=== Curt ===

I must’ve fallen asleep again. It made sense. I was exhausted. Between a wedding and being attacked twice and dealing with all of the stress of . . . Whatever the fuck is going on currently. I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped before they could start shaking me. I couldn’t get far, since I was still shackled at the ankles and wrists by Mind’s constructs. I looked around, trying to catch my breath. Des was standing over me with Smash Gal and Mind behind them.

“Jeez, Cee,” the woman in pink said, “Jumpy much?”

“Yeah, well, You never know when someone is going to burst through the ceiling and ruin your life,” I responded bitterly. “What’s the word, doctor?”

“They already know we’re friends, Curt. Just drop it. And can you not be an asshole for ten minutes. I think we’re in trouble.”

“Good luck with that one,” Smash Gal responded. “He’s always been an asshole. Especially when he thinks he’s right. And he always thinks he’s right about everything.”

Des and Mind both sighed and shook their heads. “What’s going on?”

“We . . . We found some bodies. Signs of a struggle. It’s bad, Reese,” the man responded.

“Oh. Hmm.” I considered what that could mean. “Mind, let me out.”

“What!?” His companion demanded. “No, absolutely not.”

“We kind of have to, Kari. If we’re to get out of here, I think he’s our best chance.”

“He can tell us what to do,” the woman said, unconvincingly. “And . . . And then we can make a decision. I don’t trust him.”

“Kari, he’s already shot that down. And he’s right. We are out of our areas of expertise,” Mind responded and waved a hand. The shackles disappeared. “He’s the closest thing to an expert we have here.”

“But what if he betrays us?” Kari said.

“Truce,” I said. I held out my left hand. I would have held out my right, but she might’ve just broken it even more. She looked at my hand.

“How can I trust you? You’re a thief.”

“Kari, be realistic about this. I’m a thief. But I’m also stranded with my only friend on an alien planet where there was an attack. And I’ve never lied to you . . . About anything important. And as much as I hate you, and I do, I’m not going to let three people, one of which I actually give a damn about die for a grudge.”

She begrudgingly took my hand. We shook and then started off. We got to a metal door that was sealed shut. There were windows at the top of it. I stretched up on my toes and looked through. There were body parts and blood strewn about. There weren’t any flies. There wouldn’t be. Not in space. Unless they brought flies for some reason. That’d be a weird decision. I tried the door panel. Nothing happened. It was dead. I frowned and turned to Smash Gal. “Well, go on then. Use your excessive force for something useful. For once.”

“I already tried that. The doors are strong. Really strong. I don’t think I could open them without bringing the building down on top of us. And then you’d just whine about that too.”

“Well, I’ve always been good at whining,” I muttered, taking out my lockpick set. I flipped it open. I called it a lockpick set, but it was really just a toolset that happened to include lockpicks. I struggled for a moment to put together my mini-drill-gun with my one good hand. Des just huffed and grabbed it from me and put it together instantly and handed it back to me. I nodded to them and started unscrewing the panel. I pulled it off and looked through the wires, considering. Then I slipped one of my batteries out of my pocket and attached it to the wires and turned it on. The panel flickered to life and the doors shuddered. I started pressing keys, but all that came back was ACCESS DENIED on the display. “Well, that figures. Guess I’ll have to go with the classic.”

“The classic?” Mind asked, leaning over.

“As you all are so keen to remind me, I’m a petty thief. So, I’m going to do the thing I’m good at.”

“Being an immoral jackass?” Smash Gal interjected.

“Breaking into places that are locked, but I’m glad to see that you’re immune to nosebleeds too. Air must be pretty thin on that high horse,” I responded, turning back to the panel. I clipped two wires and pushed them together and shorted out the doors and it jolted again, opening slightly. It’d be a tight fit, but much less tight than not open at all. “Well, go on. That’s as much as I can do.”

Smash Gal and Des squeezed through the door and I motioned for Mind to follow. “Reese, you’re being too hard on Kari.”

“Am I?” I asked, mockingly.

“She’s not trying to hurt you.”

“I imagine you know a lot about not trying to hurt someone but doing it anyway, Mind.” He blanched slightly at the statement but shook his head.

“You two are really alike in a lot of ways, you know that.”

“We’re both stubborn and set in our niche moral systems that both have intrinsic flaws. I’m aware. I try to keep it in mind most of the time.”

“If you understand that, why are you still treating her like this?”

“C’mon, man. You’re smarter than that. Surely. If nothing else, you can read my fucking mind. You know why.”

“I don’t . . . I don’t do that . . . Without permission.” His voice was small. “Anymore.”

“Create a brace for the doors. I’m going to disconnect the battery.” He did so. I disconnected the battery and the doors shuddered again, but he managed to keep them open.

