He fidgeted and subconsciously covered the ring with his other hand. He felt a twinge of guilt.
“I thought you’d gone… Forever…”
“I had…” she agreed.
“…I…” he trailed off. He didn’t know what to say. “I’m happy… She’s…” He trailed off once again.
“I’m happy for you,” she lied. It would take her a while to truly understand whether she was, she felt so incredibly mixed about it. Should he have waited for her? It felt foolish to want that, especially when there wasn’t the remotest indication she would return…
“I loved you… I know I was… difficult when you were…” he stammered his way through his guilt.
“Pregnant…?” she hadn’t forgotten how he had been but she had long forgiven him. Time was certainly the greatest healer. Or perhaps her newfound perspective afforded her that forgiveness?
“Yeah… Where is the-?”
“I don’t know. What little data Chrys could extract from the Fours research notes pointed to the embryo being extracted while I was in stasis. They deduced that giving birth to the creature would kill me. So they opted to remove it and keep me as a master blueprint… There was no evidence of what happened to it…” she shrugged. She felt a pang of loss when she thought of the life form she’d been nurturing. The child… It was an unanswered question. What happened to it? What did they do with it?
It just disappeared from the research data. She knew other life forms were nurtured in the clones, some of them monstrous and most of them stillborn.
Some of the creatures had been nurtured for scientific evaluation, like the cruel monstrosity that had crashed with the 8th Liara clone. Yet nothing of her own embryo. It had just vanished. Like it suddenly ceased to exist. It was disturbing, why had the records suddenly ended?
She wasn’t even sure if the Fours succeeded in their goal. Had they managed to successfully spawn one of their own kind in her womb? There was a sudden abrupt stop in the data.
The clone that had become friends with the Twos and human survivors had vanished too. Chrys had talked of a demolished plaza but she couldn’t answer what caused it.
She had wanted to, she had desperately wanted to provide all the answers to Liara. She had a sense of loyalty to Liara because her clone had fostered a strong friendship with her partner Fork. She felt she owed it to Liara.
Apparently the Two called Fork and the clone had developed a deep friendship. It was unlikely to Liara at first but she quickly realised that the Twos were nothing like their blue brethren. Fork was unfortunately found dead in what remained of the ruined palace. The cause of death was unknown. He had allegedly looked trampled to death but it offered no insight into his demise.
“Did you bring me here?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
She took a deep breath. “We’re about to go public. In a few days we’re going to tell everybody everything. We’re not going to hide in here anymore…” She gauged his reaction in his eyes, “The scientists here have studied me, studied the aliens, the ship we arrived on. Everything… It’s time…”
“Go public? Do you know what that’s going to do the world? You’ll change everything…!”
“I can’t hide here forever Adam… It’s time the world knew the truth… and everything already has changed…” She had tentatively studied the world, the world that had recoiled from a dramatic alien presence in the universe. She knew how the land laid and it didn’t dissuade her. She, everybody even, knew the world was going to be in shock but it would get over it. The technological advances were too great to just leave…
“You think the world is ready for that?”
She shrugged.
“We’re not alone in the universe. That ship, that technology, it can mean we can explore space. We can go looking for the answers to all the questions…”
“…And why bring me into it? Why tell me?”
“…I wanted you to know,” her face turned down a little, “I wanted you to know that I was back before I came out…” Came out. The phrasing snagged on her. She had come out to him all over again. She had been so frightened when she revealed her transgender status to him years ago…
“…They’re gonna eat you alive…” he whispered. The obscurer corners of the media had eventually noted Liara Nicholson had promptly vanished from the public eye following that explosive interview, their dogged investigation of her life had unearthed all her secrets. Her transgender status was public knowledge, there certainly wasn’t any secrets left in her life. While they had never found out where she went, or that she had been taken by the aliens, they had certainly dragged every one of her skeletons out of the closet while they looked.
“The world, it’s not the same…”
“I’m not the same either,” Liara answered flatly.
He didn’t have a response.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“I’m not the same person…” she whispered.
“So what are you going to do? Where do you go from here?” He suddenly felt a little alarmed that Liara was about to walk back into his life. The life he had struggled to cultivate out of the shadow she had once cast over it. He quickly realised that the re-emergence in the public eye would throw him once more into the spotlight. He subconsciously began to twist the wedding ring on his finger.
He suddenly had the pressure of coming clean with his partner to contend with. A panic attack was beginning to creep into him. He had only just settled his life into a peaceful normalcy, or so it felt.
“Well… I’ve been invited on an expedition…” she hesitated revealing to him. Her hand trailed up to cup her neck and she visibly looked conflicted.
“Expedition? To where?”
It reminded them both of their life before she left for Mt Kailash. Her adventurous sensibilities, before the aliens tainted her and destroyed her life. For a split second it felt like they were back in that moment in time, like all the painful history between then and now was nothing but a bad dream. A cyrosleep nightmare retconned by reality.
