Young Writers Society

Being asked a question gave Nadira just enough of a thing to focus on for her to regain her ability to act. She gave a nod in response to the second question.

"I was," she confirmed. "But we separated shortly after you left. Charlie accidentally spilled her drink on my dress, and we were heading towards the bathroom to clean it up when the lights went off."

As she spoke, she gestures with a flick of her hand at her stained dress for emphasis.

But before she could say anymore, Codix interrupted.

"We?" he repeated.

Charlie paled, and her grip on Nadira's back tightened ever so slightly. "I saw Thytes outside with Télos," she whispered. "Mal was out there with the man with wings. Tannis is in here....But I never saw Enide..."

"En-who?" Codix repeated, scooting instinctively closer to Nadira. She could feel him pressing up against her side. "Wait, if you didn't see her-"

"-then Enide is here," Nadira quietly completed.

"...I think Enide's sober," Charlie whispered.

The three slowly looked at each other.

"Shit," Codix said, not even bothering to be quiet.

Tannis shook his head. So, Enide was hiding - that wasn't his problem.

He pointed to Nadira. "Who's this fellow, then? Also, is yer name Nadira? Charlie here said yer names, and ya don't look like a Codix. I coulda sworn I heard ya say Emma at the table. Was I wrong 'bout that?"

The three all stiffened, Codix and Charlie's eyes widening in horror as Nadira tried to look relatively unfazed. He wasn't as drunk as they had thought - he had heard what Charlie said when she first saw him in the stall.

They all exchanged a look.

"What do we do?" Codix whispered. He was practically clinging to Nadira now, but she didn't try to pry him off - if anything, she was returning the action by pulling him closer.

Charlie looked from her friends to Tannis.

The goal was to keep Nadira's true identity a secret. But they couldn't anymore after her mistake, and it was only a matter of time before Enide or Tannis decided to look for "John". Charlie bit her lip. What were they supposed to say? They could try coming up with another lie, but Charlie didn't want to keep lying to someone who seemed like a good person.

"Tannis knows Thytes," Charlie hesitantly said. "I think they get along. So...So maybe we can just say the truth."

Nadira gave a nod. "We have to," she agreed.

"Why?" Codix whispered back.

"We're talking about this right in front of Tannis," Nadira pointed out, "and Enide just heard the entire conversation from wherever she's hiding."

Codix took a deep breath and let it out as a very loud, heavy sigh. He looked as nervous as she felt - and probably looked - but there wasn't anything else they could do.

He and Charlie both looked over at Nadira.

She gave a small nod as she turned back to Tannis.

"My real name is Nadira," she confirmed. "Emma was an alias."

Codix guiltily raised his free hand up. "I'm John," he admitted. "My real name is actually Codix, but I was also using a fake one. Nadira and I were trying to get information without people recognizing me, but..." He gestured down at himself. "It didn't go as planned."

"Nadira and Codix are my best friends," Charlie added, knowing that Tannis and Enide (wherever she was) were probably wondering why she was so friendly with both of them. "They didn't know I was going to be here, and I didn't know they were going to be here."

She hesitated.

"...Also, Nadira is a robot and Codix is a shapeshifting alien," she quietly finished.

Flynn looked up at the offered help, shifting Carter's head in his lap to make room for the being starting to examine him. They had questioned about Carter's state, but Flynn didn't know how to answer.

"It's...uh some sort of shock. He's been shaking like someone connected a car battery to him and I've only seen it happen a few times before."

Flynn ran his hands through Carter's hair once again, hoping his friend would come out of it soon. The last time Carter had an attack like this he woke up ten minutes later and just ate a bag of tortilla chips before passing out for another thirty.



Carter was wandering around in his mind.

There was no better term for the exploration of answers and memories of past attacks. Once he woke up from this god damn mess, he'd have to take Flynn to go and investigate the boiler room. Something happened with the engine to send enough electricity to throw him into shock.

Suddenly people were talking.

Carter pulled the scene into focus and tried to listen to the 'help' that Flynn had found.

Kneeling down next to the unconscious man, Mal searched through his own pockets and pulled out a vial. "This has happened before? Was it always for the same reason?" the lion said, pressing a palm against the unconscious man's forehead and closing his eyes. A little light flickered between the paw and the man, but faded out just as quickly.

