Chapter 3: Engage
Daniel Thompson couldn't sleep.
He stared blankly at the ceiling for God knows how long, trying desperately to purge his mind of everything but the desire to sink into an unconscious state. Every time he held his eyes shut, they would pop right open again the moment he let them go. As the night wore on, he attempted to cure his insomnia with increasingly ambitious remedies: changing positions, opening a crack in the window, doing some exercise, even resorting to drinking a glass of warmed milk, thinking perhaps there was truth in what he suspected might be an urban myth. Alas, none of his efforts proved to be fruitful; if anything, they siphoned the little weariness he had straight out of him. Defeated, he plummeted onto the single-sized bed, face stuffed into his pillow and limbs wrought limply across the sheets. After a moment, he raised his head and glanced over at his alarm clock; it was almost two o'clock.
Damn it.
He hated these restless nights; they often morphed into rough all-nighters where he only managed to muster a few hours of unproductive sleep. Dan was getting fed up with his body's defiant behavior, but had no choice but to concede. There was no denying it any longer: he wasn't going to fall asleep any time soon. Coming to this begrudging epiphany, he eventually decided to go out for a walk, seeing as he wasn't going to accomplish much lying in bed. Besides, he figured it might end up stirring some form of fatigue. He slipped on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, topped the whole with a brown coat, and locked the door as he exited his apartment.
The cool air of Boston City swept in to greet his worn out face as he strode down the block. The streetlamps highlighted the path that he followed, one that he pursued with hands buried in his pockets and eyes glued to the ground. He passed by many strangers on the street, creatures of the night just like himself, but their numbers began to dwindle as he ventured onto more solitary roads. He soon found himself wandering quieter parts of the neighborhood, where the hubbub of nocturnal city life toned down to a whisper. The stroll was doing him wonders; he felt the tension in his body leave with every step. He reminded himself to go out on more of these night-time prowls.
A sudden cracking noise brought Dan to a halt. He looked around, ears on maximum alert; it seemed to have come out of a nearby alleyway.
Much to his awakening disgust, the noise had sounded like the snapping of bones.
He waited a moment. Nothing else came from the alley's recesses. He wanted to leave, but something was holding him in place. Ever since he was a teenager, he has been in search of the Truth, of what might possibly be just beyond the bend. He ultimately decided that, in spite of all the risks, he would investigate the source of the noise. He therefore crept down the alley, staying close to the brick wall, choosing his steps carefully so as to not make a sound. When he came to the corner as the alley bent left, he heard rustling that could only have been caused by a living organism. He leaned his head out just a bit to see.
In the middle of the alley were two individuals: a rather elderly-looking man crouching near a young woman, who was lying on the ground.
Her head was tilted in Dan's direction. Her eyes appeared to be staring straight at him, cold and hollow eyes devoid of life, seemingly accusing him of not being there to save her.
He looked away. Fear now began to settle in as he realized that she was dead. It then dawned on him that the cracking sound from earlier was most likely that of her snapping neck, and that the old man must have been the one to have killed her. He peered over once more, and watched as the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small rectangular object, sleek and black in the shadows of the alley. Dan's eyes widened at the sight of the device, and his heart raced faster and faster as the old man stretched a long wire that ended in three small spikes and planted it into his victim's palate.
He averted his sight and pressed against the wall, shutting his eyes as the memories flooded back all at once. In the middle of the alleyway stood the thing that has haunted his dreams for years on end. Something he has tried very hard to forget. Something that he feared above all else, that he hoped never to see again.
The Shape-Changer.
It was the Shape-Changer he saw all those years ago.
He was fourteen years of age, a freshman at Saint Matthews High School. Being a freshman wasn't quite what Dan had expected it to be, while things weren't as tumultuous as they had been in the beginning, the experience as a whole was more often of a drag than not. His opinion of the high school experience had changed when he built up the bravado to ask Tanya Brown whether rumours that he was indeed the object of her affections had any basis.
Turns out they were, and that Friday evening, he was preparing himself to go see Back to the Future III with her.
There was nothing all that spectacular about seeing a movie with someone, but for one who had yet to initiate himself into the world of the opposite sex, the event was of monumental importance. And so he spent a long time in front of his mirror, nitpicking at his appearance, prepping himself mentally, and attempting to quell the butterflies. It didn't help that his mother was doting on him more than usual, as this was quite a significant moment in her son's life. She had offered to drive him there, but Dan insisted on walking there; this was something he had to do alone.
He shuffled into his coat and went off into the night, as he had done multiple times before. In his mind, he rehearsed things he might say, the various ways in which things might go down. Anxious, he would repeatedly glance at his watch, as a means to take his mind off things. Thinking that it might be best to get there earlier, he decided to cut through an alley to save on time.
