An alien dropped down in front of me, its hands outstretched, its long nails aimed at my throat. Its mouths were open; its teeth bared and ready to chomp. It snapped forward.
JUNE
Lexion walked to the driver’s side of a parked car and smashed the window with her biomechanical arm. She reached inside, grabbed hold of the door then pulled it clean off the vehicle, tossing it aside as if it was a piece of scrap paper. It skidded across the floor, flashes of sparks sizzling at it traveled.
A long thin section of metal extended from the top of her fist on the same arm she’d used to pull the door free. She stuck the point of the metal in the car’s ignition and the engine started. She walked to the other side of the vehicle; the metal that had appeared retracting, removed the passenger’s door in the same way, and then did the same to one of the doors at the rear.
She got in the car, sat in the passenger’s seat. “Get in,” she said, looking at Alec and me, seeming confused as to why we already hadn’t. I think we were both in shock, I know I was. It’s not everyday you see a naked chick rip doors off a car. The arm looked as if it gave her super strength. I doubt she’d have been able to do it with her other side, although I had no way of knowing, it was just a hunch.
Alec jumped into the driver’s seat and I got in the back. Lexion used the map again on her wrist. A section of the hologram image started to flash red. “This is where we must go. Can you pilot us there?” she asked Alec. A line drew on the map, from our location, aiming at the flashing destination.
Alec nodded. “Sure can.” He hit the gas, sped toward the ramp that led from the garage and smashed through the barrier. I ducked as we broke through, did a quick look over my shoulder, out the back window, to see the black and yellow wooden barrier fall to the concrete.
Alec spun the wheel to the right and we skidded onto the street. The buildings to the left of us were on fire. Cars had crashed in the street. Alec weaved between some. People were running, screaming. Aliens were chasing them, snapping, and biting off heads when they got close enough.
A body fell onto the road with a blood-splat spraying up; the slap of the impact was sickening. Alec managed to maneuver the car around the body. I looked through where my door should have been, up at a building on our right. People were either jumping or being thrown from windows. My heart sunk. So much death. We were surrounded by it. Some people might have wanted to watch the world burn, I wasn’t one of them.
Lexion leaned out of her side of the car and fired a blast with her arm. An alien burst into a popping bubble of slime. “Don’t concern yourself with what is happening, I’ll deal with any of the aliens that get too close, just keep driving,” she said to Alec.
I heard gunfire and spun toward it. I saw muzzle flashes down an alley. A body flew from the alley soon after, skidding on the ground, leaving smears of blood. It was a soldier, his helmet rolled from his body as he came to a stop. I swallowed. I had to look away when an alien ran from the same alley and bit the soldier’s head from his shoulders, gulping it down after two quick chomps.
Lexion fired two more shots, this time toward a building’s roof. Two aliens blew. Alec angled the car to the left; we overtook a motorbike that an alien was chasing. The rider was snatched from the bike by the long arm of an alien. Lexion fired a shot over my head. I ducked low, heard the back window smash, and when I was upright again, I could see the sloppy remains of the alien next to the fallen bike and the headless rider.
A truck rumbled into our path, it was as if it came from nowhere. Its load, tree trunks, heaps of them, stacked on top of each other. Two aliens were on the top of them; another was hung from the front of the cab, slashing one of its deadly hands at the driver through a smashed windshield. The driver had his hands up, to cover his face; the claws of the alien were tearing at him. His defensive limbs were covered in red, I thought I saw bone showing.
Lexion shot at the aliens on the rear of the truck first. Her green laser struck some of the fastenings that kept the trunks secure. The trunks rolled from the rear of the truck, the aliens fell, getting crushed under them. She shot again; the trees that had fallen set alight, the aliens going up in flames too. Cries. Screams. Then, explosions. Two of them. Gloopy.
Alec spun the wheel, dodged some of the tree trunks that were rolling toward us, and overtook the truck, just missing the front of the vehicle, passing close enough to it for Lexion to reach her hand out to pull the alien from the front, away from the poor beaten and battered driver.
She had its head locked in her biomechanical hand, crushing it like a ball of putty, pressing it to the road that was whizzing under us, so much black blood flying behind us. She let go of the monster when its head had become vapor, a black smoke full of pulverized alien flesh and brains.
“We need to find a route to our destination that doesn’t consist of us traveling through populated areas. The more humans that are around, the more aliens we will encounter,” Lexion said as she fired another blast of her laser. The green beam hit the window of a liquor store, the inside exploded into flames, an alien ran from the wreckage, screaming, its flesh boiling, bubbling and fizzing.
“I think I have an idea, show me the map again,” Alec said. Lexion flashed the hologram to life. “Okay, hold on!” Alec took a sharp right, smoke coming off our wheels, the smell of burning rubber assaulting me.
Our car was in an alley. The sides of the vehicle scraping the walls of the buildings to each side, sparks flying, some of them stinging my face. I moved to the center of the seat to escape them. My cheek was burning. I could smell burnt flesh. I placed a hand over the pain I was feeling, my fingers started to warm.
A dumpster was in our path. There was no way to avoid hitting it. Lexion shot out the windscreen, Alec turned from the shards, then locked his eyes back dead ahead, and the green blast of laser hit the dumpster and it took off into the air. We past under it and it landed behind us, garbage flying up on the impact.
We approached the end of the alley. I’m not sure what speed we were traveling at, but it was fast. I got car sick, and I’d been able to hold it in until then, but I had to let it out. So I did. Lexion threw me a quick look, she smiled, and I rolled my eyes as I moved my feet from the chunks.
