Light Through the Window

by Cassandra Morphy

  "Unexplained and unexplainable situations," Ellie finished for her.

  "Exactly." Becky took a few more steps away from the alien, resting against the wall along the far ledge. It was the furthest she could get without leaving the roof, which would be a bit hard given the fact that Miranda was strapped to the ladder.

  "Maybe they're not explained, but they're certainly explainable," Alex said. "They're aliens. What more do we need to know?"

  "Except I'm not," Miranda said. She took on an airs of sweet and innocent, letting her black eyes tear up a little. Ellie figured they would look quite doe like, to those that couldn't see them for what they really were. "I'm just an innocent college student that got mixed up in the wrong group. Really, I don't know what they're talking about. Aliens? Here? In Chicago?"

  "We have that pool of orange gunk to prove it," Red said, yelling at her. He pointed behind him, back towards where the pool had been only minutes earlier. However, when they all turned towards where it was, that section of the roof was as dry as the rest of it was, with no signs it had ever been there, or anything out of the ordinary.

  "Okay, is anyone else freaked out by that?" Eric asked.

  "I'm sorry, what part of this whole thing doesn't freak you out?" Alex asked. "I'd almost wish I had been left out of all of this, like you kept saying you were. But then I'd probably be one of them by now."

  "Oh, please," Miranda said. "You're not Barry's type. She is." She nodded towards Becky, who tried to scurry further away from her. "She probably would have joined us that night, but then she called dibs."

  "And you call yourself a Miranda," Becky said, in a meek voice.

  "Really, I'm more of a Charlotte, but my parents named me Miranda. Blame them, not me."

  "What exactly is it, though?" George asked. He was still staring at the section of roof where the goo had been. It had still been there when they had all climbed onto the roof, though Ellie hadn't noticed whether or not the pool had shrunk in that time. "The orange... stuff that you tried to infect Red with?"

  "It's... Well, it's kind of like a spore, I think," Miranda said. "I don't know. I never could follow the science behind it all. Bottom line, it is alien in origin, but it adapted to our physiology at some point. Now, it spreads person to person easily enough."

  "And you can just spit it up like that?" he asked, snapping his fingers.

  "There's a process. It takes training. But, yes, I can. The way it works in women, we're able to spit it out like a spore bloom. Men, not so much. In them it's... sexually transmitted."

  "Oh, god, crabs from hell," Red said.

  "More like chlamydia from space," Eric said.

  "Except antibiotics don't cure it," Miranda said. "Not that you'd want to cure it, once it's taken root. It's glorious, magnificent. It's like you're suddenly a superhero. Why would anyone want to give this up?"

  "Uh, to be human again?" Ellie said.

  "Ha, yea right. Honestly, other than the benefits, there isn't really a downside. It's not like being Hulandan was what made Barry a rapist. Well... I guess it's not like we can know that for sure. Like most of us, he's been Hulandan from birth."

  "Most of us?" Alex asked. "What about Sam's parents? And Rebecca Anne's?"

  "Well, sure, the first gen guys were all infected as adults. But, well... Once they started dying off..."

  "Oh, god," Ellie said, realizing something. "The dead parents' society. All the aliens had dead parents."

  "At least one each. It's passed down through the mothers, but not all the dads were infected. I mean, obviously."

  "But, wait, I thought you said it was sexually transmitted," Red said. "How...?"

  "It's sexually transmitted in men, not women. It's in the sperm. I mean, if they somehow managed to impregnate a woman without having sex, sure, they could probably give birth to one of us without getting infected, but..."

  "Huh," George said. "I wonder how it would work in me."

  "Wouldn't that be an interesting little test," Miranda said. She smiled broadly towards him, like she had come up with a plan to get out of there. However, when Ellie went to check the restraints, they still held her tightly.

  "Are we still good?" Alex asked.

  "I don't know," Ellie said. She cautiously walked away from Miranda, watching her carefully for any signs that she was up to something, that she had some plan in motion. "I think so. Unless these aliens have some way of getting out of restraints besides brute force."

