Messiah

by J. E. Taylor

  “Bullshit,” André’s groggy voice interrupted. He smiled a little and shifted to get more comfortable. “I’ll be playing in a month.” His breathing drifted back into the even rhythm of sleep.

  Matthew and Katrina exchanged a skeptical look.

  “How are you feeling?” Katrina asked as she plopped down on the small couch opposite André.

  “I’m fine,” Matthew answered. He wasn’t one to complain even though his ribs still sent sharp twinges of pain any time he moved.

  “Who are you kidding, Dad?” Katrina said, glancing at him. “Every time you move, you get this horrible grimace on your face.”

  Matthew shrugged. “Complaining isn’t going to make it heal any faster.”

  “How long are you out of work?”

  “The doctor said at least two weeks.”

  “Ah,” Katrina said. That ought to make for a fun house the next couple weeks.

  Matthew sent a disapproving glare in her direction.

  “You and André laid up in the same house. Duh.” Katrina rolled her eyes.

  Matthew laughed. “We’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said under her breath.

  “We will,” Matthew said, trying to convince her.

  “Whatever,” Katrina said, focusing on Sam.

  “Don’t you have somewhere to go?” Matthew asked.

  “Not with those vultures out there,” Katrina answered.

  A knock at the front door interrupted the conversation.

  Katrina looked at Matthew expectantly as she played with Sam.

  Just like a teenager. Matthew sighed and closed the recliner, getting up slowly. He opened the door and raised his eyebrows. “Mr. President.” He glanced at the media frenzy on the street and stepped aside, allowing the president to enter.

  “Commander.” President Foster nodded as Matthew closed the door. He glanced around the living room, nodding at Katrina.

  “To what do I owe this visit?” Matthew asked.

  President Foster focused back on Matthew. “I came by to say thank you to your son.”

  Matthew nodded. “He’s resting right now. He had a rough morning.”

  “I saw the footage,” President Foster remarked.

  “I know, but it took a lot out of him,” Matthew said, glancing at his son.

  “I also saw the footage from inside the ship,” President Foster said.

  “He almost died, Mitch,” Matthew said, looking back at the president, showing his guilt and regret to one of his oldest friends. “My son almost died because I let him get near that alien bastard.”

  The president put an understanding hand on Matthew’s shoulder.

  ANDRÉ OPENED HIS EYES. “No, Dad. I almost died because I wanted to pummel that son of a bitch with my own hands. Stop beating yourself up for my immaturity.” He slowly sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the couch, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Good afternoon, Mr. President,” André added.

  “Good afternoon, André,” the president said, crossing the room and extending his hand.

  “Pardon me for not standing, sir,” André said as he took the president’s outstretched hand. He smiled a little. The discomfort had returned and he knew in a little while it would be back full throttle to gut-wrenching pain.

  “I understand,” he said and reached into his pocket, pulling out a velvet jewelry box. “I have the distinct honor to present you with the Congressional Medal of Honor,” he said, flipping it open.

  Awe filled his sleepy mind and he glanced from the ornate medal to the president and back. A Maltese cross surrounded by a laurel wreath hung below a bar reading VALOR. The medal featured the American eagle in the center, its open wings spanning the length of the cross arms. André reached out and traced the decoration with his finger. He raised his eyes, meeting his father’s gaze.

  “There’s an inscription on the back,” the president said.

  André turned the medal over and inscribed in formal script were the words:

  Medal of Honor Recipient: André Robbins.

  July 4, 2240

  André didn’t quite know what to say. He knew this was an unprecedented honor. This award hadn’t been given out to a citizen in over a hundred years, if he recalled his history correctly. The magnitude of the gesture rendered him speechless.

  Matthew crossed the room and looked at the medal. “You earned it, son,” he said, blinking back tears of pride.

  “I’d like to formally present it to you in front of the press.”

  “You mind if I change into something else?” André asked after surveying his shorts and t-shirt.

  “By all means,” President Foster said.

  André looked at Katrina. “Do I have anything other than sweats and shorts down here?”

  Katrina shook her head. “No, but I’ll go get your gray suit.” She stood with Sam on her hip and looked at President Foster. “Do you mind holding Sammy for me?”

  “Not at all.” President Foster smiled and took the little boy in his arms while Matthew retrieved the wheelchair for André. “Your son is adorable,” President Foster said.

  “Thanks.” André hauled himself into the wheelchair.

  “Your wife and son should join us for the presentation,” President Foster stated. It was not posed as a question.

  “No, sir,” André answered as if it was an option.

  President Foster looked down at him. “That wasn’t a question.”

  “I’m sorry, but I would rather not have Katrina and Sam subjected to the media,” André answered.

  “I agree with my son,” Matthew said. “I don’t think it is prudent to flaunt his child to the world. There are some crazy people out there, Mitch, and André is already at risk. I don’t want to put his wife and son in the same situation.”

  “Why would Katrina and Sam be at risk?”

  “André, you are not from Earth. That makes you a curiosity to most of the population and puts you into instant fame status, along with your family,” Matthew explained. “That’s a potent cocktail for crazy people and they’re the ones I’m worried about.”

