Keep Your Friends Close

by N. D. Roberts

  Gabriel took the stairs three at a time and made a beeline for the twin captain’s chairs set head-on to the curved viewscreen and the console beneath. “Which side do you want?”

  Alexis inspected the two stations before settling on the right-hand chair. “This one.”

  “I’m going to check out the ready room.”

  Gemini crossed paths with Gabriel as she came to stand by Alexis with her hands on her hips. “We should continue with the tour. We still have engineering, the armory, the forward cargo hold, your personal quarters—”

  Alexis activated the heads-up display built into her chair’s headrest. “We have all the time in the world for that. We need to locate a planet by the name of Belv’th and get there as quickly as the ship can take us.”

  Gemini gave Alexis a pointed look. “You would have been learning how fast the ship can travel right now if you had not abandoned the introduction tour.”

  “Okay,” Alexis held back the command in her tone for the sake of teaching the new EI how to work with them. “However, a request from one of us has priority over anything nonessential in your queue. This is how we handle a conflict of interest. Put in the request for departure with Meredith. We will continue the tour once we are underway.”

  Gemini paused to process the change to her secondary directives and send the request to the station’s EI. She received the go-ahead in the next instant. “Very well. We are clear to depart.”

  “Thank you, Gemini.” Alexis smiled and went back to inputting Devon’s coordinates into the navigation interface from memory. She had an inkling that the reason so many AIs had borderline personality issues—and not so borderline in some cases—was that humans in stressful situations reached for anger or humor before any other response. “Set a course for these coordinates and take us out.”

  She intended to deal differently with Gemini. Time would tell if a more nurturing approach made a difference.

  Belv’th, First City (three weeks later)

  Trey eyed the wall of armed muscle around the Noel-ni taking bets on the fight inside the ring. “More security than the last one. They’re getting nervous.”

  “Haven’t you heard?” K’aia murmured amusedly. “There’s a pair of vigilantes in the city. It’s not safe for anyone trying to do a dishonest day’s work anymore.”

  Trey snickered. “I heard. Rumor has it they’re undefeatable.” He adjusted his mask where it had slipped down, then pointed his staff at a corner support of the ring and fired. “Especially the two-legged one. Watch this.”

  Trey chose his target and fired another charge the moment the ring collapsed.

  The water tower on the opposite side of the square exploded, causing panic. People stampeded to get out of the way of the flash flood, diverting the attention of the guards from their duty.

  Trey relaxed his stance. “All yours,” he told K’aia with a grin.

  K’aia shot him a disgruntled look and headed into the chaos he’d created.

  Trey stood back to watch, wishing he had the ability to move like the wind already. Freed from the need to hide her abilities by the disguise she wore, K’aia moved faster than he could clearly see. He just about made out the blur of her where the crowd parted.

  The fight-runner’s guards had been scattered by the flood. They recovered too slowly to save their boss from the Yollin who barreled in at super speed.

  K’aia took down the Noel-ni with a swift kick to the throat.

  He dropped to his knees, clutching his throat with fat hands covered in jeweled rings.

  K’aia saw what she’d come for. She snatched the credit chip off the chain around his neck while he struggled to regain his breath and was back at Trey’s side in a flash.

  She dangled the chip in front of Trey before stashing it in a pouch on her belt. “All ours, you mean. That guy had rubies set into his canines, can you believe that? This should have a good amount on it. Maybe we can afford that food-printing unit we saw.”

  Trey pointed behind K’aia. “All we have to do is survive long enough to go buy it .”

  K’aia turned the top of her body and saw that the Noel-ni’s guards had recovered and were headed their way. “They look a bit annoyed. Wanna get out of here?”

  Trey laughed as he and K’aia dashed away from the chaos in the square. He turned as he ran and waved at their angry pursuers. “Tell your boss we’d stick around, but his event was a total washout.”

  K’aia snorted and grabbed Trey’s sleeve to turn him around. “Quit clowning around and look for an escape route before they catch us!”