  "Maybe they have retractable claws," Eric said.

  "No, we don't have retractable claws," Miranda snapped. "We don't have claws of any kind. Or horns. Or fangs. We just have enhanced strength, speed, reflexes, and intelligence, everything that makes us superior to humans."

  "Intelligence? Ha," Eric laughed. "You weren't smart enough not to be caught by us."

  "Yes, well... Smart enough to get through those tests you were so worried about. Every one of us finished those, aced those tests before you barely got through the first question. Isn't that right, Ellie?"

  "I didn't have any trouble with the test," Ellie said.

  "Yea, but, like we said, you weren't the norm for us," Alex said. She pointed to the rest of the group. "We struggled through every question. That second test almost made me want to drop out of college all together."

  "They're starting to figure it out," Miranda teased. "You can't play dumb much longer."

  "What are you even talking about?" Ellie asked.

  "Yea," Eric said, hesitantly. "What are you talking about? More importantly, why are you talking?"

  "That's the play," Red said. A big grin started to make its way across his face, one to rival the one on Miranda. "You're trying to play us off of each other, trying to make us doubt each other so we turn on one another and let you slip away in the confusion. That's it, isn't it."

  Miranda scoffed. "You got me. That was exactly my plan. You are so much more clever than me. Are you sure you're not one of us?"

  Despite hearing the sarcasm in her voice, Ellie did peak over at Red to make sure his eyes were still blue. For all she knew, she had come in too late. That she hadn't been in time to save the brothers and the entire scene had been an act. That still could be the case, with Miranda only buying time before the spores, if that was what it was, managed to take them over and turn them to her side.

  "Maybe we should take a few steps away from the alien who can spew out spores," Alex said. She took a few slow steps away from Miranda, as if she thought sudden movement would set her off.

  "Why do you think I'm all the way over here?" Becky asked.

  "Oh, please. Do you really think my aim is that good?" Miranda asked. "Besides, it takes a few hours for me to refill my sacks. Why do you think I haven't turned the entire city by now?"

  "Oh, god," Ellie said. "Is that what they're doing down there? Is that what that whole mob scene was about?"

  "Mob? What mob? There is no such thing as the mob."

  "Not the mob. Mob. As in mob rules, mass groups of people destroying everything in their path. That mob."

  "Oh, you mean the celebration? That's nothing. I mean, it made a great distraction for Barry and me, but other than that it was nothing. Those idiots were just celebrating that the whole plan to sabotage the launch went off without a hitch."

  "What are you talking about?" Ellie asked. "The launch went fine. Besides, there were explosions and stuff, people setting things on fire."

  "Really? Wow, I didn't think Sam had it in him to start something like that. He always seemed like such a goodie two shoes."

  "For an alien," Eric added.

  "No, I mean for anyone. Seriously, that guy is on the straight and narrow like a boy scout. I think he was a boy scout."

  "I so want to believe that," Alex said. "But you said he was weird that one time."

  "Yea," Ellie said.

  "Well, yea, he's weird. Isn't that what I said?" Miranda asked. "Usually, I'd say anyone that nice had an ulterior motive. But Sam is just one of
those really weird, nice people."

  "Except he kept trying to corner me and force me to join your little... Wait." Ellie tried to settle everything she knew, everything she had been finding out recently, with those earlier interactions with Sam. She had been thinking that he was trying to convert her, to make her join their little club. Except it wasn't a club, it was an invasion, an assimilation, a conversion in the most real sense of the word. But Sam was gay, and a guy. If Miranda was telling the truth, did Sam really think that she was going to sleep with him? Would he have forced himself on her? Was that why he was trying to get some alone time with her?

  "He wasn't trying to force you into anything," Miranda said. "He didn't have to. He was probably trying to make contact and ask why you haven't been joining in on our gatherings. I mean, we had them almost every night, but the only one you ever went to was that one survivors' group. And you brought a stupid human to that one."

  "Hey," Becky said, offended.

