A Stranger Thing (The Ever-Expanding Universe)

by Leicht, Martin

  I nod back.

  And then, suddenly, I have an unsettling thought. “Hey, Cole?” I say—loud enough to be heard over the rushing wind but not nearly loud enough for the doc to hear me. Cole looks up. “You don’t think that . . . Britta . . . ?” I point to Bok Choy. Britta had her fetus swapped too, just like Other Cheerleader. And what if her kid was sprinkled with Miracle-Gro too?

  But Cole has other things on his mind.

  “Ow!” he yelps. Bok Choy has gotten a hand free from his restraint and is bonking Cole repeatedly amidst a stream of “Bok choy!”s.

  I scooch up right next to Bok Choy and take his hand, stroking it soothingly. The kid stops flailing and looks at me, his chest heaving. I think back to when I was little, when I’d fall off the swing set or trip on the stairs and start bawling. My father would pick me up, put me on his knee, and start singing a song I thought I’d long forgotten. But as I start in on the melody, the words flow out like they’ve been inside me all along.

  “I love you, yes I do, I love you.

  It’s a sin . . . to tell . . . a lie . . .”

  Immediately the kid begins to calm down.

  “It’s working,” Cole whispers, incredulous. “He likes it.”

  I smile and continue singing into Bok Choy’s ear. I’m glad that I’m able to project my “inner peace” to the kid, but it’s all an act. I’m not feeling calm in the slightest. And it’s not just the day’s deeds of derring-do, or the evil-alien-army-that-could-mean-the-death-of-us-all fiasco. Oh, those are big concerns. But right at this second I’m more anxious about the doting dreamboat smiling down at me. And if I’m being totally honest with myself, I’ve been kind of anxious about that for a while.

  Cole, magnanimous doofus that he is, would do anything I asked him to, without blinking. And that should send me over the moon with happiness. It would send a normal girl over the moon with happiness. But that’s the thing, isn’t it—I’m not a normal girl. In the last year I’ve gone from typical suburban teenager whose most passionate love affair was with her lap-pad, to (oops!) mommy-to-be, to Rambo-lina-style survivalist, to half-alien hybrid fugitive. Not to mention that the bump in my belly has actually turned into a real-life person—a person who’s going to depend on me for just about everything that I’ve always depended on others for.

  “Millions of hearts have been broken,

  just because these words weren’t spoken . . .”

  I’m changing, in more ways than one, and I’m going to continue to change, adapt, grow with the world around me. But Cole? Since I’ve known him, he’s always been, well, Cole. Lovable. Beautiful. Generous to a fault. Which is how he’ll always stay.

  That which remains still . . .

  “I love you, yes I do, I love you.

  If you break my heart, I’ll die . . .”

  As I continue singing, gently tickling Bok Choy’s arm to soothe him, I look up at Cole. I need to tell him. The best thing is to talk to him.

  “Want some harmony?” he asks, leaning across the kid’s body. “Two voices are better than one, yeah?”

  I nod, sniffing just a little between lines, but Cole doesn’t notice. It can wait till we get back to camp, I decide. There’ll be plenty of time to talk there.

  “So please say that it’s true when you say, I love yoooou . . .”

  “Elvs?”

  I raise an eyebrow.

  “I don’t know this one,” Cole says. “Can we sing ‘Baby, Let’s Go to the Prom with All Our Friends’ instead?”

  • • •

  The skiff zooms along at approximately five billion times the speed of a dogsled, and we reach the Cape Crozier base before the sun even begins to sink below the horizon.

  “Those dudes may suck,” Cole says, hopping off the back of the skiff into the snow before we’ve pulled to a complete stop, “but they’re flipping pro mechanics.”

  “Well, they had a little help from Harry Nara,” I say, rubbing Dad’s shoulder gently.

  Zee puts on the brakes, and Cole helps me with the knots tying Bok Choy to the seat. There’s still a lot of fight left in the kid, you can see that easily, but he’s grown a lot calmer over the last couple hours. I think he’s starting to like me.

