The oversized lowbrow who stood in front of me, pointing gleefully, was named Tanner Hughes. He’d tormented me when I was in school back in Delaware, and now here he was, in a uniform, with license to torment weaker kids. Maybe the Phandic invasion wasn’t good for everyone, but for the Tanner Hugheses of the world it was like winning the lottery.
“My name is Jean-Luc Picard,” I assured him, trying not to make eye contact. “I have no idea who this Zeke Reynolds guy is.”
“He sounds like a total troublemaker,” Mi Sun said. She’d come over to stand near me, and had her arms folded, scowling at me like I’d done something wrong.
“Go back to your seat, Sally Applesauce!” Tanner Hughes commanded.
And here I laughed, because I thought that sounded kind of funny. Unfortunately, that pretty much killed any chance we had of keeping things from escalating. Tanner Hughes looked at me again, and I could see any doubt he had about my identity was gone.
“I know what your aura says, but you are definitely him,” Tanner Hughes said as he took out his smartphone. “I recognize you. You were a dork back before the invasion, and you’re a dork now. They say you’re some sort of renegade and war criminal. Hard to believe a loser like you could make so many enemies.”
“I’ve always had a problem getting along with dimwits,” I said with a shrug.
“Yeah, well, I’m going to get a promotion when I bring you in. I hear they already have a medical-experiments lab with your name on it at Planet Pleasant.”
He started to punch in a number on his phone, but only got about two digits in when the phone flew out of his hand and struck the wall with enough force to shatter into a cloud of plastic and metal.
I turned to see Alice pointing a finger like she’d just cast a magic missile. “Yeah, yeah, I know what Dr. Roop said, but I think we’re done flying under the radar. Plus, did you guys see that? It was totally amazing!”
“Who are you?” demanded Mr. Potato Head, who was now looking at us with something like awe. Mostly he was looking at Alice, but that was because she’d just demonstrated some flashy telekinesis, which had the side effect of making her already-unruly hair frizz out.
“We are no one you need to worry about,” Charles said.
Tanner Hughes’s brow was wrinkled and his mouth reduced to a hard line. These were the classic signs of a bully about to charge. I quickly checked my HUD, and before Tanner had taken more than two steps, I went for a skill I’d previously discovered while trying to figure out my skill tree. I’d been worried I wouldn’t have a chance to try it out, but every once in a while the universe tosses you a softball.
Not bothering to suppress a grin, I unleashed the molecular realigner, turning his sneakers back into their constituent parts, including petroleum. When you’re moving forward and your footwear suddenly vanishes and is replaced with oil, there is only one possible result. Tanner slipped backward, his butt landing in the pool of what used to be his shoes. He continued to slide until he collided with a lunch table.
“That was amazing!” said Mr. Potato Head. “I want to join you guys.”
“Very kind of you, Mr. Potato Head,” I told him, “but you don’t want to get into trouble. Keep your head down until we get things under control.”
“No one needs to put themselves at risk,” Alice told him. “But keeping this incident quiet for as long as possible will really help us.”
“Forget that,” Tanner Hughes said. He was on his feet and trying to look as intimidating as possible, which isn’t easy when you’re a shoeless kid with an oil slick on his butt. “If you think I’m going to be quiet when—”
That was as far as he got before Charles thrust out his palm, shouted “Repulsor blast!” and unleashed fifty thousand volts of Taser action into my old tormentor. Tanner convulsed for a few seconds and then collapsed into a silent, oily heap.
“Nice touch,” I said.
“I found that very satisfying,” he said.
And with our business in the lunchroom complete, we fled.
• • •
The original plan had been to wait until after lights-out and slip into the records office on the top floor of the building. Any Phandic computer system would be able to interface with its main communications network, which meant that we’d be able to locate Tamret and the rest of our alien friends. Then all we had to do was get to where they were being held and, using the stealth features from our military upgrades, break them out. We had hoped to be operating completely under the radar, but that part of the plan was out the window. Tanner Hughes was going to alert his superiors, and that meant they would know exactly who we were. The Phands were not going to miss the chance to capture me, not when I had become the public face of their galactic humiliation. Our maxed-out skill trees, which had made us seem invulnerable only a few minutes ago, were very likely going to be pushed to the limit before we got off Earth.
On the stairs we passed students, teachers, and trustees, none of whom eyed us with any suspicion. It was only a matter of time before someone in authority entered the cafeteria or a kid looking to earn brownie points blew the whistle, but every second we avoided notice was a gift.
We reached the top of the stairs and headed down the corridor toward the main records office. Standing in front of the door, holding a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other, was Mr. Authoritarian-Hammer. He was engaged in a hushed conversation with another teacher, whose aura identified her as Ms. Institutional-Orderliness. I felt sure we could have walked past teachers we didn’t know, coming up with some sort of convincing excuse for walking around, but our own teacher was going to want to know what we were up to.
