by Paul Tassi
The screen flickered and changed to a security camera–like shot of a giant cargo bay. Huge clear drums of water were stacked in rows, backlit by blue lights.
Lucas’s jaw dropped.
“Take me there, now.”
In the lift, Lucas was lusting after what he’d seen on the monitor. He didn’t think stores of water so vast even existed any more, and as little as he thought of the creatures, this one in his underground desert castle had turned out to be incredibly resourceful. But his finger never left Natalie’s trigger. He might have saved his life, but the nuances of alien honor codes still escaped him, and to him there seemed to be no reason he couldn’t turn on him at any moment. And why had the scientist spared the woman? She was clearly intent on murdering him, and with his knowledge of English he likely heard her threats. Why was he so determined to keep her alive?
The doors finally opened, and the sight that awaited him was simply majestic. The bay was cavernous, and lining the path in front of him were rows upon rows of tanks, glowing blue and filled to the brim. They were about twice as tall as he was, and as wide as grain silos.
“This . . .” he stammered. “This is all water?”
His guide nodded.
“And it’s . . . safe?”
The scientist turned to the right where a smaller container sat, about the size of an oversized refrigerator. Tubes connected it to the closest two tanks on either side. Opening a compartment, the creature took out a metal cylinder, and brought it up to his mouth. Water spilled out the corners of his face as he drank.
Lucas’s mouth was open in amazement. As soon as the creature brought it down, he grabbed it from his hands. He threw the container back and downed the remainder. It wasn’t just water, it was cold water, something he hadn’t tasted in the better part of a year. He couldn’t detect any traces of salt, meaning if the hose he saw had been in the ocean, it had been expertly filtered.
He threw the container down to the floor where it bounced with a loud clang that echoed throughout the storage bay. He immediately unhooked another container from the compartment and guzzled it all down. Finally, no more need for restraint. With how much was there, it could last indefinitely. Tossing the second empty container aside, he grabbed a third.
The creature put his claw on his arm. Instinctively, Lucas snapped it away and raised his gun at the scientist, who retreated. Immediately, Lucas turned his attention back to the water container, and raised it to his lips again. The liquid was the best medicine that still existed on Earth. Almost instantly he could feel some of his lost strength returning.
But then he felt something else. He choked halfway through the container. His stomach began rumbling and intense nausea filled him. Dropping the cylinder, he vomited up everything he had just drunk, which splashed down to the metal grated floor looking as clear as it had when it went in.
Panting, he brought himself upright again. Of course, he thought. After endless bouts with starvation and dehydration, his stomach had shrunk, and too much of a good thing wouldn’t fit in the now-tiny capsule. He would still have to pace himself after all.
The creature stared at him blankly for a minute, took another cylinder from the tank, and started walking back to the elevator. Lucas peered outward toward the tail end of the bay, wondering what else he might find down there. But he turned and followed the scientist, as he felt it was still in his best interest not to take his eye off him.
After another interminably long ride on the lift, they were back in the command center. The alien set the water cylinder on the holotable and played with a few more controls, causing unidentified whirs throughout the room. He walked over to the damaged console he had motioned to before. To the side lay a crate with what appeared to be tools sitting on top of it. The scientist opened some drawers within it and pulled out a strange device that looked like a cross between a power drill and blow torch. He tore a panel away and peered inside of it. Sparks greeted him, and he made a dismayed grunt.
Turning to look at Lucas, he pointed toward the water cylinder next to him. He then motioned toward the hallway door, where the woman sat unconscious and bound a few levels down.
“No. You take it to her.”
The creature pointed to himself, and then to the damaged console. He then motioned to his mouth, then to Lucas, then to the sides of his head, where ears would be if he had any.
“Oh, that’s the thing that lets you talk to me?”
A nod.
“How do I know you won’t just lock me in there and electrify the floor or something?”
The alien simply shook his head, turned around, and activated the odd-looking power tool. The smell of smoldering metal filled the room.
Lucas shifted Natalie uncomfortably in his arms. He wouldn’t stop being suspicious, but between this creature’s alleged betrayal of his own kind and his gift of endless water, he figured there probably was no immediate threat. For the first time in about an hour, he slung the rifle back over his shoulder and his tired arms breathed a sigh of relief. He grabbed the water and made his way toward the door that led to the main hallway and the lift.
When he reached the bottom level, he walked a short way down and peeked into a few other doors, which also looked like formerly functional jail cells. All of them opened immediately in front of him to show some fizzling controls and empty rooms. A few of them were bloodstained, but no more missing limbs were present. When the ship was fully operational, he imagined there would have been more security in place than a series of motion-sensing doors that opened automatically like at a local supermarket. The scientist must have deactivated all that to move about the ship more freely as he rebuilt it. There was no point in stopping every two minutes for another password entry or DNA scan when you were the only one around.
