by Hatchett
On the other side of the glass, someone was tied to a chair in the centre of the room. Sam, Jason and Andy entered the room and closed the door behind them. Sam took a seat from against the wall and positioned it so that he was facing the figure in the chair. Jason and Andy stood just behind the figure, one on either side, close enough to touch.
Jason leant over and pulled the hood from the figure and Jess heard gasps from behind her as Dr Joshua Raven was revealed. Jason then removed the gag and passed Joshua a plastic cup of water which he grasped in both his tied hands and raised it to his mouth before drinking greedily.
“Dr Raven, I presume,” Sam started, as Joshua squinted his eyes against the harsh lights and licked his lips.
“And you are?” Joshua asked calmly, looking around and noting the presence of Jason and Andy just behind him. His eyes returned to the mirror opposite and he studied it intently as if he could see through it before returning his gaze back to Sam.
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not,” Joshua replied.
There was a couple of minutes silence. Sam had all the time in the world, and he knew that most people couldn’t stand silence for too long and just had to fill it. Eventually he was proved right.
“So, why am I here and what do you want?”
“I think you know that Joshua,” Sam replied. “I can call you Joshua, can’t I?”
“Feel free.”
“I won’t waste your time Joshua. We have some questions for you which we’d like answered. We can either do it the easy way, or the hard way,” he said, glancing at Jason and Andy for emphasis. “Where are you from?”
“You wouldn’t understand even if I told you, but many light years away from here,” Joshua replied with a gloating and superior attitude. He didn’t like pain, and truth be told, he was a coward, although he’d never admit it to anybody. He didn’t really feel much allegiance to his brethren; they’d overlooked his abilities on too many occasions, and he was still pissed that Mason had been given the role that he had been promised. They had spent over a hundred years waiting for the right moment to strike but every year it didn’t happen, and these humans got stronger and more powerful. If it was left to the current Laakuu leadership, it would never happen because they were too weak. As far as he was concerned, he would tell them whatever they wanted to know, so long as it avoided any pain. He didn’t want anything to happen to this body as he knew it would also be the end of him. He’d read articles about some of the atrocities these humans had inflicted on each other in the name of National Security and the like, and he wanted no part of it.
“Why don’t you tell us your story?” Sam suggested, so over the next hour or so Joshua did, leaving nothing out.
“I think this is a good time to take a break,” Sam suggested cordially. “We’ll get you some food and something to drink then we can continue later.” He rose and left the room, closely followed by Jason and Andy.
Sam walked into the room next door. “Hannah, Kate, can you ask Hilda to fix something for our guest, and Jason, Andy, stay with them. The rest of you follow me,” he ordered as he led them to the meeting room and helped himself to a coffee which had been set up on a side table. “Help yourself.”
Sam took a seat and looked around at the others. “What did you think of that?” he asked.
Unbelievable, incredible…” Damian ran out of adjectives which were appropriate in the circumstances.
“Jess?”
Jess looked at Sam. “HE WAS TELLING THE TRUTH.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I READ HIS MIND.”
“Ok, good enough for me. Any thoughts or suggestions?”
“HE DOESN’T KNOW I’M HERE. KEEP QUESTIONING HIM AND I’LL LET YOU KNOW IF HE LIES. WE NEED TO FIND A WAY TO IDENTIFY THEM BECAUSE IF I’M NOT AROUND, YOU’RE ALL STUFFED.”
“Why do you think he’s telling us everything so easily?”
“HE’S VAIN. HIS NOSE HAS BEEN PUT OUT OF JOINT AND HE THINKS HE WANTS PAYBACK. OH, AND HE DOESN’T LIKE PAIN.”
Sam started laughing. “The doctor doesn’t like pain. Next you’ll be telling me he can’t stand the sight of blood!”
“I DON’T KNOW THAT.”
“It was a joke, Jess.”
“HA HA.”
“Anyone else got any opinions?”
“I think that when we’ve got what we need, we let him see Jess and see how he reacts,” John suggested. “It might throw him off balance and he might say something he shouldn’t.”
