by Rae Knightly
Ben thought he saw a sly smile creep onto the shapeshifter’s face. “Who said anything about working for the A’hmun?”
“What? But you…”
“Enough!” Connelly snapped. “Don’t try to delay me any further.” He hopped out of the van. His teeth reflected the cold floodlights, and before slamming the doors, he said, “Watch for fireworks.”
***
Connelly stepped out of the elevator on the bottom floor of the Dugout and smiled. His spacecraft hovered before him, sleek and black, waiting for him. He had longed for this moment for so long. Finally, the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. Not only would he get rid of Mesmo and his team, but he would return to the Mother Planet with a coveted prize: the translation skill.
These months of hardship, posing as Agent Connelly, had paid off, and he was going to enjoy every moment of the coming hours.
But first, he had to clear the area so he could operate undisturbed. He walked to his vessel, savouring every moment of his imminent victory while soldiers and men in lab coats went about their business around the hangar. He reached for the spacecraft’s smooth surface, his fingers tingling with anticipation, and instantly the door mechanism obeyed his touch, sliding open to reveal the inside.
As he hopped on board, he caught sight of a couple of men in lab suits stopping in their tracks, their eyes popping out of their heads.
Connelly chuckled. “Better scamper, cockroaches,” he muttered as he closed the door behind him.
He immersed himself in a regenerative light, recovering his normal traits through satisfying waves of pain.
As soon as he was done, he slipped into the pilot seat, cleared the front window, and began activating the vessel, taking no notice of the cries of alarm from stunned men that gathered in the hangar. The spacecraft started vibrating ever so softly with a low, constant buzz, indicating that an inner mechanism had been brought to life.
Bordock swiped at screens and symbols that materialized before him. The spacecraft huffed and emitted a low, repetitive hum.
The shapeshifter skimmed over symbols that scrolled down in mid-air to make the constant throbs more pronounced. Bluish light left the craft and washed over the hangar. Walls on the far side rippled. Each vibration coming from the spaceship caused the concrete to crack, sending men scrambling in all directions. Red alarm lights whirled and sirens blared.
Inevitably, thick blocks began to detach themselves from the floor above, then crashed to the floor of the hangar. Soldiers dashed for the stairs like miniature ants.
The blue shockwaves turned orange, then red, rising in intensity, causing destruction as soon as they hit anything in their path. Thick slabs fell from above, some landing with a deep thud on the craft, but Bordock only smiled and increased the destructive power.
One after another, the consecutive floors that imprisoned the spacecraft from above came crashing down on the hangar floor.
***
The taxi came to a stop next to a back alley. Hao checked the shadows for signs of life, then, seeing none, paid the taxi driver and clambered out of the vehicle. The driver sped off into the night, leaving Hao on his own.
He checked the time on his phone. It was one o’clock in the morning. Eight hours had passed since the alien had been arrested not far from this Toronto street; three hours since Laura Archer had contacted him and told him to meet her here.
Good thing the High Inspector hadn’t confiscated his CSIS badge yet. Hao had taken a helicopter from the Dugout to Toronto in no time. He needed answers, and he needed them soon before Connelly managed to find a way to kick him out of the Intelligence Services altogether.
Hao tightened his grip on his crutches and made his way down the dark alley, realizing he could very well be walking into a trap with no means to defend himself.
Large garage doors led to a dark warehouse filled with boxes. Hao stepped in courageously and placed himself in the centre of the storage place. His phone buzzed in his inside pocket. He hurried to silence it without even glancing at the screen, then scanned the darkness. “Laura Archer!” he called. “I’m Inspector James Hao with the CSIS.”
A mild breeze swirled into the warehouse, lifting dust and crumpling sheets of plastic that covered scaffolds in the back.
“Ms. Archer?” he repeated.
Only silence greeted him, and for a minute Hao figured he had lost a precious three hours.
He clicked impatiently with the crutches on the ground when a woman’s voice spoke from the gloom. “Where are the others?”
Hao squinted and thought he saw a shadow standing by the scaffolds. “What others?”
“I’m turning myself in. Where’s your backup?”
Yes, the woman was standing behind the sheets of plastic, Hao confirmed. He shifted to face her better. “It’s just me,” he said.
The shadow detached itself from the back and stepped towards the exit.
“Wait!” Hao called, realizing she could make a run for it. “I’m unarmed.”
The woman slowed down. “I don’t trust you,” she said.
“Look at me,” Hao urged. “My leg’s broken. I’m on crutches, for goodness sake! It’s not like I can catch up with you.”
She studied him from a safe distance. “I turned myself in to be with Ben,” she said, then backed away. “I’ll find another way.”
“Hold on!” Hao called after her. “I understand that you don’t trust me. But I came on my own because I need to talk to you about my partner, Agent Connelly.”
This made Laura Archer pause.
She knows something! he realized.
Out loud, he said, “I need to understand what’s going on. I need you to tell me what you know, one-on-one.” Because she seemed to hesitate, he added, “Talk to me, and then I promise I’ll take you to see the boy.”
Her voice trembled. “Is he alive?”
“He is, but he’s in some kind of a coma.”
