Chapter 1 #18
From the corner of his eye, he could see Lane watching him. Pacing back and forth. Shards of lightning crashing down on the horizon. No rain yet.
When the folder was empty, the flashlight holding down the loose pages resting on the bench beside him, Tim looked up at their author. “Can I read the rest of it?”
“Of course,” Lane said, his tone impenetrable.
“I mean right now. I want to finish it.”
Lane took two more folders from his knapsack and handed them over. “Take all the time you need.”
So, he did. It took the better part of two hours.
By the time Tim finished the old man’s testimony, it was just past two thirty in the morning. He stared at the scribbled words on the last page, trying to sort his thoughts, trying to find the guts to look up and face what came next. Intrigue, sympathy, and rage all swelled inside his chest.
The old man, unaware that Tim had finished, paced back and forth in front of the bench. Disappearing and reappearing in the circle of lantern light. His knees must’ve been killing him.
He’s right to be nervous, Tim thought. This isn’t a backstory; it’s a goddamn confession. A trickle of sweat tickled his spine. Been the executioner, now I’m judge and jury too.
Part of him wanted to stand up and throttle his new friend, to thrash him senseless and leave him out for the Scorpions to find. He’s a villain straight out of The X-Files. Isn’t that how a story’s supposed to end? The bad guy gets his beatdown. What else?
But no matter how hard Tim tried, his legs wouldn’t budge. His feet wouldn’t move. Even his throat grew coarse and uncooperative when he tried to speak, reminding Tim of his long, silent walk. Of the nights when he spoke to only himself and the bats, if he spoke at all.
Lane’s a friend, Tim’s mind whispered in a voice that sounded like a stranger’s yet he knew was his own. When was the last one of those?
Besides, aren’t I tired? Don’t I want to take a break?
And this hate is oh so draining.
“How do they rotate without twisting their limbs and joints?” Tim finally asked, his mouth moving before he even realized it.
Lane stopped walking and sat down on the bench with an exhausted wheeze. “I’m sorry… what did you say?”
“When the Scorpions walk… their legs spin but their heads and tails don’t. How is that possible without their limbs or joints getting all tangled up?”
The old man didn’t say anything at first. He seemed confused by the question, and Tim understood why. He expected the other stuff first. The anger. The recriminations. The fists. To be honest, Tim was a little confused himself.
“It’s… it’s because of their bones and muscles, I think. Their exoskeletons grow from the skin underneath, then split off, because their bones and muscles are almost the same thing. Like living rock. Tectonic plating. It melts and reforms. Their blood too. It… crystallizes, like making a scab.”
“Is that why they eat each other?” Tim asked. Another question out of his mouth before he could stop it. “Their bodies have a special mineral or enzyme or something?”
Lane shook his head. There was relief in his eyes, and voice. “That sounds about right. I really don’t know. Like I wrote, I rarely understood the science behind it all.”
“What about their food chain? They couldn’t have been solely cannibals on their home planet, right? Not enough energy’s conserved.”
“Our experts claimed the same thing, but we never found any evidence to the contrary, and we cut open a lot of Scorpion stomachs. There were a few hypotheses, one being the presence of hyper-nutritional water on their world, but… like I said, that was Dr. Brown’s realm.”
“And what happened to him?”
“Can’t say where he ended up. There was chatter about him being used as a scapegoat, along with yours truly, but soon after there weren’t any courts to charge him in.
Rumor had it the Russians offered the good doctor safe haven in exchange for his research.
But who the hell knows how long that lasted. ”
“What about Weisbrot? How’d you even know you would need him?”
“We didn’t. That was just Brown playing the college lottery. He recruited two or three prodigies every year. New Mexico had other ET biologics for Weisbrot to work on, but that genetic material was decades old. Fresh Scorpions were the only viable test subjects he ever found.”
“Other ETs? You mean…”
“Don’t get too excited. It was all very faded. Like finding an antique Buick Roadmaster with a pair of skeletons for passengers.”
“And them… the Scorpions. If they were mutated with human DNA, why’d they turn around and hunt us?”
“Who can say? Humans used to hurt each other all the time, and we didn’t evolve to be cannibals. Maybe our genetic meddling gave them a taste for Homo sapiens. Maybe they were just pissed off.”
“That’s what I mean! They seem so… alive. Intelligent. But there’s lots of smart animals. Elephants and dolphins. These things are capable of real emotion… of hatred. I’ve seen it. But they talk to each other too. They hurt, cry, scream. They fear. Maybe even love.”