  They pounded through the sandstone streets in silence, their attention on keeping track of the guards behind them. K’aia’s enhancement and Trey’s natural running pace was enough to put some distance between them and a messy ending on the pointy ends of the guards’ swords.

  K’aia pulled Trey into a dead-end alley off the side street they were on without slowing. “We need a place to hide,” she panted. “They’re not getting bored.”

  Trey sucked heaving breaths in until the hot bands crushing his lungs eased off a little. He lifted his head once the constriction in his chest began to fade and spotted the ladder protruding from the side of a building at the other end of the street. “What about that?”

  K’aia saw the fire escape at the same time as Trey. “Race you.”

  Trey didn’t have the wind to whine about her apparently endless energy. He forced his cramped leg muscles to pump out a few more steps to get him to the ladder and paused to rest his hands on his knees. “You go first. I need a minute still.”

  K’aia picked up angry voices nearby. “We haven’t got a minute, unless you want to reset and lose the loot?” She leapt for the outside of the ladder and pulled herself up a few rungs, then gripped with her back legs and swung her upper body down to grab Trey’s hands as she’d learned in training. “C’mon, I can’t hold this all day like Addix can.”

  Trey grasped K’aia’s hands and tried not to whoop as she swung him above her. He let go, grabbed the ladder, and pushed himself to climb the fire escape as fast as his adrenaline-filled body would carry him.

  K’aia followed, pausing at the switchback halfway to pull up the bottom ladder and hide their route.

  They heaved themselves over the lip of the roof one at a time and collapsed against the cool stone just moments before the street below was filled with the echoes of rough voices.

  4

  Trey peered over the edge to see what was going on below. He wished once again that he had a clue of how to activate his enhancements so he could do more than cower on a rooftop. A shortcut into the Etheric would be handy right about now.

  Unfortunately, the result was the same as the last time he’d hoped for it to happen, and the time before that. “There are more people down there, not just that Noel-ni’s guards.”

  K’aia glanced at the nearby buildings as the voices below grew louder. The roof sloped up from the ledge they were using for cover, flattening out twenty feet away before dropping off without any boundary to prevent a running jump. “That looks promising.”

  She made her way over to the other edge, her heart sinking when she saw the distance and the drop to the spiky roof of the next building over. Trey couldn’t survive that, and even she would be pressed to land without breaking her legs.

  K’aia edged back to Trey’s position. “There’s no way off this roof. Maybe we should fight them off. Are they all armed?”

  Trey glanced at K’aia and nodded. “Yeah. It looks like half the criminals in the city decided to get in on the chase.” He waved her over. “You need to see this before we decide anything. I think that’s the Shrillexian we shut down last week.”

  “What are they doing?” K’aia stayed low as she crept over to join Trey. She scanned the mob, also recognizing a few familiar faces from their exploits during the last few weeks. “Yeah, that’s him. We’ll have to wait them out.” ”

  Trey ducked away from the edge and sat
with his back against the ledge. “You sure? They’re going to figure out we’re up here soon enough.”

  K’aia couldn’t see an immediate way out of their predicament. “You’re not wrong, but there’s nowhere for us to go. It’s too far for you to jump to another roof.” She settled herself next to Trey and retrieved the credit chip from the pouch she’d secreted it in earlier. “We should see if it’s even worth all this trouble.”

  Trey held out his hand for the chip. He swiped it against his wrist-holo, his eyes bugging out at the line of zeroes that flashed up on the display. He transferred the balance to their holding account. “Um, yeah. We don’t want to lose this if we can help it.”

  K’aia sucked in a breath when Trey angled his wrist to show her the account they held all of the takings from their anti-crime spree in. “We could fund our own Hexagon with a few more shakedowns like that.”

  Trey grinned. “You want a media empire?”

  K’aia grimaced. “No way. I’d be happy with a secure base we can work from and a way off the planet that doesn’t involve us having to appropriate the ill-gotten wealth of every scumbag in the city to pay for it.”

