Separate Ways by Lucy Britt
Cade Foster ran a hand over his eyes in an effort to rub away the fatigue that threatened to engulf him. He had been running for so long that he couldn't remember what living a normal life felt like. Although truthfully his life hadn't felt right until Hannah, she had seen all the pain that he kept hidden inside and then taken it away. It had all been so easy when she was around and for the first time in his life he'd had somewhere he could call home.
The Gua had taken all that from him when they'd crushed the life from her body and pointed the finger of blame directly at him. He'd been running ever since.
His blue eyes misted over suddenly but Cade made no move to wipe away the tears. Had he looked up he would have seen Eddie, one of the truest friends he'd ever had, staring at him with concern in his intelligent eyes but he didn't. On the other side of the trailer Eddie Nambulous allowed a small sigh to escape his lips, he was worried about Foster. Ever since he'd picked him up in Belmont, West Virginia two weeks ago following the death of the boy that Cade had fought so hard to protect the man hadn't been the same.
Normally the two men would have been surfing the net, keeping an eye out for any reports that might indicate alien activity which Cade would then investigate but although Eddie had tried to keep his mind on the objective Cade had fallen into a kind of stupor. He hadn't spoken to Eddie for days and that hurt. He didn't mind if Foster wanted a break but when he wouldn't talk to him, Eddie, his best friend, that was disturbing.
"Foster." Absolutely nothing and Eddie scowled. "Hey Foster!"
Pain-filled blue eyes finally looked up and Eddie almost smiled. "Yeah Foster, it's me. Your friend remember? Eddie?"
"I know who you are Eddie." Foster's husky voice was filled with the same pain that flooded his eyes.
"Well I wasn't sure man you haven't spoken to me for so long." Eddie tried to keep his voice light but he couldn't hide all the hurt and Cade's eyes opened wide in surprise.
"I'm sorry Eddie, I've just been a little preoccupied lately."
"A little? Foster you haven't spoken to me for five days. Five days man!" Eddie gestured around the trailer. "And in a place this small five days is an absolute age."
"I'm sorry," Eddie relaxed a little Cade really did sound apologetic.
"You have had a hard time lately Foster but we can't give up." Eddie meant his words to be encouraging but Cade reacted as if he had been anything but encouraged his face flushed bright red and he rose to his feet in one smooth furious movement.
"We can't give up?" He snapped. "Whadya mean we? I'm the one who goes out there, one on one with the aliens," Cade clenched his fists and Eddie instinctively moved backwards, "puts myself in danger, goes all out to save humanity."
Indignantly Eddie shot to his feet. "All right Foster I know you're upset about what happened to Rory but that doesn't give you the right to belittle what I do, my part in all of this."
For one brief moment a look of regret flashed against Cade's face but then it was gone. "I'm tired of this Eddie, all the ducking and diving, struggling to work out what those damn quatrains mean. I want my life back."
"No can do Cade," the words were throwaway but the tone was so full of feeling that it brought tears to Cade's eyes. "The Gua destroyed your life," Eddie spoke more harshly than he meant to, "and the only way you can get it back is to destroy them."
"Even if I kill every last alien on the planet I'll never get Hannah back."
Eddie didn't respond, there was no way he could say anything to that. He looked at Cade and his heart melted, the man still wore the bruises that the cops had given him but at least they were finally starting to fade, his cracked ribs too were healing. Yes everything was mending but Cade's heart and there was absolutely nothing he could do about that.
"I'm gonna quit Eddie."
"What?" Eddie strode towards his friend and grabbed his shirt. "You can't quit, not now."
"Well that's where you're wrong. I can and I am." Cade's expression was defiant and Eddie realised that the best thing to do would be to say nothing and let the man calm down.
"Think about it," he urged gently, unable to help himself, "just promise me you'll think about it."
"I've made up my mind Eddie." Cade insisted in a low growl. "I'm throwing in the towel."
"Oh man! Foster don't do this. Don't throw away everything we've been working for."
"It's too late. I'm sorry but it's just too hard."
Eddie sank down into his computer chair and gazed morosely at the screen eventually however he realised that Cade was moving around the trailer and he turned.
