The Leap

Sixteen years ago

“Alex, no. We can’t go there. We’ll endanger everyone.”

“It’s just temporary, Angie. She needs to get to safety.” Alex looked in the rearview mirror at their daughter.

“No place is safe for us. What does Frank want anyway? We don’t have the information anymore.”

“He doesn’t know that. And he can always use me.” Alex white-knuckled the steering wheel, silver flickering in the veins on his hand.

Angelina turned her gaze from the passing buildings to him. No matter how he replayed the scenarios in his mind, he always came up with the same answer. He should’ve been more observant.

“We messed up, didn’t we?” She reclined her head against the seat, as exhausted as he was. “Thinking we’d gotten away. We let our guard down.”

Alex released one hand and laid it on top of hers. “We’ll get through it.”

His words weren’t cold when she screamed his name. There was the terrible screeching of metal before the wheel snapped out of his control. The world tumbled before he blacked out.

Consciousness returned listlessly. He opened his eyes to the blurry vision of power cable lines and a dusty blue sky. Smoke burned his nostrils. The passenger inside him grew frantic. It felt trapped. His crying daughter called back his senses. Alex rolled onto his stomach, pushed to his feet, nearly fell again at the deep ache beneath his ribs and his right leg. A piece of shrapnel had lodged itself in his thigh. When his mind caught up with his body, the ache intensified five-fold.

“Please,” he begged the alien.

Since the birth of his first child, and now the thought constricted his throat, the alien’s presence had been fading. More so with the birth of his daughter. But even waning, it drummed up the strength to numb the pain enough so Alex could pull out the shard. He rose unsteadily.

The crushed remains of his car had him bringing a shaking hand to his mouth. His legs buckled and he dropped to one knee once again. Oh dear God. This was it. Frank had found them.

The black sedan had come at them from an angle. His car must’ve rolled, then landed back on its wheels in the end. The passenger side, the site of first impact, was crushed inward. There was no chance Angie could’ve survived it.

If only he’d been more careful. He could’ve prevented this if they’d taken precautions earlier. He should have sent a neighbour to do the shopping. Should have dressed differently. Maybe worn a wig. He should’ve…

There was no time to mourn her. No way to change what happened, his logical nature reminded him. He stumbled to the wreckage and steeled himself against seeing her corpse.

The damned seatbelt had done its job. Still strapped in, Angie’s eyes were closed and the right side of her face and body were a bloodied mess. His daughter howled in the backseat, wiggling irritably in her baby seat.

Alex glanced at the black sedan. It was a head-on collision for the other guy. No chance of getting out of that one alive, either. But Frank would be here soon enough. With more men. Alex brushed trembling fingers over her plane of her jaw. The worst part was that they were always expecting this to happen, always waiting for the inevitable hand of fate to find them. It didn’t make it any easier to process.

His child let out a low whine, marginally calmer now that he was in sight. He had to throw them off her trail. The disaster bought him some time. Feeling nauseated, probably because he had a concussion, he felt for a pulse in Angelina’s neck. Fought down the rushing emotional torrent when he found none. The alien presence in his body vibrated with angst, urging him to hurry, hurry.

He leaned over and kissed her cheek, the cold, clammy skin nailing it home that she was truly gone. His fragile grip on control slipped. The alien couldn’t stun emotional pain. He unbuckled his three-month-old, weeping. He pulled her out. Miraculously, she was unharmed except for a score across her brow that might require a few stitches. She balled little fists and cried at him in frustration.

“Shh. It’s alright, Sweetheart.” The lie all parents told their children to protect them. He used it often, but the infant wasn’t fooled. “Daddy’s here.”

His bouncing her didn’t have its usual effect, as she picked up on his grief. No time to cave now. Save them while you can.

“I’ll join you soon, Love.” He told Angelina. “But we both know I have work to do first.”

Suddenly remembering work, he patted the inner pocket of his jacket and breathed a relieved sigh when he found the transfuser still intact.

Leaving his wife was gruelling, even if his analytical mind told him there was nothing more to be done.

He half-limped, half-ran along the shoulder of the road. They’d crashed on the outskirts of town, so the police would be slow in getting to the scene. Frank wouldn’t be.

Pain started seeping through the alien’s efforts. Alex shoved it away and dialed Hank’s number. He was a long way from their agreed location, but it was the best he could do.

Three rings later, Hank answered. “It’s A. Meet me at 7th Avenue Court for a crimson sunset. Remember your promise, my friend.” He ended the call without waiting for the answer. The Detective wasn’t one for words anyway.

7th Avenue Court was an alley behind an old diner, less frequented by street riff-raff. Alex desperately wished he could’ve done better for his daughter. For all of them. The place looked close to deserted, so it would have to do. At least the stink wasn’t too insulting to the senses. Decaying food, but no urine, feces or vomit. And she wouldn’t be here long.

He laid her down on the dumpster. Her fretting continued on the negative feedback loop of his rapidly deteriorating emotional state. The need to protect her kept him on the straight line, however. Death was a given for him. For her, he could only pray.

Alex wrapped her in his leather jacket, hoping his smell would calm her. He dug the transfuser out of his pocket, a pen filled with a clear-blue fluid. Gripping the pen between his teeth, he rolled up his cuff and opened and closed his fist a few times to get the blood pumping.