  "It wouldn't have been an issue had Rebecca Anne not pulled strings at the last minute to get a single. You were originally meant to be her roommate, not that we actually knew about you. We’re still not quite sure how you slipped through the cracks. But had you been in a room with one of us, we could have told you everything without worrying about other people listening in. I mean, we can't have the humans getting wind of us being here."

  "Well, guess what, we did," Alex said.

  "Wait, what... What are you trying to say?" Ellie asked.

  "Ellie, you're one of us," Miranda said. "You're a Hulandan."

  Chapter Forty-Four

  I Am Not

  "I am not," Ellie shouted in her face. She turned away from the infuriating alien, back towards her friends and said, "I'm not an alien."

  "Huh... I guess I lost that bet," Miranda said. Her arm twitched, like she was trying to snap her fingers, but her restraints held her in place.

  "See?" Ellie said, holding up her hand like Miranda was proof to her claim.

  "No, I mean... No, you're totally one of us. The black eyes are a dead giveaway."

  "Black eyes?" Alex asked. "She doesn't have black eyes. Those are blue. Beautiful blue."

  "Not to us. No, we Hulandans see each other's eyes as black, like the deepest, emptiest stretches of space. You've been seeing our eyes like that, haven't you? How else would you have known who we were besides that? It's how we knew you were one of us, though none of us knew you existed before the start of school."

  "No," Ellie said. She turned her back on the alien, trying to deny the truth in her words, deny what her gut was telling her was the truth. From the first time she saw those eyes, they filled her with fear. Now, she was starting to realize where that fear came from. "No, that's not it," she said. "I mean... I know what my eyes look like. They look normal to me."

  "What? Like in the mirror? In pictures?" Miranda asked. "It doesn't work like that. Do you have a mirror on you?"

  "Where?" Ellie asked. She gestured towards herself, her usual attire. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, no purse to speak of, and just her phone and wallet in her pockets. "I don't carry a mirror with me."

  "Your phone then. Point the camera at me and see what you see."

  Ellie slowly took her phone out of her pocket. It felt like a bomb in her hands, ready to blow up at any moment. Except, instead of killing her and everyone near her, it was going to blow up her life, change it in a very real, very tangible way. She fumbled the lock screen a couple of times, to the point of it saying she had one last try, before managing to unlock it. As if it anticipated her needs, which was common with Angel Corp phones, the camera app was already up, already pointing forwards towards the alien in front of her. Ellie's hand shook as she raised the camera at the alien. At the girl. At Miranda. Sure enough, just as she had said, her eyes came back as a normal shade of brown, surrounded by white.

  "T-that doesn't prove anything," Ellie said, denying what she already knew was true. It made sense on a level that she didn't quite understand. It explained so much. Why only she could see their eyes as dark abysses. Why she could see them at all. Why they had been following her all that time, stalking her. They had seen a compatriot. "But... But I'm not like you. I'm not... alien. I'm not trying to spread this... disease."

  "Oh, I'm a disease now?" Miranda asked. "I guess that's an improvement over alien. No, the compulsion to spread our spores isn't a part of being Hulandan. I just think it's a service that I owe to the humans. I've had people thank me for what I did for them."

  "Condemned them to a short life?" Ellie asked. "Really? People would thank you for that? Why? Why would you do that? It's... It's murder."

  "Oh, please. Ten years as a Hulandan is ten times better than a hundred years as a human. Besides, you never know what ten years can bring. Maybe we figure out why they burn out like that. Maybe we find a way to stop it, to prolong the lifespan of the converted. If not, well, they'll help birth the next generation of Hulandans. Obviously, we don't burn out after ten years, after twenty. I can't say beyond that because the oldest of us is only twenty-two. And that's the real reason why Sam is in charge, nothing to do with his stupid mother. You read her file. You know exactly what she did. Some of us, we never could forgive her for that."

  "No," Ellie said, a final denial, the death of her resistance to the truth that was staring her in the face. "No."

