by Li Hill
"They don't know why you're immune. Read the report. Some people just are and there's no blood type or genetic pattern that it pirs with." Iilo tapped on the journal. "We can't risk a human dying from us. We stay away because we know you don't want us, and because the last thing we want is to start another war."
"But why is it still a secret?" Tom asked. The I'na popultion wasn't large, but he still expected Congress to want to protect humanity. A small cut on an I'na child's knee could end up killing a human if no one was careful.
"Your guess is as good as mine. I think it's to protect us, honestly. Our technology is valuable to America, and our secret is one we don't want out."
Tom opened his mouth, but when nothing came out, he sunk into his chair. He was afraid. Being in this very room made him afraid. The red gems—zin—glared like a monster's eyes. The walls threatened to cut into his skin with their jagged edges and warped shapes. But being afraid wasn't an excuse anymore. He'd buried his head in the sand long enough. The sonder he felt for the dead I'na—dead because of him—it was too much to withstand.
"So you want me to go to the cops with you because you can't kill me if you bleed."
"Can't start a war."
"And you want an attorney because it lends to credibility."
"You could help me bring justice. Isn't that what your profession does?"
Attorneys were law, but they weren't the law. They upheld it and brought justice where there was none, but they didn't seek out those who were breaking the law. They were the tail-end. Tom still understood the semantics could be hard for an alien. But Tom was no police officer; he couldn't do what they could.
"I can go with you, sure. But I'm not going to be there as your attorney. I'll be there as—a kind of friend. You don't have a case and so you really don't need me. But I need something in return."
"I don't have money."
"That's not what I want." Tom sat forward, his heart shuddering underneath his sternum. His whole life he wanted to be the good guy, but looking around this very room, he wasn't. It was a constant reminder of us versus them. Tom liked that the I'na had their own homes. He liked that they were building their communities with their food and their customs. What he didn't like was the stagnation he'd allowed. He'd just thought it moments before. Attorneys brought justice where there was none. Unable to own property? Unable to leave the damn country? There was more there. More than Tom, and his exhaustion wasn't sure he wanted to touch. Like his spine was trying to rip from his body and run away, the more he sat here. Except his heart wanted this. He didn't want to be the bad guy in the I'na's story any longer.
"The I'na I killed. When this is all over and I've helped you at least get to the police. I want to meet his family." Tom felt tears sting his eyes. He briskly brushed them away, afraid to show any more emotion than he had already. "I need to apologize to them."
Silence. The room wavered in light, a beating heart that enveloped them.
Iilo took in a soft breath and then reached for Tom's hand. His skin was butter soft and slightly cool to the touch. "Why?"
Tom didn't pull his hand away. Humans and I'na both needed touch for comfort. It was something they had in common. A bridge formed between them, quiet and serene. To think that Tom had hunted I'na three years before and now he was taking comfort from one.
"I don't sleep at night," Tom said, staring at their hands. His was so pale in comparison to Iilo's blue. The dim light in the room soaked into Tom's skin, giving it an ethereal glow like the moon had found itself just beneath the surface. "I see him every time I turn off the bedroom light to when I finally give up in the morning. I joined the army to give my family something they'd never had before—money and a bit of stability." Tom laughed. He was spilling his guts out to someone he hardly knew, yet there wasn't anyone else in the world that Tom could see understanding this as well as Iilo. Tom had friends, and those friends knew his life's story. But Iilo was the other side to that story.
Tom had held a gun to his chest at night during First Contact. He knew he'd killed more than just the I'na he'd stabbed during the heat of a Louisiana night. But the brutality had never settled within Tom. The terror he'd felt had never been so intense until he felt the breath of that I'na on him. It was in that moment he'd learned I'na could feel just like humans, and they were just as afraid as him. Yet he'd killed him.
"I have to make it up to them. If that's them screaming or trying to kill me, then that's that. And I'm not—suicidal or anything. If you're there too, maybe we can avoid me getting ripped apart."
