Read to the End

Pokie

"This is amazing!" Louis yelled as he flung his body in a messy flip through the air. His form was atrocious, but he hung in the air seemingly forever.

"I feel like I can fly!" Luka replied, spinning unbelievably slow into a 1080, his form disappearing as it hit the late afternoon sunshine.

They leaped toward each other, exchanged high fives, and floated back down to the dusty turquoise surface of Tirkizan. Their feet barely made footprints as they landed.

"We should just stay here! I could get used to this low gravity." Luka smiled.

Louis laughed, tucked his head into his chest, bent down, pushed off the ground with his legs, and shot himself high above the 4-story building they were hiding behind.

"What are you doing?! Activate your gravity suits!" Lina's chiding voice called from behind.

"Fine, Mom!" Luka retorted.

That was a mistake.

Lina, who never wasted her time with the thrills of minimal gravity, ran over to him and slugged him across the jaw. Luka didn't even have a chance to dodge.

"I'm not Mom. And this isn't a joke. Turn your suits on before someone realizes we aren't from around here."

Luka rubbed his jaw, but didn't make another sound. He flipped the tiny switch tucked away under his sleeve; his arms fell to his side. It reminded him of pulling himself up from a swimming pool. His own weight feeling unnatural for a moment until he adjusted to the newfound pressure.

Louis did the same behind him. "I feel like Superman—leaping over a building in a single bound."

"You won't be saying that when your bones begin to lose their density. Just another reason why you need to keep your suit activated."

Louis saluted her. "Yes, ma'am!"

Lina rolled her eyes and checked on the package nestled in a tiny bag around her shoulder. "Come on. We need to meet with Sha-rill."

They each wrapped a long, dark cloth around their heads that fell behind their backs like mini-capes—a common piece of apparel for the locals on Tirkizan, the tiny, sandy planet in the Vrlo solar system.

The three kids walked through a crowded dirt path. Tirkizanis lumbered around in all directions. For the most part, they were humanoid in appearance—two of everything human—arms, legs, eyes—and a mouth and nose in the normal places, but their skin was slightly pale blue. And it let off a kind of glow that seemed to emanate from within. There was something off about how their bodies moved too. Almost like rhinos trying to tiptoe around. They were built a little too compact. Like their bones were crammed too tightly together. Which in fact was the case, and the reason why they lumbered rather than floated on this planet 2/3 the size of Earth's moon.

It was obvious they weren't human. But Louis, Luka, and Lina Russo were most definitely human. Three average looking kids from a small town in Iowa. Mahogany hair with eyes to match, and darkened skin, courtesy of their Italian father and Spanish mother. They were young. Lina barely into her 20s; Louis and Luka in the middle stages of puberty. Not quite kids, but not yet the adults they would one day grow to be.

Yet, they were tasked with this important mission. A mission that could decide whether the human race survived or went the way of the elephant: here one day, gone the next.

That's why it was so important that they blended in with the these Tirkizanis. Sure, the Tirkizanis were some of the most agreeable creatures in the galaxy. And that's why Sha-rill had them meet there, but that's not who the Russos were hiding from.