The pain hit him like a sword slash across his right side. A gash opened just below his ribs, several inches long and bleeding profusely from where the creature’s hooked claws had sliced through his ceramic body armor to embed itself in his side. He screamed in agony as he dropped the pistol, grasping desperately for the catwalk ledge.
The creature’s lower body fell away, its way of sloughing off excess weight, but its torso and arms remained. The beast dug its embedded claws deeper into Max as it began to morph into something else. His fingers failed, slipping, unable to keep the weight of his body and the creature suspended any longer.
Two strong hands grasped his left wrist and began to pull. Dr. Rogers stared down at him, saying nothing as she leaned back, her feet braced against the lip of the catwalk, putting her entire weight into the effort. Her terrific strength astounded Max. The creature attempted to climb up his body, and his muscles twitched under the strain of being stretched between the beast and Dr. Rogers. He reached down with his right hand and grabbed the release handle on the plate carrier.
“Drop dead motherfucker!”
With one swift yank, the creature howled and fell away into the abyss below.
Dr. Rogers kept pulling, her assistance enabling Max to swing his left boot onto the catwalk. His wound throbbed and burned as though packed with salt, but he overcame the agony for another few seconds, just long enough to climb to safety.
“Max!” Dr. Rogers gasped.
He peered down at his gaping wound. “Leave me. Finish the job.” His consciousness faded.
The door to the reactor control room stood open. She bent down, grabbed him by his ankles and dragged him inside. The door slammed shut behind them.
An incongruous mix of light and fog permeated Max’s mind. His mind’s eye cleared and focused on a sunny sky above an endless field of cropped green grass. A towheaded boy, reed thin, stood before him holding a football. “Dad!” David called in enthusiasm and happiness at seeing his father again after one of his lengthy trips away from home.
“Go deep, Davey! Let’s see what you got!” Max urged.
David pitched him the football and ran off laughing toward an imaginary end zone. Max watched him run on skinny legs. Awkward but fast, once he grows a bit he’ll make a hell of a receiver.
Man and boy played in unrehearsed synchronicity, Max releasing the ball when he knew the time was right. The ball spiraled through the air with nary a wobble as it rose, arced, then started to drop. David gazed over his shoulder and stretched out his arms, fingertips grasping the football an instant before it would have dropped incomplete. Max watched his hands but also his eyes, bright blue even at this distance. My boy. Max remembered the day David was born, how he couldn’t help thinking he was the luckiest man in the world.
The sun brightened, forcing Max to shield his eyes. “David?” he shouted, daring a peek through his fingers at the nearly blinding light, which seemed oddly divine. Whether a light of blessing or punishment, he couldn’t say.
The divine light disappeared, replaced by a subdued glow he recognized as the ambient lighting in the space vessel. Max felt a warm, soothing sensation in his side. He gasped and came wide awake. He peered into Dr. Rogers’s brown eyes as she knelt over him. She had her hands pressed to the wound on his side...
Or, more accurately, what had been a wound. It was completely healed, no scarring, as though nothing had happened.
“I was dead,” he breathed. “I should be dead.”
“No,” she told him. “I couldn’t allow that. You’re alive.”
He stared up into her face as she stood and reached out to him. He took her hand, feeling her strong grip as she helped him back to his feet. His outfit hung on him in tatters, but somehow, he was healed.
Dr. Rogers met his gaze. “Was that David?”
“Who...? What the hell are you? How do you know about David?”
“I am the only remaining member of this exploration ship’s crew.”
“The crew?” Max tried to still his spinning brain. The revelation momentarily stupefied him, but the pieces locked neatly together in his mind: her astounding strength, her knowledge of the ship and its alien weapons, her ability to sense his thoughts. He realized he had perhaps known it all along in the back of his mind, but her saying it made the reality of it finally set in.
He reflexively drew his pistol and pointed it at her, his mind still trying to digest the revelation. “Tell me. You need to tell me everything, starting with who you really are.”
She pushed the weapon aside and stepped closer to him, grasping his forearms. “Max, there isn’t time.”
“What happened to the real Dr. Rogers?”
“The creatures got to her. To stop them, I had to infiltrate the Greytech research party, and when I found her dying, I had my chance. Granted, I don’t have the shape-shifting abilities of these creatures, but I am able to project a human form in people’s minds. They saw what they wanted to see, and I read most of her thoughts before she passed.”
When she released him, he clung on to her. “What are you?”
She smiled. “I think you know by now. And you know that some things are universal, no matter how different we are.” She paused as she gauged his reaction. “How do you feel?”
“Good as new.” Not completely the truth, he felt weak and slightly dizzy. But he could feel his condition improving with each passing second, pretty remarkable for a man who’d just been sliced open by an alien.
“Liar,” she said with a laugh. “Let’s finish this.”
She pulled away and walked across the bridge toward the reactor core airlock, the bright light from its window creating a halo around her. The reactor core control room was a broom closet when juxtaposed to the grandeur of the command center. There were workspaces for only ten people, eight of which were located in a pit accessible via a spiral staircase. The crew in the pit would see nothing but their workstations. An extended bridge led to a small control tower with two more work stations, far above the other crew, before a smoked-glass observation panel with a door that looked into the reactor chamber.
