SELENITE

 


Maggie is entering adulthood for the first time when reality hits her in a brutal way. Wounded and confused, she suddenly finds herself in a situation she could never have imagined. Sinking neck-deep in the bowels of dark international conspiracies, she will have to come face to face with her worst fears and fight to avoid being corrupted by that sinister force that is none other than the human essence.



Introduction



The temperature in those dark subway facilities must have been well below zero degrees, but for its inhabitants it was normal. Slipping through the faded and dusty architecture that once seemed futuristic, dressed in ragged winter clothes dating perhaps from the cold war era, were real ghosts of the former Soviet Union. In their faces covered by balaclavas and scarves their reddish pupils shone, like animal eyes, they moved like beasts dragging their hands with long sharp nails sticking out of their old woolen mittens and the skirts of their thick coats on whose shoulders were still embroidered logos of the Ministry of General Engineering of the USSR. They gathered to receive instructions from the leader of the tribe, the only one of those characters capable of walking upright and perhaps thinking rationally. 

Crouching around the leader of the group, they looked at him expectantly, while he read a letter while stroking the reddish braids of a small female that clung to his legs. Finally, he crumpled it and threw it to the ground with rancor, the other creatures howled excitedly with murderous fury understanding the order as the paper unfolded again a little showing its message: 
"We come in peace". 

 

June 13, 2011


The young and candid Maggie felt a chill. She had decorated the bushes on the rooftop of her apartment with the lights from last Christmas tree to, she thought, give a more romantic touch to that dinner she was serving outdoors. The moon, two days away from being full, was helping her achieve that magical ambiance she was looking for on the night she planned to give her boyfriend some big news. The Beatles' "And I Love Her" was playing on an old radio on the table, while she looked at the sky and realized that since she was a child, she had felt strange looking at that silver disc in the sky; somewhere between moved, fascinated and somehow repelled.

Magdalena "Maggie" Cardenas Fernandez de Henestrosa carried in her name and in every aspect of her life the weight of being a "girl from a good family", something very similar to being a caged bird. She had been living in the United States for twelve years; the first ten were spent with her conservative paternal grandmother, the last two on her own. She was the seventh child of a Spanish lady of illustrious lineage whose legs had been paralyzed since Maggie was five years old and a famous Mexican doctor who had always dreamed of seeing his studious and obedient daughter, the only girl of all his children, graduate from Harvard. But since her arrival in Cambridge, Massachusetts, things had not gone according to Maggie's plan; or rather her father's plan. She, who had never had a boyfriend because her dad had ordered her grandmother to punish her if she talked to boys, suddenly met a man and began to feel like a woman. She was a girl of barely seventeen and of medium height who had surprised everyone by going straight into college to study psychology before she came of age, something quite remarkable because of her style of dress so typical of teenage fashion in the early second decade of the twenty-first century. She was aware that her colorful clothes and emo hairstyle were out of place among the other students already in their twenties, but she saw her salvation in her courtship with Tommy Tolley, a prestigious neurosurgeon from New York who, being her professor and several years older than her, noticed that despite her excellent grades she was insecure and extremely sensitive to the suffering of others; so much so that many times her classmates used emotional blackmail to convince her to do their homework for them. The young doctor Tolley was handsome and popular at the university; every time Maggie saw him approach her with his wonderful blue eyes, his black curls of hair and his perfect smile, she was afraid that it was all a dream and that he was really just playing with her.

A cold wind blew and suddenly there was a strange silence. The radio lost signal and Maggie nervously adjusted her glasses. She walked down from the rooftop to her laptop, distracted herself for a moment by checking the messages her relatives had left on her favorite social network and felt guilty about her secret passionate affair with Tommy. She glanced at the clock and realized that her boyfriend was already twenty minutes late. She reached for her phone and called him, but he never answered. A strange feeling suddenly came over her. Just then there was a knock at the door and she ran to open it. It was Tom, laden with bags of groceries and a bouquet of yellow roses. Maggie greeted him happily, with childlike enthusiasm; she stood on her tiptoes to reach her boyfriend's cheek and plant a kiss on his cheek, then took the bags from him and ran with them to the kitchen. Tom asked about dinner as he sat down at the dining room table and Maggie went to take him by the hand to pull him up to the roof, saying:

—Not here, dinner will be served upstairs, I have something important to tell you!
—What a coincidence, I wanted to tell you something great too....
—Upstairs, let's go; I want everything to be perfect tonight.

Arriving on the rooftop, Tom was surprised to look at the illuminated bushes and said, as his girlfriend served the dishes:

—Maggie, you naughty little girl! What have you done to these bushes...?
—Don't you like them? I thought it was a nice touch.
—Well, if you like them. What's the big news?
—You tell me yours first. In the meantime, come, sit down at the table now.

Tom sat down and said, with great enthusiasm:

—I've got the opportunity of a lifetime!!! It will be a temporary thing, just a few months or a year, maybe a year; but it looks like I'd be earning over five hundred thousand dollars a week and the respect of all the medical eminences. Do you understand what I'm saying, Maggie? This is important government-funded research. An old friend of my father's made the connections and today was my lucky day, I was chosen for the position. So, we need to...make plans for the future...In a little less than a year I'll have to leave for Alaska to start that job and we'll have to stop seeing each other for a while.

The girl's countenance became serious and she spoke, lowering her voice as she usually did when discussing a serious subject:

—But, Tommy...It's not the best time...My news....
—What is it, speak up. Are you pregnant?
—Yes... I'm two months late... and this morning I took a test and I'm pregnant...
—Oh, no, Magdalena!

Tom Tolley jumped up from the table with a wave of his hand that startled Maggie and went to a terrace, obviously in a bad mood. She felt as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown at her and wanted to cry, but first she wanted to understand why her perfect boyfriend had reacted so rudely:

—Are you not happy, it's our baby...?
—No, it's the product of your ignorance for not wanting to use condoms, nor pills, thanks to your Hispanic religiosity. I told you the rhythm method is not reliable at all, now go tell the nuns who educated you to get you out of this one!
—Tommy, don't talk like that, respect my beliefs. You're my first boyfriend...
—Maggie, you're in America, in the 21st century; girls here are ashamed if they haven't had sex before they enter college. Open your eyes already!

Maggie reached over to grab him by the arm and say:

—But I decided so, I wanted it to be something special for me and for the man I really loved; and it was, remember? It was my greatest gift of love, and now this happened...and I'm happy that you're the father.
—But I'm not.

Tolley replied, letting go of her with a brief tug. These words wounded her deeply, she practically cringed in pain at hearing him and only managed to say, in a trembling voice:

—How can you talk to me like that, we have been so happy together?
—You are too naive and you make me feel so guilty, I just told you that there is a million-dollar business at stake and you come out with this... Listen to me, maybe at some other time in my life I would have told you: "go ahead, let's go through with it until the end"; but not now, Maggie, not now. This job is too important, it is something that would define the course of the entire future of my life.

Little Maggie, even though she knew she had done nothing to harm her boyfriend on purpose, felt responsible for her frustration and muttered:

—I understand.
—No, don't make that face. Look, I'll tell you what: the research subjects for that paper I mentioned to you won't be ready until May 2012; in the meantime, we could take a vacation and take that trip to Europe we always talked about, remember? Your pregnancy is still at a very early stage and, well, I have a friend who could do us the favor...and terminate it.

Such a proposal frightened the young woman, who exclaimed indignantly:

—An abortion?!!!, you're talking about my baby, not about removing a wart!!!!".
—Magdalena, "your baby" is a jumble of tissue with as much conscience as the hairs growing on my ass.... Stop acting like a silly little girl from the republic of Mexico and start thinking like a Harvard university woman! Don't you realize that this whim could derail your career, and mine!!!!! The worst thing is that you are a minor...I could go to jail because of you....

Maggie returned to the charge in defense of her motherhood:

—But...We won't go public until I'm eighteen. And I'll keep studying, lots of girls study and become mothers! I'll just have to work a little harder, it won't be such a burden. I'll be able to go through with it all! 
—Great! But I don't want to be a father, a child molester, a husband and at the same time risk my neck in a job at the end of the world! If there is a choice between raising a stupid child and being a multimillionaire, everyone would choose the second option and as for you: I think that several million dollars could solve your sadness of being a frustrated mother!

The girl burst into tears:

—No! Not even all the money in the world could! Ever since I found out this morning, I've dreamed about this baby. I imagined my child on first day of school, as a girl, as a boy, looking like you, looking like me; I imagined him playing ball for the first time, having his first date, graduating from school.... Even getting married! And I dreamed of having him already in my arms, and I chose names, and I thought of everything I want to teach him...And now all that illusion is falling apart...My baby is already alive...He's already a person in my mind...I can't kill my baby....

Tom was silent. He rubbed his face with his hands, thought for a few moments and then took her by the shoulders, saying:

—It's all right. It's okay, don't cry. I'm the real adult here and I should have been more responsible with you, not just spoil you by following your silly childish whims; like not using any protection. Listen: you will be a mother, but I have an idea to make up for what I have done to you, and to make sure that you and the baby have a secure future. In a year or so, when you are eighteen and I leave for Alaska, I have the option of taking a trusted assistant with me to help me with my chores. I wasn't thinking of taking anyone with me but... Who better than you, you are dedicated and reliable. Besides, with what you earn there, you would never need to work again in life. You could pay your father back everything he has spent for you to study at Harvard and still have enough to buy a nice apartment and live comfortably all your life. But in return, I want you to make me happy, and make you happy...and some uncles of mine in Canada. I want you to give the baby up for adoption so that he can grow up happily in the hands of mature people who can give him all the love and support he needs.

Maggie felt a sudden choking sensation as she said:

—But I could give him or her....
—No, no, Maggie. You couldn't, you're seventeen, you're a child! You still have to form yourself, make a life for yourself. Trust me, this is the best option for everyone. Pack soon. Tell your father you'll go to Canada on vacation with your friends and then you'll stay with my aunt and uncle until the baby is born and you get back on your feet. I will help you with the adoption paperwork and then you will join me in Alaska. You just sign everything I send you, be a good girl with my aunt and uncle and I will be there with some colleagues; preparing everything we will need: medical equipment, provisions, security.... Just trust me, everything will be fine. I won't leave you stranded. Once you're in Canada, tell your father you want to live your life, that you're running away or something, and then you can forge a future without the baby in the way.

As Tom spoke, Maggie cried more and more anguishedly until she moaned:

—No, Tommy, I couldn't part with my child!
—It's just for the duration of the investigation and you get the money. Then you come back with the baby and have your life figured out. Trust me, if you love me, just do what I tell you. You are still very young and you don't know anything.

That night, many illusions crumbled before Maggie. She, who felt so mature and self-sufficient living alone with her lover, suddenly found herself unsure of her own decisions and abilities thanks to the words of her idolized Tommy. He had spoken with great authority and his frank blue eyes convinced her that no one knew better than him what the right thing to do was. But she was unaware that often the worst mistakes come hidden in what seems to be the best advice.

A few days later, Maggie flew to Vancouver, Canada, and moved in with Tom Tolley's strict aunt and uncle, who took great pains to make her feel even more immature and useless by ordering her to make her bed at six in the morning, eat every last crumb off her plate, dress like a girl from the 40's, and go to bed at eight at night. Maggie closed all the accounts she had in different social networks so that no one would hear from her and thus keep her pregnancy a secret, then she notified her father through an email that she had decided to abandon her studies temporarily and was collaborating in an important scientific research that kept her very busy.

Months passed and Maggie's only entertainment consisted of sitting in the living room at four o'clock, with Tom's respectable aunt and uncle, and watching depressing documentaries about what the world would look like if humans suddenly disappeared. Her favorite times of the day were those when she was left alone and could search her laptop for more possible names for her baby, who she now knew would be a boy. She was sent to bed as early as eight o'clock at night, still without any sleep; she dared not disobey or contradict her hosts so she meekly agreed to go to bed early and occupied that time in contemplating the moon and the starry sky through a glass dome over her bed, until she finally fell asleep. Sometimes, as she watched the pale lunar disk, she was seized by a strange anguish; she didn't know why. And then she would also think of her boyfriend, sure that he would soon bring everything under control.

January finally came and one day Maggie woke up with back pain; and then, while helping to cut tomatoes in the kitchen, a large amount of fluid gushed out from between her legs and made a puddle on the floor. Tom's aunt's reprimand was brief only thanks to the fact that the poor girl had gone into labor. Maggie tried to keep herself under control in the birthing room, she didn't find the pain intense enough to scream like the other laboring women did but it scared her to think about when she would get to that point. Finally, she reached maximum dilation and the baby started to come out. The obstetrician asked her to push hard as she obeyed and she felt bad thinking that delivering her child was like having severe intestinal constipation. As she berated herself for comparing her baby to feces she cringed in shame, compressed her abdomen and finished giving birth. When she saw her son for the first time, she thought he was very ugly, as he was dirty and wrinkled; with a huge head and a somewhat skinny body. But once she held him in her arms and noticed that the little boy recognized her and felt safe with her, she loved him. He was very much like her after all, she thought, an inexperienced being in need of love.

Maggie named her son Abel, after her father, to whom she hid the fact that he was now a grandfather; just as Tommy had instructed her to do. For three months they were happy together. She had learned to recognize in her son's cries his every need, and it was so exactly the way the two of them had become so attuned that when feeding time approached, it took Abel longer to cry for Maggie than it did for her to let her breasts drip milk. Before long, this curious fact began to become a problem, as Maggie became overprotective and could not control her desire to nurture and protect her baby, to the point that she would wet her blouse with breast milk at the mere thought that her son might be hungry. Such a phenomenon became a real problem when it suddenly occurred during a dinner party with the neighbors and Aunt Tolley began to lecture her on female modesty. It was also at this point that the aunt opined that allowing Maggie to raise Abel was unacceptable and demanded that the adoption process be rushed. And so, on a May morning, Aunt Tolley suddenly announced to Maggie that she must say goodbye to her son; for that very afternoon she would be leaving for Alaska to join Tom. The young girl was extremely embarrassed to guess that the old Tolleys' haste to get her out of their house was due to the embarrassment she had caused them at that dinner, so she neither commented nor asked anything about it; convinced that the aunt had every reason to be angry on account of her awkwardness which had provoked the disgust of all the diners. She went back to dressing as she used to do before arriving in Canada, looked at herself in the mirror, no longer in the mood even to cry, and imagined herself as a silly, ugly, blinkered, fat cow. But the reality was that she had actually lost weight, and what she least imagined was that she was about to live the most terrifying and twisted experience of her entire life.

 

May 20, 2012


For Maggie, being separated from her son was a pain comparable to the amputation of a limb. A despair so strong that she came close to calling her father, confessing everything, forgetting about Alaska and returning with the child to Mexico. The time with her boyfriend's aunt and uncle was devastating. She cried the entire plane ride, remembering the face of her son that Aunt Tolley snatched from her arms to rush her into a cab to the airport; now her only consolation was to be reunited with her beloved and perfect Tommy. 

Upon landing at her destination, she was met by some uniformed men who, without explaining further, made her sign several documents and then put her on a private plane for a trip of almost six hours to a kind of military base in the middle of the American desert, where they landed after nightfall to board a dark glass bus that transported them to a camouflaged gate in the sandy soil at the foot of a hill. 

They were escorted by the uniformed men through the hatch to an elevator. They descended several meters underground to a sober subway facility, where they finally encountered a man in his seventies dressed in a lab coat and military beret. The curious character greeted her with a smile, saying:

—So, you're Tom's little cousin?

Maggie was surprised at such a greeting, but immediately surmised that Tom Tolley must have told a series of lies to get her to join an apparently top-secret government investigation. She put on her glasses and smiled sheepishly, replying:

—Yes...that's right...Maggie Cardenas, nice to meet you. This isn't Alaska, is it...?

The old man laughed:

—I'm afraid not! I'll explain it to you. I am Andrei Mitkov, former astronaut, doctor of psychology and head of the team of psychologists in this investigation. I understand that you will be joining my group as an assistant. Tommy has told me a lot about you, he says you're brilliant, and frankly I think you're quite precocious, having entered the university at such a young age. I've known the Tolleys for decades, you must be from the Costa branch, right? I remember that the Tolleys, on Tommy's uncle-in-law's side, had relatives in Barcelona.
—Well... I'm Mexican.

Maggie replied sheepishly and then quickly changed the subject:

—Tommy told me in your E-mails that you were investigating something very important related to survivors of a catastrophe or something like that! He didn't give me any details, but I was very excited to be able to work with you and help those people.
—That's right, little one. Come, let's have a cup of coffee and I'll explain in more detail what we do here.

Mitkov said before saying goodbye to the uniformed men. He then led the young woman through a series of corridors and gates that isolated the area exclusively designated for research from the outside. The place looked completely sterile, like an operating room; the decor was minimalist, if not non-existent, and white dominated the entire scene. Maggie felt like she was in a hospital of the future and began to ask herself why she had agreed to get into such a mess. Mitkov invited the girl into a small kitchen-dining room, where a tall blonde woman, also in a white coat, was hurriedly pouring coffee. Dr. Mitkov addressed her, saying:

—Dr. Voyager, this is Maggie, she will be my new assistant. Maggie, this is Dr. Voyager, in charge of the clinical laboratory.

The woman, in whose look you could guess a strong and impatient but trustworthy character, commented speaking quickly:

—She's a very young girl! I doubt more and more the seriousness of this research. So much secrecy and then they incorporate a teenager to the team, as easily as if this were any university study. Don't feel bad about my comments, Miss! They say I'm a pretty caustic person, but I swear I don't do it out of malice, I just don't like to waste time embellishing what I say and people don't want to waste time understanding my reasons. You can't control time nor is time the same for everyone, but no one wants to waste it.

The strange woman came striding out of the room and Dr. Mitkov explained:

—She is a very curious person, she made revolutionary discoveries in the field of microbiology and genetics. She is a bit aggressive and defiant, but she doesn't usually get into personal trouble with anyone. Her obsession is not to waste time and to get the money she needs for her own research.
—What research?

Maggie asked and the old man answered:

—Rumor has it that it's something about a virus discovered on an archeological expedition, a mysterious matter she refuses to talk about. Get used to that kind of attitude among scientists, no one wants to have their findings stolen. Now, let me explain about our research. First of all, I must point out the importance and confidentiality of our work. The documents you signed before arriving here legally bind you to keep absolutely silent about everything you see and hear in this facility. You will be punished with imprisonment if you disrespect these agreements. From this day forward, you have become the property of the government of the United States of America, and if they consider you to be a threat to their interests...you will be in serious trouble. So, I advise you to try to strictly follow the rules they impose on you and never tell any of this when you leave the lab. The Americans are going through a decadent time, their power is declining year by year and what we have here could put them back on top or trigger a third world war. The secrets we are trying to unravel in this research interest the Americans out of sheer megalomaniacal zeal, but they interest me for deeply emotional reasons: an anguish I have had for forty years that forced me to flee my homeland and join my former enemies; and which has finally found relief.

Leaning back on the sofa, Mitkov continued as Maggie listened in amazement:

—When the Americans won the race to the Moon, we Soviets opted for a very risky plan "B": since the late 1950s, a secret team of selected scientists and cosmonauts had been working on the development of a lunar base using technology ahead of our time and designed by our best geniuses. It was a project in a permanent race against time, which became even more hectic after the Americans stepped on the Moon first. We told the world that we were launching robots and probes into space to conduct scientific research, when in reality we were secretly sending tons of materials and equipment to a cavern on the Moon that went about ten meters below the surface near the Lunar north pole; where we knew there was some water in the soil and an acceptable temperature to start a colony. Meanwhile, here on Earth, we were preparing the cosmonauts in hard training for life on the Moon. At first, it was a suicidal mission; but by mid-1975 everything seemed to be feasible and we believed that we would indeed manage to surprise the Americans by getting a hundred steps ahead of them. We discovered bacteria capable of surviving in the hostile Lunar environment, and which would provide fuel and fertilizer for our Lunar colonists; enough for them to grow the necessary for their subsistence through hydroponic gardens, and to supply the machinery. We also developed complex air recycling systems that would allow our colonists to breathe inside the base with complete peace of mind; as if they were on Earth. Water could be obtained from the frozen lunar soil itself and made fit for human consumption through a simple treatment. Thus, we prepared for the future colonists a moderately safe and independent stay from Earth for at least twenty years; thanks to all that machinery activated mainly by camouflaged solar panels and that we designed over years and years of trial, error and hermeticism. In the process, at least a dozen cosmonauts succumbed on the Moon; victims of micrometeorites, lunar dust or accidents with the machines during the construction of the subway base; whose existence was kept under absolute secrecy thanks to sophisticated methods of sabotage and concealment by our agents infiltrated in the space surveillance networks of the Americans and the rest of the world. When the base was finished, only two cosmonauts of the entire team that went to the Moon to build that dream had survived. The supplies and machinery they had were insufficient to return to Earth and their only options were to survive on the Moon or die. These cosmonauts were my best friend Gennadi Mikhailov and his girlfriend Ludmila. Gennadi was like a brother to me, and I wept with happiness knowing that he and his partner would be the pioneers of a new era; the new heroes of the Soviet Union. However, it was still too fragile a dream to say that it had been fulfilled; the base was extremely flimsy, we no longer had enough financial resources to send them supplies, let alone a rescue mission; everything depended on Gennadi and Ludmila, and our leaders feared that at any moment something would go wrong and their pride would turn into world shame. Therefore, the government ordered to wait before making our feat public...and finally our fears were realized. The systems did not fail, the structure did not collapse, it was Gennadi and Ludmila who began to act strangely as the months passed inside the base and they realized they would never return to Earth. Gennadi barely reported in and fell into a deep depression while Ludmila simply went crazy; running around the base naked and talking gibberish. The last I heard from them was that Ludmila was pregnant and in 1978 we were receiving the last transmission from the moon base when Gennadi had a fit of rage and broke down the means to communicate with them. The project was abandoned, along with Gennadi and Ludmila, and I fell prey to despair; imagining the suffering of those young people who had given so much to make our beloved Soviet Union proud, left to their fate on the Moon. It seemed unfair; they did not deserve to be treated like that. I protested strongly, demanded that my superiors do something to save them and threatened to denounce them to the world. That earned me immediate apprehension by the K.G.B., and I would have died at their hands had it not been for some American spies who kidnapped me as I was being carried unconscious to prison. I was badly beaten up; I had received the beating of my life while they were trying to convince me to keep quiet. When I woke up, I was in a Washington hospital; both legs were broken and one testicle was crushed. I gradually recovered and the Americans questioned me. They offered me help to save Gennadi and Ludmila if in return I would tell them about the technology we used in the Moon base project. That's how the Americans got secrets that they immediately applied to their own technology and even improved it. But soon after that, everything I could tell them that would be useful to them was exhausted, they did not keep their word to rescue my friend, because they said they did not have the means either; and I realized that rats are the same in Washington and in Moscow. In later years I studied psychology under another name, graduated and worked as a professor at Yale for several years, always under C.I.A. custody; until the fall of the Soviet Union, when I became myself again; although still unable to return to my homeland, since all those who were involved in the moon base project were killed to hide the shame and my life was in danger there. Psychology gave me some answers as to why Ludmila and Gennadi reacted like that on the Moon and why the politicians were so cruel to all of us here on Earth. I was already resigned to accept the loss of my dear friend Gennadi, when during the Bush administration the passion for the Moon was rekindled and the American government came back for me. Rumors were circulating that Russia had received a faint distress call from the abandoned Moon base, suggesting that there might be some survivors; which encouraged the Russian Federal Space Agency and the NPO Lavochkin company to resume the Moon base project, which had been stalled for decades due to lack of budget. The Americans realized this time what was really going on and decided to go ahead again, after all, the legally abandoned base no longer belonged to anyone and it would belong to whoever got to find it first. It was for those reasons that I was sent here. I provided them with the exact location of the secret moon base and they already had the necessary technology and means to travel there undetected.
Maggie, already pale, asked as her voice cracked:

—Where is "here"?
—We are in southern Nevada. This place is known as Paradise Ranch, Horney Airport, "The Box" or, among other names, Area 51.

The young woman looked down at the ground, stunned, rightly asking:

—Have they sent astronauts to the Moon...in the 21st century?

Mitkov answered very calmly:

—That's right. Everything was done with great discretion to avoid conflicts with the former Soviet Union; once the project was finalized, the Americans preferred to keep everything absolutely secret and President Obama said he would cancel future trips to the Moon to reduce the economic deficit, but everything was done in order not to attract attention. A state—of—the—art experimental space shuttle had been kept hidden here and was used for the first time on that rescue mission; when the time came, all satellites and major telecommunication networks observing the Moon were sabotaged so that no one could see the shuttle on its journey. The failures were explained as a solar storm and, to silence those who had still managed to see strange activity in the sky, charlatans paid by NASA were launched to the media to say that they were UFOs; or directly ridicule the evidence with implausible stories of ancient prophecies and conspiracies of gray dwarfs; so that people downplayed the importance of the fact. As you can see, everything was very well planned.
—And did they get to Moon base?!

The old man sighed and said sadly:

—Yes...And I had good news...and bad. Miraculously, the systems at the base were still functioning and, although the heating and much of the electrical lighting were now unusable, the facilities were still habitable. Gennadi and Ludmila had already died, but they were survived by their daughter and.... And only their daughter: Ludmila Gennadievna Mikhailova; it was she who sent the distress signal. Unfortunately, the girl suffered a series of terrible traumas up there, according to what little she told me in Russian when she first came to earth and before she locked herself in total silence. She watched her family slowly sink into madness, spent decades at a time freezing to death locked in a small section of the base, eating tomatoes from a small hydroponic garden and cockroaches that they brought in for experimentation and soon became a pest; drinking the very water she watered the poor crops with, in loneliness and hopelessness.

Maggie then said, staring blankly into the void:

—It's strange. I feel as if I had always sensed the suffering of those people, every time I saw the moon, I felt that something was wrong.

Smiling, the elder Mitkov opined:

—So, I guess you'll enjoy working here. Currently, Ludmila daughter has been on Earth for three days, is thirty-four years old and apparently suffers from schizophrenia of the catatonic type. She doesn't move, she doesn't make a sound, and your job will be to help her gradually "contact" us and tell us about her experiences on the Moon and about...about the people she lived with. Go on girl, now go and settle in your bedroom; you will only have to go left down the corridor you see before the door to the back of the south sector; it is the farthest bedroom of all so you will enjoy some privacy. You have your own bathroom, recreation room with a TV and a mini kitchen. Internet access is restricted and be warned that there are security cameras in all areas except the bathrooms and over the beds. But this measure is only for our own safety...By the way who controls those surveillance cameras and the whole computer area is another very young, but responsible guy. Tomorrow meet me here at eight o'clock and you will meet the rest of the team. Now, get some rest. You must be exhausted, even more so after learning all this.

Maggie said goodbye, left the doctor who stood thoughtfully finishing his coffee, and headed down a long, lonely white hallway adorned with abstract paintings of the moon in shades of blue to what would be her bedroom. He paused for a moment to appreciate one when he heard a strange, piercing shriek, something like the shriek of an angry animal but sounding macabrely human; an eerie sound that swept through the corridors and lingered in the air creating an atmosphere of tension. Then she ran with her luggage to her assigned dormitory, hurriedly opened and then locked herself in.

A new day dawned; Maggie awoke with a fuzzy headache. She bathed feeling exhausted, dressed and went to the communal kitchen-dining room to meet with Dr. Mitkov. There was Dr. Voyager again pouring coffee, and at the table were also three nurses, two young men and a mature woman; accompanied by another young man who remained silent and looked somewhat unkempt, with glasses, a two-day beard and slightly long hair. The mature woman with a Cuban accent and dyed red hair was arguing heatedly with one of the young nurses, an Asian man with spiky hair and a body covered with tattoos and earrings:

—¡Tú eres un Diablo!, ¡a Diablo is what you are, that's why you're all painted up like that!
—Mrs. Yolanda, I simply used my skin as a canvas to express the art of my generation....
—What art... or what art...! ¡Diablo!

The other nurse, a young white and very blond, humble-looking young man, pleaded:

—Please stop talking about sinister things, don't you see where we are!!!!!

Dr. Voyager pointed to Maggie with a sharp gesture and drew everyone's attention by shouting:

—Her name is Peggie!

Everyone fell silent and the nurse quickly stood up to embrace Maggie, saying, while gesturing with her hands full of colorful rings:

—Peggie, welcome. I am Mrs. Yolanda García; I am the leader of the nursing team; these are my boys: the sweet American boy is named Steve Miller. I usually say he has a sixth sense; he grew up in the fields of Missouri and is half psychic....

The young man with the tattoos interrupted her to say:

—And half-dumb too. By the way, did you say American, we're all Americans here, ma'am. We were all born in America, weren't we?

Yolanda García immediately reproached him:

—You shut up, this diablo is Takeshi Yamada, my other nurse. In his spare time, he plays drums in a punk rock band to the horror of his wife and two baby girls in Detroit. You have a friend in him, Farmer Miller and I. As long as you're not into devilish things, because that's a sin and I don't like it.

Maggie smiled nervously and Yolanda García smiled too, pleased at this response. Then she approached the silent young man with glasses and introduced him, saying:

—This beautiful boy is Abel Turn; he is our systems engineer in charge of the computer area. He is my darling because his heart is that of a child, he spends the whole day sitting in front of his screens and watching his cartoons.

"Hen-tai!" exclaimed Yamada feigning a sneeze and Miller laughed as the bespectacled young man looked down in discomfort. At that moment Dr. Mitkov entered and sat down at the table, inviting Maggie to sit with him. After laughingly explaining the confusion over Dr. Voyager's name for Maggie, the new assistant asked:

—Didn't... my cousin Tommy come for breakfast?

Nurse Yamada replied:

—The cool kids don't eat breakfast here with us freaks, they eat alone in their dorms. You'll see him later when he comes in with his gang to complain in the warehouse because their spotless white coats have a wrinkle in them and clash with their three-thousand-dollar outfits.

Quickly Miller commented:

—I wear Salvation Army underpants under my uniform. The first thing I'll do when I get out of here is buy one of those Italian suits that important men wear and I'll never take it off, not even to go hunting.

Maggie was puzzled by how Yamada had spoken of Tom Tolley, whom she considered a humble and simple man. Breakfast over, Maggie went with Mrs. Yolanda to the cellar to try on a robe and nursing uniform which she was to wear in her capacity as attendant; when suddenly Tommy and his friends arrived, just as Nurse Yamada had predicted. Maggie had never seen Tom so relaxed and joking. He was playing wrestling with another blond man as good looking as him and they were accompanied by a brunette girl in yoga clothes and another blonde. Both beautiful, dressed and made up like movie stars. Maggie felt uncomfortable as she watched them enter but the world came crashing down on her when her beloved Tommy picked up the blonde girl, put her on one of his shoulders, spanked her and then pulled her down to kiss her; then she just couldn't take it anymore and screamed:

—Tommy!!!

Dr. Tolley looked at her and for a brief moment froze as he knew he had been found out. Then he looked at his friends and said with great indifference:

—Ah, yes.... This is my little cousin. Magdalena. She... was adopted by my aunt and uncle several years ago, the poor thing was living alone with a tribe of...Incas in the jungles of Guatemala, when they rescued her.... Right, Maggie?

The girl was dumbfounded. She shuddered in shock at what Tom was doing; and he went on talking, sure that Maggie would never contradict him:

—Well, Maggie, this is Bobby Wellman, a psychiatrist and close friend of mine since college. We played on the football team together, remember, Bob? This beautiful brunette is Selma Shapiro, clinical psychologist and .... your boss. You better not eat any meat in front of her as she is a strict vegetarian and animal lover. And this baby I was holding earlier is Dr. Lindsay Pemberton, a specialist in anatomic pathology and my girlfriend since high school; she, Robert and I make up the medical team.

Tolley was immensely calm hugging Dr. Pemberton, who kept smiling with a twisted grimace that wordlessly said she already knew the truth and the decisions between her and Tolley were already made. Maggie wanted to cry, wanted to scream or do something; but the shock left her cold, her whole body numb and her tongue numb. Tom seemed to be overcome with some guilt and said to his friends:

—Okay, boys. You guys go ahead. I'm going to have a little chat with my cousin to give her some advice about things here. I'll see you guys in a bit.

He then led Maggie over to a corner away from everyone's view and tried to look concerned, as he said:

—I'm so sorry things have turned out this way, but you know! It was never meant to be. You're too young and we're from different worlds. You're a Latina, I'm American.
—The Incas are from Peru, Tommy…

The girl corrected him, infinitely disappointed. Tolley continued:

—You see, you are so unspontaneous, so closed-minded. I just wanted to experiment a little with you; but you took everything seriously and now look at the consequences.

Finally, Maggie reacted and pushed him away whispering:

—You monster! I want to get out of here and go back to Mexico with my baby!

Tolley rubbed his brow with two fingers, took a breath and said:

—Maggie...forget about the baby. You gave him up for adoption. Legally he's not yours anymore and my aunt and uncle don't want you to see him anymore. That's in your past.

The young mother opened her mouth in astonishment before exclaiming:

—But you said that they would only have it until I got out of here!!!!!

After trying to come up with another explanation, Tolley gave up and preferred to be honest at last, without being the least bit bothered by the cynicism:

—Look, I lied to you, I had to. You are so stubborn and you just don't know anything about anything. Besides you are so young!!!, and what did you expect? that I would take responsibility for your child? you were seventeen when I got you pregnant, I don't want to be charged with child molestation! Could you be so selfish as to ruin my life and my career like that!!!? You should have read the documents I sent you to sign before you said you didn't agree. Now, legally you never had a child and the baby belongs to my aunt and uncle. There is no proof that you and I ever had anything, it's all in the past. Don't cry with that scary face, look where you are now. You'll be a millionaire when you leave here, it cost me a lot to bring you here. I had to bribe a lot of people to do it and that money came from the adoption of the baby, I did everything thinking of your future; you were too young, you had your future ahead of you, you couldn't take care of that child, you can't even take care of yourself, just look where you ended up without having the slightest idea of how or why.

Maggie covered her mouth with one hand and curled up, leaning against a wall. Her eyes were full of tears and she simply murmured:

—I want to get out of here...at least I want to go back to my father....

The man took her face with his hands to make her look him in the eyes and said:

—Listen, Magdalena, the time has come for you to grow up. You can't leave here until you are ordered to, this is no game. The research team must run like a well-oiled machine or poof!, we'll all be wiped out. So, forget about us and better start thinking about the future, for your sake and the sake of all the people who work with you. Imagine getting out of here and opening a burrito factory or your own "Telemundo"! Finally, the American dream you all seek when you come here!
— "You all"? ... Why are you talking to me like this? Why are you doing this to me...?

Just then an elegant Black man appeared, tall and stocky as a bear, who looked at them sternly as he rubbed his clean-shaven chin in intrigue. Tom Tolley explained again:

—Dr. Moore, this is my cousin, the new girl I told you about. Maggie, this is Dr. John Moore, head of the medical team and one of the astronauts who rescued the survivors from the base. Doctor, this is Maggie, I hope you can excuse her; she is very nervous on her first day and I was trying to reassure her.

Dr. Moore looked at Tom as if he had heard everything, his eyes glazed over, then he said in a low, tremulous voice:

—Tell her to go to the infirmary for a tranquilizer. We don't have time for this sort of things. Remember we are in a race against time, Dr. Tolley.

Moore walked slowly and steadily away, and Tolley also prepared to leave, saying to the girl:

—I know you'll be discreet and not discuss us with anyone, Maggie. You heard; we have a lot of work. We have to deal with subject one: crazy Ludmila. We have to get her to talk before subject two, the one Moore and Mitkov are working with, dies or whatever. Little time, lots of pressure, but good pay.

Tom Tolley left and Maggie began to fade to her knees on the floor feeling murdered. Choking back tears, she got up as best she could and went to the infirmary; where old Yolanda ran to meet her and laid her on a stretcher while Miller looked her over, saying:

—You are seized with fever... What happened to you, kid?

Maggie didn't answer anything and then she noticed that Dr. Pemberton and Dr. Shapiro were there, looking at her from a corner, with gestures of incredulity and mockery; until finally they left shaking their heads negatively. Maggie wanted to know no more, closed her eyes and fainted. 


May 22, 2012


The Moon is a cold counselor who listens to the sorrows of the sad insomniac, but in reality, does not offer her any consolation. Maggie was tormented in nightmares, inside a world of white corridors and closed doors illuminated by two Moons where she listened to the endless crying of her son Abel but never managed to find him. She woke up at three in the morning in the infirmary, dressed in a hospital patient's gown; hearing a long and distant wail that immediately made her understand that she had mistaken it for her son's cry. She also noticed with sadness that her breast was soaked with breast milk, the evidence in her body of the despair in her soul. The dim light of a computer screen was the only thing that illuminated the infirmary, where she had been left alone and asleep. Then she thought back to the ominous wailing in the distance and became afraid. The computer beeped and a chat window appeared on the screen, reading a message from a user named "Administrator", which simply said:

"Administrator: hello".

The girl stood up already very frightened; and after some thought she answered as "Infirmary", the user that appeared for that computer:

"Infirmary: hello. Who are you?"
"Administrator: Abel".

A shiver ran through his body and he answered nothing. Then he received another message:

"Administrator: we met earlier yesterday. I'm in charge of data archiving, computer maintenance and managing the surveillance system in this sector. It's okay if you don't remember me, people rarely remember me."

Maggie sighed in relief and typed:

"Infirmary: sorry, the name Abel means a lot to me."
"Administrator: are you feeling better now?
"Infirmary: yes, thank you."
"Administrator: is Abel your son's name?".

With surprise, Maggie replied:

"Infirmary: yes. How do you know…?"

She received no response for a few minutes, until the man answered:

"Administrator: they said you got sick because you had a maternity problem or something. That you were nursing a baby and now you're not; and that's why you got a strange infection in your...I don't want to be indiscreet, I just wanted to know how you were doing."

Maggie replied with a weak smile:

"Infirmary: thank you. You're very sweet."
"Administrator: sorry for not talking much the day before yesterday. Yamada and Miller never shut up. Besides I prefer to talk through this medium, it's more comfortable. Here I feel I can be myself. In the virtual world you can be whoever you want but in person...I'm really just a computer criminal paying with my services to the government, and my decadence is completely notorious."
"Infirmary: I liked you the day before yesterday anyway."

Again, the reply was slow in coming, until Maggie read:

"Administrator: you are nice."
"Infirmary: you're nice too, kind of strange but nice."

He replied, laughing. Then he received a new message:

"Administrator: you lie. You laugh."

The girl frowned slightly:

"Infirmary: no."
"Administrator: I can see you."
"Infirmary: you lie."
"Administrator: no. I control the surveillance system. I can see you, hear you, and even speak to you with my voice if necessary. You are now sitting in front of the infirmary computer, wrapped in a sheet."

Maggie threw the sheet back on the gurney and composed her gown, writing:

"Infirmary: see and hear everything?"
"Administrator: almost everything."
"Infirmary: but... Everything, everything?"
"Administrator: minus what happens in the beds in the dormitories, and in the bathrooms."
"Infirmary: I understand."

There was another silence, and soon after the man wrote:

"Administrator: The day before yesterday...Tolley is a son of a bitch."

The girl curled up in the chair:

"Infirmary: it's over...now I'm just hurting for my baby. I lost him."
"Administrator: I heard. He stole it from you and sold it to his uncles, don't you realize, you'd have to sue him or something!"
"Infirmary: his family has too much influence...and I signed up accepting his every condition...blindly trusting him. Because of my stupidity I lost my son, and now I'm sick and stuck here."
"Administrator: you will get better. Old Yolanda gave you some antibiotics and a painkiller; she asked for medicine to make your...stop...that. But it will take a week to come, because of paperwork and that. It's hard for anyone or anything to get in or out of Area 51, and with medicine there's no exception. Your friend Tolley must have used his influence to help you get in..."
"Infirmary: according to him he's already helped me a lot by bringing me here. Come to think of it, Tom was always a cad, but when you fall in love you don't see the flaws."

Again, there was a long pause and then the man typed another message:

"Administrator: I know."
"Infirmary: are you in love?"
"Administrator: yes. But she ignores me. I greet her every day by this internal messenger and she never answers me."
"Infirmary: so, it's someone from here?"
"Administrator: yes. Alice Voyager."

Maggie scratched her nose and sighed writing:

"Infirmary: she lives in her world".
"Administrator: she's beautiful."
"Infirmary: yes, but...maybe you should look at a girl easier to get along with..."
"Administrator: she's involved in more complex research than this, a very shady business about an ancient civilization. I think we're all undisciplined idiots to her and she only tolerates us because she needs the money. Other than Voyager, Mitkov and Moore, all the rest of us are rookies."
"Infirmary: how do you know so much?"
"Administrator: I hear about everything that goes on here. Connect with me on this internal messenger anytime, it never closes and I only sleep three hours a day. I like to chat over here and the others on the team don't; and with restricted internet access I get too bored without having anyone to talk to."
"Infirmary: if you hear everything, do you hear that rumbling now, it sounds like a wail."
"Administrator: I hear it. It's coming from the north sector. But that's just the sector that I have no surveillance whatsoever on Dr. Mitkov's orders. What goes on there is only known and documented by Dr. Moore and Dr. Mitkov."
"Infirmary: what do you think is in there?"
"Administrator: subject two. One is Ludmila, and two is a mystery. We're not sure if it's a what or a who; we just know it's making strange sounds. That idiot Miller thinks they've captured a Selenite and now they're all saying the same thing."
"Infirmary: A Selenite?"
"Administrator: an alien from the moon. Read quickly and carefully, because then I will erase all traces of this talk."

Maggie shuddered and asked:

"Infirmary: will it be dangerous?"
"Administrator: judging by your yelling and pounding on the wall, I would say yes. The pay is too high for the work we do, and it was hinted to us that it would be high risk!!!, but to this day we don't know why. Don't you find it strange that all of us on the team, except Moore and Mitkov, are highly qualified but young and not yet very well-known publicly; don't mind me so much, but sometimes I think we'd make good cannon fodder."

The shy girl looked around fearfully and read the following message from Abel Turn:

"Administrator: I also suspect that Moore and Mitkov, the only ones who have contact with him supposed Selenite, do not know how to make him survive on Earth; they are desperate and I have seen how they take samples of different foods to the northern sector. I deduce that the being they have there is dying of starvation, either because it refuses to eat or because Moore and Mitkov do not know what it was feeding on or how its organism works; I think it is impossible to help that being if it does not allow itself to be examined, it is aggressive and you cannot use force or sedate it, because you do not know how its body works or if you will kill it in the attempt. I guess the time the Selenite lives on earth will be as long as it survives without eating or drinking anything. Unless it turns out it eats human flesh and devours one of us Hollywood style, like that idiot Miller says."

Maggie laughed a little and then wrote, ruefully:

" Infirmary: how sad...now I hope that's really not what they have hidden in there. He must be in a lot of pain."
"Administrator: there will always be someone more screwed up than us."

There was a long silence between the two, then they talked for a few more minutes until she went back to sleep having at least the small joy of having found a confidant.

The time to get up was announced by the sound of Alice Voyager's steady step heading for the kitchen of the subway laboratories, at exactly seven o'clock. That morning, Maggie reported to work with Dr. Mitkov; trying to show all her enthusiasm. Tom Tolley approached her for a moment in the cellar trying to comfort her by greeting her pitifully, in a sort of self-atoning act; but Maggie, knowing that Turn was watching them, felt stronger; so, she ignored him and went after Mitkov. 

