The Xtra- Volume One

by Oliver Willis

Chapter 37

  Taylor Nguyen cannot believe the sequence of events she has just witnessed. Her entire life flashed through her mind in a nanosecond. Holding her father's hand. Mom painting with her. Baby brother being born. First day of school. First kiss. Prom. Meeting Carla. Sleepover. Graduation. College. Everything in between.

  Then Carla had stepped forward. Between her and the man with the gun. In front of her. She had been frozen, standing there stupidly watching her best friend in the entire world, who she felt like garbage for arguing with just moments ago, about to take a bullet for her.

  But then she … was alive?

  She took the bullet. Then she threw the guy?

  Taylor realizes there's something in her hands. Her phone.

  It's a nervous tic she's picked up over the years. Something happens, you record it. There's basically infinite storage for infinite video with every cell phone plan, so why not, right?

  Sometimes at the end of the day, Taylor has gone back through her phone and found recorded videos and pictures she doesn't remember ever taking. It's just habit.

  And right now, as she slides her thumb across the glass screen of her phone, Taylor realizes she did it again.

  In the heat of the moment, as Carla was doing whatever the hell it was she was doing, Taylor had reached for her phone and recorded it.

  She hit play.

  The gun fired. The gun fired again. Carla stood there. Then she marched forward. Grabbed the gun. Crushed it. Crushed it!

  That's impossible, Carla thinks.

  As soon as she thinks that, the most impossible moment plays out on the video as Carla floats up in the air and flies over the crowd, to the doors, and out of the building.

  There will be time to think about what just happened, Taylor thinks. There will be time to sit back and truly contemplate what she and several dozen people just witnessed.

  That will come later.

  But right now, Taylor takes the video footage she has just recorded of her best friend doing things nobody has ever done in the history of mankind, and hits "post."

  The world is seconds away from seeing what just happened.

  They are not ready.

  Chapter 38

  The city is tiny beneath me. Everything is so small from up here.

  I am floating over Washington, D.C. It is a clear day and the sky is extremely blue. There are just a few clouds and it looks much like it does when you're in an airplane approaching National Airport, something I've witnessed a few times.

  Only, I am not in an airplane. There is nothing between my body and the sky. I'm just hovering there, all nearly-six feet of me like I'm hanging from balloons or something.

  But much weirder.

  I am excited. How could I not be? I never considered something like this because it's impossible, but now that I know it's a thing, I want to scream like Christmas morning when I was five and got the video game system I was dying for over the entire year.

  Times ten thousand.

  This is extraordinary and even that seems like I'm underselling it.

  I unclench my hands as I just begin to realize I've had them balled up into fists this whole time. There are deep indentations in my palm where my fingers were pressed against my skin, and even some whiteness as I squeezed too hard and shoved the blood out of the way.

  I remember how I threw the gunman across the room and wonder if I'm so strong I can kill myself on accident.

  I haven't so far, but who knows?

  Ok, floating. So weird. I look up a little bit and wonder what to do now.

  Up.

  As I have the thought the same invisible force from before pulls me up into the air.

  Chapter 39

  I'm now about ten feet higher in the air. I'm hovering in place again.

  Forward.

  I move a few feet straight ahead.

  I'm controlling it with my thoughts.

  Left. Right. Down. Up.

  As each thought passes through my mind, my body floats in the appropriate direction.

  I smirk when I realize I am doing something absurd: Learning to fly like a little child learns how to walk. But, you know, flying.

  I stick out my arms like I'm swimming and my legs lift out behind me. I'm stretched out.

  Forward.

  I move ahead and I can feel the wind blowing in my face and through my hair.

  Forward. A little faster.

  I start moving again and I can feel the speed pick up.

  Faster.

  I pick up the pace considerably and within seconds I've moved several dozen feet.

  Faster. Faster.

  I'm off like a jet.

  Everything is a blur beneath me and I am flying, cutting through the air, my arms outstretched, toes pointed behind me almost like a ballerina.

  Faster.

  I hear a loud boom and I know in a second, despite how insane it sounds, that I have just broken the sound barrier.

  Stop.

  I come to a complete stop and I float back up to an upright hovering position. For as far as the eye can see in every direction all that is visible is ocean. Deep blue ocean, unspoiled by people or our boats or any of the signs of the modern world.

  I am somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and it only took me a few seconds to get here.

  Then I realize something that didn't occur to me until now, in the midst of all this madness and insanity and God knows what is happening.

  I have to see my Dad. Now.

  Chapter 40

  Wallace Logan can feel the pain in his back growing. He is bent over in his garden, doing what he can to make the little patch of land flourish and grow. Doing this makes his back hurt and he knows that he would be better off sitting in his recliner, not putting stress on his aging frame. But he keeps at it.

  Nyala loved this garden and he isn't going to let it die because she is gone.

  He bends over and winces at the pain, gritting his teeth. Son of a bitch, he thinks.

  He feels a slight breeze and immediately he can sense something is off. It has been decades since he served but Wallace is still sharp. You know when someone is in your perimeter, inside your zone, and violating your space. That's something you never grow out of or leave behind, unfortunately.