He turned and entered the last room before the engine bay and saw the woman still slumped over unconscious, one hand raised above her head locked in the cuff. For an advanced race capable of jet setting across the galaxy from god knows where, it was a rather primitive means of imprisonment, but he remembered the force field that should have been operational. That was a little more Star Trek, he supposed.
Drawing closer to her, with a cloth no longer masking her face he could see that the woman was maybe seven or eight years younger than him. Twenty-five, twenty-six perhaps? She wasn’t even stirring, which, after a quick, albeit solid, punch to the face, seemed a bit suspicious. In the wasteland she had surely endured worse on many occasions.
Lucas set the water cylinder down and reequipped Natalie. The woman’s long legs lay stretched out in front of her, and Lucas kicked one of her dusty boots, but she made no response. He got down on his knees and thought of a new means to test her commitment, if this was indeed a charade. He unholstered his buck knife, another of his longtime allies, though one without a name, and brought it to her shin where the boot stopped and her torn pants began. He found a tan bit of flesh exposed by a rip and balanced the point of his knife on top of it. He’d kept it sharp on stones and metal wreckage, and he spun it around until it quickly drew blood from the point where it rested. Again, not even a flinch. He supposed she really was still gone.
He shouldered his rifle and leaned in closer, raising his hand in an attempt to check her pupil’s dilation so he could see just how under she was. But as his hand was an inch away from its target, her head lifted slightly and her bright green eyes opened.
“Shi—”
He didn’t even have time to finish the expletive as she brought up her free hand, which hadn’t reached the other cuff, originally meant to house eight-foot-tall creatures. By instinct alone, he managed to stop it before it collided with his face, and looking right, he saw there was a sharp point of metal protruding from a cloth strip wrapped around her wrist. It hung motionless a few centimeters from his eye for a moment before he thrust her arm back into the wall. He leapt backwards as she swung at him again, and as he did so, bumped into the water, which spilled all over the floor and ran dow
n the angled surface away from the woman. Her attention was immediately diverted by what she saw leaking out onto the ground and she lost all interest in assaulting Lucas. She made an effort to dive over to the floor to lick up some of the water that was pouring forth, but she couldn’t quite reach it. It was an almost pathetic sight, but Lucas could empathize. He’d done far worse things for a drop of water over the last few months.
He quickly picked up the cylinder, which was rolling away down the incline, spilling most of its contents as it went. Still seated, he shook it, and it seemed to still be about a quarter of the way full.
Realizing she couldn’t reach the water on the floor, she looked at the cylinder, quiet splashes indicating its remaining volume. She lunged for it, but it was out of her reach, and Lucas pulled it back even further.
“Give me . . . that,” she said in a cracked voice drenched in venom.
“Yeah, you definitely just made your case for being released on good behavior. How about we start by you throwing me that blade?”
The woman looked angry, but grabbed the protruding spike with her thumb and forefinger, pulling it out of the wrapping that contained it. She lobbed it in Lucas’s direction where it clanked on the metal floor.
“What else you have on you?”
She glowered.
“Fine, play this game.” He brought the water to his lips, and the desire in her eyes was palpable.
She reached into her boot and took out a switchblade, tossing it toward where Lucas sat.
“Keep going. If you’ve survived this long, I know you’re as well prepared as I’ve been.”
She reached behind her back and came back with a grenade, pin mercifully still in place. Lucas’s eyebrows instinctively flew up.
“Wow, and in what scenario is that your weapon of choice?”
“Not this one, but you’d be surprised.” She put the grenade on the floor where it rolled down to the opposite end of the cell.
“That’s it. I’ve been running a little low on artillery these days. Now give me that.”
Lucas handed her the cylinder. She took it down in one gulp.
“Trust me, you don’t want more than that.”
She wiped her mouth with her free hand.
“Cold? Where the hell did you get that? And more importantly, where are we?”
She looked around the room and saw the working lights and strange symbols attached to the door controls and surrounding consoles.
“No, it can’t be,” she said with a look of horror slowly creeping across her face.
“One of theirs? Yeah.”
Her mouth remained open and she panned around the room.
“But it’s . . . working?”
“More or less. I think there’s still a piece or two missing, but it’s being sorted out.”
“Wait, that thing. You didn’t kill it? It’s running this place?”
“Correct on both counts.” Lucas twirled his knife around in his hand. After examining the woman’s face for the past few minutes, he had determined it had to be her. A little more gaunt, a little closer to psychosis, but it was her.
“So how did . . .”
“Let me ask you a question, green eyes. How did you get all the way up here from Georgia?”
The woman looked taken aback.
“How did you know I was in Georgia?”
Lucas furrowed his brow.
“You don’t remember? We’ve met before, and when we did, you shot me and left me for dead in the heat.”
She cocked her head.
“You’re going to have to be more specific; that doesn’t exactly narrow it down.”
“A suburb outside of Atlanta, you were trapped, I saved you. You shot me and took my entire pack of supplies, everything I had.”
The memory found her.
“Ohhh, I remember you. The hero,” she sneered. “You looked so concerned when you got there. And I remember that pack was one of my biggest hauls. You were quite well stocked. That was very . . . gentlemanly of you.”
