"Speci-Men" - Part Four

 

Part Four

            Urgent footsteps rang through the halls of the twentieth floor.

            Derek did his best to keep in pace with the furious President and his equally furious Vice President. This wasn’t a cordial visit. Apparently, an incident occurred earlier that day, in which the Vice President was physically abused…shortly before his son was killed.

            The culprit of both incidents being the alien visitor.

            “I’m certain this is all a misunderstanding, Mr. President,” Sands reassured.

            “There’s no misunderstanding about what happened, Sands!” Stanson stormed. “That creature you’re harboring in this building assaulted me and killed my boy! And I demand restitution!”

            “Calm down, Stanson,” the President ordered. “We’re all on the same page here.”

            They were flanked by armed National Security guards – imposing men who stood over six feet tall, clad head-to-toe in black body armor. A total of nine arrived with the President and his VP on their command. It was a bit excessive to Sands – all for one feeble, little alien that Stanson was too weak against.

            Arriving at the door to the living quarters of Richard and Geoffrey Chambers, Sands was forced by the President to forgo knocking and bypass the automatic lock with his executive keycard. Their unannounced entrance surprised Richard, who had been pacing around in his study while Geoffrey was at his computer. Both father and son rushed to the foyer to meet with their guests.

            Richard sweated bullets, standing face-to-face with the President again. “Mr. P-President,” he stammered. “H-How can I h-help you, s-sir?”

            “WHERE IS IT?!” Stanson rushed at Richard, grabbing him by the lapels of his lab coat. “WHERE IS THAT MURDERER?!?!”

            “Stanson! Enough! Let me handle this!” The President motioned for a couple of his guards to pry the frantic VP from Richard. Once he was able to get control over the scene, he calmly (and sternly) addressed Richard, “Where is the alien, son?”

            “I’m right here,” a voice called from the kitchen.

            All the men turned to see Miya emerge. There was a heavy scowl on her face as she surveyed Sands, Stanson, the President, and the National Security guards. Her eyes were red from crying for several minutes.

            “There you are!” Stanson struggled under the restraint of the guards. “You killed my son, you monster!”

            Miya merely scoffed at the accusation, stuffing her balled-up fists into her pockets.

            “Last warning, Stanson – compose yourself!” The President demanded. He then switched his attention over to Miya, showing more self-control than his VP. “I’ve tried to be patient with your presence on our planet, but your actions have left me with no other choice. You are hereby an extraterrestrial threat and will be terminated immediately.”

            “But she didn’t—!” Geoff began to say, only for his father to shush him.

            Following his declaration, the President consulted with Derek, “How soon can it be done, Sands?”

            “It’ll be done immediately, Mr. President,” Sands verified, showing little remorse.

            Satisfied, the President regarded Miya one last time and asked, “Is there anything you have to say for yourself, creature?”

            Miya just solemnly looked down towards the floor.

            The President considered her silence to be a definite answer and was about to depart with Stanson and the guards until Miya tactlessly spoke up…

            “Ya know, my wife once wondered if a world like this existed – a world without women. She figured it wouldn’t be much different from the regular Earth. Crime would still be high, world governments would still be run by maniacs in suits, and the rich would still be high and mighty white idiots. After what I’ve seen in this twisted world you men run, I wish I could tell her that she was right…only it’s much worse than she imagined.”

            It wasn’t exactly an ideal statement of defense, but she didn’t care.

            A baby had died, and she was the only one who shed tears for him.

            Stanson, the President, and the National Security guards left thereafter, leaving Sands alone with Miya, Richard, and Geoff. As soon as the government officials were out of earshot, he urgently changed his tone and told Richard, “We don’t have much time, Chambers. We need to get the alien out of this building.”

            His defiance of the President’s orders caught Richard by surprise. “What?!”

            Miya was admittedly surprised herself, and a bit distrusting of the rebellious CEO. “Seriously?” she smirked with a hint of amusement. “What’s your game, Derek? Why the change of heart, all of the sudden?”

            “You’ve been a fascinating case, and I feel as if I’ve only scratched the surface,” Sands professed. His earnestness seemed genuine to Miya – his eyes filled with a passion and desperation to protect his most prized project – a stark contrast to the callous façade he put on in the President’s presence just a while ago.

            “Alright,” Miya agreed. “What’s your plan for getting me from here to the Metropolitan Museum of Art?”

            Sands frowned. “The art museum? Why there?”

            “That’s where I landed my TARDIS – my ship.”

