by J. E. Taylor
“It’s normal,” André answered and took the bottle of water. The first sip turned into a guzzle, and he downed the entire bottle of water within seconds. “Thank you,” André said and looked at the empty plastic container. “Can I have another one?”
“When was the last time you had something to eat or drink?”
He shrugged in answer and handed over the empty bottle.
“If you’re anything like we are, you might want to wait a few minutes...”
André scrunched his face and doubled over. Matthew reacted quickly, grabbing a container from the corner and putting it under André’s face just in time to catch the spew of water that came from the boy’s stomach.
Once he finished retching, Matthew stood and disposed of the contents. When he returned, he punched in the command for another bottle and this time he gave a warning. “As I was saying, if you’re anything like we are, and it looks like you are, your stomach won’t take too kindly to a rush of food or water after not having any for an extended period of time. Drink slowly this time.”
Taking a small sip, André leaned back in the seat and squeezed his eyes closed. His lower lip quivered and his jaw line clenched. A slow stream of bloody tears rolled down his cheek.
“You’re going to be okay,” Matthew said, even though he wasn’t sure how close to death the kid was. He shook his head, kicking himself for not insisting on a medic for the trip. He placed his hand on André’s shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze before focusing back on the loading bay doors, wondering again what this kid could have done to be sentenced to death.
Without prompting, André continued, “The emperor believed in an old Zyclonian legend, one that foretold the end of our civilization. I guess I fit the description and he figured I was a threat. He had both my parents and me arrested.” Again his voice hitched and he took a sip of water. “He charged my parents with treason and killed them and then he sealed me in the capsule. At least they gave me a little food and liquid, but it wasn’t enough to last long. He expected me to die...alone.”
The rush of anger that filled Matthew surprised him as much as the tightened grip on the controls. “You were just a child. Hell, you still are just a child.”
André shrugged. “Yeah, well, the emperor didn’t care.” A measure of sarcasm laced his voice and Matthew returned his focus on the boy.
“If I ever see him again...” His eyes glimmered with red tears and radiated a hatred so strong Matthew felt it fill the small craft. “I will kill him.”
A smile spread across his lips, one that never should have graced the face of a child, and Matthew shivered. He cleared his throat and looked at the bay doors again. Matthew reached across the instrument panel and pressed a button. The sucking sound of de-pressurization leaked into the cockpit as the loading dock outer doors opened, emptying the contents of the room into space. Their attention diverted to the monitor and the sphere meant to be André’s coffin drifted away from their ship.
The transmitter squawked. “Colonel Robbins, come in.”
He flipped the channel open. “Colonel Robbins here.”
“Can you confirm the success of the mission?”
Matthew inhaled. He turned his attention toward the sphere and pressed another button on the control panel, lining up the trajectory between the spacecraft and the death pod with the mouse controls. He glanced at André and squeezed the trigger on the control; a second later, the pod vaporized.
“Mission success confirmed,” he said, keeping eye contact with the boy, wondering just how far up shit’s creek he was going to be when he got back home with his visitor in tow.
“Confirmation received.” A pause. “Colonel, we’re showing another life-form aboard your craft.”
“Affirmative.”
“Please advise.”
Now for the shit storm. “I found a boy onboard the alien craft.”
“Sir, your orders—”
“—I’m aware of my orders,” he interrupted the officer on the other end of the transmission. “I’ll deal with Commander Lawrence when I land. In the meantime, the spin to the media is this was a rescue mission for one of our own.” I’m going to get my ass handed to me on a platter.
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Tell the media a kid got stuck in a waste pod and we successfully retrieved him.”
“Word already leaked out, sir.”
Damn it. “Then I suggest you correct the mistake.”
Silence greeted his statement.
“That’s an order.”
More silence.
Matthew closed his eyes and sighed. “It’s just a kid.”
“But, sir, your orders.”
He raked his hand through his hair and glanced at André, knowing full well the kid was reading the flurry of thoughts and memories spinning through his head. He was disobeying a presidential directive. Deep shit didn’t begin to describe it. This was more like a deep grave.
“I’m aware of the orders and if I had been met with hostility, I would have carried them out without issue. But I’m not in the business of terminating children, no matter what their origin. Tell Commander Lawrence he can start court-martial proceedings if he disagrees.” More silence. “I need a medical transport when we land. The kid is in bad shape.” He scanned the boy. “Physiologically, he’s similar to our race and I need someone who will have the utmost discretion.”
“Yes, sir.”
Matthew closed the communication channel and directed the spacecraft toward Earth, giving André the first look at his new home. His eyes went wide with wonder at the mixture of swirls of white overlaying a deep blue background and sporadic masses of brown, green, and white. “Earth,” he whispered.
ANDRÉ STARED AT THE planet in the window, the colonel’s conversation and his thoughts all forgotten in the wake of the beauty before him. He blinked, wondering when this hallucination would give way to reality. He’d had so many over the last couple of years, but this one beat them all. Even the drink, what the man next to him had called water, felt so real. Cool and refreshing going down but hot and acidic coming back up. His eyes dropped to the bottle in his hand and he squeezed it, listening to the crumple of plastic under his fingers.
