Curious Minds

Chapter 3

Drake's POV.

"Hey! You kids!" Two guards said as they turned the corner behind them.
"Split up!" Caleb ordered as he dragged Dak away towards the left. Josh and I bolted right.
The guards followed us.
"Dammit!" I growled, urging my non-athletic self to move faster.
<They're gonna catch us>, Josh said through our twin-lepathy. He sounded winded.
<Split up? Meet on the other side of the compound?> I suggested.
Without answering, my twin took off down a narrow walkway between buildings. I took the next one in the opposite direction.

45 minutes later, we were both thoroughly lost. And not together. At least we had each lost the guards.
<So we are lost>, Josh said. Best thing about our communication? It worked the same no matter the distance.
<No we are not>, I replied, leaning around the corner carefully to look for soldiers or guards.
<Follow the sound of my voice?> Josh said when he realized what I was doing.
<We are talking in our heads>, I snapped. <There is no 'follow the voice'.> That was sometimes a drawback, like now.
<Oh, yeah. Where do you think Caleb and Dak are?>
I thought about it for a moment. <There are a number of things I could think of, and only one or two are child friendly.>
I knew I didn't have to elaborate. Unlike Andalite thought-speak, our telepathy shared our thoughts, feelings, and experience with the other. There was no way to filter it, either, not that we'd tried.
<Do you see the big building, with the tower on top?> Josh said instead of continuing the topic.
I looked around until I spotted it. <Yeah.>
<Meet me there>
I didn't respond, but headed that way cautiously. It wouldn't do to be the first one caught by the military personnel roaming around.
I was only a few yards from the nearest door when an alarm went off on the other side of the compound.
<The hell you do?> I asked of my twin.
<Found a control panel> was his only response.
To anyone else, that might have sounded strange, but we were different. If a piece of technology was linked to any other or had bluetooth and wireless capabilities, we could use it as a control unit. I once used an old iPod to crash a museum's security system from six blocks away.
I used the distraction to hurry to the nearest door of the designated building. Once inside and certain there were no nearby guards, I opened my self to the twin bond.
Looking through Josh's eyes was always strange. He had better eyesight than I did even though on the outside we looked identical. As he realized I was trying to figure out where he was, Josh started looking around the room, knowing I'd be able to figure it out.
Once I had taken stock of what my twin could see, I returned to look through my slightly blurry eyes.
Walking down the only hall available, I started towards where I thought my twin would be.
It took quite a while to find the signs Josh had shown me, but it didn't take long to follow them.
The room I ended up in had boxes of unpacked machinery stacked around. If I had wondered if the move of alien technology had been sudden, this confirmed it. Facilities like this were always neat and organized, but this room told a different story.
Just as Josh came into sight around a less stable-looking stack, I noticed someone else.
There was a woman, dressed in army fatigues edging closer to where my brother was preoccupied with hacking into the compound's control system. He had removed his mask. I watched as she drew her weapon in preparation.
With a few more steps, she was even with the unstable stack and I made a split decision. Rushing the pile, I shouted to draw her attention. Before she could raise her weapon, however, I hit the stack with my shoulder and sent it toppling into her.
Josh had jumped up at my shout. He was holding some kind of contraption that he had likely built from parts out of the nearby open box.
"Drake," he whispered hoarsely, staring at where the soldier now lay, unmoving.
I could only see her lower body where I was, but where Josh was he had a full view.
Walking around the scattered stack, I found out why my brother was staring at the soldier. She hadn't been carry a normal gun, but one of the Andalite models, which uses searing lasers instead of bullets.
She must have shot when the stack fell, but somehow the beam had hit her, burning away most of the center of her chest. She was already dead.
I stepped closer to make sure and caught sight of the patch on her fatigues that held her name. B. Roskam. I doubted I would ever forget that name.