Conflict of Intrest

After escaping the government and the drunken Jeb, our pair finds themselves at the doorstep of another problem...Literally.

The car ride is very silent and they both are feeling exhausted, the driver tries to make small talk, but Richard tells him they’ve had long day. The driver seems to understand not to speak to them again. Now that his body has gotten a chance to rest, he could feel the extent of his soreness, his body aches all over. In the Humvee crash his chest had landed on the helmet of the soldier and now aches relentlessly. Plus ramming his shoulder into a metal grate probably didn’t help either, and now he got punched in the balls by some drunk. “Hope the family jewels can take this abuse.” He thinks as he sits hiding his pain.

        

       Looking over his shoulder he sees the alien just resting her head against the window hugging herself. Seeing how her first car ride was a literal wreck he could guess that cars make her feel uncomfortable. “It was her fault though.” He thinks as a deep a jolt of pain courses through his chest. Taking another glimpse at her, he continues to wonder how in the world she turned herself from a blue freak to a beautiful young woman. Of course, the scan she did on him had something to do with it, but how it did left him wondering. Like does that scan have any negative side effects of the one being scanned?

 

These thoughts are interrupted by the driver who despite knowing they’re in no mood to talk decides to speak, “So, have either of you heard about what happened at Alki?”  Richard’s heart drops when the driver said this. The driver continues without their input, “So apparently, there was this alien ship that crashed at the beach. And there was a live alien in it! It was blue thing from what I hear and it stuck a bomb to the head of this poor guy who was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. The police and military came and hauled the two out of there so the public couldn’t see, but on the way to the airport the alien escaped taking the guy with it. Now they got most of the city on lock down making sure that it doesn’t escape, pretty spooky right?”

 

Richard turns to face the alien who glances back at him for a moment before looking back out the window again. “Yeah that sounds pretty ominous.” After that the ride is silent once more besides the music on the radio, but even that is interrupted by commercials. There is even a public broadcasting alert to be on the lookout for him, with it saying he was aiding a fugitive and is extremely dangerous. It doesn’t once mention that he’s traveling with an alien, but rather it painted him out as a criminal. He feels another clump in his throat thinking about how his parent’s reaction to all this must be. He fights these dangerous depictions out of his head, if he thought in them too much, he’ll lose focus entirely.

 

“We’re here.” The car stops silently in the street. Richard thanks the driver dragging the alien out of the car with him. The driver takes off into the dark night leaving the two in the well-lit road.

 

“Where do we go now” The alien stands arms crossed still hugging herself.

 

“The address B gave me was 3054 E Laurelhurst Drive Northeast.” He starts to look around at the addresses, which is difficult due to many of the buildings being away from the street. They’re all large nice-looking houses, perhaps some even being classified as mansions. He amuses himself with the idea of B being a gold digger, but remembers the guy also comes from a wealthy background. He reaches into his pocket to grab his phone only to clench at nothing. He forgot that the soldiers took everything of his when they took him in. While he was fumbling about the alien grew more irritable starting to pace back and forth muttering something all the while.

               It takes a good minute for him to realize that the mailboxes had the address on them. So, he goes to them one by one to find the numbers. “How long is this going to take?!” the alien now faces him, its human appearance now giving him a nasty scowl. “Keep your voice down, this is a pretty nice neighborhood and people may get suspicious if they see rift raft like us loitering about.” “RIFT RAFT!” Richard once again shushes her, for someone who knows they need to keep a low profile she has a loud mouth. Scanning the mail boxes, he comes across one that is painted, the colors are endless seeming as though they are colorful worms sliding across the mail box. More importantly however, are the numbers on it, “3054”, this is the place.

 

Ahead of them is a large barred gate with a voice box on it, further down is also of lights that illuminate a door but not much else. Pressing the button on the voice box there’s a quick buzz of static before it went silent, “Hello, anybody home?” Letting go of the button there is a pause with only more static before going quiet again. Nothing. “Uh, hello? I don’t think we’ve met but we got a mutual friend goes by the name B, or Richard Bartholomew.”  Again, the pattern repeats itself leaving the two standing in the road.