Iilo's lips tugged down, his brows pinching together. He gave Tom's hand another squeeze before breaking away. "It was war. Killing was expected."
"I know. But my brain tries to tell me that, and I still don't listen. So, do we have a deal? You find whoever his family was and I go to the police with you?"
Iilo contemplated, chewing his bottom lip. He opened his mouth several times as if to speak but deflated. Watching Iilo was like watching a full ensemble of a play on stage. Each twitch of his nose, scrunch of his lips—he spoke more with his body than his voice. He didn't want to help Tom, but he battled with needing Tom too. It was for that reason that Tom knew Iilo would eventually agree. He just had to watch Iilo battle with it.
"Okay," Iilo finally said. "I'll help you find his family."
Tom smiled. He shoved out his hand over the table, and Iilo scrutinized it. "Uh, seal the deal? Handshake?"
Iilo took Tom's hand and shook it, his brows furrowing. Every twitch of muscle, every flush of his skin wrote a book on his feelings. Tom didn't know whether Iilo was a good liar or not, but he doubted it.
"Don't like touching hands?" Tom asked.
"Handshakes are weird. They're stilted. You keep your people away from each other. It's odd."
"So the thing going on out there with all the crying and the touching? Is that like a handshake?" Tom asked, smiling. He wanted to get Iilo to smile. He also wanted to learn about I'na. No better source than the source.
"That's a Venting—thing. A Venting—" Iilo moved a finger in the air, round and round.
"Circle?"
"Yes! Venting circle!" Iilo smiled, his face flushing with a rosy tint. "Helps heal disputes and grudges."
Tom could feel himself relaxing. Iilo was unexpected. But unexpected wasn't bad.
"Do you wanna talk a bit more about what's happened? Or is it too much for you?" Tom wouldn't presume Iilo was even remotely okay. Iilo handled himself well, but Tom knew better. He paid his bills and hung out with his friends, but he was still a shambling mess on the inside. Tom wondered what kind of masks Iilo wore to hide his real self—the self Tom had seen clutching a shoebox in his office.
Iilo stood up and touched a part of the wall that jutted out, which slid open to reveal his beat-up little shoebox, and he brought it over to Tom. He sighed before opening the box, full of pictures and notes. Iilo meticulously pulled out each picture. At the bottom of each one was a little dab of masking tape with a scribbled name. Each I'na was a slightly different shade of blue than the previous. One was even purple. Tom smiled, touching the little photograph. He didn't know they could be other colors.
Iilo let out a shuddered breath, his lips quivering. Tom didn't need to be a genius to know how much laying these photos out hurt Iilo. He'd lost so many, they hung in the air around Iilo, whispering in his ears.
"They all went missing over the past few months." Iilo wiped at his eyes.
"What is few?"
"Three? Except this one." Iilo pointed to a female. "She went missing last week. She was my friend."
"Oh, I'm sorry." It was mechanical. Apologizing when Tom didn't know what else to say. Iilo had curled into himself, arms hugging knees. Tom wondered how old Iilo was. In one moment, he acted like an adult, but the next, he was a child.
Tom looked to the pictures again. "And the police here didn't check into this?"
"They did. But the Elect has ultimate authority, and they said i
t was just another runaway. Like how a lot of I'na leave compounds or settlements to go into cities to those outreach places."
Tom nodded. He'd heard of the Outreach building in Lincoln. It was meant to be a place of education and a bridging of the two species. It also functioned as a shelter for I'na who ran away from home. Sometimes the I'na went back home; sometimes they didn't. Tom's friend Sam had told him all about her time as a guard for the Outreach center. After too many reports of attempted abuses or various other misconduct, the government thought it necessary to step in and guard the place. Tom wondered now if the government was there to keep the I'na safe or to keep humans safe from I'na.
