Jamie looked around. Dan was looking at a console with four dots on it - a blue, green and orange dot all together representing presumably the three of them, and another orange dot moving slowly towards their location. There were two countdown timers . Tom's showed 1:30:23 and Dan's showed 2:00:01. Lights came on around the chamber and Jamie tried to suss it out. A rough cube, with some pretty serious stuff obviously stored around the walls. Definitely bigger on the outside than on the inside.
'Dude, this is not a TARDIS,' said Tom. 'You're broadcasting lines from Doctor Who.'
Jamie moved over for a closer look at Dan's console. The orange dots resolved themselves - the further one became yellow, and the one close to the green and blue dots became red.
<You have calmed him,> Tom heard in his head.
The lights went out and the console disappeared. A new timer appeared, at four minutes, and the words SCAN COMPLETE. WELCOME, JAMIE.
'Jamie,' said Tom, 'This is going to be cool, ok? Everything your geeky films could ever have prepared you for. You need to stand here,' and he guided him to the middle of the room. Dan stood in front of him and to his right, and Tom stood to the left. Immediately Tom's body turned again into water, and blue energy swirled around his feet. Meanwhile, Dan had turned into mobile granite, his muscular features now carved into rock. His feet were bathed in green.
'So you're blue, and you're green?'
'Yeah,' said Dan, 'That's right.'
'So does that make me red?'
YES
The energy around the other boys became to crackle around them, until each was encased in their own characteristic colour. The display changed:
ALLONS-Y
At 00:02:00 the air began to smell of ozone. 'Burning,' Jamie said, 'cool.'
'He's a bit of a pyromaniac,' Tom explained to Dan, and then to Jamie, 'This is the only bit where Dan was scared.'
'So what's happening anyway?'
IT'S CHARGING UP.
Red sparks began to creep along the walls, short and long in random variations. They connected with the blue sphere surrounding Tom and turned purple, and with the green sphere around Dan, turning yellow. 'What's changed now?' asked Tom.
Tom had forgotten that he'd entered the vessel with his shorts on, and therefore with his mobile, although there was no sign of any clothes or anything else in here. <So primitive. It should be inbuilt. And Jamie's has some remarkable images on it.>
'You're going to like this, Jamie-boy,' he said, 'You're getting a built in phone and WiFi. And it's going to turn you into a porn star like on your phone.'
00:00:30. The chamber was glowing red, the walls aflame. The noise of the restructuring device resembled that of a large bonfire. Red sparks met purple, and yellow, and white where all three were grounded together. Jamie looked startled, his sudden erection sticking out in front of him. He made no attempt to hide it, instead licking his lips at each of the other boys in turn.
And then it stopped. Jamie looked at the others. 'Is that it? No WiFi yet. And I'm still not a porn star.'
'Maybe it just meant that it's going to give you an off switch,' said Dan, the shielding around him fading as he turned back to flesh.
'Nice man, already flippin' him off,' said Tom, miming a hi-five in Dan's direction. 'Jamie?'
'Yeah?'
'Here it comes.'
'Nice one.'
A moment of silence.
This time, red bolts of energy exploded from the corners of the room across the walls. Apart from in the zones around both Tom and Dan, the floor began to crackle. Jamie pushed his arms out straight from his shoulders. 'I told you it was like the TARDIS,' he yelled, and the energy hit him, engulfing him instantly. He felt flames licking around his body. He felt his six pack solidify, and his biceps grow into greater little definition, and maybe that was his ass just firming up a bit. He saw his friends watching him, and realised he had been coming, and that his cock had expanded to mammoth proportions, nearly ten inches in length and six around. He clicked his fingers and sparks flew back to the floor. 'Cool,' he shouted, as the energy stopped flowing into him and his orgasm finished. The others stared at him.
A new timer appeared:
JAMIE 2:00:00
'What?' Jamie asked. He realised his hair was on fire and mentally switched the flames off. 'What?' he asked again.
'That was just kinda dramatic,' said Tom. 'Mine was more gentle. Undulating. Dan's was just slow and steady.'
'Yeah of course,' Jamie said. 'Water, earth, fire. Where's air?' He concentrated for a moment and turned to Dan. 'He just texted you.'
'How do you know? My phone's on the bank.'
'I just tapped it. Christ, I got the entire Internet in here too. Hold on.' He zoned out again. 'Tom, can you get this out of my mind and get the ship to display it?'
'No problem,' said Tom, and a satellite image appeared of a dark-haired form about 500 metres from where Dan's clothes were piled on the shore.
'Yep, that's Sam,' said Dan.
'Cool. Borrowed a satellite. China's. They use it for some bad shit.' The image disappeared. 'Short-circuited it. Let's go meet him. Can we have a door?'
The door appeared and in a flash of light Jamie disappeared.
'ADD?' asked Dan.
'Always. The only thing that calms him down is the prospect of sex. Can I get a leg up?' asked Tom.
Dan threw Tom through the door and jumped out himself. Thirty seconds later he'd reached the bank, where Jamie and Tom were waiting for him. They were both fully dressed again.
'We don't want to frighten the kid with our gorgeous nakedness,' explained Jamie.
'How did you get back?'
'I figured if you can go anywhere on land, and Tom can go anywhere on water, I can go anywhere where there's energy. And I knew your phone was on in your pocket so I came through that.'
Tom noticed Dan drying himself off. 'Let me help,' he said. He put his hand on Dan's back and drew all the water from his body into his own. He kissed the back of Dan's neck. 'Get some clothes on.' Jamie came over and hugged Tom lightly.
'Thanks. This is awesome.'
'It wasn't me. It's that ship. I reckon we're going to have to make some serious decisions here.'
'Yeah, I know. You're not even gay and here we are in some kind of threesome.'
'I'm not complaining about that.' Dan joined the hug. 'I always loved you. It's just that now, I can love you the way you always loved me. And I can teach Dan how to take the piss out of you.'
'What about Sam, Dan?' asked Jamie. 'How's he going to take this?'
'He already wants you. And he already fancied me. And judging by the way in which you're reacting to me now, even though you wouldn't have fancied me before, would you?... I reckon he'll fancy Tom too by the time the ship is through with him.'
'He'll go through with it?'
'Yeah, no doubt, he's up for anything. Can you, like, open your mind to him?' Dan asked. 'Show him what's happened to you? That might work, especially if I tell him I trust you.'
'I guess so. He's nearly here.'
Jamie went back to his rucksack. 'Food!' he exclaimed. 'What do you want Dan? I got bread, chips, fruit, chocolate.'
'You got an apple?'
'Sure.' He tossed Dan one.
'Hey what about me?'
'Chips, cheese flavour, what you always want.' He wrinkled his nose. 'Man, I have to kiss you after you eat this shit now.' He picked up the chips and threw them to Tom and got himself another of the apples.
For a few seconds the only sound was of Jamie's eating. Then Dan said, 'Er, dude?'
'Yesh?' with a mouthful of apple spraying out.
'How did you do that?'
'Do what?'
'Pass me some chocolate.'
'Whatever, you're worse than I am.' Jamie fished in his bag and tossed Dan some chocolate.
'That's not what you did. You didn't use your hands.'
'Coool.' Jamie experimented on his own apple, tossing it into the air and catching it with his mind. The novelty lasted a couple of seconds and he went back to eating it.
'Cool? That's it?'
'Yeah, energy, mass, same thing I guess. No biggie. I'm hungry.'