Chapter One: 2009
"For the love of God Sec. Are you deliberately trying to get shot down by the FBI or are you just trying to piss me off?"
I was standing in the corner, and even though those words were not directed to me, I felt myself wince.
The abhorrent slimy creature that was sat in the centre of the room did not.
He blinked his single blue eye, as if bored by the ranting.
But the ranting did not stop.
"Five times." Denise bawled at the hybrid. "Five times, you were caught on security camera, and twenty nine civilians reported seeing a UFO from the Brooklyn Bridge! Are you utterly insane?" She has been pacing back and forth, and Sec and I have watched her, like spectators at a tennis match. I am relieved when she sits down heavily behind her desk.
"We already have the FBI asking us questions, and before we know it U.N.I.T is going to be breathing down our necks again. They don't think we can be trusted. You are one of the most dangerous life form on this planet. You do know that if they think we've been letting you skulk around the city like a stray cat, they'll take you away and lock you some place where you'll never see the sunlight again. So why, just why, are you doing this to us Sec?"
Honestly, I wanted to know the same thing. Sec, the humanoid creature to whom Denise was directing her anger, was given almost limitless amounts of freedom and it was in my best interests that he was.
I was paid for him to be free.
Free, but not independent.
Bathed in the unnatural light of the office, it was impossible to tell what time of day it was. It had a chilling effect, which juxtaposed the unseasonable heat of the world on the surface. I disliked Denise's taste in décor. The white tiles on the floor, the concrete panels that made up the walls, the chrome of the desk and grey-trim of the furniture was cold, uncomfortably modern. The worst part was that an increasingly large amount of my time was being spent inside that room. Sec was getting himself into a lot of trouble. It was almost on a daily basis, and for some bizarre reason, the woman who now stood behind the sweeping, stainless steel desk thought it necessary that I should also be present for every lecture. Who did she take me for? The mother of this monstrosity? I had certainly hoped not. If so, it would have raised a lot of unwelcome questions.
Leaning against the smooth grey wall, arms folded across my chest, I noticed how out of place the hybrid looked in the room. The vivid, fleshy pink of his skin stood out from the grey of the interior. He was like a cadaver, stripped of its hide and laid bare to be examined in a chilly morgue. Which was probably the least accurate description I could have given of him.
In appearance, he was the unholy off-spring of a human and a mollusc. Or more accurately, he looked as if the mollusc in question had flayed the man, and stretched its own clinging hide over bone and muscle, mutilating the body further in the process. The skin was a mottled brown, and warped, as if it had been burned. The skull, for some obscene reason, barely existed at all and instead served only to cage in the fleshy whorls of his brain. Curling like mandibles from the sides of its head were long worm-like tentacles, which were never still. The single eye was positioned in the centre of its face, and now watched the figure behind the desk, narrowing, as it lifted a nail-less hand to its mouth.
"Why?" Denise repeated.
For a moment, the creature remained still, and then he raised his shoulders and shrugged.
"I doubt I caused any actual harm." It told her innocently. "I thought that if I explored the city by night, I could go unnoticed."
"At night." Denise snorted. "But you weren't out at night, were you? Those onlookers saw you at sunrise, that's daybreak. And you were flying. What did I tell you about the flying?"
"Elevating." The hybrid interjected, yawning. "The technical term for a Dalek flying is Elevating."
"Elevating, flying, paragliding; I don't give a shit what you call it. I'm amazed the military hasn't been called." Denise was now massaging her temples. This caused strands of her greying ash-blonde hair to come loose from her usually meticulous pony-tail. "Where do you think you are? Anywhere else, almost anywhere else in the world, this could be tolerated. But this is New York. Nothing flies over New York. If they do shoot you down, you know what, I'm beyond caring. You'd fucking well deserve it."
I managed to catch the hybrid's eye, he returned my gaze with a mild look of awe. Denise, usually so impassive, rarely cursed. She was really mad this time. Her argument was very plausible however.
Denise sank heavily into her leather office chair, which creaked loudly a she did so.
"I don't know what to do with you. I really don't."
The hybrid and I made no reply. I had not been in a situation like this since high school. I knew what it meant, when a teacher said "I don't know what to do with you". It meant they were giving up. It was a phrase carefully designed to make the hearer feel shame, seeing the weariness of the speaker.
In the cleanliness of the office, which was so square, had such a low ceiling, Denise Ullswater herself was beginning not to suit it. This was a woman who had won a Nobel Prize in the nineties for engineering, who was a pioneer in all sciences, and would stop at nothing to get the desired result. At the present she was the head of a top secret underground science facility, with armed guards positioned at the entrances.
