The Primal Connection

by Alexander Dregon

  The Chrliti was having the talk with another Chrliti occupying one of the FBI agents that had been first through the door. He was having trouble understanding the reasoning behind the love of the lifestyle the sheriff provided the occupant but it wasn’t his problem. Soon, he would be gone back to his office in Billings and all of this would be a memory that he wouldn’t have to visit ever. Although he enjoyed the action and pace of his host’s job, he did not like the cases like this one. He had been on the case here before and seen what this monster had done to the Regan girl when he came through before. He’d also been on the investigative team in Stokee, Montana when the hooker there had been brutally murdered. They had had no leads and no clues in that or any of the others, although there was plenty of forensic evidence to connect the crimes. There was no way this guy was getting away.

  Through the connection between the two, Charlie learned that the man’s name was Alvin Cale. He was a cabbie and part-time car porter. Although his van was registered in Washington, he really had no permanent address. Thanks to the computers so prevalent in modern law enforcement, in minutes they had as much information as a dozen agents could have found and correlated in a week. There was no way this guy wasn’t going away.

  Benin, meanwhile, was looking at their prisoner. Like always, there was nothing special about him really. No telltale sign that a sickness of the mind guided it. He looked like any other man approaching middle age. Just a normal guy that should have been worrying about bills and taxes and the like. To Benin, how the man had wound up here was a mystery. He thought to himself sadly that it always was.

  Terry, on the other hand, was getting the four-one-one from Charlie in the form that Charlie could do best. He could tell Terry in English, but it would take time, and despite his intelligence, Charlie still had trouble expressing himself fully. So, he used a kind of pictographic language that he had developed for times like this. While fairly useless in a fast-moving situation, it was great when they had a little time.

  With it, he was able to let Terry know the situation around him. He managed to get the whole thing out just as Mayor Hall sidled up, determined to get a picture with the hero of the hour. But to his surprise, Terry turned around and shielded his face from the reporter cameras, grabbing the mayor and pulling him close whispering, “I can’t be on the six o’clock news! Letting my picture out like this can screw up my thing, understand?”

  The mayor frowned. Of course, he could see that. The trouble was that that left him without a hero to share the limelight with. Terry came up with a quick answer.

  “Don’t be too disappointed, Mayor. A simple answer is the truth. You can make me anyone you want this way. And to show my appreciation, that ten grand reward the city council put up? I’ll make you a deal. You make sure that that girl gets all the psychological help she needs, and trust me, she will need a bunch, you can just pay me five grand and keep the rest. Just keep me out of the papers, and it’ll all be all right.”

  The mayor might have been a hayseed, but he was still a politician. And five grand was a good payday. As for the girl, he could make sure he followed Terry’s instructions by proclamation, as an act of charity. Played right, he could get the same effect from that as he was looking for from riding Terry’s coattails. And he didn’t have to share anything. It would take a little doing, but he could make it work. A personal check to Terry and a little stroking of the council and it would all work out in his favor. Terry, though, was still talking.

  “I need to get out of here before one of these vampires decides we’re taking too long. Any ideas?”

  Already basking in the thoughts of what he could do with the extra money, the mayor popped back into the reality of the moment with a flourish. In less than a minute, he had Deputy Abbot escorting him away from the gathering crowd while the mayor went through a practiced rigmarole that confused and distracted the reporters and everyone else.

  Everyone, that is, except Benin, who had watched the whole thing and recognized it from stories that he had heard about Bridger. He had done basically the same thing on the first case Benin had heard of him being part of. So, he had slipped away from his own men under the pretense of needing to relieve himself.

  Walking off at an angle to the direction he saw the deputy walking Terry, he rushed up the short canyon wall, beating the pair to the top.

  Not that it did him any good. Charlie detected him as soon as he came within range of him. He alerted Terry at once, only to find that Terry had spotted him as well. He had opted to keep it quiet as the deputy started talking.

