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THE WARNING

Fribby has gone into some sort of hideous bizarro freak mode.

I mean it’s obvious by the way she’s moving that her mobility is being impeded by some sort of invisible constraint. It is as if her silver webbed feet are glued to the floor but her scaly chrome-flex body is spazzing out all herky-jerky. She looks like she’s doing some sort of demented dance to music only she can hear.

I get a sick feeling in my fiery belly, just seeing it.

And I hate to say this, but honestly it looks like she’s malfunctioning.

“Say something, chick,” I cry, flapping my wings. “What’s wrong with you?”

Now both of her talons fly to her beak and her silver head bobs back and forth, like she’s aiming to rip her beak off her head. I take a couple steps toward Fribby but she starts screeching in the back of her throat and shaking her head like she’s sending me some sort of signal.

Now you don’t have to be a genius to understand what she is trying to say.

She’s warning me. This is some sort of trap.

I stop in my tracks and growl, “ATHENOS?”

“Yes sir?” says ATHENOS II, her voice flashing through the panel of colored lights.

“ATHENOS, what did you do to Fribby? Why is she moving all funny like that?”

“What are you talking about, sir? Fribby’s not here in the cockpit with us, sir.”

“Yeah right,” I snarl. “I’m looking at her right now. She’s right here.”

“I’m very sorry to tell you this, sir,” she says, “but you’re mistaken. Fribby is lying down in the sickbay up on the second level. She sprained a wing when she flew into Rexro’s cage and helped zap you into Central Campus earlier. And she said she needed to lie down. Personally I thought it was a ploy to lure you back here and take your mind off Runcita. Fribby can be a bit of a drama queen, I’m afraid.”

“Why are you lying to me, ATHENOS? I’m looking at her right now!”

“I assure you you’re quite mistaken, sir,” says ATHENOS II.

“Oh yeah?” I growl. I flap my wings and point a long curved index claw and bellow: “She’s right there!”

“No she’s not, sir.”

Now at that moment a hole opens up in the spaceship’s floor right under Fribby’s silver webbed feet.

“Fribby, look out!” I shout, pointing down at the new hole.

Fribby glances down at the hole under her webbed feet and then looks back up. She’s huffing blacksmoke through her silver snout, and I don’t want to jump to conclusions here but she sure seems like she is having a full-blown panic attack. For one brief moment Fribby gives me a pained look with those glowing red eyes, as if she’s begging me for help.

Then she drops down the hole out of sight.

Whoosh!

And the instant that Fribby vanishes, the hole in the floor covers right back up. As if the hole had never been there. As if Fribby hadn’t just fallen down the hole. As if I hallucinated the entire thing.

“Like I told you, sir,” says ATHENOS II. “Fribby isn’t here in the cockpit with us.”

So I flap my wings and fly in a rage over to ATHENOS II’s Control Display. And I’m just about to ruthlessly plunge my talons into the console and start ripping out her tentacles when suddenly the spaceship itself shudders and starts quaking back and forth.

Then I feel the spaceship’s quantum thrusters flame on beneath us.

What the—?

The spaceship is rocking and shaking like a bastard. And the savage force of the commotion tosses my scaly green ass off of the Control Display.

I sail across the cockpit and hit my fool head against the wall. I’m instantly seeing stars. I struggle to get up on rubbery hind legs but then the demented spaceship lurches and I’m thrown back on the ground. The spaceship is rumbling and rocking back and forth even louder now.

A green muscular tentacle shoots out of the wall and whizzes over and scoops me up off the ground and carries me through the air.

“I’m terribly sorry,” says ATHENOS II, “for having sent you that fake message from Fribby earlier, sir. But I knew it was the only way I could get you back here. And no matter what else happens today, sir, please know that it was never my intention for you to get hurt. You’ll have to believe me, sir. That’s the absolute last thing I’d ever want to do. Is to hurt you.”

Now I try to say something, but smashing my scaly green head against the wall has left me reeling and I can’t get my beak to move. I’m dazed. The spaceship is shaking so violently now, it feels like it’s collapsing.

Clutching me by the nape of my cape, the wet membranous tentacle whizzes forward and then drops me down in the Captain’s Chair.

Plunk.

“You’re going to need to strap in, sir!”

A seatbelt harness shoots out from one side of the chair and then clamps down on the other side of the chair, pinning me down.

“And you’re really going to need to keep your wits about you, sir.”

The cockpit is convulsing so violently now that my scaly head’s snapping back and forth. And I’m worried my piddly little horns might get shaken loose and fall right out of my skull.

Then ATHENOS II cries, “I’m afraid the worst is yet to come, sir!”

And I swear I could hear ATHENOS II’s voice crack with a tiny sob.

And at that moment the spaceship blasts off.