Chapter Text
The match was 1 to 0 in favour of the Doxxers, and Lila, after checking through the other layers, was pretty sure it was about to be a second match earned for her team, adrenaline pumping its way through her, focus lasering in on making sure they won.
She’d always been more competitive than the others, though Scottie had been a close second, but the others- and even the new hacker- had focused in more and Lila’s numbers were soaring, higher than they almost ever did.
She checked on their stats again; they were just a few seconds away from winning the match, unless something crazy happened-
Everything seemed to skip for a second. Lila's body felt weird, something telling her that, in the space of a second or two, she must have shifted positions- maybe she'd fainted? She was still sitting, just… wrong.
The game cut off as well, screen lighting up with wifi errors, and Lila cursed, grabbing her headset and yanking it off her head, turning to glare at the emcee-
Bright white greeted her. She was- well, she was strapped into a chair, three sets of rope securing her firmly inside of it, and, through a nearby window, endless white shined out at her, barely any gaps marring it.
“No fucking way,” She mumbled, blinking, raising a- thankfully unrestrained- arm to rub at her eyes. It was still there, and she was reminded, vividly, of the time Scottie let her try some of his stash, and the things she'd seen that she was sure weren't real but wouldn't go away. It was the same sort of knowledge that this couldn't be real, it wasn't real, but it looked so convincing…
A quick scan of the room proved that Oliver, Aja, and the hacker kid were all present, placed a little behind her but nonetheless there. None of them were moving, though, and she- “They fucking drugged us,” She muttered disbelievingly, “Those fucking bastards fucking- fuck!” Tugging sharply at the ropes around her didn't seem to loosen them, but she still struggled with them for a few moments, desperately trying to regain control over the situation when they'd gotten kidnapped and drugged or something, some bullshit to explain the white void out the window and the ropes on her and the others.
She'd seen movies about this kind of thing before, and she was pretty sure her mom had said something about it at some point- something about kicking out tail lights on cars and… maybe that rope could be cut on sharp edges of wood? Or did she see that in a movie?
She fumbled with the ropes again, trying to find anywhere she might easily be able to scratch against… something, she'd figure it out, she was the general for a reason, when she grabbed a point that was a bit thicker than the rest, and suddenly the ropes were releasing, a hiss of pressure as they slammed back into the chair, making her jump despite herself.
A series of noises quickly began emerging from it, clacking out sounds in what might have been morse code or a foreign language or something, because it definitely didn't sound recognisable.
Okay, weird chair, whatever. She mumbled to herself as she properly got a look at it; it was attached to the floor itself, and looked more like what she might have expected from a chair on a spacecraft than in a kidnapping place, and, as she approached the window, she- was starting to put some pieces together in her mind; playing a space-themed game and being kidnapped to a place seemingly made to simulate being in space- albeit a reverse sort of space, where the light was endless, but space nonetheless; she could even see an asteroid floating around in the distance? It felt like there had to be some sort of cruel intentionality to it. She eyed the “window” (or maybe it was some kind of projection, to give the impression of space) with narrowed eyes.
Brought a foot back, slammed it against the surface, expecting to see expensive tech shatter.
Instead, she clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle the instinctive shriek of pain. The window- screen- whatever, was hard, and she'd hit it with enough force for it to hurt as the same clicking sound from before emerged from the area surrounding it.
“I don't understand you, you fucking bastard, just say it in English if you're going to keep talking at me; you're not intimidating, just a fucking bitch,” She bit out. It didn't respond outside of continuing that hissing, and she rolled her eyes, turning to Oliver, Aja, and the new kid.
She eyed the new kid for a fraction of a second, just long enough to feel bad that he probably wouldn't be here if they hadn't let him join, and then fumbled at the ropes covering Oliver- which, she could now see, had some sort of liquid running through them, and weren't really ropes so much as some sort of pipe, not that she really gave a shit about that either way, squeezing the right spot until Oliver was free (ignoring the sound that emerged from the chair), though he remained immobile, asleep or some shit, and she drew a hand back and slapped him. Hard.
He jolted, hands flailing at her before reaching up, tugging the headset off his head, uncaring for the delicate machinery as he gave her a vaguely panicked, and then very irritated expression.
“What the actual heck is wrong with you?” His voice was higher than usual, from anger or pain Lila couldn't tell.
“We got fucking kidnapped.”
He blinked. Stared at her, and then at the walls around then, at Aja, who he lingered on looking at for an extra moment, furrow forming in his brow. “There's no- we were just playing! It's not like the headsets actually take us out of reality, there's literally no way for them to have done this. Are you- if this is another of Scottie's pranks, cut it out.”
