Journal entry #15, July 19th, 2011
Last year, Maria was pushing me to have a life out of the lab. Make new friends, go out, have an adventure.
As I prepare Max's syringes and listen to John go over his plans with Alex, I smile. I don't think Maria had this in mind, but I suddenly feel like I can take on the world.
I finally feel like I'm not a small-town girl anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
In the beginning
"I knew chances were Max would die before they took him out of the pod," John explained, forgetting for a moment the pizza in front of him. Alex had gained a grip on things over late nights and take-out, a fact that Liz thanked to her lucky stars. Without Alex on board, getting Max out was going to be a whole lot more difficult.
"No other survived?" she asked. The videos had implied it, but maybe—
"All the others died," he said, a haunted look in his eyes. Whatever John was remembering, Liz knew it wasn't pleasant. "I planned my escape carefully around that day, Max's 'birthday'. Everyone was going to be busy with him, even if he died… And yet I heard… the last official thing I heard was that he had survived. It was too late, I had to go right that moment or face the consequences of a failed escape attempt. I never forgot about him, not one day in these past twenty-two years."
Alex swallowed hard. The thing about Alex was that once his loyalty was won over, he really stuck to his friends. Maybe he didn't think of John and Max as their friends, but they were Liz's friends, and that was enough for now. Plus, his curiosity was getting the best of him.
"Would they really hurt him?" Alex asked. Liz's appetite dwindled the more they talked about it.
"It's not… nice, but it's not a torture chamber. Since we're unique and all, they don't want us dead. The problem is how can they manage to understand what we do if they don't keep pushing us? They're careful. After all, they can't replace us."
Video #17 had detailed how reproductive incompatible Max and John were. Their hybridization did not seem to have rendered them infertile, but their genetics were different enough that offspring were unviable. The thought of someone taking Max's children away to do to them what they were doing to him was nauseating. She lost all appetite at that memory.
John blinked, apparently getting back to the here and now. "It was so long ago, and I still feel like I was there last week. So much has changed," he added, absently touching his wedding band. The wife Max had insisted was not real, and yet the fondness in John's eyes could not be feigned.
"I still can't believe the crash was real," Alex said, getting back to his pizza. He stared at John as he always did when he remembered John was not entirely from around here. John found it funny, for some reason. She doubted very much Max would remotely approve.
"And let's not forget, our honest-to-God alien powers," John supplied with a grin, waving his hand over his pizza, heating it up. "Half-alien, anyway," he added as an afterthought. "At least they don't know everything Max can do, because Max doesn't know himself. And we do have some nifty tricks under our sleeves."
"The videos…" Liz started, her curiosity gaining the best of her. John looked up at her as he bit into his pizza. "They didn't go into detail about the crash… Not really…"
He chewed thoughtfully for a few moments. "It was the Roswell crash," he declared. He seemed to get a kick that they were from there. How small this world is, he'd said with his infectious grin. "All the crew was dead before the US military got to them. The only things alive inside the ship were eight pods. I didn't remember emerging from one until I saw the pods when I was thirteen. They were hoping I could tell them anything about them, I guess. In any case, it was an eye opener for me. Max was the only one left by that point."
"They told you everything?" Liz asked, astonished.
"Oh, they did, at least everything they had. We're smart, they wanted to see if I could figure it out. I'm guessing that my leaving made them change tactics. They didn't tell Max any of this, did they?"
Liz shook her head. "Not the alien part, I don't think so. Max wasn't exactly spelling out his secrets to me, but he was intrigued when I told him."
He didn't know anything, really, Liz wanted to say. All Max seemed to care about his past was everything he'd been told. It made sense, really. All he wanted was a future.
"They were eight in total… they were all you? Like Max and you?" Alex asked. It was so strange to be asking these questions and having John so openly answering them. For the past days all they had been doing was hacking into Max's files and Summer's files, while planning the best way to get him out.
John shook his head. "Four girls, four boys… We grew up inside the pods you saw in the videos. When we arrived, we resembled six-month human fetuses. They took out the first one about two months after the crash, a pod that had been damaged during the landing. They had finished discovering the wonders of the four full-fledged aliens who'd died. We were next."
"I'm so sorry," Liz whispered. Had they been their parents? Everyone who was like Max, everyone who had any answers… they were all gone except for John.
"That's okay," John said with half a smile. "We are human, for the most part, you know? Whoever these aliens were, I don't think we were related."
As much as John tried to make light of things, Alex and Liz couldn't stop feeling awful for the whole thing. John sighed, and then chuckled.
