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The first time Mark discovers there’s something a little inhuman about Eduardo is not a display of alien strength or speed, it’s an allergic reaction to a piece of meteorite.
They’re in a restaurant in New York to meet Sean Parker. Wardo has been restless and grumpy throughout the meal but now Mark has started to notice how pale and sweaty he’s getting. It’s obvious Eduardo doesn’t like Sean, he’s been pretty transparent on that front but now Mark is beginning to wonder if Eduardo might be getting sick from something they ate.
Sean insists on paying the bill and Eduardo is shifting and wiping his forehead with his napkin.
“And if all else fails it helps to have a lucky charm.” Sean says pulling something out of his pocket. It’s a greenish, pocket-sized lump of rock.
Eduardo flinches back from it, earning strange looks Christy and Mark but Sean’s eye light up in fascination.
“E-excuse me.” Eduardo stumbles to his feet. “I n-need to go to the bathroom.” As he passes Sean he makes an uncharacteristic stumble, nearly face-planting on the restaurant floor. He scrambles weakly to his feet and practically runs to the bathroom, watched in surprise by every patron in the restaurant.
“Weak stomach?” Sean asks with evident faux-concern.
Mark stares after Wardo, but doesn’t answer.
Christy shrugs, picking up Sean’s lucky charm. “So how is this lucky?”
Sean grins at her. “It’s rare type of Meteorite. You don’t often get them in this particular shade of green. A load of them fell to the earth in a meteor shower in the late eighties. It’s a shooting star.”
“Cool.” Christy simpers back at him.
Sean notices Mark’s preoccupation with Eduardo’s sudden exit and draws his attention back. “Why don’t I give you little piece of this for luck.” He takes a knife and chips away an edge to give Mark a quarter-sized piece.
It feels smooth and warm in Mark’s hand. He generally hates this superstitious nonsense and is a little disappointed that Sean would buy into it, but he appreciates the gestures and is oddly comforted that Sean would offer him a piece of his own luck.
Sean gets up to leave, bidding them both a goodbye when he stops and thinks of something. “Drop the The. Just Facebook, it’s clean.”
Eduardo finally emerges from the restroom straightening his tie, looking slight more refreshed, claiming it must have been some bad sushi. They catch a cab back to the hotel and Eduardo listened half-heartedly to the rest of the conversation.
When they’re back at Harvard Mark takes out the piece of Sean’s lucky Meteorite, rubbing his thumb over its smooth edges. He thinks about turning it into a pendant or perhaps a key-ring, but places it beside his monitor and almost forgets about it.
Wardo arrives in one evening bearing beers and pizzas.
“Hey, I …” He stops in the doorway, and looks around.
Mark grabs one of the beers out of the pack but finding it warm hands it back in disappointment. “Fridge.”
“Eh, sure.” Distracted, Eduardo hand the pizza to Mark and then packs the beers into the fridges.
“Mark?” Eduardo continued looking around the living room looking perturbed. “This might sound like a stupid question but has Sean Parker been here?”
“Sean? No. Why would he…?”
“Nevermind. It’s nothing.”
“No, I haven’t heard from him since New York.” He absently rubs the chip of meteorite rethinking the conversation, mulling over the idea of going out to California for the summer.
“What is that?” Eduardo edges closer, clutching the doorframe with white knuckles. “What’s that in your hand?”
“This?” Mark holds it up and Eduardo jolts back. “It’s just a piece of Sean’s meteorite.”
“Mark I need you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“I need you to get rid of that thing.”
“What, why?” He rubs his thumb over the chip of meteorite.
Eduardo leans heavily on the doorframe.
“It’s making me sick, Mark. I need you to get rid of it, or put it behind lead or something.”
“You can’t get sick from a piece of rock.”
“Mark, please.” Eduardo wavers on his feet, running hands through his now sweaty hair. He looks kind of awful, Mark has to admit.
“Fine Wardo, I’ll humour you.” He gets up from his desk and walks into the kitchen area. Eduardo flinches violently away from him.
He goes over to the fridge and place the piece of rock inside at the back then slams the door shut. “Happy? Miraculously better now?”
Eduardo stands up a little straighter, clenching and unclenching his hands, testing his balance. His expression turns relieved. “Yes, actually.”
“You wanna tell me how you manage to be allergic to something that came from outer space?”
Eduardo expression crumples, he casts around looking lost and despairing, before finally looking up with wide doe eyes. “Mark there’s something I have to tell you, something I’ve never told anyone.”
He moves into the bedroom and sits on Mark’s bed, taking a long breath before he speaks.
“I wasn’t born on Earth.”
“Excuse me?”
“I was born on another planet - a dying world that was being evacuated. My parents put me in a shuttle and send me away. It crash-landed in Brazil and the Saverins found me. They raised me as their own son, taught me how to be human. And when I could blend in enough to go to school we moved to Florida to get a fresh start. When I hit puberty I started to develop these powers. I got really strong, I could fall off a cliff and not break a bone, and knives couldn’t cut my skin. And I was fast too, I mean it looks like I have really good reflexes but really I just move faster than humans.”
Mark shakes his head. “Did Dustin put you up to this? His jokes get lamer every semester.”
“No, I’m trying to tell you the truth.”
“Really? You’re an alien?”
Eduardo swallows and slowly nods.
Mark realises it’s not like Wardo to get involved in pranks like this. He’s painfully honest at all times and an absolutely terrible liar.
“Prove it.”
In the blink of an eye Eduardo is gone, the door is open. A gust of wind rushes back in the door slams and suddenly Wardo is standing over Mark offering him a cold beer.
“Where did you...?”
“I got it from next door.”
Mark forcibly closes his gaping mouth, taking a sip of beer.
Eduardo sits gingerly on the edge of the bed, watching Mark’s reaction like a hawk - a strange bambi-faced alien hawk.
“So super strong and super fast?”
“I can also hear things, like your heart beat. Which is frighteningly calm by the way.”
“Would you prefer if I was freaking out?”