“I wouldn't joke about this shit. I think they drugged us or something, I don't know how the fuck they'd have gotten here otherwise.”
Oliver opened his mouth, but Lila never got to hear what he would have said, because one of the wall panels slid open, and a woman (well, probably, but maybe they were trans) walked in. She looked around senior-aged, pale skin and greying hair that was tied neatly into a bun, wrinkles on her face, distinctly not someone Lila recognised (weren't most kidnappings by people you knew? She was pretty sure she remembered that), and grinned when she saw them, wide and fake.
Before Lila could even think of escaping through the door, it slammed shut with a distinct thud. Okay, trapped in a room with someone both evil enough and smart enough to kidnap them all, that was probably fine.
The woman made the same odd crackling noise that Lila had heard before, before pressing down some sort of button on her wrist- maybe she had some kind of life alert like their grandparents did?
“Hello?” She said, with a perfectly pleasant, albeit vaguely robotic voice. “You understand me now, yes?”
Oliver and Lila exchanged a suspicious look.
“Yes,” Oliver acknowledged finally, when the silence had stretched on for several awkward seconds.
“Excellent!” The woman beamed, “My name is Alice, and I'm your guide!”
“Our… guide?” Oliver asked skeptically at the same time as Lila scoffed.
“Our kidnapper, more like.”
“Your guide, yes,” Alice repeated, “We did not kidnap you, we saved you. Our enemy would otherwise have taken you and led you to your deaths. But, instead, we have taken you here to help us save the world.”
Great, so she was certifiably either the worst liar in existence, or dealing with some kind of mental disorder that, quite frankly, Lila couldn't be very sympathetic towards, given the whole kidnapping thing.
She was just about to snap something about how the lady was crazy and the best thing she could do for ‘the world’ would be to put them right back where they were before they were kidnapped when Oliver spoke, “You're going to have to let us out of here if you want us to save the world.”
Oh, Lila could kiss that beautiful face for that. Appealing to logic and all that bullshit, that's why he was such a good pilot. If he could get them out of this room, there'd be more routes for escape.
Alice gave him a vaguely bewildered look. “Yes? As I said, this isn't a kidnapping, you're here because we need-” She hesitated. “We need your help if we're going to save the world.”
Oliver gave Lila a look, to which she responded with an offended one of her own. She wasn't going to say anything! Well… not much.
“...Sure. But, if we're going to be saving the fucking world or whatever, shouldn't we have the whole team awake?”
“Oh, right! The age bomb wouldn't have worn off. In fact, it's rather strange you two were already awake, but given how strong you are meant to be, I suppose it's not surprising.” She pulled something out of her pocket, casually tossing it onto the ground.
Nothing seemed to happen, but Aja and Tim began to stir in their chairs, Aja blearily pulling off her headset and shaking herself. “Wha- did I pass out from hyperventilating again? Why am I tied up, this isn't…”
Lila quickly crossed the room to her side, protectively glaring at Alice as she responded, “No, this bitch-” Oliver was glaring at her, shaking his head slowly, and she sighed, re-adjusted. She was usually good at lying, when she wasn’t off her game. “...Apparently wants us to save the world.” She leaned in, whispered, “Just play along, I’ll explain it later.”
“My name is Alice,” Alice informed Aja politely, “Your friends seem to believe this was a kidnapping, but we were rescuing you from people who would have used you to destroy the world. We intend to teach you how to save it.”
Tim, who Lila hadn't been paying attention to nearby, piped in with a quiet, “This is just like a TV show premise.”
Alice tilted her head. “I see, you will have to introduce me to this TV show, perhaps there is something to be learned from it.”
Tim snorted. “If you're a baby, maybe. The real people you should be watching if you want tips are right here, babey!”
“Ah, yes, your teammates. The Doxxers, right? I have been watching-”
“Fucking creep.” Lila mumbled, but she couldn't put quite enough emphasis behind it when Aja’s breathing had been steadily growing faster next to her and she was, for once, pretty sure Aja was feeling exactly the right amount of anxiety for the situation.
“-and have observed many useful things! However, I believe you were all interested in exploring the rest of your new home.”
New home her ass, Lila was going to her real home, and if she had to apologise to her mom for going to the fucking gaming context, she might not even yell at her about it, because at least her mom didn't want her to be some anime heroine or whatever. But she gave Alice a strained, fake smile. If Oliver wanted to play along, she could play along better than anyone else.
