The Redeemer

by Patrick Roberts

  I rolled over onto my side, watching the alien vehicles race away from the helicopters and the heroes. I could hear a roar in the distance. Hadassa. I could see Inik and Colonel Anderson, along with other agents, firing at aliens. Some fell from their vehicles and others fired back. I looked to Archer, who was shooting off arrows quickly, but slowly for him. I tried my best to pull myself up, to continue forward, but I wasn’t fully healed from any of the other assaults on my body. I reinjured my arm. It didn’t cause the reaction one might expect. It pissed me off. I used my good hand to push myself up and off the ground. Dana helped me up, to my surprise, and I steadied myself. I could see the alien coming, but I doubted that anyone else besides Dana saw it. The alien was coming behind a billboard. I quickly pulled out my guns and began firing away at the vehicle. It was aiming its lasers and I looked to where it was aiming to see David fighting against six of the aliens at once, oblivious to what awaited him. I suppressed the need to shout out his name, to confuse and distract him, and aimed the gun as clearly as I could with a bad arm. I fired one bullet and it sped through the air like a missile and knocked the alien that was driving off the vehicle. There was a different problem now: the vehicle was still barreling towards us at mach speed! I grabbed Dana by the arm and pulled her off the side of the building as the vehicle crashed into the building, shattering the glass windows and catching fire on the roof. As we began to fall, I quickly pulled out my zip line gun and propelled us to the safety of a window below, but not an open one. We rolled through the broken glass and found ourselves looking at the ceiling. Dana sat up, pulling glass out of her hair while I sat up pulling glass out of my elbow. I needed elbow pads or something. I stood this time, helping her up.

  I sighed, “Well, at least we’re safe in here.” I smiled.

  Dana looked at me with agitation. I knew why I just really didn’t want her to say it. Before she could, the window on the far side of the door shattered inward as Hadassa landed beside the broken glass. Dana looked unfazed by his appearance while I immediately grabbed my pistols.

  “Those won’t kill me!” Hadassa cackled.

  I nodded, “But they’ll hurt.” I said quickly firing into him.

  He roared in pain as I fired. Dana took the time to walk over to the desk and press a button. The building began to shut down, the windows sealed themselves and Hadassa looked just as surprised as I did. I stopped shooting and looked to Dana, who smirked. Her plan was now obvious to me. Trap us in here. But what about the outside world? There was an alien attack going on.

  “Precisely, without someone to lead them, how far do you think they’ll get?” Dana asked.

  I cursed her empathic nature, “World domination?” I asked.

  “Without him, they will retreat back to their home planet.” Dana explained, “Without him, their plan is null and void.”

  “I thought this was a team? Why am I always bait?” I asked.

  “Force of habit?” Dana asked.

  Hadassa’s screeching filled the room as a tendril protruded from his chest and knocked me back against the wall! From the floor, I looked up to see Dana standing in front of Hadassa. His screeching didn’t seem to affect her. She only moved when one of his tendrils grabbed her by the throat. I screamed out her name and got to my feet in time to see a shield fly through the air and slice the tendril, causing Dana to drop to the floor, panting and coughing. I didn’t even have to look to the door, instead I grabbed my Eskrima sticks and launched myself forward at Hadassa. He was quicker than me, however, and sidestepped my attack, running right into David’s attack, which consisted of punches that would have shattered a punching bag. I threw myself forward, flipping over a tendril and doing a back-flip to kick the monster. I was inches from him when a shockwave sent both, David and I, rushing backwards and skidding to a stop. I got to my feet within seconds, but saw that he was out of the room. He’d gone.

  David walked over to the wall, where his shield was stuck, and pulled it out with ease, “Where’d he go?” he asked turning to us.

  Dana looked over confident, “He can’t have gotten far, can he?” she asked.

  I frowned at her, “You should really be more worried about the alien roaming around where we store our information.” I quickly looked to the door, “He’s like a bulldozer.”

  “Here,” Dana said walking to the wall and throwing a kitana to me, “Pure Alta metal. Made from the alien material Ishara, of the Attilian race.”

  “There’s other aliens?” I asked.

  “Many.” Dana said, “Now find him. Dispose of him, if you can.”

  I looked to David, who nodded. I was immediately angered by their secrecy. I shook it off and headed into the hallway, which looked like an actual bulldozer tried to make its way through them. You would have thought the inside of the tower would have been the main place of attack. The ceiling lights were hanging out of their sockets, the walls were scratched and bent, and there was a trail of slime down the hallway.

  “Guess we don’t have to try and guess where he went.” David said, standing beside me. I ignored him and walked down the hall. He pushed forward, walking with me, “I know, but the plan was need-to-know and so was the alien information.”

  “You used me as bait.” I frowned as I walked, “I thought…”

  “What? You thought what?” He asked.

  “Nothing.” I said coldly.

