by Li Hill
"You know," Iilo said, "you're not what I expected."
"What did you expect?" Because Tom couldn't resist asking. Figuring people out, learning what left impressions or memories, moments like those always intrigued Tom.
"I expected—well, I expected you to hate me." Iilo chewed his lip.
"I don't hate you," Tom said, shoulders deflating. "I'm here because I really do want to help."
"Okay. Sometimes I just worry." Iilo scratched his skull, nails grating over smooth bone. Tom would've thought seeing exposed skulls like this would frighten him, but it fit so naturally with the I'na—brutality mixed with beauty. "I just thought, that maybe you wouldn't want to be friends because you want to see his family. The I'na. I didn't think you'd want to stick around."
"I'm here because I want to be." Tom didn't know how else to explain it. Yes, he wanted to apologize to the family he'd wronged. But he'd seen enough injustice in the world. For a time, he'd even been part of it. There wasn't a path that Tom would follow that would lead him to that again.
Iilo offered a shaky smile and reached up to touch Tom's cheek. He pulled back just as quickly, orange eyes tight.
Tom reached up and touched where Iilo's soft hand had been. His brow curiously furrowed.
"I need to go." Iilo scampered off, not once looking back.
Tom watched him, mouth ajar. He realized he was free to go—and so he did. But when he got into the car, he took a moment, his mind dumping everything it'd just experienced for him to analyze. He did want to help Iilo. But he also wanted the sensation of Iilo's fingers on his face again.
"God." he smacked his head against the wheel. "God!"
Chapter Five
When Tom woke, he wasn't sure if he'd wet himself or if someone had dumped water onto him. He sat up, pushing off sweaty hair from his face. He checked his pulse in his throat, and once he made sure it was there, he checked how fast it was. He threw the covers off himself. After turning the light on, he assessed the bed. He definitely hadn't wet it. He'd just been that sweaty.
His dog was at the corner of the comforter, her little eyes looking up at him with acute annoyance. He'd turned the light on and she'd been disturbed.
"Sorry, Peach. Jesus." He'd named her after a very old video game, made before virtual reality games had flooded the market.
Tom scrubbed his hands over his face. He could feel the oil and sweat pushing back into his pores. Unsatisfied, he shambled over into the bathroom to wash his face. He slapped cold water over his cheeks before cupping his hands to get himself a drink.
He sucked in a deep breath, filling up his lungs until he couldn't take it anymore. He inhaled just a smidge more before he felt his lungs would snap his ribs and let it all out. Opening his eyes, he wiggled his toes on the tile to feel the chill from the ceramic.
"You're fine." He stared at himself, nodding over and over. He longed for sleep, but he pined for security. He was in his own home, and his dog was in his bed. He could turn on the TV if he wanted to and just watch the infomercials. He could read or grab a beer and nothing would hurt him. He was, as he'd said, fine.
But he wasn't. Anxiety was a cruel thing.
He grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen and plopped down at his laptop on the bed. Peach looked up at him with her sleepy, droopy face, a little harrumph from her lips.
Tom scrolled to see if anyone had reported I'na blood as corrosive. He found nothing. Then he went with acidic. Again, nothing. But that was the issue, wasn't it? There was nothing because the government wanted the world to believe there was nothing. For once, the government was doing something good with its secrecy: helping the I'na protect their secret. Or maybe it was selfish. Was it okay if it was both?
He'd been in quarantine. He'd signed a nearly twenty-page non-disclosure contract when he got out of the army. He'd thought it'd been standard. They told him it was standard… He'd known someone who violated her NDA. Last he'd heard, she was homeless and without any veteran's benefits. Everyone in the service knew how much effort it was to keep a security clearence. No accumulating too much debt, no arrests, nothing about the job. The risk was dishonorable discharge, removal of livelihoods—no veteran benefits. It was enough to keep lips tight.
"Oh God." He remembered the stories. He'd known a guy who his commanding officer called derranged and that "something had to be done about him." Tom didn't remember if he ever saw the guy in question again. He'd been raving about the I'na and their magic powers. He'd lost a finger. How could he've been so blind? He'd ducked his head, he'd listened to what his command had to say. He didn't question. But he'd seen it now. The government had been protecting the I'na, and not just casually—intensely. The TSA was probably monitoring the internet for leaked video content or even a whisper of corrosive blood. Tom was probably on one of their watch lists now.