“No I… it’s just weird is all.”
“Says the extra terrestrial.”
Wardo looks away.
“So, super hearing, anything else?”
“Well, aside from being able to hear your stomach growling from across the quad, I can smell it if you haven’t had a shower as soon I as step into Kirkland.” He smiles wryly.
“I guess that explains your mother-hen thing.”
“Well you clearly can’t look after yourself.”
“Hey, I don’t need some alien superhero looking after me.”
“I’m not a superhero.” Eduardo shakes his head. “I can’t let anyone know about my abilities, I can’t risk anyone finding out what I am.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to end up in some lab being tested, or dissected.” He shivered.
“But you could help people; use your powers for good.”
“No, Mark. This isn’t like a comic book. I can’t just stick on some lycra and go out and fight crime. My father always told me to be careful, to hide what I am and just act human. You have to understand this. No one can know what I am.”
“But Wardo…”
“Seriously, Mark, this has to stay secret. Promise me you won’t tell anyone.”
“Okay. Well only if you promise to lay off the mothering.”
“Only if you promise to take more showers.” His frown eases into an arch eye brow. “Also if you’re planning on keeping that thing in the fridge you’ll be getting your own drinks from now on.”
When Mark announces he’s heading out to California like Sean Parker suggested Wardo is obviously annoyed but supplies him with the funds to do so.
Eduardo goes to New York, takes his internship and works hard to make inroads with advertisers. He likes New York. He thinks about what Mark says, about using his powers to help people. There are a lot of people in this city who need help. But he can’t quite let go of the fear his father instilled in him; the need to hide what he is at all cost. He just wishes it wasn’t at the cost of lives he could be saving.
When he turns up that rainy night in Palo Alto and sees Sean at the door he does his best not to collapse as the familiar wave of nausea hits him. He pulls Mark into the hallway, closing the door between him and Sean’s lucky charm, but already he’s feeling it’s affect on his strength.
“He can’t stay here, Mark.”
“What? But he’s got us meetings.”
“You know why.”
“What, the meteor? I’ll just ask him to get rid of it.”
“No! You can’t tell him. I don’t want him knowing it affects me!”
“I won’t tell him I’ll just..”
“What? How would you explain it? He’ll just get suspicious and start testing it out. Or he’ll use it against me!”
“Wardo, do you know how paranoid you sound.”
“Mark, this is my life you’re talking about, no one can know, even if it’s just about the meteorite. It raises too many questions. Please Mark, just get him to leave, we don’t need him, and I don’t want him representing our company.”
Mark stops listening and doesn’t ask Sean to leave, so Eduardo has to. They think he’s being a drama queen but he can’t physically stay in the same room as the green rock Sean keeps tossing around like a baseball; like he knows it has some effect on Eduardo.
He needs to get Mark’s attention, convince him how serious the situation is and right now the only pull he has is the money he’s feeding into Facebook.
Freezing the account isn’t the most mature thing he’s ever done but it has the desired effect.
Mark’s frantic call comes during the night. Between trying to put out the fire Christy start without using his powers and dealing with Mark’s accusations he’s ready to give up and do anything to make Mark happy.
He breaks up with Christy and flies back to California.
Things seem okay with Mark. There are meetings and papers to sign but before he has to fly back to college Mark and he share a beer.
“You should come back.”
“What about Sean?”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“You can’t tell him…”
“You don’t think I’m smart enough to come up with something without spilling your oh-so-important secret?” He sneers.
It’s a little cutting but Eduardo brushes it off and promises to come back in a couple of months.
He gets on with college, missing Mark terribly, wondering how he can make it up to him for freezing the accounts. Maybe something to do with his powers. Maybe he’ll take him somewhere secluded and show him what he can really do.
He never gets the opportunity.
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The day they’re due to hit a million users Eduardo is asked to sign papers to dilute his shares.
Mark has never seen Wardo use his super-strength but he suspects from Wardo’s momentary looks of regret that he didn’t really intend to slam the laptop hard enough it breaks into more piece than a human might have managed.
When Sean goes to hand him back his cheque, Wardo stumbles away from him.
“You look like you could do with a lucky charm of your own, Eduardo.” Sean tosses the meteorite up in the air, catching it easily in his hand as Eduardo bows away in pain.
The security guards arrive and Mark wonders when they hired so many, as they take Eduardo by the arms and lead him away.
“You know he doesn’t look well, guys, maybe you should take him to the hospital.” Sean calls after them.
“You know you didn’t have to use that against him.” Mark hisses.
“Listen I’m putting together...”
“Sean! You didn’t have to use that against him.”
“He almost killed it! I’ll send him some flowers.” Sean shrugs then goes straight into party mode. He’s delighted with himself and it only serves to make Mark feel worse, and then glad when he finally leaves.
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Several months pass and there’s no word from Eduardo or his lawyers. Mark is relieved but also surprised. Eduardo has a decent case against him, and in the intervening months Mark has consulted with his own legal team enough to know that it would be right to settle with him and give him some compensation for his part in helping them get started.
He calls over to Chris’s desk. “When you were back at college did you speak to Eduardo at all?”
“No.”
“Did you see him at all?”
Chris frowns at him. “Mark, he never came back to college.”
“What?”
“He kind of disappeared.”
This sends a chill through Mark and he goes straight back to his computer and hacks Eduardo’s email account. No activity since the morning he got to California.
He’s worried now and starts checking police reports and hospitals for any mention of someone matching Eduardo’s description. It’s horrifying work.
He then starts on the security cameras from around the office to track Eduardo’s last movements.
In the black and white CCTV footage from the underground parking lots of the Facebook offices he sees Eduardo being escorted by security. He watches as Wardo tries to straighten himself up but wavers a bit when suddenly Mark recognises Sean appearing behind them.
He wishes they had added sound recording to their security feeds and makes a note to insist on that upgrade as he watches silent footage of Sean talking to Eduardo. With Sean and his meteorite so close, Eduardo is clearly not in any shape to fight off the security men who take hold of his arms.
