A Stranger Thing (The Ever-Expanding Universe)

by Leicht, Martin

  I fold my arms across my chest, ignoring Boatswain’s whines for more scratching. “Why don’t you just cut to the chase and tell me what the hell is going on?”

  Byron’s eyes brighten, like I just complimented his haircut. I cannot detect even an ounce of the cruelty that someone like, say, Dr. Marsden had when he had me at gunpoint back on the Echidna. By contrast, this Byron guy doesn’t seem to find the whole situation all that serious. Like hospital bed abductions are as common as artificial grass.

  “Elvie, everything’s going to be fine, don’t worry. You haven’t done anything wrong. Your baby is in perfect health, and your father and friend are safe and in our care.”

  It’s his casual tone that’s more disconcerting to me than anything else. I was kind of expecting a villainous speech. Boatswain starts licking the sweat from my palm. As interrogations go, I have to admit, this is all pretty chill. Everything, as Byron says, seems to be going fine.

  “What was all that shouting about? Me?”

  Byron waves me off dismissively. “Don’t worry about all that. Some of the lads have their knickers in a bunch over this whole Ares mess.”

  “Ares?” I ask, confused. “The Ares Project?” The Ares Project is the multitrillion-dollar government program whose purpose is the wide-scale terraforming of the surface of Mars for human habitation, the first such attempt of its kind. The idea that the Almiri are behind it in some way probably shouldn’t shock me as much as it does—since I’m well aware of how technologically advanced they are, and how they’ve made a habit of getting their hands into every major scientific breakthrough of the past several thousand years. It’s more of the fact that Byron’s dropping the information so nonchalantly that has me baffled. After all, aren’t I some sort of prisoner here?

  “A bit of an issue with some cyberterrorism, nothing that should slow matters down terribly, but enough of a breach that some folks are nervous.” Byron leans forward in his chair. “Cole told me how keen you were on being a part of the project someday. You don’t know how happy that would make—”

  “Cole,” I say. “What have you done with Cole?”

  Byron’s face turns slightly more serious, but it’s undercut by his tickling one of the miniature monkeys with his index finger. Seriously, the thing is the size of a Ping-Pong ball.

  “Cole has broken our cardinal law,” he says simply, “and will have to be dealt with accordingly.”

  I can feel the color leave my face. “What do you mean, ‘dealt with’?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s not—”

  “Don’t worry?” I screech out. He might as well tell me not to blink. “Don’t WORRY?” Drusilla lurches to her feet at my sudden outcry, like there’s some threat she needs to deal with, but one low growl from Boatswain and she backs off. “Please don’t hurt him.” My voice is shaky, and I am this close to crying, but I use every ounce of strength to hold it together. Boatswain drops his head into my lap.

  Again, Byron’s pretty chillaxed about the whole scene. “Ah,” he says calmly. “The drama of young love.” And he closes his eyes once more. “I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep, or else this heavy heart will burst; for it hath been by sorrow nursed, and ached in sleepless silence.” He opens his eyes once more and gives me a bittersweet smile.

  “Cole told me all about your Code, or whatever,” I say, petting Boatswain with both hands in an effort to calm myself. “I know that what he did was bad. I mean, I know you guys think it was bad.” Cole was not supposed to sleep with me. The Almiri have superstrict rules about which human ladies are meant to be knocked up and how frequently an Almiri can do the deed, in order to avoid overpopulation and the eventual destruction of both our species, since Almiri pregnancies lead to sterility in their human hosts. Cole was originally sent to Ardmore, PA, to knock up übercheerleader-mega-skank Britta McVicker, but he disobeyed orders because, as he put it, he “fell for me.”

  Also, he’s sort of a chromer.

  “But it wasn’t his fault,” I go on. “I, like, totally seduced him. He tried to resist, but . . . what’s going to happen to him?” I whisper around the lump forming in my throat.

  “You’ve learned quite a bit about us the past few weeks, Elvie,” Byron says. And perhaps I’m misreading things, but there seems to be some sympathy in his voice. “And seeing that this is the case, I hope that you can appreciate the reason for the Code, and why our adherence to it is so important. I can’t overemphasize what a big deal it is.” The monkey lets out a miniature cheep of insistence until Byron returns to tickling him. “Like, humongous big.”

