by Elin Wyn
The flashing of my comm unit distracted me from examining the writing on the door. I switched my earpiece from my radio to my comm unit and accepted the transmission.
“Manka.”
“Hey, it’s me.” Vidia’s voice came through.
“Is the general with you?”
“Yes, he won’t let me leave the house,” she sounded agitated.
“Good. Someone’s made a threat against you.”
“Are you absolutely sure I can’t come in?”
“Did you not hear me? You’re being threatened. No, you need to say where you are, with the general.”
“You’ll tell me as soon as it’s safe for me to come in, right?” she pleaded.
“Your priorities are more out of line than I thought they were.”
“That’s rich coming from you,” she snorted. “Promise, okay? I really need to get into the office today.”
“I can send over any reports you might need.”
“It’s something I have to do in person,” she insisted.
“Fine. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s safe for you to return to your office. Though I think you should take the day off.”
“No can do.”
Vidia disconnected our call. I stood in the corridor trying to figure out what could be so important to Vidia that a direct threat didn’t dissuade her.
Ryx arrived with my equipment shortly after Leena took her sample.
“Cursory examination reveals nothing shoved under the door or in the lock,” Ryx reported.
“Great. Let’s run the scanners.”
There was nothing giving off any unexplainable heat signatures nor did any of the other tests we ran indicate that Vidia’s door had been tampered with. I ordered everyone to step back thirty feet while I opened the door.
I’d already been shot, so at this point I wasn’t afraid of getting caught in an explosion.
Thankfully, nothing happened when the door swung open. Ryx and I surveyed Vidia’s office together before giving it the all clear. I radioed the lab.
“Leena, what’s the origin of the writing?”
“Standard paint. I think they were trying to spook us by making it look bloody,” she replied. “It’s safe to wipe off with a standard rag and solution.”
“Thanks.” I turned to a nearby Skotan. “Has the writing been photographed?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Great. It’s safe to clean it up. I’m going to look through some security footage.”
As I walked back to my office, I called Vidia on her comm unit.
“If you absolutely have to, you can come back to the office. I recommend an armed escort service.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“Vidia, need I remind you that we’ve both been shot purely because someone didn’t like you? If you deliberately put yourself in danger, it’ll be like I got shot for nothing.”
“That was a rather sentimental observation, not at all like you,” she observed.
“I’ve been spending more time with Sk’lar. He’s softened me up.”
“I can’t wait to hear all about it.”
She disconnected and I settled into my desk chair to sift through hours of footage.
I started with this morning’s footage and rewound until the writing on the doorway disappeared.
Thankfully, the security feed didn’t cut out. That would’ve indicated a much more advanced operation, possibly with the help of someone who already had access to the building. I wasn’t in the mood to be betrayed by anyone again.
Instead, I found a scrawny individual sneaking through the corridor. They wore a black hood obscuring their features. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. They wrote the message in paint and crept back out. I followed the hooded vandal through the building via the security cameras. They climbed through a first story window.
All of the windows were monitored. The vandal shouldn’t have been able to get through without tipping off the system. I pulled up the logs from the window monitors that night. The window in question had a monitor that miraculously started glitching when the vandal arrived. I flipped back to the security footage looking for when the vandal originally entered. I watched him (or her) pull out a small device and press it against the window. It must’ve delivered some kind of electric shock that overloaded the monitor.
Great, now that had to be replaced. All of the window monitors did. Vidia was not going to be happy about that.
No thanks to me, she’d finally balanced out the budget.
It annoyed me that I couldn’t identify the vandal, but I figured if they wanted to do serious damage, they would’ve done so. Besides, they’d exposed fatal security flaws in our system. Really, they’d done us a favor. I’d love to tell them that one day. The look on their face would be priceless.
Despite the lack of clarity on the cams, I took stills of the vandal and sent them to every department. Everyone in the building should be aware. And on the off chance that this vandal worked here, hopefully the stills would spook them. I liked to think none of the current staff was stupid enough to sneak through a building decked out with surveillance cameras.
Satisfied that I’d done all I could do for the time being, I decided to check in on Vidia. I’d been reviewing the footage for a few hours. She was bound to have arrived by now.
The newly cleaned door to her office was open. As I approached, I realized she wasn’t alone in her office.
“The scans came back.” I recognized Evie’s voice. I paused before entering the office.
“What did you find?” Vidia sounded nervous.
“I’m not sure,” replied Evie. “There are unusual patterns I’ve never seen before. They don’t match up with any known brain disease, cancer, or mental illness.”
“So, should I worry?”
“Are you still experiencing symptoms?”
“I am.”
“Then I would be cautious. Pay close attention to what happens when you feel strange.”
“Don’t you have any theories?” Vidia snapped. Vidia never snapped.
“One. But I’d prefer not to share it until I have more evidence to back it up.”
“Tell me. That’s an order from your mayor.”