To Maggie's chagrin, she was sent to assist the mystical Dr. Shapiro who worked with Ludmila, the Lunar base survivor. If Voyager could be described as acidic and Maggie as sweet; Selma Shapiro was a woman who could simply be described as insipid. She was the last one to wake up each day. The first thing she did when she got out of bed was a yoga routine and then she went to work with a parsimony that brought to mind the movement of garden snails. She spoke only to her superiors, her best friend Lindsay, her boyfriend and her friend Bobby Wellman. Once, Yamada was busy mopping the floors, another of his tasks due to the limited staff allowed inside the labs, when he suddenly tripped and fell face first into one of the angular minimalist sculptures that decorated the lonely corridors, catching it on one of his eyebrow earrings. Yamada began to call for help as he noticed that he was unable to unhook himself and then Selma Shapiro appeared and, seeing Yamada in such a ridiculous position, chose to ignore him to avoid sharing the embarrassment and walked stiffly past him while Yamada, who had seen her perfectly well, shouted for help. Abel Turn must have alerted the infirmary to Yamada's situation so that someone could come to Yamada's aid, and from then on everyone labeled Shapiro as insensitive. To prove the contrary, the next night she wept inconsolably over the death of the animals eaten at dinner while her good friends praised her for her nobility.

The method she used to treat Ludmila made even Dr. Mitkov himself suspicious of the veracity of Shapiro's doctoral degree in psychology; after all, it was no secret that, for example, Tom Tolley had pulled strings to get his girlfriend, and even Maggie herself, onto the team. Money could buy almost anything and it was not going to be unusual for Shapiro's presence in such a sensitive position to be due to corruption. Selma Shapiro sat before Ludmila in a room decorated in Zen style, with bamboo and a small artificial fountain; she held her hands and breathed deeply and slowly, to the sound of a mystical Hindu melody. Ludmila, an emaciated woman with long blonde hair and almost cadaverous, remained unmoved by Shapiro's actions, who looked at her from time to time with exaggerated compassion while saying in Russian: "I understand you". Before long, Maggie realized that Mitkov didn't really care what Shapiro did with the survivor and his job was just to sit close to them, who were looking at each other's faces holding hands. He stood silently watching until the situation began to seem comical to her and she bit her lips to keep from laughing. 

Amazingly, Ludmila noticed it and gave her a look, which was the only breakthrough that had been achieved in all those days; then Maggie could stand it no longer and had to laugh, covering her mouth with both hands. Immediately, Selma Shapiro stood up and ordered her to leave the room with her. Maggie obeyed in embarrassment and twisted one end of the skirts of her lab coat. Once outside, Shapiro spoke seriously to Maggie; but without looking at her face, instead looking down at her own fingernails:

—Do you...understand what I'm doing...in there?

Maggie replied, fearing to appear disrespectful:

—I think you're practicing a relaxation exercise, doctor.
—Do you have a better idea of what I should do with Ludmila?
—No, doctor...you are the professional and ....

Shapiro then said to the girl, in an overbearing voice and cocking her head dramatically as she spoke:

—I'm asking you to explain to me what you would do in my place, what are you supposed to do?
—No... I don't know doctor...She has a pretty serious psychiatric problem and she is too medicated and sleepy to pay attention; so, I really think that psychotherapy will not give very noticeable results...I think I would just talk to her, tell her things...Maybe that would inspire her confidence in me and she would even dare to say something after a few days...I don't know if it is the right thing to do...

Dr. Shapiro interrupted her sharply:

—That's what I want to point out to you, Ms. Cardenas. Your inability to question my work. Are you really so ignorant as to think that a patient, regardless of his or her disorder, will show progress before a year of treatment? But it takes months, years, just to take an anamnesis!
—Years? months? years? years to do a clinical interview? several months are necessary to take the data from someone you will see for an hour every week? do we ask only one question per session? is it necessary more than a whole month to observe the behavior of a patient and to apply, score and interpret psychometric tests? I don't understand, doctor, what is the reason for taking so long...?

Then Shapiro burst out:

—Are you stupid or too ignorant? How can you simplify so much such a complicated process? Have some common sense! We are psychometrists! This is a very delicate...and accurate...scientific work...that must be done carefully and that requires a lot of time...a lot of money! ... what did you think when you started to study this career?!
—I... I feel very bad when I see other people suffering, sometimes I feel that the pain hurts me more in others than in myself. I don't want people to suffer for problems that could be overcome just by thinking well about a solution. And I think that as a psychologist I could help them to do that, to feel better and to overcome their problems....
—I must tell you, Miss, that you are very wrong if you think that the job of a psychologist is to help people.
—Then... What should be your job...?

Maggie asked timidly and Selma Shapiro didn't answer her, just turned on her heels and went back to Ludmila. Dr. Voyager, who just happened to have her clinical laboratory next door and had heard everything, answered her from where she was; without taking her eyes off one of her microscopes:

—Making money by being an irritating charlatan. 

Later, when the medical team came in to examine Ludmila's weak body that had survived for decades outside the Earth's sphere, Shapiro went to complain about Maggie to Mitkov, who made light of the matter and simply transferred her to the nursing team. Yolanda García, the team leader, gave her the task of sending the lab's waste to the outside via a special elevator. Once this task was completed, she sent her to help clean the floors while the rest of the team was busy sanitizing Ludmila and her room. Maggie knew that the medical team was assembled in the west sector, in the clinical lab; so, she decided to avoid running into Tom Tolley by going to clean the west sector first, near the infirmary and Abel Turn's control room. 

She did so and when she was cleaning the central area of the facility, a small bar they called the "joint recreation" room that was never used and remained silent with the lights off, she thought with some bitterness about how even though she was a bright and precocious college student from a very respected family in her community she had ended up cleaning floors like the poorest Hispanics in the United States. She brooded about it until she saw, at the end of a hallway, the entrance to the north sector, marked with different warning signs. The girl was stung by the sting of curiosity and began to move the vacuum cleaner toward that hallway, approaching the door. She turned off the machine, grabbed a cloth from the cleaning cart, and began to move further down the hallway; pretending to clean the walls. As he got closer to the forbidden door, he heard Dr. Mitkov's voice through the left wall, asking something in Russian; then he heard Dr. Moore say:

—Show him Ludmila's picture and ask him again.

Dr. Mitkov's voice sounded serene:

—Вы знаете эту женщину?

Then a sinister voice answered him, which although it sounded as if it spoke some well-structured language, it did not seem to come from a human throat. It was a voice difficult to classify as male or female, it sounded like a shadowy whisper, at times hissing and raspy. Maggie listened in astonishment, gluing an ear to the wall, when suddenly the voice fell silent; next she heard hurried footsteps and then loud sniffing and a sound similar to sobbing or sighing; and finally, a loud thump right on the spot on the wall where she was listening. Then there was that infernal shriek she had heard on the day of her arrival in the subway laboratories. The hallway was filled with terrified screams, the mysterious creature they kept in the northern sector sounded like an angry fiend as it savagely pounded the wall and clawed at it, making the concrete squeak. It wanted to get to Maggie. The girl panicked, gathered the cleaning supplies in a hurry and ran to the infirmary. When she arrived, she found Miller and Yamada listening to the screams as well, as if frozen with tension. The girl looked at them aghast, not knowing how to explain what she had just experienced in the corridor leading to the northern sector and Yamada went ahead of her, saying:

—I see that you too have already heard the Selenite. 


May 23, 2012


Around five in the morning, Abel Turn was nodding sleepily in front of the surveillance screens when he received the order to allow entry at the door that connected to the outside. He cleared the security system and saw, through the camera in the east sector, a dozen soldiers carrying ten stretchers with black bags to the clinical laboratory. Two hours later, they were all summoned to the "joint recreation room" by Drs. Mitkov and Moore. Young Maggie did her best to excuse herself and not attend, as she did not want to meet Tolley and company, but old Yolanda practically dragged her into the meeting; where she took refuge by staying close to Turn who stood silently behind everyone. Moore waited until all twelve members of the research team were assembled and then cleared his throat and said seriously:

—We have reached the seventh day of work and it is necessary to inform you that we are going through critical times. The data obtained through Ludmila are scarce, we have only found out that the lunar gravity notably decreased her body mass and that the contaminated water damaged most of her organs; but the findings froze right there. About subject two...
At that point everyone seemed to pay more attention, except Alice Voyager who listened ever so indifferently. Moore continued:

—...whom Dr. Mitkov and I have been dealing with, and on whom we originally intended to base the entire investigation, is sadly doomed to succumb to starvation. It refuses to receive food and is becoming more and more closed to us. For that reason, we have decided to replace the psychological approach to this research with an anatomical and physiological one. Since the examinations on Ludmila have been completed, I wished to involve you in the analysis of subject two; starting first with the autopsies of its congeners and then we will move on to examine the specimen itself in its agonizing process and then when it is already deceased.

They all looked at each other, wanting to ask questions but not daring to do so, and then Dr. Voyager questioned matter of factly:

—Who or what is subject two? This is the first time it has been officially mentioned.

Moore and Mitkov exchanged glances and finally Mitkov explained, with some regret:

—We did not think it was necessary to expose you to this risk and so we tried to keep it hidden, but the situation forces us to admit to you, its existence. We still don't know what exactly subject two and the other creatures that accompanied him are. They may be descendants of the abandoned cosmonauts or true extraterrestrial beings...or a mixture of both.

Yamada then mumbled:

—So, a team composed of doctors specializing in psychology, psychiatry and neurology is sent by the government to examine the behavior of an alien. The late L. Ron Hubbard wouldn't like that. Subject two is aggressive?

Moore then spoke with gravity in his voice:

—Substantially aggressive, he won't allow anyone within three feet of him. We found him on the moon base along with other beings similar to him, five "men" and one "woman" alive and several more dead; they spoke Russian and wore old clothes, but their attitude is savage. They were scattered throughout the base and it was from them that Ludmila hid, locking herself in the orchard and boiler area. Subject two was the leader of the strange tribe of Lunar creatures; the most cunning, violent and fast. They lived at several degrees below zero because there was no heating, and in semi-darkness since most of the lights in the base did not work either, with no law other than the law of the strongest. We had to kill the rest of the clan to get out of the base alive. It was an odyssey to bring him back to earth alive. He killed two astronauts on the Moon and five soldiers here on Earth, to transport him it was necessary to use a net and tie him between four men; electric shocks or pepper gas cannot be used on him because we don't know if they would be fatal and the life of the bastard is a priority for our research. I've been a military doctor since the Gulf War, I've seen death in the eyes several times and I still can't look that thing in the face without having cold hands. No security measures will be excessive from this point on. Pemberton, you will be in charge of the autopsies of the bodies brought back from the moon. Wellman and Yamada will assist you. Voyager, I want genetic profiles of each of these creatures and examinations of all their tissues. No matter how long it takes, Tolley will be backing you up on that. The rest of us will carry on with our usual duties and I don't want to see anyone near the corpses unless they are wearing a surgical suit fully protected from possible biological contamination.

As soon as she finished speaking, Dr. Shapiro protested:

—I find it inhumane the way we are treating this being. Perhaps he is the bearer of the most beautiful message of the stars and we are treating him like a toad to be dissected in a school. I propose to set him free. Honestly, I think it would be the best thing to do.

Dr. Moore rudely interrupted her:

—Miss, Mitkov and I have preferred to expose our lives alone trying to decipher that creature so that you would not be torn apart by it while naively trying to make it cooperate; as was the government's original plan. We're still trying to get things to just flow, but subject two is starting to show signs of weakness and it's time to just act and stop with the considerations for this thing that we don't even know if it's human, alien or what the fuck. It's been going for days on end without drinking or eating anything, and watching us with the creepiest of looks. it's gorging on our food and not a day goes by that it doesn't try to bite our throats off, it just wants to kill or be killed, there's no beautiful message there!

Shapiro replied:

—It's a living thing! It is obvious, from what I have understood, that he possesses some kind of intelligence; perhaps similar to ours. He is a thinking being that has grown away from this sick and repressed society, free on the Moon. How can he be evil? He reacts to your wickedness, to your ignorance. I too would bite and despise you if you took me out of my pure world, where I lived without limitations, and brought me here to become a laboratory rat. You should set him free, let him be. Sooner or later, he will share with us his message of universal love and peace; maybe not with words, but with a smile or a look... I propose to set him free, who is with me?

Most of those present seemed moved by Shapiro's words, but no one raised their hand. Then Moore approached her almost fiercely and pointed at her saying:

—I want her away from the northern sector. That "pure and unrepressed" thing would gut you and the rest of this team just for fun, before sharing with us "a message of universal love and peace." And believe me...when you see "the smile" on that bastard's face...you'll have to change your panties because you'll pee your pants in horror.

After saying this he turned on his heels and tried to leave, but Shapiro stepped in front of him to stop him and shouted at him:

—You can tell me what to do about this job, but you can't tell me what to think, no one tells me what to think, I wouldn't even tolerate my parents having a say in my decisions and now you...!

Moore would not allow her to continue speaking, he lifted her by the shoulders to get her up to his eye level and shouted her out of his way as well: 

—I'm going to tell you what to think if necessary, so that you don't do something idiotic and kill us all!!!!! I don't want to hear about voting in this team again!!! We are cut off from the world here, and for the duration of this lockdown I will be the one dictating the rules and your duty is to follow orders, that's all!!!!!

Mitkov took Moore by the arm, reassuring him, and ordered everyone to go to their duties. Shapiro burst into tears and Wellman was quick to comfort her, taking her to his room to relax together while the others worked. Mitkov and Moore put this conflict on the back burner and went to Turn's control room to watch the autopsies and record them through glass. Old Yolanda went to help Voyager and Tolley in the clinical lab and Maggie went to the south sector to clean the rooms. Reluctantly, Dr. Lindsay Pemberton donned a protective surgical suit and went to the isolated room where the cadavers were located; accompanied by Yamada and Miller relieving Wellman who had revolted along with Shapiro; abandoning their responsibilities to lie in bed together. 

With disgust, Dr. Pemberton opened the first four sealed bags and began to pull out a series of apparently human bones; to complete five adult and seven infant skeletons of which four were incomplete. The bones belonged to two males, one female, three girls, two boys, and two infants of approximately one year of age with undefined sex. Dates of death were difficult to determine due to the extensive deterioration of the remains, but one of the infant skeletons still had tissues such as skin and moist flesh attached; leading to the suspicion that it had not been dead long. Almost all of the skeletons had signs of having suffered a violent death and showed certain deformities, especially in the skull. The faces were strange; the eye sockets displaced to the sides, worsening in the skulls of the youngest; the jaws had thirty-two dental pieces as in normal humans, but these were extremely hard, sharp and somewhat separated from each other; moreover, in the youngest individuals the germs of the third molars were not found. Pemberton, Yamada and Miller shuddered to imagine what the faces of these creatures would have looked like. They took samples from all the skeletons and began to open the other six sealed bags containing fresh corpses.

Miller could not help but shudder with horror at the sight of the first body. She was a very pale and thin woman, about 150 centimeters tall, still dressed in thick winter clothes; her chest was hacked to pieces showing a horrible wound; her oval face, framed by reddish hair gathered in two long braids, was impressive: the broad forehead and the large eyes, with black and torn eyelids, gave her a nonhuman aspect. The nose was exaggeratedly small and upturned, but the most striking thing was his mouth, with blackish thin lips through which protruded some teeth similar to those of a normal human being but somewhat separated and very sharp. Yamada measured the space between the corners of that mouth with his fingers and exclaimed:

—When this girl smiled, she literally smiled from ear to ear...It smells like daisies or lemon. Could it be pheromones or perfume, Dr. Pemberton? 
—I don't know... They were living at several degrees below zero. It's strange, she doesn't look like a savage. She seems to have had common hygiene habits, I think even more meticulous than usual; and she wears ordinary clothes after all. Start undressing her, we'll see what's inside.

Dr. Pemberton felt the facial bones and said in bewilderment:

—Astronauts who live long periods of time in space have typical physiological sequelae: atrophied muscles, loss of bone mass, sleep disorders, weak immune system...They also receive quite a bit of radiation, it is said that the longer they are in space, the higher the rate of chromosome mutation and the higher the probability of having deformities in their offspring. I think that has something to do with what happened to this lady.... She has almost no ear pinnae, no hair on her entire body, not even eyebrows; only hair on her head. She also has no third molars and her forehead is quite large...I wonder if the latter corresponds to a larger frontal lobe of the brain, Tommy will be interested. After seeing all the skeletons and now this woman, it seems to me that these...mutations were repeated in each new generation, as a hereditary syndrome, and were becoming more marked in each new individual that was born; I also think that these alterations have apparently helped them to adapt to the Moon. Perhaps we are facing the next step of evolution, the Homo Cosmos.

Yamada looked at her out of the corner of his eye and gave his opinion:

—If this is the future of humanity, then we're going to hell.

Then he went for the surgical instruments while Pemberton continued talking:

—I am almost certain that they are descendants of cosmonauts afflicted with strange mutations. Look at their eyes...so sinister...Give me a Miller magnifying lens. The entire iris is white, so much so that it blends in with the sclera; the pupil appears normal...although it has a certain reddish glow, like the eyes of animals in the dark. His face reminds me a bit of the case of a Chinese child I read about back in 2010, the boy was born with a horizontal cleft that cut his face at the mouth.
—I remember...

Miller muttered, frightened:

—... "The baby who was born with a mask”. These are God's punishments, doctor....

Quickly Yamada shut him up with a friendly punch on the arm and said:

—The peasant is starting to get scared doctor. I have seen many cases of cleft palate and similar congenital malformations, but never something like this. What do you think caused such a malformation, is it all due to the radiation that affected his genes?
—I really don't think so, they were protected in a base under the Lunar surface. It must be something multifactorial, it could have been an infection in the mother during pregnancy due to the poor hygienic conditions in which they lived, the contamination in the water they extracted from the Moon... I heard once that there were studies that said that rat embryos developed in zero gravity had weak or malformed skeletons and brains. Perhaps the Moon's low gravity was another factor, although that doesn't explain the development of "enhancements" to adapt to the environment; it is disfigured but appears to have been healthy in life. According to Dr. Moore she was agile and strong. Now I wonder, what did they eat? Although there was water all over the base, only Ludmila had access to the gardens.

Again, Yamada replied:

—I heard something about a plague of cockroaches and mold at the base, perhaps that would explain their sweet to citrus-smelling saliva: they may secrete some kind of immune agent. I imagine that, after eating filth for decades, they developed some sort of defense to survive. If I were Dr. Mitkov, I'd take subject two to a dumpster and I bet it would be like an all-you-can-eat for him. Just look...She has paper-white skin but all his mucosal surfaces and surroundings are purplish, almost black, and emanate that strange odor. The eyelids, the lips...Maybe they were starting to mutate into poisonous ones. Is it really a human being, doctor?
—Honestly... I don't know, Yamada. But we must find out. Take some saliva samples and let's start opening up.

While his colleagues were hard at work all day, Wellman and Shapiro were in bed in her bedroom. The clock read six o'clock in the evening when Wellman lazily got up to pour himself a cup of coffee, while she shouted at him from the bed:

—Don't go out naked, they'll see you on the security cameras!

Wellman replied, showing his middle finger to the camera:

—You want to see this, Turn, I've got two for you here, take a look.

From the control room, Mitkov and Moore gave an annoyed glance at the monitor where Wellman was talking and then looked back at the autopsy through the glass. Turn turned off the security cameras so as not to listen any longer to Wellman who continued to taunt him as he knew he would not dare to claim anything from him in person. Seeing the small power light on the camera embedded in the wall go out, Wellman laughed and said:

—Can you believe he turned the cameras off? That nerd is a pussy!!!!

Shapiro got up, wearing a Wellman shirt, and went to look languidly at the turned off camera, saying in his typical bland tone as she spoke:

—He's a weirdo, I've always thought eccentric people are sick in some way. They're like an anomaly of society, a mistake. This research is a failure because it's in the hands of people who shouldn't even be taken into account: that Turn, Moore, Voyager, the three horrible nurses...and finally that girl "Magdalena". Even her name is ugly.
—The poor thing is Spanish and the Spanish are generally short, somewhat ugly... They are from the third world. They grow up malnourished in filth and poverty. I feel sorry for them, really.

Wellman said with a sympathetic smile and Shapiro corrected him:

—Those are Mexicans, not Spaniards. She's Mexican or something.
—Why do you say she's not Spanish if she speaks Spanish?
—Because they're Hispanic, they all speak Spanish but they're from different countries. My mother had illegal maids at home. It was disgusting. They would steal everything from me and they always looked dirty, with their brown skins.

He grimaced in disgust and Wellman asked, raising his eyebrows:

—Are Hispanics brown, Maggie is white?
—Yes...In fact she's very white and very pale people are ridiculous. Hispanics are almost always like orange... they're somewhere between Chinese and black. Disgusting.
—I don't really dislike Hispanics. They say Latinas are hot in bed, with their tropical music and those perfect butts....
—Europeans are also very dirty...Most people are disgusting....

Continued Shapiro rambled on, then looked at a painting of the Moon on the wall and Wellman walked over to her, hugging her waist as he said in her ear:

—Are you still in a bad mood?
—The damn nigger yelled at me. No one had ever dared to yell at me before.
—He's a loser. Just ignore him.
—I can't... I feel so outraged...I'm going to make him regret what he did to me, he'll pay dearly for his insolence.
—What do you plan to do?

She turned and hugged Wellman too, speaking to him with her lips so close to his that each word was mistaken for a kiss:

—Stupid Turn turned off the security cameras. I will now seize the moment to let the Selenite out.
—Are you crazy?!

Wellman exclaimed in alarm and she smiled, closing her mouth with a finger:

—Are you not curious to look at him? We just open the door for him, run to lock ourselves in here and then let them manage to catch him again.
—What if someone gets hurt?
—Let him kill them for all I care. Anyway, the alien is already weakened from lack of food; it will just give them a good scare and we can finally see the mysterious "Russian Selenite". If you help me, you'll get daily sex for the rest of the investigation...and... a quarter of what I earn here.
—Are you serious?
—Absolutely.

Wellman accepted with a kiss and with a chuckle they got dressed, then headed for the north wing. Maggie was just finishing cleaning the south end when she saw them leaving Shapiro's bedroom. She figured they were going to continue frolicking in the center section, so she didn't bother to watch them and went to her own room to take a shower. Wellman and Shapiro slipped into the off-limits area and began to poke around. They found a small office, a medical pantry where there was food piled rotting and finally a padded room whose interior could be seen through a two-way mirror. Inside was something like a person huddled in a corner, dressed in a hospital patient gown, its face hidden in its arms; as if full of hopelessness. It had a very fair complexion and blond, battered hair, long to about shoulder length; its complexion was thin and petite, as delicate as that of a woman or a boy of about fifteen. Shapiro exclaimed:

—Oh, my God, this is inhuman, this is not an alien, this is an abduction victim! Maybe she's a sex slave of those two stinky old men....

Without thinking, she ran into the padded room; opening several complicated locks to get there. After her went Wellman and, once inside, he had a bad feeling when he saw that "the person" who was huddled in that corner had suspiciously long, strong, dark fingernails; and its arms, despite being thin, had well-defined muscles. Shapiro spoke to it, approaching it slowly, bending down to try to see its face:

—Hi, sweetheart. It's going to be okay, we're here to help you. What's your name?

The huddled being wiggled the fingers of one hand, as if making himself alert, and looked up a little; watching what was happening through the blond locks of hair that fell from the sides of its face. Seeing the door open seemed to cheer it up quite a bit, as it slowly began to rise; as Shapiro asked its name in Russian, moving closer to try to get a better look at it. The being then looked between its lovely golden locks at a pair of large, slanted, inhuman eyes, with smoky lids and tiny reddish pupils that locked onto hers as it showed the rest of his strange face; with an extremely small nose that contrasted with its mouth; large, thin-lipped and almost black, through which sharp, somewhat splayed teeth peeked out as it responded with a sinister voice and a frighteningly sarcastic smile:

—Kizssaaa…

Shapiro froze in panic and Wellman didn't hang around to see what happened next. He fled in a hurry as the Selenite rose to its feet, moving with the springiness and smoothness of a cat, until it was perfectly standing up; its height was almost the same as Shapiro. Then it grabbed her face, pierced her eyes with its thumbnails and then violently bit her lips until they tore them off and finally cut her neck with a scratch. The woman fell to the floor bleeding to death, while the being disgustedly spat out its blood and then wiped its mouth with the back of its hand; calmly escaping from the padded room.

Wellman was too terrified to warn the others of the danger; he only went to his bedroom and closed the door behind him, even using an armchair to keep them from knocking it down. Unaware of the danger they were in, Pemberton, Yamada and Miller continued the autopsy of the mysterious woman in the Moon under the strict watch of Moore and Mitkov. While Voyager, Tolley and old Yolanda examined the samples obtained from the skeletons. After eleven hours of uninterrupted work, Tolley was beginning to feel exhausted and sat down for a moment to drink a cup of cold coffee; while Yolanda García was busily looking for some reagent liquids at the bottom of a cupboard and Alice Voyager was still lost in her world, looking through a microscope. Tolley left the coffee cup on a table and then the door leading to the corridor opened and subject two entered the clinical laboratory in earnest before Tolley's incredulous gaze, who did not know how to react to such strange creature. Old Yolanda did not realize what was happening, being on her back with her head stuck in a cupboard and Alice Voyager saw the being enter but was simply not impressed and preferred to continue working. The Selenite looked everyone over from head to toe, glanced at the work tables and then brushed aside a bit of its hair that was falling over the sides of its face, as if it were nothing, and went straight to the autopsy room. When it entered, Moore, Mitkov and Turn almost jumped with shock as subject two watched just as Lindsay Pemberton pulled out the Moon woman's brain, with Yamada's help. The first to see the intruder, of those inside the autopsy room, was Miller; who immediately shouted an alarm while Yamada swore an oath taking several steps back and Pemberton also shouted in horror throwing himself to the floor and dropping the brain near the feet of the Selenite who for the moment also seemed to be alarmed and then looked bewildered at the encephalic mass at its feet, walked to the dissected woman on the autopsy table and bent down to look at the body, dumbfounded, and then touched the dead face, recognizing it. It looked down evidently grief-stricken and Miller hid under a table praying, while Pemberton trembled in fear crying huddled by a wall and Yamada looked at Moore behind glass; as if wondering what to do. For a few moments, the being continued without looking up, and then Mitkov ran into the autopsy room and approached him cautiously, saying:

—Kisa? Pemberton, stop crying, he hates noise.

Behind Mitkov came Moore, who muttered gravely:

—That corpse was something of his, Mitkov. I saw them together on the moon.
—I can imagine...

"Kisa" suddenly let out a bloodcurdling shriek that was heard throughout the facility, startling Maggie in the shower and making Wellman, who was hiding in a closet in his bedroom, tremble. Turn activated the security system again and sounded the alarm as Moore said:

—It's no use, no one will come in here to save us, that was the agreement: if anything went wrong, the people upstairs would cut off the communication, isolate us and leave everything to us! Go to your bedrooms and lock yourselves in...!

Yamada tried to leave the room and then the Selenite jumped on him, biting his arm and tearing off a strip of flesh from his elbow to his hand. The nurse tried desperately to get away, losing fingers on his left hand, which the Selenite spat on the floor. Moore pounced on the creature pushing it away from the young man with his enormous strength and shouting:

—Yamada, pick up your fingers and get out of here!! Miller, Pemberton, you too!

Miller crawled crying to Yamada, who was wrapping his arm and fingers in the skirts of his bloody surgical suit, and together they left the room; meanwhile, Moore was still trying to subdue the Selenite who despite looking rather frail did not take long to wriggle out of Moore's arms; wriggling in an unnatural way to then make the doctor lose his balance and throw him to the floor, but when he was about to attack him with his long sharp nails, Mitkov intervened, grabbing the Selenite by the back and saying: 

—Moore, don't attack him. He thinks we will hurt him; we must gain his trust!

The strange being got away from Mitkov by biting his arm until it tore off a piece of flesh, and then turned around, grabbed him by the neck and threw him against some shelves that collapsed with a crash; after this, it attacked Moore again, who had already risen from the floor and was taking a fire extinguisher to hit him, but the creepy being dodged it, causing it to crash against the glass behind which the terrified Turn was watching everything. Then the creature fixed its attention on Pemberton who cried shivering as the ceiling lamp went out intermittently, broken and stained after the blood of the wounded splashed in all directions. The Selenite pulled Pemberton by the neck, ripped off her surgical mask and watched her for a moment cupping her face with both hands; stroking her open eyelids with the sharp nails of his blood-stained thumbs. He then began to slowly make several cuts around her eyes, while she screamed in terror and pain; he wounded the inside of her eyelids by pulling them with the back of his nails and when he was about to gouge out her eyes, he smashed her head against the wall making her lose consciousness. Then it came out through the clinical laboratory, where García, Tolley, Miller, Yamada and Voyager were hiding under a table that the frightful creature pushed aside with a blow to attack them all rabidly; tearing them with its razor-sharp nails, as if enjoying seeing the skin open, releasing streams of blood; raging at García who began to insult it and ended up with a cut in the jugular vein. Then, the murderous entity threw to the floor everything that was on the work tables, screamed again in anger, and left the place bathed in blood; with a horrible glazed look. Turn saw where he was going through the security system and with horror saw that he was going straight to the south sector, where Maggie was still in her bathrobe wondering why the alarm was sounding and Wellman was still hiding in his closet. Turn opened the microphone of the security system and shouted over all the loudspeakers in the facility:

—Attention, subject two has escaped and is headed for the south sector, lock down all dormitories and try to hide, he is extremely aggressive!

Tolley armed himself with a metal bar he ripped from a chair and tried to reach the Selenite in the south sector, figuring Maggie would be defenseless there; Wellman covered himself with blankets and stuck closer to the inside wall of the closet while Maggie held back a scream, covering her mouth and thinking she couldn't remember if she had secured the door lock.

She hurried to the entrance of the small apartment to check that it was locked, even jumping over a sofa to get there faster; she grabbed a wall to avoid slipping when trying to slow down because of the speed she was running and when she arrived at the door, to her disgrace, the Selenite was already there; staring at her, with his hands and his hospital gown soaked in blood. Neither of them moved for an instant, until she slowly tried to walk away without turning her back on him. Then Turn warned over the loudspeakers that subject two was entering Maggie's bedroom and she, as if sensing her own death, thought of her son and made up her mind to fight to see him again someday; so, she walked backwards a little further until she reached a shelf from which she took a heavy metal decorative sphere. The Selenite walked towards it and when he was close enough, Maggie pulled out the sphere and tried to hit him; but he easily dodged it, caught her hand and twisted it until he made her drop her improvised weapon. Just at that moment Tolley was arriving but then Wellman suddenly came out of his bedroom, snatched the metal bar from him and locked Maggie's bedroom leaving the two of them outside; using the bar to jam the lock. Tolley pushed him away shouting:

—What are you doing?!! That thing is going to kill her, look how it left me, it tore my clothes and skin!

Wellman answered breathlessly:

—Tommy...The thing is locked up again, do you want me to release it again so it can finish killing us all? Think of Maggie as a heroine....

Both men looked at each other, in horror, and slowly backed away from the door. Turn turned his back to the monitors, imagining what was about to happen, and then Miller arrived with him, trembling with blood; covering one eye with his shirt and saying:

—I was almost one-eyed! Yolanda García is dead and so is Dr. Shapiro, the alien mashed her up...Yamada is losing a lot of blood and I think the others are in bad shape too. Where are Dr. Tolley and Dr. Wellman? we need to tend to the wounded!
—They're locking up the monster using the new girl as bait....

Miller looked at the monitor in Maggie's bedroom and vomited as he saw the strange creature struggle with the girl leaning against a wall, until she was pinned down with both hands held by the Selenite which then apparently began to devour her torso. Maggie saw no blood, she did not know what the creature was doing to her, she only felt a pain that did not seem so unbearable; and she remembered the moment when she gave birth to her son Abel, when she also did not feel such severe pain as she expected. "Then this must be the pain of death," she thought. Then she saw everything around her go black, felt her body getting heavy, short of breath and simply disconnected from reality. 


May 24, 2012


A new day dawned with Selma Shapiro and Yolanda García dead. Wellman, Tolley, Miller and Turn, the least injured, spent the early morning helping their comrades and then all morning, when they were joined by Pemberton who finally awoke with a series of deep cuts around his eyes; they spent several hours struggling to reattach Yamada's fingers. Alice Voyager had multiple injuries that fortunately were not too serious, Mitkov a broken arm and had fallen into a coma, while Moore had severely injured her spine and would most likely never walk again. Near noon, Miller remembered that no one had seen Ludmila since the previous afternoon; when he went to look for her, he found her pacing nervously back and forth. He went over to greet her, surprised to see her finally moving, and she began to explain something in Russian that Miller didn't understand because he didn't know the language at all. The nurse told her to wait while he went for help and went to the east side to inform the others. At the news, Wellman opined:

—Only Mitkov and Selma could speak Russian. Only they were supposed to interact with Ludmila while the others assessed her physical condition. When they told me about this job, I thought the big risk they were talking about was possible biological or radioactive contamination, if I had known that thing was here...I wouldn't have come for all the gold in the world....

Tolley nudged him, saying gruffly:

—Your father convinced my father to pull some strings to get us in on this. He said it was a piece of cake, didn't he? Thanks to his clever business shenanigans we are now stuck here and Selma is dead.

Then Lindsay Pemberton stepped between the two of them, screaming hysterically:

—I'm the one who should be furious!!!, Tom, you said this would be the chance of a lifetime for us as a couple and I only got to meet your Latina mistress, a poorly organized project that only reflects how decadent, hypocritical and corrupt our government is; and a fucking alien creature who tortured me in an autopsy room! Why doesn't anyone speak Russian in an investigation with Russian subjects, why weren't we provided adequate security, why did the geniuses at the C.I.A., NASA and the Pentagon allow some rich guys and their spoiled children with bought college degrees to decide on such sensitive research, instead of real scientists!!!!! It's all a farce, a vulgar quest for money, fame and.... What the fuck is that thing they had locked up?!

Wellman replied languidly, leaning against a wall:

—Don't blame the government. In Washington I'm sure they don't even know we're trapped here, or that this investigation is going on. Blame our wealthy parents and their lackeys disguised in military uniforms or hiding behind various government desks for believing they were above everyone and entitled to name their price and buy anything; even going down in history as great scientists without really deserving it. And about the locked creature...It's a fucking alien, Lyn, or a demon...It doesn't really matter. It will kill us by escaping its confinement no matter what.

The ever silent and withdrawn Abel Turn took the moment to step away from the group and return to his control room. He looked at how the situation was continuing in Maggie's bedroom and opened the microphone for that room, saying:

—Can you hear me, if you're okay move a hand...?

In Maggie's bedroom, the Selenite looked at the speaker with distrust, sitting on the floor of a hallway; listening to Turn's voice as Maggie lay beside him sprawled on her belly. The girl moved slowly, feeling numb and exhausted; she remembered a little of the previous day as if it had been a nightmare and still without opening her eyes, she felt her whole body. Relieved to see that she was healthy, she sat down on the floor and someone took her hand while she tried to find a support to get up. She turned and saw the Selenite squatting next to her licking her wrist, then gasped. Turn's voice came over the loudspeaker again:

—Maggie, relax, he's healing you in his own way. They assume his saliva has disinfectant and healing properties, so it's okay. I've been watching you on the security camera since yesterday, he was locked in your bedroom for security reasons and for an indefinite period of time. The creature was peacefully by your side, it seems it spared your life since you saved its own.

The girl curled up where she was and asked a little moved, looking at the thin being with a strange androgynous face in front of her:

—Yes?
—Yes...

Turn answered over the loudspeaker, and added:

—...he hadn't had anything to eat or drink for many days and you were breastfeeding...Dr. Wellman says it was a good way for him to get new immune factors that might help him against common terrestrial bacteria. 

After the tender moment ruined, Maggie said with distaste:

—I see...It's all bloody, is it really dangerous?
—I'd rather not go into details now, things got ugly and we've lost communication with the outside. I'm doing my best to reconnect us and I might succeed in a few hours...You just try to keep it quiet. He moves slowly, as if he's stalking, but they say it's because he's always lived in a low-gravity environment. He's been lurking near you quietly, when he's not he just stands still watching you. I think he understands a little Russian. Say something to him and see if he answers you.
—I don't know any Russian... Does he have a name?
—Mitkov called him "Kisa". Actually, I’m not sure if it's female or male, or how old it is.

Maggie sat down in front of the strange being, who shrank warily, and said with her best smile as she took his hand, saying:

—Hi, Kisa, how are you, did you sleep well? 

The Selenite looked at her for a moment suspiciously, then tilted his head to one side, confused, put one of his hands on his chest and said in a slow, soft, creepy voice:

—Меня зовут Киса... Как вас зовут?

The girl smiled broadly and muttered:

—I haven't the slightest idea what he must have wanted to tell me. 

Again, the creature spoke looking at her with an air of innocence accentuated by its childish and androgynous appearance; inspiring confidence in Maggie who like most people was educated never to expect evil from that which does not look very manly:

—Что это значит?

Maggie laughed already nervous and "Kisa" leaned back against the wall, squinting her eyes with some reproach. This amused the girl, who said:

—He's...He's an alien. He was an alien! I expected him to be bald and a little shorter, but he has nice blond hair, nice big... white? White eyes? and the funniest thing is that he has almost no nose.

Saying this, Maggie squeezed his nostrils confidently and Turn let out a panicked "NO!!!" as Kisa grunted a little and then simply started licking the back of her nails, to clean them. Then Turn caught his breath and muttered:

—It looks like it really won't do anything to you...

Now calmer, the girl began to examine Kisa while he let her do it quietly:

—His body, though skinny, is well proportioned. It's even cute, or pretty? Let me see, Kisa, lift up your robe. Wow, it's a boy, how strange that he's hairless over there but it is… Hmm…  adult? Looks like he's uncomfortable being dirty... Should I bathe him?

Turn asked nervously, he knew that Maggie's perception of the Selenite was completely wrong but he couldn't tell her:

—What if the soap hurts him? I think he's a delicate creature to take care of, better think about what your mother would do in your place and....
—I hardly ever think about my own mother, it depresses me. Besides, I'm a mother myself and I know how to handle these cases! I'm going to clean him up.

She exclaimed cheerfully and Turn tried to make her think again:

—Are you sure? Maybe it's better if you don't…

The girl proceeded according to her own plans and from the moment she crossed the bathroom door taking the Selenite by the hand Turn could only listen to her talk:

—Okay, let's go in now...Everything is fine. Kisa is very good...He is not ashamed to take off his clothes...Nor is he afraid to stand under the shower. Now I'll let the water run.

A bloodcurdling shriek echoed throughout the subway facility, Turn gulped, and then heard Maggie's voice:

—Okay, okay. It's just a little soap and water, now bend over I can't reach you. 

A few minutes passed and Maggie reappeared briefly on the surveillance monitor drying her unexpected guest. Then she went out of frame again as she took him to a closet in her bedroom and had to dress him in her own clothes for lack of another option. She tried to choose the most masculine thing in her closet, which turned out to be a pair of light blue pajamas and a yellow sweater with an embroidered bunny. Once finished, she sat on the bed to contemplate her work, satisfied, unaware of the horror that her unexpected guest had done the day before. Kisa distracted herself for a while examining the texture and shape of the clothes he had been fitted with, then turned to Maggie sitting down next to her and saying:

—Я голоден.
—Do you like it? We are lucky to share the same size.

Kisa looked at her quizzically and again uttered what to Maggie were just odd sounds:

—Что?? Я голоден.
—You...what? Don't you like it?
—Голоден... Я голоден....

Said the Selenite pointing to his mouth and looking at the girl's cleavage. Maggie, blushing, turned her back to him and said:

—No! Let's go to the kitchen and I'll get you something.

Not understanding anything and already annoyed, Kisa stood up in an aggressive attitude and after one of his creepy shrieks he pounced on the girl with his hands twitching, ready to use his nails as razors. Maggie didn't even blink, when the creature was about to tear her skin, it stopped millimeters away from the girl; even brushing some of her hair. Kisa thought for a moment, looking at her angrily, then laid her down on the bed pushing her by the shoulders and remaining on all fours on top of her. Maggie, undeterred, delivered a hard knee to his crotch that made him roll off her and squeal; this time in pain. Then she sat up properly, adjusted her glasses, and said very seriously:

—You should know, I'm eighteen but I'm already a mother. And a strict one, I can't stand spoiled kids. Now follow me.

Turn watched in bewilderment as Maggie reappeared in front of the camera, while the creature followed her meekly; then he began to record everything that was happening. Apparently, the girl was doing in minutes what Mitkov and Moore had not accomplished in days. She ran to Wellman, Tolley, Pemberton and Miller to tell them how things were going. When they heard what was going on, Wellman and Tolley exchanged glances, and finally Wellman spoke:

—We'll see what happens. Whether the brutal murder of your ex-lover, or a Hispanic miracle. Whatever happens won't bore me.

They all headed for the control room, where on Maggie's bedroom monitor it could be seen how she had gotten the Selenite to follow her into the kitchen. Once there, she searched inside the refrigerator for something Kisa might like; not knowing what it might be. She found an apple, smelled it and bet on it. She took a plate and a knife from a cabinet and sat down at the table to start cutting it into small pieces. Seeing this, Kisa imitated her by moving a chair and sitting down as well; trying to look composed, looking at her sideways and interlocking her hands on the table. Maggie held back her laughter and finished cutting the apple, then sprinkled it with sugar, went to the cabinet for a fork, sat down, and used it to take a small piece of apple; offering it to Kisa. He looked at it suspiciously and turned his face away. Maggie pulled him closer and said:

—Come on, it's good. What did you eat back on the moon, cockroaches? Apples must be similar... They're crunchy, red... Only they don't move.

The girl got no answer and shrugged and ate the piece of apple herself. Kisa again looked at her sideways and continued to watch her until Maggie ate half of the pieces. Then he got up, went to the cabinet and fetched a fork; he watched carefully how Maggie used it and then used it to pick up a piece of apple and eat it, imitating her. Wellman covered his mouth in surprise and muttered:

—The fucker's eating...and he's also imitating the girl's actions.... Why is he clean and dressed like that, does she...?

Turn answered, as if proud:

—Maggie can handle him. Is it a bad idea for him to eat regular food, Dr. Wellman?
—No, I don't think so. We've already discovered that he has disinfectant saliva and battery acid from gastric juices. I'd say he can eat anything without fear. I think he'll be fine with Maggie!

Wellman said and moistened his lips with his tongue, then nervously combed his blond hair with his fingers and asked Turn:

—Will it take you long to regain communication with the outside?
—Maybe it will be over before six o'clock in the evening.

The IT man replied. Wellman exclaimed excitedly:

—Great. As soon as you do, let us know that everything is under control. That we just need to get some of the wounded taken away, but that the investigation is continuing satisfactorily and.... underlines the fact that the Selenite is under control and cooperating, thanks to our revolutionary intervention methods.

Then Turn replied, dismayed:

—But what will become of Maggie? I have yet to tell her that the Selenite killed García, Shapiro, and viciously attacked the rest of the team. I don't know how she'll react; she thinks he's some kind of lost child when in fact he's....

Wellman burst out laughing:

—Tell her, and have her freak out and lose the phenomenal rapport she's achieved with "Kizsaa". Are you nuts!!! Don't tell her until we've finished our work! Gentlemen, we will leave here safe, sound and with our hands overflowing with money; and our ace up our sleeve will be Miss Magdalena Cardenas.

