Keep Your Friends Close

by N. D. Roberts

  Gabriel lowered his batons and sighed. “Probably not. You wouldn’t want to experience the change all at once. There’s a reason people are usually put into an induced coma while they’re undergoing the transformation. You have to train; the changes will come.”

  Trey dropped to a cross-legged position and slumped until his forehead was touching the mat. “If you start quoting Mister Miyagi at me, I swear I’ll delete every Earth movie we have that was made before the advent of CGI. Alexis owes me a favor.”

  Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “What, even the first Terminator movie? You love that one.” He laughed at Trey’s look of dismay and offered him a hand. “I’m not going to chew you out with old lines.”

  Trey got to his feet and they walked over to the half wall at the edge of the mat to retrieve their water bottles. “I’m bored. All we do is train, work on the base, and laze around watching movies. Vigilantism is starting to look attractive to me as a way to get some excitement.”

  Gabriel snorted his water. “Being chased through the streets by angry mobs isn’t the only way to get your adrenaline fix.” He had no problem with switching up their routine, just not flying by the seat of their pants while they did so. “Working as a specialist team to stop crimes in progress is not unappealing as a practical exercise.”

  Trey picked up his wrist-holo and fastened it on. “Alexis showed me how to tap into the city’s communication network. It shouldn’t be too hard to find the law enforcement channels and listen in.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “No. We do this right. Preparation is key to success; you know that.”

  Trey threw up his hands and flashed a bright grin at Gabriel. “Yeah, but you’re not thinking of the fun factor.”

  Alexis and K’aia rushed in through the double-door.

  Alexis waved a sheet of holopaper as she dashed over to the workout area. “You’re not going to believe what I found in the First City News.”

  “We found,” K’aia clarified, handing Gabriel and Trey each a copy of the daily news publication. “Everyone in the bazaar is talking about it.”

  Gabriel scanned the text of the leading story, then looked at Alexis with confusion. “What does a war two galaxies over have to do with this planet?”

  “Not the war.” Alexis waved her finger at the menu. “The warning about gangs of kidnappers in Second City. We went over to check it out and found a person putting flyers up, and they told us about people getting snatched off the streets. Not cool.”

  Trey gaped at Alexis. “Definitely not cool. What are we going to do about it?”

  “Keep reading,” Alexis told him flatly. “You need to read the reports from the attack last night.”

  Gabriel’s face darkened as he read. He crushed the newspaper in his hands without meaning to. “We have to do something about this. Can we find out where these gangs are operating out of?”

  Alexis nodded. “Yeah. I’ve got Gemini cross-referencing every report and rumor with the spaceport records from both cities. As soon as she has something, we’ll know.”

  QGE Gemini, War Room (two days later)

  Alexis sat at the oval table, a map of the quadrant open in the interactive holo display over the flat-black polymer. “Can you filter the disappearances by date?”

  “Of course,” Gemini replied from the speaker. The glowing white markers on the map blinked and were replaced with all the colors of the spectrum. “Reds are the most recent reports, violets are the oldest,” she explained.

  Alexis squinted at the sudden deluge of color. “Okay, now take out all the colors except violet.” She tapped the console embedded in the table to zoom in on the cluster of markers in the galaxy one over from theirs. “This can’t be a coincidence.”

  She opened the ship’s comm. “Guys, we’ve got a location. How are things looking in the hold?”

  Trey came back first. “I like our chances against the forces of darkness a lot better after seeing all the cool stuff your game-Mom tricked us out with. There’s stuff we’ve only dreamed about deploying. I kinda feel sorry for the bad guys.”

  Gabriel’s laughter rang out. “Sure, Trey. You gonna cry while you’re fighting in one of these battlesuits?”

  Alexis hadn’t seen anything that fit the description of a battlesuit. “Show me.”

  An image arrived in her HUD’s message function. She opened it, and her eyes went wide. “Oh my. That is a pretty thing. It has pretty shoulder armaments and pretty guns on the gauntlets.

