by Mark Tufo
“And neither can I,” I said, my resolve starting to break down under what seemed a relentless onslaught of emotions. “Beth, I contemplated suicide that day.”
Beth put her hand to her mouth, shock apparent on her face.
“I’ve never told anybody that. After all the good men that I killed while we were up there just so I could hold you again…” I left the sentence unfinished.
“You also killed a lot of monsters,” she added.
“When I realized what I had done and had not achieved the outcome I had hoped for, I didn’t see the reason in going on.”
“I had no idea,” Beth said.
“How could you, you left.”
Beth cried anew.
I grabbed her and pulled her close. “I’m not saying that to be mean, I’m just stating a fact.”
“Mike,” she started. “I needed to work my mind around everything that happened. I didn’t see the whole picture. You can’t hold me at fault for my naivety.”
“I don’t, Beth. I forgave you a long time ago, but I—as of yet—have not been able to forget you. But not for lack of trying.”
Beth winced. “You sound so cold.”
“The calluses around my heart have hardened this last year. If they hadn’t I wouldn’t be here.”
Beth gasped as Drababan pushed past her and the doorframe and walked in. He didn’t so much as soak up space as to redefine it. He was massive.
“Mike, I would like to talk to you.”
“Hey, Dee,” I said casually, pure relief coursing through my body. The tension had shattered like a clay pigeon under a hail of shotgun pellets.
In his best impression of a smile, Drababan noted Beth’s presence as best as his courtesies would allow. “Hello, small hu-man female that travels with bear cub.”
The smile appeared more like a snarl to Beth as she moved past me as casually as she could before answering. “The name is Beth.”
Drababan merely cocked his head and summarily dismissed her.
“Mike, I would like to talk to you,” Dee repeated.
I grasped Drababan’s huge forearm.
“What’s going on Drababan?” I asked.
Drababan pointed toward Beth.
“Beth,” she answered annoyed.
Drababan merely grunted.
“Beth,” she repeated much softer, as if hoping the big brute didn’t hear her and would now just ignore her completely.
Drababan stared intently at me, to Beth I think she thought that he was sizing me up for a snack. But when I answered him with an ‘It’s alright’ she knew it was more, she saw that we were communicating by our expressions, I think Beth was astounded. Not only had I made a friend of one of the things I was close enough to it to understand its facial expressions as minute as they may be. And what was more astounding was once Drababan had made clear he wasn’t comfortable talking in front of her, he still deferred to my will. She seemed to feel a little safer all of a sudden. “I’ll come back later,” Beth said looking over toward me.
I hoped I’d be gone, just being in her presence threatened to pull my heart from its location in my chest. Drababan paid her no attention as she departed.
“Mike, I smell fear.”
“Yeah, that’s probably me,” I answered in all seriousness.
“No, Mike, I smell anxiousness on you sometimes, but never fear.”
“What? You can smell anxiousness? What else? Forget it, I don’t want to know. Could you clarify who you are smelling the fear from?”
“That’s the problem, Mike. It is coming from so many sources and it is such a deep-rooted fear, I know that something is happening, but I barely get these silly little hu-mans to talk to me, much less tell me what is going on.”
“Not to make you feel bad, big guy, but do you think that it is just the fear when they spot your huge ass walking down the hallway?” If Drababan caught the slight he ignored it completely.
“That is part of it, as it should be,” he said and I would swear he was bragging a little. “But not all of it,” he added gravely. “It is the smell of the defeated. It is a desperate fear. As a commander of shock troops, I have smelled it from many different races.”
“I didn’t know.”
“How could you? Your small hu-man noses are not as adept at smelling as ours.”
“Not that, that you were a leader of men. I mean Genogerians.”
“My unit was among one of the most decorated in all the galaxy,” he said proudly, his chest puffing out.
“Fuck, you’re huge,” I said looking up to him. “What are your concerns, Dee? And please sit down, all the blood rushes out of my head when I have to look up that high.”
Dee did as I asked. “You must find a way to give your people hope, Michael. Desperate people will do desperate things.”
“When did you become a psychologist?” I asked him, semi-seriously.
“Living sentient beings are strikingly similar when threatened, Mike.”
“I think it’s anything living, Dee. It’s just that sentient beings have more ways to express their feelings. Even a lowly rabbit will bite in the end. It probably won’t be able to gnaw through a neck or anything but it could still draw blood.”
“I do not know of this ‘rabbit’ but I would fear anything that could chew through my neck.”
I laughed. “I’m sorry, buddy,” I told him. “I was referring to an old movie we used to watch. Television? The signals your ship intercepted.” I clarified when Dee looked like he didn't know what I was referring too.
“You will have to show it to me someday.”
“I hope we have that chance,” I told him in earnest. “Now back to the infusing of hope. One of our patrols came across some truly detrimental information.”
Dee closed his eyes.
“You tired, my friend?” I asked sarcastically. “Am I keeping you up? You want a pillow?”
“I know you jest with me, Michael, I am merely concentrating. I find that your fluorescent lights disrupt my ability to do that effectively.”
