The Tower (27 page)

A few of the staff went up to the storage areas to work on repairs, the rest returned to duty. Fustus and I walked over to Sick Bay together; there, he stitched me up properly, gave me another painkiller. In all the time he was treating me, he never said a word. After he'd finished, he told me to get some rest, there would be more information coming soon. I didn't really know what he meant by that, I was in too much pain and needed sleep.

Twenty-Two: Aftermath

It was a few days after the assault by Wildcard. Things had gotten back to normal, well, as normal as they'd ever get around here. The crew had come this close to finding just who and what was running the show, and I'd come even closer to losing the only woman I'd ever loved. All in all, it was an adventure worthy of being called “epic.” It was a pity that no one could know the truth.

Thanks to the bravery of Avenger and Oriana, the day had been saved and I felt a more than a little proud that I'd been around to do my part as part of the Tower crew. Even though the evil had been vanquished, the memory of Wildcard's chilling laugh would stay with me for the rest of my life.

And speaking of life, there I was, back in the Commissary. After sleeping for thirty-six hours straight, I'd woken up, felt fine, and decided to get back to doing what I did best—cooking. It felt pretty good to get back to work, greeting John and the others in the early a.m., fixing what everyone liked to eat. In short, it was just another day on the Tower.

Gwyneth asked me about my condition. “We were all real worried about you, Bill,” she started. “Seems no one gets sick too often up here.”
Yeah, wasn't that the truth
.

“I feel fine,” I assured her, and actually, I
was
feeling good. The joint pains had vanished, my strength was returning, my energy was up; I felt fine. Taking that long rest seemed to have done wonders for me. Things were good, life was good. I'd be seeing Ori later on, we were planning to go to the beach and then Avenger walked in.

“I need to see you in Sick Bay,” he stated flatly. “The results of your lab tests are in.”

“Good news, I hope,” John opined. Avenger just nodded and said not to worry, things were fine.

Only we didn't go to Sick Bay, we ended up in the Justice Room, just the two of us. “What's this all about?”

Avenger fiddled with the console for a bit and then spoke. “I'm going to forget about any written reports regarding Wildcard; this is all off the books. You didn't have to do that to him, did you? I went back and saw what was left. Was that really necessary?”

I couldn't resist. “No one messes with the Association.” He laughed a little at that; we both did. Before he told me about the results, I still had some questions that I hadn't asked him on Pleasure World. “When you entered the wormhole to this universe, just why had the real Association and all the villains gone up together?”

Avenger shook his head, poured us both a glass of water from the ever-present pitcher on the table. “I don't know. They were all unconscious, many of them dead. Whatever it was that threatened this planet, it must've been so powerful that it took their combined powers to defeat it or at least drive it off. The wormhole opened up and there was no time to get accurate readings of what happened.”

“Couldn't you, ah, sense anything in their memories?”

“No,” he admitted. “We're good but we're not that good. Perhaps, someday, whatever they were up against will pass through this universe again.”

“Yeah, someday. Hopefully it won't.” I paused for a second. “Wildcard told me about your…um…reverse engineering process? He said that all the real ones who died would be regenerated somehow on Pleasure World. Is that possible?”

“I'll check it out,” he said. “We've never been able to get the process to work. We tried it on our own kind, but the DNA matrix wouldn't take; those regenerated died soon after. However, Wildcard was quite clever, maybe he found something we missed. Sometimes, insanity has its good points.” He paused. “If he wasn't lying, and if they really can be brought back, then we'll see what happens. It
is
their world, after all.”

One last thing: “What about Tenkita? She isn't one of your people? And neither is Fustus, is he? Weren't they the ‘others' you talked about on Pleasure World?”

Avenger looked at me, he seemed impressed. “You're correct, Fustus isn't and neither is Tenkita. Neither is The Snuffler, for that matter. As for Fustus, we hired him only about six months before you arrived. He found out about us very quickly and he's kept silent all this time. He'd been a top-flight researcher on Earth and we're more than happy to have him here.” He paused to drink some more water.

“I should have figured all this out earlier,” I said.

“That we weren't human?”

“Yeah, you slipped up a little. The Snuffler was the only one who couldn't speak all those languages you can. And all of you have blue eyes, even Temptress and Black Guardsman.” I scratched my head. The pain had almost gone away and when I looked in the mirror, the pistol-whip marks had faded a lot. Getting back into shape would be easy, I thought.

He shrugged. “Nothing much gets by you, we'll have to change that. As for Tenkita, she doesn't know what we are, either, perhaps her magic blinds her to that. It matters little; she's a good soul.” Odd for him to use that expression, perhaps he meant it as a person having a good character. Whatever he meant, that was true of her, as it was true of all the Ultras.

