Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven:
My friend, what do you do with a bag of ro-bees? A bag of angry, going-to-get-out-and-come-after-us-to-kill-us ro-bees? These things were more dangerous than a bag of taxitos. After all, there were ways to kill a bag of taxitos pretty quickly. Ro-bees? Not so sure. We had limited time: we were sure the ro-bees would chew their way out of the bag and then we'd be back where we were.
Jackie, Tom and I all tinked as fast as we could. Jackie grabbed the bag and ran for the creek. Tom and I grabbed all the rocks we could. Not little pebbles! Then we followed after her as fast as we could.
Jackie submerged the ro-bees underwater and then she held it there. The bag continued to writhe in a disturbing, terrifying way. Tom and I quickly piled the rocks we had on it. Then gathered and piled on more. We made a small island in the stream. Jackie joined us once we were semi certain the bag was not going to spill out its ro-bees or float away. We gathered much larger rocks and circled the island and then capped it off with stones even larger.
After we were done, it would take some serious doing for the ro-bees to get out. If they did either they would have had help from the outside or we were simply seriously doomed. Fortunately, Jackie had thought fast enough to pick a spot in the stream sufficiently far off the road in the stream making it unlikely someone would accidentally find the underwater cairn we'd created for the murderous cybernetic insects.
We clambered out of the creek when we were done and made our smart clothing warm up. We needed to dry out before we made it back to town and we wanted to make sure not to walk in sogginess: blisters were not your friend, even on alien worlds!
We sat down. We started to tink rapidly over the ro-bees. We really needed to move on, because we were sure we would have another swarm come after us at some point and just sitting there was going to get us killed. We warmed our feet and shoes even more. Fortunately, the smart materials were great. On the other hand, they needed power. Warming like this was going to eat more than we ought to expend. Tom, the knucklehead, had also not charged his clothing last night. We were going to leave double quick.
However...
Then...
It hit us: what about Veena and Rosa? Had a swarm of ro-bees found them? Very worried, we tinked to them.
No response.
We tinked again.
No response.
We tinked to their parents and got an autoresponder.
Tom and Jackie and I looked at each other wildly and we were terrified. Had our friends, two of the five Merry Pranksters, been killed because we had not told the adults about our discovery? Had our desire for an adventure that Veena and Rosa didn't want have gotten them killed?
We called an air taxi via our boosters and the drone bot told us the bird would be ten minutes out: it was dropping off someone else in town. We shared where we were and set the air taxi to track us to pick us up wherever we were in ten minutes. We set off walking briskly. We knew we were going to need to watch the road after we were picked up. We couldn't directly fly the drone - well, ok, I could have hacked it, but that might have tipped off we were up to something - but we set our route to follow the road back. The bot watching the air taxis would probably set a flag as something weird was gong on, but we'd just explain we were looking to see if our friends needed a lift. That was half true!
We moved quickly, watching the sides of the road and looking above us. Fortunately for Tom, the twarpers seemed to have stopped dropping from the trees. Jackie and I were glad, too, since another goofy scene with Tom would have been terrifying because we were so on edge.
In ten minutes, we covered about a half kilometer. We were making haste, slowly, when the drone let us know we needed to move off to the side to a meadow to be picked up. The road was the ideal spot normally, but the overhead branches prevented the air taxi from picking us up.
We clambered over and stood waiting. The meeping in our brains told us the air taxi was coming down and projected the safe and dangerous zones. Nothing appeared in reality, but a direct brain interface allowed for reality to be augmented.
When the air taxi had settled to the ground and its vortices of air, leaves and whirling blades had subsided within its ducted nacelles, we approached, hopped in and it chirped - mentally - to confirm the route we wanted. We agreed and asked for a sensor sweep as we went. People make for good infrared beacons: so long as there's no cloaking tech involved! See previous adventure! However, neither Veena nor Rosa had any milspec equipment of that nature.
Oh, no, really! No milspec equipment at all! Promise! And, no! I'm not flopsweating! Why would I? I've got nuthin t'be worried 'bout! Really!
We scanned the road as we flew. It wasn't a long flight, but there wasn't any sign of Veena and Rosa. At least along the road. There were other people, but not them. That there were other people on the road along our path meant either Rosa and Veena had made it back to town just fine or they could have been taken away. We hoped for the former, but, being teens, began to grow more and more convinced it was latter.
We landed in town at the pad in the Blasted Zone and rushed over to Rosa's place. It was closest. We kept tinking her the whole way. Fear nipped at our heels. Terror's talons reached for our minds. We were nearly hysterical when we made it to Rosa's.
Her parents answered the door very quickly. They said she wasn't home and they'd not seen her since she left with us. They didn't seem concerned and they told us to go to Veena's. We zipped over there nitckety split and the Veena's brother rolled his eyes and invited us in. We waited nervously in the front forum of their house as the airlock chuffed closed. We heard him yelled and pound on her door to her room. It seemed rather excessive and we felt very embarrassed.
Veena came down. She looked disheveled. And very, very cross. Rosa came after and adjusted clothing as she did so. They chewed us out. They were very, very angry and told us to grow up. We were not twelve anymore and they didn't want to be part of whatever we were up to. Our concern was really misplaced and to, please, leave.
Jackie, Tom and I slunk out the front door after we had our serious dressing down. We were wildly depressed.
The Merry Pranksters were definitely no more.
Or at least were two less.