"B-b-b-but what about the bill?" someone asked, a shaking hand poking out over the heads of the crowd.
Leadership stared at that hand, waiting for it to slowly fall beneath the heads of its neighbors. Once clear, once no one else showed any signs of interrupting, she took a deep breath in before answering the question that was so obviously burning in each and every one of them.
"The bill has been signed. It is law. The demons will leave the pacific northwest and there's nothing we can do about it." She stuck her hands up, holding off any words of outrage, though none came. The crowd was obviously well trained enough not to have another outburst. "The demons are not our enemies. They have no more power to stop us than the humans do. Despite our earlier efforts to oust them, to blame them for all that was wrong in the world, they are here to stay. They have shown no signs of harm to the world around them, which is more than I can say for the people in this room tonight. Sami Sanderson died twelve years ago. Had she not, she would have died ten years ago. It is time we set this antagonism down, set it aside, for the good of the collective. As long as these demons show no animosity towards us, and they haven't since the invasion, we only draw attention to ourselves for no gain. Remember Sami is over, it is through. We will no longer have any Remember Sami rallies. We will still remember her in our own way, as we have all those that we have lost over the years. It was a shame, but the bigger shame would be to not grow. To not learn from our mistakes. The next generation, your generation, will be better than that.
"Now, unless anyone else has any complaints that need be addressed, I shall discuss our newer members. And, I'm not just talking about our new converts, who are even now being assimilated into our society. There was... a new discovery that has recently been brought to my attention." Leadership looked up at Ellie, still hiding behind Miranda and Rebecca Anne. She smiled up at her, making it clear that she could see her there, trying to lose herself in the crowd. "The offspring of one of our most loyal and dedicated lieutenants. She who had been lost in the Russian migration of 2011. It is unclear how we missed it, how she had kept her, kept you from our records. I do so humbly apologize that you were out in the cold for so long. But no longer. These are your brothers and sisters, the ones that shall support you going forward as you adjust to this new reality around you. You are Hulandan."
"Hulandan is all," the crowd called out in unison. The words were echoed several times, not by the voices around Ellie, but the one that whispered in the darkness within her. They were the words clawing out from her. The ones yearning to break free. They were the words of the collective.
As if that were a signal that the meeting was over, and it seemed to be, the crowd started talking amongst themselves again. Leadership smiled up at Ellie before she and the two men that flanked her headed out into the hall. Miranda, Rebecca Anne, and all the rest of the people that were crammed in the back corner stepped forward, making their way down to thin out the crowd. Now that Leadership had left, the invisible barrier that had been in the front of the class was gone, and everyone felt free enough to walk in the area that she had left. A few of them had actually gone down to the floor, pressing their hands and faces against the spot that she had been standing in. It was like Leadership was a goddess to them.
"Are you coming?" Miranda asked. She held up her hand to Ellie, gesturing towards the front of the room. At first, Ellie thought she was asking if she wanted to go fawn at the floor of the room with the others. Then, she realized that Miranda was asking. Not telling. Not ordering. Not insisting. Asking. Ellie was, apparently, no longer a prisoner of the woman. It seemed, at least to Miranda, the speech from Leadership was enough to convert Ellie to their side.
Ellie didn't agree. Instead, she just walked right past the offered hand, squeezing past the huddled masses where they were on the stairs, perverting the sanctuary beyond recovery. She made her way to the doors of the room, following Leadership out into the hallway.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Good Enough?
"What did you think in there?" The voice seemed to come out of nowhere, and Ellie jumped at it. Her hand went to her heart, a futile attempt to stop it from racing, as her eyes darted around the hallway. It was still dark, the power still out and the sun not up yet. But the lights from the lecture hall spilled out through the cracks of the door, allowing just enough light for her to see Leadership leaning against the wall next to it. "I know it can be a bit overwhelming to see it for the first time like that, the family we've built for ourselves here."
"It... was a bit disorienting," Ellie said.
"When I was converted, we numbered several tens of thousands. If it hadn't been for the rejections, we would outnumber the humans by now. Those first few deaths, so many of them were attributed to other things. Crashes, mostly, but a few bad falls. It was only a few days after I joined the community that the truth was discovered, that the problem was... us."
"You must have been furious," Ellie said. Leadership's tone was completely different from the meeting. Instead of fiery and rageful, it seemed like she was actually kind, trying to empathize with Ellie's situation. Ellie wasn't sure how to take it, but she hoped it meant that perhaps they weren't all bad, all the same. She hoped that she might actually find a friend among the aliens she found herself as one of.
"I was," she laughed. "At first, I was. I was livid. I was looking for someone, anyone, to blame. But, well, my sire, for lack of a better word, was suddenly among the dead. I was the last one she converted, the last one anyone converted... well, at least with the blessing of the group. After me, after they found out that we'd all die off, that was it. No new converts, that was the edict, and has been for almost ten years now. Do you know why they call me Leadership? Why I'm the leader of the Hulandans?"
"Because you're old?" Ellie asked. She hated that it sounded impertinent, but it was the truth of the matter.