  Trey nodded. “I’d settle for a place to train in peace. I’m here to prepare for leadership. I can’t see how vigilantism is doing that.”

  K’aia shrugged. “You’re gaining some experience of what it’s like to live with nothing. We’ve been here less than a month. Give it time.” She held up a hand, hearing the ladder rattle. “Crapsticks. We’re out of time.”

  Trey risked a glance at the ladder. “Our Shrillexian friend. I have an idea.” He grabbed the staff from his back and leaned over the edge.

  “What are you doing?” K’aia hissed. “They’ll see you!”

  Trey activated the staff and fired at the bolts fixing the ladder to the wall. “Yeah, but they won’t be able to get to us.” He blasted the next set of bolts lower down and the fire escape peeled away from the wall, taking the Shrillexian with it.

  He wiggled his fingers at the Shrillexian.

  The falling Shrillexian screamed curses at Trey right up until the moment his head bounced off the ground. The ladder landed on top of him and the two nearest criminals.

  The rest must have put their minds together and come up with a functioning brain cell to share. They looked up at the fading glow from Trey’s staff and scattered to find a way into the building.

  Trey looked at his inert staff with dismay. “I hope this thing has a way to recharge.”

  “Eve didn’t say.” K’aia indicated Trey climb onto her back after a jerk of her head. “Get on. We have to risk the jump.”

  Trey was reluctant to take her up on the offer. He readied himself for the run-up and set off sprinting toward the flat end of the roof.

  K’aia raced after him. “Trey, no!”

  Too late; Trey made the leap. He realized he had no landing only after his feet had left the relative safety of the rooftop.

  K’aia was helpless to act. She saw the moment Trey worked out he wasn’t going to make it. “Dammit! We have to do all of this again, Trey! Did no one ever teach you to look before you leap?”

  Trey heard K’aia distantly. This was it, his first-ever death inside the gameworld. The spikes on the roof below rushed up to meet his body, or the other way around, Trey wasn’t sure. Either way, the two were going to meet any second.

  He opened his eyes when the expected impalement failed to occur. He was jerked upward by some invisible force that cradled his entire body, stopping just inches away from becoming a Baka kebab.

  There was a familiar giggle somewhere above Trey. He craned his neck to see Gabriel and Alexis peering out of a rectangular hole in the sky high above both buildings.

  Gabriel nodded stoically. “Need a ride?”

  Alexis moved her hands, and Trey rose slowly into the air and floated toward K’aia.

  He grinned, keeping very still until his feet were safely on the roof in case Alexis dropped him. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you two.”

  Alexis giggled again. “Um, yeah, I think I do.”

  K’aia snorted and punched him in the arm. “Don’t you ever do that again!”

  Trey rubbed his arm, still grinning with the relief of avoiding death. “I’ll try not to.”

  “Wait there,” Gabriel told K’aia and Trey. “We’ll send down a Pod.”

  QGE Gemini, Galley

  Trey focused on his food while K’aia told the story of their time in First City.

  Alexis held up a hand and gave K’aia a high-five. “That explains how you managed to buy the property we’re headed for when you started the game with nothing.”

  “Resourceful,” Gabriel told her with a smile. “You guys did well.”

  K’aia grinned, her carapace pinkening with pride—and relief that the twins were here at last. “All we had to do was remember all the places Sabine’s group visited after the initial smackdown Bethany Anne put on this cesspit in the real world. We’ve taken all of that wealth out of the criminals’ hands and put it aside for when you two got here. The only concession we made was the base since it was too good a deal to pass up.”

  “Nice!” Gabriel shook with laughter as K’aia demonstrated the final heist with the various items on the table.

  K’aia pushed the condiments and cups out of the way and directed her attention to the pizza. “You should have seen his face. I love teaching empathy to assholes. There’s this look they always get, like they’re not sure how they ended up on that side of the beating.”

