by Sean Platt
Brent felt like a sailor lost at sea, miles from civilization. Being just across the street from his family, without them knowing he was there, cut it deeper.
Brent met Ed’s eyes. “If I can’t be with my family, you may as well shoot me right now and end my misery.”
Ed rushed the space between the bucket seats, into the van’s depths. Brent barely had time to register what was happening before Ed had a gun in his hand, pressed hard into Brent’s left temple.
“You wanna die, do you?” Ed snarled. “That what you want?”
Though Brent was startled at first, there was comfort in the thought of ending it. He was fighting a battle he couldn’t win. There was no way Black Island would let him expose what happened. Why help them? Why not just end it all in the van? That would put a wrinkle in Black Island’s plans.
Brent met Ed’s eyes and he clenched his jaw. He nodded, “Yeah, do it.”
Ed stared, as if trying to decide whether Brent was bluffing. He wasn’t a man to bluff with — the kind to call your bluff, and make you regret it.
Brent waited for either an angry explosion or a gunshot to end it. He was so filled with rage, and admittedly, self-pity, he didn’t care what came next.
Brent whispered, “Please. Do it.”
Ed leaned closer, his voice now calm, “I felt sorry for you at first. But you know what? You’re a selfish asshole. You would risk the lives of your wife and son just so you can be with them? What the hell kind of man are you?”
“What?” Brent screamed, “I’m supposed to be the big, brave super secret agent man who alienates his wife and family so he can run off and play savior? How does it feel on that cross, Ed? Does it get lonely up there?”
Ed got in Brent’s face, eyes intense, but voice still surprisingly calm. “You don’t know the first thing about me. I don’t do this for love of country, or any other martyr bullshit. I do the things others won’t to protect my family. I sacrifice my life so that my family can continue to live. So don’t you lecture me,” Ed said, jabbing his finger hard into Brent’s chest.
Brent flinched, knowing he’d pushed the killer too far. To make matters worse, Brent knew Ed was right. Brent was being selfish. He hadn’t thought things through to their logical conclusions. If Black Island had a reporter killed, they wouldn’t think twice about killing his family. That was the last thing in the world Brent wanted, and he would gladly take 10 bullets rather than risk his son’s life.
While Ed might have been on target with his criticisms, Brent wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of telling him so.
Instead, he looked down at his feet and said, “Fuck it. Let’s go.”
“You sure?” Ed asked. “I don’t need you pulling any stunts up there. If you’re gonna play games, I’m not in the mood.”
“No, let’s get it over with, then you can do whatever it is Black Island wants you to do — either kill me, or leave. Just promise you won’t touch my family.”
“I promise,” Ed said. “Let’s go see Stan.”
Ed stood to the side of Stan’s doorway, just out of the peephole’s range, as Brent knocked on the door. They could hear the muffled sound of a TV blaring from the other side. Seemed Stan really loved 24 hour cable news.
Brent waited for the man’s response. While he’d been nervous about seeing Stan, just as he had been about seeing Luis, two people who — on this world — didn’t know him even though he felt as if he knew them, Brent now felt nothing. He was numb, wanting only to make it through whatever Ed needed him to do.
Ed reached over and knocked harder.
Still, no response.
Ed waved Brent aside, gun in his right hand, and tried the doorknob with his left. The door swung open slowly, revealing Stan’s living room.
Stan was sitting on the couch, facing away from them, staring at the television, broadcasting some story about another mass shooting.
The woman on the TV said, “Authorities say the death toll has risen t0 39, the highest for a school shooting in U.S. History. Police spokeswoman Kay Summers, wouldn’t say whether reports of … ”
“Hey, Stan,” Brent called out as they approached the couch, “I knocked, but you didn’t answer.”
Stan was still silent.
Ed thrust out his hand, palm hitting Brent’s chest, stopping him from taking another step.
Brent turned to see why Ed stopped him, when just behind Ed, near Stan’s bedroom, he saw two men in Black Island uniforms and closed-face black helmets approaching, weapons raised.