Avenger paused a little, as if searching for the right words to say and then asked me, “How do you feel?” The way he was looking at me, the way in which he asked the question…something wasn't right.

“All things considered, not too bad,” I answered cautiously. “Pretty good, in fact. Why?”

“How's your strength?”

I shrugged. “It seems to be coming back. If the doctor gives me the all-clear, I'd like to get back to training soon, go out on missions again.”
What was the problem here
?

He turned away for a moment and then back to face me. This time, he took off his cowl and looked at me searchingly. “Bill, ask yourself this question,” he began. “When you were on Earth and you got into fights during your patrols, were you ever injured?”

I thought about that for a second and shrugged. “Well, yeah, you saw. Bumps and bruises. I got a few black eyes and got cut a few times. Healed up fast, so what?”

“Did you ever wonder why you healed so quickly?”

A thought, a very unsettling thought occurred to me as soon as those words came out of his mouth. I couldn't say anything for the moment. I just looked at him and waited.

“Or why your symptoms of the leukemia seemed to disappear overnight, or why you gained strength so fast?” he continued. “Or why…”

“…I'm always thirsty.” The glass had been at my lips; I put it down and realized that the last pieces of my own personal health-puzzle had been put together right in front of me. Once again, I'd been oblivious to the obvious. No, NO,
NO!
It couldn't be! “It's…impossible.”

“Is it?” he asked. “You've seen how this universe works, how our science works…how our medicine works?” Avenger was looking straight at me, watching my reactions. There was no joy on his face, only concern.

The impossible had just become possible. For a moment I felt my heart skip a few beats and then settle down to its usual thump-thumping again. I'd seen other aliens on my interstellar travels, I'd gotten used to that. It'd been a shocking and frightening thing when Oriana had turned tree, I got used to that, too. I'd seen them all tortured and heal incredibly fast but
this
? Holy Mother of….

“Do you mean I'm becoming one of you?” My head was starting to spin, I gripped the table in order to keep myself from falling off the chair.

Avenger got up from the table and picking up a chart with my name written on it indicated some readings which I couldn't make head or tail of. All I saw were white and red cell blood counts, IGF and IGF-1 indicators (which meant absolutely nothing to me), bound and free serum testosterone counts, and other numbers which were just as baffling.

“It seems that way.” He sighed a little. “I'm sorry. I wanted to spare you the shock. I found out only a few hours ago and consulted with the doctor. After looking at all the tests, Fustus seems to think so and I agree.”

Spare me the shock? By waiting until I sprouted roots
? “Why? How…?”

“At first, we thought it was a relapse from the leukemia treatment in addition to the difference in the vibratory signatures,” he started to say. “At that point, that was what we were most concerned with. Then we ran some more tests, The weakness you experienced wasn't due to your disease or the changeover between universes. I've gone over the results with the doctor five times and…” he hesitated again…“all of your symptoms were due to your DNA…mutating.”

“Mutating,” I echoed softly, the realization traveling down to the pit of my stomach. “Mutating into what?”

“We're not sure,” he answered. “Initially, the treatment we gave you was standard anti-leukemic drugs, human plasma, and…” he hesitated again.

“And
what?!
”

He looked straight at me. “Our own plasma derivative. It was designed to help your body regenerate faster. Apparently, our DNA mixed with yours, altered your genetic make-up, and it took all this time for the side-effects to manifest themselves. They did: You heal faster, you're stronger now than you were before and you'll get stronger still, and your skin seems to be getting tougher.”

Taking a look at my hands and arms I could see that they were a slightly darker shade than my previously fair condition; hadn't noticed due to all the stress. No wonder I'd healed so quickly—wounds that would've taken days and perhaps weeks to heal seemed to disappear on me in a matter of hours. And when I'd had that fight with Evans, anything he hit me with had just sort of bounced off. Oh, man…I knew that things were different here but
this
different? I started shaking violently with the realization that I was no longer what could be called “human.”

Avenger noticed the look on my face, started to say something. “No!” I said sharply, getting up from the chair, “no, don't touch me, don't talk to me, don't come
near
me! You've made me into something I can't be, don't want to be. Just leave me alone, damn it!”

“Bill,” he started to say. “Think about it….”

“I don't
want
to think about it!” I yelled. “I'm…I'm a freak!” I sputtered. “And you knew all this time, you
knew!
”

“We weren't sure,” he told me, holding up his hand. “We'd performed the process on the others….”