 

“Why aren’t they answering?” The alien demands upset.

 

“I don’t- Jesus when did you get so close?!” the alien had somehow slipped over his shoulder without him hearing.

 

“That doesn’t matter, so why aren’t they answering?”

 

“*sigh* I don’t know, maybe there not home. Or more likely whoever lives here is asleep, it has to be just past midnight.”

 

“So, what now?”

 

“Well, we have a few options, we can keep calling until they answer, hop the fence and bang on the door, or wait ‘til morning.”

 

“Two of those options seem like they’ll take a while.”

 

“And the other one is for sure to get the authorities called on us if anyone sees us.”

 

“Like you said most of your kind is asleep at the moment. With that being the situation, I’m going to take this opportunity to wake the owner.” The alien grabs onto the rail of the gate heaving herself over just so it could clumsily plop over on the other side. It must have noticed him smirk because the turned sharply marching over towards the house. “Well, I’m already in the system, might as well actually give them a reason to be in it.” He said monologuing as he begins to trespass on private property.

               By the time he gets to the door the alien is basically having a brawl with the door. She’s slamming her fist on the door with such ferocity that he thought she was going to start ramming it. Then he remembers how she refused to help him ram the grate open, so perhaps not. All this noise though is bound to attract some attention though, whether or not they wanted it.

 

“Will you stop that!?” Grabbing her arm halfway through her next blow.

 

“Unhand me! The person in here is supposed to hide us from your world’s crooked government, yet here we are standing in the dark!”

 

“Keep your voice down, people may not ordinarily be awake right now but you shouting will wake them.”

 

“Good, maybe then the person living here will come to help us. Besides I don’t see you doing anything to help the situation.” He weakens his grip so she could snatch it from him, she swings her hand away so fast that she slams her knuckles into the door. Moving pass her he presses the doorbell; a loud chime goes off followed by a sequence of slightly higher pitch chimes.

 

“Good job you pressed a button that made bells go off.” He ignores the alien’s condescendence and politely knocks on the door.

 

“Uh, hello? I’m sorry about my, ‘friend’, she a bit upset at the moment. If you’re in there and can hear me could you please open up?” Nothing but silence.

 

“I knew th-” But before the alien could finish her sentence the door opened followed by a familiar clicking.

 

“I don’t know who you are, but this’ private property so you better leave now.” A female voice around his age spoke sticking a barrel of a revolver pistol in his face.

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy there, I mean you no harm. B told me to come here, he said you could help us out.” Richard raises his hand palms open speaking in the as calmly as he could, given the predicament he’s in.

 

“B… don’t move.” Light pours out of the dark crack of the door illuminating the figure behind the door. She indeed is a girl his age, she has long red hair that went passed her shoulders with patches of freckles going across her face. She’s white so much so that she looked pale, as if she was ill. She’s looking down at her phone that lit up all of these features scrolling through her messages. The name of the person she was scrolling on is “Bwumble-Bwee”, Richard let out a snort almost flat out laughing at the name. The girl gives him a quick glare and he recomposes himself. She goes back to reading the messages scanning them one by one, “Is your name Richard Marois?”  As he nods as she lowers the weapon, gesturing them inside.

 

“Hey, uh, thanks for not shooting me.”

 

“Don’t worry about, the gun was empty anyway. My name is Jennifer by the way” Unlocking the cylinder, she reveals six empty slots. “So, B mentioned a few things. One of them was you being in trouble, another was that you needed a place to lay low. Something he didn’t mention however, was that there was going to be two of you. So, who’s your plus one?” Jennifer nonchalantly points the empty gun at the alien.

 

“That’s the question of the night Jennifer, she hasn’t told me her name but she still isn’t that ALIEN to me. What I can tell you is she’s OUTTA THIS WORLD.” He hopes his puns would hint at what he’s getting at, but all she does is give him a look of disapproval. “Have you been following the news or seen anything on Facebook or anything?” The girl shakes her head crossing her arms in the process. “Ok look, I’m going to have her show you, but promise me you won’t freak out.”

