Authors: Sezin Koehler
Secrete
Y
ou can hear Chamelia stressing out. Bad. The nurses won’t let you go see her, even though you’re the only one in here with the power to soothe her nerves. You put your mind to her, hoping that your cellular connection will allow the calm to pass through. It doesn’t. She’s agitated up, and good. It scares you when she gets this angry and desperate. She does awful things, like kill from frustration. She hates herself after, but in those red states she hasn’t the control.
You wish you could stay in your mermaid form, your true form. You wonder whether you can breathe underwater and you can’t wait until you can try it out. You worry that you’ll end up back at The Institute. They’ll find out for sure. They’ll probably try to make you breed, even though they know it doesn’t work. They like to watch women scream and beg for their lives. Your father is the worst of them. The things he’s seen them do to you and his voice over the intercom to do more, harder, faster, more blood.
And your mother, how long she put up with him to protect you. You hope the detective will find her. Patience, pet, patience. He’s got a lot on his plate right now; it’s going to take time.
You decide that if it’s a choice between returning to The Institute or death, you’ll take your own life, mermaid dreams aside. Hell, you’ll take your sisters with you.
10:30 AM The Roswell Institute
C
olonel Ransom, escalating into a greater and greater rage, begins putting his extraction team together. This shit has become personal. By now those cunts have talked to the cops, told them everything. Gonna be a clusterfuck to get into that building and retrieve them.
Julie Keaton calls and tells him LAPD and feds have got SWAT detail on the roof and possibly in the basement.
Those blabbermouth bitches!
Ransom has another urge to get into the elevator, ride it down to Julie’s office, and put a bullet right between her eyes just because.
Women. Only good for one thing, and most of them aren’t even any good at that. Always crying afterward. Boo hoo, you hurt me! Shut the motherfuck up and grow a pair.
Colonel Ransom fumes, throws himself on the floor for another volley of pushups until he is as calm as he gets.
Leave that for another day. The fuzz are prepared for a two-pronged attack, well I’ll give them the fuckingest attack they’ll ever see.
Colonel Ransom pulls files on his favorite human-animal hybrids, reminders all of Chamelia, the crux of his supersoldier programs and the bane of his existence. A stack of potentials grows on his desk.
Gustave II, engineered from and named after the world’s largest recorded crocodile living in the Congo’s Ruzizi River. Ransom remembers the operation. Goal: to find and incarcerate the creature itself. It proved to be far trickier than he’d imagined, and they had to settle on gleaning DNA from the remains of a soldier, half of whom went into the beast’s belly. Gustave II, with a bite force of one thousand pounds, a tail that can slice a man in two, and scaled skin impermeable to bullets and fire. Yes, he’ll do just fine against Chamelia.
In fact, when those bitches are back, we’re having regular battles. That’ll teach them.
Ransom places Gustave II’s folder to the side, noting his registration code for the checkout protocol.
Next is Spiederman, the happy accident—an exercise in teleportation gone wrong when Dr. Spiegelman overlooked a spider in the hyperbaric chamber. The photos in his file show a man with two human arms and legs, but an extra set of spider limbs with both, that now allow him to walk upright as well as up and down walls. His face, generally human but with round pupilless eyes, opens up into a fanged maw at will. Another of Spiederman’s talents is fitting into small places. He’ll take up the assault from underground, through the air vents. Ransom nods, adding his file to the checkout pile.
Next in line is Trixter, one of Ransom’s favorites. The coyote god, known for his mischievousness, captured on Pine Ridge Reservation, drunk as a skunk and in human form. Colonel Ransom videoed Trixter’s wake up in his cell and watches it whenever he needs a pick-me-up. The god, furious! Unable to revert back to his supernatural form, then plied with a flowing cocktail of submission drugs. He’s got nothing much to offer by way of powers, but they keep him sedated anyway so he won’t escape. Ransom loves sending him out on missions for the simple humiliation factor. Definitely a yes.