"What are you doing?"
"Packing," was the terse reply.
"You leaving me Foster?" There was no reply and Eddie repeated his question, "are you leaving me?"
"I've got no reason to stay."
"Please Foster give this a little time. Don't just walk out on me."
"I'm sorry Eddie but I can't be here anymore." Without another word Cade Foster turned and left.
Eddie watched him go, there was absolutely nothing he could say or do to convince his friend to stay and that fact irritated the hell out of him.
"Well Nambulous," he remarked to the empty air around him, "looks like it's just you and me from now on." He steeled himself to turn back to his computer, he hadn't even started today's trawl of the country's newspapers and he still had half of yesterday's to look through as well. Eddie paused, the words on the screen in front of him seemed to swim before his eyes and with a muffled curse he switched it off. What was the point? What was the damn point without Foster around?
As I walked away from Eddie's trailer I couldn't help feeling a small pang of regret, this man had supported me, believed in me and I was just walking away.
Tears prickled at my eyes but I blinked them away. When the Gua killed my wife, my beloved Hannah they lit a fire inside my soul driving me to defeat them no matter what. I couldn't stop them from murdering Hannah but I had stopped their other experiments.
Then the Gua killed Rory, a boy I should have been able to protect all my efforts suddenly seemed to have been in vain, my emotions were beginning to spiral out of control and I wanted nothing more than to stop walking the road I had once taken by choice.
Well now I was making a new choice. I am just one man after all and there are thousands of Gua across the world. That's why I left, Eddie believed that we could convince everyone, that by dissecting each and every quatrain we could actually make a difference but I wasn't so sure, not any more. I doubted my ability to make a difference and self-doubt is a powerful enemy.
So I turned north although I had no intention of going back to Chicago, I was a wanted man and setting foot in that city would be the equal of walking up to a cop and holding out my wrists for the cuffs.
Was that a truck? Sunlight glinted off chrome and the roar of the engine filled my ears, I stuck out an arm in the universal attitude of hitchhikers everywhere although I didn't expect him to stop.
The truck ground to a halt and the driver leaned over and swung the passenger door open, "where to?"
"Where are you going?" He smiled at that.
"Get in kid."
Over fifty, maybe over sixty, the driver's face bore a world-weary look, the stubble on his cheeks was grey, a shade darker than his thinning hair and his slim figure seemed totally at odds with his profession.
I climbed aboard, noting as I did so the tidiness of the cab there was none of the usual debris one might expect from a trucker. Settling back I let my eyes fall closed hoping that I'd get away without having to answer too many questions.
"How long have you been walking for?" The highway slid like glass from beneath the wheels of the truck and I stifled an unwanted feeling of guilt for having left Eddie behind.
"It feels like miles." I responded gruffly and unwillingly.
"You look.. exhausted." That pause frightened me but I just nodded my reply. "Get some sleep," the driver advised and gratefully I did as he had suggested.
The next thing I knew I was being roughly shaken awake by the truck driver, his hazel eyes bored into me and was that a flicker of disgust on his face?
"Get out!"
"What?" Only half-awake I couldn't understand why the driver wanted me out of his truck.
"Get out now and I won't turn you over to the cops."
I blinked away my sleep but the look of confusion on my face prompted him to say more.
"You sleapt, you dreamt, you talked." His words were terse and brutally to the point and I coloured as I realised what he meant.
"Okay," one hand in the air I groped for the door handle and tossed my bag down into the darkness, how long had I been asleep and how much had I given away? These questions nagged at me.
"Where are we?" The last favour.
"Boston. Now get out." One eye caught the glint of metal and I realised there was a shotgun beneath his seat. The blood roaring in my ears I jumped down from the truck and slammed the door shut, two steps back and then I watched as the vehicle roared away into the night.
Boston. I didn't know the city well and it was then that I realised that I was completely and utterly alone.
Eddie's furious pacing was making the normally stable trailer shake. He was angry, fuming in fact although he couldn't decide whether he was madder at Cade for leaving or at himself for letting him go.
