CHAPTER 4
THE BETRAYAL
~
Nothing made sense anymore. She kept seeing the alien’s, Atlas’s, gaze in her head, kept feeling the rumbles from his growls.
It was as if she felt the anger in them, the hopelessness.
He was trapped, imprisoned. In all the stories she’d heard while growing up, people were being abducted by aliens and subjected to strange experiments—but now, Atlas was the abducted one, and they were the abductors doing the experiments.
This must have been the ethical problem Mr. West talked about, Lila thought.
How could anyone do this without feeling regret?
Melinda managed because she thought of Atlas as an animal, but Lila could tell that he wasn’t.
Not more than she was. There was intelligence in those predatorial eyes, but also terrifying fury.
After their first meeting, Lila couldn’t stop thinking about Atlas. She couldn’t stop thinking how miserable he must be inside that cage, no matter how massive it was. Was it really worth it? Was it worth the potential of a universal cure?
But sacrifices had to be made. She knew that.
One life could save billions today, and trillions in the future.
One person’s—creature’s—suffering could mean the end of suffering forever.
History was filled with such sacrifices, and they had all made humans better.
It was for the greater good, she kept thinking. The greater fucking good.
That afternoon, Lila joined Melinda as she analyzed Atlas’s black blood. Just seeing all the findings almost gave her an existential crisis, but she was also intrigued.
“It’s fascinating,” nodded Melinda when she saw Lila’s big eyes.
“His DNA is almost identical to ours—but different. His body works very similarly; his skeleton resembles a human’s, only stronger, he’s got a pair of lungs, one heart, one brain, a lymphatic system, kidneys, a stomach—everything.
But his muscles work differently; they grow differently, so he’s stronger.
They need less oxygen, so he’s more tenacious.
We don’t even know if they need oxygen at all, or if they simply use it because it’s here.
” She opened a freezer and grabbed a sample on a platter and placed it underneath her microscope.
“Take a look at this. We cut a small piece of his arm, and the wound healed in just a few minutes. We took a tiny sample of his tissue, and it’s extraordinary.
The healing capacity is… well, it’s like a superpower, from a comic book.
The cells keep rejuvenating and changing, as if they’re learning from mistakes. ”
Lila gazed into the microscope. Adjusting the lens, she saw the cells working fervently to heal themselves as they warmed from the freezing temperatures.
“We’ve tried to synthesize it,” said Melinda, “but it doesn’t matter how alike his DNA is to ours—it’s still not human. We’ve tried with rats, but we’ve never succeeded. The closest we’ve come is to not kill a rat. At least not immediately.”
Lila gulped. How many years would it take to succeed? How many years would Atlas have to be trapped inside that box ?
Her whole day was somehow destroyed by seeing that poor thing behind that glass, and no matter how extraordinary his biology was, she felt such sadness.
* * *
Weeks passed inside the facilities, and soon turned to months. Lila followed Dr. Bryce to Atlas’s enclosure every day, and she got to watch the linguists try to communicate with him. Melinda insisted that Lila joined them because he seemed more accommodating when she was there.
The linguists tried to talk to him, but even though he seemed to utter words, there was no chance any of them could understand what he was saying.
They understood rudimentary words, words that Atlas could say while pointing at something, but his alien tongue was so deep and strange, it was difficult for anyone to distinguish words from the sounds.
It didn’t seem to work like any human language in the world.
They had spreadsheets of strange symbols, texts that Atlas had written, but they couldn’t decipher them any more than they could understand the deep sounds that escaped him.
Some things, they could interpret—food, water, hot, cold, angry—words he could demonstrate.
But the symbols weren’t letters, and the linguists had worked for many years without much luck in cracking the code.
But when Lila was there, he seemed to try harder. He spoke slower, clearer, and the linguists were excited beyond measure when the sounds that escaped him started to seem consistent albeit still nearly impossible to understand.
Dr. Bryce mocked him, teased him, and said that he only did it to impress the newcomer—and even though he probably didn’t understand her, Lila still found it cruel and unnecessary. She was embarrassed by it, and she hated the snicker from the linguistic team.
