Addicted In Cold Blood (40 page)

“You brought this onto yourself,” Aton responded coolly.

“You aren’t the only one disappointed, Aton,” he fumed. He marched closer to him, causing the lights to blink and sound louder. “Trust me on that.”

Xzion fought the urge to attack Aton and it took all of his will power. He could taste the man’s blood already. It was the ancestors’ way, deep within him—eliminate the enemy, and Aton was no longer ‘friendly fire’. The dog tags, which symbolized his warrior ancestors, were tucked away, rubbing against his bare flesh under the constraining uniform. His breathing became sporadic and he looked around for his weaponry, falling into the temptation to blast the cold-hearted ruler away. Of course it was nowhere in sight...that would be foolish to let someone like Xzion be able to obtain arms. He was the fastest shooter, runner and gunner in their history. However, none of that mattered now.

The man he adored, practically worshiped, was ensuring, amongst other dire things, that he would never step foot on Earth again. He was ensuring, through this course of action, that he’d never finish his mission but more importantly, never see Jayme again—and he couldn’t have that. He rotated his shoulders and lowered his head in submission, playing along with the cards unfairly dealt.

No one will stand between her and me...

And now, he feared for her more. Even though he’d set her free, he was still close to her, in case she ever returned or needed him. Now, she was vulnerable.

He thought about making a run for it, but he’d already looked around the bright, circular white domed room, out the curved windows, and noticed that the two doors were manned by the armies...

The entire fucking army. Unfucking believable. He has the whole army here, in case I get any ideas. If I’m a monster, you’re Dr. Frankenstein. You made me, Aton.

Xzion smirked and put his white gloves on, the finishing touch to his ensemble.  He waited, and then, predictably, Aton snatched his arms and placed them behind his back as another officer raced to them and violently cuffed Xzion’s wrists and ankles. They led him out into the open arena for his court hearing chock full of peers, onlookers, stoic officers, impenetrable officials and Zarkstormians who had no sympathy for a fallen comrade or understanding as to what he wished to relay. Most likely, he would not make them understand everything that had transpired—but he’d sure as hell try.

*
***

Jayme smiled. Uncomfortable would have been an understatement to describe her sudden mood. She crossed her legs and rubbed her knee, peering at the man who just told her she’d been having some love-nest rendezvous with an extraterrestrial being.

Ain’t nobody got time for this shit...

“What are you talking about?” Jayme finally blurted. She was at her wits end with everything and she no longer cared about respecting her elders. He told her he would give her information, if she gave him some, and all he could offer was that she’d been ‘doing the bump’ with E.T. She was ready to ‘phone home’ and call it a motherfuckin’ night.

The old man is a nut! Shame on me for even thinking this guy could help.

“You heard me, this Xzion fellow is an alien!” He laughed, shot her another look and laughed again. “Forgive me, I’m not laughing at
you
. I mean no harm, it’s just that, well, I can’t believe it. You got closer than I ever did! I can’t believe you never suspected him!” His face reddened as he tried to stifle his amusement.

“Well,” Jayme sighed and slowly stood, “I don’t want to waste any more of your time, Mr.
Berlin.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head as she made her way toward the closed door.

“Oh, Claudia,” he called out. She could still hear the laughter in his tone, though he seemed to try and disguise it. Nevertheless, it made her want to grab and shake the shit out of him. “There is no need for you to hurry off. I know what you’re thinking, that my brain has been chewed away. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m sorry for being amused. Of course, you wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that he is not from our world. Who, in their right mind, would? I mean, you knew something wasn’t right, but to go there…to believe that he is an alien does seem like a leap to a commoner. That was insensitive of me, I’m sorry.”

She turned and looked at him, her hand on her hip. She was beyond ready to go, but she’d allow him to speak a bit more before she did what so many he said had done before—close the door on him while he was in mid-sentence.

