Written: Saturday. May 9, 2020.
When Drew got the message from Tom — saying that they needed to meet with the others, and that it was of utter importance, even if it was way past midnight, in the hours of wee — Drew silently packed up the essential things he needed to bring into his bag. These essential items were: a bottle of water, one or two bags of chips (Cheetos and Lays), a notebook where he doodled on, and a flashlight. The flashlight was just for this specific event. Who knows what’s gonna happen for tonight’s events.
As Drew carefully left his condo — in super stealth fashion, since his parents were sleeping — he messaged Toby and June if they’d received the same message from Tom, which were answered both affirmatively and negatively. Toby texted that he was on his way; the question of whether he would bring Omnius along with him was redundant to ask. June replied that she wouldn’t be able to go out this time of night (or day, since it was technically already the wee hours). Drew let out a sigh of relief upon reading her text. If June were to be present in tonight’s urgent group meeting, she’ll probably just slow them down if they ever need to run from another hostile alien encounter, which Drew had a strong feeling of happening.
Out of all of them, and even with some of the smarter students in their batch, Drew was tentative in thinking of different ways to where a situation would lead up to. He never entered a room uncased, never talked to anybody unless he knew what the outcome would be — unless if he were to talk to an attractive girl, which he silently couldn’t admit that he still had a weakness towards. Nevertheless, he’d already thought of what might occur tonight.
The guard patrolling the condos noticed Drew taking his bike out of its lock. This guard was the night-shift guard, which meant that Drew rarely encountered this particular sentinel of the night-watch. He usually had small-talks with the morning and afternoon guards as he went in and out of the condo. So this night-guard wasn’t that much fond of late-night tenants.
“Where ya goin’, boy?” The guard asked him. His thumbs buried beneath his belt, which only made him look like an action-star wannabe. The accent was also particularly reminiscent of the only action-star well known to the country. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes, sir.” Drew answered him, without stopping to look towards him, and continued to get his bike rolling out to the street.
“It seems you don’t understand, boy.” The guard set his large stature in front of Drew. “No one goes out this time of night. Not on my watch — “
The guard was cut short of his authoritative speech when Drew picked his bike up and side-stepped on the guard. The guard was caught off guard and stumbled on his feet; his large mass adding to his imbalance. Drew took off a few more strides before setting his bike on the ground and riding it away from the guard.
“God dammit, boy! You get back here or I’ll — “ Drew was already ten paces away. The guard tried to catch up to him, but he knew it was no use. He went to his station and caught his breath. “Damn kids! Gotta cut short on that extra rice.”
Toby was riding a bike too small for his size. It was the bike he and his brother used back when they were still kids. Using the larger bike wasn’t an option for him, cause he knew his father would lecture him about how reckless he is whenever he uses other people’s stuff. He wore travelling shorts so that only his knees would hit the bike’s handles. He was the tallest in his family, but at that moment, he wished he was a bit smaller with his legs.
The call from Tom woke him up when it came. He immediately headed down stairs and woke Omnius up. This was of course unneeded, since Omnius didn’t sleep. But he did it anyway out of habit, and Omnius rode Toby’s back. Macrodon was on Omnius’s back.
As Toby arrived to where Tom said they should meet, which was conveniently back at the abandoned lot where it all started, he saw the others waiting with their own bikes. He didn’t notice Drew arriving from behind him. He must’ve taken the same route as him, since it was the easiest way to get to where the abandoned lot was. Amanda and Mara were leaning on a motorbike when both Toby and Drew arrived. Toby regarded Amanda for her ride, and Amanda gave him a playful smile when she noticed the bike he was on.
“Oh, come on. Give me a break, dude.” Toby said to her, knowing full well what her smile was for.
“How old is that bike, even?” Drew asked Toby.
“It’s been around for a while. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“I can see the rust, Toby.” Amanda said. “And it’s dark out.”
Mr. Reyes and Ervagh appeared out of nowhere, as if stepping down from a flight of stairs.
“Ah,” Ervagh looked around him. “I see that all is here. Hello, Princess.”
Mara nodded to him, and then yawned. “Sorry, I’m not used to staying up this late.”
“I see you’ve fixed your space ship, Ervagh.” Toby asked the alien.
“The ship’s emergency intelligence system finished its repairs.” Ervagh answered back. When it was clear nobody understood, he added: “The ship fixed itself, I mean.”
“We can use this vessel to catch up to the Quadmius.” Mr. Reyes said to the group. He looked towards Ervagh. “By the way, do you think it could detect the being’s location?”
“It could probably do that, but we have to move quickly. A lot of earth hours have been wasted already.”
“Sorry, what’s this about a Quadmius?” Toby asked the both of them.
“We’ve got an evil robot wrecking the town.” Tom answered him, and went closer to show a video on his iPhone. “Take a look.”