Growl. Project number seventeen. A werewolf, also from Chamelia’s synthesized DNA. He’s still not quite right, that temper is wicked. That he can shift when the moon isn’t full is unpredictable. But this is the perfect mission for a soldier who rips out throats first, asks questions later. One hundred percent go.
Jason Mars will be useful for his weapons expertise. Maybe it’ll get him to shut up about the fact that the doctors haven’t figured out how to grow his penis back. Colonel Ransom snorts. Talk about sticking your dick in the wrong hole. Ransom feels an unexpected twinge of guilt that they didn’t do more about Jason’s Martian sex drive before releasing him into the general population.
But who would have imagined a rape victim could bite off a man’s penis with her vagina like that anyway? Not me,
Ransom thinks, adding Jason to the yes pile. Let’s throw him a bone. Ransom chortles. Boy, he’s a barrel of laughs today.
Colonel Ransom hates sending women into combat, but Jekyll is only chromosomally female. Her massive body-builder frame and mannish looks are hardly what one thinks of when the word ‘woman’ comes to mind. When Ransom asked the scientific team for a Hulk and they brought him a dame, he’d just about had a conniption. But, she’s turned out to be quite an asset and the only subject in the Hulk Project who actually worked. The males lasted at most a month before expiring painfully.
The last file of the hybrid members of the extraction team belongs to the shark girl, Tiburona. Ransom studies her photo—gray bulletproof skin covered in gills, a noseless face with enormous black eyes that give him the creeps. She always looks hungry. Her four rows of teeth, like Gustave II’s, pack a thousand pound wallop. She’s the one he’s most concerned about, seeing she’s never been in combat before.
Green about the gills.
Ransom laughs out loud again at his clever pun. Colonel Ransom picks up the phone, calling the shark girl’s handler Doctor Fleischer into his office. Immediately.
While he waits he selects the clones: Tranq, Meat, Smash, Junk, Glock, and Bill as in Buffalo. Each are from the same genetic material, and look like bigger versions of Dolph Lundgren. But just because they are identical didn’t make their personalities the same, a fact that never ceases to amaze the generally unimpressed Ripper Ransom.
Meat is a vegetarian, something that doesn’t affect his ability to bulk up his massive frame.
Buffalo Bill likes to take trophies of his victims, displaying ears, noses, breasts, on the walls of his cell and wearing them around his neck into battle.
Tranq never sleeps.
Smash always hopes to resolve conflicts without violence, useful when the clones and their varied personalities clash.
Glock is an expert marksmen, but not with guns. Bows, arrows, spears, he hurls with pinpoint accuracy from a mile away.
Junk collects shiny things, sometimes yanking teeth out of a target’s head because the silver or gold caught his eye.
Colonel Ransom fans the files out in front of him, feeling fucking great about his choices. His trigger finger stops itching. He’s the man in control.
A knock on the door tells Ripper the doctor has arrived.
“Enter!” he barks.
Doctor Hans Fleischer is a weaselly little fifty-year-old with horn-rimmed glasses, a receding hairline in a dramatic and obvious comb-over, wearing a white lab coat drenched with blood: the Roswell Institute’s leading Nazi doctor in charge of everything from medically facilitated interrogation to experimentation on aliens and humans alike.
Ransom takes note. “Guess they don’t call you The Butcher for nothing. Huh?”
Doctor Fleischer fidgets and adjusts his glasses, thinking the same about Ransom’s nickname of Ripper. “We had a rather unfortunate, ah, incident just now,” his hyena voice titters. “They said you needed me urgently, I didn’t have time to change.”
“Don’t kid a kidder, you fuck, you love wearing that blood around.”
The doctor blushes. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
“Putting together a special ops team, need a status update on that shark girl.”
“Tiburona is doing marvelously, actually. Her social skills have greatly improved. She eats in the mess hall once a day with the other inmates and soldiers without incident for going on three weeks. We seem to have managed the blood lust to a minimum, although the scent of it still makes her behavior unpredictable.”
“In your expert medical opinion,” Ransom drips with sarcasm, “you think she’s ready for a field op?”
