Masked

by RB Stutz

  Once I had Sara out of the boat, I carried her back into the boat house.

  “Damn! Man,” Alex said as I entered. “How the hell did you pull that off? When I saw you take those shots I thought it was over.”

  “I did too.”

  I looked towards Laura who was still unconscious.

  “Are you alright?” I asked Alex.

  “I’ll live. Is Sara okay?”

  “I think so. It looks like they just sedated her. Did you see Emily get out?”

  Alex shook his head. “No. I was pretty out of it for a while. So she got away?”

  “It looks that way.”

  I looked around the room. Batton’s body was motionless on the ground but the two agents were gone. “What about the other agents. Where did they go?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, I was pretty out of it.”

  I guess I was lost in the moment or just dense because it was just then I noticed the man who had been unconscious and lying next to Rachael was gone as well. “What the hell? Now where did he go?”

  There was no way the two agents I’d shot could have recovered that quickly and the other guy had been unconscious. Gently, I put Sara down on the empty bed and rushed back outside, using the door that exited to the path rather than the dock.

  I was facing the area where James had fought off the dozen agents earlier. I’d expected to see plenty of broken forms and from what Emily had said James’ body. There was no one. The space was completely empty.

  What was going on? Somehow Emily was able to recover all of her agents? In a matter of minutes? That didn’t make sense. She shouldn’t have been able to get away herself. Also, why did they take James’ body?

  What I did know was Sara, Alex, Laura and Rachael were all still with me. They were all either injured or unconscious, but still there. I walked back into the boat house to take care of them.

  It seemed the fight with Titan was over for the time being. They didn’t get what they’d wanted from us, they didn’t get Sara. They’d almost had her. I’d almost lost her again and would have if not for Laura’s help.

  I had so much to sort through, so much to figure out. For the time being though, I had friends and one outcast alien who needed my help. That was most important. Everything else could wait.

  CHAPTER 33

  The energy and anticipation coming off the crowd was incredible. So many people crammed into such a small club. It was only the third stop in the bands limited reunion tour. The tour was the first time all four members had performed together since 1996, when the band disbanded. They were only hitting small clubs and once it was announced The Glowing Jims were back together and going on tour, the shows instantly sold out. Lucky for us, Laura had connections.

  I was starting to finally settle into my new life. Alex and I had an apartment together downtown, only a few blocks away. Sara and Rachael lived next door. It was great getting to just spend time with all of them, especially Sara. Just being able to know her better was perfect. Since the little skirmish at the lake, things had been quiet, allowing us to focus on each other.

  Rachael finally woke the morning after Titan’s attack and like James, she remembered nothing of her time while she was under Titan’s control. We still didn’t know the name of the other agent who was with Rachael and James. We never found any sign of him, James or any of the others.

  Losing James was tough on all of us. Despite our feelings towards him when we were at the HUB together, he was ultimately the one who saved us, sacrificing his life for the rest of us. He was an incredible warrior as he proved that night. It’s just unfortunate the only part of his life he had any memory of before his death was our time at the HUB.

  We spent a good amount of time taking shifts at a small facility Laura had downtown. It was used as the base of operations for our search of those out there with abilities. It was also where we still held Peter, Lila and Darius. Peter was kept in a state of forced coma and we’d been trying to work with Lila and Darius, but so far without much success. The prolonged exposure to Peter’s control had really warped them. We hoped to be able to help them, to be able to have a break through soon.

  There were a few others who worked with us, others with abilities Laura had picked up along the way. The truth about where we came from, Titan and everything that had happened to us was kept from them. As far as they knew, we were just others found by Laura, just like them. The whole alien DNA thing was kept from them for now. It made things significantly less complicated that way.

  I hadn’t seen much of Laura since we left the lake. She seemed to stay busy with her various business ventures, though I still wasn’t clear on what all of those were. From what I’d gathered, no one was very clear about that. There was so much I wanted to discuss with her, so much floating around in my head I wanted to further substantiate with a face to face conversation. She knew that and her absence of late was her way to postpone the inevitable conversation.

  I told Sara, Alex and Rachael all I had learned from Laura. Honestly, I thought they were going to think I was crazy when I did, but I was wrong. They listened and trusted what I told them was true. Even though I knew it was true, I still had a hard time with it.

  Laura had showed me I was someone with a life and family and she personally took me from that. I knew some version of the girl and babies from my dreams were out there somewhere as well as parents, maybe siblings. Would I ever connect with any of them? I didn’t think so. Though I thought Laura would help me find them, they were out of my reach.

  Even if I was to try and take back that life, how would it fit with what I now had with Sara and the others? It was all too much to think about so I tried not to. For the time being I was happy, really happy with Sara. That’s all that mattered.