“Do you think you will ever forgive her?”

“She tried to kill Cindi. She put her in a coma. If it was just me, I wouldn’t care as much. But she hurt the woman I love. Kari Stewart is dead to me. Smash Gal is an obstacle to be overcome. If I’m armed the next time she comes after me, I’m killing her. I have to. Anything less is just asking for Cindi to be killed as collateral damage.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“I don’t like killing people. It’s normally not necessary. But she’s too dangerous.”

=== Kari ===

I listened to Curt and Chuck on the other side of the door. His doctor friend watched me until it got to the part where he was planning my murder. They looked away and started looking around the room. I stood there and thought about what he had just said. She tried to kill Cindi . . . She hurt the woman I love. Kari Stewart is dead to me. I wiped the tears from my eyes and tried to find some semblance of inner peace. But my oldest friend had just said he wanted to kill me. I glanced around. There was blood and chunks of flesh everywhere. Large gashes went through the floor and walls and equipment. Chuck and Curt walked through the door that Chuck had been holding open. Curt glanced around and shook his head. He walked over to a body and picked up a lanyard. His hands were shaking. But his face was stony. We went into the next room and there was a garage door that had been torn open. Several vehicles had been destroyed or thrown about. Whatever did this was strong.

Some of the vehicles were just construction equipment. Some of them had large drills on them. Chuck flew forward and looked out the door. “So, we can breathe on the planet. It’s not just the buildings. That’s . . . good, right?”

“Place doesn’t seem to have power, so that makes sense. No air circulation,” Curt responded absently. He was looking at a large circle that was in the middle of the room.

“What do you think it is?” I asked him.

“I’d . . . I’d rather not say. Not yet. Don’t have any proof.” He walked out to the garage door and looked outside. “Well, that makes sense.”

“What does?” Des asked.

“Oh, what they were doing here. It’s a mine. They were imperializing whatever planet we’re o- . . .”

“Curt? What?” The doctor asked.

“It’s . . . Probably nothing. I’m . . . I’m going to see if I can get the computers started. They must have had an evacuation plan. Maybe there’s a backup.” He rushed back to the other room and Des, Chuck and I looked at one another and we all just shrugged and followed him. When we found him, he was on his back. And under one of the tables with a computer on it. He was fiddling around with something. He grimaced and then slammed his fist into the console. Des jumped.

“Curt?” They asked.

“Yeah?” He said, nonchalantly.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, mostly.”

“Need some help?” The doctor asked again. They looked shaken by . . . something.

“. . . Yeah. I can’t do this easily with one hand.”

I scooted next to him. “What do you need?”

“I’d . . . I’d prefer if Des did this. There’s less of a chance I’d end up with broken bones,” he said, looking away from me. “Or a comatose fiancee.”

“Well, you have me. What are you trying to do?” He sighed and took some little electric batteries out of his pocket.”

“How many of those do you have?”

“I can fit ten in my pockets,” He responded. “So, ten.”

“Why?”

“Never know when you’re going to end up stranded on an alien planet without power. Or when you’re going to have to try and short out a supposed hero when they’re wrecking your wedding.”

“Will you two get off that!?” Des demanded, fear tightening their voice. “I want to get back to Earth some time in the next decade.”

“They’re right. Clip that wire there.” I did so. He pushed his battery against it and made some rough connections then handed me some black tape. “Wrap it up carefully.”

“There was a time when I would have loved to hear that from you.”

“Ugh. For the love of God, don’t.”

“What?”

“Just . . . Don’t. Clip that one there and attach another one to it.” He scooted out from under the table and struggled into a seat. I could hear the hum of the machine come to life. I pulled myself up and looked at it as the monitors came to life.

“I can’t believe that worked.”

“Yeah, well. It won’t for long. This is slipshod, even by my standards.” He started typing onto the computer. An Incorrect Password message came up. He frowned and considered for a moment. Then he took out his phone and a USB cable and plugged them into a computer. His screen was cracked. Probably from the fight. I felt a pang of guilt but pushed it down. He’s a criminal. He did this to himself. I had to do what I did. I had to. I thought to myself. After a few minutes, he was in.

“How’d you do that?” Des asked.

“I’ve been stealing from both of these companies for a long time. I learned that there are holes in their security and keep an exploit saved on my phone.” A bunch of files came up automatically and there was a data transfer pop-up.

“What are you doing?”

“Downloading their database.”

“Why?”

“Because what they’re doing here needs to be known. Also, because it’s faster than looking for individual files.” He said. I went to pull his phone off but he pushed my hand away. “Don’t.”

“Even when your life is in danger, you just can’t help yourself, can you!?” I demanded angrily, reaching past his hand for his phone.