  “Pretty?” Trey asked.

  “Pretty destructive,” Alexis clarified. “Those look like Dukes’ weapons to me. Are those sword hilts built into the thigh plates?”

  “Just like the ones in Mom’s old armor,” Gabriel confirmed. “I always wanted an Etheric sword.”

  Alexis grinned. “I know, right? You should be able to use it after some practice.”

  “What about me?” Trey asked.

  “NO!” all three cried at once.

  “Fine.” Trey huffed. “It’s not like I can activate the dumb thing anyway.”

  Alexis winced at the hurt in his voice. “That’s not a bad thing. Messing around with the Etheric is a guaranteed way to bring about a reset, and we’ve worked too hard to get the base how we want it to let that happen. Let’s at least get on an objective trail before you get yourself blown to pieces.”

  “What do you want us to do, then?” K’aia inquired.

  Alexis grinned. “We get ourselves kidnapped, of course. How else do we get a real battle?”

  Belv’th, Second City, Entertainment District

  K’aia began to doubt the wisdom of their plan once they were on the streets of Second City without a single weapon at hand. “I do not like being in public without my armor,” she grumped. “I like you three with your squishy flesh being unprotected even less.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Alexis assured her. “Kidnappers don’t want corpses. Come on, stay with the crowd. Hopefully, they’ll be drawn to all these easy targets.” She flashed a grin at the people in front when they turned to look at her. “Keep moving, nothing to see here.”

  The intoxicated night-goers went on their way, Alexis already forgotten in their pursuit of the next happy hour.

  Gabriel spotted a furtive movement in the crowd ahead. “Look sharp. Gas canisters, eleven o’clock.” More canisters rolled out into the street from the shadowy alleys. “Score. We’ve found the kidnappers.”

  People all around them panicked as others began dropping to the ground. The street was filled with confused shouts and cries of disgust as the gas caused the victims to void the contents of their stomachs before passing out.

  Alexis cursed the nausea that assailed her despite the gas being rendered null by her nanocytes. “I hate gas. Trey, get your rebreather in. This is about to get messy.”

  Trey hurried to get the buds into his nostrils before the odorless, colorless gas rendered him immobile, then copied Alexis’ and Gabriel’s pretense of fainting. He found it almost impossible to still his reaction when he was picked up and tossed into the back of a vehicle.

  He concentrated on drawing breath through the twin buds in his nostrils as a distraction from the worry of being split up from the others.

  Trey chose not to inspect his thoughts about how quickly he had bonded with K’aia and the twins.

  A peep through one slitted eye showed him that the kidnappers were relaxed. He could tell they had the easy camaraderie that came from long years of working together just from the way they spoke to each other.

  Another few people were thrown into the back with Trey, then Gabriel landed roughly beside him.

  Alexis was next. She winked at Gabriel and Trey, then shot them a panicked glance when K’aia’s voice broke the silence. She tensed, ready to act at a moment’s notice if it sounded like K’aia was in trouble.

  There was a scuffle, then K’aia was thrown in with the rest of them, canceling the need for a one-girl riot.

  K’aia laid still while the kidna
ppers pulled down the roller door and locked it. She didn’t move until the vehicle set off. “Uuugh. I’m not as immune to that gas when it’s sprayed in my face.”

  “K’aia, are you okay?” Alexis asked in a low voice. “Did they hurt you?”

  K’aia turned her body to face the others. “I’m not injured,” she ground out. “But that big guy needs a clean uniform after I puked all down it. Serves the asshat right.”

  Gabriel kept his ear to the bed of the vehicle, tracking their progress by the sound of the tires crunching on the road. “I know where we are,” he informed them. “We just passed out of Second City, and this is a gravel road, which means we’re headed for City-on-the-Lake.”

  Alexis asked the question on all their minds. “Why would they take us there? There’s nothing but mines and villages that way.”

  K’aia grimaced. “Maybe that’s their thing, kidnapping people to work the mines?”