He heard her sob.
“He’s being treated by our best doctors, Ms. Archer, you can count on it,” he added quickly.
She stepped forward hesitantly, a service light illuminating her face. “All right. Stay where you are,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
“First off, tell me about Benjamin Archer.”
“What about him? He’s my son.”
“We have his blood sample. It’s like nothing we have ever seen before. It’s not…human.”
She approached him slowly and regarded him with cold eyes. “And that blood sample, who took it?”
“My partner, Agent Co…” Hao broke off, and then it hit him.
She watched his reaction and nodded. “That blood sample didn’t come from my son,” she said. “Your partner extracted it from himself. You’ve been chasing the wrong suspects this whole time.”
Hao’s mouth went dry. The past months flashed before his eyes. “But how?”
She stood before him now. “The one who calls himself Agent Connelly is not who he says he is. His real name is Bordock. Bordock killed the real Agent Connelly on the night of The Cosmic Fall and took on his appearance. He is a shapeshifter.”
Hao felt the blood drain from his face. “An alien…?”
Laura nodded.
Hao staggered back a few steps and plopped down on a box. “Agent Connelly…” he whispered, thinking back. “…was the first to arrive at the crash site…”
“Yes, the real Agent Connelly is among Bordock’s growing list of victims. You see, Bordock shot down the spaceships that crashed on the night of The Cosmic Fall. Only one occupant survived, and Bordock wants him dead. That’s why he took on the form of a police officer to infiltrate the CSIS. He’s been using your organization to track down his enemy.”
“Your alien friend?”
Laura nodded again. “Yes. His name is Mesmo.” She bent on one knee to be level with him and held his gaze. “Please, you’ve got to help me. Mesmo and Ben are at Bordock’s mercy right now. You’ve got to take
me to them.”
Hao rubbed a hand over his face, thinking about what she had said. As crazy as the whole thing sounded, her explanation joined the pieces of the puzzle that were scattered in his mind. He had seen some crazy things in the past weeks, but this one topped all of them. Had he really been duped? Connelly’s face hovered before his eyes. Instinct told him she was telling the truth, and so he decided to believe her.
“I’ve been going about this all wrong, haven’t I?” he said, half to himself. He tugged at his bottom lip, going over the different events of the past months. The mistakes I’ve made…!
Laura cast him a look of sympathy. “It’s not your fault. Bordock had us all fooled.”
Yes, but I trained years for this. I should have seen it long ago. Hao cast her a sombre look, trying to process the information. “Don’t get me wrong, Laura Archer. I was only doing my job. I needed to determine whether The Cosmic Fall posed any threat to our people, our nation, possibly even to our world. You and your son’s constant evasion of the law was highly suspicious.”
“We had no choice but to run,” she said. “Bordock–your partner–wants to see us dead, too, even though the enmity between Bordock and Mesmo has nothing to do with us. Mesmo is no threat. He just wants to get home alive…”
“But what are they doing here? Are they planning an invasion?” Hao burst out.
To his surprise, Laura gave him a wry smile.
“I asked Mesmo the same thing, not long ago,” she said. “But no, his people are no danger to us. He says small teams visit Earth at regular intervals. They do that all over the universe, to gather observations and knowledge, but nothing else.”
“What about this shapeshifter? Why would he want to see you dead?”
Laura became even more restrained. “We’ve been helping Mesmo since he arrived. I guess that hasn’t been to Bordock’s liking.”
“…and yet,” Hao pointed out, “It is this Bordock–the very man you have been trying to avoid–that you tried to contact at the CSIS to turn yourself in…”
Laura cast her eyes down. “I figured he’d take me to Ben. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Hao stared at her in stunned silence. She’s willing to risk her life to be with her boy…
His phone buzzed in his inside pocket. He reached for it, but just then the sound of a roaring engine filled the warehouse. A black van screeched to a stop in the middle of the exit, its front lights blinding them. Side doors flew open and half a dozen men rushed towards them threateningly.
“Watch out!” Hao yelled, shoving Laura behind him.
One of the men charged him. He barely had time to react, when the sharp contact of the man’s knuckles on his chin knocked him over. Everything went dark.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Last Key
Ben sensed more than felt the vibrations that began to shake the ground.
He didn’t register them right away because the pressure coming from the four black boxes had become unbearable. His spirit was squeezed too tight, his thoughts scrambled. He knew Beetrix was calling him from somewhere far away, but he couldn’t concentrate on connecting with her with all his energy going into surviving the suffocating quicksand that pressed on him from all sides.
The van lurched loudly. His eyes flew open. Through the side windows of the van, Ben caught sight of shadows of running soldiers stretched before the LED floodlights. The vehicle trembled.
What’s going on?
His mind felt as though it suffered from high fever, and things became distorted. The van lurched again, and a rumbling sound came from deep within the ground. Then again. And again.
Ben gasped.
A LED flood light teetered and crashed, the earth shook as if a superhuman being was hitting it repeatedly with a giant hammer, and to his horror, Ben watched as the lonely concrete building crumbled in on itself and disappeared.
The ground where it had stood turned into a gaping hole, the sides of which continued to be eaten away by the shocks until it was wide enough to fit a full-sized house.