“Dogs can love too.”
Tim thought of the discarded bag of beef jerky and reminded himself to tell Lane about that later. “Sure, but there’s something more to the Scorpions. Don’t you think?”
Lane stared down at the ground in shame. “Yeah, it’s quite the goddamn achievement.”
“What?”
“To fuck over two sentient species at the same time.” The old man looked up, tears in his bronze eyes. “I truly outdid myself.”
“You were doing your job.”
He sniffled. “I should’ve gotten another one.”
“You tried to stop it,” Tim said, picking up the loose pages and flipping through them. “Right here… look! You said all of this would’ve happened, with or without—”
“It doesn’t matter. I was complicit. Think about New York. Your family. Your mother. I shoulder a share of all of it… all that blood.”
A tornado of dueling emotions touched down inside Tim’s chest. His head was spinning.
“Maybe you do…” he said. “Maybe you do. But you also stepped up and blew the whistle! You tried. And even if you could’ve stopped what happened to New York…
my mom wouldn’t have wanted you to. She didn’t want to be alien food. Nobody wants to die like—”
“None of this happens without me!” Lane barked, startling Tim. “Don’t you understand that? None of it. The efforts to right my wrongs were too little, too late. And even if you’re right… even if only part of this was my fault… I should’ve stopped it! Even today, that’s still my responsibility.”
Tim’s voice was soft, brimming with empathy. Humanity. “There’s a difference between responsibility and blame.”
“No. I’ve already made whatever peace with it the best I could.
You don’t have to coddle me. That’s not why I asked you to come here.
” Their sunken eyes met in the lantern light.
Lane looked much older than he did two hours ago.
His wrinkles ran deeper, the discoloration of his flesh more vivid.
“I know what awaits me on the other side.”
“And what’s that?”
“What I deserve.”
“How old were you?”
“What?”
“When you enlisted for Vietnam, how old were you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Why’d you go?”
“Huh?”
“Why?”
“Because we had to.”
“You said you enlisted. Why?”
“I would’ve been drafted anyway.”
“Tell me the truth, Lane.”
“The truth?”
“Yeah… why’d you go?”
He wiped away the tears with his shirtsleeve. “I didn’t want to at first. I wanted to go to college. Maybe even earn myself a football scholarship. And doesn’t that sound like just about the silliest thing in the world now that…” He lifted his palms to the crumbling horizon.
“No. Doesn’t sound silly at all.”
“It just didn’t sit right with me that others had to go and I could stay.
Not right in the slightest. Perfect world?
We all stay home…” Lane coughed into his closed fist. It wasn’t a healthy sound.
“We all stay home and nobody dies. Nobody kills. None of my friends lose their arms or legs or their whole fuckin’ head.
We don’t lose ourselves, we don’t… we don—” Another violent bout of coughing.
Tim got up, went over, and sat down next to Lane. Put a hand on his knotted back. “Let’s get back inside, what’d’ya say?”
Lane looked up at him. “Why?”
“ ’Cause you sound like you’re coming down with a cold, and I’ll be damned if I let you get sick on my watch.”
“No, I meant… why aren’t you angry?”
Tim sighed. He held his breath for a few seconds, letting the encroaching thunder fill the gap until he was ready. “I don’t know, brother. I think I’m sick and tired of being angry. Been pissed off and scared shitless for so damn long… but it hasn’t gotten me much of anywhere.”
“Got you here,” Lane said.
Tim shook his head. “I hope not. I want to think it was something else that did that. Something… good. Like whatever’s keeping you alive. I think it’s a good reason.”
“I’m no good,” Lane said, his voice cracking.
“Pretty sure the jury’s still out on that one.”
They were both quiet for a while after that. The city around them breathing for the dead. Somewhere, far away, a night bird called. Nothing answered. Finally, Tim asked:
“Why’d Weisbrot do it?”
“Do what?”
“Set the Scorpions free.”
“That’s…” Lane hesitated. “Officially, he was trying to kill them. Before they could escape onto the highway.”
“Well… why do you think he crashed the truck?”
The weary soldier thought about it for a moment.
“Sometimes, it was like we were the only two people in the room who thought about the future, Weisbrot and me. He said something once. It wasn’t during the usual corporate chitchat or a scientific debriefing.
It was just the two of us, and I think he let his guard down. Just for a second.”
“What did he say?”