Page 39 of Alien in the Attic

Carmen opened her eyes. Leaving her head right where it was, she looked up at her sister. She felt Arccoo turn his attention from the spot on the floor he’d been studying to peer at her as well.

“Elena and I were talking and think we might have figured out our next steps.” She walked further into the room as Elena came in behind her.

“Your brother always has his guards with him. Right?” Elena asked.

“To protect him, yes,” Arccoo answered.

“Yeah, I know how guards work,” Elena said.

Carmen shot her a look full of daggers. It was her eldest-sister superpower.

Elena seemed to have noticed the dirty look and waved it away. “How do the guards communicate with each other?” she asked. “There has to be a centralized communication system. Right?”

“Yes,” Arccoo said, seemingly nonplussed by Elena’s previous bluntness. “They have their own comms on a separate frequency to ensure clear communications at all times. Why do you ask?”

“If you sit me down in front of one of your computers long enough, I bet I could hack my way into that frequency and track their location,” Elena explained, pointing her finger into her palm emphatically.

Not to be outdone in terms of exaggerated speech, Sofia hopped half a foot forward and slammed her left fist into her right palm. “Then we swoop in andbashthat motherfucker—bam!”

Carmen sat up straight. “What?” she asked. “You want the four of us to fight a prince and a bunch of royal guards? Are you space-crazy?”

“What other choice do we have?” Sofia asked. “Arccoo’s people aren’t about to approve any official action. Right?”

“That appears to be so,” Arccoo said, some of that earlier pain finding its way back into his expression.

“Then we go rogue!” Sofia exclaimed. “Stop his ass before he has a chance to do any real damage.”

Assuming Arccoo would never agree to this and wanting to save him his breath, she opened her mouth to explain why this was a bad idea. To her shock, the prince spoke first.

“Okay,” he said. He rose from the bed. “But tracking the guards isn’t going to work. They have all kinds of backup systems and firewalls designed to prevent that exact thing from happening. You’re going to have to find a way to track the parantaa. Can you do that?”

Elena pinched her chin as she thought. “Yeah,” she said. “If he figures out a way to use it, there’s bound to be a unique energy spike I’ll be able to read. It’s going to take some time, though.”

“I can get you whatever you need,” Arccoo said. “Chances are that Rocco hasn’t figured out how to use it yet. He may not for a few days yet. That should buy you the time required.”

“Got it.” Elena nodded.

“Sweet!” Sofia cheered, pumping a fist in the air.

Arccoo held out his hand to Carmen. “In the meantime, why don’t we annoy some people by taking a stroll through the public square?”

The next several days were not easy. As Elena did her best to figure out a way to make Thryal technology bend to her will, the process was more difficult than she’d expected. Carmen and Sofia made sure to give her as much space as she needed to get into her hyper-focused state and work some old Flores tech magic on it.

When they were able to convince her to take a break in order to bathe and eat, the sisters found themselves falling into old routines, playing the kinds of games they hadn’t since childhood. Using their time together, they strengthened that familial bond that all the insanity of their time on Thryal threatened to devour. It was a titanium lining in the hurricane of madness around them. If nothing else, Carmen was grateful for that.

Arccoo’s plan to “annoy” some people was working all too well. He explained that he wanted to double down on the concept that leading by example was the only way to make any real progress. “That’s what marginalized groups on Earth do,” he reasoned. “By being as loud and proud as possible, you normalize the margins.”

In Carmen’s view, he failed to recognize the fact that parading in front of bigots could be extremely dangerous. She tried to make him see that these kinds of movements needed to be organized. Not only would having a larger group of people amplify the message they were trying to send, but it helped to ensure safety. Attacking three people who look different is easy. Attacking three thousand is much harder.

They discussed this over dinner one night in his private dining room.

“No one will listen,” he replied before sipping his drink. He set down his glass. “We have to show them.”

“I think you might be letting your disappointment in your father cloud your thinking a bit,” she said. “Some people here are accepting us. Just yesterday, a woman and her child came up to me and Sofia in the library and said how sorry she was for the way we were being treated. She told us more agree. They’re just scared to come out.”

“Then it’s working,” Arccoo said, beaming with self-satisfaction. “Our walks, trips to the theater and other public events, they’re having an effect.”

Carmen knew he wasn’t listening. He was picking up on the points that he wanted to hear, rather than taking in the message she was trying to impart. She plowed ahead.

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