“Good point.”
“We also need to know if there’s a way of getting rid of them without killing the human underneath, although to be honest, the real Dr Raven underneath is probably completely barking by now,” Pete suggested.
“Perhaps if we turn good ol’ Dr Raven, then we can really move forward, although if we let him go, I can see him changing sides again when it suits. But who knows? Perhaps we can come to some arrangement going forwards,” Jimmy suggested.
“The political side of things will be dealt with by the Harrys’,” Sam pointed out. “We’re not here for the politics.”
They chatted a little longer, then it was time to continue their interrogation of Dr Joshua Raven.
With Jason and Andy back on either side of Joshua, as a reminder of what would happen if he didn’t cooperate, Sam resumed the interrogation.
“Hope you enjoyed the refreshments?” Sam asked to break the ice.
“Very nice, thank you,” Joshua replied, “but it would have been even better if I’d had my hands free.”
“Well, depending upon how you behave and how you answer my questions, that is something which I can consider.
The interrogation went on for another hour with Jess sending the odd thought directly to Sam. At the end of the hour, they thought they’d got about as much information as they could for the time being and Sam had exhausted the questions he had lined up. At that moment, the door to the room opened and Jess glided in smoothly in her chair and positioned it close to Sam so that she could look directly towards Joshua. Whilst the black swirls of colour continued to rotate and undulate around him, Jess could just about make out his features underneath.
“I wondered what had happened to you,” Joshua remarked, looking as if he wanted to pull away from her and run away.
“I WARNED YOU I WAS BECOMING A BUTTERFLY AND THE RIPPLES ARE ONLY JUST BEGINNING.”
“You don’t scare me little girl!” Joshua shouted, leaning forward in his chair with all the bravado he could muster.
Jess raised her arms and began clapping her hands slowly. Joshua was stunned.
“H-h-how did you manage that?” he stuttered.
“I CAN DO A LOT OF THINGS WHICH WOULD BLOW YOUR MIND,” she directed the thought straight at Joshua.
Joshua sat back in his seat. He hadn’t imagined it back in the hospital and he was beginning to get very worried.
“You’re telepathic,” Joshua whispered in awe. “How do you do it? We’ve been trying for years with limited success. It works fine between animate and inanimate objects, but not between two animate objects…until now. Amazing!”
“NOW TELL ME THE SECRET YOU’VE BEEN HIDING,” Jess spoke through the voice box for the benefit of the everyone else listening in.
“What secret? Are you mad?” Joshua responded, a little too quickly.
“I ALREADY KNOW IT, BUT I WANT YOU TO TELL EVERYONE.”
Joshua looked even more surprised and couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘The bitch thinks she knows’, he smiled to himself.
“I’LL SHOW YOU WHAT A BITCH I CAN BE, JUST SO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT YOU CAN’T KEEP SECRETS FROM ME. PLEASE RELEASE HIM.”
Jason and Andy looked towards Sam for confirmation and he just nodded his head. Jason and Andy untied the restraints and moved a couple of paces away, ready to tackle Joshua if he displayed any signs of violence.
Joshua rubbed his wrists then his ankles before standing up and stretching. Suddenl
y he moved away from Jason and Andy before they could grab him and started running towards the wall opposite the doorway.
Sam sat up in surprise and couldn’t understand why Joshua hadn’t run for the door. It didn’t make sense unless he was able to walk through walls. He couldn’t. He ran straight into the wall with his hands by his side, his head and chest bouncing off the wall with a resounding thud and he landed flat on his back groaning. It was clear that he had broken his nose as it was at a slight angle and blood was beginning to pour down his face.
Sam was still in shock. “What the fuck did he do that for? Is he trying to kill himself? He’s already told us everything!” He looked to Jess who was smiling widely.
“JUST WANTED TO SHOW HIM WHO WAS BOSS.”
Sam realised what she must have done.
“Jesus girl, remind me never to upset you!” He turned in his seat to look at the mirror and with a smile on his face, said loudly, “Hey John, looks like wetting yourself was the easy option!” He couldn’t tell what reaction there was on the other side of the mirror, but he suspected they were all laughing.
