After spending any number of hours inventing, she and Alex would always go outside and test them. Of course, more often than not, they got into trouble with the authorities. Gabrielle still remembered when Karen Kanzaki had lectured them after they tried testing their new hoverboards. However, that was neither here nor there.

  “G-go out?” Jasmine stuttered, reeling as though she had been slapped in the face.

  “Yeah. After dropping Alice off at school, we go into the city and have fun! We go to the entertainment district, or we’ll go shopping for spare parts to build more stuff, and we also get lunch while we’re there—except when he decides to cook me lunch. Alex’s lunches are the best.”

  The more Gabrielle spoke, the smaller Jasmine seemed to become. Gabrielle didn’t notice this until ten seconds later, when she stopped talking and looked down at Jasmine, who had fallen off the bed and was on her hands and knees. There was a strange, black aura seeping from the blonde girl’s pores like miasma.

  “Jasmine? Are you alright? You look like you have a stomach ache.”

  “Oh ho ho ho… oh ho ho ho ho ho… to think I could have been beaten so easily,” Jasmine muttered. “It’s like we were never in competition… but how could this be?”

  “Erm.” Gabrielle looked at Alice. She had no idea what was happening.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Alice reassured her. “Jasmine gets like this every now and then whenever Big Bro is brought into the conversation. Just ignore her and she’ll go back to normal.”

  “Okay.”

  Gabrielle did what Alice suggested, ignored Jasmine and continued searching through Alex’s bags. It took her some scrounging before she found what she was looking for. Her fingers touched something smooth and glossy, flat like a board. She found the edge and pulled it out, revealing the item to everyone else.

  “Ta-da!”

  Alice and Jasmine, who finally came down from her despair, stared at her.

  “That’s… a tablet,” Alice said, her expression blank.

  “Yep!”

  Jasmine hesitated. “What can you do with a tablet?”

  “Hee hee! This isn’t just any tablet,” Gabrielle announced as if revealing a great secret. “This is Alex’s attempt at building an angelisian supercomputer!”

  “An angelisian…” Jasmine started.

  “… Supercomputer?” Alice finished.

  Gabrielle nodded. “After spending the past two weeks on Mars, I’ve come to notice that our technology is about two hundred years ahead of your own. There’s a lot of advancements that our people have made that yours hasn’t.”

  “Is there a point to this, or are you just rubbing our inferiority in our noses?” asked Jasmine.

  “Alex has come to realize this and, just like he’s teaching me about your technology, I’m teaching him how to use angelisian technology. He’s a really fast learner. Alex has already learned how to use all of the angelisian tools that I have. Plus he can create basic operating systems using angelisian code, and he knows about the various parts that go into constructing many of our basic machines.”

  Gabrielle held up the tablet, which was a lot sleeker than the ones used on Mars.

  “This tablet is something that he built himself using what I taught him. It’s a true angelisian tablet built by someone raised on Mars.”

  “That still doesn’t tell us anything,” Alice said.

  “Sure it does,” Gabrielle retorted. “If this is built just like an angelisian tablet, then it should have all of the same programs, and if it has all the same programs, then I can use it to track down the D-box by locating its Source ID.”

  Neither Alice nor Jasmine had anything to say to that. Gabrielle was quite pleased with herself. She’d rendered them speechless by showing off her awesome deduction skills.

  Now, all she needed to do was make sure the tablet worked properly, then upload her tracking program and locate the D-box.

  Simple.

  3

  Before the sand could crush him, Alex created blue energy wings on his back and shot into the air. The ethereal blue pinions, formed from his aura, flapped as if they had minds of their own. He flew higher and higher as the sand swooped down to crush him.

  Fwwooom! Alex broke past the sand, which slammed into the ground, unleashing a massive geyser that shot into the air like what happens after an oscillation bomb explodes underneath the water’s surface. It nearly slammed into him. However, at the last second, he barrel-rolled away, avoiding the attack that would have undoubtedly put him out of commission.

