Young Writers Society

Flailing like a maniac through the main hall of the Fold Terminal was grounds for getting fired. Ellipse knew this, of course; she knew rules like they were elementary school rivals-turned-crushes. But that was not about to stop her from breaking them in order to preserve her life.

She raced along the terminal floor, dodging patrons left and right. In her wake, pterodactyl-like aliens flapped up a storm, and seething helium floaters strobed their lights.

Yet somehow, when Ellipse threw a glance over her shoulder, she could still spot the boy in the wheelchair. He flew towards her, briefcase discarded and hanging from the mouth of the black gato trailing after him.

“Heck,” she spat. Her boots thudded on the cement floor, sending waves of aches through her ankles. “This is ridiculous.” Then she glanced up and nearly cried in relief.

She had reached a new block of hangars, and a new section of the terminal. She could get out of this mess. With another backward glance, she swerved left and fumbled for the lanyard hanging off her utility belt.

Every block of the terminal had a staff elevator. It was not a real elevator, per say, more like a pod in a vacuum shoot, but it did connect to every other section of the station. When Ellipse finally got a hold on her lanyard, she ducked behind a group of sentient vines and scurried to the elevator.

She held her ID to a chip scanner, and the doors slid open, silent and covert.

“Alrighty,” she muttered, “where should I go?”

She might try the administration block. There, someone could pull up her papers and vouch for her identity. The customs block could handle that too, and if fighting broke out, the guards would provide protection.

But causing problems in customs would lead to serious questions, and that might become a segue into-

“Aha!”

Heck. That was the boy. Ellipse shot into the elevator and smashed her fist against the buttons. She was too late though. The boy slid inside, wheels screeching as he braked, and the doors slid shut.

For a moment, the elevator was quiet. Ellipse slouched against a wall, panting, fist still pressed against the buttons. The boy had crashed his chair into the wall opposite the doors, and his chest heaved. His arms still gripped the wheels of his chair, and his hair was swept back by wind and sweat.

“Eugh,” Ellipse groaned. “You smell disgusting.”

He shot her a look, mouth wide open and eyes pinched in disbelief. “Excuse me? That’s the first thing you say to me?”

“The first thing I said to you was that I was okay,” Ellipse quipped, scrunching her nose. She sniffed and scooted along the wall, pressing herself into the closed doors. “Besides, you cannot accuse me of being rude when you are literally chasing me down and trying to arrest me.”

“You broke laws!”

Ellipse wondered if the boy noticed his chair rolling backwards. “I did not break laws!” she shouted. “I know what the laws are, and I would know if I had broken one.”

“Look, I understand that the colony charters are a bit lax, but you’re still subject to international agreements. You can’t just-

He fell, and the elevator capsule shook with the heavy, metallic bang. Ellipse crouched on the doors, still upright, and the boy had practically slammed the back of his head into the floor. Feeling spiteful, Ellipse wished a concussion on him. She jammed a finger in his face and snarled.

“I do not know who sent you. I do not care. All I know is that they have no legal claim to me. So you can either give up, or I can call security on you.”

The boy’s eyes snapped open. “I will fight you,” he growled.

“You will land on your head in fifteen seconds,” Ellipse replied. She scooted towards what used to be the ceiling and watched as the boy slid across the doors. The wheels of his chair squeaked, and his chin jutted out as his weight shifted onto his neck.

He lifted his head off the doors, eyes wide, and tried to push himself from his chair.

Ellipse clucked her tongue. “Get your head back on the doors,” she snapped. “You are going to break your neck if you fall like that.”

“I’ll probably snap my neck regardless!” the boy yelled. He fidgeted, and his wheelchair tipped, its back starting to peel away from the doors.

“No, you will put your head back where it belongs and follow your wheelchair’s trajectory.” Ellipse crouched on the corner now, testing her weight distribution. “You are going to fall on your front, but that is a lot safer than landing on your skull.”

The boy shut up and followed orders. He let out a quiet grumble and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Relax your gut,” Ellipse advised.

He craned his neck out to shoot her a suspicious glare, and the elevator pod chose that exact moment to shift the direction of its gravity. Of course.

Ellipse leapt up and grabbed the boy out of his chair. She slammed against the doors and tumbled against another wall, and then landed on her butt. The boy’s wheelchair clattered onto the floor (which formerly was the ceiling), seat side down, and the boy ended up with his torso and arms sprawled across Ellipse’s legs.