Sean presses his rock against Eduardo’s long throat. His mouth opens in a silent scream and his body contorts in pain before slumping to his knees.
Suddenly a van pulls up beside them.
The security guys open the back doors and a couple of men in pale scrubs hop out.
Eduardo sees them and struggles again in between his two captors but he’s clearly too weak to put up much of a fight.
Sean draws closer again but his back is to the camera so Mark doesn’t see what happens but whatever it is makes Eduardo cry out and go rigid and then fall in a boneless heap.
The security men load his inert form into the back of the van. Sean hands something to the men in scrubs and they close the van door behind them. Sean cheerily waves them off the heads back up to the office. Mark pauses the video and leans closer.
The back of the van shows a symbol, one he’s quite familiar from seeing it around Palo Alto. It’s the Stanford crest.
It takes Mark a while to calm down enough to come up with a plan. His first port of call is to hack the security systems at the Stanford science department.
They have some high security labs there, even more secure after some recent picketing about animal testing.
He shivers at the thought of Wardo being treated like some animal or alien creature and the idea is so overwhelming he can’t catch his breath for a while.
He trawls through the security system looking for the area with the highest security level, the most heavily guarded. He finds records of a high priority project for a private interest that kicked off around the time of Eduardo’s last day in the Facebook offices. It takes some time to get through their security firewall but when he succeeds he finds encrypted files and photos and graphs and spreadsheets and written reports, and when Mark comes to a clear photo of the subject’s face he stops functioning.
“Mark?”
“Mark, are you alright?” He slowly looks up to find both Dustin and Chris looking mildly alarmed.
“What?”
“Mark you’ve been sitting staring at your desk for hours. People are starting to freak out.” Chris tells him softly.
“Are you having a nervous breakdown?” Dustin asks.
He swallows over a very dry throat and tells them. “Wardo’s in trouble.”
Dustin and Chris share a look. “What kind of trouble?”
“He’s being held against his will at a lab at Stanford.”
“What do you mean? Why would they hold him against his will? What would they want with him?”
Mark purses his lips. “I can’t tell you.”
Chris leans down and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Mark, you’re not making a lot of sense.”
“Maybe it’s sleep deprivation.” Dustin offers.
“Yeah, maybe we should get you home.”
“No, listen to me.” Mark says, getting annoyed. “He’s being held there, and they’re hurting him.” His voice cracks. “I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone, that I’d keep his secret. I never thought this would happen.”
“Mark.” Chris takes hold of his arm. “Mark, talk to us, what’s happening to Wardo?”
Mark reaches a shaky hand out and taps his keyboard to play the video footage he’d been unable to make himself watch.
The screen shows a brightly lit lab with a hospital gurney. Eduardo is strapped to the table by his wrists, thighs, ankles, and a thick strap across his chest, he’s also been gagged. He’s wearing a thin hospital gown that only reaches to mid thigh. His face is deathly pale and drawn, dark shadows circle his shrunken eyes.
“That can’t be him, right?” Dustin asks, staring at the screen. Mark shushes him.
A voice-over is heard adding the date and test number, placing it roughly three months ago.
“The purpose of today’s test is to estimate the subject’s susceptibility to extreme heat.”
A young man in a white lab coat walks into frame, donning thick protective gloves and goggles. Another lab technician start to prepare the skin of Eduardo’s bare shins by shaving the hair off and wiping the skin clean. Eduardo flinches weakly, shaking his head from side to side.
The one with the goggles produces a blow torch and ignites the flame.
“Previously, the subject has shown a significant capacity for cell regeneration. Although the extraterrestrial mineral is present in the restraints the regenerative abilities are rarely so dampened at to prevent the skin from healing at faster rate than human tissue would.”
“Testing commences with a brief exposure to heat, sufficient to cause second degree burns in human tissue.”
Wardo tries to pull his leg away as the blow torch is brought down on his bare shin. He screams into his gag, straining against the straps holding him down.
The lab technician takes some photos of the skin.
“Testing to resume in one hour.” The camera draws closer, focusing on Wardo’s shin. Mark hits fast forward and as the timer creeps up another 60 minutes, the painful-looking red and blistered skin slowly begins to clear until there is not trace of it having been burned.
“No way.” Chris gasps.
The camera pans back and the scientists return with the blow torch. Eduardo doesn’t fight this time, but closes his eyes and turns his head away, his panting chest straining against the band holding him down.
“The test will now be repeated with increased exposure the raw mineral.”
The lab technician wheels a cart over with a metal container. He opens it slowly to reveal a green glow.
Wardo flinches violently in his bonds, his muscle tense, limbs rigid, he tries to inch away from it, as though its radiation feels like extreme heat.
When the blowtorch is brought down on his leg again he screams and pants and cries for a slightly longer period of time.
“The subject will now be kept in proximity to the raw mineral to demonstrate the previously noted interference with the subject’s accelerated cell regeneration.”
This time as the minutes elapsed the red and blistered skin did not change. As the camera zoomed out after the hour had passed they could see that Wardo was trembling, sweating and pale.
“As a result of the extreme heat in conjunction with exposure to the unrefined mineral the subject begins to shows signs of shock. Testing will be postponed until vitals return to base levels.”
The video ended.
Chris scrambled over to Mark’s waste paper basket and threw up.
Dustin backed into the glass wall and slid down to the ground in a heap.
“We have to get him out of there.” Mark tells them firmly.
They both nod numbly but soon enough the shock wears off and they begin to plan.
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Eduardo’s existence had been reduced to three simple states – pain, less pain and unconsciousness.
The first few days were a haze of all three. They kept him strapped to a gurney, hooked up to monitors and took every type of sample they could think of, all the while keeping a large chunk of the meteorite positioned right beside him. He couldn’t move; he could only croak and moan in protest, too weak to reach anything approaching coherence. The intensity of that initial and concentrated exposure sucked all the energy out of him.
His heart rate plummeted, vitals dropped and his perception was filled with the beeping of a heart monitor as it began to slow and falter.