How can I trust this?
Sighing, he took another sip. Cool liquid slid down his sore throat, coating, calming the burn and causing his stomach to rumble, drawing Colonel Robbins’s attention away from the controls.
“What types of food do you eat?” Colonel Robbins asked.
André stared at the colonel. This has got to be a dream. Why else would I be able to understand what he’s saying? The irony caught him off guard. The odds of this being real were insane and he knew it, but the dream was so damn tangible, the thought of food caused his saliva glands to kick into gear and he decided to go along with wherever this vision would take him. “Mainly protein,” he answered. “My mother tried to get me to eat vegetation but I don’t really like it.”
Colonel Robbins let out a small laugh. “What about fruit?” he asked and produced a round red sphere out of the food compartment, handing it to André.
The sphere weighed a few ounces and he studied it, running his fingers over the smooth surface and rolling the stub of a stem through his fingers, twirling it until it broke from the center. A delectable scent drifted from the fruit and he brought it to his nose, inhaling the sweet perfume.
Again he was struck by the vivid sensations of this dream and his gaze drifted to the approaching planet. André looked at the fruit in his hand. An apple, according to the colonel’s thoughts, and he sank his teeth into the red flesh, relishing the tangy sweetness as juices bled into his mouth with the chunk he bit off, setting his hunger reflex into overdrive.
Here’s the part where I wake up.
But he didn’t. Instead he devoured the apple, down to the small hard nub on the bottom and licked the juice off his fingers. “Can I have another?”
Colonel Robbins nodded and smiled, handing André a
second apple before returning his attention back to navigating the ship.
André stared out the window, splitting his attention between the apple and the approaching planet, still waiting for the dream to end when a new thought dawned on him. Maybe I’m already dead.
He didn’t have time to explore that further. The engines revved and the ship plummeted through the clouds, darting toward the deep blue mass of water. To their left lay a beige landmass that reminded André of the sand dunes on Zyclon.
“We’re flying over the Atlantic Ocean,” Colonel Robbins explained waving a hand toward the vast blue expanse of water. “In a little while you’ll be able to see the eastern shoreline of North America, where we live.”
The radio squawked again. “Colonel Robbins, please adjust your course and proceed to the southeastern landing strips.”
“Will do,” he replied and closed the transmitter. “You’re in luck André; you get to see the ruins of our nation’s capital today.”
André smiled, sifting through the colonel’s thoughts. History had been one of his favorite subjects and the demise of the great capital of the United States was one the colonel studied until he could recite it word for word.
The decay of mankind started some two hundred years before, precipitated by religious zealots who got a hold of nuclear weapons, launching them at the colossal giant. The United States returned in kind and then other nuclear nations jumped in and an all-out holocaust ensued. But what drove mankind to near extinction wasn’t the nuclear winter, but a meteor strike that flooded the entire eastern hemisphere, submerging Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia, annihilating life in that part of the world. The northern ice cap shifted, covering Alaska and Canada in a glacial sheet that continued to creep toward the United States. The rain forests of South America withered, leaving a burning desert in its wake, and tipping the balance of oxygen in the atmosphere to almost nil, threatening all remaining life forms on Earth.
The creation and construction of domes rose out of these disasters and had been the American way of life ever since.
“There’s the Virginia shore.” Colonel Robbins pointed to the white sands, turning the space ship in the same direction.
The pristine beaches gave way to the wreckage that was once Washington DC, the capital of the United States. Broken structures rose out of the overgrowth, but none as majestic as the solitary unbroken golden dome of the Capitol building lying on the wasted shoreline.
The colonel sighed, his gaze locked on the gold dome until they passed over it.
“You live in domes?”
Colonel Robbins turned toward André, one eyebrow cocked higher than the other. “Are you reading my thoughts again?”
André’s cheeks grew hot at the piercing stare and he swallowed, nodding.
“My thoughts are not for you to filter through, young man.”
“Yes, sir,” André responded and sunk further into the chair.
The colonel nodded curtly and returned his gaze to the windshield, navigating the aircraft home. “Yes. We live in a network of domes because there isn’t enough oxygen outside to support us for very long. Domes cover quite a few American cities: Denver, Chicago, Phoenix, Nashville, St. Louis, Las Vegas, and Dallas-Fort Worth, which is where I live.”
The forest below gave way to stark plains with tall, pale grass bowing with the breeze, and in the distance sat Dallas-Fort Worth. The clear opaque dome reflected the sun’s rays, spitting off tiny rainbows of light.
André closed his eyes tightly and inhaled, not trusting the feel of the craft landing, or the sound of the engines throttling down. Hope was something he couldn’t afford. Like all his hallucinations, waking was the hardest part. Shattered hope smothered his will to live, to take another breath, and if this turned out to be another one, he didn’t want to wake.
