Becoming Human Read online

  How long can the Surface Creatures live?

  The oldest living Indigene on record was one hundred and ninety-eight. He knew their species’ bodies were the same—one heart, one liver, two kidneys and one brain—but there were still fundamental differences between them. The Indigenes’ bodies and minds didn’t suffer deterioration because all their cells could regenerate. An injury that could take weeks to heal in a Surface Creature would only take minutes in an Indigene’s body. Having studied their physical composition, he discovered that the cells in their brains and spinal column possessed no regenerative ability. Instead, the Surface Creatures relied on the production of synthetic cells to combat brain injuries, old age and paralysis. Disease was uncommon among the Indigenes, because it was impossible for an infected cell to manipulate a healthy one when the body was already expelling it.

  The lone male sitting by the window looked familiar to him, even though he was sure he’d never seen him before. A sudden feeling of contempt for the male forced him to concentrate on his doppelganger’s meal to regain a little control.

  The recording looped for the third time and, right on cue, a female came to the table and filled their glasses with water. He’d read somewhere that Surface Creatures’ bodies contained sixty per cent water, although they didn’t always drink it in its purest form. The same female handed a beer to the male by the window. The alcohol reminded him of the children they’d encountered not that long ago. While the Indigenes could drink water, it didn’t “quench” their thirst as it seemed to do for the Surface Creatures. In the beginning when the Surface Creatures first relocated to the planet, they had brought their own water with them. What little they did find on Exilon 5 they had been able to multiply by adding a chemical compound.

  How could a less intelligent race such as the Surface Creatures successfully destroy so many Indigenes? It was almost as if they had prior knowledge of the Indigenes’ existence.

  He continued to watch the recording, allowing the scene to loop a fourth time until the images were ingrained in his long-term memory. He watched their movements and their familiar ease with one another, but refused to acknowledge the similarities that existed between each race. There were plenty of differences, too; like the speed at which both species moved. The Indigenes regularly conversed in thought alone; words weren’t always necessary to convey a message. Stephen was not used to speaking aloud and he would have to learn how to slow down his speech if he was going to converse successfully with a child. He loosened his stiff shoulders and turned off the recording. There was one last thing he needed: a set of lenses that would protect his retinas from the harmful daytime sun. Anton had a few left over from his time on the surface.

  Stephen stood up, scraping the chair’s metal legs on the stone floor, and rummaged through the box once more. He fished out a mirror and pushed the table in one smooth motion towards the wall. He placed the mirror on the table and used the wall to prop it up. With a clarity of vision he wasn’t used to, he examined his strange image, distorted by the silicone skin. He practised his eye movements, his speech and his hand gestures, finding it difficult to contort his face into their unusual expressions. He kept rehearsing until the movements felt a little less obvious and more natural. He reminded himself he would only have to act the part for a short while.

  This will be easy.

  So why was he nervous about the trip the next day? Maybe it was because his family had died unnecessarily so the Surface Creatures could live. Every fibre of his body screamed at him to stay.

  But he had to go. Central Council needed answers. The time for waiting, the time for hiding, was over.

  3

  That evening, Bill took a call from Daphne Gilchrist, the CEO of the Earth Security Centre. Gilchrist was difficult, but not as bad as Charles Deighton, the CEO of the World Government. Bill had met Deighton twice, before Isla had been sent to Exilon 5 on a mission, and it was clear there was something seriously wrong with him.

  ‘Are you all set, Bill? I don’t want anything to go wrong tomorrow,’ said Gilchrist. There was an edge to her voice.

  ‘I’m ready, and so is my team.’

  ‘What are your plans?’

  ‘To observe the Indigene and see what it does.’

  ‘That means no interference from you or your team.’

  ‘I understand that.’

  There was a brief silence before she spoke again. ‘Are you sure you’re up to this? I am aware of your... situation.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have pushed for the role if I wasn’t up to it. What happened... Well, it was a long time ago now.’