  “You thought we’d get back to that place? We’d be back there like neither of us remembers anything.” His voice was stern, “We’re teammates. The best we can try for is…”

  “I don’t think I can be your friend.” There a thud up ahead. I stopped and looked to him, “The alien race wins or loses and I’m out of your little superhero club. I don’t fit and being this close to you is—“

  “Painful.”

  I stared at him again. It wasn’t hard to see that his uneasiness around me was more than bad history. It was becoming ever more evident to me that I wasn’t mean for this team. I wasn’t meant to save the world and I wasn’t meant to play second fiddle to someone’s destiny as a hero. As long as I’d known him, he’d been a hero. There was no changing that. He needed someone just as heroic, just as good as him and that wasn’t me. Without words, I turned to the sound of the noise and raised my kitana, ready to fight whatever was up ahead. David readied himself with his shield and some kind of gun, maybe a tranquilizer. I quickly moved to the corner and noticed that this slime had led us to a cylindrical room made with hard, cold metal. The room felt dissimilar to the rest of the rest of the tower, even colder than Cypress’ laboratory, if possible. The moment I stepped into the room, I was overcome with a sense of dread. There wasn’t a fiber of me that wanted to stay. The slime trail stopped at the center of room, but I could see footsteps stopping at the wall. David saw them too and took point. He walked over to the wall and placed his hands on it, then his ear, as if he was listening for something. Vibration. I stood a few feet away, trying to process the room. I stared around at the metallic walls, trying to find an inch of this place that didn’t severely creep me out. I didn’t see it, but there was a snap and the wall began rising. I was shocked at what I saw behind the wall. David stood amazed, too. He dropped his shield, not taking his eyes off the sight. Hadassa, in his human form, stood in front of a glass tube filled with water and the body of Steven Samis. Steven was nude except for some kind of underwear. Within seconds of us seeing this, Hadassa turned and Steven’s eyes popped open. Shock. It was all I could feel. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak…I could only feel. The tube began to shake and rumble as the metal peeled off the walls and shot in crisscrossing patterns through the tube. The glass shattered and the water quickly drained as Steven hovered above it. He quickly descended and stood beside Hadassa, who smiled joyfully. It was then that I saw his chest. It was metal spiraling and moving around, causing a beautiful, albeit disturbing pattern.

  “Steven?” David asked, still in shock.

  Steven raised his hand, causing
the shield to levitate into the air and strike David with such force that it knocked him backwards, into the wall and kept him there above the floor.

  “Steven!” Dana’s voice came from behind me, “What are you doing?”

  Steven looked at his mother, unshaken, “Hello mother.” He said in a dark voice, unlike him.

  “You must stop this! He’s your brother!” Dana shouted.

  Steven cackled, “No. He’s not.” His eyes fell on me, causing me more trauma than I welcomed, “Well, it’s been far too long. I missed you. Come give us a kiss.”

  I took a step back. My shock was almost palpable. I could feel darkness radiating from him, a subtle anger just below his surface. I wasn’t sure if I was more bewildered or scared. After all, I thought I killed him a long time ago. To see him in the flesh and blood…and my mind couldn’t wander too far, not with him standing in front of me with telekinetic powers.

  His gaze shifted to David, then back to me, “You haven’t been a naughty boy have you? Gays.” He smirked.

  “You can’t be alive. I—“

  “Killed me? Yes, I remember. That one hurt.” Steven said, “I’ve had a year and a half to think about it, stuck in this damn tube while they tried to keep me alive, make me respond. It seemed like an eternity. Could drive a sane man mad, but of course, I was never sane, was I?”

  “I didn’t have a choice.” I said softly.

  “There’s always a choice. You chose wrong, but I forgive you. After all, you’re just a thief.” Steven said, “It was hell keeping my little secret. Being in two places at once.”

  “Two places at once?” Dana asked with the first sign of shock, “How…”

  “Magic, mother, magic.” Steven smirked.

  “We have to go.” Hadassa said, “The final stage approaches.”

  “You’re not leaving.” Dana said angrily, “These windows are…”

  “Metal?” Steven asked wistfully. His eyes again found me, “You could always come with me.”

  I just stared at him. I’d loved the man. I’d also watched him die. To see him in front of me, giving me a real choice was something I couldn’t really deal with. I looked away from him, at the ground.

  Steven chuckled, “You’ll come around.” He said, whipping his hands toward the metal-covered window. It rumbled, like the tube, before breaking off the entire window, letting the sight of the charred city come into view. He walked over to the hole, “Beautiful.” He said, turning to us, “Medusa…forever.” He said, jumping onto the floating metal window and floating away. Hadassa jumped out of the window, converting into his alien form and flew out beside him. David and his shield fell from the wall and I turned to look at Dana, who looked away from my eyes. I threw the kitana at her feet, sweeping past her.