Ben Archer

by Rae Knightly

  “Broken leg, check.”

  He tried to move his hands and arms. The right one was trapped, but the left one had a bit more space. He loosened some snow with his fingers, feeling which way it fell.

  At least I’m not upside down, he thought scornfully.

  He moved his head to his left and caught his breath. He could see the blue sky through a small crack in the snow just above him.

  “Help! Help!” he shouted before realizing it was useless. He wasn’t too far from the surface. If only he could free his arm.

  Painstakingly, Hao began to scratch away at the snow.

  ***

  Laura cradled Ben in her arms. She had covered Tike’s ruined body under her sweater. Mesmo sat with his legs bent upright, his arms resting on his knees, his head hanging in total exhaustion. Laura noticed his grey skin anxiously. Eventually, he lifted his head and said determinedly, “You can’t stay here. You need to get away and find a safe place to hide. I won’t be able to follow. You’ll be on your own.”

  Laura held his gaze and fished a notebook page out of her back pocket. She scanned the five names on the small document that her father had left her.

  “Bob M.?” Mesmo asked, pointing at the last name on the list.

  Laura sighed, then folded the notebook page again. “Yes: Bob M.,” she confirmed with a final tone in her voice, indicating she wasn’t inviting any more questions. She stuffed the paper in her back pocket. “Ben needs a place to heal. We’ll be heading to Toronto. Bob will help us.” She lowered her gaze, burning to ask how bad his wounds were. But Bordock had shaken her faith in him.

  “What is it?” Mesmo asked.

  She bit her lip.

  “It’s Bordock, isn’t it?” Mesmo pressed. “What did he tell you?”

  She shot him an accusing glance. “Not enough.” She could tell he was struggling to remain present and her heart ached to reassure him.

  Mesmo considered her, then said quietly, “I never asked anything of you, Laura Archer. You were the one who offered to help me.”

  When she didn’t answer, he said, “Look at me.”

  She did.

  His honey-brown eyes did not reflect any resentment or accusation. He held her gaze and said, “I know you don’t trust me. And you probably shouldn’t. But there is one thing you can be certain of. I would never harm Ben.” He paused to make sure she was listening. “You need to realize, I could have taken Ben’s skill away from him any time. But I didn’t. And I won’t.”

  Laura swallowed and lowered her eyes in shame.

  “Laura,” he said, forcing her to look at him again. “You don’t owe me anything. You are free to go.”

  She opened her mouth, but couldn’t find anything to say. He stood and backed away into the wall of their icy cocoon. He placed his hands on its surface and began melting away the snow, thus creating a tunnel coated in bluish light.

  If her heart had been heavy before, now it weighed like a brick. “Ben?” she said, shaking his elbow.

  Ben winced and placed a hand to his chest.

  Laura’s face tightened with worry. She lay him down and lifted his sweater and shirt. On Ben’s chest, near his heart, was a large, black-and-blue smudge that corresponded with the area where Tike had been hit. A sob escaped as she realized how close she had been to losing him.

  Mesmo came back, hunched over and pale. His image faded, she could see the tunnel right through him.

  “Ben, we have to go.” She nudged him gently, but he remained limp in her arms. He opened his eyes and saw Tike. His face crumpled.

  Laura and Mesmo exchanged a glance.

  She didn’t think he still had it in him, but the alien placed his hands around Tike’s body. Water flowed around the terrier until it formed a block. Mesmo froze the water in such a way that it became smooth and transparent, like resistant glass.

  The three of them remained there for a silent moment, watching Tike who seemed to be sleeping peacefully in his icy coffin.

  ***

  Hao squeezed his hand open and closed to restore some circulation to it. His gloved fingers cramped, but he was making headway. This was no time to give up. He sweated profusely and panted under the effort until he was finally able to bend his arm up to his shoulder. Next feat would be to reach his arm through the hole above his head. He decided to take a short break to calm his thoughts and rest his arm. He just wanted to close his eyes for a minute...

