*****
Whimpers roused her. Gould lay in a ball on the floor with an egg sized bump on his forehead; his breathing accelerated and his temperature high, but he was alive. The whimpers weren’t coming from him. Again she heard a sound foreign to her ears, yet so compelling she found herself crawling on her hands and knees to get to it. Upon reaching the source, her mechanical heart missed a beat, for in the cold, dried, fleshless arms of the woman, lay a perfect innocent life.
Tutankhamun raised his hand to his burning throat as another bout of hacking coughs wracked his body. His head spun in never ending circles, his chest ached as if the weight of the world were upon it. Drawing a ragged breath aggravated his windpipe, starting the cough again. Blood rained from his mouth with each splutter.
Jones lifted the baby and wrapped it in her jacket. Holding her against her chest, she watched in horror as the target opened his mouth and a giant slug slithered from it to thump on the floor. She crossed the room, drew a blade from its sheath at her ankle and sliced the creature in two. The target fell to his side with his eyes wide and staring, his skin turned grey and his hair fell in clumps to the floor.
"Brown, Green? Do you hear me?" she asked touching her ear. "We need a clean-up crew in here. Target is terminated."
"Confirm, target is terminated. Do you require medical assistance?"
"Gould requires assistance," she confirmed. "I've something I need to take care of, so I'll meet you back at HQ."
"Captain, are you okay?"
"Yeah yeah, I'm fine. I eh… have to take the anomaly directly to the lab." She disconnected the comms and placed the anomaly in a pillowcase using sugar tongs. "Let's get you something to eat little guy," she crooned to the baby in her arms. "Then we'll drop this thing off at the lab and you can come home with me. Oh, I can't wait for you meet Max, you're going to love him. And don't mind his slobbering tongue, it just means he likes you."
Back to start
A Mother’s Love
Apprehension
"Well aren't you an obedient little bitch?" Gould sneered lowly as he watched the young woman exit her car, giving the valet a flash of her endlessly long legs, shown off by the flare of the gothic, corseted mini-dress. He swung slightly to the left in time to see a tall, muscular man dressed from head to toe in black enter the restaurant. Gould lowered the binoculars and turned to address his commanding officer. "Ma'am, our target is approaching the meeting point."
"Is he alone?"
"Affirmative."
Jones paced the confines of the small hotel room overlooking the restaurant, anxiously wringing her hands. She was more nervous on this mission than she'd been her first time in the field. She felt like she had no control over anything that was about to happen. Control belonged to the girl on the ground; the girl with no experience in field operations; a nineteen-year-old fresh out of training.
I'm in position, the voice belonging to the very reason for her anxiety crackled to life in her ear.
Jones started at the sudden intrusion into her thoughts. Honey, just be careful, okay. This guy is more than he seems.
And so am I. We've been over this a million times already, Mum. I'm ready for this.
I'm just worried about you, Shafira.
Well stop already. I've been trained by the best.
I'm allowed to worry, I'm your mother. Jones smiled with the memory of their last training session when Shafira had all but kicked her ass in hand-to-hand combat. Even with her enhancements, she had been unable to defeat her daughter. Leave the comms on so I can hear what's happening.
Shafira rolled her eyes, but did as her mother asked and left the comms device active. Her eyes scanned the seated crowd in search of her target as she made her way to the Maitre de's podium. Two possibilities stood out among the rest: the first sat with his back to her at a table along the back wall; the second directly in front of the main window, also with his back to her. If this guy was as smart as her mother gave him credit for, he'd be close to an escape route with a good view of the main doors. She dismissed both men.
An impatient cough drew her attention back to her immediate surroundings. "May I help you, Mademoiselle?" the Maitre de asked with a hint of disproval as his gaze roamed down her body.
Shafira gave him a petulant smile and ran her hands down the front of her bodice, fluffing up the tutu as she reached the bottom. "I have a meeting with Mr. Black."
He raised a single eyebrow before lowering his head to look at the appointment book. "Oh," he said with surprise, "right this way please." Again, he looked her up and down, pausing at her fluorescent pink Doc Martins that matched the stripes on her bodice before spinning on his heel with a shake of his head.
She followed him through the tables and slid into the seat he pulled out for her. The table was empty.
A waiter arrived a moment later to set an envelope in front of her. "The gentleman sends his regrets and asked me to give you this."
What's happening Shafira? Jones asked quietly in her ear.
