So, we all went back up to the station for scans. That was a whole involved process. After you had a direct encounter with any of the Eighty-Seven, especially when you went on a Jaunt, they had to make sure you weren't bringing back anything bad. Specifically, they were checking for any Intruder infection. They had to scan every millimeter of your body to make sure you didn't have even the tiniest sliver of one of their crystals hidden somewhere on you. Those creatures really loved to try to sneak those fragments onto the stations. Not only could they get a lot of information, but if the crystals were allowed to grow, they could potentially leave their first host and find someone else to take over. Freestylers (and their Squires) were immune to becoming Taken, but if we brought any shards up to the station and those shards infected someone else… it could be bad. It could be super-duper bad. A single sliver of one of those crystals could fall off one of us, shove itself into someone else who was walking past, and turn into a big problem.
And besides that reasoning, there were any number of other potential problems someone could come back from a Jaunt with. I wasn't sure how it worked exactly, given we were put in different bodies, but apparently it wasn't impossible to bring other bad things back with us. All of which meant these scans were important, and we all had to go through them every time. Fortunately, it only took about five minutes of standing alone in this small, shower-sized room. You didn’t have to be completely still or anything, though they really preferred you try not to move around a lot.
Obviously, there was always the chance the crystals could drop off before you were scanned, and hide somewhere on the station. But they were prepared for that too. In a few different ways, actually. First, they had hand-scanners that could do a cursory check before we went anywhere. Second, the station itself had passive scans every hour and right after we arrived, that could pick up most things. The special scans were just more in-depth. And speaking of those, the third way they could deal with crystals just dropping off before reaching those rooms was because those special scans didn’t just detect active crystal infection. It could also tell you if you’d been infected at any point in the past twenty-four hours. Including exactly how long ago the crystal left.
All of which meant that even if the Intruder crystal tried to sneak away before you went through the intense scan and managed to avoid the wide, general ones, it wouldn’t get very far at all.
They also had about twenty of those little rooms with active scanners, so we didn't all have to stand around and wait our turns. Within ten minutes of arriving on the station, we had all gone through the scans and came out the other side without any problem. None of us were infected by secret crystals or anything else. And yes, I was pretty pretty relieved about that. After all, we did go through that Jaunt door in Eighty-Seven territory. Who knew how they could have altered or sabotaged it? There was part of me that had at least half expected the alarms to start going wild the second we stepped into those scanners. Or even as soon as we reached the station itself.
But none of that happened. The scans were clear, and they definitely made sure, given the whole process took an extra couple minutes than it usually did. Rinweld and his people were probably just as nervous about the whole ‘Jaunt door being in Eighty-Seven territory’ as we were. Only once they were completely certain we were clear did they open the doors to let us out. And, to be totally honest, I don’t think I actually breathed properly that whole time. When the door opened, the pleasant, agreeable chime came, and the man in the lab coat waved for me to come on out while giving me a thumbs up, I finally let out a shaky breath and almost fell over.
Stepping out of that room, I looked around while another rush of nerves came over me. Wait, just because I was clear didn’t mean-- oh, there she was. Rachel came out of the next room over, apparently just as free from infection as me. As soon as she confirmed that with the lab tech, she turned to me and spoke the command phrase to power down. “Putting on the brakes.”
Just like that, her Freestyler suit vanished. She was just Rachel again, my sister as a civilian. At the same time, I felt my own suit flicker and fade away. So I was just Cadence. To be honest, it was more of a downgrade for me. And I wasn't just saying that out of some self-confidence issue. It really was more of a downgrade. Freestylers could still use a good portion of their power even without being suited up. As evidenced just a bit earlier when Rachel caught that piece of machinery that was about to take my head off. But Squires like me only had that portion of power our Freestylers shared with us while we were in active suit mode. Right now, I was just plain old Cadence Baron. Not that I objected to being myself. Especially ever since I'd really become myself.
To the left, Alicia and Slater had already emerged from their scanning booths and powered down. And, at that very moment, there were four more figures coming out of other booths to our right. The first two were Buzzkill and Comet, who powered down immediately, shifting back to their civilian selves as well. Under his Freestyler armor, Kenny was sort of a gangly, nerdy looking guy with shaggy brown hair and glasses. With the Freestyler upgrades, he didn't actually need them anymore. But he wore fake ones anyway. He called them his Clark Kent disguise. That made him happy enough that no one bothered to point out that he wore a full helmet when he was suited up anyway. Or that he could easily say he’d gone to one of the Self Centers to fix his vision. Even if there was a long waiting list and a whole process for that, it was still possible.