 

“Why would I freak out?” She gives him a look of concern.

 

“Just wait for it. Could you undo that thing you did at the restaurant?” he asks the alien this, whose human expression was essentially asking him if he was crazy. “Relax we can trust her.” The expression she is now given has cautious written all over it, but the alien may have gotten the idea because she begins meddling with her wristband. After a few more moments of tinkering the band makes a warping sound and the alien’s true features are revealed. Turning to face Jennifer he sees she is bug eyed, jaw dropped and breathing heavily. “Don’t scream, don’t scream.”

               Instead of screaming however her heavy breathing becomes quicker, and her already pale skin becomes paler. As he approaches her, she steps back collapsing on the floor still panting. Rushing to her side, he lifts her up in his lap trying to open her air ways.

 

“What’s happening to her?”

 

“She’s hyperventilating. Come over here,” The alien paces quickly crouching down beside them, “sit her up like this and hold her hands on top of her head like this.” Richard moves Jennifer into the alien’s care putting her hands at on the top of her head. “Jennifer what can I do to help? Do you have an inhaler or something somewhere?” Jennifer nods still struggling to breathe, she points up confusing Richard. Mouthing out the word ‘Bathroom’ he gets the message, “Alright, I’m going to leave her with you to get your medicine,” Jennifer quickly protests shaking her head at this notion. “I got to, it’ll be fine I promise. You, talk to her calmly and try and sooth her I’ll be back as fast as I can.” With that Richard bolts up the stairs leaving Jennifer in the alien’s care.

             To his dismay there are at least six rooms on this floor all of them closed, thus begins the process of frantically opening and slamming doors. Each room is massive some as large as his family’s living room and kitchen combined. Every room is different one is someone’s study, another a bedroom, and so on and so forth. None were bathrooms.

 

“Hey you may want to hurry up, she’s gasping more than breathing now. And is turning blue normal for your species!?”

 

“No, it is not!” His heart now beats its way out of his chest, the last thing he needs at the moment is someone else’s death on his conscious. Kicking in doors he double checks to see if he missed anything, he notices a secondary door in one of the bedrooms. Barging in the room it’s indeed a bathroom with a toilet, walk in shower, sink, and mirror-medicine cabinet combo. Glass shatters all over the floor as he slams the cabinet door into the wall frantically checking each of the bottles of medicine and their labels. “Richard!” the alien voice is now a bit more frantic.

 

“I’M COMING!” he instead his grabs as much medicine he could carry in his arms and sweatshirt pocket dashing back downstairs. When he gets to them the alien is still resting Jennifer in the position, he left her with, but Jennifer is undeniably turning blue. Dumping all the medicine on the floor he tries to read the labels forcing his eyes to make out the letters in the dark. Another concerning gasp from the girl hastens his search, but the lack of light was not helpful. “Where’s her phone I need some light?”

 

“Do you really expect me to know where and what that is!?” Ignoring the alien, he notices it just beneath Jennifer’s hand.

               Snatching it he activates its flashlight scrummaging through the bottle of pills looking for the word hyperventilation in any of them. Most of the bottles though are either pain killers, anti-depressants, or vitamins supplements. Jennifer takes a long agonizing gasp, it’s a miracle that she hasn’t passed out yet. Sweating profusely now, drops of his sweat constantly falling off the tip of his nose, his hands wet with his bodily fluid. Bottles slip out of his trembling hands and fumble between boxes and bottles. As he drops yet another container of medicine his hand lands on a bottle labeled as benzodiazepine anxiolytics. Reading its label, he learns it’s a tranquilizer, addicting, but more importantly helps with hyperventilation. Essentially tearing the bottle cap off, he grabs a small blue pill inside. He places the pill onto the girl’s tongue and Richard asks her to swallow. She does comply, but another violently gagging fit gives the sign that it wasn’t going down smoothly.