Was it better to knock them out and try to raid the computer system as quickly as possible or invent a cover story that might buy us some time? I think we were all struggling with the same question.
“Will you excuse me?” Mr. Authoritarian-Hammer said to his colleague. “I need a moment with my students.”
She nodded and headed down the stairs.
“What are you doing up here?” he asked us.
“We just wanted to check in the office to see if . . .” This was as far as I got before I realized coming up with a reasonable lie was harder than I thought.
“If our schedules have been finalized,” Charles finished. “We were told that they were subject to change and our homeroom assignment might not be permanent.”
“We’ve just really enjoyed your particular approach to reeducation,” Alice offered, “and want to make sure we continue to learn from you about the superiority of the Phandic way.”
He studied us for a long moment, blinking slowly. He took a slurping sip from his coffee. “For a bunch of delinquents,” he said, “your lying game is weak.”
Charles was about to repulsor blast him, but I shook my head. There was something about him that made me think we didn’t need to electrocute him into unconsciousness. Maybe it was the fact that the book he was holding was the collected short fiction of Arthur C. Clarke. How evil can you be if you’re reading one of the greats? I wondered if, as with Mr. Potato Head, I might have misread Mr. Authoritarian-Hammer.
“What makes you think we’re, you know, that?” Mi Sun asked.
“You guys are not really great at blending in.” He gestured at me with his coffee. “Plus, you have this look on your faces like you’re just putting up with this nonsense until you bust out of here. Also, Jean-Luc Picard? Come on.”
“You have entirely mistaken us,” Charles assured him. “We are most certainly enthusiastic about the Phandic Empire of prosperity.”
He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t see you up here, and I’m not going to notice you not returning from lunch. These behavior controllers they injected in me mean that that’s the best I can do. If you step blatantly out of line, I’ll be compelled to report you.”
“Thanks, Mr. Authoritarian-Hammer,” I said.
He forced a sad smile. “I would tell you my real name, but the
mods make it impossible for me to say it out loud.”
I remembered another neat ability I hadn’t known if I’d be able to use. “Well, let’s do something about that,” I said. I put a hand on his arm and allowed a microneedle to emerge from my fingertip and pierce his skin. This device injected a few million nanokillers into his bloodstream on a mission to hunt down and dismantle all Phandic invaders. They needed about six seconds to complete their work, after which both invaders and defenders would break down into their atomic components and be harmlessly passed in the host’s urine and feces. More information than maybe you wanted, but still—it’s better to know than to wonder.
Mr. Authoritarian-Hammer was now looking at his arm, where he’d felt the slight pinprick. “What did you just do to me?”
“You’ve been scrubbed clean,” I said. “Act normal and they’ll never know, but your behavior-modifying nanites are gone.”
Mr. Authoritarian-Hammer looked into the distance, maybe thinking unkind thoughts about the Phands to see if he felt a jolt of nausea or discomfort. He then turned to me and grinned. “I’m Thomas Link,” he whispered. “It worked. And you’re not ordinary troublemakers. Who are you?”
“We’re the invaders’ worst nightmare,” I said. “A bunch of middle-school kids with dangerous technology we don’t really understand or know how to control.”
Then we entered the office, where we had our first encounter with Phands since our return to Earth.
• • •
There were three of them in the office and as many humans as well. One of the Phands was typing furiously on a holographic keyboard that hovered in front of her. The other two were tossing a holographic football back and forth. Either the game of football was of evil Phandic origin or the invaders had taken a liking to it. I wasn’t sure which was more likely.
“Human juveniles may only enter this restricted space with permission from a designated authority figure and in the presence of a designated order-enforcer of no less than level six,” said the typing Phand, not looking up from her keyboard. Her squarish gray-skinned face was crinkled in concentration, and her tusks jutted out of her lower jaw as she scraped at her bottom lip with her teeth. “Your identification auras are not emitting any permissions, and I see no order-enforcer. Thus I am forced to conclude you have made an error and entered the wrong room.”
“It’s surprising these creatures ever enter a right room,” said one of the ball tossers. His big, orc-like body seemed to have been made for football. “Their brains are less formed than even our adolescents’.”
“They appear to be in a perpetual state of confusion,” agreed the other as he caught the football. “But the adults are hardly better. Though she’s all right.” He gestured with his head toward a big picture of Nora Price scowling down at us.
“One of the few bearable ones,” the other agreed. “Why did we invade this ridiculous world anyhow?”
“I just have a question,” I said, trying to cut in.
“Your question can wait until your identification aura emits the correct permission,” said the typing Phand. “Until that time, your questions will go unanswered.”
“Sad, really,” said the Phand tossing the football. “All those questions that will never be answered.”
“Keeps me up at night,” said the one catching the ball. “Where do the unanswered questions go?”
