“How long do we wait?” he asked, hoping the aliens were listening. “How long does the poison take to start showing effects on the human body?”
The intercom crackled back on obediently. A chill shuddered up my spine. They really do watch our every move. “If you do not trust us, how are you to trust our an-swer to that quest-ion?”
They had a point. David’s brow furrowed. “Try me,” he answered.
“The gas-es take eff-ect in rough-ly three-point-five min-utes. In an-other sev-en min-utes, those aff-ect-ed were not breath-ing.”
“You…watched them?” I asked. “I thought you couldn’t even find them?”
“The gas-es be-have as though they are chok-ing your kind. The two sub-jects we found ran out of their hid-ing places and fell ov-er in the streets. Our app-rox-i-mat-ions are indeed app-rox-i-mate.”
“Subjects,” Naomi said quietly, her eyes dropping toward the floor. “Great term there.”
“Are we not stud-y-ing every as-pect of your be-hav-ior? Is that not acc-u-rate?”
Naomi shook her head. “Forget it.”
The intercom clicked off again, and David watched the seconds tick by on the face of his expensive-looking watch.
Finally, we heard banging on the other side of the door.
“Matt, you okay?” David screamed into the door.
Matt said nothing, but kept throwing his fists into the door. The bangs sounded frantic, increasing in frequency.
“Matt! Answer me!”
“Are you okay?” Naomi joined David in yelling.
Still no answer. The bangs continued.
“Jesus Christ, just open the door,” came a voice from behind. It was Bruce. His voice sounded tired. “Either we’re dead or we’re not. We can’t just leave him out there.”
David took a deep breath then swung the door wide open.
“About fucking time!” Matt stood with his arms crossed in front of him, stance wide, impatient. A grin materialized on his face as we all stared at him, wide-eyed.
“You asshole!” I yelled, slamming him in the chest with a palm. “You had us all freaking out!”
“Too easy.” His eyes sparkled.
We all let out the breaths we had been holding. Naomi shook her head at Matt. “You’re really okay?” she asked.
“Think so. So far.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “Wanna see for yourselves?” He stepped out of the way so we could go through the doorway.
We walked outside, and the sunlight shone down on us, piercing through the clear dome above our heads like a filtered sky-song. I wasn’t sure what a sky-song was, but the phrase drifted through my head as though a fog was being lifted. I liked the phrase. I gazed up at the sun and a wide grin overcame my face.
Kisana nudged my arm. I dropped my gaze to meet hers. She too, grinned. “It’s so beautiful,” she said.
I nodded, and looked around me. Everyone shared our joy in the sun’s rays, even though they came to us through a filter. “Can kinda feel its warmth,” I noted. Naomi had her arms open wide, taking it all in. Even my father had a smile on his face, and he wasn’t one to enjoy the sunshine. The children ran in circles around us, laughing and chasing one another. David clamped a hand on Matt’s shoulder. “That was brave,” he told him. Matt beamed.
From the dome, we could see the edges of the boarded-up school snake back behind the gymnasium. A weed-covered parking lot blanketed the area directly in front of the dome. Behind the parking lot was a street and alleyway. A few buildings were on either side of the alleyway, small business that looked like they had been closed down for the last ten years. Tall skyscrapers loomed in the distance, glinting in the hazy sunlight. Nothing stirred out there. Not a single fragment of life, except for the weeds and decrepit-looking trees.
“Come on, let’s check this place out,” I said to Kisana. She followed me as I inspected our surroundings. The base of the dome was ground firmly into the cement beneath our feet, held in place by alien wonder goop. I kicked the substance. It was as hard as the cement itself. “They must have brought two spaceships with them, one to carry all of this crap. They’ve used it everywhere.”
Kisana tested the walls of the dome with a fist. A solid thump answered her. The dome didn’t budge or quiver whatsoever. “Ow,” she mouthed, rubbing her hand.
“You okay?” I asked.
She nodded, and then looked up toward the roof of the gym. I followed her gaze. The dome was fastened to the roof with the goop as well.
