by Jason Parent
“See?” asked Know-it-all, Kazi’s nickname for the man. “As I told you, it has no effect.” His smile seemed patronizing. Kazi wanted to carve it from his face.
With faster-than-human reflexes, Kazi grabbed the beaker of acid from Know-it-all’s hand. Fortunately for Know-it-all, he was wearing latex gloves. Kazi punched his arm forward, acting as though he were going to throw the beaker and its contents at the human’s face. The scientist gasped and stumbled backward, clearly horrified.
Kazi laughed heartily. Know-it-all was no more than an insect to him. All the humans were ants beneath him. He wished he had a giant magnifying glass to harness his home world’s power and burn them all like the ants they were. As much as he wanted to hurt the human, Kazi needed that acid. For now, Know-it-all would receive a reprieve.
His captors grew tense. Armed soldiers entered the room. Carefully, Kazi dumped all the acid from the beaker onto Lenyx’s chest. It swirled about his frame in concentric circles, much like the rainwater had done previously, only the acid sizzled like grease in a frying pan before vanishing into the corpse.
As Know-it-all and the rest of the humans concentrated on the swirling liquid like hypnotized zombies, Kazi’s eyes were on the monitor displaying the internal scope. He watched it discreetly but saw nothing out of the ordinary. When the acid absorbed into Lenyx, Kazi checked the screen again. Still, it appeared to have no effect.
“Are you satisfied?” Know-it-all asked, pointing at Lenyx’s unblemished skin. “The whirlpools are a fascinating phenomenon, I’ll admit. But they do nothing to further our research.”
“You’re so smart,” Kazi said. His shoulders heaved. Slowly, he released a breath, his temper teetering on a balance beam. He didn’t know what irritated him more, his own miscalculation or the human’s being correct.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kazi watched the monitor, trying not to give away his interest. Nothing happened. Mush remained mush until something so minute occurred, the slightest jiggle of indeterminable organic material. Kazi could swear its mass decreased no more than a fraction of an inch. It was as if someone had flambéed the skin off a mound of gelatin. It was over, he thought, before anyone else could notice it.
But someone had noticed. He sensed one of the humans viewing the monitor. Ted of all people. Kazi grumbled. Damn it. He tapped his foot on the floor, trying to decide how he should handle the situation. Most options involved killing Ted, their variances only being in the means or methods in bringing about his death rather than in the end result. But Kazi stayed his hand. Peeking into the human’s mind, he saw that Ted hadn’t fully comprehended the import of what the camera had revealed. As long as he kept his mouth shut, Kazi would deal with him later.
“Something happened internally,” Ted blurted. “I saw the alien watching it.”
Kazi rolled his eyes. The time for his Houdini act had come sooner than expected. He focused all his attention on the bolt in the floor, planning to rip it from its concrete basin with the unyielding strength of his telekinesis. Mind over matter, he thought, not really sure he could free himself but determined to try.
As if sensing his intentions or perhaps doing a little mind reading of their own, the humans filed into an offensive protocol. Medical and scientific personnel vacated the premises as soldiers flooded the room, their raised automatic and semi-automatic weapons ready to unleash chaos.
“It’s now or never,” Kazi said, raising his arms to suggest surrender, never taking his mind off the bolt. He had no intention of surrendering. The earth below him began to rumble. It was faint at first, but before long, the vibrations increased exponentially in both frequency and magnitude. The walls shook. Lamps fell over, their glass bulbs shattering against the thick, solid floor. Tools shimmied across tabletops and fell off them, followed by heavier, more expensive equipment. Lenyx’s body vibrated off the examination table, hitting the floor with a dull thud.
Kazi didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but he knew he was responsible for what was happening. It had all the makings of an earthquake. The floor against the far wall of the cell began to crack. Portions of the floor rose while other portions sank.
The soldiers were caught off guard. One lost his footing. He fell next to one of the uneven terraces. A fissure opened, and the soldier slid into it, screaming as he plummeted into… sky?