He thought they were killing him slowly. He would later wish that they had.
Once they had determined without question that he and his DNA were not of this earth, their focus shifted to how they could successfully contain him, continuing their tests and data gathering, while preventing his vitals from dropping again.
They kept the doses to a minimum, just enough to suck the fight out of him, but not enough to make him keel over.
As he gained back some awareness he made repeated efforts to break free, tearing through restrains and pulling doors off their frames, knocking security guards out, but as his attempts got bolder their means of subduing him got smarter.
He made the early mistake of using his powers, demonstrating his superior strength and speed right under their ever watchful cameras. After that they knew not to underestimate him. They perceived him to be a terrible threat and treated him as such.
Attaching small fragments to his person was their most effective means of preventing him from attaining the energy required for any kind of escape attempt or resistance.
Initially they taped pieces to his skin but he always managed to chew, sweat or rub them off over time in a purely instinctive and animalistic need to remove the source of his pain.
After that they moved straight to a set of metal wrist bands with a thin strip of the refined mineral embedded in each of them. These were then welded tightly around each wrist so no amount of wriggling or chewing could get them off.
He fought and railed and demanded answers and respect but never got anywhere. They did not speak to him or address him or even look at him beyond what was necessary for monitoring and testing.
They were made up of biologists, chemists, physicists, mineralogists and various other interested parties, who came in surgical masks and latex gloves to poke and prod, assess, measure and test.
They included private security people whose job it was to guard and monitor the subject and keep him secured at all times. There were also lab technicians, assistants and other lackeys who handled and transported and cleaned up after him.
Whoever they were, they had private funding in significant amounts and so far he had seen little sign of US military or government officials so he could only assume that they were unaware of his existence, otherwise he knew the line of inquiry would have been steered more directly towards national security and threat assessment.
Once the initial round of tests was complete they entered a phase he liked to think of as the interview portion of his testing.
He was not drugged at first but when they realise he would not cooperate they plied him with barbiturates to try and loosen his tongue.
They asked about where he came from, about his original planet. He gave no answers.
They asked him about his family, the Saverins. They would call his parents by their names but never addressed him by his. At first he refused to answer, but then they threatened to haul his parents in for testing. He sobbed and begged them not to, telling them his parents are innocent and human and don’t know anything about him. They don’t ask any more so he suspects that they either believe him or cannot get to them; at least he prays that’s the case.
They increase the dosage to fatal levels and he mumbles in a language he doesn’t even know.
More importantly they want to know if there are others. He can at least be honest in this and tell them that he’s all alone here.
He hasn’t seen the sun in months. He feels its absence like an ache.
There’s haven’t even been window. So he thinks this facility must be underground.
When he wasn’t in the lab they kept him monitored in a plexi-glass cell under red lamps, having discovered his other weakness after a burst of yellow UV light gave him the momentary strength to break out of his restraints, and stumble to his feet, only to be brought to knees by a blast of meteorite exposure.
He was constantly plagued with the nausea and weakness of exposure.
If only he could destroy the main chunks of rock they used, if only he get hold of it long enough to toss the blasted thing behind lead and give himself enough relief to burst through the walls and make his escape.
If only he could get a message to Mark or his parents.
Sean had intimated that Mark had asked him to find a way to get Eduardo out of the company, and get rid of him. But Eduardo couldn’t believe that Mark could ever betray him in this way. Kick him out Facebook maybe, but delivering him to this cruel fate, fulfilling his worst nightmares, it wasn’t true. Even Mark at his most vindictive wouldn’t do something so inhuman.
But humans could be cruel, Eduardo learned. And he had discovered they had techniques for dehumanising him, for reminding themselves that he was alien and not deserving of humane treatment.
He’d read once about prisoners in Guantanamo Bay being tortured by their guards; pissed on, beaten, and humiliated. He wasn’t treated anything like that, but he lived in fear that once the scientists were through with him the guards and other civilians might be given free reign with him.
They stripped away his clothes and identity, dressing him in thin hospital scrubs or open-backed gowns depending on what kind of access they needed to the body they considered their own property. He lost any sense of privacy as he was forced to piss and defecate with cameras or lab technicians monitoring and measuring his output.
He was made to shower in front of two guards. Despite the warm water and the relief it offered he shivered under their watchful gaze, curling his frame, hunching over to try and make himself seem smaller.
The security staff had been armed with tasers and guns but also batons coated in a layer of the mineral. Their presence on the guards’ belts made him sick, and he had to lean against the tiled wall as he washed himself, feeling utterly drained and barely able to hold himself upright.
When he tried to reason with them they sedated him. When he cried out in pain they gagged him, when he resisted they tazed him like stubborn cattle.
They made some concessions for him when it became obvious that he needed sleep and food and water like a human. But even his eating habits were treated like an experiment. They played around with his diet to see how it affected him, even feeding him poisons and bacteria to see how well he handled them, but their results were generally distorted by the fact that he was already sick from all the exposure to the meteorite.
He overheard a request to operate on his vocal chords in order to keep him quiet during the ongoing experiments but also to see if he could regrow them back to original state.
They had already clipped off his little finger and a toe to test the same thing. He rubbed the stump left on his right hand, next to the white band on his ring finger when his family ring used to be.
If he wasn’t sedated or knocked out by the pain, he generally cried himself to sleep.
Sometimes he dreamt about taking Mark flying. He pictured them somewhere like the Grand Canyon where there’s endless sky and the sun shine hot and bright and he can bask in it, getting stronger and healthier.
He enjoys the rush of air and the joyful expression flight invokes on Mark’s face, and holding him close and warm in his arms.
But his dreams are often disrupted by intrusive nightmarish figures; scientists cutting off limbs, sawing open his chest. Mark’s face morphs in Sean Parker’s and he laughs at Eduardo’s pain. In others Mark stares in horror as Eduardo’s alien-ness become more apparent, severed fingers regrowing as green claws, he loses the power of speech or the ability to understand English. Sometimes he’s kept in a cage, in a zoo, strapped to a gurney as everyone he’s ever know is paraded past to witness the alien freak on display.
