Roth

by Jessica Frances

  Something shifts in the corner of my eye, and I jolt to my side, fearful an attack of some sort is about to come. If that spaceship we saw held more of Marduke’s people, then they might be coming for us. Marduke will either be in a lot of trouble for helping me, and now knowing how truly sick and twisted his father is, he’ll probably be killed.

  Yet, instead of seeing a mob of aliens ready to kill us, I see a tube, like the one Marduke and I had been in, moving. It rolls for a moment then stops, and I hear the muffled noises. Cries, I think.

  I walk slowly over to it, and when I am close enough to touch it, I stare back towards Marduke’s sleeping figure. I don’t know what I will find when I open this up, and if there is some sort of creature stored in here, I’m leaving us vulnerable.

  Deciding to make the smart decision, I walk back over to Marduke, picking up his pants as I go, and shake him awake. He looks concerned for a moment, yet then his eyes focus on me and he smiles.

  “I feared this was just a dream.”

  I smile back, accepting the kiss he leans in to give me. When I feel his hand moving into my hair, pulling me down towards him, I place my hand over his chest to push back. “I saw something over there.” I nod in the direction of the tube. “A tube thing, and it was moving.”

  “Moving?” Marduke is immediately alert. He takes the pants in my other hand from me, dressing quickly.

  “Yeah. What do you think is in there?” Once his shoes are on, I walk him back over to the tube. It moves again and Marduke increases his speed, passing me on his way there.

  “There shouldn’t be anything, they were empty. Unless one of the medics placed Hank in one, maybe even that other man they sedated. It makes sense they’d place them there for holding. They’re not meant to be restrictive, but humans can’t open them, only my people can. You were probably placed in something similar on your way to this place.”

  “So Hank could be alive?” I try to bite down on my hope, afraid of being crushed if I’m wrong.

  “Someone is definitely alive. I recall two of the men you brought with you were not in one piece, so I’d be surprised if either of them is alive. Yet…”

  “But Hank and Kane might be okay?”

  “We’ll need to find the other tubes.” He leans forward and rests his hand on top of the tube. Symbols, not unlike the ones on the control and shower, appear and he taps his fingers over one which then reveals a door.

  Once open, Hank’s voice cries through clearly. “Finally!”

  I rush to his side, and as I help him out, I assess him for any injuries. “You’re alive!” I gasp, wrapping my arms around him in a crushing hug once I’m sure he’s okay. My body shudders and tears form in my eyes, but I blink them back. I’ve done enough crying in the past day.

  “What the hell happened? The last thing I remember is being on that spaceship with those fucking scary, weird creatures and… Marduke?” He gapes at Marduke, his mouth opening in shock.

  “Hi, it’s good to see you.” Marduke holds out his hand to Hank.

  Instead of taking it, Hank looks down at me. “You said he was dead.”

  “I thought he was, but he survived. So did Logan. He saw Lisa and the girls alive, too!” I rush to say, smiling when I see the shock and hope crossing his face.

  “They’re all alive?” he asks, his eyes studying Marduke’s face, whose hand is still outstretched and waiting on Hank to take it.

  “Yes, I didn’t get to talk to them, but I saw Lisa playing with the girls and Logan. I think she was with her brother.”

  I smile when Hank takes Marduke’s offered hand and then pulls him in for a hug. Marduke appears shocked, but eventually, he loosens up.

  “That is… I mean, after all of this, to hear she’s definitely alive, that they all are!” As Hank pulls away from Marduke then wraps me up in a hug, twirling me around several times, I laugh. It’s my first true laugh that doesn’t leave me feeling immediately guilty. It feels great.

  Hank places me down, and I reach out and hold Marduke’s hand, squeezing it just to remind myself this is all real.

  “I know it’s such a relief. There’s more, though, Marduke…” I drift off, wondering how to tell Hank about the possible human rebellion without revealing who Marduke really is. Hank likes Marduke, however he wouldn’t understand if he found out Marduke isn’t human. Or at least, it would take him a long time to process, time that we don’t have. “He overheard talk that some of us on the other planets might be fighting back.”