  “How’s he doing?” Zee asks, coming around from the front of the skiff. And I know without looking up at her that she’s not asking about the weird Jin’Kai superbaby, but rather about her once-husband.

  “He’s still sleeping,” I answer. “Some of his color’s come back, but I’m still worried that—”

  “Is it always so quiet around here?” Marsden asks, cutting me off midthought. He’s looking around all suspicious-like, as though worried we led him straight into some sort of trap. Which, if I were an evil villain like him, I guess I’d be constantly worried about too. Even the dogs, those we didn’t take with us at the start of our journey, are sitting quietly at attention, their ears pinned back against their heads, observing us, but not barking or rushing up to us like I would have expected.

  “Dude,” I say to Marsden. “Chill out, all right? I told you, these Almiri are cool.” And I’m realizing that I sound more like Bernard than I ever thought possible. For a second I think I see a shadow out of the corner of my eye, but when I turn, it’s gone. “They’ll want to talk to you, listen to what you have to say. No one’s going to come barreling out at you with ray guns and slam your face into the snow.”

  Which is precisely when a horde of Almiri come barreling out of the cabin with ray guns, and slam all our faces into the snow.

  “Okay,” I say, snorting to push the ice flecks out of my nose. “Now you guys are just trying to make me look bad.”

  “Shut your trap, mule,” spits the muscle man with his elbow digging into my back.

  I crane my neck around to look my captor in the face. He’s beaming down at me with smug glee. “Jørgen?” I shout. “You gave Captain Oates your word! He specifically instructed you—”

  “Oates isn’t in charge here,” Jørgen counters. “As a matter of fact”—he glances around at our motley crew, half buried in the snow, and smiles—“it seems he’s no longer in charge anywhere.”

  I’ve heard more touching eulogies.

  “That’s enough, Jørgen,” comes a voice from the doorway. “Just bring them inside.” I turn to find Alan, of all people, standing in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “Hello, Miss Nara,” he says, bland as ever. And then, as easily as if he were ordering soup: “Search them.”

  The Almiri quickly begin rummaging around in our clothes, and Jørgen in particular seems a little fresher than is necessary.

  “You and your friends failed to follow orders,” Alan goes on. “And in the process you’ve jeopardized our security.”

  “Got them!” Jørgen says, pulling Marsden’s hard disks from the inner pocket of my thermal.

  “We jeopardized security?” I screech as Jørgen pulls me up and drags me to Alan, before handing him the disks. “If it weren’t for us, those files would be twenty thousand leagues under the sea by now!”

  We are pushed brusquely through the door into the cabin. Dad can barely stand, let alone goose step, so the Almiri are forced to pick him up and carry him.

  The cabin is eerily quiet. And when we get downstairs, we realize why.

  Alan has brought dozens of commandos with him, each of them wearing some sort of polar variant on the military-style outfits Cole and Captain Bob wore back on the Echidna. They stand at attention, sprinkled down the hallway, guarding each of the doors.

  “Where’s my baby?” I ask. “Where’s Ducky?” I don’t see him, or any of the Enosi, either, for that matter. “What did you do with them?”

  “Almiri sympathizers in there,” Alan barks to his cohorts, ignoring me completely. The soldier in front of the bunkroom door Alan points to stands aside as Cole is thrown inside. Before the door slams shut behind him, I see Clark’s face, along with
Rupert’s and a few of the other friendlier Almiri. Alan continues with the rest of us down the hall.

  “I want this scum”—Alan darts eyes at Dr. Marsden, who’s vying for World’s Best Scowler as he struggles against his captor—“and whatever the hell that thing is”—here Alan looks at Bok Choy, who has already bitten his warden half a dozen times—“in the pantry.” He shoves me forcefully in my back. “Mules and humans in here.” And seconds later I am tossed inside a bunkroom myself. Mom is pushed in right behind me, and the dude carrying Dad drops him carelessly on one of the other bunks. “We will deal with you later,” Alan threatens before slamming the door shut.

