I wake up to find myself bound while lying in a bed surrounded by a metal room. There is no one around, but I can feel almost a vibration all around me. Honestly, I do not really care since I otherwise feel awful right about now.

“I know I have said it before but never again will I drink like that,” I mutter, then I start to remember the events of last night.

That damn girl, what did she do to me? Did I get arrested? All I was doing was sitting in my backyard drinking, no laws against that! “Hello,” I call out, “anyone there?” There was no immediate answer, so I tried again louder, “Hello!”

I can hear some noise coming from beyond the door, so with as much patience as I can muster I yell, “I can hear you out there, get in here and tell me what the hell is going on!”

A handful of seconds later a voice replies from the speaker, “My mistress is busy at the moment, she asks that you have patience while we are in transit and to let you know everything will be explained once you arrive.”

“Why am I restrained?” I ask.

“Because of your belligerence, my mistress was not able to explain everything to you before departure, as such she felt it was better for the restraints so that you could not do any harm while you recovered.”, the voice said.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“My designation is MC-8173, but my mistress just calls me MC” the voice replied.

“Well MC would you mind unbinding me and releasing me? Tomorrow I am supposed to pick up my son for the start of my week with him, and I have stuff I need to do before then.” I say.

“I am sorry sir that is not possible, we are currently further away from there than you could possibly guess, and more details will have to wait until we arrive back at headquarters for your induction,” MC says.

Induction, I do not like the sound of that. What are they inducting and why drag me along with them anyway? It seems like I am getting nowhere fast here, maybe if I try a different tactic, I can escape I think to myself. “Hey MC I call, I really don’t feel so good, would you bring me some water to drink?” I ask.

MC replies, “That will have to wait about an hour or so, we woke you up early so the effects would wear off before we got you back, the alcohol you consumed was purged from your system immediately when you arrived. We just kept you out to make sure we did not have trouble before we got you back and had time to explain everything.”

“So basically you are just here to placate me and put me off until we get wherever we are going to make sure I do not cause any trouble even though you have me trussed up like a turkey right now?” I ask.

“Exactly” MC replies, “and mistress said you were too stupid to figure it out, guess she was wrong for once.”

“Tell her thanks for the vote of confidence for me then,” I say while thinking to myself what a bitch.

“Mistress, I will take your Griffin to the holding pens after we land, I told the human it would be about an hour so. That should give you sufficient time to inform the elder about his arrival and arrange everything. I do not think your plan is wise though, I know that our faction needs more members but hiding a new mana world, not preparing them for what is coming. Its just wrong, plus he has a family. If he ever finds out, it could backfire on us.” MC says.

Denala replies, “You are probably right, but it is too late now. Everything is already in place, and once he goes through the treatment, it will not matter anymore anyway. We need more people on our side and cannot let the other factions get more people against us. Any new blood could be an advantage against them. Besides, it will be years before his planet is effected, there is no harm in harvesting from it to bolster our numbers before starting preparations on that world.”

MC sighs, “I may be an android, but you are the one who has no feelings. What would you do if it was your child? I would urge you to reconsider your plan and tell him the truth. You will turn him into a blank slate for your cause, but will not be able to instill any loyalty. What if someone tells the truth instead of you? This way you will get a soldier, but not a comrade.”

“Enough” Denala yells “it’s already set up and we will go through with it. Honestly, it was a mistake to wake him up to begin with, I can’t believe you would do that. Now I have to wait to use the sedative again, or it will not take hold properly. He was not supposed to wake up at all until we were ready for him to”.

“Mistress I am sorry,” says MC, “I neglected to reset the timer after the last dose and allowed it to wear off by accident. At least it was far enough out that you would not have to wait too long to administer your treatment. Maybe since he is up anyway, you can try explaining things to him.”

“No, I will escort him to the elder, and then we will do what we have to. His former life will be too much of a draw, he will not do what is necessary if we do not do it this way.” Denala said.

“Elder the new recruit is not under sedation, he was allowed to wake up on our return, but we should be able to put him under again very soon for the procedure to take place. Then you can teach him what he needs to know about our society.” Denala says.

“We will need to keep an eye on his home world quietly. His appearance means that this Earth is now being inundated by mana so we can gather more soldiers as they appear as long as the other factions stay in the dark. As of right now, all of the other factions believe that Earth is a dead world, so they do not go there. We need to get more people from there without having to shell out large amounts of resources to win a claim over the other factions.” The elder instructed, “In the meantime, let us go and get our guest and show him the way to enlightenment.”

The door is finally opening after the longest hour of my life, I cannot wait to finally get some answers and maybe get the hell out of here and go home.

A man in a dark robe with richly embroidered details walks in and says to me “Hello Chris, my name is Elder Takien and I am here to help you understand what is going on. First, let me tell you, you are no longer on the planet you were born on Earth I believe.”

“You guys are even crazier than I thought,” I reply.

“You will come to know the truth eventually, for right now you can believe I am crazy. Would you like for me to remove the restraints and allow you to come with me? I understand you have not seen or talked to your son in several days.” The elder said.

“You mean to tell me that was not last night this all happened, what the hell did you guys do to me?” I screamed.

“Please have a little patience. I understand exactly where you are coming from. Denala has been reprimanded in your case for what has occurred. Now would you like to see your son? No, he isn’t here, we have a special device that allows you to view him and see what is going on from vast distances. It is not on this ship, you will have to come with me to the control room and maybe on the way I can show you that this is all true and after you see your son I can explain what is going on and let you come to a real decision.” Elder Takien said.

“I would appreciate that,” I say, “if you could remove these restraints please.”

“Of course,” he says.

After the restraints had been undone, I was finally able to get up and leave the room. The first thing I notice is how cramped the spaces are in here. Once we get outside, I turn around and see a ship, an honest to go alien looking space ship. To me, it looks like it’s a cross between one of those ships from Wing Commander and that ship from Firefly. Either way, it’s pretty impressive.

Either that ship is fake, and this building is fake, or this is the real deal. I am more inclined to believe fake right now, but something is odd here. I thought.

I continued to follow him through several passages until we came to a room with a large slab that had a set of headgear on it as well as various stations around the room with people standing at the ready.

The elder then said to me, “If you would lie down on that table, my people will assemble that equipment upon you, it is better able to read your thoughts and memories so we can try to locate your son easier.”

I was really nervous about this, but what choice did I have. I am apparently stuck somewhere far from earth in a room full of humans and non-humans too. If they really wanted to, they could just put me up there, and I would not be able to do anything about it, and so far this elder has been really nice, maybe a show of trust will help to get me home sooner. I thought to myself, but oh how wrong I was.