  “But Cole didn’t mean—”

  Byron cuts me off. “I’ve tried to shield Cole from repercussions with regards to your situation, as best I could. It was no easy task, mind you. The fact that Cole violated protocol and had relations with a second host—someone who clearly had not been vetted for hosting—was not only foolish but dangerous. For both our species.” He clears his throat. “However, in light of the heroism Cole displayed on the Echidna, I felt compelled to petition for some degree of leniency for the boy. It was not the most popular sentiment, I can assure you, but I was able to arrange a sort of . . . tenuous probation for young Mr. Archer. Which might have been the end of it, were it not for his unfortunate behavior at the hospital. At this point, my hands are tied. One simply does not head-butt a superior and walk away, even under the cheeriest of circumstances.”

  So Cole did head-butt that dude. At least I wasn’t hallucinating.

  Byron shakes his head in a mannered gesture of regret. “He will be punished, Elvie, but I swear on my life, he will not be harmed.”

  “Oh, well, if you swear on your life,” I reply. Still, I am relieved by the news. But . . . “That doesn’t explain why you’ve taken me or my dad. Or Ducky. And where is my baby girl?” I shove Boatswain away, suddenly very frustrated. The dog whines piteously.

  Byron stands up, and Boatswain and Thunder snap to attention and move into flanking position beside him as he walks to the front of the desk. He sits on the edge and looks down on me, much like a hip teacher from a bad sitcom about to dole out “serious life lessons.” Byron temples his fingers in front of his mouth and considers me with an intense gaze.

  “Elvie, do you know how incredible your baby is?” he begins. “I mean, all babies are incredible. Life, I mean, wow, right? Whether it’s human or Almiri or, I dunno, whales . . . it’s just a miracle. But your baby . . . she’s even more special.”

  “Because she’s a chick,” I say.

  “Because she’s a chick,” he confirms. “Almiri do not have baby girls.” He reaches across his desk for a round red tin and pops open the top. “Biscuit?”

  I seem to have lost my appetite. “So, my daughter’s, like, a miracle squared?”

  Byron sets the tin on the desk and rests one hand on each of the heads of his two dogs. It’s a measured and self-conscious pose. I can totally picture him practicing in front of the mirror for dramatic situations just like this. Then he lapses into that annoying closed-eye reciting thing again. “What a whirlwind is her head, and what a whirlpool full of depth and danger is all the rest about her.” He opens his eyes again. “No,” he says, and the ice that’s suddenly in his voice startles me a bit. “Not a miracle. On the contrary, the child is a great danger.”

  “A danger?” I ask, baffled. “To who?”

  “All of us,” Byron says. And just as quickly he snaps back into levity. “Seriously, you should try one of these biscuits.” He plucks one from the tin. “They’re delish.”

  I’m not even sure I manage to shake my head. Dangerous? How can one baby girl be a danger to anyone, let alone a guy who’s well over a hundred years old and has two Academy Award nominations on his résumé?

  “What’s an ibrida?” I ask. Byron chokes on his biscuit, trying his best to hide a double take.

  “Where’d you hear that word?” he asks pointedly.

  “At the hospital, when your goons decided to go all batshi
t crazy on me.”

  Byron tries to smile casually. “That’s not really important at the moment,” he says, and it’s the first time I don’t buy the acting job. His eyes shift to the biscuit tin for a split second, before he looks back up at me. “I know you are somewhat aware of the history of the Almiri, Elvie, but let me explain it to you a little more fully, so that you’ll understand.” He nudges Thunder’s nose away from the biscuit tin. “We came to the Earth nearly five thousand years ago. Humans were one of six viable host species in the entire galaxy, and they were remarkable creatures. We sought to make them more remarkable. You are familiar, to some extent, with Greek mythology?”

  “Sure,” I say, bracing myself for yet another history lesson. The Almiri seem to love them. “Zeus, Athena, all that crap.”

  “Exactly,” Byron says. “Those were us.”

  “Excuse me?” I say, eyebrows up. “Sorry, but not for one second do I believe that you guys are gods.”