Tom dropped his head back against the headboard. Distantly, he thought about Iilo's cool fingers touching his face. He hadn't thought anything about it in the moment. But now he was replaying it, over and over like rewinding something on the television to figure out what the actors were saying—he was fixated.
Iilo was an I'na. But now he was more than that. An individual. A friend.
Tom touched his rough cheek. Memories played again and again. He closed his eyes, brow stitched into a frown. He let his fingers trace along the curve of his jaw, warm and rough from nights where he clutched his gun too hard.
Iilo's blue face—with that galaxy splayed across it for the universe to see. His cool touch with soft, gentle fingers.
Tom opened his eyes, dropping his hand.
Tom had always erred on the side of caution when it came to affection. He'd been in court over enough divorces that he didn't want to know what it'd be like to experience his own.
His thoughts rushed back to Iilo's fingers. That simple touch.
Tom checked his pulse, closing his eyes as he felt it. It wasn't racing even though he felt his chest tighten. It was there, pushing against his finger. He closed the laptop, pet Peach on her wrinkly head, and laid back against the pillows. Iilo was a friend, maybe. He'd said he'd be Tom's friend.
But then he'd touched Tom, and now everything felt like it was changing.
Chapter Six
Tom sat in his sedan a few days later, listening to the hypnotic swishing of his windshield wipers. He stared at the rain. It clumped in great splashes atop his windows, smearing the world into oil paintings.
Sighing, Tom realized he'd made the dumbest mistake in not just calling Iilo. He'd come out here in a thunderstorm all because he couldn't get over how suddenly Iilo had left him by the cow field. But then Iilo hadn't called and Tom started noticing himself checking his personal phone while in his final orders hearing. The silence bugged him like a mosquito buzzing around his head.
Tom got out of the car and ran for Iilo's spire. Rain splashed up his pants and his shoes sunk in the mud as he went. He pounded a little harder than necessary on the door. Or what he thought was the door. It was smoother and surrounded by exposed rubber wires. His clothes were already soaked through.
Iilo appeared not long after, eyes wide. He let Tom in and found him a towel.
Tom accepted it gratefully, pushing his face into the soft material. He rubbed it over his head, flecking rain droplets around the little living space.
Inaraa was there, watching the TV with the bald I'na with the nineties boots. They were curled up into each other, IDs touching.
"Oh—hey." Tom wrapped the towel around his neck.
The bald one sneered.
"I would've called, but—I'm apparently not smart," Tom said to Iilo.
"I wasn't expecting you to. After I behaved like that." Iilo's cheeks flushed pink. He held genuine astonishment in his voice, his body shimmering to the red pulse of the gems around them.
"Friends, remember?" Tom's heart tugged, mouth tasting like mud. He stood in a spire, surrounded by I'na. All he could do was draw parallels between himself and Iilo
. Awkward, self-conscious, afraid. "You have a dryer I could toss my clothes into?"
"Uh—" Iilo pointed toward the back of the room. "If you stand in front of the gray spot, that's the door. It'll roll out of the way and there's a bedroom back there."
"No," Baldie said.
Tom understood the anger toward humans, he really did. But he wasn't here to appease anyone but Iilo. "Iilo came to me first. I'm here to help him because none of you want to help your own people."
Inaraa bit her lip, her ears flicking down. She whispered something in their language to Baldie and got up.
Tom was a big guy. Broad shoulders and muscle he worked hard to maintain. If this I'na wanted to throw down, Tom would. But the idea of getting into a fight with someone close to Iilo made Tom's feet rush cold. They'd come so far in such a short time. Tom didn't want to lose that for either of them.
He thought of Iilo's fingers on his face.
Inaraa joined Iilo's side, looking at Tom's clothes. "That's my lover, Letic. We have a dryer. Give me your clothes." She looked him up and down the way a farmer looked at a bull before deciding to slaughter it.