“I’ve carried you around all this time,” he said to the passenger once he’d removed it from his mouth. “You colonized me to save your own life and ended up saving mine too. Now, in your last years, I’m afraid I have to put your through that ordeal again.” Alex punched the quartet of needles into his vein. Blood slowly transformed the blue fluid into a dark mauve, a shimmer of silver curling through it. “You know this host.”

There was an expansion and contraction in his mind, as if the being sighed. Alex felt it pull into the vial. But some of it refused to go.

Fine then. He didn’t have time to debate with the alien.

Grounding his teeth at its disobedience, he dislodged the needles and took his daughter’s arm. “I’m sorry, Beautiful. This will only hurt a little. And you’ll dream of me, won’t you? Of me and Mommy. And always remember how much we loved you.”

She let out an annoyed squeal as the needles pierced her soft flesh and the fluid drained into her body.

Less than a minute later her eyelids drooped, she stretched out, and slept. Alex bent and laid his hand on her forehead, brushing soft tufts of auburn hair with his thumb. Tears distorted his vision and his heart tightened. He kissed her and left.

It wouldn’t be long now, he reminded himself. Leaving the last of his family behind drained everything he had left. But even as his body longed to collapse and mourn, the alien urged him on, numbing the physical pain.

He regretted his earlier annoyance. A part of the being clearly decided to sacrifice itself so he could complete this last leg of the journey.

Bystanders watched him blunder by and decided not to get involved. He must look like a crack addict heading for his dealer. He’d driven through this neighbourhood so many times. Old russet buildings with years of filth seeping through the bricks, a far cry from the steel and glass monoliths of downtown. He knew these streets like his own name, but could barely register where he was going. It didn’t matter. Putting distance between him and his daughter was the most important thing, to give the Detective a chance. Once Hank shoved a heel to that old Dodge Charger, nothing short of a wrecking ball would stop him.

A pimp wearing all leather eyed him hungrily from the corner of an old record shop. Alex smiled at himself.

Things were bad when you wished someone would mug and kill you before your friends found you.

Black SUVs spun around the corner and boxed Alex in. The pimp scurried into the alleys. Military personnel in black riot gear poured out of them. When Frank Thurman stepped out, all pressed suit and polished shoes, stifling anger broke through the heartache. Alex’s body vibrated at the sight of him. Frank adjusted his lapels. Self-righteous bastard.

“Alex! My God, it’s been too long.” Frank’s men flanked him. Twenty rifles locked target on him. “You and Angelina never even gave me your resignations. You simply vanished into thin air without saying goodbye.”

“You are a disgrace to humanity,” Alex snarled.

“Oh come now. Is that the way to greet an old friend? How was your vacation in Costa Rica?”

“You killed my family!”

Frank adjusted his tie like he was about to step up to a podium and deliver a peace speech. “Angie had it coming. So do you, for betraying me. And that abhorrence that sprang from your loins? I did you a favour. That thing had been living in you for so long you began to see it as part of you.”

“It’s not a thing,” Alex ground out, feeling guilty for having no other name for it than the alien. “It’s a sentient being, here to help humanity.”

“And help us it will. On our terms. If it’s not human Alexander, you can’t trust it.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Alex nearly blurted out that if Frank wanted him to reveal his daughter’s location, he might as well shoot him now. But the passenger stopped him. What if he wasn’t aware of her existence? He might’ve given her away in a fit of anger. And she needed every advantage she could get to stay under Frank’s radar. It came to him late; what did he mean by saying it would help him on his terms?

Frank tilted his head to the side, those unnervingly clear blue eyes shining with arrogance. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? I’ll let you in on a little secret, Alexander. Your child’s alive.”

Cold seeped into Alex’s bones and he couldn’t stop the jerk that shook through his muscles. If that were true, it meant he and Angie had made a horrible mistake. Had left behind humanity’s salvation to this genocidal maniac.

Frank chuckled, savouring his shock. “Did you really think I would give up the opportunity to study an extra-terrestrial lifeform when the secrets in its genes could help us reach the stars?”

Shock stole his words, but not the sapient’s. It reached out from his mind, manipulating his synapses and neurons. Taking the wheel. Alex shrank back willingly, welcoming the shielding over his tired soul. His own eyes became windows.

Frank took a step back. Alex assumed something in his face must’ve changed. “Give me your gun, Mick.”

The soldier obeyed and Frank trained it on him. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

The sapient remained silent.

“How many of you are there? Is it just the one I have?”

Silence.

“Answer me!”

From within his core, a numbness spread out to Alex’s limbs.

Frank’s finger twitched on the trigger. “Surrender, and you’ll live.”

When the sapient spoke, Alex wished he could turn back time to the moment of his and Angie’s escape.

“Life is not worth living in your lab. I know.” The sapient said, articulating the syllables carefully. It was unskilled in manipulating language.

Frank’s sharp face flushed with anger. “Surrender!”

The sapient shrouded Alex in a gentle dream where there was no suffering. Only peace.

“Zolke never surrender.”

The muffled blast of the rifle was the last thing Alex heard.