  “No, of course not,” Byron replies. “You misunderstood my meaning.” Beside him, Boatswain manages to sneak a biscuit from the tin unnoticed, but I decide to let this go unmentioned. “When we first arrived on Earth, we couldn’t blend in as we do now, so of course our appearance was strange to humans. They had stories of deities already in their society, and whenever anyone happened to spy one of us, they simply slotted us into those appointed roles. Burning bushes, talking clouds, showers of gold, these were ways for them to describe what was beyond their understanding. Thunder, no. You just ate.” Thunder glares at Boatswain, who’s licking the crumbs stealthily off his doggy gums. “Soon,” Byron continues, oblivious, “we Almiri had our first children, and they appeared to be human. Their abilities, however, made them stand out.”

  “Lemme guess,” I interject. I’m wondering when this is going to lead to a smidgen of information about my baby. About my dad and Ducky. About Cole. “Achilles, Hercules, Perseus . . .”

  “They were the first Earthborn Almiri,” Byron confirms. “Thy Godlike crime was to be kind, to render with thy precepts less the sum of human wretchedness, and strengthen Man with his own mind.” He’s doing that closed-eye thing again. Boatswain sneaks another cookie. I clear my throat, and Byron’s eyes fly open. “Where was I? Oh yes. Over time, successive generations appeared as human, and it became easier and easier to simply disappear into human society.”

  “This is all fascinating, really,” I lie. “But can we skip along? You were explaining how my baby was going to bring about the apocalypse.”

  Byron smiles again and starts pacing around the room. The dogs follow obediently at his heels, with the husky staying as far from the bear as possible. On the wall next to the oil painting of the dude in the headscarf is one of Boatswain, though the picture appears to be very, very old, and the pooch couldn’t be more than six. Byron considers it for a moment in silence, then turns back to me.

  “Elvie, we have always been a very small, discreet society. We took to heart the mistakes of our ancestors, and were careful to never endanger mankind with reckless propagation. Basically, we tried not to be dicks about it. And along the way, we’ve pushed the humans toward advances that would have taken eons for them to come up with on their own. I mean, take jazzercise.”

  “My apocalypse baby,” I remind him.

  “We need human females to breed, Elvie. We have no alternative. Without you there would be no Almiri. Human female, Almiri baby. That’s the way it’s always been. Then suddenly you come along, and young Mr. Archer . . . and somehow your child is not Almiri.”

  “What do you mean she’s not an Almiri?” I say. “Sure, she’s an anomaly, I get that. But she’s Cole’s kid. I’m not some wanton slut-bag, if that’s what you’re imply—”

  “The child is not Almiri,” Byron repeats. “The child—your child, Archer’s child—is somehow something else. An ‘anomaly,’ as you put it. But not a benign one. If left unchecked, this anomaly could be the end of the Almiri . . . and of humans, too.”

  An icy ball is beginning to form in my stomach. “What are you going to do to my baby?” I ask slowly.

  Byron examines me curiously, as if he’s honest-to-goodness confused, before realization breaks across his face. “Oh, poor child, what monsters we must seem right now! As I said, nothing that is happening is your fault, nor your child’s. We will not harm either of you, I promise.”

  “So, then what? We’re free to go?”

  He looks at me sadly. And maybe I’m just overreading his superdramatic facial expressions, but I swear I see something there. Something that tells me it pains him, deeply and personally, to say what he’s about to. “The situation is not your fault, but it is still the situation at hand. I’m afraid we’re going to have to . . . contain the threat.”

  I shift uneasily in my chair. “And here I thought the only threat was the Jin’Kai.”

  Byron reaches for the tin again, then thinks better of it. Suddenly he seems to be avoiding my gaze. “Keeping you out of their hands is paramount as well. You and your child will be sent to a secure facility. For the time being. Until we can straighten this whole mess out.”

  “What about Dad? Ducky?” I ask, rising to my feet. Drusilla rises as well, but this time I don’t back down. Being bear food is suddenly the least freaky thing I’m facing.