               Rising to his feet about to make another mad dash for some water the alien does something that surprises him. She digs through her sack retrieving an odd container with glowing violet symbols, she presses one of the symbols tipping the container over Jennifer’s mouth. The lid slides open with what appeared to be water pouring out into the choking girl’s mouth. Either because it was water, or that she was unable to do much else Jennifer drinks the clear liquid. He thought it to be a bit out of character for her, given that she’s never shown consideration for anyone as far as he’s seen. For a moment there’s nothing but silence in the room as they wait for the girl to recover. After a few more wet gasps, her skin returns to normal followed by the heavy but normal breathing. Richard reminds her to take long deep controlled breathes; she doesn’t follow his instructions immediately, she seems as though she’s in a daze, but eventually her breathes steady.  After a few more breathes sit shoots up out of the alien’s lap scrambling to get away from her.

 

“What the hell is that thing?!” She crawls behind Richard cowering behind him.

 

“I guess gratitude is something your species struggles with.” The alien reverts back to her condescending behavior.

 

“Lay off her she’s still a little stressed after what just happened.”

 

“Richard, what the hell is that thing?!”

 

“Well Jennifer if you remember my puns, I said she’s an alien.” He feels the girl tightly squeezing his arm not taking her eyes from the alien.

 

“Ok I don’t like the way she’s staring at me so I’m going to turn this back on.”

 

“Don’t think that’ll help much, but you do you.” With that the alien tinkers with her wristband. A blue light emits from it spreading across her entire body accompanied by the human features she previously had. The tightness around his arm intensifies and starts quivering, looking over his shoulder he’s Jennifer shaking her head repeatedly.

“No…no…no, no, no. Not gonna happen, you both need to leave!”  The girl quickly releases his arm and attempts to shove him out of her house. Richard, who probably weighs twice her weight, stands up unfazed by her efforts looking down at her with pleading eyes.

 

“Jennifer please, we literally have nowhere else to go. You have to help us I’m begging you.”

 

“No way! I’m not letting that thing into my home! God know where it came from or what it wants!”

 

“What I want is to be able to leave your planet as soon as possible, and if I’m recalling correctly, I just helped save your life.” The alien’s human form scrunches her brow.

 

“Well, thank you, but if you hadn’t showed up, I’d never been in the predicament in the first place. Richard I’m giving you until the count of ten to take your pet alien and get out, or else I’m gonna call the cops.” Jennifer digs into her pockets, but is surprised when she pulls out nothing.

 

“Looking for this?” He presents her phone to her wiggling it in her face. The girl snatches for her phone, but his reflexes are quicker and he extends the phone high above his own head well out of her reach. She pummels his chest with blows that sting, but he endures it, his size and experience with rough physical contact giving him a higher pain threshold that is being pushed to its limits. She tries for some low blows aiming for his groin, the lessons from today only heightening his defensive response to that region of his body.

 

“Richard give me my phone, get out of my house, and leave me alone or I’ll scream!” Jennifer steps back from her assault of the massive teen.  “One... two…three...” Jennifer inhales deeply letting out a muffled scream as hands clasp over her mouth and the back of her head. The girls kicks and flails screaming in vain as the alien holds her in a standing half-nelson.

 

“What are you doing?!” Richard moves to help Jennifer the alien stepping away in reaction.

 

“What are YOU doing? You heard her she said she was unwilling to help us, she also threatened to turn us in we can’t let her do that.”

 

“You’re not gonna kill her, are you?”

 

“I’m still thinking.” As the she says this Jennifer’s screams turn into whimpers. The girl’s eyes turn to him pleading for him to do something.

 

“No, we’re not resorting to that!” he says moving closer this time grabbing the alien’s arm before she can back away.

 

“Well what do you purpose we do then?!”

 

“First let her go.”

 

“What are you crazy? She’ll scream if and let everybody know we’re here.”

 

“No, she won’t, isn’t that right Jennifer.” The girl nods looking deep into his eyes.

 

“You can’t seriously believe her.”

