“Saving people…” She looked off in the distance, no doubt struggling to absorb everything that she had just been told.
“I know it’s a lot to take in —” he started, but his mother spoke over him.
“I always knew there was something going on in the background. Something that I didn’t fully understand. Your father was so secretive sometimes. I guess I just thought you took after him.”
“Well, I do take after him,” Shaun chuckled. “In more ways that one. But, I’m guilty that I left you out of the loop for so long.”
She blinked a few times against the sunlight, then looked at him directly. “Why are you telling me all of this now? All those images on the news — when we were split up — was that you flying around, fighting those aliens?”
Shaun nodded.
“I hoped that it would be over by now, but it’s not. It’s just getting started. I’m telling you now because me and Mae are going to have to go and try to fight the aliens again. We’re the only people that have a chance of saving all of us.”
“You and Mae? You mean she’s got powers, too?”
“Yes.”
There was another stunned silence, then Mrs. Boding fell back and brought a hand over her eyes. Her laughter caught Shaun off guard, and he also joined in the chuckling.
“I can’t believe that this is our lives now,” said Mrs. Boding. “Half of the people closest to me are superheroes. And here I thought that you were going to leave all that behind when you stopped writing your father’s comic.”
“There’s no way I’m leaving it behind,” Shaun assured her. “It’s engrained in me, literally. And I can’t ignore it, the same way that Dad couldn’t ignore it, and Grandpa couldn’t. I’ve been given this gift, and it’s my responsibility to use it for good. Right now, that ‘good’ is to go back into the city and figure out a way to save us all.” He reached out a hand and placed it on hers. “I just need you to know that I’ll be alright. These secrets…me rushing off without an explanation…that’s in the past. Starting right now, I want us to be on the same page.” There was a pause, with the wind blowing between them. Then, “Unless you think differently.”
Mrs. Boding’s brows raised, and she let out a single forced laugh.
“What difference does what I think make on the situation? I can’t change any of this. You have powers. So does Mae. I might still be worried about you two, and it’s terrifying, but me worrying won’t change it.”
Shaun was encouraged, squeezing her hand slightly.
“So, you’re not mad at me for keeping this a secret for so long?”
“Shaun — of course not! A young man has to have some secrets that he keeps just for himself. Even if those secrets are super powers that are beyond anything his mother can understand.” She reached out and placed a hand on his arm, squeezing it. “Sometimes the things we are called to do are terrifying, but we do them because it’s the right thing. It doesn’t mean that I won’t be terrified that you are putting yourself in danger. I will always worry about you out in the world. But, at least I’ll know that you’re out there making a difference.”
Shaun couldn’t believe that he was getting this much support after so many years of having to cover up his hijinks. Without knowing if this would be the last time he would be able to do it, he gave his mother a hug.
“Thanks, Mom,” he said. “I know this is what I’ve got to do.”
They parted and his mother looked at him for the first time as a man. She smiled, half with worry, half with pride, and stepped back.
“Then go do what you have to,” she said.
25
The Arrival
The journey back to Boston was hair-raising. Not only were they both flying over the East Coast without any sort of protection, but they were terrified that at any moment Zolyn was going to pinpoint them and ruin their plans before they even began.
Shaun used his visor, even with its crack, to keep track of all the visual information around him.
Traffic was backed up all over the place. Shaun wondered where the heck people thought they were going to go. True, the alien invasion was only a single alien now, but Zolyn was capable of traveling through the air the same as he and Mae were doing, which meant that she could cross great distances in a short amount of time. No matter where you went, she could always beat you there.
He gritted his teeth and led the way, trying to shake the anxiety from his mind.
The tall buildings of Boston soon appeared over the horizon. Mae swooped down low to follow the train tracks and highway, with all of those things leading them into the heart of the city.
There were telltale signs of new destruction mixed with the old, though Shaun couldn’t really tell if the destruction was due to Zolyn or other people causing trouble and confusion.
Smoke rose from a few buildings, and there were emergency responders trying to get through the massive river of cars so that flames could be put out. On a normal day, Shaun would have stopped to help. But, they were on a mission. He needed to keep focused so that they could get in and out.
Do you think she knows that we’ve escaped by now? asked Mae telepathically.
Shaun didn’t know the answer to that. If she knew, they would only find out by running into her. He hoped that they didn’t.
Let’s not waste time worrying about that, he replied. If we detect her in the ship, let’s assume that she’s discovered that we’re gone. If she’s not there, then it doesn’t matter. We have only so much time to find one of those capsules. Maybe even a few of them, in case something goes wrong.
Got it, Mae replied, and they both made a direct line for the waterfront. Smoke had stopped billowing from the crash site from the night before, so that made it harder to find the exact pier where it had landed. Even so, Shaun spotted the location by the high security around it.