Now he had my interest. “You know sarcasm? I thought that was lost on your kind.”
Dee snorted. “Most of them, perhaps. But I have spent more time with your kind than any other, at least while they are not comatose.”
“Experimentation? Are you talking experimentation? Forget I asked—I don’t want to know.”
“I am beginning to understand that the tone in which one utters words has much more to do with the meaning than the actual words themselves. It is a form of deception? Correct?”
“I think it’s more a form of rudeness.”
“Yet you do it all the time,” Dee said, calling me out.
“Maybe we should move on to another topic.”
“That is not sarcasm.”
“Nope, that’s avoidance.”
“We will revisit this topic, I think.”
“Yay, I can’t wait,” I said clapping my hands together lightly.
Drababan opened up one large eye even sitting he had to look down at me. “I see that we have already come back to it.”
“Sorry, as a Bostonian, it’s ingrained. It’s as much a part of me as your green skin is to you.”
“You are saying it is genetic?” he questioned.
I thought long and hard, I wanted to be as truthful as possible. “Yes-yes, it is.”
“Funny, the scientists never spoke of this sarcasm gene,” he said, his eye closing again.
“Can we move on?” I asked.
“I am aligning my chakras so that they might better help me to understand your words.”
“Chakras?”
“That is your hu-man word for it; it is a similar concept to our sepitars, I figured you would know ‘chakras’, those are points of energy…”
“I know what chakras are, I just didn’t know you did and that you would know what to do with them. Although, why wouldn’t you? You are one of the most spiritual beings I have ever met.”
“I am ready to accept your words,” Dee told me.
I more than half expected him to pull his massive legs up in the Indian style of sitting with his hands folded in his lap. I would have had to hunt down a camera if that came to fruition.
“I’m still waiting,” he said when I didn’t immediately speak.
“Right. I’ve got a plan.”
This time both of Dee’s eyes opened in surprise.
“I get that a lot,” I said wonderingly. I spent about ten minutes laying the whole thing out for him.
“That will not work without me,” Drababan said as I wrapped up.
“I know. I could not volunteer you for something so dangerous, though, Dee. I wanted to ask you after I told you the whole thing.”
“We will probably die in this attempt,” Dee said, not out of fear. He had been processing the information and that was the obvious conclusion of the facts given. “We must go as soon as I have had a chance to commune with my god.”
“Are you sure, Dee? I mean, you just got your freedom and I am asking you to essentially die for a different species.”
“I will fight and I will die, Michael, because I now have my freedom. There is no power on your Earth that will prevent me from giving that up. I would rather die free than any other alternative. Wouldn’t you?”
“We’re a lot alike,” I told him.
“Except for the green skin and I am much, much stronger than you. Yes, we are very similar.” He snorted again.
“You’re the funniest alien I know.” And I meant it.
I could hear footsteps going past my door. They had initially slowed and then picked up when they heard the raucous, human-alien laughter that ensued, a pack of in heat cats must have been a more welcome sound, and still we roared.
***
“This was a lot funnier, when we were in my room,” I said to Drababan, as we got all our gear together in the long tunnel leading out to the western exit.
Dee snorted, thinking back a mere hour ago. Now he was all business. He looked a lot more intimidating now that he was out of his slave tunic and in full Genogerian shock troop regalia.
“You scare the shit out of me dressed like that,” I told him honestly.
“These are merely clothes, Michael, I am the same Genogerian underneath.”
“Thank you for that, Dee. That means a lot.”
“Sarcasm?” he asked trying to discern my true meaning.
“Not at all my friend, that was genuine.”
He pulled his maw back in his reasonable facsimile of a smile. It was terrifying to the uninformed and it wasn’t much better to those who knew it for the gesture it was.
Dee and I were closest to the exit hatch but we were by no means alone in that large tunnel. Although I wish we had been, it would have been much better than having to say the multitude of goodbyes that I was expected to go through. It added a finality to the event that I just wasn’t willing to accept, even if on some level I knew the inevitability of it.
“I’d like to come with you,” Dennis said as he grasped my hand.
“I don’t even want to go with me,” I told him.
“I’m serious,” he said sternly.
“So am I, my friend. Another person does not increase the odds of success. Stay here and do what you can if this doesn’t work.”
He nodded tersely and gave me a big hug. He pushed through the crowd before the tear that threatened to fall could be witnessed.
Paul came up next.
“I feel like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz,” I said.
“What? What are you talking about?” he asked, clearly confused.
“You know at the end when she’s saying all her goodbyes? It has such a finality to it, like she won’t be back.”
“Don’t you say that, or I’ll nix this whole fucking plan, do you understand me?”
“No, you won’t, but thank you for saying it. This is too important.”
“You stay safe, Mike, I’ll have the beer ready when you get back.”
“None of that canned shit,” I told him as we did our secret handshake learned so many years before.
“You got it.” Paul stepped back a pace or two as Beth came up.