Jason and Andy walked across the room and picked up a groggy Joshua and helped him back to the seat.
“READY TO TELL US YOUR SECRET?”
Joshua looked at Jess as if she was the devil incarnate. “What are you?”
“IF YOU DON’T TELL ME IN THE NEXT FIVE SECONDS, I’LL HAVE TO GIVE YOU ANOTHER DEMONSTRATION.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Joshua responded meekly, all fight now gone. “What she wants me to tell you is that I know of a way in which you can remove Laakuu from their human host without killing or damaging the host. If there’s any sanity left, that is.”
“Oh yes?” Sam was intrigued. “And how is it done?”
“Well, I found out purely by accident. A man who’d had a heart attack had been brought into A&E and I just happened to be there. I could tell immediately that the human had been taken over by a Laakuu, so I took a particular interest in his recovery. While he was being wheeled into one of the cubicles, he suffered another heart attack. To try and revive him the crash team applied the defibrillator which provided a high energy electric shock. To keep it short, the shock revived the man’s heart and he was fine, but the Laakuu was gone, never to be seen again, so I suspect the Laakuu died. The man recovered, well sort of…he was incoherent to start with then started mumbling about aliens and the doctor sectioned him. I suspect he’s still in a padded cell somewhere.”
“AND WHO KNOWS ABOUT THIS?”
“Only me…and now you. I wasn’t going to report my findings up the command chain, you never know – I might have wanted to use the option myself at some time,” Joshua replied with a sly smile.
“HOW CAN YOU DETECT A HUMAN HOST BEING CONTROLLED BY ONE OF YOUR KIND?”
“What? You mean a clever girl like you can’t tell?” Joshua challenged her. He saw the look on her face, and, as he wanted to avoid kissing the wall again, quickly explained. “Smell and eyes.”
“Smell?” Sam asked, “what sort of smell?”
“Well, how do I describe it? It’s a sort of woody-earthy type smell which is frankly unmistakable once you’ve smelt it once. It also appears to be a sort of aphrodisiac,” he added with a wink and a leering glance towards Jess.
“But what about deodorants and other fragrances? Don’t they cover up the smell?” Sam asked.
“Not really. They hide it a little, but not completely. In any case, I doubt my esteemed brethren choose to use artificial smells, it really isn’t necessary, and who’d want to reduce the impact of such a powerful aphrodisiac.
Jess turned up her nose, disgusted. “YOU MEAN YOU USE THAT BODY…”
“Of course, I do dear girl! Pleasures of the flesh and all that. Best thing about you humans.”
Jess looked like she was going to be sick and steered her chair towards the door.
As she did so, Sam told Jason and Andy to hold Joshua while he got up close and personal to see if he could determine the smell Joshua had been talking about.
After a few seconds, he stepped back and shook his head. He knew that smell. It was unlike anything he could really describe but he had smelt it before on numerous occasions. It was like rotting leaves combined with body odour. He thought back to the times he had noticed it before and had unconsciously wrinkled his nose, assuming that the person in question hadn’t washed. Well, now he knew.
“Take a smell yourselves, guys,” Sam indicated.
Jason and Andy lent forwards and then straightened.
“I’ve smelt that before,” Jason commented, “but never really thought about it.”
“Same here,” Andy added.
Sam turned to Jess, who was facing the door. “Do you want to smell this, Jess?” Sam asked.
“NO, YOU’RE OK, I HAVE MY OWN WAY OF SEEING THEM.”
“Ok.” He turned to Joshua. “We’ll leave you untied but you’ll stay here for the time being. You can’t escape so don’t bother trying.”
“I won’t. You never know, when you want to negotiate with the Laakuu, you’re going to need someone who understands them.”
Sam was about to leave when he stopped and turned back to face Joshua.
“You said that the human host, in this case the real Joshua Raven, can see and hear everything you do but you prevent him from controlling his own body?”
“Yes, that’s about right.”