“Kari!” He shouted and I stopped. “You don’t understand! Stop pretending you know everything and actually sit back and pay attention for the first goddamn time in your life!”

“What!?” I demanded, unable to keep the heat out of my voice.

“Kari! Reese! Calm down,” Mind interjected. “Reese, just tell us what you figured out. It’s obviously something big.”

“I . . . I think I know where we are. I think . . . I think we’re on the Grignau home-planet.”

“What!?” The three of us demanded in unison.

“That’s impossible!” I said.

“Why?” He asked, looking up at me. “Why is it impossible?”

“Because . . . We don’t even know where that is. They’re invaders. They invaded us.”

“You’re right. We don’t know where the planet is. Or we didn’t. Now we do. And we don’t know that they invaded. We know they showed up and started attacking us. But there’ve never been reports of ships or anything.”

“What makes you think that this is the same planet, Reese?”

“Well,” he began, bringing up some security footage. A few Grignau burst through the door in the garage and started throwing things around. People tried to run but they were quickly caught. “Those are Grignau. Also . . . Look at the date.”

“What about it?”

“That’s the day of the last invasion. These people all died just before that happened.” I frowned and looked at Curt.

“What do you think they were doing here?”

“Wan En and EnGin? Capitalism. They were doing capitalism. They invaded a planet with a bunch of natural resources and started mining.”

“How did they even get here?” Des asked. Curt grimaced.

“I think I might know. And I think it might be our way home. It was so ridiculous, I didn’t want to believe it, but it fits.”

“What?” I asked.

“They created a large portal and traveled through it.”

“How is that different from what you do?”

“I travel maybe a few thousand miles in a snap. They traveled lightyears. The power that it must have . . . That also makes sense. Fuck!” He shouted.

“What now?”

“I power my rig with excess energy that I siphon from these huge generators that never seem to be used for anything. I just figured it was some rich company going way overboard on backup power. My rig is relatively efficient for bending space-time. I always wondered what could use such huge amounts of energy. But I hit a dead-end tracing back the generators to anything real. And then I got distracted and never bothered figuring it out.”

“Is that all?” Des asked. “You’re this upset over that? Really?”

“It’s not just that, though. I built my first rig from scraps I stole from Bion. An-”

“You’ve built all your rigs from stolen scraps.”

“Whatever! Shut up!” He snapped irritably. “I always figured I had just found an alternative use for what I had cobbled together. But I also piggyback off of Wan En satellites for my GPS system. What must have happened when Smash Gal crushed my rig is that when I was cycling through teleport options, it must’ve had this place listed somewhere in my hacked list of everywhere in Wan En’s database.”

“You’re still blaming me for this?”

“Well, it’s still your fault. Until it stops being your fault, I’m going to keep blaming you for it.”

“Children!” Des shouted, stomping their foot. “Stop it. Curt, does this have any bearing on us getting home?”

“I . . . I don’t know. Probably not.”

“Then why are we talking about it?”

“Why are we talking about an intergalactic conspiracy?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, I’m waiting for the download to finish. And it helps me think. And . . . It means that the only thing I created for myself was also stolen. Technically.” He sounded disappointed.”

“Does it?” Professor Mind asked.

“Yeah. The technology existed. I just rebuilt it.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t know what you could build from it. You’re a criminal, but you still built a teleporter out of scraps and junk and made yourself the best criminal from it.”

“Second best,” Curt corrected.

“Second best?” I asked.

“Cindi is still the greatest thief in the world. And her abilities are her own.” There was pride and self-loathing in his tone. God, he really loves her. All of her. Even her criminal side. What happened to him to make him this way?

=== Curt ===

“So, do you have an idea of how to get back?” Smash Gal asked.

“I . . . Maybe.” The download had finished. Their database was hard-lined into each computer. It probably was cheaper to keep it here rather than transporting it over a few hundred lightyears. I bent under the desk and disconnected my batteries from the power lines.

“Maybe?” Des asked. I put my hands on their shoulders and met their eyes.

“I have an idea. If that doesn’t work, I’ll figure something else out. I’m going to get you home.” As my hands fell from them, one slipped into their labcoat’s pocket and I swiped their phone. I started on a Bluetooth transfer and started transferring a crunched version of all of the files I had downloaded. I’m probably going to jail, but the public needs to know what Wan and EnGin have been up to. Des is my only hope for that. I walked out to the garage and stared out into the dusty wasteland before me. In the distance, I thought I could see lights. The moons had moved some in the time since I last saw them. There were dead plants all around the entrance. Isn’t it enough to ruin our planet? We had to go out and do it to this one too? Fuck.

