by Rob Horner
“Speak up, Johnny!” Iz shouted, drawing everyone’s attention. “If you made a decision, own it. Tell me why you wanted to go into the trailers.”
Their eyes judged me. I could feel them. But I made myself glare back at the older man, meeting his stare. “It was where they came from, all right! I saw them coming out of a black box. I thought, you know, if we could get back there, maybe I could destroy the box.”
He noticed my hands clenching and unclenching.
“With your power, right?” he asked, and his voice was gentler now. “You thought you could destroy the box with your force power?”
I nodded, and he nudged Fish.
“Yeah, Iz,” Fish said, turning his helmet to look at the older man. “What’s up?”
“We’re going to need to give our new recruit a history lesson.”
“I thought we were doing this back at HQ,” Fish replied.
It was strange, but in that moment, I recognized something in Fish’s voice that didn’t make sense. One of those things you know instinctively isn’t right, even if you can’t put the problem into words. There was a disconnect between what Fish said, and how he said it. His voice rose and fell appropriately, but there didn’t seem to be any sense of stress to it. As an example, though his voice rose in a perfect imitation of mild exasperation that he didn’t get to wait a while longer before explaining things to me, there was no feeling of exasperation in the way it was said.
“I can see the yellow people, too,” Angie said, only now she wasn’t looking at me.
Her eyes were locked on Fish.
“We were,” Iz said, replying to Fish. “But he’s seen a resonator, and he knows something’s off about you.”
“It started for us about three years ago,” Iz began.
“No, it started for you three years ago,” Fish corrected, his big, helmeted head swinging toward me. Behind the tinted lens, which ran from the crown to the chin, there was the barest hint of head silhouette and small, cobalt-blue lights flickering along the insides. I wished he’d take the thing off.
“For us, it’s been going on much longer.”
“Dammit, Fish! Am I telling it or you?”
“You can tell it, Iz. Just start at the right place and leave your part in it until the appropriate time.”
Iz stared at the back of Fish’s head for a few seconds.
“You know I can see you glaring,” Fish said, which drew another laugh from Little Jack.
“Okay, kid. I was going to break you in slow and ease the weirdness in a little at a time.”
“Look at him, Iz,” Angie said. “He’s been flooded already, and he’s still upright and talking.”
“He passed weird a long time ago,” Little Jack added.
“Just do it Fish’s way,” Gina chimed in. “It’ll make more sense.”
“All right, all right,” Iz growled, drawing a smile from the three sitting across from me. “You start, Fish, and try not to be boring.”
Chapter 2
History 101
“The Dra’Gal aren’t demons,” Fish stated, “not as you know and understand them. There are some arguments among those in command that they may have played a part in the initial human interpretation of the term, but that goes into Human Political and Religious theory which, though some may find the topic intellectually-stimulating, others tend to want to bypass.”
“See?” Iz said. “That. Right there. Boring.”
Fish spoke as though he considered himself apart from humanity. That was a clue, though it sailed right over my head at first. Part of missing it had to do with the easy camaraderie he shared with the grizzled veteran. That friendship, more than anything else, kept me from freaking out as the story unfolded. There’s a subconscious ignorance in all of us, part of that whole if I don’t acknowledge it, it didn’t happen mentality. Call it superstition, if you like. As a people, we resist hints at something beyond our experience, then react dramatically when the hints become absolute proof that changes how we view the world and our place within it.
“You seem to enjoy the subject,” James said.
“Yes, well, since I volunteered for this assignment, I figured it would be best to know as much about the local culture as I could,” Fish replied. “The Dra’Gal, or Dramagaralalich, as they call themselves, are an alien race who long ago forsook individuality for the greater survivability provided by thought-sharing and a collective consciousness, something your Émile Durkheim wrote about in 1893, though we had to provide the muse; sociology didn’t exist as a science at the time. Their world was dying, you see, a combination of a natural attrition of orbital velocity and their own warlike behavior—"
“Translation,” Gina said, “they screwed up their planet and it was falling into the sun.”
My mouth must have been hanging open, because the redhead laughed, a genuine expression of joy and surprise. “Don’t worry, Johnny,” she said. “Some of us have been hearing these lectures for a year.”
“Some of us still have to take notes,” Bart chimed in from my right. A quick glance showed that he still sat with his head down.
“Yes. Well, that’s certainly a simpler way of putting it,” Fish said. “A highly-advanced race, technologically-speaking, the Dra’Gal began searching for other planets that could support their biology.”
I’d seen this movie before, just as most of us have. Big, bad, alien race destroys their own planet, then moves to another. For reasons that usually have more to do with involving the audience in the plot and making them feel a connection, it’s usually Earth that becomes the next feeding ground.
“This was hundreds of years ago, of course,” Fish said. “With their insights into temporal-thought technology, they developed a device we call a resonator.”
“That’s the black box you saw, kid,” Iz added.
“It allows them to project their consciousness, their collective will, across space, connecting a transmitter with a resonator in real-time.”
“Isn’t this getting a little deep in the weeds?” Little Jack asked. “Stick to the history for now and wait to see if his eyes start to bleed before you go all fourth-dimensional.”