Shafira smiled flirtatiously at the young waiter. "Did you happen to see where he went?" she asked, clueing Jones in on the fact that her date had stood her up. "Did he say anything when he left the envelope?"
"Sorry Miss, he just gave me twenty and told me to give it to you."
Damn. Read it.
Shafira ripped the envelope open and emptied the contents onto the table. "It's a pass card for a hotel room," she whispered under her breath. "Shit, get out of there!" she yelled as she jumped to her feet and ran for the restaurant door. "It's your room!"
An explosion from across the street blew the windows of the restaurant in just as Shafira exited the door. The force of the blast knocked her off her feet, sending her sailing through the air to crash against the building’s wall. As she lay on the ground, barely conscious, a dark silhouette moved in front of her to block her view of what remained of the hotel.
"It's time for you to learn who you really are," a masculine voice murmured as he scooped her off the ground as if he were lifting a small child not a fully-grown woman.
Fighting against her failing consciousness seemed futile. Mother is surely dead. She couldn’t have made it out of there before the explosion. Shafira let the darkness take her.
Missing
"Damn it, Jones, we've searched the entire restaurant and she's not here," Green swore for the second time since he pulled both Gould and Jones from the hotel stairwell as he followed her into the bathroom.
"Witnesses said they saw a girl fitting her description sitting at a table along the back wall. Where the hell is she?" Jones sobbed, her desperation evident in her words and frantic movements. She pushed open each of the cubicle doors hoping that the next would reveal her daughter safe and well. Her agitation grew with every empty stall. "Damn it Green, she can't have just disappeared."
"She has a tracking device in her neck, just like the rest of us. We'll find her."
"Not soon enough."
"The team are meeting up in the pub to wait for information from the rest of the surveillance crew. Come on, you can't do anything more here for now," Green said, attempting to calm her.
"If I don't do something," Jones spat with vehemence. "I'm going to end up going into that pub every night for the rest of my life like the rest of those sad old fuckers, drinking myself to death and wondering what the hell happened." She stormed out of the restaurant and scanned the street, not knowing exactly what it was she was looking for. With a growl of defeat, she threw her hands in the air and ran to catch up with Green. She had no choice but to rely on the surveillance team to have the information she needed. "It's been an hour since the blast, has anyone checked the hospital yet?"
"Black went with Gould to the hospital. I'll have him check the register while he's there." Green touched his ear to activate his comms and relayed his request through HQ. They were a few streets away from the pub the surveillance team had commandeered for an incident room by the time HQ came back to him. "R
oger that. Any word on Gould's condition?"
"Well?" Jones asked impatiently.
"She's not there."
"And Gould?"
"His injuries aren't extensive and would have been worse if you hadn't pushed him through the door and down the stairs. As it stands, he'll most likely be in plaster for a few weeks. A broken wrist and concussion is nothing compared to the alternative. He'll be back on duty in no time if his previous track record is anything to go by."
Deception
It was the cold that woke her. A bone deep chill that sent shivers coursing through her battered body. She tested each of her limbs in series to ensure their functionality before rolling over and sitting up. A groan escaped her lips as pain speared through her head and shoulders. Her hand went to the base of her head where most of the pain seemed to radiate and found a fresh gauze dressing. That explained the pounding headache.
She eased her legs over the side of the narrow cot, bracing herself in preparation for the tenderness her bruising would demonstrate as she slowly stood. And immediately sat again when dizziness overcame her.
Nice to see you awake, said a vaguely familiar voice inside her head.
Shafira looked around for the source but found herself alone in what looked like a basement. The only light came from a small barred window high on the wall above the cot she sat on. The sun hung low in sky indicating that it was either early morning or late afternoon. Adding the temperature of the room to the equation, she deduced that morning was most likely.
Feeling better after your nap? he asked.
"Who the hell are you?" she demanded with enough force to aggravate the throbbing pain in her head.
Many people have speculated that. He hedged.
"You're being obtuse. Why did you bring me here?"
If we knew exactly why… he began, but Shafira interrupted him.
"Quit playing stupid games and tell me where I am?"
He laughed. Her frustration grew.
The bowl of petunias had thought that we would know.
"What are you on? Who would know what?"
The bowl of petunias had thought that we would know, he repeated, a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.
Shafira shook her head in an attempt to clear any lingering fuzziness. She was sure that she must have heard him wrong. "Did you just say bowl of petunias?"
A door banged closed in the house above, followed by footsteps directly overhead. Shafira stood in readiness of the owner entering the basement.