  “Listen, Mr. Bridger, I wanna apologize for the way I acted on the phone when you called. It was just that Agent Benin said you were just another hustler trying to cash in on the last killing we had here. It wasn’t like there was really anything to do for Astrid.”

  Terry stopped him there. “Did you know her, too?”

  For a moment, the deputy looked ambushed, like he hadn’t been ready for that question. He swallowed hard and then looked at Terry through forlorn eyes.

  “I didn’t know her like I know Tina. She was a couple of years ahead of me in school. She left once to go to college, but she came back. Never did know why. She was all right though, just kinda standoffish. Nobody got into her world without permission, and she didn’t give it often.”

  For some reason, Terry sensed that the deputy had tried on more than one occasion. He had probably given up and moved on long ago, but the memory remained. If she had lived, he might have found a way to wrangle that invitation sooner or later, but her death ended that line of thought. For a moment, Terry wondered if Cale was in more danger from Tina’s father or this guy. He doubted either would act on the thought, but he was ready to bet they had both had it.

  For some reason, Terry felt a moment of camaraderie with the man. Even though he hadn’t lost anyone or anything in so brutal a manner, he could still relate.

  He patted the man’s shoulder, saying simply, “I don’t know what you lost there, friend, but please believe me, it will get better.” He wanted to say more, but there was nothing else to say.

  It appeared to be enough as the man’s eyes misted over. He tried to say something, but the words froze in his throat. All he could do was nod and walk away quickly, keeping his face averted.

  Terry watched as he left, fighting tears of his own, wondering if his had just seen a page of his own life played out in living color. It was easy to figure out how he could end up his own tragic figure with nothing but time on his hands and painful memories to keep him company.

  For a few seconds, he watched the man walk away, Charlie silent but as always looking for a crack in his host. He knew how much stress Terry had at any given moment and it amazed even him that he had never given any sign of it. That said, it was still a constant concern.

  Once the man was out of earshot, Terry smiled crookedly. “Anything you wanna say or you just hangin’ out?”

  Benin stepped out of the shadow of the tree he’d been behind. “When did you know I was here?”

  “When I got here. You weren’t exactly inconspicuous.”

  Benin decided to take a straight-line approach. “That from the training they gave you in the agency?”

  Terry shook his head, laughing. “What agency is that?”

  Benin rolled his tongue around in his cheek. “Yeah sure. No straight answers. Perfect form. You’re a textbook response with legs.”

  Terry felt his temper flare but only for a second. “What do you want, Benin? To ask me shit we both know I won’t answer or hunting for another way to jam me up the next time?”

  Benin threw up his hands. “Hey, truce! I’m just trying to figure out what it is you do. Even I haveta give you props on this one. But at the same time, you gotta admit, it looks kind of funny that you find this guy as soon as he shows up. I mean, it’s been, what, nearly a month since he killed the last girl. What the hell made you think he was going to come back?”

  Something in Benin’s tone
told Terry that there was an accusation in there that he didn’t mean the way it sounded but had its own venom nonetheless. This time, Terry didn’t pull back on his temper.

  “If you got something to say, Benin, spit it out! But remember, we’re up here alone, so if it gets ugly, you don’t have those two gorillas you keep on a leash.”

  Benin smiled. “How do you know I don’t?”

  Terry’s grin was hard enough to cut diamonds. With a stare as steady as the North Star, he answered in a voice just as cold. “I know.”

  Benin was as sure that he did, as he was that neither Simms nor Salazar was close enough to help if he needed them. He decided alienating Terry wasn’t the way to go.

  “Okay, okay. We’re on the same side here. To tell the truth, we should be even more on the same side. I could pull some strings and—”

  Terry cut him off, still agitated. “I gave up working for the government when…I got out of the army. You guys have too many rules for me and too many politicians running the show. I got no problem working with you guys but working for you is another thing altogether.”

