It was late night, the clock on the wall of Tom’s office struck once. He had been reading reports on the explosion at the reconditioning facility and organizing the investigation for the last eighteen hours. He even had to visit the place himself a couple of times. After he was done with the reports, he would need to check the new laws being pushed by the government and their integrity in the grand scheme of things. It was a long time since he had been so busy.
Claire was on the search for the person who appeared to Daemien Verau as the Voice, digging into Verau’s past and questioning his colleagues. He was not contacted by Glen since he was hospitalized. He brought in some scum from time to time, but Tom had no clue what that wild man was doing with his free time. Tom had tried calling him a few times but Glen’s comms were turned off.
An emergency notice showed up on Tom’s screen. There was an incoming call.
“Hi." A window with an old wrinkled face appeared in front of him. Tome recognized that it was an elderly bio engineer who managed the largest greenhouse on the first sky circle.
Tom calmly replied, “Hi. This channel is reserved for extreme emergencies. Do you know you will be penalized if the problem is not worth my time?” “Yes, I do. I can guarantee this problem truly needs your attention and I hope you can handle it as soon as possible.”
The camera turned and Tom saw a gun pointed at engineer’s head. An unpleasant-looking man was holding it; the top of his head was bald, the face pale, covered in disgusting red wounds. The disease, Tom reckoned, occurred for workers at the greenhouses who did not use safety equipment when handling toxic fertilizers.
The man spoke thinly. “Please, I just want to talk. Come, I am giving out my coordinates. And be alone, we don’t need any additional casualties.”
Tom felt no threat coming from baldy. Could he be telling the truth?
He had been using the cab for the last few days and this night was no exception.
During the short travel time he checked the identity of the man with a gun. His name was Dino May; his criminal record included killing of three people. Written in additional information was the following: “Rendered incapable of violence, muscles adapted for physical work, facial features changed.”
As the cab was flying up, Tom adored how small everything on the ground level was. Tonight the city was silent, only a few glimmers of light were shining. He tried to relax and enjoy the view but to his disappointment it was soon lost. He flew over the dark greenery and landed in a flower garden in front of a massive glass building. The building was much greater than any structure from down below. It was difficult to grasp the size of it at night. Tom looked up and saw tens of floors climbing up into the sky.
The greenhouses were on the circles up in the sky because they needed to be closer to the artificial sun to sustain higher temperatures. The circle he visited today provided the city with crops and animal meat. The smaller circle above was where fruits and vegetables were grown.
He stepped into the massive building and found himself in a large hall surrounded by three thugs. It was dark too see, but Tom noted that the one on the left was a cripple, the one on the right was well-built - a muscle, and the one in front of him was Dino. Dino looked more dead than alive.
Eight massive columns in the hall formed a square. The old bio engineer was sitting in the middle of the square with the baldy pointing his gun at him. The guy from Tom’s right came closer, picked up a chair and placed it in front of Tom. He then, took a couple of steps back.
Dino came behind the hostage and pushed the trigger of his laser gun. It clicked. The eyes of the engineer froze for a second.
“You are free to go, just keep your mouth shut. I know where you live.” The old man awkwardly fell to the ground, stood up and ran away. Dino followed the engineer with an intimidating stare for a few silent seconds and took the free seat.
“Mr. Landau. Please.” He pointed his gun at the chair near Tom. The criminal looked shocking in person - his rotten face and bloody eyes must have given chills to anyone who met him. He looked like he could collapse at any moment.
Landau spoke slowly and clearly, “Thanks. First I want to say that your actions, especially endangering the lives of important personnel, including me, will get you one of the greatest penalties.” He then sat down.
“Tom, you are better than this. Threatening a dying man is not your style. I just wanted to meet you. I believe you have been searching for me too.”
“Depends on who you are.”
“Oh, I know, you will be happy meeting me... I am the enemy of this ship. The one you were searching for the last week and failed to find.”
“I see…” Tom was tricked and this man was not the first person to trick him this week. He felt a bit annoyed. Was he really that bad at evaluating people? “What should I call you?”
“I have no name. But you can call me The Outsider. I feel like one.”
“I understand.”
“What? What can you possibly understand?”
“You.”
“Hahahahaha… You can’t possibly believe it…you…hahaha...” The frightening laugh echoed through the hall. Dino managed to get himself together only by clenching the teeth. “I am sorry. Sometimes I get carried away by the emotions. That could be the problem with my actions. You must have noticed… I get carried away by things, make small mistakes.”
“It’s ok.“
“So, tell me. What do you understand?”
“I understand that you want to stop us, don’t you?”
“Partially, yes, but I haven’t decided yet. Deep inside I truly think that I would do this universe a great deal of good by making you all disappear.”
“Why so hostile?”