I smiled at the obvious Back to the Future reference, though my head spun at some of the strange concepts. The words made sense, just not the pairings. Temporal-thought, for instance. Did that imply some form of time travel or manipulation?
“Not time travel,” Fish explained when I asked. “It allows transmission of thought in real-time over any distance, without regard for how long it should take for any form of energy to travel the distance. With this technology, it doesn’t matter how far away a Dra’Gal is from a resonator. He can transmit his consciousness across the distance in an instant.”
“So why here?” I asked. “Why now? Why come after us first?” Then, before he could answer, I added, “And does this mean they aren’t really here? They’re just…projections?”
“We weren’t first,” Iz answered. “Fish’s planet was.”
It hit me, suddenly, that there was a reason for the laughter, a reason why everyone deferred to Fish in giving this lesson. There was more here than just setting me up for the realization that Fish was an alien from another planet. It was a way of resolving ahead of time any unsettling fears or reactive xenophobia. Here, right in front of me, carrying on a conversation with the group was a —person? A being? —from a different planet. Decades of books and years of movies instilled in me the hopeful question: what if? Thanks to that preparation, there was already a part that believed. Now I just needed to accept.
“This part is hard for him, so I’ll tell it,” Iz said, laying a meaty hand on the helmeted alien’s shoulder. “They call themselves the Qintana, but, to us, they’re the Quins. They were another people who had their growing pains, a few wars, and decided it was better to work for the good of their people and their planet. Unlike the Dra’Gal, communication became their goal, rather than control. The toys they have to keep in constant contact
make our stuff look like something Hasbro cooked up.”
“You have to understand, Johnny, the Dra’Gal can spread like a disease. One resonator can become a link to a thousand, or ten thousand receptors. That’s what those prizes were at the carnival.”
“We were vulnerable,” Fish said, his voice lower, “because of our linked communication. Every visor over every face became a relay. We had no defense for something like this. If anything, we were more open to it because of our technology. They took over my planet, they became us, and then they started looking farther.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What do you mean they became you? And why would they need more?”
“It might help if you think of them as pure thought energy,” Fish said. “It’s not true, not completely, but like Little Jack said, that’s deeper into the weeds. No race we’ve found yet has the mental fortitude to resist their intrusion. They get in, they take over. Their possession is complete. It’s not a link between a puppet and a puppet master. They become the person they possess.”
“The Quins were their first conquest,” Iz said. “But it was out of necessity, not preference.”
“Our atmosphere is similar to theirs,” Fish continued, “but not similar enough. A Dra’Gal was safe so long as it stayed in the form of one of my people. Once they Manifested, the subtle differences in our atmosphere caused a cellular damage which prevented them from reverted back to Quin form. They were trapped and they died, killing the body of the Quin. The first day of their invasion cost the lives of more than twenty thousand of my fellow citizens. It killed as many of the Dra’Gal, of course, but it was too costly.” His voice trailed off.
“How does that work, exactly?” I asked into the short silence. “How can a thought make people turn into monsters? How is it that my touch can make some of them disappear?”
I can’t tell you what was more prominent in my mind just then. The story was astonishing, a combination of a fantasy-fueled dream come true and the surreal sensation of having been dropped into a situation you’re unprepared for. But more than anything, I was afraid again. What had I been doing to those people with my power?
Faces turned from one to another. Iz looked at Little Jack and Gina looked at James. Angelica kept her face blank, and I’m not sure what Bart did. My attention was focused on Fish, trying to see something inside his helmet, looking for reassurance.
“The discussion of your abilities, of what makes you Chosen, will have to wait until later,” Iz said. “That’s a whole different story. You need to hear it,” he hastened to add, “but you aren’t the only one, and it’s best saved for a group.”
“As to the Manifesting,” Fish said, “I know you’ve heard about people who can think themselves sick, or go to a healer holding a prayer meeting in a big tent out in a field, someone they believe has the power to make them better. Their belief is often enough to cure them, just because a man holding a Bible claimed they were healed.”
“Mind over matter,” Angelica said, “or The Power of Positive Thinking.”
“Precisely,” Fish agreed. “And thanks for the reminder, Angie. I need to download a copy of that book.”
“Download?” I asked.
“Later on that one, too, John,” Fish said. “If you accept the mind is the most powerful force in your body, then imagine your physical appearance is also impacted by your perception of yourself.”
“I’ve been trying to perceive myself ten pounds lighter for weeks now, but so far—" Angelica quipped.
Fish ignored her. “Some people will never have the mental strength to enact such change.”
“Hey!”
Maybe he hadn’t been ignoring her, after all.
Little Jack snickered, earning himself an elbow in the ribs from the older brunette.
“Most humans can’t do it,” he added. “You’ve heard of people who can tune their minds to ignore pain or walk through fire without being burned.”
“You’re saying those aren’t hoaxes?” I asked.
“Most are, but the concept of an all-controlling mind is not limited to your species. Remember, the Dra’Gal started out as individuals but made the decision to become beings more of thought than of physical substance.”
