Somehow, they had managed to go down one of the streets that had seen the most destruction from the first mob. The storefronts looked almost blown out, perhaps left-over fireworks used instead of the more conventional weapons that destroyed the street she had seen the night before. Ellie looked behind them, back towards the campus, back the way they came. She realized that this must have been the path that the mob had taken, when their revelry had turned to something different, something darker. This would have been the only time that they still had the unspent fireworks, before they used them all up to amplify the destruction.
Sam looked ashamed as they walked through the ruins of the street, the reminder of what he had done, whether or not his hand was on the fireworks. He had spurred up the crowd the day before, he must have, the impromptu leader of the Hulandan students. Ellie wondered where they had left him. Where the mob had gone off on their own to render the destruction on the city.
"Students did this?" Mare asked. She was as shocked as Ellie was, as heartbroken, though she had no hand in it.
"They had fireworks," Ellie said, as if that alone explained the destruction.
"Yea, but... I mean, this is their city. I can still see the campus from here. I imagine some of these apartments are rented by students. How... Why? Why would they do this?"
"Because they were aliens," came a high pitched, squeak of a voice, seemingly out of nowhere. Ellie, Sam, and Mare all looked around them, trying to find the source of the voice, though none seemed to find any clue. "Oh, right, sorry. Forgot."
A flash of light passed by Ellie's eye, startling her. She jumped away from it, her hands up defensively in front of her as she tried to square off against... a small, pink ball of light hanging in midair. The light flickered as it bobbed up and down in place in the space between the three of them. Ellie wasn't sure what to make of it, what it could possibly be, though she figured the voice must have somehow come from it.
"Oh, hey Phoebe," Mare said, not seeming the least bit surprised by the arrival of the pink ball of light. "How long have you been in town? Wait, my dad isn't with you, is he?"
"Yes, and Jack, too, though one of the aliens knocked him out. Damn nearly got me, too, but, well... I just tagged along with your girlfriend here while I tried to get the lay of the land on what was happening around here."
"What?" Ellie asked. Her face went white as snow as she realized what that meant. Just how much the... ball of light had heard. What she would have known about her, about the others, about everything.
"Oh, relax," Mare said, waving off her concern. "No, really, relax. Phoebe isn't going to hurt you. She works for my dad and the HPS. You know, the good guys."
Ellie didn't realize that she still had her guard up, was still in a position to fight the little ball. She imagined she would be hard pressed to hit it, even if it actually stayed still. Something told her that, if she ever actually tried to go up against her, the fight would be completely one sided towards the ball of light. Slowly, Ellie relaxed, though some part of her didn't like the idea of dropping her guard against the thing.
"What... are you?" Ellie asked, looking on at the ball of light.
"You're one to talk," the ball of light scoffed. "I'm a faery, duh."
"Wait, you were the other agent at the hospital? You're... a faery? They let faeries into the HPS?"
"I'd be more surprised that there are faeries at all," Sam said. "I am more surprised that there are faeries at all. Why? How are there faeries?"
"Asks the alien," the ball of light said. Ellie’s heart stopped at that comment, her face going cold. This was it. This was the moment that she dreaded since the first time she heard Mare’s voice that morning. This was the moment that her girlfriend found out that she was an alien… and turned on her for it. This was the moment that she would lose her.
"Woah, wait, what?" Mare asked. She jumped a couple of steps away from Sam, putting her own guard up against him, though he didn't move a muscle under her intense gaze.
"Uh..." Sam said, too stunned to do much of anything.
"They call themselves Hulandan, though I have no idea how they got that name," the ball of light said. "Best I can figure, they're humans infested by spores from space, carried down inside of some sort of space rodent back in '01. Some of them are infested by other Hulandans, though I didn't get any intel on how it's transmitted, while others are born to it, from Hulandan mothers. Those that are infested, or converted, as they call it, die in ten to twelve years, based on certain parameters. They have enhanced speed and strength, which is what did Jack in, as well as some other abilities that I haven't quite figured out yet. We need to monitor the situation closely going forward, especially after this latest outburst. I mean, seriously, destroying a large chunk of a city? On American soil? That just doesn't sit well with me."
