“I’m not sure about that. We have everything back at the house.”
“Speaking of houses, you think we could stop back by my house real quick?”
“Just stop by? You’re not going back home to think things over?”
“No need, bro. I’m in, but I just remembered something.”
“What’s that?”
“One of the dudes I play with, I think I got his address.”
“Why didn’t you say that earlier?”
“I just remembered. Anyway, dude’s something of an artist. Some of us took screen shots in the game and sent them to him and he did paintings of the screen shots. He mailed me one a few days ago. I’m sure I still got the box in my room, with his return address on it.”
“Your parents won’t have a cow if you disappear for a couple days?”
“Nah, I’ll come up with something. I’m 18. They gotta give me some slack.”
“Maybe, but they still might worry.”
“If what you say is true, they’ll see what’s going down and I’ll tell them what I’m doing.”
“Whatever dog, but we can run back and you can get that other guy’s address.”
Curtis hopped back in his seat a few minutes later with a slip of paper and handed it to Franklin.
“Liam Henderson...you sure this address is correct?” Franklin asked.
“That’s the address he mailed my stuff from. Only one way to find out. This thing have a GPS?”
“Not sure. I found your house, but I knew where I was looking. You can always use your phone when we get close to the town.”
Liam had just logged into Elite and noticed he had a new message. He pulled it up and replied.
You gonna be flying tonight?
Yeah, you wanna wing up?
I was thinking of something better.
What’s better? I found a great new bounty hunting spot. We can make a killing.
You need to upgrade your ship.
Upgrade? I have a fully engineered Corvette. Can’t really upgrade from that.
Look out your window.
Liam got up from his desk and looked out the window into his back yard. What he saw there took his breath away. Something descended and landed on the lawn, and a few seconds later a ramp came down and two young men walked down to the yard.
“Hey Liam, here’s the upgrade,” Curtis said.
“What the—“
“It’s real. You wanna come aboard?”
Liam took a couple hesitant steps toward the ramp, still trying to figure if he was awake.
“Oh, I shouldn’t be so rude,” Curtis said, “Let me introduce you to my friend, Franklin.”
Liam shook Franklin’s hand, “Nice to meet you, Franklin. How do you know Curtis?”
“Long story. His folks were my foster family.”
“Oh...were?”
“Yeah, like I said, long story. You want to come aboard?”
“Sure, what am I coming aboard exactly?”
“It’s kind of like a Cobra,” Curtis said, “And you might want to pack some things.”
“Pack some things? Are you kidnapping me?”
“Only if you want to, but I think you might want to.”
“How long...and do you care to tell me what’s going on?”
“I’m offering you a chance to help save the world.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. You in?”
“Sure, whatever. Does it involve flying one of these?”
“Yeah, and helping us recruit a few more pilots.”
“How many more?”
“We need eighteen more for the ships we have.”
“I think I can help you with that. Let me grab a suitcase and my laptop and I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”
28
Walter pulled up a chair and sat down next to Kendra, handing her a bottle of water.
“You gonna take a break from that computer for a bit?” he asked her.
“There’s so much information on here. I don’t think I have enough time to learn half of it.”
“You need to sort it out by what’s important. You got specs on those mech suits and the fighter ships we have down here, right?”
“Yeah, everything you need to know about both.”
“I’d start with that. Make some printouts. Franklin is out looking for pilots. If he brings some, they’ll need to be trained. Plus, any weaknesses you can find on those mech suits would be helpful. If what Christy told us is true, most of the people in those suits are not there voluntarily. I’d like to avoid killing them if we can.”
“There’s even information about them in here, where they’re from and all that. A lot are from earth, but not all of them. We’ll need to get people back home, or help them settle in here.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Just let me know how to disable those suits.”
“Okay. I’ve found enough data on the ships that I think I can knock up a manual of sorts pretty fast. They don’t look that complicated to fly, actually. The computer does most of it. There’s also a closet down here with flight suits. When Franklin gets back, we’ll have them suit up and start figuring out the fighters.”
Franklin went to each address Liam gave him and within a couple hours, they had picked up willing pilots from England, France, Australia, Canada, Scotland, and the U.S. They were sitting on the floor behind the flight seats, each with a small suitcase, some with laptops, and a low buzz of conversation followed them all the way back to the house in Ohio. Franklin approached the property, flew through an opening door in what looked like an ancient dilapidated barn, and then through a downward sloping tunnel to the underground hangar where everyone disembarked to find Kendra waiting for them.
“I’ll show you where you can sleep and give you a few minutes to situate your things, and then we’ll meet up in say, thirty minutes, to go over what we know so far,” she said.
They dropped their bags in a small room with bunks along the walls and a door in the far end leading to restrooms and showers, and they were all assembled in a larger common room well before the aforementioned thirty minutes. Kendra, surprised to see everyone that fast, commented, “You guys don’t need time to freshen up?”
“If it’s all the same,” Curtis said, “We’re all anxious to get started. This is all rather new