Groaning, he pushed himself up and took a long, slow look around. Ellipse kicked him off of her legs and stood.

“I am not helping you get back into your chair,” she announced. “Have fun fighting me from the ground.” Then she shoved the wheelchair out of her way and stood in front of the doors, arms crossed and lips pursed.

A moment later, the elevator eased to a stop. Smooth as butter, the doors slid open, and Ellipse strolled out, hands stuffed in the pockets of her coveralls. She even whistled a bright little tune. All around her whirled the chaos of rushing bodies and hurried conversations, and she smiled, smug with the knowledge that she had outsmarted her pursuers.

“Oh no,” the boy growled. “You’re not getting away.” Suddenly his hand wrapped around Ellipse’s ankle. She fished her lanyard from her pocket and tried to tug herself to the scanner, but it was too late. The boy pulled, and she dove straight into a patron.

Somehow, no one in the nearby vicinity cared. A few passersby glanced at the pile of bodies spilling from the elevator and moved to avoid the mess, but the general sense of chaos refused to abate or increase. No one stopped to ask if anyone was hurt, or what in heck the staff was up to in this facility. People merely went on their ways, talking business and uploading e-mails to the cross-fold server to be transmitted at a later time.

“Eugh,” Ellipse grumbled. “What is that smell?” For some reason, she half recognized the stink. Something nearby reeked of salt and frying oil and rotten milk.

The patron who had cushioned her fall deflated, letting out a long, mournful note. Poor thing sounded like a crying cat. From behind, the wheelchair boy muttered about it not being his stench. He would never smell like rotten milk.

“Oh shut up,” Ellipse hollered back. “I did not ask you.”

“I don’t really care who you asked.”

The patron honked, explosive and low and scratchy, like a fog horn, and Ellipse hurried to pick herself up. She might have jabbed a hand in the alien’s gut, but the sooner she was off of them, the better. She managed to get to her feet and deliver a few kicks in the wheelchair boy’s direction before stepping away to get a better look at her victim.

It was the siren she had encountered in the ladies’ room earlier. That explained the smell, at least, though Ellipse could not imagine how the rotten milk part had gotten mixed in. Maybe sirens were lactose-intolerant. Maybe there was a secret cheese factory somewhere in the terminal.

Actually, now that Ellipse thought about it, the gourmet restaurant in the cruise ship terminal probably manufactured some cheeses.

The siren squawked, probably in outrage, and Ellipse tucked away that train of thought. She sang a few awkward notes and watched the boy try to pull himself back into his wheelchair.

“You said you would contact my crew for me!” the siren cried, tone bordering on squeaky. “But you didn’t!”

“I am sorry,” Ellipse tried. “Odd people started chasing after me.”

With a sniff of dissatisfaction, the siren squinted up and wrinkled its seal-like snout. “Like that earthling trying to sit in his wheeley chair?”

Ellipse shrugged. The gesture had passed along to other upright species with uncanny speed, and it was universal now. “Yes?”

“You had trouble losing a pursuer with no legs?”

Evidently, wheels were a difficult concept for aquatic aliens to comprehend. Making a spinning motion with her hands, Ellipse shrugged again and tried to keep her sheepishness from scrunching her face. “Earthlings are strong, and wheels are fast.”

The siren whistled, unconvinced. “Why are you being chased? Is he your spurned special friend?”

Ellipse did not know enough words to respond. She spluttered, feeling her face run hot, and was reminded of how nice it was to have tan skin; even her strongest blushes only tinged her cheeks with subtle, pretty pink. “I am a young earthling!” she managed to sing. “I am not ready for that.”

“Oh.” The siren tipped its snout down, embarrassed. “I did not mean to presume. But you did not answer my question.”

A loud thud broke out from the open elevator, and the boy let out a series of vicious, ultra-naughty curse words. Ellipse would never utter words like that. She deigned not to look back and instead scratched the her neck and formulated a response to the alien.

“Ah, I was tricked by a lot of people when I was very small, and I realized later that I was tricked, right? And so I tried to get out of what I had been tricked into doing.” She jerked a thumb back at the elevator and tried not to stare at a passing set of bright green, feathered aliens hopping along the terminal floor. “He is trying to take me back.”

