Author's Note: I'm giving a warning for a semi-graphic torture scene in this chapter. If that's not your thing, once Aja tells Kubritz to go to hell, skip ahead to the next scene break.
Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 10th June 2022
"All right," Zoe said, first thing. "Phones and any smart devices. Power them off. And I do mean /off/."
"What? Why?" asked Toby.
"Tracking," Douxie replied, already powering down his cell phone. "I'm pretty sure the government, and thus the authorities at 49-B, would notice a cluster of phones jetting toward the place at a speed unexplainable by human vehicle. And be able to link them back to us, to pick us all up for further 'debriefing'." He actually made air quotes around the term.
Jim resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
"We're not going that fast," Stuart, at the helm, complained.
"By human standards? Yes, we are," Zoe told him.
"All right, phones off," Toby agreed.
"And your Chubby Tracker," Jim told him.
"Hey, I didn't get that this time around!"
"Good thing, too."
"Varvatos senses there is a story." The warrior crossed his arms, waiting.
Jim grinned. "Toby," he said, pointing at his best friend, "got a Chubby Tracker to help him lose weight. But it got stolen by goblins. So we used its internet connection to track it to the goblin den."
"Which ended up being in the museum." Toby frowned. "Where we found out Nomura was a changeling."
"Except," Jim added, "then the Chubby Tracker went off right as we were trying to hide from her and the goblins."
Zoe and Douxie winced as one. Varvatos just threw his head back and laughed.
"Yeah, laugh it up, grandpa-in-law," Toby told him. "There have been many times in the last few years when I've been certain we were going to die, but that? Nomura in a pissed-off mood? I still don't know how we survived."
"Glorious!" Varvatos caught Toby in a headlock. "You do the beauteous Nancy great honor, grandson-to-be!"
"Is this about Nana's arrest record, or about me no longer trying to lose weight?" Toby asked, sounding half-strangled.
"Both!"
"Anyhow," Zoe cut in, "since we're going to be there in like a half hour or less, you plebes need to know the current layout of the place, so pay attention." She sat down cross-legged on the floor of the spaceship, setting her phone down in front of herself.
"How come your phone's not off?" Claire asked her.
"Enchanted," Zoe said without looking up. "Now." She touched the screen; a pink hologram of Area 49-B sprung up into the air above it, 3-D and translucent. "Walls." She tapped at them. "Boobytrapped. Entrance keypad." She tapped at that. "Boobytrapped. On-site sewer system."
"Let me guess," Toby said. "Boobytrapped?"
Zoe grinned. "You can be taught." She looked at Jim. "So what's your plan, hero?"
"All right." Jim knelt down next to her. "We park the spaceship far enough out that it can't be detected."
"I am good with that!" called Stuart.
"Stuart stays with the ship. Keeps the engine running, in case we need to bolt. The rest of us cram into the back of the taco truck and drive in. Ricky and Lucy drop us off at the very edge of visual range of the site. They go on to the outer wall and start selling tacos, distracting the guards. Claire," he said, nodding at her, "starts opening tiny portals around the /outside/ of the walls."
Toby's eyes lit up. "We pass the dwarkstones through those!"
Jim nodded. "Exactly. When we've got enough positioned... do you think you can detonate them remotely?" he asked Douxie and Zoe.
The pink-haired wizard looked up at the black-haired one, who stood there listening, his arms crossed, dragon perched on his shoulder. "Could be tricky," Zoe offered.
Douxie scoffed. "They're dwarkstones. All they need is a good telekinetic smack, and they'll go off ten seconds later. It's not like they require precision, Zo."
"True." She nodded, and turned her attention back to Jim. "Then what?"
"We blow one side," Jim said, tapping the north side of the hologram. "A few minutes later, we blow up the other, because they'll be expecting a follow-up attack." He tapped the south side.
"Are you thinking damaging the outer wall will cause them to drop their shield?" asked Archie.
