Song of the chapter:

Amanda Palmer - Runs In The Family✖

"The Family Name's planet is quite different than Earth," they started, eyes moving away from the surrounding park towards the pond in front of them. They regarded the body of water carefully. "Our planet has a considerable atmosphere, making it appear like a gas planet from the outside with bands of gas. Because of this, most of the starlight from our system's sun is reflected or blocked. It makes the entire planet dark, the only real light from the luminescent animal and plant kingdom. That is why our eyes are primarily accustomed to the dark," they started, one bony finger tapping at their sunglasses through the glove.

"The majority of the atmosphere is made of nitrogen, as you can suspect. We do have water, but it is only deep within the crust of the planet. Barely usable except to the insect life. That is why the Family Name and the other living things have evolved in very strange manners to accommodate long nitrogen molecules being explosive, although self-combustion is common to some species," I frowned at their words, thinking about a poor dog or whale suddenly exploding themselves.

"You said that your only water is deep within the ground, so you have no oceans?"

"No," they stared onto the pond. "We do not have aquatic life,"

"But doesn't like all life start within the ocean? Or, obviously, that's just how we come to know it,"

"All of our life began as plants," I looked at them with utter confusion. "Our planet was once completely plant-based before the Parent Ships came,"

"Is it another species?"

"In a sense. The Parent Ships are mechanical lifeforms from deep within space. Whether they had been engineered themselves, we do not know, but they had nurtured us. They had sent down proxies onto the planet and had created a single entity from the complex biosphere that had formed by then. This entity is the progenitor of the Family Name: EENNG'ELLLZZ.

Tree of Life.

Tree of Life is an excellent translation, as that is what they are, in essence. Tree of Life is the person who produces life-carrying spores once a century. To use your words, Tree of Life is our biological parent while the Parent Ships are our adoptive parents. The ones who take care of us.

When Tree of Life gives off spores, the spores spread across the planet and gets embeds into various terrains. With every century, two Parent Ships return to the planet. One is referred to as the Protector, as their duty is to release protective shells every century to the planet and enclose the new spores. These shells keep outside influences at bay while the spores develop and feed information so that when the sporeling is released into the world, they already have enough knowledge to survive and start a living on.

This process also takes one hundred years.

That is why a second Parent Ship, a new Parent Ship from wherever they come from, also arrives alongside the Protector and takes in all the new sporelings when they are released from their shells. There is enough of these sporelings to be considered an entire civilisation of sort, and the Parent Ship is that large as well.

The new sporelings are educated and tested for various skills on the Parent Ship as it takes them away from the planet, assigning them different roles within their pseudo society. The Parent Ships also play favouritism, and the Family Name that gets to rule above the others is considered as the Favourite One. Sometimes, for whatever reason, a Parent Ship might trade one of their sporelings for another from a passing Parent Ship.

This is the only contact Parent Ships make with each other.

I was a traded sporeling," they seemed so focused during their explanation. If it wasn't for the synthetic voice, I would have sworn they sounded nostalgic.

"So the Parent Ship you lived on, wasn't the one that initially retrieved you from your planet?"

"That is correct,"

"Why were you traded?" they looked down to their lap, their fingers crossing with a strong grip.

"I... I do not know," they admitted, helplessly. "The one I was traded for, Lopx'Nry, had been an astounding artist. As I had mentioned, my Parent Ship's primary function is the Avian Project, but the one I had come from had been interested in researching the Inhabitants Theory,"

"I'm guessing it has nothing do with birds then?"

"The Family Name's planet... we may originate from it, but we do not stay there. The only one of us that lives there, is Tree of Life. Why we do not create a living on our own planet, was the purpose of the Inhabitants Theory. Seeing the success of our individual Parent Ships' civilisations, it was brought to question why a combined society had not been done before.

It was not as if we were not allowed to know of the planet, after all, we had been taught how our evolution came from it and the Parent Ships recreated the planet's environment almost exactly within some of their rooms. They were not just simulations, but actual life that had been taken from the surface. The animal kingdom and plant kingdom had been taken care off on the ships as well.

It was like they just wanted to take a little part of home with us where ever we travelled in the universe.

My only guess as to why I was traded, is that they believed Lopx'Nry's artistry skills would be much more useful in a combined society than mine," this was a lot to take in and I tried to stay on top of everything they said, the entirely different way of living an abstract concept to me.

They weren't allowed to live on their own planet?

"What is your planet's name?" they did not answer immediately, their hands gripping tightly onto each other.

"It had never been appointed one," they answered, almost sadly. "It is not talked about. The Parent Ships just refer to it as the Originating Point,"

"And this person you were traded for... what's their name?"

"Lopx'Nry,"

"Does that mean you have a name as well?"

"Of course I have a name," they frowned at me, probably thinking what a stupid question it was.

"It's just... you've never used it before,"

"Why would I use my name to refer to myself?" touché. "I do know your name at least,"

"What, how?"

"You used it when signing into the motel," they explained. "Riley Davis,"

"Well, yeah, I guess," I raised my shoulders, sighing.

"Hmm..." they wondered, staring at me curiously. "My name is Dengr'Axnn,"

"Dengar-Axen?" I pronounced.

"Close enough," they admitted. I hummed in thought.

"You were traded for an artist... what is your skillset then?"

"What do you think I do?" they countered, a sly smirk on their lips. I thought about this, but it wasn't hard to come up with an answer.

"I think you're a strategist," they trilled in regards to my answer. "Is that what you did on the Parent Ship? You were its strategist?"

"I am a strategist, in a sense," I wondered about their comment but did not dwell on it.

