Under His Influence

by Justine Elyot

  “We’ll get some painkillers when we’re through security.”

  “No. I don’t want to. I could harm the baby. Liam, I think this headache is something to do with the danger Mimi was talking about. I don’t think it’s a regular type of headache.”

  Liam held her at arm’s length, frowning. “I don’t get you. What, like, someone’s tried to poison you or something?”

  “No, not that. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I feel like something very bad is very close, and getting closer.”

  “Anna…” Liam hugged her close again, trying to veil his unease. Had they booked the wrong person into that psychiatric hospital?

  But she disengaged from him, looking wildly around the hall, as if expecting a gang of assassins to break through the crowds in pursuit of her.

  “Liam!” she cried. The people around them cast curious, concerned looks their way at the shrillness of her distress. “Liam, please get it away from me! Oh, don’t let it get me!”

  She twisted out of his reach and doubled over, screaming, then collapsed in a waxen-faced heap on the suitcase.

  “Fuck!” Liam yelped. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Where’s a doctor? Can someone get a doctor?” He dropped to his knees beside her, shaking with panic, cradling her and pleading with her to revive, to be well, to not be dead.

  “I have your child, Valent of the Draxxar.”

  John sat bolt upright from his position between Mimi and his mother, awakening them both.

  “What is it?” asked Mimi, seeing the wildness in his eyes and the sweat beading on his brow.

  “Anna didn’t make it to Australia. Rixxar One has found her.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He must be inside her somehow. Using the psychic link. Damn it, he is sharing house room with my child!”

  John screwed his eyes shut. Mimi wanted to comfort him, but he looked too far out of his rational mind to approach.

  Mimi heard the faint echo of his exchange with Rixxar One as it took place, using her own fragile bond with John. When she touched his arm, the sound grew more distinct.

  “Where are you? Where is she? What have you done to her?”

  “I do not know this place, how should I? And you are going to be a father—congratulations! How wonderful. If it comes to pass.”

  “I am not bargaining with you.”

  “Then it’s just as well your child will never be born. What kind of father are you, that won’t make a little concession or two to protect his child?”

  “Where are you? Describe it. I will come to meet you.”

  “Now that’s more like it. That’s the Draxxar in you. Civilised discourse, leading to rational decision-making. Not all this Earth bluster and emotion. I wondered if your spirit had changed as well as your body for a moment there.”

  “Where. Are. You?”

  “A large space, many people. Banks of desks and screens giving information I cannot read. The people carry large items with them, ticketed. They form lines and the large items are borne away on a conveyor belt.”

  “Right. Checking-in desks at Heathrow. Give me an hour. I will be there.”

  “I think we may be taken by these uniformed people. They are attending to your bond mate.”

  “I will find you. Just don’t leave the airport. Keep that Liam person with you. He will know us.”

  “I look forward to our reunion, Valent of the Draxxar.”

  “I don’t. Goodbye.”

  “Is this wise?” Mimi’s voice was small and scared for once.

  “Nothing in this is wise,” John replied. “But he is only one Rixxar. We can keep him at bay.”

  As they hurried out of the house, Mimi pursued the matter.

  “But if he can use Anna’s psychic link, won’t he know what you are planning? Won’t it just be one long stalemate?”

  “Anna’s psychic link is the human version. She only hears me when I choose her to. Rixxar One only has access to my mind when I allow it. The other way, though, is different.”

  “But he made contact with you! You were asleep.”

  “If Anna is in profound danger or distress, her link will reach me.” John was running now, dragging Mimi along in his footsteps, towards Haverstock Hill. All around them, people stood in clusters, staring wonderingly at the new-made sky.

  “So what can we do about Rixxar One? How can we get him out of Anna?”

  They piled into a passing cab and sat behind the scratched Perspex screen, their hands joined, white at the knuckles.

  “There will be a way,” avowed John. “We will find it.”

  Liam watched helplessly as the paramedics tried to ascertain what had caused Anna’s collapse.

  “I can’t understand it,” one of them said, glancing up at him. “She seems fine. Are you sure she isn’t faking it? Does she want to go wherever you’re going?”

  “Could be psychological—it’s the only thing I can think of,” added his colleague.

  “She’s had a rough time lately,” Liam offered. “Marriage breakup. And, like I said, she’s pregnant. Early stages.”

  “Well, I thought it was low blood pressure when you told me that,” the first paramedic said, frowning. “But the cuff reading is normal.”

  “She isn’t narcoleptic, by any chance?” hazarded his colleague.

  Liam shook his head.

  “Well, maybe a stress-related thing then. If your problems are so bad you have to cross the world to avoid them…”

  “They are pretty bad. Husband’s shacked up with her best friend. And they keep telling us that she’s in danger. She’s quite freaked out.”

  “Not surprised. Husband sounds like a prize. I guess she’s better off out of it, though. What shall we do?”

  This last question was addressed to the fellow paramedic, who replaced her equipment in her bag and folded her arms, her face a picture of confusion.

  “I dunno. Something’s up with her, isn’t it? And if she’s pregnant, we ought to stay on the safe side. Admit her to A&E?”

