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abronzeagegod · 5 months

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Untitled YA Novel Chapter 8: The Gang’s All Here

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3:19 PM local time

Chicago, Algonquin State, United States of America

“You really expect us to get on a plane with you?” Justin asked Mister Collins.

“When you put it like that it sounds like a terrible idea,” the teacher responded. “But you’re out of good choices. I’ve quit my job to take up the job offer I got from my old employer at Untouched Horizons. Your father has been detained by a yet unidentified government agency. There is something much much bigger going on than just us.”

“I still don’t care for this,” Justin muttered, “this whole thing is too much.”

“I’m with you,” Mike said. “But at least Mister Collins is someone we know, and he saved you from the Feds that tried to arrest you.”

“Will you answer my questions?” Justin asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you a spy?” Justin yelled over the start up of the engines, but didn’t move to get on the small plane.

“Something of the sort,” Mister Collins yelled back with a smile as he climbed into the plane.

“Hell yes,” Mike said, wide eyed and excited. “This might be the best.”

Justin rolled his eyes. He couldn’t think of anything else to do. This might just be an adventure. Like in the movies.

“You don’t have to come, Mike,” Justin said quietly, lamely. Of course he wanted Mike to come with, he was his best friend, his only friend. But this was starting to seem extremely big. Bigger than was fair to put his friend through.

“Justin. You don’t mean that,” Mike commented. “You’re my best friend, and if you think for a second I’m not coming with you to help you out of whatever problems you’ve got, then you don’t know me as well as you think.”

Justin smiled at his friend.

“Besides, if you think that I’m missing out on finding out what kind of super spy Mister Collins is and what fun gadgets he’s got on his super plane, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Justin laughed, probably for the first time in the last day or two.

“Gentlemen,” Mister Collins called from the plane, “we really should be going.”

The two boys shared a brief look before running up and climbing aboard the plane.

Much to Mike’s disappointment, the plane was not filled with gadgets or super secret high tech spy things. It just seemed to be a relatively small, private plane.

“At least the snacks are good,” Mike muttered as he dove into a package of chocolate cookies with relish.

Once the plane had taken off and was cruising, Mister Collins returned from the cockpit.

“Our pilot has everything well in hand,” he said as he took a seat across from the boys. “Now, I assume you have lots of questions so I will explain what I can now, and let you ask away, as I’m sure you’ll find some questions will be answered. Try not to fall asleep during this lecture, Mister Ogden.”

Justin smirked at Mike getting called out.

“We are currently heading towards Si Yátz.”

“Really?” The zlilfian island?” Justin asked, amazing. They almost never let humans on the island, but he’s seen some pictures and stuff from documentaries and things.

“Yes, that is where Untouched Horizons is based and where we will get more concrete answers and assistance.”

Mike looked excitedly at Justin as he mouthed, “Wow!”

Justin was skeptical. “I thought that they were picky about what humans could visit the island. And I don’t have a passport.”

Mister Collins nodded. “You are correct. My zlilfian friends have made a few exceptions in the past and as valuable witnesses, the two of you are given temporary leave to set foot on the island. As for the passport thing, I think the number of laws we’ve broken already not having a passport is the least of our worries.”

“What about you?” Justin asked.

“Oh, I’ve been on Si Yátz many times. You see, for most of my youth I was something of an asset for Untouched Horizons. Think of them as the zlilfian equivalent of the CIA.”

“I knew it!” Mike yelled out. “You are a spy!”

“Of a kind,” Mister Collins said with a sly little smile. “I wasn’t concerned with national security secrets or military movements or defense secrets. Untouched Horizons is much more concerned with something they only know as The Silence.”

Justin shuddered. There was something about how Mister Collins said those last two words that made him uncomfortable. “Is that what’s at my house?”

Mister Collins nodded slowly. “This is a very dangerous secret so I trust you will keep this to yourselves.”

Justin and Mike nodded eagerly, waiting for more information.

“You see, in the zlilfian language the prefix ‘si’ means new. So…” Mister Collins said in that teacherly way to try and encourage his students to complete the thought.