The door creaked as it opened and a man stepped forward to fill the doorframe. "I said," he replied with a chuckle, failing in his attempt to suppress his laughter. "That the human race had thought we would know a lot more about the Universe than we do now." The silhouetted figure descended the stairs until he stood at the bottom, his face remaining in the shadows.
Shafira pushed her shoulders back and stood tall in defiance. "Will you answer my question and tell me where I am?"
He took a final step forward so his face was illuminated in the morning sun and smiled. "Perhaps the more important question is what you are, not where you are."
Recognition dawned and she made to leap on the young man responsible for her mother's certain death, but her feet wouldn't move. They were rooted to the spot. Her arms shot out in front of her in an attempt to break her fall as she tumbled forward but she never touched the floor.
"Now that I have your attention, perhaps we can start from the beginning?" He twisted his head down and around so he could look her in the eye, his eyebrows raised in question. He then snapped his fingers so she straightened from her dangling-in-mid-air position.
"How did you…?"
"All in good time, Shafira. We have other things to talk about first."
Shafira stiffened and growled low in her throat. "You killed my mother."
"Your mother lives, in as much as a Biogen can live."
"You lie. There's no way they could have made it out before the explosion."
He produced a phone from his pocket and played about with it for a second before turning the screen toward her. An image of her mother clambering over the hotel rubble played in a video.
Shafira's shoulders relaxed with her sigh of relief. "What do you want from me?"
This brought another smile to his face. "Just for you to listen; to understand what you are."
"You said that before. What do you mean, what I am?"
"I think it best we start from the beginning. Did your mother tell you how she found you?"
Shafira hesitated a moment before answering. Her mind raced trying to work out the direction he was trying to take the conversation. "She adopted me after my birth mother, her sister, died giving birth to me."
He shook his head. "Close, but not quite accurate. While your mother did die giving birth to you, that's where the similarity ends. Captain Jones was in charge of the team sent to investigate an incident in the Middle East the night you were born; an incident involving an alien life form. Jones returned from the mission and immediately took a vacation."
"There's nothing mysterious about that."
"There is when the new born baby grows into a young woman in the space of two years. You only stopped growing a few months ago Shafira."
"Bull shit. Somehow I think I'd know."
"Really? Do you remember your tenth birthday?"
"I…"
"How about your thirteenth? That's a milestone birthday."
Shafira remained silent as she fought to find the memories he asked. They had to be locked away inside her mind, somewhere. The alternative meant that she was… Finally, when every reason she could imagine for the missing memories were eliminated, it left only one she couldn't deny. No matter how outrageous it seemed, this man was telling the truth. She sagged onto the bed in defeat.
"We are the same, you and I. There's so much I want to show you."
Her eyes glistened with unshed tears as she raised her head to look at him again. "What am I?" she whispered.
Betrayal
"Can we skip the bullshit and concentrate on finding my daughter," Jones demanded, banging her fist on the table hard enough to make the pint glasses on top of it jump and spill their contents. She tutted and sighed with agitation when everyone ignored her outburst.
Grey used a couple of napkins to mop up the mess. "Commander, I mean no disrespect, and I know Shafira is missing, but our primary objective is the target. If you can't put your personal issues aside and concentrate on the job first and foremost then I'll have to request you be taken off the case. We need you to be focused."
Jones glared at her subordinate. "I am a Biogen. I don't have emotional attachments," she growled, almost incoherently through her gritted teeth. She got to her feet and strode to the whiteboard someone had set up in front of the jukebox in the corner.
The loud, ear-piercing screech of her nails dragging across the board caught the attention of every person in the room. She scanned the faces of her comrades for a few seconds in the ensuing silence. What she saw was a mixture of curiosity and annoyance - one or two even showed a modicum of sympathy.
With a deep breath that squared her shoulders, she addressed her team. "Our target knew we were on to him. Either he's psychic or we have a mole."
"Ma'am, if I may?"
Jones nodded for the woman to continue.
"The incidents that drew our attention to the target in the first place seem a little orchestrated on hindsight. What if they were a set up in order to take you out of the equation for some reason?"
"Tell me more… What's your name?"
"Violet, Ma'am. I think he played us so you'd get involved. You've made a name for yourself in the field."
Jones' eyes narrowed with her frown as she thought about what Violet said. "You're on to something, though I don't think it was me he wanted."
She looked up and met Green's eyes from the far side of the room where he was talking with the video surveillance team.
She motioned him over with a flick of her hand.
