The Henryks farm. Mr. Moon didn’t recognize the name at all, but that did not mean much. The country was filled with old farmsteads, both ones still being actively worked and ones rotting away to nothing in both the physical sense and in the sense of memory. Frankly, the hiding spot was not bad at all. Out of the way, unknown to most, and assuming by the word ‘old’ that preceded the name of the farm, it was also unused. If the girl and the boy had been killed before the information got out, then the alien very might have well been hidden away forever.
That was another welcome boon gained from his decision to accept Mark’s deal. Boon it was, but the newfound cooperation was still covered in a veil of awkward air from the boy, combined with the piercing glare of Cass Thomson. She seemed on the verge of snapping at any moment, a feeling Mr. Moon truly did understand. He murdered her father. Revenge would be natural. He had a feeling her revenge would happen eventually, but not in the near future. The girl’s concern for Mark and the rest of the town outweighed her desire for revenge. Once that was taken care of… the ‘eventually’ part would probably come up soon after that. But by then his job would be over and it wouldn’t matter which one of them died. It wouldn’t matter at all.
A grunt of pain came from the kitchen. Dag was sitting on the edge of the table while Ms. Miller affixed a makeshift splint to his left arm. Nothing was broken to speak of, but the agent’s hand-to-hand brawl with the madman was rough enough to fracture the bone in several places. Medical attention would have been better, but it would have to do. Now that the location of the alien was known, no time could be wasted. Not even if Mr. Moon was fairly certain the people in this house were the only ones with knowledge of the location. Who could tell if Lady Luck would smile at the Russians all of a sudden? They couldn’t even afford to wait for the police Ms. Miller had called in before the fight to arrive.
“So…” Mark’s awkward voice interrupted Mr. Moon’s musing. He turned to face the boy, wordlessly prompting him to finish voicing the question.
Mark glanced down at his own body, visibly hesitating before continuing to speak.
“What did it do to me? Is this supposed to happen? Am I still human?”
Mr. Moon stared at him for a moment longer, choosing his words carefully before he answered. Mark was now a viable test subject and would naturally find out parts of the project in the future. The question remained, how much to voice aloud, for walls could have ears when least expected.
“The Nirvana Project,” Mr. Moon cautiously began, “Is a government initiative centered around the abilities that alien possesses. It cannot be killed by any method we have tried so far. Any wound it experiences heals in seconds, minutes, or even hours depending on the severity. Our goal is to understand that ability and find a way to transfer it to a human subject. You appear to be a successful case. Your remaining humanity is a question for the scientists to debate.”
The house was silent. Dag was busy unrolling his shirt sleeve to cover the makeshift splint as best as he could, while Ms. Miller had put out her cigarette in a nearby ashtray and was busy reloading her revolver. Meanwhile, Mark and Cass were staring at Mr. Moon with eyes wide open.
“A successful case…” Cass eventually muttered. Her wonder had swiftly faded into distrust, which she openly cast onto Mr. Moon. “Is Mark the first? Is something going to happen to him?”
“I wonder.” Mr. Moon said noncommittedly. “No other test subject has survived this long.”
The silence following those words would have been suffocating for an ordinary person, but Mr. Moon simply brushed it aside and turned toward the kitchen. Now that the location was known, they had to act fast. Speed was their greatest ally considering his team was weakened and the cooperation with Mark and Cass was tenuous at best. The girl was resourceful, but only the barest of threads prevented her from acting out on a desire for revenge.
If the situation changed to make them enemies again, things would become… complicated. Even Mr. Moon was not entirely sure how to permanently stop Mark. No. This needed to be done and dusted before those two could get ideas or either of the two other enemy groups could complicate things further. Keeping ahold of this newfound advantage, as faint as it may be, was everything now.