  He drops his spade into the dirt and balls his hands into fists again. You don't know. You never know. He and Nyala, they spent so many years looking over their shoulders, wondering about every new face that they met. Even though she was the one being hunted, he was usually more on edge. "Relax," she would tell him. He tried. But he wanted to protect her, always, from that moment in the woods until the day she…

  Wallace stands up, ready to face whoever, whatever it is. He turns around.

  There she is, his daughter Carla, floating in the air. Looking like some sort of angel.

  He lets out a cry of surprise. He is frozen in place, shocked at what he is seeing. For years and years he expected something to happen, one day. He didn't know what it was or what shape it would take, but he knew something was coming.

  But he was not prepared for this.

  Carla floats down to the ground, moving quietly and slowly like a falling feather.

  Soon she is standing right in front of him.

  He unclenches his fists. There is no threat here. This is the complete opposite of that. There is nobody – nobody in the world – he trusts more than this young woman. His daughter. His little girl.

  "Baby," he says.

  "Daddy," she replies.

  They embrace tightly, recreating that cocoon of trust and safety they have always known, for her entire life. In that moment, there is only the two of them in the entire world. Nobody from the outside could possibly hope to get inside.

  He pulls away just slightly and holds her hands in his.

  Carla can feel his hands; they feel rough like they always do and that is comforting. It is an oasis in the insanity of the moment.

  "I can't believe it," he says, fin
ally breaking the silence. "I'm seeing you with my own two eyes, but I can't believe it."

  "I'm in shock. This is insane, Dad. Completely and absolutely insane. I had to see you."

  "She – I – Carla, I don't know where to start." Wallace is stammering, each word is a struggle to pronounce. He feels tongue-tied and nervous. He has recited his dialogue for this moment at least a million times in the last twenty years but now, at zero hour, he is still woefully unprepared.

  "I have twenty things to tell you, but they all want to come out at once," he continues.

  Carla bites her bottom lip, nodding in reply. She is so happy to see him and she didn't realize until this moment what a relief it is to have him as her rock. This man is unlike any other person. He knows her heartache, the depths of her sorrow. He knows what brings her joy, what she is passionate about. He gets her completely and absolutely.

  "Come inside," Wallace says. He holds her hand and turns to open the door.

  "Wow, I'm cutting into garden time," Carla says as she notices the discarded digging equipment and the disturbed dirt. "This must be important."

  They both laugh. Because it's true.

  Chapter 41

  Especially on days like this, when the world literally turns upside-down, it's good to see that some things never change.

  That's the thought I have as I walk into my dad's townhouse, which is a lot like walking through a time machine and back into my childhood. It looks the same as it always did, cozy and comforting the same way it felt when I was a five-year-old snuggled between my parents.

  Mom and Dad.

  Dad finally lets go of my hand. He was holding on so tight, like I was going to fly away. Oh. Right. I can do that now, can't I?

  He walks over to the kitchen, leaving me alone in the living room. Memories flood my mind. I'm showing off a painting I made in school. Talking about a homework assignment with them both. Arguing with Dad about staying out one extra hour (he gives in), debating with Mom what outfit to wear to school (she was right, it killed).

  I instantly feel a little better, just by being here, in his presence, in this place.

  "Juice?" He calls out.

  "Sure," I reply.

  I notice he's still got his big, oversized universal remote control, no doubt programmed to control every device attached to the TV. Dad was always a gadget head, obsessed with getting the latest and greatest techno wizardry to add to his massive collection. To his credit, he uses many of them. They aren't just collecting dust, consigned to a drawer or closet after the novelty had worn off.

  The house was neat and tidy, like always. Neither of my parents were sloppy (definitely neater than me), but Dad had – has – a fanatical devotion to keeping things tight and orderly. A leftover from his time in the service I'm sure. I remember from time to time Mom joking that she would leave him, if not for the tight corners when he made the bed.

  They were impressive.

  He walks in holding a can of his favorite beer and hands me a glass of apple juice. I sip it and realize from the taste that it’s the same brand we've always bought. Good old Dad.

  I sit down on "my" spot on the couch. It's been my spot ever since we bought it and brought it home. There was never any formal decision on this, it just came about naturally. It was "my" spot and I always sat there and that was that. I had laid claim to it nearly two decades ago and today it feels good to be back in my old spot, like putting on an old, broken-in shoe.

  Dad drops down on the sofa next to me and he's got this big goofy grin on his face. He puts a hand on my shoulder and sighs, quietly.

  On the coffee table in front of us are rows and rows of pictures, many of them of me from seemingly every stage of my life. Nearly every birthday is represented, and I sort of want to cringe at some of the poses I've made over the years. It's like I didn't consider that they would be preserved for all time.

  There are also many pictures of the three of us. Our little team. Forever broken.

  "Dad."

  As I say his name it's like a dam has broken open. I tell him every detail of what happened. From the first sounds of gunfire until the moment I was flying – flying – in the air. He stares at me intently through the whole story, never breaking his gaze. He is taking in every word, nodding along with me as I tell him the story.