"Okay, can we take a step back here?" Ellie asked. "How is there a faery here, on Earth, as part of the HPS?"
"A long story, and most of it is classified," the ball of light said. It reminded her of a similar answer that Becky had given earlier. "Let's just say it was something of a freak accident and leave it at that."
"Magic," Sam said, practically spitting the word.
"Yes, and they seem to have a preoccupation with magic users and demons," the ball of light said, amending her report. "Any chance we could return to the hospital? I'd like to check in with Agent Gorning and find out about Jack."
"What about him?" Mare asked, pointing accusatorially at Sam. Ellie almost felt offended by that, but Mare didn't seem to have included her in her obvious disgust and distrust.
"As long as he behaves, I don't see why he can't come along," the ball of light said.
"Um... Could you, maybe, not be a ball of light?" Ellie asked. "It's making me queasy."
"Oh, sorry, I forgot," the ball of light said. She seemed overly forgetful, or maybe she just really couldn't tell when she's just a ball of light the size of a child's fist.
The ball flickered in the air a bit longer before slowly drifting down to the floor. Mare pulled Sam away from the light, giving her more room. The girl needed it, as she was suddenly a full-grown adult again, though still petite. Ellie shuddered to think what would have happened if she tried that with Sam practically right on top of her still. She had almost expected Phoebe to appear naked, for some reason, though her clothes from before had returned completely intact. Ellie wanted to ask how that happened, but she figured she wouldn't be satisfied with the answer anyway.
"There, better?" Phoebe said. Her voice sounded much more normal, down an octave or two, once she was back in human form. "Now can we please go check in? I'm still only a trainee at this point and I haven't been out in the field unsupervised before."
"A trainee?" Ellie asked, confused. "I thought you were like thirty or something."
"I am thirty or something," she said, defensively. "Well, twenty-seven. It's only in my faery form that I look ageless."
"Really? How can you tell? You just looked like a ball of light to me."
"Odd," Mare said. "I could see her perfectly."
"Magic user," Sam mouthed to Ellie.
"But, still, you're twenty-seven and only a trainee?" Ellie asked. "Why?"
"It took them a while before they let non-humans join up. They were afraid it would look like they were playing favorites, allowing some non-humans and not others. There are even a few demon agents now, but they don't like to advertise it. It went a long way to help get the bill passed. Oh, uh... sorry." She shrugged at Sam.
"Not your fault," Sam said, shrugging. "Those stupid demons would get their way eventually anyway. They're too ingrained in society now. If there ever was a time that we could have gotten rid of them, it would have been in the year or so after they arrived."
"Yea," Phoebe said, extending the word as she looked between Ellie and Sam. "So, hospital is that way?" She pointed further down the road they had been walking down.
"That way," Ellie and Sam said together, both pointi
ng north and behind them a little.
"We'd need to take a car, though," Ellie said. "I'm not sure what the status of my Leaf is, but we can use it if it's clear of the destruction."
"Or, we could go three blocks that way and take the chopper," Mare said, pointing back the way they came. "Though, I'm not sure they'd appreciate me parking a military chopper on the hospital's helipad."
"Hey, as long as they can use it, I think they wouldn't mind," Ellie said. "I still can't believe you stole a helicopter."
"Borrowed," Mare corrected. "And I couldn't very well leave you out here alone, with god only knows what happening to you. We need to go back to wearing our health trackers so I know when you're in danger. I just... I couldn't think without knowing that you were safe."
Mare came over to Ellie, putting her arms around her and hugging her tightly to her chest. She was taller than Ellie, which both felt odd and right at the same time. Ellie hugged her back, tightly, though she loosened her grip almost immediately. She was suddenly afraid that she would lose control of her strength, her alien strength, and hurt her girlfriend. It scared her to think that, if she wanted to, she could probably break the taller girl in half without really trying. And Mare would probably let her, too.
