Ali sat still, unmoving. His eyes were closed, hands resting folded on his stomach.

He and Alonzo had received a message to come to the General’s office at 0900 hours. The General had something important to tell them.

That thought made Alonzo’s heart thud dully. His palms sweated, and a chill ran down his spine.

Ali didn’t seem bothered by it at all, Alonzo noticed. In fact, he didn’t seem to care what the General wanted.

The door opened. Ali sat upright quickly, suddenly alert and ready.

Alonzo allowed himself a slight smile. So, Ali was being affected after all. His cool, calm demeanor was all an act. Alonzo had to hand it to him, though. Ali was good.

The General walked into the office. He seated himself behind the desk and gazed at them.

Alonzo tensed, and he sensed Ali responding likewise.

The General smiled. “Please, be at ease, you two.”

“Sir, are we in trouble for something?” Alonzo shifted in his seat, glancing quickly at Ali.

The General laughed. “Not at all! I have a mission for you.”

Alonzo relaxed. A mission. That wasn’t anything to be worried over. Well, maybe it was. But a mission could be anything from a small checkup on some magic wielder on Earth to tracking down a dangerous, escaped creature. But the fact that he and Ali were being given a mission meant that, after all their hard work, the General finally thought them ready to do something important.

“Oh. That’s great.” Alonzo couldn’t hide the slight slump in his shoulders as he let out a faint sigh.

The General smiled. “You seem a bit disappointed, Alonzo.”

Ali gave his friend a narrow-eyed look.

“I’m not disappointed, sir. Just a little… relieved… That I’m not in trouble, that is, sir.” Alonzo stammered.

Ali hid his smile. Alonzo was the smoothest talker between the two of them, and here he was stuttering in the presence of this man.

The General cocked an eyebrow at Alonzo. Alonzo blushed, shutting his mouth.

The General gave Ali a quick glance. Then he turned back to Alonzo. “Alonzo, please just call me Andrew. I hate being called sir or General. People only do that in formal settings. It’s just us.”

Alonzo nodded. “Yes, sir… I mean, if that’s what you want… Andrew…”

The idea of calling a superior officer by their first name threw him completely. None of the other officers on Base did this. It wasn’t normal.

Andrew smiled at them both. “Now that we’ve settled that, I’ll brief you about the mission. The first thing you should know is that you will have one other team member. I haven’t decided who that will be yet, but you should know by tomorrow morning at 0900. I’ll talk to them separately. As far as the mission goes, there’s a situation on East Base.” He grimaced. “It’s particularly dangerous, but I don’t think that any of the older officers or agents with more experience will be able to handle it. They aren’t young enough anymore. You two are the ones who have sufficient training to handle it, so I’m sending you.”

“What exactly is the issue… Andrew?” Ali stumbled slightly over the General’s name. One didn’t usually cut protocol like this.

“That’s what you’re going to find out, Ali. All I know is what Indri Blake informed me about. Which is almost nothing. Staff from East Base have been disappearing. And no one has seen them since. Children are telling terrifying stories of a monster taking their parents in the dead of night, but no one heard anything because the beast was gone before the children came out of shock enough to scream. And that’s all we know.”

“And you believe the children about this… monster?” Alonzo gave Andrew a strange glance.

Andrew laughed grimly. “I don’t know what to believe. They were half asleep, so who knows if they saw something real or just saw someone taking their parents and then imagined it was some giant monster.” He shook his head. “I just don’t know. But something needs to be done, and Indri doesn’t have the people he needs to handle it. West Base is the training center for agents, not East Base. So most of the best agents are here.”

“So why send us? I mean… There are other agents who are more experienced and better, right? We’re not even out of training yet. We’ve got another year left.” Alonzo protested, spreading his hands in his usual gesture of confusion.

“We do have other, better trained agents, Alonzo. However, they are currently employed on other, equally important missions, and they’re too far away to get to East Base in time. There’s been a lot of magical activity tipping the Balance out of equilibrium on Earth lately, and I’ve been spread thin. This new problem caught me at a time when I just don’t have the people to send. You two are the only option I have. I wouldn’t send you into this situation if I had another choice.”

Alonzo nodded. “Okay. So… When are we leaving?”

“Well, you should be leaving in two days. I already spoke to both your parents yesterday before I called you in here today, so they already know you’re leaving.”

Ali started slightly. No wonder his mom had been so irritable yesterday. Now that he thought back on it, she had almost looked like she would cry, and now he understood. She had known he was going, and she’d known what he was heading into. Andrew had told her.

He felt a spark of irritation towards Andrew. Why couldn’t he have been allowed to tell his mom himself? Ali shoved it down. He didn’t really want to have to tell her. It was just as well Andrew had told her. Better for someone else to bear the force of her initial outrage.

 Andrew gave him a hard stare. “Something wrong, Ali?”

“Not at all. So, we’ll know tomorrow then who our other team member will be?”

“Yes. Now, tomorrow, the three of you will report to the armory for supplies at 0900. Master Achilles will help you with your supplies. You’ll meet the other member of your team then. You’ll have the rest of the day to do as you like, say your goodbyes, prepare, what not. Then at 0400 on Wednesday, you’ll leave.”

Ali and Alonzo both nodded their understanding.

“Very well, then. You two are dismissed.” Andrew gave them a smile and a wave.

Alonzo stood up and left the room, feeling that he’d just been assigned to some sort of suicide mission. True, they didn’t know what was going on at East Base, but stories of monsters? He tried to tell himself that the children had just been seeing things or imagining things due to the stress and terror of the event. But he couldn’t quite convince himself of that.

He felt Ali’s strong hand grip his shoulder. “We’ll be fine, Alonzo. We’ve trained all our life to be able to handle things like this. We can handle it now.”

Ali’s words strengthened him somewhat. His friend seemed so calm and unconcerned. But Alonzo couldn’t help wondering just how much of that was bravado.

And what Ali would never tell anyone was that it was all bravado. He didn’t feel strong or brave. Yes, he was thrilled to be given a mission because it meant an escape from the shadow his parents’ fame cast over him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he and his only friend were going to end up dead or badly hurt due to this assignment. There was no rational reason to expect that they might die, he told himself. But his entire being screamed danger at him. The intensity of his own trepidation surprised him, but he couldn’t let any of this show to anyone. Alonzo and whoever else became the third member of the party would be relying on him, and he would get both the credit and the blame for whatever happened on the mission. The other two might not know it yet, but Ali knew. He was the leader of this little fiasco. And there was no way he was enjoying it. Leadership wasn’t all he’d thought it would crack up to be.