Brent tried to warn Ed with a yell, but Ed must’ve seen the panic in his eyes, or heard the men. In a few fluid movements, he pushed Brent to the carpet, spun, and emptied his gun at the men.
Gunfire thundered through the apartment as Brent fell, feeling as if someone had slammed bricks against both of his ears. He had no gun, so he scrambled toward the door, fleeing the crossfire.
It was over before he reached the door.
Brent turned around, hoping Ed wasn’t dead, glad to see that he wasn’t.
Ed dropped to his knees, on top of one of the two fallen men, and yanked the man’s pistol from his hand. He tossed it across the floor, toward Brent.
Brent looked down at the gun wondering if Ed was just tossing the gun aside or if he had intentionally given Brent a firearm. He wasn’t sure whether he should pick it up, or if Ed would misinterpret Brent’s actions as hostile.
Ed looked back at him. “Get the gun, close the door, and lock it. Stand back and shoot anyone who comes through it. Anyone.”
Brent nodded, grabbed the gun, and looked out into the hall, checking for more Black Island guards. The coast was clear. He closed the door, locked it, then stood waiting, hoping there wouldn’t be any more guards. Brent hadn’t shot a gun in nearly two years, and wasn’t a match for trained Guardsmen.
Ed ripped the Guardsman’s helmet from his head, revealing a young man with a buzz cut, who looked scared shitless. He was shot in the leg and turning Stan’s brown carpet red.
“How many more came with you?” Ed asked, calm as if the man and his squad mate hadn’t just tried to kill them.
“Fuck off,” he said, shaking.
Ed looked at the other fallen Guardsman, groaning on the ground. Ed shot him through his helmet.
Ed turned back to the man beneath him, “I’m going to ask once more. How many others came with you?”
“Just us,” the man said, eyes wide, lips trembling.
“What were your orders?” Ed asked.
“To kill Stan, then kill you and … him,” he said, nodding toward Brent.
“Who gave the order?”
“Don’t ask me that,” the man said, still shaking, though Brent couldn’t tell if it was from the pain of getting shot in the leg, or from fear of being killed by Ed; probably a mixture of both.
“Tell me,” Ed ordered, pushing the gun harder against his head.
The man choked, “Sullivan.”
Ed paused, though his face showed no emotion — surprise, anger, nothing. The man was marble, a quality Brent admired in Ed as much as he feared it.
Ed asked, “Why?”
“I don’t … don’t know,” the man said, shaking more now. “Please, don’t kill me. I was just following orders.”
“Sullivan’s orders? You’re sure?”
“Y … yes,” the man said.
“What were the rest of your orders?”
“W… what?” the man asked.
“What were you supposed to do once you killed us?”
“Call it in, have you picked up.”
“And then?” Ed asked.
Brent felt a cold chill. He wasn’t sure what Ed was fishing for, but found it impossible to focus on the door as instructed, instead waiting for the man’s next words.
The guard said, “Then we were going to go across the street and get his wife, son, whoever else was there.”
“And?” Brent asked, jumping into the questioning.
“Kill them,” the man said, looking at Brent, then back at Ed.
“Who else is on your list?” Ed asked.
“Nobody on my list, but we weren’t the only ones. They want everyone who knows anything. Everyone who was over there. And all of Stan’s little group.”
Ed shook his head, sighing.
“What about my daughter?” he asked. “Is she on the list?”
“I d … don’t know,” the man said. “I only know from some of the others, that the instruction were to g … get everybody.”
“Why the hell did they change their minds? I thought they were going to let me handle this.”
“I don’t know,” the man said.
“What do you know? Who else is in the field? Have any of the other targets been acquired?”
“I d … d … don’t … k … know,” the man said, his shaking getting worse.
“You don’t know anything else?”
“N … n … no,” the man said.
“Then what good are you?” Ed asked, then shot the man in the forehead before he could answer.