"You were a translator?" Tom asked. He jotted down a few notes into his phone about the missing I'na, trying to see if he could come up with any similarities as to why they'd be kidnapped, if they had been. Tom couldn't rule out the possibility of them having just run away. But twenty was a high number, and from the way Iilo chewed on his fingers, Tom wasn't convinced he wouldn't see that number continue to climb.
"For a time, yes. I'm not really the best at English, but I was in the right ship at the right time and your people heard me speak first. My sister actually speaks English better than me, but we're both pretty good." Iilo shrugged. "I wish I could've worked with NASA. But they already had enough translators and I'm no scientist. I wasn't needed."
The way Iilo said he wasn't needed left an impression. He was either immensely sad or somewhat relieved. He shied away from the sentence, mumbling, but Tom picked up on it. He considered Iilo's body language—the way he desperately clung to his little box. Iilo wanted to be useful.
"So why're you the only one looking into this?" Tom asked.
Iilo's eyes watered. "Because we're all scared, but I'm not going to sit here and wait for it to happen to me too."
"Brave."
Iilo scrunched up his nose. "My sister calls it stupid."
"Also true." Tom laughed, thinking back on his own sister. She'd called him stupid more than a few times too. A twinge hit his heart, and Tom pushed the image of her face out of his mind. He'd mourned and moved on already.
"The Elect are your leaders, right? Like politicians?" Tom picked up a photo and looked closely. The I'na here couldn't have been more than a child. Cherubic chubby cheeks, a wide smile. Tom set the photo down and shook his head. It was always worse when a child was involved.
"I guess they're kind of like politicians." Iilo stroked a few of the images, tapping on others. He paused long enough for Tom to start feeling uncomfortable. "They're more like caretakers," he continued. "The Elect is made up of feminine-identified people. They make decisions about what crops to grow, what cows to slaughter, if we can blend soil samples into your soil to terraform it and produce some of our own flora. We have. Which is nice. But our plants can't really take your sun besides the big one you saw in the front. But he's totally harmless. Just kind of grows and dies every now and then. We keep our plants in the basement of the house here." He smiled, bobbing his head. "The Elect handle disputes and punishes people when they break rules. Decide what's important and what's not. So, I guess kind of like a politician."
"Female-identified?" Tom knew what it meant, but he didn't really know how that applied to I'na. He vaguely remembered they were an intersex species, but he'd never stopped to think about the ramifications of gender identity based on a fully intersex species. His undergrad Gender Studies professor was somewhere cursing his name.
"Intersex species. We usually have a sex that presents itself a bit more than the other, but again—intersex. To put it casually like a human, we don't really give a shit."
"Well put." Tom chuckled, taking a moment to watch Iilo study the pictures. Tom owed a debt to a family out there who'd lost a son. Iilo regarded each photo as if he owed them something too. A dedication that not many would risk, especially if it meant going against the very people who claimed to have his best interests at heart.
"I need to save them. All of them." Iilo had grouped a box of photos together, and instead of just offering thoughts and prayers, he'd set himself to action.
It was a lot more than most humans could say for themselves. Back before the Second Amendment was amended, mass shootings had occurred all over the country. "Thoughts and prayers" were offered more than action, until someone had stood up and said enough. Iilo was that person, standing before a sea of complicit people. Tom more than respected that.
Iilo wasn't exactly what Tom had expected. He'd expected something harsher, more like the skittering feet in the darkness and less like a fully realized individual. He'd expected himself to clam up and shut down. It wasn't entirely smooth sailing; the more Tom looked at Iilo and stayed in this room, the more depressed Tom got. It was all just a reminder of the things that had happened and the things he'd done to stay alive. The smell of decay. The sounds of guns.
Tom swallowed roughly. Now wasn't the time. He'd made a deal. If he was to make sure Iilo presented his evidence as best as he could to the police, then Tom needed to know it. So he asked.
"Why do you think I'na are being kidnapped? Do you have any theories?"
"I'm unsure. But no one's talking about it openly." Iilo huffed. "It's like they're afraid the Elect will arrest them. Or they'll be next. Or both. I'm worried there's something happening. I just don't know what."