The reactor consisted of a huge cylinder about sixty feet high and thirty feet in diameter that glowed white-hot. Eight slim, skeletal towers of gray metal surrounded the reactor, each with a glowing orange control station at its spire. Square cantilevered bridges of gray metal packed with conduits and piping connected each tower to the reactor. The facility was impressive enough though something of an anticlimax.
“So how are you going to destroy it?” Max asked.
She turned. “I will disable the reactor core’s magnetic gravity field, which will cause the core to go thermal and initiate the ship’s self-destruct mechanism.”
“What will happen to you?”
She glanced back at the chamber. “I will cease to exist.”
“No! Why don’t you initiate the self-destruct and leave? You could come with me, and with your abilities, you could do a lot of good in this world.”
“You know I can’t, Max. I wish I could have saved the others. But there’s one thing left I can do. This ends with me, and it ends right now.” She turned and opened the airlock to the reactor core.
“I’m coming with you,” Max stated solemnly.
Dr. Rogers didn’t respond. She gazed into Max’s eyes, reached up to touch his face, and kissed him.
Max felt her lips against his, and the world suddenly stopped. He felt as though he were awakening from a long night of uninterrupted sleep, a sensation he hadn’t known in over twenty years. He then felt a strong shove against his chest, like an invisible hand, forcing him to take several steps back. Momentarily stunned, Max watched as she opened the airlock hatch that accessed the reactor core chamber.
He tried to reach for her, but his legs weren’t quite there yet. Instead, he had to lean against the wall for support and lifted his other hand to block out the brilliant light pouring through the airlock’s windows. It glowed red through his fles
h before darkness swallowed the corridor once more.
Max reached the inner airlock door, the thick, tinted window separating him from her. The fulgent light from the reactor core now cast a halo around all of her.
“Alexis, no!” he shouted, banging on the glass.
Her thoughts entered his head. “Forgive me, Max. It isn’t your time. I hope our paths cross again in another life.”
“Wait!” he called after her. Wanting more. Wanting to know more.
But she didn’t look back.
She reached the base of the tower and turned her attention to the control panel. Her hands moved like a conductor’s, holographic images quickly shifting left and right as she accessed the panel. The light in the room became brighter, more intense, even through the dark-tinted glass.
Max banged on the window and shouted her name again.
This time she turned and regarded him. The skin on her face had turned bright red as it began to fissure in the heat. But her brown eyes were still bewitching, and she could still smile at him.
Max closed his eyes for a moment, wiped them clean, and waited a moment before trying to peer into the brightness again. She’d moved out of sight by that time. What? Where is she? Is the energy too much, even for her?
A shadow moved in front of the door, blocking out the light. His vision went black; his eyes couldn’t adjust fast enough. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, tried again to see. With great difficulty, he identified her face—her features shaded by the brilliant light from the reactor. She had her hands pressed against the door. Her flesh cracked, but her eyes were still brown, still penetrating. He could feel the reactor’s heat even through the barrier. She smiled at him.
Her voice then filled his head, Go home, Max.
Home?
Again, she stepped back from the glass screen. Go now. Leave this ship and live.
Max finally nodded, causing her to smile one last time.
Suddenly a halo formed around her, bright blue and green, like the bottom of a gas flame. He saw her silhouette, watched as it transformed in the light, until he saw her true form revealed. It was beautiful. Just as the thought came to him, her body disappeared in a burst of bright white, the brightness too much to bear. A brightness that was too much to bear because for so long he was dead inside, and maybe, somehow, in spite of all the blood and the mistakes and the lies and the pain and the hell that he’d endured, maybe, just maybe he had found his way to atone for his deeds. There was a brightness that was too much to bear and like all other burdens that he had lived with, he bore it.
She was gone. Whatever held him to that door was gone too.
And just think, you’re probably the only man on Earth to ever have his heart broken by an alien.
He heard a thumping at the entrance door and through its window saw three creatures awaiting him on the catwalk. One was jabbing the holographic control with an appendage that ended in a hand that looked almost human, examining it, attempting to gain access. He might just get it, but I’m fucked either way. Unless...
Another door led from the control room. He smiled and shook his head. She wouldn’t leave me in the lurch like that. I should have known. The door opened when he approached, just as he knew it would.
Max knew he needed to follow her instructions. He had a mission to finish.
Lucky people died the easy way: heart attacks, car accidents, shot in a holdup or on a battlefield. Edward Grey envied them that. No planning, shit just happens. And there’s nothing to think about until it happens. And by then, of course, it was too late to stave off death.