The boy must have given up on the wheelchair, because he materialized on the ground by Ellipse’s feet, balancing on what little was left of his legs. “Whatever you’re saying about me, I resent it,” he growled, fiddling with something on his belt.

Ellipse ignored him. “So that is what is happening, honorable siren.”

For a moment, the siren just stared, caught off guard by an unknown something. It blinked its shimmery black eyes, eyelids opening and closing like sliding glass doors. And then it burst into a series of trills and clicks, babbled nonsense shooting out rapidfire. A healthy, emerald green blush airbrushed the gill slits lining the side of its head, and it slapped its tail against the ground at a tempo that reminded Ellipse of applause.

“Are you okay?” she sang.

“Oh, I am wonderful.” The siren let out a few more clicks, and a nearby collection of furry, raptor-shaped aliens chattered at each other, perhaps confusing the clicking with their own language. “I have never been called honorable before. Truthfully, I am also young. You can just call me a uh… a boy, or whatever.”

Thank goodness. Ellipse hated singing siren honorifics; they all included a tritone, and she messed up the interval more often than not. Letting out a sigh of relief, Ellipse thrust out her leg to kick wheelchair boy over. She missed, unfortunately.

“Now then, since you are clearly not in the wrong, maybe we could leave this earthling boy and go find my crew?”

“Oh, yes. I would be happy to help you,” Ellipse sang. She grinned stepped forward, ready to leave the whole mess behind and get on with her life.

Then she caught a glimpse of a night-black gato with a briefcase in its mouth, and she froze. Behind her, something buzzed and crackled. The air was electric. She felt a whoosh of air and the ghostly presence of something placed too close to the back of her knee.

“I wouldn’t move, if I were you.” Oh, so now wheelchair boy’s voice chose to be low. He actually sounded intimidating.

The siren tilted his head and blinked. “You have a tiny light-tree spear pointed at you,” he remarked.

Thank you for pointing out the obvious, small siren. Ellipse clenched her jaw and pasted on her best fake smile. She was dead.

“My parents are just about here. Are you sure you can outmaneuver all three of us? Your escape routes are all gone now.”

Also, nice to know that wheelchair boy had gato parents. What kind of sci-fi Jungle Book coincidence must have transpired, Ellipse did not want to know. She bent over backwards a little, setting her hands on her hips and pretending to be casual about her stretching. “Sure,” she said, “and then you will take me in, and the people who want Elliott Bei will be very confused, because I am not who they are looking for.”

The spear inched closer, and Ellipse gulped. “You and your family will be blacklisted because you arrested an innocent,” she continued, “and everything will suck.”

The boy flicked his wrist, faking a shot at her. Maybe trying to throw him for a loop was the wrong solution. Gritting her teeth, Ellipse surveyed the crowd as it pulsed all around her. The black gato slunk towards her from the right, prehensile tails raised and ready for action. On the left, halfway hidden behind a group of earthling tourists in tacky space clothing, crouched wheelchair boy’s other parent.

“This is not how I imagined meeting someone’s parents for the first time,” she remarked. Ellipse hated herself immediately for allowing that comment to slip out of her mouth. She grimaced and tensed her thighs so she wouldn’t shift onto her toes.

“That sounds real intelligent,” wheelchair boy deadpanned.

“I know when I am being stupid,” Ellipse snapped. She wrinkled her nose and tried examining the scene again. The gato had moved closer. Maybe they would push her into the elevator and head for a quieter block of the terminal to finish the arrest. No one could get away with true violence with so many people around.

Across the hall, maybe a hundred meters away, stood a lone security guard. She blew a bubble of neon blue chewing gum and scrolled through her phone, and Ellipse decided the lady would be most unhelpful. Yelling for help might be Ellipse’s easiest course of action, but she hated dealing with the aftermath of official incidents.

She glanced down at the siren, who swiveled his head around furiously, a puzzled frown pulling at the ends of his snout. Then, he locked his gaze back on Ellipse and opened his mouth to sing.

“Proposition. Blink three times to say yes.”

Ellipse batted her eyelids and battled the desire to spin around and sneer at the boy keeping her hostage.

The siren looked away. “We wait for the parents. When they appear, I will sing a note to disorient them. You take out the boy, put me in his wheelchair, and we go to my crew.”

Though she wanted to ask what would happen after that, Ellipse blinked three times. Just getting away temporarily would be a godsend.