Brent fell back, startled.
Ed met his eyes. And for a moment, Brent felt as if the killer was sizing him up, deciding whether Brent was as worthless as the guard he just shot. And while 30 minutes ago Brent was ready to die, that was before he learned that his family was now wearing targets.
Brent felt a fire inside him he hadn’t felt since returning to Earth. “They’re going to kill us all!” he said.
Ed had yet to thaw, seeming to process their next move. He finally reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a phone, then dialed. After a minute, he hung up and redialed.
Again, no answer.
“She’s not answering,” Ed said, fear finally creeping into the statue’s voice.
“Who?” Brent asked.
“My daughter, Jade. They’re in a safe house, no outside contact. They aren’t answering the phone.”
Brent wanted to suggest that maybe they were out or something, but suggesting anything to Ed always felt stupid. His instincts were razors. If he thought something was wrong, it was.
“What should we do?”
Ed looked at Brent, oddly. He couldn’t tell if Ed was offended that Brent inserted himself into the question as a “what should we do?” when Brent had pushed Ed so hard just a while before. Brent had intended the “we” as a show of solidarity. They now shared a common enemy. And Brent would rather have Ed on his side than against him.
While Brent wanted more than ever to head across the street to Gina and Ben, to make sure they were still safe, he had to be cautious in broaching the subject. If what the Guardsman said was true, then Brent’s family was seemingly safe at the moment. Ed’s family, however, could be in immediate danger. Another team could have been dispatched to take care of them, and may have already done so.
“I’m going to my daughter’s,” Ed said, rooting through the dead men’s uniforms, gathering weapons and ammo. He handed Brent a gun and clip. “Here, take this one, instead.”
“Should I take a radio?” Brent asked, swapping guns, though he didn’t see much difference between them.
“No, they’ll either use them to track us or fry it so we can’t use them. They’re worthless.” Ed removed the radio from his belt and tossed it to the ground.
Ed looked up at Brent, “OK, now I think you should go get your family and get the hell out of town.”
“And go where?”
“Hell if I know, but if they stay there, I can’t promise they’ll stay safe. Obviously, you can’t go back to the room you were renting.”
“Then please,” Brent said, “come with me, tell my wife what’s happening. She’s more likely to believe it, and leave, if you vouch for me.”
“I don’t have time,” Ed said. “She was your wife, you ought to be able to find some way to reach her.”
“She had me arrested,” Brent said. “Things didn’t end well. She thinks I’m insane.”
Ed looked up at the ceiling and sighed, then back at Brent, “I’m sorry. I need to get out of here now. I don’t have time to play marriage counselor. Tell her to turn on the news, though. Tell her all this crazy shit going on, all the violence — it’s the alien infection. I don’t know if she’ll buy it, but it’s something.”
Brent wanted to argue, wanted to plead, but knew that despite everything, Ed would help if he could. But Brent wasn’t selfish enough to ask him to ignore his need to reach Jade as soon as he could.
“You’re right,” Brent said. “Thank you. I’ll figure something out.”
“OK,” Ed said, “Good luck, Brent. Now get out of here before they send more Guardsmen.”
Brent said, OK, looking down at the bodies and hoping he could convince Gina he wasn’t insane.
Thirty-Six
Mary Olson
There was a nightmare inside the machine.
The silence on this side was sickening. Mary could see Paola through the small glass window, her mouth open in a giant O as if screaming, but she heard nothing through the alloy walls. Mary could often feel her daughter, and as her own throat constricted, awful and raw, she knew it was Paola’s violent pain she was feeling.
“What the hell is happening in there?” Mary screamed at Marina, staring through the window, her eyes large with horror and rage as she stared at her daughter trapped inside the sparking coffin, kicking and thrashing. It looked like she was getting shocked from the inside as she kicked against the metal tube.
“I don’t know,” Marina said, sounding panicked. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Can you stop it?”
