moving too fast. There was no way we’d be able to outrun it.
“Wait,” I said, turning and focusing on empty space. Instantly, it appeared as if we were floating on air over a massive canyon. I turned to my sides to gloat but couldn’t see Twitch or Gale, and I started to freak out as I looked down, imagining that they might have fallen. The creature had come to a stop, a low whimpering sound coming from it, and then it started to back away. I could feel a laugh beginning to work its way up inside me, but I stifled it just in time. My laughter might have alerted it that something was up.
It wasn’t until the thing was off toward the hill again that I whispered, “Twitch, Gale, still there?”
“You nearly gave me a heart attack!” Gale hissed back. “Next time, give us a warning!”
I let the illusion fade and grinned. “Sorry.”
“Okay, proceed with caution,” Twitch said. “And if everything suddenly changes, assume Breaker made an illusion, or we’re dead.”
“Real comforting,” Gale replied, leading the way as if very eager to get away from the fake canyon we’d been standing over moments before.
We steered clear of the area where the monstrous roly-poly had come from, making our way over to the hills where the directions had said to go. Odd trees rose up out of the cracked soil, many bent to the right in a way that likely spoke to heavy winds hitting this planet on occasion.
“Ever been to the desert on Earth?” Gale asked, staring out at the vast stretches of land.
“God no,” I blurted out. “Couldn’t see why I’d want to.”
“I’d always dreamed of it,” she said. “
“I just hope Charm’s hanging in there,” I said.
“Breaker, come on.” Twitch scoffed, shaking her head. “When you found her on that prison, she was doing just fine, wasn’t she? Running around on her own, even when she was being hunted by Metallica.”
“Please don’t remind me about her,” I said with a groan.
“Wait, did I miss something?” Gale asked.
Twitch leaned over and whispered something, earning a reproachful glare from me.
“No,” Gale said, glancing at me. Then as Twitch added more, her eyes narrowed. “By Oram, tell me you’re joking?”
“Thanks, Twitch,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I was trying to get the power that I thought we needed. That we did need, I should remind you.”
“Just cut the bitch next time,” Gale said with a scrunched nose. “Don’t stick it in her pooper.”
“Ugh, don’t word it like that,” I said.
“You try to stick it in my pooper, I’ll punch you right in the throat.”
“Not into that, then?”
She shook her head, making a disgusted face. “Not a chance. No way. Uh-uh.”
“You never tried it?” Twitch asked, her eyes lighting up with curiosity.
“No.”
“Never?” Twitch grinned. “Oh, I should mention, I’m pretty damn talented at telling when someone’s lying.”
“What?” Gale glanced over, her cheeks flushing, and she shrugged. “Fuck, whatever. Okay, once, but only because the guy had a tiny dick. I saw the thing, knew it wouldn’t do a damn thing in my vagina, and he had hinted at loving to do it from behind, so I told him he could. Still hurt like hell, and vowed to never do it again. You try to stick that tube-of-cookie-dough dick in my ass, I swear to Oram—”
“Relax,” I said, hands up. “I’m not planning on going anywhere near your ass. Damn, getting all worked up over nothing.”
She took a breath and said, “Good. Yeah, good… just making sure.”
Twitch, however, winked at me and seemed to be sticking out her ass even more as she walked. Was that some sort of invitation? Honestly, I wasn’t into it all that much anyway. Give me a mouth or pussy any day of the week. Even a hand, really, was preferable in my book. But if the lady wanted it, I would do as the lady desired.
Our only other obstacle before seeing the walls on the edge of a ridge was a river of murky water. We passed it easily enough and were soon climbing up the edge of an incline, helping each other up to where the ground gave way above.
At the top, we knelt at the side of a trench just on this side of a waist-high wall of mud and bricks. On the other side, men and women went about their daily activities of washing clothes in buckets, making bread, and butchering one of those animals that looked like a pig. Now that I was close enough to see one, the analogy didn’t feel right—the head was like a chicken without the feathers.
At first glance, everything looked like a normal village. Then Twi
tch pointed to a rifle leaning up against a wash basin. After that, I noticed them everywhere. A man walked out of a building holding one over his shoulder, glanced around, then walked over to one of the other nearby buildings and paused before continuing to walk along the perimeter.