"No." Jim shook his head. "What I'm thinking is, while they're rushing to put out fires and find enemies to the north and south, we come in quietly, via warhammer and broomstick, over the east wall." He tapped the last wall, the one farthest from the front gate. And looked up, hoping for approval. Or at least some sort of constructive criticism.
Varvatos was nodding thoughtfully. "Varvatos likes this plan. Mayhem, chaos, and vengeance, all rolled into in one."
Jim's heart lifted. This just might work after all.
The lights snapped on, bright and blinding. Aja hissed, recoiling as far as she was able to. Which was not all that far.
"Photic reactions. Interesting," said the voice of her most hated enemy at the moment, Colonel Kubritz. "Okay, bring it in boys."
Aja managed to crack her eyes open wide enough to see a pair of orange-suited minions hauling in-
"Krel!" she said, bolting upright and forgetting about the discomfort of the light.
Her brother's head lolled to one side, unconscious, as his chair was set down and the minions vacated the room.
"What have you done to him?" Aja demanded, glaring at Kubritz.
"I haven't done anything. This is all thanks to your friend here." At Kubritz's wave, Birdie the bounty hunter strolled through the door, which shut and sealed itself behind her.
"This is your last chance to be reasonable, Princess Aja," Birdie said. "If you value your brother intact, simply provide the location of your parents' cores, and this will all be done with."
Aja glared, her teeth gritting. "Never," she swore.
Birdie's eyes narrowed. "Very well, then. On your own head be it." She did something - Aja didn't see what - and suddenly Krel's head shifted, his eyes fluttering a little as he moaned.
"Krel?" Aja asked.
"I have the worst klebbing headache..." her little brother whimpered as he opened his eyes. Seeing Birdie and Kubritz in front of him, he froze. "Fuck," he said after a second. "I had hoped that was just a bad dream."
"Language!" Aja scolded him.
"What, I am only supposed to swear in Akiridion?" he asked her.
"You are not supposed to swear at all!"
"Kleb that."
"Fascinating as this all is." Kubritz stepped toward Krel, pulling a knife out of her pocket, flicking it open. Light glinted off her glasses as she looked back at Aja. "Last chance, princess."
"Go to your hell," Aja told her, her words bolder than her feelings.
"Fine." Kubritz nodded to Birdie.
Birdie grabbed Krel's hair. Yanked his head back. "Ow-" Krel yelped, which turned into a shriek as Kubritz's knife flashed.
"Interesting. I'd always thought that line about royalty having blue blood was a joke," Kubritz jibed, as glowing blue liquid dripped down from her knife and the cut on Krel's cheek.
Krel's eyes were wide with shock and pain.
"Krel," Aja said, unbelievingly. How could Kubritz do that? Hurt someone else so deliberately, when Krel didn't even have a chance to fight back?
Her brother's eyes met hers.
"Tell them nothing," Krel insisted.
Which is when Kubritz buried her knife to its hilt in his thigh.
The room rang with Krel's scream.
Zoe's "wide spot in the road" was just that: a gas station on either side of the highway, a handful of fast food joints and actual sit-down restaurants, and three motels. Stuart set his shop down behind one of them, lowering it carefully until the taco truck's wheels hit the ground.
"Right, time to undo some duct tape," Douxie said, stretching his hands over his head briefly before heading toward the hatch ladder. "Who wants to explain the plan to the Blanks?"
"I'll do it," Jim volunteered, following his brother. He practically gagged when he got topside, though. It was punishingly hot and dry. "Ugh, I forgot how much I hate the desert."
Douxie sniggered. "Like Arcadia has so much on-shore breeze."
"It's better than this," Jim shot back, walking carefully to the edge where Douxie knelt.
The wizard touched fingers to the end of one strip of duct tape. "Finis Magicae."
The duct tape all fell away like ribbon streamers, twisting and spinning in the air.
"Well, that's handy," Jim said as Douxie stood. "You get to take tape off things at home from now on."
"Only works if I've enchanted it beforehand," Douxie replied.
"Duct tape is like the Force," Jim solemnly informed his brother. "It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together."