I looked past Beth’s shoulder to see Tracy making her way over. I thought Beth better say what she wanted to say quickly or the big fight was going to happen here, not outside.
“I’ll be waiting for you,” she said with a longing in her eye.
“I wouldn’t hold your breath if I were you,” I said it more as a joke. I was hoping to ease the fear that was threatening to make my knees start knocking into each other. She took it a completely different way as she began to cry. “I’m sorry,” I said.
She threw her arms around me.
“It is a surprise to me that you hu-mans can stay hydrated with all the water you leak out of your eyes,” Dee said, looking at Beth.
“Not a good time for observation,” I told him quietly. Beth was squeezing so tight, I thought I might be blacking out due to lack of oxygen.
“Mike, you loved me once, can you find it in your heart to do so again?” she asked as she was so tightly pressed up against me we could have been a single entity.
Tracy made her perfect timing way up to us. She stood no more than two feet away. I watched as Paul subconsciously moved away. I placed my hands on Beth’s shoulders, gently pushing her away. She resisted at first. Tears cascaded down her face.
"Beth you're right I did love you once, more than anything on Earth or space for that matter but I've met someone who takes my breath away but also gives it back, what more could I ask for?" I asked, Beth looked devastated.
“You done?” Tracy asked. I wasn’t sure if it was directed at Beth or myself.
“Yeah, I think so,” I told her.
I was able to get Beth at arm’s length but she didn’t move any farther as Tracy came closer.
“I’m pregnant,” Tracy said flatly.
I fell against the close wall, grateful it was near enough or I would have gone on my ass.
“I was wondering when you were going to tell him,” Drababan said.
“You knew?” I asked Dee.
“I could smell it,” Dee replied as he went back to adjusting his uniform, no more troubled than if he had told me lunch was ready.
“And before you ask your next question and really make me mad, yes it’s yours!” Tracy shot at me.
I closed my mouth quickly, thankful she had cut me off at the pass. I think it must be a guy self-defense mechanism
“I… I didn’t know,” I stammered out. Very poetic I thought.
“Was this really the best time to let him know?” Dee asked Tracy.
I literally watched as the anger began to flare in her.
Paul stepped back even more. “Bad move,” he stage-whispered to Dee.
He looked down at me. “I am merely saying that we are about to embark on a dangerous mission and the odds of survival are already slim.”
Beth hitched a breath and started to cry anew.
Dee continued uninterrupted. “It is imperative that Mike concentrate solely on the mission and you have now given him news that will keep him distracted.”
Tracy jabbed a finger in Dee’s thigh, I don’t think he even felt it. “I told him, you oversized piece of luggage, because I wanted to give him reason to come back!” she cried.
I still did not feel that I had recovered from the initial shock well enough to join back in the conversation even though it was revolving around me. My next question was almost ‘How?’ I’m sure that would have perfectly diffused the situation.
“Are you going to say anything at all?” Tracy asked me, unwillingly to come any closer, but threatening to head farther away if the wrong answer was issued from my lips.
Beth’s sobs had diminished somewhat but they had slowed sufficiently so that she could also witness my response. The entire hallway, which was full of people, had directed all of their attention on me. I felt like an act
or without a script. I was about to be judged on the merits of my actions in those next few seconds.
“I hope he doesn’t have your temper,” I said. I think I heard a piece of dust fall at the far end of the hallway and then Dee let out a large guttural laugh.
“That is funny to me!” Dee roared.
He was immediately followed by the majority of people there.
Tracy was caught in confusion, I grabbed her before she could come to the wrong conclusion.
“I love you,” I said trying to whisper, but the laughter was still too loud. “I’ll be back,” I said into her ear.
Beth melted back into the crowd.
“You’d better be,” she said, wrapping her at first stiff arms around my neck and then sufficiently loosening up and melting into my arms. “What about Beth?” she asked, pulling far enough away to see my eyes as I spoke.
“Who?” I asked and meant it.
She gripped me tighter. It was a few minutes longer before Paul tapped me on the shoulder. I looked over to him. He was pointing to his wrist in the universal, ‘We’re running out of time’ gesture.
The murmurings ceased as a tunnel guard began to spin the wheel on the exit hatch. I kissed Tracy and headed out into the day, Dee close behind. As the hatch closed behind us it once again blended in perfectly with the local fauna.
“Clever camouflage,” Dee said.
“I don’t feel as good about this as I once did. How are they not going to see through this? We both have to be on the Progerian most wanted list,” I said, now unwilling to move much farther away from the Hill.
“We do not rely on visual cues like your species to recognize each other. It is pheromone based.”
“Even with humans.”
“Especially with humans,” Dee said. “You all look alike.” And then he snorted.
“This funny for you?”
“I like humor Michael, my people should adopt more of it. We would be better for it.”
“I don’t know, Dee, your smiles scare the crap out of me.”
“Here, I prepared a solution that will mask our scents sufficiently for us to gain entry into the compound,” Dee said, handing me an old glass cleaner bottle full of a liquid that suspiciously looked like piss. I unscrewed the cover to get a better whiff.