"How about Emma and Anna if they are twins?"
My best friend and I were standing in a cavernous lab, unloading bags of fresh produce from a stainless steel cart into a tiny refrigerator. I rambled off another handful of names for her future offspring.
She bent down to put away a canteloupe and pulled out a bottle of strawberry milk. She held it up to the light, examining it this way and that, then nodded, satisfied. "Now all we need is the sperm," she said.
We walked down the long hallway connecting other labs, stopping in at the ones I knew in order to ask for the missing ingredient, but everyone we met was female. "This is really inconvenient." Her voice was tense, and I could tell she blamed me for having such a gender imbalance in my workplace.
Finally we reached the end of the hall, which opened into the Biochemistry storeroom; the three male employees stood at a huge table sorting mail and exchanging inappropriate banter.
I wanted to ask the nearest person for assistance and leave quickly. My friend insisted on interviewing everyone. "To make the best CHOICE," she said.
All the employees wore black jeans and black button down dress shirts rolled up at the sleeves. I sat on the table, dangling my legs while she flirted with the man closest to us. He introduced himself as Frank.
Frank looked to be 50, was balding and short but had tanned muscular arms and an engaging, contagious smile. Even I felt the corners of my mouth lift, my irritation subside as I watched them from the corner of my eye. He glanced at the bottle of milk, and his eyes widened but his smile never wavered. My friend laughed. I could see her decision was made, no need to interview anyone else.
Just as my friend began asking for a donation, a tall man in a black cape swept into the room. He spoke briefly into the ear of the man at the far end of the table, and immediately the man stood ramrod straight, all but saluting. The second employee, directly to our right apparently received a similar message, as he also snapped to attention and stood unmoving at his post.
As Frank, oblivious to what I assumed was his supervisor, smiled wider and said, "Yes," to my friend, the tall man in the cape was suddenly at my elbow. He stood so close he was nearly touching me, but ignored me utterly. He leaned across my body, as if to whisper something confidential to Frank. His face, averted until this moment, came into profile - a luminous milky moonshine white, a hooked nose, small ice blue eyes - and I inhaled sharply from terror and recognition.
I watched helplessly as the man in the cape slid a remote over Frank's ear. Frank's face went slack, the smile gone from his lips and eyes.
I grabbed my friend's hand. She resisted me but I pulled her bodily out of the room, dragged her by the hand back down the hall. We ran all the way to my house, a three storey townhouse tucked into the side of a green belt. I had two neighbours, and all three houses sat at the far end of a long driveway.
My friend bent over on the front steps of the house, gasping, angry, still clutching her milk. "What in the hell is going on?"
I gave her the Coles' notes - I wasn't really from earth, the man in the cape was a Specter sent here to kill me - the last of my kind - and would probably also kill anyone who tried to help me. Blah, blah, blah, the usual boring interstellar plotline, could we please pack a small bag and LEAVE NOW???
In the foggy dusk shone distant headlights, slowly brightening. "They're coming. We have to GO." There wasn't time to pack. We ran into the house and up the stairs, finally emerging through a hidden staircase onto the roof.
When I peeked over the eave, I could see a small blood red convertible with the top down parked right outside my door. It was empty. Footsteps in the house. My heart felt like a jack hammer in my chest. My friend had disappeared. I took a running leap and landed on the roof of the house next door, then shimmied down a drain pipe to the ground.
It was quiet, the grass wet with evening mist. The house I'd landed on was abandoned, recently sold and the new owners had not moved in. My other neighbours were on vacation. Should I keep running? The Specter was fast, but not overly intelligent. It tracked like a bloodhound and would doggedly follow scents even if that meant going in circles over the same ground.
I began walking out complex patterns through all three houses. Canadian winters had made me an expert at that childhood snow game of Fox and Goose.
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