He wakes up shivering weakly, eyes sticky with tears, chest heaving. There’s no comfort to be taken but for the stray hours when he isn’t in the lab and isn’t handled or hurt.
He has little sense of time but for the litany of scar building up on his body. He tries not to look at them when he’s in the showers but can’t help noticing new ones, and old ones that are becoming slower to heal. He knows this is a problem they have begun to take note of, having previous taken such interest in his rapid cell regeneration. Now it appears he’s down to human levels, and he wonders how long it will be before he drops below that standard too.
Eduardo was lying on his cot, curled on his side, when the red lights flickered.
He slowly eased himself up to a sitting position, looking out at the security guards beyond his plexi-glass cage.
They were both listening to their earpieces sharing expressions of confusion and concern.
He looked up as the red lights flickered again and went out, leaving only the pale neon lights from outside his cell. The two guards looked in at him and grasped at their green tinted batons.
Eduardo shrank back from them. He hated how they could so quickly assume he was a threat even though he was wearing the green-tinted cuffs that burnt his wrists and drained him of all but the energy to limp off his bed and huddle in the corner.
He couldn’t hear anything beyond his cell. He saw their mouths moving frantically and watched their posture becoming tense, feet shifting nervously.
The main door opened and two more guards and a lab technician came through talking frantically, the lab technician pointed at Eduardo.
He could do little more than clutch his knees closer to his chest, trying to make himself smaller and more harmless looking but it had little effect.
The door to his cell was unlocked and now he could hear their panicked voices and what might be gunshot echoing down the hallways beyond.
“Grab him.” The technician ordered the guards and they each took hold of a limb.
“No, please.” Eduardo begged as he’s manhandled onto the bed and strapped down.
“How do they want it done?” A guard asked, looking nervously towards the door.
The technician looked uncertain. “The mineral is the most effective means we’ve recorded, direct exposure to the heart or perhaps the brain stem might be enough but then we’d still have to get rid of the body. Destroy all tissue and DNA.” He fumbled in the pocket of his white coat, producing a large syringe filled with glowing green liquid, it’s the refined liquid stuff, the purest and thickest version they’ve created and if it’s going internal it’s going to eat through every cell like acid.
“No!” Eduardo renews his efforts to break free, writhing and pulling with everything he’s got.
A guard presses his baton to the side of Eduardo face and he screams as the skin sizzles beneath it.
“Alright I guess into the brain.” The technician moves around to position himself over Eduardo’s head. The guards hold him tight, pressing his head to the side to expose the nape of his neck.
He screams and cries, helpless and trapped under all these humans as the needle is brought closer to the base of his skull.
He hears a pop, then another, and the technician behind him falls away. The guard let go of him and go for their own guns but it’s too late.
His cell is suddenly filled with three black-clad, ski-mask-wearing figures wielding silenced guns. The security guards lie dead around him.
He’s frozen in shock as two of them move quickly to unfasten his restraints while the other heads back to the door to provide. The cuffs on his wrists are examined closely but he knows they probably need a bolt cutter to remove them.
“Can you walk?” Someone asks from behind their mask.
“What? Eh, yes.” He’s hoisted to his feet and though he has to lean against the bed and then the wall, he’s able to follow them out of the cell. The floor is tacky and wet with what he knows to be the guards’ blood.
Out in the corridor, ceiling lights flicker and more gun shots can be heard.
They prowl forward in a procession. A point man upfront, gun out and ready, one keeping a steady hand on Eduardo, ushering him forward, and another taking up the rear.
Eduardo, in his thin hospital scrubs and bare feet feels exposed and unsteady in between these anonymous black-clad, gun-men but he has little choice but to go with them.
The man beside him puts his hand to his ear.
“We need to hustle, the charges are set.”
Eduardo gasps, wanting to ask what he means by charges but already they’ve picked up the pace and his focus is entirely on staying on his feet and keeping up with his escorts.
They bring him to a stairwell, where they are met by another commando type.
“Motor’s running, boys.”
He struggles up the steps, stumbling more than walking. His escort takes most of him weight, carrying him up the rest of the way.
They burst through some double doors until they reach what looks like a loading bay, complete with forklifts and wooden pallets. It’s night-time and the place is lit only by headlights.
A black van and two SUVs await them, motors running, just as one of their numbers commented.
They lead Eduardo to the black van and he has flashes of a similar van someone packed him into back at the Facebook offices. He panics, struggling out of his escort’s grasp.
“N-No!” He tries to pulls away but is joined by another man pushing him into the van.
“No!” He pushes back. “Who are you? Where are you taking me?!”
“Just get him in. We need to blow this place.”
It doesn’t take more than two men to manhandle him into the van holding him down on a seat as the door is slammed shut and the van begins to drive off.
He struggles and cries, tears coming to his eyes, fearing these human crowding him in to keep him pinned and subdued, and probably planning to hurt him some more.
“Hey, calm down, we got you out of there.” One of them tells him, pulling up his ski mask to reveal a rugged blue-eyed face. Eduardo doesn’t recognise him but it’s a huge relief to have someone respond and look him in the eyes.
“What do you want with me?” He asks, trying to sound a little calmer.
The man leans back, though still keeping a solid grip on Eduardo arms. “We were hired for an extraction.”
“And demolition.” The other one chuckles.
“Who...who hired you?”
“Anonymous. Purpose unknown, but if it’s any consolation we had strict instruction to get you out of there unharmed.”
“And they paid a pretty penny for it too.” The other one adds.
It is a small consolation, but he suspects it’s all he’s going to get until he meets whoever hired them.
“So are you gonna chill or do we have to restrain you until we reach the drop off?”
“No!” He answers quickly, any reason not be put back in restraints.
“Ok, then I’ll gonna let go and my colleague here is gonna move back, but he’ll be staying between you and the door in case you get any funny ideas.” The man talks to him like he’s a startled animal, which is probably apt for the way he’s been treated.