There was a large spread of cop cars lining the street where the roadway led to the crashed pier. Their lights glittered, even in the sunlight. Officers with heavy body armor were standing guard along a fence that separated the scene from the public’s access. There was also the glint of the sunlight off the shiny material that the space craft was made of when the got closer to a large stretch of piers.
“There it is,” he muttered. “I don’t think that Zolyn is here. Otherwise these cops would be history.”
“Right,” Mae agreed. “We’ll know how this all plays out soon enough. Land over to the side so that we don’t have to deal with the cops.”
They both touched down behind some other buildings, obscuring the ship from their line of sight. This way they wouldn’t be spotted right off if Zolyn was in the vicinity.
Mae brushed her hair out of her face and pressed her lips together.
“Alright, are you ready?” she asked.
He nodded. “Let’s get closer.”
26
Into The Ship
It felt like they were in some sort of first-person-shooter video game. He had his hands up, prepared to attack at the first sign of movement. They hurried efficiently and as quietly as possible towards the hole where the ship lay. Shaun stepped over pieces of broken wood and shattered concrete. There was rubble everywhere.
This was actually the first time that Shaun was able to really take in the image of the ship since this entire debacle began. All of the other times he had been around the ship, he was either trapped inside, or fleeing for his life. That hardly left him a chance to truly study the alien craft, aside from what he saw on the news broadcasts.
What struck him was the size and shape of the ship. It was designed like a tear drop, with all of the navigational areas seeming to be collected in the bulbous section. The long, sharp tail of the craft made it extremely aerodynamic, which was to be expected. The entire thing was roughly the length of a semi-truck, and its heigh, from what Shaun could see in the crater, was about two human floors high. The tail of the craft actually stood up slightly, poking over the edge of the crater in the concret
e platform.
Markings on the exterior of the craft were minimal. As with the inside, everything was a glistening porcelain color, glossy and always appearing to be wet. It wasn’t, however, as Shaun got close enough to reach out and touch the craft with his fingers. The surface was warm. Was there some sort of energy running through the entire craft to give it that constant heat? It was difficult for Shaun to figure out if the craft was powered up or not due to the lack of markings or other lights, such as he would have seen on a passenger plane. This craft was like a smooth egg, aside from the narrow rectangular opening that served as the doorway on the side. The door itself, which would close flush and blend in to the rest of the siding, was floating just beside the rectangular door frame.
Everything floating, thought Shaun. It seems to be the way these aliens work. Force fields and all that. And we can barely make anything that doesn’t fly with a jet engine…
“There’s nobody here,” said Mae from her spot at the lip of the crater. The two of them explored on the side of the craft that faced the waterfront. This insured that they would not be disturbed by the police on guard.
“You’re right,” said Shaun, activating his vision data on his visor. The light illuminated what he was looking at so that he could see in greater detail. With a quick scan, he didn’t find anything resembling an energy spike. Such a reading would have notified them that Zolyn was in the vicinity. Right now, there was nothing. “We’re good to go,” he said. “You stay here, and I’ll go inside. Alert me immediately if you notice anything out of the ordinary.”
“Of course,” said Mae. Then, before Shaun could slip into the ship, She hurried forward and planted a kiss on his lips. “Good luck. I’ll be watching out for you.”
Despite the circumstances, Shaun’s cheeks reddened.
“Thanks,” he said. “I needed that.”
“Me too,” Mae replied with a slight smile. Then she turned and went back to her post to keep an eye out for Zolyn.
All that was left was for Shaun to get inside and find the capsules…which was easier said than done.
He tried to remember the layout of the ship from when they when they originally escaped from the ship, but he had been acting under such tunnel vision that his memory was not much help. Everything was fragmented.
He found himself in a long corridor with walls that sloped into an elegant archway overhead. A single strip of recessed light ran along the top of the ceiling, guiding Shaun along, past doorways on either side. He could register the doors, but they were closed. The only way that he knew they existed was a ring of light, the same as the strip along the ceiling, that outlined the doors. There was no handle or anything to break the smooth illusion.
The corridor was not very long, and it ended in two more doorways on either side. One of those was open, while the other was closed, the same as the first two doorways that Shaun encountered.
“I know where that leads,” he muttered to himself. That open doorway was the one that headed down another corridor, ending at the lab where he and Mae had been trapped, deep within the ship. Presumably that corridor ran lengthwise with the ship and ended near the pointed tail of the craft. Right now, to Shaun’s left, were the doors that contained the navigational spaces of the craft.
Were they worth investigating?
Shaun paused at the first one and examined it carefully. There had to be some trick to opening these doors…
He waved his hand in front of the door to see if he could spot any inconsistencies with his shadow. There was nothing. Maybe he could find a spot that needed to be depressed in order to trigger the door’s mechanism?