Lucas rubbed his eyes. He was exhausted. He had to participate in actual conversations today, and now someone was actually talking back to him. It had been a while since social interaction that didn’t end up with someone dead in a matter of minutes. But hey, the day wasn’t over yet.
“Didn’t make that mistake again. You weren’t the last person to come up with that scam, but I see it’s taken you far.”
She looked off to the side, her mind drifting elsewhere. “Not far enough.”
“Why are you in Portland?”
“I was making my way to Alaska. I heard the heat was still at bearable levels there and it even still got a little bit cold at night. Also, rumor had it not all the water had boiled yet.”
“And what about the idiot twins out there?”
“Jonas and Miller? They may have been insane, but they had what it took to survive out here, I’ll tell you that.”
“You don’t see humans working together too much out there anymore.”
“When we met, they were very intent on having me for dinner, until I convinced them I could use my . . . skills to get them more food and water than they were accustomed to.”
“Skills that involved tricking passersby into coming to your aid, only to end up with a hole in their head?”
She rolled her eyes.
“I shot you in the shoulder. And no, that hasn’t worked in months. I have however, had a flawless ambush record since those days. Well, almost flawless.”
She grabbed her arm that had been grazed by Lucas’s bullet earlier. Blood still trickled out of the wound.
“You’ll live.”
“I’m sure you’re thrilled. Speaking of, why exactly am I still alive?”
Lucas stared at his knife, still flittering through his fingers. He had been wondering the same thing.
“I don’t know, my friend seems intent on keeping you breathing for some reason. He’s quite adamant about it.” He pointed to the scratch over his eye.
“How long have you two been working on this little science project? And do you have any bread to go along with that wine?” She motioned toward the cylinder.
“I just got here today. And I haven’t sorted out that second issue yet.”
“And you haven’t eaten him? What the hell are you waiting for? Those things are like a seven-course meal. Go take that fancy rifle of yours, do it now, and we can split him between us.”
“Believe me, the idea crossed my mind. But look around you. Look at all this!” He motioned to the humming controls and radiant lights. “Who knows what else he can do with it.”
“Yeah.” She paused. “It is something.”
“Apparently he’s a scientist, and he got in a bit of trouble by betraying his own race before they all left without him.” He pointed to the decaying hand on the floor.
The woman’s eyes widened. “That thing was his? And wait, you can talk to it?”
“It understands me somehow, but I haven’t been able to process what he’s been grunting yet. He does seem to have mastered basic human body language though, so his nodding and pointing helps. Right now he’s working on a part of the ship that I think is supposed to act as some sort of translator.”
“I need to eat,” she said. “It’s been days.”
“I can drag in your two friends from outside if you’d like a snack.”
The woman scoffed.
“I never went down that road. I saw how much it messes with your mind, and you need to be sharp, not just nourished, to survive out here. Those two would be the prime examples of the dangers of man-eating. Though that was something I did know something about in a former life. Metaphorically of course.”
Lucas’s eyes narrowed, “What’s your name?”
The door behind them opened, and the scientist was standing there holding a small device with his good claw.
“Holy shit!” the woman exclaimed, and instinctively started scrambling backward, but she was already against
the wall.
Lucas stood up.
“Believe me, you don’t have anything to worry about. He’s the only reason you’re not laying out there in the dust with your pals.”
The scientist walked into the cell with the handheld device. He held it up to the woman. A bright light scanned over the surface of her face and it let out a high-pitched whine.
“What the hell is he doing?” she asked, turning her head so it was flush with the wall.
“I have no idea. But I would recommend sitting still.”
The creature grunted in agreement. He flipped over the piece of machinery and held it up to her wounded arm. Gel shot out of it like a caulk gun, covering her wound. It hissed and started smoking, and the woman looked shocked. But in a few seconds it was over. The wound had regrown skin and the bleeding had completely ceased.
Lucas was stunned.
“You come here with that kind of technology and you choose to share your antimatter bombs instead?”
The creature said nothing. Lucas continued.
“Can I get some of that? You did some damage to me earlier.” He brought a finger to the scratch over his eye.
The creature bent down to look the wound over and then shook his head. He held up two claws and put them close together to make what appeared to be a “little” symbol and scoffed.
The woman spoke from the floor, “I think that’s alien for ‘it’s just a scratch.’”
The scientist walked through the door and motioned for Lucas to follow. He did so, but first went through the cell, scooping up the spike, the switchblade, and the grenade the woman had unloaded. As the two exited through the doorway, she called out after them.
“What, I have to stay here? You said he liked me!”
Lucas answered without turning.
“I said he wanted you alive. And you have tried to kill both of us in the last hour.”
The door slammed shut behind them.
Back on the bridge, the creature returned to work on the console, which was still spitting out sparks every few seconds, as were many other stations around the room. Lucas wondered if the ship was in fact operational, as it looked like, well, like it had been through an intergalactic war.