Eduardo nods, and they release him. He pulls himself up into a sitting position.
“Ok, next, I need to know if you’re injured or in any pain?”
He shakes his head then reconsiders and holds out his wrists.
“Can you remove these?”
The commando takes a hold of his wrist with surprising gentleness, carefully turn it over to get a look at the metal cuff.
“It’s been welded shut, it...” He pauses on seeing the burns.
His colleague leans over to get a look. “We could try the bolt cutters when we get to the drop off.”
“Are they hurting you?”
Eduardo nods wearily.
“They look like acid burns.” The other says, moving a careful distance away.
“They’re not.” Eduardo croaks, pulling his wrist back, awkwardly crossing his arms over his chest.
The two men look at each other but say no more.
Eduardo watches them closely, suddenly anxious to prevent them for learning too much. They might just be mercenaries hired to steal him away from the lab but they were still human and more than capable of using their knowledge against him.
He sits back, feeling every bump in the road, and turn and swerve.
“You want some water?” His rescuer holds out a plastic bottle.
Eduardo thanks him quietly, fumbling with the cap as he tried to open it without straining his sore wrists.
The soldier takes the bottle back off him and opens it.
Eduardo gulps it down, feeling the relief of it washing down his dry throat.
He has no idea of the time; only that it’s night and the weather is temperate enough that they might still be in California.
“What’s the date?” He asks.
“October 6th.”
He feels his chest tighten. “They took me in March.” He rubs his forehead, leans on the leathery seat, feels dizzy and nauseous. So long. All those months. He had no real sense of time. It could have been six months or six years but to have it confirmed hit home how much time had been taken from him.
He doesn’t know how long they’ve been driving before the van begins to slow, the terrain becoming a little more uneven.
The unmasked mercenary leans forward to peer through the window to the front of the van. “Looks like your ride is here.”
They pull to a halt and the guy at the door open it and steps out, scanning the area.
At a gesture from the other man Eduardo moves forward and hesitantly steps out. He looks around. It’s still dark out but it looks like they have stopped in what appears to be the middle of a forest.
Another featureless black SUV is parked up ahead and two men stand beside it, one carrying a briefcase, the other slightly larger man simply stands beside him looking menacing.
The man with the briefcase looks to be in his fifties, thin, grey-haired, wearing small glasses and a pale grey suit. Eduardo doesn’t recognise either of them.
The mercenaries walk him forward into the combined headlights of the vehicles.
“Who are you?” Eduardo calls out, nervous now as he’s about to be handed over to another unknown and potentially worse fate. He tries to halt their progress but in between two soldiers, as weak as he is there’s little he can do to stop himself being presented to the man in the grey suit.
“It’s alright, Eduardo, you’re safe now.” The older man tells him.
Eduardo shakes his head looking around the dark expanse of trees and brush and night sky and the heavily armed men who surround him. “Who are you? Why should I believe you?!”
The unmasked soldier with the blue eyes steps forward. “Hey, man,” His tone gentle and placating again. “We torched the place where they kept you, so there’s no going back there, only forwards. And this guy paid an awful lot to make sure you got out of there without a scratch on you.”
Eduardo meets the mercenary’s eyes, seeing sympathy and conviction there and it hits him that he really has little option but to go with the older man.
He takes a shaky breath. “You said you’d get these things off me.” He twists around holding his cuffed wrist up.
They look to the old man, who nods.
Someone goes to fetch a pair of bolt cutters. The blue-eyed mercenary holds Eduardo’s wrist steady. “This will probably hurt.”
“I don’t care as long as they come off.”
But he was right, the bolt squeezed his wrist and cut a deep gash skin but he felt an immediate relief as the press of the meteorite fragment disappeared, and has to steady himself before they moved on.
With his other wrist however a bone snapped under pressure. He gasped, the pain making him dizzy, and his knees caved.
“Woah, woah, I’ve gotcha.” The mercenary caught a steady hold of him up and calls to his colleague to get some strapping for the damaged wrist.
Eduardo watched hazily as the older man bent to careful pick up the severed cuffs and drop them into a manila envelope.
The old man handed over his suitcase and was presented with an armoured box which was taken by his bodyguard and loaded into the trunk of the car.
“That’s as much as we could find,” One of the masked men commented. “But we’ll let you know if our response team at the site find any more.”
“Thank you, gentlemen.” He gestures back to the car and opens the door for Eduardo.
Eduardo was helped into the car, casting one last look at his rescuer with the blue eyes. He got a firm pat on the shoulder in response.
He slid gingerly into the back seat holding his strapped wrist close to him. The older man sat in beside him. He closed the door and told the driver to go, then brings up the privacy screen.
“Eduardo, my name is Sy Fischer I represent Mark Zuckerberg. He asked me to coordinate the details of your extraction.”
“Mark?”
“Yes, I’m taking you to him now.”
“Where?”
“Just outside Sacramento. We needed to take you somewhere secluded; where you can recover in peace.” He adds.
Eduardo takes this in, rubbing his now-swollen wrist. He can still feel the effects of the meteorite and the cuffs currently held in Sy’s jacket pocket, but it’s measurably better than having them pressed against his skin.
He leans back and stares out the window. All the adrenalin of the last hours has burnt away, leaving him shaky and exhausted, his eyelid are getting heavy and as he watches the darkness outside he finds himself falling asleep.
He’s jolted awake by a sudden stop. The door beside him opens and he blinks slowly before sluggishly climbing out.
Eduardo looks around to see they’ve pulled up outside a large modern white house surrounded by poplar trees, and he can hear them swaying and rustling in the breeze.
The front door opens and Mark walks out in his customary hoodie and flip flops.
Eduardo clutches his sore wrist to his chest, shifting bare feet on the cold paving. His heart pounds loudly in his chest.
Mark steps in front of him taking in every detail with that blank stare of his.
After an uncomfortably silent minute Mark turns to his man. “Thank you, Sy.”