  Cold drops splattered on his cheek. Hao woke with a start, panic surging through his body. Had he really fallen asleep? He swore angrily. His body ached from being forced into the same position for…how many hours?

  How long was I asleep for? Dread overwhelmed him.

  A shadow passed overhead. He twisted his head to peek through the hole, fully expecting to see a cloud or, worse, setting dusk.

  Instead, he saw a man standing right above him. Hao could see the underside of his chin and his nose. The man glanced in the distance.

  “Hey!” Hao shouted. “H-e-e-e-y!”

  He yelled and yelled for help, but the man just stood there, impassive.

  He can’t hear me! Hao realized in horror. Despair gripped him.

  “Help!” he said weakly, his eyes filling with tears.

  The man glanced down, his bald head reflecting the late sun.

  Hao blinked in a hurry. “Connelly!” he shouted frantically. “I’m down here! Help!”

  Connelly seemed to be looking straight down at him, yet his face was expressionless.

  Why can’t he see me? Hao thought in alarm.

  Something was wrong with the bald man’s eyes, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  I’m delirious, Hao thought.

  Connelly straightened and moved away, disappearing from his view in a second.

  “No! Connelly! Come back!” Hao shouted in a strangled voice. He sobbed, unabashed, giving in to exhaustion and fear. When he finally calmed down, snippets of thoughts and images haunted his mind. Grizzlies that charged him, innocent-looking boys that transformed into alien monsters, dark spaceships hiding imminent threats…

  He had not been ready for this assignment. It was beyond his human comprehension. “I just want to make sure you stop in time.” His sister Lizzie’s words scolded him from the border of his sanity. If only he had listened to her!

  Connelly’s face floated on his eyelids, strangely twisted as he stared at Hao without seeing him.

  But he DID see me.

  The thought jolted him awake. Hao’s body shook with cold and shock, but a spark lit deep within him.

  “He D-DID see m-me!” he stuttered, his eyes widening in disbelief, consciousness returning with force.

  That one thought, whether originating from a hallucination or reality, sent a rush of power through his body, willing him to live. His ears caught the sound of a passing helicopter.

  Using this new source of energy, Hao began to scratch frantically at the snow again. He could not feel his fingers but went on anyway, and before long, he shoved his arm through the opening above his head, sticking his hand out to the surface, like a signalling flag.

  ***

  On the verge of being overcome with emotion, Laura heaved Ben to his feet, placed his arm around her neck and encouraged him to walk away. He was too numb to resist and let himself be guided through the tunnel.

  Mesmo closed up the tomb and, once they were out, made the snow collapse into the tunnel behind them.

  The sun shone warmly on their skin from a beautiful, crisp sky. The significant flow of the avalanche was visible, and there wasn’t a soul in sight, though a helicopter hovered some way up the mountain.

  Laura spotted the road they had been trying to reach for two days.

  Has it only been two days? she thought in wonder.

  Before long, she and Ben took a place in the back of a camper of a friendly couple of skiers who were headed to the city of Calgary. Ambulances and police cars sped by them in the opposite direction, rushing to the sc
ene of the avalanche.

  As they drove off, Laura stared out the back window and saw Mesmo standing on a ledge, his form barely visible. She knew instinctively that he had gone too far. A lump formed in her throat and she realized that, friend or foe, she would end up helping him.

  ***

  Victor Hayward leaned back in his chair and peeked under the business table. He didn’t care whether the investors who surrounded him thought he had fallen asleep. He had stopped counting the hours since he had begun negotiating with the twenty-or-so businessmen, split evenly to his left and to his right. One of them spoke angrily, jabbing a finger at the perfectly polished oak table.

  Hayward had long given up listening to the man’s accusations, especially when his emergency phone buzzed, indicating something was up with the alien.