  Without another word, Terry turned and headed for his car. Benin wanted to say more but bit off the words. Everything was a process. There would be another time, that much he was sure of, and there was no reason to poison that time by driving a wedge between them even further.

  As Terry slid into the car, he felt Charlie nipping at the corners of his mind. He ignored him. He wanted Benin and him to make nice, but Terry was fonder of the idea of cuddling up with a rattlesnake. He figured either way he was going to get bit on the ass.

  Not to be ignored, Charlie pushed his way in. “I believe that is what your people call offering an olive branch.”

  Terry took a deep breath and prepared to cut loose a shrill whistle to drive Charlie back into the recesses of his mind. Instead, he let it out slowly, saying out loud, “Shut up, Charlie.”

  Chapter Nine

  It was a long drive back to Billings. Long and quiet. Terry said nothing, and Charlie didn’t want to push the issue. There was nothing new about this. After every case, Terry went into what he termed the winner’s blues. Happy as he could be he, nonetheless, felt depressed about all the things that he felt could have gone better. There was little enough to complain about, but it was a habit he had left over from the army. Since nothing was perfect, that meant there was always room for improvement. Charlie shuddered to think what would happen if he ever actually did everything right.

  In Billings finally, Charlie felt brave enough to bring up their customary celebration. It was tricky bringing the subject up. Terry was every inch a modern man but some things he simply couldn’t handle. One of them was sharing his sex partners. Since Charlie was a part of his mind and able to feel everything Terry did, he enjoyed sex as well. What he found extremely pleasing was that in all the occupied he had experienced, Terry was, by far, the most gratifying. To say nothing of being the most intense.

  For Terry, it was just the matter of not being able to let go and really get into it. The first time he had tried, it was fine until he realized he could feel Charlie’s…amazement at the strength of the way it felt. So much so that he had allowed too much through in their first try. Terry had lost interest after that for a long time.

  Charlie had finally apologized enough and come up with a compromise that suited them both. Finding a hooker. The impersonal nature of that kept Terry from feeling too guilty about Charlie’s voyeurism, which worked out fine for Charlie.

  For Terry, not so much. Like most, he longed for a relationship based on more than his ability to pay. And he wanted that relationship with a person he knew and loved. Only he couldn’t do that as long as Charlie was in his head. As a result of this, Terry had lost his shot at the girl he had been in love with since he was a kid.

  He often wondered if that was part of the reason he and Charlie had had such a long break-in period. Terry tried not to blame Charlie, tried to look on the bright side about how much good they were doing. Terry was even able to rationalize that on some level, their sacrifice was helping two races, and that one day, when both races learned how to coexist and communicate without the need for occupation, the depth of that assistance would be noted and remembered.

  Which was fine and dandy for the future, but it made for a damn poor present. Terry still carried Chandra’s picture in his wallet. Still talked to her, but he’d left things hanging for too long.

  She had called him when he came home from Iraq. They made no commitment when he left, Terry not wanting her to be any more invested in him than she was in case he didn’t make it back. So the fact that she had been dating someone else wasn’t an issue for him.

  What was an issue was that she had dated a couple of guys more for appearance than anything else. Like Terry, she was old school. She decided to wait and did, politely going out on dates occasionally but never looking for anything more serious than company. She hadn’t even expected Terry to be the same way. What she did was her choice. But when Terry got out and went to work at the CIA, she wavered. Her wait, she felt, had been long enough; while Terry, by now well aware of what his life had developed into, did nothing to retrieve what she thought they had. As a result, they had drifted apart quickly.

  Even so, he had remained her friend. Over the five years since Terry got out of the CIA, she had married, had a son and divorced her husband. Unknown to her, when her husband had tried to win her back, failed and still refused to finalize the divorce, Terry had paid him a visit. The late-night kind that leaves scars. Chandra got the paperwork the next day.

