The Musings of Jack Marlowe (Part Two)

[thehonorablebat]

 

1968

Thomas Upton met Mary Weir for the second time at a conference for some of the government’s best scientists. A way for the top secret best of the best could come together and get recognition within the circle.

It wasn’t exactly a crowded event.

Bureau Agent Upton, two years in the Navy and one in the CIA, was on hand as part of the security detail. A grunt assignment for the rookie. He might have been bright, but he was still young. Just a baby compared to the vets that survived the invasion.

His witnessing of certain events at the age of fourteen had no doubt set his career path in stone…even using fake credentials to join the Navy early.

“How old are you?” laughter laced Mary’s voice. Her eyes sparkled. She recognized him. Even after all these years.

“Twenty-two.” Upton eyed the man carrying the tray of champagne with enough unconcealed distrust, the man blanched.

“Really? Because you look nineteen.” She smiled like she used to when they’d played cops and robbers.

“I’ve never looked my age, ma’am.” He realized he was smiling too, without meaning to be. It was so good to see her again. He’d never been able to admit to himself how much losing his best friend at thirteen had hurt. No one else wanted to play with a boy whose parents were rumored to be soviet spies.

“I take it you won’t be drinking, then?” Mary asked.

"Not on the job, ma'am."

Mary took his hand, leading him to the dance floor.
 

–

Professor Alan Weir was declared dead on the day Upton proposed. Not even a year after they’d met again. Upton would later discover the Professor has been missing for about as long. The conference the last day anyone had positively seen him.

Mary cried twice that day for different reasons.

–

She couldn’t have children.

Mary didn’t consider that the end of the world. Far from it. As a matter of fact, she hardly thought about it. Mary was a practical woman. If she really wanted kids down the line, there was always adoption.

But that didn’t mean the Bureau offering her a potential way for her to have children didn’t pique her interest. The alien technology was a marvel. Adapting it for their own uses was proving both exciting and mind blowing.

It made Upton uneasy, but he watched Mary’s excited pace their bedroom with bright eyes.

She was like her father, optimistic. A dreamer. The idea of the treatment, more wonderful to her than the actual treatment itself.

He knew she’d accept the offer. It was the beginning of a revolution in medicine. How could she not be one of the first in line? Especially when the Bureau had assured her it was safe. The process tested with no ill effects.

Mary sat down in front of her mirror. They didn’t have much time before they were supposed to meet her friends and their husbands for dinner.

As far as they were aware, Thomas Upton was a promising lawyer, and Mary just a nurse.

Upton approached her from behind, gently taking the brush from her excited fingers.

She smiled at him in the mirror.

“Are we even ready for a child?”

“I think we still have time to decide that.” He helped her do her hair while she hummed in thought.

–

Upton was on duty while Mary had her procedure. Director Faulke wasn’t about to give him time off just to be there with his wife.

Rumor had it the old man’s own wife didn’t live with him, and his daughter had broken contact some time ago. Upton could believe it.

They’d kept Mary sedated anyway. It wasn’t a surgery. She went to sleep, and woke up almost an hour later being told it worked. They weren’t too keen on giving more details than that.

But they weren’t wrong. Mary was pregnant not long after that.They hadn’t been careful. Maybe a part of them believed it hadn’t worked.  

Mary had to see Bureau doctors during her checkups. She was able to visit afterwards if he was in the office. It always brightened his day.

–

They were at a friend’s house when something went wrong.

Mary’s best friend screamed at the amount of blood.

Upton broke more than a few traffic laws to get her to the nearest hospital.

He didn’t know what shocked him more. The sudden emergency or the Bureau agents–senior personnel he’d only caught glimpses of in HQ–bursting into the hospital ten minutes after Mary was checked in. The agents breezed passed him. A briefcase handcuffed to the wrist of the one in the middle.

It took most of the angry nursing staff and doctors to force them out. By then their son was born…and in perfect health in spite of the agents none-too-gentle handling. The hospital kept both him and Mary under observation for several days.

Upton ignored the calls to report in.

His son had his eyes.

He was so tiny.

He held Arthur when they let him, the weight of something settling on Upton’s shoulders. Something wasn’t right.

Mary felt it too. She didn’t ever want to let their son out of her sight.

–

Arthur was spinning the mobile.

It wasn’t the wind. The window was shut.

The baby’s wide dark eyes fixed on it.

Upton took a step into the room.

Arthur noticed him, and the mobile came to a stop. The baby reached for him.

Upton scooped up his son, holding him close. Fear filled his chest. Not of his son, but of the Agents that had been in his hospital room. Of what might lay in the boy’s future.