"Damn you Foster," he growled, "I can't do this alone." That thought brought the restless man to a standstill. "Eddie Nambulous, saviour of mankind?" He savoured the words for a few moments and then shook his head, he had never been cut out for a life of heroism, but what was he going to do? Did the fact that Cade had bailed on stopping this first wave thing mean he had to? He probably just needs some time to think, yeah Foster'll be back. In the meantime, he decided, I'd better just keep an eye on things, make sure the Gua don't get away with anything too major before Cade has a chance to get his head together.
With a sigh of near relief Eddie dropped none too gracefully into his computer chair and pulled on his headset, just in case Foster decided to call.
"You have mail," his computer announced blandly and Eddie rolled his eyes helplessly, computers shouldn't in his opinion talk.
"Well show me what it is," he punched a few keys and sighed in irritation. "This had better be important."
It was an anonymous email. "Doesn't anyone sign anything anymore?" Eddie groaned. "I'm going mad," he told the air around him, "I'll be talking to myself next."
The front page from a small New York state newspaper flashed up on his screen and Eddie cheered, finally he was getting somewhere.
The story was a report of a number of suicides that had been taking place in New York City over the last few months, it seemed that some bright spark of a journo had made a story out of what most newspaper hacks would have dismissed as a rash of lemming fever. The most interesting thing was that all the victims, if you could call them that, were rich and all had decided to take the plunge from the top of the Empire State Building.
Eddie scratched his head and swung his feet up onto the desk. This was interesting, okay so in any big city it's only natural to expect that a few citizens will choose to check out early but that there should be so many reports, so closely bunched together as these were, now that was virtually unheard of.
"The Gua have to be involved in this," Eddie remarked, feeling a faint twitch of anticipation in his stomach, "there's no other logical explanation and if the aliens are behind this then there must be a quatrain."
Eddie's quick fingers flew across the keyboard tapping in phrases and words pulled from the newspaper copy, he paused before hitting the enter key, suddenly wondering where Foster was and if he was safe.
The man shivered, it was dark outside now and he rose to secure the door and close the blinds, shutting out the night, shutting out the fear. Eddie stared at the computer screen feeling incredibly tired. It was obvious that the Gua were conducting another of their experiments even before the quatrain flashed up on screen but Foster was gone.
"It's me then," Eddie shrugged, he would move on tomorrow, go to New York and find out what was happening there. "The twice-blessed man seeks answers/ While the wealthy drink the cup of despair/ Apples are poison/ And the empire spells death."
Well the first line was self-explanatory after this afternoon's events, the reference to apples must mean New York. Eddie stretched until he heard his joints crack, drink despair.. he frowned perhaps there was something in the water, well it was as good a place as any to start.
I'd found my way into a bar, dimly-lit, anonymous. I wasn't sure how long I was going to stay in Boston, the amount of stuff the cops have on me has always kept me away from cities before. The only time I ventured back into Chicago on my wedding anniversary I had ended up in a police cell but, my hands clenched into fists, I had found out who was responsible for Hannah's death and I had had my revenge.
I shook my head, dispelling those thoughts, it didn't matter anymore. I couldn't remember how many Gua I'd killed since starting my quest but I didn't care.
A flash of blue caught my eye and I turned round. It was Hannah! Moments later reality reasserted itself and I realised that it wasn't her. It was the dark curls tumbling riotously down the woman's back that had made me think of Hannah. I took a closer look and saw that her eyes were green not brown, she was shorter than Hannah and her figure curvier, her blue dress showing it off to great effect. I wondered immediately what she was doing alone in this bar.
"Can I buy you a drink?" As a chat-up line it's among the worst but I swear I wasn't trying to pick her up.
She turned towards me, a sad smile flickering on her lips and nodded, at that moment she looked so young, so unsure of herself that I wondered if she wasn't perhaps a lot younger than my first estimate.
"A glass of white wine." I paid for her drink and a bottle of beer and suggested we find a table. She smiled her assent and I was careful to keep a respectful distance, I was afraid she might bolt and for some reason I couldn't bear the thought that I might never see her again.
"My name's Cade," I didn't want to hide my identity but she didn't need to know my surname.
