“You,” Mike said. “You were trying to plead my case.”
Bob was silent for one of the first times in his life.
“You want to stand here and feed me some sort of worthless bullshit about you trying to keep me from going back to earth… tomorrow!”
“Why are you so upset, buddy,” Bob said. “I honestly did everything I could…”
“Liar!” Mike yelled into Bob’s face. “I’ll be out of the way now and you’ll be free to worm your way back into Tawny’s life.”
Mike turned his back on Bob.
“How could I have been so stupid,” Mike was muttering to himself. “How could I not have seen that it was you all along that was going to torpedo my plans with the woman I love?”
“Hold on,” Bob said as he reached up and touched Mike on the shoulder.
Mike spun around and punched Bob right along the side of his head. Bob went to his knees and tried to stand back up. The entire inside of Mike’s home went black. The only things visible were the two men and the silver spike of the antenna in the middle of the floor.
Bob struggled back up to his feet.
“Stop brother,” Bob struggled to get things back under control. “Just stop for a second…”
“Stop!?” Mike yelled as he grabbed Bob by his shirt almost lifting him of the floor in his rage. “Stop? So what, you miserable lump of shit, so you can lie to me some more?”
Mike shoved Bob back as hard as he could. He wanted to beat Bob for all of the hurt he had felt over the last few days. Bobs body flew backwards and lay motionless on the floor.
“Get up shithead!” Mike yelled.
Bob lay there. A small rivulet of blood ran down his cheek and he coughed. A small silver needle stuck up out of his chest right where his heart would have been.
“Oh Jesus,” Mike said as he threw himself on the floor next to Bob. “What the hell did I do?”
He was holding Bob’s face I his hands.
“Please,” Mike was sobbing. “Please get up. Please be ok.”
“I don’t… I don’t think that’s going to happen brother,” Bob croaked out. “I love you Mike. I’m sorry for the things I put in your life. Please forgive me.”
Mike collapsed into a sobbing pile on the floor of his Haleian home.
Twenty-eight:
Mike was standing in the same clearing near route 28 that he had driven into the night he was picked up by the Haleian spaceship. His truck was right where he left it and the keys were still hanging in the ignition. He looked up int the night sky and sighed.
Someplace up there was an interstellar spaceship, commanded by an overly severe man in a three-piece suit on its way back to a beautiful planet, inhabited by beautiful people. Mike gazed at the stars. On one of the planets, orbiting one of those stars the most amazing woman he had ever known grieved for the loss of her friend at his hands. And someplace on that planet a small six-inch-high man stood on a black pedestal, surrounded by ethereal beauty and told fart jokes to tourists.
Mike got in his truck and started it. Immediately the radio came to life. A piano started a low mournful riff…
She packed my bags last night. Pre-flight. Zero hour 9 am.
Mike smiled to himself as he put the truck in gear. He had a lot of work to do, and so little time.