Brick sighed. This all seemed too much for him.
Why me? Out of all the scientists, why pick me to work on this?
"I don't understand how we can discover anything without an autopsy," he said at last.
Dr. Jameson shot him a cold look. It was a well known fact that any Animal Specialist, let alone the head of the department was against animal, or in this case, alien cruelty, "Why? Obviously she's not stupid, or else she wouldn't have been able to arrive here. Do you think she intends to harm Earth? Why only send one, then? Or if she is not alone, why has it been two months and there has been no one attempting to bring her back?" his tone was a lot harsher than Brick would have expected the blonde, blue eyed man to be.
"Look Jameson, I'm just trying to do this job the best I can,"
"You just started and you're already talking about giving up," he spat. He took a moment, as if to calm himself, before he began to speak again, "Look. Animals…they're like little kids. You need to give them respect, and talk to them kindly if you want them to cooperate. And if they get out of hand, if they're stubborn, you need to be stern but not cruel. That's where they've been all wrong. They've been treating her like she's some sort of monster, like she's some sort of idiot. That's why she's not responding,"
After a while, Brick sighed exasperatedly, "Fine. If…if you really think that, then its not going to be happy about waking up attached to a cold operating table," against his better judgement, Brick released the restraints. Immediately, X's body seemed to visibly relax. Brick pulled out his yellow pad and began to make notes about its breathing patterns, and how every so often its right thumb would twitch.
Around noon, Boomer had left the room to take his first lunch break, and Brick was left alone with Subject X.
When it first woke up, he was faced towards the microscope on the far end of the room, observing its blood cells. It hadn't made a sound when it had woken, so Brick nearly shouted at the sight of it sitting up on the operating table.
It paid him no attention as he carefully walked over; as though it was a gazelle and he was a lion hunting its prey. Even standing right in front of it, it did not respond to him, and Brick seriously began to doubt it had any intelligence at all. Its eyes were cast down, as though it was focused on his feet and not on his face. Eventually, its eyes slowly moved up to meet his chocolate brown, tired eyes.
His breath caught in his throat. He had read reports and seen pictures, all attempting to describe just what shade of pink its eyes were. None of them had described its eyes correctly. None had spoken about the intensity; the awe behind them. It seemed to look at him with a child like wonder.
He blinked, once, twice, to try and get his head thinking straight. He soon remembered what Boomer had told him, and so he took a shot in the dark, "Uh…hello," he said, feeling awkward.
It stared at him; the look it gave him reminded Brick of a confused dog tilting his head. After a few minutes of silence, Brick was ready to leave, cursing Boomer for his stupid ideas.
"Hello," it responded. Its voice was velvety smooth and womanly—at that moment he had no doubt she was a female—Brick was aghast. How it had learned their language, how it was able to understand him was not within the walls of his knowledge.
"You can speak?" he asked, hoping it would be able to answer. It merely smiled at him. If it was capable of speech more than that, it wasn't ready to let him know. When Dr. Jameson returned, Brick couldn't help but look smug at the fact that he had discovered something that Dr. Jameson had not.
"You're kidding," he said, placing down his mug of coffee and wiping his hands on his lab coat, his eyes on Subject X the entire time.
"Do I strike you as the type who kids, Jameson?"
Boomer narrowed his eyes, "No, you strike me as an asshole,"
Brick decided to let that comment slide, mostly because he admired Jameson' gall.
Boomer loomed over Brick's shoulder as he walked up to Subject X again, who continued to look at him as though it was seeing him for the first time, "Hello," he said again.
It smiled at him, obviously enjoying the fact that he spoke to it as though they were old friends, "Hello," it replied, sounding excited.
"Holy shit," Boomer said, taking a few steps back and running his hands through his hair, breaking the stiff appearance the gel he wore gave it, "We have to get Black," he said, after a while.
Subject X seemed to sense the tension in the room, as the sparkle in its eyes faded quickly. Noticing this, Brick realized that much about Subject X seemed to remind him of a child, of course in no way negatively. At the mention of Ms. Black, X took on the appearance of a young child about to be scolded. It was subtle, as though it allowed itself to have emotional reactions when it believed nobody was looking.
He felt insane for giving what initially seemed like a simplistic creature so much credit, and deducted that he was simply imagining these things, since he was so desperate to discover something about the alien. Besides, it wasn't as if the scientists who had been studying it for a little over three months would not have attempted to observe it without its knowledge.
When Ms. Black appeared, Brick felt a trickle of doubt ripple throughout his body when asked to repeat what had just happened. He suddenly wasn't sure if X would perform the same way it had for Boomer and himself, and then Black would reprimand him for wasting her time.