"Mary." Her surname remained a mystery as well and I didn't ask, respecting her privacy as she had respected mine. It was so strange, sitting with someone without having to wonder if, how had Eddie put it, if there were tentacles under their skin. The thought of Eddie made me feel guilty but I shook it off, it had been my choice to hunt the Gua and it was equally as much my choice to stop. I was letting nobody down... nobody but myself a small voice whispered.
We must have stayed in that bar for hours drinking and talking. Mary and I seemed to connect on some deep level and even though I'd only just met her I found myself telling her things that I had only ever told Eddie.
Eddie stared up at the monstrous edifice that was the frontage of the New York city's waterworks. It was one of the oldest buildings in the city and the man couldn't understand why it hadn't been torn down years ago.
He smoothed down the front of his overalls and scowled at his reflection in a grimy piece of glass, he still couldn't quite believe what he was doing. He, Eddie Nambulous, all-round genius was about to try and get a job as a waterworks technician.
"The things I do for humanity."
He passed the interview with flying colours as he'd known he would and they asked him to start the next day, Eddie had agreed, now to check out the suicides story.
The tiny office of the New Yorker State which had run the story was in Manhatten and Eddie growled to himself as he fought his way through crowds of tourists on the subway.
"Can I help you sir?" A young man looked up from his computer as the door jangled open and Eddie stifled a grin, this really was a small newspaper, chances were the young man in front of him was on slaves wages and that despite his secluded position in reception he was the best journalist the paper had.
"Are you Robin Templer?"
The grin was cheeky. "Who's asking?"
"Did you write this?" Eddie waved the computer print-out and watched the man's face brighten as he recognised his story.
"Did you read it?"
Eddie smiled, the question answered his and he nodded. "I thought it was a well written piece."
The hack positively glowed, "who are you?"
"My name's Eddie, Paranoid Times. I want to talk to you about your story."
"Lunch?" Robin suggested, a lock of blonde hair falling across his left eye.
"Don't you have to check with someone before you leave?"
"Them?" The young man's voice was full of contempt and he grimaced. "They don't even notice me when I'm here." "Good. So maybe you can find the time to tell me why you think there have been so many suicides lately. There's nothing in your story as to the cause."
"Too subjective," Robin grinned, "if you can't get the mayor or the chief of Police to say it, it doesn't go in."
As Eddie led the way to a small deli he had noticed on his walk from the subway he couldn't help thinking of how like Foster the journalist was, he was younger but with the exact same spark that Cade had once had.
If he believes me, believes that aliens are here on Earth he could prove to be of great help, at least until Foster comes back. Eddie didn't allow himself to consider the fact that Foster might never come back.
"I want to help you Eddie," the young reporter trotted at his side looking for all the world like an eager puppy. "Good," Eddie nodded his approval, "because we're going to put this story on the front page of every newspaper in the country."
The first week at the waterworks proved to be nothing but frustrating. Eddie had been told to shadow one of the other technicians to learn about the job and he was too concerned about blowing his cover to ask too many questions. "He might as well have been told to shadow me," Eddie told a disheartened Robin at the end of the week.
"And this is where we process the drinking water for those fancy apartment blocks up town," Eddie was told the next week. Brown eyes narrowed, the majority of the suicide victims had lived up town.
"Do you put any special chemicals in?" He asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets and trying to make the question sound casual.
"Water softener, that's all. Here I'll show you." He led Eddie along a narrow gantry and up a ladder. In a tiny room that Eddie might well have overlooked were a row of canisters connected to rows of copper pipes, at first glance it all looked very innocent.
"Of course Danny looks after all this lot."
"Danny?"
"I'll introduce you."
Okay, Eddie reasoned as he followed the man back into the main plant area, so the Gua are putting something in the water, something that's making people turn into lemmings, but why only target upmarket apartment blocks? Maybe the Gua were trying to determine susceptibility, to see if it could invoke despair in people who were normally happy, successful, who everybody envied.
"Hey Danny, I've got someone here who wants to meet you."
A burly man with a large tattoo of a golden eagle on his right forearm looked up and Eddie gulped nervously.
