The Elite

Forty-Nine

Julian

I'd always expected alien spaceships to look alien, or perhaps like a flying saucer, not something that was weirdly normal. A bullet-shaped ship — an elongated dome on top of a cylinder — seemed far too human. Alien ships weren't supposed to look even remotely human.

Or perhaps I was just using things I knew to synthesize a fantasy. After all, I could find no logical reason for my continued existence.

My eyes drifted away from the spaceship and locked onto the small device lying in the middle of the street. The power disruptor was blinking a red LED at me, letting me know that it was activated.

I smashed it even though the destruction might not have been needed. Despite the power disruptor, I was alive. I was lying on my stomach in the street. My finger were casually resting against Tass's arm, healing her while still pretending to be dead.

An alien like the one I'd resurrected back in the Catacombs stepped out of the ship, walking down the set of steps that was just deployed. Spidery leg landing gear propped the bullet part of the ship above the ground at about waist height.

Synapses connected, and the realization flew into my brain.

"It was a spaceship!"

"What?"

"By the forest. That thing I ran into was a spaceship! It must have been coming to collect Aubrey, but when Aubrey failed to escape, it waited for her. Now that's she's free again, it's come for her."

I thought about the exchange, and then found myself sighing. It was so predictable and lame. Apparently I wasn't as imaginative as I thought I was.

"Congrats, Julian," I said to myself. "You're not very imaginative. You dream that Tass just shockingly has her bracelet line to Leon activated."

I disconnected the line and I returned to looking at the alien spaceship. Aubrey had approached it by then and was talking with the yeuven. Their voices carried, bringing their words to my ears. Weirdly enough, I recognized some of the words, despite them being in an unrecognizable language.

"Get ready... use the..."

"Now?"

"Yes, now. Julian told them... the... They'll be... has to be now."

"And now I can understand some alien language. Wipee. I wish I was more creative."

"You're brilliant."

I diverted my gaze from the aliens and the spaceship to look at Tass. She had come back to life, and was smiling at me. My thoughts were a bit jumbled up, so, rather than explain why I wasn't brilliant, I just smiled.

"Of course you'd think I'm awesome. You're just a figment of my imagination inside my subconscious. You're probably about to announce that I'm an utterly amazing best friend or something. Likely I'm living a fantasy I've created in the last seconds of life I have left.

Tass frowned. "Julian... I don't think that's the case. I feel like a real person."

"Of course you do. What point would there be to a fantasy if you don't think you're real?"

Aubrey and the alien were looking in our direction so we froze, going back to being dead. We closed our eyes and went limp. When I felt arms grab onto me, I had to resist the urge to twitch. I didn't want to be touched by anyone, especially now. However, curious as to what was going on, I let the yeuven carry me.

As soon as I realized they were taking me into the ship, I was again struck with the desire to twitch. I didn't really want to go in a spaceship, especially one that had come for Aubrey and her bioweapon. Despite that, I remained calm. It was better not to let anyone know I was alive just yet. Giving away that advantage would just result in my death or a loss of an opportunity to gain knowledge. Neither of those were worth making myself comfortable.