“It might be a bit too soon. Then again, getting out might give her that final push into full operationalism. Her development is at an advanced enough stage; it’s hard to be one hundred percent conclusive.”
Ransom considers. “Get her prepped. We’ll use her. That’ll be all.”
Dr. Fleischer persists. “Is this for the hospital?”
“How the shit do you know about that?”
“Oh, you know, word travels fast and all that.” Fleisher feels the bottom of his stomach drop as he looks into Ripper’s cold eyes. He clears his throat. “You did consider that taking her to a hospital might be risky, what with all the injured people, blood, et cetera.”
“I want her on edge, motherfucker. She’ll have to learn sometime.” Ripper Ransom turns back to his screens. “Thanks for the visit, Doc. Always a dubious pleasure.”
“Likewise. Except for the dubious part,” Doctor Fleischer hyena laughs again. The sound makes Ransom’s trigger finger itch, a localized outbreak of shingles.
“Now, get the hell out of my face, you creepy fuck.”
“Right away, sir.” Fleischer scurries out.
For the first time since early morning Colonel Ransom doesn’t feel the urge to drop to the floor in push-ups, and his trigger finger has finally stopped spasming. There’s nothing like going into battle to put shit in perspective.
Mother, The Ancient One
Y
ou are trapped in your resting place, unable to break free with The Source depleted. In all the millennia of your existence The Source has never been this weak. You don’t know if the multiverse will collapse on itself: a black hole into which you all will be lost until the next Big Bang that anew awakens the universe into being.
And now you feel The Ethereals, your stupid daughters, have hijacked A Source from a neighboring galaxy, bringing with it an army of creatures whose rage begins to put your own to shame.
You debate returning to your slumber, leave them all to destroy one another. What do you care, really? This isn’t meant to concern you for several thousand years yet. This is their problem to fix.
But you know that is no longer an option.
Awaken the beast and you get the horns, so said one of your paramours in the heyday of the unicorn holocaust. The Red Bull had a way with words, didn’t he; your mind wanders down memory lane. You haven’t the strength to remain present.
If you want out of what has become an uncomfortable cage, you’re going to have to locate another Source. And you’re going to have to steal.
Mother, The Ancient One doesn’t like being woken early.
Mother likes thievery even less.
Oh, how the Heavens will weep when you’re through retributioning. The world will never have seen such a reckoning. This is your promise.
10:45 AM Spruce-Musa Hospital
T
he sideshow nature of the hospital’s current fourth floor inhabitants brings curious eyes from all over the hospital, including miffed ambulatory patients curious to see who’s so important they had to be moved. Security locks down further and only those authorized to work on the floor are allowed past the security details posted at all elevators and exits.
Nurse Jonelle, still chuckling to herself about her good luck to be here today, hands out a list of names to all the police officers, who are now to also check patient IDs before allowing anyone onto the floor.
Nurse Jonelle’s favorite freak by far is the giant girl with one eye. And what a pretty eye she has. Perfectly proportioned to sit in the middle of her face. The color, a beautiful aquamarine, tinged with flecks of green and sadness.
“Can I get you anything, honey? Maybe some more of that chocolate pudding?”
Lily makes a retching sound. “No thank you. That crap tasted like feet. I thought these were supposed to be five-star digs.”
Nurse Jonelle chortles. “That’s for the famous folk, but don’t tell anyone I said so. I’ll go rustle up some fruit for you. Better?”
“Thank you. Hey, do you think someone could get me a Jack In The Hat spicy chicken sandwich? That plate you brought me was gnarly. I couldn’t even eat a bite and I’m freaking starving!” Lily feigns fainting, with her hand pressed to her large forehead, her long purple hair in two braids. “And how about an extra cot or something for my feet? I’d like to lie here without them dangling off the edge. It’s super uncomfortable.” Nurse Jonelle laughs at Lily’s spunk and at the huge appendages that indeed hang off the bed a good foot and a half. The girl is close to seven feet tall.