“What others?” I demanded. “You mean the others who came here, the other aliens?”

“Yes.”

“And why didn't you tell me what would happen?”

He shrugged; that gesture almost made me slug him. “We honestly didn't know, you were the only human we'd ever…” he hesitated slightly, “tried the formula on. And then, we…”

“Decided to use me as another experiment, didn't you?” I cut in. “First you tried mind-wiping me. It must have started from the time I got on board, right?” He nodded mutely. “And now, now that I know it all and you've trusted me not to tell anyone, you do
this
to me? Why? You wanted to be absolutely sure that I'd
never
talk because I can't tell your secret without screwing it up for myself, right? You planned this, didn't you?!”

“We planned nothing,” he answered, his voice level. “The medicine was the only thing that could have saved your life. It was a choice that the doctor and I made together; you would have died otherwise.”

“And this is how I'm supposed to end up?” I asked, my voice choking with rage and despair. “You should have let me die. Instead, you fixed it so that I wouldn't have a choice in the matter, now that I'm a goddamned freak!”

Avenger just stared at me, not with anger but with a terrible hurt in his eyes. I hadn't meant the word “freak” to describe him or the other Actu-urans; it was meant to describe myself. I'd felt such a powerful jolt of self-loathing once he broke the news to me that I couldn't speak, couldn't think straight any longer. I just had to get the hell out of there.

And with that, I ran from the room, eyes watering, once again blindly running for the lift. Where could I go now? Again, no solution presented itself. The lift stopped and a few techs got on, punched the buttons that would take them to the Recreation Room. “Bill, what's going on?” one of them asked, looking at my face.

“Leave me alone!” I screamed. “Just leave me alone!!” They said nothing as I jabbed my fingers at the panel; the lift halted at my floor and I ran to my room and lay down on my bed, the tears coming out full force.

A knock on the door came. “It's Ori,” a voice called out.

What else was there to say? I hesitated, my voice came out in a strangled sob. “Come in.”

Twenty-Three: What Next?

Oriana walked in. “You okay, Bill?”

Okay? “No, I'm not okay,” I said bitterly. “I'm becoming an African Violet!” I yelled at her, crying all the while. Bawling like a baby wasn't exactly manly to my way of thinking but there it was and she was the only one I could vent on.

What Wildcard had said about being a guinea-pig, he'd been right. He might have been talking about all the people on Earth or maybe just me, I didn't know. Insane though he was and burnt to a crisp now…he'd been right. I was the only one who'd survived the treatment; ironically, the treatment had worked on me due to
me
being human. But I wasn't, not anymore.

Oriana came over to sit beside me; her touch was still soft and perfect. “Avenger just told me, I didn't know. Believe me I didn't know how you'd changed.” Her voice was sincere and when she saw the tears fall from my eyes she pulled me to her and held me closely. I wiped my face, tried to stop myself from shaking from fear. What was going to happen now? The script had taken a sudden turn into left-field and I didn't have a clue as to how the story would pan out.

“You didn't know,” I repeated. Now, there wasn't just confusion and fear. there was anger about being used for an experiment which should have killed me but didn't, an experiment that had left me as…what? “You didn't know.” Got up and walked over to the window, trying to control myself; it didn't work. My hands pounded the sill with every word.

“
Avenger
knew,
Fustus
knew!” While the loathing I'd felt for myself was still there, the anger and the feelings of betrayal faded away just as quickly as they'd come, replaced by a sense of loss. My hands dropped to my sides. “They got me all cured, told me I'd have a good life up here and
this
is what I get left with?” I finished, my voice subdued.

Looking at Ori's face it was clear from her expression that she hadn't been made privy to their plans. Finally, I got myself in check; what good would it do to hurt her? I came back to the bed and sat down again.

Ori looked into my eyes. “They
suspected
something was wrong at the time, they weren't sure. Even if they had told you earlier, what would you have done?”

She had me there. What
could
I have done? Not a damn thing—it wasn't as if they could somehow suck out the bad DNA and leave the good stuff behind….

“Oriana,” I began, and then stopped. Not since I'd first looked into space from the Tower had words failed me. “I…I don't know what I am anymore.”

She smiled and said, “You're the one that I love,” she replied simply. “Couldn't it be any clearer?”

No…no, the image of me, my insides turning to jelly, my blood becoming green sap, my body liquefying, transforming into something other than human, the fact that my body was no longer what it'd been; I just couldn't understand and couldn't accept it. Much like the leukemia I'd experienced what seemed like a lifetime ago; then, I couldn't accept that I was going to die, and now I couldn't accept that I was going to live. As one of them….