 

“I don’t know if I can, but way I see it, everything we’ve done thus far has been a gamble. So, I say letting her go puts the odds more into our favor.” The alien’s human eyes look at him in disbelief, but he returns the glare with a more fortifying one of his own. With a disgusted scoff the alien releases Jennifer who rolls her shoulder. She looks at Richard, but before she can say anything, he extends his arm returning her phone. Though still visibly upset, Jennifer refrains from snatching it from his hand.

 

“Jennifer let’s talk in the other room.”

 

“I already told you I’m not helping you.” The girl’s tone is cold.

 

“I know ya did. But I seriously think you should hear what I got to say before making a decision like that.”  Jennifer remains silent just staring at him then turning to look at the alien.

 

“Fine.” As they walk into the other room the alien trails behind them.

 

“Listen I need to talk to her alone, just stay here we’ll be back in a moment.”

 

“Are you serious?”

 

“I’m dead serious. So, stay put, but for my sake don’t wander too far off.”

 

“And don’t touch any of my stuff!” Jennifer adds before the leave. They walk into a kitchen which is extremely large. He takes notice that the room is larger than most of his house’s first floor. Jennifer walks to the other side of a small wooden table hugging herself the whole way.

 

“Hey, I’m sorry for what happened back there. I didn’t know she was gonna do all that.” The large teen apologizes sitting down at the comparably small table.

 

“Well you shouldn’t have brought that freak into my house.” Jennifer is still visibly upset.

 

“Yeah, well, B told me you could help us so-”

 

“Well I can’t I don’t want anything to do with that thing or any of the trouble that follows it. That includes having the government storm my house looking for it.” She points to the broken handcuff that is reflecting the light coming through a window.

 

“*sigh* Listen, I could die if you don’t help us out,” Richard sighs lifting up his wet hair revealing the alien device still implanted into his skull.

 

“What is that?” Jennifer’s voice began filling with concern.

 

“From what she told me it’s a device that allows us to understand and speak each other’s language. What she also told me was that it was a bomb that’ll go off if I stray too far from her.”  Jennifer gasp before going dead silent staring at his head implant. Her eyes carry a look of concerned before she begins to nervously chuckle.

 

“Relax,” Richard leans back into his chair to see the alien sitting against the wall huddled. “It hasn’t gone off so we should be fine. ‘Sides worst comes to worst I get my head blown off while all you get is a bit of blood spatter.” He tries to lighten the mood failing to realize how dark the humor was.

 

“Ri~ght, listen I’m sorry to hear that, really I am. From everything B has told me about you you’re a wonderful guy, but this is something I can’t help you with.”

 

“You can’t, but her kind can. I’ve had plenty of time to think this over and I’ve concluded that the government wouldn’t care if I died if they tried to remove it. Not as long as they’re still able to get something useful of studying it. So, with them I’m more likely to die. But with these aliens, it’s clear that it’s valuable to them. The fact that there is a bomb in it says as much, I just need to get her to the people who can remove it.”

 

“Why can’t she take it out?”

 

“She says she doesn’t know how, that’s all I got and all I need. Don’t really want her to go poking at an explosive not knowing what she’s doing.” The girl gives him another empathetic look before speaking. “Listen Richard…”

 

“There’s one more thing,” He motions her to come closer, as she leans in Richard covers one side of his move to keep the alien from hearing. “From what she told me her species is on the imperialist side of things and Earth is probably going to be their next target. I think helping her out would put humanity in their favor rather than their bad side.” The girl begins to shout in disbelief only to have her mouth quickly covered up and given the ‘be quiet’ finger.

 

“ARE YOU NUTS!? If that seriously is the case then we definitely need to turn her in. She is a threat to our entire species Richard. And as much as I hate to say it but you’ll probably have to take the fall for all of us.” The girl whispers very violently pointing into the foyer where the alien resides.