In a few hours the communication with the outside world was recovered, which had been interrupted when the exits of the subway facilities were sealed to leave them in quarantine, leaving the entire research team for dead. Turn sent the good news to his superiors, attaching in his message the video where Maggie could be seen interacting calmly with the Selenite. The news was received enthusiastically, the quarantine was lifted and a rescue team arrived for Mitkov, Moore, Yamada and the corpses. Wellman automatically took the place of Moore and Mitkov, taking advantage of Tolley and Pemberton's stupor, and the three went ahead assisted by Voyager, Turn and Miller, who became responsible for Ludmila. Although the team continued to work with the team virtually cut off from the outside world, this time they were provided with amenities such as unlimited internet access, satellite television and, of course, a multimillion dollar pay raise for all. Unaware of anything going on outside her dorm room, Maggie just thought it was strange that the television that previously only tuned to two national channels was suddenly showing channels from all over the world, and that her laptop now had internet access free of the old restrictions. Without giving the matter much thought, she amused herself for several hours playing online games; after showing Kisa the correct use of the TV remote control so that she would not disturb her. That night, real images of cities all over the world, people of all cultures, animals of all kinds, imposing seas, green fields, rivers and mountains, were revealed before the Selenite. He wanted to watch it all at once, continually changing channels; discovering deserts, fashions, lakes, wars, religions, sports; until finally, around three in the morning, Maggie gave him a sweet look, saying as he rubbed his eyes:

—Who are you, do you have a family? Maybe your mother is looking for you now, aren't you worried? I'm sure you'll think we're crazy, I don't know if I'm crazy myself. I'm talking to a Selenite dressed in one of my pajamas. I hope you didn't bite Tom, although I wouldn't mind if you bit his girlfriend...On second thought, you can bite them both. Then I'll give you a rabies shot.

She didn't want to think about Tom, but inevitably her thoughts kept slipping back to him. She supposed that, one way or another, he would be aware that she was imprisoned with the moon creature and somehow it had to have affected him, he would have to be at least a little concerned and come to his senses. "He's the man got me pregnant, that must mean something to him," the girl mentally said to herself with her characteristic naivety and set out to distract herself from the matter by focusing on the Selenite again. She took one of his hands, examining his long, sharp-nailed fingers and noticing that he was completely devoid of fingerprints; something that surprised her a bit since she had also checked his feet, where the nails if short and plantar prints could be seen. "They are strange hands, but also beautiful," thought Maggie. Then the Selenite spoke, not paying attention to what the girl was doing:

—Я умираю от сна, дитя.
—What? More food? You already ate a basket of apples.

Kisa curled up next to her and closed his eyes. She turned off the TV and her laptop, leaving it on a table next to the couch, and hugged him, kissing his forehead. Maggie was glad to have him with her, and that caring for him filled a little of the void her son had left. "After all," she thought, "...he's like a baby. He doesn't understand anything, he doesn't know anything. He just needs love and care”. Soon after he began to fall asleep, as did his new friend who slept with one eye open for he knew that sooner or later someone would appear to disturb him and he would have to kill again. His relentless murderous fury and cold cunning were what had made him the leader of his clan on the moon and he was not about to give up his ways. Kisa was anything but an innocent and fragile being. 


May 25, 2012


It was after ten in the morning when Maggie finally woke up to the sound of the television. Kisa was again very serious in front of the screen, watching Russian news. She smiled wondering if he would even understand half of what they were saying and went to take a bath, but no sooner had she left the room when Kisa was already on her heels; always moving smoothly and quietly like a cat. He had hardly left Maggie's side since he had first seen her and most likely, she imagined, the poor thing saw her as his mother.

—No, stay here. You can't follow me into the bathroom....

Kisa stared at her silently, obviously not understanding a word. Maggie put into practice what little Russian she learned the night before on the internet, and went into the bathroom stopping Kisa to stay outside and saying firmly:

—Net, wait outside!!!!

The Selenite looked at her as pleadingly as he could with his strange black-lidded, slanted, eyebrow-less eyes; but Maggie only pointed to the TV room, ordering him to go back. As if giving up, Kisa slowly backed away from the door as she gave him an accusing look and Maggie walked in satisfied; she wondered how Shapiro's work with Ludmila would continue and if old Yolanda would need her help, unaware that they were both dead. The best thing about being locked up with Kisa, she thought, was that she wasn't supposed to see Tom Tolley and his girlfriend. She stepped into the shower ready to relax in the hot water, trying to figure out what to do with the alien now in her care, "He'll be thirteen or fourteen, say sixteen but more than likely malnourished. Poor Kisa doesn't look like the evil creature Dr. Moore described, maybe there are more survivors from the Moon base, which we haven't been told about..." Suddenly she had the feeling of being watched, she turned quickly to look through the shower glass but saw nothing unusual; she continued bathing without ceasing to be alert and when she got out, she found the bathroom door open. The sound of the television was loud and clear as she wrapped herself in a towel and hurried into the bedroom, where she began to dress already intrigued until she left the room realizing that behind her came Kisa crawling with a half-smile. He had been following her crouched down the whole time.

—So, you think you got away with it, huh?

Said the girl before kicking him and shoving him in front of the TV, leaving him perplexed. Some time later, when she was in the kitchen preparing him something to eat, she heard a notification sound on her laptop. She instructed Kisa to wait, knowing that he would disobey her in a minute, and went to check; finding a conversation initiated by Turn in the internal messenger:

"Administrator: I preferred to communicate through this medium and no longer over the loudspeakers. You know I hate talking out loud and besides your new little friend gets nervous when he hears me. Dr. Wellman wants you to work with Kisa."

Maggie reluctantly replied, remembering that Wellman was Tolley's friend:

"Cardenas: Wellman, does Dr. Mitkov agree?"
"Administrator: it's just that Dr. Wellman is now in charge of everything. He asks if you've ever done psychometric evaluations."
"Cardenas: something like that...I studied about it and last year I worked as an assistant in a psychological research at my university. Tell him I just hope Kisa cooperates. He has woken up very foolish."
"Administrator: great. Miller will go drop off all the material you'll need at your door, he'll just open and close for that. In the meantime, make sure Kisa stays behind your back and doesn't notice."

The girl turned a little and found Kisa, almost breathing down her neck and trying to see what she was doing. She simply stroked his dry blonde hair, saying:

—I still don't know if you are too curious or too controlling.

She made him lay his head in her lap and continued stroking his hair until she assumed Miller had already moved away. Then she went before the door and picked up a package which she carried into the small living room, while Kisa watched her intently take a series of colorful documents and objects out of the box's interior, then linger reading Wellman's instructions written on one of the documents. Before long, the Selenite deduced that there was nothing suspicious about what Maggie was doing and turned on the television again; catching her attention a shoddy Russian reality show that she stared at as if indignantly, muttering unintelligible words every so often. Then Maggie approached him animatedly and showed him a series of figures, saying:

—Look, Kisa! I've brought some fun games. They're like puzzles that you can put together. Do you know what a puzzle is, wait, I'll use the Google translator Let's see.... How do you say "puzzle"? My God, why is it so complicated to read Russian? Let's see, phonetic translation... here it is: golovolomka. Many golovolomkas. You must see the incomplete figure...here...and choose, among these other options, which is the missing piece.

The Selenite looked at her without much interest and pointed to an obvious choice, shrugging his shoulders.

—Well done, but that was just a test. Now let's play for real. You must solve all the golovolomkas, all of them, without asking me for help. Do you understand?

She took out a stopwatch and started to measure the time, waiting for Kisa to start solving the problems, but he lazily settled on the couch ignoring her as he turned up the volume on the TV. Maggie stopped the timer and asked:

—What's the matter, don't you want to play?

Kisa looked sideways at her and sighed in annoyance, but Maggie wasn't about to give up:

—Don't you like it? If you don't like this game, I have this other one. Look, it's very nice too, it has beautiful colors and shapes, see? The game is about looking for similar figures and completing drawings, you just have to select....

Suddenly, Kisa raised a hand and put it over Maggie's mouth; as if ordering her to be quiet. She was offended and turned her back to him, he noticed it, he grabbed her shoulder to make her face him but she resisted gently. They struggled like this, jokingly and seriously, until he had enough and pulled her violently by the arm; forcing her to look at him. The girl was surprised for a moment, then she slapped the Selenite with all her strength, which was not little. Kisa looked at her stunned, then took the puzzles from Maggie. The girl said grumpily:

—Now what, are you going to cooperate?
—Головоломки....
—It's all right.

She began to take the time and Kisa stopped for a while to examine the work he was about to do. Then he began to solve the problems one after another, without a second thought. He finished in no time and began to solve the other tests, almost without giving Maggie a chance to finish counting the time properly or explaining anything to him. Once he finished with all the contents of the package, he handed it to her as a peace offering. She accepted it all, warily and murmured:

—Thank you...

Maggie sat on the floor at Kisa's feet and began grading his tests while he lay on the couch changing the channel over and over again. Before long Maggie began to doubt the results. They were almost perfect. He had barely missed solving the problems she presented him with, and he solved them in an implausible amount of time. She wiped her glasses with a skeptical face and communicated with Turn through the internal messenger, advising:

"Cardenas: I've finished assessing his intelligence. Is Wellman online?"
"Administrator: he's in the clinical lab now. Write to him there, directly."

The girl bit a finger, nervously. She knew that Tolley was also in the clinical lab and she wrote with trepidation, not knowing if he would answer her:

"Cardenas: this is Maggie, is Dr. Wellman there?"

She received no reply for a while, until someone wrote back:

"Clinical Lab: Hello, Babe!"

Startled, Maggie replied:

"Cardenas: Is Dr. Wellman there?"
"Clinical Lab: It's me writing to you."

She sighed in relief and at the same time surprised herself somewhat disappointed that it had not been Tolley who answered her. Then she wrote:

"Cardenas: I'm done with Kisa."
"Clinical Lab: fantastic, start grading."
"Cardenas: I'm done, I finished everything."
"Clinical Laboratory: so soon?"
"Cardenas: Kisa finished the tests in record time".
"Clinical Laboratory: and what about the results?"
"Cardenas: he reached the highest percentiles. He's supposed to be gifted, but he acts like a savage. It must be a fluke or some mistake. His results indicate that he has a superior intelligence, but I think they should be corroborated."
"Clinical Laboratory: how many tests did you do, do the results differ from each other?"
"Cardenas: six tests. Similar results in all of them."
"Clinical Laboratory: once could have been chance, twice a great coincidence? But six times? Make a report of the results and start assessing personality when you can. Then you corroborate these last findings."
"Cardenas: you think they may be correct?"
"Clinical Lab: have you seen the look that creepy thing has? It's a calculating, cunning, ...cynical look...I'm not surprised by these results. Now go back to him and make him feel safe with you.
Cardenas: Got it.

When Maggie looked up from the screen, she met Kisa's gaze staring at his with reddish pupils; as if suspecting they were talking about him. She looked at him too, comparing the way Wellman had described him with his thin and frail appearance; almost pathetic because of the misshapen face and being dressed practically as a girl. Then she went to his side, as if reproaching herself for having allowed herself to think anything bad about him, and clasped him in her arms kissing one cheek. Pemberton, who was with Tolley and Turn in the security control room, watched the scene on Maggie's bedroom monitor and said in horror:

—It's creepy...I feel like he's going to eat her face off at any moment, she's overconfident.
—Maggie's always been like that. She believes that there's some hidden goodness in everyone and that she's able to find it.

Tolley commented, and Pemberton murmured:

—Thanks for the information, it's good to know you have a good memory of her.
—Lyn... She is the mother of my son. It wouldn't be right for me to speak ill of her.....
—Now you feel like father of the year? Oh, my God, Tommy! Everyone here knows you sold your son to your uncles and got the girl pregnant when she was a minor. If I were you, I'd take a more ambiguous stance on what is and isn't right.

Tolley was silent and Turn cleared his throat, pretending to be distracted. An uncomfortable silence reigned for several minutes, until Wellman arrived, saying:

—Excellent progress with Kisa, isn't it? I would say that his mental processes are optimal and I'm dying, Tommy, for you to analyze the structure of that Lunar brain. When are you going to do a CAT scan?

The alluded one said between his teeth, crossing his arms:

—I guess when it's safe to approach him.

Wellman smiled with optimism and concluded: 

—Then it will be between tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Watch him, he's a little lamb when he's with Maggie. Women are capable of doing the impossible and you Lyn, my sexy blonde doctor, are going to prove it once again. Grab your kit and go give the Selenite a general checkup. And be sweet to him, if you want to live.

Pemberton gaped, then asked:

—But... Are you kidding, why don't you go, or Tom, or Miller?!

Dr. Wellman replied with a half-smile:

—Because apparently Kisa is more comfortable with the ladies and your boyfriend is the neurologist, Miller the nurse who does the heavy physical labor and I'm the psychiatrist; and our presence in the research is vital to its successful completion while you...are just another charity hospital resident doctor...You know, you have less to risk for everyone's interests!
—Fuck you, Bob....

Pemberton replied and Wellman sentenced:

—You had better obey, Lyn. You know that insubordination in this government project is punishable by jail.

Lindsay Pemberton's face fell with rage and Tolley turned away, looking away so as not to have an opinion. Minutes later, Maggie was still in front of the television, sitting on the couch with the Selenite peacefully asleep on her lap, when Turn announced over the loudspeaker:

—Attention, Maggie. Dr. Pemberton will be coming into the bedroom to examine Kisa. Is it safe at this time?
—Yes...Well, I think so...He's sleeping now. What can go wrong?
—She'll be in in five minutes, try to wake him up and prepare him for the visit.

Maggie felt uncomfortable about having to be in the company of Tom Tolley's girlfriend. She reluctantly woke Kisa and murmured to him:

—We'll have visitors...Be good and don't be in a bad mood.

He sat next to her, still sleepy and uncomprehending, when he listened suspiciously to Turn's voice over the loudspeaker:

—She's coming in now. Take precautions.

Pemberton appeared timidly in the doorway of the room, wearing his hospital uniform and equipment. At the sight of her, Kisa jumped up and Pemberton took a few steps back; shaking; then tried to look calm and said:

—He seems to be a little nervous.... Hi, Maggie! Hi, Kisa, remember me? We met a couple of days ago in the autopsy room. You didn't like me very much then, but maybe now we can smooth things over?

Maggie looked puzzled at the wounds on Pemberton's face. Kisa noticed them too but, unlike Maggie, they brought a smile to his face. Not understanding the horrible reunion, she was witnessing, Maggie said:

—I advise you to ignore his bad mood. He seems mean at first but he's actually very sweet.

Then she pulled Kisa, asking him to sit down and said looking at the deep wounds around Pemberton's eyes:

—Doctor, what happened to your face?

Lindsay Pemberton swallowed and spoke as she slowly moved forward:

—Well...He was very upset that day...I was doing the autopsy of one of his relatives and he came in, he saw me there...and there was a serious misunderstanding.
—His family?, were the corpses his family's?

Maggie asked with emotion, and Pemberton replied:

—I'm afraid so. We haven't analyzed Kisa's DNA yet, but it is deducible because of her resemblance to the others. So far, Dr. Voyager has discovered that they were all related to each other; the older ones were Ludmila's siblings and practiced forced inbreeding. We assume that Kisa belonged to the second generation born on the Moon and will be in his early twenties.
— I thought he was younger. At least we already know that he is not really an alien. He's just a human being who is somewhat different and was born on the Moon.

Maggie commented, the doctor took the floor again:

—He is different because his DNA and that of his relatives underwent severe mutations. Some were born with serious defects, others like him are apparently just deformed. Although we could think that their bodies are not disfigured, but that they "evolved" to perform better in the lunar gravity and the poor lighting of the base; Kisa only knows the light of the electric bulbs. Their relatives also had lean bodies, almost devoid of subcutaneous fat; but their muscles were strong and elastic; apparently, their organisms adapted to the conditions of the base and the result was this appearance. I'm really not sure if those changes in their bodies are adaptations to improve their relationship with the environment in which they lived or just signs of atrophied bodies. It must have felt wretched up there. Or maybe not, maybe he didn't even imagine that planet Earth existed and that there were more people than the few he saw at the base. I think he feels threatened...but I'm glad you managed to make him feel safer among us.

Maggie smiled, feeling bad for not being cool enough to resist sympathizing with her one-time love rival. Throughout the conversation, Kisa kept watching them, as if plotting something. Then he looked suspiciously at the security camera and, in the control room, Tolley saw him through the monitor; telling Turn and Wellman:

—Observe, Kisa knows that he is a prisoner, that we are holding him captive and watching him all the time. I'm afraid that now that he knows this, he might try to find out what we are really capable of. He already attacked us once and we barely managed to lock him up.
—He won't do anything now. Not with Maggie present.

Wellman said gravely and continued explaining:

—His survival depends on her, she's his guide on Earth. The Selenite is definitely not stupid. He's been a survivor all his life. What do you think he was doing watching TV?, he was researching us. Now he knows that life on Earth is not like on the Moon, that he is no longer on a hundred-square-meter world with a half-dozen wimps who are afraid of him. He will not risk attacking again to impose the law of the strongest because he already knows that there are too many of us to control us like that. I'm pretty sure he'll cooperate with us, albeit reluctantly; anything to save his own skin.
—Doctors, that doesn't mean he has forgiven us for murdering his family. He will do something, as soon as he gets the chance…

Turn said, in a somber tone. Meanwhile, Pemberton continued examining the Selenite without being able to stop trembling. Kisa was watching his movements closely, as if observing his body language and verifying that she was terrified. Lindsay Pemberton was also watching him out of the corner of her eye and trying to look confident, without success. Almost oblivious to the tense situation, Maggie was sitting near them at her laptop; imagining that the doctor's sudden silence was only due to the lack of familiarity between the two of them. Nerves continued to betray the young doctor, often dropping the instruments from her hands that kept shaking. She began to take the Selenite's pulse and he became uncomfortable, but was not overtly aggressive; he just stared at her fiercely. Pemberton stammered immediately:

—I'm...I'm sorry. Maggie, look up online how to say...I'm sorry in Russian.
—It's “izvini”, but I don't know if he pronounces it that way. Maybe he mispronounces it too.

Lindsay looked the Selenite in the eye and said rapturously:

—Izvini!

Then she repeated, speaking from the bottom of her heart, while remembering the moments when she opened the Moon woman's flesh and all the conscience charges of her life:

—Izvini, izvini,... izvini,... izvini,....

He didn't answer anything, he just stopped looking her in the eyes and dedicated himself to observe what she was doing to him. Dr. Pemberton continued her work a little calmer, until the Selenite slowly began to caress one of her arms with his sharp nails. She tried to smooth the situation by saying:

—He must cut his nails... They scratch a little... Although it will be difficult to trim them, their keratin is harder than normal... But surely he knows how, because the ones on his feet are not like that; somehow, he must....

Suddenly, the long, pale hand with nails like little razors went up to her neck, which he circled, pressing the sharp nails against her delicate skin. Pemberton froze and said, as her voice cracked trying to refocus on taking his pulse:

—One hundred and twenty over eighty...Normal.

Kisa smiled wryly and stroked the wounds he himself had caused on the doctor's face; as if in a cruel threat. Pemberton turned his face away, turning to Maggie who was still oblivious:

—I must take blood samples. That will surely hurt him and he may become aggressive. Can you help me calm him down?

Maggie went to Kisa and knelt before him, explaining as she spoke very slowly and gesturing:

—The doctor must examine your blood. She will take it out...from your arm...with a little needle...It will hurt a little. But it will be very quick. You must be patient.

Pemberton proceeded to draw the blood, having difficulty finding the vein in the Selenite's pale arm; he tried to get up violently as the needle was thrust in, but Maggie stopped him, telling him seriously:

—No. Hold still. I promise this won't hurt you.

Looking at the camera and then at Maggie, Kisa let himself be done; but from that moment on he looked away from her in contempt. When Pemberton finished her work, the Selenite returned grumpily to the couch and turned the TV back on. Maggie walked Pemberton to the door and then returned to Kisa, who was obviously angry with her. The girl ignored his cold attitude saying:

—Yesterday before yesterday I slept on the floor and yesterday on the couch. Today I would like to go back to my bed and get some rest, if you don't mind. I'm crazy...I'm talking to you knowing you don't understand. You can spend the whole night alone with your beloved TV, watching those Russian reality shows that bother you so much but you still watch. OK?

Kisa did not answer, resting sprawled on the couch with his chin resting on one of his hands and his eyes glazed over; as he watched the movie "Casablanca" subtitled in Russian. Maggie kissed the pinprick Pemberton had given him, saying:

—You're angry. Sure, I let you down and now you think I've betrayed you; I know how it feels. But that lady didn't any harm to you, they just want to know about your body, your mind, to understand how the extraterrestrial environment affects human beings. If they had really tried to harm you, I would have defended you. I know that, although you have not told me, you have looked to me for protection and support. And I won't let you down, I will not let you feel abandoned....

Then she noticed the detail of the Russian subtitles on the movie Kisa was watching. Intrigued, she went to the TV screen and covered the letters with her hands. Kisa grunted in protest and Maggie asked, astonished:

—Can you read?!
—О чем ты, блядь, сейчас говоришь?

He answered, grumpily. The girl ran to her laptop and searched in the control panel for regional and language settings, choosing Russian and doing the same with her internet browser settings. She then opened an article in Russian about "Casablanca" which she showed to Kisa and he began to read with interest, pointing a finger at his reading progress which was quite fast. Maggie then exclaimed:

—You read!!!

Maggie spent until almost midnight explaining to Kisa, with considerable difficulty as the keyboard was not in Cyrillic alphabet, how to use the laptop and surf the net. The hardest part was making herself understood without both of them speaking the same language, but once Kisa understood what she was trying to say, he put it into practice and memorized it immediately. Maggie went to bed leaving Kisa hooked on the internet. The next morning, when she woke up, she saw him asleep next to her. The laptop was on his side, on a bedside table, and when Maggie tried to take it, he stopped her hand without even opening his eyes.

At the same time, Wellman appeared in sports clothes and with a cup of coffee in Tolley's bedroom, who was still asleep in his bed. He surveyed the room with intrigue and woke his friend by kicking him as he asked:

—Where's Lyn, don't tell me she got mad and didn't sleep with you.

Tolley woke up reluctantly and replied:

—I won't tell you; you already said it anyway.
—Stupid bitch. The Selenite did nothing to her.
—You know...Women make a big deal out of everything.

Wellman's phone rang and he answered it immediately, signaling Tolley to wait while he went to answer it in the next room. Tolley got out of bed and started doing some push-ups until Wellman returned saying:

—That was Turn. He just spoke to Maggie on the surveillance camera. She has requested a laptop with a Russian language keyboard. Apparently, our nice alien could read and has learned to use the internet to...I don't know, look up alien pornography or, perhaps, plans to conquer the world.

Tom Tolley jumped up and exclaimed in alarm:

—Shit, Robert, I think that thing is capable! ...Are you going to give him what he's asking for?
—Of course, I am! Maggie is my golden goose, and if she wants me to bring her a live rhino to keep Kisa happy, then I'll bring it to her! I'm going to write up a new report on this right now. 


May 26, 2012


In the middle of the morning, Wellman was comfortably seated in an armchair in his bedroom, writing the latest progress report on the investigation on his computer, when Miller appeared, bringing him a bundle of documents:

—Doctor, Turn sent you this. They've just come from outside.

Wellman read with a start and said after a while:

—Warn everyone that we'll be receiving a new team member in half an hour, in the central sector. Bring me all the files on Kisa here, to my bedroom. Quickly, before "the visitor" comes! And tell Turn that I don't want to see the new guy watching the surveillance cameras without my permission.

Miller obeyed while in Turn's control room stood Tolley and Alice Voyager, watching the new arrival come through the east sector door. He was a tall man dressed in a smart black suit, blond and good looking. Turn and Tolley exchanged glances and Alice Voyager said casually:

—I expected something more badass, at least with a flamethrower. But who knows, maybe they'll send him as bait so the creature will kill him instead of the girl. 

They joined the others soon after to receive the new member in the central sector, the newcomer entered the room and Wellman greeted him with some disdain:

—Welcome to our humble research team. I must tell you that we are all family here.

Miller added with a goofy laugh:

—Welcome, cousin!

The others fell silent with evident annoyance and Wellman smiled introducing him:

—This nice young man brought straight from the Appalachian Mountains is Miller, our nurse; this is Turn, the computer manager; those beautiful ladies are Dr. Lyn Pemberton, our anatomic pathology specialist, and Alice Voyager, the clinical laboratory manager; that big boy is Tolley, our neurologist; and yours truly, Robert Wellman, psychiatrist and leader of research. Now, folks, this is...

The new member interrupted, introducing himself:

—J. Gabin. I will be replacing Drs. Mitkov and Shapiro as the research psychologist and would primarily like to take on the case of the male survivor of the Nebo moon base, Lukasha Mikhailov. I have learned that he is a fascinating but uncooperative individual.

They all looked at each other and Miller then said:

—I bet that's the Selenite's full name, right? Lukasha Mikhailov, "Kiizsaa" to friends.

Dr. Voyager commented:

—I congratulate you Miller. That's the smartest thing I've heard you say so far.

Wellman then observed, warily:

—I see, Mr. Gabin, that you know details of the investigation that we don't... Also, your name is unfamiliar to me. It's strange, I know all the psychologists who collaborate with Mitkov... What university did you graduate from?

The others looked at him as if surprised, except for Alice Voyager, and Gabin replied calmly:

—I had access to certain documents and objects found on the moon base that revealed to me various details about the lives of the people of Nebo. Dr. Mitkov withheld a great deal of data while he was still in charge of the investigation but fortunately came to share it with me before he fell into a coma. Now that this mission has taken on a true teamwork character, I can pass that knowledge on to you and continue my work with Mrs. Ludmila and Mr. Lukasha. About the veracity of my university degree... We'll talk about it another day.

Replied the man in black with a cynical smile. Then Tolley asked suspiciously:

—I keep on feeling strange.... Do you speak Russian?
—I can understand anyone, so you don't have to worry. Now, I would like to see the famous "Selenite". That's the reason that brought me here. 

Gabin replied to the disbelief of Tolley and his companions, who looked at Wellman waiting for instructions. He said reluctantly:

—Come with me, Gabin. I'll show Kisa through the surveillance system, to which only authorized personnel have access. Turn, come with us.

The three men went to the control room and watched through a monitor what was happening at that moment in Maggie's bedroom; where she, with infinite patience, was trying to get Kisa to change her laptop for the new one with a Russian keyboard; while he stubbornly ignored her. Gabin exclaimed when he saw the Selenite:

—He looks cute but creepy at the same time. There is always in these sick people afflicted with disfiguring ailments something that moves one to pity, but in this particular subject there shines a certain malice in his look. I read in your report yesterday that you were finally able to draw his blood, are you already working on what sedatives will be safe for his body?

Wellman reluctantly replied:

—Yes, really...we don't want to keep Kisa drugged. We are interested in getting as much information from him as possible and we believe that with Maggie he will open up completely. It will all be a matter of time.

Suddenly Gabin approached Wellman and putting a hand in his pocket asked him, lowering his voice as he took him to a corner away from Turn:

—About that information to be obtained...According to Dr. Mitkov, the remains of the Russian astronaut couple were found incinerated inside an old box; along with a mysterious note attached to an empty case that would contain certain information, so far, missing.... Did you find out anything about it?

After pondering for a few seconds, Robert Wellman replied:

—We thought the data to be obtained from the survivors were psychological diagnoses. We were never told about retrieving information about the base. Kisa and Ludmila simply cannot communicate with us, much less tell us something as specific as the location of lost documents. What did the mysterious note you mentioned say, Gabin?
—You see, Gennadi Mikhailov spoke in his last messages to Earth of a discovery he made on the Moon, "a poison that corrupted minds and would be capable of destroying the Soviet Union". We suspect that he was referring to a teratogenic neurotoxin that would be responsible for the dementia of Mikhailov's wife and the mutations in young people born on the Moon. Apparently, that substance was addictive and the woman could not quit, so he probably ended up killing her and then committing suicide. The note on the case literally said "to distill poison", so we imagine that the chemical formula of the mysterious substance was detailed there. It is necessary to find out if such information still exists or if the survivors know any clues about it. The way that substance altered the organisms of the new generations on the Moon was terrible, and if spread here, it could degenerate the families of entire regions for several generations.

Wellman smiled mischievously, as if understanding everything, and said:

—I would tell our government superiors that they had better wait for the results of the investigation before holding a certain phantom substance responsible for mutations and tares in the Selenites. But I understand their enthusiasm. Getting hold of such a "poison" would be like getting your hands on a very potent biological weapon...A plague that turns people into insane murderous beasts, a destroyer of humanity. The government wouldn't think twice about going back to the moon for a sample of that mysterious monster-creating formula, would they?

Then Gabin replied, folding his arms:

—Oh, I don't think the interest in the substance is more than pure scientific curiosity! Or rather, look on the bright side, Dr. Wellman. Perhaps in that formula lies the cure for some disease that has been fatal to date.
—Yes, of course. I'm afraid I'm going to sound negative again, but we've already analyzed the blood and tissues of all the Selenites and found no traces of any truly foreign chemicals. Perhaps that mysterious agent only affected the mother; somehow distorting her DNA which she in turn inherited to her offspring, who by reproducing with each other made the situation worse. Whether such a harmful substance exists or existed, and whether it was consumed by Gennadi Mikhailov's wife, only Ludmila, the firstborn of the Russian astronauts and the longest living person on the Moon, could know. Unfortunately, she is disconnected from reality.
—But Lukasha Mikhailov is not.

Wellman arched his eyebrows, saying with some sarcasm:

—Perhaps he finds it difficult for Kisa to tell him details about this matter. He only communicates precariously with Maggie and resents the death of his family, so...worry. Because, if Kisa really knows a way to screw the people of planet Earth, rest assured he'll put it into practice. The kid's got some serious smarts and we suspect he's not as wild and naive as we originally thought. For that reason, I want him to be calm, get used to Maggie and forget about revenge...More so now that I know about that neurotoxin secret, which his former mentor also "protected" us from by not revealing it.

Unaware of the arrival of the new team member and his revelations, Maggie was still cooped up with Kisa. It was almost noon and she was chopping vegetables for lunch, trying to imagine how and where her son would be now. She had begun to be more resigned to her loss, thinking, "Abel will surely grow up to be handsome and successful like his father, moving among the upper echelons of society, being one of the most privileged men in this nation"; then she told herself sadly, "and he will become arrogant like him, become superfluous and even ashamed to know that I am his mother. But if in that world full of luxuries, to which I could not give him access, he is assured of triumph..." Meanwhile, Kisa was still obsessed with the internet. He had accepted to change Maggie's laptop for the new one with Russian keyboard and without the barrier of the alphabet, he was fully immersed in looking for information about everything. He only typed with two fingers on each hand, or rather with two fingernails, and from time to time he would meditatively stare at the screen and then continue searching busily. A peaceful silence reigned, only occasionally interrupted by Maggie's bustling in the kitchen and Kisa's incessant typing. At one point, the sound of the keys stopped to give way to an old 80's rock song. After a while, Kisa's strange hissing voice was heard:

—Come here, Maaggie....

The girl almost dropped a casserole she was handling just as she heard the Selenite call her name for the first time and speaking in her language. She dried her hands on her skirt and composed her glasses nervously, stepping out into the living room and asking:

—Did you...did you call me; did you say Maggie?

Kisa nodded shaking her head with a candid expression, sitting on the floor in a pink sweater with her hands clasped in her lap. She turned up excitedly, as if her son had just said his first word. She came to his side and he pointed to the screen with great simplicity, showing a video of a man burning firecrackers on his butt:

—Retard.

Maggie replied angrily:

—But...why do you see this and make me see it!!! All this time surfing the net and you only learned to call me and say "retard"?! For the intelligence you're supposed to have I was hoping you'd at least learn something useful....

He just laughed. Then he closed the video and said in his sinister voice, pointing at the screen already more seriously:

—Earth looks as in the books, is beautiful. But most of its inhabitants, except for the animals, do not deserve to live here. I don't like this system of government; the leaders of nations make their people docile by giving them great uncertainty. It is true that it is easier to manage a people of fools, but if they reproduce too much, they begin to devour each other. Then you have to kill the most annoying ones. As the Earth is now, it would have to be washed entirely in blood to make it a fit place for community again.

Maggie looked at him puzzled and replied:

—At least I see that you handle the language well. You see, Kisa...on Earth we are not in the habit of killing others, every human life is supposed to be very valuable. If we did it as you say, we could lose many people who despite their faults would help "the community" a lot. Tolerance for us is important and we prefer not to use violence.
—So, you won't defend yourself if someone tries to dominate you by force?
—I will defend myself without violence, with tolerance and understanding.
—"Tolerance and understanding", at least you will die with optimism. 

Kisa mumbled with a laugh. The girl gave him a push, indignant, and replied:

—Don't talk to me like that! We are supposed to be friends.

Then the Selenite stared at her for a moment, then said after a short sigh:

—Actually, I am tired and I think that at any moment they will open the door of this little house and come to kill me. I would like to share in peace this little remaining life with one of those women I had only seen in pictures and drawings, so I will die satisfied and it will be like having had a complete life. Almost happy. 

After hearing this, Maggie sat down next to him and tried to continue the conversation; not quite sure what to say to this strange being:

—I'm glad you like my company. Sorry if I seemed inconsiderate before...The language barrier was a big problem. I hope I didn't offend you by treating you like a baby or making you wear these girly clothes.

Kisa looked at the pink sweater he was wearing and said seriously:

—Girly clothes?
—Yes... It's women's clothes and you're a boy.

Maggie replied, supposing that the Selenite did not know the attire traditionally assigned to each gender on Earth. He only replied:

—Yes, but I like to wear these clothes.

Young Maggie let out a slight sigh with a blank stare, thought for a few seconds and then asked, crossing her arms:

—Do you like...boys? There's nothing wrong with that, a lot of my friends...are gay.
—I've had some bad experiences with women, but that doesn't mean I don't like them, I like them very much. I like them a lot. Surely that's why I like these clothes.

Kisa said confused and in a slightly annoyed tone of voice.

—But.... I like watermelons, but that doesn't mean I dress like one!

Was Maggie's answer, to which Kisa always answered with her rare seriousness; a solemn serenity like the one that caged beasts have when they rest:

—If you did, I could understand you. A while ago you were talking about tolerance and understanding, maybe you don't know the meaning of those words that sound so nice.

From that moment on, they began to talk just for the sake of talking. They talked at length about the color of the walls, how uncomfortable the couch was, the superiority of apple sticks over apple cubes, and anything that didn't involve revealing details about either of their personal lives or pasts. Maggie noticed that the talk was heading in that direction, but interpreted it as Kisa's desire not to alter the relationship between the two.She suspected that he had done more than one horrible thing, but she didn't want to embarrass him by making him confess anything. As they talked, Maggie began to get used to Kisa's strange, vaguely androgynous but creepy voice timbre, as well as his appearance, she stopped seeing the Selenite as a strange creature and began to consider him as a very peculiar person. Gradually she stopped noticing his dark-lidded slanted eyes and his almost inhuman mouth that when he smiled was that much creepier. "After all," the girl thought, "his appearance is like a cross between an anorexic person and a case of bad cosmetic surgery, and both specimens are considered beautiful by certain groups of people. In reality, a little blonde creature weighing just over forty kilos can't be all that frightening...If you don't pay too much attention to his look that still looks somehow sinister." The problem with this new level of trust between the two came when around 12 a.m. Maggie decided to go to bed and Kisa went after her like the last few nights, walking softly and quietly like a cat and then getting into bed with her; clinging to her body for a cuddle. Then she felt too uncomfortable. She wrapped one of her arms around him and kissed his forehead, but she no longer saw him as a child and the situation became tense. She contemplated refusing to continue sleeping like this, but then thought it might be dangerous to be alone with him in an unattended room and worse, she felt, it might hurt him emotionally. She felt him settle into her arms sighing contentedly and, convinced that she would not be able to fall asleep that night, then heard him ask quietly:

—"Maggie" is short for what?
—Of "Magdalena". Nobody calls me that, it's an ugly name.
—You have a saint's name.
—Well... I was named after the muffins.
—It's also very appropriate. You're very sweet. Actually delicious...

"Gallantry or is he planning to eat one of my legs while I sleep?" thought Maggie with a shudder and continued the conversation trying to sound calm:

—And is "Kisa" short for something?
—Lukasha. You've been lulling me to sleep these nights, won't you do it now? It doesn't bother me, it's very sweet of you and in fact it relaxes me.

The girl closed her eyes asking the sky for strength and began to hum a melody while she stroked the Selenite's hair, and he murmured:

—It is illogical. I know I'm trapped and that an honorable end would involve using violence. But being like this and knowing that you accept me, even though I seem horrible to you, ... makes me want not to die so I can have more time with you.

Maggie shook him with emotion and spoke more confidently:

—It's all right. You can stay with me until...
—Until death do us part.

The Selenite sentenced and the girl didn't know what else to say, he was right. After seeing all the corruption and insensitivity of his superiors, it was most likely that the investigation would end with him dissected or in fact with her dead so that there would be no witnesses left. They both fell asleep in no time, Kisa before Maggie. As sleep overcame her, she felt something stiff between the sheets and had certain suspicions; but then she convinced herself that she was possibly imagining things and that even if she wasn't, it was all simply an involuntary reflex. 


May 27, 2012


Since Kisa's escape, Ludmila had apparently regained some of her sanity. She would squat under the table when Miller brought her food and from there, she would murmur things to him that the simple peasant son did not understand and would merely reply with a naive smile. That morning, Miller went to deliver breakfast to Ludmila as usual while Wellman and Tom Tolley watched silently through a two-view glass, listening at the same time to Dr. Voyager report the latest progress of her work in the clinical laboratory:

—Finally, Dr. Pemberton and I have succeeded in determining the degree of relatedness between all Selenites living and dead. The findings are interesting. The three adult deformed skeletons are Ludmila's siblings, therefore, children of the cosmonauts left on the Moon. The DNA found on the skeleton of the second daughter of the cosmonauts corresponds to that of the mother or grandmother of almost all the other deformed subjects found at the base, including the other six Selenites who, together with Kisa, attacked the astronauts at Nebo. Other interesting facts are that Kisa turned out to be the only child born to Ludmila and one of her own siblings; and that the most recent infant corpse was the son of Kisa and one of her nieces: the woman who was on the autopsy table when she attacked us.

Just then, Lindsay Pemberton entered the room where they were and added:

—That explains why his reaction was so aggressive in the autopsy room, but it leaves Selma's murder unexplained. I dare to suppose that in the "society" of the Moon, killing was the easiest way to resolve conflicts, and Kisa was the leader of the clan thanks to his bloodthirsty character. He had typical alpha male privileges, such as the right to procreate over the other male members of the group and possibly dispose of the lives of the weakest.

Tolley, who listened nervously with his arms crossed, snorted in exasperation and said, leaning with both hands on a table:

—That's enough, we have to get Maggie out of the bedroom. That thing is not a person, it's a monster everywhere you try to look. It was so dangerous that even the other savages were afraid of it, I mean, .... Even his mother stayed away from him!

Without losing his cool and always trying to be pleasant, Wellman replied:

—Tommy, the Selenite reacted to his dead companion. Wasn't that a sign, perhaps a primitive sign, of love, the noblest sentiment of humanity? Lyn, I think you have exaggerated things, to say that he disposed of the lives of the weakest. Are you implying that he killed his own son? I remember you said something about the brain of "Kisa's girlfriend" that you observed in the autopsy room.

The doctor answered thoughtfully:

—Yes. Something curious I saw shortly before the organ was destroyed during the attack. She had old lesions in the parietal areas of the skull and brain, especially in the Wernicke's area where there was a considerable area of scar tissue. What is relevant to this, Bob Wellman?
—According to your medical judgment, do you think a person with such brain damage could communicate and have a normal relationship with others?
—Hardly... But she could still stand on her own...
—To fend for herself. Defend herself from what bothers her; like a whiny, screaming son.... She would most likely take care of the child and spend more time with him, not the father.

Pemberton replied in a hesitant tone:

—There is a possibility that she killed her own child...It really is almost impossible to know for sure.

Wellman then leaned against a wall and explained, showing his palms and shrugging his shoulders:

—I think the girl was, in some horrible way I don't want to imagine, good at fucking but bad at being a mother. Case closed. Kisa's wife was retarded, but he wasn't. Now, he just has to understand that on Earth it's not acceptable to kill people we dislike, although God knows how many times, we've wished it was, and I think he's catching on. Have you noticed how tremendously fast he's adopted our way of life? I wouldn't be surprised if he already has a Facebook profile and an email address: "killer_extraterrestrial85".

Lyn Pemberton rubbed his brow in a gesture of reproach and Tolley said seriously:

—What if he hurts Maggie one day, she is in danger. She is alone and at the mercy of a being who has no limits to his desires, no remorse, no respect for human life. He might even rape her all of a sudden! Won't you do anything about it?

Wellman laughed, saying:

—You want me to do something about it, I'll send Maggie a box of birth control pills and advise her to close her cute eyes cooperatively. There are millions of dollars at stake and I'm not going to let this opportunity go.

He then left the room and as he walked through the door, he almost bumped into the enigmatic J. Gabin, who greeted everyone by saying:

—Good morning. Today I will start treating Mrs. Ludmila, Dr. Wellman. 
—Of course, as you wish... You seem to have woken up very late this morning.
—No, no. I went outside to ask for some permits to work at my leisure.
—I see... and... will you take care of Kisa too?
—No, not for now. My priority for this day is Mrs. Ludmila.
   
Saying this, he left leaving Wellman nervous about the close relationship between Gabin and the authorities outside; the greedy doctor thought for a few moments until he ran to Turn's control room and demanded to let him see the last thirty minutes of recording of the sector where they were observing Ludmila, discovering that Gabin had remained all the time near the door; listening without being seen. "He's a fucking spy? From the government? And, if so, ... Of which government? Russia, the United States...?" he thought as he bit his nails. He patted Turn on the back and said with some nervousness:

—Record everything they say and then use translation software on the video. Give me everything translated tonight in my bedroom and make sure no one notices...And no one is Gabin.....

Miller was still like a child listening to Ludmila's endless speech when Gabin burst into the padded room, saying:

—How are you? Nurse Miller, give us some time alone.

The young man obeyed immediately and Ludmila followed him with her eyes, joining hands in prayer. Gabin took a chair and sat down in front of the woman in a casual way, leaving the backrest in front of him to rest his arms there. Ludmila squatted down to look at him in awe and he spoke to her in perfect Russian as he began to record the audio of the conversation with a digital device:

—Hello, Ludmila. I've wanted to meet you for a long time.

She answered, speaking hurriedly, also in Russian:

—A Soviet, you are a Soviet! The Americans have invaded the world, invaded the universe. They came to the Moon and plundered our garden, plundered our water, plundered our tomatoes, plundered my soup. The third world war is coming, I must warn the comrades that the Americans will make the third world war and they will eat tomato soup. It is a punishment for not honoring the Moscow Patriarchate, St. Basil told me so many years ago. Before, I only heard his voice booming in my head, but then the apocalypse happened and he came to me in person. St. Basil protects me and brings food every day to my cell because the third world war is going to start and he is going to take me to heaven, because I am the virgin of the moon, the pure and holy one in outer space!

Gabin then answered, calmly: 

—Ludmila, I have also come to help you. But for that I need to know everything that happened there in Nebo, absolutely everything. Tell me, do you remember this?

He took out of his jacket an old photograph taken with an instant camera. It showed a young Ludmila smiling, wearing a dress made from her mother's skirt, with two braids in her hair. She looked thin, yet beautiful and apparently healthy. She pointed to the photograph, rapt, and said:

—That day I turned eight years old and dad took this picture. At that time, I was still an angel. And my insides were pure as a fountain of holy water.
—When did you stop being an angel?
—When...

He adopted a fetal position and looked at the floor. Gabin spoke again:

—Tell me, what happened to your family? I must know everything so that we comrades can help you, Ludmila. 
—It was the fault of the poison that corrupts minds... There is something in the moon that turns people into monsters.
—Tell me about this poison.
—Mom had become addicted to it...Dad said that it was not in accordance with our socialist ideals...Dad told me that if I sided with Mom, then he would whip me, that the poison was an invention of the capitalists to make the world lazy, promiscuous, selfish and stupid; so that they could manipulate it more easily. Then St. Basil spoke to me and told me that poison was the essence of sin. He told me that poison was not free as mother said, poison had a blood price and destroyed your soul?
—What was poison?