“Ms. Miller,” Mr. Moon said, “Ready your equipment. Direct police reinforcements to the Henryks farm. Tell them to proceed with all speed but with due caution. As soon as the alien is secured, work with Mr. Sun to set up a handoff point. Once the alien is placed in a black site, we’ll call in backup and do a full sweep of the town. The lunatic has been reckless and making enough big moves that we can use dealing with him as our official reason to get involved. It’s already far beyond what any local police force could realistically handle, so calling in the FBI to take over is only natural. Then we can flush out the Russians with a full team. With the alien out of the way, there shouldn't be any risk of leaks by then.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
That cold man talked about it all so easily. Mark’s survival being a miracle. Some sort of lunatic government project. Bringing in another team of men with guns to kill all the Russians. Death. Murder. Cover. Black sites. It was a whole ‘nother world and Cass was knee-deep in the thick of it all. Even though the thought of putting a bullet in the head of Mr. Moon had been dominating Cass’s mind for days now, it still was hard to believe the FBI agent could speak of all that like a neighbor idly discussing the weather.
There was no more discussion after that. Mark was clearly unsettled after hearing about the 'Nirvana Project'. He kept staring at his hands as if he expected his own body to start falling apart any second. It was more information than Cass expected to get. This was… Mark truly was important if he was the only person to live this long.
The woman, who'd briskly introduced herself as Ms. Miller, finished loading her revolver and turned toward gathering up a portable radio set. The larger man, Dag, had mostly covered the splint on his arm with the sleeve of his suit jacket. He’d retrieved his handgun from Mark, and it was nestled in the holster strapped to the underside of his shoulder. Both her and Mark’s hands were empty of weapons. If the agents wanted to kill them… this would be the time.
Yet, they didn’t. As casually as Mr. Moon, Dag, and Ms. Miller seemed around the idea of murder, Cass and Mark still drew breath. It was… It made Cass’s head hurt. They seemed genuinely willing to hold up their end of the deal. Was Mark worth that much as a test subject? He had to be. Otherwise, once the location of the farm was out, they would have been killed just like her dad.
As Cass’s thoughts continued to rise into a rolling boil inside her head, Mr. Moon launched into another set of orders. They were to drive to the farm. Two cars, with Mark and Cass kept separate. An obvious safety measure just in case they were lying about the location. She would be in the car with Mr. Moon, while Ms. Miller, Dag, and Mark were in her dad’s squad car. The successful retrieval of the alien was paramount. All other objectives were secondary. She could understand that now. Though Mr. Moon was still tight-lipped about the precise details of the Nirvana Project, it was still obvious to her that what happened to Mark was far more serious than Cass ever could have imagined before.
If, and that was a bit ‘if’, that ability could be freely transferred? Well, on the bright side, it could eradicate disease, wounds, and maybe even death. On the other side… Cass could already imagine soldiers being doped up on that stuff and being sent to fight in the front lines, undying warriors that any nation would eventually fold against. In retrospect, her dad’s death made sense. The implications of the project succeeding were huge. The implications of the news spreading prematurely were even bigger than that.
The nation possessing that power would become the only superpower in the world, a hegemon above all others. If news got out before it was ready, well, the world had already been on the brink of nuclear holocaust with the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 60s. This would be worse. No other nation would allow America to complete the project, and for good reason.
That, however, did nothing to soothe Cass's feelings. It only put what she knew into a fresh context. Her desire for revenge still burned bright, even as she slid into the passenger seat of Mr. Moon's car. It was just…
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Her mind was at war. The rational and the irrational sides of it locked in deadly combat. There was a shotgun rack in the backseat of the car. She could see it in the rearview mirror. Cass could almost hear the guns calling out to her, whispering in alluring tones for her to wait for Mr. Moon to be distracted, sneak back, somehow get the rack open, and see what a shotgun could do to a human skull. Would it be like blowing up a rotten pumpkin? Or would the bone still be intact after?
Would she feel better?
Then reason took over. She couldn’t try anything. Mark seemed valuable as a test subject but who knew how far that protection would stretch? If Cass tried to kill Mr. Moon, Mark would doubtlessly help her. Would that overshadow his usefulness? No. No way. She’d been over this over and over in her head. Cass couldn’t do anything at all. Her hands were figuratively tied.