"Then..." I summoned up the courage, thinking over everything I have just learned. "If every Parent Ship is as nurturing as you say it is, and each ship has its own speciality like the Avian Project - which has to do with studying birds that are on this planet - then why is the Family Name planning on destroying Earth where all of the specimens are?" they halted in their movements, eyes blazing into me from behind the sunglasses. "And why would you need to escape from them in the first place?"

I had caught them, completely; hook, line and sinker.

The Traveller had been lying.

✖

"Ma'am, we've got the target in sight," the buzzing entered her ear, her tongue slipping over her lips as the satisfaction overcame her. The target was in her sights as well, military-issued binoculars in use as she watched the alien and their captive speak freely within the park.

"Wait for my command," she chimed back, eyes shooting to the minimum other people within the area. "Get the people out,"

"Ma'am!" disguised personnel calmly entered the scene, acting like other joggers and family members and approaching the surrounding people. Brief explanation was given, and everyone was assisted in moving away from the scene without causing any panic or giving away their plans. They had expected the plan to fail, of course, so they were prepared when the alien suddenly perched up and after taking a whiff of the area, shot their eyes to the General's position.

"It knows we're here. Shoot!" the General screeched, the sniper immediately pulling the trigger and the bullet went flying.

✖

I heard the bullet before I saw its effects. I was pushed away, harshly, and I went tumbling off the bench into the dirt. I was about to complain or run away – not too sure which first – when gloves and sunglasses got thrown onto me.

Dengr propelled themself over the bench, fingers clenched and eyes murderous. I have no idea where the bullet ended up going. It could have missed, or perhaps it didn't miss. I wouldn't put it past the Traveller to be able to catch or deflect a bullet mid-air.

But a sniper.

The military was pissed.

MMRRSSSTTTT I heard the war cry directly from their vocal cords, fear settling straight onto my body like another layer of clothing. Whether this fear was for the military or for Dengr, I did not know. Moreover, I was fearful for the fight scene taking place around me. I didn't want to be on the battlefield, and that was why I let my instincts take over and control my feet.

I was running in the opposite direction, my ears taking in the sounds of carnage from the scene I just left behind. I didn't dare turn to see if Dengr found the military's hiding spot or if they were just upturning trees and tossing them towards cars, hoping for the best.

Who was I kidding? Dengr could smell them out like a bloodhound on steroids. If there ever were an opportunity for me to make a break for it, it's now. I didn't allow myself to hesitate even one bit.

I headed towards where the truck was parked and fumbled with the keys as I jumped inside and got the vehicle to start running. I reversed straight into the oncoming traffic in a panic, a honk sent my way as I viciously swirled in the right direction to shoot off.

I needed distance. A lot of it. I needed to get so far away that when Dengr was finished with their business, that they wouldn't be able to hone in on me. I floored the hell out of the truck, not even concerned for the people around me as I shot towards the edge of the town and out onto the open road. Away from the town I went, away from the shooting and from the Traveller. I was working on pure adrenaline and willpower I didn't know I had, my fingers clenching around the wheel.

Thunder echoed within my ear drum, myself driving straight into the oncoming storm that would overtake the town.

Won't my scent get washed away? Is that a thing?

A new sense of excitement bloomed inside me as I drove in the rain, windshield wipers working hard at keeping the drops out of my view. Slowly I began to calm down, the last hour dawning on me. I had ran from my captor and successfully got away.

I was free.

And now Dengr was in the hands of the military. The military would know what to do with them and what to do about the Family Name.

Dengr was being hunted. I was almost sure of this now after I saw their hesitance when I brought it up. For all of the value Earth held towards the Avian Project, it wasn't enough to counter whatever Dengr had done. The Family Name would destroy Earth in order to get rid of Dengr, not humanity.

But what had they done? What had Dengr done that was so bad that they had to escape from the Parent Ship and crash-land on Earth? What had they done that now put all of our lives in jeopardy?

With their personality, nothing would surprise me honestly. They were a genius strategist, although albeit a bit bendable. Perhaps they weren't as genius as much as I gave them credit, or perhaps, that they possessed a different type of intelligence as well.

After seeing their little emotional breakdown yesterday on the side of the road, I figured that there was much more to them than just an apathetic presence. They were probably scared of the Family Name and was driven on the notion of survivability. Everything they did was to save themself, even keeping me alive and abiding to some of my needs was for that reason. There was no way that Dengr would ever work alongside humanity, so the only way was for the military was to put them down or capture them.

But then, would they know about the imposing threat of the Family Name?

Earth is most definitely not ready for an intergalactic show down.

After about two hours of non-stop travel – I had really not been looking at the time and the storm was making it difficult to tell – the truck came to the puffing stop as it finally ran out of petrol. I screeched in anger, hitting the steering wheel with pent up frustration.

"No, no, no! Get going! I know you haven't been refilled for a couple of days but who cares! Come, work on mercy here!" but it wouldn't stop again. "Fuck!"

It didn't take long for me to decide that just staying in the car would be a bad move. I didn't know if I was being followed and I needed to move. More distance. More kilometres. I wasn't going to be satisfied until I was on the other side of the planet.

But it was raining, and it was cold. I covered my face with my palms, internally already sobbing at my stupidity and bad luck.

What do I do?

What do I do?

I took some food out in hopes that snacking might bring me some clarity, but it did not. Instead, it just left me stress eating in the middle of a depressing road.

I never felt more alone and more confused. I just wanted to be back on that sunny farm with my family, not knowing what I want to do with my life and just... be calm.

This constant anxiety that felt like a swarm of bees inside my brain was getting old and even more threatening.

I need to pick myself back up and save myself.

I just... didn't know how.