The wall panel re-opened, and Alice stepped through it into a hallway that looked… fairly nondescript, actually, walls painted an off-white colour and a faded red rug placed on the floor. It would have been completely normal, if it weren't for the windows on the walls, which Aja and Tim both stared at for a long second, Aja leaning on Lila slightly, letting out a quiet, keening sound.
“You may be wondering where you are.” They jumped at Alice's voice behind them. “Congratulations, you're the first humans in space!”
Did she think the moon landing was fake, too? And the ISS, and everything else to do with space?
“People have already been to the moon, though,” Tim pointed out, crossing his arms and giving her a you can't be this stupid sort of look.
“Ah, right. I understand. Basically- space, or what you called space, was the barest fraction of actual- let's call it outer space.”
“It's already- okay, whatever, go on.”
“Your space is to outer space what a puddle is to the ocean. A speck of dust to a spaceship. There is a vast outer space that has been kept from you, until now. And now it is your time to become part of the cosmic story, so, welcome to actual outer space.” Alice went quiet for a moment, directing her gaze to Aja. “Are you alright? Your heart rate is significantly elevated. We have a medical bay, if you need assistance.”
“I need to go home,” Aja gritted out, before retching, Lila moving to rub her back awkwardly.
“You will be able to return to your home planet eventually. For the moment, your presence here is of the utmost importance.”
“You're not even- you're a kidnapper! You're trying to tell us-” She paused to retch. “-that you're some alien when you're clearly just a person.”
Alice looked relatively unphased. “Ah, that. I can reveal my true form, if you'd like. Typically we attempt to appeal to familiar forms when meeting ambassadors for new species to join the Council, and, as the sole ambassadors of Earth, I figured this would be the least distressing form to take. However…” She fiddled with the device on her wrist again, and the visage of an elderly woman was replaced by a long, spider-like creature, with an unsettling amount of legs, some of which seemed to combine at various points, and dull grey skin freckled with white spots.
And, okay, either this was an extremely fucked up hallucination or it was real. Lila was pretty sure there was no way to actually achieve a transformation like that in reality, especially without any fuss or bother.
The clicking noises from earlier made more sense now, given the whole spider get-up.
“What the actual fuck,” Lila breathed.
Alice transformed back into her human form. “Put simply, I am an alien, and I am willing to prove it if need be.”
There was a wet sound as Aja properly vomited on the floor.
–
The rest of the tour had been… enlightening, Lila supposed. There was legitimately no way out, aliens were real, and the kitchen was fully stocked- which Alice had seemed to think was more important than the whole kidnapping thing.
Although, frankly, she'd seemed to think just about everything was more important than that. She talked a lot about how they were going to save the world (which Lila still doubted- they were just a couple of kids who liked gaming, it wasn't like they were some fucking superheroes), but denied kidnapping them, said they'd been saved, and then showed them rooms that might have been cool under different circumstances.
A room with a hologram in it that “could help them with anything whenever Alice wasn't there,” a kitchen supposedly filled with all their favorites from home, and four rooms.
Lila opened her door, stared at it for a few seconds until Alice seemed satisfied, and then slammed the door shut. It was her room, replicated exactly. Even the paper tossed in the trash was the essay she'd been writing; she could see the type 12 font on it. Even the clothes strewn across the bed were placed exactly. If she went in and closed the door, she might have been able to convince herself she was home, and her mom was about to yell at her for going to the tournament without permission.
But she knew that wasn't true, so she slammed it with a force that probably would have broken something at her actual house, but here just made Aja flinch and Alice inform her that it was unnecessary, actually, to close it that hard.
Lila just rolled her eyes.
Glancing through the others’ doors, they seemed about the same. Aja's photos were still on the walls, Oliver's pill counter not only present, but with the pills still placed inside. Or, some approximation that looked like them, at least.
Tim's room seemed to be the only exception, looking comparatively extremely impersonal in a way she doubted the kid's room would be- he didn't give off the impression of someone who kept his room clean and walls empty. It looked almost like a guest room, and Lila wondered, for a moment, whether he was just somehow immune to whatever Alice had used to find what the rest of their rooms looked like.
“You must all be tired, from my understanding of human exhaustion. I'll leave now, but feel free to tell the AI to grab me if you need to! Everything should be translated into any and all Earth languages you may speak, though, hopefully, we'll have the implants ready for you soon. Those will allow you to understand our language just as well as your own.”
Implants?
“Okay, sounds good, bye now!” Aja rushed, waving a hand, still looking vaguely sick.
