Chapter 68: Volume III: Chapter 5: Pens and Lanyards

“Mic!” Chleo stormed onto the bridge. Without a thought, she switched from lighting her path with Merk’s glow to Eelock’s. It was quickly becoming second nature. At least one good thing was coming from being cooped up on the ship.

Mic spun the pilot’s chair to face her, Eelock continuing his work on one of the side panels.

“You called,” Mic said. She wrapped Eelock’s glow around him tighter so she could see every detail, every expression, another trick she’d picked up from not having anything else to do. She’d kill for a way to read a screen. Maybe she could talk her parents into creating something to help her process data the way Mic did, no screen needed. Speaking of Mic, she watched his smile quickly fall when he spotted her expression. “I didn’t do it,” he said quickly.

“Uh huh,” she said, putting a hand on her hip and sent him a withering glare that always worked on Will. “Then, what is this?”

Mic’s shadow, nothing but the void outlined in Eelock’s purple glow, gave her a blank look. “A belt pouch… on the belt that I gave you I might add,” he said, clearly hoping it would win him some points.

It didn’t.

“An empty belt pouch,” she corrected. “I don’t care if you borrow my pens, I told you that, but if you’re going to use them you have to put them back.”

“What?”

She stared at the negative space that was her brother. “My. Pens.” She ground out. “I need them to draw out a new schematic.”

“How are you going to draw—” He immediately stopped and back pedaled when he saw the look on her face, “—I mean… it’s not important. Why would it be? Of course, you can draw… somehow… when you can’t see… because if anyone can, you can, Sis. Wait, why do you think I took them?”

“You’re the only one who’s used them.”

“I used them?”

“For your drawings…” she said. He stared at her. “The other day.” She tried again. He still looked lost. “You said yours ran out, and I being the best sister in the ‘verse said you could use mine as long as you put them back when you were done.” His brow furrowed as he shook his head. How could he not remember… “Wait, you’re an AI, of course, you remember. Miiiic,” she most certainly did not whine.

“Nah, I’m just kidding,” he said, a smile, lit in purple, pulling back across his face. “But seriously, I didn’t take them.”

“Mic, if this is some kind of game and you hid them because of what I did to your chair, so help me—“

“Whoa, whoa,” he interrupted, raising a hand. He chuckled. “Really, Chleo, I didn’t take them.”

“You didn’t?”

“I didn’t.”

Chleo deflated. “Then who did?”

They stared at each other, thinking.

“Merk, said he was going to draw some targets earlier,” Eelock said. Chleo jumped. She’d forgotten he was there. A bit ironic considering she was using him to see.

She turned to him, not needing her eyes, but knowing it unsettled the others when she didn’t look at the person she was talking to. “Any idea where he went?”

“I think he mentioned the lab,” he said, smiling down at the panel. Seeing a Neon in the void was like having her sight back. Eelock wasn’t just negative space like her brother. He was light and pixels, like staring at a hologram. She drank him in.

“Thanks,” she said, turning toward the lab.

“Care for some company?” Mic asked.

“Sure,” she called back. He rushed to join her, jogging the few steps to catch up.

She switched to Merk’s glow when the door shut behind Mic. The red Neon was farther away, so she had to regulate how much glow she used. If she used too much it could detach from him, and a glow-less Neon was a dead Neon. It was like trying to see underwater. She was deep in the dark, but the closer she got to the surface, the more voids she could shine a light on.

“So,” Mic said as they walked toward the lab, “what was that you said you did to my chair?”

Chleo groaned. Brothers were the worst.

~*~*~

Weston rushed them down the corridor, a contingent of guards surrounding their group. Will followed directly behind. His mother and Mrs. Mathews, deferring to protocol, were a step after. He hated it. He wanted them somewhere he could see, somewhere he could make sure they were alright.

“This way, Your Highness,” Weston said, pulling a tapestry aside and ducking into a haphazardly dug tunnel. They followed, one of the guards holding the entrance open before ducking inside after them. “It leads out to the bubble. The emergency pods should be prepped and ready to get you back to your ship.”

They came to a fork, and Weston paused, checking his wristlet. The guard next to him fidgeted. Weston looked up glancing down the tunnel to the left… then the right. The guard cleared his throat. Weston looked back down at his wristlet. The guard cleared his throat louder.

“Yes, yes, James, go on, then, if you’re going to make a fuss about it,” Weston said looking up again.

“To the left, sir.”

“Right.” Weston led them down the tunnel to the left.

After a few more twists and turns, they arrived at a ladder leading to a bulkhead wedged into the ceiling.

“My brother has no doubt alerted Adeline and the other Points, by now. We don’t have much time,” he said, reaching a hand out to help Will’s mother onto the ladder. She stepped around Will, ignoring Weston, and began to climb. Mrs. Mathew’s followed sparing Weston a small smile when he tried to help her, as well. Shrugging when she didn’t take it, he nodded for Will to go next.

“What I don’t get a hand up, too?” Will asked.

Weston laughed and offered. Will made a show of taking it. “Such a gentleman,” he said and stepped onto the first rung. “You know, I never realized, but that actually makes it harder to get onto the ladder.”

“Really?” Weston asked as Will’s mom banged the bulkhead door open above them. “Who would have thought?”

They broke out onto the surface of the astroid, rock and dirt only interrupted by the inky blackness of space and stars. Occasionally, something would hit the forcefield maintaining their atmosphere, a ripple of red light springing out across the dome. There were countless mounds within, jagged cliffs staring down at the surface with hastily chiseled tunnels through their sides. A steady stream of mining carts floated from within each one sloshing with a metallic liquid, raw, untreated melting metal, while another stream of empty mining carts floated back in. They crisscrossed across the landscape, filling almost every walkable space. Will tried to track the chaos and see where they were dumping their loads. All he found was a headache.