"Hi," he started lamely, "I just wanted to say I think you're doing a great job." Please! How lame was that!
"Thanks." Danny finished wiping his hands on a dirty cloth and took a step forward. "Who are you?"
"Just started working here," Eddie replied gruffly, "wanted to make sure I know everyone."
The guy who had introduced him to Danny said, "you two are our newest recruits, you should get on."
Eddie smiled, yeah Danny was an alien, he had to be.
That night Eddie took an excited Robin into the plant. Together they collected samples of the so-called water softener and left, melting away into the night. They'd got away with it. However Eddie had failed to notice the tiny security camera that had recorded his every move.
I was falling in love only two weeks after meeting Mary. It felt good, safe like finally I had a chance at a normal life.
"We've got no milk," Mary called from the kitchen one night, a night I'll never forget, disturbing my thoughts.
"I'll go and get some," I leapt up, eager to help but she pushed me back into the chair with a smile.
"No I will."
So out she went into the night and she never came back.
I think it was two or three hours after she left that the cops showed up, they didn't seem to recognise me thank goodness, they looked embarrassed and there was a cynical glint in the eyes of the older officer that said he'd seen it all before to many times.
After they left I wandered around Maggie's small house looking at her photographs, flicking through her books and magazines. I was lost, too shocked to cry or feel any real emotion at all. Once again I'd fallen in love and once again I'd lost, it hurt, deep down it really hurt but I wasn't going to let myself think about that not right now.
I don't think I sleapt that night, just wandered around the house like some lost puppy. I really hadn't been here long enough, two weeks dammit, for it to feel like home and with Mary gone the feeling of being a stranger intensified. Twenty four hours later and I was still wandering around, unable to relax, I hadn't eaten, hadn't sleapt, hadn't thought.
Eventually however Mary's death began to sink in and I realised that yet again someone I really cared about had died, had been torn away from me by the cruel hand of fate, my parents, Hannah and now Mary, it was then that I started to cry and found that I couldn't stop.
I cried for hours, curled up in a ball on Mary's bed, I didn't hear the phone ring, knew it had because there were messages when I managed to get it together enough to go downstairs, I didn't listen to them, just erased them without thinking, they wouldn't have been for me anyway.
It was then that I realised that there was nothing left for me anymore, nothing but constant watchfulness in case the cops caught up with me. I can't remember exactly when I decided to kill myself, only knew that making that decision felt right and a great weight was lifted off my shoulders.
No more running, no more chasing the Gua, no more hate, no more fear, no more Eddie... And yet even once I had made up my mind, convinced myself that it was the right thing to do I found myself becoming overwhelmed with lethargy, a numbness seemed to spread through my body and I sank into a kind of torpor.
Some time after this I remember hearing the phone ring, I let it ring and the answerphone picked up.
"Cade?" Who could possibly know I was here? "Cade if you're there pick up." It was Simon, one of Eddie's disciples and the kid who had helped me get out of Belmont, I wasn't surprised that he'd tracked me down, he was almost as much of a genius as Eddie and certainly every bit as curious but I didn't want to talk to him.
"Cade!"
Unbidden my hand snatched up the receiver and I found myself speaking into it. "Simon?"
"Man it's good to hear your voice."
"What do you want?" I growled, sure he'd got my attention but I wasn't prepared to exchange pleasantries with him. "I need your help, Eddie needs your help."
"Eddie can look after himself. " I snarled. "Nobody needs me anymore."
"You've been through a tough time Foster." How the hell did he know? "But there are people out there that care about you, that you care about."
I wanted to deny his words, didn't want to take up the responsibility that acknowledging his statement would give me. "Eddie's fine."
"He's in trouble Foster. When you left he didn't give up on tracking the Gua and now he's in danger."
"He can handle it." I tried to convince myself.
"They wanted to set you up Cade, draw you out but now they've got Eddie and they'll kill him unless you help him. He needs you."
"Why don't you tell Eddie this, warn him?"
"Believe me I've tried, but I can't get in touch with him. He's gone to ground, at least as far as I'm concerned. Hell maybe this is too late, maybe the Gua have already killed him." Simon sounded dispirited. "Okay, look man I'm sorry I brought this up. Forget everything I've said."
