The Harbinger Break (2 page)

  
As he walked he looked at the front door and grinned, relieved to see it still shut and locked.

  
"You betrayed us," his brain repeated much like a time bomb. It was an itch he couldn't scratch. He tried shutting it down, but it was somewhere deep, prickling his subconscious. Something didn't feel right. It was like a wisp from far off–a crack in the hull of his security.

  
Forgetting his food in the microwave, he left the kitchen and walked past the parlor, up the staircase, and into his bedroom. He flew straight for his nightstand and pulled opened the drawer.

  
His eyes widened. His lips moved. “No...” he whispered.

  
His gun was missing. He always kept his gun right by his bedside in his nightstand drawer, and it wasn't there. He couldn't believe it, and scrambled through the drawer as if a large pistol could somehow hide beneath a few sheets of paper and a book. Beads of sweat gathered on his brow as he scrambled, and chills ran down his spine as he succumbed to the truth. Someone took his pistol–he wasn't alone–his instincts were right yet again.

  
He wanted to call the police, he wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. He was both the bear and its cub–he was angry and scared, then furious.

  
"Is anyone there?" he whispered.

  
No response.

  
"Is anyone there?!" he shouted.

  
His heart froze.

  
"I'm downstairs, Fischer."

  
He could recognize that deep and grating voice anywhere–like the hum of a revving engine. But the inflection it now carried he'd never heard–only imagined and feared. It was Patches Shane.

  
Fischer withdrew his cellphone from his pocket, but the moment he did so Shane spoke.

  
"I wouldn't call the cops if I were you, Fischer. I have nothing to lose, if they show up here I
will
shoot you–I have your gun."

  
So his instinct was right yet again, and no feeling of shock enveloped him–only that of inevitability concluded. Fischer felt the weight of the phone in his hand grow infinitely heavier, and stared at the holographic dial pad like a trained dog at trash. Pat Shane was a man who had nothing, who desired nothing, with a tortured past and a bleak future. "Nothing to lose?” Yeah, he could buy that.

  
Returning the phone to his pocket, Fischer took a few deep breaths. He was a psychiatrist, and arguably the best in the state. One less intelligent might need the cops, he thought–but he, one of the best in the state, could talk his way out of this.

  
He descended the staircase, and
Dante’s Inferno
flashed in his mind as he entered the red-carpeted parlor. Shane stood, relaxed and curious, by the microwave, food in hand, evidently enjoying himself. Fischer noted that Shane went so far as to have a glass of Fischer's scotch.

  
Shane looked different. He towered over Fischer as usual, but his gaunt cheekbones seemed darker, his long hair was unkempt and ragged, and his pale eyes dragged with the dark circles underneath them. He’d morphed from the Empire State Building into the Buffalo City Court Building–a domineering concrete monolith that had frightened a much younger Fischer.

  
But it had been only five hours since Shane’s decompensation, since the FBE had come and taken him. How had he come here? How did he find Fischer's house?

  
Fischer eyed his gun on the countertop, which Shane kept in plain sight, right by his glass.

  
Shane reached towards the gun, and Fischer froze, but he grabbed the scotch instead and held it up.

  
"A toast, Fischer,” he said almost listlessly. “To you working for me now."

  
Fischer stood frozen, his brain ticking a mile a minute. He didn't understand.

  
Shane shook his head with a grin and sighed. "Have you never done a toast before, Fischer? Go ahead, get your glass."

  
He spoke condescendingly, and Fischer didn't move.

  
"What are you doing here Pat?" he said. “You can’t be here. What do you want?"

  
Shane slammed his glass down onto the counter top, his smile gone. The impact startled Fischer, who jumped. Shane glanced down, as if deep in thought, and when his gaze returned he looked strangely compassionate. His hand was cut and bleeding from his semi-shattered, cracked glass.

  
“I’d get my glass if I were you, doctor,” Shane said.

  
Fischer complied. He walked to the coffee table and grabbed his glass, the situation already out of his control. The microwave beeped, and he twitched at the unexpected sound. He turned to see Shane taking out a second frozen dinner.

  
"I replaced your dinner, so no harm done. Let's sit and chat."

  
He walked from the kitchen and past Fischer, who watched him with bloodshot eyes, and sat in Fischer's other sofa. He motioned for Fischer to sit, and handed him the second frozen dinner.

  
Fischer followed Shane’s commands wordlessly, his brain clicking and spinning like a film reel, rolling memories of doctorate classes, searching for anything he'd learned on the subject of life and death, but his projector's lamp was off.

  
"Why are you in my house, Pat? Why do you have my gun?"

  
Interrupting, Shane raised his glass. “To the truth,” he said.

  
Fischer raised his and drank, keeping his eyes locked on Shane.

  
Shane placed his drink aside and took the gun from his pocket, placing it on his lap.

  
“So my question,” Fischer said. “Why are you–“

  
“I heard you the first time,” Shane said.

  
“You never answered.”

  
Shane leaned deliberately forward. “Did you know that millions of years ago, the snail’s shell, as opposed to the mollusk inside, was the actual living organism? No? The snail we see today, the gastropod, was a parasite that buried itself inside the hard exoskeleton of the original round creature. Over time, the parasite’s DNA changed until it adapted what it needed to survive–the shell–and in the process killed off the entire host species.”