  Another geyser of sand shot into the air. Alex flapped his wings to dodge, but his wings wouldn’t move as he wanted them to. Having never done this before, Alex’s control over his wings was haphazard at best. His stomach leapt into his throat as he plummeted to the ground.

  C-crap!

  At the very last second, he avoided becoming a splat on the desert sands by furiously flapping his wings, but then something latched onto his leg before he could move too far. He looked down. It was sand! What appeared to be a hand made out of sand had grabbed onto his leg.

  “Let go!”

  Alex created a whip with his aura and slashed the sand apart. Then he shot into the forward, juking left and right to avoid several more hands that burst from the ground to grab him. He could feel the hot desert air whip past his head as several hands tried to latch onto him. It was, oddly enough, only thanks to his wings dropping him because they didn’t work properly that allowed him to escape.

  It looks like controlling these takes a lot of concentration, Alex thought, swooping down to avoid a ball of sand that nearly ploughed into his head. If I don’t constantly focus on keeping these moving, then I lose control. However, I can’t just stay up here. These things are burning through my energy quickly. If I don’t do something soon, I’ll run out of juice, and then I’ll be dead like a shuttle floating through space without fuel.

  If he just stuck around in the air like this, he would never get anywhere. Therefore, it only made sense that he went on the attack. Al-lāt was standing on the ground several meters away. If he could just reach her before she had time to send anything big his way, then maybe he could subdue her.

  With a grunt, Alex put on a burst of speed. He blitzed toward Al-lāt as quickly as his wings would carry him. Sometimes he fell. Sometimes his wings wouldn’t work. But he kept going. And because he was also traveling down, he maxed out his velocity a lot more swiftly than he would have otherwise.

  Several pillars of sand exploded in front of him. Alex strained his mind, focused his entire being on avoiding each pillar. He juked left, right, and then barrel rolled past another. The pillars dissipated behind him. Then several strands of sand like wispy threads tried latching onto his arms and legs, but he was constantly moving to avoid them.

  Finally, he was in front of her, barely half a meter between them, leaving him in the perfect position to attack. This was his chance.

  Twisting his body, he spun around and extended his foot, which was covered in a silvery blue aura. While the aura wouldn’t increase his physical strength, he could release it in an explosive force by perfectly timing his assault. This was a technique that Gabrielle had taught him when she explained one of the ways in which he could use his aura. His idea was to knock his opponent out with a swift heel drop to the head.

  However, just as he was about to make contact, his foot met a wall of sand.

  The battlefield exploded as if someone had detonated a fission bomb in the middle of a sandstorm.

  4

  Alex had done an excellent job in creating an authentic angelisian tablet. There were a few mistakes that she’d uncovered, but considering he made this on his own with only basic knowledge of how tablets on her planet were built, it was an incredible replication. There were angelisian engineers who couldn’t have produced a better product.

  Gabrielle was in the process of fixing the few parts that had been incorrectly built, namely the power circuits. Alex had used the wrong type of circuit, A3-type, but he needed to use a B4-type angelisian circuit because it allowed for a more even distribution of power. He’d probably done this because he didn’t have the correct circuit and assumed he could just use this one as a replacement. If she turned the device on with these circuits being used, the entire device would have shorted, and she would have needed to build an entire tablet from scratch. That was the only real mistake he had made. It was a simple fix.

  The others had left. She didn’t know where they were, but she had asked them for some peace and quiet. This was important work. Gabrielle didn’t want to screw it up.

  Sitting on the bed, Gabrielle used her all-purpose tool—a pink wand-like device with a gem embedded on one end and wings that sprouted from either side of the multi-faceted jewel—to unfuse the circuits, and then fuse the correct ones on. As she was finishing up the last circuit, the door opened and Jasmine walked in.

  “Jasmine,” Gabrielle greeted with a beaming smile. “You’re just in time. I finished repairing the tablet. Now we can find Alex.”