Without a word, Marina circled to the back of the machine, then disappeared from sight — Mary kept her eyes fixed on the window — as Marina kneeled to what must have been a control panel at The Capacitor’s bottom. Two seconds later the whir died, and the sparks stopped. There was a loud hiss, then an ear-splitting release as Marina circled back to the front, flipped a recessed catch on the front of the machine, and opened the doors.
Paola, who looked 13 again, fell from the parted doors, out of The Capacitor, and onto the floor before Mary or Marina could catch her. Mary fell to the floor beside her convulsing daughter, then wrapped her arms around Paola, pulling her daughter tight to her body, smothering Paola with kisses, rocking her back and forth, and whispering that everything would be alright, over and over.
When Paola finally stopped shaking, she looked up at her mother, wearing the same, innocent face Mary had watched evolve from a baby for the last 13 years, the same face she wore before her mother’s cut in the kitchen, before she went to the hospital to see what her healing could do, before their mad flight from Colorado, pushing the Volvo across three states to California in a desperate race for help. Paola tried to say something, maybe, Mary couldn’t be sure: eyes danced beneath her lids and something like mangled words croaked past her cracked lips.
“Honey?” Mary said, trying to hold herself together, unwilling to let her thoughts unravel and circle the worst.
Marina ran to the wall, slammed her thumb on a button, and screamed, “Dr. Phillips!”
“Honey,” Mary repeated, shaking Paola hard, needing her to feel the urgency. Paola stayed silent, lids slightly lifting, just enough for Mary to see how high her eyes had rolled up into her head, showing nothing but white. “Honey,” she said again, louder as she rocked her daughter harder.
Paola showed life by licking her lips, drawing a breath, and croaking a whisper. “It’s … in … h … ”
She tried for what seemed like forever to push another word through her blistered lips, but nothing came. Mary said, “It’s in what, Sweetie?” Then, after 30 seconds of waiting: “Just tell me what, Honey, then you can sleep, okay?”
Her heart pounded, waiting for Paola to answer. Finally, Paola licked her lips again, said, “It’s … in him,” almost in a whisper, then fell funeral silent.
Mary screamed as a man ran into the room.
He was sharply dressed in a well-tailored suit, a bright-blue tie looking especially blue against the deep black of his jacket. In his right hand he held a small, leather bag. “What happened?” he asked Marina, ignoring Rose and Mary.
Marina said, “I don’t know. The girl went into The Capacitor like two minutes ago, and it all went so … wrong … ”
Marina couldn’t finish her sentence. Mary thought it looked like she was losing her mind. Still focused on Marina, and ignoring everyone else in the room, the man Mary assumed was Dr. Philips asked, “When did this happen?”
Marina said, “Just now!”
“No,” he shook his head. “How long was she in The Capacitor before The Current went bad?”
Marina looked baffled, then after a pause said, “It happened right away … immediately … then her knees wobbled as if the truth was too heavy to hold her, and she sank to kneeling. Looking up at the doctor she added, “She was so much … older … before.”
The man frowned, more than worried. He turned from Marina and kneeled toward Paola. Mary screamed at the “doctor” before he made it halfway to crouching.
“You get the fuck away from my daughter!” Mary’s arms were snug around Paola. With all her strength she pulled her to a limp noodle version of standing and started dragging her daughter toward the door. “And stay the fuck away from me. All of you!”
Rose started to come toward her, apologizing, but Mary yelled at her, too. “No, Rose!”
Mary kept walking backward toward the exit, dragging Paola while the man and Marina both pleaded for her to stay and let them help.
“No!” Mary screamed.
The man opened his mouth to say something, but Marina shushed him by waving her hand.
Outside the study, Mary managed to lift Paola into her arms — grateful that she was back to her little girl — then used her remaining adrenaline to make it outside. She dropped Paola back to a languid lean against her body, then pulled out her phone and dialed 911 as the valet began to approach her.
“Get the fuck away from me!” Mary screamed before he made it halfway.