His Squire/girlfriend Valerie, meanwhile, was a punk. Errr, not in a rude way or anything. She was actually really nice. She looked like a punk, with incredibly pale skin lined with very intricate tattoos, and black clothing adorned with various heavy chains. On top of that, she had this really cool bright pink mohawk. To be honest, I wasn't sure exactly how it always managed to be put right back to how it was after being squished up in her helmet, but it was. My best guess was that our bodies were restored to the same cosmetic condition they'd been in right before we suited up.
Anyway, I barely had time to glance at that bright pink mohawk before the other pair who had been at the cavern to check up on us emerged from their own scanners. The Freestyler, Sticks, and her Squire brother, Stone. Phoebe and Quentin. In their civilian forms, they didn't look at all related. Phoebe was this small, unassuming-looking girl who could easily blend into any crowd. She had dark blonde, almost brown hair, and wore a lot of baggy clothing. Pretty, but in a very understated way. What stood out the most about her was that she had heterochromia, so one of her eyes was blue and the other was brown.
Then there was her brother. He was the complete opposite. Quentin was huge, towering over everyone at almost seven feet tall. The only person on the station taller than him, as far as I had seen, was Rinweld, and he was bigger than everyone. Quentin was basically the definition of tall, dark, and handsome. He was built like some sort of action star, with chiseled good looks and a smoldering gaze that left most girls, as well as plenty of guys and those in between, weak in the knees. The fact that the boy was effortlessly charming and cheerful didn't hurt either.
Once everyone made it out of those scanners without any problems, Rachel asked where the last members of Dust Squadron were. There were still two more Freestylers and their Squires to round out the entire group. Every squadron had six Freestylers and six Squires, with very rare, and usually temporary, exceptions. Six Kites per station, with roughly twenty stations around the planet. One hundred and twenty active Freestylers, give or take, to help protect not only our world, but so many others through the Jaunt system. Really not very many at all. So it was no wonder that people like my sister were so beloved. They were part of a very elite group. A group that was going to save the whole world from the Eighty-Seven, with my sister right at the front.
It was Phoebe who answered Rachel's question, while looking through the heavily-laden backpack she was always carrying around. A backpack that was full of paperback books. Like, actual physical novels. “They said they’d wait for us in the Watering Hole. Tradition, you know?”
Oh yeah, tradition. The Watering Hole was the closest thing Arbelest Station had to an actual restaurant, with burgers, milkshakes and that sort of thing. Not the main cafeteria, but a converted storage room on the opposite side of the kitchen from that. Anyone could go to the cafeteria and get regular food. But you only used the Watering Hole and its special, extra menu when you were celebrating something. It was where the crew of the station could wind down, a place where rank didn't matter, and Rinweld made a point of never visiting. He always politely feigned deafness when anyone brought up the place within his earshot. A thing that was generally followed by that person being firmly elbowed and reminded to keep quiet so Rinweld could miraculously recover his hearing.
It was tradition for the members of Dust Squadron, my sister’s group, to go have a meal in the Watering Hole any time they got back from a successful Jaunt, or even just a particularly impressive fight. It had been tradition since before she was ever part of the group, back when Limerick was the leader, and she’d kept that going these past six months. His transfer had been complicated enough without breaking up tradition.
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Complicated was a pretty good word for it. As the old squadron leader, Limerick had refused to be transferred at first. He’d insisted that he wanted to stay right where he was. It almost turned into a whole thing, and Rachel had even volunteered to go be part of the squadron that he was supposed to take over. The whole reason Chimera Squadron had an open spot in the first place was because they’d lost their leader. But Rinweld and the leader of Chimera’s station both decided Limerick would be a better choice to transfer. Chimera Squad was in pretty bad shape, literally and metaphorically, after losing their leader, and they actually knew Limerick. Everyone had a long talk about it, and Limerick finally agreed to transfer over there to help those guys.
Which had left Rachel here, as part of Dust Squadron. Obviously, they didn’t automatically make her the leader. She was brand new. There was a whole contest for it, a competition, voting, all that stuff. And Rachel had won handily. Even as the newest member of the group, she was the best choice.
