Stephen leaned against the tunnel wall outside his lab. What advantages did he have over the Surface Creatures that would guarantee his safety the following day? Speed? Strength?
The Indigenes fared better on intellect, but the Surface Creatures understood cunning and deception in a way that put him at a disadvantage. He pushed off from the wall and paced the length of the tunnel. What else could he use—his vision?
An Indigene’s vision worked best in low levels of light. It allowed them to make sense of the dark and was the reason they preferred hunting at night.
Relax, said Anton leaning against the entrance to the lab. It’ll be fine.
You wouldn’t say that if it were you going.
Anton grinned. Yes, I would. I have faith in my inventions.
Stephen hid his jealousy; his friend’s easygoing nature was hard to take sometimes. Seeing his parents die had made Stephen anxious about everything. But the upcoming trip was too important to mess up over his insecurities. Insecurities that made him want to tear the silicone skin from his face and cancel his plans. His last trip to the surface to study the Surface Creatures hadn’t gone so well. His group of three had used a cheap disguise and no silicone skin to hide their real identities.
On the back of Central Council orders to find out more about them, his group had started their search just inside the city border for New London. Outside a closed food replication terminal building, they’d found group of seven boys. Even from a distance, he’d caught the pungent smell of alcohol in the air.
Their approach reduced the boys’ loud chatter to whispers. A skittish Stephen hung back while the other two Indigenes moved closer.
What could he say to them? How about, your parents are murderers and you will grow up to be one, too?
Not exactly the best way to get them to talk.
To his relief, one of the other Indigenes started the interrogation. The mood started out light, but turned heavy when the questions to the boys became more personal. Stephen’s finely tuned hearing allowed him to pick up the boys’ utterances.
‘Who the fuck are these losers?’
‘I know. I’m losing me buzz.’
‘I’m bored.’
‘C’mon, let’s show these clowns what dirt tastes like.’
‘Yeah!’
‘I wanna go home.’
‘Stay where you are, Jason. Everybody’s stayin’ put.’
‘D’ya think they’re some kind o’ military?’
‘Dunno. They’re not wearing uniforms.’
‘Don’t wanna to get into no trouble.’
‘Don’t be an idiot, Jason. Do as I say.’
‘Seven against three. Easy.’
The boys came at them, arms flailing and legs kicking, fuelled by a mixture of alcohol and stupidity. Stephen retreated into the dark night. The other Indigenes followed. But instead of leaving, they stopped a short distance away and listened.
‘Where’d they go?’ said one boy.
‘What the fuck?’
‘It’s like them Shadow People I keep hearing ‘bout.’
‘Don’t be an idiot. That’s just legend. A story to scare the little kiddies so they don’t fall ‘sleep.’
‘No, I heard them people’s real. They hunt late at night and they eat kids and adults if they sleep. Sometimes they catch them out here.’
‘That don’t even make sense, Jason. We’re out here ev’ry night, and I haven’t seen no Shadow People.’
‘Well what’dya call them people just here then?’
‘Fucking losers.’
It was the first time Stephen had heard the term “Shadow People” and Central Council had no idea whom among their race was hunting Surface Creatures. Any future contact with the race on the surface needed to be planned out.
Why is Pierre letting you go and not me? Anton’s voice broke through his thoughts.
Because it was my idea to target one of them during daylight hours.
He must have been crazy to suggest such a thing. But all he could think about was avenging his parents’ death. To do that, he needed to learn more about the race’s weaknesses. While Pierre had agreed with his logic, Elise, Pierre’s wife and the second elder of District Three, had not.
He had a target in mind: a loner boy who he’d been observing for a while. He’d promised Pierre he would use the boy’s natural curiosity to gain his trust.
You’re not exactly the friendliest Indigene around, said Anton.
Only two Indigenes could say that to him: Anton, and his other friend, Arianna.
And the elders.
I can pretend for a day.
Stephen took out a box and rummaged through the items that had been ‘acquired’ from the Surface Creatures over the past few months. He fished out a thumb-sized digital recorder that Anton had stolen from a female’s bag.
‘Took me a few tries to get that.’ Anton switched to his voice. ‘She kept moving her bag around. I had to move faster than she did.’
Stephen located to a new room off from the tunnel where he’d tested the air filtration device. A metal table sat in the centre of the square shaped room, flanked by two chairs. A soft hue illuminated the white walls; the light was facilitated by tiny solar-powered discs embedded into the wasteland above. He placed the tiny recorder on the floor, near one of the table legs, and waved his hand over the device to start the first recording.