Hold on a minute
. Now
I
was “one of them.” And I'd been thinking the same thing that any bigot out there would think. Any other minority throughout history that had been spit on and harassed just for being different would definitely understand this feeling I had. Even though I was confused about it all, my girlfriend didn't seem to mind.

Oriana took my face in her hands and kissed me; her kiss was sweet and loving, as always. “D'you know why I chose you? Our people, we're able to recognize another's signature, the bell sound that you hear. I told you that before. It's part of our culture, part of our essence, our being; what we
are
and…” She paused, thinking it over. “I guess like humans, sometimes we like one person's signature more than another's.”

Her hands continued to stroke my face. “When I first met you, I knew, somehow, that even though you were different from us, I knew you really weren't, bell signature or not. I
sensed
it. It sounds crazy, doesn't it?”

It did sound crazy, but no crazier than me mutating. And I remembered that she'd also said, “You're not like all the other guys,” or something along those lines. I thought she was just talking about personality. “Yes, but….”

“But I didn't come to love you as one of us,” she interrupted, putting a hand to my lips, “I came to love you for what
you
are. You represent what all of us try to represent: Someone who does the decent things in life, helps out, does what's necessary. And that's why I've been with you ever since. Human, Actu-uran, does it matter? There's no need to be afraid, no need. I
love
you, no matter what, mi novio,” and then she kissed me and held me for the longest time.

Inwardly I chuckled a little, she'd called me “boyfriend” in Spanish. “I love you, too, mi novia,” I answered. And I did. When she laughed, I started to feel a bit better, but I was still confused.

Finding out that all my friends weren't human, it was, at first, inconceivable that I could accept them, especially my girlfriend; I had come to terms with that and it didn't matter anymore. But now, it was
me
who was different and she was saying that all was well. For her, she'd been born of an alien race and it wasn't her DNA changing her, it was mine. And I didn't even know what the finished product would be.

Then again, when we'd kissed, from the first time until now, all those times, it somehow just seemed “right” and it wasn't just because she was my first love. Maybe, just maybe, that had been my own body's way of telling me the truth that I already
was
one of them even before I'd been made aware of that fact. Or maybe I hadn't listened at the time….

It took a while for me to compose my thoughts. “Before, Avenger told me that I'd have to return to my own dimension,” I started to say. “And now….”

“Now, you don't have to, you're the same as we are.” She said it so simply, so naively—did she think my humanity was like some sort of trade-in? And then it came to that she was just trying to say that what I was didn't matter. Loving her was fine but it wasn't as cut-and-dried as all that.

Was
I the same? BIG had said, “You're one of us, ain'tcha?” While Gelt was a few bricks short, had he recognized the transformation or was he just being friendly?

“Am I the same?” I asked. “I can't change shape like you do, all I seem to have gotten was stronger and I heal faster. That seems to be it. And I don't know anything about your culture or your history, except what Avenger told me.”

“I can teach you,” she replied confidently. “Stay; stay here, with us…with me.”

All I'd wanted to do in the past eight months or so was to stay here, I had no life back on my Earth. On the Tower, I had a job, a beautiful woman at my side, I had friends and I was happy. I felt I belonged here. In my heart, I'd always wanted to be like them and ironically, now I was.

But I also felt cheated, as if the choices of where to live and what to do had been taken away, either by accident or by design. Could I stay? How long would I live this way, would I change even more? There were no answers forthcoming and that only added to my confusion.

Oriana kissed me again and we held each other tightly. No words were spoken as I was all out of things to say for the moment. “You need time to think, right?” I nodded dully. “Then think about it, I'll be waiting. I'll always wait.” With that, she gave my hand a quick squeeze and left.

* * *

And I was alone again.

What to do now? Tried “thinking” my body into something else, nothing. Concentrated hard, conjured up mental images of me morphing into someone else. Zilch—there was no strange energy coursing through me, no tendrils sprouting from my arms or legs. I looked the same as everyone and felt the same as everyone.

All too human, but I was not.

Now I was a hybrid: Half-human and half-alien, belonging neither to this world by virtue of birth nor my own. In the former case, just a happy accidental landing here, in the latter, due to the DNA change, I wouldn't belong there, either.

How would the other Ultras react towards my transformation? BIG had accepted me but he also accepted little kittens, cockroaches and banana peels as his buddies, he didn't care. Oriana obviously didn't, and neither did Avenger. When I got up the nerve, I'd go and apologize to him. Much of the pain and anger directed towards him was due to the suddenness of the test results, it wasn't his fault. He said he hadn't known; would I ever know the real truth? I had to trust him and I decided that I did.

