1 Bagels, Missions and the End of the World

[Dylan]

The end of the world came suddenly. One second my head was resting on the desk as I dozed.

Then there was a sort of crack in the world's fabric, the crinkling of plastic near my ear. I opened one eye. Fissures appeared and through which clouds of black could be seen. It was as if some goddess had simply raised her hand and ripped the air open. And through that slit was a glimpse of another world. I raised my head, half asleep; a piece of drool-soaked paper clung to the side of my face.

My classmates whispered their awe, but it quickly turned to shouts and screams of terror as creatures emerged from the tears.

Something stepped out the crack nearest to me, a sort of lizard, human creature armed with a spear. Black armour covered its skin. Perhaps this was all a dream. I glanced across the classroom and saw Diana, with her short, boyish haircut and lime green eyes, which beheld nothing but fury. As more monsters stepped out of the fissures and filled our classroom, I thought, 'I'm going to die now."

The lizard-human chimera levelled its sword at my head, and I swallowed slowly, feeling the cold descent of fear as it spread from my head to the rest of my body. A thousand thoughts rippled through my mind, but I did nothing but stare, wait for it to kill me.

Luckily, Alex, who also enjoyed sleeping through Mr. Sarrow's class, rose from his seat. He was albino with pale pinkish white skin and short coily white hair. His eyes were like his father's. Grey. He raised his hands and said, "Everyone, get behind me."

With a good portion of our class frozen in fear, Alex sighed and muttered, "Or not."

He narrowed his eyes, then the monsters' heads burst. Their blood and brain matter sprayed those close by. A girl screamed hysterically and passed out. The warm foreign liquid that slid down my face and stung my eyes made me throw up. As I hunched over and finished vomiting, I glanced at Alex, who stood alone, grim determination on his face.

Monsters were real, and so were superheroes. My shock was so severe I could barely perceive it as anything more than a faint hammering in my chest.

If I hadn't seen it myself, I would have doubted it, but faced with the truth, I had no choice but to accept it or wait to awaken from this horrid dream.

***

Ten years later, Siri sang me good morning. She hovered near my bed, a holographic woman wearing a black maid uniform. Version 206. Yawning, I went to the bathroom and showered in a cylindrical glass shower, the ten-minute timer ticking down behind me. Water was a precious commodity, and we only received one ten-minute shower a day, whether we worked for the government or not. But I supposed upper-class individuals could wash a bit longer.

Water weighed down my hair, and warm currents slithered down my skin.

I closed my eyes, and for a moment, I was back in my ninth-grade classroom, reliving the horrible past, hearing the dreadful screams.

But the world has grown since then, and the monsters that crossed the veil have been given a name. Htraeans.

It is said that when someone is killed by an Htraean, it takes their place and commits unspeakable crimes while using their image. So, to prevent this, when people suspect that someone has been replaced, they contact Relar Corp, a group of people, heroes, and normies who are well-versed in the act of surveillance and alien life-form counter terrorism.

The water shut off. Cold jets of breeze from the vents implanted in the shower left me shaking and shivering, so I abandoned the shower, put on my robe, and then went into the kitchen. "Siri, fetch me a caramel bagel, please."

There was a beep, then the holographic woman fled my bedroom and walked/flew over the rust-coloured carpet into the kitchen. While Siri relayed my order to my robot chef, I went over to the window, sat on the protruding seat, and gazed at the glass buildings, metal spirals, and steeples outside.

Thick clouds of dust obscured everything. Sometimes the sky was azure and cloudless, but after years of soil erosion and air pollution, those days were becoming less and less. A silver tray carrying a toasted caramel bagel with butter melted on top floated over to me. I picked it up and took a decent-sized bite. Sugar and fat rewarded me.

I thought of my parents, who I had lost in a mass shooting at my mother's hospital. One of the guards had been replaced with an Htraean, and before anyone realized something was off, he turned his gun on the patients and employees of Blue Wave Hospital.

I could imagine the blood splattered on the walls, the ragdoll bodies of the dead lying on the white tiles. The steady beep before someone's heart rate flat lines.

I didn't miss my parents, but not because I hated them. We had simply never developed the emotional attachment other children and parents had. My father had spent most of his life in the military, and when my mother bore him a daughter, he decided he would make me a boy without ever asking me if that was what I wanted. As a result, I had never got to experience life as a girl. And whenever I expressed feelings, thoughts, desires, my father had hit me, so I had learned to hold everything inside and lock it in the coffin that sat in my chest.

He was gone now, but since I had spent most of my life pretending to be one thing, turning into something else made little sense. When I was young, my petite frame had led to me being bullied as I had been one of the weaker boys. But I had trained hard, and eventually my classmates had given me a sort of grudging respect. The bullying stopped, and at some point, instead of hurling insults and trying to deck each other, my rivals and I traded jokes and one-armed hugs in the hallways. I had a picture from my twelfth-grade graduation of everyone smiling together.