"No signs of internal damage," said Mal, looking up at the unconscious man's friend. "He's convulsing, but I've seen worse seizures. Do you want me to use the smelling salts?" He gestured to the vial in his other paw. "Do you know if that might not help?"



Tannis stared up at the three. "A what and a what?" he said eventually, blinking a few times to see if he could notice anything that would tell him what a robot and an alien were. His hearing was perfectly fine, but his eyesight was just blurry enough to mask all their faces. Codix was some kind of gray blob (was that just a mask and a suit in the same color?), and he recognized the other two from what he could remember of their outfits. Oh, and Nadira still had that mass on her leg, but he couldn't pick out what it was.

"That seems like an exercise in poor coordination," came a voice from behind the three. Tannis watched as the red blob that was Enide walked up to them, slipping her daggers back into her sleeves. "But, unless the three of you are exceptional liars, I have no reason to disagree with your story. And, given the quality of your lies, I find that, somewhat unlikely. So, what are your motivations? Would you like any help?"

"An alien and a robot," Charlie repeated. She should have realized Tannis would have no idea what she was talking about - some of the others she had met were like that, too. "An alien is someone from another planet, and a robot is a person made of metal."

Codix, meanwhile, had turned to Enide as she entered the stall. "We're trying to find information on the Sixens and Dai," he said. Charlie tore her gaze away from Tannis and stared at him. Moments like these always impressed her - when he switched from bumbling and awkward to serious and professional. It made her wonder what he would have been like if he had ever taken the throne. "There's been a war going on between them for years, and we were trying to find out information about their current leaders and the war itself."

Nadira, Codix and Charlie shared a look.

"Help would be useful," Nadira said.

"But before we can get more information, we need to find a new body for Nadira," Charlie added.

"No," Avi said and knelt beside the colourful man and Carter. He hesitated, eyeing the little white lion that appeared beside them and then knelt down. Avi watched the lion for a moment as he tended to Carter and then pulled out what appeared to be a little vial. "Smelling Salts?" Avi frowned. "Why don't I just ask him?"

With that, he laid his bare hand on Carter's neck and closed his eyes. He kept up the calmness but now he also tried to speak to the unconscious man. Carter? he asked, tilting his head and opening his eyes to focus on the man's face. Can you hear me?

* * *

Jacek was buffeted by the crowd in all the chaos and quickly lost sight of Avi. He swore loudly and then was thrown into a warm, solid body. He glanced up into the dark grey eyes of a tall, dark-haired man dressed in black and grey. Beside him was a woman with eerie amethyst eyes and a skirt that looked like it was made to imitate a galaxy. Jacek blinked.

"My apologies," he said and the man shook his head, so he snapped his mouth shut. There was a strange sense of hunger radiating from the both of them, but it came to him stronger from the woman. He didn't like it.

"No need," the man said and then glanced to the woman. "Lark, can you see anyone we know? Or anything we should avoid?"

The woman turned to look out over the blue-purple lit room. "There's something blocking the west exit, but I'm not sure what it is. The south exit is locked, if the group of confused party-goers in front of it are anything to go by. The east one seems to be on fire and the north one is clear."

"North it is," the man said and grabbed his arm. "Let's go."

Jacek flinched back, free hand going to the hilt of his short-sword. He was supposed to be looking after Avi! He couldn't just leave! "But--"

"Shut up," the woman--Lark--growled, and flashed a sneer at him. Jacek stared at the way her eyes turned red and she suddenly had fangs. Well, shit... She swept aside the skirt of her dress to reveal a slit right up past her hip and withdrew a dagger from the sheath on her thigh. She pointed it at him. "Just keep moving."

"I need to find the person I was with--"

"Find them later," the man said and he dragged Jacek off into the panicking crowd, Lark following after them.

"Aren't we all aliens?" Tannis said. "Wasn't the whole point of this thing is that we're from other worlds?"

Enide looked over at Codix. "I believe you would have to see him to understand what they are talking about, Tannis," she said, staring Codix up and down. Not the weirdest species she'd ever seen, nor anything like the dead or rotting creatures she'd come across, but certainly something she wasn't familiar with. "Also, I am not exactly sure how I could procure another metal body, even in the midst of whatever chaos is underway outside. Gathering intelligence is certainly in my repertoire; I cannot say the same for theft. Could you not fix this one?"

Codix shook his head.

"I don't have the parts to," he said, "or the time. Nadira's wires snapped in a place that's hard to get to."