Then none of them were saying anything, because they were first twitching and then unconscious. The humans in the room had been silent the whole time, and now they were even more silent because, like the Phands, they were unconscious. I closed and locked the office door while Alice generated a holographic keyboard with which to interface with the main Phandic computer network. There were multiple layers of encryption, but having a maxed-out security-busting skill tree meant that she could eat through those firewalls in seconds and enter the most secure databases in the system without triggering any alarms. In about thirty seconds she shut down her keyboard.
“I know where they’re being held. And while I was there, I got the coordinates of the prison where they’ve got Nayana and the others. We’re set.”
We all exchanged looks. This was too easy. I knew that the Former enhancements we’d picked up at the Hidden Fortress were going to make our tasks possible, but I never thought it was going to be this uncomplicated. Getting Tamret and the others, stealing a ship, rescuing the political prisoners, and getting the galaxy back on track was going to be a piece of cake.
Then Tanner Hughes kicked open the door. Behind him stood about twenty other trustees, all of them armed with Phandic phased-particle-beam pistols. And they opened fire.
• • •
Big deal. There was some redundancy since we hadn’t had a chance to work out a routine. Things could have gone badly, which I realized even as they were going well, and I vowed that we would have to assign tasks in the future. Fortunately, there would be a future, since in spite of the lack of planning, we had all the bases covered. Charles, Alice, and I all triggered plasma shields, establishing a blue barrier between us and the Phand wannabees firing their PPBs. The phased particles were handily absorbed, leaving them astonished, disappointed, and a little bit afraid.
They were right to be afraid. Mi Sun, the most intuitive fighter in our group, must have assumed one of us would handle defense—either that or she was just acting on instinct. A second or two behind us, she unleashed a barrage of voltage, stunning the entire group. Problem solved. One second you’ve got a bunch of thugs with energy weapons; the next you’ve got a big pile of nappers.
With our data in hand, escaping was no more difficult than stepping over the sleeping adversaries. I grabbed some of the PPB pistols—you never know what might come in handy—and then paused briefly over the slumped form of Tanner Hughes. He was wearing new sneakers he’d picked up from somewhere, but he still had oil stains all over his rear. I crouched over him and quickly cooked up a set of nanites, which I injected into his neck.
Just like that, he would now be unable to control his bladder. Instant pants-wetter. You cross me, you pay. I’m not entirely cruel, so I programmed the nanites to self-destruct after two days, but by then he’d be the laughingstock of the Phandic Empire. Assuming there still was a Phandic empire, because Team Randoms was on fire.
I wasn’t the only one feeling big on our new tech. There were smug nods and fist bumps all around as we casually walked down the stairs, passing students and teachers. Most of the trustees had been summoned to deal with us, and no one had noticed yet that they hadn’t returned. The Phands, from my experience, favored overwhelming force as a military tactic, and they didn’t tend to worry that their forces might fail.
Soon they would realize they were facing a genuine danger, and they would up their game in response, but they had no game that could beat ours, I told myself. We could block any assault they threw at us. We could stop any being who challenged us. We could become invisible or invulnerable or unstoppable, and all it took was the desire to make it happen.
“It is a good thing none of us are evil,” Charles said evilly. He had evidently been thinking along the same lines as me. “We are almost too powerful.”
“The Formers had all this and more,” I said, “and they didn’t turn evil. They created worlds and life. They paved the way for galactic civilization.”
“And where are they now?” Mi Sun asked.
It was a good question. The fact was that no one knew what had happened to the Formers. Some thought that they had left the galaxy entirely, finding new and, to our minds, inconceivable methods of travel that would allow them to cross incredible distances. Others claimed they had set aside the need for material bodies entirely and now existed as beings of pure energy or at a quantum level, experiencing life with an entirely new set of physical realities. Then there was the school of thought that said they had become so powerful, that they had experienced so much, that they’d grown tired of existence and allowed themselves to fade from reality. br />
Personally, I found this possibility depressing. I couldn’t imagine ever growing tired of my new abilities, and these powers represented only the tiniest sliver of the things the Formers could do—that we could now do. How could they have grown bored with all of this? I could spend years doing nothing more than turning guys like Tanner Hughes into pants-wetters without getting tired of it.
We reached the school’s main entrance, which was unlocked and unmonitored. The Phandic security auras regulated who could come in or go out, but our counterfeited auras told the door we were fully authorized to leave. Just like that, we were out of there.
Tamret and the others were being held at a police station in the East Village. Getting there was no problem. A quick peek into the new global data network told me that New York’s cabs had been fitted with a Phandic computer designed to read the security auras of anyone who stepped inside, but we had all tweaked ours to show we were in good standing and had every right to be out and about. We hailed a cab, paid with an electronic transfer of fabricated money, and were on our way.
When we’d first landed in Astor Place, I’d been too busy trying to escape, and worrying about the well-being of our friends, to really take in the details of life on conquered Earth. Other than the billboards and signs, and the images of Nora Price’s face everywhere, things weren’t that overtly different. I knew that the Phands wanted kids going to school and adults going to work, so if you didn’t look too closely, it could have seemed like an ordinary day in an ordinary city.