Ludmila knelt down and answered with her hands over her heart:

—I never tasted it, that's why I remained immaculate. Mother made the poison, with pieces of her head and drops of her heart. Papa and St. Basil told me so. She sought to kill boredom by poisoning herself.
—Did your mother consume something for her amusement?
—That's right. She filled herself with poison.
—Did she smoke it, drink it, inject it?
—She would inoculate it straight into his heart... —She would inject it straight into his soul...
—Where was this poison?
—Hidden. Even to see it was prurient, sinful...
—Was it in the empty case next to his parents' ashes?
—Yes...
—What exactly was in the case?
—If I had read the contents of his case, I would find it...and I would be enraptured too....
—The case contained writings?
—Secret manuscripts of my mother, which I put next to her ashes when she died...But then Kisa found them...and she got poisoned too...
—Kisa is her son?

Gabin asked pulling out a deteriorated snapshot of Kisa dated 1990, where Kisa was about five years old with a red dress and her hair tied up with two ribbons; looking at the camera with fear. Ludmila smiled at the sight of it and snatched it from him saying:

—Yes... At the time I took this picture of him, he was almost as pure as I was as an angel. He was born so ugly, so ugly...I had to dress him as a girl so that his appearance would not offend me so much...He is too ugly to be a man....
—Tell me about your son.
—St. Basil gave him to me; it was a miracle....
—Is St. Basil the father?
—No, he doesn't have a father... He is the product of a miracle... A miracle that purified me...
—Why did he purify you? You were already an angel.
—That's right... But mom and dad were not. I tried to do everything right, I listened to the beautiful music of our Soviet composers, I read the beautiful collection of books by great writers from all over the world that my parents brought from Earth, I studied the functioning of the machines that supported our life on the base and I cultivated the garden. I was educated, studious, obedient...But dad and mom were no more...After I was born, mom started to poison herself more and more...And first she gave birth to my evil, ugly and deformed sister...She who did not speak properly, did not learn anything and was clumsy to move...Mom named her Laika, like the space dog, and then she gave birth to two other even more disgusting spawns, those did not even get names nor learn to speak. Both monstrous and stupid. At first, my parents tried to educate them but then fell into deep despair when they saw that it was useless, and one day dad couldn't take it anymore and slit his wrists. Mom and I didn't know he had died until we laid him on the floor while the ghouls drank his blood. Mom said nothing when she saw this, left me alone and when I saw her again, she was hanging by the neck from the kitchen ceiling...I was only ten years old and didn't know what to do...Within a few days they began to swell and soon after they stank so bad and looked so hideous that the whole base became an inferno. As best I could, I carried them to the waste incinerator and collected their ashes afterwards; storing them in a box on top of which I left my mother's cursed manuscripts tucked in a case. Then, Laika felt she owned everything. She and the ghouls only knew how to do evil, because they had been conceived with my mother's poisoned blood...Quickly, Laika matured: her body became a woman and she did abominable things with the other ghouls. She knew it was a sin to show her sacred parts in public, but she didn't care...and acted even worse. I would just read, read, read...and St. Basil would talk to me sometimes and tell me that it was all our fault for ignoring the rules of the Moscow patriarchate...And one day, one of the spawn began to harass me. He wanted me to play perverse games like he did with Laika. I refused and that only made him harass me more and more, then the other spawn also seconded him...Until one day they caught me between the two of them and squeezed me with their dirty and smelly hands, they soiled in horrible ways every part of my body and even places I could not clean...After that I locked myself in the orchard area and left them outside without holy food to feed only on cockroaches and moss.... I was very contaminated. I was very hurt. St. Basil kept talking to me day and night telling me I was filthy as a pile of feces, and I was so disgusted that I became very sick to my stomach for months. Until one day I had terrible pains and I begged St. Basil to take them away. Then he worked a miracle and all the pain and filth that I could never clean came out of me transformed into a miniature person. I greeted her, asked her what her name was, but she did not answer me. Then I understood that her mind was blank because she was a new human being, a son that St. Basil had given me. I called him Lukasha and eventually Kisa, my son who was small like the kittens that adorned the drawings of my childhood...But Kisa was a clumsy, bad and ugly son. He couldn't speak until he was a year old, and when he did, he spoke badly. It took him about the same time to learn to be clean. To learn to read and write was even more stupid, he didn't do it until he was almost three years old. Since St. Basil gave him to me, I tried to make him good, I punished him harshly and told him: "Stop crying, you behave like an idiot. Learn good manners, learn history, learn the sciences, learn the arts" ...And for the first few years he was almost useless. He just cried and made a filthy mess of everything. Then he became more obedient, he began to do everything I demanded of him, knowledge finally entered his head, he took care of the maintenance of the machines and I thought he would be a good but ugly man... That did not last long.. He started to become stubborn, to want to do whatever he wanted. He knew perfectly well what was good and what was evil, but he hesitated, overthought and put his twisted existentialist ideas before everything else...Saint Basil told me that too many letters kill the souls and I did not listen to him. Suddenly, that civilized and cultured being I had raised began to distort into a primitive state of something I never understood...and that refined savage was only guided by the satisfaction of his desires and the avoidance of grief. He rebelled against me, and though he never ceased to respect me, or fear me, he drifted so far away that he reached a place where the sway of my prayers could no longer reach him.
—And what happened then?

Gabin asked with a frown, Ludmila continued:

—He disrespected his grandparents and took my mother's manuscripts...I saw him and prayed silently. He took the papers, read them for the first time and spent a long time pondering. He read them several more times and I approached him and said: "Do you see, Kisa, do you see how grotesque and dissonant sin is, isn't it better to listen to the beautiful music of Comrade Vysotsky and pray, as I do?" He looked at me insolently and answered: "I thought what I read was good". Then I understood that he had been corrupted by the same poison that destroyed my mother, and I took the manuscripts from him to tear them to pieces. He first became angry with me and destroyed my tape of Comrade Vysotski. Then I became indignant...The holy wrath of St. Basil possessed me and I told him: "You are a horrible son, horrible inside and horrible outside; I have always told you so. You are dirty, poisoned, rotten, and I don't want to be near you anymore. You disgust me, I should have crushed your head when you were still a tiny person". He didn't answer me anything. He hid his evil face from me and the next day he was no more. He came out of our holy confinement in the hydroponic orchard and went with Laika and her spawn to hell, where the bad guys were. I educated him well... I don't understand what went wrong. I did everything St. Basil told me and he still got poisoned.

Gabin smiled and said, almost sweetly:

—Children don't come with a manual for parents.

Hours later, Pemberton and Tolley were meeting with Wellman in his bedroom and watching Ludmila's interview translated with subtitles, completely dismayed. Dr. Pemberton muttered:

—That poor woman's life has been an ordeal; we are about the same age but she looks as if she were twenty years older.

Wellman replied:

—Nutrition and stress withered her. Even her mind is falling apart: she lives in a distorted fantasy world, she went into denial about her pregnancy, she sublimates her rejection of her child's malformations...With a mother like that, it's not hard to end up killing left and right.
—For that reason...

Tolley said seriously:

—...I'm worried about what that thing might do to Maggie.

Wellman's response was not long in coming:

—It won't do anything to her. Maggie is the caring, loving mother Kisa always wanted. Apparently, he devotes her and at the same time lusts her too much to risk losing her. I think that in reality the Selenites were not so different from us and that, in a way, they could fit perfectly into our society. I'm going to write up a new report, and start packing! Gabin says we might soon be able to finish this stage of research and get out of this shitty basement.

Lindsay Pemberton had a bad feeling. Although Maggie had apparently been the cure for Kisa's aggressiveness and all would be well, she felt a small tightness in her chest. Especially as she wondered what Gabin's true intentions might be. 


May 28, 2012


"Cardenas: I don't know why I'm disappointed to learn all this."

Wrote Maggie from her laptop to Turn, lying on her side on her bed after he told her over the internal messenger about the contents of the video he translated for Wellman and the latest findings from the clinical lab about the kinship between all Selenites. Turn responded by drawing an impromptu laughing face with an "X" and a "D":

"Administrator: you're just jealous because you knew your "friend" had a girlfriend!"
"Cardenas: it's not that. It's the baby he had with his niece who died...You're not a father you wouldn't understand."
"Administrator: I would understand if you explained it to me."
"Cardenas: to begin with, the incest issue is pretty murky, but the worst part is.... Your son dies and you leave him rotting there nearby...?"
"Administrator: yes, I understand you, but what could he understand?"
"Cardenas: he understands everything. I can't explain how he could be so insensitive."
"Administrator: maybe he didn't know he was a son of yours. There were five other men there, and the woman didn't speak. Besides, she remembers how his own mother treated him, so I tell you, what could Kisa understand about parental love?"
"Cardenas: what else did he do?"
"Administrator: what do you mean, what else did he do?"
"Cardenas: you know...He arrived all bloody here and he barely had some scratches, I know that blood was not his. What did he do the day he escaped?"

Turn didn't answer for a long time. Then Maggie persisted:

"Cardenas: we are friends, friends don't hide important things."

After another long-written silence, Turn dared to answer:

"Administrator: I risk my job by telling you this. Wellman ordered me not to tell you these kinds of details."
"Cardenas: it's okay, Abel. I understand, sorry for insisting."

Maggie didn't get a response for several minutes and then read:

"Administrator: I will delete all traces of this conversation later. That will take time I don't have so I'll tell you quickly and only once: he tried to kill the whole team. Wellman and I were the lucky ones. The others suffered moderate to serious injuries, Yamada had several fingers severed, Mitkov is still in a coma and Moore has a broken spine; but at least they are alive. Shapiro and García had their throats slit. Don't ask me any more questions about this, you'll get me in big trouble."

Maggie paled, after a few minutes she wrote with trembling hands:

"Cardenas: dead? And... Moore has a broken spine?"
"Administrator: and he was lucky."
"Cardenas: thank you, Abel. I love you very much. Talk to you later."

The girl slowly turned around fearing that Kisa was, as so many other times, behind her back silently watching what she was writing on the screen. He had an uncanny ability to not be noticed when he wanted to be, and he had already learned to read a little English. To her relief, she was alone in the room and could hear the noise of the television in the living room. She rubbed her face and took a breath, trying to regain her composure to no avail. Then an alarm sounded in the kitchen and she realized that she had to go there and maintain the fragile security in which she lived. When he came out, he saw Kisa on the sofa looking gloomily at a newscast; he went to the kitchen and from there he asked:

—Any bad news in the world?
—More natural disasters...

Maggie tried to finish preparing lunch as if everything was still calm, but her emotions were uncontrollable at that moment. She felt betrayed again, deceived, used; angry with everyone and especially with Kisa, but at the same time she was very afraid. The memory of the dreadful day when her mother fell from a balcony of her house fracturing her spine came to her mind like a sudden sting that embittered her thoughts. The memory of all the years of being the dumb girl of the class and of the family also came back to her, the impotence made her grind her teeth with indignation; to think that during all those days she had treated a monstrous murderer with such gentleness burned in her soul. Her temples throbbed but she still tried to appear calm:

—It's the fault of environmental pollution, Kisa...Nature is taking revenge on us.... What else is new in the world? Some theft...or ho...?

She swallowed saliva regretting to mention the word she said next:

—...homicide?
—I don't know.

He answered languidly and added:

—I was with you in bed. Until a couple of minutes ago.

Maggie froze, then continued to cook without answering. Thick tears ran down her cheeks and she decided to wait in silence for the time of her death, no doubt Kisa had read everything. Several minutes of absolute silence passed that seemed like an eternity, suddenly she heard the Selenite's voice right behind her.

—Where is your son?

She wiped her tears with the back of her hand and answered without turning to look at him:

—He was stolen from me.
—You are very passive.
—What happened to yours?
—One day he just died.
—Didn't you do anything to prevent it? I've missed my son every day since I was separated from him. Did you miss yours...?
—I resented losing him.
—You never loved anyone, the child's mother...?
—She followed me faithfully everywhere since she was very young. One day she became a woman and I used her, I don't know how I felt about her... I loved my mother.

Silence reigned again and then Maggie spoke again:

—How old are you really?
—Twenty-seven years old, according to my mother, although she's crazy, I think she's right. I have clear memories since the night of January 1, 1988.
—Why that exact date?
—That night she made me stick my palms on the burning door of the waste incinerator until they smoked. It was a punishment for touching her with dirty hands. That's why I have no fingerprints now.

The girl turned around in shock, she saw Kisa approaching her slowly but could not determine if she was looking for affection or attacking her; before she could get out of doubt, her ex-boyfriend Dr. Tolley spoke in alarm over the loudspeakers:

—Maggie, is everything all right?

The girl looked at the camera confused and nodded her head, saying:

—Yes... What's going on?
—The investigation is taking an uncertain course. A couple of minutes ago we were informed that the Russians have already found out that our government has reached their moon base and has started a legal battle for Ludmila and Kisa. They want them returned to reunite them with the rest of the Mikhailov family, the siblings and nephews of Kisa's cosmonaut grandfather. The Indian Space Travel Agency and the Chinese National Space Administration are also aware of the situation and support Russia in the dispute. Listen, many important decisions will have to be made as soon as possible and you are involved in all of this? Can we talk to you for a moment in private or are you really sequestered there?

Kisa himself answered, looking at the camera almost with hatred:

—She can leave here whenever she likes. She is free.

He then walked out towards the bedchamber, leaving Maggie alone in the kitchen. She was stunned at all that was happening and then Tolley spoke to her again:

—This is your chance to escape....

Maggie went out to the living room slowly, meditated for a moment and then said aloud for Kisa to hear:

—I'm going out. Are you going to be all right?
—That's not up to me anymore.

He answered from the other room. Maggie then said:

—I will do everything I can to help you, as I have done so far. Just promise me you won't hurt anyone else.

The answer didn't come, and Maggie went to the door, ready to leave. But no sooner had she finished turning the knob when half a dozen armed Marines entered, taking her by surprise and leading her away. The military men went to the bedchamber, pointing their guns at Kisa who simply looked at them with resignation; sitting on the edge of the bed with his hair falling over his face. The men made him leave the bedroom and led him at rifle point to the room where Ludmila was, who upon seeing him began to thank the heavens as the marines left them alone and locked up. Kisa took a breath and approached his mother, sitting down beside her on the floor and speaking to her in Russian:

—How are you, mother?
—St. Basil told me that one day you would be returned to me. And here you are.
—Are you still listening to St. Basil?
—Yes, and now I see him and feel him. He is here on Earth, protecting me from the Americans. Did they harm you?
—No. They only questioned me for a few days. Then I was investigating about this place, about the Earth.
—Have you seen how many men and women live here, maybe there are about fifty! Their base is much bigger than ours.
—Mother, this base is not home to all Americans. The people of Earth, for the most part, live on the outside. Earth is just as the books describe it. In reality there are forests, seas and large cities. And the inhabitants are millions and millions of people. Their libraries are now contained in small devices, the size of a single book. So, I knew all these things.
—And how is the Soviet Union?
—It seems that the Soviet Union no longer exists as such, Mother.

Ludmila covered her mouth so as not to let out a scream and her eyes filled with tears. Kisa continued:

—But our people live well and are not enslaved by the Americans, as you feared. The nation simply developed differently. In fact, my grandfather's family already knows that you and I are here, and they want to join us I hear.
—Do we still have family on Earth, healthy family?
—I guess they won't look like me. 
—Kisa, this is another miracle, I long to see my father's family. When you went to hell with Laika, I thought that loneliness would consume my bones and kill me from the inside. She told me that you would leave me forever...and now I have you here with me, and I will even meet my father's family....

The son looked to the side and soon after answered with determination:

—Yes, mother...But I don't want to go with them.
—What are you saying?
—I wouldn't fit in with those people, and besides, these people who have captured us are not trustworthy. They killed Laika's children, they destroyed them. Only you and I survived out of all of us who inhabited the base.
—It had to be like that. The sinners were exterminated.
—But, mother...
—Are you sorry the ghouls were killed? 
—They were sick, mother... They weren't as bad as you think. I lived with all of them for eleven long years...In fact, ...I had a child with one of them.
—But...! How could you join those beasts?!
—I'm one of those beasts too, mother... You told me...
—No... no, no... I never told you that... I only said that you were ugly and stupid...!

A few icy seconds passed in which Kisa was unable to answer him, until he finally said:

—Feel at ease, mother. Your grandson died soon after he was born, he was doomed to that since he was born. Half of his head was missing.
—The poison, Kisa, the poison is still running through his veins...My mother inoculated me with it, and then it passed from my blood to his.... That poison turns people into beasts! You will never be able to have healthy children.

Kisa then replied somewhat timidly:

—But...Maybe if I united with a healthy person...that poison would be diluted...It could be that with a normal woman....
—A normal woman, but what are you going to do with a normal woman, are you going to kiss her like in the poems, with that horrible mouth? Who could like you?

He looked down without answering and Ludmila continued saying:

—If you don't want to go to heaven with your grandfather's family, where will you go then?
—I want to be here... in America....
—Why?
—Things of mine...
—And you will leave me again... I who am your mother and who put up with you when you was a tiny person who didn't know how to conduct yourself properly through life. I who taught you good manners and made you the man that you are now.
—I will get back to you as soon as I can, but I need to do this.
—Why, why turn your back on your mother again?
—Because for the first time I felt really good, mother... No fear, no anger, no hopelessness, no resentment... I think I even felt happy.

Ludmila looked at him thoughtfully and for a moment her eyes took on a completely sane expression, as she said serenely:

—Do what you judge best. But just don't forget your mother.

Just then the door opened, and Dr. Gabin entered with his enigmatic smile; escorted by four marines. He squatted down before the Selenites and spoke also in Russian, saying:

—It's been a lovely family reunion, hasn't it? I understand you two haven't seen each other for a decade.

He got no response from either of them, Kisa looked at him suspiciously as he pulled his mother close as if protecting her. Gabin continued:

—Mrs. Mikhailova, tomorrow you will leave for Russia and will finally be able to live a normal life among your own, in the land where your parents were born. As for you, Mr. Mikhailov, first of all I introduce myself: I am J. Gabin, a great ally or a great enemy of yours, it all depends on how you respond to my demands. You see, Mr. Mikhailov, a series of legal problems have arisen against you, you killed about a dozen American citizens since you were found there on the Moon and for that reason our lawyers have managed that you can be claimed by the American justice to be held and punished here. Now, I have two options to offer you: the first is to allow you to remain behind bars for the rest of your life, just like any other criminal; except for your strange alien appearance which will earn you the right to be marked for death among the common criminals. The second is that you agree to become the absolute property of the government of the United States of America and obey us faithfully in all things in exchange for conditional freedom.

Ludmila looked at her son in panic as she hugged him, he reassured her by stroking her hair and then said to Gabin:

—You're just like old Mitkov. Now you say you want to help us, and then you'll start demanding that I tell you where my grandmother got the substances that you say she was using to get high. A fungus from the orchard, a contaminated insect, a foreign mineral, water, air, despair, imagine what you will! I don't know what really poisoned our blood, I can only tell you it was something at the base. I know that I am a prisoner and that my life belongs to you the inhabitants of Earth, be you Russian or American. I will surely die and I hope it will be by killing your "citizens" ...However...I am willing to lay myself at your feet in exchange for only one thing. The last whim of a condemned man.
—I think I know what it is. I can guarantee you absolute surrender, it will be entirely yours.
—Convince me that you will give me that and I will give you my loyalty in return. 
—Try me and you'll regret it. Is that a deal?
—It will be... When I see it come to pass....

Gabin smiled and raised his eyebrows and stood up, saying:

—You are ours!

Then he left the room immediately and went to the clinical laboratory where Dr. Pemberton and Dr. Voyager were taking blood samples from Maggie, while Tolley examined her and was bombarded by Wellman's questions; while Miller and the silent Turn comforted her by wrapping a blanket around her and offering her hot coffee:

—Did the military say anything to you, Maggie?
—No... They just took me out of the bedroom....
—Did you see where they took Kisa, did you hear anything?
—No, I just heard the commotion when they cut the surveillance cameras. Are they going to hurt him, Dr. Wellman?
—Baby, whether they're going to turn him into a stiff or not, I don't care. I'm more concerned about what's going to happen to all of us.

Just then Gabin walked in and said with his best smile and a bow:

—Congratulations, team! You have done an excellent job and your efforts will be rewarded. I have received news from outside and I must tell you....

Wellman rushed to him and, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, said:

—Listen to me very well, my friend, whatever your name or your real position is , because it is clear that you are neither "the psychologist J. Gabin" nor a disciple of Mitkov! Your superiors signed a contract with us and you should know that some members of this team are the children of very influential people in this nation and in the world. If we don't get out of this fucking basement safe and sound, I swear that the attack on the twin towers will pale in comparison to what my family will do to your shitty government. A lot of heads will roll the day I don't get out of here in perfect shape!
—One should never brag about one's influence and pedigree, doctor. One day you'll talk to someone who's way above that and he'll laugh at you.

Gabin replied without losing his smile and taking out of his jacket a memorandum which he showed saying:

—Tomorrow you will all be home again. Away from Nevada and this tedious isolation. Of course, for a while your every step will still be carefully watched by our C.I.A. agents. But, except for talking about this investigation, you will enjoy full freedom; garnished with thirty million dollars each. I think that will restore patriotism to you and your nice family.

Wellman released Gabin, who continued speaking while he fixed his suit:

—Now, the investigation is not really over. Only the first stage is over. However, this is the point at which you have the opportunity to throw in the towel. If you decide to retire now, you can perfectly well do so; you will have your money and in a couple of years all this bad time will be in the past. But if you stay with us, working on good Uncle Sam's secret experiments, I promise you that in a year you'll get twice what you've earned now, free of taxes and most of the annoying legal restrictions.
—Free of restrictions...?
—We will give you the privilege of being above the law. All the forbidden pleasures at your fingertips in exchange for absolute silence in the same way we would do with you. It is a relationship of complicity, all for the benefit of this noble nation. My superiors know that dealing with scientific geniuses requires a lot of tact, and they want you to work without pressure and full of motivation to perform at your best. They are very pleased with the work that has been done with the Mikhailov family, the data that has been obtained about life on the Moon has exceeded our expectations. For that reason, I would ask you not to abandon us now.

Wellman looked at the floor weighing the idea and Pemberton said without hesitation:

—I quit. It's crazy, I can't go on.
—I'm quitting too. It's been enough for me.

Turn said. Pemberton added:

—Tommy, decide right now, you said you were going to marry me when we had the money and here it is now, are you coming with me or staying?

Tolley looked at Maggie regretfully, swallowed hard and said:

—We're leaving....

Immediately, Miller exclaimed:

—Well, I'm staying! What's more, I offer to accompany Madame Ludmila on her trip to Russia. She thinks I'm some kind of angel and I don't want to leave and disappoint her by just disappearing.

After him Voyager also spoke:

—The work is not exciting but it will do me good money. I'm staying.

And finally, Maggie spoke:

—I... would like to leave to try to get my baby back...and I also want to go back to my father...but first I would like to know what will happen to the Selenite....

Gabin approached her and, caressing her cheek, said:

—My sweet Miss Cardenas, I am sorry to tell you that in your case you cannot decide. You must continue working on the investigation, yes or yes. You have been a key player in this process and have simply become indispensable to us. As for Mr. Mikhailov, I can assure you that he will be fine and that you will see him again soon.

Maggie was silent, not knowing what to answer and feeling trapped. Gabin then turned to Wellman to finish:

—So, what do you say, doctor, do you want to accompany us to Washington as the head of the team of investigators on the Mikhailov case?

Wellman looked at him greedily and replied:

—I couldn't let little Maggie go alone.

 

May 29, 2012


Apart from Maggie, who slept under the effects of a sedative so that she could calm down after all the events that had taken place, no one was able to sleep the night before the team's departure, either because of uncertainty, packing or simply sadness, as was the case of the two Selenites. 

Ludmila kept repeating her prayers all morning while her son did her hair for the first time in ten years so that she would look a little more presentable when she met her relatives in Russia. Kisa's distrust was starting to turn into paranoia. She feared that they were actually taking her mother elsewhere, that Maggie had been faking her benevolence all along, that they were waiting for the two of them to give the right information and then kill them by becoming useless, and he was even beginning to fear that her mother was right and they were actually already dead; purging their sins in hell. At exactly five o'clock in the morning, two military men arrived accompanied by Miller to pick up Ludmila. She, seeing the nurse, immediately knew that they were coming to take her to her paternal family and that she would have to say goodbye to Kisa, possibly forever. Between mother and son there had almost never been any manifestations of affection, however on this occasion she deigned to give him a light caress on his face, saying with her eyes full of tears:

—Saint Basil has come to take me to him. You will write me letters, won't you?

Kisa took his mother's hand and would have kissed it, except that he had never kissed anything or anyone in his life, for he thought it was too monstrous to do such a thing. He merely clasped her mother's skeletal hand between his own as he said:

—You will hear from me. I am only concerned that you are really safe there.

Ludmila smiled and said with the conviction of a child:

—Don't worry, Saint Basil will take care of me.

Miller gently lifted the woman and led her to the door, smiling. Seeing his frail and sick mother leave was more than he could bear, Kisa was used to hiding his feelings to the point of convincing himself that he didn't have them, but that automatic part of the soul that is in charge of driving the human component within the being of every man or woman rebelled against him that morning and a few tears peeked out of his deformed eyes. He heard someone approaching the door again, quickly wiped his eyelids on the sweater he was wearing and waited. Then Gabin appeared escorted by several military men, always smiling in a suspicious way. He brushed aside a lock of straight blond hair that fell over his face and said in Russian, with the serenity that characterized him:

—It's a beautiful day out there! Perfect for traveling. I don't suppose you have much luggage, Mr. Mikhailov; but I still came to ask you if you wanted to go back to Miss Cardenas' room for a moment to take with you some items you might need. Her laptop or something like that.

Kisa answered in the same language and getting up to move him out of her way, even though the military men were immediately on guard:

—I want to get cleaned up and change...I feel as filthy as you do.
—As you wish.
—Is she there?
—I'm afraid not. When I interviewed her, I realized that I was dealing with a victim of Stockholm syndrome and when she started to get very nervous, I gave her a sedative, she is currently sleeping. We will take her to our destination and pack her belongings for her. I promise that you will be able to see her as soon as we feel she has regained some emotional stability. An encounter with you at this critical moment could make the poor thing begin to dislike you, and we don't want that, do we?

The Selenite looked at him suspiciously and then went on his way.

The morning was moving swiftly on, as if anxious to leave as well. Tolley and Wellman were almost the last to leave the subway facility. The sunlight on the desert landscape blinded them for a few seconds and then they laughed like children, happy to have surfaced. A team of doctors examined them briefly and then handed them face masks while a specialized cleaning team sterilized their luggage and sorted it. The atmosphere was saturated with the smell of disinfectants and the noise of the military's hustle and bustle, but that didn't stop Tolley and Wellman from sitting on boxes looking out over the horizon; enjoying cups of coffee provided by a soldier. Wellman sighed and said:

—Area 51... Will you tell your grandchildren?
—That I brought their grandmother to work with one of my exes, in a place where a psychopathic and malformed Russian almost killed us, and all for money? No, this is the kind of thing you're going to try to forget with a psychoanalyst.
—I think I'll tell them. When the government stops watching our every step and I can become an old eccentric.
—We'd better enjoy this money, it almost cost us our lives. The sad thing is that now comes the conflict with my aunt and uncle over Maggie's baby....

Wellman looked at him quizzically and asked:

—What happened, do you plan to get it back?
—I don't, but Lyn's gone moralist. She's having a fit of conscience or something and she's pressuring me to return the boy to his mother. But you know my aunt is a mean bitch who would rather see the kid dead than give him back. My aunt and uncle are most likely in South America by now under fake names and I'll never see them again.
—Man, I'm sorry. It must be terrible for you to go through all this with your son.
—Yeah, sure...You know...I feel like something there, in my chest… Er…You know.

They looked at the end of an airstrip and spotted a delicate figure wandering around. She appeared to be a girl of about fifteen, distracted with a Tablet Pc; she was wearing sunglasses, a loincloth, a pink sweater and a short dress with flowers of the same color. Her light, straight blonde hair, shoulder-length and waving in the wind, threw golden sparkles in the sun. Tolley smiled, saying:

—I didn't know they had angels captured here, too. Could it be someone's daughter?
—This isn't exactly the place you bring the kids to meet your office. If she is "someone's daughter" that someone must be very important.
—She looks like Lyn, but younger, you know...flatter. 
—She'll be over eighteen?
—Well, she's really flat, but that's because she's skinny, not because of her age. She walks with her legs spread, doesn't she? I'd say she's a hot high school slut and it wouldn't hurt to ride her before we go.

At that moment Gabin appeared behind them, always smiling, and leaned on both of their shoulders; leaning down to speak to them:

—Happy to see the sunlight again?
—The sunshine, the fresh air, the girls without lab coats .... Yes, I am glad.

Wellman replied. Tolley took the last sip of coffee and pointed to the person walking down the runway, saying:

—Gabin, who is that girl? Maybe it's the long confinement, but she looks beautiful.
—Don't you think he looks cute? That's Kisa, he's trying out his new toy. He's a born geek.

Gabin replied and Tolley looked at him with disgust, then Wellman mumbled:

—Why the fuck is he dressed like a woman? He's got a dick! And he doesn't have a small one...

Tom Tolley gagged and then Gabin explained:

—You see, "Kisa" is not short for "Lukasha", it's a feminine nickname. His mother brought him up as a girl to punish him, but he doesn't understand it yet, he thinks it's a purely aesthetic issue and since he always covered himself under long thick Soviet coats at the Nebo base, and his relatives were too wild to notice, no one has told him it's strange to wear little dresses. We suspect he'll be angry when he learns he's been fooled his whole life, but somehow, it's funny. Have you ever thought about how many things our elders have led us to believe and they really aren't as we were told?

Wellman then asked, arching his eyebrows:

—And he also wear women's lingerie?

Tolley looked at his friend almost painfully, wondering why anyone would want to know that, and Gabin replied:

—No bra and nothing daring, his mother raised him to be decent. 

Now jaded, Dr. Tolley exclaimed, squeezing his temples:

—Okay, too much information about the lunar Norman Bates! ... What time do we leave?
—In about half an hour. Your plane will drop you off in Alaska and from there you can return home and resume your lives. The rest of us will go to Washington State and leave in two hours. We must take certain safety precautions, "someone" may become aggressive during the trip.

Dr. Tolley jumped to his feet and suggested:

—Put a muzzle on him...and some pants on the way...By the way, Gabin, will I still be able to keep in touch with Robert, now that he will be taking this new position?
—Naturally. The only rule we require you to follow is not to discuss your work with anyone outside the investigation. You will still be able to call your friend and go out with him and have fun, just as if you were working in a regular clinical laboratory. It's what we want your friends and family to think, and the best way to make that impression is for you to think the same way. All that's necessary will be to lead a relaxed, low-key life.

Tolley felt calmer with these words and so did Wellman. Calm was finally returning for everyone except Kisa, who was still wandering around the track, feeling lost in a strange world.

For the Selenite, the stupor he felt at his new life on Earth's surface grew ever greater. Hand and ankle cuffed like a criminal, and guarded by two armed Marines, he arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport where he went with Gabin directly from the plane to a dark-glassed van that headed southeast into a wooded area. The green landscape amazed him but, as was his habit, he preferred not to show his true emotions, limiting himself to look out of the window, silent and crestfallen. Gabin watched him smiling, as if guessing what he was thinking; until he ordered the driver to stop on a lonely stretch of road and then asked the marines to take Kisa out. They got out of the vehicle and walked a little way into the trees, following Gabin while the driver waited for them in the car. The wind whistled through the branches and the forest before them seemed so thick that it gave the impression of having the night hidden in its belly. Gabin went to some bushes and cut a delicate red flower that he offered to Kisa while saying in Russian:

— They say the first time you smell it is the best.

The Selenite didn't answer anything, he looked away and with his cuffed hands tried to fix his dark glasses that were falling off, since he barely had some small cartilage appendages for ears. Gabin tried to help him but when he put a hand to his face, Kisa reacted aggressively by digging her nails into his wrist and pulling the skin off like someone peeling the skin off a fruit, revealing a metal frame. The strange J. Gabin simply smiled and pulled leather gloves from his black suit to cover himself. Kisa's gaze over the glasses was that of a bewildered animal in the face of an unknown enemy. Gabin remained impassive as he sat on a rock, saying:

—How complicated you are, Mr. Mikhailov. You have gotten these kindly marines into serious trouble because of what they have just seen. A secret stops being fun when it has too many witnesses.

He then pulled out a nine-millimeter revolver and fired into the foreheads of the marines, killing them on the spot. Then he put the gun away again and said calmly:

—We will have to continue the trip alone in the company of the driver. I just wanted to give you a pleasant experience... You remind me a lot of my father, yes, I once had a father. I would like to talk to you more about this, but please understand that in my position I must remain anonymous. I don't actually work for the U.S. or Russian government; I serve those above them.

Kisa stared at him as he contemplated the idea of escape and then Gabin said:

—Don't even try, Mr. Mikhailov. If you run away, rest assured that I will not shoot at you, punishing your insolence like that would be very unwise. I would simply let him escape, and then, if he does not appear any more, it would be his mother who would pay for his fault with her life. 

The Selenite looked at him as if in disbelief and Gabin continued saying, without losing his cold smile:

—You must trust me more, trust that it is better to do as I say, since in my artificial hands lies your future. Make no effort to talk or try to frighten me, I know what you are thinking, I know what you are feeling. Your life to me is like a story in an old book I have already read. Relax, your mother will be safe with her grandparents and it will stay that way as long as you don't give us reason to believe otherwise. But, let's be honest, you are more interested in a matter very foreign to your mother. Something so longed for and yet feared by you that you prefer to pretend it doesn't exist, even though it's there...gnawing at your thoughts every second. Are you ashamed because I know it?, lose care; I won't laugh like most, pointing at the pathetic monster suffering for an impossible love. 

The wind blew through the branches in an ominous whistle. Kisa was silent for a few more seconds and then muttered:

—You wanted this to happen...For me to desire her....
—No, no, it was all very spontaneous. Maggie made the miracle just like that, by chance. The girl by herself is more harmless than cotton candy, but in the right circumstances she became a sweet trap. And Mr. Mikhailov, how to get away from her now? You would hardly find again in the world a soul so noble, or so foolish, as to trust you and even give you affection. You will never again be so close to happiness. Not only because of your appearance. It is also because of the way you are, your origin, your history... You are a creepy being, as if escaped from a nightmare, not even your mother could love that sinister face. But Maggie did. She kissed your forehead often; had you ever been treated like that? I know the answer is no, and I'll tell you something else: no one will ever treat you that way again if you lose the girl. Right now, our doctors have her, they are inserting a device to track her location at all times. We are turning her into our merchandise and she doesn't suspect a thing. She is so innocent, so shy, so obedient, so fragile...So easy to use and even abuse...And don't look at me now with resentment for what I am saying, you have also taken advantage of the girl's inexperience, you thought she was really unattended in her bed. Do I have to remind you what you were doing when that naïve girl was fast asleep? That poor thing. You were lucky she didn't see the semen stains in the morning.

Kisa lowered his gaze, ashamed, without understanding why that man knew all that, and Gabin stood up, stretching, saying as he headed back to the vehicle:

—You certainly remind me of my father, that kind of laddish and primitive people who go through life bouncing off one end, without thinking about the consequences. Well, let's get back to the car. We still have a long way to go.

The Selenite obeyed without saying anything, walking languidly and crestfallen. J. Gabin smiled inwardly this time, he had demoralized the Selenite and this would make him more manageable.

Finally, they came to a building surrounded by high ivy-covered walls and heavily guarded, hidden near a forgotten country road through the forest. At the gate, another man all dressed in black and wearing dark glasses was waiting for them and Gabin rolled down the window to greet him with a gesture, then the entrance gate to the building opened. Once at the front door, they were greeted by more men dressed in black; all keeping absolute silence with a serious expression, except for Gabin; who always seemed to be serene. They led the Selenite to a waiting room where the old doctor Mitkov was standing, who upon seeing him greeted in Russian:

—Hello, I was waiting for you, Kisa! No hard feelings about what happened. I have already been made aware of your relationship with the deceased lady in the autopsy room and I understand you. I've known you to be more open to people lately.

The Selenite looked at him grudgingly for a moment, approached him slowly and then pointed to Gabin, asking in a very low voice:

—Who is that?

Mitkov answered, lowering his voice as well:

—I don't really know; I don't think we'll ever know. His job is to observe, investigate and persuade using any method.

Then Kisa said in a threatening tone:

—He makes me uncomfortable; he is very strange...If he doesn't leave, I will have problems with him....
—You can't put your conditions here. Listen, everything will be fine, we just need to do some more tests. I can't give you details about that because I don't know much either, I just got here and I'm still convalescing from the injuries I sustained in Nevada. When Dr. Wellman arrives, you can ask him anything you want. He will be the new head of the investigation.
—Who's Wellman? The black-haired doctor who yells a lot?
—No, he's a very outgoing blond guy. He doesn't get confused.
—Ah... That one, along with a whore who smelled of sex, helped me escape. They both opened the room where you and the military man were locking me up... Where is he, your military friend?

Dr. Mitkov looked at him for a moment in dismay and after catching his breath replied:

—He is bedridden, Kisa. He will never walk again; you broke his spine. You were telling me about the day you escaped... How did it happen?
—The prostitute opened up and approached me with pity, as if she was rubbing my face in the fact that she was better than me. That infuriated me, even though I was really more interested in getting out of there. I let her approach me and then I attacked her. I was pleased to see her frightened face as I was about to kill her and her friend ran away pissing himself in fear. People on Earth are not used to blood, they live comfortably without effort, what they inspire in me goes beyond the desire for justice or envy...I would like to gut them all....

The old man shook his head and murmured compassionately:

—I could and should condemn you, but you are so hurt, son...So hurt....
—Ironically, I'm glad I didn't attack that Wellman. If it weren't for him, I'd be dead now thanks to you. You were planning to let me die, locked up.
—No way, Kisa. I tried desperately to help you survive, but it was useless, you wouldn't cooperate. I was told that you later accepted the same food I was offering you, from the new girl on the team.

Kisa fell silent, abandoning the aggressive attitude, and Mitkov continued:

—She, Wellman and another doctor, Voyager, will be joining us shortly. In the meantime, they will want to review the condition in which you arrived here. I, too, must be brought up to speed on other matters concerning my work. I am glad you are being more cooperative with us, but I advise you to be even more so...Be smart.

The Selenite was led out of the room by two burly nurses and Mitkov rubbed his beard thoughtfully. Then he noticed that Gabin from afar had fixed his eyes on him, with an indecipherable smile. Mitkov looked at him, too, and said dryly:

—Talk. What do you need from me?
—Come with me, I want to show you something.

Mitkov followed the mysterious man in black to a double-view mirror in which a small room could be observed, where a repulsive individual was smoking seated at a table. He was in many ways similar to Kisa, but much coarser in features. His large mouth, almost devoid of lips, was similar to that of the Selenite, as was his thin build; long-limbed and slender, but unlike Gennadi Mikhailov's grandson, his hands and feet were huge and grotesque, with long, thick fingers. His skin was not pale and hairless like Kisa's, but covered with spots and imperfections mainly on the face; besides having hairiness in some parts. His nose was also tiny and his eyes without eyebrows were bulging with big bags under the lower eyelids. The most noticeable difference was that his face was not a thin oval like Kisa's but a large round face topped by short, reddish, parched hair. The strange man wore a button-down shirt that was too big for him, and American-cut pants held painfully under a protruding belly with a black leather belt; he looked very depressed. Gabin pointed him out and said to Mitkov:

—This is Mr. Joseph White, one of the two people alive with the so-called Selene Syndrome. A disorder with the particularity of rendering the human body fit to inhabit space and whose positive effects we would like to replicate in the laboratory. The other person with the same condition is Lukasha Mikhailov. We have studied four other subjects with signs similar to theirs, all of whom were survivors of another secret U.S. owned lunar base, Pan II. This base was built using blueprints stolen by some of our spies in the Soviet Union and technology obtained through reverse engineering. Like the Nebo base, Pan II was built beneath the lunar surface and was supplied with water and minerals obtained from the ground. Deformed and sociopathic subjects appeared in the first generation born at the base and, like Nebo, the colonists lost their minds. Exactly what caused the astronauts to mutate into murderous monsters was never known. The colonists simply began to procreate deformed beings, practice cannibalism and have violent bouts of paranoia. Finally, in 1992, one of the colonists could take no more; he took the youngest members of the base, including Mr. White, and flew Pan II, escaping in an emergency space shuttle. He made it back to Earth with five young children accompanying him. Two of them died together with the adult while returning to Earth's atmosphere, another one died of heart complications a few months after arriving on Earth and another one was shot in the head a couple of years ago while devouring the face of one of our doctors. Finally, only Mr. White remained, who suffers regularly from depressive episodes and has tried futilely to adapt to society by hiding his true place of origin. He was arrested several times for his aggressive behavior and on charges of sexual abuse. This behavior is common in Selene syndrome sufferers. Their physique is also characteristic: they have a slender build, poorly developed musculature but extremely flexible and strong tendons and ligaments that allow them to have above-normal strength, be agile and especially adept at crawling on the ground and getting into inaccessible places. Their face is also typical: wide mouth with thin lips and sharp teeth generally separated by diastemas, black mucous membranes, large eyes able to see in the dark, poorly developed ears but a very acute sense of hearing and a small nose. Their sense of smell is also very developed and certain odors can provoke strong emotions, sometimes even turning them violent. The behavior of Selenites is most disturbing: they have a high I.Q., but are prone to develop personality, depressive and sexual disorders. They have attacks of murderous rage, also traits of sadism and paranoia; in social situations they usually keep a low profile and suddenly attack their companions, so they need permanent psychiatric medication. They are born killers; their genes are microscopic exterminators of the traits that separate the wild beasts from the human race. If only we could find what was the causal agent that degenerated the DNA of these beings but made them able to survive on the Moon, we would have in our possession the key to the colonization of space and a biological weapon capable of doing the worst damage to any society: poisoning their bases, their families, condemning them eternally to a horrifying offspring headed for self-destruction.

—This is sickening...

Mitkov muttered, and the man in black said with a smile:

—You think so? Perhaps this is the next step in evolution, the destruction of Homo sapiens to make way for a new species of man: bright, agile and strong like Mr. Mikhailov. And if this does not work, to a new non-biological life form based on mankind, which knows how to make better use of the resources of this planet. It is already an inevitable destiny! The future.

Mitkov had a shudder and Gabin added:

—Comparing the findings on Selene syndrome obtained through Mr. Mikhailov's case with those obtained on the survivors of Pan II, we note that we have gained more information with the investigation of the Russian case; so, it is now our priority. Tomorrow, when the rest of the team arrives, we will resume work. At rest now, a living quarters has been assigned to each of you on Mercer Island in Lake Washington; there you will be able to live a discreet life when you are not working with us. Your assignments will be simple. We just want you to follow up on cases and examine samples obtained on the Moon to find the causative agent of Selene syndrome. That includes some experiments on test subjects, of course.
—Human beings?! You're going to try to replicate the Moon disease...on human beings?
—Convicts, prostitutes, homeless people... Specimens with a sound mind but who won't be missed by anyone. So far, we have only managed to intoxicate them or cause them schizophrenia and, by crossing them with each other, their defects are not inherited to the offspring. Perhaps now with the samples obtained from the Nebo base we will be able to find the origin of Selene.
—It's horrible...

