Metamorphosis: Science Fiction Adventure: Book 1

by Kimberly Smith

  He stopped when they were a few feet apart. “My original name is Orclan, but my human name is Stefan.”

  His voice was soothing and melodic. Kyla felt at ease, but she knew that she shouldn’t. Her mother had said that someone could see through her. Was this guy the one she had been warned about? “Why are you here?”

  He was still smiling at her. “I’m here to help you. The men looking for you are close to your physical location. Neil will not give up until he has you. He’s been hunting our people since the beginning.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “The very fact that I’m here should show you that you can trust me. This place,” he said looking up at the sky and waving his hand out at the landscape, “is a place that only you and your mother know about. She is weak and in her weakened state she has granted me access. She knew that you would not stay away, even though she warned you.”

  “Why should I believe you? You could be here to help them find me, or to cause my mother more pain.”

  “I can prove to you that I’m here to help,” he said raising his hand towards her.

  Everything seemed to slow down instantly. His hand was still moving up with his palm open and facing her. Kyla moved to the side as a burst of something like air flowed from his hand flowing towards her. She watched it as it passed the place where she had been standing. As it went by her, Kyla turned and saw that Stefan’s eyes no longer looked brown but were a glowing orange color.

  As soon as the blast of air had dissolved over the water at the edge of the beach, everything went back to normal speed. Stefan was smiling at her. “If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done so when you first materialized.”

  “I’m supposed to believe that. You just tried to hit me with … whatever that was,” Kyla said trying to determine how to get out of the dream.

  “It wouldn’t have hurt you. I really am here to help you. Your mother blocked memories from you throughout your childhood. She did this to keep your power in check, but now you need them, and I can help you get rid of the protections she has put in place. You need to trust me.”

  Kyla shook her head. He knew too much, but she didn’t trust him. “You want me to trust you, tell me how to get to my mother.”

  Stefan grimaced, “No. You’re not ready yet. You can’t help her until you know what you are capable of.”

  “Do you know what I’m capable of?”

  “Not entirely.”

  “Then why should I trust anything you have to say.” Kyla thought of her mother in the white room. Maybe if she focused on her she could leave this dream world and get to her like she had done before.

  “It won’t work,” Stefan said watching her. “They’ve done something with her. I haven’t been able to locate her since she asked me to help you.”

  Kyla glared at him. “What do you mean, locate her?”

  “Look, we don’t have time for this. This is a temporary place. It will fade away and I’m not sure that we will be able to get here together again.” He raised his hand again, but this time nothing slowed down, and Kyla was unprepared for the pressure she felt pushing her backward.

  She landed on the sand, unable to move her body in any way. Stefan’s face appeared above her. She couldn’t move her body, but maybe she could use her mind against Stefan’s attack. As Stefan place his hands on either side of her head, she tried to focus on stopping him. Her skin felt warm and for a moment Kyla thought that her abilities were working, but her head started to pulsate. It wasn’t painful, but as she realized that Stefan’s eyes were glowing orange again, she knew that it was his power and not hers.

  Images of her childhood flashed through her mind. The room with her toys flying around, then her father dead on the floor, her mother resurrecting him. Then she saw images of a German Sheppard running around the yard, then a truck stopped in the road with the same dog laying broken in front of it. The images moved quickly by, going faster and faster until she saw herself, laying on the floor of Arthur’s garage. That was strange, it was her as she looked now. Kyla looked up to find Stefan rising. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear his voice and the sun seemed to be getting closer to her, growing brighter with each passing second until Kyla had to close her eyes.

  When she opened her eyes again, she was back in her bedroom lying in bed. She sat up and hopped off the bed. The house was dark. She hadn’t bothered to see what time it was. She wasn’t going back to sleep anytime soon. She had too much going on in her head. She sat down turning on the television. She flipped through channels until she found and episode of Rick and Morty on Adult Swim.

