Xenophobia (26 page)

“We’ve taught her three concepts,” Bower added. “We’ve also taught her understanding resolves into action.”

On cue, the alien replied, “Understand.”

“Can you see how it’s doing that?” Bower asked. “How is it speaking?”

“It’s the bugs on the upper surface,” Elvis replied. “They’re moving like an old speaker cone whenever she talks.”

“Huh,” Bower replied. Well, that explained why there were times when the alien’s speech seemed to come from all around her. Unlike human speech, the alien’s words were not directional, at least, not horizontally. The creature’s words bounced off the ceiling back at her and so appeared to come from everywhere.

“We’ve got a couple of hours before we make our move,” Elvis said. “We need to get that gun and work on loosening those hinges.”

As the two of them got up, the alien swiveled in place, seemingly asking for permission to join.

“Green light,” said Elvis softly, and the creature followed behind them as they walked through the darkened floor.

For Bower, it felt unnerving to hear the creature quietly creeping up behind her. Unlike her own footsteps that fell with a soft, steady, rhythmic crunch, the motion of the alien was more akin to the sound of the wind rustling in the trees.

“Just like a puppy dog,” said Elvis.

“A giant puppy dog ... with tentacles,” Bower replied.

Elvis didn’t respond.

In the dim light she could see him grinning.

They reached the mattresses beneath the shattered remains of the upper floor. Elvis picked up the gun from where it lay in the dust.

“We need to find that bullet.”

“Is one bullet going to make that much difference?” Bower asked, crouching down and searching with her hands in the low light. It was hopeless. She was clutching at shadows in the darkness.

“One bullet won’t hold off an army, but could make the difference between life and death, it could buy us time.”

The alien seemed agitated, and for a second Bower worried that seeing Elvis brandish the revolver had upset the interstellar creature. She looked up and amidst the swarm of tentacles flicking back and forth one remained still, stretching out toward Elvis. The fine tip of the frond was wrapped around a bloodstained bullet.

Elvis reached out cautiously, saying, “Nice work, Stella,” and yet his voice was anything but confident. Like her, he had to be nervous about working with this creature. He took the bullet from her and slipped it into the revolver. Slowly, he tucked the revolver into the small of his back.

On reaching the door, Elvis used his fingers to carefully examine the hinges before setting to work with the butter-knife and the rock. The hallway was pitch black. The only light came from a faint glimmer breaking through cracks in the sealed window, where the alien stood casting shadows on the wall.

“Yeah, that’s going to come loose real easy,” Elvis whispered, turning to one side and leaning against the wall. Bower leaned against the other wall, facing him.

“And so we wait,” he said.

Bower felt like pressing him to move sooner, but for him it must have been an ingrained military discipline to patiently await the appointed time for action. She had no doubt that when the time arose he could move with surprising speed and aggression. In the past twelve hours, he’d gone from almost an invalid to his old self. His left arm didn’t look any different from this morning, it was still like that of a child, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He had what appeared to be a normal amount of dexterity.

The alien creature waited outside the narrow hallway. Bower wondered what it was thinking. The spiny structure spanned a sphere roughly nine feet in diameter, with the swarming heart of the creature centered at chest height. By retracting its tentacles the alien could squeeze into the hallway, but its motion was restricted.

Elvis took out the revolver and laid it on the ground beside them. In the darkness, Bower could just make out the grainy outline of the silver cylinder along with the elongated barrel of the gun but not the grip, as that seemed to fade into the indistinct darkness.

Elvis was doing something with some small stones. She could hear them falling softly to the ground but she couldn’t see them. It took a few seconds before she realized he was amusing himself, tossing the stones beside his boot as part of some boredom-reducing game.

They sat there listening for any sounds beyond the door but the night was quiet. The concrete floor was hard. Her bum was sore. She had to keep moving from one cheek to another every few minutes. Elvis must have thought she had ants in her pants.

A cool breeze slipped beneath the door and Bower felt upbeat, but then she didn’t have to worry about stealing a truck. She was content to think it would be easy for Elvis.