  ‘Yes, but these things have a habit of rearing their heads at the wrong time. I know the... problem you have with the Indigenes.’

  ‘Not all of them,’ he said a little too quickly. ‘I mean, I don’t know them. I’m interested in them in the same way the World Government is.’ As soon as he’d said the words, he knew how meaningless they were.

  ‘Look, Bill. I’m not going to sugar-coat it for you. This could be a turning point in the investigation or an all-out disaster. Whatever happens, I need to know I can count on you to keep it together.’

  Bill’s pulse thrummed in his throat. ‘Yes, you can.’

  ‘Good. And remember why we picked you. It was because of your success with Hunt. Deighton’s expectations are high.’

  Larry Hunt. Hearing his name made his shoulder throb. Even while he was incarcerated, the man just wouldn’t go away. To say the World Government was regretting their involvement with the most successful man in the food replication business was an understatement. The government had a lot to lose, but also plenty to gain from their majority stake in Hunt Technologies, a company that controlled seventy per cent of the food replication market.

  ‘Understood.’

  Gilchrist clicked off.

  Bill took his DPad and pulled up Larry Hunt’s photo. Staring back at him was the criminal he’d helped to put behind bars. Hunt was an ordinary-looking man, nothing special, but then most of the serious criminals looked like family men with nothing to hide. Bill had expected Hunt to seek retaliation for his involvement in bringing him to justice, but he hadn’t been ready for how he had felt afterwards.

  The catch seemed too easy, almost like he’d been set up to succeed. When Hunt Technologies had released their latest food replication model, the Replica 2500, the ESC had ordered Bill to intervene. The hundreds of businesses that bought the model were touting it as a fake.

  Daphne Gilchrist had ordered him to a meeting. When he arrived, she handed him a list of numbers.

  ‘What do you see?’ Her expression was cold, her mouth set in a tight line.

  Bill scanned the information. He recognised the format of prices against amounts. ‘Shares.’

  ‘Exactly. We think Mr Hunt has been pulling a stroke, overvaluing his stocks to gain a better share of the replication market. Naturally, the World Government board members are upset at this revelation. If the Replica 2500 isn’t genuine, the company’s value will drop into negative equity. That’s a loss nobody wants.’

  Bill looked up at her. ‘You want me to profile him?’

  Gilchrist locked her cold eyes on Bill. ‘I want you to take the son of a bitch down.’

  Bill had spent months trying to get inside the head of the man who had dominated the food replication world for an aeon. Slowly, he established patterns in Hunt’s carefully orchestrated, yet sometimes erratic, behaviour. More importantly, he’d identified who Hunt relied on and who would have access to personal information: his secretary.

  He called Hunt Technologies to arrange a business meeting with her. When they met, he tried to be smooth, maybe flirt a little. Hunt’s secretary was attractive enough, but not his type and far too young at only twenty-five. While they spoke, he caught her stealing glances at the clock. It was then he knew that Hunt’s people had been coached.

  Bill concentrated his efforts on others who Hunt’s secretary may have been connected wi
th. He began tailing lower-level workers out on their lunch breaks. At one of the food replication terminals, he had chatted with an employee and feigned interest in working for Hunt Technologies. He casually steered the topic around to Hunt’s secretary, asking whether he would better his chances if he spoke to her directly.

  ‘Nobody gets to see Theresa without an appointment. Even her boyfriend has to take a number,’ said the male employee. He thumbed over at a skinny twentysomething man sitting at another table, hunched over his lunch.

  ‘What section does her boyfriend work in?’

  ‘Storage.’

  He had found his way in; why he hadn’t considered the secretary’s boyfriend, he didn’t know. Maybe it was because he couldn’t picture the moderately attractive girl with the grim smile making time for anyone other than Hunt.

