Not seeing a reason to refuse, Alexander joined the man. "I met Serina. Is she your daughter?"

Rush laughed. "No, she's my sister, and before you ask, it's a long story."

"She said something about a family gathering? Does this have anything to do with the Shican's arrival?"

Rush glanced at Alexander. "Yes. We detected their communications the same way we detected yours back in Epsilon Indi."

"And you didn't warn anyone?" Alexander accused.

Rush sighed. "It wouldn't have made a difference if we had. There was less than a minute between the signal interception and when the Shican jumped into the system."

"You don't know that," Alexander stated.

"I do, but let's not argue over the past. There are things we need to discuss."

"GS is leaving, aren't they?" Alexander asked.

The family meeting, Serina's awkward departure, and now this talk, Alexander couldn't see any other reason for such haste.

"Unfortunately, yes," he said as they stepped into one of the warehouses. "We thought we had more time; there were things we needed to do, but the Shican surprised us. You came here for answers today, didn't you?" Rush asked. There was no accusation in his tone.

"I assume you are somehow able to monitor space, considering you knew they jumped in."

"We are," he admitted.

"Then you saw them do something that shouldn't be possible. The only reason I could come up with for such a feat was an anti-gravity plate."

The man was silent for a moment as they continued deeper into the warehouse, which was packed full of stacks of gravity plating. It seemed like an appropriate place for such a discussion, but Alexander wondered how they managed to produce so many so quickly. The warehouse was packed full. His thought was interrupted as Rush finally broke the silence.

"Anti-gravity is not possible, Mr. Kane. At least not with our technology."

"Then how do you explain what they did?"

"To explain that, I would need to explain the fundamental principle behind gravity plating. To do that, you'll need to come with me."

Alexander followed the man through a pair of swinging doors he gestured to, then down a hallway to another door.

The GS people must have a lot of faith in their technology not being stolen, because none of the doors had locks on them.

Rush paused and nodded toward the door. "The answers you seek are beyond this door, Mr. Kane. If you step through, you may not like what you find."

Alexander paused for a moment before deciding the information was worth it if it helped stop the Shican. With his mind made up, he stepped inside. It looked like a smaller storage space with a series of large alcoves off to either side. He made it a few more steps before he caught sight of what was sitting in the closest opening.

"I'm sorry about this," Rush said, before shoving Alexander toward the nearest alcove and the silver sphere within.

Rush was five feet seven and maybe two hundred pounds, with little in the way of muscle, yet the gesture sent Alexander's eight-foot-tall frame and nearly one thousand pounds stumbling forward toward the large silver sphere that was hovering quietly above the floor in the alcove.

Alexander caught himself before stumbling entirely into the sphere, but not before one of his hands sank into the silvery liquid. He tried to yank it back out, but the sphere refused to let go.

"What the hell is this? Who the hell are you? What did you do with Rush?" Alexander yelled as he struggled against the sphere's grip. His feet slid uselessly against the floor as it slowly started dragging him deeper into it.

"We would have preferred to approach you on more amicable terms, but we couldn't reach a consensus on when or how to do it. With the Shican's arrival and your visit, we finally agreed that we couldn't delay any longer. Please don't struggle, Mr. Kane. I'll explain everything once we reach our destination."

"Like hell I'm going with you," he snapped, redoubling his efforts to pull himself free.

"What are you doing to my Dad!" Yulia screamed as she rushed into the room, ready to fight Rush. She froze in place before taking two steps toward the man. Rush hadn't even reacted to her entrance.

Alexander had no idea where his daughter had come from, but that didn't matter.

"What did you do to her?" he demanded. "If you harmed my daughter, I will stop at nothing to destroy you."

Rush, or whatever was pretending to be Rush, looked aghast at the suggestion. "I would never harm your daughter, Mr. Kane. She is in a molecular lock and will be released once we leave. You should understand what that means since you've been working to create one yourself. We didn't want to separate you from your daughter. We would have brought her and all the people you care about with us if we could, but our method of transportation would have killed the humans."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Alexander tried to keep Rush talking. He needed time to feed heat into his body. He was going to force it all into his arm, melting it off so he could break free.

"You're the aliens who destroyed the gates. Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?"

"That's not going to work," Rush said, completely ignoring the question.

Alexander felt all the built-up heat sucked from his body and into the sphere. The sensation was so surprising that he relaxed his resistance for a moment, and his entire arm was pulled in, making the struggle even more difficult.

More people walked into the room, walking past Yulia without a glance, all except Serina, who looked torn for a moment before continuing toward the other alcoves.

"So you're all just going to run away?" Alexander spat. "I saw what you did to the Shican. You could stay and help."

Rush shook his head sadly. "We really can't, Mr. Kane. What I did at the gates and to the Willard family is already too much. You may think us powerful and omnipotent, but that is only because you don't have all the information. It'll all make sense later," he finally added.

"You killed the Willards?" Alexander asked in shock.