“At least we know they have something worth guarding,” I said.
“So… disguises again?” Gale asked. “Those worked so well last time.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t fit you,” I countered. “And that wasn’t my fault.”
“Pick three,” Twitch told me. “We’ll work our way over to the next section, then enter as those three.”
I agreed and focused on one at a time, remembering that I had to keep the images of them fairly clear in my mind, as people might know them. If I made a nose too big or forgot a mole, they might notice it. When we were all looking like our counterparts, we crouch-ran over to the far side of the village, and then casually strolled right in like we belonged.
“Look for information on where this Wendlor guy might be,” Twitch whispered, in a hushed voice. “It won’t be one of these huts, but somewhere special. Maybe at the center of these villages.”
We kept moving, passing a couple who stared at us oddly then a man who chuckled at us, just shaking his head. Others didn’t pay us any mind, but something was starting to feel off.
“Did you make an illusion of big boogers coming out of my nose or something?” Gale asked. “What’s up with the weird looks and laughter?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I replied.
We passed the first rows of buildings and came to a point where we could see a field of large, curving boulders rising into the air, not giving us very much visibility. The land rose up, with other villages dotted along the sides, spreading out as if forming a line. A light rain started to fall, the first since we’d arrived, and I noted with curiosity the way it hit the ground and formed little balls of water before sinking in.
“Jenine,” a woman said, and we turned to see that she was eyeing Gale, then the two of us. She didn’t look so different from Gale’s illusion, aside from her hair being redder and her lips being thinner. “I thought you all weren’t speaking.”
“Hmm?” Gale grunted, doing her best considering her voice might give her away.
“Well, ever since this slut slept with this man whore.” The woman glared at me, then held up her thumbs in a way that was clearly meant to be an insult similar to flipping someone the middle finger. It made me laugh, which caused her nostrils to flare and eyes to go wide.
Before she could say another word though, both women took an arm, and I shrugged.
“That’s how it is now?” She shook her head. “You’re all disgusting. Shit, should’ve known.”
She stormed off, hesitated with a glance back, and then continued around the corner of the building behind us.
“I think she was considering asking if she could join us,” Gale whispered, and I had to put a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing again.
Twitch reminded us to keep moving, so we did. It was working. We were in the clear.
That is, until we turned the next corner and the man whose persona I’d taken on stood in front of us, mouth dropping. Gale acted fast, clocking him upside the head with her pistol, but that only made him fall back with a shout.
“What the fuck?” he said, holding his now bleeding head and staring up at us. “HELP!”
Another guard appeared around the corner a moment later. Upon seeing the situation, he shouted for us to stop and unslung his rifle.
“Shit,” Gale muttered, thrusting out her hand so that her strange wind power threw him off balance and he dropped the rifle. Before he could recover, we were off, making our way in between buildings.
We worked around toward the villages further up the hill as shouts came from behind. One of them was telling the others what he’d seen. Luckily for us, it sounded like they weren’t totally buying it. Still, some soon gave chase, and when they caught a view of us, gunshots went off and tore into the wall only feet away.
“This whole illusion thing,” Gale said with a frown as she paused to catch her breath. “I’d hate to say I told you so.”
“Shut up,” I replied, pulling us through the entrance of the closest building. We ignored the woman’s wide eyes as she shot up from a bath and clutched her arms to her chest, then the strange pig-chicken that ran at us. The back door slammed in the creature’s face, and we saw one of the men looking at us, glancing back, and then disappearing.
Not sure what that was about, we pushed through to the next building, trying to weave our way through to avoid leaving ourselves out in the open for target practice.
A group of men appeared from our right, pointing and coming at us. How they’d gotten there didn’t make sense, until I considered that they likely had some means of communication or an alarm system. We darted to our left, and I abandoned our current illusions in favor of a wall behind us. That stumped them long enough for us to run into the next building over, climb out a window, and sprint towards another one of the villages.
The rocks gave us cover, mostly, but I saw that man again, the one who had watched us just now but not tried to attack. It was brief, not enough to see what he looked like, and then he was gone.