“So Si Yátz means “New Yatz” or whatever. This isn’t their first home,” Justin answered.

“Yes, very good, Mister Oswada. Si Yátz is their second home, as The Silence destroyed their first home. The zlilfians that are alive today are the descendants of the refugees that escaped Yatz.”

“Where is Yatz?” Mike asked. “What happened there?”

Mister Collins leaned back in his chair. “I honestly don’t know. I was never much of a historical scholar, and there are some secrets that the zlilfians guard very dearly. I suspect that the island sank or was otherwise destroyed.”

Mike nodded. “I bet it was Atlantis. Or maybe that’s why the Bermuda Triangle exists.”

Justin sighed, closed his eyes, and then shook his head. Mike was a great friend, but sometimes the ideas he has are… interesting.

“It is very possible,” Mister Collins said in that same tone of voice that was teacher-speak for ‘I don’t want to discourage your thoughts and opinions but that was also a very dumb thing that you just said and definitely isn’t the case’. “Anyways, Untouched Horizons is an extremely old Great House of Si Yátz, and while every House has a specialty, usually in tending to one of the unique crops or animal life on the island, Untouched Horizons specializes in scouting and seeking out their old enemy. I was an operator for them through much of the sixties and seventies, as well as a liaison for most of the eighties.”

“What did you do?” Mike asked excitedly.

“A little bit of this and that,” Mister Collins told them as he absentmindedly rubbed the scars on his face. “I’m sure those activities are still liable to get me shot if the wrong people heard about them.”

Mike went wide eyed and looked at Justin with another “wow!” expression.

“I’m sure you’ve led a fascinating life and all,” Justin said, a little unfairly, but he did have bigger concerns. “But what does this have to do with me and why is this at my house?”

Mister Collins’ expression darkened. “I wish I had an answer for you Justin. But I do not know. This is the first active move from The Silence, as far as I’m aware. As for why you? That is another mystery. I don’t know what makes you, or your house special. I don’t know what agency has claimed jurisdiction over the area or why it resulted in the arrest of your father. The one thing I do know is that Untouched Horizons will have more answers, and you will be safe there.”

Justin nodded and slipped into a contemplative silence.

Mike suddenly realized something and spoke up. “What about my mom? And school? We’re all missing.”

“An excellent question. As for your mother, we have told her that the two of you were winners on a school trip as the previous winners came down sick. You had to leave right after school to make it on time. Something about a college scholar summit that is offering scholarships to any college in the country.”

“Yeah, mom will love that,” Mike responded.

“As for me, well, teaching just isn’t for me, so I quit. It’s not the first time I’ve left a job suddenly. But for you Mister Oswada, we shall have to construct something when we know exactly what we are dealing with. For now, I’d sit back and try to relax. The flight is long and you’ll find that in this line of work there’s little rest to be found, so you should savor it when you can.”

The flight over Si Yátz was amazing for the two boys who never had a chance to see the island in person before. It was almost bowl shaped, with large cliffs surrounding the entire island that were easily 40 feet straight up to a low wall that surrounded the entire island, except for two key positions that functioned as ports.

They flew over the lush, large, pristine jungle full of tall, broad trees with strange shapes and fruits growing on them, some big and bright enough to be spotted from the plane. They spotted a few city lights but the one that they flew into seemed pretty average sized. But it was extremely off putting to see a city made almost entirely of wood. The buildings weren’t as tall as they were in the cities the human boys were familiar with. And the architecture was strange, slightly curved and soft angles everywhere instead of corners and squares. It looked strange and alien but exciting.

The plane landed at a small runway and they were greeted almost immediately by a small squad of zlilfians. They didn’t seem to be noticeably armed, but Justin was still wary. He’d seen a few zlilfians in real life here or there, but never so up close.

Mister Collins went to move off the plane first. “You boys better stay here for the moment. And be polite. That’s especially applicable here, but it’s also good life advice.”