Kazi gaped into the empty blue. “That’s unexpected,” he said aloud, his words downplaying his disbelief. His confusion left quickly. He couldn’t have been more pleased. It didn’t take him long to realize that in attempting to raise the bolt from the floor, he had instead levitated the entire floor, and with it, a large section of the building that enclosed it.
He clapped, excited by the unintended results. Kazi, the soldiers and several researchers were now a quarter mile high and rising. The remainder of the building and those who were inside it lay in twisted debris below. The structure split apart little by little all around him. The farther away from Kazi it was, the quicker that portion of the building fell, along with those in it, to its final resting place. The shrill screams of scientists and soldiers alike were blissful sonnets, pleasing to Kazi’s ears. As each human fell, one more person who potentially knew Kazi’s discovery was exterminated. No one could know how to kill Symorians. No one but him. Protecting his secret would be easier than Kazi had first imagined.
He glanced outside his cell, its mirror glass walls cracking and fragmenting. The back wall had already departed, finding its way back down into the center of Washington, D.C.
This power, he thought, clenching his fists. His muscles surged with energy, his mind with focus. He reveled in the sensation. I truly am a god!
Finally, the humans would have no choice but to recognize his superiority, his undeniable greatness. They would all bear witness to what he’d done and was about to do.
But there was one among them who Kazi couldn’t leave behind as a witness, one who must die. Kazi presumed him dead already, but he wasn’t willing to take that chance. “Where are you, Ted?” Kazi called out, almost singing the words. He enjoyed displaying his power. It made him feel alive, omnipotent. And why not? He had become someone so much more than the Symorian who always came in second.
“There you are,” Kazi said. He squealed with pleasure, as excited as a child finding an Easter egg. Ted clung for dear life from a surveillance console exposed through a large split in Kazi’s remaining cell wall. The alien took delight in watching the human’s struggles. Ted showed remarkable resilience, attempting to regain his footing and pull himself atop the console in a vain effort to save his life. But all was for naught. Kazi was certain Ted wouldn’t survive his plight. He’d make sure of that.
Holding the floor up had become easy. Still, Kazi continued to rise. He was a god among the clouds. His dominion over the humans filled him with elation and a ravenous desire for more. He would test his powers further.
The broken remains of the scalpel that he’d plunged futilely into Lenyx’s skin rested by his feet. The remnants looked more like a flat icicle than a tool used to save lives. He smirked. He’d use it to take a life.
“Hi there, Ted,” Kazi shouted to the struggling scientist. He gave Ted a cordial wave. “Tough going?” He laughed. “How’s it hanging?”
Kazi waited patiently for Ted to make eye contact with him. He couldn’t help but feel a smidgeon of respect for the human’s success thus far. He sneered, balking at the thought. Ted just might be able to get himself atop that console. The human’s minor victory, however, would make killing him all the more sweet.
Kazi gave Ted a palm-forward wave, bending his fingers like a mom waving goodbye to a toddler as she dropped him off at daycare. Then, without disturbing his control over the floor, Kazi raised the scalpel from the ground. He sent it speeding through the crack in the wall, stopping it short above Ted. He waved it in the air like a composer holding a baton, only the composer in his case was twenty feet away. Ted’s eyes grew at the sight. His skin paled
. Satisfied, Kazi plunged the scalpel deep into Ted’s hand. He yelped like a puppy underfoot, then was no more, disappearing through the clouds toward the earth below.
Kazi chuckled to himself. More playthings? He looked around him to see what other pathetic humans he could squish. First, he would take away their hope. Then, he would take their lives.
The air became thin and cold. The three remaining humans, all soldiers, seemed too focused on survival to put up any resistance. For all the time he’d spent airborne, no one had taken a single shot at him. Maybe the soldiers were smart enough to realize that killing him would seal their own fates. They had passed their window to act a mile below.
Kazi halted their ascent. Still, he heard no gunshots. The humans looked fragile, helpless. Are these Earth’s finest warriors? How pathetic.
