“What are you, Mariella? Are you hurting people?”
The girl bowed her head for a few seconds. Instead of contemplating how she would answer, it appeared that she was deciding whether she should answer at all. Finally, Mariella clasped the top of Moni’s palm.
Moni’s head reverberated as if it were a giant tuning fork. She could feel every wavelength of Mariella’s thoughts sloshing against her brain and soaking in between its spongy crevices. Her speech didn’t sound like another voice inside her head. Moni recognized it as her own voice. It felt like a recollection of a story she had learned long ago being brought back into focus.
There was a distant planet in a place that Moni’s people call Orion when they gaze at the sky. Mariella’s people lived in the waters there, but they didn’t resemble the waters of earth at all. These acidic waters nourished life on their home world. Tragically, much of that life got destroyed following a massive meteor strike. Aware that their planet faced a calamity that would wipe them out, Mariella’s people created seeds that could sprout into their species if they found a new home with suitable conditions. They were carried by miniature “ambassadors” of their planet that were blasted in every direction and scattered among the stars.
A cluster of them heard the communication signals from earth and migrated here. They caught a ride down from orbit on a man-made rocket craft and then started sampling their surroundings. The ambassadors found that they could transform the lagoon into a habitable environment for their species, but it would take painstaking work and some “unfortunate concessions” on the part of the local life forms. The ambassadors didn’t have much choice. None of them have received a signal from a successful colony. Earth represented the only hope of bringing their species back from extinction.
“So you do really need my help,” Moni said. “But why did you kill so many people? Why take possession of animals… and a little girl?”
As Moni stared at Mariella, a heavy blink crossed the child’s eyes as if the “ambassador” inside felt guilty for stealing the girl’s body. Moni didn’t perceive that solely from her expression. When Mariella dialed into Moni’s head, Moni caught a faint signal of Mariella’s thoughts as well. They didn’t emerge in plain English but in feelings, concepts and unintelligible static. She knew right away that no human thought like that.
Mariella’s answer emerged within Moni’s thoughts. The ambassadors came to replicate their home planet in a small section of the earth. Their species can’t tolerate the conditions in the lagoon until it’s finished, so they employed native life for the construction by taking them as hosts and utilizing their “resources.” They accessed the girl’s body as a conduit for interacting with humans and for the superior capabilities of her more advanced brain. The ambassadors had guessed correctly that a child could get away with unusual behavior better than an adult. Of course, they would rather complete their mission without harming anyone. They felt badly for Mariella and her parents, but their “sacrifices” would bring about the rebirth of a majestic species.
Moni felt their empathy wash through her mind. They hadn’t been murders at all. This was about survival for the species that created Mariella, who she loved like a daughter. She had been protecting Mariella the whole time, not from mutants, but from real monsters like her father, Sneed and the Lagoon Watcher. It turns out that she has done a great job, she thought.
Yet, she couldn’t shake the nagging sourness in her stomach. She remembered the faces of those who died: Matt Kane, Randy and Robbie Cooper, the burning teenager and his friends, Tanya Roberts, Clyde Harrison, the firefighter, Pedro and Rosa Gomez-Mariella’s parents.
They conquered the girl’s mind so completely that she didn’t care that her parents died. The snake that busted through my screen was after Aaron, not her. She called the pelican that nearly killed Nina because she knew about the drawing. She faked her kidnapping with the mutant gator to avoid being nabbed by the DCF. Then she had Agent Tanya and Harrison beheaded. And Mrs. Mint… How many other people will die when they take over the lagoon?
They hate taking lives even more than they hate taking land. Although she understood their sentiment, those words were not her own. Mariella had put them there.
The extinct species wants only a sliver of Earth. When standing on the lagoon’s edge, it may seem like a lot, but from the grand vantage point of space, the Indian River Lagoon is hardly a scratch on the blue and white marble of this planet. In much the same way, the tragic loss of life hurts deeply for those who knew the sacrificed ones, but in the grand scheme of earth’s population, the expected casualties from this operation will be “statistically insignificant.” As long as people accept that the visiting species has a right to exist and grants it the space it requires in the lagoon, further bloodshed and “involuntary possessions” won’t be necessary.
“That’s not how we think,” Moni said aloud so she wouldn’t confuse Mariella’s voice with her own. “Every single life is precious and has a right to exist, even if it’s one in 6 billion. Why can’t you reach out and talk to us? Maybe our government will give you uninhabited land somewhere if you teach us a few of your, um… tricks.”
That would never work, Moni realized, possibly with a little assistance. The ambassadors can’t communicate with people without taking hosts with similar brain power. By the time they revealed that they had inhabited bodies, they would have lost the government’s trust. Only constructing a “defensible environment” would give their species room for growth and eventually peaceful interaction with humanity.
Moni wondered how forgiving humanity would act after the business in the lagoon that Mariella and her friends had planned. No matter what other people believed, she knew that Mariella meant well. If she loved Moni, then this ambassador from an extinct species could love anyone. Her father had been wrong about the forces in the lagoon. They didn’t hunger for Moni and the girl. They were inviting them into the waters of rebirth.
Moni wrapped her arm around her. She knew that those slender shoulders and baby-soft skin didn’t belong to a little girl, but the familiar warmth ignited her heart all the same.
“We need to visit the lagoon, don’t we? For him.” Moni peaked in the rearview mirror at Darren lying on his side on the back seat. The top of his head rested on the seat thanks to the newfound flexibility of his mutilated neck. She took in the sight as if she were admiring a painting. She should have felt horrible about the death of the man she had shared so many passionate nights with-the man who had taken her to prom. Moni only remembered the times when he insulted her, screwed other women and smacked her around. Recalling how she looked in the mirror with her shiny black eye, Moni didn’t feel all that bad about Darren getting paid back in spades.
“If you want him, you can have him. I ain’t got no use for his sorry ass no more.” She pulled back on the road and headed due east.
Even with much of his blood soaking her back seat, Darren still weighed a ton. Moni couldn’t exactly put all of her effort into moving him. When she touched his chiseled shoulders and they felt as cold as chicken left out overnight, she nearly threw up in her mouth. His vibrant black skin had started fading. His eyes rolled uselessly in their sockets. Yet, his handsome jaw line remained.
Darren did a lot of things wrong. I didn’t make a mistake by breaking up with him. But he didn’t deserve this.