A car crashed into one of the buildings at the end of the alley, blocking our exit. There was a guy in the driver’s seat, his head buried in the airbag that had been deployed. Lexion shot through the windshield again. Her blast hit the front of the guy’s car, spinning it from the exit moments before we shot from the alley, the rear of our vehicle, as we bounced off the curb, hitting the ground with force, causing the last of the sparks.
We were driving through an industrial estate. It was almost calm compared to where we’d come from, fires were burning in some of the buildings, a crane had toppled, but no people or aliens could be seen. I could still hear the horror that was escalating in the city; although it was starting to fade the farther we drove.
Alec stopped the car. I wondered why, but then I saw that barriers had come down in front of us; there was a bell chiming. A train sped past, all of it on fire, screams elongating and fading as it left our sight. The barriers rose and Alec drove us over the tracks and from the city.
We all sat in silence for a while. Trees were on either side of us; the road was long and winding. The cold air rushing through the car was freezing me to my core. Then Alec asked Lexion, “So what’s going on here?”
“We are heading to a military compound. I will be able to send a signal to my people from there. They will be able to help, but we must hurry.”
“Who are your people?” I asked, as I held my arms around my body, trying to get some heat. I did appreciate the cold on my burnt cheek though; it was soothing, easing the pain.
Before Lexion could answer Alec said, “So you’re an alien too? What are you called, you have a name, like the Klingons or something?”
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “My people have a name,” Lexion answered.
Alec didn’t say anything. His eyes weren’t even on the road. They were locked on Lexion’s tits. Her nipples were standing to attention. I was concerned they’d freeze and fall off, it was that cold, but the low temperature didn’t seem to affect her.
“What are your people called?” I asked.
“We are the …” Her lips moved but no sound came out.
“The what?” Alex asked, as he flitted his eyes back to the road for a second before taking in her breasts again.
“The …”
“Am I missing something?” Alec managed to remove his stare from her nipples long enough to give her a confused look.
“No. You are not. I am a …”
“Why won’t you tell us?” he asked.
“I am,” Lexion answered. “We are the … I am a …”
“I’m not hearing anything. Don’t you want to tell us what you’re called? We’re called humans.”
“I know you are. And my people are called …”
“I can’t hear anything. I can see your lips moving, but no sound is coming out.” Alec was getting frustrated.
“That is because our name only features silent letters. Do you not have them on Earth?”
“I think,” I started, “she means how in Django, the D is silent. We pronounce it Jango.”
“That is correct.” Lexion said as she let her hologram map flash again, showing that we were heading in the right direction. She shut it down.
“So what are the bad guys called?” Alec asked.
“Aliens.”
“I know, but they must have a name, like we’re humans and you’re …”
“That was very good pronunciation.” Lexion smiled. She was beautiful. I was jealous. Of both how attractive she was and how Alec couldn’t stop staring at her naked form. “They are called aliens. We are called … And you are called humans.”
“But aren’t we all aliens to someone else?” Alec wasn’t going to let this go.
“Not where I am from. They are the only life form called alien. Their masters have a name.”
“Their masters?” I asked.
“Yes. The aliens are like your dogs to them, pets, ones that can be trained to kill. The aliens are the least of our concern. It is the masters that should be feared.”
“And why’s that?” I edged closer to her.
“They are intelligent. They are advanced. They destroy worlds.”
“The pods looked advanced.” I sniffed down some snot.
“They were created by the masters. The aliens were just along for the ride.”
“And yours?”
“The same, the masters.”
“How did you get in one?”
“The masters send the pods to worlds during times of war, they buried them underground, using the turmoil the targeted planet is in during a war as cover, to disguise the arrival. The pods sustain life. My people sent me on a covert mission to infiltrate one of the pod’s launching ships, to hide in a pod. My mission was a success. Now I must send a message to my people, it is your only hope.”
“Why are you helping us?” That was Alec.
“We have seen the masters destroy too many worlds. We will not stand for it any longer. A line has been drawn.”
“Well, thank you for coming to our aid,” I said.
“What are your names?”
“I’m June and that is Alec.”
“Do you only have one name? I was led to believe that humans carried two.”
“We each have a surname,” I said. I was about to tell her them but she started talking again.
“I have many names. We have names that mean many things and are only spoken at certain times.”
Alec gave her breasts another look then asked, “How do you mean?”
“Because I am on a mission, one that involves danger, fighting, actions we associate with masculinity, I am the name Lexion, which is a male name. If I were with child I would be a different name, a female name. If I am mating I would have a gender neutral name.”
“That sounds complicated, just about as much as your names are, Alec.” I sat back and hugged into myself again.
Lexion turned to Alec. “Why are your names complicated?”
“Because I sometimes go by a female name, I’m dressed like the opposite sex now.”
“Please explain.”
“I’m genderfluid. Sometimes I feel more feminine and sometimes I feel more masculine. That’s my gender identity. Sometimes I also dress in accordance to how I feel, that is my gender expression. I have different names for the different ways I feel, but June can’t seem to remember when to use my female name.”
“That is interesting,” she said. “I did not know gender was this complicated on Earth, my research didn’t highlight the fact. Some of what you say sounds similar to how we use names. There is a planet in my galaxy in which all the people are gender non-binary. They are all always male and female and always neither. They are fun to mate with.” Alex laughed, I did to, and then I shuddered. I was still freezing.
“When you say mate,” Alex said. “You mean for life?”
“No. I mean fuck. That is the correct word, isn’t it? Did I use it correctly?”
“Yep,” Alex smiled.
Lexion turned to me, her brow was furrowed, and then she turned back to Alec. “Do you know your way, without the use of my map?”