Narrowing his focus, Kazi let the remainder of the building drop onto the rubble and human corpses below. Only the floor of his cell still hovered, a floating island. On it, just Kazi, the three soldiers and Lenyx’s body remained. One of the soldiers was Perkins, the insolent fool who had bound him to the floor in the first place. Kazi salivated, thrilled by his good fortune. He wondered if Perkins regretted his earlier actions now.
“Let’s play, shall we?” Kazi slowly tilted the platform. As the angle of the tilt increased, he thought of many ways to toy with the soldiers. He even considered pitting them against each other, letting the winner survive. But first he wanted that damned chain off his leg.
“I will let the three of you live if he unbinds me,” he said, pointing at Perkins. Of course, Kazi had no intention of letting any of them live. But what they didn’t know wouldn’t kill them. He would kill them.
For a moment, none of the soldiers spoke or moved. The angle of the platform had increased to approximately forty degrees. Lenyx’s body slid across the floor, barreling directly toward one of the soldiers. The soldier leapt over it, managing to maintain his footing and, for the time being, his life. Lenyx skidded off the floor and dropped into the deep-blue sky.
As his former commander fell, Kazi saluted mockingly. As far as he was concerned, Lenyx’s usefulness had been fulfilled. He played a tiny air violin for him, human-like mocking for his human company. Or perhaps it was a viola; Kazi didn’t know the difference.
“Well?” Kazi asked, returning his attention to the soldiers. “What will it be, Perkins?”
Perkins clearly had no idea what he should do. He looked terrified and with good reason. After taking a few hesitant steps toward Kazi, he froze. His knees quivered like a tuning fork.
“Don’t do it!” one of the other soldiers shouted.
Kazi flared in anger. Until then, he’d been having fun. “How dare you defy me? Are you blind to my power?” His voice was loud and threatening. Spit frothed from his mouth like a rabid animal’s. “Your kind will learn to worship me. Those who refuse will make useful examples for the rest. I make the rules now. You will do as I say!”
Having no items left to hurl at the self-righteous soldier, Kazi instead lifted the soldier himself. He tossed him from the platform with the ease of a thought.
The force is strong in this one, Kazi thought, laughing as he quoted The Empire Strikes Back, one of Connor’s favorite classic films. He shook his head, wondering how low a species has to fall before it began worshiping little green puppets and a force they could probably have if they just used a bit more of their minds.
“And then there were two,” Kazi said to Perkins. “Your friends are in short supply these days. Tell me. Do you value this soldier’s life as little as you did the last?”
“What are you waiting for?” the other soldier asked, visibly shaken. “Do it!”
“Listen to your friend,” Kazi said, his voice momentarily passive. “He’s all you got left.” He laughed.
“If I free you, do you promise you won’t kill us?” Perkins asked.
“You have my word.” Kazi smiled. It was the promise of a devil.
As timid as a mouse, Perkins crept toward Kazi. He removed a key from his pocket and moved closer still. Kazi raised his hands high, showing no sign of malice or aggression. His hands trembling, Perkins unlocked the clasp. Kazi’s leg was free.
“Thank you,” Kazi said. “I must be going now.”
“Wait!” Perkins shouted, terror ringing in his voice. “What about us? You said you wouldn’t kill us.”
“And I won’t,” Kazi said calmly and sincerely. “But I do suspect the fall will.”
With that, Kazi disappeared.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Connor glanced at the clock: 1:18 a.m. on a Wednesday night in mid-May. The weather was unusually hot, summer temperatures in late spring. It was eighty-four degrees inside his New Hampshire home, a fan in the window offering negligible relief. The heat made Connor restless, but it didn’t matter; he couldn’t sleep anyway.
He sprawled out on top of his empty bed, not bothering to draw back the blankets. One side of the bed had remained empty since his wife’s death many years ago. Most nights, Connor slept on the couch, falling asleep as the television rambled on with some awful late-night program or infomercial.
The house, too, had been mostly empty for several years, since his daughter went away to college. Connor’s presence there was barely felt even by himself. He walked as if he were a ghost in his own house, the structure not worthy of being called a home. Everything was preserved as Kalima had left it, as she would have wanted it.
