“What’s up, guys?” he asked.
“Dad, come look!” Gage—the elder by a minute or two—answered excitedly.
“Yeah, Dad,” added Tristen. “It’s a comic about you and Mom!”
Tobin walked up and looked through the large glass display window.
“Shit,” Torbin swore under his breath.
He thought that an arrangement had been made with various comic and graphic novels to find some other subject than the alleged adventures of Torbin “Squid Killer” Bender, and his wife Aleks “Killer Spy” Smirnov. It was true that he had killed many a Squid, including one using his K-Bar fighting blade. And Aleks had been a trained Russian intelligence operative, a spy. They had been in the thick of things for what seemed like forever, even before they met. Now, his actions to shield his sons from some of the crasser parts of their parents’ history were in vain.
The current “work of art” displayed on its cover an over-muscled Torbin with a knife that looked more like a Roman gladius, a short sword. Back to back with him was a stylized version of Aleks, with an overly endowed chest, blasting away with a machine pistol in each hand. They were surrounded by dead and dying, drooling Tschaaa cephalopods, Kraken tattooed human traitors, the mutated beast creatures created by sick people, and of course the alien life form known as Eaters, named for what they did.
“Is that what you did, Dad?” asked Gage. “Is that what Mom did?”
“It’s exaggerated. Remember, you learned that word. It means…”
“Made up a lot,” answered Tristen. “It’s a big made up story.”
Torbin sighed. Now, how to explain to young boys wise beyond their year?
“Your mother and I did fight. We just were not the superheroes these comics make us out to be. We were warriors, doing what we had to do so you two could be born, and not eaten.”
“Were you and Mom friends before the Squids came?” Tristan inquired.
Torbin tried not to laugh. Friends. Yeah, right. The U.S. and Russia were going through a rough time in their relationship, thanks to accusations of election tampering, funding proxy wars, and screwing with each other’s economies. He sighed at the memories. At least he could thank the Tschaaa for bringing him together with Aleks. Without their attack, their Infestation and subsequent harvesting of humanity, he never would have met his love.
“No, sons. Mom and I had not met yet. You can thank the Squids for that. It was one good thing that came out of the war.”
Torbin felt the two pairs of eyes boring into him, and knew their genetically enhanced mental capabilities were working overtime to figure out this new question of Mom and Dad’s timeline.
“So, that’s a reason the Squids, and we are friends now?” Gage asked. Torbin had to chuckle.
“Hey, guys. You are important, but not that important. Remember what Mom and I taught you before you started school?”
“Yes, Dad.” Again, in perfect unison. “The Squids came to eat us.”
Torbin sighed. No use beating around the bush with these two.
“Yes, they did. Your Mom and I were fighting them when we met.”
“You met Mom, and fell in love?” Gage asked.
“That about sizes it up, son.”
“Now, the Tschaaa— the Squids—are our friends?” Now it was Tristan’s turn to ask a question.
“Kind of. Sort of.” Torbin sighed. “I’ll let your mother explain all the details.”
Torbin was about to take over as the Chief of Staff and the Commanding General for the United States of North America and its allies—Free Japan and Free Russia, forces in the western hemisphere. Thanks to the Great Compromise, he would not be locked in a deathmatch with the Tschaaa. They came to harvest and eat humans. Some people like Torbin fought, some tried to hide, and many had just died. Now as the Marine stood on the street in downtown Great Falls, Montana, he was one of the principal people responsible for making the new cooperative relationship with the Tschaaa work. Damn, Torbin thought. All he had wanted was to be left alone.
But fate or karma had decided that he was to be in the thick of things from day one. Then again, without all of that, he never would have met Aleks, his one true love. Nor would he have two handsome sons. He glanced at his reflection in a store window. He laughed to himself as he saw a person with Hollywood good looks and some gray mixed in with his dark brown hair. A lot of good his physical attractiveness did these days.
Both of his sons nodded in unison at the mention of their mother. As he contemplated whether he should try and explain more to two children advanced well beyond usual standards, he felt someone watching him. His old combat instincts, what he often referred to as his “Spidey sense”—what Aleks attributed to cockroaches—made him look up. Standing a storefront and a half down was a slender young girl about eight or nine years, tall for her age. She had long dark brown hair, braided and hanging down past her shoulders. She was examining Torbin and his sons with an intensity that matched how his sons often studied something new or unusual. Torbin thought her mother must be tall also. Then he saw Her.