He placed his hand on the edge of the door’s cutout and felt around for a button or some other bit of technology that might open the door. Immediately upon placing his hand on the door, the ring around it turned green and pushed back against him. It actually came as a shock to him, and he jumped back.
The door was opening automatically! A hiss that sounded like a used-up aerosol can filled the corridor, then everything went silent once more. As with the main entrance to the ship, this door hovered in place for a second then slowly shifted to the right so that it was stacked against the wall like a playing card.
Once his pulse stopped racing, Shaun was able to laugh at himself for jumping so hard.
“I guess that was easy…”
Or maybe it was just dumb luck. Either way, he was now able to roam around a new space that may or may not have what he was looking for.
The room that he stepped into was not extremely spacious, but he didn’t have to duck to fit inside. He was thankful for that. This space was a bit more detailed than what he had seen so far during his time in the ship. The most obvious signifier that this was a navigation room was the set of glowing lights that extended from what appeared to be a sheet of white glass on the far wall.
This had to be the control system. Right in front of this was a raised platform, also without any sharp edges. These aliens didn’t like things to appear boxy or crips. Everything was sleek and recessed. Looking at the space above this sheet of controls, Shaun could vaguely see the outdoors. The window was dimmed somehow, like a computer monitor that had been left on too long and was in rest mode.
Maybe this place really is surging with energy all the time, thought Shaun. He was literally standing in a giant computer.
The real question was if the cabinet containing the capsules was in here or not.
He started sweeping the room, checking all the spaces for anything else that might signify a cabinet or storage container of any type. This wasn’t particularly hard to do, or even time consuming, because the only visible items in the space were the sitting platform and the control panel. Anything else had to be hidden within the walls.
“Well, it worked on the door,” said Shaun, and he started running his hand along the walls.
Nothing happened at first. The walls were just walls. But, when he made it to the right side of the room where the wall wrapped around, Shaun’s fingers activated some kind of hatchway because a ring of light suddenly blinked on.
He stopped, holding his hand in place. Was this the cabinet?
“Mae, I think I might have found it,” he said out loud, hoping that she was paying attention to him.
Really? she replied. That was faster than I thought.
With his hand pressed firmly against the tiny doorway, which was only about a foot long on each side, the tiny cubby was opened the same way that the door to the cockpit had opened. As the door floated to the side and hung in the air, Shaun looked within at a relatively small storage space.
“Well,” he started as he glanced quickly through the opening. “That…isn’t exactly what I was looking for.”
What is it?
“I can tell you what it’s not,” he replied. “It’s not a capsule. But, it does look like it’s important…”
The item was a disc, about a centimeter thick. When Shaun reached out to touch it, lights illuminated around the edge of it. Symbols that he didn’t recognize. Then a single light appeared in the center of the disc, a bright blue, and from that light was projected a screen of information.
“It looks like some sort of data system,” he told Mae. “Maybe it’s like an archive of this alien species’ history.”
Can you fit it in a pocket?
He slid it into his pocket easily.
“Yep, it’s secure.”
Alright. Keep moving. We don’t know how much time we have. Those capsules need to be found.
Shaun left the control room and made his way across the hall to the other door. This one, to his frustration, did not open when he touched it. Instead he saw the ring around the outline glow red, pulsating violently.
“Oh great,” he said, stepping back.
What is it?
“The door across the hall didn’t open. It’s flashing red.”
Is there an alarm going off?
“Not that I can hear…but you never know.”
Even if there isn’t an alarm, said Mae, try to make it through the rest of the rooms as quickly as you can. I’ll keep watch.
A new sense of urgency threatened to cripple him. He was already stressed that Zolyn might show up at any time, and now he was worried that there was an alarm telling the alien menace that there was some unauthorized person in the ship causing trouble.
He set off at a brisk pace, running his hand along the third door he encountered. This one opened without an issue, but there was nothing inside, even when he dragged his fingertips along the wall. He wondered what this space was for. Simply storage? Sleeping quarters? Did these Xantherians even sleep?
With nothing obvious, he made his way through the fourth door, which was open and led into the corridor that ended in the lab. There were two doors, with one leading to the lab. This one was open. Another door across the corridor was not open, and it lit up red, locked.
All I can do is look through the lab, he decided, and wasted no time in going inside to check over everything.
This space was the one with the most objects. Not only did he see the table that he had been strapped to, but there was the chair that Mae had been seated in, along with the three platforms holding the energy siphons. There was also the rest of the room, which had been hidden behind Shaun when he was locked up, and he laid eyes on it for the first time now.
A frosted glass-like sheet extended from the middle of the back wall, the same way that the control panel had. This one was also covered with glowing lights. Were those buttons? It was impossible to know what they did, and Shaun was nervous to go touching anything that resembled controls of the ship. The last thing he wanted was for the ship to launch with him on it, and him having no way to know how to direct the ship.
The Aberrant Series (Book 4): Super Invasion Page 16