  He held the phone under the table and watched the video clip his contact had sent him. The grainy black and white image that filmed the alien non-stop had captured an unmistakable scene: the alien was having seizures. The video stopped when men clad in doctor’s coats and masks rushed to the alien’s side.

  Hayward typed hastily: WHEN?

  His contact replied: 15 MIN AGO.

  Hayward waited impatiently for more. When nothing came, he texted: REPORT!

  His contact wrote: ALIVE. BUT BAD SHAPE.

  Hayward sighed in frustration, then texted: ON MY WAY.

  He put away the phone and realized that the bothersome investor was staring at him condescendingly while he continued to enumerate his grievances.

  Hayward placed both his hands flat on the table, feeling the cool, soft surface on his skin. He let the investor blab away for some time, then said sharply, “Enough.”

  The investor barely paused in his lecture, addressing the other men at the table who were all ears.

  Hayward smacked both hands loudly on the table. “Enough!” he shouted.

  The investor plopped on the chair, his face turning pale as white bedsheets.

  Hayward stood slowly, his imposing presence making up for his short stature.

  “Enough of your whining,” he seethed. “Whining never made anyone rich. Whining isn’t what’s going to put money back in your bank accounts.” He displayed the back of his stubby hands, fingers spread out before his face. “These two hands built an empire through hard work and sweat. You wouldn’t know what that means because you’re just a bunch of scavengers, scrambling over each other to catch the falling crumbs. But I say, enough! I have an empire to rebuild, and I have two hands to do it with. You have delayed me far too long. I am needed at headquarters. This meeting is over.”

  “But the oil…” someone ventured meekly.

  “Forget the oil.” Hayward cut in. “Oil is a thing of the past. It is time to introduce new, boundless energy to the aviation business. Heed my words. Victory Air will be the first company in the world to introduce cutting-edge technology never heard of before.”

  He glared at them, all twenty investors in turn, then straightened the jacket of his business suit and headed out with a confident stride.

  He paused by the door and said, “Don’t forget who you’re dealing with. I am Victor Hayward. Remain loyal to me and gold will roll off the table into your laps. Or else, scatter back to the filthy gutter from whence you came.”

  He waited until an assistant hurriedly opened the meeting room doors for him, then headed down the hall with a determined stride.

  He had delayed too long. He needed answers, and he needed them now!

  EPILOGUE

  The crow rested on a rooftop, watching as a grey bus pulled out of a large station topped with the letters GREYHOUND STATION CALGARY. It kept its beady eyes on the boy seated with his forehead pressed against the windowpane. Their eyes met briefly before the bus turned into a bustling street.

  The crow took flight, escaping the fumes coming from noisy cars and the shiny skyscrapers. It followed the sun as it descended in the sky, caressing the tips of the Canadian Rockies. Their snowy caps put on gowns of orange and red while stars began to appear in the dusk.

  The crow beat its wings rhythmically, purposefully, until she found the Kananaskis Mountain Range and, further up, the town of Canmore. She swooped down just as streetlights flickered on and landed on a leafless apple tree of a yard she knew well.

  Warm light splashed onto the ground from inside the house, rich smells seeped from the kitchen, and a man's contagious laughter escaped from the dining room.

  Corbalyn cawed and ruffled her feathers.

  The girl with the long, black hair lifted her head. She was sitting at the top of the deck stairs and when she saw the crow, she got up and approached the tree slowly.

  Corbalyn began to clean her wings.

  “Hello, you,” the girl said. “Feeling better?”

  The crow took no notice and continued her task. Then she pulled at her tail, releasing a feather–her longest and most beautiful one. Holding the feather in her beak, Corbalyn observed the girl for a moment, then let go.

  The feather floated to the ground, and the girl picked it up. She held it up to admire it. She looked at the crow with a gleam in her eyes. “A gift,” she whispered. “Thank you."

  Corbalyn ruffled her feathers once more, then took off into the night.

  The girl remained immobile, holding the feather in the palm of her gloved hands.