Still, as the newest member of the squadron, leader or not, Rachel had to respect tradition. And tradition said they always went to the Watering Hole to celebrate. It didn’t matter how tired they were, how long the day was, or anything else. You always respected tradition. It was bad luck to break that sort of thing.
When we made it to the makeshift restaurant, there were already five people waiting at the main squadron table. Four of those were expected. Rachel’s Freestyler squadmates, Isolde Tucker (Jackal) and Nathan Farrell (Brigand), and their respective Squires, Yukiko Higa (Ope) and Lucas Frye (Plunder) were all there.
Isolde was a model-pretty statuesque blonde girl with one streak of green through the front-left side of her hair. She looked like a stereotypical frail princess, but she was actually one of the most vicious and dangerous Freestylers out there, always eager for a fight. Her Squire, Yukiko, was a very small Japanese girl (she seriously looked more like she was twelve than the seventeen she actually was) who used to be her big school rival, before Isolde was chosen. It got pretty heated, apparently, until their entire debate team was attacked by Eighty-Sevens on a field trip. Isolde ended up being fate-fallen, chosen by a Kite in the middle of the attack. She’d had no choice but to choose a Squire right then, and for all their arguments, she knew Yukiko was the best choice to back her up and help fly the new Kite to save as many of their classmates as possible. Now they… well, they still argued, but when it came down to it, they worked together.
Nathan and Lucas, meanwhile, had been basketball teammates and friends since they were in middle school. They tended to finish each other’s sentences, make weird jokes together, and just generally act like they were joined at the hip. People might’ve thought they were twins if they weren’t so physically different. Nathan was a very pale Irish-American guy, who looked like a tall (just over six feet), muscular jock. Lucas, meanwhile, was a very dark-skinned black guy with a lean build and long dreads.
Of course those four were there. We expected them, obviously. What we didn’t expect was the fifth person sitting at that table, joking around with the other four. An eighteen-year-old, incredibly handsome guy with curly black hair, which combined with his olive skin to give away a Greek ethnicity, and an always-ready smile. Nikos Christou. Otherwise known as Limerick.
“Yo!” Nikos was on his feet as soon as we came in, his infectious smile brightening up the room. “Sorry for butting in around here, I was just checking in with these jerks and I heard you had some issues on that Alaska scouting mission. Was there really a Jaunt door out there?”
“Oh, jerks are we?” Nathan demanded. “That’s what we get for giving you that tip for your Fantasy Basketball league? Last time I checked, you were winning cuz you dumped Taunis when everyone thought he was gonna be MVP this year.”
“Yeah,” Lucas agreed, “see if we jerks give you such a great tip again. No one else knew that guy was gonna get busted for gambling and get himself suspended for thirty games.”
Isolde rolled her eyes. “I think he probably knows you only urged him not to take that guy because Huntsman bribed you to let him pick him up. The gambling thing was a total fluke.”
That started a whole discussion before Rachel took the seat next to Nikos and turned the subject back to what mattered by talking about that door. I found another seat nearby and listened while the whole squad, plus their old leader, talked about just how bad it would be if the Intruders actually had permanent, regular access to Jaunt doors, and about how that could've happened in the first place. We ordered food, and spent the next hour going through all that.
Eventually, Nikos reached over with a breadstick to poke me, his smile making my stomach do flips. “So, sounds you're the hero of the day, huh? If it wasn't for you figuring out that little trick, those guys might've gotten away.”
Blushing, I shook my head. “But then I promptly got caught. They would've killed me and escaped anyway if Rachel didn't get there in time.”
“And boy are we glad she did,” Nikos announced. “We like your larynx right where it is, thanks.”
The others toasted to an agreement on that, and the conversation continued. Eventually, however, Rachel noticed how late it was getting, and insisted we both had to get home. I still had homework to do, as weird as that sounded. After everything we’d done today, I had to go home and do math homework.
But, it was what it was. Part of the deal for staying on this team was not flunking out of school. We said our goodbyes, promised to check in later, and took the teleporter back to school. Mrs. Ammers was waiting there to escort us out to the parking lot. Together, Rachel and I walked home. We took the usual shortcut through the park and across a couple old fields, then made our way around Mr. Sarren’s junkyard, because you did not want to try to cut through that while his dogs were there.
