“Enough about me,” he said, leaning forward. “Tell me about you, Cathleen. You seem to be a very bright and talented scientist. Why did you leave Reilly Robotics and move to this quiet town in the suburbs?”
All of a sudden, her past came rushing back, most especially her struggles as a first-time mom. Her parents and sister had been supportive, though. She never blamed Shawn either, but just figured it didn’t make sense to let him know about their son since they didn’t have an actual relationship.
“I, uh, just… needed a change of atmosphere…” Cathleen answered cautiously. “Just felt like I didn’t belong in the city…”
“I get what you mean,” Shawn said, nodding and chuckling. “Sometimes I feel the same way. I love nature, actually! And in these futuristic times, we hardly get to spend time in a natural environment. That’s why I’m enjoying our drills in the mountains.”
“That’s great,” Cathleen said. “I sometimes go on hikes too just to reenergize.”
“We should go on a hike together,” he said, an excited glint in his eyes.
Cathleen was taken aback, but she found herself nodding. “Sure, one of these days,” she answered vaguely.
He grinned. “Great. Perhaps when we get to have a break from work. Next weekend?”
Cathleen shrugged casually. She didn’t want to give him, or herself, any false hopes. Maybe he was just trying to build rapport with her because they were going to be working together.
*****
“So these chips are supposed to confuse the aliens’ signal and disrupt their communication patterns?” Shawn wondered as he studied the tiny metallic chips in his hand.
“Yes,” Cathleen answered. She was standing in front of the wall-mounted computer, analyzing a diagram as she tried to pretend that Shawn was just another co-worker.
A few days had passed since they started working in Dr. Brown’s lab together. As much as possible, she tried to stay out of his way and keep the discussion to work matters. On the contrary, he was making an effort to steer conversations toward personal things.
“You should test them with your alien simulation equipment in your camp,” Cathleen said, turning around. Her breath caught in her throat upon almost banging into the cyborg’s bulky chest.
His hands touched her arms, making her stiffen. They slid down her skin, causing her body to heat up as he always did when he touched her.
Her eyes lifted to meet his gaze. He leaned forward as his hands went down to intertwine with hers. “I really like you, Cathleen…” he whispered.
She was speechless. A part of her wanted to say that she felt the same way. But this could be just a passing thing for him. Or maybe he simply wanted to get her in bed again. It was a complicated situation, given that she had a child to consider now.
With all the resolve she could muster, she stepped back, her heart still hammering against her chest.
“You’re attracted to me too,” he suddenly said. “I can sense it.”
Cathleen’s eyes widened.
“What’s stopping you, Cathleen?” he asked in a puzzled tone of voice. “Your longing is so intense I can feel it meters away. The attraction between us is so thick it sometimes makes me dizzy. And yet you’re always hesitant to take things further. You don’t even seem to want to be friends with me…”
An alarm sounded from Cathleen’s watch, giving her an excuse to break away. “I have to go,” she said quickly, moving to his left and passing him by.
But before she could move farther, he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her close to him. She felt his lips pressing against hers in a rather rough kiss. Instead of pushing him away, her eyes closed and her lips responded. Her whole body burned with great desire and nothing else seemed to matter.
Their hands were immediately on each other’s bodies as their kiss intensified. She opened her mouth to let his tongue in just as she felt his fingers rubbing her inner thighs under her skirt and then sliding inside her panties.
A resounding buzz made them jump apart. It was insistent, coming from a special device attached to Shawn’s uniform.
“Shit, emergency signal!” Shawn exclaimed. “I have to go.”
He flew out of the door with Cathleen at his back. “Stay inside and lock all the doors. I’ll call you later.”
“What’s happening?” Cathleen asked in panic.
“The aliens have attacked,” Shawn replied. He got on his big bike and zoomed away.
Cathleen watched him speed off and later on fly above the ground and past the buildings. Passersby looked on curiously.
The color drained from her face. “Keith,” she said in alarm, getting into her own car and driving as fast as she could toward his school.
She was there in five minutes.
“Please let him be okay, please, please…” she softly begged. She didn’t even bother parking properly when she saw the commotion in front of the burning school.
There were ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars all around. Sirens were wailing. A raucous helicopter was flying above the burning structure.
Cathleen couldn’t help crying as she scanned the crowd of students, teachers, parents, medics, and authorities. There were also people from the media filming and broadcasting the chaotic events. She heard them saying that the bombings had been done by the aliens.
“Keith! Keith!” she screamed, pushing through the throng of people and onto the entrance of the school.
“Hey, you can’t go in there!” a police officer cried, trying to stop her.
She dodged him, running inside and trying to avoid the falling debris in the smoke-filled corridor.
She kept shouting his name, but there was no response.
A male firefighter came out of one classroom, carrying a little girl who had already passed out. “Ma’am, you can’t be in here!” he told Cathleen.
“My son might still be in there! I have to find him!” she cried.
“No, you need to come out with me,” he insisted. “There are many others working on getting everybody out. We’re going to save everybody we can.”
The firefighter couldn’t drag Cathleen out, because he was carrying an unconscious child. So he left her in a hurry when she wouldn’t listen.