“Yeah, we're all super tired, can't wait to keep learning about this shit tomorrow, but we need sleep now,” Lila lied (she could hardly have been more keyed up if she tried).
Alice, thankfully, either didn't care or just didn't notice, and disappeared back into the hallway.
Lila waited until her steps faded before turning to the other kids, and, silently, pointing at Tim's room. It was the most neutral, so it was obviously the best choice for a place to have a meeting, and comparatively less likely to have any cameras or microphones.
Tim opened his mouth like he was going to protest, before closing it, and grimly nodding.
Lila pulled the door shut behind them.
“So, they probably can't hear us in here,” She decided, breaking the silence, “So we can talk about the fact that they fucking kidnapped us without pissing them off.”
Aja collapsed, dejectedly, onto the bed, Tim sitting in the chair next to his desk, and Oliver awkwardly glancing around the room before shrugging and sitting on the floor. Lila, for her part, stayed standing.
“I want to go home,” Aja mumbled. If she were anyone else, Lila might have snapped at her about how they couldn't go home, and yeah, of fucking course she wanted to, no shit.
But because it was Aja, she just gave her a strained smile. “Yeah. I mean, this wasn't exactly in my vacation plans, I was hoping to be a world famous streamer.”
Actually… she pulled out her phone, miraculously still in her pocket, opening it.
No wifi, no data, it informed her, though the clock said that barely an hour had passed, which was at least something it could tell her. She doubted it'd be of any use past that, but… maybe.
“What's the game plan, general?” Tim chirped, looking for all the world like he thought she'd just pull some master plan out of her ass.
But, then, she'd always been good at that sort of thing. Whenever things went wrong, you improvised. You stretched the truth or made up something completely other.
“I'm not going to lie to y'all, I don't think this could get much worse unless, like, we watched our parents die in front of us.” Not the right thing to say, she reflected, as she was given vaguely horrified expressions- “But, since that didn't happen, we're not at rock bottom. This is…” Not at all like Fermi Paradox. “Just like reaching the third match, and the score is 2-0 against you, and you're missing your hacker. We're gonna need to fucking… gather intel on our enemies, find a way to get out of here that doesn't involve getting plunged into the vacuum of space, and not die. Or get involved in whatever fuckass space war they have going.”
“Easy,” Oliver mumbled, “Just figuring out how to un-kidnap ourselves.”
Lila rolled her eyes. “It can't be that hard,” She said with far more confidence than she felt, “We pretend to go along with things until they show us the shit we need to escape, and then we high tail it the fuck out of here. If you see an opening, you get out, even if you leave the rest of us behind, alright?”
Three blank stares met her, and she felt a flush crawl up her neck. “Look, I'm trying to look out for y'all here. Just because this is a team game doesn't mean you can't go on ahead. And who knows how many actual chances we'll get to escape- if you haven't fucking noticed, they dropped us in the middle of goddamned space!”
“Lila, I love you, but there's no way in hell I'm leaving you or Aja-” Oliver paused. “Or Tim, out here to fend for yourselves. Either we all go together, or we don't go at all.”
And there it was! Here she thought he was supposed to be the smart one, the responsible one. She was the selfish one that worried everyone around her without caring. But, for once, she was actually the most mature person in the room, and they were all looking at her like she was telling them to personally stab one another.
“You might not get another chance,” She bit out.
“I'd rather be stuck here with you than get in an escape pod alone. Without knowing what I'm doing. Or- we don't even know how to get home, we could die, we're going to die-”
“Hey, hey, breathing, right? In four, hold seven, out eight, or whatever. Focus up, soldier, we can't have you actually fainting.”
“You were my idols for, like, forever,” Tim chimed in, “And now we're fr… teammates, so I'm not going to let things go the way they did with Scottie. We're a team, right? And you're our leader, you can figure something out.”
Lila's hands curled into fists at her sides.
“Right. Fine. Fuck, okay, whatever. Sure, new plan, we find some kind of craft that we can all get in. Do we have anything else we need to talk about secretly?”
Nobody spoke in the time it took for Lila to get impatient, so she waved a hand. “Right. If you find something we need to see, just say- I don't know, Location Doxxed or some shit, and we'll all convene here.”
She didn't wait to hear anything else, slipping out into the hallway and into the bathroom Alice had pointed out earlier, closing and locking the door before turning to look at herself in the mirror.
Her makeup wasn't smudged, eyeliner still looking sharp as ever, her trademark purple lipstick still coating her lips, hair still in its loose ponytail.