This woman now had bags under her eyes. The agelessness that had made me doubt her humanity when I had first met her seemed to have gone. She had always been a large woman, but she had put on even more weight. Her steely grey eyes no longer looked steely, just tired. Her general aura of ice had thawed somewhat. If I had liked her, I would have been worried.
I did not like her, but at least I believed her.
At long last, I cleared my throat.
"So…I take it that tonight is off then?" I asked.
Sec straightened up, and for the first time, he seemed anxious.
Denise looked round, obviously having forgotten that I was in the room.
"What about tonight?"
"It's Thursday." Sec reminded her. He spoke as he always spoke in a strangely strained voice, dry and throaty, placing the intonation on the wrong syllables. It was like the voice of a man who had lived many years and had always known how to speak English, but had only just tried to actually talk. "Thursday is Sober Night."
Sober Night was a buzzword that we had come up with together. It barely suited what we actually did.
The chair creaked as Denise placed her ringed hands on the arms of her chair, moving as if stiff.
"Well, clearly I don't think Mister Sec deserves a Sober Night. He's had enough nights out as it is, just without my permission." She then added, "Perhaps you should become full time Eliza, then maybe he'd behave."
I thought back to the lonely darkness of night-shifts in my last job. I could handle it. Looking at the hybrid, who had now crossed one leg over the other, I gave him a small wink.
"I seriously doubt that anything I do will change any of that."
"May I remind you that we had a deal, Denise?" The hybrid cut in. "I work for you. You take my knowledge of technology, which is far more advanced than current human capabilities, and you use it for your experiments. You keep me here, underground, hidden from the world above, keep tabs on me, keep me contained. You examine me, you ask me questions about what I am, where I come from." He paused, and let out a cough that could have been a bitter laugh. His words brought a heavy feeling to my stomach. "You even want intelligence about my race. My long dead race. Possibly the most deadly force ever to exist. And given who I am, I do not want to part with that easily."
Denise listened, unsmiling, her arms folded on her desk, creating a barrier between herself and the creature that watched her from the other side of the room. All at once, his presence seemed to fill the room. Every harsh angle, every irregularity of his form, were suddenly emphasised. He had become so familiar to me, his silhouette, even his acrid scent despite the fact that I saw him like this less and less. But all at once, he appeared to be the alien he truly was. He had always looked repulsive, but rarely did he disgust me.
"So in return, you give me my freedom. You give me a degree of independence. You already provide me with a space to live in, away from the laboratories. I appreciate that, I hope you know that. But I still need to be free."
His nail-less hands were now linked under his knee. There was something uncannily human about the mannerism. "I know I break your boundaries, but I am not unreasonable, no?" He went on airily. "You cannot take my freedom away from me. That would be breaking our agreement, I think. If you do I may not be so…" The creature paused and looked straight into the woman's face.
"…compliant."
If Denise was intimidated, she did not show it. I was. Something cold, which I knew was nothing to do with the air conditioning, swept over me. It was a coldness of remembering things how they had been, how they could have been, and all at once my limbs felt like lead. Suddenly, I was afraid of that creature sitting on the clear plastic chair in the centre of the room. And when that creature was the one person whom you felt you could confide in, it was a very ugly sensation.
But now, it was Denise who leaned forward.
"Oh, you know that you cannot threaten me Sec. Yes, we do provide for you, and I am glad you recognise that." She answered coldly. "But we do it for a reason. And that reason is to stop you killing."
Silence.
What Denise had just said had visibly stung Sec. The air in that room, deep underground felt as if it had frozen, fossilised, and that the scene in front of me, of the human and the mutant glaring at each other would last until the end of time.
Suddenly, I found myself laughing.
"God, look at you both," I had felt invisible for two long. "What's wrong with you? Anybody would have thought you were debating the start of nuclear warfare! I think you need to get over yourselves. Both of you."
Sec and Denise had torn their eyes away from each other, like a pair of dogs who had been startled before a fight could begin. Sec blinked, and almost looked embarrassed. Denise, however, seemed to puff up with indignation.
"You have no authority to speak to me like that!" She snapped, and I saw her face flush red.
"I don't see why not." I answered coolly. "If he gets angry and tears your throat out, then I don't get paid."
"You know, there are a lot of people qualified to do your job Miss Birchwood."
I did not back down. She knew why she could not replace me.
"Actually, I believe I could be the only person qualified to take this job, Ms. Ullswater." I reminded her.