  When Jasmine didn’t speak, Gabrielle took a closer look at the girl. Her blonde hair hung in her face. It no longer had the two drill-like curls that she was used to seeing, which made her realize that the girl’s hair was a lot longer than she expected, trailing all the way down to her lower back. The shadows cast by her hair obscured her features. Gabrielle could only see her lips, and she was biting them in what appeared to be frustration.

  “How is that you’ve become so close to Alexander?” she asked, her voice a harsh whisper.

  “Huh?”

  “I’ve spent two years trying to become closer to him, trying to make him notice me, yet never once did he see me as anything more than his sister’s friend. I thought that if I just waited and continued to be a constant presence, he would eventually see me as a woman.” Raising her head, Jasmine’s hair parted to reveal angrily glaring eyes. “But then you showed up and stole him away from me!”

  Gabrielle stared at Jasmine for the longest time. Then…

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Alexander!” Jasmine pointed an accusing finger at Gabrielle. “I’ve been in love with Alexander a lot longer than you have! He should be looking at me! Yet in less than a week, you’ve become the most important person to him! Why? Why does he look at you with such a loving expression and not me?”

  Gabrielle only paid attention to half of what Jasmine was saying. Her mind was locked onto a single phrase.

  “I’ve been in love with Alexander!”

  “In love with Alexander.”

  “Love… Alex…”

  “You love Alex?” Gabrielle asked.

  Jasmine froze. Her cheeks turned red. Her body shivered from head to toe. It was an interesting sight that Gabrielle couldn’t make heads or tails of.

  “I… I… that’s—I mean…” Jasmine seemed to have become tongue tied, but seconds later, as if a switch had been flipped, she adopted a haughty stance. She spread her feet shoulder width apart, placed one hand on her hip, and the other near her lips, which had curled into a smile as she threw her head back. “Oh ho ho ho ho! Of course I am in love with Alexander! He has been my hero for the past two years. Know this, Gabrielle Angelise, I shall not let you take him from me! Oh ho ho—”

  “That’s great!” Gabrielle burst out.

  “Ho?” Jasmine questioned.

  “This is amazing! I didn’t know that you love Alex, too!” Gabrielle set the tablet down, leapt to her feet, and took the startled Jasmine’s hands in her own.

  “W-what are you doing?!” a red-faced Jasmine asked. “H-how is this amazing? I love the man that you’re in love with!”

  “I know! That’s what makes it so amazing!” Gabrielle felt like squealing with joy. “Now we can love Alex together!”

  … A moment of silence.

  “Hah?” Jasmine looked at her with wide eyes. “I-I am sorry, but could you repeat that?”

  Gabrielle repeated herself. “I said now we can love Alex together!”

  “I-I do not understand,” Jasmine confessed, all of the anger in her voice evaporating. “How can we love Alex together?”

  “What do you mean? You love Alex. I love Alex. That means we both love Alex, so we should continue loving him together.”

  “But we can’t love him together!” Jasmine snapped.

  “Why not?”

  “W-why not? Because two people cannot love the same person?”

  “Sure they can.”

  “No, they can’t, and even if they did, nothing would come of it! Polygamy is illegal!”

  “I don’t know what polygamy is,” Gabrielle said with a shrug. “But if two people can’t love the same person, then one of us wouldn’t be able to love Alex, right? Yet here we are. We both love Alex. That means two people can love the same person, and that means if we both marry Alex, then we can all be together forever.”

  “Two people cannot marry the same person!”

  “Why not?”

  “W-why not?!” Jasmine’s eyes widened. “Because it’s… it’s wrong! That’s why!”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Yes, it is!”

  “But… it’s not wrong.”

  Gabrielle had no idea why Jasmine would possibly think this was wrong. After all, Papa had three wives: her mama, Ariel’s mama, and Michelle’s mama. He also wasn’t the only person who had married more than one person. Azazel had two spouses, though one of them was a man, and there was another commander, Uriel, who was a war hero or something of that nature. She had four husbands.