As she pushed her way toward the end of the hallway where Keith’s classroom was located, the smoke had become so thick and intoxicating that she felt herself weakening. But adrenaline made her keep moving. “Keith! Are you in here?” she shouted in horror.
She saw a firefighter going through the rubble inside the room. Part of the ceiling had collapsed already. “Nobody’s in here!” he told her. “You shouldn’t be here either!”
Quickly he went to her and handed her an extra face mask to protect her eyes, nose, and mouth from the smoke and dust. “Come on, let’s get out of here!” he ordered, forcefully taking her with him.
She struggled to get out of his grasp, insisting that she hadn’t found her son yet.
“He may be outside already,” he told her as he continued to drag her to the exit.
Cathleen pulled off the mask after bursting out of the door and back to the front yard of the school grounds. Her eyes were red from the smoke and from her tears. “Keith!” she yelled, checking the kids who were lying on the grass. Some of them were being attended to by the medics while others were being carried onto stretchers.
“Mom! Mom!” came Keith’s familiar voice, cracking with his sobs and cries of terror.
“Keith!” Cathleen screamed, looking around and finally seeing her son being carted toward a waiting ambulance.
To her utter shock, his lower body was covered in blood. His wavy black hair was messy, with some strands matted onto his forehead. His brown eyes looked swollen from all the crying.
“What happened? Keith, are you okay?” she said, rushing to him and taking his hands as she ran with the attendants carrying him.
One said, “He was trapped under some huge pieces of metal that had fallen on his legs. He’s
got broken bones and several lacerations. We have to bring him to the hospital.”
“Oh, my God,” Cathleen breathed. Then gazing into her son’s eyes, she tried to speak as calmly and bravely as she could. “Keith, honey, you’re going to be okay. Mom’s here now. Everything will be fine. I know you’re a brave boy, right?”
He nodded, although tears continued to stream down his cheeks.
Apparently, the nearby hospital had also been bombed. The whole town was in bedlam. They were brought instead to the cyborgs’ camp where there was a makeshift facility for the injured. Several doctors and nurses were there, treating a myriad of patients who had all come from the places that had been attacked.
All of the cyborg soldiers were out, currently fighting the alien intruders and trying to drive them away. Cathleen silently prayed as she waited for her son’s operation to be completed.
Hours passed. She began to calm down when the surroundings turned quiet.
Finally, a doctor came out. “He’s okay now,” he said, to her great relief. “We couldn’t save his legs, though. But we’ve implanted bionic legs so that he may walk again soon.”
Cathleen’s heart was beating wildly. She didn’t know if she should be thankful for that or not. She headed to the recovery room to see her son who was peacefully sleeping.
As her eyes shifted to the gleaming metal that had now completely replaced both of his legs, her mind drifted to Shawn. You’re now the same as your father, Keith, she thought, not knowing how to feel about it. She was deeply bothered and yet it seemed as if destiny was making their world even smaller.
*****
When Cathleen’s eyes fluttered open, her first thought was of her son Keith. She turned in bed to her side and immediately panicked when she saw that it was empty.
He couldn’t have gotten up by himself! she thought in alarm. All at once, she was back on her feet, running out of the main bedroom of her tiny apartment.
“Good morning, Mom!” Keith greeted her in a chirpy voice from the dining table. He was seated calmly, eating cereal, as if nothing had happened.
“How did you get up? You can walk now?” asked Cathleen, walking over and leaning down to check his metallic legs.
“I’ve been practicing by myself,” Keith said with a smile. “This morning, I was finally able to do it! I got to walk a few steps before falling down.”
Cathleen could not help admiring his strength, courage, and positive attitude. “That’s amazing, Keith. I’m so proud of you.”
“But actually, I had some help too,” he told her in an excited voice.
“Really?”
“Yes, Mom. Do you remember that hero I was telling you about?”
“You mean the one who rescued you in school and brought you out to the field…”
Keith nodded eagerly. “He was here!”
Cathleen gave him an odd look. “What do you mean?”
“When I dropped down to the floor right after turning the doorknob, he was the one who picked me up and helped me to get here to the kitchen. He also showed me some exercises on how to control my new legs better. I’m going to be just like him when I grow up!”
Cathleen could not help smiling at his hopeful tone. But she was bothered by the fact that somebody had come in while she was asleep. “Where is he now?” she asked.
“He just went out for a while because somebody called him,” Keith explained. “But he’ll be back. He promised, because I told him he had to meet my super kind, strong, and beautiful mommy.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Cathleen said, smiling wider. She leaned over to give him a peck on the forehead before preparing her own breakfast.
Suddenly, the front door opened. Cathleen looked up and almost dropped the bowl she was holding when she saw who it was.
“Cathleen?”
“Shawn,” Cathleen said in astonishment as the cyborg warrior approached. He also had a surprised look on his handsome face. “What are you doing here?”
Before Shawn could answer, Keith turned to him with a big smile. “Mister Hero Cyborg!” he exclaimed. “You’re back now!”
Cathleen could almost hear her heart pounding frantically as her eyes shifted from Shawn to her son Keith. His son too.