“I want to speak to him.”
Joshua looked surprised. He’d never considered this before.
“Ok…I guess,” Joshua said cautiously, “but I have to warn you. I’ve been using this body for over ten years, so the original Joshua is little more than a gibbering idiot.” He closed his eyes and a few seconds later re-opened them.
The eyes now staring back at Sam looked crazed, madness had obviously taken over. Joshua started dribbling and saying ‘uh, uh, uh’ before the eyes closed again and re-opened. The Laakuu-Joshua was back.
“See what I mean? The poor fellow has lost it, I’m afraid,” he said, wiping the drool from his chin.
Sam realised that there was no hope for the real Joshua Raven. He just hoped that other humans who had been taken over were in a better state or the Government would need to start building new asylums at a rapid rate.
Sam motioned for Jason and Andy to follow him and he headed towards the door to catch up with Jess.
“ONE LAST QUESTION,” she stated without turning around. “YOU MENTIONED THE EYES.”
“Yes,” Joshua replied. “I thought you’d forgotten about that. If you look closely, we all have silver flecks in the Iris. As it happens, the silver shines brightly when we orgasm, although I’m sure that’s too much information for an innocent such as yourself.”
They left the room.
29
Mason was with his colleagues in the sitting room. Everything was now getting a bit frantic but at least there was some progress and some good news.
The police had finally tracked the Richardsons and Barringtons to the Four Seasons in Dogmersfield. They had found the Transporter in the car park and seen from the hotel’s CCTV footage the switch of vehicles. They had then tracked the new Mercedes Viano to Mitcham and, although they had no idea where the van was now, they had managed to determine that the group had gone to an old ‘record’ shop on London Road. The police were about to raid the premises.
A few hours earlier, one of the Laakuu’s cloaked shuttles had landed within Mason’s grounds and six well trained Laakuu stormtroopers from the military wing had disembarked. Unbeknownst to the Council, these six were specifically chosen by Mason and he had pulled a few strings on the Mothership to get these specific stormtroopers on board the shuttle. These Laakuu were in their own bodies and towered over Mason and his colleagues. They were dressed from head to foot in replica police riot gear so, despite their size, they could just about blend in with normal police officers. Now it was just a question of locating the girl and sending them off to clean
up.
30
Back at the house in Wiltshire, all the guests were in the kitchen, eating, drinking and discussing the interview with Joshua.
“At least now we’ve now got an idea how to deal with them,” Sam suggested. “I’ve arranged for the information to be uploaded to our website so the message will have already gone worldwide. The thing that amazes me is that I’ve know that smell all my life but never realised what it was. As for the electric shock treatment, that’s just incredible. I bet you don’t see many Laakuu going for a stroll in a lightning storm!”
“So, what’s the next step?” Di asked.
“We buy every defibrillator we can find,” Pete suggested, “and shock the fuck out of them.”
“Not a bad idea,” Sam said, “but the Harrys’ are already on it.” As he finished speaking his phone rang. He answered it, listened for a few seconds before clicking off. “That was Billy in Mitcham. The police have raided the shop.”
“You’re joking,” Jimmy shouted. “They better not ruin any of the stock!”
“Never mind the stock, how’d they get there that quickly?” Pete asked no one in particular.
“Well, I would guess our friend Jess is number one target for them at the moment so all resources will be following up on the leads. It’s only a matter of time before they trace us here, but we should have a few days before then,” Sam replied.
At that moment, they heard a thumping noise coming from outside the house, rising in volume with every passing second. The Richardsons and Barringtons looked around worriedly but Sam calmed their nerves.
“Don’t worry, the Harrys’ have arrived,” he explained as he rose from the table and moved across to the concertina doors and windows overlooking the rear of the house. He opened the door slightly and the noise from outside increased as an Airbus H155 executive helicopter descended slowly out of a bright blue sky and settled on the lawn. The engines were turned off and the rotors began to wind down as the rear door opened and two individuals got out, grabbed a couple of large boxes and headed in their direction, heads bowed against the remaining downwash.