  It sounds strange to me, hearing it out loud. It feels like I'm talking about someone else, and about something you'd read in a comic book or see in a movie. But it's true. All of it.

  He is not skeptical of a thing I say. I know that face. I know what Wallace Logan looks like when he doesn’t believe you, trust me, and this is not that face, at all.

  "… and then I flew here, to you," I conclude.

  He's silent for a long moment, and then he pats me on the knee.

  "Baby girl. I have to come right out to the point and say it. I know it's going to sound crazy—"

  "Dad, you heard what I just told you. Flying. Stopping bullets. Throwing people across rooms. Crushing guns. Crazy is apparently what I do now."

  He nods slowly.

  He gets it. He realizes I'm going through something massive and it's clear to me he doesn't want to add on to it. But it's also obvious what he has to say is important.

  I haven't seen him look like this since the day Mom died.

  "You mother…," he says, trailing off.

  "Yes?"

  "Your mom, Nyala, my – she – she wasn't from this world. She wasn't from Earth. She came here, from billions of miles away. She is— was —an alien."

  Despite everything I have heard and seen on this, the strangest day of my life, nothing can prepare me for this. As I sit there, in the middle of the home in which I feel safest, with the person I trust the most in the world, absolutely nothing makes any sense.

  This is the most insane thing I've ever heard.

  Chapter 42

  I quickly stand up and look at Dad, trying to process this thing he just told me. Normally I'd laugh it off or just dismiss it. Because it's an absurd notion, right? That kind of thing is some sort of joke or movie or book or TV show. Not reality.

  But then, again, I think of what I've seen or done over the last few hours. I think about the fact I flew to Florida and my father's disclosure that my own mother was an alien doesn't sound so bizarre.

  That's terrifying.

  "I'm sorry," Dad says, "I should have told you before. We wanted to tell you, but we never quite thought it was the right time. We kept waiting for the right moment, the perfect day, to make you aware. But then your mother –"

  I know, Dad.

  "And then I still couldn't find the words. And now here we are."

  "It's okay, Dad. I probably wouldn't have believed you. I can hardly believe you now, even after today."

  "Just finally saying it out loud sounds crazy, even after all of these years."

  He looks away from me and I catch him looking at the photos of Mom. We can both feel her absence at this critical moment. She was a rock we could both cling to and she isn't there anymore, for either of us.

  I get it, I want to say. But I don't.

  He motions for me to sit back down and I do. Even my comfortable spot on the couch feels strange and odd to me now. My own home seems strange because my entire world has been turned upside down. It isn't that my life has been a lie but there is a huge – gigantic really – part of me that I didn't know about until this very moment and it colors everything I've ever experienced in my entire life.

  My mind races back to moments with Mom, times that I now know she was holding back, not telling me about myself. And her.

  "I found her," Dad says. "I was driving across the Everglades, for a job interview or something. I honestly barely remember that part of it anymore. And I had a compulsion, a feeling that made me stop my car, walk through the dirt and the muck, and I found her ship. I later learned it was some kind of probe or signal or something the ship sent out."

  "Wow."

  "They had a lot o
f technology like that, your mother later told me. She used to tell me stories about her life there. Shining cities, flying cars, the whole nine yards."

  He drifts off for a second, obviously thinking about talking to her. I let him. He deserves it.

  "It could have been anyone that the signal found that night driving by, I suppose, but I like to think it was fate or destiny or the universe talking to me or whatever. God, maybe?"

  "You old romantic."

  He chuckles. It's reassuring to hear this as everything slip-slides underneath me. It's funny how the little gestures take on so much more weight in a situation like this.

  "Something like that. I found her. Took her home. It wasn't long after that we fell in love. It just all seemed right, like it was supposed to happen. And then you –"

  He looks up at me, then back down to his hands and continues speaking.

  "You came along and sealed the deal. You were her everything, her pride and joy. Every day of her life that she had you was the best day in her life. Period."

  I nod as I'm tearing up. He is too. We've had a lot of these cries in the last few years but with this disclosure this time it's very raw. Now I know this missing detail, which I didn’t even know I was missing in the first place.

  "She wanted to keep you safe. She was convinced that they, her people, were coming for her. For you. For us."

  "Why?"

  "She said there was a big war going on. Hundreds of thousands of people had been killed and she couldn't sit by and do nothing about it."

  "Sounds like Mom."

  "So, she got ahold of the weapon they planned to use, The Overseers, she called them. And she stole it."

  "Mom was a criminal? That's a bigger bombshell than her being an alien."

  "I know, right? Who knew we had a fugitive living with us for all those years? An intergalactic one. Back on Tevrem – that's the planet – she took this weapon, because it would have tipped the scales, wiped out everyone and lead to even more death. She brought it here to Earth and got away just by the skin of her teeth."

  I could see the weight lifting off his shoulders as he spoke. It was clear he had been carrying this around for a long time, and especially with Mom gone, he had nobody to talk to about it. I feel like for once, just by sitting here and listening to what he has to say, I'm helping him out for a change.