The hybrid looked from me to Denise as her lips tightened, turning into a thin white line on her face. He eyes seemed to bulge a little with fury. But then, she breathed out and the colour returned to her face.
"Your…your experience and unique…position does make you suitable for the placement, I will admit that." She told me reluctantly. "But may I ask you to hold your tongue in future. Sometimes I worry that you could be part of the threat. We do not pay you to take sides, Miss Birchwood." Her grey eyes seemed to bore into my head, as she added: "Especially not the wrong side."
The feeling of disgust crept back, as I nodded slowly, trying not to break eye contact.
Seemingly satisfied, Denise looked forward again, appearing to have made some sort of resolution.
"I have decided that you may both have your so-called Sober Night, if that is what you wish." She announced.
Sec and I looked at each other, with a looks of mingled relief and triumph. But Denise drew back our attention, holding up a hand.
"I want you to remember though, any more CCTV footage, any UFO reports, and I am going to have to take away privileges."
She nodded to the hybrid.
"Starting with putting your casing into storage."
Sec froze.
"My casing." He repeated, as if he had misheard.
"Yes." Denise smiled meanly, knowing that she had scored a point. "Your casing is one of the most priceless objects ever to pass through the doors of the Columbia Facility. I am sure our engineers would dearly love to study it. I do not think the Government will object if we share with them what we find."
It was a good threat.
"You cannot do that." Sec replied fiercely.
"I think you will find that we can, and we will. Take it away, and we eliminate the problem completely. No more flying, no more damage."
"I need my casing…" The hybrid seemed visibly weakened by the threat. "You know I do. Taking it away will compromise everything you have worked for."
"Oh, we'll let you have it while you're in the lab." Denise told him. "But only then. You cannot go outside without it. I think that is a good enough incentive to follow the rules, wouldn't you agree Eliza?"
I decided not to make a comment this time. Sec pushed himself slowly out of his chair, formulating another threat.
Suddenly, a ringtone sounded across the room. It came from the draw of the Bauhaus desk. Denise paused. Whatever she had been about to say had been cut short. Sec and I, now both standing, watched as she wrenched the draw open, fumbled irritably for the little device, and looked at the screen. The ringtone continued to emanate cheerfully about the room as Denise rolled her eyes in frustration. I was nonplussed. It was a personal call; all professional calls came from the land line. The fact that career driven, steely Denise had a family, let alone friends who would want to call her had never occurred to me.
"I need to take this call." She told us curtly, shooing us away with her free hand. She sounded urgent. "Both of you, out. And remember this conversation."
After exchanging looks of mild surprise, I pulled myself out of my slumped position against the wall, stooped to pick up my canvas rucksack from the floor, and followed the hybrid out of the heavy double doors of the office. Glancing back, before the doors closed behind me, I had enough time to see Denise Ullswater sit back, heavily in her leather chair, the cell phone pressed against her ear.
Sec was waiting for me in the silent corridor outside. He was a head taller than me, when he looked like this. I saw him this way, part human, less and less. I nodded to him, and swinging my bag onto my shoulders, I kept pace with him as we walked down the echoing passage.
From the corner of my eye, I looked at him. He certainly was an ugly specimen. He wore human clothing, a black cotton shirt with black office pants, and a pair of black leather boots. I rarely saw him wearing anything other than black. With mucus slowly seeping through your clothes throughout the day, it was probably the best colour to hide it. From his face, the only part of his anatomy visibly other than his hands, I noticed the usual things. How mottled his skin looked, the way the tentacles were draped, like organic dreadlocks, about his shoulders, each one segmented like a worm. I had never seen the rest of his humanoid body, thankfully. Not like this. I had seen him shirtless once, but it had been in a photo.
But I was beginning to notice something else, too. He looked exhausted. In the stark light of Denise's office I had not seen it, perhaps because she had been too busy talking. But now, the lid over his eye seemed to be drooping. His posture seemed to have dropped as well. Perhaps he was unwell.
At first, I made no comment on his appearance, as our footfall reverberated around the passage. I was still angry at him.
"Why did you do it?" I asked, keeping my voice calm. The blue eye flicked towards me, then looked forward.
"Do what?" He answered flatly.
"Keep provoking her like that?" I looked at his face. "There's no reason for it. If you wanted to go somewhere, you know, I'm up for all-nighters. You could have given me a call."
Sec made no answer. The air in the corridor was still. It was late afternoon, and even in the constant temperature of the labyrinth of laboratories in which we were now walking, a kind of lethargy had settled. Unsatisfied, I decided to press with my point.