“It could be parasitic like Fen said,” Evie said slowly. “Like I said, I don’t have enough data to fully corroborate this theory but, based on the brain scans, alone I’ve seen some organisms that leave somewhat similar signatures.”
“A parasite,” Vidia whispered. “Does that mean it’s transferable?”
“I don’t know,” Evie replied softly.
“How can we find out?”
“I can run more tests.”
“But parasites are still organic life forms,” Vidia said. “At least I think they are. These parasites are, too?”
“I don’t know,” Evie said again, dejectedly.
“If it’s transferrable, that means anyone could feel what I’ve been feeling.” Vidia sounded afraid. “I’m strong enough to keep those feelings at bay, but is everyone else? We have to find out what this is before people have the chance to give into it.”
“We’ll figure it out, Vidia. We always do.”
“We have to. The consequences are too great if we don’t.”
Sk’lar
The four of us sat in Rouhr’s office, Rouhr, Vrehx, Karzin, and myself. We sat in his office, all of us trying to lay our fingers on the pulse of what was happening and trying to figure out a way to deal with it.
The electrical pulse generator that the humans at the compound had made and used had been a prototype, or so the people that used it believed. They had created it, but a few of the people from the compound had left before they’d decided to attack Puppet Master. There was a chance that one of them knew how to make it and could potentially be making another one.
“How do we deal with the generator if they make another one?” Vrehx asked. “I mean, based on your reports, as soon as you shot it,” he
looked at Rouhr as he spoke, “it started to build up a charge that ended up bringing the whole tunnel system down. There’s a minor sinkhole there now.”
“Well, if I knew, we wouldn’t be sitting here, now would we?” Rouhr countered. He held up a hand in apology. “Sorry. It’s just been very stressful lately and I’m losing track of what the zet is going on. As if the rebuild of everything and the hatred of us wasn’t bad enough, now we have friends suddenly turning on us, and that has me coming towards my wit’s end.”
Vrehx nodded in understanding. “It’s okay. At least you don’t have a baby keeping you awake in the middle of the night.”
Rouhr chuckled. “True. How’s that going, by the way?”
“Jeneva is absolutely brilliant. She’s handling the little guy phenomenally. I’m still stumbling my way through things,” he sighed. “I swear, I did not know how much a baby could release or how bad it would smell when they filled their diaper.”
We all laughed a bit as he smiled at his own confession.
“But,” he continued. “I wouldn’t change a second of it. I always thought that parents who marveled at every little thing their child did were stupid and caught up in the moment, but I swear, every little thing he does is sensational.”
“Welcome to parenthood, my friend,” Karzin said. “I’ve watched as friends and family have done the exact same. Here’s the thing, he’s the first of his kind. How will he respond to whatever this skrell is?”
That had been something that we hadn’t considered, and all of us sat there, wide-eyed, stricken, and confused.
“Rek,” Vrehx swore.
“Sorry, my friend,” Karzin said. “I didn’t mean to ruin the moment.”
“I know. It’s okay. It’s something I have to consider. If we aren’t able to stop whatever is causing our friends to switch, I have to consider what may become of all our loved ones, not just mine.” Vrehx was right. This seemed to be affecting only the humans thus far, and that could include the women that we were all with.
“Well, now that we’ve livened up this party, what do you all say we find a way to end it?” I said. “We’re facing something that can turn our friends at any moment. We’re facing a bunch of people that don’t like us just through natural prejudices. We’re still facing a food shortage, although that is improving. We’re dealing with a creature that is literally the heart and soul of the planet, and if either of these anti-alien movements find a way to kill him, they kill everything and everyone. Oh, and we have no way to get off the planet. Does that about sum it up?”
“Aren’t you the happy little reminder of all that’s terrible?” Karzin said flatly. “But that seems to be about the basics of our troubles, yes.”
Despite the fact that his anger issues had lessened since he found Annie, he was still hard to deal with when he was surly.
“So, how do we deal with it all?” Vrehx asked.
“Take it one problem at a time,” I said. “Then, we move on to the next one.”
“Sk’lar is right,” General Rouhr said. “Let’s line up the issues in a row, then take them down one at a time.”
We all nodded.
“Okay,” Rouhr said with a clap of his hands. “Food shortage. How is that coming along?”
Vrehx was the one to answer. “Better. With Puppet Master able to finally help, we’re growing crops at a faster rate. They still take time, but we should be back to normal levels within a year, maybe a little longer. But we’re on the right track.”
“Good,” the general said. “I know you’re not happy playing food inventory, but I appreciate the help.”
“My pleasure, sir. It keeps me close to Jeneva and the boy.”
“Okay. What about the anti-alien movement? I know we have some human-only settlements popping up, but so far they’ve seemed peaceful enough,” Rouhr told us. “But what about places like the compound we were at ten days ago? Have we found any others?”