  
Fischer shook his head. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

  
“Which is why, Fischer, that you and I are going to work together.”

  
“Then why do you have my gun?”

  
“And why am I here, right?”

  
“Yes.”

  
"To answer both your questions: to kill you. But no no no, Fischer no, take a deep breath. You didn't let me finish. To kill you, but only if I
must
."

  
Fischer took a deep breath, holding his head in his hands. He spoke, staring at his lap.

  
"What do you want, Pat?"

  
"There you go! First, I want my chart. Second, I want you to admit who you really are."

  
Fischer glanced up, Shane was staring back at him, waiting, with a slight grin on his face like a wolf who'd broken the leg of an elk, saliva dripping from hungry fangs.

  
"Your chart is at the office. And I'm sorry, Pat, but I have no idea what you mean. I'm Doctor Simon Fischer. I'm a psychiatrist. I enjoy helping people, people like you Pat, but also people like me."

  
"Good. Keep going. Tell me what you really are, Fischer. Remember that I've seen your true face."

  
"I live alone. My work is my life. I've never been married. I've been paid by the FBE three separate times to impregnate three different women. Aside from that, my life is a plateau."

  
"Is that all?"

  
"Yes."

  
"Are you sure?"

  
"Yes… yes I'm sure."

  
Shane stood and turned away from Fischer, with his scotch in his left hand and the pistol in his right. He took a sip and scratched the back of his head with the gun. Fischer stared at him, wondering if what he said worked, if he broke through.

  
Fischer cleared his throat. “Are we–“

  
"Do you think I'm stupid, Doctor?" Shane said, turning around, pointing the gun at Fischer, who instinctively raised his hands.

  
"No! No! You're incredibly smart! Of course I know that, I've read your files."

  
“Okay.” Shane lowered the weapon. "So let me tell you the facts, and feel free to correct me where I'm wrong:

  
"In 1979, the Voyager 1 photographed evidence of intelligent life on Europa. Europa is one of Jupiter's moons. Do you know where I'm going with this?"

  
Fischer stared, dumbstruck. "What? ' Where you're– ' Pat, believe me when I say that I have no idea why you're bringing up history from almost forty years ago!"

  
"Okay!" Shane said, voice rising, "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are incredibly
stupid
. That's fine. In 1980, former President Morgan Scott beat out incumbent Jimmy Carter and former governor Ronald Reagan as President of the United States, becoming President in 1981. As an extreme Radicalist, Scott's campaign involved heavy criticism of global technological advancement, and he preached that, should the aliens–whom NASA discovered are not native to Europa, but settlers–decide to attack us, we'd be hopelessly out-matched. That is an undeniable fact, and something that you, of all people, would agree upon."

  
"Why me 'of all people', Pat? Honest to God I have no idea what you're getting at."

  
Shane laughed. He raised the gun at Fischer again and cocked back the hammer.

  
"How fucking stupid do you think we Earthlings are?"

  
"What are you–what?!" Fischer raised his hands again, and he pushed so far back in his armchair that its two foremost legs were raised off the ground. "What are you talking about! What are you saying?!"

  
"You expect me to believe that in almost forty years, you Europans have been just sitting on your moon, ignoring us? Thirty-eight years with no attempt whatsoever at making contact? A society so advanced, yet apparently 'not interested' in even finding out whether or not a planet within
walking distance
is dangerous? I don't buy it Fischer, or whatever your real name is. And if you don't start revealing your plans right now, I will unload this gun into your skull to see if you aliens even
can
die. It's not what I came here to learn, but it's sure as hell better than nothing."

  
"I'm not an alien, Pat! Oh my God I'm not an alien!"

  
Fischer fell backwards in his chair as Shane approached, gun drawn, murder dancing in his wild eyes.

  
"I saw what you really are, Fischer."

  
"That wasn't real, Pat! I swear on anything and everything that wasn't real!"

  
"You injected me–"

  
"–I sedated you! You were having an episode!"

  
Shane laughed, then smashed Fischer's drink off the coffee table.

  
"An 'episode'… Why did these 'episodes’ only begin after I escaped? After I stopped eating regulated food?"

  
"I don't know! I swear I don't know, they never told me what goes on at GenDec! Nobody knows what goes on there!"

  
On the floor, Fischer moaned as Shane took a deep breath and calmed down slightly. "Okay. Alright, Doctor."

  
He walked to where Fischer's glass landed on the floor, picked it up, and walked over to the mantle. Fischer wiped the tears from his eyes and considered running while Shane had his back turned, but decided against it. He'd never make it to the front door, a door which he now regretted locking. Shane handed him the refilled glass.

  
"Drink."

  
Fischer sat up and took a sip. Then another, and then finished the glass. He exhaled heavily.

  
Shane sat back down. Silence filled the room, and Fischer heard the pounding of his heart and the swelling of his veins. His breath was so thick that it seemed to mist, as if his brain was certain that the room would run out of oxygen.

  
A minute might have passed, but it felt like hours.

  
Finally, Fischer couldn't stand it anymore, he had to say something. He stood slowly, fixed his chair, and sat down.