  I had to give Laura credit. She knew how to get things done. Somehow she was able to put a lid on everything that happened at the lake. An explosion, gunfire and a helicopter crash should have been events that were hard to hide, but she did it somehow. There was never a peep about any of it in the news.

  She also sent out anonymous wires to each of the banks I’d taken cash from, covering each unauthorized withdrawal I’d made over the past year, with interest. I hadn’t asked her to do that for me. I wanted to pay it back myself, but somehow she’d found my list and took care of it.

  On top of all that, I had the Land Cruiser back. Laura was able to find it. Not only that, it had a new engine, fully stocked weapons compartment and upgraded state of the art sound system. I had everything I loved. Life was good.

  “This is great!” Sara shouted, trying to be heard over the noise of the crowd.

  Alex looked less enthused with almost a pained look on his face. “Yeah, great.”

  I’d given everyone a punk 101 course sampling favorites from my extensive collection a few days prior. Alex and Rachael were less impressed, but Sara seemed to love it. When Laura sent over three tickets, Rachael said she’d take a shift at Laura’s facility that night so the three of us could go. Alex tried to insist, but he was the one who ended up at the club with us. Over the past couple of days I’d made sure Sara was up to speed with the entire Glowing Jims catalog.

  “You know, you didn’t have to come,” I said.

  “I know. I said I’ll give it a chance.”

  Weeks ago when I’d seen the poster advertising the show, the best I could have hoped for was to come and watch alone. I would have enjoyed the music, sure, but it would have been different, an experience, but a lonely experience. Now, I was there, feeling the energy of the crowd, together with the girl I loved and my best friend. I was sharing the experience with my family. The feeling was incredible.

  There was so much I needed to figure out, but in that moment none of it mattered. In that moment all that mattered were friends, family, love and great punk rock.

  The band stepped on stage. I looked over at Sara. The look of excitement on her face gave me a rush of incredible emotion. Not only did I love her in every p
art of her being, her looks, her wit, her kindness, her love, her ability to take down a helicopter with her mind, but she was a girl who appreciated good music. She was perfection wrapped up in a beautiful package.

  They started the rhythmic intro to a song I knew well, but the name escaped me. I wasn’t good with remembering song names. The crowd began to jump and Sara and I joined the action. I looked over at Alex. He shrugged and jumped with the rest of us.

  Epilogue

  “Mrs. Conner, your 10:00 is here,” a woman’s voice said over the intercom.

  “Thanks Maggie, send him on in,” Laura said.

  Her 10:00 was a meeting with a representative of the Langston Group, a Company that manufactured a certain synthetic alloy she needed for an upcoming contract ready to begin production. Langston held the patent for the alloy and from what she understood, quantity was in limited supply. She’d use the negotiation skills that had served her so well before to negotiate a supply contract at the meeting.

  The representative she’d be meeting with was Kyle Jaspers, one of the Co-founders of Langston and she’d tried for weeks to get the meeting set. Since the amount of material her Company would ultimately need was relatively small compared to the needs of other manufacturers and the price she was willing to pay much more, she felt confident a contract would be signed by the end of day.

  Laura stood as a man in a dark suit, light blue shirt and red tie walked in. He was a tall, solid built man with a pale sculpted face and dark brown hair peppered with some grey. She’d never met Kyle before, but she knew he wasn’t Kyle. She knew this man. She knew him very well.

  The tall man closed the door behind him and Laura stood rigid where she was.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I rescheduled your appointment with Kyle Jaspers for tomorrow afternoon. Your calendar was open and he was considerate enough to give me the meeting slot today,” the man said conversationally, with a polite smile.

  Laura wasn’t smiling.

  “What do you want?” she asked with tight lips and gritted teeth. “How did you find me?”

  “You underestimate me. Did you really think you could stay hidden when you are living a life so open here? All I needed was something to grab ahold of. You did a fair job at masking the ownership trail of the house at the lake, but did you really think I wouldn’t be able to find you?”

  He motioned around the office with his hands. “You look like you’ve done well for yourself, living comfortably.”

  “I’ve done alright. What is it you want? I haven’t changed my mind and you know you can’t touch me.”

  She wasn’t completely convinced of this, recent events had proven she wasn’t as untouchable as she’d once thought.

  The man put an expression of hurt on his face. “I didn’t go through all of the trouble to meet you here just to try and kill you. I have come to talk. Anyway, it is you who broke our agreement.”

  Laura spat. “So what is it exactly you want from me? I’m not going to turn them back over to you.”

  “Please. Let’s have a seat and talk about this in a more civil manner,” the man suggested.

  “There is nothing civil about what you do. I prefer to stand.”