  Bits and pieces of her dream came back to her. The handsome young man … Stefan, hadn’t hurt her. She closed her eyes thinking of the images that had passed through her mind. He had unlocked the memories that her mother had hidden from her. Her eyes snapped open. Who was he and how had he known what to do? Maybe Arthur or Sandra would be able to tell her about him. He could have been with them when they were held captive. Whoever he was, he didn’t harm her. He had helped her, and he had been in contact with her mother.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Kyla,” Arthur called her name as he shook her shoulder. “Wake up.” Kyla stretched and yawned, sitting up on the sofa. “Breakfast is almost ready.” He didn’t have to say it. Kyla could smell the bacon wafting through the air. “Go wash up and change your clothes. After breakfast, We’re going to sell your truck. I found a buyer for it.”

  Kyla sat up as Arthur grabbed the remote and hit the power button. She must have fallen asleep watching cartoons. He was amused by the entertainment that humans liked. Cartoons were the strangest thing he had ever seen. They were art mimicking the worst characteristics of human behavior. It was a reflection of the worst parts of them, yet they loved it. He went out and picked up the paper off the yard, waving to his neighbor, who was tinkering with his car’s engine.

  “Who is Orclan,” Kyla asked as Arthur came back inside?

  “How do you know that name?”

  Kyla noticed the shocked expression on Arthur’s face. She got up to go to the kitchen. “Who is he?”

  “On Arturian, Rosha and his lifemate, Cihmon were the highest members of the Elder Council. A short while before were invaded, Cihmon gave birth to a son. They named him Orclan. He would have been a youngling at the time of the invasion. We were told that he died along with his mother and father.”

  “Well, I dreamed of the island again, and this time, instead of seeing my mother, I met him.” Kyla went on to tell Arthur about the dream. She watched his face go from wonder to disbelief and then, hope.

  “Sandra, come in here,” Arthur yelled.

  Sandra came into the room, “What is it? Breakfast is on the table.”

  “Check her mind for the blocks.”

  Sandra stared at her husband and then at Kyla, “Why? Nothing will have changed.”

  Arthur clamped his mouth shut and then looked at her. “Just do it,” he said between clenched teeth.

  Sandra crossed the room, stopping in front of Kyla. “Relax,” she said, raising her hands to the sides of Kyla’s head. She gasped, dropping her hands. With her mouth open, Sandra took a step back.

  Kyla watched Sandra for a second and then turned to Arthur, who was as lost as she was. “What?”

  “The blocks are gone, and…” she paused, turning to Arthur, “I saw just a bit of a memory involving Elise. Kyla’s not human at all.”

  “What do you mean? My father was from earth. He was human.”

  “Tony Woods was not your biological father.”

  Kyla felt lightheaded as she dropped back down on the sofa just as Allison entered the room, “What’s going on? Are we going to have breakfast or what?” When everyone remained silent, and Sandra and Arthur stood looking from one to the other and then back to Kyla, she asked, “What did I miss?”

  ***

  Two hours later, Kyla sat beside Arthur as he drove her truck to the man who was interes
ted in buying it. Nothing made any sense. The man that she had grown up with wasn’t her real dad. “I don’t understand. How can he not be my father? Was mom seeing someone else before she married him?”

  Arthur took a deep breath. “No. It doesn’t make sense to us either.”

  “Does this mean that I’m fully Arturian?”

  Arthur glanced in her direction, “I guess so. Sandra is never wrong about these things. If she looked into your memories and saw your mother and father talking about it, it happened.”

  “I was there, and that’s why mom blocked the memory.”

  “It makes sense. That explains why you didn’t know about your powers. Your mother didn’t want you to be found by the government for good reason.”

  Kyla turned, looking out the window. She could recall the memory even though it felt foggy and distant to her, but she never heard who her father was. Kyla had been asleep, and during a storm, the thunder had woken her. She had gone to her parent’s room to sleep in their bed with them. The door was never completely closed. As she got to the door, her mother said to her father, “Kyla doesn’t have to share your DNA to be your daughter. We don’t ever have to tell her who her father is.” Thunder roared, scaring Kyla, who yelped and dropped her bear.