  “Don’t I have a say in the matter?” Katrina asked. She was holding André’s gray suit along with a pretty summer sundress.

  “No,” André answered.

  “I agree that Sam should not be out there, but I’ll be damned if I’m not standing by your side when the president gives you that medal.” She marched into the first floor bedroom without another word.

  The three men looked in the direction that Katrina disappeared. President Foster glanced at André. “She’s a pistol.”

  André sighed. “Yeah, tell me about it.” He rolled to the bedroom, gauging Katrina’s mood as he went. He pushed open the door and caught her as she slipped the dress over her head, covering her smooth bare skin. “You can’t be mad at me for wanting to protect you,” he said as he shut the door behind him.

  “André, I can protect myself now. Remember?”

  “I seem to remember you weren’t the one to stop Anna’s craft,” André pointed out as he slipped his shorts off and reached for his suit trousers.

  “I could have stopped her,” Katrina said.

  André let out a laugh. “Not.” He shuffled the pants up and stood on his good leg to pull them the rest of the way. He stripped his shirt while still standing and put the white oxford on, buttoning the bottom and tucking it in. He sat down after he buckled himself up, exhausted from the exertion. He reached onto the bed and grabbed his jacket, slipping it on. “How do I look?”

  Katrina smiled and waltzed up to him, the hem of the skirt swaying gently with her sultry hip movement. She leaned down and kissed him. “You look hot.” She moved around and took the handles of the wheelchair, pushing him out into the living room.

  President Foster nodded as the two entered the living room.

  Katrina took Sam from his arms and set him in a portable crib in the corner of the room, popping a pacifier in his mouth. “Ready?�
� she asked, turning.

  Everyone nodded. The president was the first to step out of the house. Matthew pushed André out, carefully maneuvering the wheelchair over the small step and moving him to the side of the door, facing the president. Katrina took her place by his side taking his hand as they looked out on the sea of reporters on the front lawn.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct pleasure to be here today.” President Foster surveyed the crowd. “As you already know, the threat of the meteor has been extinguished, thanks to the young man in the wheelchair behind me. What you may not be aware of is there was also an alien presence in space, using the meteor as a shield against us. When André destroyed the meteor, the alien attacked their ship with harmful intent.” He glanced back at Matthew. “This young man defended his adopted father and an Armed Forces medic, saving their lives from the alien invader, but he was seriously wounded in the process.” He turned toward André. “The United States of America owes you a debt of gratitude,” he said. “On behalf of the citizens of the United States of America, I am proud to present you with the Congressional Medal of Honor.” He made a great show of presenting the medal to André.

  André took the medal. “Thank you,” he said, maintaining eye contact with the president.

  The president smiled and reached into his pocket, pulling out a legal certificate and addressing the crowd. “Before the nuclear holocaust and the meteor strike in the Arctic Circle, the United States had a tradition for welcoming those from other cultures and countries across the world into her fold. Many strived to become citizens of this great nation.” He paused and glanced over at André. “In the tradition of our ancestors, I am officially granting you citizenship to our great nation.” He turned and handed the paper to André. “You are now one of our own.”

  André looked at the certificate, more touched by this gesture than receiving the medal. The certificate said he belonged; he was a part of a society, not shunned for being different. He looked up at the president and tried to smile, blinking the tears back, but he didn’t succeed at either. “Thank you,” he whispered, grateful beyond words.

  Katrina squatted next to him. “You okay?”

  André nodded, glancing at her and then beyond at the crowd of reporters, cameramen, and photographers. He slowly stood and reached to shake the president’s hand. “Thank you, sir,” he said, holding both the medal case and certificate in his left hand. “It is my fortune and honor to have found such a wonderful place.”

  The president shook André’s hand.

  André lowered himself back into the wheelchair.

  The press had been waiting silently until the moment André sat back in the chair. The flurry of questions engulfed the porch.

  André looked up at Katrina. Get me out of here.

  She nodded and turned the wheelchair toward the front door, rolling him into the house and away from the chaos. André put the medal down on the coffee table and stared at the piece of paper blinking back the red sheen covering his vision. He kept his back to the door when both Matthew and the president entered the house until he got a handle on his emotions and then turned, meeting the president’s gaze. “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome,” President Foster said and turned to Matthew. “When will you be back to work?”

  “Two weeks,” he said.

  President Foster nodded and turned back to André. “I would like you to start thinking about a military career young man.”

  “I need to graduate first, sir,” André answered. “But after that, it is my intention to join the Armed Forces.”

  President Foster smiled. He turned toward Matthew. “Commander.”

  “Mr. President.” Matthew saluted and waited until President Foster left before he turned to André. “I’m proud of you.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” he replied and leaned back in the wheelchair, wiping his face. His thigh throbbed overtaking the moment and he closed his eyes. “My leg hurts again.”

  Matthew glanced at his watch. “You still have a little over three hours before you can have any more medicine.”

  André glared in his direction. “You’re kidding.”