After elementary school, the pent-up aggression and envy we held had simply dissolved like a tablet in a glass of water. Vanished overnight. Past hurts were forgotten or at least pushed back, and friendship and similarities were discovered.

I still kept in contact with a few of my high school friends; I went hoverbike racing or visited the shooting rage every few months with the guys. With the girls, I often got tricked into buying food or clothes.

Siri said, "Dylan, it's time to go to work."

"Mhm." I told Siri to return the empty food tray to the kitchen, then licked the sugar off my fingers. My stomach twisted at the thought of going to work.

What assignment would I get this time?

I changed into a white shirt, a tweed blazer with green patches by the elbows, and black jeans. Though I didn't need them, I wore a pair of fake glasses because it was a way of shielding my eyes and emotions from others.

***

By the time I arrived at the office, it was after seven in the morning.

People were already talking and laughing about their weekend.

My meta human ally (also known as a superhero, hero or simply meta), Martin, was tall with dark brown skin and side-swept black hair. He had a thick Arabic accent that made some of his words sound harsh or like he was clearing his throat in the midst of speaking. He wore a tight black shirt that hugged his abdomen and camouflage pants. I had accidentally happened upon a date consisting of him and another man and now carried his secret with me wherever I went.

Our team leader Vanessa spoke on the phone in her office while the rest of us gathered at the tables in the surveillance room. The ten of us were squad B32 of the Alien Life-Forms Counter-Terrorism Unit (ALFCTU). According to our performance reports, Casper was our team's best agent, scoring a ninety overall on each of our yearly exams, making him worthy of an 'A' team, but he insisted on staying with us.

He was about six feet tall with messy dark blonde hair and a lean build. Clear blue eyes. He tilted his head to one side, watching me. He was a hero who could freeze anything with just a glance. He shoved a spoonful of chocolate pudding into his mouth, a mocking smile curled his lips. "The right side of your head is squashed; you look like a partially deflated soccer ball."

A blush warmed my face, but I made no comment. Curly hair tended to get squashed and lose its shape once you leaned against something hard. And I had fallen asleep on the hovertrain on my way to work. I made a note to fix my hair later and took my place on the other side of the table, far from him.

One wall consisted entirely of TVs; the rest were just plain grey. The chairs were plastic and uncomfortable. A robot guarded the doorway. He carried a gun and was programmed to shoot any face he didn't recognize.

A few minutes passed with muted chatter before our team leader, Vanessa, emerged from her hideout. She was a beautiful woman with olive skin and lush black hair that reached the middle of her back. She tended to be hairier than most women and waxed more than they did, but she was lovely nonetheless. She had dark brown eyes that managed to see everyone and everything at once. A speed-based meta.

Vanessa pressed a button at the end of the table, and a screen dropped down in front of the wall of TVs. She removed a remote from the pocket of her lab coat, and the projector hummed to life, which she connected to her iPad.

A boy with tan skin and auburn hair appeared on the screen. Vanessa announced, "Our new target is David Greene. He's sixteen years old, a popular kid who used to play on his school's basketball team but seems to have suddenly lost interest in sports. He has always had average grades and tended to date two or more girls at once. But in the last few days, his grades have fallen, and his girlfriends have called his lack of interest unusual, callous.

"But what has caught Relar's attention are the changes David's family has noticed recently, including him developing a taste for rotten food, which is something the Htraeans tend to enjoy. His little sister went missing a few weeks ago, and police are searching but have found no trace of her. David tends to go out at night for a few spells without contacting anyone. Night is the period Htraeans tend to be the most active as the moon empowers them and enhances their abilities. So, the question we have to answer is has David been replaced?"

Sally, a soft-spoken meta with a pink bob and brown skin, said, "So, will it be an infiltration type of mission?"

Vanessa nodded. "I was thinking the two youngest looking members should join his high school and try to infiltrate his group of friends, get close to him. So, you and Dylan."

Casper chuckled, despite looking the same age as me. He was twenty-five, a year older, but no hair decorated his chin, and his face had the same youthful glow.

To protect themselves, heroes, and other members of Relar's task forces hid their identities, and anyone who found out an agent's identity had their memory wiped. Our profession provided neither praise nor superfluous reward but gave us enough money to get by.

Vanessa continued, "We have planned an accident for one of the school's gym teachers, Mr. Melrose, which would allow Martin to take his place. Casper, we have you slotted as a substitute Science teacher as one of them will soon take a paternity leave…." It took her five minutes to explain our new roles and duties, then she closed, saying, "Time is of the essence; the more a Htraean kills, the more powerful it becomes and the harder it becomes to kill it. If the boy has been replaced, we must kill the Htraean as soon as possible."

***