Every half-hour or so, Elvis would get up and check the angle of the moon shine through one of the cracks in the steel shutters out on the floor. Finally, he came back and said the two words she’d been waiting to hear, “It’s time.”

Stella spoke from the darkness.

“Understand.”

Quietly, Elvis tapped at the hinges, removing them and putting them neatly to one side.

Whispering, he said, “There are a couple of danger points here, points at which our escape could be compromised. The first is when I remove this door.”

Bower had become so acclimatized to the darkness that her eyes easily picked out the soft gleam of polished steel as Elvis slipped the gun behind his back again.

“I’m going to remove the door, but once I do it’s important that you stay put. I need to assess the situation on the other side of the door. If there are any guards immediately outside, things are going to go hot very quickly. I won’t fire on them unless I’m forced to. I’ll use the knife to incapacitate them.”

“With a butter-knife?” Bower asked.

“You’d be surprised how effective any length of metal is when used with sufficient force in a vulnerable spot.”

Bower didn’t say anything, but she figured incapacitate was another military euphemism. The army had such clinical terms for killing people. And as for the butter knife, he was right. She’d seen people impaled in accidents on some of the most unlikely of objects: loose fencing, upturned chair legs, screwdrivers. During her time in the accident and emergency ward at the St Albans hospital in London, she’d had a dad turn up with a child’s toy airplane embedded in his abdomen. Soft tissue punctures were surprisingly nasty.

Elvis went on, saying, “At this point, stealth is our greatest ally: being dead has its advantages. But if bullets start flying, even just one shot, then the gig is up, it would be like hitting a wasp’s nest with a baseball bat.”

Elvis rested his hand on Bower’s shoulder. All she could see was the outline of his head in silhouette.

“If that happens, run, do you understand me?”

Bower nodded, not that he would have known.

“You run. You don’t look back. You don’t wait for me. You don’t stop and hide. You run as fast and as far as your legs will carry you. Do you understand? This is extremely important. Whatever happens, you treat that first shot like the starter’s gun at the Olympics. You don’t wait for any kind of confirmation from me. When that gun fires, you’re running a goddamn marathon. You bolt.

“Moving targets are bloody hard to hit, especially at night. You need to run like the hounds of hell are snapping at your heels. The further you run, the better.”

Bower breathed deeply, steeling her mind.

“In the initial rush of adrenalin you’ll find you’re good to sprint out to about a hundred yards, then your lungs will start to burn and your legs will feel like they’re dragging lead weights. Back things off and pace yourself, but don’t stop. Keep running. Don’t stop running. If these bastards catch you they’ll kill you. The only thing you can do is to outdistance them.”

He removed his hand from her shoulder, saying, “The sun rises in the east. Government troops hold the western side of the city, so you want to head away from the rising sun.”

Elvis paused before adding, “With any luck, I’ll be running alongside you, OK?”

“OK.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Bower replied, feeling the adrenalin already pulsating through her veins.

“OK. I need you to help me with the door.”

Elvis used the knife to slowly jimmy the door out of the metal doorframe. Pale moonlight seeped in through the cracks widening around the frame. Bower found herself holding her breath as she braced her hands against the door, helping Elvis move it slowly. She could see him positioning himself beside the hinged side of the frame, peering out into the backstreet. He was looking through the slowly widening gap.

Elvis lifted the door, pulling it back while turning sideways and squeezing through the narrow gap.

Bower took the weight of the door, stopping it from falling inward. She could see the revolver in his right hand, held high against the inside of the door. Once the gap was wide enough, Elvis stepped through, the gun leading the way. She went to follow, moving along the door to the gap only to see him holding his hand up, signaling for her to wait where she was.

“There’s a crate to the left, hiding us from view, but it’s also obscuring my view. Wait here while I check out the street.”

Elvis crept forward in the shadows.

Bower peered through the gap. She could see down the street to the right. The surrounding buildings lacked windows. There were roller doors. They were in some kind of commercial area, which was no surprise.