  Terry had figured it was the least he could do. Still, he didn’t want Chandra to know he had done it. He simply wanted her to be happy. And last he had heard, she was, having seemingly fallen for a widowed banker that had his own son about the same age as hers. Terry managed to find out through friends back home in San Francisco that it looked like she might make the walk down the aisle once more and this time could be for keeps.

  Terry hoped it was. She deserved the best this world had to offer, and if this guy could give it to her, Terry wished both of them the best. It made him feel good to think of it that way.

  Almost good enough to let him sleep some nights without seeing her face.

  Charlie knew all of this. And he felt guilty about his part in the situation. So much so, he had tried and found a solution of sorts that, while it couldn’t help Terry’s dislike for him being an unseen partner in his sex acts, at least allowed him enough privacy to enjoy sex in the simplest and most primitive form.

  Charlie discovered that he could, with a little concentration and a lot of practice, isolate himself in Terry’s mind. The two of them had worked out the particulars of this the first few times Terry had given in to his urges.

  What was more amazing, though, was the discovery that if their partner of the moment was occupied, Charlie was able to communicate for the first time in years, with one of his kind. Oddly for Charlie, that was more desirable than sex.

  Terry, at first, couldn’t understand. Later as he thought about it, though, it became clear that, much like Terry’s loss of Chandra Miller, Charlie had his needs as well. They were just simpler. He loved sex, but for him, it was fun just to talk to one of his own kind. It was easy for him to pass things off as normal, although the first question was invariably, “Where did you come from?” since they couldn’t detect him until Terry and the host were having sex. Sometimes, he would explain the whole thing, others he would just mark it off as Terry having a poor bioelectric field. Since the fact was that Terry’s field emanations were exceedingly poor, at least as long as Charlie was interacting with them and making them appear so, it wasn’t hard to palm off on them.

  At the moment, though, Charlie had to present the idea to a sullen and isolated Terry. During the drive, he had been quiet to the point of rudeness during Charlie’s attempts to engage him in conversation. Finally unable to stand it any longer, he tried open shouting.

 
“Are we going to play the strong, silent type all the way back to San Francisco, or are we going to at least pretend to be civil?”

  Terry pulled into a rest area and fumed for a second. He knew he was going to end up doing their celebration same as always. There was no getting around it, and to tell the truth, he enjoyed it just as much as Charlie. The trouble was he hated giving Charlie the green light to another of his voyeuristic pleasures. It always left him agitated and, worse, talkative. Extremely talkative.

  And afterward, for at least a day, there was no separation of them at all. While Charlie could and would isolate himself from Terry when he felt the need, and Terry had learned to as well, more by desire than design, it did not work after a night of sex, which, thanks to Charlie’s internal machinations, could last all night if he found a hooker capable of being influenced by her occupant. Or if the occupant wanted to stay longer but couldn’t influence her directly, they could increase her sensitivity, making the act so pleasurable, Terry got several offers of fealty and, in one case, even marriage.

  Then, it was like they were not just connected but merged as far as their minds went. Every thought, every feeling either of them had during that period was open to either. And Charlie’s were, by this time, increasingly erotic. And given his perfect digital memory, horrifically accurate.

  This, though, wasn’t like any other time.

  “You know, Charlie, the day we met, I thought we were gonna change the world. That was why I decided to join the CIA. I figured that with that kind of training and access to the hidden data the world kept off the grid, I…we could make a difference. And what did we get? First time we made a case, using your abilities, I got called on the carpet under suspicion of collusion because they couldn’t figure out how I made the connections. They figured I was a fucking double agent! That I was working against them! Agent Fuller kept pushing, trying to find out my secret. What the fuck was I going to tell him? You see, Fuller, I got this alien in my head that can contact others of his kind and pick up all kind of things, even read a computer chip manually. He can tell me when somebody is lying by reading their body language and electrical fields sometimes. I could go on, but what’s the point? How was I supposed to tell him that crazy bastard Kramer was an occupied as well and you were the one that told me where he was and I made up that crazy story to cover it?”