Chapter 14: To War!

Jack sighed, he had not gotten much sleep last night. That and the fact that both of his arms were currently full of pins and needles due to the two women using them as pillows, and thus he was not the most comfortable man around. He looked at the peacefully sleeping Hisra, it had taken her quite some time to calm down last night. Especially after Mina had expressed her dislike of Hisra’s want to kiss Jack good night.

He had never seen anything move as fast as Mina as she moved to block Hisra’s descending lips. She had stretched from the entire other side of the room and transposed a section of silver between Jack and Hisra in order to make sure there was no contact of lips. This had perhaps inevitably led to a rather interesting arguing match that had lasted hours, in which the responding side only said “Mine!” Then again, how does one actually argue with that?

Jack honestly didn't know how he felt about having another girl, even if this girl was just feelings personified she was still a physical being. Honestly though he didn't know how he felt about his life at all. It had gone from a normal life to one filled with insanity literally overnight, and though it was fun, part of him missed the calm routine that was his old life.

“Mine,” came a soft contented murmur from his right side. Jack looked down at the Altrasi, if he didn't know any better it looked like she was sleeping soundly. Which lead to the question of whether or not she actually needed sleep one way or another it was apparently what she was doing at that moment. As he watched a strand of her hair slid down over her face, silver over silver and she made this little crinkle of the nose as it passed by as if it tickled. He had the urge to push it out of the way, the only issue was she was laying on this arm and Hisra was on his other one.

Carefully he moved his head to look at her. She didn't seem to be sleeping quite so peacefully, her face was bunched up and looked like she had some worries on her. Her hair, unlike Mina’s was a rather tangled and tousled mess. He smiled at her, and on a whim, he leaned his head in and kissed her on the brow. He held his breath for a moment, sure Mina would wake up and start again, but she did no such thing he let out a sigh and looked back at Hisra’s face, the worry lines were smoothed and there was a small smile on her lips. She still slept, but now she looked more peaceful.

He smiled and leaned his head back into the pillow, it really was odd how quickly he had adapted to the situation. First an alien girl, then his unforeseen engagement, and now another alien girl or rather the physical manifestation of his fiance’s feelings? This brought about the rather important question of whether or not Mina was a real person? He wasn't the most versed in science fiction, other than the standards like Star Wars and Dune. Neither of which had really gotten into the depths of what an A.I, actually was, and whether or not it was actually alive. He did remember a few episodes of star trek that had attempted to cover that, but honestly, each episode was too short to fully cover a theme like that and it always ended up half-baked in his opinion.

The fact of the matter was that he didn't know if she was technically alive or not. She seemed to have moods, likes, dislikes and some form of intelligence even if it was a byproduct of the bond between him and Hisra that didn't mean it wasn't real. There was so much new in his life that he honestly felt overwhelmed at times. He thought about it a little longer and decided he was going to treat her like she was a person, even if it turned out he was wrong, after all, It was always better to air on the side of caution.

This moral dilemma out of the way he sighed and attempted to readjust his position, in an attempt to increase the blood flow to his arms, but the two using his biceps as pillows would have none of it…

Jack woke up with a huge yawn and bags under his eyes, when he had been younger he had often dreamed about sleeping with more than one beauty at a time, now however he was honestly considering getting separate beds for the three of them. In none of his adolescent fantasies had it ever talked about the actual difficulty of taking care of two women. No one had told him it would be so painful to his arms. He grimaced and attempted to work some blood into them again, thankful he was able to move them this time.

Mina frankly hung around his neck like a cape as he strode into the kitchen to fix himself a pot of coffee. The sun had barely risen above the peaks of the trees, but he was already up, partially because his arms might have fallen off if he hadn't moved and partially because he was excited at the prospects of today’s events.

The defeat of the Millar clan.

The Millars were a family that when his father had first bought the lake house had seemed nice enough. But as time went on it became increasingly obvious that they were simply people that were too damned competitive. The father of the family was a football coach for some large college, the mother, a retired professional volleyball player. Their kids thought they were the best, and they aimed to prove it to everyone. Anyone that had attempted to encroach upon that territory were to be taught a lesson and put in their place, that was the way they lived, and frankly, it hadn't earned them many friends around here, and if Jack had been a betting man he would have said they likely didn't have too many wherever they came from either.