"I better finish telling the story, I guess… the more you know, the more you can tell Max in case I'm not around when you see him next."
He took a sip of his Cherry Coke, and Liz wondered how many things he shared with Max. Her eyes went of their own accord to the doorframe as John started again.
"They discovered we were hybrids with that first subject, a girl. Three years later, they decided they wanted to crack another pod open. This time, one of the boys. By that point, we were viable fetuses for human standards. We weighted twelve pounds by then. Frankly, they were tired of waiting for us to be ready. We looked like we would make it."
"Except he didn't…" Alex said, absently chewing on his pizza.
"No, but they learned more from this subject and his pod. They tried again with another girl in 67'. They discovered that it was a lung problem. It's a flaw in our design, actually. We lack the lung capacity to sustain us outside our pods."
"Maybe you weren't design to be in this atmosphere," Liz theorized, thinking fast. John shrugged, finishing the last of his pizza.
"Whatever the cause is, when they went for the third girl, they knew what to expect. She didn't survive more than a few hours."
All of them… What is this going to do to you, Max?
"That's what the video was about," Alex said, his eyebrows going to his hairline. "I mean, where Max was… being… born—that's what they did. They hooked him to a respirator right away."
"That's how it was for you?" Liz asked.
John nodded, reaching for the tabasco sauce in the middle of their impromptu dining table. It was half empty and he had been the only one pouring it on his food all week long. He doused his newly acquired slice of peperoni and mushroom liberally. "Trust me, my hatching wasn't any easier… or fun. At least they had practice with me by the time they reached Max. I spent one month in intensive care. They realized that by using a neonatal drug to expand our lungs, they could potentially save me."
Of course, not even being born would be easy for you, uh?
"What number were you? Fifth?"
"No, I was the sixth. They went with another approach with the fifth hybrid, the last girl. They were trying to figure out a way to improve our vitals inside the pod. The fluid got contaminated… it wasn't pretty." John stopped, his eyes getting unfocused again. "I saw the pictures, all of them. And I saw Max, inside that pod." He blinked, getting back to reality and to his pizza. "Anyway, in '74, I was their first success. Champagne and high-fives and congratulations." John toasted with his Cherry Coke, and arched an eyebrow when Liz and Alex didn't follow. "I'm really glad they got it right, you know? I wouldn't be here otherwise."
Liz exchanged a glance with Alex, and they both reached with their own beverages in an awkward toast.
"That's better," John said, grinning. "I hadn't thought about this in a long time. I'm feeling old…" he joked, his eyes returning to his wedding band for a moment. "Where was I? Oh, right, they already had me, and they had two boys left. Chances where, now that they knew how to do it, they would both live. They were wrong."
Rain started falling outside, and for one moment Liz wondered if John could control the weather as well. The things he could do were absolutely fascinating, and she wouldn't put it past him to be able to call a little rain in.
"What happened to the seventh?" Alex asked quietly.
John took a deep breath. "They never really explained that to me. Once I was out of the pod I started maturing as any other 6 year-old. Since the other two subjects were safe and sound in their pods, they didn't want to push their luck, and instead concentrated their sights on me."
"I bet you showing all those powers intrigued them," Liz said, frowning. How old had John been when he had exhibited his first paranormal activity?
"It made them hungry," he corrected her. "By 1982, they were ready to take their chances with the next boy. I was fourteen, and showing so much potential, they wanted another one ASAP. So they went for the seventh. He never gained consciousness. They kept him in some sort of comma until he just gave up. They didn't let me see him, but he wasn't like us. I mean, the same way Max and I are clones of each other."
Liz frowned. "You mean… wait, what do you mean?"
"We were two sets of four. There were two of each."
Liz blinked, coming up blank with any idea of the reason behind that.
"After that, they just stopped trying to get Max out. They wanted to see how it was supposed to work, what the aliens were trying to do. How long were we supposed to be in those pods, instead of cutting him out. You saw the video for that one. The oxygen levels plummeted, and instead of waiting for Max to come out on his own, they intervene at the last possible moment."
"This thing just gets weirder," Alex said heartfelt. "I mean, what possible use would it be to have you emerged as six-years old?"
"We'll never know," John said, taking the last sip of his Coke. "We might have been a failed experiment for all we know. Maybe something was missing from the crash. But as time passes, and life goes on, all that I really care is that we're here, we're alive. Nothing else matters." A beat. "Well, nothing but getting Max out, that is."