“Here are the fragments they collected. I’ll have a team monitoring the Stanford site to ensure any other pieces are retrieved.” He fishes out the manila envelope containing the remains of the cuffs and gestures to his bodyguard to fetch the armoured box from the car, handing both over to Mark.
Eduardo stumble back as the envelope passed in front of him.
“Will there be anything else, Mark?” Sy asked, his eyes passing to Eduardo.
Mark shook his head and the two men immediately got back in their car and drove off.
“What do you…” Eduardo cleared his dry throat. “What do you need that for?” He nodded at the envelope clutched in Mark’s hand as he struggles to balance the armoured box in his arms.
“I’m going to destroy it.” He turns ahead head back into the house.
Eduardo stays in his spot, trying to breathe evenly, fist clenching. He can feel the sun rising behind him, and as the meteorite moves further into the house some of his weakness begins to fade.
“Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Mark dumps the box somewhere inside and walks back out. “I didn’t.” He moves closer, staring, pleading. “I swear, Wardo, I had no idea he would do that.”
Eduardo feels a lump swelling in his throat. “How can I believe you?”
Mark cringes. “You just have to,” He shrugs helplessly. “I got you out of there as soon as I found out. I’m going to make sure every piece of that meteorite is destroyed so no one can hurt you ever again.” His eyes are wet with tears. “You have to believe me. I wouldn’t do that to you, Wardo!”
Eduardo isn’t sure what to think, he didn’t want to believe that Mark had anything to do with his capture and seeing him standing there, pleading and crying, he certainly wanted to, but it’s so hard. It’s been such a tough couple of hours he doesn’t really know what to think anymore.
“Please come inside and rest. You look awful.”
This time he follows Mark inside. “I just need sunlight.”
“What?”
“The sun it… It will heal me.” He explains reluctantly. After months of denying and hiding it’s strange to give that little piece of information away so freely.
“Good thing it’s nearly dawn then.”
Eduardo is led through to the back of the house where a series of glass doors and tall French windows look out on to a pool and stone-slabbed sunning area.
He walks straight outside and eases himself down on to a cushioned sun-lounger to wait for the sun to rise.
Mark hovers close by. “Are you sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable in a bed?
“No.”
He feels a blanket being draped over his shoulder and legs. The first rays are beginning to peep through the trees, he longs for their warmth and restoration to reach him. He shrugs off the blanket and clumsily pulls off the scrub top to bare his scarred torso, turning on his side to get the first exposure on his front.
“Can I do anything for you?”
“Make the sun rise faster.” He mumbles. His eyelids are getting heavy again, his body slumping bonelessly where it has fallen.
If Mark responds Eduardo doesn’t hear him as he soon falls asleep again.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eduardo succumbs to a kind of reverse hibernation for the rest of the day. Instead of crawling into a cool dark place, he lies out in the sun, dead to the world but fully exposed, soaking up the heat and energy directed at him.
Mark watches, asking if he needs sunscreen or water. Wardo shakes his head minutely, not even bothering to open his eyes.
By sundown that evening, Mark is lying on the couch watching TV when he hears Wardo’s bare feet padding back in.
The transformation is remarkable. The tan has been restored to his skin. His torso looks lean and smooth as oppose to bruised and scorched though he’s left with some scattered red patches from the more serious wounds. Even the horrific burns on his wrists have melted away to a ring of pink but clear skin.
But the unease, the tension and pain remains evident in his posture. Some of the hurt inflicted on him cannot be healed by the solar power alone.
“Feeling better?” Mark asks, because it seems like the thing to say though he knows it’s a somewhat inane question.
Eduardo pins him with a wide-eyed gaze but he nods absently, looking around for the first time, taking in the high white ceiling and open white spaces. “It’s a nice house.”
“It’s yours if you want it.” Mark offers. He’s been thinking about this reunion for a long time, wondering what he would do or say to make things okay between them.
Eduardo frowns in confusion then turns away to find the kitchen.
He returns some time later with a glass of water, and wearing a loose shirt of Mark’s. He sits down on the arm of the couch, a careful distance from Mark.
“Do you know if my family are alright?”
Mark pursed his lips. “We think they went into hiding. Your father’s business is still operating and they’ve been getting messages from him but no one’s seen your parents since you disappeared.”
“We had a system.” Wardo sighs. “I had to text them once a day, if I didn’t they knew something was wrong. If I didn’t call for a week they would know I’d been taken and would go hiding, like you said.”
“That’s ... pretty clever actually.”
“My father’s idea. “ Eduardo told him. “He was always worried something like this would happen. I guess he was right.”
As they sit there the evening news comes on leading with the story that’s been running all day; the tragic explosion at Stanford University that decimated their main laboratory.
Mark fumbles for the remote wishing he’d turned the damn thing off before now.
“Leave it on.” Eduardo barks.
They watch as teary students and staff are interviewed. Shots of the smoking site are shown from multiple angles. The Dean of Stanford talks about the tragedy of it all, and then they show a group photo of the lab team thought to have died in the explosion while they were working late on a project involving dangerous compounds.
Eduardo slams his glass down on the table and stumbles away. He falters against the wall and slides down to floor, pulling his knees up against him.
“Did you recognise them? Are they the people that...?”
Eduardo presses the heel of his hand against his eye. “Some of them.” He croaks. “But not all.”
Mark hears the accusation there and ignores it.
“Well they can’t hurt you now.”
“You didn’t have to kill them.”
“I didn’t.”
Wardo eye’s flash with anger. “You hired those men! You put blood on both our hands!” He gets to his feet.
“Not yours!” Mark shouts, jumping up, not wanted to be loomed over and yelled at this time.
“They’re dead because of me!” Eduardo slams his fist into the wall and a chunk of the cement breaks off and smashes on the tiled floor.
They both stare at it. He’s never ever thought of Eduardo as dangerous but this is only the second time he’s seem his enraged and it appears that he liked to break things when he’s this angry.
Eduardo presses a hand to his chest. “I was the one they tortured, Mark, and I never wished them dead.”
