“Why?”
“I want to show you something and I want to ask you something. It’ll just take a minute. Okay?”
Nikki hesitated. She looked from him to the trooper and back again. “I don’t know, Ethan. Where would we go?”
“One of the bathrooms. I just need a minute.”
“No way,” the trooper said. “You had your bathroom time.”
Ethan had had enough. He gave the young soldier a look that might’ve melted iron. “Listen, I know you’re doing your job, but I need to ask this girl something in as private a place as there is around here. You can come in and stand there, if you want to, but I’m doing this. Shoot me if you need to.” His anger welled up. “I don’t give a fuck,” he said. And he took the girl’s elbow and began steering her back toward the bathroom. Amazingly for Ethan, Nikki let him guide her. The soldier started to say something else but closed his mouth and followed along right at their heels.
In the less-than-fragrant bathroom, with the soldier standing back a distance to give them the privacy Ethan had requested, Ethan said to Nikki, “Get ready. Okay?”
“Ready for what?”
“This.” Ethan lifted his t-shirt to show her the four upraised silver symbols. She gave a quiet gasp and stepped back a couple of paces, and for a few seconds she stared at the markings without speaking.
Then she said, with sort of a dazed but true admiration, “Cool.”
“They just happened,” he explained. “I was itching on the bus, maybe they came up then. But what I want to ask you…you said your friend was studying to be a tattoo artist, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So I guess you saw some of his tattoo books and stuff? Have you ever seen anything like this?”
“Well…maybe. I remember him showing me…like…way old lettering. Like ancient, I’m saying. But something like that exactly, I don’t remember. That one there…it looks like an ‘R’.”
The soldier was trying to edge closer to take a peek. Ethan let his t-shirt fall back into place. “They don’t hurt,” he said. “But they’re upraised, almost like they were burned on.” He felt a place within himself start to crack and break, and he feared that if it happened he would fall to pieces in front of Nikki and the guard. All he could do was stare at the floor until he could shake the feeling off and get control again. “I’m some kind of big time freak now, huh?” he said, not without bitterness.
“I guess Olivia and the others know about this? That’s why you’ve got the guard on you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish I could help you more.”
“It’s okay.” Ethan shrugged. “I mean…it is what it is, right? That’s what my mom used to tell me, whenever I was feeling down about anything.” He had a sudden start, because he remembered that…his mother’s voice, speaking to him. It is what it is. And did she speak his name when she said that? Yes, she did. It was so close…so close…yet still so far away. “Nikki,” he said, quietly choked, “I don’t know what I’m turning into but I swear to you—I swear—I used to be just a regular guy. I am human. Was human, I mean. Now…what am I?” Pain leaped from him, and he felt it enter her.
Nikki took a step forward.
She put a finger to his lips.
She said, “You’ll figure it out. Don’t let it knock you down, Ethan. One thing I do believe…whatever you are, you’re on our side.”
He nodded. When Nikki withdrew her finger, he could feel the burn of it across his mouth.
“Meeting done?” the trooper asked.
“Done,” Ethan answered, though he would’ve wished to talk to Nikki longer, to get to know her…really know her…but he thought black bruises and silver tattoos and general weirdness was not going to endear him to anyone.
“Out of here, then,” came the command.
They obeyed. Out in the mall, Ethan walked with Nikki back to where her sleeping bag was. He said goodnight and then returned to his own place. Dave and Olivia were both gone to the world. JayDee was staring up at the ceiling, lost in thought, but his eyelids were drooping. Ethan crawled into his sleeping bag with a final glance toward the area where the Gorgon, Kushman, and the short bald dude were sacked out. The guard took a position nearby, leaning against a wall and cradling his rifle. He had a flashlight on his belt, which he would use many times during the night to check on his charge.
Rain began to hammer on the roof, the noise thrumming through the mall. It sounded as if they were all trapped within a gigantic bass drum. Ethan’s eyes were starting to close, but before he gave himself up fully to sleep some mechanism within him was triggered and also went on guard-duty, so he would know instantly if while he was in a sleep-state any threat got too near.
He was slipping away. Again he asked himself…why not tell Dave or Olivia or JayDee or Captain Walsh or Major Fleming what he knew to be true about the Gorgon, and about the blue sphere that protected Kushman’s mind? It wasn’t that they wouldn’t believe him. So…why not?
He knew.
If they had come to find him, then they had some idea of what he was, or what he might be. If he revealed them to anyone, his chance to know might be lost. And, also, people might be injured by the powerful serpentine presence he felt coiled within Jack the Gorgon. He thought that he shouldn’t tell what he knew just yet, for the sake of the safety of others. But he could handle the Gorgon; he was sure he could. He didn’t fear the thing, and he understood that Jack the Gorgon knew it.
So…wait. Just wait, and see what happens tomorrow.
The rain beat down. Ethan’s eyes closed. After awhile someone on a loudspeaker announced lights out, and the mall’s overheads went dark. The flashlights of patrolling soldiers played back and forth over the sleeping survivors of many days and nights of alien war, and like the survivors of any war some cried out and moaned and wept in their restless slumber while the earth turned toward another morning.
H
It was barely the dawn of a stormy day when Ethan felt his alarms going off. His body tingled and his brain said wake up and defend. He came fully awake almost instantly, and it seemed he recalled for just a few seconds a boy who liked to curl up in his bed and sleep late on a Saturday morning until his mother coaxed him out with breakfast of a waffle and bacon.
That boy was nearly gone.
The rain was still pouring down on the roof. Thunder boomed—real thunder, not alien weapons. Yet Ethan knew the alien presence was very close, and this sensation of alarm was not coming from the black-bearded Gorgon, Jeff Kushman, or the short bald guy. Other people were waking up, but not with Ethan’s sense of urgency. His guard was sitting cross-legged on the floor against the wall with his rifle beside him. The man was awake, either had just awakened—improbable—or had been watching Ethan and occasionally checking the boy with his flashlight all night, which was likely the case.
Ethan heard the crackle of walkie-talkies and several other soldiers rushed past, heading for the mall’s main entrance. This flurry of activity caused a stir of unease among others who had awakened, and they in turn awakened their family members or friends around them. One soldier came running along the pathway that was kept clear of sleeping bags and tents on the far side of the corridor; he was talking on his walkie-talkie in a voice that though unintelligible was charged with tension. Ethan’s guard stood up; he seemed torn between his duty here and his desire to go find out what was happening. He clicked on his own walkie-talkie, which had been hooked to his belt. “Chris, you there? What’s going on?”