Toby and the others looked at Tom’s phone. It was a video of a shaky black figure thrashing around a bunch of sub-urban houses. The houses started going on fire, and the robot leaped off, and the video started repeating itself.
“What is that?” Toby asked.
“That’s a video of my house being destroyed,” Mr. Reyes answered. “By the four orbs that were kept in my house. Somehow, they were able to merge with each other, combining into one. The dark figure in the video is what its turned into, I’m afraid.”
“How was it even able to merge with itself?” Toby asked the professor. “None of this makes sense. We’ve had Omnius for a while now, and each time he merged with another piece, we were there to make that happen. It wasn’t a voluntary action! Let alone, the question of whether the orbs are even able to do that in their inanimate state is a matter that we should address in this scenario.”
“How do we know that these things aren’t alive when they’re still just orbs?” Drew asked. “Take a step back and look at what we know so far about Omnius and the orbs.” The group formed a circle around him and listened. “Remember when Omnius started talking? He mentioned things about what happened to him while he was still a metal ball and a metal disc. The orbs know what’s happening to them even in their inanimate state. Who’s to say that’s not the only thing they can do?”
“And since there were four of them near each other,” Toby said, as he gave Tom’s phone back to him. “That might be the reason they were able to, I dunno, communicate with each other, because multiple parts were present in one location.” Toby rubbed the sweat off of his forehead. “Ervagh, you said the ship can locate the — what did you call it?”
“The Quadmius,” Mr. Reyes answered him. “I’m not good with names. I figured since it’s made up of four pieces of the — never mind now. What say we start finding this son of a bitch?”
Tom laughed at Mr. Reyes. “Sir, you continue to surprise me.”
Where am I? What is this place? I feel… different. Something… something is missing in me. Something’s been taken away. Where? Where could it be? What is this place? What are all these things around me? I feel warm. No. I feel like I’m burning. Am I burning? No, not at all. But something is burning. Everything is burning. Why have I been left here? Was I left here? Left behind… to burn? Yes. Yes, I was left behind. That’s it. Why would I be left behind? Who left me behind?
What is this thing? I see a face. I see it again, but something is different about this other face. What are these? Are they the ones that left me? Why would they leave me behind? I want to know! Where are you? Are you somewhere here? I like moving things around. Makes an interesting noise. Let it burn with the fire — see what happens. How do I get out of here? I can’t just stay here. The place will burn down. Won’t let myself burn down with it.
Why are there more beside this place? Are these more places for me to be left behind in? More prisons to hold me? Not quite impressive, seeing as I’ve escaped your boxes, filled with things I can’t understand. Small things, big things. All the same. Their all the same. All of them, good to burn.
Have I seen this color? No, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it before. It’s everywhere. It’s planted on the ground. Growing, crawling its way to the walls, to the streets. This is not the color I first saw. This is an invasion. I must rid of this color… with the color of the flames. Yes, that will do. That will do just fine.
I’ve grown tired of this place. My captives do not seem to be here. I must move forward. Jump? Okay. Jump towards my next destination. Until I find my captives. My enemies. The ones that change their faces.
The ship seemed familiar to Mara. She felt a safety to this place when she entered it. She doesn’t know why though. It all just seems jumbled up in her head. I like this place, she thought to herself. A few of her friends look at her, and she realized that she might’ve said her thoughts out loud. “Have I been to this place before?”
“Technically, yes.” Amanda replied to her. “You own this ship.”
“Oh,” Mara said. “you mean the other one.”
“I see that Lady still hasn’t found all her marbles.” Ervagh said from the cockpit. “Isn’t that what you Terrans say? I must commend you, Terran Tobias. You did quite a number on her. I’ve never seen her fall like this to any other inferior species.”
“Lady Veergha changing into the girl of my dreams isn’t my fault, Ervagh.” Toby answered him. “It’s not like I know how the mind-breach works. We’ve been through this before, remember? Plus, I doubt she even likes me, let alone fall for me.”
“Ah, you’ve mistaken my word, Tobias. Or have I mistakenly used yours? I’m only trying to say that she’s never fallen victim for any lesser being as herself. Well, except for that airling friend of hers. Besides, why would I ever think she’s fallen for a Terran? Idiocy.” Ervagh went back to patrolling the controls of the ship.
Mr. Reyes was beside him, looking at the holographic map displayed on one side of the control panel. A red dot signified their location on the map, and a blue one siginified the Quadmius’s location. It was moving in rapid speed.
Amanda nudged at Toby. “I don’t think that’s true.”
“What is?” Toby asked. Amanda took hold of his arm and set both of them aside, far from where Mara was seated. “What do you wanna talk about, dude?”
“Keep your voice down, you idiot.” Amanda whispered to him. “This is about Mara — I mean Lady Veergha. I think she’s fallen in love with you.”