  There were many people on Angelisia who had married more than one individual. Gabrielle had attended many functions when she was younger, and she’d been introduced to a lot of men and women who had several husbands or wives.

  Jasmine’s right eye twitched. She pointed at Gabrielle. “Don’t think you can fool me! I know what you’re up to!”

  Gabrielle tilted her head. “Up to?”

  “That’s right. I know what you’re trying to do! It’s not going to work! Oh ho ho ho ho! You’ve picked the wrong person to be your opponent. I shall make you rue the day that you picked a fight with me, Jasmine de Truante, the Queen of Victory! Oh ho ho ho ho!”

  Jasmine turned and ran out of the room. The door slammed shut behind her. Gabrielle stared at the door for several more seconds, and then picked up the tablet. She had no idea what had just happened, but she still needed to locate that Source ID.

  Just as she was about to start up her program, the door opened again.

  “Oh ho ho ho ho!” Jasmine laughed once more, and then shut the door behind her, leaving the room in awkward silence.

  5

  Alex was in a dire situation.

  He didn’t know how long this battle had been going on for, but he knew that he was in trouble. Exhaustion seeped into his bones. It spread through his body, made his limbs feel weighed down and his mind heavy, as if several gears inside of it weren’t turning. Alex knew, instinctively, that if he didn’t end this battle soon, he’d be in huge trouble.

  At least he’d gotten a handle on his wings, though they were still draining his energy at an astonishing rate. He flapped them once, ascending into the air, avoiding a tendril of sand that passed underneath them.

  Alex still had the energy whip that he had created before. It was more efficient to keep it rather than create a new one each time he needed to attack. Creating, he realized, took more energy than maintaining, which was also why he didn’t dispel his wings.

  A tendril of sand shot from the ground and tried to hit him, but he swerved away and slashed it apart before it could chase him. Though that didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, as this wasn’t the only tendril doggedly chasing him down. There were at least five more surrounding him on all sides. Down below, Al-lāt stared up at him as she manipulated the sand to do her bidding.

  His arms felt heavy as he slashed apart several more tendrils of sand, which attempted to latch onto his limbs, with his whip. Muscles aching. Limbs shaking. Alex was in good shape, but he had a limit, and that limit had likely been exceeded several minutes ago. Now he was running on nothing more than fumes and sheer grit.

  This woman has to have a limit.

  Alex didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up. His energy was wavering. The ethereal whip in his hand and the wings on his back would flicker every few seconds. Surely, if his aura was beginning to go out, then Al-lāt must have been nearing her limit as well—or was she so much more powerful than him that she’d not come close to being finished?

  Juke left. Swerve right. Do a barrel roll. Alex continued his aerial maneuvers, twisting and turning and spinning and flipping. He hacked tendrils apart, his ethereal whip slicing through the sand with ease. He was so busy paying attention to the attacks in front of him that he didn’t notice the one coming in from behind him until it was too late.

  A shadow appeared over his head. Alex tried to turn, but what felt like several dozen tons of sand suddenly slammed into his back. His pained scream was lost to the wind as he flew face first into the desert sands. Grainy sand clung to his lips and became stuck on his tongue. He breathed out through his nose, blowing away more grains, though they came back when he inhaled. He gagged as several entered his nose. Limbs twitched as he struggled to overcome the agony rending his body, which caused his mind to darken as if he was on the verge of losing consciousness. Groaning, he struggled to his feet.

  Al-lāt stood several meters away, and for the first time, Alex thought he saw the signs of exhaustion on her.

  Her cloak had long since been blown off, revealing a face that looked almost human. Certain parts of her skin looked chitinous and hard, like an insect’s. However, the rest of her appeared human. Bipedal. Two human legs. Two arms with hands that had five fingers. She had long brown hair, dark eyes, and she stood with a slight stoop, as if she was carrying a great weight on her back.

 

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