  “Really?” When Hank’s eyebrows rise into his hairline, I know he was in the same mindset as me—that we were alone. “That’s interesting and good news!”

  “Yes, but I could have misheard it.” Marduke narrows his eyes at me in warning.

  “So where the hell are we? What happened after those weird creatures attacked us? Where are the others?” Hank questions, his mindset changing already to be on the task at hand. Now that he has confirmation of Lisa’s survival, he will be more determined than ever to get to her.

  I try to recall exactly when Hank lost consciousness. Does he know about John? “We’re still somewhere on Roth. John is dead, so is Rob after what happened to him, I think. I don’t know about Kane. He might be alive in one of these things.” I tap the tube that is still next to us.

  Hank glances around us. “Did we take that spaceship down?”

  “No, I managed to get that stupid thing working. We ended up on the same spaceship Marduke was… being held on. Then something brought us down.”

  “I don’t know what happened; those spaceships aren’t easily brought down,” Marduke mutters. He lets go of my hand and begins pacing, his attention focusing on the spaceship’s remains.

  “Why isn’t he wearing a shirt?” Hank watches him, his eyes drifting down to his exposed chest. “And did he always have those tattoos?”

  I redden, thinking about why he isn’t wearing a shirt. I ripped it off him back on the spaceship. “He just isn’t wearing one. And, yes, he had the tattoos before. He told me he’s had them for a long time.” I recall just how long ago, too. If his father is willing to kill Marduke just to give Ival a test, then it really shouldn’t still surprise me he would have his son inked like this when he was just a small child.

  “What do they all mean?” Hank asks, his eyes narrowing over Marduke who is still lost in thought.

  I realise that, with Hank alive and Marduke here with me, this is going to be a tough secret to keep from him. Hank is a good man, and I know he would never kill Marduke in cold blood, yet if he finds out about what Marduke really is in the wrong way, he won’t be in the right frame of mind to understand. Maybe, even in the right frame of mind, he won’t understand my feelings for him. He definitely won’t forgive Marduke for what has been done to Earth, been done to Lisa, and what we have all gone through.

  “They’re personal.” I hope to head off his curiosity quickly. “Help me look for some clothes for him.”

  “He can take my hoodie if he wants. I have a t-shirt on underneath.”

  “Thanks.” I take his offered jumper and pass it to Marduke, who distractedly places it on.

  When Hank is a safe distance from us, searching through the wreckage, Marduke pulls me aside. “You know it’s really weird that we crashed. There was no reason for it. We had a good spaceship; it wasn’t old and they don’t even need experienced pilots. They practically fly themselves. I couldn’t even program it to crash. It’s just not possible.”

  “Did you run out of fuel or whatever it runs on?”

  “Our spaceships don’t need fuel. They generate their own energy to run off of.”

  “Maybe this one was just faulty?”

  He frowns, but he doesn’t disagree with me. With how destroyed the spaceship is now, though, I doubt there will be any way for us to know what really happened. “I just keep coming back to what you said about those creatures. Why did you end up there? We don’t have them on Oden and definitely not on any of these planets. There
is no reason for them to be on a spaceship of ours. The monit—that control you used—only works for our spaceships. It can only take you on board ours. I almost thought maybe you imagined what you saw, but Hank just confirmed it was real. Plus, it explains why those two men were in such bad shape.”

  “You thought I was lying?”

  “Not lying, just that, whatever you saw, it was horrible enough to remind you of these Claws. It shouldn’t be possible that you saw them at all. I don’t understand what is going on here.” He sounds frustrated.

  “Guys! I think I found Kane!” Hank calls out from over by the other end of the clearing.

  Marduke and I don’t make a step to move, and I watch him as he distractedly stares at me. He’s not seeing me now, not really. His mind is elsewhere.

  I decide to leave him to his thoughts and rush towards Hank. I wonder if Kane will be okay and what we’re supposed to do now, given the fact we’re stuck in the middle of nowhere.