He knew he wasn’t strong enough to protect him.

Arthur’s small hand grasped his tie.

His shoulders trembled.

–

When he did finally report in, he expected the chewing out of the century. If not to be told to pack up his desk.

Instead, Director Faulke told him a measure of the truth.

He had no son. Just an alien living in the body his son might have had, had he not been born brain dead.

That’s what they told him.

He couldn’t unsee the baby with wide innocent eyes. He held Arthur just before he came into work.

Upton nodded and told the Director that he understood, but he did not think his wife would.

“I don’t ask people to understand, Agent.”

–

They could run. Tell Mary to pack a bag and they could leave.

But they’d be caught.

He knew it as a fact. The Bureau would never let their Asset go.

Upton knew what he had to do.

–

Faking his death was the easy part. Watching Mary get sent to prison and their son taken to a lab almost killed him.

At least prison was better than dead. And she’d get out. He’d make sure of it. He just need to get evidence to exonerate her that didn’t link back to the Bureau.

No one could know it was him, or Arthur would be all alone.

He stood smoking across the break from where two agents he didn’t know were trying to get the baby to smile. He watched them in the reflection off a framed photo of the president.

“Hey, isn’t this your kid?” One of the agents called over to him. “He keeps reaching for you.”

On the night he’d faked his death, he spent hour crying into a pillow. He hadn’t cried since he was a little kid. He’d done that every night since.

He could try and raise his son here. No one would stop him. It might even be encouraged.

But he had a plan.

Arthur, in the long run, would be better off for it. This was no place to raise a child. Not a healthy one. Not with what he suspected they wanted to turn Arthur into.

“No.” He didn’t even turn his head to acknowledge them. A cloud of smoke escaped his mouth. “I don’t have any children.”

If he was lucky, the fucking cigarettes would kill him after he got his plan off.

–

“I wanted to commend you, Agent.” Director Faulke passed a clipboard off to his assistant. She passed him without so much as a glance. “Your dedication to the big picture is something that’s hard to find.”

“I’m just doing my job, sir.” He allowed himself to scan the lab. A little curiosity, but not too much.

“And what job is that?” Faulke placed his hands on his hips, head tilted to the side.

He knew a pitfall when he heard one, but he already had his answer. Hours at night spent plotting came in handy.

“Protecting Earth and humanity, sir.”

The corners of Faulke’s mouth twitched upwards.

“Come with me,” he said.

The Director lead him down two corridors, through increasingly levels of top secret until they got to a large, honest to god, cave. Full of crystals kept contained under enclosures.  

Elerium. A lot of Elerium. Maybe even the whole damn take from Montana.

A series of floodlight turned on. He had to hold back a low whistle.

More than just from Montana.

The enclosures had tubes leading to three chambers he first thought were mini reactors. Until he caught a glimpse of something swimming inside.

Faulke lead him over.

Closer now, he could make out the things inside a little easier. The one closest to him looked like a melted, humanoid jellyfish. Its features and form deformed waxlike. He couldn’t tell the color with all the Elerium. It stay curled in on itself. Not moving.

The one in the middle had a lot of spindly limbs. Like a spider. Its sporadic twitches caused flares of red light to flash off it.

He didn’t see anything in the last chamber at first. Only after squinting and tilting his head did he see it. A vague ghostly shape swirling doll-like in the Elerium’s current.

“That one is either are worst failure or our greatest success, depending how you look at it.” Director Faulke lit a cigarette. “It’s weak. Far, far weaker than the others, but it doesn’t have their …quirks. It’s a small wisp of power. Not what we were going for, but it’s better than nothing.”

Director Faulke offered him a cigarette. He accepted, his mouth dry.

“But it, and the others of its kind, keep rejecting potential bonding subjects. Dr. James and Dr. Dresner finally have a theory about why. Would you like to hear it?” Faulke regarded him over his glasses.

“I am a little curious, sir.” He tried to tears his eyes off the things. Bile was pressing against his throat.

God, what have they done?

What have they done to his son?

“They believe it’s a matter of familiarity,” Faulke said. “We tried to copy as much as we could from the source. The source who had only two prior hosts and limited exposure to people. It had a small pool of individuals it felt comfortable with. Most of which are dead, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but what does this have to do with me?”

Faulke nodded to the wisp, taking the cigarette from his mouth.

“It’s our hope that its weakness and your own familiarity to the lineage of one of the sources former hosts, may allow just enough leverage for a bonding event to take place.”

“What will it do to me?” he asked.

“Nothing, aside from giving you abilities to make you stand head and shoulders above your fellow agents. That thing is almost as brain dead as your son. There’s little there to try and control you.”