Commented Mitkov in horror, Gabin shrugged his shoulders saying:

—Oh, the horror will last less if you get Mr. Lukasha to confess what he read in his grandmother's manuscripts. "Poison", we are sure, is the key.
—And what will happen to Kisa now?
—He will spend the night here, I suppose. When young Maggie shows up, we'll look for a place in Seattle to set them up without attracting too much attention. The budget for test subjects and assistants is less than for scientists, but they will certainly live comfortably.
—Will Kisa be released in the city?
—He can do whatever he wants! It is part of our research, to observe his behavior in society without major limitations. Besides, he will be under the supervision of young Maggie. She will surely be able to restrain him, if not, he will simply be discarded.

 

May 30, 2012


Sunlight streaming through a window of a modest room in a private clinic on the outskirts of Seattle reached Maggie's face, waking her up. She immediately had the feeling that something wasn't right. After getting out of bed, she peeked out the door into a hallway to see if anyone was nearby and scanned the room for cameras, finding one embedded in the ceiling. She was wearing only a hospital patient gown and on her left forearm was a bandaged wound that burned and he didn't remember getting. She felt it carefully and felt as if a small metal thorn or something similar was buried in it. A feeling of horror overwhelmed her and she ran out of the room, looking for a way out. On a wall she saw a clock that read six in the morning, she supposed she had little time before the employees of the mysterious clinic began to circulate through the corridors. From some windows he could also see that he was on a third or fourth floor and when he reached the elevator, he saw with horror that someone was coming up. He ran to another corridor and found some stairs and hurried down to a basement, closing the door behind him and locking it with a broom he found on the spot. She kept running until she saw an exit to the subway parking lots and then she heard noises of men chasing her. Without staying to see who they were, she went out through a gate onto a lonely street and continued running for about six blocks to the shed of a building that appeared to be a church. There, she finally stopped and wrapped her feet, full of scratches after running almost half a kilometer barefoot on the pavement, with strips torn from her robe. She tried to think what to do when she heard two cars park nearby and a voice saying, "She's in the shed." She jumped to his feet and ran to some apartments, looking for alleys and nooks and crannies to throw them off her trail but it seemed her pursuers were reading her mind, guessing where she was headed. Then she remembered the wound on her forearm and had an idea. She picked up a rock she found in a yard and smashed the window of an old house, waking its occupants and taking a long piece of broken glass; then she ran back to a river. She continued without stopping until she reached under a bridge, where she found an aqueduct which she entered and, taking advantage of the fact that she had gained a little advantage over those who were pursuing her, she removed the bandage from her forearm and used the piece of glass to cut the sutures and open her wound. Putting pain on the back burner, she poked at the open flesh until he found a small silver rectangular object. She managed to pull it out of her forearm but it was stuck to her skin by the blood. She was about to shake it off to throw it away when she heard someone enter the tunnel and shout from afar:

—Ma'am, we are not going to hurt you, we are working on the same research project you are on.

Maggie thought for a moment what to do and then threw the bloody glass in a puddle of water that she used to wash herself a little too, she put the bandage back on leaving the foreign body hidden between the skin and the cloth that was on her forearm; then she timidly approached those who were chasing her and when she noticed that they were not armed she said, with a trembling voice and running to hug one of them:

—Oh, what a relief, I was scared to death when I woke up there. I thought I had been kidnapped.... I experienced such a terrible trauma in Nevada that I'm still confused!

The man reassured her by saying:

—Everything is all right ma'am. You are safe now.

Then the man turned to one of his companions who was carrying a tablet that he kept consulting:

—She still has the...
—Yes, the signal is strong and clear.
—Well, let's go back to the clinic.

Maggie immediately said:

—No please, not there anymore! That place makes me sick to my stomach, would it be better to stay in a hotel?
—Ma'am, we have orders to take you back to the clinic so that you can be sent to your new residence. Also, they need to check the wound on your forearm.
—Ah... this wound... I must have accidentally got it while I was sleeping on the plane, right? By the way, I'm already in Washington State...?
—Yes, you are. Come with us. Then you can take your luggage and go settle into your assigned house in Seattle.

Maggie agreed, she would play whatever role was necessary to survive and eventually escape. When she arrived, she found some of her belongings on the bed, changed her clothes, tried to be friendly and helpful until a nurse wanted to change her bandages. She then said that this was not necessary, as she could do it herself; she asked to be taken to her new home as soon as possible. To her relief, the attending nurse agreed and after the rest of her luggage was handed to her, she was led to a cab waiting outside the clinic and taken to the center of the city. The cab driver handed her an envelope, said goodbye and drove off, leaving her and her luggage on the street. The gray city around them was bustling with the comings and goings of cars and people passing through the streets, engrossed in their own worlds. The girl opened the envelope and found a series of documents clipped together, and a key. A card came on top of all the papers and there was an address, the address of her new home. Maggie walked down a couple of streets, asking locals for directions, and finally came to an old apartment building. She rode up a rickety elevator that smelled of tobacco to her new, ramshackle, cockroach-ridden residence; suspicious boxes with a lens in the center hung on the walls. Without a second thought he got out of there and checked his documents. She had a new ID as "Marguerite Mikhailova" and a credit card in the name of that new identity which she read thinking, "great, they married me to Kisa..." She looked for a bank while he was carrying all his suitcases and his forearm hurt horribly, when he found it, he went in and asked for his bank statement. That's how she found out that she had fifty million dollars in her name and almost went backwards. The bank employee smiled at her:

—Are you feeling well, Mrs. Mikhailova?
—Yes... Yes, I'm sorry... It's just that... It's been a long time since I came to see how much I had in the bank and... now I think... What am I going to do with that money?

The employee stared at her with astonishment:

—Whatever you decide, it's yours!
—Can I... Can I send some of it to my father?
—I think so... if that's what you want.
—To my uncles, my cousins, my godparents, my grandparents and... some neighbors who were friends of mine at school?
—Yes. You can do it!

The employee laughed. Maggie continued to think aloud:

—Well...If I give them a million each...That still leaves me pretty much without any use...Gee, then I'll think about what to do. By the way, do you know where I could find a good lawyer?

Already uncomfortable, the clerk replied, looking Maggie up and down again and again:

—I wouldn't know how to recommend one.... But you can simply search the web for the best one in the state and hire him or her!
—Yes... I guess... Thank you!

The girl replied and left the building thanking everyone and stumbling, already sitting far away on a bench on the street she felt quite silly as she thought back on the conversation she had just had with the woman at the bank. She continued walking with her bags until she stopped at a park where she bought a hamburger and sat down to think. She amused himself by checking her wallet and checking to see if the small photo of her son that she always carried with her in a special compartment was still there. Then she had an idea and went to a jewelry store to get a locket where she could keep it better. A few minutes later, when she was being handed what she had bought, she noticed that her forearm was still bleeding. She left the jewelry store and went straight to a pharmacy where she got scissors, alcohol, gauze and bandages. Then she walked to a cathedral and went to a lonely corner of the temple where she removed the bandages and finished tearing off the foreign body, which she then carefully cleaned and kept in the locket next to the photograph of her son to wear around her neck. She didn't want to be a fugitive yet, but she did want to have the ability to be one. Then she dressed the wound and closed it with the gauze and adhesive tape. Then she began to feel tired and just looked for the nearest and cleanest hotel she could find; once she did, she took a room that she closed by putting a closet behind the door; she took a long bath and then slept soundly. At almost two in the morning, she woke up without opening her eyes and groped around, hoping to find Kisa. Then she remembered everything that had happened and tossed and turned in the sheets, her chest was sore and damp. She sighed and rubbed her eyes thinking, "who knew her boldness was beneficial in the end, now I have this problem again. Poor Mrs. Yolanda, she never got to cure me... All because of that foolish Kisa who had to.... How is he now, surely quiet and sullen...He probably didn't eat anything because he is stubborn like that...and I haven't seen him for two days now...I should have left a kind of manual on how to take care of him. He doesn't like loud noises, he doesn't like bright lights, he doesn't like to feel dirty, he doesn't like.... What does he like? Being with me?" She fell back to sleep and as the sun came up, she grabbed her laptop to look for furnished houses for sale. She found one on the outskirts of town and contacted the real estate agent as soon as possible. After spending all day making calls and crossing his fingers, he struck a deal; by sundown he was in a cab on her way to her new home: a dusty Victorian house on a lonely street near a forest and separated from the other old houses, almost all inhabited by the elderly, by a little less than half a kilometer of groves of trees. Once she arrived, she dragged her suitcases into the bedroom and threw himself on the bed to catch his breath. Then the house phone rang. Puzzled, she reached across the bedside table and answered it:

—Good afternoon?
—Hello, Maggie.

Wellman's voice startled her and she swallowed, then said:

—Hello... Are you already in Washington, too, Doctor?
—That's right. I'll pick you up tomorrow around nine o'clock.
—Do you know where I am?
—I think so. Turn called me saying you didn't have a car and to please pick you up, he gave me your phone number and address. He says you just bought a house on the outskirts of town, why didn't you move somewhere nicer, the area you picked is a bit isolated.
—Wow, having a hacker friend is a bit disturbing...Don't worry, doctor. This place is no worse than the apartment I was originally assigned. Do you know how is...?
—The alien? No idea. I hope it didn't eat anyone. Tomorrow, we'll see it, I suppose, either alive or dissected and ready to be put in formalin.

Maggie's heart shrank and she said, sitting up in bed, "I'll expect him tomorrow morning:

—I'll expect him early tomorrow morning. Have a nice night.

At eight o'clock the next morning, Wellman arrived at Maggie's house to pick her up in a new sports car. The man, dressed in a polo shirt, khakis and sunglasses, tied a sweater over his shoulders and then looked at Maggie's house with a horrified face. When the girl came out, haggard and disheveled, he hurried to open the vehicle door for her as he said:

—Honestly, you could choose something better to live in.
—Why? I think this house is nice, comfortable and apparently it doesn't have cameras.
—Even so, we're being watched all the time. It's better to get used to it. It doesn't bother me; I've always been a bit of an exhibitionist.

They headed for the building hidden in the woods, while Wellman tried hard to get the shy teenager to talk:

—You're an emo, aren't you?
—Not really...
—What aren't you? All kids are something at this age, looking for their place in life through subcultures. I was a street skater, or at least I tried to be until I fell backwards on the stairs at school and fractured my tailbone; it was a nightmare I don't want to remember. The following year I made the football team and there I began to find myself, to know who I really was.
—A fierce competitor...?
—A son of a bitch who'll crush everyone in his path to score.
— I think looks don't really define anyone…. Forging your own identity is more than just having a style. I thought I had figured out who I really was when I met the father of my child, but I didn't.... Then I thought I had it figured out when I had my son.... But that was a mirage too. Later, in Nevada, when I looked death in the eye and slept next to him, I realized that I always knew who I am, but I didn't want to accept it. I don't know why; it really wasn't so terrible....

Wellman reached into the back seat, not taking his eyes off the road, and picked up a laptop which he handed to Maggie saying:

— Turn it on and look for the "Cheeseball" folder on the desktop. Open it.
—What is it, something about cooking?
—No, silly girl. It's all my personal reports and files on Selenite. Try to study them now on the way and start devising a strategy to keep his confidence. You'll be in charge of him for a long time....
—That's fine.

The girl answered with resignation and began to read and watch the videos of the interviews Gabin did. After a silence that lasted almost ten minutes, Wellman looked at her out of the corner of his eye and asked anxiously:

—But, say something! You're not going to chicken out now, are you?
—No, no... It’s just so sad to think that there are children living like that...After knowing his whole story, I'm beginning to understand why he did what he did....
—Freud is already dead, so let's stop with the psychoanalytical sympathy! Kisa is not a helpless orphan from Africa. That critter, however pathetic his childhood may be, is a bloody sadistic murderer. Listen to what I'm telling you, there's something I should know being a psychiatrist: no matter how tender and affectionate he may seem to you, sooner or later his aggressive nature will emerge and give you a good scare if you don't know how to handle the situation. In disturbed subjects like him, feelings sometimes enter into bloody battles within their minds; legendary archetypes confront each other and wreak such havoc during the struggle that chaos and death can overflow from the individual threatening to sweep away even those around him. If that happens, stay in your role. You will be as untouchable to him as you have convinced him you are. If even this fails...begin to entrust yourself to your Guadalupana. Nothing is safe when dealing with psychopaths.

They finally arrived at the secret lab and were met by Dr. Mitkov and Dr. Voyager. Mitkov greeted them saying:

—Welcome to the carnival of monsters, where we too are part of the show. Dr. Wellman, I hope you are prepared to see another good portion of the iceberg.
—I hope you're not withholding information from the rest of the team this time, Dr. Mitkov. Now that I'm in charge, I want us to form a true collective intelligence and that means total communication and zero secrecy between members of this task force.
—I understand, Doctor, there will be no secrets from you except the ones I don't know about myself. And I assure you, there must be quite a few.
—Where is our alien?
—I haven't seen Kisa since the day before yesterday. But there are many other reasons to worry besides the aggressiveness of my good friend Gennadi's grandson.
—Well, come and fill me in now. Dr. Voyager, come with us too; you never know anything and it's about time you started to. Maggie, you go find the Selenite and make sure it's complete.

Maggie timidly obeyed and walked into the minimalist, white building with certain glass elements illuminated by strategically placed lamps; she suddenly realized that she had no idea where to go. She continued wandering through the corridors until she reached a secluded area around a stone garden. She looked at the large boulders clustered around a twisted pine tree planted in the raked sand, and suddenly she thought she saw a thin, sinister figure on the other side of the garden. She ran trying to reach it but when she got there the figure was gone, she saw an open door nearby and went inside to look for it. Behind the door was another red door and she cautiously entered it as well. She found another very narrow, white corridor that turned off to the right. She followed it and found that the corridor kept moving forward and taking different directions, forking and trifurcating at times; until she realized that this was a labyrinth. Then she saw out of the corner of her eye a thin shadow, moving smoothly and nimbly like a cat, disappear behind a corner. She ran towards it and as she turned the path, she found a hideous man in front of her. A scream of horror escaped her and the strange being with a disproportionate body and round head approached her walking slowly, looking at her languidly and speaking with almost the same hissing sound that Kisa had but less marked:

—Hi. Sorry if I startled you, I imagine you weren't expecting company in the meditation labyrinth, it's supposed to relax and dispel your negative impulses...or so they say. My name is Joseph, and yours?

The girl answered almost trembling:

—Ma-Maggie...Hi...I was looking for a friend....
—No one else is here. I've been alone for about fifteen minutes. I came in for some routine medical checkups. Nothing out of the ordinary. I'm not really sick but I was born with a certain medical condition...You know.
—Yes...It's good...to take care of your health.
—You look so young, what are you doing here? You should be at school with your friends.
—I... I already graduated from high school...Almost two years ago....

The strange Joseph continued with the conversation as he approached her slowly:

—How fast! You must be a brainiac. I could barely go to school normally...and when I did everyone hated me. Kids can be so cruel to different students. Are you here by yourself?
—No... I'm working as an assistant with a new research team and...
—And do they know you're here?
—No... I mean, they do know I'm in the building. But not exactly where.
—Oh, wow. I guess you don't know how to get out of the maze. Don't worry, I'll guide you out. Just turn on your heels and take the direction I point you in. I'll be right behind you.

Maggie nodded her head and began to move forward with trepidation, she felt something was very wrong with this man. Joseph was still walking softly behind her, speaking with an eerie calmness:

—Now turn right, who is your friend you were looking for? Now to the left.
—He's a... He's a man involved in an investigation.
—I understand. Poor your friend, it's so depressing to collaborate with "the lab".
—Yes... I hope he's all right.
—Is he your boyfriend? Now walk through the next door.
—No, not at all... It's like a... It's a complicated relationship.
—I understand. Now to the right. You're friends "with privileges".
—No, our relationship is more like mother and son... Besides, I doubt he notices me, he's always wrapped up in his own business and I'm not very attracted to him either...
—Too bad, he's not your type. But do you have a boyfriend or something, apart from your friend?
—No... No... I'm quite lonely...
—How is it possible, such a beautiful girl? How is it possible? Turn to your right again. I don't have anyone with me either. Go straight ahead.

Maggie was beginning to feel too uncomfortable with this talk and tried to turn to look at the man accompanying her. He seemed to go about doing something without telling her and she began to get alarmed. Joseph continued speaking:

—I have tried many times to have something with a woman, but have failed every time. The subject obsesses me. All the women I meet are backstabbing, conceited whores...Turn to your right.
—Okay...
—It's partly my fault, they'll say, because I look repulsive due to my medical condition. I have bad genes, so bad that the doctors here decided it was better to have a vasectomy to prevent me from having offspring, since I was always after a woman. Unfortunately, I woke up from the anesthesia during the operation, became... somewhat violent... and an accident happened. The doctor hurt me inside and since then my penis doesn't work as well as I would like it to, you know?
—I'm sorry...

The girl was walking hunched over, feeling very uneasy. Joseph kept talking:

—After that failed intervention, I began to feel even more insecure... I felt emasculated... Then I met a beautiful woman at a party at the lab. She was the great love of my life. She seemed to see me as a person and not as a medical freak. She came into my world and would accompany me to the sleazy places I usually frequent because I know that there, I would only find shit as stinky as me and no one would criticize me. She was like an angel illuminating the darkness I lived in... Finally, we decided to do it one night on the couch...I was very excited, so much so that I simply could not respond to being a man...and I felt ashamed, frustrated...Furious with myself. But she treated me with infinite tenderness and understanding...Or at least I thought she did. Two weeks later I found her in bed with my neighbor...I wanted to kill them both and almost did...Except someone called the police and I was arrested. That night, she bailed me out and took me back home. When we were driving home, I talked to her about trying to be together again, to forgive and start over...But she told me that we were done, that she didn't want to hear from me anymore. I was devastated although I didn't say anything...I waited until we got home and when she went into the bathroom to wash her face, I went in too without her hearing me and smashed her face against the mirror breaking it into a thousand pieces. That night I raped her about thirty times while biting off pieces of flesh and when I couldn't penetrate her anymore, I took a broom, bottles, brushes...everything...and smashed her inside. Then I shit on her and felt better. Suddenly I felt that everything about her bothered me, and that her bloody corpse and my shit were one and the same. I dragged her into the shower and deposited her there, letting the water run down. Then I called my psychiatrist here in the lab. They came in, cleaned everything up...prescribed me Haloperidol...and I've been very calm ever since.

Maggie's legs began to shake and at that moment they turned the last corner and came to a dead end. She was trapped between three walls and that dreadful man. She didn't want to turn to look at him, she didn't want to say anything, she just took a breath and waited. Then Joseph's bony and deformed hands began to caress her shoulders, and she violently turned a little to elbow him in the abdomen; she was lucky that her opponent had bad balance and that she caught him unawares, so she managed to knock him down; jumping on him and running away from there. Joseph was soon on his feet and began to chase her swiftly through the maze. Maggie was still lost but ran without stopping to think until she turned a corner and ran into another blind path. Joseph had his pants unbuttoned and looked furious; his horrible inflamed eyes fixed on her. The girl turned to look at him too, no longer trembling, no longer frightened; with her adrenaline pumping she adopted a defiant attitude as she said:

—You'll have to kill me to lay a finger on me...I've already endured enough monsters and humiliations in my life!!!!!

Joseph advanced to her raising his fist and then fell to the floor unconscious. Behind him was J. Gabin, with an electric stunner. Maggie leaned against the wall, relieved and confused. Gabin walked around Joseph's slumped body to approach her and lean against the wall as well, speaking to her:

—I must take extra care of our young assistant. I see you have already met Mr. White, Miss Cardenas; or rather Mrs. Mikhailova. What were you doing here alone?
—I... I was looking for Kisa and then... I got lost here and that guy...
—Mrs. Mikhailova, you should have consulted me first. It so happens that Mr. Mikhailov is not here. Always true to his habit of doing as he pleases; he attacked our nurses in an oversight and escaped through the ventilation ducts. He didn't really leave though; he just wanders around the lab. I guess that's his way of protesting: screwing up our lives by being stubborn.
—Haven't they been able to get him back in the building, has he slept out there in the cold with no food, it rained at night yesterday.
—I think maybe he will learn to be more cooperative. Let him still do his whim tonight, in a couple of days we'll go and bring him back for good. Now, he'd better go back to his residence and relax a little. It would also be good for him to take care of those wounds on his shoulders, he is bleeding non—stop.
—Wounds? What wounds?

Maggie touched the back of her neck and realized that Joseph had actually cut her skin but she didn't feel the pain. She went back to her new home and had some dizziness. She took her temperature and discovered that she again had a fever. The mastitis that was never treated and had temporarily improved after her encounter with Kisa was taking an expensive toll on her health. She had to go to a hospital emergency room where she was prescribed an antibiotic, some painkillers, and instructed to have complete bed rest for at least a week. Maggie returned home and the next morning she saw that it was raining, so she tried to get up to go get Kisa. She bathed, dressed, ate her breakfast, and went out determined; with a firm step and a look full of determination. She crossed the porch, took three steps on the sidewalk of her garden that led from the house to the street and collapsed like a sack of potatoes face first on the pavement, in the shade of the trees planted in front of the front of her house. A lady walking her dog and passing right in front of her screamed and ran away.

 

June 3, 2012


In the early hours of the morning, a reporter was being filmed by her cameraman while interviewing an old farmer on a farm about five kilometers from "the laboratory", under a fine drizzle falling on the melancholy country landscape:

—We are in the area where several witnesses have indicated having seen the legendary scourge of farms, the mysterious Chupacabra beast. The day before yesterday, a local young man managed to record the creature with his phone and posted the shocking video on YouTube. In the now famous clip, a creepy-looking creature is indeed seen from afar roaming the farms in the area. Now, let's hear the opinions of the locals. Sir, would you please answer a few questions for us?
—Gladly.

The old man answered and put his hat on, looking at the camera while being questioned by the reporter:

—Tell us, have you managed to see the supposed monster that haunts this area?
—Oh, miss, I'm afraid it was all a mistake. I've seen the famous video you mentioned and I must tell you that the person they filmed is just a poor drugged-up kid with a serious deformity on his face who hangs around here watching us and sometimes asking questions. It seems to me that he is a German tourist or something like that, and he is definitely very stoned because he does not even recognize the grass, we suspect that he has eaten a poisonous mushroom. I make my thoughtful call to the German embassy, or something like that, to come help that poor wandering foreign kid.

Meanwhile, Kisa wandered aimlessly around the farms near the lab. A family had taken pity on her frail appearance and gave him winter clothes of their son to withstand the cold, since he refused to come into their house. Thus, he finally discovered that his mother had tried to suppress his masculinity all his life by dressing him as a girl, it infuriated him, he lost his desire to collaborate with the investigation and wandered around demoralized for a long time. He felt betrayed again by his mother and also carried the burden of being the only survivor of a tribe where he was the leader who should have saved them; he spent time in a vicious circle of guilt, frustration and anger, he would attack at the slightest provocation. That morning he was on the verge of an anger crisis, crossing a meadow while watching from afar the cars passing by on the road; dressed at last in boy's clothes, he went from looking like a weird girl to looking like a weird boy, that childish androgyny made him look somehow tender and so people although surprised to see him did not panic, but inside he was getting angrier and angrier. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at a tree where a sniper was aiming at him and thus verified that he was still being watched all the time by his captors. Suddenly he saw about a hundred meters from where he was a group of four soldiers approaching him pointing their guns at him and he stopped to wait. Then one of the men shouted in Russian:

—Mr. Mikhailov, we need you to come with us now.

The Selenite remained motionless, watching them suspiciously. There was an uneasy silence until the military man spoke again:

—Listen, I must inform you that if you do not obey our directions drastic disciplinary measures will be taken involving third parties.
—They intend to blackmail me like this. It won't work anymore. 

Kisa replied in Russian in her creepy voice and then added:

—You just need to chain me up again, right? So, go on, what are you waiting for?

The soldiers looked at each other and one of them advanced towards him carrying a pair of handcuffs. The sniper became alert and the soldier with the handcuffs reached Kisa and said seriously:

—Show me your wrists, slowly.

He got no response. Kisa stood still, staring at him, just giving him a sinister smile. The man with the handcuffs approached with determination, ready to make himself heard once and for all and, in just a few milliseconds, Kisa cut his neck with a scratch while the sniper fired without hitting him due to the speed with which he slit his partner's throat and then disappeared in the tall grass. The sniper radioed the other soldiers:

—Be careful, I lost visual contact. He must be crawling through the brush near you, it seems to me that he went to the right....

Before he could finish saying the last word, the Selenite appeared from some bushes and in one leap reached the branch he was on and then knocked him down, grabbing his neck and twisting it grotesquely until he was dead, all before they touched the ground. By the time the other armed men could react, the Selenite had disappeared again. One of the soldiers muttered between his teeth:

—Fuck the order not to shoot to kill, if you see him put a bullet in the middle of his hideous face. It's his life or ours.

After uttering this sentence, he made a strange sound and then collapsed. His companions looked at him out of the corner of their eyes and saw with horror that the back of his neck was torn open as if by a claw. A hail of bullets rained down on the brush behind the military men until some blood trickled from the foliage onto a dirt path. The two men approached cautiously, finding the Selenite's large sweatshirt peeking out from the rubble; they still fired some more, until the ammunition was exhausted. One soldier ran to see the bundle of clothing while the other reloaded. He lifted up the leaky cloth and found a dead cat, which he covered up again, muttering:

—Maybe it's a trap?

When he looked up, he realized that his companion was gone. He began to reload frantically when he heard a chilling laugh behind him. He turned and found himself face to face with Kisa who came crawling in with a bloody mouth, dragging his last companion already dead; his face and neck ripped to shreds. Before he could scream or defend himself, the creature was already on top of him, tearing his arm and face with bites and scratches. That soldier would have been dead there too in less than a couple of seconds had it not been for a dart hitting the Selenite right in the arm. A bloodcurdling shriek echoed throughout the meadow. Kisa got up furiously, ripping off the dart and trying to see who had attacked him, but then his vision blurred and then he knew no more.

He awoke hours later in a silent place while something was being done to his body. Startled, he grabbed fiercely at the hand that touched him and then found himself back in a hospital gown face to face with Maggie, who was wiping his blood with a damp cloth, in a small room where there was only a stretcher and a table with medical instruments. He felt his heart leap and he would have liked to embrace her and cry for her to comfort him, as he had often wished to do with his mother, but the same strange fear that had always prevented him from doing so seized him; and he only remained still and mute before her. Maggie, on the other hand, had no restraint for him, and gave him a hard slap that bounced him against a wall, while she said angrily:

—You have killed four men, and seriously wounded one more!

He responded by grabbing her violently by the neck and pulling her close to ask her in that almost unintelligible voice he had on those occasions when he didn't speak Russian:

—Where have you been?
—Sick in a hospital after I had surgery without my consent and a guy with the face of a toad tried to rape me.

She pushed him away with a violent shove and kept talking. Being impatient, she had tremendous strength, unexpected in such a shy young girl:

—Now stand still and take off your robe! I must search your body in case you too have had something inserted without you noticing.

Kisa looked at her with indignation and a little blushing, replying:

—I've never been nailed! I told you I like women!

His answer was not relevant for Maggie, who handed him some documents fastened with a rubber band and began to check his ankles saying:

—Hurry up and get undressed. Here, look at this, you have a new identity.

She took the small bundle of documents and began to read them suspiciously:

—What...? They say I was born in Nevada and that I'm married to a certain Magu....
—Marguerite, it's me, they changed my identity too. We are supposed to be married and we were always Americans. This morning I called my old university and they told me that my data no longer existed and that "a certain Magdalena Cardenas never studied there". Something similar happened when I called my country's embassies. They simply erased my identity and replaced it with that of "Mrs. Mikhailova who was born in California".
—Did you say we are married...?

Kisa asked, trying to hide his glee, while Maggie answered:

—Yes, I'll tell you everything.

The young woman settled into the chair and informed him of the events that had happened to her since she left Nevada until that day when they met again. She spoke fearfully and looking at the floor, in a very low voice for fear of being overheard by someone else. She ended her account of the events she had witnessed by saying:

—My situation and yours, in all this nightmare, is quite similar. We have become tools for them and that worries me. Just as we can be used, we can be discarded at any time. Maybe you are not understanding me at all or you think I am lying to you like everyone else, because everyone lies or hides something, but I think you are the only person I can really trust since you are in the same condition as me...Even if you are also the murderous creature to be feared...Now let me take a good look at you. While you were unconscious, they did some tests on you without me being able to be present. I want to make sure they didn't implant something in you like they did with me.

Then Kisa glued himself to the wall and muttered looking away:

—I don't want you to see me now.
—Why don't you want me to check you? Are you hiding something? Are you...on their side?
—No... I just don't want you to see me with my clothes off. I'm a man. I want you to treat me like one. 
—I've already seen you naked several times! How silly, someone gave you a pair of raggedy pants and you already think you're a hunk. Men are so insecure!

Maggie really couldn't imagine the real reason why he wanted to avoid her seeing him without clothes and in broad daylight while she was touching his body. Kisa looked at her for a moment almost with pity while thinking, "poor thing, she's either too naive or too much of an idiot", finally working up the courage to take off her robe and let the girl be able to search every inch of his skin for anything suspicious while avoiding at all costs making eye contact with her. The young woman noticed his strange attitude and asked, while examining his navel with her fingertips:

—Is something wrong? It's really admirable that your mother has made it through with you all by herself. It terrifies me just to imagine having a child without medical assistance on an abandoned moon base, I guess she became overprotective and that's why you moved away. Surely when you were my age you were anxious to be free. Something similar happened to me with my father. He knew that I was very prone to being abused, so he overprotected me, controlled every step of my life, every decision; that's why as soon as I had the chance to get away from him I did it without thinking. I thought that if I didn't, he would end up absorbing my own identity and turn me into a real flesh and blood doll. Although I know he did it with the best intentions, running away from his control was like running away to save my life, my identity as a person.... What are you thinking about? You seem so focused on everything but what I'm telling you...
—Putrefaction, dead people, the inconsequentiality of human life...Algebra. 
—It doesn't surprise me in you.

Maggie replied. At the same instant the door opened and the hideous Joseph White appeared. He looked at the scene with surprise and closed the door softly behind him, then said serenely:

—It's all right. Don't be uncomfortable on my account. Hi Maggie, sorry for my behavior yesterday. I hadn't taken my medication and was behaving strangely. Is he your boyfriend, he seems to suffer from Selene too. 

The girl had clung to Kisa's abdomen in horror until he yanked her away, standing up in defiance. White looked him from head to toe and said, always with his unsettling calm:

—Oh, excuse me, friend! I didn't mean to be indiscreet, did you come from the moon? Your features are typical...Except that...you look strangely beautiful....

Maggie and Kisa looked at each other as if disturbed by Joseph's flattery, then Kisa started to dress again in the clothes he got from the peasants while Maggie said:

—His name is Lukasha, he was born on an abandoned Russian moon base. He doesn't want to talk now and is in a bad mood. Please leave him alone, he's having a hard time.

Joseph White's face seemed to light up with enthusiasm, he approached her and exclaimed:

—I know, Maggie! And I know because I went through the same thing. I guess it's harder for him to adjust as an adult. When I came here, I was only four years old, but I remember well the change of environments and the reaction of people looking at me for the first time. Why do you dress him as a girl?
—I honestly don't know, with him it's better not to ask too many questions.
—He is really beautiful, radiant, sculpted... He must belong to a second generation. Geneticists said that possibly for the second generation, my children born on the moon, there would appear individuals whose mutated DNA would recombine in ways more suitable for a normal life. He is the proof of such a theory....

White tried to move closer and Kisa began to take on a threatening attitude. Maggie stepped between the two and said seriously:

—Sir, I appreciate your admiration for my friend even though I find it somewhat morbid. But please let us be alone. 

Joseph White reached into his wallet, speaking quietly:

—Sure...You want to be alone...I noticed how happy you were before I showed up. I'll give you my card and promise me that one day he'll call me or go out with me...To talk. It's healthy, for him and for me, to talk to someone who suffers from the same ailment. So, we can get it off our chest and stuff. Although he seems to be coping just fine thanks to you, I guess. Beautiful couple. 

After saying this, the strange White handed his card to Maggie and left. The girl hesitated for a moment whether to keep it or not, but finally put it in her purse saying:

—You might want to talk to him sometime. Although that guy was the one who chased me yesterday, it only remains for him to want to rape you too. I didn't tell you in front of him because I couldn't foresee your reaction or his. You're both...aggressive. Funny, he thought we were a romantic couple. That sicko sure sees a sexual connotation in everything. The relationship between you and me is so pure that it only compares to the one I had with my son.

Kisa did not answer, remorse did not allow it. At that moment a nurse appeared and indicated that they could leave now. Maggie sighed with relief and put a hat and a mask on Kisa to prevent him from attracting attention, it would be the first time that he would be loose and under her responsibility. They had to walk a long way through the forest before they reached the point where they would board a bus to the city. On the way, Maggie decided to talk a little more about their personal lives; since from that day on they would be together all the time:

—You'll like living on Earth, it's nice even though there are certain evil people. I didn't notice this until my boyfriend asked me to give up my son for adoption....

The Selenite's opinion was disturbing:

—There is no point in giving away a child. On the Moon, impregnating a woman was a feat considering that all the women were unattractive, related to you and mentally ill; and that after using them, the low gravity would affect you by lowering your blood pressure. Only the most resistant of us could have sex.
—You just gave me the worst mental image of my life....

They reached the place where they were to wait for the bus and just then Dr. Mitkov caught up with them. The old man ran as fast as he could to the girl and said, grabbing her shoulder:

—I need...to talk to you...Alone.

Maggie nodded and motioned for Kisa to wait. They walked a few meters away and Mitkov quietly communicated to her:

—They didn't tell you anything about the last tests they did on him?
—No, they told me absolutely nothing except that I was free to go.
—Maggie, you are in grave danger. Kisa presents classic traits of psychopathy, not only in his behavior, but also in his brain anatomy. MRI results showed high activity in his limbic system, the brain area responsible for primary emotions and impulses such as aggression. It is likely that in Kisa's mind there are always violent thoughts and sinister desires that he cannot control and that he himself considers normal.
—Doctor, I know he is not a normal person, I know he can be dangerous. But I am sure he can change or at least learn to control himself. His neuroanatomy does not condemn him to be a hopeless killer. I once read the case of a scientist who devoted his life to studying the brains of serial killers until he discovered that he himself had the brain profile of a psychopath without being one.
—I've heard of that, but it's different. Dr. Fallon had a happy childhood, so the killer instinct in his brain, fortunately, was never activated. Kisa's case is very different, he has lived through hell for twenty-seven years. He was born deformed in a sickly environment and had a miserable childhood. To top it all, he suffered all kinds of abuse from her schizophrenic mother. I doubt he can feel empathy for other human beings, that poor boy has never known love.

The voice of Kisa himself, who had crept up unnoticed, startled them. He spoke in Russian to make himself understood by Mitkov:

—She was not always crazy. My mother was strict and demanding, but she also loved me, perhaps too much. She was a brilliant woman, educated by two scientists who were her parents; she always lamented my appearance, but she loved me because she said that the way I was reminded her of my grandmother. Her illness began when I was very young, now I understand that she did abusive things like her obsession with dressing me as a girl, but others were for my own good, like instilling in me to be meticulous about cleanliness because in the low gravity in which we lived it was easier for germs to proliferate. She heard heavenly voices talking to her and stopped talking to me, I was ten years old when I started to take care of her, to keep an eye on her so she wouldn't whip her back with a leash to please Saint Basil or start shouting to the other relatives that she was the Virgin of the Moon, and I did it because I loved her. It wasn't until I turned sixteen that I left her and went with the retarded and the deformed because the coldness of her madness ended up breaking my heart and I went out in search of that which, according to you, I never knew.

Mitkov looked at him seriously and asked him also in Russian:

—Then why do you kill? Why don't you stop doing it if you know love, which is where compassion is born?
—I am avenging my family, there will be one dead for every year we were abandoned at the Nebo base. I feel resentment burning inside me, indignation, it is what drives me to accomplish this bloody goal. Every time I see another one of your people screaming in fear and dying, I feel a little relief. Maybe those flaws you say are in my head are responsible for me stooping to act like this, like an animal. But there is also a strange chemistry, a combination of smells, a taste, I don't know, that makes me turn back time and forget all the pain. And I only get that when I'm with this girl.

The old man looked at him sadly and said:

—You will kill again, Kisa. It is your nature. You will kill others again to mitigate the resentment and one day you will end up hurting her. Yes, one day you won't be able to control yourself, something will set off your trigger and you won't be able to avoid it. If you really love her, let her go. She can't live with you. At least not now, you still haven't developed real self-control and I don't see a sincere effort on your part to get it. If you love her, let her go, come back for her later when it's safe, she can't live with you now.
—And I can't live without her.

Kisa replied. Maggie nervously adjusted her glasses and asked fearfully:

—What... What are you saying?

A crow cawed hidden among the branches of the natural cathedral that the forest trees had built with their tall trunks and thick foliage, and Mitkov answered:

—He says...he will try not to give you trouble as long as he is with you. I tell him that if you begin to fear for your own life or the lives of others because of him, you should give him rat poison with sugar to drink. In the meantime... Don't forget to give him his regular medication.

Then he gently patted the girl on the shoulder and walked away in the direction of the laboratory. During the whole bus ride, Maggie was silent while Kisa remained by her side, crestfallen and silent as well. When they reached the city, Maggie made sure that his face was covered as much as possible and held his hand tightly so as not to let him out of her sight. Kisa let her do it, although he was uncomfortable with so many precautions; he wanted to win her trust again. Once at their destination, the Selenite found himself in the world of overflowing emotions of a teenager of the early second decade of the 21st century; among an infinity of pink objects, posters of high school vampire movies and androgynous rock bands, cartoons, toys; all mixed in a strange chimera that danced between the childish and the terribly cheesy. Maggie showed him the place and said proudly:

—I decorated it myself. What do you think?
— Это свалка мусора...
—It means?

Kisa didn't answer, as she usually did when a topic of conversation didn't interest or suit her. Maggie noticed it and simply said, shrugging her shoulders:

—I left a place without any special style to be your room and do with it whatever you feel like. Now that we are no longer cooped up, everyone can have their own space. By the way, you haven't eaten anything. I'll see if there's anything you like.

The Selenite was silent again. As night fell, Maggie tried to settle him in his bedroom and give him to understand that he should now sleep there alone. Kisa apparently obeyed her with her cold indifference, as she focused on reading the screen of her laptop. The girl smiled and kissed his forehead before leaving, closing the door behind her. Once he calculated that she must be far from the room by now, Kisa slipped quietly to a wall and listened carefully to Maggie's footsteps until he heard her head to her own bedroom and lock herself in. The young woman's wary caution offended him. He understood then that his relationship with her would never be the same again, that his slim hopes of being reciprocated were gone, and he could not stop his eyes from filling with tears; feeling even more miserable than when he was starving to death in the subway laboratory. Almost immediately he turned from grief to rage and escaped like a cat out the window of his room, guided by the smell to Maggie's window which he stealthily opened and then crept in the same way. He crawled silently to her bed, searching by the light of a night lamp for the young woman's neck with intentions of biting it open; he found her already sleeping soundly, as she was exhausted after such a heavy day. Having Maggie's skin so close again, her scent made him feel somewhat dizzy and he discarded the original purpose of his dreadful visit to sniff her for a while with fascination. So distracted was he, he didn't notice that Maggie had woken up and was looking at him reproachfully and tenderly at the same time. When he finally realized that she had surprised him, he did not have the courage to attack her and, before he could explain anything, Maggie made a place for him in her bed; she turned off the lamp and took him in her arms saying:

—I knew it, you were going to get in somehow. Just this once, while you get used to your new home.

Shielded by the darkness in which he could see and function perfectly, Kisa spent the night happily watching Maggie as she slept and stroking her hair. He had fallen madly in love and felt that she really was his wife. The problem was that he hadn't told her, he couldn't tell her because she would die of horror to know. 


August 30, 2012


—That my son is dead, Aunt?

Dr. Tolley took the hand of his new wife Lindsay Tolley, formerly Pemberton, and looked at his aunt in horror as she maintained a stern expression; sitting in the living room of their luxurious Canadian mansion. Lindsay, sighed deeply and opined:

—Cut the bullshit, lady. Tell us at once where you have hidden the child. We just want to take some pictures of him to take to his mother. We just got married and I'm working on my family not having skeletons in the closet, I've been communicating with Maggie myself and I've been begging her not to take legal action against you so the Tolley family doesn't get involved in public scandals; I promised her that Tom and I would settle everything peacefully and now either you show us the boy or I'll call the police and blow the lid off the whole thing at once.

Aunt Tolley clenched her pearl necklace, like a nun of meanness clinging to her rosary of selfishness, and replied scandalized:

—Tommy, how could you marry this spoiled brat...?! You have nothing to accuse me of, it was a legal adoption and the child died of natural causes!

The man insisted, losing his patience:

—Aunt... Seriously, what happened to my son? I won't take him away from you, it's just that I've thought things over and I think Maggie deserves at least to have news of the child. The girl leads a difficult life now. I can't tell you the dangers she faces every day in her work, only that a simple picture of Abel would make her immensely happy.

Aunt Tolley made a gesture of washing her hands and said:

—I'm very sorry that Magdalena leads such a difficult life. But that's the way it is. Abel was a victim of sudden infant death syndrome and nothing could be done. An autopsy was performed, a full investigation of the scene and circumstances of death, of his medical history, and we were only told that it was a "crib death"; that usually happens. I can show you the documents of her death, if you like.

Then Tom Tolley finished his exasperation and shouted, standing up and throwing aside the chair he was sitting in seconds before: 

—Aunt, I don't just want to see those documents! I want the body exhumed for a DNA test! I don't believe anything you're telling me!!!!!

Aunt and nephew lost their temper, the screams in the living room caused the domestic workers of the residence to come running to see their screaming employer:

—You're crazy, Tommy!!!!! Taking the child out of its eternal rest...I'm telling you it's dead!!! I'm not lying to you, it's the truth!!!! The children of teenage mothers are always exposed to this kind of unexpected risks....
—I am going to exhume him; I am the father and I am in my right to ask to see my son one last time before he is buried forever!!!! And if you're lying to me, aunt....

The young Tolley couple angrily left the residence. They went to their car and drove off at high speed under the furious gaze of the old Tolley. As they drove down the highway, Lindsay said biting her knuckles:

—I always hated that old bitch...She thinks she's so smart.
—I'll call my lawyer as soon as we get to the hotel, Lyn.
—What if he really is dead?

Tom swallowed hard and replied:

—Don't say it, you know my aunt, we just can't be that unlucky. How would you put it to Maggie? "Hey, your son's dead, I'm sorry you needlessly risked your neck in Nevada but you've got plenty of money and a fucking killer alien as a souvenir.
—Robert told me he's having financial problems in Seattle.
—Yeah, he told me that too. The bimbo started giving away her money to freeloading relatives and friends. Turn, the computer guy, apparently found out about the situation through a social network. He discreetly alerted Mitkov so that he could try to advise her about managing her assets, but it was too late.

There was a long silence in which Lindsay leaned her forehead against the car window looking out at the landscape with regret, until she asked in disgust:

—And is she still responsible for the thing?
—The government simply gave him an allowance for the alien's expenses and told him to be very careful. In the time she's been in Seattle, "it" has killed four men and injured several more. One day it will be found torn to pieces.

Her husband replied, totally sure of what he was saying.