I made my way over to the portal generator. I specifically avoided thinking about the word Stargate as I looked at the panel. I looked around at the drills. They weren’t normal drills. They had lasers attached to them sometimes. That might be helpful. I went over to one and started unscrewing some of the attachments.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t think I have enough batteries to travel lightyears. I might have enough to jerry-rig the panel into working. But beyond that, I have no idea how much power this is going to take.”

“Why are you taking those off?”

“Might be useful. Might need the wires or more connective material.” I lied. I detached one of the lasers and sat it down. It was heavy. But I figured I could modify it to be powered by one of my batteries in a pinch. Not for long. But maybe long enough to escape. I also started stripping the vehicles for their batteries. They were huge things. Smash Gal had to help me. They were just too heavy for me to do on my own. She sat them down around the portal and I started stripping it of some of the panels. I brought up my phone and navigated through some of the files before finding the blueprints of the portal. It worked a lot like my design, just on a much bigger scale, and was more efficient in some ways. I suppose it’d have to be.

“Reese, how exactly do you teleport?” Mind asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I read about the transporter problem. Do you destroy each atom individually and just recreate the atom in a different place, effectively committing suicide every time, or is it something else?”

“Oh, that old Star Trek talking point. Nah, that’s not how mine works. What I’m actually doing is folding space-time and just basically stepping through it.”

“How do you do it in two different ways?”

“Different ways?”

“Well, you can open up little portals and step through those and you can also just disappear and reappear somewhere else.”

“Oh, that’s the same thing. Just looks different,” I responded as I started creating a special set of glorified jumper cables and daisy-chaining the batteries through them.

“What? Really?”

“Yeah. One is just more instant than the other. The other is maintaining the portal for longer. Actually, it’s way easier to do it instantly.”

“How does that work?” Des asked, helping me wrap the copper lines around the batteries.

“Oh, just like that. Work. It’s easier to hold something for a second than maintain a hold on it for too long.”

“You’re aware that all of this sounds insane, right?”

“Probably. But in my defense,” I pointed to Smash Gal and then to Professor Mind. “She can bench a tank and he can read people’s minds. We live in a crazy world. I just embraced it.”

“I hate agreeing with him, but he’s right.” Smash Gal said.

“Of course I am.”

“And that’s why I hate agreeing with you. Is this almost ready?”

“Almost. We need to let the power circulate through the system for about twenty minutes. Best get comfortable.” I started attaching some batteries to the control panel. It started glowing. Professor Mind and Kari started talking about something quietly together. I sat next to the laser I had detached and started wiring my battery to it. I tried to make it less obvious what I was doing. Fortunately, Des came over and helped me.

“Curt, what are you going to do?” They whispered.

“What do you mean?” I asked, matching their whisper.

“You’re going to be arrested! You have a plan to escape right?”

“Half a plan. And I think that’s what they’re discussing over there.”

“What?”

“Mind is ambivalent to arresting me. He thinks it probably should happen, but isn’t as gung-ho about it as Smash Gal.”

“How do you know that?”

“Part of being a thief is knowing your target. I am pretty good at reading people.”

“Except for Cindi.”

“What do you mean?”

“You still think that she wanted to leave you. After everything.”

“She’s the world’s greatest thief. Staying in one place with one person isn’t exactly in her wheelhouse.”

“But maybe for the world’s second greatest,” Des responded. “You also can’t read me.”

“I definitely can read you.”

“Then why didn’t you know I didn’t hate you.”

“Never said you did. I said you should. Big difference.”

“Oh come off it!” Des exclaimed, exasperated. I reached over to them and slid their phone into the palm they were gesturing with. “What did you do with this?”

“It’s my half a plan.”

“So, this was all a ploy?”

“No, the capacitors do take a while to fully function and those batteries weren’t made for this,” I said. I pulled the laser with me as I got up and sat it next to the console. Mind and Kari both looked at me and continued talking in their hushed tone. I brought up the UI. It needed a security key. I took out the bloody lanyard I had pocketed earlier and pressed it against the screen. The dead man’s face came up and it was accepted. I started cycling through menus trying to figure out the UI. It was a disaster. Maybe I should sell Popp to them. I finally figured out how to select where we wanted. There were a couple of bases but this was the one that was in America. The closest to Avalare. I hit it and the portal started to hum. There was a spark and then it died. I sighed and tried again. There was another spark and bright blue light flooded into the room. It shuddered and I gulped. It was unstable. I looked through the settings but didn’t have enough time to figure out how to mess with them. Not like this.

“Alright, ladies, gents, and neithers. We only have one chance. It’s now or never,” I said. Kari stepped up to the portal.

“You sure about this, Curt?” She asked.

“As sure as I can be when I’m relying on eight glorified car batteries.” She nodded and stepped through. Then Des. Finally, Professor Mind. I grabbed my modified mining laser and jumped through after them.