"Ma'am," he said with trepidation when he reached her side. "The video guys have nothing. According to Rusty, no one saw our guy arrive at the meeting point. No one entered the restaurant for five minutes before Shafira did. The only thing they have is hazy footage of something on the street just seconds after the blast." He hesitated as if afraid to continue.
"Spit it out, Green."
Green pulled her by the elbow into a booth and pushed her down into the seat. "They don't know if it's her, but it's possible our target took Shafira from the street. They said she looked like she may have been injured."
"Damn it, I knew it. Tell me they can track her at least."
Green sank into the seat opposite and shook his head, refusing to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry. There's something interfering with the signal."
When she said nothing, he raised his head expecting to see anger or grief, some sort of emotion on her face. Instead, she sat with her eyes closed and her head thrown back against the tall, wooden surround of the booth. Her eyelids moved in small rapid flutters for several minutes as she processed all the information she'd witnessed and been given since the target came to the notice of the Alien Investigation Team.
"Damn," she breathed fervently as she slid from the booth, her hand moving to check to the weapon concealed beneath her jacket. "It's Gould." She slid the battery pack from its sheath and replaced it with a fresh one.
Green stood so he could see over the high booth wall to scan the room beyond. "Where?"
"Why the hell didn't I see it? It's so fucking obvious."
"Boss, what are you talking about?"
Jones sat down again. "You remember the night I found…" She glanced around quickly to make sure no one was within earshot before continuing in a whisper, "the night I found Shafira? He was alone with the ALF for an unrecorded period of time."
"And so were you."
"The lab said that the thing that slid from the targets mouth was parasitic in origin. What if it wasn't the only one?"
"You think Gould has one inside him?"
"Think about it. When we got back from Egypt, he was acting weird, as if he didn't know some of the people he worked with every day. Christ’s sake, he'd been trying to get into Chantelle's knickers for months before that. Suddenly he has no interest anymore, totally out of character."
"You said he was probably stressed from the Egypt job."
"I know, but every sighting there's been of our new target has been made by him."
"Nah," Green said with disbelief. "That explosion could have killed him. No way he's involved."
"That, is actually the clincher right there. He was already in the stairwell when Shafira warned us to get out. He said he needed to take a piss."
Green frowned. "Okay, so what do you want to do about it? Report our suspicions or check him ourselves. You can scan him for things like that, right?"
Jones nodded and got to her feet again. "Want to back me up? If I'm right he may get nasty. I'll understand if you want to sit this one out - him being your friend and all."
"Fuck that, I'm game. Bring it on, bring it on, bring it on," Green replied, following the statement with a sadistic looking grin. "From here to the eyes and the ears of the 'verse, that's my motto." He chuckled at Jones' grimace. "Or at least it would be, if I start having a motto."
"Okay…" Jones laughed nervously. "I'm driving, you've obviously had one too many whiskeys."
Tough Choices
"He's not answering," Green muttered as he got into the passenger seat of Jones' cruiser. The lenses of his glasses lightened instantly in the dim interior allowing Jones to see the look of concern that flitted across his face.
"Try his mobile."
"I did." He waved his own mobile in Jones' view as if to demonstrate that he hadn't put it away again yet.
"Comms?"
"Nothing. I've asked HQ to run a trace on him. After what you said earlier about Gould, I have a bad feeling about this."
"Let's not get excited just yet. The hospital is a very public place, I doubt Gould would try anything. That's assuming he has a slug inside him, of course."
Green made no comment, but continued to redial Black's number in the hope that poor reception on Black's side was the issue. The two minute journey from the pub car park dragged and the elevator ride to the ward Gould was bedded seemed to take an eternity. Both Green and Jones checked the power levels on their weapons as it neared its destination, replacing them within easy reach as the doors opened.
It may have been the unusually quiet atmosphere that set Jones on edge or it could have been the lack of staff at the nurse's station. Whatever it was, her weapon was in her hand when she paused at the door to Gould's room.
She nodded at Green and counted with her fingers: three, two, one. The door swung inwards with the nudge of her hip, her gun swinging with her eye-line in search of any threat. When none presented itself, Jones walked further into the room allowing Green to enter and inspect the adjoining bathroom while she covered the bed.
"Clear," Green whispered, barely audibly.
Jones nodded once in the direction of the bed indicating that Green should pull the covers back. She kept her weapon trained on the sleeping bulk.
"Shit. It's Black," Green rasped. "He's dead. I guess that proves your theory."
"When was the last contact you had with Black?"