Edward had nothing to do but think about his imminent demise. He looked at the three pills in the orange prescription bottle, the potent barbiturates that would lull his body into permanent sleep, and realized his time had finally come. He’d gone through a great deal to obtain the drugs: paperwork, finding two friends to witness his signature on the assisted suicide forms since family and hospice staff were not allowed to serve as witnesses, and locating a doctor to prescribe the lethal drugs. The hospice staff were not allowed to interfere with his wishes but were likewise prohibited from helping him to carry out the deed. Edward would have gotten his scrip from an outside doctor anyway; despite confidentiality laws, he didn’t trust the doctors at the facility to keep his decision from his mother, who would most certainly interfere. Edward wouldn’t allow that—he’d had enough of her entreaties to stay positive, as well as her whimsical promises that she would find a cure. It’s over. Today.
And it’s about fucking time.
Two days were nothing to the average person, but to a cancer patient, they could seem like decades. Even Edward was astounded at how his condition had worsened in only forty-eight hours. He suffered two more seizures and started pissing blood, in addition to the other various and arbitrary symptoms he’d accumulated over time.
“May I have the mirror, please?” he asked Debbie, who sat at his bedside.
She produced the handheld mirror which was the only mirror in the room and held it up in front of him.
Edward had demanded the mirrors in his suite be taken down so he didn’t have to look upon himself. Now he wanted to take a good long look at what he was about to leave behind. A monster, some horror-movie ghoul who just clawed his way out of a grave.
As always, he first noticed the premature aging: the bags under his eyes, the faint age spots starting to speckle his bald head. He embodied the general and repressive weariness that the aged took on as they fought through the trials of everyday life, ever mindful of their ineluctable fate. The lesions and purple blotches on his face also had their say, tacking on another twenty years of unlived life. His sallow, bloodshot eyes belonged on a basset hound, not a nineteen-year-old man. He wasn’t surprised to see blood on his tongue when he opened his mouth wide.
Fucking gross. Enough of this already.
Edward handed the mirror back to Debbie and said, “It’s time. I can’t take this anymore.”
She wept but nodded her understanding. “You should call your mother first.”
“I already did.”
“Try her again. She’s your mother. Don’t deny her one last talk with her boy.”
Edward sighed. “Very well.” He suddenly felt guilty even though he had done no wrong. He’d called his mother’s cell earlier and received no answer, so he forwarded his call to Cynthia’s phone. She’d promised to give Ms. Grey his message, and Cynthia’s word was good as gold. His mother had yet to return his call, however.
Debbie dialed the number and handed him his cell phone, which rang six times before he heard his mother’s voice again recite: “You have reached the voicemail of Elizabeth Grey, President of Greytech Industries. Please leave a message, and I will return your call as soon as possible. If you require immediate assistance, please press one to be connected with my personal assistant, Cynthia Hilliard.” The recording stopped, giving Edward about three seconds to dial one or wait for the beep to leave a message.
He chose to end the call though it didn’t bring him the satisfaction he’d hoped. In truth, he wanted to speak to his mother one last time, preferably as he was swallowing his lethal dose of drugs when it would be too late for her to interfere. He desired to inform her of his decision with no goddamned interruptions this time. And he definitely wanted to say goodbye.
You could call back and leave a message, tell her one last time that you love her. But he decided not to. She would never erase it; it would haunt her for the rest of her days.
That last thought crushed him, made him shiver. He loved his mom, and deep down, he appreciated all she’d ever done for him, even all the annoying shit she’d put him through. It’s just her way. She holds the whole world to her impossible standards; she can’t help it. And she would continue to do so, only he would no longer be subject to her whims and manipulations.
He twitched as some synapse in his brain misfired. Such episodes always preceded his seizures, and he didn’t desire to suffer through anoth
er, especially when he didn’t have to.
“It’s time,” he said.
Debbie nodded but made no move to help him. Washington State’s assisted suicide laws for the terminally ill stated that he had to end his own life, that no one else could administer the lethal drugs or provide any assistance.
Edward was now truly on his own. And he was just fine with it.
So weak that he could barely press down and turn the safety cap on the prescription bottle, he managed it after a few seconds of trying. The meds looked innocuous enough, the sort of standard capsules that might deliver cold medicine or cure heartburn. He was ready to tip the pills into his hand but stopped.
“There’s a playlist of songs on my iPod,” he said. “It’s just labeled ‘favorites’. Can you turn it on, please?”
“Yes,” Debbie muttered, the word nearly unintelligible through her sobs.
Edward listened to X Ambassadors belt out “Jungle”, a song he’d listened to many times while pondering his fate. No one truly wanted to die—it went against every basic tenet of human nature. But he wasn’t the first to commit suicide or to know that he would be dead in a few minutes. Only now he knew what it felt like. Resignation. Things have happened to me, terrible things beyond even my mother’s control. He swallowed once, his throat aching with sadness. I don’t want to die.
And yet he had no choice.
Moving faster than he had in weeks, Edward grabbed the open pill bottle and upended it into his mouth, chasing it with a glass of water. He felt no different.
That was about to change. Debbie lay down next to Edward and took him in her arms. “Jungle” ended; “Hands” by Barns Courtney took over. “This song is for you,” Edward explained.
He didn’t feel his breathing growing imperceptibly shallower and shallower. He held Debbie and wept along with her as he stared out the window into another dreary Seattle day.
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