“Let’s go! Gee-up! Up up!” Blix smacked her lips, made kissy noises, shook the reins, everything she could think of to make the horses go faster.

She glanced behind her. The other wagons in their train were right behind her. If the king’s soldiers caught them on the cliff trail, they were dead. But her stupid horses were afraid of heights. It was all she could do to keep them from scraping against the rock wall. She should have led with the mules. They weren’t as fast as the horses in an open run, but at least they weren’t acrophobic.

They rounded a bend in the trail and the entire valley opened around her. It was unusually clear for the Bay Area. She could see all the way to San Francisco—the peninsula, not the city, because the city was completely gone. No skyscrapers, no Golden Gate Bridge… It was like they’d gone back five hundred years in time.

She searched the trail that wound around the cliffs behind them. The few glimpses the terrain gave her were clear, but that didn’t mean much. With all the trees in the way, the king’s entire army could be right behind them and they wouldn’t notice it until it was too late.

“Trot! Run! Come on! Up up!” Was it her imagination or had the horses slowed down even more? “Come on! Run! Are you working for the aliens? You know what they do to traitors, right?”

She glanced back, but Alf’s wagon was around the bend. She and Alf had recruited three more gamers at the village, a redhead named Maddie and two older men, Uther and Patrick, that Maddie had met at a Renaissance faire. All three of them had jumped at the chance to “join the rebellion.” Uther, in particular, seemed eager to fight. He was a big man, probably an offensive lineman back in the good old days. The hike back to the farm to retrieve more wagons had left him red-faced and dripping with sweat, but he claimed to be the Society for Creative Anachronism’s rattan sword champion three years running. Which three years, however, he had neglected to say.

Maddie was the shopkeeper of the nicest shop in the village. They had padded cloth gambesons and even some leather brigandine armor, but every time she tried to give them supplies, the dust tortured her until she took it back. She was, however, able to help them steal supplies from the other shops.

All Maddie had to do was smile at the shopkeepers, and she could keep them talking long enough to empty the entire store. What did they care? As soon as the merchandise left the shelves, the dust just created more. And if the shopkeepers happened to be female, Alf was even more effective than Maddie—in his own unique way. He was so unassuming and shy and endearingly sweet… It was all Blix could do to watch from a distance as the scheming minxes threw themselves at him. If he hadn’t been so completely and totally clueless, she would have had to step in (so to speak). As it was, she just about laughed herself silly. Alf might have been accepted into the Super Brain Program, but when it came to women, his IQ was six feet under the ground.

After thieving all morning, they managed to acquire blankets, tarps, boots, cooking utensils, tunics, flour, arrows, and most important of all, medieval bras and panties. Blix was never in her life so happy to change clothes. They were able to load three farm wagons with all the durable good they’d collected. And three more wagons with produce. They had just turned their attention to obtaining weapons when Patrick, who had been keeping watch at the castle, came running back with news that the army had been recalled from the hills.

“Is everything okay?”

Blix twisted in her seat, hand cocked back to throw a large rock.

Alf was running beside her wagon. More like jogging, really. “Gee-up! Faster!” She made a show of shaking the reins. “I’ve tried everything I could think of, but I can’t make them go any faster.”

“You’re doing great, but we need to move a little faster. Can I try something?” He ran ahead and grabbed the throat latch of the leftmost horse. Once the horse realized it couldn’t shake him off, it allowed itself to be pulled into a fast walk.

“How much farther?” he called back.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I’m not even sure the road still exists.” She hadn’t noticed South Park Drive on their way down to the village, but it had been the middle of night and she hadn’t exactly been looking for it. “If we can’t find it, we’ll have to send scouts ahead to see if the soldiers’ camp is still blocking our way. If they’re still there, we’ll have to abandon the wagons and go the rest of the way on foot.”

Alf might have nodded, but she couldn’t be sure. His stamina wasn’t going to last long. She let him focus on the horses and turned her attention to the valley a third of a mile below them. The castle wall had just come into view. An intervening hill blocked most of the structure, but the parts she could see looked like a fairy tale. High walls with circular towers at the corners, a massive gatehouse… She could even make out the guards patrolling the walls. Which meant they could see her.

“Alf, we need to hurry!” she called out. “We’re too exposed!”

“I’m trying.” He ran along with the horses until they came to the end of the cliffs and started heading inland. Finally, he released the horse and fell back until he was running alongside the wagon. “Can— we— talk?”

“Of course. But who’s been driving your wagon?”

He pulled himself into the wagon and raised a wait-a-minute finger until he’d caught his breath. “Danielle,” he finally said.

She nodded. The name didn’t sound familiar, but it had to be one of the non-gamers from the barn. “What’s your plan for when we get back to camp?”

“I was just going to ask you the same thing.” He grinned at her, his expression so intimate and endearing… She swallowed a couple of times to get her throat working.

“I thought we would pair our players with our gamers,” she said. “Let the gamers train and level up their players.”

“Just like you’ve been doing with me.” Another grin.

She nodded and forced herself to focus on the horses. “What were you thinking?”

“About the same thing.” He shrugged. “At least for the training and leveling up parts. But I’ve been mainly thinking about the social strategy.”

Blix almost laughed out loud. Alf and social strategy didn’t belong together in the same sentence.

“If the aliens and humans can become close friends, we might be able to turn this whole invasion thing around. Think about it. What if we could get the aliens to let all the humans play themselves—like Jane is doing with me? The aliens would still get to experience the game. But they’d also get to experience friendship with a different species. That’s way more interesting than any game.”

“But…” There were so many problems with that line of thinking, Blix didn’t even know where to begin. Alf was being too naive, too optimistic, too much of a dewy-eyed Pollyanna. But what other options did they have? They couldn’t fight the dust itself. Even if she and Alf became so strong they were unassailable, how did that help the rest of humanity? What about Dr. Perlmutter or Gracie or her parents? “Do you think Jane is even capable of friendship?” she asked. “Has she even been watching us? You haven’t said anything about her for a while.”

“I don’t know.” His expression turned inward. “Jane, are you there? Are you listening to us now?” After several seconds he switched his focus back to Blix. “I talked to her last night. She was telling me about a queen and this first place social alien we were supposed to find, but she seemed to be distracted—like she was working on something else at the same time.”

“Okay…” Blix chose her words carefully. “I’m all for establishing good relations with the aliens. But they are only a small part of what we have to consider.” She raised a hand to indicate the healed side of her face, not wanting to mention the AI that seemed to be controlling the dust.

Alf nodded. Hopefully that meant he was following.

“Do you want to become friends with Jane?” She gave the tiniest little nod.

“Of course!” His face lit up. He didn’t seem to be acting. “Just think of it. An alien civilization light-years away from Earth! Think of what we could teach each other. How interesting it would be to learn each others culture. To learn to appreciate and respect and love each other. It’s the most incredible opportunity in the history of mankind.”

Blix grinned. He was hopelessly naive, but he wasn’t wrong. “If the aliens have hearts that can be charmed, you’re the person to charm them.” She changed her tone and stared at the point above Alf’s head. “Jane, if you’re listening, I hope you realize how special Alf is. His friendship is worth more than any game. Be nice to him, okay? Don’t squander the gift he’s offering. He’s a nice guy. He’ll teach you more about humanity than you’ll be able to learn anywhere else.”