The Lalson Lake Family Tournament, it was a tournament held by the lake management staff twice a year, originally designed to be fun activities for the families that vacationed in the local area to participate in it and have fun, unfortunately, it had been warped and twisted into the pg equivalent of a blood sport. The events held everything from wheelbarrow races, to three-legged races, to egg toss to swimming contests and arm wrestling. And for the past 15 years the title had been fought over by two families.

They weren't the only ones to participate of course, but they were the only ones who were so aggressive about it. Jack knew he got his fighting spirit from his father, who had once been a champion MMA fighter. He retired before suffering too much brain damage, or if his mother had anything to say about it, perhaps not, but he kept the aggressiveness he had held in the octagon. The first time they had joined in they had won without even trying, and in that moment the neighbors that had up to that point been welcoming and friendly, even inviting them over to their cookouts and what not showed their true faces. Jack had nothing against people being competitive, hell if he had been then he would have been a very very large hypocrite, seeing as his family and him in particular.

With a sigh Jack sipped his coffee. The first cup was always black, followed by one more that had sugar and creamer to chase away the bitter taste. It was something he had picked up from his father, “one for wake and one for taste”. He smiled at the memory of what his father used to say with every cup. It was odd how the little things, the memories stuck with you and even in hard times could get you through anything with a smile.

“Mine?” Mina asked, looking at the cup of coffee that Jack was currently sipping.

“Want some?” Jack asked eyebrow raised as he held it out to her offering her the cup. She slid down his back and landed on the floor in a silver puddle before reconstructing herself into the humanoid form and standing up. With a curious look in her eyes, she reached out and took the cup from his hands. Cocking her head back in forth, Mina examined it in detail looking at it more like an artist would than like a person who was considering whether or not they wanted to drink something. “Go on take a sip,” he said, a smile on his lips as he watched her examine it from every potential angle.

The Altrasi did exactly that, or rather she took a large gulp of the hot liquid. Her face went still and emotionless for a split second before she dropped the cup and bent over coughing and spluttering. The mug shattered on the floor splashing burning coffee all over Jack’s feet and legs as well as several smaller ceramic fragments and he carefully did not step back despite the urge to do so due to the hot coffee burning him due to the fact that doing so could lead to more pain should he end up stepping on one of those ceramic fragments.

Mina opened her mouth and started fanning on her tongue as though it was on fire, or she was some character out of a cartoon, and Jack looked at the mess and back at her before starting to laugh at the Altrasi’s antics.

“Yeah it's a little warm,” he said as he stepped carefully around the puddles and unintentional caltrops that had once been a mug and its contents. He moved back to the coffee maker and poured himself another cup, this time putting in creamer and sugar. “Want some?” he asked in a joking manner holding up the cup to her in his best inviting manner, Mina shook her head no and quickly backed up until she bumped up against the edge of the couch. She quickly darted over it in a more liquid form and hid behind it before reforming in a humanoid shape and peeking out at the cup of coffee in his hands like it was the spawn of hell itself. “Ok, guess that means more for me” he laughed as he took another sip before setting it down on the counter and went about cleaning up the broken shards of mug on the floor.

It wasn't long after that before everybody was awake and assembled into the living room, as they all yawned and the humans made themselves coffee, he surveyed his troops before him, they didn't know it yet, but they had been conscripted into the war effort. “Ok, I know we all came here to relax but there is a pressing matter we need to handle,” he said, rolling out a portable chalkboard that his father kept in this house for this very reason.

“What matter is that?” Tirs asked, she looked up at the chalkboard in confusion, she was not alone in this.

“I'm glad you asked Tirs, you see today-” he started to write on the chalkboard in large aggressive characters. “Today we go to war!” he finished up his writing and underlined what he had just written, there in white chalk was four words.

Lalson Lake Family Tournament.