There were a few orange lunch tables near us, the kind that were metal and cemented to the ground, with benches on either side. I followed the length of the corridor. It was about the size of our gym. A few half-dead trees and more lunch tables gathered dust just past where the dome ended. “Boy, they sure didn’t give us much room here,” I said. There was one pathetic tree within our dome, encircled by a tiny dirt patch. It looked like it hadn’t been watered in years, yet it somehow clung to life.
Naomi approached Kisana and I. “Not much of a place, is it?” she said. Simon followed her, tentatively inching his way around, sniffing.
“No, but at least we have both areas now. We can have our own space sort of. Hey, you and Marge make up or something?” Naomi wasn’t avoiding Marge like she had been a week ago.
She shrugged. “I got tired of being bitchy, and Charles likes the morning. It was an easy choice.”
I laughed. “I know I’m not ever going to tire of being bitchy toward Matt. I get far too much pleasure from it.”
Just then, the door behind us creaked. We turned around, expecting to see one of our own joining us, a little late for the party.
It wasn’t one of our own—it was a man we didn’t recognize. He was thin, balding, and looked to be in his late fifties. He wore a stained wife-beater shirt and a pair of torn work pants, with suspenders. His face was dirty, unshaven, and his eyes were black and beady-looking.
“It’s you!” Matt screamed. He backed up against the dome, as if trying to escape.
“Who?” Naomi asked. Her mouth gaped open in confusion.
“Does this a-re-a meet with your sat-is-fact-ion?” The voice came from the newcomer. It was the voice that had ran over the intercom system for weeks. A cold, mechanical voice. Not human.
My eyes opened wide, and my heart threatened to leap inside my throat. Kisana took a step backward. I grasped her hand in mine. Her skin was cool, clammy. “Is this your…real form?” I asked, my voice breaking apart. “And yes, this place is adequate, though it could be larger.”
“It will suff-ice,” the man stated. “We are not build-ing an-other.”
“And my first question?” Kisana’s grip tightened, and my heartbeat evened out a tiny bit at her reassuring touch.
“No.”
“Why?”
“You do not need to know why.”
“Psh,” Matt said, “That means you look like comic book aliens, green slimy skin and tentacles?”
“No.” The man—being—thing—cocked its head to one side, as if thinking. Its beady, unnatural eyes stared into mine. “We may show you in time.”
I heard my dad sit down noisily on one of the lunch tables behind me. He was out of breath. “So this is some kind of shield thing you’re wearing to fool us?” I asked, unsatisfied with the answers it’d given.
“A mod-i-fied dev-ice which shows a par-ti-cu-lar ill-u-sion, yes.”
“Why’d you wait this long to show yourself? Why the big carnival with the mechanical arms and machines, doing everything for you?”
“I need-ed time to dev-e-lop this tech-no-log-y, hence one of the rea-sons for us stud-y-ing you.”
“You sure learned our language fast.”
“Not fast. Two day and night cyc-les your time.”
I averted my gaze from his piercing eyes. They bothered me. Something odd struck me suddenly. “You said…‘I.’ Are you the leader or just in charge of us? You usually say ‘we.’”
“I am the man-ag-er of sci-ence and te
ch-nol-og-y. We have a coun-cil of sorts. I am one of the man-a-gers of such an org-an-i-za-tion.”
“So you were the first to come up with the shield and test it?”
“Yes.”
“Why this form?”
The being’s head cocked in the other direction. It seemed unsure of how to control the device’s movements. The motions were too quick and precise to be natural. “This was the first hu-man we capt-ured. It was the first dat-a we received.”
“What is your real gender?”
“Gen-ders have no mean-ing to us, nor do your pro-nouns.”
“You came to us before in this getup, too,” Matt said. “In the shed.”
“Yes. That was the first pro-to-type. This model is more ad-vanced.”
“What made you decide to join us physically?” David asked, one eyebrow raised. He held his arms protectively around Julie.
“The int-er-com will not reach out here.”
“Another question,” Matt said, taking a few steps toward the alien. “What do you use to observe us? Hidden cameras?” He shuffled his feet on the cement as he spoke.
