by Orion, W. J.
“He’s been a little weird, but I never put that together. It makes some sense now. Words he didn’t get, expressions I used that went over his head. He’s… nice, Baron. I genuinely think he’s a good guy.”
“Call me Caleb. Or Uncle Caleb, please. I’d lost hope on ever hearing my niece say those words to me. And as for your friend, sell me on it. I can’t decide whether or not I want to keep him locked up until his little squid posse starves or toss him off the roof. Right now I’m leaning towards the roof option.”
“He claimed he worked with crabs to help humanity. That the crabs weren’t all bad, and that there were good crabs that wanted to help. I assumed he was a human helping those crabs but now.…”
“Yeah.”
“Anyway, Trey said the Baron had him hostage, and over time we talked, and eventually to prove that was legit, he gave me directions to where his group stashed a bunch of medicines. I retrieved them for Shant, and… well, after you guys came to town, I decided I’d come here and maybe think about meeting him in person, or rescuing him.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“It’s complicated,” she agreed. “You have a reputation as being merciless, and not exactly one of being a nice guy.”
“It’s deserved. I am not the hero of this story.”
“You might’ve been the hero of a different story though, and that’s good to know. So here I am, sitting beside an uncle I’ve known for a day that’s admitted to taking a friend I’ve been talking to for a month hostage.”
“I see. Well, you said you can talk to him on your phone right?” he said and the phone buzzed again as if on cue. “So start talking to the intelligent fish tank.”
Somehow, that idea horrified Yasmine. To have open, naked communication between sworn enemies, with her conflicted self in the middle put her on a collision course with decisions regarding one or the other, and that thought was… well, it was horrifying. Finality was scary.
She picked up the phone and it buzzed again. Trey had left her forty-two new messages.
“He must know something is up. He’s messaged me forty-two times.”
“Meaning of life,” her uncle said.
“Huh?”
“Douglas Adams? No? Nothing? I’ll find you a copy. See what your friend wants. Mikey, let’s watch this. When was the last time you saw someone texting?”
“It’s a miracle, Cal. I will write this down in my diary tonight.”
“Right beside the ‘first kiss’ notation.”
“You can kiss my-“ and Mikey stopped, censoring himself.
Yasmine sighed and shook her head. Then she unlocked the phone, and went to the messages Trey sent her. They spilled out over the minutes she’d been sitting at the table with her rediscovered uncle.
How’s it going?
Is everything going okay?
Are you going to try and visit? Maybe… let me out?
I’ll need help if you try to rescue me. I don’t walk. Well, I can’t walk.
You’ll have to carry me. I’m not that heavy though.
Something’s up. There’s… interference in the air. Oh no. No no no.
I don’t know how to tell you this.
I haven’t been entirely honest with you. But now I have to come clean. You’re here, and they’re almost here.
There’s a crab ship coming. It’s breaking atmosphere now.
It’s headed towards the city, but I’m not sure where it’ll land.
It’s a small craft. A transport for a tactical group.
The one you destroyed in the school. He’s whole enough to return I think. It’s him for sure.
You need to get out of here. There’s a chance he’ll pick up on my energy signature and come for me. You have nowhere to run if he decides to raze the building.
He has enough weaponry on his craft to do that. He can destroy the tower.
No… he’s heading to Shant. He must’ve had something to track you there.
He’ll kill everyone to get you.
I don’t want you to die. Get out. Run. I’ll try to message him that you’re gone. He’ll come for me though…
I was his original prey.
I’m a problem, you see. Those like me. We don’t follow their rules.
Crabs kill their problems. It’s always been our way.
I guess if you’re alive and you’ve read this far, you might’ve figured out that I’m a crab.
I’m sorry I misled you. I’d hoped we could become friends first, and then I could tell you.
You’re such a good person. A good soul. A quality that transcends what planet something or someone was born on.
You’re why we do this. You’re the victims who don’t deserve my species’ insanity.
Leave. Get out fast.
Take the Baron. Talk him into protecting you.
He’s an ass, but he fights well, and he has resources that’ll help keep you alive.
If only he’d let you take me to that chassis in the drain pipe. I could power it on, and help fight against the predator that’s coming for you.
The ship is getting closer.
They’re not listening to my beacon. They’ve caught the scent of blood in the water.
That’s not it. I’ve used too much of my power to keep the cell tower running to send a strong enough signal.
I can’t stop them. They’re going to destroy Shant.
I’m so sorry.
Leave.
Leave.
Leave now.
Run as fast as you can as far away as you can get.
He’ll kill you. He’ll kill every single one of you until he gets you.
Leave.
Run.
Never come back.
Have you left yet?
LEAVE NOW YASMINE. THE SHIP IS ALMOST HERE.
The phone buzzed again and she watched the message appear live.
He senses I’m here. The ship is pinging the city. I’m so sorry.
I wish we’d gotten to meet.
I think we could’ve saved the worlds together.
I’m going dark so they can’t pinpoint me in case you haven’t left.
Goodbye, and thank you for giving me hope.
Yasmine dropped her phone on the table and looked at Mikey, then her uncle.