Eventually, we made it to the trailer park. Our place was in the far rear corner, close to the old water overflow ditch where I had nearly broken my arm falling down the concrete embankment several years earlier, when I was trying to copy Rachel skating right down the thing.
The three of us, Rachel, Dad, and me, lived in a three bedroom double wide. Coming in through the door put you in the living room, with the kitchen and dining area to the right (there wasn’t really a wall to separate them, just carpet in the living room and tile in the kitchen). There was a doorway almost straight across from the front door and slightly to the right, so it was in the kitchen, that led to a hallway. Right past the kitchen through that door and to the right was a storage room/closet. Just a bit further down from that was the bathroom, and on the left was Rachel’s room. My room was just past that, still on the left so we shared a wall. And at the end of the hall was the door to the master bedroom where Dad… well, was supposed to sleep. But he spent most of his time in his chair in the living room. When he wasn’t at the bar.
Speaking of which, I walked right past Dad in his chair, through the kitchen, and back to my room. In the distance, I could hear Rachel heating up some frozen ravioli and Alfredo sauce for Dad before making him promise to eat it. They had a whole argument about him needing to have something in his stomach besides alcohol, and I tuned them out by shoving my earbuds in to listen to music while getting started on my homework. But soon enough, I ended up migrating to Rachel’s room to ask for her help with some of it.
Once the homework was done, I took a shower. By the time that was over, I could barely keep my eyes open. I went to go to bed, except it was… uhh, occupied. The good news was that Dad actually wasn’t sleeping in his chair for once. The bad news was that he hadn’t made it as far as his own room. He was facedown in my bed.
With a sigh, I walked down the hall, took one look at the mess of garbage scattered across his bed, then poked my head back into Rachel’s room. She was already asleep, so I grabbed my sleeping bag from the closet, rolled it out in the corner of her room, and crashed.
I slept. Except I wasn't asleep for long. I found myself suddenly waking up an hour or so later. My eyes opened, but I wasn't sure why. I had been dreaming, right? I was dreaming about what happened earlier. I had been dreaming, and then something happened. I remembered something. I had been dreaming about what happened earlier, and then something came to me in that dream. I realized something, but what was it? What the hell had I realized that startled me so much, it made me wake up? It was just a dream about what we saw. Hell, it hadn't even just been about the mission. I've been dreaming about eating dinner with the rest of the squad after that. What could I possibly have realized about eating dinner with our squad mates that freaked me out so much?
And then I had it. The realization came as I lay there in my bed, staring at the ceiling. I had been dreaming about having dinner, remembering that entire conversation, when something horrific had jumped into my mind. I remembered what Nikos had said. When he was complimenting me for saving the day, and I had said that Rachel saved my life, he’d said he liked my larynx where it was. Which was all well and good, because I liked it where it was too. I didn't want that guy to rip it out.
Except I never told him about that threat. I didn't even tell Rachel. I just told her they wanted to kill me. I was never specific about the threat, and she hadn’t heard it. I never mentioned my larynx at all. There was no reason for Nikos to be that specific about it. He had no way of knowing about that threat. The only people who would know about the threat were me… and the other people who had been in that mining shaft.
Nikos, the third Intruder, the one that had escaped, the fact that someone had given them access to that Jaunt door, the ostrich pilot who had fled rather than get into a fight with my sister. What if… What if it wasn't an Intruder at all? What if it had never been an Intruder? What if…
I sat up in bed, a sudden, jerking motion as I started to shout Rachel's name. Before I could, a hand covered my mouth and I was yanked backward out of my sleeping bag and up off the floor. The light came on, and I saw who was holding me. Nikos, of course. He had his hand tightly over my mouth, while a knife touched my throat. Rachel was on her feet, but didn't dare come any closer. She started to snarl something, but Nikos cut her off. “Yeah, yeah, if I touch a hair on her head, blah blah blah. Not my fault she was laying here. I almost tripped over the bitch. I only came here for you, but since she’s here too, I guess she’s coming along. So just be quiet. The three of us are going to go on a little trip.
“And then I'll see if the Eighty-Seven can top the reward they already handed over for the Jaunt tech in exchange for giving them one of their worst enemies.”
JOKE TAGS
I'm Starting To Think Their Dad Might Not Win Father Of The Year
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