The car lurched into motion as she thought. Cass wasn’t in the mood for conversation, and Mr. Moon was naturally taciturn, so the vehicle was silent other than the quiet rumble of the engine.
She hated this. Every second she sat in the car next to that monster trying to play nice, she hated it.
The town faded away, soon replaced by suburbs. That too quickly fell away in the rearview mirror as the city limits were reached, then replaced by trees and the country roads Cass knew so well. Every so often Cass would break the silence to give a brief set of directions, which Mr. Moon would wordlessly obey. The man was watchful, eyes darting around the road searching for movement. Heck, he wasn’t just watchful, he looked downright paranoid. Glancing at shadows moving under the headlights, keeping the radio off to listen for noises, and staring into the darkness between the shadowy trees.
The butt of his gun poked out from under his suit jacket. It was within easy reach of the man. All he had to do was move his right hand away from the steering wheel, dip it under the jacket, pull it out, and shoot her. If she was a betting girl, Cass would bet cash money that Mr. Moon could do all of that before she could react. On the other hand, she could try and grab it for herself. Lunge over, take the gun, shoot the bastard. The range would be a negligible factor in the accuracy of the shot. The main concern would be if he had time to put up a fight. Could she do it? Was Cass fast enough? The stupid, hotheaded, irrational part of Cass’s brain urged her to do it. Steal his gun. Do it. The gun. Steal. Now.
Cass blinked. Just like that, in the blink of an eye, reason grabbed the talking stick and took the stage center in the theater of her mind. Forget putting her brain into two different rational or irrational parts, this was more like putting the really bad decision on one side of her palm, the really good decision on the other, and rapidly flipping her palm back and forth. Which side would it land on? Cass didn’t know. Back of her palm. Front of her palm.
Flip it. Flip it again. Be stupid, take the gun. Be smart, leave it be, and cooperate. It was crazy. Cass had been over this a number of times of which the total sum she wasn't even sure of anymore. Ten times? Three times? A hundred? Back at the house when the deal was offered. During the explanation of the project. In the bush. Why was she still going over this? It felt like each time a decision started to feel firm in Cass’s head, an hour, a half hour, or even ten minutes would pass, and the question would come right back with a different answer to boot. The nasty voice in the depths of her head, slithering right back inside her ears whispering to let it all go to Hell.
She stared out of the window as hard as she could, without heeding how the straining of her eyes began to summon slight stabbing pains near the front of her brain. So what? It could join the party, seated to the right of the ringing in her ears and to the left of the spot of honor, the painful throbbing sensation near the top of her forehead where Mr. Moon’s pistol connected with her skull. It hurt then. It still hurt now.
Trees whipped past. How fast were they going? Cass wanted to look over to the speedometer, but that would put the handgun back in plain sight. Could she even trust herself with that view anymore? Soon the darkness between the trees started to blend into one. Blurring the trees together, it practically made the wooden trunks fade away into a state of perfect invisibility. All that stretched past that window was a land of ink far removed from the world where Cass existed inside the confines of the quiet car.
There were no bushes, branches, side roads, gravel, animals, nothing. It was all one, an entirely separate world she could see from the other side of a window. If she rolled it down, would it enter the car? It was already silent inside the vehicle. The night outside felt silent to her as well, though Cass couldn't be certain until the window was rolled down. Perhaps there could be birds singing, ones that would break the spell of the night.
But what if it entered the car? The trees were already blurred together into nothing. Would she join them? Forever part of that charcoal fabric stretching out further into reality than she could ever comprehend? That would be nice, sinking right into it like a cushy couch after a long day at school with a soft blanket wrapped snugly around her shoulders. Or would it? The worst part was Cass didn’t know for sure anymore.
The harder Cass’s eyes strained to distract from her grasping thoughts about the gun, the more it seemed like the ink outside was slipping right through the window. Yet, she hadn’t opened it. Neither of her hands were touching the handle near the bottom third of the car door that would roll down the window. The window was up. How did it get through?