“I’ll see what I can do. Sit tight, honey.” Nurse Jonelle pats Lily on the shoulder and grins. Lily returns it in kind.
In the hallway Nurse Jonelle passes the detectives and flashes them a bright smile. “Y’all off to talk with the little big girl?” Detective Red Feather nods, Günn looks distracted. “She’s a hoot that one! What a spirit The Good Lord bestowed on her, yes indeedy,” Nurse Jonelle laughs loud and from her belly. Even though Günn and Red Feather had been arguing, they can’t help but laugh along.
The respite is short-lived. When Nurse Jonelle leaves eyeshot the smile falls from Günn’s face. Günn knows he’s lying about what happened after she left Secrete’s room. Every time he says ‘Nothing’ she smells seaweed. It’s making her sick to her stomach. The smell and the lies. Red Feather never lies to her.
Günn doesn’t know he’s only doing it because he doesn’t think she can take any more than she already is. He’s trying to protect her, and she wouldn’t believe him anyway.
Putting her irritation aside as best she can, Günn fixes on her stern interview face.
Detective Red Feather knocks on Lily Green’s door, introduces himself and his partner. Günn flinches at the word partner. Lily smiles and clicks off the television.
“Pleased to meet you, I guess.” Lily picks at a hangnail.
“We just want to ask you some questions about the party last night,” Red Feather says as he takes in Lily’s one perfect eye and it’s perfectly proportioned location in the middle of a pretty face. This version of a cyclops is not what Red Feather thought he’d see, even a little bit.
“Suit yourselves.” Lily pauses. “Just FYI, it’s really totally freaking rude to stare. I’m just saying.”
“I’m so sorry,” Red Feather says. “You’re just rather lovely.”
“What? You expected some kind of monster?” Lily scowls at Red Feather, her forehead wrinkling into a crease above her eye. The bed looks like a toy with her huge frame ensconced.
Red Feather clears his throat, “No, it’s just. I thought. That. You would be. Um.” Red Feather begins a long stumble over his words.
“Just shut up, idiot.” Günn rolls her eyes and Lily cracks a smile. Günn finds herself smiling back.
Red Feather’s mouth clangs shut as he pulls up a chair and flips open his notebook. Günn busies herself with the video recorder, through which she can stare unabashedly at the human cyclops.
“Let me try this again. So, Lily, can you tell us what you remember about last night.”
“I don’t actually remember anything.” Lily resumes picking at her nail. “Except seeing my mother. So, where is she? I’d really like to see her. I was actually looking for her when I left the…orphanage.” She doesn’t want to talk about that place. She doesn’t even want to
think
about it.
Detective Red Feather lets out a deep sigh. “I’m very sorry to tell you this, Lily, but when we ran your DNA through our database we got hits on you and your parents. That’s how we know who you are.”
“And?” Lily gives him that derisive look only managed by petulant teenagers.
“Your mom passed away of cancer not long after you were born.”
Lily’s eye widens. “That’s not possible,” she whispers. “I saw her last night! I spoke to her!”
“I’m very sorry for your loss, Lily.”
Lily pulls her emotions in check. “And what about my father?”
“Um, your biological father is in prison.” Those words make Red Feather wish he were the one behind the camera.
“Oh that’s just perfect!” Lily fumes. “Why? What the hell did he do?”
“Uh,” Red Feather doesn’t know how to put this lightly. “Well, he hurt your mother, so he’s in prison for a long time.”
“Whatever.” Feigning indifference, Lily moves from picking at her now-wrecked index fingernail to her middle finger. “Were they married? I don’t remember him.”
“No, Lily, they were never married. They didn’t know each other.” Red Feather sees her putting the pieces together from the pained look on her face.
“Oh my God. My father was a rapist!? I’m a rape baby?” Lily makes a fist and brings it down on the bed making a thud that startles Günn. “No wonder I’m such a freak.”
This is what they call a pregnant pause.
Red Feather switches gears, he did not sign up for this. “So. Do you remember anything before the rave?”