If she could speak to him, she would tell him not to listen to them—but she couldn’t. Instead, she gazed at him through the glass, hoping that at least a part of his alien mind would understand her.
That’s what she did every day—just looked at him. And he looked back. Sometimes, he moved toward her, almost like a predator approaching prey, but there was a connection, a real one.
She couldn’t describe it, and she might have imagined it, but she found herself many times forgetting that there were more people inside that room than she and him.
She studied him closely, letting her eyes take in every inch of his form.
Every muscle, every tendon; it was as if gods had created him, and she was mesmerized by him.
At times, it was almost as if they were speaking, but not in words.
She got used to his frightful visage, even found it handsome, and despite hearing his deep, inhuman growl while the linguists worked with him, it still fascinated her.
He was proof that there was intelligence out there, a world they would never know.
He was a small part of it, a reminder that they weren’t alone, and they treated him like an animal.
What were his thoughts on humans? Did he see them as animals, just as Dr. Bryce saw him?
What thoughts of revenge plagued his mind?
Sometimes, she dreamed of him. She dreamed she could speak with him, that they could understand each other.
She dreamed of his eyes, of his growls that rumbled through her like thunder, and some nights, she even woke up feeling flustered and heated.
Alone underground, even the terrifying alien played in her mind like tinder for her lonesomeness.
Even when she was awake, she would imagine what it would feel like, to be touched by him; she imagined what he would do to her, what it might feel like to touch his sculpted body.
It was bothering her when she tried to work, knowing she had lewd thoughts about the alien.
Sometimes when she saw him, she remembered her dreams, remembered her fantasies, remembered what it felt like when he touched her; his skin was cool and soothing against her hot and bothered flesh, and whenever the images appeared in her mind, she tried to occupy herself with something else.
At night, the crew often hung out in one of the common areas, drinking beer and playing games. Lila liked most of the company, but she always felt guilty. Below them, Atlas wandered his large enclosure, alone. Here, no one looked like him, and no one understood him.
She, however, seemed to be the only one feeling guilt.
The others laughed and teased one another, and she felt hungry eyes on her all the time.
She was the youngest member, and down in the research facilities, the selection was scarce—and people wanted intimacy.
Lila didn’t, knowing she would be fired if anything happened.
The security guys were the worst; they were pleasant to look at, most of them, but they were like frat guys on steroids. They teased her, gave her endless sexual innuendos, and some even tried to drag her into their rooms several times.
“Come on , Lila!” one of the guys, Dean, said one night when he grabbed her and dragged her along. It was all fun and games to him, but he was an ex-marine, thirty-one, and too strong for her to even consider fighting. This wasn’t a game to her.
“No, Dean, stop,” Lila sighed. She knew he wouldn’t do anything without her consent, and Dean was a nice guy despite all this, but she didn’t want to risk anything.
“Why are you such a tease?” Dean chuckled but stopped. “Us guys are fighting over you, Lila.” His grin died, and suddenly, he looked like a little boy. “You’re so goddamn beautiful.”
Lila’s cheeks heated, and she wiggled herself out of Dean’s grip. “You’re very kind, Dean, but I’m really not interested in being a prize. Besides, you only say that because you’ve been down here for months.”
He dropped his gaze, ashamed. The big, ex-marine turned into a small child. “I’m sorry, Lila. You’re right.” He gazed up with wide eyes. “Not that—I didn’t mean you aren’t pretty, it’s just—” He sighed. “I didn’t think. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Dean,” she sighed. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”
“I could walk you to your room, if you—”
“No, I can walk there myself,” she muttered. “But thank you.”
They didn’t harass her from then on. Dean must have talked to them, and she was grateful. They still teased her, but not as before, and she didn’t join the group in the common areas that often after that night. It didn’t feel right. Her mind was occupied with other thoughts.
By the end of her third month in the compound, she was called to a meeting with Mr. West on the second floor below the surface. He had flown in just the day before.
His office wasn’t as impressive as in the city—no windows, no grand light—but it was still Mr. West, and he deserved respect anywhere.
“So,” said he as Lila took a seat by his desk in the murky dark room, “you’ve been here a while now. How do you like it?”