"Well, yes, I am that. I'm almost sixty, if you count my human years. However, I'm also old by Hulandan standards, I'm afraid. These two here," she pointed towards the two men leaning against the wall just down the hall from her, the two men that had flanked her when she entered the room. "They're some of the oldest of the second generation. They were born into this life, and will, perhaps, hopefully, live a long life as a Hulandan. Me and you, though, we've known another life, a human life, something that few of us have. In fact, other than those that have been converted against our wishes, those that have known a human's life, well... We number in the tens now."
"Wait, what?" Ellie asked, surprised. This whole time, she had envisioned a large collective, with hundreds of thousands of Hulandan all over the world. It seemed that her freshman class was almost all made up of Hulandan, in part due to the activities of Barry and Miranda and the others.
"It's true. Not many know the exact time and day of their death, but we have the breaking down of the human body down to a science now. Well, at least when it comes to rejections of the Hulandan spore. We may not know the why, we may never know, but the how? That we know. No, I'm afraid I'm not long for this world. My expiration date is just a few months away. I'm the oldest of my kind, will be the last of my kind, the sanctioned convert. I take heart in knowing that the next generation is still here, still thriving, and should be for some time. Even if they start dying off along with me, the oldest are almost twenty-two now. There have been shorter life expectancies in our history and we're still here. The humans, that is; I still sometimes think of myself as human, despite myself."
"Up until yesterday, I thought I still was," Ellie said. That loss suddenly hit her anew and she was racked with a heavy sob that she did her best to stifle.
"Yes, and from what I've heard, it doesn't seem like we made the best first impression. I do hope that I have made at least some progress in remedying that tonight. Ever since I was put in charge, all those years ago, I had made it clear that we should live, and die, in secrecy. Even with the demons, and whatever else is out there... actually, especially because of th
em and the reaction the world had to them. I knew it would be dangerous for us to go public about ourselves. There was no way to do that without bringing the same fear and resentment that the demons had faced. Granted, we had been at the heart of much of that, something that I've found very hypocritical as of late. Still, unlike the kids in there, I'm actually seeing this new bill as a step forward, something to look forward to for ourselves, if we ever are forced into the light of day."
As she said that, Ellie realized that she could actually see her properly. At first, she thought the power was back on, looking up at the lights overhead. However, it was the early light of day, coming in through the windows in the wall she stood against, that was the source of the illumination. It seemed that, just like the kids inside the room, even the sun hung on her every word. Ellie didn't feel the same impact, though she wasn't sure if that was because it was just the two of them standing there or because she hadn't been exposed to her and her society for long.
"So, what are you thinking? Hmm?" Leadership asked her. "Do you think my words were enough to mitigate your misgivings in us? Do you think you could forgive the damage that some of my more overzealous members had caused? What we can fix, what we can set right, we will do. What we can't, we will do our best to compensate for."
What they can't. Those words echoed in Ellie's mind. She knew exactly what those words meant, what they indicated. The lives lost, the innocence lost. No one had died yet, assuming Becky made it through the night. However, that was only a matter of time. Each of the ones that had been converted, that night and over the month, months, that had preceded it. As Leadership had said, they each have a ticking clock on their lives. They would be able to know the very moment that their lives would end. And they would end a lot sooner than they should have.
"They... killed people," Ellie said, the words a harsh whisper, like she was almost afraid to voice them, lest they be true.
"That's not how they see it," Leadership said, though she nodded her head nonetheless. "But... perhaps it is a good thing that you do."
"What?" Ellie asked, stunned.
"You see, as I said, my days are numbered. I won't see 2025, if I see Christmas. My last hurrah will be at Thanksgiving, the last holiday that I was promised. I had been planning on naming my successor at that time, though the candidates are few. What are your plans, may I ask?"
"My plans?" Ellie asked. What was she saying? Was she planning on joining the community? Would she be coming to see her off? Would she report her, them, all of them to the authorities? More than she already had, of course. Or, was she asking her what she planned to do with her life after she graduated from college?
"I had wanted my successor to have known both worlds, both the human world and the Hulandan. Someone who would value a human life, even at the expense of the Hulandan experience. It would break my heart to see my people, our people, go back to sanctioned conversions. Not without a cure, something that will keep us from dying off young.
“I know, you haven’t really experienced much of our world, but it is still early. You have plenty of time to acquaint yourself with your more alien side, with your mother's people. Then, come Thanksgiving, I could introduce you to the broader community. It's not just this small collection here, or even the scattered communities around the US. We're an international race, scattered all across the globe, gathering only a few times a year when such monumental things occur. Like the passing of the crown, so to speak."
"What... What are you saying?" Ellie asked.
"I'm saying, I want to introduce you as my successor, the new leadership of the Hulandan people. I may not know you all that well, but from what I do know I think you would make an excellent choice. You saw something wrong, knowing nothing about it, and tracked it all down. You figured it all out where no human ever had. The clues are all out there, as you well know, though less so now thanks to you. However, no one has ever known of our existence before. No one outside of the Hulandan collective even asked the question if something like us existed. No one, until you and your friends."