The tall and slender former pilot stepped from the doorway of a shop, started to say something to her daughter, and then noticed who she was watching. The dark-haired woman, whom Torbin had known as Lori White, looked up and froze. She grabbed her daughter.
“Let’s go, Adrianna,” she said as she tried to pull the young girl along with her. The girl tugged back.
“That’s him, Mom. That’s the General, the hero.”
“Come on, move!” The former pilot tried to grab her daughter’s arm, but the young girl stepped away.
“I want to say hi!” Adrianna protested. Lori made a successful second attempt, and grabbing her daughter’s arm, started to turn away.
“Wait, Lori!” he called out. “Dammit, stop!”
“He knows you, Mom,” Adrianna declared as Torbin strode up, his sons automatically following him. Lori looked at Torbin; her eyes widened as if in panic. He noticed a scar on her right jaw that showed through her light tan.
“Hey, Lori. You know me. I don’t bite,"Torbin said as he stopped a couple of steps away, Tristan and Gage behind him.
“I’m just not ready…” Lori stammered.
“I thought you were dead.” Lori avoided his gaze.
“We saw you on TV,” Adrianna interjected. “You helped save us all.”
“Torbin,” Lori began to say. Tears welled up in her eyes.
Just then, a voice sounded from behind Torbin.
“Husband, are you bothering someone again?” It was Aleks. “Sons, what are you doing?”
The well-built and fit shorter woman walked up with a shopping bag in each of her hands, jet black hair tied back in a ponytail.
“The woman knows Dad,” volunteered Tristan.
“You are a friend of Torbin?” inquired the former Russian spy.
“Lori helped save us all in Yuma,” replied Torbin. Then the memories of that night began to flood in. Human bodies, including children, hung like slabs of beef in the harvester ark alien spacecraft. Screams of injured soldiers, a memory of a young Lieutenant dying on his first mission, followed by a short night of passion with Lori. Over eight years past, yet now it seemed like yesterday. He began to shake. Aleks noticed, and grabbed her husband’s hand to reassure him.
“Dearest, that was then. This is now,” she offered in a subdued voice.
“My name is Adrianna White,” the young girl stated as she presented her hand for a handshake. “I just wanted to meet the General. My Mom said he knew him years ago. I know him as a hero.”
“Pleased to meet you, young lady,” responded Aleks. “From what Torbin has told me, your mother is a hero as well.” She let go of Adrianna's hand and looked at Lori White, who tried to control her tears.
“You’re a hero to me too,” added Lori’s daughter. “I want to be a Banshee someday, a Sister of Steel, like you, Colonel Smirnov.”
“Torbin told you about…us?” Lori final
ly managed to choke out.
“Of course. We have no secrets,” replied the spy turned wife and mother.
“He also said you had lost your family, and your…husband.”
“Yes, I did. A Squid rock hit my home.” Lori straightened her stance as she sought to control her emotions. She then continued.
“After Yuma, I did what I could to fight the Squids. Then I tried to survive.” Lori motioned towards her face. “I got this scar. Next had Adrianna.”
“Mom took care of me,” the daughter explained as she grabbed her mother’s hand and squeezed. “My Dad was killed.”
Lori jerked a look at her daughter as she heard the comment. Her bottom lip began to quiver a bit as she spoke.
“Lots of people…died. Come on, Adrianna. We have to go.”
“Mom…”
“No need to rush off, Lori,” Aleks said. “We can have coffee or lunch. A friend of Torbin’s…”
“No!” Lori snapped. “Too many memories… and too many dead.”
“Why…” Aleks stopped in mid-comment. She looked at Torbin, then back at Adrianna, then at Lori. Then once more at the young girl, examining her before she spoke.
“Dearest husband. Lori. You need to introduce your daughter to her two brothers, Gage and Tristan.”
“What?” exclaimed Torbin.
“She has your eyes, your chin,” responded Aleks. “I am trained in detailed observation. You have a daughter.”
Lori White let out a sob.