Of all the nights to stray from the beaten path.
When he bent down to tie his shoe in an open area behind a cluster of buildings, he heard a gunshot, coming surprisingly close. Then he heard another, and another.
"What the hell do you want from me?" shouted a man's voice.
Panic seized Dan. He could already see the shadow of the individual against the mouth of the alleyway behind him. Was it too late to run? He swirled around and darted to the nearest possible hiding spot, which happened to be a dumpster, angled out slightly. Young Dan contoured it to crouch behind the obstruction, thinking that the pursuit would fly past him.
It didn't, of course.
He heard sprinting footsteps echo louder and louder, coming closer and closer. The man, panting heavily, stopped; while that much was clear from the cessation of sprinting steps, Dan could also see the man's shadow on the portion of brick wall he could see from behind the dumpster, cast by a nearby light source. The shadow turned about, the gun's silhouette visible in the hand, watching, waiting, the coast apparently clear.
Another shadow suddenly came from above without a sound, dwarfing the other in size.
Seeing this, the man's shadow started to shrink as the man himself gradually backed up against the wall. Once he had nowhere to go, he readied his pistol, shut his eyes, and kept pulling the trigger, only to discharge impotent clicks. He dropped his weapon on the floor while the other shadow came closer; tears began to flow down his cheeks, all hope of escape lost. His eyes drifted over to Dan's location, seeing some scared kid camping out there. Perplexity blended with the fear on his face.
That scared kid was the last thing he ever saw.
He screamed. A pair of hands gripped his shirt and threw him the other way. Dan covered his ears and watched on the wall as the shadow mounted onto its victim, as the shadow killed the man, as the shadow put a wire in the corpse's mouth before putting another its own. He held his eyes shut tight, trying to drown out the sickening crunching of bones. Then the shadow, satiated, dragged the body over to the dumpster where Daniel hid and lugged the body inside, by some miracle never once noticing the human tucked behind it.
He didn't dare emerge from hiding out of fear that the shadow might be waiting. When he was sure that it was gone, however, he got out, and went on his way.
Tanya had been a bit peeved that Dan was late, and he mumbled some generic excuse he could not now recall. He watched the movie in a sort of shell-shocked daze, not really paying attention to the film or his date. After it concluded, she had been polite enough, but it was clear she had found the entire outing awkward. Dan hadn't noticed in the least, instead engrossed by all the shadows surrounding them, which had taken on a new, predatory dimension.
She never really interacted with him after that, and he never told her – or anyone, for that matter – of the incident. He told not a soul of the shadow and the man that it killed, or that he spotted that very same man walking on the streets a few days after he had watched him die.
It was the Shape-Changer that made Daniel a believer in the strange and the unexplained. It was the Shape-Changer that incited a teenage Dan to undertake his search for the Truth.
It was the Shape-Changer that stood in the middle of an alleyway at one-thirty in the morning, eighteen years later. Dan peered out from the corner and saw the old man's face contort and crunch as his bones rearranged to take on the appearance of the young woman. Dan couldn't bear to watch the stomach-churning display, pressing himself against the wall in a tight ball, as he had done once before.
Once the gruesome ritual was over, the Shape-Changer, now an attractive woman, donned the body's clothing and hid the corpse under some garbage bags before turning in Dan's direction. He held his breath, pressing as tightly as he could against the wall. A moment passed before he heard footsteps getting fainter; she was going the other way.
Dan let out a sigh of relief, taking shallow gasps. Once he recovered, he began to walk away, ready to return home, but then he hesitated. The Truth was only steps away, just within his grasp. And if he wasn't going to fall asleep before, he certainly wasn't going to now. The idea that came to him was, quite frankly, insane, not to mention extremely dangerous. He wrestled with his conscience until his inquisitive nature finally got the better of him.
He gathered what courage he could before following what he feared most down the streets of Boston.
He stalked the Shape-Changer from afar, making sure not to be seen, pressing against doorsills, ducking into alleys, waiting before continuing around the corner. She walked at a fast pace and took a winding path that made Dan question whether she – it – knew where it was going, and whether this pursuit was actually worth pursuing. He dismissed the notion of quitting, though; he might never get another chance to discover the Truth. It was too late to turn back now.
After about an hour or so of dedicated tracking and long after Dan was ready to resign, the creature made a turn and entered a self-storage lot located on a wharf. He followed from afar, slithering his way between the storage units, making sure he was always close to his target. She soon stopped in front of a storage unit and knocked on the red door; Dan kept hidden in the shadows, pressed against the side of a unit a couple of rows down and across from the Shape-Changer. The door lifted, and two men appeared; Dan assumed them to be Shape-Changers as well. The trio exchanged words, and Dan had trouble hearing what they were saying with the wind pounding in his ears. The woman then entered the storage unit and the door slid down to a close.