            Provided with these vital details, Sands relayed his plan to Miya, as well as Richard and Geoffrey, who would also have important parts to play in it. First off, Miya would have to be concealed in a blue cloak. Fortunately, Sands Corp funded a local monastery, which meant there was available access to monk wear, including blue hooded robes; Miya was supplied with one before leaving the building with Sands, Richard, and Geoffrey, without any complication.

            They arrived at the museum after closing hours, only able to get inside with Sands’ executive keycard. “Lemme guess,” Miya smirked at the second convenience of the night. “Sands Corp funds for the museum’s security?”

            “That and I own the museum,” Sands smirked right back at her.

            “Of course you do,” Miya nodded.

            Once inside, Miya led the rest of the way to the precise room where her TARDIS first materialized. Richard, Geoffrey, and Sands mistook it for one of the displays at first glance – a white, orb-shaped ship that was twenty feet in diameter with a circumference of sixty-three feet. “That’s your ship?!” Richard gasped.

            “Ain’t she a beaut?” Miya grinned from ear-to-ear, removing her monk robe. “Three weeks is too long to have been away from her.”

            “You refer to it by the same pronouns you use for yourself,” Richard noticed. “Are the inanimate objects of your world ‘women’ as well?”

            Miya chuckled at his naiveté. “It’s merely terms of endearment, hon.”

            “Well, ‘she’ is magnificent,” Derek basked in the radiance of the white orb. “Chambers, you and Geoffrey stay outside on lookout, while we go inside.”

            “We?” Miya singled out Sands’ pronoun usage, skeptically.

            “Surely you don’t intend on leaving our world without allowing me a proper glance inside your ship?” Sands implored.

            Miya was hesitant to permit his request, simply wishing to leave the Man World as soon as possible, before the President learned of her escape from Sands Corp. Of course, if it weren’t for Sands himself, she wouldn’t have even escaped in the first place. Allowing him a brief tour of the console room was the least she could’ve done for him.

            So, as Richard and Geoffrey maintained lookout outside, Sands got an eyeful of the interior of the Type-X TARDIS. “Wow!” he gasped. “It’s dimensionally disproportionate!”

            “Usually people use the phrase ‘bigger on the inside,’ but that works, too.” Miya watched him as he took in the technological wonder of the Gallifreyan ship. It felt nice to have someone new come aboard after so many lonesome journeys in her previous ‘Skeeta Jenkins’ incarnation – someone to marvel over her ship and soak in the majesty of its baffling secrets. But the console room would be as far as she could allow Sands to explore. She gave him at least three minutes before she would have to usher him out.

            And then he said something that confused her: “I’ve waited centuries to find this.”

            “I’m sorry?” she frowned. “Did you say that you’ve waited centuries? Is that some sort of hyperbole or…?”

            “I’m afraid it’s not, Time Lord.” Sands faced her with a look on his face that chilled Miya down to her core. There was something ominous about it, as if Sands had been hiding a dark secret for the longest time from the entire world, and he was only now exposing it to the one person he could without repercussion.

            Suddenly, right before her very eyes, Miya saw Sands’ biological features contort and shift from human to something entirely alien. His salt-and-pepper hair shed from his scalp, which had changed pigmentation along with the rest of his body, rapidly losing melanin until it was a pale shade of grey. His ears elongated to an elfish point, his cheeks sunk in, his forehead became more pronounced, and his entire eyeballs changed size and color, from white with brown irises to whole blue – twinkling like large marbles in his skull.

            Miya gulped, recognizing the species that the ‘human’ Derek Sands had transformed into. “You’re a…Promethean?! The whole time?!?!”

            “I prefer ‘God’,” Sands said, his voice sounding the same, just hollower. “Thank you for bringing your ship to me, Miya. It was fun to learn as much I have about your people – it’s more than my people have ever studied with as little resource as we had, not since we once collaborated with Zeda Delta.”

            Miya stiffened; her face amassed with horror. “You’ve worked with my father?!”

            Sands smiled. “So, you do remember him. He assumed that you would. It’s been his hope that you’d return to Gallifrey one day and reclaim your place as prince…or would it be princess now?”

            “I’m never going back to my father’s kingdom! And you’re leaving my ship now!”

            “No, you are. I’ll be taking your TARDIS to my people, right after I end my experiment of this world.”

            Miya lunged at the Promethean.

            Unfortunately, Sands was prepared for such retaliation. From out of his suit jacket, he retrieved a ray gun that he fired on Miya, emitting a blue, translucent beam that struck her body and instantly rendered her unconscious. She hit the grated floor with a hard thud. Sands wasted no time in picking up her body and dumping it out of the TARDIS, allowing himself complete control of the ship.

            Effortlessly, he operated the central console and dematerialized out of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.