“Yes. Our de-vic-es are far too small for your eyes.”
“So, nothing escapes you guys?”
“No.” Its head cocked again. “Why do you ask?”
Matt turned to Kisana and me suddenly. “So if these two fuck, you’ll hear them? Won’t that be awesome, Sam?” He grinned.
“Matt!” Naomi screamed.
Kisana’s hand left mine as the alien stared blankly at Matt, oblivious to the joke. I hit Matt on his chest again, harder this time.
The blow forced him to take a step back, right in front of the alien’s holographic image. “Geez, keep that up and your punches might actually hurt a bit!”
I swung at him again. He dodged this time, and the miss sent my body flying forward a couple feet, and into the alien’s hologram. My fist swept through the image of the man, and as it did, a bright white glow enveloped the hologram, my fist, and entire arm. I rebalanced myself, squinting at the force of the glow.
The alien jumped backward, glaring at me with wide, unblinking eyes as the glow dissipated. “Do-do not come for-ward!” it said. “It is quite frag-ile!”
I blinked a couple times, rubbing my fist that was still balled-up. It tingled, even though I hadn’t touched anything solid. “And bright,” I mumbled.
“Knock it off, you two,” Naomi said. She then turned to face the alien and looked him square in the eye. “You tested your thing. Now, please, leave us be, unless you’re telling us we’re free to go.”
The being shuffled its feet, and walked back into the gym, its movements slow and deliberate, like it was confused. David, Matt, Naomi, and a few others followed it into the room to see how it left the area.
I stayed outside, turning to Kisana. She had left my side. I found her in the very back, seated at a table. She watched me as I approached, a nervous expression encircling her face.
“Hey, don’t mind what Matt said,” I told her softly, taking a seat. “He’s just a dumbass.”
“I know, but…” She hesitated.
“Don’t worry. I’m not coming on to you. I just need a friend.” I gave her a warm smile. She met my gaze and returned the smile.
I was lying, of course. I wanted nothing more than to take her into my arms and help us both forget the dump of a place we were imprisoned in. But first, I had to make sure I wasn’t going to fall in love with another straight girl.
Chapter 12
The man awoke to his cellmates howling and exchanging blows over the last bottle of water. A drop of blood from the brawling duo dropped onto his arm, and he winced as the blood slid to the floor of the metal prison. He sat upright, clutching his head.
“Fucking Christ, we weren’t supposed to touch that bottle until tonight,” he grumbled at his fellow captives. The bottle wasn’t even full—less than a quarter of the water remained, but they hadn’t had food nor fresh water in too many days.
“We gotta stay alive somehow!” the teenager shouted. The youngster’s once-golden hair was dirty, coated in his own sweat and the dust from their prison. His clothes, like everyone else’s, were covered in his own waste.
They were trapped inside a rusted metal shed that contained stacks of rotting lumber. For days the prisoners had tried to use the lumber to beat their way out of the shed, but beyond the shed’s metallic walls was something much thicker and impossible to penetrate. Eventually they gave up trying to escape.
No one came to speak to them. They had tried pleading and yelling as loud as their lungs would let them, but never received any type of answer. They never saw their captors. There were no windows in the shed, and their only source of light came from small holes—chinks in the impenetrable material—found in corners where the walls met with the low ceiling.
The man frowned at the teenager hoarding the bottle and sighed. “Go ahead, drink it,” he told him, his dirty face stretched thin. The elderly man who had been fighting the teenager gasped and grabbed a piece of lumber, raising it above his head.
“Don’t!” the man clutching his head yelled. “He’s young—he’s got the highest chance of living among all of us!” In total there were eight prisoners, all of whom were older than twenty-five except for the teenager. Three women and five men.
“Fuck you, Larry,” the elderly man said. He dropped the lumber obligingly and staggered back toward the wall. His body slammed into the metal then slumped downward. He didn’t have the strength to fight anymore. No one did.
The teenager drank the water in one swift gulp, and then squashed the bottle angrily.