For how she felt like she'd aged in the span of an hour, she looked exactly the way she had before, and, for a moment, she felt a burning sensation well up under her eyes, roughly pressing a hand to them, uncaring of the makeup she might end up smearing. She'd have to take it off at some point anyway, it wasn't like the literal fucking aliens were going to care.
She was the strong one, she wasn't going to cry, because if she cried, then it would all actually be hopeless. If she gave up, then everyone else would too, and they'd all die in this stupid fucking war or whatever, because Aja was still newly thirteen and had panic attacks all the time and Tim was young enough to be worshipping a couple of random ass streamers and Oliver cried at scraping his leg after falling off a skateboard, let alone getting exploded by some other ship's lasers.
She sunk down to a sitting position, leaning against the door, and pressing her head onto her knees.
She let herself stay like that for a couple minutes. Long enough to despair a bit over how fucked everything was, but not long enough for it to be too clear to the others that she was just some depressed fuck laying on the floor, wiping her face for any tears that might have escaped despite her best efforts, and, on instinct, pulling out her phone.
The lockscreen was an old picture of her, Aja, Oliver, and Scottie, all grinning at the camera. She squeezed her eyes shut and choked back the feeling that welled up within her.
Glanced at the screen again, and- she paused, reading the small text again. Emergency calls only.
There was no way that would actually work, but, what the hell, she figured, as she stared incredulously at it. It wasn't like it could make things that much worse.
Her mom was punctual as always as she answered on the first ring.
“Lila?” She sounded breathless.
For a moment, Lila wasn't sure what to say. It wasn't even like it had been that long, it should've been easy to make herself say something, but that crumb of familiarity, of her mom, was enough to make her want to break all over again.
“Mom?” Her voice was smaller than it'd usually be.
“Lila, where- where are you?” And, fuck, it sounded like her mom had been crying, Lila had never done well with that. She was good at being manipulative, at being bad, she wasn't good at dealing with that kind of thing, and she was tired and scared and wanted to go home, but, instead, she inhaled quickly.
“You aren't going to believe me, but I need you to listen, because I don't know who else I'll be able to tell and if nothing else I need you to understand, wh- if we don't make it back.”
“Back? Lila, where are you?”
“Okay, warned you. We're… they fucking kidnapped us, mom.”
—
The Customs alien continued to babble at Ralph and Herb, with the former interrupting with questions and the latter with stories (Ashley was… doing his own thing) when Dale's phone began to ring.
He wasn't sure how he was getting service all the way out here, but he figured that was the marvel of modern technology; these days nothing had to be connected. You could be all the way in outer space, and you'd still get spam calls!
He excused himself for a moment, fumbling with the buttons before finally managing to take the call.
“Grandpa.”
“Lily bean?” He pulled his phone away from his ear a little. “Hey, guys, I have Lila on the phone! She- Lila, what's going on, where are you?”
He vaguely heard Ralph excusing them and moving in to listen to the conversation.
“Where are you,” She countered.
“We're- well, we're not on Earth anymore-”
“Oh, thank God. Look, mom doesn't believe me, but you're missing too, so- that's not the fucking point. Point is, we're in some kind of big space station. I'll try and get actual details for you, but they said they saved us and need us to be their heroes or whatever. Just- find us. I-” Her voice broke, and Dale's heart along with it. “I'm going to try and find a way to get to you, but I don't know.”
“We're looking, kid,” Ralph chimed in from nearby.
“Yeah! You know, this actually- it reminds me…”
For once, Dale wasn't in the mood for one of Herb's stories, just ignoring the rambling for the moment. “Look, Lila, I love you. And I'm sorry this is happening, but you're going to be just fine. We're looking for you right now, and just, whatever you do, don't trust any of these aliens trying to kidnap you. I don't know what’s going on, but we talked to this squid guy, and he, uh, he said that he was trying to rescue you from them. But, most importantly, remember that I and your parents love you.”
Lila was quiet for a moment on the other end, long enough Dale began to worry he'd hung up on her. “Hey, guys, does this thing-”
“I love you, too. Don't let us die in some dumbass space war. Thank you. I'm going to hang up and preserve battery now.” Lila spoke quickly, practically rushing the words out, and then the line went dead.
Dale took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “We're going to save them,” He said, “No matter what. That's my grandkid they kidnapped, and I'll- I'll fucking kill them if I have to.” He lowered his voice as he swore, more out of habit than anything.
Ralph nodded grimly.
“Hey, man, anyone who hurts my grandson is getting their ass beat, I get you.” Ashley crossed his arms, before slapping Dale on the back. “We're going to kick some alien butt, and get our grandkids back.”