"Not pleased to meet you," Letic said. His words were slow, careful as he translated his own language to Tom's.
Tom ignored him. He was soaked and cold. "Can I go into a bathroom? Do you have something I could—use?"
"You can use that towel." Inaraa pointed to the one Tom had already used.
"Nothing will fit you," Iilo said before opening the door and motioning for Tom to follow. "Bathroom's this way. I'll get you a dry towel."
The hall swirled around, ramping up toward the top of the spire. There weren't many rooms like Tom had thought there'd be. Iilo pointed to the bathroom, and the slot opened to expose a toilet made from the same transparent jelly stuff the table was made from and a shower that Tom knew he wouldn't fit in.
Tom entered the little bathroom, and Iilo tossed a towel in. He stripped out of his clothes, bundling them up in his hands. He wrapped his new towel around his legs. He took his time coming back down the ramp and into the main room. He reached out, touching the walls. They hummed, and his fingers felt tingly. He smiled, looking straight up. The ramp continued to spiral up all the way to the top. The colors at the top were blue, a more serene hue than the angry red below.
Tom had no idea how I'na lived with lights that continued to pulse like someone's beating heart. He stood in front of the door, a proud puff of his chest when the door rolled away to let him back into the main room.
"Humans are so bulky," Inaraa said, her gaze plastered to Tom's chest.
Tom felt indecent. He crossed his arms over his chest, only to nestle the meat of his palm between his pecs to hide them from the next jab he was so used to. During his service, Carlos used to joke about Tom having cleavage when he crossed his arms.
"I think they look cool," Iilo said. "Tom looks cool."
"Cold, you mean. How you no fall over, beyond me," Letic said.
"How you don't blow away in the wind perplexes me too." Tom smirked.
"Why'd you come?" Iilo asked. He brushed a hair out of his mouth.
The murky weather seeped into the spire from a window high above them. It cast the room in muted shadow and made the I'na look more like what Tom had remembered. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. These were not enemies. He didn't know what Letic or Inaraa were, but he knew Iilo was a friend.
He sighed, looking down at his half-naked form. Too bulky. I'na were lither, it made sense they'd find him strange. He wondered if human skin color was too muted for their taste, with how bright and luminescent their skin was.
"You left me in a field with a cow," Tom answered. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
Inaraa made an approving sound. She sat back down on the couch, her black breastplate and armor replaced with a flowing gown that crinkled all over. Tom wondered if it was human or I'na fabric.
"I'm okay," Iilo said. The way he looked away though, Tom didn't buy it.
He didn't like that the conversation was getting shut down by Iilo. He had to wait for his clothes to dry anyway. He moved to sit at the table, irritated that he couldn't scoot the chair forward since it was fused to the floor.
Iilo played with a bracelet on his wrist. Tom knew a stalling tactic when he saw one. He'd been a king of that in high school.
"I meant what I said about us being friends. And this is important to me."
"And why care about us?" Letic asked with a heavier accent than Tom had initially picked up on. Iilo hardly had an accent. Just a whisper of his first language.
Tom shook his head. He was the monkey on display in the zoo. He hadn't come to justify himself, he'd come for Iilo. Whatever anyone else thought, that was their prerogative. But Tom liked spending time with Iilo, even if it meant dealing with something so very sad.
"Letic, no," Inaraa warned.
"You should have asked Caleb," Letic said. "Been here longer. More trusted."
"Caleb isn't immune," Inaraa reminded. She flicked the side of Letic's head, and he nudged her back.
Tom had only known one Caleb. He'd been in his unit. A good guy with a goofy smile, even in the worst of times. Tom missed him.
Letic stared at Tom, his eyes sizing Tom up, maybe comparing him to the only human Letic seemed to trust. All Tom saw was disappointment. He hadn't expected it to hurt, but it felt like someone was cutting his heart to ribbons.
"What happens if you find out your government wants to hurt us?" Inaraa asked. "What would you do?"
Tom's mouth went dry.