And the HPS, Ellie thought. She didn't voice the words, didn't tell Leadership of how doomed the thought already was. Didn't tip her hand that she had already condemned her people, before she even knew they were hers. How could she ever lead them, knowing what she had already done to them.
"Think about it," Leadership said. She tapped Ellie's shoulder, comfortingly, leaning on it, adding her warmth to it. "You don't have to answer right away. Go home, or back to your dorm anyway, sleep on it. Talk to your friends and father, if you think it will help. Call me when you've made your decision, either way. I do have other candidates in mind, though none of them would be as good as you." She flicked out her fingers and a card suddenly appeared in it. Ellie took it, robotically, barely understanding what her fingers were doing. "I already have people working on the power and the phones, so you should have everything back up and running in a few hours, though I don't expect an answer so soon. I will, however, need an answer before, say, mid-October?"
Ellie felt almost ashamed by her action, by exposing her people to HPS. Worse, that she had thought the worst of them, from the beginning. Sure, there were a few that had earned her scorn, Miranda, Rebecca Anne, and Barry among them. But there were so many more that had done nothing wrong, at least not against her. Even Sam's actions, cornering her after the meeting, taking his mother's file off of her, could just as easily be explained away as misunderstandings and self-defense. If Ellie had found someone holding her mother's file, wouldn't she want to see it as well?
"Well, now, then," Leadership said. She smiled to herself, perhaps at her choice in words, as she moved away from Ellie and her internal turmoil. "Why don't you two help an old lady back to her car?"
"You'll never be old," said one of her helpers. However, despite his words, they each lent her an arm to lean on as the three of them continued down the hallway. When the door swung out, it revealed what looked like a wall of light, the sunlight beyond so bright and the door so far away that Ellie couldn't make anything out of the outside beyond that brightness. It was almost like she was dying already, and ascending to heaven as a whole. The sight felt rather fitting to Ellie.
As soon as the front door closed behind her, the door to the lecture hall opened up. The Hulandans within started pouring out, no longer seeming so scary. No longer seeming like a horde of aliens hiding amongst the humans. They each smiled and waved to her as they passed, seeming friendly to a fault. Their eyes, still black as an abyss, no longer seemed so scary, though her gut still reacted to them. Instead of with fear, though, she recognized it for what it was. Recognition.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Not Kidnapped
Sam was one of the last to leave the lecture hall, with Miranda and Rebecca Anne coming out behind him. The two women looked abashed, mollified, heads bowed in defeat, if not in shame. Sam made his way over to Ellie as the other two slipped away with the rest of the crowd. He leaned heavily against the wall next to Ellie, watching, waiting, as the last stragglers headed out. Ellie wondered for a moment if he was her new designated jailor, though she immediately regretted the thought.
"I wanted to personally apologize for those two," Sam said, nodding towards Miranda and Rebecca Anne. "They should not have been your first exposure to our people." Our people, those words still felt strange to Ellie, despite her acknowledgement that they were exactly that. "Had I known you were in the dark about all of this, I would have handled that first day a lot differently. I would have handled a lot differently these last few weeks. To think, you were in the dark, out in the cold, this whole time, no one ever explaining what you are. That must have been very lonely."
"Not really," Ellie said. "It's not like I knew I was different... Well, not different in that way."
"Well, I guess that makes sense. I mean, for me, coming out as gay in a Hulandan society was probably worse than most societies. At least from what I've heard at those meetings. Even with the edict in
place, everyone just assumes that the males are supposed to go off and propagate as much as possible. Fornicate our way to victory and all of that. Never mind that the spores spread just as easily between two men. But, anyway, I guess the whole gay versus alien thing, it's a bit hard to tell which is the bigger societal taboo, so to speak."
"Alien," Ellie said. "Definitely alien. No one vivisects people for being gay."
"I don't know, have you heard some of the stories coming out of Russia these days?" He laughed a little at his morbid joke. "Anyway, some of us are heading off for some breakfast. Want to come?"
"Do I have a choice?" Ellie asked.
"Of course, you... Oh, you still think you're being held prisoner? Ellie, you're free to go whenever you like. You always have been, since you came here. No one was going to stop you from leaving, not even Leadership. Although she would have been rather stern about it. If you want, you can just head back to your dorm, or your dad's place, or Timbuktu if that isn't far enough away from us. We won't be hurt... much..." He pretended to sniffle before bumping her playfully with his shoulder.
"Oh, alright," Ellie said. "Breakfast would be nice. I haven't eaten since... well, since yesterday's breakfast, I think."
"Yea, sorry about that. I tried to reel them in, but they weren't having it. Some leader I am, right? I mean, the fireworks I allowed. There was reason to celebrate and all. But then everything went downhill from there. Looking back, I guess it makes sense that it was all a smokescreen for Miranda and them to do some high-profile conversions." He started to lead the way down the hall, Ellie falling into step next to him. The rest of the Hulandans were already out of the building, despite the suggestion that some were coming along to breakfast.
"But, what? Are Miranda and them not going to be punished? For... For going against the edicts?"
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