But it wasn’t a nightmare. It was real and it was there in the heavy air between them both.
“They’ve… found another bio dome…”
“Another one…?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. She bit her lip, was it right to tell him this? Was it even his business? Why did it feel a little like she needed his permission, or blessings?
“Jesus Christ… You’re going to go? After everything you’ve been through?”
“…This is it. They found markings. An ancient language…”
“Seriously? Have you learnt nothing…?” Adam hissed angrily. He was enraged that she was blindly returning to the very activity that brought her into trouble before. After being kidnapped, cloned and god knew what else, had she not learnt her lesson? Her curiosity was going to get her killed. He had a dark moment where he contemplated whether that was the best scenario. He was disgusted to think that his life would be all the more easier if she had simply died when the aliens kidnapped her.
He closed his eyes, his emotions were spiralling into a tornado.
“Adam… This is it. This is…” she faltered. She understood the anger he was trying to wrangle under control… “Eden…”
There was more to it than that. She thought of the elderly gentleman who had approached her several weeks ago. He was the leader of a giant corporate power and had stumbled across the bio dome. Because of his status, and his wealth, he was well connected within the government. That’s how MI6 ended up bringing him into the fold.
They had a vested interest in what lied inside the new bio dome and he wanted Liara to lead the expedition. His intention was to retrieve whatever power source was powering the bio dome. There was a lot of theories that the bio dome was powered by some form of self-renewing energy cell. Humanity would benefit greatly from the technology and Mr Winter would profit greatly from it.
Was this renewable clean en
ergy source the reason Liara had agreed? Only slightly.
She was drawn, irresistibly as ever, to the thrill of the mystery. She understood now that the Fours had engineered the creation of humans, but she wanted to know how. She wanted to know where the dinosaurs fitted into it. She wanted to find out all the answers to the history on Earth, and quite where all the religious myths came from…
And more than anything she wanted to feel human.
She’d spent six months cooped up in a secret heavily shielded research complex, she needed to breathe. She needed to feel normal.
“You’re a fool… You should learn when enough is enough…” Adam shook his head. He was calming down but he was still reeling.
“I don’t expect you to understand… But I can’t spend the rest of my life being a victim. A damsel in distress or something like that…”
The idea alone of being locked in an ivory tower of protection made her stir crazy.
“But…” he stopped. He had no words to express how saddened he felt by her insatiable curiosity. He knew nothing he could say would change her mind.
“I need to live Adam. I don’t want my life to just end because some alien violated me. I refuse to let them monopolise my life. I refuse to be a fucking victim anymore!” She slammed her fists on the table. The rage was sudden and had even caught her by surprise.
He jumped and began to stand. This conversation was over.
“I’m sorry…” she sombrely called after him.
He stalled halfway across the room.
“I just wish you knew when enough was enough Liara…” he sighed.
Then he was gone, admitted back into the corridor by the guard.
A reflective silence enveloped her as she exhaled wearily.
Was he right? Should she know when enough was enough?
She wished it was but she just couldn’t.
She wanted to know everything that the aliens had done to humanity. Wanted to know just how involved they were. Chrys knew a lot, as did the other Twos, but it wasn’t enough. They didn’t know the intimate details, or the specifics.
“Eden,” she sighed aloud.
She had thought the first bio dome was a paradise, but this one promised to be the real deal…
This was the true paradise and she couldn’t deny she felt apprehensive about it.
Yet she couldn’t deny she felt compelled to explore it.
She buried her face in her palms.
Was she crazy?
She rubbed her face.
She had been convinced that seeing Adam would bring her a sense of peace. It would bookend her old life. But it hadn’t…
It only compounded the disharmony, only sharpened the juxtaposition between her history and her future.
Slowly her gaze drifted up and away.
She wondered idly, as she did sometimes, what the other Liara was doing. Wondered where she was and where she was going. Wondered what she was going through, what she was facing? Had the other aliens taken her?
Perhaps that was it, it suddenly occurred to her. Maybe it was about the clone? The clone who had saved her life. Was she trying to learn more about her?
In the new Paradise maybe she could figure out what happened to her?
There was a link from the bio domes to the Four’s home planet, she knew that from the first dome. That might give her a means to access their data files, figure out their fate and her clones…
The concept of her expedition being a chance to explore herself was accurate on an astounding multiple of levels.
Liara sighed to herself. She wasn’t even sure that finding the clone was truly it. Maybe there was no specific reason she felt compelled to get back out there…?
Maybe Liara was just born to explore…?
No matter which way she cut it, she was going to lead that expedition. She had to know, and that was the crux of it.