“So, the power of their mind is enough to completely change one of us…to one of them?” I asked. The idea was unbelievable. But I’d seen it happen. Did it matter if the cause was a demonic possession or an invasion by an alien consciousness?
That was a question I’d struggle with a lot over the next couple of weeks.
“Five more minutes,” came from the front of the van.
Fish nodded. “They have a lot of practice mastering new bodies, and after centuries of existing primarily as energy, they want to experience the freedom of their own form.”
“But they can change back,” Little Jack said, “and that’s what makes someone like Angie so important.”
“I can heal, too, you know,” she said sarcastically.
“The person inside the body is still there, always there,” Fish explained. “It’s a simple matter for the Dra’Gal to tap into that body of knowledge, to know what they know, and to change back to the familiar form they recognize when necessary.”
Iz held up a callused hand, forestalling anymore questions. “I wanted to get this done faster,” he said, “but I think we accomplished the basics. Understand that these aren’t demons, they’re aliens. They can fully project themselves into another being. In this case, us. It isn’t thought control. It’s possession, pure and simple, but on a level far beyond what you thought.”
“That couple of hundred years ago?” Gina said. “That’s when they seeded our planet, and others, with those resonator rocks. Once one is discovered by an unlucky person, a leader-mind takes over. The Dra’Gal determines if it can make use of the human it possessed, or if it needs to orchestrate a change.”
“They can jump from one person to another?” I asked.
“Yes, but only a leader-mind can do it,” she answered.
“So, the rest are just…what…worker bees?”
“The rest are what you’ve been fighting, what we all just got done fighting, back at the carnival,” Little Jack answered. “They’re people who’ve been totally consumed by an alien entity, transformed into a monster that has a brain and can think, but is also connected to a leader-mind.”
“They have an instant back and forth communication,” Fish said. “As soon as someone is possessed, they’re ready to fight. The newest Dra’Gal knows what every other Dra’Gal connected to the hive-mind knows.”
“They aren’t mindless, blood-thirsty, killing machines,” James said softly. “They can think, and plan.”
“Which makes them more dangerous,” Iz said. “And it makes our job that much more important.”
The van slowed, making us shift in our seats, then came to a stop.
“What is our job?” I asked.
The front doors of the van opened and slammed shut. Booted feet clomped on concrete as the driver and co-pilot came along the sides of the van.
“We’re going to stop them,” Iz said.
The back doors opened, giving me my first look at the facility which would be my home for the next several weeks.
“Welcome to Mandatum,” he said, as first Bart and James, followed by Gina, Angelica, and Little Jack, climbed out of the van, leaving me with Fish and Iz.
Chapter 3
With great power comes great…you know the rest
My first impression of Mandatum, which was the Latin word for Command, was underwhelming. The six vans had pulled into an underground parking garage. Not too far underground, because I could see the night sky being pushed away from the sloped entrance to the garage by an array of streetlamps, until the concrete and steel barriers came from top and bottom to meet in the middle, shutting us in.
The air had that familiar salty humidity, tainted by exhaust, that told me we were back in Virginia Beach, but that was the on
ly clue. Otherwise, it looked like every other parking garage I’d ever seen. The ceiling was perhaps five feet over the tops of the vans. Scattered banks of fluorescent lights, some missing, some flickering, provided good illumination. Concrete columns spaced at regular intervals supported the ceiling. A single lane ran down the center, with parking places to either side. Despite that it must be nearing midnight, there were quite a few cars in the slots, mostly late-model sedans in a variety of makes and models. The garage only occupied a single level, and only had the one entrance; the vans would have to take turns pulling into a slot in order to turn around.
Iz waited for me as I jumped out of the van, stopping me with an upraised hand. “Hang on, John,” he said.
My mind had entered one of those dissociative places. We’ve all been there at one time or another. You don’t know what you’re supposed to do, or where you’re supposed to go. When you run from one moment to the next, hardly daring to breathe, your concerns, worries, and plans remain, but they’re sublimated beneath this existential numbness. There’s so much new information to process that you don’t even try. You nod, speak when spoken to, and hope to make it to a quiet place where you can curl up into a ball, shut out the intrusions, and try to understand what’s happened to you.
When Iz stopped me and said, “Hang on,” that’s what I did. My fellow passengers moved away to a set of double doors which gave onto a lighted stairwell. There were stairs going up and down.
“No elevators?” I mumbled, stating aloud an observation.
“None with access to the outside,” Iz replied. “They’re not defensible.”
A couple of engines revved, and the first two vans pulled away, maneuvering into two of the farthest parking spaces, leaving our van and the three others in front of it.
Voices reached us, men and women chatting, most without helmets but obviously soldiers. It wasn’t the uniformity of the clothing, the utility belts around their waists, or even the weapons slung at the hip or across the back. They had a carriage about them--a set to the shoulders or a purpose in the stride--that spoke of discipline and pride. A group of six went to work on the van in front of us, opening the back and loading their arms with the equipment my group had stashed in there. Two of them were women, both short, one blond and fair, the other with a duskiness to her skin that hinted of some exotic combination of genes.