“I guess you’re not really human then, because a human would want them to suffer for what they did to you.”
“No.” Eduardo challenges back. “I guess I’m not.”
Mark shuffles forward, toeing some of the rubble with his flip-flop.
“I’ll compensate their families. Put money into the rebuild.”
“Throwing money at this won’t make it better, won’t excuse what was done.”
“I think it will.”
“Is that what you’re doing here? Offering me a house to make it all better?”
“No I just…”
“Are you gonna offer me back my share too? Maybe a whole one percent this time?”
“I’d give you my 60 if I thought it would make you happy.”
“I’ve been tortured for the last 6 months do you honestly think I give a flying fuck about Facebook?!”
He flinches away as though stung. He still can’t help taking barbs against the site personally.
Wardo runs his fingers through his hair in that familiar gesture. “I need to get out of here.”
“Fine, we can go somewhere else, I’ll drive, just name the destination.”
“No, Mark.” Eduardo frowns. “I need to get away from ... everyone; be on my own for a while.”
“What? But...”
Eduardo walks out toward the pool and open night sky.
“But I just got you back!” He’s embarrassed for the desperate note in his voice but he’s upset that this is going so badly.
Wardo stops and turns back to Mark. “Thank you, Mark. For rescuing me, I mean.”
“I couldn’t let them hurt you.” He replies honestly, feeling his heart breaking at the thought of losing Wardo so quickly.
“I’ll have to owe you one.” Eduardo sighs.
“Just come back to me.” He whispered.
Eduardo takes a long look at him, and Mark memorises wide doleful brown eyes in case he never gets to see them again.
He gives a single nod then steps outside. Mark runs after but he’s already gone.
------------------------------------------------------------
Epilogue
Three months pass before Mark hears anything from Wardo.
He’s started noticing strange items in the news, an apartment fire averted, a bank robbery halted, a child saved during a shooting, and many more besides. They all have one thing in common, a mysterious stranger who disappears into thin air as soon as the crisis is over.
He has a series of similar local stories from New York and Boston pulled up on his computer screen one evening, he’s scanning each one for mention of this mysterious stranger when his phone chimes with a new text message.
Unknown number – ‘Come up to the roof.’
He skips up the stairwell, panting a little but far too eager to get upstairs to care. For once he curses his flip flops, as they aren’t really made for sprinting up stairs.
He bursts through the fire door.
Wardo is leaning over ledge of the building looking out at the landscape of the other tech offices in the business park, and the trees and the bay beyond. The late evening amber sunlight catches on his hair. He’s wearing a light grey sweater that stretches over the muscles in his back and upper arms.
“No spandex?” Mark says stupidly.
Wardo turns his head slightly, a small smile on his lips, before he turns back to the light.
Mark draws up beside him, lean over the ledge to look out over the vista.
“Hey, Wardo.”
“Hey, Mark.”
“So how are you?” Mark asks, watching Eduardo’s expression turn introspective.
“I’m... .”
Mark looks down where Wardo’s right hand is pressed flat on the concrete ledge. His little finger ends just below the knuckle in a smooth stump. Without thinking he reaches out to touch it, feeling a deep sadness at its absence.
Wardo pulls his hand back with super speed, eyes going wide and panicked.
“Shit, sorry!” Mark fumbles, watching Wardo’s adam’s apple working up and down his throat.
He takes a breath and shakes his head. “I’m fine. I just... I’m getting there.”
He tentatively returns to his leaning position though the tension is still present in his posture.
Mark does the same.
“So, you’ve become a superhero.”
Wardo wrinkles his nose. “Am I that obvious?”
“Not yet.”
“So, I should probably avoid blue and red lycra.”
“I don’t know you could probably pull it off.” Mark looks him up and down thoughtfully, admiringly.
Eduardo ducks his head as he chuckles, his shoulders dropping, loose and relaxed. He takes a breath and his handsome face turns serious again.
“Mark, do you know where Sean is?”
Mark raises and eyebrow, shaking his head. “He disappeared before we could confront him. I’ve had people looking for him but he knows how to get off the grid.”
“I’ve seen him.” Eduardo straightens. “A week ago in New York, outside a bank that was being robbed and then yesterday in Boston near a restaurant that went on fire. Just standing there watching, expecting.”
“You think he was involved?” Mark can’t help the note of incredulity that creeps into his voice. He can see Sean as a vindictive cruel bastard but actively causing situations like that seems completely out of control.
“Yes, I think he knows about me and he’s testing my abilities. So, I need to stop him before he hurts anyone else.”
“Be careful, Wardo. He might still have some of that meteorite.”
“I know. I will be.” He looks Mark in the eye. “Will you contact me if you hear from him?”
“Of course. Jeez, Eduardo, of course I will.”
“I believe you.”
“The question is how do I contact a superhero? You probably wouldn’t see my bat signal if you’re all the way back East.”
Wardo rolls his eyes. “Call me on my phone.”
“You’ll have to give me your number.”
“I’ll do that right now.” He even fishes out his phone and thumbs out a text with super-speed.
Mark’s phone buzzes in his pocket and he smiles. “Good to see you using your powers in a totally non-frivolous way.”
“Actually I want to show you another totally non-frivolous use of my powers.” Wardo steps closer, calmly entering Mark’s personal space, and playing havoc with his heart rate.
He pulls Mark’s stiff arms up to his shoulders then takes a firm hold of his waist, closing the distance between then. Mark tilts his chin up wondering in awe if Wardo is going to kiss him.
“Hold on tight.” Wardo tells him, eyebrows raised excitedly. “And don’t worry if you lose a flip flop, I’ll buy you another pair.”
“Why would I lose...?”
Suddenly his feet are not in contact with the ground and the air is getting cooler, breezier and yes, he loses one flip flop and then the other, but all he can do is look at the massive grin on Wardo’s face as they float upwards above the Facebook building and then slowly drift out towards the hills. And when his own grin starts to hurt his cheeks he pulls Wardo’s head down and kisses him, as the fly into the California sunset.
The End.