We made it, entered a room that had a town hall feel to it, and then closed the door to catch our breaths.
“They onto us?” Twitch asked, checking one of the windows with her head at the corner to keep a low profile.
I checked another but didn’t see anything yet. The shouting wasn’t super close at that point, so I reclined, had some water from the tube in my suit, and then checked my blaster pistol in case we’d need it. I preferred to not take lives if possible, but I wasn’t sure how much longer that could last.
A woman started shouting, and I peeked out to see her in the midst of the field of rocks, pointing our way.
“Shit,” I said. “Someone spotted us on the way over, apparently.”
“When this is all over,” Gale said, “I’m voting for a nice, long vacation. Maybe a beach somewhere. A place we can just sit back, drink flowery cocktails.”
“Count me in,” I said, checking the window again.
“Of course you’ll be there,” she said. “I’ll need someone to blow when I get bored.”
I frowned, loving the image but not needing the distraction right now.
“Real classy,” Twitch said with a grin.
Gale shrugged. “I say what’s on my mind. Nothing to be ashamed of enjoying going down on our man. I know I’ll get mine.”
“Seriously, not the time,” I said, seeing movement past the rocks. They were coming. “But yes, of course you will.”
A thud came from the rear of the building and we all turned, ready for trouble. My heart was thudding, my hand tight on the pistol.
“Pssh,” a voice said, and we spun back to see a man motioning us through the side door. He wore a military jacket over regular clothes with a long beard, giving him the look of a warlord. It was possible he was the one I’d noticed watching us. We had no reason to trust him but knew the others would be upon us soon so chose to see what he was up to. He motioned for us to hurry, checked the door, and then led us a few houses down.
When he went through the door, I hesitated, thinking it could be a trap, but Gale pulled me through. He took us to the back room, past colored rugs hanging on the walls and old vases of clay. It was nice, in good shape but for a large crack running up one wall. The room was simple, but he lifted up a rug to reveal a trap door under the table. He quickly opened it and entered, gesturing for us to follow.
“We’re not following a strange man into a tunnel in the ground,” Twitch said, backing up.
“I’m not what you think I am,” the warlord said.
“What are you?” Twitch asked.
“A friend. Now come, quickly.”
I went to the window and saw that more men with guns had joined the other group, and were
incoming. We didn’t have much choice unless we wanted to take our last stand. We might win, and probably would based on our history so far, but that also meant killing these people who were clearly on the lower rung of all this and maybe didn’t know what they were fighting for.
“Go,” I said, and Twitch nodded, the first to follow the warlord into the tunnel.
Gale went next, with me taking up the rear, pistol drawn and ready to cover our backs. As we snuck along, I could tell that Twitch and the warlord were talking in a whisper, but couldn’t tell what about. Mostly I was concerned with being followed. A realization hit me, and I cursed.
“What?” Gale hissed.
“The trap door, I left it open.” I turned back to make a run for it, but she grabbed me by the shoulder. “Too late now.”
I hesitated, realizing she was right, and pushed on. It wasn’t much longer before we heard voices calling from behind us. Light appeared ahead and I saw that the warlord had a way open, Twitch was already out. Gale followed, and I pushed myself up and into an area hidden behind tall rocks. The shouting was louder, but the warlord waved it off.
“I’ll wrap around back and go down a different way, pretend I was with the group the whole time.” He pointed a direction around the rocks and said, “Save him, please.”
Twitch held up a hand to me, showing she’d explain later, and said, “We’ll do our best. The Citadel appreciates your continued service.”
He nodded, then took off at a run into an area covered with tall curving rocks behind us.
“He thinks we’re with the Citadel?” I asked.
“We kind of are,” Twitch replied, pointing at me. “At least, you will be soon enough. Come on.”
We made our way up in the direction he’d told us, and then we froze, our breaths catching. A large pyramid was before us, but it wasn’t the size that made an impression, it was the strange look. In pictures, I’d seen pyramids that were all stone, but this one appeared to be made of a substance similar to jade, with lines of gold and glowing circuitry moving along it like veins. The sunlight shone on it and, even though it was solid, I could almost imagine myself touching its surface and sinking right in.