Douxie stifled a snicker.
"Hidey-ho there!" Ricky called up from below. "What's the plan, captain?"
Krel was bleeding from multiple locations by the time Kubritz finally got tired of her sick little games and left, tossing and twirling her knife in one hand like she was some kind of showman.
"Little brother..." Aja said. She had watched the whole thing, his pain and humiliation and not being able to do a damned thing to protect himself.
Krel managed a weak grin for her. "That could have been worse?" he offered, throbbing with pain.
But Aja did not take the verbal lead, did not engage in banter. "No," she said softly. "I do not think it could have been."
"Yes it could," Krel insisted. Akiridions did not cry, but humans did. He could feel the clear liquid coating his cheeks, stinging in his pulsing cuts and injuries. The two kinds of pain interfered with each other, mixing into an awful screeching feedback of pain.
He remembered Claire had told him once that the salt content of human tears and blood were thought to be the same level of salinity as Earth's oceans had been when humanity's long-ago ancestors crawled out of them. That they were part and parcel of their world the way the Akiridions were of their own.
If humans' blood and tears were the same salinity as each other, he thought, they surely must not cause this same horrible jangling pain when they interacted.
His own "blood," however, was actually the liquification of the hard light of which an Akiridion's body was made. There was no sympathy, no resonance, with the human form. That, he thought, was surely why the tears falling into his injuries hurt so much.
"It could have been much worse," said Krel, breathing through the pain, choosing to rise above it and not let it rule him. He bobbed on the surface of the pain like a cork on one of Earth's oceans. "We could have broken. You could have told them where Mama and Papa are."
Aja scoffed. "And let Morando do to them what Kubritz was already doing to you?" She shook her head. "No."
"A sadist is a sadist, the universe over," Krel agreed. He could feel his transduction starting to fade, to flicker around the edges. He closed his eyes. They were being watched; he knew it. Slipping into Spanish was useless, as would be High Akiridion; there was too much of a chance Birdie would be able to translate it. His mind spun dizzily, trying to catch on some way to speak privately with his sister, without eavesdroppers understanding...
Oh.
"Do you remember," he said slowly, trying to recall it all, "when we were children? Before... he left?" He couldn't speak their brother's name. Any indication that he was alive as well, and their brother would go on Morando's hit list too.
"Yes...?" Aja asked slowly.
"Kzyrx ka'nah?" Krel asked. Do you remember?
The secret language the three of them had made up.
Their triplet language.
Aja's eyes widened. "Jah'nar!" I do.
The words were stumbling on both of their tongues; it had been many keltons since they'd needed this speech. But for now...
Krel grinned, dizzy and loopy with pain. "Our friends will come for us," he told his sister. "We only have to wait, and hold on."
"Think that's enough dwarkstones?" Claire asked, pulling her hand back out of the portal and letting it close.
Jim's eyes were hard as he answered, "No."
"Yeah, I kind of want to blow 49-B sky-high too," Toby agreed. "Kubritz does not get to kidnap my friends."
Looking around their group, Claire expected Varvatos to agree with the two boys. But to her surprise, he shook his head. "Claire is right. We must save some dwarkstones to have on ourselves when we invade."
Toby made a fruitless gesture at Varvatos. "You've got a serrator!"
"A sword-shield-gun isn't the same as a hand grenade," Douxie dissented. He knelt down next to Jim. "I know your protective instincts are going overtime, and I agree, we need to deal with Kubritz's operation. But Excalibur alone may not be enough to deal with what's in there." He put his hand on Jim's shoulder. "Give yourself some options."
Jim still wanted to argue, Claire could see it on his face. But he mastered himself and nodded. "All right." Digging into the depleted sack, he started handing the remaining dwarkstones out. Toby and Claire made them disappear into their armors' magic subspace pockets. Varvatos did something presumably similar.
Douxie only took two, putting one in each hoodie pocket. "Of all the days not to wear my backpack," he lamented.
Zoe, in turn, took seven, stuffing her cross-body purse full. "I'm sticking with you, doofus. One of us needs to be heavily armed."