  “Not for long, if that’s the case,” Gabriel promised.

  They found out soon enough when the vehicle carrying them came to a stop. They feigned unconsciousness when the door was rolled up.

  The kidnappers got to work, unloading the unconscious people onto waiting antigrav pallets.

  They were taken around the building they’d been brought to and deposited on the grass at the back with the people from Second City.

  The NPCs were waking up, some faster than others. Gabriel took that as his cue to sit up and get a look at their surroundings. “Whoa. This definitely wasn’t here before.”

  Trey spat to get the cottony taste out of his mouth and tilted his head to look at the tower and the building wrapped around the base of it. “What is that?”

  “The building is an elevator,” Alexis told him. “It will let out above the atmosphere, where a ship will be waiting to take us to our destination. I just can’t see why they would go to all that expense. This isn’t the most cost-effective method of getting cargo into space.”

  K’aia gazed up the needle, getting a reminder of her nausea as she lost the construction in the clouds. “It’s a bit much, don’t you think?”

  Gabriel noted the identical awe in the expressions of the people around them. “I don’t know. It’s not like they can use the ports.” He turned away from the space elevator and tried to estimate how many people there were with them. A couple of hundred, he was sure. “I think this is connected to the war we read about. The question is, where is the militia based?”

  “Over there,” Alexis interrupted, nodding at the black-clad figures standing around, their eyes constantly roaming over the crowd. “Soldiers. We’re being shipped out.”

  Trey found himself far out of his depth. “What do we do? Leave the planet to chase this objective chain?”

  It was a tense moment for Alexis. “We have to agree as a team, and there’s not much time.”

  More soldiers appeared from the elevator building. They shepherded the group inside with their rifles, ignoring the questions of the people.

  Gabriel furrowed his brow. “I think we take it. Either we found an organization to take down or a military to train us.”

  K’aia grinned. “Whichever it is, it’s going to be an adventure.”

  Trey nodded, a smile spreading over his face. “Yeah. It beats the heck out of hanging around the base.”

  Alexis nodded. “Looks like we’re going traveling. Wait, what about Gemini? We can’t take the ship. She’ll be alone until we return here.”

  Gabriel’s eyes were unfocused for a moment. “I’ve told her we’re going offworld. She’s not happy about being left behind, but she said she will keep the base safe until we get back.”

  Alexis checked with the EI and confirmed she would be fine. “Okay, then. Let’s start the scenario.”

  They integrated themselves with the line heading into the elevator and took their seats once they were inside. The line moved placidly, since the armed soldiers all around put any ideas of escape out of the question.

  The elevator took them to the platform Alexis had predicted, where they were ushered into a huge room and left to mix with the people already there.

  Alexis dialed out the background noise that hit them on entering. They were standing in a crowd of a hundred thousand or more, all packed between the doors and a stage at the other end of the room.

  Gabriel and Trey drank in the different dialects. The NPCs spoke every language their translation software knew, mingled with untold indecipherable others.

  Gabriel frowned in disappointment. “They don’t know any more than we do.”

  Alexis and K’aia were focused more on what was coming next.

  K’aia pointed at the stage. “What’s going on over there?”

  Alexis started making a path through the crowd. “I don’t know, but the NPCs are all heading that way. Let’s go find out.”

  They gravitated toward the stage, coming to a stop a short way from the blinding footlights. The team looked up as one when the space was lit by floodlights somewhere above their heads. Six extremely tall uniformed aliens of varying species emerged from the wings and made their way to the center of the stage.

  The tall aliens turned slowly and faced the crowd, then spoke as one.

  “Welcome to whichever version of an unpreferable afterlife your species subscribes to. You have been given a chance to repay your debt to society by dedicating your lives to a greater cause, one that does not benefit any single individual. The survival of civilization. You will be assigned a base, and provided with training. Then you will be shipped to the front lines, where you will fight—or you will die.”

  The mysterious aliens on the stage vanished, followed by the stage itself the next moment.