In that instant, Bower suddenly realized her arms were the only thing holding the metal door. She’d stepped back and the door had started to fall inward, its weight seemed to grow as its center of gravity shifted. Bower braced herself, spreading her legs and pushing hard against the weight of the door, pushing it back until it was vertical again.

Sweat dripped from her brow.

A steel door crashing to the ground would have attracted as much attention as a gunshot, and she found herself shaking in panic. Bower pushed the door past vertical, allowing it to lean up against the doorframe. Her fingers felt cold and clammy.

Elvis crept back and spoke to her from the other side of the door.

“We’re clear. There’s a light at the far end of the alley beside us, but nothing at either end of this back street. I can see down the alley beside the factory, there are a couple of guards down by the tankers, but they’re pretty lax.”

“Help me with the door,” Bower said, starting to lift.

“Not just yet. I’ve got to get a truck first, remember.”

“You’re going to leave me?”

Bower was horrified.

“Here, you keep the gun,” Elvis said, pushing the revolver into her hand.

“What?” Bower replied, taken back by the notion.

“If anyone springs you, pull back on the hammer and fire. Aim for the center of the chest. Actually, aim a little lower. The kick is going to bring your shot up about a foot anyway.”

“You can’t leave me,” Bower protested. She was leaning against the wall inside the hallway, her head poking through the gap while the rest of her body remained within the darkness.

“Listen. I need you to think straight. You, me and Stella creeping through the streets at night wouldn’t end well. We’d attract too much attention. One man alone can move unseen. You’ve got to trust me on this. I will be back for you.”

“But the gun?”

“If I get to the point where I need to open fire on someone, one bullet won’t be enough.”

Elvis pointed down the street. “If everything goes to plan, you should see a truck pull up down there. No headlights. I need you to stay tight until then, OK?”

“OK.”

“Remember, if you hear
gunfire
nearby, you run, OK?”

“OK.”

“If I’m not back within two hours, you move out on foot, OK?”

“OK.”

“If you see the horizon lightening and sunrise approaching, you get the hell out of here, OK?”

“OK.”

“And move away from the rising sun.”

“OK.”

“Everything’s going to be fine.”

“OK,” Bower replied yet again, although she was anything but convinced. Her face must have given away her doubts.

Elvis smiled, saying, “Hang in there, sweet lips.” And that brought a smile to her face, disarming her entirely. Sweet lips, she’d never been called that before, and she doubted she would ever be called that again. The novelty was refreshing in a way only Elvis could manage.

Elvis kept to the shadows, working his way down the road before disappearing around the corner. He never looked back. Bower would have felt better if he’d looked back. She slumped against the wall. Sitting there, she looked at the gun in her hands. The revolver felt so heavy, as though it knew it didn’t belong in her fingers and was trying to escape.

In the half-light, she could see the alien at the end of the hallway behind her. With all that transpired in the past few minutes, she’d forgotten about their interstellar friend. Tentacles waved in the darkness. That was when it struck her; the door was open. This is what the creature had been waiting for. What would it do now when freedom seemed so close at hand?

“Red light,” Bower said. “We need to wait here. We have to wait for Elvis.”

“Green light.”

Bower felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

“No. Red light, red light. It’s not safe, not yet.”

The alien advanced on her, pulling in its whip-like tentacles as it moved down the narrow hallway. Bower stood, facing the creature in the darkness.

“No, please, don’t.”

“Green light.”

“You don’t understand. If you go out there, they’ll find you. They’ll kill you.”

“Green light,” the creature repeated. Bower felt as though she was talking to herself. As her voice firmed, so did the alien’s mimicry.

Tentacles began striking the walls in anger, threatening violence. In the close confines, the writhing mass of fronds closed on her. She could hear the central mass of the creature humming, pulsating like a hive.

Bower held out one hand, signaling for the creature to halt.

“You’ve got to trust me. I want to get out of here as much as you do, but I can’t. It’s a red light for me too. You must wait. I am here with you. I won’t leave you. Red light, please understand. Red light.”