  “We wouldn’t want to risk your father and friend falling into Jin’Kai hands either. So they will accompany you.” He’s trying to make this sound like some sort of temporary vacation or something, but I’m getting the strong vibe that wherever he’s sending us, it’s not going to be pleasant.

  “So where is this Almiri Alcatraz you’re shipping me off to?” I ask. “Outer space again?”

  “I think you’ve had enough adventures out there for a while, don’t you?” he says, jovial once more. “No, you’ll be stationed at a secret facility near Cape Crozier.”

  It’s not a place on the planet most people would probably know. But I happen to have a deceased mother with a passion for travel and a detailed book of maps.

  “ANTARCTICA?” I screech. What. Da. Fuh.

  “The camp is home to a number of Almiri. A sort of . . . ‘time-out’ zone for brothers who have broken the Code.”

  I drop my head so that my chin is practically digging into my chest, but my glower shoots directly into Byron’s pretty eyes.

  “And you really think the safest place you could put me is in the middle of the frozen tundra with a whole bunch of superbuff aliens who you already know can’t keep it in their pants?” I ask in disbelief.

  “Come now, Elvie.” Byron scrunches up his face and gives me a quick headshake, as if I have a filthy mind for even thinking what I’m thinking. He walks back over to his desk and hits a button on his intercom. A voice crackles in response.

  “Yes?”

  “We’re just about finished in here,” Byron replies. He takes his hand off the intercom.

  “Elvie, I realize that right now I must seem like a terrible villain—well, let’s be honest—an asshole. I’m sure I can’t blame you for thinking as much. Hopefully, someday sooner than later, you will understand that I have no choice. For the time being, Cape Crozier is our only option, however imperfect.”

  The main door slides open, and my new buddy Alan is on the other side. Byron leans in to me and whispers so that Alan can’t hear. “Just remember that I won’t stop trying to help you, dearheart.” I flinch at the sound of the pet name that I’ve only ever heard my father call me.

  Just how much does this guy actually know about us, anyway?

  “Are the preparations made?” Byron asks Alan.

  Alan, already at attention in the doorway, stiffens at his commander’s voice. “Nearly, sir, another hour at most,” he says.

  “Please lead Miss Nara to the holding area, until then,” Byron says. “And for God’s sake, get the girl some clothes.”

  • • •

  I walk down the long, sterile corridor with Alan beside me, my slippers sliding across
the slick linoleum floor. The rooms along the corridor do not have normal doors. Rather, the doors are thick, heavy, and mechanized, like the kind you might find in a factory, or a cargo ship.

  Or a prison.

  “How long are you going to ‘hold’ me here before I get started on that all-expenses-paid trip to the Earth’s rectum?” I ask Alan.

  “Not long, Miss,” Alan says, and I can’t tell if he’s being polite or condescending.

  Each door has a small, circular window about the size of a dinner plate. As we pass by one such window, I think I catch a shadow standing at the door, peering out at me, but in a flash the shadow disappears.

  “Hey, what’s that?” I wonder, pausing. I try to look inside, but whatever was just there has disappeared. Alan takes my arm and gives it a slight tug, and my feet slide away from the door.

  “This way, Miss,” Alan says.

  I pull against Alan’s grip to crane my neck and look inside. I make out a tall, willowy figure and a very familiar-looking long blond ponytail.

  “But—”

  “This way, now.”

  If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that the Almiri were keeping my arch-nemesis, Britta McVicker, under lock and key.

  But no, I think. That wouldn’t make any sense.

  We come to the final door along the corridor, and Alan slides a card over the side sensor. Immediately the locking mechanism springs to life and the door slides open. The inside of the room is even more drab than the one I woke up in. It’s gray, with nothing but a couch built into two sides of the wall. Like a karaoke room without the karaoke.

  I step inside, and without another word, Alan closes the door behind me. My options are pretty much stand or sit, so after a few moments of pacing, I decide to sit.

  I’m not sure how long I’m sitting there—five minutes? ten?—when I hear the door sensor beep and the locking mechanism disengage. The door slides open, and in steps Byron, carrying something in his arms.

  “I thought you might want a little company,” he says. I look down at the bundle he’s balancing so delicately in the crook of his elbow.