  They had comforted her and allowed her to sleep in the bed between them. While she was asleep, her mother must have blocked the memory because Kyla didn’t recall it or the storm, the next day. She wondered how many things in her life had been hidden from her. Would she be sitting and thinking of something from her childhood and then learn that it had been a memory kept from her?

  Kyla pushed the thoughts away as Arthur exited the highway. She glanced over her shoulder, checking to see that Sandra was following them. She and Allison had suggested that they stop at the mall on the way home. Sandra insisted that Kyla needed some more clothes. Kyla smiled, thinking about her saying that she was tired of seeing her wearing the same two outfits. Kyla assured her that she didn’t need anything, but She and Allison insisted otherwise.

  Kyla’s mind wandered a bit as they drove through the surface streets to the house of the man who wanted the truck. When she first arrived in their lives, it seemed that Sandra would never accept or welcome her. Now Kyla felt as if maybe there was a chance that Sandra was opening herself to the idea of Kyla being a part of their family. She was sure that learning that Kyla wasn’t a hybrid, made that easier for her.

  Kyla was raised as a biracial human, and as such, she had experienced and seen racism with her own eyes. Who would have ever thought that prejudice would be a part of an alien culture? They had come to earth looking for a safe place to live and had found hatred and injustice. They were hunted and hated by those who knew about them. In turn, they had come to hate those that were chasing them.

  “Here we go,” Arthur said, pulling the truck into the driveway of a house off a rural road. The two of them got out and walked towards the door to the house. Before they made it to the porch, an older man wearing a ball cap came out. “Mr. Darenger, I’m Arthur.”

  “Nice to meet ya,” the man said with a heavy country sounding voice as he stuck his hand out to Arthur.

  “This is my granddaughter.”

  “Hi,” Kyla said with a slight smile.

  The man nodded his head slightly, acknowledging Kyla. Then he started walking towards the truck. “She looks pretty good.” Kyla didn’t necessarily agree with him. The old Chevy looked a bit rough. The paint was fading, peeling, and missing in some spots. The faux wood grain running down the sides, was worn. The interior was nice and well kept. Kyla and Arthur stood watching as he checked the truck from front to back, top to bottom and inside out. “Can I start her up and take her for a test run?”

  “Of course,” Arthur said, tossing him the keys as he moved around to the passenger side of the vehicle. “Why don’t you wait with your grandmother? We’ll be back in a few minutes,” He said to Kyla.

  Kyla waited until they had backed out onto the street before she got in the back seat of Arthur’s Buick. “Test drive,” she said as she closed the door. They all sat quietly. The radio wasn’t on, and no one talked. That was one thing that Kyla had noticed about them. Sandra, Allison, and Arthur didn’t do idle chat, and they didn’t listen to music or watch television unless they had a valid reason to do so. She wondered if this was something that all their kind did. Arthur watched sports and news shows, while Sandra watched news and games shows. She had never seen Allison watching anything. She liked to read books, and they were always educational.

  They wanted to blend into the human world and live here, but they didn’t do things that humans did. Kyla was surprised that they hadn’t been found before now. Her mother behaved like other human people, and maybe that’s why no one had a clue who or what she was. Kyla wondered what about her mom caused her uncle to suspect that his sister-in-law was anything other than human. She doubted that she would ever know the answer to that question.

  Arthur and Mr. Darenger returned within a few minutes. Kyla didn’t bother to get out of the car. She had already given the title papers to Arthur. She watched as the two made the exchange. Then Arthur shook his hand and came to the car. Sandra and Elise got out so that Arthur and Sandra could sit in the front, while Allison joined Kyla in the back seat. “Here you go,” Arthur said, handing her the money.