  In the end, the boyfriend had been of little help, perhaps even a little scared of Theresa. But a colleague of the skinny boy had no loyalty to anyone in particular, and a little bribe helped loosen his lips.

  Bill recalled his only encounter with a couple of Hunt’s henchmen shortly after his indictment. He’d tried to shake his pursuers as they chased him through London’s dark streets, but they had cornered him. One of the men had grabbed his arms so roughly he almost dislocated Bill’s shoulder. The other produced an antique knife from his pocket, the blade gleaming in the overhead street light. Bill sucked in a sharp breath as the knife-wielding man stepped forward and plunged the blade into the soft area of his left shoulder. The blinding hot pain disarmed him instantly.

  A fucking antique knife. There were easier ways to kill him. The attack came with a verbal warning attached.

  ‘Hunt wants you to remember this.’

  Bill touched the area where the knife had penetrated his skin. Although it was fully repaired with no sign of a scar, he remembered exactly how it had felt when the blade tore through his muscle and poked out the other side.

  Thinking about that night sent a shiver through him. He picked up the DPad with shaky hands. The tremors were worse. His stomach felt sick, but his body was buzzing with caffeine-induced adrenaline. He wished for it all to be over so he could get his answers.

  Bill combed through the dozens of files the World Government held on the Indigenes. So far, the information was limited. An earthy scent of old coffee hit his nose and his craving kicked in. He prayed that the following day would give him a lead—any information at all—on what exactly had happened to his wife.

  There were so many files to choose from, but the one about the government’s capture of a young Indigene always caught his attention. The young alien had not lived long after the capture because of its inability to survive in the same conditions as humans. Bill found interesting details about an atmosphere-controlled containment unit in facilities on the outskirts of New London. The unit had yet to receive its first prisoner.

  While Gilchrist certainly wasn’t as bad as Deighton, he was concerned by the close working relationship she had with the CEO of the World Government.

  ‘Apprehend the subject, but make sure it’s alive,’ Gilchrist had said at the last briefing. ‘And make sure those idiots we assigned you don’t go off half-cocked.’

  What Bill had requested from the World Government was Special Forces. What they stuck him with was Armoured Division, minus the heavy artillery. ‘Divide and Conquer’ was their motto. Yes, he would make sure to keep the alien alive. When he had finished torturing it, the World Government, the ESC—or whoever wanted it—could do what they liked.

  Memories of his wife were clearer, more vivid than usual. Maybe it was because he was using the mug she had given him, or because he was inching closer to the truth about her disappearance. When his mind wasn’t occupied with work, he gave every spare thought he had to Isla. He trawled through his past memories, looking for clues about why she’d disappeared. The government had been helpful enough in the beginning, but it didn’t take long for them to stop looking for her.

  The World Government, the powerhouse in Washington DC, was in charge of all Earth’s business. The charcoal-grey borders that surrounded the slick black windows gave their offices a foreboding yet unique look. Majestic height and angular lines towered effortlessly above the other buildings that surrounded it, leaving smaller constructions to cower in its icy shade. The building stretched for miles into the low-lying, steely skies around Washington DC, punching neat holes into layers of atmosphere as it searched for a way out of the restrictive cityscape. In the face of all that magnificence, the building was a ruse, a decoy for something greater. The real World Government offices lay deep below the surface, protected by force fields that formed graduating rings, each more impenetrable than the one above it. The building represented what the World Government stood for on Earth: hope and order, power and impenetrability.

  At the beginning of his career, his twenty-year-old self had been impressed by the mottled-blue granite floors and the walls with precious jewels dripping from the lighting fixtures. He realised later that the place was designed to be aesthetically appealing to impress the potential recruits that sought out work there. Large advertising screens dressed the walls and promoted too-good-to-be-true career opportunities. But at the time, the decision for Bill to join their organisation had been a no-brainer. There wasn’t any other place like it on Earth.