  “Afraid not,” Matthew answered and picked up the medal and certificate from the coffee table, bringing them upstairs.

  Chapter 19

  July 2240

  Insistent knocking woke Matthew from a sound sleep and he blinked, trying to orient himself with his surroundings. His gaze dropped to the daily brief in his hand and then to the clock on the wall. It had been hours since Katrina and Linda left the house and he couldn’t blame them. The second he was cleared to drive, he was out of there, too.

  The last two weeks consisted of sleep and battles with André over the stupidest things. Between Katrina and Linda running interference and André’s whining about how much his leg hurt, he was more than ready to get back to the office.

  He glanced over at André and sighed. The knocking hadn’t disturbed his drug-induced sleep and a measure of irritation bloomed. Rubbing his eyes, Matthew struggled out of the chair and crossed to the door, opening it without so much as a second thought. Barrels of several guns pointed in his face; any cobwebs in Matthew’s mind dissolved instantly.

  André! He sent the thought to his son and backed up a few steps.

  ANDRÉ SAT BOLT UPRIGHT on the couch and looked at the small band of thugs entering the house, their guns trained on his father. He glanced to his right; Sam still slept in the crib, undisturbed, and a small wave of relief washed over him.

  “What do you want?” Matthew asked, but he already knew and so did André. They wanted his son.

  André stood up and limped the distance to stand next to his father, despite the barrels wavering between he and Matthew. “Get out,” he said.

  The guns targeted him, but no one retreated.

  “Get out or else!” André clarified, the anger rising like flood tides, burying the dull throb in his leg.

  “Not so fast, alien,” someone said from behind the line of gunmen. They parted and a man came into view, dragging a dazed Katrina with him, a knife pressed to the soft flesh of her throat.

  André clenched his fists, brushing away the fleeting instance of shock that stopped his heart at the sight of Katrina’s terrified gaze. Instead, he calmed the urge to annihilate, and calculated the number of weapons and the energy required to unarm these assholes.

  “Where’s my wife?” Matthew asked; the shake in his voice gave away his barely contained fury.

  “If you don’t give us the alien half-breed, we will slice their throats open.”

  Another man stepped into view with Linda and a knife edged against her larynx, her shirt draped in tatters, revealing bruises on her arms and ribs. Her face held the same ugly black-and-blue tones and both her knees sported trickles of blood. The brutality of her injuries set André into a whirlwind of wrath and the ball forming in his chest let loose when his gaze focused on the thin line of blood coming from the knife pressed to her neck.

  His fists clenched and sent a silent command, yanking the knives away from the soft flesh of Katrina and Linda’s necks. The click of triggers filled the room, but no lasers released from the barrels.

  Instead, André used the heat and inertia from the multiple lasers to home in on the guns themselves, melting the metal around each gunman’s hands, binding their wrists together in burning steel.

  He focused on the man who dared to cut his mother and with a low growl, he shoved the power outward, catapulting the man through the living room window.

  Screams replaced the shattered glass and he focused back on the rest of the men. “If you ever come near my family again, I’ll kill every last one of you. Now. Get. Out!”

  The small band bolted out of the house and André slammed the door shut behind them, focusing back on the man lying on the front lawn, the leader of this band of thugs. The one who beat the daylights out of his mother. His anger swelled.

  “Don’t,” Katrina spoke loud
enough to break through the haze of fury.

  André glanced back at her. “He hurt both of you.”

  Matthew had the phone in his hand, dialing the emergency number. “This is Commander Robbins. I need both the police and ambulance sent to my residence. We’ve had a break-in.”

  André turned toward the front of the house in time to see a large hovercraft containing the broken band of thugs speeding straight for the house. The driver flashed his teeth at André in a triumphant suicide-bomber smile that made André’s skin crawl. His rage overflowed, shooting out from the center of his chest.

  The craft and everyone inside blew to bits, showering bloody vapors onto the front lawn.

  André stared at the particles raining down, shocked by the fine dust but not feeling a bit of remorse for those he killed. He glanced at his father. “Oops.”

  Matthew hung up the phone. “Oops? All you can say is oops? Are you out of your god damn mind?”

  André shrugged and took a few steps back to the recliner. Slumping in the chair, the exhaustion wrung the energy from his muscles. “It got away from me.”

  Matthew raised his eyebrows. “Just beautiful. You killed those men and all you can say is ‘It got away from me’?”

  “They were going to kill us, Matthew. All of us,” Linda said, calling Matthew’s attention. “They deserved what they got.”

  “They followed us to the store and jumped us,” Katrina said. “Knocked me out cold, otherwise...” She paused and swallowed, reaching to touch the lump on her temple. “Otherwise I would have stopped them.”

  “Stopped what?” Matthew asked with trepidation.

  André closed his eyes; hearing the accusation was far worse than gleaning it from Katrina’s mind. He glanced at his mother and gritted his teeth against the memories of their brutality. What he saw jump-started his adrenaline and he stormed out of the house, ignorant of the pain in his leg. He lifted the unconscious body and slammed his fist full in the man’s face, breaking bone with the power behind his punch.