Chapter 64: The Reunion
"What did those boys' do?" This was the only question on Chris's mind. Things had gone bad ever since Null and Infy had disappeared. A literal army of Valtaui had arrived to surround the Golden chariot and had ordered all dwarfs and even Littleman to return to their respective races.
Littleman had tried to resist but he was overpowered and forced to return to the collective to be studied. He was apparently a one of a kind they wanted to investigate if the humans had modified his programming.
The dwarfs didn't offer up any resistance and were taken back to their homeworld. This had left Chris and Lisa alone on the Golden chariot under house arrest. Nothing had been communicated with him.
"We are still alive, so we must either be bait or leverage" Lisa was chatting with Chris over dinner.
Chris just wished someone would tell them what was going on. "I just wish we knew what was happening, I hate being in the dark"
"Patience Chris, I'm sure they are okay"
"Chris, Lisa you there?" both Chris and Lisa were surprised to be hearing Jania in their mental link.
"Jania what's going on?" asked Chris
"No time, Infy saying holding open a single end gate is stressing the device to its limit. They need you to go to the workshop". Once they got to the workshop Jania gave them the instructions on how to modify the boys' prototype gate device so that it could connect with their current device.
They were able to form a small stable gate that didn't require any use of the fields and had bypassed whatever had happened to the planet.
Chris and Lisa then filled them in on what had happened while they were off-planet. The Infy was surprised that the council had taken action but it didn't matter it meant he could continue with his plan.
"We can make the gate about the size of a person therefore just get our weapons and suits and come over to Ollhelian." Infy saw no reason for them to return to the chariot yet, he knew they had likely set up a similar field to the one around Ollhelian. He still wanted to gather their ships and experiments but that would have to wait until they could escape this planet.
Lisa and Chris agreed and went off to collect all their equipment and left the golden chariot to join the rest of the party.
"Hi, you must be Chris, shorter than I expect, oh and you must be Lisa" Kikei ran over to the two of them as they exited the gate. She was intercepted by Null who guided her away.
"But Null, I want to talk to them" she protested as he took her away.
"Chris, keep staring like that and you won't have eyes" Jania wasn't pleased with the way Chris was looking at Kikei.
"Hey, it's nothing like that, just who is she?" Chris asked.
"She is one of the breeders from the Arkships" it was Lisa that answered instead of Jania, surprising them both.
"How did you know?"
"They are all designer babies, I was a junior scientist on the project that designed them. Each has small variations but they look like siblings" Lisa seem sad when she spoke. What the others didn't know was the breeders were designed not only to be perfect at carrying babies but to also meet the special preferences of the client if they wanted to conceive a baby naturally. It was one of the experiments she regretted working on.
Null and Infy had returned. "Sorry, she is a bit excitable. I told her I will introduce you to her soon," explained Infy. They continued to explain everything that had happened over the last few days
"Null, Infy why don't you go get Kikei for us?" asked Jania, she wanted to talk to Chris and Lisa in private before they introduced Kikei. Once the boys' left she started. "I must warn you, the boys' have changed and most of that is because of Kikei. Please be nice to her as the dragons went to great efforts to put them together."
"Hi, I'm back again. Nice to meet you. So Null you going to introduce me?"
"Why couldn't you just introduce yourself, and they already know who you are I've already told them." Null couldn't help but roll his eyes.
"Fine, I will do it myself. I'm Kikei and I have a superpower of seeing peoples aura and I can channel something called the life field or so Null tells me. You two are Chris and Lisa who are supposedly the brains of the group. We could have used that the last couple of days, these guys are all wooosh, bash crash and-"
"Stop Kikei, breathe and focus," said Jania.
Lisa decided to step in "A little nervous I see, It nice meeting you Kikei and thank you for looking after these three over the last few days. I know they can be a handful." After the introduction, they talked so that Chris and Lisa could learn and get to know a little about Kikei.
The conversation moved on to what they needed to do next. Chris had some ideas and plans floating in his head about what to do but he needed more information.
"We should talk to the dragons first before we make any decision on where to go from here."
They all agreed, so Null, Infy and Chris headed off to meet the dragons and the girls went to talk with the other Arkship survivors who were the first humans Lisa had met since being taken away from Mars by the boys'. Naturally, she was excited and was looking forward to some more adult socialising.
Null had taken Chris to where he had met the will-o-wisp from before and they were waiting for them to appear.
"Chris, am I a monster?" asked Null, Chris was floored by the question.
"Why would you ask that?"
"Kikei thinks I'm a monster, I can see it. I find it easy to kill, too easy. I had no problem trying to destroy this planet"
"But you didn't, did you"
"Only because Kikei stopped me, I would have let the humans die too if it wasn't for her"
Chris was surprised at how introspective Null was being, Kikei had definitely got into his head. Chris was worried about how Null was going to handle this crisis of identity.
"You are a product of your upbringing, you have more power than the rest of us, but you also lack experience in how to exercise that power. You are not a monster. Also, we won't let you become one. The fact that you are even worried about it shows you are learning. A monster wouldn't even be thinking about it." Chris wasn't sure how much got through to Null but he hope at least some.
"Well said, Chris" a Will-o-wisp had suddenly appeared, and it seems had been eavesdropping on their mental conversation. Chris had mentally taken a note that the dragons could do that.
"I know why you are here, you want information, yes?" asked the will-o-wisp.
"Yes, we want to settle on the planet but it seems this planet belongs to you so wanted to ask permission" stated Chris.
"We don't have a choice, the solar system has been isolated from the rest of the universe even your new gate loophole has been corrected. Us, you and about 100 million elves are stuck here" The will-o-wisp sounded angry, and Chris wasn't sure it was a wise idea to stay.
"Can your sister, turn the mandate on again?" asked Null.
"Oh, you want the mandate now, what afraid 100 million is too much to handle?" the dragon was clearly angry, Chris wasn't sure what was going on but suspected it would be good to leave.
But Infy got in before him "No, we are afraid that we will slaughter them all, especially since you and your sister let them kill the other humans" The boys' were in their hybrid mode and projected an image from the satellite that showed the burnt corpses of humans in a tree on a city on the far side of the planet.
"We didn't let them!, we were forced too, argh you wouldn't understand" The Will-o-wisp was now yelling.
Chris had finally put it together. "Your sister was hurt wasn't she? She didn't take down the mandate someone stronger forced her to stop"
The will-o-wisp didn't answer, which in itself was an answer.
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Zeebie
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