Adriana had been excited when they had received Tony’s invitation to the party. She had been working way too hard the past few weeks, and her friends were even worse. She hardly ever saw Elsa around anymore - the girl seemed to live in her lab. She hadn’t been particularly close with Marta, but the girl has been obsessed with going to the gym lately and Adrianna was not getting dragged into that.
It had been fun seeing everyone at the ship raising party, so she was looking forward to catching up with her friends again and maybe meeting some new people too. She even had the perfect dress to wear - they had done some shopping in Mexico, but the weather had been too cold to wear most of what she had bought. This weekend the weather was on the warm side, so she was going to look amazing. She got her hair done and spent more effort than usual on her make-up. It was going to be funny to see Scott get all flustered again like he usually did. Plus, she might actually meet someone worth going out with.
Arriving at the party with her friends, Adriana was pleased with the VIP treatment they got when they arrived. A nice-looking guy named Vince had said hello and told them their friends were out back. She briefly considered inviting Vince to join them, but she hesitated and missed the opportunity.
They met up with the boys outside. Scott had been hilariously tongue-tied - her efforts to look good had been totally worth it! Tony was charming as always, but he had brought two scantily clad hussies who were fawning over the boys. Ugh, surely that Aida girl realized her shirt was a size too small and doing a terrible job covering her stupid perfect breasts.
Another guy was with the group. Alvarro kind of had this vampire vibe going as that tramp Natalie shamelessly rubbed against him. Wait, he wasn’t even cute, and he was a bigger dork than Scott! She only thought he was interesting because another girl seemed to like him. She needed to get a handle on her stupid over-competitive brain before she said something rude or stupid.
They chatted a bit with Tony, he bragged about some amazing vacation, but seemed interested in their trip to Mexico. She hoped the boys wouldn’t blab anything important. Soon after they settled in, Matt’s pea sized bladder forced him to leave, and he invited Scott to go with him. Obviously, they were going off to talk about something, probably about that Aida girl who had clearly picked Matt as her next victim. Adriana could reluctantly admit Matt wasn’t a bad looking guy, although she was surprised none of the girls seemed interested in Tony. Maybe they had some history?
She received a text while pondering how to defend Matt from that harlot. Melinda: Your party is likely a setup. Try to give them information they already know, like the appearance of the Dark Siren. Make up something if you want. Say nothing about our base or biotech. I’m going to send help.
Adriana thought that sounded ominous. She was kind of lost in her thoughts when Barry started blabbing about their ship, but fortunately he was going back to their earlier dumb conversation. She assumed Barry did not believe the nonsense he was talking about. He had only had one drink, how was he so intoxicated?
Scott and Matt had returned. Scott said something disrespectful about her ship.
“I’m sick of you boys. My ship is amazing!” Adrianna protested.
Scott looked apologetic and showed everyone the video of her totally perfect design. They looked suitably impressed, but Adrianna remembered Melinda had asked to embellish it a bit, so she repeated Barry’s stupid idea from the other day. The idiot looked pleased, but she gave him a fist bump because his stupid grin was kind of entertaining.
“How would that even work?” Tony said. He seemed skeptical. Also, why wasn’t he impressed with the video they just showed him?
“Oh that’s easy,” Barry slurred. “You just put a mini fusion reactor inside a 160mm shell. Add a high wattage laser, optic fibers to aim and some magic robot targeting software, then boom! The dolphin pops up and you never saw it coming!”
“That was a combination of too much detail and complete idiocy,” Elsa scolded. “You are way too drunk. You haven’t even finished your first drink.”
“Down the hatch!” Barry corrected the problem. “Gimme another of those! Anyway, changed my mind, laser bullets are dumb. We need to stick to our principles and make the robot turn into a ship, s’right Alvarro? Um other way round.” Barry seemed to get more insistent, but also more confused.
“Uh, I think maybe you had enough,” Alvarro replied.
“Nope, only had one! Elsa is gonna genetically engineer me so I can drink at least three.” Barry insisted.
“I think we need to get Barry out of here before he pukes,” Elsa said. Matt and Scott moved to help their friend. Maybe this would be a good excuse to leave? Tony could hardly insist on Barry staying and puking.
“Um, I think he should drink some water first. It might help him sober up again.” Tony attempted.
“Yeah, water. You know I can turn that into a bomb, right?” Barry resisted his friends, siding with Tony.
“Maybe some water to go,” Matt insisted.
Scott and Matt helped Barry get moving, Elsa followed.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“I want to go with Barry, “Elsa explained. “Alvarro, can you get a ride with my friends?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I can drive Alvarro home, “Natalie offered. At this point, Alvarro was not thinking with his upper brain and quickly agreed with the girl who was way out of his league. Adrianna snorted; the girl was definitely a spy, but Alvarro didn’t know anything. Might as well let him have a good time with that tart.
She decided it was time to find Marta and get out of here.