Cass blinked once, then twice, but on the third she kept her eyes closed. She could feel it now. Similar to how her stray thoughts grasped to redirect her brain toward taking the gun, the inky darkness grasped at her body to pull her into some kind of dream. She didn't know for sure if it truly was a dream, but it felt like it would be. A dream where her dad was still alive, Mark was still at college, and Cass got a job at the diner.
It wasn’t the first time she’d had that dream. This was, however, the first time it arrived while she was awake.
Or was Cass awake right now? The entire ordeal was surreal. One day she was on the brink of finishing her last year at high school, the next she was questioning her own sanity in the car of a remorseless killer driving to a farmhouse with an alien tucked in the barn. Some sort of Russian kill squad was roaming around town, and a heart-eating mass-murderer was doing mass-murdery things all about the place. Wasn’t that crazy? That was a chain of events only movies would bother to put forward. Aliens, a revenge subplot, drama, whatever. It was li-
A pair of familiar eyes emerged from the world on the other side of the window. Chief Thomson. Cass Thomson’s father. Her dad. He looked at her from the other side of the window. No words, just staring. His stare was the only thing different – a small blip of a face in a sea of darkness. Dad stared right at her. His blazing ginger hair felt like it lit up a small part of that world, from the top of his head right on down to his funny little mustache. His eyes, they said something, but for the life of her, Cass was not sure what that was. Condemnation? Reassurance? Driving her to revenge? Beseeching her to let it go? Grab the gun? Get justice through the law?
Cass stared back at him like a deer caught in the headlights. Her dad did not blink. Yet his eyes – his eyes were so expressive. They spoke of a world of conversation if she could only just understand. If she could hear what his eyes were saying, if not for the pane of glass separating them both! Cass waved. Her arms felt like limp pasta noodles, but what strength she could summon into her muscles was barely enough to move them into action.
Nothing was different. Her dad’s face poked out of the world on the other side of the window. Was he actually there? He was not waving back. Why couldn’t she understand what his face was saying? Then there was movement. Her dad’s arms reached up to reveal his favorite cowboy hat held in a palm. The hat moved up and was casually deposited on top of his head. It looked like any moment he’d speak to crack some dumb pun, tip his hat, and head on back to work. But there was no sound. Chief Thomson turned around, hat still perched snugly on his head, and walked off, fading away into the darkness.
Cass forced her eyes open, and ‘bam’, just like that, the trees snapped back into view. The world of ink was gone, replaced by a twilight that was swiftly fading into the darkness of the night. The dream, as short as it was, it too disappeared like water spilling out of her cupped palm. Before long it was nothing but faint snippets in the deepest corners of her mind. Yet, those snippets lingered, like the tinnitus picked up from the gunfire and the probable concussion picked up from Mr. Moon.
The silence was more than suffocating now. If something more than suffocating was possible, that is. Smothering? Choking? Similar words but they felt different. She was less than a foot or two away from the person she hated most in the world. Cass wished that Mark was in the car with them, if only to slightly ease the tension, but she knew they were split up for a reason. Keeping the eggs from being in a single basket while preventing the two from plotting. Simple, yet clever. The question of Cass’s safety would keep Mark in line. The question of Mark’s safety (even though he had that alien weirdness about him) would keep Cass in line.
Almost as if to break the silence on cue, Mr. Moon let out a shout of alarm, spinning the steering wheel in his hands to evade something Cass couldn’t quite make out in the darkness. She could only tell it was moving fast. A fraction of a second later a terrible impact tore into the car, driving the breath clean from Cass's lungs. The silence was gone, replaced by the screaming of car engines, the crunching of metal bending, and the brittle sounds of glass breaking. Dimly, in the back of her mind that was separated from all the sudden chaos, Cass could hear the crunch of metal and glass that spoke of another car colliding with the one Mark was in.
Cass had no time to ponder over that information. The world turned topsy-turvy, the car skidding back from whatever force struck it until Cass’s side of the vehicle smashed against a tree bringing the vehicle to an abrupt stop, and sending shards of broken glass from the car window slicing into her cheek.