After a few moments, Mare broke the hug. She gazed down at Ellie's face, though she had a questioning, curious expression on her own. It was like she was suddenly doubting something, Ellie's love of her, the solid nature of their relationship, that the distance between them wasn't as surmountable as they had both hoped. Ellie was hesitant at first, as her own doubts and concerns spiraled in her mind. But, once she was able to get through them, once she put them to the side for later worrying over, she popped up on her toes to give Mare a big kiss, right on the lips. They stayed like that for minutes that felt like hours that felt like no time at all.
A wolf whistle came from behind them, breaking their concentration and startling them out of their embrace. They both looked towards the sound, back towards the campus, up the same road they had come down. The group there looked familiar, it should have given the fact that they had only just escaped it. Ellie should have known that the mob wouldn't have given up on them so easily. Vern was standing front and center, a not so subtle reminder of who they were and why they wanted her blood.
"Get a room," Eric called out from behind Vern.
Ellie looked back at Mare, standing behind her. She shrugged playfully, giving her girlfriend a half smile. "Becky is in the hospital," Ellie said. "We have my room all to ourselves."
"Yes, but I don't think they're going to let us through," Mare said.
"Will you let us through so we can go to that room?" Ellie called out to the mob. Laughter stemmed up from the mob and Eric's face, barely visible behind Vern, flashed a beat red.
"None of you are going anywhere," Vern said. "Demons are one thing, they can't possess us humans. But you aliens? No, that's where we're drawing the line. We cannot suffer an alien to live amongst us. You all three... all four die today."
"We're not aliens," Phoebe shouted back at them. "Well, some of us are, but not all of us."
"And we're to take your word for it?" Vern asked.
"Without being able to tell us apart, you're going to have to," Mare said. "Unless... Do you have a way of telling us apart?"
Vern didn't like that question. His resolve slackened a little as he continued to stare the group down from across the several yards distance between them. The mob eyed the group cautiously, especially Ellie, who was the only female alien there. They knew what she was capable of. Or, at least, what she should have been capable of, if she had ever learned how to do it. None of them, Ellie included, knew how far she should be able to spit the spores at the group. However, unlike the fight beneath the tree, it didn't seem like the group was going to take the cautious approach.
"We'll just have to kill everyone with a known alien," Vern said. "It's the only way to be sure."
"And we can get Angel Corp to make us some health trackers that will make sure we're all human," came a suggestion from the crowd. "They'd love a chance to make more money off of us."
"They really would," Phoebe said.
"I don't think you're going to get the chance," came another voice, this one in the other direction. The group turned around, only to see another mob forming up behind them. This group looked familiar as well, with Miranda, Rebecca Anne, and even Leadership front and center.
"Uh oh," Mare said. "I have a bad feeling about all of this."
"You should," Ellie said. "That's the alien mob."
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Cornered
Ellie didn't like the looks of this one bit. It wasn't that she was surrounded by both mobs, one human and one alien. It wasn't that she didn't know which mob she really belonged to, as it seemed that neither would have her at that particular moment. It was the fact that, with both mobs assembled on the field of battle, the war between humans and the Hulandan may very well start that morning.
She looked between each of the mobs, one at a time, and her friends, wondering just how the four of them were going to get past either of the groups. While they had dithered there, the humans had come up right to the end of the block, spread across the entire distance between the two buildings and easily three deep. The Hulandans, similarly assembled, were just forming up at the other end of the block. Neither seemed willing to let anyone pass, least of all Ellie. That only left through the buildings on either side of the block, but she didn't like the looks of either of them. The destruction from the earlier riot seemed to make both buildings quite unstable, and likely to topple over on the other.
"Sorry, Ellie," Sam said, claiming her attention away from any possible escape. He shrugged, a smirk square on his face, as he started to make his way over to the Hulandan forces.