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Tony realized his plan wasn’t going well. One of his objectives had been to get Barry intoxicated so he had put a moderate dose of GHB in his drink. It should have been similar to the effects of about 6-10 drinks, but without the nausea. Typically, there would also be some memory loss of the evening which should have also worked to his advantage. Unfortunately, Barry was a lightweight - the effects had hit him way too quickly. He had started acting erratically and babbling enough nonsense his friends had become suspicious.
“So, the secret is anit-matter, see? You have an anit-proton. Those guys sez it has the same mass but negative charge. They got it backwards, see, cause it has the same charge but negative mass!” Barry was currently explaining his theory on anti-gravity while his friends were trying to get him to leave.
“I think they would have already figured that out if it was true.” Matt tried to argue.
“Nope! Caus’ you can’t make enough to test without blowing up a city and they are chicken!” Barry declared.
“Not blowing up a city sounds like a good decision” Scott tried to argue. He really hoped Barry wouldn’t remember this and try something dumb later.
“Anyway, it’s like we keep the hydrogen protons in a nanotube just backwards and you have to smash 'em together first. OK, not the same but I can do it. Probably.” Barry looked like he didn’t think this quite made sense. “You angle the collision and catch protons, neutrons, electrons. Bam!” Barry was waving his hands around and clapping them together as if that explained everything.
“Please don’t try anything like this, unless you ask Professor Springer first. And then, still don’t do it.” Matt insisted.
“Barry is either a drunk idiot or a drunk genius. The first is much more likely,” Elsa added.
“Love you too, babe!” Barry said, trying to plant a sloppy kiss.
Tony decided he wasn’t missing anything important and stepped away and called his boss, Alexey Lukina, quickly explaining the situation.
“That is unfortunate. It seems your cover is blown here, so execute protocol seven,” Mr. Lukina had said. Instead of being disappointed, his boss actually seemed eager.
Tony understood this meant he would abandon his cover identity after they started taking more aggressive actions.
“Four primary targets are heading to one car, and the other is collecting her friend. Which group should I target?” Tony knew they had a few people on hand, but it seemed unlikely they could capture both groups.
“Target the girl who was left behind.” Alexey said. He didn’t explain his reasoning, but Tony agreed it was a good choice.
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Adriana had found Marta dancing with some guy who seemed to be uninterested. She grabbed her friend's arm. The girl had pretty impressive biceps under that flab. Marta turned and looked at her with a glare.
“Hey, sorry to interrupt you. Everyone else is leaving. Barry is sick - I think someone might have drugged him. Do you mind if we go home too?” Adriana asked.
“Oh, I was having fun.” Marta complained, but then processed what her friend had said. “Sorry, I mean I hope your friend is OK. Let’s go, I don’t think that guy likes me anyway.”
The girls left the house. Adrianna noticed that football player Vince seemed to be watching them leave. She started to walk faster and noticed Marta seemed to tense up a bit.
The front yard still had a lot of people. Why are so many people hanging out in the front? Adriana wondered. Alcohol is out back, and music is inside the house. Are all these people arriving or leaving and just got distracted talking to people? Maybe they are waiting here for friends to arrive. Those stupid boys didn’t wait for us, they just went out back to start drinking!
That would be sad if a group is waiting here, and their friend is stuck in line outside because he’s not on the list or something. Why would they just stay here while a friend looked on pathetically through the fence? Oh! That girl has cute shoes! I wonder where she got them.
“Hey! I thought we were leaving.” Marta said.
How long had she been standing here? Was she becoming a Front Yard person? Adrianna focused and resumed walking to the exit.
The girls pressed through the crowd. Adrianna felt something sharp poke her as she neared the entrance. She spun around, but no one seemed to be paying attention to her. The girls headed outside. Adriana paused to talk to the security guard.
“Hey, I think some guys are following me. Can you keep an eye on us until we get to our car?”
“I’m not really allowed to leave the entrance, but if I see anyone, I’ll slow them down for you.” The guard said helpfully. “Did you want me to call the police?”
“No, I don’t think that’s necessary. I would appreciate it if you could slow them down.” Useless rent-a-cop, Adriana thought.
They started walking down the street quickly. Their car was parked a few blocks away. Adriana had started to feel a bit dizzy. Had she been drugged? The girls noticed a guy wearing a dark covid mask was following them. Healthy young adults did not wear masks on a Friday night. This guy was obviously up to no good. That stupid low-rate security guard had probably just given their stalker a fist bump and then given him directions. The girls sped up, almost to a jog, and went around a corner.
As they approached their car two large men, also wearing masks, appeared from behind a nearby house. The third turned the corner behind them, he had clearly broken into a run after they passed out of sight. Adriana knew she should be panicking, but instead felt calm and kind of happy. She just wanted to sit down for a bit.
One of the nearby men grabbed her, while the other reached for Marta. Marta spun away from the man’s grasp, then kicked him in the throat! Continuing her rotation, she ducked low and swept her back leg behind the surprised man’s knees and he fell to the ground hard. His head hit the pavement with an audible thump.
Adriana was being led into the back of a car but was barely staying awake. There were some muffled gunshots and she saw some blood spray off Marta who was darting behind a car. Adriana’s eyes closed as she sat down, no longer able to stay awake.