This time, Karzin spoke up. “Not that we’ve been able to see. I’ve been using the satellites that Fen launched to try to get a sky view of everything, but either they’re really good at hiding, or they’re keeping themselves in the towns that are already established. So far, I haven’t been able to figure out how they communicate and grow their numbers without tipping someone off and that someone coming to tell us.”
“So, they have to know who is against us, or on the fence about us, already?”
Karzin nodded. “Yes. That’s the only thing I can think of. I mean, how could they get more people to join them without someone sending up signals? They can’t be killing them or kidnapping them, or else that would send up some serious signals on its own.”
“Okay, so that’s a problem that we still need to work on, yes?” Rouhr asked.
“Yes.”
The general sat back in his chair and let out a slow, deep breath. “Let’s move on to Puppet Master. If that generator can hurt him that badly, there has to be a way to protect him, but we don’t have enough hands to do that, not with everything else happening.”
“Then we let him protect himself,” I said. “We have to trust him.”
“Do we?” Karzin spoke up. “I’m still not fully convinced as to his role in all this.”
“Hey, all living creatures want to live until they don’t,” I said. “I haven’t seen signs of him giving up, have you?”
“No, but…”
“But nothing,” I interrupted. “Puppet Master has shown us nothing but a willingness to live and to fix what was damaged by us and the Xathi. I think we need to show a little bit of trust to the one being that has already shown he can shut us all down. Or have you forgotten the dome?”
“No, I haven’t. I was part of bringing it down, remember?” Karzin spat back at me.
“Yeah, I do,” I answered back. “But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t already found a way to counter or block the poison we created. If he wanted to kill all of us, I have a feeling he could do so easily, yet he hasn’t. So we trust in him and we bring him in to help. We could use his knowledge. Maybe he could reach out and probe the minds of people, find the ones that hate us and help us locate them.”
“He could, but it would take too long for him to do so,” Rouhr cut in. “With people he doesn’t know and hasn’t touched, he has to push hard to get inside their minds. It could take him hours to do so.”
“Okay,” I conceded. “That’s not a great plan then, but it’s still something. Any other ideas?”
“What about Fen and the Urai?” Karzin asked. “Have they found anything out beyond the video they showed of the rifts?”
“Nothing as of yet,” Rouhr answered. “They’re still looking into it, and talking with everyone they can, but we’ve made no headway with identifying if there’s any parasites.”
“Great,” Karzin responded. “The smartest beings we know are arguing with one another and we still don’t have a clue as to what’s causing friends and loved ones to turn on us. Oh, another question. Has anyone thought about what became of the ship that brought the humans?”
“It was a drop-off,” Vrehx answered. “They were delivered, then the ship left. There was supposed to be a communication array established, but apparently the first generation decided not to. They wanted to run this world free of Earth influences.”
“I’m going to assume you’ve been doing some studying during your time off work,” General Rouhr chuckled. “Even I didn’t know any of this.”
“Jeneva didn’t either,” Vrehx said back. “She was just as surprised as I was. Essentially, we’re stuck here unless we can convince Thribb, and whoever is able to stay on our side, to somehow build us a new ship.”
“And the likelihood of getting one built soon is slim, is that what you’re saying?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Look,” the general cut in. “We’re learning some things here, but we’re not going to be able to get anywhere if we argue, fight amongst ourselves, or begin to doubt t
hings about ourselves. What we need to do is get more minds on this.”
“Are you sure we can trust those minds?” Karzin asked. “I love Annie, but I’m finding myself holding things from her because I don’t know if she’ll suddenly turn on us. We need to make the ‘switch’ our priority.”
“And I agree with you,” Rouhr said. “I truly do. But, for right now, we need as many minds on this as we can get. The more minds, the more ideas, the more opportunities we have to figure something out.”
“But,” Karzin started.
“‘But’ nothing, Karzin,” Rouhr stopped him. “This meeting is over for now. We’ve got nothing between the four of us that we haven’t already spoken about before. We need a break. I’ll call in as many of us as we can trust, or at least hope to trust, in a few days. Give everyone an opportunity to think and clear their minds. Dismissed.”
With that, we were done.
Epilogue: Phryne
As difficult as it was for me to admit, I’d reached some kind of breaking point. I wasn’t on the verge of collapse. I wasn’t going to go insane and run off to live in the jungle or anything like that. However, the past few months had been a real kick in the ass. Day after day I had shit thrown at me with no reprieve. I used to think I could work like that indefinitely. Recent events had proved me very wrong.
Sk’lar and I hardly had time for our nightly outings to the bar anymore. If we got lucky, we could drink and chat for an hour before going back to my apartment for half-asleep sex. Sk’lar would have to get up a few hours later and I’d follow soon after. It wasn’t enough time to relieve stress anymore. We simply needed more time together to decompress.
If he and I kept going at this pace with no reprieve, we’d combust. Possibly in a literal sense.
I’d only been at my desk for a minute when I had a fantastic idea. I picked up my comm unit and paged Sk’lar.