  Laura stayed standing, but the man had a seat on one of the chairs at the front of her desk. “I hope you don’t mind if I sit.”

  Once settled in the chair, he continued. “Due to recent events I thought we should meet to ensure we both understand the agreement I thought we had. I’m willing to look past your little indiscretions over the past year and the setbacks you have caused to my operation if you can convince me you will stay out of my business. You stay away from mine and I will stay out of yours.”

  “I did what I had to do,” Laura said.

  “I know you think so, but it won’t happen again.” The conversational tone and smile were gone, replaced with a cold anger.

  Laura didn’t comment on the threat, but met his gaze in silence.

  “I know you think you are untouchable, but no one is invincible as we have proven to you. If you get in the way again, I will destroy you. You can keep your little pets for now. We now know where we made our mistakes before. They won’t be made again. The time is almost here for us to finally collect the reward for years of work. Once, I had hoped you would return to us, to me, at my side, but that hope is gone.”

  The man paused for a moment. “That hope vanished when you sacrificed one of your own kind, your family, your people, to protect your little pets. You have cost me much and I will not allow it again.”

  Laura stayed silent. The anger and hurt in her eyes matched that of the man across the desk. She knew she wouldn’t be able go back to sitting by as people, many of whom she now considered friends, even family were hurt. She knew a debate would get her nowhere though, not with him.

  The man stood and began to walk towards the door. Halfway across the room, he turned to face her once more. “One day you will regret your betrayal to your family, your people, but by then it will be too late. It’s already too late. I regret my daughter won’t be at my side when we take this planet and I bring hope and glory back to our people. Goodbye, Lairia.”

  At that, her father, the man her friends knew as Col. Caldwell, turned his back and walked out of the office. Laura moved towards the open door and closed it. The emotional flood gates she’d been holding tightly closed burst. She staggered away from the door and was able to stay on her feet for only a few seconds before dropping to the floor sobbing.

  She didn’t know how long she was on the floor but, after some time, the phone on her desk began to ring. She rose, took a few seconds to compose herself and picked up the ringing phone, her personal phone.

  “Hello,” she said weakly.

  “Laura?”

  She cleared her throat. “What is it Evan?”

  “It’s the prisoner, Peter. He’s gone.”

  Coldness moved over Laura at the thought of that monster once again on the loose. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”

  “Rachael was on duty last night. When I came in this morning, both she and Peter were gone.”

  “Did you look at the security footage?”

  “There is none. At 4:16 the tape goes blank and doesn’t return until 4:25. Peter was no longer in his holding room when the tape returned. I also checked the system to see when his room was last accessed. According to the system log, it wasn’t.”

  “What about the other prisoners?

  “They’re both still here.”

  Laura was silent for several seconds. What did it mean? Rachael was missing too?

  “Laura?”

  “Sorry. Please call the others. I’ll be there shortly.” She disconnected.

  ***

  Sixteen years earlier…

  Jeff tried his best to clear head as he ran down the dark suburban streets with a cool breeze at his back. He wanted to get the image of those two beautiful babies out of his head. They were his for so short a time. He knew they were better off with parents who were older and could actually take care of them. How could he have taken care of two babies while trying to finish high school? Any amount of rational reasoning didn’t numb the pain.

  Every few minutes or so, a car passed. Other than that, it was a peaceful evening. He’d been out for twenty minutes already and was singing a fast paced punk song in his head as he ran. It was the Ramones, but he couldn’t remember the title. He always had trouble remembering the names of songs, people and places.

  A bright light started to come up behind him. There was no sidewalk on the stretch of street he was on, but it was wide and he was all the way to the side for a passing car.

  The light got closer as Jeff ran. It got even brighter and he realized it should have passed him already. There was the constant hum of an engine and he recognized the vehicle was keeping pace with him. He turned his head to make sure he was out of the vehicle’s path when he was blinded by the light, much brighter than any car headlight. A sharp pain coursed through
his body for a few seconds before he was rendered unconscious and dropped to the ground.

  The dark truck parked behind Jeff’s motionless body and turned off its bright lamps. Both doors opened and two people stepped out, a young man and woman. Quickly, they moved to the motionless Jeff and the woman kneeled down to check his vitals using a hand held device.

  “He’s stable,” Lairia said as she stood.

  The man lifted Jeff by the shoulders with no apparent effort and quickly loaded him into the back of the truck. Once the truck was back in motion, Lairia pulled out another small hand held device and held it near her mouth. “We have number 9752 and are moving to the Dallas secure site.”

  “Understood,” a deep male voice responded.

  Lairia put the device away and sighed.

  The man driving the truck turned to her. “What is it?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. That’s three. Let’s call it a night.”