4.4 Being Cole Parks

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Electricity still crackled and popped inside his body but Cole managed to regain consciousness enough to break free from the man dragging him down the hallway. Using his feet he flipped his body over, yanked his arms inwards and pushed off from the floor, sending his would-be captor staggering backwards. He ran down the hall and turned blindly in a random direction at each intersection, just trying to get some distance before stopping to consider a plan.

Back home, when he was a different person altogether, he would have never stopped running. Self preservation would have been his objective. Knox didn’t care for Alleyon at all, hated being under her command and relentlessly tried to undermine her every chance he got. Knox was sick and tired of going to extreme measures to rescue their dying planet. He was fed up, done, and he had purposefully screwed with Alleyon’s latest mission hoping that they would never be able to return to their dismal planet again. He hadn’t meant for them to regain consciousness or unite their memories at all. They were going to be human-ish teenagers forever more. Interestingly enough he had been the one to reach self-actualization first; kicking off the whole series of events that led them all to this very moment. Although, he still had no idea how it had happened.

But things were different now as well. He wasn’t Knox anymore. The memories, feelings and emotions of Cole Parks were swimming around his head, digging in and attaching themselves where ever they could. At times he couldn’t even separate what Cole felt from what Knox wanted. He thought he could be one or the other but straddling both was tiring.

He hadn’t expected it to be this difficult, sharing one body with the earthling. They had just assumed that their superior DNA would overthrow the human’s system entirely, and that they would dominantly control all functions. Figures Alleyon would wind up in Kate’s body, the one person that meant anything to Cole Parks in his bleak and utterly exhausting existence. If he wasn’t Cole and she wasn’t Kate, he was certain he could just walk away.

Cole finally stopped when he reached a door labeled “Outside Maintenance.” The door was locked but Cole twisted it hard and shattered the door knob. The door swung open and he entered. Although the room was completely dark, Cole could see just fine. He looked around and took stock of his options. He pocketed a box cutter and some matches but wasn’t impressed with what he found. Just as he was opening the door again to leave the light from the hallway caught on something in the room, the glint from the item caught Cole’s attention at once. He walked back into the darkness and emerged with a newly sharpened hatchet.

He touched the blade and it cut through his finger tip easily. Blood dribbled down his hand and he watched as his skin automatically started to fuse itself back together. Since Knox no longer had a say in the matter, Cole was going to rescue Kate.

In another part of the hospital the Chief was putting on a good show of being angry with the agent who let Cole escape. He was even more confused now as to whose side he should be on then ever before. He was certain he couldn’t trust Briggs. He was also certain that these were not the same kids who had disappeared from town sixteen weeks ago, but if he was ever going to figure out what really happened to them then everyone at least had to live through the night.

“I’ll try to help you find him before Briggs realizes you screwed up. You go check down that way and I’ll head back up towards the exam rooms. The agent nodded, he looked vaguely worried which was an improvement over their normal stoic stature where you couldn’t tell what the hell they were feeling. Tanner had no intention of looking for Cole at the moment. He set out to get a look around and try to figure out Brigg’s end-game plan.

Ginny and David caught up to Briggs at last. He was standing outside an operating room with his hands folded, as if waiting for them to arrive. And he was alone.

“Where the hell are all the kids, Briggs?” David was so furious he could hardly spit the words out.

“David, I’m afraid if you’re going to continue with us you might just see a few things you wish you hadn’t. I know you don’t like me very much but the truth is you need me. I can do the things you can’t stomach. I can get the job done.” Briggs smiled a creepy lopsided smile, one that David Sellers recognized immediately.

It was the same failed smile Kate had tried to plaster on her face earlier. It became suddenly very clear to David that if the kids were aliens, certainly Briggs was one as well. Looking at Briggs in the eyes was like looking at a mask. He wasn’t just playing the part of a law enforcement agent; he was playing the part of a human being.

“Now, I can let you watch from the observation deck, but you’re clearly too emotionally involved to come inside with me.”

“What exactly are you doing in there,” David tried to look over Brigg’s head and get a peek from the small circular window in the door but Briggs stepped sideways and blocked his view.

“Finding answers,” Briggs replied calmly.

“If you want to find answers then maybe you should consider letting David ask a few questions, “Ginny interrupted. “From my observations Kate, or whoever she is, clearly still has an emotional connection to her family and friends. Er, to Kate’s family and friends. You could use that, or at least try.” Ginny wasn’t exactly lying which was the only thing allowing her to keep her composure while she talked to Briggs.

Briggs seemed to fade off for a moment, deep in thought. “Alright; we’ll try it. Start easy; ask her a few questions about how she got here and where your daughter really is. I’ll take over the hard stuff when it’s time to ask about motives.”

David flinched at the words ‘hard stuff,’ but took the offer anyway. It was becoming more and more important to him to get into that room by the second.

Briggs walked behind David and placed his hands on his shoulders and squeezed, like he was about to give him a pep talk before a big game. “Like I said David, you’re going to see things you wish you hadn’t seen. If you act weak, they will sense it. If you look like you’re going to lose it in there I will pull you out and handcuff you to that radiator over there. We clear?”

David swallowed and nodded. Ginny patted his hand and allowed herself to be led up to the observation area. Before she turned, David mouthed the words ‘thank you’ at her. He took a moment and tried to prepare himself for what he was about to see inside the operating room. The words, “I’ll take over the hard stuff,” rolled through his mind once again. He sighed heavily and then pushed open the heavy double doors.

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