“Green light,” the creature replied, raising her own voice against her, almost on the verge of yelling. The thrashing tentacles began breaking through the particle-board lining the hallway. Before her, a seething mesh of razor-sharp whips cut through the air barely a foot from her face.

Bower felt the grip of the revolver in her hands. Her fingers tightened on the handle. With her thumb, she pulled back on the hammer, cocking the gun.

“Green light,” screamed the alien and she expected rebel soldiers to come bursting through the door behind her.

Bower trembled. She thought about raising the gun and threatening to shoot. That had worked in their initial interaction when Adan had cast them into his colosseum. The alien had responded by retreating and protecting its core. Would the alien respond the same way now? Or would the threat of violence destroy the trust they’d established? Did any such trust exist? Had it ever existed, or was it simply a construct of her own imagination?

Bower suspected a threat would work, but she couldn’t bring herself to offer what would only ever be a hollow bluff. There had to be another way. Violence was cowardice, the petty refuge of a dull mind. She had to let the creature go. If the alien wanted to chance itself alone on the run, she had to respect that.

Her thumb gripped the hammer, slowly lowering it back in place against the firing pin of the bullet already set in the chamber of the revolver. As she did so the creature froze. Not one of the hundreds of tentacles threatening to strike moved. The various blades seized in midair, regardless of the contorted shape in which they were held. For a moment, it was as though Bower was looking at a modern art sculpture.

With her heart pounding in her chest, perspiration breaking out on her forehead and her fingers shaking, Bower tried to stand still. She was aware that the creature had only just realized she was holding the loaded gun.

Bower bent down slowly, placing the gun on the ground, keeping her eyes on the pulsating mass at the heart of the convoluted creature. The tentacles remained stationary, locked in place, and she wondered what the hell this intelligent being from another world was thinking.

“Green light,” she said softly, stepping to one side, hoping the alien could squeeze past her. She had no doubt the alien’s tentacles could manipulate the door and move it out of the way. She only hoped the door didn’t crash to the concrete floor.

There was silence for the best part of a minute. Sweat ran from her forehead, stinging her eyes, but she fought the urge to react and wipe them. Sudden movements didn’t seem wise. Bower pressed her back against the wall, trying to give the alien as much room as possible, but she refused to step outside the door. She was stubborn and she knew it, but she believed in Elvis. She believed he knew what he was doing, and this was the only way she could conceivably communicate that to this strange alien intelligence.

Still the alien remained motionless, barely half a foot away from the gun lying on the concrete, and Bower found herself wondering what it was thinking. Was the alien looking at the gun? Was it looking at her? Perhaps seeing her in far more than the visible spectrum, which was so woefully inadequate in the dark. Could it sense her heartbeat? Could it measure her body heat, or the rush of adrenalin signaling a flight or fight response? Did it understand how unbearable it was for her to do neither? Outwardly, the creature may have seemed inert, but she doubted that was true of its inner reasoning. Bower felt as though Stella was reading her mind.

Finally, the creature replied, saying, “Red light.”

Bower breathed a sigh of relief. The muscles of her body, so tense just moments before, relaxed. At the same time, the fronds and blades of the creature flexed and sagged. Bower was surprised by the parallels between them.

What point of logic had convinced the alien to wait?

In that instance, Bower got a glimpse of its thinking. Like her, the creature must have been subject to a raft of emotions. Like her, the alien had to choose whether to
blindly
follow instinct or to think critically. And like her, this otherworldly mind had to rise above its own fears and doubts.

Relieved, she sank to the ground, her back against the wall.

Bower hadn’t really thought about what the alien creature was going to do next, only that it wasn’t going to proceed out the door. She assumed the creature would back away again and keep its distance, but it didn’t. In the darkness, Bower felt tentacles touching her shoulder, only they weren’t probing or glancing over her, they were resting limply on her arm and thigh as she sat there. Bower reached out with her other hand, resting her fingers on the thick, leathery appendages. Tiny insects streamed back and forth, barely touching her before retreating again.

“I know,” she said. “Oh, how I know, but we have to be brave. For now, it’s a red light. Elvis will come back for us, I know he will, and then we will have a green light.”