"What about me?" Archie demanded of her.
"No offense, Archie, but you're more cute and cuddly right now than terrifying."
"And I'm very good at it," he informed her.
Claire took stock. The sun had set and light levels were dropping by the minute. They could barely see the taco truck from where they were; the crowd around it seemed to be getting larger by the moment. Soon the base would be the only source of light in the area. All of them who had armor were wearing it, save for... "Teach," she said. "Armor up."
Douxie sighed and rolled his eyes. Then his fingers danced over his vambrace and pulled his armor out of thin air. Limned in blue magic, the glimmering black material wrapped around him.
When the light faded, his outfit looked identical to the one he'd worn before, except for two things: his hoodie was zipped up, and all the white details of his usual clothing were gone. The white hoodie string was now black, his belt had vanished, and all the white bits on his high-tops were hidden under glimmering black.
"Whoa," said Toby. "Stealth mode Douxie."
Zoe, meanwhile, stared at the wizard. "This is your idea of armor?" she demanded.
He grinned. "Wait 'til you see what it can do," Douxie responded, sticking his hands in his pockets. His eyes widened. "Huh," he said, looking down at them. "The pockets connect directly to my real hoodie pockets. Nice."
Jim crossed his arms, looking at the base. "All right," he said, as if trying to convince himself. "We need to do this."
"Ready?" Douxie asked Zoe.
She rolled her eyes. "When you are."
"North side first?" Douxie confirmed with Jim. Who nodded. "Lovely. Claire, you want in on this?"
She considered it for a split second, then shook her head. "I've barely started learning levitation," she said. "I don't think I have enough control or finesse yet."
"I'll take the six on the east, you take the six on the west," Zoe told Douxie. Both wizards closed their eyes for a long minute.
Douxie's hand drifted up, as if feeling for something. "Got 'em," he reported, opening his eyes again. They blazed blue.
"On three," Zoe said, her eyes sparking pink. "One. Two. Three!"
For a moment nothing happened. The dwarkstones, Claire realized, had been primed. They would take a few seconds-
The north wall of Area 49-B exploded, the sound so loud it was like they were standing next to it. The crowd outside the taco truck stood still for a moment, like they couldn't believe what had happened. Then they started scurrying. It was like watching a kicked-over anthill.
Varvatos laughed. "Kidnap my royals, will you?" he demanded to no one in particular.
Toby's grin was equally sharp, his expression gleaming. "Suck it, Kubritz!" he agreed.
"Now we wait a few minutes," Jim said. "And then we blow the other side."
A blast shook the building. Aja's head snapped up. "Little brother."
His transduction completely gone, Krel grinned loopily at her. "Told you they would come," he said in their secret made-up language.
After the second set of explosions took out the south wall, they flew toward the scene of the unfolding disaster in near silence. Douxie and Zoe rode on his broomstick, while Toby's plans of warhammering his way over the wall had been subverted by Archie pointing out how much space they had to cross first, and shifting into what was apparently his giant dragon shape, capable of carrying three humans and an Akiridion without blinking an eye.
As they looped around to the east wall, Toby realized he had never ridden on a dragon before. One more thing off the bucket list! "Okay," he muttered into black fur, "this is one of the coolest things ever. Not quite as cool as Eli's life-sized Gun Robot," he admitted. "But I guess that might never get made now."
Archie snorted. "Glad I come in second to a cartoon robot," he said, and swooped up and over the back wall of Area 49-B, landing neatly on the ground inside. He graciously waited for all four of them to dismount before shifting back into his usual cat shape.
Douxie and Zoe were already there, staring. "Fuzzbuckets," the senior wizard said, shaking his head.
"What? What is it?" Jim demanded.
Zoe swallowed. "It's not just the outer wall that was warded," she said. "It's every single building. They have one of us working with them." Her gesture between herself and Douxie indicated that by "us," she meant a wizard.
"If every building's warded... I won't be able to find Aja and Krel," said Claire, eyes wide.