  As I near Hank, he begins punching the tube, trying to crack it open.

  “Just press the symbols.” I roll my eyes at him, watching as, when he stops hitting the tube, a muffled punch keeps going. Kane is obviously alive and trying to bash his way through the tube from the inside. “You guys are hopeless,” I mutter, touching the tube until I find the place where the symbols light up.

  “How do you do that?” Hank asks me with wonder in his voice.

  “I just touch the area.” I take my hand away, still hearing Kane hitting from the inside, and gesture for Hank to try.

  The symbols fade quickly, and when Hank touches the same place I just did, nothing happens.

  “See, it doesn’t work for me. How do you do it?”

  I open my mouth to answer him, but I don’t have one. How am I doing it if Hank can’t? Wait, didn’t Marduke say humans can’t get these to work? Why am I able to then if that is true?

  “This did just fall from space, don’t forget. I’m sure it’s just short-circuiting. See?” Marduke’s unexpected voice makes me jump. He reaches around me, and at his touch, the symbols appear, too. He presses the right one to make the door appear and we all jump back when a fist flies through, almost hitting Hank who was leaning over the most.

  “Finally!” Kane gasps, practically diving out of the tube as though it’s on fire. His hands are bruised and grazed from hitting the inside, some places are even bleeding. He collapses on the ground and gasps for air as his hands fist beside him. “What the fuck was that!” he screams.

  “Dude, calm down.” Hank crouches beside him, yet Kane quickly jumps to his feet and storms towards me.

  “What the fuck did you do back there? We were on that spaceship and then you did something. And what were those things? How is it that you can fucking transport us like an alien? Are you one of those brainwashed fuckers? Is that what this is?” He’s in my face, and while Kane is possibly the scariest human I’ve ever seen, I don’t feel scared in this moment. I think it’s because the fear is being blocked by my anger.

  “I didn’t know touching that thing would transport us anywhere! Do you think I wanted to be on that spaceship with those creatures?” I scream back at him, but Marduke grabs my arm and steps in front of me.

  “Back off,” he warns Kane, who takes a moment to focus his gaze away from me and onto Marduke.

  “Who the hell are you?” he growls.

  I hold my breath, suddenly realising this is a serious situation. If Kane even suspects Marduke might not be human, then he’ll kill him.

  “It’s okay, he’s cool.” Hank pushes both Marduke and Kane apart until he’s standing between them.

  “How do you know? We’re in the fucking middle of nowhere and what? He just walks up and he’s cool?”

  “He didn’t just walk up. He was on the spaceship when we crashed,” I explain heatedly, my anger fast disappearing, allowing my fear to take over.

  “So he was on an alien spaceship, but he’s cool?” Kane steps forward, knocking into Hank.

  “We know him. He’s a friend. We knew him on Earth. I’ve known him for years!” I lie, my fear making me blurt out things before I can properly think them through. “He was being transported here as a prisoner. He was fighting them!” I finish, feeling Marduke’s eyes on me. I’m too afraid to break eye contact with Kane, though, in case he sees it as an omission of my lie.

  “She’s right; we know him. So just back off, okay?” Hank shoves Kane lightly, and thankfully, he appears to listen.

  Hank leads Kane away from us to let him cool down.

  “Who was that?”

  “That’s Kane; he’s one of the guys who is going to help us. He’s a bit of an angry guy,” I pointlessly tell him. I’m sure Marduke came to that conclusion very quickly all by himself.

  “I guessed as much. He came at you.” He wraps his arm around my shoulder, holding me close to him.

  “He’s not that bad, not really. He saw his girlfriend killed right before he was taken here. He’s just upset.”

  “That doesn’t give him the right to—”

  “Just leave it, Marduke. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you need to be careful around him. He’s looking for blood.”

  “I don’t want you being around him on your own.”

  I hold in my eye roll at his overprotective-ness, part of me actually enjoying hearing how much he cares. “I won’t be because I have you.”