When Drew got the message from Tom — saying that they needed to meet with the others, and that it was of utter importance, even if it was way past midnight, in the hours of wee — Drew silently packed up the essential things he needed to bring into his bag. These essential items were: a bottle of water, one or two bags of chips (Cheetos and Lays), a notebook where he doodled on, and a flashlight. The flashlight was just for this specific event. Who knows what’s gonna happen for tonight’s events.
As Drew carefully left his condo — in super stealth fashion, since his parents were sleeping — he messaged Toby and June if they’d received the same message from Tom, which were answered both affirmatively and negatively. Toby texted that he was on his way; the question of whether he would bring Omnius along with him was redundant to ask. June replied that she wouldn’t be able to go out this time of night (or day, since it was technically already the wee hours). Drew let out a sigh of relief upon reading her text. If June were to be present in tonight’s urgent group meeting, she’ll probably just slow them down if they ever need to run from another hostile alien encounter, which Drew had a strong feeling of happening.
Out of all of them, and even with some of the smarter students in their batch, Drew was tentative in thinking of different ways to where a situation would lead up to. He never entered a room uncased, never talked to anybody unless he knew what the outcome would be — unless if he were to talk to an attractive girl, which he silently couldn’t admit that he still had a weakness towards. Nevertheless, he’d already thought of what might occur tonight.
The guard patrolling the condos noticed Drew taking his bike out of its lock. This guard was the night-shift guard, which meant that Drew rarely encountered this particular sentinel of the night-watch. He usually had small-talks with the morning and afternoon guards as he went in and out of the condo. So this night-guard wasn’t that much fond of late-night tenants.
“Where ya goin’, boy?” The guard asked him. His thumbs buried beneath his belt, which only made him look like an action-star wannabe. The accent was also particularly reminiscent of the only action-star well known to the country. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes, sir.” Drew answered him, without stopping to look towards him, and continued to get his bike rolling out to the street.
“It seems you don’t understand, boy.” The guard set his large stature in front of Drew. “No one goes out this time of night. Not on my watch — “
The guard was cut short of his authoritative speech when Drew picked his bike up and side-stepped on the guard. The guard was caught off guard and stumbled on his feet; his large mass adding to his imbalance. Drew took off a few more strides before setting his bike on the ground and riding it away from the guard.
“God dammit, boy! You get back here or I’ll — “ Drew was already ten paces away. The guard tried to catch up to him, but he knew it was no use. He went to his station and caught his breath. “Damn kids! Gotta cut short on that extra rice.”
* * *
Toby was riding a bike too small for his size. It was the bike he and his brother used back when they were still kids. Using the larger bike wasn’t an option for him, cause he knew his father would lecture him about how reckless he is whenever he uses other people’s stuff. He wore travelling shorts so that only his knees would hit the bike’s handles. He was the tallest in his family, but at that moment, he wished he was a bit smaller with his legs.
The call from Tom woke him up when it came. He immediately headed down stairs and woke Omnius up. This was of course unneeded, since Omnius didn’t sleep. But he did it anyway out of habit, and Omnius rode Toby’s back. Macrodon was on Omnius’s back.
As Toby arrived to where Tom said they should meet, which was conveniently back at the abandoned lot where it all started, he saw the others waiting with their own bikes. He didn’t notice Drew arriving from behind him. He must’ve taken the same route as him, since it was the easiest way to get to where the abandoned lot was. Amanda and Mara were leaning on a motorbike when both Toby and Drew arrived. Toby regarded Amanda for her ride, and Amanda gave him a playful smile when she noticed the bike he was on.
“Oh, come on. Give me a break, dude.” Toby said to her, knowing full well what her smile was for.
“How old is that bike, even?” Drew asked Toby.
“It’s been around for a while. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“I can see the rust, Toby.” Amanda said. “And it’s dark out.”
Mr. Reyes and Ervagh appeared out of nowhere, as if stepping down from a flight of stairs.
“Ah,” Ervagh looked around him. “I see that all is here. Hello, Princess.”
Mara nodded to him, and then yawned. “Sorry, I’m not used to staying up this late.”
“I see you’ve fixed your space ship, Ervagh.” Toby asked the alien.
“The ship’s emergency intelligence system finished its repairs.” Ervagh answered back. When it was clear nobody understood, he added: “The ship fixed itself, I mean.”
“We can use this vessel to catch up to the Quadmius.” Mr. Reyes said to the group. He looked towards Ervagh. “By the way, do you think it could detect the being’s location?”
“It could probably do that, but we have to move quickly. A lot of earth hours have been wasted already.”
“Sorry, what’s this about a Quadmius?” Toby asked the both of them.
“We’ve got an evil robot wrecking the town.” Tom answered him, and went closer to show a video on his iPhone. “Take a look.”
