“Was there anything to catch?”
Roy mimed spiders running over his forearms as he nodded. “Oh, yeah, definitely. We picked up a handful of microbes that don’t exist in this reality. Luckily for us, they don’t seem to interact with our molecular structure. It would be like if you sneezed on an ant. Doesn’t do shit, you know?”
If there was something Alex knew nothing about, it was interdimensional physiology. “So, you brought us down here to check out the ship?” Alex asked, trying to bring the conversation back to something rooted in her world.
Myrddin, who was hunched over, asked, “Would you please come closer?”
Alex and Jim came over. “How different from the meteor you saw is this ship?”
It always came back to the foul thing that had rocketed through the sky and nearly destroyed the planet. Something like the Dark One had been inside. It had crept into Alex’s mind, and she knew now that it was responsible for her dreams. Even though they’d managed to destroy the meteor and the bit of the Dark One or whatever the hell it was inside it, something still lingered.
Or at least Alex thought something was lingering. She didn’t know what it could have been. The meteor had been destroyed. She’d blown it up herself.
Yet the color, the green shade—where did that come from, the color in her nightmares?
“Alex!”
Myrddin’s voice pulled Alex away from her thoughts. “They’re nothing alike,” she finally said. “This is a ship. The meteor was more like a living hive, and the whole thing felt like a hallucination. You remember my briefing about the child being in the mind of the hive. It was nothing like this.”
Myrddin stood up as he continued to study the ship. “That was what I thought. You didn’t mention any odd experiences when coming into contact with this ship,” he mused.
“What does that mean for us? And our alien friend?”
“For us? It means this didn’t come from the Dark One’s planet. His dimension but not his planet. For our friend? It means there are a lot more questions to be answered. You two are dismissed. Alex, I’d like you to stay one more night in quarantine, just to be safe. I’m not sure if Jollies’ molecular structure can handle this dimension’s radiation.”
Alex was more than happy to have another night of solitude. The conversation she’d had with Jim about their dreams had unsettled her. “Sure, no problem. Oh, I almost forgot!”
Alex hit her dragon anchor and pulled out the black rod that had separated her and Chine’s connection. “I got hit with one of these by a giant and it killed my connection with Chine. Thought you might want to take a look at this tech.”
Myrddin gave the rod a quick glance. “I’ll set you up with a communication device in your room. Contact Abby from Earth’s HQ and have her run tests on the rod. If this is tech the Dark One has, we need to neutralize it as soon as possible.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Alex saluted Roy and Myrddin before turning to leave. She caught a glimpse of Jim out of the corner of her eye. He was deep in thought, staring at the alien’s ship. As Alex turned around, she could have sworn she saw a flash of green light, but she couldn’t be certain.
Chapter Three
Back in quarantine, Alex pulled up the holoprojector installed in the wall while trying to remember what Abby looked like. They had only met once briefly. Team Boundless had been recruited at the last minute to help with a rescue mission Abby and the rest of the DGA, Dark Gate Angels, were working on.
When the mission was over, Abby and Alex had had a bit of time to talk, and once Alex realized Abby was a human teenager like her, they decided to stay in touch.
Now that Alex was calling Abby, she wished that they would be talking about something other than work, but a conversation was a conversation.
The holoprojector on the wall blinked as the call was being placed, then Abby’s face popped up on the screen. She was wearing a white coat and thick glasses, her short dreads sticking out at odd angles. Behind the glasses, there were large dark circles under her eyes, the sort you only get from long periods of time without sleep. “Hello?” she muttered
Alex waved at her and smiled brightly. “Hey, Abby, it’s me, Alex. From the dragonriders, remember?”
Abby pushed up her glasses and yawned widely before returning the smile. “Of course! How are you doing? I was thinking about calling you today, actually.”
“I’m not too bad. I’m sort of in quarantine right now for coming across an alien ship. I seemed to be clear of any interdimensional microbes, but Myrddin doesn’t want me mixing with the general population just in case.”
Abby didn’t seem fazed by the news that aliens existed. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Never a dull moment, saving Middang3ard.”
“It was my day off, too. I’ve been cooped up for two days.”
“Sounds terrible. I would have lost my mind by now. How are you keeping sane?”
Alex picked up her Jung book off of the floor. “A lot of reading. I’ve been getting visitors too. The quarantine isn’t too bad. At least I don’t have to worry about being sent on a mission while I’m here.”
“True, true.”
Alex held up the black rod she’d gotten from the giant. “Sorry, but I had to call on business. There’s something I need analyzed if you have time.”
Abby lowered her glasses and stared at the rod through the holoprojector. “No problem. Figured you were as busy as I am. Lemme see what I can do. Can you send it over?”
Alex wondered if she could. Myrddin didn’t seem to have thought it was a problem when he’d told Alex to share her discovery with Abby. “Maybe, ” Alex murmured as she tried to think of the right thing to concentrate on. She didn’t know how bases traded information or objects