At that very moment, in Seattle, Washington, Maggie was leaving a bank in tears. She caught a bus that dropped her off a few blocks from her home, to which she ran, wiping away tears blackened by eyeliner. She had contacted her father again just a few weeks before. Hearing his voice again, she couldn't help but feel under his control again and confessed to him that she had had a son and given him up for adoption to be part of a government investigation that had made her a millionaire. To her surprise, her father was not upset. Rather, he reacted jubilantly, telling all his family and friends that his daughter was now very rich. Before long, distant relatives and long-lost friends appeared who claimed to have been looking for Maggie for years and to be happy that they had been able to find her by chance until now that she was so fortunate. People who didn't speak to her at school or college suddenly started calling her worried that they hadn't seen her for so long, and her old friends who abused her by asking her to do their homework for them came to congratulate her and then to cry that they had a thousand problems and frustrations that Maggie solved with her money. She spent three million dollars on advertising for one of her friends who wanted to be a singer, ten on another who wanted to become a filmmaker making her own movie, two more on another who wanted a house in Miami to summer with her boyfriend, six on a distant cousin who wanted to open a chain of fashion stores; and so she kept fulfilling wishes and making dreams come true until she was left with only five hundred dollars in her account and not enough to pay her own expenses for the next few months. And then friends and family disappeared again. She went crying to the back of her house to a large wooded area where Kisa used to go to spend the day prowling through the trees and scaring to death those unfortunate enough to pass by. On that occasion, Kisa had received a package from his mother and wanted to open it in his favorite place: a small, hard-to-access cave that he lit with an old gas lamp, where he could continue researching the information that was online about planet Earth. The girl imagined he would be there and went to the place sobbing, crawling in until she found him opening a medium-sized box with his sharp fingernails. She sat down next to him without saying anything, he looked at her quizzically and then shrugged his shoulders and went on with what he was doing; the Selenite took some letters out of the box and began to leaf through them slowly with his long sinister hands, saying:

—My mother sent me these things. I noticed that the box had been opened and resealed, but it doesn't matter, she wouldn't send anything suspicious.

Maggie began to see what else was in the package, tearfully commenting:

—My mother and I have a very bad relationship, she would never give me anything, but I for my son would choose something else...Or something less...Well, let's see: she sent you an empty oil container, stale bread, a screwdriver, a bear cut out of a magazine, lint balls and one of those Russian deranged communist hats.
—Oushanka, we wore them on the moon. Give it to me, I'll keep that and give you the rest.
—Thank you... What does the letter say?
—I don't quite understand these scribbles. Something about hell and American cheese.

The girl snuggled closer to him, who continued to decipher the letter indifferently until Maggie shouted at him, giving him a formidable shove that knocked him over:

—Why you can never be affectionate with me?!

Kisa stood up a little frightened by the girl's brutality, taking care of the low ceiling of the cave and answering:

—I'm usually in bed and without light.
—Don't say it like that, you imply something else!!!!!
—That time together before bedtime, when we chat about our lives, is more valuable to me than a hundred hugs given in public. You can trust, tell me what's wrong with you.

Kisa's understanding made Maggie recover her attitude of a sweet little helpless flower, covering her mouth and lowering her eyes:

—I'm in trouble. Maybe the gifts I gave to my friends were a bad idea...I've run out of money and I've got a lot of debts that my salary as a lab assistant will be enough to pay off...But it won't be enough to live on....
—There is some money that is mine. Use it. 
—I don't want to touch yours...

Kisa answered indifferently, trying on the hat his mother had sent him:

—I don't use it for anything. I give it all to you if it's only for our expenses and not for those leeches that call you every now and then. But if you still don't want to touch it, then you can stop paying for the house and we'll move here. We'll eat herbs and insects.
—No, it's okay...I won't spend any more on my friends...I've noticed that every time they call me it's to end up telling me they need money. 
—You'd better, earthling.

He replied, looking at her with mock distrust. Then he smiled slightly, almost paternally, stroked her hair and said:

—You must be careful with your friends on Earth. The life they lead here is inhuman, so much comfort makes one sick with boredom and corrupts the soul. They are all too materialistic. On the Moon, you were worth for who you were, not for what you had.
—There, you were worth for how many enemies you killed....

Maggie commented and Kisa continued:

—But everything was more sincere, problems were fixed very quickly and forever. Here they go through life smiling at each other and hating each other inside.
—People on Earth don't hate each other... If you smile, you do it for the sake of smiling and that's all. Not like in your case, you smile once a week unless it's to laugh at people's fear, which doesn't count not to mention it's scary.
—Generating fear is a form of control and defending myself in this way is completely valid in my situation as a prisoner of war. The Moon is at war with the Earth.

Maggie looked at him out of the corner of her eye and said in a mocking tone:

—Scary! We are at war with the Selenites... That is: Mrs. Ludmila, you and the madman who says you are gorgeous.
—On the moon I was. Now, laughing without a good reason is a true symptom of madness. Here, even in your televised comedies you have pre-recorded illogical laughter; you laugh when one of you has a humiliating accident, or if you trip or even when you hit each other. It seems kind of silly to me, also cruel.
—Oh, yes, Kisa... And on the Soviet Moon you didn't laugh at jokes, the jokes laughed at you.... Now I don't want you lecturing me with your Selenite propaganda! You don't understand me, nobody understands me!... 

Saying this, she left the cave crying as he watched her walk away without much emotion; he was getting used to Maggie's emotional outbursts, in fact they were getting on his nerves. She wandered among the trees wiping her tears with her hands and stopping to sob every now and then on the mossy trunks, with a certain self-pitying satisfaction in this. She continued to wander for a while through the mist that drew arabesques with the sunbeams streaming in from the arboreal roof of the forest, like a wounded nymph, until she felt a large pine cone bouncing on her head and heard Kisa's voice right behind her; bringing her back to reality:

— I hope you never have any real reason to make such scenes. I have already told you how to solve your problem and yet you keep whining about it. How is it possible that you are so smart about science and so dumb about life?

The girl gaped in indignation, then stammered in anger:

—How...how do you expect me to be okay when the people I thought were my friends used me and my dreams failed? Sometimes I think I should hate them all for expecting so much from me, and I hate myself for not being able to deal with these situations that keep coming down on me like a swarm. But I'm only eighteen, I have the right to break down and cry!!!!!
—No, you don't.

Kisa replied after throwing another pineapple at her, then adding:

—If I had started whining like that in the face of problems when I was your age, I'd be dead now. Get it over with and shut up. 

Before Maggie could get out of her stupor, a sweet teenage song started playing on her phone announcing that she had a call. She angrily answered without noticing who she was talking to:

—What?!

On the other end of the line, Dr. Wellman raised an eyebrow, looked at the receiver and said:

—Maggie, you sound a little different. Hey, I was just calling to remind you that Voyager asked to take tomorrow off, so I'll only need you to come in for an hour to feed and clean the guinea pigs. By the way, how are you doing, is everything ok, how is Kisa, is he still taking his medication?
—He doesn't want to swallow anything; she likes to go crazy. I have to give him the doses hidden in the food and I always have to make sure he doesn't change our plates... He has already doped me like this five times. I was seeing unicorns the first time....

Wellman's voice sounded amused:

—Well, we've all had a bad trip at one time or another. By the way, I got an e-mail from Tommy this morning. He sent it from a new address I didn't know him from and it's all mysterious. He's coming to Washington for a few days and wants to see you, alone...I mean, ...he's coming without Lyn. Have I caught you at something, my naughty ones?

The girl got up from the floor almost prancing and replied:

—I haven't spoken to her since we were in Nevada. Dr. Pemberton has been very kind to me, called me a couple of times shortly after they were married and promised to help me get my son back. But I haven't heard from him.

Wellman commented, enjoying another of his vices, gossip:

—Here between us, lately Tommy has been talking longingly about you, so I guess that's where this is all going....
—But... he just got married... and I'm supposed to be married to Kisa even though that's just a legal façade, but... Do you think...?
—Anyway, I gave him your address and he has replied saying that he will come to visit you tomorrow night. Or do you want me to tell him that you won't receive him, we are still in time and I know that, with "your husband" around, it could be very complicated?

Maggie thought about it for a moment and answered:

—No, no, I will tell Kisa to leave us alone and he will understand. Tell him... that it's okay. That I am waiting for him. Thank you for letting me know.

She ended the call getting lost in her thoughts with her eyes fixed on the emptiness, until Kisa asked with distrust:

—Why would I leave you alone?
—Maybe... Yes... People change. You have changed.
—I haven't changed, you just got to know me better. I'm still the same as the first day we were together.
—I feel you've changed. I feel that all people can change, no matter how terrible they have been in the past. I believe that everyone deserves a second chance. That in the end, we all end up finding the right path. And forgiveness, forgiveness liberates! I bet you forgave your mother for dressing you like a girl, even if you act angry and refuse to call her or answer her letters. You still open her packages very carefully and keep some of what she sends you. True love always sprouts!
—Did you eat my pills again?

Kisa asked and the girl explained:

—Dr. Wellman called me to let me know that the father of my child wants to see me and is coming tomorrow night to visit me. When I heard this, I suddenly felt strange... As if I sensed something... As if something big was going to happen to me.

Jealousy struck Kisa for the first time in his life. He had never been passionate about a woman or had a rival before. His first intention was to kill Maggie for making him feel so enraged, the second was to kill the man who would try to steal her from him, and finally he realized that he couldn't hate him for taking her simply because she wasn't really his. Then she found it necessary to consummate her marriage by force, after all, it would not be the first time he had subdued a woman like that. He began to approach her with a glazed look in his eyes as she continued to think aloud, her back to him:

—Now I guess in a way you were right, and I'm so sorry we fought over a silly thing. God, I was so ridiculous complaining about everything! Not taking into account that life always takes unexpected turns and you never know if around the next corner there will be a new hope. I know I shouldn't get my hopes up, but I'm not going to lie, it feels so good to dream!

She spun around gracefully, so absorbed in her reverie that when Kisa roughly cornered her against a tree and tried to start pulling up her skirt, she didn't realize what was happening and without thinking she kissed him lovingly on the mouth; leaving him dumbfounded at the same time she hugged him saying:

—Sorry, bad aim, I was actually going for the cheek but good, I had always been curious to know what it would be like! It hadn't been as strange as I imagined, in fact it was a seven on a scale of ten. I think you might as well have a girlfriend here on Earth, I'm sure some girl would be interested.

He let go of her as best he could and walked away, losing himself in the forest without a word.

Maggie came home and started writing lousy two-line poems on dozens of sticky notes that she pasted all over her room until she ran out of black marker. Then she threw herself on the floor to listen to love songs and at one point Kisa appeared, his expression more sinister than usual, to ask her for the phone number of the strange Joseph White. It was the first time he was interested in contacting the other Selenite, but Maggie didn't give the matter much importance as she painted hearts on her nails using black varnish. She woke up the next morning as if in a dream, noticing the fine dust particles floating around throwing sparkles in a ray of sunlight streaming through her window and listening to the sweet song of a little bird she couldn't see but guessed it hiding in the bushes in the garden. She went to the kitchen in her shirt and panties, looked for some fruit for breakfast while remembering the time Tommy called her into his office to tell her an awkward declaration of love, "Congratulations, you got the top grade in the class...and in my heart." She sighed and then Kisa appeared through the back door. He smelled of alcohol and looked very serious. He made his way to what was supposed to be his room, bumping first into a chair and then having trouble finding the latch on the door. Maggie noticed until that moment that he hadn't come to sleep, and asked him a little worriedly:

—Did you have too many drinks?

From outside the house, the odd Mr. White replied in a pasty voice:

—He had.... too many bottles!

Maggie locked the door, muttering to herself, "okay, I don't want to know anymore." She continued to daydream as she worked in the lab, needing on several occasions to have Gabin himself come to snap his fingers in one ear to bring her back down to earth. And so, night finally fell and she began to nervously arrange herself in her best dress while Kisa sadly watched her sitting on the bed; after a while, the Selenite warned as if in a threat, "I'm going out with White," and Maggie nodded in response. As eight o'clock in the evening approached, Maggie was alone in the anteroom of her house; sitting at a small table as she tried to calm herself so as not to look so excited. She wanted to look a little angry, if possible, to give herself importance now that he was married. She also wanted him to notice that she was willing to be good friends but not to forgive everything he had done to her and, more than anything, she wanted to see if he still remembered their time together in Massachusetts. Finally, there was a knock at the door and she got a terrible start. She took a breath, got up and opened it; meeting Aunt Tolley. Maggie said hello in confusion:

—Mrs. Tolley! I did not expect to see you here...
—I know you didn't. Who knows what shady business you two are up to. I had to lie to that lazy Robert, pretending to be Tommy, to get your address. Why do you keep the information about yourselves with such exaggerated zeal?

Maggie, disappointed, invited her in and the old woman came in looking around in disgust. She began to run her gloved finger over the furniture, checking that it was covered with dust, and said:

—I understand you live with a man.
—Yes...it's for work...He's...foreign and also has psychiatric problems.

Then Aunt Tolley replied somewhat hastily:

—For work, you say. Listen, we need to talk. Tommy and his wife are threatening me and it's because of you. I heard that you've had problems because you didn't know how to manage your assets and I think that's where this interest comes from to collect accounts that we had already settled.
—No, Mrs. Tolley... It is true that I have had some financial problems, but at this moment I have already solved them.
—I bet the crazy foreigner helped you with that.
—Actually, ...yes.

The old woman laughed and said:

—Of course! And then you go around crying with another creature in your belly. I have terrible news for you. Abel has passed away.

Maggie felt a kind of electric shock throughout her body and asked, turning pale:

—How did you say...?
—That he died. A couple of weeks ago. He died in his crib in his sleep. It dawned one day; I went to wake him up and when I carried him, he was already cold. We put a carved teddy bear on his headstone and I kept a lock of his hair in the family photo album. You should have seen his funeral, it was beautiful; there was the Thomson's, the Gallen's, the Walton's, the Buffett's, the Roggers, the Bloomberg's, the Irving's...well, you don't and never will know who they are. I even got a call from the president offering his condolences.

Nausea made Maggie slouch against a wall, clutching her stomach with one hand. She began to retch as her legs trembled and her fingers went ice cold. Aunt Tolley continued to speak disdainfully:

—But what's the matter with you? You've become even more hysterical than Tommy. He has come to my house very insolently to outrage me for Abel's death and accused me of lying to him. It's absurd! And I am sure that the one who is manipulating him against me is you. You're still holding him in a sex trap, and you're probably being seconded by that harpy Lindsay Pemberton. Both of you want to bleed me because you don't know how to do anything else but waste money. But you don't know who you've messed with... I didn't get to where I am without getting my hands dirty and I know how to nip problems in the bud.

Suddenly she opened her purse and pulled out a gun, then put the barrel in Maggie's mouth, saying:

— I know that as long as you live you will want to accuse me of your son's death to get money. With me it won't be easy to get what you want. I've come all this way erasing every one of my tracks and I'll leave without anyone knowing I was here or that I did anything. I will be clean and straight to the point. I'm going to give you, the more insignificant of the pair of sluts who have enslaved my clumsy nephew, a good lesson, so you can leave Lindsay a message. You'll see that if the dog dies, the rabies will die.

Meanwhile, Joseph White was leaving a liquor store and then climbing up a fire escape to the roof of a building to join Kisa, who was gazing longingly at the full moon; sprawled on an old abandoned couch. White sat on a box before him and began pulling out his purchases saying:

—We are the only men alive who, no matter where they are on the planet, will always be able to see the place where they were born at night. 

Kisa replied despondently:

—Sometimes I miss it. I would do it all the time but I don't allow myself to do it.

Then he took a bottle of liquor and prepared to open it, while Joseph White said:

—I admire your self-discipline, strict upbringing did you some good after all. I can't control myself; I always miss the Moon; though I don't really remember it well, I was just a little boy when I left. I vaguely have a memory that I didn't know when it was day or when it was night, and that it was harder to move there. I brought vodka in your honor. I guess that's what they drank at the Russian moon base.
—We drank kerosene. Pure alcohol on special occasions.
—It's a miracle that you made it to twenty-seven alive...

Said White and Kisa asked him:

—How old are you?
—Twenty-three. I know what you are thinking and the reason for my physical deterioration is in my genes. I was not as lucky as you and several of my organs do not work well. In any case, our life expectancy is not very encouraging.
—How long do you think we will last alive?
—They say we don't live past forty... Better not waste time.

White opened another bottle, took the first sip, twisted his face and then said:

—Now you're going to like it, it burns the throat when it goes down. How is Maggie, who was going to visit her tonight?

Kisa did not answer, scratching the glass of the bottle with his fingernails, immersed in his homicidal thoughts. White noticed his displeasure and opined:

—She's beautiful. It is logical that you have competition.
—How do you own a woman on Earth...if you're very ugly and don't want to rape her?
—Oh, I think you look lovely! But if you still don't trust my judgment, you can help yourself with money, ...
—I don't quite know how it works. I already gave it to her anyway, it didn't work.
—...a nice personality, ...
—Everyone is afraid of me and I tend to be violent.
—...or just do what you did on the Moon to get a woman.

With disappointment, Kisa recalled the way he fornicated his cousins, nieces, and the occasional one of his half-sisters on the Moon: first he would smile at her from afar, if she responded in kind, he would proceed to touch her, and if the woman in question didn't bite or scratch, he would take her to a corner and that was it. He preferred to keep quiet about his experiences and talk about something else:

—Maggie is too beautiful for me. It's already too much that "we're married".
—And... How is she in bed?
—I sleep with her but we've never done anything.
—She's your wife, you want her, you share a bed and there's no sex? What's wrong with you!

Kisa's answer was unexpectedly idyllic:

—She is different from other women. At first, she just seemed like a young and beautiful mother, I was attracted to her but nothing more. With time I began to notice her beauty more and more, until I began to be intimidated by such splendor; I ended up seeing her as something sacred, like the virgin mothers of the Catholics. For now, I don't need to touch her, it's enough to see her. 
—If one day she sucks you off, you're going to die.
—Explain yourself.
—Don't you know what is...? No, of course, "experimenting" on the Moon with the gravity so low was a nuisance... But the life of a couple here on Earth is much more complex, you know?
—What do you do here?
—I can tell you everything that porn and some sex professional friends have taught me, but maybe you should come home early tonight to ruin the evening for the lovers.
—Maybe...But I don't want her to get mad at me for getting in her way, plus you've piqued my curiosity. Tell me how things are here, just while this bottle runs out.

Mr. White gladly told all his fantasies and sexual adventures until his first bottle was finished, but his stories were so interesting that they needed to open more and so they continued until the sun began to rise and White was unconscious on the couch. Kisa tucked him in with his coat and started for home, feeling the floor move until she entered the foyer, where she found a pool of blood. His drunkenness was instantly cut off and he ran into the living room to find the walls, floor and even the ceiling stained red. Already distraught, he went to Maggie's room. It was empty and the dress she had worn the day before lying bloody on the floor. He bent down to pick it up, smelled it, checking it was hers with pain and anger. Then he heard Maggie's voice from the kitchen, calling him:

—Is that you, Kisa? You're late again.

The Selenite went after her voice and found her in her underwear, with her torn stockings stained with blood and her heels still on; she had a strange look behind her misplaced glasses and was washing off a large amount of blood she had on her.

—I had an accident, well a series of accidents.

She laughed nervously and showed him a wound on her arm, saying:

—I have something buried here, would you do me a favor and take it out?

Kisa looked at her in confusion and carefully felt the wound, then used his fingernails to pull out a bullet from inside. Maggie thanked with a smile, showing no signs of pain; she bandaged her arm with a rag from the kitchen, grabbed a gallon of bleach and cleaning cloths to take them to the living room; where she began to pick up the blood. Kisa went after her trying to see if she had any more injuries and then asked her seriously:

—Did the man who impregnated you do this, tell me now!
—No, he didn't come. It was a mistake, he was never going to come...Stay with me tonight, Kisa. I missed you yesterday and the day before yesterday. Besides White is so unfriendly....

The phone rang and Maggie continued to clean in her reverie, saying languidly:

—Tell whoever it is that I'm sick.

After a second thought, Kisa finally answered the call in his sinister voice:

—Who is it?

From a morgue in Vancouver, Dr. Tolley recognized the Selenite's voice and answered with some trepidation:

—Mikhailov, right? This is Tom Tolley speaking. Listen, I need to talk to Maggie...it's a very serious matter.

Kisa looked at Maggie and muttered:

—It's a guy named Tolley. He says it's serious.

Without looking up, Maggie replied:

—Tell him that...If it's about our son, I already know he's dead. That I don't want to talk about it now. And I don't want him to be calling our house either.

At that moment, Kisa understood that he was talking to the man he hated the most in the world and he mumbled to him:

—She says she already knows that her son died...And to stop calling her.
—She already knows? I did some DNA tests on the body...to corroborate.
—And ...?
—He's dead...
—When they die, they die. Goodbye, Tolley.

He said and hung up. Maggie was still quietly cleaning in the middle of the bloody room and Kisa looked at her without understanding what was going on. Finally, he made her drop the cleaning cloth and lifted her off the floor, saying quietly:

—Stop it...I'll clean up. You lost your son. I know it's harder for mothers. 

Maggie smiled, replying:

—It's a shame...but it's over...I understand you now, I understand how you felt when you lost your own child and why you got over it so quickly. The only quick way to erase the traces of a catastrophe is to be swept away by another one.

The girl laughed with a strange nervousness and Kisa stroked her hair, unable to understand what had happened. 



September 2, 2012


J. Gabin was smiling coldly, sitting in the armchair of a sober set of metal furniture located in front of a sand garden, on the white roof of the secret laboratories. He was looking intently at Kisa who was accompanying him cowering on the end of a couch, in a defensive attitude. Gabin said, undeterred by the Selenite's distrust:

—Now tell me about your grandmother's manuscripts.
—I have already told you everything. The papers themselves had nothing to do with the real reasons why the people of Nebo became intoxicated. The origin of our tragedy lies in the poor design of the base's survival systems and the environmental conditions in which we lived. Stop insisting on finding a way to bring that curse to Earth, it is impossible. Maybe the only way to transmit it now is by hereditary means. How do you plan to make such an epidemic, will you send me to impregnate about three billion women? Mankind on Earth can feel safe from disappearing as victims of the poison in my blood.

Gabin leaned toward Kisa, resting his elbows on his knees and interlacing his fingers in front of his forehead; and said more seriously: 

—If we isolate the causes, we could propagate the changes in humanity in simpler ways. Don't see these changes as something negative, simply as the next step in evolution. Think things through, Mikhailov, you tell me that the causal agent does not exist but your mother mentioned that in those manuscripts?
—I was speaking figuratively. There were only poems about freedom and hippie doodles in there. They poisoned you in the sense of promoting a hedonic life that went against the socialist ideals my grandfather intended to instill in his family. They talked about free love, rebelling against the system, and those things make my mother faint...Now just let me go, I hate being in this building, it looks like a tomb to me.
—Wait, Mikhailov...Maybe we should approach the investigation from another approach. Let's talk about something else, have you managed to adapt to your new life on Earth?

After a brief silence, Kisa replied:

—No... I hate this society... I hate their culture... Everything bothers me. I'm just happy about nature and Maggie, but lately she's been acting strange....
—Do you want to talk about it?
—No... She just seems to be acting strange, like something's happened to her.
—What happened to her, did you see anything out of the ordinary in her house?
—No, no, I didn't see anything... I just think she's acting weird...

At the same time, Maggie was in a downstairs clinical lab meeting with Wellman and the stoic Alice Voyager. Wellman was flipping through the Selenite's file, sitting negligently in a chair, while Voyager and Maggie waited for his directions; which after a while he communicated by speaking hesitantly:

—Well, in view of the results we have obtained...and the progress made with the mice...it seems to me that we should start all the experiments again from the beginning, but this time we will add twice the amount of bacteria that were grown on the moon base to the food.

Voyager then commented:

—Maybe then we'll get to see some results, doctor. But so far, we have already seen two generations born and no deformed or aggressive mice have appeared.

At this simple remark, Maggie reacted indignantly as she fixed her glasses with a rude gesture and said:

—What do you mean by "a deformed or aggressive mouse"? Kisa is not deformed!!!, she has a normal, symmetrical and complete face, it is just different from yours or mine. Kisa is not deformed, just different!!!!

Her answer surprised Wellman, but Voyager replied calmly: 

—You are right, Miss Cardenas, sorry, Mrs. Mikhailova. I apologize for the way I referred to Mr. Mikhailov. But you can't deny that he is aggressive.
—How can he not be aggressive if he grew up on the Moon, abandoned with a psychopathic family, and then they captured him like an animal to study him, he saw most of his relatives dissected in an autopsy room, it's logical, that he reacts like that, we all are aggressive at some point...!

After saying this, Maggie left the room with a firm step and slammed the door behind her; Wellman settled back in his chair and said while scratching his forehead with a pencil:

—Well, they say that when two people spend a lot of time together they begin to look alike. She has reacted suspiciously, don't you think?
—The girl is maturing, maturing a psychopathological disorder.

Voyager said with her typical indifference.

During the long trip back in an almost empty bus, Maggie remained silent, with one temple leaning against the window pane; looking at the landscape as if absent until she said to Kisa who was riding next to her, sleepily:

—Tell me about your son.

He stood thinking before answering and then muttered between his teeth:

—When he was born, I felt like crying. I already knew it was mine, that I had impregnated the mother, I was waiting for him....

Maggie was surprised at her answer, Kisa continued speaking with some embarrassment:

—He looked very bad. Half of his head was caved in, and it was obvious he wouldn't live long. It was a disappointing failure to me, and I think to the mother as well; though she could never express anything but obedience and fear to me. In spite of everything, the boy was sympathetic with his half head and innocent face. In the few days he was alive, he stayed awake and occasionally looked at me. I'm sure he realized who I was and that it was because of me that he was there, I think he expected me to keep him safe. But one day he fell asleep, went cold and didn't move anymore. He had clearly died but I instructed the mother to leave him near where we were, just in case he woke up. Of course, that never happened and eventually he started to smell bad...At least that's what the others said. Since I was furious with whoever said it, everyone pretended he was fine; that he was just sleeping. Until the day the Americans took over the base and, during the fight, someone knocked over the box I was keeping him in and his body fell to the ground like a bag of rotten grease and burst. Until then I thought: "fuck it all, he died". I didn't even bother to fight with anyone anymore. I wanted to die with him but nobody killed me, bad luck....

The girl smiled:

—You should have told me this the first time I asked you about him. You loved your son.
—I don't know... It's embarrassing to tell this story.
—You did love him, stop playing the tough guy! I would have loved him too no matter how he came into the world.

This last sentence made a deep impact on Kisa, who had to lower his gaze quickly because he felt his eyes watering. Before he could recover from the shock, he heard Maggie laugh in amusement and then say:

—It's so funny when you talk like that. A skinny little albino man with a funny voice, saying things like, "I used to scare my wife."
—You're not afraid of me, why? You really look me in the face and you're not afraid?
—You are just another human being. You don't fit the "bad boy" role, Kisa, you're too childish for that.

The Selenite stared at her for a moment, then muttered:

—You see the sea, you see the waves of calm water, and you don't wonder what's underneath…

They got off the bus, but not before the Selenite took a few minutes to cover his face well and Maggie felt a little annoyed by his need to hide like that; but she didn't want to say anything to avoid making him feel more uncomfortable. Once on the street, he began to walk a little away from her, who stopped short and held out her hand, saying:

—I have told you that outside I don't like us to walk if you don't go near me. If you get lost or anything, I'll be very angry.
—You're wearing heels...We look the same size...and I'm the man....
—Since you came to Earth and were taught to dress and act like a male you've become so insecure... Always looking at me from afar, shy, weird… Come here!!

The girl did not wait for an answer, she went to him to take him by the hand and force him to follow her. Since the strange incident in the bloody room, she had begun to feel strongly identified with Kisa. It was no longer simple compassion for a wretched creature in need of love, it was a kind of feeling of complicity between the two. Their conversations had become more frequent and intimate and, in the evenings, the physical expressions of affection had increased. It was now official that they shared the same bed, except that they had no overtly sexual contact, they were practically evolving their relationship from mother-son to husband-wife; and yet Maggie still denied the fact that Kisa desired her. It was inconceivable to her to imagine such a thing from that being she wanted to believe naive. On several occasions she had woken up in the middle of the night and had heard him rubbing something rhythmically under the blankets, with agitated breathing; but she preferred to pretend that she didn't notice anything, to avoid embarrassing explanations. She thought he must be dreaming, playing at something, remembering his girlfriend from the moon, anything but being turned on by her; the very idea made her sick. Reaching the lonely street outside her house, Maggie spotted a car parked in front of her yard. She felt a little nervous, wondering if they might be police, and signaled Kisa to enter the house through the back door; he obeyed by separating from her and disappearing into a grove of trees. Maggie continued to approach the front entrance of her house with distrust. As she came within a few feet of the unfamiliar car, a couple stepped out of the vehicle and she immediately recognized them with a start: it was Tom and Lyn Tolley. Maggie froze where she was and Tom greeted her, saying as he hugged her:

—I know I was a son of a bitch...But understand me now, I lost too.

The girl looked at him for a second, confused, then violently let go giving him a shove and said:

—He wouldn't have died if he had been with me! But now it doesn't matter...Finding the culprits won't bring him back to life and that was the last wound you did to me. From now on, I want nothing more to do with you.

At that instant Lindsay approached and took Maggie by the hands, speaking calmly:

—Maggie, listen. I know what you're going through and it's not fair to ruin your life because of a mistake that wasn't yours alone. You should go back to college, have good friends, and eventually find a boy who values you and makes a good home with you. I believe that the best time to fix things is always now, and that no one gets very far in life if they're carrying a burden of pain, of past mistakes. Tom and I thought, and decided that it would be best for us to be around you as responsible adults to support you, at least for a while. Tommy acted like an unethical son of a bitch...But, in some ways, he's the only family you have now. And I know that his relationship with me is solid and that you won't fall for his game again, so I decided to go back to research myself and asked Tommy to look for a job at a hospital here in Seattle. I just want the day when I tell my own children about the tragedy of their father's first baby, I can say that in the end we did everything right and you were happy. I don't want painful pasts, I didn't have an unhappy childhood, I don't want my children or yours to have one...For their sake, let's try our best to fix things.

Maggie looked down and nodded in response. Lindsay smiled languidly:

—That's fine. Now, I'll give you our new address and phone number. Whenever you have a problem, you can count on us.
—Thank you... It's not necessary. But I appreciate your support.

The girl replied without looking up. At that moment, they heard a noise from inside the house and saw a curtain close quickly. Maggie explained:

—Kisa is inside. He usually hides from visitors.

Lindsay swallowed, remembering the scars around her eyes that she had to carefully cover with makeup every morning, and chose not to comment. But Tom approached Maggie and said seriously:

—About that subject...Maggie, people often get into serious trouble by getting involved with dangerous people. Do you remember Aunt Tolley?

The girl blanched and answered nothing, as Tom continued:

—She disappeared shortly after we learned about Abel, no one knows where she is now. We're guessing that she actually did something terrible about the baby and in her flight ended up even worse...and that got me thinking that maybe...you Maggie....
—I...?!

asked the frightened young woman and the man continued:

—...You could end up like this, for making bad decisions. Tell me, is that moon thing blackmailing you somehow, has he...has he done something to you?
—No, no... he’s totally harmless.

Tolley pointed at him gravely:

—You've been attracted to him since we were in Nevada, you should keep your distance a little. Or are you... Are you agreeing to have sex with that...?

Again, Maggie lost her temper:

—But how dare you ask me something like that, I am not "attracted" to him in any way and there was never anything inappropriate between me and him!!!!! Now excuse me, I want to be alone...Thank you for visiting me. I will see you later in the lab, doctor.

Then she went into the house, locking the door behind her. She drew the curtains and turned off the lights, then plopped down on a sofa while rubbing her face. Kisa approached her silently, almost crawling on the floor with that sinister way of moving he sometimes had. He came to lay his head in her lap and she stroked his hair saying:

—How can you trust them? On the one hand, I think I should and on the other...I think I should have sent them both to hell...But I really feel lost sometimes.
—It was the man...? 
—Yes. He wanted to talk about our son. Just a few weeks ago, I would have been so excited to see him. But now...I felt as if he was insulting me just by putting his face in front of mine. His very existence offended me. I pushed him so hard that I hurt my wrist.

The Selenite sighed as if relieved and said, as he grabbed the hand that was caressing him to gently lick her wrist:

—Why are you still nervous, Maggie?
—He asked me about his aunt.
—Which aunt?
—Nothing...An aunt of his...He also said you wanted to sleep with me.
—Yes, I like it. You're warm and you make me sleep with love.
—Not in that sense... In the sense of making love. The idiot is still worried about his macho pride, he'll think I'm part of his harem.

Kisa didn't answer anything and went back to lie on her lap. Maggie felt unsatisfied with that reaction and then argued, as if explaining to herself:

—If you had wanted to have sex with me, you would have simply forced me to do it long ago. Our relationship is much more complicated than it seems.
—Yes...

Sighed the Selenite, closing his eyes, ecstatic as she caressed him.

The next morning, Maggie was getting ready to go to her job as a lab assistant when she received a call from Wellman telling her that he needed Kisa that day. By then the Selenite had already gone to his cave in the woods looking to scare the morning joggers and Maggie had to rush off to call him. She was running late, on the bus she realized she had brought nothing to cover Kisa's face with and got into a fight with a lady who was looking at them in horror and then with a mother whose young son started crying at the sight of the Selenite, who was trying to hide his face as best he could with his hair and his Russian hat, arguing with Maggie for making him leave so abruptly. When they finally arrived, Maggie was sweaty, disheveled and angry; with Kisa complaining that she was thirsty and making her more desperate. She finally arrived at her workspace, gave the Selenite a juice to shut him up, and left him to entertain himself in the impossible task of making Voyager impatient by asking her all sorts of questions: "What are you watching on that device?", "What are you typing? ", "do you have a coffee vice?", "have you ever been excited about anything?", "do you know I could kill you?!"; questions whose answers were invariably and respectively: "something", "nothing", "maybe", "no", "yes". Then Maggie put on her lab coat, sat down at a table before a cup of coffee and exhaled more calmly. Just then she felt someone gently pat her shoulders and turned to meet the smiling Lindsay Tolley, whom she greeted as she thought about the lousy luck, she was having that day:

—Doctor! I forgot you'd be here. ....
—How have you been, Maggie? You're running late, aren't you?
—I had trouble with Kisa...
—Did you bring him?
—Yes, he's in the back with Dr. Voyager, in "1922 Nosferatu" mode.

Lindsay turned around, stiff with horror, and found Kisa staring at her (next to Voyager who remained in her world); the blonde muttered a tremulous "hello" and Kisa responded with a strange smile. Lindsay slowly turned around again and said:

—I think he's glad to see me again...somehow.

After thinking for a few seconds, Maggie explained:

—We are very grateful to you. Thanks to your work in Nevada, the research made a lot of progress and we were able to have a life with a little more freedom.
—I'm glad we could help you. You were really heroic for the whole team in that subway facility. You've also been so sweet these past few months, sending me emails and comments on the photos I post. My mother practically adopted you as another one of her daughters.

Maggie looked at her puzzled:

— What do you mean?
—Well, you already know my life and my secrets. Thank you for taking such an interest in me, you've really taken a place in my heart.

Suddenly Maggie was lost, she didn't understand what she was talking about but she tried to follow the conversation nicely:

—Thank you, doctor. You are also very special to me. I feel that, after all, you have become a good friend of mine. I think that while we chatted a few times over the messenger, I don't remember talking that much.
—We've been chatting every day, for long hours.
—Oh, no! I think I know what happened... I usually leave my social networks open for Kisa to entertain himself looking at pictures of me or my friends....
—I've been chatting with Kisa..., did he ask me to come back?

Lindsay turned startled to see the Selenite biting into the juice straw while giving her a look that made her very uncomfortable. "It was this... The evil alien bastard fantasizes about Pemberton in my own bed every night," Maggie thought and then said:

—No, no, doctor! I was the one who always talked. I assure you that you haven't met him on more than one or two occasions. Don't worry.

At that moment Wellman arrived, accompanied by Mitkov. Wellman took Lyn Tolley by surprise, hugging her waist and kissing one cheek, while saying:

—My sexy blonde doctor is back. I have good news; we will finish early today as our schedule is not so tight. We just need... Where's Kisa?
—In the back, with Dr. Voyager.

Maggie answered reluctantly. Wellman turned around, looking at Voyager alone deeply focused on her work, then exclaiming:

—He is not there, honey!
—We have a problem...

Mitkov then observed, pointing to the security camera, the lens of which was covered by an empty juice box. Finding the Selenite posed a difficult challenge, as Kisa was particularly adept at hiding and being silent; as well as having the ability to climb and sneak almost anywhere. He had easily been able to slip into the ventilation system or escape through a window. Almost the entire morning was wasted searching for the Selenite in and around the building, which added to Maggie's bad mood and annoyed Lindsay Tolley as well; who had to spend her first day of reintegration into the team looking around every nook and cranny where Kisa could have slipped in, until something ripped her skirt and she had to run back to the clinical lab to try to repair it temporarily with a stapler. Mitkov and Wellman communicated with Gabin to try to find clues on the surveillance cameras, while Voyager and Maggie searched even the treetops in the gardens. So, almost at noon, Lindsay was alone stapling her torn skirt; then she had a feeling that the Selenite was right behind her. The blonde, sitting at a desk table, thought for a moment that it must be just her imagination; but then she cautiously turned around and confirmed her fears when she saw Kisa staring at her, standing in front of the closed door. Instinctively she looked towards the security camera, discovering that it was still covered and then opted to handle the situation peacefully:

—Wow...you showed up, where have you been? 
—I've been after you the whole time. I even tore your skirt and you didn't notice.

Lindsay shivered; it was getting personal. She tried to remain calm, saying:

—Are you still mad...about Nevada? I apologized to you...
—An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; I'm glad I convinced you to come.
—I was just doing my job in the autopsy room....

Kisa approached her until he slowly caressed her face with his long hands with steel-sharp nails, while he said with a sarcastic smile:

—You were just gutting them, weren't you?
—No... No, no! I didn't kill those people. I was just examining their bodies because that was my duty. Your clan was killed on the moon by the military, I had no responsibility for that.

Before she could finish speaking, the Selenite had already grabbed her by the neck; forcing her to lie violently on the desk while he said in her ear:

—If you scream, I won't kill you, I'll rip the skin off your face and leave you like that until they find you. Today we are going to finish what we started that day.
—You have no good reason to do this.... I'm telling you; I didn't kill them!
—You've managed to hide the marks I made on you well, but they're still there. They will always be on your beautiful face, as a reminder of me. I'd like them to be more noticeable. This time I'm going to penetrate you deeply and leave marks that are impossible to hide.

The doctor tried to continue the dialogue:

—Think about what my family will feel when they know you did this to me, I am also a wife... A daughter, a sister.... Think of your mother!
—My mother? 

Asked the Selenite already on her, tearing off her blouse:

—You look like my mother when she was younger. She was a very beautiful woman, very proud, very cold... Very cruel. Sometimes I felt like doing horrible things to her, but I never did anything to her; after all, she was my mother. But you weren't.

Lindsay made one last attempt, writhing and covering her chest, she didn't lose her courage and kept trying to make him reason:

—Mijailov, listen to me, you were the leader of that clan, weren't you? It was your responsibility to decide what they should or should not do. The astronauts who arrived at the Nebo base were not even sure that you were still living there, no one was going with the intention of killing the survivors. They must have because they were attacked. It was your responsibility as a leader to have told your people to ask first and attack later, but you didn't! You and your mother survived because you gave up. You all would have survived if you had cooperated, if you had told them to find out what those strangers wanted before you tried to kill them. So, they are dead because of you. You didn't handle the situation well and your people died. You want to be mad at someone, be mad at yourself. I had nothing to do with this. And if I did, I would have tried to avoid any bloodshed.

Kisa was speechless. He released her and walked over to a corner where he simply folded his arms, watching her. Lindsay rearranged her blouse, sitting down on the desk, saying with some relief but without losing her guard:

—I'm not accusing you of anything, I understand how difficult your whole situation must be. I find it hard to believe that you are the same person who listened to me and gave me advice when I told him about my husband's infidelities, you seemed so understanding....
—I cheated on my girlfriend too. I knew about it. I could tell you how to avoid it.
—It's horrible to imagine with whom you were unfaithful, since your only options were your own relatives.

Suddenly Kisa began to slowly approach her, showing no emotion. Lindsay felt every hair on her body stand on end as he said, looking at her with his sinister eyes:

—My mother was my mother; the others were just females. You shouldn't have to see me as a wild animal, we have some things in common. I don't see the difference between what I do to living people and what you do to dead people that you have to examine. We just do what we have to do, don't we?
—No. The difference is that I don't want to hurt them.
—What does it matter what they feel if they wouldn't care what you would feel if you were in their place? My enemies cease to be people the moment I consider them a threat or an obstacle. I feel no remorse for killing them.

Lindsay commented a bit quizzically:

—No, it's not the same thing...It's hard to believe...I told you about when I was a chubby, insecure teenager, and you treated me with such understanding. What were you thinking in those moments when I opened my heart to you, is it so much hatred to have such patience to stalk someone like that? You seemed so sweet, sensitive, sometimes poetic; so much so that I could only think that I was really talking to Maggie, to a person...good. What did you think the day I told you about when Selma and I had sleepovers, and together we played dolls or told each other our little girl secrets, what did you think...you being the one who murdered her?

The Selenite answered without hesitation:

—I thought I had freed you from something that was poisoning you. She was your friend, but you are not like her; and that was the real reason why I did not kill you today. But I still care about you, and that sometimes makes me uncomfortable. 

Lindsay looked at him confused and scared. Shuddering at the thought that she was dealing with an unpredictable psychopath who had a strange obsession with her. Her husband's words came back to her mind and this time she totally agreed with him: Maggie was in grave danger and this being would not stop killing. Fortunately for her, just then Wellman arrived and said with his typical joviality:

—Good job, Lyn, you found him! Now I hope you are willing to cooperate, Kisa; if so, we will all be finished with our work for the day in no time. All we need from you is a sample....
—I've already bled enough to fill a lake.
—...of semen.

Kisa looked at him as if shocked and Wellman added, handing him a plastic vial:

—Don't look at me like I'm asking your cum to eat it with strawberries! This is a routine test. Now go to the bathroom and put that...in this container. Easy, isn't it?

Three hours passed and Kisa still didn't come out of the bathroom. The entire team gathered in the clinical laboratory to watch the clock hands tediously move forward and, finally, Wellman muttered:

—Are you sure it's a boy?

Lindsay said, rubbing his eyes:

—He's a grown man. What I can't tell you is whether or not the instrument will work for him...Although in theory it works for him, he had a child.

His response prompted Wellman to comment mockingly:

—Surely now he's thinking, "How do I jerrrk off vithout zcirrrkuncidating myszelf vith my own nailsz??"

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Lindsay said:

—For God's sake, shut up, you sound the same.

Then everyone fell silent, already tired of even trying to take it all in a humorous way. Finally, Dr. Mitkov spoke up:

—Perhaps what Dr. Wellman says in jest is just what is going on...I'll go and see how it goes.

Then Wellman replied:

—Hey, doc, be careful! He could misunderstand you or something. I'd say it's better if a woman comes in; Maggie, preferably. He trusts her.
—Me? He'll feel more uncomfortable, I'm like his mother.

Maggie replied and J. Gabin ordered her with a half-smile:

—You should go there with him. Please, go.

The young assistant obeyed, entering the bathroom timidly and closing the door behind her. She found Kisa sitting in a corner, sadly leafing through a pornographic magazine. Hearing her enter he gave her a quick glance and then looked back down at the floor muttering:

—This is humiliating....
—I don't think you're afraid of hurting yourself, I know you know how to lead your life normally with sharp fingernails. No one will judge you if you do it fast, slow, or if it comes out little or whatever. I really don't know what to tell you in this case...Except that if you take longer, it will be worse.
—I just don't want to do something like that here and now.
—But you have to...My job depends on this kind of thing.
—I'm sorry, but it's impossible.