As for the rest of the crew, would they resent me for being “half?” Would the non-Ultra/alien personnel fear and loathe me for what I'd become? No answers, but since curiosity was getting the better of me, I went up to the Bridge for a while. Mr. Wonderful was there as always, tending to the day-to-day computer operations, data input, mission-tracking…and mind-wiping; couldn't forget that little fact. He waved me up and murmured softly, “Nice to have you back, Bill. Glad you're better.” No biggie, that went well. I just nodded and said I was fine, thanks for asking.

Down at the Commissary, Skree and Lancer had finished a meal and were walking out together. They just smiled; Temptress was just about to enter and after a quick look inside at who was in there, she whispered knowingly, “Is everything okay?”

“I guess so,” I answered, feeling foolish. What was one supposed to say in this kind of situation?

“It's a big change for you,” she said softly. “If you have any questions, let me know, I'll do what I can.” And with that, she touched me gently on the shoulder and went inside. Well, so far, none of the Ultras had shunned me and that was a blessing. I went back to my room to think some more. “If you have any questions,” Temptress had said.

Questions, that's all I did have: Questions of what I was, what I'd do from this point on, and more. The saying of “A choice to be made, the price to be paid” came floating back to me and with it, a feeling of anger and helpless rage. I'd had no choice in this! I'd been rescued, I'd been given treatment and friendship and love and I'd had a life but now, what options did I have?

The tears came again. Didn't want to cry but couldn't help it, and for the longest time I cried silently, wishing it were all a bad dream and that I'd wake up again, normal and healthy again. But wishing would do me no good and this was the situation and I was stuck with it. Those conflicting thoughts kept colliding in my brain until it became too much. Maybe I screamed silently or maybe I just went a bit mad.

In the end, I decided that I was still me and no one else, and sooner or later I'd have to come to terms with that. That thought of me
being
me kept me from going off the deep end, helped me hang onto my sanity. “I'm still me,” I repeated, and kept repeating it until sleep came along to temporarily put me out of my mental anguish.

* * *

Three hours later. I woke up, drank three glasses of water, and looked at myself in the washroom mirror—no changes. I went across the hallway to Oriana's room and saw a note on her door:

Help out, that's what I used to do. If I stayed here, that's what I could still do. Took a walk, and ended up in the weight room on Deck 12, my old training grounds. A couple of the guys I knew came over and asked me how I was feeling. They seemed genuinely concerned, Joe and Chuck were training with my old boxing instructor and they, too, came over and asked me if I was okay.

“It isn't the same without you, Bill,” Joe opined. “Sort of missed you kicking my butt inside the ring.”

“Yeah,” Chuck added. “Training with the other guys is cool, but outside of ‘Coach' here, you're the only one who's made the grade. Gonna spar with us soon?”

“I'll try,” I promised.

They were human—they didn't sense anything was wrong. Crazyman just gave me a brief nod and a wink; hell, yeah,
he
knew. How…some kind of pheromone I gave off?

“Y'working out, Bill?” another member asked.

“Think I'll hit the weights a bit,” I replied, and started in with squats. First set: 135 for 8, then 225 for 8, and then…then the weights climbed. Did three more very easy sets and I ended up by doing 405 for 6 reps; the weight felt like a feather. Benches saw me doing 335 for ten reps, and presses came to 245 times 8 and all the other lifts I did that session were equally impressive and astonishing. If being a hybrid made me able to do this, then it wasn't half-bad. Finished up the session, and noticed that I wasn't even sweating. I just nodded at everyone and walked out.

Crazyman came after me, and after making sure no one was around, he lowered his voice and said, “Kid, during a workout, y'gotta put a little water on yer face an yer hair, makes y'look more like them (he pointed in the direction of the gym; he meant Joe, Chuck, and all the others), alright?”

Yeah…okay
.

“See y'around, Bill,” he said. “I always thought you were someone special, we all did.” Then he gave me another friendly shot to the shoulder. It still hurt a lot.

I wandered around the hallways, watching all the other people go by. A bizarre thought came to me—they were humans. Was that another sign of The Change? There they were, working and talking and laughing and when they saw me and greeted me, I talked and laughed along with them, forcing myself to join in.

What would they say if they knew about me? If they asked, maybe I'd tell them, “Yes, I'm ‘DNA-challenged.'” No, that wouldn't work. How about, “Well, I
was
once just like you, but after ‘taking the treatment' I'm now improved…and you can be, too!” Uh-uh, that wouldn't work, either. The hell with it—I decided not to say anything.