Daniel sat down against the unit. He had come to the end of the road. He couldn't just go knocking at the door, and hadn't the faintest clue of when they would come back out, if ever. He had a feeling that his idea would turn out to have been fruitless. With great reluctance, he started to retrace his steps. Just then, he thought he heard something moving behind him. He turned around to bump not into something, but someone, falling onto the ground with a yell.
"Shhh! They'll hear you!" whispered a voice.
Dan sat up and was blinded; a flashlight was being pointed at his face. The man's peered at him with small blue eyes. He sported a neatly trimmed gray goatee. He donned a black tuque and wore baggy camouflage-print cargo pants and a black sweater plastered with a Led Zeppelin logo. The man was crouching near the wall when he deposed his backpack on the ground.
"What are you doing here?" asked Dan as he stood up.
"I should be asking you the same question!" replied the man. " This is no place for an amateur. You should leave espionage to the professionals!"
"Whoa, hold on. Who exactly are you?"
The man stood up to his full height.
"I am the son of Sarek," he announced, head held high. "But you may address me as Spock."
This guy's a total nutcase.
"Um, hello...Spock...I'm Dan. Nice to meet you. I think."
"Well, Dan, it's nice to meet you too. Now go home."
"Hey, I'm not going anywhere," Dan declared, refusing to be dismissed so bluntly; he couldn't go, not yet. Spock seemed irritated, his lips drawn in a scowl.
"Listen, Dan. There are things going on here you can't even begin to comprehend. What are hoping to find here?"
The question somehow managed to catch Dan off guard. What exactly was he hoping to find? Maybe he wasn't supposed to get involved. And yet, he was so close. He considered telling Spock everything he knew. The man was obviously unbalanced; what did he have to lose? And so he gave this Spock the only honest answer that he could.
"...I'm looking for the Truth."
Spock's face turned solemn, then commending.
"Ah, a fellow Truth-seeker, I see," he said. "Well, my friend, you've come to the right place."
Dan was satisfied with the answer. Maybe Spock wasn't as loony as he appeared. He decided to try his luck.
"At the risk of sounding crazy, I just watched an old man kill a woman and morph into her using some weird device."
"A Shapeshifter?" asked Spock, suddenly on Yellow Alert. "Where?"
"I followed it here. She went inside that compartment over there with two other guys."
"You actually followed a Shapeshifter?" exclaimed Spock. "Well, count yourself lucky that it didn't spot you, or you might never have made it here."
A wave of relief broke over Dan, washing away a huge burden from his mind. Finally, confirmation that it wasn't all in his head, that everything he was experiencing was real and not just some dream... even though said confirmation came from a deranged man who named himself after a character from Star Trek.
"How much do you know about these...Shapeshifters?" asked Dan.
"I've compiled a significant amount of data on Shapeshifters. I've come here to look for some. For the past few weeks, I've been keeping tabs on this place, coming here at night and gathering photographic evidence. Based on what I managed to gather from their conversations," he said, looking around in a paranoid manner, "they're part of something called the First Wave."
"First Wave? First Wave of what?"
Before Spock could continue, the Shapeshifters emerged from their outpost. Dan and Spock ducked down, creeping their heads just far enough to see them. There were seven of them in all, four men and three women, all of varying ages; they appeared to be closing shop. They began to walk towards a couple of SUV's parked near their storage unit.
"Looks like they're moving out," Spock said, looking through a pair of binoculars. "We should follow them, see what they're up to."
As they prepared to tail them, the duo heard the rising rumble of engines. The Shapeshifters seemed to notice this too, cocking their heads this way and that. At that moment, a throng of SUV's suddenly arrived on scene, blocking all exit routes. Out of the vehicles emerged black-clad men with weaponry straight out of a science-fiction flick. They positioned themselves against the cars for cover, shouting commands, and the Shapeshifters responded by whipping out their own weapons, realizing the severity of the situation.
They were being ambushed.
Shots were fired. The energy bursts doled out by the invading party cut through the air, missing their super-humanly agile enemies. The Shapeshifters themselves wielded regular pistols, and even though they were outnumbered two to one, they were sill causing the men a lot of trouble with their superior accuracy.
"Ah, damn it! I forgot my camera!" Spock whined as he rummaged through his backpack.
"Don't worry, I got you covered," Dan said, taking out his cell phone.
