Dropout: Chapter 1 Preview

Hi everyone! Dropout is releasing in a little under 2 weeks, so we thought we would give you a sneak peek of Chapter 1! Hope you enjoy it and it gets you a little more excited for the next book in the series. 

 

 Chapter 1

Pain exploded in my face, jolting my stunned mind back into awareness. A crack like thunder followed it as my cheek fractured from the mighty blow. The sound reverberated in my head, echoing the waves of agony. My imagination supplied flashbacks of threats to fill the darkness. The Humanist’s fists, punching through my helmet’s shattered faceplate. Monsters claws and jaws with tearing teeth. My breath caught and my heart trembled as my body tried to panic.

I’d trained for months for just such situations, and that preparation didn’t fail me now. I threw out my hands and summoned purple power. Two fields of force crackled in the darkness as I bent my dazed mind toward focus. Was I protecting my team? My students? Where were they relative to me and my attacker?

A pair of long, distorted forms hovered in the darkness, then withdrew like serpents preparing to strike. A pair? No, I could only summon a single shield, so unless Pavise had made the second, I was seeing double.

By force of habit in a crisis, I reached out to Pavise. My shield-bot companion could increase my processing speed and give me more subjective time. My concentration faltered; I was just too dazed to manage it. He must be close, though, or my powers would have failed altogether.

As if on cue, Pavise spoke inside my mind. “I’m coming, sir. Shall I alert the others of your plight?”

His voice reassured me, but I had no attention left to spare for him.

I took stock of my condition. Aside from my cheek, my nose was sore and swollen. The metallic tang of blood coated my tongue. Worse yet, somebody had shivved me, if the sharp pain in my back could be believed. That threat, at least, was lessened by the fact that I’d been knocked on my back by whoever or whatever was attacking me.

My Health bar was green, I noticed, nearly full. What the hell? How was that possible, when I’d been concussed enough to blank out the early fight? Even more confusing was the lack of a follow-up attack. I forced my eyes to focus until only a single shield remained, then zeroed in on my attacker.

It was a foot. A dainty, naked foot I knew quite well. I had massaged it quite a lot in recent weeks.

Evie’s foot. My eyes followed it up her long and lovely leg to where it lay covered by my Spider-Man blanket in the darkened storage space I called my room. Our room, now, for as long as she would have me. She had burrito wrapped herself in my blanket again, with the exception of that one, outflung leg.

Understanding came to me then. I groaned, as fear and tension melted.

“Sir,” Pavise asked again, more urgently.

I reached out my attention to my Companion. “It’s okay, buddy,” I messaged him through my cybernetic link. “Evelyn just kicked me in the face. It hurt, a lot, but I’m okay.” Evie was an acrobat and gymnast. Even before the System, she was strong. I felt the irrational need to defend her actions. “We had to sacrifice our bed back at the base. Do you remember?”

“A terrible tragedy,” he deadpanned. “But I’m glad that you’ll survive. Would you like for me to summon a healer for you?”

I let out a longsuffering breath but decided not to take the bait. So I just answered his question as if it was sincere. “Let them sleep. We’ve all been through enough. Go back to charging, buddy. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“I’m sure that it was unavoidable, sir,” he said. His tone—or our connection—gave me the faint impression that he was not, in fact, so certain. He didn’t actually shut down while he charged, but he did get cranky when I bothered him. All the while insisting that he was not a person.

Then the sharp pain in my back reminded me that I’d been stabbed. Or at least that’s what it felt like. I reached behind me with the cybernetic right arm that still felt hypersensitive, prone to pins and needles. I was expecting blood or a gaping wound. Instead, I found a sharply squared box the size of my old Gameboy Advance, meticulously wrapped in paper that sparkled in the neon purple light. There was a matching bow and a small slip of paper I couldn’t read.

Evelyn had gotten me a gift, but I’d passed out on top of it.

I forced myself to roll over, detangle myself from my “vicious attacker,” and shuffle out to the carved stone hallway of the spaceship. I was still worked up from earlier, so I gave myself time to stop and breathe.

Lee’s troops had been at work, and white lights had replaced the Voloids’ blue. It was a bad sign, since it meant that they’d stopped acting like they were guests on the Voloids’ ship. I’d have to talk to Lee and try to nip that in the bud.

While it lasted, though, it did let me see that the wrapping paper was a bright, metallic silver. Gorgeous. My love had outdone herself. I examined the note. It read, in perfect calligraphy, A gift for my friend. Not everything was lost, sir.

My friend? Oh, Pavise! This wasn’t from Evie; it was from Pavise. My heart warmed at him calling me his friend; it was a big step on his road to acceptance of his own personhood. Then my mind caught up with the implications of the second half of what he’d said. Not everything was lost, sir. I opened the gift with an eagerness akin to desperation. Like a starving man in front of a buffet.

Inside the box, I found a device a lot like an old iPad.

 

Zell-Droxx Alpha X Viewer

This simple device allows for visual presentations of two-dimensional data, as well as the projection of the same on a flat surface. Shop with confidence. Savings. Value. Service. That’s the Zell-Droxx way.