“Look who’s talking.” A wide grin appeared in baldy’s face. “You’re the perfect example of a human. Nice and pretty on the outside, but a savage animal deep inside. “
“I am not savage. I just have this difficult job.”
“Well we both are similar; my job is to bring justice as well. Only, I leave fewer bodies in my path.”
“Why do you say that the things you are doing on this ship are just?”
“They are. Tom, please understand the difference between us - at least I know what I’m doing. What about you? Do you even know where you’re going? You’re a blind fanatic."
“So help and tell me.”
“You will have to find it yourself.”
“You are hostile, just as I said.”
“No, my morality is too great to let you go the easy way.”
“Morality is a relative word.”
“Tom, we are getting nowhere with this conversation. How about we trade our secrets? What would you say about it?”
“Sure.”
“You go first.”
Tom paused, he was not prepared. He could ask whatever he wanted and there was something mysterious about the man in front of him. It was time to take off the curtain. “Tell me. Where are you now?”
“I am outside, hence the nickname, duh. You can ask anything you want, yet you ask such a stupid question.” The baldy looked amused. “Now, it’s my turn. How did you survive this long? I mean, I read files about you. You were attacked at least three times by a mob of thugs and yet, here you are, unscratched. How do you do it? How did you get those idiots when they came at you? That lovely procedure of yours made the three poor scrubs in here forget everything. I can’t see a thing about you in their empty heads. I just want to know what I’m up against.”
“Oh, that secret, I think the scientific term for it is - the metabolic boost.”
“You can’t imagine how hard I want to see it.”
“I’m sure you will and I will show you something more. Call it a sign of good faith.” Landau thought of his next question. “Now answer to me. Are you human?”
“No.” The Outsider saw no surprise on Tom’s face. “Tom, is there a way to kill you?”
“Yes, but you would need to be a real try hard.”
Landau was about to ask his next question but he was interrupted.
“Stop. That's enough!”
“Why? It’s my turn. We were just getting started.”
“I have no more questions for you. Well…I do have some, but I am sure you are not giving me the answers. So, please, could you stop with yours?”
“Try me”
“I want the location of Ermac’s base but, as I said, we both know you are not giving it out...”
“A sad truth—“ that this conversation is about to end, Tom thought, he truly enjoyed it.
The corpse stood up from the chair. “We will see each other again.”
Tom nodded
“Now, show me.”
The baldy took his laser gun, pointed it at Tom and pushed the trigger. A beam of light pierced Landau’s heart. The hole healed in a blink of an eye.
The thugs behind him launched a few shots. The same thing happened when they hit his legs or head, the recovery was instant. Landau had a feeling in his gut, that the trio was controlled by a single mind, he wanted to check the theory and play a little. He ran and hid behind one of the massive pillars.
The cripple and the brute took positions behind the pillar, pointing their guns in such a way that their lines of fire formed an “X”, its center in front of Tom. Landau needed to cross one of the lines if he was to escape. The baldy ran out in clockwise direction from the left with the laser gun on the rapid fire. Tom turned to the right and instantly; a barrage of shots flew in front of his eyes. He heard the steps of the cripple following baldy’s path, the brute mirrored the path of the other two and ran in counter-clockwise direction.
Those three random people acted as a strike team without using any words or signs. Tom had seen enough.
He had evaluated the situation long before the gunfire started. He knew it was a necessity to kill these people. If he spared them, they would continue to live as the Outsider’s puppets. Second reason was that the situation would get worse if information about the alien went public, better reduce the chance to a minimum.
It was time to end this. He could have used other methods, but he needed to keep his end of the bargain.
The baldy and cripple were running in circle and unloading their firearms, their fingers constantly on the triggers. The radius between Tom and attackers was about twenty meters. It took a blink of an eye for Landau to appear in front of the baldy, his hand was already stuck inside the throat of the poor guy. The cripple stopped running, but didn’t stop firing. After a second he was on the ground, sliding backwards, the wind knocked out of him. Tom appeared in the exact place where cripple stood before the blow. He slowly walked towards the brute, taking all the bullets. The brute said, “Amazing.” before being hit in the temple and falling to the ground. None of the attackers were breathing.
Now Landau knew the face of his enemy. Each of the attackers underwent the reconditioning procedure at least once. It was now a fact - The Outsider could ‘posses’ those who were mentally damaged.
Tom was puzzled. How could he catch something he couldn’t touch? The entity had finally shown itself, it that meant it was prepared to act. Tom needed to be alert. First thing when he got back to the office was to direct all notifications of security breaches at the perimeter of the city to his comms device.
He remembered an unlikely person who could help him. Perhaps Cyrus was not so useless after all. Back at the bio labs he had mentioned something about the “Dimension X”. Tom needed to understand more about what he was up against, the investigation of explosion could wait. He went back to the cab and ordered a new destination:
“Home of Julian Shaw.”