  He smiles at my words, and I swear my heart skips a beat. I haven’t seen his smile in a long time. It makes him look even hotter. I have missed that smile and those delicious dimples.

  “So what are we going to do now?” Hank asks, Kane trailing slowly behind him. He’s watching us carefully with suspicion in his eyes.

  “We should check the other tubes, see if anyone else survived,” I suggest.

  “Rob was as good as dead after all that blood loss, and John is dead,” Kane states angrily.

  “Yes, but there were also those two brainwashed humans on board,” I say, cringing as I wonder if they were Marduke’s friends. Has he lost more people, too?

  “Who gives a shit about them?”

  “They might know things. Maybe they’ll know why this spaceship crashed.”

  Hank sighs at me. “Does it really matter why it crashed? It doesn’t change our position.”

  “What if it was something more than just a weird fault or accident? What if humans brought it down?” I don’t really believe that since I doubt we could do it, but I know this is an easy way to convince them we need to take a look. If Marduke’s friends survived, they deserve to be found and helped, too. We’ll just have to try to keep Kane away from them.

  “Hank told me about what newbie over here heard. Is that true? Is there a rebellion happening?” Kane watches Marduke, no doubt searching for any sign of a lie.

  “I don’t know, but there might be.”

  Kane’s eyes narrow at him. “You know, you sound like one of those brainwashed freaks. Is that what you are? Are you spying on us right now?”

  This time, I pull Marduke away as Hank holds Kane back, quickly trying to calm him down again. “He’s good. I swear. He saved our lives back on Earth.”

  “Yeah, he might have been a good guy, but that was before those fuckers took him and brainwashed him—”

  “No, it wasn’t. They tried to change him, but it failed.” Hank explains his completely wrong theory. A theory I never dissuaded because I never thought it would matter.

  “What is he talking about?” Marduke whispers quietly to me.

  I just as quietly explain, “Your accent is a giveaway to everyone on this planet. They think your people are humans who have been brainwashed. They think the machines are the true aliens.”

  “My accent?”

  “Yeah, you all sort of sound French. It’s a little weird.” I wonder if the other people have come to the same conclusion as us. If they’re going by accents, I fear the French are likely having an awful time right now.

  “
How did they brainwash you? What tests did they do?” Kane demands, his body taut and ready to lunge at Marduke.

  “I… I don’t know. But I am human, and I am on the side of Earth.” He speaks carefully while I reach down and hold his hand, squeezing it.

  “Listen, Kane, Marduke is as human as you or I. Now, let’s just drop this and search the area for those humans. Then we need to head back to camp. If a rebellion is really happening, we need to start preparing everyone. This isn’t just five of us against every machine out there anymore. It’s all of us against those machines now. We might actually win this, if we’re ready.”

  Kane considers what I’ve said, but from the way his body relaxes, I guess he’s accepted my words, at least for now.

  “Fine, let’s get a move on then.”

  Kane stomps forward and Hank hangs back with us.

  “What was with saying you’ve known Marduke for years?” Hank sounds suspicious now. I want to groan from the scrutiny we’re being placed under. This is not good.

  “You know what Kane’s like. I just wanted there to be no question of Marduke’s loyalty. He saved my life, Hank, many times. He doesn’t deserve Kane trying to kill him.”

  “I know that, and I trust you,” he says this to Marduke. “I just don’t know why you had to lie about it. Lying will only lead to him finding a hole, which will make him more suspicious.”

  “He won’t be suspicious because, as soon as we make it back to camp, he’ll have better things to do than poke holes at my story. Now let’s start searching, please,” I plead with Hank, and he finally nods his agreement and moves after Kane.

  Since Marduke mentioned to me there had been four tubes, we all search the debris, finding both of the other ones empty. Although, we can’t very well tell them we know that’s all there are, so we continue looking. When we eventually begin to find body parts, both Marduke’s people and parts of Rob and John, we decide to give up.

  We don’t find any useful weapons, either. The guns we had were empty by the time we made it to Marduke’s spaceship, and currently, they are nowhere to be found. There aren’t even any clothes or blankets salvageable.