Ben yelled, willing the destruction to stop. Suddenly, it did. The earthquakes died down, the rattling walls of the van settled, and the night reclaimed its silence.
A branch thudded onto the roof of the van, making Ben yelp. He strained his neck to glance through the windows. Where once there had been an open area surrounded by trees, now red steam swirled out of a deep wound in the ground resembling the mouth of a seething volcano.
Ben’s mind spun with one terrifying thought:
The spacecraft is free to leave!
***
Hao groaned. His chin burned. He wanted to rub it but found his hands bound behind him.
“Inspector!” a hushed voice called beside him. “Are you all right?”
He forced himself to a sitting position, wincing as he moved his leg, forgetting it was in a cast.
“Inspector!” the woman insisted, and he remembered Laura Archer.
He shut his eyes tight for a second and moved his jaw from side to side to lessen the pain. “It’s James, actually,” he said, then noticed the fear in her eyes. She sat beside him, equally bound. This is no time to be a wisecrack.
Not far off, an irritating sound distracted him. His phone lay on top of a pile of boxes five feet away, humming endlessly. Too far, he thought.
He checked around him and found four thugs standing behind them, waiting. Waiting, for what?
It didn’t take long for him to find out. Two other thugs lowered a wheelchair from the van, its headlights bathing them in such a bright light that Hao had to squint. The person sitting in the wheelchair rolled over to them smoothly, indicating it ran on an electric motor. Hao tensed, his senses on high alert.
The person stopped before them, the van headlights catching his facial traits. It turned out to be an old man. He wore a white goatee, his longish grey-white hair gathered in a short ponytail at the back of his head. His slanted eyes observed them without a hint of emotion. He waved a hand with long, knobbled fingers at the phone.
Immediately, one of his men shut down the buzzing sound, then stood on guard by his side.
When no-one moved, Hao ventured, “I work for the federal secret services. Whatever this is about, you should be dealing with me. Let the woman go.”
The old man ignored him and said something Hao did not quite catch, but which he understood to be Mandarin, a language he spoke from his childhood days.
In response, one of the thugs grabbed Laura by the arm, making her yell.
“Wait! What are you doing?” Hao shouted.
The thug pulled at something around Laura’s neck. Whatever it was, it broke off easily.
“That’s mine! Give it back” Laura objected.
The thug brought what Hao gathered was a necklace with an object attached to it to the old man, who studied it with interest. Then he stared at them again. He spoke slowly, searching for English words. “You must forgive the rough treatment,” he said. Once more, he waved a hand, and the thugs responded as if they could read his every thought.
Hao felt the bonds slip from his wrists. He frowned at Laura, who was also freed.
“We had to be sure it was you,” the old man said. “We mean you no harm.”
Hao glared at the thug who had punched him in the chin and got a cold look in return. “If you mean us no harm, then release the woman,” Hao insisted.
“All in good time,” the old man said. “It is she I have come to talk to.”
Hao glanced at Laura in surprise, but she seemed as perplexed as he. His phone hummed again.
The old man glanced at it, unfazed. “There isn’t much time.” He turned his attention to Laura. “The Observer has sent us an urgent message. You have been of invaluable assistance to him so far, and you have put yourself in great danger. Yet, I must ask you to continue to do so, for the Observer’s mission is at stake.”
“What message?” Hao whispered to Laura.
Laura’s eyes
widened. “The fountain!” she exclaimed to the old man. “You saw the symbol Mesmo created on the fountain!”
The old man smiled, the corner of his eyes creasing. He held the small, black object in the palm of his hands. “The Observer has entrusted you with Angakkuq’s[7] life’s work.” One of the thugs approached him with a box, which he opened. He pulled something small from it and placed it in his palm. He now had two identical objects in his hand.
Laura gasped.
“It is highly irregular to trust an outsider with such sensitive information, but the Observer has spoken well of you and, considering the precarious situation in which he now finds himself, I have no choice but to hand over my life’s work to you as well.”
A thug picked up both objects from the old man’s palm. He brought them over and carefully placed them in Laura’s hands as if they were breakable Swarovski crystals.
“Laura Archer,” the old man said. “The Observer never made it to China to meet with me. I have travelled a long way so he could receive this last element. Should you succeed in bringing them both to him, then he will return home a hero, his mission fulfilled.”
Laura gaped. “You are one of the Wise Ones!” she exclaimed.
The old man nodded.
Hao stared quizzically from Laura to the old man.
“And you…” the old man said in Mandarin, suddenly turning his attention to Hao. “…you have the access Laura Archer needs to reach the Observer. So I will ask you, as one compatriot to another, to bring Laura Archer to the Dugout and protect her from the corrupt shapeshifter.”
“What?” Hao gasped. “How do you know about the Dugout?”
The old man gestured towards the buzzing phone. “We have eyes and ears everywhere, Inspector James Hao. You have served your organization well, but have made the wrong choices. From now on, you will protect the Observer, the woman, and the boy.”
“Is that so?” Hao retorted, his cheeks heating. “Who do you think you are? I do not serve you. And I am not your compatriot.”