"In most cases like this, I would use another body while Codix fixed up the damaged one," Nadira further explained. She tried to move her dress so it covered more of the wound, but it was to no avail. "It's faster for us to find one of the robots here and use that as a body for me."

"Plus, Nadira can be herself again," Charlie pointed out.


While Télos doubted that the woman with the creepy red eyes and fangs and her friend were responsible for what had happened, they were in the process of kidnapping and/or threatening someone with a dagger. Knowing it was a chance for his sword to finally be useful, and to see if they were somehow involved, Télos managed to wiggle free from Thytes's grip.

"I'm going over to them," he said, gesturing at the trio with his sword. "You can come, too, but it might get a little dangerous."

He didn't know how used to fighting Thytes was, and he didn't know if things were really going to get all that dangerous. But he had to play things safe, especially when he had other guests to protect if the confrontation went downhill.

He approached the trio, stopping when he got in front of the man dragging the kidnapee along. He used the tip of his sword to knock the dagger's blade down towards the ground.

"Could we find such a body?" Enide said, gesturing to Nadira. "She looks and acts remarkably human, and I would rather that we not attack some poor fellow who either does not have the capacity to swap bodies, or would rather not like it."



Hng - it might not have been safe around Télos, but it was far more dangerous anywhere else. So, taking a deep breath, Thytes followed the god, wading through the still swarming crowd and trying not to misstep (when he found the time, he'd have to take those heels off).

When he reached the couple dragging another man towards one of the exits, the lion drew his own sword. "And what might be happening here?" he said, fixating on the lady and her fangs. Not exactly something he wanted to see a human have, but he knew his were bigger and stronger.

The three stared at Enide.

It was Charlie who understood what she meant first, though Codix and Nadira quickly followed. The human of the trio frantically shook her head, only to stop when she realized that Enide would likely misinterpret it based on the context of the conversation.

"She's not going to steal someone else's body!" Charlie hurriedly exclaimed. Nadira and Codix gave slightly less worried nods in agreement. "Nadira's the way she is because of her programming, not her body - so she doesn't need to look human."

"She's actually more sixen than human," Codix added. "I was the one who made her - I can improvise."

"Functions like these should have some basic robots in use," Nadira said. She glanced back in the direction of the bathroom door. "We just need to find one that we can somehow connect with my current body. Once we do, Codix can help transfer me from this body to that one."

"I was not attempting to argue that her 'programming,' as you put it, would equate to her body," Enide said. "I was asking if the other robots in the vicinity had similar programming, though, considering how you referred to them as 'basic' robots, I suspect not."

Lark and Arden stopped short, eyeing the strange man dressed in gold before him. Lark lowered the dagger a little more and raised an eyebrow. "And who are you?" she asked, casting Arden a glance. "We're just taking our friend for a little walk and this?" She waggled the blade. "This is for protection. In case you haven't notice, there seems to be a little chaos going on with the ship?"

* * *

Jacek yanked against the hold on his arm, glancing towards the lion-man who was accompanying him. He didn't want to go with the woman who was a well of deep hunger, and he wanted to be free of the man who had a tight grip on his arm. Tight enough to bruise, if he wasn't careful about it. Jacek glanced away, out into the crowd but he still couldn't catch sight of Avi or any of the others. All he got was a kind of feedback loop from the man of stop struggling, great not another interruption and god damn it, Lark, stop antagonizing the locals that he couldn't block out.

"Most don't," Codix confirmed. "There might be other guests like her, but the ones on the ship itself should be like actual people - they should just be completing simple tasks."


"I'm Télos - Minecraftia's god of gold and ruler of the End." He dropped off the end of his usual introduction; he wasn't trying to be friendly. He also didn't introduce Thytes - he wasn't sure if the lion would want that information getting spread.

"I do see the need for protection," Télos continued, gesturing down at his own blade for emphasis. "But I saw where you were pointing that dagger, and it looks like you're kidnapping someone - especially with how tightly he's-" He gestured at the man she was with. "-holding onto him so tightly."

"Could we even find such a robot in the ballroom?" Enide said. "I would imagine that whoever is hosting these festivities would not display creations with such simplistic behavior before an audience. That also raises the question of whether or not we could leave the ballroom at all."



Thytes nodded his head. "It hardly looks like protective behavior," he said, reaching an arm out to the captive. "I would rather not like to resort to violence, but this is a particularly disrespectful way to treat another guest."