Maggie got a little annoyed and replied:

—This is not a good time for another one of your weird whims, everyone is waiting out there for me to fix this, including Lindsay Pemberton who.... What happened there, why did you find a way to be alone with her, do you like her? I mean, it's your life, I don't care if you notice anyone. But why Lyn Pemberton? Of all the women in the world...
—She's not the woman I'm in love with and I can't do this!

"God protect us, he's in love!" thought Maggie as she heard Kisa's reply; noticing later that he was already very embarrassed so she felt sorry for him. She left to beg everyone to let him try it the next day, to which the rest of the team agreed; fed up with waiting. All the way home, Kisa was silent and crestfallen. At night he went out drinking with his friend White and returned at almost one o'clock in the morning, but did not go to bed. He rummaged through some documents until he found the telephone number of his mother in Russia. He talked to her about religion and cockroaches until the sun came up.
 

September 8, 2012


A full week passed and the semen sample from the Selenite had still not been obtained. Kisa was suffering from a kind of psychological helplessness that led him to refuse to leave the house and to talk even with Maggie. He spent the days asleep in the darkness of the basement and the nights drinking alone and silently on the roof, looking at the moon. Maggie felt deep sympathy for his wounded male pride, but he had more important matters to worry about first; such as the fact that his backyard was beginning to stink of rotting flesh. She chewed her nails in circles, thoughtfully, as she glanced every now and then at a mound of disturbed earth next to her rose bushes, finally she had an idea. 

That Saturday she took her few savings and went to a garden store, then to a hardware store. She returned mid-morning in a cab, bringing with her several garden sprites that she fixed to the ground with a huge mass of poorly mixed cement that she made herself over the mound of disturbed soil in her garden. She even molded a cavity in the jumble, which she would later fill with water to make a small pond. In mid-afternoon she drank a lemonade with trembling hands, staring at her handiwork that had managed to seal the source of the odor but was tremendously strange and striking. Then she thought she heard a rustling, a soft rumbling beneath the earth. She approached with trepidation imagining that the weight of the cement had perhaps caused the ribs to give way among the rotting, swollen flesh that lay beneath, and that the whole thing would probably collapse creating a macabre volcano of cement, rot and pestilent gases. She touched the surface of her monstrosity in search of cracked or loose areas, trembling with nervousness, and then Kisa's voice suddenly rang out behind her back; making her scream out of surprise:

—What did you kill? There's something dead and rotten, buried in there.

The girl turned around as if electrified, explaining while Kisa looked at her with distrust:

—Killed? Why… why do you say that? what's here... clearly is a sewage leak...But I think with this...it will have been repaired by now....
—Call a plumber. That's what you do, isn't it?
—Plumber? No, what plumber? He'll make you uncomfortable and ask questions like... Is he an alien? And then he will tell the media and then, bang! When we find out, you will be prey to ufologists....
—But I'm human, not alien. My grandparents were Soviet...from Earth....
—But you were born on the Moon, that makes you practically an alien!!!! And, ... no more talk! I know better and it's better not to call plumbers.

Kisa went back into the house, with a sigh of resignation. Not quite knowing what to do, Maggie stood for a moment drumming her fingers on a sprite in her "pond" and then ran inside the house in search of Kisa. She found him coming down the basement stairs and when he heard her, he turned to look at her, waiting for her to say something. Maggie stammered:

—Have you...have you taken your...your medicine?
—Yes. It helps me to be calmer but it also makes me very sleepy and makes me see things differently, realize that I really do regret a lot...So I wish I could sleep and not wake up, or wake up on the moon and this would be a nightmare...And they still expect me to give them that sample...
—I'm sorry. I know you're having a hard time... Haven't you tried here...?
—I don't feel like it... And if I force myself, it's worse...
—It's okay, I guess all men go through this sometime.

He nodded his head, resigned, continued downstairs and suddenly stopped, turning to look at Maggie to ask:

—Can I ask you a question and have you answer it honestly?
—Sure...I owe you that....

Replied the girl, plucking up the courage to explain the appearance of the clandestine grave in the backyard and the bloody events in the living room of her house that August 31. She was ready to tell the whole truth, since she could no longer carry the weight of that dreadful secret alone and needed to share the burden with someone. Kisa looked down at the floor with his blonde hair falling over his face, and clenching his fists he asked seriously:

—Would you have sex with me?
—What?
—Just... it's a hypothetical question... I've been thinking... and seeing that now that I'm on Earth I'm a medical freak among almost all of a healthy and beautiful humanity, I really wanted to know...how disgusting I am....
—Well...I've seen uglier men, but I wouldn't know how to answer you.
—Well, thank you. By the way, you're bleeding from one leg.

With horror, Maggie noticed that she had injured herself with the tools in the garden but didn't realize it in her nervousness and because of her unusual tolerance for pain. The cut was quite deep; she had to go to the emergency room to get some stitches. She was waiting for the attending physician to finish dressing the wound, when he told her she should leave her alone for a moment and unexpectedly Tom Tolley came through the door in his hospital uniform, as handsome and athletic as ever. Maggie mentally scoffed to herself as she caught herself thinking, "He looks radiant in the garb of his profession, but he's still a son of a bitch." Tolley came up smiling and said:

—I thought I saw from afar a shock of black hair crowning a curvaceous silhouette and thought, "that can only be Maggie Cardenas." What are you doing here?
—I had a gardening accident...And I'm not "Cardenas" anymore.

Tom Tolley came over to examine her, saying:

—It's awful that you use the thing's last name. Did that do anything to you?
—No. His name is Kisa and he's harmless.
—Maybe when he's up to his nose in Fluerixiline, Sertraline and I don't know what other drugs Robert has prescribed for him. Lindsay told me that last week she had a terrifying encounter with him. He stalked her into a corner and threatened to skin her alive and such.

Maggie responded in disbelief:

—I'm sure he's not really the psychopath everyone describes him as. He is able to adapt well to social norms, he is responsible and organized when he needs to be; he also has compassion for most animals, which he met live until he arrived on Earth and they amazed him so much that he decided to become a vegetarian; and in general, he is quite passive and sweet. The "killer alien" behavior only emerges when he feels threatened or our social regulations clash with the ones he had back on the Moon. He's...like a jungle warrior brought to the city.

Dr. Tolley shook his head negatively and when the other doctor returned, he asked him to let him finish treating Maggie. Once alone again, he continued the conversation:

—Investigations into Aunt Tolley's whereabouts have reached a blind spot. Apparently, she purchased a plane ticket to Seattle; Robert confirmed that she received a suspicious email from someone posing as me to find out your home address. By researching the IP of that email address, they traced the origin to Aunt Tolley's computer. So, Aunt Tolley flew here to talk to you, but the trail ends right there. She never got to see you. Something must have happened between the airport and your house.

Maggie was silent, pale as paper. Tolley added:

—Or did she talk to you?
—No! No, I never saw her.

The young woman lied and Tolley continued speaking:

—Perhaps the alien saw her before you did... I have given her up for dead.
—Every time Kisa has killed, he has made sure to leave the body exposed for all to see; as a form of warning. He doesn't kill for pleasure or impulse; he kills to defend himself or to control through terror. I don't think he murdered her.

Maggie asserted and Tom replied smiling:

—The aunt disappeared here in Seattle, if Mikhailov didn't kill her, who else did, you? You?

Maggie had a coughing fit and then suggested:

—Maybe...Maybe she's not even dead...Maybe she's hiding out there, Tommy.
—It's strange that she didn't come to your house. I'm sure she got close, but the monster killed her before she could join you. It's the most logical thing to do.
—Well... who knows... Kisa is unpredictable... He could have done it.

The girl bit her tongue, reproaching herself for blaming Kisa. But after all, she thought, the Selenite had done enough atrocities that framing him for the old aunt's death was small potatoes compared to all his previous murders. Tolley finished healing her and said, gravely:

—I think the best thing you could do would be to kill him.... Poison him somehow.
—Why would I do such a thing?!
—Because the guys we've been working for want the alien to create some kind of biological weapon. We all suspect that. You would do mankind a world of good by destroying that creature. It's a weapon, a living weapon.

Then the girl explained:

—There is another man who has the same syndrome as Kisa and besides they already collected enough information about him to do whatever they want. Killing him is useless.
—Even so, he is a danger to everyone. He kills in cold blood, hates everyone around him, is cunning and fast; if unfortunately, he has offspring...maybe that new hereditary syndrome will really come to Earth to wreak havoc. A disease that would give birth to murderous psychopaths without remedy. Maggie, I know you are not capable of such a thing, but pluck up the courage one day and kill that abomination. It's a threat to all of humanity, I mean it!

The girl thought for a moment, stunned, then muttered:

—You may be right, but I would only do it if I could find a way for him not to suffer in the process...He's not evil, he just has that disease in his genes....

Dr. Tolley waved him to wait, left the room and returned shortly after with a vial, which he then handed to her; saying quietly:

—A little dissolved in water or in food. A drink will be enough, I promise you that he will not suspect anything. It will only make him sleepy; he will begin to fall asleep and in an hour he will have passed away. No one will find any traces of an unnatural death. It will look like he had a cardiac arrest and nothing more.

Maggie stared at the jar in dismay and replied:

—Tom...I can't do this to him. Kisa trusts me!
—If you don't do it, who will? Maggie, I swear I've bought a gun...And sometimes I drive down your street, hoping to see it and fill it with lead. I haven't been able to sleep peacefully since I learned that infernal creature exists. Please... Stop feeling sorry for him and kill him for everyone's sake!

Maggie didn't know what to answer and then thought, "the only thing more valuable than a life, is the life of a multitude." She sadly accepted the vial Tolley offered her and put it in her purse. She returned home feeling terrible. When she arrived, she saw no sign of Kisa and assumed he had gone out drinking. She took the flask from Tolley and carried it to a little-used shelf in the kitchen, still wondering whether it would be right to use it or not. She left it hidden there and went to lie down on the couch, turning on the TV and flipping through the channels as she felt overloaded with thoughts that overwhelmed her. The loss of her son, the threat Kisa posed, the new betrayal of her family and friends, her failed love affair with Tom, her thwarted college career, the memory of her mother breaking her back and cursing her, and that of Aunt Tolley's head exploding as blood gushed out like spurts; soaking that whole room that now seemed so peaceful and cozy. She closed her eyes tightly as if trying to erase that image from her mind and then she felt herself being watched. She immediately looked to the side, there she saw Kisa leaning against the frame of the basement door, half hidden in the darkness; covering himself with a coat and watching her with the painful sadness of one who sees something he desperately longs for but knows he will never be able to reach. The girl was puzzled by his expression and asked:

—Kisa, is something wrong?

It seemed to take him a while to realize that the question was for him, then he answered only:

—No. It's just very cold.

Maggie insisted, not satisfied with that brief answer:

—We'll be twenty-two degrees, tops. Are you sure you're all right?
—No, it's as cold or colder than on the moon. Can I lie down there with you?
She answered him by opening her arms and he went to her lap seeking her warmth. Maggie stroked his hair and kissed his forehead, as was her habit, then she realized that Kisa was actually burning with fever. She had to call Wellman immediately.

—I don't know if you've seen enough science fiction movies, Maggie?

Said the doctor over the phone, as he soaked in a Jacuzzi accompanied by two perky, silicone-filled prostitutes:

—...but aliens always die from common Earth diseases. So, if you tell me he's got a cold and a fever of forty, I can't help but worry. You shouldn't have let him spend his nights out in the open drinking nonstop. Have you given him acetaminophen yet, made sure he's not too stuffy? Doc Bobby will lose a lot of money if the alien dies, Maggie...I want you to keep him under observation and apply the classic cold water soaked cloth to cool him down. Call me in an hour and let me know how it went.
—Okay... But I repeat, doctor, he looks pretty bad. I'll call you back.

Maggie hung up the phone and went back to her bed to lie down next to Kisa, who was struggling not to fall asleep while she moistened his forehead every now and then with a wet cloth. They looked into each other's eyes for a while as if to say without words how bad they felt and after a long silence, Maggie finally spoke:

—I don't understand your attitude. When you don't leave me alone for a second, then you completely ignore me. Why didn't you tell me before that you felt bad?
—You understand that I'm much older than you and I can take care of myself. I don't understand why you insist on treating me as if I were a child or a pet.
—Don't you always follow me around as if you were one of those?
—But it's not because I want you to take care of me, it's because I want you to love me....

Such a response startled Maggie but also moved her. It was the first time that someone of the opposite sex had been so devoted to her. She blushed, lowering her eyes, not knowing what to answer because of her nerves, and then she realized that the one who was trying to talk to her about love was a creepy murderous creature brought from the Moon. She immediately neutralized the situation by hugging him tightly and saying while kissing his cheek:

—Oh, you know I love you very much!

Kisa did not have the courage to continue the subject and preferred to remain silent, enjoying the closeness and the scent of Maggie, who at that moment felt like a seductress of men. They stayed a long time without talking, while she caressed him thinking: "The worst lover in the world must be a little guy... I think that if I were to accede to his desires, seeing him coming towards me would make me want to sit him on my lap to read him a story more than anything else. However, he has his thing. The hard body like carved wood and the skin so smooth it makes you want to kiss it; it could be that turning off the light, without looking at that face...The important part is not much but it is not negligible either, just the right size, neither too much nor too small..." He was tossing the idea around until Kisa said:

—Tell me what happened with the person buried in the backyard.

The girl stood in one piece and whispered:

—What do you say...?

He stood up a little, leaning on one elbow and saying:

—I know something happened in the living room. Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid.

Maggie swallowed and began to explain in a low voice:

—That day, when I thought my ex-boyfriend was coming and he didn't, his aunt came instead. The woman who adopted my son. She came to tell me that my baby had died and that now she was having problems because of me... I couldn't pay attention to her; I didn't understand what she was telling me; all I could think about was that my world had ended. She kept telling me things I don't remember and suddenly, I don't know where she got a gun...The next thing I knew, I had the barrel of the gun in my mouth and I understood that she was going to kill me.

She began to cry at the same time she threw herself at Kisa to embrace him, almost like in an onslaught that he found it hard to stop due to the girl's strength; who then continued to narrate, between sobs while he stroked her hair:

—Then I don't know what happened, maybe I was lucky, but I managed to pull out the cannon and catch her wrists. Everything was fast and confusing; adrenaline was running through my veins as I thought about saving my life and punishing that woman who had not been able to take good care of my son. I felt something burning in one arm and saw that she had shot me, but I thought that since I had not been wounded in a vital part I could continue to fight to take the gun away from her. Part of me just wanted to snatch the gun from her and point it at her, tell her she was an old whore, call the police to arrest her and have her die of shame in jail....But there was another part of me...that got out of control...As we struggled I managed to get hold of the gun and. ...I don't know...I fired without thinking and saw his head bursting and splattering blood, brains, everywhere...It was horrible...but so real, so brutal,...that now I find it even romantic the way gore movies present death. I was bathed in her blood, I felt its smell and its ferrous taste...And I could have been overcome by panic...But I thought there was no time, that it was too late...I had killed her. I began to gather the pieces of her shattered skull and wrapped them with her body in a sheet. I ran to take off my bloody dress and dug a hole back there by the rose bushes...I wasn't thinking, I wasn't sad or scared...I was just doing what I had to do to avoid more trouble.... And I think at times I even felt satisfied that I had claimed Abel's life like that! I buried her as best I could and put garbage bags and dry leaves on top of the disturbed earth, to better hide that makeshift grave. Then you came...you helped me clean up...and we went on with our lives.... While she rots in our backyard!

Kisa was silent for a moment, thinking, and then said trying to calm her down; taking into account for the first time the social norms of Earth:

—Actually, you killed in self-defense. I suppose you should have called the authorities and honestly explained everything so as not to make the problem worse.
—I was very angry with her when the gun went off. I killed her...
—I don't know, Maggie. Are you guilty? You went with your instincts, the ones that I have such a hard time controlling when I'm not medicated like I am now. Instincts are part of our being, we are born with them, they are our nature but releasing them means giving the go-ahead to almost everything that is essentially evil. We are guilty of not hiding the monster we really are. But think no more, it's over, pretend you don't know anything. If one day they find out that the old woman died and is buried here, say that maybe I killed her. If they ask me, I'll say it was me...Because I am a beast at war with your people and no one could doubt it.

Maggie could no longer speak; her conscience was too heavy for her to say anything. She continued to cry bitterly until she fell asleep. An hour later, Wellman began to despair that Maggie had not called to report the Selenite's condition, so he called her. He waited for a long time for her to answer and was beginning to feel a little panicky when he finally got through. Alarmed, Wellman greeted:

—Hello, what happened, did the alien die or something?!

Kisa's sinister voice replied curtly with "I'm alive!" and then hung up violently. Wellman smiled in relief and returned to his women.

 

September 10, 2012


After a difficult weekend, on Monday they had to reconvene with the research team and resume the torture of the Selenite, who always arrived crestfallen and silent. That morning, Kisa sat in a corner of the clinical laboratory; thoroughly humiliated as the team's doctors argued in exhaustion. At one point, Wellman came up with a solution:

—I've got it, we give him Viagra and hire a whore, a very brave whore who is also a fan of the UFO phenomenon! I'm sure she'd at least get an erection that way.

Lindsay Tolley replied:

—You idiot. I think we should give up and go for a testicular biopsy. Mind you, I won't do it even if you sue me a hundred times, Robert!
—Patience, young people. Maybe if he try somewhere else, that bathroom might make him uncomfortable.

Said Mitkov while Maggie, blushing, listened to everything and Kisa remained crestfallen, covering her eyes with one hand; completely embarrassed. Lindsay continued to defend her idea, already grumpy and raising her voice:

—You guys are refusing to do the biopsy as if it were your own balls! Hey, we're wasting time, stop thinking like males afraid of castration and let's play it safe now. Robert, accept that it's for the best!
—But are you crazy, I won't accept to complicate the methods so much just because of "time issues"! If something goes wrong, if he doesn't cooperate, we will lose more and expose ourselves to other risks. Let him gain confidence, let him get used to it, and one of these days he will finally get it. You accept my decision or do the biopsy, but alone.
—You son of a bitch!

Lindsay mumbled back and Wellman shrugged his shoulders, exclaiming:

—You're the one who wants to make lunar egg salad!

Maggie lost her patience and made a serious decision. She picked up the sterile sample bottle, grabbed Kisa by one hand and determinedly walked with him into the bathroom; locking the door behind her. Everyone in the room was speechless, dumbfounded, and quite disgusted. Inside the bathroom, Kisa looked at Maggie with bewilderment, while she took off her robe and said:

—That's enough of a mess. No matter what I have to do, we're not getting out of here until the matter is finished. 
—But we're in the ladies' room....

Alice Voyager came out of an outhouse, as the water was running, and said:

—Interesting, it's like a reverse alien abduction. I remember once...
—Get out of here Dr. Voyager, we'll talk later!

Maggie roared, shoving her out and locking up again. She composed her glasses trying to regain her composure and then muttered:

—That toilet is the farthest from the door. Let's go in there.

He motioned for her to sit down as he carefully closed the door and then removed her dress and bra. Kisa cleared her throat by crossing her arms and looking to the side, and she said seriously:

—Well...well... Do you want to touch something?
—No, thanks. I'm fine like this.
—But every night when you think I'm asleep, you grope me!
—I did it accidentally, I was asleep! It's not what it looks like!
—There's nothing to be gained by arguing... Forget it... I'll take care of this....

She knelt between his legs and meditated for a moment on what she was about to do, then delicately uncovered his genitals; while he watched, practically trembling. The erection was complete and instantaneous. She stroked him gently, saying to disguise a little the awkwardness of the situation:

—It's...nice, Kisa. You have it nice; I like it.

The girl came closer to him and he stepped back, there was something that made him very uncomfortable; he could not tell if it was that for the first time, he was in a sexual situation in which he did not have the dominant role or that already seeing his fantasy of intimacy with that "virgin mother" come true, his moral sense was short-circuited. He just felt panic as he did not understand what this great uneasiness was. He swallowed saliva and said with a slight break in his voice:

—Stop, ...I don't want to do this, Maggie....
—But it's already hard.
—Yes, but I don't know why if I don't want to, I feel bad!
—Kisa, you're a man! It feels like I'm raping you, and men can't be raped. They can't say "no" in a situation like this. 
—So, you don't mind that I'm not enjoying it?

Maggie sighed and replied languidly:

—No one is enjoying it. It's what they make us do.

Then she began to use her breasts to stimulate him and asked:

—Do you like it like this?

She received no answer. Kisa just looked at her puzzled, not knowing what to say. She murmured:

—Let me know when you feel you are going to come.

She began to masturbate him like this, they seemed disturbed by what was happening but neither made a greater effort to stop it, it wasn't more than a minute before he moaned a weak "it's coming..." and ejaculated while the girl collected the semen. After this, Maggie didn't want to say anything or look him in the face. She turned to get dressed again and suddenly felt the Selenite violently grab her, pressing her against the door as he wrapped one hand tightly around her neck and stroked down her body with the other. She could feel that he still had an erection and realized with horror that she was about to be raped. Then she heard Kisa's panting breath in her ear, who said in a whisper:

—Get out of here, leave me alone....

He released her almost throwing her away from him and Maggie ran away while getting dressed. As she came out of the bathroom, the rest of the team turned away in surprise after having spent the whole time trying to listen through the door. Maggie closed it, slumping against the wall, still not believing what she had just done, then smiled nervously, showing the sample to the shocked looks of the others, saying, "That's it!

—That's it, we just had to...chat a little and calm him down.

Everyone gasped, speechless. Maggie stood up again and tried to act as if nothing unusual had happened, realizing only then that her dress was on backwards.

During the bus ride home, Kisa and Maggie remained silent. The silence continued on the journey they had to walk, with the sunset tinting the landscape with a coppery hue and the breeze gently moving the groves of trees that surrounded the lonely street they had to walk to reach their old house in the outskirts of Seattle. Maggie hurried along pulling Kisa who seemed to be walking slower than usual. On the one hand, she just wanted to get home and hide from everyone who knew what she did; on the other hand, she didn't want to get home and be alone with Kisa, who hadn't said anything since the bathroom incident. Suddenly Maggie heard a faint sound behind her, she didn't know if it was a flu-like wheeze or a sob; but she preferred to pretend she hadn't heard it. Soon after another strange sound was heard, then a moan and a hiccup; the girl swallowed saliva and kept walking without daring to turn around to look, walking stiffly while thinking: "He's crying... Why should he cry? Why should he be crying, did I do it so bad to him? My God, please let him not be crying, let him just be sniffing snot or something. Let him not be crying, let him not be crying..." Then Kisa burst into real tears and clung to her desperately in the same way that children cling to their mothers seeking their comfort when they are in acute pain: pressing against them tightly and smearing them with tears and mucus. In spite of everything, and that everything was a lot, Maggie felt as if her heart was shrinking and she hugged him caressing his long, unkempt hair; while she said trying to catch her breath with her ribs compressed:

—What's the matter, cupcake, why are you crying?

He answered choking between sobs, unable to control himself:

—I can't go on anymore. I've been like this for years and I'm tired, tense and in pain....

Maggie tried to think clearly: "it's another of his attacks of overflowing emotions, I had already seen before the killer-anger-attack and the scientific-curiosity-attack; this must be the preschooler-in-love-attack..." Kisa continued trying to explain herself, falling to her knees and hugging Maggie's skirt:

—I don't know how to get a woman on Earth, I don't know how to attract you, or how to like you, or how to ask you...I wish you were mine.

In a fit of tenderness, Maggie forgot all reason and said without thinking:

—Oh, don't worry! There is no other man in my life, we have a very intimate relationship and I feel very fond of you. I think that means something.

Kisa jumped up in surprise; the girl's awkward response was interpreted by him as approval. Blinded by the emotion of the moment, he forgot his fears and kissed her passionately. From the outset Maggie warned that she had made a serious mistake but decided to bear it. She also noticed that he had never kissed before, but was surprised to discover that in the arts of love, instinct and feeling are worth more than all the experience in the world. She had to rearrange him several times and give him several hairs pulls for him to perfect the technique and so a couple of minutes and several cars passed that she did not notice, abstracted in the strangest and most tender kiss of her life. It wasn't until some boys on bicycles passed by shouting "an alien abducting a girl!!!", that Maggie realized she was making out with the Selenite in the middle of the street. They rode home like high school sweethearts, as Maggie began to panic in anticipation of the impending interspace sex. She tried to stay calm, thinking, "It's the logical thing to do, give this story a happy ending...Once again he has surprised me with his cunning to get what he wants.... Someone should give him an Oscar! I can clearly imagine him at sixteen, yes, seducing his Aunt Laika with his sad boy pose in exchange for respect at the base. Yes, that must have been it.... Why didn't the other spawns kill him between all of them? Because he manipulated the leader!, then replaced her...He'll think he can bend me too, but he still won't take the reins out of my hands..." He motioned between caresses for her to go get some dinner from the fridge while she went to take a shower and thus managed to make some time alone to think better what to do. But the hot water, the memory of what had happened in that bathroom and that long kiss in the street began to excite her. Then she thought as she pinched her hard nipples, "Why not, it would follow the logical course of things. We wouldn't necessarily have to fuck like rabbits...But something could be done to relieve the pressure." She left the bathroom heading to her room and there Kisa was already waiting for her in a dark corner, he approached her softly like a shadow and she didn't even bother to get dressed; asking as she toweled off:

—Did you like what I did to you in the lab?

He looked stunned, as he tried to answer something, but only managed to smile awkwardly. Maggie added:

—I bet you'll like the sixty-nines too.

They went on until past midnight pleasuring each other until Maggie felt satisfied, but Kisa still wanted more; so, she kindly accepted to keep pleasuring him until he was satiated. But three o'clock in the morning came and he was still asking in an almost agonizing voice for her to continue. Finally, at perhaps the fifth climax, Kisa suddenly lost his erection and became livid with almost imperceptible breathing. Maggie thought a moment, then shook him a little and remembered Wellman's words, "Doc Bobby will lose a lot of money if the alien dies, Maggie..." She put a hand to her mouth and murmured in anguish:

—Don't die, I won't know how to explain this!...

To her relief, Kisa whispered, "I'm fine," and so she was able to sleep peacefully. She woke up the next morning with an emotional hangover, regretful and ashamed but aware that she would most likely repeat that strange experience again just for the addictive pleasure of the night before. Kisa spent two days half asleep, as if resting fully for the first time in her life; which gave Maggie enough time to plan things better. She knew that sooner or later he would demand vaginal intercourse and, since she was not accustomed to using contraceptives, she would be totally defenseless against the possibility of conceiving a child from this strange being who was now her lover. She returned home by bus and thought like a child in her twisted adult conflicts: "Grandma said that the Pope does not approve of using condoms and pills, but what can the Pope say if he doesn't even have a sex life...? Magdalena, don't overdo it, there must be a solution. In fact, I have two options: buy some birth control pills and indulge in a madness of unbridled sex with a wild and murderous creature, ...or use the contents of the bottle Tommy gave me to get Kisa out of my life. Granny, if you were here, what would you choose? Sex surely not, a decent woman is first and foremost chaste. Then the only thing left for me to do is to kill...Murder, in this case, would be the noblest thing to do; for it is selfish, and above all unseemly in a young woman like me, to choose sexual pleasure first. Such seems to be the foundation of every respectable and Catholic lady, to prefer death to pleasure. But perhaps in death there is a certain joy, that of sacrifice, of the sublime surrender of the victim? Isn't this a bit similar to the perverse pleasure Kisa feels in murder? Although I think that would be more of a satisfaction, like when I killed.... Gee, I doubt very much that God would be pleased with us respectable Catholic ladies..." Thus, he made the serious decision to poison Kisa. She arrived that evening assuming that her forced husband was still asleep, but did not find him in bed or anywhere in the house. She put some of the poison on a plate of food and went to find him in his cave to call him to dinner, and die. She found him examining a small object by the light of an old lamp. On seeing it he smiled and handed her a wedding ring saying:

—I went to get them now.
—You went out by yourself; didn't you have any problems with people?
—It's no problem as long as they don't get a good look at my face or know what I did.

Grimly, Maggie remembered herself waiting excitedly for Tommy every afternoon when she lived with him in Cambridge and took pity on him. Then she examined the inside of the ring and read in confusion:

— "Three hundred and eighty-four thousand, four hundred miles"?
—That's about the distance that separated us, from the earth to the moon. It wasn't enough to stop our love....

Maggie kissed his forehead and put the ring on her left ring finger, saying:

—We will have to celebrate this day. Since you have no problem with going out in public, I think it would be appropriate to dine out. Just let me get a coat and throw away a plate of bad food I left in the kitchen. 


October 13, 2012


In a pleasant bar set to live jazz music, Tolley took the last drink from his beer glass and said with a shudder: 

—What's the matter with Maggie, has she gone zoophilic? The thing looks like a cross between Lord Voldemort and an Olsen twin, it's...horrifying. 

Wellman explained, eyeing the olives in his Martini: 

—As far as I know, he just gave it a "hand job" and for some reason they now wear wedding rings. Other than that, I've never seen them in a romantic attitude or anything like that, although I wouldn't rule out maybe alone... Have you heard the story of the research that purported to test whether it was possible to make dolphins talk? They put a pretty girl to live with a dolphin twenty-four hours a day, trying to make their relationship as intimate as possible. At a certain point, the dolphin's sexual needs became a problem and it occurred to them that the girl could "solve" them. At the end of the research, they had dubious results and a dolphin madly in love with a woman. 

Then he burst out laughing and Tolley opined, disgusted:
 
—I don't find it funny; we're not talking about a sassy assistant masturbating a dolphin. It's a girl and a sick man, just imagine if he got her pregnant? 

Then Wellman said: 

—Well, that already happened in a way. 
—What, what do you mean? 

Tolley's face fell as Robert Wellman confessed: 

—We used the alien's sperm to fertilize eggs that were extracted from Maggie when we brought her back from Nevada. They have twelve beautiful embryos, seven girls and five boys. Half defective and unlikely to survive, the other half normal. Apparently, none of them inherited the syndrome so you can imagine how disappointed we are. 

Tolley mumbled, as pale as paper: 

—Oh my God, ...You're crazy.... 
—Hey, hey, I understand the risk. The embryos will be discarded. We will only do a genetic study to find out if the "Kisa gene" was inherited to your children or not. But the truth is that, so far, the embryos are developing without showing any of the typical characteristics of a subject with Selene syndrome. 
—It's because they have mixed their DNA with Maggie's, nothing guarantees that apparently normal children will not be born, but with the twisted mind of the father. You must destroy those embryos, Bob! It's a culture of psychopaths you have there!

The jazz band stopped playing to make way for another variety show, Wellman downed the rest of his drink and said: 

—Tommy, I understand and I know it's the prudent thing to do. But anyway, they've decided to be a couple! 
 
Tom Tolley began to take an aggressive attitude, retorting: 

—No, I don't want Abel's half-brothers to be fucking monsters! 
—Don't be a pain in the ass! You are here with your jealousy while she's probably out in the woods on all fours with the alien behind her.
 
Wellman replied with a chuckle and Dr. Tolley could stand it no longer, jumping up and punching him. The music in the bar stopped and everyone turned to look at them. Wellman stood up wiping the blood from his mouth and Tolley finished him off by grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and saying: 

—You must separate them and destroy the embryos...or I swear I'm going to kill you. I'll kill you, you son of a bitch. 
—Whatever you say, but what would Maggie think? They're her babies after all. Listen, take it easy. We'll do this: I'll tell her the truth and ask her what she wants us to do with the embryos. Now, about her affair with Kisa, if it exists, we can't get involved. I think it's only fair. 

People began to surround them with curiosity and Tolley said, already pressed by the situation: 

—Okay...But I don't want you to tell her. Lindsay should be the one to talk to her. 
—As you wish. 

Wellman replied with a cynical smile. 

The next morning, Maggie woke up late and the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was Kisa already dressed, seeing her sitting on the bed while he played moving a reddish tree leaf between his fingers. The girl stirred the sheets settling herself and closing her eyes again, the Selenite lay down next to her hugging her and said: 

—Something is wrong with the trees. They look sad. 
—It's the beginning of autumn, it's normal. They will lose their leaves and it will get colder. 
—I'm glad, I was afraid they would die so soon. 

Maggie turned around lazily, as she said: 

—You've been taking your medication every day on your own and haven't done anything wrong for several weeks, I'm so proud. I'd kiss you but my breath stinks right now. 
—I could take it. 

With dark circles under her eyes, messy hair and a huge sports shirt, Maggie smiled; she kissed him quickly and went to the bathroom saying:

—That's the great thing about you, I'm never horrible enough for you to disdain me. I don't need to try hard at all.... 

She left the bathroom, always followed by Kisa as if he were her pale shadow, and went to the kitchen to get a box of cereal, which he ate on his way to the couch in front of the TV; lying there to watch Saturday cartoons. Always with his creepy feline softness to move, Kisa went to sit next to her, with a shy smile. He slowly approached her and stroked one of her thighs, while looking at her insinuatingly. Maggie crossed her legs and said, scooting away to one end of the couch: 

—No, I've already told you I don't like to do it in the light...and especially not in the daytime. 
—I understand. Have you thought about whether you'll let me...? 
—Well... You see, I think it's enough with the caresses and the oral sex, you're very good at that and I'm satisfied. Our relationship is...complicated...and I think, for now, we're not at that level yet. It's better to leave things as they are.... 

Kisa adopted a somber attitude and interrupted her, saying:

—But we're married, we should do it like this. 
—You can use the back hole if you want, it will be the same or maybe better! 

Maggie replied harassed and Kisa insisted: 

—No... I’ve waited long enough. I want this to be real, to ejaculate inside your vagina. 

This new whim of Kisa's had begun to make Maggie uncomfortable for a few weeks now. She knew he was too cunning to get his way, he wouldn't settle for possessing her in word only; he wanted a lifetime delivery, the same way he had his wife on the moon base. He was aware that she did not fully accept him because of his looks and his history, and Maggie suspected that he would try to bind her by making her bear his child; a child that, even without having conceived him, she already feared: 

—Kisa...I wish I could do it too. But it would be a step too far ahead, I'm not ready for a serious relationship yet, my son just died and besides... We can't make it formal; people wouldn't understand. 

—Your son?! You haven't mentioned your son for a long time. I don't mention mine anymore either! We've moved on.

The Selenite scratched the sofa angrily. He got up violently and paced around the room a few times thinking, while Maggie kept her cool, until he stopped in a dark corner and leaned against a wall muttering as if to himself: 

—I have given you everything, my will, my pride, my trust, ... my love. 

Maggie did not look away from the TV for a while, thinking that it was true: her son had become a tragic but faint memory, a vague memory; the little time she spent with him was not enough for her to be able to feel him as something more than a nice dream, as the beautiful doll she used to play with for that time when her mother broke her back and started shouting hateful insults at her, blasphemous in the ears of a little girl. When she turned to see what Kisa was doing, he was already gone. Just then she had an idea and shouted: 

—Tonight, we'll do it tonight!

From the darkness of the basement, Kisa listened in surprise and then laughed blushing excitedly, covering his face in embarrassment to himself. He hid crouched down among some boxes to think better as he bit his nails, feeling happy and amazed to believe that his adoration really loved him. 

Maggie went out shopping alone that afternoon. She hovered for several hours near a drugstore until she finally decided to go inside to buy some condoms. She had never done this before and as she stood in front of the condom rack she had a panic attack when she saw that there was a wider variety than she had imagined, and that the cashier was staring at her from the counter with an accusing look on her face. She picked up a full box of whatever type it was and walked nervously over to the woman cashier, who looked seriously at the gaudy packaging, then at her, and said: 

—The whole box? Does your mother know you are doing this? 

The girl replied aghast: 

—My mother? I'm of age, I'm married and I'm an adult! 

For a few seconds, the woman behind the counter looked at her with a raised eyebrow and then replied: 

—Great. One hundred and fifty mango-flavored, glow-in-the-dark, pearl-textured condoms. That's thirty dollars and forty cents. 
—But hey, wait, I don't want that, I'm sorry I didn't check. 
—I've already processed the purchase, ma'am. 
—But-but... Think of my husband, he'll have a fit when he sees his thingy shining! 
—Buy simpler ones and use these on a less conservative lover. 
—No, no... Never mind. That's all right...Thank you. 

Maggie left the drugstore in shame, with a large box of condoms stuffed into a bulky plastic bag decorated in garish colors. She hurriedly walked away and then heard in horror someone calling out to her. It was Lindsay Tolley running to her from the pharmacy: 

—Hey, Maggie, I saw you from a distance and recognized you. How are you? 
—Fine, thank you. How are you doing? 
—Fairly well. What were you buying, I ran out of lip balm and stopped by. 

Maggie's cheeks instantly turned red: 

—You see, doctor...I was shopping...I just ran out of...cough...medicine...cough.... 
—Well, you seem to carry a lot of them when only one can be effective, what brand do you use? I can recommend a more practical one. Let me see. 
—No, no thanks. I use...one brand...for many years...and I have great faith in it.
—Well, do you want to have coffee? I needed to talk to you about something important and I was hoping to do it until Monday, but we could take advantage of this day. 

Maggie agreed awkwardly. A short time later, the elegant Lindsay Tolley was making herself comfortable in a quiet coffee shop, accompanied by Maggie who kept glancing at her watch every now and then. Once she felt at ease in the place, Lindsay began by saying: 

—Have you seen what Voyager is doing lately? 
—He grows I don't know what...It's hard to tell what he's doing, he hardly talks. 
—Well, I should tell you that he grows embryos. Embryos obtained from Mikhailov's semen and your eggs. They did more than take very good care of you when you were transported from Nevada to Washington. 

The girl looked at her dumbfounded and then muttered: 

—I thought something like this would happen... Is it legal, doctor? 
—It's an abuse, but our contract gives them the right to do these things. I just felt it necessary to inform you, since no one bothered to do so. Now, those embryos must be discarded, Maggie. There are twelve of them and six of them are not viable, the others...are a mystery that I would rather we didn't solve. 
—But...I couldn't even save a baby? 

Lindsay Tolley looked her in the eye and took her hands, saying: 

—Maggie, even if you could, they would never be normal babies. They all have the Mikhailov genes and a high risk of developing serious psychological or somatic disorders. It's not a good idea to bring into the world a being who will be unhappy and could harm others. Would you want your child to have to live through what Kisa went through? To grow up knowing he is different from everyone else, with a disturbed mind, with aggressive impulses that he can barely control, and worst of all, with a father who is... terrifying. No, sweetheart. It's better to return those little angels to heaven now while there's still time to do so. It would be unwise and selfish to force them to come here to suffer. 
—Well...I guess you're right; they wouldn't be normal children. I would just like to know what Kisa would think about it...Although I really already know. He would decide to have all twelve born no matter how they come. 
—No way! He's not going to give birth to them, so he'd better not have an opinion! Those embryos should be discarded as soon as possible. I'm afraid Robert will decide to do something crazy with them. The bastard is capable of selling them to the highest bidder. 
—It's all right... I understand... What a strange feeling I have now! Doctor, I just want to ask you something: don't throw away the test tubes when you dispose of the embryos. I want to bury them... Maybe I should.

Lindsay laughed softly, nodding her head. Shortly thereafter Maggie set out on her way home, her spirits downcast and full of uncertainty. She felt sorry for the fate of the embryos, but she also knew that saving them was impossible; Lindsay Tolley was right, the only reason Wellman would let those children be born would be so he could profit from them; saving his children to condemn them to live as medical curiosities was something he could not allow, but leaving them to die did not seem acceptable to him either. She reached the street of her home and even then, she remembered with dread her promise for that night. She was never going to be ready enough to sleep with such a genetic aberration, but she had already gone too far; she had allowed too much and would have to pay the consequences. She entered the house dejectedly and found Kisa waiting for her behind the door. Seeing his lanky, sinister figure, and that strange face with the creepy look, didn't help her warm up much. For his part, Kisa was ready for anything. He hugged her excitedly and started trying to undress her right there. Maggie gently let go and said: 

—Wait...at least let me finish getting into the house, I'd like to have dinner too. Don't you want to watch a movie before going to bed? 
—I'd like to go to bed now. Every day I look forward to the sunset so we can be together, but this day seemed like forever; I was waiting for this moment as if it was the most important of my life. We will finally do it frankly, not like a game or something that happens by chance. It's going to be real. 
—Yes...we're going to do it for real… 

Maggie said without any emotion. She ate dinner under the anxious gaze of the Kisa and tried to relax watching a movie afterwards, but her peculiar bedmate started sniffing her hair and kissing her neck; whispering: 

—So beautiful...So soft...When I was a kid, I used to fall asleep imagining such a woman.... 

The girl continued to watch the movie, already very nervous. When she saw the sign announcing the end, she felt her hair stand on end and Kisa smiled excitedly knowing that the time had come. They went to her room while he kissed and caressed her hand, grateful. Maggie wanted to run out, but she had to comply: 

—Wait, I'm going to change.
—No, I want us to do it completely naked. This is like our wedding night; we must unite without limitations. 

Such a request ended up scaring Maggie, who folded her arms, trembling, and responded by pulling away a little: 

—That makes me feel...very intimidated....
—Turn off the light if it makes you uncomfortable. I can see perfectly well in the dark.

Instead of reassuring her, this revelation gave Maggie chills. She turned off the light and undressed with her heart pounding like a runaway until she felt Kisa's long, sinister hands caressing her shoulders and making her turn around to start touching her whole body as he pressed it against his own. Feeling and not seeing the Selenite didn't displease her so much. He liked the feel of that pale, silky skin, and in general of that slender but muscle-accentuated body. He made her lie down on the bed, went over her and began to knead her, to taste her with desire as he told her that he loved her; and this made Maggie gradually become aroused. When he thought it was the right moment, Kisa spread her legs apart and tried to penetrate her; then Maggie stopped him suddenly, shouting with a start:
 
—Wait, I forgot something! 

She jumped naked from the bed, without turning on any light out of modesty; stumbling and groping she went to the living room to look for the bag she had brought that afternoon. She hurriedly opened the box of condoms and took one out returning immediately to the bedroom as she took it out of its wrapper and said: 

—You must put this on your penis. 

In horror, he saw that the object in his hand glowed ridiculously in the complete darkness and remembered his mistake in choosing to buy it. The Selenite muttered angrily: 

—What is that? 
—It's...It's for protection...It'll keep our fluids from mixing. 
—But it's just what I want. To unite us into one. 
—But there are risks... I can get pregnant. Put this on.
—You didn't use that thing on the father of your child...Do I have any less right to possess you than he does?!

The Selenite had started shouting, Maggie could hear him throwing things on the floor and hitting the walls but she couldn't see him in the gloom of her room; she only managed to walk away slowly groping her way while he was still furious: 

—Are you mocking me?!...I saw you as something sacred, but maybe you are just another female to use and discard.... 

Without being able to see what was going on, Maggie heard a door slam. She tried futilely to turn on the lamp on her nightstand until she discovered the power cord cut. Then she felt afraid and left the bedroom, soon after she realized that there was no electrical service in the whole house and Kisa was apparently not around. For several minutes she wandered naked and blind through the living room. No light was on, the landline phone was dead, she couldn't find her cell phone and she had no idea where the Selenite might be; but she knew he was there, up to something. It wasn't until that moment that she realized the terrible risk she was always exposed to by living with that being whose disturbed mind could that night concentrate all his resentment in a terrible revenge. Then she ran to the kitchen and armed herself with two knives which she brandished, stretching out her arms and sharpening her hearing. He had to get out of that house and call for help, but first he had to put something on. He tried to find at least a kitchen apron or a tablecloth, but it was impossible to find any, so he had to go back to his bedroom and look for some clothes. He went through the corridors and the living room, attacking the air around him from time to time, and finally reached his room; locking it behind him. She took one last walk around the place, just in case, and it seemed to her that she really was alone and safe in there; though she couldn't determine if Kisa would have been hiding under the bed or the closet. She began to fumble for her clothes, still on the defensive, when two long, strong hands grabbed her wrists; she tried to let go with her adrenaline pumping as the Selenite caught her from behind, saying in her ear:

—Would you be able to stab me...? 
—Let me go or I won't answer, I won't be an easy victim! 