Not knowing whether or not I should be angry I asked, "where is he?"
"Last time I heard from him he was headed for New York City, something about a newspaper article."
"How do you know he's in trouble?"
"Before he left he emailed me, told me where he was going and that he'd keep in touch. I've not heard anything since."
"All right," I capitulated, glad that something had happened to distract me from my self-pitying depression? I'm not sure, but I couldn't just hang Eddie out to dry could I?
Simon told me everything he knew and within half an hour I was closing the door of Mary's house behind me for the last time and heading for the bus station. Eddie - he needed me and suddenly through my haze of self-pity I realised that I still had him, I still needed him and I had to save him.
Eddie bent low over the box he was carrying, shielding it with his body concerned that some of his fellow workers might take it into their heads to relieve him of his burden. He dropped it finally at the end of the corridor and swung a door open, now to get those canisters out.
"Robin!" He hissed, "Come on."
The young journalist was wearing overalls and clutching a spanner in his left hand, he'd never had a chance to do any proper investigative journalism before and it showed, Eddie thought, but he's keen and that's the main thing.
Eddie had no idea that he was being watched, that Danny, one of the Gua's most dangerous acolytes was watching him, waiting for the right opportunity to strike.
Eddie's plan was simple, disconnect the chemicals being introduced into the water and then take them to the nearest lab for analysis, once the chemical proof was in front of him Robin could write what would prove to be the biggest story of his life.
"It's dark in here," Robin complained.
"Put your hand on my shoulder," Eddie advised him, "we'll be in and out of here in half an hour."
"So why can't we put the lights on?"
The man sighed, lifted his box and started to lead the way back down the passage. Thankfully it was the night shift and so alert workers were rather thin on the ground.
"Careful," the man cautioned his young companion as they started to inch their way up a ladder and along the rather narrow gantry that led to the water purification room.
The door swung closed behind them and Eddie breathed a sigh of relief, they'd made it now all they had to do was... hang on where were the canisters?
"It didn't look like this before," Robin's voice trembled and he glanced at Eddie. "What's going on?"
"I should be asking that question," Danny emerged from the shadows and approached the men, a half-smile playing around his mouth. "You really have been very careless. Foster would never have made the mistakes you have."
"What do you know about Foster?" Eddie demanded, trying to brazen it out.
"Enough to know you'll never see him again."
Eddie went white as he tried to absorb the implications of those words and so he didn't see Danny reaching out towards Robin until it was too late.
"I'm going to show you what happens to anyone who interferes with our plans." One hand on the boy's neck Danny slowly but surely crushed the life from his body, letting it drop as though he were worthless, a useless piece of garbage.
"Why?"
"I would have thought that was obvious." Danny gloated. "You know I think I might not kill you after all, framing you for the boy's murder would be so much more satisfying."
Eddie shook his head and Danny took a step forward, "yeah I think I'll do that."
At that moment Foster struck, swinging the length of pipe as hard as he could, knocking the alien off his feet and then whacking him again as hard as he could, killing the Gua outright so that his body convulsed and then vanished.
"Are you all right?" Eddie nodded gratefully and Foster looked down at Robin. "I'm sorry I couldn't have get here sooner."
"You did your best," Eddie told him, putting a hand on his shoulder, "no one could have asked for any more." Then he frowned, "are you back Foster?"
"Yeah," Cade Foster smiled, "I'm not gonna give up, not again. I could have saved that boy's life if I'd been here sooner and there are other people whose lives I can still save."
"You mustn't beat yourself up about it, Robin knew the risks, I didn't hide the danger from him."
"Why not? I was selfish Eddie, just thinking about myself."
"What changed your mind?" Eddie asked as the two men left the room.
"You did. When Simon told me you were in trouble it made me realise that I'm not alone in this, everything I go through you go through. We're a team, partners, in this till the bitter end."
The night air was chill after the warmth of the waterworks but at least no one had seen them leave meaning that Eddie and Cade could now melt away into the night with no one the wiser. Both still had their share of demons but both men knew that together they could make it, together they could stop the first wave.
The end