  "I don't know why your mom never told you about all of this," Miranda said. "I mean, seriously, the only reason why I bothered to tell you anything is because you should have known already. You should have grown up in a group, among your fellow Hulandans. The converted might live short lives, but they're at least around long enough to explain everything to their children."

  "My mom died when I was four," Ellie shouted in her face. "I barely remember her at all, but I think I would have remembered her telling me I was an alien."

  "Oh," Miranda said. "I'm... I'm sorry. I didn't know. I guess that explains it. Let me out of these restraints and we can go find the others. Find out who dropped the ball in bringing you into the fold. Unless... Did you father know? Did he keep you from knowing the truth?"

  "What?" Ellie asked, stunned at the thought, at the very idea that her father, her precious father, the only parent she really remembered, might have known this sick, twisted truth. "No," she insisted. "No. There's no way he would have, could have known about all of this. No, it's not possible. He's too much of a geek to keep this from me, to keep this from anyone."

  "Then someone must have dropped the ball. I'm not that surprised, it's not like we kept records in the early days. We barely knew anything back then. Come on, let me out of these and we can go find the others."

  Ellie stood there, staring at her, at the girl who had just turned her life upside down. Had just destroyed her world, her very definition of herself. It took a few moments for her words, her whole attitude to get through the fog that had developed around her head, the last death cries of her denials as they died off one by one. This had been her plan all along, from the moment they had caught her. She had sat there, smug to no end, knowing that she had this information, thinking she knew what it meant.

  "Seriously?" Ellie asked her. "Seriously? What? You think because we're both... You think I'm just going to let you out of those restraints? You think we're going to go off and play together? Is that what you think?"

  "Well, maybe not play, but--"

  "You're crazy. She's crazy, right?"

  Ellie turned to her friends, all of whom had been surprisingly quiet as the revelation played out in her head. Becky was still standing in the corner of the rooftop, though the rest of them had joined her. Eric and Red were in front of the group, though neither seemed happy to be there. Eric was standing, mouth agape, staring at her like her head was on fire. Red was looking back and forth, between Ellie and Miranda, as if expecting them both to turn on him at a moment's notice. The two of them were blocking her view of the others, but no one seemed to be jumping to her rescue anytime
soon.

  "Come on, you guys," Ellie said. "It's still me, still the same person you've known for weeks. Nothing has changed."

  "Everything has changed," Eric said. "You're an alien, just like the rest of them, just like her."

  "No," Ellie said. "I mean... maybe. I don't know. But, if I am, and I'm not saying I am, I have been since... forever. Nothing has changed with me, I'm still me. The only difference is that... well, I know, you know, we all know that I'm..."

  "You can't even say it," Miranda said. "Even now, even in light of all of this knowledge, this proof, you're still in denial about being Hulandan. Get over it. You're an alien. So what?"

  "So what?" Ellie asked. "So what? It's bad enough that I'm gay, but I have to be this, too?"

  "Hey," Alex and George said from behind the brothers.

  "No, I didn't mean... I mean, can't I be normal about one thing in this whole messed up world?"

  "Normal is overrated," Becky said.

  "I don't know about that," Eric said. "I like being normal. Normal is awesome."

  "Normal is easy," Ellie corrected. "No one tries to kill you or stone you for being normal. No one tries to torture you out of being normal. No one cuts you open and experiments on you for being normal."

  "When did anyone cut open a person for being gay?" Alex asked.

  "Maybe the Nazis?" George asked.

  "She meant being alien," Becky said. "They experiment on aliens."

  "Why do you think we've kept it a secret all this time?" Miranda said. "It's not like we're ashamed of being aliens. Well, not many of us, anyway. Some don't like it, but they're weird."

  "They're the weird ones?" Ellie asked. "The ones that don't like being aliens?"

  "It's not like you have a choice in being an alien. It was just the way you were born. Just like me. I mean, sure, not all of us were, but those that were converted didn't have a choice in the matter either. Well, okay, some of them did."

  "Yea, and the rest you took that choice away from," Ellie said. "Just shut up. I'm not letting you out of those restraints. Not until the HPS shows up. Then you're their problem."