"You heard what she said," I went on. "She said she would take you casing away. Or worse. Like she said, what if U.N.I.T or the CIA had you shipped out? They practically spoil you here. Why do you abuse that? There's no way in hell anything the Government would plan for you would be as tame. How do you think I would feel?"
Sec was still staring at the floor as we turned the corner. A woman in lab attire, who I knew as Louisa in was standing in a doorway talking to a balding man dressed like wise. She looked wary, pausing midway through a sentence as she saw the hybrid, but flashed me a smile when she noticed I was with him. I nodded to her, and went back to my interrogation, marvelling that I had spent enough time here to know almost everybody by name.
"And did you see the way she looked? You're making her physically ill." I went on, although I knew now that Sec was barely in a fit state either. "You can be such an asshole! Sometimes, I wonder if you're not all Dalek."
Sec appeared to be hearing every word I was saying, but choosing not to answer. It was indescribably annoying. An all too familiar sensation, a dull throbbing the regions of my chest, was beginning to gain my attention. I raised my voice.
"Why the hell do you do it?" I demanded.
Sec raised his shoulders into a shrug. At last, a reaction.
"For the same reasons you do, I suppose." He answered mildly.
I faltered.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Sec smiled. He had a very small mouth, but it stretched, face creasing whenever he smiled, which was rare, and usually only when he was being smug.
"The way you reacted back in the office. You were quite aggressive, actually. It was very admirable."
I bit my lip in frustration.
"Okay. So whenever a woman is assertive or raises her voice, she is being aggressive. I take it back. You're a typical guy."
"Eliza, you told her that I was going to rip her throat out." Sec reminded me. "That is generally a rather aggressive thing to say. And you are forgetting that I am half Dalek. The Daleks were never sexist. We hated all other life forms equally."
"That's a consoling thought." I remarked sarcastically, as Sec let out a dry laugh. Then I asked, "So why do you keep goading her if you know that she could make your life a misery?"
We were walking towards the heavy doors of the elevator which filled the passage before us, square and imposing, just how everything tried to look in the Facility. Sec reached out for the call button with an eloquent gesture.
"Because I was born in a cage, Eliza." He told me. "I still live in a cage for most of the day. And I don't want to have to be trapped in a metaphorical cage either. You understand that more than anybody, right?"
With the sound of metal on metal the elevator doors slid open.
"Well, you can leave that cage whenever you want." I reminded him curtly, gesturing to him up and down. "I mean look at you now! Walking and talking like a normal person. Why not just embrace that more?"
"You know why." The hybrid said darkly. His shoulders were sloping more than ever. He looked visibly drained. "And besides, that is not the only reason. Secondly, I do not like being told what to do. I was born into a position of power. It is not in my nature to obey persons in a lesser position than me."
"Watch it." I warned him as we stepped into the box-like space. "Lesser position. We are all born and one day we're all going to be dead. Nobody is in a lesser position to anyone."
"I didn't mean you." Sec added smoothly. I tried not to smile. Daleks were crafty things. I knew all too well when he was trying to butter me up.
"And thirdly," Sec went on as I selected the button for FLOOR -2 SECTOR F, "because I have been learning how to fly."
The doors slid shut, sealing us both inside, as I looked at him sceptically.
"You already know how to fly. I saw you fly all the time in that casing of yours."
The hybrid leaned on one of the walls, as the cabin began its slow ascension. I had not imagined it. He really did look tired, as if he was sagging a little. His wrinkled face looked as if it had seen centuries drift past it, weathered and worn with experience. But despite all of this, now his blue eye shone with excitement.
"I could always elevate in my casing, yes. But I did not know how to fly." He raised his hand, rubbing the back of his neck as he spoke, smiling as if struck by a fond memory. "Eliza, it has always been the dream of your kind to break away from the ground. If you could fly at will, would you not want to spend as much of your waking hours as you could, soaring through the air as if weightless?"
I took in his words, thinking how out of character it was for him to tell me this. It had never occurred to me that this particular function would ever have been used for anything other than necessity.
"I guess so." I admitted. "I've never really been one for heights though. I never knew that you were either."
"I went to the Brooklyn Bridge." He said, distantly. "I wanted to see the sun rise over the city. The colours; I wished I had opened my casing."
"So much for irrational human sentiment." I murmured under my breath. It sounded like a beautiful thing to do. It was romantic. It was cheesy. And yet I did not know a single person in New York who would not, even secretly, have wanted to be in that place.
Sec blinked, as if woken from a pleasant dream. Drawing his hand across his face, he once again looked tired, the moment of euphoria was over. I wondered momentarily if he was going to collapse.