“What?” the Baron and Mikey asked her at the same time.
“He says a crab ship is coming straight at us right now.”
She finished her sentence and the chandelier hanging above their head began to shake.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Face to… Faces?
Mikey and Caleb stood, both drawing pistols from holsters on their hips. Yasmine stood as well, though her pistol was back in her room on the 17th floor below. She grabbed her mom’s phone off the table and jammed it in her pocket.
“Mike, alert the outposts and gatehouses. Order an evacuation to the sublevels and the exits,” he said. Mikey leapt into action, grabbing a walkie off his belt. Her uncle turned to her. “You’re with me. All the way down and out.”
“We need to get Trey.”
“No,” he shook his head. “We don’t.” His denial was punctuated by a growing vibration in the penthouse.
“Yes, we do. Trey can help. He says he can power up a spare crab vehicle and help us fight against this thing.”
Caleb laughed at her. “Did you just hit your head? We are not giving a weapon to the crab I have hostage upstairs. Not happening on my watch.”
“Baron, Uncle Caleb, whatever. We need him. I need you trust me on this.”
“I can trust you, but I can’t trust an alien fish tank. Let’s move,” he said, and reached for her arm.
She snapped her arm away from his reach and glared at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I just…”
“If you want me to leave, take me to him,” she said, and her words were her ultimatum.
“Meet me in the goddamn basement?” he asked Mikey, and the man nodded as he issued comma
nd after command into the walkie for the Baron. Not everyone was responding to him. “Follow me,” her uncle said.
They strode away from the big table as the floor started to shake and wobble. He headed towards a steel door tucked away beside the wall of canvas-covered glass and stopped. He grabbed the lowest piece of heavy fabric and yanked it down.
Like a punch to the face the blaring light of the afternoon sun stunned her. She blinked her eyes back into life and looked out over the devastated city. Or she would’ve, if a crab ship wasn’t sliding across the horizon like a shark just a dozen yards from the side of the building.
As big as a school bus, and lithe—liquid and organic, oval—in shape, the violet and indigo colored vessel hovered, emitting a terrible, bright blue light from the tips of 10 tentacles extending from its aft and pointing downward. They swam through the air, guiding the vessel as if it were a predator swimming in water.
The nose of the ship opened like a beak, revealing a cluster of glowing red eyes, sensors, and beacons. Yasmine’s brain flashed to the memory of the crab she destroyed at the bottom of the stairwell. Caleb grabbed her arm roughly and yanked her away, out of the open window.
“Run,” he barked, and she did.
He blasted through a heavy fire door and up a set of steel stairs beyond, taking the big steps two at a time like the giant he was. Yasmine went as fast as she could, but he outpaced her. Behind them—beside them outside, in the air—she heard a tremulous growl growing, shaking the floor and walls. She felt the wind catch the raised hairs on her arms and neck.
She felt a weapon powering up.
That sensation made her ascend faster.
Her uncle rounded the corner of the landing and blasted through another steel door. When that door opened, more sunlight streamed in, though it wasn’t as harsh as the window’s. He stopped, holding the door open for her.
“They’re about to fi-“
A giant bellowed, then picked the stairs up, and threw her.
The enormous blast of plasma energy hit the penthouse a story below and vaporized it, throwing her, the stairs, the walls, and everything else she could see upwards in a violent ultimatum of power. She soared up and through the air until she smashed off the concrete wall of the upper level, and bounced out the open door her uncle’s fallen form held open. She’d never seen or felt power like that before.
When she landed the rubble was still falling on the lopsided floor beside her. She coughed, and a flare of pain shot through her lungs. It felt like she’d gotten a big chunk of the building in her chest. Caleb coughed equally as the top of the skyscraper groaned and tilted.
Nearby she heard an electronic hum grow, followed by a loud pulse of mechanical energy. She glanced up and saw the blue tips of the crab vessel powering it away.
West, towards Shant, into the lukewarm wind of the cooling desert.
“Are you okay?” she asked him.
He nodded. “Back’s messed up, but I’ve had worse.” He reached for his walkie on his belt but it was gone. Lost in the upheaval. “God… Mike,” he mumbled.
She looked over her shoulder at the ruined, collapsed stairwell and laughed at the irony. She dropped one on top of that crab to kill it, and the same crab took one away from her. She examined her surroundings at the top of the building.
Multiple towers on the roof reached towards the sky; old cell towers, and at their base was a single “building.” It must’ve been where her uncle had Trey locked away. She could see the very tips of the city’s remaining buildings in the distance.
“Is he in there?”
“Yeah. Let’s get him out. See if we can make heads or tails out of this.”
They got to their feet and walked on the tilted surface of the building’s roof, one slow step at a time. The unsure footing was slanted sharply, and with the damage the crab ship did, there was no way to know what would cave-in if they stepped awry. Or how far they’d fall after.
The Baron got to the crooked steel door of the cell tower control room and fished a ring of keys out of his pants pocket. He rifled through them after looking about for the crab ship, and found the one he needed. He unlocked the door, and gave it a push.
Nothing. It didn’t move.