“Mom?” questioned Adrianna. “Is that true? You just said you thought my father was dead.”
“I didn’t know!” Lori blurted. “Then I saw him on the broadcasts after the nuke attack attempt on the Tschaaa Lordship in Key West. I thought it was too late. I saw he had a whole other life, with a wife…” The former USAF Pilot began to cry, and her daughter’s eyes began to fill with tears. Out of the blue, Gage and Tristan stepped past their parents and grabbed the hands of the two former strangers.
“Please don’t cry,” pleaded Gage. “My Mom and Dad will fix it. They fix everything!”
“From the mouth of babes…” began Aleks. Then she stepped forward and hugged Lori as she cried. This was not the first time Aleks had held a fellow human in the throes of grief. Sometimes she had been the one on the receiving end of comfort.
Adrianna looked at Torbin as she spoke. “Dad?”
“I…guess so,"answered Torbin. He reached out and took her hand.
“We have some catching up to do.”
“Yeah, I guess we do…Dad,"Lori replied. Then she hugged him.
“I always wanted to hug my Dad.”
The Marine tried not to cry but failed.
The three adults and three children sat at a back table in the European Café and American Eats restaurant and cocktail lounge, the same location where the Russian Orthodox christening of Gage and Tristan celebration had occurred years prior. Adrianna sat next to the father she never known, with her two new half-brothers on her other side. Gage and Tristan were smiling as if this was all their doing, this sudden appearance of a sister. Tristan had opined that this was the best way to have a sister, as Mom did not have to carry her in her tummy like they did with him and his brother. No more complaints about another troll. The advanced development and intellect of the two young brothers kept catching their parents off guard. Aleks forgot that they seemed to hear and remember everything.
“After we finish this fine repast, we will have to arrange for you to come with us to our home,” stated Aleks.
“No, I can’t impose like that,” protested Lori. “I’ll find a place, a job…”
“You are family; it is no imposition,” answered the Russian spy.
“But, how? We are not related,” began Lori. “Besides, I have my baggage and troubles that come with me.”
“In this new age, post-Great Compromise, family is who we claim as family. I claim you and your daughter as family. Thus, you are. No arguments.”
The former USAF pilot looked at Torbin as if to implore support for her position. The now General held up his hands.
“Don’t look at me! Once Aleks makes up her mind, I find it best to comply.”
“Smart, my husband,” agreed Aleks. “Besides, I have a selfish reason, if you agree with it, Lori White. With both Torbin and I having the extreme new responsibilities in running this ‘new’ military, you can help with my two trolls—I mean sons.”
“Please say yes,” interrupted Adrianna. “I like the idea of having more family.” She looked at Torbin. “And a Dad.”
Lori White looked at her daughter, her eyes damp. Gage, nearest to her, patted her arm.
“Please, Mom Two. Come with us. It will all be okay.”
Lori hugged Gage, and kissed his forehead. “With that logic, how can I refuse?”
“Good!” exclaimed Aleks. “Now, you and your daughter go freshen up, pick up your vehicle, and meet us back here. Don’t change your mind. I am trained in tracking people down.”
They all laughed and then Lori and Adrianna went to get their things. Torbin looked at his wife.
“I don’t know how you can adjust to this, dearest,” stated Torbin. “Your husband suddenly has a long-lost lover and child show up, and you deal with it, organize everyone and everything.”
Aleks reached over and kissed him deeply.
“Dearest Torbin, I love you with all my heart. And you love me. Thanks to the Tschaaa harvesting activities, we are short men in the world, with a ratio of women to men at some three to two in most places. Worse in others.”
“Jealousy exists…”
“Not here, Torbin. If a certain Russian Senior Training Instructor we know can deal with three wives, and a bunch of children, this Russian-Ukrainian can do the same.” She kissed her husband again and then continued.
“We do what we must for family. You have a daughter. I can accept another sister, even a sister wife. Life and our children must go on.”
Aleks stood up.
“Time to go. We have a war dog at home to let out.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” agreed Torbin. “The woman rules the roost.”
“Now three women,” stated the Russian Spy. “And don’t you forget it.”
Free Range Protocol- Tales of the Tschaaa Infestation Page 37