Chapter Thirty-Five

Travis reveled in causing his parents pain, but it was only a fraction of what he'd endured at the hands of the DMRC. And he would have continued punishing them had Josh not intervened when he did. The moment he saw Josh, Travis's rage bloomed anew.

 He'd lashed out at Josh, fully intending to maim if not kill him. But he paused when Josh screamed out. Sure, he was well past furious, but part of Travis still loved Josh. He went to comfort him when agents from the DMRC arrived and opened fire on him. He'd never forget the searing pain as their bullets tore through him.

Vision darkening around the edges, head spinning and woozy, he tried Popping to Grams'. Instead, Travis found himself in a desert filled with pueblo caves, the arid wind blowing against his face as he swayed on his feet. Spotting a sign, he learned he was in The Mesa Verde National Park.

What am I doing here?

"The answers you seek can be found north of here," boomed a new voice in his head.

Who are you?

"I'm the power of your body, and in time, you'll meet the power of your mind and spirit. You must master each of us."

How do I know I'm not going crazy? Travis sucked in a breath, wincing as pain radiated up his arms and chest.

"Time grows short, young one. If you are to survive, then do exactly as I say."

Body, as he dubbed the voice, guided Travis through the process of removing the bullets via telekinesis by first focusing on the pain. Then, Body had him visualize the bullets and shoot them out of himself. 

"I can't do this," he said through gritted teeth, fighting back the pain and losing.

"Yes, you can!"

Biting the inside of his cheek, Travis dug down deep. With a loud scream, he expelled the bullets and passed out. When he came to, night had fallen.   

Where to now? he asked Body, wrapping his arms around himself to keep warm. It guided him to a group of pueblo caves a mile north of where he'd passed out, and when he arrived, a bright white light surrounded him, lifting him upward.

When it passed, he was in a massive cave filled with technology he'd never seen before.

"Welcome home," Body said.

He fainted.

***

Blinking, his vision cleared, revealing two entities above him; they were talking in a language that sounded like a blend of Japanese, Mandarin, and birdsong. They had flamingo limbs, ostrich necks, and peregrine claws on their outstretched hands.

Their luminescent eyes--the smaller one had purple, while the other had amber--popped against their obsidian-black skin. Travis backed away, summoning a fireball in each hand.

Their lipless mouths formed into something akin to a smile, showing off their serpentine fangs.

"Another step, and I'll deep-fry ya."

They looked at him, their almond-shaped eyes reminding him of an eagle's. The larger one spoke in the weird language, and when Travis didn't react, it waved him over to a machine.

He stiffened, drawing back his arms.

"Wait! Maybe we should do like my mans says and follow him," Prometheus said.

One, how do we know we can trust them? Two, how do you know that's a male?

"I mean, they could have murked us while we was passed out, right?"

True. But I still don't trust them.

"I feel ya. But don't you think it's highly sus we was led all the ways here just to be killed?"

That remains to be seen. 

"Whadda we got to lose?"

Our viscera and genitalia.

"Boy, you play too much."

Okay. But if we wake up in an ice-filled tub missing a kidney, it's on you.

Travis stood in front of the machine it pointed at and examined it. It had a console with a square panel and what looked like a microphone. He touched the panel, and the cave came alive with action. Machines beeped and whirled, lights flashed . . . and then, dead silence.

He stood in awe at the sight before him, wondering if he'd stumbled upon a clandestine military base, when indecipherable symbols ran across the monitors lining the walls of the cave. He struggled to comprehend how such a massive compound could exist without people discovering it and how it fit in the mountainside when it was several times wider than the mountain itself.

The creatures approached, speaking rapidly, but he couldn't understand them and made to attack.

"Hold up. Maybe you should go Professor X on them before making with the violence?"

His frustrated expression must have told them he didn't understand them, for they stopped speaking and burst into tears. 

 The smaller one approached, placed its hand on his face, and uttered a series of chirps. Travis flinched away.

What are you? he asked it.

It paused and then looked up at him, its eyes boring into him. "Ta (|tah|) Bi (|bee|) Tanna (|Tahn| |nah| ) wo(|whoa|) Baha (|bah| |ha|)."  

I don't understand.

 It let out a forlorn cry, and the image of a woman cradling a baby flashed into Travis's mind.

You're my mother?

"Ahi(|ah|' |he| )! Baha." She pointed to the taller one. "Tochi (|toe| |chee|')."

 He followed her seven-fingered hand. Father?

  She nodded.

This isn't happening. I must be having a psychotic break or something.

"Freak out later, dip shit. I wanna hear what else she gots to say."

You're enjoying this, aren't you?

