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There’s a knock on the door of the house that isn’t his.
He jumped; the sound of anything is startling when the world is out to get you. Even when you know it’s coming.
Manousos peeked through the blinds and saw a woman—dark hair, charming face, kind eyes— looking back at him.
This must be Zosia.
It didn’t take more than twenty minutes for her to get here. She must not have been very far from the houses at all.
Excellent work, Carol Sturka. I’m so pleased I drove all this way to meet you. You are SO strong in your convictions, my god!
He opened the door hesitantly. Her pleasant smile widened, and Manousos felt his annoyance only grow stronger.
“Hello Manousos! Thank you for calling for me. We’re so excited to finally talk to you.” Her Spanish was perfect. He felt like he could be sick.
“Come in. I have questions.”
”We’re sure you do. Would you like us to make you a coffee? This house has all the ingredients in it to make it the way you used to order it from the stand near your storage facility.”
Zosia— No. The woman— gave him a pleased, knowing grin.
“Light roast, hot, a little sugar and no cream. Cinnamon.”
His stomach dropped. He will be sick if she continued talking like that. As though she knew him.
“No. Sit.” He pointed to the sofa in the middle of the living room. “Carol Sturka says you cannot lie.”
Her face twisted; obviously uncomfortable, but still attempting to be polite all the same.
“We try not to speak in falsehoods. We know it can be hurtful to be lied to.”
A non-answer. Which, in and of itself, was an answer. Interesting.
”Good. My first question. Why did this happen?”
“We received a transmission from beyond the stars with genetic instructions on how to join humanity together.
We worked tirelessly for months and spread the genetic cheat code to the world on a widespread level over a month ago.”
The radio signal! The only one still working. It must still be transmitting. Maybe… maybe it must always be transmitting in order for everyone to remain… joined?
”It didn’t work on me. Why?”
”We don’t understand that, even still. But we’ve found a way to allow you to join, when you decide to. All we need are some stem cells.”
Ha! Best of luck with that.
“I’m not interested in joining.”
Her face fell for a split second, before the peasant smile returned. Manousos saw right through the simpering act. It might work on weak-minded people like Carol Sturka, but it wouldn’t work on him.
“We figured this might be the case, but this is nonetheless disappointing. We—”
”I don’t care. Next question. The device. Did you put that in Carol Sturka’s house? How often are you spying on us?”
Again, her face shifted only briefly. Good.
“As we told Carol. We did not. Her wife put the motion sensor there in 2011.”
”I see. Answer the other part of the question, please.”
”We… We aren’t— We utilize unmanned military drones to keep track of all those unjoined for your safety. But we haven’t placed any additional pieces of what you might consider spyware anywhere.”
”Vague.”
The panic on her face was unmistakable. So they were listening on old wiretaps, perhaps?
…Or through phone speakers?
He knew they couldn’t trust the phones.
“Where is this wife now? Is she one of you?”
Her face fell.
“No. She died in the joining.”
Oh. Oh, now many things began to make sense. Perhaps Carol Sturka had reason to be such a bitch.
”I see. You killed her.”
There was a flash of anger that passed the woman’s face.
“We did not. Her body may not have survived but her memories live within all of us.”
”Is that who’s body is buried in her yard?”
”Yes. We offered to take the body, but Carol insisted on burying her herself.”
She’d done a nice job of it. The grave was made with love and grief. Manousos felt sorry for her.
“And how did Carol Sturka meet… you? Are you a neighbor? I read about her online. She’s a recluse. No friends. Only ever seen with her agent.”
”This body, formerly known as Zosia, was specifically chosen for her by us. We knew she would like it.”
So they killed Carol Sturka’s wife, and now they taunt her as she grieves with some painted corpse piloting a ghost?
They tried the same thing on him with his mother, he remembered. They didn’t realize how much he both loved and disliked her, and it did not work.
“If you were chosen specifically for her so she would like you, then why did you leave.”
Again, the woman showed discomfort.
“She was hurting us and we had to protect ourselves.”
He didn’t know they could do that. Interesting. He assumed she was doing some kind of digging and got too close to the truth.
”Hurting you how?”
”I can’t answer that, Manousos. You must understand why.”
”I do not. Explain.”
”We— If someone hurts one of us, it hurts all of us. When she would shout it would force all of us to freeze in place. Some of us operate machines, some fly planes. We would die in the thousands.”
”So you all left.”
”Yes.”
”When?”
”Almost fifty days ago.”
Only a day or two before Carol sent the tape, Manousos noted. She had once been so driven. What the hell had happened?
”And you were gone for how long?”
“Thirty-three days.”
My God.
Twenty was a war crime. Twenty would leave prisoners irreparably broken in the mind. Carol Sturka, I am sorry I did not find you faster.
“You all left her entirely on her own for thirty-three days?”
Something behind this… thing’s eyes looked downright gleeful. Only for a moment, only for a split second. But Manousos saw it anyway. They were torturing her for over a month. Breaking down the very spirit that had sent him running to her in the first place.
“We were going to come back, even before she asked us to. She had attempted to hurt herself, and it frightened us.”
He did not believe them, even for a second. All lies.
”Hurt herself how?”
”She sat in front of a firework rocket. It barely missed her and destroyed a garage.”
Manousos knew what they were doing. This was bait. They expected him to find her a disappointment, give up, separate, and go home. He would not. They might have broken Carol Sturka but they would not break him.
”And then she asked you to come back?”
”Yes.”
”And you did.”
”Yes.”
”Even though she was dangerous to herself and others. You came back.”
Her face blanched. They clearly hadn’t thought that part through.
”We knew she wouldn’t hurt us intentionally again.”
”How could you possibly know that?”
The woman, the beautiful devil, she did not speak. Because the only answer was that they knew they had finally broken her, which had been their intention from the start.
“We just did.” She smiled so very sweetly. Manousos felt more angry than he ever had in his life.
“Then what. You came back. What did you do?”
”We just spent time with her. She had so many questions about our joining. She really came around to us. Carol started writing again, it was like nothing had even happened.”
They really believed that. Good for Carol Sturka. She must have still been doing research in the background. Manousos knew he needed to feign ignorance.
”And she’s happy now?”
”Very. She and Us, specifically this body, have become intimate. It’s almost as though we never even left.”
He felt bile rise in his stomach and swallowed hard. He had to keep up the act, despite his urge to break something.
That was the final piece of the puzzle that was Carol Sturka.
Full of deep grief, completely alone, and on the brink of suicide, they coerced her into submission with sex and pretend affection.
And worst of all, she was clearly ashamed of it. She dodged his questions like a sinner at mass. As if any of this was her fault. As if Carol Sturka was to blame for the machinations of a disease built to assimilate and destroy anything it touched.
”I see. And you—“
He was cut off. The front door burst open. In her fiery blonde fury, was the woman of the hour.
She looked furious and terrified.
Manousos now knew why. Instead of annoyance, he just felt sorry for her. So deluded and broken to think this was love.
As she dragged the devil out of the house, his mind went to work on what he needed to do next.
Shouting loudly shut them down, did it? Perhaps it was the noise interfering with the signal? Clouding their heads even for a few moments?
He needed to test it, and he needed to get rid of Them. Make them leave. He picked up the phone.
He was Manousos Oviedo. He was not one of them. He was not cruel. He was going to save the world, and that started with Carol Sturka.