Connor glanced at the clock again. Four minutes had gone by since he last looked. He sat up, slid his feet into the blue fuzzy slippers he kept by his bedside and walked into the kitchen. Opening the refrigerator, he reached for a carton of orange juice and took a swig. Errant juice ran from his mouth, dripping out one side and down his chin. It stained his white tee-shirt, where Connor was content to leave it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his arm.
Returning the carton to its shelf, he closed the refrigerator and leaned over the counter. His thoughts weighed heavy on his mind. The events at the D.C. laboratory were all over the news. Although the government wasn’t releasing any details, the news stations were calling it an alien attack. The government would have difficulty lying about a floating building. Since Connor had seen Kazi’s amazing display of power and was present as Lieutenant Westfield took the alien into custody, only one conclusion seemed likely: Kazi had escaped, and quite ostentatiously at that.
Connor’s conclusion was supported by the vicious attack on joint Canadian and American forces at a remote cabin in Northern Quebec. Seventeen dead soldiers were found; their bodies having suffered all sorts of mutilation and dismemberment. Another twenty-four remained unaccounted. Connor presumed they had been disintegrated. It seemed obvious that Kazi was looking for his crewmates, instead finding an armed enemy regiment. After all, he knew where they’d hide just as well as they themselves did. Given the results of his Canadian excursion, Kazi’s intentions were far from philanthropic.
With his ability to travel any distance just by thinking it, Kazi had no reason to stand and fight. But he did anyway, so Connor could only assume he had human conquest on his mind. The alien bastard sure seemed to enjoy killing people. Tryst and Milliken weren’t slaughtering humans on a daily basis. Their conflicting viewpoints were destined to come to a head. It was only a matter of time before Kazi found them.
Connor picked up his telephone, thinking he needed to warn them. He stared blankly at its number pad. Disgusted, he threw the phone onto a sofa in the adjacent room. How would he reach Tryst and Milliken? As far as Connor knew, the abandoned warehouse in which they were hiding didn’t have a phone line. He’d have to go there if he wanted to speak with them, and he wasn’t ready to make that mistake again.
His cell phone lay quiet, unsympathetic. Connor glared at it, willing it to ring. Tryst and Milliken weren’t due to check in with him until the next evening. For now, they were on their own. He prayed for their safety.
A knock came to the front door.
Kazi, his gut told him. Connor thought that maybe he should have been praying for his own safety instead. Somehow, he just knew it was Kazi. He tip-toed toward the door, grabbing an umbrella he kept against the wall beside it for protection.
An umbrella against a telekinetic, teleporting killing machine with an epidermis impervious to pointy objects? Connor sneered at his own stupidity. He threw the umbrella down. If it were Kazi at the door and Kazi wanted him dead, then dead he’d soon be. He let out a deep breath and opened the door, as prepared as he could be for whatever fate would deal him.
The door swung open, and Connor stared into the night. He glanced left and right but saw no one. Connor’s front porch was dark, but there was no place to hide on it. It was simple, unadorned, and without furniture or fixtures—just steps, a landing and rails.
Connor flicked on the porch light. It helped him see the street despite the lack of streetlights on his rural road. Still, he saw no one.
Maybe I’m being paranoid, he thought, but that nagging voice buried within his subconscious mind insisted differently. He peered down at his feet, half-expecting to see a flaming bag of dog shit, a prank even his college students weren’t beneath pulling on a rare occasion, not that he’d ever fallen for it. He was a kid once, too.
Perhaps it was the timeless ding and ditch prank, a classic. Connor laughed. They can’t even get that right, knocking instead of ringing the doorbell.
“Hello, Connor,” a voice said from behind him, inside his house.
Connor’s back tensed. The hairs on his arms and neck stood more erect than a group of fourteen-year-old boys watching Skinemax. His skin bumped like gooseflesh. His suspicions were confirmed. He recognized the voice. Connor knew it belonged to Kazi.
“Hello, Kazi,” he said, turning to face the alien. The initial chill began to settle, Connor becoming more annoyed than anything else by Kazi’s flair for the dramatic. “Most of my guests use the front door. They don’t just barge in unannounced.”