  K’aia growled. “There goes our chance to take out the bad guys.”

  Alexis shook her head. “That was all smoke and mirrors. A trick,” she clarified for Trey. “They were holograms.”

  “Sounds like we got conscripted.” Gabriel speculated on the difference between this and the method by which Bethany Anne grew her military. “That explains where all the missing people have been taken.”

  Trey glanced around at the NPC soldiers. “I wonder who they want us to fight?”

  Alexis narrowed her eyes as the armed soldiers moved to resume herding the new conscripts. “It doesn’t matter. Like I said, we have to see the scenario through now that we’ve begun.”

  “We’re drawing attention,” Gabriel murmured. “We need to move.”

  They stayed together as the soldiers ushered them through the corridors to a space lined with large windows.

  The soldiers ordered the conscripts to form a line, deferring to the sergeant at the desk in front of the open airlock.

  Alexis examined what she could see of the hull of their transport through the windows as the line for boarding inched forward. “I hope our ship is safe while we’re gone. I don’t like leaving Gemini behind.”

  “Agreed,” Gabriel told her. “But it’s not practical to have her follow us. I guess I understand why Mom and Dad haven’t wanted to take us with them all the time. Gemini doesn’t have the tools to cope with dangerous situations.”

  They reached the head of the line, where they were given a band for their wrists before they entered the ship.

  Trey swept his gaze to the soldiers at either end of the concertinaed airlock corridor. This sucks, he thought.

  Alexis stalled a step. Trey! I heard that!

  Gabriel nodded. Me too.

  Trey tried thinking his reply. Did I get an ability finally? Does that mean Eve has given me the nanocytes?

  Could be, Alexis agreed.

  Trust you to get the ability to keep on talking, K’aia teased.

  One of the soldiers encouraged them to keep moving with the butt of his rifle.

  Trey shot the soldier a dirty look and kept walking. Bethany Anne spoke mind-to-mind with me at the gala, he explained.

  So it makes sense that would be the first thing to get activated. Gabriel r
esisted the urge to headbutt the sneering soldier who scanned their wristbands at the ship’s hatch.

  The way ahead was also lined with armed guards. They moved whenever one of the conscripts looked to be getting ideas about breaking free of the procession.

  Thing is, K’aia told him, we’re going to be inside this can, and we have no way to keep anything else that develops hidden from our friends here.

  Alexis nodded minutely, her attention on the soldiers. That’s my concern. The first few times Gabriel and I accessed the Etheric were disasters. She narrowed her eyes as they entered an enormous hold filled with rows of what looked like Pod-docs standing on end. Oh.

  What, oh? K’aia asked. What’s with the gloomy look?

  Trey had bigger concerns. Never mind that. What’s with all the equipment in here?

  They’re putting us in stasis, Gabriel informed him. Which means we’re being taken farther than the next galaxy over.

  Alexis kept moving despite the sinking feeling she had. I don’t know if we’re ready for this. All our gear is back at the base.

  K’aia grunted. I’m not getting gassed again, so don’t even suggest that we force a reset.

  Alexis shook her head. I wasn’t planning to. We made our choice, and we have to deal with it. Besides, it’s Eve’s plan. Think of Trey’s nanocytes kicking in just now; this has to be a checkpoint. We’d just reset back here.

  They reached the head of the line, where the soldiers were joined by a group of technicians who steered them into the stasis Pods without making eye contact or speaking.

  Trey gulped as the door sealed him in. His mind ran wild with thoughts of the changes his body was going through.

  He knew enhancement was different for each person. That his nanocytes were working inside him to unlock the ultimate version of Baka-ness he had hidden in his DNA.

  Trey imagined himself with rippling muscles and the ability to toss his uncle out on his ass. The fantasy soothed him, since it would be his reality once he got out of the game.

  It was the rest of his burgeoning powers that were the mystery. He was the first Baka to be gifted with nanocytes, so nobody knew for sure what they were going to do to him.