Their now former teacher went outside and Mike and Justin tried to listen in, but apparently their teacher had a firm grasp of the zlilfian language and spoke in the strange tongue that neither boy understood.

“Alright,” Mister Collins called after a few moments, “everyone off the plane. Unless you’d rather back out. This plane is immediately bound back home so this is your last chance to duck out.”

Neither boy moved back towards the plane.

“Right, well, follow me and don’t wander off or touch anything,” Mister Collins warned. “We are guests here, so don’t anger our hosts by being rude.”

Justin and Mike were led through the zlilfian complex, it was strange to see a modern building, a modern city, made out of so much wood. It made everything feel darker in the rapidly approaching night. There were plenty of windows and warm lighting, but the pervasive, dark woods that made up so many of the structures made Justin and Mike instinctively keep quiet and to themselves more so than they would have usually.

There was something off putting about the architecture too. There were so many more curves and gentle slopes to everything, rarely a hard corner or a right angle. Which was both incredibly detailed and surely difficult to craft out of wood. But it gave everything around the humans a vaguely alien feel. Like they had been transported to an entirely different world.

It was mildly unsettling, especially for their first visit.

All three humans were deposited in a long room that felt like any given conference room in any number of buildings back in the human world. Corners and right angles offered just as much comfort as the human chairs did.

“My friend Alt should be here soon to meet with us,” Mister Collins said as he took the closest seat and sat down.

Sure enough, not even two minutes later, in walked two zlilfians. One a few inches taller than the other, but both of them were short compared to Justin, and tiny compared to Mike. The two sets of eyes, the smaller compound ones sitting above the big, wide binocular eyes looked at the human visitors. Each had the typical features of a zlilfian, the eyes, the antennae, and the pincer-like mandibles around their mouths that Justin dimly remembered learning they used to open a variety of hard nuts and fruits.

The black and yellow coloring was vastly different, the taller had a more even spread and seemed to be losing some of the luster of the color, while the shorter one had a big splash of color right in the middle of their face.

“Leonard!” said the taller of the two zlilfians. His English was good, better than Justin would have expected.

Mister Collins, Leonard, stood up and greeted his friend, shaking his hand vigorously. “Alt! My friend! It’s been too long.”

“How is the family? How is Kieth?”

“He’s big into gardening now, but I keep telling him it’s fall in the Midwest, I don’t know why he bothers. I’m sure he’s disappointed right now that I took up the old job, but I bet he isn’t surprised.” He smiled and then cleared his throat. “Alt, these are my students Justin and Mike. I believe you spoke to Justin on the phone briefly.”

“Hello gentlemen,” Alt said as he moved closer to shake the hands of the slightly stunned boys. They couldn’t help but notice and feel the fine hair all over the zlilfian’s body and hands. “I am Alt of House Untouched Horizons. And this is Hira of House Kaiyantsh.”

The other zlilfian, Hira, nodded politely at the humans but she didn’t speak.

“Everyone grab a seat,” Alt said after a moment of awkward quiet. “And then Mister Justin can tell us his story.”

“Why am I here?” Hira asked, Alt in her native language. “What does this have to do with finding Rafe?”

“I know you can speak English, so please, do not exclude our guests,” Alt said, quietly. “You are here because you are involved too. And I want everyone in the same room, to share their stories and set the record straight. I thought it would be polite to let our guests go first.”

Hira shrank back slightly, chastised. She didn’t want to be rude, she just wanted to do something, she didn’t want to sit and talk about doing things or, even worse, go over what happened to her, again.

Alt and Hira sat on a pair of strangely shaped stools, Justin assumed it was so that they could sit and not crush their wings or sit on their stingers. He was deeply curious about the stingers and wanted to ask but it seemed rude and how was he to bring that up in conversation.

He sat in one of the regular human shaped chairs, and once again told his story.

There were no questions or interruptions by anyone, not counting the occasional color commentary provided courtesy of Mike. That was until he got to the part of where he got home to find government agents at his house.