"Sam, wait," Ellie said. Part of her felt like she should follow. That she should join her people in the fight that might be the beginning of their rule or the end of their existence there on Earth. Yet, despite the spores that ran through her veins, she still felt no real comradery with them. She felt no real connection to her people. No, she thought, not her people. They were her mother's people, a mother she barely remembered at all. She was a shadow to her, nothing more, and her people were even less than that.
Leadership, front and center in the Hulandan forces, glared at her menacingly. The nice, sweet, considerate Leadership of before was gone, replaced by one of war. Whatever had changed since earlier, it was clear that the offer of Ellie replacing her was no longer on the table. And, with the other mob assembled against them, she had a sinking feeling that what had changed had been that she knew who spilled the information to the humans. Ellie edged closer to Mare and Phoebe, making it as clear as she could without saying it out loud, that she wasn’t with either mob.
"Phoebe, got any faery tricks that can help us out of this mess?" Mare asked.
"Sorry, guys. I'm all out of pixie dust," Phoebe said, without the slightest bit of humor.
"Wait, is that really a thing?" Ellie asked.
"Yea, it's powerful, but really rare. It has been ever since the pixie uprising. They didn't take too kindly to being hunted, killed, and ground down to a powder, simply for the sake of giving faeries magic in a world that has none."
"Oh, there's magic out there," Mare said. "You just have to know where to look for it."
"Shh," Phoebe hissed. "That's classified."
"It's not as much of a secret as you seem to think," Ellie said. "The Hulandans have a long-standing grudge against magic users. How can there be magic users if there is no magic?"
"It's... complicated," Phoebe said. "And--"
"Classified, I get it."
"Okay, so what's the plan?" Mare asked. "They're not going to be waiting much longer."
As if her words were the cue that the humans were waiting for, a few of them started throwing their now spent torches across the distance between them. None of the torches got very far, as they wer
en't very aerodynamic, but two of them almost hit Ellie. At the same time, the Hulandans started to move forward. Their arms were interlocked with each other, a solid wall pushing forward at human speeds towards the center. Given the fact that they walked forward in formation at that speed, without the slightest misstep or mishap, it was clear that their alien abilities were being called into use.
"Through the buildings it is, then," Ellie said. She grabbed Phoebe's and Mare's hands, pulling them towards the building to the north. If they managed to get away from the mobs, who were hopefully more interested in each other than them, they would be that much closer to the hospital and to the rest of their group.
The inside of the building was worse than the outside. Despite the fact that the front of the building was practically blown off, the smoke hadn't completely cleared out just yet. The deeper they went into the building, the harder it was for them to see. Or to breath. Their footsteps disturbed the soot and ash that had already collected on the floor, making it that much worse.
The building they were in must have been some kind of store. The burnt remnants of shelves framed their path on either side as they made their way deeper into the building. All three of them were coughing up a storm, just trying to draw a clean breath of air, even before they made it to the back of the store. Halfway in, between the smoke, ash, and soot, and the simple fact that the lights weren't on inside, it became so difficult to see that Ellie had to put her hands out in front of her, lest she walk into a wall or the shelves on either side of her. She quickly lost track of Mare and Phoebe, and, as she got deeper, even the sounds of their footsteps and coughing seemed to fade away around her.
"Mare?" she called out. "Phoebe?" She only barely got the two names out around the coughing fits that were almost constant. To make matters worse, no response came from the darkness around her. She spun around in place, looking for them, while still moving forward into the building. That only seemed to make matters worse, though, as she quickly lost her bearings. She barreled right into one of the shelves, which promptly fell apart under her weight, taking her down with it. Metal clanged out as more shelves joined in the mayhem, further distracting and disorienting her, further burying her in debris. By the time the silence of the building returned, she had no sense of direction, no idea which way was out. Even up and down was sometimes lost to her as she scrambled to get back to her feet. The debris kept shifting beneath her, around her, sliding her back down to the floor.
Light Through the Window Page 38