He filmed everything as it unfolded. The Shapeshifters slid in and out between the storage units for cover. The opposing factions tried to pick each other off, and little by little, soldiers from both sides began to fall. Dan saw a silvery substance trickled out of a Shapeshifter's wound. Another made a run for it, but a plasma shot knocked her into the air and into the red panel door of a storage unit. Riled, but unfazed, she got up and continued to run towards one of the SUV's, jumping over and attacking some men with her intimidating strength.
"Are you getting all this?" Spock yelled to Dan, adding his voice to the din of blasting weaponry.
An energy blast suddenly zoomed into the crevice where they were nested, erupting in a bright flash and sending out a shock-wave that knocked them to the ground. They got up, dazed, and Spock took Dan by the shoulder. An SUV exploded, and a massive fireball swelled up into the night sky.
"Come on! Let's get the hell out of here!" he screamed.
They retreated into the recesses of the units, Spock leading the way with his flashlight. They soon came out into open space, slowing to a tired jog, trying to catch their breath. He led Dan to his car, parked on the outskirts of the lot. It was used-looking machine, a worn Oldsmobile with a mismatched hood. Dan looked around and spotted a man stumble out of the units on the other end of the lot. He stopped and turned his head in their direction. He had a bullet wound in his shoulder and chest; they were oozing silver blood. Spock turned around to see him as well. His eyes widened.
"Run!"
The duo ran as fast as they could to the car. Dan looked back, only to see the Shapeshifter run at an incredible speed, steadily gaining on them despite its injuries. They got to the car, and Spock fumbled with his keys, trying to find the correct one.
"Will you hurry the hell up?" yelled Dan.
Spock opened the door and let Dan inside. The Shapeshifter was getting closer. As Dan buckled his seat-belt, Spock turned on the automobile, and some Rush blasted from the radio. He then gripped the wheel with one hand and the shift stick with the other, and stared straight ahead with stoicism before speaking aloud.
"...Engage!"
He put the car in drive and stomped on the gas pedal. The tires squealed as they propelled the vehicle forward, straight on the course of their oncoming pursuer. Dan clutched the armrests, his knuckles ivory white as they held on. They both started screaming in a rising crescendo as the Oldsmobile accelerated. The Shapeshifter tried to move out of the way, but he was running too fast and couldn't halt his momentum in time. Spock plowed right through him, sending him tumbling off to the side with a surprisingly hard impact.
The Oldsmobile squealed to a stop.
They peered into the rear-view mirror; the Shapeshifter lay still on the asphalt, arms outstretched. Dan was relieved for a moment until something caught his eye. He saw in the mirror as the man-thing stood itself up, legs quivering. He then turned around, a murderous intent in his eyes, and limped over to the car at a terrifying pace. Dan tapped frantically at Spock's shoulder.
"Go, go, go!"
They sped away into the night, leaving their pursuer to bite the dust. Dan kept watch in the rear-view mirror; the Shapeshifter stopped, realizing the futility of pursuit. They looked at each other, and started to burst into laughter, giving each other a high-five, riding out their adrenaline rushes.
"WOOOHOOOO!" yelled Spock as he sped down the street.
With Dan's guidance, they soon found their way to his apartment, the Oldsmobile parking on the sidewalk before the building. Dan was spent; never had he experienced such exhilaration in the entirety of his life. He got out of the car and stretched his limbs, inhaling the cool air with gusto.
"So I guess we're calling it a night?" Spock said as leaned over in his seat.
"Yeah," Dan said. "I have to go to work tomorrow."
"I hear you, man."
Dan began to walk towards the door, but Spock halted him.
"Hey, uh...listen, Dan. Why don't you stop by my place tomorrow night? I'll show you what I got on the Shapeshifters. Besides, we Truth-seekers should stick together, you know?"
Spock proceeded to scribble his address on a post-it note. Dan accepted the piece of paper and began to walk away as Spock started the car.
"Hey, Dan!"
Dan turned around; Spock leaned over in his seat and extended his gloved fingers in a Vulcan salute.
"Live long and prosper!"
Rush's "Tom Sawyer" blasted from the brown Oldsmobile, dimming gradually until the car vanished from sight as it turned the corner. Dan returned to his apartment, letting himself fall onto his bed. He didn't sleep that night, but he sure as hell didn't care.
A/N: Just in case anyone has forgotten, Emmanuel Grayson is the conspiracy nut who appeared in episode 1.19 'The Road Not Taken' of the show, and the man who thought himself as literally being Spock of Star Trek TOS. I'll be taking a lot of these one-off characters from the show and incorporating them into the story in this way, which should make for some interesting reading (hopefully). ;)