"All right, new plan," Douxie said. He leaned his broomstick carefully against the outer wall. "Claire, you remember that tracking spell I taught you for Porgon?" Claire nodded. "It'll be harder, since you don't actually have any physical traces of Aja or Krel with you, but you should be able to push it enough to track your friends with it."
"And you?" asked Jim.
Douxie's lips narrowed to a line. "Zo and I need to find out who in the wizarding community is working with Area 49-B. You lot get Aja and Krel and get out of here. Don't wait for us. We'll make our own way home."
"Douxie-"
"Jim." The wizard's eyes met the king's. "Trust us. This is our mess, we need to clean it up."
Slowly, reluctantly, Jim nodded. "You get home safe, or. Or." He seemed to be having trouble coming up with a good enough threat.
Douxie cracked a smile and ruffled Jim's hair. "I know. See you at home."
"So," Varvatos said as the two wizards and one dragon disappeared into the shadows, "where are the Queen- and King-in-Waiting?"
"Do you have any idea where we're going?" Archie mildly asked Douxie as they waited around a corner until Zoe indicated a camera had completed its sweep.
"As a matter of fact, I do." Douxie fished out his crystal pendant from beneath his armor. "Aja and Krel haven't signaled with their panic buttons, which means either they're not able to... or they've been removed and taken elsewhere. Given 49-B obviously has a certain familiarity with magic, I know which one I'm betting on."
"Go go go!" Zoe hissed. The three of them scurried across the street and into the dubious shelter of the next building.
"All the necklaces are connected," Douxie continued softly, as they inched along. "And it's muted by something-probably the spells on these buildings-but I can still feel where theirs are."
"Hey, you can't be here!" someone objected.
Whirling, Archie's eyes widened as he saw an individual clad in an orange suit that looked like a costuming reject from a 1950s science fiction film.
"Look out!" he cried as the glowing-green gun was raised and its trigger pulled.
The blast splashed off Douxie's armor.
"What the-" The orange suit lowered its gun, clearly staring.
Douxie didn't wait to react. "Tenebrius Exilium!" Magic blasted from his hands.
Orange Suit went flying down the street, hit a lamp post, and crumpled, unmoving, to its base.
Douxie lowered his hands and turned. "Come on. Next building. Before they notice that."
"Hate to tell you, but I think everyone's a bit busy right now," Zoe said dryly.
"Yes, well, he wasn't," Archie pointed out, scurrying along.
"What is going on here?!" Amanda Kubritz demanded, stalking her way into Command Central. "Sitrep!"
"We're not sure yet, ma'am!" Sergeant Costas snapped a sharp salute from where he was working the bank of monitors. "Something blew up three-quarters of the north perimeter wall, followed by three-quarters of the south perimeter wall. Firefighting crews are on the scene in both instances."
Amanda examined all the screens, looking for the anomaly she knew had to be there. Meanwhile, the slim, gray-haired woman who had followed her into the room without comment or ID card, sniffed. "It's a jail break," Birdie said.
"Of course it's a jail break," Amanda replied. "I want to know who or what is wrecking my base so that I can capture them." Her eyes found the anomaly. "Costas! What is that?"
"Uh. A taco truck, ma'am?"
"Obviously," she told him. "What is it doing there?"
"Selling tacos?" he asked, sounding unsure.
"Also burritos!" someone else chimed in.
God save me from morons. "And none of you," she said caustically, "thought there was anything strange about a food truck showing up right before our perimeter got blasted to hell?"
She could practically see the realization appearing in their heads.
"Get people out there!" Amanda snapped, pointing at the monitor that showed the taco truck. "Impound that truck and arrest everyone in it!"
Birdie, she realized a second later, was already gone.
"Flown the coop," Amanda muttered as the room. She scanned the monitors again, trying to find out where the bounty hunter had vanished to.
Author's Note: Zoe's line "You can be taught" is a reference to Disney's Aladdin. And Birdie "flying the coop" at the end of this is obviously from the episode in which she appears.