As it always had been…
EPILOGUE:
The Arafoid stepped back from the cargo as it landed on the floor of the loading bay. It had never seen anything like it. It had explored countless worlds and yet never once seen anything like this. It turned away and stripped the wetsuit from its body. His companions disappeared further into the ship. Free of the rubbery suit, he turned his attention to a small pebble-like device lodged in a fold of skin on his wrist. He plucked it out and dialled.
It took a minute for the signal to rebound off the nearest satellite and cross the solar system to the mother-ship floating on the furthest side.
A female Arafoid answered. She snapped angrily but the Arafoid ignored her pointed tone. He let her rant down the phone angrily, holding it away from his ear as he did so. The alien’s gaze returned to the shiny cocoon before it. It was made of a thick green-tinted resin. It was relatively transparent despite the smoky hue through the resin. It had been submerged intact deep within the ruin of the spire. Found in a sunken nest filled with dead half-eaten Arafoids and cocooned Tethus. Eventually the female Arafoid finished snarling down the phone and he could speak. He lazily circled the cocoon as he informed her the mission was a success. He had tracked the specimen, he had retrieved it.
He then informed her of the mysterious resin cocoon that surrounded the specimen.
She was silent for a moment. He took that opportunity to activate a console at the opposite side of the bay. He waited for her to digest this new information. The ship began to move, ascending up and out of the planet’s atmosphere.
The console booted up a green holographic display. After a second it pinged, then it started showing a little blinking green light. It piqued his attention. He leant in. The signal was in the next solar system, his brow furrowed. It didn’t make any sense. He glanced back to the specimen. There was no signal reading from it. Yet there was a faint and weak signal in the neighbouring system. There was another specimen…?
The female barked at him over the phone. He realised he’d been silent and she’d been talking. He asked her to repeat the question.
He turned away from the holograph and faced the cocoon. He answered the question, yes the specimen was intact. He confirmed it was indeed dead but exceptionally preserved. Excluding the bullet hole in its brow of course.
His Queen hung up on him after demanding he return to base immediately.
He pocketed the phone back in his wrist. He considered retiring for a well earned rest. He wasn’t paid enough credits to put up with the highness’s bullshit.
The ship exited the atmosphere and stopped vibrating. They were free of the planet and were now floating through open space.
He should really open the cocoon and place the specimen in a stasis tank. Yet the conversation with the Queen had put him in a despondent mood. He didn’t feel like following orders, unsurprisingly. Besides it was hardly likely it would spoil that quickly.
He turned and left the loading bay. He would see to it later.
The lights went out and the cocoon was thrown into darkness.
As he clambered up the stairs he began to consider the secondary mission objective. The planet in a solar system a long-long way from here. The specimen’s planet of origin. Records had indicated the master blueprint had been sent there. After he dropped this primary objective at the space station, he was to travel to the planet and retrieve the original specimen.
He hated these fetch missions, they were degrading to a soldier of his status. The Queen had promised that he would get the time to fight soon enough, not that he understood what she meant by that.
As he stepped into the control deck and shut the door behind him, he thought of the second signal in a solar system over. It had been faint. He should probably have informed the Highness about it but he anticipated the signal was weakening because the host was dying. He wasn’t prepared to go racing across the galaxy for another cadaver.
He would just plead ignorant.
Down in the cargo bay, something stirred in the cocoon.
Beneath the resin a strange shape moved. Somethi
ng pressed out against the flesh of the stomach, like a set of fingers pressing against the stomach wall.
It had drawn as much energy and nutrients from the host as it could manage. It shifted, rolling around in the empty stomach cavity. There was no organs left to devour. The female human had been hollowed out from the inside. It felt the urge to hunt compel it upwards.
The dead human bolted inside the cocoon as the creature began to break its way out.
Its first strike cracked the resin.
The second cracked it further.
The third punctured a jagged hole in the resin and made a neat tear in the corpse’s stomach.
The slender creature, no bigger than a housecat, climbed out of the cocoon. It was black, shiny and malformed. It had long unwieldy legs and spindly arms. It had a small and skeletal face that its skin was drawn taught over. It had a long brush of tentacles around its mouth like a moustache and beard. Its long thin tail flopped uselessly behind it.
With the grace of a newborn deer it emerged from its cocoon and flopped onto its side.
It took a few moments to acclimatise to the cool air in the bay, before it slowly worked its way up onto its uncoordinated limbs.
Its first hesitant step in the world was done blindly. Disoriented it titled its head back and made a small shriek. A shriek that filled the bay but wasn’t heard by the other aliens aboard.
After a few more awkward steps, the creature leapt to the floor and disappeared into a dark corner. It found a ventilation shaft and quickly disappeared inside it….
Please don’t forget to leave a review!
Other Works by Antony J Woodward:
The Black Winter
P A R A D I S E
The Mendacity Games
I Am Pug
P R O G E N Y
Puss In Boots And The Werewolf Cult
Progenitor Page 15