"I don't know, maybe a half hour. Gould has Black's clothes, he could be anywhere."
Jones did some mental calculations. "It would have taken Gould at least twenty minutes to incapacitate Black and strip him of his clothes with a broken wrist. Getting dressed would also take time. He may still be in the hospital," she surmised. "Get on to HQ and put out an AOS on Gould, security code red. This is not good news."
Using the computer system to access the hospital's intercom, Jones did the only thing she could think of to minimise civilian causalities. "Attention, attention. Code red. This is not a drill. I repeat: this is not a drill. This is the Apocalypse. Please exit the hospital in an orderly fashion." She activated the comms device in her ear. "Gould, we have you surrounded. Give yourself up and we can help you."
Laughter erupted from somewhere behind her, the sound echoing along the narrow corridor concealing the source's actual position. Her weapon was up and aimed in the general direction by the time she swung around to face the right way.
"Green," she whispered, after touching her ear to change the comms channel. "He's still on this floor. Let's move. He has Black's weapon, shoot to kill."
"Right with you, Boss," Green replied, taking up position at her side. He adjusted the power level from stun to lethal on his gun, nodding his readiness to proceed.
They moved in unison, grateful that the floor was already empty of civilian patients. Jones blinked to alter her vision to thermal and scanned the rooms through the thin walls. A human heat source moved from a crouch to standing three doors down. He stood with his arms raised to his chest, the cold black silhouette of his weapon obvious against his body temperature.
Her hand on Greens chest stopped his advance. "Cover me," she mouthed as she pointed to the room.
She moved silently, each step placed with utmost care. Once she reached the exact spot on the opposite side of the room wall, she stopped and switched her weapon into her left hand. Her right shot forward through the thin wall beside Gould's head, snatching his gun from his grasp before he knew what happened. Gould, being a highly trained soldier, recovered quickly and came through the door at her with a speed to rival her own. The ensuing close combat had them rolling around the floor, each landing blows that would normally incapacitate their opponent with ease.
The first shot Green got off skimmed Jones' shoulder, the second Gould's foot. "For Christ's sake, quit moving," he yelled. His third shot knocked Jones off her feet and into the wall. His Fourth, a few seconds later, saw Gould dead. He sprinted the short distance to Jones' side and released the
breath he'd been holding since he made the rash decision to shoot his commanding officer. "Ma'am?" he asked with trepidation. He tapped her cheeks lightly in an attempt to bring her round. "Come on, Jones," he pleaded, going over the last minute of the fight in his mind - he was sure he set the gun to stun before he shot her.
Whatever It Takes
Shafira stood with her mouth hanging open. Shocked but mesmerized by the sight of the creature that slithered from her captor's mouth. Her mother had warned her that this man wasn't what he seemed; this was more than she thought possible. Sure, she knew aliens existed, that was what she had trained for after all. To be this close to one and have it tell her through its host that she was just like it, was simply unbelievable.
She watched and waited for the perfect opportunity to strike. Her mother had trained her for this day. The day she would put a stop to the fear of being discovered. She knew exactly what she was and this creature was certainly not it.
With one sweep of her hand, she ripped the creature from its host's mouth and studied it as it wriggled in her grasp. "I am nothing like you," she stated, as she looked it in its beady little black eyes. "I don't excrete slime."
The host slumped to the floor as she turned her back on him. She didn't bother looking back when she heard the thud; he was dead the day the creature took him over. Her search for something sharp took her the kitchen where she found a butcher's knife which she used to cut the creature in two. She also found her comms device conveniently left on the sideboard.
It took an hour for her mother to find her after she made the call. Green arrived too and took the plastic wrapped creature from her hand when her mother enveloped her in a crushing hug. He left them alone to put it in the trunk of the car.
"Did it say how many of them there where?" Jones asked as she released her daughter and stepped back to study her appearance.
Shafira nodded. "There were four of us born that night. Three like that," she pointed in the direction Green had left, "and me."
"Damn, then there's one more. Did it give you any idea who it possessed?"
Shafira shook her head. "I don't think it knew."
"One more and we're home free, Sweetie. We just have to bide our time and hope it shows itself."
"What about Green? Does he know?"
"Sort of, he's still in the dark to all the details, but I think he has his suspicions. We'll have to keep an eye on him though, just in case."
"What if he finds out about what I can do?" Shafira asked under her breath as Green entered the house again through the back door.
"Let's get you home, Sweetie," she said for Green's benefit. "We'll deal with that later if we need to. Whatever it takes."
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