Rush didn't answer as a skinny man who looked like he didn't know the meaning of humor momentarily stopped next to the man. Alexander could practically feel the communications between the pair before the skinny one turned away and headed to the next closest floating orb without a word.

Rush turned back to Alexander. "My brother is right, this is taking too long. The longer we stay, the more opportunity we give the Shican to track us." Rush dropped his human disguise and quickly matched Alexander in size, only he was made from the same silvery liquid that made up the spheres.

"Why did you go through all this trouble just to take me?" he yelled as half his body was inexorably pulled into the sphere. "Are you the ones that built me?"

The figure paused for a moment before responding. "Your conclusion is based on flawed information, but we will correct that. Now, please, it's time to go, for your safety, and everyone here."

In one last act of defiance, Alexander swept his free hand out, smashing it against the figure who had been Rush. He might as well have been punching ship armor for all the good it did. The form didn't even block or dodge the blow. He simply held out his arm and gave Alexander a gentle push, submerging the rest of his body into the sphere while he demanded they let him go.

***

One felt extremely dirty about kidnapping their creator this way, but it was for the best. Their other method involved covering the entire facility with a molecular lock while they brought the orb to him. That resulted in a lot more witnesses, since the field had to be tuned not to kill humans. Which meant they could still breathe and perceive everything happening around them.

Speaking of human witnesses, he sighed and turned around to face Yulia. He kneeled down in front of the frozen girl. "You may not understand or like what we are doing, but we are doing this to save your dad. Again, I'm sorry that we cannot bring you with us. Please don't hate us for this act or come looking for him. You will only bring more harm than good if you do. The molecular lock will fade shortly. I left a message for anyone who cares to read it. Please notify whoever takes charge that the gravity plating was built for them to use as they see fit. Call it an apology gift. One last thing before I go. Thirteen, or as you know her, Serina, wished to convey her thanks for being her friend."

One stood just as tears started to roll down Yulia's face.

His siblings had already left to complete their other tasks. Everything about what had just transpired felt wrong, but he had agreed that this was the only way. After a final pained look back, he stepped into the sphere, vanishing a moment later.

***

Yulia knew she shouldn't have followed Alex, but she was curious about Serina's brother and GS. Serina never really talked about her family or brought her into the facility.

Yulia stayed out of sight and listened as best she could as she followed Alex and Mr. Rush.

Hearing that her new friend was leaving was devastating. The pair had been nearly inseparable since being introduced because they shared so much in common. She had even convinced Serina to help her design her racing ship. She had agreed not to build anything without Alex's say-so, but that didn't mean she couldn't plan ahead.

Serina was really smart, like maybe even smarter than Alex. Okay, maybe not quite that smart, but she was still smart. Her new friend had mentioned that they could use her family's printers and computers to design and build the ship. Yulia almost jumped at the opportunity before remembering her promise. She convinced Serina to print only mock-up parts. If her new friend was upset by that decision, she didn't show it. She was a lot like Alex in that way, where she didn't show very many emotions.

They were in the middle of finalizing the ship design when Serina said she had to go. Then they had run into Alex. Yulia became defensive because she thought he was somehow monitoring Serina's family's printers, as well. Thankfully, that wasn't the case.

Then Yulia got curious, and now she was following the pair through a warehouse stacked tall with parts. She took a moment to look into a few of the crates and saw they were filled with gravity plating. She was mildly disappointed, even though it made complete sense.

That's when she heard Alexander yelling. She ran toward the noise, not even thinking about how stupid an idea that was.

"What are you doing to my Dad!" Yulia screamed at seeing the man trying to harm her father. Her training instincts took over as she rushed into the room.

She didn't make it very far before she found herself frozen in place.

Panic, anger, and frustration bubbled within her mind while she stood there listening to her dad argue with the man. Why was she so stupid, so weak? Once again, she couldn't do anything to help, and it made her feel useless.

Those feelings partially fled when the man melted away and became as large as her dad. The fear finally hit her as the silver man pushed her dad into the sphere, then turned toward her. He sounded genuinely remorseful, but that didn't change the fact that she hated him with every fiber of her being. She ignored everything he said as the tears finally slipped free from her eyes. She would find her dad no matter what the strange silver man said.

Moments after the man and the sphere vanished and Yulia was able to move again. She stumbled slightly, but managed not to fall. She didn't waste time crying over her father being taken; she wiped her tears away and pressed the emergency button on her comm bracelet.

"Security," the man on the other side said.

"This is Yulia Kane. I'm in the Gravitational Solutions facility. They just took Alex."

"…Could you repeat that?"

Yulia growled in annoyance and repeated what she just said. "You need to send Damien over here now!"

There was no response for a bit, then Damien's voice came through the comm. "Yulia, what's going on? Why is security telling me you are prank calling them?"

"I'm not!" she yelled. Then she relayed what had just happened to her.

"Stay there," Damien replied in the no-nonsense tone he took when he was being serious. "I'll have a security team there shortly."