  Early on, his need for excitement had pulled him in a different direction, towards something his job in the public documents section had not provided. He sought out another path, one that would satisfy his wanderlust. The ESC’s military training programme ticked all the boxes, in particular the job of Special Operations agent.

  It was where he’d first met his wife. Isla had been one of his instructors, and she’d spend her time teaching self-defence skills to men stronger than her. Bill desperately wanted to ask her out but it was frowned upon.

  ‘It’s less about brute force and more about negotiation,’ she had said to the all-male class.

  They laughed at her suggestion, but she earned their respect when she broke up a fight between two men the following day using only words.

  Bill recalled very little about the class work—Isla’s gentle Scottish accent gave him butterflies—and he had to rely on notes to catch up on his studies at home. Isla’s hair had been shorter back then, hanging just below her shoulders. Her warm blue eyes sparkled and her face was as soft as her smile. She was the complete opposite of him, and he’d wanted her.

  Bill’s natural flair for reading people had earned him a place as a Special Operations agent. The ESC tried to send him to India to complete his training; something he vehemently resisted. He enlisted Isla’s help in getting them to change their minds.

  ‘What can I do to help?’ she said, looking sceptical.

  ‘I need to stay in the UK. My parents are here and I’m all they have.’ He hated lying to her but he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her behind. Both his parents had died in a Maglev train accident years earlier.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ She smiled at him in a way that almost made him break the instructor–pupil rule.

  When he had been assigned to the International Task Force in London, he was sure of two things: that she had helped, and that he loved her. A month after he graduated, they began dating. Soon after, she asked to meet his parents. She punched him on the arm when he’d handed her an urn with their ashes still inside.

  The ache was always so debilitating when he remembered the happier times with Isla. He distracted himself by resting his face and hands on the cold window. He stared at Belgrave Square Gardens through a fog his breath had created. An automated vehicle pulled up outside and several children and a woman—presumably their teacher—alighted from the vehicle’s left side. The children screamed excitedly as they bolted for the swings in the park. The teacher yelled after them to come back but they were running free and wild.

  He thought about Isla’s love of children, and the window fogged up more as his breathing bec
ame laboured. She had always been open about her desire to have children, but he hadn’t been as keen as her. He didn’t think Earth was the right environment to bring up children and had promised to think about it again when they transferred to Exilon 5. Now Isla was gone and suddenly he wanted a child: her child, a little version of her to make him laugh the way she always could. But Exilon 5 was no safer than Earth as long as the Indigenes existed. They had taken from him the one person he cared about the most.

  ‘Forgive them, Bill.’ Isla was in his head.

  ‘Forgiveness is earned,’ he said out loud. If it came down to it, would he really grant it to the Indigenes?

  He buried his nose in the transcripts from the previous week’s surveillance operation, his heart hardening as his eyes stopped at the detail about the male Indigene’s attempts to make contact with a boy in the square opposite his apartment. The mother had reacted quickly and the boy was led away. His team reported how the same Indigene had watched a different boy for a while, a skinny lad with black hair.

  Bill noted that their attempts to surface were always at the same hour, just after sunrise. The expectation was that the Indigene would try to make contact again the following day.

  This time Bill would be ready.

  4

  Eight-year-old Ben Watson waited for the next automated bus to arrive, watching with interest as the stranger walked towards him and sat beside him on the bench. He glanced at his unusual appearance, wondering where he was from. He ran through the list of countries he knew from his school lessons. There were the six cities on Exilon 5 and, other than the obvious ones on faraway Earth, he struggled to think of more. Geography class was so boring. He and his best friend, Peter preferred to send digital notes to each other instead.

  Syria and Nepal popped into his head. He remembered them from his classic Earth adventure series on the Light Box. In one episode, the criminals had escaped from prison and were running from the law and had ended up in both locations. But the criminals from his stories were meaner-looking and had facial scars. He wondered if the stranger was a spy. He couldn’t see any visible scarring, so maybe he was a spy for the allies.