The girl tried to kick him with her heels and make him lose his balance, but then he twisted her wrists to force her to drop her improvised weapons. The Selenite was capable of overpowering a burly man, but she also had considerable strength; particularly when her survival depended on that ability. She fiercely resisted dropping the knives until her bones creaked causing her to give way, then trying to elbow her way out and succeeding. She armed herself with the night lamp and started blindly punching everything around her, until a strong pull on her hair made her fall on the bed; where Kisa caught her hands tying them behind her back with the cut cable of the lamp. Even so, she continued kicking and screaming until he turned her over with a jerk leaving her face up; she let herself be carried away by rage and kicked him again, screaming: 

—If you're going to kill me kill me at once, I'm not afraid of death and much less of you, to me you're just a sad sick creature! 
—Yes, I know. But killing you is not what I want.... 

Then she felt with horror as he dragged her to the edge of the bed and tied one thigh to each of the lower bedposts, then went over her and licked her skin like a dog; while he squeezed her breasts until he dug his nails into her. Maggie screamed and squirmed harder, then Kisa said between sarcastic laughs: 

—Why are you screaming if you are not afraid?

Taking advantage of the fact that her legs were wide open and her sex exposed, he caressed her as he pleased until he made her body betray her will. He began to rub her with the tip of his member and laughed again, saying: 

—Are you afraid I'll knock you up when you're the best mother in the world? 

Suddenly the young woman held her breath, stunned as she felt him brutally penetrate her. She turned her face to the side, languidly, trying to avoid listening to him as he gasped in pleasure as he manipulated her clitoris to force her to feel pleasure: 

— That's it... You are already mine.... Alright, now just cooperate, you'll like it.

And then Maggie answered, already calmly and indifferently: 

—Again, your life is a little less miserable thanks to me. For this I put up with you so patiently? In the end you turned out to be the disgusting, evil fucking freak everyone said you were. 
—Don't talk too much now...Not while I'm inside your guts, it doesn't suit you.... 

The young woman laughed in a wry gesture, she no longer cared about her safety, she was ready to joke in the face of death: 

—Doesn't suit me? All your precious manhood is stuffed inside me, right now it belongs to me; one wrong sudden movement of my hips and you could suffer a penis fracture. We'd just hear a soft snap and then you'd feel excruciating pain as you go all purple and flaccid. 
—If you were to do that, I'd kill you... Don't provoke me.
—The problem is that I don't care if you kill me anymore. So, go on; you're going to have fun for as long as I let you. Go on, go on, don't you trust me, haven't I treated you well all this time, how could I harm you... How do you do it now with me, after all the support I gave you?

Kisa paused in confusion; the conversation they were having pained him. He laid his head under Maggie's neck feeling a lump in his throat as he thought about how all the affection that in the previous months had made him feel accepted for the first time in his life had vanished in a matter of minutes, leaving him once again lost in his monstrous existence. His eyes filled with tears and he hugged Maggie as if hoping she would save him from himself, but he was unable to ask her for help; he felt too much fear and guilt to speak up and say what he was really feeling. Oblivious to all this, Maggie had begun to become aware of her own instincts and to start enjoying that member that filled her; she had blood on her hands, a forgotten dead son and unquenched sexual appetite. Now without any scruples and giving everything up for lost, she ordered him, dripping with morbidity: 

—Come on, ...go on. I'll give you the chance. Don't you want to feel the pleasure of leaving your seed inside me? So, I'm going to be yours, but more importantly, you're going to be mine; and every time I see you, I'll think of this moment when I allowed you to touch the sky and I kept your essence. Go on, do it! Don't be shy...as always. 

He obeyed silently. He untied her and then took her to the center of the bed, there he knelt between her legs and lifted her by the hips with distrust, so they resumed the sinister coitus. She began to pant and then to moan until she pounced on the Selenite, who tried to move away believing she was trying to attack him; but then she let her guard down when she saw that Maggie only embraced him, accommodating herself to move as she pleased, surrendering to that primitive, disorganized and innate part that hides in everyone's personality; forgetting the consequences of that undue copulation to seek only her pleasure. The ardent lust of the young woman fascinated Kisa, making him smile with a certain mischievousness as he looked into her eyes, saying: 

—You love it, ...and I think it turns you on even more to know that I could kill you.... 
—I have enough poison in the kitchen to kill you as many times as I want and without so much fuss. At this moment we are equal. 

The strange couple kissed passionately, with a passion so violent that it made their lips bleed, hidden in the darkness and anonymity of that house lost in a lonely street, so lost that even ethics and morality had trouble finding it. Maggie was bottoming out in a frightening ocean of nightmare. The next morning, Maggie said after throwing up next to a log in the grove of trees behind her house under the cold gaze of Kisa:

—My dad would die if he knew what I did.... 

He simply shrugged his shoulders and continued to stare at her in silence. She wailed again: 


—I think I'm pregnant...I feel something inside.... 
—We just did it a few hours ago, it's too early to say that. 
—I'll have to start taking birth control pills. Actually, there's nothing wrong with taking them, it's for a good cause! ... The cause of...not creating more messes for ourselves besides the hundreds we already have...We'll also have to keep the intimate details of our relationship a secret. To say that we are just friends, that our friendship is as pure as snow and as cold as snow! And above all, always keep our composure. After all, I've always been a very simple girl, very calm and centered; I wouldn't really be pretending, just keeping my privacy. 

Kisa smiled; the degree of intimacy achieved with Maggie made him feel like her equal at last. Finally, he could talk to her with sincerity and without rationing his sarcastic humor:

—I love it when you are hypocritical with yourself. 
—There's still the issue of whether or not I got pregnant.... 
—Did you fear motherhood so much the last time you were knocked up? I don't want to think it's because of me, Maggie, maybe you just happen to be aware of "the importance of family planning" right now. I say that because I know we're going to repeat what we did last night and I'm not worried about whether or not sick children will come along, it's too early to think that. Now it's just about the two of us. 

After saying this, he approached her to caress her face and ask her in a low voice: 

—Don't you think it's about time we lived our lives, without thinking about consequences? 

Maggie looked at him a little confused and then answered: 

—Yes...I think I'd like to....

 

October 28, 2012


Like every morning in Moscow since her arrival in Russia, Ludmila Mikhailova awoke with the sun to go early to St. Basil's Cathedral to pray. She was faithfully accompanied by her uncle, a recently retired military pediatrician, and nurse Miller; with whom she had come to develop a real affection. The quiet life on Earth had done wonders for Ludmila who, not suffering from the same syndrome that afflicted the rest of her family, soon acquired a normal appearance; also regaining her youth and becoming a beautiful woman who was gradually awakening from a nightmare. 

There were large chunks of her past that she did not remember or remembered vaguely, but at least she now understood that Miller was only a nurse assisting her and the angelic voices she heard were those of her own despair and frustration. She vividly remembered her father instructing her in the Nebo base library, the memories she retained of her mother were not as detailed but she could clearly evoke her perfume and her voice when she would get angry heatedly defending her views; and very hazily she remembered her son as a silent odd child who followed her everywhere. And nothing else.

That morning, after the three of them went to church together, they went to a coffee shop for breakfast. They were a holy trinity, blessed with the gift of ingenuity. Uncle Mikhailov acted as a mediator between Miller and Ludmila, but the gentleman was so shy that his matchmaking skills consisted only in looking at Miller with a nervous smile and muttering: "Go on, talk to Lyuda". On this occasion, as always, the nurse sheepishly obeyed and addressed Ludmila in bad Russian while passing her the sugar:

—How is your son in America?
—I haven't heard much. He wrote a letter asking me if I still kept in my Bible a gift, he gave me when I was very young and guess what.

She answered distracted in her tea, Miller continued to question her:

—What gift was it? 
—I don't remember... What happened to my old Bible, the one I had on the moon base?
—I think I saw it in a box with some old photographs and documents.
—I'll go through everything this afternoon to see if I remember anything.

She said and after half a day, already at Uncle Mikhailov's apartment, Miller rummaged through the luggage brought from America that had not yet been unpacked, finding a battered old Bible that he handed to Ludmila. She smelled it as she evoked painful memories and began to leaf through it, finding some photographs of her parents, encyclopedia clippings and a dried leaf from the hydroponic garden. Miller asked:

—Which one is the gift?
—I don't remember, I don't think any of them. Kisa wouldn't touch my Bible. I would read it to her and ....

Suddenly she noticed a bulge under the lining and gently lifted it, taking out a mirror that belonged to her mother and an old folded sheet of paper. He opened the paper wondering what it was and found a badly drawn heart, colored black. Miller commented:

—That looks a little macabre. It looks worthy of Kisa, with all due respect.

Ludmila examined the strange drawing and said:

—It's... Why would he give me a black heart? I don't remember.

Meanwhile, in the United States, Robert Wellman was drinking a cup of coffee reading the morning news on the computer in his neat and elegant office decorated with abstract paintings, when Dr. Mitkov arrived at his desk and said with great seriousness:

—I have an observation to share with you, Dr. Wellman.

He replied without taking his eyes off the screen:

—Damn Yamada, can you believe he's running around the world while giving interviews to ufologists? He goes around saying that he worked with a team of unscrupulous scientists who help the government hide secrets that would change the course of history and that Kisa is a real alien.
—Technically he is, and it is about him that I want to talk to you.
—Who did he kill, maim or injure?

Wellman asked with a bored expression and leaning his elbows on the table. Mitkov replied with a sigh of moral exhaustion:

—No one. Yet. But I am concerned about certain major changes I have noticed in young Maggie. She's walking around in her head and saying strange things....
—She still can't get over Tommy marrying someone else. It's nothing unusual.
—I've noticed she gets a call every half hour, she answers, but they seem to hang up on her immediately. It seems like an intimidation tactic from Kisa. He seeks to control others by unsettling them by giving them the feeling that he is always watching them.

Wellman snorted, got up from his desk and walked over to the clinical lab where Voyager, Lindsay and Maggie were working peacefully. He walked straight up to the youngest of the team and said, with the best of his smiles:

—How are those baby rats doing, Maggie?

The girl replied very calmly:

—Nothing special, doctor. Just some irregular behavior. I was just about to take some blood samples from them on Dr. Voyager's orders.
—Great. Listen, I'd like you to do me a favor. Could you get in touch with Abel Turn, the hacker from Nevada? We're having trouble with Yamada, that nurse who almost lost his fingers; he's spreading rumors on the Internet and no one has been able to find his true current location or get him to stop divulging sensitive information about the investigation; but surely Turn could....

Maggie scratched the back of her neck, saying:

—I don't know, he didn't want to know anything more about this matter but he is still a friend of mine, we don't communicate very often but he will surely agree to help us if I ask him as a favor of friendship. He is very nice...

Just then Maggie's phone started ringing and she froze, afraid to answer it in front of Wellman, who just kept smiling as if it was nothing. Finally, she couldn't wait any longer and timidly picked up the phone but, before she could answer it, Wellman snatched it from her; she checked that the number calling was Maggie's home number and picked up:

—Hello, Kisa. Maggie can't answer because she's busy.

An eerie sound like a snarl of contempt was heard on the other end of the line and they hung up angrily. Wellman asked:

—Why did she start calling, she never used to.

The young assistant looked at the floor and replied nervously:

—She's just worried about me...She wants to know if I'm okay and for me to remember she's expecting me.
—Well, he's acting like some kind of stalker or jealous husband.

Maggie looked down, blushing, and replied:

—It's just the way he is. I'll talk to Abel tonight and tell him about Yamada.

Maggie returned home trying to make time to be late, deep down she didn't want to go back. While intimacy with her strange husband was a delicious overflow of unbridled pleasure, when she wasn't sexually aroused reality crept up on her and she felt afraid. The haunting gaze of those slanting eyes with black lids and tiny red pupils gave her chills, and his sinister figure with feline movements gravitating around her caused her constant tension. She lingered in a supermarket buying confectionery, when she turned without noticing and bumped into the odd Mr. Joseph White doing his weekly shopping. The girl gasped and then said, laughing nervously:

—"Why, it's you, what a surprise to see you here.
—I'm surprised to see you too. I thought you would be with Kisa on her "secret honeymoon".
—Do you know...?

She asked blushing and White laughed a little as she explained:

—Sorry, I've been indiscreet again. Kisa told me something about it, that's the reason why he doesn't go out with me anymore. I'm happy for him, for you, and at the same time it makes me sad. Now I feel lonely, but what can I do, I take my medicine, I try to relax and I often go out to be among people. That way I can alleviate the loneliness a little and the melancholy becomes bearable.
—You should look for a girlfriend. You are young, educated...

White's face darkened, answering almost in a whisper and looking at the floor:

—What do you say, Maggie, are you forgetting what I did to my last romantic partner? I will never again have to look for a girlfriend, I still retain my humanity under all my deformities and disorders; it is what drives me to keep my distance to protect those around me. But it's not my enforced bachelorhood that depresses me...It will probably sound a bit ridiculous to you, but I miss my friend Kisa! As stern, stubborn, moody and... totally adorable that he is. I don't understand why he insists on hiding, he's such a beautiful creature. Are all Russians this charming?

Maggie smiled, helping White pick out vegetables:

—Well, he's not Russian he's Selenite. Mr. White, ... you have fallen in love with him, haven't you?
—You're asking because of the way I talk about Kisa, right? It's just a deep admiration. He is a really beautiful being, charming to treat him and to discover that he is really a person so in need of affection. It was impossible for me not to silently love that sweet aberration. I know that you understand me, perhaps better than me, because you also see his hidden beauty and you were lucky that, being a woman, you could approach him in a more romantic way. I couldn't, he wouldn't let me.

The girl kept silent, feeling a little guilty. Until that moment, she did not love Kisa. She only pitied him and had agreed to give herself to him to satiate her own sexual appetite, but she couldn't see him as anything other than a half-wild and potentially dangerous spawn. White continued:

—When he told me that you had finally accepted him, I was surprised. I'd never really seen him smile before, he looked dazzling, so cute I wanted to hug him and cry...And kill you with special viciousness if it wasn't true that you loved him. But when I called him the next day to see how things were going, I knew you had really made him happy. He sounded so calm, so sure... I realized that I had no more hope and then I wondered what will become of me.
—What will become of you?

White said, taking a breath:

—That's right...You see, I always blamed Selene for my inability to adapt to this world, but I see Kisa and I observe how in such a short time he found love and formed something...Not in a spectacular way, but concrete enough to live happily. Then I understand that it's not my appearance that isolates me, it's not my limitations...It's me...Joseph doesn't fit, not even with another affected by Selene. What future will await me being as I am? Then I desperately think of a solution and decide to change radically, but if I were to change? Would I really change everything else? I have even considered cosmetic surgery, but the prognosis is not very favorable according to what the doctors have told me. Facial surgery could help me look more "normal" but it would be a slow, painful process with no guarantee of actually making me look healthy. Psychotherapy and medication help me, but my nervous system will always orient me to the dark side of my own personality, the sinister is part of me.

He seemed suddenly disturbed and took out a bottle of pills, swallowed one dryly and went on to say as the drug took effect and he began to feel sedated:

—Feelings consume those of us who suffer from this malady. When we hate, it is to death, when we love too; death is always the end. We long for someone to come and take out of our chest that which explodes inside us all the time and is extinguishing our soul little by little, but it is impossible, nobody can save us and the decadence will advance until one day, I don't know, we lose the last trace of humanity and we become real beasts. I feel myself falling into an abyss as I try to hold on to love, medicine, faith...But it is a very heavy burden and I cannot hold on. In the end I fall, I always fall.

Some time later, Maggie returned home pensive. Her strange lover was already waiting for her behind the door, hidden in the gloom; he received her by kissing her feverishly and taking her right there in the anteroom. After having satisfied their desire, they rested together on the sofa. As it used to happen every time, they finished having sex, Maggie began to feel regretful and melancholic while Kisa cuddled up to her and was happy. Then she remembered her talk with White and had an idea. She stroked his wilted blond hair and said:

—What would you say if I told you that someone had a crush on you?
—Is that person you, my love?

Maggie shivered without knowing exactly why, and then replied:

—Someone else. Someone who is very fond of you.
—I'm not interested.
—I was just thinking. Wouldn't you have liked to be a woman?
—I don't know. Maybe I would have liked it.
—So, you've never considered the idea of having a relationship with someone of the same sex, loving another man...?
—No, if a man fell in love with me, I would kill him.

The girl sighed in defeat and said, reaching for her phone:

—I have to get through to a friend at work, I'll connect from my phone.
—I don't like your friends, we're together now.
—It's work business, I'll be here with you. Today they were going to broadcast "Casablanca" on TV, you like that movie, don't you? Come on, lie down on me and relax.

Kisa accepted confidently, settling on Maggie's chest, while he gave her a few stray kisses and focused on watching the movie. She took the moment to distract herself by reading news from her family and friends, whom she had long avoided, and just then Turn connected. She immediately greeted him over the messenger:

"PrincessFairy: hello, Abel! Do you have time, I have a lot to tell you".

Shortly after he received a reply:

"Absolute_Lord_Slayer: Maggie, this time it's you!"
"PrincessFairy: what do you mean "this time"?"
"Absolute_Lord_Slayer: it's almost always Kisa impersonating you. I know who's who because he doesn't say hello and only asks questions; you on the other hand tell me things, use emoticons when you write and have better spelling."
"PrincessFairy: I didn't know he was impersonating me."
"Absolute_Lord_Slayer: no problem. It's interesting to talk to a real psychopath. With all due respect."
"PrincessFairy: it's okay, I know what he is."

It was several minutes before Maggie got a response:

"Absolute_Lord_Slayer: I missed you."
"PrincessFairy: you sound kind of sad, how have you been doing?"
"Absolute_Lord_Slayer: pretty good. With what I earned in Nevada I was finally able to become independent from my mother and escape my childhood neighborhood full of gossip mongers who kept criticizing my life. I bought a chain of video game stores, then I bought a big house, a big car, several animals, all the shit I always longed for... And now that I have it all I feel like when you finish a game that was good. But it's over now, that was it and it was never reality."
"PrincessFairy: but it's real, it's your money, your house, your dreams fulfilled."
"Absolute_Lord_Slayer: the truth...I found out that those dreams were just dreams and that I'm still a bum that people will never take seriously. The only "normal" friend I have is you. Sometimes I see your pictures and I wonder, "why are you talking to me?" But hey, if you could even fall in love with an alien..."
"PrincessFairy: fall in love? He's just my friend!"

There was a long silence, and then Turn wrote:

"Absolute_Lord_Slayer: Maggie, I have a confession to make."
"PrincessFairy: yes?"
"Absolute_Lord_Slayer: there are cameras all over the house."

Maggie paled and only managed to write:

"PrincessFairy: I thought you had abandoned the investigation."
"Absolute_Lord_Slayer: I agreed to help them on this because I liked you and I was curious about Kisa. I'm the only one watching you and I destroy everything that can cause you trouble...Like the recording of the day the crazy old woman came and tried to shoot you. About your relationship with Kisa...At first, I thought it was cute to see you two together even though it scared me a little. Just by seeing you, I started to feel more affection for you and I even liked him...Then you started touching each other, and well, I think you have the right to do what you want with your lives and that's why I keep it a secret from you. Forgive me, don't think I watch you when you do it...The first few times I dared because I thought he was hurting you, well in fact it seems to me he is very violent with you but you tolerate it...Now, I prefer to turn off the transmission every time it happens. I don't know, it's disturbing to watch...It's...violent."

Turn stopped typing and soon after continued:

"Absolute_Lord_Slayer: There's a hidden camera in every smoke detector. Disconnect them whenever you want, I won't say anything to anyone; I promised to alert them only if "something weird" happened ... But it's too late for that and it's better this way. Believe me I wanted to tell you this for a long time, but you almost never talk to me so I didn't have the chance; and when I told Kisa he just laughed, he doesn't mind being seen, in fact he started asking you to do it right in front of the cameras."

These last words annoyed Maggie, who shook Kisa saying:

—Did you know that there were cameras recording us all the time?!

The Selenite replied, nonchalantly:

—It was just your friend snooping around. He was attracted to you and that's why I preferred him to be a witness. I think it must have become clear to him by now that you are my wife.

Maggie stood up hastily and said:

—Come, help me disconnect them...Then I'll finish this long-distance talk. White already knows, Turn already knows, ...you can't or won't keep the secret....
—So much happiness I can't fit inside me, I had to share it.

Just at that moment the phone rang, Maggie answered reluctantly and then seemed to be frightened by what she was being told. She ended the call and said seriously:

—It was Dr. Mitkov. White has just been found dead, he committed suicide.

Kisa said nothing. He just looked at her, got up and went to get dressed.

Joseph White was hanging from a lamp in his house, the corners of his mouth were sewn with black thread, his wrists were slashed and several empty liquor bottles were scattered around him. A young policeman shuddered looking at him, as he muttered to a fellow officer examining the scene of death:

—That's the most frightful thing I've ever seen in my life....
—The poor devil was suffering from some strange disease. The doctors who attended him will be here shortly, they have a court order to take the body even before the forensic doctors see it. There are very specific orders from above for as few people as possible to see the corpse. They even sent a single patrol car.
—It's strange. Who could this guy be...or what could he be?

The policeman had not yet finished speaking when Maggie burst into the room, holding back a scream at the sight of the body hanging from the lamp. The younger policeman stopped her, saying:

—Miss, didn't you see the police tape? You can't come in, are you a relative of the victim?

The girl stammered:

—No, ... I came here following ... my... my husband.

She took a breath and continued:

—He was a close friend of Mr. White, may he rest in peace, and he seemed very disturbed when he received the news. He left home in a very bad mood and went to this place....
—Well, ma'am. Your husband hasn't arrived yet or he just didn't come here. Now you'd better go back home or wait outside....

The loud sound of a door slamming, then a lock slamming, was heard from the main entrance. Seconds later all the lights went out and the policemen drew their guns, pointing and holding their flashlights at the same time. Maggie muttered:

—It's my husband. Please don't shoot, he has a serious mental illness....
—Madam, I advise you to talk to your husband right now. These games could cost you both a visit to the police station.

Replied the older officer, checking that the electricity switches were not working; after that he warned:

—He cut the electricity. Madam, they are in serious trouble, this is obstruction of....

A dripping sound was heard as the light of the younger policeman's flashlight flickered. His partner immediately shone it on him, discovering in horror the ghastly, pale, sinister-faced creature that had just bitten his neck off. The older policeman immediately fired at the same time as Kisa disappeared into the darkness. Leaving the young policeman lying at the feet of his partner who shouted without dropping his gun:

—What the hell is that, is that an alien, a ghost or what?!
—It's...It's my husband, sir...I told you he was sick....

Maggie stammered, as her legs trembled. The older policeman took his radio and searched around the room, shining his flashlight and saying:

—Madam, you have very strange tastes, very strange!... Officer down, we need backup! .... Take a look at him, I think he's still breathing ... Boy, hang on!

Maggie took the other flashlight and ran to examine the young man's wound, noticing that blood was gushing out. The girl tried to stop it with her hands, while the dying man pleaded for help with his eyes. Maggie pressed on the open flesh in a moved manner, saying:

—Help is on the way, he'll be all right, he'll come home tonight and everything will be as usual, just hang on a little, a few minutes...!

The boy tried to swallow, a tear rolled down his cheek and then he went limp; like a soft cloth. Then all expression was wiped from his eyes and Maggie felt her heart break. She shook him, tried to find a pulse, then hugged him silently. He had died in her arms without her being able to do anything for him. She looked up and discovered that the other policeman had disappeared. She laid the young man's body on the floor and left the house with a glazed look on her face, carrying the flashlight and musing, "Maggie, you big idiot, ... Are you going to save the whole world from pain? Kisa, Tommy, Turn, your friends...everyone? You yourself endured so much, kept so quiet, that you began to think you became immune to suffering; and in a way yes, you developed a shell, you became made of stone. Insensitive...and then cruel. All that time being your grandmother's doll, daddy's little jewel, your friends' pet. Why did you put up with it? Why? Because you knew... You knew that inside you had something, ... something sinister, ... something that one day could explode and harm all those poor people around you... those you cherish so much because you actually consider them delicate, ... fragile, ... immaculate children compared to you; because deep down you are an implacable monster and you know it. That day in your childhood house, you left your mother paralyzed by pushing and throwing her off the balcony when she called you "mouthy" because you told your father that your older brothers forced you to have oral sex with them, mom had told you not to tell anyone! And even though you got your father to save you by taking you away with your grandmother, monster of anger and frustration simply went to sleep; that's why you try to sweeten everyone's life, to relieve every sorrow you find, to keep the monster asleep...Always afraid to face your only fear: to find again that suffering you already conquered now devouring others and not being able to do anything, as it happened the first time with you; like repeating the same story until the beast's anger explodes again." The screams of pain led her to a grove of trees where she could see among some bushes Kisa doing something on the ground. She approached as the fear faded into cold determination, saying:

—You killed a boy about my age. He died waiting for me to save him.

Kisa looked at her smiling. There was something demented, sadistic about it, as she said:

—Well, another family waking up to the pain. More people who understand me!
—Why should they understand you? It's unfair...
—Have you never been angry enough to kill someone?! My love, don't lie to me...I know you have...Someone with that much passion is perfectly capable of going to any extreme...Didn't it feel good to pull that trigger and watch Tolley's aunt's brains fly? Didn't it feel satisfying?!

Maggie got close enough to watch as Kisa cut sections of skin with his fingernails on the wounded old cop, which he then lifted up exposing the living flesh. Then she exploded. She lunged at the Selenite striking him with instinctive certainty, her inner ferocity running amok. Before he could even react, she had already dragged him several meters away from the cop with punches and kicks; attacking and dodging by intuition, focused only on killing him with her bare hands. He tried to restrain her but it was not an easy task, Maggie managed to get away again or strike with a force incongruent with her physique; a force coming from the soul of a woman corrupted by years of repression. The fight went on for several hours, during which Maggie hunted her husband through the trees; determined to kill him at any cost. The sun rose to find them somewhere lost in the forest, their clothes torn, bloodied and out of breath; but still willing to fight. They stalked each other like wolves in the bushes, until Kisa said:

—No one has ever been able to face me before, you're as crazy or crazier than me... And I still don't know where you get your strength from...
—Come closer, you son of a bitch... Stop talking and come closer.
—You won't gain anything by provoking me, now is when I want you most for myself.

Replied the Selenite with an ironic laugh. Maggie then shouted:

—You're never really going to have me because I've never loved you, it's only been bizarre sex and some affection because I thought you were a pathetic man!
—I've always assumed so; do you think I haven't seen myself? A pretty little girl like you would never fall in love with me, just like that. However, you have accepted me, and that's enough for me. As in every arranged marriage, true love will come later; and I already have the advantage of making you happy in bed.
—No... no, that's not true....

Kisa approached slowly, almost crawling, while he said with a sarcastic smile:

—You are very good at lying.

Maggie jumped on him attacking him again, and he let himself be done; saying:

—Come on, use my own fingernails to cut my jugular. Just hold me afterwards while I bleed out, like you did the other policeman; so that I'll think I'm falling asleep in your arms and go away happy.

The young woman gave him one last punch and sat down on the ground, her back to him. He came up to her again, even kissing her shoulders, uncovering them and murmuring:

—Don't you like this; don't you feel anything?

He took off her blouse and began to caress her with the tip of his sharp nails, making her shiver with pleasure. A fine drizzle began to fall and Maggie made a slight attempt to move away, getting down on her hands and knees. Kisa went on with his intentions, as he said:

—Is it a rejection? For it seems quite the opposite.
—That poor skinned policeman...I should have stayed with him....
—He must have gotten up on his own feet and put the strips together again. It was nothing serious.
—Of course... And the kid with his throat cut open went home just like that too.
—This is a war, Maggie, my war. It's normal for people to die!
—Who are you fighting against, the whole planet Earth? If so, I must inform you that you lost the war before it started.

He yanked down her underwear and slipped into her as if in punishment, suddenly grabbing her by the hair to say almost in her ear:

—If you so repudiate my methods of settling scores, why are you with me? You have had enough opportunities to escape, but you prefer to stay by my side to be the self-sacrificing victim; and it is that deep down you accept me. You are just like me. I know you enjoy giving yourself to me, and that excites me. You love it when I fuck you, don't you?

Maggie bit her lips, holding back a moan, while Kisa insisted ardently:

—Don't you like us fucking like beasts? Don't you shudder at every thrust? Do you want me to stop now? Do you want me to let go of you?!!!!

Then there was a faint calm. And he laughed, saying:

—Look how much I disgusted you!

The young woman rested her forearms and forehead on the floor as she gasped tremulously, watching the evidence of the facts drain from between her thighs. Then she said without emotion:

—I am not going to be ashamed of my body's reactions and needs. This is just a proof that I like pleasure like everyone else, and nothing more, it's silly to give so much importance to something as natural as sex. I feel tired of acting an unreal character, of being what everyone else, including you, wants me to be. I live imprisoned by the fear of offending or disappointing others if I show myself as I am, I live pretending. Always pretending.

Kisa hugged her gently from behind and said:

—You don't offend me; I like how you are. You are being a good wife.

Again, she calmed down with a rush of unwelcome oxytocin, pathological tenderness that allowed those degenerate coitus. She thought for a moment and then said, now resigned:

—It's crazy...but maybe we could, yes...We could go somewhere far away from everything and start over. Somewhere where no one knows us or cares who or how we are. While we were fighting, I lost my locket containing the locator; right now, no one knows where we are and we could escape together. But you would have to stop killing... Tell me, will you kill again?
—Yes, my love. I want one dead for every year my family was abandoned. It was thirty-four years on the moon, and I've been dead for twenty-two earthlings.
—Wouldn't you spare the missing twelve... Not even for love of me?
—It's my duty to do this, duty comes before all else.

Maggie let go, sentencing:

—I won't let you.... I'll do anything to stop you!

Then Kisa approached her until he leaned on her shoulder and murmured: 

—Even kill me?

Such a question made Maggie hesitate about what to answer. Finally, she answered:

—I'll kill me if you harm anyone else, you're going to lose me for good!

For a few seconds, Kisa seemed to worry about the seriousness with which Maggie had spoken; but then she thought of something and started stroking her hair while whispering with a sarcastic half-smile, "So beautiful..." 


October 31, 2012


Ludmila looked astonished before the mirror in her bedroom, as if she had just awakened from a long sleep. Then she looked out of the window, gazing at the peaceful Moscow landscape under the leaden sky; everything was so serene and hospitable to her that life on the moon base now seemed like a horrible nightmare that was hard to believe. She heard a knock at her door and turned gently. Miller was standing at the lintel. The nurse smiled shyly and then said with concern:

—There's bad news, your son has been missing for three days after getting into a bizarre altercation with the police. He killed one officer and injured another. When he was trying to kill this second man, his daughter-in-law appeared; they started fighting over everything he had done and while arguing they went into a wooded area. Since then, they have not been seen again.
—My son, my son has killed?!

The woman looked at him as if in disbelief, and Miller continued:

—That's right, Ludmila...I think...I'm afraid you've forgotten that your son became a very violent man since he separated from you on the Moon. You see, he dictated the rules on the base and, to achieve that power over others, he killed many of his relatives: all his uncles, several cousins and half-brothers. When he came to Earth he continued to act in a bloodthirsty manner and has become a serious problem. 
—So... he killed his own father. I imagine he knew his father must be.... But how could he...? And, did you say he has a wife, here on earth?
—Maggie, yes. She's a teenager who was helping with the research. She was a very sweet and shy girl; she took a liking to her son and ... things happened.

This news surprised the mother, who approached Miller excitedly and asked:

—What is she like, is she beautiful?
—She's very pretty and, for him, too pretty. I find that hard to believe. She's the kind of girl who ends up being the girlfriend of a soccer team captain, not a....
—But is she really beautiful? Tell me, what is she like?
—She's beautiful, yes. She's a brunette, she has the face of a doll, her body is beautiful and she's also very smart; she was only seventeen years old when she started university.
—I see...I'm so glad and so sad...Please, Miller, bring my Bible. Now I remember and understand...With the heart we found, Kisa was referring to that young woman; his wife. Unfortunately, she may be dead now.
—Dead, why?

Ludmila sat down in an armchair and explained:

—Because my son has no limit to his emotions. Whoever lives with him will one day end up being a victim of his murderous rage, unless he is strong enough to force him to restrain himself or to endure it; which in the long run would end up infecting him with his evil. He lived in relative tranquility with his first wife because she was mute and her mind like that of a submissive little girl. He lived in "peace" with me because I was extremely strict with him...and he feared me. A young, beautiful college girl does not know such morbid extremes of behavior, and if she is not able to handle the situation...it will kill her.

The nurse gave her a disturbed look and squatted down in front of her, replying in confusion:

—But...your son has changed a lot. Maggie "tamed" him without needing to lose her temper or kowtow to him, as far as I saw.
—No, he has deceived them. Kisa will not change in a few months what he has been all his life. Ever since he was very little, I knew he would be like a tornado or a volcano, an uncontrollable natural phenomenon. The day he gave me this heart I knew for sure. It was all because of a terrible mistake of mine that happened on January 1, 1988. Kisa was turning three that day, but I never told him because I thought it was corny to celebrate his birth. However, I gave him some charcoals and sheets of paper to scribble on. He spent hours drawing circles with paws and scratches, he seemed happy. He was as small, thin and fragile as a kitten; and that day he was smiling as if his miserable world of ten square meters was the best of all. His deformed little face was like a caricature with which life mocked me. I left him alone for a while to go wash my hair. Washing myself on the moon required a lot of time and effort due to the low gravity, I spent almost an hour washing my hair with a cloth dampened in a cleaning solution. My hair, long and blond, was the only beautiful thing I had. I was skinny, pale and haggard; but my hair was a beautiful golden cloak that floated around me like a halo, and Kisa loved it. He would spend hours combing it with his little hands and would fall asleep on my back grabbing a lock. I guess my hair was the only part of me that treated him gently...Somehow, he felt that by brushing my hair against him I was caressing him as I held him to protect him from the cold or fed him; and that must have meant the same thing to him as it does to other babies when their mothers tell them they love them. Babies come into the world believing that mom is invariably going to take care of them and make them feel loved, but this is not true in all cases. Sometimes, mom is anything but what they expect; and that day, Kisa realized that he was one of those unfortunate ones who come into the world to receive such disappointment. He was doodling until he started to feel tired, got sleepy and as usual went to curl up on my back; while stroking my still damp hair. Soon after I began to see some blackened strands of my hair, when I touched them, my fingers were also stained black and I turned around furious. Kisa had forgotten to wash his hands full of charcoal and so had come to sleep while he sucked a dirty finger and stroked my hair, dirtying me too. I thought of all the work, time and resources I would lose in washing again and, blind with anger, I kicked him awake. He burst into tears, not understanding what was happening, while I screamed and explained what I had just done to him. He asked me for forgiveness, choking with tears, but his tears were nothing to me; I still had to do something else to him to feel that I had really punished him and to pay him for the displeasure he had put me through. I pulled him up by his hair and dragged him to the boiler, telling him I was going to wash his hands with fire while he screamed in terror and tried to get away from me. That made me even angrier and I hit him again, accused him of disobedience for not letting me do what I wanted; then my poor son let himself go, while crying inconsolably. I ordered him to hold out his small palms and then forced him to press them against a red-hot panel covering the boiler. Kisa cried out in pain as I held him still until his little hands began to smoke, then I released him and he cried out loudly from the pain as he looked at me in confusion. At that moment I realized that he had just turned three years old, he was still a baby, the madness was consuming me and I could not realize it before. Then I tried to hold him to heal his burns and he cowered away from me, screaming in fear; I had to take him by force and heal him that way. Then he became seriously ill, I think with sadness, for almost a month. He didn't want to eat, he didn't want to sleep, he just cried silently; with the skin on his palms peeling off and his heart broken. I was not able to give him a single token of affection, just trying to do so made me feel ashamed, insecure, ridiculous... It was simply impossible for me to comfort him. Finally, I removed the bandages and we noticed that the skin had disappeared, and in its place, there were only smooth scars. In a short time, he went back to scribbling with charcoals and never forgot to be meticulously clean again, it seems to me that he never trusted me again either; and ever since then his look has been grim. One night I could stand it no longer, and at last I had the courage to sit him on my lap and hug him just for the sake of hugging him. I rocked him for a while and cooed to him, and was surprised at how easy it was to make him feel better; in a few minutes he was smiling gratefully. Then I realized it was time to tell my son that I loved him, but the dullness of my sick mind clouded my thoughts and I only succeeded in giving him a convoluted speech about the fact that he was born of my blood, and that blood was the essence of life; therefore, he was very precious to me. I finished speaking by kissing him on the forehead and he hugged me excitedly. He jumped off my lap and went to the hydroponic garden room. I saw him do something on a table, which he had to reach by standing on the tip of his tiny bare feet, and then he came back bringing this sheet of paper with this heart, which at that moment was red because he had colored it with the blood from his purposely wounded fingertips. My first intention was to punish him, but then I looked up and saw my poor son shivering with cold and love as he waited for my approval; he had given me much more than a scribble made with blood. And then I understood that his emotions are much deeper, stronger and more explosive than those of any normal person. I had to have hugged and kissed him, and told him that everything would be all right, to rest. But I couldn't do it, I felt incapable of giving all the affection that my son expected; although I wished more than anything in the world that I could have done it. So, I devised something to take that sorrow away from me. I told him that I could not accept his gift because he should keep that feeling that represented the heart for his wife. That she would treat him well and give him lots of love when he was older. He poor little guy believed me as if he was going to "grow up" in a couple of hours, asking me who his wife would be and what she would look like. I told him she was going to be a very beautiful young woman, like the ones that adorned the pictures in the books, that she was going to treat him kindly and make him happy. I promised him that I would keep the heart in my Bible until that young lady came, and he went to sleep satisfied, waiting while I wept silently; for I knew that he would never find such a woman on the base, and that even if he did, she would never come to love him, for he is dreadful. That is why, when you told me that a beautiful young woman from Earth had given herself to him, I was really happy; for my son's only dream came true. But the truth is that Kisa is a creepy creature and I doubt that this girl will ever love him with the intensity he expects, so he will surely ignite his anger and end up killing her; ending his dream in a tragic way.

Miller stared at the floor dumbfounded and then commented:

—It is terrible...It is frightful what despair can lead one to do...I know that you are a good woman and that if you had to raise your child again, at present, you would be the sweetest and most understanding mother of all; but that damned place....

Then Ludmila stood up and went back to the window, saying:

—It was not only the place but myself, my weakness and uncontrol; I was an animal on the moon. No one is really a person until he succeeds in taming his own impulses. Now that I have regained my health, I would like to regain my son too, Miller. I know I'll never be able to repair all the damage I did to him when he was little, but that doesn't erase the fact that I still love him and want to help him. Every time he murders, he signs his own death warrant in blood; he can't go on like this, he must stop.
—I'll make some calls to keep an eye on what's going on with your son....

Miller replied to say something, although inside he was just full of uncertainty.

At that same moment, J. Gabin was briefing Wellman and Tom Tolley in the backyard of Maggie's house while a team of forensic investigators examined the property:

—It's quite a house of horrors. In addition to finding Mrs. Tolley's body buried in the backyard next to a box containing dead embryo test tubes, there was evidence that the room was covered in blood; it remains to be seen if that blood belongs only to the murdered woman. And as if all that were not enough, there are also traces of semen and vaginal fluids all over the house: the floor, the sofa, the dining room table, the carpets, the walls! We began to suspect that it was all planned and they simply escaped to "love each other to their heart's content."

Tolley rudely interrupted him:

—You shut up, whatever happened here is really twisted, perverse... Something totally foreign to Maggie. Maybe that monster raped her, or slept with other women...Maybe he abused my aunt....

Wellman then asked, while taking an aspirin:

—There were surveillance cameras, weren't there? Gabin, how come no one noticed what was going on here?
—Apparently, the young man in charge of keeping an eye on our curious little couple, Abel Turn, decided to keep quiet about everything that was going on in the house. Agents went looking for him at his residence in Colorado only to find that he had disappeared, erasing all surveillance records of the house and transferring his bank accounts overseas. That's all we know, Dr. Wellman.
—He covered up the bride and groom and then fled? But what a great guy!

Wellman joked and Tolley said, covering his face as he took a breath:

—We're wasting time here.... Maggie and the alien went into a forest south of town, we won't find any clue to their whereabouts rummaging through the junk in this house. The locator on her forearm had been removed long ago and was hidden in the locket they found lying in the brush, which makes me suspect that she must have considered the idea of escape long ago; and probably wanted to get away from that creepy animal.
 
Everyone was silent for a moment, then Gabin spoke again as he lit a cigarette:

—The search and rescue team is combing the area, however, bad weather is hampering the operation. To make matters worse, they are calling insistently from Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency; they have restarted the lawsuit for Mr. Mikhailov and they are very serious. They intend to take the case all the way to the International Court of Justice and make everything public.

Then Tom Tolley exclaimed:

—What are they waiting for to give them back their psychopath alien? The investigation can go on perfectly well without him; enough information has already been obtained about his odious person, Gabin!
—The problem is that Mr. Mikhailov is still missing, Dr. Tolley.

Some children in Halloween costumes ran by, and Wellman muttered, looking at them:

—God forbid... But what if that thing is no longer in the forest and is loose in the city? In costume, with his face covered and not talking. Yes... It could be a lonely boy waiting for the bus, a silent boy hanging around Halloween parties; one of many costumed boys who suddenly starts acting strange, harassing you by behaving sinisterly...and suddenly starts tearing at your skin and gnawing your flesh off.

Gabin opined, exhaling cigarette smoke:

—And where would he leave Mistress Maggie, if he hasn't killed her? I doubt she'd stand idly by while he started an orgy of blood. She would come to warn us or call the police at least. I rather think they are still lost in the woods and it won't be long before we find them. Now, gentlemen, it is getting dark and in twenty minutes I have a video conference with a heavy representative of the Russian Military Space Forces. I advise you to relax, return to your homes and wait calmly. The worst that could happen is that the young woman is dead or that a new international legal suit starts.

Tolley returned home worried. As he drove, he tried unsuccessfully to remember the reasons why he had left Maggie outwitted. Now he had her in his memory as an angelic being, a pure and naive girl he had conquered and who through his carelessness had fallen into the clutches of a despicable animal, a repugnant being who would dare touch his little wife. That idea gave him chills and at the same time burned in his chest, it seemed inconceivable and grotesque to him to be replaced by someone who did not even come up to his heels in terms of manhood, personality, popularity and, above all, in sexual capacity. Thinking about these things, he made his way home as night was falling. 

After parking, he walked the long stretch of lawn to his front door and suddenly looked under a large tree at someone rocking gently on a swing. A boy wearing a rabbit mask, his hair was blond, unkempt and shoulder-length. For a moment he told himself it couldn't be, but something made him wary. He stared at whoever was on the swing and waited, until that strange rocking person made an obscene sign to him; then, he was sure. He threw his briefcase on the floor and approached angrily:

—What do you want here, you come to show off, you want to prove something, you bite and scratch fight like a babe, go on, start screaming, you faggot!

He shoved the occupant of the swing, sending him sprawling on his face as he screamed in horror, pulling off his mask and revealing the face of a young girl with braces and acne who ran away. Tolley stood for a moment in shock and then rushed into the house. He found everything dark and discovered that there was no electrical service; something seemed amiss. He called his wife Lindsay but received no answer. When he reached the living room, he found a mysterious note which he read immediately:

"If you care, come and take her from me."

Convinced that the Selenite had to be involved in this strange threat, he ran with intentions of going to the second floor but when he turned to go upstairs, he found Lindsay on the floor, gagged, raped and with her throat slit. 


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