Toby and the others looked at Tom’s phone. It was a video of a shaky black figure thrashing around a bunch of sub-urban houses. The houses started going on fire, and the robot leaped off, and the video started repeating itself.
“What is that?” Toby asked.
“That’s a video of my house being destroyed,” Mr. Reyes answered. “By the four orbs that were kept in my house. Somehow, they were able to merge with each other, combining into one. The dark figure in the video is what its turned into, I’m afraid.”
“How was it even able to merge with itself?” Toby asked the professor. “None of this makes sense. We’ve had Omnius for a while now, and each time he merged with another piece, we were there to make that happen. It wasn’t a voluntary action! Let alone, the question of whether the orbs are even able to do that in their inanimate state is a matter that we should address in this scenario.”
“How do we know that these things aren’t alive when they’re still just orbs?” Drew asked. “Take a step back and look at what we know so far about Omnius and the orbs.” The group formed a circle around him and listened. “Remember when Omnius started talking? He mentioned things about what happened to him while he was still a metal ball and a metal disc. The orbs know what’s happening to them even in their inanimate state. Who’s to say that’s not the only thing they can do?”
“And since there were four of them near each other,” Toby said, as he gave Tom’s phone back to him. “That might be the reason they were able to, I dunno, communicate with each other, because multiple parts were present in one location.” Toby rubbed the sweat off of his forehead. “Ervagh, you said the ship can locate the — what did you call it?”
“The Quadmius,” Mr. Reyes answered him. “I’m not good with names. I figured since it’s made up of four pieces of the — never mind now. What say we start finding this son of a bitch?”
Tom laughed at Mr. Reyes. “Sir, you continue to surprise me.”
* * *
Where am I? What is this place? I feel… different. Something… something is missing in me. Something’s been taken away. Where? Where could it be? What is this place? What are all these things around me? I feel warm. No. I feel like I’m burning. Am I burning? No, not at all. But something is burning. Everything is burning. Why have I been left here? Was I left here? Left behind… to burn? Yes. Yes, I was left behind. That’s it. Why would I be left behind? Who left me behind?
What is this thing? I see a face. I see it again, but something is different about this other face. What are these? Are they the ones that left me? Why would they leave me behind? I want to know! Where are you? Are you somewhere here? I like moving things around. Makes an interesting noise. Let it burn with the fire — see what happens. How do I get out of here? I can’t just stay here. The place will burn down. Won’t let myself burn down with it.
Why are there more beside this place? Are these more places for me to be left behind in? More prisons to hold me? Not quite impressive, seeing as I’ve escaped your boxes, filled with things I can’t understand. Small things, big things. All the same. Their all the same. All of them, good to burn.
Have I seen this color? No, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it before. It’s everywhere. It’s planted on the ground. Growing, crawling its way to the walls, to the streets. This is not the color I first saw. This is an invasion. I must rid of this color… with the color of the flames. Yes, that will do. That will do just fine.
I’ve grown tired of this place. My captives do not seem to be here. I must move forward. Jump? Okay. Jump towards my next destination. Until I find my captives. My enemies. The ones that change their faces.
* * *
The ship seemed familiar to Mara. She felt a safety to this place when she entered it. She doesn’t know why though. It all just seems jumbled up in her head. I like this place, she thought to herself. A few of her friends look at her, and she realized that she might’ve said her thoughts out loud. “Have I been to this place before?”
“Technically, yes.” Amanda replied to her. “You own this ship.”
“Oh,” Mara said. “you mean the other one.”
“I see that Lady still hasn’t found all her marbles.” Ervagh said from the cockpit. “Isn’t that what you Terrans say? I must commend you, Terran Tobias. You did quite a number on her. I’ve never seen her fall like this to any other inferior species.”
“Lady Veergha changing into the girl of my dreams isn’t my fault, Ervagh.” Toby answered him. “It’s not like I know how the mind-breach works. We’ve been through this before, remember? Plus, I doubt she even likes me, let alone fall for me.”
“Ah, you’ve mistaken my word, Tobias. Or have I mistakenly used yours? I’m only trying to say that she’s never fallen victim for any lesser being as herself. Well, except for that airling friend of hers. Besides, why would I ever think she’s fallen for a Terran? Idiocy.” Ervagh went back to patrolling the controls of the ship.
Mr. Reyes was beside him, looking at the holographic map displayed on one side of the control panel. A red dot signified their location on the map, and a blue one siginified the Quadmius’s location. It was moving in rapid speed.
Amanda nudged at Toby. “I don’t think that’s true.”
“What is?” Toby asked. Amanda took hold of his arm and set both of them aside, far from where Mara was seated. “What do you wanna talk about, dude?”
“Keep your voice down, you idiot.” Amanda whispered to him. “This is about Mara — I mean Lady Veergha. I think she’s fallen in love with you.”
End of Chapter.
* * *
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