  “You think she needs to go to hospital? But our flight—”

  Anna suddenly sat bolt upright, her eyelids flying open.

  “We stay here,” she rasped, in a voice Liam didn’t recognise.

  “Anna…?”

  “I am well. Leave me. We must wait here. No flight.”

  Liam looked over at the paramedics, who seemed fascinated by Anna’s demeanour.

  “She isn’t herself,” he whispered.

  “I am myself!” Anna exclaimed. “I am my full and entire self. You are Liam. You must stay with me. These others must go.”

  The paramedics lingered, seemingly waiting for something to convince them to stay until Anna’s fierce expression drove them off.

  The first one shrugged.

  “Well, she’s healthy. Give us a shout if it happens again.”

  “Couldn’t find any indications of unfitness to travel,” added his colleague. “But watch for any stomach cramping or blood loss. And make sure you both get plenty of leg movement. Don’t want any deep vein thrombosis, do you?”

  They were backing off, slowly and sheepishly, beneath Anna’s demented glare.

  “Anna,” entreated Liam, taking her arm. She flung him off.

  “Yes. We are not flying. We must stay here and wait for John.”

  “What?”

  “He is coming. We must wait for him.”

  “Anna, I don’t get it. What’s wrong with you?”

  She flung an arm dramatically in the direction of a coffee kiosk.

  “There is sustenance over there. Fetch me some.”

  “I… Right. Coffee and a Danish?”

  “Sustenance.”

  “Okay.”

  When Liam returned with giant cartons of cappuccino and two almond croissants, they sat on the floor, leaning against a barrier, and stared at the diminishing queue checking in for the Australian flight.

  “So we’re not going? You don’t want to go to Australia afte
r all?”

  “Australia?”

  “Yes. That beautiful, hot, sunny, surfy country where we were going to relax and chill out and get away from all this fucking stress and angst.”

  “Fucking stress and angst.” The way Anna rolled the words around her tongue, as if trying out a new language for size, gave Liam pause, and he stared at her again.

  “What’s up with you, Anna? You’re ill. They should have taken you away when they had the chance.”

  “I’m fine,” she replied mechanically.

  “Really? So why are we sitting here, waiting for the man you expressly came here to get away from? Why aren’t we in the departure lounge waiting to board the plane?”

  “Have to see John. It’s important.”

  Liam sighed.

  “Christ, he’s really done a number on you, hasn’t he? All this breakup stuff has triggered a breakdown. Well, if he ever comes here—and I can’t see why he would, since it was his idea you leave the country—perhaps I can get him to write a big fat cheque for the Priory. You need serious rest. Medical rest. I’m so sorry, love.”

  Liam slipped an arm around her, but she was rigid.

  “When you feel up to it, we’ll go home,” he said, hopeless. “And call a doctor.”

  “I have to wait for John”

  “Right. Wait for John. Of course.”

  John and Mimi had to guess which terminal Anna and Liam had gone to, but John’s psychic link drew him towards the correct one first, and he and Mimi ran through the crowds of luggage-toting travellers, towards the vast checking-in hall.

  “Can you see her? I know she’s here somewhere.”

  John ran to one corner of the building while Mimi searched the other. It was John who came upon the rumpled pair first, stopping a few yards away to stare at them before he was observed.

  Anna, sensing his presence, looked up and saw him. Except it was not Anna. The malevolent glow that hooked him from her eyes was pure Rixxar warrior.

  “He’s here. How did you—”

  Anna interrupted Liam’s bemusement with harsh-toned words of her own.

  “Valent of the Draxxar. We meet. I seek your surrender. Come with me back to our world.”

  “You seek something you can’t enforce,” John said, moving closer. “You are alone in this world, and you have less than half my resources. Intellectual and technological. I’d go home if I were you. Except—oops!—you can’t.”

  “How have you blocked my fellows out? Do you mean that I am unable to leave?”

  “That is exactly what I mean. Our cells can’t travel through the ozone layer. I was able to come here because it was broken, but I have fixed it now. Just in time for your little friends to be deflected and sprung straight back into the Milky Way. What fun they must be having. What a shame you aren’t with them.”

  “You must break the ozone layer again. The fabric you repaired must be rent anew.”

  “Well, it will happen eventually, humanity being what it is.” John shrugged. “But you could be in for a long wait.”

  “Whatever process you have instituted, you must have the power to reverse it.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I don’t believe you. You are bluffing. Do it, or I cut off sustenance to your unborn child.”

  “You cannot do that. That is an act of murder for which your own High Council will judge you. An act of genocide. My mother and I are the last surviving Draxxar, as you know.”

  “I will do it, and I will take this vessel and kill it also.”

  “Stop. These threats are idle. We must exercise our rationality. You are behaving like a thug from the Chavian Belt. I know you are not like that!”

  “How dare you compare me to that riffraff!”

  “Chavian is as Chavian does.”

  “Cease! You mortally insult me. Continue and I will be forced to kill you.”

  “Kill me how? You are trapped in the body of a girl. Could you even get out if you wanted to?”

  “My fellows should be here.”

  “They aren’t. Face it, Rixxar One, you aren’t in a bargaining position here.”