Lily thinks. “Yeah. Like I said, I was in a sanitarium and I hated it so I left to find my mom. I met some cool women when I was hitchhiking, and they took care of me. You won’t believe me, but they were aliens. I fit in with them. First time ever in my life I felt like I belonged.” Tears prick at Lily’s eye but she refuses to let them see her cry.
I won’t give them something else to talk about.
Red Feather shows her Polaroids. “This them?” Lily nods, IDing Chamelia, NRG and Secrete.
“Anything happen that made you leave the orphanage?”
Lily looks away, biting her lip. She shakes her head, “No. I just didn’t like it there.”
Günn is overwhelmed with the smell of thick dust, a pulverized statue in her nose. She wants to sneeze. Günn clears her throat. Red Feather looks over and catches their visual code for lies.
“Are you sure? Maybe someone tried to hurt you and that’s why you left?” Red Feather moves in closer, making it harder for her to avert her gaze.
Lily avoids Red Feather’s eyes, almost comically if not so sad. “Nope.”
“Lily, we’re here to help you. You’re not going to be in any trouble.” Red Feather’s voice is gentle, reassuring.
“How can I be sure?” The corner of Lily’s green eye twitches.
“You have my word. We can pinky swear on it,” Red Feather holds out his little finger.
“What the hell is a pinky swear?” Lily scoffs, making Red Feather feel about two million years old.
“Fine. Okay,” Lily huffs. “The supervisor there was a PERVERT. He hurt me, tried to do more. He said he’d help me find my mother if…I did things for him.” Lily looks away. “I didn’t want to, but I just wanted to know where my mom was. And what he was doing really hurt! And then I got so angry, at him, and at everyone who’s always hurting me or laughing at me or pointing and so then I hurt him. And I’m not sorry.” She looks from Red Feather to Günn, the embodiment of teenage defiance in a giant cyclops suit.
“How did you hurt him?” Red Feather prompts.
“I don’t really know. I was just looking at him, all mad, like the maddest I’ve ever been, and he…well, he just…turned to stone. And then I kicked him because I was still so pissed at him and he disintegrated. He was an asshole anyway. I know I wasn’t the first to get his
special treatment
.” Lily goes back to picking at her nails.
“You just looked at him?” Günn smells nothing, the scent of a dust storm evaporated.
“Yup.” Lily shrugs. “All I wanted was for him to stop hurting me. So, I looked at him. Real hard.”
“Like Medusa?” Günn says, thinking about
Clash of the Titans
and the Gorgon’s stare.
“What’s that?” Lily’s forehead knits in a scowl.
“She was a Greek goddess who could turn anyone who looked at her to stone.” Mythology, like aliens, fascinates the forensics queen.
“No way! Did she have one eye too?” Lily’s excitement bubbles over at not being the only one of her kind.
“No, she had two, and snakes for hair, but that’s beside the point.”
“So you mean, it’s like, whatever this is might be some kind of superpower?” The corners of Lily’s mouth twitch upward. “That is so cool!”
“You’ve got that right.” Disbelief aside, Günn finds herself smiling at the cyclops girl again, and she returns it grin for grin.
“Lily,” Red Feather says, “here’s my card. You call me anytime if you need something, okay? And of course if you think of anything else that might help us about the rave last night. Sometimes memories can take a while to return after trauma.”
“Sure thing.” Lily looks shy for a moment. “Um, Officer—”
Red Feather doesn’t bother correcting her. “Yes?”
“Would it be okay if I maybe practice my power? Like on a piece of fruit or something?” Lily sits forward in her bed, eager massive puppy girl.
The detectives look at each other, considering. “I suppose that would be okay, so long as you don’t practice on any people,” Günn says.
I hope we don’t regret this
, Red Feather thinks.
“Deal! Punk ROCK!” She lies back in bed, her foot tapping off the edge of the bed, impatient for the fruit Nurse Jonelle promised her.
For the first time, Lily looks hopeful. For the first time today, Red Feather feels scared.