"You look awful." I told him bluntly, voicing my concern at last. "Like, actually abnormally awful, rather than just the usual awful. You look ill."
Sec did not answer. He was used to my brutal honesty. But the drained silence was confirmation. The cabin jolted as the elevator arrived at our floor.
"It's because you're like this, isn't it?" I did not mean for the question to sound as anxious as it did. "The transformation is hurting you, isn't it? It's what's making you so tired."
The elevator doors cast a white light over us, and as it did the hybrid looked as decrepit as ever. He looked at me with an expression of bitter resolution.
"The researches have concluded that I need to practice transforming more often. It will become less difficult if I do."
"Good." I nodded. "That's just as I said. Spending more time outside of your cage. Just what you need. But I think you should take a break now, okay?"
I stepped briskly out of the elevator, but glanced behind me when Sec did not follow. He lagged behind, as if afraid of coming into the light.
"As I told you, sometimes, I am not sure I want to leave my casing." He murmured.
I raised an eyebrow.
"Come on. I don't think I have ever met anybody who contradicts themselves as much as you do." Moments ago, he had expressed how much he hated being trapped. Now what was the problem?
Sec raised his eye to meet mine, and his mouth twitched. That single eye, in that wrinkled, tentacled face. He was the Cyclops and Medusa at the same time. Slowly I nodded. I knew where he was coming from. The pain in my chest was suddenly more than physical, seeing this creature, my friend, looking so insecure.
"I understand." I told him, truthfully too. "Neither would I."
Sec seemed consoled, and nodded in return.
We were now stood in an enormous room, which was functionally square with a towering ceiling. Everything was built out of the same characteristic concrete used in the rest of the facility. Ahead of us, a glass security booth peered at us, and next to it was a ten metre high set of warehouse doors, the kind that retracted into the ceiling. They were stained with grease and scratched. To the left of the window was a smaller door for regular access. There was nobody on duty (which despite the high security status of the facility, was not unusual), so I hit the green button besides the smaller door, and we stepped through.
Sec fumbled for the light switch, while I peered into the cavernous space beyond. It really was like a cave. It stretched on too far, almost as if the ceiling, as high as it was, was not high enough, and therefore could only have occurred naturally, as any architectural feat would have collapsed under its own weight.
From behind me there was a click, and with an echoing boom, the enormous lights blasted into life, line by line, lighting the cavern that was the hold.
The hold seemed under filled. Enormous crates were piled like an industrial game of Tetris against the walls, but only at the end closest to us. They were made of corrugated metal, and wood, and stamped with numbers and letters that made no sense. I dared not ask what was in most of them.
Larger shapes, covered by tarpaulins sat further away from us. I took them to be failed machines, or vehicles, although honestly I had no idea, and nobody had the grace to tell me. As large as they were, they barely filled the agoraphobic space.
But the object that sat a few metres from where we had entered I recognised all too well. I knew it was the most expensive, most dangerous, and also the most sought after object in the hold. I prided myself on knowing way more than that.
It resembled something that was part way between a small black tank and a very large pepper pot, constructed out of black metal and dotted with grey rivets. The top of it was domed, like a gun turret, and from it protruded a metal stalk that ended in a black lens. Below this was a grill, and below that was a panelled section, from which a telescopic devise that looked too much like a sink plunger to initially be taken seriously rested. It was wider at the bottom, its fenders fanning out into a skirt like section, and this was lined with columns of small domes. It had a rugged, military design, as if it had been designed to fight. It was half a head taller than me. Something about its dimensions, even without my life time of experience with the machine, suggested that it could move. It was dormant, waiting, sleeping, empty.
Sec stepped past me and walked over to the curious object impatiently.
"I think I am going to need this." He told me, sounding relieved, as he placed a hand on the domed head of the machine. From deep inside the dormant shell, there came a clicking sound, followed by a whirring.
"You look like you do."
The hybrid stepped back, and the machine burst open, like a large, brutalist flower, the panels on the bottom most and widest section peeling back, the grid under its dome swinging open. It happened so smoothly, bringing an organic element to an object that could not have looked less so.
And then there came the snapping sound. It was a sound like somebody cracking their knuckles, only much louder. I averted my gaze from Sec, out of politeness, knowing what I would see if my gaze happened to stray in his direction. He was changing.
Sec's form as the hybrid was not stable. It was his truest form, a creature simultaneously human and alien, and once, many years before I had met him, it was his only form. But Time had changed that. It had twisted him, made him weak and small, as he was before the hybridisation. It had been possible, they had discovered, to prompt his body to adopt the humanoid form once more, but it took a lot of energy. No wonder he had looked so exhausted, so old, so much more hideous.