 

A System-enhanced viewing device and projector. Nice! I pressed the small button I assumed would turn it on and the thing sprang to life with a vibrant 3-D logo that read Z-Droxx. When that was gone, a classic-looking desktop screen appeared. Instead of normal file icons, there were small circular symbols labeled Comics, TV Shows, Cartoons, Movies, and Galactic Heroes.

I clicked the Movies file, and it opened up into another list. Aliens was first, followed by Army of Darkness. My eyes kept scanning, noting Avengers and Back to the Future. I skipped down for the T section, getting my hopes up for my favorite. Is it here?

It was. The shield-bot had never let me down. There, stuck right between The Phantom Menace and The Rocketeer, were three precious words that helped to heal my heart.

The Princess Bride.

When I’d pulled myself together enough to manage it, I sent Pavise the image I was looking at with a grateful “Thank you.” The words didn’t do justice to what this meant to me, but the feelings that I sent him did the trick. Gratitude, friendship, and love.

Not everything was lost.

I was still exhausted, but my heart was soaring. There was zero chance that I’d get back to sleep. I should be checking my notices, but more than anything I wanted to climb into my bed and watch my movie. Evie was still sleeping, though, and the rest of the ship was pretty packed now too. There were a lot of us, both rebel Human Liberation Front troops and members of the Fond Du Lac Tribe of Ojibwe. And this place wasn’t built for humans. On top of that, the new computers that housed the Hallorays, our ship’s eccentric AI family, took up a ton of space.

My eyes swept the hall. Like the rest of the Voloids’ ship, it had been carved from the rock of an asteroid and wide enough for two of the hexapodal humanoids to walk abreast. So give or take three humans. There was nobody in sight, but sounds carried on this ship way too much to take a chance. So I was stuck with subtitles or nothing, while I waited for the others to wake up.

I chose subtitles but ended up with nothing. If this thing had the option, Pavise would have to show me in the morning. I wouldn’t bother him again for tech support. So, I watched the show in silence. At least I knew all of the words by heart. Still, knowing them and hearing them were vastly different things, and I was eager for when I’d finally have the chance.

Fezzik was “carrying three people” up the Cliffs of Insanity when I heard a bustling sound from down the hall. I paused my show and listened, but there was just some shuffling. That made sense, and the man in black was gaining, so I let the movie pull me right back in. I made it to the duel before my vision failed. The courtesy and nostalgia got to me. But it was the kindness in Inigo’s—Mandy’s—eyes, that let loose the floodgates I’d been holding in for far too long.

My body shook, and I sobbed silently as I leaned against the wall. Emotion crested, crashed into my shore, and then receded. They carried memories of Charlie and Tina feeding the hamster the year before the System came and killed them both. Vel Denu, smashing his head against the wall. Then Kek, the biggest of the Voloid children, screaming in agony as the vampire scorpion squirrels—no. Not that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

At least Vel was doing a little better every time he left his pod. Though he had relapsed and gone back in after the attack.

I focused on how he had looked before that moment. He had been so proud and brave. He’d disobeyed my orders and snuck after me to try to save my life. Looking back, he even managed it, though not the way he’d planned. He’d distracted the monsters when I’d needed it the most.

Without his sacrifice, I likely would have died that day. I smiled wryly, though it was more bitter than sweet. I’d failed him, but he’d made me proud. He’d probably saved us all. It pulled a broken chuckle from my chest.

Am I losing my mind or is this progress? It worried me that the truth was likely yes. Another wave of emotion tried to hit me, but I forced it down. This wasn’t the right time or place to have a breakdown. At least a good night’s sleep, and my friend’s generous gift, had bolstered me.

Besides, the sounds from down the hall were growing more distinct and getting stranger. Clinking. Scraping. It didn’t feel dangerous, yet, but they made no sense unless an unruly kid was somehow involved. They were going to wake the others, if they hadn’t already. Somebody was clearly causing mischief, and more than a decade of teacher’s instincts screamed for me to check it out. So I wiped my eyes, put my tablet in my inventory, and took the time to take a few deep breaths. I set off to investigate.

As I padded barefoot down the hall, I had a revelation. What I needed most of all was a vacation. I was pretty sure that we all needed one. The last few months for me had been an exhausting mix of training and fighting. For most of those with us, it had been years. And we had a road trip—well, a space trip—with a lot of time to kill on the way to a small mining outpost called Tevron-B.

I only wished I could believe that it would last.

While it did, it would be perfect. I could share my favorite shows with my new friends. With the threats behind us, we could finally have some fun.

Then I remembered that not everyone aboard the ship was friendly. Fully half had been brainwashed by a xenophobic madman, and a quarter might want the Voloid children dead. Even the ones who had fought to save my students were probably going to try to take their ship.

I just need to get them to their Queen alive. Everything else is details. Maybe I can . . .

Scrape, crack, crack! Scraaaape!

I sped up my pace as I followed the sounds. When I reached the source of the commotion, it wasn’t a child at all. Instead, I found a phony Scotsman caked in dust.