Seth: Hey so the stone alert thing is going off.
Anyone close to Jackson?
Sarah: Nope.
Not even remotely actually.
Jack: Also nope.
Cause I live with her.
Cal: I’m in class.
Wouldn’t be able to make it there fast enough
Kat: I just got off work
I can meet you in five
Seth: Alright
I’ll meet you around Adams
Kat sighed putting her phone back in her pocket as she clocked out of her job for the evening. Her own stone was pulsing against throat. She had only touched it once but she had a good idea of where the Taq-Law was going to port to their part of the galaxy. She wasn’t looking forward to fighting another one of those things.
She was looking forward even less to doing it with Seth. After last week and how he treated Cal, she was pretty sure that she was done dealing with the guy. But she would tolerate dealing with him for now to take out another of the Taq-Law before it could cause some kind of trouble. Not having time to change she walked onto the street and ran to catch the next train.
Riding the subway for the next three steps she stood and kept one hand at her throat. Partially because the blue stone was comforting in small ways but also because she didn’t want it to start to glow for any undo reasons. The train stopped in decent time and she got out with the crowd.
Breaking apart and rushing up the stairs instead of cruising on the escalator she hopped over the turnstile and ran up the last few steps. Checking the nearest street, she swore softly realizing she’d called the right street but she didn’t know what the other street he was going to be on.
Grabbing her phone, she started to jump into the group chat but something told her she didn’t need to. A sixth sense in her mind that said that he was nearby. Blinking a few times, she glanced down and touched the stone and the sense in her went off even louder.
Turning around a few times, her pigtails swinging behind her head, she stopped and stared into the crowd and sure enough there he was. He was wearing casual clothes unlike the last two times she’d met him when he was dressed for business formal. It was weird seeing him in a t-shirt and jeans.
But he still had a grumpy frown as if someone had crapped in his morning coffee. They met in the middle and looked at one another. “Nice uniform.”
She rolled her eyes, “You can’t help yourself.”
“Kinda no.”
“Let’s just take care of this thing.”
Touching their stones, they felt them pulse but they weren’t glowing just yet. They opened their eyes and then turned at the same time. It was like a radar telling them exactly where to go but it didn’t go by streets. Walk forward, turn right, turn left, go down, go up. They were like blood hounds.
Following the sensations from the stone got them up to the roof of a parking deck. Three floors off the ground, across the way from the mall, and the two of them certainly didn’t look like they belonged there. Both of their stones were glowing brightly at this point.
“I guess this is the place,” Kathryn said looking around.
“Did the glowing stones set you off?”
She turned toward him and glared, “What is your problem?”
“No problem at all.”
“So you just like making snide comments all the time.”
“Kinda yeah,” she jabbed a finger in his direction meaning to say more when both of them felt it. They looked toward, not the sky, but the door that led to the stairwell that brought them up here.
The air rippled like a mirage and then all at once electricity appeared striking in every direction into the air, shattering everything it struck. And then it appeared in front of them a perfectly round sphere that had morphed from the air itself. It awoke, legs sprouting out of the bottom and hoisting it up. Its torso came out with arms in gun form already and head swiveled to face them.
Red dots scanned them instantly up and down, “Humans. Celestial technology in possession. Threat level high. Priority extermination.”
“Guess that’s our que,” Seth said grabbing his stone.
Kathryn touched the one at her neck, “Yeah no shit.”
The armor covered them in moments and they readied themselves for a fight. The arms focused on them and unloaded streams of energy bullets at them. Kathryn stepped forward raising her hands, creating a shield to deflect them easily. Third time doing this and she was confident about it.
Seth raised his fist and sprinted at it. Pumping his arms he slammed one fist into it but it was met with another shield not unlike the one that Kathryn used. He hit it again and again but didn’t break the shield. The machine turned toward him and then swung its arm as he started to hit his fist together. The blow caught him in the chest and he was sent flying backwards.
The Taq-Law clasped its arms together and the metal melded itself together. The tip of it glowed to life before firing a single giant pulse of energy. Kathryn’s shield took the brunt but she almost fell over from the force. Stumbling backwards she held a hand to her head like she’d been punched in the face.
The machine stepped forward raising its arms and the air warped as energy gathered at the tip of the creature’s cannon again. Kathryn winced and tried to raise her hand to create another shield but it didn’t have a physicality to it. It flickered like a bad projection. The energy blast charged to maximum before flying at her.
Her hand went to her face protectively but before it hit her she was shoved out of the way. Landing on her knees she looked up in time to watch Seth get blasted by the energy and fly into a car. The car tilted over and Seth rolled hitting the ground. His chest was smoking but he lay against the ground not moving.
The Harlequin Library 