I stood for a minute, as the shrinking of bones and flesh went on beside me, pretending to show particular interest in the opposite wall. No verbal sound came from the hybrid, which I never understood. It must have been agonising. His condition was known as temporal scarring. Technically it could have happened to anyone. I imagined, with an ordinary man, a Benjamin Button style abomination would have been the result. A child perhaps, with the weathered face of a fifty year old. Or a twenty-five year old woman with the burn scars she would only achieve after a fire in a car crash nine years into the future. That was how I tried to make sense of it.
Sensing that the transformation was over, I looked back at the spot where the hybrid had stood, only to see what looked like a rare mutant squid, his incredibly long tentacles spreading out across the floor like giant earthworms. He was trying, with as much dignity as possible, to pull himself out of the tangled bundle of clothing that he no longer needed.
"Done?" I asked politely. The creature started.
"WHY ARE YOU LOOKING?" A grating, staccato voice broke out across the room. It sounded entirely mechanised, and it was coming from the black machine.
"Need any help?" I continued, as the writhing creature tried to wriggle out of the black office pants.
"NO." The machine barked indignantly, for the creature that was Sec. And then it added. "FUCK YOU."
The change often brought a sudden spike in bad language.
"No need for that. Why do you get so grouchy whenever you do this?"
"IT IS A TIRING BUSINESS. AND I GET HORMONAL." The machine growled. "I HAVE A SURPLUS OF CHEMICALS IN MY BLOODSTREAM WHICH HAVE YET TO FILTER OUT."
The creature on the floor flashed me a boggy look, with the same single eye of the hybrid that had stood there moments before. He no longer had a mouth, and the features had shifted, warped. It was now difficult to imagine that he had ever looked any different. It was not embarrassing to look at because nothing I saw was particularly awkward, although Sec seemed to think so.
I stooped to pick up the clothes, as with practiced grace the creature hauled itself into the machine. And as it did so, the machine came alive. The broad, torch-like stalk that protruded from its domed head flickered, and a round blue light began to glow from its end. I folded the incredibly slimy clothes, as Sec positioned himself comfortably on a rounded ledge in the heart of the machine, draping his long tentacles so that they mingled with the numerous wires and cables which fed into the complex banks of computers and engines. The interior had obviously been cleaned of late. It no longer smelt as stale as it had when I had first seen it open.
I knelt, placing the bundle of clothes and the heavy black shoes under where Sec was sitting. He often needed them later. The creature, now unable to make any articulate sound, purred in thanks. He had apparently calmed down a little.
"I PITY YOU ELIZA." He told me. "YOU DO ALL OF THIS FOR ME. DO I DISGUST YOU? DO YOU FIND IT DIFFICULT?"
I shrugged.
"My Granny became really sick before she died." I said airily. "It wasn't very pleasant. My Grandpa and my Mom had to clean up for her. That was hard. She was apologising at first, but then she stopped talking after a while. I was too young to remember, but I was told about it."
I looked the creature in the eye, as the casing, with a mechanical hiss, began to close around it, sealing it inside like an oyster within its shell.
"I think I have it easier than that. I do this out of choice, remember. Nobody was paying for them. It's so much harder than when you love someone."
I never understood why I said some of the things I did to Sec. They were things I never told to anybody else. I guess it was because I thought he would not care, or because I did not expect him to understand. The irony was, he almost always did. Now, the glowing blue eye stalk of the machine, the now the eye for the creature inside, was focused on my face, wide and round. It almost looked surprised.
"I DID NOT KNOW THAT." He told me in his crackling voice.
"No reason why you should have. I didn't tell you."
I stepped away from the shell, which, now closed, began to drift forward with a mechanical whine. That was how I had begun to see it; a shell. It was like the home typical of an invertebrate, a creature that were too soft or too weak to survive without one. It was like a snail or a hermit crab. It was necessary for survival. The difference was that this one just happened to be made of metal.
But, the way I figured, a snail without its shell is only a slug. Sec, without his shell, whether he was octopoid and small or humanoid, was just "the Hybrid".
Sec, with the addition of his shell, was a creature that was collectively known as a Dalek.
The Dalek followed me as I walked back towards the door of the hold. It glided along, without wheels, without actually making contact with the ground. Walking out before it, and throwing the hold into darkness once more, I held the door for it, and it glided past like a small specialised military vehicle. I had become accustomed to the sound it made, to being aware of it, just behind me, beside me, a few paces ahead, its impressive shape always present, solid, familiar.