As he was telling the story, Hira suddenly interrupted. “Looked like, the man in the beard.” Justin looked at her with a perplexed expression. “Forgive me. The man with the beard, what did he look like?” Her brain was still trying to think and speak in zlilfian. She remembered the words in English but not in the right order for the language.

“He was tall. Well built. I mean he was in shape, as far as I could tell. Middle aged, possibly late forties. Close kept beard. Hair was on the shorter side and starting to go a bit gray. I only got a good look at him for a split second.”

“That man! He was the one I saw!”

Alt raised a hand, holding off Hira’s story. “Please. Hold for just a moment, we will get to your story soon. And I don’t want to start concocting theories before I have the whole pattern in front of me.”

Hira went quiet, her wings shaking slightly in annoyance.

Justin’s story wrapped up shortly thereafter.

“A few quick questions before we move on. Did you notice any growing Silence spots in your home before it took over your whole house?” Alt asked.

Justin shook his head. “If it was there it was too small to really notice. When I went to bed that night it was normal. I know because my neighbor’s girlfriend left at almost midnight and her music is always really loud in her car. Wakes me up almost every time.”

Alt nodded. He didn’t seem to be taking any notes but he had a look and feel about him that said he was remembering every single thing that was said.

“One last question for you. What does your father do as an occupation?”

Justin took a second to respond. It wasn’t what he expected to be asked. “He’s a professor at one of the colleges downtown. He teaches marine biology and ocean sciences.”

Alt nodded. “Thank you.” After a moment’s pause to share a look with Mister Collins, Alt turned to Hira, “if you can please share your story with us.”

Hira stood up and talked as she paced. She blazed through her story without interruption. It took Mike and Justin a minute to get used to Hira’s speech pattern. She had a habit of slipping into a weird sentence structure that made it hard for them to follow sometimes. But once they got used to it, her story was easier to follow.

Mike looked like he had a million questions to ask besides the standard language barrier things, but Justin kicked him under the table.

Alt nodded again when Hira finished her story. This time he stood up and retrieved two small files that he handed to Justin and Hira.

“Inside you’ll see a small photo array of different men that we feel meet your shared description. I would like you to take a moment and look them over carefully and select the one you think is the man you saw. If you don’t see him, please, do not select someone who is close. Only if you see him. Circle the one and then hand the folder back. Please do not say anything out loud, as I would like this test to be as unbiased as possible.”

Justin nodded and opened the file folder, his hands were suddenly shaking and nervous. In the folder were six pictures of various middle aged bearded men. They all looked fairly similar. But one of them looked extremely familiar and he knew exactly why. The fifth photo in the array was the man calling the shots at his house.

Hira looked over the array and picked out her answer in only a few seconds.

The two handed their sheets back to Alt who looked them over and let out a strange, low hum, that perplexed Justin and Mike but Hira and Mister Collins knew meant concern and anxiety.

“There can be little doubt now,” Alt said. “You picked the same man, who is a noted former CIA operative and something of a zealot against zlilfians.” He stood up and pressed a button on a small remote that activated a projector. The picture of the man Justin and Hira picked out was projected on the wall. Although the picture was from the man about five or six years ago.

“This is Bradford Frost,” Alt continued. “He was in the CIA for almost two decades. He joined the army when he was 17, lying on his enlistment forms. He has been in conflict with Untouched Horizons and all zlilfians basically ever since then. We have been trying to understand the source of his hatred, but there’s only so much we can do. He suddenly retired from the intelligence community and we lost all tabs on him three years ago. We thought he might have been recruited into an even more secret agency, but we finally found him when he attacked our island a few days ago.”

Mike raised his hand tentatively. “Mister Alt?” he asked before voicing his question. “Does this guy have like… mind control powers or something?”

“We don’t know. Our information on what the Silence was like before is scarce. We suspect that he must. As there is little reason for shrar Rafe to join him.”

“Well that’s concerning,” Mike said simply.

i have a kofi

find me on pillowfort

#untitled ya novel #the gangs all here!#this is the end of part one!#my fiction

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