 

“You don’t think I’ve thought of that too, because I have and I’ve weighed the outcome of all this. She has a device with her that has probably already sent her kind Earth’s location, and they could be on their way as we speak. So here are the possibly outcomes, we hide her away in some God forsaken military base in the middle of nowhere with tubes and needles sticking in her. They come looking but we try to give them the run-a-round, but they don’t buy it and they A) either tear the planet apart looking for her. B) We give her to them but she details the experiments we ran on her and they get pissed and enslave us all. C) Find her themselves leading to the same result or worse than the previous option, or D) we help her get home and we can find some sort of middle ground.” After he finishes listing off the possible outcomes, he’s thought of Richard notices Jennifer is looking at him with one eye brow raised.

 

“…You really think that they go that far for one person?”

 

“…You might be right but…” Richard trails sneaking another peak at the alien who he catches staring into the room they’re in. The eye contact startles her and she quickly shifts back out of sight. “The way she goes on about how they’ll come for her, as if she is completely confident that she is right. Something in the back of my mind is just telling me this is the thing that I gotta do…well at least I hope it is. I don’t necessarily enjoy the thought that this thing in my head could be sending suggestive messages in my mind.”  Again, the humor doesn’t stick with Jennifer. Meanwhile the girl just stares at him, or rather through him, as she appears to be lost in thought deciding what to do. More silence makes him feel very uncomfortable, as well as the strange environment, and the biggest gamble he’ll probably ever make not easing him one bit.

               With a heavy sigh she scoots out of her seat telling him to follow her and to grab his alien friend. They walk out of the kitchen Richard tells the alien to follow, all the while she bombarding him with questions with the only answer he can come up with being, “We’ll see.” They walk through a large hallway that is strung with many photos some had Jennifer in them with others that he presumes are her family. It kinda reminded him of his grandpa’s house who has a wall adorn with photos across the ages. Before his emotions could get to him though they’re taken outside to a walled off backyard. There is a large garden that’s full of flowers, all of the flowers back there waiting for the morning sun to blossom. In the center is a large fountain that has figures sculpted onto it. The figures are a little child that was being followed by a puppy with a kitten following the puppy and a duckling following the kitten. All of the figures were stationed around the brim of the fountain ringing around it.  He scoffs at how well kept this fountain is compared to the broken birdbath he used to have in his backyard.

 

“In here.” Jennifer leads them to a large shed.

 

“Um…”

 

“If this is the ‘help’ I’m going to receive than I think I’d be better off finding my own way off this planet.” The alien retorts and does not sound amused.

 

“There’s more here than meets the eye, but before I let you in, I need to have your word that you won’t tell a soul about this.”

 

“You have my word.”

 

“I already know I have yours Richard, but what about you.” Jennifer turns to the alien.

 

“Sure, whatever it takes to get us out of the open.”

 

“That’s not good enough, say ‘you have my word’.”

 

“You have my word, now can get inside?”

 

“Almost one more thing needs to be addressed.”

 

“C’mon Jennifer.”

 

“You need this just as much as I do Richard so hold your horses. Before we go inside, what’s your name alien?” Richard glances just in time to see a shocked and disgusted look cover the aliens face.

 

“I’ll tell you the same as I told the agent, that’s none of your concern.”

 

“Well missy that is my concern, because I don’t help people I can’t trust. And knowing someone’s actual name is the first step of trust.”

 

“I don’t trust any of you.” The alien raises her voice

 

“Well tough tits sister, because if I don’t get a name then this lock doesn’t get the combination put in to let you in.” The alien takes a hefty step forward startling the girl a little. Richard stops any further movement by placing a hand on her shoulder. The alien gives him a mean glare swiping his hand off of her.

 

“Why are you being so petty? It’s just a name, if you tell us it, we can get you outta our planet faster.” The alien continues to give him the dirty glare then give the same look to Jennifer who smugly smiles shrugging her shoulders.

 

“Fine, it’s Lycia. Now let us in.”

 

“Just Lycia?” Jennifer asks causing Lycia to lose her cool again, so he reigned them both in.

 

“Lycia will do, now let us in, please Jennifer.” With that the girl puts the combination into the lock letting the fugitives in.

 

 

Author's Note

Thanks once again to everyone who has continued to read this, you are in my opinion the most integral part of this story. As always positive reviews are welcomed and encouraged to help the story flow better.