A high-resolution 3D image of the restaurant burst out of the device, filling the otherwise plain room with a soft light. The wall’s surface bounced the images back into the room. Stephen watched as Cantaloupe restaurant came into focus. It felt strange to sit in a place where people served other people food. Stephen ate nothing he didn’t kill himself, but the decline of the primoris—a native animal on Exilon 5—had forced their race to seek alternatives to a raw-meat diet rich in iron. Animal hunting satisfied their primal urge while a synthesised protein substitute kept them alive. The animals the Surface Creatures had brought with them tasted strange; the composition of their blood was different to the primoris. While the taste of warm blood and fresh meat from the new animals suppressed their desires, it did not satiate their hunger.
Stephen sat at the table and aligned his body to mirror one half of a Surface-Creature couple. He immersed himself into their timeline as they ate. Anton sat opposite him with the 3D image of the second person overlaid on his upper body and face. Sitting down was an unnatural position for Indigenes who preferred to stand. He gripped the steel edges of the chair and studied the recording, observing the way they used their hands to gesture. He concentrated on their conversation. When he watched the Surface Creatures in this way, he could be clinical in his observations; no hate, or panic or fear to upset his preparations. His lips moved in perfect synchronicity with theirs.
‘I remember this scene. I sat right over there.’ Anton pointed to a spot off camera. ‘I was lucky nobody bothered me.’
Stephen’s gaze settled on a lone male in his forties with dark brown hair sitting by the window.
‘He watched me for a while,’ said Anton. ‘But I’d hidden the camera well enough. Then he gave up and just went back to looking out the window.’
‘What would you have done if he’d approached you?’
Anton smiled. ‘I have no idea.’
The recording looped, and Stephen glanced around the restaurant he’d seen too many times now. A much older male sat to his right.
‘How long do you think they live for?’ asked Anton.
The oldest living Indigene on record was one hundred and ninety-eight. He knew the Surface Creatures’ bodies were the same—one heart, one liver, two kidneys and one brain—but fundamental differences still existed between the two species. The Indigenes’ bodies and minds didn’t suffer deterioration due to the regeneration of all cells. An injury that could take weeks to heal in a Surface Creature would only take minutes in an Indigene’s body. Having studied their physical composition from books, Stephen discovered that the cells in their brains and spinal column possessed no regenerative ability. The Surface Creatures relied on the production of synthetic cells to combat brain injuries, old age and paralysis. Disease was uncommon among the Indigenes, because an infected cell never had time to manipulate a healthy one when the body was already expelling it.
The lone male by the window with the salt and pepper hair drew his attention again. A sudden hate for him forced Stephen’s concentration back to Anton and the image of the companion superimposed over him.
Anton was mimicking the movement of his doppelganger’s hands. ‘See how they do that? It’s like he’s playing out a musical score.’
Anton continued to copy the movements while Stephen watched and learned.
The recording looped for the third time and, right on cue, a female came to the table and filled their glasses with water. He’d read somewhere that Surface Creatures’ bodies contained sixty per cent water, although they didn’t always drink it in its purest form. The same female handed a beer to the male by the window. While the Indigenes could drink water, it didn’t “quench” their thirst as it seemed to do for the Surface Creatures. Initially when the Surface Creatures first relocated to the barren planet, they had brought their own water with them. What little supply they did find on Exilon 5, however, they replicated using chemicals.
How had the Surface Creatures with their lesser intelligence come to destroy so many Indigenes? It was almost as if they knew of the Indigene’s existence.
He kept that thought from Anton who watched him carefully now.
I think you should take a break, Stephen.
I’m fine. I need to rehearse this.
I think you’ve got it.
Stephen ignored his friend and allowed the scene to loop for a fourth time. He rehearsed their movements and studied their familiar ease with one another, ignoring eerie similarities between their species. There were plenty of differences, too; like the speed at which both species moved. The Indigenes regularly conversed in thought alone; words weren’t always necessary to convey a message. Since Stephen rarely spoke out loud he would have to slow down his speech for this mission. He loosened up his stiff posture and turned off the recording.
‘I need a set of your lenses.’
Anton stood up and stretched out his back. ‘I really hate chairs. I’ll get a set for you now.’
The lenses would protect his retinas from the harmful daytime sun.
With Anton gone to get the lenses, Stephen cast his own chair to one side and pushed the table against one wall. In the box, he picked out a half-length mirror and propped it up against the wall. The silicone skin he’d tried on earlier still clung to his skin. He looked past his strange image and practised his eye movements, then his speech, and last his hand gestures. He kept rehearsing until the movements felt a little less obvious and more natural.
Anton stood at the door with a box in his hand. It’s just for an hour. No problem.
Just an hour. So why was Stephen nervous about the trip the next day? Was it because the Surface Creatures had killed his parents? Every fibre of his body screamed at him to stay.
But he had to go. Central Council needed answers.
The time for waiting, the time for hiding, was over.