  The room is bursting with hybrids, absolutely every one of my mother’s buddies who stormed the prison camp, hanging from the bunks, slouched against the wall, lying on the floor. Talking and arguing and generally sighing at one another. They stare at the three of us who’ve just joined the party. But I only have eyes for one person out of all of them.

  “Olivia!” I cry, rushing over to where she’s being cradled, by my one and only Ducky, in a bunk at the far end. “Thank God you’re okay!” I scoop her out of Ducky’s arms as he rises to meet me, and then I squeeze the Duck into such a tight hug, I nearly knock him backward on the bunk. “Ducky, it is so good to see you!”

  “You’re alive,” he sniffles, squeezing me back. “Oh, Elvie, I was so worried. When those guys showed up . . . and you’d all been gone for so long with no word and . . . I know you said it might be longer, but . . .” He hugs me again. “I thought you were an icicle for sure.”

  “You have no idea,” I say, snuggling with my precious baby. And, okay, I know she probably doesn’t know who I am, really—her eyeballs barely work, for goodness’ sake—but I swear, when little Olivia hears my voice, she looks right up into my face. And she smiles. “I’m never letting you go again, my precious girl,” I whisper.

  Ducky has crossed the room to my father, who’s now surrounded by a fair amount of curious hybrids. “Is he going to be okay?” Duck asks me.

  I look over at my father. He’s passed out again, which is not surprising. His breathing is shallow and raspy. “I don’t know, Duck,” I say softly. Zee sits down on the bed next to Dad and covers him with a blanket. She begins to play nursemaid, asking the other hybrids for assistance. They seem more than happy to oblige.

  Duck’s eyes fill with concern as he inches back my way. “Elvie, are you okay?” he asks me seriously.

  I’m not even sure how to begin to answer that. “Captain Oates is dead,” I say instead. “Trying to save us. And the dogs. Bernard’s gone too.” I gulp down the tears that are starting up again and pull Olivia closer to my chest. There is nothing more comforting. “I saw them, Ducky.” And when I look up at him, I can tell that I don’t need to explain who I mean.

  “You . . . ?” He trails off. And then, I guess, things have gotten just a little too serious for him. “How come you get to have all the fun, Elvie?”

  At that, I can’t help but laugh. I stroke my baby girl’s head some more. I just can’t get enough of her, really. “Where’s her papoose?” I ask Ducky.

  “Oh, it was right . . .” He looks around, then spots it on the bunk. “Hey, Marnie, can you hand me that . . . ?”

  That’s when the redheaded hybrid girl—the leggy, thin one with the long face—bounces up off the bunk where she was just sitting with Ducky and rushes to bring me the papoose. “Here y’are, Elvie,” she greets me pleasantly with a medium-thick Scottish brogue. “We’re so glad you’ve made it back all right. Donny’s been feert out of his mind.”

  I take the papoose and raise an eyebrow at Ducky. “Donny?” I ask.

  And suddenly this broad laces her fair, freckled fingers through my bestie’s.

  Ducky’s face is beet red yet again. But he’s also wearing a grin that won’t quit. “Uh, Elvie, this is Marnie.” He leans in close. “She’s Scottish!” he stage-whispers at me.

  “Dur,” I reply. And I strap Olivia in at my chest, where she belongs. “It’s nice to officially meet you, Marnie.”

  “Likewise,” she says with a kind smile.

  And honestly, despite all the shit that’s going on, I’m happy for Ducky.

  Really.

  As Marnie’s fingers squeeze tighter around Ducky’s, I can’t help noticing the red sunburst lesion on the back of her right hand.

  • • •

  We are in that bunkroom for a long, long time. Hours, probably. We are not brought food. The guards on the other side of the door let no one out to pee. And, no matter how hard we beg, they make no concessions for my father, who—if left to his own devices much longer—will very surely die. I am a wreck. I sit, slumped, against the wall beside the door. I can’t look at my rapidly expiring father. I can’t look at “Donny,” or Marnie, who for some reason—despite the fact that she has been nothing but lovely—is seriously pissing me off with her face. So I sit. I feed Olivia with what little milk my boobs have to give. Burp her. Rock her gently to sleep. Don’t do much of anything, because I hardly have the energy to think.