A roaring crash sounded from outside the metal door. Larry’s eyes opened wide. The teenager took a few steps backward, almost tripping over some loose lumber.
The woman near Larry screamed. “Now what?” she cried, tears sliding down her dirt-covered cheeks.
The door blasted wide open, and a mechanical arm began to take shape in the dusty sunlight. The arm held an orb-shaped shining object. It released the orb as Larry stared into the arm’s single spotlight. His fear was visible. The device quickly retreated, leaving the captives blinking at the daylight trickling in.
As the man next to him leaned forward to inspect the glimmering orb, Larry forced his body to stand upright. He lunged toward the door.
Slamming into the doorway, he grasped the door’s frame in a moment of desperate adrenaline, and the bomb went off, causing poisonous gas to unfurl itself into every corner of the tiny shed. Within seconds, the gas had begun entering all of the prisoners’ lungs.
Larry stumbled out into the blinding sunlight. The air that confronted him was just as poisonous.
He collapsed into the sunlight, his arms craning forward, reaching for some invisible object as he drew in his last breath. The remainder of the prisoners in the shed collapsed a moment later, even the teenager, who died clutching the empty water bottle still.
Chapter 13
I sat up in my tent and clutched my head, groaning. I must have been having some sort of weird dream, because when I opened my eyes, I blinked back the image of a bank of green, foul fog. Beams of sunlight lazily replaced the vile, phantom fog as they streamed through the flaps of my tent. Simon purred at me from the bundle of clothes he was curled up on.
“What the hell was I dreaming about?” I murmured, hoping no one would hear me. I already knew the answer—a dark, rank shed with pin points of sunlight piercing through and grown men fighting over an inch of water. I groaned again, held Simon close to my chest, and then got dressed and exited my tent. Now that we had more room to spread out in, we’d asked for larger tents. I could finally sit up in mine without making the thing fall over. I’d chosen a dark green tent—my favorite color—and pinned my tiny pride flag at the top.
It’d been two weeks since the door was opened, and some of us decided to move our tents into the outdoor corridor. I’d been the first to volunteer. Naomi’s tent was outside, as well as Kisa
na and her family’s. She and Joel had their own tents, but the entire family got along well. They were often together, talking, eating, and praying.
Kisana and I were holding tight to the friendship-only understanding. We laughed together, shared stories, and sometimes just laid next to each other in the dim light of dusk with a candle between our bodies, each of us reading. I’d been trying my best to not come on to her though it was hard sometimes. I wanted nothing more than to grab hold of her and never let go. But a quiet voice of self-doubt told me that she wasn’t gay. If she was, she would have mentioned it. Then again, she never spoke of past boyfriends, so that made me wonder. I was afraid to ask her. Her smile kept me sane.
Kisana and her family ate breakfast across the corridor from me. As I watched them, a cold sensation drifted up my back. The people in my dream hadn’t gotten any food delivered to them. I shivered and then stooped back inside my tent to grab a sweatshirt. I needed to get my mind off that stupid dream.
Naomi approached Simon and me, her hair up in a high ponytail. She used to keep it in tiny braids, but without the right hair supplies, she finally had given up, lovingly calling it her “afro-turf” instead. She held up a piece of wood. “Morning,” I said. “What’s that?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I was thinking maybe you had been using it for something last night before you went to bed.”
“Nope. Where would I get it anyway?” I gave her a confused look.
“That’s what I wondered.” She turned over the wood. It almost looked like an old sign that used to be painted red but was heavily faded. The wood was marred with deep gouges. Naomi shrugged.
“Where was it?”
She pointed toward the double doors leading to the gym. “Just inside, leaning against the wall, close to your hole.” She started walking and motioned for me to follow.
“Odd.” I zipped up my tent and joined her. I waved to Kisana and her family as we passed them. They waved back cheerfully. I followed Naomi to the corner that I had destroyed weeks ago, and inspected the wall, rapping my knuckles against it. I peered inside the hole, where it was still solid with the alien super goop. How could a chunk of wood have gotten inside?
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