Never had he wanted to murder a man as badly as he wanted to murder Faulke in that moment.

“I understand, sir.”

“Then open it.” Faulke took a long drag on his cigarette. Watching him through the smoke.

The chamber had an obvious release lever painted in red on the front. He pulled it. Opening the top right up.

He didn’t remember what happened next.

–

John.

John was the kind of name you think up on the fly when you need a new one fast.

Or when you can’t be bothered to care.

He looked at himself in the mirror. Once dark eyes, now a bright blue.

“John,” said the man in the mirror. He grimaced.

Hello, I’m a man in a moderately priced black suit, wearing rubber soled shoes, and my name is John. He might as well get ‘suspicious’ tattooed on his forehead.

“Jack,” the man in the mirror adjusted. He nodded.

Hand gripped his razor. An energy thrumming through his veins that made teeth clench.

He reached for the shaving cream.

–

When Professor Weir discovered his research was copied without his knowledge and what the Bureau was doing with it, he wasn’t exactly pleased.

He’d destroyed equipment in the original lab, inadvertently freeing the first of the Asaru Clones.

They had no idea where it went. That’s where he came into the picture.

He could tell there were doubts he could stand against the thing, but he was their best shot at reclamation. Failing that, destruction.

His one advantage over other agents? Well it wouldn’t be able to mind control him immediately like it does everyone else. Other than that, he had nothing. He didn’t think the ability to push a penny across a table would help him.

The picture of A-1 looked almost human. If you were willing to strip a human down to just their head and cardiovascular system. Red psionic veins contained within a black silhouette. Its ‘hands’ pressed against its chambers walls, its mouth opened in a scream.

It already looked more lively than the others.

Marlowe lit a cigarette.

This was his life now.

–

Carter was an easy man to find. Faulke still had surveillance on him.

Trying to break into his mind was another matter entirely.

“Get up, you dumb fucker.”

Movement inside the room made him retreat. Marlowe watched in the shadows of an absent neighbor’s doorway as Carter left with his laundry.

–

Faulke ordered him to make himself scarce around Carter once he rejoined. If anyone could figure out what was going on, it would be him. And if Carter wasn’t as loyal as he was acting, that would be a problem.

Marlowe obeyed to the letter. There was no need for Carter to see him in order to help the man’s intents stay hidden.

Above all else, Carter needed to leave this place with Arthur.

–

After four weeks, Carter made his move.

Marlowe sneaked into the security room, killing the two guards inside silently. He shut off the cameras and the alarms.

He left to follow Carter, locking the door behind him.

Marlowe was not sad to see James Sr. die. Him and his theories were the reason Marlowe and his son were in this mess.

No, he was the reason they were in this mess. He, Marlowe, the idiot boy who decided he was adult enough for the world at fifteen. The nineteen year old who decided he was smart enough for government work. Mature enough to get married. To bring a child into the world.

Silly boy. Don’t you know the monster out there eat children like you? The ones who dress like adults and think that means they can sit at the grown up table. They’ll smile and welcome you as they prepare their plates.

If there was one thing Marlowe knew, it was that the whole thing was planned for him since that day in 1962 when he bore witness to things he should never have seen and got out alive. He’d been helped into the Navy, and the position at the CIA handed to him on a golden platter. A more seasoned person might have seen that before it was too late.

Marlowe’s radio went off as Carter disappeared into James’ office.

They needed snipers at the reactor. Faulke knew.

How much did he know, was the question?

Marlowe followed orders.

He sat stood on the catwalk high above Carter and Faulke’s heads as they spoke to one another. Marlowe could see Arthur through his scope. Tiny hands gripping Carter’s tie–”I think he likes your tie,” Mary’s tired laugh was infectious. He managed to unwind the tie from around his neck, letting Arthur have it--, innocent and unaware of how much danger he was in.

Carter overloaded the reactor.

The only thing Marlowe could say for certain about what happened next, was that he took a shot at Faulke’s back at the last second. He watched the old man crumple to the floor before a bright flash of light blinded him.

When he next woke, he was lying in a thicket. A squirrel watching him from high up in the branches. When he managed to make it to the nearest town, he discovered he was in New Jersey.

And in deep shit.

–

Marlowe went through three packs before he could relax. A not insubstantial amount of his own psionic abilities and blackmail went to into forging last minute documents informing anyone who cared to look that he had left for New Jersey two hours before The Bureau’s main headquarters was vaporized, following a lead on their still missing A-1.

The important thing was that the council bought it and there was no one left alive who could ever contradict the story.

And Arthur was away. Safe.

Now he could focus on helping Mary.