Alex peeked over Roy’s shoulders to see what Myrddin and the alien were doing. “Yeah, with help from the rest of Team Boundless.”
“You spoke to it. And touched the ship.”
Alex thought back, trying to remember if any of the rest of the team had spoken to the alien. She wasn’t sure, but she was very certain that she had touched the ship. It had been warm, almost as if it were alive. “Yeah, I did. Why?”
Roy pointed to the door he and Myrddin had come through. “You’re quarantined. Come on, follow me.” He walked past Alex, only turning for a moment to motion for her to follow him.
Alex didn’t bother asking why she was being quarantined. She’d worked with Roy enough to know he would tell her when he thought she was ready to hear. Besides, he was her commanding officer, even if he was a mech rider, and it hadn’t been a suggestion.
Roy led Alex down a long hall to a room not much different than the one the alien was in. The glass door slid open, and Roy gestured that Alex should step inside. She did, and the door closed behind her. “Sorry about all that. Myrddin’s orders.”
Alex went over and sat down on the bench in the room. She could hear Roy perfectly, so it must have been different from the room the alien was being held in. “Kinda figured. I don’t usually get sent to my room without a reason.”
Roy rubbed off the sweat beading on his forehead and then scratched his stubbly five-o’clock shadow. “The old man’s freaking out a little bit. I’ll be back. Myrddin and I need to chat with you after this thing gets finished telling us what it’s doing here.”
“It’s not a thing,” Alex corrected, indignant at Roy and her situation.
Roy flung his arms up as he turned to leave. “Far as we know, this thing could be talking mold or an irradiated fingernail shaving. It’s a thing until it lets me know whatever the hell it is. I’ll be back, kid.”
Roy walked off, shutting the door behind him as Alex jumped to her feet, shouting, “Could you at least leave me a book or something?”
It was too late. Roy didn’t hear her, but the Nest did. The glass wall next to Alex opened up, and a leather-bound book shot out at Alex and fell to the ground. It was titled All You Need to Know About Space.
Alex groaned as she picked up the book and started flipping through it. At least the Nest is starting to get a sense of humor, she thought.
For the next two hours, Alex read through the book. It was dry, lacked any wit, and seemed to have an ever-expanding, nonsensical idea about outer space. The more Alex read, the more she was convinced that the author should not write anything on any subject.
Once Alex’s irritation peaked and solidified, she tossed the book across the room and gave a frustrated groan. Why the hell was she the one locked up? It wasn’t like she came from space. Sometimes it felt like Myrddin and Roy were punishing her for doing her job.
The glass door slid open, and both Roy and Myrddin walked into the quarantine room. Both of them were still wearing their hazmat suits. As they walked toward Alex, a faint mist that smelled of lilacs sprayed throughout the room. “What’s with the mist?”
Myrddin took a seat on the bench and pulled off his mask. “Just a precaution. We need to make sure we’re going about this the right way. Alex, when did you first see the ship?”
Not even a hello. Wow, she thought before answering Myrddin. “Around early evening. I don’t know, maybe five-thirty?”
Roy narrowed his eyes at Alex. “What were you doing in that area?”
“Why am I the one on trial right now? Isn’t it a good thing I reported a strange thing in the sky? And I’ll have you know, it was my day off, so I went on a date.”
Roy patted Alex on the back as he chuckled. “Glad to hear you were making the most of your leave time. Not everyone knows how to spend it. Some of those nerds read on their days off. Who was the lucky—”
Roy trailed off as he turned to see Myrddin staring daggers in his back. “Uh, I meant, good thing you didn’t forget your duty to report things.”
Myrddin folded his hands together as the lines in his forehead became more pronounced. “You are not in trouble, Alex. We’re only asking because this is unexpected.”
Alex hadn’t ever heard Myrddin admit to being caught off-guard before. She let go of her anger and let her curiosity take over. “What do you mean unexpected? Is that thing a for-real alien? Like, from another planet?”
Myrddin shook his head as he kneaded his forehead wrinkles. “When there are nine realms, each with their own universe, the term ‘alien’ stops having any real meaning. Humans are alien to elves, and so on and so forth. But this creature is something else entirely. It’s not from our dimension.”
“Wait, you mean like the meteor? That thing that had the Dark One’s persona or essence in it?”
Myrddin reached out to the wall, which opened, letting a tray with a cup of iced water pass through. “Similar to it. It’s from the same dimension, but it came here in a conventional fashion. That’s why you and it are quarantined for the moment. We can’t risk there being an interdimensional virus or something that our bodies aren’t used to. It should be fine, but we need to be safe.”
Alex didn’t want to think about the meteor. But if this thing was from the same dimension as the Dark One, there was a good chance it had witnessed what he was capable of firsthand. “So, why’s it here?”
“We were only able to get a little information. The creature referred to the Dark One as the Devourer of Worlds, and it meant that quite literally.