Weston smiled as Will, his mother, and Mrs. Mathews stared out at the operation.

“Welcome to the Seven Point’s mines.”

~*~*~

“What did you do to my chair?” Mic asked.

“Nothing,” Chleo answered.

“What did you do to my chair?”

“Nothing.”

“What did you do to my chair?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, come on, Chleo. Why would you let slip and say you did something if you didn’t?” Mic said finally interrupting his ceaseless repetition of the same question.

“Mind games.”

“Chleoooo,” he most definitely whined.

She kept walking, stepping around a makeshift repair, Merk’s glow bright enough for her to make out the edges.

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“What did you do to my chair?”

Chleo forced herself not to react. If she reacted, he’d never stop.

“What did you do to my chair?”

Then again, if she didn’t react, he’d probably never stop.

“What did you do to my chair?”

Chleo allowed herself a frustrated sigh. She remembered when she was younger, she’d wished for a brother… Why, Lux, why?

“What did you do to my chair?”

Chleo and Mic walked into the lab.

Chleo and Mic stopped, Mic halfway through a breath he didn’t need to take ready to ask his question again, Chleo with her hand raised trying to ward off the finger Mic was about to use to poke her side. They were frozen, staring at the other end of the room.

Merk stood admiring a tapestry, displaying an admittedly decent target drawn on the front, with the dopiest look either had ever seen grace his face.

“Perfect,” he sighed more than said, putting down the pen he’d used. Chleo’s pen, thank you very much. “You’re going to help me destroy countless enemies, yes, you are,” he said as if talking to some kind of tiny, cute animal. “We’re going to conquer armies together, won’t we, you adorable piece of genius?”

What the? Merk was having a moment. It was private. It was personal. It was… kind of cute?

As one, Chleo and Mic backed out of the room, hardly daring to breathe. When the doors closed, they burst out laughing, Chleo switching to Dai’s glow without a thought when she lost access to Merk’s.

“I think we interrupted something,” Chleo said when she could breathe again.

“I’ll need to remind Merk all goo-goo-eyed activity should be reserved for crew quarters.”

“Wait…” Chleo said, remembering that Merk didn’t have any quarters to go to until the repairs were completed. “Do you think…”

“That Merk’s quarters are done from floor to ceiling in hand drawn targets?” Mic asked. “Now, I do, yeah.”

They broke into another round of laughter. Somehow they both ended on the floor, leaning back against the wall side by side.

“You know,” Chleo said with a content sigh, “it really wasn’t half bad.”

“What?” Mic asked, his laugh stopping too abruptly for it to be human despite how hard he tried.

“The target,” she said. “It’s lines were fluid and the circles were uniform. Plus, there were those little designs he must have spent some time on.”

“It was a target,” Mic said, pulling a face.

Chleo shrugged. “Just because it’s not your type of art doesn’t mean it isn’t his. Besides, when’s the last time you saw Merk miss something he was aiming at?” she asked. “Maybe there’s something to it.”

Mic laughed. “Good point.”

It was nice, sitting on the floor next to her brother sharing… whatever it was they’d just walked in on. It reminded her why she’d wanted one.

Then the klaxons blared.

Chleo and Mic shot to their feet.

“What’s happening?” Chleo asked, knowing Mic would have already analyzed the ship’s data.

“Proximity alerts triggered. There’s a ship heading our way.”

“Any idea who?”

Mic hesitated. He swallowed for effect repeating what he’d seen others do when they were nervous. “The Second Point’s Specialists.”

Before Chleo could reply, the door to the lab slid open as Merk rushed out. He paused when he spotted them. He pointed between them.

“How long have you been there?”

~*~*~

“Keep these on at all times,” Weston said, handing each of them a lanyard with a metal seven point star hanging on the bottom before throwing one over his own head. Will shared a look with his mother and Mrs. Mathews. “The miner carts are programmed to avoid them, and trust me… you do not want one of those ramming into you at full speed.”

Will watched one zip by. No, he certainly did not. He yanked the lanyard over his head.

Once the guard, James, and his two men had their own, as well, the group set out. As they neared each line, the carts rose zipping by overhead giving them enough space to walk beneath. It was convenient and helped them make quick time. It took less than twenty minutes to cross the rock field and reach the edge of the bubble.

They were about to emerge from a group of boulders when James threw a hand up. Weston stopped in his tracks forcing the others to do the same or ram into him. The two other guards took up positions at their back without prompting.

“What is it?” Weston asked, pulling a blaster that would have been more in place on Luna than the more technically advanced mining outpost.

“Our sensors picked up a ship closing in on the docks,” James said tapping at his wristlet.

“New miner contingent?”

James shook his head. “The next rotation isn’t until next week.”

“Then who would—” A blast rocked the ground beneath them, stealing the rest of what Weston was going to say.

Will pressed against the closest boulder on reflex trying to use it as cover. His mother latched onto his back hovering over him trying to guard him from whoever was attacking. Mrs. Mathews slammed into the boulder in front of him standing tall trying to do the same.

“That’d be Adeline, then,” Weston said, huddled with James behind a boulder to their right. He was holding his antiquated blaster at the ready. If Will wasn’t mistaken, he was pretty sure it would shoot bullets instead of energy. An odd choice for the Sixth Point, considering he was the leader of the Star’s security forces.

“Yep,” James said still tapping at his wristlet.

“And they took out the escape pods?”

“Yep.”

“Have they docked?”

“Yep.”

“Let me guess… Specialists?”

James finally looked up from his wristlet, pulling two blasters more in line with what Will imagined were standard issue for the Star’s security forces.

“… Yep.”

A manic grin spread across Weston’s face. “Let’s do this.”

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