  “I have your bond mate and your child. I would say that my bargaining position was strong.”

  “And if you kill them, what then? You will perish in this atmosphere, without the technology to inhabit a human shell completely, as I do. You have no cards to play.”

  “But I can kill your child.”

  “Out of spite? I thought you at least better than that.”

  Liam, whose gaze had been ping-ponging between Anna and John, finally found his voice, though it was only to say, “What the fuck?”

  “Shut up,” John and Anna chorused.

  “Come with me,” John said. “Come to my hideout. I have technologies there that can help you.”

  “Liar! You have technologies that can kill me. I am staying here.”

  “Really? I think Security might have a word or two to say about that later on. Liam, take her hand.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Do it. Take her hand. Come with me.”

  “I won’t!” spat Anna.

  “I’m scarcely going to kill you while you’re so close to my child, am I? I’m not going to kill my own child. At least you can trust me on that score.”

  Mimi, having scoured the other half of the hall, jogged up, flushed and panting.

  “Oh, you’ve found them,” she said.

  “Go home, Mimi.”

  “But—”

  “Just go!”

  Mimi, shocked at John’s vehemence, slunk back, finding a vantage point at the corner of a bank of desks from which she could observe proceedings.

  “Don’t go. Stay.”

  She bit her lip and hugged herself as John’s instruction flowed through the air and into her brain.

  “Rixxar One must not know I have any other close confidante on Earth. He will try to use you. Hang back and observe. Keep a safe distance. I may need your help.”

  “I will. Be careful, John.”

  “Thanks for caring.” She heard the smile in his voice and felt that warm emotion he had been evoking in her lately more intensely than ever.

  “I do care. I care for you.”

  From her corner, she watched as John and Anna negotiated. From what she saw, she deduced that Rixxar One felt nervous and disadvantaged. Anna frequently reared back, using defensive body language, while a confident John moved infinitesimally closer, employing gestures that were traditionally used to persuade. Liam broke in from time to time, hands flapping or clasped to his forehead, but he was largely ignored.

  It took about twenty minutes of stepping forwards and back, coaxing and rebuffing, but eventually Mimi watched Anna put her hands in John’s, allow him to raise her to her feet and lead her through the concourse, Liam trailing behind, swearing and gesticulating and nearly in tears.

  The three of them disappeared into a taxi at the front of the terminal, leaving Mimi to make her own arrangements. She didn’t have enough cash on her for the fare, so she headed for the Tube station, mentally preparing her for over an hour of speculation on what might be happening with John and his deadly foe. And Anna. And Liam. Funny how Liam, of whom she had been fond, had slipped so very far in her order of priorities. Was it guilt at the way she had treated him? Or simple pragmatism, the quality John admired in her above all others?

  “Here you are safe, for the moment, at least,” John said, shepherding Anna and Liam into his basement. “I’m sorry, Rixxar, but I really couldn’t countenance letting you out of my sight, not while you are so close to my child. I have a little thing that enables our kind to fully inhabit a human body—it’s what I used to get myself into this rather splendid form. If you play along with me, I could find you a spare body. Then at least we would be on equal terms.”

  Luana hid in the corner, shivering beneath piles of blankets.

  “Is someone ever going to tell me what’s going on?” growled Liam. “It’s like the time m
y ex dragged me along to see Waiting for Godot. I haven’t got a fucking clue what I’m supposed to be thinking. And what the hell is this place? It’s like something from a sci-fi movie.”

  “Your input is not required,” said John with icy hauteur. “Go and sit with my mother while we discuss our strategy. If you shut up for five minutes, we might find time to offer you some words of explanation.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Liam muttered, but he shuffled off to the corner anyway, seeing a tube of Pringles and half a sausage roll on a plate over there.

  “So then, Rixxar,” John continued, his voice low. “Could that be a deal? I find you a body. You leave my bond mate and child.”

  “They are my only leverage. I cannot abandon that.”

  “You can’t take me back. It is not possible. You cannot use this leverage to achieve any of your aims.”

  “I only have your word for that.”

  “True. Look, then.”

  He ushered Anna over to the screen of his ozone layer replacement machine and explained its functionality, calling up different displays to make it quite clear that Rixxar One would not be able to penetrate the shield until it degraded over the course of years.

  “There must be a reversal mode.”

  “There isn’t. I didn’t want to reverse it.”

  “Then are you saying that you wanted to remain here—forever?”

  Anna wrinkled her nose.

  “Earth has not struck you with its unique charms then?” asked a drily humorous John.

  “It seems a very…noisy place. And primitive.”

  “The checking-in hall at Heathrow is probably not its most peaceful aspect. But the people are remarkably sophisticated—more so than at first glance. They have skills we don’t, just as we have skills they can only guess at for now.”

  “What skills?”

  “Actually, Rixxar One, I’m not sure you’d understand. I’ve been here over a year now, and it’s only just becoming clear to me. Thanks to some excellent guidance.”

  “I have so much to look forward to,” Anna sneered.

  Liam, still trying earnestly to follow this conversation, was taken aback when Luana seized hold of his arm and stared into his face as if searching for the meaning of life there.