“You see, I know all about this Xzion of yours.” He lay leisurely back onto his bed. His eyes looked warm and kind again, as if he had a beautiful secret that would set the whole world free. “Well, not him personally, he was after my time, but I know of his
kind
.” She could see his lower dentures as he held onto the last word of his sentence, emphasizing it, his voice like a melody.

“Let me guess.” He paused, looking briefly down at his lap. “He eats a lot of ice, right?” His eyebrow arched, and an all-knowing smile crept across his worn-with-time-and-worry face. He rose onto his elbows.

“His skin is chilled to the touch. Not terribly cold,” he cocked his head to the side, still holding tight to the warm grin, “but just enough, where, well, you notice.” He peeked at her, then returned back to his thoughts, as if he were reciting a poem.

“He’s violent, isn’t he? The type of violence that one reads about in other countries, not here, in the good ol’
USA!” he said sarcastically. “He is a warrior, Claudia. It is in his blood and his programming and he doesn’t get caught. Ever. Why? He is too cunning and fast...so damn fast! Like lightning! Can move ten paces before you’ve even had a chance to blink!”

Her response stuck in her throat—she was captive to his words, the words that she had been unable to articulate to anyone else, before now...

“He seems to hate the sunlight, like a damn vampire, but can walk in it fairly well, nevertheless. He has rather strange eating habits, too, correct?” He nodded at her, waiting for a reply that she wasn’t in an emotional position to give. “And besides all of that, he is quite intelligent....and the best trait? Well, I’ve saved that for last. He is dead in here.” The old man poked his chest with his right index finger, right over his heart, his facial expression sad. “Non- emotional, doesn’t care if the world stops spinning on its axis! Can watch a baby die in its mother’s arms and not blink an eye!”

He shook his head and crossed his arms over his shrunken white-t-shirt. His robe had fallen half way off his body from all of his theatrics. He quieted as he looked out the window. The reflection of the man in the glass looked serious, as if he were drifting off to some faraway, scary place.

Jayme found herself back in the orange chair, her heart full of confusion. Several moments passed before the man turned to her again and in a calm, fatherly tone, began to speak.

“Let me tell you about these aliens. You’ve had quite an ordeal, and it’s time you know the rest of the story.”

Jayme nodded in agreement as she braced herself. She’d come this far, she was getting what she needed. There was no need to run scared now; she had to face the truth of the circumstances, no matter how outlandish it sounded.

“These beings, they are called Zarkstormians,” he began. “The planet they are from is called Zarkstorm.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“Because I was there... I know these details, because as I told you, I spoke to their President, who is also in charge of their military, just like here in
America. His name was Ipie, and he was very open with me. I’m sure he is dead by now. He was ill when I arrived, actually. I was on the Kipler Mission. It was classified, no one knew about it beforehand. I and two other astronauts were on this special undertaking.

“The operation was primo...a once in a lifetime opportunity! I imagine you felt the same way when you were hired by the FBI. I was beyond elated,” he shook his head, “couldn’t believe my luck! I’d waited for an opportunity like this. I and my men found the damned place after months of searching. It’s about the size of Jupiter, but it looked just like Earth...just like it! There was a water source, vegetation, wild life. Not exactly like ours, but similar, nevertheless. We began walking around, and then we saw people. Could you imagine? Well, we thought they were people.” His eyes narrowed as he reminisced.

“They were dressed differently than us, in suits, like our astronaut suits, actually.  I remember being astounded, their faces like ours, all complexions from rich, dark brown to the lightest, palest person you could imagine. Before I could tell them that we had come in peace...” his eyes glazed, “these guys with guns, weapons like I’d never seen, raced toward us like raging horses! So fast, Claudia!” He shook his head and lowered it briefly, cradling himself as if he were right there, relieving the trauma all over again.

“They mowed my men down! Their blood was all over me. They shot all around me, but left me standing! My men were gone, just like that. It was my job to protect them... Charles and Otis, dead, all dead. What would I tell their families?”

A slow tear collected in his eye, then fell like fresh rain, catching in a wrinkled crease on his face.