  And then I remember the book of maps.

  “Hey,” I say softly, approaching my mother where she sits in the corner. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable calling her “Mom,” but after all we’ve been through, “Zee” is starting to feel just the smallest bit strange.

  She looks up at me, and the adorable, snoozing infant strapped to my chest, and gives us a wan smile. “Hey, yourself,” she says. She pats the floor beside her, offering me a seat, and I take it.

  “How’s the patient?” I ask, eyes darting up to my father.

  “About the same. He’s fine for now, but he’s going to need treatment soon.” She notices the thick book in my lap, with the worn edges, and her face brightens just the slightest. “Where did you find that?”

  I hand it to her. “Under Bernard’s mattress. I thought it might still be there from before we left, and . . . anyway, I thought you’d want it.”

  “I’ve been looking everywhere,” she breathes. My mother carefully pries open the book and flips her way through its pages, taking in the rivers, roads, valleys, all of it. And it’s strange, watching her study a map in a way I used to do myself—with the book she left my dad, back at home—but knowing that she’s thinking something completely different while she does it.

  “Are you still mad at him?” I ask her, as I rub Olivia’s head. My baby girl drools onto the collar of my thermal, and I do not mind in the slightest. “For coming here, I mean?”

  The pages crinkle as she turns to another intricately plotted map. “No,” she says after a long while. “Bernard and I had our differences, that’s for sure. But he did what he thought was right—he always did, that’s what I loved about him, I guess. And I can’t fault him for that.”

  “But you think he was wrong, coming here?”

  My mother flips another page, and suddenly there we are—Antarctica. Cape Crozier. How weird to be a spot on one of my mother’s maps, after all these years.

  “I think if he hadn’t been such a hardheaded, stubborn ox, we’d still be stuck in the same place we’ve found ourselves for a while,” she replies. “And I wouldn’t have found you.”

  We are quiet for a while more, watching little Olivia’s perfect face as she snoozes. When I look back at my mom, she has returned her attention to the book of maps. As she runs her fingers over the hills and valleys of Antarctica, I notice something. Tiny, luminescent blue lights sprinkled across the page. They follow the lines of her fingers, then disappear. “It’s beautiful,” I breathe. The lights are like bitty fairies, traipsing down the page. The map I had at home didn’t do anything like that.

  She shuts the book closed, looks up at me, and smiles. “You know, Elvan,” she tells me sincerely, “I think you may be right.”

  I tilt my head to the side. “About what?” I ask.

  “This problem is bigger than one group’s hatred or fear of another,” she says. “Sometimes w
e do need to know when and where to look for help. Finding you, seeing how strong you are, even if not in the way I would have expected, it’s made me realize none of us should have to make it on our own.”

  I think about that. “It can’t be easy,” I say with a slow nod, “being an avenging freedom fighter hippie ninja all the time.”

  At that, my mother laughs. “The health care plan is shit,” she agrees.

  Dude, I think we just shared a moment or something.

  • • •

  “Up, mules! Snap to!”

  I don’t realize that I’ve fallen asleep—Olivia snoozing soundly across my chest, head tucked under my chin—until I’m prodded awake by the end of a ray gun. “What are you, deaf? On your feet!”

  “Jesus!” I hiss. “Would you mind being, like, point-oh-two times less douchy? You’re going to wake up my—”

  Olivia begins to wail.

  “Well, great,” I growl. “What do you want now? You’ve already got all of Marsden’s files. Unless you came to help me change Livvie’s diaper—”

  “We’re leaving,” the offending Almiri soldier interrupts. “Now.”

  Ducky is up on his feet in an instant, stepping between me and the soldier. “Where are you taking us?” he demands. Marnie, I notice, is up nearly as quickly, clutching Ducky’s hand. But there are more pressing things for me to process at the moment.

  “We’re not taking you anywhere,” Alan answers, entering from the hallway. “I have strict instructions from Byron to take only this one”—he jerks his head at me—“her parents, and the baby.” He looks in my mother’s direction. “Appears the ‘Lord’ misses his darling daughter.”