The resemblance was so obvious that she was afraid he would be able to figure it out at once. They had the same shape of face, hair color, and eye color. Even the way they smiled was similar.
Shawn ruffled Keith’s hair. “Yes, of course. I told you I’d be back, right? I’m going to teach you more exercises you can do with those great new legs you’ve got.”
“Cool!” Keith said, looking ecstatic. Then suddenly, he pointed to Cathleen. “That’s my mom, Mister Hero Cyborg. She’s the best mom in the world!”
Shawn straightened up slowly and walked over to Cathleen with a rather strange expression on his face. “Hello, best mom in the world,” he said, emphasizing the word mom while his eyes were seemingly drilling a hole into hers.
Cathleen gave him a forced smile, feeling awkward and on the verge of panic. “Hi, Shawn,” was all she said.
“So your name is Shawn?” Keith asked. “How did you know, Mom?”
“We’ve worked together in the lab,” Cathleen said. Then turning to Shawn, she asked, “Have you eaten?”
“Not yet.”
“Take a seat then and join us for breakfast.” She felt really weird as she cooked eggs and made French toast for all of them. Seeing and hearing Shawn and Keith chatting so easily made her heart break and soar at the same time.
We could easily pass off as a real family, Cathleen thought as she laid down the food on the table.
You are a real family, a voice inside her head said. She ignored it and sat down to eat.
Meanwhile, Shawn told her that even though they had successfully driven the aliens away that same day of the attack, they could sense some of the enemy roaming around the earth, regathering, and possibly preparing to strike again.
Other platoons had set up camp in the neighboring towns. All of the cyborg soldiers were spread out.
“I’ve assigned myself to this area because I know you live around here…” Shawn said. “But I never realized you’re the mother of the boy I took out of the metal wreckage in that school.”
“Thank you for saving Keith’s life,” Cathleen said with all her heart. “I can’t thank you enough. He means the world to me.”
“I’m her precious gift,” Keith suddenly quipped in a proud manner.
Shawn laughed. “That’s great, brave boy. And that’s why you need to take good care of yourself. You have to get stronger too so you can walk and run and jump and do other amazing stuff.”
“Yes!” Keith said. “You’ll help me, right?”
“Of course,” Shawn said. “You and I, we’re alike now.”
“I’ll be a hero like you!”
“You’re already a hero, Keith,” Shawn said. Then facing Cathleen, he continued, “a hero to your mom.”
That morning, Cathleen was pacing back and forth in the living room as she awaited her son’s return. He had actually gone out with Shawn to do more exercises in the small backyard of the building. She was talking to Trisha on the phone, her voice rising up and down abnormally.
“Stop freaking out,” Trisha said firmly. “It’s no big deal, Cathleen. So what if he finds out that’s actually his son?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Cathleen said, sighing. “I really don’t know. I’m so confused.”
“Just relax,” Trisha said. “You should be grateful that he’s there to protect the two of you. I mean, why is he spending so much time in there? Isn’t he supposed to be assigned to the whole neighborhood? My gosh, Cathleen, he is soooo obviously into you!”
“Of course not,” Cathleen countered. “Maybe he’s just fascinated with Keith and maybe there’s a part of him that feels obligated to help the boy whom he had rescued.”
“It’s such a sad but sweet story…” Trisha gushed. “Destiny at w
ork.”
“Shut up!”
Trisha laughed. “You’re so tense, and it’s for nothing. Just relax and go with the flow.”
Cathleen was about to say something else when the door opened. To her shock, her son walked in on his own. He was hobbling a bit but was more stable than ever. Shawn followed. They seemed to be engrossed in a conversation about robots.
“I have to go, Trisha,” she quickly said before putting her mobile phone down on the coffee table in the living room.
“Mom, look at me! I’m walking!” Keith said excitedly, showing off by walking around the small area of the living room. “And a while ago, I was able to jump too.”
“That’s really impressive, honey,” Cathleen said, giving him a hug. “You should rest for a while in your room and change your clothes too before we eat lunch.”
“Okay, Mom.”
When he was out of earshot, she turned to the tall, powerful man in front of her. It was like looking at the future version of Keith. “Thank you, thank you, thank you…” she told him genuinely. “I’m happy that my son is recovering so well and he doesn’t seem to have suffered much trauma from what happened. How can I ever repay you?”
Shawn took several steps forward. He lifted a hand to caress her cheek. “Cathleen, just let me take care of you and your son. That would be enough.”
Cathleen smiled, gladness and gratefulness overcoming her doubts and fears. For the first time in a very, very long time, she felt secure.
Throughout the rest of the week, Shawn often dropped by. He spent a lot of time helping Keith use his legs efficiently. They also played a lot together, which Cathleen began to appreciate. She could see how happy Shawn made Keith, and how Keith looked up to Shawn. She couldn’t deny Keith the experiences of joy and hope that Shawn brought to him.
What’s more, she could feel her invisible walls melting away. As she got to talk more with Shawn, her image of him changed. She no longer saw him as that cyborg stranger who had gotten her pregnant when she’d been drunk. She saw him as a friend, a protector, a good man. And she could feel herself developing genuine romantic feelings for him.
Pregnant to an Alien King Box Set Page 8