Unlike many of the other employees of his—and lower—stature at Hines Management, Brick did not have an opinion over Ms. Black. He knew it was arrogant of him to think so, but he was well aware that the only reason Ms. Black was his boss and not the other way around, was because of his specific requests against a management position.
After he first graduated from university, he had been immediately hired at a pharmaceutical company as a supervisor…it did not end well.
Furthermore, while he hated the thought of losing his job, he knew there was a slim chance she would fire him unless he deliberately disobeyed her orders. And again, Brick would never in a million years disobey corporate demands. He wasn't in the slightest intimated by the stoic woman known as Ms. Black, which others often presumed depicted the colour of her soul and heart.
Brick's anxiety exploded, and he insisted to be the one to coax X to speak again, in fear that it would not do so for Ms. Black. When he leaned down to be at its eye-level, he couldn't help but notice that it looked at him as though he had betrayed it in the coldest way. He tried to plead with it through his own eyes, but instantly felt stupid.
"Hello," he managed, after Ms. Black told him to speed it along.
The minute in which she took to respond felt like the longest minute in Brick's life. He could feel Ms. Black's cold eyes on the back of his neck, "Hello," she responded, not quite as excited as the first two times. He sighed a breath of relief, and turned to face Ms. Black, only to see that the look on her face did nothing to continue to calm him.
She was smiling, but it was a scary, thin-lipped smile. Her eyes glistened with malice, "Excellent job, gentlemen. You can take the rest of the day off,"
Boomer's face and body was stiff, as he muttered a 'thanks', and walked off briskly. His behaviour was strange, but Brick did not think too much of it. He stood in the room a little while longer, until Ms. Black finished her phone call, describing what just happened.
"Yes, of course we'll start phase two immediately," she said, irritated, "I expect them to be here in less than ten minutes," she hung up, and rubbed her hands in anticipation. Once noticing that Brick was still in the room, she dropped her hands and moved her cool gaze off of X and onto Brick.
"Did I not say you could have the rest of the day off?" she said, no emotion at all.
"It's one o'clock. I normally work until seven pm," he stated, not wanting to leave for fear of ruining his daily schedule even more.
"Well then you are very welcome. Didn't your mother teach you not to take your gifts for granted?" Her words seemed childish, but there was a great deal of venom beneath them.
"My mother died before she could," he shot back.
She offered no sympathetic response, "If you're going to stay, you might as well make yourself useful and sedate it,"
He sighed, silently grateful at being allowed to stay home. It was bad enough that he no longer worked in his division, but to have different hours would be unbearably difficult to get used to. He walked over to the counter that held all the sedating medicine, and filled up a syringe to the brim as he had been instructed.
Just before injecting Subject X, to Ms. Black's surprise did not resist Brick's attempts, he looked it in the eyes one last time. They seemed to beg him not to; as though it knew its fate once it woke, even though Brick did not. The look remained once he injected it, and it gave him a strange feeling as he watched it struggle to stay awake before it could no longer fight it and fell back down on the operating table.
Author's Note: Please let me know if you think my characters are acting a bit to childishly for a character in their late twenties. This age frame is out of my comfort zone, but without trying new things you can't ever grow. Please review! Means a lot.
Dear "awful",
I am deeply sorry that my story did not meet your standards. I was crushed to discover that the sole person I wrote this for (you) did not like my first chapter. As well, I am sorry that my interpretation of Brick was not hardcore enough for you, and if you wish to continue reading, I can assure you that I will do my best to make him as you described. To prove my promise, I have attached an excerpt of the revised first chapter:
Brick Johnson lived a hardcore lief, because he was hard core. every day was differnt and unpredfictable because brick was a criminal. he didnt have a job because he was a bada** and things. one day he was walking to work, jsut kdding he doesnt really work, and he punched a turtle in the face just because he could then he started to fly because he could and he met blossom and they kissed and then he had to fight a dinosaur and he resuced blossom and then they kissed again and brick and blossom satrted to date but he still punched turtles in the face.
'brick stop punching turltes in the face' blsoom said
'no brick said
I hope that is better. I did my best to match your impeccable writing abilities, as shown in your comment. In regards to your last critique, I am afraid I must correct you. My cat reads my every chapter before I upload it on this website, and she said that she liked it, so I suppose I will have to fire her and search for a replacement. Thank you for your comment.
SweetHeartCandy - I'm so sorry! I really wanted to try something completely alternate, but I am glad you support it anyway!
Summer Jonium- Don't worry about it! Thanks so much!
MindlessChey- *fills plate*
amythist7- Thank you! Really glad you like it.
dickory5 - Woo! That's the kind of stuff I like to hear. I'm glad you do!