He knew America was far from perfect. But it had taken a giant leap in getting better. Political parties were done away with a decade ago. America voted for a person, not a party. The change brought more of a voice to the people, and it seemed to be working for transparency and what America truly wanted. But then the I'na had come, and humans had to run to catch up again. Who was the government protecting—Americans or the I'na? The non-disclosure agreement Tom had signed when he got out of the army. The security clearances and the consequences of violating them. Tom didn't know what his government was doing anymore.
"Whatever I can."
Inaraa smiled, her fingers twitching excitedly. She whispered something to Letic, and he hummed in affirmation.
"Iilo, why don't you get his clothes and we can all get to know each other more." She stood up and stretched her arms up to the ceiling. "I'll make us some dinner."
"Can I—eat what you eat? Wait, you eat cow? Hold on. What are you going to have for dinner?" Tom fumbled about as bad as an unskilled football player.
Inaraa blinked, her brows high. "We do eat cow. As long as it's cooked all the way. And I won't poison you—this time." She winked, and Tom laughed.
"So who's the Caleb guy?" Tom asked. "I could work with him if you'd like, Letic?" Tom had never done well when people didn't like him. It made working as an attorney especially challenging. Clients would blame him for their losses, opposing counsels would try to tear into him like vulchers into dead meat. He wanted Letic to like him. The discomfort of feeling someone's hatred made his skin crawl.
"Work for BrightStart." Letic wrapped his arms around his lanky legs. He stared at their little television. The converstion seemed to be over even before Tom could get it to begin.
Chapter Seven
They were scheduled to speak to the FBI today. Tom sat in his office with Carlos and Sam, filling them in about what Iilo had said and what their plans were—which wasn't much. Iilo didn't have hard evidence, but he did have big, pleading eyes and enough circumstantial evidence to raise a brow at. When Iilo came through the door, he wore a large raincoat, carried his shoebox, and his face was so pale it was almost white.
"Iilo," Tom said, standing.
"I'm Sam. It's nice to finally meet you, Iilo." Sam jutted her hand out for Iilo to shake.
"Nice to meet you." Iilo shook her hand, but he didn't even look up.
Sam furrowed her brow, looki
ng between Tom and Iilo. "I think I'm gonna take off?"
"No, it's fine," Tom said, grabbing his coat. "You and Carlos watch the office, okay? And don't burn it down."
"Total destruction incoming, sir!" Carlos gave a lazy salute.
"Don't sir me."
"Yeah whatever, Corporal." Sam wiggled her fingers under her chin at Tom.
"Wanna talk about what's on your mind before we head out?" Tom asked. "Could stop for coffee."
"Sure." Iilo still didn't look up when he walked past Tom out onto the cobbled street. He moved like a man condemned to the noose, slow and as if each step recalled his life's story. He curled into himself, clutching that shoebox.
Tom joined his side, his mouth opening and closing, searching for something to say but coming up short.
"Do you like coffee?" Tom asked.
"It's fine."
"Did you have something like it on your planet?"
Iilo winced. His ears gave a little twitch and he looked away, staring out into the street of slow-moving cars wary of crossing pedestrians. "I spent my whole life in a spaceship, remember?"
Right. Tom was still fuzzy about the whole timeline for the I'na. He'd gathered they'd been in space long enough for a generation or so, but he'd never asked where Iilo was born. But now he knew that when Iilo said his whole life, he meant the entirety of it. There was something deeply saddening about that to Tom. Iilo had never seen the very home that gave his people life.
"Are you okay?" Tom asked when they could cross the street.
"No, I'm not." Iilo walked away toward the coffee shop, never once looking back. He entered, and Tom scurried after before the light changed.
Warmth hit Tom, stuffy and sweet. He found Iilo sitting in a corner of the room in one of the brown pleather booths. He tried his best to appear unassuming while a group of teenagers laughed loudly and snapped pictures of him from across the room.
"Hey," Tom said to them, "he's here for a cup of coffee. Quit it." Times had changed. Tom wasn't so sure he would've said anything a month before now. Knowing Iilo in the short time that he had, he'd learned so much—come so far. He hoped Iilo felt the same about him too. He could tell Iilo had a natural interest in humans, but Tom wasn't sure how deep it went. Was it purely scientific? Or was there a genuine interest, as natural as breathing?