He threw a brawny shoulder into the door, and it moved inward an inch with a metallic shriek. He laughed.
“Any chance you brought your halligan with you?”
It was her turn to laugh. “Mine’s in my room on the 17th floor.”
“Mine’s sitting on my bar top. If the bar is still there,” he said with a melancholy sigh. “I loved that bar. I loved that halligan.”
“Yeah, they were nice. Let me help you.”
She stepped up and the two pressed their shoulders into the door. After a count to three, they both slammed forward, dislodging the steel door from its bent frame. It swung inward with another creak and stopped in the black room half open. The bent floor wouldn’t allow more motion.
“Power’s out. Your friend is on a counter straight in. Follow me,” he said.
The two slipped through the gap in the doorway.
Yasmine’s body hurt; it hadn’t been designed to fly into a wall during a massive explosion. But the pain couldn’t hide her fear, or her anxiety. She thought she knew Trey; she had an image of him in her head; she imagined what his voice would sound like; she knew his smile, his laugh, his sense of humor, and his character.
And now she’d be disappointed by a lie fully revealed.
The black corner of the room her uncle walked into hid Trey, whatever he was. If there were any meeks this high up, they were far away from the alien in his hiding place. They sought not to inherit this cave in the sky.
A tiny blue glow illuminated the corner. A spark. Then another and another. Little arcs of electricity jumping from tiny masses to tiny masses grew in power as the two humans walked closer and closer, turning the pit of shadows into a den of neon-blue light. All of it; all of the power and luminescence came from a clear container the size of a large fish tank sitting on a console.
Inside that fish tank were hundreds of little tentacled squid creatures, and each gave off a small burst of visible energy. As she approached, they swam in the confines of the tank in a rhythmic, excited fashion, like a school of fish surrounding food in the water.
“Trey?” she whispered at the alien display of life, and light.
The tiny cephalopods burst into a circus of motion and flashing light. They swam in rhythmic, pulsing circles, undulating and dancing at the sound of her voice. Then, they went still, and orchestrated themselves into two familiar shapes.
The letter H, and the letter I.
She grinned and laughed. “Hi to you too.”
The squids broke apart and darkened, but as they faded away, the thousand buttons and screens on the console the tank sat upon blinked, powered up and came to a semi-state of life. Her phone buzzed. She yanked it from a torn pocket and looked at the message.
Sorry I can’t talk better in person.
I don’t have any ability to speak.
At least in a way you’d hear.
She messaged him back.
It’s okay. This isn’t what I expected.
You’re not what I expected, but it’s pretty cool.
You can speak out loud. I can hear you.
You’re pretty cool, too.
“Ha,” she said out loud.
“What?” her uncle asked.
“He can hear us.”
“Of course he can,” Caleb said. “Crabs would want all the information they could get.”
See? He’s an asshole.
“What’d he say?”
“He agreed with you,” Yasmine said. “Crabs would want all the information they could get.”
Nice cover. We need to move, assuming you’re not going to throw me off the roof of this building.
“Trey, the Baron is my uncle.”
WHAT? You’re biological relatives? A family unit?
“Yeah.”
I guess that means I’m dead. Kill me or let’s go.
“We’re not gonna kill you. He says we have to move.”
“I’m betting the stairs are jacked. We could try climbing down. I’ve got some rope up here. Enough for us to go down a couple floors. I need to find Mikey. Make sure he’s okay.”
“Great. How will we get him down? Won’t his glass break?”
This isn’t glass. You could drop me a few floor’s distance without worry.
“We toss him,” Caleb said with a wink.
“Then what do we do?” she said aloud.
We get one of his vehicles and run to the chassis, and we escape. I’ll find another element of my resistance group and I’ll get you off world to somewhere safer than here.
“No, we aren’t running from this. You said he’s going to kill everyone in Shant right? It won’t be worth living if he does that,” Yaz said to the flickering creature-made-of-creatures in the pod.
“Could you include me in this conversation?” her uncle said. “Feel a little out of control right now.”
“He wants to leave Earth and rescue me.”
“I’m okay with that,” Caleb replied. “I’ll drive.”
Perfect. Now once I have that chassis up and running, we can head north. There’s a cell of my people there. They have access to a ship.
“Stop, Trey. I’m going to Shant. You can leave if you want, but those people are in danger because of me.”
“You want to fight them in Shant?”
“I want to fight them anywhere they are,” Yasmine said, her voice made of steel. “I’m sick of this,” she said, motioning towards the door and the vista of destruction beyond it. “You took a stand, and now I am. Humanity, Earth, we lost everything because of them, and I may have missed out on the war to save Earth, but I’ll be damned if I miss out on the war to get it back.”
And just like that, I’m in. Let’s do this.
“Let’s do this. The Monoliths are at your service,” her uncle said.
“Let’s go, Trey. Oh, and while we’re moving, I want a lot more truth out of you. Tell me everything you think I can digest about crabs and blowing them up.”
It will be my sincere pleasure to explain whatever you want. Mind you, once we leave, I won’t be able to communicate via your phone. Yes or no questions I can shape out for you. Oh… I almost forgot.