  She hadn’t expected him to do that. Since she was still underaged, she had thought that Arthur would insist on holding onto it for her until she was ready to purchase a replacement vehicle. Kyla took the money from him, stuffing it into the envelope containing the money that her parents had left for her in the backpack.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Neil sat in the passenger seat of the first vehicle, excited for the news Markus had given him. The truck that the girl had been driving was picked up on a traffic camera in the southern part of the city. Neil made a call and got someone to approve using a satellite. They were able to track its movement through the city. It had been parked in the same place since it had stopped a half-hour ago. With a little bit of luck, he might catch the girl and be on his way back to the base before the sky grew dark.

  His team was quiet as they made their way to the girl. He liked this group much more than the last bunch he had worked with. His previous squad talked all the time. It was like they couldn’t handle a moment of silence between them. They went on and on about women, politics, sports, and any other thing that crossed their tiny minds. This group hardly ever spoke and remained ready to carry out their orders. They never questioned his command, and they were the best at their jobs.

  It had taken him a long time to gather them together. A moment of sadness filled him when he realized that someday he would have to release them from their service, and he would have to start again with a whole new set of men. His job was to track down the aliens that had escaped and bring them back. With more occurrences of extraterrestrial contact, he would be doing his job for a long time. For that very reason, he couldn’t keep his team for more than a few years. If they ever noticed that he wasn’t aging, they might ask questions.

  “There it is,” the driver said, pointing to the left. Neil had already given his guys the instruction to pass the house first, and since the street became a dead end, they would turn the cars around and park down the road. His men would take up positions strategically, and he would approach the home. If the girl was there and she tried to escape, his men would be covering the exit in the back. They were under strict instructions not to use lethal force. The scientist wanted her alive, and so did he. If he brought the girl to her mother safely, F1 might be more likely to consider his request.

  Neil and Markus walked towards the driveway and then to the front door of the house. As they passed it, they glanced through the window of the truck. From the description they had, and from the verification of the license plate, it was the right vehicle. Markus remained by the truck as Neil walked the rest of the way to the house. The inner door was open. Neil pe
ered inside, looking past the old rusted screen in the outer door. He knocked hard on the frame and waited.

  He could hear movement and a television playing a sports program, then a good ole boy appeared. “Can I help you,” the man said, taking in Neil’s dark clothing, gun, and the other mean spread out behind him.

  “I’m looking for the owner of the old truck,” Neil said, jerking his head back towards the vehicle in the driveway.

  The man opened the outer door, stepping. “Why? Please don’t tell me that I just bought a stolen vehicle?”

  Neil walked along with the man towards the truck. “Did you say that you bought the truck?”

  “Well yeah, I saw an ad for it on craigslist, and the guy and his family just left about fifteen minutes ago. If it is stolen, I swear to you that I didn’t have nothing to do with that.”

  “It’s okay,” Neil said, adding, “It’s not stolen, but I need to speak with the young girl. She may have witnessed a crime.” He was lying, of course. “Did she provide a title to the vehicle?”

  “Yes, but that won’t do you no good in finding her. The title her grandfather gave me is from the state of Missouri, and we didn’t use a bill of sale.”

  Her grandfather? Neil was puzzled by that information. If she sold the truck to him, she had to have had another vehicle. “You’re sure that the man with her was her grandfather? What kind of car did she leave in?”

  “Yeah, he said he was, and they left in a white four-door Buick, looked fairly new. They seemed like nice folks.”

  “Can you tell me what her grandfather looks like?” Markus stepped forward, taking notes as the man described the girl’s granddad. He even told them his name. This was a big break for his team. Kyla was here less than thirty minutes ago with a tall thin black man and two women who stayed in the car the entire time. The man also let him know that the old man had asked if there was a mall nearby. When they were finished with him, the man shook his hand and went back into the house. “Thanks for your help,” Neil said with a smile. Markus had already returned to the car to find any information available about Arthur Jackson and his family.