Page 161 of Galaxy Circus Act One

I sign in all the places indicated on every sheet. “Are we now going to return the others to their home planets?”

Eric shakes his head. “It varies from case to case and the charges. What Aura and their family have done doesn’t warrant any punishment, so they are free to choose where they’ll go. They just won’t be able to return to Earth for the time being. If the charges were serious, then there would be a process that wewould need to go through. We would advise their home planet, and then they would decide whether they chose to retrieve them or have them charged by the galaxy federation, but it is the home planet’s responsibility to retrieve them from us.”

The door slams open, and I hear Agent Smith call, “Time’s up.” I’m surprised I can actually hear him, because I know he can’t hear us, otherwise Xavier and Eric wouldn’t have talked so bluntly. I also know he hasn’t given us the allotted ten minutes, but I’m pretty sure Agent Douche is pissed because he can’t hear what we’re saying and he’s being petty. Xavier’s mist seeps out, covering him from sight, and then the purple smoke surrounding us peels back.

“If you would follow me, I will have some guards escort us to the prisoners in case they decide to be difficult.”

Xavier laughs out loud. “I am more than enough to handle the prisoners.”

The smarmy smile that suddenly creeps across Smith’s lips creates a small lump in my throat. He looks awfully pleased with himself, and that can’t be good. At all.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure of that if I were you. The only thing keeping you all safe from one of the prisoners is this.”

He holds up a little black remote, and both Xavier and Eric blanche.

“Those are only supposed to be used on prisoners if they are a known dangerous and deadly species, and as far as I know, there are none on Earth that would require that,” Eric snaps, finally revealing how agitated he is to Smith.

“Well, I guess you don’t know everything. There wasn’t just one unregistered alien on Earth, there were two, and if there are two, how many more are out there?” Agent Douche’s words are exactly what Xavier and Eric were worried about.

“What race demands the use of the control collar?” Xavier questions, and although we can’t see him, we can hear he means business.

Agent Smith smirks like he just won the fucking lottery. “Aaz’axian.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Xavier

I’m so shocked at the words that come out of Agent Smith’s mouth that I almost lose hold of my mist for the first time in thirty years. I couldn’t have heard him right.

An Aaz’axian on Earth?

And how does he even know what that is?

Their race has basically been extinct for many years now. There are barely any left galaxy wide, so it’s incredibly unlikely for one to be here on Earth. They scattered and stayed hidden once their tyrannical leaders had finally been defeated. Over eighty percent of them were forced to fight and die for a cause they did not believe in, and then their women began to perish from a mysterious wastage disease until there were but a handful. They are carefully protected and cherished, but are no longer able to bear children. Some say it was their god punishing the Aaz’axians for their hubris, but why punish the many for the depraved acts and decisions of a few? With the ability to glamour, there hasn’t been a sighting in years. They chose to keep their heads down and exist in peace, so no one has seenan Aaz’axian in either of their natural forms in over a hundred years. To be honest, I thought they had become extinct. They were a very long-lived, slow aging race, so I guess it is possible for there to still be some around, but highly unlikely.

“No, that can’t be true. That race is extinct.” Eric shakes his head in denial. “You must have a Morpheian or another with ability to glamour, and they are tricking you.”

“There is no way to hold a glamour when you have thousands of volts coursing through your system. I assure you, heisan Aaz’axian.” Smith waves the damn remote again, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from blasting it out of his hand with my power. That wouldn’t go down well, however, so I rein in my anger. Barely.

“Very well. Lead the way, and I can use my powers to ascertain the truth there too,” I say mostly to reassure Eric and Lila. My intimate has been following along with the conversation, even if she doesn’t quite understand the full significance of it. I’m not even sure if she’s heard of the Aaz’ax and their war with the Una’s over the orb of power. She is still willfully behind on her alien knowledge. We need to fix that as soon as we get a moment to breathe. We can’t have her making mistakes.

Smith doesn’t wait for us, he just takes off in the direction of the holding cells. There are not as many people running around now. Most of them used their brains and made themselves scarce after I proceeded to lift the idiots pointing weapons at me into the air. Although, I did make sure all their weapons wouldn’t work first, and it’s not like they can use the weapons Eric must have already floated up there. It isn’t zero gravity where they can float around—they are held in place by my magic.

He takes us down a level, and although I’m distracted by what he just told us, I make sure to keep an eye on my intimate. Lila is easily distracted, and I don’t want her wandering off andgetting herself shot by some trigger-happy maniac. Everyone here has itchy trigger fingers when it comes to us, but as we pass a large black door that has a big “No Entry, Authorized Personnel Only” sign, she slows and turns her head to look back at it before stopping, her beautiful face frowning. She walks back toward it, and her breath hitches and she roughly grabs at her chest.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her quietly, not wanting to draw Agent Smith’s attention. He and Eric are far enough ahead though, and they haven’t noticed we’ve stopped.

“When I walked past this door, I got this deep ache right here.” She points to her sternum. “It’s almost like I need to go in there. Something’s calling to me, Xavier.”

I eye the door suspiciously now. Whatever could be calling to Lila? Do they have more aliens stashed behind there? I reach out with my magic, but before I can allow it to seep under the door, Agent Smith finally realizes we’re not with them.

“What are you doing?” he demands, his voice echoing down the corridor. “That section is off-limits to everyone but people with Level 1 clearance, which you donothave. Hurry up, I don’t have all day.” He sounds impatient, but when I turn to look at him, he also has a glint of worry in his eye. Interesting. I’m torn between doing as he demands to keep the peace and saying fuck it all to hell and investigating behind the door, but before I can make a decision, Lila does it for me.

“Come on, let’s rescue my friends. The weird ache is gone now, so maybe it was just concern for them and not what’s behind the door.” She reaches through the mist and grabs hold of my hand, tugging me to our destination.

Reluctantly, I let it go. I can always sneak back in and check it out at another time. As much as Agent Smith thinks this base is protected and the only way in and out is via the teleportation platform, I can teleport in without the platform. I don’t like theidea that they have an area that is off-limits on this level. It’s supposed to be the EAA level, and access should be granted to anyone from the Galaxy Circus as representatives of the Galactic Federation.

Smith opens the door to the holding area, and we approach the cells. It’s clean and sterile and blindingly bright. There are quite a few forcefield fronted cells down here, with special protections to cater to all the different aliens that may be placed in them. A warlock, probably a grandparent of mine, placed the spells on them many years ago when we started coming to Earth.