“They apprehended me, took me back to their compound.” He sighed. “They asked me a bunch of questions that I didn’t understand. Their language wasn’t like ours, unlike anything I’d ever heard. I can’t compare it to German or Japanese, because it was like neither. Nor French, or Dutch—just strange, completely different, but I knew they were words, whole sentences. They were amped, I could tell from their tone of voice. Then, everything went black! I don’t know what happened. I could’ve been out of it for five minutes or five days, I have no idea.”

“Were you drugged?”

“I don’t believe so. I believe they incapacitated to me so they could control my mind. They don’t have the ability to
read
minds though, but they
can
control people, make us do what they need us to, Claudia. I suppose in that time frame they searched me and our craft, and came to some educated conclusions.” He shrugged.

“When I came to, one of them must’ve explained to the others that I didn’t understand. Then, I saw this man, with dark eyes and short silver hair. It looked just like platinum jewelry; I’d never seen hair like that before. He was their President, their commander and chief. He came into the room and told me who he was, introduced himself.” The old man picked at his cuticles nervously as he continued.

“You see, Claudia, I was sent there by NASA, but the FBI wanted me to go on this mission. I had no idea what was going on. I was only supposed to gather information, you know, make observations, and bring back some artifacts... I made some observations all right.” He rubbed his arms, as if he were cold.

“Before your time, in the 1960s, there were some murders of government officials from all over the world. No one knew who had done it, but they were grizzly. Each victim had a ‘XXX’ carved somewhere on their body, usually the face or neck, so it could be seen right away I suppose. Those records were sealed, but many of us, still remembered. At that time, we had no cocaine or crack, but we did have alcohol, uppers, downers, opiates and heroine. Heroine was real big...”

Jayme felt the color drain from her face. She caught her reflection in that window, the one he intermittently stared out of. She barely recognized herself. She wanted to beg him to stop talking, but she needed to know...this was no time to run scared.

“The Zarkstormians had been coming to Earth, to get our blood initially—that’s it, nothing more. This is what their President told me, out of his own mouth. I recalled the murders, so I knew exactly what he was talking about. They were peaceful at first, he explained. They didn’t need to kill us to extract it, or even hurt us, just needed our blood because it has properties in it that cools their brains. Our blood has nuclei that theirs don’t have, and those nuclei can attach to their receptors if they ingest our blood. It helps to cool their brains down, thus, avoiding death.”

She understood what the man was saying, she’d been to school and did quite well in biology and chemistry but she struggled to accept his assertions. He seemed to figure out her bewildered expression, and offered more.

“Claudia,” he sighed, opening his hands palm up as he searched for the right words. “Their brains are like computers...like high-tech gadgets that we haven’t even touched the surface of. They were originally warrior aliens, but over time, they evolved to be more cerebral. This caused them however to not be able to live in their environment as well as before. They started to die, the heat was killing their brains, frying them. They tried different environments, and the same issues would take place, not to mention, sometimes wars over land on other planets would arise. The President was candid with me. He told me all of this...told me I’d been set up by the FBI, because the FBI
knew
who they were and what they were doing.”

“They played you, just like they played
me
...” Jayme held her hand up and shook her head vigorously as the words left her mouth. She never imagined anything like this—this took her to the far corners of insanity and she prayed she wouldn’t stay there long.

“The FBI, CIA and our local government are the biggest damn drug dealers in the world, Claudia!” He slapped his leg, angry. “Can’t you see? A fart couldn’t pass through this damn country, unless they let it happen, let alone billions of kilos of cocaine! When these Zarkstormians came here to get blood, they needed to make the human host feel comfortable. That required mind control...well; you can’t control someone’s mind who is
already
controlled by another substance! They discovered we had a raging drug problem, as a world, so they had to get rid of the drugs, or at least get them better under control, before they could get the blood they needed, and send us as their hosts, on our way. They had no desire to disrupt our lives.