Slowing to a stop on the tarmac, Colonel Robbins shifted the craft into neutral and turned toward him. “André, I’ve got a medic on standby and he’s going to need to run some tests to determine what you need to get better. That might mean staying in the hospital for a few days.”
A shrill echo of his former life came back and along with it came the mistrust, and he shot his eyes between the dome and Colonel Robbins, unsure of what to feel. “Can’t I stay with you?”
“Not right away. We need to get you healthy before we cross that bridge.”
“When I’m better, can I stay with you?”
Colonel Robbins inhaled, turning his gaze toward the dome. When he met André’s questioning stare, André saw hesitation and underneath, the need to protect him. He heard the flurry of thoughts accompanying the uncertainty and understood what he was asking was next to impossible.
Even so, the colonel nodded and said, “Yes, you can stay with me.”
That declaration eased André’s fears. The man next to him just made a promise, one that could likely land him in a world of trouble, but he made it just the same.
“Just so we have things straight. I’m a colonel in the US Armed Forces and if you live with me, I expect you to obey my rules, and don’t think for one minute I won’t punish you if you step out of line.”
The stern temper of his voice shrank André’s confidence and he shifted in the chair, nodding assent. “Yes, sir.”
“I want to prepare you for what’s waiting for us inside the hangar,” Colonel Robbins said. “Based on the information I received earlier, I’m pretty sure we’re walking into a media circus.”
André cocked his head to the side. “Media circus?” He wasn’t sure what that phrase meant.
“Reporters. Do you know what a reporter is?”
“I think so.”
Colonel Robbins waited with his eyebrows arched. “Without pulling the info from my head?”
Caught again. This time André let a small smirk form and he shifted his gaze to the dome. “Without reading your thoughts, no, I don’t know.”
“A reporter reports the news and they think you’re news worthy. An alien from outer space is news worthy, but we’re going to give them a rescue of a boy who slipped into the wrong container.”
The dome entrance opened and they taxied in. “Think you can handle that?” he asked and cruised into the docking bay.
André nodded.
True to his word, the media was out in force and the sheer number of people overwhelmed André. Colonel Robbins carried him through the sea of reporters, ignoring the microphones shoved in their faces and questions shouted at them. “No comment,” he repeated as he cut his way through the crowd and into the base.
“Media circus?” André asked, looking back at the doors with the dozens of faces pressed to the glass, combined with the tiny camera lenses.
The colonel let out a small laugh. “Yes. They’re piranhas.”
“What’s a piranha?” André asked.
“A flesh-eating fish.”
André giggled. He could see where they would be likened to flesh eating fish. Before he could react beyond a giggle, a medic with a wheelchair swung next to the colonel.
“I can take him from here.”
“Thanks Cal,” the colonel said.
André wanted to scream no, but the colonel sat him in the chair and nodded. “I’ll be by in a little while to check on him.” And with that, he turned, leaving André alone with the stranger.
Chapter 3
Matthew glanced over his shoulder just as the medic wheeled André into a room. Worry still lined his stomach, making it a well of acidic slosh. He didn’t know how he was going to make good on the promise he made to that boy.
“Stupid idiot,” he muttered under his breath. Turning, he marched to the commander’s office and slid inside, standing at attention until the commander finished his phone call.
“What the hell were you thinking disobeying a direct order?” Commander Lawrence bellowed and slammed the phone down.
“He’s a boy,” Matthew snapped, glaring at his commanding officer. “And I didn’t sign on with the Armed For
ces to kill children.”
“He could be a spy for all we know.”
“Bullshit, sir.”
Commander Lawrence surveyed his colonel and closest friend. “He is an alien.”
“Who has been drifting in space for years with no food or water. If he hadn’t come into our solar system, he would have died out there. Alone. In the dark.” Matthew took a deep breath, squashing the fury building inside; the injustice of what was done to André was too much to abide. If he ever got his hands on those responsible, he’d gladly carry out his orders to exterminate them. “He is only a boy,” he repeated.
“He is a ward of the United States now.”
Matthew nodded. “As an officer of the United States Armed Forces, I would like to take responsibility for the boy.”
The commander gawked at Matthew. “He’s going to the lab in Denver so we can study him and his species.”
Matthew clenched his jaw and his hands followed suit. “He isn’t some animal to poke and prod under the microscope. He’s a kid who is scared shitless on a planet he doesn’t know.”
“He’s an alien,” Commander Lawrence repeated.
“Yes, but—”
“—No buts Colonel.”
“He’s been through enough, sir. You can’t just imprison him for the rest of his life. It’s not right. It’s not the American way,” Matthew said, knowing full well it would push the commander’s buttons.
Commander Lawrence leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms, and studied Matthew. “What exactly is the American way, Matthew?”
“Our history has always welcomed those from other nations with open arms, sir. The words are still inscribed on the remains of the Statue of Liberty. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! He deserves a chance at a life and not in some lab, under inspection like a rat.”
Leaning forward, Commander Lawrence narrowed his eyes. “What if he’s dangerous?”
“I’m willing to take that risk, sir.”