  Alexis held up her glass of Coke with a grin. “Here’s to education.”

  Trey offered up his slice of pizza to the toast. “Here’s to real food.” He stuffed the entire piece into his mouth and chewed with his eyes closed.

  Gabriel raised an eyebrow at K’aia’s matched enthusiasm for the twenty-inch-diameter deep-dish pan on the table. “What have you two been eating?”

  K’aia paused her demolition of the pizza and shuddered. “Our own cooking.” She snagged another slice and gazed at it lovingly. “Can’t tell you how glad I am that the ship has a food printer. None of our favorite places to eat exist in this reality, and we both suck at food prep. I swear, I’d rather live on nutritional substitutes than spend another minute preparing misery on a plate.”

  Gabriel’s eyebrows went up. “It can’t have been that bad, surely?”

  K’aia waved him off with her pizza slice. “Bad enough that we’re going to change the subject in case it ruins this pizza by association.”

  Trey nodded at Gabriel, speaking around his mouthful of cheesy yumminess. “Mmmf, ’gree.” He got up to get himself a drink from the dispenser. “We had no idea how good we had it back home, with parents who know how to make food that doesn’t make you cry while you’re eating it. The food printer is a precious luxury.”

  Alexis finished her bite and sat back to wipe her fingers on her napkin. “Not just the food printer. The Gemini has everything we need to make it a home away from home.”

  Trey gulped half of his milk and put his cup down with a clatter. “Good, because our base is not the homiest.” He screwed up his face. “Actually, it doesn’t have much of anything.”

  “That’s not true,” K’aia countered. “It had plenty of junk lying around when we moved in.” She lifted a shoulder at the look of interest from Alexis and Gabriel. “Previous tenants left a bunch of lab equipment and other stuff. We moved it to the basement so it’s not under our feet. It’s a great place to hide out. You’ll see.”

  Belv’th, First City, Warehouse District, Team Base

  Gabriel entered the warehouse floor from the hangar and let out a low whistle. “It’s spacious. We won’t run out of room to…” He furrowed his brow. “Actually, I’m not sure what we need all of this space for.”

  Alexis shoved him as she skipped past. “You’re kidding, right? You haven’t forgotten the reason we’re here, have you? We need a base. This will be perfect for our APA, every base
needs an active participation area. We’ll get the basement fitted out for R&D.” She brightened at the idea of setting up a lab of her own. “I love this place already.”

  Gabriel shook his head, picturing how the room they were in could be divided into different training areas. “No. I haven’t forgotten, but this isn’t what I expected. Mom has threatened us with military school so often that I was prepared for rigorous structure.”

  Alexis patted Gabriel’s shoulder and pointed to a group of crates by the wall. “I think that’s the point. We expected realistic scenarios to follow, and instead, we are in an alternate reality with no guidance for our goals.” She took a seat on one of the crates and folded her hands in her lap as she spun out her reasoning. “We are free to choose our own paths through the gameworld. You want to go to military school? We just have to find one.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” Gabriel dropped onto the crate next to Alexis with a long sigh. “How do we know what the right path is? I don’t want to let Mom and Dad down.”

  Alexis snorted. She could always rely on Gabriel to cut right to the heart of the matter. “I feel the same, but what does Mom always say about failure? This world is laid out just for us. We’re smart, and we’re trained for pretty much anything. What do you want to experience?”

  “I don’t know,” Gabriel shot back, his imitation of his sister’s tone a little sharper than he’d intended. “I’m sorry. You’re right. As long as we make our best effort, our parents will be proud of us whatever we choose.”

  Alexis smiled at Trey as he entered the warehouse floor. “In the meantime, we should focus on making this space work for us.”

  5

  Belv’th, First City, Team Base (six weeks later)

  Trey grunted in frustration and threw his staff to the mat. “This isn’t working. I’m not getting any stronger or faster. Not any more than I would be from all the training, anyway. I don’t think Eve has given me the nanocytes yet.”