"Is that better?" I asked as I called the elevator.
My now metallic companion swivelled his domed head to look in my direction.
"SO MUCH BETTER. YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE IT. YOU HUMANS DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE MISSING."
We piled into the elevator, Sec now taking up a lot more space. The interior reverberated whenever he spoke.
"I think I'll stick to my legs, thank you. I take hot baths."
The elevator rose. It was designed to carry heavy goods, and there was easily enough room for the Dalek and me. I was glad that nobody else in the Facility had tried to stop us. There was this one guy who insisted on being called by his last name, Heinkel. He seemed to make it his task in life to tail Sec while underground. He was only nineteen; one of those genius kids who you only ever heard about on documentaries, and yet he was dumb enough to wear a surname that made him sound like a member of the S.S. I suppose he thought it was impressive. And sometimes, in the presence of the Dalek in particular, it was pretty obvious who he was trying to impress. I am glad to say it did not work.
When the elevator doors rolled open once more, we were no longer in the concrete labyrinth that lay below the ground.
We were in a reception, with polished black tile floors, and yet another security booth to our right, and a pair of more ordinary double doors straight ahead. The air felt warmer, somewhat heavier up here. The room was large, new, the walls polished white, and almost as clinically clean as the floors below. Behind a pane of bullet-proof glass, the guard, who I knew as Rex, minimised his game of Mahjong and turned to peer at us as we came through.
"Sober night again?" He asked in his deep, heavy voice. Sweat glistened on his dark forehead between the plough lines of his hair, and his eyes wondered warily to the Dalek. I nodded.
"Sure is. I don't think we'll be coming back through this was tonight."
Rex shook his head, sitting back in his seat.
"I think you're crazy." He addressed me, ignoring Sec. "That Denise woman is out of her mind. Must be all them chemicals you guys inhale down there."
Sec was watching Rex with a steady gaze. To anyone else it would have been impossible to tell how he was feeling. I was able to make an educated guess however, and I guessed he was mildly pissed off.
Still shaking his head, Rex pressed a round green button, and automatically, the heavy set double doors swung inwards. Beyond them, I could see daylight.
"You watch yourselves." Rex called after us, as we stepped out Security and into a different world.
It did not take us long to walk out of Pupin Hall, and into the warmth of the afternoon sun. The air was thick with heat and dust from a nearby construction work. The stench that had filled the city over a month ago had still not cleared, and although the majority of us had become used to it, it became more noticeable after being in the air conditioned interior below. The sky was a hazy blue, the kind of blue hot enough to burn. It had been like this all day, and the day before, and the week before that. All at once, I was shrugging off my back pack, delving inside for a bottle of Evian. Sec, safe inside his casing, glided beside me, untouched by the sun's criminal rays.
"REX DOES NOT LIKE ME MUCH." He said dryly, turning his dome to look wistfully at the handsome red brick block behind us. Having drunk my fill, I screwed the cap back on the bottle, my fingers suddenly clammy.
"I don't think he likes me much either. But I don't take it personally." I really didn't. The security guard had a point, and it would have been pointless to deny it.
We walked out into the sunbathed quad of the university campus. The grand white pillars of the student hall, and the Low Library beyond that stood out against the dry, browning rectangles of grass that stretched between them. The sun made the colours, the reds and the greens of the oaks, vivid and now glowed as the light slowly began to fade. It was almost empty. Students travelled slowly, in their pairs or groups, the temperature and afternoon lull obviously having its affect. They drifted past, and the familiar sensation of curious, sometimes frightened eyes settling on me, and then the Dalek who was now meandering cheerfully across the paving slabs behind me, came to my attention. A boy and a girl, one blond, the other wearing a chequered shirt, fell into silence as Sec nearly bumped into them. As we walked on, I heard them whisper and then laugh nervously as we moved on. The Dalek did not draw as much attention as I thought he ought to have. It was unsurprising. Stranger things had been seen in this city of late.
I had been at Columbia University for almost a year. It was a year that I had long anticipated. My dream, to study law, to put to use the tangle of grey matter that had been put in my head was finally being put to use.
It had realised long ago, however, that this was not my dream.
I looked up. I scanned the familiar skyline of the red brick buildings that surrounded the quad, their amiable windows gleaming in the light, and realised how detached I felt from it all. The classical columns of the hall that towered to my left, were real, but were not meant for me. Somehow, as I watched my fellow undergraduates lying on the lawns, care free, youthful, I realised that I could not talk to them. Not normally. Not on a regular, human level. And then, my gaze was inevitably drawn back to the heavy, alien machine that drifted past the lawns and the buildings, and knew why this was not so.