  “Kimi? Diner’s ready!” a woman’s voice called from inside the house.

  The girl didn’t move, but when she finally did, she had a smile on her face.

  BEN ARCHER

  AND THE

  MOON PARADOX

  The Alien Skill Series, Book 3

  Rae Knightly

  CHAPTER ONE

  Bob M.

  When Ben and Laura stepped through the elevator door, they found Bob M. waiting.

  Not that Ben took much notice: at that point, he felt emotionally and physically drained. He slouched behind his mother, studying the marble floor, anxiously waiting for her to get over the tedious but obligatory introductions, and then, maybe, they would finally let him get some rest.

  Hang on for a bit longer.

  A movement out of the corner of his eye startled him.

  Tike?

  But it had only been a flickering shadow cast by candlelight on the countertop of an open kitchen.

  Ben swallowed.

  He had already caught himself thinking that his dog was scampering at his feet several times in the past days, sending flashes of raw pain through his body. But that wasn’t possible, of course.

  Tike’s dead.

  “Laurie, baby!” The man who greeted them as they entered the tenth-floor penthouse, reached out his arms and carefully pecked Laura’s left and right cheeks. He stood back and held her by the shoulders so he could take a better look at her. “It’s been so long!”

  Ben heard the strain in his mother’s voice. “Hello, Bob.”

  He glanced over her shoulder, remembering that Bob was the last name on the list his grandfather had left them, which meant it was someone they could trust.

  The man with short, brown hair and neatly trimmed beard stuck his hands in his pockets casually. “Long trip?” he asked, drawing his eyebrows together.

  Laura nodded. “Yes, we’ve been travelling for three days non-stop and just walked from the Greyhound Station.”

  Bob sighed. “You should have told me, I would have picked you up.”

  Laura shrugged. “It’s ok. I didn’t want to bother you…” She glanced around the apartment. “…and I wouldn’t have come if I’d known you were having a party.”

  Ben suddenly realized there were wine glasses on the kitchen countertop and chatting voices coming from a balcony.

  To their surprise, Bob burst out laughing. “This? A party? Oh, come on, baby. Have you forgotten already? This is Toronto. It’s Friday night. This is just a little get-together.” He cleared his throat as if he hadn’t meant to laugh so hard. “Don’t worry about it. These are just some friends
. I’ll introduce you to them later. But I guess you want to freshen up first.”

  Ben stared at his frumpled clothes and muddy snow boots, suddenly acutely aware of his appearance. After all, Bob was wearing an elegant, black suit and white shirt, unbuttoned at the neck. He fit perfectly in the minimalist apartment with uninterrupted windows overlooking the Toronto skyline.

  “And, who’s this?”

  Laura had been standing before Ben this whole time, for which he was grateful, but now she moved aside purposefully and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Bob, this is Benjamin. Benjamin, this is Bob.”

  Ben glanced at his mother. “Bob M.?” he whispered.

  She nodded.

  “Is he a wit…” He was going to say “witness of The Cosmic Fall,” but she widened her eyes in warning and cut him off, “This is Bob Manfield.”

  Ben turned his attention from his mother to the man, confused. “Manfield? Isn’t that Dad’s last name?” His mind whirled.

  Bob tilted his head, his brown eyes boring into Ben’s. He held out his hand, which Ben accepted. “Hey there, squirt,” he said. He glanced briefly at Laura, then added, “I’m your Uncle Bob.”

  Ben searched his mother’s eyes, but she looked away.

  Bob shook Ben’s hand firmly, and for an instant, the boy forgot about their troubles.

  I have an uncle!

  “It’s good to see you again, Benjamin. It’s been too long,” Bob said, putting extra stress on the last words. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Ben as if he were expecting some kind of recognition from the boy.

  Laura shifted and placed a hand on Ben’s shoulder again. “Actually, everyone just calls him Ben. And we’re pretty tired, Bob. Do you think we could talk later?”