Prologue
Sir Oriol stared at Alan for a long time, walking in circles as though he were some kind of bird of prey waiting to make his kill. Alan had to try and hide how much it bothered him. The last thing he could be was weak in front of his superior.
“You’re lucky, Junior. I don’t know how you were able to find the Gelandrosimbol base, or how you made it out of there alive on your own. Careless as it was to go in by yourself, I do commend your findings and instincts. Perhaps you are not quite as useless as I originally thought, nor are your charges.” For a moment, Sir Oriol’s speech made Alan feel proud, but he should have known better than to take the man’s words as a compliment. “What I don’t understand is how you lost eleven test subjects. Even more frustrating is your inability to locate them again after two weeks.”
Alan swallowed. Don’t let him intimidate you. “My charges are gathering up information still through the gossip at their places of education. Thankfully none of the subjects have died as of yet from an improper reaction to the injection. Whether they are displaying abilities or not, is another story of course. With the way the Earth culture works in this area it isn’t—”
“Excuses Alanmendiquixanimackle?”
“If you wish to see it that way, yes an excuse, but I thought I would provide you with some helpful insight on how the teenagers in this area function. I’ve found my results are a lot more positive when I stop forcing our culture onto them.” Hopefully he hadn’t bit off more than he could chew. He’d been doing a great job of holding his tongue until then.
“Cocky are you?”
“No, sir, and I don’t do it to simply cater to their ways. However their ability to blend in gives them more areas to investigate than having them ask a lot of questions and sticking out.”
Sir Oriol nodded. “You’re learning. Since your way seems to work so well for you, I’ll continue to let you try it. Perhaps you can convince me. You will be my contingency plan. We were able to explore multiple methods last time instead of just one. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes sir.” Alan wouldn’t point out how he’d been left in the dark, written off as worthless, thought of as a traitor to his people, and had to do everything on his own in order to provide anything of use for his team. Sir Oriol hadn’t given him the orders. He’d taken everything upon himself, but of course he wasn’t going to get the credit.
“Whatever you did last time, do it again. We can keep it our secret, but don’t expect me to bail you out if you get into trouble. And you must report everything to me personally. Find the other eleven test subjects, Junior. I don’t think I need to explain why this is important.”
“Sir?” This was a genuine surprise. A deal between them?
“Yes?”
“So long as you’re sure, I will, yes.”
“I am sure, because our war is constantly changing and becoming more complex. There’s a phrase the humans of Earth use: I like to have an ace up my sleeve.”
“I’m not sure I know what that means.”
“Have one of your charges tell you then.” Sir Oriol gave him a salute. “I’m going now.”
He returned the gesture. “Thank you for your time Sir.”
The man left and Alan could only scratch his chin. Perhaps things were finally starting to look up for him on the ship after all. Now he had to get back to Earth. There was a lot of work to be done.