My normal life disappeared forever on the rainy night last summer, when I picked that small, tentacled creature out of a bloodied, sodden pile of clothing, and took it into my apartment rather than let it die of pneumonia.
Or perhaps it ended before that.
Perhaps, it ended the moment that a demon, with teeth like knives, and a body that seemed to be made of liquid night slashed at my neck, and tore the ligaments in the shoulder of my colleague.
Either way, it did not matter. Either way, it was because of Sec.
Resentment slid dangerously down my throat as my sneakered feet steeped smoothly on the path. I shouldn't have felt resentful. I was not as if I had not put myself in for this. I had chosen this life, the life of secrets and surrealism. I had chosen not to forget the events of the previous summer.
How could I have? I wanted to, so badly, but it was part of me now.
Attending CU, at least, could have been easier, could have been something normal. I could have missed deadlines, become buried under articles in the libraries, my biggest problem being the panic of exam revision and the hangovers on a Sunday morning. It could have been no more than a place where scholars argued, and academics learned, and debates and protests were held and research, controversial by a mundane standard, could be unearthed.
Apparently not.
I knew about the Facility now too. The top secret, high security network of laboratories and archives that lay deep beneath the campus. Columbia University's history of splitting atoms and the Manhattan Project was not over. It was far from it. It had only just begun.
I had sworn to secrecy. I had signed my contract with a devil, not the one with red horns, not even the black metal one who I was paid to tail, but the devil in the white coat. Like any transaction of the soul, there was no going back.
I was paid to be the friend of the creature that killed people.
And, because I could not tell anybody, not even my closest family, he was the only friend I had.
"YOUR ENDORPHIN LEVELS ARE LOW." Sec remarked. He spoke so suddenly that I was shaken out of my brooding with a jolt.
"My what, now?"
Sec stared straight ahead, no longer slaloming, but sliding shrewdly across the ground with an air of importance.
"ENDORPHIN LEVELS. YOU ARE UNHAPPY."
Secretly, I was impressed. This thing was at least becoming emotionally intelligent. Most people I knew, however, would have been able to tell just by looking at my face.
"Can you maybe not scan my chemical make-up and blood hormone levels when I'm not looking? It's kind of creepy."
"I CANNOT HELP IT." The metallic voice answered back with a note of innocence. "IT IS A GIFT AND A CURSE; THIS SIXTH SENSE OF MINE."
"I thought you used it to kill people." I reminded him. I saw the Dalek twitch from the corner of my eye.
"WELL, YES," He drifted away from me indignantly, "AMONG OTHER THINGS. AND DENISE GIVES ME BROWNIE POINTS FOR RECOGNISING FEELINGS."
"Have a cookie on me." I murmured, pushing my now clinging fringe away from my forehead.
"IT HAD JUST OCCURRED TO ME THOUGH," Sec went on, "THAT WE DO NOT HAVE ANY PLANS FOR SOBER NIGHT."
We had almost left the campus, and I hesitated.
"You're right, we don't do we. Well, it's your night out. What do you want to do, then?"
Sec did not answer right away.
"I THOUGHT…PERHAPS YOU COULD CHOOSE."
I stopped, and looked at the Dalek, who looked back at me seriously.
"Really, me?"
"REALLY. YOU."
We had never actually done anything particular on these obscure evening outings. I had begun to see them as a kind of parole. But what could we do? It was not as if we could simply walk into a bar, order a drink and get smashed out of our skulls. Denise would not have approved. And how this creature, the unintentional reason for my isolation would be able to pull it off was a mystery to me. It wasn't going to happen.
Or was it?
Suddenly, I felt a very Sec-like feeling of rebellion. All at once I found myself smiling.
"Well, okay then." I began, as wicked machinations began to form in my mind. "I have a couple of ideas."
Sec seemed pleased, even relieved.
"EXCELLENT. THEN WHAT IS THE PLAN?"
"The plan is," I began walking again, the heat only a minor setback, and glanced over my shoulder as the Dalek eagerly began to follow. "For a start, we're going to have to ditch the sober part, if you get my drift."
I walked on as Sec slowed. The leaves overhead decorated his shell with dappled sunlight.
"AM I GOING TO LIKE THIS PLAN?" He asked, and I was satisfied to hear a tiny pang of nervousness in his voice.
"Trust me. By one a.m. tomorrow you're not going to care."