"And the Elect is just ignoring it?" Tom continued jotting down notes in his phone. He'd need to get Iilo's number before the night was out too.
"Kind of. They investigate, but it always turns out the same. If they're dead, then we don't talk about them. If they're kidnapped, then that means a big headache for the Elect, and they don't want to deal with it."
"Don't talk about the dead?" Tom asked.
"It's part of our religion." Iilo pulled out a necklace and showed that he too wore a tiny gem around his throat. "We believe our dead give us energy to keep going. If we talk too much about them, we use up their energies too fast." Iilo looked away, swiping a hand over his eyes.
Tom had tried to hide that he was crying enough times to know Iilo didn't want to be called out and he'd deal with it on his own time.
"Have you had any visitors? People you don't recognize?" Tom asked.
"We get visitors a lot. Some are just people curious about us. Some for sex."
"Sex?" Tom could feel blood warming his cheeks.
"Sex sells. Humans like the experience." Iilo smirked, waggling his brows.
"Right," Tom said. "Makes sense, I guess."
"Humans come and go. I haven't seen any carry I'na off by the neck, if that's what you're saying."
"Not just that. Anyone who keeps coming back? Does anyone say anything about repeat customers?"
"Some come back. We never know who's gonna drop by. We don't use phones to make appointments, so it's, as you humans say, a roll of the dice."
"Why don't you use phones?"
"If a foreign government told you to use a phone with the assumption that you'd be speaking to friends and loved ones, would you be spilling all your secrets to them too? I know America legalized sex work like—ten years ago?"
Tom nodded.
"But that doesn't exactly calm us. I don't—look." Iilo took a big breath. "I don't mean to sound cruel. But you have to look at it from our side for this. We're scared of you. Not you. You seem pretty nice, actually. But people. I've read your histories. We all have, for the most part. Humans aren't kind to each other. And I'm not saying we're some peaceful utopia because we absolutely blew up each other's ships when coming here and we absolutely fight over a lot of stuff too—but when you put an outsider against an outsider? People tend to stick to their own kind and fear the other. We worry about being subjected to raids or new laws or further restrictions, just like people in your past did. Does that help? I want you to understand us. Not just about my missing people, but who we are."
Humans had hated each other for many reasons. They still did. While some things got better, others got worse. B
ut I'na weren't human. That made even outsiders of human culture suddenly worth rallying for the cause. Us versus them. Tom looked away, ashamed.
"I think if we learn about each other, helping each other will only be easier. I want you to know me, but not just me. My people. Why I act the way I do is in part from how we've been treated. Your people needed me once. But when they didn't? I'm just back to being the outsider again."
Tom grimaced. Apologies rushed into his head, but he said nothing. An apology wouldn't cover what happened between their species. Only action could.
"I think humans are fascinating. And I'll never get over how much love you have for puppies. I spent my whole life on a spaceship. We didn't have the luxury to have pets. We had livestock in the beginning, but most didn't survive the journey and breeding got rough. I never saw an animal until I saw an advertisement on a billboard about spaying and neutering a pet. I think dogs are hideous."
"I love dogs," Tom said automatically.
"Of course you do." Iilo smiled.
Tom smiled back. The room fell silent around them until Tom said, "So no phones for clients. I can understand that. The government spies on us too. I guess we just kind of roll over and take it, though."
Iilo shrugged. "We're a lot more—what is it? The animal with the fat body and the head. I forget."
"Huh?"
Iilo put his index fingers up to his temples and made a rrrrrharhar sound.
"Oh, a bull?"
"Bull-headed! That's it." Iilo stood, gathered his photos, and carefully put them back into the shoebox. The jutted part of the wall opened, and he set the shoebox inside before shoving his hands into his pockets. "Anyway, people come and people go. We've gotten used it. I like that some are interested in us. Like children. I like human children a lot."
Tom did not like human children. "They're sticky and they smell."