"Like a crackhead sparking up after three days."

 He pointed to himself. "Travis."

She shook her and warbled.

He pointed at her. "You?"

"Ta Bi Luscinia (|Looh|' |sigh| |knee| |uh|)."

"You're name's Luscinia?"

She nodded, pointing to herself, and then to the machine next to him. Grabbing the microphone-like device, she said, "Na (|nah| ) wo Esu ( |a|' |sue| )."

He took the device from her and said, "Hi," causing the monitor attached to the machine to turn on and flash a checkmark.

The taller creature came over and pantomimed writing, then pointed to his throat.

"Okay." He recited the English alphabet, then, after conferring with Luscinia, added pronunciations for each consonant and vowel combination. 

He pointed at the taller one. "What's his name?"

"Co'laf (|koh|' |loff|)," he said in a deep voice.

Luscinia pointed to the microphone, and for the next few hours, Travis, in a daze, helped them create a translation dictionary. The process involved their showing pictures of items and his naming them in English. Several times he didn't know what an item was, or they didn't have a word for it in their language, so they had to rely on telepathy to show each other what they meant.

At the end of the process, they had a rudimentary understanding of each other's language. He learned their language was called Na'iva (|Nah| |ee| |vuh|), which meant `speak to the wind.' Travis, being the tone-def misfit he was, couldn't produce the notes necessary to speak traditional Na'iva, so instead, they taught him Na'el (|nah|' |el|), rock voice, a dialect of Na'iva that wasn't tonal.

Travis dove into learning their language. Anything to keep his mind off this being real. He would have continued in this illusion had his stomach not growled. "Got anything to eat?" At their confused looks, he corrected, "Sorry. Urebatnomo (|ooh| |ray| |bot|' |noh| |moh) ka (|kah|)?"

Luscinia showed him to a machine at the edge of the cave. She explained it was a molecular printer that could create almost anything with the right program. She keyed in a few commands, and while he waited for it to finish, Travis asked her about the cave's power source. According to her, everything was powered by a set of solar-powered fusion generators.

"So, this cave has been here this whole time?"

She nodded. "Waiting for you . . . we have been."

"Isn't that a little stupid? I mean, what if someone discovered this place before me?"

Her face scrunched up in confusion, so he repeated what he said telepathically.

"The cave is invisible to all except those of our lineage."

In other words, it has biometric security? Then that means I'm. . .

The molecular printer beeped before he had a chance to complete his thought. It extruded sohan (|soh|' |hän|) `seed soup,' an oatmeal-like paste into a bowl along with an aquamarine liquid called miqua (|me| |kwa|) or `life and energy' into a cube-shaped pottery cup.

He sipped the sohan, more like gruel, and downed the liquid, which was flavorless. Soon after, he felt sleepy and nodded off.

***

An alarm woke him. He was in a machine, the door disjointed from its hinges, Luscinia looking at him concerned.

"You drugged me!"

Springing from the machine, he grabbed her by the throat and tossed her aside, readying an energy lash when Co'laf blocked his path.

"She harm no mean. Back our son we want."

"Explain."

And so he did.

Luscinia and Co'laf were aliens called Torins (|tore| |inns|), which meant `flame people' or `energy people,' from a now-destroyed planet named Aves (|eh|' |vis|). Torins were living stars, energy beings that had evolved from creatures similar to the birds on Earth. Luscinia was an intergalactically-renowned scientist and inventor, and she'd created the devices that built the cave and spared their lives.

"What happened?"

Rather than tell him, Co'laf showed him using telepathy.

***

Torins had been celebrating something. Travis's birth. Then other aliens that looked like giant cats attacked, killing many, and set off a machine that created a series of supermassive black holes that wiped out Aves and most of its galaxy.

Luscinia and Co'laf transferred their minds into computers, becoming the corporeal holograms before him, while their son was . . . bonded with Travis.

When the vision ended, Travis had a ton of questions. "What was that machine you put me in?"

"Defuse you from our son it was to," Luscinia began, "but malfunctioned the technology did, merging your . . . DNA. Permanently fused are you."

"Nope. Not real. Not real," he repeated, his chest heaving as he hyperventilated. The edges of his vision darkened, and the room spun. "This isn't happening," he screamed. 

Aliens weren't real. None of this was. He was crazy; he had to be. This was all some hallucination, and any second now, he'd wake up in a psych ward.

Travis clung to this thought because otherwise, he'd have to face the truth that the pillars upon which he'd built his life were a lie. Energy arced off him as his breathing sped up until he passed out.

Author's Note: Is Travis crazy, or are aliens real? Next chapter, Pro takes center stage and gets to know his "parents" more.

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